#i love everything translation so dubs are super interesting to me

[5-pp-man]

do u usually watch anime dubbed or subbed if u have the option

hiyaa, I always go for subs the first time around! Sometimes I watch dubs w my dad (I love the grepre dub sm that i actually prefer Laurent's eng dub voice, a tough hurdle to clear with Junichi Suwabe as his jpn va) Sometimes I watch parts of eng dubs just to check out what they sound like, I like comparing voices :)

I'm actually thinking of watching eng dubs more often, I have a few in mind that i wanna check out (sk8, yoi, sasamiya, all dubs I've heard good/funny things abt). The reason I always go for subs at first is because i still wanna learn japanese, and since I'm so passionate about translation I want to appreciate the work in its original form so I can really appreciate the work that went into dubbing it too I do, however, almost always choose dubs when it comes to video games... idk why. Though, there are some exceptions (when I dont like the dub, in smtv's case, or with worlds end club where we had dutch text so the eng voices became too distracting).

Also, a thing I always make exceptions for is dutch dubs. If there is one I drop everything and watch that one (but it rarely happens w anime unfortunately, just with kids shows like pokemon, inazuma, etc)

[tacky-optic]

Had a question about who our favorite Zenigata partner is in a server I'm in and now I can't stop thinking about them. Tis the zaza sickness.

anyway here's literally all of the characters Zenigata's been partnered with that i could find (within reason). if anyone wants to elaborate on any of these guys (cough yata cough) please feel free to go absolutely ham. *(obligatory spoiler warning for a whole lotta lupin specials, waow-- notably zenigata keibu since that's probably the most unwatched of everything i cover. but if youre here im guessing youre as unfortunately well-versed as i am so LETS FRIGGIN GET INTO IT)

Starting off nice n' mellow. I'm pretty neutral on Yata, tbh. I just think he's neat and it's easy enough to write him and not much else. I've rambled about him being a stand-in for the viewer before, but overall i just don't have all that many thoughts on the guy (seriously someone please do yata). ironic considering he's hands-down the most prevalent sidekick to date, but alas. head remains empty.

MARIYA. Mariya my girlie oh how i love thee. finally, someone with a Gimmick on par with Mr. my-sword-can-cut-anything. Plus she's super sweet and smart and sharp and just an all-around endearing character. AND SHE'S DIFFERENT!! she's tagging along with Zenigata of her OWN FREE WILL like gurl what are you THINKING. there isn't a shred of coherent interview material to draw from this man, especially about Lupin. The dynamic they end up developing is on point, though!! Zenigata's initial total miscall of it aside, It's just plain ol' wholesome. If Yata's his surrogate son than Mariya's obviously his daughter. No shot in hell they don't at least keep in contact after the special's done. plus her snapping a pic of him every time he eats shit is peak comedy journalism

MOTHAFUCKIN' MELON COP!! an absolutely magical reefer-smokin' shitbag, especially in the edgy Tokyopop translation. He's a great foil to our otherwise serious(ly neurotic) manga Zenigata. Not to mention the combative potential with a down the line Melon.... ough. A more toned-down "newer part"-esque Zeni getting slapped with an extremely smug and insistent reminder of his angstlord past is such a delicious concept to me. i will be using this guy extensively in that exact way one of these days-- he's too fun not to.

a bit of a sidenote but i've gotta point fingers at gray jacket again (can't recommend it enough) for having my favorite melon depiction in fic; walther recently had him show up in their fic secondhand vanity as well (which i also can't recommend enough), so needless to say i think he has some fun potential.

Sakuraba and Kunikida from the live-action show get honorable mentions, obviously. They're both so different yet learn so much from Zenigata all the same. As far as reacting to the inspector goes, they're the ideal Yatas (again i am so so sorry yata-- surely someone will do you justice). Even though they aren't technically "new" to the force they're new to the Zenigata Shenanigans, and that is where the entertainment factor is. Sakuraba's the traditionalist keibu method-doubter whereas Kunikida's this mousey blue around the gills fella, and over their respective case file appearances, they both gain faith in/learn confidence from Zenigata, respectively. It really is a great bit of development to watch play out.

I'm gonna count The Guys™️ as a collective group/formless mass with maybe one of the Guyest of Guys as Zenigata's right hand Guy, like that one dude in Cagliostro. Apparently the name he's given in one of the dubs is Sam?? That's neat. Sam's neat. for anyone interested in some homework, here's the link to the highly informative lupin forum thread i found that out from: [x]

But yeah the Guys! Right from the start, Zenigata having this army of inexplicably and absurdly loyal cops was always a fun trope and i love to see 'em whenever they show up. I had this idea ages ago for this fake documentary-style miniseries based around them-- all the usual Lupin nonsense goes on in the background while we get a peek at the typically unseen shenanigans happening on the law-bearing side. Getting assigned to the lupin taskforce is probably seen as some kind of punishment, but that just makes the camaraderie all the more tight-knit. There'd be some behind-the-scenes Zenigata/how he interacts with them, what they get up to on their own whack case assignments when they're in a Lupin sighting lull.... hell maybe we even learn why they're all so damn loyal to this one supposedly hyper-independent guy. I think it'd be fun but maybe that's just the Zenigata hopeful in me. Surely he's capable of building some semblance of rapport with the fine group of folks he drags around the world with him....

Let's just rip the band-aid off-- I dislike Oscar with a burning passion. which is weird, right? because i like Melon Cop, the dude who's totally cool with straight-up cold-blooded judge/jury/executioner-style murder. I dunno dude the obsessive daddy kink simping's just too feckin' weird for me. i checked the hell out so fast. If the goal was to make Oscar extremely disquieting, they friggin' did it. Granted he was written to be a bit whack from the start, and getting raised(?)/mentored by THAT Zenigata would irreversibly mess anyone up. I get that the fucked up-ness is part of the appeal, but man. How anyone can gravitate towards Oscar without heavily modifying his whole deal escapes me.

I've seen him written tolerably in fic maybe... twice? He's in gray jacket (there it is again!) and SMRO (needs no introduction nor explanation), so obligatory kudos to anyone who can wrangle [gestures vaguely at all of that].

Vicky though. Vicky Flannigan from Island of Assassins is so goddamn funny. Still can't believe they took one of the most badass Zenigata character designs and actively went out of their way to make him bedridden. I've seen folks call him "Proto-Yata" and. Yeah. Can't argue. He's a glorified babysitter, if anything, and the only reason he's even remotely effective is because he (accidentally) broke both of Zenigata's legs. Funniest shit istg

ICPO LADIES!!! They're cute. Designs could be better but it's Babylon yknow. Despite being an admittedly fun romp, the special has its obvious.... uh. issues. product of its time and all that. iykyk. anyway LADIES. They're competent. They take No Shit from Zenigata. The random little crush that comes out of nowhere between Chinjao and Goemon is cute as hell. Plus, I've seen some pretty rockin' fandom redesigns floating around.... wouldn't mind in the slightest if they made a comeback.

I'm gonna lump all of the Betrayers into one category: Emily O'Brien from Angel Tactics, Kazami from Fuma Conspiracy, and Terry Crown from Alcatraz Connection. Never expected the "Zenigata's partner is the bad guy!!1" trope would be so prevalent, but it tracks in retrospect. It's a neat enough idea-- bummer they never seemed to nail it down, though.

The only reason O'Brien is so predictable is because she's so goddamn unlikable. There's hardly any screentime of them working together and in every single scene, the incompetency just feels so blatantly intentional its almost offensive lmao. Zero surprise in the slightest when she showed her true colors-- just mild annoyance, which tracks for the whole special tbh. Only worthwhile parts are the beginning and the end, and absolutely none of that has anything to to with O'Brien.

Kazami just has that chump secondary villain face y'know. Again, a bit on the nose how obnoxiously dorkish he is-- but them playing up him putting on his glasses so Fujiko can recognize him got a little laugh outta me, ngl. He served his purpose, plain and simple.

I'll never know whether Crown was predictable or not because I stumbled across ""Evil Columbo"" before I watched Alcatraz, but despite the spoiler I can at least say he isn't lame as shit. Pre-reveal, he's probably the closest we'll get to a taste of what Melon might be like in modern Lupin media. He's your run-of-the-mill corrupt sleazebag detective-- steals evidence, generally doesn't give a fuck, takes cheap jabs at Zenigata-- but their final standoff is what puts him above Kazami for me. Just a real melodramatic overdramatic moment of Zenigata Zenigata-ing his heart out.

Welcome to the ELDERLY MEN CATEGORY, OORAH. The old guy from Twilight Gemini, Kogoro Akechi from the pilot, and George McFly from First Contact. I could track down Gemini old guy's name, but I hand-to-god couldn't care less. The only worth a damn thing Gemini's given me is that one jigzeni screenshot, so we're just gonna move on to the next two.

Not much of Akechi, huh. He only shows up in the pilot and doesn't do anything of note besides be someone for Lupin to disguise himself as. Dare i say Goemon was a more effective ally to Zenigata than Akechi...? yeah sure, why not. Goemon's a zeni sidekick. i'll die on that hill. anyway I believe he's also a reference to a pre-existing character...? like Lupin, Goemon, and Zenigata are. All in all its probably for the best that he didn't make it to part 1.

Finally, the only old guy that actually has aspects to talk about. I actually really like McFly and the role he plays in First Contact; it isn't Zenigata learning from whoever his partner may be, but McFly learning from Zenigata. He's a jaded, on-the-verge-of-retirement type that thinks he's seen all the force has to offer, but here comes this young (is he considered "young" in this?? early, maybe) freak-ass foreigner cop with a vendetta he's practically frothing at the mouth to rectify. Neither of them are exactly enthused to be working together, but McFly sticks around anyway and learns to see past a lot of Zenigata's first impression baggage; the tenacity, the passion, the genuineness of it all. Not only does he want to make real change, but the crazy bastard can actually friggin' do it. ...Or at the very least make a sizable dent.

Zenigata sincerely adheres to the idea of what a cop's supposed to be, fundamentally, and not what a "cop" actually is, as a vague collective occupational concept. Zenigata has a genuine effect on McFly-- enough to make him just the slightest bit less soured by the end of it all. It's a nice sentiment; that no matter where you are in life, ideas can still change. It's a small arc that flies beneath the radar of everything else, but i noticed it. I FRIGGIN' NOTICED IT, MAN

tl;dr Zenigata's a lonely guy, sure, but he doesn't have to be.

That should cover all of the significant parts/specials/movies, but if i missed anyone (any notable episodes? manga?) lemme know. Either way, it's nice finally having 'em all in one place.

[adhd-languages]

how do you actually like. learn languages with adhd? like in terms of "how do you stay focused" and "how do you stay invested/motivated for extended periods of time" and "how do you actually like. sit down to do* a study session?"

i know that immersion's good and all, but i find it really hard to just. sit there and watch [language] content when there's so much other stuff in my native language that's so much better and understandable.

with talking to ppl, i always feel like i gotta know enough to have a conversation in order to have a conversation, y'know? so i never end up having any conversations lol

when i've tried learning languages before i've almost always lost interest in it after a few weeks, and that kinda sucks. esp because half the time my interest shifts to a different language lmao

so yeah. advice?

*"to sit down to do" is a curious construction in my ideolect that means like. "to try to start doing"? it doesn't nesesserily mean physically sitting down, but does come from when i sit down to do maths homework or whatever and then actually start it two hours later, y'know? having the distinction between that and "to start" is useful lol

Immersion is really tough -- it's hard to feel invested in plot and characters if you hardly understand what people are saying...so here's a secret. Rewatch a show you love in English, in your target language dub. I'm listening to a fandub of "Welcome to Night Vale". It's really fun for me. I know that people go on about how it's better to learn from Original Native Content, but anything that keeps your interest is always better than nothing. And besides, there's a lot you can notice about the way they chose to translate things - it's fascinating!

Here's my super embarrassing language advice - I just daydream in Spanish. And a lot of the time, the spark of motivation to figure out a new bit of sentence structure is just me trying to figure out how to say a sentence in my internal monologue. I got hyperfixated on languages and sprinkled multilingualism into my mind soup. It sticks with me better when I learn grammar because I want to use it, rather than just sitting down to try and study something that's completely abstract. This actually works from pretty much any level. I think the sooner you use your target language like your native one, the better. Not sure if this would help but it might?

It's ok to learn in bursts. It's supposed to be fun, and a hobby. It's worth trying to fit your target language into your daily routine. I am a Duolingo guy, and I know it's not the best way to learn, but doing a little lesson everyday to keep up my stupid little streak can jumpstart me into studying properly. Or at least have me do a little bit of practice if nothing else, remind my brain that these languages exist, yknow.

