#if I'm dumb and some of these have Japanese titles and I only put the English let me know- swear it wasn't on purpose

[tenfoldtranslation]

I need to go to sleep, but the Delicious in Dungeon/Dungeon Meshi discussion is reminding me of Attack on Titan/Shingeki no Kyojin. When the title sounds weird in English, and the Japanese isn't too hard to grasp, I can see why people prefer the Japanese. For Dungeon Meshi I feel like it makes even more sense because Dungeon is borrowed so directly from English, so "Dungeon Meshi" is not hard to say. It's shorter, even. I get why it needed an English title, because meshi isn't a commonly known word, but I bet it'll become a lot more well known now.

I feel like this might be an ongoing list of how titles get treated, as I think of them.

All English (=fully translated)

Captain Corinth

Assassination Classroom (Ansatsu Kyoshitsu)

Fullmetal Alchemist (Hagane no Renkinjutsushi)

Beyond the Boundary (Kyoukai no Kanata)

The Summer Hikaru Died (Hikaru ga Shinda Natsu)

Classroom of the Elite (??)

the Grimoire one...wait, Grimgar

Your Lie in April (shigatsu wa kimi no uso)

Attack on Titan (shingeki no kyojin)

Blood Blockade Battlefront (?) (Kekkai Sensen)

The Executioner and her Way of Life (and good thing they did, too... something something virgin road)

Erased (Boku dake ga inai machi)

The Saga of Tanya the Evil...?

The Night is Long, Walk On Girl (I definitely have that wrong)

Black Butler (but I call it Kuroshitsuji so often I almost forgot about the English name)

Run on Your New Legs (?)

Laughing Under the Clouds (donten ni warau)

All Japanese (includes Japanese words that aren't proper nouns)

Akane-banashi

Oshi no Ko

Gintama

Yugioh

Haikyuu!!

Hikaru no Go

Asobi Asobase

Kagurabachi

Tegami-bachi (I think)

(Tengan Toppa) Gurren Lagann

Yamishibai

Jujutsu Kaisen

Toradora

To-rabu (?)

Uma-musume (?) ('Horse girl' just doesn't sound right >>)

Doraemon (this sound probably go in the "both anyway" category

Sazae-san?

Nanbaka

Dorohedoro

[It's probably examining which ones I put in this category versus which ones I put in 'It's Both Anyway' that's interesting]

Some Japanese, some English (/some proper noun):

Bungo Stray Dogs

My/Boku no Hero Academia

Fugou Keiji Balance Unlimited (?) (I called it the Daisuke anime, anyway)

Blue Exorcist

Katekyo Hitman Reborn

Kaiju No.8 (I'm counting Kaiju as the English word)

Ranma 1/2

Kado: The Right Answer (Sekaisuru Kado) (these categories are starting to blur)

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure (Jojo no Kimyou na Bouken)

Arslan... (Arslan Senki)

March Comes in Like a Lion (sangatsu no lion) (??)

Yona of the Dawn (Akatsuki no Yona) (I often just call it Yona)

Gargantia on the Verduous Planet (Suisei no Gargantia)

Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid (... meidoragon?)

Ya Boy Kongming (Paripi Koumei) well, I guess technically that's fully translated...

Ouran High School Host Club (Ouran koukou host-bu)

Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles (does it have more Japanese...?)

Wandance!

Crayon Shin-chan (I think the -chan keeps it out of the 'but both' category)

Seraph of the End (owari no seraph)

Vampire Knight (it was Vampire Kishi, right??)

Keep it but add on:

Ajin: Demi-Human

Magi (??)

Ano Hana ? (this actually seems like a good fit for this category)

Bofuri?

It's both anyway: (or it's a name/proper noun)

Bleach

Naruto

Undead Unluck

MamaYuYu

Free!

Noragami

Code Geass

Fruits Basket (had to keep the s on Fruits I guess)

SkipBeat

Hunter x Hunter

Yuri on Ice

Ruroni Kenshin

Inuyasha

Given

Yuyu Hakusho

Karneval

Boys Run the Riot

Re:Zero (??)

Black Clover

i tell c

FLCL (sorta?)

Evangelion

Cowboy Bebop

One Piece

Death Note

Sword Art Online

Chobits

Macross

Sailor Moon (I guess really bishoujo senshi sailor moon)

Claymore

Kill la Kill (sorta?)

Date-A-Live

D.Gray-man

No.6

Chainsaw Man

Mob Psycho 100

Angel Beats

Brand New Animal

Made in Abyss (??)

Deadman Wonderland

Zombieland Saga (is that right? Also Saga is doing so much there)

Cantarella

Wind Breaker (?)

Cardcaptor Sakura (??)

I'm thinking it may mostly have to do with whether they were already out when I heard about them, or they gained traction before official release (...of the anime...?)

[otakween]

Digimon Frontier: Island of Lost Digimon

This was actually pretty fun! It wasn't the strongest Digimon movie by a long shot, but it was good as a Frontier side story. It was nice to see them revisit the whole "beast digimon vs. human digimon" conflict that they didn't do much with in the show. Also, I got to see my Digimon World 3 friends again! They were super cute.

Notes:

I enjoyed Izumi humming Funiculi Funicula in the intro to the movie. For a split second I thought it was Bolero and was about to throw hands lol.

What the HECK were they riding on in the opening? It wasn't really a Trailmon it was more like a Mike Wazowski themed rail cart. They, of course, never explained.

This movie's aesthetic was really weird. I don't know if it was necessarily higher quality animation. It kinda looked like they took the usual level of quality and put a "cinema" filter over it or something. Also some of the "shots" were weirdly cropped and almost blurry. IDK if that's just because there isn't a clean copy on the internet or if it was a stylistic choice. At least the characters are super on model, which is more than I can say for the show!

Speaking of animation quality, they were a little too obsessed with using CGI in this movie. It looked really bad and added nothing lol. Also, what was with the neon disco rave tanks? They felt extremely out of place.

Once again we get a lot of unnecessary focus on Izumi's butt...

So many new (or new-ish) background digimon! I kept being like "ooh, who's that?" I really liked the bunny-with-razors-for-ears design. It's funny how they debut new digimon in the movies and games, it almost feels like they're testing them out.

The original title is more like "The Revival of the Ancient Digimon." I can see why they would change that cuz it sort of feels like a big spoiler.

Kotemon and Bearmon were super cute. It was exciting to see their anime forms. They had really nice voices as well (in Japanese and English). Kinda wish I had watched this before DW3 instead of the other way around, whoops!

They used the exact same plot of "evil character encourages war to resurrect evil monster via the sacrifice of many" in the isekai series I'm Standing on a MIllion Lives. Makes me wonder how many fantasy series have used that. It must be a more common trope than I thought.

Why does this one digimon look like Impmon and My Melody had a baby?

The whole "beast vs. human" thing still feels silly when half of the "human" side doesn't actually look that human. I could totally see Dinohumon be considered a "beast" in a different series. (Maybe it's a metaphor for how racism is dumb and makes no logical sense).

The visual of digieggs flying and baby digimon being all over the place due to the ongoing war was interesting. I guess they couldn't go to the Village of Beginnings because the island is blocked off from the rest of the digital world?

One CGI scene literally looked like the 3D maze screensaver from Windows 98 lol

Kinda rolled my eyes when Bokomon said that Murmukusmon (what a mouthful) could turn into any digimon. What OP power will they think of next? Also, we only saw him digivolve into two digimon, so I'm not that impressed.

That final battle was pure chaos and I had a lot of trouble following wth was going on. I didn't know why AncientGreymon/AncientGarurumon were suddenly there so I googled it. Apparently it was due to "the power of Kotemon's sacrifice and Bearmon's tears"...riiiight. Shounen movie logic.

AncientGreymon looks amazing and AncientGarurumon looks..aight lol. I'm totally biased to prefer beast-like digimon

Kinda anticlimactic to have two "spirits" do the dirty work instead of our heroes, not gonna lie. Maybe if we had met AncientGreymon and AncientGarurumon before and had some level of emotional attachment to them it would have been more impactful.

