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welcometothejianghu · 1 year

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Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 괴물/Beyond Evil.

Beyond Evil is a 2021 Korean drama about two cops that solve a small-town murder that one of them might have committed. Also there's more than one murder to be solved. Also more than one of those murders happened twenty years ago. Also, the cop might have gotten away with at least one of those too.

It got sold to me on the strength of the main pairing, which is absolutely captivating and worth the price of admission. But the entire cast is amazing, the story is great, and it's all just so satisfying. I love everyone in this weird small Korean town. I love having emotions and various Korean foods with them.

I got five reasons why you should watch it! Read 'em!

1. Do You Want To See An Old Man Cry?

In fact, do you want to see every man cry? Do you want to see every man in the cast either cry or pretend to cry or be on the verge of tears at least once? Do you want to see the main characters, who are both men, cry multiple times, often while otherwise wet as well?

Well, buddy, Beyond Evil has got you covered.

2. Absolute Nightmare/Absolute Nightmare

I do not consider it a spoiler to tell you that Han Juwon (the younger one, on the right) is a very mentally unstable superboy. You already know everyone thinks Lee Dongsik (the older one, on the left) is psycho -- it's nearly the first thing you learn about him. But when you're introduced to Han Juwon, you're given the impression that maybe he's just cold, self-possessed, and competent.

No. He is an absolute freak. This is a freak4freak relationship. They are both completely unhinged. They have both been traumatized to nigh-unimaginable degrees, and they have each decided to make it the other's problem. Fortunately (or unfortunately) for both of them, they both get off on that real hard, and they get real mad sometimes about how hard they're getting off on it. It's delicious.

And yet what makes it great is how they're different flavors of freak. They've got the age difference (40 and 27). They've got the height difference (even though the actors are only like 1cm apart, the whole thing is somehow shot like there's a bigger gap). They've got the class difference (small town weirdo and cop royalty). One's a messy bitch, and one's a prissy prince. One has a whole network of people who affectionately endure him, and one has exactly 0.73 friends. One wants to take care of everyone else but not himself, and one has never looked out for anyone else a day in his life. One's a smug little shit, and one's ... also a smug little shit, but differently.

You have perhaps been given the impression that Beyond Evil is like Hannibal, and that Juwon/Dongsik is like Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter. It's not, and yet it scratches a similar itch, if that makes sense.

Don't let me give you the impression that this is textually gay. They do not smooch or anything, so don't be waiting for that. But holy cow, is it homoromantic -- and the leads know it is, and they roll around in it, and everyone else in the production supports their doing it. They have the kind of chemistry stars are jealous of. (It helps that the younger actor is a muffin who has a such crush on the older one.)

And that's even before the part where they get married live on national television. Is that a joke? You'll have to watch to find out.

3. Lee Changjin (and the other antagonists)

I'll talk in a second about excellent and despicable all the bad guys are. But I need a special moment for this motherfucker right here.

Lee Changjin is a wretched, scummy piece of shit who damn near walks away with every scene he's in. He's not the worst like a little meow meow -- he is the actual worst, and it's so good. He's sleazy. He's pathetic. He's hot as fuck. You meet his ex-wife, and you're like, no, honey, sure it was a bad decision, but I totally get it.

Clearly he has a special place in my heart, but all the bad guys in this series are done so damn well. Their realism makes them even scarier. They're not incomprehensible ghouls out there being bad just to be bad. They're (mostly) making calculated decisions based on keeping their own heads above water, and to hell with everyone else.

I'm not going to spoil the identity of the murderer for you -- but it kind of doesn't matter, because you find out who it is less than halfway through the show (and because there are multiple people in this show who've killed someone). There's something bigger and more awful at work here, perpetrated by people that you knew were bad news from the moment you met them.

Beyond Evil is a cop show that is not copaganda, because one of the biggest villains in the series is misuse of police power. The show stresses accountability for police misconduct -- to the point where that accountability hurts characters we want to see get away with stuff because, come on, their bad behavior was totally justified! But it wasn't! The ends do not justify the means here. The world is not better when powerful people use their power to get out of the consequences of their shitty, selfish actions, even when those shitty, selfish actions were objectively kind of cool.

Fair warning, a lot of this show is about complicated relationships with abusive, absent, deceased, and otherwise difficult parents. Those parents are not always (or even mostly) the bad guys -- but the bad guys are all shitty parents. And yet, their adult children are tied to them in complicated ways that do said children no favors. Some of the most heartbreaking pieces of the show are about how these kids break free from those parents -- or, more tragically, don't.

4. Just plain good television

This is a series that can be handled by Your Average American Television Enjoyer Who Can Handle Subtitles. Its quality is on par with a lot of well-thought-of English-language shows I've seen. It's a tight, well-plotted story that's clear enough to be easy to follow, which is sometimes a high bar for a multi-tendriled murder mystery. The small-town setting even gives it a good source of levity to break up the otherwise tight tension.

It's only sixteen episodes long, but there are enough reveals to make a rewatch more than worth your while. The first half in particular improves exponentially on the second viewing, because once you have all the information, events and decisions that you initially read one way, you can see meant something else entirely.

I was initially going to say that if this were in English, all those fans of things like the Wire and True Detective would be super-horny for it -- except that's not true, is it? No, shows like that (which I have seen, for the record) glorify cops who can't be held down by your damn system, so they have to say screw the rules to get things done, because they're too cool and manly for things like paperwork! While Beyond Evil acknowledges that there are some places where the Korean law system is janky and might let a guilty person go free, but that doesn't mean cops get to do whatever they want about it.

My declaration of the show's quality isn't just me judging by my own tastes. This show won the Korean equivalent of Emmys for Best Drama, Best Screenplay, and a well-deserved Best Actor for Shin Hakyun, who plays that incredibly handsome horrible old man. This is a show that actual people who hand out actual awards for good television thought deserved awards.

So I guess if you always wanted to get into those shows a certain kind of dude can't stop talking about, but you had reservations about how authoritarian/libertarian/misogynistic/homophobic/boring they are, Beyond Evil is here for you!

5. Written and directed by women

This one I think is important as hell, because this is a Dead Girl Show (i.e., a show where men kill multiple women as a major part of the plot), and I know a lot of people are justifiably wary about those. However, there are no hints of sexual assault. The violence is gendered, but it's not sexualized. The murders and postmortem mutiliations are handled with the appropriate horror, but it's not torture porn. And the dead girls are treated like -- and grieved like -- actual humans who matter.

I think a whole lot of this can be chalked up to the fact that both the writer and the director of Beyond Evil are women.

In fact, not only are they both women, they're women who don't do this kind of story all the time. Shim Nayeon has directed five things, four of which are comedy/slice-of-life series. Kim Sujin has written a few dramas about mystery-solving teams, but even more comedy and adaptations of webtoons. I have no idea how the two of them got put on this drama together, but it was a perfect match.

This is not to say that men would be incapable of pulling off a story like this. It is, however, a commentary on violence, and how different it looks if you've grown up seeing yourself everywhere as its object rather than its subject. Sure, you could just flip the script and make a story about a lady punchkicker! A lot of people have, and I've enjoyed many of them! But you could also choose to tell a story about gendered violence in a way that isn't just needlessly retraumatizing the people who have to live their entire lives under its shadow. Moreover, you could tell a story about how even good-guy cops can wind up unintentionally buying into paradigms where some women are valuable and some are disposible.

...And if it winds up being teensy bit of a fantasy story about a world in which so many cops give a shit about this violence, well, that's what fiction is for, right?

In short, you love a team of powerful ladies power-drunk on an Arnold Palmer of Respect Women Juice and Sad Man Tears.

Bonus: BANGER SOUNDTRACK

Oh, it's so, so good. (Spotify link)

Have I convinced you to watch it yet?

It's on Netflix, which may be easiest for most people! However, it's also on Viki, and I much prefer the subtitles over there, because a) they keep the flavor of the Korean terms of address, and b) they actually translate the damn episode titles (wtf Netflix?).

There's no bad way to watch it, though!

(ack, they're so cute~)

#beyond evil #괴물 #rec post #honorary danmei #i made this #seriously though it's so good #watch beyond evi

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grits-galraisedinthesouth · 4 months

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Sponsored by Archewell of Course

Finally we learn the true purpose of this fake royal inGRIFTus visit: MEgain's dream to purcha$e (not earn) a political appointment as an Ambassador for the perks: IPP status, a NYC apartment, luxurious international travel, power, stardom, etc.

In 2021 in the name of vaccine equity (and netflix), The Meghans secured a meeting with several WHO representatives involved w/The Clinton Global Initiative including the UN Under-Secretary General Winnie Byanyima.¹

MEgain replied "It's wonderful to be back..." just to make it clear that THIS trip is all about HER not him.

It seems that identifying as Misan Harriman's Nigerian cousin might be her golden ticket to the UN.

Meghan Markle was the most unaccomplished woman in that room of so-called Nigerian women leaders and certainly the least deserving of any political appointments or elected positions. She's treated women and men like TRASH. Hissing and harassing them to such lengths that they require therapy and seek new employment.

Sparry is absolutely complicit in their drive to give his wife undeserved power and authority over institutions and human beings. He'll assist her with love bombing Ngozi even just save what little hair remains on his head. He's a Eunuch.

From the Nigerian Defense Staff Visitor Book of General Christopher Musa

Sparry: "Thank you for welcoming us to your beautiful country. Together we will heal our troops. -Harry

MEgain: "With gratitude for the support of the Invictus community. And for welcoming me home." -M??

Did these female leaders discuss the women who have been raped and violated in the African Parks Scandal?

What about hundreds of abducted Nigerian children, most recently in broad daylight on March 7, 2024?

Look at this lovely room and compare it to the spaces The Meghans publicized to the mainstream media on their tour. Spot the difference. Who do you think matters most, the wounded or the powerful?

The good news is that The MEghans have a very long history of lying, cheating, mistreating innocent people, and even mocking God.

No matter what doors 43% of bull chite will open, God will not be mocked. Sparry had the temerity to walk into Saint Paul's and read from the holy scriptures as if he's some authority on serving God while he nails his bloodline to the media's cross.

Cry out for mercy, Harry!

God will not be mocked, whatever a man sows that will he also reap.

MEgain thinks she can rebrand her ancestry and whore her way into achieving all her personal & professional goals.

Whatever she has sown, she will reap.

"An afternoon of joy, love and sharing of experiences with leading Nigerian women from across the spectrum- Public Sector, Private Sector, Civil Society, a mixture of young and old. Co hosted by Meghan the Duchess of Sussex and myself, and moderated by @MoAbudu

Talking about what it means to be a woman leader, how difficult it is to get there, and the sisterhood and brotherhood that is needed to help make leadership work. Also had a fantastic panel made up of Dr @OmobolaJohnsonHon Minister @DrDorisAnite @achenyoio@miss_asagba Dr. Mairo Mandara and CNN’s @StephanieBusari who all shared their special experiences.

