#but now I’m on episode 36 of the anime | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

achehex · 1 year

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Digimon Ghost Game is now over. What a crazy crazy ride, thank you all for watching and for all the support. I didn’t actually contribute to this final episode, my last contributions were to episode #66 but the pressure last week was so high after the 3 weeks in between episodes that I couldn’t focus on drawing or writing anything, so I’m doing the catch up now. As always longer (way longer this time) thoughts after the cut. If you are curious about how I got this job the short story is knowing the right people at the right time, but the details are way more detailed so keep reading if you are curious.

I’m not sure how this is gonna go but I’m gonna write a whole reflection about my time in the show as opposed to just about the episode itself, so let’s go. Back in August 2021, Jake Ganz head of Yotta offered me to work on the new upcoming Digimon show. At first I said no, it sounded way too intimidating and I didn’t wanna make a fool of myself. But the next day I was scrolling facebook, and saw the poster announcement for Ghost Game, and it somehow clicked in my head that I had a real chance to participate in it. I tried my best to brush my fears aside, and said yes to Jake, as long as I was given a simple task. The process at the start was simple: Porkky, an animator broke down the basics of the tasks at hand, and he and Jubei9 met 1 on 1 with all of us at the Yotta team to deal with the specifics of our work. It was a fun learning experience and I feel like a lot of people really enjoyed it because a good chunk returned for when Toei asked us to help on episode 8. Episode 8 remains one of my favourites in the show, the high speed chase is so intense and the pace never lets up. It was very fun, but also a lot harder than last time. There were more digimon and with more complex designs, no frame could be static because of the wind, a lot of people had to draw go karts. Our next task assigned was Episode 9 right after, and this is the first time something interesting happened to me. The staff at Toei asked me to handle the 止め cuts, which basically means the cuts that don’t move at all, static drawings with maybe a mouth flap or a camera pan. At the time it was so incredibly honoring to be asked to do a specific task, I felt noticed. After that things slowed down a lot, Christmas 2021 was actually the first time since digimon ghost game had started airing where I wasn’t working on the show. So when we were offered to help in episode 18 I did not hesitate, I was actually so excited to be able to draw TeslaJellymon (who has become my favourite digimon!). However this time around our team was much much smaller, and also at that time I got Covid so I had to work through a lot of really annoying drowsiness. Episode 18 was definitely a turning point. I felt the excitement wear off in a lot of people that I was working with, but I was still just so excited to be working there, so it’s when I decided to keep working on Ghost Game outside of the Yotta team. Episode 22 was my first time working directly with Toei. It was honestly so cool that they accepted my offer. I did 6 cuts all by myself on episode 22. Next up episode 30 I did 7 cuts, and I felt ready to take a big leap and ask for a contract with Toei as opposed to the loose freelancing I was doing. That’s when you can see the leap to episode 36. In that episode I handled 25 cuts, a lot of them with very heavy action, a complete departure from anything I had done until then. It was incredibly difficult but it was the episode that really marked my start. After that I don’t have a whole lot more to say than what I’ve said in the respective posts for my episodes. I had so much fun drawing Gigasmon’s huge muscles on 36, Piemon and Flawizarmon’s scary smiles in 41, Kiyoshiro going over the top in 48, Canoweissmon and his butt wings in 56, Siriusmon’s super sick attacks in 62 and finally BloomLordmon’s super complicated cape in 66. It’s actually been incredible that I was able to be a part of this. I said this to someone before but when you are born in Colombia, growing up to draw Digimon never really felt like a possibility and yet here I am. This show completely changed my life, it filled me with excitement and ambition that I hadn’t felt since High School, it allowed me to move out of my mom’s house and live on my own, and afford incredibly important and personal things. I’m so glad I got to be a part of it, I know the episodic nature and wave-handy plot structure of the show was a turn off for a lot of Digimon fans, and I understand it. But around Episode 18 when my colleagues were happy moving on, I still loved this show. I don’t love it cus I worked on it, I worked on it cus I loved it. I could’ve moved on but I wanted to see this through all the way to the end and I’m glad that I did. Thank you so so much, to absolutely everyone, from the highest Toei staff to the newest Digimon fan.

#digimon #Digimon ghost game #hiro amanokawa #gammamon #my work #my animation

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mishacakes · 1 month

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Looks like we have about five more episodes until the best character of Dungeon Meshi joins the team. Are you looking forward to seeing the girl?

UH DUH I’VE BEEN COUNTING DOWN THE HOURS. AND OH YAY AN OPPORTUNITY TO TALK ABOUT MY DUNMESHI PACING THEORY!!!!!!!

OK SO episode 12 ended where volume 4 did, so im gonna go ahead and pace out what I think is gonna be the next two volumes (5 and 6)

gonna put it under the cut for the anime onlies cause SPOILERS!!!!!!!!

Episode 13: Chapters 29 and 30, these two pair pretty well together, high action first half and a more quiet gathering of what we know second half

Episode 14: Chapters 31 and 32, this is Sea Serpent 1 and 2, so it makes sense for them to be paired up. also FIRST IZU APPEARANCE!

Episode 15: Chapters 33 and 34, back to classic monster vignettes for a spell, while the party gets back in order after losing falin (very excited to see senshi’s “I MUST FEED THE CHILDREN” be animated. now normally I would think to pair dryad, cockatrice, and cleaners together HOWEVER—

Episode 16: Chapters 35 and 36, this is the episode where all the parties comes together and they hash it out. I think this theory is very likely seeing how 36 ends with a falin cliffhanger. This is also where Izutsumi gets her first line!!!

Episode 17: Chapters 37 and 38, THE BIG CHIMERA REVEAL!!!! these are also two action heavy chapters like how the red dragon action episode was, so it would make for a solid episode.

Episode 18: Chapters 39 and 40, the shapeshifter chapters!! Again a part 1 and 2, and ends with Izutsumi!!!! I do wonder if they’ll kinda condense the shapeshifter shenanigans and add chapter 41 in there too since that one’s relatively short, but we’ll see!!!!!!!!

After that my theories kinda fizzle out cause “ice golem” and “barometz” are two Izu focused chapters back to back so I’m curious how they’ll do those! But yea I’ve been adoring the pacing so far it’s SO GOOD. SO TO REVIEW!!! Izutsumi!! Appearing in 14, first line in 16, and the BIG REVEAL in either 18 or 19!! I’M SO CURIOUS TO HEAR WHAT SHE SOUNDS LIKE!!!!!!!!!!!! my money’s on either sullen teen girl voice, or peridot SU.

#dunmeshi

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alteon77 · 1 year

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Updated Masterlist of Writing and Art

About the writer/artist: I like to write and paint. My current obsession is Sandman, but I enjoy most fantasy fandoms as well as anime (I think I’m on season seven billion of One Piece right now 🤣). I'm also weird as they come (and awkward, too), so just please ignore my oddball (coughTERRIBLEcough) sense of humor.

On a more personal note, I have PTSD and suffer from severe manic depressive episodes. Writing and art are my most familiar coping mechanisms, and I need them like I need oxygen. Seriously, there were times in my life that knowing I had to finish a story or a piece of art was the only thing stopping me from ending up dead. So, I don't take part in fandom drama. Having my peace and protecting my mental health are very big deals to me, and I won't risk those for anything if I can help it.

As for my writing, it ranges from short one-shots to ridiculously long novel series. I use third person POV (on longer series) as well as second person (on shorter things). I also try to always exclude physical descriptions when writing main character OCs and assign them nicknames to avoid using Y/N. I love to read Y/N fics, but writing them makes me feel like I'm at work. And who actually wants to ever feel like they're at work when they're engaging in a hobby? Definitely not me.

Lastly, there's usually more stuff on my AO3 page than I have listed here, because I forget to post it pretty often. Oops. I'll get around to moving it all over one day. Probably. Maybe.

Feel free to leave an ask if you want or just drop by my DMs. <3

Artwork links are at the bottom of this list, so if you're here for those, that's where they are.

Sandman 'Verse

All the Precious and Fragile Things (so easily do they break)

After banishing his lover from the Dreaming for her betrayal, Morpheus learns that she is pregnant with his child.

And that she’s been captured by a revenge-seeking Alexander Burgess.

What the both of them are unaware of is that this will set in motion a cascade of unfavorable events, causing a chain reaction that threatens the whole of existence itself.

PART I: All of This Past

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

PART II: These Tender, Loving Mercies

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

PART III: When It All Falls Down

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

PART IV: The Dark of War

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Epilogue

Sometimes He's Sweet

Morpheus hates the holidays.

As excited as she seems to experience the mortal holiday, he's… less so. Much less so. With the entire collective unconscious contained within him, this time of year can be wholly overwhelming, a miasma of too much red and green, too much worry, too much loneliness, too much excitement, too many similarly themed dreams, too many similarly themed nightmares, and far far too many holiday songs. It all bleeds out from the collective unconscious into his own mind, sticks there like weeping sap to a tree until he feels half-mad with the unrelenting presence of it, with his inability to get free from its cloying trespass upon his very being.

This is just a little sweet fluff for the holiday season. It takes place between chapters 19 and 20 of "All the Precious and Fragile Things". No spoilers here if you've read that far!

The Dog Debacle (or how best to sneak a dragon into the dreaming)

Morpheus' daughter gets a new dog.

Well..... kind of.

That Familiar Feeling of Family (or how Hob Gadling ended up as an uncle to his stranger's oftentimes feral children)

It's a pretty universally known thing that families are just strange. As Hob is quickly figuring out, however, this little fact is magnified by AT LEAST a billion when the family in question is Endless.

(A lighthearted story in which Hob Gadling finds out his stranger has married, makes friends with a homicidal maniac/ruler, and manages to become an exemplary uncle to a pack of magically mischievous children. Really, now all he has to do is convince everyone to stop calling his and Dream's weekly meetups "playdates", and then his life would be practically perfect.)

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

The Maker, the Muse, and the Sundered Song

In his temple, what remains of Orpheus waits in trepidation. Something is changing. Something that he knows might alter the very fabric of the world as he understands it.

Finally freed from captivity, Calliope struggles to make any meaningful changes to the laws that saw her bound and taken in the first place. When the strange woman appears on Mount Parnassus and offers help, Calliope knows she would be a fool not to accept it. Even if she thinks that she's being lied to.

Meanwhile in the peace of the Dreaming, Morpheus grapples with guilt over his son's fate. As he basks in the love of his new children, he can't help but to regret his own failings where Orpheus is concerned.

And as for May, she's really just got a job to do. And her own traumatic issues to deal with. And if it's all hella awkward because she's having to work alongside her husband's ex-wife, she'll see it done anyway. There's even the small possibility that she might eventually admit to Calliope the truth about her identity. That is if she can ever actually work up the courage to say it aloud.

Chapter 1

Nothing in This Closet but Boots and a Boy

Morpheus is wildly protective of his daughter.

That's probably bad for the boy in said daughter's closet.

AU's and Other Stuff in the Sandman 'Verse

Of Exes, Hellhounds, and Waffle Fries

Morpheus shows up to rescue the woman he probably loves (though he won't admit it) from hellhounds and ends up getting roped into helping with her family. This is one of those extras that doesn't fit into the main story, but it's fun, so I'm posting it.

The Bizarre Breeding Habits of Anthropomorphic Personifications

It's a tale as old as time.

