#so even koichiro

[harurio]

takezai terunosuke and yoshida munehiro in one three-minute shot, episode 5 of mood indigo, 2019.

[hakuaryouga]

- Why was Ryouga the only one immune to the Trinoid's attack? - Ryo-chan doesn't hate anyone or anything!

[ahogedetective]

purple for a silly starter ( rosanimemuses )

{ Color-colored starters! }

purple for a silly starter!

@rosanimemuses !!!

“.............." Oh much Shuichi wanted to die right now, as he continues laying face-first onto the ice. How he even let Koichiro convince him to sneak out to the empty ice rink at this time of night, he doesn't know; nor why in the world he even agreed to this in the first place, with how comically bad he is at ice skating; or rather, could be great at it if he didn't panic so easily and make himself lose his balance.... which is what ended up happening and he started squirming so much that he tripped on his feet and fell. He couldn't even look at Koichiro, he was so embarrassed....

"ueeuuueee......" Quiet whining can be heard from him, before he finally goes to at least sit up. His face was flushed, mostly from cold it was due to smacking against the ice, and also from embarrassment. "I-I'm okay.... I think...."

[zombieheroine]

Initial D character headcanons (1/?)

Screw canon, I'll add my own. Here are some headcanons I came up with, take it, leave it, add your own, whatever we keep drifting.

Fujiwara Takumi

Music of choice: Eurodance, to stay awake. Works better than any caffeinated drink ever could. In his glove compartment: Take-out fliers, loose coins to spend on vending machines. Parallel parking skill: Has never parallel parked, but would succeed on first try. Could drift into the spot but doesn't want to look like a show-off. Driving pet peeve: Slow drivers who don't give way. Ticket score: Zero. He doesn't want to find out what Bunta would say.

Itsuki Takeuchi

Music of choice: Whatever is on the radio In his glove compartment: His driving license and the manual of the car, list of his work shifts, a car magazine, a pair of fluffy dice he hasn't dared to hang yet. Parallel parking skill: He's super nervous and sweats it every time, but does okay, even though he needs multiple tries. Driving pet peeve: Tailgaters. Ticket score: Since the first accident, he's a very responsible driver and doesn't have any additional tickets, but the points on his license remain.

Iketani Koichiro

Music of choice: Classic Japanese rock/pop ballads for strong independent manly men who need no woman In his glove compartment: A water bottle, a spare bowtie for work, forgotten old tests from high school, personal hygiene kit with mouthwash and a disposable razor, but he's forgotten to buy shaving cream. Parallel parking skill: He's proficient, but if someone's watching he gets too self-concious to even try. Driving pet peeve: Ending up on the slow lane and watching cars pass him on his left. Ticket score: He caught a few speeding tickets in his first year with a license due to being over eager and careless in urban areas, but wisened up before maxing out the points.

Kenji

Dayjob: A baker, which leaves him with lots of free time to bother his friends at their work place. Music of choice: Rock'n'roll from all over the world, to both knead bread dough and drive fast to. He burns his own mix CDs. In his glove compartment: CDs, several tubes of prescription hand cream, manga magazines, marker pens, post-it-notes and old shopping lists, crumbled up receipts. Parallel parking skill: None. This man has so far never been forced to even try, and so he won't learn. There's always a free spot somewhere in a small town, especially very late and very early. He would never want to drive in a metropolitan area. Driving pet peeve: Drivers who rev their engines and screech their tires to show off. Ticket score: A few parking tickets because he tends to forget himself in chatting with friends.

Takahashi Keisuke:

Dayjob: This rich problem youth has not worked a day in his life. His parents may have given up on him, but his allowance was never wholly cut to keep him from getting into even more serious trouble. Music of choice: Synth pop, like all the cool scene kids in the 90s. In his glove compartment: Snack bar wrappers, a cell phone charger, cigaretters and several half empty lighters, emergency condoms and a totally unrelated tube of body lotion (water-based). Parallel parking skill: He could, but would never expose his precious car to the other parked cars and their drivers like that. If there's no spacious parking spot, he won't leave his car for anything or anyone. Driving pet peeve: Prone to road rage just in general. Ticket score: Zero, but the local police knows him by name.

Takahashi Ryosuke

Day job: Full-time med student, favorite child. Music of choice: Heavy metal, it's excellent stress relief In this glove compartment: Vehicle license, the manual of his car, a logbook, maps, first aid kit. Parallel parking skill: Perfect, what did you expect? Driving pet peeve: People who get road rage. Ticket score: Surprisingly high. He's been caught speeding multiple times when looking for his brother during his gang days, and caught the occasional parking ticket due to forgetfullness.

Nakamura Kenta

Dayjob: An employee at a 7/11 Music of choice: Same as Keisuke's In his glove compartment: Wrappers from various snacks, empty noodle cups and an uneven number of disposable chopsticks, crumbled up energy drink cans. Parallel parking skill: Could do it, as long as he concentrates instead of trying to act too cool Driving pet peeve: Drivers who hit puddles on purpose, either spraying the pedestrians or risking hydroplaning needlessly Ticket score: He's got his license suspended once for three months. Since joining the RedSuns he's cleaned up his act in general.

[ginnymoonbeam]

10 BL Boys I Want Carnally

Tagged by @bengiyo, who has excellent taste even though our character overlap is much smaller than our actor overlap.

Tian, A Tale of Thousand Stars

gif by smittenskitten

There was obviously gonna be a Mix character on this list, but I had to think for a bit about which one. Came down on Tian, he's the right level of brat for me.

Payu, Love in the Air

gif by thyla

For all the obvious reasons.

Wang, 180 Degrees

gif by 25shadesoffebruary

He's tried to work out his daddy issues via seduction, maybe I can help w-- *hook drags me off stage*

The One, Midnight Museum

gif by earthfluuke

It would probably be all mind games and I'm fine with that.

Ritsu, The End of the World With You

gif by perths

He's my exact flavor of damaged plus you know he's good in bed.

Kijima Rio, The Pornographer series

gif by maki-ryota

Also my exact flavor of damaged, thank you again Miki Koichiro for my entire life. (There were so many filthier gifs I could have picked for this one.)

