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goldenkamuyhunting · 4 years

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Tell me if I'm being crazy here but I was just wondering if you feel like the Ogata in the anime is an inaccurate representation of the Ogata we get in the manga? And if you feel the same as me why may that be? I really can't nail it but it's bothering me watching him in it. Like they missed the point of his character.

Well...

...in itself all the characters are inaccurately represented in the anime.

There are some problems that come with the anime adaptation:

- the first is not really a fault of who creates the anime, merely a consequence of the anime being a different medium. As a result some things can’t be delivered in the same way as the manga.

For example this is one of the spread pages in which Noda plays with the contrast between what happens in one half and what happens in the other half.

On one side we’ve Sugimoto and Asirpa eating warm food together, safe and happy, on the other we’ve Ogata being shown alone (although we know there’s people around him) about to freeze to death and in a poor shape.

You can’t just get the same effect on the anime.

We see a similar trick also used in a scene that seems to foreshadow the ‘cat alliance’. In this three panel we see Edogai’s cat and then, below his panel, two panel showing Wildcat Ogata and Tiget Kiroranke exchanging a nod as they turn at the same time.

You just can’t get the same effect in the anime but the anime didn’t even made an effort as it didn’t show the cat falling on the ground (or better, it’ll show it but later on) but just Ogata first and Kiro after, both clearly looking at Hijikata without turning, Ogata’s expression different from the original (change of expressions is a point in which I’ll dig later).

...and the same goes for other ‘manga only’ ways to show things. For example the manga can use a swirling shade to imply that Ogata is actually in turmoil despite looking calm on the outside.

The anime wouldn’t be able to do such thing without making the draws looking weird. Of course some anime would find different ways to drive home the same concept (from a certain music to moving the whole swirling to the background or things like that)... but Geno tends to miss those details.

Anyway this might seems minor, many believe they don’t notice this sort of details... but actually most of those details are meant to pass below your conscious radar, and give you a determinate feeling without you quite realizing it. They shape the background of your opinion on the characters or of their relations or of the themes of the story.

- another problem is something for which the adaptation can be partly blamed and it’s the matter of cutting scenes. We should probably split the anime adaptation into the three series because they had different fates.

A premise. Out of late anime series have started being created for being 12 episodes series for commercial reasons. I won’t get into details on the why but this affected GK as all its series are 12 episodes and, to fit all the amount they decided to fit in 12 episodes, cutting scenes was mandatory in many cases. You just wouldn’t manage to put everything in them.

Plus, many anime series aren’t created to cover the whole storyline but just a part of it, using the anime series merely as a way to promote the manga (and likely, originally GK was planned to be a mere 12 episodes series).

Now, in GK case...

The first series adapted most of the story. There were however some relevant cuts that affected the series, the main one being how they completely removed Umeko from the plot something that hugely affected Sugimoto’s characterization but also, will come to bite back in future series with the result it’ll affect Sugimoto and Asirpa. Another notable cut was the Barato arc. They recovered it in the OAD, but if you don’t watch the OAD but just the anime, you’ve a great hole in the plot development. If the series has stopped at 12 episodes and had been merely a promotional mean for the story it wouldn’t have been a big deal but we know ultimately it continued. I would also say in some points it felt a bit rushed... but again, it could have worked for a promotional series... while it feels pretty bad for an ongoing one.

The second series was... a mess. It cuts left and right without really paying care to connect well the various parts of the story. Parts of the cuts had a reason to be, as some scenes seemed hard to transpose in an anime (think Anehata), others though were just cut so that they would fit in the 12 episodes quota all the plot that was missing to cover the story up till Abashiri, when the series would have benefitted greatly if they had stopped sooner instead than making a mad rush for Abashiri that translated in a cutting fest. They then recovered the Shiraishi arc, the giant snake arc, the boss Wakayama arc, the Anehata arc in 3 OAD (but we still miss the Lighting bandit arc and the fake Ainu arc), but it’s worth to mention some of whose OAD clearly weren’t planned, as they can’t connect anymore with the series which cut them in such a way they can’t be reinserted anymore.

The third series tried again adapting everything except the Sekiya arc and the Koito past arc. Overall though, despite those two cuts, they tried to adapt the most they could and at a decent pace, which allows the third series to come out as the best of the 3.

Result of this all?

The characterization of most of the characters, especially if you watch only the anime series without the OAD (or with the OAD but not placed in the order in which the manga storyline would have placed them), suffers of a lot of cuts that are instead important for their development.

Ogata is, of course, among the ones affected.

Some cuts are small, for example here we see him explaining that he’s not just randomly escaping, but that he has assested the situation and a retreat was the smartest thing he could do.

The same goes here, with Ogata again analyzing the situation and planning countermeasures as well as taking care of their weaknesses (warning Nikaidou to hide his binoculars).

And the same goes here

Ogata is even capable to point out that Hijikata’s plan might suceed at first but not in the long run, which shows a capacity of analysis of the big picture.

Plot wise this kind of cuts are meaningless, they don’t change the story but, character wise, they rob Ogata of one of his main characteristics, observing a situation, analyzing it and being fast to come up with a valid course of action.

You’ll find many cuts through the anime series and they touch various aspects of each character.

Sometimes those cuts affected lines exchanged between characters so that the relationships felt different because some things were just left unsaid.

Other cuts affected the boxes explaining things, for example in the anime we aren’t told why Ogata eats snow but we’re supposed to figure out on our own, or how the bear could sneak up without Ogata and Nikaidou noticing or how Ogata learnt during the war that he had to avoid hitting vital parts to slow his pursuers down and so on.

Then there are the HUGE cuts, the one I mentioned before, that involved plot threads (Umeko) or entire arcs, or had arcs placed in OAD that not everyone saw or that don’t well connect with the anime.

The Barato Arc and the Anehata arc both involved Ogata significantly, so not seeing the OAD affects the understanding of the character.

The fake Ainu arc being cut stripped Ogata of a lot of scenes, among which Sugimoto’s stubborn refusal of Ogata’s logical theory (those Ainu are fake) as well as didn’t show how Ogata saved Sugimoto’s life by shooting to a fake Ainu who was about to kill Sugimoto, returning Sugimoto’s favour (Sugimoto saved him while they were in Edogai’s house).

The Lighting bandit arc in the manga worked well to tie with the fact Ogata was a child born from parents who didn’t love each other. The anime kept Ogata’s backstory (and animated it mostly rather well) but it felt less strong since it lacked the frame of the Lighting bandit arc... and the worst part is we lost this bit.

The constant cutting of Umeko from the plot ended up causing the scene in which Sugimoto replied to Asirpa he was searching the gold to take care of a friend’s widow and Ogata pointed out how that widow was the woman Sugimoto loved and also realized how Asirpa was crushing for Sugimoto. The lack of this bit affects how we read the whole scene on the ice in Karafuto.

The fact the anime decided to skip the Anehata arc, changed the reunion between Ogata and Tanigaki making Ogata’s reaction to the death of Tamai and Co and to the discovery of how they actually died weaker and even deprived us of Sugimoto’s recurring ‘don’t trust Ogata’ to Asirpa who instead trust him, affecting how the relations were presented. This cause the relationship between Sugimoto and Ogata to look much better than it was.

Also, they removed Ogata’s presence once they were in the blind bandits house. He entered in it with Sugimoto but then the anime decided to have him disappear and left Sugi to handle it all when in the manga Ogata was there to help.

- another HUGE problem are the transposition choices. The biggest fault of the first series is to tend to present the character from a distance or from behind, hardly showing us their expressions. The Japanese voice actors (sorry I hadn’t tried out the dubs), expecially Tsuda Kenjiro, Ogata’s voice actor, do try their best but sometimes you just need to see the faces to get a feeling of what they’re feelings.

Look at this manga scene in which we see Ogata’s expression trice.

Do you know what they showed us in the anime? This.

Basically the anime put entirely on Tsuda Kenjiro the burden of delivering to the viewers Ogata’s displeased and suspicious feelings. Only Tsuda Kenjiro was instructed on keeping Ogata mostly toneless so, while he’s still an awesome actor and there are differences in his performance that give out what Ogata is feeling, they don’t come out as obvious as the visual of the manga, especially to a not Japanese viewer. It’s not a choice to keep Ogata mysterious, it’s a specific problem of the 1st anime series which does it with many, many characters, Sugimoto and Asirpa included because drawing and recycling such a scene takes less effort than animating all the panels that were in the manga.

It’s a problem mostly of the first series though, as the two following series were more expression friendly but... but the expressions they showed in all three series were often different from the ones used in the manga. Look at how in this scene Ogata is serious, I’ll say worried in the manga since his face is shadowed and as he understands something might be up but he has no idea what he is, but he clearly doesn’t like this development...

...while he grins in the anime, his face well light as if he’s having the best day of his life.

Then when he’s proudly showing off what he knows in the manga he smiles...

while in the anime he feels down.

Smiling with his eyes raised...

...versus not smiling with his eyes lowered.

...and so on and I don’t even know why they felt the need to change the various characters’ expressions (yeah, it’s not just an Ogata’s problem) as there’s simply no reason to do it.

On an interesting note the anime chose to expand some fighting scenes. Ogata’s first fight with Sugimoto is longer, as Ogata manages to swing his bayonet a little before ending up on the ground (which is detrimental of Sugimoto who’s WAY more amazing of a fighter than him as Sugimoto can fight on par with Gansoku and Ushiyama) and felt the need to stretch the confrontation with Tsukishima too.

In the manga Tsukishima just kicks Ogata, Ogata notices Tsukishima is taking then gun and then tosses himself behind the stuffed people as he was still in that room. In the anime Ogata is in the room with the stuffed bear instead. Tsukishima kicks him behind it but then Ogata manages to spring out the room and go hid behind the stuffed people in the other room.

On another note, when in Edogai’s house Ogata is being beaten up by a soldier in the manga it’s shown he’s trying to protect himself with his arms while in the anime he seems to remain there completely still... and the anime put a sudden focus on Ogata’s eyes to switch at Sugimoto attacking the soldier and, at the same time pushing him away from Ogata, as if Ogata knew that he wouldn’t die there because Sugimoto was there to cover up for him, where in the manga there’s no emphasis on Ogata’s eyes and the two scenes are cut by how one has to turn page... plus Sugimoto hit the soldier so that he fell above Ogata so it’s clear Ogata wouldn’t have managed to glimpse Sugimoto.

- Lastly yes, they missed the point of many of his interactions. For example the anime makers said they believed since Ogata’s mom kept on making the anglerfish nabe, it was because Ogata liked it, a sign she liked her son... when, according to the story, she kept on making it because it was his father’s favourite dish and she had gotten mad. In Karafuto they downplayed Asirpa’s efforts to have Ogata say citatap and hinna and completely missed how Ogata was allucinating her as Yuusaku...

(I mean in this scene is pretty obvious there’s a parallel between the two so I’m not sure how the anime missed it)

...and the anime seems to put more focus on how the lynx and Ogata’s tracks superimposed than on how Ogata is now walking on a different path from the lynx... just to list some of the things that came to my mind.

For more I’ve a couple of tags in which I compared the episode transposition and the manga one in details or a little more vaguely.

So, long story short, anime Ogata can’t help but give a different impression compared to manga Ogata.

He misses part of his story, his interactions are different, his expressions are changed, scenes that were meant to deliver certain things aren’t there so of course he seems another person.

It’s not done specifically to him though, as everyone suffered about this.

The anime, in his attempt to make the story simple and more... ‘shonen’ friendly has taken away much of the grey concepts for a more black and white picture which influenced also how situations were presented.

But well, while I’m not satisfied, part of this is done to market the show to a wider audience so it’s kind of a forced choice.

(On a sidenote it’s worth to remember that the anime adapt the volume version of the story which differs from the mangazine version in some relevant points. So not all the changes are completely made up by the anime.)

I hope it helps. Thank you for your ask!

#Golden Kamuy #Ogata Hyakunosuke #Golden Kamuy Manga vs Anime #Golden Kamuy Episode #Ask

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plush-anon · 3 years

Text

SCOOB! Stream of Consciousness Review

Here we are folks - I finally review the originally cinematic, fully CGI animated Scooby Doo Movie (one year later... I did not queue this as I thought I had last June - damn you, Tumblr. I’m not changing much here, so enjoy as it was intended).

Created by a team who have professed their affection for this mystery team and their meddling dog too, will this be a lush experience fit to satisfy any Hanna-Barbera fan? Or will it be a hot garbage cash-grab, littered with Easter eggs and references that do nothing to hide a meatless mess of outdated memes and shallow character development?

LET’S

FIND

OUT

Below this cut is my entire stream-of-consciousness review on the SCOOB! Movie, as experienced. SPOILER warning here - I’m digging into everything, no plot points spared.

Here we go~

And we start off with a decent shot of the California coastline (looks like the kids backstory is front and center), some 90s hip-hop synthwave song about California, and OH SWEET JESUS THESE MODELS LOOK TERRIBLE

Ahem

Yeah, this is a problem right off the bat - some of these people in the opening shots look remarkably unfinished - think three shades above “Rapsittie Kids: Believe in Santa” level - and the animation on them is less than stellar.

On the plus side, we do see a fantastic variety of ages, sizes, and races - there’s a brief blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Sikh man on roller skates playing a sitar - but when the designs look rushed in the opening shots, it’s not a fantastic sign. At least they’re brief, but it’s hard to see if this is a lower level of the film’s style due to rushed animation, or if they didn’t care to polish it up as much, given that it’s maybe a 30 second scene.

Still, kudos to actually going for variety in the crowd shots. Minus kudos to making most of the clothes look like Play-doh draped over a Barbie doll. I’m not even kidding on that one, the clothes are super basic and barely have any sign of texture or creasing or even fabric/cut variety. Almost reminds me of the first Toy Story movie’s design for human clothes, yeesh.

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Ahh, our first introduction to Scooby Doo at a Greek gyro food stand. That’s foreshadowing right there folks! 😉

Sadly, he is really weirdly animated in his run sequence - he looks out of proportion as he’s running on his hind legs, and the human animation has really bad consistency - some background characters are really janky, while others actually move really nicely. The characters we immediately focus on seem to be pretty smooth at least, but that’s still very strange.

On a side note: Ruby and Spears Sub Sandwich shop. Nice 😁

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They are reaaaally pushing the super over-the-top dramatic music for a bike cop chasing a dog that stole gyro meat

Why

It’s not even interesting chase music, just generic super-hyped-up chase music

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And now we finally get to see a young Shaggy, standing next to a tie-dye food stand called Casey’s Confections that… sells meat. Hm. Guess WB hasn’t learned after all these years 🙄

Unfortunately, I’m not a huge fan of the kid they got to play him, Iain Armitage. He’s not a bad voice actor by any means, but he just doesn’t sound right for Shaggy. I know that as a kid he’d be much less likely to have a cracking/squeaky voice, but he sounds… it’s hard to pin down a word, but - precocious? Darling? Either way it doesn’t quite match, especially given how Shaggy sounds when he grows up via Will Forte. Just… no connection there.

I tie it down to the particular vocal twangs and nuances the gang usually has. I’ll touch base on that note later I think, once we hit the teenage versions of the gang, but for now I’m just not feeling it.

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On the one hand, I empathize deeply with Shaggy and his Spotify’s unsettling ability to pinpoint his insecurities with song choices, and also deeply enjoy that one small gesture where his fingers kind of shake & tighten around his phone while he takes a deep breath to calm himself- it’s a very nice, subtle sign of frustration

On the other hand we just passed two guys with no nipples and an unerring likeness to a Ken doll in those Barbie movies, so I’m distracted by that now

(between this and Fred’s no-nipples in Happy Halloween SD!, is WB just terrified of giving men nipples in animated movies now? what gives?)

Also distracted by the thrifty lesbians who bought those two shirts that come together to make a heart in the middle, on the store’s 2 for 1 day

happy pride y’all!

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Finally got context for the two sand piles!

Very, very sad context, but still! Progress!

Basically Shaggy’s practicing talking to people in order to learn how to make friends, since he either has no idea how, or has never had a friend before. So he’s trying to learn the right way to do it since his own attempts have failed

And him talking to these sand piles not only counts as practice, but he’s using them so that his mom thinks he’s spending time with friends like he told her

Ow :)

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So ketchup leather is apparently a thing that exists

I’m learning so much today!

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Given that Shaggy has no friends at this stage, but he’s still called Shaggy, I’m kind of wondering if that was a mean nickname that everyone called him, but he was just grateful for the interaction/pretended it was from friends, so he kept it 🤔

Actually, take it back, his mother is calling him that. Family nickname, maybe…?

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Shaggy has Blue Falcon (classic) and Dynomutt funko pops

noice

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Oof, you can reaaaaally hear the age in Frank Welker’s Scooby voice. Can we get Scott Innes back? He sounds almost identical to his performance 20+ years ago :/

Also talking waaaay too much - even SDMI Scooby wasn’t this wordy, and he NEVER shut the hell up

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Okay wait

So Shaggy met Scooby on Halloween day - then met the rest of the gang hours later?

Huh. And here I was thinking it would have been a few weeks minimum

Although I have to say there is a lot here to work with, if it paces out how I think it does

Shaggy meets Scooby. Bare hours later, he buys him a collar (instead of his mom? weird) and asks him to stay with him, despite not really knowing him. Then, only a couple hours after that, he finally makes some friends… but only when Scooby is with him.

Given that it looks like the gang are all around the same age in the same neighborhood, there’s a solid chance that they’ve taken classes together at the same school. If none of them met/knew/made friends with Shaggy then, but only did so AFTER Scooby came into the picture, that might lead to the argument we know about later when they split up; afterwards, S&SD go to the bowling alley, then get abducted by the Blue Falcon, plot continues. This could make it seem like they were only friends with him at the start because he had a dog.

And the brief scene earlier with the music device shows that he tries to tamp down on his anger/doesn’t really address it - could lead to something more later

hmmmm 🤔

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Wait what

These two kid bullies just came out of nowhere, stole Shaggy’s candy… and then started on about how Halloween is only a marketing ploy to get companies to rot your teeth and go to the dentist more, before throwing the bag through a window and telling the two that ‘your blood sugar will thank us for it!’

Are - are these the brainwashed children of a Karen? Is that what I’m seeing?