Sponsored by "Archewell Women in Leadership"

Soho House's Misan Harriman but not Sparry🤔

She never cared about those less fortunate people The #Kigali of Today is the African Parks Rapes

She adored Elizabeth until she refused to place her in the Ambassador position with Emma Watson. When she had the opportunity for REVENGE she took it out on all the women waiting to meet her at the Fiji Market which included the UN Women and the Royal Tour Staff.

The Malta Ancestry Lie: "oh I do sort of blend in, and it's the loveliest feeling." Unfortunately for the Maltese tourist authority, Meghan's published article made NO MENTION MALTA!!!

"Meghan identifies 1st and foremost as the business woman. Money is Meghan's priority." P77

Numerous Bridges Burned. She has markled herself.

WTO | 2021 News items - History is made: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala chosen as Director-General

She'sa globalist WEFer: "The General Council decision follows months of uncertainty which arose when the United States initially refused to join the consensus around Dr Okonjo-Iweala and threw its support behind Trade Minister Yoo Myung-hee of the Republic of Korea. But following Ms Yoo's decision on 5 February to withdraw her candidacy, the administration of newly elected US President Joseph R. Biden Jr. dropped the US objection and announced instead that Washington extends its “strong support” to the candidacy of Dr Okonjo-Iweala."

History is made: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala chosen as Director-General

WTO members made history today (15 February) when the General Council agreed by consensus to select Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala of Nigeria as the organization’s seventh Director-General.

When she takes office on 1 March, Dr Okonjo-Iweala will become the first woman and the first African to be chosen as Director-General. Her term, renewable, will expire on 31 August 2025.

“This is a very significant moment for the WTO. On behalf of the General Council, I extend our warmest congratulations to Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala on her appointment as the WTO's next Director-General and formally welcome her to this General Council meeting,” said General Council Chair David Walker of New Zealand who, together with co-facilitators Amb. Dacio Castillo (Honduras) and Amb. Harald Aspelund (Iceland) led the nine-month DG selection process.

“Dr Ngozi, on behalf of all members I wish to sincerely thank you for your graciousness in these exceptional months, and for your patience. We look forward to collaborating closely with you, Dr Ngozi, and I am certain that all members will work with you constructively during your tenure as Director-General to shape the future of this organization,” he added.

Dr Okonjo-Iweala said a key priority for her would be to work with members to quickly address the economic and health consequences brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I am honoured to have been selected by WTO members as WTO Director-General,” said Dr Okonjo-Iweala. “A strong WTO is vital if we are to recover fully and rapidly from the devastation wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic. I look forward to working with members to shape and implement the policy responses we need to get the global economy going again. Our organization faces a great many challenges but working together we can collectively make the WTO stronger, more agile and better adapted to the realities of today.” Her full statement is available here.

The General Council decision follows months of uncertainty which arose when the United States initially refused to join the consensus around Dr Okonjo-Iweala and threw its support behind Trade Minister Yoo Myung-hee of the Republic of Korea. But following Ms Yoo's decision on 5 February to withdraw her candidacy, the administration of newly elected US President Joseph R. Biden Jr. dropped the US objection and announced instead that Washington extends its “strong support” to the candidacy of Dr Okonjo-Iweala.

Amb. Walker extended his thanks to all eight of the candidates who participated in the selection process and particularly to Ms Yoo “for her ongoing commitment to and support for the multilateral trading system and for the WTO”. His full statement is available here.

The General Council agreed on 31 July that there would be three stages of consultations held over a two-month period commencing 7 September. During these confidential consultations, the field of candidates was narrowed from eight to five and then two. On 28 October, General Council Chair David Walker of New Zealand had informed members that based on consultations with all delegations Dr Okonjo-Iweala was best poised to attain consensus of the 164 WTO members and that she had the deepest and the broadest support among the membership. At that meeting, the United States was the only WTO member which said it could not join the consensus.

The consultation process undertaken by the chair and facilitators was established through guidelines agreed by all WTO members in a 2002 General Council decision. These guidelines spelled out the key criteria in determining the candidate best positioned to gain consensus is the “breadth of support” each candidate receives from the members. During the DG selection processes of 2005 and 2013, breadth of support was defined as “the distribution of preferences across geographic regions and among the categories of members generally recognized in WTO provisions: that is (Least developed countries), developing countries and developed countries”. This same process, agreed by all members in the General Council in 2020, was strictly followed by Chair Walker and his colleagues throughout the 2020-21 DG selection process.

The process for selecting a new Director-General was triggered on 14 May when former Director-General Mr Roberto Azevêdo informed WTO members he would be stepping down from his post one year before the expiry of his mandate. He subsequently left office on 31 August.

¹Winnie Byanyima UN Under-Secretary Gen & ED of UNAIDS since 2019: "Byanyima was appointed as the executive director of UNAIDS in August 2019, by the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, following a comprehensive selection process that involved a search committee constituted by members of the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board. In her new position she concurrently serves as a United Nations Under-Secretary-General. In addition to her role at UNAIDS, Byanyima also serves a two-year term as a member of the World Bank Group’s (WBG) Advisory Council on Gender and Development. Since 2022, she has been a member of the Commission for Universal Health convened by Chatham House and co-chaired by Helen Clark and Jakaya Kikwete."

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dreamerwitches · 1 year

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It's the----- updated Madoka iceberg yaaay!

I'll only be discussing the additions on this one (in green) so please check out the old one for the original descriptions

Content warning fooooor: fetishes, child abuse, artists being perverted about children, suicide, death and organ trafficking. This is gonna be fun, huh

Let's goooo!

Sky:

Mami forever alone: A bit of a joke/observation in the fandom. The popular pairings are Madoka and Homura, and Sayaka and Kyoko, often leading to Mami being alone which sadly suits her character... This is jokingly noticed in fanart and manga with Mami often being left out. Sadly it's also led to some darker pairings for her such as Kyubey, Nagisa and even the witch kissed woman from episode 2.

Witches speak: Although witches are often silent or cry out like monsters. Two are known to have spoken. Elly speaks in reverse in episode 4 saying 'I really had fun today, I want to do it again. Next time, I'll bring a bentou'. Izabel also speaks in episode 10 to lure Homura into her labyrinth. However it is completely unconfirmed that the witches are actually speaking and it may even be their familiars. Mildly related, Oktavia's scream from episode 9 is actually a distorted scream from Sayaka.

Walpurgisnacht festival: Walpurgisnacht's name comes from the real world European festival of the same name, or Walpurgis night, that lands on the 30th of April or the 1st of May. Some people theorise that Walpurgisnacht actually arrives in Mitakihara on one of these days.

Walpurgisnacht rising: The sequel film to Rebellion announced on April 25th, 2021... very little was first shown and not a sausage has been revealed since... v-v

Madoka Magica Cafe: A temporary cafe set up around the release of the original anime in 2011. It offered special drinks and desserts as well as Madoka merch. It was extremely popular with waits of over 2 hours on opening day. A few more were held in Japan and Taipei.

Tip:

Magia Record Anime ver. Units: Very controversial variant units from the Magia Record game. These units were criticised as lazy copies of existing characters. With either very minor differences to talk sprites or none at all, ugly battle sprites and lazy transformation animations ripped straight from the anime. These units were not received well with one of the only good aspects being the beautiful card art.

Juubey: The Kyubey for the Pleides Saints in Kazumi Magica. Spoilers for the manga. He was an altered Kyubey that served the girls and purified their Soul Gems without need for Grief Seeds. After learning the truth about witches, the girls killed Kyubey and turned them into a Dependent-Version Incubator with the nickname Juubey and blocked out Kyubey's influence on the city. Yeah, it's complicated XD

Covid delivery girls: The dual unit Tsuruno Felicia Delivery Girls features face masks in their transformation and Magia sprite because the Covid pandemic was occuring when the unit was released.

Ebony: Ebony was the third Puella Historia unit released in Magia Record being a girl from ancient Egypt. She is heavily criticised in the western fandom for not only having a terribly revealing and historically inaccurate outfit but for also being white. However, like Cleopatra, she could be Greek therefore her skin tone would be correct. This however does not excuse her poor design overall On a similar note, how Cleopatra appears in Magia Record is incorrect as she is tanned in-game but has been confirmed by historians to have been white.

Cancelled figures: What is says on the tin! Merchandise that was cancelled including a scale figure of Nagisa and figures of Yachiyo and Tsuruno in their casual clothes and uniform respectively (possibly prize figures). Some that are in a terrible limbo include the 1/8 scale Holy Mami figure, Figuarts mini of Mami, Sayaka and Kyoko and a 1/7 scale figure of Madoka in the style of Aoki Ume's art.

Rebellion was just fanservice: My, my, a controversial one! Some people speculate that the sequel movie, Rebellion, was merely made for fanservice and money. This can be argued with the finite feeling to the anime's ending as well as the many tropes seen in the movie. It shows all the girls fighting happily together (a thing wanted by many fans), ties up loose ends with Sayaka and Kyoko and adds a fan favourite witch, Charlotte, into the main cast. I like to think this isn't the case but you can decide this yourself.

Masara Kokoro Bride ver. A recent variant for Masara and Kokoro where Masara is in a wedding dress and Kokoro is in a tuxedo. Their description is that they're modelling for wedding photos but the gay theming is too overpowering for it to be simply platonic. The less than subtle hints at romance between two girls is a change for the series that loves to be ambiguous. The unit was very well received.

Kyubey and Charlotte scooters: A unique piece of merchandise are scooters by Brain Police that feature decals of Kyubey and Charlotte. You can get yourself one for the low low price of 134,400 yen (£750). These are certainly unique, but quite a funny piece of merch

Lesbian Rika: Rika from Magia Record is the only magical girl canonically who has been in love with another girl (don't get the pitchforks, SPECIFICALLY confirmed). Her wish was for her childhood friend to fall in love with her instead of the boy she liked which does work yet Rika realises it doesn't feel right and breaks up with her.

Shallows:

Trans Ria: Ria is a magical girl from Magia Record, her wish was 'Turn me into a naturally beautiful girl'. This has led fans to believe that her wish was for her to transition from male to female. This can also be seen with her doppel Heide Jekyll that transforms from a dumpy blob in a rectangle to a feminine figure with a circle. Her witch's name also comes from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde which is not only a male character but they were also known for transforming into an alter ego or a different person.

Devil Homura in Magia Record: A total tease. Fans have been wanting Devil Homura as a unit in Magia Record since its very beginning however she still hasn't come. To add salt to the wound, the Magia Report version of her, Devil Homura-chan was added on April Fools 2022. It's speculated she may be released on Magia Day but she's still not here...

