#i know i hype up being a designer as like a cool job but really. its kinda boring.

[whoishotteranimepolls]

This might count as Defend your Blurbo. If not, would you please use this as a Defend your Blurbo post

Attention, One Piece Fandom, I know there are a lot of you. I'm debating on whether or not to start One Piece, but there's one thing that has kept me from giving the show a chance for years, and that is Nami and Robin. They are drawn without internal organs.

So I'm scared I have been burned by anime before, especially Shonen, where they will have female characters with really cool character designs they hyped up as being some of the strongest characters but need to be saved every other Arc, or they're actually really cool and then get killed off quickly or I have the most basic generic backstory and their only personality trait is simp. Or, for some reason, in the universe, all the female characters just so happen to all choose to be healers. It's like that isn't just a coincidence and somewhat sexist. Or they're just weak in general.

So One Piece fandom, are the female characters actually well-developed and unique characters even though they happen to be drawn like that? So this is less a defense of Nami and Robin and just a defense of the female characters in general. But I know Nami and Robin are the main two, so you are welcome to use other examples of female characters I have not heard of from the show. I'm curious to see what everyone comes up with, but I'm still a little scared again. Shonan doesn't have an excellent track record with female characters. The only Shonen I think that truly did a fantastic job with its female characters has been Black Clover.

I am not worried about spoilers if they help make your point, and with how long your show is, by the time I get to that particular part, I probably would have forgotten about it. That is, if I do decide to start One Piece, and if I start, do you recommend reading the manga or watching the anime? Which is better?

Defend Your Blurbo #11

Please remember this post is about curiosity and genuine fandom discourse. Be kind with your answers because this is not a debate essay, this is a discussion between fans.

Here's a photo of Nami and Nico Robin for those of you who are not familiar with the characters

I don't think anyone will argue with the anon about One Piece female characters being drawn like they don't have internal organs. It's even worse with other characters like Boa Hancock and progressively worsens post time skip.

However, Oda may not be able to draw female characters, but he can write them. I'll let the One Piece fandom explain that part remember they said they don't mind spoilers, but I would still prefer if you would put a spoiler warning for everyone else who may be worried about spoilers.

So One Piece Fandom Defend your Blurbos

[whumpbug]

aaaaaand I know I JUST sent an ask but the character design ask game calls to me like no other so I hope these help ease the writing slump!!! or at least bring you joy as your sillies bring to me!!! lots of prompts. feel free to ignore any or all!! no pressure in the slightest /gen :>

for All of your guys, alternate!!! but specifically I think it would be cool if you universe-swapped Gene&Cassidy and Archie&Simon. where would they be in each other's worlds?

for cassidy, bling: he seems like a fashonista of a high order. what sort of jewels does he flaunt? or is he more subtle?

for archie, motion: what about his powers and his job make him move differently? is he spiderman-esc-quick-reactions, or clumsy?

for simon, canvas: any scars, does he want a tattoo? does he Have one?

and for gene, formal: PUT THIS MAN in a BALL. i want him fancy fresh and formal. need that sheriff swag. (cassidy is welcome in this prompt as well. would cassidy ever wear a skirt this is important)

as always feel free to ignore any of the prompts or all of them, and feel free to answer for all your guys or switch the guy the prompt is about. i'm hyped to read what you make bug!!!! :D

kia i love you /p you could never ever send too many asks. and if you have more dont hesitate to send em in THESE ARE ALL SUCH FUN QUESTIONS EEEE

ok strap in. long post incoming. i got carried away. UGH i love these questions so much

alternate (taking this question as. vigilante (archie n simon) and western (gene and cassidy) universe swap)

simon:

in the western universe, simon would most definitely be the overworked town doctor's assistant. he'd be sporting the typical 1860s doctor's suit of course (and he'd rock it too) with the little stethoscope and everything. he'd basically just be helping the actual doctor with anything they needed and would be equally as exhausted as he is in his own universe (this guy will never catch a break)

he would have a pretty similar relationship to archie (he is still a vigilante, i'll get to that don't worry) in the sense that he stays extra hours in the office to patch him up and frequently checks in on him to make sure he is okay. simon is just as smitten in this universe too, and sometimes tells archie that his condition is worse than it is so he'll stay a few extra days in the clinic..

archie:

vigilantes did exist in the wild west (albeit in a very different way), so that part will remain consistent with archie. i decided for the sake of the au that archie doesn't have any special abilities other than just. good genetics (i know its a big part of his identity but shhh cowboy archie).

SO he is a simple stable boy by day, vigilante by night. he patrols the streets for any criminal activity and operates outside of the law to keep the public safe, and of course, he knows a certain doctor's assistant will always be there to take care of him when things get rough. he comes to really enjoy his company and the rest is history

cassidy:

this guy. he is a sly fellow. my mind immediately went to him being in some kind of underground mafia-esque business with similar motives to the outlaw gang. with his charisma, he can get just about anyone to reveal anything and has no reservations on scamming those that deserve it.

montana still exists in this au (unfortunately) and would probably be dictating the kind of missions cassidy needs to go on and who he needs to talk to. cassidy goes undercover a lot to very extravagent dinners and parties for info and stuff like that so he's often seen dressed to the nines or pretending to be someone he isn't and of course he has run-ins with gene because. that guy is after him!!! and he hates him (no he doesn't) because he doesn't want anyone interfering with montana and the group's plans

gene:

ok so after much deliberation, i decided that gene is a private investigtor for underground crime organizations. much like simon, he is equally as tired and overworked in this universe as he is in his own. very much a caffeine addict.

anyways, he is also going undercover very often to find and gain information on cassidy and the rest of the group, which can lead to some,, very Tense Situations (i'm thinking. very fancy dinner. the two get sat at the same table and cant make a scene, but they both have important jobs to do and are also threats to eachother. just imagine them trying to have a cordial conversation while being aware they have guns pointed at eachother under the table.)

bling for cassidy (what jewelry does your oc wear? does it have any meaning?

cw: mentions of abuse, starvation, death, and implications of sexual assault

any jewels or gold he has have a 99.8% chance of being stolen. and to him, that's what makes them so significant and meaningful. he only takes jewelry from people he deems as having done unforgivable acts and wears them as a badge of honor for either locking them away for life or. killing them. i'm gonna give a little rundown of his most notable pieces that he wears!

gold ring with an embedded sapphire: stolen from a crooked sheriff in another town that was overtaxing his people to the point that people were collapsing in the street from starvation

gold watch: stolen from from a man that was cheating on his wife while also physically abusing her and their child

gold pocket watch (can you tell he likes gold): stolen from a preacher that was caught embezzling funds and also taking advantage of some of the younger women

pinched front hat: not jewelry, but an important accessory. one of the few things montana gave him when he was a boy. it was too big for him then, but he's grown into it much like his role in montana's plots. for better or for worse.

as for does he flaunt it, he absolutely does. he wears them all loud and proud and as a way to tell the world he's not the scared, helpless little boy he once was. that he's made something of himself.

motion for archie (how does your oc move? how does their clothing help or hinder their range of motion? are they flexible, coordinated, clumsy?)

when dressed as vigil, archie is very deft in his movements. in and out of costume, he has very fast reflexes and reaction times and when hes focused on patrol, they're even faster. he is strong, quick, and very intentional when engaging in combat and it sometimes even looks choreographed when he's in the zone

out of costume, its a bit different. he has to make a constant effort to look like he isn't as strong as he is, so he tends to look stiff when doing things that would take effort from a normal person (for example, he has to pretend to struggle when carrying heavy grocery bags, or act like he's winded after going up several flights of stairs)

canvas for simon (does your oc have any scars, piercings, tattoos, or other markings? do they display or cover them up at all?)