Tutor, Why R U

gif by gabrielokun

The way he uses those eyes is probably illegal in some states.

Charn, Laws of Attraction

gif by jimmysea

By now we have established some things about my taste in men, yes?

Ye Xingsi, History 4: Close to You

gif by leixinyus

Out of the whole list this is probably the one I am most actively feral for and I have no explanation. He pings something in my lizard brain. I couldn't find any gifs of the scenes that really drive me wild, which is probably to the good as far as most of y'all are concerned.

Tharn, The Sign

gif by maxescheibechlinichacheli

A newcomer but oh what a powerful contender.

Thank you I hope you've enjoyed this journey into my not-so-private lusts. If you want to play, consider yourself tagged!

[deus-ex-mona]

Heyooo so like do you think you could explain the Someya brothers relationship? It’s peaked my interest since the new songs with these two revolve around each other…

Yujiro and Koichirou aren’t related by blood, right? 🤔

Also, what do you think about the new songs that just came out?

Thank you so much for your time 💛💛 Happy New Years 💕

hi! happy new year~~!

this got kinda long so there’s a cut here for length sorry~~~

ngl i’m kindaaaaa fuzzy on the details about the someya bros’ relationship, but long story short, they’re stepbrothers (with koichiro spawning from the resident longleg tamagoro and yujiro being tae’s son, of course) who were kinda pitted against each other when it came to learning how to perform (kabuki) from tamagoro, because longleg’s gotta longleg ig.

then yujiro gets disinherited because the longleg’s still longlegging and koichiro takes to the kabuki stage by himself as the local “national treasure’s” sole heir. so, like, i’m guessing that the events surrounding yujiro’s disinherition may have led to their (frankly terrible) brotherly relationship of “an inferior older brother” and “a superior younger brother”?

though this dynamic carried on pretty much for as long as yujiro longed to perform on a kabuki stage, just like koichiro does (if we were to take the lxl movie’s word for it). then yujiro became an idol and started to work towards a different dream, breaking off from the path (kabuki) that he used to follow koichiro down, which i guess made koichiro start to see yujiro in a different light?

like, imagine you have a lifelong rival who strives for the same goals that you do. however, this rival of yours is less skilled than you, so you naturally grow to have a sense of superiority over your rival, taking satisfaction in crushing them while having full knowledge that they will never be able to beat you when it comes to your shared goals.

however, one day, your rival decides to aim for a different goal, completely ditching your shared goal and stuff, and they actually seem to be doing pretty well in their path to achieve their new goal. how would you feel?

because i get the feeling that koichiro’s initial response to that was to feel betrayed, in a “why are you running away (from kabuki)?” sense.

though, over time, koichiro seems to have gradually come to terms with yujiro’s idol activities, and their relationship naturally (albeit slowly) improved as the days passed, with them going on walks together and bickering with each other like brothers would. which, y’know, is cool of him in a way. he’s learning. he’s still kind of a brat, but he’s growing despite his past mistakes.

as for yujiro, well, he seems to have been looking out for koichiro in his own way from the very beginning? like, man chose not to go against koichiro’s mistreatment, opting to just lower his head and accept it instead.

was it an act of self-sacrifice to protect koichiro’s ego or something? heck, even in the lxl movie, he just took everything koichiro dished at him, and only fought back when koichiro dared to mock his bf aizo. which is. pretty unhealthy, yujiro bro. just tell him you have a proper brotherly love for him for goodness sake. your communication skills s u c k.

um. anyway.

tl;dr: stepbros made to learn kabuki because of their father. older bro gets disinherited, younger bro gets an attitude and mistreats older bro. this continues until older bro becomes an idol and begins to walk his own path. younger bro feels betrayed/annoyed at his older bro for “giving up” on kabuki. younger bro does eventually accept the fact that they have different dreams and supports older bro. seems like older bro has always been looking out for younger bro though, even though he doesn’t say it.

thoughhhhhh seriously, i’m not a someya expert or anything, i just like making fun of the longleg, so… if someone with a degree in someyaology could chime in, it’d be greatly appreciated~~~

as for the new songs, nagisa’s new song is the best of them all, no question. thanks for coming to my ted talk—

[lilac-melody]

Okay pausing in my nagihiyo loveposting because I've been thinking about lipxlip lately (shocker? nah) and I was thinking about my previous realization that, when it came to the lipxlip stories, Aizou has always kinda been the main protagonist.

That's not to say Yujiro doesn't shine- he certainly does, but I was wondering HOW we never minded that so much in the novels, but it became such a big issue in the heroine tarumono/heroines run the show/herotaro whatever you wanna call it anime.

And I think I figured it out.

So starting with the Romeo novel, as not only was it the first official idol novel for honeyworks, but it was lipxlip's first official novel (as they were mere side characters in Hiyori's novels, though they were featured prominently).

For the most part, most of the novel is in Aizou's point of view. Yujiro got, what, 2 chapters + the epilogue? Out of 11. And, for the most part, we mostly focus on Aizou's issues and struggles. He's the one who can't remember something, he's the one who wants to get to know Yujiro, he's the one who won a tournament and gave Yujiro the stuffed penguin prize, he's the one who had to ask for advice on how to be cool. He's the one who got shoved into a pool.

And Yujiro, each time, played the role of a catalyst in each of these instances.

So...why does it work in Romeo?

Because...despite the fact we're mostly viewing the novel through Aizou's eyes, we still get enough of Yujiro and his perspective to make him seem just as important.

Sure, he only got a couple chapters, with each of them being quite short, but from the little bit we did see, we still understand Yujiro. We get that he has a rough life, that his family was strict and is still abusive towards him (mostly verbal, but with Koichiro it is slightly physical too), we get that he hates being home and wants to run away with his mom. And that's just from the first chapter.

We also understand later on that he's jealous of Aizou for being able to connect with others easily, and that he has an inferiority complex when it comes to his brother. And he still has his own social issues that still gives him his issues outside of home that keeps him just as interesting when he's trying to be an idol.

