#kubo's not particularly clear on that aspect

[raioken]

IN REGARDS : THE ONMITSUKIDŌ. if the thirteen court guard companies operate openly, the secret remote squad patrols and conducts surveillance in enemy territory and carries out top-secret operations, such as assassinations and the execution of shinigami who have broken the law.

often referred to as the special operations corps or secret remote squad, the onmitsukidō is one of the three primary branches of the soul society’s military system ( alongside the gotei 13 and the kidō corps. ), the second largest force that shinigami can be assigned to following their graduation from the shin’ō academy, and is tasked with performing a wide variety of covert operations vital to the keeping of peace within the soul society, smoking out conspiracies and tending to dangerous personnel as needed, as well as gathering information from both within and outside of the seireitei.

CLASSIFIED. many of the operations and duties carried out by members of the onmitsukidō are unknown to the gotei 13 and kidō corps, with even captains having only a vague understanding of the tasks given to its members and the overall scope of their dealings within the seireitei and soul society at large. although the captain-commander is often advised on situations that would be better handled by the gotei 13, as well as receiving general information pertaining to the gotei 13 and its members.

members of the onmitsukidō are masters of various hakuda and hohō techniques, trained to be able to combat the various abilities of zanpakutō and kidō spells that they may be deployed against in their duties ; members often forgo the use of a zanpakutō themselves in favor of an exclusively hakuda-based combat style, however they are trained in swordsmanship all the same and retain their zanpakutō despite not carrying it as a primary weapon in the majority of cases.

* FIVE BRANCHES OF THE ONMITSUKIDŌ.

while the onmmitsukidō is headed by the supreme commander at the top of command, who oversees the other branches on a wide level, as well as personally commands the punishment force in daily operations, each of the other four branches under the onmitsukidō is led by its own corps commander, who sees to the branch’s daily operations, but ultimately reports to the supreme commander.

in circumstances where the supreme commander also serves as captain of a company within the gotei 13, corps leaders are also given seated ranked beneath the commander, in accordance with their rank in their branch, however other members of the onmitsukidō are not necessarily also given ranks within the gotei 13 as a default and operations at large remain separate from their duties as shinigami of the gotei 13. the shihōin clan has headed the onmitsukidō for generations, since the corps creation, and as such the position of the supreme commander is considered to be something of an unofficial birth right within the clan, with the heir often being trained from a young age to take up the position. additionally, the lower-ranking fēng clan has served alongside the shihōin clan for generations and its members are typically found within the ranks of the onmitsukidō.

broken into five branches that make up the whole of the force, each branch of the onmitsukidō is given specialized responsibilities befitting the branch’s purpose within the force, with each branch ranked by level of importance and the corps commander of higher ranking branches holding more power than ones of lower-ranked branches, although all branches fall under command of the supreme commander at the end.

PUNISHMENT FORCE. led by the supreme commander, ranked captain when within the gotei 13. tasked largely with missions that require direct combat, including assassinations, the carrying out of punishment on shinigami that break the law, and acting as forward scouts for teams in the field in battles against hollows and other threats.

INTELLIGENCE FORCE. led by a corps commander, ranked assistant captain when within the gotei 13. tasked with the collection of information on enemy movements, both from within and outside of the seireitei, identifying conspiracies against the soul society and carrying out espionage missions in the rukongai and human world as needed during times of war. they are additionally tasked with aiding in the recapture of escaped prisoners.

CONTAINMENT FORCE. led by a corps commander, ranked 3rd seat when within the gotei 13. tasked with the imprisonment of shinigami and other personnel who have been deemed a threat to the soul society with their actions, but who have not committed any crime for which they could be officially charged. under urahara kisuke, some rehabilitation attempts for prisoners were made.

