#this is my first time properly tweening so uh ...

[vix-png]

hello chilaios community . animation meme be upon ye .

OG BY rakkutron ON TIKTOK (?!1?)

[styxnbonez]

what kind of dog is this?

(alt versions under the cut)

so many franks..... hi bbg :]

[cleverhaunts-ts4]

Uh… hi.

Sorry I’ve been completely gone like not even using tumblr. If it helps I haven’t been doing much of anything 🤙🏻

But what I wanted to talk about to today was a little theory I’ve been cooking up since not having my computer. Which is that I think playing games like the sims is healthy for processing your life. I have hit a new mental low and I think that could be due to a many number of things, but a huge one is definitely not having many of the comforts I’ve come to rely on, an important one being gaming. A huge thing we need to be able to do as humans is process our shit. This is the things we go through during the day and the things we consume into our minds. When I was a kid and when you were a kid a way we do this is by playing. Weather that was with Barbie’s, Legos, action figures, or if you were weird like me, pipe cleaner people. We would process by either playing out scenarios or simply having the ability to shut our brains down and just enjoy shit. But as you get older into like tween years that doesn’t hit the same anymore. For me I moved onto doing things like writing fan fiction, and the big one PLAYING THE SIMS. And when my computer first started having problems my dad asked me “do you have a plan, like what are you gonna do to relax?” And I remember being really confused because I wasn’t thinking about that. And you know, I do this other thing 24/7 where I tell myself “I’m and adult I don’t need xyz” I thought I’m 21 now, i can survive without my PC. So now a few months later, as I’m coming out of this depression I’ve been in, I’m wondering if this game has more to do with it than I thought. Which is what initially got me thinking, do we play simulation games to process life the same we did when we were kids and would make up stories and make our toys talk to each other? Like, yes I see it as an escape and a way to turn off my brain, but that doesn’t mean I’m not also processing. Like part of escapism can be taking shit from your life and putting it into a different world where we can handle it better or differently. Is the sims not just an elevation of Barbie’s and pipe cleaner people? Because I didn’t sit and think “I need to process this big life event by playing barbies” I just did it. So you’re not sitting down going “I’m gonna play discover university today because I didn’t get into college” you just do it. The same with processing media we take in and other complicated feelings. My pipe cleaner people had a hunger games 😂 is that not the same as when I re entered my twilight era in 2020 and started playing the sims with more vampires again? Or when you watch rom coms and suddenly your sims love life is more spicy? Like yes, you could say what you consume influences your game but I don’t think that is giving our brains and subconscious enough credit. Part of the reason our generation is so fucked up is because of the crazy amount of emotional media we consumed and the bat shit craziness of tumblr, as young people who couldn’t and didn’t know how to properly process it and that took a toll on us. Weather we like it or not our brains do look for ways to process those things. I hope any of this made sense.

Maybe I’ll make a whole video about this in the future because I’m very invested in this and think I’m really onto something 😅 I hope some of you take the time to read this and please let me know what you think, or even dm me with any personal experiences or examples you think of in your life. Or shit, maybe your a phycology major or professional and have some insight, I’d really love to hear it.  

And as far as my computer goes, it is back with geek squad🤦🏻‍♀️ my goal at this point is to just get it back into working order and start saving for a new PC. The 2 geek squad member we talked to this time seemed to have a much more thorough plan so I feel much better about it already. But I really need my games back, I’m going crazy.

[meldy-writes]

Luckiest Girl in the World (Daryl Dixon X Wife! Reader)

Context:So I have an alt AO3 because for some reason I didn’t think a walking dead fic fit with the fanfictions I had under my Pen Name’s account, but at this point, I don’t think it really matters. Anyway, there’s this Daryl X Reader fic I’m writing on this alt account and I’m at the point where I’m writing two ways the story could branch, and there’s this little scene from the path I didn’t take that could work as a drabble. If you like this, or if you want to read the fic for context, it’s here. Be warned, it’s pretty long.

