#i look forward to them saying this was fanservice or last minute or something

[immortalemz]

media thread post 2023

going to attempt to port over my media thread from twitter and use reblogs to update it

Avataro Sentai Donbrothers The Movie: Shin Hatsukoi Hero i enjoyed it more then the revice summer movie, shame like pretty much all mid series sentai movies its basically just an ep with a bigger budget

2. Ultraman Decker

MUCH IMPROVED OVER TRIGGER IN LIKE EVERY AREA, INCLUDING ITS USE OF KENGO. only real complaint i have is them revealing the Spheres motivations minutes before they are destroyed but thats a fairly minor thing looking at the show as a whole

3.ultraman: mystery of ultraseven

great stuff continuing the momentum of the last mini series, i do have issues with the ultra comic verse that dont get addressed, but regardless it was a great read, interested to see ma boi ace show up in whatever is next

4.kingdom hearts dark road

one of my fav KH stories, elevating xehanort alot, giving insight into how his beliefs formed and i absolutely need this freed from its mobile prison and given the back cover treatment

5. Ork #オーク

really cool, indy Toku production, it very impressive that this was filmed on an Iphone and goes this hard, well worth a watch, right now its free on youtube i recomed checking this out https://youtube.com/watch?v=GcibuY

6. ultraman decker finale journey to beyond the movie

it was pretty good, if the main series is a 10 this is like an 8, pretty fun time.

7.Avataro Sentai Donbrothers

i was sceptical as FUCK when this was announced, and inoue and the producer were saying how they wanted to make a sentai season that was a comedy drama aimed at 20somethings, but fuck did they land it. top 3 sentai seasons for sure. taro is my boi somethings like how under written murasame is, alot of the stuff with kijino and the zenkai gears turning into avataro gears plotline that was seemingly dropped ( if the Vs movie addresses this i take back the last one) bothered me, but as a whole i really liked this season

8.Psyren (reread)

this series goes hard. i love the cast and i think more people should read this.

9. Agents of mayhem - dropped got about 8/27 missions thought this. ITS ASS the cars feel awful, esthetical it wants to be overwatch soo bad. in the 4hrs 40mins i played enemies became spongy as shit and the second gat mission bugged turning 3 waves into infante boring and bland AND THATS NOT MENTIONED THE 1 MAJOR BOSS I FOUGHT THAT WAS JUST * puts up shield and summon turret* 3 TIMES THEN THEN BALL JOKE SEGMENT WHERE YOU SHOT ENERGY BALLS. THE BORDERLANDS TEIR REDDIT WRITING IS SO MIND NUMMING FUCK

10.Dandan Tenshi Fanclub

this was pretty cool for a one shot

11.Revice Forward: Kamen Rider Live & Evil & Demons

no "which ones the real one" plot is good. i screamed when they revealed the twist.

alot of the fanservice stuff i liked, like seeing that Hana opened her own detective agency in Blue birds basement was fun

12.Dragon Ball Super: SUPER HERO

really enjoyed this,really liked all the lil toku nods what with the gammas two ultraman inspired androids thats do rider kicks. hope we can get more content thats not as goku/vegeta focused

13.Luther: the fallen sun it was ok, i feel like it peaked with the jail brake.

the last 30mins brought it down for me

14.Digimon Ghost game:

its pretty good when all is said and done, 90% of this show is very solid MOTW/horror mystery stories with all the cryptic build up they have been seeding since ep 1 being all burned thought in the last 3eps.defo feels like they were trying to set up a movie with that last second alien reveal too. since most of its stand alone mysteries, the humans done really feel like they grow much over the course of the show its still a very fun time like an 8/10 id say love gammamon, they baby

15. coming out to my parents and telling them about @toni-the-oni

twas better then expected

16. Reborn to Master the Blade: From Hero-King to Extraordinary Squire ♀ ( manga volumes 1-4 )

binged all 4 volumes in a couple hrs, this is a very fun series, interesting world building and Inglis as a MC is amazing and i love her

17.Reborn to Master the Blade: From Hero-King to Extraordinary Squire ♀ (anime: season 1)

unsurprising i loved it ! i will say i liked the way the manga handled the content it covered more but this was still good,

18. Oshi no ko (ep 1, its feature length so imma count it ) holy shit watch it. it more then earns its length. this is something you need to experience blind.

19.brooklyn 99 season 8, the final season

bout a perfect a goodbye as a series can have

20.Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always (2023) eh, it was ok, rough in some aspects but overall alright

21.Oshi no ko manga (upto the current chapter 116) one of the best things ive read in a while. its going to be hard for the anime to fumble this bag.

22.Kamen Rider Geats × Revice: Movie Battle Royale

very fun movie, seeker really is that bitch in fortnite that builds a replica tadj mahall the second a fight starts. yeah a good ass time.

23. Kamen Rider Juuga VS Kamen Rider Orteca

it was alright, pretty fun moments with one line in particular that kinda took me out, the Drive cameos and call backs were great and honestly out of all the over demons/vail retools i think i like orteca's rider form the most out them

24. netflix Ultraman season 3 the final:

kinda mixed on it if im honest, i dont think theres ever really been a great "shapeshifters turn the publics opinion on it" and i wasnt super impressed with aspects of how Rena was written that said the last 2 episodes really were peak.

25. Power Antoinette ( upto the current chapter, theres only 2) the only series brave enough to ask the question what if Marie Antoinette was built like shehulk and used a guillotine like a sword

26.The Church Play Cinematic Universe : jenny Nicholson

watched this with @toni-the-oni this was such a wild ride, of ups downs and "robin in the hood" a 10/10 experience

26. Church of the rock 2023 production Beauty and the Beaster

watched this with @toni-the-oni Gaston sings BTS

27.Avataro Sentai DonBrothers VS Zenkaiger

extremely fun film, loved seeing everyone again, just a fun time all round and HOLY SHIT HOW CAN IT END LIKE THAT ?!

28.Geats Extra: Kamen Rider Punkjack

its alright, felt kinda like one of the covid clipshow specials we got for zero one, rolling rolling punk king fucks, so glad they went that hard with the insert song

[sage-nebula]

Neo: The World Ends With You - Thoughts So Far

I’m on Day 6 of Week 1 and I want to compile my thoughts so far — not in a formal post, but at least all in one place, especially since I feel that jotting down what I think / feel as I go through will help me write my review when I’m done. Spoilers under the cut, obviously — and while it should go without saying, do NOT comment on this post with spoilers from later in the game, so help me. Even if I pose a question that gets answered later on — hell, especially if I do — don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. I will find out in my own time.

With that said . . .

So obviously, I’m really enjoying it so far. You can tell that the writers / devs haven’t lost their touch despite it being thirteen years since the first game was made. You can also tell that a lot of love went into this; this isn’t something they churned out just to make money (if they thought this was a moneymaker we wouldn’t have had to wait 13 freaking years for the sequel), but rather something they really, really wanted to make. Not a total passion project, because those aren’t allowed in the world of capitalism, but there is still a lot of love there. 

That said, more specific thoughts:

THE MUSIC. It doesn’t really come as a surprise given that TWEWY’s soundtrack was phenomenal, but god, they brought it right back for this game. The remixes (“Someday”, “Three Minutes Clapping”, “Transformation”, “The One Star” etc) are all excellent, but the new tracks are phenomenal too. Tbh I’m not sure how any of the Players get any fighting done when the music makes you want to just bust a move right there in the scramble. It’s so good.

Most of the characters are great too. Of the Wicked Twisters, I think Fret is my favorite; he is pure of heart, dumb of ass, and I love that for him. I do like Rindo too, of course, and his habit of overthinking everything (since Fret has zero brain cells, Rindo has to make up for it), but him being standoffish / socially anxious and snarky makes him feel a bit like a toned down Neku, so he doesn’t catch my interest quite as much. And while I do like Nagi, the way she speaks in like . . . medieval-esque language is a bit off-putting. In particular it’s weird that Rindo didn’t tell her to knock it off with the “Lord Rindo” stuff since using such an honorific would be considered awkward / embarrassing in Japanese. I guess he’s just too socially anxious / awkward to tell her to stop, but it’s still a bit distracting.  Other than that, I’m really not a fan of Kubo (one of the Reapers) or . . . Susukichi, I think his name is? The leader of the Ruinbringers. I find them both to be pretty annoying, haha. But I love Shoka, as well as Kanon, and Motoi is a good bean, too. As for the Deep River Society . . . those nerds have issues lmao. Especially their leader. Although I can’t fault him for breaking down sobbing when he realizes that he now stands a very good chance of getting erased, which reminds me . . .

HOW ARE WE ON DAY SIX AND THE WICKED TWISTERS STILL HAVE NO IDEA WHAT BEING ERASED IS?? We have kind of an inverse situation where where Neku knew right away that he would get erased if he failed the missions / didn’t win the Game, but didn’t find out until later that he was dead. Here, the Wicked Twisters learn that they’re dead fairly quickly (and Fret has some realistic denial going on about it at first, though he gets over it pretty quickly), but they’re still completely in the dark about the fact that their souls will get wiped from existence if they lose despite erasure being mentioned at least a handful of times. Like I guess it was never spelled out for them, but especially as someone who played the first game about a million times, it’s a bit maddening to see them be like, “Why is he crying like his life is on the line? lol whatevs no big deal la di da!” Since the Wicked Twisters aren’t aware of the stakes, a new player wouldn’t be either, and so it rather tones down the urgency that was felt in the original game where everyone was very much aware that they were fighting for their right to exist.

Since I brought up Motoi, I want to say that I just played past the part where he reveals that he was An0ther, who is apparently Rindo’s favorite blogger / poet. I feel like this is meant to be similar to how Hanekoma was CAT, Neku’s favorite artist, but it doesn’t carry the same impact because a.) as far as we know An0ther didn’t have anything to do with how Rindo died; b.) we haven’t seen Rindo bring An0ther or his poetry up that much, much less have anything An0ther said be his entire life’s mantra; c.) we haven’t gotten to know Motoi that well either. Like we met him once before this revelation. That said I’m not sure it was supposed to have the same impact as the Hanekoma = CAT reveal, but if it was then it did fall short. (Also I saw it coming the second Motoi quoted An0ther lmao.)

Speaking of Hanekoma, WHERE IS MY MANS??? I know he has to show up at some point because if I’m not mistaken we saw him in the trailers. And if I am mistaken then he still has to show up at some point because he played a central role in the “A New Day” epilogue chapter of Final Remix, what with Coco being unable to control him and him knowing what was going on, plus he was testing Neku for something in “Another Day” and that has to be whatever is going on in this game. I’m sure he’ll come in for some big reveal later, but like, we have a new street artist in this game (MKN) with no mention of CAT as of yet, and I’m just like . . . where is he. Where is my mans. What is he doing. Bring him to me.

That said, we already got to see my #2 mans (Kariya♥) so I am happy about that at least. 

Back to my mans for a hot second: I actually erased my demo save data and started fresh to remind myself of everything when I got the game, and idk if it was in the demo or not, but regardless—at the end of the demo portion there’s this shot of the sky and then this nameless voice is like, “It’s finally starting. I hope you wake up soon. I don’t want you to miss all the action.” My current guess is that the speaker was Hanekoma, speaking to Joshua. Joshua being “asleep” would explain why the Game is as screwed up as it is right now, what with it having been going on for a year and people able to choose to play again and again and again while the rest of the Players—who tbh should also be counted as winners if they survive the week!—are trapped in limbo.

Because that’s the thing: I know that it was partially a lie to cover for the fact that Joshua’s game with Megumi was set to last three weeks, but at the end of the third week Megumi told Neku that a new rule was being put in place that wouldn’t allow repeats of the Game anymore. But even setting that aside, in the original Shibuya UG rules, anyone who survived the Game could get a wish at the end, whether that was to be brought back to life or made into a Reaper. This is why at the end of Week 1, the three winners were Neku, Shiki, and Beat. However, here the Ruinbringers are able to keep everyone trapped and they have been trapped for at least a year, given what Motoi said. It’s completely different rules and I’m sure that this has something to do with the fact that the majority of the Reapers we’ve seen so far are from Shinjuku (at least going by the spoilery trailer, and iirc it was confirmed in “A New Day” that Coco was from Shinjuku actually, but it’s been a while so I could be wrong about that).

Speaking of, has anyone noticed that the possibly-Shinjuku Reapers don’t have wings? No?

ALSO speaking of Coco, at least tangentially: Coco was the one who revived Minamimoto at the end of “A New Day”. However, he’s definitely not how I would have expected. Like despite Coco using the Taboo Noise sigil to bring him back, he’s clearly not in his Taboo form. He’s using psychs as a Player would, rather than a Reaper. And while it’s clear he’s up to some form of nonsense, it’s unclear exactly what form of nonsense he’s up to. I know that he’s here for fanservice and that him looking like Nagi’s bias from Elegant Strategy is a tongue-in-cheek nod to that, but I have too much faith in this series to think that’s all this is. I’m wondering if being revived for a second time fixed whatever screws were loose in his head before? Or if he was revived as a human Player by like, Joshua or something? (Although why Joshua would do that I have no idea. Maybe Hanekoma instead?) Hmmm . . .

Small aside, but we all know that Nagi has put herself into hundreds of thousands of yen in debt for Tomonami merch lolol RIP Nagi. (I’m also interpreting that she’s not actually older than Rindo or Fret, but she just skipped a bunch of grades. Like I feel like this might have been lost in translation a bit, and that she’s a senpai to them because she’s in uni but she’s not actually older than them. I could be wrong but that’s how I’m interpreting it right now. She just doesn’t look or act older than them.)

Oh another minor annoyance, but whether it’s due to the partial 3D environment or something else, I’m SO ANNOYED that some of the streets aren’t connecting as they should now. Like, how going in the direction of Molco spits you out at Spain Hill or 104 or whatever? I don’t remember exactly what area it was, but it wasn’t Molco!! I’m sure if I hadn’t played the original a million times like a loser this wouldn’t be such a big deal to me, but I have and it is lmao. Also, they’ve had the Shibuya Underpass / Cat Street blocked off this whole time and I’m like :( let me go to Cat Street :( let me see my mans

I’m relieved that Ken Doi is still making delicious food and I look forward to his ramen curry fusion. I was really upset about RamenDon being gone at first but as long as Ken Doi is still around I am happy.

My dinner just arrived so this is all I have to say for now, but I will update more as I play more. I love this game and I’m so happy to be back in Shibuya, even if the characters pronounce it wrong sometimes (saying “ShiBOOya” like pls . . . you are supposed to be Japanese . . . get it right . . .)

[b-listbadboy]

Castlevania Season 3 was disappointing

(Spoilers for Castlevania Season 3, if you haven’t seen it yet it’s out now on Netflix. I suggest watching that first before reading this review)

I won’t say it was an awful season by any stretch of the imagination but man was it a drag to get through.

Almost nothing of significance happens for the majority of the season and the things that did happen felt extremely off and weird. 10 episodes, 25 to 30 minutes each, and every single one except for the fucking TWO LAST EPISODES were spent dicking around with a mystery that had little to do with anything from season 2 beyond a really out there twist that I’m sort of iffy on. Top that off with a lackluster arguably stupid ending to leave us off on a needless cliffhanger, and that’s the magic remedy that will leave me feeling pretty damn frustrated.

The best parts, in my opinion, were with Isaac’s massive undead crusade he was waging throughout his journey for revenge, and Trevor and Syph’s interactions with each other as well as with the little villagers. Isaac’s arc going from a servant of Dracula to slowing evolving into the master of the damned felt genuine, intriguing, and badass! I really wish he was the next main villain instead as it makes sense thematically. He carries out Dracula’s nihilistic views of humanity in a similar but now more direct way and that can lead into something really intriguing. However, for some reason, this season left him and his whole journey on a back burner, and virtually everything else that is implemented into main villain role fell flat on its face execution wise.

For example; The new vampires of this season are Camilla’s three other empress sisters, and while they do have a plethora of personality at the very least, that kind of comes at a cost of the main threat being extremely diluted. We go from this hurting sympathetic undead overlord with the power of an anchent GOD, to a couple of wicked sassy sisters who just wanna eat people forever? It’s a bit lame of a progression from what we once had, we know Vampires like to eat people that’s nothing new or exciting. There’s no real twist to it besides it being “led by women in the dark ages” and granted that makes sense here since it IS the dark ages, but come on we literally just had arguably the BEST adaptation of friggin’ Dracula! This shouldn’t be all they got moving forward from that.

Now, I have ZERO issue with the main antagonists being female or even two of the four sisters (not by blood don’t worry) being a lesbian couple. I hate that I have to emphasize this, hell I often defend Cinder Fall in RWBY more than anyone in the fandom at all despite her issues as a complex and sometimes flat out badly written character. However, The four of them in this season have the most basic of plans that it seems arbitrary status quote fluff at best. It felt like just because it’s Castlevania, we HAVE to have the vampires as the villains. Even though in the games the Belmont’s were literally fighting werewolves, dragons, skeletons, and the GRIMM REAPER??

Therefore, the sense of urgency and tense calculating plans of ‘survival vs extinction’ is completely gone. And yknow in a way, I can kinda initially SEE that working in a sort of “Empire Strikes Back” esque plot. Yknow, with Alucard and the gang go around cleaning up Dracula’s leftover horde only for Isaac or even Camilla to have this huge vengeful comeback of dominance? But there’s no one exactly “striking back” or even taking any kind of immediate initiative after Dracula’s death. It’s been MONTHS after the whole event and no one seems like they really care about that world changing event from the last two season’s. Everything is fine and dandy, no one has a single worry in the world! How enthralling...I miss Godbrand 😑

Besides the plan the four empresses have as well as Issac’s revenge, which I hope will both be more explored in season 4, no one really has any goal to warrant THAT kind of length of a season. This is more of a Netflix problem that I have with most of their shows and it’s one of the reasons why I don’t like watching them. Almost every singe show Netflix produces now, feels the need to overstuff itself with needless filler that gets us really nowhere until the very end where it SUDDENLY all comes together. But because of the nature of binge watching and considering how Netflix wants to desperately keep their subscriptions in fear of intimidating competition, they make these shows 12 episodes long with HALF HOUR OR MORE amount of filler content that’s supposed to satisfy us cause it’s “cute”?! No, stop this shit! Granted, Castlevania wasn’t nearly AS bad as the live action shows, but honestly, what exactly was shown to us that couldn’t have been reduced to like 5 solidly paced episodes focused on one or two plot lines ONLY like before? It worked perfectly back then, why change what ain’t broke?

