#but now there is fafner!

[jennhoney]

A year ago.

[kimisepo]

[criaturamonocromatica]

It's cold

[magnoliawaltz]

I was thinking, I'm not sure why Youko and the other characters are so sure Misao will be reborn because a new mir took root in that lake.... All characters who had died in that last battle came back after receiving Altair and Miwa's blessing, except him, maybe because he was the only one who actually committed suicide in that last fight. Would he want to be born again after that? I'm not sure about that. I guess it all depends on how one imagines the tabula rasa future.

Director Noto Takashi said the following in an interview:

能戸: 二代目操に関してですが、彼はアルタイルを与えられてレガートのように復活することもできたと思いますが、「竜宮島で生まれて羽佐間容子の子供――翔子のように育ちたかった」という願いを受けた形として、12話であのように島に根づいた彼を見せました。チビ操はとびっきりかわいいと思うし、それを見に帰ってくる甲洋おじさんの手には世界中のお土産がたくさん――そんな未来が見えませんか？ Noto: As for Misao 2nd, I think he could have been given Altair and revived like Legato, but his wish was "I wanted to be born on Tatsumiya Island and grow up like Shouko, the child of Youko Hazama". So in episode 12, we showed him rooted in the island like that. I think that a Chibi Misao would be extremely cute, and when Uncle Kouyou comes home to visit, he brings a lot of souvenirs from all over the world in his hands: can't you see such a future? (Source: Animage Plus, 2021.12.22)

......I agree that kid Misao would be extremely cute, however after the "KoSoushi Chronicles" he tweeted years before TBY was announced, and which ended up being a total misdirection...... I can't say I believe him! 💢💢

But Misao did die saying "mom..."

[fenrhi]

I was so enchanted by the sight of Eunyung crossdressing that I forgot to look at the forest hidden behind the tree: Eunyung’s increasingly complex relationship with feminity

[facts-i-just-made-up]

Introducing Fifi Fafner, the Fake Facts Fox

Hi everyone! I'm Fifi Fafner, the Fake Facts Fox. With so many bloggers using an animal mascot in sickly green and purple iilluminaughtii colors for some reason, Facts-I-Just-Made-Up has decided to jump on the bandwagon in a disgusting show of pandering and trend-chasing!

From now on, this NFT-looking pixelated re-compressed aesthetic atrocity will be the face of the blog, because God has abandoned us and all that remains controlling the world are sicker and sicker despots and sadists reducing art and culture to foul greedy parodies of what our species could have been.

Though the blog is just text and lacks video and audio, please read all facts posts now in a shrill, annoying voice full of toxic positivity with a la croix level hint of tiredness and/or fear.

[yuritsukikage]

I’m having a mix of heartfelt sadness and some sense of anger (towards a certain company) right now

I know I’m mainly a Precure fan over here but I started my journey into the Japanese language, anime and manga when I first picked up and rented that Sailor Moon S DVD at a local hobby shop.

As I was watching the Region 1 DVD, I made a decision to try to watch it in another language because the old Pioneer DVD had both English and Japanese. I, a wee little depressed year 9 student was blown away by the voice acting from the Sailor Moon Japanese voice cast that I decided to look them up on the internet and find out the women behind these iconic characters.

What I realised was these women were not only around both my parents’ ages. They were in other anime that I literally grew up in, watching their anime in English. I decided to watch some of my childhood anime in those languages, just to hear how they performed. Spoiler alert: They we’re amazing.

And that’s how I started my journey into pursuing learning the Japanese language all the way to University where I graduated with a degree in that field.

The Sailor Moon Japanese voice cast were like those aunties (yes I am Asian) or older sisters (depending on the region) that you never knew but you connected with them through the anime that you have watched over the years. You watch them grow older seeing their public photos on news sites and social media through the events they attended, as you, yourself grows older.

The fact that we lost one of them in the 8th of September 2024 will be one of the most heartbreaking things to find out for me and a lot of people this year. Coincidently the shock announcement came on the birthday of one of the beloved Sailor Senshi makes it even more tragic.

Emi Shinohara was an fantastic seiyuu/voice actress. She worked in a lot of people’s childhood shows, many of us would have known her for her role as the ever reliable, ever strong Makoto Kino/Sailor Jupiter in the 90s anime of Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon (90s Sailor Moon for short). Others would have known her for Kaho Mizuki from Cardcaptor Sakura or if you’re old, B-Ko from Project A-Ko. However the majority of people (anime normies) would have mostly known her as the voice of Kushina Uzumaki from the Naruto Shippuden anime.

