ot3heaven

[ot3heaven]

💯🙏💛🟨👍

[ot3heaven]

But before I get to the meetings, there's two things I really should have mentioned earlier.

First: Izana had to be informed of Shirayuki and Obi's existence. (We don't see him be told about Obi, in either anime or manga, but for the conversation with Zen to make sense it must have happened.) We don't see Izana be informed of Shirayuki's existence in the anime, but we do in the manga.

So he knows about Shirayuki and Obi. We don't know what his actual first impression of Obi is (we only have his words afterward, "I thought he was an outlaw, but he's yours, huh?", and these are far to calculated to be genuine) but we do know what his first impression of Shirayuki is: not good.

Second: Before the summons, Zen figured that Izana was back to the palace not because Izana told him or sent words in any way, but because he (and Kiki and Mitsuhide) noticed a change in where the guards are stationed, and Zen was denied access to a section of the palace for reasons that the guard would not tell him. (I'm not putting screenshots here because there's no point, it happened in both anime and manga in pretty much the same way.)

And this is already getting long, and it's only going to get longer. More below the cut.

Now the meetings. Zen answers the summons (and brings Kiki and Mitsuhide, who in the manga question if they should be there and Zen answers he doesn't want to be alone with Izana). It's essentially the same in the anime and the manga, so I'm not putting screenshots. The only difference is the rock tossing vs cheek pointing in part one.

First the brothers greet each other. (Izana also comments on Kiki and Mitsuhide's presence, "you still all get along so well": he knows why Zen brought them and is amused.) Then Zen asks why Izana kept his return a secret from him, and Izana answers "I wanted to see how long it would take you to notice, how closely to pay attention to what goes on in the palace." Then Izana brings up the incident at Laxdo, the soldiers being tricked by bandits and getting seriously ill, and how he knows that Zen was accompanied by "an herbalist and another attendant" and asks why Zen didn't bring that other person. (At about the same time, Shirayuki is sneaked in a curtained off section of the room and told to not make noises.) Zen equivocates, saying the guy is new, and that's when the cut on the cheek comes is: Izana knows exactly who Obi is, which shocks Zen.

Izana switches back to Laxdo, asking how Zen is planning to punish the soldiers. Zen answers that he's not, and when asked why answers that operations at the fort have already been disturbed enough. Izana responds by removing Fort Laxdo from Zen's jurisdiction for six months, because someone needs to be punished for the negligence and if Zen won't give the punishment, he can take it.

(Mitsuhide also spells out for the audience that the soldiers will blame themselves, which means that Izana is using Zen to give the soldiers the punishment he wanted them to have for checks notes buying wood in winter and not dying from breathing in toxic fumes.)

Once he's made his point that Zen is powerless against him (and rubbed his face in it a little) Izana reveals Shirayuki before dismissing Zen, Kiki and Mitsuhide. Zen does his best to bolster Shirayuki, but is then obligated to leave, having no more power now than earlier.

Zen, Kiki and Mitsuhide leave the room and Shirayuki is alone with Izana. The introduce each other (Shirayuki calls him "Zen's older brother", ["niisan", when Zen only called Izana "aniue"], and he finds it "refreshing").

And now, finally, we got some more of that good manga-only stuff. Izana tells Shirayuki that he has a meeting starting in a few minutes and he wants her to take notes, the names of the attendants, and the times they enter and leave the room. Shirayuki has questions.

Okay, that was menacing. Anyway, the meeting starts, and at first the two attendants appear to ignore Shirayuki (more or less to be expected, she's sitting out of the way and a secretary is not supposed to stand out. But then one of them notices her.

Once they're done making Shirayuki feel as uncomfortable as they can manage using only their words, the two guys leave. Izana gives her one last manga-only dig about how she's holding her pen, and then the anime catches back. The only remnant of that whole scene in the anime is Izana leaning over Shirayuki, pictured below.

Izana comments that Zen bringing a friend and a favorite (manga-Izana goes as far as to say "favorite little pet") is naturally going to get people talking, and wonders what's so special about her that Zen deems necessary. She replies that it might not be something obvious to others. Izana shrugs and dismisses her, but just before she leaves hits her with: (paraphrased) "if you weren't being modest just now, then Zen is an idiot for bringing a redhead foreigner nobody to the palace". Direct hit to Shirayuki's feels.