Also, I have gained and lost interest in a LOT of languages - Korean, Swedish, Toki Poni, Dutch, I've gone on and off with Japanese a few times, and so many languages I just tried to learn for one day. And that's okay too! You don't need to become fluent just to enjoy learning a little bit about a language. :-)

I hope at least one part of this was helpful? I'm going to be honest, I wasn't sure how to answer this ask because even though you would assume it with me running a language blog and all, I'm not always a great student. At all. The amount I'm studying fluctuates a lot, and it's just something I've accepted. There's no rush, so just do whatever works for you, even if it's not "the most effective" way of doing it. Everything is progress, anyhow.

(also, the "sit down to do" thing makes perfect sense to me. And for the conversations thing.... yeah, I don't talk to people much either. I'm shy. So, I'm not sure how to help with that one.)

[elvenbeard]

Q&A with Mikolaj Szwed and Björn Schalla at Phantom Liberty Tour Cologne

(Björn (male V's German VA) left, and Mikolaj (CDPR localization director) right)

I cannot believe my luck still about having been able to attend the Phantom Liberty Tour in Cologne yesterday (Aug 25th 2023)! I'll make a separate post just about the event as such once I've emotionally recovered xD But I wanted to make a separate post for this topic for reasons!

Around two months ago I made this post. I'm currently on my second playthrough of Cyberpunk 2077, playing with the German dub and English subtitles. That's because I'm streaming the game for some international friends via Discord as I go, for fic-writing purposes, and finally just out of general interest for the difference between dubs and translations and such. In short, it has been a super interesting experience noting all the differences in tone, word choice, and more, between the English and German translation. It stood out to me for example that in English Goro adresses Wakako as "Okada-san", but in German as "Okada-sama".

Now, imagine my face yesterday (something like this probably: 🤩) when it was announced there would be a Q&A with Mikolaj Szwed, Localization Director of Cyberpunk 2077, and Björn Schalla, who voiced male V in the German dub.

I took some notes on the whole Q&A, since this is a super special interest of mine, and I think it might definitely be interesting to some of you too! Therefore though this is gonna be long, so I'll put some more tidbits and details they spoke about below the cut (such as what it's like playing a game with a character that has your own voice, and how CDPR views and uses AI voices - excellent questions asked by some of the other attendees).

But, the thing that confirmed to me what I had been wondering about in my above post, is this:

The VAs of the various different localizations were somewhat free in what they said and how they said it, therefore 100% bringing something of themselves into the characters they played. Mikolaj told them precisely "this is what your character is doing/feeling right now, they're facing this or that guy, so-and-so is with them" along with their translated lines, but there was always wiggle room. The translations are not blindly following a "canon" script, for lack of a better word (as CDPR games are written in Polish first, then translated to English, even though English is the primary dub everything's recorded in "first"). Also, unlike in dubbing movies/TV shows, the VAs are not bound to characters' lip movements (the talking animations are made to fit the respective dub, which is so, so neat). They only have to fit a similar timespan as the "original" line and scene. Therefore, each dub is unique to its language to a degree, and not a mere translation of some original source text (resulting in me sometimes laughing about some chars being a lot more crude or making a completely different joke in one or another scene). An example I remember at the top of my head: in the English dub, when talking to Dennis at Afterlife, V will call his lack of details on the "very simple, easy money" Big in Japan Gig "duty-free and detail-free". This just doesn't work as a funny alliteration and play on words in German. They settled on something else there that also kept Vs comment humorous, and that's common in "regular" TV show/movie dubs too. The other way around, during the interrogation of Hellman, English Johnny will say something like "well, fuck me sideways, (...)" on one of Hellman's comments, while in German he's like "well, fuck me and call me animal names" in a slightly more crass way expressing how pissed off he is at the corpo just admitting he's kind of useless to V. No direct translation, but same vibes fitting the mood, and making each dub and each interpretation of every single character unique to their respective VA and language in a way. And I love that so much!!

Back to my post above. While I didn't get to ask Mikolaj directly myself, cause there just was not enough time really to answer all burning questions, I think with what they spoke about it seems realistic to me that Takemura's German VA definitely added that "-sama" to Wakako's last name as a bit of flavour he deemed fitting for his character in that scene. Which, in my eyes, is making German!Takemura just a tad more sly than other incarnations of him I know of. Björn also said he was able to use his own sadness or not feeling well on some days to really sell V's sadness or pissed-off-ness at his shitshow of a life, and put something of himself into the performance. He definitely shed a tear here or there, and it really really shows that he gave 110% doing this character and his story justice. I'm totally not biased here because my V is male and I love the German dub so much, obviously xD. But no, for real, not just him, I think every single person working on this game put their blood sweat and tears into it, it's a huge labour of love and filled to the brim with creative passion on all ends, on every level.

But yes, so much to VAs influencing their characters, confirmed! More of what they talked about in the Q&A under the cut while my memory's still fresh! Thanks for reading this far, like with my above post, I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences as well, especially if you played the game with different dubs yourself!

For this part I'm gonna vaguely paraphrase the questions that were asked by other attendees as I remember them, followed by what Mikolaj and/or Björn replied, respectively!

Q: How did the casting process for the German dub go?

Mikolaj was presented with 8 different VAs that could fit the part of V originally (for both masc and fem V respectively iirc, but could also be it was 8 altogether). Four of them were invited to an in-person casting, respectively. Björn recalled having to say some lines and only understanding half of what he was saying really, not really knowing the context much yet xD But he had voiced characters in games before and had had a lot of fun with that, so when he was presented with this opportunity he happily jumped at it. A little while after the casting he then received a call going "Glückwunsch, du bist V!" ("Congrats, you're V!") to which his initial, surprised response was "Ja, wie?!" ("Wait, what?", more literally "Yes? What?" Note: "wie" is basically pronounced like "V" xD).

Also, Mikolaj has people for all languages the game is dubbed in on his team and the process is the same for each dub, more or less.

Q: At Björn: did you have someone to "act with" or off of in the recording booth?

V was actually one of the first, if not the first to be recorded so other VAs had lines to use as base to respond to with their acting. Björn was solely in there with Mikolaj who directed him and responded with dialogue where conversations happened, if need be. That kinda ties into what I said above the cut, that Vs VA really could shape the tone (together with Mikolaj) based on but not copied off of the English script.

I don't recall how long the overall recording of all the dialogue took, but it was 8+ hour long sessions, not every day, but over the course of weeks.

Q: At Björn: Is it weird to play a game as a character that has your own voice?

He mentioned he is only now having the time to play Cyberpunk himself for the first time and already incredibly addicted (what a mood). He doesn't find it weird hearing himself constantly, because through his job alone he is used to hearing his own voice (even though he could just play femV, too, he prefers playing male, "his" V xD). Also, he's usually so immersed in the world anyway that he doesn't think about it much, can distance himself and his voice from the character. He did note being a little self-critical about his work though (also such a mood xD), especially about lines that ended up with a slightly off intonation that he'd fumbled. That simply happens though, in dubbing in general, and in video games moreso because you're usually just using your imagination for picturing a scene instead of talking over an already filmed sequence. BUT actually, when they went back into the studio to record for PL, they re-recorded some of those messed up lines with mispronounced names or off intonation, which is making me look forward to my 3rd playthrough even more now! Gonna come with patch 2.0 I assume :D

Q: At Björn: What kind of character is your V?

A very nice and friendly one! He likes playing a goodie two-shoes. He also noted he's not far into the story yet, just finished Automatic Love, and it may have awoken something in him xDD He said when he had to pick a doll at the start of the quest he got distracted by his cat pissing on the carpet. So he didn't pay attention, just picked any, and ended up in Angel's booth, whom he didnt mind but also wouldn't have chosen otherwise. But then he wound up weirdly enticed by the scene and quite enjoyed it xD And honestly who wouldn't be, Angel is lovely 💜

Q: How do you both feel about the rise of AIs and AIs potentially replacing VAs in the future?

Björn said this is a concern to a degree, but will likely not affect him much anymore in his career (he's been in this line of work for 40 years, started as a kid, and is not doing only voice acting). It is a thing though that is discussed and unions and such are looking into means and ways to protect VAs rights to their own voices through contracts, for example, if VAs wish so. He also briefly touched upon the fact that some iconic German VAs are simply getting old and dying without enough new people following and able to take over their iconic roles for example, or even finding VAs that fit certain parts AND get them accepted by audiences (there was a huge shitshow around the German The Simpsons dub a couple of years back when Homer's German VA died of old age and his predecessors were not well-liked by a very entitled audience).

Mikolaj said he is generally not opposed to AIs as tools that should be used, in fact, they should be used but not abused for more than what they're good for. An AI can never convey the human range of emotion necessary to really "sell" a line, that is something you just need VAs made of flesh and blood for that are capable of understanding complex emotion (which AIs, who are not intelligent in the way humans are, cannot). Then again, in certain, highly specific cases, there could be exceptions made. He said that Viktor Vektor's Polish VA died after being sick for a long time. Before his death he'd heard about what AIs could do though and gave his okay to have his voice "live on" in a way after he is gone. CDPR also discussed this with his family before doing anything, but to have him remain a part of Cyberpunk they cloned his voice and artificially created some voice lines for him based of the material they already had. To Mikolaj, the decision on whether or not to use AIs and in which context always needs to be an ethical one done on a case by case basis.

Q: Some Hollywood stars like Johnny Depp never watch movies they acted in - how do Mikolaj and Björn feel about this sentiment?

Both of them agreed that they actually really like looking back at their old works. Mikolaj started at CDPR with the localization for The Witcher 2, and sometimes he cringes at some of the decisions he made there when going back. But it also shows him how he's grown as he realises "I'd do that differently now".

Björn is similar (he is not just a VA, writes screenplays as well and does voice directing iirc). He likes looking back at older stuff and, as mentioned in an answer above, both he and Mikolaj are a bit self-critical sometimes and see things they could improve when revisiting old ideas. It's a good thing to do to live through the awkwardness of looking at your old art xD

Q: What were your favourite lines/scenes to record?

Since Phantom Liberty is fresh in their minds (and Björn noted how nice it was to be back in the studio with everyone again), they kinda had to omit answering this for spoiler reasons xD There is supposedly an extremely emotional scene to come though that had everyone go absolutely quiet and sad in the booth, when usually there was always joking and laughing to a degree. You could've heard a pin drop (what are we gonna bet it's the new ending? 👀).

On that note, Mikolaj also mentioned how he loved seeing everyone come back to reprise their characters with new confidence, knowing them and how they wanted to play them now already, and they had a blast during the recording of the Phantom Liberty dub.

Out of the main game Mikolaj said though, the lines that hit him the hardest, that make him super emotional still, are the voice messages left to V in the suicide ending epilogue. He especially mentioned Judy and Panam (his faves 💜), who gave their all and poured all the despair and sadness into those, it was and still is hard for him to watch.

And on that super happy note the Q&A ended xDD I definitely didnt include everything that was said, I think I missed a smaller question or two as well, I'm just really going off of my memory mostly and a handful of notes I took during the talk xD

But yeah, I think this was definitely one of, if not the highlight of the night for me, at least looking at the schedule and what the local team had prepared for the Cologne stop of the Phantom Liberty tour :D

I still feel super privileged to have been there, given how new I'm to the game and fandom still, but yeah. I'm still so pumped and hhhhhhhh about everything, hope I can share some of my joy and excitement through this post with you all as well!!

\o/

[all-hallows-street]

Lingzi's Odaibako/Twitter Answers Collection Volume 1

In case you weren't aware, the author of 1031 All Saints Street Lingzi has a twitter account they update rarely, mostly rt'ing announcements of the Japanese release, 1031 fanart, Jpns comedians, and sometimes posting doodles and answering fan questions through Odaibako. You can still send questions/comments/requests through Odaibako but please be respectful and mindful! As the author stated they will not respond to any questions or suggestions about future content! Also do not spam, Lingzi answers in rare bursts so they might not get to answer your comment any time soon. Here is a compilation of what has been answered so far. Chinese questions and answers are being machine translated and I'm verifying with a friend the Japanese questions translations.

A few clarifications. I will skip some doodle requests/drawn answers and will compile them later in a post with all of Lingzi's twitter drawings. Everything with [] marks an edit so the English sounds more natural.