Essentially, even though the novel is mostly in Aizou's point of view, Yujiro still has his own struggles and personality that shines through quite obviously. It does still feel like...well, LIPxLIP.

Moving on...

LOVE&KISS is the next novel.

Now, this novel is structured a bit differently. Half of the novel is in the real world; in Aizou's point of view. The other half is in an alternate universe; in Yujiro's point of view. I'd say that they're divided pretty evenly in terms of whose perspective are we in, and yet...in Yujiro's point of view, we don't actually learn anything about him or his real struggles. Because his point of view is in an alternate world- and while it is still Yujiro, it's still a different past and circumstances.

I mean, you're not going to be seeing Yujiro running and shoving Aizou out of the way of an avalanche in the middle of Tokyo, right? (And yes, for those who have not read the novel, he did do that)

meanwhile, in Aizou's point of view, we get a wholeass front seat to his struggles of acting and bettering his and everyone's situation with the awful director. We see his trials and tribulations, his efforts, his realizations.

I mean, goddamn, he has a solo at the end of the novel in which he sang so beautifully and emotionally that all of the actors and Yujiro paused and stared at him and clapped when he finished. If that doesn't scream Main Character, I don't know what does!! (I'm ngl it was a sweet moment but god, it was so damn cheesy)

ANYWAY...

So if we know so much about the real Aizou, and only know so much about Fake Yujiro...why does it work being only in Aizou's perspective in the real world? Their povs are even.

The answer to that is simple.

Because even though we see so much of Aizou's struggles...we still see so much of Yujiro's. We can easily tell in Aizou's point of view how worn out, tired and frustrated Yujiro is. I mean, Aizou outright states that Yujiro had been practicing the same scene for hours and never made a mistake until later, and then he got screamed at.

Because, like Yujiro's point of view in the alternate world, we are sharing the struggles in every chapter.

Yujiro's point of view isn't just about Yujiro- it's about the two travelers who need the gem, and Aizou's point of view isn't just about Aizou. It's about LIPxLIP as a whole, struggling against the rude director who's putting them through a wringer.

For the first few chapters in Aizou's point of view, while we are seeing how much Aizou struggles, he's also watching with great concern how much Yujiro is struggling. He is doing his best not to leave Yujiro alone out of pure worry, even noting later that the two had come to rely on each other.

And to wrap up the beauty of the real world events, we watch as Aizou conquers his struggles and his trauma, becoming confident and excited for the play.

But how is Yujiro faring? We've focused on Aizou a lot.

Well...he collapses.

Aizou notices and quickly lunges forward and catches him, and Yujiro is sent to a hospital. Aizou vows not to let this happen again, feeling like a failure of a partner, and the issue is soon resolved.

The play goes beautifully, and the two end on a happy note, laughing together.

So...why did Aizou being the protagonist in L&K work?

Because even though the real world events featured mostly Aizou, there was still the shared solidarity of LIPxLIP. It didn't feel like Aizou's story or Yujiro's story. Hell, both perspectives just...felt like they were in it together.

A true lipxlip story.

Okay...so...what about the movie?

Like the novels, it's mostly in Aizou's point of view, yet, like the L&K novel, it has both of the boys helping each other, and both having their issues.

Aizou sees Yujiro's father is an asshole, he's nicer to him and helps him in (their) secret spot. Yujiro sees Aizou's mom is an abusive drunk and defends him from Koichiro's harsh, taunting words. They come up with LIPxLIP together.

Yujiro helps Aizou understand that he doesn't have to cater to women, and to shine in his own way, and later, he helps him sing again by...singing with him. In their secret spot. And Aizou realizes that if it's with Yujiro, he can sing.

Yujiro's mom bails on him for the concert, so Aizou cheers him up and....yall ok I dunno what the fuck happens then but suddenly the two are hugging and have kiss marks on their necks which Manager Uchida freaks out about? but they only go "secret ;)" when she questions them??? Gayasses..???

Anyway...

Still upset by the previous events and being nervous (both were, to be fair), Aizou gestures to Yujiro while singing Yume Fanfare, tilting his chin up while singing for him to hold his head up high. Yujiro returns the favor, by gesturing to him and then hugging him on stage, telling him to stay who he is.

And once the song's over? They both internalize how glad they are that they met, and how the other will always be there for them.

THIS is LIPxLIPs essence. THIS is how their story goes. THIS is how to make their stories work perfectly. Because even though if you squint, it's mostly Aizou's perspective, it doesn't feel that way. It just feels like LIPxLIP.

Yes, the movie totally fucks over the timeline, but it not only keeps their personalities true to the source material, but it feels like lipxlip.

So...what did Herotaro do wrong?

"Lisi, no! Herotaro is in HIYORI'S point of view!" yes, this is true, but in Hiyori's novels, lipxlip was still divided up pretty evenly. She had lots of platonic moments with Yujiro and with Aizou, and with both.

Yet...somehow...herotaru fucks it up.

Not only are they not the same characters we know, but...somehow, every single "male lead" role went to Aizou. And while, yes, I know the anime is catered towards regular Honeyworks fans, they also know that people will join the fandom because of the anime.

If you read the novels without knowing anything, you can still understand Aizou and Yujiro.

But if you watch the anime without knowing anything, you won't know a damn thing about Yujiro, think Aizou is a possible romantic interest (spoiler: he isn't. Neither is Yujiro.) and assume that they have no motivation aside from wanting to be famous. Hell, even when Uchida tells Hiyori that Yujiro said he wants to stand on stage and Aizou wants to sing, that still tells us absolutely nothing.

It diminishes their characters to petty misogynists who suddenly like Hiyori as a friend because she has a dream. They show no care at all towards her until she talks about wanting to run. Like, what the actual fuck???

And their episode that was supposed to tell the audience more about their backstories??? TOTALLY overshadowed by Hiyori's ignorance and lack of tact and care in the situations.

And then, when Hiyori hurts herself, gets into situations, is in the audience, Aizou's the only one to notice.

Which is...really fucking weird??? It's not cute or special or proof of any ship. It's horrendously written and completely unnatural from the LIPxLIP we grew to love from the novels.

