#those cosplayers were honestly the main reason I started to ship this

[bakhtaks-blog]

Thoughts on this crack ship? New!PennywisexJason Voorhees? Well I thought of it. Silent Laughter

I ship it too ~

Especially thanks to @vexusblast23 for showing me this pic of a Jason and Pennywise cosplayer! I mean they’re so cute!

I LOVE THIS SHIP!

[capsing]

(Spoilers: It’s another rant about queerbaiting)

If you are unfamiliar with South Park, it’s a satiric cartoon that has just started its 21 Season. The humor is not for everybody – it can be incredibly vulgar and offensive. I, personally, enjoy it very much.

Most of the seasons of South Park were Stand Alone episodes – meaning, although the episodes were loosely tied to each other, you could watch one without context and still get what’s going on. In Season 19 and 20 they’ve tried changing it, and it appears this season we’re back to Stand Alone episodes once more. (Yay.)

South Park revolves around four (arguably five) main characters, with a wide variety of supporting cast. The main characters are middle-schoolers in their fourth grade, and there are their classmates, parents, school staff and other citizens in the town.

The center of this piece revolves around two of the supporting characters – Tweek and Craig. Tweek is a stressed-out kid who has involuntarily ticks due to drinking huge amounts of coffee; Craig is a very plain character, and honestly, although I remember he had an episode revolving him, I can’t tell you much about him. (He has a hat, I guess?) 

Supporting characters in South Park sometimes get their own episode, but unlike Jimmy or Wendy, Craig and Tweek weren’t quite in the spotlight.

NOW. Thing is many South Park fans shipped those two characters. Why? I don’t know. Neither did the creators. But they took notice.

Season 19, Episode 6 was an episode entirely devoted to the issue. Its name was “Tweek x Craig”. Basically, it goes like this – there’s a new group of Asian kids that joined the school. They present their art in a school assembly – and it’s all fanart of Tweek and Craig (which was provided by the actual fans of the show). Tweek and Craig are upset at being outed – they claim they’re not gay and not together (and they’re indeed not together). Meanwhile, Stan, one of the protagonists, portrays the voice of the people who don’t ship it (and maybe of the creators), as he tries to understand “How the Asians decide who’s gay and who’s not.” (There’s talk of yaoi).

Towards its end, the episode shows how the people of South Park enjoy hanging artwork of the pair in their homes, and how happy it makes them. At the end, I was left with the impression Tweek and Craig sort of agree to play pretend for a bit for the town people’s sake.

ONLY.

NOT.

Season 21, Episode 2 provides a mind-boggling revelation.

Tweek’s anxiety is through the roof, due to the President’s provocation of North-Korea. During lunch, the protagonists turn to Craig and tells him: “Do something about it, he’s your boyfriend.”

At first, I wasn’t sure I’ve heard it correctly- but it repeated itself, with Craig calling Tweek with all sorts of pet-names. The show had made the two a pair, and what was so mind-boggling about it was how non-issue it was. It was just there. They’re gay. They’re a couple. Craig needs to support Tweek, to learn how to listen to him instead of trying to advise him. I was stunned and thrilled at the same time. What an unexpected development! The episode addressing the subject of shipping wasn’t there to ridicule it – it was an actual event with later implications on the characters themselves!

South Park finally did what no other big, successful franchise did to this date – implemented queer characters, portraying them as people. Not killing them off. Not giving them tragic breakups. Not making them The Gay Character™.

Why do I think this is amazing? Two reasons.

The first is that South Park’s creators are tuned to their fans, and most importantly – respectful towards them. S19E06 was clearly the creators showing they have no idea why there’s even a fanbase to Tweek and Craig, but they didn’t make fun of it – they used it to connect to their fans and frame and episode around the issue, which also dealt with how the parents deal with their kids “suddenly being gay”. They’ve asked for content from the fans, which was readily provided, and embedded it to the actual episode, doing their best to use everything they’ve gotten – though, legally speaking, they could’ve just grabbed whichever fanart they googled and used it. (There’s even a short fanvideo of two cosplayers!)

