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asm5129 · 1 year

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RWBY V9 Episode 3 Analysis

On the way to the castle, Weiss stresses, once again

“We aren’t Alyx”

Clearly gonna be a very important issue

They can’t just follow someone else’s story

They have to make their own

The Red Prince is really the perfect distillation of how Volume 9 is balancing comedy and drama

He’s primarily a comedic character, but he also establishes more about Alyx, more about what happened in the Ever After since her story ended, and he represents the consequences of her actions. plus, even though he himself isn’t much of a threat, the casualness with which he sends two of his men behind the bushes to be beheaded is genuinely unsettling. He may be a comedic character, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t be a genuine problem for them if they piss him off (which inevitably they do, because he’s an entitled brat who gets pissed off at EVERYTHING. which, you know, he’s a little kid but...he’s also got way more power than most kids so i struggle to cut him slack for his immaturity)

“Did i used to be this unbearably pompous?” XD Oh Weiss, remarkably, you were not this bad

Surprisingly, the soldiers taking credit for the gift turns out very helpful

But Ruby, poor girl

She gave up Penny’s sword and it was thrown away like it was worthless

“How could you...” Lindsey Jones really giving it her all, and the facial expressions match her skill

Even if they can be put back together, as indicated by the Curious Cat later on, the panicked screams of these two soldiers make it pretty clear they’re going to fell all the pain any human (or faunus) would.

hell of a first impression. Goofy little kid, but if you piss him off he’ll have you beheaded without hesitation, and he gets pissed off at the slightest thing that doesn’t go his way. Every comedic thing he does is underlined with the fact that one of the first things we saw him do was order some of his soldiers beheaded for getting a color wrong

I feel like the butterfly with the bright blue wings will matter. It’s wings are way too similar to the wings of the smoking caterpillar-esque creature in the opening, not to mention how our attention is drawn deliberately to it multiple times. Checkov’s Butterfly, let’s call it for now

Little’s yes after helping compliment the prince is adorable

Love how this game showcases Ruby’s leadership style. She was given a bunch of literal pawns, but over the course of the game works to minimize damage and ends up working with her so-called pawns due to inspiring them and treating them like their lives have value, rather than them working for her

meanwhile the Red Prince actually already continues the trend of villains falling to their own hubris he decides to be cruel and make WBY pieces on the board before knowing what they were capable of So even though this world runs on different rules, the character work remains consistent

so...Neo’s probably next then...

Love the transformation sequence. Great animation, love the visual gag of yang trying to fight back and the magic making her punch herself in the face for it

“Now we’re all Littles!” Little’s perception of the world continues to fascinate me.

“No one’s going to get hurt....right?”

Ruby’s priority is always minimizing harm. Love it.

And of course...the Prince doesn’t answer her question.

I feel really bad for the pawns on the board..they're clearly super traumatized

It’s cool to see the girls working properly as a team again. We haven’t gotten to see them properly strut their stuff in a long while, thanks to the last several volumes hammering home just how absolutely unfathomable the odds stacked against them were, as well as the growing cast and the many fires they had to put out (metaphorical fires, sorry Watts)

Little continues to be adorable, cheering with leaves as pom-poms after Weiss gets her groove on

Blake’s blush is adorable and i can’t wait until the fated Bumblby kiss that finally wakes Yang up to the love around her

Again, the Prince is a comedic character, but the emotional pain Alyx put him through is very real, and our heroes are gonna have to deal with that because it seems Alyx has very much colored the locals opinions of humans. I am...incredibly intrigued about who Alyx is. I mean, her actual nature. I love how varied the interpretations of her actions are.

And again, our heroes inspire others to fight, instead of sacrificing lives unnecessarily. there is a sense of camaraderie. Ruby’s leadership style at work here.

“Little’s a mouse...at least i think.” “Sure!” Again, Little intrigues me with their way of looking at things.

And there he is--or his eyes anyway. The Cat.

the subjects of the red Prince hate humans so much the red and white pawns alike come after WBY, even after the White pawns just being inspired by them.

Fantastic combat scene, with some fantastic music.

Love the detail that Blake is running out of bullets. They’ve got limited supplies here.

“I”VE WON. Give up already.”

“We. Wont.”

The utter conviction. Ruby is not capable of giving up, even when she doesn’t have enough hope to fill a single jar.

:Love the shot that obscures her eyes. This whole sequence really shows how fraught Ruby’s mental state is. As her companions fight, She is moving around, trying to figure out how to help, ultimately just putting her head in her hands because she feels so paralyzed.

“Unable to do the one thing you were put on this acre to do” Well that’s awfully specific Cat.

Clearly this ties in with how the Ever After deals with identity and purpose. we’ll have to wait and see exactly how though.

The Cat clearly has serious authority here. The entire room immediately starts listening to him as soon as he speaks, including the Prince.

“You must play your game and win at any cost”

and him losing the game literally broke him. If you take away the things that we use to form our sense of self, we either crumble or we double down--the Prince here looks like he’s doing a bit of both.

Identity can be a fragile thing, especially if you build it upon a fragile base.

Haven’t seen many people talk about this but...I’m pretty sure the cat made him back off. Like, not just through his authority--he does something to the prince’s heart to temporarily dull the pain

Freaking love the M.C. Escher vibes of this escape

Ruby is literally carrying her team on her shoulders now. Things are gonna get rougher and rougher for our poor girl.

“Times change, you know, and so do we when it’s our time to change. Don’t you?”

our heroes are going to be very different people when they get back to remnant.

Also, that silver glow is DEFINITELY silver-eye-esque.

“You’re not nearly as interesting as the others I’ve met” So we know he’s met Alyx but...has this cat met any other humans, i wonder?

Rocking horsefly. Still a good pun.

And here we have two VERY different parts of the ever after right next to each other. looks awfully like a Light and Dark....perhaps similar to two douchebag gods we know of?

The Jaberwalker bleeds surprisingly normal-looking blood. That probably means something.

Is he kinda like Salem’s hound? that’s a wild thought.

“Fix”? That’s a new one for the Jabberwalker. What are you trying to fix, you intriguing creature?

Considering Neo was right next to Ruby as they fell, she wound up here quite a bit later. Just more evidence for some time shenaniganery this volume.

Neo is like...compulsively shapeshifting. There’s no purpose to shifting into Cinder and Ruby. And then her Semblance just moves out from her and becomes a bunch of her. Something is clearly off with Neo’s semblance, and i’ll be honest, it doesn’t feel like a semblance evolution. It feels..intentionally more unnatural than that.

Anyway Neo means business this volume and she just became expoenntially more dangerous...quite literally

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consumeronionbulletin · 1 year

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Taxi Driver 2 (2023)

The gang's all back for another big adventure! (except for Esom) Welcome to Taxi Driver II: Electric Boogaloo! Come take a ride with us!

One thing I like about K-dramas is they rarely make sequels. They tell their story and then they're done. The first season had an excellent story to tell. Did we really need a second season?

What Worked

The individual missions were still excellent. The show always walked the line between serious and camp, and they did a very good job giving us a fun spectacle. Pretty much anything where Lee Je-hoon got to be undercover was gold. And I enjoyed the hints of a longer history with Rainbow Taxi and its vigilante boss.

What Didn't Work

The show was consistently enjoyable, so there weren't any major missteps, but the overall arc was much weaker than the first series. The big baddie rarely felt like an equal to our team, and was an overall step down from what we had the first series.

I think the overall message was a little weaker too. The first season was an exploration of the line between revenge and justice. This season was about listening to the victims and about remembering when most of society wants to forget. And that message showed up at times, but it didn't come through for me until the final few episodes.

The Performances

The actors were obviously having a blast and their performances reflected that. It was fun to watch, but I feel like the characters didn't change or grow much. They weren't given challenges that made them examine their situation, which made the conflicts (especially at the end) have less impact.

For the main cast, I think my overall opinion is still the same as series one. The only new addition worth mentioning is Shin Jae-ha as On Ha-jun. I would say he did a good job as an antagonist for Kim Do-gi, certainly a bit better than his turn in Crash Course in Romance, though I didn't care that much about him at the end of the series.

TL;DR:

Was it worth making a second series? Yes. Will I be watching a (potential) third season when it comes out? Yes. Is the second season better than the first? Not really. I think there were some episodes that standout, but it didn't quite come together as a whole the way the first season did.

If Taxi Driver is Korean Batman, then series one was The Dark Knight. You had better villains, stakes that felt real, and more interesting themes. Taxi Driver 2 felt more like Michael Keaton era Batman. It was fun to watch. It had great cameos, amazing visuals, and interesting antagonists, but it was impossible to take seriously.

#my kdrama notes #taxi driver kdrama #taxi driver 2

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spearxwind · 2 years

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Aaaa I’ve been struggling through watching my favourite streamer play the quarry! What a mess! I’ve not even reached the ending yet but I think I’m not going to be watching that video again, which is rare. It feels like a realtime fandub of the actual game, but without any of the humour or life. All the screens where you focus in way too close to a characters face as they debate A or B are goofy as hell, that one guy was either falling asleep or on his phone while reading his lines, the werewolves are goofy as hell, and I’ve actually lost the plot. I don’t know what’s happening. Some old lady got shot? Was she a werewolf? I don’t know. Another guys in a cage. Why. I don’t know. you could say that’s my fault but I feel like in a game with good consistent writing I’d be able to at least *guess* at what’s happening

also the constant not-telling-people-whats-going-on is going to be the end of me, I think. Everything is made so much worse by the awkward as hell lack of communication.

If I can say one positive for the game— and it’s one, very, very small positive, it’s that A werewolf did look spooky for maybe 3 seconds. That influencer girl, she encounters one in that tree house and the lightings all dim, and you only see it a bit until suddenly you focus on the face and those eyes. I paused there and thought ‘that’s a neat shot, it looks like it actually wants to hurt her. If they keep the werewolves looking like that then they might get a little spooky leeway.’

They did not keep the werewolves looking like that. Classic thing— making the horror monster too visible.

And this is more a personal thing but I’m not even scared of the game and I’m the biggest pansy alive. I *cannot* handle horror without getting Way Too Spooked and the quarry just bores me

Honestly yeah I struggled watching through to the end, just because I wanted to see the story at least resolved, but the whole last section was just... not worth it at all. It's very confusing and convoluted for no reason, the ending itself is incredibly underwhelming, and yeah Ryan's voice lines are... bad delivery.

I tried not to be too harsh on him though because I thought it might get justified later but it doesnt and he does feel just... completely disinterested in whats happening. Honestly you can guess 90% of whats happening because it comes down to 'hey theres monsters out there and some of them might be us kind of' and the only mystery is how the fuck that bit from the start ties into everything else

I also thought the wolves might like.. be a progressive kind of thing where when they begin the transformation they look like that and the longer the night goes on the freakier they look but no they just look like that

The more I think about it yeah the more it just feels like they tried and failed to make until dawn again. except this time the monsters are there all the time and instead of unraveling a mystery and getting characters killed due to negligence or bad decisions its always "do you want to kill this character >yes >no" it kinda feels a lot more random when deaths happen

Yeah the tutorial thing was very jarring but I thought it was charming. it definitely takes you out of the experience though, they should have put those in like... a menu section for when youre paused or something.

and man yeah!! the transformation is so weird like... just explode into blood and bam theres a werewolf underneath. tbh i wouldnt have minded as much if like.. they made the wolves visually different from each other or actually resemble what person each one is but no its literally 1. explode into blood 2. instant model change like. alright

i dont really do teen drama anyway but i thought it was alright, at least some of the banter seemed pretty decent, and yeah campy movies that this is based on usually have all this drama stuff so I can excuse that

also kaitlyn deserved so much more screen time for real she was the only one with an actual braincell

----

actually as a sidenote theres just so many things that dont make sense from the setup at all i just remembered theres also a shot of a corpse in a lake and this is never explained nor mentioned nor acknowledged for the entirety of the game.