SURVEILLANCE FORCE. led by a corps commander, ranked 4th seat when within the gotei 13. tasked primarily with keeping watch over shinigami and other personnel that have officially left their posts, either temporarily or permanently, to keep an eye on their continued loyalty and watch for conspiracy among displaced individuals. typically disguised in other positions around the people they’re tasked with watching and therefore they possess a wide range of unrelated duties to maintain their ruse.

COMMUNIATIONS FORCE. led by a corps commander, ranked 5th seat when within the gotei 13. tasked with the swift passing along of important orders and information throughout the seireitei, primarily to and from captains, assistant captains, and seated officers. each company is assigned a small squad of communications force members to quickly aid in this task should they require it, with additional personnel deployed as needed.

* UNIFORMS.

the onmitsukidō is known primarily for the attire worn by the punishment force, in which members are dressed head-to-toe in all black with nearly no variation between members that may make them easy to identify, and the attire worn by the communications force, dressed in maroon and carrying packs containing a number of vital items they may require in their duty.

while the vast majority of members of the onmistukidō wear uniforms indistinguishable from each other, the supreme commander of the corps presently wears the keisen shōzoku uniform, special battle attire worn exclusively by the supreme commander of the onmitsukidō. it was designed to leave the back and shoulders exposed to minimize the waste of fabric in those areas upon activation of the shunkō ability that is the ultimate hakuda technique and the signature of the last two commanders of the corps. the keisen shōzoku is a relatively new uniform to the corps, having only been worn by its last two supreme commanders and first worn by former member shihōin yoruichi, roughly 110 years ago.

* NOTABLE MEMBERS.

PUNISHMENT FORCE. sui-fēng, supreme commander. formerly. shihōin yoruichi, supreme commander ( abandoned position. ).

INTELLIGENCE FORCE. ōmaeda marechiyo, corps commander. formerly. ōmaeda marenoshin, corps commander ( undefined leave ).

CONTAINMENT FORCE. tba. formerly. urahara kisuke, corps commander ( promoted. ).

SURVEILLANCE FORCE. tba.

COMMUNICATIONS FORCE. tba.

* ADDITIONAL NOTES.

while the onmitsukidō does have its own headquarters from which it can operate separately, when its connection to the gotei 13 is deepened through the supreme leader serving as a captain, primary operation shifts to the company quarters and offices to ease the burden on the leader and corps commanders. personnel not additionally assigned to positions within the company continue to live out of the original headquarters.

despite the shihōin clan’s long history of leading the corps, it is not a strict law that only a member of the shihōin clan can hold the position ; it’s merely much more difficult for an outsider of the clan to obtain the position, due to heirs' extensive training and the high level of powerful members that are produced from the clan.

whether led by a captain or not, the onmitsukidō will share important information with the gotei 13 as needed, acting as an intelligence force for and deferring to the captain-commander in general military matters.

the onmitsukidō exists directly beneath the central 46, only taking direct orders from the compound, when something requires their handling from outside connections. in joint operations with the gotei 13, however, squads from the onmitsukidō typically work under the gotei 13 officers for ease of command.

[sterling-silvers]

BURN THE WITCH, LIMITED SERIES: CHAPTER 1 Review - Kubo Attempts to Covet the Teaboo Audience

BURN THE WITCH, LIMITED SERIES: CHAPTER 1

Ultimately, I give it a very loving yet, nepotistic 7.5 out of 10.Burn the Witch came out three days ago; I read it yesterday. I’m still optimistically skeptical about this project Kubo is doing.

The best and most objective way, I feel, to describe this first chapter is that this is Bleach with a British, teaboo mod weaved into the source code. Granted, this inherently is not a bad thing because Kubo seems all but to make it clear that the society that is Reverse London is just sector of the encompassing Bleach universe; the Soul Society that we’ve seen in Bleach was the east section – now, we’re on the west side. If that is solely what Kubo wants to do, I’ll be a bit disappointed because I REALLY wanted him to show his growth from Bleach being cancelled, not just Bleach: Teaboo ReDux.

