#188 boy group

[kukuandkookie]

Lmfao help I totally forgot I scheduled my last post where I rambled about Jian Suiying in the tags (I probably scheduled it to seem more normal or something because I didn’t want to flood my feed 😂).

The reason I find it extra funny is because I literally feel like I’m going feral right now and I did just draft another Twitter thread ramble before coming on here and immediately seeing my scheduled post with those tags LADNSKDNS.

My Twitter is still on hiatus until further notice—aka when I am more comfortable interacting and sharing things socially—but over the past few weeks, my drafts have become very full of thoughts on LiJian (Li Yu and Jian Suiying) and YuBai (Yu Fengcheng and Bai Xinyu).

And the main reason I feel so feral right now—as in right this minute—is because of the author of this really good fic (which I found thanks to the fan audio drama adaptation on MaoEr FM) that’s multi-chaptered where the premise is that a younger Li Yu ends up in the present day in Li Yu and Jian Suiying’s house. Li Yu is obviously very upset by this because he hates his younger self for how he treated Jian Suiying, and the story is about helping him heal from that past.

And well anyways this post isn’t about that fic specifically, although it’s a really good fic and I went crazy over it a while ago as well: since it’s told entirely in screenshots on Weibo at least, I actually captured every image of text until I had everything and then I MTL’d them using Google Translate and then I severely edited them on-and-off based on my own Chinese knowledge—so this included grammar and pronouns but also less obvious stuff where I had to check line by line or turn it into audio to listen to. 😂

It’s a really fucking good fic though. So worth it.

And well the author has done other versions; one is where a younger Yu Fengcheng gets transported into current Yu Fengcheng and Bai Xinyu’s life, and I’ve already collected every part of that one (it’s still incomplete).

Except it referenced a case where there were two Jian Suiying’s, a fic the author said they were planning to write back when they released the two Li Yu’s fic, which obviously made me a little feral.

I struggled to find it until I finally did (yay!!) alongside a masterlist of their fics in general (yay!!!), and I really really want to translate and read it right now.

But part of me also wants to save it—because I like saving things I like—to the end, since the author has other fics I can translate first, including one where Li Yu gets amnesia, which will definitely also be quite interesting.

And yet. I cannot get over the concept of there being two Jian Suiying’s and how that might resemble or reflect or differ from the fic where there were two Li Yu’s (especially since the two Li Yu’s one is just very thematically perfect).

I might just translate it first because I can barely resist??? I already translated the second half of the first part just to tease myself, and it has me screaming because like:

(The above screenshots are from this fanfic here by 丧心病狂de凌子 on Weibo!)

The image of Li Yu dragging whom he assumes is his spouse (and he is; just from a different time period) back home only to come face-to-face with his actual spouse (of this time period) being all cute in his soft cozy home clothes with a little mug instead of having gone out drinking (which the Jian Suiying from a different time period in his arms had been doing—as all the fics so far have had the person from the past end up in the present after getting blackout drunk) which was a thing about Jian Suiying that Li Yu used to worry about…

(The above screenshot is canon and from the original novel!)

Yeah do you see what I mean???

I’m just so excited because you’ll get the chaos of two time periods intersecting, but also because Jian Suiying used to go out to such places and it upset Li Yu a lot since he knows Jian Suiying’s past life and their relationship took so long to get to a good place that he’s afraid Jian Suiying will discard him again when out partying—so seeing Jian Suiying here, at home on time, patiently waiting for his husband to come home from his business trip…

*sigh* They’re pretty cute even after all the craziness of their original novel lmao. 🥹

And yeah. Typing all this out…I think I’ll translate this first out of all of the author’s fics. I’m going to go insane otherwise SLFNKSDJSKS.

[sscarletvenus]

would i be crucified for saying i DO NOT fw the drama adaptation of professional body double... they woobified my favourite scum gong to such unrecognisable extents, he cannot be the yan mingxiu who terrorized the readers and zhou xiang throughout the events of the novel!

where is his rancidness. MSI counterpart is so digestable mwanwhile I wanted to kill ymx at least fifty times while reading professional body double. where is his terminal codependency. why isn't he domming zhou xiang every scene.

MSI is the lite version meanwhile the actual one needed to be institutionalized in an insane asylum.

[dragonsandphoenix]

So I've been reading Additional Inheritance by Shui Qian Cheng for the past week and I'll include this in my reading thread but I sort of skipped ahead so I'll just say this here now. Spoilers ahead:

As usual Shui Da kind of sucks at endings. The chasing period was tedious to get through because Wen Xiaohui basically just gave up and resigned himself to his fate, while Luo Yi's persistence became not fun to read anymore. The reason why I could read through Winner Takes All is because Li Shuo had more power in his situation and eventually retaliated, even though he did in the end accept Jinxin back. Honestly AI should have spent the chasing period having Wen Xiaohui and Luo Yi working together to deal with his dad while still not trusting each other, then the ending wouldn't have felt so rushed either. Eh in the end Wen Xiaohui didn't feel like he had much agency in the later stages which is a shame because the first 80 chapters of the novel were riveting. I'd still maybe give it a 3.5 rating at the moment. I'll try to read through the last 20 chapters again and listen to the audio drama to see if my thoughts remain the same.

[dragonsandphoenix]

Just wanted to add to this because I just finished Episode 6. I'm of a different opinion than OP but their take is very valid and it is a simple, reliable criteria to measure media enjoyment. Also kudos because I've never seen anyone on this platform talk about Wu Chang Jie.

Anyway, believe it or not, while I do love my toxic yaoi I do have a limit. And my reaction towards scummy love interests in BL is dependent not on setting but on commitment and execution.

See, I don't like Wu Chang Jie. Fan Wushe is one of the few Shui Qian Cheng MLs I wanted to pulverise and that's based on my personal feelings on the writing, characterisation etc. That SOB was just too much for me. Otoh I love most of the 188 gongs, especially Zhao Jinxin from Winner Takes All. I also liked novel Ming. The reason I don't like My Stand In is because Ming is softened to the extent that his character feels half-assed. He's not an entirely good person but he's not as well-written and interesting as he is in the novel to warm me up to him either.

Someone on Reddit once said about SQC's writing that she tailors her characters according to the society and background that they come from, no matter what setting. Ming isn't just a generic rich kid to me, in the novel he's a fu'erdai, a rich second generation kid whose family is connected to the government. His dad is a unsentimental patriarch who beat him and his siblings and his grandfather is the super patriarch general if I recall correctly. His background gives him no right to treat others the way he does but his family is a Big Deal, not just economically but politically.

To be fair, most of the 188 group are rich second generation brats but even then I still like the layers SQC would often give them that makes them so human; again doesn't justify their actions, but the moment I learned that Shao Qun from Sissy is the only son in a family with three older sisters it clicked for me why he was like that. Li Yu, however "boring" he is compared to the other 188 gongs has his aloof and self-righteous personality explained with his grandfather being once caught in struggle sessions during the cultural revolution.

