#sailor arashi gifs

[sailor-arashi]

[sirthisisa-wendys]

hii! could i request AU pirate!wakasa and black dragons and other characters, maybe toman (dont do it if you dont want to)

AUR MY GAHD (let me know if I didn't write anyone you wanted!)

Let's see what the guys do when they find a stowaway on their ship. And when that stowaway happens to be the Ship Comissioner's daughter.

Stowaway: Wakasa Imaushi/ Keizo Arashi/ Shinichiro Sano/ Takeomi Akashi/ Chifuyu Matsuno & Baji Keisuke/ Ken Ryuguji x Fem!Reader

wc: 2.1k

tw: like, a little smut, but mostly fluff

masterlist

Wakasa "The Shadow" Imaushi

Wakasa's crew shouts and runs about the boat, preparing for the inevitable. A departure from shore was always the most exciting part of the adventure, and as Wakasa leans over the map in his quarters, he feels a sense of enthusiasm overcome him.

The vessel he'd been working on for years was finally on its maiden voyage, preparing to take the seas by force. Waka imagines when his nemesis, Redcliff, would encounter him on the high seas. He shudders with pleasure as he remembers the installation of world-class cannons. Redcliff wouldn't stand a chance.

"Captain!" His door bursts wide open without decorum, and someone stumbles into the small space, panting heavily. "Captain! We have a stowaway!" Waka mutters to himself, frowning. Of course, this would be his first encounter on the seas.

He follows the short fellow onto the deck, only to see you lying on the ship floor with an ashen face. "A stowaway..." Waka murmurs, eyeing you carefully. He notices the jewels around your neck and wrist, admiring them for a moment before returning to his scowl.

"What are you doing on my ship?"

"I have no ill intentions," you mutter, holding a hand up in the air as an oath. "I swear I am only here because I have to be." Chuckles erupt around the ship as it drifts into the sea unmoored.

"I didn't invite you," Wakasa replies, crossing his arms. "I don't invite wenches onto my ship."

"I am not a wench," you protest, finding your legs momentarily. You stand shakily, holding onto the main mast. "I'm the commissioner's daughter." A hush falls over the men, and you swallow hard, meeting Wakasa's eyes without fear.

"Did he send you?" Waka wonders, instinctively stepping back from you. He doesn't deal with wealthy women at all. That's not his specialty.

"I'm..." You pause, choosing your words carefully. "I ran away." You remove your bracelet and necklace, handing them over to the captain. "That's my fare." Wakasa eyes the jewels, his gut feeling raring at him to throw you overboard. But you're a woman. A rich one at that.

"Where do you want to go?" The question weighs heavily on his mind as you ponder for a moment, then raise your head defiantly.

"Wherever you're going." He scoffs at your remark.

"You want to become part of my crew?" You shrug in the face of the white-haired pirate, smirking.

"It's better than being wed to a megalomaniac." Wakasa laughs out loud, which encourages his crew to do the same.

"I'm just as thirsty for power," Waka promises, pocketing the jewelry. "But I'll bite. We're going to the Isle of Wolfgulch. If you think you can make it on my ship for a week, we'll see about making you part of my crew."

"You won't regret it," you reply, and Waka's eyebrows shoot up.

"Oh, I sure hope not," he breathes. "Or I'll toss you overboard with the other fools."

Keizo "Redcliff" Arashi

Heavy boots thud toward you. You're on the wooden deck, face down, praying to whatever god is out there that Redcliff would crush you quickly.

"It's illegal to trespass." The simple statement makes you nod once. "What should I do with you?" You lift your head to look at the icy-eyed man, praying a little harder in your head. He looks down at you curiously, but this isn't the first time his eyes have lain on your features.

You wonder if he remembers you from all those years ago. You wonder if he remembers your father or how he once looked on Keizo and told you, "That one is a born sailor." You don't see any register of memory behind his eyes, so you lower your own to the floor again.

"No answer," he finally mutters. "Hm."

How could Keizo forget the hot summer you spent on the beach, watching him redo his knots and untie them again while your toes skimmed the cool water's surface? You weren't yet thirteen, but you watched the older boy work his way around a mast and back, desire seeping into your heart as he grew stronger, smarter, more--

"Get her some clothes and a meal," Keizo grunts, turning away from you. "The commissioner's daughter is a friend to us."

"A friend?" you exhale, your heart beating wildly. Perhaps he had forgotten the illicit kiss you stole from him before he sailed away for the first time, leaving you on the shores of a fuzzy memory.

Keizo turns his head toward you, stopping on his way up the steps. You can read his expression from far away, the one that says "later" as if you were something to be dealt with. But instead of continuing his path up the stairs, he walks back down, his eyes serious.

"If your father knew you were here, what would he do?"

"Not a damn thing," you reply softly.

"Are you sure about that, y/n?" Keizo lifts your chin with a single finger, his eyes searching yours.

"I told you I'd follow you to the ends of the earth if you ever returned." A smile lifts the corners of Keizo's mouth, but only slightly.

"Both of us remembered, then."

Shinichiro "Soft Iron" Sano

Shin puts his head in his hands, considering the awful dilemma he's presented with.

"I'm so sorry," you whisper, clasping your hands together. "I just have to make sure my brother is okay..." Shinichiro leans back in his chair, wounded. Your brother! Mikey flashes in front of his eyes.

"You understand, don't you?" Shinichiro lowers his hands to look at your face. Oh! Your pleading face wounds him even more, despite the fact that he's certainly at sea and in heaps of trouble. He pauses and takes a deep breath, then lets it go before answering your pleas.

"You will see your brother," he murmurs. "We will turn the ship about and return you to your home." Your eyes widen, and for a brief moment, Shin thinks you will accept the verdict. But then you burst into tears.

"Don't cry, don't cry," he urges you, standing from his chair and coming around to comfort you. "It's just..." Shin searches for the answer among his many thoughts. "He's not on this ship. But perhaps he'll be on the next one."

"He said he was on Soft-Iron's ship," you reply quickly, unfolding the letter you stuffed into your pants pocket. "Look!" Shinichiro reads the words with mounting dread. It's a bald-faced lie, he thinks. But a damn good one.

"I've never known your brother," Shin answers, looking at the foreign signature in dismay. "He must have misled you. I'm sorry." You take the letter back while sitting and absorbing the news.

"Then we need to find him!" You stand up and take Shin's place at his desk. "We have to search for him. You'll help me, won't you?" Shin stiffens at the sight of your hopeful face turned to him. You had expertly tapped his weakness: a pretty face and a mission.