OOOH this one is fun. SO.

simon has a septum piercing, which seems a bit out of character because it is. he was sort of peer-pressured into getting one with his high-school friends and after a brief period of panic and figuring out how to hide it from his parents, he decided he actually liked it and kept it

as for scars and tattoos, he has a small scar on his cheek from The Kidnapping Incident, but he doesn't mind it much. its hardly noticeable (but archie notices it. he notices it very much)

and tattoos! i don't simon is the type to have any presently, but i can definitely see him getting some in the future. i feel like he'd want a matching one with archie, but archie does Not do needles so that's out of the question. he'd probably get something medical to celebrate once he finishes his residency. i'm thinking an anatomically correct heart on his sternum (OUCH) or a scalpel on his wrist. he'd think that was sick.

archie would try to go with him for moral support. he wouldn't last 5 minutes once the artists starts inking.

formal for gene (what's your oc's formal look? do they like dressing up? do they have different looks for different occasions?)

so gene is already pretty dressed up in his typical day-to-day life because. it was the 1800s. BUT if he had to dress up even fancier for an event? this man cleans up nicely.

i can see gene in a very nice brown wool three-piece suit with a dignified tail coat and a top hat. he's pretty ok with getting dressed up, as long as he's not drinking. he gets overheated very easily when tipsy and a wool suit isn't exactly known for its ventilation

as for cassidy, yes. yes he would absolutely wear a skirt. sometimes when the morale is low in the gang. he'll steal one of the ladies' dresses and put it on and act silly with the little kids to make them laugh (and he honestly kind of enjoys it too. it's nice to get dolled up. when his hair was longer, he let the ladies braid it and put flowers in it)

OK WE'VE MADE IT TO THE END. kia thank u so much for letting me ramble about my special guys. this was one of my favorite ask prompts to answer and i feel like the boys are so much more fleshed out now!!! thank u again and i hope you enjoy!!!!!

[keystone8379]

Frame Imperfect

Regarding Kirby Fighters 2, when the game was relatively new, many YouTubers were trying to cash in on the new "kirby smash bros" hype. During this period I remember Mew2King coming into the KF2 server with interest in running a tournament for the game.

Wow! I couldn't believe this! Mew2King from funny YouTube compilations and competitive Super Smash Bros Melee (I had watched very little melee at that point, except for EmpLemon's There Will Never Be Another Melee Player Like HungryBox) was interested in our super cool Kirby game? Awesome!

At this point the game had garnered a rep as a pretty unserious competitive game, with many fake infinites being discovered and one real one as well. There was also Alpharad's video on the game that made it look...unflattering. It was unflattering for reasons other than just being a 'smash clone' but we didn't know why exactly yet. This was before 20XX, the first real KF2 tournament, for reference.

But Mew2King wanted to take a chance on us! He believed in our game and wanted to take a chance on a new, unique, exciting platform fighter! We were starstruck, plain and simple.

Which is why when M2K suggested MOBA style character bans everyone just kinda went with it????

Keep in mind this was before the first tourney, we didn't know shit about fuck, as fish would say.

They didn't go through with this.

So fast forward a couple months, and KF2's first appearance at Frame Perfect Series is upon us. As you'd expect, the community is really excited! This was one of the biggest brackets the community had ever seen, with a bunch of new faces! Mostly people we'd never see again but it was exciting at the time.

As for the commentator's bench, we were looking at M2K, who knew nothing about the game but was on comms for every game so whatever...and in the KF2 corner...Super Citrus. Who hadn't commentated an even since 20XX. Oh god. M2K was sprouting nonstop nonsense and Citrus just didn't have the game knowledge or confidence to debunk any of it. The VODs were a little painful to watch. Poor guy.

So FPS doesn't make the game look...great. It wasn't help that M2K was ridiculing the players he determined were 'lame' and I mean I don't like Ninja11 or Poyo but come the fuck on man. Commentary basics here. I could do a better job.

But what if I could actually? When FPS 4 was announced, we learned that KF2 would be making a return for it. I was more involved in the community at this point with one tournament under my belt (...which was New Generation) and did 2 major things for this FPS. Firstly, early on, KF2 wasn't looking great in the entrant count side of things. So, I got in touch with some of the folks in tourney committee and we talked about running a tourney where top 8 would get free entry to FPS4.

And this is where we talk about the unsung hero of this story, Thank You motherfucking Domo. When sponsoring Road to FPS, Domo offered to handle the free entry of anyone who we couldn't get people to pay for a gift sub for. In later Road to FPS events, he flat out offered to give any KF2 players free entry because he liked the game...and it makes for better content obviously but still. What a god damn legend. Rest in Power. (he lost his account in a phishing scam)

I realize that came off as kinda sarcastic but I was genuinely upset when his account got hacked. Shit sucks, I don't want to hear about phishing scams from Bool ever again.

OH, speaking of Domo, second major thing I did was apply for commentary! I had more tourneys and more experience under my belt at that point and I felt pretty confident all things considered! So I sent domo a few videos of my comms work, including a video where I have to make Bell look like a well designed interactive character for 30 minutes.

I didn't end up getting picked, but I thought to myself "well as long as it's not Citrus again we should be fine." lol. lmao. This time we did actually have a bit of time to give Cirtus a crash course in the current KF2 environment but it still wasn't great. In fact, it was maybe the worst video game commentary I'd ever seen.

For a long time, P47 had been seemingly untouchable. He was a KF2 expert, his Magolor inspired me to pick up the character fully, he was a lorehead, and a great guy to be around. The clip of him using Ultra Sword to push Nuggetz off a platform into an apple explosion is absolutely as iconic as it deserves to be. This was P47's last big tournament.

Now, remember how I said Mew2King was an asshole to anyone who he deemed lame. M2K was a Marth player in Melee by the way, I don't know if that's considered a lame character but I hope he is. P47 received the full force of this with constant hate from M2K's live chat, not to mention that Citrus also wasn't a Magolor fan. I'm not quite sure how bad it was exactly, but it was bad enough to lead to him quitting the game. Looking back on it, the whole situation is infuriating to me.

That was Citrus' last time commentating FPS, when FPS5 rolled around we had gotten Winters on comms, who was easily the most consistent commentator we had and also the person...you know...keeping the game alive. She was able to debunk a lot of M2K's bullshit and also was able to tell him that P47 quit because of M2K being an asshole last FPS. I don't think I ever told her how much I appreciated that.

Good time to mention that Mew2King also used he/him for EVERYONE. It led to me making this stupid fucking image.

But it gets worse. Of course it always gets worse. In top 8, Ninja11, one of my least favourite top players, was up against SoothingRuby, one of my favourite top players. Ninja11 kinda hates everyone in the community and Ruby hates people who are Like That so as you can expect these 2 get along great. This was reflected in the set between them.

It was a lot of this. Ruby would throw Kunai and Ninja would just crouch them. This matchup isn't even that bad for Magolor, I thinkj Mag wins it, Ninja's just an asshole. He ended up winning the set, of course he did. Great time was had by all, especially the twitch chat and M2K, who both already hated the game. Yikes.

So this brings us to FPS6, the final Frame Perfect event. Messages from M2K implied that Metafy, the main reason the tournament was being run, was on it's way out, but not before M2K was doing sketchy things in his own time.

Turns out Metafy still exists. Not sure what he was talking about with the whole final sale thing. Maybe it's an MLM thing. (Multi Level Marketing) Was I not supposed to think the platform was closing?

So the tourney rolls around on, of all days, the 4th of July. As a Canadian I don't give a shit, but as you can imagine, most people were not available. Zet ended up winning the whole thing. However there is one potentially sketchy set in there.

Somehow, before bracket, Qwertz had performed a coup d'etat and became TO of the bracket despite being on the other side of the globe. The actual TO didn't wake up in time, and all Qwertz used his power to do was changing the timeslot without communicating.

Then, when Zet "applied a taco to his router" (thank you Justin for giving my posts the rawest fucking quotes) Qwertz just said to play it out, though everyone knew this was mostly just because Qwertz didn't like Justin. Why do we let this man near any administrative privileges.

The stream also ended with Winters having to tell chat to have a happy 4th of july. She is a trans lesbian.

And that was the last FPS event. By the time the 3rd KF2 tournament had rolled around, we already knew M2K was doing more harm than good, but no one had the guts to tell him off. I think we were worried that he'd just run the game like a dumbass if we didn't stick around. To be fair, it happened with Kloudchasers.

So what's the moral of the story? Never meet your heroes? No, that's what we learned from Chuggaaconroy. Is Mew2King even my hero? Never meet a competitive Smash player is what we learned here. Though hopefully you all already knew that.

[invested-in-your-future]

Genuinely, why were the hound and leviathan grimm a mistake?

While a concept of dangerous sea grimm is great, The Leviathan's design is honestly a complete mess. And it suffers the exact same fate any remotely intriguing concept does in this show - getting flattened by plot device without doing anything of note. And in this case its done in one of the worst most anti-climactic fights in the ENTIRE show, as a combo between a plot device of silver eyes (hey remember when they used to be a genuine mystery and not just "Break in case of Emergency" plot device writers remember about when they need to delete a monster and don't know how?) and one of the most unlikeable side characters in entire show. The Leviathan could have been literally ANYTHING, even a generic pack of beowulves and nothing would change in the story. What was the point? All it does is to make the hyped-up "underwater grimm" even more anticlimactic and boring than even that one time two teens on a ship randomly killed a sea dragon.