The new mural with the Frontier MCs and Bearmon/Kotemon at the end was cute

[chiskz]

YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBOUR, CHICHI! 🐯 EP. 230318 - SPECIAL EPISODE WITH I.N, SEUNGMIN, HAN & HYUNJIN (FEAT. EVERYONE ELSE)

♡𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭: @alyszaen , @smh-anon , @neohyxn , @stealanity , @alixnsuperstxr , @kimcheon-sa , @hafsa-hoofsa-heefs , @qtnoaly

______________________

🎬🎬🎬

Live takes place in Chichi's hotel room. She enters the frame sitting on an ordinary chair, which Han pushes, pretending it was an office chair on wheels. The chair makes a very squeaky sound, to which the rest of the members scream and cover their ears.

I.N: I already have enough!

Cried Jeongin and headed for the exit, while Seungmin and Hyunjin finally appeared in the frame to sit on the bed. Chichi gets up from the chair and grabs Jeongin around the waist, lifting him up and planting him next to Seungmin. Meanwhile, Han sits down at the desk.

HAN: Welcome to Hannie's room!

CHICHI: Not this show!

Han raises his eyebrow slowly.

HAN: Welcome to Hannie Ri Bang?

CHICHI: Are you watching me at all?!

HAN: Yes. Every day, we are in the same group.

Chichi resignedly sits on his lap to cover him.

CHICHI: Knock, knock, knock? Who's there? Ah, it's just me, Your Friendly Neighbour CHICHI! Welcome to episode 230318! Today I was finally able to bring some visitors.

Han pushes her off his lap and bows to the camera, at which Seungmin pulls him by his t-shirt until he falls on the bed along with the chair. Hyunjin sends them a side eye, opening the comments under live on his phone.

🎬🎬🎬

CHICHI: At first it was going to be a vocalracha-only episode, but Han came to me sooner to talk about one thing, so I asked if he wanted to stay. The same thing happened with Seungmin, he and Hyunjin went out to dinner together so I just asked if they wanted to come back here together. And so here we are with a little more company.

Hyunjin: This is, by the way, the first episode in Korean.

CHICHI: Yes, I always use English or Japanese so that STAY from abroad can watch in real time. But today is a special day... If staff allows me I will work on subtitles for this episode. So forgive me and be patient!

🎬🎬🎬

Jeongin laughs briefly.

I.N: They finally have someone to ask that! 5-year-old CHICHI or 5 CHICHIs?

Han ponders, putting the phone down on his thigh for a moment.

HAN: Both options sound bad.

Hyunjin scratches his cheek with his finger.

Hyunjin: I think 5 year old Chichi was quieter, no?

Seungmin: No, I don't think so. This was already the age at which she sounded like a tractor engine.

Chichi opened her mouth slightly, but did not speak. Seungmin leans against Han, reading the comments from his phone.

HAN: 5 CHICHIs would already be a decent dance crew, right? We could make good money from it. We could buy a lot of meat with these money.

Hyunjin: Han said something smart for the first time.

HAN: So our answer is 5 CHICHIs to create a dance crew and be able to make a lot of money from it!

Chichi continued to say nothing. She just looked slowly into the camera with a face that resembled :|.

CHICHI: Now I know how Chan feels about having to deal with you guys.

🎬🎬🎬

CHICHI: CHICHI, Lily said that you created the choreography for Young, Dumb, Stupid. Yes, that's right! I've been creating it in between our activities and only recently put everything together. This is the first time I've created choreography for girls, I hope you guys like it.

HAN: It's funny, since the title is Young, Dumb, Stupid.

CHICHI: I'm glad you noticed it, you were the inspiration.

Han got up at this and pretended to roll up his sleeves to start a fight, but Seungmin laughingly sat him back down.

Seungmin: The title fits the paboracha perfectly, doesn't it?

Han and Hyunjin are now looking at him.

CHICHI: It's true. Lee Know is young, HAN is dumb and Hyunjin is stupid.

Hyunjin: How come Lee Know is the young one?!

Seungmin: We just don't want him to attack us later.

🎬🎬🎬

Hyunjin: CHICHI, I.N and HAN, congratulations on the successful debut of TROUBL3MAK3RS!

Hyunjin claps a moment with Seungmin after reading the comment.

CHICHI: We did nicely didn't we? We won two awards even though we couldn't promote ourselves with the album. Han came running to us in the morning to show us the results from the music programs. We really couldn't believe it.

I.N: Chichi even cried with joy, but that's understandable. The whole album was really an experiment, and you guys gave it a lot of love.

HAN: We really thank you!

🎬🎬🎬

A knock on the door sounded. Chichi got up to open it and Minho came in and just sat down on the bed.

CHICHI: What are you doing here?

Lee Know: I'm bored. Do I have to have a reason? Besides, I heard that I'm young, so here I am.

🎬🎬🎬

Lee Know: Can we ask for a spoiler for the comeback? Of course. It will be a song.

HAN: Written by someone.

CHICHI: With choreography.

I.N: And MV.

Seungmin: And it will be on the album.

Hyunjin: With songs.

Everyone present smiles slowly.

Lee Know: Just don't tell anyone.

🎬🎬🎬

Once again there was a knock on the door. This time I.N opened it, and Felix walked in.

Felix: I didn't want to eat alone, and I couldn't find anyone.... So this is where you all are.

CHICHI: I don't even know how it happened. You can take them if you want, I'll even pay you for it.

Lee Know: Don't listen to her, she just can't stand the thought that her show is finally interesting.

CHICHI: You will be the first to leave!

Lee Know: Make me.

CHICHI: I probably won't be able to, but wait.

Chichi takes her phone and texts. A few minutes later there is already another knock on the door, and a second later Changbin came inside.

Changbin: I really have to carry them out?!

🎬🎬🎬

Jeongin, Seungmin, Hyunjin, Felix, Han, Minho and Changbin sat on the bed, Chichi continued at the desk.

Felix: This made us live almost the entire group.

Seungmin: Where is our kangaroo?

CHICHI: Give him a moment, he won't be able to find you then he will come.

I.N: Or he will call the police right away.

Hyunjin: Or an ambulance.

Changbin: Or the fire department.

Lee Know: Or all at once.

CHICHI: Or he will finally breathe a sigh of relief that he has lost you all and go on a well-deserved vacation.

🎬🎬🎬

CHICHI: CHICHI, you are beautiful in your new hair color! Ah, thank you! But unfortunately I have sad news... It's not exactly brown... If you look at it now, you can see that it's more mousey blonde.... I don't know myself.

Seungmin: She lied to you guys. I can't believe she lied to you...

HAN: How can you watch someone like that...

Hyunjin: Enough of these lies, I'm calling the police.

CHICHI: You don't have to, Chan has probably already done it.

Then someone knocked on the door. Han ran up to them quietly and peeked through the peephole.

HAN: He's here!

He turned the lock on the door and quietly returned to his seat. Hyunjin and Felix hid their faces in their pillows to keep from laughing, and Seungmin and Minho laughed soundlessly.

Bang Chan: Let me in! After all, I know you're there.

Chichi hid her face in Changbin's shoulder trying to be quiet.

Bang Chan: I have live on my phone, I can see you!

《 ♡ 》

[fanaticsnail]

Travel is all fun and games until you step off of that 14 hour flight for a layover and realize you've got 3 more hours after it. Makes me wanna cry 🥲.

Anyways, on to the ocs. Writing the Zoro Fic (still don't have a name for it) I've found it a bit difficult to come up with OCs who can create interesting dynamics with Kuina and Karasu. With Kuina providing such a nice parallel to a younger Zoro, it's been hard not to just copy-paste the original crew lol. I have a few basic frameworks for characters, though. As always, no names:

Little Miss Chronically Unemployed. Not exactly a bounty hunter, more of a contract job kinda gal. Well, she would be if she could get a job, that is. Kuina is the first person in a long time to throw her a proverbial bone, and now she follows her around like a lost pup. Tsukino Usagi if she was a sad drunk.