Hell, the movie got the story better, and the anime is a direct continuation!! HOW do you fuck something up THAT BADLY???

There is absolutely no excuse for the way that not ONLY Aizou and Yujiro were treated in the anime, but Hiyori as well. They had SO MUCH source material, and they just threw it all away for their self insert fantasy and made trash.

This is NOT an anime to recommend when you want to get people into LIPxLIP. I've seen SO MANY people get the wrong idea about Aizou and Yujiro but they just don't care that it's wrong because the anime is most convenient to consume. It pisses me off.

LIPxLIP deserves the tender care of attention to detail, since their stories involve so much child abuse, neglect, favoritism, alcoholism, abandonment issues, abandonment of childhood...none of this was graced on in the anime. And when it dipped its toes in one small scene for each, Hiyori invalidates their trauma and makes the audience assume what they've gone through- their struggles, their pain, their trauma, is nothing but shits and giggles.

"Oh, thank goodness! I thought something bad happened to him! Too bad he hates girls, how can I fix him?"

"No parent would make a lunch for a child she hates!"

I'm sorry but I wanted to punt Hiyori in that episode so badly. My girl did not deserve this fucking anime makeover treatment.

Anyway, to sum it up, the anime focuses more on Aizou's reactions to Hiyori than Yujiro's, and focused the friendship almost solely on him and revealed more about him than Yujiro. Hence why the anime fails as a proper LIPxLIP source material.

[angst-iguana]

Where is Seiji's mom?

I really like knowing how a character grew up because it helps me know how to write them so in he case of Seiji's mom, it's always intrigued me as to where she is and why she is never mentioned in present moments.

In the comics, the parents day, when Nicholas talks about his mom, Seiji says his father has important things to do, not his parents. Seiji doesn't mention his mother at all. We know from the novels that his mom and dad are very happily married and there is a moment where Seiji says his parents run a successful company. However, Nicholas, in the novels, also notes Seiji gets rather pressed when asked about his parents. (Nicholas writes it to being afraid to disappoint them, which, I mean, yes).

Seiji only mentioning his father shows significance. We can cross out divorce knowing how strong Seiji's parent's relationship is, which means something likely happened to her. There's a moment in the second novel, right before the 'shut the hell up, Robert' moment, Seiji talks about his mother. It starts off with Seiji saying his mother and Jesse's were 'friends' maybe I just decided this was true without second thought, but, I'm pretty certain Jesse's parents are divorced. We know this moment happens when they're still little

We learn Seiji's memories of his mom, distinct ones, are from when he was little. The line "Seiji's father was the only one who could make her smile" also screams out to me. Maybe it's just a habit of mine, but when I write about a person not in another's life anymore, I write about their smile. That just sounds like she isn't in their life anymore. So, there's one of two theories I think plausible: his mom is just always busy being a big corporate boss so much Seiji can only remember her smile, or she's dead.

Seiji only ever calls his father, and on the phone calls with his dad, Koichiro only ever speaks in terms of himself. 'You want me to fund the France trip...." He doesn't make a comment about Seiji's mother and discussing things with her when it would make so much sense to include her. Seiji is their child, Koichiro wouldn't just not tell her about what is happening in Seiji's life. So he either knows she'll be on board with it, or he has no one to discuss their child with. He also says he must met Nicholas, no mention of Seiji's mom. Seiji's parent's meeting Nicholas is a big deal, so the fact Koichiro doesn't mention his wife wanting to meet Nicholas too is also odd.

My standing position is the Seiji's mom is dead, I don't think Koichiro would not include her in Seiji's life, that doesn't seem to be his character. Plus Seiji's memories of her, all of them mentioned, are from when he was much younger. Seiji not mentioning his mother in the comics and novels too is very interesting. Why would he solely mention his father? In every sense of his life. Why isn't she there? She's not even mentioned unless it's about the past.

[briology]

spending their break with you: w/ kuramochi, miyuki, tets, tanba genre: fluff pairing: x black! fem reader CW: none! note: happy holidays !!!

YOICHI KURAMOCHI

the most excited to spend it with you.

has stuff planned out for the two of you to do

you guys went out to his favorite restaurant (the food was delicious)

he brought you back to his house to see his mother and she had cookies that needed to be decorated

it was going good till this man started to eat the cookies

you and his mother scolded him for that

Yall ended up cuddling by the fireplace while watching a Christmas movie

KAZUYA MIYUKI

he may not show it a lot, but he really loves to spend time with you over the holidays

he worked so hard, so you being the fantastic gf you are, booked yall a nice hotel to spend Christmas together

yall get there and it has the best scenery from the floor that you both were on.

on Christmas morning, yall exchanged gifts

you got him cleats, a chain, and some new gloves with his name on it

and as for his gifts to you, he got you gift cards to your favorite restaurant and store, a necklace with his name on it, and a beautiful promise ring

you both decided to order some room service food

miyuki was so lucky to have you in his life

TETSUYA YUKI

you already know how he coming

this man is making Christmas dinner with his momma, baking some desserts, he did it all with you.

he is the type to be making sure that everything is prepared, making sure everything is in order.

he'll be stressing like this is y'all first Christmas together.

when it comes to gift exchange, he has the straghtest face but on the inside, he is nervous you wouldn't like it.

but ofc, you loved them because they were from him

his mother took pics of you guys opening gifts and they were just, so cute. (even tets was smiling)

KOICHIRO TANBA

ahhh our sweet giant

this time, its about New Year's

is nervous to because of the possibilities of him messing up

or the kiss being bad

brushed teeth, check. mouth spray just in case, yes. chapstick, got it in his pocket.

once it came down to the countdown, he gets ready for the kiss

applies his chapstick before you could look

"3, 2, 1, HAPPY NEW YEAR"

instead of him grabbing you, you grabbed him and kissed him like you were not gonna let him go

once you pulled away, he was blushing like a MF

"you tatsed sweet, you should wear that chapstick often" you said while smirking. poor guy was stunned and didn't know what to say

college kicked my ass, but hey, i'm here :) (and for real this time) <3

[toranekooo]

hai :3 ambrose directed me to you so. please tell me about lip/hiyo i love drama and discourse so much (non forcing btw)