Alina Eve's name: Alina Eve is a witch fusion of Alina, her doppel and Shitori Egumo who debuted in episode 25 of the Magia Record anime. In the anime, her name appeared in Runes as 'Neo Dorothy Motherfucker'. This links to her use of curses and her doppel's name, Old Dorothy. However, when her profile was revealed on the official twitter she was named Alina Eve and in-game she is called Neo Dorothy. The reason for the change and discrepancy is unknown but it may be because they didn't want to use swear words in media outside the anime.

Swimsuit Madoka's transformation: An infamous one. When Madoka got her swimsuit unit her transformation was the first (and only so far) to use the live2D models instead of traditional animation. This was not well received and was a disappointment for one of the main character's units. The reason may have been time constraints but fans were not pleased.

Mami is Walpurgisnacht: Forgive me, it's a little clickbait-y..! The reason is..! Mami's voice actress, Kaori Mizuhashi also voiced Walpurgisnacht in the anime. She also voiced Tatsuya, Madoka's little brother.

Fetishes: Oh dear... we're getting here... Two magical girls have clear fetishes. Yukika gets pleasure from dangerous situations while Miyuri has a foot fetish that is probably played off for laughs... It is NOT okay to give child characters fetishes, okay? Fetishes are a sexual thing. Next.

Dub bloopers: Bloopers for the English dub of the anime were released at Otakon 2012 (can be found on Youtube). It certainly feels like 2010s humour but it's still a little funny. Also great if you wanna hear some of the girls swear.

Iroha x Yachiyo: Ugh. It is very clear from Magia Record media that Iroha and Yachiyo are played off very similarly to Madoka and Homura. While the pairing of Madoka and Homura is perfectly fine as they're both children, Iroha and Yachiyo are not. Yachiyo is an adult and Iroha is a child. The anime, merchandise, and the unit of them together rub salt into this wound as dual units are mostly seen as ship units by fans. It's disgusting and not okay.

Yuma's abuse: Yuma is an abuse victim in Oriko Magica. (cw description of child abuse) Her father is absent (either neglectful or has left) and her mother, Mako, would beat and burn her with cigarettes as well as kick her out of the house for long periods of time. Her parents are killed in the original manga and she is taken in by Kyoko because of her similarity to her late sister Momo. In Extra Story she never contracts and is living happily with her grandparents.

Deep Waters:

Gan: Ugh again. Gan is the artist behind Suzune Magica (probably the least liked spin off lol) who is infamous for their clear lack of restraint in making children sexualised. Arisa has an outfit with circles right where her nipples are, Chisato has an outfit with a strip of fabric for a skirt and she is canonically uncomfortable with it and they love giving older characters enormous (and unrealistic) breasts. The art they draw of their UNDERAGE characters is always sexual and borderline pornographic and. Not. Okay. (even told by Magireco staff to tone down their puella historia character, haha fuck you)

Takashi Tensugi The illustrator for Kazumi Magica. Their disgusting taste is evident in the character design for the protagonists as well as sexual and revealing shots in the manga but I've also heard that they've drawn hentai before. No I'm not going to fucking look for that thank you. But... another bad egg in the spin off manga series... Not okay

Masugitsune ANOTHER BAD EGG! One of the illustrators for Tart Magica and also the illustrator for Yukika (you can tell where this is going). Sexualises minors, just like every madoka spin-off artist seems to... Has drawn Yukika in revealing swimsuits and bunny costumes as well as the rest of the Tart cast. Remember, they're all children----! NOT OKAY!

Riz's former companions names Omg thank god we're past the nonce section... Riz had unnamed magical girl companions in Tart Magica that have been slowly named by their artist. Their names are... pretty shit honestly as they're just named after their weapons. They are Machete, Frusta and Falce with one being still unnamed.

Kuroe was a marketing stunt: Not confirmed of course but... Kuroe was introduced at the very beginning of the Magia Record anime with her being the only new character. She disappeared for the rest of the series until the very end with a very lacklustre and ineffective ending. One could imagine that her inclusion and focus was to grip watchers into continuing with an otherwise pretty underwhelming series. But... take it how you wish...

Livia's backstory: Hey, this isn't new! I hear you say! Well, it's not new, but it's changed! The original iceberg said that her backstory may have been linked to a miscarriage but NOPE its worse! She was actually almost a victim of organ trafficking when she was a child. And later in life, she watched one of her friends die on her wedding day as she was run over by a tractor that she caused to malfunction...

Himena and Hiko: Himena's wish was for her boyfriend to be with her within her. After... her boyfriend committed suicide yaaayyy! (sarcasm) The end of this iceberg isn't very nice, is it? Her boyfriend didn't want to come back and now he's stuck with her forever.

Well... that's it! Sorry it became a bit of a bummer at the end...

Have a plushy Charlotte for making it to the end! Yay!

#madoka magica #puella magi madoka magica #pmmm #magia record

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tamamatango · 4 months

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“Holy shit they actually froggin did it”: A Keroro Gunso anime revival preliminary info and speculation post (late as hell edition)

Okay first of all,

AWAKEN

That’s right, vanished-into-the-void bastard Kirb here, I am an alive person still, though I’m certain a lot of stuff on this blog is horrifically outdated. Don’t get too used to my presence, I’m a whole ass adult with a 9-to-5 now and don’t really have the energy to put into consistently maintaining this account, at least not to the degree that I used to (took me well over a whole ass MONTH just to write this post). However, I’ve returned for a special occasion, as basically anyone still in this fandom is already aware considering it’s been forever now:

We are so fucking back

youtube

It took thirteen years and counting, but here we are, a brand new Keroro anime project is in the works—no “the short anime of all time” Flash series here, this is the real deal, straight out of 2004–2011, and goddamn is it beautiful. I might’ve been off the mark when I called it for the 15th anniversary, but it’s now the 20th, five years later, and the madmen did what was once thought impossible by many.

So let’s break down what the hell is actually going on here, because when this got revealed last month, Keroro fans on all sides of the globe basically started collectively running around like headless chickens. I’m gonna divide this aggregation post into the following sections:

Where did this even come from

Clearing up misconceptions

Okay so like what is “““Project”””

Collection of statements from official accounts, staff and cast, etc.

The Localization Question (TM)

Miscellaneous thoughts that don’t really fit anywhere else

I was originally going to make this a living document of sorts but some small stuff has already happened since I started drafting this the day after the reveal happened, so this should be it for the time being. It’s a hefty enough post as is. I am just a master procrastinator :V

That takes care of all the goofy intro nonsense, now for the parts you actually want to read, starting underneath the cut!

Section 1: The Signs Were There

As previously stated, 2024 is the 20th anniversary of the Keroro anime, along with the 25th anniversary of the manga’s serialization but apprently even they don’t care about that since they’ve made no fanfare around it whatsoever, unlike the joint 15th & 20th anniversary back in 2019. Maybe they will as we get closer to the manga anniversary in November, but for now-obvious reasons the anime has been overshadowing the manga side by a lot.

If you’ve been monitoring the Keroro PR account on Twitter (you bet your ass I’m still calling it that) you’ll have noticed an increasing output of Stuff over the last year or two, even compared to the prior anniversary. These include but are not limited to:

In 2021, the series opened an official YouTube Channel, where they’ve been doing reruns of the anime (region locked to Japan), PR podcasts, etc. It’s also where the revival announcement premiered on April 1 at midnight JST.

In 2023, the series opened an official Fan Club with a paid membership. Originally it was a temporary project meant to last for only the two anniversary years (2023 for the pilot oneshot’s anniversary, and 2024 for the anime/manga), but was ultimately extended indefinitely due to “good reception” (my guess is it was always planned to be more than two years but they didn’t want to make it too easy to guess as early as last year that the anime was returning lol). They have a merch store, giveaways, and some kind of social component. I don’t know much about it otherwise because it’s a paid membership that I don’t have access to.

The series has had an overall increase in merchandise and collabs since 2022 or so. This has pretty much always been the case, but there was a bit of a lull between the Flash series ending and the ramp-up period to this (I’d start at 2021 when the YouTube channel opened). Save for the 15th/20th stuff in 2019, for which the major project was Keroro UC, a spinoff manga/plamo line that just…never released all the models and has never been brought up again. Guess it didn’t do very well :V

A number of international releases/rereleases happened as well, but I’ll get into that a little bit more in its dedicated section. For now let’s just say that the anime being finally licensed and put up on streaming in North America may indicate the new series will be English translated in some capacity. It’s also made a resurgence in Korea, its biggest market outside Japan, where it’s had new exhibitions and collab cafes, a redub (that only got through 2 seasons I think), and even a new mobile game.

And finally, a week or so before the announcement, a new Twitter account was created specifically for the anime side of the brand. I think this was really the big tip-off, as Keroro PR has been the hub for all things related to the franchise for the last nearly 15 years, even when the original anime itself was still running during Twitter’s infancy. Keroro PR has posted everything for every other anime anniversary. The fact that now all of a sudden they had to sector off the anime stuff into its own account made it clear something bigger was going on. (Accordingly, the Keroro Anime account has labeled Keroro PR the “original work” account, AKA the manga side of things.)

Essentially I think they’ve been planning this to some degree since as long ago as 2021, the first time the president of Bandai Namco Pictures (animation studio comprised of Sunrise staff that took over the Keroro IP in 2015 and are now producing the new anime) openly acknowledged the possibility. I’ll just link my own tweet with the translation of his statement here. This was right around the opening of the YouTube channel, so I don’t think it’s a coincidence.

tl;dr Momentum for the anime component of the franchise has been building for the past couple of years pointing toward a new anime around the 20th anniversary, so I wouldn’t say this comes off as a huge surprise, though I was expecting something smaller scale than what we might be getting (more on that in the “what is this” section).

Section 2: No It’s Not April Fools, Guys, Plus Other Clarifications

With the announcement spreading across the internet, I’ve seen a few points of confusion going around that I’d like to clear up before I go any further.

As I’ve made clear in the section title, yes the new anime was revealed on April 1, no this is not a prank. A lot of Japanese companies do post April Fools pranks, but keep in mind April also marks the start of the new fiscal year in Japan, so many legitimate announcements are made as well. Plus, the original anime’s exact anniversary was on April 3, just a couple of days after the announcement.

I’ve seen a lot of people call this a new series, season, etc., but officially, the only term used to describe this so far is “new anime project”. That could mean literally anything, from TV series to movie to ONA and so on. I am leaning closer to a certain interpretation, which is what the entire next section is for, but for the time being, calling it anything other than “new anime” is technically not concrete info.