Summary: The Reader has been with the group since the CDC, and along the way, she fell in love and married Daryl Dixon. Now they’re in Alexandria and Aiden, one of Deanna’s sons has begun to harbor a crush. He doesn’t seem to realize that she’s taken. (Daryl’s not really mentioned until the last couple of paragraphs, but I thought those paragraphs were cute enough to warrant this being tagged as an x reader fic.)

Aiden sat at the top of the fence with her, casually leaning back in his seat. The front legs of the plastic chair were off the ground, his feet planted as he rocked back and forth.

“You’re gonna to fall backwards, you know.” (y/n) stated.

“You worried I’m going to get hurt?” he teased, leaning even farther back.

“No. In fact, I think it’d be funny. I just don’t want your mommy to yell at me.”

He let out a snort and put his arms behind his head as he began to rock back and forth. She rolled her eyes, amusement dancing on her features as she eyed the back legs of the chair in anticipation. As she predicted, they eventually snapped, and Aiden promptly fell backwards just as she’d cautioned.

She let out a barking laugh, and a few people passing by stopped to look up at her as the flushing boy tried to shake off the embarrassment.

“All right, all right, it’s not that funny.”

“Oh, I beg to differ, that was the most entertainin’ thing I’ve seen all week,” she argued, wiping a tear from her eye.

“Then your life must be very boring.” He countered bitterly, his pride hurt just a tad from how demeaning her tone was and how promptly she’d always shut him down.

“Oh, no. it’s not borin’, it’s just not fun, either.”

He finally recovered from his little mishap, tossing the broken chair down into the grass below to be fixed later, and choosing instead to sit against the wall. (y/n) kept to her perch, eyeing the expanse of pavement in front of the fence gate.

“You know, if you can’t find fun, you can always make it. There’s a game a lot of us play when we’re on watch to pass the time, want to play?”

She rolled her eyes. “I gotta keep my eyes on the gate”

“It’s a talking game. You can still keep watch. It’s called The Worst. We each share the worst experience we’ve ever had with something, and the one that’s the most terrible wins the round.” He continued, eyeing her with a charming smirk that, despite his best efforts, she hadn’t registered as flirty, yet.

He was an attractive guy, and after she’d saved his life on that run, and yelled at him, they’d bonded. He’d even swallowed his pride and let her train him. They’d gotten close, and they were both attractive, sarcastic, and confident people, so he couldn’t understand how they weren’t together yet. No matter what he did, she always shut down any plans he tried to make to hang out alone outside of the occasional look-out duty, and she always spoke to him like she was talking to a child. A very stupid child.

He didn’t let it deter him, though. No matter how much it hurt his pride. She’d eventually come around.

She turned her nose up at his suggestion, looking at him like he just told her the sky was green, and she was about to gently tell him he was a dumbass.

“That sounds like a game you don’t wanna play with me.”

He asked her why she felt like that.

“Because you’d always lose.” She stated simply, turning back to the scene past the gate.

“Okay, you don’t always have to play the jaded soldier. This world is shit, it’s fucked us all over one time or another, quit acting like you’re the saddest sack in the world.” He scoffed, smacking her shin with the back of his hand playfully.

She sighed, shrugging her shoulders.

“Alright, then. But if this ends up bummin’ you out, you can’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Internally, he celebrated. This was the first time he’d ever gotten her to agree to something she initially said ‘no’ to. Slowly but surely, he was winning her over, he was sure.

“Alright, easy. Worst night of your life. Mine was that time I left that supply run group behind. Usually, we’d go into detail, explaining what happened, but, you already know about that night ‘cuz I told you about it.” He stated sadly. She’d talked a big game, so he was pulling out the big guns. “What about you?”

Let’s see you top that, Debbie Downer.

She smirked, sensing the challenge in his voice.