Two idiots fall in love. Two idiots fall out of love.

Neither one of them is expecting a baby to come along and derail their unhappily ever after.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Original Fanart

I like to play around with different styles and to try new things with my artwork. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. I'm still learning, and I am so far from being a professional that it's laughable. But I only post things that I think look decent or that I think others might enjoy.

The Lover's Argument (Morpheus x oc)

Oneiros (Morpheus in Grecian garb)

Because I could not stop for Death, she kindly stopped for me... (Regency era Dream and Death)

#sandman fic #morpheus x oc #morpheus #morpheus x reader #morpheus fanfiction #sandman fanfiction #sandman oc #dream of the endless #dad!morpheus #dragons in the dreaming #preciousfragilethings #PFT #bbhap #fanart #fan art #alteon77 fan art

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ecargmura · 5 months

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My New Boss Is Goofy Episode 8 Review - Meeting Shirosaki's Family

Oh gosh, Momose went and met Shirosaki’s family. What’s next on the list? Meeting Momose’s family? Marriage? The fact that I don’t know what awaits next always gets me hyped up whenever Saturdays come. This episode is actually very cute because it was filled with events I didn’t expect. This entire episode was cute and relaxing.

Momose and Shirosaki are at Akita, Shirosaki’s hometown, for a business trip. After visiting the Namahage Village, the two then head off to Shirosaki’s family home to visit his grandmother; in actuality, his grandmother persuaded him to come so that she can show him something. While Momose was a bit nervous at first, he gets used to the flow of the Shirosaki household.

I have to say. Granny Shirosaki is adorable as heck. She’s probably one of the cutest anime grandmas ever. I’m still amazed she’s still alive even though her grandsons are in their thirties. I hope she gets to live for a long time. I just love how she’s just your typical Asian grandma by offering food to her guests. I love that she calls Momose “Ken-chan”, which is then picked up by Shirosaki by mistake and then his brother. Granny is seriously so cute. Fortunately, the goofy genes didn’t come from her.

The big surprise Grandma had for Shirosaki was that his brother, Seiyu, came home; before the reveal, Shirosaki said that he lost contact with his brother recently and was worried. Apparently, the goofy genes are genetic as Seiyu is as goofy as his brother Yusei. The reason he lost contact was that his phone got busted due to him accidentally throwing it in a fountain. Now I wonder if Mama and Papa Shirosaki are as goofy as the brothers; the genes have to originate somewhere. Though, the brothers’ naming sense is adorable. Shirosaki’s name is Yusei and his brother is Seiyu. The kanji for their names are the same, but flipped around.

Seiyu is a photographer and a bit free-spirited compared to Shirosaki. He’s rarely in Japan, so he has picked up a lot of mannerisms from overseas like reacting to gunshots and speaking in English (are they poking fun at America?). Watching the Shirosaki brothers be goofy made me wonder if they were in a competition to see who was the goofiest of the two; it’s honestly equal in competition. I’m glad Ken-chan is there to balance out the goofs. I’m glad that Seiyu is a kind older brother, especially since he picked up photography due to his brother gifting him a turtle doll. The fact that the anime staff casted THE Daisuke Ono to voice Seiyu is pretty amazing. The cast list was already pretty top-notch and adding in OnoD just makes it even more splendid. Oh and the brothers are only two years apart with Seiyu being 36 and Shirosaki being 34; this means Seiyu and Momose are 10 years apart.

The sub-plot of Aoyama cat-sitting Hakutou was too adorable. I liked how Hakutou referred to Shirosaki and Momose as his owners; yes, he used the Japanese word for owner, but in plural. He thinks both of them are his owners! Despite that, he’s not use to Aoyama and even refers to him as a weird old guy with glasses. Fortunately, Hakutou does warm up to him a bit as he sleeps on top of him, making Aoyama fawn over him. The fact that Shirosaki and Momose trust Aoyama so much that they’re letting Hakutou be in his care shows off how dependable the chief is. I also like how Kumatte-chan got jealous of the attention Hakutou is getting (or that could just be his imagination). I’d like to see Hakutou interacting with Kinjou if possible!

It was nice learning about Shirosaki and how he was like in the past as well as how he gets along well with his brother. I do wonder if the writers will bother making a showcase episode for them to go to Hokkaido to see Momose’s family. I’d like to see that! What do you think will happen next with our goofy duo?

#my new boss is goofy #atarashii joushi wa do tennen #Yusei shirosaki #kentaro momose #Mitsuo aoyama #hakutou #kumatte-chan #Seiyu Shirosaki #Granny Shirosaki #review #anime #anime review #ecargmura #arum journal

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sy-on-boy · 2 years

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RESULTS on Opinions on TwiYor and DamiAnya

Hi! First of all, thank you so much for the 250 responses on my “Opinions on TwiYor and DamiAnya” survey conducted from 27 - 30 Aug 2022. The survey was shared on Twitter and Tumblr (to my knowledge). I was interested to see the demographics of TwiYor mains and DamiAnya mains considering they’re the two “main” ships of Spy x Family.

I asked every respondent to acknowledge they were ship positive or ship neutral to both ships so there won’t be ship bashing. This is definitely not meant to pit two ships against each other; I’m just curious about the fandom demographics.

Additionally, as a DamiAnya centric account, the results are likely skewed towards DamiAnya. This is not representative of the (English-speaking) fandom.

So, here we go! (Numbers corrected to 1 decimal point)

59.2% (148) of respondents preferred DamiAnya, while 40.8% (102) of respondents preferred TwiYor. I was a little surprised by how DamiAnya mains consist of almost 60% of respondents, even taking in account the survey is skewed in their direction.

More than 75% of respondents are adults (18 or above), with the most common age range being 20-25, followed by 25-30. Not surprising considering the two leads of SxF are also around that age.

8.8% (22) of respondents are 13-15, 14.4% (36) are 16-17, 15.6% (39) are 18-19, 36.4% (91) are 20-25, 19.6% (49) are 25-30, and 5.2% (13) are 30-40. No one chose 40+. Spy x Family is a big hit with adults.

And now the exciting part that I conducted this survey for! How age might correlate with your choice!

(Percentages are of how many people chose that ship in that age range over the total number of respondents in said age range)

DamiAnya:

13-15: 19 (86.4%)

16-17: 30 (83.3%)

18-19: 25 (64.1%)

20-25: 52 (57.1%)

25-30: 19 (38.8%)

30-40: 3 (23.1%)

For DamiAnya mains, respondents aged 20-25 take up 35.1%, 16-17 take up 20.3%, 18-19 take up 16.9%, 13-15 and 25-30 take up 12.8% each, 30-40 take up 2%. Interesting how there’s a dip for the 18-19 age range when it’s sandwiched between the 16-17 and 20-25 age range.

TwiYor:

13-15: 3 (13.6%)

16-17: 6 (16.7%)

18-19: 14 (35.9%)

20-25: 39 (42.9%)

25-30: 30 (61.2%)

30-40: 10 (76.1%)

For TwiYor mains, respondents aged 20-25 take up 38.2%, 25-30 take up 29.4%, 18-19 take up 13.7%, 30-40 take up 9.8%, 16-17 take up 5.9%, 13-15 take up 2.9%. Unlike DamiAnya mains, the pattern shown here is consistent, with numbers rapidly rising and peaking at the 20-25 age range, then slowly falling.

It looks like what a lot of people have stated is correct- the younger fans prefer DamiAnya, the older fans prefer TwiYor. It’s neat to see the percentage go down / go up according to age.

Starting from the 25-30 age group, TwiYor is more favoured, which aligns with the ages of the two characters. Conversely, DamiAnya (which is often aged up to teen years) is more popular with the teen group.

For gender, 75.6% answered female, 6% answered nonbinary, 5.6% answered male, 1.2% answered bigender, 1.2% answered agender, 0.8% answered pangender / genderfluid, one respondent answered demigirl, 8.8% preferred not to answer. (The stats on the pie chart are slightly inaccurate because two people put down “female” on the other option)

The next question is “When did you start reading / watching SxF OR When did you get into the fandom?”. Respondents could choose from “When there was only the SxF manga” “After the SxF trailers were posted but before the anime aired” “During the period in which the SxFanime aired its first 12 episodes” and “After the SxF anime aired its first 12 episodes”.

Overall, 46.4% (116) respondents answered “during the anime period”, 30.8% (77) answered “when there was only the manga”, 15.2% (38) answered “after trailers but before the anime”, 7.6% (19) answered “after the anime”. The anime more than doubled the existing fanbase from the manga.

To separate into ships again:

DamiAnya:

When there was only the manga: 43 (55.8%)

After the trailers but before the anime: 24 (63.2%)

During the anime period: 76 (65.5%)

After the anime: 5 (26.3%)

TwiYor:

When there was only the manga: 34 (44.2%)

After the trailers but before the anime: 14 (36.8%)

During the anime period: 40 (34.5%)

After the anime: 14 (73.7%)

The stats are fairly consistent until it comes to “after the anime”. I wonder what prompted it?

[Manga spoilers!]

In the chapters between the end of the anime and this survey (end of June 2022 to end of August 2022), the manga covered: Anya + Henderson (Ch 64), Yor meets Damian’s mom (Ch 65-66), Anya + Damian, Yor + Shopkeeper, Loid + Fiona (Ch 67.1). If anything, we recently got more Anya + Damian canon content than TwiYor.

The next question asked “Is SxF your first fandom?”.

91.2% (228) answered no, 7.2% (18) answered “I do not consider myself as part of the SxF fandom”, and 1.6% (4) answered yes. If you’re new to fandoms, welcome and I hope you enjoy your time here!

Considering the vast majority answered no, it’s assumed the respondents are aware of fandom etiquette such as proper tagging. And you can click away if you see art / fic you don’t like.

The next question is “Would you call yourself a fan who creates fancontent for either or both of those ships?”.

55.2% (138) answered no, 44.8% (112) answered yes. It’s a pretty even division.

Out of the 112 creators, 58.9% (66) are DamiAnya mains, 41.1% 46 are TwiYor mains, which I suppose shows how small of a corner this survey touched? I don’t know how to count fanarts on various sites, but at the moment I’m writing this, there are 1303 TwiYor works and 698 DamiAnya works on Ao3. I’m a DamiAnya fic author and my circle consists of other DamiAnya fic authors, so again this survey is skewed in DamiAnya’s direction.

And finally, for the sites respondents use to browse for SxF content / fancontent.

206 (82.4%) answered Ao3, 202 (80.8%) answered Twitter, 169 (67.6%) answered Tumblr, 87 (24.8%) answered Instagram, 67 (26.8%) answered Pixiv, 25 (18%) answered Discord, 44 (17.6%) answered Reddit, 23 (9.2%) answered Wattpad, 20 (8%) answered FFN. A couple answered YouTube, Pinterest, Facebook, and Tiktok. Yup, Ao3 supremacy.