"S-sure," he hears himself say. "We'll find him together." You hurry to him and throw your arms around his neck, thanking him profusely. Soft-Iron can already feel his heart melting into nothingness in his chest as he inhales your womanly scent. Dear Lord, he prays silently. I hope we never find this guy.

Takeomi "Scar-Face" Akashi

Takeomi is above you, huffing and grunting as his hair caresses your face. "You should've... never... shown... your face... little thief."

Your fingers instinctively grip the sheets, but you release them to drag your nails across Takeomi's back. "Hate fucking is still fucking," you quip back, sweat rolling down your spine. Takeomi cries out as the pain mixes with pleasure, one becoming the other in an endless loop of insanity.

"Got caught stealing from me again." You roll your eyes at his comment, moaning despite your annoyance. Stealing from Scar-Face was too easy, you reckon. If it wasn't the booze that brought him to his knees, then it was money. And if it wasn't that, it was women. Well, you. You're the only woman in his life at present.

A hand comes up and smacks your left ass cheek, and you bite down on your exclamation, trying to hold it in as the crew circulates just outside the door. "You'll pay for that," you hiss, but Omi just huffs a short laugh.

"That and all the other shit you've taken from me, huh? Just paying out of my ass," he complains, rutting into you roughly. This is pure heaven, you think to yourself, digging your nails into his back again. "You'll pay for what you stole tonight."

"Impossible." You clench around his cock, pushing him closer to his high. Takeomi gasps, trying to hold his shaky breaths, but he continues to fail miserably. "I'm gonna take that orgasm before you can take mine," you laugh, clenching around his again. "I took your manhood once, and I'll do it again. Just like I stole your heart." Your tone is teasing, but there's a modicum of truth behind the statement.

"If your daddy wasn't who he was, I would've made you a wench long ago." Takeomi shudders, groaning sharply before spilling his seed inside of you. "Would've... made you my wife... a long time ago."

Chifuyu "Shore Raider" Matsuno & Baji "Blackmane" Keisuke

"No, no, no!" Baji grabs your arm, pulling you out of the closet. His touch isn't rough, but it's enough to set your skin ablaze. "No stowaways!"

"Hey!" you shout, stumbling behind him as he drags you into the open. "That hurts!"

"What hurts me," Baji begins, growling. "Is that Chifuyu sneaks you onto this ship without my permission and then hides you in his closet!" Chifuyu comes down from his perch at the wheel, his eyes full of concern.

"Baji!" It's clear he has every intention of throwing you into the ocean, but Chifuyu quickly stands between him and the railing. "Don't you dare--"

"Women distract us from our purpose," Baji sneers, gripping your wrist even tighter. "Or did you forget the vow we made, Matsuno?"

The vow. You stand in the salty air, watching Chifuyu pale, then blink twice as if a spell had been broken. "I know we made a promise to each other," Chifuyu murmurs, holding his hands out. "Nothing will come between us, Baji; we're co-captains. But I love y/n, too."

Baji grunts, his jaw muscles fluttering. "If you have a woman," Blackmane begins, turning his head towards you. "Then I'll need my own. You'll help me find one, won't you?"

"As sure as the sun rises," Chifuyu nods, smiling brightly. Baji lets you go and stalks off, shaking his head and muttering about the "silly spell" you'd cast over his friend.

Ken "Dragon Skull" Ryuguji

"Tell me the story again." Draken leans his mouth on his laced-together hands, eyes devoid of emotion.

"I got on the ship during the night," you repeat. "I stowed myself into the pantry, where the pickles and eggs are. And I fell asleep." Draken nods. "And I woke up when we were a ways away from the shore."

"But I don't understand why you snuck onto the ship." You roll your eyes, sighing loudly.

"Dad? Arranged marriage? The whole 'you speak when I say you speak,' 'you jump when I say you jump' thing?"

"Freedom," Draken articulates, and you nod. But it was more than that.

For years, you watched Draken hone his skills as a pirate. Every time he returned, he brought more loot and more fame. You feared being left behind in the wake of all of his success.

"I didn't want to be left behind," you exhale.

"Why didn't you just ask?" You're stunned, unsure of how to answer the simple question. "Y/n, we've been friends for so long. I would've told you that you could come along. Now, I'm sure I have the ire of your father and the whole island."

You had yet to consider how this would complicate things for Draken. You were just thinking about being at sea with your best friend, exploring the world together. You hang your head, but Draken walks toward you and touches your cheek from his bed.

"Cheer up," he urges you softly. "I'm not going to make you fish food today. Even though you scared the dogshit out of my crew."

"I brought some money if that makes any difference."

"Keep the money," Draken whispers, his eyes softening. "That's your loot. The first rule of the sea is what's yours is yours." He leans forward to kiss your forehead. "Come on, I might as well introduce you to the others... since you're stuck with me and all." You giggle as he takes your hand, leading you to the deck.

[canmom]

Animation Night 155: Kunihiko Ikuhara

...or Ikuni to his fans. The Utena guy.

Since the very beginning of this series, Ikuhara’s been someone I’ve been desperate to cover. He’s exactly the kind of weirdo we like around here. And you know how much the Tumblr girlies love Utena.

But only now, at Animation Night 155, is Ikuni getting his due. Why so long? Well, let’s put it like this. Ikuni’s very much a TV guy. Revolutionary Girl Utena is 39 episodes and a movie. Mawaru Penguindrum: 26 episodes. Yurikuma Arashi is 13, as is Sarazanmai.

And if we’ve managed to cram in 13-episode series into this format, it’s always been with difficulty - take Heike Monogatari [AN91], Alexander Senki [AN125] or Houseki no Kuni [AN97]. It generally takes multiple nights. So I thought, that’s fine, we’ll do Adolescence of Utena, the movie, and, um... hmm.

Luckily for us they just made a new Penguindrum compilation movie! Problem solved let’s go!

And with such a long wait behind us, let’s try and do the guy some justice.

So. Who is this guy with the rabbit? (Picture from his website. Though this is a plain outfit by Ikuhara standards!)

If you were trying to summarise Ikuni’s works... you could probably say something like this: surreal, densely symbolic stories about the difficulties of real human connection. Sort of like the anime version of Lynch. But if that sounds too cerebral, let’s not forget that an episode of Utena involves a character gradually turning into a cow for no particular reason. He’s just as much a goofball who loves to tell lies.

Ikuni came into the business back in the mid eighties, at Toei. [c.f. AN149 for a brief history of Toei!]