1. Hello~ Lingzi! What made you want to become a manga artist?

To put it simply, it was because of a domestic comic called "Super Alloy Society". At that time (around 14 years old), I became completely obsessed with it after reading a few chapters, and I was very eager to draw such a work myself 😌

Source

2. Does Nick [have] feeling[s] towards Lynn?

ummm······I would say it's more like “he is curious about/interested in Lynn”

Source

3. Who out of all the character would have the [ugliest] laugh?

Ah-never thought about this before, maybe broken [Cupid]？

Source

4. Will we get stories about Nick's university friends? Their designs are so cool and I would love to know more about them!

maybe? 🤔🤔 let me ask my editor next time.

Source

5. anyone you relate to in the series?

Does this count? Look that is my name on the background 🤣🤣

Source

6. Which character do you enjoy drawing [the most]?

Definitely Nick[.] He's the easiest to draw, also [the] sexiest. 😌

Source

6. Lingzi, do angles live longer than demons?

Yes! Angels basically cannot pass away unless they are killed. Teacher Lynn's age is also in the three digits~

Source

7. I really, really, REALLY love All Saints Street. Thank you so much for creating this series! There are so many diverse characters, and I love the charming and relaxed atmosphere. I find it really difficult to choose a favorite character because I just love them all so much (Nick is objectively the best though). It encouraged me to try learning to read Chinese again in order to read the manhua. Again, thank you so much for creating this!

Wow I'm flattered, thank you for [liking] my manhua 😳😳 I will do my best to keep [it] going!

Source

8. A work of my pleasure! I love you! I love “All Saints Street”! I love you big hair! Thank you for creating such wonderful works!

[Thank you]! 😊😊 Hope you will like the Japanese [dubbed] version too~

Source

9. This is not an ask but I wanted to say thank you for your hard work! Your series makes me very happy and I love it so much! It's inspired me more to continue making my own characters and helped me create art more. thank you so much! <3

Thank you too 😊😊 Glad I [..] helped.

Source

Not a question but a fact related to a previous question that is very much lore relevant:

Fun fact: Although angels live much longer than demons, because demons can reproduce independently but angels cannot, the number of angels is currently less than one-tenth of the number of demons. ( ← A small private device

Source

10. Can Lynn turn into a girl like Nick and Neil?

No~ Transfiguration is a demon thing.

Source

11. Can Ira taste demon blood? or does he hate it?

He can [...] but demon blood is always too strong for vampires, one bite is like [drinking] ten cups of coffee at once[.] They can get really hyperactive by drinking demon blood. Some vampires may like it, but not Ira. (And it's really bad for vampire kid[s])

Source

12. Hi! This is not a question but i wanted to tell you that I REALLY LOVE ALL SAINTS STREET, since 2020 i been in love with this manhua/donghua, thank you for create all saints street, the manhua/donghua really help me in hard times and inspire me to create my own comics. I really love the characters specially Abu and Luis ❤️

Thank you too, glad you enjoy my work 😊😊

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13. Who gives the best hugs?

Maybe?

Source

14. Why are Lily's wings so small compared to other angels?

No special reason, I just think it's cuter this way.

Source

REALLY IMPORTANT NOTE: IN CHINESE FANDOMS C P MEANS CHARACTER PAIRING, IS HOW THEY REFER TO SHIPS/SHIPPING

I will replace it with ship because I don't want the use the acronym due to tumblr search.

15. Will it be very Lynn/Nick? Because people keep telling me that Nini/Lily is the official ship, I am troubled. If the original painting is very bad, it feels like I have violated someone else's OC. I'm very sorry for disturbing you, and I really like your illustrations and works!

To answer this question, mainstream ship ≠ is correct. I think any ship has a reason to exist as long as some people like it. I don’t think it is a minefield at all... and even "official" ship does not mean anything. What kind of ship you want to consume is completely up to you, and you don’t need to ask for my opinion, just be happy

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Continued in Part 2!

[angel-is-not-creative]

Hetalia

I cannot rate this with a good conscience ❤

I have autism and Hetalia is my special interest so this is literally 3k words long and I have absolutely no regrets. I could have gone on longer but I wanted to remain relevant to the class. If you don't reply to me I will cry.

I'm gonna break this into a few sections so you can skip around. I'm going to try and stick to just season 1 with this discussion, which won't be too hard cause it's the most insane one. Also, I just want to say that I wrote this all before I read the attached article and I'm now seeing that I literally could have written that article because I know everything about Hetalia.

When do we cross the line between stereotyping and just straight-up racism?

Hey, why are we idolizing WWII Germany?

Oh, we are portraying war as silly and funny, okay cool.

Is this Japanese Nationalism? (a surprisingly controversial argument)

The Sub and the Dub are 2 totally different shows

The Fandom (and linking back to other class-related terms)

Okay I'll name one good thing

Alright, let's get started.

1.

A lot of people will argue that Hetalia is not racist at all because they are making fun of everyone. If you are portraying all of the countries as their most common stereotypes then it evens out in the end. I would argue that this is in fact, not the case. Especially when you set your show during WWII. I will give Himaruya credit in that he mostly focuses on European countries to make fun of, making a lot of the stereotypes less so targeted at minorities. However, a lot of these jokes are still highly insensitive and frame some countries in a worse light than others

Just look at the difference between how Northern Italy is portrayed as opposed to Germany or Japan. Or how France is a predator, Belarus is into her literal brother, and Spain is seen as a creep. It is often times mocking an entire country's intelligence, appearance, or personality. While it is not always that serious, it does lead me to the second point.

When you personify a country and mock it, you aren't just mocking a piece of land, you are mocking an entire population of people. These jokes may seem harmless but they can still be hurtful. While I don't believe that liking Hetalia translates to your actual views on world events, it can unconsciously impact your real-life thoughts and behaviors.

(also why does Britain see imaginary magical creatures, what is that referencing? According to the wiki, it is some popular folklore story of a rabbit who lives on the moon but like.. what? If Himaruya was doing this much research into these countries' cultural backgrounds why is he portraying them like this?)

2.

This show portrays WWII Germany in too positive of a light for my liking. I've noticed a trend in anime where they seem to love Germany (or Germanic aesthetics) a lot (AOT I'm looking at you). Now I'm not well-versed in the interpersonal relationships between Japan and Germany, but the idolization is not it. The way that Japan in this show is portrayed as being literally obsessed with Germany is the biggest example (Italy is also shown having an immense appreciation for Germany and is often gushing about his positive qualities, even writing him a song while he was being kept prisoner). But I mean look at how Germany is portrayed, even his stereotypes are mostly positive, he is hardworking but helps out his fellow allies, makes great food, and is super strong. His only negative trait is that he sometimes doesn't understand social scenarios and that makes him very awkward. However, he will always go out of his way to try and better understand his friends (like Italy) by purchasing books to try and help him learn the appropriate way to act in scenarios).

This is 10x worse in the dub but we will get there. When one of your main characters, the one you are portraying in the best light, is a literal war criminal hot anime boy, you can understand why I would be concerned. I mean they gave him the whole blonde hair blue eyed appearance like come on. Now I'm not going to go into depth on fandom or anything here but Hetalia knows that its demographic is young tweens (primarily girls) so how can you be surprised when this portrayal of Germany leads to WWII fanfics sympathizing with Germany and 14 y/o girls in German military uniforms doing questionable things. (also Germany becomes a canonically gay character in Hetalia in like season 4 or something and that just makes me so mad, like yeah, of course, the gay character is WWII Germany that so cool) (okay, I would like to clarify that technically Sweden is the only confirmed gay character. Sweden is bad representation though because he has one-sided feelings for Finland and makes him uncomfortable by constantly referring to him as his wife)

3.

I mean yeah, obviously this isn't going to be an accurate portrayal of history but some of this is just totally misinformation.

Austria invading Germany is literally just Austria annoying him in his house for a really long time. But also there's like actual wars... and like all of the events of WWI are canon... and like there are some really serious episodes

Also, we literally see a bunch of countries going to war personally, like fighting on the frontlines. Which to me confirms that these people are all literal murderers, like mass murderers lowkey.

Do you know how many weird USSR jokes there are throughout this? So many. Lithuania is pretty much just in a running gag where he keeps getting manipulated by Russia into coming back to live with him. (Yeah, there are so many USSR fics as well).

ALSO! why is the American revolution portrayed as the saddest thing to happen thus far, the storyline is stretched out from episodes 16-20 and it is all drastically different from the tone of the rest of the show. Britain is literally on his knees crying saying that he can't shoot America (which also implies these countries can physically harm/kill each other). Like that is the war you wanted to make all sad and sentimental? Why? Is this how Japanese people think that we view the Revolutionary war? Because that is a pretty inaccurate view.

Anyways back to the original point. Some historical events should not be played for laughs sometimes. It is incredibly disrespectful for actual victims of these tragedies to portray these events as funny or goofy.

Though I will give credit because Himaruya does make all sides of the war look like idiots who have no clue what they are doing, which is a sentiment I can get behind.

4.

As a both non-Japanese and non-Korean person I can not really give my opinion on this however I can share with you both sides of the argument. This is mostly in relation to the original comic strip, but has some relevance to the anime as well. I just wanted to bring it up because it is interesting to me. (This is briefly mentioned in the article but I wanted to expand on the argument).

You may or may not have noticed that there is no South Korea character in this show, however, there was in the original comic. In the comics, South Korea is a pervert who is constantly touching Japan and he also takes credit for the inventions of other countries. Now I'm obviously not going to go into the past history of these 2 countries because that would be incredibly long but the South Korean National Assembly reviewed Hetalia and determined that it was a "crime against South Koreans, akin to slander". So yeah, South Korean people were not happy with this portrayal and the character was inevitably removed from the anime before release. (This is a real picture of the South Korean National Assembly reviewed Hetalia, the corner shows South Korea groping Japan inappropriately)

There are two opposing views to the Japanese Nationalism take and I'll link them both (Belittling Japanese Nationalism Hetalia: Axis Powers is the title of the first one)

The first one pretty much argues that Hetalis is not Japanese nationalism because it paints Japan in just as negative of a light as all of the other countries, no one is left out of being made fun of. Japan is seen as socially awkward, emotionally repressed, and obsequious.

The second argues that Japan is often shown to be more intelligent than other characters as well as often being of the voice of reason (especially compared to China) and most of his negative attributes are not nearly as harmful as some others in Japan’s case, even his “negative” stereotypes are inoffensive, as they pose no threat of meiwaku.

I think we see in the dub that Americans are a little more willing to make fun of themselves. Though there are a few good Japan self digs, like the capitalism joke in one of the first episodes.

5.

Oh boy I've been waiting for this.

The dub is 10x more offensive than the sub. Most people consider it a crack dub.

So many of the jokes are rewritten that it is practically a different show. The sub is from a Japanese perspective and the dub is from an American perspective.

First of all the accents in the dub are so bad like it is actually atrocious. Japan is really annoying because not only is his voice stereotypical but he always says 'nani?' instead of 'what?' as if that is a normal thing that people do. The narrator is the best part of the dub and she is hilarious.

So I don't really feel comfortable even typing out the jokes here so if you want to hear them I included the time stamps for the three nazi jokes I remember in season 1 (the last two being worse).

Episode 1 (1:35:1:38)

Episode 7 (2:13-2:19)

Episode 48 (1:28-1:31)

Those are just a few examples and it gets worse. The dub literally had no reason to include these jokes because there is not even an insinuation of them in the sub and it makes literally everything a million times worse.

I will give the dub some credit for being so utterly ridiculous that it's funny. I will provide a few timestamps for the funniest jokes that only appear in the dub from the first 19 episodes (but I really recommend looking up Hetalia dub funny moments on youtube because some of them are really priceless):

Episode 13: (1:45-2:05)

Episode 14: (1:12-1:22)

Episode 17: (0:59-1:15) (2:06-2:11)

6.

Now I've had this post typed up for a bit and originally I wasn't going to talk about the fandom but after reading the article that he assigned (and going through the fandom unit), I see that there is a lot of reference to fandom in particular so I want to at least mention it.

Not the 2 biggest problems with the Hetalia fandom are racism and the fetishization of gay men.

As mentioned in the article, there have actually been multiple fan incidents of them dressing up in WWII German military uniforms Germany/Prussia cosplay, and standing in front of temples with fake guns or doing nazi salutes in convention photos (If we want to bring racism and fetishization of gay men together there were two people who kissed in a holocaust memorial museum in Italy and Germany cosplay... there is no picture of this so it might be a rumor but it was well-known so it is worth mentioning). There were also a lot of people using imperialist Japan flags in cosplay/fanart and writing incredibly inappropriate fanfiction about real-life events.