I am not part of the SPN fandom, but I do know that the SPN creators acknowledged fanfiction of Sam and Dean in one of their episodes, I vaguely recall it wasn’t done so respectfully, that their fan-character was presented as a bit loopy and that Sam and Dean weren’t really thrilled with the concept of Wincest. Sherlock didn’t acknowledge it on the show, and the cast and creators dismiss it as if they’re not leaving a rainbow trail of breadcrumbs for their fans to follow.

 The second reason is that the creators follow-through.

What’s so annoying about queerbaiting is that you watch a thing, you see the groundwork laid there, but when you call attention to it – it’s treated as if it’s not there. (If you are unfamiliar with the term, Queerbaiting is when the show presents characters as having the potential for a queer romance to expend their audiences, without ever saying it outright as to not alienate homophobic viewers).

Even I know that Castiel and Dean are batting eyelashes at each other for – what – the past six seasons? Maybe more? And that it’s a touchy subject – so much it can’t be brought up during panels with the cast.

 NOW.

I know this is the part where there’s all of this debate about “Creators shouldn’t be trying to pander to audiences or change their work, they should do what they want! We’re just the audience.” And that’s fine.

 BUT.

Queerbaiting is tedious. Really is. 

Queerbaiting is like interacting with Jokey Smurf. 

He gives you a nice present, and you’re happy about it – and it ends up blowing in your face. Once is unpleasant, but okay. In the three-hundred-and-fourth time, it’s just annoying, and you wonder why you keep falling for it, each and every time, hoping it’d end differently this time around.

It’s like a constant mockery of the audience – keeping the coals warm just-so to keep a small flame of hope going, but never planning to do anything about it but splash it with a bucket of icy-cold water when it’s all said and done.

South Park, very surprisingly, shows it can be different.

As a show, it acknowledged – on screen, at the end of Season 19 – it needed to change its type of humor to get on with the times. With such a huge supporting cast, there’s no reason a few of the characters can’t be queer, or together. There’s room for their relationship, alongside other relationships on the show. The Creek (Craig/Tweek) fanbase didn’t threaten the creators or pester them constantly – they just were, and then – they were noticed.

While other shows keep dragging their fans along, South Park’s creators just kept in touch with the changing times and their fanbase, and adjusted themselves accordingly.

 At the end, what they’re making is an Entertainment Product, meant for consumption. It only makes sense to find out not just what tickles your audience’s tastebuds the right way, but what also leaves them content, sated and satisfied.

 ((P.S – Creek fans, I’m super glad for you! Your content made an actual change, hopefully leading to more shows taking notice and following South Park’s lead!))

((P.S.S – All of South Park’s episodes are available online for free on their website, a fact that always made me appreciate them even more.))

Thanks for reading :)

[that-sokovian-bastard]

Miraculous Headcanon

Warning: i have been adding to this headcanon for nearly a month so it is pretty long xD OOPS SORRY NOT SORRY (i did put a cut though, so, yeah) NO REGRETS

Marinette is a youtuber

Her channel consists of mostly sped up videos of her drawing designs and making her designs. Some have voice over, some have soothing and relaxing music.

Her channel blew up

Partially because, wow, she’s really talented for only being in high school

And people just really enjoyed watching her work, it’s very unique

Sometimes she’ll do simple tutorials on how to make a simple skirt, or get started on designing, but those are more rare videos

She has a second channel that is less professional than her main, where she posts a bunch of random vlogs that her and Alya take whenever they do something interesting, or even some random challenges. Most of these videos involve Alya, since she got Marinette to make a second channel for fun vlogs

Her international followers (#subtitles) find it very interesting anytime she talks about Ladybug and Chat Noir because there are legit superheroes in Paris and no other part of the world has seen that.

They vlog all sorts of things

going to the craft store for new fabrics, buttons, patterns, literally anything Marinette needs for her next project (or they’re just bored)

They record random things they see around Paris, cosplayers of LB and CN, pigeons being weird, aesthetics

Alya and Marinette have a weekly “review” which includes Alya buying something for Marinette to review- mostly themed around her favorite heroes

Sometimes just walking around the mall. Nino is spotted in many vlogs as well, but Adrien is rarely seen since he is already around so many cameras in his normal life Marinette is respecting his privacy

A lot more below the cut because I have been working on this headcanon for nearly a month!

Alya gets her to do challenges too

“What’s in my sketchbook?”

