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#Digimon The Real World Exhibition
ashxketchum · 6 months
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And that's a wrap on Digimon Con 2024!
It lived up to it's past versions where it was used as a platform to discuss various information already teased beforehand, with some exciting news for Digimon TCG and other parts of the franchise that don't get to shine in DigiFes due to the latter being an animation focused event.
The hosts mentioned several times, that look forward to the summer event, which means that we can expect new stuff to come out of DigiFes 2024.
I also liked how they didn't avoid the question about a new Digimon Game and just gave a vague answer like it's under development, at least we know something is in the works lol.
Agumon Real Time Talk was the highlight for me, Sakamoto san earnestly tried to connect with all Digimon fans around the world and that was really fun to watch.
The 25th Anniversary Digivice was also a really cool announcement. It's not just a prop anymore but actually functional with a lot of fun additions, the voice acting, anime music and scenes are particularly additions that I liked. Taichi and Yamato versions were expected, but I like how Piyomon's VA immediately shouted about where is the Sora Version, she's keeping it real for the rest of us who do like the other kids too!
I wish they'd shared more details about the Manga platform and Novel competition, I feel like that part was sort of glazed over without much details but just a "hey this is happening", okay cool but what exactly will it entail? Considering that they use this event to share the information, this announcement felt more like a tweet which will be elaborated later on.
The Card Game segment was the most exciting I feel, though I'm not well versed in TCG at all. New Digimon being revealed + live reading chapter 00 of Digimon Liberator was pretty cool. They also shared that Liberator will have a web comic and a novel, each will feature different protagonists and stories, the hosts contemplated amongst themselves whether the two different protagonists would get a chance to meet each other...?
I also liked them showing off all the China exclusive products at the end, always good to end the show with more fomo for foreign fans lmao.
As an Adventure only fan, I guess I have to look forward to DigiFes and the 25th Anniversary Exhibition planned for summer for any real news, for now all the new merch and collabs will suffice.
Thank you for bearing with my random posts today! It was fun to wake up and scream Digimon with others after a very long time.
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arcthebreeder · 10 months
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Digital Monster Entry (DME)
Name: Loogamon
(lit. Loup Garou Gram monster)
Stage: Child
Attribute: Virus
Type: Demon Beast
A Demon Beast Digimon that is, because of the outdated interface on its brow, presumed to be an experimental "Prototype Digimon" from before Digimon were discovered, it is said that the data of the Warg, from the real world mythology is embedded deep inside it's DigiCore, it exhibits a violent behavior one wouldn't expect from a Child. At first glance it looks like a cute puppy but if one approaches it carelessly, they would be on the receiving end of a fierce counterattack, it has a trait of recognizing those who can face it as its masters, and despite being difficult to tame it can become a reliable companion if a strong bond is created, it has two fierce special moves.
•Firing flames imbued with mystical power from its mouth, the Howling Fire.
•Biting with its powerful mouth as it spins, the Spiral Bite.
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pocketbelt · 6 months
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Mato Seihei no Slave (2024 anime, S1)
Funny how there were two BDSM-themed ecchi anime this season. Unfortunately for Mato Seihei its opposite number was MahoAko, and it's not an even fight.
The ideas here are fun and interesting and Mato Seihei does make good and some clever uses of its power sets, but it doesn't commit to its core bit as much as it feels like it should.
The ostensible core conceit is that in this world where only women get superpowers and portals to hell keep absorbing people and releasing demons, the female protagonist Kyouka (the white haired one up there) has a BDSM master-slave theme power that turns a willing partner into an Ultimate Digimon-looking demon, and she uses this for the first time on a person when she meets male protagonist Yuuki. Every time he transforms and fights, she has to 'reward' him by fulfilling some desire, which means kissing/stepping on/showing tits/etc.
In practice, Yuuki's relationship with Kyouka (or any other woman, who can give him different forms by serving as 'master' in turn which is rad) doesn't factor into the transformation or his power at all, and also he doesn't really do shit. He matters for the inter-squad exhibition match in the middle episodes, he gets a super form that beats up a trash mob he could kill already and explicitly doesn't face the big boss (someone else fights it), and doesn't meaningfully contribute to any other encounter. Kyouka obviously gets possessive of him as other women start getting horny for him, but again whether any given rider likes, loves or hates him doesn't mean anything for the transformation. Also, the show leans hard on the lights and coloured soft filters and quick shots for when tits are out or the fetish play starts, and no-one gets overly into it or seems to really truly enjoy it. Yuuki never nuts or anything, even 'off-screen'.
Yuuki is, also, the long-standing and extremely tiresome modern generic romance/harem protagonist, i.e. a generically nice whiny soft boy with short black hair and one core skill and no real interests/edges to him, who is still screaming and being surprised/confused at tits by episode 12 of 12. He doesn't even provide more than basic levels of emotional support for the others' character arcs and moments, which makes it jar when they all start falling for him, as it always does.
The comparisons to Mahou Shoujo ni Akogarete aren't kind. That show leans the fuck in to its sexual content and makes it matter for plot and characters as well as being eye candy, and as I said, its protagonist Utena is actually the highlight because she has an actual character of her own and is delightful to follow. Yuuki could be replaced with a roomba that has a retractible dildo on it.