If you would like to see any of these incidents feel free to look up "Hetalia the Boston Incident" I don't really wanna include the photos here.

The fetishization is not unique to the Hetalia fandom, but it is amplified to the max. Obviously, within Hetalia, there are almost no female characters, so this leaves only male characters to be shipped with one another. Now suddenly Germany is an uwu gay bean and not an actual war criminal. At the moment of writing this Hetalia has 32105 M/M fics on ao3 which is only one of the three fanfiction sites, with ao3 not even becoming popularized until after the peak of the Hetalia fandom. (the most popular ship being America/England who refer to each other as brothers in the show as England raised America, showing another problematic part of the fandom). I would argue that Hetalia has one of the gayest fandoms (My Hero Academia is giving it a run for its money though) and I agree with the article that it is inaccurate to say that this is only done by straight cis women. The fact of the matter is a lot of queer teens used Hetalia as an outlet to express their own sexuality through these characters. The straight women that do fetishize BL are likely only doing so because anime creators suck at writing good female characters.

I think that the "level of gayness" turns straight fans away from watching the show (again MHA is the same way today) as it is hard to interact with the fandom without seeing some yaoi content. However, many people view this as something wrong or cringy, when in reality it is a normal part of fandom culture. When gay people have such little content that is actually gay, you cannot blame us for creating our own through characters that we like/relate to. Again, I think the only issues that arise here are the problematic ships that give young people a bad impression of relationships (abusive, incest, pedophilia, etc) or the arguable problematic ones like China/Russia or Lithuania/Russia as again these are real countries with real political relations. (However, I will never forget the time that there was Russia/China fanart on the news, maybe they approve and I shouldn't be complaining)

The thing is, Hetalia only seems so bad because the fandom is so large and so young. A lot of shows have fandoms that sexualize the characters and have kinda problematic fans, but the sheer volume makes things seem worse. This is something that we covered when we watched Genshiken, but there is a lot of negative stigma behind this fandom in particular, but it is just a loud minority that gets a lot of news coverage between fandoms.

It also raises the question "Is a show responsible for the response of its fans?"

Because while Himaruya has no control over what people do with his characters or how they interpret a plot, if a majority of people are leaving your show spouting vaguely racist rhetoric and interpreting your show one way, isn't there some validity in that interpretation? I think a creator has to be aware of their audience, which in this case is a very young and impressionable audience who might not understand how offensive some of the things they are doing really are. They don't hold the same ability to separate fiction from reality.

That being said Hetalia had a large impact on fandom culture as a whole, largely starting things like 'ask a character' panels (along with like homestuck but we don't talk about her). If you go to any convention you will probably find a Hetalia cosplayer, and if you watch any dub there is probably a voice actor from Hetalia there.

I also want to mention Hetalia is also a fandom full of cultural capital, If you don't know every niche fact, you're not a real fan, If you haven't read Auf Wiedersehen Sweetheart you haven't even met the entry-level requirements to be a fan. There are also no characters that are too sacred to be altered within the fandom. If you want to put Germany in a maid dress have at it, if you want to see all the characters as girls you're in luck cause Himaruya literally drew them. Fanfictions can take place anywhere from WWI to the present day and you can put any characters in any scenario and make it believable. There are thousands of pieces of fanwork, fan art, fangames, and fan AUs. These characters are malleable to fit your personal preference and there is really no way you could be mad at this as Himaruya does this himself, with no real established canon.

a Hetalia fan once said, "No one cares if Hetalia was written by a Japenese Imperialism apologist when you're 31 chapters deep into a human Au soulmate fic about Austria inviting Prussia to see his boyband perform in Berlin"

Himaruya is also the king of moe characteristics because he turned these Hetalia men into any cute thing he could think of, Chibi versions (Chibitalia), female versions (Nyotalia), and cat versions (Nekotalia). He has no reservations about drawing the characters in a dress or in cat ears. He gave the characters human names to allow for more standardized human AU's and made a DS dating game. He encourages fans to take his characters and use them in their fanworks as they see fit, canon is up to interpretation itself. I think Himaruya himself was a huge part of fandom culture (not that I could tell you cause no one knows anything about the guy) and saw how the female characters were often treated by fans and turned it on its head, allowing for females to sexualize the males this time.

Also, none of the male characters in this show resembles a Hegemonic form of masculinity. Even the most masculine character in the show (Germany) can be seen doing more "feminine things" like wearing a dress or proposing to a man. Which, you know, I guess is a good diversion from things you would typically see in an anime of this nature (but again there are a lot of instances of characters being feminine being played for laughs, like a man being girly is something inherently funny). Feat. Germany proposing to Italy with a tomato ring.

7.

I am Hetalia's biggest hater, however, I cannot deny the impact that it has had on my life and how much I love to talk about it. Hetalia is what introduced me to anime and fandom (and tumblr) for the first time. I met a lot of people I still talk to today because of this show. It encouraged me and a lot of other people to actually get interested in history. Thanks to this show I can identify every country in Europe, and it was a lot easier to remember historical facts if I just imagined the Hetalia characters. Also, Auf Wiedersehen Sweetheart is a literary masterpiece and there is a reason it almost has a five-star rating on goodnotes (https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/22064556) I love you George DeValier I hope you're doing good wherever you are.

I would like to make it abundantly clear that despite everything I've said that might make me sound like a woke blue-haired liberal, I don't really think this show is some horribly racist show or that the people who enjoy it are racist. I just wanted to provide a deeper outlook on the impact a seemingly dumb show can have on real people. I can't really blame the show for the terrible response of the fandom and it did honestly get better in later seasons that are not focused on WWII.

Despite all the bad stuff, it is a relatively funny little 5-minute watch, and you can really just jump in at any point you want to. If you don't take it as seriously as I do you might even enjoy it a little.

If you actually read this far I have major respect for you, I'm really excited to see what the general consensus on this show is.

Prussia and South Italy were my favorites in case anyone cared

If you're wondering why I didn't do my presentation on Hetalia despite my extensive knowledge, it is because I would be incredibly biased and I would go off the rails I think.

Also, my biggest fear is current Hetalia fans finding this and killing me, that might seem irrational but the Gundam fans found me last time so I wouldn't put it past them.

[my-one-true-l]

So I finished the Evangelion anime.

No I did not abandon studying for finals for this, I am being reasonable, I just got really into it lmao.

Spoilers for Neon Genesis Evangelion

I loved it. Genuinely it definitely picked up my interest after episode 4 and i’m glad I kept up with it.

The whole thing with Gendo and Rei, what in the hell! Okay I saw that coming from a mile off but that doesn’t mean I didn’t go “i’m sorry what” and pause for a good minute afterwards. I’m glad it wasn’t as weird as I initially thought it was gonna be, but still.

Kaworu, I got such fishy vibes from him from the moment he showed up. I kinda miss him though I can’t lie.

Kaiji. What can I say about Kaiji. He was so sus in the start, but I feel like he sort of redeemed himself later.

Asuka i’m very conflicted over. Her attitude towards Shinji and the others does annoy me quite a lot but I can’t bring myself to hate her. It’s frustrating, yes, but I understand why she is the way she is.

Tohji is probably one of my favourites. I don’t know why, I just attached myself to him so quickly.

Now, what’s all this about a rare pair with Misato that you mention earlier? I’m curious to know~

Overall, I’m glad I kept at it. It was a little awkward at times, but the 90s aesthetic and the amazing music and cool opera that randomly showed up was entertaining and kind of nostalgic. I got my start on some old animes like Sailor moon and stuff so it really is quite reminiscent.

Hahaha, Yeah Gendo is definitely messed up. I have so many feelings about him and way too many to put here (plus I don't want to spoil anything for anyone who sees this and hasn't watched it and plans to).

I loved Kaji. I can see where there are times when it's easy to question what his deal is. Asuka...I was never fond of her. With any show I'm super into, I know I've had my feelings on some characters soften with every rewatch, but she's never been one of them. I understand why she's like that and I feel for her, but...idk. There is just something that doesn't hit with me for some reason. I rewatch Evangelion every June (It's a tradition I've had for almost 2 decades lol) maybe this time will be different lol. I adore Toji! He is one of my favorites! Such a bright force in the story!

Misato is one of my favorite all time characters and I run into so many people that that hate her (which is another reason I bounced from the Evangelion fandom fast, though I blame the hate towards her in part on the Netflix dub, which I found horrendous, so if that is the one you watched and still enjoyed it, I applaud you so hard right now lol! The first time I watched it was a bootleg straight out of Japan and I feel like the sub translation was just way more accurate to the intention of the show and had a different feel for the characters than the new Netflix dub. Idk, that may just be me.)

The rare pair was for Rei! :-) I ship her with Kaworu so bad! lol. I call them my moon children. I just....AHKDGSLGHLDSKDK! There are reasons for that...but again...spoilers. lol. I ship Misato (tragically) with Kaji. For someone who doesn't ship much, I have a decent amount for Evangelion lol!

I feel like, to me anyway, a major theme of Evangelion is you can't expect everyone and everything to be black and white. People are complicated and with that, their feelings and reasonings for doing things are as well. Maybe that's why I like the characters that I've seen hated on so much. People want them to be good or a specific kind of "bad" (everyone loves a sexy villain, but that isn't there in Evangelion) and I don't feel that any of the characters fit into those tropes easily.

Ok I have to scream to you about the moment I was hooked and I'm going to put it under a cut because spoilers...

In episode one, When Unit-01 moves one her own to protect Shinji, I was done for. I was like...holy shit his mother's soul is in there, isn't it? The person I was watching it with was like "How the Hell did you...???" That's why I always say the EVA Units are characters. It's not that I'm a mecha fan (I don't hate them, they just usually aren't my jam is all), It was the moment that these EVA's were so much more than just an innovation to fight the Angels. Like...they were sentient. She recognized her baby and wanted to protect him. It was so viscerally moving for me. An artificial construct...with a mother's soul trapped inside it...Hell yes, give it to me. I have literally had people tell me that Yui's soul isn't inside her, and like...Did you guys even watch the anime? Like...that's the whole point and...just wow. The concept of what is it to have a soul is such a central theme in Evangelion (don't get me started on our Rei and that...We'll be here all day lol!)

Ok I will shut it now. Thank you for letting me ramble about this. I have no one to talk about this amazing anime with and I just want to explode sometimes lol. It was the first anime I watched that I fell in love with and it's so special to me. Arguably my favorite of all time, the only reason I put arguably is because L is my all time favorite character, so I feel like I have to put Death Note right up there next to it, even though if it wasn't for him, it wouldn't be as high as it is on the list lol. That sounds terrible but it's the truth lol. I once told someone that Evangelion was my favorite, I just had to make a little room in my heart for Death Note as well. I can't think of another way to put it into words lol.

[strangemeatpie]

gonna document and give my thoughts on the lupin movies/specials ive seen in this post under the readmore because hyperfixation has me behaving most unwise. warning this is will get long

blood seal of the eternal mermaid (2011):

+ really lovely character designs especially for lupin he looked great

+ animation = good!!!

+ lupins dynamic with the maki was cute. i like seeing lupin in the cool big bro role

+ some gr8 zenigata moments

+ i liked those introspective moments with lupin questioning his identity and legacy

+ toonami dub cast. tony oliver lupin is just Right

- main plot wasnt super interesting to me tbh

- the rest of the gang kiiiinda felt sidelined? it felt very centric to lupin and i mean yeah he is the main character but i feel like theres usually a lot more gang shenanigans you know

bye bye lady liberty! (1989):

+ idk if everyone is gonna vibe with these 80s character designs but personally i loved them. it had a cartoony energy that felt fun. animation was nice too

+ silly :^) it made me smile a lot while watching

+ i felt like the whole cast was well utilized here. everyone got some good moments

+ moemon

~ tonally this movie is kind of.... bizarre. i wouldnt say thats totally a bad thing because personally i like bizarre tone but it might not be satisfying for those who prefer something more concrete or mature. this special almost feels like it could be something you could watch with your family with how goofy it is.... but then it will hit you with something that is clearly not family friendly

the castle of cagliostro (1979):

+ its a miyazaki movie. do i really have to elaborate. in the 1 hour in 40 minutes of this film you will have a wonderful time

+ pretty accessible for anyone to enjoy even if they dont know jack shit about lupin. i watched it with my gf who had never seen a lupin anime before and we both had a great time

+ i really gotta hand it to miyazaki for creating this kinder, gentler version of lupin. feel like this movie had to be pretty influential to future characterizations of lupin that have him as a lovable little rascal instead of a devastatingly horny morally bankrupt creature of chaos

+ fluffy jigen

+ peak zenigata design

+ badass fujiko

- id say the only real drawback of this film is that while it IS a great and accessible point for franchise beginners, they might get whiplash from moving from this pleasant gentleman thief lupin to a LESS gentlemanly thief lupin....

episode 0: the first contact (2002):

+ polycule: orgins

+ *pops voice* HAMBAARGAH?