As much as I don’t like the immediate rush of Trevor and Syph’s out of nowhere sexual relationship, I didn’t overall mind it too much since they still somewhat felt consistent. Their characteristics play off very nicely with one another and it’s pretty easy to see the chemistry between the two....HOWEVER I’M STILL GONNA COMPLAIN ABOUT IT SO HERE WE GO!

I get that they were setting them up as an endgame ship of the series, there’s no denying that, but they start fucking for what feels like (to the audience) two days after and I think that’s a bit ridiculous! Even if Alucard states that it’s been at the very least a month worth of time since the events of Season 2, there’s no real physical signs showing that statement to be true. Hell, Trevor’s beard and hair remains the same despite a HUGE passage of time where it would naturally grow out to indicate said time passing by. But both him, Syph, Alucard, and damn near everyone else looks the exact same as last season. So for all I know it could have been like a week since Season 2 and that to me doesn’t feel exactly earned. The Season 2 finale didn’t explicitly leave off Trevor and Syph officially a couple, they felt more like partners in crime more than anything else. Not to say that there wasn’t any chemistry there to develope INTO a relationship GRADUALLY, but going from a little spark of interest to the immediate jump of them sleeping together naked all comfortably as if they’re a goddamn married couple is a STRETCH! Even Trevor himself thinks so too so don’t jump down my throat about not being immediately swooned by the shipping fanservice given to us. I don’t dislike them as a couple at all, in fact I think their dynamic is cute! However, I would have also liked to have this couple feel natural and earned. They most certainly do not feel earned this way, at least to me.

Oh god, then there’s this out of nowhere sexual tension between Alucard and his new two recruits from another region hinted at in the previous season? Mind you, Alucard was doing literally NOTHING throughout the entirety of Season 3. Yep, literally the ONE DUDE WHO BASICALLY KILLED DRACULA gets about fuck all story progression afterwards out of the three. But what they DO give him are these two new vampire hunting student’s who look identical to one another (no racial they just literally look like fraternal twins) so I assumed they were either siblings or a couple, which makes it REALLY WEIRD WHEN THEY BOTH FUCK ALUCARD OUT OF NOWHERE?! I’m NOT making this shit up I promise! What makes even less sense is that it was really just a ploy for them to steal the Belmont knowledge of killing vampires to show to their people who have been enslaved. Which of course ends with them being killed so it really makes this entire conflict in his character damn near pointless besides “sad vibes check”, but here’s the thing...why didn’t they just keep doing training with Alucard?? There were virtually no downsides to having him teach you how to kill Vampires to save your village from being enslaved, he was teaching you both very well and gave you like the eternal knowledge of how to kill literally EVERY MONSTER and even let you live in the castle FOR FREE, food and wine included! What was the turning point for them to want to kill him all of the sudden? Cause he’s a vampire?? THEY FUCKING KNEW THAT ALREADY!!! Why was is suddenly not a problem at first but then coincidentally a problem now? If they wanted to use this to somehow depict this notion of “Oh my dad/Dracula was right humans are the worst” mindset, trust me, it was better conveyed with Isaac. These twins side plot not only made no sense, but also felt unjustified for Alucard to be an emo boi. I get that it’s supposed to be symbolic of him going through the same issues that both of his parents went through, but none of that really showed how bad human’s are. Just that those two twins didn’t think things through apparently. So the point of Alucard having this odd character convenience shift feels by the numbers cliché, and most importantly CHEAP.

It really makes no sense to me why they’re adding so much of this filler for such a long time, especially with some of this filler being oddly sexual. I don’t mind honest depiction of sex between consenting adults of course, but it just felt so misplaced and awkward at parts where it showed itself. I felt like I was reading a mediocre fanfic of Castlevania instead of the actual show itself! Granted, Season 2 had somewhat of a similar dilemma but the lull in between was still showing the character specifically doing things to further the story along. Towards the end, it gave us a way more satisfactory closure of that saga with Dracula that felt natural and well earned. This season however, felt like they were scrambling with different ideas here and there and didn’t know which to go with. Alucard training new recruits in his castle, Trevor and Syph figuring out an estranged (and BORING/GENERIC) cult of Dracula’s plan, Camilla setting up an army with her fellow sisterhood of evil vampires to gain ultimate power, Hector surviving captivity by using his wit and charm, Isaac raising up the dead for revenge on his deceased master, a new character introducing an all new world to the lore of Castlevania as we know it, all of these interesting concepts and ideas that could easily make up for a good season alone! And instead of focusing on one or two ideas to develope into something natural, they ended up saying “FUCK IT! Fucking I dunno what to- WE’RE DOING ALL OF IT I DUNNO!” and mixed the whole thing in a blender of different flavors that don’t necessarily blend together well enough for a tasty satisfactory meal. It just ends up being a mesh of okay at best, and gross at worst.

IN CONCLUSION, Castlevania Season 3 had a rocky start, an okay middle, and a kind of cool end. There was definitely some cool and exciting ideas implemented in here, but not enough to warrant that lengthy amount of time that Netflix seems to love to give to most of their TV shows. Sometimes less is more, and all that shiny cool glitter isn’t necessarily going to turn out to be gold. I’ll give this season a 5/10. It’s not the worst I’ve ever seen but it certainly could’ve been a lot better.

P.S. “Who Do Ya Voodoo” from Dead Island is Isaac’s new theme song, you can’t convince me otherwise.

[natsspammityspamspamham]

Dino Watches Anime (Jan 13)

With the snow outside and cancellations everywhere, I have more time to kick back, relax, and not do anything. Seriously, playing out in the snow and being an absolute bum is my specialty.

Dropped

Darwin's Game 

It just seemed like Mirai Nikki but updated to smartphones instead of flip phones and with a new interface and system. Seriously, it’s like someone watched Mirai Nikki and went “I can remake this and rake in the money”. The animation wasn’t good (according to our local sakuga geek, there were less than 10 animators who worked on the 40 min premiere because of the inhumane conditions of the studio which adds to the yikes), the soundtrack was great (but I won’t watch a show just for the soundtrack/seiyuu cast), and overall, I felt like I didn’t want to put myself through a show like this.

Uta no Prince-sama

I couldn’t do it fam. I watched two episodes and nearly cried on the inside because it felt like Kiniro no Corda but with a new bland face with new bland characters. I never watched either of these fully. I tried to watch just for the seiyuu (*ahem* Miyuki Sawashiro), but imagine having your life hobbies made into an absolute joke by a character who can’t even read music and is in the composition department while her main song of choice is “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” and the ikemen around her and swooning over it and writing their own songs for her. The guys all have the same faces too! They’re triangle heads that can only be differentiated by colour palette. I’m telling the difference based on voices at this point. I don’t want the ikemen, but I would like people to be into my music too ya know! You may think that I’m dropping this anime purely out of spite for the story and characters, and you’re damn right I am. 

Seasonal Stuff

Pet

This is this close to being dropped, and I don’t mean for the strong BL vibes. It’s a little cringy but not that bad (I’ve watched a lot of cringe straight romance and to me it’s all the same). It just feels so poorly constructed right now. The universe just hangs by a thread with characters I feel ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for. Everything in this anime feels so cheap. I’m giving this one more week before I give it the axe.

Rikei ga Koi ni Ochita no de Shoumei shitemita 

Okay, this anime is stupid, but we all went in knowing it was going to be very stupid. You’ve seen the screencaps. You’ve seen the cliches. Now get ready to have a pretentious science spin on it as if you haven’t seen these scenes a million times before elsewhere, and the characters (at least one of them) know it. The art... it’s present. I mean, character designs are giving the guys of Reddit what they want (especially with Sora Amamiya being really popular and singing the OP along with voicing the main character). Yuuma Uchida is also there. Nothing really worth noting here except “stay in school kids so you can become a pretentious science kid with no people skills!”

Dorohedoro

I might just watch this anime in place of “Pet” because this anime has a much brighter outlook and despite being CG genuinely looks better anyway. It’s the horror that I wanted to fill the void with (since Pet genuinely isn’t scary or innovative). Everything was pretty good with the first episode! I’m looking forward to seeing more!

From here on out, the rest of the seasonal list are the ones I look forward to the most! Get that head lizardman!

Runway de Waratte 

At first, this doesn’t seem like something that would come out of Shonen Weekly, but it inspires a good message about being who you want to be even with limitations if front of you. You have a girl too short to be considered a model and a guy who designs fashion without having the money to pursue it further. I know nothing about style, but I do know things about being short! Maybe that’s why I have such a soft spot for it...

ID:Invaded

This anime gets more interesting as we go along. I’m all into murder mysteries and things like that, and with the sci-fi mixed it, I checked to make sure I was up-to-date with this one. Each episode gives a new mystery with more details outline our jaded and imprisoned detective’s motives and backstory. I wasn’t sold on the character designs at first, but once you get over that hurdle, it’s all good. I like the psychological aspects of it too!

Kyokou Suiri 

Ever wish you had a female protagonist who was upfront about her romantic motives? Ever wanted to watch a show involving youkai? Here’s the show for you! Plus, her character design is so cute. Mamo sang the ED for this anime too. The animation is great, the story looks amazing (read ahead a few chapters in the manga), and this is one of my most highest anticipated anime for the season!

Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun

Here’s one of my favourite pilot episodes! This anime left such a strong impression on me that I went straight to my non-otaku friends going, “You’ve gotta see this guys”. The art style is consistent with the manga, and according to the not-so-quiet manga readers, we’re in for a really good anime. 

All the characters in this anime are also adorable and really simple-minded on the surface. Hanako-kun being a boy is a really funny twist on the local urban legend (I’m one of those kids who never dared to say “Bloody Mary” in the washroom so what can I say?)

Recently Completed

Hana to Alice: Satsujin Jiken

Remember Aku no Hana? This is what happens when rotoscoping has a bit more budget. This anime was slow, a little cringy, but it felt really real. The voices felt real, the characters felt real, and the story felt... mostly real. I don’t regret watching this movie art style and all because I think it captures a bit of the exaggerations of being a teenager (rumours blow up like balloons)

Sennen Joyuu

Satoshi Kon really has a certain way of telling stories. I’ve watched Perfect Blue, Paranoia Agent, and Tokyo Godfathers, and while this didn’t have as strong of a punch as the latter, this film was still strong. It shows a story of a young maiden’s resilience, perseverance, and undying love... all things I can’t relate to... but it was good!

Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo

This show was a trip. You thought it was a fanservice anime until things got really heavy. This anime was funny, it made me feel things with the themes it took on, and it made me remember that the best girl doesn’t always have to win to be a good anime. The art was cute and sweet, the voice acting was so fricking funny (according to the cast, the improv wasn’t always included but the ones that were left along with the dialogue were pure gold), and the story was exceptional for an anime which seemed to have no base whatsoever. And plus, this had something a lot of anime don’t... A CONCLUSIVE ENDING. Give this anime a watch if you haven’t. It’s melodramatic comedic romantic teen drama at its finest.

Orange

Speaking of melodramatic romantic teen dramas, here’s another one that fits that bill! Minus the comedy, more suicide, and far less cohesive plot. Imagine throwing letters into the Bermuda Triangle and having your 16-year-old selves really reading those letters. I was wondering how they were going to explain sending their letters to the past, but they should’ve come up with better BS than that. Aside from really bad plot holes, this anime was alright. It was slow... really slow. I finished this whole 13 episodes plus the movie in about 2.5 hours after trimming the slow recaps. 

The art was alright. The story was slow, but near the end (excluding the last episode and the movie) it got really heavy. It hit close to home. I struggled with suicide for years, and I felt what this character felt. Certain lines of that dialogue just hit hard. It was depicted in a way that didn’t feel as romanticized. He wasn’t saved by just one person, his trauma didn’t go away just like that, it took a group of friends and planning to help him realize that there was more to life then just regrets.

Would I recommend this? I mean, it was recommended to me, but I’m not forcing this anime on anyone... not because of the themes but because it was darn boring and cliche 70% of the time.

Still Watching

Darker than Black: Kuro no Keiyakusha

Same things apply as previous entries

Hunter x Hunter (2011)

My brother expected me to finish this a while ago but I put it on the back-burner because the number of episodes seemed daunting. Everything else is good though.

Sousei no Onmyouji

I only watched the first episode.

Boku no Hero Academia Season Four

Same things apply as previous entries. It seems like the Overhaul arc will end in the next episode or two (depending on how much they milk this).

Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu

Groundhog Day but isekai. Seriously, this is a pretty big staple in terms of big isekai. Everyone’s fighting over who’s the best girl meanwhile Subaru is trying his best not to die every five minutes. Seriously, Subaru is a champ and what I’d want out of a Mary Sue isekai protagonist. Get em Subaru. Prove to me you’re not a car.

This will be me for the next few days because it’s getting colder where I am so watch me slip on the ice and die!

[themattress]

The Butterfly Effect of Xion

So the Vince Vaughn movie Fred Claus has been on TV, and I have to paraphrase:

“I don’t hate you, Xion. I just wish you were never born.”

(XION FANS, DO NOT ENGAGE)

Dwelling on it recently, I came to realize just how damaging the existence of Xion has been on the Kingdom Hearts series. There were issues with her in her debut game of 358/2 Days, true, but they pale in comparison to what ended up happening in the games afterward. Xion’s existence created a Butterfly Effect, where five major problems that wrecked the series might not have occurred if the precedent hadn’t been set by Nomura and Kanemaki with Xion. 

1. So, Xion is a replica. She was meant to be a replica of Sora, but because the memories she absorbed from Roxas (because that’s a thing now) were Sora’s strongest memories, those of Kairi, she became a girl who resembled Kairi. Except when she isn’t and looks different depending on who is viewing her. This didn’t only over-complicate the replica concept in Days, but it set the precedent going forward that replicas could be used for anything the plot demands and ended up as the go-to method to bring previously dead or disembodied characters back (that and time travel). Back in CoM, the Riku Replica was just a clone of Riku, the idea was simple to grasp. Now replicas aren’t even really replicas at all. 

2. Let me point this out again: Sora’s fractured memories somehow escaped him and that’s never explained how this is possible. They go into Roxas and then “leak” out of him and into Xion, which is what gives her an identity. And Namine’s power over the memories of Sora and those aligned with him are now increased so that she can view memories currently being made by Roxas and Xion from a far away distance. This convoluted usage of the concept of memory only gets worse in Coded and 3D, and it’s unclear who remembers what anymore. Much like replicas, memories are now being used to make any ludicrous plot turn happen, and this especially damages Namine’s character given that she has power over memories.

3. So because Xion’s identity is composed of memories that need to go back inside of Sora, she ceases to exist after dying. Let me repeat: Xion ceases to exist. This is what is said by Namine, who is a pretty reliable source given how overpowered she’d become at this point: 

If you return your memories to him, you'll disappear. And since everything about you was built on those memories...no one will remember you when you're gone. There won't be any "you" to remember. I can't save you, Xion - even a memory of you.

Except that this totally becomes a lie in Coded, making it so that what Namine should have said was “Don’t worry, Xion - I can totes save a memory you inside of data placed within Jiminy’s Journal, and everyone will begin remembering you again in a few months’ time until finally you can come back to life and exist independently of Sora. There’s no stakes here!” 

And this begins one of the most damning trends in the series: previous canon is discarded on a whim in order to bring back characters who definitively reached a conclusion in order to give them an ideal ‘happily ever after’ ending as fanservice for everyone who likes them. Roxas, Namine, Xion, Axel, all the other Organization members, Ansem the Wise, Eraqus, even the goddamn Riku Replica...the dramatic power of their endings is completely undone against all internal logic and good storytelling sensibilities. And it all started with Xion, who even after ceasing to exist (making her deader than dead), still managed to give belated telepathic messages to Riku and Roxas the day afterward, leaving a door for revival open.

(Side-note: Nomura actually said in the BBS Ultimania interview that “there is no concept of death in the KH universe”. Really, now? Tell that to Hades, the lord of the dead. Or the numerous Disney villains who have died. Or good guys like Mufasa, Tadashi, or Bambi’s mother! Hell, even your own OC characters have acknowledged the reality of death: Xehanort’s entire impetus behind possessing Terra is because he was afraid of dying from old age before he could see his plan through to fruition! Nomura, you are an absolute hack.)

4. So, Xion is a Kairi look-alike who can wield a Keyblade. Chronologically speaking, she wielded a Keyblade before Kairi did, even though the game where Kairi did was released first. You have her in your party throughout Days, can play as her in Mission Mode, and then in KH3 she flat-out replaces Kairi in the party during the battle with Saix. Kairi, meanwhile, has never been playable, and had exactly 1 minute of time in the party before being taken out of it and replaced by Xion. Then she gets killed by Xehanort and is unable to take part in the big climax, but Xion does. And during all of this, Kairi is phased out of the trio between her, Sora and Riku, all while Xion is a retcon to the KH2-established duo of Axel and Roxas.

If Xion didn’t already feel like a self-insert Mary Sue from a fanfic before, she certainly does now. Kairi actually had narrative build-up and anticipation for years at becoming either a playable character or a full-fledged party member, and either way being an all-around capable Keyblade wielder who could fight alongside her friends Sora and Riku. But instead, this black-haired copycat of her who was created after the game where Kairi was given a Keyblade and was then said to be deader than it was possible to be gets all the glory.  

Just look at the cover of KH3. Kairi sticks out like a sore thumb because she remains the only one with alleged combat capabilities who has never ever been playable across the entire series’ existence, and whose time as a party member is pathetic compared to everyone else. Perhaps if we didn’t have Xion, who got 30 more votes than Kairi on an official popularity poll, the game developers would have felt more of a drive to develop Kairi and make her a competent combatant. But I say perhaps because Nomura would be a sexist pig either way.

5. Lastly, let’s talk about the “Seasalt Trio” that became a thing thanks to Xion. In KH2, the narrative was that Roxas and Axel had been friends, with Roxas having something of a heart and Axel actually being able to feel emotions due to forging a close relationship with him. But Roxas left the Organization to find out the truth about himself, disillusioned by Axel’s lies and possessiveness of him. Ultimately, when it came down to truly helping Roxas or just helping himself, Axel chose himself and tried to kill Roxas. When this failed and Roxas merged with Sora, Axel became consumed by guilt and tried to get Roxas back until he finally realized that his selfishness was the problem and reached true atonement to Roxas through sacrificing his life for Sora. And for his part, Roxas learned to be at peace with an existence as part of Sora, as he felt more emotionally fulfilled than he did as a Nobody and could still be with Namine.