Her later years in life would really reflect on her roles she would later have with the aforementioned Kushina. A lot of younger seiyuu would have known her in Fafner (I hear that anime a lot on Twitter through some of the seiyuu involved and I know the character designer for Gundam Seed worked on the designs).

Probably the roles that really stood out for me personally asides her roles in Sailor Moon and CCS, would be an obscure 2007 anime called Claymore. That anime was one of those that the unfortunate case of “manga was still ongoing while the anime was airing situation”. However props to the casting staff involved in this anime because they brought in a chunk lot of veteran seiyuu that would get to show off their years of experience into this one single 24 episode anime. Emi Shinohara was no exception to this! She voiced the ax-crazy, hella insane, ultra mega bitch Ophelia and oh boy it was a ride and an experience to listen to her voice from the beginning right to the death of her character. I personally would recommend watching this anime for the voice acting in there, not for the anime itself because of its situation at the time.

Her music prowess was no joke either. Of the original 5 seiyuu of the Sailor Moon cast, she was definitely the most experienced and you can clearly experience it though the Moon Revenge live for a Christmas event that happened 31 years ago. She has released her own albums during the 90s as well and 100% she slayed on every character song that came to her during her active years in the 90s

I really cannot believe that Emi Shinohara has left us. The Sailor Moon community is definitely in mourning right now for this iconic voice actress. Our heart goes to her husband, Tokusatsu actor Hiroshi Watari and their only son who made a heartfelt and saddening message to Shinohara’s own personal Twitter account.

And our hearts also go towards the remaining 4 seiyuu of the original Sailor Moon voice cast, who out of the two who have social media, are currently in a state of devastation and sadness to have lost a fellow cast mate who they have worked and truly bonded together on the 5 years of Sailor Moon’s airtime from 1992-1997.

In particular fellow cast mate Rica Fukami who she considered Emi Shinohara as her twin, having being born on the same year, month and day. To the point they even have their own duo name together back in the 90s as Funky Twins, where they last year held a 3 day fan live together. Who would have thought that this would be the only time they would be together for such a special occasion. Let’s not forget the constant amazing and interesting quote tweets interactions between the two of them since Shinohara started her Twitter account a few years back from the constant birthday congratulations, to recently finding a hidden Sailor Moon treasure while Rica Fukami was in the middle of decluttering. The fact that we will never get this kind of interaction ever again is heartbreaking but it will live on through the past interactions that they have shared together.

I will briefly mention my anger towards Toei for losing this once in a lifetime opportunity to reunite the original 5 Sailor Moon voice cast for the 30th anniversary of the franchise. The fact that their last public reunion together was for a DVD commemoration in Akihabara, late 2009 has given me this sense of anger, frustration and sadness inside me that I will never forgive them for. And we will never have an opportunity like this ever again.

With that part out of my head. I will now leave this insanely long message with a single part of a message that Emi Shinohara’s son has written in that post on Twitter, “the name ‘Emi Shinohara’ will continue to live on as long as people remember her voice and the roles that she has portrayed”

Thank you Mrs Emi Shinohara for the past nearly 40 years of service to the anime and voice acting industry. We, the fans, will never forget you and we definitely will look back to the voices and songs that you have given us over the years. Rest in Peace. 🕊️💚

[setteidreams]

Soukyuu no Fafner (88 sheets) is now available in the settei section.

[wordsandrobots]

On reflection, I think quitting 86 EIGHT-SIX because the subtitles wheeled out an actual Nazi slogan is as good a reason as any not to write anything in-depth about it, so I'll simply summarise my thoughts about being recommended this anime as something in the same vein as Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans.

It's not.

There are broad aesthetic similarities but where IBO is a tragedy, the plot driven by characters' flawed reactions to bad circumstances, 86 -- at least for much of its first season -- falls more into the region of moral horror. That is, the horror of being stuck within a society entirely at odds with your personal morals. In this mode, it's quite effective, particularly when using small victories to highlight the wider, inescapable nature of the situation.

