#i think shin kamen rider did something to me and not in the good way

[stingyslegslookweird]

just saw Gotchard’s bike for the first time and

yeah there’s no way this thing’s getting used for more than a minute.

[tsuki-sennin]

You and me, babe, livin' for dreams Lifin for love, drinkin' for free Sittin' on top of an old robot, sharin' and carin' it out... The memory's scrubbing you down!

Kamen Rider Geats is filmed in front of a live studio audience~! Seriously, I guess we're going back to that family sitcom vibe Revice had, if only for a bit. But hey, this should be fun, right?

We've got a new set of Riders to become our friends! ...or our enemies, one or the other~! And the triumphant return of homegirl Na-Go about to rock! Witness the Scheme game unfold!

Spoilers, I guess...

-Wan Paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanchi

-You did it, Ace! You saaaaaaaved the world!

-Recording!

-Neesan.

-Okay so this obviously indicates that Tsumuri is older than Ace, which lines up with Kokoro Aoshima being three years older than Hideyoshi Kan (...holy fuck, once again I'm a little bit older than a Kamen Rider lead, Jesus it's only gonna get more common from here...), but like... how much older, do you reckon?

-Of course, she definitely was a good bit older than him when he started playing, but I'm wondering if the DGP is a time immemorial sorta deal. How hard did the Qin dynasty fall with the DGP's influence? Were there like a bunch of early Mycenaens playing Fortnite against the Jamato? Did they ever get Linto and Gurongi in on the action? Was the first ever winner of the game like an Australopithecus Africanus?

-Oh wow, I forgot, he made all of the DPG management his family.

-...I can't imagine how lonely he must feel if he thinks Giroli and Tsumuri are acceptable family to him.

-Does this mean Punkjack is his cousin?

-HER FACE UHILJI

-Oh hey, the new cast are in the !

-There's Owl Grandpa, heard a bit of buzz about him.

-Ah, yep, there's Punkjack. Hareruya Win, his name is, which is... very funny, guess they continue with Halloween content well into November like I do.

-Goat Girl! I really hope you're cool too.

-No Na-Go in the intro, huh? Weeeeeeeeeeell, I saw her everywhere in the lead up to this arc, so I guess she's coming to play again soon enough.

-Having a nice family dinner~!

-Looks quite delicious.

-Dad!

-Oh wow, man can cook!

-Y'know Tsumuri-neechan, your loving single father still found the time to cook for his two children. How about we just relax and enjoy this lovely moment?

Tsumuri: I've been done playing house since two weeks ago, when is it gonna end? Ace: Well, if you find someone who can kill God, then I guess I can stop being your little brother- Tsumuri: Shin Megami Tensei VI confirmed! Kill him!

-So, you thought just now to ask about that, huh Ace?

-That we... don't know, hahahahaha :)

-Oh! You just... Win once and you get to play forever and ever.

-...to be fair, that does seem an effective way to get things going.

-Who's the rival of this arc gonna be?

-"Oh shit, Ukiyo Ace."

-Starting today, you are Kamen Rider Buffa Deez Nuts!

-"Wait a fucking second, I hate Geats!"

-"Dude what the fuck, why would you wish for that?"

-Oh shit, Neon! Whaddup girl? Can't wait to see you get that badass new form I saw all over the internet!

-I see John and Ben are doing well!

-...Ah... well, she's definitely still trapped in that house with her mother. That's quite terrible.

-"Do you miss her? :3"

-Keiwaaaaaa, my bestie! I missed you for two weeks!

-Gotta gamble.

-Hmm... this is definitely different. ...perhaps Morio rubbed off on him on an unconscious level.

-Tanuki soba! I hear that Tycoon's core is bundled with a cup of that stuff. That is certainly... a decision.

-Where we droppin', boys?

-It's game time.

-Papa Giroli's mask is super cool.

-Jesus Christ, Ace, what the fuck are you getting the system to give you now?

-Watch, it's gonna be something phenomenally petty like him wishing to meet a

-Desiiiiiiire!

-Oh fuck, he's got eyes on Tsumuri-neesan.

-Poor Azuma is just 110% done with all this.

-Grandpa!

-Oh this guy's gonna be like super evil.

-I'm guessing there's no age limit aside from "over the age of 18", which I guess is fair enough.

-Wow, okay, just stick your brother and the creepy guy coming after you on the same time.

-Jolly Roger!

-"Hey, I don't want this old dude or this random chick, can I trade them in?"

-Oh wow, there're... two three-man teams, I guess he's got a point.

-An Item!

-Oop, there's the Zombie Buckle Azuma loves so much.

-What the fuck are these names... Zelgar? Uzul'Arc?

-Y'know, I think a tutorial stage would be very helpful.

-Or at the very least, some kinda antepiece. Uh, Route Kanal in Half-Life 2 starts by making you pick up the crowbar to get rid of the boards blocking your way, and after that you get jumpscared by a Scanner that you instinctively smack down. And a bit after that, you have to kill Metrocops to progress, which you can usually do pretty easy because all the necessary information was conveyed to you beforehand. That kinda forward thinking would help a lot with keeping players in the game longer.

-Come to think of it, the Jamato give me big Combine vibes.

-Monster!

-I'm the Punkjack!

-Win, I hate you so much you're incredible hjhhlkj

-We transformed!

-These pirate guys

-"Oh, ho! My baaaack!"

-"FUCKING HELP ME YOU SCRUBS"

-I liked you way better when you never talked, Punkjack.

-Ah, so Giroli's not the GM. ...or, at least, not in charge of the game as a whole.

-"I wanna be young again!"

-Quite... interesting uses of literal godlike power, but.

-You are not a normie, Win.

-Okay I take it back, you're really fucking funny.

-Damn.

-Shut yo ass up, Mom. Trying to marry off your kid to a corporate suit. You should be ashamed.

-...I have to wonder, does the Game Master have a vested interest in helping Neon?

-Oh shit, Dad.

-OH SHIT NAOTO

-Neon, your dad is TimeFire!

-Tsumuri-neesan!

-"Well, you guys are fucked."

-Who could you possibly wanna get married to, Goat Gal?

-Oh she just straight up dipped.

-Well, I can't say I found you disappointing, Goat Gal. Hang on, I'm looking this up, what was your name again? Yukie Yaginuma? Letter?

-You certainly were The Letter (Wii U, 2014), not to be confused with the infinitely better Filipino VN The Letter by Yangyang Mobile.

-How about you, Grandpa Tanba? Keilow?

-"Fuck it, it's Ninja Time!"

-Taking a massive shit.

-"Time for you to lose, Fox Boy."

-If you don't fight, you don't survive!

-Na-Go, woooooooo!

-Oh shit!

-Kurama Neon's time to shine!

-BEAT!

-That cheering is ours.

-BEAT AXE!

-Homegirl got herself an axe bass. Just like the kind Marceline had.

-Damn, music and cat motif on the same female Rider? Takahashi must really be trying to make up for Yaiba and Poppy.

-Tactical Blizzard!

-Ah, you can just

-Do that now, damn girl.

-Yeah, that's awesome, I love this power-up. You've more than earned it, sweetie.

-Round 1's over!

-Good job, dipshit.

-"Did that massive shit you take make you feel better?"

-Gotta love homegirl Neon.

-Gotta get that wish!

-"Why do you fight, Fox Man?"

-What on earth happened to Fox Mama?

-The Game Master picks the players.

-Oh shit, Geats got a gold scarf.

-A cipher, huh? Are we perhaps getting Jamato script?

-Oh fuck, a labyrinth.

-Alright, speculation time!

-Neon's dad. What's his name, Kousei? He's obviously gonna be important later. My guess is that he's somehow related to the people in charge of the DGP. He's definitely not the big boss, but the fact that Neon got drafted back in with such an obviously amazing Raise Buckle to start tells me that he's definitely got strings to pull.

-Now, about Fox Mama... I find it very interesting that they got a notable seiyuu to voice her early in the season where she first appeared. Yuka Terasaki, you probably know her as Korrina in the XY seasons of the Pokemon anime, Hephaestus in DanMachi, Kudelia in Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans, or... perhaps most notably Luna/Ruka in Yu-Gi-Oh 5D's. This is wildly speculative, but I think that perhaps the actress we saw in Ace's flashback was a Shemp for Terasaki, who actually has done live theater in the past, and Toei's just building up for her grand appearance in the late-game of Geats.

-Anyways I think that's all for now. Join us next week, for real this time when we continue gaming! ...in a big dumb maze!

[asknarashikari]

Nitoh: Sakurai-keiji has a nice ring to it.

Ryusei: As does Sakurai-keibu.

Yuuto: Isn’t it nice, Yuuto that being a Rider runs in the family?

Yuuto: Gah! Deneb! How many times do I have to tell you not to possess me every time!

Yuuto: But Yuuto, now you’ll finally be remembered.

Yuuto: No, I won’t be!

Yuuto: Just leave it!

Yuuto: Please don’t take Yuuto’s words to heart.

Yuuto: Yuuto is a good friend.

Keiwa: Umm… Why’re you arguing through the chat?

Gou: Oi, Yuuto, did you turn on your speech-to-text feature?

Yuuto: …

Gou: What? There are two Sakurais in this chat.

Keiwa: It’s okay to call me by my name.

Terui: A bit tact-less, but Shijima’s right.

Terui: We should do something about how to refer to the two of you.

Keiwa: I’m fine with whatever my senpai decides.

Kaito D.: Even Slack-jawed Tanuki?

Keiwa: Slack-jawed?

Geiz: Let’s not entertain the thief’s suggestion

Kaito D: I resent that.

Geiz: If you didn’t steal from me a lot of times, I might’ve humored you, but you did.

Yuuto: It’s fine.

Keiwa: I’m fine either way, Ace and Michinaga just calls me by my Rider name.

Yuuto: What if you’d have a chance to use another Rider system? What then?

Keiwa: I’ll just call myself Tycoon?

Gotou: No.

Date: Gotou-chan is right

Date: You’ll be inheriting the Rider name associated with the driver.

Gotou: Like when Hino first transformed with the Birth Driver, he took Kamen Rider Birth.

Keiwa: Ha…

Gou: Did not know that.

Gou: When Shin-niisan used the Mach Driver Honoh, he was still Drive.

Gotou: Well, maybe he’s just the exception to the rule.

Gou: Huh…

Terui: In any case,

Terui: Is it alright to call you both with your given names?

Yuuto: Yes

Keiwa: Yes

Well... generally I don't think Riders mind being called by their first names. When you've faced everything from chaos-inducing pranks to the literal end of the world/s as you know it together, there's not really much use for formality

[canmom]

PMMM?

Oooh, OK then. So I actually wrote an Animation Night post on Madoka, back on Animation Night 10 - hard to believe that's 81 weeks ago now. Back then, though, my posts were much shorter and I didn't discuss the production in much detail. However I did end up talking about SHAFT again later in the post about Kizumonogatari on Animation Night 51.

Anyway, I love Madoka. I admit, my engagement with the series has just been the original anime and Rebellion, and not any of the expanded world of gacha games and manga and the spinoff anime adapting the gacha - but I would rank Rebellion as one of my favourite animated films and I can't wait to see what they do with the upcoming sequel.

Last time I wrote about Madoka, I mostly wrote about Gen Urobuchi. I generally speaking think he's an immensely talented writer and I've enjoyed basically all the stuff he's worked on from Psycho-Pass to Fate Zero (yet to watch through Kamen Rider Gaim or play Sayo no Uta but I hear great things), but Madoka wouldn't be half the show it is without the incredible design work of Ume Aoki, distinctive direction of Yukihiro Miyamoto [and Akiyuki Shinbo overseeing all SHAFT projects, but see below], fantastic animation of too many key animators to name, gorgeous music of Kalafina and of course the absolutely brilliant Jan Švankmajer-influenced [Animation Night 50] collage animation of the incredibly talented duo Gekidan Inu Curry [see sakugablog for a nice retrospective of them].

The Madoka series excels in choreography and storyboarding - the classic austere, geometric SHAFT environments and striking camera angles, and the abstracted dance-like action sequences in which aesthetic elements and symbols flow into each other. And then they kick that up another notch or several in the movie, which indulges fully in Inu Curry's style. I still consider it some of the most beautiful sequences of animation set to music I've ever seen.