So. In the late 70s, Toei had established a powerful niche to themselves in long-running, wildly popular series such as Galaxy Express 999, but most of their work was much less high-profile. Take a glance, see how many of these you recognise - I would guess not many! Hot out of art school, Ikuhara became an assistant director under the wing of Junichi Satō, later well known for shōjo anime such as the avant-garde Princess Tutu (2002-3), or Ojamajo Doremi (1999-2000).

But of course, the most renowned Satō project is Bishōjo Senshi Sailor Moon (1991-7, Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon). Satō directed the first half, and then Ikuhara took the reins for the rest. For Satō it was his debut as a director,  I’ll talk more about his tenure on Sailor Moon in just a minute, but first, let’s get a little context about... magical girls!

(quick! tell me which sailor this is! you have five seconds)

Magical Girls! 魔法少女 mahō shōjo. An ordinary high school student makes contact with a powerful magical being, who may also be a cute mascot character, and agrees to help. Now she can transform: manifest a stylish outfit, gain suitably themed powers, and fight monsters of the week... but she’s got to maintain a double life as a regular student. The henshin (transformation) sequence itself will usually be an extremely elaborate sequence that is played regularly (a ‘bank’ shot).

By now it’s one of the absolutely central anime archetypes, one people are likely to recognise even if they’ve never watched a magical girl show. It’s been parodied, it’s been genderflipped, it’s spun off a dark otaku-oriented variant.

But it wasn’t always so! Everything must begin somewhere. Very quickly reeling this off then... Osamu Tezuka’s 1953 manga Princess Knight is seen as the earliest proto-magical-girl work; Himitsu no Akko-chan (1962-5) as the earliest true magical girl manga with the elements of the genre, and 1966′s Sally the Witch as the big populariser. In the 70s, Toei started producing them in a big way, known collectively as 魔女っ子 majokko series (‘little witch’).

The actual phrase 魔法少女 mahō shōjo was introduced in 1980 with 魔法少女ララベル Mahō Shōjo Lalabel. With the economic bubble in full swing, other studios started to join the party - notably AshiPro with Minky Momo, and Pierrot, the studio behind epoch-defining megahit Urusei Yatsura, who entered the arena with Creamy Mami, the Magic Angel (1983-4). Why is she creamy? I don’t know, but that’s her stage name as an idol; the manga was designed to promote an actual idol singer Takako Ōta. This business model proved wildly successful, and even today anime production committees usually include record companies who use the show as a vehicle to promote a song or group. Toei no longer had exclusive hold on the matter of girls, magical.

Visually here we’re seeing 80s-style bishōjo, the same as over the fence in sci-fi series such as Macross. Mostly the stories are comedies, following in the footsteps of Urusei Yatsura.

What was missing from the formula at this point? Surprisingly, the henshin sequences! It’s not that magical girls didn’t transform, but they would be more likely to transform into something like an aged-up version of themselves, and the act of transformation wouldn’t be given the same importance. This final ingredient was to be found over in tokusatsu land - Kamen Rider and Super Sentai.

So, that’s where Sailor Moon came in at the beginning of the 90s - first a wildly successful manga by Naoko Takeuchi, and in very short order a TV series at Toei. Takeuchi came up with the idea of fusing the magical girls with sentai: instead of a motorbike-like Rider suit, the girls would get sailor fuku. And that means every magical girl transformation is in a sense a homage to this one.

Sailor Moon tells the story of a girl called Usagi. She’s a clumsy and forgetful audience-identification character - perhaps even to point of being a Huineng-type character? - but she’s informed by a talking cat that she’s the guardian of Earth, soon to be joined by a number of other girls from her area who are, collectively, the Sailor Guardians (セーラー戦士 sērā senshi). To fight, she activates a magical brooch and, that ^ happens.

Why? Well, the Dark Kingdom is invading! They want to free the villainous Queen Metaria. In past lives the Sailor Guardians fought those guys, and now they need to get back on the job. The forces of the Dark Kingdom (and numerous subsequent enemy factions) arrive in the form of a series of themed villains, much like the villains in a tokusatsu show. Outside of fighting those guys, it’s gentle comedy with a large cast, not so far from the works of Rumiko Takahashi. In fact it’s apparently a fair bit more comedic in tone than the manga, and a chunk of that can be credited to Ikuhara’s influence.

It’s hard to try and summarise the 90s for anime, it wasn’t just one thing. Even as the economic bubble popped, the movies got increasingly ambitious, reaching for more complex emotions and darker themes with incredibly complex animation to match. And to a certain extent, that was also true on TV, by which I mean “Evangelion happened”. But it was also an age of a return to more limited animation. If you wanted to make a TV anime, you had to be smart about using all the tools you could to cut corners. You could keep a bank of reused shots, or for a joke, transform a character into a much simpler caricatured design with more limited animation. At the same time, photography was getting more advanced, and animation techniques were getting more sophisticated.

Even so, a lot of the credit for the art of working effectively in limited animation goes way back to Osamu Dezaki, who back in the 60s and 70s established many of the iconic ‘anime’ techniques. I’ve written about him before back on Animation Night 95, but as much as that covers the history, it doesn’t say a lot about Dezaki’s style. So let me pull in this video, which will helpfully illustrate the important examples...

The relevant period is when Dezaki directed on Aim for the Ace! (エースをねらえ! Ēsu o Nerae!) - where, in contrast to his earlier work which was comparatively cinematic, he started to push in a more theatrical, abstracted direction, prioritising conveying emotion over realism. Still frames (with the famous ‘postcard memory’ effect), simplified background details framed to draw attention to the important stuff, repeating an important shot multiple times - oh, that’s just Utena, huh? And while Dezaki influenced just about everyone, but for Ikuhara, he’s a massive touchpoint.

Designs were also changing - in contrast to the rounded bishōjo of the 80s came more angular and blocky designs. Take Slayers for example:

Hold onto that thought because we’re going to talk about Utena in a minute. Sailor Moon didn’t go quite that far, but Kazuko Tadano’s designs were very effective in conveying a lot of appeal in quite simple shapes. Usagi in particular has an instantly recognisable hairstyle. But it’s also a style very amenable to simplification.

TV anime in this period ran long. Nowadays, the norm is one cours (‘cour’ if you’re not feeling pedantic) of 12-13 episodes, sometimes not even that. Back then you could easily see counts in the 50s or even hundreds. Such is true of Sailor Moon: crazy popular in both Japan and, in its heavily localised dub, America, and with a premise flexible enough to run for years. In the end it racked up some 200 episodes and several movies.