Mato Seihei's plot did arouse some interest and I like the characters besides Yuuki (they're fine at worst and pretty great at best), but it's pretty disappointing in this first season. A second one has already been greenlit so I guess it did well, but it'll have to hit the ground running to keep me on. The manga might do the sexual content better due to laxer constraints and maybe it just needs a bit to find its feet, but woof, it had the worst possible matchup this season.
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koushirouizumi · 11 months
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Each of the cards had a picture of a Digimon on it, and there were nine in total. Koushiro looked at the stone slate next, at the pictures of the lion, archer, and monkey, and the three sets of stars. In other words, they would have to put one card into each of the holes. While Koushiro was studying them, he was unaware that Sora had come to stand behind him at some point. Now she asked him, “Do you know what it means?” “No, not at all. But this ∴ mark on the slate looks familiar. Maybe it was Aleister Crowley…” “Aleister Crowley? Who’s that?”
from "Operation Invade the Real World", Adventure Novel 2, translated by "Onkei" of Digital Scratch
Per Wiki's entry on him:
Biographer Lawrence Sutin stated that "blatant bigotry is a persistent minor element in Crowley's writings". Sutin thought Crowley "a spoiled scion of a wealthy Victorian family who embodied many of the worst John Bull racial and social prejudices of his upper-class contemporaries", noting that he "embodied the contradiction that writhed within many Western intellectuals of the time: deeply held racist viewpoints courtesy of society, coupled with a fascination with people of colour". Crowley is said to have insulted his close Jewish friend Victor Benjamin Neuburg, using antisemitic slurs, and he had {"mixed opinions"} about Jewish people as a group. Although he praised their "sublime" poetry and stated that they exhibited "imagination, romance, loyalty, probity and humanity", he also thought that centuries of persecution had led some Jewish people to exhibit "avarice, servility, falseness, cunning and the rest".
{Presented without further commentary} except Koushiro would definitely know about this history of them too.
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kitto-toberu-sa · 7 years
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Digimon The Real World Report
Not an entirely positive review, but I tell it as it is. 
I agreed to meet friends at 10am, despite the exhibition not opening until 11am and the website asking people not to line up early. My friend arrived at 9:30 and still had 30-40 people in front of her. The heat was really bad – it’s not meant to get hot for another few weeks, but it feels like we’ve skipped spring and gone straight to summer :/
We had to climb the six floors up to the exhibition, leading to very confused looks from the other shoppers. We had our tickets checked and those of us who bought the expensive tickets to get the goods got them then. There were flowers at the front door to celebrate the exhibition opening from important people (usually it’s from producers, VAs etc, but I’m not good with kanji and was trying to find my camera, sorry ;; I believe there are photos on the official twitter tho) We then got to go through in batches of 10-20 people and got given the sticker etc then.
I will be honest. The exhibition wasn’t that great. It was fun and nostalgic, but more than half of the stuff had ‘no photo signs’ and there were ‘guests’ (media?) walking around with luggage and just looking generally confused. Add that to the amount of people and the heat and it wasn’t the best experience. Staff weren’t prepared for the amount of people/the passion of fans and were often in the way of photo shots and were INCREDIBLY slow at the cash register. I spent maybe 30-40 minutes in the exhibition, and close to double that in the store.
One guy likened it to war and I’d be hard pressed to say he was wrong. People were pushing, there were CLEARLY resellers, some postcards were damaged due to fans grabbing and pushing. Most people had lists of what they wanted, grabbed their stuff and left. Others inspected every single piece of merch, wondered and kept coming back. It was hard to even get to the merch as people kept pushing. Keep in mind a lot of people had big shopping bags and or/ita bags, so things were catching, people were bumping their heads when they were getting on the ground to get stuff on lower shelves, it was hot and people were super slow.
I’m all for taking your time, but if you’re pondering, leave the line and come back later. One woman was with her boyfriend. He was clearly the fan, she was tagging along. She kept picking up post cards randomly and showing them to him (outside the line) and he was like “I just want Koushirou”. Of course she had no idea who that was so kept picking random ones :/
People were limited to 30 can badges. I believe in total, not of each type. By the time I was in line, they had staff making us empty our bags and counting badges, putting them in plastic bags and numbering how many gold or summer badges we had. This made the badges easy to do at the cash register, so it was a good idea.
The exhibition itself was cheap looking. Very cute and nostalgic, but it was pretty clear this was a quickly thought up cash cow with the intent of getting people into the shop or paying a premium for the limited goods through the expensive tickets. My friend said this as well, so it isn’t just me being bitter. Am I glad I went? Yes. Was it fun? Yes. Would I go again? No.
It may seem like I’m being bitchy, but there’s only so much you can gush about cardboard lol It was a good experience, but some Digimon BGM mixed in with Butterfly etc would have made a big difference. Staff acting like tour guides could have been cute. Voice overs from Gennai or the kids (even generic things like “watch out!” “over there!” etc) would have made it feel like an immersive experience.
