#we have the worlds goodest good boy don

[jadewyton]

Introductory paragraphs for the narrating characters (+the town intro) for the novella I wrote to celebrate our year-long dnd campaign entering its final arc!

I still am really excited to have done this! Please check it out if you feel like reading something. Its got so many cute moments.

[venus-says]

Aikatsu Friends! Episodes 58-63

Smiles are the seeds that bloom into flowers of happiness.

Me? Posting Aikatsu again? Oh boy, I think I’m sick. XD

Okay, jokes aside, aikatsu is back in the blog. I promise I still like aikatsu, the thing is, the subs come out very late and I kinda forget about it because I have stuff to do, and since doing these without subs ain’t the best idea (you gonna see why in a minute) the episodes end up pilling up. I’m a mess, sorry. XD

But anyway we got a lot to cover so let’s get going.

Episode 58 is the start of the Sorbet Kingdom ark.

So to starters, I have to apologize. I always very mad about the whole borders situation last time I did this mostly because I thought Sorbet was like an entire country and what they’ve shown us was just the capital, but from this episode is clear that this isn’t the case. Sorbet is either a city-state or a microstate, pretty much like what Monaco is (the difference being Monaco doesn’t have a king, when sorbet has one), so denying their visa wouldn’t do much since they were traveling to another country that has free passage to Sorbet. So I’m sorry.

Now back to the episode itself, I think they went a bit overboard with how Alicia treated the girls. I’m not saying that she should receive them with open arms and everyone be happy forever, but when you have a scene of she coldly saying that they should fuck off and in the next scene she says to let them use rooms from the castle it gives mixed signals and it just seems dumb. I think they should either had toned her coldness in the first scene and denying Hibiki in a less rash way or make Charles find another place in town to put the girls and be something like “my sister doesn’t want you all here, but I know she’s in pain and I wanna help so I’m gonna sneak you guys to X place”, either option would’ve worked better.

That little flashback about the kingdom was nice, but I don’t think it had a lot of purpose. I think it serves to show Hibiki why Alicia went back to her country and never went to meet her again, but seeing that their relationship was already going places via their text messages and phone calls, it’s odd that this was never brought up by Hibiki or Alicia. I must say for a show about friendship, people in this universe don’t seem to talk to each other at all and is just weird.

The performance... it was okay, I guess. I still don’t know why they had to perform the most basic song in their most basic outfit but I really don’t care that much. What I’m more curious about, as someone who lives in a country where snow isn’t a thing, is can you actually make a stage out of snow and have people stand on top of it without the whole thing collapsing? XD Friends from the northern hemisphere, please tell me.

One last thing before we move on, CHARLES IS ADORABLE AND HE’S THE BESTEST BOY EVER AND I WANNA HUG HIM TILL HIS OUT OF BREATHE. Thank you. XD

I kinda wanna skip talking about Episode 59, because I don’t have a lot to say about the episode itself and all I have in my mind is Mirai’s performance because that’s the only interesting thing this episode has going on for itself.

Like, LMT is there and that’s nice (even though I don’t see why they traveled separated from the main group), I didn’t really understand the whole evol ustakia thing (but those three sisters were a lot of fun), and I honestly didn’t see the point of having Tamaki flashing here and there having troubles just to upload a video.

That final scene with Hibiki and Alicia was nice, we got a little bit of the jeweling dresses lore and a lovely moment of Hibiki promising that she’ll bring everyone’s smiles back. But that’s not enough to hold the episode high.

Mirai’s performance does lift things up a bit, Nice na to meet you is an A M A Z I N G song and it was very refreshing to see something new (which for some reason it seems to be a very rare thing for friends!). This reveal could’ve been more impactful if the opening hadn’t spoiled Mirai’s dress? I believe yes. But even that can’t take away the positives of this performance that was, without a doubt, the highlight of the episode.

While 59 was meh Episode 60 was kinda good, I quite enjoyed this one, I dare to say this is the best one of this ark.

This episode goes hard on the emotional side, we all know this is the first time in the Aikatsu series we see a character die, and it is a very strong scene. Sadly it seems that all of the emotional parts were focused only on the flashbacks and they forgot of bringing this to the present a little bit.

