#the most inconsistent art style ever

[lucywucy126]

Day 4 - with someone from another fandom or another dcu character

[dangalakmayhem]

Hello tumblr!!! Vash the stampede

Ref image!!

[bigcheesefan]

Finally! Something I actually spent time on! I’m trying to get better at rendering and I thought this would be good practice :)

The reference image I used is from heir.of.atticus on instagram

[rowanchai]

WE ARE SOOOOO BACK BTW

two vers bc i can’t decide on colours

[and-stir-the-stars]

if your art is consistent then what is the point

[jce93]

Was heading to bed for the night but I randomly got inspiration lol.

[arolesbianism]

I’ve been slowly working on making the eternal gales cast new refs and icons, here’s a dump of what I have done so far

[ferretrix]

hey, long time admirer of your stuff! ive just been wondering, though, how exactly do you do your eyes? like.. obviously they're different from character to character, but how do you usually form them and whatnot?

thank you ! - 💥

heya thank you :) it's been a while since i answered one of these in depth but for you good anon i will try my best..... Here's the simple answer:

Here is some more thought-process/behind the scenes stuff:

Obviously head angle determines many things about drawing eyes; I've been trying harder to keep it in mind when I'm putting lines down, and it'll generally make them look more grounded/offer better depth. The main takeaway from head angle is how are the eye sockets oriented. Doing drawovers of photographs is a cheap+easy way to get a feel for this, but I wouldn't worry about 100% anatomical accuracy; what I'm trying to get a feel for is the placement of eyes versus the brow/nose bridges.

The amount of detail I put into eyes is wildly inconsistent haha it rly depends on the piece and art style, but the (for lack of a better word) "definition lines" and spots of black in deep shadow make up most of the detailed stuff. I'm still not great at drawing massively distinctive eye shapes but I try to maintain a general sense of one for different faces (ex. Rectangular, narrow, round, angled up or down). I'll also be the first to admit it takes a lot of conscious thought to reproduce the same line variation/angles in someone's eyes each time you draw them, but if you're looking for advice on consistency those are examples of traits I'd keep in mind.

That's it for the most part.... I don't think the way I draw eyes is particularly unique lol so here are a few things that have gotten me where I am:

other people's art, a lot of which is manga. when I say naruto taught me to draw im only half joking hwheeze. my art tastes lean towards manga/comic stylization so none of this is hugely realistic overall....

that being said, I do like the more realistic side of manga/comic art so photo studies/anatomy tips have still been useful to me

this tutorial by sinix is one of my favorite things ever, because it explicitly discusses both anatomical knowledge AND how to translate that into shorthand

thanks for the ask!

[comradekatara]

Genuinely asking—what changes would you make to the adult gaang designs? :)

this is such a fun question thank u for enabling me. i mean i draw them as adults sometimes so also check out my /oldergaang tag if u want visuals (altho i also change my designs a lot because my art is nothing if not inconsistent) but if i was just going with like standard character designs like if i could redesign that hideous “old friends” poster for example…

aang: get rid of that fucking. chinstrap. don’t give him white man features because what the hell is that. and let him wear his off the shoulder monk robes from book 3 because he was slaying with that fit. actually the way aang is drawn in imbalance is basically perfect i would retain that design into adulthood. thank u peter wartman for all that u do….

katara: i don’t mind the older katara design (from the little we see of it) but it’s also not nearly as cunty and slayful as i would like. katara is genuinely interested in fashion and loves experimenting with clothes and hair and makeup, i refuse to believe that as she ages and has more resources to tailor her style to her own personal tastes she wouldn’t get a little funky with it. like she kind of just looks boring and uninspired in her older design, and that’s unacceptable to me because she should be hot. adult katara should be the hottest woman you have ever seen in your life. and she should be buff, also. shredded, even.

toph: any signifiers of copness are obviously unacceptable to me. but even more that than, it’s very important to me that older toph is distinctly butch. i think she would cut her hair the second she realizes that there is no reconciliation to be found with her parents and that there is no reason to adhere to those confucian values. and she would wear a lot of sleeveless outfits (sort of like the shirt korra wears in “korra alone”) to show off her biceps and also space bracelet (spacelet) that is her prized possession forever. and she’s just kind of a hot hippie butch legend . period.

zuko: in the old friends poster he literally looks like a lizard so just like. no. wtf. and i like his long hair in theory but i don’t like that it’s styled after ozai and not ursa, i think his hair would be shwoopier and frame his face more. and his robes should be less spiky and militaristic and more designed for comfort because that’s what makes him feel most like his true authentic self and he deserves that. also weird for a guy who is trying to demilitarize the fire nation to wear an armor-adjacent type of outfit. so mainly he’d just look softer and more like his mom.

sokka: i hate buff goatee whitewashed sokka that is some kind of demon. lok did so little with him and yet said so much (all of it egregiously wrong, ofc). sokka would be fairly tall (although not as tall as aang) and have defined muscle but in a sinewy, lanky way. and despite always having enough to eat he’d still look somewhat malnourished just because he’s constantly overworked and exhausted and never takes care of himself. and his ponytail would be longer but he’d still shave the sides. and the older he gets the darker his clothes get until he basically just wears black all the time because at some point he realizes that it’s more advantageous to remain culturally ambiguous if he’s gonna be a cosmopolitan. and he wears glasses (which were a gift from kuei). and sometimes he uses a cane because he didn’t sufficiently take care of his broken leg after the war ended and now he’s paying the price for it. and his cane has a blade inside too, but he rarely ever even pulls out the blade because he can incapacitate someone with just a wooden stick anyway. so he looks like if a nerd was a shadow was about to collapse at any given moment was secretly ruling the entire world. and he’s not in any sort of front-facing position of power whatsoever but he’s actually pulling all the strings from behind the scenes, and it’s exhausting. his eyebags are visible from outer space.

suki: i don’t even think there is a “canon” adult suki character design besides her in her kyoshi warrior armor and makeup but to me casual suki just starts dressing more like sokka. like the loose baggy sleeveless shirts (except in a lighter shade of blue bc kyoshi island colors) and tight pants and boots. it’s a very dykey look already and they’re basically girlfriend twins so their styles would merge even more than it already has within the show itself. like sometimes people think that sokka and suki are siblings because they dress so similarly and give off such a similar vibe and they’re just like “but we’re literally different ethnicities??? and also we are currently making out????”

okay bonus round bc i can’t just neglect them

azula: she cuts her hair really short and as an adult leaves it to shoulder length for the most part because that’s more comfortable for her. like zuko, she also starts dressing for comfort, and for a period in her late teens stops wearing makeup altogether. she gets back into wearing makeup as an adult, but she stops caring about whether or not she leaves the house with lipstick on, and it becomes more about the process for her than the result. she’s comfy and cute and dykey.

mai: sokka is her lesbian style icon so after her first haircut that was inspired by toph’s haircut to piss off her parents, she gets an undercut and starts wearing her hair in a ponytail like sokka. as she gets older she also gets more confident in her body and doesn’t feel like she needs to wear baggy long-sleeved clothing at all times or she’ll die. and she isn’t rail thin as an adult either because she starts letting herself eat more than a single grain of rice at a time. also, she gets a sword.

ty lee: she becomes a kyoshi warrior so she starts incorporating more blues and greens into her wardrobe, but also more oranges and yellows after she embraces her air nomad heritage. and she just dresses very colorfully and has a vast rotation of different cute little outfits. and i think she’d also experiment with different hairstyles once she has the freedom to define herself outside of the aesthetics expected of her. she looks beautiful always

haru: he finally shaves that thang

[brucebocchi]

Winter 2024 anime, Pt. 2: Mixed reactions, the bench, and the gems

hey y'all, this is also up on my ko-fi! it's free to read both here and there, but i'm struggling financially rn so i could appreciate if you'd throw a few bucks my way if you liked it! part 1 can be found here.