Anyway, I've only seen a bit of the SHAFT oeuvre (alongside Madoka, that's Bake- and Kizumonogatari), although the story of the studio is fascinating, like something out of a play - the charismatic Akiyuki Shinbo and his friends reorganising a fairly minor studio into one of the most distinctive of its time. Let me quote kVin (who else?):

The task Shinbo received at SHAFT wasn’t simple: he wasn’t going to direct a new series, but rather the whole studio. He became an overall supervisor of their entire output, while also guiding younger artists to make sure this style would live on. This marked the beginning of his unusual moonlighting, juggling jobs in a way that didn’t really allow him to do as much classic directorial work. To date, Shinbo has never been the sole director of a SHAFT series because he can’t. But he didn’t face this crazy challenge all by himself, of course. With his good pals Tatsuya Oishi and Shin Oonuma they formed the appropriately nicknamed Team Shinbo; a group of artists with compatible sensibilities, who had worked together in the past, and shared the desire to construct a new SHAFT.

kVin notes that the SHAFT style is an heir, through the influence of artist Nobuyuki Takeuchi who had had a significant role on Utena, to an incredibly influential director I've still yet to give a proper discussion on Animation Night, Osamu Dezaki, by way of - of course - the master of symbolism-dense, technically avant-garde anime, Kunihiko Ikuhara. I'll save a full discussion of that for another time, though. In any case, this was successful - perhaps too successful. Many of their best animators got caught up for years in the sprawling Kizumonogatari project, while kVin and other commenters more familiar with their work say the SHAFT style, once bold and innovative, became frozen in and lost its original contextual meaning, and some years later many SHAFT staff ended up leaving the studio for less overbearing work environment.

Madoka came just two years after Bakemonogatari, though, so the Team Shinbo style was still plenty fresh. Not surprisingly, it was quickly a huge hit. In Western fandom, it kind of became that meme show, where the magical girls have guns and being meguca is suffering. There's a bunch of extremely bad misreadings out there (it's grimdark! it's a 'deconstruction'! and the backlash to that - didn't you hear, gen urobuchi wants little girls to not have hope!) but that's just how anime fandom is I guess. It's certainly in dialogue with other magical girl shows, but to me it seems in a clearly appreciative way. Thematically, it's frankly not too far afield from something like Sailor Moon.

But you've asked for me to answer an ask meme, so let me do that instead :p

haven’t heard of it | absolutely never watching | might watch | currently watching | dropped | hated it | meh | a positive okay | liked it | liked it a lot! | loved it | a favorite

don’t watch period | drop if not interested within 2-3 episodes | give it a go, could be your thing | 5 star recommendation

fav characters: Homura - more on that when we get to 'unpopular opinion'! - and Kyōko, I generally really like the concept of a burned out cynical traumatised magical girl lol

least fav characters: is it too easy to say Sayaka's cardboard violin-playing boyfriend with nonspecific anime disease whose name I can't even be bothered to look up? I guess that's the whole tragedy of her character, she wants to save this boy who just resents her for it, but you can do so much better Sayaka!

fav relationship: haha well Homura/Madoka is obviously the central framing one innit, but actually there are dynamics I really like here, especially in Rebellion. again, more on that in 'unpopular opinions'. outside of that, I think you could write pretty good fic of just about any pair of girls. They hint a bit at Sayaka/Kyōko during the last big fight sequence in Rebellion (possibly more earlier? it's been a while?) and that's cute. I admit I'm not much of a shipper these days.

fav moment: There's many I could name, but one I keep coming back to is the sequence in Rebellion when the magical girl squad deploys and each of the girls gets a brief abstract sequence illustrating their vibe. The music and imagery is sooo good here. I also love the gunfight later in the film with the time-frozen bullet trails. And the incredible climactic battle when the whole world breaks down around Homura as she realises the truth of what's going on and becomes a witch again. Am I just naming the whole of Rebellion at this rate? OK, I admit it, years on in which I've watched literally hundreds more animated films, I still think this one's great.

headcanons/theories: This is clearly a redemptive headcanon that's not especially well signalled by the text, but the reason for all the nonsensical stuff about entropy and ancient aliens is that Kyubey is a low-level functionary who doesn't understand anything half as well as it pretends. The Incubators didn't cultivate human civilisation over the centuries and give us technologies, that's just a convenient lie in the moment, and Kyubey doesn't really understand what it is that they're harvesting from the magical girls very well at all. But because the girls are like, what, middle schoolers, they don't have the background to pull Kyubey up on his misunderstanding of thermodynamics lol.

unpopular opinion: OK. oKAY. let's do this again shall we. strap in. I went over this some time previously when I first watched Rebellion (good god that was hard to find, tumblr's search functions are a travesty) but my comments amounted mostly to *gestures at Stirner, who I hadn't read and still haven't*, so let's have another shot at justifying this Take...

Here we go: I still don't think Homura is the bad guy at the end of Rebellion. Which seems to be the shared opinion of every girl I know who's seen the film but in wider fandom is basically nonexistent as a take. I don't necessarily think Homura has the answer, but I don't think Madoka permanently sacrificing herself for the sake of every hurting person in the universe was a happy ending in the first place - Homura's insistence on being the one to save Madoka and her lack of imagination in trying to reconstruct the pantomime of a 'normal' life is surely an unhealthy fixation, but she's right that the situation was intolerable and something did have to be done about it. The tension between Madoka's agency and Homura's, and whether their desires and self-sacrificing impulses can be reconciled, is a productive one.

Now, the end of Madoka is something that produces endless interpretations. Back in May last year there was a fascinating discussion on here between @azdoine, @businesstiramisu and @anarcha-catgirlism getting into the characters' various saviour complexes and the possible religious readings of their arcs in the series's broadly Buddhist cosmology.

Visually, the film pulls out all the symbols in the SHAFT toolkit to suggest that Homura is as evil as she makes out - the mouth closeups, the headtilts, the cadence and tone of the dialogue. But it also gives us quite a few lines of evidence that Homura is onto something. Notably, it makes clear that Homura has not saved Madoka at the expense of all the other Magical Girls - outside her pocket universe, the Law of the Cycle still exists. Whether Madoka can truly be happy there is another question. It also gives us a very blatant image that Madoka as 'Madokami' is still suffering with an arm covered in self-harm scars:

Admittedly this film is about as visually dense as an Ikuhara anime and I don't blame anyone for not reading the implications in this very brief cut but it's fairly important, I think. Madokami may be taking the girls up to heaven, but it's a very impersonal heaven, and the strain it's placing on her is evident. Because I've increasingly caught on that a universal self-sacrificing impulse to save everyone, however understandable, isn't actually a great thing.

Even if you can't sympathise with Homura - and I admit, a lot of my sympathy comes for her rhetoric (desire over rules) more than her actions, and you could make an argument that trapping Madoka in a false pocket universe after struggling to escape one made by the Incubators and herself across the whole film is deeply ironic - overall, in any case, I feel that the ending of Rebellion is at least a very apt extension of the tragic arcs of the two characters. Not to mention a fascinating discussion point and far richer than the happy ending that was, I believe I read at one point, originally planned before Shinbo requested a darker ending.

Yeah, it is very sudden, probably too much so - that presentation does make it seem like a 'shocking twist! Homura's bad now' which is perhaps one reason why a lot of people reacted badly to it. I'm not exactly sure where they should have foreshadowed it; at least it's not like they don't spend a lot of time on it afterwards showing you just where Homura is coming from.

how’d you find it: Without Rebellion, I feel like Madoka is 'merely' a very good magical girl anime with excellent art direction, some creative twists on the format, and a darker tone than usual... with Rebellion, it's something fascinating that has completely hooked me.

So I really can't wait to see if they can keep the ball rolling in the Rebellion sequel, whenever that lands. Although the breakup of Kalafina will be a tragic blow. I don't know how you do Madoka without Kalafina.

random thoughts: More a bit of trivia than anything, but as far as one of the lasting influences of Madoka, Yoko Taro asked Kimihiko Fujisaka to think of the series when designing the Intoners for Drakengard 3. Which proved to be a great decision.

I admit, there's a whole side of Madoka which I am not familiar with. I tried starting Magia Record once but bounced off what seemed to be a simple recap of the opening beats of the series - I need to give it another shot some time because there are some spectacular clips from season 2. Per some of @azdoine's posts which I only vaguely recall, it sounds like they've been monkeying around a bit with retconning some of the themes and logic of the series which would be a shame but whatever, I don't believe in 'canon'.

Hope that satisfies you as an answer, anon!

[dangerouscommiesubversive]

but it is sunlight

Fandom: Kamen Rider Agito, Kamen Rider Kabuto, Kamen Rider Gaim, Kamen Rider Ghost Characters: Tsugami Shouichi, Hikawa Makoto, Tendou Souji, Kagami Arata, Kazuraba Kouta, Kureshima Takatora, Tenkuuji Takeru, Fukami Makoto, Alain Song: "Sunlight," Hozier (playlist here) Warning: Mildly NSFW--not especially explicit, but people do have sex in this story

a buried and a burning flame – i

A shared day off is rare, but it does happen sometimes, and today the weather is so warm and perfect that Makoto is content to sit on the step drinking a lemonade and watching Shouichi garden.

Their garden space here isn’t as big as the one Shouichi got used to at Professor Misugi’s house, but it’s been expanded upwards with poles and frames and other contraptions that Makoto isn’t quite clear on. Really, they’re lucky to have a plot at all—the restaurant has its own rooftop space, so it’s not like Shouichi’s hurting for plant contact, but he needs it for himself as well. Makoto’s not sure he’ll ever understand the way Shouichi craves the presence of growing things. But then, he’s just happy to see Shouichi enjoying himself.

He glances around the garden briefly as Shouichi’s murmuring over a cucumber plant and frowns. “Aren’t sunflowers always supposed to face the sun?”

“Generally, sure.” Shouichi smiles but doesn’t look up from his work. “Why?”

“Well, if they don’t then doesn’t that mean they might be sick? The sun’s south of us right now, but your flowers are facing west.”

“Our.”

“Mm?”

“It’s your garden too.”

“Well, sure, but I mean it’s really—”

“Anyway, don’t worry, if they were sick I’d know. They’re probably just a little slow today.”

Makoto’s dubious, but he nods, and Shouichi beams at him for a moment and then goes back to fussing with the cucumbers. Once he finishes with them, he does something with a tomato plant nearby, and then hurries over to a small patch of green onions on the other side of the garden.

The faces of the sunflowers move to follow him as he walks. Makoto almost misses it, catches their motion out of the corner of his eye as he, too, is turning, and then freezes as they continue to shift. “Do—did you just see that?”

Shouichi frowns. “See what?”

“Ah…no, never mind.” Makoto settles forward, elbows on his knees, watching in soft fascination as Shouichi continues to work. “It’s not that important, I probably imagined it.”

---

the icarus to your certainty – i

Tendou doesn’t make demands most of the time, but he doesn’t make suggestions either. He makes statements and then continues on in the calm assumption that they’re true.

When he gets back from his trip abroad, for example, the first conversation Arata has with him ends with, “We’ll see you for dinner at six.” It’s not an invitation, or a request, or a question. It’s just a statement of fact, its truth etched into the fabric of the universe, and so Arata gets to the house at six precisely.

There are other statements that follow, of course. Like, “I’ll see you at the same time tomorrow,” and, “Other people address me by surname, not you,” and, “It’s late, you’ll stay the night.” The thing is, Arata wants to bristle at this casual certainty, but he can’t manage it, because so far Tendou—Souji—hasn’t said anything incorrect. When he makes these statements, Arata wants them to be true, and so they becometrue by default. He shows up at the same time the next day. He says, “Souji,” instead of, “Tendou,” and is shaken by the faint, surprised smile he gets in response. He stays the night.

Tonight Souji’s making some kind of crab risotto thing, and Arata is helping, which is to say making a salad. This is already strange, since it used to be that he was barely even allowed in the kitchen. Hiyori, visiting for the evening, is sitting on the couch with Juka while Juka talks about one of her classes at Jounan University. It’s very domestic.

He finishes slicing cucumbers and is reaching for the lettuce when Souji turns to him holding a small spoon and says, “Taste this.”

On automatic, and because his hands are busy, Arata just leans forward and eats the spoonful of risotto, letting it spread out creamily over his tongue. “Mm.”

Souji is looking at him expectantly. “What do you think?”

“I think—wait, you’re actually asking me for my opinion?”

“Shouldn’t I?”

“You just…don’t usually ask for opinions.”

“Not from other people, no, but other people aren’t you.”

Arata laughs in warm surprise. “Really? What makes me so different?”

He’s not really expecting an answer, but Souji looks at him for a long moment and then says, “If all of humanity were alchemically distilled into one specimen exhibiting only its finest qualities, that specimen would be you.”

Arata stares at him. “I. You. Are…is this a quotation, are you quoting something?”

Another one of the faint, surprised smiles he’s gotten to like seeing. “No. But perhaps someday, someone else will quote me, and rest assured, the recipient of the quotation will not deserve it nearly as much as you.” And, before Arata can really process that, “I would appreciate your opinion on the risotto now.”

“I…it’s really delicious, but. Maybe it could use a pinch more salt?”

Souji nods firmly. “I’d suspected as much. Thank you.”

He returns to his cooking, reaching for one of the little pots of salt next to the stove, and leaves Arata to cut up lettuce and try to figure out what just happened.

---

i had been lost to you – i

Kouta’s visits are infrequent, inconsistent, and never announced. The most warning Takatora ever gets is a sudden, powerful waft of flowers and fruit, moments before a zipper opens in the air in front of him. He’s gotten used to it, as much as one can get used to something like that.