“A long time before we all came here, we were stayin’ on Maggie’s dad’s farm. One night, it got overrun by a horde, an’ everyone got separated. I was with Carol, an’ a walker fell on top of me, tryin’ to bite into my shoulder. She thought I was bit, so she left me behind, but I was wearin’ a real thick jacket. I was fine, but I had to cut it open and drench myself in its blood so the herd wouldn’t sniff me out and tear me to shreds. I had to slice my way through a sea of those suckers, an’ then stumble through the woods covered in gunk for a whole day and a half ‘fore I found my people again. That was the first walker I ever killed on my own. Damn terrifyin’.”

He was quiet after that, face white as a sheet as he shuttered and coughed awkwardly.

“Y-your turn to come up with a topic.” He finally uttered.

“Worst walker encounter you ever had. Mine was this time at a mechanic shop out in… It had to be North Carolina. A guy tried to--well, it’s not important what his intentions were, the point was that he had me handcuffed to one of those automatic levers they use in autobody shops to lift cars, an’ I was hoisted off the ground. He had the keys in his front pocket, an’ I’d managed to get his head ‘tween my thighs to snap his neck. I was tryin’ to reach for the keys with my feet when he re-animated. I was strugglin’, I couldn’t go anywhere, I couldn’t use my arms, the only reason I got out of it was ‘cuz he accidentally bumped up against the control for the lift, and his head ended up crushed under the mechanism. I’ve had a lot of close calls, but I think that was the only time I ever truly felt like I was gonna die.”

Aiden let out a low whistle, letting her words settle. Maybe she’d been right after all. Still, depending on how she saw things, his might still be worse.

“Mine was right at the beginning. My girlfriend was with us while we were traveling for Mom’s campaign. I left for twenty minutes to grab some lunch, and when I got back to our hotel room, she was a walker. I don’t know if she was bitten, or if she had an accident, or if someone… I don’t know. All I know is that I had to kill her with my bare hands just to stay alive. I... dropped the hotel room tv on her head.”

He shuttered at the memory, and to his surprise, he felt (y/n) place her hand on his shoulder and squeeze comfortingly. He grabbed for it, but she pulled away before he could.

“Let’s uh, choose a more up-beat topic,” he continued weakly, “Worst date you ever went on. Mine was this girl Cierra Mauldry in sixth grade. I kissed her goodnight on her porch, and our braces stuck together.”

She laughed at first, but a long-suppressed memory resurfaced at the mention of dates, and instantly she was somber again.

“A guy I worked with at the CDC,” she started softly.

“He’d had a crush on me for a while, an’ I’d just learned that my dad died, so I was in kind of a vulnerable spot. I said yes to grabbin’ dinner together, an’ takin a walk ‘round the facility. When we got back to his room, he wanted to sleep with me, but I didn’t. I didn’t really like him that way, an’ I didn’t think it was fair to him to string him along, so I told him ‘no’, an’ that we should just remain professional from now on. Next day, he didn’t show up in the lab, an’ my boss sent me to go get ‘im. I found him as a walker hangin’ from his closet.” She took a hiccupping breath, reliving the memory in her mind, and scrunching her eyes shut. “Worst part is I cannot, for the life of me, remember his name.”

They were both quiet after that, and soon, they heard Spencer calling up to relieve (y/n) from her shift. She grinned sympathetically down and Aiden, and gave him the goodbye of:

“Told you it was a bad game to play with me.”

Still, when she got up, he scrambled to his feet as well grabbing her arm to stop her before she made her way down the ladder.

“Well, hey, I still had fun. I got to know you a bit better. I’d like to continue doing that, maybe you could come over for dinner and eat with my family tonight.”

She smiled the smile she usually did; like she was talking to a slow, and simple child.

“I’m sorry, Aiden, but tonight’s not great. Daryl’s gotten kind of close with his recruitn’ buddy, and his husband wants us to come to dinner tonight so he can finally properly meet me.”

Aiden scrunched up his eyes in confusion.

“What? What does Daryl getting close with them have to do with you? If they wanted to get to know you, couldn’t they just approach you without having to go through him?”

