#jojo fans are powerful because they be drawing character designs like this all the time

[sandflakedraws]

okAY!! took me a hot second but he's here! my impressions of giorno bizarre adventure for part 2 of the pick-a-fandom-i’m-not-in poll. the delay is my own dang fault cause i picked a jojo i thought would be challenging to draw. and i was correct.

as for his colors, i settled on something in between the anime and manga versions. and i've since learned that this guy has a killer theme song.

(some beginning sketches/schematics under the readmore)

[thesmallmeggles]

Zanzo Headcanons in No Particular Order

Autism + Cerebral Palsy + Hearing Loss + Quad Amputee (@treemintart was first on this, I just co-opted it)

Based on research I did on bionic prosthetics, I think it'd make the most sense for sense for Zanzo's limbs to be osseointegrated - contact between bone and a sturdy metal like titanium. Nub - metal rod - cybernetic limb snaps into rod and covers nub. (Peppermint and Chai might have this set-up too. And maybe Rekka.)

His cybernetic limbs are battery powered. They need regular charging to function. (There were a handful of instances where Zanzo's limbs shut down from his lack of attention. He's more distressed when it happens to his arms than his legs.)

There's an extra collapsible wheelchair stashed in a storage closet in R&D for this precise reason. And also one at Zanzo's residency, which I assume exists somewhere on the island.

He can feel pressure in his cybernetic limbs, but that's all.

Even if his CP only affected one limb or one side of his body, Zanzo would want all of his limbs to match.

Motor Stims: rocking, hand gestures, fiddling with neural implants and other objects

Zanzo has moderate - moderately severe hearing loss (40-70 dBA range) - difficult to hear conversation, vacuuming, alarm clocks, and other sounds of equal or lesser volume.

He turns his aural implants to a lower audio setting while he's working to minimize distractions. Also does this if he's overwhelmed. Has gotten startled from folks walking in while he's in the zone.

The Jojo villain oc cosplay is Zanzo's mask. If people deride him for being "weird" regardless, it's gonna be on his terms.

The pillow is custom. Zanzo anonymously commissioned an artist to design the cover. He hugs it whenever he feels lonely or stressed. Also sleeps with it.

He owns a pair of blue light filtering glasses. Sometimes he remembers to wear them.

Zanzo joined the internet in his early teens, haunting ye old chat rooms and forums. Published lots of fan art. These drawings often included a dual blade wielding green haired character.

He discovered anime around the same time and it changed his life. His main interest is in action-adventure and mecha series.

He watches anime subbed regardless of whether it's dubbed in English so he doesn't miss any dialogue. Because he's hard of hearing. (Also his parents used to yell at him for having the tv volume too loud.)

He enjoys playing action-adventure games like Metroidvanias and fighters. Occasionally breaks or hacks games for fun.

Gacha games are dangerous for Zanzo. He will be compelled to dump everything into getting the pulls he wants. Not to mention they distract him from other tasks. Zanzo had a few apps on his phone, but uninstalled them.

I don't think Zanzo's much of a pet person. In the cat/dog sense at the very least. If he did have one, I think it'd be something small and low maintenance - like a rodent or a lizard.

Zanzo first dyed his hair in his late teens/early twenties, inspired by his favorite fictional character. He stopped when Vandelay hired him, and picked it up again after his promotion, figuring Kale wouldn't care enough to chastise him about it. He was right. (This is dependent on Vandelay's stance regarding colored hair, which we don't have any canon info about. I imagine the department heads have more leeway in regards to dress code.)

I learned from the Hi-Fi wiki that the BRUT-1L has a "baby rocking mode". My proposal is that Zanzo intended this for stimming. Maybe he couldn't justify making something that specifically self indulgent, so he knocked two birds out with one stone by also making BRUT-1L a combat gardening robot. (Zanzo doubts his neurotypical coworkers would understand the appeal.)

Zanzo has a private YouTube/Twitch (or whatever the Hi Fi Rush equivalent is) account. Content ranges from playthroughs (and game breaking), reviews/analysis, unboxings, and showing off his various robotics projects. (Including ones that shouldn't be unveiled to the public yet.) He has a small, but dedicated following.

Does Zanzo know how to sword fight? Kind of. He understands the principle at the bare minimum.

[mundanesalad]

Actually tell me more about your fan part 9 I want the details :)

oh damn hell yeah

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 9: Mysterious Ways

We return to the Phantom Blood universe, post part 6. 

(Before anyone says otherwise, its canon the universe is p much the same as it was before, barring the cast of part 6)

It’s set in New York City, 2019, and follows 20-year-old Shizuka Joestar. She’s a few weeks into an internship at the Manhattan branch of the Speedwagon Foundation, when all of these artsy type folk start following her around. She’s being targeted by world renowned fashion designer Jenny Death because she is a stand user with a number of connections to other, much more powerful users.

I don’t have a whole lot of colored drawings of her, but I think Shizuka eventually learns to control Achtung Baby (Localized to ‘Mysterious Way’) enough to be be visible most of the time.  She’s aloof and has self esteem issues due to feeling very invisible metaphorically, like she herself doesn’t draw attention. Joseph and Suzi probably can’t take care of her anymore as they get older so she probably has to live with different relatives for a few years.  She ends up going to college in NYC. 

Also I think she has vitiligo and wears platform boots.

A number of Shizuka’s coworkers are eccentric types that look much more threatening than they are.

Idk what this woman’s name should be.  Her stand is called [Debaser] and it can be used to swap the locations of any two objects.

Jenny Death is going after Shizuka for her connections because she’s a villain with a deathwish.  Her stand [Fashion Week] is a grandfather clock that time travels her consciousness to any time in her life, like Billy Pilgrim from Slaughter-house Five but with control. However, just before she does die, it always resets to a time in her adolescence. Jenny Death has lived out her life hundreds of thousands of times and she just wants it over with.  So the hundreds of thousands of years she’s been alive are not kind to her mental health. But in nearly every life she lives, she becomes a fashion designer because she knows how to game the system from experience and she can be as subtly weird as she wants to and nobody questions it.  Her underlings are all fashion students. 

So most of the minor fights are stem students vs art students.

If given the time, motivation, and libation I could write a whole ass story about this but nobody would read it because its mostly original characters.

[munchies-for-thought]

The reason your favorite character is flawed and how it changed how I saw my life

Jun 18, 2020

Context: I’m a huge fan of the anime “JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure”. (Reading Part 6 pls don’t spoil kthx bai). Don’t worry. You don’t even have to know about anime to get my message. It’s just the example closest to me.

The revelation behind each flaw

Rohan Kishibe is a character that is incredibly talented as a manga artist. He is so obsessed in his craft that he goes to terrifying and ethically questionable extents to get inspiration for his stories. Sometimes a villain, sometimes a hero. His art is everything for him. Well worth risking his or someone else’s life. He is generally a good guy, and wishes good upon the world. He just won’t go out of his way to make it happen. He is also defeated almost immediately after we meet him.

Rohan Kishibe is indeed one of my favorite characters of all times for a multitude of reasons, yet when describing him, he clearly is a flawed character. Yet this is NOT about him. While you read this blog, please think on the coolest fictional character you can think of. Do you have one in mind? Can you answer the following about your favorite character?

Has your favorite character failed?

Has he been hurt badly?

Are some things out of his control?

Do most people in his world generally understand the struggle they go through?

You’ll see when comparing with friends that we mostly agree on these answers even when thinking on different characters. The interesting truth lies in the common factor behind these answers, and learning a bit from the power of good storytelling.

One of the most precious things that I have gained from playing videogames, watching anime and playing Dungeons & Dragons all my life, is the first-hand knowledge of the power of a good story. Although it is in the HOW you make a good story, where I found this revelation that helped me so much.

What I am trying to say might be simple and even obvious when read, but not truly understood. If you bear with me a bit longer, I will attempt not to say, but to explain. I’ll show you the building blocks of how I learned so you truly understand as I did.

Dungeon and Dragons’ Character Backgrounds

The first time I made a new character in Dungeons and Dragons (Drow Elf Bard btw) I was blown away when I found out that whereas you get to pick from options that greatly impact your likelihood of winning, you also had to pick background and personality options that held no significant impact on your success.

You could choose to be a triumphant noble, a devote acolyte, a successful guild merchant or even a lying charlatan. Hell, if you wanted to you could even pick an orphan who had lost it all in the edgiest way known to man!

The book was also quite good at giving you specific quirks that brought that character to life. All of this happened because D&D is focused on group storytelling. Everyone wants your character to be interesting so their adventure gets 10x cooler when their complex characters interact with yours in intriguing and unexpected ways.

For example:

The secret beauty behind flaws

I was just a tad... confused. I had to chose a flaw? Why would I want to do this? All of these options look just like ugly parts of your character’s personality and could easily affect them negatively within the story.

Was this a balancing feature? A rule simply put there to make you less awesome, so no one is too overpowered? I just could NOT wrap my head around it. I couldn’t understand how this could make things fun. They were ruining my character.

It was until I started maturing as an individual and learned more about game design and storytelling that I started to appreciate how genius that was. No one cares for the story of perfect, bland, basic individuals who always succeed and have never made mistakes before. Because that is not real, it doesn’t work for an interesting story if there’s no sadness. If there’s no pain, you can just simply look away.

It was to be expected of the game designers of the best roleplaying game in the world to know that having flaws, failures, challenges, weaknesses, mistakes, all of them are ESSENTIAL for a great story to be told!

Was there a moment in your favorite character’s story where his failures and his pain made you love them on a whole new level? Aren’t those failures what drives your characters to become who they are? Would it be a better story if they had always succeeded?

So who is this Rohan Kishibe and, as an artist, what is his take on good storytelling?

Rohan’s Philosophy

Not only is Rohan a good example of a flawed character, but he also has a very interesting philosophy. He is a famous and wealthy manga artist. You’ve got to understand that, to Rohan, his craft is EVERYTHING. It is the thing he does best and what defines him.

Let me just show you one quote of his, so you understand his artistic philosophy:

“Reality is the energy that breathes life into a piece of work, and reality itself is entertainment. People often think that manga are drawn from imagination and fantasy, but that’s not actually true! For me, drawing something that i’ve experienced, or something that has moved me, is what makes it interesting!”

His pursuit for inspiration is so great, that he constantly goes to insane lengths to gain inspiration. This unrelenting desire is why he was originally a villain. Yet even when the protagonist defeated him, all Rohan could think of was of how this set of unfortunate and unlucky events was within itself a hell of a REAL story to use as inspiration. He saw value even in his misfortune as long as it was honest, untapped, unadulterated and pure reality.  That’s his trade secret as a famous and successful storyteller.

Understanding reality, storytelling and our identity

Warning: We’re about to get metaphysical. You might wanna take that bong hit right now. You’ve been warned.

Talking about reality is like opening Pandora’s box. It is such a massively complex topic that before we can even get to the nitty-gritty of it, let’s just agree on the following for the sake of this conversation:

Depending on how skeptic you are, reality could be mostly subjective or arbitrarily objective. So just follow my lead on this one and match your understanding with mine at least while you read this blog.

NO ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSES OR REALITIES

Fate is merely the belief that there is a predestined way things will happen no matter what. Since its only requirement is also its only consequence, (which is also impossible to prove) then even thinking on fate is pointless or even harmful to an individual as it removes agency from himself and turns him into a bystander in his own life.

Facts are limited to the provable physical world. If you can’t prove it, you don’t KNOW it is real, but you could still believe it to be real.

Our understanding of ourselves, comes partly from how others perceive us and their own subjective view of reality.

As mere humans we don’t completely control reality, but we control how it affects us.

Your own experiences and passions have a gargantuan influence on your interpretation of reality.

Storytelling could be simplified as “the way in which reality is described”.

Changing how you tell a story doesn’t change the facts.

That last one sounds a bit anticlimactic doesn’t it? Specially since we’ve talked so much about storytelling just to find out it can’t change reality. You might even wonder if its uses are only limited to art?

Fret not! This is where it all starts coming together.

My story

Before you disregard storytelling as just an art form, or an overglorified logbook, let’s think outside of the box and take a few leaps with me. Let me show you when was it that it clicked for me:

“Just when the COVID-19 lockdown was about to begin, I was at one of my lowest. I’ve always been someone very adamant on living life as he sees best. Even when friends or family wouldn’t understand my decision, I would still pursue my own path. I was proud of this and felt it made me immune to what other people thought. Yet, years of failed relationships were starting to make me doubt myself.

After an emotional breakdown at Denny’s after being stood-up (Great story for another day) I started worrying that the problem might be me. I’ve always been open to feedback as long as it makes sense to me in a logical way, but I had built so much thought behind who I was, that I didn’t even consider that maybe, I was more flawed than what I had originally assessed.

Maybe if all these bad things kept happening to me, there was a constant behind it all. Judging by the fact that these happened throughout the span of years and with different people, it was only reasonable to assume I was the only constant. Maybe my relationships, both in love and in friendship, were failing not because of individual and complex reasons, but because I was involved in all of them.

Maybe I just won’t build close friends or a family, but I guess I can still find a way to enjoy life. It’s just a lonely life, a very lonely life, but it’s best to face reality head on. That’s what I have always taught myself, right? It would be foolish not to do so when the answer is an inconvenient one. It’s still reality. Better get used to it I guess.”

Wow, that went to a very dark place didn’t it? It’s crazy looking at it in retrospective, but while it happened, it really felt like that was just the facts. I sucked at friends and love. That was just the cold hard reality to me. I mused:

“It’s like if I was a D&D character with low charisma doomed to suck at social encounters... “

and then a sudden realization froze me to the core...

Even if by mere accident, I ended up thinking of myself as a D&D character. Remember all that talk about flawed characters? Well, what if I would see myself as a flawed character? We already agreed that the best characters fail, struggle, suffer, cry, rage, and they make mistakes!

It’s like I had opened a whole new dimension that brought new light into who I was. Those weren’t horrible memories of things that broke me down and I wish no one would ever find out anymore. Those were just wild chapters on the bizarre adventure that is my life. These are badges of honor of what my very own story is!