みなさん、おはこんばんちわ !! my name is ess but u can call me vyn, maiko or secchan~ and i will be your announcer for today <3 ! today we will be discussing why i dislike lip/hiyo ! this is gonna contain a lot of buffers so i dont get caught up in the tags or the search results so um. im sorry if its a pain to read. please be warned these are MOSTLY personal opinions and i don't intend on infringing on ppl who do ship it. i do not care. simply DONT tag my shit as it and we're good ^_^ except ppl dont listen and i find it fucking annoying so. here's a full blown explanation i guess

first ! lip.hiyo is a ship between hi.yori su.zumi and the members of lipx.lip ai.zo and yu.jiro . hiyo/ri is their manager and she's a girl from the countryside who moved to tokyo to study and work on becoming a track and field athelete . lipx/lip are themselves. their relationship in canon is. friends at best. something else at worst. being the little shits they are, lip/lip are nothing short of assholes to hiyo.ri for the majority of their earlier canon interactions. she states multiple times in her stories that they make her feel stupid. while i do think they respect and care for each other as coworkers, i still dislike how they treat her as a person, especially how they put down her feelings. before and after her.oiku where hiyo.ri undergoes a transformation courtesy of lx.l dressing her up so she can confess to another member of the idol series, asu.ka kai.do (discontinued due to the collaborative project ending) — they continue to tell her that had it not been for the pretty dress or the makeup, she wouldn't be worthy of being called a heroine. she wouldn't be a "girl" in their eyes. which is where a lot of the ships stem from.

but wait! you're probably asking yourself, or well, me: "secchan-sensei! lipx.lip bully each other a whole damn lot too! they bicker and they insult each other! wouldn't this put shipping them in the same category as lp/hy?" excellent question! while i understand why people can perceive it similarly, there is one big difference. the idols and hiyori exist in an unbalanced power dynamic. no i do not mean that in a literal sense, but in a social, emotional sense. you said it yourself, lip/lip bully each other! theyre mean and rude and crass and jerks to EACH OTHER. there is a back and forth movement. they bite and bite back, so to speak. while with hiy.ori as you're aware, she swallows her pain and bottles up that sadness and holds back those tears, she never responds or insults them back because she's not that kind of person. above all things, hiyori remains kind to ai and yu but the fact that they hurt her in ways they don't even acknowledge are not mutually exclusive.

if you're familiar with hone.yworks lore, as well as lx.l themselves, you probably know at least an adequate bit of their trauma. to put it simply, a.izo struggles with interacting with women, to the point where he finds them difficult to be with. this is often translated to him hating women, so as an idol with a predominantly female fanbase, this is a big problem. this trauma stems from his mother, who for the greater part of his childhood, was an abusive drunk. not only that, his older brother, whom he looked to for support and comfort when their home life was at their worst, is a playboy who toyed around with women and relationships with hopes of avoiding the loneliness at home. while ken grew out of his issues and ultimately became a better person, his actions growing up had a significant negative effect on ai.zo . he isnt jUst a miSoGyniSt dear fuck

yujiro, on the other hand, is the stepson of national treasure, tamagoro someya, a master of kabuki. his mother, tae, married into the family and he has a younger stepbrother, koichiro. tamagoro very explicitly tells him that he will not inherit the kabuki legacy, stating that he "lacks beauty" and is half-hearted. this is despite the fact that yujiro pushed himself beyond his own strength, to the point of starvation and isolation, all for the sake of pleasing his father — who never intended to acknowledge him in the first place. yujiro remained inadequate, lacking, some part of him, despite his best efforts, would never fit into the beauty of the roles his father had crafted for the stage.

“Father is father, and there’s nothing I can do about that. I think he didn’t have a choice in telling me to give up…” “…Were you never allowed to stand on the kabuki stage?” “There’s no way he would have let me. It was only my brother who could have…” (That’s really messed up…) If he had no intention of letting him perform on stage, why did he let him practice? It was cruel to put so many expectations on a child, only to rip his hope away from him. (LOVE&KISS novel, Chapter 7) [1]

how is this relevant to hiyori?

then, we talk about the infamous hero.taru anime. now, honeyw.orks anime have this curse where they're either bound to flop incredibly or butcher the characters enough it appeals to a general audience and completely destroys their characters. the hero.taru anime was made to promote lip.x.lip and profit off their popularity in the idol genre showcase hiyo.ri's heroine story. the story spans multiple mvs, from h.eroine iku.sei keikak.u -> her.oine wa hei.kin ika -> her.oine tarum.ono . there's a general difference with as.uka being cut out and replaced with nagisa after he's finally released from the honeyw.orks basement. aaand i'm getting sidetracked. as someone who watched every single anime hnw has put out, i can confidently say...

her.otaru fucking sucks.

despite being an anime centered on hiy.ori's development as a heroine, it overuses fanservice and became a cookie cutter shoujo mixed with a little idol for the views. fuck, the main conflict was literally between lip.xlip's manager and their biggest fan who had a crush on aiz.o . DO YOU SEE MY ISSUE. ok that aside. the anime completely butchers hiyo's character by making her overly dependent on lx.l. not to mention the bathroom scene. ick. the anime also completely butchers lxl by erasing their issues and making them into "just backup male leads if nag.isa doesnt sell well" and he didnt bc he was there for one fucking episode . back to my point, the anime has a particular scene pertaining to their trauma, which i have elaborately expanded above, and dumbs it down to: [2]

bad, right? not the worst butchering of it yet. you see, SOMEHOW, the herota.ru anime made the already fucked hani.wa timeline WORSE by turning yum.e fanf.are into a song about hiyori. i'm going to start tearing and biting bc this frustrated me SO MUCH . yume.fan is a song of aizo and yujiro about their struggles as stated above, and yet it was percieved as a song made to make hiyo.ri fall in love with them.

god ok this is. incredibly long at this point but i have only pierced the surface. lets just get it down to brass tacks. i hate lip.hiyo.