+ jiglup my beloved..... seriously a jiglup essential. jigen is gay as hell in this special and i wouldnt have it any other way

+ the whole scene near the end where goemon chases lupin with zantetsuken

+ when lupin is briefly shown to have a whole wardrobe full of feminine clothes that would only really make sense for him to have if he wears them regularly. probably for disguises but i like that he seems so comfortable with it and its not made into a joke either. in fact in his very first scene he is disguised as a woman and was femme fataling for a heist and i honest to god thought he was fujiko at first

- .... not to say this or many other pieces of lupin media are progressive. ngl there were some parts i feel didnt age great particularly one horny lupin moment with fujiko that left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth

- artstyle is just kinda Bland. idk if i would go far enough to say its BAD but it didnt stand out to me

the first (2019): 

+ YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS THATS WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT BABYYYYYYY THATS THE GOOD SHIT THIS IS HOW YOU TRANSLATE 2D ANIMATED CHARACTERS TO 3D

+ i had so much fun watching this movie its a fucking blast. everything looks gorgeous

+ watched the dub and it was fantastic especially tony oliver doing a great job with lupin as always

- big cw for n*zis though and its unavoidable since they are the antagonists and its a big part of the plot

- besides that honestly i cant think of many complaints maybe the story isnt amazing but i feel like the primary objective of this film is to be fun and it succeeds at that 

the fuma conspiracy (1987):

+ cute!!!!! a fun lil movie thats an enjoyable watch

+ character designs and animation is great

+ i liked murasaki she was so good

+ terminally gay pops

+ opening song BANGS 

~ this movie somewhat notorious for not featuring the usual voice cast for the time because of budget reasons which is pretty weird but... ok? personally it didnt affect my enjoyment of the movie and these voice actors did a fine job but some may be off put by it

- no yuji ohno either 😔

the hemingway papers (1990):

+ jigens terrible taste in men

+ cute artstyle that is pretty much the same as bye bye liberty

+ i really enjoy jigen in this one. hes hung up over his Mysterious Gunslinger Past™️ and tries to be the lone ranger for a bit but in the end he cares about his silly polycule too muh

- gonna be honest this one kinda dragged for me a bit plot wise. there were a lot of cute moments but besides those and jigen’s ex sideplot it wasnt terribly interesting

- pops was definitely sidelined 😔

island of assassins/walther p38 (1997):

+ this is a great more action oriented special! if you are looking to watch something more serious but not quite koike levels serious this is a solid choice

+ i actually was pretty interested in the plot itself which is rare for lupin specials lol

+ amazing smooth animation and fight scenes!! it wasnt too shocking to find out that it had been worked by many well known talents in the industry like gainax/trigger’s hiroyuki imaishi

+ MY FUJIGOE CRUMBS

+ elen was a pretty cool original character

+ zenigata WAS kinda sidelined again but..... theres a scene where he literally resurrects himself from the brink of death right after his heart stops because someone in the room mentioned lupin. i think that makes up for it

- artstyle/character designs are kinda... idk if i would say BAD but they are very much a Generic 90s Action Anime style. not my favorite look

jigen’s gravestone (2014):

+ jiglup. i loved their relationship progression so much!!! it seems like they are still early in their partnership in this movie... work partners but not quite friends yet.... at first. you can really see the turning point where their relationship start evolving into something deeper and into the mutual trust we come to expect from them. its great im rotating them in my mind

+ animation is so so so so so great and sexy also

- time to address the elephant in the room... if you have seen jigen’s gravestone, or know anything about the plot, chances are you know what im talking about. fujiko’s narrative treatment is BAD bad and deeply disappointing even though i enjoyed the rest of the film a lot. really say what you will about twcfm but... sayo yamamoto would have never put fujiko in a scene like that, at least never at that level of gratuitousness. i heard these films do get better with fujiko and im still plenty of excited to watch more but yeah that was Yikes  

operation return the treasure! (2003):

+ this special was like. delightful. what a good goofy little experience. was laughing AND smiling

+ idk if it was just me but kanichi kurita seemed to be putting in effort to make lupin sound EXTRA silly. and i totally appreciate it because this lupin is so cute

+ animation was solid!

+ i thought the premise was great. the concept of the gang having to return a bunch of treasures instead of stealing them is so fun. the plot got a little strange with the alien stuff there at the end but hey its lupin its natural at this point

+ jigen :^) i love him being all like “this job is DUMB and im not doing it” at the beginning and then getting fully invested in the antics. this guy is way too weak for his partner

- Man in a Dress Joke :^/ for the most part the humor in this special is superb but understandably this one does not land great even if it is far from the worst of these jokes ive seen

prison of the past (2019):

+ must a lupin the third special be “good”? is it not enough to watch some entertaining stupid shit?

+ i really enjoyed watching this ngl the plot was not interesting but i enjoyed the character interactions enough that it made up for it

+ im glad yata was utilized in this special because his dynamic with zenigata is delightful. i hope they get to do more funny shit together in part 6

+ huge win for lupin/jigen/goemon enjoyers. it was really cute how goemon has a bit of reflection on why he decides to stay with these clowns and comes to the conclusion that he loves being part of this circus

+ jigens terrible taste in men: the return

- like i said the plot isnt interesting and i wouldn’t call it an Essential watch either but hey i came here to be entertained and i was entertained

tokyo crisis (1998):

+ finally time for pops to shine!! and he certainly does!

+ actual memorable original character!!!! bring back maria you cowards….

+ this is an ultimate jigoe special they are paired up for most of it and they are so goddamn funny

+ seriously this special is full of great gags

+ tho im more used to the toonami dub cast i saw the dub for this special recommended so i gave it a shot… and it Owns though i still prefer the toonami cast overall

+ animation is seriously top tier

- it might have been implied (in the dub at least) that zenigata had romantic interest in maria which is yknow a little weird since hes twice her age but ultimately its pretty low key and he gets firmly Father Figure Zoned by the end and nothing ever goes beyond that

[i-can-bench-220]

Ah, I know quite little about the Japanese language, but really telling us anything about the dub will be super interesting! For instance how do Velma and shaggy refer to themselves?

of course! thank you for giving me an excuse to ramble about a combination of my big interests jdskdhdjdg

like daphne, velma refers to herself with the pronoun atashi. she also uses very feminine speech like daphne, however not as frequently. as daphne is kind of a serious and dignified professional in these movies while velma is a little more playful, i like how there’s a slight difference between them! velma also ends her sentences with the emphatic yo a lot, as opposed to daphne’s softer wa.

shaggy uses boku, a more formal and youthful sounding pronoun than fred’s very friendly yet slightly rough ore. if anything i expected fred and shaggy to be swapped in this respect, but i feel it also kind of works for them here?? scooby also uses boku which i find kind of funny, but i respect that finding a first person pronoun for him must have been tricky!! i love how he and shaggy use the same one.

a couple of more general things about the dub are below the cut if you’re interested!

here are the links to zombie island, the witch’s ghost and the cyber chase. the only film i sadly haven’t been able to find japanese dubbed yet is the alien invaders — if anyone can source it please let me know!!

the titles of each film are pretty much word-for-word the same as their english counterparts, but the title for alien invaders has a ?! on the end for a little pizazz 「スクービー・ドゥー 宇宙からの侵略者?!」

the bits and pieces of these three dubs i’ve seen so far are all scarily close to the original english!! japanese is a heavily contextual language, and as such it can be hard to translate a sentence from english without it being super wordy in order to convey even the bare minimum of information. but everything just fits and flows so well in these dubs, all while staying true to the originals. they’re amazing!

upon doing some more research, i discovered that there is a whole lot more japanese scooby than i initially realised! i’m fairly certain that almost every show and film has been dubbed, but it’s really hard to source most of it so i didn’t realise for a long time. i’m also unsure as to how big a following the show has or had in japan.

the gang’s japanese voice actors are as follows: kishio taniyama as fred, eri saito as daphne, tomoe hanba as velma, toshiharu sakurai as shaggy and naomi kusumi as scooby. they’re all very prolific voice actors as you might expect, and have done a wide range of work from live action films to video games. they’ve voiced their respective scooby characters in every dub as far as i can tell!

another thing i really need you to know is that “meddling kids” is translated as 「クソガキ」 which in this context is “stupid brats” but it can also be “shitty brats” if you want to take it that far. ah the versatility of クソ

wb kids international has a japanese playlist on youtube with some scooby comics and one-minute summaries of a select few episodes. i genuinely want to use them for language practise in future, they’re so fun!

scoob 2020 was dubbed into japanese, and its title is 「弱虫スクービーの大冒険」. this translates as “the great adventure of scooby the coward” and i can’t begin to tell you how much i love that.

i will continue my hunt for more japanese scooby! i’m truly so interested in discovering more about this show’s presentation and reception in japan.

[elpercotreviews]

My Anime 9/10′s

With probably no spoilers cuz I don’t wanna talk too long about them zzz.

1. Fullmetal Alchemist

YALL ALREADY KNOW THIS A 9/10. The only real reason this show is not a 10/10 is because it’s just a story that I’d never rewatch. There’s like 70 episodes, which is way too long for my short attention span, especially since I’ve seen it already. But yeah, by all accounts, this story is a masterpiece and is one of the only “shounen” anime’s that I genuinely enjoyed. No random sexualization. No dumb filler. All the characters have an actual purpose and role in the plot and everyone has their own morals and ideals that interact to make the story interesting. I couldn’t bring myself to really hate anyone, even the villains, because everyone was pretty well written. Also super satisfying ending that ties up everything properly without leaving me confused or upset. If you only watch a few anime in your life, Fullmetal Alchemist is pretty much a MUST WATCH to see a beautiful example of a modern classic anime as an artform. Also I should say that I really don’t like Hunter x Hunter (AN EXTREMELY CONTROVERSIAL OPINION BTW) but I love Fullmetal Alchemist so take from that what you will.

2. Parasyte: The Maxim

Same kinda shit where you already know this a 9/10 for me. It’s just a very satisfying anime that doesn’t have random sexualization or random filler or anything like that. Ending is also very good and ties up the story in a way that doesn’t leave more questions but also allows the characters to have a “life” outside of the scope of the story. I think Parasyte, because of its more horror and psychological-esque vibes, counts as a seinen and not a shounen, so for more mature audiences. I also really liked how the story was successfully adapted to modern times since the manga is from the 80′s. I have actually rewatched this anime, but what stops me from giving it a 10/10 is a few things that I found kinda “stereotypical” that I don’t wanna discuss further too much cuz it’s spoilers. I still obviously really like this anime and highly recommend it.

3. Zankyou no Terror

TBH, this anime is pretty hard for me to properly describe in a lot of words as to why I like it. The art was really pretty as well as the music, which was just straight up amazing. The cinematography of this anime is excellent as well, and a lot of scenes have that sense of being acted out by real people, as opposed to feeling completely drawn/animated. I was a teenager when this anime came out and I think a lot of the themes presented in the show really related to me. The show does kinda have some leftover questions when it ends that prevents me from rating it a 10/10, but I have such a soft spot for this anime. It’s from the same creator as Samurai Champloo and Cowboy Bebop, and although those two animes are also very good, they did not impact me as much as this anime did. Recommended for people looking for idk something that gives off Inception vibes?? In the sense that it’s much more about its themes and its message more so than the believability of the events that occur.

4. Magic Kaito 1412

THIS IS JUST A PERSONAL PREFERENCE BTW LOLOL I DON’T KNOW ANYBODY WHO’D PUT THIS AS A 9/10 ANIME. I JUST REALLY LIKED IT OKAY. It’s made by the same person who does Detective Conan but I like this a lot more because it’s a much shorter series and slightly more mature (more for teens than just straight up kids). I really liked the main guy, I think he’s funny and charismatic. He’s a pervert at times but Imma forgive that cuz of the 90′s. Idk it’s just a really fun anime that I don’t have to take seriously and can just watch and enjoy.