While Days mostly stuck to the narrative in regards to Axel, the addition of Xion complicated things so that Axel was made to be viewed more sympathetic than he really should be. The connection Roxas had with Xion, meanwhile, totally eclipsed the one he had with Namine in KH2, to the point where all of Namine’s helpful actions toward Roxas are retconned into her subconsciously keeping a promise she made to Xion to look after him. And the idealistic friendship between the three of them, where they enjoy working together in the Organization and having ice cream together atop Twilight Town’s clock tower guaranteed that many players would no longer accept Roxas’ fate in KH2 as a happy ending for him. After all, if he was perfectly comfortable as his own physical existence and had good friends he enjoyed eating ice cream with all the time, then nothing less than that seems like it could make him happy.

And ultimately, not even the narrative around Axel was to last. In Days, he says to Xion that she and Roxas can “keep on running, but I’ll always be there to bring you back!” In context, this was a selfish, possessive threat. It was Axel saying “Screw what you two want or need! I want and need you at my side in the Organization and I’ll drag you back there against your will no matter how many times you try to escape!” But once Axel is revived as Lea in 3D, the narrative pretends that wasn’t the case and now insists that it’s a noble pledge, a promise to “always bring his friends back” when they disappear, and that it’s legitimately what they want him to do. An interesting, morally gray character was totally whitewashed so that he deserves the ideal happy ending that he receives. All from something he said to Xion.

So yeah, this is what holds me back from being a big Xion fan, and while I hold no personal animosity toward her, I deeply wish she had never been introduced into the series at all.

I wish she was conceived exclusively for Shiro Amano’s manga instead!

[arcaneranger]

Final Thoughts - Summer 2019

Hey, look who finished the season perfectly on time, even if he did so by dropping a bunch of stuff last minute! (Technically, as of writing, I haven’t finished Re:Stage Dream Days, but you can rest assured that it’s bad.)

I thought I was going to do a first impressions rundown video for the entire season at once, since my impression posts don’t tend to get a lot of engagement anyway, but since I didn’t end up going through with it, I’ll summarize my point - summer started strong, and even here at the end, I can easily say it’s the best season thus far in what’s largely been a letdown year for seasonal anime (and a god damn renaissance for long shows, thanks to My Hero Academia, so if I seem down on a season that had Dororo, or Vinland Saga, or Fruits Basket, remember that I exclude those shows from my considerations until the end of the year).

This season saw several high-profile continuations like A Certain Scientific Accelerator, Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls In a Dungeon II, and Symphogear XV, but also new works by creators like Mari Okada, and anticipated adaptations of Astra: Lost in Space and Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest, and in the end, well...a lot of those were mixed bags at best, but the biggest drawback I will remember Summer 2019 for is that it was drowning in bad isekai shows. The aforementioned Arifureta, the basically-counts Danmachi, and also Isekai Cheat Magician, Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks, The Lost Ones, Demon Lord Retry!...it just never ended, and that’s not even counting If It’s For My Daughter, I’d Even Defeat a Demon Lord. 

Speaking of all that stuff, let’s get right into it, yeah?

28 shows were simulcast this season, and of those, I…

Skipped 4:

Yami Shibai 7, Starmyu Season 3, A Certain Scientific Accelerator, and Lord El-Melloi II Case Files: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note were all skipped because I have not watched the previous series.

Dropped 15:

Worst of the Season: If It’s For My Daughter, I’d Even Defeat a Demon Lord!

I dropped this after one episode because I found the aesthetic and tone to be aggressively boring and I found even the cute daugheroo character to be utterly generic in execution...and then later found out oh boy was I right to drop it, based on how many people compared it to the Bunny Drop manga that we don’t talk about. *shudders*

Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest

Wins the “biggest tryhard” award for being just the most straightforward an SAO award gets, right up to being grimdark for dumb reasons. The first episode alone had inconsistent animation, and that just did not bode well for the future...and the plot instantly reminded me of Slime, which soured on me over time. I let this one go sour after one shot.

Demon Lord, Retry!

The blandest of beige this season, Demon Lord had neither the story nor the production values to reel me in or convince me it was anything but the Overlord wannabe it so clearly was.

Isekai Cheat Magician

This show was a pretty transparent attempt to have an isekai story with a childhood friend romance plot, and while I’m fine with one and a half of those things, it couldn’t execute them in any decent way by the end of the first episode, and just wound up being largely boring.

Wasteful Days of High School Girls

Speaking of boring, what if Nichijou wasn’t funny? You’d get something like this.

Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks?

So the tone this one ultimately ended up having was pretty much exactly what I expected after the premiere - it leaned too hard on jokes that weren’t as funny as it thought they were, and too hard on the dumb hentai mom trope, and neither of those things interested me in the slightest. Pretty okay with having left this off the watchlist.

The Ones Within

I have stated multiple times in the last few weeks that Symphogear is great because it can convince you that it’s a work of genius. The Ones Within has, unfortunately, convinced itself that it’s deep social commentary of some kind, rather than a bargain-bin Danganronpa with no real thought put into it.

Are You Lost?

I’m amazed that we got another Eromanga Sensei this season and it flew entirely under the radar. For God’s sake, the first episode featured a young teenage girl eating a bug and drinking her own urine. I just didn’t see myself being particularly entertained by the shock value longer than the premiere.

Ensemble Stars (4/10)

I can’t tell if this one is actually over, but Funimation’s site doesn’t list any new episode premieres coming up, so I’m gonna assume it is? I gave this one a shot and hung onto it because it took UtaPri’s premise and gave it the slightly more serious tone I was looking for, but dropped it after the second episode started to drown us in side characters with no hint that the floodgates were closing, rather than giving ample screentime to a select cast so they could actually become at least two-dimensional before throwing in more people we’re supposed to care about.

BEM

BEM suffered from an unfortunate lack of distinct personality, which sucks when it seems to have had a decent story to tell. Nothing else about the show wound up sticking out to me, though, which has me fully convinced that Production I.G.’s name is only on this to boost recognition, and the second-billed LandQ studios did the majority of the work. And their best-known other show is Swordgai. So...

To The Abandoned Sacred Beasts (5/10)

I have gotten absolutely no pushback so far for my decision to tear into this show because it should have been a different show, so I’m gonna take that as a general agreement of my earlier statement. What a waste of a concept.

Cop Craft (5/10)

This one I still think I was not crazy to pick up after the first episode, because it wasn’t until the third that the animation tanked hard and the pacing went absolutely nuts, and apparently stayed that way. Did they write a thirty-nine-episode story that had to be condensed into twelve or something?

Magical Sempai

This one I probably would have kept watching if the majority of its humor wasn’t just the title character embarrassing herself in lewd ways. It was funny, but I didn’t see myself enjoying anything more than one episode of it.

GRANBELM (6/10)

This one I got halfway through before realizing that, during my end-of-season catchup, I had absolutely no desire to return to. The plot didn’t really start moving until the fifth episode, and in that time I had not gotten particularly invested in the characters, especially since the show makes fun of the viewer for thinking that the big mecha dream battles actually had stakes beyond “you don’t get to be The Thing”. At least it looked nice and the mecha designs were very original.

Are you willing to fall in love with a pervert, as long as she’s a cutie?

There were four shows this season with questions for titles. Just saying! This one actually had me hooked right up until the end, revealing that not only is it a fanservice show, but a fetish pandering one. That being said, if I were attracted to women, I could have seen myself getting something out of it, what with the decently moody tone and good production values.

I put 2 On Hold:

Is It Wrong to Try To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon? II

I’ll probably come back to this when the third series comes around, just to give it one more chance to pull me back in, but ditching my favorite character for harem antics and character shilling just did not endear me to this long-awaited sequel.

Re:Stage Dream Days!!

This one’s not actually on hold, but I don’t have any other good place to mention it. This one I’m gonna make it through just on willpower, not because it’s good, but because it starts out as the most shameless rip-off I’ve ever seen in anime, specifically of Love Live!.

And I Finished 7:

Kochoki (5/10)

I thought I was gonna give this one a 7 at least, for nearly the whole season, for being a decently-told and somewhat new telling of Nobunaga’s early life with great production values for Studio Deen...right up until the structure fell completely apart at the end, almost completely out of nowhere. I’m still in awe of the gall this show had to literally skip over the final battle.

How Heavy Are The Dumbbells You Lift? (8/10)

This one came right the fuck out of nowhere and totally blew my expectations out of the way from the very first episode. Looking at the summary, I was convinced I was gonna drop this after the premiere...and found myself totally hooked by its cheery visual presentation and excellent sense of meta-comedy, not to mention its genuine educational value.

Astra: Lost In Space (8/10)

One of two adaptations I was really looking forward to this season (along with Fire Force), Astra was pretty much what I expected - a very good translation of a very good manga that ran for the perfect amount of time to be divided into twelve-ish episodes. A fantastic and memorable cast of characters enhanced a surprisingly twisty story, and Lerche made it all look just as good as I’d hoped.

The Demon Girl Next Door (8/10)

Speaking of defying my expectations, another show I was expecting pretty much nothing from, maybe one I could compare to Gabriel Dropout or something, that was instead an incredibly charming story of a girl trying to save her family by defeating a magical girl...with a very, very loose definition of the word “defeat” in play. I couldn’t have asked for much more from this one, aside from maybe a sequel?

Given (9/10)

Speaking of “Lerche” and “gorgeous”, this profoundly gripping story of a spacecase and a loner hesitantly making music together blossomed further and further as it went on, and became my new go-to reference point for explicit gay relationships in anime. It went where even Yuri On Ice!!! couldn’t, and left me desperate for a Part Two.

O Maidens In Your Savage Season (9/10)

My write up for this show was one of my longest in recent memory, and I stand by it - even if Okada had to write a few plot contrivances in to get where she’s going, at least she presented her cast in an incredibly thoughtful way and gave them a satisfying payoff, with the knowledge that they’re teenagers and all of their problems can’t be solved in one semester. The high water mark for discussions of sexuality in this medium.

BEST OF THE SEASON: Symphogear XV (9/10)

Anime is wonderful, and so am I.

So that wraps up summer! We’ve got a lot to look forward to in fall, even if My Hero Academia and Food Wars’ fourth series will both ultimately end up on a list in the distant future next year. Will Psycho-Pass 3 redeem the series? Will Azur Lane be better than Kantai Collection? Will Beastars beat Aggretsuko as the biggest furry panderer of the year? Only time will tell. And then I’ll tell you all what I think it said.

[lia-nikiforov]

Fall Anime 2018 Watchlist

We’re about halfway into the season so this is probably kinda pointless by now, but here’s a quick rundown of the stuff I’m watching this season.

Dropped

Jingaisan no Yome: This is a 3 minute show and I won’t spend longer than that writing about it (I’m timing myself). I didn’t know it was a short going in. I’m not really into shorts, Saiki kun being the only exception and the story was less MahoYome and more... i don’t even have an apt comparison, it just was maybe more serious about the “marriage” thing than something with a giant floofball character should be.

Tokyo Ghoul: Re 2: It’s simple. I watched episode 1 and realized I had no fucking clue of how any of this related to the ending of the first season, no idea of who half the characters were and where did they allegiances lie and what is Kaneki even trying to do. Although not loyal to the manga, the first two seasons of Tokyo Ghoul had a story that could be followed and made sense, this, however, is just jumping over plot points with no rhyme or reason and there’s nothing but confusion.

Bloom Into You: There’s nothing actually wrong with this show and I was kind of looking forward to a yuri romance that wasn’t rapey or incesty bullshit, but something about this one just didn’t click with me. Like Touko fell in love with Yuu too quickly, and given Yuu’s ace/aro identity, it would feel weird for her to do a 180 and suddenly fall in love with Touko. I kind of want more fun and emotions in my romance stories and this one didn’t have much of either.

Chopping Block

Given a few things the past two weeks that didn’t go according to plan, I fell behind on my anime watching after keeping it in control for the first third of the season and i’m quite annoyed. And because of this, and my upcoming research trip to Japan at the end of the month, I might end up having to drop a couple of series.

Bakumatsu: Objectively speaking, this show is really bad. The production values are poop, the story is a wacky mess that takes itself a bit too seriously and the characters are flat and uninteresting, the villain is egregiously boring. This show also has Matsuo Basho as a secret tive traveling ninja, and that puts me at quite the predicament. I want to see more of this utterly bonkers historical reinterpretation, but boy do I wish they could make it more exciting.

SAO Alicization:  The only reason I, a notorious SAO hater, is watching SAO is because I hate myself. With that out of the way, boy is this SAO boring. We’re four episodes in and the only thing that’s happened is they cut an old tree because nothing can stop Kirito and his new friend, Yellow Kirito. This show needs to start getting offensive and/or stupid soon or i’ll die of boredom.

Karakuri Circus: I hear this one’s from the same mangaka as UshiTora? I love UshiTora and I can see the resemblance between giant guy whose name I can’t remember and Tora. His character and his schtick are so far the most interesting thing to me, with the kuudere puppet girl whose main purpose seems to be to get paired with him  having yet to make an impression on me. I’m also still not really certain what the overall plot is. I do love stories about found families, so hopefully I can stick with this one

Hinomaru Sumou: If my watching schedule were normal, this wouldn’t be in this section. Whilst not the best sports show of the season, and chock full of some of the most eyeroll worthy aspects of sports shonen *cough cough* toxic *cough cough* masculinity *cough cough*, Hinomaru Sumou has the fire and passion for an underrepresented sport that’s usually enough to hook me. I just don’t have time, and if push comes to shove, I’ll prioritize other shows over this one.

Banana Fish: Yo, okay, before you lynch me for being a hater or whatever, let me tell you I have zero issues with Banana Fish. I don’t hate it, I don’t think it’s Bad Representation(TM) whatever the fuck that means, I definitely don’t think it’s fujobait or just another BL. It just doesn’t make me happy. This probably doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I’ve never been a fan of tragedy. It’s also part of the reason I’m dropping Tokyo Ghoul. I don’t like hopeless stories and tragic romances. I’m somewhat spoiled on how the manga ends and each time I find myself less and less inclined to watch the newer episodes because the descent into misery is just not enjoyable for me. It’s not the show’s wrongdoing, it’s just not the kind of story I like. I’m probably too far along to drop it at this point, but also I kinda wish I could drop it because I get so little joy out of it. Also, my main hook is of course Ash and Eiji’s relationship, but 15 episodes in (I’m behind, as is evident) the time they’ve spent together is so minimal, I can’t even appreciate that a whole lot.

I guess I’m watching this? 

Dakaichi: Me: Man I really want a yuri anime without rapey bullshit. Also me: watches BL anime with rapey bullshit. I have literally no excuse. I think the basic setup lends itself really well for a romcom and Takato is a very likable character, it’s a shame it’s the same old rapey bullshit. In my defense, episode two was really sweet and I’ve been hoping for more stories along that line, even though the show has failed to deliver them since. Episode 5 may have pushed the line even beyond what I’m willing to tolerate, but it’s unclear. I might end up unexpectedly dropping it after episode 6. HEY JAPAN WOULD IT KILL YOU TO MAKE A BL ANIME THAT WASN’T RAPEY BULLSHIT? JUST ONE?

(honestly, Takato deserves better)

wao episode 6 was maji disgusting i might drop it after all

Fairy Tail Final: I just want closure man. This adaptation retains all the worst attributes of the previous season, terribly slow pacing (what for?! the manga is over!!) minimal animation, recapalooza. The color palette is slightly brighter than before, which I appreciate. Fairy Tail’s last arc wasn’t as bad as Bleach’s, but it was still pretty bad in the manga; still I hope seeing it animated will make it feel less messy and slightly more coherent. The FT anime has also in the past filled in some blanks that existed in the manga, so hopefully they can make the best out of it here.

(Erza is still my wife)

Tsurune: No, this isn’t the best sports anime of this season either. Although that’s hard to judge given how it’s barely on its second (third, i’m behind) episode. Technically, I feel more compelled to drop this than Hinomaru, but also I want to give it a fair chance. That said, the first episode was.... profoundly underwhelming and borderline upsetting, with how everyone put Minato on the spot in spite of his having an actual psychologic condition that drove him away from kyudo. I’m all in for stories about growing and surpassing your own obstacles, but I hope they go about it in a less mean-spirited way. Also, the characters feel pretty shallow so far. I’m not even gonna pretend the main reason I want to keep watching isn’t gorgeous guy with the ponytail-san, because I’m now old enough that I immediately gravitate towards the senseis rather than the teenage protags.

i am so weak to long hair  _(:3」∠)_

welp he cut his hair right next episode, thanks for nothing kyoani

In spite of everything, Anime is, in fact, Good

Golden Kamuy: Like with many split-cours, there’s nothing much to say beyond “if you liked the first one, you’ll like this one”. The production values are still tragic, but I think the pace has improved, and the dynamics between the different factions are so fluid and constantly changing they make the story very enthralling. It also continues to have the Best Reaction Faces.

Gakuen Basara: Listen, listen. You all knew I was gonna watch this. And I love Basara so much I still think this show is a masterpiece even when it’s objectively atrocious. I do not reccommend it to anyone who isn’t already a fan (and I mean a blind fan willing to consume anything from this franchise, even in its cheapest, dumbest, worst looking incarnation). That said there are a couple of interesting things, namely the power rivalry between Hideyoshi and Nobunaga, this never happened in the original series because Nobunaga died before Hideyoshi was introduced. Anyway, just shoot that Masamune x Kojuuro fanservice straight into my veins please and thank you

Zombieland Saga: One of the two biggest surprises of the season and one that was nowhere near my radar. An original production by studio MAPPA with perhaps the wildest premiere episode of the season that’s somehow making me like idols?! It’s also giving us the most Miyano Mamoru has ever Miyano’d and it’s amazing and histerical. The characters are also very charming, specially bikegang leader Saki and the always legendary Yamada Tae and the show isn’t scared of letting its cute idols get gross and silly and dirty. There’s also a feeling of mystery that I find very appealing. Definitely didn’t expect this one to be one of the highlights of my week, yet here we are.

SSSS Gridman: Just when I’d vowed a giant fuck you to Studio Trigger, in they come with one of their most quiet productions yet, with characters that speak their lines in soft, leveled voices, tragedies that feel palpable, emotionally climactic battle scenes and a sense of tension and mystery that makes it impossible to take your eyes away. It does have the caveat of oversexualizing the female characters, specially the villain, and not giving Rikka virtually anything to do, but past that, it’s been a very pleasant and intriguing surprise. Also of note, I have no background knowledge of the Gridman tokusatsu series but that hasn’t really been an impediment to enjoy this series.