She smiled wider like he’d said something adorably stupid, as she clarified:

“I didn’t explain it very well, It’s more like a couple’s dinner party sort-of thing.”

Aiden blinked. What? What the fuck? Was she insinuating that she and Daryl were… she couldn’t be, right?

“You and Daryl are together?”

She nodded as if his statement was beyond obvious, “we’re married,” she corrected.

He squeezed his eyes closed, trying to picture the violent, mean, constantly dirty guy with the long, long hair together with the clever, beautiful, and secretly caring woman he’d been trying to flirt with for the past week and a half, but he just couldn’t picture it.

“How?” he blurted out.

“How do people get married?” she teased flatly.

“No, how did you two end up together? You’re so different!”

She smiled softly, looking down at her fingers as she began to twiddle them. This smile was different than any of the ones he’d reluctantly wrangled out of her. This one was genuine, and bashful, and affectionate, and dazzling. Aiden knew it wasn’t for him, and it almost felt like he was intruding on something he shouldn’t be just by looking at her.

“He an’ I are a lot more alike than people realize. We’re more alike than even he realizes, I think. That doesn’t matter though. These days, it’s not about whether you’re similar, or if you’ve known each other for a long time, it’s all about who you can trust and depend on. It’s about who you’d die for, and who’d die for you. We might not have ended up together in the old world, but in this one, we’ve got somethin’ strong. Somethin’ special.”

She grinned brightly, practically knocking the breath out of her companion as she looked him in the eyes and said, “I’m the luckiest girl in the world.”

With that, his grip on her arm retracted, and she finally made her way down the ladder. He watched her walk down the street and run into the man they’d just been discussing. He watched as she strode over to him, and gripped his leather vest, trying to pull him down for a kiss.

He noticed how Daryl grinned fondly and put his hands on her waist, placing a quick peck on the tip of her nose. He noticed how she leaned into him with her whole body. He noticed how the sun reflected off the ring on her finger, the ring he had not gathered was supposed to be a wedding ring until that moment. He noticed how soft Daryl was for her when no one else was around.

Or maybe, he was always like this around her, and Aiden had just been too absorbed in himself to realize.

[johannstutt413]

(requested by mathmaticalknight; continuing from this and this)

“Good morning, my wonderful Croissantwich~” Angelina, who’d already been awake for an hour or so, floated over to her barely-awake girlfriend, cup of coffee in hand. “You have a trade depot shift today, if I remember right, and I’ll be in the reception area if you get a break.”

“Kthxhon...” The Forte sort of stumbled into her, hugging her on impact.

The Vulpo giggled, setting the cup in the air next to her and sending it to the kitchen table to properly return the embrace. “You’re out of it this morning, aren’tcha?”

“Werdreamliznite.” She yawned before flaring her eyes open. “Where’ja put meh coffee again? Thoughcha had it just now.”

“On the table. I ordered breakfast burritos while I was waiting.” Sure enough, there was the bag on the table, along with a cup of coffee apiece.

Croissant sighed with a smile. “Yer too good ta me, Angelface.”

“Maybe~” She stole the good-morning kiss the Forte was still a bit too out of it to go for herself. “Let’s get that coffee in you now, or you’re not going to wake up until lunch.”

“Aye...Hey, Angie?” She asked after a few sips of coffee and half a burrito.

Angelina cocked her head, her cup and burrito changing their orbits to match. “Yeah?”

“Erm, well’m, are ya plannin’ on goin’ ta school fer anythin’?” Another long sip of coffee. “I ‘unno if ya had any plans fer yerself, or if’n there’re schools for Infected folks.”

“Honestly, I don’t really need a degree to work for RI, so I don’t think I’m going anywhere.” What an out-of-nowhere question.

The Forte sighed. “Good. Thanks for breakfast.”

“Of course, but where’d that come from?” The Vulpo floated a second burrito out of the bag. “I’ve never said anything about school before.”