You start by seeing a cool holo thing of Gennai. Would have been nice if there was a voice over, but it was basically just tri (?) themes playing in the background. We then walk into Pinochiomon’s world, so you see a bunch of his minions with signs saying ‘puzzle’. Takeru is off in a corner with a generic happy face while Pinochiomon is standing at the bottom of fake stairs. Patamon is at the top, unable to come down because Pinochiomon is a dick. –insert ‘great friends you got there’ audio here plz-
We then see Yamato and Cherrymon. Gabumon is next to Yamato. Lots of the art is just generic art, like Yama’s ‘cool guy’ pose.
There were crests hidden around the area but I only found three… Apart from the brothers, there were no cut outs of the kids you could take photos with. Maybe they switch them out? Seems weird to not have Taichi at least…
Next room is no photos. All about the Digivice toy line and a bunch of samples which was cool. Then a bunch of storyboard art, which was cool. Nice drawing of Sora and Taichi’s apartment. There was a Gennai cut out with a bridge behind it, where you could take pictures. Now, I don’t know about you, but Gennai was never a fave of mine and I don’t think a lot of people will really see him without remembering that infamous Tri scene now. Also, who would you rather? A picture with a Digimon or a Chosen, or an old geezer? A fun thing, but you gotta wonder who made the decisions here.
Next room was more bad mon cut outs before we see the puzzle thing. Remember when the kids needed to go to the real world and they had to solve a puzzle to open the gate? That, but there was a button in the middle. Press the button, a gate on the tv opens. Again, who made this decision?
It shows a variety of sad Adventure scenes.
Angemon dying? Done. Leomon? A groan/laugh went through the crowd. Taichi being forced to leave Hikari? Check.
“Hey, what should we show videos of?” “The kids made a triumphant return-“ “No.” “No?” “Make them suffer.” “The fans who have been supporting our franchise for years? Waiting in long lines for overpriced goods? Having a good time and keeping us in business?” “Yes.” “Make them suffer?” “Yes.” “…alright then.”
I thought it was just a reel of deaths until the Yagami one came up lmao.
The next room has the train. The front of the train had the Tri intro video (Taichi, 17 years old – that one). We couldn’t take photos of this which is really stupid considering it’s been on youtube for free for years lmao.
You could go in the train (boring on the inside - no decoration, just plain walls. even if they’d just painted the inside to look like the real train it would have done a lot) and lots of people were taking poses from the final scene. When you were in the train, if you looked out the window, you could see cutouts of the mons, which was really cute. It would have been nice to have staff photographers or to have lines so people could take photos without having 30 randoms in the background.
That was it.
It was just the store after that. It was fun and I’m glad I went, but I wouldn’t rush back. Rather than an exhibition, it seemed like something you would find at a convention. 
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tenebraevesper · 2 years
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Digimon Tamers: Cyber Battles, Entry 14: Hanakotoba
Chapter Preview/Link To Full Chapter Below
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''Kyubimon, now!'' Reiko ordered, with Kuybimon running up to the samurai-looking Digimon they had been fighting, Musyamon.
''Dragon Wheel!'' Kyubimon enveloped herself in blue flames, unleashing a fireball at Musyamon.
''Shiratori-maru!'' Musyamon cut through the flames with his sword and charged at Kyubimon. Reiko gritted her teeth in frustration. While Kyubimon and Musyamon were both Champion Level Digimon, Musyamon still had advantage over Kyubimon due to his Virus Attribute. However, Kyubimon wasn't alone in this fight.
''Card Scan! High Speed Plug-In H!'' Reiko used a Digi-Card, increasing Kyubimon's speed. The nine-tailed mythical fox Digimon dodged Musyamon's attack, with Reiko following up with another card, ''Card Scan! Garurumon, Fox Fire!''
Kyubimon absorbed the data from the Digi-Card, building up energy for the attack. Musyamon lunged at her, but she was faster.
''Fox Fire!'' Kyubimon unleashed a burst of blue fire at Musyamon at point blank range, burning the other Digimon into nothing but data particles, which she then absorbed.
''That was a close call,'' Reiko commented, glancing at the time on her smartphone. A look of panic set on her expression. ''Oh no, I'm late!''
''Get on my back. We'll be faster that way,'' Kyubimon told her as the digital field around them faded away. Reiko was hesitant for a moment, but then nodded and climbed on Kyubimon's back.
''This is so annoying. My grandma is going to kill me if I don't return as soon as possible,'' Reiko muttered under her breath. Kyubimon's ears twitched as she heard that, but she didn't respond.
During the past few days, wild Digimon had started appearing in the Real World, mostly close to the area where Reiko lived. This meant that she was usually the one who'd have to deal with the Digimon, affecting her ikebana lessons and making her late. It also didn't help that she had to still work on her piece for the exhibition the day after tomorrow, putting her under a lot of pressure. Sure, she could've asked the other Tamers for help, but she had figured that it was too much of a hassle and that she and Renamon could handle them easily.
''I'm sure Michi will understand that this was an emergency,'' Kyubimon said, trying to comfort Reiko.