The differences that are there between Bleach and Burn the Witch are noteworthy but, a bit more underlying than I would like. The duo of Noel Niihashi and Ninny Spangcole works; a big problem of the Ichigo-Rukia relationship is that they were both too reactive as opposed to proactive (more so Ichigo than Rukia). 

Here, while Noel is reactive, she is balanced by Ninny who will jump into the fray and has clear ambitions from the start. That’s great – that is the growth I want more prominently shown. I would argue that reading the one-shot is a must because the story has already made a retcon in terms of a certain character plus, there is a parallel introduction to Ninny that they did once before with Noel. As a sidenote, let it be known that I love the tsundere more than the kuudere.

In addition, I do like that the aesthetic is definitive enough to differentiate from their Shinigami compatriots. Kubo has almost always had an eye for fashion and the red plaid cloths over the green coat really sets you in the scene that we are in a modern London with a witches and wizards. Granted, this just goes back to the “mod mentality” - instead of Shinigami, there are witches and wizards; instead of Hollows/Menos Grande, there are dragons. I wonder what the Quincy and or Espada equivalent will be (if we get to that point).

Now, to a more pressing matter: Burn the Witch has WAY too many significant parallelisms to Bleach in terms of the the story and the tropes; it is blatant that Kubo has re-adapted many past storylines and Kubo-isms, into this story. I’m disappointed that he doesn’t have a more solid magic system; the Hado of Bleach needed more hard rules and this “new” system does as well. 

It also doesn’t help that nigh every character can be seen as just an amalgam of previous characters from Bleach (for example: Ninny = Hiyori Sarugaki + Riruka Dokugamine; Noel = Byakuya Kuchiki + Nemu Kurotsuchi; Balgo = Keigo Asano + Orihime Inoue). Granted, I will give Kubo points if he makes an amalgam of Gin Ichimaru and Toshiro Hitsugaya (DO IT KUBO!!!!! You already have the perfect model to do so!!!).

Moreover, the initial story seems to be SAME set up as the first two arcs of Bleach. Stop me if you heard this before: A person that did a thing that weren't supposed to is scheduled for execution by the higher ups and (more than likely) the protagonist(s) is going to defy the system and impede the execution. I’m not even trying to be facile with the description, that is LITERALLY what seems to be happening. I’m also not too keen on the idea that we have another multifaceted organization with multiple members; too many characters with not enough development was a major aspect of Bleach’s downfall before - I stand by that the Vizards were an unnecessary and detrimental misstep of Kubo’s overall narrative. Kubo works better with a more air tight setting – when he tries to spread out the world becomes hollow… 

For a better comparison, had this been something like RWBY - which was “new” and still trying to get its bearings - this would have been fantastic set up: the world is there, the characters are established enough, and the power system is teased. However, this is NOT like RWBY - this is NOT Kubo’s first rodeo and ideally, he should know better and do better in terms of his story lore, character development, and setting. If anything, it should be more like Black Clover, particularly when it comes to the implementation of more English mythological lore.

With that, it is based on the totality of all these circumstances that I give BURN THE WITCH, LIMITED SERIES: CHAPTER 1 and very enthusiastic, yet nostalgic, 7.5 out of 10. I’m glad Kubo is back but, I want to see how he’s grown and so far, it seems that he is keen on playing his hits – and not necessarily the greatest ones.

[recurring-polynya]

I'm curious - what do you think about those that claim Rukia is "abusive" toward Ichigo and Renji because of the way she kicks and punches frequently?

Uhhhh... this is a new one to me? I cannot say I have ever seen this claim in the wild, and I am not sure what the purpose of it is-- Rukia-bashing? A criticism of Bleach generally? I dunno. I am not sure I have ever seen someone in this fandom complaining that they didn’t like Rukia in any way, so forgive me if I’m not really sure where this is coming from.