a lot of people came out of hero.taru shipping lip.hiyo after seeing their relationship and interactions in the anime. people tend to ship them with hiyor.i because "sHe's nOt LiKe oThER giRls" . of all the things i hate abt lip.hiyo and the hero.taru anime in general, i hate how it ruins hiyo.ri's character. i hate how they refuse to acknowledge that she enjoys feeling beautiful, she likes being a feminine, she wants to be a heroine — her issues don't lie in her not being beautiful enough to fit in the heroine mold, but the fact that she can be heroine, regardless of how she perceives herself!

well, introspective reasons aside, i hate the ship on a personal basis bc i've recently found out most ppl who ship it are pushing to make people believe it's canon ? like who the fuck does that. ONE, hiyori does have a canon love interest, nag.isa shiran.ami. TWO, they have never even remotely shown any romantic interest to her ??? well fuck i mean if you count calling her derogatory names, telling her she'll never be a girl if she doesn't dress up, or saying she'll never get a romeo if she rejects nagisa counts as flirting then sure i believe you. THREE, you can literally ship it even if it isn't canon. there is nothing stopping you??? it's giving hypocrisy bc a long loooong time ago they were mad at ai.yuu shippers for continuously mentioning their parallels and the possibility of them becoming canon and they called them [BEEEEEP] . you get the point.

negativity aside, at this point i've probably put you through a horror. sorry about that. all in all, i prefer ai.yuu and nagi.hiyo over lp/hy. i dislike het.lip in general because why would you want to inflict this upon any girl. come on. they can do better. im kidding but you get it. ai and yu trust each other more than anyone, they are canonically each other's most important person, and they are equals in persevering to achieve their dreams. THAT is what yume.fan meant [3] . and i like n.ghy bc nagi.sa has had feelings for hiyori for years, even before she dolled herself up, even before she was a manager, he fell in love with hiyori, and no one else — because in his eyes, she's always been a heroine!! "zutto heroine da" - nagi.sa in heroine wa heikin ika [4]

in case for SOME reason this isn't enough, please feel free to peruse the following posts that expand on some particular parts of this: differences between the mvs and anime | the Trauma scene | yume fan.fare's meaning | personal thoughts 1 | personal thoughts 2

CITATIONS:

[1] LOVE&KISS Chapter 7 — translation

[2] He.roine Taru.mono! Kiraware H.eroine to Naisho Os.higoto Anime Episode 4

[3] Yu.me Fan.fare by LIP.×LIP

[4] Her.oine wa Hei.kin Ika by Su.zumi Hiyo.ri (CV: Ino.ri Mi.nase)

[waitmyturtles]

Some quick late-night thinky thoughts on The End of the World, With You, episode 5:

1) Still feeling very glad I didn’t dump this show -- I was going to dump it originally because I thought Masumi was ending up to be an annoying weenie, but:

2) Now I kind of like the knowingly elder statesmen roles that both he and Ritsu are assuming vis à vis Yuma, and it’s cute!

3) I can’t predict where this Meguru storyline is going to go, but I do appreciate that the show cast a gender-neutral individual for the role in Idegami Baku.

4) And speaking of the Meguru storyline, I’m DESPERATELY GLAD, in a deeply trope-y way, that Miki Koichiro didn’t fuck with what works by way of Yoshida Munehiro’s role -- he who is literally not even listed in the MDL profile of the show, and if he were, he’d probably be listed as, “You Know, The Same Old Kido Shit,” because like, how could we have expected anything different?! HE’S SO GOOD. I mean -- EVEN THE SAME FACIAL HAIR as The Pornographer, come on!

Y’all, I was cracking up. Poor Yoshida -- I mean, if he’s going to be typecast, at least he EMBRACES IT. And then all his character’s shit gets LIT ON FIRE. Karma on so many levels. After seeing how Kido switched up to be so positive in The Pornographer: Playback -- this was a nice reminder that Miki uses Yoshida to give us refreshing moments of asshole-like behavior in his scripts, and I just love that Miki trusts Yoshida with those moments. Yoshida was great.

5) So I guess we’re now into the supernatural, huh? 

6) I’m kind of wondering if a macro background theme of this show is to highlight the ongoing discussions in Japan about mass euthanasia. The NY Times recently reported about ongoing public discussions around mass suicide and the growing elderly population, and I can’t help but think that the meteor -- along with Yuma’s potential for possibly interfering with it -- is somehow connected to this discussion. 

Couple that with what I think was meant to indicate that Ritsu may be more of a Goebbels-like figure than we may have thought. Yes, Ritsu is already making me squeamish for giving Yuma the suicide drug, maybe helping Meguru’s sister with her suicide (maybe? I don’t know if that was INDICATED in the episode, but I assume that we could maybe assume it), and indicating that he may want to live, all while Masumi assumes that Ritsu will off himself before the meteor hits. This cloudy confusion about Ritsu is giving me the jibbles, because I wonder if it’s indicating that he’s even far darker than we think, and that he might want to go on a euthanasia joyride before the Earth shatters.

Anyway -- I could be super far off, but things continue to not smell right with Ritsu, even as he had redeemed himself just a little in episode 4.

[twowink]

hiyori canonically has a great relationship with all of her family!! she's the oldest of five kids and she's just a sweet and kind big sister and they adore her so much and she loves them and!!! she gets a job to help provide for her family after her dad gets injured and can't work anymore!!! the siblings are minoru (middle school boy), naho and saho (twin sisters), and sora (littlest boy!)

aizo and ken's sibling relationship is complicated because they care about each other but also ken is literally half the reason aizo is so distrustful of romance/love (because ken became a playboy after their parents' divorce and seeing ken flirt around + their mom get drunk and hit on guys was not really the best thing for aizo's mindset). they got so distant that ken didn't realize that aizo liked cats until he brought a cat home and aizo immediately tried to buy supplies for it. because their parents were also. not the best, ken was also the one cooking most of aizo's meals

yujiro and his little brother, koichiro, also have.... a complicated relationship because of their family being like a famous kabuki family. yujiro's dad chose koichiro as the heir to the kabuki name instead of yujiro, saying that it was because yujiro lacked the beauty and grace to perform onstage. this is literally the entire reason yujiro has insecurity issues and gets anxious whenever someone even implies he's not good enough compared to someone else. koichiro is also a tsundere because neither brother has the best social skills as a result of devoting themselves to kabuki training instead of making friends. but they do care about each other and love each other and want each other to be happy. they just also cannot be honest to each other at all.