“Drawings from when I was a kid (thanks mama)”

“How well do Alya and I know each other?”

“Am I more Ladybug or Chat Noir?” -definitely alya’s idea

So Marinette has to juggle school two youtube channels, and saving Paris sometimes every other day.

She finds it really funny when Chat Noir talks to Ladybug about how much he enjoyed Marinette’s channel, but she can’t thank him.

“She’s so talented, Bug!”

“I WATCHED HE SKETCHBOOK VIDEO AND THERE ARE SOME BASED OFF ME. SHE IS THE BEST.”

“The music she uses is so relaxing.”

One day, Marinette is at lunch with her friends and pulls out her camera when Alya and Nino start debating who is better- Ladybug or Chat Noir

“She’s the one who makes everything go back to normal after!”

“But Chat Noir can destroy something and take out the akuma all together!”

“She purifies it so we don’t have a Stoneheart incident again!”

“Adrien, please tell me you’re on my side here. Chat Noir is the best, right?”

“Personally, I’m a Ladybug fan, you should really know that by now.”

“How could you do this to me?”

Cue alya celebrating she has Adrien on her side, but pouting when Marinette sides with Nino.

“Sure, Ladybug can purify the akuma and turn everything back to normal, but she would be nothing without Chat Noir,” ADRIEN BLUSHES AT MARINETTE TALKING ABOUT CHAT

Naturally, the video is titled something along the lines “#teamLB or #teamCN?” and most of the vlog is the debate between Alya and Nino

But her fanbase flips the frick out when they see Adrien there because he’s the model of Gabriel! Adrien Agreste! like of course they know him Gabriel is all over the world so of course so is Adrien’s face

Her followers want her to collab with him

And she’s very wary at first because he could say no and she finally got over the stuttering around him

but she asks him anyway

and he is all for it! Little fangirl Adrien is so excited to be in a video.

They do a video for her main channel, since that’s what the comments begged for, where they did a design challenge. They both had a design prompt, then had to draw a sketch of what they thought would fit it. 

Adrien should stick to his day job of being a model

he cannot draw for the life of him

Then a few days later they do a challenge for her second channel- it was a tag that Alya said would be perfect for them

“If we were dating TAG” because Alya keeps telling them how much she ships them…and after that video on her main channel and the banter between the two of them…they were shipped

“If we were dating, where would we spend the most time together?”

“oh my god we would spend so much time at the bakery, her parents make the best sweets” and adrien was practically drooling in his answer

“If we were dating who would be the one person you would let them break up with you for?”

Adrien just so quickly “Chat Noir. That’s it.”

“HA, i was going to say Ladybug for you.”

and it’s just really sweet

and there is so much cuteness

and marinette ends the video off “next time we do a video i think we should record us playing our favorite video game”

“PLEASE”

Naturally, Chat Noir is freaking out over the video the day it is posted, which is also a patrol day, and he is just so happy

“What, do you like her?”

“She’s the best, Bugaboo, and this video just makes me so happy.”

“It’s about if her and Adrien Agreste were dating?”

“IT’S ADORABLE!”

Ladybug is suspicious why he’s so excited about this but doesn’t say anything because who knows what it could lead to

Weeks pass and more videos come out, Adrien starting to be a reoccurring member of her youtube community

Somehow, someone saw Marinette and Adrien detransform after a fight (so they ran out of time) and got  a video. It went viral. 

“We’re all shocked! The model and son of Gabriel Agreste is one of the heroes protecting us! And, even more surprising, the successful Youtuber Marinette Dupain-Cheng is the Ladybug protecter! Who would have thought that pair would be the heroes we all know and love?”

People thought it was even better that they were friends behind the masks too

There is no escape for Marinette. She was hoping that she could go on youtube and all would be normal, but she can’t post a single video, tweet, or instagram without a million comments about her alter ego

So she decides that she will do one video answering some questions about Ladybug then she would never bring it onto youtube again, and everything would go back to how it used to be.

Her tweet reads “I will be doing a q&a for Ladybug. One video, then I’m leaving her off my youtube. You have a few hours to send your questions to #askmari before I film the video.”