“I ‘unno, just came up in mah dream last night. Some’in about you goin’ off ta school and meetin’ some’n there and not comin’ back.”

Angie finished her coffee, giving herself a moment to absorb that. “You...you really think I’m capable of that?”

“Eh?” Croissant shrugged. “I’ve seen it ‘appen, but I know ya love me. Just answerin’ yer quest’n more’n anythin’.”

“Alright. If you ever have any doubt, just let me know, ‘kay? I wouldn’t want you getting confused.”

Croissant smiled. “Ya already do that just by bein’ so gosh darn cute.”

“More confused, then,” she chuckled, shaking her head. “Anything else you need to get off your chest before we head out?”

“Nah, I’m good now. Anythin’ on yer end?” The Forte asked, going to finish her coffee.

 Actually, now that she mentioned it, there was one thing. “How soon’s too soon to get married?”

“Pfffff-” Luke-warm coffee showered the table. “Sorry ‘bout that, but...dang, ya really went there this mornin’.”

“Sorry, I just...I dunno, I just don’t want there to be a question, ya know?”

The Forte shook her head. “Never was ‘n fer me, but I tell ya what, now there ain’t never gonna be. Holy shit, I wasn’ prep’red fer that’n just now. I mean, when the time comes, I ain’t gonna say no, but...I don’t think I’d look good’n white.”

“That’s fine; I was thinking you could wear the tux, honestly.” That earned the Vulpo a smirk. “What?”

“I just had an image of both of us in matchin’ tuxes, and I gotta say, yer still wearin’ it better.”

Angie leaned forward. “I guess it’s a matter of perspective, then.”

“Uh-huh.” Croissant’s eyes followed the gravity well that was her girlfriend’s chest. “Just sayin’, yer tie’d look more like a waterfall than anythin’. Kinda gets a girl thinkin’, ya know?”

“...Now that you mention it, I see what you mean. Huh. Alright, we’ve gotta quit stalling, or neither of us is ever going to work. I’ll see you tonight, babe.”

She nodded. “Sure as sunshine, ya will.” And with that, they escorted each other to the door, shared one last kiss to start the day on the right foot, and went their seperate ways.

‘She’s really that serious, ain’t she?’ The Forte thought as she meandered to the trading post. ‘Ak’shly, thinkin’ bout it, I don’t want her to hafta go ‘tween her room and mine ‘fore work e’ry day, and if she’s not goin’ anywhere, then now’s as good as ever...Alright. I’m gonna do it. There’s prob’ly a couple rings in the Ware’ouse in mah price range.’

Around lunch time, Angelina stopped by the trading post to see Croissant, but she wasn’t there; Bison said she’d gone out and would probably be back before her lunch ended, but by then, the Vulpo would be back anyway, so she asked him to let her know she’d come by looking for her. Not too long after, the Forte came back with a smile on her face, hand dancing in one of her pockets, and took the message with a simple nod. Bison was curious what’d made her break her usual routine of eating with her girlfriend, but he decided to leave it be. If it was anything relevant, he’d hear about it the next day, one way or the other.

Once her shift ended, Croissant went off to the reception area and found Angie and Gitano knee-deep in gossip. “Afternoon, girls,” she declared as she entered, tipping an invisible cowboy hat towards the fortune-teller.

“Oh, hey!” The Vulpo drifted over to her, briefly making contact before starting to orbit her. “I missed you at lunch today.”

“Yeah, sorry ‘bout that. Had an errand I needed ta run. Speakin’a which, ya might wanna be on yer feet for this’un.”

Angelina cocked her head. “Alright.” She grounded herself as requested.

“Ya remember that conv’sation we ‘ad this mornin’?” The Forte kneeled. “Well I got ta thinkin’ a bit more ‘bout it.”

“Oh my God,” the Vulpo unconsciously whispered as Gitano smiled, remembering the telling she’d just performed for her.