And we're back for part 2! Here's all the new stuff I finished this season, and one more I'll get back to later. As with before, these are sorted alphabetically within each category and are not ranked as of yet.

Also as before, the OP for each series is linked in the title. Check them all out if the header images aren't giving you the right feel for each show, but also check them out because most of them were actually pretty damn good this season.

[Solo Leveling OP voice] LET'S GET IT!

Mixed Bags:

Hokkaido Gals Are Super Adorable!

Your standard, quasi-harem “easily flustered Regular Guy wins over hot girls just by being really nice” shonen romcom. I really don’t have much to say about this one other than if you’ve seen My Dress-Up Darling, you’ve basically seen this already. The only thing that really sets it apart is the setting.

Tsubasa (voiced by Nobunaga Shimazaki, in a FAR cry from his turn as Mahito in Jujutsu Kaisen) is a straight-laced Tokyoite whose family situation lands him in a small city in the frozen boonies of Hokkaido. While looking for the bus to his new house, he runs into a gyaru in the snowy wild, the underdressed, hilariously-proportioned Minami, and they hit it off. It turns out they go to the same school, there are other cute girls there who take a shine to him as well, it’s nothing new.

I ultimately don’t have much to say about Hokkaido Gals, but I do have a soft spot for series like this, and after reading ahead in the manga I felt obligated to see it through. This is all junk food, but it’s all stuff you’ve seen done better in other series. I also have a soft spot for gyaru in anime and manga, and while I do like Minami just fine, she isn’t Marin Kitagawa or Rumiko Manbagi. I don’t really have it in me to recommend this show to many, though, at least not until another season rolls around, if that ever happens. The manga genuinely does get a lot better as it goes on, but the really worthwhile stuff may not happen until a third season, and I just don’t see that happening. 

The manga has issues that the anime isn’t willing or able to solve, chief of which being the visuals. The art style of the manga is wildly inconsistent, and getting a mediocre animation team on this didn’t help matters at all. While the colors often pop nicely against the pretty, snowy backdrops, nobody looks all that great overall. The characters are recognizable, but they just plain don’t look great a lot of the time, nor do they look consistent from one cut to the next; I said that Minami’s proportions are hilarious, but just as hilarious is how wildly they vacillate from one scene to the next for the sake of trying to titillate the viewer.

My biggest takeaway from both the manga and anime was everything I learned about Hokkaido in the process, and if the series is taking subsidies from the island’s tourism bureau, then it’s a job well done. I want some goddamn jingisukan now. The OP is a great time, though. I’m shocked it took over a decade for us to get a proper “Uptown Funk” knockoff in an anime.

Metallic Rouge

I’ll be upfront in saying that this was my biggest disappointment of the season by far. This show had so much going for it, and what we got was… ugh.

There was an unbelievable amount of promise from the outset: This was Studio Bones’ commemorative 25th anniversary production, and coming from the studio that gave us all-timer adaptations like Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood and Mob Psycho 100, not to mention later works from Cowboy Bebop creator Shinichiro Watanabe (including the Cowboy Bebop movie), you can’t fault anyone for having high expectations. It looked to be a fitting production as well: Watanabe’s influence shines through immediately in the gorgeous, lived-in cyberpunk off-world locales and racially diverse cast. Action takes the form of dope robo-tokusatsu transformation fisticuffs, and it’s entirely in 2D animation to boot. The first couple of episodes were killer, too; everything looked and sounded amazing, and there were just enough plot threads teased out that I just had to see how they’d unravel.

It brings me no joy, then, to say that Metallic Rouge collapses into a jumbled mess. I don’t even want to bother talking about what happens in the show because I don’t fucking care anymore. There are few media experiences more sobering than to have it dawn on you over a span of several weeks that “oh… this isn’t actually all that good, is it?” Episode after episode piles on with sloppy lore, weak worldbuilding, warring factions whose names you immediately forget, pointless double-crosses, and the most predictable twist you’ve ever seen. For a while I was willing to accept the fact that I didn’t know what was going on half the time and expected things to become clearer, but now I’m not entirely sure the writers knew either. The stakes apparently kept rising and everything just kept getting more claustrophobic. I’m glad it’s over, if only because if I had to hear “Clair de Lune” one more fucking time, I was going to go ballistic. 

There are several attempts at emotional beats, as the story is rife with tragedy and sacrifice, and every single one lands with a wet thud. Nobody gets enough time, motivation, or characterization for any of these things to feel like they actually matter, and that’s especially a shame because the finale might have been able to stick the landing if the previous episodes were less dense and better paced. Emphasis on “almost,” though, because just before the season ends, we get the absolute most pointless fakeout I’ve seen since The Rise of Skywalker, which is the lowest point of comparison you can make for any work of sci-fi.

This is especially frustrating because on paper, there is so much to like here. Rouge and Naomi are likable-enough deuteragonists with a fun dynamic, and they’d make easy yuri bait in a better show. The characters are all pretty and uniquely designed across the board, and the overall aesthetic, almost a pastiche of late-90’s anime futurism, is undeniable. The toku suit designs are neat and several of the action scenes are gorgeous. The score and soundtrack are outstanding (except for the aforementioned Debussy indulgence). I have few complaints about how the show looks and sounds; the style is great! All of my issues lie with the substance.

Metallic Rouge may have had all the ingredients, but it just needed more time to cook; whether that would have been by doubling the episode count or by more carefully planning the pacing and trimming some of the fat from the lore, I’m still not sure. Probably both. It probably needed better writers, too. Maybe it just isn’t as smart as it acts and there was no way to satisfyingly resolve the clumsy civil rights allegories that bring it uncomfortably close to the likes of Detroit: Become Human. So all of the above, I guess. I tend to adore stories that involve artificially-intelligent beings developing their own wills and emotions and learning to cut their own strings (the likes of Blade Runner, Nier Automata, even a couple of character arcs in the Persona series), but this ain’t it. I’m not even mad anymore. I’m just disappointed.

If there are two positives that will stick with me, though, they would be the absolute banger of an OP and, of course, Naomi Orthmann herself (pictured above, left). Outstanding character design. I’m mildly obsessed. She deserved a better show.

The Unwanted Undead Adventurer

This one isn’t even worth talking about, so here’s a brief synopsis, then I’ll add some commentary, and then we’ll all move on with our lives. 

Rentt, a beloved but mediocre adventurer in a fantasy town, gets lost in the mysterious labyrinth that all adventurers explore for personal gain, gets waxed by a dragon, and awakens as a shitty-looking CGI skeleton. He notices, though, that he’s able to level up better as a skeleton than he did as a human, and with the more monsters he defeats, the more he evolves into something closer to human. The rest isn’t really worth discussing.