There seems to be a little bit of confusion on what studio is working on this, but in short: it's Bandai Namco Pictures (BN Pictures or BNP for short). As previously mentioned, this is the studio that inherited the Keroro IP when it spun off from Sunrise in 2015. Sunrise, the anime's original studio, is now a brand name for the larger anime management company Bandai Namco Filmworks. Although they've held the IP for almost a decade, this is the first time they've really gotten to do anything with it besides merchandise licensing and some anti-piracy commercial from a few years ago that they’ve ironically scrubbed from the internet now. If you've seen the name Studio BIND (Mushoku Tensei, Onimai) floating around, they're assisting with the production but are not the primary animation studio. Of course this is all assuming this setup continues on to the final project and not just for the PV, but I see no reason to assume otherwise at the moment. It would be rather unusual for BNP to outsource anything if it was solely for a 30 second trailer.

I think that does it for the main points of contention I wanted to address for now, so moving on to the thing we all really want to know…

Section 3: Okay But What Is It Actually???

Well, as I said in the previous section—we don't know, lol. At least not officially. But if we put our thinking caps on, we can make a few deductions:

The anime project will be broadcast on TV. In other words, it won't be an ONA (original net animation). This is determined based on the fact that TV Tokyo, the network the original anime aired on, is on the production committee. For those who don't know, a production committee for an anime is the collection of parties/companies who contribute to the production and funding of the anime. For comparison, the Keroro Flash Series, which aired only on the TV channel Animax to accompany a dedicated timeslot for the original anime reruns, did not have TV Tokyo in its committee. So, it will likely air on TV Tokyo once again.

It's (probably) not a movie. This is going to be more evidenced by point 3 than anything, but BNP has been pretty clear about when something is a movie specifically in the past, such as when Kaiketsu Zorori had various feature films in the 2010s before getting an actual TV anime revival in 2020. Still, we can't be 100% sure until someone directly says otherwise.

It's going to be more than a one-off. I will post the statement in full in the next section, but the Keroro PR account uses specific wording (“resumption,” “new start,” etc.) that sounds very much like they’re making a longer term commitment, so this is straight from the horse’s mouth, essentially.

The series will be a continuation of the 2004-2011 series rather than a reboot. This one’s probably my flimsiest prediction as the PR statements sort of obfuscate whether it’s one or the other, but the character bios section on the new anime portal site gives away a big hint: the Garuru Platoon, Pururu included, is there. This means that we can reason that, at minimum, all or part of Season 3 has already occurred. The character bios themselves also summarize things that weren’t revealed until a little while into the show, such as how Momoka and Tamama met. That all said, the Garuru Platoon members do not have bios, so I suppose they want to keep what’s being done with them a bit of a secret; perhaps they intend to reintroduce them with some kind of dramatic arc again. Either way, if the series does retread/retell some old material, it probably won’t be the bulk of the story. This makes sense to me, as it’s not like the show has been so hard to find in the last decade that a reboot is necessary to get a modern audience on board—it reruns constantly on kids’ TV channels like the Japanese version of Cartoon Network, is available in full on multiple streaming platforms (movies included), and is now on its second rebroadcast of the whole series episode by episode on the YouTube Channel. Unless you’re a literal toddler, if you’re interested in the series, you’ve probably watched at least some of it already.

In conclusion, based on the above (admittedly sparse) evidence, I am inclined to believe the new anime project is a TV series that will air on TV Tokyo as the 2004 anime did and will be a continuation rather than a reboot; however, there is no way to determine episode length, episode count, etc. at this time. It could be a cour (for those who don't know anime, "cour" is your average 12-episode season), it could be consecutive cours, it could be split cour (in other words, goes on break for a season before returning), it could even be a year-round anime if they really wanna go all the way with it. Granted, I hesitate to believe that they would do the latter simply due to the nature of anime production these days, and as far as I know, BNP has not done a single year-round airing since its founding. Even the aforementioned Kaiketsu Zorori revival was a two cour (24-25 eps) series each year from 2020-2022. My guess is we're looking at something similar here, but Keroro is a pretty big deal, so could they make an exception? Maybe, but this setup would already lead to more episodes than the vast majority of anime these days, so it would still be plenty enough to be happy with.

Considering all this and the list of numerous hints that we were potentially getting a new anime as far back as three years ago as bulleted in Section 1, you might question what made me doubt that it could be a series in the first place. Well, besides just the series being so old and it being so long since the anime ended that it felt a little like wishful thinking, at least three members of the cast said that a new series was not something they were specifically looking to do...I think, anyway. Let me explain.

Last year, on December 9, a Keroro birthday event with Kumiko Watanabe (Keroro), Etsuko Kozakura (Tamama), and Takeshi Kusao (Dororo) was hosted in person and livestreamed on TwitCast for fans that paid for a ticket. There were two timeslots for the in person event, and only the evening show was streamed, with the afternoon one being in person only. Now that I have adult money, and being the impulse driven gremlin that I am, I paid for the virtual ticket. Most of it was just cute little segments like the three cast members doing live commentary on some of the birthday episodes, discussing the results of a “favorite lines from their characters” poll hosted on Twitter a few weeks before the event, and a brief visit from Jashin-chan of Jashin-chan Dropkick/Dropkick on My Devil, a series that Keroro recently collabed with for a series of merchandise. Unfortunately the event wasn't archived publicly and they specifically asked to not upload materials to social media, and I'd like to respect that request mostly out of consideration for the cast, so you will just have to take my word for it :P (besides those who were watching me talk about it in real time on discord).

The reason I'm going on this tangent is because, at the end of the stream, a special prerecorded video featuring the three cast members was shown exclusively for virtual attendees. In it they essentially explained that they still greatly enjoy the characters/series and would love to partake in more events and projects, but "not necessarily a new series." I promise you I listened to this clip over and over the entire time it was available and that's what I heard. Now look, the room they recorded this in was echo-y, and my Japanese is pretty decent (enough for my N2 anyways, yeah I did that while I was away from here clap clap) but listening comprehension is my weaker area, so maybe I just take a massive L here. When I started writing this post there was a sentence here guessing about whether they were just being cheeky or didn’t know yet, but an interview came out last month that gave what’s all but a conclusive answer to that. More on it in the next section but tl;dr, they likely did not know it was happening at all. Well, at least they got to be as surprised as we were :V

Anyways now that the thing has been revealed none of the last two paragraphs even matter, so I just prattled on for no reason besides to admit my own shame. Next bit.

Section 4: SAUCE PLOX??? (Current testimonies from relevant people/entities)

Naturally, when the trailer dropped, we got a pretty decent handful of comments from whatever staff and cast are on social media. Most of these are just people going “yay we’re back hooray!” (paraphrased) but the Keroro PR account statements are actually kinda sorta hints? So I’ll start out with those. There’s two tweets that I want to highlight here:

First is from April 1 (JST), the day of the reveal. In this tweet the account wishes everyone well for the new school/fiscal year, but the important part is the last sentence, This can be translated any number of ways (thanks to yoroshiku onegaishimasu and its 50 potential meanings, every Japanese translator’s worst nightmare), but essentially it’s something along the lines of “we hope you’ll support the restart/resumption of the Keroro anime for a long time to come.”

The keywords here are obvious: 再始動 (saishidou) meaning either restart or resumption. I know you’re probably thinking those are two very different things, but the nuance here is that it’s more of a restart in production than restart of the continuity. For the latter, I think it’s more common to see リメイク, which is just the English word “remake” in katakana. Worth noting that the Flash anime used none of these words in its marketing, but it did use language such as “brand new invasion plan,” “rebirth of Keroro,” and so on…in addition to, you know, having a completely different artstyle and a title change to just “Keroro”, which this clearly does not (the artstyle is relatively faithful to the old one and the project is under the original Keroro Gunso name).

The other big word is 末永く(suenagaku), which…also doesn’t have one exact translation, but implies somewhere between years or even an indefinite period of time. I didn’t want to say a specific unit of time in my translation of the statement because well, we can’t really be sure of anything here, but either way, they’re signaling that they’re most likely in it for the long haul.

Then there’s the tweet from the PR account commemorating the actual anniversary of the original anime (April 3). This one uses 新しいスタート, “new start”—no real multiple definition shenanigans here, this is about as literal and straightforward as you can get. In terms of the reboot or not question, this could lean either way, but it definitely adds to theory that it is a series of some sort.

Okay, that’s all for the individual tweets I’m gonna totally overanalyze, otherwise I’d be stuck here for even longer than I already have been. Here’s a quick list of involved staff who tweeted about the reveal:

Unsurprisingly, Kumiko Watanabe (Keroro) posted that day, reiterating that it is real and saying “believe usssss!” (As a reminder, half the internet was convinced it was April Fools for like a whole week)

Adding to the cast comments, Etsuko Kozakura (Tamama) says, “Whoo-hoo! Can’t wait for more news! Keroro Gunso is still the greatest!!”

Jouji Nakata (Giroro) didn’t make a specific comment about the trailer, but has been retweeting the other official accounts and such and replying about it, so he has acknowledged it otherwise. As a substitute, here’s a picture of him visiting the Keroro Exhbition in Ikebukuro a day early.

Here’s an interesting one—Haruna Ikezawa (Momoka) said about the trailer, “Really?! Is this real?!?!?!” While no cast members outside of the Keroro Platoon were officially revealed to be reprising their roles, I’m assuming they’re going to try their best to reassemble as much of the cast as of season 7 as possible—besides Keiji Fujiwara (Paul/Narrator), who sadly passed away in 2020—so I kind of figured Ikezawa would know about this, but maybe not…? Well, considering that the main five were completely blindsided by this to the point where they weren’t even sure this was a real thing until they were in the middle of recording it (as I said previously, more on that later), I suppose the other cast members were just. Not told. I don’t really doubt Ikezawa would return (she even stated it could happen someday all the way back when the then-final season ended in 2011 and did come back for Flash)…but unless they were like really worried about leaks why even keep them in the dark to learn with the rest of the public, idk man :V (so much for not overanalyzing tweets huh)

On to production staff now, here’s the tweet from Satoshi Koike, animation director of the latter third of the original and also the reveal trailer, indicating that he’s most likely back for the new project. It’s just a simple “Welcome back! (de arimasu)” but the images he used were drawn back in 2019 to commemorate the start of the Reiwa era, spoofing the original lyrics of the first opening. The reveal trailer tweet itself from the Keroro Anime account does this too (“Starting today, the Reiwa era shall be known as the Keroro era!”).

New to the staff is Jouji Furuta (yes we have two Joujis now har har), who did the storyboards and direction for the trailer. He’s relatively new to the scene as a whole, with his most well known project being Shaman King Flowers. Although he never worked on the series before, he did a pretty good job emulating the original, and based on the last line of the tweet, it seems like he will be staying on for the full project as well.

And now for a kind of weird section where I talk about the few related accounts that the Keroro anime twitter is following but haven’t made any kind of verbal acknowledgement yet.