#ask #anon #ask dump #the quarry spoilers #long post

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vegasgreys · 2 years

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Mystic destinies serendipity of aeons tatsuya walkthrough

#MYSTIC DESTINIES SERENDIPITY OF AEONS TATSUYA WALKTHROUGH FULL#

#MYSTIC DESTINIES SERENDIPITY OF AEONS TATSUYA WALKTHROUGH CRACK#

Through some minor hijinks, the broody captain of the knights, Anton, decides to come along for the ride and keep the princess safe. She concocts a plan to leave the castle and hop onto the nearest ship to her shock, her personal knight and childhood friend actually agrees and insists on coming with her to keep her safe. Since he won’t listen to any reason, she decides she’s got to run away and go on a mini adventure. She wants to travel the world and see the sights but Pops won’t let her set foot outside the kingdom. Our protagonist is princess Ciel – somewhat, as her dad’s more like a governor – who’s suffering from good, old-fashioned Rebellious Princess Syndrome. It certainly delivers the funny but left me underwhelmed everywhere else. It promised to be a heartwarming, straightforward story, loaded with comedy and gratuitous puns.

#MYSTIC DESTINIES SERENDIPITY OF AEONS TATSUYA WALKTHROUGH CRACK#

It’s got the fingerprints of someone’s first crack at a visual novel, meaning the worst should hopefully be over. This is the approach I took with today’s game, Magical Otoge Ciel. In short, I don’t speak from a place of being better I speak from the experience of similar mistakes. So, I’ve always tried to approach every game I play with a critical eye, not for the sake of finding problems but for the sake of helping my fellow amateur content creators. No, the tricky part comes from something that’s about so-so, and it was clear the author was trying.īut, at the end of the day, I feel very strongly that the worst thing you can do to an artist is stay silent when they need to work on a skill. When that happens, it’s fun venting exorcise to rip in and tear it a new one. If you decide to donate any extra, it will go directly to making that dream a reality.Any reviewer will tell you that it isn’t hard to write a review of bad material. We're hoping to kick off a successful business in order to make visual novels of all genres and worked without pay the entire route to achieve that dream. Star Maiden Games is a small start-up indie visual novel team consisting of three women at it's creative core in 2015. So if you're ready to embark on a beautiful journey of self-acceptance, love and magic then press that purchase button and play until you cry." "Playing Mystic Destinies: Serendipity of Aeons will give you warm fuzzy feelings but it will also make you feel some angst as not everything is sunshine and roses. I recommend this game highly to all the otome lovers out there." I can't wait to read the other guys' routes. "All in all, it was a very great reading experience and I have to say that I have shed some tears towards the end. I think a lot of people will enjoy the characters, the art, and the music! I'm excitedly looking forward to the next route!" It's not without a few problems, but overall it's a well polished game and a great first release for Star Maiden Games.

Over six hours of content, with additional content on the way!.

Enjoy atmospheric high quality music, hand-picked for every scene.

Learn about a world with deep lore and it's own unique universe.

Read a completely different story with each route!.

Two "bad endings" mean your choices have more of an impact!.

#MYSTIC DESTINIES SERENDIPITY OF AEONS TATSUYA WALKTHROUGH FULL#

Three full length canon endings per character - depending on your choices.Experience a different kind of love story with a balance between dark and light themes, and a strong emphasis on fantasy and action.Forced to take sides even as she tries to control her unstable powers and emotions, Tsubasa is pulled into large scale business negotiations and the politics of the ancient Ryu clan.Ĭan you navigate a path wrought with mysteries and drama to find happiness? But she soon finds out that nothing is as it seems. That's Tsubasa's thinking when she chooses the ever-serious Tatsuya. ★ Tatsuya's Story ★ If you're in trouble, choosing a reliable partner is the most logical choice, right? Play as twenty year-old university student Tsubasa Fujimoto as she learns to balance her daily life with her new supernatural one - all while falling in love. This original English language visual novel tackles romance in an urban fantasy setting, with the aim of blending genres and deconstructing common tropes.Īfter a ritual forces immense magical powers onto you, you're thrown into a new world with new threats and challenges that you'd never dreamed of. This unlocks the second released main story route AND epilogue of Mystic Destinies: Serendipity of Aeons, focusing on the character Tatsuya Yukimura. Mystic Destinies: Serendipity of Aeons, the Kickstarter-funded original English language visual novel originally released on Steam comes to Itch.io!

#Mystic destinies serendipity of aeons tatsuya walkthrough

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pinkacademic · 2 years

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Other Colours in Pink Academia

Even if your favourite colour isn’t pink, we can still be friends- pink is a state of mind. I got an ask recently about PA but make it baby blue and I was inspired to give some character inspo for other colours than pink. Also, there is no visual more fabulous than a colour-coded squad looking like studious power rangers. I tried to list as many diffrent pieces of media as possible so so of these eg Heathers might apply to more than one colour, but I just wanted to give some variety.

Red: THEEEE look has to be Heather Chandler, whose most iconic look is totally the musical with a striking red blazer, a pleated, plaid red skirt, red argyle socks, and of course, the red scrunchie. Heathers invented the Pink Academia aesthetic. Another end of the red spectrum could be Clover from Totally Spies. My first thought for a Clover outfit is that bright red shirt/blouse and pink jeans combo which I think you could academia up with a more office-ready bottom- though I will not stop anyone from recreating the spy suit either. Orange: I'm not good at orange, I'm sorry! My first thought was Lisa in the As if its your Last music video, but that's just her hair. I think a cute, simple base with an orange hairband could get the vibe across. My favourite orange-coded characters have to be the mermaids from H2o- they were my childhood. Each girl has their own colour scheme, but the mermaid tails and weird scaly bra things were an orange-gold colour, so they count! I'd recreate this with a pencil skirt and a blouse with a tie detail like a pussycat bow maybe to evoke the same details- you could also try a bustier or corset belt. Yellow: I overlooked the Clueless matching sets in my analysis, BUT NOT TODAY! It is the ideal outfit to rference for yellow, and I'll DID YOU KNOW until the end of days that it was the inspiration for Ashley B in Recess. Alternatively, the iconic yellow ball gown Belle serves is the look to end all looks and I think you could do a cute academia-style Disneybound with an off-the shoulder peasant style top and poofy yellow skirt, and some pretty rose-themed accesories. Green: Not to be on-the-nose but Elphaba from Wicked can be emulated with a striking black blouse and skirt and simple black boots. You are obligates to wear green tights or socks with this one- and Zelena from Once Upon a Time has a Wicked (pun so very intended, please appreciate me) necklace that adds so much drama to a simple all-black outfit. If you love a good supervillain, Poison Ivy serves so much potential for a floral outfit with a green base. Her most famous look is a leotard, but you can add a little bit more of a classic academia sillhouette with a white blazer to evoke a doctor's lab coat. Blue: I've already done a whole inspo set on the Abbey Mount uniform from Wild Child which can be replicated with a grey blazer and a blue plaid skirt, but for other options, there's St Trinnians with an edgier version of a similar look, or the Worst Witch, if, like me, you're trying to reconcile your happy childhood memories of Harry Potter with... uh... current climes... The Worst Witch uniforms have the added fun of personalistiion with another colour to represent your house or year group. I'm still upset at the travesty that was Fate: a Winx Saga for doing my girls dirty. for a true blue Bloom inspired look, she has a cute pleated skirt in the earlier seasons. It looks to be denim, but you could go for a plaid or houndstooth to be more rigidly Academia about it, paired with yellow and some lovehearts for contrast and a girly twist, Bloom has a tonne of good looks in the later seasons too, I'm just not as well versed because I'm old! Purple: It has to be said, Twilight Sparkle serves a Pink Academia moment with a purple pleated skirt and lace-up boots. So-Called Sci-Twi rocks a sweater vest, and the Crystal Prep uniform consists of a berry-leaning purple plaid skirt, purple socks or tights, and beryy waistcoat or blazer with each character having their own spin on the uniform. If you were a Strawberry Shortcake kid like I was (only 2003 is valid because I'm old!) then all those girls served a look. My fave is Angel Cake, and to Academia-ify her outfit, I would use a purple stripy blouse, a deeper purple blazer or jumper as a nod to the 2007 version (the only other acceptable depiction!! jk... mostly) and some kind of bow detail to go woth her hair. Also, listen, we need to bring hats back into their full power again. Neutrals: Bro, Neutrals are the base for any good dark or light academia outfits, so all of your Austen girls, all of your Secret History or Kill your Darlings kind of looks belong here. But honestly, I think mostly of Twilightcore, and if I wanted to make Bella Swan a Pink Academia Girly, I'd go for a dark green cardigan, a brown plaid skirt, and a simple white t-shirt blouse. For Bella, it would have to be flat shoes because our klutzy girl could trip on air, we do not eed to elevate her. Something more modest such as toning the outfit down with thick brown tights or a skirt with a longer hem keeps a certain degree of her style, and I think over-sizing the cardigan so you can grab the ends gives the Bella vibe.

#Pink Academia #Pink Academia Fashion #Pink Academic #Pink #Academia #Movies #TV #Fashion Inspiration #Rainbow

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tsukiyadori · 2 years

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Kieta Hatsukoi's Drama Adaption and How to Use Your Medium

The ending sequence of episode 6 feels so very much staged, but, hell, do I dig its entire scene composition.

Kieta Hatsukoi is, while falling a bit short of being a perfect adaption, still a really good example of how to adjust a source material's plot and scenes to make use of its own medium and keep both its spirit and characters intact.

The above frame is the high point of a directive/cinematographic trait that seems to be prevalent across the entire show, which the manga does occasionally use as well, but by far not with as much visual poignancy nor consistency. What I mean is how it frames height differences between Ida (who's naturally a deal taller) and Aoki.

And maybe it's just my aro-ace head seeing too much in what maybe was just meant to show how they have to go through the same downs and vulnerabilities of falling in love at different paces until, in the end, they wind up as equals. But it also so greatly gives me déjà vus with my experiences to that entire cheese topic. Aoki is the one to fall first (and hard) into the hands of that love "epidemic" and is rendered entirely defenseless. As such, he gets to be the one smaller or lower framed. Ida meanwhile is (mostly) still unaffected and clueless. But he can still think about it rationally.

And there is definitely a little bit of a feel of advantage to downright supremacy with having that "immunity" against that "love epidemic": Your eyes aren't cloud 9 pink clouded, you can evaluate things objectively, you are more reasonable, keep yourself together and just... not that idiot with feelings out of control. Which is pretty cool.

Until it backfires.

Because if you keep being that clueless, people eventually start to lose patience. You get to be the rude and inconsiderable one. The one with too little to no empathy for the ailings of the love sick (something that is generally assumed for everyone to have, because it's a "rite of passage" everyone goes through) and if you just honestly stick to having no clue (or worse even get irritated about it yourself), in the end you're that monster with a heart made out of cold, hard moonstone out in alien space, and people stop trying to connect to you, because they can't talk through to you. And this is so nicely framed, because every time Aoki is that complete Idiot in love, he's the smaller/lower staged one than Ida who is still (increasingly ostensibly) calm and not in love. But every time Ida is clueless, he is a deal lower positioned than Aoki, too. And the more the cluelessness backfires on him, the lower he stands. Until by the last episode before the climax he's standing lower than Aoki ever was, because by then he's still fairly clueless and has those helpless feelings.

Dissecting this:

Episode 1: They pretty much stand on equal levels when the erase incident happens and them meeting on the rooftop. The kabedon has him being bigger, but Aoki just got into a vulnerable spot, so gets to be a little bit lower, despite him being the one to exert the kabedon.

By the end of the episode on the rooftop again, Ida's "saving" Aoki and gets to be higher, ostensibly the one still having all wits together. (This scene is a more grounded version in the drama compared to the manga, where Aoki was actually loosing his wits being all heartbroken and overreacting over a raven that stole his food and dumbly climbing after the bird.) Ida gets immediately lowered once it turns out to be a misunderstanding, and when he admits he has no clue, he is lowering himself by sitting down on the bench with Aoki still standing. Aoki notably starts off still smaller framed than him even while standing, but as he's closing in with his questions he literally "grows" on screen. Until he sits on the bench and Ida is leaning backwards, lowering himself. Once Ida asks how it's for Aoki, Aoki is getting vulnerable and seating himself lower, since he sits on the ground rather than the bench. Even as Ida kneels down on his level and says he's going to properly think about it, he's still the "bigger" one of them.