I also asked about nationality (optional question). Fom experience, DamiAnya seems to be popular in the Asian community (I’ve dug around in the Chinese fandom). Not everybody answered, but for those who did:

(I’m very sorry for excluding those who put multiple because I don’t know how to categorise them for this survey)

American: 32

Filipino: 18

Brazilian: 9

Indonesian: 8

Peruvian: 5

Mexican: 4

Argentinian: 4

British: 3

Canadian: 3

White: 3

French: 3

Vietnamese: 2

Asian: 2

German: 2

Indian: 2

Hispanic: 2

Hong Kong: 2

SEA: 2

Malaysian: 2

Chinese: 2

Panamanian: 1 (DamiAnya)

Australian: 1 (DamiAnya)

African European: 1 (TwiYor)

Half Mexican half European: 1 (DamiAnya)

Black / African American: 1 (DamiAnya)

Honduran: 1 (DamiAnya)

American / Chinese: 1 (TwiYor)

Costa Rican: 1 (DamiAnya)

Moroccan: 1 (DamiAnya)

Saudi Arabian: 1 (DamiAnya)

Venezuelan: 1 (DamiAnya)

Thai: 1 (TwiYor)

Bulgarian: 1 (DamiAnya)

Egyptian: 1 (DamiAnya)

Ukrainian: 1 (DamiAnya)

Lezgin: 1 (DamiAnya)

New Zealand: 1 (DamiAnya)

Taiwanese: 1 (TwiYor)

Chinese / Filipino: 1 (DamiAnya)

English Chinese: 1 (DamiAnya)

Swedish: 1 (TwiYor)

Chilean: 1 (DamiAnya)

Iraqi: 1 (DamiAnya)

This is an incredibly long list but I’ll try to note down more significant findings. In the above list, I already put down the preferences of those who only had one reply.

DamiAnya:

15 out of 18 Filipinos preferred DamiAnya. 6 out of 9 Brazilians preferred DamiAnya. 4 out of 5 Peruvians preferred DamiAnya. An American / Chinese put down TwiYor, but everybody else who had Chinese in their replies put down DamiAnya (the Taiwanese chose TwiYor but the two from Hong Kong chose DamiAnya). The 2 Indians, 2 Hispanics, 2 Malaysians, 2 Vietnamese all chose DamiAnya. 2 out of 3 of the French put down DamiAnya.

TwiYor:

3 out of 4 Argentinians preferred TwiYor. 2 out of 3 of the British put down TwiYor. Everybody who had Canada in their replies put down TwiYor (3 Canadians, one raised in Canada).

Americans and Indonesians have a pretty equal split.

The sample size is small here so I would not generalise. The amount of DamiAnya mains who put down nationality is twice that of TwiYor mains. But the Filipino stat is interesting. Also from the very very small sample size, it appears that the Asians (Filipino, Indians, Malaysians, Vietnamese, Chinese, Hong Kong, etc) may lean towards DamiAnya. Or maybe not. There’s not enough information.

And finally for the reasons for choosing that ship! I’ll try to sum it up below.

DamiAnya:

Cute (a lot of people put down this)

The innocence

The potential of their ship / lots of potential dynamics / we don’t know what their future is

Nostalgia

More angst potential

Like to see TwiYor as platonic / semi-platonic / QPR / familiar so it’s not a romantic ship

They’re funny / chaotic

More canonical in the sense Damian has a canon crush, while for TwiYor it’s just hints and teases

Want to see them grow up and develop

TwiYor:

They’re adults (a lot of people put down this)

They are uncomfortable with shipping children (also a lot of people put down this)

Uncomfortable with some DamiAnya works (that touch on adult / “unsafe” topics)

Rare to have a healthy, respectful, wholesome ship between two adults

More stable / calm / tender

Slowburn

The same age as the characters / more relatable

Favourite character is Twilight / Yor

The characters are attractive / hot / sexy

The characters are mature

The characters are complex

Untouched potential

LOTS of respondents who chose TwiYor said they’re uncomfortable with shipping kids and adult ships appeal to them more, which is perfectly valid. That might be the biggest thing holding people back from shipping DamiAnya. And some DamiAnya mains said they enjoy the TwiYor dynamic but don’t see it as a romantic ship. Same for TwiYor mains who said they like platonic DamiAnya but won’t mind if they get together like twenty years later.

People named the tropes they liked for each ship, called each ship “more interesting”, but from the answers, people have called TwiYor both “simple / vanilla” and “complex”, and DamiAnya both “basic” and “unique”. I suppose it’s down to personal preference.

My personal opinions below:

Why TwiYor might be “simple” is because they don’t have a lot of canonically romantic content, just teases / some blushes / ship fuel. (While Damian’s crush is unrequited, at least his crush is canonically confirmed.) So it’s a subtle slow burn. TwiYor is also complex because we don’t fully know both of their backstories and the facets of their characters. They each have their own motivations for starting a family, but they’re starting to enjoy the family for family’s sake. There are also many ways their dynamic could develop (domestic, fluff, angst, etc).

Why DamiAnya might be “basic” is that it’s a romance in a school setting. Young love is also extremely common in anime / manga, especially teenage love (for aged up DamiAnya). It also has a lot of tropes. But DamiAnya is “unique” because of the mindreader / Operation Strix setting, and it’s exactly the cocktail of tropes that brew so many different potential dynamics. There are many ways the two characters could grow up, and many ways their dynamic could change.

People have said TwiYor is more stable (may appeal to the older fans who prefer stability), and DamiAnya is more uncertain / turbulent (may appeal to the younger fans who want excitement).

That’s it! Thank you so much if you’ve read this 2k words long post. You’re welcome to make your own analysis / quote the stats, but be respectful to everyone and again, no ship bashing. This is also a small sample with only 250 responses, so take it with a grain of salt.

Sorry for the occasional awkward wording (not a professional with stats) or mistakes (if any). English is not my native language.

To conclude, as a DamiAnya main, I think this quote from my irl is funny: “Twiyor is for simping purposes only damianya has better dynamics” XD

#spy x family #loid forger #yor forger #yor briar #TwiYor #anya forger #damian desmond #damianya #survey

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chaifootsteps · 9 months

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I’m the anon that sent all those Patreon leaks to lemoncritiques months ago. I’m no longer a patron but I still have tons of info from past QnAs, this isn’t everything so let me know if you’d like me to send more.

Note: These answers are pre-season 2 so it could be dated with whatever Vivzie’s has said after mid-2022 (the time of my latest screenshots) I’ll try and give info I wasn’t interested in giving Lemon but it could be a lot of repeats.

-Vivzie didn’t mention Mammon’s design to be a middle finger (from what I know) she only mentioned being worried about the reception fans will have towards him since he’s not the usual skinny pretty boy designs she makes.

-Certain demons are allowed to interact with the Earth realm, imps aren’t one of them.

-Millie and Loona are confirmed by Vivzie to be straight much to the disappointment of Sam, Adam mentioned they’re as straight as LGBTQ+ writers can make them.

-Stolas has 71 half siblings in reference to the lesser keys of Solomon, it’s unknown if Andrealphus is one of them but with that amount Vivzie might only show some of them.

-Vivzie is still interested in making her SVA thesis short Timber a full series, and plans for it to be an all age adventure fantasy.

-HB cast ages: Blitz 34, Stolas 36, Loona 23, M&M both 31, Vivzie changed them to be around those ages because she keeps forgetting them she’s answered this more than once with slightly different answers, M&M are now in their late 20s.

-Vivzie is fine with and even loves fan HH/HB merch, but believes the other studios involved (A24, Bento, or SharkRobot, she was vague) might not because of sale competition.

-Vivzie saids we’ll see how Stolas’s status influences his views of other demons and wouldn’t treat his imp butlers either good or bad. This was said before he’s seen using one as a stress ball.

-Vivzie didn’t really think of how Stolas knew IMP was in trouble in the DHORK episode and likes to imagine he has an innate ability to sense if something’s wrong. She won’t go back to explain how he knows.

-She’s interested in incorporating elements of other religion’s Hell into her own, but not a full on inclusion.

-She’s most excited between Stolas and Blitz’s arcs in the show and admits the arcs intersects a lot. Her personal favorite arc to write is Stolas’s.

-Blitz’s trip in the DHORK episode were about his relationships and how they stem from one insecurity he has which will be revealed later.

-Most challenging character to animate that Vivzie could talk about at the time was Angel Dust, I’m sure she would have mentioned Bee if that episode was out during this.

-Full quote “Viv’s ADHD enables her to bounce around between things a lot, it’s been a blessing because she can bounce between the shows if she gets tired of either. Sometimes it gets overwhelming, causing her to lose focus, and losing sleep, but it’s working in the end”

-Vivzie didn’t know model sheets weren’t being posted on Patreon when someone asked about Mrs.Mayberry’s, I have no idea if they’ve even bothered to post any.

-She was keeping Stolas and Stella’s divorce a secret due to spoilers.

-Originally, season 2 was going to premiere a week after episode 8 came out because she wasn’t sure if fans would be satisfied with the finale with the wait time, I saved that ask on May 22nd, 2022. She vaguely mentioned there was a bit of legal trouble regarding episode 8 that she can’t talk about but will become apparent when it’s released (We now know it was the Kesha stuff)

-High class/low class demon relationships are very controversial because Hell has a strict power hierarchy. There are some lower level demons that are acceptable to be with a higher class demon. But Imps and Hellhounds are on the very bottom of the hierarchy and are not favorably viewed. (This ask was pre-Episode 8)

-Full quote again. Question: Would you have any advice for artists who are working on multiple projects at the same time?

Answer: “It's really fucking hard, she's never worked so hard in her life. She admits she's dropped the ball several times. But she finds that the solution to that is to simply get help from other people. Find people you trust and train them on what they need to do.

If it's a smaller scale thing and/or you don't have any body to help, then just take things slowly and do things one at a time because you will absolutely stress yourself out and cause a lot of problems with things not getting done on time.

She has also had issues with things not going the way she wanted because she's not in charge, but ultimately, you gotta trust others.”

-Octavia is on decent terms with Andrealphus.

-Sinners physically cannot go into other rings, Vivzie imagines they can’t even enter the 666 elevator building.

-All hellborns have a “feral” form to themselves.

-Blitz will sing in season 2 (We learned from leaks)

-God will not show up in Vivzie’s shows, she personally doesn’t feel comfortable depicting him.

-She enjoys writing at home because she can be as loud as she wants to be. But ever since her and Adam moved in together they haven’t have any writing sessions with each other. While writing HB season 1, her and Brandon would go to diners and café for their sessions.

-She loves how her antagonists are relatable and can be understood beyond what she’s shown the audience so far and mentions they won’t be one note, one dimensional like with Stella. “Sure, she’s super angry and bitchy, but st the same time, she’s still seen some awful things, and deserves some sympathy” (This was pre-Circus)

-All that Vivzie would like to say is she doesn’t talk to Ashley, Dave or Kovach a lot.

-She hasn’t worked on Zoophobia in awhile but thinks of going back to it to redefine some things in the future.

-There’s a limited number of overlords, there was a comic in the works about how overlords are picked through a “very fun” event that happens to sinners but due to story changes they’ll have to redo it. Don’t know if it was scrapped entirely.

-Stella would still be mad if Stolas cheated on her with another goetia or of higher status but less so than with an imp.

-Vivzie imagines the grimoire can be damaged but not easily.

-Adam has written in an autistic character for season 2, no clue if we’ve already seen them or not.

-Most of season 2 will have a single target to take out on IMP’s missions.

-She wants to leave the status of Blitz and Fizz’s past relationship open for now, we might see it in the next episode as of sending this.