(Kouta always comes to him. His house has more privacy than most other spots Kouta knows in Zawame, and anyway, according to him, “You’re always easy for me to find.”

Sometimes those visits are for “work,” as Kouta calls it, and he stays only for a brief moment before rushing off to whatever world-ending crisis has caught his attention. More often, though, the reason is nothing more than, “Things are aligned correctly right now, and I missed Zawame.”

He’s sitting in the park now, on a bench under a camellia tree. A casual observer wouldn’t look at him and see a god, just a smiling young man in a plaid shirt and dark jeans, shoes kicked off so that he can curl his bare toes in the grass. Maybe he’s waiting to meet a girlfriend, or a boyfriend; maybe he’s just enjoying the good weather. As Takatora watches, though, a squirrel runs down the trunk of the camellia tree and leaps onto Kouta’s shoulder, and he turns and beams at it, apparently listening intently to its chattering. A jay is perched on his knee. Two stray cats are sprawled on the grass flanking him like indolent sentries, and a dog with a collar, probably lost, is curled up against his hip on the bench.

He lifts a hand, cupped, and Takatora knows without being able to see it that his palm is filling with seeds, manifesting as if from his skin. He’s done it before. The squirrel runs downs his arm and begins to stuff itself, the jay hopping from his knee to his fingertips to do the same. With his other hand he reaches up absently to catch a gleaming red apple that drops down from the camellia tree and begins to eat. Only the plants nearby lean away from him, which seems strange until Takatora realizes that they’re not really leaning, they’re growing, extending outward from his presence like an aura, the grass increasingly tall around his ankles.

How strange to see him at peace. And what an astonishing thing, that he should turn his face even for a moment from the new world he guides and his cosmically-designated beloved to walk once more in the city that treated him so poorly.

(She doesn’t visit. She can’t set foot outside of her hallowed forest now. But Takatora did get to speak to her, once, and he knelt and begged her forgiveness for all that he allowed to happen and received in return a kiss so gentle and yet searing in its benediction that even now he can feel it on his skin, and sometimes has to look in the mirror to see if she left a mark on his forehead.)

“Hey!” Kouta is waving to him with the hand holding the apple core. “Takatora! Are you done with your meeting thing? Come on over, I want to hear everything that’s happened since the last time I was here.”

Takatora blinks and nods, shocked out of his reverie, and heads over to the camellia tree. The stray cats scatter as he approaches, but none of the other animals move, so after barely a moment’s hesitation he sits down in the grass at Kouta’s feet, unmindful of his suit, and says, “Well, reconstruction work is nearly finished, we’ve only got two or three more buildings left to repair. Did I tell you about the dance classes at the new community center?”

“The ones that Zack and Peko are running? I think you mentioned them a little last time, did those finally start?”

Camellias bloom out of season over their heads. “Yes, only a few weeks ago. There may be a few other Beat Riders assisting as well, possibly by running additional courses, apparently enrollment was well past what anyone had anticipated.” Takatora leans against Kouta’s shin as the grass slowly creeps up past his knees, comforted by his radiant warmth. “And Mitsuzane’s continuing to enjoy university, he’s going to be working for one of his professors next semester as a teaching assistant…”

---

love and its decisive pain – i

Being around Takeru is a strange experience now, because by simply existing he exerts a spiritual pressure unlike anything else Alain’s ever encountered. The pressure isn’t negative, but it is constant, the weight of a higher reality radiating from his skin. Or, not a higherreality—Alain isn’t sure what it is, but Takeru’s certainly of the human world.

Alain isn’t sure if people who aren’t from the Ganma World even notice it. Certainly he’s seen Javert twitch minutely when handing Takeru something, he’s seen how Igor goes tense around him, even Alia’s been known to flinch away from the intensity of his proximity. Are they unusually sensitive, or are the people of the human world just numb to it?

Perhaps it’s nothing new, and he’s just always been like that and that’s why people don’t notice. Makoto would know—he’s of the Ganma World now, even if he came to it late. “Has Takeru always had such…presence?”

Makoto glances at him, and then over at Takeru, who’s crouching to offer a rice ball to a child sniffling on the temple steps. The child takes it, hand brushing Takeru’s, and relaxes in the same way that Igor might tense at the same contact, perceptibly basking in that unseen but powerfully felt aura.

“No,” Makoto says. “No, this is new. He wasn’t like this before. Or at least he wasn’t like this when we were young.”

Somehow this answer isn’t reassuring at all. “I see. That’s…it’s a lot.”

“It is, isn’t it.”

That’s the point at which Takeru hears them and looks up, face transformed by delight at the sight of them. “Makoto! Alain! When did you get here?” Behind him, Narita comes forward to walk the sniffling child over to a quieter corner, asking her as they go whether she knows either of her parents’ phone numbers. Takeru waves goodbye to her, beaming, and then hurries across the room to crash into Makoto’s arms, and Alain can see Makoto being overtaken by that benevolent pressure. “You didn’t tell me you were coming! Nothing’s going on, right? Everything’s ok? Who’s taking care of things in the Ganma World?”

“Everything’s fine,” Makoto says into Takeru’s hair. “Alia’s got everything under control.”

“This is a social call,” Alain adds, and is favored with an embrace of his own, knees almost buckling under the warmth of Takeru’s presence. “We just missed you.”

“I missed you both too. I hope you’ll be here for a couple of days, at least?” The weight of his joyful expectation is so much that Alain can only nod. “Wonderful! Here, come on, you’re both probably hungry, let’s go get takoyaki.”

He’s human, Alain realizes as Takeru’s fingers wrap around his and he feels that shiver run through him again. That’s all it is, and also everything that it is. More than anyone else in this realm, he is human.

What an extraordinary thing.

“I’d like that,” Alain says out loud, and Takeru is already grabbing Makoto’s hand as well. “It’s been a while since we shared a meal.”

“It has, hasn’t it? Let’s go, you two can tell me all the news while we’re eating.”

---

a buried and a burning flame – ii

For the most part Shouichi doesn’t initiate. It’s not that he’s not enthusiastic about sex, he’s just an awful tease. Little gestures, bumps and brushes, obvious double entendre that he then winkingly denies; he’d rather drive Makoto to distraction and pretend innocence until Makoto finally loses patience and backs him up against the nearest wall. He even admitted to it once, in an unguarded moment of drowsiness. “I like when you do that, it’s fun. And it’s not like I can just ask you to.”

“You could, though,” Makoto had said, but Shouichi had already drifted off.

They’ve been together all day, but Makoto can barely remember any of it clearly except Shouichi. Everything else fades into the background when faced with the vividness of his smile.

Makoto’s shirt is somewhere back in the living room, he thinks maybe on the couch. They’ve been trying to get Shouichi’s shirt off, but that’s been a tougher prospect, because it’s a pullover. Finally, though, it comes off over his head and lands on the floor, and Makoto presses him to the wall again. And now, even more vivid than his smile is the feeling of his skin, burn-hot against Makoto’s lips and hands and chest, his fingers like a brand curling around the back of Makoto’s neck as Makoto kisses his throat.

They barely make it to the bedroom.

The heat of him is extraordinary, feverish, it would be frightening if Makoto wasn’t used to it. He is, though, they’ve been together for years now, so instead his own thoughts can melt away in the face of Shouichi and his pleasure, the taste of him, the sound of his breathless cries, Shouichi arching up against him. Sure, he gets off somewhere in there too, but the important thing is Shouichi, climaxing underneath him with a gasp of, “Makoto,” and a kiss that Makoto would be willing to end the world for.

Afterwards, they lie wrapped around each other in a state of abstracted bliss until Shouichi mumbles something about being thirsty, at which point Makoto extricates himself despite the attendant sleepy protests and heads to the kitchen with a blanket around his waist to get drinks. Passing the bathroom on the way back, he pauses, frowning, at the sliver of his reflection in the bathroom mirror.

It hadn’t been sunny enough today to get a real sunburn, but there’s a sunburn on the back of his neck nevertheless, bright red although not painful. He sets down one of the glasses, reaches up and covers it almost perfectly.

When he realizes what it is—although Shouichi’s palm is slightly broader than his, Shouichi’s fingers slightly shorter—he blushes and picks up the glass again, heading for the bedroom, hoping that his hair is long enough that no one at work asks about the handprint burned into his skin.

---

the icarus to your certainty – ii

It’s not always so precipitous.

Normally they have to be quiet, because normally there’s at least one other person in the house. And in any case, Souji dislikes rush—he’ll approach anything and everything with a plan in mind, sex included.

Tonight, though, after dinner finished, Juka distributed a round of cheek kisses and then gathered up her bag and headed out, to meet up with a university friend she’s doing a project with. Hiyori left shortly after that. (She rarely stays the night anyway, she doesn’t like to leave her parakeet alone.) They’re alone in the house unless the Zecters are around somewhere, and they mostly keep to themselves, they’re hardly company in the same way.

But.

Precipitous.

They do dishes together, in comfortable silence, and once that’s done and his washing gloves are off Souji turns to make one of those true statements. Except that Arata decides he doesn’t feel like hearing one right now, so before Souji’s even gotten through one word Arata takes a step forward and kisses him, bracketing him against the edge of the counter with both arms. Souji makes one of those little surprised noises and drapes his arms over Arata’s shoulders and pulls him closer, and a couple of minutes later Arata’s hands shift down to lift and Souji’s legs wrap around his waist, and.

It’s good that they have the house to themselves.

They can’t stay at the kitchen counter, because it’s a bad height and also that’s not sanitary, and the dinner table won’t support their weight, which is a lesson they learned the hard way. The couch is an option, though, and it’s not easy to get over there with another person wrapped around him, but it is doable. He sits, or more lands, with a thump, Souji in his lap, Souji’s hands on the sides of his face tilting his chin up, and for some while lets himself be overwhelmed by having all of Souji’s considerable attention focused on him.

A pause for breath, for the removal of at least some clothing (and if Souji fumbles Arata’s shirt buttons, Arata’s going to save the memory for himself and certainly never mention it), for—“Are you all right?”

For Souji looking down at him, dizzy-eyed, and saying, slowly, “Your depths are such that I think I could drown in you.”

Arata reaches up, takes hold of his wrists, thumbs rubbing gently across the pulse points. “I mean, I can’t get poetic about it like you can,” more quietly than warranted given that they’re alone, “but you’re so much that sometimes I feel I could burn up, so that seems like a fair trade.”

He’s expecting that surprised look, but it doesn’t come, because what he gets instead is a kiss that would definitely have him on his ass in seconds if he wasn’t already sitting down. “More than fair.”

---

i had been lost to you – ii

Even before his apotheosis Kouta was a man built for pleasure. It must have been a glorious accident of his birth, Takatora thinks, that on his mouth smiles are so natural, that his body responds to any rhythm with grace, that he laughs so easily. Takatora has lived his entire life on the far other end of that spectrum—at best, he might call himself austere—but he can’t bring himself to be jealous of such an infectious and in-born joy. He can only hope to increase it, in whatever way he can.

So he kneels.

It isn’t worship, because Kouta will not accept his worship. Or anyone else’s, for that matter, he may be a god but he refuses to be treated like one. But love, as a great man once said, is a sacrament best taken kneeling, and while there are many points Kouta will argue, Takatora’s esteem and affection for him are not one of them.

Really, though, Kouta isn’t saying anything especially coherent right now.

His unnecessary but habitual breathing is coming short, and his hair flickers from deep brown to unearthly gold as his concentration disintegrates. If his eyes weren’t squeezed shut, they, too, would be flickering. His fingers, curled on the edge of the bed, have flowers blooming between them. And Takatora, the indirect cause of this riotous growth and rendered speechless for more immediately physical reasons, continues until his lips are numb and Kouta is pulling him up and flattening him to the bed with a kiss.

“You don’t have to stop me, you know I wouldn’t mind if you—”

“No,” and a kiss, “no, we don’t know if it could—” and another kiss, “so no, even though you know I, you know—Takatora, I—” and the dissolution of coherence once again, now for both of them, as Takatora dizzily allows himself to be subsumed by Kouta’s passion and enthusiasm.

The first few times he was able to visit, afterglow involved actual glowing on Kouta’s part, which was the cause of some mutual hysteria—Takatora doesn’t want to call it giggling, but that’s really the accurate term. The glow’s under control now, and Kouta lies against him, asleep, and does not look more divine than any other beautiful man in repose.

There are still flowers blooming on the edge of the bed, red and orange against the plain bedspread. They’ll be scolded away later, but for the moment they are bright and strong and vivid. Takatora, drowsy himself, drifts off gazing at them, Kouta’s arms tight around his waist.

---

love and its decisive pain – ii

They are devoted partners, and thus Takeru’s anger is their anger, Takeru’s sorrow is their sorrow, Takeru’s joy is their joy, and, most crucially in this moment, with the dawn not arrived and the day yet to start and make them all busy, Takeru’s pleasure is their pleasure. And because he is who he is, because he feels everything with such strength and fervency that it radiates from him like sunlight, it is such pleasure. On his back, hands above his head, eyes bound, he has given himself over to their loving mercy and yet the weight of his existence is still enough to envelope them both.