I mean we could have had a Red Herring cameo, but apparently informing children about candy conspiracy theories is more important :/

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Daphne: It’s Halloween - no one should go home without their candy

FD&V: *none of them have candy/candy bags*

???????

(Wouldn’t it make more sense if the bullies had stolen their candy too? What the hey man)

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I do find it neat that we actually get to SEE the wires the ‘ghost’ uses to fly in full effect - that’s actually pretty cool, and not really something we get to see up close in older Scooby shows. Most of those just have the bad guy randomly flying about, and the wires revealed after the fact

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Actually, given how FD&V react to this ghost almost immediately… have they already been solving mysteries? It seems like it, given how smoothly they move together to capture him

That’s kind of odd in kids. Like, even in PNSD they weren’t perfectly in-sync on stuff

This then leads to the gang solving mysteries together… in spite of the fact that all Shag and Scoob did was hide in the wardrobe that had the stolen goods, while FD&V captured the dude

Granted, they do ask Shag and Scoob if they wanna join in and say yes, but that seems like an strange jump after what could have been a one-time deal

I just find that a touch odd - esp when they could have had a five minute scene or so of them wandering around the house, touching on some old SDWAY traits. Heck, show that they’re SCARED in some way, and don’t immediately move to tackle what looks like a murderous spirit at age 8-9 or so. Even just showing the kids learning about each other would be enough, but what do I know. I’ve only watched Scooby Doo everything since I was 4 🙄

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Ahhhh, and now for the updated rendition of the theme song

Where they’re all still kids doing everything the teenage gang did in the theme song

It doesn’t look as good as the OG, though - kind of like a computer game simulating the SDWAY intro using the PNSD kids in CGI. It’s honestly strange to see, and a little jarring - especially when we then transition to the older teenage gang right in the middle

Like, we don’t get to see you guys age through the song as you’re chased by/catch different monsters? That could have been pretty neat honestly - shows how long they’ve been doing this

Tho I gotta admit, seeing the Spooky Space Kook with his OG sound effects is pretty awesome, brief as it waoH MY GOD FRED WHY ARE YOU HAVING A ROMANTIC BEACHSIDE DATE WITH THE MYSTERY MACHINE

THAT WASN’T IN THE ORIGINAL AND NO ONE ELSE GETS A CHARACTER INSIGHT SHOT LIKE THIS

WHY

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Huh, looks like Ruby & Spears gave up their subway sandwich shop for a coffee shop

That apparently the gang goes to in order to eat malt shop food

okay?

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Ah, and here’s where we finally look at the voice acting of the older teenage gang. Buckle up folks, cause I gotta lot to say

We’ll start with Fred, bc honestly? I think Efron actually fits him pretty dang well. He’s got a different cadence from Welker, true, but as far as an update goes? I think he’s a solid fit. Very much in line with the all-American kid that Fred’s kind of been slated as for the past 50 years or so, but updated more for the modern perspective. I call it solid (and possibly a replacement for whenever Welker decides to retire).

Next? Oof. Velma is, IMHO, the weakest casting. Velma, no matter her voice actress, has ALWAYS had some form of nasal twang to her voice - that’s part of what makes her Velma to begin with, and helps her stand out. Nicole Jaffe, Pat Stevens, BJ Ward, Christina Lange (PNSD), Mindy Cohn, Kate Micucci, Linda Cardellini -heck, even Haley Kiyoko from ‘The Mystery Begins’ and Sarah Gilman from the ‘Daphne and Velma’ movie understood this! They all had that nasal twang to their voice - differing between actresses, of course, but still recognizable as Velma. Gina Rodriguez though? Honestly, it just sounds like she’s acting it straight. Not bad acting at all, by any means - she just doesn’t sound like Velma, and doesn’t seem to be trying to. (Honestly wondering if she was only hired bc she voices Carmen Sandiego in the reboot cartoon for the lolz fun reference! type connection)

Daphne is sort of similar in voices, but hers is more of a pitch her voice hits - Heather North, Mary Kay Bergman, and Grey Delisle Griffin all have that pitch they hit naturally when speaking. Amanda Seyfried? Does not - in fact, her voice is actually deeper than I was expecting - but it’s not quite as big a difference as it is for Velma. It fits her character type okay, and she does well with it overall.

And finally, the most controversial one: Will Forte’s Shaggy.

I’ll go ahead and say this: he’s not Scott Menville levels of bad Shaggy voice acting. If I were to place him on a list, I’d probably put him around Billy West level - kind of sounds similar via vocal tics (voice cracking, likes and zoinks, etc), but his own voice just overtakes the impression he’s seeking to hit. When I hear him speak, I don’t really hear Shaggy; I just hear Will Forte trying to do an impression of Shaggy.

In comparison: when Scott Innes took over for Shaggy, it was like Casey Kasem’s, just a touch more of a twang to his voice and just a dash over-the-top - but it was still Shaggy, and you didn’t doubt that for a minute.

Same thing for Lillard, but maybe moreso - he was pretty much the most perfect casting for a live-action Shaggy there could be at the time Scooby Doo (2002) was made. Him taking over for Kasem from there made perfect sense: he was honestly the best cast Mystery Inc member of the live-actions, and a lot more recognizable to the general public as Shaggy than Scott Innes was. He could also do different emotions with Shaggy that not a lot of the other voice actors had the chance to do (mainly bc script), so for future stuff they have that flexibility, if they wanted to play around a little more.

With any luck Forte will get better over the course of the movie, but honestly the casting could have been so much better with Matt Lillard and Kate Micucci.

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Shaggy Rogers, evading taxes since 2020

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siMON COWELL??!?

WHAT THE

WHY?!?!?

ALSO HIS CHARACTER DESIGN STYLE IS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FROM THE REST OF THE GANG WHAT IS EVEN GOING ON?!!?

IS HE SUPPOSED TO BE THE SD CELEBRITY CAMEO

IF YOU WERE GOING TO DO A CAMEO FROM AMERICAN IDOL WHY NOT RYAN SEACREST

HE TOOK OVER FOR CASEY KASEM ON THE AMERICAN TOP 40 WOULDN’T THAT MAKE MORE SENSE

aaauuuggghhh

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Also he’s there as a potential investor in Mystery Inc as a detective agency

A music industry professional… is interested in funding a detective agency.

Like… did he miss out on Josie & the Pussycats? Is that why he’s here?

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Wait a minute

Oh noooooo

I know why he’s here

I remember this spoiler

Shit

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And once again, here is your reminder to tell Simon Cowell a great big fcuk you

Only this time it’s for making Shaggy and Scooby feel worthless and saying that friendship is worthless and cannot be counted on for anything worthwhile

Simon Cowell: Professional Dickhead

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Welp, at least this gives a solid reason why they leave: Simon Cowell was being a professional dickhead, and the gang didn’t really say anything against him or interrupt him on his whole ‘Shag and Scoob are worthless spiel’

Or, well... Daphne stepped up some, but more to say ‘they’re our friends!’ rather than ‘that’s entirely wrong, our friends aren’t worthless!’ Better than nothing, but yeesh

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Ahhh, Takamoto Bowling - the emptiest bowling alley in the evenings this side of Coolsville

(no seriously, the past few times my dad has taken my sister and me bowling pre-pandemic, no matter the day or time? it’s ALWAYS got more than 6 lanes of people there, what the heck)

Also Scooby wears three bowling shoes, which honestly makes more sense than I thought it would - that pup goes spinning and sliding every which way on a normal floor, bowling alley floors would be like ten times worse

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here’s a nice little detail - when Scooby sees one of the bowling pins peek out with red eyes and he yells that to Shaggy, Shaggy actually squints and walks closer to see if it actually does have eyes

aww

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Huh, okay

Panicked Will Forte Shaggy actually sounds more like a good Shaggy voice than normal talking Will Forte Shaggy

I can dig it

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Still kind of underwhelmed by the Shag and Scoob disguise scene - wouldn’t it make more sense to have them like, dish up hot sauce or something on a plate that nonsensically makes the robots overheat before they discover their ruse?

Idk, maybe they’re off their game after Simon ‘Dickhead’ Cowell

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Carlton Way - must be named after Fred’s only other voice actor, Carlton Stevens of PNSD

Also Hanna’s Barber Shop is next to Barbera’s Pizza! Cute.

And… Pitstop’s Pink Perfume ad. Wait, who is that? *assorted googling noises*

...ahhh, Penelope Pitstop from Wacky Races! Who, according to Wikipedia, was revealed to have Greek ancestry in the 2016 Wacky Raceland comic book, having been born on the island of Aegina

Now I’m wondering if we’ll see her in this too, given Cerberus...

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Honestly kind of fascinating to see the gang with a police radio in their van

Also fascinating to see that only main characters are allowed clothing variety and texture/creases/folds

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it’s actually really sweet to see Fred, upon hearing that Shag and Scoob are likely in danger, immediately makes a 90 degree turn in traffic

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It looks like they changes Dee Dee’s name a hair - now it’s Dee Dee Skyes, instead of Sykes

It works well for the Falcon aesthetic, so that’s cool

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Shaggy, after Dee Dee tells them that Dastardly’s trying to kill them: Scoob, someone thinks we’re important enough to *mimes slitting throat*!

Scooby: It’s nice to be wanted.

Excellent! This movie has captured Shag and Scoob’s blasé attitude towards death! Now we’re onto a solid Scooby film :D

Dee Dee: Hmm, I hear that!

And they even have a friend to share in their attitude! Splendid!

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Christ, I can work photoshop better than Blue Falcon can, and I don’t even know how to use photoshop

I will give major kudos on his costume tho - it maintains the important elements of the OG Falcon, while still updating it with more bird-related aesthetic, like the feathered appearance of parts of his costume, the split cape resembling the tail feathers, and the talon gauntlets & boots. neat!

---

Yooo, Dynomutt, I thought secret identities were still a thing with Superheroes, what the hey are you doing giving it out to a duo you literally just picked up behind a bowling alley

Ngl, I’m kinda hoping we get some scenes where Dynomutt messes up a little like in the OG cartoon - this one feels really serious, which is kind of strange

---

Okay now I want to see older!Blue Falcon come in for a cameo

Mainly bc I’m getting the feeling that this one is a major dumbass, and not in the fun and friendly himbo kind of way 😑

---

Wait, THAT’S our first look at Dastardly? That’s a bit abrupt, isn’t it?

Also his ship must be pumping thousands of gallons of toxins into the air, that smoke cloud looks hideous. Forget logging into his mom’s Netflix account like the trailer said, EPA should probably be hunting him for sport with a laser cannon, jesus fcuking christ

---

Honestly kinda want a plane you can pilot like a motorbike now

---

Welp, it looks like we have a fun, mustache-twirly, puns-aplenty, loves-to-be-bad kind of villain on our hands folks! This is gonna be FUN AS HECK

---

Eurgh, this scene - the super-stiff-but-stretched-out ‘yeeurgh’ faces really squick me for some reason, but I can’t really pinpoint why

---

I have decided I highly dislike the Brian Blue Falcon, or Brian Falcon for short, and would like to see Dastardly tie him to some railroad tracks

---

North St for Heather North, and… wait… Funland Carnival? Like where Charlie the Robot hung out?

Apparently that’s in Romania.

A very yellow-greenfilter Romania at that.

Like, I’ve seen blue washes on movies trying to portray evening in the middle of the day so they don’t actually have to shoot at night, but yellow? That’s normally used for deserts and hot days and uhhh

NOT for evenings in a country with landscape like THIS

odd

(I mean I guess they got the mountains and trees right, but still. Yellow filters make a place look arid, which Romania is Not, to my knowledge)

----

Dude, Brian Falcon is such an idiot even Shaggy and Scooby, commonly portrayed as the idiots of Mystery Inc, look at him like he’s a moron.

(They are Not Amused.)

Also Brian Falcon is an absolute coward. That’s new. Even Shaggy and Scooby face off against the robots directly in a Whack-a-Mole game and destroy some. Dude, get your head in the fcuking game already, yikes

Woah, Laff-a-Lympics, Wacky Races, Hex Girls, The Banana Splits, Penelope Pitstop, Space Stars, Posse Impossible, and Hong Kong Phooey easter eggs in one shot

Geezus

---

Another nice moment: when cornered by Dastardly, Shaggy moves to stand in front of Scooby to protect him

---

Dastardly (to Shaggy): I don’t care about YOU. You’re not REMOTELY important!

*proceeds to shoot Shaggy THROUGH the ceiling and up into the highest car on a Ferris Wheel where Brian Falcon is hiding like a man baby*

Welp, so much for a fun and zany villain. Time for this Plush Anon to kill a bitch *cocks shotgun*

I will, too - kudos to the animators for hurting me so badly with the face Shaggy made right before being shot because

---

Ehehehhehe, yess, the infamous ‘Dick’ scene

Dastardly: No, I’m a DICK. With a D!

You sure are, you sack of dildos with a D!

This scene had to be put in on purpose - if this had been released in theaters, I just know the adults would be dying in laughter 🤣🤣🤣

----

Shaggy: Brian, do something!

Brian Falcon: Like what?

Shaggy: Like, drop some F-Bombs!

love it 😂

---

Is it like movie law now, that if there’s an action scene with a Ferris Wheel in the background, it has to fall off and roll down a mild incline like a wheel? Because it kinda feels like it

---

Aha! Dastardly said his drats! Perfection.

Now to shoot him through a ceiling to make them matter even more :D

---

OOF.

Well that hurt.

Poor Shaggy - basically internalizing now that he’s the worthless one and weak link of the group now that Scooby is considered more important

---

Holy fcuk I’m crying

Shaggy just broke Brian Falcon down to his deepest insecurities without even trying while talking to him

He even used the words ‘imposter syndrome’

Shaggy hon, you’re the best

----

Oh hey, Fred, Daphne, and Velma! It’s been a while since we saw you guys again, what are you doing?

Arguing about the metric system and realizing that Shaggy and Scooby reminding them to eat periodically helped them keep a clearer head...

And using the word ‘hangry’.

But then looking through a ridiculously cute photo album of the two and a video the gang took together (the video is honestly really heckin’ cute, 10000/10 would recommend)...

And then getting pulled over so Fred can have a brief ‘oo-la-la’ montage about the pretty blonde cop who honest-to-gods looks like a Barbie doll.

Where Daphne then describes how ugly Dastardly is...

Right before the petite blonde cop who’s maybe like 5’7” at best rips off her outfit to reveal it was Dick Dastardly this entire time, all 7ish feet of him.

And then kidnaps them all along with the Mystery Machine while he makes terribly fun dorky puns

…

...SO BACK TO SCOOBY AND SHAGGY...

---

...where Scooby is making kissy faces in the mirror while wearing his Blue Falcon uniform

Hrm, that’s not really better is it

We actually see Shaggy reading (OG) Blue Falcon’s autobiography, and making hurt but snide comments about Scooby’s ego

Which are actually pretty clever tbh

-----

Cooooooongratulations, Fred Jones! You are now officially a full-on himbo!

----

Alas, poor Daphne. While your knowledge of the tropes of your show might have served you well in other places, this was to be a theatrical release once upon a time, and so such knowledge falls to ruin.

----

You know, I just realized - we’re never really told HOW the Cerberus skulls work, both in how each skull can be used to find the others, and, presumably, in releasing Cerberus itself. We’re given a brief glance-over of Scooby’s ancestry (and I mean REALLY damn brief), and a quick mention that these are supposed to be Cerberus’ skulls being stolen, but… that’s it. Nothing else is given.

Now, I read the first few chapters of my SCOOB! Junior Novelization, and it actually went into further detail about the skulls themselves and what Dastardly’s initial plan was early in the book - open the gates of Hades and obtain the seas of treasure therein. It acted as an introduction both to the climatic endgame we’ll face at the end of the movie, and to Dastardly, who uses the same disguise trick he used as the Barbie cop when he stole the first one in South America.

(They actually DID plan to use this as Dastardly’s intro, but cut this… 3 minute scene for time. Yeah. See below video for the details - honestly think they should have kept it in. Saves time later and definitely more show than tell, compared to what we got)

youtube

I feel like that would be a better introduction to him than the one we got - hell, it would have fit in quite neatly after the revamped theme song montage. They could have the scene with Dastardly finding/stealing the first skull as an introduction (as above), then have him answer a call or something. Exposit openly “You found the key! Excellent! Now where are we going next?”

THEN cut to the diner/coffee shop scene we had earlier. We still wouldn’t know exactly what the key was/entailed off the bat, and they could still have FD&V find out on their own - maybe by hacking the little robot instead? IDK.

---

The final skull is on Messick Mountain.

Cute.

On a side note, I do love how Dastardly’s ship interior looks - very dieselpunk

---

Velma just hacked into Dynomutt… somehow, and I finally get my wacky Dynomutt shenanigans! Hazoo!

...sadly that was really dang brief. Realistic, yes, but still too brief.

---

Eyyyy, we finally get the whys of why Scooby is needed! … really dang fast.

Also Fred says Jinkies.

----

Hey, Muttley popped up! In a shrine… to his demise… that we find out he reached when Dastardly pushed him forward into the Underworld to steal the treasure of Alexander the Great in a portal he rigged up… only for both of them to find out it was a one-way deal unless they used the key to be able to come back. The key, of course, being Scooby Doo, descendent of Peritas, Alexander’s dog.

Eh, workable enough-ish. It’s interesting to see that Dastardly, despite how much he disliked Muttley in the older cartoons, still cares about him to a certain extent.

---

Pfff, Fred’s a poor man’s Hemsworth XD

---

Sweet, we’re in ‘Journey to the Center of the Earth’ now!

---

O W W W

You guys really had to do the ‘me or them’ thing with Shaggy and Scooby… and tHeN hAvE sCoObY cHoOsE tHe FaLcONs?!? Just because they said he was important as “the key” and gave him a spandex costume.

Over at least 7 years of friendship.

Booooooooooooo

---

actually no I’m Not Done Yet

This whole scene is a mess.