The Hound is one of the least threatening grimm in the entire show that ends up jobbing to a slab of stone. In any other show the concept behind it would have been intriguing, but with RWBY it feels like edgy afterthought as an attempt to make Salem "scary" or "threatening" that then sabotages itself by how freaking easy the thing just keels over. Salem making whaaaaaacky Grimm experiments would truly be fascinating…Were we not aware of her backstory(that show stated is 100% accurate) and her pretty generic set of goals. As it stands The Hound is an afterthought that exists solely to attempt to get some mileage out of Summer drama down the line that will no doubt make Raven look like even bigger anticlimactic idiot. Seriously, "wooo, what if spooky Grimm Human Hybrids!" is something you'd expect of an average fanfic, not the actual main show. And those fanfics likely put more thought into it than the show did.

Both are examples of semi-intriguing ideas being done in the most haphazard, boring and anticlimactic way possible.

The concept of a weird abomination creature of Grimm that develops and evolves IS cool though. One of my ideas involves a cannibalistic kind of abnormal grimm that consumes other creatures of grimm to evolve and adapt, essentially skipping usual steps of Grimm development (which I also kind of wrote up from ground up since this is the "world of bloody evolution" even though MilesWBY kind of forgot). I am not making it some Salem special project though, because in my idea Salem doesn't really have "control" over Grimm, nor ability to make them. The idea of RNG just sometimes leading to "glitches in the system" like that by pure chance is far more fascinating to me.

[dontmindme2600]

Hi again......If you don't mind, can I ask, what are your top 10 (or top 7) favorite media (can be books/ manga/ anime/movies/tv series)? Why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before......Thanks....

OH MY GOD I’D LIKE TO APOLOGIZE BECAUSE MY BAD BECAUSE I LEFT THIS SITTING IN MY DRAFTS AND TOTALLY FORGOT TO ANSWER THIS!! Anyways, top 7, in no particular order:

Hunter x Hunter: I’m not as into this as I was in middle school but it’s never left my mind. Definitely my favorite shonen, Togashi’s originality with the series is really refreshing. (I also love Yu Yu Hakusho by him!!) As weird as it gets the characters and story are always a blast to follow. The villains also go hard. I finished the 2011 anime and I have up to volume 13 of the manga! I’d love to catch up fully since it’s being updated again, but haven’t gotten around to it yet. It’s something that I’ve always been inspired by even if I don’t want to make something that’s gonna be EXACTLY like it anymore lol.

Cowboy Bebop: I tried to limit myself to one (1) Shinichiro Watanabe anime for this list, but his other stuff fucks as well. I love Spike. (bet you never would’ve guessed!!) It’s hard to put into words in a way that doesn’t sound incredibly dumb. But. Every character introduced has their own unique worldview, backstory, flaws, etc. It sounds so fucking stupid because yeah, that’s what a character is supposed to have?? But this anime does that REALLY well?? I think what I’m trying to say is that the show does a great job of presenting different lifestyles and perspectives without worrying about making the audience uncomfortable. The anime is all about human connections and how they impact the characters and I LOVE that. It was also pretty moving to me, lots of great emotional moments. The episode where they find Faye’s old cassette recording and the one with Gren’s death will always stay with me. (Also the Andy one, but only because I think it’s funny as hell.) Watanabe is my favorite anime director ever and if you love Bebop I recommend checking out some of his other stuff as well! (Also props to an anime director that isn’t afraid of diversity in his character designs)

Witch Hat Atelier: I’m not nearly as caught up with this as I would like to be but!!! I love the writing, worldbuilding, and characters. I wish more manga were like this. Not like, aesthetically, but like quality wise. Everything is done really well and the art and paneling is GORGEOUS omfg. Also Kamome Shirahama is a very cool and progressive person and it’s just nice to read a manga by someone like her. I’m hyped as hell for the anime and can’t wait to see WHA reach a larger audience!! (Even with all the bad stuff it may bring, lmao)

Invader Zim: This one is probably the most different from the rest of the list lol. I’ll rewatch a few episodes of this every once in a while. It’s one of the only shows I watch that actually makes me laugh out loud. I also don’t think I’ve really seen anything else like it??? Sure there’s stuff that’s it’s pretty similar to but you cant really say, “wow, this is exactly like ____!” which is super cool. There’s not a major character in the show that I can say I hate or even just am neutral on, I love them all. I’m not usually a fan of stuff the gross-out humor it does, especially in the first season, but just about everything else about it just lives in my brain rent free. I think it’s a really unique and funny show and I just vibe with it stylistically as well. Seriously, I love the art style and just overall,,, edgy vibe. I absolutely do not care that it’s a kid’s show and I unironically think it’s super cool lmao. I know should probably check out some of Jhonen’s other stuff but I haven’t done that yet…

The Ace Attorney Trilogy: This one is more so just Shu Takumi in general. It’s a hard choice because I love Apollo Justice as well, and I also considered Ghost Trick (also by Takumi) but Agh!! The trilogy is the most iconic to me so I’m going with that. I just love seeing and interacting with all the unique characters the series has to offer. I’ve always liked how Takumi isn’t afraid to stray away from the generic skinny anime designs for his characters, it makes his characters feel very unique and memorable. He seems to be against having most of his characters be one dimensional, giving them their own struggles and aspirations, regardless of if they’re a “silly” character or not. I love it! It makes them more memorable and enjoyable than many other visual novel characters to me. (Please remember that I also love Ghost Trick holy fuck it’s so good)

Yakuza 0: I’m going to be 100% for real and admit that I discovered this series because of a bunch of stupid clips I saw of it on YouTube. It wasn’t the dame da ne memes, this was before that. But like, clips of all the silly stuff you can do in game like dance, receive a chicken as a gift for winning at bowling, assign said chicken a position at your real estate business, etc. So I bought it on a whim looking for a laugh. And. Holy FUCK. I did not expect the actual real serious story of this game to hit me as hard as it did. Just a good, moving story. I was THOROUGHLY emotionally invested in both Majima and Kiryu’s storylines by like, chapter 2 for both of them. I think it made me cry?? The fact that you can experience both that and the stupid shit, on top of the fun combat, makes it an S tier game for me. I plan to continue with the rest of the series (so far I’ve gotten through Kiwami 1 and 2 and loved them) but 0 has so far been my absolute favorite.

Pokemon: It’s not a perfect series but I always find myself getting back into it for a while every year. I’ve been a fan since I was just old enough to read, what can else can I say? I don’t have a super deep reason for this it’s just something that’s always been comfortable and fun!! The worldbuilding, story, music, and characters, really shine through in some of my favorite games in the series. And regardless of story, the gameplay is always fun.

It’s hard for me to determine my favorite anything but for this I tried to go by:

-How often I ended up going back to these

-How much each work made an emotional impact on me (not just the deep stuff, can also include things like making me laugh)

-How much each of these inspired me (like as in inspired my art or made me think “I want to make something like that!!!”) I think I’ve thought to that at least once for everything in here! It’s actually kind of scary because they’re all so different-

I’m probably missing something here but this should give you an idea!! If I spend any longer on this I’m just gonna keep changing it lolllll

[arikihalloween]

Muse Sally sounds so cool

Thank you ! Muse is a new silly I created just this week !

I showed her ref already but here it is again ! Born from Creativity itself, her job is to give inspiration and ideas

Aka she's a walking pinterest moodboard

If I do give her a blog, it will be oriented toward giving references, ideas, encouraging people and their crafts, maybe lil' advices and tutorials ( I am myself in art school for artistic direction and graphic designs so yeh)

But I don't want to come off as like, an know it all, so it would really only be if people ask

Otherwise I'm fine with Muse being a fun "I will hype you up" character wity occasional shenanigans with her friends

[ben-the-hyena]

So I watched the Lackadaisy pilot. I want to precise, except the trailer, a few drawings, gifs and animation tests I knew nothing about the story, I never read the comics or knew the names of the characters

I must say... mixed feelings. But overall hopeful

I really liked the Cafe Daisy bit, it looked beautiful and had a nice cinematography (the fact Mitzi misses her husband is established a very natural and casual way that doesn't feel forced), nice colors, the music in the end was so catchy, its funny bits WERE funny and had me laugh or at least giggle (THIS is how you make an adult animation, not by forcing in profanities), Mitzi seems to be a very interesting, complex character with an elegant design and a sweet and melancholic tet powerful personality (I think she's my favorite character for now), Wick and Zib were cool for different reasons one being elegant and a bit posh yet awkward and the other a depressed yet cool drunk musician, Viktor was threatening and very cool in his own way I love big angry guys doing a "nice" job they look too scary for...