It is true that they currently live in the lap of luxury, but they are a product of a contradictory society with a turbulent and sometimes violent history.

I was thinking why I spent the bulk of My Stand In wanting to strangle Ming and never did warm up to him from beginning to end and I genuinely love Huaien in MYATB and a small part of it is any emotion Huaien feels is directed solely for/at XB unlike Ming's obsession with boring Tong

BUT

That's not really it. It's because my reaction to behaviors/characters is setting-dependent. And my atittudes on them are strongly dependent on whether it's a period or modern setting.

I have a very different attitude to actions of a period era killer brought up in a feudal society where human life has no value and killing of a whole clan for kicks is a matter of course, and who's been brought up in a fucked up rebel/imperial family with nonstop abuse and a spoiled modern day dude.

I will accept a hell of a lot more murder/dubcon/noncon/unhingedness/red flag/you name it in a period setting. Because it just fits.

It's sort of like Fei Wo Si Cun novel adaptations - MLs of Goodbye My Princess, Siege in Fog and Too Late to Love You do some truly unhinged stuff but I can understand it more because they are a period royal or a 1930s warlord. The one ML in her adaptations I can't stand is the ML of Sealed With a Kiss. I hated his blackmailing/abusing/rapist self but in watching I realized if that story was set in eg the Wei Dynasty, I'd put up with his "daughter of people I want revenge on must pay for their wrongdoing so I force her to be my mistress and humiliate her and threaten her to give her to my friends and oh I am also married" shenanigans a lot better. I mean, I can't say he'd be a love's young dream under any circumstances but then neither is the murderous rapist ML of GMP and while I can't say I root for him, he is a mesmerizing character, tragic as much as repelling - a shark in a tank full of other sharks.

Like - the sole time Boys Over Flowers' ML's actions made sense was in Gong which basically transposed the whole thing into the Qing Dynasty.

Or think of Meatbun's CFC, which I ended up loathing. I'd still have issues with how the last third blew up the themes set up in the first 2/3, but MC's actions would be less repellent to me if it was a period setting.

It can all be summed up as - if a modern man murders people on the reg, believes women are inferior to men while married to ten of them at once, and owns slaves, he should be in jail for life. If he's a 10th century dude, he's just average warrior dude.

Ming is a modern dude, a spoiled kid of a rich family who's never lived in an extreme, death is a second away and the whole world is like this, society. I have different standards for him than a period dude.

[danmeiblr]

Finally, a Danmei Blog for Lesser-Known Danmei, Some of Which Are Not Even Translated Yet

Hello, hello, I’m Miya, a voracious danmei reader that gobbles novels every night like it’s her daily sustenance. I’ve been reading danmei since late 2018, and like most people in English danmei spaces, I was introduced to it through MXTX’s Mo Dao Zu Shi / Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation. Since then, I’ve read many other danmei, like all the other popular ones—Little Mushroom, The Husky and His White Cat Shizun, Devil Venerable Also Wants to Know, etc.

Anyways, I have read almost all of the novels the English fandoms are currently obsessed with. Because of this, I often can’t relate to the excitement you guys still have over them because those novels feel like ages ago to me. I’ve long moved on from them and found other novels I love more. (I also read the bulk of those popular novels during my depression era, and I don’t wanna bring up memories of that)

So yeah, I sometimes feel like an outsider in English danmei spaces because nobody wants to talk about the novels I wanna talk about because nobody even knows about them 😭😭😭

Thus, this blog was born.

Mainly, I will be liveblogging the danmei I’m reading. I used to post them on my main @miyamiwu, but I’ve recently transferred my liveblogs from there to here. Just a fair warning: my liveblogs won’t be spoiler-free. I also don’t use spoiler tags because, well, nobody even knows the novels I’m blogging about so nobody would care if it’s a “spoiler” 😭😭😭

Aside from this, I will also post:

reviews of some of the great novels I come across

recommendation lists (you can also ask me for recs!)

rough English translations of the scenes I’m reacting to (otherwise, I won’t make sense)

general thoughts on danmei genres and tropes

translation ramblings

Basically, anything and everything about danmei.

Some stuff about me:

I run the @lizonkanovels website and used to post MTLations

I am studying Mandarin, but I’m nowhere near fluent in it. (I’ve also been too busy with college that my studies have been put on-hold.)

I loooove talking about the intricacies of translation and even took a class on translation theory before. You will see this reflected in some of my posts.

My favorite genres/tropes: whodunit, unlimited flow, horror, broken mirror, and 甜宠 (lit. sweet love/pampering, fluffy novels basically).

Current favorite danmei: Fourth Perspective by Mo Chen Huan

Also a fan of the 188男团 series by Shui Qian Cheng. My favorites in the series are Years of Intoxication and Blazing Armor

Well, that’s pretty much it. If you’re interested in discovering new danmei to read or just learning more about danmei, feel free to follow me~

You can also check out what novels I’ve posted about on my Danmei Directory:

https://danmeiblr.tumblr.com/directory

(If you’re on the mobile app and can’t access the link above, just copy it and paste it directly on your browser.)

[ineffable-opinions]

Danmei tropes in My Stand-In

This is a quick introduction to some popular BL tropes that are fairly new to live-action BL:

wife chasing crematorium

substitute lover

transmigration

(Contains spoilers)

All corrections and critiques are welcome.

As you probably know My Stand-In is based on the danmei novel Professional Body Double. Specifically, it belongs to 188男团 (“188 group” where 188 cm is the height of every gong (seme) in the novel series). It is a shared universe of novels with characters from one featuring in another and almost all gong are very scummy (or “red-flag” so to speak) initially.

Trope #1: wife chasing crematorium

What 188 group novels all have in common is the trope popularly known among English-speaking fandom as “wife chasing crematorium”. This is a super-popular trope, not only in danmei.

origin 追妻火葬场 (zhuī qī huǒzàng chǎng; chasing his wife’s crematorium) derived from the longer phrase 傲娇一时爽，追妻火葬场 (àojiāo yīshí shuǎng, zhuī qī huǒzàng chǎng; Tsundere was on his high horse for a while, now chasing his wife’s crematorium.) Alternative form: 追夫火葬场 (zhuī fū huǒzàng chǎng; chasing husband’s crematorium) – usually involves scum shou (uke) chasing after his gong (seme) after initially abusing gong’s love.

The trope involves the love interest being initially cold or even cruel to the protagonist who is in love. This continues until all of that love gone. By then, the love interest would have come to his senses, eager to seek forgiveness and chase after the protagonist. In some cases, the love is already lost irrevocably, especially when the protagonist is dead – hence, literal crematorium. There are also works where the love interest is discarded all together and protagonist moves on to someone else. Rarely, there are works where the protagonist is the scum.   

In 188 group novels, this is how the basic structure of wife chasing crematorium:

Shou loves gong. Gong treats shou terribly.