First and foremost is Mine Yoshizaki—you know, the guy who created the fucking series, whose name is on the copyright string and whose explicit permission they had to get to do another anime in the first place? Yeah so it’s been over a month since the reveal now and there has been zero acknowledgement from him. I do know his personal social media account has been inactive for quite a few years now (I feel like the anime account is only even following it for symbolic reasons), but he had multiple other opportunities to say something at this point. He did contribute some signed artwork to the anime-focused exhibition that just ended but nowhere in it does he directly mention the new adaptation, and so far he hasn’t commented on it in Shonen Ace (maybe in the next volume, assuming that’s soonish). I have my theories about his relationship to the anime, especially now that the Kemono Friends fiasco has occurred, but that’s all a story for another day or never. I’m sure he’ll contribute something later, but even so it’s just really bizarre to have nothing to say about your biggest creation’s first new adaptation in over a decade. Oh well.

Character designer Fumitoshi Oizaki, who has been around since the beginning if I remember correctly, has been retweeting things, but no official comment just yet. (He discretely left a message at the expo apparently, but didn’t post it online, so no idea if it mentions the new anime.) He isn’t credited on the trailer, but considering he’s still been pretty involved with the franchise’s promotion over the last few years, I would be very surprised if he wasn’t returning.

Last but certainly not least is Junichi Sato, the chief director for the original anime for the first two seasons, arguably its most well-known and critically praised era. He’s also a very notable director in his own right, having headed other famous series like early Sailor Moon and Ojamajo Doremi. Sato didn’t direct the original anime for the majority of its runtime (though he did direct the first four movies), but he still directs and storyboards on projects to this day, including for other franchises’ major anniversaries (namely Doremi and Precure). Though not certain, I think it’s very possible that he returns for this in some capacity, if not as director than perhaps for storyboarding or general advising.

To close out the testimony section, I’m going to share here the translation I did of the aforementioned interview with Kumiko Watanabe in last month’s issue of Newtype (anime-centric magazine published by Kadokawa). I won’t re-summarize it here since it’s not particularly long, but the main takeaways from this in terms of hints as to what we can expect are that a) the cast was surprised by this and potentially didn’t even know back in December when they last discussed the possibility of working on Keroro again, and b) as I previously speculated, this is going to be a long term enough project that at least Watanabe feels the need to physically prepare for it lol. And thankfully, it seems they’re all excited to go back to the series. I spent a long time thinking they might not be up to it again since it’s been so long and they’re much later in their lives/careers (Nakata just turned 70 oh man) but I’m glad I was wrong! Though I don’t expect this to be another 300 episode commitment anyway; in spite of the PR comments I don’t think we’re going for that long with the nature of anime production these days lmao.

And now for a topic which I think many of you are concerned about…

Section 5: “But what if my 日本語 is not 上手???” (The Localization Question)

If you did not get the joke in the above headline without looking it up, it’s probably safe to assume that if you want to watch this Thing, you will need it in a language other than Japanese (and even if you did get the joke you will know if you are truly 日本語上手 when people stop saying 日本語上手 to you). I’m going to focus on English for this post since that’s the primary language of the audience here, though I would be very shocked if there isn’t at minimum a Korean translation—dub more likely than sub imo, since the most famous version of the show there had different names for the characters and was changed to be set in Korea, and the series is HUGE there to the point where it almost rivals the Japanese market.

So, English. Well, if it were a few years ago (say, if this came during the 15th anniversary like I was originally coping over), I would be markedly less optimistic about getting any official translation at all. At that time, the dub was explicitly dead and the only English sub had been delisted for a few years, and even that was only available in a select few countries in Continental Europe on a pretty obscure streaming service called Viewster for like a year or two before getting pulled. It’s no surprise that this particular sub eventually became more well known as the subs on the torrents compiled by ColdFusion (whoever that was, I’m still not sure myself). That was until…

…the magical year of 2021, when our heroes at Discotek licensed the ENTIRE SERIES (minus the movies) for an official English release using Viewster’s existing translations! That’s right, we got all of it. And not only that, the whole series was also added to Crunchyroll, though only the sub; Discotek had the Funimation dub but it seems it did not get ported to Crunchyroll when the merger happened this year. It does seem that Crunchy has still not made the series available outside of the US and Canada, which is a shame, but man is it still surreal to have the entire series legally available both digitally and physically after nearly two decades of scattered fansubs and hardly accessible official releases. Surely this was a huge win for Discotek, right?

Weeeeeell…no. Of course they weren’t able to say it out loud, but it’s been extremely heavily implied that unfortunately the BluRay/DVD releases flopped for them, and they did say they definitely won’t be getting the movies or the Flash series. They also stopped releasing the discs on a one season a year basis and started bundling them together, with seasons 5–7 coming out all at once later this year, so they’re clearly trying to just get it off their plates. To be honest, this was pretty predictable because…it’s been on Crunchyroll since before the discs even came out. Look, physical media is super cool and all, but who in this economy is going to pay $40-60 per box for a handful of seasons at most when they can get the whole damn thing on their phone for like $8 a month. Crunchyroll isn’t necessarily a disc killer; their release of Digimon Adventure, for example, still seemingly did well despite that series being available on Crunchyroll two years prior, but in addition to Digimon being more popular in the west, it’s one $60 purchase for the whole series versus having to spend like over $200 for 358 episodes. I applaud them for rolling the dice and trying to get this behemoth of a release out there, but I’m not surprised about the lack of financial returns.

However, since Crunchyroll now has set a precedent of having the original series available on their platform, we just might get the new series available on there as well—if not as a simulsub, then at least dropped in batches later on. I’m not 100% confident in this, particularly because technically Discotek still holds the license, but my guess based on the way they’ve talked about the series is that they’re pretty open to someone else taking it off their hands when they’re done releasing the original series (and the translations weren’t originally theirs to begin with anyways, they purchased them and did some touch-ups to the existing translation with added typesetting). As far as simulsubs go, the kids’ shows that get simulsubbed tend to be from Toei, with whom Crunchyroll has a known partnership. But if it is split into cours rather than being a year-round anime, I think the chances of a simulsub go up. Whatever the case may be, it’s for sure in a better position to get an official subtitled release than it ever was before. I’m certainly praying this happens because I believe most of the people capable of fansubbing (with good translation anyway) have gradually moved away from the fandom over the last decade for various reasons—myself included, though mostly I just quit fansubbing/scanlation in general for Personal Reasons(TM). Fingers crossed, everyone.

So subs remain as a not-guaranteed-but- definitely-not-low possibility. But what about a dub? If you recall, Keroro has had a very rocky history in 3D with English dubs, with the American dub being in licensing hell for years before finally falling into Funimation’s lap and subsequently failing to take off despite remaining a beloved cult classic to Some Fans (I am not as high on it, but longtime Kirb followers probably know that by now), and the only other English dub is relegated to the network Animax in Hong Kong + Southeast Asia with no official home release, leaving all of it besides parts of seasons 3 and 4 as lost media (and the voice acting sucked ass but at least the script was accurate). But we’re not in the mid 2000s to early 2010s anymore; this is the screamin’ ’20s, baby! So much anime is getting dubbed now, sometimes at almost the same time as the Japanese release! There must be a chance, right?!

Eeeehhhhhh I wouldn’t bet on it. Even the Toei kids’ shows Crunchyroll started simulsubbing usually don’t get dubs (Digimon is an exception, and the reboot’s dub took YEARS to come out). Anime dubs, as far as I’m aware, are not cheap to produce (though it’d be great if more of what the companies are pocketing went to the actors’ wages >_>), and if the show does have the potential to become somewhat of a long runner, I think they’ll need to see more interest around the IP to fund one, and both Funimation and now Discotek’s releases have proved that the audience for it isn’t always there. I also speculate they’d be doing a lot of recasting; the casting process is not as smooth and (I believe) more expensive than it is in Japan, and a lot of the original cast are not working as often in the field anymore and/or have been involved with some pretty serious controversies—I’m sure those in the know are thinking of a specific drawn-out conflict but I’m pretty sure it’s more than just About Him at this point. So let’s just say that while some of the cast still remembers the show fondly, I think trying to get them all in the same project again would potentially open some cans of worms better off left closed. It’s not 100% impossible it gets dubbed, you never know what the industry can manage to make work these days, but I’d wager it’s like 90% not happening. Just a hunch. If anyone more knowledgable than me on anime localization (this goes for both the dub and sub stuff) would like to argue me with better explanations than I have I’d very much be glad to hear it.

Section 6: The Stuff That Doesn’t Fit Elsewhere + Final Thoughts

There’s not going to be any real organization to this section. Here’s just some bullets of miscellaneous stream of consciousness thoughts related to whatever:

The character bios page on the site linked in section 3 has some WEIRD romanization choices. I don’t expect these to reflect on any official localization because chances are they’ll go with what Viewster used, which is largely what the fandom is used to besides the Kululu/Kururu split. It is indeed Kululu here and Kululu has been the de facto official spelling for a very very long time now but I still have a personal preference for Kururu because “Kululu” loses the onomatopoeia joke and I’m a rebel. But like. “Tololo”? Since when has Tororo ever been called that in any media? And worst of all, “Pole”? POLE?? That’s literally never been a thing what glossary did they pull these from.

Also worth noting, Alisa and the Narrator had merchandise sold at the Keroro expo (will talk about that next btw) despite not being on the characters page. This isn’t a confirmation of anything but I would be very surprised if Alisa doesn’t return at some point since she was pretty prominent later in the show and Yoshizaki seems to have a particular fondness for her, and the Narrator will obviously be there with a recast, though jury’s out on if his little ’sona guy will show up too. It won’t be the same without Fujiwara :(

I do want to touch upon the “Keroro expo”, officially known as the “Keroro Gunso Super Gerogero Museum” (expo is a fine shorthand because the Japanese word can mean exhibition also), since I’ve mentioned it a couple times throughout this write-up. This was an event that was held in Ikebukuro just recently from April 27–May 12 that was basically a walkthrough experience recreating settings from the anime, having artwork and stuff sprinkled in between (all reused, no new concept art or anything sadly). The main gimmick was that the venue had an exclusive app that let you take AR pictures with models of the Keroro Platoon. It also had an AI chatbot feature where you could talk to each member of the platoon, and not too many posted pictures of this feature but apparently the chatbots were uhhhhhh weird. I have no idea how much of it is generative from other LLMs, and I’m assuming they programmed it at least partially with their own original input/databases (which is the only way to make generative AI even close to ethical), but from the few screenshots I’ve seen their speech was just a little bit awkward and some of the stuff they said was really bizarre. At one point users started to turn it into an otome game and successfully romanced the frogs, which I’m assuming is a little bit out of the bounds of what they were expecting from this experiment. If they do release that app publicly at some point—they labeled the version at the expo to be a “test version,” so maybe—I sincerely hope they at least fine tune it because Good Lord. Finally and maybe most importantly, there were new voice lines recorded for the exhibit to give it an audio-drama type simple story, but unfortunately it was probably not archived because video recording was not allowed inside the venue. The platoon all had new voice lines along with Fuyuki and Natsumi, reportedly still played by Houko Kuwashima and Chiwa Saito respectively, so most likely they will return to reprise the roles for the new anime, though I don’t think those two were much in question. That’s really like the only important part of this for the purposes of this post I’m not sure why I mentioned anything else here actually. AI chatbot Dororo wants you to know he enjoys tickles from Giroro and Tamama. Yeah this thing’s a little fucked