This bit really saved it and had me like the pilot and look forwards for more because (and I know I will be shit on for thinking so) the first 16 minutes really bored me and I kept wondering why, except the animation which indeed is smooth and beautiful (unsure if it was intentional but I do love how they left tge sketchlines, it reminds me of the bronze era of Disney), people were praising it. It took waaay too long to truly start to get in action, the 2 trigger happy gangsters (are they a couple) sure looked and sounded cool they seemed to be too much bidimensional (but eh it IS a pilot so I'll let it pass), the action was... not hyping me at all (I was like "😐" during the whole chase and a good part of the sneaking mission, it didn't make me feel anything), and BY GOD do I feel like I'm gonna hate Rocky. He REEKS character made to be "the likable and funny fan favorite for the sole reason he is so random lolz and LOOK he dresses up nicely and plays violin even when it's not needed or helping at all that's SO quirky, Tumblr sexyman material ain't I rite ???", he was exasperating, a jackass meant to be charming which I found failed completely, and his random obsession about explosions and the way he was being insane about it which is meant to be funny only had me be tempted to turn off the video for how annoying it was. And he's gonna be a main character... I REALLY HOPE this is just because it's the pilot but so far I think I will love him as much as I loved DT17 Dewey siiiiiigh...

However even in that first part I found Freckle cute and his crush for Ivy (who is cute too !) adorable, and I did get happily surptised and laughed at him being SO trigger happy and turning into a whole different person with guns, THAT was the only part of the first part I found funny enough to laugh for lol (and I did find funny when Rocky gives him the dynamite like it is nothing or when Rocky threw the dynamite at the villains before ricochetting back to him, but not to the point of making noises). I also did get a change of opinion about that mysterious Mordecai. Ibitially he looked and seemed as bidimensional/boring as Serafine and Nicodeme, then when he stepped out and proved out to be good with a gun too became a little more introguing, then whenever the sneaking scene was focused on him and Freckle it actually did have tension since both are as good as each other and how unlike Freckle who was (understandably so) panicking he was instead as calm and collected as ever and I love cold and pragmatic villains, I grew to love the little gimick about hearing a clock whenever he aims to showcase how slowly it takes him to aim yet how 100% efficient precise it turns out to be just like a Swiss clock, that was clever, and then when in the end he COULD have shot Ivy but I feel like by seeing it is her chooses not to, it got me hooked. Why ? How ? Does he know her ? Does he care ? Who is she to him ? NOW that is the one moment from the first part that had me want to know more

In short, not the best and it took too long to catch my interest, but at least it does catch up later on. Except Rocky. Only part of the srcond part I didn't like. Whenever he opened it. Fuck Rocky

[cptn-m]

One Piece chapter 1100 review

We know that aside from 100 and 1000, Oda's never really written around milestones, but you still generally find something that feels like a big step on each hundred chapters. While we have a pretty damn good chapter of One Piece this week, I don't think there's anything that really qualifies it as a giant leap forward for the story. Maybe all the classic Warlord cameos are meant to feel like the reward for the big eleven-hundred. Maybe, given that the celebratory colour spread is slated for next issue, the big moment missed by one. Or maybe that's just because of how Jump's scheduling panned out and I'm overthinking the whole thing.

There's an irony in Borsalino, in the opening pages, contrasting the climates of Egghead and Punk Hazard. He thinks Egghead's so much colder, but give it a few years and Punk Hazard will be half frozen over and Egghead will be fully climate controlled.

There's a lot of characterisation on show in this first scene. Vegapunk is painfully naive in failing to check for bugs in his lab, and this still won't teach him not to trust the Government. Borsalino has a laid-back and personable demeanour at a glance, but he'll do his job if he has to. And Kuma. Poor, well-meaning Kuma, loses all sense of perspective where his daughter is concerned. I don't think he heard a single word that wasn't about Bonney, even as Saturn offers him basically the worst terms ever. There's a comparison to be made in Kuma's reaction throughout the scene to Hancock asking Luffy to choose between freeing his friends and getting a boat. That same misdirect on what the initial reaction means and the laser focus on the people who need saving at the expense of all else. Except Luffy's version played out in his favour whereas Kuma… well, we're in a One Piece flashback, so you do the math.

Saturn's character is also front and center here. It's that he's a bastard, all pragmatic and cruel.

I really enjoyed the montage of treatments, slice of life scenes and construction work to show the passage of time here. There's some nice fanservice in seeing the (probable) moment the Vegaclones were conceived, and Vegapunk leveraging more underworld connections that would have to go back to his MADS days, this time with Storage King Umit. It's cool that all the underworld figures from Big Mom's party keep sticking their heads up to connect corners of the world.

There's some wonderfully nostalgic fanservice seeing all the classic Warlords and a few others reacting Kuma being commissioned into their number. Curious that Doflamingo, proclaimed "champion of evil" sees another miscreant in Kuma, buying into the hype completely. Having been involved in World Government info tampering personally, and setting records straight with his crew on the fall of Flevance, you'd think he'd at least acknowledge the possibility of spin on Kuma's story. I wonder if the apparent interest in another outright bad guy in the crew ever lead Doflamingo to reach out to Kuma. It might explain them turning up to the meeting together back when they were both first introduced.

An Ace appearance is always welcome. We knew he was offered a Warlord spot, but I think it's new info that he toppled one before that. This is a little bit of a lesson in taking spin-off material as fully canon, because like, you'd think that event would warrant at least a mention in Ace's novel or its manga adaptation. You know if they'd waited a few years and done those today the authors would be asking Oda for an original design for the beaten Warlord and making the encounter into at least a small scene if not the whole story, and its absence makes those volumes feel all the more secondary in retrospect.

Jinbe noting the growing political power of the Warlords is also a touch I like. We've known about powerful figures abusing the Warlord system for their own schemes almost as long as we've had One Piece, but I get the sense that the first generation legitimately acted as privateers and over time more and more people with things to hide have forced their way in. The group becomes both more dangerous and harder to control.

It is adorable that Kuma uses Bonney's drawing as his jolly roger. No notes, just a great touch. You can really see how thin his commitment to being a marauder is. Also, is that a bear ear on the side of his ship? Maybe we all figured as far back as Sabaody there would be more layers to Kuma, but I doubt anyone expected him to do something that cute, especially with his imposing first impression.

There is a strange current of speculation online that Kuma has been sent to Windmill Village to deal with Luffy or something similar in the last page. Are we not paying enough attention to see that Kuma is already there when the orders come in. Whatever the Government wants (if the orders matter to the story and aren't an excuse for him to namedrop his location) it doesn't seem to have anything to do with our protagonist. But maybe I shouldn't get too high and mighty - getting orders relating to something on the island he just happens to be stopping at for a resupply or whatever is definitely not too much of a coincidence for Oda, so we'll see next week what the deal with all of this is.

Next week, no matter what, we're somewhere in vol 109, and I think we have to start building up to the climax of this flashback. Right now, it feels like there's something missing for the ending, a factor we don't know about yet. Kuma losing his will wasn't a shocking betrayal, it was a deal he walked into willingly. In fact, it feels like we prettymuch know it all - he spends some time as a Warlord, is made fully into a weapon at the time the Pacifistas are first deployed. Maybe he's able to leverage that final request to defend the Sunny because Bonney had already escaped and the Government was wary of him running off with all that tech and became more pliable to his requests (or Vegapunk liked him enough to go behind his bosses' backs). Mission complete, he's made a slave until the Revolutionaries grab him and run, and we're basically up to the present. It would be anticlimactic to just play all that out in fast forward, so I think Oda's going to work some kind of a stinger in there. Probably something to tie into how and why he's awakened to himself and begun rampaging while the Egghead Arc happens.

Looking forward to colour pages after quite a few chapters without, and for a final surprise gut punch to put the cherry on top of one of the series' darkest and most effective flashbacks.

Read this review and more on my Wordpress.