Gong goes too far. Shou is fed-up and leaves gong, one way or other. Gong realises that he has been in love all along.

Gong regrets his action and chases after shou. Grovelling ensues.

Gong and shou gets back together. Gong dotes on shou and the couple face other challenges (family, villains) together, if any. Happy ending.

Fans are in it for the melodrama. They want to watch scummy gong to go too far, the relationship to break down and for the gong to grovel and make amends through various selfless deeds, until they reestablish the relationship and trust (as much as possible). Every one of those stories end with a happy ending with the gong endlessly doting on shou and the relationship having turned wholesome.

Trope #2: substitute lover

Other than the previous trope Professional Body Double and its adaptation My Stand-In involves the “substitute lover” trope.

Substitute lover trope involves, usually the gong, having a 白月光 (white moonlight): a person whom he loves a lot but can’t reach/touch. This is usually his first love and has a profound impact on him.

Aside: White moonlight in itself is a common trope. Both Vip Only and Sahara Sensei to Toki-kun used white moonlight trope to in a typical kishōtenketsu narrative structure.  

Since white moonlight is unattainable, gong finds a substitute lover.

The relationship between gong and substitute lover is usually just physical. This is because gong doesn’t plan to move on from white moonlight, instead stubbornly carries the torch. Gong doesn’t plan on betraying the pure feeling he have for his white moonlight by giving any of his love to anyone else. So, he tries to ensure that no love leaks out of the dam he has built to store his love for the white moonlight. This is, from gong’s POV, a kind of emotional fidelity which he extends to his white moonlight. A tribute of gong’s unshakable love for his white moonlight.

The substitute lover sometimes resembles white moonlight in some way –

in body – first ever live action BL (shonen-ai actually) adaptation Summer Vacation 1999 (1988) based of Hagio Moto’s The Heart of Thomas plays around with this trope, a lot. More recently, Playboyy sorta lampshaded it with the twins premise.

in spirit – a recent example is Love is Better the Second Time Around wherein prof. Takashi sleeps with his assistant Shiraishi Yuto because the assistant (or his desperation at least) reminded him of his white moonlight Miyata Akihiro.

Aside: There is only one live-action BL that actively subverted this trope: HIStory3: Make Our Days Count. The series introduced a doppelgänger of Yu XiGu (Xiang HaoTing’s white moonlight), a perfect candidate for substitute lover trope. But instead of pursuing it, they subverted the trope.

There are usually two outcomes to the substitute lover trope:

gong falls for substitute lover. In some cases, this involves white moonlight turning into rival or villain.

gong and his white moonlight get together. In this case, substitute lover turn into rival or get a lover of his own.

Itsuka no Kimi e, first ever live-action adaptation of a yaoi manga, employed substitute lover trope in one of its best executions. It is so brilliantly done that I can’t think of anything topping that, unless 4th volume (particularly the case-solving plot involving the photography club) of Takumi-kun series gets live action adaptation.

Trope #3: transmigration  

Basic premise of Professional Body Double and its adaptation My Stand-In revolves around transmigration of soul.

This too is a popular trope in BL. One of the most popular danmei Mo Dao Zu Shi and its adaptation The Untamed involves this trope.

Maybe I should say set-up instead of trope for this one. Transmigration involves soul of a character getting transferred to a body different from his own at the time of triggering event.

Own body, different time – either past or future. When past is involved, it is likely a do-over story where the protagonist gets to redo their life, change their love interest, make different life choices, take different course of action, etc.

Reincarnation – completely different lifetime but with retained memories of past-life/lives. Until We Meet Again; Choco Milk Shake (different lifetime for the pets)

Different body, present (near-present) time – character’s soul enters a different person’s body. The character gets involved in his previous circumstances but now in a different capacity. Revive (2016), that danmei adaptation no one ever talks about, went to town with this set-up.

Different body, different life – soul enters character in a book, game, simulation, etc. and would be primarily tasked to thrive there. One Room Angel (2023) explored a type of badro with this set-up.

With transmigration set-up, it is common to have one of these two:

Transmigrator retaining some connection to previous life.

Transmigrator’s previous life doesn’t matter anymore.

These Tropes in My Stand-In

These tropes are explored to varying degrees and with different levels of efficiency in Professional Body Double. In its live-action adaptation, there are a bunch of limitations. Primary one being the cultural difference – audience of a danmei novel are already familiar with these tropes to some extend but the live-action audience is one which has been primarily consuming sweet BL from Thailand that are inherently deficient in BL literacies.

Another is the khujin problem. Branded pairs are very important to Thai BL industry, so they cannot have two different actors playing before and after transmigration. (Actually, this was not impossible but there hasn’t been any precedent. Also, The Untamed enjoyed success by having Xiao Zhan play pre- and post-transmigration Wei WuXian. I wish they tried two khujin (UpPoom & UpWinner) one couple, since they chose to introduce Winner as pre-transmigration Joe. I don’t know, maybe that’s asking for fan wars and pitting actors against each other.) [In the tags, @deliriousblue reflects on what having two different actors could do with example from Cupid's Last Wish (a series I haven't watched) and its impact on audience on an emotional level. @myezblog has commented that Alchemy of Souls (another I haven't watched) is an excellent example of transmigration played two different actors.]

Third limitation is one that comes from medium – you can’t have long monologues in live-action. This deprives audience of the inner workings of character’s minds. Most of the motives, especially Ming’s trouble with warring desires of his heart, is inaccessible to the audience. @clairedaring have posted a deep-dive by Liltsu into some of that here.

Aside: Another interesting trope is giving watch (a taboo gift) – Chinese superstition rising from 送钟 (gifting watch) and 送终 (to bury the dead/attend funeral) being homophones. Taboo gift trope - white lilies associated with death and funerals - have appeared in Summer Vacation 1999 (1988) and Forbidden Love; both of these have substitute lover and death.

Ming’s characterization as a young master, coming from money and prestige that breeds arrogance and deficient in empathy (this post by @tungtung-thanawat is particularly enlightening) is a highlight of his cruelty as a 188 group gong.

While redemption of scum gong is what 188 group offers its audience, it is not necessarily what live-action audience would be wanting from the set-up. It is likely that a part of the audience was in fact looking for revenge plot.

As @lurkingshan highlighted in this post there is no exploration of identity (tied to Joe’s body pre- and post-transmigration) forth-coming precisely because this isn’t that kind of story and body is only treated as a temporary shelter for the soul for most part when transmigration trope is involved. Moreover, the novel is steeped in Confucian values. So, most of the resolution to what it means for Joe to have a mother now is dealt through his selfless gratitude and the filial piety he offers her.

The same is the case with his old body – a proper funeral for that body is what he owes his own parents for having given flesh and blood to the body which housed his soul previously. Remarkably, his own house figures prominently as an inheritance and as an enduring connection to his own parents – a bond more precious to that him than the bond he had to his old body. I am unsure how much of those core Confucian values they will retain in the live-action adaptation, given the cultural difference.