-That clown symbol we see in Loo Loo Land is confirmed to be RoboFizz and not Mammon.

-Vivzie can’t answer if Heaven, Hell or Earth is the most dangerous realm.

-Full quote: Question- “When did she decide to make Helluva its own spin off?

Answer- “She decided within the last year of making the pilot. Without Helluva, Hazbin wouldn't exist,and vice versa. They helped the studio, the crew,and Viv, giving her experience to produce professionally.

Helluva also came to be because she was watching a lot of Brandon Roger's stuff while working on Hazbin, and so she decided to reach out to people he works with and pitch her project to him. And he accepted it, and the rest is history! She was shocked that Brandon Rogers accepted her pitch incredibly fast, asking to write with her immediately after accepting her pitch.

Brandon wrote the outline, and the jokes. But it was up to Viv to finish the rest. It was the first time she worked with someone who had a decent amount of writing experience; the people she wrote the Hazbin pilot with were all novice writers, including Viv herself.

Another unique thing about Helluva was that she got a bunch of animators for it early on because there was this mass resignation of animators from a bad project, so she was able to pick them up. Those helluva animators also enabled the hazbin pilot to be finished!”

-HH will not feature purgatory and will only deal with heaven and hell’s relationship, while HB is exclusively about the seven sins and hellborns. Vivzie has an idea for a third show involving heaven and earth’s relationship featuring purgatory but doesn’t know when she’ll start development on it, it’s something she’d further develop once HH and HB are done.

-A lot of broadway actors are involved with HH and HB and Vivzie is generally trying to cast people involved with broadway and theatre. She’s aware she was only able to get people like Alex Brightman thanks to the pandemic. There’s mention of a non broadway VA in Vivzie and Brandon’s view is a pretty big figure voicing in season 2.

-Cherubs will return, along with a lot of other season 1 characters like Verosika and Sallie May will be involved in one season 2 episode, She’ll have a bigger role in far future.

-Goetia from the lesser keys like Stolas, Paimon and Andrealphus are considered higher rank, original characters like Stella and Octavia are lower rank but still considered “royalty”

-Stella is confirmed to be a swan

-Stolas is confirmed to be a barn owl (I think it’s the same species Vivzie has taxidermed)

-Hell has an army but haven’t been needed to do anything, Vivzie saids they just have one because a it’s normal thing.

-As of right now, the sins are only set to appear to HB with Lucifer only set for HH, it may change in the future.

-There’s no connection between HH and HB other than they take place in the same universe. HH’s narrative is more on what’s good and evil and what makes people become good or bad and heaven and hell. HB is just about hellborn and hellborn society and the business that goes on in hell, but like the Office, it’s more about the people involved in the business than the business itself.

-Travel time between rings depend on where they go like a plane ride but it wouldn’t take too long.

-Vivzie tried to give Fizz and Oz masc and femme energies since they’re going to be seen together a lot.

-Hellborn lifespans vary between species, imps and hellhounds have similar lifespan which is why they’re paired together. Succubi and incubi are slightly longer than imps and demons like dealmakers are almost immortal. Higher up you get the harder it is for someone to die.

-Angel dust still has his third pair of arms

-Angel dust is Vivzie’s favorite HH character to write (shocking)

-We won’t see how M&M met til further along the show, there’s no confirmation if it’ll be in season 2.

-RoboFizz are considered a high-end product in hell.

-we’ll see more of Verosika’s claim to fame later.

-Vivzie’s favorite episode to write in season 1 was episode 7 because it was her first one to write solo. She also likes episode 6 calling it a penultimate episode for season 1.

Well, first of all, thank you for all of this, Anon! Second of all, where to even begin?

I just can't get over how all the glimmers of the show's writing improving in season 2 (focusing more on the targets I.M.P. takes out, Stella being shown in a sympathetic light, etc.) didn't even happen. And the fact that Vivzie got her first round of animators by snatching them up from a bad project, and brags about that, knowing what we know now about Spindlehorse's working environment.

Also "masc and femme energy." Jesus Christ, Vivzie.

It's a mess. It's just such a tangled, poorly planned mess.

#Anonymous #vivziepop critical #Helluva Boss critical #Helluva Boss #spindlehorse critical #actual blog post #Patreon anon

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ladyloveandjustice · 1 year

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Fall 2022 Anime Overview: Five Anime!

I’ve done a lengthier review of Mobile Suit Gundam:The Witch from Mercury you can read here and now it’s time to tackle the five other anime I watched last season!

There’s some anime I chose to save for later, like Bocchi the Rock! (which I’m watching now and enjoying) and Raven of the Inner Palace, though I’ve heard great things about it and it’s a rare shoujosei adaptation so definitely go check it out! I might do a review of that when I do get to watch it, since it’s been overlooked this season with so many heavy hitters.

But onto what I did watch!

Akiba Maid War

This jaw-dropping genre pastiche takes the tropes of yakuza cinema and applies them to early 2000′s maid cafes in Akihabara locked in bloody war. Young Nagomi dreams of working in a maid cafe, only to find when she goes to work for the Oinky-Doink cafe (yes, they’re pig themed) that the cafe is heavily in debt and rival maid cafes are gunning to take it down. She’s protected by the deadly 35 year-old maid Ranko, who has a dark past.

Akiba Maid War is wild from start to finish. It starts up with shootout where Ranko kills a ton of maids perfectly timed to a cutesy maid cafe music performance and doesn’t let up from there. There’s a side-splitting bloody baseball episode, a deadly boxing match, and more. The comedy is endlessly entertaining- the way the maids continue to use their stupid animal puns even as they engage in yakuza style violence kills me- but it also has quite a few dark twists in line with its inspiration. This a show that could have easily come off as making fun of conventional femininity or indulged in tons of fanservice, but it doesn’t do either of those things. It’s just women in ridiculous outfits fighting each other and getting into ridiculous situations. It’s just utterly committed to its bit in a way that’s admirable.

I wouldn’t saw this a show with many big themes- though there’s the expected “can we stop the cycle of violence” one that comes up later. But there are some smaller things it’s very consistent about, and one of them is the message that if you want to be a cute, you are, and fuck anyone who says otherwise. Ranko is 35 (later 36) and is also utterly terrifying with a deep voice, but she repeatedly states that age has nothing to do with being cute or a maid, and when rival maids shit-talk her for being older than them they’re always framed as villains and shut down. The series coda especially hammers in it’s message of ‘women in their 30s are cute and can be whatever they want’. This shouldn’t be notable, but anime is well known for acting like any woman over 22 is a hideous old...maid, so it’s actually pretty refreshing. Ranko is fantastic.

If you can stomach exaggerated violence (I would call it an anime that revels in gore and the violence is cartoonish half the time, but lots of folks get shot), I definitely recommend this one. It’s a fun (and occasionally heartbreaking) ride. Definitely in my top 5 for the year.

Chainsaw Man

After being exploited by the yakuza ,the teenaged Denji gains the ability to turn into a ‘chainsaw devil” and is recruited by a shady government organization. He’s told that if he doesn’t work for them to kill other devils, he’ll be killed himself. Denji’s perfectly happy with this, because after a hard life he’s only interested in a warm bed, three meals a day, and his dream of touching a boob. Teamed up with a blood-crazed demon girl and babysat by a tired veteran demon hunter, Denji doesn’t realize the ominous machinations closing in on him...

I enjoyed this anime, and it inspired me to read the manga, which I enjoyed even more. It’s a fun time full of monsters and weirdos and there are themes of being exploited by your workplace and all that good stuff. But I’m not going to count it among my favorites, because honestly, the early Chainsaw Man material isn’t the strongest. Though a good deal of it is needed to build up what the manga does later, a lot of it feels meandering.

Denji is also a bit repetitively horny in the early chapter/episodes (though he at least hops the bar-in-hell most horny anime boys don’t manage to slither over and doesn’t violate consent). Unlike most horny anime guys, his immature attitude is a little understandable as he grew up isolated from other people with little education, this is all new to him. He does develop as a character (shocking twist, I know) as he slowly gains more of an understanding of how to approach the idea of sex in a way that works for him. But it takes 5 episodes to get him on that track. I don’t blame the anime for this like most. They definitely added a few sequences to stretch things out, but it does adapt roughly three chapters per episode, which isn’t a bad pace (and is pretty much needed to fit the first arcs into a 12 episode space). And if they cut anything out, fans would be throwing an even bigger fit than they already are. (It’s very funny to see the same fans that complain about the slow pacing turn around and complain about a small sequence cut out of the second episode. WHICH IS IT GUYS, THEY CAN’T DO BOTH).

I think Chainsaw Man fans need to acknowledge the early material just isn’t as as good as the later stuff, and being able to binge-read it in manga form just helps. The anime can’t do much about that, and it’s clearly a cinematic all-star production, with lovingly animated new ending credits and songs for each individual episode, so I don’t have a lot of sympathy for complaining fans when I had to endure Sailor Moon Crystal and a million yuri adaptations kneecapped by production woes. It’s a good anime doing what it can with the material it has, y’all try having real anime problems for once.

Rant aside, Chainsaw Man has a lot of good action, and importantly to me, a fun range of fucked up women. It’s also the rare anime that plays into the horror of an adult woman grooming a teenage boy. The anime does a good job of throwing up the red flags for Makima, yet she’s so good at what she does you almost fall for her alongside Denji. There’s also the loveable, feral demon-girl Power, who hits a lot of my adoration buttons. I do love that for once, the guy and girl teen leads of a shonen manga are truly just buddies, she and Denji have a fun vitriolic friendship. Because of the themes of the story, there’s an unlikely confluence most of the women Denji meets manipulating him by offering sexual favors, which is unfortunate if you read into it. But I honestly just think the author just likes terrible women, which hey, same. Overall, the anime got me to read the manga, and now that I’ve devoured it all, I’ll be happy to consume next season at whatever pace it goes. I just hope those unfortunate animators at Mappa get some rest.

Do it Yourself!

Teenager Yua Serufu (yes that’s a pun and it is bought up) is separated by the best friend who gets into a fancy tech school. Yua is endlessly clumsy, but when she runs into a cool girl, she becomes interested in joining the Do It Yourself! club and do some carpentry and crafting. The club quickly grows, but can Yua lure her estranged bff into the fold?

This is just a cute show with cute animation about girls working with power tools. It’s relaxing and sweet and there’s not much else to say about it. It’s set five minutes into the future, but it did handle it’s themes of tech vs analogue well, with the ultimate message being “now that we have all this cool tech, we should focus on doing what we want, like working with our hands”, which is nice in these troubled times. The characters are very archetypal- Yua’s friend is a sympathetic tsundere, there’s a girl who says ‘nya’ a lot, etc. It’s a little noticeable that the American exchange student is way more fleshed out than the South-Asian one (we don’t even get her country of origin stated in the show) and there’s a weird moment with the little robot watching the girls bathing. Other than that, not much to warn for. It’s a sweet show, but it likely won’t set your world on fire.

Spy x Family Season 2

More Spy x Family, and it continues to be a lot of fun! I enjoyed season 1 a lot, but unfortunately this season covers some of the weaker material in the manga, where the story seemed to be spinning its wheels with a lot of one shots. Because of how the seasons are separated, it’s also incredibly noticeable how underutilized Yor (assassin mom) is in this one and how little we know about her job. Honestly, I don’t think that’s entirely down to sexism or anything, I wonder if the writer was just struggling with how to make readers root for Yor hunting down and killing a man- it’s a pretty big ask for that to be the main focus of an arc in a family-friendly comedy. But fortunately, he does eventually figure it out, and there’s a good Yor arc full of strong material coming up right where this season cuts off, so look forward to that.