If I’m being honest, I should’ve dropped this show much sooner. It looks kinda lousy most of the time, the plot (inasmuch as there even is one) is boring, character designs are forgettable (except for Rentt’s closest ally, Lorraine, holy hell) and it seems wholly uninterested in actually building its own setting. If it returns for a second season, I won’t be there, nor will I feel like I’m missing anything. Each episode felt like a chore to watch. I probably only saw it through because 1) I liked looking at Lorraine, I know what I’m about, and 2) I didn’t want to lump it in with the shows I did drop. The Unwanted Undead Adventurer isn’t as patently upsetting or frustrating as those three, but it just plain isn’t a very good show.

The Witch and the Beast

This show could have been so much more. I was drawn in by the gorgeous character designs and intriguing blend of Victorian gothic aesthetics and architecture with modern infrastructure, and very quickly disappointed by just about everything else. The first episode is an exceptional proof of concept, and almost everything that follows is an upsetting showcase of what could have been.

The story centers around Ashaf, a languid, chain-smoking agent of the governing church with a big-ass coffin strapped to his back, and his partner Guideau, a snarling hyena in a young woman’s body, as they investigate abuses of magic across the continent in search of nefarious witches. Guideau in particular has a bone to pick with witches, as the body they presently inhabit is the result of a witch’s curse, and they remain in furious pursuit of the one who cursed them. The curse can be temporarily undone by a kiss with a witch, allowing Guideau’s true body, a hulking brute confined to the coffin, to escape and wreak havoc. Meaning that on a few occasions we get a girl-on-girl kiss followed by a big dude wrecking shit. There’s also other investigations of serial killings, necromancy, and a cursed sword, and here’s hoping you like those, because the coffin breaks are few and far between.

This wasn’t great! By the third episode I had the sneaking suspicion that the animation talent on hand just wasn’t enough to support the aesthetic. While the character designs are exceptional, almost everyone looks awful in any shot that isn’t completely focused on them. This is especially true of Guideau, who looks so inconsistently off-model from one shot to the next that I’m still not entirely sure what they’re supposed to look like, and that’s kind of unforgivable when we’re talking about a main character. Everything looks too dim and too shiny at the same time, and action scenes look like shit more often than they look interesting. I can see so many flickers of something excellent (or at least really good-looking) in Witch and the Beast, and everything else that keeps those flickers from actually igniting makes it so much more frustrating to watch. Maybe just read the manga instead; the panels I've seen from it were uniformly gorgeous.

Actually, yeah, you should probably just read the manga, because for a season of anime, the pacing is atrocious too. It’s clearly trying to angle for a monster-of-the-week format, but each of these mini-arcs is a little too dense for a single episode, so multiple episodes are dedicated to these one-off curiosities, most of which do nothing to advance the plot or show off what the show does best. And if one of them isn’t particularly interesting, you’re saddled with it for the next two weeks like you've been stuck munching on a mealy apple. And I know you can only adapt so much in a 12-episode season, but the decision to end the season on a flashback arc and a lore dump was baffling. That’s not world-building, that’s lazy, and it made the show’s existing pacing issues feel that much more inane.

I feel like I was sold a false bill of goods. I can only imagine how the mangaka feels about this. Dull and uninspiring all around. What a waste.

The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic

Isekai, unassuming high school boy gains a unique power, impending war with the Demon Lord, yadda yadda yadda. The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic isn’t anything new or special by any means, nor is it particularly well-animated or -paced, but at its best it’s silly and charming enough that it made a nice, brainless palate cleanser on Fridays.

Usato, your standard quiet high schooler, ends up walking home on a rainy evening with the popular, attractive student council president and VP, when an isekai portal happens. It turns out that it was just the seito-kai that was invited along for the ride (and President Suzune, as it turns out, is fucking psyched to get to be in an isekai), and Usato got caught along with them. When tested for magical aptitude, Suzune and VP Kazuki hit the jackpot with electric and light affinities, respectively, but things go awry when Usato’s reading turns up with healing magic. Terror strikes the palace as the intimidating dommy-mommy Captain Rose barges in to spirit Usato away from his new friends and into her squadron of goons to train him as a combat medic.

As character comedy goes, this one is actually pretty solid at times. Shogo Sakata is plenty of fun as the put-upon, lippy Usato (a much louder role than Chainsaw Man’s Aki Hayakawa), and Atsuko Tanaka (Major Kusanagi herself!) is a blast as the uncompromising Rose, a terrifying slave driver of a drill sergeant with a secret soft side. The dynamic between them is great, too; Usato is over Rose’s shit from the beginning and isn’t afraid to talk back to her, but before you know it, this transforms into friendly banter as Rose clearly takes a shine to Usato and knows he can handle any punishment she doles out. Suzune’s also a bunch of fun now that she’s broken away from having to be the competent, popular girl at school and gets to fully lean into being a complete dork.

Wrong Way also works decently as an isekai, because it makes an effort to stay rooted in high fantasy rather than fall back on JRPG mechanics, meaning there are no stat screens! It also avoids the trappings of wish-fulfillment isekai series by having Usato start out as a regular-ass guy; he’s not a Kirito type, just someone Rose sees as a rough gem in need of cutting. There are no cheat skills or OP weapons or anything, just a kid training every day to get stronger so he can protect the people close to him, and that’s the kind of anime protagonist you should want to be.

For better and for worse, I get serious mid-00s vibes from this one; watch the OP if you don’t believe me. Some of the colors pop uncannily in that early-digipaint-era way, and the animation is pretty middling; the most fluid animation we see is whenever Suzune is acting like a creep. Much like those mid-00s anime, though, Wrong Way may have benefited from being weekly (or twice as long) rather than seasonal. There’s a ton of planting with very little payoff, and it doesn’t feel like the actual scope of the story has even been addressed yet. We don’t even learn why the series has the name it does until someone literally says it aloud in the 11th episode. I may have to reevaluate this season after a possible second, if we ever get one, because this doesn’t stand too well on its own.

Of the anime in this “mixed bags” segment, I’d say I enjoyed Wrong Way the most, but it still had enough problems for me to keep it here. It’s not a particularly bad anime, but it’s not especially good either. I guess we can slot it into what Hazel refers to as “good mid.”

On Hold: 

Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?! (three episodes watched)

Man, what a title. That was the main draw for this BL series, which on paper is basically a gay version of the Mel Gibson vehicle What Women Want. 

Adachi (a surname that will always make me laugh thanks to Persona 4), a gloomy salaryman, has hit the big 3-0 without getting any, and now he can somehow read anyone’s thoughts just by making physical contact with them. Just as he laments that this is his life now, he accidentally bumps into his handsome, popular coworker, Kurosawa, whom he learns has been harboring a massive crush on Adachi this whole time. Well dang, what now? Kurosawa’s a really nice, thoughtful dude, but Adachi’s never even thought about being with a man before! And isn’t there something wrong with already knowing this secret? How can he even go into the office and look Kurosawa in those big, handsome eyes… every single day…

What I’ve seen so far has been pretty solid, if not particularly well animated. The visuals are really my only gripe here; I just put it off for way too long and didn’t have it in me to finish it on time to actually get this thing written and published. Yaoi isn’t my forte, which feels like a shortcoming on my end as a fledgling bisexual, and I’ve already remarked on the solid LGBT representation this past season, so I do plan on hopping back on this one.