As @befuddledcinnamonroll discusses here, it is tied to cultural ideas of self, religious beliefs, etc.

@bengiyo has pointed out a weakness in execution of the transmigration trope over the substitute lover trope: the latter is a recurring and inverted trope in this series while the former plays out straight. Even though it is clear that coma!Joe is basically friendless and his career already dead (or that he has no career to speak of), it might have been better to hint at a lack of resolution and impending doom, and build anticipation by leaving clues about the troubles that coma!Joe has left behind. That way when the substitute lover trope peaks again, audience would feel as trapped as Joe.

This is where I think Revive (2016) did a better job with friends, colleagues, past-lovers and rivals especially with such similar set-ups: entertainment industry, classism, scum gong, and intersecting lives pre- and post-transmigration.

[miyamiwu]

Still my favorite review of Years of Intoxication. The only one that actually gets it.

You don’t read dog blood stories for the Events but for the Experience. If you’re not screaming, crying, and throwing up, then what’s the point?

[canmom]

Animation Night 188: Gisaburo Sugii and his cat films

Let me introduce you to a fellow.

Gisaburō Sugii, born 1940, is one of the oldest school animators still working in the industry. His early filmography is something like a history of anime, or at least MushiPro: he started on Hakujaden [AN149] (where he did inbetweens), but he was one of the leaders of the Toei exodus over the rubbish working conditions and union busting (Sugii's close friend Rintarō was among the first to follow him), especially when Tezuka appeared on the animation scene with a place to land.

So from the earliest days of Astro Boy/Tetsuwan Atom, Sugii was a core Tezuka guy. (Thanks as ever to Matteo Watzky for presenting such detailed histories in English!) He helped clean up Tezuka's rough animations in an early form of the layout system, moving to his own satellite studio, worked on all sorts of projects. In fact, we saw a number of them when we watched Tezuka's short fims on Animation Night 83. For example, Sugii animated the moth in Tales of a Street Corner.

Before too long, Astro Boy was wrapping up, and the time came for Sugii to direct his own series: this was Goku no Daibōken and in the words of Matteo Watzky, it represented "a complete and unconditional rejection of everything Mushi - or rather Tezuka - had done so far" - gags over story, extremely limited animation. Adapting Tezuka's manga version of Journey to the West, the project had some rather grand ambitions:

It was rather in the writing and direction. Sugii was extremely ambitious: not only did he want to do a complete break with what Mushi had done before, he wanted to broaden the general “animation culture” in Japan [14]. He therefore focused entirely on the gags, trying to make them all as absurd as possible and breaking all sense of narrative continuity. This was the reason he had chosen Boku no Songoku in the first place: the road trip structure made it possible to completely change the setting each episode and make things different each time [15]. He refused to compromise on anything and was an extremely harsh director: he himself admitted how many conflicts he had with scriptwriters and storyboarders, whose work he kept rejecting until it had lost any semblance of sense or continuity [16].

Goku no Daibōken's story touches on another major figure of anime history: Osamu Dezaki (AN95) appears here as an episode director, though you'd likely not recognise his work - he closely followed his mentor Sugii's wacky style. Unfortunately, the show did not really do much to broaden anything, and was pretty roundly rejected by audiences, and even Tezuka himself publicly said it was too avant-garde and needed to change and the show ended up a sore memory for everyone involved.

But Sugii did not quit, and continued to work with the increasingly ailing Mushi Pro up through Belladonna of Sadness (AN69). This last-ditch effort was not enough to save the troubled studio (a story told elsewhere, check Watzky's articles for a very detailed version) and MushiPro went under. So, coming into the 70s, Sugii left the anime industry to go travelling.

But not forever.

Now, let me introduce you to a book.

Night on the Galactic Railroad (銀河鉄道の夜, Ginga Tetsudō no Yoru) - written in 1927, and published posthumously in 1934 - is a classic Japanese fantasy novel by Kenji Miyazawa in which two boys go on a strange journey across the galaxy. It soon becomes apparent that the train that the boys ride on is kind of a psychopomp train. It has that fascinating blend of early science and odd religious overtones you often get in novels from the early 20th Century, with such themes as the difference between Buddhist and Christian ideas of heaven, as well as all sorts of odd adventures.

It does not star anthropomorphic cats. But then again, it doesn't say anywhere that its characters aren't anthropomorphic cats, right? If you're Gisaburō Sugii, that's enough!

In the early 80s, Sugii returned to Group TAC, a studio largely consisting of former MushiPro staff, full of memories of travel. He started out directing adaptations of the baseball manga Nine, but soon he ended up directing an cataptation of Night on the Galactic Railroad, which came out in 1985.

Jokes aside, the book is deliberately ambiguous about what its characters look like, so Sugii came up with the cat thing as a way to preserve Miyazawa's intent. His approach to direction heavily emphasises the landscape, embedding the characters in dark spaces that reflect their feelings and build the generally omnious mood as they journey into death. And it works! The result is a film widely regarded as a classic by those who've seen it.

One notable feature is the film's fascination with the constructed language Esperanto, among the earliest aspiring universal languages. The film features all kinds of Esperanto text and an esperanto subtitle track, and even has an alternative Esperanto title, Nokto de la Galaksia Fervojo. This was a fascination of Miyazawa's, though I don't believe it features in the novel particularly prominently, but Sugii evidently wanted that to be part of the tribute...

In the wake of that, Sugii... went back to directing sports anime, this time the series Touch about Tennis, as well as a number of other projects including a Street Fighter film in 1994. He didn't abandon literary subjects though, adapting the Genji Monogatari, a foundational work of Japanese lit, in 1987 - though I can find little more about this adaptation. He even directed a Lupin III film! But none of those films are about cats, so we're gonna skip right over them.

In 2012, Sugii - now 72! - returned to books and cats with The Life of Budori Gusuko, adapting another novel by Miyazawa - this time at MushiPro successor Tezuka Productions. The animation is certainly more elaborate...

The film follows abandoned child Budori Gusuko in a world frozen by strange storms. Left to fend for himself, Budori's problems mulitply as his sister his kidnapped, leading him on a journey into dreams as he tries to get to the bottom of all of it.

The story is notable for anticipating the idea of the greenhouse effect, albeit in a way that rings rather odd in the context of present climate change. It generally doesn't seem to be viewed quite as favourably as Galactic Railroad but it's too good a thematic pairing not to do, so tonight the plan is to watch both films! Elaborate old weird anime, we're so back. And not a boob in sight, so twitch should chill out.

All being well, Animation Night 188 will be starting at 22:00 UK time, which is about two hours from this post - we're back on twitch.tv/canmom, thankfully they didn't ban me for long. Hope to see you there!