In case it wasn’t clear from the last time someone asked, I am not going to ever offer opinions on “people who say such-and-such.” People have a lot of reasons for saying stuff, and I am not gonna make generalizations about folks based on their anime opinions. I am here to make friends, not start beefs.

But since you asked, here is my opinion on the take itself.

I think it is clear that Kubo does not intend it to be read that way. It is slapstick, it is meant for humor, it is pervasive in the genre. I wouldn’t even say Bleach is a particularly bad offender. I said Kubo, but this sort of stuff is far, far more prevalent in the anime than the manga. Rukia is hardly the only character in Bleach that does it, it’s just that she’s the secondary protagonist, so we see her the most. Tatsuki also punches Ichigo, Nanao punches Kyouraku, Hiyori hits Shinji, Matsumoto throws a plate at Isshin’s head at one point. That doesn’t mean that we have to like it. It’s not cool to hit your friends, regardless of gender. It’s not really funny. It doesn’t add anything, to be honest. It doesn’t bother me all that much, but I can see how people might be bothered by it and it does not offend me in the least that people might speak out against it. Much like the “perverted character” trope, I mostly just ignore it.

A more subtly gross aspect of it is that I think the entire convention of women-beating-up-men-ha-ha is that it is perceived as a form of punching up-- “women are weaker than men and therefore could never really be their abusers.” Of course we know this is bullshit in real life, people of all gender can be victims of abuse. It is double-bullshit in the Bleach universe, where we are led to believe that strength comes from spiritual energy rather than physical size, and sexism within the Gotei doesn’t really make sense at all (and yet...)

Just so no one thinks I am a hypocrite, I do enjoy physical affection as a character-building device. I have a great love of characters who punch each other in the shoulder or put a friend in a headlock and noogie them. This is fundamentally different than one character saying something dumb and another punching them so hard that they are shown with a black eye or a lump on their head.

[oscar-isaacs-number-one-bitch]

“Bumblebee” Movie Review

Bumblebee is the latest film in the Transformers live-action film franchise, and yet functions as something of a soft reboot by way of prequel to that series. It stars Hailee Steinfeld as Charlie Watson, a young teenage girl growing up in 1987 near San Diego, California. When Bumblebee, a transformer from the planet Cybertron, is sent to Earth by the Autobot leader Optimus Prime in order to establish a base from which the Autobots can mobilize to save their planet from the Decepticons (against which a war has been raging on Cybertron for some time), he lands near this area, and is soon damaged in battle by a Decepticon who followed him. A while later he is found by Charlie while she’s scavenging for car parts in her uncle’s junkyard to fix up a Corvette her and her father were working on before his untimely passing. Soon, the two form an unbreakable bond between man and machine, and both get taken by the other on the adventure of a lifetime.

The Transformers live-action franchise up to this point has had, needless-to-say, a troubled relationship with fans of the characters. Some genuinely love Michael Bay’s takes on the robot action spectacles (even I’ll defend his first outing in 2007 as at least pretty good, although certainly imperfect), but most people recognize that the overly sexualized female characters, over-reliance on low and dutch-angle cinematography, oversaturation of color, and spectacularly offensive screenplays aren’t exactly the best fit for a franchise that made its name by being an entertaining show for children. People needed someone who would not just set the franchise right, but also deliver a good story worthy of the original cartoon people fell in love with in the 80’s. Enter Travis Knight, director of 2016’s excellent Kubo and the Two Strings. And exit with a franchise-best film that not only recaptures the heart of what makes the Transformers so fun to watch, but boasts a genuinely good 80’s-style coming of age story to boot.  