I gotta say, the co-leading voice actors put in serious work this season. Adachi is voiced by Chiaki Kobayashi, who continued his role as Stark in Frieren, returned to Mashle as Mash Burnedead, and contributed to Metallic Rouge’s cluttered cast as Noid. Kurosawa’s seiyuu, Ryota Suzuki (of whom I’ll always be a fan for his masterful turn as Yu Ishigami in Kaguya-sama), also held down leading roles in Bang Brave Bang Bravern and The Unwanted Undead Adventurer. They’ve been great in the few episodes of Cherry Magic! that I’ve seen so far, and they’ll be a huge part of what brings me back.

The Gems:

Bang Brave Bang Bravern

I feel like the mark of a perfectly audacious piece of media is in the moments where I find myself incredulously shouting “WHAT THE FUCK AM I WATCHING” at the screen, and Bravern made me do that at least once per episode. I have so many things to say about what makes this show great but all of it can be summed up as “it fucks so goddamn hard.”

A joint military exercise in Hawaii between Japanese and American mech pilots goes south as a sudden invasion by metalloid aliens portends certain doom for humanity. Just in the nick of time, though, a bombastic, autonomous mech named Bravern arrives from space and insists that ace pilot Isami Ao take his reins. Isami reluctantly agrees, and to his consternation, Bravern goes full tokusatsu on everyone’s asses, complete with fully-diegetic theme music, and keeps the threat at bay. With Bravern continuing to pester him to act as a pilot, Isami is forced to take up the mantle of a reluctant hero as everyone rallies around Bravern to save Earth. Tagging along is blond-haired, blue-eyed American pilot Lewis Smith, who gets to live out all of his Top Gun fantasies, right down to the latent homosexuality.

That last point isn’t a projection or anything: This show is legitimately gay as hell, and it rules. Bravern’s feelings towards Isami feel far more romantic than what you’d expect from a literal robot, and his description of how it felt to have Isami pilot him for the first time, as relayed to a grim-faced military council, is riddled with hilarious innuendo. Isami struggles not only with shouldering the burden of needing to be a hero to all of humanity, but also being beset on both sides by a loud, insistent mecha and a dewy-eyed gaijin, both of whom very well seem to want to get in his pants. Intricate rituals punctuate Isami and Lewis’ angsty relationship as these broad-shouldered, muscular men grow ever closer. It’s also worth reiterating that Isami is voiced by Ryota Suzuki, who also voiced Kurosawa in Cherry Magic!, and that may not have even been his gayest role this season. I’m not super well-versed in mecha as a genre, but I do know that there’s a lot of Warrior’s Bond-type stuff in these series, and Bravern lays it on thick. And hard.

This show looks killer, by the way. CGI implementation in 2D anime is still a touchy subject, but Bravern features some of the best I’ve ever seen. Simple cel-shading goes a long way to the point where, outside of some uncanny motion, Bravern himself feels perfectly blended into the hand-drawn animation. Mecha designs range from realistic military-style tech to otherworldly sentient robots, and battle sequences run the same gamut as the stakes rise. As goofy as all of the above may sound, it’s committed to being a grandiose, big-time mecha showcase.

This is as good as camp gets in anime; Bravern does for the mecha genre what Akiba Maid War did for yakuza film pastiche (I have also heard positive comparisons to Samurai Flamenco, which I’ll have to get on ASAP). It’s an excellent mecha show in its own right, and wildly hilarious to boot. Bravern himself is very genre-savvy and seemingly a bit of an otaku himself; he loves acting like a mecha hero, to everyone else’s chagrin. Several of the villains (also mechanical beings, voiced by an all-star seiyuu roster that includes Kenjiro Tsuda, the aforementioned Atsuko Tanaka, and Rie Kugimiya) are total dorks themselves. A CIA interrogator tries to waterboard a mecha at one point. Bravern is a deeply silly show, but the heart is as firmly on the sleeve as the tongue is in the cheek: For as wacky as it can get, the story still unfolds with a straight face and excellent emotional beats. 

This show also has the most unskippable ED of any anime since Chainsaw Man dropped a new one every week. I will not say what happens. You cannot predict what it is. Just watch it. One of the top YouTube comments on that video says “When I saw this ending after episode 2, I thought I was going crazy.” That’s a ringing endorsement.

Chained Soldier

On the heels of 100 Girlfriends completely rewiring my brain, I was raring for some more good old-fashioned anime trash. I was told that there would be plenty this season, but you can consult the “dropped” section to see how well that worked out for me. Chained Soldier came with some significant hype, and soon enough into the first episode I realized that I’d actually skimmed through this manga before (don’t ask why), so I was on board immediately. Now here’s some nice trashy fun.

The world is in peril thanks to creatures called Shuuki that can advance on our world via portals from another dimension. Women primarily lead the charge against these monsters, as this dimension produces a special fruit that can lend them (and not men) otherworldly powers to help them in the fight. Yuuki, a perfectly normal young man, ends up in grave danger as he stumbles into a portal, where he is saved by the beautiful Kyouka, a commander who is able to subjugate Shuuki at will and use them to fight others. In a bind, she asks Yuuki if she can subjugate him, which he agrees to by licking her finger and transforming into a monster himself, at her beck and call. Because of his utility in battle, Yuuki is enlisted into her squad of baddies (and also an 11-year-old), living in their home as a caretaker and answering directly to Kyouka as her “slave.”

I know, I know, but let's settle down for a second. I put “slave” in scare quotes because Chained Soldier fortunately isn’t going full Shield Hero on us; this arrangement has a give-and-take baked in. See, every time Yuuki completes his service, Kyouka (or whomever else takes advantage of this anomaly) is compelled to carry out whatever suitable “reward” springs from his unconscious, and this is where the ecchi kicks in. Sometimes it’s a kiss, and sometimes it’s something a little more; the reward corresponds to the length and intensity of Yuuki’s contributions to battle, so the heat can turn up in the form of, say, clothed face-sitting, a good scrubbing in the bath, or some nice, casual CBT. All of this is to say that “slave” is a bit of a buzzword here: It’s more of a dom/sub situationship with a lot of extra steps.

Yes, just about everything that isn’t an action setup is full-on harem trash, and Chained Soldier lays it on thick, right down to full-on nudity. Nothing about this show resembles high art, but I can’t help but admire such a high level of commitment to its aesthetic, including the sleaze. It fully commits to the bit and doesn’t even bother lampshading its own trashiness. Chained Soldier knows what it’s about, and I respect that. It also has the good sense not to sexualize the youngest girl, which is a point in its favor that I can’t award a couple other shows previously discussed.

And while this show is plenty fun, the action sequences often excellent, and the character designs usually delightful, there’s not actually a whole lot going on here. As I said with Mashle, I know that battle manga like this can take a minute to really get cooking, and as I said with Witch and the Beast, 12 episodes may not always be a sufficient runtime to adapt enough to break ground, but the debut season feels more like a proof of concept than anything else. That being said, Chained Soldier’s manga has a very effusive audience, and its praises don’t seem to entirely be about the boobs and butts, so I’ll wait patiently for the second season. I think it’s earned that much.