[zhouxiangs]

hi sasa! about my stand in novel, since you read the tags before going in, were there anything you were surprised with (either good/bad surprise)? what aspect do you think is the most enjoyable/compelling of the story despite there is still some cliches/cheesy/perhaps even predictable in the writing? i finished it recently as well and i love listening to another reader's thoughts about it

hi anon!

i know i sound like a yan mingxiu apologist at this point but i was honestly expecting him to be way worse, and then he wasn't! i was vaguely aware that he was, maybe, the less scummy of the 188 group because i read a tiny bit about that before starting the novel, but i was still prepared for someone downright evil (or evil for evil's sake, or whose actions would piss me off for most of the story only to have some kind of big reveal later that would make me rethink everything—not that i'm actually opposed to that approach actually, but i'm still glad it wasn't like that in pbd, at least for the readers, because i liked following his emotional journey in real time-ish) and, while he still wasn't great, let's say i don't approve of his ways but i could easily understand how he got there.

going to hide the rest of my answer under a read-more because i want to get into spoilers and sometimes a tag isn't enough:

i told @clairedaring when i started the novel that yan mingxiu was funny to me because it was so clear even then how oblivious he was being (and later on how he was going to be hurt by the consequences of his own actions, boy was shooting himself in the foot the whole time) and i stand by that. i did cry for him, but i also reveled in his pain after seeing him sow the seeds for a year. get karma'd. oh and his age was a nice surprise too! i'd assumed he would be older for some reason (maybe because of up poompat) but he's a babyyy. it just made so much sense that he would be so immature with his background and being that young; not that people his age are immature or i'd expect them to, obviously, but some things are a lot easier to understand and excuse (at least for me) once you know he's only 20. it also makes him way more believable and his actions generally easier to digest than if he was idk, up's actual age. anyway i went into the story with that mindset, so maybe that's why i never really disliked him. or maybe it's because i'm older and a few years ago i wouldn't have thought the same, who knows.

as for the most compelling/enjoyable aspect i'd say it's mostly the way the characters are written, which, bare minimum lol but they were just so believable as people? there was depth, there was consistency in the characterisation (oh the bar is in hell); i could understand why zhou xiang was wavering, and why it took him so long to notice/accept and to believe in yan mingxiu's feelings; i could see yan mingxiu's feelings developing early on and also understand why he was basically gaslighting himself into still believing he loved wang yudong, even though by then he was already starting to notice how he didn't even like him as a person (one of the things i found so amusing about yan mingxiu was the way he'd automatically redirect his thoughts about zhou xiang to circle back to "but the best part about him is definitely how his back looks like dong ge's", he's. so dumb) he was so set in his belief and so used to think about wang yudong as the person he loved that he didn't even bother to stop and think for a second if that was even true anymore. aughhh. i really think the characterisation was really strong; it's not like i don't latch onto random weak characters for no reason constantly but this is usually what's important for me in fiction, and specially in a story that is mostly about feelings i need to really care about the characters, otherwise what's the point.

the flow of the story (the english fan translation in my case, but i think this comes from the story itself) was really good too! that by itself would have made me read the whole thing pretty quickly even though i wanted to make it last, not gonna lie... but yeah, with those two things combined i had no chance. i would intend to read one or two chapters before sleeping and then end up reading anywhere between 20-40, so now i have to microdose the extras or i'll run out of yanzhou content, sobs.

and of course, not to be me, but the best thing about pbd is my sweet angel baby zhou xiang. i was pretty sure i was going to like him a lot just from reading claire's propaganda post (lol) and sure enough, by chapter 6 his doormat ways had bewitched me body and soul. i already adored him as a very social but also very lonely man who had resigned himself to be alone at the tender age of 29 (out of practicality? like granted, he knows better than me how his environment functions but he never had any trouble finding a hook up either? so why that level of cynicism, baby boy. it's not like he can't look for a partner outside of his circle either). a man that so desperately yearned for a loving partner/a family of his own but that settled for scraps, and sometimes not even that. i loved seeing him being domestic and at times even sweet with yan mingxiu in his original life, and how he was a bit like a puppy. i loved how softhearted he was, and how petty he got at times; how he wanted to take that role from wang yudong because he was jealous of him and, since he couldn't get yan mingxiu to love him, at least he could "win" somehow and not be second to wang yudong by taking that role away from him, even if it was only once and not what he really wanted/the only thing he actually cared about (ie yan mingxiu's heart); how he wanted to hurt and maybe embarrass yan mingxiu by telling him about "wang yudong"'s back in his first film being that of a stuntman (and oh how i loved what that caused). but mostly i loved that despite all that he was still, above everything else, softhearted; he stopped caring about wang yudong altogether as soon as he knew the truth about yan mingxiu, even thought he'd spent years suffering because of him by that point; he always took care of chen ying, whatever it took, because even though she was only his new body's mother she was the only mother he had and he'd already hurt her enough by taking the place of her son, doesn't matter that he had no power over that.

i loved watching zhou xiang grow as a person and learning to put himself first sometimes, and having the resolve to fight for what he wanted for once and not just put up with everything life threw at him. i didn't even like the yan family plot (could do without yan mingxiu's father beating his gay son, thank you) but seeing zhou xiang standing up for himself and their relationship made me so emotional and so proud of him. his development was really the best, and i just love him so so much.

also it's so funny to me how i imprinted on poom phuripan like a baby chick the first time i saw him (as guy in bake me please) and then i had pretty much the same experience with a character he's going to play lmao as if i didn't know he's perfect for the role already.

look at him! he's so beautiful, so zhou xiang-shaped. i thought about up from time to time while reading too, but i was picturing poom in my mind constantly without even trying to. 10/10, perfect casting.

also! cheesy is good! cheesy is fantastic, even. same with clichés and predictable stories that follow a certain formula; sometimes that is exactly what i want, and as long as it makes sense and feels natural to the characters and the story (ie they don't just do things/things just don't happen because it's what needs to happen next) i'm down with anything. also i don't know if this counts as predictable or just paying attention because after all that's what the mentions/clues were there for, but things like yan mingxiu's obsession with wang yudong's back and consequently zhou xiang's... the moment we got yan mingxiu remembering how he fell in love at first sight with wang yudong's back at 16 when he saw that now-classic scene of him getting out of the water in his first film i knew what was coming, specially because by that point we knew how long zhou xiang had been working as wang yudong's stuntman (not sure if we knew about him being uncredited yet).

and sure enough, he was never credited in the first place because they wanted the action scenes to help build wang yudong's fame, and yang mingxiu had been in love with zhou xiang's back the entire time. you don't get much more cheesy than that, and it's literally my favourite thing about the novel 😭

and i'm stopping myself here oh my god...

[dragonmarquise]

Silly BRC Headcanons: Heights!

The hyperfixation continues, here's some heights for some of the BRC characters. Mainly did this since I am planning to do more proper arts of some of the characters later, so I wanted to have a solid idea for some of their heights now. And then I ended up doing heights for all of them actually, lol

Red is supposedly around 180 cm in canon? At least that's what I've seen a few people say. I'm assuming it was some sort of calculation using the in-game model. Even if that's not the case, I'm accepting it as my headcanon anyways, and used that height for Red as a baseline for the rest of these.