5. Mob Psycho 100 (season 1 AND 2)

Imma put season two as slightly better than season one. So season one would be like a 9 and season two is like a 9.25 for me. Super super funny anime and I like it SO much more than One Punch Man. I liked that there was a good balance of serious moments, but you can definitely still count this anime as a comedy. I’m typically not the type to watch “comedy” but this anime genuinely had me laughing out loud, while also crying and freaking out right alongside the main character. The main guy is super great because he’s just this shy and sweet middle schooler, and it’s really interesting watching him balance trynna have a normal life while also using his powers for good and such. Apparently the anime was decently faithful to the manga and there’s apparently enough material for a third season so I’d be pretty stoked for a season 3, but season 2 ended on a pretty good spot and was satisfying. TBH, if I had the time, I’d probably rewatch both seasons and bump it up to a 10/10.

6. Vinland Saga

This anime is just the first season of what I hopes to be a whole series that will be stay beautifully and faithfully adapted from the manga. As someone who read very far into the manga (but quit like years ago simply because I hate slow updates lol), I actually didn’t enjoy watching the anime at first. I was impatient and kept waiting for when like the “major” events would happen. So I watched like three episodes and quit. But when I had some free time, I decided to get stuck in and commit to watching the whole series and I was so pleasantly surprised with just how good it was. I was impatient but I needed to realize that there is no “filler” or like “wasted time” in the entire anime. I hadn’t read the manga in years, so so many things were only vaguely familiar but I think this helped me stay surprised and excited throughout the anime. I’m looking forward to the rest of the manga being adapted because it’s just a good Viking saga lolol. Major themes of stuff like growing up, violence vs. peace, what it means to be a good person, etc. Lots of blood and LOTS of violence like a LOT they are VIKINGS CMON but tbh not really any gore which I liked cuz gore makes me ughhhh. A very good watch and only a taste of an excellent story.

7. Demon Slayer

It’s just Demon Slayer duhhh. Of course this a 9/10 for me. I don’t wanna write much just cuz the show is so popular. Just read a REAL review of this anime somewhere else lmaoooo. Also yes I did watch the movie in theaters and yes I liked it a lot as well mmkay. I’m mad hype for season two. My S/O doesn’t like Demon Slayer as much as me, but also has Hunter x Hunter as their all time favorite anime. Do with that information what you will lolol.

8. Attack on Titan Season 3 Part 2

Same shit as Demon Slayer. Just go read someone else’s review about why it’s so good lol. Also, unlike Mob Psycho 100, I can’t include all of the seasons in this, because I have very various opinions about how good/bad the other seasons were. But this season 3 part 2, was just plain and simply amazing. While I might not like each season equally, as a whole Attack on Titan is also a modern masterpiece of storytelling. Read the manga if you can.

9. Great Pretender

I love this anime so much. Such a good and fun wild ride. The whole show is ridiculous but in a fun way. I’m a HUGE fan of heist films, so of course I absolutely enjoyed a heist anime. I’ve watched this show in sub AND dub, due to the fact that everyone is “technically” speaking English the entire time. If you’re a purist, just watch in sub OR dub cuz I did get confused here and there, especially when I would go back to compare language discrepancies.  Because basically I did this super high maintenance thing where I switched back to Japanese whenever the main character had flashbacks, since he’s ya know, Japanese. The dub also has this confusing thing where the first five minutes or so are still in Japanese, but switches to English when a little cue card on the screen goes “For the Viewers sake, everything from now on will be translated to Japanese.” It’s cuz in the sub, the inverse obviously happens where the characters are initially speaking broken English to each other, but for convenience sake, everything from that point on will be in Japanese. It’s confusing at first but I liked it cuz it just proved the whole international vibe of the show. It’s funny either sub or dub when they joke about how bad the main guy speaks English, cuz in the dub he’s speaking perfect English, while the sub has him not speaking English at all. But anyway, great anime that WOULD have gotten a 10/10 if not for the last episode. Like without spoiling ... WTF WAS THAT LMAOOOO. The anime as a whole is super wacky and zany but at least I could try to think it’s real life, but that last episode was just so unbelievable and bizarre and pulled my suspension of disbelief into the STRATOSPHERE that I just had to convince myself that this show takes place in some improbable alternate reality where something like what happened in the last episode is at least 5 percent possible CUZ HOW DID ANY OF THAT WORK LMAOOO??? Once again, great show, one of my absolute favorites, BUT THAT ENDING THOUGH WTF.

10. BNA

Good super underrated anime that I don’t hear people talk about at all. If Beastars is anime Zootopia, then BNA is Disney Beastars lmaooo does that make sense? It’s a lot more fun and zany than Beastars and I liked it way more. Made by the same people who made Kill la Kill. I really like that more classic, animated “cheap” art style that the anime has, and I also really liked the plot of the story. Not a 10/10 cuz the show does leave a few unanswered questions at the end of it, but this show was such a fun and interesting ride. When I finished the last episode, I was left with a big smile on my face because I just genuinely enjoyed this anime. Recommended if you wanna watch something a little unique and more on the silly and wack side. Talks about some serious stuff, but luckily the show never takes itself TOO seriously, and remains overall lighthearted for a fun action/sci-fi show.

[yourfinalbow]

"if Destiel wasn't on the cards, why is it Canon" u mean that unrequited love confession from Cas? Lmao. Jensen is literally homophobic yall trying to push him into Destiel ain't for the sake of representation its for the sake of you own little MLM fetish ship. Two straight actors ain't good gay rep. Even if Destiel was requited by Dean. Again, stop being a loser.

Hi! I'm actually glad you came to my ask box, it gives me an excuse to try and clear up some of these misconceptions.

So first of all, we don't technically know if it's unrequited. There is a lot of tinhatting involved in Destiel shipping, but there is also some solid evidence behind it. I personally believe that Dean returns Castiel’s confession, but didn’t have time to react to it. (I wouldn’t know what to do if my best friend of twelve years told me they made a deal with the Empty, was about to die, loved me, his love for me is the reason he’s about to die, and then continued to tell me that everything I believed about myself is wrong.) Some people also believe that Dean may have thought that if he didn’t say anything, the Empty wouldn’t come. Others believe that he did say something, but it was cut. (Which actually isn’t as far fetched as it sounds, considering scripts are sent to dubbing companies ahead of time and he reciprocated in almost every Latin American dub, as well as in French and Italian. And before you claim that there was a “rogue translator”, I must say that the script and dub has to go through very many heads before it is aired, so practically the entire company would have to be in on it. There are also a lot of strange jump cuts in the scene.) People have their personal headcanons, and you have yours! That’s perfectly fine, though anonymously telling me, and another awesome human being, that I’m a loser for having my headcanon is actually incredibly coward-like, presumptuous, and disrespectful.

So while Dean didn’t tell Cas he loved him in the English version, (Though I don’t know why that’s the only one that matters, considering only 13% of the world speaks it.) That doesn’t mean it’s not canon however, just unconfirmed on one side. (So your previous statement, “Destiel was never on the cards. Lol.”, is both grammatically incorrect and false.)

Your next statement, however, is the one that rubs me the wrong way. Jensen Ackles is not homophobic. I’ll link a few posts below that completely disprove this, but just because you don’t ship a queer ship, doesn’t make you homophobic. There’s also his infamous gay Aunt, and in my experience of homophobic-people-interacting-with-their-gay-family-members, (which is sadly a good enough amount to have a proper viewpoint), they don’t usual act as comfortable and open as Jensen and Aunt Darla, (and her wife!) are with eachother.

-Twitter thread of him being comfortable with queer peeps.

-CW’s “Dare to Defy” Campaign. (This movement is still very important, but the words don't hold as much weight to me personally after seeing what they did in the finale.)

-Tumblr post with Jensen being supportive of queer peeps. (He's even raised money for people in the LGBTQIA+ community anon. A homophobic person does not do that.)

You also have to take into consideration how comfortable he is with his male friends. I’m not saying he himself is apart of the LGBTQIA+ community, but there are countless videos and pictures of him being comfortable with both Jared and Misha, and that’s something homophobic people tend to stay away from. Once again, this doesn’t mean he himself is queer, and obviously people can love each other platonically! But people who are super religious and stead fast against gay people, usually go out of their way to not be seen as gay. And it’s clear it doesn’t bother J2M at all.

Jensen has also, in recent years, made jokes about Destiel. My favorite one is probably the, “Dean has no taste, clearly.” You can find that here because it genuinely makes my day. And if he was truely homophobic, I doubt he would be comfortable with things like this, as well as Jared constantly poking fun at him about both Misha and Destiel. (He would have at least pulled Jared aside privately and asked him nicely not to do that anymore. There are ways of doing this without seeming homophobic, and in reverse, just because he doesn’t want someone to make jokes like that doesn’t make him homophobic.) Third, I personally want Destiel to be canon because A, having two famous and main characters on a long-running Sci-Fi show, that was originally intended to be incredibly heterosexual, come out as queer would be good representation. People need to see that it’s okay to not be straight. Queer people have been oppressed for thousands of years, so being able to see themselves in their favorite show and characters is so powerful. Especially if these characters live long, happy lives together. And I argue that the actors don’t have to be gay themselves to play a gay character. People cross the borders on gender, sex, age, and nationality all the time. Why should sexual orientation be any different? And the B, because it's my otp. Simple as that.

And I don’t speak for the entire Destiel community, just as you don’t speak for the entire community of people who don’t ship them, but I personally don’t fetishize m|m. I actually get no enjoyment out of reading smut, and actively avoid it. I ship them because they have great chemistry, an interesting and often romantic storyline, and they obviously care about each other very much. Their gender has no impact on that. I ship w|w couples, (I actually wish there were more of them, because having my own representation is important to me), as well as heterosexual and nonbinary ones too.

So you can call me a loser anon, and honestly, I’ll embrace it. But I’m not the one coming into people’s ask boxes and hating on them, just because they want to ship two awesome people. I don’t judge you for what you ship, so I ask you return the favor. (But feel free to come talk to me again about anything else.) And since you seem to be having a bad day and taking it out on others, here's a gif for you!

And if anyone wants to respectfully add anything to this post, go ahead!

[latin-dr-robotnik]

You mentioned western localizations messing with Amy. Can you elaborate if you don't mind?

Of course!

I think the first thing to keep in mind throughout all of this is that I was referring to the old notion of “Amy is a psycho girl chasing after someone who isn’t remotely interested in her”. This is the big impression Sonic games (and I guess to some extent Archie Sonic, but I don’t want to get in there) left on fans during the 2000′s, and it comes mostly due to two main reasons: 

The differences in western culture versus japanese culture (how we see relationships in general, the actual tropes surrounding Amy, etc.) 

How the actual localization process was handled for each game, like the way Amy acts toward Sonic and other characters, how the games play said acts (cute vs annoying) and the way Sonic reacts to her presence.

It’s no secret that localization works during that era were spotty at best (that’s why you hear Ryan’s Sonic yelling “teriaaaa!” in SA2, or the general weirdness surrounding SA1), and while I personally don’t blame the people that worked on localizing the games (after all, the overall quality of videogame storytelling was pretty shaky back in the early 2000′s), I can’t ignore just how damaging those works ended up being for the canon. For example, cutegirlmayra talked about the differences between japanese and western Sonic for years now, take this quote from her post, a quote that I believe nails this whole thing on the head:

America treats Sonamy much like they do their franchise, a meme or joke to be poked fun of. Whereas, with a much more refined atmosphere, Japan treats Sonamy as an endearing and lovely couple. Though both resign to say they can’t really see Sonic ever ‘settling down’ or really being focused on romance. And,… that makes since to me. Knowing who Sonic is. But even that doesn’t mean he can’t have a crush XD (The heart wants what the heart wants, lol!)

More recently, stuff like “Unfortunately, I’m not inconvenient for my girlfriend” came to light, and that’s one of many examples where japanese Sonic was way ahead of its western self. This particular quote is from Sonic Battle and in the english version you don’t get anything remotely similar to that, instead Amy is left to look like she’s a crazy stalker, or that Sonic doesn’t accept her advances to a degree (that’s one major problem, how western Sonic tends to feel like he’s actually rejecting Amy while she keeps on trying.) It’s not coincidence that Sonic Battle is regarded as one of the worst portrayals of Amy in a Sonic game.

If you start digging on what the creators actually intended for Amy, you'll find lots of good intentions toward her and the framing of her dynamic with Sonic (which isn’t the only aspect of Amy, mind you, but my claims about western localization originally came from a SonAmy post so I naturally focused on that, sorry haha.) 