She never imagined this would be a video she would have to film

She never wanted this to be a video she would have to film

She never wanted her identity to be out there

At least her friends and family were supportive

She had barely talked to Adrien since the big reveal, and was worried this would ruin their friendship

But Adrien sees the tweet

“she shouldn’t have to do this alone”

Adrien bolts over to the bakery and Sabine and Tom are actually very pleased to see him, maybe seeing him would help her go back to her happy self if they talked

He rushed upstairs and got there right as she set up the camera in her room

“What are you doing here?”

“I was hoping you’d let me answer questions with you, I know how hard it could be.”

“I…honestly would love that.”

Marinette is so scared to film the video she feels like she’s going to throw up

She’s shaking very badly

But Adrien grabs her hand and reminds her he is there for her and that once this video is over, she never has to tell anyone anything else if she doesn’t want to

He also reminds her that she doesn’t even have to do this if she doesn’t want to or doesn’t feel comfortable

“No, I think I owe them something. I really want all the comments to lessen,” She decides, and starts the video

“Hey guys, I’m Marinette,” She starts. “And Adrien is here with me too. If you saw my tweet earlier, or read the title of the video, then you’ll know I’m doing a q&a for my alter ego, Ladybug, thanks to the transformation video that went viral a while ago.”

“I’m here to answer and moral support,” Adrien budds in and takes her phone to read some questions. He reminds her that she doesn’t have to answer everything and they both know there are some things that should be left a secret (kwamis)

“When did you become Ladybug?”

“The first day of grade 10″

“Why did you keep it a secret?”

“Hawkmoth is dangerous. If he knows who we are, who knows what he could do? He could target loved ones, or even come after me when I’m not Ladybug.”

“Did anyone know? Did Chat know?”

Adrien answered that one. “No, no one knew. And from our first day together, she said we wouldn’t tell each other. Safety reasons.”

“How do you turn into Ladybug?”

“I’ve said it to a few akumas, and it’s all I’ll ever say: magic.”

The video continues on to ask vague questions about the job and how she balances everything to more specifics in some attacks. (Dark cupid kiss did come up, cue blushes on both teenagers)

By the end of the video, Marinette looks like she’s going to cry. Adrien quickly gives her a hug and reminds her everything is going to be okay. She leaves it in the final cut. 

Adrien speaks before she ends the video. “I bet Hawkmoth is happy this happened, and thinks he has an upperhand. But guess what, Hawkmoth? Once we get over this obstacle, we will be even stronger. And we will be coming for you.”

“Thank you so much for watching, and that’s ends out talk about Ladybug and Chat Noir.” And the video ends with a cut to advertise her other social medias

Marinette is so thankful Adrien was there for the video

And he was right…their relationship grew even stronger

And they were ready to take on Hawkmoth head on.

[kibahinatas]

DRV3 Liveblog [BLIND]: Pregame

AHHHH!! After almost a year of avoiding all things Dangan Ronpa in fear of spoilers, I can’t believe I finally get to play V3! I have been waiting for this for so long I can barely contain myself, lol.

Now, I would have loved to record myself doing a Let’s Play of this game, but as I’ll be playing on my boyfriend’s PS4 at his house, that won’t be happening. So instead, I’m going to try and record all my thoughts as I play, here on tumblr!

My plan is to write a post of my reactions and theories after each session of playing; or after each of the main chapter segments depending on how long I play each time. And hopefully it will be a bit more organized than this post, lol.

But before I get into that, I thought I would look back on some theory posts I made back when the game was announced as well as go over what I already know!

PREDICTIONS

note: these were all based purely on character designs!

1. Ultimate Talents (click)

To add on to that post, I also like popular theories going around at the time that Purple Guy could have a space related talent, because of the interior of his jacket, and that Witch Hat could also be a cosplayer/costumer. Also if not for Mukuro already being the SHSL Soldier, I might have guessed that for Mask Boy.

2. Ships (click)

I mostly just pulled these out of my ass, so I’m guessing these will be pretty far off, haha.

3. Survivors (click)

Again, mostly just guessing here. TBH IDK if I still stand by this, but the mindset I had at the time was that the new game might try to break our expectations (somewhat) with what kind of characters live til the end. For example, ‘big strong characters always die’ (Bug Man), or Goggles, who gives me an Akane vibe for some reason, being a survivor. So I went against those ideas.