Like, in the present we see more of Alicia’s struggle on trying to be a good ruler for the people and the country she loves while still wanting to do Aikatsu, but everything is still very undertoned. We know she didn’t want to stop Aikatsu but she had to because in her mind that was the correct thing to do, but we don’t see that being verbalized or acted in the present, we see glimpses of it which is interesting, but we could’ve seen more of that.

The main conflict of this episode works just fine, and I like how Tamaki deals with the situation, but when they pull out a kotatsu out of nowhere they lose me in that scene, like how’s that supposed to work outside? Aren’t those things electric? Where are they plugging it in????? C’mon people. I’d like much more to see more of Alicia, maybe she talking to Charles about her duties and everything so that we can see in her the desire to do Aikatsu again rather than the kotatsu scene (even though Mirai’s impression of Aine was really fun to watch).

Seeing Hibiki perform is always great, but seeing Alicia asking Hibiki to perform holds more meaning and is one of those glimpses that I mentioned that I wish we could’ve seen more. Regardless is still great and the moment when Hibiki reassures her promise to Alicia from the last episode just crown up this episode as a good one, despite its flaws.

Loose notes from the episode: Hibiki and Mirai’s competition was fun, I like Karen being the one who gets to win even though she wasn’t competing; the three sisters again are a treat like always; Charles remains the goodest boy ever and I want a plushie of him; and to top it all we got to see Honey Cat for a little bit so we know at least someone in the writing team didn’t forget they exist so, points for this episode.

Episode 61 is the polemic one.

So, the first time I saw this episode I watched it without subs and I watched it alone without watching the 3 episodes past. And at that moment it worked for me, it seemed like a good resolve for this mini-ark.

But watching now with the subs I don’t like it as much.

Don’t get me wrong, I still love Alicia’s performance and the moment she and Hibiki reconciliate is pretty good. I also appreciate having more lore in the Jeweling dresses, I feel like we desperately need a lot more info on them because so far they all just seem like a gimmick and they don’t have a purpose or reason to exist at all so any bit of info we get I’m happy.

HOWEVER.

This episode has a massive throwback, everything on this episode was build upon a lie. I get that Mio’s suggestion was supposed to be a “white lie”, a lie that causes no harm. But that doesn’t work when you make AN ENTIRE CITY LIE and tells them TO PRETEND THEY’RE LIVING AN EXPERIENCE THAT CAN GET THEM DEAD just to make their princess sing and dance on a stage. This is so selfish and so wrong. *sigh* I don’t even want to continue talking about this. Let’s just move on.

Episode 62 is a good change of pace after the low point that 61 was.

Yeah, it was silly. I have a lot of questions about how Love Me Tear got there earlier than the other, and what was the point of the frogs, and how they didn’t give much of a reaction to knowing about Karen’s house when none of them went there before.

But I’m okay with all of that because this episode was very sweet and it was good seeing the “side” girls get some attention. And how good of a combination that Reflect Moon and Wakaba was, I’m legitimately surprised I wasn’t expecting this to work so well, but they formed a very good group to follow around for this period of time.

Having two performances on this episode was a cheap move probably to fill up time but you know what? I’m not complaining. I’m just glad I got to clear my pallet from the terrible after taste last episode left in my mouth.

Episode 63 was nice. I like that they had an episode to reintegrate Alicia in the idol world. Sadly the episode had to share space with Karen's plot that wasn't as strong and interesting and makes a potentially great episode become just a regular one in the end.

And this time I'm being true to my words when I say I don' have anything else to comment about this episode. Like, Karen's dress looks good and her song is nice as well, but I like her old ones better. I don't see the point of Karen hiding to read her fan mail in the middle of the night. And most of Alicia's adapting process was very fun but there's not a lot there to create a conversation on my eyes.

Like, my brain didn't have a lot of work going on while I was watching it, it was a nice watch to just space out a bit while I was thinking in the job application I just dropped in the mayor's office today. I'm sorry if I wasn't as invested in this one as I was for the other ones I promise to dedicate myself more next time FOR THE HONEY CAT EPISODE THAT I'M SUPER EXCITED ABOUT. See ya~ XD