The Ikuhara period starts with the Sailor Moon R movie in 1993, then the series proper starting mid Sailor Moon R and then Sailor Moon S in 1994. Not sure which episode he took over, but S begins at 90. This is a post about Ikuhara (no, really!) so we should ask, how did Sailor Moon change once he took the reins? Let’s have a look at some of his favourite themes, as they appear in the Sailor Moon R movie, based on his own notes...

Lesbians - Not so much in the R movie, but once S gets going... big controversy! Sailors Uranus and Neptune were a couple whose dynamic was one of the most popular in the show, but this would be heavily censored in nearly every localisation, notably the American one which made them cousins.

Flower imagery - Ikuhara decided to set his first project as director in a botanical garden, naturally.

Lost connections, the distance between people - to quote the linked blog...

Ikuhara compares the reunion between Fiore and Mamoru with that of being stuck on a train in-between stations when suddenly you notice you’re standing next to an old friend you haven’t seen in years.

At first you’re both excited to see each other again and kill the time by catching up on each other’s lives. But eventually you run out of things to say, and the conversation just kind of dies off, leaving you both standing there in awkward silence.

Creative editing, use of music - 18 second long scene of Tuxedo Mask getting stabbed? Musically timed fight? Mm.

Darker themes - let’s watch the girls incinerate a field of flower monsters! At one point Usagi would nearly die! Ikuhara tried to keep it ‘fun’ and lighthearted, but just couldn’t do it, he says. Nothing on the level of where his later work would go, but definitely harsher than your average episode.

Vaguely hinting that some element is key to understanding everything, and then refusing to elaborate further - oh yes.

Which isn’t to say that Ikuhara’s Sailor Moon instantly became Utena. Rather, the seeds of his interests as a director, the sort of emotional arcs he’d like to portray, were there. I regret that I can’t really comment in much detail on what Ikuhara did in his actual run on the TV series - I’m sure I have some big Sailor Moon fans here who could fill me in and tell me if I’ve described anything wrong.

Working on Sailor Moon, in any case, also got Ikuhara used to technical elements that would become part of his stylistic fingerprint. We mentioned the transformation sequence, the elaborate bank shot with accompanying music that would recur in nearly every episode. I am less sure about other Dezaki-esque elements, like jokes based on repeating the same sequence with minor variations.

Eventually, Ikuhara’s run on Sailor Moon would come to an end. The final arc of the show saw the Sailor Guardians facing... themselves, from a distant bad future. But for that final season, Ikuhara had already stepped down. Where did he go...?

You see, Ikuhara chafed under the creative restrictions placed on him by Toei. Turning down an offer from Anno to work on Eva(!), he set off to found his own group, Be-Papas, along with...

the famous shōjo manga artist Chiho Saito, animator Shinya Hasegawa, writer Yōji Enokido, and producer Yuuichiro Okuro

and before long also recruiting composer J.A. Seazer, known for his work with avant-garde dramatist-filmmaker-writer-poet Shūji Terayama - another big influence on Ikuni, incidentally. What did Be-Papas make? Just one anime, after which they disbanded. That anime was... Albert Ei-

That anime was Utena.

Oh man. This is the one.

少女革命ウテナ - Shōjo Kakumei Utena. In English, Revolutionary Girl Utena. Now the time has finally come to write about it, I’m nervous. Could I possibly do justice to Utena in a single blog post? Is that why I spent so long writing about Sailor Moon?

Let’s start with the aesthetic: French Revolution-esque outfits that would be comfortable in Rose of Versailles. A school made of white stone; architecture that is strange, avant-garde. Roses. So many roses oh my fucking god. It draws heavily on the Takarazuka Revue, which I wrote about previously on Animation Night 92 in the context of Ikuhara’s protege Tomohiro Furukawa.

Utena is about a girl called (wait for it) Utena, who attends a school of sorts called Ohtori Academy. But it’s a school only in a fairly abstract sense - it’s more like a palace. She wears a distinctive masculine uniform, and shortly after transferring in, discovers a mysterious underground duelling society who go to a strange abstract battle arena outside of school hours. There, they attempt to strike the rose from the other duellist. The winner of the duel gains custody of Anthy Himemiya, the ‘Rose Bride’. At some point, whoever possesses Anthy will gain the nebulous power to ‘revolutionise the world’. With me so far?

Utena walks in and immediately wins her first duel, establishing an initially frosty relationship with Anthy. But the White Rose duellists won’t take this lying down. Over the first series of episodes, we learn about each of the duellists and their motivating conflicts, culminating in an attempt to defeat Utena. (She walks up the stairs every time.) They lose every time, but the point isn’t really about whether Utena will win or not - it’s about introducing us to a collection of fucked up guys, and then making them even more fucked up.

But it’s not all high drama. A lot of Utena is just straight-up antics, which is to say, just about any time Nanami is on the screen. There’s a greek chorus of shadow girls who comment on the events of the episode. The broad strokes are hard to miss, but the subtler, more obtuse stuff is the sort of thing that can get you into an almost endless rabbit hole of analysis. Don’t take things too literally! You could probably call it at least a little Brechtian in how much it foregrounds its own artifice.

After Utena’s defeated just about everyone at the White Rose, the Black Rose arc introduces a new element. Now, characters from beyond the duelling circle will go down an elevator to guy who renders a fucked up sort of anti-therapy which will motivate them give into their worst impulses and have a go at Utena. Utena, meanwhile, is harbouring a complex where she needs to live up to an ideal of fairytale prince following an incident from her childhood -  and oblivious to what’s actually going on with Anthy.

Then at last Anthy’s brother Akio shows up - the actual prince from the upside-down castle in the sky that represents the power to revolutionise the world, and the architect of the monstrous system. It turns out he’s been incesting Anthy, that she’s complicit in all his shenanigans (guess who was behind the Black Rose thing). Moreover, Utena is pulled in to Akio’s orbit, an ugly, abusive relationship... that is conveyed mostly through visual metaphors involving cars.

The finale is... complicated to explain. But it gives us one of the most iconic pieces of cinematic lesbianism ever animated, as Utena reaches for Anthy, refusing to be pushed away (by stabbing) or let Anthy remain in her state of self-inflicted pain, and they are able to escape the academy and its system, at the cost of being separated. What future they have outside the academy is left unspoken...

And that’s just scratching the surface. If you ask the hardcore Utena fan, just about every element of every shot is dripping with meaning. You can’t take everything too literally, but you definitely have to take some portion of it literally or you don’t have a story and characters at all.