Prince of....wherever the hell. Karasu, why do you, as a man, have an arch nemesis? What are you arching, your back? Seems being a swordsman is a one-stop-shop for being a bi disaster. Prince of some island and, for lack of better word, the group's sugar daddy. He's a stupid dumb dumb, I wanna put him in a jar and shake it.

The Struggler ™️. Obligatory devil fruit user, and despite being the youngest, they are adult supervision to these idiots. I'm thinking levitation, simply for the mental image of the rest of the group arguing with eachoter, only to suddenly be flung in opposite directions. Some assembly required on this one.

Thats what I have for this fic so far, however the more I get into this fic, the more I realize I don't know. The biggest example being: I am an only child, however with the amount of cousins and clse family friends I have, I've basically experienced every spot in the eldest-middle-youngest hierarchy. I've got an idea of what to do and ehat not to do when it comes to writing Kuina and Karasu but there's a small part of me that feels like I'm going to slip up and do smth stupid. Some Kuina & Karasu interactions, for your perusal:

Karasu has eldest child syndrome. Kuina has eldest daughter syndrome. That means even if their parents were present for their whole lives, they very much raised eachother. Very close bond because of this, but would rather die than acknowledge it.

As kids, Kuina once got dangerously sick. Karasu got so worried that he threw up and their parents were stuck caring for both of them.

Karasu once convinced Kuina her onigiri was poisoned so that he could have it instead. This backfired when Kuina freaked out and threw it away for "safety ". (This is inspired by smth I did. I have no regrets 👹)

Slow-motion punches. No words, just going up to eachother and pretend punching them into the face. You can't refuse a slow-mo punch, it's illegal. You just gotta take it.

UGHHHHH, I could go on and on, but for your sake I won't. OK, byeeee.

-♡♡ lots of love

Oh my gosh, HOW MANY LAYOVERS AND FOR HOW LONG??? Here I am whining about the fact that I've got a 2.25 hour flight coming up to see my baby sister, and you're doing a full 17 with stops. Dayum!!

Coming up with titles is just the worst. If this fic was me, I'd simply call it: "The World's Greatest," or "Whatever It Takes." Maybe even going with: "My Greatest Honor" considering the greatest honor for Zoro would be to pass his title onto his daughter.

Tropes are tropes for a reason, we love them. Having Roronoa Kuina as a reflection of both Zoro and Kuina (in his youth) would be an interesting way to have him see life come full circle.

Chronically Unemployed: the all rounder. Physically strong and burly, great sense of humor, could drink Zoro into a new liver -> reason why Kuina enjoys her so much? Reminds her of what her life would look like if she was less ambitious and more carefree. If we're going Japanese for names, Junko (ジュンコ) would be cute considering her obedience to Kuina. That name literally translates to "obedience" or "pure".

The Prince: Karasu's nemesis because he envies his parentage perhaps? Could go deeper: Zoro's wife and mother of Karasu and Kuina could be an heir to a title, and gave it up before her arranged marriage to the Prince's father. She chased love, and Zoro was who she wanted. The Prince sees Karasu as the embodiment of the childhood he could've had, and the Prince's mother could've been more hands off (as many are) than Zoro's wife. The issue? Karasu is in love with him, but has to keep up the farse that he isn't because he doesn't want the prince to stop talking to him -> even if that means insults. I would give him an incredibly pretentious name like "Ludwig" or "Leopold" and have his nickname / alias "Ludo" for safety for travel.

Devil-Fruit User: Leviathan is such a cool name, I love it! Anything to do with aqua mythos and I'm like a moth to a flame. "Levi" is also a very cute nickname, but considering the fact that I went with an "L" name for the one prior, I would love to steer your attention to other aquatic mythological creatures. Neothelids, for example, would be REALLY FUN to play with in the One Piece world, and "Neo" or "Theli" would be cute for the youngest member of the crew. A Neothelid is a creature that stems from mind-flayers, growing into a beast like a Kraken or Worm, that can: levitate, use telekinesis, breathe acid, and overtake creatures minds with a mental blast. Playing with those powers would be absolutely chaos, but I love it.

I am the oldest of four, my younger three siblings and I get along extremely well. We play D&D every Saturday night as a family, and I'd do anything for them. Wasn't always like that, but that comes with having siblings close in age. Sibling dynamics are a lot like watching older cats interact with younger kittens: swatting, showing who's boss, establishing the pecking order, and then realising "Oh shit, you're a lot taller than me now. What have I done," when they grow up.

Yes to the onigiri incident between them. Absolutely happened, it's canon to me. Poisoned food, food poisoning, absolutely.

OKAY SO NOW I HAVE A HOT TAKE FOR YOUR FIC.

Ship Roles:

Captain: Kuina (Little Sister)

First Mate: Karasu (Big Brother)

Navigator: Ludo (Prince)

Chef: Neo / Theli (DF user)

Shipwright: Junko (Chronically Unemployed)

Kuina is the captain because she is assembling the team. Captain whether she wants to or not. Karasu is the first mate because they are known for taking care of their Captain. He wants to keep her safe, like the doting big brother he is. That, and his mother would kill him if anything were to happen to her.

I'm sorry it took a while for me to get back to you about it! I have been thinking on this so hard and wanted to have the words happen in the right way. Love you, ♡♡ Anon. Enjoy your time away!!

[flowergirlmiwa]

Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG set analysis #2: Dark Duel Stories (& game review)

In the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG, Legend of Blue Eyes White Dragon was the first set released, on March 8th 2002. The next set of cards released was… no, not Starter Deck Yugi and Kaiba, but the cards that came with the Game Boy Color game Yu-Gi-Oh! Dark Duel Stories, released on March 19th 2002.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Dark Duel Stories, actually the third YGO game for the Game Boy released in Japan (and taking its title from the second game probably because the third game had "God" in its title), was part of the first major promotional push for Yu-Gi-Oh!. It seems like the promos came in two sets though I'm not sure about the timeline. The first set included Secret Rare variants for Blue-Eyes, Dark Magician, and Exodia the Forbidden One, reprints from LOB. The second set has Secret Rare first prints for Acid Trap Hole, Salamandra and Seiyaryu. I think I've heard the set with the reprints was only part of the first printing or something but it seems they were both used at the same time. Anyway, the second set all originated as promos for Japan's second YGO game, Dark Duel Stories. That Japanese game actually had promos like Crush card Virus and Harpie's Feather Duster as well, but either which way it's neat that the promos all originate from being promos for the game that was the namesake for this western release. Acid Trap Hole is basically Nobelman of Extermination in a Trap card, so it's actually a pretty great card for the timeframe it was released in the TCG.

Now enough TCG analysis… that's right, I actually already wrote a review for this video game, so I don't see why not include that here while I'm at it. This was written over four years ago which kinda blows my mind but whatever.

--

While it was by no means the first Yu-Gi-Oh! game released in the world, Dark Duel Stories was the first Yu-Gi-Oh! game released in America. It was also the first Yu-Gi-Oh! game I ever played, as well as the first I ever owned. So let’s talk about it.

THE BORING PREAMBLE

First of all, this game doesn’t have the normal mechanics we’re now familiar with in the YGO TCG. I’m not going to bother saying much about it because it’s boring and you get the point.

GOOD STUFF

I like the card art. Some of it is different from how those cards actually appeared in the TCG/OCG, which is fun. This game has a pretty good soundtrack. Making your own custom cards using parts you get after winning a duel is both odd and kind of fun. They end up being pretty useful in the early game and can look cool. There isn’t any charge for using passwords unlike most later games. Uh… I thought it was cool that the characters had blinking animations.

BAD STUFF

This game sucks. Don’t play it.

I hate the whole ‘duelist points you increase over time so you can put better cards in your deck’ thing. It’s dumb.