SCREAMING AND CRYING ...

[straycatboogie]

2024/01/29 English

BGM: Hiroshi Fujiwara - Natural Born Dub

I worked late today. TBH, this morning I felt a certain depressive mood within myself. Although there is no clear reason why I should feel so, I couldn't throw that mood away - so I needed to treat that mood so carefully. It seemed nothing troublesome has been happening in my life - of course, for me, money management has been a certain bothersome issue. And also, I have other personal issues (but I might not have to write about them.) But, I have a will to solve them. Then - why do I have to feel such an annoying depression?

About this topic, I remember a book. A popular book in Japan, Koichiro Kokubun's one (國分功一郎『暇と退屈の倫理学』.) According to that book, Heidegger taught us that there is this kind of form of boredom - it is "simply bored." In other words, we can get bored even though there is no specific reason why. Just as being in this world is already boring - I have accepted Kokubun and Heidegger's discussion as this.

Then, I might be able to say this. For me, being in this world means already boring and tiring - if this is true, then how can I treat this emotion as a natural born pessimist? I remember this - once, an ex-friend had taught me that there must be the reasons why I should feel a certain boredom or any other difficulties to live. But, at least from my viewpoint I have to say that I tend to feel a troublesome anxiety with no clear reason.

As a readymade/instant conclusion, I can see that I can't stop this trial - thinking various pieces of ideas deeply as I can, and writing them on the memo pad as this. This morning, though I had tried to read the rest of Heidegger's "Nietzsche", I couldn't. So, as I had written above, I had thought about my life. A really philosophical activity…

Once, I had hated this kind of philosophical taste in my thinking when I was young, because it is really uncool (in Japanese, we say "陰キャ" which means "too introvert.") But now, I can be proud of this "uncool" attitude - because that's me, and it actually/certainly has built this self.

[cassyedith]

Honeyworks Hunger Games Simulator Round 1 pt. 0

I’m bored and I haven’t done this in ages, so time to do the HG sim with some very nice images edited in paint :D

District 1: -Saku Akechi -Chizuru Nakamura

District 2: -Fuuma Shirayuki -Yuu Setoguchi

District 3: -Nagisa Shiranami  -Sena Narumi

District 4: -Ken Shibasaki -Souta Mochizuki District 5: -Chisa Takano -Koyuki Ayase

District 6: -Tsubomi Natsukawa -Natsuki Enomoto

District 7: -Aizou Shibasaki -Koudai Yamamoto

District 8: -Misaki Sakurai -Asuka Kaidou

District 9: -Kaname Akuutsu -Kazuki Haiga

District 10: -Kotarou Enomoto -DAI

District 11: -IV -MEGU

District 12: -Kobayashi -Uru Ouji

[deus-ex-mona]

good evening~~ here’s my very cursed(!!!) top 10 list on the most redundant [redacted] anime features off the top of my head~~

debates and disagreements welcome~

10- lxl and basketball

pointless inclusion that was pretty much just an excuse to get chiz to openly thirst over aizo. and to emphasise on just how much better aizo is at sports as compared to his poor sidekick yujiro. just male leads being male leads, ig

i mean, sure, it gave us that beautiful ball e mv, but lxl’s sporty [redacted] anime-induced hobby wasn’t worth much in general.

9- the inclusion of ⅘ of gen 2 tbh

they were pretty much just background extras for the most part, except for ken, who gets bonus moments thanks to being the male lead’s brother. heck, poor kodai doesn’t get much time to shine, despite being the adoring bf of one of the three heroines of the show. mans got more screentime either behind his camera, or as juri love flashbacks during her conversations with the jk trio.

as for the others, arisa got like 5 seconds of screentime (and 4 of them occurred in the sports fest ep, romeo ed included), and kotahina were nerfed to heck and back. they were written to be competitive and stubborn characters, so why were they portrayed to be nothing more than your average caring senpai towards hiyoko? a nd cultural festival w h e r e ? helloooooooooo~~~?

sure, the sports fest ep did give gen 2 in general a chance to show their stuff, but it was clearly more of viewer fanservice for pre-[redacted] anime fans who know and love these characters for who they truly are.

8- aizo’s “trauma reveal”

idk about you, but hiyoko does not need to know about aizo’s trauma. i mean, yeah, i totally get where ken’s coming from. as a scumbag older sibling myself, i, too, get the urge to dump lots of info about my brother to complete strangers. but. it’s just that. hiyori… really didn’t need to go “oh thank god it wasn’t real trauma. now. how can i fix him?”.

she really didn’t need to say that mans. all forms of trauma are valid forms of trauma… if that makes sense. she can’t just decide that someone’s trauma “isn’t real trauma” and then go ahead and liken it to her dislike for squid. and that includes aizo’s trauma with ladies. not cool.

on the bright side, at least aizo’s local idol boo yujiro took his trauma seriously and stood by him even as their manager had a trauma minimising session with his brother. and speaking of yujiro…

7- that someya ‘scandal’

what the heck was that ep 4 someya scandal lmao. it’s never brought up again????? not even by koichiro and tamagoro in the later episodes??? do they even know that there was a scandal about them??? bruh. what was it even there for lol. the gayze???

i mean, yeah, he’s totally the shame of the someya family for going ahead to be the less popular member of a popular idol duo, with said idol-ling being something he had received the head of said someya family’s permission for. but he had debuted without his family’s name anyway so??? does it even matter???

it would’ve actually made sense if it had a call back in a later episode, with, like, the reveal that maybe chizuru or one of the 100000 aizo stans there apparently are had leaked yujiro’s last name online in an attempt to take him down so that aizo can have a solo idol career or something. but no. it’s just never brought up again.

but before we drop the topic of yujiro like how his in-universe popularity dropped to 0 in the adaptations…

6- yujiro arrest reason

this. made. no. sense. either.

did the [redacted] anime throw darts at a dartboard of possible plot ideas to decide how the someya family side plot was going to go?? or was it decided with an online prompt generator?? or was it the result of a game of mad libs with the office crew????

like? lol? who smuggled koichiro into the bar??? and wh o let baby face yujiro into the bar??? and how did none of the staff at the bar question it?

though. wait. how the heck did hiyoko even see enough distinctive features of yujiro’s during the night that she witnessed his police encounter to identify him when they next crossed paths in the classroom? she was looking at him from above from her spot on a flight of stairs in dim lighting. just how good is her eyesight? hello?