WHAT I ALREADY KNOW

Now, although I did my best to avoid EVERY kind of spoiler - I didn’t even want to know names or talents! - I did find out a couple minor things.

1. Talents

I accidentally saw something somewhere that mentioned Kaede being the SHSL Pianist, and Checkered Scarf being the SHSL President.

Thoughts: Interesting! I figured Kaede would be something music related because of the note motif, but I guess I didn’t expect something so specific, based on our previous protagonists. Already this game is breaking expectations!

As for Checkered Scarf, I definitely never would have guessed President! But the president of what, I wonder? A nation? A school club? There are a lot of possibilities. This is also very interesting given the prison setting. Could he have been a dictator like leader? This leads into my next spoiler.

(Also, could potential Servant and/or Guard be in his service? Hm..)

2. A shady character??

This is in reference to Checkered Scarf (CS). Now, this doesn’t have too much of a solid basis, and is more of something I just have a feeling about. I accidentally saw a picture of him that just gave me a weird vibe - there was something creepy and untrustworthy about him!

Thoughts: Now I don’t know if this even counts as a spoiler, as it’s all just speculation. Honestly I hope that I’m wrong about this, as my initial impression of him was a cute little dude. I don’t want to go through another Nagito experience. To clarify, I saw a crazed picture of Nagito on a Youtube thumbnail that completely ruined the ‘crazy reveal’ for me in Trial 1 of SDR2.

So if CS is supposed to have a hidden side to him that is supposed to come as a total shock to players, I don’t want to have that twist ruined for me! But we will see...

side note: another post I made, before Kaede was even revealed as the MC, had to do with me suspecting Purple Guy of being our token shady guy, but who knows...

3. Multiple Endings

This is part speculation and part actual spoiler. Thanks again to Youtube, I saw a recommended video about the “true ending” of DRV3. It didn’t say or show anything other than that, but it got me thinking about the gameplay.

Thoughts: So far, the first two DR games have always been pretty linear. As long as you figure out what to do in the trials, you will progress towards the end. The only exception being in Trial 5 of DR1, where you make a choice which can show you either the very short ‘bad end’ (which then sends you back to said choice) or the one where Naegi gets ‘executed’ which is the true route.

Seeing the phrase “true end” immediately makes me wonder if this game will be more like a traditional visual novel, where you can make several choices throughout the game which will decide which ending you will get. Thus, creating a branching storyline along the lines of, for example, 999.

If so, this will be a huge change in terms of how the overall experience is. Personally, I would prefer this not to be the case, as I’ve always found that jumping around through storylines trying to reach the true end is always a bit jarring for me.

Of course, this could just mean that they are returning to something like what happened in DR1 or AE - There are one or two choices we make which lead to a different ‘ending’ and that’s about as complicated as it gets. I hope that is the case, but I am eager to find out!

ANYWAY

That about sums it up for all of my thoughts before getting into the game. I can’t wait to start and experience a new DR story all over again! And this time I will actually be playing it for myself, for the first time!

If you would like to keep up with my reviews of the game, check #JessDoesV3 on my blog to find all my reviews!

First post coming soon!!!

[deltaengineering]

spring anime 2017 part 2: girlfriendship is magic

I can’t believe Maidragon was so powerful it brought the entire 90s back.

See also:

• spring anime 2017 part 1: woke up late

• spring anime 2017 part 3: comfy and easy to wear

• spring anime 2017 bonus round: things you already knew were good

Clockwork Planet

Yes, forecasts this season predict heavy showers of magical girlfriends.This time the dude afflicted by this sudden precipitation is a clockwork nerd, who gets a clockwork gothloli dropped on him. This may be less of a coincidence than it sounds because for spurious reasons the entire planet has been replaced by clockwork – if you thought this show was mentally capable of having a metaphorical title, I have bad news. So basically this is teen schmuck + robot superweapon having fights in a city that looks like a lazy steampunk cosplayer’s top hat, in between erotic misunderstandings. I’m regretting that I called Macchiavellism’s fights bad because a couple good action cuts are already a lot to ask for, as evidenced here: It looks just terrible, and obviously the content itself is even worse. Nuh-uh.

