#sorry cecil fans who saw my bullshit in his tag

[progmetol]

Cecil and Cynthia circa 1990

A few months after the incident in ‘89 that earned Cecil that magnificent scar and girlfriend.

There is more backstory to this image but that’s spoilers for my prequel fan comic that is coming soooooon. There’s a couple panels preview on my page if you are interested. I plan to have the first two pages up within a week or so.

[amisbro]

Let’s answer this

If someone asked me RIGHT NOW “Where are you in terms of UtaPri and the fandom?” That is arguably the most complicated question I would ever have to answer...and I took World Culture in High School!

Okay let’s be serious UtaPri is legit one of the few franchises that tests me mentally in the sense of Figuring out Broccoli’s next move with Merch What they could do gamewise What is going to happen with the Anime Information on other projects (Shining Masterpiece/Theater ,DVDs ,Stage shows etc.) What the next step in the universe would be as a whole with the different units and COULD THEY CREATE MORE...I never discussed this one but its something I had been thinking about Its also one of the few that has allowed me to mess with the Canon and treat groups that might not have been treated fairly and write them in ways that I enjoy...matter of fact SPOILER TIME but one of the next fic works coming this month is my yearly Birthday concert but with a twist that you’ll see for the first time when the birthday comes up. It HAS also been one of the more frustrating fandoms lately that I have been in/dealt with and I’m not going to bullshit it anymore. History Lesson So back in 2013 (and more specifically near the end of it I discovered a gif of one of the characters from the series...at the time I had no idea who it was and ,if you remember, Tumblr made an update that hid the tags unless you went in the post on a person’s blog (generally the OP) and found out what it was.  In this case it was Ren Jingugji of STARISH whom I found out was voiced by Junichi Suwabe.  That name sounded familiar and I discovered he was in BroCon as the brother Kaname whom was a Monk (and also a womanizer...there’s a comho) (Also if I got the occupation for Kaname wrong I apologize.  I could have sworn that was his occupation but its been a while since I watched the series so forgive me on the mistake if there was one) Well after this discovery about UtaPri I went and looked it up on my favorite website (okay second...ANN is first anymore) in Wikipedia and I discovered it was a Otome/Visual Novel game and that intrigued me...what intrigued me more was researching some of the characters and at the time legit five intrigued me Natsuki Shinomiya of STARISH and the whole of QN QN was interesting because ,since I was just discovering UtaPri at this point, I knew jack about them...but I wanted to see what I could learn about them from observation/  Legit the ONLY SPOILER I retained at the time was that Ai was programmed with the memory of Aine or something of that effect...again its been a good while. Season 1 I watched through DVD and if you go through this blog you will see that I did two different blogs on that and Season 2.  When I did Season 2 that was through the site crunchyroll and I remember at the time I was talking with someone using the “Fan Mail” option (hey tumblr staff bring that back will ya...I actually liked that option) and before I got to Season 2 someone had told me about Camus.  The reason for this was because I mentioned (at the time) I despised Ren’s character for being a womanizing playboy that didn’t give a s**t about being an idol.  Now yes that was actually wrong but it was the thing I remembered from my first watch through (which was when the conversation with the tumblr user occurred). Before we discuss Season 2 you have to know this.  Because I knew at the time info would be readily available on the “initial 6″ (Cecil wasn’t in STARISH yet) legit the only one I remembered reading about was Natsuki and originally I thought I was going to enjoy his character...matter of fact for anyone that wants to know that doesn’t from S1 the “Best Boy” spot was something like this Tokiya (before Cecil has {BEEEEP]) Cecil And once the Season was rewatched it was Ren after realizing the crap he not only went through in Season 1 but then later in Season 2 HOWEVER Once Season 2 came about and QN was introduced anyone that knows me knows that my faves showed up in Ai and Camus (and also Ran)...Reiji I never could really embrace and I have TRIED!  Something about him I just can’t get with. (I know I know...I can’t deal with him but I have no issue with Myu right?  Yeah I’ve been working on that one for over 4 years and it ain’t easy) So Season 2 was ON FIRE! Legit all of the songs I could kind of embrace (I legit replayed Crystal Time all day for like 3 weeks straight if I remember...might have been shorter but it was a murderous loop trust me) and the story (for the most part) was a very light and funny tone from what I remembered.  Yeah there were the “heavy” moments but you didn’t want to have a nervous breakdown after the episodes ended...that was me in Season 4 when Episode 11 happened BUT ANYWAYS Season 2 was ALSO the introduction of the “Renegade Princes” in HEAVENS and around this time they were just a trio (June 6th would be the airdate and the “official” birthday of HEAVENS I guess?  I think some use the 27th of June so its funny) and I was like most people.  I wanted them to fall on their ass and never be seen again so we could get to the STARISH/QN part of the story (cos I legit watched the SSX OVA like 50 times and can damn near recite that fucker word for word if I remember scenes hard enough...I think it was the first time I saw Myu with glasses too!) Now here was the thing about HEAVENS AT FIRST I was like the fandom like “Look at these jackasses.  All they want to do is start shit and cause problems for STARISH so they need their ass beat” and well they did lose and I think I remember the first time being REALLY HAPPY about it but I think around the second time I THINK (and I would have to go back through my notes) I was less harsh on them.  I know by the time I got to their debut episode (and I finished it) a THIRD TIME I had no issues with them left...then again this might have been during the space between Season 3 and 4. Actually...yeah the third watch was between Season 3 and 4 cos I wanted to see how the “Original Trio” acted and then I would compare that with the “new boys” later.  