Storytellers are already influencing your reality

I won’t stand here and tell you that everything bad happens for a good reason. Please be careful not to take the wrong message out of this. That wasn’t what I realized at that moment. I finally was able to see that there were two storytellers that had been affecting me all my life, and I hadn’t really seen their influence before!

Let me unmask these two powerful beings that through their storytelling, had changed my reality.

Powerful Storyteller #1 - Those close to you

Did you notice how the story that I was listening from my friends and love interests was sounding aggressively negative towards my self-value? I thought I didn’t care but I was indeed interpreting my life through their stories.

Since we already understand that we each have our own interpretation of life, good and wrong, then it’s not that hard for us to understand that we will never fully agree on what’s cool. Some of us love things that most people don’t even understand. So when they talk to you, they are inadvertently telling you a story about how you’re weird, instead of fascinating.

If only you could have friends or people who DID understand you, then maybe the stories about you would be seen in a much more positive light. It’s not your friends fault for not understanding, you were just asking something unreasonable from them.

Get yourself surrounded by those who are weird like you. You’ll notice that for the right crowd, you’re just the coolest person just for being who you are. That feeling is just invigorating in every sense.

Powerful Storyteller #2 - Yourself

Back in my story, you can see how I took a lot of my own “interpretations” as “facts” or even “reality” when I told myself my own story. You could have just as well told my same story but in a different way with a much more positive light:

“My relationships did fail, but that doesn’t necessarily reflect on my self-worth. I can continuously fail but love the fact that I’m the type of character that is still hopeful and positive even after repeatedly failing and suffering pain each time.”

It’s important you understand what makes you cool as a character. Because it is your job to tell yourself the story of who you are, what you’ve done, and who you will be. You have already been doing so for as long as you can remember, so you don’t even notice it anymore. You are STILL, to this day, re-telling yourself your story and changing how you feel about some parts of it.

What can we do about it?

So if you already are in charge of such a crucial and delicate task, why don’t you apply what we’ve learned so far? Can’t you see how you as the audience (from your own storytelling) would feel when seeing your main character in emotional pain? Don’t you feel empathy and love towards it because of all it has struggled?

You have the power to choose whether or not you will tell your story as the sad log of things you suck at, or as the crazy adventures of someone who’s just trying to do their best. Someone who is AWESOME because you do understand why he gets so excited when talking about that thing, and why he is so disappointed that that other thing didn’t work out again.

Those dark painful memories are beautiful crystallizations of true art! You already have what Rohan Kishibe is willing to kill to get. You already have an amazing REAL story, you now just have to use your storytelling skills to make yourself some justice, and talk about yourself like the amazing character you are when you tell that story to yourself next time you go to sleep.

At least when it comes to my story, well, the only reason why I would ever even think of writing a blog this long, is because I’ve changed the way I tell my story. I firmly believe that most people will never even have the opportunity to read this, but I have also seen value in these thoughts even if there’s no one besides myself who will listen to my story. If anything, at least I hope my story helps you love your character a bit more, just how I have learned to truly appreciate mine.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for listening to my story. I would always love to hear yours.

[lesbicattiva]

araki’s interview at luccacomics&games 2019 part one.

loose & imperfect transcript / translation of araki’s press cafe interview with the italian press (30th oct) at lucca comics & games 2019 about his main work: jojo’s bizarre adventures. (translated from italian to english 1/5).

Q: First of all, it’s a huge honor for us to have you here. We’d like to know what’s the creation process of your characters’ looks, which are really peculiar and unique. A: They are based on my everyday meetings, on everything I’m able to pick up from people. Weird people, dressed in a bizarre fashion, but even people dressed in a brave and colorful way. I even take photos of these people. By looking at the pictures with different angles I can better study the look. About Italy, then, I especially get inspiration from statues, that have a more classical design.

Q: We can see, at the beginning of JOJO, a neoclassical european influence, at first only with the poses and then in its entirety. How was this type of aesthetic greeted by the japanese market? A: A big inspiration were of course my trips to Italy and the museums, with their classical atmosphere. To me drawing like this is now natural, and in my opinion even the japanese readers accept it exactly because of the naturalness with which I do it. If anything, if I tried to write a typically japanese work, it wouldn’t be easy.

Q: You are part of a shortlist chosen to draw the posters for the paralympics. Could you talk about how you were offered this proposal and the project related to the paralympics?  A: Honestly I don’t know why I have been chosen, but I’m really grateful [laughs]. I think that the organisational committee was impressed by my works and the exhibitions dedicated to them, like the one about the JOJO’s 30th year anniversary that was held in Tokyo. Regarding the work done on the project, I don’t know what to say, since I’m still doing it [laughs].

Q: What and who gave you the inspiration for the first JOJO, Jonathan Joestar? A: Actually it’s very simple: in Japan there’s a restaurant chain open 24-hour, very famous, that’s called “Jonathan’s”. I just used that name [laughs]. For a lot of reasons, I’m quite fond of it and I wanted to start from there for the name. Regarding the design, I just wanted to draw a ‘macho’, a man with chiseled muscles and proportions similar to those of the classical statues.

Q: Jojolion, the eighth JOJO’s part, is about to end. What will the future of the series be? A: Honestly I don’t know, I still have to think this through. It’s something that needs to be defined.

Q: Do you read, or have you ever read, comics of the superhero kind? If yes, what are the influences that they had on the writing of your series? A: I’m not a big fan of superheroes, even if when I was young I read a lot of french comics. I find superheroes the type of characters that wallow in self-pity too much [laughs], I’d prefer to see a character that is able to look ahead more and is down-to-earth. Even if I really like spider-man.

Q: If someone asked you to contribute in a movie by creating characters and scenes, what genre of movie would you think about and with whom would you like to collaborate? A: I really like horror movies, I think I’d make a very realistic horror. In fact, I really like “The Walking Dead” for this reason, its realism.

Q: This summer the Vento Aureo’s anime, the one part set in Italy, ended. One of the things that stuck with me, already when I read the manga, is the complete disappearance of Fugo Pannacotta after his betrayal to Buccellati’s gang. Why this choice? A: It’s a rather complicated reason. Since Vento Aureo was being published on shōnen jump, its target were boys and teenagers. To them, betrayal, is something very heavy and awful to commit. Continuing to show Fugo in the manga would have saddened the atmosphere and the events of Vento Aureo, and probably ruined the character.

Q: Why at the end of Stone Ocean you decided to reset the entire narrative universe, abandoning like this some of the characters most loved by fans, as Jotaro Kujo and Dio Brando?  A: It was hard to abandon those characters, even if actually I never completely abandoned them, they are reborn just slightly different. The reset, as much as hard, it was necessary. The story of JOJO had come to its natural conclusion, and to protract it would have been rather pointless and counter-productive.

Q: The saga of JOJO, during the years, has changed a lot; both stylistically and narratively. I’d like to know if and how you changed too during these years. A: Undoubtedly I changed too. Regarding the characters, even if they change, actually they are all tied by a thread that goes through the whole saga, in other words, the spirituality, the heart and soul of the characters, that gets, from time to time, inherited. During the writing of Phantom Blood, many were left bewildered by Jonathan’s death, but actually, his death is only a metaphor. The soul of Jonathan will keep living forever in his descendants. For example, at the beginning of the series, we have extremely muscular characters, that used their physicality through Hamon. This physicality and spirituality then naturally evolved into Stands as guardian spirits. They are the direct consequence of the soul that the characters pass down to the next generations.

Q: Talking about Stands, it would be nice to know what inspires you for their creation and how long does it take to make a new one. A: It all starts with the character since stands are the physical manifestation of the will and the soul of people. They are invisible to the normal eye, but the power and the spirituality of the characters are so strong that I wouldn’t know how else to portray them.

Q: In the JOJO universe, all the stronger powers, even those of the main villains, deal with time manipulation. Why is time so important to you? A: Basically I think that being able to control time is the strongest power, in each of its variations. For this reason, when I was making the final villains, I studied the ways in which they could manipulate it. The power to bend the flow of time to your will is something that has always fascinated me, and I think that’s the strongest power of all.

Q: What and who gave you the inspiration for the character of Yoshikage Kira? A: When I made Kira, I imagined that my neighbour could be an assassin, but a next-door killer that lives above suspicion is not a flashy character. Quite the opposite, he seems a common person, calm and quiet. He has hobbies and interests as anyone else, maybe he likes to be in his home or maybe he likes to go out. I thought about those things and Kira was born. He's a character that really intrigues me, because he doesn't escape his nature. Kira accepts and doesn't fight himself. He knows himself, knows how he's made and faces his daily life day by day. The topic of serial killers really intrigues me, I read many books on this argument.

Q: Your passion for fashion is well known to everyone. I'd like to know who are your favourite stylists and if, at the moment, you're planning other collaborations with any of them, like you did with Gucci. A: First of all, I was very thankful to Gucci for that collaboration. When I was young I really appreciated Versace's style, with dresses enriched by brooches and decorations. At the moment, however, I'm not thinking about other collaborations, I'm very focused on the paralympics' project [laughs].

Q: What's your favourite JOJO character? A: Shigechi, a character from the fourth part, Diamond Is Unbreakable.

Q: What part of JOJO you're more fond of? A: The aforementioned Diamond Is Unbreakable. Because the city in which is set, Morio-cho, is inspired by the place where I was born and raised. I'm very attached to it because of the nostalgia.

Q: You and Haruki Murakami both often use music in your narrative. Do you think there are things in common between your work methods and his and, in general, your works? A: To be honest I don't know. I don't know Murakami's modus operandi and his creative process, but for me listening to music is something I do every day. I don't know if he does the same. For example, I deeply love Puccini, and I already came to Lucca (note: Puccini's hometown) years ago exactly to listen to him.

Q: Why is the character of Dio a recurring presence in the series, so much so that he's managed to be reincarnated even in the seventh part, Steel Ball Run? A: Dio is very powerful, probably one of the most powerful characters of the JOJO universe. It's a character that instills fear, since he doesn't feel remorse or any sense of responsibility. Dio is literally the antithesis of the Joestar's family, and because of this I made Dio something like a hereditary presence for the Joestar family even through his reincarnation, as if he was a curse. He's so strong he cannot die in an ordinary way, and his rebirth makes him even more frightening, as if he was, indeed, a curse.

[sssshhhthefilmsabouttostart]

The best and worst films of 2019

It was of the general consensus that 2019 was a truly amazing year for cinema, with audiences treated to a wide and impressive array of films. As usual, the year produced a number of sure bets from both well known directors and arthouse favourites, but it also treated cinemagoers to some truly unexpected treats from the cinematic mainstream.

Having watched just over 100 films (released in Australia), those that made this year’s ‘best list’ have been selected on the basis of the lasting impression they have left on this viewer after the lights have come up and the curtain’s been drawn.

So, what succeeded and what failed?

Ladies and gentlemen, may we please offer for your consideration…

50. READY OR NOT

49. GLASS

48. HAL (DOCUMENTARY)

47. STUDIO 54 (DOCUMENTARY)

46. HOTEL MUMBAI

45. THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT

44. CRAWL

43. MISSING LINK

42. SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK

41. THE CLOVEHITCH KILLER

40. BURNING

39. AVENGEMENT

38. YESTERDAY

37. THE SISTERS BROTHERS

36. BRIGHTBURN

35. FIGHTING WITH MY FAMILY

34. HAIL, SATAN (DOCUMENTARY)

33. VELVET BUZZSAW

32. COLD PURSUIT

31. STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER

30. SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME

29. BEN IS BACK

28. THUNDER ROAD

27. THE REPORT

26. TOY STORY 4

25. MID 90′S

24. LAST BREATH (DOCUMENTARY)

23. VOX LUX

22. GLORIA BELL

21. THE FAREWELL

20. SHAZAM

19. FREE SOLO (DOCUMENTARY)

18. KNIVES OUT

17. BOOKSMART

16. DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE

15. US

14. ROCKETMAN

13. AD ASTRA

12. JOJO RABBIT

11. MIDSOMMAR

10. APOLLO 11 (DOCUMENTARY)

Though this outstanding assemblage of archival footage about the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing featured no narration, interviews or analysis, director Todd Douglas Miller successfully managed to create an amazingly beautiful and surreal experience about one of humanities greatest achievements. Featuring never-before-seen footage of both the launch and the mission itself, ‘Apollo 11′ was as thrilling as any sci-fi and eye-wateringly beautiful to behold. 

9. EIGHTH GRADE

It was an impressive year for many ‘coming-of-age’ films (‘Booksmart,’ ‘Good Boys,’ ‘Mid 90′s’) but it was writer-director Bo Burnham’s poignant and sensitive exploration of the challenges of early adolescence in the age of social media that really resonated. Focusing on the socially awkward Kayla - played with exquisite, jittery control by teen actor Elsie Fisher - ‘Eighth Grade’ was a thoughtful observation on the universal truths of growing up in the modern age.

8. FORD V FERRARI

With director James Mangold at the wheel, ‘Ford V Ferrari’ was a highly enjoyable sports car racing movie that left audiences with a lasting and highly satisfying impression all the way to the finish line. Based on the rivalry between the car manufacturers Ford and Ferrari in their pursuit to win the 24 hour Le Mans sports car race in 1966, ‘Ford V Ferrari’ featured heart-pounding racing sequences and impeccable performances from Matt Damon & Christian Bale.

7. THE NIGHTINGALE

Though not a horror film in the strictest definition of the term, you were less likely to find a more horrific cinematic experience this year than Australian director/writer Jennifer Kent’s 'The Nightingale.’ Kent's follow up to her critically acclaimed debut ‘The Babadook' was an extremely unsettling and bleak revenge tale, that relentlessly beat the audience with its unflinching violence and depictions of cruel racism. 

6. AVENGERS: ENDGAME

"Part of the journey is the end...” A cathartic and satisfying experience for all MCU fans worldwide, 'Avengers: Endgame' was everything we needed and more than we deserved. Full of callbacks and emotional pay-offs 10+ years in the making, ‘Avengers: Endgame' was a thrilling conclusion and a deeply emotional exploration of loss and love, duty and honour, friendship and family. Just remember to lean into the tears.