Shaggy’s turn was really dang fast… but I can still see how he gets to it. It’s at least a day between Scooby being chosen as a pseudo-sidekick and the island arrival, during which Shaggy’s talk with the main adult (who has taken up the mantle of his favorite superhero) essentially confirms his feelings of worthlessness and leaves him to stew for HOURS on end (on top of another adult, Dastardly, who also calls him “not even REMOTELY important” at the carnival before freaKING SHOOTING HIM THROUGH THE CEILING NO I AM NOT OVER THIS). Tie that to a teenager who also believes his only friends have come to think he’s meaningless baggage, and suddenly his entire support system is vanishing underneath him to one of his former idols without ANY sign of hesitation from Scooby’s part (with the exception of the collar scene, but I don’t think that that means the same to Scooby, given how quickly he bounces back)

Scooby tho… hrm. It could be that he’s clinging to the good feelings Brian Falcon inspires in him (by choosing him as the next possible Dynomutt), as a way to overpower how FD&V hurt him, while also building on how he came to love the duo because SHAGGY loved them so much. But the movie doesn’t frame that up… at all?? At least compared to Shaggy.

Idk, maybe I’m missing something, but this scene is a mess through and through

Boooooo

----

Scooby: *tries to leap into Brian Falcon’s arms like he did with Shaggy but falls*

Brian: Uh, what are you doing?

Scooby: Rhaggy never missed.

Damn straight he didn’t

---

oh hey, it’s Captain Caveman

I was wondering when we’d see him.

---

AAAUUGGHH

It’s that blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene from the trailers I sobbed over - the one with Shaggy holding Scooby’s collar

Fun fact it actuALLY FADES INTO THE FLASHBACK

THAT WAS NOT A TRAILER THING THAT’S ACTUALLY HERE IN THE MOVIE

---

Oh No

Fred is here, alone, after that whole scene with Dastardly saying he had a use for Fred

...while that’s likely Dastardly in a Fred suit (that sounds creepy just typing it), I’m still going to enjoy this brief but absolutely lovely hug Shaggy and Fred share...

(seriously tho, look at this, it’s a genuinely close, squish-your-lungs-out kind of hug, I love it)

...as well as Shaggy, who's still hurt from his fight with Scooby, immediately gearing up to go help him after hearing Dastardly’s trying to kidnap him.

----

Brian Falcon and Scooby Doo now have to take on Captain Caveman in gladiatorial combat in order to claim the final skull of Cerberus

I love cartoons sometimes

----

Captain Caveman just put the smackdown on Brian Falcon and punched him into the ground up to his CHEST

Then smacked him so far into a wall he cracked the stone around him!

GodDAMN is this satisfying 😆 altho minor question here: how did he gain the rank of Captain? Do cavepeople have a naval force?

---

He just whirled Scooby around his head, then spun him so fast his costume broke off

I may have to look into some Captain Caveman stuff now, that’s fantastic

---

Shaggy and Fred - sorry, “Fred” - just smashed through to the colosseum in the Mystery Machine

And Dynomutt just fired missiles at Captain Caveman to smash him into an Amigara-shaped hole of himself

I REALLY love cartoons sometimes

---

Oh No

Just as Shaggy starts trying to apologize, “Fred” kicks him in the back, rips off his disguise to normal Dastardly self, and kidnaps Scooby atop the skull, before revealing he destroyed the Falcon Fury jet

New tagline for this movie? Shaggy Rogers and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day

...at least the rest of the gang is back together?

---

Brian Falcon: *Immediately tries to blame Shaggy for inadvertently leading Dastardly to them, while storming up to get in his face*

Fred: *upon realizing BrianF is blaming Shaggy for everything, without a SINGLE moment’s hesitation, immediately leaps in to defend Shaggy and physically push back Brian Falcon several feet*

We stan one Himbo, theydies and gentlethem

Also?

Velma (sneering): What kind of hero blames other people for his problems? *Walks over to comfort Shaggy with Daphne, while Shaggy looks dumbfounded they’re defending him bc he also blames himself for Scooby’s kidnapping*

This. This right here, is the kind of Mystery gang content I wanna see.

I don’t care how the rest of this movie goes now, this scene right here is ambrosia to the Scooby fan’s soul, and therefore makes this entire movie worth it, outdated memes, lingo, and all

---

Cackling rn - Fred and Brian Falcon are in a point-off a la the Spiderman meme 😂

or, more specifically, the post-credits sequence of Spiderverse where they’re arguing about who started pointing first

It gets better when Velma and Daphne try to pull each other off of their pushing fight, and Velma grumbles “Toxic Masculinity” I’m crying

---

WOAH

More super Shaggy stuff here (apart from being flung through a building roof without a scratch) - he pushes apart both groups effortless, and even knocks them back several feet

If we estimate Dynomutt as… we’ll say 450 since he’s made of metal, Falcon at 220, Dee Dee at 160, that’s about 830 lbs on one side

Then Fred, Daphne and Velma on the other (hmm, 180, 150, 130?) would be around 460 lbs

Dang boi

---

Oh honey no, it’s not your fault

But dang if he didn’t get a good message from it, one I’ve done my best to transcribe here:

“I was afraid that... things were gonna change. And they did change. But like, that’s okay! People can grow. But it doesn’t mean that we’re growing apart. Because the one thing that will never change is that Scooby Doo is my best friend! Ten years ago, a little boy made a promise to a stray puppy that he’d never leave him no matter what. And I’m gonna keep that promise! Now it’s time we stopped that mustachioed menace from opening the gates to the {underworld} and letting loose that fearsome {Cerberus}. So what do you say we get out {of here}, and go get my always-snacking, never-lacking, often-napping dog back? Who’s with me?”

Honestly not a bad message for kids. Things will change, people will change, but that doesn’t mean you have to stop being friends. (Obvs real life exceptions apply, but that’s not a bad note honestly)

...shame that that conclusion comes right the FUCK outta nowhere

How, exactly, did he come to this conclusion? WHEN? What inspired him to realize this, what was the impetus for this specific line of thought, that it’s okay for friends to change?

It kinda feels like this should have been either the happy ending speech given after they’ve saved the world, or one at the start of the third act, like if Shaggy arrives when Scooby thinks he’s chased him away and ruined everything, and Shaggy & the gang still save him. And Scooby asks him why he did that - when Scooby tried to change himself to fit what Brian Falcon wanted, instead of treasuring the friend he still had, or maybe why Shaggy reacted the way he did. THEN Shaggy gives the speech we hear, a la:

“I yelled at you because… like, because I was scared. I was scared that... things were gonna change. And they did change. But like, that’s okay! People can grow. But it doesn’t mean that we’re growing apart. Because the one thing that will never change is that YOU’RE my best friend! Ten years ago, a little boy made a promise to a stray puppy that he’d never leave him no matter what. And I mean to keep it!”

At least that would make a little more sense to me. Again, not a bad speech, but a little rearranging would help to really hit home.

---

Okay, now we’re back with Dastardly in Greece, and suddenly the background people all look MILES better than the ones at the start of the movie. Did they just forget to polish the first two minutes of film, what the heck?

Also, Dastardly’s ship is literally the entire length of the Greek ruins presented o_O

---

HOLY SHIT THE SKULLS TURNED BACK TIME AND MADE THE RUINS INTO AN ENTIRELY RESTORED PALACE WITH THE GATES OF THE UNDERWORLD BEFORE THEM

They’re also colored a very atmospheric neon arrangement that’s surprisingly quite tasteful ^.^

----

The Mystery Machine can fly now!!! eeheeheeeheeheeheeheeee

----

And so we finally see Cerberus, a massive, towering figure with sharp teeth and pffffffhahahhahaa why are all three heads wearing Spartan helmets

To its credit, they’re also wearing basic body armor, wrist guards, tail spikes, etc, but the helmets are killing me 🤣 who thought to stick that onto the dog? Did Hades forget to remove the armor after winning the Gods’ Pet Costume Contest, or was it like that horse in the ATV costume - it felt safer so it didn’t let anyone take it off?

Or was this a precaution against Herakles coming back? These are questions - hilarious, hilarious questions 😁

---

Awww. Scooby immediately runs to the battered Mystery Machine to rip the doors open for the gang!

And… wait. THIS is where that wonderful hug was in the trailers? I thought that was at the end of the movie when everyone was safe!

This now does not bode well. But we’ll worry about that later. Time to enjoy this gorgeous wonderful hug of the entire gang, and Shag and Scoob apologizing to each other for fighting 🥰

Yet another scene to make the rest of this movie worth the rest

(halfway wanna frame this shit and put it on the wall, it’s that lovely)

----

Fantastic! Dastardly is now in Hell, where I’ve been wishing him this entire movie! :D

And dang… he actually apologizes to what he believes is a dead Muttley. Who is, naturally, snickering at all of this. The two bicker predictably, but eventually hug and make up, too happy to see each other to resort to old habits. Honestly a nice little scene, all-in-all.

---

Back to the gang and they’re doing the glowy eyes in the dark bit! I actually haven’t seen that in a Scooby movie forever, it’s neat.

Also Fred is now going full Liam Neeson over his van, war paint and all, using the tire cover as a shield and… holy shit.

HOLY SHIT

THE ASCOT IS BAAAnnnnnd it’s gone. Boy, that was… short.

Fred just ran full-tilt at Cerberus, screaming like a mad man, before getting flicked away by its big toe, and losing the ascot and makeshift shield. It punched so hard his facepaint came off

It was fun while it lasted y’all

---

Heyyy, Shag and Scoob just came up with the plan, and it’s actually solid! I’m so proud, and so is the rest of the gang! Also willingly going to distract Cerberus while the rest figure out how to close the gate and stuff Cerberus back in

I love my boys 😊

---

Annnnd there goes Brian Falcon like the coward he is

To… call his dad? And admit he isn’t a hero.

Only for Dynomutt to point out Shaggy and Scooby are taking him on and are terrified.

This then cuts to Shaggy and Scooby running around in a chariot and gladiator wear, running back and forth a la the door gag from Cerberus to the OG SDWAY theme

I think I love this movie

(although they’re hinting at Dynomutt being resentful of OG Blue Falcon essentially abandoning him to his incompetent son, and I really wish it had been touched upon more

that’s actually rather heartbreaking, when you stop to think about it, and there’s a lot that could be done with an additional two minutes of screentime)

---

Huh, another good message for kids: it’s okay to fail and be scared, so long as you keep going and try to do what’s right.

Two good messages for kids in one movie. Not too shabby, on the whole.

---

Brian Falcon just flew in and punched the three-headed dog, then jumped into its mouth as it tried to eat Scooby, resisted the MASSIVE JAW STRENGTH, and got them out of there safe and sound

Finally, something heroic!

I was wondering where Dastardly and Muttley got off to - apparently they’re off to take a money bath.

Aight

---

Shag and Scoob have now convinced the Rotten Robots to turn into bowling balls to knock Cerberus off their feet a la the classic marbles pratfall back into the underworld

That is a sentence I just wrote

----

OH FCUK NO

ABSOLUTELY NOT NO

YOU ARE TELLING US THAT AFTER ALL OF THIS - ALL OF THIS - ONE OF THEM HAS TO STAY IN THE UNDERWORLD TO LOCK THE GATE

THAT OCTOBER LEAKER WAS RIGHT WHAT THE HELL

LITERALLY SO

I mean i know its a kids film specifically Scooby Doo so happy ending but what the literal FUCK

---

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUGGHHH

SHAGGY NOOOO

“Buddy, back when we were kids, you saved me. Now, it’s my turn.”

and he dOES THIS WHILE HOLDING SCOOBY’S HEAD TENDERLY IN HIS HANDS

AND WHEN EVERYTHING REVERTS IT’S JUST RUBBLE AND RUIN AND SCOOBY’S LEFT SOBBING OPENLY AT NOTHING

AND THE GANG ALL COME TO CLING AT HIM AND CRY OVER THEIR FRIEND WHO THOUGHT HE WAS WORTHLESS MOST OF THE MOVIE AND THOUGH THAT THE GANG THOUGHT THE SAME ABOUT HIM

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHH

---

WELP, TIME TO COPE WITH INAPPROPRIATE HUMOR

Shaggy: I yelled at my dog, got him kidnapped, and ended up helping the bad guy to open the gates to Hell. Guess I’ll die.

Dee Dee: Well actually, this is more Dastardly’s fault because -

Shaggy, yelling as he slams his hand against the lock: GUESS I’LL DIE!!!

----

Ah, so the writers wrote themselves into a corner, and the only way out was a Deus Ex Machina (at least, I think I’m using that term correctly…)

Because to get Shaggy back, a giant statue of Alexander the Great and Peritas appears out of nowhere - literally, since it definitely wasn’t there before - with an inscription Scooby has to read to get Shaggy back.

This would have been a lot more effective if we’d seen it when Dastardly arrived in Greece - maybe even as the marker for where the gate to the Underworld was. Have Alexander facing one way, and Peritas facing the other. You open the gate on Alexander’s side, and come home on Peritas’ side. Having this unfold into the gate gives it more purpose than “magically appears right the fcuk outta nowehere” and you could have a pun with the “backdoor” escape. Everybody wins!

And if that’s too good for ya, how about a brief lingering shot by it at some point as Dastardly flies into Greece, behind where the gate materializes, or directly across from it on the plaza? Maybe have one of the gang kick it after Shaggy leaves, and say ‘This is all your fault! Why would you make something like this?’

It’d still be a magical contrivance, but at least it would make some fcuking SENSE.

(Granted it DID lead to this hilariously ominous shot, so maybe I shouldn’t complain:)

---

Velma: I finally figured out what you guys are! You’re the heart of Mystery Inc.

Me: YEAH BABY! *flips over table* I’VE BEEN SAYING THAT SHIT FOR YEARS AND NOW, I’M FCUKING VALIDATED AT LAAAAAAAAST!

----

Shaggy: *rips off Dastardly’s face to reveal…*

ALL: SIMON COWELL??!?

Me, choking on food: I’m sorry WHAT?!?!?

Velma: *takes off mask again to reveal*

ALL: DICK DASTARDLY?!?

Dastardly: Drat! No one ever goes for the double unmasking.

So I was right all along - Simon Cowell truly was a Dick this entire time.

-----

And so we close on the gang unveiling a Mystery Machine paint job on their official detective agency building, Brian Falcon living the good life as the DJ at their party, the Falcon team gifting a sleek new Mystery Machine to the gang (which honestly looks pretty unique - it’s not the classic, but it is something new that isn’t awful, so kudos there), and the gang on their way to another mystery.

So, at the end of the day is this a good Scooby movie?

Meh? *waves hand in meh motion* But it definitely had its moments.

This Scooby film is flawed as heck, no doubt about it - the plot has a MAJOR problem with telling instead of showing, some parts feeling out of order or WAY too short, and of course the deus ex machina ending. I honestly would have loved some more time for their first mystery as kids, where we actually got more character moments/bonding from Fred, Daphne, and Velma as they solved it the more traditional route, as well as not framing FD&V as super duper mystery solvers right off the bat???

The stuff with Blue Falcon isn’t AWFUL, per se, but it is ridiculously satisfying to see him get smacked around. Captain Caveman was honestly one of the funniest bits in the movie, same with Dynomutt.

As far as the character stuff? It all felt fairly natural, progression-wise. Shag and Scoob don’t have this big break-up with the gang - they’re hurt by the literal Dickhead’s comments the gang don’t speak up against, and go to blow off some steam together. Shag and Scoob don’t have this giant blow-up argument - it builds over the film into a hurt spat they both recognize they overreacted to almost immediately. The gang (FDV) go looking for them almost as soon as they leave, and, upon hearing they’re in danger, turn and head towards them to save them, realizing how important the two are to Mystery Inc along the way. They defend each other, help each other, have some of the Best Dang Animated Mystery Inc hugs I ever did see - THIS feels more like the Gang I’ve been waiting for forever to come back to DTV (and in a rough sense, did). While I do wish we’d gotten more screen time of FD&V, what we got wasn’t too bad.

Weirdly enough, at the end of the day, I’ve actually grown more accustomed to Forte’s Shaggy - it feels like it fits this different style a touch more than I originally thought, and holy hell if I didn’t come close to tears at that ending gate scene, he knocked that one out of the park. Velma still doesn’t feel much like Velma, but I did get used to it by the end. I kept cracking up at Efron’s Fred, and no complaints on Seyfried’s Daphne.

Jason Isaacs as Dick Dastardly absolutely killed it. Blue Falcon Crew was okay (excepting Mark “The Racist” Wahlburg - it was just him talking, no real effort. You could recognize Wahlburg right off the bat, acting as a goofy douche) and freaking Captain Caveman was awesome. Apparently they combined both Billy West and Don Messick’s recordings for Muttley (awesome!!!), so this may very well be Don Messick’s final role in a Scooby Doo film.

It got off to a rough start, but ended well enough. The animation was solid, the writing has some unexpectedly clever and funny moments sprinkled throughout, with some pretty fun action sequences on the side. Watching this, I really do believe that the people working on it love Scooby Doo and all things Hanna-Barbera… at least in their own way.

I ended up buying this instead of just renting it ($5 more, why not) and I am honestly glad I did so. Despite its flaws, it has some great moments with the gang as friends, and I have been Craving That Shit for DECADES

And if these writers/directors ever did another Scooby film? I think I’d be up for giving them a chance - at least so long as we got some more absolutely BEAUTIFUL hugs with the gang

I hope you enjoyed this stream-of-consciousness reaction to SCOOB! (2020)... a whole ass year LATER, admittedly (I didn’t switch my Save Post to Queue, curse my hubris), but hopefully y’all’ve been entertained. Good night everybody!

#scoob!#scoob 2020 #scoob #scooby doo #plush reviews: final thoughts #note to self: never use queue for the big posts

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rvb-is-gay · 4 years

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ok so now that the final episode of rvb0 is out for everyone, lets get into some discussion about it! please note that post isnt a topic of debate but rather just my personal thoughts about everything, so dont go arguing in the replies

(fair warning ahead of time for any fans, this is mostly criticism and negative feelings about it, so keep scrolling if you dont wanna read it)

When RVB0 was first announced, I remember everyone was first upset that the Reds and Blues weren't in it, including me. But now that I've watched the whole thing, I can say with confidence that my only issue with RVB0 isn't the lack of the Reds and Blues, but rather everything. the dialogue, some of the animation, the characters, the delivery, the pacing, the ridiculous amount of clichés, etc. I don't dislike RVB0 just because there's no Reds and Blues. I dislike it because I just found the entirety of it bad.