This game is literally nothing but grinding. You grind for cards. You grind for card parts. You grind for duelist points or whatever. This plus the jank as hell game mechanics (including a totally stupid rock-paper-scissors approach to card type which I hate) makes the game a slog. Progression is as simple as beat everyone on the current level 5 times then you get to access the next one. There’s no overworld, just a menu where you select a duelist to battle. There’s no card shop and no pack opening, you just get 2 cards and 2 card parts whenever you win a duel. I think there’s most likely a better card pool as you go up in duelist level, meaning you can’t just beat Tristan and expect to get Blue-Eyes. [Update: each character you duel has different card droprates from a wide pool]

I also do not and will never like the cryptic as hell contact fusion bullshit in these early games. Summon this card on top of this card to get a stronger monster. This would be fine… if there was a list of fusions you could do. Like, if you could consult a menu that tells you which fusions you can do right now with your current hand of cards and board or something. Nope, you just have to either do the patented ‘summon and pray, then write down ones that work’ or ‘just look it up online’ approaches, which sucks. Hate that.

Adding to the hell of grinding which makes up the entirety of this game is that the battles, especially at first, take too long, and the game just doesn’t have the best interface. I get it’s a Game Boy Color game, but I’m SURE they could have done it smoother. By ‘it’ I mean everything. Deck building and editing, as well as dueling. Just look at the Pokemon TCG game, it’s much cleaner in all respects. DDS feels archaiac, like you should be typing in text prompts in green text on the a black screen. It’s usable, but it isn’t any fun. Oh yeah, back to battles taking too long. Battles take too long.

There’s also weird cryptic shit like your opponent being able to basically set a card in attack position because it doesn’t ‘reveal’ itself until it does something. So weird. This game just feels jank. For 2002 and being the first YGO game, honestly, it’s whatever. It was close enough to the TV show that most kids (myself included at the time) would have dealt with it. Even a year later, it would have felt aged, and it’s totally pointless to play it nowadays unless you want to do a dumb review type thing about every YGO game or something. It’s not just old, it’s pointless. Old stuff can be good. Dark Duel Stories just isn’t worth playing by anyone, ever, in 2019.

CONCLUSION

It sucks

[animehouse-moe]

New Viz Manga Announcements

So, I won't be taking much of a look at some of the questionable and lazy licenses in much detail, but I will give an overview of them. I'll be going into detail on the good ones though, and that includes the Shojo Beat licenses.

So let's start with lazy. Why was Viz so lazy with these announcements compared to last year's? Well, the answer is that Viz believes themselves to be overextended in the NA market currently, which is somewhat of an understatement. They've put themselves in a deadlock by refusing to raise volume price and having tight margins. They can't expand printing operations because they don't have enough, so they don't license much in turn causing an overall slow down. It's a dumb position to be put in, and one that has a lot of solutions. Regardless, I'm here to talk licenses, so let's get that going.

Jojo's: Stone Ocean and Another Junji Ito Collection

These are no surprise, Viz has a hard on for Junji Ito and his style of horror, and Jojo's is a staple of similar caliber. The only complaint is how slow Viz is to release Jojo's, considering we'll only be starting part 6 in NA when Part 9 will be ongoing in Japan, effectively putting us three entire parts behind (which is an insane 68 Volumes based on the Japanese release). And Junji Ito, well, it's Junji Ito. It's cool, I guess. It's just boring to have 20 volumes of horror manga from the same creator and nothing else.

Naruto and MHA Coloring Books

I don't really think there's any explaining for these. Announcing they licensed these was borderline pointless, and just feels like Viz is padding out their catalogue with easy items.

FMA and Demon Slayer Side Stories

These are certainly not serious offenders in the grand scheme of things, but just sort of boring announcements? They're guarantees, so to speak. It was inevitable like Viz getting JJK and CSM, there's nothing really incredible to hearing about them, you're just sat there thinking, "Oh, that's pretty nice I guess".

Demon Slayer, Jujutsu Kaisen, and Spy x Family Fan & Guide Material

Truthfully, Spy x Family's is the least bad on this list. The Demon Slayer fan book was February 2021 in Japan, and JJK's was October 2021 (Spy x Family was May 2022). That means that there's a wait of at minimum a year and getting close to even 3 years of wait time. For fan books. For anime. Demon Slayer is entering its third arc, and JJK Season 2 will have aired before we get the fan book for the anime's first season. It's just... depressing. Spy x Family's is the best, and even then it's cutting close to releasing before its second season and movie. I get that beggars can't be choosers, but the bar can only be placed so low.

Tatsuya Endo and Spy x Family Content

Tatsuya Endo is the newest cash cow for Viz, clearly. They now have every non-one shot/single volume series licensed by adding Blade of The Moon Princess (left). It's not that I'd say no, but what room are these licenses taking up? What other series that would be better or more interesting than some of Endo's older work? And the Spy x Family novel was a given, waste of space in this announcement and should have been announced along CSM Buddy Stories.

Chainsaw Man Box Set

One of the biggest manga titles in recent years, Chainsaw Man finally get its Part 1 box set... with no announcements for Part 2 in sight, of course (this is the actual image they shared). And what do you get for purchasing this 11 volume box set? Why a poster, of course! It's 11 volumes, Viz. Incredibly far removed, really halved, from the normal volume count of a box set. Which, you know, you buy to save money on a series and collect it faster when there's more than 20 volumes. This is pointless. No nicer covers, no bigger trim size, no real bonuses. A waste of money aside from people that want the box.

Shojo Saviors

Unironically, Shojo Beat came out with the best stuff overall from the Viz announcements. A trio of series, two ongoing and one completed. The first two images are series already by authors that have other works in English as well. Sakura, Saku! by the author of Ao Haru Ride (is ongoing), and Neighborhood Story by the famous Ai Yazawa. The third, Tamon's B Side, is the new author Yuki Shiwasu. As a trio, it's very promising, and has nice range overall. The first two are very easy to recommend to anyone, especially those that have read any prior series from either author, while the third is more of a wild card.

The Good Ones: Takopi's Original Sin & #DRCL Midnight Children

And at the end of our list, we find the two new (and good) licenses from Viz out of this entire announcement. Takopi's Original Sin is sort of like an Inio Asano style affair from new author Taizan 5 (who currently has The Ichinose Family's Deadly Sins in serialization), and #DRCL Midnight Children is a retelling of a version of Dracula's story by author Shinichi Sakamoto, who also has Innocent releasing under Dark Horse this year. Both are very solid series, as I've taken a peek at each online (even before they were announced), so they will fit very comfortably within Viz's lineup.

Final Thoughts - A Letdown

Really, that's all I need to say. It was a letdown. You look at the prior license announcements for other publishers and they're all far better than this, and Viz is the biggest publisher by a large margin. This is what they manage, a bit of housekeeping and effectively two new series, Takopi's being complete at 2 volumes and #DRCL in print at currently two volumes. It's not a stretch to say that Shojo Beat had the better announcements. Which is depressing because Shojo Beat has been getting outdone by Yen Press as of late, and Seven Seas is constantly steamrolling them. So where does that put Viz? In a hole. Their current catalogue is massive and popular, but the effectively added nothing to the list with this announcement, so we'll have to see what they end up doing with the next ones.