Yeah, there’s no joke here guys, Bumblebee is a genuinely good throwback to 80’s coming-of-age movies just as much as it is a much-needed course correction for the Transformers franchise, and I actually kind of adored it. It’s not perfect (in fact there’s a whole military subplot involving John Cena that gets a little hammy even if it is done intentionally and the overall plotting is a little too similar to Spielberg’s E.T. for anyone familiar with that film not to notice), but it rides the line so perfectly between accomplishing what it needs to and maybe not caring that it needs to accomplish anything in particular that one wonders why it wasn’t Paramount’s first choice to just get someone with a strong background in animation and character development like Travis Knight (one of the chief personalities at LAIKA) to helm the franchise from the start. Knight’s direction is nearly pitch-perfect here, as he keeps the movie contained and small-scale, focusing on the relationship between Charlie and Bumblebee to drive the film’s central story.

Now, don’t get me wrong, that’s not all this movie has going for it, but keeping it focused on that central relationship gives that relationship a weight no other Transformers movie has had up to this point (unless you were particularly attached to Shia LaBeouf yelling “Optimus” at a green screen every couple of hours). And it’s a really charming relationship to watch. Steinfeld is actually really good here as Charlie, hitting the emotional moments right when she needs to and making it pretty easy to forget that she’s actually talking to nothing most of the time given Bumblebee’s CGI…ness (that may not be the right term, but it’s the one I’m going with for now). I’d even go so far as to say it’s her best performance since 2010’s True Grit remake that was actually pretty good and not enough people talk about. Some of the 80’s-style comic elements of the film don’t sit the best with the kind of performer she is right now, but she makes the script work enough that you come to genuinely care when she gets hurt or when she’s in pain because Bumblebee is. Of course you wouldn’t care at all if the title character wasn’t compelling in his own way, and the filmmakers do this pretty well.

Bumblebee is a charming, delightful treat in this movie, and it’s very clear the animators and visual effects artists went to great lengths to make sure people could tell he was a Transformer by doing little things like making his chest plates the front head panels or putting the doors and wheels on his back. The visual work in this is pretty great and helps clear up a lot of the confusing during some pretty great action sequences as to who’s fighting who or who’s standing where. The damaging of Bumblebee’s voice in one of the film’s opening battles challenges the animators to have to make the character more compelling, given that he can’t really communicate the way he used to, and the facial animations that result from this challenge are a genuine marvel to behold, even if only because they’re stripped of all the clutter that came before in the Bay films.

That’s another thing this film does pretty well: it doesn’t really add a whole lot of its own material so much as strip away everything that didn’t work before, and it encapsulates this by throwing the setting all the way back to the era that Transformers worked the absolute best in, because if you’re going to model all your designs and storytelling after the era that worked best, why not throw the whole movie back to that very era? This movie actually feels like an 80’s Transformers cartoon brought to life, and while that may hurt some aspects of the film like some opportunities where more nuanced could be useful and a few cartoon-like human characters, it mostly just adds to the charm of the whole. The biggest flaws have already been addressed, like the script being too similar to E.T. (although if you’re going to use an 80’s script as a template for this, there are worse choices) and John Cena’s military sub-arc being a little bit hammy (even if it might be on purpose), but those are really the only ones that last once one thinks about the film post-viewing.

In the end, this movie didn’t necessarily surprise me given that I knew who was helming it and starring in it (and they’ve all done great work before), but I did breathe a sigh of relief when it was done. Bumblebee may not be the next E.T. or major effects blockbuster to transcend what it is to become a cultural phenomenon or Oscar-worthy classic of the genre, or even a particularly great movie, but it is a genuinely good one, and that’s all it needs to be right now. Finally, there’s a Transformers movie that actually respects character relationships and telling a good story before it even thinks about spectacle. Finally, the action sequences don’t look like a jumbled mess of CGI where no one can tell what’s going on or who’s who. Finally there’s a director in charge who has a passion for these characters that’s reflected in his work. And it’s all lead to what is by far the best Transformers movie yet.

I’m giving “Bumblebee” an 8.8/10

[cuchufletapl]

Free! (2013) is a sports anime that (while not being an actual shojo) caters to teenage girls, and one of the main draws of the show is what I like to call fujo-bait: the main cast is all attractive teenage boys whose relationships with each other are very easily read as gay.