When I first started watching it, I went in with an open mind that maybe this season could actually be really good. I’d also be lying if I said that there wasn't a single scene that I liked. There were actually a few, but they still didn't make up for just the overall badness of the season. But please note that I don't blame the voice actors for any of this or even just Torrian Crawford for the season coming out a giant mess. Many people worked for this season and always had the opportunity to improve or change things but didn't. But anyways, let’s get into some of the criticisms I have for this season.

1. Smaller and more opinion oriented criticisms

This isn’t really criticism or anything important, but rather just a few things I found a bit weird to me personally.

First, the term “ragtag team of misfits” was used to describe Shatter Squad (and was even actually said out loud by One in the last episode, which sounded just so cliché and dumb in my opinion). I don't think this describes them at all?? Everyone has, at the very least, decent relationships with each other (save for One and East who were competitive with each other (which I also fucking hate in RVB that all the girl characters are always competitive with each other)), but that still doesn't really fit the term ragtag) and they all fight very well. I think ragtag fits the Reds and Blues more than it does Shatter Squad; they're bad at fighting, they argue and fight all the time, they're idiots, and that's why we love them. If they had just stuck with “a team of misfits”, that would've made more sense, but again, this is more of a personal opinion than genuine criticism.

Second, I don’t really like the aesthetics this season had. Everything felt a bit too neon and bright and then some stuff just felt like it came straight out of World of Warcraft or something. It didn’t really feel like RVB.

Third, my feelings about Carolina constantly calling Wash David can be summed up by what Michael said in the first episode of Halo 4 LASO: “Now we’re just gonna throw his name around all willy nilly. It used to be a secret.” When someone is called by their real name in RVB or just any story in general where everyone goes by code names, it’s usually a big deal and indicates something serious. Carolina wore out Wash’s name the first time she said it and it just got more and more irritating from then on out and lost its value.

Fourth, who was the blue and purple soldier in the first teaser we got? Was that One? Did they decide to change her armour colour? I don’t know, I just randomly remembered that and thought it was weird but I guess it must’ve just been a colour change.

Now, onto the more serious criticism.

2. Animation and dialogue

The second thing I wanna talk about is the animation. Don't get me wrong, the fighting animation is probably the best compared to everything else and it was pretty good to watch, but the talking and idle animations and gestures were..... kinda yikes. I know that it could be chalked up to “well we’re not used to seeing animated gestures since all of RVB usually has everyone just holding their gun and using the regular Halo models” but there were still some pretty bad parts.

Take the scene from Encounter at 3:26 as an example (I uploaded the scene to YT to put here, but obviously it was blocked for copyright):

This scene is probably one of the worst when it comes to not only the animations, but the dialogue, pacing, and delivery. When I first saw this, I honestly laughed. Here's a list of my problems with this scene and what made it so laughable:

The overexaggerated hand gestures. I get that because everyone's in armour and a helmet, it can be hard to show expression, but this feels like a bit much. Especially when One says “what? You’re pulling us off the mission? You cant do that!” I think that one scene in season 15 when Grif stays behind on Iris while everyone leaves and it slowly zooms in on Simmons’ visor somehow does a lot better at expressing feelings than this.

East immediately making the connection between Axel and Zero feels weird. I don't know if its just me who feels this way, but I think it should've been a little bit longer before she immediately is just like “you know Zero don't you”

Axel saying “I... I do... I did” also sounds weird and like he was trying a bit too hard to sound dramatic. I don't really know how to describe it its just such a weird delivery of the line.

The way they all immediately start yelling at each other.

One saying “Axe, I trusted you” right after saying “tell us the truth”. Girl, you gave him no opportunity to explain and just immediately jumped to not trusting him anymore. Speaking of which, I don't think this was ever really mentioned again and had no meaning or importance to it.

The echoing of “I trusted you” also feels cliché to me, but this is more of a minor thing.

I think this one comment on one of the episodes on the RT site that says the dialogue “seemed acted rather than natural. It didn't really sound like how people normally talk, more how actors talk in plays” is how I feel about all of the dialogue in RVB0.

3. The villains

Zero and Diesel both felt like they didn't really have any motivation at all for being villains. Phase is probably the best when it comes to this. She was essentially abused by her father as a child and forced to undergo being experimented on. This is an actual good and understandable motivation.

Diesel we know basically nothing about, and then on the other hand, all Zero wants is power. But for what? Why? I can understand that power is a pretty common thing for people to want, but it still kind of felt like there wasn't really anything there.

Some previous good villains in RVB include:

Temple: Temple witnessed his best friend be brutally murdered right in front of him by 2 soldiers who didn't give a shit and just left him to die, especially right after he told him he was having a baby. Of course it’s understandable that he has a hatred of Freelancers after this. Any normal person would.

Felix: Felix was probably the best villain of all of RVB, to be honest (right beside the Director). He was just somehow so likeable and had so much personality, despite being an asshole. His ultimate motivation was money and being rich, which is another thing I can understand; the more money you have, the more you can essentially do whatever you want and live in luxury. I mean, even so many people in real life do horrible things just for money. I don't even have to give examples for this. Felix in general is also just a psychopath.

The Director: The whole reason the Director did what he did was because he lost the person he loved most in the world: his wife. He was willing to do literally anything to bring her back, leading to all of his actions in the Project Freelancer saga. You can find many examples of movie/TV/book/etc characters/villains seeking vengeance as a result of loss of a loved one and grief. Despite being a horrible person, the Director actually managed to be a villain you could even sympathize with, making him even better.

Sharkface: Although a bit of a more minor villain, similar to Temple, Sharkface is a villain because he wants revenge on the people that killed his team, the people he considered to be the only family he’s ever had.

4. Tucker & the swords

The fourth thing I wanna talk about is the whole thing with Tucker and the swords. I always found it kinda weird how both Tuckers sword and now Locus’ sword in the chorus trilogy were the same, but then in RVB0, Zero’s sword looks and acts completely different, but that might just be a little nitpick of mine.

As for Tucker, it was so good to see him. Although I don’t know if it was just me, but he seemed a little OOC. What I didn't like about seeing Tucker again was that he did literally nothing the entire episode. He was useless. He said “I can fight” at one point but then all he does during the battle is get held at knife point, run away, and then get stabbed and have his sword taken. Tucker isn't an amazing fighter, but he’s definitely a lot more capable than just this. We’ve seen him in action many times and I just feel like he could've done a bit more. It almost feels like he was purposefully nerfed and tossed aside just to advance the plot.

Another thing that I and probably a lot of people are upset about is the fact that Tucker might not even own his sword anymore?? When East stabbed him, he apparently died and the sword was rebound to Phase, but it wasn't very clear that this was the case. Although the beginning of the next episode starts with hospital beeps and a flatline, I don't think it was still really clear enough that Tucker actually died long enough for Phase to reclaim the sword because I saw a handful of people confused in the comments and, like me, even thought it was just bad writing at first and that the writers completely forgot about the rules of the sword established over several prior seasons.

When in the hospital, Wash tells Tucker that he almost died. Although I actually liked this scene because it was nice to see wash and tucker bantering again, I think it could've been made better and made the plot clearer if instead of saying he almost died, Wash said something along the lines of “Tucker, you died. Your heart stopped, but they were able to bring you back thanks to their advanced medical tech” and then in response Tucker freaks out because that means his sword will now work for Phase and now they know how urgent the situation is.

I really really hate that Phase just has Tucker’s sword now and nothing is even said about it. If Tucker was to give his sword away to someone, I think many people would prefer that it was at least someone close to him, like Junior for example, but instead it goes to a random girl he hardly knows.

5. Pacing

The fifth thing I wanna talk about is the pacing. This season was definitely a lot shorter than normal and I think that’s one of the things that really prevented it from being good. The entire story just feels rushed and while I understand that it can be really difficult to build a good story and characters in such a short time, I think there’s still ways you can do it without it feeling like there’s so much missing. I think the long intros and outros are also responsible for less time and maybe they should’ve considered cutting them to give more actual episode time. Here’s a few things that were poorly done as a result of bad pacing:

The final battle against Zero: The whole battle just somehow felt like a typical video game boss battle that ends super quickly to me. Shatter Squad didn’t even defeat Zero, he just up and got disintegrated or whatever from Black Lotus.

Shatter Squad giving up on their mission: After receiving the silly deep voice filtered message from Zero, everyone on Shatter Squad just immediately gives up on finding him.

One’s speech: One’s speech wasn’t awful or anything and I didn’t really have any problems with the speech itself, but rather just how quickly the team went from “we can’t do it.. it’s over..” to “you’re right! I’m in! Let’s go get them!” Compare this to Doc and Sarge’s speech to the Reds and Blues after Church and Carolina leave in season 10 episode 20. It just felt a lot more genuine (this is probably because the Reds and Blues had a lot more time to be developed, though) and was only given after some time passed rather than 2 seconds later. The scene and context also transitioned well into it and at first, nobody was on board with what Doc was saying, which is more realistic in my opinion. People’s minds won’t just instantly change, they’re still gonna think about it and maybe have a few doubts at first.

Phase and West: During their fight, West talked a lot about how he regrets giving Phase away to Starlight, that he won’t hurt her, and is even willing to die for her. Their scene together ends with Phase punching him in the head and then leaving to join the others and nothing else about them is mentioned. We don’t know if Phase forgave him or not, we don’t know how West feels, etc.

Tucker’s sword: Phase still has Tucker’s sword and like the scenario with West, nothing about it is mentioned. We don’t know what she’s going to do with it, if she’s going to keep it, if Tucker’s gonna do anything about it, etc.

6. Clichés

Clichés aren’t inherently bad and can be really impactful and good if done right. But when it comes to RVB0, it’s jampacked with clichés that aren’t good. Here are a few examples:

Everyone gives up until a speech is given: All of the points for this are the same as above, but I wanted to include this scene as a cliché as well.

Every female character is competitive with each other: RVB falls into this a lot, like I mentioned earlier. It happens again with East and One, although luckily they seem to resolve it, but not until literally the end of the season.

West’s fit about East: All of the lines and delivery in this scene were just atrocious and cheesy. I think West’s dialogue just could’ve been a bit more original, but instead we’re given this boring predictable “I won’t lay a hand on her. I promised her. I promised her mother. I promised she’d be safe” spiel that has no emotion to it in his voice.

The whole “I got this, you go ahead” thing: This isn’t like a super cliché thing, but I found it pretty interesting how it happens twice in the same episode.

I think this is pretty much all I can think of at the moment. If I think of anything else, I’ll add onto this. Overall, I think RVB0 would’ve done a lot better as just an RVB spinoff so that it could have more episodes and seasons dedicated to developing characters and a good plot. I’m really disappointed with this season and I hope whatever comes next is better than what RVB0 was. I hope the team that worked on it can learn a few things that come from the good and valid constructive criticism given to them. And if I had to pick, I think I’d say Raymond was my favourite out of all the new characters. He just felt the most relatable and realistic to me.

#rvb crit #rvb0 critical #rvbz critical #post #mod sol

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wehatepaparazzi · 4 years

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Nina Dobrev.

Let’s just give it up one time for the girl that carried her show on her back. How many different characters did she play? She deserves a round of applause and a martini as she is quite the partier…

So let’s jump in and go back to the early years. During TVD years, after her and Ian had separated – someone that worked on the sets of TVD for a few seasons reported that Ian was a major asshole and was incredibly petty towards Nina. He created a really toxic environment on set, rolling his eyes during any scene they had together and would go stiff if they had to interact. Nina couldn’t wait to get out of there.

Ian cheats on Nina numerous times with Julianne Hough. He then gets drunk and confesses to Nina which caused their breakup. Julianne and Nina partied a lot together, and apparently had gotten over it because in Sept 2013, Nina started sleeping with Julianne’s brother, Derek. Also, a shit bag. Come Oct they were at a party together, Derek was wasted and started screaming at Nina because she didn’t kiss him right? He proceeded to kiss several women, oddly, Nina didn’t seem to mind. The relationship only lasted until Oct, blogs said it was because of schedules and time difference, but I’m pretty sure its because Nina realized Derek and his sister are scum sucking rodents. A short funny story: in May 2014, Derek hooked up with Nikki. She might as well just date Nina at this point.

ENTER Orlando Bloom.

Nina dated Orlando at the same time he was fighting with Justin Bieber and also sleeping with the ex wife of the guy Orlando’s ex wife (Miranda Kerr) cheated on Orlando with. All of this is what Nina dealt with. Nina and Orlando take a break, he somehow convinces her to give him another chance, they get a dog together, and like two weeks later Orlando cheats again, randomly dumps her and just leaves her.

In Oct 2014, Nina and Julianne ran into each other at an event which ended with Nina calling Julianne “evil” followed by a long list of not so family-friendly adjectives in front of it. But then by Jan 2015, Nina was either hooking up with Derek again or he wanted to, because she was again seen with Julianne. Y i k e s.

Somewhere in there, Ian gets with Nikki… who only went after Ian because she wanted a boyfriend that would make her famous again. July 2014, at an event Nikki and Nina started screaming at each other pointing fingers and Nikki was talking all kinds of bullshit, which was mostly false and came from a bitter Ian. I hate when women look stupid over men, more than once. Ian married Nikki in April 2015, yet still texted Nina telling her how unhappy he is and he misses her, apparently Nina was uninterested, however in May 2015, Ian and Nina got together to hash out things left unsaid and ended up having some ex sex, going about the rest of their day like how it used to be. When Nina announced she’d be making a return to TVD, Nikki was not happy and would show up on set all the time to cause tension, eventually being booted off the set.

As TVD was coming to an end, Nina wanted to make sure she wasn’t left in the dust “like the rest of the CW cast” so she found herself another way to make ends meet. The girl has zero issues with escorting. She began yachting. (If you’re unfamiliar – google is your friend.) Although, officially she was in Cannes (for those of us that wondered how the hell Nina Dobrev made it to Cannes Film Festival) for her partnership with Dior, but she was definitely doing other “business” as well. It’s so well known (among her Hollywood peoples) that two other TVDU Cast came to her, for “advice.” Yes, Phoebe Tonkin who wasn’t getting paid well, very little to be completely honest – followed right behind Nina and started yachting with a complete billionaire. (After Paul, of course.) I believe it was around June 2019, you see a noticeably good amount of photos with Nina and “friends” on expensive yachts and helicopters with no tagged sponsors. Welcome to the Rich life of yachting.

Nina had a role in Flatliners, and had a backup plan incase the movie flopped. Her plan: Dubai. She ran into Lindsay Lohan and about 7 months later it was reported that during this trip – Lilo was actually terrible to Nina because she thought Nina was after her man. She wasn’t, but yikes.

Dec 2019, Film Producer Mohammad Al Turki who recruits several actors/actresses. Apparently he finds some damaging information they don’t want revealed and then uses it against them to do more things they also don’t want revealed. Going from Zac Efron to Michelle Rodriguez to Kristen Stewart who he would have his guests view, grope and ogle over and Nina actually fell into this mess becoming another one of his objects. Hollywood is sick yall, I’m telling you.

Nina used to be an extremely heavy smoker (I love her voice) but I believe in 2019, she kicked that habit as well as her eating disorder. She’s looking a lot more healthier, thicker. Just better all around. Now if only she can find some actual friends and a man that will treat her right. We’re rooting for you girl, We’re all rooting for you.

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2013/05/cannes-escorts

#nina dobrev

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cyberramblings · 4 years

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Kingdom Hearts BBS, DDD Blind Thoughts

Spoilers for Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep and earlier titles in the series. Also warning that I have insomnia and these are utter ramblings on the last 24 hours of blindly binging the Kingdom Hearts series as a total newcomer to the series. Haven’t played three yet and just started Dream Drop Distance. With that warning.....

Birth by Sleep was a ton of fun. We ended up needing to grind a little to make Aqua playable, but that ended up forcing me to learn the game mechanics much deeper, and even my friends leveled up their playing of the game! It was really cool to unlock some of the high tier spells like Triple Firaga and Thundaga Shot, although I do wish we had gotten to chance to unlock even more. I should remember how much more fun the game was after some internet research.

It was very satisfying to unlock the true ending so easily. We had only missed 2 of the 12 required Xehanort Reports. The 2 we needed involved grinding the arena for maybe an hour total and then 5 minutes of finding a treasure chest. We were then able to roll smoothly from Aqua’s finish into the final episode.

Aqua’s fight against Braig was laughable easy, but the final fight against Vanitas/Ventus was slightly tougher. The real challenge was fighting Terra/Xehanort but then the REAL challenge was phase 2 of that fight. I got them all on the first try! It was a really enjoyable flex of my gaming skills in front of the friends.

From a story standpoint, Birth By Sleep had my favorite story of any KH game so far, by a huge margin. I liked certain elements of the KH2 ending (Riku and Sora teaming up, Kairi’s keyblade) but BBS has been the only game where I had any sense of purpose or desire to see how it ends. They did a great job of having each of the 3 routes reveal new information even if played out of order (Xehanort taking over Terra, Vanitas having Sora’s face, Aqua taking care of comatose Ventus).

Obviously it helps to have Leonard Nimoy and Mark Hamill join the cast, plus Aqua’s VA absolutely dominates every scene she’s in. Terra’s VA reminds me a lot of Leon’s monotone edgy boy voice acting (David Boreanaz or otherwise). Of course Ventus shares a VA with Roxas, but the twist of Vanitas being Haley Joel Osmont is really great because he sounds so much older. I think it would have been easier to predict that twist if I had recently heard more of HJO’s Sora voice in Dream Drop Distance or KH3.

Aqua is, of course, the great standout character from BBS. From the start, we got attached to her because of her known prevalence in KH3 on top of her cool design, Arrow voice actress, and the fact that we could finally play a girl (plus one with more human proportions than Kairi). It worked out really well how we saved her for last and had to kind of unlock the secrets of her play style by finally mastering the various gameplay systems.

I much prefer the command deck system compared to the gameplay of KH2. To be fair, these are the only two KH games I’ve beaten. I’ve only barely touched KH1 and Chain of Memories. I felt like BBS did a good job of fusing the action gameplay of KH2 with the (potentially) satisfying deck building of CoM.