If I remember right (cos I am trying to NOT rewrite history) when I first saw the “Fully Powered” HEAVENS The one I probably took the most issue with was Van (sorry @baku5ds) but it was because he reminded me of Ren from Season 1 and I wanted to deck his ass...still kind of want to punch him then for acting like a knob but he’s aight now! Season 4 was going to be an interesting time for me See before Season 4 started I remember asking people how they thought the season was going to go and they thought it would go like this HEAVENS would lose (well they were initially DQ’d so kind of right) and then it would be down to STARISH and QN with HEAVENS as background characters (which is what they were in Season 3 cos we didn’t see them again till the new 7 showed up). When we found out it was going to be duets between STARISH and HEAVENS it became interesting for me because remember this:  Because I watched legit the initial debut for the Trio (and their subsequent loss) twice a part of me wanted to see what Broc would do FOR THEM because I personally had kind of “been there/done that” with STARISH and I learned as much as I could for three seasons and dealing with their personalities...nothing wrong with that but after a while you need to interject new characters to freshen up a series. One thing I remember being asked was basically this “How can you like HEAVENS when you don’t know about them?” (That’s not the question verbatim but considering this question was on skype legit now over 2 years old I dunno if I can find it again) We have to remember that around the time of Season 2 (when I watched it) I legit only remembered Ai’s part of the wikipedia entry so...why should I have liked QN? I really DIDN’T read the STARISH part of the wikipedia entry so why have liked them? See the way I work as a fan is through observation and I see what I see and then make my judgements based on that.  I STILL think that the School staff was borderline antagonistic (all of them and that includes Shining) and when STARISH officially got to debut with Nanami as the composer I smiled cos in the end the “bad guys” (even if they really weren’t) “got theirs” What I got legit curious about was this during Season 4 Even if my opinion and a STARISH fan’s opinion on HEAVENS never matched up could we have that civil discussion to say “okay you don’t like them that’s cool but please respect that I do” We all know about the “3 weeks of hell” and I won’t relive those but those were the WORST 3 weeks of my life.  I legit think I damn near had a headache that lasted that entire stretch I was that annoyed cos I could legit see the story in front of me but everyone else was like “Nah fam...that ain’t true” then HEAVENS lost in the Triple S after their perseverance of dealing with “Daddy’s bulls**t” and I don’t know if I was more annoyed about that or the prior weeks with the “EiiOto Mess” and the rest of the duet project cos in my head I knew one part of the fandom would be THRILLED while the other would be annoyed...I think anyone that knows me knows where i was to the point someone made a stalk account on twitter to try and get on me...didn’t work cos I know how to block people! ANYWHO! I’m going to try and keep the rest of this brief af...I say try so we won’t go over 6th stage (and how I thought that was a trainwrck...maybe I was too harsh back then to be honest) but I do want to discuss this Whenever I hear (and others I know) that “HEAVENS’ role is only to make STARISH better” I half ass chuckle because if we are talking about groups to make STARISH BETTER well...there was QN and then STARISH was again kind of like “Nah fam” and we know what happened. I dunno that I am annoyed with the fanbase...matter of fact I can almost tell you flat out I’m not but if I had a gripe with the “Western/International” base it felt more like at times y’all didn’t want there TO BE fans of the “Renegade Princes” because I know a friend of mine made a VERY INNOCENT post when it came to Shining Live and HEAVENS and they asked “What would the HEAVENS fans want in Shining Live for them” and I remember the Anons and how they were kind of rude...not a good way to grow a fanbase kids. Let’s be clear on this and I’m going to try and make this brief I don’t hate STARISH nor their fans I don’t hate QN or their fans (obviously I am one) I’m more frustrated because you see when you are someone like me who IRL dealt with a lot of s**t and was an underdog his whole life I always root for them...I want to see that upset! I think I would have enjoyed STARISH’s story a bit more IF they showed that they could “take it on the chin” one time and then go “Okay we lost that round...let’s give it hell next time!” I know they technically COULDN’T do that with the story they were telling but don’t you think that Suwabe right?  He worked on KnB and he could have said “Well look...in this series my school beat the main school (Seirin) and then they came back eventually and beat us...couldn’t we do something like that?” Irony before anyone says anything is he ,SuzuKen ,Kishow ,OnoD ,to a lesser extent Shimono and Tatsun (might have been more...I think Toriumi was on Suwabe’s team) all knew what happened but I think because of certain issues they HAD to write UtaPri where STARISH was basically unstoppable...best guess It gets frustrating sometimes to be a fan of the series (less so for me now that I play on the JP account more full-time now) and you want...really all of the groups to do well but you know you really want your group to do well.  It also somewhat gets upsetting when you ask people “Would you watch a season that was just HEAVENS?” and then they tell you they would skip it...never mind that you watched effectively 2 full seasons of the “main group” but EYYY I dunno I think I get agitated and I know there are others that do too.  I would NEVER just turn my back on the franchise because I love it but I think I just wish that HEAVENS got repped well on this site and even facebook better than I feel like they do.  I think sometimes they will never get this “stigma” of being an “antagonist” off of them and that sucks...but for some people the “first impression is the one that lasts” so I can’t fault that anymore I guess In closing I don’t think I could ever leave UtaPri behind but all I want is what is best for my boys and hopefully their day is coming very soon Au Revoir!