''I wouldn't be so sure,'' Reiko replied as Kyubimon leapt over a wall, landing in the back garden belonging to the Tsukiya household. Reiko quickly jumped off Kyubimon's back and sat down on the back patio, taking her sneakers off and running in her socks into the house to change into her kimono for the lesson. However, just as she opened the slide door, she froze, seeing Michi standing right in front of her. ''G-Grandma…''
''You are late… Again!'' Michi glared at her granddaughter. Reiko stared back at her grandmother, feeling nervous.
''I'm sorry, I was caught up in a situation,'' she replied.
''You got caught up in a situation you shouldn't have even cared about,'' Michi replied. ''Instead of attending your lessons, you're doing God knows what. Have you even designed a piece of the exhibition?''
Reiko lowered her head, remaining silent. Michi's eyes narrowed.
''I see,'' she muttered, closing her eyes and breathing in. She then opened her eyes, glaring at her granddaughter. ''That's the last straw. From now on, you are forbidden from attending any of your activities not related to your lessons or school.''
''What?'' Reiko was stunned.
Digimon Tamers: Cyber Battles, Entry 14: Hanakotoba (Complete Chapter)
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firstagent · 3 years
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Review! Digimon Adventure: (2020) Episode 47: The Villains of the Wastelands
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In this episode, Taichi and two enemy camps fight to determine who’s the most incompetent leader.
Perhaps the most relieving part of this string of filler hasn’t been the shift to lighthearted stories and lack of exhausting life-or-death situations. Maybe it’s because Taichi was relegated to second fiddle status as the show threw the other kids a bone. Now that the bottle has spun his way again, he’s back to consuming all the oxygen in the room and stifling any attempt at enjoyable content. Some eeks through thanks to the sheer zaniness and stupidity of the guest enemies, but the zaniness and stupidity Taichi himself provides is far less amusing. Not only is his stupidity utterly shameful for a Digimon protagonist at this point in the series, but the show’s lackluster effort to portray it as endearing leaves us wondering how to draft our apology letter to Tagiru Akashi.
Bad decisions are the powerhouses of character development. Kid does something dumb, kid pays for it, kid learns lesson. While we love our deeper flaws and repressive childhood traumas, bonehead mistakes are free real estate. Sometimes they even bring out the deeper flaws (yeah, we miss SkullGreymon too)! For the first half of this episode, all Taichi does is make bad decisions. When he learns that Joe and Gomamon were taken in two different directions, instead of exhibiting a lick of common sense and calling for backup, he and Agumon split up, denying him any firepower and denying his partner any chance of evolution. It is a lapse in judgment totally in character for this moron, and hardly the last one he makes here, but also one that needs to be recognized as a disaster in the making.
Not only is Taichi not punished for his hubris, but you knew he wouldn’t be. The reality check that Taichi has needed time and time and time again continues to elude him, allowing him to be the same idiot he was early on, only now with more dangerous knives to play with (at least when he doesn’t tell them to wander off on their own). This is no different than Tagiru continuing to be a rude, boisterous halfwit too stupid to realize his faults all the way up to the point where that’s exactly who was needed to save the world. Taichi may not be quite as insufferable as Tagiru, but the fact that Taichi is rewarded with more evolutions and bigger victories than Tagiru had makes his lack of progress more offensive. Also not helping is nobody calling Taichi out for his stupidity, while the rest of the Hunters cast, to their credit, barely tolerated Tagiru themselves.
Like Hunters, if the main character isn’t going to grow, the job falls to the episode’s guest ally. Nohemon is defeated because he failed at his job of guarding the water source in town once factioning took hold and things got ugly. Which makes sense because scarecrows are pretty useless once the birds aren’t afraid of them. He doesn’t believe in Taichi either, but shows him the way since he has nothing better to do. Until his big shot at the end, he doesn’t actually do anything other than give Taichi bad advice. Even that only works because of a lucky break, but if he wrests some control back in the end it’s something.
The only reason Taichi, Agumon, and Nohemon succeed is that their enemies are somehow even bigger jokes than they are. At lease these jokes are kind of amusing. A Gaossmon who bosses over a Tyrannomon because an evolution failed to disrupt their hierarchy is a fun concept, and Atamadekachimon and Minidekachimon are just made for laughing at. They and their idiot Goblimon armies let Agumon waltz into one camp and manage to set the other one on fire by themselves. The farce only continues from there and goes a little ways into making up for Taichi’s lack of anything resembling competent leadership.
If pointless episodes like these are going to find any value, it’s in serving to make its featured characters more likable. They’re often a necessary evil early on as we learn about the characters and begin to root for them. This far in, there’s no reason to swallow Taichi’s mistakes. He’s a bad decision maker and he should feel bad about it. If he won’t, we have no reason to cheer for his journey. After doing everything wrong and again only pulling out a lucky win at the last minute, he returns home and acts like their teammates getting kidnapped and him weakening his partnership to save them alone wasn’t a big deal. Yamato absolutely should punch him in the face.
My Grade: D+
Loose Data:
This is the first time in the anime we have reason to pay attention to Nohemon, and talking through the crow rather than the face is is a fun touch.
Nohemon asks if Joe was the wimpy human that got carried away. Taichi says yes. Way to stick up for senpai.
Taichi also ignores all of the Nohemon’s good reasons not to split up with Agumon and also gets mad when Nohemon calls him a kid. Class act, this one.