Re: Coded is a fucking mess. I might actually go back and play it on a DS emulator just to see the gameplay, but god damn the story is a flimsy excuse for a retread. I almost wish we had skipped it entirely, but just watching the opening and ending worked out pretty well. In the end, it’s literally just “Mickey is gonna give Sora the memories of all the other protagonists” which is badass but probably going to be mentioned again before being relevant. I will say that the ending with Riku and Sora being summoned by Yen Sid for the mark of mastery test is fucking badass and elicited quite the reaction from all three of us. The series is finally starting to have that feeling of “the stakes are high and I want to see what happens with these characters”.

This was expressed most fully in the intro to Dream Drop Distance. Step 1: invoke Disney Magic with a silhouette of magician Mickey. Step 2: Orchestral Simple and Clean. Step 3: use entirely new cinematic footage instead of splicing together an AMB. Step 4: show every keyblade wielder standing side by side. Apparently that’s enough to make me actually cry. We all got very excited by this intro, so it was a bit of a let down to start the game and be seemingly replaying KH1 again.

Of course that’s not the whole game, but I’m still not sure what the whole game is. Riku and Sora have to...wake the seven sleeping worlds to earn their mark of mastery? Are they dreaming all of this, or what? Seeing The World Ends With You was cute for like a second before realizing that I know almost nothing about it. Flowmotion is similarly kinda neat at first but quickly becomes annoying, but maybe it will grow on me with time.

Speaking of fun at first but quickly annoying: Dream Eaters. The Pokémon-esque system seems like a time waster that’s perfect for 3DS but maybe not so much for our tourist play through. The Dream Eater designs are cute when they’re on your team, but strike me as a bit annoying when fighting the same ones over and over. Heartless and Nobodies felt more generic, but that made them feel a little less repetitive to fight over and over. I see the same god damn rainbow colored Panda every god damn fight. To be fair, I think each world randomly contains certain types of Dream Eaters every time you visit it.

Speaking of Worlds, I’m not really looking forward to Hunchback of Notre Dame or Pinocchio world, but at least they’re new worlds instead of retreading Halloween Town, Agrabah, Olympus, Neverland for the millionth time. What I am looking forward to is The Grid from Tron Legacy! I don’t think we’ve seen any Disney world that specifically spotlight a sequel to a Disney world we’ve already seen. We revisit Halloween Town, Agrabah, Beast’s Castle, Olympus, Atlantica but only for some minor follow-up fluff. The Tron world in KH2 meant a lot to me having just seen the film. The Lightcycle combat could’ve been a little more true to the original, but the visuals were so faithful plus having Tron’s actual actor was so fucking cool. Sora and gang getting Tron outfits was so cool too. Also would’ve liked to have a disc fight, but the Sark/MCP fight was spot on. Hopefully we can get both of more in DDD!

It’s a perfect excuse to revisit The Grid since Legacy looks so different from the original. Now, The Grid is not a true world in KH2 but instead part of Hollow Bastion’s computer system. I’m curious if The Grid in DDD is a sleeping world or something that exists within another world, or if it is somehow connected to the KH2 Tron world (which would get real weird real quick if that version of the Grid is a copy of the original, but Legacy is supposed to be set in The Grid 30 years later).

Oh, I like that DDD has the command deck system but I don’t like the pets, I don’t like the link system, I don’t like reality shift, and I don’t like flowmotion. It just seems like BBS with all the RPG features crammed into the pet system with a bunch of gimmick infused into the combat system. Admittedly, gimmick is one of the biggest strengths of the KH franchise, but flowmotion just seems silly. Perhaps I’ll like it more when I get used to it and potentially get to customize the moves.

I’m not sure yet how I feel about the drop system, but I do like getting to play as Riku. I think multiple protagonists is a smart way to stretch the assets and tell 2 stories per world. I rather enjoyed the way Aqua, Terra, and Ventus interacted with some of the Disney worlds. Hopefully we get something similar in some of these worlds.

The dive mini game is definitely gimmicky nonsense clearly designed for the 3DS. In general though, all the games in these collections look great and feel great. I suppose that is why Days, Coded, and Back Cover are cutscenes: to keep the average quality of gameplay roughly somewhere in between KH1 and 2 between all the titles. In fact, I think KH1 is easily the worst feeling out of all the ones thus far. I’ve always complained about KH hopping between systems, but now I can’t really complain about that anymore. My complaint still stands about the games being overly complicated. Plus, the games are clearly taking themselves way too seriously, but that’s very clearly part of the charm.

Really, I suppose the games aren’t that complicated if you heavily condense Chain of Memories, cut out Coded, and try not to think too hard about the phone games. Then it just becomes: Sora defeats the heartless, Sora defeats the nobodies, Roxas backstory, Aqua/Terra/Ventus, training/prep montage, then KH3. Oh, and try to forget that somehow the upcoming rhythm game is canon.

#kingdom hearts #kh #kingdom hearts birth by sleep #birth by sleep #dream drop distance #kingdom hearts dream drop distance #kh ddd #kd: ddd #kh bbs #kh2

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mst3kproject · 5 years

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324: Master Ninja II

There used to be a restaurant in the plaza across the street from where I work that actually had a conveyor belt buffet. Plates of sushi would go around and you could pick the ones that looked tasty, and when you were done the staff would count the empty plates to calculate your bill… whereupon you would realize your eyes were bigger than your tummy and your wallet was smaller than either. It truly was a work of evil genius.

So here we have the continuing adventures of Max and McAllister the Boring White Ninjas, and Max is still a whiny dolt with a hamster instead of a personality. First, he enters a motorcycle race, where he’s beaten by Carrie, a young woman trying to unionize the cannery her town depends on. Naturally the business owners don’t want to waste money treating their employees like human beings, so they’re trying to run her out of town. The good guys win, the girl kisses Max, and we’re on to the next episode, in which a senator’s garden party is interrupted by members of a militant cult. Lucky for his guests, the senator’s cute daughter Alicia invited Max and McCallister, so there are ninjas on hand when the cops need somebody to rescue the hostages. Unlucky for McCallister, the Foot Clan is still following him and they choose the worst times to swordfight. The good guys win, the girl kisses Max, and then the movie’s over. ‘Bout time.

This movie is so boring I think I actually died while watching it. I saw a light and flew towards it, but then a voice told me that my job wasn’t over – I still had to write the review! Next thing I knew, I was face-down, drooling in my keyboard. Now that I’m back, though… what the hell am I supposed to write? I think I already got through everything I had to say about The Master in my first review, and the second is really just more of the same. Timothy Van Patten is just about the most boring actor I can possibly imagine, and we get the idea that Max wouldn’t give a shit about any of this injustice if there weren’t pretty girls involved. None of the this-week-only characters are played with any conviction. The stunt fighters are bad. Lee Van Cleef has more screen presence than the entire rest of the cast put together and is entirely wasted on this stupid show.

One thing that I guess does kind of stand out is how badly they use slow motion. We see it now and then – particularly in two consecutive motorcycle jumps, which I suppose are meant to look impressive. They’re not very, and the slow-mo just gives us time to notice that rather than Van Patten and Van Cleef, the bike is being ridden by a stuntman and a potato sack in a helmet. Later we get slow-motion of a truck breaking through a gate, which just doesn’t come across as worthy of it. They don’t even do anything to make the wood break dramatically. Remember in A Knight’s Tale where they filled the lances with spaghetti to make lots of fake splinters when they broke? There’s nothing like that here, they just run over a gate and expect us to think it’s cool.

Then there’s the ham-fisted writing. The villains are such caricatures of evil, they’re almost as bad as real-life politicians. Even worse, the exposition. Why does McAllister just randomly die in the hotel room? There seems no reason for it, unless, like me, he died of boredom listening to Max talk. It establishes he can do that so he can ‘resurrect’ later, but it’s so obvious that when he does ‘die’ we don’t believe it for a second. It’s all so blatant that it’s almost painful to watch.

So when the movie explains things, it’s annoying, but when it doesn’t, it’s even worse. Episode Two begins with Max in a small airplane, saving a girl whose car brakes are out. Uh… what? Where’d he get the plane? When did he learn to fly it? How did he know the girl needed saving? Did she just happen to be there? What the hell is going on? We never find out. The fact that this sequence gets the whole plot going means it at least introduces the plane without the big flashing sign that this will be important again later, but all our initial questions about the opening remain unanswered.

I can also say that the second episode that went into Master Ninja II, while still not something I’d go out of my way to watch, is much, much better than the first one. This is at least partly the writing – the bad guys in the second half are slightly less cartoonish and much more threatening, and the various intersecting storylines make it somewhat less boring. The second half also has actual ninja stuff going on, which is a definite plus in a movie called Master Ninja.

There’s not a whole lot of ninja-ing happening in the first half, and when it does, it’s almost as if they chicken out from actually showing us. McCallister throws down a smoke bomb to vanish with the damsel in distress… and the camera cuts away! They had a chance for a neat in-camera effect, and they totally dropped the ball! Later, Max throws a grappling hook so he can climb a wall… and again, the camera cuts away! Instead, the set-piece action sequences for this half are a couple of car chases. These are badly filmed, never giving us the sense of danger they should have, and make the aforementioned poor use of slow-motion. A few caltrops and throwing stars come out, but only really appear in close-ups of a hand holding them, in the vain hope we won’t realize it’s not actually Lee Van Cleef doing the ninja stuff.

The second half more than makes up for it. Max throws a smoke bomb, and we actually see the effect it has on the soldier he’s fighting! McCallister climbs a wall, slips, and has to grab the bricks with his crampons and throw his grappling hook again! Ninjas doing ninja things! And of course there’s the fight between McCallister and the Foot Clan guy. It’s not great. The relatively enclosed space of the hotel suite could have been used far better, and if Rocky, Colt, and Tum-Tum will forgive me, I’m afraid I just do not believe that ninjas shout “ha!” every time they throw a punch. And yet, after the near-absence of ninja stuff in the first half, I was eating it up.

The big problem with the second half of Master Ninja II , besides the whole why does he have an airplane?! thing, is that we don’t have a sense of place. This isn’t so important at the senator’s garden party, where everybody’s pretty much in the same space and the bad guys descend from above and leave the same way. We also know how the cops managed to find their hideout, since we saw the tracker get stuck to the helicopter (although how Max found it I have no idea), but what’s where in this place? We’re told that the hostages are up in the tower, but that doesn’t look like a good place to keep them. We don’t have a sense of where all that is in relation to where Max and McCallister get in or what obstacles might be in their ways, and not enough is made of what does happen inside that it seems important it would be a surprise.

While the fight between McCallister and Foot Clan Guy does provide the best action scene in the entire movie, it also has nothing to do with the plot of that particular episode. Again, this is a thing that would work in a TV show, where they need to intermittently remind us that the overarching storyline is still going on somewhere in the background. If this extra ninja were to do something like injure McCallister, leaving him less able to carry out the rescue, that would be important. Or if he and McCallister were to put aside their differences for the episode and work towards a common goal, maybe something to do with the security guy who seems to know them both, that would be relevant. But he appears, there’s one fight, and then he’s gone.

I’ve complained before about the practice of putting two episodes of a TV show together into a movie, but out of all the variations on that theme that showed up on MST3K, I’m pretty sure the Master Ninja people did the worst job of it. Sandy Frank would at least give us both the beginning and the end of things like Time of the Apes and Fugitive Alien, even if it were hard to understand them without some of the stuff from the middle. Cosmic Princess and Riding with Death both picked pairs of episodes that had characters or situations in common, and did some dubbing to strengthen the connection. Master Ninja just gives us Episode One and Episode Two, without even the slightest attempt to provide a narrative connection or to disguise the fact that these are two unrelated stories. It’s particularly blatant when they just cut from ‘happy ending of Episode One’ to ‘action opening of Episode Two’ without any sort of bridge.

I really did mean to get to Master Ninja II ages ago, but every time I tried to watch it I ended up just giving up. The first episode was just such a slog of annoying writing and bad acting that I couldn’t take it. When I finally watched it, the fact that the second half was so much better helped, but on average the whole Master Ninja series is just so dull and nondescript that I have no urge to watch it or anything else to do with it. Thank goodness MST3K never did a Master Ninja III.

#MST3K #reviews #master ninja 2 #80s

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lunawings · 5 years

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King of Prism Rose Party 2019 Orchestra Concert (10/13/2019)

So as usual I like to talk about the entire experience of the event to keep a record/help guide people who want to do stuff like this in the future, so if you only want to read about the parts of the show with the voice actors please skip to the end.

This was intended to be a 2-day event with a concert by the stage actors on the 12th and an orchestra concert on the 13th, but typhoon Hagibis cancelled the live show for the 12th (although it was streamed online) and delayed the 13th.

I woke up on the morning of the 13th waaaay too early, partially from excitement and partially from adrenaline from the typhoon probably....

Also it was a beautiful frikkin day. I don’t know the science of it, but the day after any typhoon is always sunny and just gorgeous.

If it weren’t for the elderly folk cleaning up the stray leaves and branches from the street you’d have never known what happened the previous night.

The original plan for the merch was that they would let us line up by 7, hand out tickets by 8, and start selling by 10 so I was planning to get there by at least 6 am originally. But, after the typhoon they announced merch sales would be from 12. Still, I ended up getting there at 8 since it was just so nice outside, I felt like I could use a walk, and because there was no other info I couldn’t help worrying about how things would really go down. The trains weren’t running that morning (or at least JR wasn’t) because they had to ensure the safety of the tracks or whatnot, so the only other people around were also fans that had decided to stay close to the venue. We loitered around awkwardly, every so often asking the staff what was going on only to be told that sales would start from 12 and still no other info.

But it was dangerous to stray too far away because we all knew there would be that “OK go” moment where we could all get in line, and where you decided to randomly loiter around would determine your position in line. That “OK go” moment finally came at around 11:15, and I ended up in the middle of an incredibly short line of only about 40 people or so. Is this really all there is? We wondered until about 11:30 when the line suddenly quadrupled and we realized ah, I guess the first train got in ahah.

Waiting in the line was really funny because this event took place during the Rugby World Cup, so there were a lot of bewildered middle-aged white people in rugby shirts just walking by and getting caught up in clouds of King of Prism fangirls. They would always stop and look at us like ?? then casually try and keep walking but then stop again for longer and look at us like what. Haha. Baby boomers were peeking in the windows to see what the heck all these Japanese girls (and one white girl) were lining up for and walking away more confused.

We thought they would just open sales at 12 like they said and go in order, but actually they handed out tickets anyway so the people who came by train had no disadvantage. (Still, even though it was random I got number 42 which was incredible.) The tickets ended up being kind of a joke though! Usually they call in large groups and you check online to see when your number would be coming up. But instead the guy was like.

“Okay, ready? Number 1... 2.... 3...!” Hahaha like WHAT! There was an awkward moment where someone had to admit to being number 1 in front of everyone or we couldn’t go in. (People looking around like OK WHAT BITCH PULLED NUMBER 1...) So I got into merch in roughly the amount of time it takes to slowly count to 42. They had so many registers and so much merch (and less people than usual) so everyone got in and out in like 30 minutes and bought everything they wanted. Incredible.

I think the only thing that sold out early-ish was the Torachi and Dorachi plushies and they weren’t even event exclusive.

When the doors opened for the event, people who had the “special” two-day tickets were given the special bonuses that came with them for both days of the event.

I put “special” in quotations because literally everyone there seemed to have the two-day tickets because there were zero people in the other line ahah. But I also guess maybe people with the two-day tickets were more likely to come on Friday like I did and avoided trouble with the trains? I dunno. Anyway.

The bonus for the orchestra concert was a coaster and some rose tea. The bonus for the stage show was a file with some cards in side (I guess they are supposed to be Edel Rose IDs?) one which reveals the stage actors when you turn it a certain way.

Holding the bonus in my hands which I would have received at the live stage show was the moment it finally hit me what could have been if only the show hadn’t been cancelled... ahhh..... hdldksjf.................

So, the concert.

It started up with just the orchestra, playing the background music from the movies/anime. Something I never really thought about before was about how the music from the first two movies is kind of non-specific. Like, although I definitely recognized all of it, I had trouble remembering exactly which scene(s) it was from. Meanwhile, although I am less familiar with the background music from SSS since the CD only just came out, there are a lot of songs which are specifically associated with certain characters and certain scenes. Like the music which plays during Leo’s flashback to his childhood, or the music that plays when Minato talks to his parents and decides to go back to Tokyo.

I used to go to orchestra/wind ensemble concerts all the time as a music student, but somewhere along the way I stopped. (WHY DID I STOP) Still, I haven’t been to many professional orchestra concerts, so I’m not used to things sounding so.... how should I say.... perfect ahah. There were a few times I had to stop and remind myself that this was actually live and not a recording.

There were a few times when I didn’t feel that need though. Like during the performance of the music which plays during the Schwarz Rose bath scene in SSS episode 1. That violin.... oh..... my...... lord...........................

As a flutist I have always been eternally confused at how string instruments work. Well I mean, I have held a guitar in my hands and been taught how to make chords so like I know... but still I just don’t know how it is possible to do... THAT......

The Schwarz Rose music in general really shook me. I noticed for the first time how few instruments they use compared with the background music for Edel Rose, and yet that makes the mood so much heavier. In addition to the Schwarz Rose stuff, the music they played which really gave me that full body chills experience included the piece from the scene where Hiro becomes Prism King, and all the Rinne/Shine stuff... that was..... oh wow...... I actually gave myself goosebumps again thinking about it.......... (I can kinda understand why they didn’t do a live viewing for this. It probably wouldn’t have been the same.)

So we were allowed to cheer it, but quietly with only one light in each hand. As you can imagine, the atmosphere was quite different with this being an orchestra concert and all. I tried to change colors as little as possible since the clicking just seemed SO LOUD. So I was just gonna keep red the whole time, but then I remembered the DVD so I tried to match everyone to make it look pretty for that.

But I realized after they will probably show the evening performance on the DVD anyhow because the theater was probably fuller then. Since the trains were down for most of the morning, there were a good amount of empty seats. It was about 85% full when it was supposed to be sold out originally. (But they did offer refunds for people who couldn’t make it.)

So about the voice actors.