[lildoodlecat]

So somewhere there's a quick dirty guide to writing proper Pinyin (cool and sexy of it to exist tbh) and this fic writer has taken it to heart but I really wanna grab them by the collar bc while some of it is fine the reason we all pepper in dashes for borrowed prefixes and suffixes is for ease of readability and lack of ambiguity in English (likely at least partially stemming from the tendency to use dashes for Japanese honorifics, since they aren't part of the name but are attached at the end, as opposed to the English equivalents etc etc anyway language is dumb and I'm not shutting up let's go)

Let's take some examples:

A-Yuan — According to the guide, "A Yuan" is the correct writing for the prefix A- and the given name Yuan. That's cool, makes sense, but the problem we run into is that it's too easy to read it as the particle 'a' instead, or as an initial or even full name (depending on familiarity with the context) and even if the reader understands that A- is a prefix, it's still at least slightly jarring to read what is essentially one modified word as two

(as opposed to Jinlin Tai, which is a place name and hence the separated writing is not ambiguous. Esp since it just translates to Carp/Koi Tower ((depending on the mdzs tl you're reading))

Hanguang-jun — The other gripe I have (one chapter into this fic that I will finish and kudos but my god there is a certain level of putting up with it) is with titles like Hanguang-jun, which I've also seen written Hanguang Jun (incorrect) and in the fic, Hanguangjun. Which I appreciate that yes, it is one title and adheres to the guide(?), but look me in the eyes and tell me that isn't at least a LITTLE difficult to read and places no emphasis or indication of -jun being a specific suffix for the non-chinese speaker (me hi hello I'm not an expert at all this is a purely english-speaker/author perspective mwah) -- granted prefixes and suffixes are not consistently dash-attached in English but this is abt ease of reading and creative writing in English is all about breaking the rules of "Proper English" anyway. We can acknowledge that there's a consensus on how to write and then not do it that way if we like a different way better

Anyway yeah I'm mostly annoyed by prefixes and suffixes bc shit being easily readable and understandable is way above in my priorities vs proper rules if said proper rules only make it difficult

[questersrest]

okay long ramble incoming, here's a readmore

some characters have titles in some japanese media. unfortunately, dq9 is not one of them and i'm no expert on this so i couldn't point you to media where many characters' titles are used if it exists. (i'm sure it does, but my dq knowledge only really covers the newer english versions of games)

i only know dq10 has some titles and that dqmbrv does use them and a few characters have finishers

運命の天使ラヴィエル参上！

運命の天使 (unmei no tenshi) like i've said is her title: angel of fate. well transliterate it how you want. 天使 literally means something like heavenly envoy, idk of a better word than angel but they're called celestrians in the localisation ofc, and 運命 is fate, destiny, any other synonyms i can't think of. so celestrian of destiny, angel of fate, fateful celestrian, word it how you like.

ラヴィエル (ravieru) like i've said is her name: raviel. okay it could be like ravier or laviel or lavier. but -iel is in a lot of angel names as 'el' means god and laviel sounds dumb. she may be named after the angel raziel

参上 (sanjо̄) is the verb meaning uh

so let's say

運命の天使ラヴィエル参上！

means "Angel of Fate Raviel visits!"

i guess it's possible i'm misinterpretting and all celestrians are angels of fate when given a full title? it's hard to say bc i have no other source right now with titles and the only other celestrian i'm aware of with a finisher in dqmbrv are:

nine who gets

守り人ナイン参上！

Mamoribito Nain sanjо̄!

"Guardian Nine visits!"

mamoribito could be translated is defender, guardian, sentinel perhaps. you know dq9, the premise is that they're guardian angels and the subtitle refers to them as sentinels. put it how you like.

and well, all the final bosses have finishers so corvus has uhh, well there's no "x visits!" line but they do all have a description of what they do but let's just take the name from it

堕天使 (datenshi) is his title: fallen angel... i do wonder if he had a title previously

エルギオス (erugiosu) i'm not sure on what this is meant to be. like elgios? ergios? i'm gonna go out on a limb and say elgioth bc that sounds more angelic

i didn't know the kanji 堕 but since 天使 is angel, i knew this was gonna be fallen angel before even looking it up.

----

now on that second point, about aquila and pavo being twins. i had no memory of that fact bc it's mentioned in a postgame downloadable quest. i didn't do much of the postgame when replaying 9, so i haven't done that quest since like maybe 2012-2014. so that you for mentioning it so i looked it up to check

i know people like to think of celestrian apprentices as their kids like aquila is nine's dad and corvus is aquila's dad and nine's grandpa. so it's important to mention pavo is nine's aunt

also i'm so glad i looked it up too because she specifically talks about changing aquila's destiny a few times and

angel of fate has to be her title. not only that, corvus is the one who helped her realise she's trans, and to open the rapportal is an allegory for being trans.

the rapportal is how one player steps into another player's world, to see the same world in a different way, to 'push ajar the gate of fate' to live the same life in a new way, a new identity, you see what i'm saying?

[birdchildsnest]

Some Unsolicited Advice from Your Comics Aunt

Listen, I have spent YEARS of my life reading papers by people arguing about the personality (and meaning) of a made-up person in a single book by a single author. And if (mostly) smart people can't agree on whether or not Hamlet wanted to bang his mom, then why on earth do you think that a group of Tumblr kids exploring a franchise that employs hundreds of different writers, editors, directors, producers, and artists (never mind timelines and reboots and alternative universes) to portray their characters across a vast spectrum of titles, movies, and TV shows will ever agree with your specific "correct" take on a character?

That's madness.

I've seen such meanness and rage over incredibly petty things in the DC fandom lately.

Let people have their dumb headcanons. (And don't scream at people when they ignore your headcanons.) Let people only get into a character through a specific comic or TV show or movie. Fandom is basically a host of Elseworlds. Each one is filtered through a specific fan's experiences and desires. (If comics are about "wish fulfillment," then fandom is even more so.)

Although art is more subjective than other parts of reality, yes, some takes are WORSE than others. ("Shakespeare intended for Hamlet to be a metaphor for WWII and Japanese internment." "Um, I don't think you can support that with the text. Or the existence of chronological time.")

But if we can't deal with people having different opinions about made-up people we follow for fun, how are we ever going to deal with people who disagree with us on important things? (We can't ship them all to the Phantom Zone.)

Some things do require a "line in the sand" approach, but I'm not convinced that someone imagining your favorite character at the "wrong" height should be one of those things.

In lit analysis, people have reasons for their specific interpretations. And these reasons are almost always personal, even when the papers are very academic. Some of the best analyses I've ever read, I've also disagreed with. But I learned a lot from them.

Fandom isn't my day job. I'm not here to be right. I'm here to have fun. I guess I actually am here to make friends.

And I don't want to miss out on fun or friends because "oh no someone is wrong in the fandom." Someone is always wrong in the fandom. And unless that person being is racist or sexist or harmful in some other way, I don't particularly care.

Want to combat misinformation? Sharing material that others may not have access to or be familiar with is super helpful. Scolding "the fandom" for not knowing "the right things" just comes across as sanctimonious and gatekeeping.

[Gently, puts my hands on the sides of your face]

And listen, if your self image is so wrapped up in a specific character that seeing someone else "playing with them wrong" fills you vitriol and fear. . . . Sweetheart, that's a "you" problem. (And trust me. I know this. It's been a "me" problem from time to time.) We need to find some other ways to define ourselves.

Let's start with how we treat each other.

[themarginalartist]

Gotta agree with the fact of every character being OC. I doubt there is difference between chars with studios behind them and chars made by one peep. Most interesting is the creativity with most of all, I think. Could read anything as far as it is creative. But how do you set good vibes to reader to make him stay and be excited for next chapter? I can see it happening on me when reading something, but I don't seem to find the key of doings to do so while I'm really interested on how

(I am so sorry this got really, really, really long so I’m putting it under a readmore, I am not kidding, this is ridiculously long. I checked before posting and it’s 1576 words (not including this bit here), which is like my normal chapter length so read at your own risk I guess???)

I mean a character is usually created by one person, or at least the initial concept of them is, then expanded on either by that person or the writers in order to weave them into the story. 

As far as getting a reader interested… I am not really sure why a lot of people are interested in my things…

But usually the way that gets me interested in reading something, and I am basing this off my response to different novels I’ve read (I’ll get to fan fics in a sec), is a combo of the synopsis and the first chapter being the hook. Now not every synopsis makes me want to read a novel, I have read many books where the synopsis made me go “huh” which is like mild interest, and then I start the first chapter if I have time, if by the time I am done with the first 2-3 pages and I haven’t found anything interesting the book gets put back. 

There was one time at a scholastics book fair that I read like the first 3 chapters of a book, it was while I was in high school and my brother was still in elementary school, but like I was hooked the moment I read it… The title escapes me though… 

As far as fanfics go, I used to be the most avid reader of them in my friend group, admittedly at the time I was looking for a very specific fandom and such, but my preference for fanfics is a longer story or longer chapters. My friends were not that way… Which made getting recommendations and giving them hard. 