Delicious in Dungeon

This is the one I’m having the hardest time writing about because it so confidently and so completely speaks for itself that anything I could add would feel like scattering sawdust at the beach. Dungeon Meshi (I refuse to call it by its official English name) is a widely beloved manga among those who’ve read it, and for Studio Trigger to do an honest-to-goodness manga adaptation for the first time might as well be front page news among anime fans. 

The story follows Laios, the deeply weird human hero, as he delves back into a bizarre and mysterious dungeon to rescue his sister Falin from the belly of a dragon, along with his misfit party: the neurotic half-elven mage Marcille, the temperamental halfling rogue Chilchuck, and the dwarven warrior-slash-chef Senshi. The party is frequently low on supplies, so to survive the trip they’ll need to subsist on the most abundant resource in the dungeon: Monsters. Senshi’s aptitude in the kitchen helps ensure that everything is edible and sufficiently tasty, regardless of how nasty the monster it came from may have been. With monster obstructions out of the way and their bellies filled, our party delves deeper into the dungeon as the mysteries deepen in kind.

I love the character dynamics in this so goddamn much. Marcille and Chilchuck are frequently put off by the food presented to them, but their consternation is worsened by the fact that Laios’ fascination with monsters annoys the shit out of them. I referred to him as “deeply weird,” but that doesn’t begin to describe his absolute galaxy brain, and I mean it as a term of endearment. Laios is deeply knowledgeable and curious about the fauna in the dungeon, and not just how they taste: He is vocally curious about how certain monster attacks may feel, sings along with siren songs, and even keeps a hardcover bestiary inside his breastplate. He’s one of those people you turn to if you have a question on a hyperspecific subject, but you have to be careful how you ask it or else you’re trapped for the next two hours. And I love him for it.

Even putting the comedy aside, there is a fascinating human element at play in Dungeon Meshi, and I can tell that that surface has barely even been scratched yet. Marcille is just as dogged in her pursuit of saving Falin as Laios is, maybe even moreso (remember what I keep saying about LGBT representation this season?). Chilchuck continues to convince himself that he’s only in the job for his own personal gain, but you can see that mask slipping. And I still wanna know what Senshi’s deal is. Even with the five major players I listed, there’s an increasingly deep roster surrounding them—showcasing a broad spectrum of races and ethnicities, both real and fantastical—each with their own histories and motivations, and I cannot wait to see how they play out and interact with one another. There seem to be much deeper themes at play here as well as we learn more about perceptions and grudges between differing races, oppositional magics, clashing ideologies, and the monetary incentives that drive both the dungeon’s exploration and its very existence. I’m here for it.

I’ve been holding off on reading the manga until the season is up in June (though I could crack any day), but I know a loving adaptation when I see one. Not that Trigger ever slacks off in the animation department, but they absolutely brought their A-game here. As with Frieren, the action sequences aren’t frequent, nor are they entirely what the show is about, but they look incredible every single time. Everyone looks bouncy and cartoony in the way only Trigger can pull off while still looking as close as possible to Ryoko Kui’s source material (as far as I can tell). And the food, of course, looks incredible, no matter how weird. This is practically a cooking anime and a fantasy dungeon anime at the same time, and both aspects are visually on point at all times.

I’m obviously speaking from my own bubble as one of the six people who still uses Tumblr in 2024, but I rarely see new anime make a splash like this on social media every single week, and the ones that I do are usually the monster shonen hits like Chainsaw Man or Jujutsu Kaisen. Dungeon Meshi deserves the exposure and success it’s attained, and I’m excited to see it continue. I’d easily slot this right up there with Bravern as one of the best new anime of the season.

A Sign of Affection

I’ve seen a hell of a lot of shonen slice-of-life romances in the past year and change, so a nice fluffy shoujo like this was an excellent palate cleanser. There were a hell of a lot of Big Action Setpieces and panicky teens and grim dungeon crawlers this season, and at the end of the week I wanted to unwind with a bunch of pretty twenty-somethings falling in love with each other.

The show centers on Yuki, a college student living with congenital hearing loss, making do at a public college after growing up at a school for the deaf. Though she’s able to get by with LINE messages and lip reading, she’s unprepared when a foreigner asks for help, but she’s saved by a handsome and mysterious young man named Itsuomi. He’s able to help out, and takes an interest in her when he realizes his fellow undergrad is deaf, and Yuki takes an interest in kind because he’s really goddamn hot. It turns out that he’s a polyglot and an avid world-traveler, but sign language is not in his purview. This mutual interest sparks the concern of her childhood friend, Oushi, one of the few people in her life who already use sign language, who wants to be sure that nothing untoward is happening. And it isn’t, because this is just a really lovely, low-stakes romance story.

This is pure, unfiltered shoujo at its best. Yuki’s internal monologue is peppered with flowery prose, and everything and everyone looks soft and beautiful. Fashionable, doe-eyed women and pillowy-lipped ikemen abound (seriously, holy shit, the lips on these boys) as the scope widens and the main love interests’ friends explore their own possible love stories. Itsuomi is very much of the “mysterious boy” archetype you’ll find in romance stories in this demographic, but he’s not hiding any sort of dark past like you’d typically expect; he’s just an interesting guy who keeps his personal life close to the vest. He’s a self-appointed world citizen who loves learning about how people of all cultures live their lives, and in Yuki he sees someone within his home turf who happens to live in her own world entirely. And it’s easy to see his forward behavior with Yuki as infantilizing at first (Oushi sure does, and I’ll get back to him in a second), but as they grow closer he quickly becomes much more considerate of her boundaries and learns to accommodate her as he studies sign language and gestures that help ensure her comfort. This is a story about Yuki’s horizons broadening just as much as it is about Itsuomi wanting to be let into Yuki’s narrow world, and that sort of synergy makes for some exceptional romance.

A Sign of Affection deserves some credit for refusing to shy away from Yuki’s disability and making a point of depicting her world as one that does little to accommodate her. Very few people in her daily life ever bothered to learn sign language, she relies on a friend to take notes during lectures, and work is hard to come by. It’s an honest depiction that makes an effort not to be exploitative, which is a breath of fresh air. Not only that, but there’s some interesting meta-commentary in there: The only major conflict in the story stems from Oushi’s jealousy, and his reservations about Itsuomi possibly “taking advantage of” Yuki almost feel like he believes that he’s the only one who knows what’s best for her just because he’s done the bare minimum to accommodate her. He thinks he’s coming from a good place, but he winds up accidentally infantilizing her in exactly the way he thinks Itsuomi might. That’s a particularly interesting bit of irony!

I’ve seen enough shonen-oriented romcoms where an unassuming Regular Guy gets flustered as a way-too-casual girl pushes his boundaries (hell, I’ve already reviewed two of those this season), so it’s nice to see the formula flipped for a shoujo as Yuki and her best friend Rin blush and squee over Itsuomi and his coworker Kyouya, respectively. A Sign of Affection isn’t afraid to get a little silly with it, either; plenty of these moments are punctuated by characters’ faces going low-detail or full chibi, and they are cute as shit every single time.

