himebushou

[himebushou]

WHAT a bizarre decision to play Keane's (very beautiful) 'Somewhere Only We Know' in the finale episode of Masterchef: The Professionals...

Like, just as the winner was announced and was understandably very emotional, the TV blasted: "THIS COULD BE THE END OF EVERYTHING!" and I was just — completely taken out of the moment djdkdk

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I'm so glad that Jon Richardson is still the Celebrity Waft Off Champion fjdjd

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ALSO. The bakers still helping each other, despite it being the final: ❤️❤️❤️

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Bloody hell the CasualUK subreddit

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Very teary over the final...!

SPOILERS

1. I would have been pretty miffed if Dylan had won considering that he had such a bad first day

2. Personally? It seemed like Christiaan was about to win but hey — I wasn't there to try the bakes fjdjd

3. The hanging cake Showstopper was SO NERVE-WRACKING

4. With the way they introduced the Technical, I thought: 'Oh, maybe they should rebrand it as an invention test' 😂

5. I loved the deceptive simplicity of the Signature. More challenges like scones, please!

6. I was getting a bit sad at the credits because it seemed like only Nelly and Andy had hung out together after the show — but then they showed the reunion at Mike's and I shed a tear

7. I am SO PROUD of Dylan landing that job!

8. Their group chat must be so much fun djdjd

I really loved this series. ❤️💛💙

[himebushou]

Tsubaki Sasuke is a BUFFOON and I love him...!

I'm currently watching SKET DANCE and, so far, I'm finding it really charming. There have been some genuinely funny moments and I've cracked up a few times. I love Momoka and the samurai guy and Yuuki-san and Roman and Chiaki — honestly, it's fantastic when an anime is able to ensnare us with side characters.

I watched SKET DANCE when it was originally airing but I dropped it around the school rock festival or something because that plotline was dragging on a bit... but it's one of my friend's favourite series so I'm hoping to make it to the end this time!

(Although, wow, 77 episodes is long.)

I was honestly tearing up at Episode 6. The play they put on for the kids was so heart-warming!

[himebushou]

I'm really enjoying my Cromartie High School rewatch! 🥲 There are definitely some aspects that haven't aged well – but I'm about halfway through and I think I've laughed aloud pretty much at least once per episode. Maeda's righteous indignation is so funny and man, I genuinely feel for Yutaka Takenouchi... and flipping heck, Hokuto? Noburo Yamaguchi and his pain over the stupidity that is Pootan? Everyone's hysterical! The English dub is so, so good.

[himebushou]

The first opening of Hunter x Hunter is called Departures

But it should really be called

GON VOYAGE

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Not me crying at the GBBO result this week!

Spoilers below!

I skipped GBBO last year for the first time in about a decade — so it was really nice to return to it this year. I love so many of this series' bakers! It feels like they have quite a lot of bakery banter and that's a ton of fun.

Also, Allison is such a fantastic addition!

But man, Nelly. What a lovely woman — the sort of person you'd want to know in real life. She's been one of my favourite contestants on any reality show, ever. I think what she said about being unforgettable is absolutely true.

Guh. I'll miss her. I think she definitely deserved Star Baker in the week that Dylan got it...

It was also nice to see cake as the Showstopper; I saw a few people critiquing the high number of structural Showstoppers, which I thought was a fair observation.

[himebushou]

Whoa... as games go, the new interactive Google Doodle, Rise of the Half Moon, is absolutely charming.

It's a card game where you play against the moon! There are basically three ways to score points: two of these methods involve pairing cards while the third method has you playing lunar cycles. You can also collect some cool wildcards by clearing stages. Once you've got the wildcards, you can also use them in subsequent playthroughs.

I really love the art! But man – look at how vengeful the moon looks when you lose (5th picture)!

I have a few tiny complaints:

You always draw first. I think it would be more fun if you and the moon alternated

There's a slight glitch with the Hunter Moon wildcard; it displays the wrong text

I think the board layouts could be a bit more varied? I think I've seen... 5?

So far, I've managed to get up to Level 12. The last image shows the moon absolutely obliterating me, lol.

[himebushou]

S4 of The Umbrella Academy was so garbage.

Geez. Why limit the season to 6 eps when every other season has had 10... even a runtime of 8 eps would have probably helped with the pacing issues, at least a bit.