Junta Terashima (Shin), Shouta Aoi (Louis), Tasuku Hatanaka (Taiga), Taku Yashiro (Kakeru), Masashi Igarashi (Minato), and Takuma Nagatsuka (Leo) were scheduled to attend. Originally it was just gonna be Shouta and Junta and the others were kinda tacked on later, so they had less to do (they only got to sing once) but of course it was wonderful to have them.

They first came out on stage while the orchestra was playing but of course we couldn’t cheer or react to them because the orchestra was playing so it was this like silent screaming until we could finally cheer for them hahah.

They were all wearing suits themed to their character colors except for Shouta Aoi who was wearing this elaborate suit/wedding dress combo with a huge train that kept getting stepped on and caught onto things several times during the show hahah ha....

(+one more special guest I’ll talk about later)

When they introduced themselves and we got to Masashi Igarashi, he made such a huge, overblown reaction to the crowd and was like FINALLY! I CAN HEAR YOU!

(This is because he’s the only one of the voice actors to be in the stage show cast as well, so yesterday he’d performed to an empty concert hall.)

I laughed..... but then felt this intense pang of inconsolable sadness. I hoped the stage actors were all backstage and would come out at the end just as a surprise so we could cheer for them. I WANTED TO CHEER FOR THEM THEY DESERVED IT SO MUCH. WHY.

But they never did.....

Huaaahhh........................

Well.

When it was Taku Yashiro’s turn he called out “WANBANKOOOO” to both the girls and guys like Kakeru would do. When it was time for the guys to repeat it I was surprised the response was a lot heartier than I was expecting! Despite being about zero men in the merch line, there were more than I realized at the show. How nice! It always makes me really happy when they call out to girls at Love Live events, so I was really happy for them.

In the middle they all did a talk session where they played and discussed scenes from the SSS anime where the music was significant.

And it was weird because.... while they were playing the scenes we all automatically cheered them like we would do in the theater. Except several of the voice actors were RIGHT THERE watching us react to their work. Come to think of it, it may have been a little strange for them to see us cheering for their work as if they weren’t there. It was almost like all walked in on each other naked for a second. I have been trying to think of the best way to describe it and that was all I could come up with ahaha....

When they showed Brilliant Oath I wasn’t sure if we were supposed to sing or not? I think they really wanted us to sing but people were afraid to. So I was mouthing the words really exaggeratedly and probably looked like such a weirdo haha.... I’m not going to jump to the conclusion that Junta Terashima was actually looking at me during this part, but I was singing to him and he was kinda looking over in my direction ///// The scene ended right before “Chikai no ring....” so there was this little “Chi--” from the audience when we didn’t know the scene was going to end and they all laughed at that.

While the orchestra was tuning up they joked about tuning up their characters. Takuma Nagatsuka was like “Saionji Leo Leo Leo”. Junta Terashima bragged about not having to tune, but they were all like nah you should really tune your Shin so he made a bunch of Shin yells in various pitches ahaha.

In the second half of the performance just Junta Terashima and Shouta Aoi came out and performed their songs. Shouta was up first, so when Junta left the stage he wished him luck as Shin.

Shouta got all flustered about it, and turned to the audience like “I wasn’t ready for that.”

AhhHHhwwrrgh I really want to see that again. But like I said I’m afraid the DVD will be ust the evening performance. (This and many interviews have shown he’s in love with Shin the character and it’s adorable.)

It was right at this moment, when Shouta Aoi was on the stage by himself, that it suddenly hit me all at once that this was my first time seeing him live. (Since he wasn’t at MRS and I wasn’t able to make the lottery for the 2018 Rose Party or the first SSS theater greeting. Since I have seen the other boys multiple times, and I have seen him at live viewings, I guess somehow it kind of slipped my mind.)

When he announced the first song (”Moonshine”) there was like, an audible gasp from the audience. Like actual SHOCK at the idea that he was ACTUALLY going to sing for us... (at an event where we already knew he was going to sing for us).... THE VERY IDEA.....

And when he announced his second song, I know Shangri La, same thing.

It’s so hard to describe what it’s like to be in his presence. He’s just so different from the other boys. It’s a whole other level. He’s just... I can’t.... I can’t even believe he exists. I felt this same sense of awe even at the live viewing for the 2018 Rose Party but now he was actually HERE only 24 rows away from me!? It did not seem like this could be possible. How could this be allowed. All I could think about the entire time he was singing was just: Angels are real and one of them is named Shouta Aoi.

And what’s even more amazing is he doesn’t even seem to fully realize??? Like how all these girls are just so in complete awe and entranced by him??? He has no ego at all!?! When he finished his songs he was just like “Ohhh I was so nervous!” after singing with a flawless voice from heaven. NNghghghg.

So after that, Junta Terashima came out to do Platonic Sword. As you may have noticed in the photo above, there was a special guest: Mitsuki Saiga (Shine)

She was supposed to be a surprise, but I knew since I saw her name in the pamphlet. (And I’m glad I did, because it gave me a couple hours to emotionally prepare.) So I was just waiting. Then suddenly the light came on and there she was.

So this was basically the first time I (or anyone?) got to hear Shine sing solo. I know Shine sings on the soundtrack version of Platonic Sword, but he sings together with Shin so it’s hard to separate his voice. Shine has.... a beautiful, deep voice. I’d.... I’d like to hear more of him. (But now I hear a bit of Hibiki from PriPara in it, which is another complex I have ahah.)

Seeing Platonic Sword Live was something I really needed. I’d been both dreading and looking forward to for a long time. That song/scene has always terrified me. But am I afraid of these two people?

Of course not.

The dissonance created by seeing Shin(e) on the screen with Junta voicing it below was incredible. As I hoped it would, it made me feel ready to deal with something I have been avoiding dealing with for a while: And that is that even though Shine made him do it, Platonic Sword is still a part of Shin and I need to accept that. After the concert I went back and listened to the full version from the soundtrack for the very first time. It still creeped me out but, I’m getting there...

So, I have seen Mitsuki Saiga before, at the Pretty Live, but it was a lot different seeing her so much closer vs. in the giant Makuhari Messe. Also she definitely seemed a bit more comfortable wearing a blazer instead of Hibiki cosplay ahah.

Her speaking voice is so naturally deep. Like, noticeably deeper than Junta Terashima and Shouta Aoi. When she left the stage after the three had a talk session, Junta and Shouta agreed on how much cooler she is than them hahahah.....

But the best part was how she said that when she voiced Shine, apparently no one told her what kind of a character he was because he was still secret or whatever. They were like “Just do it” and she was like “.....what!?” Then later when people told her how much Shine scared them she was like “Really!?” HAHAHAH.

Before this session ended they did a Shin/Louis duet of Silent Promise. So for people saying the photos looked like a wedding.... basically it was.

After all that they made the big announcement of the King of Prism era Prism Show Best 10. Masashi Igarashi made an increasingly frantic bid for us to vote for Minato which really hit me and made me actually give him my vote when I got home. If you bought the soundtrack CD and got the serial code I’d encourage you to also PLEASE PLEASE vote for Minato as well. He really needs a break.

Also Taku Yashiro did promise natural gas if you vote for Kakeru, so there is that too. But.

At the end of the concert when they were saying their goodbyes, I was holding up my big Shin fan and neso plush while Junta Terashima was talking. I don’t think he saw me though, because I was kinda too far back to be noticed easily and he was concentrating on talking. I think Tasuku Hatanaka might have though, which would be really funny if true. Because he looked in my direction and kinda made a face like “heh”. It made me want to bring some Taiga stuff for next time. I re-remembered the best way to get their attention is when they are not talking, because they will be kinda aimlessly scanning the crowd and if you do something (tasteful) to attract their attention during that time (like holding something up) it might actually work.

The last thing they did was an orchestra backed version of Dramatic Love and it was..... the near definitive version, the most beautiful Dramatic Love I have ever heard and it changed the song for me forever........... I.... I feel bad because it wasn’t all of them but. BUT! They gave Yukinojo’s lines to Louis and it just... it just sounded so good. Since Yukinojo usually sings before or after Shin (since SePTENTRION sings in order a lot since they are like that) I kinda want to hear Yukinojo replaced by Louis in more SePTENTRION songs. I mean I like Yukinojo’s voice fine but... BUT!!! For Yu’s lines they split them among the other characters. There was one point where Takuma Nagatsuka had to sing two lines in a row and he seemed to maybe have a little trouble stringing them together because he wasn’t used to it. (Like *finishes phrase* *split second of oh crap I have to sing again* *next phrase* eheh I love him.)

Music Ready Sparking was great and the next concert is going to be great too. But there was something really special about this one to me. I think I probably enjoyed the orchestra-only parts a bit more than your average attendee because of my music background, but that combined the smaller venue really made it magical. I really, really hope they do more of these.

#king of prism #kinpri #rose party #rose party 2019 #prism orchestra #junta terashima #shouta aoi

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bl-danmei-yaoi · 5 years

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Lan Xichen’s Guide on How to Confess

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19986748

#1: Do a meta-analysis on all relevant resource material on confessing #2: Do not use mainstream roses #3: Avoid cockblocks (aka Xue Yang) *IMPORTANT #4: NEVER GIVE UP **IMPORTANT

“Wangji… How did you confess to Wei Wuxian?” Lan Xichen randomly asks his younger brother one day.

“…” Lan Wangji does not say a word but by the 1% reddening of the tips of his ears, Lan Xichen could tell that Lan Wangji is embarrassed.

“Ahahaha… Big bro! Do you think Lan Zhan will ever confess? Of course, it was me who did!” Wei Wuxian laughs, popping out of nowhere.

“Ah… Then how did you confess to Wangji?” Lan Xichen asks Wei Wuxian.

“Of course, I- Mmmp!!!” Before Wei Wuxian could answer, Lan Wangji had covered his mouth with his hands, ears reddening obviously now. Flailing around his arms, Wei Wuxian tries to escape Lan Wangji’s grasps.

“Why does big brother want to know?” Lan Wangji asks, not wanting to let Wei Wuxian tell his brother about their confession scene.

This time, it is Lan Xichen’s cheeks that flush pink. Scratching the back of his ear nervously, Lan Xichen admits, “There’s someone I want to confess to…”

“Ah!” Wei Wuxian finally manages to break free. “Big bro! You finally have worldly desires! Who is this special person who managed to finally move the heart of the world’s most eligible bachelor?”

“I… I will introduce him to you all when he agrees to my confession…” Lan Xichen replies, uncharacteristically shy. “But I kind of need help confessing…”

“Well then, I don’t think referencing my confession will do you any good, big bro. It kind of depends on the situation. You see, Lan Zhan and I are schoolmates and we were already friends. But you’re the CEO of the country’s largest corporation and I don’t know who the other is and how well you know each other. But regardless, you need a confession befitting your status as a rich CEO.” Wei Wuxian replies, a sly smile appearing briefly on his face. Only Lan Wangji who knows Wei Wuxian very well notices.

“Wei Ying…” Lan Wangji warns. Although he would usually indulge in Wei Wuxian’s mischief, this concerned his actual blood-related brother after all.

Understanding Lan Wangji’s concern, Wei Wuxian pats Lan Wangji’s back to tell him not to worry. “Of course, since I myself don’t understand your situation, I have a few books you can reference. I’ll send you the links!”

When Lan Xichen clicks on the links to find books titled “The Overbearing President Falls in Love with Me”, “The Overbearing President’s Runaway Wife”, “The Overbearing President’s Little Pampered Wife”, and other similarly titled books, he is a little hesitant. However, deciding to make every possible effort, Lan Xichen reads the books anyway.

After reading all the books, Lan Xichen uses an Excel Spreadsheet to make a meta-analysis of all the books. Looking through his analysis, Lan Xichen feels conflicted. The most common method in the books is also very cringey, while the least common is the most acceptable. Moreover, the latter is also very plain and boring. Thinking about the soft and gentle smile and deep dimples, Lan Xichen decides to go with the latter. Because even if that failed, Lan Xichen is sure that he will not be repulsed by the other.

The next day, Lan Xichen buys a single red rose and goes to the production location of Meng Yao’s latest drama.

“Ah! Mr Lan! Welcome!” The director happily walks up to greet Lan Xichen. After all, Lan Xichen is the drama’s biggest investor.

Lan Xichen gives a nod in response. “Where is Meng Yao?”

“Ah… It is not yet his time for filming so Meng Yao is in his waiting room. Let me bring you there!” The director answers enthusiastically, secretly thinking that Lan Xichen must be Meng Yao’s “sponsor”. In the entertainment industry, it is not uncommon for celebrities to find themselves “sponsors” or “sugar daddies” who would give them better opportunities in return for their “time”.

Of course, it is not only the director who thought that Lan Xichen is Meng Yao’s “sponsor”. The other actors that are on scene also thought so. Immediately, many of these actors became sour with jealousy. Lan Xichen is not only very wealthy, but also young and handsome. Unlike most “sponsors” who were old and slimy, Lan Xichen is very desirable. However, despite many attempts to climb into Lan Xichen’s bed, no one has ever succeeded. Hence, they became very salty, thinking that Meng Yao actually succeeded in climbing Lan Xichen’s bed.

Oblivious to what is happening outside, Meng Yao was chatting with his best frenemy, Xue Yang, when Lan Xichen enters the waiting room. Lan Xichen did not expect anyone else other than Meng Yao to be there. Nonetheless, he gathers up his courage, presenting Meng Yao with the rose.

“Ah Yao… I like y-“ Before Lan Xichen can confess, he is interrupted.

“Ah! What’s this? Just a normal red rose? And only one? Sigh… So mainstream… What a lack of sincerity!” Xue Yang drawls as he snatches the rose out of Lan Xichen’s hands. Sniffing the rose, Xue Yang adds, “Bah… Smells terrible too.”

Not waiting for Meng Yao to reject him, Lan Xichen immediately bows his head and apologises. “I… I will do better! Give me another chance! Wait for me!”

With that, Lan Xichen leaves. Sighing, Meng Yao turns to give Xue Yang a deadpan stare. This is why Xue Yang is his frenemy and not his friend.

“What?! Come on, shorty. Just a normal rose? And you’re going to accept it? It’s the most stereotypical and standard flower for confessing. And it’s not even 99 roses! Just one! And he’s supposedly the most eligible bachelor! I’m doing this for your own good. You deserve much better.” Xue Yang defends.

Rolling his eyes, Meng Yao grabs the rose out of Xue Yang’s hands. He knows that Xue Yang just found enjoyment in watching Lan Xichen awkward attempts to chase him. Smelling the rose, Meng Yao smiles happily, heart beating fast in his chest.

Xue Yang watches as his friend’s cheeks redden, shaking his head and sighing. Honestly, both of them know that Meng Yao also enjoyed Lan Xichen’s awkward wooing. While Xue Yang’s enjoyment came from pure amusement, Meng Yao’s enjoyment came from the feeling of being loved. Being brought up by a single mom who died early, Meng Yao had grown up lacking love. And so, despite Lan Xichen’s awkward actions, Meng Yao could sense the love and it made him happy. Hence, Meng Yao did not want to accept Lan Xichen so quickly. He is also afraid that once they start dating, Lan Xichen would spend less time and effort on him, or that Lan Xichen’s feelings for him will slowly disappear. Because that was what happened to Meng Yao’s mother, Meng Shi.

Meng Shi had easily agreed to his father, Jin Guangshan’s confession. But Jin Guangshan is a jerk with a perfect façade. Meng Shi had fallen for Jin Guangshan’s façade, thinking that this was a chivalrous loving gentleman. However, Jin Guangshan is a jerk who likes playing around, quickly losing interest in Meng Shi who he had chased with ease. If Jin Guangshan could abandon the pregnant Meng Shi so easily, Meng Yao is afraid that he would make the same mistake as Meng Shi in trusting a lie. Hence, Meng Yao decides to wait out to see Lan Xichen’s sincerity. And even if Lan Xichen ever gets tired of him, Meng Yao feels like at least he has the memories of being loved and wooed.

That night, when Lan Xichen returned from the filming location, he began to evaluate where he went wrong. Firstly, from Xue Yang’s reminder, Lan Xichen decides that normal red roses are too mainstream. Next, he needed to ensure that there is no source of interruption. However, Lan Xichen is rather confused. Giving flowers was the least common method of confessing from his meta-analysis of the books, so why is it considered mainstream? Deciding to ask Wei Wuxian for help, Lan Xichen learns from Wei Wuxian that flowers were mainstream for ordinary people. Rich and powerful CEOs had different standards, so purely giving flowers was not common. After all, flowers did not show off their wealth, power and ability to care for and protect their significant other.

However, looking at the other possible options, Lan Xichen feels like he has no hope. The other methods seem a bit too wild and out of his own character. Some are against his own morals and probably illegal too, such as such using drugs or alcohol. Others seemed to be humiliating rather than confessing to the other, like offering to be their “sponsor”. Meng Yao is strong, smart and hard-working, and definitely would not accept short-cuts like getting a “sponsor”. Then, there are biologically impossible methods, such as getting the other pregnant. Lan Xichen’s brain went dead for a long while when he was first introduced to the idea of mpreg. Shaking his head at all these less “mainstream” methods, Lan Xichen decides that mainstream was better than hurting his world views.

A week later, Lan Xichen plans for a romantic dinner at a restaurant that had a contract with his company, convincing Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian to help by playing the ambient music there. Of course, Lan Xichen does not forget to reserve the entire restaurant. Not only was this because it is “expected of a CEO to show off his wealth”, but also because Meng Yao is a celebrity and it would not be good if they are caught by fans or the paparazzi.

Communicating with Meng Yao’s manager, Lan Xichen comes to the filming location as Meng Yao end his work for the day. Seeing that Meng Yao is alone, Lan Xichen quickly invites the other out for dinner.

Seeing Lan Xichen’s look of anticipation, Meng Yao agrees. Fist bumping himself in his mind, Lan Xichen beams brightly, thinking that he’s at least succeeded 20%. But just then, he hears the same dreaded languid voice popping out of nowhere.

“Aiyah… I’m also very hungry…” Xue Yang complains, swinging and arm over Meng Yao’s back. “Mr Lan, you won’t mind if I join y’all?”

For once in his life, Lan Xichen feels like cussing. However, his upbringing makes Lan Xichen smile and generously agree.

“What would you like to eat?” Lan Xichen asks, passing Meng Yao the menu when they reach the restaurant.