Also I decided that I wanted Red to be the shortest of BRC and even the gangs in general, with the Flesh Prince being the only one shorter than that. Because why the hell not, these are headcanons, not like anyone can stop me. :P

Though in doing so, I realized I ended up making just about everyone very tall. Oh well! :u

I'm putting these in cm, but also with very approximate feet-inches for convenience of anyone who doesn't want to convert these over! That being said, I'd consider the cm heights to be more accurate/specific.

Starting off with BRC:

Red = 180 cm / 5' 10"

Tryce = 186 cm / 6' 1"

Bel = 182 cm / 5' 11"

Vinyl = 184 cm / 6' 0"

Solace = 181 cm / 5' 11"

Rise = 185 cm / 6' 1"

Rietveld = 186 cm / 6' 1"

Felix = 182 cm / 5' 11" (essentially, I'm imagining Red is only slightly shorter because he has Faux's body. Clearly, Pretty Boy should've eaten more veggies, loool)

The rest of the crew in my mind are somewhere in the range of 181 cm to 185 cm, I just can't decide on specific numbers for them right now. ^^;

I am making DJ Cyber 188 cm / 6' 2" because honestly, he really does give me that vibe of being taller than most of the other characters. :P

Then there's Devil Theory (see here for a quick who's-who in my headcanons of them, lol):

Sai = 193 cm / 6' 4"

Daishō = 187 cm / 6' 2"

Bō = 183 cm / 6' 0"

Nunchaku = 185 cm / 6' 1"

I imagine all of DOT EXE being different heights as well, basically being whatever height they had before going full-cyber. Cueball is around 190 cm / 6' 3", and is the median height of the group. I'll have to decide on the others later, sorry. :u

As mentioned, the Flesh Prince is the shortest one, I assigned him to 167 cm / 5' 5". Which is just short compared to the rest of these character, that's still fairly tall compared to the average person. But most importantly, it means I still get to be taller than him by like one or two centimeters, mwahaha!! >:D

The rest of the Franks are probably like, around 200 to 202 cm? Roughly 6' 7". I looked it up, the average heights for basketball players in the NBA right now is around 6' 6", so that sounds about right for them imo.

Eclipse are all around 195 cm / 6' 5" in my mind. Tall ladies! And then the rest of FUTURISM are between 181 cm and 185 cm like the rest of BRC.

Bonus, Escher gets to be 195 cm / 6' 5" too, his in-game model is definitely a good chunk taller than the player models. Hopefully the tall man returns from his bus trip soon. :P

[lalilsa]

my top 10 boy groups on lastfm

1. monsta x - 5.363 scrobbles

2. exo - 2.634

3. winner - 1.779

4. nct dream - 624

5. nct 127 - 474

6. bigbang - 325

7. ikon - 212

8. ateez - 210

9. oneus - 199

10. pentagon - 188

[angieloveshua]

“188男团 novels.” | Angie reviews novels that she read in Spanish because she was too lazy to translate her reactions to English, pt. 1.

🫧 —Alpha Predator. | 5/5 ☆.

No carrd, unfortunately.

Alpha Predator is the latest 188男团 novel of the series, and by so far, my absolute favourite. The story follows Shen Dai, an B rate omega, who agrees to marry off on behalf of his half-brother to pay off his father's debts. Little did he know that his meant-to-be husband was Qu Moyu, the heir of the Xingzhou Group, his boss, and the man who saved him from an embarrassing situation years ago. Shen Dai knows that the best option for him is to see this marriage as a financial exchange, but he can't help falling in love with the handsome yet ruthless Qu Moyu.

This novel is an ABO classic, but who doesn't love classics? I do. I love Alpha Predator, and I read the whole book in four days. I must mention that Suida knows how to draft addictive novels. I devour this one, and I miss the feeling I got while reading it.

Before reading the novel, I saw someone ranking Qu Moyu as the scummiest gong of all the series, even worse than Shao Qun, and I was scared. What could have this man do to be worse than Shao Qun? When I finished the novel, I couldn't disagree more.

Although I am well aware that what Qu Moyu did was atrocious, to say the least, I understand why he did all of that. He was raised to always value rationality and benefits above everything, even his own feelings. And guess what? I'm weak. I never hated him. I adore how he addressed all what he did, he reflects about it (and I put this in italics because I feel like most of the love interests don't regret their mistakes and just try not to do that badly again), and he works hard to be a better husband, father, and man. In conclusion: I'm biased. Qu Moyu best 188男团 gong. 💜

Before going to the next novel, let me at these two bullet points:

The ABO. It was extremely interesting to see how alphas and omegas were divided into classes according to their pheromone level and how it played a key role in the protagonists' lives. The scenes where pheromones came into place were /screams.

The romance. QuShen is the best 188 couple, beat it.

🫧 —Winner Takes All. | 4/5 ☆.

carrd.

Winner Takes All is the first 188男团 novel I read, and I would also recommend it to be your first one if you want to get into the 188男团 world. The pace is easy to follow, and Zhao Jinxin is one of the least scummy gongs of the series.

The book's MC is Li Shuo, who is dearly loved within the fandom and had played the second love interest in other novels (Sissy, for example), and we see how he falls in love with 🥁 his enemy's cousin, Zhao Jinxin. Really, one of the greatest sins Zhao Jinxin has committed is to be Shao Qun's cousin (and this isn't even his fault, you see).

Li Shuo and Zhao Jinxin have good chemistry. They have a lot of interests in common and their families are friends. One could say it's a match made in heaven and that nothing could go wrong... right?

Well, well, well, let me tell you that I was so heartbroken that I had to listen to Bad Bunny songs to not cry. But don't worry! It's a HE.

🫧 —Additional Inheritance. | 3/5 ☆.

No carrd, unfortunately.

Additional Inheritance («Maldita herencia», Damned Inheritance in Spanish) is Luo Yi's and Wen Xiaohui's story. Everything starts when Wen Xiaohui receives her adoptive jiejie's suicide notice —but not only that, her jiejie left him a considerable amount of inheritance along with her only child, a fifteen-year-old boy named Luo Yi, who has a high IQ and is considered matured for his age.

For this novel, I remembered I posted a tweet with a theory of what could ruined Luo Yi's and Wen Xiaohui's happiness. My moots called me ‘witch,’ and for one moment in my life, I hated being right.

To say I was shocked was the least. I texted, let's say, six of my friends and told them what was going because I couldn't believe my eyes. How could he...?!

And so, yes, I can't say that I hate Luo Yi, but I also can't say that I love him. I don't want to post a spoiler here, but, hey, I was reading a little in my graduation party and I didn't know what to do with my feelings.