[sickknotdoom]

i love sparklecare ( i really do ) but i don't understand the cometcare au at all and i don't get its hype. the designs look SO rushed ( like it was put together in a 10 minute art challenge ) and is it just me or. is the art style progressively getting worse ( for both sparklecare and cometcare ). i hate how random cometcare is too, i tried reading it and my brain got so fried. i had no idea what was happening. i loved cometcare at first, it was cool when it was JUST pollarrydoomi then they threw in these random ass characters and went "oh yeah. ur dating and have a child." ???? especially with hemera, the only (?) aroace character, why is she with caroline and why does she have a kid. adding hemera and miley into the mix was SUCH a bad idea. also. caroline x doom???? carruni s/x canon ( even though uni is aegosexual/asexual ... ) cometcare had so much potential and it all went down the drain by adding 10 thousand nearsiblings

FORGIVE ME FOR HOW LONG THIS RESPONSE IS

ive been saying exactly this ever since i found out about the cometcare au. literally everybody has a million children with everyone else and im like. why.

this may be a controversial opinion but i am not a fan of carroom (caroline x doom) in the slightest, since caroline is literally shown to hate doom in the main comic. literally all of their interactions involve caroline insulting doom, not to mention the earlier half of volume three.

i know enemies to lovers is a thing but if somebody chucked a full bucket of puke on my head, and then gave my sister this Judgemental Ass Look for offering to clean it up, i would honestly Kill Them. regardless of if they secretly had a crush on me or i secretly had a crush on them or whatever. you cannot convince me these two dont fucking hate eachother.

also i mean this in the most respectful way possible but i feel like theyre sorta erasing carolines sexuality with this? i may be attracted exclusively to men, but allow me to speak for a bit.

i am not at all trying to invalidate dooms agender identity, but. speaking as someone whos agender myself. i look exactly like a cis man. i am assigned male at birth, my testosterone is absolutely thriving since im going through puberty, i look like a man and i have zero intent to ever change that. if someone was NOT attracted to men, they would NOT be attracted to me, regardless of me actually being agender. especially not if i Tortured And Murdered Their Friends.

this isnt invalidating dooms gender identity nor is it invalidating mine, im definitely into something here. as someone whos gay (nblm) i wouldnt instantly develop a crush on lizzo if she came out as agender, especially not after the fucked up shit she did. now apply this to carroom, and miloom (miley x doom). but mainly carroom.

i understand carruni since unis a closeted trans woman, but thats different from carroom in a lot of ways. it would make sense for uni to not alter her gender expression as long as shes in the closet, since she isnt ready to explain to anyone else what she really is to anybody else. caroline and uni have an extremely deep bond too, so ofcourse shed come out to caroline first, and ofcourse theyd develop crushes on eachother. in the future (going off of au's and such), when uni is out of the closet, she is shown to present as her authentic self, and she. does a really good job at it. shes fucking gorgeous in cometcare. so it makes sense for caroline to be attracted to her.

and also uni isnt a serial killer. caroline seems to really dislike serial killers to the point where shed throw full buckets of vomit on them, which is. reasonable.

however again, unis aegosexual (if i recall correctly, uni and hemera are the only characters confirmed to be on the asexual spectrum as of volume four, not including characters that havent appeared yet) so it feels wrong to explicitly sexualize her regardless, especially if the clowns are "uncomfortable" with fans doing the same.

while were on this topic, agreed. hemera (the only aroace character in the entire sparklecare universe so far, including au's last time i checked) has like four other partners in cometcare. i dont think thats a very good idea considering they made it a point to explicitly point out her being aromantic in volume two.

and yeah, the artstyle has been very clearly degrading, i have another post about that.

how the fuck do i end this

[gayemeralds]

OKAY FINISHED SEASON ONE TITANS

score: 6.5/10

pros: the costuming fucked (specifically whoever did kori), and the cinematography was really good. lots of shows suffer from not having good lighting espeically in dark scenes but i think this show actually did pretty well in that regard. the concept behind the show was interesting, i liked the focus on raven. seeing all of the secondary characters, like doom patrol or donna troy, was probably kinda baiting but I liked it so whatever. i loved kori so much the concept behind her story of being an amnesaic assassin who befriended her target was SO good and she was so fun. the actress for raven was phenomenal. honestly i think all the actors did a pretty good job considering this show is… well d-rated for a reason. the mythos of Gotham was really well done, i don’t know how to explain it tbh but i did like it.

cons: WAY WAY WAY WAY TOO ROBIN FOCUSED. season one could have easily been condensed into being about trigon but they dragged the entire season on forever- it did not need to be split into two seasons. episode two and nine were entirely unneeded im sorry the hawk and dove thing was so stupid they offered NOTHING to the storyline. they genuinely weren’t connected to the plot in the slightest. they brought nothing to the table. edgy takes on superheroes are almost always done badly and this one wasn’t great. robins identity crisis was so stupid they should have either made it like 6 months since he left being robin or let him already start out as nightwing. i love beast boy but it was clear they didn’t know what to do with him, he was just kinda there. bringing trigon into earth was SUCH a boring ass scene im still so pissed about it. all that hype for nothing. kori’s backstory honestly should have been explored more i feel like it was still pretty underutilized. raven was fighting for her life trying to be the main character this season against dick. the shadow of batman always being mentioned but never seen was cool except they brought him up in quite literally every scene- it felt like a batman spin off instead of just a dc show. it was kind of borishly violent sometimes. trigon being just some guy design wise sucked so bad.

i think it had a good idea behind it but they tried WAY too hard and made it over the top edgy. some of it was unbearable. a batman that focuses on vengeance instead of the victims is interesting but it’s never done well and they didn’t do it well here either. they seemed very wishwashy over vigilante justice but not in an ethical debate way just a “ooooh the systems broken” vague way but also “ooooooh if i start killing i won’t be able to stop” way too. i wouldnt watch this season again except for the jason episode and that’s only because i like jason todd and not because i thought the episode was good.

[spinningbuster98]

Mega Man X5 Part 1

And we’re back!

Mega Man X5 marks the beginning of the dark times for the X series. Not in the sense that this game is...bad per se, especially in comparison to what comes right afterwards, it’s just....

I like to call X5 the Sonic Forces of Mega Man, not in regards to its fan reception but moreso in regards to how much it hypes itself up despite not...really being all that special. Not bad (for the most part), but certainly not worthy of being the big finale of the X series that it was originally meant to be.

You feel this right as you boot up the game: instead of the amazingly animated anime cutscenes of MM8 and X4, X5 just has static slide shows of artworks that even look kinda blurry, certainly not befitting of a game that wants to present its story as the big, climactic ending of the series. Also no voice acting (which ok not necessarily a bad thing here)

The same goes for the in-game graphics: lots of sprites taken from X4 still look great, but most of the backgrounds look...flatter, more static, blurrier and not as detailed as before. The boss sprites also look less fluidly animated than before. The whole game just looks cheaper, like there were clear budget cuts alla round (well except for the music, this is actually one of the best OSTs in the X lineup, Squid Adler’s theme here especially is a fave of mine)

But above all else the game has plenty of....weird design decisions

First of all: Alia. She’s your navigator, constantly stopping you throughout the levels to inform you of obvious shit a la Navi from Ocarina of Time. She kinda sucks. Yeah you can skip her dialogues by button mashing but c’mon, this breaks the pace constantly

Most levels in this game are...fine, competent but also offer nothing truly special

Grizzly Slash feels like a watered down version of Slash Beast’s from X4

Squid Adler’s....I actually don’t have too many issues with the Ride Chaser section specifically because it’s short and it’s at the start of the stage, meaning you can practice it as often as you want (and I guess the animal riding levels from Crash Bandicoot have sort of trained me at collecting stuff during auto scrollers), but the rest of the stage is kinda claustrophobic and its main gimmick with switches, while functional, isn’t really interesting nor does it fit a normally fast paced series like X.

(Let’s not get into how the power up system works here, I don’t have a degree quantum physics so i wouldn’t know how to explain it to you)

Still the game does introduce one cool idea: you can now choose between X or Zero before each stage!

The first half of the game does a nice job balancing between the two, as there may be some levels or bosses which are more comfortably handled with Zero while others may be more suited for X (like Squid Adler’s) but every level can be completed by either character

This balance is gonna break by the time we reach the final stages but let’s not get too ahead of ourselves

However, for everyone wanting to play this game: ALWAYS choose X for the intro stage! Why? Because if you do he starts the game with a nerfed, but still pretty powerful, version of his X4 armor. If you pick Zero X will start with no armor and Zero will just have a dinky buster that does jack shit. And like I’ll explain next time some stages in this game were....probably not fully balanced for an unarmored X...