I didn’t want to get too deep into this in section 3 because it’s not really a production related question, but…are Shin Keroro and related new characters gonna be in this or not? For what it’s worth the site seems to count the Flash series as part of the anniversary celebration, and screenshots with Shin in them are there even if he is completely absent from the character page. Flash was a total reboot so I don’t think it will be that exact iteration of the character if he is in the new anime, but there must be some way to work his stuff into the existing anime canon even with its many differences from the manga. Honestly I think the main obstacle to him appearing is just that the guy is not very popular lol. He’s hardly in the manga anymore and Tomosu and Myou are in it even less. I’m not sure if it was just franchise fatigue following the end of the anime but the reception to Shin was very meh across the board (at least among longtime fans, kids might’ve liked him I think. Which makes sense). So I could totally see them skipping him entirely. There’s still a lot of post-anime manga-only stories without his involvement at all, some that included him but he could easily be changed to some other character, and for the stories that revolved around him, well, the Flash anime got to a decent amount of them. This could really go either way but for now I’m going to lean toward him not being included. If he’s put in I think it will not be until the “second season” (whatever the definition of that ends up being) so we can be eased back in to the existing cast first before shaking things up significantly.

I like the new artstyle, assuming it carries over from the trailer to the final project. It looks like they hit a happy medium between the early and late artstyles of the original anime. This is the most obvious with the human cast who haven’t received new official artwork by Koike and/or Oizaki in a looooong time, and they look much better than the last time we saw them in season 7 where everyone got weirdly lanky for some reason.

Okay FINALLY I’m done here for now I think. At the time of writing we’re pretty much just in a “wait and see” phase with no other real concrete info around that I haven’t touched upon in this post. Trust me, I’ve tried digging for more, but I couldn’t find anything really interesting staff-wise and very few of the staff credited in the trailer are even on social media (sometimes staff can be a bit loose-lipped so it’s possible to get hints there). I’ve also checked every nook and cranny of the official sites of both animation studios and the companies on the production committee and turned up with nothing of note. I’m hoping we get some more info at least sometime between now and autumn.

Thanks for reading all the way to the end (or speedscrolling here, don’t worry I won’t be disappointed lol). I hope you found it informative even though I probably spent way too much time yapping about dumb shit. It took me entirely too long to write this post, but I don’t have as much time as I did as a teenager and it’s been a good few years since I’ve done a really deep dive into Keroro stuff. Needless to say, I’m beyond excited for this project and can’t wait to see how the last seven years of me huffing unhealthy amounts of copium pays off. I’ve had like a month and a half to sit on it now and it honestly still doesn’t feel real!

I will most likely return to report when we get some amount of substantial info—hopefully with way fewer words lmao. Until next time! Ge-gero~

#keroro gunso #sgt frog #sergeant keroro #anikero reiwa #I’m gonna call it that in tags because we don’t know if it’s airing in 2024 lol #infodump #translation #did y’all miss me #I hope not

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some-melon · 3 months

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happy pride month everynyan and queer. tzipporah x miriam for the special occasion/redraw of lesbian miriam from 2021 (holy SHIT 2021 WAS 3 YEARS AGO?????)

ITS JUST A HEADCANON YALL DONT GET MAD AT ME im just having fun teehehe..

what would their ship name be?? mirpporah?? tziriam?? any yall got ideas???? ANYWAYS BEST NONCANON SHIP- probably the only non problematic noncanon ship tbh... this movie is not shipping friendly LOL oc x canon is rlly the only way to go

hope u enjoy tho agagagagaga

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ateez-himari · 1 year

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'HIMARI' PROFILE

... BASICS

Stage Name: Himari (히마리) Birth Name: Min Himari (민 히마리) Korean Name: Min Ha-Yun (민 하윤) Nicknames: Sunshine, KQ's Princess, The Siren, Korea's Angel, White Swan, Hima/Hime, The Holy Maknae, God's Touch, Hand of Midas (w/ Yoongi)

Representative Animal: Tiger 🐯 MBTI Type: INFP Position(s): Lead vocalist, Sub-rapper, Producer, Maknae

Date of Birth: November 23, 2001 Birth Place: Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture, Japan Association: Yeoheung Min Clan & Fujiwara Clan (Hokke) Family: Min Won-Shik (father, 1965-2012), Konoe Asuka (mother, 1970-2012), Min Hanzo (older brother), Adoptive Mother, Adoptive Father, Min Geum-Jae (adoptive older brother), Min Yoongi (adoptive older brother)

Blood Type: O Height: 157cm (5'2")

... CAREER

・As of September 2024, Himari has 199 KOMCA credits

・Was the first 4th generation artist promoted to a full Korea Music Copyright Association (KOMCA) membership in 2022

・Established as an official producer for SHINee member, Taemin, following the release of 'Never Gonna Dance Again : Act 1'.

・Joined JYPE in late 2014 to be part of girl group Twice but was deemed too young to debut after 10 months of training

・Was the first trainee to join Hongjoong at KQ Entertainment and the last to join ATEEZ - following survival show 'Last Qing'

・Became a producer during 'TREASURE EP.1: All to Zero' with credits on 'Stay', 'Twilight', 'Treasure' and 'My Way'

・Officially a part of ATEEZ's 'Demon Line' alongside Hongjoong, Seonghwa and San

・Made a special appearance on the 6th episode of MNet's show 'Good Girl', aired June 18 2020, to perform a cover of Dreamcatcher's 'Red Sun' against the cast.

・Made her acting debut in the K-Drama 'Hellbound' where she played the role of Jin Hee-Jeong. She then obtained the lead role in 'Where We Fall' alongside Yunho in September of 2023.

・She sang the OST 'Suzume' for the animated movie 'Suzume no Tojimari', 'Long Black Night' for K-Drama 'The Glory', 'Rewrite Me' for 'Where We Fall' and 'Blue' for 'The Killing Vote'

・Her fans are called 'Hirangies' which is a play on her representative animal called '호랑이' in Korean as well as her own name and '사랑' which means love.

... INTERESTS

・Her hobbies are traditional ink painting as well as photography and she enjoys leaning how to reform clothes from Hongjoong.

・Loves Studio Ghibli movies, her favorite being Grave of the Fireflies, and K-Dramas, her favorites being Death's Game, The Glory & My Name.

・Aside from the many groups whose fandoms she is a part of, there are quite a few soloists she tends to fangirl over, those being: Gemini, Penomeco, DPR Live, Han Seung Woo, Woodz, pH-1 and Zico. During her room tour in a recent live several albums of B.A.P could be seen resting on a shelf and she admitted to being a BABY whose bias is rapper/leader & soloist Bang Yongguk, whose albums were also spotted in her room. She calls herself a lucky fangirl as she has filmed the 'Bouncy' challenge with him as well as Woodz and Penomeco.

... HEALTH

・Was diagnosed with anxiety around 6 months following the group's debut, then a major depressive episode in the beginning of 2021.

・Suffers from hearing loss on her right side following a car collision costing the life of her biological parents - subsequently leaving scars on that side of her body.

・Has stress induced nightmares, though not as frequent as earlier in her career.

・Fractured her left ribs during a rehearsal for the first stage of 'Kingdom: Legendary War' in February of 2021, then again during the shooting of the 'Guerilla' music video in 2022. She received surgery in April 2024 following Coachella due to the risk of irreparable damage following several health complications.

・Since contracting COVID during the quarantine period she has had breathing problems which have permanently weakened her cardio and cause frequent needs for an oxygen mask especially when fatigued. The condition still remains unknown.

... MISCELLANEOUS

・Her favorite color is white because she feels like it is elegant, which is why she chose it as her microphone color.

・Her birth name means 'Sun' and her Korean name means 'Beautiful Summer' , chosen because the sun symbolizes hope

・The youngest of her brothers, Hanzo, is the National South Korean Soccer Team's captain and currently contracted with the PSG after leaving the Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors at the end of 2023

・When speaking quickly or passionately about something she tends to slip back into satoori (Daegu dialect)

・A palm reader stated that it was both her and Seonghwa's first life, which is why they approach things with such excitement.

・She can play the Koto (Japanese stringed instrument).

・The members tend to refer to her as '우리 Hime' which means 'Our Princess' using the Japanese word for the title and is also a play on words with Himari's shortened name.

・While other members claim that Halazia has one of the easiest choreographies, she finds it to be one of the hardest songs to perform as she has to sing background vocals through nearly the entire song while keeping up with the steps.

・Loves to cook but often tends to be careless when it comes to the amount of spice she puts in. In addition to this, she loves beef and hates any seafood that has a shell.

・Her ideal type is someone warm hearted with a sense of humor and who can accept her care when they need it.

#ateez 9th member #ateez au #ateez extra member #ateez female member #ateez imagines #kpop oc

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suffering-and-happy-about-it · 11 months

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My honest reactions watching Horimiya, season 1. (2021):

Geez it’s so refreshing to have anime protagonists who just… Talk instead of standing around and wait for talking until the very last 2 minutes of the last episode.

Hori’s brother just immediately taking Miyamura in is so fucking sweet. 🩵

Wait? Are we in love?

ARE WE INTO GUYS MR. MIYAMURA?! That could be a cute concept! OMG NEVER MIND, WE ARE IN LOVE! Yay!

(I’m basically positive that this man is the bisexual menace if I’ve ever seen one.)

ARE WE KISSING THIS EARLY?!

WE ARE HAVING SEGGS IN EPISODE 7?!?!

WE ARE TALKING AND ACKNOWLEDGING KINKS?! Holy shit! AND WE ARE TRYING TO SATISFY OUR PARTNER EVEN THOUGH WE ARE CREEPED OUT BY THEIR KINKS?! Sheesh.

THE MOMENT WHEN HORI ACKNOWLEDGED THAT GUYS THREATEN HER MORE THAN ANY FEMALE EVER COULD?!

(The cannon of Miyamura being a bisexual edge lord is 100% confirmed by this exchange.)

ARE WE GETTING FUCKING MARRIED?!

Hori’s family obsessing over Miyamura is 100% legit, I support this.

The ending was so ✨heartwarming✨. It beautifully encapsulated the sweet time and all memories I hold dear in my heart regarding high school. Miyamura fighting his past selves and depression is something I could relate to to because I struggle with this as well. Him finding his place gives me… Hope. It makes me feel that I also have a future somewhere out there.

