#i'm not gonna spoil but he was so cool i wish he had more screentime

[lokislytherin]

lookism dnd au?

if you see this and wanna art PLEASE i’m thinking of doing this for nanowrimo and actually making it novel-length and it would be cool to have concept art! of course with credit where credit is due i always give credit

[nanjokei]

finished willdress s1. i think it was pretty decent, the last few episodes were a solid 9 but the first half was like... a strong 7 at best. the anime needed an extra 13 episodes that's for sure, but i think the semifinal fights were so awesome, and the new characters were resoundingly great.

the post got a little long so my thoughts under the cut. i spoil obviously.

the episode where it was raika v tohya was pretty great cause it was all the new characters (the ones with actual presence) commentating. i do think -dress's greatest weakness is how blackout are a set piece and its refusing to break them up even a little, but by the third season its like, eh? they definitely contributed to how "okay" the first half of the series felt... i don't care about yuyu, zakusa's aight, i love tomari, tohya is better for leaving, megumi isn't suddenly gonna matter to me but i think it's funny they're driving the jobber angle so hard with her, at least it's honest.

and down in the nitty gritty that's what i enjoyed about willdress the most so far, even if it was very rushed it didn't really force a lot of conventions— raika and yuyu hate each other's guts by the end still but raika acknowledges blackout nonetheless. i do think it is in character for him to concede that much i guess, given he lost. i guess what i'm saying is "things made sense"— i think a big issue with not only vanguard but a lot of anime in general is that it seems like in an effort to resolve things, characters are bent in ways that are kind of irksome. like, i'll never get why anyone got along with kai in the original series aside from idk, miwa and aichi. getting along is kind of pushing it,

but speaking of kai, i find raika quite refreshing because he's a born hater. there's no real excuse for his behavior: he grew up to be an unpleasant person. i think there's a lot of people like that in hobby spaces, people who develop superiority inferiorty complexes because they're chronic tryhards first and foremost. as mentioned before i like that he is still a hater. come s2 i hope he keeps being a stupid bitch boy.

i do think my favorite characters however were urara and michiru. i don't think there is anyone who watched the show who would disagree with my assessment. urara was the beating heart of this season no questions asked. i don't think there was a single moment that had me going "what the fuck is she doing?!" because she was solid. it's quite easy to mess up shrinking violet blorbo characters imo. i would have loved more episodes to flesh out her troubles, but out of everyone, her arc was the most strongly realized and it is satisfactory enough as it is. she achieves both being cute and being a well constructed character all at once, despite the limited runtime alotted to each character. as the beginner character this season, i really do wish she had been the protagonist instead of yuyu... i don't have much to say about him in particular except that i was just going "lol idc" for most of his screentime. for some reason he became a really cool guy for the last few episodes of the season... but i don't consider it. it doesn't feel thoroughly earned. definitely an issue of the anime being one cour. but yeah, she kind of reminds me of naoki from the original in a way, except she avoids the pitfalls naoki had... i do think it was quite cool that naoki SUCKED ASS at vanguard but i loved that urara had a strong win record. the fight that ended her streak was quite good, she didn't feel cheated out of it at all like it usually feels like when a female character loses in vanguard. L O L.

i thought i wouldn't have much to say about michiru, but what a tour de force of a character. THIS is how you do GAR, not whatever the fuck they were doing with danji in season 1. it's not enough to say "this character is well liked and awesome". that's a lot of tell, no show. not to mention danji's actions were rather aggravating and got in the way of the plot constantly to the point where i remember the first season was more than halfway and it was nothing but danji dicking around performing clamp brand cringe. none of that with michiru: he looks like he just got out of bed constantly... and has looked this way for at least a decade. it's kind of amazing. he might as well be 40 years old and i'm subscribing to that idea personally. i was worried that they'd write the character voiced by a famous johnny's idol(!) to be a lame overpowered Thing, but he was incredibly charming. he really is overwhelmingly strong after all, but they made the right call of pushing him to the background and making him a moeblob who does funny funnies and can't read the room sometimes. infinitely charismatic character. he is everyone's ideal, and no one seems to be able to reach him, even though he's so down to earth... i truly do love the contrast. raika being a huge fanboy adds to it because when he finally lost me and fabio kept hooting and hollering and that was probably the only way i think most people were gonna root for yuyu at all— if raika's entire raison d'etre crumpled up and collapsed before his eyes (it happened quite literally too....hehehehe. iykyk.)

small bit for taizo— the only character who feels a little robbed, but i do think it was a little brave of them to kill him off and not let him advance to the semis out of courtesy of him not being one of the non-characters. but i guess that's how the bracket works given he lost two or three times in a row? (i forgot, but he missed his chance thoroughly). i hope his promise to not give up on his dream of capitalism means he'll be in s2 cause i quite liked him, i wasn't as invested in him as urara but it really is a case of feeling bad for the loser, you know.

dunno when we'll catch up to s2 but i hope it's while it's still airing. i like the designs of the new characters :)