Episode 2: That entire drawing scene and Aoiki trying to ship clueless Ida onto Hashimoto has him kneeling lower.

When he kicks over the bucket and gets vulnerable, Ida and Aida are both framed in a much higher perspective, but Ida gets to keep it on the first occurrence of the "Ida Pon" (when he gives Aoki that head poke).

Cinderella Aoki shriveling under his own sparkles for Ida is constantly on the lower side, but every time Ida is clueless, Aoki just ever so momentarily gets to seem bigger/taller.

In the "It's not funny scene" they are very much on eyelevel, even though Aoki seems smaller.

Episode 3: Gets a bit overshadowed by the dynamics of being in the lead of the slapstick routines, but it still generally applies.

Notably at the end Aoi seems small/is more vulnerable after the (seeming) offhand rejection of Ida, but Ida is stepping down the stairs with that picture cluelessly mulling around. He's actually levels below Aoki right then. (This little scene is drama only btw. and pretty strong visual shortcut replacement for what is an entire skipped plot arc from the manga.)

Episode 4: Doesn't have so much, since there isn't much interaction between them there, but

Episode 5's confession scene is really strong there. Aoki's smaller, but Ida does get happy about it and immediately they tumble down, they are on equal levels lying on the ground and even as they stand up and Ida is making his proposition they are pretty equal. (Ida just a little bit bigger.)

Episode 6: Is clueless-Ida-fireworks. Even as Aoki constantly makes a fool of himself, it's Ida looking "up", even when he shouldn't really be. (Like when they talk after Aoki's little rap.)

By the end of the Kokomi incident, Aoki is loosing steam on his bravado and getting vulnerable again and Ida got a little breakthrough over his "thinking it over". He gets to be the bigger again when he rolls over that black board exposing Aoki hiding behind it.

The entire end of that episode is just great in terms of visuals. Ida is up there, level-headed, above Aoki who is fretful, nervous, anxious. But he's also isolated up there. Even if he wanted to meet Aoki on eyelevel, there is no way for him to just get directly down there. And then Aoki climbs up that ladder. He also can't reach him isolated up there, but he can approach him halfway. And he does it by listening to his explanation, accepting it (even as he doesn't get it) and basically promising to give him room to sort it out and just wait and see if he can make it true or not. (Can I just stress how damn beautifully wholesome this is pictured?)

Episode 7 and onwards unfortunately has Aoki get his anxiousness the better of him, not least fueled by Aida's teasing comments and Ida not making any progress with his cluelessness. Ida does the most obvious thing, he simply asks assuming the other has an idea, because he's already fallen first. (I'm having déjà vu stings. Active Idiots in love are about the worst "experts" on the field...) And gets to the the less tall one in that frame. As soon as Aoki gets his silly delusions he immediately gets to be smaller again though.

Episode 8 dances a bit out of tune. In there both are pretty much equal, with Ida only being slightly bigger, whenever Aoki gets anxious again. Notably on the stapling scene Aoiki is standing, so actually higher, but he's almost entirely pushed out of the frame, so that height difference never really carries, despite being there due to PoV. The episode is unfortunately out of tune because it breaks a bit with the continuity to the next episodes that feed on Ida's slowness and cluelessness and Aoki's anxiety over Ida's feelings, making it look like a somewhat considerable back-step and Aoki more of a selfish immature drama queen. (Given that Ida goes as far as to think he is thinking about the more touchy intimate things and beyond, making clear the idea does not gross him out. Why'd you doubt him so hard to the point of ending things after something like that, unless you're a cliché angsty teen wailing in your fears? I mean it fits, but is a bit frustrating because Manga-Aoki doesn't wind up in that territory.) That's unfortunately due to an arc reshuffle, because in the manga this arc actually happens after Ida's confession and is a significant part that kicks off the ongoing post-confession plotline of Ida being on a fast track catch up development of attaining attraction and desires that start to eventually surpass even Aoki's in terms of intensity. (But the Okano episode and its messages are great, so I am glad they left it in, and what's more, they even made it better by adding teacher Taniguchi as an entirely new character. But obviously ending the series with the Okano episode wouldn't make much for a series' climatic finale of a romance series.)

Episode 9's first half has Ida super clueless and smaller most of the time (even on the stairs when he's standing above Aoki), except for when Aoki goes into embarassed flustered mode, or

Aoki crying so hard over the movie tearjerker he's all literally down again.

That keeps up when they drop by Ida's place, Aoki is overwhelmed by the implications and his teases. But there's already how the teases start to backfire, since Ida is smaller when the drink spills.

And gets to be that much more of a smaller position when Aoki gets really upset.

Episode 10 starts with them on equal height, especially on the rooftop. It's both of them equally at a loss, but out of different reasons and in many of the frames Aoki is facing away.

When Ida is running back, he's in the schoolyard notably below the stairs and the shots also look down. Add on the dark and the wide shot with him being tiny, that is his literal low point.

But then the camera walks down to ground level. As does Aoki down the stairs. Aoki is a bit smaller, they are both in that vulnerable state, but Aoki seems worse, since to him, it's one-sided and nothing he can really do anymore. (While Ida already knows about him and would just need to make a step.)

Everything else after Ida runs after Aoki and catches him is forced onto equal heights as much as it can. Ida is literally crouching down on the catch, and in the following conversation it mostly has cuts that only show their faces rather both of them in the same frame that would have stressed their natural height difference. (And when it does, it's Aoki apologizing or loosing his cool.)

When they sit down with the "we don't have to be like everyone else" it's also still equal. If anything, Ida's actually smaller again, since it's Aoki who is lecturing him on the usual romance tropes he has no idea of.

Same for the eraser at the end, clueless Ida is slightly smaller.

The second half after the ladder scene (except the Okano episode) is a bit taxing to watch at times, because the drama choose/couldn't help to stress more on Ida's cluelessness and Aoki's anxieties (especially the external ones) which leads to his increased lack of patience and the friction between them. While that's probably eyerolling inducing to more mature audiences anything about this is very much the all too familiar common reaction. And it's a little bit painful to watch, because for all the non-malicious, but casually ignorant "normal reactions" that Aoki gets from Aida and Okano, he's dealing the very same to Ida in the drama. But without ever noticing and without really ever getting called out for it. (And defeating the beautiful ladder scene wholesomeness somewhat.) It's Ida who gets most of that slack and has to resolve it, even if Aoki suffers for it too, because he's that self-sabotaging disaster. (Also, of course, the implied solution is to fall onto that same plateau as the rest and gain the understanding that divides you from them. A.k.a. to just "simply" fall in love. It probably is certainly the case, if it happens, but... sigh I'm not complaining, I know it is a romance series after all, so I'm not surprised.)

A lot is probably due to the narrative arc of the drama that, well, needed drama. And it comes at the expense of Aoki becoming that still very typical, but much more selfish angsty teen with no experience and maturity.

It's notably different in the manga (spoilers ahead, if you want to skip):

Drama Ida gets way more signs of subtle attraction a whole lot earlier on. (Like the picture of Aoki's portrait.) These are great visual cues, because the signs are much more slow burn in the manga, drowned in slapstick and mostly part of cut content, since their arcs wouldn't work like that in live action.

That also means, the impact on Ida when the eraser incident is outed as a deal bigger.

The outdoor camp was a silly, longer ski trip in the manga. They actually did a really good job with that replacement there, but it also means it's that much more immediate after the eraser-misunderstanding, and Ida also that more invested already. Which means they had to downplay his lines that he thought hard and came to the conclusion that he can't solve it by thinking. He says the same lines, but the manga plays it more up with his entire body language stressing his clueless, dense aloof attitude. He's very clear about that in the manga.

Kokomi's arc was a Kokoro's arc in the manga, which was pretty different and... very silly, but it has Kokoro give the essentially same lecture to Ida at the end. I do actually like Kokomi's arc a whole lot more than Kokoro's but Kokoro's is more drawn out and especially happening before Aoki's confession and leaving Ida in complete confusion, since he shouldn't be so worked up, when everything is already resolved. Aoki is also dealing with his one sided jealousy, so he is also more exposed to and reflecting on what dumb antics he's doing there. Also his jealous "be happy (with her)" to Ida, which is also in the drama is much less unreasonable and salty since they aren't together on trial there yet. (That bit is even worse in the drama, since Aoki was there how Ida refused Kokomi and probably should have heard her lecture, too.)

Aoki knows about the signs and is even looking them up online and getting flustered and his hopes up on whether Ida might be interested in him, which just makes his internal battle of anxiety actually that much bigger. Not because he's so blind and scared as in the drama, but because he's spiraling beween anxiety and euphoria (and it's exhausting). The drama also has him muse over if some of the signs are signs, but it never really gets stressed.

Ida and Aoki watching that movie is much less of a date in the manga, way more casual and it's only there when the Kokoro-jelousy is resolved. With Ida having an extra display of cluelessness, which is the actual backdrop of Ida asking Aoki if he's liking him. He's damn serious at having no clue and wanting to know, from what he would see as the "expert". All Ida has is Kokoro telling him, that he should be. Drama sabotages it a bit, by having him prefix that he claims he understood what "liking" means. Which makes his question sound much more rhethorical, and come off like half a tease. Which kind of implies, he already has it and knows, just needs more time to parse and express it, so the actions in the later episodes ultimately would naturally also come off as him lacking consideration.

(But the drama gets the whole thematization on references and points of comparison he resorts to because he has no clue. And. this. is. just. so. real. Gnnnhhh. Totally not still constantly resorting to it.)

Expressly there isn't any hand holding at all with the movie watching. But then would have been weird to leave it out, given that the Okada episode got moved forward.

The movie watching, teasing and the volleyball club members catching are all their own stories and not conflated on another for setting up more intense drama.

The volleyball part comes before the teasing and also has Aoki breaking things off in a fit of drama queen. (He doesn't say break up as in end the relationship tho, but uses 絶好, which more of that immature bratty attitude of pouty "I'm done with you".) But he is reflecting on it and it's clear he isn't so serious and then Ida comes along to patch things up in the manga's christmas cake selling episode (which was completely cut), where he is clumsy clueless as usual. Aoki also is seriously reflecting on what his anxiousness is causing, namely that he's making that straight forward honest Ida lie. (Which is big, considering that's the first and formost trait he fell for in the first place.) The words of him apologizing are still there in the last episode, but it doesn't have much backbone.

Ida telling his volleyball team comes before Aoki made it clear he's wanting to keep the closet shut. Notably Ida also innocently tells them on his own accord, rather after being confronted after being seen.

Ida's teasing streak starts earlier and less out of seeming nowhere. (They did stress it more in the drama that he's enjoying Aoki's overreactions as compensation tho.)

In the manga the spilled drink-tease event comes after Aoki reflecting that time has passed, but it still looks a lot like Ida's just friendzoning him. That's why the teases hurt and he gets frustrated. Notably there tho, he doesn't end things at all. A week later he shows up again declaring that he's going to work on himself so that he doesn't get so downed by Ida's attutides. Which is to say he basically implicitly declares Ida is fine as he is, he doesn't demand Ida to change, he will adjust and make himself not be beaten down by Ida's cluelessness. (Can I stress again, how wholesome that is?)

Ida never lashes out in frustration at Aoki in the manga even once. There is never this gulf of not understanding each other, even as they make efforts of talking things out. They never end up both beaten down in resignated depression.