5. JOKER

Whether you ended up either loving or hating ‘Joker,’ there was no denying that the landscape of cinematic comic book adaptations had been changed forever. Drawing inspiration from Martin Scorsese’s ‘Taxi Driver’ and ‘The King of Comedy’ and featuring Joaquin Phoenix’s magnificently dedicated and exhaustive performance, ‘Joker’ was a truly outstanding cinematic achievement that would be discussed and debated for many years to come.

4. THE IRISHMAN

A magisterial entry in his long and masterful career, Martin Scorsese’s violent yet poignant crime epic featured flawless performances from a stellar ensemble cast (De Niro, Pacino, Pesci, Keitel). With a script that was nothing short of a master work, coupled with an intricate production design and stylish cinematography, ‘The Irishman’ felt like an apt end point for Scorsese’s fascination in narratives detailing the ultimate price that comes from a life of sin.

3. PARASITE

Renown South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho already had an impeccable track record (’The Host,’ ‘Snowpiercer,’ ‘Okja’) but really stepped up his game with this brilliant and powerfully revealing social satire. An intricate look at modern-day social hierarchies, ‘Parasite’ kept flipping audience expectations with its radical shifts in tone - from clever comedy to violent, dark tragedy - whilst delivering some brilliant thematic elements. 

2. MARRIAGE STORY 

Writer-director Noah Baumbach’s drama about the pain of the divorce process was a phenomenally crafted piece of cinema. A tragic tale amplified by both Baumbach’s screenwriting genius and tour-de-force performances from Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, ‘Marriage Story’ highlighted the struggles of an everyday situation and the real efforts to maintain it, leaving audiences with heavy hearts and thoughts.

1. ONCE UPON A TIME...IN HOLLYWOOD

Set against the backdrop of Hollywood’s changing of the guard and the looming large presence of the Manson Family, ‘Once Upon A Time...in Hollywood’ was a melancholy, slow burning, comedic love letter to a filmmaking era long gone, and easily one of Quentin Tarantino’s best films.

As a wonderfully painted portrait of 1969 Hollywood, Tarantino delivered something truly special - a cinematic opus featuring so many film references, both obscure and in your face, that it was an absolute delight for cinephiles everywhere to luxuriate in the sights and sounds of this historical fantasy. 

Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt delivered the most emotionally vulnerable performances of their careers as soon-to-be has-beens, whilst the film’s vibrant production and costume design and playful soundtrack perfectly captured a snapshot of a special place and time in film history.

If Tarantino is still adamant to call it quits on his directing career after his next movie, ‘Once Upon A Time...in Hollywood’ was a timely reminder that we should all definitely try to enjoy the filmmaker whilst we still can.

...AND NOW, THE WORST!

20. UNDER THE SILVER LAKE

19. THE MULE 

18. STUBER

17. AT ETERNITY’S GATE

16. IT: CHAPTER 2

15. THE BANANA SPLITS MOVIE

14. HAPPY DEATH DAY 2U

13. ALADDIN

12. ANGEL HAS FALLEN

11. TERMINATOR: DARK FATE

10. CAPTIVE STATE

Director Rupert Wyatt, the brains behind the effective ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ reboot, easily delivered one of the worst sci-fi films of the year. Despite a premise filled with potential and talent both in front of and behind the screen, ‘Captive State’ was a major disappointment. The screenplay (co-written by Wyatt) was an epic mess of confusion that lacked both a compelling narrative and characters to hold it together, resulting in a huge misstep for all involved.

9. RAMBO: LAST BLOOD

It’s ironic a film franchise that started out telling the sad story of a man trying to show an uncaring world he was still a human being should have its final chapter demonstrate the exact opposite. This much touted ‘final entry’ in the Rambo saga was a deeply unpleasant and unnecessary exercise that featured little wit, inventiveness or originality. The character of John Rambo deserved a better swan song than ‘Rambo: Last Blood,’ and so did we.

8. GEMINI MAN

Directed by Ang Lee and starring Will Smith as a government assassin facing off against a clone of his younger self, ‘Gemini Man’ was an empty and tiresome thriller dressed up in a lot of fancy tech, and Smith’s biggest box office flop since ‘Wild, Wild West.’ Despite costing $138 million to produce, all the Hollywood SFX wizardry in the world couldn’t excuse a lifeless picture, with the final result nothing more than a bland action clone.

7. THE LION KING

Soulless was how best to describe Disney's shot-for-shot live action version of the 1994 animated classic. The core failure of this latest incarnation of 'The Lion King' was the studio’s inexplicable choice to go fully photorealistic with the animation. The animal characters may have all been zoologically accurate, but there was absolutely zero expression or emotion conveyed in their faces (let alone the voice talent). Sadly, ‘The Lion King' was nothing more than a cash grab that relied heavily on the nostalgia and success of the original, 

6. WELCOME TO MARWEN

Robert Zemeckis, the director behind such cinematic gems as ‘Forrest Gump,’ ‘Back to the Future’ and ‘Cast Away,’ was also responsible for this woeful and misguided outing. Despite being based on the true story of a man learning to cope with a terrible trauma through the power of art and imagination, ‘Welcome to Marwen’ focused its attention on the visuals of the story instead of its narrative. Our advice? Watch the original 2010 documentary ‘Marwencol.’

5. THE CURSE OF LA LLORONA

Let’s cut straight to the point - the reason Hollywood keeps making cheap, crappy horror films with little, if any, imagination is because they will always make their money back within the opening weekend. And ‘The Curse of La Llorona’ was a prime example of this, a formulaic slab of supernatural dirge destined to be forgotten by year’s end. Filled with jump scares, loud musical cues and devoid of any originality, horror fans deserved better than this.

4. MEN IN BLACK: INTERNATIONAL

Despite the box office success of the first ‘Men in Black’ film and its two well-received sequels, ‘Men in Black: International’ was a dull and dreadful reboot that severely tarnished the franchise. There were all sorts of bad things happening in this fourth film, but none were as unforgivable as wasting the talents of both Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thomspon. You didn’t need your memory wiped after this one - the movie did it for you.

3. DARK PHOENIX

The ‘X-Men’ films have been less hit and more miss in recent times and, unfortunately for fans, ‘Dark Phoenix’ closed out the this once-great franchise in an extremely disappointing fashion. Suffering from extensive rewrites and reshoots to the point where not even the film's stars knew which characters they were playing, ‘Dark Phoenix’ was a far cry from the pitch-perfect conclusion James Mangold gave us with the vastly superior ‘Logan.’

2. HELLBOY

Director Neil Marshall’s bloody misfire of the ‘Hellboy’ franchise was a damned mess, undeserving of both your hard-earned money and your valuable time. The film’s storytelling was clumsy rather than clever, the atmosphere oppressive rather than immersive and the characters colourless rather than captivating. Try to imagine Guillermo del Toro’s original two movies, except without any spark, wit, fun, tension and excitement. Absolute hell, boy!

1. CATS

Don’t act as if you’re surprised by this year’s winner of worst film - ‘Cats’ was an epic misfire, deserving of the vitriol it received from critics everywhere (the furry community, however, LOVED IT).

From the initial spark of the thought that turning Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical into a film would be a good idea, the project was doomed. With every single decision involved in this movie more baffling than the last, the biggest and most fundamental problems were the concept design of the cats themselves and there being absolutely no semblance of a plot.

Despite there being pussy galore, ‘Cats’ failed to capture any sense of spectacle or fun, and instead plodded through an inane, boring and predictable story that was used mostly as a platform for some big West End musical numbers and A-list cameos.

Watching your neighbour’s cat lick its own arse was far more enjoyable to behold than this cinematic disaster.

[transhitman]

My Actual Critical Thoughts on the DIU Movie, Unclouded By Gayautism Moments

Ok so I fucking loved it, and here's why. Spoilers for movie exclusive scenes.

First of all, I LOVED the look of the characters. I think the costume design was superb, ESPECIALLY Josuke. The modifications really made it feel like actual clothes someone would wear, but it managed to keep the Anime Bullshit vibes intact. The live media also added a lot to their outfits imo because of the way their clothes moved with them. It's a little thing, but animation rarely captures the way a bigass jacket flaps around. The casting was great imo. Josuke and Okuyasu actually looked like high schoolers (not sure if the actors were actually teens or what), and they looked... So Baby 🥺. Okuyasu especially... I loved him. My boy 🥺🥺🥺. And IDK if this is an unpopular opinion but I loved Jotaro!!! He looked like a dad and I appreciated it. I also liked the way they did his hat hair, like it was so funny. LOVED how his hat was tilted all weird like how it's always drawn. Loved the cartoony hair in general, actually.

Speaking of the Look, I loved the sets too!!! In the manga and anime the backgrounds were always kind of barren, and I get that Araki can't draw cluttered spaces every pannel, but it really did add a lot to the Higashikata and Nijimura households. Having all that background clutter really made the Higashikatas feel like a family to me. And, oh my god, the pictures Josuke drew as a kid 🥺🥺🥺. (While we were watching, my friend was like "he drew those like 2 weeks ago" and I lost it.) And UGH don't even get me STARTED on the catholic imagery in the Nijimura household. WHAT WAS THAT??? They made Okuyasu believe in God and I have no idea why but it fucking rules!!! Literally every shot of their house was like looking at a really fucked up Renaissance painting and it made me go crazy!!! MASSIVE fan of that.

Now the effects... I mean, for the most part they were pretty good. The Stands looked a little shaky at some points, but the cool shots and framing of their powers more than made up for it imo. Like the part where Josuke punches through those people at the store, and, like, they don't actually show CD at first was really cool. Speaking of not showing things, BAD CO'S INTRODUCTION WAS SO AWESOME. I LOVED it so much more in this. They did SUCH a good job really showing how gross and unpleasant the wounds caused by BC would be irl. It actually made me cringe a little, which is impressive, considering I rarely get grossed out by gore. AND!!! The fact that they used practical effects for Okuyasu's dad made me so happy!!! It looked pretty good and I expected it to be shitty cgi, so it was a real treat. CD and The Hand also looked pretty slick. I loved their textures... Which sounds weird, but it's true. CD had the whole faceted armor thing going on AND his flesh looked striated, which makes his otherwise kinda silly design SUPER cool (No offense, Mr. Diamond 😔). The Hand looked like a robot, which was so cool. He looked weathered, like his paint was chipping or something, which really added to his intimidating vibe. Overall, in terms of the anime adaptations I've seen, they did pretty damn good with the effects, and I think they really captured the feel of Stands as a whole.

But... The editing, unfortunately, took me out of it a few times. They had some REALLY great shots (CD's first instance of healing, Yukako's intro, really anything at the Nijimura household) but a lot of shots felt disconnected. Like motions got cut off, or you could tell it was a different take. It was kinda weird. I liked the OST when I noticed it, but nothing really stood out. The color grading was SUPER fucked in the first half of the movie, too. It looked very yellow, and I didn't like it, especially coming from a series as colorful as JoJo. There were also a few moments of overacting, but none of it was unbearable. Technically, it could use some work.

BUT. The plot was great. It was just a rehash of the Angelo and Nijimura arcs, but they pulled it off very well. They did a good job balancing the cuts with the additions. They replaced a lot of the inane JoJo bullshit with character development for the Higashikatas, which was galaxy brained fr. I actually Felt it when Josuke's grandpa died this time around. Josuke's relationship with his family in this version makes him a much more compelling protag. Not that he was bad before, he's my favorite JoJo so far, but he seems more driven now. His grandpa's death wasn't just forgotten about. And as for streamlining the story, spoilers but I was legitimately shocked when Sheer Heart Attack showed up at the end. I YELLED. I think that was a really good way to bridge to further in the story for a possible sequel, and it made Keicho's death more, for lack of a better word, Fuckt.

Speaking of, all the characters had really great spins this time. Josuke was like, a mama's boy who was trying and failing to be aloof, Koichi was more silly, Yukako seemed way more Unhinged, Okuyasu was like... an evil minion For Real (which I LOVED... He was very over the top Menacing at first), and Keicho was way more sympathetic. A lot of that last one was because of changed wording during his backstory section. His narrative was much clearer, and I actually sympathized with him this time around. His death also seemed more selfless because of the way SHA attacked them. Instead of just kinda knocking Okuyasu away, he ran across the room to push him out of the way. It makes the idea that he really did love Okuyasu deep down more believable. The little details really did add to the story, and it more than makes up for the stuff they cut out, which wasn't much in the first place.

All in all, it wasn't Technically a masterpiece, but I loved it and definitely recommend it if you're a fan of gay delinquents. Very fun, very epic, 8/10.

[recentanimenews]

Crunchyroll Features' Favorite Anime of Fall 2018!

The Fall season, and 2018 anime with it, are finished. We’re looking at a lot of big anime titles wrapping around into 2019, so now is the perfect time for our editors to honor our favorites from this season before the Winter premieres begin. This was a huge season with a ton of big returning titles, so it was particularly hard selecting our Top 3 from the season. You can check out our top anime from summer season, see how our picks compare to our most anticipated titles, or scroll down and check out our favorites!

Peter Fobian

Fall 2018 was absolutely ridiculous. The season looked huge going into it with the shonen fighter RADIANT, returning giants JoJo AND SAO, and 2 mega hyped isekai in Goblin Slayer and Slime. Oh yeah, also a new TRIGGER anime. Then it got EVEN BIGGER with some unknown quantities turning into awesome favorites. We’re still riding the crest of this wave into Winter as so many of the top series are continuing, but the ones that are coming to an end this year really left an impression on me.

ZOMBIE LAND SAGA

This might be the single biggest anime dark horse that has emerged since I started following seasonal anime and that was kind of part of its design. Everything from the show to the promotion was masterfully orchestrated, with the studio giving away little more than the title and Mamoru Miyano’s gorgeous face leading into the season. The way this anime took both tourism and idol anime to the extreme with one of the best concepts and pretty meta. The writing was on point, the comedic timing was perfect, and it even had great emotional beats. I’m really hoping a few of those loose plot threads mean a season 2 because this anime could easily deliver more.