Double Decker: Doug & Kirill: A spinoff to the 2010 superhero hit Tiger & Bunny, we have a less superpowery buddycop comedy with a cool and diverse cast, whose main character wants to BRING DOWN CAPITALISM, okay, put an end to economic inequality and classes, but that’s basically the same thing. The show is pretty far along because it premiered early for some reason, and so far it’s been mostly one-shot stories very thinly connected to the distribution of the illegal drug Anthem, with our main plot having only come up two episodes ago with the fantastic Zabel and Bamboo Man twist. The dynamics between the main duo are great and Kirill is a riot as a protagonist. 

Kaze ga Tsuyoku Fuiteiru: Or Run with the Wind. Now THIS is the best sports anime of the season. Brought to you by the studio behind Haikyu, based on a novel by the author of Fune wo Amu. Firstly I love that it’s set in university, because it gives the cast a lot more variety in their interests, ages and personalities, their goals, their baggage, and it makes the process of bringing this team of misfits together even more interesting to watch. The characters feel very human in the way they speak, their worries, their relationships, their actions. The show’s done a great job so far in building the characters and making them worth cheering for. Also Ouji is my spirit animal. If you ever wanted a show to motivate you into running, this is what you’ve been waiting for! Another great surprise of this season for sure.

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Vento Aureo: Finally part Five is here! And in it we get perhaps the most interesting Jojo protagonist right off the bat, with troubled Giorno and his difficult past and his wonderful Stand ability. His new set of allies is also quite eccentric and interesting and every scene and dialogue has that special Jojo flavor of crazy and ridiculous and always a load of fun. This one will have 39 episodes, so we’re barely getting started and I’m already loving all of it.

Thunderbolt Fantasy 2: Urobutcher’s favorite puppets are back with a vengeance! Every bit as fun, insane, cool and over-the-top as the first season, with the added value of the rapport between the characters, evidenced by how brilliant the few scenes in which Shang and Lin share the screen are. With a brand new story that expands the world of our favorite puppets, and even more new gorgeous puppets added to the mix to make Shang’s life a mess, this show is definitely my favorite this season and potentially of the year. Let Urobuchi keep doing puppets for as long as he wants!

ooof i’m finally done. It’s midseason so probably nobody cares but do hmu with your favorite shows of the season and if there’s anything worth hatewatching that I may be missing ;)

[osakaso5]

IDOLiSH7 End Of Year Story 2018: Friends Scene!

A Peaceful Intermission Part 2: A Memory-Filled Starry Sky

Part 1

Door opens

Rinto Okazaki: Sorry to keep you waiting. You have no more work today...

Yuki: Shh...

Rinto Okazaki: Ah... Momo-kun is sleeping?

Yuki: Yeah. It seems like he fell asleep on the sofa while looking at his phone.

Momo: Snooze...

Yuki: He's been busier than me over the New Year's... All that exhaustion must've gotten the best of him.

Yuki: Good job, Momo. You worked so hard.

Momo: Snooze...

Rinto Okazaki: Ahaha... This is like a complete reversal of your usual selves. Yuki-kun's awake, while Momo-kun sleeps.

Yuki: That's right.

Rinto Okazaki: Why are you so proud about it?

Yuki: When I watch over Momo's sleep like this, I get the feeling that I'm doing something right.

Yuki: We went through hard times in the past. I've caused him plenty of hardships... But right now, I just feel warm.

Momo: Mmm, mumble...

Yuki: Ah, maybe I woke him up...

Momo: ...Yuki...

Yuki: Did you hear that? He's dreaming about me.

Rinto Okazaki: I heard.

Momo: Ah... Yuki... That's terrible... Aah... You've really done it now...

Momo: It's gonna be okay... I'll do something about this...

Yuki: ........

Rinto Okazaki: It seems you're causing him trouble, even in his dreams.

Yuki: ...I think he's talking about some other Yuki. Not me.

Yuki: Oh, Momo... ...Oopsie-daisy.

Rinto Okazaki: What are you doing, crouching in front of Momo-kun's eyes?

Yuki: I thought I'd give him a little surprise once he wakes up.

Rinto Okazaki: Ahaha! The moment he opens his eyes, your face will be right in front of him. He'll probably jump off the sofa, yelling about how handsome you are.

Yuki: Fufu, exactly. Should I try waking him up?

Rinto Okazaki: Even though you were just hushing me..?

Yuki: Can't I?

Rinto Okazaki: Well, we're already about to leave, so I suppose you can. By the way, what are we going to do about our first shrine visit?

Rinto Okazaki: I know you said we'd be going around tonight, but if Momo-kun's tired, shouldn't we choose another day?

Yuki: Right. Momo. Mooomo...

Momo: ...Mmm...

Momo: Huh...

Yuki: Rise and shine.

Momo: .........

Momo: Yuki!?

Yuki: Surprised?

Momo: What about the Martians!?

Yuki: ...Martians?

Momo: Aah... Oh, it was just a dream...

Yuki: What were you dreaming about?

Momo: You wanted a Martian's guitar so badly that you carelessly signed them the rights to Earth.

Yuki: As the representative of the earth?

Momo: Yeah.

Yuki: In that case, I'll play that guitar as the world ends. Will you sing for me, Momo?

Momo: I will. I'll give the Martians lots of fanservice, and protect the peace of our planet.

Yuki: Awesome.

Momo: Ehehe. You're awesome.

Rinto Okazaki: It hasn't even been a minute since Momo-kun woke up, and Re:vale's already showering each other with affection. You two really are close!

Momo: Oh yeah. I was in the middle of rabbit chatting. I should send a reply.

Yuki: You can do it later. Weren't you surprised to wake up to me?

Momo: I was!

Yuki: I thought you'd be more flustered.

Momo: The more you talk about it, the more I'm getting embarrassed...

Yuki: There, that's the spirit.

Momo: Ahaha. What are you cheering me on for!

Rinto Okazaki: Now, it's about time for us to leave. What are we going to do about tonight? Shall I drive you straight home?

Momo: Huuuh? Weren't we supposed to do a shrine visit?

Yuki: We thought you'd be too tired.

Momo: I'm fine! It's pretty warm outside and we have the time, so let's go tonight.

Yuki: I don't really care whether we visit a shrine or not. We can just have a quiet dinner together, too.

Momo: Let's go to the shrine! We've done New Year's stuff for work, but nothing in private.

Yuki: Say "Happy New Year".

Momo: Happy New Year.

Yuki: That's enough New Year's spirit for me.

Momo: Geez Yuki, not only are you handsome, but your cost performance is good, too~!

Rinto Okazaki: Come on you two, we're going! You can finish this talk in the car.

Yuki: Already? I was just getting comfortable.

Momo: Right. Maybe it's because I took that nap, but I already feel at home.

Rinto Okazaki: Someday, I'll buy this station for you to use as a second home. You'll have to wait until then.

Yuki: Oh, look who's talking big.

Momo: Okarin, you're so cool~!

Rinto Okazaki: Fufu. Good work today, you two. Now, let's go.

Yuki: Yeah.

Momo: Let's decide which shrine we'll visit in the car! And if we can't decide, let's just go to the one we visited last year!

Yuki: Haha. I guess we've got no choice. Since you're so excited for this, I'll save relaxing and drinking wine for later.

Momo: Well, we have to thank the gods and pray for a good New Year, don't we?

Momo: I got to spend this year with you. So I want you to be with me next year, too!

Yuki: I will. Next year, and the year after that, too.

Momo: Even if we get invaded by aliens?

Yuki: Of course.

Momo: Darling, you're such a hunk..! 

- - - -

Tsumugi Takanashi: I'm sorry for parking so early. We'll have to walk a bit to the shrine...

Nagi Rokuya: I would gladly walk to the ends of the earth for an evening stroll with you.

Tsumugi Takanashi: Thank you! Riku-san, you're not cold, are you?

Riku Nanase: I'm fine! It's warm today.

Iori Izumi: Unbelievably so, considering it's still midwinter.

Mitsuki Izumi: It's pretty dark around here, so people probably won't notice us.

Yamato Nikaido: Don't you think we'll stand out with this many people? Maybe we should split up a little.

Tamaki Yotsuba: We came here together, so I wanna stay together. If anyone finds us out, we'll just ask 'em to keep it a secret.

Sogo Osaka: Ah... I think those people are on their way home from the shrine.

Riku Nanase: They've got cotton candy! Do you think there's still open food stalls?

Nagi Rokuya: OH! I cannot wait!

Passerby: What'd you wish for~?

Passerby: That I'd pass my uni exams. You?

Passerby: That my date with that girl will go well.

Passerby: No way it will. If you take her to an idol concert, she won't even look your way.

Passerby: It'll be fine! I can beat IDOLiSH7!

Passerby: Ahahaha!

Riku Nanase: ........

Riku Nanase: ...I wonder if they're planning to take the girl they like to one of our concerts?

Mitsuki Izumi: I bet they'd be surprised to know that we're here.

Yamato Nikaido: Haha. It'll make for a good MC topic, won't it?

Sogo Osaka: University exams... Have you thought about going to university, Iori-kun and Tamaki-kun?

Iori Izumi: I'm not sure. I'd like to focus on my work, but I'd also like to learn as much as I can while I have the chance.

Tamaki Yotsuba: I don't wanna study any more.

Sogo Osaka: Right now, we could study while working as idols. Maybe I should go back to school, too.

Tamaki Yotsuba: Seriously?

Sogo Osaka: It's just an idea, but...

Iori Izumi: In that case, please become my classmate. Only I could be classmates with both members of MEZZO".

Riku Nanase: That sounds great. If you're all going to school, then I want to go, too...

Iori Izumi: I doubt you'd be able to go to the kind of university Osaka-san and I would go to.

Riku Nanase: If we become classmates, you can stop calling me by my last name!

Iori Izumi: ........ No, that's alright.

Riku Nanase: Why!? That's what classmates do!

Iori Izumi: I call Yotsuba-san by his last name, as well...

Yamato Nikaido: Isn't that a little too formal at this point? Try to call them by first name this next year.

Yamato Nikaido: TRIGGER and Re:vale have all dropped the honorifics despite their age differences too, haven't they?

Iori Izumi: That's true, but... It's not something I can do so suddenly... And we have our own style of doing things...

Riku Nanase: In any case, try calling me by first name.  

Iori Izumi: ........

Iori Izumi: Yo, Riku.

Riku Nanase: What's with the "yo"..?

Iori Izumi: I-it just came out...

Mitsuki Izumi: Yo, Yamato. Like this?

Yamato Nikaido: Yo, Mitsuki. ........ It feels different when you say it like that, huh?

Tamaki Yotsuba: Ahaha. I'll start calling all of you by first name, so you can be my classmates.

Sogo Osaka: But you already use nicknames for us.

Nagi Rokuya: It would be fun to be classmates with all of you. We could play tamaire (1) together.

Riku Nanase: I don't think they do that in universities, though?

Mitsuki Izumi: University, huh... If things had gone a little different, maybe we'd be walking around talking about school and dates, too.

Nagi Rokuya: Haha... Had things gone differently, we would never have met. the fact that we are here right now is a miracle.

Nagi Rokuya: Even if brief, these moments are irreplaceable.

Yamato Nikaido: Right...

Yamato Nikaido: No matter what happens from now, and no matter what scary demons come after us...

Yamato Nikaido: All we need to do is shout: "Don't cry, keep smiling".

Riku Nanase: Yes.

Riku Nanase: Not just to ourselves... To the people standing on the same stage with us, too. And to our fans.

Riku Nanase: We'll smile at each other, and those smiles will give us the strength to brush off anything. 

- - - -

Woman: U-um...

Woman: You're Tenn Kujo from TRIGGER, right?

Tenn Kujo: ..........

Tenn Kujo: Yes.

Woman: ...Ah... Happy New Year! I look forward to another year of your... Ah...

Tenn Kujo: Fufu... Happy New Year.

Woman: No, um... That's not what I was trying to... I just wanted to let you know that I'm a fan...

Woman: Though lately, I've been so busy with work that I haven't had a lot of time to go to your concerts, so maybe I shouldn't be calling myself a fan...

Tenn Kujo: ..........

Woman: W-what am I saying... I'm being rude, aren't I. I'm very sorry..! My head's just gone completely blank...

Tenn Kujo: You're not being rude. Thank you for supporting us. That makes me really happy.

Woman: ...Ah...

Tenn Kujo: Do your best at work. I hope you'll keep supporting us for another year.

Tenn Kujo: And if you can find the time, do come to our concerts.

Woman: I will! I definitely will..!

Tenn Kujo: Thank you.

Woman: ...Please hang in there... I'm really sorry... I couldn't support TRIGGER through your hard times...

Tenn Kujo: Wrong.

Tenn Kujo: We're the ones who should support you through hard times.

Tenn Kujo: We're supposed to take you to paradise. So listen to our songs, and smile. Look at us, and be happy.

Tenn Kujo: That's what TRIGGER is for, so don't apologize.

Woman: ...Yes..!

Tenn Kujo: Thank you.

Woman: I love you..!

Gaku Yaotome: Sorry to keep you waiting, Tenn.

Ryunosuke Tsunashi: It's so warm tonight. Huh? Who's she?

Tenn Kujo: A fan of ours.

Woman: Gaku-san..! Ryunosuke-san..!

Gaku Yaotome: For real? That's great. Who's your favorite?

Woman: Ah... Um, well...

Ryunosuke Tsunashi: It's fine. Don't hold back.

Woman: ...T-Tenn-kun...

Tenn Kujo: Awesome.

Gaku Yaotome: That's too bad. But it makes sense. Tenn's cool, after all.

Ryunosuke Tsunashi: I hope you'll keep supporting Tenn and us!

Woman: Yes..! I love both of you, too!

Gaku Yaotome: Awesome.

Ryunosuke Tsunashi: Thank you!

Woman: Thank you very much! Hang in there!

Woman: Please excuse me...

Ryunosuke Tsunashi: Be careful on your way home!

Ryunosuke Tsunashi: Haha, that was nice. It feels great to heard words like that directly from fans.

Gaku Yaotome: Yeah. We were lucky to run into a fan.

Tenn Kujo: We really were. Where's Anesagi-san?

Gaku Yaotome: Parking the car. Apparently the parking lot Takanashi-san told her about was full.

Gaku Yaotome: She said we could go without her, so what are we gonna do?

Tenn Kujo: Let's wait. It's our first shrine visit, after all.

Ryunosuke Tsunashi: That's right. We can take our time walking there.

Ryunosuke Tsunashi: I'm sure a lot's going to happen this year, too. We'll have to overcome storms for as long as we keep working towards our goals.

Ryunosuke Tsunashi: So let's at least take things slow on New Year's.

Gaku Yaotome: Yeah. You're right.

Gaku Yaotome: Speaking of which, did you have a New Year's dream (2)?

Tenn Kujo: I did.

Gaku Yaotome: Did you see Mt.Fuji, a hawk, an eggplant, or me?

Tenn Kujo: You count yourself as a good luck omen?

Ryunosuke Tsunashi: You guys were in my dream! They say your first dream of the year will come true, so I hope mine does, too.

Gaku Yaotome: I had a dream about you two, too. Though there were people besides you in it, too...

Tenn Kujo: Me too... What sort of dreams did you have?

Ryunosuke Tsunashi: That the three of us went to work. We all said goodbye together, and left with Anesagi-san.

Ryunosuke Tsunashi: But since we were all leaving, there wouldn't have been anyone to say goodbye to...

Kaoru Anesagi: Sorry to keep you waiting!

Tenn Kujo: Anesagi-san.

Kaoru Anesagi: I said you could go on without me.

Gaku Yaotome: Ryu thought we should all go together, since it's our first shrine visit and all. What's with the paper bag?

Kaoru Anesagi: These were left in my car. You can each take one.

Tenn Kujo: Ah... Thank you.

Ryunosuke Tsunashi: Thank you. ...New Year's cards?

Kaoru Anesagi: They're from the president.

Gaku Yaotome: ........

Kaoru Anesagi: He wants you to keep up the good work.

Gaku Yaotome: ...Haha. That's what he said in my dream, too.

Kaoru Anesagi: What?

Gaku Yaotome: Nothing. Let's go. They should be here by now, too.

Tenn Kujo: I never thought we'd get to go on our first shrine visit with IDOLiSH7.

Ryunosuke Tsunashi: Gaku set it up with Sogo-kun. It's a good thing we made plans.

Gaku Yaotome: Right. Momo-san told us about this great entertainment god, too. There aren't a lot of people around here, like he said.

Kaoru Anesagi: It's a nice choice. There aren't many entertainment shrines in the city, so other performers might come here, too.

Tenn Kujo: We might run into some of them. ...Ah...

Tenn Kujo: It's IDOLiSH7.

Gaku Yaotome: ...Is it? They don't have the right number of people.

Tenn Kujo: They've split up. That's Riku over there.

Ryunosuke Tsunashi: You might be right... I'm surprised you could tell it was him from so far.

Tenn Kujo: Of course I could.

Tenn Kujo: He's the rival who's been with me ever since we were born.

- - - -

Riku Nanase: Ah... It's Tenn-nii.

Iori Izumi: Where?

Riku Nanase: Over there.

Nagi Rokuya: OH! It is TRIGGER and Miss Anesagi!

Tsumugi Takanashi: I'll go meet them. You should wait here, so we don't stand out.

Tamaki Yotsuba: Gotcha.

Mitsuki Izumi: We're finally getting the all star shrine visit we wanted.

Sogo Osaka: I never thought this would actually happen. Getting to meet them for New Year's feels like a dream.

Yamato Nikaido: Haha... Tsunashi-san sticks out like a sore thumb. Even if nobody  recognizes the rest of us, someone's probably gonna notice him.

Riku Nanase: Hey, Tenn-ni... Ow!

Iori Izumi: Don't yell. We were just told not to stand out.

Riku Nanase: S-sorry.

Sogo Osaka: I'll take a picture of you and Kujo-san later.

Riku Nanase: Thank you! I'll take a picture of you too, Sogo-san!

Sogo Osaka: Thank you. I'll treasure it.

Yamato Nikaido: Ah, here they come.

Mitsuki Izumi: Manager and Anesagi-san are laughing. It's pretty nice, seeing those two get along.

Yamato Nikaido: Yeah.