But as far as what I like to see when I am browsing for a new fic is if the fic is hosted on FF.net or Ao3 a synopsis that doesn’t give the main plot away, but gives a quick intro to the idea, so for example on Think Ink (which I should update that synopsis I think) the bad version would be “Henry’s also been turned into an Ink Demon and now he has to figure himself out. Fighting different studio members and searchers in his journey to understanding himself.” where as “Henry woke up covered in ink, a spike of fear rushing through him, his life forever changed from that moment on.” is a bit better (not the best but yeah). 

Then comes the spelling and grammar component which I can’t stress enough. If the fics first chapter is extremely bad, and I am talking to the point were the word used is wrong, the spelling is wrong on a number of words, and there isn’t a clear tense being used, then I exit out, it doesn’t matter if I really like the synopsis or something or it’s an AU I liked, if the grammar and spelling makes the fic unreadable then it’s game over. 

Next is characterization, similar to spelling and grammar, if the character you are using is portrayed wrong, it’s also a game over. However there are a few exceptions to this. For example I used to really love Hetalia, the basic gist of the anime is that all the countries have a human representative but is also heavily biased as the Japanese stereotype of those countries. Italy in Hetalia is seen as an airheaded, easily frightened, guy who is a womanizer, eats pasta for literally every meal, surrenders in a second, and takes naps whenever possible, again this is the Japanese stereotype based in WW2. So if he’s characterized as being really serious there needs to be a damned good reason for it. You can’t just change a character to fit what you want if you’re basing it on someone else’s work. 

Next comes plot. Plot is key for any fanfic, I mean yeah every once in a while it’s fun to read a one off or throw away fic of cute activities like baking and stuff, but there’s no action or craziness (unless it’s a fic disguising itself as such which is also fun). The goal of the first chapter is set up. In a novel the first chapter is about introducing the main character(s), the world, and what the problem is. And fanfic is no different, however it has the luxury of us already knowing the character (in a way at least, take Spiderman, there’s the basic concept but there’s also a number of versions of him from different cartoon series and comic series). We might also have the luxury of knowing the world already as well, so that can be sorted out really fast, the rules and nature of the world are defined so we don’t need to explain anything. So then comes the problem, what is the character facing, is there something going on right now or is it coming, do(es) the character(s) have the power to stop it now or are they going to have to travel. The goal of the rest of the story after the first chapter is to show how the character(s) grow and change as a result of the difficulties they face in order to take care of the problem. 

And finally cutoffs. First what I mean by cutoffs is where an author chooses to create a time skip, scene change, or end of chapter point and I’ll talk about each of those in brief. 

For a time skip, the only reason that should happen in a fic is if the task at hand would be meaningless for the reader to know about like them going through all the steps of baking a cake (unless it’s to show the characters relationship with each other then don’t skip) or if there is a large gap of time where nothing important happens and I am talking about years of time, which is what happens in Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, there is a 7 year period where Link is “gone” from the world and so when he comes back to it many changes have taken place and so it’s a call to action for him. 

A scene change is similar to a time skip in some cases such as character x and y are driving and now scene change to x and y being at a motel for the night, but in other cases it’s a shift in who’s talking like we were getting told x’s point of view for a long time and now y is saying x is stupid or something. 

And finally the end chapter cutoff, which is honestly a hard one, there has to be a reason for the end of a chapter, a lot of times cliffhangers are the main way to go about it, but also resolution of a current problem is important to consider. For example chapter 4 of Think Ink was a cliff hanger I purposefully put in, one because it was evil and made people want the next chapter, and two because I wasn’t ready to continue on with the story at that point, I can’t tell you the amount of “omg what the heck why did you cut off there” I got from people. Now compare that to chapter 10 of Think Ink, the end of that chapter is Henry and Bendy finally coming to an understanding of each other, what has been going on with each of them separately, and the beginning of repairing the bond. It ties up loose ends that Henry and Bendy had been facing for a long time. 

Good vibes come from the care and dedication to the fic that you have. And every reader is different, they pick up on different things, they read something in different ways. I mean hell I have been asked if I wrote lines on purpose when the reality of the matter was I was just like hey this sounds good and it was by accident. But I think what a lot of people don’t think about is how not all stories have happy beginning, middle, and endings. Sometimes there is loss, there is anger, there is dumb decisions that a character made, there are mistakes and problems and too often I see fics that are just “oh everything is happy and good and light”, and that’s not interesting for a multi-chapter fic, maybe a chapter but not the whole thing. 

So in reality there isn’t a short answer. It just depends on how well you can connect with your readers. And it takes time, there have been plenty of fics that I begin reading after 4-5 chapters are already out or the fic has been completed, so don’t worry if people aren’t reading yet, just keep going and stuff. And not everything I said has to be a part of the fic, time skip and scene jump all over the place, make mistakes and get wild with writing. And the biggest thing, and best way to get better, is to make note of what you like the most, what caused you to like a writer’s style, why did this work, what hints did the author drop in order to lead you to this plot point. And it sounds like school work… but that’s because this is what you have to do for basically every English/Language Arts essay ever. analyze the text…

Congratulations on making it to the end of this monster wall of text btw. 🎉🎉🎉

[recentanimenews]

The GREAT CRUNCHYROLL Re:ZERO REWATCH Loops over Episodes 6-10 with a Shocking Revelation!

Welcome back the GREAT CRUNCHYROLL Re:ZERO REWATCH! I'm Kara Dennison, and I'll be your host this week as we make our way through Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-. Last week we traveled with Subaru to a magical new realm in episodes 1-5, and this week we're picking up from a rather gory cliffhanger and getting a few mysteries solved in episodes 6-10.

  Despite covering Re:ZERO-related news constantly over in the news room, I never actually knew a lot about it. A few reveals got to us early by way of things like special-edition Rem figures, but—for me, at least—Subaru's Return by Death power and its implications were a complete surprise. With this week's batch of episodes, we got to see the toll this takes on him emotionally and how he recovers from it. There's a lot I still want to know about his life prior to the series, especially regarding how quickly he took to his new company and how little he thinks of his original world.

    We're still watching Subaru evolve and, as commenter BlackRose0607 pointed out, he's "starting from zero," as it were:

  That's the thing though, Subaru ISN'T a hero. He's an ordinary guy who got transported to another world and thinks he has powers right away, but really his only power is coming back to a certain point after he dies, to try and redo things and make them work for him and those around him to keep himself and everyone else alive.

It looks like we've got some viewers who gave Re:ZERO a try before and never finished, but are picking it up as we do. Welcome aboard... and now, let's see what the Crunchyroll Features team has to say about this week's episodes!

    This is a very busy batch of episodes! For starters, Subaru seems to be coming to terms with his "new normal" after some really rough restarts (and a literal emotional breakdown). Has your view of him as a character changed at all from last week?

Kevin: I really like seeing the sheer emotional toll that the time loops take on him. Even if he tries, he literally can’t tell anyone about how he knows that terrible things are about to happen. In the first set of episodes, we saw how that can make him plan things out and try different methods, while this time we got to see how the constant fear and frustration leave him a step away from insanity almost constantly, especially when he knows that he’s in a loop.

  Joshua: Since watching Okabe in Steins;Gate 0 and Marvel Studios’ Doctor Strange, I’ve been fascinated by the potential mental impact of repeating so many traumatic timelines. So at the risk of sounding like a sadist, I really liked Re:ZERO’s direct approach, and seeing the emotionally vulnerable side of Subaru unfurl out of his forced bravado.

  He’s died repeatedly in brutal, painful ways, before having to act like nothing happened. It’s understandable he’d be traumatised, which makes the fact he can’t even confide in anyone, a cruel stroke of narrative genius. Despite all the pain, and occasional blips in his fight-or-flight reflex, he’s shown an admirable selfless resolve in situations where I’d sympathise with just wanting to run away though, so I’m starting to respect Subaru a bit more, I suppose.