SSSS.GRIDMAN

I watched the first episode of this series back at Anime Expo 2018 and was extremely surprised at how serious it felt. Although it loosened up during the fight scenes, Gridman has to be TRIGGER’s most reserved project to date with some really great storyboards, character drama, and a slowburn mystery that are typically absent from their high-octane visual circuses. It even stuck the landing. This series wasn’t just good in its own right, but really proved TRIGGER is about to deliver in multiple styles of storytelling.

Golden Kamuy

There's never enough space to talk about all the good things in Golden Kamuy. The story is an amazing treasure hunt/survival game in a wonderfully articulated historical set piece of Hokkaido, Japan following the Russo-Japanese War. The characters are as adorable as they are psychotic. The mysteries just keep building up. The violence is magnificent. The food looks delicious. This manga has a the best bit of everything and continually shows new faces as the story develops. Hopefully the wait for more of the manga wont be too long.

Ricky Soberano

Woo! This fall season has been a chock full of great anime that varied from each other in many aspects so I ended up staying consistently caught up with almost everything that came out this season and shows that haven’t stopped going. Trying to pick three took many rounds of questioning from myself to the people that I care about and the conclusion was ‘Ricky loved everything.’ However I came up with my top three by only choosing the ones that made me 110% happy every single time I clicked to watch the latest episode.

Fairy Tail Final Season

  I’ve been a diehard Fairy Tail fan since the beginning (tattoo on my hip for proof) and frankly I’ve cried during every episode this season simply knowing that there will be no more of this amazing shonen that has saved my life more than once after this is done. This season exceeds expectations by not only doing a victory lap and bringing on almost every character that has ever shown up in the show but also by tying up every loose end, answering every burning question, and naturally showing every individual guild member’s badass power has gotten to a level so high up that one could barely fathom. Each episode has me screaming at the screen from the new insane revelation that they just revealed.

As Miss Beelzebub Likes It.

  I don’t usually watch cute anime. However watching Beelzebub be super encapsulated by the presence of fluffy things, show her an affinity for tasty snaccs, and captivation for adorable animals pulled me into a hug as warm as an alpaca sweater and I never want it to stop. The color palette of pastel glory has kept me in a happy mood all season and the stories told are ridiculous but make for a never ending sweet dream.

Run with the Wind

  This was a wild card for me since I may’ve ran track on high competitive levels but I don’t have a preference to sports anime. However the cast of 10’s journeys not only as runners but also as individuals take place with such high stakes on the line made it hard to not want to continue watching especially since the show did well to realistically show competitive running and the realistic sacrifices and training that goes behind it. With such high tension and drama circulating, I was truly on the edge of my seat the entirety of every single episode.

Nate Ming

Y'know, I thought I was gonna watch more JoJo… but I got my mom into JoJo over Christmas break, so that's gotta count for something. From retail hell to the frozen wilderness of Hokkaido to the sacred ring, my Fall 2018 season was full of emotional ups and downs… and I'm still screaming about that season finale for Golden Kamuy.

Skull-faced Bookseller Honda-san

All the built-up trauma from working retail and customer service for almost half my life came back in one huge wave with Skull-faced Bookseller Honda-san. No anime this season has made me laugh so hard I pulled a muscle (I'm not joking), and no anime this season has made me curl up in the fetal position remembering the insanity of working a Harry Potter book launch at Borders. But aside from all that, Honda-san himself is refreshingly positive and upbeat--work is work, it's tiring and frustrating, but if you love what you do and like sending customers home happy, it's all worth it in the end.

Golden Kamuy

The treacherous journey to find the stolen Ainu gold continued with a second season, bringing back our favorite characters while introducing plenty of new faces. Unexpected team-ups, shuffling of group rosters, and then pitting everybody against each other kept me watching every week, needing to know what was coming next--and that infuriating season finale means I'm absolutely tuning in for whenever season 3 starts airing.

Hinomaru Sumo

I keep joking that "no cowards allowed" is the tagline for this intense adaptation of the Weekly Jump manga, and it's a pretty fair assessment: characters may feel doubt and fear, they may question the decisions that led them to get into the ring, but there's nowhere to run in sumo, so finish the fight and worry about the details later. This show has so much heart, and I'm here to continue cheering for Hinomaru and team into 2019 as we head into its second cour.

Nicole Mejias

I gotta say, this fall season was STACKED with a whole bunch of great shows from start to finish! It was a season where my queue was at its fullest and trying to find time every week was actually a bit challenging to make sure I watched everything. There were so many shows that I ended up liking way more than I thought I would, so it was difficult to pick a top 3, and in some cases I feel my top 3 are mostly continuing from things I really enjoyed before, or last season; but that said, this was a tough season, and if I had more than 3 slots, I’d be in even more trouble picking!

Golden Kamuy

Golden Kamuy is a must-have on my list, and frankly should be on almost everyone's! I really had no idea what to expect from the series when I first heard about it, but whatever I thought it was, Golden Kamuy surprised me with it's amazing characters, fast and severe action, and its balance of comedy and suspense. As the second season draws to a close and some of the serious questions are about to be answered, I'll be waiting to see what's next for Sugimoto and Asirpa in the future. I probably would never get tired of this series, so I'm hoping we hear about a new season soon. Golden Kamuy is a series of feel almost anyone can enjoy, and I hope more people get sucked into it like I did!

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind

JoJo's is one of my favorite series of all, and when Golden Wind got announced I was extremely excited to see what was in store for me, since it was the JoJo part I knew the least about. Part 5 really does have a unique feel to it, from the mafia trappings to the unique and interesting Stand abilities, and now that things are really getting underway, I'm excited to see what's next! Giorno and the rest of the gang are quickly becoming one of my favorite collections of JoJo heroes, with their mix of fun chemistry and personalities, and I can just see Part 5 being in my favorite anime lists throughout 2019 too!

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime

I'll be honest: I'm not a big isekai fan. I've never really found the power fantasy aspect of them interesting, and so I've usually found myself giving them a few episodes before getting bored or finding myself watching something else. Slime really grabbed me, though, because from the first parts of episode 1, I thought I was in for a similar experience, but it soon turned things on their heads! While Rimuru is super powerful, the world built in Slime is fascinating, and all of the interactions between characters is great. Also, seeing Rimuru put the smack down on baddies is incredibly satisfying! I'm excited to see where this series goes and how Rimuru's little collection of followers and hangers on grow!

And that's our editor's favorites for the Fall 2018 season! I'm surprised no anime got repeated twice except for Golden Kamuy with 3 votes, which is a fitting send off to an awesome series that reached its conclusion this year after an insane climax. But there's more to come. Prepare yourself for tomorrow when we'll be putting up our most anticipated titles for Winter 2019!

---

Peter Fobian is an Associate Features Editor for Crunchyroll, author of Monthly Mangaka Spotlight, writer for Anime Academy, and contributor at Anime Feminist. You can follow him on Twitter @PeterFobian.

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[aroworlds]

Aro-Spec Artist Profile: Alex

Today I have the delight of introducing Alex, better known to aro-spec Tumblr as @arotaro and @mutant-jojos!

Alex is a bisexual, half-Puerto Rican multi-disciplinary aromantic artist and creative with severe ADHD. You’ll find her prolific fanworks on AO3 as EmeraldTrash666, writing primarily for the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure fandom. Her bold, colourful art for the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Fullmetal Alchemist, Hetalia, Pokemon and Vocaloid fandoms is also available on Redbubble under the name StellaHagane.

She writes, she creates digital art and she dabbles in music, sewing and fashion design, single-handedly proving that there’s no such thing as too much creative awesome for any one aromantic!

With us Alex talks about finding the word aro, the power of fandom and creative fanworks, her love of aro Jotaro, the challenges of creating with ADHD, the struggles of being an aro gen writer in fandom and the importance of expressing our aro headcanons. Everything she says is absolutely on point, so please let’s give her all our love, encouragement, gratitude, kudos and follows for taking the time to explore what it is to be aromantic and creative.

Can you share with us your story in being aro-spec?

I guess in some ways my “story” starts out pretty typical. Got older, kept waiting for my First Crush™, never got it, started worrying and trying to force myself to develop crushes. I actually was in a relationship with another girl on a forum I was part of as a teenager, but eventually I realized that I didn’t really like her romantically, and the relationship started to become really unpleasant for me. I eventually felt so miserable that I didn’t even want to talk at her at all, even though we were close friends, but I didn’t want to break up with her - partly because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, partly because we were everyone’s “OTP” and I didn’t want my friends to hate me for ruining that. But eventually I did break up with her, and I’m happy to say she took it with grace and we’re still close friends today! (She’s ace and a great writer/artist herself, too!)

I was part of a very nice LGBTQ+ group as a teenager, but I could never figure out my identity. I felt really ashamed and alone. Whenever I brought up how messed up I felt because I’d never had a crush on anyone, everyone was like, “Oh, sounds like you must be asexual!”, but I knew I wasn’t, and that was the worst part. Even though I knew aromanticism was a thing, nobody ever talked about it. It was only ever in the context of aroaces, so I didn’t know I was aro. I thought I must have had some sort of mental illness or something, but certainly not a legitimate orientation, nothing to be proud of like everyone else.

During that time, I found myself connecting on a deep emotional level to characters like Alphonse Elric, Fujiwara no Sai, the X-Men in general (although I’ve been an X-Men fan since I was literally a baby), basically anyone who was somehow “different” from the rest of humanity, even though I never understood why, since I was a fairly privileged kid who had never experienced much bullying or anything. Weirdly enough, it was Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure that helped me realize I was aro and come to terms with it; I saw an interview with Hirohiko Araki, the author of JJBA, where he was asked what type of girls Jotaro Kujo likes, and replied that he didn’t think Jotaro liked girls. The obvious interpretation would be that Jotaro’s gay, but somehow, one way or another, I decided to go with the idea that Jotaro’s aromantic. Jotaro also happened to be a character I really related to for reasons I couldn’t quite articulate, so around the time I was 18 I put two and two together and was like ... oh shit…

Please click keep reading to continue Alex’s story!

Can you share with us the story behind your creativity?

I’ve always been weird in the way I’m very creative, but tend to kinda bounce around from hobby to hobby. Other people draw, or write, or sing, while I draw for a month, and then write for a month and sew for a week and play video games for a week, and then I draw some more, and then I try out something completely new, and then I write again. I think it must be an ADHD thing, idk. In any case, I’ve just always been really passionate about making stuff, whatever that stuff happens to be.

I’ve also always been very much fandom-oriented. Ever since I was a toddler, I used to dictate fanfiction to my mom (back then it usually involved Winnie the Pooh, the Powerpuff Girls, Godzilla, and my dog). I mostly draw fanart. I find that I’m not really capable of writing original stories, but I’m great at getting fanfics in character, and I love writing them. I love taking stories I already love and reinterpreting them, seeing what it would be like if the characters were put into different situations, etc.

Because of my ADHD, I really struggle with actually finishing things. I try really really hard, I really do, and I’ve been trying to push myself even harder these past few years. I’ve made progress, but it’s still extremely difficult, so I’m very sorry for all the projects I’ve abandoned over the years. Sorry I still haven’t finished the fic that was supposed to be done in early March. I’m trying, really. I promise I’m working on the next chapter of BLaD, too.

Are there any particular ways your aro-spec experience is expressed in your art?

Of course, pretty much everything I write is gen. Even if I include romantic relationships in my fics, I never write about romance, just stories which also happen to include some characters who might be dating someone. And obviously I always write Jotaro as aro! That’s really important to me. No matter which AU I’m writing, he’s always aro. (And autistic, but that’s off topic.)

I’m also not really into shipping because of my romance repulsion, but I ship Joseph Joestar and Caesar Zeppeli. The thing is … I’ve always viewed it as a unique relationship, sort of difficult to define as being strictly romantic or platonic or sexual, just kind of their own thing that defies words. That’s how I’ve always written it. I had the sudden realization recently that this strange view on the only ship I really actually like (at the moment, anyway) is probably due to my being aro, lmao.

What challenges do you face as an aro-spec artist?

People don’t read gen fics, and people aren’t interested in aro stories. That’s just the way it is. I do have some dedicated readers, whom I love deeply, but in general… I could post something with a deep plot, something funny and dramatic and witty and touching, something I poured my heart and soul into for months, and it’ll get very few hits/comments/kudos, while someone else could post the same generic 2,000-word romance fic everyone’s seen a dozen times over, with no editing or anything, and get twice the amount of traffic my fics do in half the time. It’s really crushing.

How do you connect to the aro-spec and a-spec communities as an aro-spec person?

I dunno… The aro community feels so small. Online, I have a small circle of aro mutuals who all kind of vent collectively, and I’m part of Arocalypse and a few aro/aspec Discord servers, but I still feel like there isn’t really much of a larger community to be part of in the same way that there is for other orientations. Offline, I’ve never met another aro, or even anyone who actually knows what aromanticism is prior to me explaining it to them.

I also don’t feel like there’s a very unified “aspec community”. As an allo aro, I feel very rejected by the ace community - not to say that I feel like I should be part of the ace community, since I’m not ace, but I feel like they throw aros under the bus a lot. I mean, we’ve all seen the “asexuals can feel love, just like anybody else! … oh, except for aroaces, I guess. But the rest of us are normal, so you should accept us!” rhetoric. Both within and outside the aspec communities, aros are rarely treated with the same priority as aces, even though we’re arguably in a much more difficult position than your average allo ace.

That being said, I’m glad there is an aro community at all. I don’t know where I’d be now if I were still questioning. Probably not in a very good place.

How do you connect to your creative community as an aro-spec person?