In the aftermath of the meetings, Zen is worried about Shirayuki and bummed about the soldiers of Fort Laxdo (his own feelings of helplessness don't help his mood at all I would guess), Shirayuki is dealing with the aftermath of having her self-esteemed run through a meat grinder and is worried about how her reputation could hurt Zen, and Izana is pretty amused that someone called him "Zen's niisan". (He also learns about the Raj thing at this point in the manga, while in the anime he only makes an oblique remark about "finishing it all at once", but that's going to be a different post.)

I watched the anime first, so my first impression of Izana was puzzlement. Why is he being like that with Zen? Why does he want to punish the soldiers of Fort Laxdo so much, they almost died, isn't that enough? What was that conversation with Shirayuki, and why did it hit her so hard? What am I missing? What is that guy's deal?

Now that I have all that manga context, I know what I was missing, and what the deal is with this guy. He's a control freak psychopath. He doesn't care what the people around him are feeling as long as they do what he wants. He's that way with Zen because in the [insert amount of time] Izana's been gone, Zen had begun to think that he had autonomy, even authority, and that he could bring in people like Obi and Shirayuki to his entourage without asking Izana first. He punishes the soldiers of Fort Laxdo because they should have known better than to buy wood in winter from strangers (or maybe even as a double roundabout way to punish Zen for bringing Obi into his entourage, I can't say for sure the thought just occurred to me). The conversation with Shirayuki was less intense, because as established in her introduction comparison post, anime-Shirayuki is more demure and empathetic and selfless, so that simply hearing Zen be punished would be enough to unsettle her, and the threat to his reputation enough to finish her. Manga-Shirayuki needs more of a push, and more of a push she gets.

It puts all the dumb stuff from part one into context. Making the detour to hit Obi's face with a rock just before summoning Zen, and letting Zen know that he hit Obi in the face with a rock, it makes the timing feel weird but it also gives the impression that Izana can be anywhere at anytime, and is. It reinforces the impression Zen already has that Izana is all-knowing and all-powerful. Seizing Shirayuki up and making her change before sneaking her into the room for the meeting? Putting on the dress means taking off her lab coat, stripping herself of her uniform and of the position it gives her in the palace, one she rightly earned. She's left with the feeling of playing dress-up, that she doesn't belong in those clothes, which makes her more vulnerable to being made to feel that she doesn't belong in the castle, which is Izana's ultimate goal.

One last difference between the introductions of Izana in the manga vs in the anime: in the manga it ends there, with Izana planning to invite Raj, Zen worried about Shirayuki and the Fort Laxdo soldiers, and Shirayuki crying over Zen. That's the end of the chapter. It's even the end of the volume! You have to get the next volume, or find the next issue of the magazine if you're reading weekly, to find out what happens next. Whereas in the anime, it's the half-way point of the episode. If you're watching on television, you only have to wait for the commercials. If you're streaming or watching a DVD, the story just goes on. It lessens the impact of those Izana confrontations. (That impact is further diminished by what happens during that second half, but that's also going to the Raj post, coming up soon.)

The long and short of it is that anime-Izana is introduced as mysterious, and more than a little weird, while manga-Izana is my hate-sink character for the series. [If I ever got the willpower to pick up the series again and push further than I've read up to so far (vol. 13) it's very possible that I'll change my mind. But as things currently stand, I said what I said.]

[ot3heaven]

Another day, another round of "Snow White with the Red Hair characters with different introductions in the anime vs the manga." The animation team changed the perception of Izana when they introduced him, but in a more traditional way. For Shirayuki, the scenes were different. A lot of what happened in the anime straight up didn't happen in the manga. For Izana, everything that we see in the anime was also in the manga. They didn't change much, mostly they cut a bunch of stuff. But everything they cut makes such a difference. The post was getting stupid long, so I had to make it into two parts. Part one, the set-up, aka the stuff that looks really dumb on the surface.

Let's start with the one change that I've noticed:

The mention of the man with a cut on his cheek is in the anime. It's a reference to this moment.

Izana tossing the rock around casually is not.

Seeing him toss the same kind of rock that hit Obi in the face gives the impression that he was the one to throw the rock at Obi, in away that just pointing at his own cheek where the scratch is does not. And as we see, mere moments after being hit with a rock, Obi is summoned by Zen, who is himself immediately summoned by Izana (that's what the envelope is).

So the picture being painted in the manga is that Izana, walking around the royal gardens, picked up two rocks, threw one at Obi and booked it back inside to send his summons to Zen, and wait for him in royal chamber whatever (singing flower, I think, it doesn't matter) waiting for the right moment to ostentatiously play with his remaining rock to freak Zen out.