Visually, the characters in Utena are designed by Shinya Hasegawa - and as much as they are recognisably ‘90s’, they really push it. People are long and faces - noses and chins especially - are pointy. Characters tend to be reserved and stoic in their facial expressions, unless they’re Nanami, in which case all bets are off. Animation-wise, JC Staff did the work under Be-Papas’s direction - and as much as it uses limited animation for effect, it’s really got the goods, especially in the duel sequences and the bank shots (Utena climbing the stairs? Not CG!).

Did you know Yoh Yoshinari was on it? I didn’t until today! So too was Mamoru Hosoda.

Remarkably for such a deliberately challenging show Utena was pretty successful! This was the era between Eva and Lain: it was an excellent time to be making something really experimental and push those genre boundaries. (One thing I don’t really know is how Utena got funded in the first place, but all the big names attached to the project probably gave them some pull.)

Alongside the anime came a manga by Saito - but neither is really an adaptation of the other, they’re just two different interpretations of the same general concept and premise, produced at the same time. And in fact, Ikuhara and Saito clashed heavily over the direction of the series, particularly in regards to whether the relationship between Utena and Anthy should be presented as romantic. Saito did not believe that shōjo audiences would be on board with the yuri, but Ikuhara refused to back down. (Saito eventually changed her mind.)

With all this success, they went ahead to make a movie. Now, usually a compilation movie of a successful TV series will cut out down the story to fit the runtime, reanimate a few scenes and call it a day. But this would be all but impossible with Utena, which is so tied to its episodic structure and use of repetition. And in any case, Be-Papas had bigger ambitions!

The film would be titled 少女革命ウテナ アドゥレセンス黙示録 Shōjo Kakumei Utena: Aduresensu Mokushiroku, literally Revolutionary Girl Utena: Adolescence Apocalypse, though in English it’s usually given the shorter title Adolescence of Utena. It is kinda sorta a condensed version of the series at first... and then in the latter half it goes completely off the rails. This time Akio is long dead. And he’s not the only one! It ends with this absolutely nuts sequence where Utena turns into a car to drive Anthy out of the academy, pursued by Shiori, who also turns into a car. I still can’t say I really understand it, or how it relates to the ‘car is a rape metaphor’ role in the TV series? But it looks beautiful.

Compared to the series, the movie features the expected higher drawing counts and flashier animation... but the really novel aspect is the architecture. This movie goes absolutely wild with it: the Ohtori Academy this time is far stranger and more intricate, looking less like a regular old European palace and more like something dreamed up by the Russian avant-garde.

It’s less of a summary of Utena and more of a companion piece. Seen on its own by someone who’s not familiar with either... I’m not sure how it would come across! Maybe you’ll just think I’m insane. Maybe you’ll be right.

So, some 3000 words into this post, I’ve finally told you the first movie we’ll be watching! That’s right: we’re going to jump in at the deep end and enjoy Adolescence of Utena. You don’t need to have seen the series.

After Adolescence, Be-Papas disbanded, as if following Monsieur Dupont’s injunction that radical groups must exist for a single purpose and then disband. Ikuhara left anime for a long time, like twelve years. He wasn’t entirely cut out from the industry, occasionally dropping in to storyboard an episode or two (for example, Episode 2 of Diebuster, or the OP to yuri series Aoi Hana). But for the most part, he turned his attentions to other mediums.

In that time he published a shōjo manga, which was poorly received for being a lot more conventional than Utena; he also wrote a novel called Schell Bullet which, get a load of this...

As a result of gene manipulation, society is segregated by genes into "Majors" – intersex humans who maintain a monopoly on stronger genetic material – and lesser dual-sex "Minors". (Ikuhara stated that he chose to make the Majors intersex because he wished to create "a race which combines the good parts of both women and men."[1]) Protagonist Ors Break is hired by the intergalactic trading company Balt Liner Corporation to pilot a schell, a bio-organic mecha, by claiming to be a Major. When the truth of his Minor status is revealed, he comes to an agreement with his superior, a Major named Delbee Ibus, to continue working for the organization.[1][2]

...and another serial novel called Nokomono to Hanayome, described as ‘Lolita hardboiled’ (I believe as in ‘Elegant Gothic’ rather than as in ‘Nabokov’s novel’). This last was a precursor to Penguindrum - animal costumes, the a story about the 1995 Tokyo sarin gas attacks.

In 2011, Ikuhara came back to anime. Why? And why did he leave in the first place? itsamystery.jpg. In any case, his new project was... Mawaru Penguindrum. It’s about, I guess you might say, the abandoned children of cultists who connect to a supernatural penguin being through a hat. But honestly it’s even tougher to attempt to summarise than Utena. There’s a “child broiler” involved. That’s just the start. And this post is already very long.

So, it’s time to split it. You’ll be able to read more about Penguindrum tomorrow (or later today, if you’re also staying up insanely late in the UK).

Animation Night 155, in its cosy new Sunday timeslot, will be running (if all goes according to plan) at 8pm UK time. That’s about 13 hours from the time of this post. The plan will be to watch Adolescence of Utena and the two movies of Re:cyle of the Penguindrum, for a total of about five and a half hours. (Sorry Sailor Moon fans! I’d really like to squeeze in the R movie too, but I underestimate how long Penguindrum is in movie form. We’ll find another day to do Sailor Moon though!)

If you’ve read all this so far, thanks so much! I’ve wanted to do a proper Animation Night on Ikuhara for ages, and there’s so much I can write about. So far it’s all history, but we wanna do some analysis too. For now... hold on tight.

[pikablob]

I posted 9,129 times in 2022

118 posts created (1%)

9,011 posts reblogged (99%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@nach0-reblogs

@furashuban

@aroacesonics

@discoursed-dracula

@sailor-arashi

I tagged 658 of my posts in 2022

#ask pika - 90 posts

#friends - 73 posts

#fanfiction - 20 posts

#<;33 - 15 posts

#hilda the series - 12 posts

#oh - 11 posts

#bon bon <;33 - 10 posts

#yes - 10 posts

#toh - 9 posts

#hilda netflix - 9 posts

Longest Tag: 131 characters

#me when a song about a girl pushing a man down a ladder is the theme song of a character whos most famous appearance is as a corpse

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

tag mutuals you wanna get to know better!