It felt like nothing had any payoff. The CIA turning out to be Keepers? Shrug emoji. Nothing of consequence. The whole subway system came out of nowhere — it turns out that there were other ways to travel through time after all. The whole Gene and Jean thing was stretched out for so long and we got zero insight into why Sy knew so much — unless he was Abigail in disguise the whole time? But who cares?

There were some nice moments between the siblings: Allison and Klaus were mostly pretty sweet (except WHAT the heck were Allison's powers supposed to be? Also, Klaus didn't get to do anything except get locked up and buried alive) and I like that Luther and Diego got some time to bond (though, again, their skills were wasted).

Ben was. Odd. Poor kid just gets to die multiple times. And props to Viktor for actually trying to reason with Reginald and finally getting some validation from him.

The whole Lila and Five thing was so gross and completely unnecessary... I've always had issues with the way Lila was written (those 'kooky for the sake of kooky' characters can get pretty boring and I felt the same way about Klaus throughout a lot of the show). Five was my favourite from the start and just. Eurgh. #noonewantedthat

And the dialogue was so BAD. Some of the lines made me cringe so much. "To be honest I can't stop thinking about her" like. Okay Ben.

And even worse were these poignant moments happening in front of audiences and all the other characters on set just standing around completely wooden... like. What? Lila's family are in the background hearing that her marriage has fallen apart and they don't even act remotely shocked? What?

Claire was definitely one of the best parts of this season. She was a sweetheart.

Urgh. Overall, the whole thing just felt incredibly sloppy, poorly explained (WHY did Jennifer get the durango?) and as though the creative team had run out of ideas. There were so many moments where the Umbrellas acted with no urgency at all (like sitting around enjoying a Christmas party when they were supposed to be looking for Ben, or going to work as normal when they'd promised some random guy that they'd find his daughter within 24 hours). Powers morphed at the drop of a hat for plot convenience. Everyone got on board with the idea of being erased from existence without much fuss (apart from the whole thing about where the kids would end up). What was the significance of the giant squid? How were there so many Keepers? And what exactly were they keeping?

Also, I'm annoyed that they used 'Map of the Problematique' (a song I adore) to no effect; the lyrics didn't match the scenes of the Keepers arming themselves and it didn't fit the mood and just!

Anyway, two of the biggest issues I have:

If this version of Reginald is as callous as the others (after all, he did have Ben shot), then why did he waste all that time creating a fake world for Jennifer to live in?

Presumably, the only reason the Cleanse worked is because the creature eventually found the other kids that had marigold in them? Or, in this timeline, did only the Umbrellas have marigold? And in 150,000 timelines, are we supposed to believe that the Cleanse only happened once?

It's so stupid, oh man. The show's refusal to bring in the other marigold children outside of the Umbrellas was always so stinky — I thought we'd get something interesting when the Sparrows were introduced last season, but half of them died within a few episodes and geez, so much wasted potential.

Pretty glad the show is done now if that was the trajectory, lol.

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It's been 5 days since I started watching Hikaru no Go and I just finished Ep. 56 and. And. AND.

That was incredible.

Edit: Okay, I just finished Ep. 60 and THAT was unexpected...!

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I've now watched 19 episodes of Hikaru no Go in two days... I'm basically liveblogging the whole series to my friend by sending her copious voice notes because wow, there is so much to discuss!

One thing we keep coming back to is: Touya Akira is unwell! Meeting Hikaru made Touya so unwell! The way Touya became so obsessive and did nothing but fixate on Hikaru is so... like, Touya needs some kind of intervention because the anxiety he developed was INTENSE.

[himebushou]

I just finished Ep. 5 of Hikaru no Go and Kaga is so ridiculous but so much fun 😭

It's really nice to see that Hikaru is already developing a desire to play Go!

Sai can be so adorable, lol

Edit:

Phew — I finished Ep. 7 and this series is so addictive? I'm just thinking about the characters' interactions and how they have so much going on in their heads and... wow.

[himebushou]

I just watched the first two episodes of Hikaru no Go!

One of my best friends has recommended this series to me for years. I love sports anime and I didn't look into HnG too deeply — so imagine my surrpise when I found out there was an ancient spirit involved! I absolutely love stories that involve duality as a central theme (Yu-Gi-Oh! my beloved) so this was a welcome revelation.

The first opening is so good? It's very emotional, ahhh.