Also shoutout to Zero having a conversation with the Dr.Light AI, while X never once speaks to him throughout the whole series. The favoritism is still running quite high

I may really like Zero as a character (mostly his Zero series incarnation) but that won’t stop me from pointing this out. I don’t hold said favoritism against him as a character, as at least the games never once have had him, or other characters, claim that he’s better than X or anything rather it’s just the narrative always giving him the the most important moments, so I like to seperate the character from the way they are handled in these cases, much like Shadow and how obviously he was the writer’s pet in 06.

[ben-talks-art]

Puss in Boots the last Wish is a great way to start 2023!

Finally got to see the new Puss in Boots movie after hearing everyone talking about how much they loved the heck out of it and after being more than sold in this new Spider-Verse/ Arcane/ Bad Guys style of animation that mixes 2D and 3D in such an imaginative way.

There was a part of me that was admittedly a little bit skeptical and went into this going "Okay, then, movie, impress me... If you dare!"

And... Yeah, everyone was right. This movie is freaking awesome!

While I don't think everyone is going to be blown away by the story, there is one element that I'm pretty sure we all can agree was handled perfectly...

This movie feels like a spectacle!

The way characters move, the way they talk, the way they interact, the way they are simply introduced into a scene, everything feels like it's trying to give the experience of a show to the audience.

Like for instance, the very first action scene. At first you think it's going to be this very simple and fun tiny thing, but then it keeps escalating and becoming more and more epic as it goes on. It goes bigger, the action gets faster, the music gets louder, and you just keep getting into the mood as if you were there yourself and rooting for the hero.

It does such a great job sucking you into the hype.

That's really the best word for it. The hype just feels real. When the move wants you to feel like you're in a party, you feel like you're in a party, and when it wants you to feel like you're in danger you feel like you're in danger.

The emotions transmit so well through the imagery and the animation. You just feel like you're Puss in Boots fighting all these enemies, running for your life, traveling through these dangerous locations and connecting with these people.

It reminds me a lot of the Kung Fu Panda movies whenever they do a montage scene

Imagine a whole movie done like this, taking full advantage of the animated stylized visual storytelling!

Another thing I really like is the way they incorporate personality into the actions of each character.

For instance, there is a scene where one of the villains needs to place a glass ball into his bag, but instead of just putting it in he launches it as if it was a bowling ball. There is another where one is talking with her family while jumping on top of a bunch of bears, and the way she jumps from one to another just looks so much fun.

Everyone in this movie feels like they are always having fun, always enjoying every second of being who they are. And the one who looks like he's having the most fun is the main bad guy who, I'm just gonna say, It's probably Dreamworks' best villain since Shen.

(In case you haven't noticed it, I'm not actually going to spoil any imagery of this movie because everything here looks way too good and it deserves to be experienced blind)

This villain is so freaking badass! His voice is badass! His design is badass! His motivation is badass! And the way he interacts with Puss!

I'm so glad they remembered that their best villains were Shen and Ramses and the reason they are so great is because they actually have a connection with the heroes.

This dude's interactions with Puss are cool, scary, intense, and at the same time still feel justified, you totally get where he's coming from, which honestly makes him even more of a threat because you know he's right.

This is such a fun, hype, cool, and awesome spectacle of a movie!

Even if the writing and the story aren't that outstanding (personally I feel they could have used some better jokes, but oh well), the style more than makes up for it.

I had a great time and highly recommend it! I want to see more of this from Dreamworks! I would be immensely happy if they just reformed themselves as the 2D/3D mixed company.

You know they want to anyway. They always loved putting 2D stuff in their 3D movies, just let them make this their new home.

Spider-Verse was awesome. Arcane was awesome. Bad Guys was awesome. And now Puss in Boots is awesome too! Give us more!

[silvertsundere]

Silver Talks AniManga (14/05/23)

3 new manga this week wao, busy week for m+ (tho there were more I'm not reading) the one of most note is nue, the last of this WSJ serialization round and the one I was looking forward to the most, despite 2 of the other manga being by fujimaki and the shokugeki duo. sadly it didn't live up to my expectations but I talk about it more under there 👇

also I watched all anime episodes yesterday since mal was down for like 3 days thanks to a brainless hacker, I know I coulda just watched and updated it after it got fixed but I stubbornly like to do things a certain way tehe anyhoo

oh also there was a new chap of strike it rich but because of how comikey works I can't read it for free til there's a new chap in 2 week (yikes) so that's why it's not here, I'll be keeping a lookout for alternative sources for it but until then I'll just have to be behind ugh

green - new series/new to me

Anime

Megumin Ep6

honestly the last or this episode coulda been the last and the anime woulda prob been a lot better, dunno how they're gonna fill 6 more episodes but we'll see. it was cute seeing the backstory of megumin's cape, staff and eyepatch tho

Imas CG: U149 Ep6

very good episode, in every way, voices, character acting, like usual I know ofc ofc. it's funny seeing haru always comparing idol stuff to soccer to make it more relatable to herself while the producer plays along (as he should) while everyone else is flabbergasted. as soon as they were talking about outfits at the start I knew what the ep was gonna be about (and what the solution was) but it was still good. and let me tell you, it was extremely brained for them to have the new LiPPS song as the insert for the anime at the same time as the event for it came out in the game, it's free hype real estate baby.

Mashle Ep6

I was actually pretty impressive with how the fight looked (compared to the rest of the anime) and the addition of him and mash's reflection on the metal (wasn't in the manga I checked) was really cool. it gives me some hope for the future of the anime, not much but some hope.

Pokemon Horizons Ep6

good ep but it's weird as hell just seeing shiny ray in an anime episode. done with the roy introduction arc so things can start moving forward now, tho they still won't be getting to paldea next time. however they did tease that the bocchi voiced character is part of the ship, which is funny cause they always show the damn duck in her videos so it was right there all along, we're just blind fools

Jigokuraku Ep7

nice episode, next one is gonna be The Door and the start of quite a long stretch of action, tho it won't extend to the finale. considering where we are I have a pretty good idea where it'll end (setting off from the cave iykyk). I thought it was pretty funny how they straight up just delete the tensen's nipples instead of using god rays or stuff like that since it'd be too much of a bother during fights, and honestly I much prefer this to making the fights look worse. however they did use god rays to censor mei so that was good. also also when I was reading it I said this, and during the ep I looked it up and they do indeed all have the same seiyuu, one for the female form (kaida yuuko) and another for the male (suwabe junichi), so that's v fun, glad they actually went through with it

Manga

Nue's Exorcist Ch1

MAN, out of the 4 new series, even with fujimaki and the shokugeki duo, this was the series I was the most excited for but if I had to be honest it had the weakest ch1 out of all of them :( it's a real shame. the art is really good, very clean lines and very readable, everything stands out as it should and the designs are good. however, I don't think it did a good enough job at setting up it's premise as the other 3, rn it's basically just the mc going "I want to be strong enough to protect everyone" and I don't think that's enough. we'll see how it goes in the next few chaps, but if something of note doesn't happened in the next handful of chaps I could easily see it suffering the same fate as tokyo demon bride which would be sad. I'll try to keep my hope up anyway, I know I only feel like this cause I had such high expectations for it when I shouldn't but oh well

Blooming Love Ch1 - 3

didn't really have any expectations going in but it's pretty cute art club president meets a craftsman girl, who is trying to get better at art, and becomes captivated by how earnest she is about things art is very nice and clean and the characters are expressive, could be a nice little romance if it can last for some time

Kindergarten WARS Ch1 - 3

jump + title and first indie series to get picked up by m+ it's kinda like an alt universe sakamoto, the premise is "the safest kindergarten in the world" which is protected by criminals trying to earn their freedom it currently has around 30 chaps so it's gonna take a while to catch up even if they do 2 or 3 chaps a week anyway it's good, I was the most surprised by how good the action looks but even outside of that it's good. at the end of chap 2 I was like "I hope the formula isn't always like this or it'll get old fast" but chap 3 was completely different so that got rid of my worries. I can totally see why it's so popular in jp (over 1M views weekly) so looking forward to the extra chaps til we catch up in the coming months

Dandadan Ch105

you know, last chap I was bitching about this flashback arc being a bit too long but that ending was just great, really managed to stick the landing there