Ida's confession also comes about though Shun (his childhood friend) makes him think, reflect and try to reach a conclusion. Just what makes him realize isn't so much him implying that his being depressed and even willing to lie is the clear cut sign, but rather them being walking Mametarou out, watching a dumb elemetary brat teasing his crush and Shun noting out that kids are stupid for doing this to their crushes, trying to point out that this is what Ida was doing. It then afterwards connects with Aoki coming back after his previous drama queen antics and that bit about accepting Ida as he is, which makes him receiving that confession from Ida all that more wholesomely earned. The drama kinda keeps it, because Ida makes up his mind after hearing all of Aoki's antics happened because he was thinking of him (and him being kind and thinking of others is that trait he basically fell for), so it's still quite in character. But it doesn't change, that on first glance it almost looks half blackmailed out by means of that "losing everything"-threat hanging there otherwise. (And Shun giving extra emphasis on it.) In the manga at that point Ida had no external need to confess, Aoki would have still stuck along adjusting to Ida's pace and also no drama over closet or not.

Notably Aoki's line about calling Ida out for being weird, because he isn't in the know about his own feelings as clearly as him is the same in the manga, too. Which means, Aoki in the manga is actually just as ignorant as in the drama, it just never gets to bare its fangs as much. (It's still causing tension and confusion in later arcs even as he's learned that it's just how Ida is like.)

I can't really say I like that angsty melodrama of drama-Aoki's that much, but that's simply because the manga offers the better version of Aoki. But the manga can, because the challenges come more sequentially rather than everything at once to overwhelm them as much. It still makes entirely sense in the drama, even if it draws out more of the less comfy but still very present characters traits. And that also just feeds onto that the drama is (bar the way to eyerolls inducing perfect timing of the illumination in the finale) way more grounded and realistic than the manga, which is just as genuine, but presents itself as really explosive fireworks of silly shoujo manga elements and comes off a deal more idealistic. Ida's cluelessness and resulting frustration on both sides are just so real. Aoki's accelerated loss of patience due to external pressure, too. Unpleasant and calling home maybe a bit too much, but just so very real.

And there is this beautiful ladder scene frame the manga never had.

(Now if there would be only a series in which the comfy wholesome solution isn't the notorious being felled by the cheese.)

Props on the scriptwriter. He did a stellar job on doing an in-character AU preserving the source's essence. In a way that neither renders itself or checking the source material pointless next to each other and also managing an ending that is conclusive enough for standing on its own. (Anime industry, please take a slice of that skill.) The entire height difference dynamics is also pretty great and it weaponizing the notorious cliché overacting of Asian dramas as being exactly the point in-plot and in-character is kind of rare.

#drama #jdrama #manga #ramblings #kieta hatsukoi #vanishing my first love #my love mix up #screenshot #screencaps #cinematography #japanese drama

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sneezemonster15 · 3 years

Text

Calling bullshit on the opinion that Kishimoto doesn't know how to write romance.

The reason why this entire shipping business on Naruto has been going on for over a decade and still going strong, making fans go absolutely mindless, about a story which is not even about romance, about things that are so effective and impactful that the fans feel completely consumed with it, to the extent where they have almost completely defined their life and philosophies on its basis, is because Kishimoto can write a good fucking romance. And that's what he did. That's the reason why ships are fighting with each other, because it's not just about Naruto the manga or Naruto the series, it's about how they imagine their own romance, it's a deep, profound feeling. That's why they have strong motivations and convictions that drive their insight into the story. That's why there is so much polarity in Naruto fandom. They are ready to jump to protect their ship at a moment's notice because that's how much it means to them.

Are you telling me that it just happened on its own? Just happy coincidences and random factors?

No.

A lot, a lot of thought goes behind closed doors of the studios. I know this because I work in the business. The reason why I was so astounded with Naruto's story because it was actually a brave story. A brave concept. In a shonen. Because I am ready to bet a million dollars I don't have on the fact that Kishimoto knew what he was doing. Anyone who enjoys poetry, or literature, or drama can, if not approve, appreciate Naruto and Sasuke's story. Because it's that deep. Because it's that impactful. Because it's that dark. Because it's that tragic. Because it's that tender. Because it's that painful.

Because it's so...

(Applause.)

Romantic.

These are all the ingredients of a well written romance. This is the reason why I don't care about other ships because I know that SNS is not random or a projection. It's mindfully and carefully and even tenderly written and developed.

Kishimoto's projection? Oh sure. It stands to reason that someone from his real life affected and inspired his favourite character through and through. He did say that he based some characters on certain people from his own life. And he did base Naruto on his own self, if partly. And the reason why I am able to surmise that he could have had a real crush on someone like Sasuke in real life, is because how clearly and insightfully written and contrasted the two characters are. So nuanced. They are like poetry, that's why I am so dazzled with them. Their story is so beautifully shaped by their characters and growth that it creates a clear impression of who they really are in the story. Soulmates. That's the whole crux of the story. They are written out to be this literally 'once in several lifetimes' pairing that finally broke the bonds of hate with bonds of love and changed the entire world and as a result, grew themselves. This is reflected in themselves what with Sasuke being propelled with hate and Naruto with love and coming together finally in a world that they made happen, for each other. And all of their parts and counterparts with which they think and move and function are so well in sync with each other that they lock together perfectly, like two pieces in a two piece puzzle box.

To say that this intricately and intelligently and tenderly written story is just like, an accident, my lord no!

No. The content that is finally syndicated on screens all over the world, especially with the type of response Naruto has enjoyed, and believe me when I say this, everything goes through many levels of scrutiny during production; to the extent of why would this camera angle work better than all the other angles, here's a flowchart and analysis of all of them and let's spend three days on deciding it while the producers are going crazy frustrated with fanatic creatives. This is a very common thing to happen in most serious studios.

Naruto stood out at the time it came out and reached a much larger audience for several reasons. But one of them was that it got the right exposure and was shown to critics outside of Japan, who could appreciate and admire it's cinematic beauty and this reached a different subset of audience. This extra effort is not consistent but it shines at so many places, because it's just good storytelling technically and aesthetically. And the reason why Naruto and Sasuke stand smack dab in the middle of that storytelling, is because Kishimoto told their story with so much feeling, it literally shows. The nuance is just crazy. Note that I am saying nuance and not subtext, even though it's there in heaps. But I want to make a distinction clearly. Like I can write pages and pages over it. Anyway, their story stands out because the nuances are so well defined and mindfully drawn by Kishi, that one can't help but wonder if Kishi actually experienced them. And they are just small things but still get a lot of exposure in the manga and anime. And because they are so small but clearly noticeable, it makes us stop in our tracks and think. And the thing is Kishimoto could have easily done without them and it would have made everything still seem undisturbed but he chose Not to. That kind of decision is a direct result of deep understanding, feeling and thinking in terms of forming a certain visual approach and meaning. The visual language Kishi has used to show their chemistry, their bond, their need for each other, is so tangible, like you could cut it with a knife, that it makes one feel something is right below the surface, simmering and about to explode, but you can't put your finger on what it exactly is. Until you start to think. And it takes some time.

You think that kind of writing is random? Are you out of your mind?

No, Kishi is a maniac. He pulled something that was not easy at all. He is a genius. He is also sadistic because he knows he didn't give us a resolution. Resolution is cathartic to viewers and the reason that nobody got any with Naruto and still not getting any from Boruto is making everyone go crazy. Fifteen years is a long time man. And I can bet my other non existent one million dollars on it. He owns a lot of rights over Naruto franchise, I don't think he can be cowed down to such an extent even by the studio. Kishi fought studios for a few significant scenes of Naruto and Sasuke, he is not unfeeling about them.

Maybe I am being a mere deductionist but more often than not, deduction is right. It's a valid form of acquiring knowledge. Sherlock is right more times than he is not.

Anyway, my point is, Kishi can write romance. Kishi can write very good romance. He could have chosen to remove some tropes and make Naruto and Sasuke either just brotherly or friendly. But he chose not to. A lot of people think that they are platonic. And I think I know why. But I don't. They are not platonic. They seem like they feel physically aware of each other, acutely so. they just don't know what it is. Maybe Sasuke does, Naruto doesn't. Kishi used also such common tropes to show this element, but just because it is in shonen and between two boys, y'all won't believe it. Don't you feel that palpable feeling, the simmering tension and emotion when they fight at the valley of the end both times? And it makes you think maybe it's just you, and what you are thinking can't be true because this is shonen and it would mean they are gay, let me tell you, no it's not you. It is Kishi. And it takes skill to write. Something like this is almost always used as a trope of unaddressed sexual tension in media. Pick any romantic drama of this genre, where 'hate turned to love' or 'two unlikely people who fall in love' and you would find it in almost every single one of them.

Why do you think Kishi designed it that way? You think with all the detail (action moves are literally inspired by real life martial arts, lighting, sound, editing, dialogues that sound like out of a Bronte novel), that was him just playing innocent?

No. No. No. And No!

He wrote SNS throughout Naruto and Shippuden and is still doing something of an extension of it that has made Boruto a weird and uncomfortable to watch family drama.

#sns #sns in boruto #sasunarusasu #sasunaru #sasuke #naruto uzumaki #narusasu #naruto analysis #kishimoto why

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brawltogethernow · 4 years

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So, I don't think I've ever asked you this... what IS the whole point of the Spider-Sense? It really seems like something that only exists for writers to ignore or work around when they want to inject Legit Tension into a story.

I’ve thought about this power so much, but never with an eye to defend its right to exist, so I needed to think about this. The results could be more concise.

Ironically, given the question, I have to say its main purpose is to ramp up tension. But it’s also a highly variable multitool that a skilled creative team can use for...pretty much anything. It does everything the writer wants it to, while for its wielder always falls just short of doing enough.

I went looking through my photos for a really generic, classic-looking example to use as an image to head this topic, but then I ran into the time Peter absolutely did not reimburse this man for his stolen McDonald’s, so have that instead.

A Scare Chord, But You Can Draw It

That one post that says the spider-sense is just super-anxiety isn’t, like, wrong. It’s a very anxious, dramatic storytelling tool originally designed for a very anxious, dramatic protagonist. I find it speaks to the overall tone of the franchise that some characters are functionally psychics, but with a psychic ability that only points out problems.

Spidey sense pinging? There’s danger, be stressed! Broken? Now the lead won’t even KNOW when there’s a problem, scary! Single character is immune to it? That’s an invisible knife in the dark oh my god what the fuck what the fU--

Like its counterpart in garden variety anxiety, the only time the spider-sense reduces tension is in the middle of a crisis. But in the wish fulfillmenty way that you want in an adventure story to justify exaggerated action sequences, the same way enhanced strength or durability does. Also like those, it would theoretically make someone much safer to have it, but it exists in the story to let your character navigate into and weather more dangerous situations.

For its basic role in a story, a danger sense is a snappy way to rile up both the reader and the protagonist that doesn’t offer much information beyond that it’s time to sit smart because shit is about to go down.

Spidey comic canon is all over the board in quality and genre, and it started needing to subvert its formulas before the creators got a handle on what those formulas even were, and basically no one has read anything approaching most of it at this point, so for consistent examples of a really bare bones use of this power in storytelling, I’d point to the property that’s done the best job yet of boiling down the mechanics of Spider-Man to their absolute most basic essentials for adaptation to a compelling monster of the week TV series.

Or as you probably know it, Danny Phantom. DON’T BOO, I’M RIGHT.

DP is Spider-Man with about 2/3 of the serial numbers filed off and no death (ironically), and Danny’s ghost sense is the most proof in the formula example of what the spidey sense is for: It’s a big sign held up for the viewer that says, “Something is wrong! Pay attention!” Effectively a visual scare chord. It’s about That Drama. And it works, which won it a consistent place in the show’s formula. We’re talking several times an episode here.

So why does it work?

It’s a little counterintuitive, but it’s strong storytelling to tell your audience that something bad is going to happen before it does. A vague, punchy spoiler transforms the ignorant calm before a conflict into a tense moment of anticipation. ...And it makes sure people don’t fail to absorb the beginning of said conflict because they weren’t prepared to shift gears when the scene did. Shock is a valuable tool, too, but treating it like a staple is how you burn out your audience instead of keeping them engaged. Not to go after an easy target, but you need to know how to manage your audience’s alarm if you don’t want to end up like Game of Thrones.