For example, last year I looked into how Sonic Unleashed handled SonAmy, and while my initial research was pretty sweet (the english version of Unleashed!Amy is really good if you spend time talking to her), the real kicker came as soon as we (me and cutegirlmayra) started looking into interviews with ex-Sonic Team writer Shiro Maekawa and cross-referencing information regarding the actual writers that were involved during that 2000′s era. The result? There was an entire council at SEGA of Japan dedicated to approve the way Sonic characters were presented in all official media, and they approved all of the key SonAmy moments back then, even more that western audiences didn’t get to see (more on that below.) Most if not all the japanese Sonic writers involved in that era (Maekawa was both a writer and part of said council) left around the end of the decade, after Sonic Unleashed (2008) and Sonic and the Black Knight (2009), and ever since that most of the problems shifted from “this is how SEGA of America is localizing Sonic games” to “this is the very poor state of Sonic writing in general”, so, dead end for now.

Then you have situations like with Sonic X, a show handled by Sonic Team and the official Sonic writers of that era working in some of the most iconic episodes... just to see their work censored by 4kids in America and the subsequent dubs that used that version as a basis (from what I’ve heard not all dubs are censored, though.) That’s why you’ll see fans imploring you to watch Sonic X in japanese instead of the english dub, since the series was a lot more involved with the pairing and the general simbolism of some of its touching moments (they used actual love songs for them, for crying out loud), which led to some funny facts, like how the Latin American Spanish and the French dub both ignored the mandate about muting Sonic’s words to Amy in Episode 52, leading to moments like Sonic promising Amy he won’t leave her again (LatAm) or just straight up telling he loves her (the french were on fire with that one.) Sonic X was the one true vision of Sonic Team, and the way it was butchered for western audiences is still baffling to this day.

So, what’s the deal with Amy then? In theory she’s a cheerful, happy-go-lucky girl with a very strong sense of justice, super-determined to help anyone in need (even enemies like Metal Sonic) and, depending on the situation, pretty impulsive. She’s particularly loyal to her friends, and she acts like the emotional support of the group. You’ll see her filling that role regardless of how good or bad the localization is (SA2 Amy helped Shadow realize his true purpose, Heroes Amy is the beating heart of her whole team, Unleashed Amy is the only one who doesn’t lose hope on Sonic when Perfect Dark Gaia rises); yet the ways by which these traits were shown in the games varied a lot, and that’s how we reached a point where a good chunk of the fandom thinks Amy is a stalker. Japan portrayed her acts as cute, as very respectable traits of a great female character; the west portrayed her mostly as a nuisance the gang had to carry around, even to the point of misinterpreting some of her quotes that aren’t actually bad (for example: “If I had to choose between the world and Sonic, I would choose Sonic!“ in Sonic ‘06.) And while this is no longer the case, nowadays there’s a whole different discussion surrounding making Amy better by making her “more mature” (which is also another topic raised here in the west, like, this whole discussion never ends! haha)

I feel like I got lost and came back several times while writing this reply. At the end of the day, it’s a long topic to tackle and I think the best I can do right now is forward you some more information. My friend beev did some great work translating my own Spanish articles tackling the Japan vs Western differences (it’s pretty much most of this reply.) And then there’s @skull001, he’s very vocal about the ways Amy’s character was messed with (including stuff like Amy being missing from the back of Advance 1′s box, the Sonic X english dub or the fact SEGA is still reluctant to count her as part of Team Sonic), and if there’s someone I’d listen when it comes to knowing pretty much everything about Amy, it’s gotta be him... and cutegirlmayra, of course. I hope this helped, though!

[sunshine304]

Movies watched in 2021: Encanto

To keep with my annual tradition of watching movies on New Year's Eve (usually with friends but alas), I sat down yesterday evening as well, my cats cuddling close, and watched some movies!

Besides “Encanto”, I also watched “Single All the Way”, which was cute and super tropey, but I don't feel the need to write something about it. For “Encanto” I want to make the effort, though, because I loved it!

Mirabel lives in an enchanted valley and is part of the Madrigal family, in which any directly related member has some special magical gift. Her mother's baking can heal every illness and hurt, her sister Luisa is super strong, her other sister Isabella makes flowers appear out of thin air, one of her cousins has super hearing and so on. Only Mirabel has no magical gift, making her a bit of an outsider in her family.

When Mirabel notices that the magic in their village is threatened, she is shot down by her grandmother, the matriarch of the family. But Mirabel knows what she has seen and decides to investigate. Perhaps the tower of her vanished uncle Bruno, whose name should not be mentioned, because his magical gift was believed to bring bad luck, might yield some answers...

This movie was great! I loved all the characters and Mirabel is a wonderful protagonist. The only one in her family without any special gift, she still tries to fit in and be helpful in other ways. Her parents are very supportive and loving, but she has a rather strained relationship with her “perfect” sister Isabella and especially with her grandmother, who only seems to see her as a huge disappointment.

It's a really good conflict. Mirabel only wants to be loved and make her grandmother proud like everyone else in her family, but no matter what she does, she only makes it worse. And her grandmother has her own worries and deeper reasons for behaving the way that she does, which Mirabel does not know about.

Many of the side characters are not all that fleshed out, but they are a lot of fun nonetheless. I especially liked Dolores, whose super hearing makes her predestined to know everything, if she wants to or not. Mirabels sisters are also interesting and the scenes, where Mirabel finds out that they both struggle in their own ways, are well done.

And then there is Bruno, who is a compelling character. The more you find out about him, the more you feel for him, because he himself is an outsider in this family, even though he has a magical gift – it's just one that people do not appreciate.

I felt like the resolution came a bit quickly at the end, but then again the movie likely was hitting the runtime limit for children at that point. The message came across well, though, and I really liked that there wasn't an actual villain (not counting those shadowy invaders from the backstory) or, even worse, one of these twist villains Disney liked to do in recent years.

The movie looked gorgeous, the colours were lush and bright, the design of Encanto was simply beautiful, brimming with creativity and life. I also enjoyed the songs a lot, though I'd have to listen to them in English again. As expected, the German dubbing stumbled a bit over Lin-Manuel Miranda's fast lyrics, though it could've been worse.

But there was so much going on throughout the song sequences that I found it difficult to take everything in, especially if you have German singers who mumble their way through some of the lines because they'll otherwise won't get through it in time. This is sadly nothing new – the quality of lyrics translation has gone down in recent years.

That didn't hinder me in enjoying this movie, though. “Encanto” is a gorgeous film with likeable characters and a great message. Highly recommended.

[armorsleevedsinglehit]

madara’s voice and other sundries

naoya uchida embodies madara for me. i love the way he speaks very slowly (and often softly!) and with genuine Intent, but that he also has these moments when you can hear the anger and grief and just unhinged rage in his voice, especially in his battle cries at the end of ep 366 and his screaming “you bastards killed izuna” in 368. you can just feel how powerful madara is from naoya uchida’s voice alone; you feel that he’s ancient, that he’s been through tragedy after tragedy and become hardened and bitter, that there’s this immeasurable weight behind his words. and i love that when he speaks you feel like he has all the time in the world to deliver his words (something i think that he and hashirama share, which really distinguishes them from the rest of the characters. you really get the sense that they’re from a different time).

A kind of odd thing that i debated on when i started this blog was how madara’s speaking voice would translate to written text, in a way that still felt true to his character, because there’s so much that uchida conveys with his voice that you just can’t do through text. and then there are other logistical issues as well, like, how strong of a writer is he? how is he at expressing his emotions on this blog, which is meant to be a personal space for him? i struggled with this to maybe a surprising extent, but i wanted to make sure more than anything that his character consistently gets through in the way he expresses himself. this medium, madara’s blog, is such an interesting challenge for me. madara is at most late 30s here; he’s been through a lot, but he’s not the same character that we meet in episode 322 who has died and been brought back to life multiple times. he still has that very human quality to him, which i wanted to show in the way he talks on here. you may or may have not noticed that madara doesn’t use a lot of commas, and yes, i know how grammar works; the lack of commas was a conscious choice on my part. i try to have him write mostly short, simple sentences, because he feels to me like the type of person who wants to just get to the point quickly when he’s talking about his own issues. i don’t see him as a particularly eloquent or talented writer, so it can sometimes be really hard to get across everything he feels in his heart and his mind with just his words. but it also forces me to simplify my own words and ideas, which i feel is gradually making me a stronger writer. (i have noticed myself omitting commas in my other writing, a lot of which is academic, so that’s something to watch out for lol.)

but all that aside, let’s actually talk about madara’s voice. because it’s one thing to hear naoya uchida’s voice and be like “okay, that’s really nice,” but if you’re reading a fic and madara has a piece of dialogue, what exactly does that sound like? i’d argue that finding that voice is actually super hard, especially if you just watch the sub and don’t speak japanese, because you’re not fully able to translate all the little twists and tones and inflections that uchida puts into the character. 

so you have that slow, soft voice, but it’s often got a very rough quality to it as well, both from overuse (he gets hoarse easily) and because the katon has fried his vocal chords. and at least in my headcanon he smokes (not religiously- he smoked way more during the war), so that definitely gives him a rasp, a bit of a crackling quality. but i also feel that he’s got kind of an unexpected range, partly because he’s usually speaking way down at the bottom of it (listen to naoya uchida’s regular voice; it’s much higher than madara’s!) plus quite a bit of vocal fry; he tends to purr. he’s got a voice well suited for jazz (because i adore jazz and i do whatever i want on my blog), if jazz even exists in the naruto universe. i don’t know exactly how to describe it but his voice has a sort of old-timey feel to it, the way an old radio announcer from the 1940s sounds (though possibly less excitable). the way he speaks definitely sounds like he’s from another time.

and i think he has a nice singing voice too! he doesn’t sing much, only very quietly to himself when he thinks no one else is listening, and he’s not professionally trained, but if he were to really belt it out (especially in his teenage days- before he ruined his lungs a bit) he’d have a nice, powerful, distinct voice with a bit of a growl to it. my mind always goes to oingo boingo era danny elfman, or maybe a cross between him and pete burns. (COMPLETELY unrelated side note, if you’ve ever wondered about modern au madara’s wardrobe, just look at literally any image of pete burns from the 1980s. i mean...come on.)

i also quickly want to give a quick shoutout to neil kaplan and xander mobus, who voiced adult and child madara in the english dub, because i think they both did a great job. kaplan obviously took inspiration from uchida’s performance (even though he kind of sounds like he’s got a cold the whole time) and i find xander mobus’ raspy texas drawl kind of incredibly charming. his performance (especially his little outbursts) makes me think that madara trained himself to speak in a more professional manner when he got to be clan leader, and before that, he spoke very informally- lots of “ain’t” and its equivalent. 

anyway, after all this, i am only really able to come up with descriptions and real-world approximations to what i feel like madara’s voice should sound like...but i think that’s okay, because naoya uchida provides a stunningly good interpretation, and besides that, everyone who reads the manga or watches the show will have their own interpretations as well. (i feel like i’m wrapping up a youtube video essay as i type the next sentence.) really though, let me know what you think!! do you have any madara voice headcanons that you’re dying to share? 

[hellzyeahwebwielingessays]

The Problem with Spidey as ‘Iron Man Junior’

Proponents of the MCU version of Peter Parker have often defended his characterization as logical and necessary in context. But is this really the case?

Tl:dr version: No it is not.

Forgive some laziness on my part because I’m going to be presuming everyone’s familiarity with the comic book iteration of Spider-Man and his MCU adaptation for the most part. To say there is a divide between many fans of former vs. the latter would be an understatement.

Detractors (which I count myself among) typically sum this up as the character being reduced to ‘Iron Man Junior’. In general this refers to MCU Peter Parker’s hero-worshipping of Tony Stark/Iron Man, their father/son relationship and the similar emphasis upon high technology in their hero identities. A connected point of contention is Peter’s aspiration to become an Avenger.

This was outright confirmed by Tom Holland himself in an interview for the then upcoming ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’.

"I think the difference now is that Peter Parker finally has an all-time goal, and his goal is to become an Avenger…Everything he does, even though he's doing it for the right reasons, is done so that one day he can become an Avenger and prove himself to Tony Stark. And I think we've never really seen Spider-Man with that kind of motivation before."

Defenders of this take upon Spidey have argued that this portrayal makes sense in context.

After all, Peter Parker is a teenager who’s grown up in a world where the Avengers are beloved, especially Iron Man. Plus in the comics (under J. Michael Straczynski’s pen) there was a time when Peter and Tony shared a father/son relationship. Tony even equipped Peter with a high tech costume as he did in the MCU. Spider-Man early in his career attempted to join the Fantastic Four in ASM #1 and later the Avengers in ASM Annual #3.

The problem is these defences just don’t hold up to scrutiny.