Maybe I'm reading too much into one panel with a rock, though. It's not like we have a whole manga-only scene of Izana in the royal gardens, immediately preceding the one where Obi gets hit in the face with a rock by person unseen.

Oh wait.

(Fun fact: this is the first time we see Izana's full face in the manga.)

So now we have confirmation that Izana was in the garden, and that after an encounter where he helped Ryu and Shirayuki pick up their papers but made a point to keep his identity a secret, Obi got hit in the face by a rock, and that when Izana was talking to Zen later, he was playing around with a very similar rock. Giving plenty of circumstantial evidence to the theory that Izana, after bumping into Shirayuki in the garden, picked up two rocks, threw one at Obi, then rushed back inside the palace to summon Zen so that Zen could later see him playing with the same kind of rock that hit Obi in the face.

Is that a weird image? Is that perhaps not the sort of thing one should be picturing a crown prince doing? Don't worry, it gets worse. We have one last itty-bitty bit of manga-only absurdity. Soon after the meeting with Zen and Izana begins, we get these asides.

Izana also summoning Shirayuki, right around the same time, was included in the anime. Him preparing a change of clothes for her is manga-only.

This means manga-Izana's morning went something like this: goes for a walk in the garden, meets and seizes up Shirayuki, spots Obi in a tree and decides to grab two rocks and chuck one at our favorite rogue's head, zooms back to the palace, grabs one attendant to get a dress Shirayuki's size and then get Shirayuki into the dress and in the chamber whatever, grabs another attendant and gives him the summons to Zen, then runs to the chamber whatever and waits all suave-like, as if he hadn't run all around the castle with the Benny Hill theme playing in the background.

I completely understand the anime team cutting those elements out. It just makes Izana look ridiculous. It's overkill, what could possibly be the point of him taking all those extra steps?

Tune in to part 2 for the answer.

[ot3heaven]

SOMETIMES i wish my fav manga of all time would be popular so i could talk about it with other people but at the same time if i see a bad take on immortal rain ever i will do arson. i never in my life want to see discourse about my beautiful princess perfect little meow meow yuca collabel. hes committed murders. okay? war crimes also. so? his life goal is to do complete genocide to the entire human race. AND? hes a perfect boy and i love him.

[ot3heaven]

mitsukou

The bbs chillin

[ot3heaven]

BLESSED PANELS

[ot3heaven]

One of my favourite things about Leverage is in The Future Job 2x13, when the psychic does a cold read on Parker and reveals the story about her brother's accident and upsets her. I love how Nate and Tara sit her down and explain to her what happened with details, but what I love the most is the Leverage OT3 reactions.

Alec, immediately after the read:

Then when they explain it, Parker:

And Eliot, who doesn't even hesitate:

I just think they're neat and that they exhibit the exactly appropriate level of violent intent in this situation 🥰

[ot3heaven]

FISH!

yep.

[ot3heaven]

YOUR HONOR, THAT’S MY EMOTIONAL SUPPORT FOUND FAMILY

[ot3heaven]

every time i rewatch romantic killer the ot3 poly anzu/junta/tsukasa vibe just gets stronger and it really can't just be me. but where is the fic. WHERE is it.

[ot3heaven]

Still can't believe we got a 3 chapter long Mitsukou aquarium date

on the 100th chapter even. AND they were a lil bit.

You mean they snuck out and everyone thought they were on a date

and got stuck in an anglerfish and mitsuba dissolved into goo and they poked fun at each other and

Mitsuba asked kou to exorcise him amd they held hands

And kou got so desperate he force fed mitsuba a supernatural in a tsukasa parallel and

nd Kou gave mitsuba a piggyback

and

they even got matching keyrings.

[ot3heaven]

Shared pain 💥💥

I have a lot of thoughts about the fact that Mitsuba presumably still has the scarring from Sousuke's original car accident death and how that's just kind of fucked up

Anyway I think it would be cool to extend the scar and make it more prominent (for my own Mitsuba designs anyway) because aughh just imagine having scars from someone else's death

[ot3heaven]

Achilles Come Down but it's Akane to Aoi in No. 6's boundary and he's also singing the critical parts.

[ot3heaven]

Listen to Sleepwalk by Forrest day btw

[ot3heaven]

Redraw (trio time)

[ot3heaven]

Shirayuki: some spineless bitch doubted my moral conviction and tried to use my lack of title to manipulate you so I immediately threw myself off the building to prove a point

Obi: I jumped off after her no context no questions asked

Zen: I have to kiss someone on the mouth about this immediately

[ot3heaven]