Nagi Rokuya: Such a calming moment... I shall thank the gods for the fact that we  were able to reach another New Year safely.

Mitsuki Izumi: It's because you were a good boy, Nagi.

Nagi Rokuya: Fufu. I got praised. Thanks.

Gaku Yaotome: Heeey..! Ow!

Kaoru Anesagi: Don't yell! I told you not to stand out!

Gaku Yaotome: I know!

Riku Nanase: Ahaha! He got told the same thing I did.

Ryunosuke Tsunashi: Happy New Year!

Sogo Osaka: Happy New Year. I look forward to working with you this year.

Tamaki Yotsuba: Happy New Year! You got New Year's money for me?

Sogo Osaka: T-Tamaki-kun!

Ryunosuke Tsunashi: Oh no, I forgot!

Tamaki Yotsuba: In that case, buy me King Pudding sometime!

Ryunosuke Tsunashi: Sure thing. As many as you want!

Tenn Kujo: Happy New Year. You're not cold, are you?

Riku Nanase: I'm fine! Did you eat oshiruko (3)?

Tenn Kujo: No. But I did have zenzai with chestnuts.

Iori Izumi: Nii-san's chestnut sweet potato mash was delicious, as always. He put some apples in, too.

Tenn Kujo: That sounds good.

Yamato Nikaido: It's one of those dishes that'll be eaten before you know it. It'd definitely win first place  in a BorW for New Year's food.

Tenn Kujo: Black soy beans are good, too.

Riku Nanase: True!

Mitsuki Izumi: Ahaha! Why do you keep talking about food, are you hungry or something?

Yamato Nikaido: I'm hungry. Ah! Isn't that a food stall? Over there, under that lantern...

Tamaki Yotsuba: Yay! They got takoyaki?

Nagi Rokuya: I cannot tell from behind this tree... Though I do see a grill.

Tamaki Yotsuba: With octopus?

Iori Izumi: Obanyaki (4)?

Riku Nanase: Okonomiyaki!

Yamato Nikaido: I could go for some squid, myself. Well, which is it?

Nagi Rokuya: OH... I still cannot see. Perhaps this man, who is tall as a giraffe, can see better than I?

Ryunosuke Tsunashi: Me? Um... Wait a second! I'll go stand on that rock!

Tenn Kujo: On top of a rock?

Gaku Yaotome: No, you'll stand o...

Ryunosuke Tsunashi: I've got it! It's takoyaki!

Woman: Omigosh! Ryunosuke Tsunashi..!

- - - -

Rinto Okazaki: It's awfully noisy around here.

Yuki: Maybe they're still doing the lion dance?

Momo: You think so? Let's go have a peek! 

- - - -

Torao Mido: Pretty noisy around here.

Toma Inumaru: Maybe a visiting performer got found out by their fans?

Minami Natsume: We should be careful too. Or should we join in on the fun, instead?

Torao Mido: Depends on who it is.

Haruka Isumi: Aaah! I found candy apples! 

The End.

Translator’s notes..? 

1) tamaire is a game that’s often played during sports days in japanese schools. two teams compete to see who can throw the most beanbags into a basket hoisted at the top of a pole

2) a new year’s dream or hatsuyume (lit. first dream [of the year]) is believed to tell your luck for the upcoming year. if your dream features mt.fuji, a hawk, and/or an eggplant, that’s a sign of good luck

3) oshiruko and zenzai are both types of sweet red bean soup. zenzai is typically known to be thicker of the two

4) obanyaki or imagawayaki is a kind of fried cake consisting of pancake-like batter and filing. red bean paste is the most common filling for obanyaki, but there are also a variety of other fillings, both sweet and savory

i’m sorry that this got posted so late, i got a little too caught up in other things to finish the second part sooner! at least now it might help soften whatever blows part 4′s first chapters will be delivering later today (lol)

[curestardust]

if you want: (bad) sci-fi comedy with drama / lots of boring characters but cute waifus / weird and overcomplicated plot 

Watching the anime from the top of the Seasonal pile is always a gamble. Somehow an anime about horse girls (x) that I assumed to be fanservice-galore ended up being one of my favourites and then a sci-fi mystery which I was quite looking forward to ended up being a fucking trainwreck.

“Kanata no Astra” is, to put it plainly, a plot twist factory. We have like 3 episodes of the characters just doing stuff then every fucking episode ends on a cliffhanger and ups and ups and ups the story to where it goes from shocking to “you can NOT be serious”.

But lets roll it back a bit, to the very first episode. After an overdrawn sequence introducing us to Aries and Kanata, we finally meet the rest of the characters. The year is 2063, and apparently they have camps now where they just drop off a bunch of students on another planet to survive for a week and this is normal. Cool. Immediately, you know the personality of each main character as they’re as cookie-cutter as it gets and we’ve seen it a 1000 times. The clumsy one, the one with the hero complex, the cool and smart one, the tsundere, the brooding one, the shy one, the charming one and the always cheery one. There’s also a 10-year-old with them, who’s cute. Of course, all of them also have their random skills that will make them useful for the trip. Which of course goes as well as you would expect. Like 2 minutes after landing on McPa, their camping planet, a random ass sphere appears and sucks each of the characters in, who find themselves in deep space. Somehow, all of them managed to put their helmets back on so now their main problem is that they’re floating in the middle of nowhere! But do not worry, dear viewer, as a old ship is for some reason floating very close to them and after a bit of dramatic struggling they all manage to board it. Then comes the shocking reveal! They somehow ended up 5,000 lightyears away from their home planet! There isn’t enough food or water for a full trip. Oh no! But do not worry, dear viewer, as somehow there are 5 habitable planets just on their way back home where they can restock (and at this point the possibility of food and water shortage is immediately forgotten). What a coincidence! And this is where we start our story, a group of teens, lost in space, against the elements, having to visit dangerous planets and the mystery as to how this all happened. Sounds interesting enough, right? Well, prepare for all that potential to be squandered.

This is where the spoilers start as I need to talk about all the nonesense I’ve been subjected to.

<spoilers start>

First of the planets they visit all blend together. There is only one thing that’s a threat and it’s always the fucking plants. There is one time an animal is a threat to one of them but that’s solved in a few minutes. It doesn’t matter anyway, as it’s quite obvious that none of them are going to die. This anime tries to blend lighthearted humour with drama and it really doesn’t work. The humour always comes out of nowhere at the worst moments possible, always undercutting the seriousness of any situation. The characters also get their backstories revealed, usually in boring flashbacks, and I could basically see the “Plot Armour Unlocked” achievement pop up in my peripheral vision whenever that happened. Then these characters get thrown into the background and are relegated to random remarks so we don’t forget that they still exist as we move forward with the story. These backstory reveals are supposed to make us really feel for these characters which would be carrying the emotional weight of the upcoming dramatic moments but it doesn’t change the fact that all of them have 1 personality trait. The anime was basically asking me to care for characters with the personality of a pebble. I didn’t. And that’s bad because everyone is always CRYING! Speech? Crying. Reconcaliation? Crying. Dramatic backstory? Crying. Danger? Crying. Anything? Crying! I was rolling my eyes so often I almost gave myself a migraine.

Then the main story. First, the “smart one” (Zack) and the” hero complex turned captain” (Kanata) find out that there’s a traitor among them who was the cause behind the sphere. Then they do the logical thing and keep it to themselves and observe everyone with a close e- OF COURSE THEY DON’T DO THAT. They immediately tell everyone on the ship about it! There’s an uproar that lasts about 30 seconds then they all settle on the fact that they’re all companions and friends now UWU and they shouldn’t worry about it. Anyway, anyone with half a brain could narrow the potential suspect down to 3 characters. Luca, the DIY master and cheery one, Ulgar, the always brooding and mysterious one and Charce, the charming chef who doesn’t seem to have anything bad about him. Well, Luca and Ulgar have a show off on like the second or third planet where their backstories get unlocked and they can be crossed out from the list. Meaning, that you knew who the traitor was halfway through, making their reveal pretty lackluster.

But this all would’ve been fine, has it not been for the plot surrounding their “attempted murder”. Through everyone’s stories one thing becomes clear: they all had shitty parents (except for Aries). If I had known what the actual reason ends up being I’d have been screaming “NO this is good, this is an interesting concept!!!”. As we get a few scenes with the parents back home, this could’ve been so interesting. Maybe, they sent their kids they didn’t love to die and then someone regrets it and threatens to report it and then they have to stop them! THAT would’ve been great. The actual reason though, not only is ridiculous but comes from complete speculation. The 10-year-old with them, Funi is another member’s adopted little sister, the tsundere Quitterie’s. The 2 look literally the same. Same skin colour, hair colour, eye colour but somehow this didn’t peak Quitterie’s curiosity in the slightest as when Zack does a DNA test she is like “omg what if we’re actually related wow”. Except, Zack finds something else: the 2′s DNA are a complete match. So he reveals to them that they’re “the same person”. Interesting. Then he jumps about 1km forward and arrives to the conclusion that they are, in fact, ALL clones of their parents and as a law was passed tha made cloning illegal, it was the reason for wanting to kill them in deep space. Wha...

Ok...ok. Now we’re going into a weird territory but I can deal with this. Not a bad concept. Aight.

Except it doesn’t stop here. On their last planet, they find an astronaut who’s been in stasis after her ship broke down. When the team finds her and unfreezes her she is like “OMG I can finally go back to Earth!!!” and they’re like “...what’s Earth?”. Now this storyline was what completely broke me. They apparently live on a planet that looks very much like Earth, called Astra. Which is fun cause they named their ship Astra...and they acted like they didn’t know what it was? There was a plaque with the quote “Per aspera, ad Astra” in the ship (which I’m quite familiar with as it’s one of my favourite quotes). Then Kanata is like “Astra....I like that.” ISN’T THAT YOUR PLANET’S NAME??? Imagine naming your ship “Earth”, like????????

Khm, anyway, Polina, the astronaut, explains to them that an asteroid was supposed to crash into Earth and this is why they were looking for another planet to migrate to. Jump a little forward and we get the info that the sphere is actually a warp gate humanity used to move over to Astra, however there was war and crime and shit over land and they deactivated them. Then humanity was so ashamed that they “rolled back history” 100 years and erased that part from human history......and this somehow worked.....oh and they also abolished all countries and unified the whole planet and made everyone speak the same language. Oh, and they also banned guns...

Anyway, all this is kept secret by the only place they allowed to keep the Monarchy system which is where Charce is from and is how he knows all this. Then he goes and completely KO’s me with his final revelation that Aries is the clone of the daughter of the king??? And was being raised by one of her handmaidens??

Let me also finish this complain-fest off with the stupidest moment in the whole anime. Charce, after realising that he does actually want to be with his friends, activates the warp gate to commit suicide. Kanata jumps to him and he....he.....puts his arm out toward the warp gate and shouts “Stay back!” at it. Then when that OBVIOUSLY doesn’t work and his forearm gets sucked in Charce panicks and deactivates the gate, ripping Kanata’s right forearm off. This is all pretty hilarious in itself but then Kanata dramatically says to Charce “You promised to be my right hand man” as we get a shot of his bloody amputated right arm. [Key Smash]. I laughed for almost 5 minutes at that.

<spoilers end>

If you skipped all that here’s a short summary: can’t balance the drama and the humour, the humour is pretty bad, the characters all have 1 personality trait, the emotional moments don’t carry any weight, incredibly stupid and overcomplicated story with a lot of plot holes, predictable outcomes.

But for some reason people do like this anime. I’m guessing half of them are there for the cute waifus and the other half hasn’t seen actually good sci-fi comedy with drama (cough Cowboy Bebop cough) but whatever. Watch it, don’t watch it, this was more of me complaining than an actual review.

[3/10] (x)

Recommend: HELL Yeah! | Yes | Eh??? | Nope | This anime killed my parents

[nagatsukinura119]

Japan Expo Malaysia Day 2 (27 July 2019) Part 1

Note: This report needs to be split into 2 parts. Because it’ll be long. You’ll see why.

Alright, before the day started, I met up with an online friend (let’s just call her N) and we decided to watch some performances before AKB48’s arrival. I’ve promised to see KiREI again with Hanapii the day before so of course I’d see them again. I hoped they would remember me. From the start of their performance Hanapii had already noticed me and waved at me (man was I so happy that I vigorously waved at her). I got a lot of attention from them, especially from Hanapii and Mianyan. Their bright smiles, their waves, their nods, all of those, so many of those would make anyone fall for them. N, who was standing beside me got pretty excited too and she could see why I fell for them because their fanservice was so good! As I busied myself shifting between taking pictures, recording and waving at them, I realized the reason why they noticed and waved at me so much was because N, who was taller than me (well I’m a smol potato so pretty much everyone is taller than me lmao) waved at them and kept pointing at me and making peace signs at the back of my head lmaoooo. No wonder the girls were smiling so much! (Thanks N, love you so much for this). Side note is that I really, really loved Hanapii’s hairstyle for the 2nd day, she looked so adorable. Chori-chan’s hairstyle reminds me a lot of Takamina, with her long hair and the red ribbon. And Mianyan’s smile was so wide that I legit had to look away most of the time our eyes met hahahaha.

Time for the meet-and-greet. Once again I felt like I was the only girl who joined the line (actually I think there was one girl who wanted to join but after asking me how much each Cheki ticket and shirt and towel cost, she turned around. I couldn’t blame her though since I was intimidated by the price at first). When it was my turn to buy the tickets, I wanted to get the towel, but decided against it at the last minute lol, the man who was selling them seemed to remember me cuz he was very much more welcoming to me than the customers before me. When it came my turn, Hanapii was so happy she started bouncing while waving at me and calling my name three times (So. Darn. Cute! Also, here’s the thing, I still cannot get used to people calling me with a ‘Chan’ so it literally felt like getting arrowed on the heart). She even started to immediately pat my head (the perks of being smol I guess. Wait...) Unfortunately, that was too much for me to handle so I kinda leaned back a bit while giggling a lot. I hope that didn’t offend her or anything. I also told her that I couldn’t look at her in the eyes because the view was too blinding puhahahah! For the first round, she and I took a picture with a heart pose, and for the second round it was the pa! pose (where we opened both of our palms). While she was signing the polaroid pictures she opened the topic of Twitter. She mentioned that she saw my account (the night before she liked my reply on one of her posts! I just did not expect she’d be one to bring it up) and apparently, she looked at my profile and noticed that I make illustrations and comics. I was legit so very happy that I was blushing so much. I made a promise to her; I would draw them an illustration and comics for them. I thought she was already smiling hard enough but that made her grip my hand (when she wasn’t supposed to) and squealed. She also asked me if it was gonna be in Japanese, to which I said I’d do it in English too, since I make my illustrations and comics in both languages. She then patted my head while saying “Ah~ so smart” in English. I couldn’t help but think that she may own a dog cuz honestly if I had a tail it would be wagging vigorously. She then proceeded to say that she’ll look forward to it and I KNEW that I would make that illustration no matter what. It was time to go so I told her that I would come the next day, to which she said she’d look for me. My thought was like “You know where to look for me since I always attend at your concerts at the same spot” but I didn’t tell her that cuz I didn’t want to sound obnoxious. I went back to N, who was saving our spot and showed her the polaroid pictures and told her my experience and how I’ve really fallen for Hanapii (again) hahahah. So that was the end of KiREI’s experience in Day 2.

For the rest of time before AKB48’s arrival, N and I were thinking to get something to drink or eat, but since we didn’t want to lose our perfect spot, we just sat on the floor and waited lol. After KiREI, was a performance by Riona Hamamatsu, who was actually a former member of Team 8, like what are the odds, right??? She came in, and man was she pretty!

What I’m impressed the most about her is how successful she is after leaving AKB48, as according to Aki, she has done several concerts outside Japan. I was at first thought, “Is she good in English”, and THEN she started speaking in perfect English, without an accent which surprised me more, what more can this girl do?? So amazing! When I checked on her, turns out she was raised in Los Angeles until she was 10, which explained her fluency, and that her full name is Riona Crystal Hamamatsu. What I thought was “Well, she definitely has grown and became more successful after leaving AKB. Good for her!!” Her performance opened with her doing a solo dance, and following that were brilliant performances, as she sang some Japanese songs and one song in English. There was one point in her performance that she started throwing 3 colored balls with her signature on them, and to be honest, even though I wasn’t even her fan, I wanted one! Well as expected, she only threw them at the center part of the audience haha.

After Riona, it’s Sorgenti who was performed by brothers Mitsuhiro and Hiroshi, along with their two back dancers. What I loved about their performance and song is how they are a mixture of traditional music and J-pop, so there was a great amount of energy rushed into you and their songs were fun to chant along with. I joined in every one of their chants such as “Ou!” “Washoi!” and “Sore sore!” They were just that fun to follow along. Not to mention their own respective voices were beautiful and honey-like. So their concert was legit fun to attend and makes one very happy to be part of the audience. Furthermore, their smiles were very contagious too!

The next performer is Banzai Japan, which was an idol group where each member represents their individual prefectures from Japan, so there are 47 members in total, but for this event, there were only 7 performers. What I liked about this group was that they definitely were not afraid to get close to the audience since there were many times they’d stand, squat and dance so close to me and N (which very excited us by the way hahahah). Aside from that, their dances were fun and energetic too and there was one dance I legit wanted to dance along to.

Last but not least, the one right before AKB48, was DJ Hello Kitty. As her name implies, Hello Kitty donned her bling dress and started to play music to hype the audience as a DJ. Okay, here’s the thing, I knew that by now 99% of the audience was saving their voice and energy for AKB48’s arrival, but holy molly poor DJ Hello Kitty did not get much hype despite playing hype music (okay there were some parts when the audience did follow along but there wasn’t much). The atmosphere was low enough that the hosts (Aki and Austin) had to step up into the stage to rile up the audience. That worked at some level, but N and I still felt quite bad for DJ Hello Kitty, and I did not want her to feel unappreciated so I tried to follow along as much as I could. Honestly this taught me that to be a wota, you have to have high stamina as well as being quite fit in order to not get tired quickly (is this a call for me to start working out???).

Day 1 report is here! To be continued in Part 2!

Bonus picture:

(Hi! My flower!!!)

[avelera]

Hey i love the prisoners dilemma and i was just wondering what your writing process is ( as someone who stuggles to get words on the page)

*falls in a heap* right now anon I’m so behind on TPD that I don’t even know what my process is but first of all, thank you for your kind words. 