This one was just cozy as hell. If you’re into this sort of thing, swaddle yourself in it and bask.

Solo Leveling

I let this one collect dust after the third episode and didn’t pick it back up until the season was almost up, and honestly, I was kinda dreading it: The trailers didn’t look too promising, the show was slow to start, and it looked like yet another derivative JRPG-style dungeon crawler that managed to get popular. Turns out, nah, this show actually kinda fucks and the web novel series and webtoon it’s based on are popular for a reason. The story is nothing special, don’t get me wrong, but it’s a perfectly serviceable turn-your-brain-off action spectacle with a bit more lying beneath the surface.

In a modern-day South Korea where portals to mysterious dungeons open up and threaten the populace, those who can brave the dungeons, known as hunters, are an invaluable human resource. Once someone is assigned a grade as a hunter, they have that grade for life, barring some rare occurrences. Sung Jinwoo is at the lowest rung on that ladder as an E-rank, incapable of improvement, assigned the epithet “the weakest hunter of all mankind.” He mostly shows up to portal raids as a warm body to fill a quota, and one such job goes haywire as a secondary dungeon within a portal brutally slaughters most of the raid party, Jinwoo included. He somehow wakes up in a hospital, unharmed, and able to access a digital menu before his eyes that exhorts him to do the One Punch Man workout every day, lest he incur punishment. He gets hilariously chadly in the span of a few days in the hospital, including an inexplicable haircut, and finds access to dungeons only he can enter and levels up within this new system.

This one gets off to a slow start and may have benefited from a longer premiere like Oshi no Ko or Frieren, but once the table is fully set, Solo Leveling really starts to cook. Jinwoo’s titular leveling process is a blast from one fight to the next, and as he moves to work in the dungeons that other hunters can access, it turns out he’s been training with the weights on. He’s suddenly fighting way above his pay grade, and after staving off attacks from hunters taking advantage of portals for nefarious ends, he is recruited by an ambitious corporate scion to make some real coin and establish an independent association of hunters.

While it can feel like there’s a whole bunch of table-setting between portal sequences, it’s some smart worldbuilding on Solo Leveling’s end to establish how portal hunting became a central pillar of this society, and doubly so how political and capitalist interests can leave a wide berth for corruption and bad actors. If there’s money to be made in hunting, of course people will find ways to make even more at the expense of others, both at the corporate and personal levels. There’s a lot of talk in there about “survival of the fittest” and “natural selection” and that… makes me nervous.

Those are terms that can be used to justify immoral actions in the name of money, sure, but Jinwoo also uses them to justify his own actions. To what end is he constantly improving himself? Sure, he's doing what he can to provide for his younger sister and their ailing mother, but I see less and less humanity in him as this goes on. There are constant hints at something far more sinister at play than just a dude getting stronger for himself, not the least of which being “the system,” the UI that implores him to keep taking on these “quests.” Someone, or something, seems to be guiding him. Whenever another hunter turns on Jinwoo, of course his self-defense instincts kick in, but system pop-ups instruct him to defeat X number of hostiles like it’s a normal video game scenario. There’s something eerily depersonalized about these encounters, despite them being full-on mortal combat, that gives me serious Ender’s Game vibes. Consider me intrigued.

I’d heard that the Solo Leveling manhwa’s main draw was its visuals, and though I had my doubts early on, I'm sold now. This is a pretty solid presentation! Hiroyuki Sawano turned in yet another banger soundtrack to punctuate all the action setpieces, helping to stitch together a fairly complete package. Said setpieces are exhilarating and almost impressively bloody, and while the animation is nothing impressive in the day-to-day, it goes absolutely batshit when the gloves come off. Movement is inhumanly fluid and the visuals can go into the same psychedelic territories we’ve seen in the likes of Mob Psycho and Jujutsu Kaisen. If this is the new meta for shonen action, I’m not complaining.

By all rights, this is a pretty decent show, but if I’m being honest, this one just hasn’t stuck with me much. And that’s fine! Sometimes I just wanna see some nutty action stuff and move on with my day. Solo Leveling hits that spot perfectly, and I'll be right back there when it returns for its next season.

‘Tis Time for “Torture,” Princess

I was surprised to learn that the gag manga this is based on, with such a seemingly simple premise, has been running for well over 200 chapters and counting. As the anime progressed, I was far more pleasantly surprised to learn that it actually works.

In a standard anime fantasy world where the forces of good are fighting the demonic Hellhorde, an unnamed warrior princess and her talking enchanted sword are taken prisoner and subjected to torture as they’re squeezed for intel. Said “torture,” as the title’s scare quotes would suggest, is mildly unconventional, as the demon baddie inquisitor, aptly named Torture Tortura, attempts to ply the princess by presenting her with tantalizingly delicious-looking food that she can only partake in if she coughs up some info. Naturally, the princess caves every single time, but her intel is often inane and useless, so the “torture” continues. It’s not all food, though: The princess is soon held out of arm’s reach of adorable baby animals by a gyaru beastgirl, pampered into submission by a spa-loving giantess, and is faced with a tsundere vampire faildaughter, who… tries. 

And you’d think that would be it; the joke wears thin and you move onto something else. Before you realize it, though, something’s changed: The princess and her captors are quickly becoming friends. The premise almost feels perfunctory: These inquisitors are actual people just doing their jobs, and whatever happens after the princess’ myriad confessions is fair game. There’s no malice or animosity, even during the “torture” sessions themselves: Everyone will have a blast and grow closer as friends, and then the princess will voluntarily go back to her bedless cell. It’s like Sam and Ralph after they clock out, except they’re almost always off the clock. Everyone is genuinely looking out for each other in all directions, and the only thing that keeps the torture going is the need for a status quo to return to, even as it grows more elastic. If anything, Time for "Torture" is a good example of committing to the bit without having to necessarily rely on it.

The real irony in all of this is that it becomes increasingly apparent that the princess is having her needs met in captivity far better than she ever did back home. In her proud proclamations about how she’ll never cave to the temptations before her (shortly before she does just that), the princess often talks about her upbringing and her time as the head of an imperial legion, but these stories often betray her lack of friendship or any of the little things that make life worth living. Her life as royalty was one of isolation and deprivation, to the point where she finds more freedom and fulfillment as a prisoner. She truly lives in a society.

Hellholm, on the other hand, has a surprisingly healthy approach to things like work-life balance, food, and leisure, and its most valuable prisoner is no exception. The Hell-Lord himself is a surprising exemplar of this; for as much as he looks and talks like your standard terrifying JRPG demon king, he’s a surprisingly good dude! He looks after his family, employees, and even the captive princess as if they are all one and the same; he exhibits strong principles and an aversion to conflict, sees to his employees' needs and wants alike, and is a supportive, loving father to his unbelievably precious little daughter (who also serves as a “torturer,” to the princess’ delight). He’s also a big time anime dork, and even bonds with a knight attempting to rescue the princess over their shared otakudom before sending him off peacefully. As “villains” go, he’s top tier.

Time for "Torture" is nothing groundbreaking by any stretch, but it’s a cute, silly time and it plays with anime fantasy tropes in the same way a six-month-old German shepherd “plays” with a cheap stuffed toy. How long the premise holds up is entirely up to you, but I had a lot of fun with it. I have no idea how this ended up being one of the better shows this season, but I guess it just scratched the right itch for me.