  Paul: I'm not entirely sure what to make of Subaru. He keeps taking credit for saving the day when really it’s the more powerful characters (Reinhard, Rem, Ram, Beatrice, etc.) who do all the heavy lifting, and even his seemingly courageous acts seem to be borne out of cowardice and desperation. It makes him a complicated and interesting character, but I'm not sure whether I like him or merely pity him.

  Noelle: I’m still on the fence with Subaru. On the one hand, the time loops and constant deaths are extremely cruel, and having to reconcile that people he might have possibly become close to would happily see him dead. On the other hand, he hasn’t really improved as a person; he still reeks of entitlement. These are fine character flaws, but it’s not very palatable to me. Still, I don’t think he’s a bad person. Just not a type of character whose story I see as having a need to be told.

  Jared: I’m still very unsure about him. Sure, he did some things that could be seen as good in this set of episodes, but I still feel like this isn’t done just because he’s a good person. There’s still parts of him that seem highly suspicious.

  Carolyn: I’m really liking this minefield that he has to navigate every time he is rebooted. It’s very interesting to watch him put pieces together but then constantly seem to be three paces behind anyway. I’m not certain he’s my favorite character, I think Emilia holds that title right now. But the whole premise has me intrigued.

  Austin: If anything, I've become more sympathetic towards him. His emotional breakdown in Emilia's lap really hit me for this rewatch and honestly makes it a bit difficult for me not to feel sorry for him.

  Danni: For the most part, yes. I think he’s really likeable and has a great rapport with the rest of the cast, but characters with uninterrogated martyr complexes irk me. To his credit, there’s a logic to it given he knows death isn’t permanent for him, but that doesn’t negate how ultimately self-destructive and harmful it is. I guess that’s not so much his fault (he is just a fictional character, after all) as it is a qualm I have with the writing as a whole.

  David: Unfortunately in this case I am tainted by having seen the show before. Given all of the criticisms of him, I am extremely interested in what everyone’s take on where his character arc goes in the next couple weeks, though.

  René: I think that this batch of episodes really drives home how Subaru isn’t your run-of-the-mill overpowered isekai protagonist and is also a big part why Re:ZERO became so popular so fast back when these aired. It’s really hard not to sympathize with him through all this suffering and builds a really good emotional basis for what is yet to come.

Was the revelation of Rem as Subaru’s attacker a shock? Similarly, what about the revelation of Ram and Rem’s demonic nature?

  Kevin: When I was watching for the first time, I don’t remember predicting either. On a rewatch, I don’t think there was any real way to guess the outcome, since we had never seen either maid show fighting ability and didn’t know that oni were an actual race in this world. Despite that, I really like how both are handled, since it fits with the logic of the world. Also, Subaru’s story about the red and blue oni was a nice hint.

  Joshua: I think anyone watching for the first time would’ve been shocked - I certainly was back when I was a newcomer. Up until then, we hadn’t really seen Rem as more than Ram’s cute sidekick, so the reveal that she’s more than capable of a little cold-blooded murder was a shock, to say the least. Their demonic nature was less of a surprise to me though, as the seeds were quietly sewn when Subaru and Rem visited the village in last week’s episodes. Although, perhaps I picked up on that hint due to already knowing, I suppose?

  Paul: This plot detail was spoiled for me long ago, and so the reveal itself wasn't a surprise, although the sheer violence of Rem's rampages was pretty shocking. I want to know more about their background and how they came to be employed at Roswaal Manor.

  Noelle: I was surprised by Rem, honestly, mostly because there were… almost no clues that she could have been the attacker? Suspicion doesn’t translate into murder, and we don’t really get any proper hints about why she would want to have him killed. So it’s not really a mystery, is it? The demonic nature was hinted at with the red oni blue oni story, so that didn’t come as much of a surprise… although I was expecting that to be metaphorical instead of literal.

  Jared: In hindsight, it makes a ton of sense since you wouldn’t normally point the finger at her, but it was a bit of a surprise. It does seem weird that she was going after him just because he seemed shady and had the witch’s scent on him, so hopefully that whole thing gets explained at some point. The demon reveal again is something that you can look back on and see how they made a trail to that reveal. Although Rem being a violence machine wasn’t what I was expecting when she turns.

  Carolyn: I already knew because spoilers. But had I not known, I don’t think I would have been terribly surprised. We are led to believe the whole castle is full of strange people who could murder Subaru at any moment. The entire vibe is just bizarre during his first few days there. I was surprised about the demon part, however.

  Austin: On my first watch I was really surprised about Rem being the killer! I remember thinking about why she might have attacked Subaru for the whole week leading up to the next episode and initially even thought she killed him in the first loop. As for Ram and Rem’s demonic nature, Re:ZERO unfortunately wasn’t the first time I’ve seen Naita Aka Oni, the Japanese children’s story about the red and blue ogres, referenced so that wasn’t as surprising.

  Danni: I had honestly expected it to be Ram, so it was a bit surprising to see Rem in the end. Their nature wasn’t a surprise, though. They telegraphed it from a mile away last week while the two chatted on the walk back from the village. I did feel pretty dumb for not noticing the red ogre/blue ogre motif given how often it seems to pop up in different anime.

  David: I had no clue at all, but the show doesn’t really give you any chances at guessing it could be her before the reveal, so I think the intrigue is more in the “why” than the “who”.

  René: I have to unfortunately second a lot of the previous comments. I tried to approach it like a proper mystery but there wasn’t nearly enough adequate foreshadowing to point towards Rem so logic-wise, it wasn’t as satisfying. It did provide us cool action, though.

      There’s a lot of intrigue (and a lot of murder) surrounding Emilia’s claim to the throne of Lugnica. Subaru’s newfound knowledge and trust aside, is there anyone in Roswaal’s household you still consider suspicious? If you’ve already seen the series, which character were you suspicious of the longest?

  Kevin: To this day I’m not sure what’s up with Roswaal and Beatrice. I don’t think anyone ever mentions what specifically Beatrice is, but she is clearly extremely powerful but also bound to Roswaal’s mansion, and we have already seen that Roswaal himself is pretty powerful, magically. We’ll get some more detail about him later, but I’m still not convinced I know his entire motivation.

  Joshua: Mach 1 Mary Poppins, without a doubt. His design is unusual to say the least, but the way he stands with an imposing presence, and seems to always be looking through Subaru when he talks, makes me suspect that he knows a lot more than he’s letting on. The problem with Roswaal though, is even when you put aside his makeup and exaggerated voice, he’s impossible to read. We also know he’s supposed to be incredibly powerful, which could make this mystery all the more important for the struggles to come, I suppose.

  Paul: Roswaal himself is completely shady. I have no idea who he is or why he supports Emilia's claim to the throne, and I doubt he's acting out of a sense of philanthropy. How does he benefit in all of this? Does Emilia trust Roswaal, or is she merely using him out of convenience? I'm eager to find out.

  Noelle: Roswaal, for sure. Granted, I like him (and his voice). He’s a fun character for sure, but I have no idea what he wants. I don’t think I’m particularly suspicious of him, but I do want to know what his objectives were.

  Jared: At this point, I think it’s better to be suspicious of everyone since they could certainly pull out a surprise turn at the drop of a hat.

  Carolyn: Roswaal seems like he’s up to some stuff every time he does, basically, anything.

  Austin: Despite everyone being so suspicious of Roswaal, I actually kind of stopped seeing anyone in the household as suspicious after the reveal that they could smell the witch on Subaru… That said, I am beginning to put that initial dismissal into questioning.

  Danni: I’m still suspicious of Roswaal, just because we’ve seen the least of him. He’s always come across to me as pretty menacing, but that might just be because of the clown makeup.

  David: Yep. Roswaal. We’re not given almost any information about his thought processes or motivations at this point, so it’s only natural he is the most suspicious character.

  René: Honestly, how could you not find Roswaal suspicious? I still expect him to be revealed as someone mischievous later on who at least tries to get favors out of Queen Emilia once she has ascended the throne as payback for his support, in a Rumpelstiltskin-kind of way.