For some reason, they also cut out one of my favorite sidestory chapters with Yor. Considering that they adapted all the other sidestories and even added material this season, I wonder if they’re just saving it for the next one? They better be. Anyway, Anya’s still great, there’s a cute dog, it’s still a fun anime, but not as strong as the first season. Fortunately, there’s good stuff coming up.

Mob Psycho 100 Season 3

It’s the final season of Mob Psycho! This is a quieter season than Season 2, but the show’s themes of identity and accepting oneself remain strong. Episode 6 made me emotional about a character I’d never had any emotions about before, there’s a cute little mini-arc focusing on everyone’s favorite weird alien-obsessed girl and the finale is a perfect cap on both Mob and Reigen’s development. It’s a beautiful culmination of all the growth we’ve seen in the relationship that’s the heart of the show. I appreciated that, as small as they were, we got some glimpses of the real, grounded girl that exists behind Mob’s idolization of his crush Tsubomi. It was a nice touch that she lost her sparkly anime eyes and she got plainer ones like the other characters as it was impressed on us she doesn’t exist on a pedestal. It’s just all around solid material. I’ll miss this show a lot.

#akiba maid war #mob psycho 100 #chainsaw man #do it yourself #do it yourself!#spy x family #anime overview #fall 2022 anime #my reviews #recs

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animefeminist · 1 year

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Chatty AF 180: 2023 Winter Mid-Season Check-In

Cy, Caitlin, and Peter check-in on a season with way too many messy shows to wade into.

Episode Information

Date Recorded: March 5, 2022 Hosts: Cy, Caitlin, Peter

Episode Breakdown

0:00:00 Intros Pit of Shame 0:02:06 Sugar Apple Fairy Tale 0:09:27 ONIMAI: I’m Now Your Sister! Yellow Flags 0:10:50 TRIGUN STAMPEDE 0:17:55 Tomo-chan Is a Girl! 0:27:58 REVENGER 0:32:19 Reborn to Master the Blade Neutral Zone 0:33:17 UniteUp! 0:33:43 NieR: Automata Ver 1.1A 0:36:52 Malevolent Spirits: Mononogatari 0:39:11 The Ice Guy and His Cool Female Colleague 0:43:25 The Iceblade Sorcerer Shall Rule the World! 0:43:56 Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill 0:44:27 Buddy Daddies It’s Complicated 0:50:13 The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady 0:53:37 Kaina of the Great Snow Sea 0:56:00 Endo and Kobayashi Live! The Latest on Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte Feminist Potential 0:56:30 Technoroid Overdrive 0:58:17 “Ippon” Again! 1:02:09 The Fire Hunter 1:08:36 Outro

What to read next:

Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

The Selection (The Selection #1) by Kiera Cass

Thorne Princess by L.J. Shen

#books #books and reading #romance books #twisted games #booklover #ana huang #bookaddict #book review #rhys and bridget #rhys larsen #bridget von ascheberg #twisted series #booktok #bookstagram #bookworm #booklr #book reccs #book recommendations

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chibivesicle · 1 year

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Trigun Stampede - Episode 7 - with a title like ‘WOLFWOOD’, I was expecting him to die.

Yet, he is still very much alive at the end of the episode. He saved the orphanage - cue manga plot line to die. However, this wasn’t his second showdown with Livio; can’t have him dying just yet can we?

As I’ve said before, and I will continue to say, the technical aspects of this series are top notch. The smooth fight scenes, the great facial expressions, especially from Meryl in this episode. Yet, the payoff from the events of this episode ring hollow to me. But that is continuing on if the payoff is earned or not. And with all that introduction of the Bad Lads Gang, we don’t even get to see B.D.N. as an older fan, I have to admit that was a disappointment, he was a good villain who added to the character dynamics and helped flesh out Vash’s character early on. But before that, I’ll respond to some comments on last week’s post - I’m always bad about getting back to comments on posts - apologies. ^^;; One comment was on how Wolfwood and Vash don’t need to become friends since it is Wolfwood’s job to take Vash to Knives. That is totally correct - however, the ‘98 anime and manga both make it a point that Wolfwood and Vash become friends as it adds to their character development. Wolfwood realizes his guilt and also finds peace with his decisions because he became friends with Vash. And Vash respected him in both either by literally carrying his cross in the anime in the final showdown with Knives or by using his own life force/span to blow a hole in Knives’ ark just to show him Wolfwood’s dead body on the couch while looking very pissed off. Either way Wolfwood’s own actions that result in his death spur Vash into action. Another comment was about how I’m guessing this season is 12-13 episodes - I’m going by the fact that a lot of anime now are split into two parts for a single ‘season’ and they pace them out this way e.g. Spy x Family, LOGH:DNT etc. It just reflects a change in the animation industry instead of the 90s where they would contractually agree with a studio to make seasons that were either 24-26 episodes long in one go or as long as 36-40. Hence the use of recap and filler episodes, though I personally feel that the original Trigun does not suffer from ‘pointless filler’, it was clever in the story and character development. I haven’t been gleaning the Japanese sources with much vigor since I’m not that into Trigun Stampede to care that much. I think a comment on one of posts mentioned it might be a current 9 episodes for this part from Studio Orange. I care enough about Stampede to give it a college try and watch it but at this point, it won’t hold much re-watch weight when I could go back to the original or read the manga again and enjoy it.

The last comment was similar to the first one, and I agree as well that Wolfwood really is stuck between a rock and a hard place. He has to suck it up and do what he’s told to prevent other children from the fate he and Livio have come to experience. There is just so much we can discuss about this and I love hearing back from other people and the different ways to look at things.

Okay, onto episode seven!

The episode starts off with everyone panicking as the Sandsteamer is off course and under attack. And it is heading straight for Hopeland. Cue Wolfwood panic even further! The map labels the Hopeland Orphanage but the dialogue indicates it is also a town.

Which is it Studio Orange? Honestly, it would have been best to label it as the town of Hopeland and note it has an orphanage through context than making that the key landmark. It reads oddly. The original stated that the Church orphanage is located 300 iles from December according to Wolfwood.

Wolfwood has a lot of angst trying to figure out what to do, lashing out at the Bad Lads members and then goes back to fighting Livio while telling Vash to flee.

Again, the fight sequence between Wolfwood and Livio is brutal and the July MPs remark that the two of them are monsters. It seems that Livio has some sort of built in regeneration system that we can’t see and Wolfwood decides he has no choice but to kill him.

While this is happening, the Bad Lads gang is raiding the Sandsteamer and not really doing that much honestly. They are doing a hit and run. No B.D.N. - personal sadness.

Instead of disguising themselves as Bad Lad members, it seems that one of the two of them sweet talked them to spare them to report for an ‘Outlaw’ magazine. We have Meryl taking pictures of them as they pose during the raid.

Since Meryl is pretty quick witted, I’m guessing she’s the one who came up with the idea and Roberto is just rolling with it based on his body language. But hey, they aren’t dead! That’s a plus.

Then Vash shows up knocking out all sorts of Bad Lads making his way to Roberto and Meryl.

The group briefly chat about why they are there as Vash thought they drove off back towards July on their own. We have him using his gun as a blunt object along with his robotic arm. I guess when he ran away from Wolfwood, his goal was to just knock out as many of them as possible? It is unclear what his objective is other than this is the way the writers have him run into Meryl and Roberto. This shows off that he’s ‘not human’ according to Roberto and they don’t explain to him that they are still following him either.

He then continues down the hall taking out more Bad Lads with his knock them out strategy.

We do see Vash do this in the ‘98 anime (and in the manga) in the episode ‘Hang Fire’ with his famous terrible song about slaughter and genocide but the crux of that story was him begging a father wanting to kill the man who raped and murdered his daughter not to. He kicks a freakkin’ rocket grenade with his foot and takes out men with his long colt 45 instead of shooting them.

The action returns to Wolfwood and Livio. We had more 2D flashbacks about them and Wolfwood is resolved to take him out by insulting him and pretending him like he does care. Livio gets emotionally stunned and when he goes to shoot him at point blank range, his shot is knocked off course and destroys Zazie’s monitoring insect.

This is where he turns to Vash in shock, since this is one of the few times Vash has fired his gun in the entire series. Of course it is to protect Wolfwood and Livio.

Vash keeps pushing him to try to find a way to connect with Livio and Wolfwood fights him until he can damage the weird mind control device on Livio’s face. He pop back into awareness and realizes that Wolfwood is his older brother, Nick and it looks like they might get him.

But all of the brainwashing from the Eye of Michael kicks in and he staggers about pointing his guns at Roberto, Meryl, Vash and Wolfwood . . . before he snaps and shoots himself in the head and falls off the steamer. Tis a flesh wound. We know Livio will be back later.

Wolfwood is clearly concerned and looks over the railing and notices a car that he knows is likely Legato and others. However, he doesn’t share this critical information with others and instead angsting alone for a moment.

It then reveals that Legato is in the mood for some monologue time to state that Wolfwood’s ‘lack of faith’ is an issue and in order to get him to serve Knives better they need to destroy everything he cares about; Livio and the orphanage.

Once Wolfwood no longer has these important connections, it will be no problem to control him. [sighs] If you say so less nihilistic version of Legato. In the last episode we already had Legato establish that this version of Wolfwood has a very strong will and attachment to others, he should realize that this likely will backfire on him.

What is throwing me for a loop is that Legato is the ‘religious’ one in this version. That was squarely Wolfwood’s thing in the manga and ‘98 anime. He seems to (based on his dialogue) believe that faith in something is greater than emotions. Yet, in this episode, we do get some actual anger from him in his voice as well as a more sinister facial expression indicating our bad boy has emotions.

The religious fervor continues with his mannerisms as he decides to force his hand, literally. If the Bad Lads Gang, Livio and Wolfwood can’t do the job, then he will do it.

This does appear to be very tongue and cheek dialogue from him, but I’m disappointed. I miss ultra-nihilistic Legato Bluesummers. He seems to be going through somewhat villain motions, but is missing that sick and twisted edge that made him as creepy as fuck in the original works. I’m also missing his Knives worship. We have no indication that he’s a man craving validation from a person he’s obsessed with. Granted, we didn’t get that early on either, but he made it clear he was there for Knives’ agenda.

What is his ultimate plan? Trigger the ship’s ion cannon to fire at the city and plow into it as well! Wow! I’m sorry, this is again lazy writing. We are going to have Vash info dump for once, stating that the Sandsteamer is a modified spaceship, it still has it’s ion cannon and it was used to clear large rocks back in the day. And he knows how to operate parts of it and busts into all sorts of unused rooms.

Oh noes! We need to make the drama 110%, Vash declares that they have no choice but to try to manually override things. I would like to note during this entire course of events, Legato is just twiddling his thumbs thinking he’s done the job. Don’t count your chickens before they’ve hatched man.

Vash decides he’ll figure out how to mess with the cannon and ask Wolfwood to break into some sort of area to try to manually hold it back?