5- repurposed yumefan

yeah yeah i k n o w the [redacted] anime staff justified their choice to use yumefan as a song to encourage hiyoko bc “it’s a song about encouraging others” and stuff. but still. yappa saikyou would probably have worked too, since it’s about not wanting to lose to your rivals and aiming to surpass the rest and stuff like that. or they could’ve just. y’know. kept nonfan in their setlist anyway if they wanted to dedicate a song to their friend(?) slash manager, since that song’s mv was the first mv that hiyoko had worked on, and thus, ✨memories✨ are there, y’know?

either way, the [redacted] anime staff saw yumefan, decided “ok it’s for women now” and had it dedicated to hiyoko and got the narumi sisters to cover it as a special ed. much wow. aizo would be proud. and speaking of aizo…

4- yuko in the countdown live

she moved to france in the lxl movie, so what is she doing here in the first place? to watch her estranged son hxld hxnds with some rando onstage? go back to france, yuko.

3- nagisa arc

the main problem i have with nagisa’s arc is how forced it felt tbh. it kinda felt like it was just. shoehorned into the plot? it just. didn’t flow well. like… especially how nagisa was completely written out of the plot after he hopped on that train. lxl had been teasing hiyoko relentlessly about nagisa till he left. then it was just like. he never existed?? excuse???

i mean. i love nagihiyo. don’t get me wrong. it’s just… the way the [redacted] anime staff plotted it into the story felt… off.

look, you see, i think the nagisa plot would’ve worked better as a season closer. like, after all that friendship drama and scandals and stuff, we get a breather in the form of the nagisa visit. he could be visiting for the countdown live, or for a christmas or new year’s visit for all i care, but it’d give the lxl + hiyoko trio, with newly strengthened bonds of friendship after all they’ve been through (thanks chiz), a chance to show off their cooperative skills with the hiyoko makeover sequence and subsequent nagisa encounter. heck, it’d even give nagisa another reason to be wary of lxl, since “aren’t these the dudes from that relationship scandal you were in? you should be more careful around them fr” could be a legit point of concern. plus! it could lead into a post-series uni timeskip or something for that sweet, sweet nagihiyo uni arc crumbs!!

hmmm. well. in the end, i still hate how nagisa’s existence was all but retconned after his episodes. poor lad. he deserves better!!! and speaking of deserving better…

2- the narumi sisters’ appearance

for sena, as she has co-starred with lxl in the past, and since she is still in the industry, it’s no surprise that she’d make an appearance or two. however, the r e a l problem is how she was handled. she was only abruptly thrown into ep 6 to fit in yet another “uwu woe is me im not cute uwu” hiyoko moment in the 24 minutes of terror. plus, those sena-mona moments make no sense whatsoever if you’re a [redacted] anime-only who doesn’t know how lxl and the narumis know each other. viewer fanservice at its finest, ig.

now. mona.

#notmymona

w h o is that girl and why does she have our angel’s name and face? i swear, the only redeeming trait she has is that her character design was done by moge, which is. yeah, much cuter than her lxl movie cameo appearance.

but aside from that. who is she? she has no goals, no ambition, all she does is go “uwu i look up to my sister who i envy… but nvm i’m here to be your relationship therapist so that’s enough about me—”

she doesn’t even get to perform in the [redacted] anime even though there was an entire joint-artiste concert in the last episode. she doesn’t even salt about her nasty encounter with yujiro (which would’ve made for a more interesting topic during her second encounter with hiyoko when they talked about conflicts with friends, instead of being demoted to a bonus manga tbh). she’s so bland, she makes plain spaghetti taste like carbonara.

and speaking of carbonara, we return to lxl for number one, which is…

1- the lxl shower scene (no image bc g o o d l a w d w h y w o u ld i include it)

they are 15. we don’t need that extended shower scene. we don’t need to know that hiyoko has no qualms about barging into the showers for the opposite gender, with said members of the opposite gender being completely nude and uncomfortable when she did so. we just. didn’t need to see any of that.

who was that scene even made for? help???? just how bad did they think their own show was that they felt the need to put in an out of place scene of teen boys showering to pad the runtime?? excuse???

[lilac-melody]

In all seriousness though, my personal opinion is that I think Koichiro is growing up; aka actually maturing (a bit) and is learning that his rivalry with Yujiro was probably stupid.

Are his actions excused? No. However he was taught at a young age by his father that his position as the heir was threatened by someone who came from another family. His father encouraged this awful attitude.

Imo, Tamagoro is the true asshole here. He's a wholeass adult, and Koichiro is 12/13. It's not fair to expect a child to fully grasp right from wrong when it's not being properly taught.

Even so, Koichiro still hurt Yujiro immensely in the film. And as I don't consider the anime canon, I will not accept (no matter how funny it is) Koichiro accepting Yujiro as a person because he took him away from a CLUB.

We need more buildup as to how they grew to be more at ease.

We know there's some care there- as once Koichiro let Yujiro perform in his stead before. Why did he do it? We don't know. But he wouldn't just give it up unless he did have some care for him.

Not to mention Yujiro was concerned about Koichiro acting out at the start of the L&K novel. But they still steer clear of each other.

I feel like instead of giving us their story bit by bit and instead being outright about their relationship would be a huge help. Giving Koichiro his own novel or something that gives us more about him.

There's so many holes in the story about the Someya bros that it's making many people conflicted.

Koichiro isn't in high demand. And many people saw him as abusive. So they're not putting much care into his story. And it's sad.

I'm not saying he wasn't abusive- he was. But he isn't an asshole at heart.