When the episode isn’t about him (and sometimes even if it is), Joe continues to be nothing more than a joke character. Asking for a lawyer? Really?
If shooting a bow and arrow is as easy as Taichi makes it look, then Nohemon really isn’t that special and should have just found a replacement once his arm got chewed off. Anybody would do.
Why are the two camps fighting over water when Team Gaossmon has a large enough reservoir that it floods the entire cave when busted open?
Awfully nice of Tyranomon to stand there like an idiot for a second while Nohemon aims his big shot to stop him.
Much as Taichi and Agumon should have been overwhelmed and defeated in their efforts, a surprise intervention from the rest of the team would have been too convenient an escape. Having said that, Hikari mumbling her brother’s name in her sleep at the start of the episode and greeting him at the end would have offered enough of a BS excuse for how they knew he was in danger that it could have been tolerated.
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uniarycode · 4 years
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Takari Week, Day 1 - Confession
Takeru has spent weeks trying to confess to Hikari but somehow he can never actually get it out.  Hikari has a different interpretation on how they’ve been spending their time.  Done as part of @takariweek 2020
Today was the day.  Today everything would change for better or for worse.  Today marked the first sentence of a new chapter of his life.  Today was the day he was going to confess to Hikari.
Unlike all those other sentences he had to re-write.
This was not the first day this month Takeru had planned to confess.  However, he was a romantic at heart, and no matter how much resolve he had beforehand somehow the moment never felt right.  He would always be able to tell their grandkids about how they met, but he wanted to be proud or the story of how he first asked her out.  And none of the opportunities so far fit his taste.
It was either that or he was afraid.  
Even if his confession was successful, it would still mean a fundamental change would occur in his and Hikari’s relationship.  And Takeru had a mixed relationship with change. Change meant the loss of his father and brother.  Change meant the introduction of a strange world filled with monsters.  Even the first time Patamon had changed into a new form had led to one of the most traumatic events in his life.
But change also led him to meet Patamon in the first place, something he wouldn’t trade for all the riches in the world.  Change meant moving to the same school as Hikari, and meeting Miyako, Iori, Daisuke and Ken.  Change meant that one day society might accept Digimon as a whole.
And whether he liked it or not, change was coming.
It was still surreal to him; his brother and Taichi had always seemed so close.  They had never been part of the same cliques, and they spent almost as much time fighting as hanging out.  But their friendship always eclipsed everything else, social standings, heated disputes, none of it mattered; they were best friends, through and through.
Then college happened. Now the legendary duo’s primary means of communication was via their siblings.  Hikari would learn some new fact of her brother’s life, tell Takeru during the course of casual conversation, and Takeru would update his brother of the going-ons later that week.
It wasn’t just them.  Even Mimi, who had an incessant talent for attaching herself onto someone and refusing to let them go, seemed much further from the rest of the chosen then she’d even been while she lived in America.
Takeru knew their bond was strong, that what the eight of them had done could not be forgotten or replaced.  But even if distance could not destroy the bridge holding them together, it could certainly increase the hassle of travelling back and forth.
The last thing Takeru wanted was for that distance to appear between himself and Hikari.  This was their final year in highschool, if he didn’t at least try now he might not ever get the opportunity again.  He needed to try, despite the inherent risks.
Besides, Hikari had rejected Daisuke dozens of times, and they were still friends, right?
Gathering his courage, Takeru had asked Hikari if they could have a day to themselves, ‘just the two of them’.  He’d suggested Wednesday, when neither club duties nor pressing assignments devoured too significant portions of their time.
Ever the romantic, he had it all planned out: First, karaoke.  A good, private way to judge the mood, and get Hikari to let her hair down.  Next, they had tickets to a movie, the new Disney flick that Hikari had been dying to see but never gotten around to (and without someone pressing, likely would not until it became available on dvd.) Finally, a romantic stroll on the boardwalk at sunset.
The boardwalk overlooking the bay.
The bay where they fought Ordienmon.
The bay where they’d been forced to kill one of their friends.
It was only after beginning his long-rehearsed spiel that Takeru had this epiphany, and, fearful that his date may have been quicker on the uptake than himself, he scrambled for a plan B.  
Salvation came in the form of a nearby cat café, he knew as soon as he suggested it that Hikari would lose herself in the felines, paying more attention to the four-legged critters than she did to him, but it was worth it to avert potential catastrophe.
Fate still deigned to mock him however, from the instant he sat down a maine-coon attached to him, refusing to move from his side, or to let the memories of past failures escape.
All cats attached to Hikari, she merely shared them with the other customers as she saw fit.  There was no doubt she enjoyed herself, but the moment had been well and truly ruined.
Takeru had managed to obtain an opportunity of redemption. ‘Same time next week’ had been the agreement, and he had near instantly resumed planning.  Whatever he came up this time had to top what he’d just done, or else he might have to explain away his mistake.
But even the most perfect plan does not survive contact with the enemy, and the enemy presented itself as an ill-timed phone call from his father.   One of his coworker’s households had apparently been graced by the appearance of a small white blob with a voracious appetite, and Hiroaki was wondering if his son could stop by after school and help calm the panicking mother, perhaps also giving tips for digital care.