Alain leans down to kiss the smiling mouth below the blindfold and say, softly, “Is there something you want?”

“Isn’t the point of this that you two are making the decisions?” Takeru sounds like he might laugh.

Alain glances over Takeru’s chest at Makoto, who is already looking over at him, and who raises an eyebrow before saying, “Is that a serious question or are you just being difficult?”

It’s definitely suppressed laughter. “A little of both, really. I want you to do what you want. I trust you.”

So they do what they want, which, gloriously weighed down by Takeru’s unconditional trust, is what he wants too. And what they want is to kiss, to touch, to take their pleasure in ways that render him arch-backed and breathless and crying out as they take their turns on him. They take their pleasure until he’s coming in an unexpected avalanche of laughter which, like all avalanches, overtakes them as well.

Dawn is breaking, light spilling in through the open window for Takeru to flinch against as they uncover his eyes. He buries his face against Makoto’s chest as soon as his arms are free and he can move, mumbling, “It’s too bright, I’m going back to sleep, you both have to keep me company since you’re the ones who wore me out.”

“Right,” Makoto says drily, wrapping an arm around his shoulders as Alain is draping himself over Takeru’s back, “humans need sleep, I forget that sometimes.”

He can feel Takeru’s smile like a separate presence in the room, even though he can’t see it. “Oh, like you’re so inhuman.”

Alain presses his face to the back of Takeru’s neck and finds that, at least for the moment, the pressure of his reality is not so much a weight as it is an embrace, enfolding the three of them as they lie together drowsing. “It’s not that we are less, perhaps.” A yawn against Takeru’s warm skin, occasioning a ticklish wriggle. “It’s just that you’re so much.”

[venus-says]

Kamen Rider Zero-One Episode 15

The importance of Family.

The Zero-One mess continues this week, but to my surprise, it was a very good mess this time around, I really enjoyed this episode it was very hype. Of course, I still have my problems with it, but I like that they were able to tie in all that mess that has been going on since episode 10 at least, I didn't think it was possible but they proved me wrong and I'm glad that they did.

One thing that really threw me off in this episode is just how many important things were happening at once, this felt more like the build-up for a finale rather than a mid-season climax, which makes me a little worried about what they're gonna do after this first major arc is finished.

The other thing I don't like here is, once again, time. I feel like I'm repeating myself way too much but I just can't let this go especially when there are two moments in his episode that are weakened by this. The first one is right at the beginning with Subaru remembering his brother, while this talk about family works for Izu's case it doesn't for him because we saw so little of their interactions, we've seen a lot from Raiden's side of things but not from Subaru so it's not as strong. The other problem caused by time is the fact that it hasn't been not even five episodes and Zero-One is already getting a new major upgrade which makes Shining Hopper be obsolete without us seeing the full range of the powers this form has.

But I promised myself I would focus more on the positives rather than the negatives this time around since I liked this episode so let's move on.

Starting with the minor things, I thought it was great that we finally saw some consequence of Aruto avoiding properly dealing with the bad press and now he's on the edge of losing his position as president. Personally, I think it would be great if Aruto really did lose his position and we would have an arc of Aruto slowly fighting to get back in the boss chair, and they could have interesting struggles like not being able to use Zea properly and stuff like that, but I doubt it'll happen. Still, at least they're doing something which is better than nothing. Another minor thing is that apparently, Aruto is back to normal now? Because he was there cracking another one of his horrible jokes and ruining a deep moment while on it and we didn't saw him staring at the distance with puppy eyes in this episode so I'm guessing we're progressing.

To me, the most interesting thing was, without a doubt, the first combat of the episode. It was quite messy at some points, I think there was a little problem with positioning each character in that space, but that moment Horobi "sacrifices" himself to save Jin got me shocked as fuck. I know it only happened because The Ark ordered, but it was very strong especially because of Jin's reaction to it which lead to another even stronger moment with Jin basically "killing" Izu.

This comes with concerns because it feels way too early to completely dispose of one of the main villains especially when you consider that in the last episode we had one general being defeated and judging by how things are going Jin will suffer from the same fate next week, so I'm very worried about the villains side in the future. My other concern is that they will end up making Izu's near-death meaningless, which I mean by that is, if you remember from a few episodes back, it was established that Humagears involved with the Zero-One project can't be restored from a back-up and any Humagear that has achieved singularity will lose this trait if they receive a back-up as well. Izu was severely damaged and Zea is fixing her body, we don't know if the damages reached what would essentially be Izu's hard drive so if they want they can make Izu be back in the way she was making this be less impactful because it was used just to trigger something on Aruto and I don't know if I like this idea. I think it would be way braver if they get Izu back up and running but she has no memories of Aruto, or Wazu, or any of the events that happened since the show began and in the second part of the show we'll have Aruto and Izu having meaningful moments together as he tries to somehow retrieve Izu's memories or something. Can it happen? I have hopes. Will it happen? Very unlikely.

Another high point of the episode was Aruto's argument with Jin in the end, as much as I like Jin way more than I like Aruto I can't deny that he had stronger point in this matter. Metsuboujinrai may have a goal that kinda puts them on a gray spectrum rather than just being black or white, but that doesn't excuse their methods and when you think about it they're kinda hypocrites, or at least in what concerns Jin since he seems to have a higher sense of empathy to Humagears tan Horobi ever demonstrated. Would I be more excited about this fight if we haven't had a major upgrade happening three episodes earlier? Yes, I think the hype for a new form would've been higher, but I'm still very stoked to see how these events are going to unfold.

Speaking of the new form, my opinion on Shining Assault Hopper has changed as time passed. At first, I thought it was very ugly, but now I kinda like it, it's definitely more pleasing to my eyes than Shinning Hopper's suit. I also think it's very interesting that they call it a "Hybrid Raise", I think there's a lot of potential (or at least I hope).

I think that's all for now, hopefully, they won't drop the ball next episode and they'll end this arc on a high note. What did you think of this episode? Let me know in the comments. See ya~

[vrexrobo]

Okay so here’s all the stuff I got though in no particular order because I have a bad memory. Cut because I didn’t expect it to get so long

- The Gaim soccer movie. Pretty average I think. I thought it was cool that Peko had something to do but I hate that Gaim made Kurokage into a generic grunt suit because then it looks silly when the Riders have it and it looked especially silly that Hase AND Peko had the same suit. Overall not bad though

- All four Gaim Gaiden movies. I watched Zangetsu and Baron first because I thought I should save Knuckle for last but that ended up being a bad decision. Zangetsu was pretty okay, although I did lose my shit when Takatora’s dad turned out to be the guy who played Philip’s dad in W. Baron was better than I expected mostly because it focuses heavily on someone who isn’t Kaito. Duke was pretty boring but I liked that they used pomegranate and dragon fruit. Knuckle was TERRIBLE and I’m so tired of Gaim characters like reminiscing about Kaito. I could make a whole post about how much I hated Knuckle

- Wizard/Gaim movie war. The Wizard section was really nice and it’s been quite a while since I watched Wizard so it was nice to see everybody again. I liked how Haruto left Koyomi’s ring inside his Underworld so he could do something meaningful with it and allow himself to move forward. After the nice Wizard content the Gaim section is about all of the Riders fighting for other people’s entertainment to win some lockseeds and then they go to an alternate universe where warlords with Riders are fighting to unite the country. Kaito meets Nobunaga and decides to try to unite the country himself because he loves power and stuff. I hate Gaim. The one really nice thing about this movie was the surprise guest appearances. I knew Kengo was in this movie but I had no idea about Date, Akiko and Terui. I also liked how Haruto and Nitou said some of the Wizard opening’s lyrics to each other. Anyway the Wizard section was good and the rest sucked

- Mega Max, which I started ages ago and never finished so I started it over. The famous Shoutarou/Gentarou scene remains the best thing that’s ever happened in Kamen Rider. Anyway this one was really good

- All the little Drive Type: specials like High-Speed and Lupin. Mostly pretty forgettable but the TV-kun one was very funny and it was neat how there was a little mystery to solve

- Drive Episode 0. It was okay, not especially memorable imo

- Gaim/Drive movie war. Pretty boring but pretty typical movie war stuff. I did love Gaim backseat driving though, that was very funny. Gaim’s final form still sucks. Not much actual fun crossover stuff so not great

- Drive Surprise Future. This one was pretty good and also had some amazing new suits

- Heart/Mach saga: the Heart one was SO GOOD. Also you can come after me for my bad taste I guess but Kamen Rider Heart is amazing. I also really liked the Mach one but it was very upsetting to watch Gou’s neck get snapped. His new powerup in this one was also very good and I loved how Gou was telling the girl that he was also the child of a monster and they can overcome that. Also mom Kiriko!!!

- Chaser saga: VERY GOOD but I hate amnesia endings and I don’t think it needed any naked women lmao I did really enjoy it though. It was very funny

- Drive/Ghost movie war. I mostly enjoyed this one! I hated Takeru yelling at his younger self and telling him to be a man and stuff though. I did really like the way this one was structured though, because it was a crossover the whole way though instead of a Drive segment, a Ghost segment, and then a small crossover so we actually got some cool interactions like Akari and Rinna. I thought it was hilarious how when the portal appeared and Takeru immediately went for it even the Drive characters made a grab for him. Shin putting the ring in the ground so Kiriko would get it in the future was SO CUTE. I did kind of hate how Chase just shows up like “I was revived too” and Gou like barely reacts and then he disappears after the battle and no other Drive characters even got to see him. Also there were a few characters that only got like a three second cameo. The biggest disappointment though was that they only had 3/4 of the Renaissance artists that the Ninja Turtles were named after (admittedly though it was very funny that Leonardo da Vinci attacked with swirling Mona Lisas). I didn’t realize I had so much to say about this movie. I probably should have made a separate post

Kamen Rider Brain. I can’t believe how good it was, especially for being so short. They packed so much plot into these. PLUS there were cameos from some very good villains like Cancer from Fourze and I loved that one guy teasing Brain because his gun is a repaint. I didn’t realize the episodes were going to be so short and when I did I was scared the Heart and Medic part was going to be disappointing but it wasn’t and now I’m ready for Kamen Rider Medic to complete the trifecta. Plus ACTUAL DRIVE PLOT AT THE END??

Oh I guess I also never said I watch Heisei Generations Final. It was amazing.

[firebirdsdaughter]

So...

... Some delayed, quick thoughts on Zi-O 15.

Below.

(In no order)

Oh, Geiz. Oh, my baby. If he really is doing a ‘I’m a soldier’ mantra there I am gonna cry. Oh, honey, you’ve been telling yourself that every time you feel conflicted, haven’t you. Oh sweetie.

Like, I think he’s getting into not wanting to kill Sougo, but also still be desperate to ensure Puma Zi-O doesn’t happen. Like, we’re eventually gonna have the ‘Puma Zi-O is my enemy, but Sougo is my friend’ thing. Also still wondering if there’s gonna be a moment near the end when Sougo tries to get them to actually do it, and neither of them can (him trying to send them back to 2068 to try and protect them too is cute).

Also, Sougo gets a much-needed reality check with the whole overlord thing. I think he’s been a little detached from it, so to speak. Like, in theory, he believes it to be true, but I think he still didn’t understand just how high the stakes were and how bad Puma Zi-O really was. Like, this literally did just get this kinda dropped on him. Sure, Tsukuyomi showed him the video, but it’s still pretty easy to, even subconsciously, have this idea that ‘maybe that was just one incident’ or disconnecting from something you see on a screen. So he’s sort of been in denial--like, ‘it can’t be that bad’ or ‘it must be possible to be the overlord and be good!’--but now he knows that yes, it is that bad, and it’s not gonna be a simple matter of ‘being good.’ Like, I noticed he literally says the exact same thing to Puma Zi-O that Geiz said about him (pretty sure it’s ‘I will defeat you/him’ I just definitely heard the same words). So now he has to really understand that this is why Geiz is so determined to change things, this is the ‘king’ Woz wants him to be (yeah, sweetie, he doesn’t care about you or your dream, this is the overlord he wants to make you into), this is what history is moving toward. He can’t be in denial anymore. And yeah, it’s rough, but it’s also important that understand. Kudos though, dude for literally being ready to take your future self out. I mean, probably an aggressive manifestation of ‘that can’t be me i don’t want it to be me’ and it was a losing battle from the start, but at least he wasn’t afraid to try. Also, at least now he definitely understands Geiz’ feelings.

Still don’t trust Woz, like, at all. Hopefully Sougo better understands that Woz isn’t just ‘doing what he thinks is right,’ he’s literally trying to create a mass murderer tyrant. Sure, maybe he has his reasons, maybe they’re even good ones. But still pretty sure that at this point, Woz doesn’t care about Sougo--at least, not the version in 2018 who wants to be good--he cares about Puma Zi-O. He doesn’t believe in Sougo’s ‘dream’ or give a damn about what Sougo actually wants. He’s just doing what he wants. Interesting character, but as a person... Still want him to stay away from Sougo.