I was tagged by @wallywestfest - honestly the fact you’d even consider me for this makes me really happy thank you so much!! <3

favourite time of year: hmmmm... prolly either early summer or around the winter holidays :))

comfort food: spaghetti bolognese, but specifically the M&S ready meal version I’m sorry I have 0 shame and it’s good XD

favourite dessert: toffee!! Is guud

things you collect: kids’ books! Picture books, graphic novels, and illustrated middle-grade stuff mostly. I also have a pretty sizeable collection of figures (Funko Pop & Nendoroids included) and I collect model trains (mostly OO9 for those who know what that is!!)

favourite drink: milk; just, a lot of milk XD

favourite musical artist: The Oh Hellos 90% of the time, but also Stan & Nathan Rogers, and Grace Petrie :))

last song listened to: Fogarty’s Cove, Stan Rogers

last movie watched: oh this is hard just because I don’t watch movies much XD I think the last one I actually went to see was Spirit: Untamed (what can I say, I liked Riding Free XD)

last series watched: either Hilda or Harriet the Spy depending on what counts (because I’m just using bits of Hilda for fic reference rn)

current obsession: Hilda, as always; also Infinity Train, Harriet, and The Owl House a bit.

dream place to visit: hhhhh there’s so many but probably Newfoundland :))

place you wanna go back to: Tromso, Norway; it’s genuinely magical in winter

something you want: well there’s a certain art commission I’m really excited to see finished motivation to write more and more money for commissions :))

currently working on: another Wildflowers Fic (Hilda S2 fix-it hurt/comfort) - Hilda writes a letter in this one!

I tag @pikawarrior @nach0 @starlit-lion @discoursed-dracula @dallasurr @strawcherrydeercake @furashuban @sarasplenda @stargazer-sappho (no pressure) and anyone else who wants to! :))

31 notes - Posted September 6, 2022

#4

I’m having so many feelings about Little My right now.

From the outside, she’s just another one of the Mymble’s many kids; the smallest member of a huge family, who’s never had her own space, shuffled from place to place and raised by an absent guardian who really doesn’t seem to care much about her at all. Of course she’s turned out loud and abrasive; she had to be, to make herself big and take up space and force people to pay attention, because otherwise she’d get lost in the shuffle.

And then she comes to Moominvalley, and meets Moomin and his parents, and she forms a real friendship and chooses to stay and ends up adopted. And sure, she’s still loud and abrasive and a troublemaker, but she’s a neglected child (her mum didn’t even realise she’d stayed behind) and for the first time she has a real family and friends in the bargain and it’s just really getting to me right now.

I haven’t seen the whole show yet (I don’t mind spoilers) or read the books (I know she’s not the same in those I don’t think she has this side of her), but do you think she ever worries about her place in the home? Do you think she’s afraid on some level, deep down, that they’ll want to get rid of her, just like how they wanted to get rid of the rest of her old family? Do you think she pushes the boundaries sometimes, just to make sure she’s really loved?

IDK, I just have a lot of feelings.

33 notes - Posted November 2, 2022

#3

I love the new starters!

See the full post

35 notes - Posted February 27, 2022

#2

Asking about fixing S2 of Hilda! :D

(I watched it, but my brain is very much like a sponge, so there may or may not be some holes in my memories of it. But I'd love to hear your opinions on that!)

Okie, so, I've talked about my problems with Season 2 before, but I'm going to go over them in the most detail I can here, before I explain how I'd fix them. Sorry in advance, but this is going to be long.

My Problems:

Fundamentally, Hilda is still my favourite show, and more of my favourite episodes are in S2 than in S1, but there's one big thing that ruined the season for me, and that's what it did to the relationship between Hilda and Johanna. Season 2 wanted to have an arc where Hilda makes mistakes and needs to learn not to lie to her mum, but instead, in the narrative presented, Johanna is the one in the wrong to me.

It's absolutely a cycle. Hilda lying about her adventures makes Johanna worry, which makes her more protective, so Hilda needs to lie even more. But The Troll Circle establishes pretty plainly that this cycle started with Johanna; when Hilda runs outside the wall by accident, her immediate reaction is "Mum would kill me if she knew."

And the way Johanna acts when Hilda comes home proves that she's right; Johanna has become more restrictive and isn't letting Hilda do the things she used to. She wants Hilda to be safe, I accept, but this is after a whole season where Johanna repeatedly says that she loves Hilda for who she is, and explicitly includes her adventures in that (see The Bird Parade and The Troll Rock especially).

Because it is a part of who Hilda is; "such is the life of an adventurer" is her mantra, and even Season 2 itself establishes that she's been allowed to roam freely on her own in the wilderness since she was about 6 years old, the same wilderness that Johanna wants to keep her from in The Troll Circle.

Hilda's choices aren't "lie to her mum" or "be good", they're "lie to her mum" or "give up being who she is". Johanna's the one who changed, and it's not even properly acknowledged; they try and retcon the troll from S1, and just claim that things have always been this way between Hilda and Johanna when that's just not true (I'd argue The Troll Rock implied Johanna knew about it anyway).

The show does try and show Johanna's side, especially in The Fifty-Year Night, but that's one of the reasons it's my least favourite episode. I know she finds it hard, being so harsh on Hilda, but she doesn't have to; she should have been more understanding at the end of The Beast of Cauldron Island, it's her fault things got to that point, and nobody's forcing her to be more protective. She needs to realise she's being unfair and that she hasn't handled this well, and as a result it feels like the narrative is guilt-tripping Hilda for her mum's mistakes.

The Stone Forest hits into the same issues; I'm not going to deny that what Hilda says to her mum in that argument is genuinely hurtful, and that she shouldn't have said it, but she's an upset child. The resolution of that episode is that Hilda needs to stop hiding things, but the conflict was caused by Johanna being restrictive and honestly, more than a little selfish; I'm not trying to bash her, I know why she wants Hilda to stay home and spend time with her, but she should have let her go.

I'm glad that things seem to be back on track in The Mountain King, but when Hilda has to promise not to hide things at the end of The Stone Forest, it doesn't quite work as a resolution for me, because while I do genuinely appreciate Johanna telling Hilda she loves her for who she is, she doesn't promise to let Hilda be herself or make any apologies of her own. It's "you have to talk to me" not "you can talk to me", and for me that's the distinction that really ruined the season.

And all of this comes from one, single place:

Everything I've just mentioned, including all three of Johanna's worst scenes (the dinner in The Troll Rock, Hilda's first grounding, and the argument over Dungeon Crops in The Stone Forest) and the resolution that I didn't think went far enough, are lifted directly (including a lot of dialogue - although some of it, especially in that final resolution, is said less kindly in the graphic novel) from the graphic novel Hilda and the Stone Forest. And this is the fundamental problem; Season 2 of the show has to adapt this story, which is a problem, because Season 1 of the show made substantial changes from the graphic novels, that honestly made me think that maybe there wasn't a way to do the Stone Forest arc well in the show.