As for the plot, I enjoyed how Wen Xiaohui escalated in the fashion world (I like to call it that way) and I felt proud of myself for understanding the finance part (my financial market course is so useful, hehehe).

So, these were the 188男团 I've read so far and a little of what I think. I plan to read Yet You're In Love With an Idiot and Professional Body Double, so the next post of 188男团 will be of them. I hope you enjoy the reviews and give a try to any of these novels if they attracted your attention (READ ALPHA PREDATOR). Angie's off.

[sakuramidnight15]

Idol Profile (AU)

_____________________________________

"The way she expresses onstage... *(sighs)* She'd never change her ways.. My apologies but I am currently busy for now."

(AU Belongs to @rosietrace and @starry-night-rose , members tagging: @fumikomiyasaki @nem0-nee @authoruio @windbornearchon @twsted-princess @hades-eternal and @oseathepebble)

--------------------------------------

-Main Profile-

Birth Name: Shin Arquette (or Park Hyeon)

Position: Heir-in-training (for a national cooperation) and Soloist

Age: 19

Birthday: 8/23

Zodiac Sign: Virgo

Height: 188 (6′2")

Blood Type: AB

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-Fun Facts-

Favourite Food: Seafood, Caramelized Candies, Dark Coffee, and Licorice

Least Favourite Food: Anything Bland, Cheese, Avocado Smoothie, and Yellow Peppers

Favourite Artists: ElyOtto, Jake Daniels, BTS, and EXO

Likes: Chizuko-(No reason to know) (Every last bit of it, even her anger on him), Successfulness, Work, and Looking for Opportunities

Dislikes: Disruptions, Obstacles, Cheating (Competitions Kinds), and Getting Underestimated

--------------------------------------

-Relationships-

Doesn't have any but people dislike and stayed away from him of course.

Vil: Heck No. Vil didn't even a single word about him.

Chizuko: Need further explanation?

--------------------------------------

-Info-

V/A (Not Singing): Voice Actor: Sakurai Takahiro (Japanese), Alessandro Juliani (English)

Voice Claim Singing: Roh Ji Hoon (JN or KN), Black Gryph0n (EN)

A man who seems has the aspects of a gentlemen and gentle behavior, however that's just what he shows above is exterior of his personality.

He's in fact what everyone knows what knows truly him beneath that exterior... Dangerous.

But is infact famous amongst the male idol industry, even for { Poisoner } and Vil as well, but is currently on break away from stage and was on his studies.

Has once defeated him after Victoria and Jiyoon left the group but it wasn't been out by the public press yet. Must have took measurements...

Vil..? He hasn't forgotten his existence. Even after the whole issue.

Had one then noticed the { (Co)-connect } after their performance, but has noticed a well familiar yet that he has yet to see again... At whatever chance he sees.

Chizuko has known him before both of their debut as idols, let's just say that is was memory that he doesn't want to forget but Chizuko wanted to forget that it ever happened.

Is fearless of anything. But Chizuko's anger excites him.

Is not the obsessed fan that Chizuko had to face. But he was the one who dealt the blow on that fan... But not that Chizuko would thank him.

Is respectful towards others, especially at { (Co)-connect }, especially Mayuu, Victoria, and Zen, well except for two certain idol which is Chizuko and Vil.

Follows in secret on Twitter, perhaps on Chizuko and Vil though.

--------------------------------------

....oh boy- Next?

━╤デ╦︻(o_- )

[casliveblog]

Custom Toonami Block Week 188 Rundown

The Witch from Mercury: The episode basically fully takes shape on Earth with the Dawn of Fold group in the aftermath of Sophie and Norea’s attack on the school. Shaddiq still has his dad captive and Nika’s taking the fall for reporting them and pointing the defense force in the right direction for the counterattack. Shaddiq explains he plans to dissolve the group and sell it off to Earth for what’s basically Space Socialism to prevent or at least slow down the outbreak of a war. Meanwhile the Dawn of Fold group has Guel prisoner and plans to use him as a hostage if things get too rough but apparently without his dad Guel’s family corporation is going bamkrupt so he doesn’t exactly have the pull to be used as a good prisoner. Still Olcott works through his own tragic backstory while doing a Battle of Hoth to distract the defense forces so the rest of the group and refugees can escape. Guel is let go and tries to save a little girl Olcott presumed hopeless because he feels like they’re both in the same boat reeling from the loss of their fathers and Olcott being a father that lost his child, basically everyone in this room is thematically relevant. The kid fucking dies in Guel’s lap as the battle is ending and his Chazz Princeton rich boy humbling arc is going ROUGH. He asks Olcott what to do and Olcott throws off the temptation for a surrogate family relationship and tells him to figure it out his own damn self, with Guel resolving to return to space to save his father’s company as the only remaining shred of his legacy left. Meanwhile in our Marvel Stinger, Miorine finds out her mom was the one who figured out Human Instrumentality and her dad was the one that was all for it until she died and that’s why he had an arranged marriage for her, to pair her with someone stronger than he was to protect her with the added benefit of not having any messy romance tear her up inside should her husband die doing so. As far as excuses for arranging marriages go I guess that’s a fine one, and Miorine’s still kind of sitting on the fence of the Human Instrumentality project both with the idea that it would be continuing the legacy of her parents but also that it’s shady as fuck and she should think for herself.

Inuyasha The Final Act: Inuyasha blacks out after going full demon mode and Naraku convinces him he killed Kagome because he does literally have her blood on his hands. Sango gets to see Miroku’s flashback to his father dying in person and now has to directly confront what Miroku has had decades to work out for himself and they end up going their separate ways since Miroku is worried his Wind Tunnel will bust at any moment. Sesshomaru finds Kagome and Inuyasha finds Rin so they’ve essentially swapped female partners and it kinda reminds me of the short bit in Secret of the Cursed Mask where you unlock Sesshomaru as a party member for like twenty minutes and he’s just literally invincible and can take everything for you. Anyway Magatsuhi possesses Inuyasha and fights Sesshomaru, accidentally using Meidou Zangetsuha to open a hole in Naraku for Kohaku/Shippo/Jaken to get in through. He discards Tessaiga to completely control Inuyasha without its binding influence and since Sesshomaru also can’t use Bakusaiga without endangering Rin, the two basically just have a slugfest. Kagome goes to retrieve Tessaiga and because she calls out to him, Inuyasha realizes she’s not dead and gets to fight back against Magatsuhi’s influence. Magatsuhi’s ready to jump ship and try invading Kagome but Inuyasha pins him into his Demonic Spiral so Sesshomaru can finish him off with Tenseiga, never was sure how the demon vortex shit works they never quite explain it but it doesn’t matter too much, point is Sesshomaru cut Magatsuhi down before he could jump into Kagome and give us hot yet awkward Evil Kagome.