The limits of the spider-sense also keep you on your toes when handled by a smart writer. It tells Peter (everyone’s is a little different, so I’m going to cite the og) about threats to his person, but it doesn’t elaborate with any details when it’s not already obvious why, what kind, and from what. And it doesn’t warn him about anything else-- Which is a pretty critical gap when you zoom out and look at his hero career’s successes and failures and conclude that it’s definitely why he’s lived as long as he has acting the way he does, but was useless as he failed to save a string of people he’d have much rather had live on than him.

(Any long-running superhero mythos has these incidents, but with Peter they’re important to the core themes.)

And since this power is by plot for plot (or because it’s roughly agreed it only really blares about threats that check at least two boxes of being major, immediate, or physical), it always kicks in enough to register when the danger is bearing down...when it’s too late to actually do anything about it if “anything” is a more complex action than “dodge”.

Really? Not until the elevator doors started to open?

That Distinctive, Crunchy Spider Flavor

The spider-sense and its little pen squiggles go hand in hand with wallcrawling (and its unique and instantly identifiable associated body language) to make the Spider-Person powerset enduringly iconic and elevate characters with it from being generic mid-level super-bricks. Visually, but also in how it shapes the story.

I said it can share a narrative role with super strength. But when you end a fight and go home, super strength continues to make your character feel powerful, probably safer than they’d be otherwise, maybe dangerous.

The spider-sense just keeps blaring, “Something’s wrong! Something’s wrong! God, why aren’t you doing something about this!?”

Pretty morose thing to live with, for a safety net! Kind of a double edged sword you have there! Could be constantly being hyperattuned to problems would prime you for a negative outlook on life. Kind of seems like a power that would make it impossible for a moral person to take a day off, leading them into a beleaguered and resentful yet dutiful attitude about the whole superhero gig! Might build up to some of the core traits of this mythos, maybe! Might lead to a lot of fifteen minute retirement stories, or something. Might even be a built in ‘great responsibility’ alarm that gets you a main character who as a rule is not going to stop fighting until he physically cannot fight anymore.

Certainly not apropos of anything, just throwing this short lived barely-a-joke tagline up for fun.

One of my personal favorite things about stories with superpowers is keeping in mind how they cause the people who have them to act in unusual ways outside of fights, so when you tell me that these people have an entire extra sense that tells them when the gas in their house is leaking through a barely useful hot/cold warning system that never turns off, I’m like, eyes emojis, popcorn out, notebook open, listening intently, spectacles on, the whole deal.

It also contributes to Peter Parker’s personality in a way I really enjoy: It allows him to act like an irrational maniac. When you know exactly when a situation becomes dangerous and how much, normal levels of caution go out the window and absolutely nothing you do makes sense from an exterior standpoint anymore. That’s the good shit. I would like to see more exploration of how the non-Parker characters experiencing the world in this incredibly altered way bounce in response.

It’s also one of many tools in this franchise hauling the reader into relating more closely with the main character. The backbone of classic Spidey is probably being in on secrets only Peter and the reader know which completely reframe how one views the situation on the page. It’s just a big irony mine for the whole first decade. A convenient way to inform the reader and the lead that something is bad news that’s not perceivable to any other characters is youth-with-a-big-exciting-secret catnip.

Another point for tension, there, in that being aware of danger is not synonymous with being able to act on it. If there’s no visible reason for you to be acting strange, well...you’re just going to have to sit tight and sweat, aren’t you? Some gratuitous head wiggles never hurt when setting up that type of conflict.

Have I mentioned that they look cool? Simultaneously punchy and distinctive, with a respectable amount of leeway for artists to get creative with and still coming up with something easily recognizable? And pretty easy to intuit the meaning of even without the long-winded explanations common in the days when people wrote comics with the intent that someone could come in cold on any random issue and follow along okay, I think, although the mechanic has been deeply ingrained in popular culture for so long that I can’t really say for sure.

It was also useful back in the day when no artists drew the eyes on the Spider-Man mask as emoting and were conveying the lead’s expressions entirely through body language and panel composition. If you wiggle enough squiggles, you don’t need eyebrows.

Take This Handwave and Never Ask Me a Logistical Question Again

This ability patches plot holes faster than people can pick them open AND it can act as an excuse to get any plot rolling you can think of if paired with one meddling protagonist who doesn’t know how to mind their own business. Buy it now for only $19.99 (in four installments; that’s four installments of $19.99).

Why can a teenager win a six on one fight against other superhumans? Well, the spider-sense is the ultimate edge in combat, duh.

Why can Peter websling? Why doesn’t everyone websling? Well, the spider-sense is keeping him from eating flagpole when he violently flings himself across New York in a way neither man nor spider was ever meant to move.

How are we supposed to get him involved with the plot this week???? Well, that crate FELT dangerous, so he’s going to investigate it. Oh, dip, it was full of guns and radioactive snakes! Probably shouldn’t have opened that!

Yeah, okay, but why isn’t it fixing everything, then? Isn’t it supposed to be why Peter has never accidentally unmasked in front of somebody? ('Nother entry for this section, take a shot.) That’s crazy sensitive! How does he still have any problems!? Is everything bad that’s ever happened to characters with this powerset bad writing!? --Listen, I think as people with uncanny senses that can tell us whether we are in danger with accuracy that varies from incredible to approximate (I am talking about the five senses that most people have), we should all know better than to underestimate our ability to tune them out or interpret them wrong and fuck ourselves up anyway. I honestly find this part completely realistic.

*SLAPS ROOF OF SPIDER-SENSE* YOU CAN FIT SO MANY STORIES IN THIS THING

The spider-sense is a clean branch into...whatever. There is the exact right balance of structure and wishy-washiness to build off of. A sample selection of whatevers that have been built:

It’s sci-fi and spy gadgets when Peter builds technology that can interface with it.

It’s quasi-mystical when Kaine and Annie-May get stronger versions of it that give them literal psychic visions, or when you want to get mythological and start talking about all the spider-characters being part of a grand web of fate.

Kaine loses his and it becomes symbolic of a future newly unbound by constraints, entangled thematically with the improved physical health he picked up at the same time -- a loss presented as a gain.

Peter loses his and almost dies 782 times in one afternoon because that didn’t make the people he provoked when he had it stop trying to kill him, and also because he isn’t about to start “””taking the subway’’””’ “‘’“”to work”””’’” like some kind of loser who doesn’t get a heads up when he’s about to hit a pigeon at 50mph.

Peter’s starts tuning into his wife’s anxiety and it’s a tool in a relationship study.

It starts pinging whenever Peter’s near his boss who’s secretly been replaced by a shapeshifter and he IGNORES IT because his boss is enough of an asshole that that doesn’t strike him as weird; now it’s a comedy/irony tool.

Into the Spider-Verse made it this beautiful poetic thing connecting all the spider-heroes in the multiverse and stacked up a story on it about instant connection, loss, and incredibly unlikely strangers becoming a found family. It was also aesthetic as FUCK. Remember the scene where Miles just hears barely intelligible whispering that’s all lines people say later in the film and then his own voice very clearly says “look out” and then the room explodes?? Fuck!!!!

Venom becomes immune to it after hitchhiking to Earth in Peter’s bone juice and it makes him a unique threat while telling a more-homoerotic-than-I-assume-was-originally-intended story about violation and how close relationships can be dangerous when they go sour.

It doesn’t work on people you trust for maximum soap opera energy. Love the innate tragedy of this feature coming up.

IN CONCLUSION I don’t have much patience for writers who don’t take advantage of it, never mind feel they need to write around it.

#spiderman #peter parker #spiderverse #spidey #marvel #danny phantom #one day you'll see what i'm doing with it in the project i'm collabing on w/ my brother and then you'll all be sorry and hopefully impresse #mirrorfalls #asks answered #essays

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mugionthewater · 4 years

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Tsumugi Shirogane Deepdive: Prologue

I’m in a DR mood right now, and really enjoying revisiting Tsumugi in particular, so I thought I’d do a chapter-based retrospective focusing on all the cool Tsumugi material! A reread project especially rewarding for a character like Mugi, so I’m really excited.

In this series, I’m focusing a lot on all the foreshadowing, and also what we can extrapolate about Tsumugi’s true character along the way. I’ll be doing this chapter-by chapter, including the prologue as well as an installment for her Free Time Events.

Full spoilers for V3 under the cut.

The Pre-Prologue

We first see Tsumugi in the gym by the exisals to get their uniforms and their memories. Tsumugi herself has four lines of dialogue in this scene, nothing that particularly stands out, but there are a couple of things worth noting about how she (and everyone else) is dressed.

Kaede describes how she was kidnapped on her way to school, and it sure looks like that’s the case for almost everyone in the room. We’re used to seeing DR characters in flashy outfits that vaguely resemble school uniforms but actually reflect their individuality, so when the game first shows them in an ensemble lineup like this, it’s a lot more striking.

Not so much in this CG. While there are plenty of visual details that tell us about these characters (Saihara’s already hiding under a hat in his sprites; Iruma is revealing; Kiibo and Gonta are buttoned up and orderly, but Kaito’s shirt and jacket are undone to show a bold-colored undershirt), their uniforms look like they’re doing what uniforms are supposed to do: be bland and blend in.

What about Tsumugi? Tsumugi wears a basic uniform like everyone else, but this is where we get the game’s first indication that all is not what it seems with this girl. The clue is the blue. She is the only one in the lineup whose primary color isn’t a neutral tone. What’s more, it’s the same shade of blue Tsumugi is associated with throughout the game. Visually, part of her is already in character as Tsumugi Shirogane, SHSL Cosplayer.

Of course, there’s a much bigger item foreshadowing Tsumugi as the bad guy, which is that in advance of everyone getting their “memories”, the main emphasis is their new clothes delivered by the Monokubs.

There are a couple of reasons the clothes are significant. For starters, there’s a direct line to Tsumugi’s cosplay talent. For anyone inclined to suspect her before starting the game on account of her talent (and her general don’t-look-at-me-I’m-not-suspicious vibes), this is immediate theory fodder. This also primes the audience to look at the setting of V3 with a critical eye, between the contrast of the kids’ boring outfits and their flashy new ones and the Monokubs making explicit references to starting the “story“, there is an immediate suggestion of artifice that runs all the way down to their identities. Not for nothing is Kaede’s magical girl transformation visually similar to the memory light.

Another thing: pre-memory light, the person in the room whose outfit is the least uniform-y is Amami.

At the very least, it’s a look that’s noticeably more casual than what most of the cast is wearing. After Chapter 6, we know that Amami made it to the end of the 52nd Killing Game before he and Tsumugi were condemned to execution via participating in the next killing game- which he seems to be realizing in this scene- so it’s possible they’re coming right off the heels of the last killing game. It’s an ongoing mystery what his relationship with her was like up to this point? Does he know she’s the ringleader? Is “Tsumugi Shirogane“ anything like the person she was in the last killing game, assuming she was even there?

I’m not confident Tsumugi really switched to a new persona for the 53rd Killing Game, even though fake identities is kind of her whole deal. I’ll get more into why in this series, but I think a lot of the character we see in the game is the “real“ Tsumugi, to the extent that such a person even exists.

Introducing Tsumugi Shirogane: Professional Cosplayer, Sex God

If you go back and read the promotional blurbs for V3, Tsumugi’s mention her tendency to get so lost in thought that she’ll ignore everyone around her. This little trait isn’t super weird at first, until you realize later in the game that she doesn’t carry the shtick past the first chapter. It’s like she wrote the character blurbs herself, realized everybody has a wacky “thing“ that would come up immediately in the introductions, and came up with an act of low-grade wackiness so she’d fit in in the prologue.

This is great stuff, looking back. It gives an intro in brief to the many contradictions of Tsumugi Shirogane. On one hand, it’s overly phony and performative. But on the other hand, there’s a core of truth there about her character- she really is someone who stays in her thoughts without a care for anyone around her, albeit less in the cute way and more in the horrifying sociopath kind of way.