    If you had Subaru’s Return by Death power and a blue-haired oni maid with a morningstar killed you tonight, about how long ago do you think you’d wake up?

  Kevin: I bought some apples about a week ago.

  Joshua: I’d hope it would be before I had to make choices that were a little more life defining, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I returned to something more mundane. Last week, I was standing in an aisle contemplating which toilet seat to buy, so maybe then? I went for the middle priced of the three options, so perhaps my destiny would change had I went for the cheapest or more expensive, I suppose!

  Paul: Hopefully far enough back that I could reconsider some of my current career choices. Working as a clerk in a public library may be a soul-crushing and monotonous job, but it beats being a starving artist.

  Noelle: Similar to Kevin, I did go apple picking two weeks back-- I’m kidding. It’ll probably be at my desk at work, or on the bus.

  Jared: I’d probably get unlucky and it’d send me back a year and I’d have to go back to school again.

  Carolyn: Oh, boy. Probably stuck in the land of Naruto filler.

  Austin: It’d probably get sent back to watching a virtual YouTuber’s stream since I’ve been doing that a lot recently.

  Danni: I don’t know. With my luck I probably saved two seconds before my head caved in and would just be caught in a death loop until the console bricks.

  David: At my desk watching anime, naturally. Thinking of which, Return by Death would be a convenient tool for catching up on seasonal shows…

  René: Hopefully, not too far back. I’m close to having an empty email inbox for the first time since April. I would hate to lose all that finished work ...

    And finally, highs and lows of the week?

Kevin: High - Subaru and Rem’s fight scene. From the choreography to Rem and Subaru exchanging trying to save each other, leading in to Rem wandering the forest as a demon to try and save Subaru, I really like the sequence. Low - Subaru figuring out that the puppy was the shaman. It took a rewatch or two for me to realize it, but Beatrice only tells him about the curse requiring physical contact before Subaru had the entire village touch him. He got every single person to touch him somewhere unique, so he knew that he would be cursed, but only later learned that when removing the curse he would be able to see where the shaman touched him. It’s a minor plot hole, but I really like these episodes, so I have to look pretty deep to find a low point.

  Joshua: I adored Beatrice this week. Her constant irritation towards Subaru was adorable, and her snappy comebacks gave me life. She also shown incredible loyalty and resolve to stand by her word when she opposed even Mach 1 Mary Poppins and Ram when Subaru was accused of killing Rem (which was a really cool sequence too!).

The compassion Emilia shown in the lap-pillow moment was wonderfully pure, allowing Subaru to let his guard down and finally offload the feelings eating him up inside. Rem’s demonic outburst was tantalising to watch, and then there’s little things like the absolute heartbreak in Ram’s mourning cries (Rie Murakawa did a great job there!), and the perspective of Subaru’s pacing around making it look like Beatrice was spinning on the spot!

  Frankly, these episodes were so good that I’ll have to get a bit nitpicky to find a fault, but I’m a little confused as to why everyone trusts Subaru so much? Their world is politically volatile with Emilia a likely target, yet when Rem dies of weakness only a day or so after Subaru asked Beatrice about the same subject, she still stood by her contract to protect him? I can’t exactly fault Rem there, to be honest. That’s a small detail compared to the bigger picture though, I suppose.

  Paul: My high point was when Beatrice entered a contract to protect Subaru and followed through with it even though it set her against her employer and his entire household. I wasn't expecting that, and I think it hints at interesting (maybe even fiendish) possibilities for her character. My low point is the reveal of the shaman's true identity. I felt like I'd somehow missed two or three important chapters of a book when the story pivoted to focus on a minor mabeast invasion. I had assumed the curse was related to Emilia's election (and maybe it still will be), but the shift to a concurrent but unrelated threat struck me as jarring.

  Noelle: High point, Rem fighting, both in her wailing on Subaru and brutally handling hordes of monsters. Now that’s what I’m talking about. Low point, wow, that dog was 100% not hinted at all to be a monster, huh. I thought it was interesting, because of course we suspected the humans first and not that the culprit could be a monster instead, but I wish there was more leadup to it. We got a lot about curses, I wish that infodump also contained things about monsters too, so we could at least guess that.

  Jared: High points for me would be the fight scenes which were really well done and Beatrice just being a ton of fun throughout these episodes. Low point might be the shaman reveal because I thought it was a bit too obvious it would be the dog. Since Subaru learned it was through physical contact, I immediately thought back to the dog bite and figured that’s where it’d end up going. Plus, if Sailor Moon has taught me anything, it’s that pets that have “bald” spots are not what they seem to be.

  Carolyn: I actually really liked the scene with Subaru crying into Emilia’s lap. That was very sad and emotional. The kid just needs a break and a friend. I’m not sure I have a low point. I liked this set of episodes quite a lot.

  Austin: Gosh, there were so many highs. I actually cried when Subaru broke down in Emilia’s lap and “Houya no Yume yo” started playing, every single reason I really liked Beatrice on my first watch came rushing back to me when she formed a contract with Subaru, Rem’s anger filled questioning before killing Subaru after the reveal and Ram’s blind rage towards him after Rem died both hit me like a truck (voice actors and actresses sure are amazing!) -- I could honestly go on for longer than I probably should about everything I really liked about these five episodes.

  As for lows, it felt a little too easy when Subaru won over Rem’s trust to the point where she’d risk her life to rid him of his curse in the tenth episode. Also, Subaru’s emotional turn around after Ram chased him and Beatrice down felt a tad “unrealistic”, for lack of a better word. Ultimately, those are pretty minor nitpicks, though.

  Danni: This was a really strong selection of episodes in what I’ve found to be a real great show so far, so it’s hard to pick any single favorite moment. Beatrice continues to be my favorite character in the entire show so every moment with her is a treat, especially her honoring her contract with Subaru despite it pitting her against her employer. Subaru telling Ram the story about the two ogres was a pretty touching scene, as was Subaru breaking down in Emilia’s lap. Those kids are pretty cute together. I can’t think of any ultimately low points, really. Those CGI dogs didn’t look that great, I guess?

  David: High is absolutely the scene where Beatrice defends Subaru, hands down. Probably one of the best moments in the whole show, too. Low is just in general how many times Subaru had to die to figure this one out. Gets surprisingly tiring to see the same days play out over and over!

  René: I absolutely love the lap scene with Emilia, so that’s definitely the High for me. It’s not only a beautiful character moment but also really hits me as a wonderful anti-toxic masculinity moment as Subaru is just not able to keep up his facade as the strong hero anymore and needs to let it all out. I’m always a sucker for moments like this.

  There weren’t really any Lows this week, so I’d have to go with the Shaman reveal, as well which is still not THAT bad. I’ll have to wait for next episode to have something for this segment~

COUNTERS:

Week:

"Barusu": 7

Subaru Deaths: 2

Methods of Death: Slit throat/torture, falling/suicide

  Overall:

"Barusu": 17

Subaru Deaths: 7

Methods of Death: Disembowelment, disembowelment, stabbing, curse, curse and dismemberment, slit throat/torture, suicide

  And that's everything for this week! Remember that you're always welcome to join us for this rewatch, especially if you haven't watched Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- yet!

Here's our upcoming schedule!

  -Next week, on October 4th, Carolyn takes us past the halfway mark with episodes 11-15

-Then, on October 11th, David hosts our penultimate week with episodes 16-20

  Thank you for joining us for the Great Crunchyroll Re:ZERO Rewatch! Have a great weekend, and we'll see you all next time!

  CATCH UP ON THE REWATCH:

Episodes 1-5: Starting Life in Another Rewatch

Re:ZERO Introduction Questions

  Have anything to say about our thoughts on the episodes watched? Let us know in the comments! Don't forget, we're also accepting questions and comments for next week, so don't be shy and feel free to ask away!

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Kara Dennison is a writer, editor, and interviewer with bylines at VRV, We Are Cult, Fanbyte, and many more. She is also the co-founder of Altrix Books and co-creator of the OEL light novel series Owl's Flower. Kara blogs at karadennison.com and tweets @RubyCosmos.

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com