When we see Vash using the cargo container cranes to pull force on the ion cannon, and the moon in the background, I figured this was the new version of the Fifth Moon in Augusta. Since we don’t know if Vash can make his angel arm in this version, he’d blow a hole in the Fifth Moon with the ion cannon.

While Vash works on mechanically messing with the canon poor Wolfwood is having a melt down trying to do the impossible.

Meanwhile, Meryl is in the control room for the ion cannon with the fire lever before her.

Roberto makes his move and tells her it is time to go. They had a deal to pull out when it was too dangerous. He found an escape vehicle and orders her to take it.

She looks serious and hesitant.

He reminds her what her job is and that she is not a hero and is just a normal person. We can tell they are leading up to some sort of confrontation between the junior and senior reporters.

Poor Wolfwood is there pushing on a giant ion cannon losing his mind. This plot point is bonkers. I get this is sci fi and that Wolfwood can heal quickly but super strength wasn’t in his background right? Or not that we’ve seen.

The conflict boils over when Meryl takes her stand to not be passive or run away! She calmly says she can’t abandon them and that she doesn’t judge Roberto for running either.

But the events at Jeneora Rock shook her to her core. She can’t be passive and has been feeling frustrated since those events. Meryl has guilt for not being able to prevent Tonis from being injured and she sees it as her fault that he lost an arm.

She declares that she’s staying right here in the chance that she’ll be able to make a difference. Honestly, Roberto doesn’t have much to say back to her and thankfully, he doesn’t.

This entire sequence shows where Studio Orange kills it with her facial expressions. They are good, incredibly good. It also further shows that Meryl is also taking on aspects of Milly by caring about others and doing the ‘right’ thing to help out others even if it took her some time to get to this point. Studio Orange - I give you one point for actual character development for her.

Vash rushes down to help out Wolfwood. He tells him that he does have something he cares about and Wolfwood pretends to be obtuse while they strain to try to push the ion cannon.

We see it strain his robotic arm which cracks and sizzles with electricity as well. He’s working it to the max.

This entire scene gives Vash time to talk to Wolfwood as he tries to connect and humanize Wolfwood. However, the sheer physics of this is crazy. Even with a special robotic arm, they aren’t going to make that much of a difference. Yet somehow, they are able to nudge it just enough that when it reaches maximum charge, Meryl discharges the cannon.

Based on what happens it appears that the wrapped cargo crane cables and the collapsing of the arms created enough of a counter force that once they hit the ground it was able to pull it back and out of range until the discharge was complete.

I know this is a sci fi series, but the physics of this had me feeling a bit whaaaa? We’ve been sticking to more logical rules in this series; this was out of place to an extent. Additionally, Legato, why weren’t you trying to counter them more? Twiddling your thumbs I presume? Feeling superior?

Of course the crisis isn’t averted yet! Now, they need to stop the Steamer from colliding with the town. Wolfwood wants to blow it up taking himself with it. He vaguely taps into past Wolfwood’s need to choose the needs of the many as opposed to the needs of the few highlighted in ‘Escape from Pain’.

Yet, Vash gets him to stand down despite his vow that Vash can’t save people without hurting others.

Vash then sends Wolfwood to the engine room and he runs off to the plant room. This was briefly shown in the last episode, so we know the ship is powered by an individual plant.

Wolfwood becomes Kaite, and using his ability to heal, is able to open the hot pressure release door. We see all the other men sitting down looking at their hands and hot gloves unable to hold on long enough.

I missed the original plot point with B.D.N and the Sandsteamer. With the inclusion of Kaite, we see how Vash is able to convince someone to not be hopeless and to make a difference. It also leveraged the point that Kaite was small enough to climb to reach the release lever and it just takes a normal amount of human force.

It is through this nudging to action part that Vash is able to influence others to act, even when at times we know he’s being passive about the big picture for himself.

Vash then goes to the plant to get it to power down and stop the out of control Sandsteamer. Like in previous versions, he places his hands on the tank and requests assistance from the plant.

The Sandsteamer comes to a stop just before hitting the town and Legato decides to give up for the moment. He orders Zazie to retrieve Livio from the desert ground.

A sandstorm then appears, prompting Legato to ask if this is Zazie’s work which they deny.

The sandstorm moves in on the Sandsteamer. This time we have a real sandstorm as opposed to the one that never happened in episode three and also contrasts with the town that didn’t see wind power twenty-five years ago. I’m still not over the there is no wind in the desert plot point.

At the end of the episode the gang meets up to realize the only place Vash could be is the plant room. We see him hand to hand with the plant. The plants have lost their angelic design and instead look like the aliens from Avatar. Well sort of - or elves.

Vash turns to look at them and his face reveals the plant markings where in shock Meryl states that Vash is - a plant?

The episode ends with him looking at them before it goes black and he passed out collapsing to the floor. We have confirmed Vash’s plant identity. It seems like they were going for the same look of shock Meryl had to the Trigun Maximum manga when he uses his angel arm to deflect a bullet from hitting Meryl and she loses it.

Summary of this episode and some main points:

1.) Our team finally scores a win. Mark them one point in the W column! This was such a long time coming. I don’t consider the victory of the Nebraskas to count since it was just a sign of the doom to come.

2.) Wolfwood is at least getting some humanizing points. He’s been forced into a corner and finally stops to listen to Vash and back him up. Though it is with some reservations of course.

3.) Hope does hold out. It is hope that saved Hopeland. That is rather heavy handed Studio Orange! But that is the kinda of don’t worry viewer we will hand feed you the cheese are what you are going for with this series. And the ion cannon plot point - you know that they have to save the day with the paradoxical pacing in this anime.

4.) Religious elements in this series utterly baffle me. I don’t know where they are going with this. It is clear they didn’t get the original. I’m still sitting on an ask in my inbox about the religious element to the original series - it will require a longer reply than I have had time to do at the moment but it will come. Mainly, since the Christian elements can be read multiple ways and it is rather open to interpret in that context depending on your own knowledge of the base material. My main vibe is that by making Legato the religious one it just seems - oddly confusing. He’s a villain and does not have a moral dilemma that stems from his religious upbringing. I just don’t get why he’s the one reading the bible and going on about faith in some sort of higher power (Knives?) it seems OOC for him.

Character notes!

1.) Vash - fired his gun to save Livio! However, the rest of the time he used it to stun Bad Lads. So booooooo. What I’m really missing is that Vash is a skilled gunslinger. We have almost no indication of his skills. He was able to deflect Wolfwood’s shot and he’s had a few early on, but he’s not giving us his awesome tricks and skills. That is all being carried by Wolfwood at the moment. I felt it gave greater weight to Vash’s ability to use his long colt AND manage to not kill someone. It really made his vow to not kill more obvious in the manga and original anime. The series is called Trigun and it is about an infamous outlaw with a huge bounty on his head and is known to be an excellent marksman.

2.) B. D. N. or Brilliant Dynamites Neon - doesn’t show up! Major disappointment! I was expecting him to get into the mix with a Wolfwood vs. Livio and Vash vs. B. D. N. showdown; no dice. I was excited for that outcome when episode six ended. There was no high stakes gamble on a one to one showdown at the toss of a coin. Which Yasuhiro Nightow loves characters flipping American quarters and half dollars btw.

That look from Vash as he emerges from behind the rubble!

His carefully aimed shots that make their mark!

And then how B. D. N. saves him from being crushed by zapping the rock when he realizes how injured Vash is and also saves the day.

The absence of B. D. N. also highlights how Vash impacts the behavior of others for the better. He always respects them and it shows that people respond to that. Again, it gives Vash better and stronger arguments for his personal code of conduct.

3.) Meryl and Roberto - Our lone female lead carries her weight! And is able to contribute to the win for our core group. She shows character development, thinking of more than just her story and job and looking back on her resume which Roberto threw out the car window. Is following through on making a difference! I again think the animation for her facial expressions was top notch here. I don’t know who is in charge of her story boarding for expression but they need to be paid more. Roberto is a sad sack. Yet, I guess being a sad sack works in this episode. He seemed rather passive this episode. Not sure why. Where is old and bitter uncle info dump?

4.) Wolfwood - doesn’t die upon saving the orphanage. We have no idea if he’ll die after showdown number two with Livio. I was expecting him to die with our episode title, but instead, Stampede leaned into this episode of the Wolfwood Show again. I know he is a fan favorite and very popular, yet Studio Orange isn’t leveraging his character as much as they could and should be doing. But since he’s now an atheist, his original guilt is lacking from the anime and manga. He’s only now using the argument of finding the lowest number of casualties for the greater good. Which seems late pacing wise and also OOC for him.

Or as my friend Merdopseudo says, he’s not Wolfwood, he’s Fakewood. I agree that this character is not even close to him from the ‘98 anime or Trigun Maximum. Yet, suddenly, he’s starting to notice that Vash’s idea might work. And is willing to give him a chance - I guess after they stopped the cannon and that Vash got him to confuse Livio. Those two events are enough for Wolfwood to feel that he owes Vash one and will follow through with his plan to stop the Sandsteamer. Does it feel earned? I dunno, maybe if you squint enough. 5.) Legato - got angry and is religious. Right. We see him raise his voice and get visibly angry and try to do things himself but at the same time, he doesn’t follow through fully. Which means you failed man. What happened to your dedication to sparkle motion? -er- I mean your dedication to the mission of Knives? I am bummed out, I wanted nihilistic Legato. Was he so confident that he thought he could let things happen without keeping the pressure on Vash and Wolfwood?

6.) Livio - has an unhealthy younger brother relationship with Wolfwood. He was almost able to snap out of it and it looks like he was brainwashed by Chapel in the very hard to see flashback about his job. Using the trope of ‘I have to catch up to X character!’ is so over used and I don’t like it being applied to him in particular. Minus one for generic writing Studio Orange. Additionally, there is no indication that Razlo the Tri-punisher exists. We can see that he killed people in the flashback but it is not enough information since it is through Wolfwood’s flashbacks in Trigun Maximum that we first get an indication of Razlo’s existence. Wolfwood is the one who watches him and notices the disconnect and then doesn’t know what happens when he runs away.

7.) Zazie - present. We get to see an insect pulled out of their mouth. Better than a vagina I guess [shrugs].

And with that I’ve hit all the points that struck me. The episode ends with a sandstorm and Vash collapsing.

I’m going to guess that the sandstorm is generated by the lone remaining Seeds ship that hasn’t crashed to the planet’s surface and that they were tracking events and located Vash there. They will use the sandstorm to pull the core group onto the ship, Vash will get a new arm from the Doctor. He’ll also meet up with Brad and Luida on the ship.

We only have a few episodes left, but the crazy pacing continues.

#trigun #trigun stampede #trigun stampede meta #trigun stampede episode review #trigun anime #trigun maximum #Vash the Stampede #vash #nicholas d. wolfwood #wolfwood #meryl stryfe #roberto deniro #legato bluesummers #legato #zazie the beast #livio #livio the double fang

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the-rewatch-rewind · 1 year

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New episode! Script below the break.

Hello and welcome back to the Rewatch Rewind! My name is Jane and this is the podcast where I count down my top 40 most rewatched movies. Today I will be discussing #36 on my list: Disney’s 2013 animated musical Frozen, directed by Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, written by Jennifer Lee, from a story by Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee, and Shane Morris inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen”, and featuring the voice talents of Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Jonathan Groff, Josh Gad, and Santino Fontana.