So, first impressions — Hikaru is a sweet kid and I think Sai is going to be a lot of fun. It was really sweet to see his reactions to aeroplanes and vending machines, lol. He did seem pretty intense in the first ep, so I think that's going to get balanced out.

But, phew, I clutched my heart when they said that Akira was waiting for Hikaru to reappear! Poor boy! In his shoes, I would be devastated by the loss to a complete newbie — and I'd also be inclined to think that Hikaru was a big liar!

I wonder how important Go is in Japanese society nowadays? It was cool to see the Igo school and discussions about how the game had developed as well as the very serious sessions by the Igo masters. However, at this stage, I'm as clueless as Hikaru, so a lot of terminology is going over my head.

I'm looking forward to getting into this one!

[himebushou]

Man! Thinking about the potential Tachibana v. Tezuka match in the District Tournament finals if Fudomine v. Seigaku had got to S1 — I think that Tachibana would have probably been the victor?

By the time we get to Ep. 35, Tachibana has already been hyped up a lot (and, honestly, this rewatch has highlighted that Konomi-sensei's storytelling can be so stunning: the amount of foreshadowing where Tachibana is concerned is amazing). Inui looks at Tachibana at the end of Districts and says that he'll have to look into him since the name is familiar. A few episodes later, Sengoku starts when he hears the name 'Tachibana'. Then, Akazawa has a ! moment when he sees Tachibana's face and recalls that he played at last year's Nationals. Finally, Atobe is shocked when he sees Tachibana, calling him "one of the two strongest players in Kyushuu".

(And Tachibana destroys poor Shishido in elss than 15 minutes... how painful, lol)

Someone then produces a picture of blond!Tachibana from nowhere (either Inui or Inoue) and says that he didn't recognise him since his hair was different. Wow.

I feel like Tachibana'd strength gets overshadowed a lot in favour of some of the other captains (Tezuka, Yukimura, Atobe and Shiraishi) but it's definitely worth remembering that he is a Tough Cookie who had the respect of many esteemed players.

[himebushou]

Okay, I think this is happening -- I've been drawn in and I'm now rewatching The Prince of Tennis.

Thoughts on Episodes 2 through to 6 below.

Ep 2 - Samurai Junior

Inoue appears! This guy is so important for the audience as he explains so much tennis teminology to us (at Shiba's expense, whoops) but the fact that he works for a (presumably) well-known tennis magazine yet spends so much time covering the middle school scene is... odd. Like, he's there for the entirety of Seigaku's ranking tournament? What about the other Kanto schools?

HE TALKS ABOUT NANJIROU and says how Nanjirou 'might have even won the Grand Slam'. To my memory, Nanjiroh was one match away from becoming World No. 1 (is that possible without winning a slam?) but suddenly quit because, y'know. The boy.

Ryoma does this lil glower after the first time he meets Momo and it's so funny, lol

Ryoma's contrary nature is RIDICULOUS. Arai demands that the freshmen introduce themselves, which the Ichinen Trio do, but Ryoma? Just stands there. Like, CHILD. He asked for your name! these are not state secrets!

So of course, we have the whole thing with Arai trying to con the freshmen and Ryoma gets pretty mad about Arai trying to fleece the freshmen -- he gets pretty heroic (?) about the whole thing and, with it, very bratty: "If I hit the can 100x, do I get 100,000 yen?"

Then Momo is there and it really seems like he just wants to beat Ryoma up!

Rather adorably, Horio umpires the Ryoma v. Momo match. When Ryoma's about to serve, the Triple Counter OST starts playing (I really don't remember any of the titles from the OST -- except Yuugure -- but I'm sure everyone knows what I mean). It's very cool.

Tomo-chan sees Ryoma serve ONCE and calls him Ryoma-sama -- MY GIRL.

And then we get our first Nanjiroh appearance! And it turns out that he even has an umpire's chair at the temple, so? Who is umpiring his games against Ryoma? Nanako? RINKO??

Ryoma also tells the Ichinen Trio that he learnt to play tennis at a temple. Um. Ryoma is a big liar because he has only lived in front of said temple for about 5 minutes. What a DORK. In the best way!

(The temple is absolutely gorgeous by the way.)

Ep. 3 - The Seigaku Regulars Make Their Debut!

Man -- so we see Sakuno and Tomo-chan in one of the classrooms overlooking the courts and they comment on how cool the team is -- and then the camera pans up to Tezuka who's on the floor above, watching silently and I just enjoyed that so much. Like, at this stage, Tezuka is a bit of a mystery, so it's so fun!