It also tells us something important about Tsumugi’s commitment to the Killing Game. She cares about maintaining the integrity of this world and its characters, but is pretty indifferent about maintaining a role for herself. She doesn’t give a shit about having a storyline or even much of a character. The pleasure of DR comes from what she can get as an observer/consumer.

This is entirely consistent with what she tells Kaede and Saihara about herself and her feelings about cosplay in the actual introduction.

This is the ethos that makes me wonder how dishonest Tsumugi really is. She’s dishonest as hell, of course, but given that she later applies the entire DR LARP reality show experience as “cosplay“, what she says about her convictions largely rings true. She clearly cares about making her tribute an authentic one (lol), which extends to her being the primary creative director inside her fiction bubble.

It partly explains why she spends the next five chapters being little more than furniture. In her mind, her job as a producer precludes her from being a character in her own right, because doing anything to pull focus is tantamount to self-promotion, and, well, that’s an abuse of power that gets in the way of the story!

(sidebar: there are some fascinating things we could speculate about what she says about cosplay relates to her relationship with the rest of Team Danganronpa and the outside world, but this post is getting long, so I’ll save it for another day)

Like everything else about Tsumugi, it’s not until the end that you can fully contextualize how sinister she’s being here. What she passes off as a cute passion for cosplay is actually a bone-deep sense of consumer entitlement taken to a logical extreme. Tsumugi is a more vicious indictment of terrible nerds and a selfish fandom than anything Hifumi Yamada could embody. She loves DR so much, and feels so strongly that nobody should be participating in DR with any corrupt motives, that anything less than the real deal is unacceptable. To this end, she will happily transplant entirely new emotional realities on the others so that even the emotional torture of the Killing Game is authentic. In Tsumugi’s selfish nerd brain, this is the important part of the drama of Killing Games, and anyone who disagrees with her approach is a fake fan who doesn’t deserve any kind of creative control.

Anyways, there’s more to say about Tsumugi’s introduction, so moving on

Some pretty overt foreshadowing here. In the Japanese script, her reference is ep. 53 of Kiteretsu Daihyakka instead of Doraemon. I like the change for the dub, even though it’s pretty obvious. Someone who knows DR primarily through the dub is less likely to know about the franchise’s connection to Doraemon, anyway.

Tsumugi also points out the weird dragon statue in the hallway that will lead into a new part of the school down the line. It’s a neat little metatextual trick on the audience, because it’s the kind of thing that’s not suspicious at all on a first playthrough. She’s an NPC in a DR game, of course her dialogue is gonna point out plot devices that will be relevant shortly, but on a reread you know she’s being deliberate about it. This is far from the last time this kind of thing happens with Tsumugi.

Lastly, this charming observation from Kaede about why she’s maybe not so plain afterall.

Kaede puts it in the worst way possible, but it’s interesting that she, a person with a generally good read on people, decides immediately that there’s more to Mugi than meets the eye. Not only that, she relates it specifically to an audience spending a lot of time looking at her. If she were any less gross about it, Kaede making this kind of observation would land like a big clue.

This leaves us with the biggest question from the prologue: if Kaede wasn’t too busy being horny and gay, could she have put two and two together and thwarted the ringleader?

There is SO much more to say about Tsumugi, so I’m really excited to dig deep into other chapters!

#tsumugi shirogane #ndrv3 #meta

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sanstropfremir · 3 years

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episode 9 baby!!! dear lord that was a lot!!

frankly, i'm still in shock that i full on manifested an opera stage, AND it was a rock opera stage at that! plus i got a jazz stage AND a taemin stage??? if they’re pulling out all my favourites now then what on earth are they gonna do in the finale??? this was a very overwhelming crop of stages, i thought i was going to be prepared, but oh no i was not prepared. i'm just going to get right into it because this one is gonna be long and i have many words. i'll discuss in airing order first, and then put my personal rankings for this round at the end.

btob

costume

changsub, you absolute king. spectacular. stunning. incredible. zoot suit riot playing in my brain on repeat. will i finally get the zoot suit revival of my fucking dreams instead of this current drab ill-fitting suit trend? for those who are wondering why in the fuck changsub is dressed like that and what on earth i’m talking about, the specific cut of suit that he’s wearing is called a zoot suit, which were popular in mexican, black and italian american communities in the 30s and 40s, until they were outlawed by the united states war production board as a fabric rationing method as part of the war effort in 1942. there was a huge amount of mob violence surrrounding the wearing of them (there were actual zoot suit riots) as they were direct counter culture fashion to the predominant drab trends of white americans at the time. i'm actually very impressed they got a proper (modernized) cut of zoot suit instead of just putting him in an oversized one; there are actually specific structural differences. the pegged trouser legs, large should pads, and knee length single breasted jacket are key features, and they were often in much more flashy fabrics than a pinstripe, but they get points for effort. i wish they had put all of them in zoot suits but he’s playing the ‘lead’ actor so i will begrudgingly forgive them.

eunkwang those are the stupidest sleeve garters ive ever seen i love them never take them off. they’re like someone decided to repurpose a suspender in the worst way. excellent. i do love that they’ve got three of them in oxford saddle shoes, another great touch.

love the three piece and the fedora* on peniel. it's also in a relatively close period cut; waistcoasts (vests) were generally cut much higher in the neck pre-war, we only start seeing the neckline slide down in the 60s (i think? i don’t remember when exactly). also love to see a proper sleeve and jacket length, it's good practice to have at least a finger’s width of sleeve cuff visible ahead of the jacket sleeve when hanging at rest. also looks like there’s french cuffs on everyone, which is also great.

minhyuk in his slutty lowneck shirt....thank you. in addition to the zoot suit revival i would also like a revival of those ultra low necklines on mens’ shirts from like 2010-2011. i don’t think those are the same boots from the backdoor stage but those are some beautifully cut boots. i also loved the little details of his crewmember look, especially the chunky watch and the string bracelets; those are super realistic, i know so many crew with them and i had several for many years. and who doesn’t love a visible button fly?

none of any of the other costumes are period in any way shape or form but i’m forgiving it because there’s several layers of meta in this stage, and they explicitly based it on la la land, even though we don’t respect la la land in this house. do i wish they had gone more strictly period with at least the jazz club ‘actors’ a little more? absolutely, but i'm not mad about it.

set

again we’ve got a good delineation of the two different ‘stages,’ there’s the club itself in the smaller stage and the soundstage set in the larger space. you can pretty clearly see all the ‘pieces’ of the set on the soundstage, especially the obvious set painting techniques on false prosc frame and the window facade from that first little scene. also the you can see the castors (wheels) on all the setpieces too, which is another nice little versimilitudinous** (triple word score!) touch, as old hollywood movies were made still using theatre stagecraft techniques.

i love how the visual shorthand for ‘this is a set wink wonk’ is just...leaving a ladder on stage. i see it all the time and it's so funny. it doesn’t always make sense because as soon as there’s actors on set the ladders are the first thing cleared because actors cannot be trusted, but yes there are always ladders, so. also psa ladder safety is no joke, please be careful on ladders.

nice streamline of the mnet deco into the club. i’m consistently surprised at how well the designers have been able to mask it or use it to their advantage, because in the normal kingdom stage lighting it is SO obvious and stylistic that it always sticks out.

i'm going to ignore the fact that they implied changsub and miyeon were drinking wine out of martini glasses.

lighting

no complaints, it does its job. everything is visible and super clear. love that the ‘scene’ changes are made through the lighting, it's a really simple and effective device to change atmosphere. purple/blue/amber are the most flattering colours on human skin and that’s why you see it so commonly in stage lighting. also blue/lavendar is the best way to show nighttime/moonlight.

really nice and subtle projection work, especially with the billboard bit and the blue moon sign in the club. despite being obviously meta/’world breaking’ it’s actually very seamless and fits well into the flow of the stage.

sound

i love love love the big band feel in the intro, combined with the piano lead. very duke ellington, as all things should be.

no complaints. i love big band. i love eunkwang’s voice. i have nothing else to say.

staging

i LOVE this movie within a movie within a performance meta nonsense! it's such a fun concept and it is exactly what i wanted ikon’s first round stage to be! i also love to see btob consistently coming up with concepts that are inventive and fun and allow them to showcase their technical performance skills without the aerobics the younger groups are putting themselves through. it provides a really lovely variety and it just goes to show that you can make impressive, dramatic stages without having to be serious or ‘dark.’

i do wish they had leaned into the band director/lead singer with eunkwang a bit more; this could have been a really excellent place for a tap number a la the nicholas brothers or an homage to cab calloway. i know i know this was meant to be la la land themed but la la land is a cheap and whitewashed version of jazz and look me right in the eyes and tell me this isn’t the greatest tap routine of all time. i know i’ve typed this out somewhere before but la la land is just a conglomeration of old hollywood tropes and so stylistically cheap that this would have such a better visual core if they had actually looked back at the real old hollywood musicals like stormy weather. even singing in the rain and an american in paris have such phenomenal visuals and are really beautiful examples of the scope you can pull off with a limited technical capacity and sticking to these old techniques.

now that i'm thinking about it, oh my GOD i would DIE for a lindy hop routine in kpop PLEASE. i know it would never happen because kpop doesn’t like partner dancing and not a single kpop boy has the chops but oh you think fourth gen has too many acrobatics?

this got off track but i think you see my point.

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ateez

costume

these are really sharply cut suits. and the detail work on the beading??? so beautiful. i'm disappointed that they gave me a rock opera stage without the true ridiculousness of rock opera costuming, because they could have pushed this a lot farther if they really wanted. a tragic lack of gay little outfits, seonghwa’s lace choker is just not enough! two favourite suits: hongjoong’s and yunho’s.

that being said i do actually really like these. this stage is actually very modern opera with a kpop twist and i'm a little surprised by that? i continue to be impressed by the ateez team who are clearly doing their research.

i'm absolutely not going back through their stages to check all the choreography but i wonder if you can track all the ‘wound’ placements to places they’ve been ‘hit.’ i wouldn’t put it past them to have put that thought in but also i’m not expecting that much either.

who is this white grim reaper bdsm executioner chain arm man. where did he come from. i have no idea and i love it.

why is honjoong blindfolded. it was such a fast beat, if youre gonna blindfold someone give it a little longer and some more obvious narrative weight!

seonghwa does that quickchange, runs across that massive stage to the smaller set, and gets into places in like 45 seconds. it's not the hardest quickchange in the world but still, under a minute is fast for any quickchange, especially when there’s travel time involved. i think the fastest, most complex quickchange i ever did was in university which was a 50s cocktail dress into a flannel and culottes with a shoe, hair, and jewelry change in 35 seconds. and that took three dressers. quickchanges are always impressive. the added bonus of this review being later is that i can specifically reference that you can see him book it the fuck off stage in the full cam!

cute moment with the backup dancers dressed in costumes from the previous stages. i'm assuming this is a time travel reference? i'll get more into my thoughts on this in the staging section. regardless, love to see that iconic seonghwa moment again.

set

this is such a restricted space! they really pared down their dancing space with those staircases and ....arms? honestly i have NO clue what these are supposed to be. the only thing i can maybe think of is flying buttresses??? but why?? i mean, i'm 90% sure theyre just there for drama and i agree but i do still have questions.

there’s a lot of moving parts in this set? the buttresses, and the upstage centre staircase. i don’t think the staircase is totally automated because i spotted some dancers securing it in place, but it’s still a moving part. i do really like that we get that expanding upwards energy, because it's really tough to get functional level movement in this kind of a performance, mostly because of its length and because it moves so quickly. so seeing the downward vertical movement and then the upward movement was actually a really nice visual contrast that made use of how tall those fucking ceilings are, and the fact that they had less horizontal space. in sort of similar way to sf9’s jealousy stage, using long, narrow vertical lines really makes it feel like a castle space. the interiors of castles, especially the really old ones, are a lot smaller than you think they would be.