This anime has that little something special.

Bonus: I can’t seem to recall which episode it was, but Remi talking about loving Sengoku precisely because he’s not perfect made me almost cry. That was so beautiful.

#horimiya #horimiya (2022)#izumi miyamura #hori x miyamura

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kiuda · 2 years

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DREAMBLR CENSUS 2023

Hi, hello and welcome everyone to the 2023 Dreamblr census results!

Let me start by thanking all of you for taking part - I love looking at statistics like that and making this has been a real joy. I hope at least some of you will find the results interesting as well <3

So, first things first - some numbers. 353 people have taken part in the census. There are over 350 people that say ‘yes I am a part of Dreamblr’. That’s amazing! I am so happy to see this community thrive :D

Now let’s get to the questions.

What continent are you from?

One of the more straightforward questions on this census.

The results are not surprising in the slightest - over 85% of the people that have taken the survey are from North America or Europe. 5.9% come from South America, 4.8% from Asia, 1.7% from Australia and Oceania. 4 people decided not to answer and thus became citizens of Antarctica and one person comes from Africa.

What country are you from (optional)?

Before we get to the statistics, it’s important to mention a couple of things. First of all - this question was optional. The survey site let you pass without putting anything in and the question itself had the word ‘optional’ in it. Despite that 2 of the 4 people that chose Antarctica also wrote in the countries they lived in. All in all 270 out of the 353 people decided to answer this question.

Second of all.

Americans.

For the love of everything holy.

Please. PLEASE. Decide on one way to call your country.

As I was using google forms, the survey was sensitive to lower- and upper-case letters, which meant that in the end there were 25 versions of the your country’s name, including (but not limited) to: America, Murica (including ‘eagle noise’ once), the U.S, The U.S., u.s, U.S.A., U.S.A, United States, united states, United States of America, United states of america, US, Us, us, USA, USA! and u s of a.

Special shoutout to the person who just wrote in ‘Arizona’ as well.

In the end the top 10 (eh kind of) most popular countries on the survey were……

Drumroll please!!

USA - 133

Canada - 26

Germany - 17

Poland & UK - 8

Brazil - 7

England - 6

Russia - 5

Chile, France, Sweden and the Netherlands - each with 4

As you can see, I have decided to treat ‘England’ and ‘UK’ as two different answers, since that’s how the survey responders decided to specify their countries.

What age are you?

Another straightforward question. Over 70% of us are between 18 and 25 years old. 13 are 31-45 years old and 8 people decided not to specify their age. 1 person has declared to be over 45 years old. You can see all the answers on this awesome pie chart as well!

I think it’s pretty cool how while a lot of us are young adults or even still teenagers, there are also older fandom enjoyers among us :D I hope you are all enjoying your time!!

When did you join the fandom?

First of the more fandom-specific questions. And probably the first question, where the answers genuinely surprised me!

A lot of us are OGs! Either having joined in 2019 or early/late 2020! Those people remember it all - the beginning of Dream SMP, the first vlog, Antfrost’s coming out and even the beginning of manhunts in some cases!

Out of the rest, early 2021 was another popular entry point to the fandom. Which shouldn’t surprise anyone either - it was still during the pandemic, probably the peak of Dream’s (and Dream Team’s/Dream SMP’s popularity).

9 people did not remember when they joined the fandom.

Similarly, 9 people are newbies! They’ve joined us in late 2022, while 23 joined in early 2022.

No one has joined in 2023 yet. (or haven’t seen the census. also possible.)

Who is your main?

This is a question that I could have made better in hindsight. I think a better answer than ‘I can’t decide’ would be ‘I like them all equally’, since I was assuming that all participants of the census did like the Dream Team members either way. It’s not a big mistake, just a small note I wanted to add.

To most likely no one’s surprise - the most popular person among Dreamblr’s population is Dream (224), followed by George (63) and Sapnap (15). 51 participants couldn’t decide on one of them.

Who do you watch besides the DTeam the most (out of other mcyts)? Please list 3 people max.

This question caused more problems than I'd imagined. Guys. I was asking about other MCYT (aka Minecraft Youtubers and Streamers) besides the DTeam. That means that I had to unfortunately eliminate some answers, the most popular out of which was Hasan, who I don’t think has ever played Minecraft before.

To answer some of you, who had some doubts about who counts as a MCYT….

Yes, Wilbur Soot does count.

Yes, Charlie Slimecicle also counts.

Yes, Hermits also count.

I am also counting Ludwig, since he did make Minecraft content.

PeteZahHutt also counts.

Corpse Husband counts as well, since he is technically a DSMP member.

RTGame counts as well - again, Minecraft content on his channel.

Again - Hasan does not count.

So now, without further ado… The top 10 most popular answers!

I have also not counted answers that went over 3 people (as in, I have only counted the first 3 names).

If any of you were wondering - 8 people really wish Hasan did play Minecraft.

Which Dream content is the best content?

Another easy question with an easy answer, where most people either prefer Dream’s Youtube content or just love it all.

Quick shout out to the two people who love Dream’s music the most and two who prefer other content than specified in the survey.

What got you into the fandom?

The toughest question to count. I did not expect so many different answers, so in the end I’ve decided to sort all the answers into a few categories (and I am sorry about that I know it’s not the best way to go about it, but here you guys can see all the answers to the question in an google spreadsheet if you want to).

dnf (answers included: ao3, heatwaves, dnf compilations on youtube or tiktok…)

manhunts (answers included: youtube recommendation of manhunts, binge watching manhunts…)

art (answers included: sad-ist animations, art in general, cosplays…)

lore (answers included: Dream SMP, lore vods…)

Other MCYT creators (answers included: SMP live, wilbur soot’s videos…)

Friend/family member recommendation

Among us streams

Twitter (answers included: seeing drama, twitter trending page…)

Other Dream Team content (answers included: other Dteam videos, tiktoks by them…)

Fandom (answers included: a tumblr mutual started posting about them, tiktok compilations, youtube compilations…)

Hot (answers included: found George/Sapnap hot)

I don’t remember

And finally. The last question of the census. The one we all have been wondering about.

Have you been here since before the face reveal?

As it turns out…

Only 2 people joined us since the face reveal!

The rest of us has known about this community and about Dream earlier and was waiting the day of the face reveal impatiently.

And that’s it! Thank you once again for taking part, hopefully my rambling won’t make this post too boring to read!

Have a great day/night! <3

#dreamblr #save #fav #dreamblr 2023 census

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alicent-vi-britannia · 7 months

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Lelouch vi Britannia, the Prometheus of Japanese animation

Today I want to upload an analysis about Lelouch that I had saved for a long time. This analysis is very special to me because it was a university essay (I wrote it in 2021 and it was a way to reconnect with this series since I didn't want to know anything about it after I was destroyed by the canon ending, I was disappointed by the alternative universe and the fandom disgusted me). I got a good grade, but it wasn't the best and it made me very sad because I worked hard and wrote that essay with a lot of love.

Anyway, the professor was terrible and I hated with every cell of my being every one of her classes and her way of teaching (some people shouldn't be teachers), so I don't care that I gave her a spoiler for one of the best endings from the television (maybe some of you will say that she didn't give me a higher grade because of the prejudice against Japanese animation and that could be, although it would be ironic because she said that it was allowed to choose anime characters as long as we explained to her everything with luxury detail and that's what I did.)

The essay exercise consisted of choosing a fictional character and explaining what archetype it was based on. What is an archetype? They are expressions of the collective unconscious or psychic elaborations that are part of the universal common language and that help in the composition of stories. In Jungian terms, Lelouch is a "Trickster" that mythologist Campbell defines as characters who violate the principles of the natural order, destroy life as we know it and restore it as a new dynamic. Lelouch also fits the Shadow archetype with respect to Suzaku, who is the Hero archetype, since Lelouch, in a way, represents everything that he represses about himself. I decided to analyze Lelouch starting from the figure of Prometheus because I felt that I was going to do a more complete analysis within the limit of extension that I had. If you notice that I'm being a little too explanatory in some parts or I don't stop to delve into others, keep in mind that it is because the essay was directed to someone who has never seen Code Geass in her life. With that said, here we go.

"It was 2006 when one of the most important Japanese animated series in the world premiered: Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion. The story is about Lelouch vi Britannia, the seventeenth prince of the Holy Empire of Britannia, who at his young age was sent to Japan as a political hostage with his sister after rebuking his father, the Emperor, for failing to protect his family during an attack that left his mother dead and his sister paralyzed and blind. The series begins ten years after the tragedy when Britannia has already colonized three quarters of the world, including Japan, which is renamed Area 11. It's then that Lelouch obtains Geass, a mystical power that will allow him to dominate the will of the others, and with it he will adopt the alter ego of Zero, a masked vigilante, and will lead a rebellion in order to find answers for the murder of his mother and to give a kind world to his sister - and, in the process, destroy the empire who repudiated him. Stories about rebellions have been told many times. In his book The Rebel Man, Albert Camus observed that man rises up against the order that oppresses him when the situation has lasted so long that it is unsustainable. But the feeling of insurrection, although it is an awareness, arises from the archetypes that serve as a guide in times of crisis for societies and establish patterns for the characters in the stories we like. That being so, what archetype do we identify in Lelouch? The one from Prometheus. In this work, we will unravel Lelouch through this archetype.

The myth of Prometheus is of vast symbolic richness. Hence it lends itself to inexhaustible reinterpretations and is one of the most reworked myths. In Prometheus: myth and tragedy, Carlos García Gual traces the different materializations of Prometheus throughout the ages and declares: "all these Prometheans (...) are united by the same resistance, the same insurrection, the same voluntary suffering" (p .194). So Prometheus transcends as a benevolent rogue who disobeys the commands of Zeus in favor of humanity, emphasizing values of rebellion and progress. However, this is far from Lelouch because, while it is true that Area 11 is under the yoke of Britannia, it is not driven by a genuine desire to free the Elevens (the colonists of Area 11), but by revenge and resentment, and it disguises its selfish reasons with intentions altruistic. He does, at least initially, as, at a turning point in the second season, Lelouch realizes that his struggle extends beyond him and his sister. He also fights for the people he loves and the humanity. In this sense, we can say that Lelouch embodies the negative expression of the archetype and this, in turn, makes him similar to another mythical figure: Lucifer. Like Lelouch, Lucifer questions the supreme power of God and incites the angels to oppose him by masking his personal motivations. When the rebellion fails, he hatches a plan to corrupt man in order to get revenge on God. And the similarities don't end there. Lelouch and Lucifer were exiled and as a result they harbor a deep hatred against their creators - in God, in the Emperor of Britannia and even in Zeus we can identify the archetype of the Father. Lelouch and Satan, additionally, are manipulators and liars. Both resort to rhetoric to get what they want from others and, like evil itself, they are seductive and charismatic. We see how Lucifer deceived Eve and how Lelouch pretends to love Rolo as his brother when he is really using him. To make it more evident, in the final stretch of the series, the other characters distinguish Lelouch as "Demon Emperor" in allusion to his evil. It may seem like we are getting off topic; however, the opposite is true. Prometheus and Lucifer are more similar than it seems at first glance. In fact, Milton's Satan drinks from Prometheus and, apart from that, emerged in the Baroque, a movement that preceded Romanticism, which had an intense affinity with Prometheus. Thus, Satan, Lelouch and Prometheus have their origin in the fact that they were part of the order that they challenge and stand out for their powerful nature. Lucifer was an angel at the service of God; Prometheus was a titan with the prophetic gift who helped Zeus during the titanomachy and Lelouch was the son of the Emperor (plus he possesses mystical power and genius intellect). And, above all, all three are essentially characterized by their cunning.