As I mentioned, there’s a general lack of interest in gen fics or sympathy for romance-repulsed people in general. It’s really difficult being romance repulsed in fandom spaces, because nobody cares about anything other than ships. There are very few gen fics, and even less that are a decent length, not abandoned, or cater to my specific interests, so I have to write my own. I don’t often have anything good to read; most of the big fics, the ones with cool plots and long word counts and ongoing updates, are ship fics. If I’m lucky, maybe two gen fics will be posted in one week, and maybe one of them will be longer than a few thousand words. Maybe one might even have my favorite characters. But usually genfics are few and far between, and kind of random in terms of what you’ll get. Sometimes I get so bored that I read ship fics anyway, and then I always wind up feeling really awful afterwards.

I’ve written, over the course of the past two years alone, over 20 gen fics. But whenever I vent that sometimes I’d like to actually get to read something, I always get someone telling me, “Well if you want gen fics, write some yourself! You have to make the change! You can’t demand people write stuff for you!” And of course, at the same time it’s totally acceptable to request ship fics from your favorite author, and if you complain that there aren’t enough fics for your rarepair, it’s seen as relatable and totally valid.

Fandom is just … really, really amatonormative, tbh. I hate it. I’m trying to make a difference (I did organize Gen Jojo Week along with my friend Rachel last year, and hopefully will again this year), but there’s only so much I can do.

How can the aro-spec community best help you as a creative?

Aside from reblogging my art and promoting my fics? Talk about stuff. Talk about aro stuff in fandom. Seriously! I know it seems obvious that aro people would like aro headcanons and gen fics and all that, but we need to talk about them more. Nobody outside the community gives enough of a shit about us to have aro headcanons, so let’s get them popular. Talk about your favorite aro headcanons. Talk about your favorite gen fics. Talk about how such-and-such character is totally aro; talk about how excited you are to see aro characters in fics. My dream is for aro headcanons to become just as common and popular as any other type of headcanon.

Can you share with us something about your current project?

This is old news to most of the people who already know me, but my current big project that I’ve been working on for several years now is Between Life and Death, a drama/horror/supernatural JJBA fic.

(WARNING: PHANTOM BLOOD AND STARDUST CRUSADERS SPOILERS BELOW.)

The plot of the fic is that Dio wins at the end of Stardust Crusaders, and after realizing that he has no hobbies other than harassing the Joestars, he decides to bring Jonathan back by sticking his head (which… we’ll just assume Dio preserved for plot purposes) onto Jotaro’s body. Obviously, Jonathan is NOT happy with this arrangement, but it also turns out that Jotaro’s still alive, just not in control of his body. He can still use his stand, so he essentially uses Star Platinum as a sort of proxy for interacting with the environment around him, even though he only comes out when Jonathan’s alone since he doesn’t want Dio to know he’s alive.

Basically, it’s the story of a depressed vampire and a traumatized ghost. It’s a very introspective fic; most of the story consists of conflicts between Dio and Jonathan, and Jonathan and Jotaro struggling to come to terms with their new existences - Jonathan being unable to reconcile vampirism with his personal morals, and Jotaro having one hell of an identity crisis while also mourning the deaths of his friends and family. The plot is picking up, though, and there is an end goal in mind, as well as an eventual sequel!

As for where the story-in-progress is at right now … well, the next “stage” of the plot is hamon training for Kakyoin and Avdol, which will be fun. This chapter also includes several dream sequences, including an extended appearance by Mary Joestar (Jonathan’s mom), and a very serious and dark scene which I almost ruined by having dream!Will Zeppeli refer to Jonathan as his padawan. Yeah.

Have you any forthcoming works we should look forward to?

As mentioned, I’m working on chapter 9 of Between Life and Death! And working on and off on some stuff for the mutants AU. Most recently, on a whim I rewrote the lyrics to Handbeat Clocktower by MOTHY to be about Jonathan Joestar. Somehow this went far enough that I’m making an actual UTAU rendition of this “parody”, and hopefully it’ll be done sometime in the next few weeks. I’m really having fun with it and I hope people like it!

[thebigladjake]

AX3001: TV Show - Cognitivation: Main Characters and Roles in the Story

Alex, the PSI Prodigy

Alex is a young and adventurous boy in his small hometown, a self proclaimed protector, he roams the town with his trusty stick and keeps all evil do-er’s in order! He loves his home, his family and his friends. But, is suddenly forced to put on his big boy shorts and face the world outside of his hometown. The world is a big and scary place, Alex will be tested and his own emotions will come into question as he wonders. Why me? Why am I the ‘PSI Prodigy’.

Alex was the first character designed and is the heart of the whole series. His journey will be one full of self-discovery and self-doubt, I want to capture the pressure of expectations of children and how they can effect kids. The whole prodigy thing may be toned down, since I'm not the biggest fan of prophecy stories. I'm undecided, but right now, I think this will give him the added depth he needs and could be relatable to kids that may have the pressures of expectations, I know I certainly did.

Alex's name was originally Andy because he was actually inspired by a character called Alex, that Alex being from the Indie JRPG game known as YIIK (Y Two K, not Yiik). A game that suffers from several problems such as severe tonal shifts, terrible endings that make the entire game redundant and a character who is insufferable that doesn’t learn to change his ways and is rewarded at the end of the game. Alex is simply an awful character from an awful game and I was going to call my lead Andy, but that name wasn’t really vibing with me. So, I kept Alex since it was more gender neutral too, so boys and girls can reflect their own feelings onto him. It may still be subject to change, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Of course, as our lead character, I gave him a pinkish red and a gold colour combination. The red not being a strong red since red is a very strong colour and I didn’t think that level of passion would be embodied into Alex so soon. So, he’s simply a pinky red. The gold elements are there to reassure his good boy status, with the badges on his bag being a reference to the badges on Hambone’s hat from my first year film. Just a little Easter Egg that puts a smile on my face, like how Pixar or Disney may just throw something in there as a nod.

I chose the shorts as I’ve not drawn a lot of characters that wear shorts and a young kid that likes to run around would probably want the best clothing for the job. So, shorts it was. The cap too was to give him a unique silhouette compared to the rest as he’s the only one with the hat and very rarely will we see him without it. He also carries a gold coloured backpack that he keeps all of his helpful items inside.

Alex’s primary attacks are the most potent PSI abilities that Frank has ever seen and he teaches him how to activate them. Alex’s PSI abilities are both helpful for the team’s defence and offence. While physically, he wields a powerful stick that his Dad found and gave to him to use on his adventures.

For a main character, Alex gets the job done and I’m looking forward to where his character will go over the course of a season and over the course of this project.

Frank, the Frantic Freak

An aimless twenty something year old still living at his parent’s house, Frank is unemployed, never goes outside nor does many people know of his existence and since he doesn’t bother anyone, his parents just kind of let him exist. A member of the Orb.Net forum, he honed his PSI abilities purely from nonstop training with spoons. Bending them with his mind because he saw it in a movie once. Frank knows of the oncoming threat and for the first time in forever, leaves his room to embark on this epic quest with Alex. To save his world, a world he doesn’t even truly know.

Frank was always meant to be an outcast, original concepts were of him to be occupying a house where the kids would prank his house and get him to come out and shout at them. Until he finally catches Alex one day and recognises his psychic powers, taking him inside and telling him everything he knows about the oncoming invasion. Alex would then understand that, even though he’s a crackpot, he means well and is just misunderstood. While I loved this concept, I wanted to make Frank just a little stranger, so I went with the unemployed aimless twenty something who just practises psychic abilities in the comfort of his room.

Design-wise, Hector came first and then Frank was modelled after him. Since the brotherly resemblance was an important part of their design, it was important to nail what a younger brother of a family would look like first. And once I had the traits off of Hector, I used and tweaked a few things to make Frank older and also give him a few new design quirks. The main ‘quirk’ being his hairstyle as hair is always important to my character designs. I took Hector’s hair and instead of having the hair be styled up into a point, it was like an explosion. Symbolising his psychic powers being more volatile and dangerous with his hair all messy where his powers come from.  

His facial expressions were important to show that he was a bit nutty, Ghiaccio from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure served as inspiration for that. Just the way his face angrily distorts just gives him a different feel compared to the regular characters.

His outfit was just simple loungewear because since he doesn’t care about who sees him, he’s not going to dress up too nicely and definitely not going to wear clothes that are restrictive and make him uncomfortable like jeans. Compared to the rest of the colourful cast and even his brother, Frank’s colours are incredibly limited and a way to counteract this a little was to give him mismatching socks. Just a little asymmetry to make him stand out more.

Frank’s weapon of choice is spoons, not really as an attack, but a way of calculating how powerful his PSI attack is going to be. He also bends them regularly and spent most of his savings on spoons so he can always stay on top of his psychic abilities.

Frank was a part of the original four, he’s an idea I’ve liked for a long time and is now a character that I will really enjoy working on and writing for.

Hector, the Apathetic Assistant.

Hector is just a kid that’s kind of done with it, just everything that’s going on in the world. What he thought would be a regular friendship, unfortunately turns into a big adventure and he’d just rather have the life of a kid. But, it’s too late for that now as Alex needs him by his side. Hector knows too much and if he’s only going to see his friend if he comes on this epic quest, then so be it. Hector doesn’t have many friends, but those he does have understand his extreme loyalty.

Hector was created as a contrast to his crazy brother, being much more relaxed and apathetic to this whole world ending thing. In the initial concepts, there were going to be four main characters much like Earthbound has, but I decided to increase it when I thought about Alex’s and Frank’s roles and how it might be a little strange if some stranger suddenly shows interest in this young boy. So, I figured a good catalyst would be a little brother to the crazy stranger! Alex has someone to be friend with and gets the plot started too.

I also thought it was quite amusing that it was the little kid that was the cynic and the big brother has much more enthusiasm about the world. Like the strangeness of his brother has no effect on him to the point where Hector is like, “Oh god here we go again.”

Hector and Frank have near identical colour schemes, their primary colours being green and greenish hues. It was all in contrast to Alex’s bright red, white and gold elements that make him look like an adventurous youth. Hector has dirty blonde hair and pale skin, sort of to hint at the fact that he and his brother are a little odd.

His hairstyle was created to be similar to Frank’s, but being styled and maintained because Hector does care about his appearance since he is the one who will be seen by others. It was made to contrast against Frank’s hair explosion, with Hector spiking up his hair to meet all at one point. I also like to think Frank also had hair like this at one point.

Hector and Frank also have weird shapes ears compared to what I usually do because some people do have weird shaped ears or other body parts and it will never be brought up in the show that they look weird. It’s purely visual to normalise these little oddities, that people shouldn’t judge someone for the most trivial things.

Hector’s weapon of choice is his backpack full of spoons, I chose this as I was drawing his pose and thinking about the relationship between him and Frank. Frank’s obsession with spoons to keep his PSI abilities in check requires a lot of spoons and I just had this sudden image of Hector with this great big bag full of spoons on his back. Hunched over a little as he looks annoyed like “I’ve got to carry this around all day...” And since it’s such a heavy bag, I imagined him using it as a weapon whenever in combat because Hector doesn’t have any powers and Frank only taught himself PSI. However, the less spoons he has, the weaker it becomes, effectively making Hector weaponless at certain points.

Hector is a great character in my opinion who I feel turned out really well as he was everything I wanted him to be. He filled a gap in the story nicely and I got a nice character out of it. An absolute win in my book.

Benjamin [Benji], the Anti-Social Armourer

A renowned child genius, famous in the orphanage for his Tools of Destruction. The other kids never interact with him if he doesn’t want you to, having a strange attachment to his box. Hiding under it when he feels threatened or if he just wants you to go away. His only friend is aware of his skills and is a member on the same forums as Frank... Which sets a mission to get him adopted into motion...

Benji was created as representation of shy kids and how hard it can really be to come out of your shell and make friends. Wanting to stay in somewhere that makes you feel safe and secure. Also, as a representation of kids that others may consider weird and outcasts, so we could get a closer look at him and show kids not to judge a book by it’s cover, maybe even give a kid they consider weird in their own life a chance of friendship.

Benji does have one major source of inspiration and may just have to go a few more designs before I’m truly happy with this design. Near from the manga, Death Note. Near was the replacement of the main sort of rival character, L, and is a child genius himself that displays some cases of social awkwardness. While Benji does have a lot of these similarities, the main aspect of Near that attracted me was that whenever he had a scene, he’d often have toys surrounding him and he’d play with them while deducing the whole mystery of the series. I feel one of the reasons that this aspect is my favourite thing about him is because I’m still quite fond of toys and sometimes fiddle about with them.

A specific scene (I can’t find a better screenshot I am sorry) where Near was surrounded by model train tracks with the trains going around him resonated with me, I saw him placed in a safe space where he’s protected by his toys and that imagery immediately gave me an idea of a boy that hides to be protected, but uses his toys to fight rather than help him think.

His weapon being model cars and toy trains with motors in them, creating ticking time bombs, I felt was a nice way of weaponizing Benji for the conflicts they will run into. Carrying a toolbox within his box, never getting to see his operations, only the results of when he converts a plane into a homing missile.

Benji needs a little more work, in my opinion, but so far, I am happy with this character.

Lottie Sweet, the Tough Nut.

The younger sister of Dentist Gloria Sweet, Lottie is a no-nonsense thirteen year old and always has a serious pouty face as she’s out and about. Using a Skipping Rope as a weapon, she has mastered the art and uses it to keep people away from her at a distance. While she remains unfriendly, deep down she has a good heart and a strong sense of justice.

Lottie came to be as a younger sister for Gloria Sweet, she was created to add a little bit of conflict between the main crew. With her not having very high opinions of any of them and then she has to work with them, causing her to try and take the lead. However, things don’t go as she planned with Gloria and Frank often getting her out of trouble.

Since Frank and Hector turned out so nicely, I thought to make the group an even six by giving Gloria a sister. While Frank and Hector were purposely designed to have very similar colour schemes to hint at the fact that they are brothers. The only shared colours between the sisters is the skin tone and hair colour. I chose the orange and purple for Lottie because I felt it was striking and that matched her personality, plus nobody else had those colours on them.

The Skipping Rope as a weapon came to me because I imagined a girl using her imagination to see one as a whip and just like that, it stuck. One of the charming things about Earthbound was that characters had specific weapons, Ness had baseball bats, Lucas had sticks, Jeff had guns and Paula had... A frying pan. Not stereotypical at all... With Lottie not being that kind of girl, I felt a more sporty weapon could work and the Skipping Rope was appropriate as both a sporty weapon and a girly weapon, depending on how you look at it.