And that's not just fandom doing fandom things, it's very obviously intentional. I guess it's a sort of queerbaiting, except, unlike western media, there's no "will they, won't they" aspect to it — the anime isn't marked as a BL (probably because it allows it to be aired during daytime[1: edit below] and to be marketed with further reach), so everyone who watches it knows that none of the ships are gonna be canon. The almost "kisses" and the pushing against a wall and the ambiguous dialogue and such are meant as fanservice to inspire doujinshis and other fanworks in Japanese fujoshi fandom.

Here's a pretty good video on this subject in general, if you're interested.

Anyway.

Enter Yuri!!! On Ice in 2016.

A sports anime. Not marketed as a Boys' Love anime. If I remember correctly, it also aired at daytime[2: edit below].

Both the Japanese fujoshis and western otakus thought that we knew what to expect. Something along the lines of Free! and any other anime that had decided to lean into queer fandoms as a marketing tactic.

I remember when in episode one Victor stood up from the bath completely naked and people where like, "Holy shit, okay, they're starting really strong with the fanservice." The couple episodes that followed it, when Victor was still coming very strong onto Yuuri, there were jokes about how the amount of exclamation marks in the title seemed to correlate with how gay and fujo-baity an anime was gonna be. That's all we thought YoI was ever going to be, like its predecessors in the genre had been.

And then they kiss in episode seven. And actual, honest-to-god kiss.

People lost their shit.

Tumblr's servers collapsed.

The censorship of the kiss gave way to heated discussions on whether it had been a hug instead, but their faces' angle and the audience at the rink's reaction made it clear that it hadn't been — particularly when the show kept going and things like Yuuri and Victor getting engaged in front of the Sagrada Familia happened, further cementing that their relationship was textually, explicitly romantic.

It also reframed every interaction they had had up until that point, because then, oh, it's not just fanservice for the fujoshi watchers, it's build-up to an actual romance.

Obviously I can't speak for everyone who watched YoI, but in my corner of fandom and what I saw outside of it, everyone was shipping victuuri but no one was hoping for them to be canon. I can't emphasize enough how unexpected it was.

I believe that was the point, also. I think (I'm not sure, maybe I'm misremembering, I can't find the statement, take it with a grain of salt) that Kubo said something to that effect — she wanted to make a sports anime that wasn't (strictly speaking) a BL and that had an m/m couple as endgame.

A lot of people getting into Yuri!!! On Ice after that go in with the knowledge that victuuri is canon, so I think some of that "cultural reset" feeling may be lost? Particularly if they're not familiar with other sports anime and manga like Haikyuu!!, Kuroko no Basket or the aforementioned most egregious example, Free! — because they haven't experienced what the fandoms of not-canonically-gay-but-still-very-gay animes are like. (On the other hand, it allows y'all to view and enjoy the anime as an actual romance from the get-go, which is cool.)

[1] edit: so I recently learned that it's a myth that BL/yuri can't be aired during daytime. Actually, most anime except really popular series (or kids' television) is broadcast late at night anyway, even if they're not considered to be 18+. That probably included Free!, given that it first aired on Tokyo MX, which is known for late-night anime according to Wikipedia. Sorry, I should've fact-checked that before posting!

[2] edit: no, it didn't and I wasn't remembering correctly. YoI airing during daytime as an explanation for why the kiss was censored is a rumour that's been going around in the fandom since the beginning (see above for limited broadcasting of yuri/BL not even being a thing). I've taken it at face value for years, but it's patently not true. dragonaeve set me straight in the replies: Yuri!!! On Ice aired past 2am. Sorry again!

I don't think anyone should be permitted to watch Yuri On ICE and judge it unless they have not watched the first two seasons and one movie of Free! before. You just cannot understand the cultural impact without.