Eromanga-sensei

I love Hiro Kanzaki’s character designs. There, I said it. I just wish they weren’t attached to bullshit like OreImo or Eromanga-sensei, which, being by the same author and all, is more or less the same thing. It’s pretty bad when the implied incest fantasy is the least revolting thing about your celebration of otaku shittery: So a schlubby light novel protagonist who also writes light novels (and who happens to be surrounded by hot bitches that just love people who write light novels because that’s so cool) finds out that the mysterious porn artist he’s collaborating with over the internet is actually his hikkikomori little sister, who reacts to this revelation like any girl would: being tsundere. This means it’s full of mildly self-deprecating nerd humor, the infuriating kind that makes it abundantly clear that if the author meant any of it, he wouldn’t write this crap. Even worse is that the sibling relationship is played for sappy family feels, which I would be more willing to give the benefit of the doubt to if this wasn’t OreImo 2: The Sequel To OreImo. And the main guy can’t keep his eyes from wandering anyway, so it’s not like there’s a mystery here. I’ll say it looks real good, obviously there’s money in the OreImo market and it’s well made as a result, plus the aforementioned character designs. But if I want more Hiro Kanzaki I’d rather watch Go! Go! 575 again.

Hinako Note

There’s actually no Manga Time Kirara adaptation this season, but worry not, Hinako Note is indistinguishable from one of those (that one being GochiUsa). So it’s Kirara at it’s most basic too: 5 girls with mild, generic quirks hang out and cute things take place. You get your shy one, you get your hungry one, you get your tiny maid one, etc. Ostensibly this is theater-themed, but as of episode 1 it’s less about theater than K-ON is about music, and that’s saying something. Now, these shows are always extremely inoffensive by design, and if they do nothing fundamentally wrong they just come across as dull. Since this does nothing fundamentally wrong, it just comes across as dull. Congratulations, Hinako Note, you pulled it off even while being born in the wrong magazine.

Kabukibu!

The easy hook when writing about Kabukibu is that it’s another DEEN show about a classic Japanese performance artform, but it’s blindingly obvious right away that Kabukibu is no Rakugo Shinjuu – it being about a school club is right in the title after all, and it has the requisite spurious punctuation too, so everything else falls into place from there. The main innovation is that this is about cute guys doing cute kabuki. As always, our main dude has to gather the five members to bring the school club back to life first. So it’s unimaginative and honestly rather bad, but I still like it. For starters there’s the bit where our lead is such a nerd that he spends every conversation clearing up common misconceptions about kabuki, which is hilarious, since it resembles weeaboo Richard Stallman wanting to interject for a second over and over again. Secondly, the comical cast of misfits does seem to have potential, with a rock singer that can’t sing, an obvious woman that is actually a woman, and so on. Overall it reminds me of Cheer Danshi, an obvious C-list production that gets by by being earnest. If I can learn to not be annoyed at the yodelling kabuki inflection, I might actually watch this for a lark.

The King’s Avatar

This may be completely outside the “Japanese cartoon” purview of this post since it’s 100% Chinese and doesn’t even have a Japanese dub like the Haoliners productions, but it’s on MAL so it counts I suppose. Also, it’s rather... good? The King’s Avatar is about a legendary MMO pro gamer who gets kicked off his team and has to give up his account, which afflicts him with a multitude of sads. After a bit of soul-searching he starts playing the game again on a new server, starting from level 1. What makes this not as bad as it sounds is that it’s not an isekai bonanza, but a sports show where the sport happens to be visually interesting, and it’s a slow and contemplative sports show at that. The whole “starting from level 1" thing is a topical twist on the sports comeback story, and it looks fairly nice too, a few bits of unfortunate CG aside (but that’s common, so whatever). Yeah, I like this, and if fansubs turn out to not be a huge hassle to get hold of I’ll give it a try.

Love Kome - We Love Rice

Back in Japan, please enjoy this short comedy about rice crop gijinka, boyband edition. It has atrocious character designs and is painfully unfunny. So nothing new there.