I have also never designed a younger girl character, so this was a nice exercise to do. As well as just a nice design, I really enjoy drawing her pout and her wider eyes. Usually I go with the round eyes, so it’s nice to change up the eye shape. Her hair was definitely fun, as it’s usually my favourite part to design on a character, I remember the girls in my school tying their hair back whenever they did activities. Obviously, it’s so their hair doesn’t swish around in their face while they do things and I added the little hair strands on the front of her head to sort of hint to how intense her movements may have been. Since two strands have come loose.

I wanted to create a sporty girl and I feel like I did. Lottie was a successful design that I am really proud of.

Dentist Gloria Sweet, the Healer.

Gloria is a sweet and passionate dentist, that understands not everyone likes her line of work. So, she takes their feelings into consideration and tries to make everyone’s experience comfortable. Born with these PSI abilities, she was just able to do them rather than training to enhance them.

Gloria was one of the characters first characters I thought up back when I had created this series. Inspired by Earthbound, my initial group was made up of four people with three people being PSI users with Gloria filling the healer role that the Earthbound series typically has, the one character that learns the healing moves. Although, more characters have an array of offensive moves to go along with their healing abilities, Gloria was created much more as a support ally rather than an offensive fighter.

Gloria’s PSI abilities had to play a role in her field of work and the first job that jumped to mind was a doctor. A doctor that healed their patients using their PSI abilities, that then evolved into a dentist as a lot of people don’t like the dentist and are scared of going to them. Luckily, the mad dentist I had was long gone at the time and my dentist helped to inspire this idea, since she’s nice and it’s always an easy time for me (Though that’s probably because I care about my dental hygiene.)

Since people viewed it as an unpleasant experience, I thought it’d be nice if she was a really sweet character that makes her business by ensuring her customers shall be fine if they have anything done to their teeth. This also played into her design, I didn’t want to give her blue eyes like Lottie and I didn’t think brown eyes looked all that great. Then, I tried red.

Again, it was a play on the whole scary dentist cliché. People find her incredibly unsettling as she’s staring at their teeth with those red eyes, but are quite comfortable with her personality and painless operations. I really liked how this turned out and I just love how it contrasts with how she is as a person. Very happy with how Gloria turned out from an initial concept.

[crystalelemental]

The full roster for Hidden Star in Four Seasons is out, and that means it's time for First Impressions! I don't know a ton about personality, but I am looking at Wiki translations of their characters, so I'll have a bit to work with.   Onward!

Eternity Larva - Okay, maybe she's the stage 1 fairy, and doesn't really do much. Maybe her main thing is being symbolic of growth and change.  Maybe one of the defining things in her profile is that she's really gentle and will fart out of her antennae when she senses danger.  I love her.  I love her to bits.  Probably my favorite in the game.  She's got an A+ design, and I love the fairies in general, so Eternity Larva gets top marks overall. 

Nemuno Sakata- I don't dislike her, but she's not a favorite either.  Of the first three, she's my least favorite for sure.  I do like the color scheme she has going, and I've heard  a bit about her role which is...okay.  She's just kind of a loner, and will adopt lost kids wandering around the area.  She's the kind that looks tough and potentially scary, but is actually kinda sweet, treating lost travelers surprisingly well, all things considered.  She's fine, I'm just not her biggest fan.

Aunn Komano - People are probably going to riot over this, but I do not share the universal love of pup-master that the rest of the fandom does.  Aunn is solidly okay, but doesn't really go beyond that.  I'm not the biggest fan of her design overall.  Really, the points she earns, she earns for personality.  Aunn is a good pupper.

Narumi Yatadera - Okay I actually love her name? And her power is cool. Manipulation of living things, and is a magician.  A+ concept right there.  She's probably one of the strongest Touhous, considering her hat is enormous.  The design is very plain, but she's still cute.  I like her a lot.  Oh hey, she used to be a Jizo statue!  That's cool.  "She's a stay-at-home kind of person, so she didn't bother to leave and investigate."  Okay, I like Narumi.  "She's somewhat like a golem."  REALLY like Narumi.  "Came up with a counter-strategy to Okina for Marisa to use."  Okay, Narumi may be my favorite.  That's really solid.

Satono Nishida - Also incredibly cute.  The pink color scheme is pretty vibrant compared to her other half, and I like the ability she's packing (drawing out mental energy, whatever that means).  She seems like an entirely support character.  Which means her and Mai are basically just buffing each other depending on who's taking point and who supports.  That's cool.   Her hat is super goofy though.  It does look very much like a shoe.   Apparently Satono is the more discrete of the two, and a bit haughty.   The description does kind of imply that, even if they knew they were being replaced in time, they'd still go along with Okina, which...I'm not a big fan of.  I'd prefer a bit more autonomy, or at least for Okina to be a bit more supportive of her subordinates, you know? Lastly, the two were apparently also humans at one point, and have changed over time to something else.  It doesn't specify what.  At a guess, I'd say maybe a divine spirit of some kind?  I doubt they're full-on gods.  They wouldn't need replacing, and they seem to subordinate to Okina for that level of transition.  It's not quite like Sanae is to Kanako and Suwako; they're not building for independent action.  But who knows.

Mai Teireida - So does this mean we have to Mais now?  Or was the PC-98 Mai spelled differently?  Can't remember.  Anyway, Mai's thing is drawing out vitality by dancing behind someone.  Odd power, but okay.  She's a bit more monochrome, with a dark green image.  Still cute, but not as vibrant as Satono, so I kinda like her a bit less?  Her description calls her a scatterbrain, but says she's very quick to act.  So...the plucky, over-active type.  You know, the kind I'm not always a big fan of.  That's...a thing.  Yeah, preliminary guess, but I'm gonna like Satono a lot more.

Okina Matara - "The Ultimate, Absolute Secret God."  Which I guess is why Sanae's not here; Kanako and Suwako were probably laughing too hard. Apparently she's both stage 6 and extra stage boss?  That's...really bizarre.  I'm hoping that means her two fights are highly distinct for some reason, because otherwise I really don't get why we'd do that.  Her power is also baffling, though I only know it as "creating doors on anything's back."  Which I'm pretty sure was a JoJo stand recently.  Anyway, she's basically Alolan Junko in design.  I like the look of the different colored flame things, it does seem reminiscent of the seasons themselves.  Having now looked at her profile, holy shit she's just straight-up confirmed as one of the sages that built Gensokyo.  That's...really interesting, actually.  She's got a lot of different affiliations and powers, and the concept that she's meant to never be truly known as a deity is odd, considering she makes a spectacle of her powers pretty regularly, apparently.  I do think it's interesting that she can now control vitality and mental energy, and that this is new.  Maybe from her backup dancers?  Regardless, I'm really not sure how she ties in to the seasons going out of whack.   Nothing really suggests that she has the ability to manipulate seasons. Maybe that will make sense when I play the game, but I'm honestly kinda bummed.  I was super excited for a character that just controls the seasons.

Overall...I kinda feel like it's a weaker cast in terms of my interest?  I'd have to play the game and get a feel for each character first, but I just do not have the same level of attachment for them as I would for the MoF or SA cast, or even the UFO cast.  It's near the bottom, with DDC.  Things can certainly change, but I'm just not feeling a ton of this.  I'm super bummed that seasonal manipulation isn't even remotely a thing any of these characters do, and despite a few really interesting concepts, only two of the characters really stand out as anything spectacular at first glance.  I should feel more strongly about Okina, and I get the impression I will love her once I've encountered her, but the backup dancers, while cute, don't stand out, and I really can't get in to Aunn's design.  I'm hoping to have my mind changed when the english patch comes out.  I'm hoping to decide I love this cast.  We'll see what happens.

[trainsinanime]

Animes I watched recently

After „Saga of Tanya the Evil“ (short version: A brutal and fascinating look not just at the horrors of war, but also at the people who happily make it horrible), I also watched some other anime that I wanted to talk about. These were all on the front page of Crunchyroll, so if you know more about anime than about trains, then you may not find anything all that new here.

By the way: There will not be a Trains In Anime review for any of them. Almost all of them feature trains in minor roles, but all of them are set in modern-day Japan (often with more or less magic stuff added). The problem with that is that animators generally get modern-day japanese trains right, or at least so right that I can’t tell the difference, and there’s really not much to say on that front. So here just some general notes:

Interviews with Monster Girls

I strongly think the english title carries completely wrong connotations. It’s a slice-of-life school anime where some of the kids are various kinds of demons that used to be feared and hated, but are now accepted in normal schools. It’s a nice and sweet look at minority issues, with a focus on disability, including things like endonyms and exonyms for groups, accessibility, prejudice and so on.

Like all these stories (see also: X-Men, Star Trek) it suffers from the problem where it’s talking about minorities and the problems they face without actually having any minorities of any kind in it. That doesn’t undercut its point, but it’s a waste of potential.

What does actually undercut its point are all the jokes about inappropriate teacher-student relationships, since one of the main characters is a teacher for the other main characters. It always stays at a level where it’s all just jokes, but it’s there with an intensity where I’m always expecting something really uncomfortable to happen (though it hasn’t yet), and that expectation is making me uncomfortable. So overall a big maybe on the recommendation side.

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure

Well… this does feature several characters who could be shortened to JoJo, and it is certainly bizarre, so the title isn’t lying. It seems to be an action anime with a very stylised visual language, featuring the guy with the worst hair cut in the world on his mission to convince everyone that it isn’t actually all that bad, or something. Truth to be told, I didn’t like any of the characters, I found nothing interesting in the premise, and I stopped watching after the first episode. I know it’s really popular, so maybe things will improve later. Or maybe it just isn’t for me.

Twin Star Exorcists

Fundamentally a standard anime of the type „giant faceless monsters threaten mankind; the only protection are weirdly-dressed wizard-types using overly flashy fight moves; we follow a young badass and his team on his way to become the most badass of all time“ (sub-type: Modern-day Japan, monsters are invisible to everyone but mages). Its unique selling point is that it is also a love story: The youngest most badass is actually two people, a boy and a girl, and destiny has foretold that they’ll fall in love, get married, and have a child that will end the war and put them and all of their friends out of a job. (Weirdly, despite that, most of them never try to develop a backup career path).

The story is straightforward except for a filler arc that is nice but not well integrated with character development, meaning the power level of the two heroes and how much respect they get from their peers fluctuates widely. Either way, the show works really well when it is about the two main characters and how they first become a team, then friends, then maybe something more. It works considerably less well when it’s about its own mythology, its Big Bad and so on. This is partly because it has nothing new and interesting to offer there. But the biggest problem is that this is always focused on the boy, even though the girl is just as deeply involved in the whole thing as he is.

Sadly, we seem to be heading for the end now, and here they screwed it all up. The guy main hero pulled an „I’ll be an asshole to you now so you’ll stay away while I sacrifice myself so you can be safe“. It works in no small part because she’s currently in a wheelchair, still recovering from a previous fight, and physically can’t stop him. I hate him for that. Of course it’s very clear that in the next few episodes, she will come to his side and her love for him will save him. Still, he totally took away her choice in the matter and did not respect either her skill or her involvement in the matter. That bothers me to no end. It also doesn’t help that the show is now all about the relationship of the male hero and the main villain, and the backstory of the main hero, all of which are things we’ve seen in every other anime of this type before as well.

In the end, live’s too short for average TV, and so I’m not going to recommend this. Sure, if you’re bored, you could do a lot worse than watch this. Maybe stop after the end of the arc where they put the city in the air. But you could also watch something so much better (e.g. the two right after this), so why bother?

Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid

Easily my favourite of the bunch, despite the weirdest premise: A normal woman got so drunk that she apparently ended up finding an actual real-life dragon, saved it from some unspecified harm, and offered it to move in with her. The dragon (who can magically transform into more or less a human woman) agrees and moves in to become her maid. From there follows a story with quite a bit of fan service, lots of humorous „fish out of water“ moments, but mostly just a really nice and sweet story about these people connecting, becoming friends, and becoming better people as a result. It’s adorable, funny, well-paced and animated, and really worth a watch. The opening also has great ear-worm qualities.

Food Wars

The most epic battle anime ever… and it’s about cook-offs. This entire thing feels like a Gintama sketch that has gotten way too big, but they’re doing it entirely straight-faced, and it’s glorious. The premise is that a bunch of kids with unique dress and cooking styles (i.e. standard anime heroes) are at an elite cooking academy to become the bests chefs ever. And the way they do is through intense crowd-drawing cooking competitions that are portrayed as classic Shounen anime fights.

The novelty value is one thing, but this also really nails the execution. Between opponents, judges and an adoring public, every move on the stage gets commented on as if it meant the difference between life and death. „Oh no, he added apples. Could it be-?“ A simple „but there’s also soup!“ is delivered with more impact than someone in Bleach learning a new form of their sword. The visual metaphors for the battles and especially the verdicts by the judges are ridiculously over-the-top and amazing.

Of course it has all the standard tropes. You better believe that defeat means friendship, that characters question their entire life choices when faced with a superior meal, and that you totally can win by remembering how important your friends and family are. There’s also a great roster of characters that seem stock, but are really well executed, like „evil spying bad guy chef“, „fan service chef“, „cute girl with self-esteem issues chef“, „working class hero chef“ (our protagonist), „scary rocker chef“ (specialty: sea food) or, my personal favourite, „mad scientist chef“. She’s just so delightfully bratty.

When I watch an episode, at some point I always just start giggling uncontrollably and never ever stop. This is the yardstick by which I will measure all other battle animes from now on. Thanks to weird web design, Crunchyroll may decide to start you on season two, and having watched it like that, I think this may be the best way to experience the show. Just the barest of character introductions and then right into the madness. Either way, if you like anime where people battle each other and want to become stronger for their friends and family interest you at all, then you have to watch this.