Outside of his love for the human race, Prometheus is still a scoundrel who used tricks to get his way. Hesiod presents him as a challenger to the omnipotence and omnipresence of Zeus in the Theogony, highlighting his negative traits (because his attitude is contrary to the purposes of Zeus, who wants everything good). The myth of Mecona demonstrates this since Prometheus mocked the father of the gods with malicious art with the distribution of the parts of the sacrificed bull, knowing that he would choose the most appetizing one. Here Prometheus is transgressing the sacrifice between men and gods [here I open a parenthesis to tell my readers who aren't familiar with Greek mythology nor are they mythologists that the myth of Macona is the explanation and meaning that the Greeks gave to their sacrificial rituals and if we analyze it carefully, you will see that the Prometheus' trick benefited humanity since it was established that humans could eat the meat and that the burned bones would be the sacrifice for the gods; if it had been the other way around, human would have chewed the bones as if they were dogs and the gods would have eaten the meat because that was what Zeus, who "knows what is good for man", wanted (f*ck you Zeus).] Lelouch does something similar in the eighth episode of the second season. The vicereine of Area 11 decides to restore the Administrative Zone of Japan, which is a conceptual State created with the aim of returning the rights and privileges to the Elevens that were previously denied to them as colonial powers, and establishes a dialogue with Zero (Lelouch). He accepts, on behalf of the Elevens, on the condition that "Zero" be exiled and, in this way, they close the agreement. On the day of the inauguration, Lelouch, his army and the Elevens attend the ceremony dressed as Zero, forcing Britannia to let all the Zeros go and, in turn, preventing the reduction of support for his rebel group and the Elevens are subordinated to a puppet State. This situation is one of many in which Lelouch uses his cunning to benefit the people (and his own plans).

Prometheus' other trick is the theft of fire. Against the will of Zeus, Prometheus steals the fire from the gods and gives it to men. The myth of the creation of humanity tells that Prometheus decided to give man fire to elevate him to a higher category than the animal and guarantee his survival; but what does fire symbolize in this context? David Fontana answers, in The Secret Language of Symbols, that it is "a symbol of the wisdom that differentiates men from gods" (p.111). Fire is the light that allows us to see through the shadows. It's the knowledge that constitutes the central axis in the progress of civilizations. And isn't knowledge what Lucifer offers to man in Genesis? Just in case you have any doubts, the etymology reveals it: Lucifer comes from Latin and is made up of lux (light) and ferre (carry). Therefore, Lucifer means "bringer of light." Several literary critics will compare Lucifer to Prometheus, among other aspects, for this. Paolo Astorgo, in his essay "The myth of Prometheus and human knowledge", points out in relation to this: "[Prometheus] favors humanity by providing it with certain means by which it not only systematizes its activities more quickly (... ), but it creates the first ideas about technology” (para. 5). With fire, man can create weapons and instruments. For this reason, Astorgo talks about technological advancement and this brings us back to Code Geass. In the preamble to the first episode they explain to us that Britannia conquered Japan (and many other nations) because they had "Knightmares" at their disposal, which are large armed robots. No matter how hard the Japanese tried to get their land back, they were always outmatched. It's Lelouch who obtains several Knightmares and bestows them on the rebels. Thanks to its resources and tricks, the group establishes itself as a kind of organization that soon gains the sympathy of the people and the patronage of the Japanese plutocrats. Under Lelouch's leadership, the organization grows exponentially, becoming an army that rivals that of Britannia and, consequently, is capable of fighting for the freedom of Japan. Astorgo shows that men find themselves in the need to depend on the divinities because they have fire that they also use to subdue them. By giving them fire, Prometheus not only makes man rebel against the oppressive divinities, he also provides him with tools to free himself from them. Likewise, Lelouch provides the Elevens with the same power with which Britannia bends them to become independent. And, to this, Astorgo adds: "This almost dialectical relationship God-Humanity, revolves in the myth as a constant closely linked to the fact of necessity and rebellion, which is what regularizes all the acts of “deception” that Prometheus uses before Zeus. , to steal power, with the sole objective of providing freedom to humanity" (para. 13). Here one of the values that Prometheus represents comes into play: freedom.

Satan, Prometheus and Lelouch affirm themselves as rebels against the tyranny of the powerful, but humanity suffers the consequences. Adam and Eve are expelled from Paradise; Zeus takes fire from man and grants him a new evil, and in his obsession with revenge, Lelouch unintentionally drags down innocent lives and his loved ones. But while Lucifer is apathetic; Lelouch and Prometheus suffer. In his work "Prometheus: Human Existence in Greek Interpretation", Karl Kerényi says that the nature of this archetype pushes the Prometheans to think deviously, which brings misfortune for humanity and for themselves. He alleges: “in their devious (ankyios) way of thinking (…) they are caught in their own web (ankyie): (…). And all kinds of devious paths correspond to it, from lies and deceptions to the most ingenious inventions, whose precondition, however, is always representative of a lack in the way of existing of the clever" (p.45). This is the imperfection that Kerényi reiterates throughout the text. Even though they are "titanic", Lelouch and Prometheus are imperfect because they suffer and that pain humanizes them. From there, Kerényi stipulates that suffering is part of the human condition. Lelouch, in particular, is aware of the damage that his actions have on those close to him and the innocent and lives with remorse. An example is episode thirteen of the first season: the father of one of his love interests dies due to a landslide that he causes in a confrontation with Britannia. Lelouch never forgave himself. Of course, if there was an event whose guilt always tormented him, it was the massacre of the Administrative Zone of Japan, of which he was the indirect author. The sum of the tragedies in his life leads Lelouch towards the positive side of him as an archetype and, eventually, makes him make the decision to pay for his sins, but not before leaving behind him a kind world as he had proposed.

Both Prometheus and Lelouch end up succumbing to divine justice for their misdeeds. Prometheus is tied with strong chains to a rock where an eagle devours his liver and remains there for a long time until Heracles appears and shoots the animal. Lelouch's punishment, on the other hand, takes the form of the Zero Requiem; which is a plan that he develops with Suzaku, his best friend, with the aim of ending all wars and ushering in an era of peace and, in unison, answering for their crimes. After killing the Emperor and usurping the throne, Lelouch quells the insurrections against him, imposes a cruel dictatorship and establishes himself as the enemy of the world by kidnapping the leaders of the United Nations Federation (a coalition of states equivalent to the ONU), which forces the world to confront him, giving way to a war that culminates in Lelouch's victory. During the public execution of the fallen, Suzaku, dressed as Zero, appears and kills Lelouch. With his death, Lelouch accepts his punishment and takes all the hatred with him, leaving a peaceful world. Kerényi stops to analyze the tetralogy of tragedies dedicated to Prometheus by Aeschylus and observes that the cunning titan's hardships will not cease until a divinity takes charge, since Prometheus' suffering is inherent to existence. In such circumstances one could speak of a "redemption." Who replaces Prometheus is Chiron, since longed to die after being wounded by a poisoned arrow. In Lelouch's case it is Suzaku. Suzaku is a knight in the service of Britannia. Like Lelouch, he aspires to a better world, only he doesn't believe a rebellion is the key. In him we recognize, as in Heracles, the archetype of the hero. And he, like Chiron, wanted to die. However, in the end, Lelouch, who longed to live with his sister, is the one who dies and he, who wanted to die in order to purge his guilt, is the one who lives at the cost of giving up his own happiness for the good of humanity by existing. just like Zero. Thus, the two friends atone for his sins and Lelouch, who proclaimed himself as the Messiah, achieves his redemption by becoming what he preached so much (although a few know that). There is no doubt that this sacrifice for love of humanity makes us think of Jesus Christ.

Literary critics also often compare him to Prometheus and, by extension, we could compare him to Lelouch. The three are united by their closeness to men, for whom they endure a via crucis and the three are saviors of humanity. And this brings us back to Joseph Campbell's words about the definition of "hero." In simple terms, a hero is one who gives his life for something greater than himself or different from him. It is likely that there will be those who resist considering Christ as a hero. Lelouch, for his part, certainly falls within the category of tragic hero. Regarding Prometheus, García Gual attributes his heroic character to Aeschylus stating that it was his work that immortalized in tragedy for posterity the myth of an old trickster.

Either way, Lelouch is an excellent example that archetypes are rooted in the collective imagination and are binary, universal, and ahistorical in nature. Despite the enormous time gap and the difference between cultures, the archetypes represent the same values that they once had and are still capable of continuing to captivate us with wonderful narratives that have a lot to teach us."

And, well, that's how I concluded my essay. The truth is, I think I could have gone deeper since the approach has enough potential to develop a thesis, but I couldn't go on for five pages and the proffesor complained that some of my classmates decided to ignore the rule and, therefore, exceed the limit. It seems that she is one of those proffesors who doesn't want to read shit (did I mention that I despise her?). So I apologize for so little and I will allow you to hate me for this horrible English (I didn't put the quotes in their original language and then translate them, I know, I deserve you to hate me for that too).

But, if you don't hate me and you liked my work, I invite you to give me a like. If you've never thought about what archetype Lelouch is based on, give me a like. If you found the association between Jesus Christ, Satan, Prometheus and Lelouch fascinating, give me a like. If my essay made you think, give me a like. If you want to make me happy or would like my humble essay to be more widely disseminated, share it. This way I will take into account that you like me to analyze Code Geass characters through archetypes and I can bring more similar content. I would like to talk soon about a part of Joseph Campbell's hero's journey in particular that is very easy to identify in Lelouch's journey (how the hell can Lelouch be an antihero, if he has the word HERO tattooed all over his forehead?). Well, there are a lot of things I want to discuss! It's just that my life and time are not enough for me to do everything I want. Anyway, have a nice night and don't forget to eat meat to piss off Zeus.

#code geass: lelouch of the rebellion #code geass #code geass: hangyaku no lelouch #lelouch #lelouch vi britannia #lelouch lamperouge #greek mythology #prometheus #archetypes

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