On the other hand, my trust in Tsukasa has actually increased. I think that he was absolutely giving Sougo that reality-check intentionally, that’s without a doubt. Plus, helping Geiz afterward? Definitely got his own plan here, and I still think it’s definitely towards a good goal. Tsukasa may be a dick and his methods can be questionable, but he is still a Kamen Rider. Plus, he’s got some experience with the ‘a version of me is an evil dictator’ sort of thing? So yeah, maybe he’s shocking Sougo into awareness, but he’s showing him the facts of the situation to make sure that he really understands what’s at stake.

What also seemed to become clear here was that wile Puma Zi-O’s ‘employees’ recognise Sougo as the ‘past’ Puma Zi-O, they in no way obey him/actually show him real fealty. Like, Woz is seems to be just humouring Sougo, and even though it protected him, the robot didn’t acknowledge his orders at all--like when he yelled for it to stop attacking Geiz, and it ignored him (also did it say it was Puma Zi-O’s orders? and then Sougo was shocked that his future self had ordered that?). So clearly while they want to keep him alive to ensure he becomes overlord, their actual loyalty is to Puma Zi-O and not Sougo. Which I feel like would also be kinda a mirror to Tsukuyomi and Geiz, who will (well, I presume will end up having) have more friendship/loyalty w/ Sougo himself than Puma Zi-O, for obvious reasons.

Also, it seems Puma Zi-O exists bc for complex reasons, he believes he’s avoiding some kind of worse disaster? So is that Puma Z-O of the future trying to ensure his power? Or something else entirely? We’ll have to see.

Also looked like Swartz and Uhr/Heurhe (how the hell is that spelled?) were having a much needed father-son talk, too. Well. Not exactly. But I don’t speak Japanese. So that’s just what it is for now.

So this was short (comparatively) bc I am very tired and my feet hurt. Not that I’m typing with my feet. I swear. But anyway, virtual milk chocolate for those who read all of my rambling. I’m working on more angst stuff for this. Still enjoying it. Woz is creepy, love the Zi-Ot3 (Tsukuyomi kicking that robot in the shins to save Geiz was awesome). I also liked how kinda, downplayed the robot’s voice was? Like, he was unexpectedly rather soft-spoken. Sougo now really understands the stakes, but I also am pretty sure that he’s not gonna be able to leave Geiz fighting on his own (the next ep summary implied that he ends up keeping the Driver bc Geiz is in trouble). Also, if he gave up the Driver, the show would end.

Anyway. On to whatever other bonkers fun this show has. Also I liked this ep, too. ^^

[kaijuzilla]

Zilla Talks: What Is My Persona?

“Zilla what is this thing? No I mean seriously where’s his mouth and arms and legs and neck? what’s with the tail?”

Well to tell you this mates and gals this is my persona. Thing is everyone from artist and YouTube animators have their persona while most of my tumblr friends online also have their personas too. So I decided I wanna make one and this is my final result and I like the way it came out?

“Yeah still what is he anyway?”

Ok when I was designing I was having like hard times thinking what he should look like. The clothes are mostly what I usually wear: Short pants, hoodie zipper jacket, and construction gloves (which I use them to do my exercise, lifting woods along with working in construction class, and sometimes punching hard stuff like wood or something else). Fun fact the jacket was just base off my anime club jacket I have in high school.

I was in a classic Sonic mood that time like Sonic Mania and Sonic design is where I grow up alongside with Kirby, Pokemon, and Mario even Banjo and Kazooie, and DK on the N64 and Sega Genesis. I decided to give him the sonic shoes just because I like Sonic also I imagine the way my persona runs like Sonic. And yes you notice I was doing the Sonic finger pose he usually do and to tell you I just do it.

Well in my name and shortening my name is you can tell I base the tail off from this big marine iguana right here

When growing up going back to somewhere around maybe very younger days maybe kindergarten somewhere that time this was my very first Godzilla movie. Yes I know this movie is bad and everyone hate Zilla because of the movie but at least he got a cool animated series back then which is a continue squeal of the movie. Also shes really cool and I love the design and just the creature look and stuff. I know shes not really Godzilla and is just bastardize of Godzilla but with out me seeing this movie I wouldn’t watch all Godzilla movies and I am really excited for the King of the Monster film!

Now the body....let me tell you a question? Do you remember any other game that was on the N64? And do you know any video game character that has a body like his? Eeyup I’m talking about Rayman! Rayman on the N64 is how I know him. I also play Rayman Legend on the Xbox 360 and still rage over the levels a lot. I was having trouble with the body look on how he should look and stuff and I’m always make arms and legs look bad from time to time when drawing so I decided to give him no arms, legs, and a neck giving that Rayman body looked instead. 

“Wait one thing left why no mouth?” Is he human or something or How does he eat even? I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS!?!?!?!?!”

Geez calm yourself Asker you’re asking alot of questions. Ok the mouth that LetMeExplainStudios Rebecca made a video about why her character doesn’t have mouth too which is actually really good. As long you see his expression and body language you’ll understand what his expression is. Also eating....well that’s new to me but I do imagine he just eat like those Waddle Dees from Kirby Right Back At Ya (remember that series?). The episode was telling and showing how Waddle Dee eat their food and they just show it to us and it just disappeared as it suck into their face as they eating the cookie and that was mind blowing. 

Also I did one drawing him with a mouth and it was the Halloween Shin Godzilla version because Shin Godzilla is like a zombie and have a creepy smile so I decided to draw the smile on him just for the Halloween spirit naming it Shin KaijuZilla.

I forgot to mention reason why 3 fingers is cause drawing just 3 fingers is easy than drawing actual human fingers since drawing 5 fingers are most hard work to draw on.

Also last thing is what with those weird things on the arm areas? Those I put them there just to make it look like some magnetic things where my arms just be there or something like I switch my hand out to be something else like a pare of wings or something. That’s just a plan that’s all TBH I was gonna change it up to be like Kamen Rider Fourze shapes things instead but didn’t finish the show back then but I finally finish now and love it. And TBH I would say he’s human but I’ll just say....a Frankenstein or abomination or something. Just pile of parts to make this dude.

“Hes not a ddue...You’re a dude...This..This is a Man. A very Handsome...Muscular Man!”

That’s all about my Persona you need to know about. I was planning to draw him like doing random stuff on picture like showing what he does and do but it still working on that. I also forgot to mention that my persona suppose to wear glasses since I wear glasses too but I some what keep forgetting that

[himitsusentaiblog]

What did you think of the first part of the Godzilla anime?

Ok, quick thoughts before I get into any spoilers.  When I first heard about there being a Godzilla anime, I was pretty excited.  A full one animated production for the King of Monsters done in his native land?  Oh heck yes!  A few details leaked out and it was going to a have a futuristic, sci-fi setting never used before!  That is so my jam!

Then I found out one of the writers for the film was Gen Urobuchi.  Ok, bit of a mixed bag there.  I did love Madoka Magika but I felt that Kamen Rider Gaim was uneven with some great ideas and clumsy execution. Heck, I’ll see how he does though, he’s better with anime than with tokusatsu so he’s in his element.

Then I found out Polygon Pictures was animating it.  They did Knights of Sidonia and that meant 3-D CG Animation, which I am not the biggest fan of.  That was a red flag for me. 

Still, it was a new, Japanese-produced Godzilla film and that always leaves me excited.  Mind you, it had a tough, tough, tough act to follow in the wake of Hideaki Anno’s amazing Shin Godzilla.

So, that preamble out of the way, what did I think? My spoilery thoughts beneath the cut.

When the movie is dealing with Godzilla, it’s good.  The action is fluid, the design of the monster a nice compromise between the 2014 American look and a more traditional Toho design. It also adds in a few very plant-like elements which play into the idea of Godzilla altering the Earth to suit him using his own genetic material but it only bothered me at first.  I rather like the design.

The characters, especially the main protagonist are a mixture of Godzilla standards and anime tropes.  He’s the angry young man with a chip on his shoulder who wants revenge on Godzilla for something the kaiju did in the past like the main character of Godzilla X Mechagodzilla from 2002. There are also lots and lots of references to previous Godzilla movies including the aliens from the third planet near the black hole who first showed up in 1974′s original Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla.  True to form, they build a Mechagodzilla to try and help the Earth defeat Godzilla in the early 21st Century (it doesn’t work) but is promised to show up in the second anime film for real! Sadly, all of that is in the prologue.

That’s the biggest problem with the film to me, it feels like it is all setup for the next movie. The big fight with Godzilla in this film ends with what seems to be the defeat of the kaiju only to have it revealed that they only defeated the baby and the real Big G makes his appearance in grand fashion.  It’s kind of sad when the best scene in the movie is more or less a tease for the next film.  This movie is all setup and little payoff, leaving te more interesting meat of the story itself for the two follow ups.

As for the animation, it’s better than Knights of Sidonia and feels like a step up for CG Anime.  It’s no Land of the Lustrous but to be honest, what is? Still, it is better than I expected and rarely distracted me from what was going on onscreen. I just wish the characters had been as engaging as the visuals or the monster action at the end. None of them really stuck with me save for one of the aliens who served as a kind of religious/cult leader among the humans exiled and returned to Earth.

Do I recommend watching it?  Yes but I might wait until the second one comes out.  It might feel like more of a complete story once there is more of it as the first film is all about establishing the characters, their world and how Godzilla fits into it but that’s a HUGE exposition dump the audience has to sit through before the good parts get going.  I know Godzilla movies often wait to give us the monster goods but after the way the film before this one doled out a similar amount of monster action throughout its run time, I was expecting better.

Oh and the writing, it was ok.  I couldn’t really feel Urobuchi’s touch in it until that final twist and reveal but when that hit, I was pumped for the next one.

[entergamingxp]

Sakura Wars Gets More Goods, Collabs, Comments From Kohei Tanaka

July 7, 2020 3:34 PM EST

Everything from the latest Sakura Wars stream including a Chain Chronicle collab, new Nendoroids, more goods, and comments from composer Kohei Tanaka.

Sega held the 14th Sakura Taisen Imperial Communication Department’s Broadcast stream on June 19, focusing on Sakura Wars The Animation. We’ve summarized every past Sakura Taisen stream on DualShockers, though on a more timely manner. So while it’s been a few days now since the stream aired, here’s our full summary, as usual.

The stream featured as usual: MC Mami Yamashita (who thankfully recovered from Covid-19), Seijuro Kamiyama’s seiyuu Youhei Azakami, and Producer Tetsu Katano. Present as guests were Kenji Akabane, who is the seiyuu of Kaminski in Shin Sakura Taisen The Animation (Sakura Wars The Animation), and Sakura Taisen series composer Kohei Tanaka. The stream focused on Shin Sakura Taisen The Animation whose final episode aired the same day.

After the introductions, everyone present on the stream started chatting about the anime, and introducing its characters. Most notably Kaminski Valery, captain of the Moscow Combat Troupe appearing in the anime’s story, sequel to the game. The first hilarious moment on stream was how Kenji Akabane was supposed to launch the video introducing his character, but got preemptively cut since he took so long. You can catch that moment at the 14:00 time stamp below:

Following that, everyone on stream commented various excerpt from each Sakura Wars The Animation episodes. I’ve personally only skimmed through this part to avoid spoilers, as time didn’t permit me to watch the whole anime yet.  However, you should definitely check it out if you’re a fan with a grasp of Japanese. This sequence starts at the 23:00 mark and lasts around 20 minutes:

One particular anecdote Kohei Tanaka mentioned is how the cat often seen in the anime, is voiced by Ryoko Shiraishi, who also voices Komachi.

Following that, Kenji Akabane spoke about his history with the Sakura Taisen franchise. He first got into the series with Sakura Wars The Movie, released on December 22, 2001. Akabane explained he really loves Hidenori Matsubara’s designs in the Sakura anime adaptations and how they adapt perfectly the original design by Kousuke Fujishima. As a reminder, nowadays whenever new Sakura Wars artwork is released, it’s always Hidenori Matsubara drawing it, and I don’t think Kousuke Fujishima has drawn Sakura Taisen artwork for years now, which is a shame. Kenji Akabane greatly praised the movie and how it’s still incredibly great looking even now. He was also really into collecting stickers back then and particularly liked the ones included in some of the OST CDs releases.

Kohei Tanaka too spoke about Sakura Wars The Movie. He explained that back during the movie’s production, when he recorded the BGMs with an orchestra, they had an audience as well. It was a pretty emotional moment as some of the fans watching the stream mentioned in the comments they were there. Back then, they recorded the audience for cheers and applause used in the movie as well.

Following that, the discussion subject moved back to Shin Sakura Taisen The Animation. Kenji Akabane was really hyped to be in the anime because he met Sumire’s seiyuu Michie Tomizawa during the recording. There’s also a scene early on in the anime where Kaminski meets Sumire and praises her, and he was ultra hyped about voicing that one scene. As for Akabane’s initial impressions of Kaminski, he only saw his actual design just before recording, and didn’t see it at the audition, so he was surprised how much of a pretty boy he is. He asked a lot about his personality and goals to the anime staff before recording to be sure to get in the role and voice him accordingly.