Hikari would not allow him to say no, and insisted on tagging along.  But the TV station itself held a lot of painful memories for the girl, every year she returned with an offering of flowers and incense for Wizardmon’s grave.
It was far from a total waste since an idol Hikari had been following was also present.  Somehow the idol had overheard their arrival, and considered themselves interested in the pro-digimon cause.  In fact, the idol had been downright helpful, asking questions of him and Hikari that the coworker was likely to embarrassed or too naïve to think of.  Hiroaki ended up taking them all out for dinner, and they chatted for hours, finally assuaging the fear of a parent whose daughter now had a dog-head as a life partner.  
By that point, he had to take Hikari home, with no real opportunity to confess, even if Wizardmon wasn’t on her mind.
The third attempt was a no go from the beginning, Hikari had been sent into a rare, foul state.  All she wanted to do was eat ice-cream and rant, so they went to a dairy-bar overlooking the beach.
He’d let her vent when she wanted to vent, and when she was done he did what he did best: deflecting the conversation to some odd antics of Daisuke or his brother, anything to get her happy and cheerful again. Even after her mood had recovered, steering the conversation towards a confession felt like he might be taking advantage of her, or putting her on the spot somehow.
Cheering her up was reward enough, even as he paid for the forty-flavor super-jumbo, bottomless Sunday that they’d managed to make a liar out of.
(He’d eaten perhaps an eighth of it, there was no doubt in his mind that Hikari could have eaten the whole thing; but she at least wanted the plausible deniability to claim that he’d consumed half the calories.)
The fourth attempt was similarly doomed, he’d been too sick for school that day, and while Hikari had dropped by, he was too delirious to form a real confession, or for her to take any confession seriously.
The feel of her hand stroking his hear as she tended to him had been so heavenly though.  He couldn’t regret the experience.
By this point Takeru was convinced their Wednesday gatherings were cursed.  There was little reason Hikari would even see them as special.  And while he always enjoyed spending time with her, especially just the two of them, he was worried that regularity may dampen the splendor he’d initially been going for.
This week he requested to move their weekly hang out session to Saturday.  It would allow more time for them to be out at night, and thus more time for him to enact his perfect confession.  Hikari’s father was away on business, and her mother had already agreed to be rather lax on her daughter’s curfew.
His mother had not, but she would not punish him if he told her he was out on his first date, nor would she punish him after getting rejected, yet another reason he needed to actually spit it out today.
And it seemed all the stars were aligning, on top of her father being out of town: a photography exhibition at a local gallery was going for half price, and her favorite indie group were headlining a public concert at the beach until sundown.  Finally, there was a forecast for a clear, bright moon, and a local botanical garden was advertising a moonlit stroll through their flowers.
Hikari had agreed on one condition: they could wade through the shallows, but not do any real swimming at the beach.  It had seemed odd to Takeru at first, but the beach had been more about the free concert than seeing her in her swimsuit.
***
When Takeru arrived at the Yagami apartment he was stunned by the vision of beauty that graced him.  Hikari was wearing a strapless dress, black with accents of pink and white, that he’d never seen her in before.   Based on how high her head was coming up his body, she had to be wearing quite daring heels as well.
And her makeup had been done with so much precision and effort he had to wonder if perhaps Mimi had come back to town to help her.
“T-Takeru?” she asked, and he realized he must have been staring.
“I’m sorry, have you seen Hikari?  Brown hair, about yea tall,” he held his hand about three feet off the floor, “may have a family of ducklings following her around.”
“That was one time.” She scolded.
Takeru stood on his tip toes and moved one hand to sit above his eyes, like a visor.  “Hikari? Is that you?  Are you trapped behind this radiant goddess in front of me?”
A tell-tale pink infiltrated her cheeks as she turned around.  “It’s too much isn’t it?  I could still maybe change and-”
His hand shot out and grabbed her arm before she could escape. “You look perfect.” He said sincerely, pulling her in for a hug. “Besides, people at the exhibit will be expecting beauty and art.  They just may not be expecting the source.”
“You’re just saying that.” She deflected.
He wasn’t.
Takeru was not the same connoisseur of photography Hikari was.  When push comes to shove, he wasn’t sure anyone was the same connoisseur of photography Hikari was.  That said, he enjoyed exhibits well enough.  He liked to look at the pictures, and soak them in.  Try and memorize every detail to regurgitate later.  
Or occasionally, he would find a particular picture, and write a story in his head.  How had they gotten here, to this moment, what did picture mean to the squirrel which was the focus?  What was he doing immediately before?  How did this moment change his life?
Such joys eluded him today, instead his focus was solely on the brunette accompanying him.  The pictures only mattered in how they changed the expression on her face as she examined them.  
After exiting the gallery, there was still about an hour before the band started playing at the beach, they stopped for a bite to eat, and Takeru did his best to fake his way though her questions on the exhibition.
What was his favorite photo?  He named one on the left wall of the one she stared at for ten minutes, that had framed her head the whole time.  Why?  He made up some impromptu story he’d concocted about the scenery involved.  It won him a laugh from her as he turned the questions around.