OK! But I actually love questions like this so I’m gonna give it a shot (I’m actually very excited, thank you for sending this!)

1) Get an idea. Think the idea is going to be short. It’s not short. I am roundly mocked for my hubris. 

ex 1. the seed idea for “The Only Way Out is Down” was that I wanted to combine Newt’s recovery with Dante’s Inferno (got it literally in the parking lot after seeing Uprising and to this day I don’t know what was up with my brain that day). I figured that would be done in 20k. I wasn’t even through the third circle of Hell (out of 9) in 20k.

ex 2.the seed idea for “How to Accidentally Become a Jaeger Pilot in 10 Easy Steps” was a thought I had while jogging of how funny it would be if Newt and Hermann actually had to do the stick sparring and accidentally became an incredibly effective Jaeger pilot duo, to Hermann’s euphoria and Newt’s everlasting shame.

ex 3. the idea for “Prisoners’ Dilemma” was basically “what if Newt wasn’t alone for the 10 years of his possession? What if Hermann was there, both as our audience surrogate to observe the situation but also as a potential source of salvation? what if it was really messed up but also really cute and domestic?” 

2) Each fic has a different process but generally, ideally, I write the first draft as quickly as I can all the way to the end, occasionally having alpha readers to offer encouragement if it’s a very long piece to get me through the slog and self doubt (I had SO MUCH self doubt about towoid, damn, I was convinced the story was self indulgent garbage pretty much the whole time). TPD that kinda broke down so it’s been slower going overall as I release chapters as they come. One reason I like to finish a story to the end before posting though is a) it gives more time to let the early chapters sit so I can edit them with fresh eyes and b) it allows me to “seed” things and set up foreshadowing for stuff I don’t get an idea for until I’ve written to the end. For example, the circle “Wrath” in TOWOID was re-written after I finished the first draft because I realized it needed tweaking to be brought in line with the overarching mystery of the story so the reader could actually *solve* it. 

3) I get beta readers. I also read the chapters about 100 more times myself, before and after it’s posted. I’m still editing months even years later. I basically re-read a section every time someone comments on it, because their comment allows me to see the story with new eyes. 

When it comes to defeating writers block, generally what I find is it’s a product of being too hard on oneself. Another reason to write the whole draft before posting is it allows me to not worry about the audience or let them in on the process until I’m certain myself about what I have to say, without fear of judgement or alteration for “fanservice”. Trying to change things to please fans is one of my biggest sources of writer’s block. There’s generally a reason I don’t do things a certain way. I also really need there to be conflict in a story or I get stalled out. If it’s just two people having a cup of tea agreeing on everything the other says, I don’t know how to direct the scene forward. Even just now while working on the next TPD chapter I realized I had stalled out because the characters agreed on something too early in the conversation and they needed to be in conflict for the conversation to progress to where it needed to go. 

Tip: One thing that’s helpful for breaking writers block is doing 15 minute short prompt fics. Just having something rough but DONE is a good way to remember that one is a writer and one CAN complete things. It also helps make writing feel less momentous, like every word needs to be perfect, which is in my experience the source of almost all writers block.

I also try to incorporate lessons from the writing workshops I’ve begun attending. Lately I’ve been working on:

- Make sure everything has a cause and effect. Even just thoughts the characters are having need to be prompted by something external, they can’t just realize things out of the blue, something needs to prompt the thought, otherwise the audience can’t follow or predict the action and it makes them frustrated. I still agonize over what are probably invisible plot holes in TOWOID where I feel like I didn’t adequately set up certain aspects of the story. For example, I still feel as if I never properly came up with the cause of the dive into Newt’s memories taking the form of Dante’s Inferno, at least not to my satisfaction, because the true Doylist answer was, “Because the author felt like it.”

- For TPD I’ve been throwing myself into making sure information isn’t known to different characters before they actually share it. An astute reader may notice that by ch. 6 of TPD, Hermann *still* doesn’t know that Alice is the brain in the jar. Why would he know that? It’s a bonkers thought that would never occur to Hermann, Newt is too embarrassed to tell him and the Precursors never would. So at this point, though the audience has outside knowledge of who “Alice” is, Hermann still believes she’s a human accomplice, perhaps someone at Shao. Similarly, the Precursors and Newt have a copy of Hermann in their minds, but it’s a copy from the day of the Drift, so they don’t know Hermann’s thoughts for the past year or two, they don’t have an echo of the Hermann who has been in love with and cohabited with Newt for that time. So, their map of Hermann is incomplete thus they can’t always predict his actions and that drives them nuts. I could go on but that would be spoilers. Suffice to say, I’m doing my damndest to give each character distinct knowledge and a distinct mental map of how they operate, which can be a bit migraine inducing for the author at times lol. 

- Describing facial expressions with specifics. This is a critique I got at my last workshop, that I was falling into the fanfic trap of describing things like, “Something indescribable happened to his face.” It’s not indescribable, damnit, describe it! You’re the author! We can only see the world as you show it because it’s all squiggles on a page! When you use that turn of phrase, you’re making the reader do your job of showing how things look AND you’re missing an opportunity to give your characters strong, unique visual details. 

Anyway, I hoped this answered your questions somewhere in this mess!

[basketcase789]

Mistaken II

“Sometimes life has a cruel sense of humor, giving you the thing you always wanted at the worst time possible.” - Lisa Kleypas

Group: Seventeen Member: Woozi (feat. others) Genre: soulmate au, angst, fluff Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

You blew warm breath into your hands and rubbed them together, using the friction to feel just a little bit warmer. It was sunny, but the mid-morning autumn air in Seoul was crisp, and you shivered.

You were the only one your own age waiting in line for the fanmeet, you’d quickly noticed. Everyone else was either much younger than you, or their parents accompanying them. You tried your best to ignore the side-eyes directed your way; you were well aware not many people over the age of twenty-one were interested in groups as young as Seventeen. After all, a lot of their appeal was the potential for being a young fan’s soulmate. It was basically every fan’s dream, and you couldn’t exactly blame them since you considered yourself a dreamer, too. But after fans had their revelation dream, that appeal of being their bias’ soulmate was gone and they moved on with their lives.

That wasn’t to say these groups didn’t have older fans. They were just more interested in the music itself, rather than participating in fan events like these. You being here was pretty out of the ordinary.

Seating was assigned by ticket, so you didn’t have to wait long in line before the doors opened and everyone started moving forward, causing everyone to cheer, and your heart to speed up in your chest.

You’d spent all morning daydreaming about how the fanmeet would go. How close would your seat be to the stage? Your ticket showed you’d be in a seat 103, so you didn’t set your hopes too high of being in the front row. As long as you were able to see the boys’ faces clearly you’d be happy. Would you be lucky enough to go up on stage and play a game with all the members who you’d come to care about so dearly? It had been two years since you had your revelation dream, after all, and in that time you’d been following Seventeen closely with each comeback. Saying all the boys had grown on you would be an understatement.

But most importantly, would you get the chance to come face-to-face with Jihoon, and possibly confess your feelings?

If not today, you’d obviously meet him again someday - perhaps later on, after he had his dream and knew you were his soulmate, too. You just thought now would be a cute story to look back on later in life, and it would be interesting to see what his first impression was of you before he knew you were soulmates. Your bond desperately wanted him to like you, and you had to fight to keep your racing heartbeat steady.

You rubbed your hands together again, but this time it wasn’t due to the cold.

You were let inside the venue, and a staff member directed you to the best entrance based on your seat number. You wandered up the main aisle, your eyes widening with each row you passed and the closer you got to the stage. You stopped in front of your row, and double and triple checked your ticket. You hadn’t made a mistake. Your seat was in the third row from the stage. You didn’t have a good view, you had a great view, you realized as you took off your jacket and sat down.

Maybe luck was on your side today, and the thought brought a smile to your lips. Perhaps your friend had been right about everything all along; things did seem to be falling neatly into place. As seats were filling up and the venue grew louder with excited chatter you couldn’t seem to stop smiling. You still couldn’t believe you’d come all this way and were actually here, about to see your soulmate in person. You found yourself feeling bashful, and tried to hide your smile with a hand over your mouth.

The audience cheered and screamed as the boys suddenly filed onto the stage, but once you spotted Jihoon among them it was as if everything went silent, calm. His smiling face filled you with a warmth you’d never experienced before. He was so… perfect to you. When your eyes landed on him it was as if you were the only person there in the audience. For a moment it felt like everything was right.

They started off the fanmeet by performing the title track off their newest album. You stood up with the audience, a couple thousand fans at least, and cheered them on. You naturally couldn’t take your eyes off Jihoon while he danced and sang, despite wanting to give the others some attention, too. Watching him dance in person reminded you of your revelation dream from a few years ago, and you couldn’t help but watch fondly thinking about how his dancing had somehow improved even more since their debut days.

After their performance they each introduced themselves one by one and thanked everyone for coming. Meanwhile, staff set out chairs for them so they could take a breather and start their Q&A with the MC.

You were grateful that you’d taken the time to learn Korean, otherwise you would have been completely lost right now. Twenty minutes of laughter and fanservice passed by much too quickly for your liking, and then the boys performed a few more songs, to your delight.

Finally came the games.

Fans were chosen at random by seat numbers to go up on the stage with the boys. Although you weren’t chosen for the first game, you kept your hopes up. There would be plenty more chances. Besides... although you were happy with just the chance to see Jihoon’s face, the universe wouldn’t let you come all this way without getting to meet him one-on-one… would it?

You tried to enjoy the games and not be too jealous of the fans that already got to interact with the boys, while you waited patiently for your turn.

“Now it’s time for the last game,” the MC said, and the crowd whined.

You stared down at your ticket as the MC rhymed off the seat numbers for the final game... but your number was never called. You slumped in your seat, but didn’t have much time to wonder what went wrong when the MC spoke again.

“Make sure you stick around for the end of the game! Fifty lucky fans will get to participate in a surprise fansigning afterward, and receive a complimentary album.”

That perked you back up. This would be your final chance to meet Jihoon today.

After the last game, the Seventeen members gave a heartfelt goodbye, once again thanking everyone for coming, and went backstage, leaving the MC alone.

“After we announce who’s chosen for the fansigning, we ask everyone to exit the venue. Those chosen for the fansigning will be re-admitted inside after staff confirms with their ticket.”

The list of seat numbers was projected onto the screen for everyone to see. You carefully read through each one, your heart dropping the closer you got to the bottom and the more cheers you heard by fans who’d been selected. Your palms began to sweat.

You reached the last seat number and sighed with relief. It was yours.

You didn’t miss the girl sitting to your left glaring at you after reading through the list, but you chose to ignore her as you got up to leave.

Fifteen minutes later you were back inside the venue, the only real difference being the panel of empty tables set up in a neat line across the stage. You and the other chosen fans, with brand new albums in hand for signing, queued up below the stage. You weren’t at the very front of the line, so you had some time to think about what you wanted to say once you got to Jihoon.

Reality finally settled in, and you bit your bottom lip nervously. You would have all of Jihoon’s attention, if only for a minute. Your bond desperately wanted you to let him know you were his soulmate, but you also wanted to come off as cool, casual. You couldn’t say for sure which side of you was going to win.

The boys came back onto the stage amidst cheers from the fans. You gulped, unable to make a sound. Jihoon sat down next to Joshua at the very end of the panel, so you would be seeing him last. Hopefully that would mean less people overhearing your conversation - you wanted to be discreet after all.

The line moved quickly; these fansignings were understandably short, otherwise they could get out of hand and easily drag into an all day event. As you approached closer to the stage, you realized a pair of girls behind you were talking about you.

“What’s an older fan like her doing here? Her spot could have been given to a younger fan, how sad.”

“Shouldn’t she be off somewhere with her soulmate?”

Judging by the fact that they didn’t bother to lower their voices, they must have assumed you couldn’t understand Korean. Was you being one of the members’ soulmates such a far-fetched idea to them? Your cheeks burned as you tried to ignore them. As an older fan you’d expected something like this to happen, but it still bothered you.

Only a few people separated you from the front of the line, now, and you could hear bits and pieces of the conversations fans were having with the members.

“Vernon, I think we’re soulmates!”

“Ah, yes, I think so too,” he said with a wink. “I’m sure I’ve dreamed about you before.”

The girl giggled in reply.

They were both clearly too young to have had their revelation dreams. Somehow the thought had never occurred to you before - how many times in a day did these boys get told they were someone’s soulmate? Confessed to? Judging by what you were overhearing, quite often.

Jihoon was never going to believe you.

You stepped up to the stage and Seungkwan, Vernon, and Dino were the first ones to sign your album. You told each of them variations of how much of a fan you were, and how talented you thought they were. You lost track of the order you met the boys in after that. They were all very sweet, but you still had to physically restrain yourself from peeking down at Jihoon the closer you got to him, feeling it would be rude to the others.

When you reached Joshua you allowed yourself to finally steal a glance at Jihoon sitting beside him. You’d just caught the end of him doing some aegyo for the fan in front of you. You were so close now, and your heart started to pound in your chest.

“You look a little nervous,” Joshua said, drawing your attention back to him with a kind smile. “First time at a fansigning?”

“Yes, it is,” you admitted, although that wasn’t the reason you were anxious. Not the reason at all.

He signed your album and handed it back to you. “Well, I hope you’ve still had a good time here today.”

You thanked him and proceeded on to Jihoon, as the girl in front of you stepped down from the stage. You gripped your album tightly, heart pounding, until you knew Jihoon was ready for you. He glanced up at you with a bright smile, and your eyes met. You were afraid you were going to melt into a puddle right there. Realizing you were staring and taking too long to hand him the album, you propelled it forward and it slipped from your hands, dropping to the table with a loud clatter.

“I’m so sorry,” you said. “I didn’t mean to do that, I’m just a little flustered I guess.”

He let out a little chuckle as he opened up the album. “Why’s that?”

“You wouldn’t believe me…” You’d been watching him closely for any kind of sign that he felt your bond, a spark, anything… but found nothing besides a polite smile.

“Try me.”

“Okay.” You took a deep breath. “We’re soulmates,” you blurted. You had a chance and you decided to take it, watching carefully for his reaction.

“Ahh… well I already knew that.”

“You did?” You blinked at him. How could he possibly know? He hadn’t had his dream yet.

“M-hmm~” You watched him sign your album with graceful fingers.

He was just playing along, you realized, and you felt your bond take control of you. “No, I’m really your soulmate. I’ve had my dream and everything, two years ago I saw you in your dance studio you have to believe me Jihoon-”

You jumped slightly as he closed your album with a thud and pushed it toward you. His smile from a moment earlier had disappeared. “I don’t know you well enough for you to call me that. Whatever it is that you think… you’re mistaken.”

Your hands trembled.

I think you’re mistaken… do I know you?

The words spoken by your ex rang in your head, from the time you passed him in the street and he’d turned his back on you like he never knew you. He’d lied to you, taken advantage of you. You let him see the deepest, most intimate parts of you, and after he’d had his fun he left you. And it was the last time you ever saw him.

Why was your soulmate saying the exact same thing? How could Jihoon not feel what you were feeling? How could he not know?

“Jihoon…” you thought you heard Joshua say from beside him. He’d likely overheard part of your conversation.

You knew your time was up. Your body was on autopilot as you reached out and picked your album up off the table. You couldn’t look Jihoon in the face. I don’t know you…

A stabbing pain in your chest brought tears to the corner of your eyes. You took a quick step back without looking, clutching your album close, and spun around to hurry down the stairs. You didn’t want anyone to see the emotions you were sure would be showing raw on your face. You didn’t want to have a breakdown here in front of all these people, you just needed to leave as fast as you could.

You missed a step and slipped, crashing to the floor at the bottom of the stage and landing hard on your right ankle. You winced in pain and clutched your leg as your album slid a few feet away from you, amidst gasps from a few people who’d been standing at the right angle to witness your fall.

Quickly, before anyone could help you, you grabbed your album up off the floor and stood, gritting your teeth and hurrying toward the exit without looking back. Your leg, and your heart, throbbed with each step.

You reached the outdoors and were greeted by a gust of frigid air. You remembered it being freezing outside earlier, but it was nothing now compared to the ice you felt in your chest.

You pulled out your phone, limping along the sidewalk as you messaged your best friend.

Things didn’t go well… heading to the airport shortly, was all you said.

[applicarobo]

Applica’s Winter 2018 In Anime

Another anime season over (for me), and since I've reached a point in my life over the last two years or so where I started watching anime as it came out, I think I'm now qualified enough to start writing about these things. I hope, at least. Kind of wish I started doing these things earlier, but what can you do.

So, without further ado, here is my Winter 2018 in anime.

Ms. Koizumi Loves Ramen Noodles

Recommended if you like: Anime where food is the focus and the characters aren't, Ramen.

I figure it may be best for me to start with the things I enjoyed the least, and move forwards from there. So, as you'll notice, Ra-Ra-Ra-Ramen Daisuki Koizumi-San is the first on the list. It's a simple anime about a girl named Koizumi-san(sic), who eats Ramen multiple times on the daily, and introduces many of her fellow classmates to various types and styles of ramen. In truth, it's actually an anime about ramen, not about Koizumi herself.

And, were that the only thing that mattered, this anime would've done a great job. It serves to be heavily educational about ramen, it's history, and most importantly, how many different varieties of it there actually are and how different those varieties are from each other. The depiction of the ramen is very high quality, and should be considered the draw of the show.

The problem is, that alone is boring. And it therefore relies on its characters to keep things interesting, unfortunately. Koizumi is plain, and prefers to keep away from others (in orderto continue enjoying ramen). As a result, she's rather one dimensional as a character. The anime's main character, if it has one aside from ramen, is actually Yuu, a plucky, short-haired, lesbian. Normally, I'd applaud such a character, but of course she relies heavily enough on yandere tropes to be a consistent stalker of Koizumi, but endlessly positive enough to not be dangerous to anyone. This means she's less of a character, and more of a device to have her end up following Koizumi into a ramen shop, having Koizumi sigh as she sits down next to her, informing her uneducated mind about how good this ramen is.

And that's it. That's mainly how every segment of the show works. Yuu follows Koizumi to a ramen shop, Koizumi sighs and wishes she'd go away as they both order ramen, and then they talk about the ramen for a few minutes. There's a few other characters, a few other ways that scenes play out, but none of them are interesting enough to talk about.

Some solace can at least be taken from the fact that the little ditty they play between segments of the show is very, very catchy. In addition to that, both the opening and ending themes of the show are wildly good jams. The ED especially incorporates both ramen puns and parodies of popular Japanese ramen commercials that I normally wouldn't get. It's so good that I don't even mind the fact that I enjoy a song who's title is LOVE MEN HOLIC.