Unfortunately, from my perspective, 86's second season promptly drops any pretence of having anything other than a standard heroic arc, ditching the implication of a crushingly cyclical conflict and also any sense of real stakes for the protagonists. Given the show is an adaptation, I'm not sure where to place blame for that. Frankly I'm not inclined to delve further to find out. Within a horror context, the juvenile fantasy racism that forms the impetus behind the characters' struggles isn't a particular flaw. The emotional beats land despite the details. But with the horror elements becoming mere obstacles to be overcome, it's just asinine. This is a world where the major act of exterminationist racism is prompted by an AI apocalypse scenario, and the oppressed peoples are afforded no deeper identity than simply not being blue-eyed and silver-haired.

(In case it's not fully clear what I mean by that, the anime spends zero screen-time on non-conscripted District 86 people. There's no sense of a culture being obliterated by the official policy that stripped them of their personhood, nor of what remains to be saved should that policy be overturned.)

Again I can't say if this comes from the adaptation or the original light novels. It's a fairly brief anime that, in fairness, makes the most of the space it gets. But we circle back around to where I started. At best, the sense I get is of a piece of fiction existing within something akin to the 'imperial anti-imperialism' framework of, say, Code:Geass (or War of the Worlds, if you want the classic British example of the type). At worse -- well, suffice to say 86 is now something I won't recommend to anyone, ever.

It's also just not particularly good, in my opinion. Outside the horror elements, the characters feel extremely stock, lacking interesting details or nuance. There's nothing like IBO's thematic tightness and 86 certainly bears no relation to real-life child soldiers. What it does in this regard is not utterly divorced from reality, but it's framed in terms of conscription, not the reasons kids get drawn into fighting in the situations we usually mean when we say 'child soldier'.

The most positive thing I took from thirteen episodes of 86 is a fresh appreciation for how 'mecha anime' functions as an aesthetic genre, often obscuring narrative genre. If you enjoyed what IBO does, I doubt you'll find much to chew on in 86. Even setting aside its comparative shallowness, it's not remotely the same kind of story.

Anyway. Don't like spending words on stuff I didn't enjoy, but PSA for anybody who gets recommended 86 off the back of IBO: its subtitles have Nazi shit in them, and you won't be missing much by not watching it.

If you can, go dig out Fafner in the Azure instead. I know I rave about IBO a lot but Fafner is by far and away the best mecha anime I have ever watched. While also not a tragedy, it's an exceptional, heart-breaking story framed around war with an 'unknowable' alien horde, that unfolds into a deeply sincere exploration of what it means to fight in defence of home and community.

[arsnovacadenza]

Was super late to the party because of stuff, but

ATHRUN TOTALLY CAME BY KAZUKI'S HOUSE PEOPLE. THIS IS NOT A DRILL

(Note: Tatsumiyajima's town design is based on the city of Onomichi, Hiroshima. It's now a favorite pilgrimage site for Fafner fans. If you go on Twitter, you'll see fans snapping pictures of a house that looks like Kazuki's house)

[anne-bsd-bibliophile]

You know those anime with complex, interesting characters and plot lines but next to nothing is actually explained? You think you know about a specific aspect, but then you see someone else's comment about it and wonder if you're completely off base, so you go back and check in the episode only to realize that what you thought was fact was never actually stated, and then you start psychoanalyzing every character and searching for any obscure line that could help you understand it like you're Sherlock Holmes or something, but then you end up watching every season again and reading every resource you can find before you realize you now have a dozen more questions and no specific answer for what you were originally looking for, only now you are that much more invested and in love with the anime because every time you watch it you find another hidden gem.

Soukyuu no Fafner is that anime for me. I've watched it a dozen times but don't ask me to explain it. Some anime are true works of art, and I think Fafner is one of them.

[jennhoney]

My mom has extra bonus cancer. She’s already on the treatment that might treat the new cancer so at least no more chemo or radiation for now.

[dearloonies]

I think the ending for Fafner otome game is that unless you chose to be Soushi, your character will lose to Soushi 😏

Now that's an interesting way to end the game XD no but srs this is actually gonna be heartbreaking for the characters who aren't Soushi tho but then again they kinda of expected that yes Kazuki will chose Soushi because well it's Soushi. Koyo's pov on this game will probably angsty considering the fact that his first crush Shoko also liked someone else and yeah...

[lichtsstar]

You know, while I think I'll always have a small soft spot for Fafner for getting me into Mecha anime, I also think that we add a society don't need it anymore. If we want gay Mecha girls, we have Gundam: Witch from Mercury! We have SuleMio! CanMay was nice and all, but their time is over; we have better pairings now! And if Bandai-Namco thinks that they're up to interpretation, then I welcome them to interpret DEEZ NUTZ!