Frozen is the story of two royal sisters. The older, Elsa (voiced by Idina Menzel), has ice powers that she doesn’t know how to control. As a child, she accidentally injured her younger sister, Anna (voiced by Kristen Bell), who was healed by trolls but has no memory of Elsa’s powers. On Elsa’s coronation day, the palace gates are opened for the first time in years, and Anna meets Prince Hans of the Southern Isles (Santino Fontana) and is immediately smitten. But asking for Elsa’s blessing of their marriage leads to a fight that causes Elsa to unintentionally unleash her powers. Terrified, Elsa runs away, leaving the whole kingdom frozen. Anna goes after her and teams up with mountain man Kristoff (Jonathan Groff), his reindeer Sven, and a magical snowman created by Elsa named Olaf (Josh Gad) to bring back summer, and her sister.

I remember seeing teasers for this movie that made it look like it was about a snowman and a reindeer chasing each other around an ice rink, which seemed very boring. But my sister and I decided to give it a chance and see it in theaters. It had only been out for a couple of days, so we had vaguely heard that people seemed to be liking it, but we still didn’t really know what it was about, let alone how popular it would become. And I know I’m about 10 years too late with this advice, but I highly recommend experiencing Frozen for the first time in a crowded theater, before the hype, with no expectations, next to your sister with whom you have a close relationship. Truly one of my top 5 best cinematic experiences ever. I think I probably would still love this movie even if I’d been introduced to it in a less powerful way, but that first viewing has certainly impacted the way I feel about the movie to this day.

I still remember exactly how I felt when I heard and saw Let It Go for the first time. The song started and it was like, yes, good, an Idina Menzel number, I love Wicked, I’m here for this. And then that first “The cold never bothered me anyway” when she throws off her cloak gave me chills. My brain went, “Oh wow. This isn’t just a song, it’s a FEELING.” And it just. kept. escalating. as Elsa’s confidence grew and she could finally be herself for the very first time. By the end of the number, I was either in tears or too overwhelmed with emotion to even cry, I can’t remember which. Some kid a few rows behind us murmured, “Wow, she’s…way prettier than I thought.” And maybe I was just projecting the way I felt, but to me it sounded like the kid was really saying, “Something needs to be said here, but I can’t find the words.” It’s not that I’d never been moved by a musical number before, but this took it to the next level. And all of this is almost embarrassing for me to admit now, because Let It Go then became one of the most overplayed songs of all time and everyone got sick of it, but listen. It was overplayed for a reason. It’s an epic song, and Idina Menzel frickin kills it. I still stand by this.

Looking back on my other thoughts as I watched Frozen unfold for the first time shows me just how much amatonormativity – the idea that everyone wants and needs a long-term monogamous romantic partner – had affected me. I still thought I was straight, although my standard justification of “I’m not into dating yet but I’m sure I will be when I’m older” was feeling less and less valid, as I was then 23 years old. Anyway, I distinctly remember, during Love Is an Open Door, which is the song that Hans and Anna sing to each other soon after they meet, that my sister and I turned to each other and whispered, “I ship it.” And then Kristoff got thrown into the story, and I was conflicted, because I really liked Anna with him, too. I started thinking maybe Elsa would end up with Hans. And then Elsa wounded Anna’s heart with her ice, which only an act of true love could heal, and it did not even occur to me that that could be anything other than a romantic kiss. I thought Kristoff would bring her back to Hans, she would kiss him but it wouldn’t do anything, and that’s when she’d realize her true love was actually Kristoff. But while I was expecting things to not work out between Anna and Hans, I was NOT expecting Hans to be cruel, so his “Oh Anna, if only there was someone out there who loved you” was shocking and devastating. I thought the scene when Olaf rescues her and explains that “some people are worth melting for” was beautiful – the snowman was far less obnoxious than I’d been anticipating – but even then it never occurred to me that Anna would be cured by anything other than kissing Kristoff. And then. Fighting the blizzard and the ice spreading through her body, almost reunited with her romantic true love, Anna sees Hans draw a sword against Elsa. I’m sure if I’d been able to think clearly in that moment, I would have finally figured out what was coming, but all I could do was gape at the screen as Anna changed course and saved her sister instead. And with hindsight, duh, that was the act of true love, but for a second or two I legitimately thought she was now permanently frozen. And, like, here’s the thing. I’ve loved Disney movies as long as I can remember, so I’m not trying to insult them. But the studio that made Snow White and Sleeping Beauty and The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast and Enchanted had so thoroughly convinced me that when you need love to break a spell, it must be romantic and almost always involves a kiss, that I couldn’t even imagine that a Disney film would ever treat saving a family member’s life as powerful enough for that. But Frozen did. Frozen went there. While I was sitting next to my wonderful sister, one of the most important people to me, this movie showed me that it’s okay for sisterly love to be the most powerful thing in your life. So at that point I definitely cried.

As far back as I can remember, the overemphasis on romance in movies has bothered me, but until then I thought I just had to accept it. Falling in romantic love was a universal human experience, so everyone said; naturally people wanted to tell stories about it. Obviously I’d seen movies, even Disney movies like Mary Poppins and Emperor’s New Groove, that didn’t have love stories before. But a Disney PRINCESS movie, that HAD romantic love, but showed a character actively CHOOSING a non-romantic loved one over a romantic one, and saving herself in the process??? That was mind-blowing. Even though I didn’t know I was aroace at the time, I knew I loved that message. So as my sister and I left the theater, we could not praise this movie enough, and for weeks and months afterward, I couldn’t get this story out of my head, and I didn’t want to. I saw it two more times in theaters, for a total of 3 views in 2013, and then bought the DVD as soon as it was released. The following Halloween I dressed as Elsa, along with thousands of girls 15 to 20 years younger than me. I ended up watching Frozen eight times in 2014. But then…I stopped watching it for a while.

Part of that was just because watching a movie 11 times in a little over a year is a lot, even for me, so I needed a break. But another part of it was people started really hating on this movie, and it got to me. Some of the criticism was legitimate – like, no, we really didn’t need another animated musical about white royalty, and yes, there are several plot holes – but a lot of it boiled down to: this thing is overwhelmingly popular and therefore it’s cool and edgy to say it’s bad. But I bought it. I felt embarrassed by my initial enthusiasm. I was way too old to be obsessing over a movie like this the way I had done in my early teens. Normally I don’t have much trouble loving the movies I love unapologetically, but normally the movies I love are old or obscure enough that the internet isn’t filled with hot takes about why it’s bad to love them. I still enjoyed listening to the songs, and I still defended it when I heard it disparaged in person, but after my 8 viewings in 2014 I didn’t watch Frozen again until 2019. And I only watched it then because Frozen II was coming out and I wanted to refresh myself on the first one before I saw the sequel. I was kind of expecting that viewing to convince me once and for all that I had gotten over it, but I had the complete opposite experience. I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of that rewatch. I was reminded that I really do genuinely love and enjoy this movie, and I wished I hadn’t let the haters convince me otherwise. So I watched it once each in 2020, 2021, and 2022, which was partly because of the Disney watching project I did with my brother – we watched through all the animated Disney movies in order in 2020, and then we re-watched the ones we’d ranked in the top 10 in 2022 – yes, we decided Frozen is a top 10 Disney animated film, and no I will not apologize for that.

I think a big reason why I let myself get temporarily talked out of loving Frozen is because I couldn’t articulate what I really loved about it at the time, so I thought that meant I didn’t actually love it. But now that I know I’m aroace, it makes perfect sense. As I mentioned before, even at the time, I knew that seeing a character choose familial love over romantic love in a matter of life and death meant a lot to me, though I didn’t know the extent of it. And I related to Elsa and Let It Go spoke to me, but it took me a long time to recognize the extent of that too. As someone who has struggled with depression, I initially saw Elsa’s self-imposed isolation to try to protect people that ended up hurting them as an allegory for that disease, which I still think it is to a certain extent. Depression dulls all emotions and tricks one’s brain into thinking others would be better off without them, and that describes some of what Elsa is going through. But there’s also the aspect of hiding a part of herself that she knew she wouldn’t be accepted for, and finally breaking away from that to live as her true self, that a lot of LGBTQIA+ people relate to, which I didn’t recognize in myself at the time – and now I wonder if another reason I stepped away from the movie for a while was a subconscious fear of facing my own queerness. I know a lot of people see Elsa as a lesbian, which seemed to be confirmed by a couple of brief moments in Frozen II. While I would argue that it’s not quite canon yet, I wouldn’t mind if Frozen III makes it so – provided the story of Frozen III actually makes sense, unlike whatever the heck Frozen II is supposed to be about. What I’m trying to say is I don’t want to dismiss the Elsa is a lesbian theory, but to me she feels very aroace. She doesn’t seem at all interested in finding a partner, she just wants to hang out in her mountain ice palace by herself, which sounds pretty awesome even though I still don’t understand how she was going to be able to feed herself up there. Also, at the end of the first movie, she seems very surprised to learn that she has the capacity to thaw what she’s frozen by allowing herself to feel love. Elsa has been suppressing all of her emotions because she knows that her ice powers are harder to control when she feels things, which is again similar to depression. But seeing this through an aroace lens of constantly feeling like you’re incapable of the “correct” kind of love, I could see an aroace Elsa being aware of love as a thawing force, but thinking it had to be romantic love and that she was therefore doomed. So seeing Anna using their sisterly love to heal her frozen heart showed Elsa that the type of love she could feel was powerful enough, and that was all she needed to bring back summer. Like most of my aroace headcanons, I’m pretty sure this wasn’t quite what the filmmakers actually intended, but it works and it’s beautiful.

Whether Elsa is intentional queer representation or not, even the straight romantic relationship in Frozen is unusual for a Disney movie. Anna and Kristoff’s rocky start leading to eventual feelings is nothing new, of course, but the way they leave it (at least at the end of the first movie, which I like to pretend is the end of the story because, again, the sequel makes no sense) is very sweet. They’re not officially dating, let alone engaged or married, but Anna presents Kristoff with a new sled, and he’s so excited that he exclaims, “I could kiss you!” And then he backs off and asks her permission and they only kiss after they both agree that they want to. This may not seem like much, but in a culture that tends to romanticize spontaneity and persistent pursuit at the expense of consent, especially in fairytales, it’s so wonderful to see asking for consent encouraged in such an adorable way here.

I think a big part of what makes Frozen work is that it’s all about subverting expectations. Before the movie came out, they set expectations that the snowman and the reindeer would be annoying, and then Olaf and Sven both turned out to be sweet and genuinely funny. Then at the beginning it makes you think it’s going to be a typical fairytale romance, but it turns out the prince is the actual villain. Plot twist villains are pretty common in this Disney era, and I’m not sure even I would consider Hans the best instance of that trope, but I do love the way the Duke of Weselton is established as a decoy villain, and that he’s voiced by Alan Tudyk, who had just voiced the plot twist villain in Wreck-It Ralph. At first I felt like the Hans reveal was a little too out of nowhere, but there are a few delightfully subtle clues that I completely missed initially, like how he sings about “finding his own place” when he’s pretending to be singing about Anna, or how he’s clearly calculating a way to incapacitate Elsa while making it look like he’s saving her. I would have liked a few more clues, but I also think it’s good to portray that red flags can be hard to spot. And then on top of that there’s the unexpected challenge to the amatonormative idea that romance is the most important and powerful form of love. It was all so completely different from what I was expecting, in the best possible way.