[sraksha]

I've said this before, but i struggle with inconsistency, and it was only last year when i started to figure out how to draw humans. So i thought it'd be fun to compile my fave drawings of the LU boys faces, as i feel that is the biggest thing i struggle with.

Let's begin!

THIS-

THIS IS PERFECTION. It's from an angst piece, but this is the best man face i have ever drawn. I have mainly drawn girls, and like, boys are easy enough to draw, but i struggle so bad with more masculine men. But this, to me, is just so so good. Honestly i really like how i drew Time in this one. With the shading and highlights he just looks so good.

This is from the same angst piece and i really like this one. Twi is one of the oldest Links, but in my eyes he still has a bit of a boyish look to him. There were other drawings that looked similar enough, and that im happy with, but this one still speaks to me the most.

ANOTHER NEAR PERFECT ONE.

Whenever i draw Wars, this is the one i pull up as reference, and i say to myself "This is what you're aiming for. Please, for the love of god, try to do this again." Idk, i just REALLY like this one. And he is very pretty, even with his hair a bit messed up.

Ah, Wild from the Links in dresses series. Overall, probably one of my fave drawings lol. In this one his chin is smaller than i usually try to draw it, but come one, he is gorgeous. And he knows it.

To my shock, i haven't drawn Sky that many times to have a lot of variety. He is mostly calm and/or happy in my drawings. But i like this one. Plus he is talking about Sun!

Hyrule is another one i don't have too many drawings of, but this is just so cute. Little fae on a mischievous mood. I just like it so much. With Hyrule, his hair is what i struggle with the most. It's pretty easy to sketch, but i ALWAYS have problems lining it?? I don't get it. But in this one it turned out good.

This is a one-off that i've never been able to draw again. He somehow looks more mature in this?? Idk i just really REALLY like this one. My precious wet rag covered in glitter is processing so hard.

This is in my more relaxed, not-so-fleshed-out style. It's just really cute. The shock! The disbelief! Adorable!

WIMDY. This just feels pretty on brand for him, being a toon Link and all. This is actually the first time i drew Wind! He's adorable and i love it.

Bonus!

This is from my learing curve, and first time drawing Ravio. Im not too happy with the hair, but i really like how his face turner out. He just looks so soft and happy.

Shadow just has cat vibes imo. Line art and eyeliner on point. I just vibe with this whole drawing. Gosh i need to draw Shadow more often.

[landoffreaksandfrogs]

what type of youtubers would the trolls be? Karkat would definitely make rants and reviews of romance movies, Kanaya would make makeup or fashion tutorials, Sollux has an IT channel he made so people stop bugging him (nobody ever bothers checking it instead of asking him)

quick spitballed ideas bc this is such a cute prompt

aradia - reviews of inaccurate halloween decoration skeletons. theyre not rated on anatomical accuracy but by how much swag they have. most of her other videos are short clips of her livevlogging her day and telling short stories, but shes funny and witty so they do numbers. very low effort and low cost, but shes having fun.

tavros - CARD PACK UNWRAPPING. guy who in no way can afford his hobby but keeps getting these card packs for his channel. surprisingly relaxing to listen to while you have him minimized in another tab while you do something else. he goes over each card in the deck and their effects as well as rarity.

sollux - basically what you said. IT guide on walking through common computer problems. horrible mic quality, but really helpful information.

karkat - ABSOLUTELY would be a movie reviewer. no facecam but for whatever reason has CRISP mic quality. somehow NEVER peaks his mic despite all the screaming he does. he loves media analysis and getting pissed off over fandom drama so hed probably also do breakdowns of scandals in fandom spheres, and somehow almost getting sued.

nepeta - SPEEDPAINTS. and like. flipnote hatena style amvs. obviously very amateur but its a very cute art style and she has no concept of copyright infringement.

kanaya - makeup tutorials and fashion reviews. would definitely be like that one youtuber who reviews the accuracy of historical fiction dresses in film and tv. everytime the virgin mothergrub is in the background of her videos her comments are spammed with "MOTH MOM REAL"

terezi - animated shitposts. like. grinchs ultimatum, garfielf, shit like that. REALLY bright colors and shitty linework with windows moviemaker transitions. no one knows who she is and shes never done a face reveal so shes a total enigma. there are deep web theories that her videos are anti-empire propaganda.

vriska - flarping tutorials. genuinely. she goes over mechanics, spells, class breakdowns, even shares stories of her own flarp campaigns. VERY passionate about it and kind of has an asshole youtuber persona. posts an apology video like once a month then goes on like nothing happened. replies to every mean comment.

equius - weightlifting videos. dead silent. just grunting and metal clanking. no editing. addresses every comment in every video. lots of heavy breathing. very uncomfortable. almost like performance art in how desolate it feels.

gamzee - cooking videos. its as bad as it sounds.

eridan - showing off everything in his hive and talking about it. his guns. his outfits. ranting about pollution. each video is an hour long. its mostly just him complaining or bragging about the stuff he owns.

feferi - has a live feed of her cuttlefish pen going constantly. posts animal care videos. posts music. does challenges. her youtube is kind of an inconsistent mish-mash of content but one thing remains: you will watch her cuttlefish.

[luck-needed]

I have the most inconsistent art style ever actually

[tothepointofinsanity]

I think your drawings really fill in a lot about Sayaka's trauma, the darkness of her experiences, and also how she is performative in terms of how she acts, selectively showing parts of herself only to certain people and waving away to others with a smile despite how she feels. It's similar to Mami, but different — and I think your art also captures that, especially the KyoSaya comic you did, in a beautiful way. Which is not something I often see nor people seem to acknowledge much about her character, so I really appreciate it.

Your style is also very pleasing to the eye, honestly, with defined sketches and colors that pop at you. I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it and I adore it.

Please keep posting your artwork.

Ah, I am glad to receive such high praise. 🙇‍♂️ Sayaka is really unpredictable at times because while it’s true that she puts up a tolerating attitude of her troubles, she is highly inconsistent, and would react in anger, diversion, or resignation depending on who gets caught in her bad mood. Since she impulsively accepted the role of a magical girl, compared to veterans like Mami, Kyoko and Homura, she was only beginning to learn how to manage her expectations and feelings around others. And with Mami gone by then, she thinks she can be like her by keeping most of her personal troubles to herself, but that is not how things work, so she ends up being a mess that bottles up grief while still dishing out anger. She becomes progressively worse and she’s aware of it because it’s what drives her to run away, trying to die alone to begin with.

And thank you, I’m glad you like my art style. ^^ I will keep drawing for a long time, hopefully.

[hyenafu]

Chu, you ever have those moments where you're looking back at your comic and you see a little mistake? I get that all the time with my comic and I beat myself up for it like an idiot even though there's not really much of an issue at all.

Yes, I do. For the entire time I’ve been doing Slightly Damned, I tried my best to keep everything as consistent as possible. However, just like everyone else, I am an imperfect being. There’s a lot of clumsy wording, bad jokes, and dumb art mistakes that inhabit the archives of Slightly Damned.