In the graphic novels, Johanna is not a good parent. She's not as bad as the tie-in novels, where she genuinely reads as abusive in all but one, but she starts out as a generic "overprotective parent" stock archetype, and only really breaks out of that a couple of times (she's actually very good in Hilda and the Bird Parade, but in a completely different way from the show version of that plotline). Hilda in turn is a little more selfish and rebellious, so their whole dynamic is different.

And The Stone Forest, in both versions, has Johanna at her absolute worst. It's actually my least favourite graphic novel, specifically because of how awful Johanna gets in the beginning, which is basically just an extended falling-out combining all of her worst moments from Season 2 and making them even worse. And that's where the problem crept in, because in order for the Stone Forest arc to happen, Hilda has to try and sneak out via Nowhere Space, and Johanna has to try and stop her, and the whole thing needs to be precipitated by a mother-daughter falling out.

So the solution the show's crew took was to try making Johanna more like her comic counterpart, and to space the arguments that start The Stone Forest out across the whole season so it doesn't feel abrupt. But the two versions of Johanna are fundamentally different characters, and Comic Johanna is already a bad parent who's flaws aren't acknowledged in this arc, while in the show she's a realistically flawed but genuinely amazing parent and those flaws are addressed in Season 1.

And the result was just making Johanna almost as unsympathetic as her comic counterpart in Season 2. I don't even think that it really cured the abruptness, because it's still an awkward retcon in the first episode, and there are still episodes in S2 where Johanna is firing on all cylinders (The Deerfox and The Yule Lads - which actually handles a mother/daughter dispute caused by Hilda really well), so to me it feels less like a relationship that's having ups and downs, and more like a relationship that's fundamentally changed but only sometimes.

(There are other problems with adapting Hilda and the Stone Forest, namely David and Frida, but I think the show actually handled them well).

So, How Would I Have Done It?

I'm going to rule for this that we have to keep the fundamental plot of The Stone Forest; Hilda gets in trouble with her mum, gets caught when she tries to escape, and has to learn a lesson about being open after she and her mum get out of the Stone Forest. For a while, I genuinely wasn't sure how to make that work within the show in a way I'd be happy with, but in the end, thanks partially to the tie-in novels of all things, I do have a solution: we're actually going to build up the relationship shift, and it's going to have an acknowledged shared responsibility.

The Troll Rock happens almost as it does in canon, but there is no moment where Hilda thinks her mum will 'kill' her for going outside the wall. She still gets home late, and there's still a little awkwardness in the conversation, but Hilda gingerly admits the truth:

"Well, I was going to go to David's... but then I saw this elf getting kidnapped by a dirt clod with legs, and me and Twig kind-of had to go outside the wall to save him."

And Johanna just gives a patient sigh; there is a bit of tension in her voice, she's clearly not 100% happy with this, but she also accepts that this is her daughter:

"That was a good thing to do, sweetheart, but please be careful outside the wall. You know I worry about you."

From there the episode goes on as normal; barring one thing. I'm torn between cutting the "you never told me about that" exchange entirely, and changing the tone of it. In the latter version, instead of suspicion, Johanna is genuinely just surprised, and Hilda's response is something like "Wait, I didn't?", but either way, things go on normally from there; we've established that there's going to be friction between Hilda and her mum, without making things bad immediately.

The next big change is that The Eternal Warriors doesn't happen. It will, eventually, but I'm taking a leaf from the tie-in book Hilda and the White Woff, and saving it for later use. Every other episode gets shunted up by one space, but is otherwise unchanged until we hit The Beast of Cauldron Island, where I'm going to make a major change.

Instead of Hilda just lying, we're going to build on The Old Bells of Trolberg; when Hilda reaches the flat, she's reluctant to cancel their picnic, but she is prepared to explain things and possibly even ask for Johanna's help. But when she gets inside, Johanna is apologetic, and before Hilda can explain, she does:

"I'm really sorry, Hilda, but we can't have our picnic today after all."

"Why not?"

See the full post

39 notes - Posted February 17, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

16,713 notes - Posted February 26, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[teslas-lame-archive]

I posted 2,318 times in 2022

That's 1,375 more posts than 2021!

540 posts created (23%)

1,778 posts reblogged (77%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@spixi

@mayoiayasep

@mihai-florescu

@woolieshubris

@ayakashibackstreet

I tagged 2,310 of my posts in 2022

#enstars - 185 posts

#twiwon - 178 posts

#i7 - 166 posts

#answering asks lmao - 62 posts

#jjk - 44 posts

#twisted wonderland - 43 posts

#twst - 39 posts

#idolish7 - 36 posts

#lolita fashion - 32 posts

#pudding boi best boi - 28 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#like. no tesla you dumbass you shouldn't watch an anime if literally just thinking about the subject matter gives you a pit in your stomach

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

lookit this dude i love her sm <33

[id: a full body drawing of mayoi ayase from ensemble stars! they are drawn wearing a gothic lolita coordinate consisting of a frilly black blouse, a purple suspender skirt with spiderweb details, striped crew socks, and chunky platform shoes. he's standing with his feet turned inward, holding his skirt outward with one hand and smiling nervously toward the viewer. /end id]

126 notes - Posted August 16, 2022

#4

riddle's turn! <3

[id: a digital drawing of riddle rosehearts from twisted wonderland. he's drawn wearing a sweet lolita coordinate consisting of an off-white jumperskirt with gold trim and large red hearts around the hem and bodice, a deep red princess-sleeve blouse, a white capelet with a large, red, heart-shaped collar, white and gold socks, and red pumps with spade and heart attachments. he's standing confidently with his feet apart, with one hand on his hip, and holding his skirt out with the other hand. he's facing the viewer with a severe expression. /end id]

133 notes - Posted October 10, 2022

#3

150 notes - Posted November 21, 2022

#2

of course how could i leave out the queen herself

[id: a digital drawing of arashi narukami from ensemble stars. she's wearing a sweet/classic lolita coordinate consisting of a red sailor-collar one-piece dress with navy regimental striped accents and gold braid, gold and white diamond print socks, and navy calf boots. she's posed with her body angled slightly away from the front, with one hand on her hip and the other casually by her side with the fingers outstretched. she's facing the viewer and looking slightly up with a cheerful smile. /end id]

175 notes - Posted September 26, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

it's mikachin's turn! <3

[id: a digital drawing of mika kagehira from ensemble stars. he's drawn wearing a gothic lolita coordinate consisting of a black and green, asymmetrical jumperskirt with lots of gathered ruffles, a black blouse with a large bow tie, shiny black heels, and beige tights designed to look like the legs of a ball-jointed doll. he is standing with his legs apart, throwing a peace sign and looking away from the viewer with his tongue sticking out, wearing a mischievous grin. /end id]