Chaos;Child

I wanted to write something flippant here about how it seems to be trying to be weird just for weirdness’s sake, or how none of the characters are interesting or likeable, or the zeroth episode that seems to be there just to fool you into thinking that this whole thing is deeper than it really is… but that would all be dishonest.

This is an anime about truly bizarre murders, committed (it is hinted) through mind control, with lots of weird and seemingly disjointed elements and characters and events that don’t seem physically possible, and it’s really, really good. After watching the zeroth and first episode, I do actually think all the things I mentioned above, but those are all irrelevant: The murders really are horrific, the tense scenes really are tense, and I’m genuinely getting scared. In fact, I got so scared that I decided to stop watching.

If you’re into that kind of show, then this may be a very good example of that kind of show. But remember: Do you want nightmares? Because this is how you get nightmares.

[cinephiled-com]

New Post has been published on Cinephiled

New Post has been published on http://www.cinephiled.com/interview-creative-team-behind-taika-waititis-brilliant-jojo-rabbit/

Interview: The Creative Team Behind Taika Waititi’s Brilliant ‘Jojo Rabbit’

Writer/director Taika Waititi (Thor: Ragnarok, Hunt for the Wilderpeople) brings his signature style of humor and pathos to his latest film, Jojo Rabbit, a World War II satire that follows a lonely German boy (Roman Griffin Davis as Jojo) whose world view is turned upside down when he discovers his single mother, Rosie (Scarlett Johansson), is hiding a young Jewish girl named Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie) in their attic. Aided only by his idiotic imaginary friend, Adolf Hitler (Taika Waititi), Jojo is forced to confront his blind nationalism. The film offers a funny yet profoundly moving child’s-eye view of a society gone mad with intolerance. Drawing on his own Jewish heritage and his experiences growing up surrounded by prejudice, New Zealand filmmaker Waititi (whose mother is Jewish and father is Māori) makes a powerful statement against hate with this pitch-black satire of the Nazi culture that gripped the German psyche at the height of World War II.

I admit I am not a big fan of films like Life Is Beautiful that have attempted to bring fantasy or whimsy to stories of World War II, so I was nervous going into this film, and yet I loved every second of it. I thought that Waititi and his team achieved the perfect balance between the fantasy elements of the film and the stark reality of the situation. As one critic said, “It shouldn’t work…but it does!” Based on the book Caging Skies by Christine Leunens, Jojo Rabbit, winner of the People’s Choice Award at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, also stars Sam Rockwell, Stephen Merchant, Alfie Allen, and Rebel Wilson. I sat down with several of the incredibly talented people who helped create the unique look of the film: production designer Ra Vincent, Visual Effects Supervisor Jason Chen, Makeup and Hair Designer Dannelle Satherley, and film editor Tom Eagles.

Danny Miller: The details in the sets were just stunning. Did you recreate this German village from scratch or did you find real settings that you could adapt for the story?

Ra Vincent: We had done so much research about this time period and did our breakdowns of what we needed, but it wasn’t until we found our locations in the Czech Republic that this world we were creating really expanded. The borders during the Nazi occupation were constantly shifting and the Baroque village we found in the Czech Republic had become a German territory during the war. We even found out that there had been Nazi rallies in some of our locations. It was exactly the aesthetic we needed.

Given the history in that part of the world, was it a bit dicey to bring in all of the swastika flags and banners that you needed for the story?

Ra Vincent: Yes, it was. We had some early discussion about swastikas with the studio, they were very nervous about it, but in the end we decided to do what we wanted. We felt we needed the swastikas or the story and the satire would not work at all. The idea was to confront hate and how that regime was formed. We could not remove the importance of that insignia.

Jason Chen: The swastikas had so much weight in that town. I remember when we were shooting in the building that we were using as Gestapo headquarters and had to put up swastika banners. We actually had several local crew members who told us they couldn’t go in there because their family members had been tortured or killed by the Nazis. The weight our locations carried was a good reminder to us about the message we were trying to convey.

Dannelle, speaking of historical sensitivity, you will now always be able to say that you did Hitler’s hair and makeup. What was that like?

Dannelle Satherley: (Laughs.) Well, with Taika’s character, he was an imaginary version of Hitler as seen through Jojo’s eyes, so we were going for something more roughly hewn than you might see elsewhere. Sure, we had to have the touchstones that everyone knows like the moustache and the combover, but he was never intended to be a carbon copy.

Were there times when Taika was directing in full Hitler drag?

Dannelle Satherley: Oh yes, many times! It was definitely something to see.

I’m sure the on-set jokes were writing themselves: “Help! Our director is Hitler!” Tom, I imagine for a film with such serious themes with comedic elements, finding the exact rhythm in the editing was everything. How difficult it was to maintain that balance?

Tom Eagles: It helped that Taika’s script was amazing. There were differences in the details but we were faithful to the feeling of the script, trying to walk that tightrope between black humor and real emotion throughout.

Were there a lot of clues in the script about how everything should look?

Ra Vincent: Absolutely. Taika’s writing is so good and there were many clues about the characters in the script that you could pull from about what type of environment they would be inhabiting. For production design, it pays not to overstate things, you don’t want to detract from the performance. But, for example, knowing how artistic Rosie (Johansson) was, we added all sorts of nuances in the decoration of the house which also played into Jojo’s view of the world through somewhat rose-colored glasses.

I want to see the film again just to more closely examine all of the delicious details of that house!

I was working with a wonderful set decorator, Nora Sopková, who has been working in Prague for a very long time and she knew where to find all the best things. I like to provide as much realism for the actors as possible. If you’re going to put food on the table in front of them you make it really nice to eat, you fill the drawers with clothes of the period in case they open one during a scene, you add all these authentic touches so there’s an opportunity for bits of spontaneous characterization.

I know in many of Taika’s projects there’s a lot of improv. Was that a worry when trying to maintain the right tone in this story?

Tom Eagles: There were very different types of scenes in this film. For a dramatic scene between Scarlett and Thomasin, for example, they would run through it normally, get some direction, and then perhaps try a few new things when they did it again, but it was a very traditional process. They were amazing actors working with an amazing script. But with our comedians it was something else entirely. They’d constantly be stopping and throwing something new in. It did make it a challenge to keep the rhythm right.

I’m guessing that someone like Rebel Wilson went to town on her takes.

Tom Eagles: Oh, trust me we could definitely do a short film of just alternate takes from Rebel, Stephen Merchant, and Taika as Hitler. And you’d be screaming with laughter! Taika always encouraged them. Whether it was even his intention to use those takes or not, he really wanted these comedians to feel free to explore their characters. A lot of great stuff ended up on the cutting room floor because it just didn’t work with the overall film but we did get some gems that we used.

Dannelle, it looked like you were also able to go a bit above and beyond with Rebel’s look, too. Kind of an “Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS” aesthetic?

Dannelle Satherley: Oh, we had so much fun with Rebel and some other people in the supporting cast because we were able to go a little extra with them. I loved working on Rebel’s hair because we were really able to go to extremes with the look. She carried it so well! But some of the other characters were much more tame. I’ve worked so closely with Taiki over the years that I’m very familiar with his aesthetic. I know, with the possible exception of Thor which was kind of its own world, that Taika errs on the side of naturalism, he doesn’t like anything to look too overcooked.

The extensive research you all did for this project must have been so fascinating.

Jason Chen: I think that’s the best part of what we do. We really did a deep dive on the Hitler Youth. And a lot of the ridiculous things you do see the characters doing in the Hilter Youth camps were actually things that happened, like four- and five-year-old boys roughhousing with teenagers, punching and tackling each other, it was insane. They were completely brainwashed about what they were told would make them good soldiers.

I also really liked the color palette of the film which seemed different from so many films we see set during World War II.

Jason Chen: It’s true. Movies set in this time period are usually very dark and dreary, but the reality of the situation was that towards the end of the war a lot of people dressed to the nines as best they could, they didn’t know how much longer they’d be around. So Taika really wanted a bright and vibrant color scheme throughout.

Ra Vincent: And because this was a story from a child’s perspective, that included us injecting some whimsy and childishness into it. We used a few tricks, even things like having more cars in the background than would necessarily have been around during that point in the war.

To be honest, I was kind of surprised when I first saw the poster for the film because it seems so focused on the comedy whereas I see it as more as a very serious movie with some comedy in it.

Jason Chen: I agree with you, actually, and yet I think Taika’s instinct to lead with the comedy makes a lot of sense so I can see why that’s a big part of the ad campaign. Taika believes that humor kind of loosens people up and makes them open to things that they might not have been otherwise. You’ll notice that the film is quite heavy with comedy in the first act and then that eventually transitions in a big way.

[swipestream]

Rohan at the Louvre

In 2009, the Louvre Museum, one of the most renowned art museums in the world, gathered comic book artists together for a unique exhibit showcasing the breadth of contemporary art found in comic books. French bandes dessinées and American comic books featured prominently in the display, joined by panels drawn by Japanese manga artist Hirohiko Araki. While most of the featured comics used the grounds of the Louvre as a vehicle for investigating art or even as characters, Araki took one of his more popular characters, a manga artist turned occult detective, and thrust him into a mystery deep inside the Louvre’s underground tunnels, complete with all the accumulated quirks of his JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure -and a touch of body horror.

In many ways, Araki was the perfect choice for such a collection. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is rooted in both Japanese and Western pop culture, mixing Japanese punk brawlers with a love for Western music and the traditions of both cultures’ occult detective stories. The names of several characters may be familiar: Dio, Speedwagon, Red Hot Chili Pepper, Cream, Aerosmith, Green Day, Black Sabbath, etc.. The series is still going strong after thirty years, following the Joestar family throughout generations as they fight against an ancient and undead enemy of the family. To properly explain the JoJo’s series would easily require a month’s columns and the average reader might still think the plot and the setting a fever dream. Perhaps one way to think of the series is if the X-men fought each other with Pokemon, mutant powers, and their fists. And, strangely enough, it works so well that JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure has been a staple of manga readers throughout it’s entire run.

To overcome the daunting barrier of entry that such a long-lived series creates, Araki crafted his exhibit, collected in Rohan at the Louvre, to be a stripped-down version of a JoJo story. Focusing on Rohan Kishibe, the aforementioned manga artist turned occult investigator, Araki moves the powers and other regular JoJo characters to the background, allowing guests to the Louvre to experience this ghost story through his eyes. After a brief introduction to Rohan and his power to read people like books–illustrated with a touch of body horror as their skin peels like pages, Rohan tells his story of a search for the darkest black ever seen. And so begins a horror story worthy of mention in the same sentence as Manly Wade Wellman’s “The Golgotha Dancers”.

The tale proper begins when Rohan is seventeen, struggling to earn a job as a manga artist. He is frustrated because his editor tells him that his drawings of women are lifeless. When a 21-year-old soon-to-be-divorcee Nanase moves into his apartment building, Rohan grows fascinated with her, drawing her at every opportunity. Nanase catches him in mid-sketch, and confronts him. Rohan’s explanation charms her, and Nanase’s piqued interest in Rohan’s art over time turns into romance. During one of their evenings together, Nanase mentions a mysterious painting of exquisite blackness in the Louvre. But the days of the happy couple are short, as when Nanase discovers her portrait in Rohan’s manga, she shreds the drawings and flees into the night.

Ten years later, a stray comment sparks Rohan’s memory, and he travels to the Louvre to find the mysterious painting. What should have been a denied request quickly turns into a search of the Louvre’s catacombs. Escorted by two firemen, a curator, and a translator, Rohan is taken to a storage tunnel empty of everything except for the dark painting. The search becomes lethal, as, one by one, the people around Rohan die in grisly ways as the ghosts of their ancestors display their wrath. Then, when Rohan is alone, he sees Nanase among the ghosts…

Written at a time when many of the more regrettable anime and manga tropes were being codified, Araki instead chooses to write against trope to make statements about art. When arriving at the Louvre, Rohan chastises his fans, telling them show some respect when visiting the masterworks of grand masters. At least wear a tie. But the real differences shine through when Rohan is seventeen. He is not the first nor the last seventeen year old manga artist to grace the pages of a comic book. But where many of his contemporaries played the role of the ascended fan, enthusiasts of pop culture media, Rohan instead focuses on the beauty of art itself. Rather than copy current fashions in manga, he draws from his own experiences and observations. And most importantly, his art attracts women instead of repelling them, unlike those characters who celebrate fandom before art. Rohan embodies the tropes of the struggling artist instead of the stereotypical manga artist, and thus he can show the power of his art through his romance with Nanase. Instead of a message, Araki celebrates the life behind art, a timeless subject worthy of inclusion in the Louvre. But when it’s time to set aside the conceits of arts for the demands of story, Rohan at the Louvre becomes a ghost story worthy of The Unique Magazine.

The character design in Rohan at the Louvre is straight JoJo, stylized, muscular, yet more realistic than many of Araki’s peers. The clothes, hair, and colors are trendy, if now a bit dated, and the fascination with florescent and paste hues seen on the covers of JoJo is carried throughout the full-color manga. If Rohan looks a bit slender and slim, he is supposed to as a contrast with the beefy punks of JoJo. After months of reading vivid four-color bandes dessinées, with stunning reds and blues, the shift to a palette of magenta, cyan, and sea green is jarring, but adds to the sense of fashion surrounding the tale. It also serves to heighten the body horror to come. The backgrounds are simple, evoking memories of walking the Louvre when in the galleries. In the tunnels, the claustrophobic shelves and shadows heighten the growing anticipation of terror.

I’ve often said that the spirit of Poe and the pulps lives on in Japan. Recent forays into the direct descendants of the pulps, light novels, have proven wanting as slice of life replaced adventure and the unknown. But Rohan at the Louvre delivers on the adventure, the romance, and the fear of the unknown seen in the heyday of pulp fiction. It’s manga without the cringe I’ve come to expect in recent works, and a perfect addition to the Louvre Collection. I freely recommend this to any comic book and pulp enthusiast, not just fans of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and of manga in general.