At that point on Kohei Tanaka started focusing on the ending theme song, Sakura Yumemishi. It’s sung by the girls of the Imperial Combat Revue’s new Flower Division: Sakura Amamiya, Hatsuho, Azami, Anastasia, Claris, along with Shangai’s Huang Yui, London’s Lancelot, and Berlin’s Elise.

With Sakura Yumemishi, Kohei Tanaka wanted to make something symbolizing the nobleness and frantic feelings of the women fighting in the series. That’s why Ayane Sakura, singing as Sakura Amamiya, has particularly high notes in the song, to show that franticness. Kohei Tanaka really praised her singing and said she pretty much fused with Sakura Amamiya. He praised all the other seiyuu as well, and said they did a wonderful job. He also jokingly apologized for making so many hard to sing pieces Kenji Akabane added he’d definitely refuse he was asked to sing one of the songs because it’d be way too difficult. Kohei Tanaka mentioned it was particularly difficult for Hibiku Yamamura, because she had to stay in Azami’s voice and yet sing very high tones.

Following that, Kohei Tanaka explained the lyrics of Sakura Yumemishi. Nearly every single song in Sakura Wars has lyrics written by original author Hiroi Oji. However, he couldn’t do the lyrics of Sakura Yumemishi, so Shouko Fujibayashi handled it instead. In the Shin Sakura Taisen game, Shouko Fujibayashi also wrote the lyrics for the character songs of Lancelot (Knights of the Round), Elise (Schwarzer Stern), Itsuki (Ruriruran Ginza Roman) and the charasong shared by Sumire, Kaoru, and Komachi (A Star Is Born).

Kohei Tanaka explained he loves working with Hiroi Oji and wants to keep working with him for years to come, but having someone else do the lyrics is also a good change of pace, which can bring a new angle to Sakura Taisen music.

Shouko Fujibayashi wrote many songs for Nana Mizuki, Hiroshi Kitadani, and many other legendary singers in Japan. She also regularly works with Kohei Tanaka as she writes the lyrics of most of the songs he does for One Piece. She writes lyrics for pretty much every single popular kids franchise, Precure, Kamen Rider, One Piece, you name it.

As that segment of the stream ended, we got the see a clean, non-credit version of Shin Sakura Taisen The Animation‘s ending sequence, with Sakura Yumemishi playing. As far as I know it’s the only way to see this version for now. It’s at the 53:38 mark:

Mami Yamashita, Yohei Azakami and Kenji Akabane  all really like the ED animation, especially the Kamiyama shot and how cool he looks.

An OST CD for Sakura Wars PS4 launched June 24. This is the OST CD containing the game’s instrumentals BGMs only. The vocal songs were in the OST CD included in the Japanese Limited Edition, and were also released on a separate CD, seen on the right.

Kohei Tanaka said he’s never tired of making Sakura Taisen songs and wants to keep doing it forever. He said that when he recorded the BGMs for Sakura Wars PS4 with an orchestra, at the same time he also recorded the BGMs in the One Piece: Stampede movie, so it was really exhausting. But he’s glad he did it.

Kohei Tanaka also quickly mentioned the BGM used in the final battle of Sakura Wars PS4. He explained how the game’s saddest BGM uses the same base as the final battle’s BGM, to represent the sadness and pain of battle.

The Shin Sakura Taisen The Animation OST CD for ending theme Sakura Yumemishi is out since May 27. Kohei Tanaka said there will probably be another CD later on with the rest of the anime’s BGMs.

Volume 1 and 2 of the DVD and Bluray disc release of the anime are out. Cover illustrations are by character designer Masashi Kudo. One of the coolest things about these are the audio commentaries by the seiyuu. Yohei Azakami mentioned he’s in the audio commentary in Volume 3, and it was the first time he ever recorded one. Kenji Akabane is on Volume 4’s audio commentary. Volume 3 launches on July 15. Volume 4 on August 19.

Starting the 1:08:40 mark of the stream, we had the usual goods and new collabs segment, with Mami Yamashita and Yohei Azakami wearing glasses and acting all serious. This is one of the meta jokes of these streams as they always do that for this segment.

First off, we learned the Shin Sakura Taisen The Comic manga will end with volume 3, launching on July 17, 2020.

最終3巻7月17日（金）発売予定

本日発売のYJ30号に最終話が掲載！

玄庵葬徹を倒した華撃団！ 華麗なるフィナーレをご覧ください！ そしてまた、新たな幕が開くその時までーー…

コミックス2巻デジタル版はこちら→https://t.co/JpNtOL8Uxy pic.twitter.com/7gzwcxvOXn

— 野口こゆり公式【新サクラ大戦 the Comic】 (@kenkouki_) June 24, 2020

The final chapter of the manga was pre-published online in Tonari no Young Jump on June 25, 2020. It has a pretty cool shot of Sakura Amamiya.

The new Sakura Wars goods on sale in Japan since June 17.

As a reminder, each character has been getting goods for their birthdays. Each month, one character gets goods dedicated to them. Special messages from the other characters, wishing them happy birthday, are also published online on the Sakura Taisen Twitter account. The first wave of birthday goods was for Sakura Amamiya in March 2020.

List of Shin Sakura Taisen main characters birthdays, blood type and astrological sign (These were revealed during the 11th stream on January 2020):

Seijuro Kamiyama August 11, Leo, AB.

Sakura Amamiya: March 19, Pisces, A.

Hatsuho Shinonome: September 9, Virgo, B.

Azami Mochizuki: May 15, Taurus, O.

Anastasia Palma: October 6, Libra, B.

Claris: February 1, Aquarius, AB.

The next one in line is Seijuro Kamiyama, they’re selling a t-shirt based on his parka from the DLC costumes. Along with a bunch of other goods. The last one to get birthday goods should be Claris, in January-February 2021.

Sakura Amamiya Nendoroid from Good Smile. They hinted they might make more for the other characters if this one sells well.

The next HG 1/24 scale plamo scheduled to release is Anastasia’s Mugen, scheduled to launch October 2020. Seijuro and Sakura Amamiya’s Mugen plamo released on June 20. Azami’s Mugen plamo launches in July.

Yurakucho Marui shopping mall in Tokyo is also doing a Shin Sakura Taisen collab from June 19 to July 12, selling exclusive goods. Kohei Tanaka made a song for the shop too. Details are on the shop’s site. There’s also a collab café with Princess Café at Yurakucho Marui, and Shibuya Marui. Fans can get exclusive goods there too.

Shin Sakura Taisen collab event in Ekimemo!, the mobile game with train stations turned into cute girls by Mobile Factory.

Collab event with free to play mecha Sega game Border Break.

Collab event between Shin Sakura Taisen The Animation and Chain Chronicle 3, gacha game by Sega.

【コラボ】「#アニメ新サクラ大戦」×「チェインクロニクル３(#チェンクロ )」コラボが開催中

花組キャラクターたちが、SSRキャラクターとしてチェインクロニクルに登場！コラボ専用のオリジナルストーリーにも注目です！#新サクラ大戦 pic.twitter.com/1UYkfQH4nu

— サクラ大戦公式@SEGA (@Sakura_Taisen) June 19, 2020

It’s particularly funny because Sakura Amamiya and the “Heroine” of Chain Chronicle 3, Feena, are both voiced by Ayane Sakura. She voiced a commercial for the collab.

Following that, the stream moved on to its ending corner.

Seeing Shin Sakura Taisen The Animation is over, future Sakura Taisen streams will stop focusing on it. Kenji Akabane said Sakura Ayane didn’t appear yet on the streams, and how she was super jealous of him when she heard he would appear at some point when they recorded the anime volume 4’s audio commentary together.

Kenji Akabane said he was pretty happy to appear on stream, and hopes there’s a “Shin Sakura Taisen The Movie” happening one day. He jokingly said he’ll do anything to make it happen.

As the stream ended, unlike with most streams until now, they didn’t announce a date for the next stream. Though they stressed out there will be more streams coming. As we covered in a separate article, they also teased a Shin Sakura Taisen sequel could be coming. Shin Sakura Taisen The Stage, the stage play, was re-announced as well.

【6月19日(金)生放送終了】 皆様、ご視聴ありがとうございました！

TVアニメ『新サクラ大戦 The Animation』 本日最終回放送です！お見逃しなく！#新サクラ大戦 #アニメ新サクラ大戦 pic.twitter.com/xmli41IknA

— サクラ大戦公式@SEGA (@Sakura_Taisen) June 19, 2020

帝劇宣伝部通信をご覧くださった皆様、ありがとうございました！#アニメ新サクラ大戦 最終話直前ということで大いに語らせていただきました！僕らリアタイは厳しそうですが、皆様は是非、さくらたちの勇姿を見届けてください！神山隊長！間に合えー！！！#新サクラ大戦 pic.twitter.com/ADGyHDhm67

— 阿座上洋平 (@azakami_youhei) June 19, 2020

The usual end of stream photos with everyone present. Every Japanese stream has similar social distancing setups like these nowadays. Usually they sit much closer.

Be sure to check out our review of Sakura Wars, and why did the game was titled “Sakura Wars” in the west. You can also check out our summaries of all the previous streams so far. DualShockers also recently had the opportunity to interview the Sakura Wars development team, and the full interview is coming later this week.

Sakura Wars is currently a PS4 exclusive and can be bought on Amazon.

This post contains affiliate links where DualShockers gets a small commission on sales. Any and all support helps keep DualShockers as a standalone, independent platform for less-mainstream opinions and news coverage.

July 7, 2020 3:34 PM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/07/sakura-wars-gets-more-goods-collabs-comments-from-kohei-tanaka/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=sakura-wars-gets-more-goods-collabs-comments-from-kohei-tanaka

[mysticdragon3md3]

TL;DR the TL;DR:  I’m so tired of fans attacking other fans for telling companies what they want, totally disregarding that any business would kill to know what would sell for them, all while creating this fandom toxicity. ;_;

TL;DR:  If you think that fans telling companies what we want to buy from them is nothing more than bad etiquette, then you don’t know anything about business, have not listened to people from these actual companies speak at panels/interviews, and you have no concept about the quickly globalizing market.  Be honest. You’re just spoiled by your tailored algorithms so much, you’re instantly tired when seeing any discussion or passion from fandoms you’re not in. I’m so tired of fans attacking other fans for telling companies what they want, totally disregarding that any business would kill to know what would sell for them, all while creating this fandom toxicity. ;_;

And to the jerks saying "Atlus already said they were going to talk about Catherine" and "screaming for Persona 5 Scramble and SMTV in all caps isn't going to get you anything." 

Shut the fuck up. 

1)  Where did you hear that they were only going to talk about Catherine?  Not everyone heard about that beforehand.  I didn't hear ahead of time about what they were going to announce at new Game Plus Expo.  And even if I did, that's not confirmation that Catherine would be the ONLY thing they'd talk about!  

2)  If listening for years to companies/producers and representatives at convention panels SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES has shown, they WANT the public to tell them what we want.  So sit your ass down with the rest of the whiners who say "Why don't they ever give us what we want?" or concede to the delusion that "Japanese companies don't care about their potential Western markets"!  If you want something, you tell them!!!!  So many anime figures, videogames, tokusatsu, etc., are recently coming to the West only because the fanbase kept screaming about it, kept proving that we still care about these franchises and titles!  Just yesterday, Team Rider got recognized by the actual producers of Kamen Rider, to get their official backing, and reflected that by Toei requesting they change their name to "Team Kamen Rider".  3 weeks ago, Video Game Story Time posted a video titled "How American Fans Saved Xenoblade Chronicles".  Good Smile Company's CEO and representatives have been going to American anime conventions for what might be a decade now, repeatedly telling the audience to "harass" them on social media about what figures we want them to produce.  They've even gone so far as to have audience voting for future figures at conventions (which happened with the Persona 5 Nendoroids at Anime Expo 2018), constant surveys on their main website, more frequent online figure voting request campaigns, and updated their website's figure request form for easier submissions!  And as a small business owner in artist alley, I can tell you, the biggest question we have is, "WHAT DO YOU PEOPLE WANT FROM US?!"  Companies WANT you to scream from the rooftops, unsolicited, about what you want them to make, so they can get more of your money!  And hey, I am happy to throw money their way if they'll give me what I want.  And if all I have to do is yell, "localize Persona 5 Scramble for the West!" then I am doing my part!  What are you doing?  Shaming people for helping their fellow fans and helping support the companies that make the fandoms we love?  Get the f out of here.