458 notes - Posted October 6, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[magicstormfrostfire]

Have you watched any other magical girl show other than Sailor Moon?? :D

IDK HOW I MISSED THIS QUESTION I'M SO SORRY

Sailor Moon is the biggest one I've watched, but I've seen a few others though they all sort of mess with the formula of typical magical girl shows. Little Witch Academia, Madoka Magica, Yurikuma Arashi, High School Earth Defense Club Love! and Panty & Stocking--which is possibly my favorite anime. There's also some media that I technically count as magical girl stuff like Powerpuff Girls and Bayonetta. Anything with girls having magical powers and tons of flourish, but also kicking ass technically counts, right? Haha. Im always open to other magical girl stuff though. I hear about so many, but I haven't really been able to sit down and watch an anime for YEARS. So if anyone has any magical girl Manga reccomendations I'd love to read! (Even better if its like. Gay magical girls or gay magical boys)

[cuomorivers]

welcome to my blog !

hi im andro / eitan, im 14, im a jewish autistic phys disabled transneutral bigender demiflux demiromantic ace lesbian! i change my pronouns alot but nya/nyas is always fine if you dont know! i speak german and english fluently, yiddish and russian semi fluently, and im learning chinese! 

my interests include:  haikyuu, heartstopper, jjk, kny, enstars, bandori, d4dj, project sekai, genshin, death note, loona, red velvet, twice, stay c, itzy, stars align, free, sk8, blue period, saiki k, jjba, soul eater, cookie run, nge, persona 4, persona 5, chainsaw man, horimiya, junji ito, ouran highschool host club, jerma, tyler the creator, death grips, vocaloid, bojack horseman, mha, tokyo revengers, mlp, full metal alchemist, sailor moon, madoka magica, hunter x hunter, komi san, yttd, mo dao zu shi, tokyo ghoul, ace attorney, lucky star, yu gi oh, honkai impact 3rd, mob psycho, naruto if u squint, and alot more

dni: 1. proshipper 2. kaeluc shipper 3. yamaguchi and minori haters 4. aot fan (theres like 1 person thats excluded and they know) 5. nsfw account 6. negative most of the time 7. call asian people and jewish people rats. stop 8. allistic ask 2 fllw 9. yaeyato shippers. freak 10. you ship kurotsukki 11. you use he/him for arashi 12. you hate any of my close friends 13. you are an adult that likes the owl house or encanto 14. you use the t slur and arent transfem

byf:  i have a delusional attachment to mimi from genshin, mitsue from stars align, and reimi sugimoto from jjba. i lovemail yoimiya and yelan from genshin and yu from stars align

like once youve read please !

[wallisninety-six]

Kunihiko Ikuhara’s anime || 幾原邦彦のアニメ

[fhangsweiyin]

[anjerinfordream]

Satoshi Popeye x Olive (extra virgin) XD J-Oil Mills Ajinomoto extra virgin olve oil cm

[sailor-arashi]

Methode: "How interesting, you are completely immune to restraint magic."

Frieren: "She smells nice."

Fern: (•̀⤙•́)

[ohbabybluemaybetrue]

Sailor Shokun❤️

[sadporns]

Top 10 Favorite Anime

1.Fruits basket

Ahh what should i say? I love,love,love fruits basket it's such a heart warming story so cute so good,if your having a Hard time Check it out you will feel better Afterwards (can't wait for the reboot it looks so freaking good i'm soo exicited)

2.Mawaru Penguindrum

Really good story,really abstract and deep.Behind every Action every frame There is a Hidden meaning.

3.Nana

I have never felt so much pain while watching a love Story.nana Hit me really in my feels because it felt so realistic.nana is not your typical 0815 rom-com with a little Bit of Drama it's something special. If you haven't watched it drop everything you Do and go watch it NOW!

4.Ouran Highschool Host Club

I think i have Not much to say it's a classic. Lighthearded,funny and romantic.

5.Xxxholic

A mysterious series with "life philosophy". Sounds weird? Don't worry it isn't. It goes really good togehter and maybe you will Start to think about your own life while watching it.

6.Violet Evergarden

Just one sentence : i have never cried so much in my life while watching an anime

7.Revolutionary girl utena

Weird, weird anime with a really deep meaning.the whole anime is basically a metaphore for adolecens and adulthood

8.Cowboy Bebop

A fun anime with a cool cast (seriously i wish i had friends like that) that anime is an A-class gangsta (yes with an a) anime that everyone can enjoy

9.Karin

Yeah i know that anime may for you some of you be a cheesy,cringy bad anime but for me it Has something magical idk i just had so much fun watching it and i always go back to watch it over and over again

10.My little witch academia

Last but Not least we have MLWA honestly i just watched it like a few months ago because i thought that it wouldn't like it. Ohhh boy was i proven that i was wrong. i fell in love with it IMMEDIATLY.

Honorable Mentions:

Kobato

Oniisama e

Samurai Champloo

Kuragehime

Yuri kuma arashi

Durarara

Inu x boku ss

Toradora

Kamisama Hajimemashita

Koi wa ameagari no youni

Sailor Moon&Cardcaptor sakura

[tainbocuailnge]

he does wear what's obviously a hakama in several skins and possibly his unevolved too but don't those come in skirt and pant varrieties? they look like the undivided type in all his art

[manslator]

Would it be possible to include a source link for the quotes you are manslating? If you're trying to avoid trackbacks or something, it's fine if you don't. I'm just always curious about the context for the quotes. It makes the whole thing funnier to me to be able to see what set the guy off in the first place. Keep up the good work!

As mentioned in our FAQ, we don’t publish links back to source materials for a couple of reasons:

The first is a desire to avoid unintentionally provoking any online harassment, and the second is that we’re less interested in engaging the individual speaker than with picking apart, examining, and yes, mocking the substance of their remarks.

Thanks for reading!

[knight-kiashi]

sailor-arashi replied to your post “You know, when I signed up for advanced animation I had high hopes....”

Nothing about school has changed in the 20 years since I last attended one, I see. This is disappointing. I'm sorry you have to deal with this crap.

Well, I’m sure it is pretty different overall, but yea, there’ll always be teachers who don’t really care. He’s still a nice person and all, just frustratingly not as invested in the subject he’s teaching as I am I guess ;; I still get to make cool animations I guess, so it’s not all bad, just aggravating I'm not being taught more ^^;. Next year I’ll shoot for the computer programming/game design class and get something worthwhile hopefully. It’s a class at the trade school ours is connected to and I’ve heard good things about it so far from other students.