Speaking of jam openings and endings, though, that was pretty much the case this whole season, for me. Nothing I watched really had anything I really wanted to skip, ever, at the very least. Although some openings certainly were better than others. And next is...

Kokkoku

Recommended if you like: Seeing where ideas can go as long as you're okay with them not panning out, every single episode of Paranoia Agent.

That OP. That sweet, sweet OP. A complete banger, and no doubt about it. The ED is great, too, if you ignore half of the visuals.

Yeah, I'm calling Kokkoku out. I'm not expecting you to be a bastion of pureness, Kokkoku, but whoever just storyboarded random fanservice images of the two lead female characters into your show 's ED just needs to be... demoted, or something. However that works. It's especially odd because the show itself doesn't really have any of that, specifically. (It does however contain a couple of instances of villainous gang members joking about sexual assault, which is never really a welcome thing to hear even if it is coming from villains.) The rest of that ED is fine, though, with the music being nice and the images of the characters that look like still images, only to have the characters move while the rest of the scenery stays frozen around them. Did I mention this is an anime about time being frozen? I should probably go over the scenario.

It opens on a family, of which the only members you need to pay attention to are Juri, her grandfather, her father, her brother and her young nephew. Juri and her grandfather complain about how useless the brother and father are while the brother and nephew get kidnapped on their way home. Grandpa gets a ransom call demanding money in a short period of time, and then he whips out his secret magic time stone, freezing time for everyone except himself, his son, and Juri, as they go off to rescue their family members, leaving the kidnappers none the wiser.

Except that the kidnappers planned for this and froze time at the exact same time, joining the family members in the frozen world known as Stasis, hoping to wipe them out and steal their magic time stone from them. In the middle of Stasis are some magical time monsters that only show up when someone wants to kill someone who is frozen in time. Except they really only become a minor footnote, and for the most part the conflict revolves around the family and the kidnappers. Oh, and some of the people on both sides also get magical powers they can only use when time is stopped.

The problem is that I hardly find this conflict interesting. For most of the twelve episodes, the Stasis thing really only exists to create an environment in which these parties can fight without incurring normal societal penalties, and with a method for them to show off some cool visual scenarios (many of which involve liquids). There's only a couple moments where the fact that time is stopped leads them to invoke creative solutions as a result of this, and most of the other things about time being stopped revolve around arbitrary rules or limitations of the Stasis environment.

Most of the characters are decently written and likable, at least. The five members of the Yukawa family, as well as a few other people who are wrapped up in Stasis, are fun and interesting enough to carry the plot of the show where it would've otherwise failed for me. That, along with the occasional visual spectacle. The conflict, and the central villain, are really just kind of awful. Awful in the "badly written" sort of way, and I do feel that the central villain's writing is bad enough to drag down the show's likability at least a full octave. It's that bad.

I will, however, give an enormous shout out to the show's final episode, which offered a new scenario of conflict (although one which had "been coming" for a few episodes before it.) For me, it was far and away the series' most memorable episode, and really left things on a good note. It's... hard to explain without spoiling it, but simple enough that I think someone could actually just drop in on the final episode of the series, understand enough of what is going on to enjoy it, and then finish the series (of one episode) satisfied. In fact, if you do show interest in a story about the world being frozen in time, I personally recommend that's what you do, because that one episode is actually very good.

Hakumei and Mikochi

Recommended if you like: Girls' Last Tour, Yuru Camp△, Mushishi???

And from an anime about a tense invisible conflict happening in a small span of time, we move to an anime about some generally regular things happening in a very small world. A tiny little life, as you'd say.

Hakumei and Mikochi is an anime about the aforementioned girls, who came to live together in small society for reasons we don't actually know. (I'm going to imagine that they're probably gay, but, that's not really the focus here. [although it does joke about them being a couple a couple of times and neither of them actually denies it haha im gay]). When I say "in small society," I mean that neither of these girls are particularly out of the ordinary in their world despite being shorter than the length of my hand. That's really the only major difference between our world and theirs, aside from a scaling back of technology and the fact that animals talk. Yeah, several of the side characters are animals.

Still, despite the fact that this is a comfy slice of life taking place in an otherwise normal world there are a number of fantastical things that can happen. While one episode may focus on the two of them taking a train to a fishing trip or spending a day on the town, another has them meeting with an equally small scientist who is in the business of animating the bones of dead creatures, or helping resolve a lawless gang dispute that involves the kidnapping of their friend. And despite these differences, each episode remains highly serene and comfortably lovable.

Whereas I feel Kokkoku rarely made the most of its setting (interjecting to contrast here that Hakumei and Mikochi might have the most forgettable OP of what I watched this season, unfortunately), Hakumei and Mikochi makes the most of it. The two live in a tree, (for a while, which, they don't even realise there are neighbourly animals living in the branches), eat entire meals that would normally be a morsel for us, make unique interactions with animals, or use small materials in completely new ways. Each episode is calm, comforting, and full of love, and I really wish I could be there.

Yuru Camp△

Recommended if you like: Non Non Biyori, K-On!, being warm, girls

But... There's still more comfort to be had. If Hakumei and Mikochi made a handful of people want to live in their tiny world, Yuru Camp△ (triangle will now be exempted from the rest of this article, you've done your work, sorry △ purists) made a whole ton of people really, really want to go camping right now. I suppose that's largely because it's a much more achievable goal, but it's also in no small part because Yuru Camp was exceedingly popular this season.

And I'm glad it is, too, because it certainly deserves it. I described it after only a couple episodes as "The best Manga Time Kirara anime since K-On!" (and yes, that includes Yuyushiki) and I'm glad that I was correct. I'm sort of feeling like I don't need to write a plot summary mainly because everyone should know what it is by now, but I'll take a crack at it anyway.

Rin, a quiet girl who loves camping alone, is doing so one day when she meets a girl sleeping outdoors near the bathroom. Nadeshiko, a boisterous, joyful and carefree girl, biked all the way out here, and since she fell asleep it's getting too dark to bike back home. Rin, not knowing what to do, lets her hang out at her campsite while she waits for her sister to arrive, and feeds her one of her noodle cups.

Nadeshiko is so taken by the experience that she joins a camping club at her school, and is also excited to find that Rin is also at the school, though not in the club. Over the course of the anime, Rin learns to make more friends and enjoy the things that her chance meeting with Nadeshiko has brought to her life. Such as Nadeshiko.

And that's it! But it's not really the plot, but the comfort that makes the show as good as it is. Aside from the beautiful scenery, the Jackson 5 "I Want You Back"-esque OP, and the extremely enticing depiction of camping, the relaxing atmosphere and constant comfort that the characters enjoy is really the draw. It's really hard to describe it with words, but the viewers can just share in Rin's calm, comforting bliss as she spends time both alone and with others. What could be more enjoyable than that?

A Place Further Than The Universe

Recommended if you like: Life.

And yet, while it's good when animes are just purely comforting, sometimes you need to remember how real things can be before we can enjoy those other moments. Enter Antarctica.

Antarctica is a girl named Shirase at Mari's school who is obsessed with going to Antarctica and therefore a bunch of people who go to Mari's school have nicknamed her that. When Mari decides that she wants to do something amazing with her life, she runs into Shirase, who has a million yen and half a plan to board a research boat on its way to the continent in order to meet her missing mother. The two attempt to execute their plan, and, thanks to a stroke of luck, join with another two girls as part of the research team who will board that same vessel.

The real story is in those ups and downs, the really real emotions of our main characters and some of those around them. It is somewhat worth noting that despite being a show about girls who plan to go to Antarctica for various reasons, and they move closer and closer to their goal each episode, it's more about the people on the journey than the journey itself.

Most of the episodes are about them as individuals, talking about the problems in their lives and finding ways to accept them. These problems are more often than not heartbreaking, and I'll just say this right now: I cried hard at least three times because of this show. Maybe more.

And yet, for every dip, there is a resurfacing, and as sad as the show can get, the uplifting moments rise above the rest and really, really, make you feel love, and make you feel alive. And that's why I think A Place Further than the Universe is undoubtedly the best anime I've watched this season.

That should cover everything I watched this season, I think.

Right?

Pop Team Epic

Recommended if you like: Hell, video game references, nonsense, antihumour, art

Does this really count? I don't know if this anime counts in this list. I probably liked it more than Kokkoku, at the very least, and that one wasn't that bad. Still, it's so... Insanely hard to define Pop Team Epic. It's a bit show, I guess? Like, it's jokes. But it isn't even traditional jokes. It's just nonsense that's funny because it is and that's all you can really say about it. Sure, there's pop culture references, they're abundant. Sure, there's slapstick moments and parodies. Lots. But that's not even the meat of the show.

The majority of the jokes are simply because of the pure nonsense that happens, most noticeably in the (completely unchecked by the central production office) “Bobunemimimmi” segments where the characters are parodies of themselves and the jokes are sometimes completely nothing and yet are still funny. One of the most quotable bits from the show among my friends has been "Eisai Haramasukoi" which is literally just nonsense words. It means nothing. But it's so fun to say.

The bits in this show can be so obscurely humourous that sometimes just an unexpected change in the production value or the medium itself can qualify as a joke, often impressively so. Sometimes the joke isn't even a segment, but rather, how that segment even came to be placed in the show in the first place. The show airs the same half-length segments twice a week, but with different voice actors each airing and each week. Sometimes, the second airing changes some of the jokes, and sometimes it doesn't. Somehow, it tricked me into watching the same episode twice each week, and yet it never got boring. Pop Team Epic is a work of art that's sometimes so horribly ugly that it's hard to define it as so, and yet, it is. It just is.

It's definitely still not better than going to Antarctica, though.

[suzunofuu]

Beware of the long post. I’m going to talk “briefly” about what’s wrong with how Inazuma Eleven treats its narrative and characters.

Look, one of the problems with how they treat characters is that they don't know how to develop them without giving them several minutes of screen time and long monologues.

Subtlety is essential when you have these many characters. It's not impossible to introduce everyone and tell everyone's stories, you just have to focus on what you want to tell first and who's gonna grow at which time and, most importantly, stop being afraid of spending more than two episodes treating someone's topic.

Not everyone's issues can be treated at once, and not everyone can have an issue all the time. That's why I think the aliea arch did a good job at representing many characters' growth and their outcomes: you have a brief presentation of the character, the character does something that's related to their purpose, they start to act in consequence of their need to achieve aforesaid purpose, and have an outcome when they reach it or can't reach it. All of this doesn't happen in one episode, it stretches during the whole season in a way everyone has space to go through these steps. And it works really well. (I said 'purpose' but I mean their plot's “finish line”. I mean their story as a whole.)

This arch also shows the main problem with IE. You present two characters with much potential like are Nagumo and Suzuno (check how I'm going to keep mentioning the ones I love the most during the whole post) as a big threat/big deal, yet they literally disappear after the chaos match? Like, literally. Gemini Storm and Epsilon are mentioned during the season and reappear in the third. Nagumo and Suzuno do reappear too, but it means nothing to the story.

I already talked about it on another post, how unsustainable it is Midorikawa and Hiroto's appearance in third season, how it is not coherent that everyone is okay with having them around as if they hadn't destroyed schools and people's lives. Ignoring this (which I fucking CAN'T), and ignoring the fact they are mere stand arounds, they contribute to the story. Poorly, but they do. If you suddenly saw your ex-team mate who you were going to dominate the world with at the final match of an important tournament, you'd expect that to be a good subplot to develop during the four damn episodes they dedicated to the match. But, no. “Oh, wow, our ex-mates, damn! How can it be possible for them to still exist if we didn't even think about their whereabouts when the academy was destroyed? Oh, the match is over, we aren't going to talk to them. It's not like we have issues to discuss.” Of course.

It's obvious that not every character can have a full development. They fight against a lot of teams all the time, if they had to give everyone a good backstory or time to show us that backstory this would become a Detective Conan 2.0: neverending. But the characters of the main team deserve that treatment, even if they're not the main three. And so do their potential enemies, those that the season focuses on.

What am I trying to say with all this?

Don't throw in characters “a lo loco” without repairing in who they are besides a forward, midfielder or a kid with an attitude. The essence of the show is already there, we all feel the passion for football and the power of friendship. You really don't have to keep reinforcing those ideas.

Please learn to be subtle. The audience isn't stupid. Kids aren't stupid. You don't have to be stilted, but don't be obvious. It'll make the show poor and too easy to watch and understand. (Note: if you're introducing difficult concepts, tho, like the goddamn time travel, DO SPEND some time explaining how that works. This is a kid's show, after all. They're not scientists.)

Quit the fanservice already, and if you're doing it, do it right. I'm not talking about introducing pretty boys that they know will be liked, or having x and y interact just because (which actually works because they are a team and have to talk to everyone in it). I'm referring to when they see that a character works and is loved, and they keep making them come back to the show without a purpose or a purpose so weak they leave three episodes later. This isn't about when they team up with x ex friend so they can help them grow, no. What doesn't work is having Fubuki as a main character the whole second season and putting him around in the third because “oh, he's a strong boy, we all love him, he's not going to be relevant at all but hey, here, see him in the background, he looks pretty.” ????? No.

Stop the flashbacks. They don't work. They don't have a reason to be there. At first they didn't use them much and only ever did when they were needed, but somehow they've become essential to the narrative? One thing is how you structure the different scenes and another is flashbacking the whole damn time to explain things that wouldn't have needed explanation if you told the story lineally. Example: in Chrono Stone, when they go to the museum and Tenma has a flashback of how the bear told them how they were going to infiltrate in it. That's an absurd and stupid way to use flashbacks. Fubuki remembering the avalanche that killed their family because he heard a loud sound IS an acceptable way of doing so.

They want the general story to develop, and the general story follows Endou, Kidou and Gouenji (in the original) and for their story to flow they need several screen time minutes and long dialogues. That's poor. That's so very poor. Showing someone's reaction to an event is enough to know how they are feeling and to understand their future actions. Use this for the smaller characters while the others take all the screen time, if you want. But there's ways and ways to talk about everyone and not make it feel rushed.

What happens in IEGO is that they get distracted with the situation the character’s are in instea of telling their stories. It’s more important that fifth sector controls soccer than the characters’ reactions to soccer being controlled. (In this season it doesn’t show much, but with chrono stone and galaxy it becomes super absurd.) Also, IEGO (and you’ll have to forgive me for saying this but it’s the impression it gave me) wants to include the characters of the originals with such intent that they lose all focus on anyone at all. I think they wanted to talk about them so much they forgot they actually had new characters and stories. I won’t ever complain that I get to see them as adults but, please, if you’re introducing them at least give them a purpose? Don’t have them show around just because you want to prove they’re alive and how they’ve phisically changed.

Examples of good treatment of the characters: I'm always going to defend ie originals because they started (narratively) very well. They didn't rush into it. They gave space for the characters to find their way into Raimon and, consequently, into the main plot. Fubuki in season 2, my best and most abvious example. We didn’t know anything about him, but he wormed his way into the plot, slowly, evidencing his trauma and desires at the right moments. Hiroto, too. He appeared briefly in one episode, and from them we started to see him more and more, learning about his purposes, getting to know who he is, until they finally fought aginst him and discovered the pile of trash the poor kid and his mates had to carry on their shoulders.

Example of subtlety: Kurimatsu left the team after Kazemaru did, discouraged by learning they still had to keep fighting and that his friends couldn't bear with the situation anymore. He didn't have much screen time (except when he "sees" Kazemaru on the field when he's not actually there, and I would have cut that part because his conflict already worked without needing to exteriorize it that much) but you could tell he was struggling due to Kazemaru's departure. When he left, you already knew he was going to, and you hadn't needed a full episode to explain it: focusing on his expression while everything happened was enough.

Example of rushing into presenting a character: Kariya. They throw him in the team in one episode, pisses Kirino off, we see a brief flashback of him kicking a football in the next episode and suddenly he being a nuisance and a total arse to Kirino can be forgotten and forgiven. Makes sense? No. He had great potential and they wasted it.

Example of characters with great potential that got lost within the main plot: Hakuryuu and Shuu. What's more interesting for a film, seeing some kids train the same way they constantly do in the show, or see the backstories of two new characters that, well, have had it difficult in life? One is a spirit or ghost or whatever who had his sister be sacrificed and the other has been brutally abused so he would become strong. Yet seeing Shindou flop off a giant leaf to a river is more interesting. Shuu and Hakuryuu were better off not existing than existing for no reason. I like them so much and they were mistreated so badly.

One last note: the dialogues don't have to be explanatory of what's happening in the scene. They can be, but if you can avoid it, goddamn avoid it. Audiovisual media's strong point is that it can tell stories without the need of words. Take advantage of that. Use it to reinforce someone's backstory or actual mind state. “I'm so sad Gouenji-kun my family is dead”... this is raw and totally unbelievable. When you have trauma you don't go throwing it around the way you talk about how much you love your dog. You want to talk about it, but do so in a subtler way. It works best because it adds reality to the way the characters work, it's understandable for the audience, and it doesn't make the dialogues suck.

And one last LAST note: treat the girls better. For fuck's sake, treat the girls better. You reach a huge audience that includes young women and all you're showing them is that they are weak and only have a place in football as managers. I'll quote Megane (who I despise to unbearable levels): "it's a girl's team, they'll be easy to defeat!" What the fuck. What the fucking fuck. Fortunately the girls prove them wrong. And fortunately Touko exists, who is not the same stereotype as the other girls. And fortunately Haruna has a different behavior than the others. And fortunately Ulvida kick's everyone's asses, and Rika is a girl of color, and Midori is quite manly, etc. But besides that? Girly girls doing girly things and posing in a girly way and being weaker than the boys. NO. I want one of them to smash Gouenji into the fucking ground and beat the shit out of his big ego. I love him, but he can't be indestructible.

That's all I got to say as of now.

[osakaso5]

Ryunosuke Tsunashi 12 SONGS GIFT Rabbit Chat Part 3: Tell Us, All Stars! 1

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 4 | Part 5

Gaku: Ryu, happy birthday!

Tenn: Happy birthday, Ryu.

Momo: (* ’ U ^)ノ+。*∞ Happy Birth Day ∞*。+\(^ U ’ *)

Tamaki: Ryu-aniki, hbd!

Mitsuki: Tsunashi-san, happy birthday!

Iori: Tsunashi-san, happy birthday. I hope that we can continue to rely upon your mentorship.