Castlevania: We basically unpack the four plots from the previous episode in order of severity, Isaac’s basically done and gets his mirror and his endless horde of demons to fuck around with, nothing too much going on there. Lenore continues being an absolute mad lad and tells the other girls about making Hector her literal bitch (like seriously I think half the writing team is REALLY into petplay because it’s NOT subtle) though she also upgrades his living conditions when she doesn’t have to and is sure to remind him he ain’t shit but otherwise a marked improvement honestly, like he was already completely under her thumb and had the appearance of holding no cards, now he just has all that but he’s not directly locked up, just metaphorically locked up, the best kind of locked up. Alucard kills the incest twins with his magic sword which I kinda forgot he never showed that to them. It’s kind of a neat little thing where they’re convinced he’s holding out on them because they have some serious trust issues but also he was slightly holding out on them but only for his own protection and everything else was genuine. He ends up dusting off the old The Impaler title and sticking them on pikes outside his house, bringing him to the Shrek 1 part of his character arc where he wants nobody in his swamp, kinda funny that he bothered to put clothes on them while they’re rammed ass to mouth on giant spikes but them having their bits flapping in the breeze may take away from the intimidation factor I guess. The most story-heavy one is Trevor and Sypha who manage to beat a bunch of the demons coming out of the Chapter Black portal and Germain at least redirects the portal to where he wants it to go before they kill the Evangelion demon. The Judge gets stabbed by Sala and pretends to have a change of heart, leading him right into the spike trap he used to murder dozens of children which is kind of a weird revelation to have for a guy that’s already dead, like it’s just kinda like ‘here’s a dark thing for the sake of it’ story-wise it’s just supposed to leave a sour taste in Sypha and Trevor’s mouths so they don’t end up feeling good about what happened but honestly they’ve seen worse, like this is definitely a shitty thing but Castlevania has every guy on the street be one of the worst people you can meet so idk if it’s idealism-shattering trauma that it’s being portrayed as.  

Konosuba: The Hydra confrontation actually happens off-screen but long story short Kazuma dies again and Darkness has to save him from being digested while Megumin damages it just enough so they can escape while it regenerates. The group notice Darkness is all wound up about something and determined to kill the Hydra, centering Megumin’s daily explosion around harassing it. Meanwhile the guild claims that if they capture the alter-egos of Kazuma and Kris’s Phantom Thieves band then the royal guards will come take care of the hydra for them, so Kazuma now has a vested interest in making sure the hydra gets dead before they find out its him they’re looking for. Kazuma eventually rallies the whole guild to go help Darkness take on the Hydra with some Fairy Tail friendship shit and it’s surprisingly played really straight, since group tactics is where Kazuma really gets to shine they come up with a plan to literally fish the Hydra out of the lake and have Kazuma drain its magic energy so it can’t regenerate while everyone takes it down. It almost falls on Kazuma and Darkness and Darkness gets a burst of masochism energy which has been surprisingly absent this season but they do end up taking it down. Darkness comments on the power of friendship and how she loves her group and everyone in Atlas but leaves a note saying she’s leaving the group now which I feel like is the second or third time they’ve pulled this kind of thing.

Delicious in Dungeon: The group manages to figure out the pattern of the changing town and evade the scout dragon using some exposition of how the dungeon repairs itself, getting back to the floor entrance. Here they make another meal and meet up with the Shuro/Kabru squad fusion and divide into groups of magic, food, and the captains to break down what to do next. I really kinda like Kabru, he immediately is able to break down the possibilities about Laios and judge his character to not be worth being mad about getting supposedly stolen from while also being fascinated by what a fucking weirdo he is. Laios breaks down to Shuro what happened to Falin and proposes that now that there’s essentially three parties they could all regroup and go after her together. We get a little more backstory on Shuro’s retainers and they’re pretty cool but the breaking point ends up being revealing that Falin was revived with Black Magic but everyone pretty quickly realizes that exposing the taboo and getting Laios arrested won’t solve anything and if anything would just make stuff worth for Falin. Meanwhile said Falin is in town and currently transforming into a monster dragon chicken so yeah.

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End: Now that the test is over, the group of people we’ve been slowly developing have some downtime to just chill and hang out around the city. Frieren’s group goes to a restaurant she visited in the past along with Denkin and Ubel’s groups which we get Ubel’s deal how she basically has Empathy Sharingan where she can copy anyone’s spells as long as she can see the world from their perspective which make Land her hardest target because it’s like talking to a brick wall, but it makes for a good ship dynamic since her goal is to literally spend all her time with him until she learns everything about him. Meanwhile the two girls Frieren helped during the test go on a mini-date, Stark is abducted by Wirbel for some monster hunting, and the four girls have a fun little girls night of eating cookies and talking about facing life-ending trauma, you know, as all girls nights do. And of course as the second trial comes it wouldn’t be an Exam Arc without a “nobody’s ever passed this guy’s tests” plot point, a classic, I just find it kinda funny they’re doing it this early because if you just eliminate everyone in Round 2 then what’s Round 3 even gonna do we just calling it off like wtf.

Revolutionary Girl Utena: Right on schedule it’s time for the Dance episode! Utena’s concerned that Anthy’s only friend is a big-eared rat named after a Gundam-piloting girl from the future. Meanwhile class president Touga Kiryu has his sights set on Utena and the fact that he has the rose ring makes her wonder if he’s her Backstory Prince despite being told that all the student council have them and Touga being kind of a huge pompous dick. Touga’s sister saves Anthy from some bullies and invites her to a dance, asserting she’s oh-so popular with the boys and should go. Touga invites Utena to the dance too and she’s not going but eventually her concern over Anthy being a social recluse forces her to put on the dress and go, like Utena does look great in the dress but she’s right in saying it doesn’t suit her and they do a great job of showing how uncomfortable she is in it. Touga’s sister is plotting to get revenge on Anthy for taking up her brother’s focus with her bride of prophecy nonsense because it wouldn’t be anime if the siblings didn’t have weird incest vibes. Turns out she’s in league with the bullies from before and rigged a fucking melting dress so when Anthy gets sprayed she’ll be half naked in front of the crowd and that’s some Carrie level fucked up shit. Anthy has like BAD social anxiety so she’s already not good with crowds so making her half-naked basically gives her a heart attack until Utena rips off her dress and swoops in to save her, making a dress out of a tablecloth for her to dance in. Like that’s kinda needlessly extra, Utena had a dress she wasn’t using anymore and instead of just taking it off and giving it to Anthy she fucking insta-tailors a tablecloth complete with white rose and that is the kind of lesbian nonsense I am here for. It’s really kinda nice how they show Anthy’s anxiety melting away as the sea of identical faces disappears and her and Utena focus only on each other, good moment.

[danmeiblr]

Felt like rewatching the Best Romantic MV, and this pair came up and now I’m reminded that I still haven’t finished reading Little White Poplar (Xiao Baiyang)

I should really finish the 188 novels already...

[ineffable-opinions]

Beloved Enemy (Shui QianCheng) || Unknown (Priest)