One Punch Man Ch182

damn ai strikes again to ruin everything smh but anyway, plot? in opm? what the hell is going on. it do be p interesting tho, wonder if there'll be "s rank" vs s rank hero fights 👀

Saihate Quarter Ch11

chap was nice, if nothing else just for the shounen references, otherwise was mostly just exposition from luci

Tokyo Underworld Ch40

honestly never knew that's how leonidas went so that's neat, decent chap overall anyway, finally learned some stuff about the twins' power and the leonidas fight finally moving along, tho there's still gonna be cao cao after this so still gonna be on this arc for a while

The Ichinose Family's Deadly Sins Ch25

damn he really did wake up, kept waiting for it to be like "ahah it looked like he did but he didn't", at least with him up now shouldn't be too long for the end

Fabricant 100 Ch21

ok chap, not much to say, just the start of the final fight

Kill Blue Ch4

nice and action filled chap, with a sprinkling of overall plot too, well see what it does now that this little 2 parter is done but it's been pretty decent so far

Do Retry Ch2

really good ch2, art maintained it's quality, introduced new charas, progressed the plot, did it's job overall. we'll see how it goes in the next few chaps tho, still too early to see if it'll live the initial gauntlet or not

Witch Watch Ch108

god damnit I knew it was too good for it to happen so fast, still it's some progress so it's better than nothing I guess

Blue Box Ch100

I knew there was no way they were gonna meet so fast, especially after they mentioned the sky trip at the beggining but still had some hope argh. karen teasing ayame was good too tho lol, and those pages with taiki reminiscing about past moments with natsu were fitting for a chap100, overall really good chap

Cipher Academy Ch23

chap felt longer than it was, but it makes sense since it's nisio and has so much text. I was worried cause of cipher's continuously low placements, but it doesn't seem to be wrapping up yet so that gives me some hope. tho it could just end suddenly and that'd be wack but we'll see... good chap tho, iroha finally making up with toshusai's other goon and introducing the new conflict and "villains" for the upcoming arc. I really do hope it doesn't get canceled it'd be a shame to lose a nisio series

Spy x Family Ch80

continuation of the plot from last time, nice lil chap, despite how annoying yuri is, but the best part was there being a rare overarching plot related thing at the end, been a while since something like that

Tenmaku Cinema Ch5

nice chap, kurai is cute and next chap should be good too, seeing her really dive into her character and all that. I know I say this every chap but it do be nice to see how passionate and knowledgable tsukuda is about cinema

Mashle Ch155

good action chap with really crazy shots, reminded me of the headmaster fight from a while ago, tho I still think that one was cooler, so far, but hoping this one will surprass it since it's the finale

Undead Unluck Ch158

a fitting chapter for mother's day, not much to say but it was good

Sakamoto Days Ch118

it woulda already been a good chap with how cool this sakamoto scene was but the one with rion and uzuki at the end were good too, great chap. shouldn't be much longer til this flashback arc is over considering what happened at the end

The Elusive Samurai Ch109

really good chap, interested to see where we're going from here since the heroes will have to rebuild their forces quite a bit to go against takauji again I trust matsui tho

Akane-banashi Ch61

I haven't said this in a while but akane is still my favourite series on jump right now. the scene right before this cap gave me goosebumps and I KNEW what was coming that's how it was. goddddddd please, trust me, even if you think you wouldn't like rakugo, or that it's boring, or that it wouldn't fit a manga, just read it. it's so good man

[invested-in-your-future]

why should I care about grimm when maidens exist - it cheapens the threat that they or silver eyes are there

You know what cheapens the Creatures of Grimm? Cheapening the Creatures of Grimm cheapens The Creatures of Grimm.

Hyping up The Goliaths as this intelligent unstoppable force that even professors at Beacon don't want to approach and that new Huntsmen are taught to avoid and then having a Goliath job to a teenager(who has not changed at all since the last time she was faced with one back then when she got told she can't even scratch it) cheapens the Creatures of Grimm.

Hyping up and introducing a water type grimm only for one of them to get taken out by (yet again) two teenagers and the second one to to get taken out by a random mech cheapens the Creatures of Grimm.

Introducing dozens of different grimm types only for none of them to really matter and get taken out in few hits, cheapens the Creatures of Grimm. The show went through dozens of, honestly, pretty cool designs and most of them end up having the exact plot relevance of a DLC skin in a game.

At this point the creatures of grimm are more of redshirt enemy mook than even "masked WF fighters" were. There's often really no real thought put behind new grimm designs beyond "we need something that looks different get thrown at the cast".

The last new grimm types where them being new ended up genuinely mattering were all the way back in V3 when we got the Griffons and the absolutely terrifying dragon.

Once again, less is more. A more uniform look for mass of enemies is fine actually - it creates a distinct sense of "Sameness" in that unlike humanity which is defined by individuality, your average grimm is just almost exact same copy of the others like it. And having armies of beowulves and the like means that in that specific moment something DIFFERENT is introduced and pattern breaks, you know things are about to go down.

So if there's an actual NEW type, then you got to ask WHY. WHY is there a new type. One possible answer could be Rule of Cool but…Is the show about to do a long and cool fight scene like in V1 to show them dealing with it? Of course not LOL. So if its not rule of cool, then what? What's the narrative reason for a new type. What you are doing with it?

Look at introduction of a first Nevermore, or even a deathstalker. The show works to portray the cast taking them out and its pretty clear that those things are harder to deal with than Beowolves. Look at introduction of The Goliaths? You get a sense of dread of this probably unbeatable presence just lurking - its a thematic thread that not every "evil" can simply be beaten(nor is a simple beast) and a plot thread for V3. Look at the absolute terror and the havoc the dragon causes.

Then look at nuckelavee - arguably extremely creepy looking creature and one of THE best parts of V4. There's an attempt at narrative reason for it and an attempt to portray as something strong…but then bunch of teenagers just bonk it harder to death and move on. Not even "bonk it harder" in a creative way like with Nevermore. But okay there's story reason for it and it ties together nicely into backstory and stuff so eh…its fine.

Beyond that? So far pretty much majority of them boil down to "create mild annoyance for a while and then the cast bonks it harder a bit and its dead like it was never there". Show is OBSESSED with trying to recapture that one specific moment with the dragon from V3. It keeps trying to introduce these terrifying big new grimm things and then it throws them away the next second to try again.

Its yet another case of the same pattern of the writing staff trying to throw bunch of new things on top of existing ones in the kind of way that makes it possible to just remove all of it and nothing would change. You can cut out most of "new" grimm types and pretty much nothing changes in the story. You can't cut out the nevermore or the death stalker or the Goliaths or the dragon that way.

So no, having silver eyes or maidens does not inherently cheapen the creatures of grimm…the way the creatures of grimm are handled cheapens the creatures of grimm.

The show writing is pretty clearly uninterested to do anything impactful with them because its so enamored with all the Two Gods stuff. Its pretty reminiscent of how D&D handled White Walkers in Game of Thrones - where you could just feel they view them as a nuisance rather than something that can get focused on.

Just like with Maidens, just like with (sigh) Jaune, just like with Silver Eyes, the issue is not the concept but what the show does or DOESN'T do with it.

[raspberrybluejeans]

Okay I need to complain about TAZ Ethersea and I’m not putting the actual fandom tags on this because I don’t want to cause anyone going to the Ethersea tag for fun to see my hater content and feel sad lol.

I did really enjoy Ethersea and I love TAZ I just don’t really have anyone to complain about with and it’s been boiling inside of me so I have got 2 fire it out somewhere (warning this is a Long tangent lol)

Okay first I want to put the disclaimer that I have memory and attention details so I apologize if I did not remember something right.

So the thing is that i fucking LOVED the prequel episodes and got really hyped up from them and then the actual story felt like a letdown to me.

I think that the root of everything is that they decided to make this story take place 25 years after the prequel. If they wanted to have the same story they basically had, I think it should have been waaaaaaaay later than 25 years. That is way too soon. That society had too much good stuff & had their shit way too together for a group of random people that had literally just been shoved underwater only 25 years ago. I don't think there would be such established classes, levels, technologies, businesses, etc in such a short time. If the whole being a group of randos hired by a company for jobs was an integral part of the story, I think it should have taken place way later.