Rohan at the Louvre published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

[lzteach]

  #gallery-0-15 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-15 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 100%; } #gallery-0-15 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-15 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

THE CHESAPEAKE BRIDE

11th in The Chesapeake Diaries series

Mariah Stewart

Pocket Books

August 29, 2017

ISBN 9781501154355

$7.99

Praise for The Chesapeake Bride, Book 11 in The Chesapeake Diaries:

“Stewart succeeds in giving both Owen and Cass a smooth blend of strength and vulnerability, and the setting of this heartwarming romance will draw readers in with its island-life charm.”

—Publishers Weekly

“The Chesapeake Bride is a small-town romance which will leave readers wanting more of the charming characters and unforgettable story. I enjoyed this book so much that I am still running some of the scenes through my head, which shows how fantastic the story is. Another great read by an outstanding author. A Recommended Read!”

—Romance Junkies, Five Heart Review

  “The romance is slow and sweet…the lack of unnecessary melodrama, angst, and over-the-top gestures makes this a refreshing contemporary romance between two adults who act as such.”

—Kirkus Reviews

  Praise for Driftwood Point, Book 10 in The Chesapeake Diaries:

“This second-chance-at-love romance is gentle and sweet…The colorful friendship between the family matriarchs…charms. Stewart seamlessly checks in with former series protagonists and introduces future romantic pairings without stealing attention from Lisbeth and Alec.”

—RT Book Reviews

  Praise for That Chesapeake Summer, Book 9 in The Chesapeake Diaries:

“[That Chesapeake Summer] deftly uses the tools of the genre to explore issues of identity, truth, and small town kinship…Stewartoffers a strong statement on the power of love and trust, a fitting theme for this big-hearted small town romance.”

—Publishers Weekly

  “A touching story of self-discovery and homecoming that is sure to warm readers’ hearts…fans are sure to feel right at home in Stewart’s idyllic seaside setting and follow this emotional journey with avid interest.”

—RT Book Reviews

  Praise for The Last Chance Matinee, Book One in The Hudson Sisters Series:

“The popcorn, the red velvet seats, the glittering Hollywood stars on-screen…I’ve enjoyed all aspects of going to the movies since I was a kid…so when I saw a vintage theater on the cover of this book, I quickly swiped it up…The tale was a sweet reminder of the importance of family. I can’t wait for the next book in this series!”

—First for Women magazine, July 2017

  “[This] lively, warmhearted series starter will have readers eagerly awaiting the second installment.”

—Booklist

  “A good read, with a nice blend of mystery, family drama, and romance.”

—Library Journal

  ABOUT THE BOOK:

New York Times bestselling author Mariah Stewart returns to the cherished Maryland shores of St. Dennis with THE CHESAPEAKE BRIDE (Pocket Books; August 29, 2017; $7.99), the charming story of a jaded architect who meets the one man who could finally melt her heart—if she’s willing to let him in.

Cassidy Logan has sworn off good-looking adventurers, having just divorced the one she’d married. Now working with her father’s construction company to build ecologically friendly, historically accurate homes on the Chesapeake Bay, she’s designing them for Cannonball Island. Knowing there’s been no new construction on the island in almost one hundred years, Cass is sensitive to the heritage and history of the sparsely populated island, and has come up with plans so perfect she’s determined to buy one for herself to live in. Even the fact that Owen Parker—whom she dismisses as a lightweight and a player— seems to be everywhere she goes isn’t enough to deter her from building her dream house.

Owen is and always has been sinfully handsome and wickedly clever, a magnet for mischief as well as the girls in St. Dennis. He’s also a rolling stone, going and doing whatever appeals to him, from flying a mail plane in Alaska to working on a cattle ranch in Australia and a shrimp boat in Louisiana, to surfing and diving in Costa Rica. When an old friend offers him a job salvaging a sunken ship in the Chesapeake, Owen gladly accepts. Something’s been telling him it’s about time to head home to Cannonball Island, and a job is as good an excuse as any. He’s totally smitten with the pretty architect, but it seems he’s finally met a woman who’s immune to his charms. Sooner or later, Owen will have to face the reason why he always runs, because this time, leaving just might be harder than staying.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Mariah Stewart is the award-winning New York Times and USA Todaybestselling author of numerous novels and several novellas and short stories.  A native of Hightstown, New Jersey, she lives with her husband and two rambunctious rescue dogs amid the rolling hills of Chester County, Pennsylvania, where she savors country life and tends her gardens.  Visit her website at mariahstewart.com, like her on Facebook at AuthorMariahStewart, and follow her on Instagram at mariah_stewart_books.

END OF SUMMER GIVEAWAY:

We’re celebrating The Chesapeake Bride and Summer 2017 with one giveaway for Driftwood Point, 10th  in The Chesapeake Diaries Series by Mariah Stewart! The last day for entries will be Friday, September 22nd (the official last day of summer!) The winner will receive one copy of Driftwood Point. U.S. only, please. You can enter at the participating blogs listed below – but you can only win once!

  NOTE FOR THE NEW YEAR:

Look for Gallery Books’ second installment in Mariah Stewart’s all-new trade original women’s fiction series, The Hudson Sisters, following a trio of reluctant sisters as they set out to fulfill their father’s dying wish—and discover themselves in the process. Book 2, The Sugarhouse Blues, will publish March 2018!

BLOG TOUR SCHEDULE:

  AUGUST 28

USA TODAY’S HAPPY EVER AFTER – EXCERPT

  AUGUST 29

A MIDLIFE WIFE

ROMANCING THE READERS

AUGUST 30

THE LIBRARIAN TALKS – Q&A

BOOK BITCH

ABIGAIL BOOKS ADDICTION

MY NOVELESQUE LIFE

AUGUST 31

DIRTY AND THIRTY

BOOK MAMA BLOG

SUZY APPROVED BOOK REVIEWS

COLLECTORS OF BOOK BOYFRIENDS

SEPTEMBER 1

SOS ALOHA

MARGIE’S MUST READS

PACIFIC NORTHWEST BOOKWORM

  SEPTEMBER 4

READING BETWEEN THE WINES

  SEPTEMBER 5

FRESH FICTION – ARTICLE

SVETLANA’S READS AND VIEWS

BIBLIOTICA

MRS LEIF’S TWO FANGS ABOUT IT

SEPTEMBER 6

READ YOUR WRITES

REVIEWS BY CRYSTAL

BRAINFARTS AND BOOKS

SEPTEMBER 7

JOJO THE BOOKAHOLIC

LORI’S READING CORNER

HAPPYMOMBLOGGER’S BLOG

HARDLY A GODDESS

SEPTEMBER 8

READING FRENZY BLOG

THOUGHTS IN PROGRESS

DIVATUDE

SEPTEMBER 11

TIFFANY DAVIS

  SEPTEMBER 12

SATISFACTION FOR INSATIABLE READERS

LINDA’S BOOK OBSESSION

SEPTEMBER 13

KATHERINE’S BOOK UNIVERSE – Q&A

BOOKTALK WITH EILEEN

REVIEWS FROM THE HEART

KT BOOK REVIEWS

SHANNON’S BOOK BLOG

BIGREADERSITE’S BLOG

GRANNY LOVES TO READ!

SEPTEMBER 14

SCANDALICIOUS BOOK REVIEWS

ITCHING FOR BOOKS

COMMUNITY BOOKSTOP

BOOKS TO CURL UP WITH

SEPTEMBER 15

ROMANTIC READS AND SUCH

SUSIEQLAW’S BLOG

DEVILISHLY DELICIOUS BOOK REVIEWS

BOOKFAN

  Cover.Final.jpg

1.7MB

Cover.Final.jpg

  #gallery-0-16 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-16 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 100%; } #gallery-0-16 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-16 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

MY REVIEW OF “THE CHESAPEAKE BRIDE’  A Novel by MARIAH STEWART

  I enjoyed the charming and delightful novel, “The Chesapeake Bride” by Mariah Stewart. The genres for this novel are Romance and Women’s Fiction.

  I love the way Mariah Stewart describes the charming setting and town on the Chesapeake Bay, in the Cannonball Island. The artistic feel of the houses, the restaurants, the hotel, and the stores are so appealing.  Whether you are clamming, or sailing on a ship, or just relaxing and having tea with home baked delicacies, there is a homey and comforting feel. The old homes are part of this Island, and have tremendous history.

  The author describes her characters as complex and complicated. Some of the older seasoned characters have memories of the townsfolk that goes back many years. Cassidy Logan is an architect that is working for her father’s big company, and has plans to rebuild the falling down homes and use as much as she can of the materials in her new homes in this historic area. Cassidy wants to preserve the historic feel and preserve the previous family history.   Owen Parker, considered an adventurer and “player” is back at home by the Chesapeake Bay to help his one hundred years old grandmother, who runs the country store. Owen is also looking at the Chesapeake Bay for sunken ships found at the bottom, to determine the historical finds, and dive to retrieve many things.

  Owen’s and the other divers have found enough to put a stop to Cassidy’s work temporarily. Cassidy has to find other alternatives to make this work.

There are a cast of colorful and quirky characters. Cassidy and Owen work closely professionally and sparks seem to fly.  On this small island, people are very hospitable.

  I appreciate the way the author writes about the importance of family, friendships, loyalty, love and hope. There are some twists and turns and secrets in this novel. This novel is part of a series, but can stand alone.  I was captivated by the charm and story by the author and would highly recommend this book to readers who enjoy Romance and Fiction. I received a copy of this book for my honest review. This novel is part of a blog tour for Mariah Stewart.

THE CHESAPEAKE BRIDE by MARIAH STEWART BLOG TOUR! Lindas Book Obsession Review of “The Chesapeake Bride” by Mariah Stewart. SEPTEMBER 12,2017 THE CHESAPEAKE BRIDE 11th in The Chesapeake Diaries series Mariah Stewart Pocket Books August 29, 2017…

[recentanimenews]

INTERVIEW: D’ART Shtajio Founder Arthell Isom On The Power of Background Art and Studio's Cosmic Future

The Weeknd - Snowchild animated music video produced by D’ART Shtajio (Source: The Weeknd)

  After moving to Japan to study art and work in the anime industry under legends like Ghost in the Shell art director Hiromasa Ogura, Arthell Isom founded D’ART Shtajio with his brother Darnell in 2016. Making waves as Tokyo’s first and only Black-owned animation studio, D’ART Shtajio's latest production is a music video for The Weeknd, with many more projects on the way. Recently, Isom presented a talk titled “Anime and Race” with Roland Kelts for this year’s Virtual Crunchyroll Expo. This year, Isom was also featured in a Pharrell Williams music video celebrating Black entrepreneurs. We had the opportunity to ask Isom about the story-telling possibilities of background art, music videos, and diversity in anime. 

  After establishing D’ART Shtajio, did you have an idea of what milestones you’d like to reach as a newly-minted studio? Did you ever imagine you would get to work on major franchises like Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure and One Piece, for example?

  I think we were so busy trying to keep the lights on, I never thought about working on popular anime. I’m super honored that we’ve had many opportunities thus far. I think a major milestone we’re currently working towards is doing longer form productions.

  As someone who started in the anime industry as a background artist, what do you consider a unique aspect about that part of the animation process? For example, settings like New Port City in Ghost in the Shell and Neo-Tokyo in Akira can almost be considered their own characters because of how detailed they’re depicted. Do you believe fictional places have qualities you can’t quite convey in characters and story alone?

  I used to always debate with my college friends on the importance of backgrounds over characters. Of course, they’re both equally necessary, but backgrounds fill in the story the characters would have to go through great lengths to explain. Some of these details include location, time period, and what’s currently happening in the story. Backgrounds also fill in personal detail about the character’s past, present, and even future. Backgrounds indeed are characters themselves. 

    少女のピエロ ㊤ (Source: D'ART Shtajio)

  Characters are often the biggest draw for getting someone invested in any story, regardless of the medium. Nowadays, it’s more important than ever before to tell underrepresented stories and do what hasn’t been done before. Before D'ART Shtajio starts on a new project, what aspects of character do you usually take into consideration and what makes a nuanced protagonist in your opinion?

  We’re currently in talks with a number of networks and hopefully will be bringing you all a story you haven’t seen before soon. The aspects of the character we focus on depend on the character and their particular journey. 

    ASOS anime commercial featuring a Jazzelle Zanaughtti-inspired character designed by D'ART Shtajio (Source: D'ART Shtajio)

  So far D'ART Shtajio has a solid track record of producing amazing animation for artists, like the recently released video for “Snowchild” by The Weeknd and segments for the Netflix anthology Sound & Fury presented by Sturgill Simpson. Anime studios and music artists have been collaborating now and then for years, most notably with Daft Punk’s epic 2003 film Interstella 5555. Do you think music speaks in a particularly generative way to the work you see D'ART Shtajio producing?

  I don’t know if it does or not, but we really enjoy collaborating with artists and being able to create music videos from all genres.

  Do you think there has been a lack of diversity in Japanese anime? Why do you think that is?

  I think there has been a lack of diversity in media in general, but major studios have been taking great strides to adjust this. Anime being from a homogenous country makes it more so. I think artists draw and write what we know and see, so the more varied the pencilers the more diverse the stories. 

    Background art from The Weeknd - Snowchild (Source: The Weeknd)

    It’s easier than ever before for fans to track down new studios and follow everything they put out, no matter how niche it is. For example, you have hardcore otaku that follow every Gainax and Kyoto Animation project religiously. How do you see D'ART Shtajio cultivating that tight-knit relationship with fans in the future? Do you see D'ART Shtajio as a possible bridge for general animation fans to get into anime, or is the mission even bigger, more cosmic from here on out?

  We’re in a phase where our voice in anime and the audience who gravitates to it are still being discovered. But we hope through the varied works we do and our journey toward becoming a larger studio that we do form a tight bond with fans. We definitely have a cosmic mission, and hope folk join along.

  More information about D’ART Shtajio can be found here. Keep up to date by following the studio’s Instagram at @dartshtajio and on Twitter!

      Blake P. is a weekly columnist for Crunchyroll Features. He is still thinking about Hellshake Yano. His twitter is @_dispossessed. His bylines include Fanbyte, VRV, Unwinnable, and more.

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com