Nagi: Happy birthday, Tsunashi-shi!

Yamato: Tsunashi-san, happy birthday

Riku: Tsunashi-san, happy birthday!

Kaoru: Happy birthday, Ryu. I look forward to your  12 SONGS GIFT solo live later.

Sogo: Tsunashi-san, happy birthday. I look forward to continuing to work with you.

Rinto: Thank you for the invitation. Happy birthday.

Banri: Happy birthday, Ryunosuke-kun.

Yuki: Happy birthday, Ryunosuke-kun.

Ryunosuke: Thank you!

Kaoru: Thank you all for gathering to celebrate Ryunosuke. Takanashi-san, since you're good at directing these sort of things, may I leave TRIGGER's last member up to you, too?

Tsumugi: Alright!

Gaku: Ryu, what kind of solo song did you decide on?

Ryunosuke: A great one! I'm sure you'll like it, too!

Tenn: I heard the title from Anesagi-san just earlier. "my 10plate", right?

Momo: I wonder  what kind of song it is! I can't wait for your solo, Ryu-chan!

Ryunosuke: Thank you! Once everyone's solo songs have been released, let's all have a karaoke gathering to sing them!

Mitsuki: Great idea! After we've sang our own songs, let's do a second round with the songs switched up!

Tenn: At 24 songs to sing, that's already bit of a concert setlist.

Yamato: You guys must be real hard workers, to want to do a mock live in your free time.

Riku: That sounds fun! I definitely wanna do it!

Tamaki: Since they'll all be released by Yukirin's birthday, let's make it a Christmas party!

Yuki: A 4-hour karaoke course right after my release event, huh ^^

Iori: Why don't we make it an end-of-year party?

Nagi: Sorry. During the end of the year, the anime world is busy enough to make even the most serene of monks to fret.

Sogo: Won't we all be busy then? Why not make it a New Year's party?

Kaoru: Why not just make it a concert, so all that singing doesn't go to waste? I'll try to get the project started.

Rinto: Exactly! Let's find a sponsor to pay for the whole ordeal!

Riku: Work is fine, but I want to have fun in private, too!

Ryunosuke: A private party would be nice! It'll be a different kind of fun from our concerts! Which would you prefer, Tsumugi-chan?

Choices/outcomes:

1. We might as well make it a concert!

Ryunosuke: Your live productions are cool, after all! I bet it'd be fun to sing in front of the fans with all of us.

2. I want it to be a private party!

Ryunosuke: Those kind of hangouts are more fun, sometimes! I'd like to sing with everyone until we're completely tired out!

3. I'll leave it up for all of you to decide!

Ryunosuke: You always put  us first, don't you. Thank you! I hope we choose whichever choice will be the most fun.

Gaku: Oh well, I don't think it's realistic for us to already make plans for next year. Let's do the usual.

Tsumugi: Well then, Tsunashi-san! Is there anything you want to ask everyone?

Ryunosuke: I have something thought up! Here it is!

Ryunosuke: If none of us were idols, how would we have met?

Gaku: What do you mean?

Ryunosuke: You know how I ended up becoming an idol kind of out of nowhere, right? Or at the very least, I never imagined I'd be one.

Ryunosuke: Because of that, I sometimes wonder what I'd be doing if I wasn't an idol, but I'm also pretty sure I wouldn't have met all of you if it wasn't for this job.

Tenn: So you want to know how we would've met you, if we weren't in this line of work?

Ryunosuke: Yeah! Basically! I'd be happy to hear your answers!

Tsumugi: "How you would have met Tsunashi-san if you weren't in this line of work", it is! Okazaki-san, you may begin!

Rinto: That's a tough question! If I wasn't in this profession, I think I'd probably just be an ordinary office worker. So...

Rinto: I think I'd probably get invited to a co-worker's wedding, where the groom would be really handsome, and that groom would be Tsunashi-san.

Ryunosuke: So I'd be getting married!

Rinto: That's right. I'd probably think it was only natural that someone like you would end up popular and happy.

Yamato: Ah, I get what you mean. If Tsunashi-san was the groom at a wedding, I'd have no complaints about him at all.

Mitsuki: Why would you complain about the groom to begin with?

Yamato: Isn't that what weddings are all about?

Nagi: I am sure both Yamato and Mitsuki will cry once one of us gets married :-P

Tsumugi: That's a lovely scenario! Anesagi-san, you're next!

Kaoru: If we met while I was in my current line of work, I'd scout him for sure. I think Ryu would naturally make a good idol.

Kaoru: And even if I wasn't, I'd probably still have invited him to come work with me. Whether I was running a shop, or starting up a new magazine.

Tenn: Anesagi-san and Ryu would make cool magazine editors.

Gaku: Yeah. They'd probably be really passionate about their work.

Ryunosuke: Wow, that makes me kind of happy. I like that you want to work together with me, no matter what.

Tsumugi: Anesagi-san, thank you! Banri-san, you're next!

Banri: I think I'd be a salaryman, too. And Ryunosuke-kun would be a salesman from our partner company, who invites me to mixers!

Yamato: A mixer arranged by Tsunashi-san would probably be a real luxury.

Banri: Exactly! And that's where I'd find myself a cute bride. In other words, Ryunosuke-kun would be our Cupid!

Ryunosuke: That's very nice of you! It would be  quite an achievement to find a match for you, Ogami-san!

Yuki: Of course he'd ignore Ryunosuke-kun at his own mixer and just focus on getting himself a girlfriend.

Momo: Ban-san, don't ever get married... ｡･ﾟ･(ﾉД`)･ﾟ･｡

Banri: My heart will always belong to you, Momo-kun ♪(゜▽^*)丿⌒☆

Yuki: You made Momo stop moving. Why did you have to say that?

Tamaki: Ban-chan!! What's up with that happy emoticon!!! You're cheating on us with Re:vale!!

Sogo: Tamaki-kun is starting to sound like Momo-san...

Tamaki: That's 'cuz Ban-chan's our manager!! He should give us fanservice!

Banri: (lol) You two need to give me fanservice, first.

Tamaki: ☆-(´>ω・`)b

Sogo: ☆-(´>ω・`)b

Yuki: ☆-(´>ω・`)b

Tsumugi: Banri-san, thank you! Yuki-san, you're next!

Yuki: I don't think I'd even know Ban or Momo if I wasn't an idol.

Yuki: In other  words, I'd just be a leech. So Ryunosuke-kun would have to be someone who knows the woman who'd be looking after me.

Ryunosuke: I'd be friends with your girlfriend?

Yuki: Yeah. And you'd ask me to break up with her.

Banri: Don't make this that realistic...

Yuki: Then, I'd have Ryunosuke-kun look after me instead ^^

Ryunosuke: I'd try my best to take care of you! But you're so kind that I don't think it'd come to that.

Tsumugi: Thank you, Yuki-san! Momo-san, go ahead!

Momo: If I hadn't become an idol, I'd probably have kept playing soccer. Even if I couldn't be a pro.

Momo: Then, Ryunosuke would be one of the reinforcements for a rival team, and really strong! Once the match ends, I'd just go ask him for his contact info, then we'd really hit it off, and then we'd go drinking together!

Ryunosuke: I think we'd probably have the same kind of relationship we have now!

Momo: Right! We could watch the World Cup at a sports bar and party all night, lolol

Ryunosuke: That sounds like a lot of fun! (lol)

Tsumugi: Yamato-san, you're next!

Mitsuki: Ah, wait a sec.

Tsumugi: What is it?

Mitsuki: Nagi just rolled the gacha in one of his online games, then freaked out big time because his phone ran out of battery.

Riku: Did he get anything good!?

Iori: I think the reason he's kicking up a fuss is because he can't find out. 

Riku: I was just asking! If he doesn't know the results yet, then I'll just pray that  he gets something good! 

Mitsuki: Yeah, you do that. Manager, can we continue once he's charged his phone?

Tsumugi: Very well! We'll resume in 15 minutes!

[sakaeaira]

Tauntingly Arousing // Im Jaebum

❀ Genre - Half smut(+16)

❀ Pairing - Im Jaebum x Reader

❀ Word count - 2313 words

❀ Plot - Due to GOT7′s 2 months world tour, you were able to talk less and less with Jaebum, your boyfriend. When they returned to Korea, you went to their fanmeeting and things started to heat up as you and Jaebum subtly exchanged stares and smirks.

Picture this...

You were a nail stylist for the girl group TWICE which is under JYP Entertainment, same Entertainment GOT7 is under. Since a year ago, when you got the job, you were ecstatic to meet GOT7 and most importantly Jaebum, your bias. This gave you the chance to actually talk with them.

Jaebum was everything you imagined he would be and wished for. He was caring, protective, cute, handsome, and also pretty dominant at times. Loyal and ambitious, he was the perfect boyfriend you had ever asked for.

But his fame was such a burden to you. Not that you weren't happy for him, but his fame always got in between you two, and you could never properly see each other. You forgot how much time it had passed since you sat down on a couch, cuddled and rambled about the stupidest of things.

You couldn't even remember the taste of his lips after such a long time. His sweetness had been almost erased from your mind and lips, and had been replaced with a want and a yearning. You were longing for his touch, for his soft kisses which turned hard whenever he started getting needy for more of you.

It's not that you were missing his voice or face, you were speaking to him everyday through phone or face-time. You were missing him. His hands, his touch, his taste, his scent. You were missing him being there with you.

You couldn't stand all these girls being all around him, putting their hands on him, smiling at him and him smiling back. You were jealous. So jealous. And the fact that your only option was to cry your fear and sadness at night, alone, in the bed, wasn't helping with the jealousy either.

But hell, you missed him so much.

He had been away for two months due to this world tour, and this thought of him being away from you for so long made you long for him more. It made you miss him more.

However, his tour is going to end just today and you couldn't be happier with it. But, as much as you wanted to see him now, GOT7 had a secret fanmeeting in Seoul, which Jaebum had promised you a ticket to go to.

With excitement, every day, you were hopping from one leg to another all along your apartment, cleaning and arranging even the smallest of things around, knowing that he will pass by. You bought some strawberry scented candles so you could surprise him and  some snacks to enjoy while watching a movie in the dark, your only source of light being the candles.

Happiness blossoming in your heart, you started humming to your favorite song from GOT7 and walked to the fanmeeting, eager to see them.

You sat down on your assigned chair, somewhere in the middle, and not so patiently waited for the guys to get in, but most importantly waiting your boyfriend, Jaebum.

The thought of him made you let out a squeak sound which earned some weird stares from the girls around you, some of them even saying that they felt you. You sheepishly smiled and bowed your head in embarrassment.

Thirty minutes had passed since you arrived and nothing happened. You started to get worried.

‘Why aren't they entering? Did something happen?’ You mentally asked yourself, well aware of the fact that they don't usually take so long coming in.

Cheers and claps snapped you out of your train of thoughts and you watched forward, seeing the guys enter. Talking of the Devil and he shall appear.

You impatiently looked at the guys coming in, starting with Jinyoung, followed by Jackson, Mark, Yugyeom, BamBam and Youngjae, and last but not least, your boyfriend. Your love. Your everything. Jaebum.

He walked the podium to the center, where he positioned himself between the members, the rightful spot for a leader. You smiled and resisted the urge to go and jump in his arms at the sight of him. You were so happy, your cheeks hurting from so much smiling.

Yet, your smile faltered when you realized the smile he was wearing on his face was actually a fake one. He was... anxious and sad inside, but you didn't know why.

Being his girlfriend for so much time had its pros too: you could read his emotions quite well, and you thanked God for that. However, why was he angry?

He finished talking and sat down on one of the seven chairs laid out on the podium for them. The other members started talking, and walking along the podium, some of them even jumping off.

Yet, Jaebum was examining the room, slow and steady, with a hidden impatience behind it. You knew it too well. You knew him too well to know that he was searching for you.

When he caught your stare on him, he saw you had a knowing little smirk on your lips. You knew him too well.

His eyes widened for a second, fixed on your lips. The knowing lips' smirk and glint in the eyes you sometimes wore on your face never once failed to arouse him. He knew that you had an effect on him, and when you showed that, he loved it the most.

He was fiddling in his seat, gulping a little as he saw your expression. You knew what he had in his mind, all the dirty thoughts while he was taking in all of your appearance.

His frustration grew bigger as each second passed. His eyes were filled with lust, pleading you to stop looking at him like that. If he could, he would've come and jumped at you in a second. But he couldn't.

Jaebum knew well what paparazzi and being in the center of attention meant. His reputation as an idol would be doomed if he made the mistake to show his possessive and sexual, perverted side. All the times he did all those sexual hip thrusts and grindings, along with the lip bites and tongue licks, were just fanservices, he enjoyed making his fans happy. But you couldn't say he doesn't enjoy it.

However, if he showed his real sexual side, bad news would be written all around him.

Also, he couldn't risk bringing you into this hectic world the fame brings. You meant too much for him to do that to you.

As his tongue darted out and its wet tip touched the corner of his lips in want for you, your smirk grew bigger. You teasingly tilted your head to the side, letting your hair cover a bit of your face, visibly enjoying affecting him. Watching him beneath your eyelashes, your eyes innocently staring at him, he was getting more fidgety in his seat.

Couldn't taking it anymore, Jaebum suddenly shot up from his chair, making you jump in your seat, your teasing facade tossed to the side.

You became afraid that you crossed the line and Jaebum would come to you, but he did something very surprising and puzzling. He excused himself and left the stage.

You sighed in relief, but thoughts of worry quickly invaded your mind.

‘What happened? Was I too pushy? Maybe I didn't have to go that hard on him...’

Your train of thoughts were interrupted by the sound of your phone's buzz indicating you got a new message along with Jaebum entering the stage wearing a mischievous smile on his plump, pink lips which always made your mind go wild with thoughts.

You furrowed your eyebrows, and opened the text. The color of your face drained and your lips went dry as you read it, suddenly gulping and raising your eyes to catch Jaebum looking at you with the same knowing and naughty smirk you earlier had on.

▷You're getting it on tonight for that smirk. Two can play this game.

---

As soon as you arrived home, you jumped into your bed. It wasn't that you were afraid of what will happen, but more you were eager and anxious for it.

Your palms were sweaty and your breath became more and more ragged, fast-paced and hard as your anticipation grew along with all those antagonizing minutes that passed.

You couldn't wait for him to drop by your apartment so you two could finally spend some time together.

With your face planted in between pillows, you didn't hear Jaebum entering your house. Moreover, you didn't hear Jaebum entering your bedroom and locking it behind him.

He silently made his way to your bed, his steps and movements predator like.

His tongue let wet traces on his top lip, climbing down to his bottom lip where he stopped his tongue halfway through licking it and actually brought his teeth to bite hard on the lip.

He couldn't see straight anymore. He wanted you. He wanted to show you all the emotions he felt at the fan meeting, with you in front of him now multiplied.

You felt a pressure on your bed, and you quickly turned around, your heart picking a fast pace of fear, only to skip a beat when your eyes took in the familiar figure of Jaebum. Only that now he was hovering over you, steadying himself with one arm on the bed, his veins being more visible as his muscles were all being flexed to support him.

You gulped. His naughty smile making you part your dry lips in anticipation.

Then he did something unexpected.

With a smirk from him and a yelp from you, he turned you around, pressing his chest on your back.

With his free hand he captured your hand by your back, and got his lips closer to your ear, his hot breath fanning by your neck. You shivered, your eyes closing shut on their own accord.

After a few agonizing moments, he whispered in your ear with a husky, and low voice.

“So you like playing games, huh? Might as well join you, right?” Your breath got stuck in your throat as he starting nudging your skin with his nose, giving you butterfly kisses on the neck. He stopped on one spot, his favorite spot, and without a warning, bit hard on it. You arched your back and moaned.

Your moan was like music to his ears, and he groaned, working on that one spot. Kissing, licking, biting, sucking, teasing.

You started panting, your eyes half open. Something build up inside of you, and you wanted to touch him. To feel him. All of him.

“J-Jaebum...” Your voice was like a whisper, pleading Jaebum to let you touch him. He fastly caught on what you wanted, and you felt his playful smirk on your skin.

He raised his lips, faintly touching your earlobe. You breathed out, your breath getting heavier and heavier.

“What is it, baby girl?” He taunted and teased you, making you ache more for his touch.

“P-Please...”

“What do you want?”

“Let me-” you got interrupted by a gasp that left your mouth when his hand slowly slid under your shirt. “-touch you,” you finally breathed out.

“Hmm,” He hummed, and flipped you over, holding your hands trapped above your head. "I don't think I can let you do that yet, my princess."

You looked up at him, at his love and lust filled eyes, at his erotic facial expression, that made you clench your insides. You were already a goner. Hopelessly in love with him.

He went down, raising your shirt up and starting to leave wet, sloppy kisses on your stomach, and higher and higher up, until he raised your T-shirt up until your neck.

He watched your facial expression while you were laying limp on the bed, all a doll for him to play with. With him only you acted that way. He had that effect on you and you loved it as much as he did.

He hungrily claimed your lips, starting to grind against you slowly, passion in each thrust of his hips. He let go of your hands, and as fast as he did that, you snaked your hands inside his T-shirt, one hand feeling his stomach, and the other scratching his back, harder with every time his hips buckled into you.

He hid his face in the crook of your neck, and worked his way to give your bra off. After he succeeded, he took his T-shirt off and pressed onto you, the skin on skin contact making both of you moan.

You dug your nails deeper into his back, feeling him arch his back accompanied by a hiss leaving his lips.

His eyes rolled to the back of his head in pleasure, and he started grinding harder into you. He slowly came down on you, closer to your ear. You gulped, your throat dry. He bit your earlobe and whispered.

“I missed you.”

You took in a breath, and tried to bring him even closer to you.

“I missed you too.”

Your words seemed to work some magic spell on him because he moaned, and suddenly pressed his lips against yours.

His sweet taste filled your mouth as your tongue danced, fighting for dominance. Knowing Jaebum, you let him win and be in charge of you tonight, but not after putting up a little fight.

He moaned and groaned as he bit your bottom lip, silently wanting and asking for something. Or may I say, somebody.

He lowered his hand down your stomach until he snaked his hand under your pants.

He raised up and watched straight into your eyes, his eyes so innocently erotic, his breath coming in short pants, his expression pleading.

“May I?” He asked, you already knew what he was asking for and you moaned as his hand trailed lower and lower. Arching your back, and pressing your chest onto his chest, you answered his question.

“You may.”