i’ve actually seen that type of small house/tent/thing several times in various types of performances before, but i think this is the first time i’ve seen it used as a time travel device (other than in the say my name mv). aesthetically it's a bit incongruent but i dont really mind because i'm used to watching rock operas that look a lot weirder than this.

lighting

there is so much happening. i have NO clue what the projections are doing. i dont hate it though, so that’s a plus? there’s a clear-ish colour arc even if it does get a bit funky in the middle, which is why the projections dont feel as insanely distracting as some of the other stages we’ve seen.

the climax is a perfect example of how to light a busy stage with primarily red but still maintain clarity on the performers. a little bit of red goes a long way; the spark stage from last week would have looked so much better if they had done what the ateez designers did here.

sound

i know it's only ode to joy, but answer already gets my motor running and then i get so gassed by the guitars and then by the time those vocals come in i'm inconsolable. i don’t know why i wasn’t expecting a rock opera stage but i'm so glad i got that surprise because i genuinely love rock operas so much. it's two of the most dramatic genres in music, what more could you possibly want?

staging

the choreo for answer is so goofy that I'm kinda glad this was mostly terrible mnet boom shots. i love it, but you can't deny that it's goofy. i spotted a couple of moves from their other choreos as well?

choreographing dance fights is just as difficult as choreographing real fights and i think they did a fairly good job here. i think it was a solid mix of dance and conflict that erred on the side of dramatic rather than accurate and i prefer that over trying to be ‘realistic.’ i’ve only ever seen one truly realistic fight scene on stage and that was for a deeply naturalist play (boring and a waste of the medium), but the best fight scene i’ve ever seen was in the prague national ballet’s adaptation of kafka’s the trial where three ballet dancers beat the absolute snot out of the main character with the most beautiful leg extensions. that whole show was probably one of the best pieces of dance i’ve ever seen, holy fuck it was so good.

despite how insane the music and the visuals were going, i actually really liked how sedate this was, on the part of ateez’s performance. there was a really sophisticated and resigned energy from them that is very different from what we’ve previously seen and i think that was a pretty admirable risk to take. reaching the top and then throwing away the crown? especially in a competition where every other stage has involved stealing crowns or royalty and there’s a group competing that got here through that very concept? that shows a real maturity, peace of mind, and foresight that i did not at all expect from a bunch of 22 year olds.

here we come to a very interesting comparison. both ateez and tbz are very heavily leaning on previously established group lore. we all know my thoughts on why it isn’t working for tbz, but here’s why i think it is working for ateez: it's because it doesn’t matter to the audience’s understanding of the stage. i had absolutely no fucking clue what was going on the first time i watched this, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying the music and all the weird shit they were doing. i totally believed that they understood what was going on. there’s a loose enough established conflict right at the beginning that draws us in, and really it doesn’t matter who they're fighting because they win in the end. the key here is that they’re so earnest. they believe 100% in every move they make on that stage. there’s no winks to camera, there’s not a drop of irony. they really deeply care about the ridiculousness of it all and that’s what makes it work. i sure as fuck dont know what’s going on, but i can see that they do, and i trust that. this is what i meant when i talked about convincing the audience you belong on stage in my stage presence post. i’ve never once believed that juyeon was anything other than an idol. he’s talented and very beautiful and he may occasionally stand on that stage like he owns it but it's always as juyeon. as an idol. but when hongjoong flaps around in that gigantic fur coat i 100% believe he’s a pirate captain. I believe he’s a punk rebel leader. i believe him a resigned king. there’s always a level of irony you have to fight as a performer because we all start from a place of disbelief. acting is not just lying to the audience, it's lying to yourself too. and if you succeed in convincing yourself? well, you’re already halfway to convincing us.

i checked it out because i wanted to see if they did the blindfold how i expected them to and was genuinely surprised by hongjoong’s fancam. the boy is EMOTING even when he knew the camera wasn’t on him; that’s a real dedication to craft.

ok i'm finished talking about this stage, this is over two pages in my document, there’s so many things i have not covered here but that’s fine, i'm quite sure any further thoughts will end up out there at some point.

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sf9

costume

let’s get it out of the way......crop top. crop top? crop top. crop top.

ok, besides the crop top, i think i might actually like the backup dancer outfits more...? i find mannequin adjacent looks really fascinating and i thought there was a lot more they could have done here in connecting the two thematically. i actually think a change of costume on the boys would have been very interesting, especially because there was a lot of inference and direct reference to changes of colour.

ALL the backup dancers are wearing the same wig and i LOVE that.

special mention zuho’s.....jacket? the right idea but it absolutely should have been one of those extreme french cut bodysuits, you COWARDS. don’t come at me with this ‘male version of venus’ if you don’t have your whole torso out! come on!

set

not sure if this is meant to be a department store, a factory, or a white cube gallery. honestly you could make the case that they’re all the same place anyways. more on this later.

i loved the movator and wish they had used it more! that sequence was so good and they could have done some more interesting repetition sequences to further highlight the ‘sameness’/the breaking of that sameness.

i feel like the set could have been used more as a whole? i would have loved to see some mannequin interactions with those boxes, because all they did was dump colour everywhere.

....why did they feel the need to include the rain bit? i know it's likely because it's in the mv and at the 2018 dream concert taemin does perform move in the rain, but with the standing still and the box walls with the words it just looks like a department store ad. which i...dont think is what they were intending?

lighting

nothing really to say here. it has a similar feel to the mayfly rap stage, which is fine because the lighting for that was good. i could tell what was going on all the time and that’s the most important part. notable standouts are the lips sequence, that's fun use of pop iconography and very effective, and the scanning lasers at the beginning.

the repeating sequence in the edm dance break is actually done pretty simply, it's just what happens when you point a camera that’s livestreaming to a monitor directly at that monitor. it's a very cool effect and it was neat to see it used intentionally, especially with the handheld leds.

actually i also really liked the lightbox tables, those were cool.

sound

the remix was fine for the most part, it was about what i expected it to sound like. i did however greatly dislike that unnecessary edm break in the middle. what was the point of that? it didn’t add anything to the overall sound or arc of the stage because it was SO out of place. there was no connective tissue around it.

oh i was also not a fan of the effect on zuho’s mic. no one else had a discernible vocal effect so it felt a little out of place. also for some reason his cadence and tone right at the end made me think of some of the voices that bo burnam uses for his vocal masque sketches/songs, especially repeat stuff, weirdly? took me right the fuck out of it. i listened to it again after i slept and i’m still getting it, so maybe i’m just going insane so best ignore this part.

staging

loved the mannequin tree, not a clue why it was there.

do actually think this is a successful cover because it does what i was hoping it would, which is take move completely out of the taemin context and put it into an entirely new one. however, i’m really struggling to figure out what exactly that new context is? and what theyre trying to say with it?

obviously they went for a ‘show your own colours/individuality’ vibe, like i said in the set section, where exactly is this supposed to be? from the start i get factory/mechanized environment, which is fine and grand because mannequins and making repetitive motions and products and all that, makes sense. but then there’s stacked shelving type units happening and curtains and that combined with the mannequins give me pretty big department store vibes, which is also fine, because that’s still a comment on commercialization and the mass production of product. but then we get to the movator and the repetitive movements of the dancers say pretty clearly factory, but the lighting and projections are very pop art referential, plus combining that with the white set, just makes me think of an art gallery. so now is this a comment on the commercialization and commidification of contemporary art? are they making a statement about being ‘real’ artists among the others who have lost the critical understanding of why pop art was even a thing in the first place? and then the rain bit at the end literally looks like a department store ad, so are they then making another statement that they still are that packaged product? maybe the episode has more clarity in it but i’m genuinely a bit baffled by what the underlying statement is here.

i suspect it is not as deep as i'm making it, but i did say that i was likely to be hyper critical of this stage AND i am a grad student, so here we are.

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tbz

costume

ok of all the ‘fourth gen’ style costumes we’ve seen, i actually like these ones more than most. i'm not entirely clear on the theme but i'm assuming it's meant to be post apocalyptic, and i'll take that.

backup dancers in black!!! we’re beyond this!!!

this will be a running theme with this stage, but i’m disappointed these don’t have more depth.

set

compared to every other stage, the set here seems especially plain. there’s so little set dec that it's disappointing. i do like the movement of the pieces themselves combined with the blocking; that first slide underneath the arches was slick and i would have liked to have seen more of that.

yea ok the big snake was cool and also a fairly complex build, but the transitions around it were a bit awkward for my tastes. especially the turn around, why did they even show that at all? you have control over what the audience sees, you can totally not show scenic transitions. skz were super smart about hiding theirs in last week’s episode.

also if you have a bigass puppet like that, i wanna see some more movement from it! it doesn’t have to be complex, we literally just saw a kraken balloon arm wave around aimlessly, but at least there was movement! that snake had a long ass body, why didn’t they at least take a pseudo dragon dance movement with it, that would have been such fun to watch with the iridescent scales. there was a lot of opportunity here!

lighting

i don’t hate it but also.... not a lot to say about it on the whole.

there were two really smart ideas here, the first being the front projection section, which i was SO glad to see! i explained in a previous review, but the projections in kingdom are not actually projections per se, because they’re actually massive led screens. there are two common types of projections in performance, rear projection and front projection. rear projection is when the projector is behind the screen, and front projection is ‘normal’ projection. rear projection can produce a crisper image because you have full control of the light values, because the projector is in a separate room from the performance space. but the downsides are that the projector has to be in a separate room from the performance space. so if you’re short on real estate, it's not ideal. front projection is much more common, because the tech is a lot cheaper and easier to access, especially now, and it requires less real estate because you can ceiling mount about the audience (you can move a projector wherever, this is just the most common spot in commercial theatres). but! in order to get an actually crisp image, you have to be really careful with your light bounce. it’s exactly the same principle as how you kinda can't see a projected screen when you have all the lights turned on, but when you turn them off it's a lot clearer. front projection works best in pitch dark, so when you use it in a theatre you gotta be smart about it. i use front projection a lot in my personal art practice as a singular light source, and that’s what tbz did here in that traveling/snake intro sequence. it’s a really fun technique that they used as a good gimmick because it’s not something we’ve seen before, and you get some great shadow effects because the projector is throwing light directionally at the performers (they have it set up close to the floor, it’s probably on a wheeled cart of some kind). however i did not like the snake intro. a bit too cheesy and out of place, especially because the asset quality didn’t match the rest of landscapes that we have been seeing.

the second smart idea, which is partially also a set and blocking thing but whatever, was that final image of the eclipse within the circle architecture with all the members standing in front of it. it was a great shot and a great ending pose, but it felt like a concept photo. like someone had that image as the idea that they then built the stage around, instead of a narrative first and then imagery after.

sound

this remix had SO much promise! those first two minutes were SO GOOD. i love that dirty discordant strings bit, it's gross and right up my alley. but it really fell off in the back half and i'm sad about that.

staging

i'm sorry tbz but.....what did you actually do differently than exo here? with the exception of the continual game of thrones references? nothing here felt transcendentally different from the original monster. and especially coming RIGHT after sf9’s move, which did go beyond its original context. this feels more like an awards show stage cover than a stage at the level of the others we’ve seen just this episode.

again like with the skz stage, there’s no conflict here. no tension. yes they do a great job covering the dance but it just isn’t enough! this is obviously personal preference and i'm sure lots of people liked the fact that it was uncomplicated, but even just a hint of narrative tension could have pushed this into more engaging territory. and if they didn’t want to do that, i would have loved to see them make up for that with extra visual spectacle. this is the no limits round! ikon is putting a full jungle on stage and these are grey cubes!

i think this is a perfect example of what i talked about at the end of my tbz section in my episode four review; this is a good performance, there are good elements at play and good ideas at their genesis, but the core of the issue is that nothing about this is transformative. all of the ideas here are just exaggerations of the original song. fuck, the snake was even IN the mv! and they didn’t even include the best part which is the lip chains! ive said before and i'll say it again; being a good artist has two steps, the first is understanding the material and its context, and the second is elevating the material from that context and synthesizing something new. tbz are really good at the first step, but terrible at the second.