FBFJDJDJDJDNDXNDS I didn't particularly go to fafner for gay BUT.

Yes Sulemio is very cute and also married! I should really finish my wips of them haha

[magnoliawaltz]

Talking about Fafner Exodus drama cds: The Follower 1 and 2

Spoilers for both Exodus and The Beyond ahead.

(I had some details wrong the first time I wrote this, I'm reposting with those details corrected. As this drama cd hasn’t been translated I didn’t want to spread wrong info with my half-assed report)

I thought I would have a lot less to talk about these cds, because in Exodus the character’s intentions and interactions felt a lot more obvious, if not shallow, to me. The thing with Fafner is that the more it expands the scope of the world, the more the individual characters’ writing suffer -- it becomes more about how they embody their duties towards said world.

Even little Miwa already had the sacrificial mentality at age 5. It’s just so sad. But the extended sequence where Michio appears as a memory of the mir and they walked together and talked was so emotional, I had tears in my eyes. I don’t have much to talk about the first cd besides the fact the family reunion between Yumiko, Michio and Miwa was great.

The concept of the Mir appearing as the parent they can’t see anymore was very interesting. It’s at times like these that the sekai-kei aspect of the narrative really shines. In the second cd, only when the three key characters make their personal choice is when the path to the island’s future opens. More on that later.

Maya seems to have come with an understanding with her father, already having seen too much of herself and her hate in him and his actions. And Kazuki is still in that vague state where “mom” is both mom and not mom since he doesn’t remember her much (I remember Fumihiko clearly stating “that” is not Akane, in Gone/Arrive but the concept was evolved, and it is the mir after all). I got taken aback with how curt Soushi was with Kouzou. I knew their relationship really was not good at all (with good reason, since his dad raised him to be a “tool”), you can really hear the strain in his voice -- At the start he is using keigo but by the end has stopped. Only to use it again when saying good bye. How very Soushi. It just left me wanting to know more on their family situation. Need me a whole spinoff about that, specially when it comes to Soushi and Tsubaki’s mom.

So the three choices they made were to overcome the willingness to sacrifice, ask for further dialogue and decide to leave the old world. That’s how Kouzou resumes the choices. I had got this wrong the first time I wrote, as I was trying to much to fit it into my theory without listening again, because oh my god I really can’t stop seeing the Hegel influence everywhere now. 

So in Exodus these three concepts that derivate from this same word with contradictory meanings (aufheben) become manifest as the mir’s blessing. It’s is the same as Kouzou said, just changes the order of things. They choose: 

1. to negate the old ways of Tatsumiyajima, an island hiding from the world, only preoccupied with maintaining it’s own people’s subsistence; 

2. to preserve its essence, the mixing with the festum which possibilites the dialogue between them, here symbolized by the Esperanto; 

3. to elevate itself, which I think means to overcome the need to sacrifice themselves and other people to let their loved ones live.

It’s the whole elevating of the vessel thing -- the show has used pottery as a metaphor for this whole process since the start. How The Beyond is going to do that is what I’m curious about now.

The thing is the trio's choices here, in turn, becomes their destinies in The Beyond.

Soushi has his old existence and old way of thinking “negated” and he is reborn, most likely repeating the process forever. Maya has her existence as a human “preserved”, accepting a mind that will continue to change and a body that will continue to age as parts of herself. And Kazuki has his existence “elevated” to something less than festum and more than human, more akin to a god, losing part of his human heart in the process.

(　ﾟдﾟ)ﾎﾟｶｰﾝ

Everything makes sense now, even the push and pull between the trio, that I couldn’t understand at first and thought was flimsily written in Exodus, specially the interactions between Soushi and Maya that left me ? at the time, makes sense when I think of the characters as both embodying these qualities and going through that sublimation process themselves. Even the initial estrangement The Beyond caused is more understandable.

However, I have to say, it sure is still frustrating to see these characters I love so much become mere puppets of fate at the hands of the writer. Must Soushi suffer so much like that forever????? (Edit: oh I was so innocent about this. “Soushi” is “fine”, the other two? Not so much). Sure, I’ll see how much of my opinion will change when I finally finish The Beyond. I need to get to that before BTL’s BD comes out. We’ll see.

[fenrhi]

Girls when they rewatch Soukyuu no Fafner for the 48th time and they still notice new things