Clearly this movie appeals to people who are not aroace, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the most popular children’s movie of the decade is so focused on platonic love. A lot more kids can relate to familial love than to romantic love. And Frozen proves that you don’t have to eliminate romance from a story entirely to emphasize other types of love. When Anna falls in love with Kristoff, that doesn’t make her relationship with him the only one that matters, or even the one that matters the most, and that’s a message that we don’t get from nearly enough stories. A big fear that many aromantic people share is that all of our friends will eventually abandon us for romantic partners, due to the prevalence of the message that one’s romantic partner should be one’s number one focus at all times. Personally I’ve been fortunate enough to find people who value friendship as much as I do, and therefore want to maintain close platonic relationships whether they’re in romantic relationships or not, and I’m very grateful for all of them. But I know not all aros are as fortunate in that respect. So that’s why I keep emphasizing how awesome it is that in Frozen not only is one of the main characters potentially aroace, but the other main character who is not still chooses to save herself with platonic love instead of romantic love. Encouraging people to cultivate non-romantic relationships benefits everyone, not just aros, because putting too much pressure on one relationship to fulfill all or even most of one’s social needs is unsustainable, and often dangerous. When Hans meets Anna, he correctly observes that she’s lonely and desperate for love, and he hopes to manipulate her by filling that entire void himself. But he ultimately fails because, while Anna does desire romance, she wants to reconnect with her sister even more. Even though Elsa has shut her out for years, as soon as she reveals her powers Anna understands that her sister has been in just as much pain as she has. Instead of festering resentment, Anna is filled with empathy and compassion, which allows her to save herself, her sister, and the kingdom. We need more heroes like Anna. And while it may be overrated, overhyped, and a little underdeveloped, in terms of emphasizing the power of non-romantic love, we need more stories like Frozen.

Thank you for listening to me attempt to express my love for this movie. I still don’t feel like I’ve done it justice, which I suspect will become more and more of a problem as I continue to work my way up this list. If you want to hear about more movies that I love enthusiastically, remember to follow or subscribe on your podcast platform of choice, and leave a rating or review if you feel like it. This episode is coming out during Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week, so I hope any of you out there who are or think you might be on the aromantic spectrum are feeling particularly appreciated and accepted. And if you’re not aro-spec yourself, maybe reach out to any aromantic friends you have and tell them you value them. And if you don’t know of any aros in your life, just reach out to any friend and tell them you care about them. Let’s spread lots of good non-romantic feelings this week! And the next time you get the urge to tell a single friend they need a romantic partner: don’t.

Next week I’ll be talking about another movie musical that I’ve watched 15 times, although that one is not animated and is decidedly not geared toward children. As always, I will leave you with a quote from that next movie: “And then he ran into my knife. He ran into my knife ten times.”

#rewatch rewind #frozen #tw depression

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ridley-was-a-cat · 10 months

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What I Watched This Week – 6/25-7/8

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya - There are multiple ways to watch this series, and I went with the chronological order because that was how Crunchyroll had the episodes ordered. This is one of those series I watched less because I liked it or was interested in the idea behind it, and more because it's sort of foundational or often referenced. On paper, a whole show about a self-centered girl making the entire world revolve around her didn't appeal to me, and after watching this series, it still didn't really entertain me too much. Admittedly, the idea behind it is creative and fairly interesting, and I enjoyed watching all the side characters running damage control, but I never stopped wanting someone to just crack her across the face and tell her to grow the hell up. 7/10

House of Five Leaves - I've been wanting to watch this series for a while now, as I don't think there is a Manglobe anime I haven't enjoyed, and I really enjoyed ACCA 13, which is by the same author. I can imagine that the art style was divisive for people, but I really enjoyed the way it looked. The faces were expressive, and the overall vibe of the art felt like an Edo era woodcut print. The story followed a somewhat naïve young ronin down on his luck who gets involved with a mysterious man who heads up a kidnapping ring and unravels the mystery behind him. It was just a thoroughly satisfying little vignette about a man's troubled past and complicated present. 8/10

Ōoku: The Inner Chambers - Despite this winning awards from feminist science fiction organizations, few things interest me less than gender plague stories, so I didn't initially intend to watch this. Curiosity got the best of me though, and I'm glad it did, because it engaged with the topic thoughtfully and had me riveted throughout. The plague in this instance is a deadly pox that attacks young men, eventually bringing the male population to a quarter of the female, leading to a wide variety of challenges and changes for Edo era Japan. The story mostly focuses on the inner palace and the men gathered there to serve the female shogun, as the concubine system of the previous generations flips genders. Despite being a shoujo, this is a fairly violent story of upheaval that spends a lot of time dealing with the way a gender imbalance would change sexual politics, and works that question out through many scenes of sexual assault and sexual coercion, from the first episode straight through to the end. Sexual violence is as central to the theme of this story as war violence is to Vinland Saga, and it engages the idea just as intentionally. 8/10

All Saints Street - This technically isn't anime, since it's a Chinese donghua, but it's on Crunchyroll and MAL and has a Japanese dub, so I'm including it here. The Japanese release that I watched condensed the original 36 5-minute episodes into 6 standard-length episodes, and had a top-notch cast of the voice actors you often hear in comedy anime. The skits center on a young demon guy who moves into a shared house in the human world with a variety of supernatural roommates and the silly little situations they get into. The worldbuilding was fairly creative, the characters were amusingly relatable, and the character designs were adorable. This was just a fun and short comedy series. 7/10

#the melancholy of haruhi suzumiya #house of five leaves #Ōoku: the inner chambers #all saints street #backlist anime #anime #shoujo

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ecargmura · 1 year

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Buddy Daddies Episode 12 Review + Final Thoughts: They Became a Real Family!

I’m holding back on the tears. This ending is so happy. I love it so much.There is no need for a season 2 as everything wrapped up perfectly without a need for a new season. Our daddies finally left the organization to become the real family they want to become with Miri. The way it was written was great.

Rei’s speech about the experiences he spent in the outside world and how Miri and Kazuki are so precious to him that if his killer blood overtakes him to the point that he cannot protect his two beloved people then his hands serve no more purpose was so powerful. Rei definitely changed for the best. He now understands what love is and what it means to have a family. It’s especially shown in the time skip where he can smile genuinely without any worries or burdens shouldering him.

Instead of killing both Ogino and Rei’s dad, only the former dies as he is the most dangerous while the latter stays alive, but it makes sense. If Rei’s dad dies, the organization will chase after Rei until he dies. He can’t have that and he knows the risk. Instead, Rei proves that his ability to love Kazuki and Miri are stronger than bloodlust, hence why he shot his arm to show his father his final decision. I think Rei calling him father before he left was symbolic in a way as the first time Rei remembers his childhood in Episode 3, he called out to his father as “Father” while the latter dismissed him and told him to call him “Boss”. During his venture back to his family’s house in Episode 8, he addressed his father as “Boss”. The fact that he called him “Father” and then left showed his act of defiance—the fact that he is finally out of the organization.

The action scenes are at its best for the finale. My favorite portion was Rei breakdancing to kick away Ogino’s gun. Speaking of which, I’m so satisfied with how Ogino died. He got impaled to the throat where he cannot mutter out his own last words and the book burns alongside him in the fire. I feel like it’s true karma on his part.

I think the issue of the dads hiding about Misaki’s death to Miri is handled well. Miri’s five but it would be hard for her to comprehend death, especially if she tries comprehending Misaki’s untimely death. The timeskip does imply she is aware of her death as she has a picture of Misaki on her desk and she talks to it fondly. I mean, at this point, there had to be a point where she learned about it.

The ten year time skip with the dads in their late thirties, Kazuki being 39 and Rei being 36, and Miri now a 15-year-old high schooler, shows off the happy vibe they all truly wanted. Now that they are no longer assassins, they opened a diner and have been operating it for ten years. That sounds like every fan fiction AU out there. I love the fact that they moved from the apartment to the seaside, enjoying their new life as a family. It’s a very peaceful ending and the life they deserve. I love the wholesome vibe the family have with each other. Everyone’s so casual with each other. Rei’s even cooking, but he can only cook French Toast. As long as Miri loves it, it’s fine by him. While they are together, Kazuki and Rei are not explicitly canon as this is not a BL anime, but a family one. It’s okay; they’re canon in my heart. The ending truly showed that they became family and that their bond remains strong even after a decade.

Final Thoughts

This is probably one of the best original anime I’ve seen in such a long time. It’s definitely one of my top family anime and these three are on my list of top anime families. The concept did seem like a Spy x Family ripoff at first, but it has proven itself to be more than that. I’m glad to have picked this up to review. I did not regret it at all. In fact, it ignites my reviewing passion even more.

The concept of found family between three broken people with no blood relations towards each other will always be a sweet concept. This show proves that you don’t have to be a man and a woman to be parents, two men can be fine parents as well (I want to see an anime with two women raising a child now). The chemistry the three main characters have are so good and the writing is excellent. The writers did a very good job of not squeezing in too much and not being too ambiguous or vague in showing and telling. They did a good job balancing everything from the comedy to the angst.

The execution of this concept of this anime was a bit rocky first with Miri being annoying and the dads being terrible parents at first, but as show went on, the annoying aspects disappeared and the show did solidify into a wholesome and comedic action comedy. However, my only gripe is that Rei and Kazuki’s bond is mainly told and not shown. Like it was shown subtly throughout the first seven episodes before being explicit with the bonding in Episode 8 where the flashback of when they first met occurred. I wanted to know more about their bond

The voice acting was top-notch. Toyonaga and Uchiyama have such great chemistry in their past works and to see them reunited again in this anime was pure bliss. I can’t wait to see another anime with them as leads. Hina Kino as Miri was great. She sounded convincingly child-like that suited Miri’s playful nature as a four-year-old. I’m impressed with how she delivered her lines without sounding too off (meaning that sounding like a child at first and then making the child sound older due to being voiced by an adult). Morikawa as Kyutaro was also great too. He always has a nice voice and to see it be used here is great. All the other voice actors were great too, but I want to mention Ogino’s. His voice actor is Mitsuaki Madono. If you look him up, he mainly voices bumbling villains like Adachi from Persona 4 and Hasta from Tales of Innocence or characters like Chopin from Eternal Sonata. Using such a deep voice made him unfamiliar. I had to look up his VA to see who was voicing him and that’s when I learned that Ogino and Adachi have the same VA; it’s still mind boggling to this day.

The OST is banging. I love the jazz! All the usage of jazz made the anime feel like a spy flick and it showed. Though, my favorite portions were the scores used in somber scenes like Misaki’s song. Her introduction in Episode 3 was beautiful with the way she sang “Don’t say good-bye.”

This is definitely an anime I’d recommend to anyone wanting to watch a family anime. Don’t let first impressions cloud your judgement with this anime; it’s a lot better than It looks. Give it a chance! You won’t be disappointed!

#buddy daddies #review #anime review #anime #ecargmura #arum journal #kazuki kurusu #rei suwa #miri unasaka #Kyutaro kugi #Anna hanyu #Ryo ogino #Shigeki suwa #winter 2023 anime #pa works #the happiest ending ever

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