Yesterday, I re-watched Crunchyroll’s documentary about how Good Smile Company makes Nendoroids. (” How is a NENDOROID Made? | Behind the Scenes at Good Smile Company ”; https://youtu.be/JFCPqLmJraI at 27:39/33:04 to 29:28/33:04)  In it, Good Smile Company’s CEO spoke at length about how the market is globalizing, how if they want to stay in business, they have to stay attuned to what fandoms in America and China want too.  If they want to stay in business, they have to keep growing their potential markets, even outside of Japan.  And I’m sure if a figure company has that savvy, then so does an internationally known videogame company!  So I don’t want to hear this MYTH anymore about “Japanese companies aren’t going to cater to the West”.  Because that myth comes with the implication, “so stop trying to tell them what you want; it’s a waste of time.”  What you really want to say is that YOU’RE tired of hearing it.  YOU’RE tired of hearing Persona 5 fans asking Atlus to bring Persona 5 Scramble to the West, and of Shin Megami Tensei fans asking Atlus to announce they’re working on SMTV.  You’re no better than those jerks who go onto Good Smile’s Facebook to complain about figure announcements for fandoms they’re not in, and additionally complain that they’re tired of hearing fans of other fandoms asking for figures of their fandom.  Those jerks that won’t tolerate discussion about any fandom that’s not theirs, just because it’s “cluttering up their tightly tailored, algorithmic feeds”!  Get out of your bubble!  There are other fandoms besides yours!  You’re going to hear about it, because there are other people in this world, and sharing the same medium!  You’ve been spoiled by your tailored algorithms catering to your every whim!  Let people ask for what they love!  If you’re tired of hearing about it, just because you don’t share the same passion, then you can just leave!  Take a break from social media!  It can happen!  And more importantly, reflect on why you get sooooooooo annoyed the second something isn’t new, exciting stimulus, nor catered specifically to you.  Maybe you need a break from social media’s constant Skinner Box more than that tailored algorithm. 

(omg I can’t believe how long I ranted.  I need to spend less time on Twitter.  It is truly a hellsite.)

The funny thing is that I too get annoyed when social media algorithms don’t tailor specifically to me.  Like when they show an ad completely irrelevant to my tastes, which from all the invasive data gathering, I had assumed they would know by now.  But the thing is that I don’t attack other people for expressing their fandoms in a shared space that I also happen to be in.  And real life people are not algorithms that are going to cater to me.  I’m not going to try to belittle other real life people’s passions or hurt other people’s real feelings, just because their content-generating isn’t tailored to my likes.  

[seiyuuraji]

Dream Festival Radio ep 81 clip - ANSwer - reason for becoming seiyuu ドリフェス！ラジオhttp://www.animatetimes.com/radio/dream-fes http://dcd.dream-fes.com/ http://www.dream-fes.com/

Cast: Mizoguchi Takuya 溝口 琢矢 as Oikawa Shin 及川 慎 Masaki Kaoru 正木 郁 as Sawamura Chizuru 沢村 千弦 Shin Yuuki 新 祐樹 as Inamasu Akiomi 稲増 秋臣 Hozumi Yuuya 保住 有哉 as Hidaka Nanao 日高 なな緒 Translation:

Kaoru - I'd like to ask the both of you if there was something that made you want to become a seiyuu. Yuuki - I liked anime in middle school and I was watching it and there was like a different character that appeared for a moment. And I was thinking that they called that seiyuu only for that but I found out that he was also voicing another character in another show and I found out more about seiyuu through this change I noticed. I'd liked games as well back then and I liked  voice acting so I thought I wanted to do that. After that I got into the drama club and the broadcasting club and went on the road to become a seiyuu. Hozumi - Right. That happens often. Yuuki - It was a one-way road from high school. Takuya - Wow! Kaoru - Huuh! Yuuki - It was kind of like that. Kaoru - Then, what about Hozumin? Hozumi - Right. In my case, I'm sorry for saying this with two actors present here, but I really liked Kamen Rider. Takuya - Thank you very much! Hozumi - I'm a big fan. I first saw the Heisei Kamen Rider series in grade school and that made me get hooked. Takuya - By the way, which one did you see? Hozumi - Den-O, I think. Takuya - Oh, Den-O. Kaoru - Stop going into that talk. Takuya - Thank you very much. Hozumi - And Kuuga. And then I saw the Rider series from Showa, and also saw all of the Heisei ones and searched a lot about how to become a Kamen Rider on the internet. And I saw you can become an actor, so I decided to do that which didn't change in grade school and middle school. But you know how there's Den-O, where many seiyuu voice, and I realized you could act into Kamen Rider just with your voice. So I searched what job that is, and I found out about seiyuu. At that time, I had also started getting into anime, thought that I might be able to act in Kamen Rider and it would be okay to try being a seiyuu and not an actor. The same as Yuuki, it was a one way road from high school. Takuya - Huuh. Kaoru - You really admired Kamen Rider... Hozumi - Even now, I go buy goods and stuff. Takuya - Earlier, I heard it quickly from him, but he said he even has belts. Hozumi - Yes, of course I still have them. *laughing* Kaoru - It's "of course". Takuya - He likes it enough that this is considered obvious for him. Hozumi - I take care not to get fat to match the waist because it's made for kids. Takuya - And you fit? Hozumi - I do. Takuya - It's impressive how you keep slim for that. Kaoru - Wow. You really are a lot into it. So we've heard this about you two... ----------- 

[02:36] (here starts another clip from a later timing) Takuya - So you had this sort of worry. Hozumi - Right. Kaoru - You two have had a lot of first experiences around here, and I'd like to ask what you'd want to do from now on or if you have any sort of goal. Hozumi - A goal, hmm. Kaoru - It's okay if it's related to DreamFest or any role you might want to do or something. Hozumi - Well, we haven't had any interaction with Kurofune and DearDream. It's because it's still the debut of the rookies but I hope we could do something together. Yuuki - We do. Hozumi - We often talk among the three of us in ANSwer, things like "I wonder when we'll meet them". Yuuki - Or thay we should go meet them. How we can get to meet them. Takuya - By the way, we were also talking about that on our side. Kaoru - Yeah, that we want to meet you one day. Takuya - We were wondering when we'll get to. Hozumi - Rather that a goal, it's something I wish would happen. Yuuki - We wish to get to work with the others more. Kaoru - We met like this in the DreamFest radio and we're working together so we might get to be in more places together from now on. Takuya - Before we realize, DreamDream might become the backdancers for ANSwer. Kaoru - Right. *laughing* Yuuki - Backdancers? Hozumi - Let's make a project for that starting next month... Kaoru - By the way, what would be your goal, Yuuki-kun? Yuuki - Yes. my personal goal is, because I really like games, is that I want to play an action game with a character I voice in it. Takuya - Is that so. Yuuki - I really like action games. There's a game called **cha where the characters speak a lot (sorry idk which one he means) and the main character really speaks a ton, and you can also do action in it. I'd like to be able to be in a game like that. Kaoru & Takuya - That's nice. Hozumi - And when you'd push abutton, Yuuki would say things like "hngh" "ha". Yuuki - Right, right, that sort. Takuya - It sounds difficult to do all those interjections. Kaoru - You probably record a lot of those lines. Yuuki - Seems so. According to rumors, the script for some games is really..like, how many cm does this one here have? Takuya - How many? Kaoru - Like 30 cm? Yuuki - It's pretty a lot. Hozumi - And the script would be like 1 meter or soemthing. Yuuki - I've heard things like it can take 3 months to record. Others - Huuh? Kaoru - Is that so? I didn't know that. Takuya - We don't really know about that world. Kaoru - True. Takuya - Wow. That's interesting. Kaoru - Thank you very much. Yuuki - Thank you very much.

*the part splitting might not be completely right because I barely know these boys (especially ANSwer so I might have gotten something wrong)

[jaysonblaze]

Kamen Rider Ex-Aid final thoughts!

I fucking loved Ex-Aid. Coming off Ghost it just felt so much more streamlined and strong with everyone being useful and getting screentime instead of becoming an afterthought.

If I remember the way I did the ghost run down I broke it into pro’s and cons along with some thoughts thrown in here and there so lets try this again.

Pros:

Characters got proper character and had realistic motives.

The story was tight with barely any filler

the music was pretty great but there is some cons to that.

The villains were memorable and honestly reminded me a lot of the Roidmudes in terms of sympathetic motives (right up till the murder of all humanity)

Fuck the dangerous zombie suit deserves its own entry because of how awesome that suit was.

Ex-Aid brought a lot to the table and delivered on most of it.

The fight scenes and effects were pretty well done and everyone had their own distinct style.

GOD SHIN KUROTO DAN the man is a fucking blessing, the actor deserves so many awards for just being amazing.

The actors were solid all the way through.

the little video game details and gags. Parad (the orange mighy brother) being taller than Emu (the blue mighty brother), the final boss getting more than one form, the power ups, ect ect.

Cons

Parad’s redemption was a little rushed like two episodes and bam he is suddenly a good guy.

Kuroto facing no real punishment despite the entire series being his fault.

Excite not really fitting after episode 22 as an opening theme.

the lady riders not getting enough screentime and being criminally underused especially Poppy who is as strong as dangerous zombie.

Cronus not being foreshadowed earlier when we saw him in prison

Overall I super fucking enjoyed this show and it quickly became my top rider show thanks to the colourful characters and wonderful plot. I can not recommend it enough.

I really hate how people rag on Ex-Aid for not being like a typical rider show and ya know what no there should be no typical rider show. Each season should bring something new to the table so we can keep the series fresh. Ex-Aid deserves to stand among the other riders as a champion of justice and protector of the world. Remember even if there is no God or Buddha, there will always be Kamen Rider! Let evil beware the rider’s call of henshin!

Ex-aid gets a solid 9/10 for being almost perfect!

If you think im wrong, want to argue/agree, or just think I’ve missed something please feel free to message me.

Let’s welcome the next rider lets welcome Kamen Rider Build!

[dynamitesunshine]

Jon’s Toku Thoughts: Favorite Tokusatsu Shows I watched in 2016 not from 2016

7. Space Sheriff Gavan

Space Sheriff Gavan I watched like half the series but then waited for the subs to finish. They finally did and I am pushing my way through the series. It’s a bit slow because I think they were trying to find their footing. It reminds me a lot of GARO’s episode structure honestly. Though I love Kenji Ohba since Battle Fever J and he is brilliant as Retsu. It’s really entertaining action and the episodes that aren’t filler are insanely brilliant. This will probably make it for this year too as I finish the last 10 or so episodes.

6. Mahou Sentai MagiRanger

I don’t remember how many episodes I watched of MagiRanger last year but I got to MagiShine and enjoyed the hell out of what I’ve watched of it. Tsubasa continues to be my favorite.

5. Choujuu Sentai LiveMan

I finished LiveMan and it was a fantastic series. The ending was a little weak but the overall show is great. Jo was my favorite. Also the villains were a big highlight here.

4. UltraMan Neos

It’s a short series only 12 episodes but it was 12 episodes of UltraMan awesomeness. Kagura is a great main character and Neo is one of the most agile UltraMen out there. UltraSeven 21 was pretty awesome too.I loved the HEART team too. It has an amazing finale too..

3. Kamen Rider Amazon

A-MA-ZON!!!! Amazon was a spectacular Showa Era show. Mainly because their was growth for Amazon each episode as he learned how to speak English and understand humans. His battles against Gedon and the other group too were tremendous. I understand why it got cancelled but I was totally fine with all the brutal and bloody fights there were. Also, the finale was something else where he had to stop a Helium Bomb was something else. This show was brilliant.

2. UltraMan

I watched the Original UltraMan for the anniversary. It was a brilliant series and I totally understand how it continued for so long. Shin Hayata is a great host and the fight scenes were really good for back then too. The episodic nature really worked here because of it just being a monster of the week. The Science Team was great too and everyone was great.

1. Kamen Rider Fourze

SPACE KITAAAA!!!!!!!! I Will Decide Your Fate! After much thinking about it all, there was no question that Fourze was the best series not from 2016 that I watched. Gentarou is simply one of the best riders freaking ever! His belief in friendship turned so many people from bad to being the best they could be. Ryuusei also was a kickass Rider who had great character development that I could relate to as well. Also, the Kamen Rider Club is so much fun too. I’m sure if this was a newer series I could have imagined all of the KRC becoming Riders some how. The school setting worked really well and the Horoscopes were amazing villains. Also, the mysteries laid out were really well done and I didn’t see some of those things coming. I also love the net movies for it and the Hyper Battle video got me to watch Amazon after this too. It is a very powerful series. 

Favorite Movie not from 2016: Super Hero Taisen GP: Kamen Rider Sangou

I wanted to watch this movie for the longest time and said why not? It’s been a while since Drive ended and besides missing the Drive cast, I also love Faiz, Black, and Garren’s actors were in it too. So this movie has given me some brand new favorites in Kamen Rider Sangou, even though he deceived the Riders he had a change of heart and helped re-write the timeline, he basically gave up this life and this power to help save everyone. I also liked his personality of making sure he’s won too. His courage to do that is just amazing. My other favorite from this movie that I haven’t seen before but have played in a lot of the video games is Fairly Strong from the Start: Zeronos! I haven’t finished Den-O yet and I want to know more about him; he was just so freaking awesome in this movie. This was also one of Mach’s best appearances too and I am a huge Kamen Rider Mach fan. Mach vs Faiz was brilliant and very difficult for me because I love Faiz too. (I have said Takumi is my Spirit Animal before.) Shinnosuke was great too with solving the mystery and fighting against Shocker. I loved seeing Kotaro again and him being both Black and Black RX was definitely a nerdgasm moment here. The Blade cast were good too. This is arguably the best Super Hero Taisen movie. Though the Ninninger’s were good in their small appearance it should have probably had a little more of Sentai essence here. Everyone was on fire in this movie and it was so much fun to watch. 