When they got to the beach, Hikari replaced her heels with flat sandals she kept in her purse.  Takeru noted that he at least recognized the heels this time, unlike her dress, but he’d still never seen her wear them before.
Despite her insistence they not swim, (something Takeru now realized had to do with the amount of time she’d spent on her makeup,) hikari had instantly dragged him towards the water, to wade in the shallows.  They didn’t go much more than ankle deep, anymore and they risked getting hikari’s dress and his shorts wet, but it had been romantic nonetheless.
When the main act began to play, they collected their shoes and moved towards the stage, communications dampening as the speakers drowned out all sounds but the band on stage.
Takeru didn’t need words, the sight of Hikari, framed by the sunset, losing herself in the moment was more than enough for him.
It was twilight when the band’s ‘second encore’ had concluded and the crowd began to peter out.   There was a small ice-cream sack on the beach, and Hikari rarely turned down an opportunity for more of the frozen delight.
They talked about the concert, the waves on the beach, of everything and nothing all at once, until the residual light from the sun faded and the moon came in full force.  In the city like this, there was always a glow of artificial light, but it did not diminish Tsukuyomi’s splendor.
Meandering towards the botanical gardens, continuing their chatter about daily life.  Just outside Hikari stopped him, finding a bench to switch back from flats to heels, insisting it was more ‘proper’.  Takeru didn’t let her get away unscathed, suggesting that if she wanted to feel taller, stilts would be more appropriate.  She responded by playfully warning him that he may ‘wake up one day, two feet shorter’.
Neither comment had nearly as much effect as when the woman at the counter remarked on ‘What a beautiful date this would make’ and how she ‘wished her boyfriend had been so romantic at that age.’
Hikari’s face could be mistaken for a tomato, and Takeru adopted an uncharacteristic stutter as he paid their admission and ushered Hikari outside.
The woman’s words had a chilling effect, the natural conversation had all but dried up, replaced with subtle pleasantries and tepid remarks about the moonlit flowers.  Before long Hikari had her camera out, taking pictures of the various plant life, abandoning most conversation all together.
Was this it, had such a small, well-meaning action already cursed him?  Everything was going so well.  Was he a modern Sysphus?  Doomed to forever push himself up the hill of a relationship with Hikari only to fall down at the pinnacle and start all over?
“Takeru?” Hikari asked, snapping him out of his monologue, “Are you okay?”
“Fine.” Takeru replied “Just thinking.”
She grabbed his arm, pulling him towards a nearby bench. “Come on, let’s take a break, these shoes are killing me.”
“The price of fashion.” Takeru said sagely.
After they reached the bench, and Hikari had relieved herself of her footwear, they paused, focusing on some hydrangeas flow in the wind, accented by moon light.  A weight appeared on Takeru’s shoulder, where Hikari began to rest her head.
“Right now.” She said “This moment just feels so…perfect.”
Takeru took a deep breath.  He had the most wonderful girl on his arm, after spending nearly eight hours with her. “Yeah, perfect.”
A perfect moment.
It was unlikely a better opportunity would present itself.
“Hikari.” He said suddenly, just as she chimed in with his name. “Sorry,” they said in unison.
Her head pulled off his arm, quite disappointingly in his opinion, as she turned to face him.
“Ladies first.” Takeru said “I insist.”  She gave him a soft look, knowing that he wouldn’t let her win this one.
 “Okay.” She started “This last month, has just been so wonderful, so amazing.  I know I’m not the most experienced with this, and I know we haven’t really put a name on it, but it’s still been like something out of a novel.  I guess I should expect that from you.”
She had begun to look down, rummaging through her purse, as takeru tried to sort out exactly what she was talking about.  Had it already been a month since they started these ‘friend-dates?’
Hikari continued obliviously, “It’s not much, especially since you seem to do all the planning, but I thought you’d like it.” She pulled out a tightly-wrapped box. “Happy  one-month anniversary.”
Ani-what?
Dates rolled back in his head as he began to piece things together; the dress, the makeup, the heels, those were all for him?  Had she always been considering these less friend-dates and more dates-dates?
And he, in a move of pure coincidence, had moved this week’s date to Saturday, one month to the day of that first date, and even asked her mother for permission to stay out late.
Takeru did the only thing he could think of in the moment.
He laughed.
“Tak-Takeru?” she asked, and he could already sense fear and hesitation begin to well up within her as she saw her (boyfriend?) laugh at her anniversary gift.  He grabbed her and pulled her into a hug to dissuade any doubts.
“Happy anniversary,” he said when his hysterics died down.  “One month, I’ve been trying to confess for a month, and you hit me with that.”
“Wait, confess?” Hiakri said, begging a laugh of his own that quickly spread to Takeru.  “All this time and you didn’t even think we were dating?  You completely stopped flirting with everyone else.  Did you really think I didn’t…”
“We’re quite the pair, aren’t we?” Takeru teased in response.
“Yeah,” Hikari agreed. “Well, if you finally managed to confess after all that, maybe I can do something I’ve been too scared to do for the last month.”
Takeru looked down at her, “What would that be?” he asked leaning in close.
“This.” She pressed her lips against his.
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gossipchii · 5 years
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Stepping down
FF.net link: here
Characters: Takenouchi Sora and Ishida Yamato
Pairing: Sorato
Words: 800-ish.