I think it would be really cool if it was actually 25 years later but a vastly different story. Doing somewhat similar stuff to A Quiet Year but on a more zoomed in role play way. They could have had similar adventures such as the Cambria thing, but just had them be a rag tag team of volunteers looking for supplies out in the ocean. The city could be far more ramshackle and the story could have been focused on repairing the city and adding things onto it and engineering new solutions. This story would probably not be able to have the "getting coins and buying items" aspect that most TAZ stories have, but I think it could still work. They could just find and make cool items instead.

Back to the actual story: I don't think Joshy should have been around in the main season; and if he was he should have been old as fuck. He was already being called "old uncle Joshy" in the prequel and he should not have been like. out and about doing shit 25 years later lol.

Also, even though it was funny, I don't think the Joshy's Knuckle part of the civilization made sense. To have a whole vast area dedicated to like. idk. sketchy people? Seems like a weird choice. I think it would make more sense if it was like one weird attachment to the city, almost looking like a tumor on the side or something. Having a whole floor and it not even being the very bottom or top doesn't make sense. That implies the community/government built Joshy's Knuckle with intent. Once again, if there was a bigger timeframe, I could see this level originally being like a general community level that fell into disrepair. But from all the context we got, it seems like it was designed to be a scummy level on purpose, which is kind of weird.

The bougie level and the swamplands roof level also don't make a whole lot of sense, but I have a vague idea about how society could want to make such places.

I thought the prequel idea of the city was interesting, where there is one main building and a bunch of little single family pods sticking to it like barnacles. I think that they should have worked with that a little more, and had different parts of the city be attached bubbles or domes instead of having almost all of it be like. one stacked tube. Like I said earlier I really like the idea of Joshy's Knuckle being an ugly eyesore attachment to the side of the main city building.

Now, I know Griffin said he liked just having a hands off approach to this story, but I have to say I really did not. I felt super detached to this story because of it. Griffin also said he did not want the PCs to make much backstory for their characters and I also really didn't like that.

Particularly with Amber, I just never really got to understand or like her? The most excited I got was that single memory flashback of her child(?)hood when her friend was high and smashing up the house. I was so excited to learn more about that but that was basically it. What happened to Amber's family? How did she come to be at this civilization? On a related note, I feel like her having actual powers of some kind cheapened the whole psychic shark school scam thing. But thats just me. I don't really understand what was going on with her Koda powers or whatever either.

And then Devo. We also came pretty close to knowing stuff about him, but we only got that one tiny taste of a memory with the Hand of Guidance abusing(?) him. He was so incredibly angry and I kept waiting to hear more about the scope of what happened to him and never really got it. Why exactly was he being cloistered? Why were there no others being cloistered beside him? I don't really understand the motivations. I also wonder about his accent. I understand the Doylist explanation that his accent was to show how separate/different he was from everyone else, but whats the Watsonian explanation? Hand of Guidance didn't have an accent. Orlean didn't have an accent. Someone taught him to talk like that. Is there another character that partook in raising him that we didn't know about? Potentially it could have been his mother, but I don't think he would still have that much of an accent left after ~15 years without her. No one else in Founder's Wake talks like that. Why? Also iirc he basically joins the church again at the end of the season? which made no fuckin sense to me. I think he wanted to help people or something but there was no reason for him to join the church to do that. He could have started some kind of secular organization.

And I also don't feel like I got answers about whatever was going on with Zoox. Or the dead coral people. Honestly the whole Brinarr situation was confusing and kind of a letdown for me but I don't know how to articulate why. I also don't understand what happened with Zoox at the end of the season.

I also don't really understand why they were all hanging out tbh. I know they were apparently just arbitrarily picked out as a team at that job agency or whatever? And once again, I know the Doylist explanation is that they needed those three PCs to be hanging out together. But what is the story reason that they keep hanging out? I can understand Zoox thinking they are friends and wanting to hang out with them because he is fairly new and naive. But Devo and Amber seemed to really genuinely hate each other after awhile. That one fight was almost uncomfortable to listen to, even if it was good story telling. But why would they continue to do shit together when they didn't like each other. There should have been some narrative threads forcing them to stick together more I think.

Amnesty also kind of had that problem of like "why are these people even hanging out lol" but not quite as bad. To be completely honest I think part of the problem is just that none of these seasons have been as long as Balance so the characters haven't had time to get to know each other and grow on each other. Even the very beginning of Balance kind of had that "why are they hanging out" feel.

Commitment and Dust, like Ethersea, had the team together because they were coworkers on a job together but since those shows never got too far we never had to answer "why are they hanging out [outside of work]" We only see the characters in those campaigns in the middle of job stuff. If they had continued much more maybe they would eventually have the same problem.

This may be controversial but I think Graduation did the best job with PCs. They started out as assigned roommates and I really felt like the characters became friends over the course of that story.

From what I've listened of Steeplechase so far I also think it has potential. The group already knew each other before the story and had a business together. I think they have potential for growing great chemistry together.

Anyways there's so many random unanswered questions about Ethersea that hopefully they'll get to in season 2 but IDK we'll see :/ I'm pretty sure they will be playing other people so we'll see how they answer like what happened to Devo's parents.

thank you for coming to my fucking ted talk. I'm so happy to get this all off my chest

[tocstshark]

List of names of EVERYONE before I forget them again

Main gang:

Red - current profile pic/red-haired ex-Hero

Yel - !nickname in canon! :| faced postman

Violet - your princess broke out of the castle

Mage - magic merchant mage

Deniz - ocean townboy npc

Elemental spirit person gang

Aoi- Water Spirit that somehow has pointy teeth

(Frede)Rika - NAME PENDING - forest spirit bug girl

Sema? Ciela?? Celes??- Windy winged pastel pal

Obsidian?? Idk I straight up do not have any name for the sad Fire man. Sorry dude.

Pixelart Gang

Iris - Pearl water witch

Pyra/Fye - NAME PENDING - classic oldschool fire witch

Deities

Sol/Neş - Sun goddess who desperately needs a new design

Ay- moon deity that‘s only based on the crescent one because I forgot moonphases were a thing and probs needs a hug

EXAM1 - NAME PENDING - not actually a deity but an alien that gets worshipped as one (or maybe it is?) aka someone take this concept from me please it’s too cool to be stranded here without ever getting used

Misc.

Koko- green gardening gal feat. Magic

Sakura- basic pink anime video game ninja

Chiro (NAME PENDING)- Lemon witch

Cursed

Kevin the desk job-spider centaur

Baby‘s first ocs

Tomato - baby’s first venture into oc-making. This is where it all began. With a humansona for a fruitgetable.

Mary(gold)- baby’s first venture into researching real-life stuff for oc things (in this case, what plants are good companions for tomatoes)

Etrian Odyssey

Arth- Hero 3 looks like a baby version of Marth Fire Emblem down to the blue hair but playing as kids makes me feel sad for them so Arth it is. Overworked guild leader just trying his best and barely keeping it together but turning into an absolute force in battle

Ferice- way too hyped Landsknecht (and basically beta-Red), very protective of guildmates and wants to make sure everyone’s ok (by bashing skulls in with her shield because its the only way she knows how to deal with negative emotions. Thinks Medic friend is cool af for doing medic stuff.). Also kind of a gourmet when it comes to food.

Lily- Arcanist done with life (the enemies‘ life, that is). Morbidly curious. Also just regular curious, but mostly morbidly. Loves experimenting both for murder tactics and food to the point of being lowkey sadistic. The latter is worse for Arth and Ferice. Outside of that actually pretty normal.

Kaze- Edgelord nightseeker whose greatest weakness is cute stuff. Tries very hard to come across as cool to hide it, which somewhat diminishes his otherwise naturally "cool and mysterious“ vibes he’s got. Has somewhat taken on a protector role to Lily. Does low chuckles more than smiles. Genuinely terrifying on the battlefield.

Meres- og Medic 4 my beloved, polite dungeon-medic, assigned money-hungry by random events involving money always picking her, across multiple games. Has so much patience it circles back to being downright uncomfortable in certain situations. Has the Head Bash skill and the entire guild is terrified of finding out what could ever make her it. Girl are you ok. This is the third ancient being inside a tree she‘s helped kill now, no she‘s not.

Honorary mention: Querty/Quartz- Alchemist who’s way too much into burning stuff with fire for someone who wants to fill out the monsterdex and has permanent -_- face. Also loves experimenting (Not with food though) Really interested in the Gatherings of the Labyrinth for its potential Alchemy uses, and the walking dictionary. Does most of the guilds‘ paper work, and surprisingly only mildly miffed about it since the others bring cool stuff back without her being in risk of getting trampled by murder deer.