Re:Creators

Girlfriends keep falling in my lap, and that might mean my eyes will soon be turning red. Hey, this is the old “reverse isekai”, where some nerd gets to live with a bunch of characters from his favorite anime that inexplicably became real. Brace for domestic hijinks and fish-out-of-water comedy - and a lot of action, because this is Ei Aoki working with offbrand Fate material. He may be this show’s saving grace, because I’m willing to forgive dumb action anime a lot if it at least manages to have some actual fucking action in it. The idea that these anime characters think they’re in the “realm of the gods” (i.e., their creators, you see) also has some storytelling potential, if it doesn’t get buried under stuff blowing up and comedic trips to the konbini. And it doesn’t have a “walking in on the girl naked” scene, which probably counts as “classy” in this field. I don’t know, it sure is stupid as hell but it might be a good time. We’ll see.

Renai Boukun

Renai Boukun is a comedy’s comedy about a very silly cupid that ships people, and herself. As a real anime comedy, it is of course chock full of people acting wacky followed by reaction faces, which is my kryptonite. I do have to admit that this show at least goes all out with it, it’s fast and furious and never lets up. Some of the jokes are even okay (mostly the more absurd ones like the unsettlingly bizarre cat with a human face), though most are just repetitive, like the yandere girl being constantly jealous. Yeah, this is just totally not my thing, but if I give it any amount of praise that probably means it’s a good one?

Seikaisuru Kado

Never say that bureaucrats don’t get no respect, because this is the second season in a row where we get an anime about pencilpushers being totally awesome. The main difference between this and ACCA is that ACCA was roughly 80% style, and Seikaisuru Kado has no style. It makes up for it with conviction, because this is a show where some desk jockey assigned to wind down an electroplating business spends a night googling, with the result being him developing a new electroplating procedure that saves the company and impresses physics professors – and that is the intro before the science fiction aspect comes into play. Oh yeah, there’s a science fiction aspect. So after a job well done, Super Bureaucrat Man is taking a flight from Haneda airport when a Borg cube unceremoniously drops on the plane. The rest of the episode is spent with scientists trying to figure out what happened, mostly by shooting tank shells at the cube and so on. Guess they just aren’t bureaucratic enough, because by the end our hero emerges from the cube, having apparently come to an agreement with the proprietor. Uh. Yes, this is an extreme amount of nonsense, and I have no idea where this is supposed to be going. With the amount of military hardware on display, it makes me think “GATE, but not for total assholes”, but who knows. It looks very weird too, it’s a CG show that cuts a lot of corners by using 2D animation (I know, right?). Usually CG characters are good when you have a lot of action because it enables a fluid camera, but this has no action and they still could have done their special effects in CG like everyone else. So it ends up as an anime where the important characters look worse than the unimportant ones they couldn’t be bothered to build a CG model for. The whole thing is bizarre enough to be intriguing, but I don’t have high hopes for it, especially since the slots for shows I actually want to watch are now filling up.

Tsuki ga Kirei

Case in point: Tsuki ga Kirei is a romance about a bookish nerd dude who loves to quote Dazai at his most morose, and a neurotic girl. Needless to say, it is very awkward, but also kind of cute. This may seem like a slim synopsis, but that’s pretty much it: Tsuki ga Kirei is the sort of show that has the potential to be great if it pays off, but just becomes boring to infuriating Mari Okada clone #3879435 if it doesn’t. So it’s a risky proposition, and not one you can call based on the first episode. On the execution level it seems to do it right so far, it’s well directed, sticks to its slow, sensitive tone and looks pleasant and detailed – the only distracting thing are regrettable and robotic CG background characters all over the place. Overall, this is a show that demands at least three episodes, which it will get from me. Ask again later.

Twin Angel BREAK

Finally, if you’re looking for some basic-ass mahou shoujo shit, here’s the new Twin Angel spinoff. It’s indeed some basic-ass mahou shoujo shit (two-girl team aka PreCure version). The genki red one and the reserved blue one go around fighting evil by the moonlight or whatever, while being cheered on by their one-gimmick-each friends. I somehow doubt this thing is setting itself up for a subversion of any kind, so yeah. What you see is what you get. The only memorable thing is that the action is more than merely bad here, it’s comically bad. Seriously, it’s somewhere between Astro Fighter Sunred and Ninja Slayer. Too bad the rest of the show is just unambitiously competent, so watching it for production pratfalls seems like it’s not worth it either.