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ranking

btob - the cleanest and the most fun of the round. everything i wanted.

sf9 - fun and a good cover, despite being conceptually baffling.

ateez - very extra dramatic nonsense with an unexpected dose of sincerity. and it’s rock opera, of course i love it.

skz - fun, with some good thematic devices but generally lacking in arc. also australian accents, that’s an automatic ding.

tbz - honestly the first two minutes of the remix and the costume are holding this above 6th. it just wasn’t fully formed.

ikon - aesthetically this is a great set design and although i do love the opening and closing moments, everything else scrapes me the wrong way. super personal preference here, i’m not expecting anyone else to agree with me.

i feel like my rankings were probably pretty easy to guess if you’ve been around reading the reviews for long enough. i do have very specific tastes after all. i know sf9 ranked first in the episode but i have no idea what the other slots are. i’ll find out when i watch the episode in a couple of days, but i think yea a first for sf9 is fair. i do think its mostly because it’s a taemin song and you have to do something horrendous in order to fuck up a taemin song, but there is a lot of thought and work that went into that stage.

ok i'm done now, sorry this was later than usual, but i was busier and there were four stages that i had to review. also technical difficulties because tumblr is a garbage platform and nothing works properly. comments/questions/opinions always welcome, i know i didn't expand on a couple of points that i could have so hopefully y'all have some thoughts too!

* the type of hat that ~society~ has told you is a fedora is actually a trilby. what peniel is wearing is a real fedora, i felt the need to correct this unjust hat malignment.

** meaning ‘the appearance of being true or real.’ you do sometimes hear it used by normal people, but it’s more commonly used as a descriptor in film and theatre. it’s also one of the five rules of neoclassical theatre, which are: versimilitude, purity of form, five act structure, decorum, and purpose. the most prominent playwrights from that era are moliere and racine if youre interested in what those look like in an actual text.

#kingdom #kingdom review #btob #ateez #stray kids #the boyz #sf9 #tumblr is so broken it would NOT let me save this as a draft #does my constant hyperlinking make you angry tumblr? too bad im gonna keep doing it #i played in a jazz band in school for seven years #which is another indicator as to why i am like this #one of the first songs i remember learning was zoot suit riot #i have very strong memories of yelling RIOT during performances #i will however forever question the logic of our band teacher making us learn a song written by 'the cherry poppin daddies'#christ on a bicycle this is TEN pages #and it took a full eight hours last night and then i did like two hours of editing after i woke up #maybe i should go back to bed #ah i forgot to tag ikon again lmao #ikon #kpop analysis #text #if there are any spelling errrors do not tell me im tired of reading this #im pretty sure this is my longest review so far i decided to hate myself and did a wordcount #its 5.2K you're welcome you better get a snack for this one #i hope this is an interesting read for people ive lost all objectivity at this point #pls enjoy my semi-comprehensible word vomit!

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kdramacrybaby · 5 years

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Hotel del Luna (2019)

Genre: Fantasy, Dark Fantasy, Romance, Horror, Mystery, Supernatural

Synopsis: Hotel del Luna is not like other hotels. This hotel is a resting place for souls that are on their way to the afterlife. The hotel is run by Jang Man-Wol who is not quite a spirit yet not quite alive. Her staff consists of souls who are staying behind to see their personal grudges to end before they pass to the afterlife. When a new human manager is lured into working for the hotel, things start to change as Man-Weol’s past life suddenly starts interfering with her present.

Episode info: 16 episodes / Runtime around 80 minutes

Lead cast: Le Ji-eun (Jang Man-Wol), Yeo Jin-goo (Koo Chan-Seong), Shin Jung-geun (Kim Seon-bi), Bae Hae-sun (Choi Seo-hee), Pyo Ji-hoon (Ji Hyun.Joong), Kang Mi-na (Jung Soo-Jung/Kim Yoo-Na)

Link to watch: You can watch on Netflix, Viki or Dramacool

Drama rec masterlist

Oh wow. The first thing I noticed not even halfway through the first episode is that it’s such a visually stunning drama! Every camera angle, every set, every costume, and even the lighting of each scene feels like it’s shot as its own masterpiece. I can’t quite explain it, but you’ll see it for yourself if you watch it. It’s gorgeous.

I saw a lot of gifs from this drama and thought it looked interesting - I was not disappointed at all! The overall idea of a hotel for ghosts is in my opinion pretty brilliant, and I really loved their execution of it all with very clear ‘rules’ of how this universe works. 10/10 for concept and execution.

Warning 1: From the gifs, I hadn’t seen anything but a pretty lighthearted drama (stupid me for not actually reading the genres before watching) but this drama does contain some (to me at least) very genuine horror scenes that actually left me pretty frightened. So if there are any scaredy-cats out there like me, you can watch this drama, just keep a pillow ready for when they bust out the real evil souls. Did I have to sleep with a nightlight one time? Yes, yes I did. I hate horror movies 😂 They have a lot of humor though and lots of fluff too, the horror is like 10% of this drama, so in my opinion, it’s worth it!

Warning 2: This paragraph will contain a few spoilers about the ending. So if you don’t want to know the overall feel of the ending, don’t read this through. __ From the whole set-up of this plot, it becomes pretty clear from early on how this drama will end. And I tell you - keep the tissues ready. I bawled my way through the last episode until I had a headache. There are only bittersweet endings in this. They couldn’t really have ended it any other way and still kept it believable, so I get it, but it hurts. __

Spoilers over, let’s talk characters! Because damn you come to love these people so much. Every single character you meet has too much depth and personality and growth, it’s incredible to watch. Their backstories are slowly revealed to you throughout the drama to explain why they do as they do, and you watch them grow with their realizations and mistakes. I was honestly blown away. Why can American shows not do it like this?

Man, these dramas keep showing up and making a mess of my favorites list. I have so many faves by now that the word has almost lost its meaning because there are so many 😂. But this has definitely made its way up to the big boys at the top!

#hotel del luna #kdrama review #kdrama rec

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des-gallagher-production-process · 3 years

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Project Presentation - Concept 3

For the third and final concept [Forgotten] which is a drama comedy based on a global conspiracy to cover up the secrets of Ireland's most northwestern county Donegal. The film is set in an alternate reality where the county of Donegal has been essentially removed from the map after a mass exodus in the later decades of the 20th century where a majority of the county's residents emigrated from their homes from either a total collapse of society within the county and government persuasion to move else where due to unexplained and suspicious activity that had not been revealed to the public. This encounters theories such as the 'Mandela Effect' and the 'Butterfly Effect'. The Mandela effect is the recent phenomenon of a number of people remembering the same and consistent but inaccurate piece of information - people misremembering moments from history, iconic logos and brand appearances. Meanwhile the Butterfly Effect reflects a chain reaction that occurs from the smallest actions or events which results to consequences that may effect the larger population, perhaps in some circumstances could be the outcome in creating one life and possibly ending another.

I created a few visual references in a previous project which I made a few months ago, so this idea was bandied about in my head for a while since discussing the concept with a friend (Thanks Barry! :D) which I reconfigured and altered to build a world of conspiracy with reason and motivation for this peculiar and surreal situation that differs greatly from our own world but adds commentary on the topic of rural area neglect, emigration and other such issues that contribute to the decline of less populated areas and communities that are sometimes unable to sustain themselves.

These images have been altered to appear that the physical land area of Donegal had disappeared from not just the map but existence in general (this is just a visual representation of the idea and premise, not a definitive answer).

A few questions I wanted to answer and delve deeper into is the background and lore of this altered reality and how thing came to be.

Is it gone or just forgotten about and why?

It is not physically gone, it's still there just hidden in plain sight and left behind by everyone else in the country as it has been largely forgotten about and at this stage, people practically just pretending it doesn't exist with it not being in any way relevant or within anyone's particular interest to pay any attention to it or batten an eye lid towards it with it not having much significance... or so what most people may believe.

How did this happen?

I spent a bit of time pondering over what could be a somewhat reasonable but intriguing backstory that adds a good element of mystery to this case, leaving our main protagonist wanting to delve deeper into finding answers on a mostly undocumented part of Irish history, where this was more so a case of natural decline that happened in a very subtle way in front of their eyes and never took any notice.

The Lore and Background

In this world, everything within this reality remains the same until a notable moment in the 1960's when then Taoiseach Sean Lemass who made a deal with famous descendant of Irish emigrants JFK who returned to his family's native homeland in 1963 to strike a deal in using a piece of land in rural Ireland that could be utilized to test nuclear and technological experiments and other such government activity (like the infamous Area 51) in preparation for the cold war where tensions were already high. From the Irish government's point of view, they would prosper from major payments from America and other such benefits for loaning them the land for conducting their private work. Plus saving money on transport, infrastructure and other such expenditure required for maintaining services in Donegal which included stripping away rail lines, train services and incentives for major businesses to relocate out of the county.

These historic circumstances would thus cause a series of events to unfold and lead to multiple key figures to be raised in other parts of the country and taking an alternative route/career path than what they did in our reality. Some of these people may even be unborn due to the butterfly chain reaction effect. Other such events may never even occur such as Donegal winning the All-Ireland Football Final in 1992 and 2012 along with other notable sporting and historic occasions that have happened in connection with Donegal in the past 30 to 40 years.

How do things stand in the present day?

At the time period of this short film's setting (2016-2021), Donegal is essentially a blackspot on the map, with little to no light from satellite images of Ireland's night sky - cut off from the rest of society, a no go area surrounded by large barriers with large painted on landscapes of green fields and hills in a dystopian like world with large mirrors reflecting the Irish countryside, portraying a sort of illusion and deflecting from the issues at hand. The odd helicopter, van and lorry are seen entering the desolate region but it is mostly an abandoned wasteland without any known inhabitants. Nationwide gossip and speculation has murmured talk of it being barren for a number of different factors, such as pollution but no real definitive answer has been decided on, investigations into the current state of the county has never been conducted either as the public are left in the dark of its status but don't really care.

With Donegal being the 'ultimate mystery', the main setting of the film would obviously be outside the county in another part of Ireland - this will either be a rural and/or urbanized area. A few colours that would be key to the film is green and blue representing the Irish landscape and environment, the red symbolizes danger and warning to the mysterious activity that is at play. The yellow represents the protagonist's enthusiastic and youthful energy amongst the chaos of the ongoing shady conspiracy which is express through the darker colours of grey and black. While a majority of the colours are of a low contrast in shade, both ends of the colour palette are dissimilar from one another as the country is separated into two completely different situations, much like the state of East and West Germany during the time of the Berlin Wall and disparity in wealth and standard of living.

In terms of inspiration, I've looked into a number of different shows that have dealt with conspiracies and bizarre activity with a sense of government and secret society intervention and involvement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsvsV0SjrD4

One of the shows includes Gravity Falls which features twin siblings that get caught up in the strange and supernatural happenings going on in a sleepy town in rural Oregon while facing dream demons, deceiving unicorns, black market gnomes and a society of sentient golf balls. Another show similar to this (with a few of the same crew involved) is Inside Job, based on a group of shady government workers that rule the world under their bosses that are essentially the Illuminati. The show pokes fun at some well known as well as some more nuanced conspiracy theories that have been speculated for years.

The movie 'Yesterday' by Danny Boyle involves a man waking up from a coma and being one of the few people in the whole world that remembers 'The Beatles'. This movie does deal with the main character living in an alternate reality where he crosses over during a bicycle accident and uses his knowledge and awareness of the group to further his own music career and pass their work off as his own. This is definitely within the realm of relevance to this topic and relating back to the Mandela Effect mentioned area, my approach would be slightly different where the main protagonists and older Irish citizens are aware of the county to a certain but have left it at the back of their minds and the main group then try to seek answers and further information through research and online forums with the possibility of meeting someone from our reality that offers a POV from our own universe and version of events that we're familiar with.

#unsolved mysteries #conspiracy stuff #conspiracies #shortfilm #ireland #irish history

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