Favorite Special: Kamen Rider Yongou:

The fun doesn’t stop with the Sangou movie! It continues into the equally amazing Yongou Special. This was a brilliant showcase of Drive, Mach, Zeronos, and Faiz. It made me love Zeronos more, Mach and Drive were amazing like always, and Faiz stole the show here. Faiz from his baseball slide kick to his amazing story arc that made me super emotional at the end was amazing. Takumi is definitely a spirit animal of mine and we need more amazing specials like this. Though I want to know more about Yongou since he was a powerful Cyborg but we didn’t get to learn who the man behind the mask was. Still a fantastic special.

[63824peace]

Wednesday, 30th of november 2005

I noticed a boy in front of the train station this morning. He looked like a junior high school student. He only wore a short-sleeve shirt on his torso, and he had a sports bag slung over his right shoulder. He walked with a brisk gait.

The temperature drops below 10 celsius in mornings and evenings, even though winter has just begun. The cold didn't feel fresh and pleasant this morning... the chill wormed into our skin, straight through our jackets.

That could pass for a good conversation-starter since everyone feels the cold. "This morning I saw an energetic student striding spiritedly, even in this weather!" I couldn't honestly predicate conversation with that observation however. It's simply untrue.

The student hugged his bag as though trying to squeeze warmth from it. I couldn't see his face, but his hunched back told me that his whole body was stiff and shaking. His posture proclaimed, "I'm freezing!" I don't know whether he had a blazer or a stand-up collar style school uniform... either way, he must have forgotten his jacket at school.

I wondered... did he have a reason for missing his jacket? Had he quarreled with his parents? Did he even have parents?

Had he been too poor for a jacket?

I decided that he probably hadn't been too poor. Mostly wealthy families live in that area. Nonetheless, why only a short-sleeve shirt?

I continued to observe him. I moved closer to him, wanting an answer. The boy walked without changing his posture.

The affair wasn't my business, of course. Still, he clearly had a definite reason. I couldn't help but speculate on it.

Did the cold only frost his skin? Or had winter's ice hardened his mind?

"Winter weakens everyone. The cold wind blanks our faces, and courage dies in weather's violence."

Can that young man survive winter?

I absorbed myself in these thoughts-and he disappeared around a corner. I might sound cruel writing this, but I felt as though the temperature had risen a bit once he had disappeared from my sight. I felt oddly relieved.

KojiPro's offices feel hot. We have many computers and other work apparati that give off heat. No one here wears more than a single layer to work, even in winter. Some staff members only wear T-shirts.

The programming staff feels the most intense heat. Even in winter, almost twenty percent of them wear T-shirts because the largest number of heat-emitting devices surrounds them.

I take the heat in a T-shirt too. I used to wear a light sweater all the time when I had my office in Tokyo's Ebisu district. I almost always wear a long-sleeve T-Shirt since I've moved to the Hills. We might have larger offices now, or we might simply have more heated machines.

I have started to wear light garments underneath a thick jacket or coat since I started working at the Hills. I can't deal with the office heat otherwise.

We never feel cold in here. KojiPro stays tropical even during winter. The boy who I saw this morning probably arrived at school, and then he became freed from the cold and loneliness. I am likewise freed here. Warm places exist even during winter. We can resist the cold as long as we have these places.

We spent the morning in a meeting. War buddies don't exist in the meeting room. It's a battle between a lot of different officers. Some continue fighting when they don't realize that they have been shot.

Why was it so cold in there? The temperature in there had dropped remarkably from the development studio's temperature.

We have to remember some things during a meeting. We must recognize that we make cold, objective decisions in our platoon headquarters. Soldiers don't bring their emotions onto the battlefield under any circumstances. I still haven't adjusted myself to those rules, so perhaps I'm not very mature.

The meeting lasted longer than scheduled, and it prevented me from going to the bookstore. I had wanted to breathe fresh air during lunch time, but I couldn't get my wish today.

I never handle mail during a meeting. I handle the bulk afterward. Today I took care of it while I ate sushi bento. The more popular bento had already sold out, so I took the one that the shop had left.

I hardly tasted my food... I didn't feel very stable after that meeting. I swallowed each bite whole to calm the pain in my gut. The room's temperature felt high, but I felt winter bristle in my mind.

I decided to take HIDEOBLOG's readers' comments as a side dish to my bento. I ate hungrily. Many of the comments were delectable, and sometimes tears welled in my eyes because I had hit upon a comment flushed with wasabi.

My war buddies across the internet compensated for the dearth inside the office. I'll keep my chin up.

At 3 P.M. I had an interview with Mono Magazine. They will print a special feature article on video games in their end-of-the-year issue.

They asked me, "Have you wanted anything particular lately?"

I answered, "I'd like to have time more than 'anything particular'."

The vinyl figurine for Ex-Kamen Rider 1 (Ex-1) was released. Yoshiteru, the king of hobbies, bought it for me. I added the figurine to my special shelf reserved for Ex-1.

I'm a fan of Kamen Rider generally, but I love Ex-1 most of all. I have mentioned this in my serial article Interview with the Inspired Naked for this month's Hyper PlayStation 2 magazine. I have titled the article The Movies That Created Hideo Kojima.

I harbor a special passion for Ex-1, though that's probably only a matter of my generation. My heroes are Tiger Mask, Kamen Rider, and Ashita no Joe.

Many more problems cropped up at KojiPro besides the meeting. I felt more and more depressed. I always enjoy problems that arise while creating a game of course, but today's problems weren't related to creation. I needed to resolve them nonetheless. That's part of my job too... these things don't just go away.

I missed the days when I simply created games. I asked myself how long this frigid, stiff life would continue.

And suddenly I remembered the morning's boy. I hadn't realized it, but there's a sense in which I didn't have a jacket either.

Had he been my doppelganger? A luminous shadow? Had I seen a premonitory vision?

KojiPro sweltered like a greenhouse, but I shivered with toothy chills.

I was too busy to update HIDEOBLOG before the end of the day. I had written until 2 A.M. last night, but none of it was readable since I had been drinking. I tried to make corrections to HIDEOBLOG while I ate a sandwich bento in the evening too.

Everything seems meaningless.

I hardly had time to eat today.

All of the participants for OOOO Training had gathered on the fourteenth floor to watch a certain pre-training film. Mr. Mori had given it to us. He gave instructions to watch it before training, no excuses.

I have actually seen it in the theaters, but Mr. Mori advised me to rewatch it. I didn't have time for that of course, but all the other main members went to the fourteenth floor. KojiPro had a holiday's silence.

I received the final copy for Subsistence's and MGA2's commercials. Sony Computer Entertainment will broadcast them by the end of the year.

I really want those games to become hits.

I felt as though I saw myself at that moment, while I watched the MGA2 commercial. I felt only one difference between the commercial and myself: things in the commercial exploded with heat, and I felt exploded with coldness.

Mr. Senju reported our progress with the provisional schedule for Subsistence's release events.

"Will you have enough stamina for this, Director?" He looked at me pretty hard. "I still have my doubts about this. I can't say that it looks fun so far. Do you really think we ought to push ourselves to a twenty-four hour marathon's pace?"

"A twenty-four hour marathon pace... could we do something like that?"

I knew that Mr. Senju didn't need to answer when I saw his expression. The truth was written on his face.

"As I see it, we need to push this thing hard. We need to make it outrageous to the point that everyone will see what's going on and say, 'What the hell?!' Don't you agree?"

"Yeah. I think you're right." Mr. Senju assented.

I had traveled around Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe, and Kyoto for various events during last year's release tour. We had a tough schedule, but I really enjoyed it. The events happened all over the place and at all times... morning in Kyoto, the afternoon in Osaka, then over to Kobe, and back again to Osaka.

That schedule had really seemed impossible. We were so crunched for time that we actually traveled from the Shin-Osaka train station to Kobe via an old railroad line.

We had all worn khaki windbreakers with "MGS3" printed on the backs, and we wound up on a train packed with passengers. Complete strangers went out of their way to cheer us up on the JR Tokaido Line. Folks on the train platform often called for us to stop so they could shake our hands. I felt like I had reached my limit physically, but I made sure to spend as much energy for those fans as I had at TGS.

This year's schedule looks tougher than last year's. I wonder if I can make it. No, I'll have to do it. I'll just pay close attention to my physical well-being until the release date.

Ms. Sato and Ucchi entered my booth in the evening. "We found this, Director. Isn't it your iPod? You must have forgotten it."

I looked and saw that they held a silver iPod-Mini with white headphones attached. I showed them my green iPod-Mini on the desk. "No, this is mine."

They looked at my iPod. Their faces grew troubled. "So whose is this?"

"Do you mind if I check it out?"

"You think you'll be able to tell?"

"I'm certain that I can infer the owner from his music."

I took the iPod-Mini, turned it on, and selected the Artist Category from the menu. All of the items in the window were Japanese. Furthermore, I saw mostly very recent singers, with a few old-fashioned bands here and there.

"So what's the verdict?"

"Hmm...."

I suspected who owned the iPod-Mini, but I wasn't absolutely sure yet. It was still only a hunch.

I next selected the Album Category and read the titles as I turned the touchpad. The names ran by... Anzenchitai 1, Anzenchitai 2, Anzenchitai 3, Anzenchitai 4, Anzenchitai 5, and so on.

"I see...."

They reacted as soon as I had spoken. "Did you figure it out?"

"I did."

"So whose is it?" They leaned forward as though scrutinizing a card trick.

"Wait a second... I'm going to put the final nail in the coffin."

I turned the touchpad again. "Aha! Here it is!" The exact title that I had expected appeared in the window.

"Whose is it then?"

"It's Murashu's."

"Oh? How do you know? It doesn't show a name on it."

"An iPod is a kind of personal ID. We can learn the owner's musical tastes according to its contents." I explained everything as though I was Kosuke Kindaichi, the famous Japanese sleuth.

"Okay. So what's the clincher?"

"Look here… this! No one except Murashu would put this on an iPod."

I showed the player to them. Track titles from the Tokimeki Memorial Drama CD appeared all in a row.

"Oh... so Murashu-san listens to this?"

"I'll just return this to him."

Murashu had produced radio dramas for the Konami Media Entertainment division before he came to Konami-JPN. He had produced the MGS Drama CD.

He devoted most of his work toward a radio drama for the Tokimeki series. It had been a big hit at the time, broadcasted by Nippon Cultural Broadcasting, Inc. The program was later released as a Drama CD.

Murashu had put all of his radio productions on his iPod! He likes to listen to dramas that he produced himself. No one else is such a narcissist. That was the clincher.

Now that I think about it, an iPod's contents amount to quite personal information. From this alone we can learn a person's tastes, preferences, behavioral tendencies, and lifestyle. Junk mail companies would kill to get their hands on that data, as they do past video rentals.

It would be interesting if we swapped iPods whenever we first met someone. We'd probably understand each other more quickly. It seems like a good idea for arranged marriages and parties where two unfamiliar social groups hang out.

I heard that such exchanges are actually quite popular in America. Maybe I'll try swapping iPods the next time I meet someone new.

But what would happen if I dropped mine somewhere? It would expose my world. No one would get hurt in the process, but it still makes me uncomfortable. I think we could look at Murashu as a demonstration of that circumstance. We might see future identity theft crimes arise because of misused iPods.

I have heard that some shops in Akibahara sell old cell phones. Why would someone buy an unusable cell phone? To read the former owner's undeleted text messages… that's kind of disturbing.

Come to think of it, web browser bookmarks would be awkward too. They don't convey a person's identification data, but a stack of one's tastes and interests amounts to the same thing.

Actually, the most embarrassing thing is showing other people your diary, like HIDEOBLOG, for example.

My good buddy Piston Uehara from Power Professional Baseball visited my booth in the evening, just as I updated HIDEOBLOG. He had come to Tokyo to assist the conference that will start tomorrow.

"You ready for a little of this?" He made a glass-tipping gesture with his wrist near his mouth.

I had planned to swim, but I changed my mind and went for a drink instead. Quite a lot of Friendly Fire had hit me during the day. I knew that alcohol wouldn't heal my wounds, but I accepted Piston's invitation anyway. He's a good friend who knows how much it sometimes helps to be bad.

We went to the Nishi Azabu bar Sankyu, where I had gone with Murashu two months before. We ordered some snacks, and I got one beer with three glasses of wine.

Our conversation really livened up toward the end, as we recounted stories from our work during MSX development.

November's last day... the month seemed really short. The year has only one month left.