Then Horio brags about how strong Momo is and Ryoma spends an eternity tying his shoelaces. Many moons ago (we're talking about 15 years ago, at least), I read this blog post about how much screentime is dedicated to Ryoma TYING HIS LACES and, honestly, I've never been able to get that post out of my head. Truly incredible stuff.

Guhhh I hate the obsession with heirarchy at Seigaku... Hyoutei and Rikkaidai are a heck of a lot more flexible, whoops.

Oishi! Beloved Oishi! Until he gets to the courts, the freshmen are just running around doing Tasks -- then Oishi arrives and tells them to practice playing because he wants them to get a good feel for the way things run at Seigaku. And it's so heart-warming! Oishi recognises that these kids are there because they want to have fun and he does these little things throughout the early eps to build camaraderie -- like when the freshmen are cheering for Seigaku in episode 8 or 9, Oishi teases, "Freshmen, we can't hear you!" and it's just... wow. Oishi's not there to pull rank: he's there to encourage the team. Tezuka honestly could not have had a better VC.

(I'm honestly just loving this so much... everyone's regarding Ryoma as this potential problem and sussing him out and being in this privileged position of knowing how much this team will grow to love him -- and how much he'll grow to love them -- is really special. It's really incredible to see this journey again.)

Arai behaves like a dork, gets scolded by Tezuka and told to run laps, questions this, and is then told to run more laps. Ryoma just dutifully runs his laps without any argument (the slight contradictions in his personality are so funny -- like he will sometimes rail against authority and, at other times, just accept it without question).

Come to think of it... Ryoma and Gon Freeccs get pretty similar treatment, I think, in that we don't get a look-in at their literal thoughts? Compare that to how often we're in Killua's head, for example, or Inui's or Oishi's or whoever's and... it's a very interesting way of storytelling.

Eps 4 & 5 - The One Named Viper & Snake Shot

AND SO, THE RANKING TOURNAMENT IS UNDERWAY.

Man, there are so many girls watching the ranking tournament? The tennis club is so popular lol

WE SEE RINKO FOR THE FIRST TIME. Of course, her face isn't shown, but!! She's there!

Ryoma's match against Kaidoh is a lot of fun. Momo's on standby to provide commentary to the Ichinen Trio (and they correctly determine that he's so knowledgeable about Kaidoh's playstyle on account of having lost to Kaidoh, which is hilarious). Ryoma impresses everyone by pulling off his own version of the Snake Shot -- the Buggy Whip Shot! -- and phew, good stuff. There's a lot of technical tennis talk.

(I hate how Kaidoh hurts himself at the end of the match. Both Kaidoh and Sanada need to be seen by school counsellors or something.)

I love seeing Ryoma get squashed by the Ichinen Trio -- he looks slightly bewildered, haha.

Ep 6 - That Man, Echizen Nanjirou

OOFT, probably my favourite episode so far! Nanjirou has become my second favourite in The Prince of Tennis (no prizes for guessing my favourite) and this episode is wonderful.

Inoue barges over to the Echizen house and ends up playing a game with Nanjirou -- the stipulation is that Nanjirou will only answer Inoue's questions if Inoue manages to get a point past him. Despite this, Nanjirou ends up telling Inoue a lot: he explains that he quit his pro career because playing with the 'impudent' Ryoma is a heck of a lot more fun than playing his pros and geez, Nanjirou loves his son SO MUCH. Nanjirou also explains that Ryoma's tennis style is currently identical to his and, to go further, there are some things Ryoma has to achieve. We get to see some of Nanjirou's skill.

The only question Nanjirou doesn't answer is when Inoue suggests that Ryoma's being trained to go pro. Nanjirou's pretty dismissive of this idea (AND WE KNOW WHY! YAHOO!).

Ryoma has a conversation with Sakuno and says that he doesn't know when he started playing tennis -- it's been part of his life for as long as he can remember and he couldn't quite even if he wanted to because there's something he has to do. So, once again, this episode sets up one of the major themes/conflicts of The Prince of Tennis.

(It turns out that the temple is behind the Echizen's house! Nanako -- the sweetheart -- explains that the monk is currently on a retreat and that Nanjirou just made a court without permission. This is one interaction I desperately want more information on.)

So... yeah. I'm genuinely having a whale of a time.