She cleared her throat. “Look, I ain’t the most el’quent talker, so I’m gonna keep it nice and simple. You ain’t goin’ anywhere, and I’m always gonna come back from my drives, but even if’n that changes, home for me’s wherever yer at. I reckon if we’re gonna tie this knot, now’s as good a time as any after all, so um...Will ya marry me, Angelface?”

“FUCK YES!” That was the first time Croissant had heard her curse with that kind of enthusiasm, but that wasn’t nearly as important as the ‘yes’ part. “You sorted this all out during lunch?”

“My job’s just liftin’ boxes and makin’ deals; I can do that in mah sleep. Gave me plen’y of time ta think, but it really only took the walk ta the post to know I was gonna propose today.”

Angie halfway collapsed into her arms. “I’m...I think I’m gonna faint. Carry me back?”

“‘Course. You’re as a light as a-” The gravity manipulation turned off as she fell unconscious. “...She sleepin’?”

“I believe so, yes,” Gitano confirmed.

Croissant chuckled. “Good, cuz if she knew I nearly fell over just now, I think she might try ta float me to the moon or some’n. Have a good’un Miss Gitano.”

“You as well, Miss Croissant.” The Caprinae relaxed in her chair, a couple hours left to go in her shift. “It’s rather wonderful to be surprised like that...I wonder if Dur-nar will try something like that with me?”

[deltaengineering]

Fall Anime 2017 Part 4: Screenshots don’t lie

Saturday’s a very busy day this season, and all the sequels are hitting too. Time to get to work!

Previously:

• Part 1: Maximum Something

• Part 2: The snooze cruise

• Part 3: Fooled again

Burendo Esu (Cat Balls the Animation)

Blend S is the story of schoolgirl Maika that has “mean eyes” (basically, she has tsurime in a tareme world), which prevents her from getting a job other than the one in a moe gimmick-themed café, where her duty is to make “mean eyes” at the customers. The other waitresses play a tsundere, an imouto, an idol and an onee-san. So yeah, that’s one way to get your standard moe show cast together. But wait! The twist here is that Maika is not actually mean! Quite the opposite actually! And that goes for all the other waitresses too! While girls getting forced into moe archetypes is a pretty amusing/scary concept, this is of course a Kirara manga, so they’re just different moe archetypes underneath. In short, the concept doesn’t amount to much. As far as Kiraralikes go, this isn’t a bad one though. It’s colorful, cute and a little funny, and splits the difference between a pure moefest like Knohana Kitan and the more structured comedy of a Working (obviously). Only the pervy Italian manager and his obsession with his blob underlings gets old pretty fast. If you’re down for a show like this, this is probably the one to watch, because unlike Konohana Kitan I didn’t wish for it to end.

Code: Realize - Sousei no Himegimi

While we’re on the topic of “best of the breed”, Code: Realize is an upmarket otome harem. I know, right. The setting is a basic steampunk universe, the bishounens are Arsène Lupin, Victor Frankenstein &c, and our bland heroine’s super special trait turns out to be killing everything she touches due to some jewels in “her heart”. I mean, who hasn’t been there. So everyone wants to “steal her heart” and Code: Realize is very keen to point out the double meaning of this constantly. Hey, we kinda did it in Katawa Shoujo so I can’t really complain. The thing is that Code: Realize is very obvious, but it’s also not all that bad – the fact that is has more going on than nothing at all already makes it the best otome harem since Akatsuki no Yona: It looks fairly pleasant, none of the main characters are tremendous assholes, and there seems to be some sort of story to go with the pretty boys. But it’s also not as hammy and ostentatious as, for example, Dance with Devils, so it’s caught in a middle ground where I can appreciate it not sucking tremendously, but I also don’t feel like watching it – because it’s too respectable.