“Oooh… Look at all the dessert!” Xue Yang says, not allowing Meng Yao to respond. “Aye… Look at this crème caramel pudding, shorty! It looks just like you!”

Although Lan Xichen did not want to agree with this cockblocker, he could not help but agree with that observation. For a brief moment, Lan Xichen wonders if Meng Yao would taste as soft and sweet as the pudding. Shaking the thoughts from his mind, Lan Xichen returns to a reality where Xue Yang takes every opportunity to stop him from talking to Meng Yao.

At the end of the day, Lan Xichen can only comfort himself by eating a crème caramel pudding for dessert, wishing that he had the person rather than the dessert.

After this failed attempt, Lan Xichen feels lost. He isn’t sure what other options he should choose. Having personally seen the main cause of Lan Xichen’s failure, Wei Wuxian suggests writing a confession letter. Although it is very not “CEO-like”, at least it is less likely to be hindered by Xue Yang. However, Lan Xichen does not know what to write in the letter, other than “I like you, please go out with me”. However, before Lan Xichen could slowly evaluate what to write, he gets busy with work as a problem comes up. And so, for the next whole month, Meng Yao does not see or hear from Lan Xichen.

“Come on, shorty. Lighten up! It’s just a guy, no need to get down. His sincerity is only like that. Get rejected twice and he’s already given up. There’s no point getting upset over a jerk.” Xue Yang comforts a sad Meng Yao. Meng Yao had thought that he was prepared. In the first week of no contact, Meng Yao was still confident that Lan Xichen was preparing for another confession. In the second week, his confidence had dwindled, but he also felt like it was expected. In the third week, Meng Yao had already given up. By as the month passed, Meng Yao was suddenly hit by disappointment. After all, he really liked Lan Xichen. Even though they did not know each other for a long time, Meng Yao felt like his future is linked with the other, just as their past is. Even though it is crazy and illogical, Meng Yao feels like there’s a red string of fate tying them together, a promise from another life that allowed their encounter in this life. It was one of the reasons why Meng Yao believed that Lan Xichen will continue to chase him even after being interrupted from confessing a couple of times.

And so, when Lan Xichen did not appear again in his life for a month, Meng Yao felt betrayed. Shaking his head, Meng Yao thinks that he is a fool, just like his mother. Men are just large pig trotters that cannot be trusted.

“Don’t worry, shorty. If he comes to the filming wrap-up dinner tonight, I’ll punch him for you.” Xue Yang promises, causing Meng Yao to roll his eyes. Nonetheless, it comforts Meng Yao. At least, he still had a friend.

However, when they get to the restaurant for the wrap-up dinner, they do not see Lan Xichen. Disappointed, Meng Yao uncharacteristically indulges in the alcohol, accepting whenever the other investors of the drama offered him drinks. Given Meng Yao’s beauty and disposition, he should not be drinking so much in such a place, because there are many investors who would force themselves on the celebrities, and Meng Yao was like a lamb surrounded by a group of wolves. However, Meng Yao is feeling desolate, and he also trusted Xue Yang. Before Xue Yang was adopted by the Xiao family, they both stayed in a foster home together. And even after Xue Yang was adopted, they still stayed in close contact. Although not as powerful as the Lan family, the Xiao family is still one of the most influential families, allowing Xue Yang to be wilful in the entertainment industry. And as Xue Yang’s close friends, most people know not to mess with Meng Yao too. Especially not directly.

Of course, there are always people who are crafty and not afraid to die. When Meng Yao drunkenly goes to the toilet, one of the investors follow along, attempting to take advantage of Meng Yao’s drunkenness. The investor came from a wealthy family as well, and he did not believe that the Xiao family will go against his family just for an adopted son’s friend.

“Hehe… Little Meng Yao. Do you think that brat Xue Yang can save you?” The slimy investor mocks as he raises an arm to trap Meng Yao against the wall.

Meng Yao narrows his eyes, anger seeping out those normally gentle large doe eyes. “Get the fuck off me, you filthy pig.”

The insult makes the investor grin. “Hahahaha. Feisty little vixen. Always acting so sweet and innocent when you’re actually a filthy slut. You can seduce any man with just a look. Everyone thinks you’re a pure flower when I’m sure you’ve already slept with a thousand man. Instead of serving that brat Xue Yang, why don’t you come warm my bed instead? Xue Yang is only a child, but I am a man. I can definitely satisfy you better.”

Meng Yao wants to puke. Normally, Meng Yao would smile and try to talk his way out without offending anyone. Learning to please the people around him was how Meng Yao learned to survive in this harsh world. Although others will mock him for being a yes man and people pleaser, at least it is limited to only these insults. At least, it allowed him to have so-called “friends” who would talk to him and involve him in their activities. Before Meng Yao learned how to survive in this world, he had been bullied in school, the target for everyone’s pranks and frustrations. All because he had a single mom, then, because he was an orphan. They would call him nasty things, such as a bearer of ill-luck that was so terrible that his father did not want him and that caused his mother to die. And because he did not have parents who would call the school and protect him, the teachers did not care, some even joining in picking on him. And so, Meng Yao had to learn to survive by being a people pleaser. If you stroked their ego, they were less likely to insult you and be more willing to accept you. After all, by keeping Meng Yao around, they got someone who would routinely raise their self-confidence.

However, at this point in time, not only is Meng Yao drunk, but he is also angry because of Lan Xichen’s disappearance. Seeing the slimy investor in front of him, Meng Yao only feels like the other is a perfect outlet for his frustrations. Throwing a fist, Meng Yao punches the slimy investor’s nose. And despite his small frame, Meng Yao had a lot of strength in those arms, having learnt martial arts to protect himself in times of emergency. Shocked by Meng Yao’s punch, the investor clutches his nose, feeling blood under his palms.

“You want to do this the hard way? Fine! Don’t regret this!” The investor shouts, enraged. Meng Yao tries to escape the other’s clutches, but the alcohol made it difficult for him to fight. The only reason why he managed to punch the other the first time was because the other was not prepared. The investor grabbed Meng Yao’s chin, forcing Meng Yao’s head up to look him in the eye before leaning in to force a kiss. Meng Yao feels like his bones were cracking under that hand, struggling futilely. Being unable to escape, Meng Yao desperately clenches his mouth tight. And since he closed his eyes, he did not see as the slimy investor is pulled off him and thrown into another wall.

Opening his eyes in confusion at the loss of the pressure on his chin, Meng Yao sees a familiar person with an unfamiliar look of fury. Meng Yao stares entranced as Lan Xichen repeatedly punches the slimy investor, his drunken haze preventing him from thinking. It is only when he notices that the investor has stopped moving that Meng Yao snaps out of his trance, running forward to stop Lan Xichen from beating up the other man any more.

“Let me beat him! This filthy bastard! I’ll kill him!” Lan Xichen shouts angrily, struggling to free his hand from Meng Yao without hurting the latter.

“Enough! Any more and he’s really going to die!” Meng Yao exclaims.

“Good,” Lan Xichen replies calmly, voice cold and unfeeling. Lan Xichen is going to use his other, non-dominant hand when he hears Meng Yao groaning in discomfort. “Ah Yao! What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

Shaking his head, Meng Yao rushes into the toilet, puking into the toilet bowl. Lan Xichen follows behind, helping Meng Yao comb his hair away from his face and gently patting his back to soothe him. After puking the contents of his stomach out, Meng Yao leans tiredly against the cubicle wall, staring scornfully at Lan Xichen.

Seeing Meng Yao’s eyes filled with anger and disappointment, Lan Xichen gets anxious. But seeing Lan Xichen’s flustered expression, Meng Yao softens, quietly whispering, “I’ve been waiting…”

“I… I’m sorry… There was a problem at work and I wanted to make sure I’ve prepared to make my next confession before we met so…” Lan Xichen tries to explain.

“So you’re ready to confess now?” Meng Yao asks, eyes brightening in anticipation.

“Yeah… I rushed down here after finishing up my work. And I also wrote you a letter in case your friend interrupts again… And… I also bought you peonies… Because they mean completeness, wealth, auspiciousness and happiness, and these are what I want to give to you.” Lan Xichen says, voice serious.

Meng Yao feels his heart skip a beat. Completeness, wealth, auspiciousness and happiness… These are all the things that Meng Yao wants. The feeling of emptiness and loneliness following his mother’s death, the tireless days of working nonstop for money, the insults of being a bearer of ill-luck, and the pain and sadness of struggling through life alone… All of that seemed to disappear with Lan Xichen’s words, causing tears to fill Meng Yao’s eyes.

“What’s wrong? Did I say something wrong?” Lan Xichen asks worriedly when he sees Meng Yao start to cry.

Shaking his head furiously, Meng Yao sniffles, forcing himself not to cry. “So where are these flowers and the letter?”

“Ah! I dropped them when I saw you being cornered…” Lan Xichen suddenly recalls, anxiously standing up to find the said items.

Seeing Lan Xichen’s response, Meng Yao laughs happily. Pulling Lan Xichen’s hand to stop him from leaving, Meng Yao says, “I like you… Please go out with me.”

Lan Xichen’s eyes widen comically at Meng Yao’s confession, quickly squatting back down to stare into Meng Yao’s eyes, trying to ensure that he understood correctly. Smiling deeply, Meng Yao wraps his hands around Lan Xichen’s neck, meeting the other’s gaze.

“Can I kiss you?” Lan Xichen asks excitedly.

“If you don’t mind the taste of puke,” Meng Yao laughs. Meng Yao did not expect it, but Lan Xichen leans in to kiss him anyway. After a long make-out session, Lan Xichen finally lets go of Meng Yao’s lips, both panting hard for air. Meng Yao’s face is flushed a deep red, both from the lack of air and from embarrassment. “Now you’re just going to remember that our first kiss tastes like puke!”

“That’s not true. Ah Yao is sweet.” Lan Xichen grins mischievously, watching with delight as Meng Yao’s cheeks deepen in colour. Shyly avoiding Lan Xichen’s eyes, Meng Yao pushes the other way, making to stand up.

“Well then, all I tasted was puke so let me go wash out my mouth!” Meng Yao complains softly. But when Meng Yao walks out of the cubicle, he sees Xue Yang watching them with amusement, Lan Xichen’s letter and flowers in hand. Lan Xichen also catches sight of Xue Yang, immediately wondering if the other has some kind of sensor for whenever he confesses to Meng Yao. At the very least, Lan Xichen is grateful that Xue Yang did not cockblock him again this time.

“Congrats, shorty. I dealt with that unconscious filth outside by the way.” Xue Yang grins.

“Thank you,” Lan Xichen replies sincerely, taking the letter and flowers from Xue Yang.

“You look like a freshly cooked prawn by the way,” Xue Yang turns to tell Meng Yao, mirth seeping through his voice.

“Fuck off!” Meng Yao shouts, turning the tap on so as to drown out Xue Yang’s voice.

“And you, if you ever hurt that little shorty, I’ll kill you and your entire family.” Xue Yang warns Lan Xichen quietly, eyes sharp and serious. Lan Xichen nods gravely, swearing to Xue Yang.

He will protect and love Meng Yao forever, and will never once doubt or betray Meng Yao. Lan Xichen swore this with his life.

#xiyao #fanfic #XiYaoWeek2019

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double-danganronpa-lost-faith · 5 years

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DDR:LF Progress Log

Hi everyone! Welcome to the first progress log.

It’s a post where I put all the things I’ve done for the fanganronpa so far that I haven’t posted anywhere; most of them are WIPs or Betas. It also works for me as a way to keep track of how far I’ve come.

Today’s post contains the following:

Character Bios (previously only available in the DR amino) and FAQ

4 WIPs of important CGs (well... more like 2)

3 Different types of Animation Tests

WIP/Beta of the GUI Design

Next objectives

If you’re interested in checking this post, keep reading it down below!

By the way, feel free to join the fangan’s discord server by going to this link https://discordapp.com/invite/aSd6PN4 ^^ with that being said, let’s begin the post~!

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Character Bios and FAQ

To start this blog AND this post on a right note, I’m finally posting on tumblr the character bios, which means you can now access to the information from each member of the cast of DDR:LF, which was previously only available in amino. You can find them in this post.

As for the other part, I wrote a FAQ with the main sort of questions there could be about the fangan. Feel free to give it a read here if you want to know about some basic stuff about the project, and if you still have doubts, please do send an ask! I’ll gladly answer it ^^

WIPs of CGs

You didn’t think that the only drawing I was working on were sprites, right?

In today’s post, here are some CGs WIPs that I didn’t get around to finish yet (since their priority is below the character sprites, but it’s a nice change instead of doing sprites 24/7).

First, the pre-trial CGs!

There are some expressions/positions that I might be willing to change, although that’ll come in later when I gotta sit down to finish these. But yeah, later. (Also, just to be clear, I drew these waaay back, so the designs might not match the current ones).

In a trial, depending the type of chapter, the 1st CG and 3rd one will switch places. The one that appears last will be the one that contains the protagonist whose POV we are witnessing.

Second, one of every prologue’s main CGs. “The killing game has begun!”

Looks of doubt and deceith are flying across the room! Who will make it through the end of the day? And who’ll be left behind~?

It might seem pretty basic without them being colored, but hopefully it’ll look better in the future!

Animation Tests

Man, this was a lot of fun to work on, and it was all worth it! I hope you all enjoy these as much as I did while trying to materialize these concepts!

#1 - Prologue Title Card

Every chapter of this story has a title card, just like the original danganronpa games. In the case of DDR:LF, this is more or less what each card will look like.

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It’s kinda basic; elements being added to the screen here and there, as well as some silhouettes appearing.

What are these silhouettes, you might ask? It’s none other than the cast of the fangan, but it’s not just anybody who’s randomly picked. The silhouettes belong to the victims and the murderers of the current chapter, so for example, chapter 1 will have the silhouette of the 1st victim and the 1st murderer, but it’ll be modified enough for the silhouette to not be easily recognizable; nobody wants to get spoiled the deaths right at the start of the chapter, right?

Of course, the prologue is an exception... maybe.

A bit of the BGM was done by me, while some other elements of it were taken off from royalty free sound effects/melodies websites.

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#2 - Pixel Execution

As you all know, there’s always a pixel animation that starts off an execution. I have that too, of course! and in order to avoid spoilers + show you what I was able to do, I put myself in the place of the culprit. (I swear I didn’t kill off anyone yet... only after the fangan has started I’ll be considered guilty).

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The background music was also composed entirely by me, although in the future it might change- but I don’t really know for certain, so get used to this for now :)

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#3 - Execution style test

I’ve recently downloaded the program Live2D, and what for? For executions, no less! After trying it for a while, I’ve concluded that it’d simplify my job a lot more than if I used sony vegas for animating the executions (not to mention it looks smoother with this new one).

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For this test, I’ve used Seiji as my puppet. It might be simple, but it was to test out the limits of the program. It turned out really good imo! So I’ve decided to use Live2D to animate the executions (or at least, do most parts of them with it). I learnt some stuff while experimenting around with the program, so next time I’ll finish these sort of things even faster probably.

Also I put it on loop because a 2 second video is rather sad.

GUI Design

Now, I'll admit that I'm not the best at GUI design, but I tried my best to come up with my own design for the fanganronpa's interface, which I made based on a water-ish looking theme. The (not final) result of that is the picture below.

In case that you’re wondering, no, this isn’t any sort of canon conversation. It’s just the phrase I could come up with.

And yes, the background is from V3; I don't have any backgrounds at all for the project yet lol.

The sun and the fish on the top right corner will change depending on the time of day; but that's something that I'll keep to myself until the moment I start posting the story.

I have conflicted feelings with this GUI though, I don't know if I like it or not. It looks somewhat good but still off at the same time? Although it might just be me. If anyone has any feedback or suggestion for the GUI's design, the inbox is always open to receive such help!

So what's next?

Currently, I have loads of assignments at college, so it's kinda hard to make a balance between the project, social life and college work. However, the project is something that won’t stop.

The fangan has only one member, which is me of course; that means it’s going at a slow pace. I'm willing to make a recruitment for help, but that’ll be later once I have the basics to let someone else help me. If you’re willing to volunteer for this project, keep heads eyes up for the day I call out for help.

In the past, I tried to learn how to program with unity, but it’s hard to follow it up when the free tutorials are scattered here and there. When I have free time and everything art-related has been set up, I might try to pick it up again. I say might because I’m gonna start a tiny course for unreal engine at college. Maybe with the basics that they teach there, I’ll be able to do a better/quicker job than if I did it with unity (which I have 0 experience with). But the future is uncertain, so I’ll be the judge of that once I’m done with that course!

With that being said... as of now, the next objectives for the project (not ordered by priority) are the following:

Finishing Default Sprites.

I only have 7 default sprites done out of the 16 students, and I’m already working on the 8th. Half-way there?

Concept Art for each Room/Place.

While I have written down all the places in each dome, there are some that I need to draw the concept of the place, since the idea in my mind keeps changing them, I should settle them down.

Finishing Writing the Prologue and the Basics of Chapter 1.

I mean I already have like a half of these two things or more, but since I keep changing it, they never get any actual progress. Maybe I should learn to let it be as it is lol.

Creating 3D Assets.

Of course, I’ll make the 3D models for the rooms and props... well, I might do them; that is if I can’t find anyone that can make them. Pros of this is that I can do things exactly how I want them; cons are that it takes time and I’m not an expert in 3D modeling.

Trial GUI.

Class trials in danganronpa have a different GUI than the one used outside of them. We have a beta for the general GUI up there, now we need one for the class trial’s as well!

Concept Art for... a Trial Thing.

It’s no surprise that there are special things in fanganronpas, such as making changes to certain game mechanics, or creating completely new ones. The one I’m refering to in this case is a change to an already existing mechanic in the DR games. Can you guess which one it is~?

Splash Art.

During the first year of birthdays, I drew some sketches for the characters; those are the base for their future splash art.

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And last (and currently least important)

Recruiting Volunteers for the Project.

Obviously, I can’t do everything in this project by myself. In the future, once I have made a base for every ground of the project, I’ll recruit people that can work from there. Artists (GUI,CG and Sprite), Compositors, and 3D modelers are the ones that I’ll be looking for in this recruitment. In an even-later recruitment, I’ll make a casting call for voice actors as well. Please be patient though!