But that’s okay. They’re not huge inconsistencies that make gaping plot holes (yet? 💦). They’re signs of growth. If I didn’t make those mistakes in the past, I don’t think I would have learned as much as I have. 20 years later, maybe my art isn’t superstar material to the comics world, but… well, I think my teenage self would think I’m pretty cool.

I just try to make every page reflect my best work. It doesn’t mean every page is better than the one that preceded it. There are ones that feel like they didn’t work out, or panels where I was just like “Aw hell, I don’t know!! at least the reader will know what’s happening! MISSION ACCOMPLISHED”.

Looking back at this massive, 1100+ page archive, it feels WILD to think that I could have made everything consistent. My drawing and writing styles have changed several times. I’m not even the same person I was when I started. My perception of the world and people around me is so different now. And they will probably keep changing as I get older.

If you’re feeling super stressed out because of your mistakes, try thinking of it less like “I have to make everything correct” and more like “I’m going to do my best to lay out a fantastic groundwork for the adaptation”.

That makes it sound like your comic being adapted is the goal, but I really don’t like that way of thinking. Comics are uniquely beautiful. What I mean is more like, even people reading your work will interpret it through their imagination. In this case, “the adaptation” would be what people think and feel from seeing your comic. Of course it’s fine to try to be consistent in order to avoid being confusing. But little bumps aren’t going to deter people from really enjoying what they like about your work.

I promise that your most favorite thing in the world is probably loaded with mistakes. They just don’t matter much to you because the part you like is way more important. I know it’s tough, but if we can forgive our favorite works for their shortcomings, then it makes sense that we should forgive ourselves, too. We’re all just doing the best we can.

Sometimes people like your work not just because of what you’ve done, but because they’re excited about what you’re going to do next.

[unlimitedtrees]

making character sprites as a one-person indie game developer

(huh. turns out this post on cohost didnt have a “read me” section”. o well. i will put the read me section Here,  before any of da actual text. click it if u dare !!)

so, i've been meaning on making a Big post talkin all about how i actually Make my games and my processes n such ,but also ive been procrastinating on making it for so long that i thought i might as well just make One part of that post now .. and its about making the Character Sprites for my games .

So. these images are the (mostly) full sprite sheets of the three characters from my game UNITRES Dreams, taken directly from the big giant 'charactersprites.png' image that i used for nearly every sprite for Most of the game's development. some quick things to make note of: First off, Trees (the first one) was one of the earliest things i made for the game, and had their sprite sheet redone Twice since then.. this first picture doesnt contain the latest sprite sheet as the new sprites were done on aesprite and im too lazy to make a sprite sheet out of them right now.

Secondly, the Second character (the pink one), had two different designs, being completely redesigned as i didnt like their first design all too much. their redesign's animations was done in aesprite, but i made a sprite sheet out of em before so i was able to just put them here. Lastly, the Third character (the blue one with the big silly hat) remained mostly unchanged as their original sprites and design were pretty good, but they needed to be cleaned up and given better colors so i ended up polishing all of their sprites.

Anyways. it's going to be hard for me to explain my actual process, as i am Bad With Words, but i will try my best.. So. for Most of my time as a game dev, I've used Paint.NET for Everything. This includes backgrounds, tilesets, and every animation ever in all of my games. For my character sprites specifically, i usually start with making the color palette (which is a whole different process where i mess around with the RGB values until i get a specific color that i think looks pretty ... its hard to describe). When making a new character, i usaully start with an Idle animation, just so i have a good base to make all the other sprites on. I just make a sketch of the character, then i do the flat colors (as my games dont have line art), and once i have the colors i start doing the rendering , where i try to pull off a sort of Sonic CD-esque , celshaded style while Also including a bit of anti-aliasing and other modern pixel art techniques to give the sprites more Depth and make them look Sharp. Idk. it's hard to describe my process in words ... i Did make a video Years ago showing off my process, but its old and my editing in that video isnt the Greatest.

So., that's my process Lol . the only thing thats really changed is that Now i use Aesprite for making the Actual Animations , as making animations with Paint.NET is Really Difficult and Annoying , as i have No Idea how the animation will Look until it actually appears ingame .. which results in the early versions of each character's animations looking a little weird (such as Trees' first two versions, the first version of the Pink character, and the Blue character's animations.. .though the blue character isnt as bad as the other two and i kept their animations mostly the same in the final game LOL).

Something that people have kind of criticized about UNITRES Dreams' animations is that some of em dont exactly ... Look Good. a lot of animations are pretty Inconsistent , with characters like Trees having inconsistent sizes in some animations and the movement in animations such as the Pink character's walking animation and various other animations (Especially the ones made in Paint.NET) looking Unnatural.

And Well .. here's the thing about making animations and sprites for something like this. When you're the Main person making an indie game, you have Tons of different parts of the game that need to be worked on while having Very little time to work on others. On Top of making every single animation for UNITRES , i had to make every single Tileset and background for every single level, On Top of making the Level Layouts , Programming , and even making sprites for things like the UI. And you have to constantly Test the game to make sure everything works and things Look good.

So. i had very little time to work on the sprites, and i Knew this. Something you have to consider is that, not only are you making the animations for the main character , you Also have to make Tons of animations and sprites for Literally Every Other Aspect of The Game . this includes Enemies , Level Gimmicks , NPCs, And the UI .. so you end up having to work on Thousands of sprites by yourself in such a short time.

I ain't the best animator , nor the best sprite artist . But , for this game I chose an art style which is Kinda simple and comfortable for me, which made making things like tilesets and backgrounds so much easier for me. The character sprites specificially only use a few amount of colors ,but also i tried my best to give them as much depth and make them as Colorful looking as i could. Also , something you might notice is that all of the playable characters dont actually have a whole lot of animations .. each of the characters only have the Exact amount of frames and animations necessary for them to Look Good moving around the levels. Aside from a few Gimmick Specific animations that arent in the sprite sheets i posted , there arent many Extra animations or animations with Tons of Frames that i wish i could have added .. and it Kind Of Sucks . Having to split my time across Three Different Characters , i had no time to make any animations Too Crazy or Too Smooth , and i couldnt include any extra animations that could add a bit of personality to the characters ... In Fact ,the Idle "animation" isnt an animation , its just a still frame. I didnt have time to even make a simple waiting animation !!

It Is What It Is. For what its worth , Ithink Im pretty proud of the animations i did for UNITRES Dreams. while i think ive become a much better artist and animator since then, i still think some animations and some of the frames look really good ..just looking at some of the still frames is really nice .. so i think i did a good job, especially for a game that was made in 2 years and is Free. And Hey, while the animations in UNITRES Dreams may not be the best or have the most smooth animations , i Did get to experiment with making more smooth animations for TREES' ADVENTURE. while ,now, i think some stuff could use some work, i am Really Proud of how some of the animations look .. ididnt get to make Too Many extra animations (there still isnt even an Idle animation), i Did get to make some cool extra animations , such as individual animations for your Jump that are based on how fast you're moving . (the original post on cohost had a buncha gifs of da animations but im Too Fuckin Tired 2 post em here LOL !!!)

So Yea . the moral of the story: making video games is kind of hard and time consuming , Especially when you're like , the Only one working on them. just make sure to plan ahead and try not to overwork urself .. make what you can and do it when you can. Thats what i think , anyways.