Dynamic Chord

Dynamic Chord is another otome VN, this time about rock bands. Since this is 2017, apparently the production committee thought they could cut out the middleman, leave out the bland girl and just make a boyband anime instead, because those are all the rage right now. So it’s Tsukipro, apart from the bit where Tsukipro looks like a Ghibli movie next to this. Dynamic Chord is a production catastrophe that looks closer to a no-budget gag short of the Pikotarou Lullaby type (note: I mean “catastrophe” in the absolute sense, for all I know this could all be calculated perfectly and the producers are laughing all the way to the bank). The show consists almost entirely of two things: Long, quiet zooms and pans over stills, and montages, mostly of “performances”. Those performance themselves are really something else too. What if I told you that this is a show in 2017 that does not seem to feature ANY 3DCG? Turns out 3DCG actually costs money too, so when the band plays, they do paperdoll tweens of 2D artwork. Oh, and outside the performances lack of CG means you get the worst animated car since the QUALITYVAN. There’s also just baffling stuff like walk loops that don’t loop. Given that these montages are all endlessly long, you might think there’s not much space for a story. And you’d be right. Basically nothing happens, the singer of a band gets a bad case of the broods so some guy from another band has to substitute  for him. That’s it. Would have easily fit into 3 minutes, but I have to say that by the end of this show’s 24 minutes, I was straight up laughing my ass off when the next montage of bad stills started right after the last one ended. That’s something, right?

Garo - Vanishing Line

I’ve seen Garo before, but last time I didn’t know it was a tokusatsu meta-franchise, the anime versions of which really only share that there’s a gothick looking motherfucker fighting horrors called Horrors. So this has little to do with the last ones: different crew, different studio, different setting. Because this version of Garo is most definitely set IN AMERICA: The main character is a gothick looking motherfucker called "Sword” that charitably resembles Hellboy, and less charitably resembles a Leifeld original. He rides a big hawg around a Big Apple, eats big bloody steaks and looks at big boobies a lot because you know, setting. It’s charming in its idiocy, and this is MAPPA so you get a lot of fights with very nice animation too. I could watch this simply for the action, but I won’t because there’s a Murrica-sized caveat here: The fights take place at night, are edited very rapidly and most importantly their idea of an impact frame is to do an extreme camera shake effect with intense motion blur. And there is a lot of impact frames – believe me, that might have been the easiest screenshot to find for an article yet, and I highly suspect I could have found worse ones if this wouldn’t bring the point across already. I simply can’t tell what the fuck is going on because everything is an incomprehensible mess, no matter how nice the frames beneath the effects are. It’s pretty infuriating because this show is one mouse click away from being a good time, simply disable your After Effects layer with the shake on it. But I can’t do that for them, so Vanishing Line ends up being a bad time instead. And even if you are interested in some big, zany action in the ol’ Gotham, there’s a little something that makes Vanishing Line instantly obsolete:

Kekkai Sensen (Blood Blockade Battlefront) & Beyond

Yeah boiiiiiiii, Kekkai Sensen is back. I had forgotten how fun this show can be, and we’ll discuss the reasons shortly. A lot has happened since 2015, and I have a good reference point for it now: Kekkai Sensen is basically One-Punch Man without The Joke. It’s an universe full of all sorts of crazy nonsense and a bunch of cool dudes that try to keep thing under control, usually in an explosive manner. The one really important thing that Beyond changes is that it’s not directed by Rie Matsumoto. Shigehito Takayanagi is taking over, and while that guy is a noted jobber of little distinction (previous credits: TWGOK, Dagashi Kashi and uh... Toyko ESP...), he’s at least enough of a craftsman to imitate Matsumoto’s style very well. I only found out about this after the fact, and wouldn’t have noticed the difference otherwise. It is noticeable if you look for it though: this episode has all of the stylish action antics, but none of the more moody content that Matsumoto’s original character (do not steal) White brought to the show. I liked most of White’s scenes with Leo and they gave season 1 some welcome emotional grounding, but to be quite honest, it’s not what I watched Kekkai Sensen for. I can definitely accept losing it if this time the show isn’t consumed by White’s subplot and doesn’t culminate in an ending that not only is all about her, but also comes out a season after everyone stopped caring because auteurs can’t manage a production. With Kyousougiga and Kekkai Sensen S1, Matsumoto has shown a 100% track record of donking her endings, so I’m not complaining she got replaced with someone who just gets the job done. Especially if it’s still Bones relying on Yutapon for action cuts; when shit hits the fan, it looks straight up incredible and makes me question why I slummed it with My Hero Academia for three seasons when I can get the same amount of awesome fights in a single episode of this. And hey, White is still in the ending, so maybe we will get the less crazy end of it covered as well. Just keep the priorities straight this time around, please.