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I suppose that’s it for this very long post. It took more days than expected to put everything together, but at last I can release it now!

Now, June and July are pretty busy months at college, so unfortunatelly the progress will slow down a lot more than usual for the next few weeks. Thanks for sticking around this project despite the long road it has ahead! ^^

See you all in the next post! And if you read this entire thing, thank you for your interest in the fangan! <3

#progress log #double danganronpa lost faith #byu talks #wips #tests

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kathryninjapan · 5 years

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May 27th - Kabuki Performance

Posters advertising the current shows at Kabukiza theater

Today we spent the majority of the day at a kabuki performance. Traditionally, these events take all day, but we went to a shortened version that ran from 11-3:30. The theater was located in Ginza and was the largest kabuki theater in Japan. We walked in and got portable translators, which added live subtitles to the show. Because these plays have multiple acts and scenes, they can take hours to complete. Usually, one or two scenes from several shows are performed together, showing the best from each show.

The first performance was The Revenge of the Soga Brothers, and this was my least favorite of the three. The story, though funny in retelling, took very long to go anywhere. This was partially because the actors spoke incredibly slow and in very superfluous language. The second one, though, was my favorite. It is one of the “18 favorite Kabuki plays,” a title which is well deserved. The jokes hit really well, and the pace was perfect. I really liked the actor who played Benkei, because his quips were perfect and kept the scene interesting.

The final play was slightly different because 4 scenes were shown. I actually felt the most at home watching this one, as it was the most modern and the closest to a western play in style. There was an introduction to the issue between the wrestlers and the firemen, an intense home drama scene, and a dynamic fight scene that I loved watching. If anything, I didn’t like that we were on the balcony level, as the stage-fighting was meant to be seen from the 1st floor. So there were some funny moments where things very clearly didn't touch but the actors would still roll on the floor after the ‘impact.’

After this, we headed home. We passed James, another UF student not on the program, randomly on a crosswalk right outside our apartment! It was such a crazy coincidence, but we couldn’t talk for long because his program had something to do. Then we had early dinner of (more) udon, because any time Tristan has a say in where we go that's what happens.

Academic Reflection

Reading the kabuki play last night, it was interesting to see all of the similarities between western theater tropes and kabuki, even though they were developed without any connection to one another. Both were used to make fun of higher classes, and both also used the comedy of 3s, where a joke is repeated 3 times for maximum effect. Additionally, although the staging of much of the scenes had minimal movement, the stage pictures created used the same tactics as western theater. In the first one, the lord was situated in the middle and upstage, suggesting power. Additionally, the two female characters were slightly offset from one another, which created visual interest.

Another interesting thing was that the females were all played by male actors. This is the same as Shakespearian theater, however, in other areas of the world women have been allowed back into the theater sphere. This hasn't translated yet in Japan, so the female characters were fun to watch. Their voices were strangely high and very nasally, but it was impressive how well the men mimicked the movement of a female body. Traditionally, these men set fashion trends for actual women, which I can definitely understand. The outfits worn on stage were extravagant to a fault, and I loved watching the flashy jewelry and vivid colors on stage.

The reason I stayed alert during the first act

Automatic subtitle machine at the theater

Outside of the Kabukiza theater

Backdrop between shows in the intermission between shows

#japan #japanese #study abroad #kabuki #culture #ginza #tokyo #coffee #travel

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puddygeeks · 6 years

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Another month, another favourites post! Is it me or is this year just flying past already! I keep getting lost about which month we’re on. I’ll take that as a positive, as they say time flies when you’re having fun. So let’s get into what I’ve enjoyed this month!

Beauty

Urban Decay Naked Cherry Palette

It’s hardly a surprise to me that I’m impressed with this as a long term fan of Urban Decay palettes. I knew from the moment I saw it announced on their Instagram page that I wanted this desperately. It was a pretty big deal for me to buy a new palette, as let’s be honest they’re not particularly cheap and I’ve been more onto Makeup Revolutions palettes for £8 for the last few years. I decided that since I hadn’t bought myself a luxury palette in ten years and I hadn’t been able to source the one I wanted whilst in the States as planned, it was about time to invest in another. As per usual, the pigment in this is fantastic and the colour selection is charming. It helps that the colours perfectly fit my aesthetic, and they’ve allowed me to recreate many of the looks that I’ve had saved on my Pinterest for years but not had the right colours for. This palette gets a massive thumbs up from me and I have to be honest, I’m in love.

TRESemmé Colour Revitalise Colour Fade Protection Shampoo & Conditioner

I’ve been a long term user of Kallos products from Notino, especially because of the size bottles that you can get for very reasonable prices. However this time I decided to try something I could just pick up quick and easy from boots, and these huge bottles of Tresemme were half price. I’d had a little test of them as Hollie bought them first and I was pretty impressed. I recently recoloured my hair, and so it’s important for me to keep that colour looking fresh for as long as possible. After using these for the month, I must admit I’m very happy with the condition of my hair. It’s smooth and silky, easy to style and nowhere near as knotty. My colour is also still looking fabulous and at least to me, it doesn’t look like it’s faded at all. If you’d like to give it a go, it’s still only £3 a bottle at Boots which is a total bargain!

So…? Bali Breeze body mist

I originally bought a mini bottle of this in the travel minis section of Boots before my trip to Florida. I wanted something summery and fresh that I could keep in my park bag. I didn’t end up using it as I was gifted a cute little Ted Baker set for my birthday, and so ended up taking that instead. Recently, I decided to change up my daily fragrance and found this hanging out in one of my drawers and I am obsessed. As far as I remember, when I bought it, it was only £1 for a 50ml bottle, which will last me a while. To me at least, it smells like holidays and the beach, and gives me a little smile every morning when I spray it on. In my opinion, it’s well worth a pound for your own holiday feeling every morning. And much cheaper than the Orangasm by Soap and Glory that was my previous summer scent.

Schwarzkopf LIVE Colour Ultra Brights – 094 Purple Punk

If you any of you remember my multicoloured barnett from just before Florida, you’ll probably be quite surprised to see that I’ve gone back to dying my hair at home. To be perfectly honest, it was my absolute favourite hair colour that I’ve ever had, but at a pricy £115 it’s just not within my budget at the moment. I probably will continue going to the salon for a bleach now and then, as from previous attempts I’m not crazy enough to do that at home any more. For now though, I’ll stick to Live XL for my colour and try out a few different looks! This time I’ve gone with Purple Punk, as I wanted to return to my original Cadbury’s purple shade and I love it. It’s so vibrant, it’s stayed fantastically bright and left my hair still in lovely condition. When I bought it, it was reduced to £4.50 in both Asda and Boots, and although I used two bottles, I feel like £9 is much more my speed than £115.

Food

Beanies Coffee

As part of living within a tighter budget, I’ve been trying my best to cut down on my excessive Costa purchases. That doesn’t mean to say that I’ve miraculously stopped living off coffee though! As a compromise, I’ve been trying some of the Beanies coffee flavours. So far I’ve got Chocolate Orange, Coconut and Gingerbread in my drawer at work for emergency use. You can find these occassionally in Aldi on special buy for a bargain price! Otherwise there’s just about every flavour available on Ebay.

Yorkshire Tea: Breakfast Brew

As you’ll remember in my December favourites, I started experimenting with some of the Yorkshire Tea flavours after seeing Brogan Tate rave about the Biscuit Brew, which I quickly became hooked on. Occassionally Sainsburys runs a half price offer on flavoured Yorkshire Tea’s, and so I also picked up the Breakfast Brew. This is basically just very strong tea, which is exactly what I need when I’m leaving the house at 7:15am for work. This is yet another step in slowing down my Costa abuse.

Movies and TV

You

Okay so I started this back in December, but I took a long break before coming back to finish the last two episodes at the beginning of this month as I was working like a crazy person. I am so glad that I found the time to finish this. I know pretty much everyone is talking about this show, so I wont waste too much time repeating everyone. I really enjoyed this show, it was so unique and gave a perspective that I had never seen before. Hearing Joe’s reasoning for his actions was absolutely fascinating and Penn Badgley did an incredible job of playing the character. Joe scared life out of me, but I’m thankful to him for introducing me to Penn because god is he lovely haha!

Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes

I know that all of the Ted Bundy content is a hot topic at the moment so I don’t want to get into it. I will however say that I absolutely live for True Crime documentaries so I was always going to watch this, whether it had blown up on social or not. I found this such a fascinating show, and Bundy’s story was almost unbelievable. Although I knew his name, I didn’t know much about the case beforehand and it was so unpredictable that it kept me hooked. I especially liked that it was only 4 episodes as it didn’t feel like a huge commitment to watch.

Spotless

I don’t want to discuss this too much as we’re only about 4 episodes into this, and I definitely would appreciate no spoilers please! We put this on randomly last weekend in desperation of finding something to watch together and were immediately hooked. Again this show has such an original concept, and is tense to watch. The strange thing with this show is that I don’t feel like I really like it, but I’m definitely hooked and feel like I need to know what happens next. More on this when we finish it!

Big Mouth

Again I’m still in the process of watching this, I’m about half way through season two and am aware they just released a third season, so would appreciate no spoilers please! I love this show, it definitely feels like one of those guilty pleasures. It’s cringy as hell and sometimes really weird (ie pillow babies?), but mostly I feel like it hits the nail on the head for all the weirdness of puberty. If I’m really honest, the main reason I love this show is for the hormone monstress and the goddess that is her voice actor Maya Rudolph. My only criticism of this show is that I feel like it focuses a little too much on the boys, and although it’s very funny, I’d a love little less dick jokes and a lot more Maya being a queen. Now, if you need me I’ll be in the bubble bath….

Music

I’ve been lucky enough this month to join a family spotify membership, and so I’d definitely say my music collection has gotten much more varied than just the same limited music I have on my very old iPod! These are the tracks I’ve most been enjoying this month:

That’s My Girl – Fifth Harmony

Him & I – G-Eazy & Halsey

Let You Down – Perception

IDOL – BTS, Nicki Minaj

Back & Forth (Acoustic) – Becky Hill

This Will Be (An Everlasting Love) – Natalie Cole (this one is a bit random but I’m just loving it recently!)

And that’s a wrap for February! As always, I hope this post has given you some inspiration on things to try for the next month.

What have your favourites been for February?

Peace

Kit xx

February Favourites Another month, another favourites post! Is it me or is this year just flying past already! I keep getting lost about which month we're on.

#beauty #big #bundy #decay #favourites #fragrance #mouth #movies #music #netflix #products #spotless #ted #tresemme #tv #urban #you

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staystrange · 6 years

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So I saw Dear Evan Hansen yesterday.

It’s been a dream of mine to see this show for a long time. Before I woke up yesterday, I didn’t even know I was going. I’ve entered the lottery a million times and never won, so I figured this time would be exactly the same. I had honestly forgotten about the lottery when I randomly checked my phone at 9:00 and saw that I’d WON!! My mom has dreamed of seeing this show probably more than I have, so the two of us got on a bus that was scheduled to arrive in NYC at around 2:00 for a 3:00 show. We figured we’d have plenty of time to get to the theater, which was not far from the bus station. But, of course, we ran into crazy traffic and it got to the point where we didn’t think we’d make it on time. Like, it was 2:55 and we were still on the bus. Needless to say, I was panicking hard. When the bus finally parked, we ran for it. I’m not an athletic person at all, but I put all of the energy I had into running as fast as I possibly could through the streets of New York to get to the theater. We got there a few minutes after 3:00, and I went up to the box office, completely breathless, told the staff that I had lottery tickets, and handed over my ID. To be honest, I didn’t even expect them to give me the tickets at all because we were late. But they did, and I immediately started crying because I was so happy. Then, I didn’t expect them to let us in for act 1 because the show had already started and the tickets literally said no late entry on them. But to my surprise, the staff let us in and showed us to our standing room spots.

We made it halfway through Anybody Have a Map. I swear, it was nothing short of a miracle.

We actually had a pretty good view, way better than the people sitting in the mezzanine and balcony sections above us. I started crying out of pure happiness and gratefulness when the opening bars of Waving Through a Window played, and I honestly kept crying throughout most of the show. When I wasn’t crying, I was laughing (probably because of Will Roland) or smiling. I got a few looks from the people sitting in the back of the orchestra in front of me, but honestly, they don’t know what I went through to be there, and so what if I’m an excessively emotional person? This show hits me hard.

I never thought I’d get to see this show, but I did, and I’m so glad. Thank you to the DEH lottery and the entire cast and crew and staff. You guys are the best. I ran across the city, didn’t eat for almost twelve hours, and stood for the entire show, but gosh, all of it was worth it.

I don’t want this post to take up too much space on people’s feeds, but if you’d like to hear about my more specific thoughts on each cast member / character and my stagedoor experience, check under the cut.

I was lucky enough to see most of the original cast, with the obvious exception of Ben Platt. I also did not see the original Alana or Larry Murphy. Everyone else has been in this production since the beginning.

Taylor Trensch as Evan Hansen: Sure, he was no Ben Platt, but he did a really good job, especially considering the big shoes he had to fill. I liked the little changes in his performance from Ben’s; it made seeing live even more of a unique experience from listening to the soundtrack on repeat. He’s a great actor, seriously. He obviously had many incredible performances, but Waving Through a Window, For Forever, You Will Be Found, and Words Fail really stood out as the best ones to me. He had funny moments, adorable moments, heartbreaking moments, and everything in between, and it was all incredible to watch.

Laura Dreyfuss as Zoe Murphy: I’m a big Glee fan, so I remember when she was on the show for a little while in Season 6. She was wonderful as Zoe, and I especially loved hearing her sing Requiem. She gave such a powerful performance throughout the show, especially during that song, and it was awesome to watch. During Only Us, my heart was torn between AWW and oh no oh no oh no because of what happens next. She has great chemistry with Taylor as I’m sure she did with Ben and Noah Galvin. I also really loved her scene with Taylor at the very end in the orchard. I actually didn’t know what happened at the end of the show, so it was a pleasant surprise and a perfect ending.

Rachel Bay Jones as Heidi Hansen: Oh. My. God. Her performance blew me away. Her happy scenes with Taylor were lovely, but it was during the scenes where her character and Evan were fighting that her talent really shone. She got so into her performance, and I could truly feel it. I unfortunately missed her part of Anybody Have a Map, but her performances in Good For You and So Big / So Small were incredible, and very different, too. Good For You especially was phenomenal.

Jennifer Laura Thompson as Cynthia Murphy: Jennifer was awesome, too. She showed a whole range of emotions throughout the show, and it was really powerful to watch. I liked her interactions with Taylor and Laura, and although she didn’t have much singing by herself compared to many of the other cast members, her performances during Anybody Have a Map? and Requiem were so freaking good.

Mike Faist as Connor Murphy: I had seen tweets about how he was leaving the show pretty soon, but I didn’t realize that it was literally his last show until I looked it up. I also didn’t realize how big of a role Connor is until I saw the production. Mike was incredible during every single moment he was in; I especially loved his parts in Sincerely, Me, Disappear, and the various reprises he sings in that aren’t on the soundtrack. At the end of the show after all of the regular bows, Jennifer Laura Thompson brought out a bouquet of flowers for Mike, and he tried to run offstage; Phoenix Best had to literally pull him back onstage to make him accept them and take his final bow. He’s so shy and humble, and it was adorable. I’m so lucky I got to see him since it was literally my last chance.

Asa Somers as Larry Murphy: Even though he’s the standby, he performed incredibly well. To be honest, To Break in a Glove is my least favorite song on the soundtrack, but he performed it well. I really loved his part in Requiem and his scenes with the whole Murphy family and Evan. His character may not have had a huge part in the show, but the parts he did have were really well done.

Will Roland as Jared Kleinman: Oh my gosh, I love Will Roland. Every single time he was onstage, I laughed out loud at the many hilarious jokes and moments he had as Jared. In the second act, though, my heart broke for Jared so freaking much. I loved hearing him sing in Sincerely, Me, You Will Be Found, and Good For You; Good For You especially showed off his talent, and Sincerely, Me made me love the song so much more than I did originally. He absolutely killed it as Jared, and I’m so glad I got to see him before he leaves on June 10 to play Jeremy in Be More Chill. Speaking of Be More Chill, I didn’t really know much about Will before it was announced that he’d been cast as Jeremy, but after seeing just one scene of him performing as Jared, I knew that he’s perfect for the role of Jeremy. I could already picture it and hear it, too. He has the right voice, the right appearance, and the perfect amount of awkwardness. Seriously, I approve wholeheartedly of this casting choice, and I can’t wait to see him again as Jeremy. I still can’t believe I get to see him twice!!

Phoenix Best as Alana Beck: I honestly didn’t even realize she wasn’t the original Alana at first. She was incredible; her character is a lot like Jared in the sense that they both made me laugh and also made my heart break, but in very different ways, of course. She sang very well in You Will Be Found and Good For You and I loved watching her perform so much.

STAGEDOOR: I waited outside the stagedoor for as long as I could before security asked us all to leave, and I was lucky enough to get four autographs, which you can see in the photo above. From top left to bottom right: Mike Faist, Asa Somers, Rachel Bay Jones, and Laura Dreyfuss. They were all incredibly kind and sweet and it meant the world to me that I got to talk to them. I guess this makes Laura Dreyfuss the first Glee cast member I’ve ever met and the fourth Glee cast autograph I’ve received; if you’d told me two years ago that I’d get to meet her, I wouldn’t have believed you. She’s so lovely. I really wanted to see Will so I could tell him that he did an incredible job as Jared and that he’s going to be such a good Jeremy in Be More Chill, but unfortunately he left out the back door. I was a little bummed, but I was honestly just grateful to be there, so it was all good. Hopefully I’ll meet him when I see him again. Taylor, Jennifer, and Phoenix didn’t come out either.

Overall, I had an incredible experience seeing this show!! My theater-nerd self hasn’t been very active in a while, but my love for theater is definitely back and bigger than ever now. I’m looking forward to seeing even more shows in the future, including (HOPEFULLY) the Off-Broadway production of Be More Chill this summer : )

#original #musical theater #broadway #dear evan hansen #be more chill #taylor trensch #laura dreyfuss #rachel bay jones #jennifer laura thompson #mike faist #asa somers #will roland #phoenix best #feel free to ask me anything about the show if you'd like!!

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