Let me first be upfront about my philosophy towards adaptations.

I in no way shape or form demand nor expect adaptations to be 1:1 panel to screen translations of the source material. I fully respect that changes are a necessity.

One of many 22-page comic book stories put out every month in the 1960s inevitably needs to be altered when jumping to a 90+ minute live action film in the 2010s.

Even the characterizations need to be altered where necessary if the source material is found wanting. *side eyes Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacy*

However, my attitude is that adaptations should at minimum respect the spirit  of the source material no matter what. To do otherwise defeats the object of adapting the work in the first place. If a film is just borrowing superficial traits (names, costumes, powers, etc.) and but not representing the spirit of the character, then creatively speaking it might as well be an original character.

This is the case with the MCU version of Spider-Man. A fundamental component of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s original vision for Spider-Man was that he was in essence the anti-Robin.

At a time when teenaged characters were sidekicks (Dick Grayson), supporting characters (Rick Jones) or the ‘kids’ in teams (Johnny Storm) Peter Parker was unique as a totally independent  teen hero. Of course that independence only applied to his life as Spider-Man, but that was part of the point. Spider-Man was his escape and release from the pressures and hang ups of his regular life, which included his doting yet coddling aunt.

A critical part of this was that he was a self-made  man. No elder mentor guided him in the use of his powers, helped him create his equipment or provided any sort of advice/accountability for Peter. He did it all himself. He was a loner.

On a meta level this is partially why Stan Lee (and for the longest time consequent writers) showcased Spidey not jiving with super teams. It was done to emphasis Peter’s independence and thereby his uniqueness within the genre. Even if that’s not so unique anymore (even in film), it’s still a baked in component of teen Spidey’s story. An essential aspect of who he is as a character.

As is his working class status.*

In fact these things go hand-in-hand. Just as Peter had to shoulder an ‘adult hero’s’ burden as Spider-Man (noticeably Lee didn’t dub him Spider-Boy or Lad as would’ve been common back then he also had to struggle for every penny. With the death of his uncle and his aunt’s poor health the burden of household provider fell on his shoulders.

When you take all this into account, having him fanboy over the Avengers and have a superhero mentor (let alone a billionaire one) is an aggressive misreading of the character.

The best way I can illustrate this is with an analogy from the opposite end of the spectrum. Imagine if you will a movie depicting Dick Grayson’s transformation into Robin. Except Batman was wholly absent. Not even an off-screen presence.

That  is how poorly MCU has missed the point  of Spider-Man.

And it was never necessary.

Contrary to defenders of the MCU, making Peter an Avengers/Iron Man fanboy was not the only logical direction to go with the character.**

Yes, in Peter’s world most kids would revere the Avengers and Iron Man. But in the real world not every kid or teen likes the Avengers characters or movies. Just as not every major pop culture phenomenon has ever been universally  embraced by contemporary kids/teens. In the 1980s not every kid loved the Transformers or the Ninja Turtles. In the 1990s not ever kid loved the Power Rangers or Pokémon.

Of course, most kids did, just as most  kids like the Avengers characters today. Similarly most  kids in the MCU by extension would look up to the Avengers. However, if anything this could actually help generate a more spiritually faithful rendition of the character. Consider that on literally the first page of Amazing Fantasy #15 Peter Parker was mocked by his classmates for being an outsider. A bookworm who didn’t know the difference between a cha-cha and a waltz.

In the context of the MCU wouldn’t Peter’s lack of familiarity or interest in the Avengers make for an appropriate updating of that characterization?

Let’s also consider that in the context of the regular 616 universe Spidey held little reverence for any of the heroes who had preceded him. This included Captain America and other WWII heroes as well as the Fantastic Four and their leader, the world famous scientist Reed Richards. Peter would’ve surely known who Reed and Cap were but as originally depicted by Stan lee himself, he wasn’t falling over himself during any of their early encounters.

So there was already a precedent in the comics for Spidey to not be dazzled by famous A-list heroes, meaning it’d be totally believable in the context of the MCU. Indeed this was likely part of the point of the character. Just as being Spider-Man didn’t improve his outsider status within the high school hierarchy so too was he an outsider among his super hero peers. The nerd to the Avengers jocks if you will.

But what of those comic book sources that say otherwise? Surely ASM #1, ASM Annual #3 and JMS’ run on Amazing Spider-Man corroborate the MCU’s take upon the character.

Yes and no, let’s tackle them one by one.

In ASM #1 it was made explicit that Peter wanted to join the F4 for purely practical reasons. His family needed money so he hoped the F4 could provide and income. When he learned otherwise he departed as quickly as he’d arrived.

In ASM Annual #3 Peter was far from eager  to join the Avengers and was equally unimpressed with them as a group.

He actively sabotaged his own chances to join at the issue’s conclusion.

As for Straczynski’s run…sigh…strap in.

At face value this run does indeed seem to support the MCU’s rendition of Spidey. However, the support it offers falls apart due to two factors.

The first is that, well…Peter and Tony’s relationship was pretty nonsensical.

I’m no Iron Man expert so I do not know how old the character would be roughly. From my impressions of the character though circa 2006 he wasn’t even in his 40s yet. Peter by contrast was 30 years old when you do the math. Unlike Tony he’d had several very serious romantic relationships and was back then happily married (barring a brief trial separation). He and his wife had lost a child and even believed one another dead at one point or another. Peter at the time was also working as a teacher to teenagers where he was clearly framed as their elder authority figure.

What I’m saying is that Peter was if anything more emotionally mature than Tony at this time. Or at least he was mature to the point where he was not going to view Tony as his father figure given the minor age discrepancy.

The relationship was clearly engineered with the pre-determined endgame in mind. That endgame being the ‘Civil War’ storyline wherein Peter would unmask upon Tony’s request and subsequently become a fugitive in defiance of Tony’s unethical practices. The latter would entail Tony threatening Peter and the pair coming to blows.

This brings me to the second factor. The totality of Peter/Tony’s relationship was designed to be a testament to how it was ultimately a bad thing.

Tony wasn’t the man Peter believed him to be.

Tony didn’t have Peter’s best interests at heart.

Tony was willing to spy, threaten and even attack Peter.

And along the way Peter and his family lost their home and the safety of Peter’s anonymity. The end result was Peter’s life becoming a shell of it’s former self, with his loved ones in serious danger. In fact you could view his fugitive status as a way to recreate the ‘good old days’ when Spider-Man was feared and hated by the public and authorities.

Had Peter retained his independence rather than surrendering any part of it to his ‘father figure’ Tony Stark, much of this could’ve been avoided. If nothing else Peter might’ve been able to unmask privately rather than publicly.

Whilst the MCU addresses the first factor via de-aging Peter, it has no answer for the second. It borrowed from the JMS run superficially and ditched the greater subtext regarding how Peter shouldn’t  have formed a relationship with Tony.

I’d like to conclude by addressing the most obvious counterpoint to everything I’ve said.

If Spider-Man were more comic faithful wouldn’t it undermine the entire point of him being in the MCU? The appeal of the concept was seeing Spider-Man interact with the wider MCU. From the audience’s POV seeing yet another Spidey flick confined to using Spider-Man exclusive elements might as well have been produced solely by Sony.

The problem with this argument though is that it doesn’t consider the myriad of possibilities available. Spidey could interact with the wider MCU and still be in character.

I’m no writer but off the top of my head:

Spidey could have defied the Sokovia Accords and thus been wanted by the authorities (a neat updating of his traditional ‘outlaw’ status), consequently coming into conflict  with Iron Man

Spidey might have still dueled the Vulture and interacted with Tony as he did in ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’. However, instead of gradually realizing he should be a ‘friendly neighborhood’ hero, he could call Tony out for ignoring small scale crime which indirectly ‘created’ the Vulture in the first place

Following ‘Avengers: Endgame’ the dissolution of the Avengers combined with the huge uptick in the population and displacement of citizens might’ve caused far more street crime that Peter would have to deal with. The remnants of H.Y.D.R.A. might’ve exploited this to gain a foothold upon which to rebuild.*** That might’ve warrant an appearance from more grounded heroes like Hawkeye or Ant-Man

An environment like this could’ve been exploited by Quentin Beck to frame Spider-Man, exploiting his already shaky public reputation and make himself look more appealing by contrast

Or Hell just do ‘Nothing Can Stop the Juggernaut’ but with the Hulk as Roger Stern planned to do in the first place

I’m sure many of you could suggest infinitely better ideas.

In conclusion, no matter how you slice it, there were better options than rendering Peter Parker Iron Man Junior instead of Spider-Man.

*Peter, as depicted in ‘Captain America: Civil War’ was clearly not well off financially, yet consequent depictions of Peter in the MCU have de-emphasized this to the point where you could argue they are very probably not working class anymore.

This makes sense internally as a billionaire Tony Stark has no reason to take Peter under his wing but allow him to still dumpster dive for equipment. Giving the boy at least some modest financial stability would be a logical step in building a relationship with him and giving him more time and energy to put into his scientific and heroic pursuits.

Whilst I don’t exactly agree with everything said here, this post dives into the subject more deeply.

**And even if it was, if the context demands Peter be rendered so unrecognizable then maybe it was just creatively reductive to integrate him into the MCU the first place.

***They have after all had connections to organized crime in the comics.

[yukisohmasmokesweed]

i took these notes while i was watching! 

ep 24

-rly like caitlin glass’ machi, i thought her monologue on the train was fantastic. very quiet and pained in a tired way, rly good reading. i liked how she played machi worked up too. i dont think she’s quite as good as the jpn actor but still great regardless

-yuki sounds 40 as always

-bailey and jewell have SUCH good chemistry, their flirting in this ep is making me super excited to hear a lot of scenes in eng in s3

-(hatori voice) shut UP

-sometimes i feel like burgmeier leans into shigure’s flippancy a little too much and isn’t pointed enough. it still works because it’s shigure and i don’t fully disagree w his take on the character/lines but i miss the intensity that nakamura offers

-akito’s first “apologize.” left me GASPING clinkenbeard fucking GETS IT!!!! it’s soooo hugely emotional and i love the way she totally lets loose for akitos next line (“do it NOW”) oh ya...perfectly delivered imo, she rly grasped the gravity of the situation for akito

-i have this weird thing with vale where he is very inconsistent. i actually thought his scene w hatori was rly good and it was probably because he was speaking like a human and not an actor lmao

ep 25

-oh my GOD the kureno/akito scene right after the cold open....clinkenbeard is incredible, so painfully genuine + so shines a light on how good akito is as manipulating others and justifying their own actions to themselves. also akito sounds particularly boyish in this scene (for the english dub anyway; i think sakamoto’s voice is just more naturally boyish than clinkenbeard’s) + i like that she utilized this early-morning type voice to lean into that. also it’s just a banger of a scene

-loved akito yelling at shigure in flashback, i like this bit as a whole because it’s such an obvious couple fight but i loved how it sounded like akito was holding back tears towards the end of it when they’re asking why shigure can’t put them first “for once”

-like i’ve said before i think burgmeier’s shigure is a lot more casual and flippant than nakamura’s so i reeeeally liked the quick dip into spite with “you’re one to talk.” it seemed very intentional on the actor’s part and was a great choice imo, really stood out

-i also like how loaded his delivery is when he’s asking hatori if he thinks there’s something off about kureno, and then he turns to mocking with “you don’t accept it? because you’re scared?” 👌👌👌 v good

-OOOOH the hostility in shigures voice when kureno calls, rlyyyy great, and i love how that hostility feeds into his frankness towards the end of the convo. amazing line readings

-i feel like everything i criticize vale for, sinclair does right; he reeeeeally sits in the emotion and doesn’t concern himself w telegraphing it, which is excellent for a character like kureno who has cut himself off from his emotions so that he won’t be hurt by how much he wants

-ugh and then when he starts crying.....SO GOOD!!!! I FELT THAT!!!!!

-OH HE IS LOSING IT!!!!!! this shit is raw

-VERY underwhelmed by whoever plays child akito, so completely pales in comparison to sakamotos truly outstanding performance in the curse breaking scene. i don’t think it was clinkenbeard but it probably should’ve been

-translation note: in the japanese kureno is the “tori” which means bird but also refers to the rooster of the chinese zodiac, but based on the imagery in fb i think kureno was actually a sparrow and not a rooster. by choosing that word takaya has more freedom in how she can portray kureno’s imagery. so it is interesting to me that the dub chose “rooster” and not “bird” considering how much non-rooster bird imagery is attached to kureno, and it makes the sparrow thing make a little less sense imo