Houseki no Kuni (Land of the Lustrous)

Houseki no Kuni is a manga about gijinka gems of indeterminate gender that takes the amusing step of Mohs hardness directly translating into Shounen Powerlevel™. Apart from that, there’s not much content in this episode 1: We get to know the characters and a glimpse and how a society of a bunch of brittle gems in makeup works. What makes this interesting is that the setting is intriguingly vague and very pretty (think: Haibane Renmei), and the characters seem to be fairly strong and likeable. Not exciting, but I could see myself watching this just for the atmosphere. The big downside of it is that it’s a 3DCG show, and not one of those fancy mocapped ones either. The animation is, in a word, bad: robotic and clumsy, as usual. I’ll readily admit that in screencaps it looks great, especially the crystal shaders that would be difficult to pull off in 2D animation. Houseki no Kuni seems very okay, but it has a hard time on this crowded Saturday so I don’t think I’ll bother with it right now. If it delivers in the long run, I’ll readily admit it to my backlog though.

Love Live! Sunshine!! S2!!!

Sunshine’s back as well, and finds itself in an awkward spot right away. This first episode has a lot of things to get out of the way: Tying up the last season properly because the final episode of S1 fumbled that, reminding the audience of the characters, and setting up a new drama arc. In practice, that means it ends up feeling a lot more like the lost E1S13 than the S2E1 it is, because the other two aspects are pretty pointless: Reintroducing the characters just means they all shoot off their catchphrase in turn, and the brand new conflict is (hold on to your seats for this one) that the school is getting closed and there’s a new Love Live. With all these things going on and none of them being all that interesting, the episode feels very rushed and just accomplishes establishing that yes, it’s a Love Live show. I guess that is exactly what it was meant to do and I can say that at least they have it out of the way now. Well, the last time I said Sunshine had gotten something out of the way, it was the obsession with µ’s in episode 1, the getting out of the way of which ended up lasting 10 episodes. It’s gone now (thankfully), but maybe I shouldn’t assume too much here. So yeah, fairly weak first episode, but it’s not like I wasn’t going to watch this to the end and even at its most rushed and pointless it’s still Love Live: a polished Five Guys hamburger of a show that doesn’t exactly need to be great to be a joy to watch.

Two Car

I expected Two Car to be That Show: the one where a schoolgirl discovers her sudden love for Thing and goes on to experience Thing with the help of her friends. Two Car isn’t in the K-ON/Bakuon/etc mould however, it’s much more similar to the sports show style of Girls und Panzer, wacky sport with themed teams of contenders in a world where everyone seems to care about it a little too much. It helps that real sidecar racing is already weird as hell (looking forward to the breathless Anime Now article about how it’s a thing that actually exists) and is less motorcycle racing and more Twister on a fast-moving platform. Quite coincidentally, Two Car is also tremendously gay, as you’d expect from a show about two-girl teams in very tight leather crawling over each other competitively. The main girls aren’t even so blatant (and shown to have a crush on their male instructor, who has taken off to the aptly named Isle of Man), but the opponents are all some sort of standard yuri pairing. So yeah, the setting is a goofy blast, but I’m sad to report that episode 1 has tremendous structural problems. All the team introductions are very clumsy and intercut with an equally clumsy introduction of the setting, the sport and the main girl’s extensive backstory. I will give this more chances because the setup has a lot of potential, but I really hope this shapes up on the storytelling front or I won’t make it very far in.