Notes: After the ‘To Sora’ short came out I knew I would end up writing something like this. So, I did.
Enjoy!
“I didn’t think you would come,” she had seen him enter the exhibition a few minutes back, but she had been so busy presenting her flower arrangement that she hadn’t been able to say hi.
“I know how much this means to you… and to your mom.” He was wearing his leather jacket casually on one shoulder, it was almost annoying how casually good-looking Yamato was. “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”
“But you guys have been fighting-“
“Again, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” he smiled, one of those Ishida smiles Sora liked to think were exclusive for her. “You haven’t been replying to the group chat.”
Sora broke the eye contact, pretending to clean a spot on the table that was perfectly fine.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she lied, and Sora was the worst liar. Everyone else could give a white lie here or there, but to Sora it was physically impossible to lie. It gave her stomachaches, and they were just starting.
“You know you can talk to me, right?” and she knew he was right, but it still felt like a thousand cuts in her heart. Sure, she had talked to Mimi about her intentions on not wanting to fight anymore, but it had been through the phone, it wasn’t the same.
And she didn’t want to take credit out of Piyomon, her partner had been her biggest support for years, and knowing that she was okay with her decision about not joining the fights anymore made her feel in peace.
But she hadn’t faced any of her friends, and that included Yamato right there. She was being gullible to believe they wouldn’t notice her sudden disappearance from the group chat, she wasn’t the biggest chatter, but she placed a thumbs up here and there. They would notice she was ignoring them sooner or later.
And here was the sooner, with beautiful blue eyes, wondering what was occupying her mind. She hadn’t even replied when her eyes started filling up with tears and Yamato could only take her backstage from the exhibition, he knew Sora well enough to know how much she hated attention. They would be better talking somewhere they could be alone.
He held her, letting her cry as much as she needed. If Yamato knew something about Sora was how much she liked being in silence, in a safe space where she didn’t feel like she was being judged. Yamato could sometimes be distracted, but he had noticed Sora had been distant-- not only from the group chat, but ever since the problems with the Digital World had begun… again.
When the tears had finally het her talk, she looked up at him. There was something about Yamato’s eyes that on first sight could seem intimidating, but when you got to know them, they were the warmest thing she could think of. They made her feel safe, they made her feel understood.
“I don’t think I want to fight anymore…” it was a mere whisper, but clear enough so she didn’t have to repeat it. Sora was surprised with herself; she didn’t expect to cut the drama and go straight to how she felt. “After everything that happened with Meicoomon I don’t think I’m able to keep fighting I’m just…”
She held Yamato’s wrists tightly, her legs felt weaker than moments before. She remembered being hit against the hard and cold ice by Machinedramon, she remembered thinking she was about to die. She had been in many fights before, but never had she felt that helpless. Five years had passed, and even if she had gone with a therapist, rekindled with tennis and done everything she was supposed to do to get over a trauma, it hadn’t felt real until the Digimon attacks restarted.
“I’m so tired.” Yamato could see the pain in Sora’s eyes. They (the rest of the Chosen Children) didn’t really talk about the traumas from the battles, it was like the elephant in the room, and it hurt to see her suffering like that. He held her again, and even if Sora wasn’t crying anymore —tears may have left her body—, it was nice to feel her breathing against his chest, her heart beating alongside his.
“You don’t have to fight if you don’t want to.” He stated after a few more minutes in silence, he felt her nodding. “We understand… I understand,” Sora lifted her gaze to meet his again, and with his thumb, Yamato cleaned up the last tears running through her cheek.
“Do you want to see my flower arrangement?” She said with innocence, after she had calmed down. Yamato couldn’t hide his sudden blush. He nodded.
Six flowers in the colors of everyone’s crests. Yamato smiled, widely, the kind of smiles he only had once in a full moon. He understood Sora had stepped down from fighting, but she hadn’t stepped down from being a Chosen Children. That would always be in her heart.
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tsumiscribe · 7 years
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Guys, I’m SO STOKED -- I found out this exhibit was happening (thanks to a random Tumblr post) EXACTLY when I’m going to be in Tokyo.  My travel-partner (And fellow Digimon fan) was able to get her Local friend to grab tickets for us on May 5th.  GUYS, I AM GOING TO THIS EXHIBITION, THE HYPE IS REAL!  I’m gonna take all the pictures to share <3
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twitchesandstitches · 6 years
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HS Humans in Crossthicc - Descriptions!
The humans themselves, along with my headcanons for how they look here. In general, the post-scratch humans are the older generation, from 5 to 10 years older than the pre-scratch humans:
Jane Egbert: She was originally called Jane Crocker, but she has no wish to be associated with Crockercorp, nor her position as the Condesces’ legal heir. Polynesian, a definite BBW and a very strongfat build, she stands more than ten feet tall and is a walking tank and her powers function as this, making her a living wall that ignores all damage and heals what does get through. Crockertier cybernetics are imbedded through her, glowing blue and making her a very obvious cyborg. Likes to use a combat gourmand fork that can turn into a spoon, and she fancies herself a gourmand when it comes to foes. She tends to use her healing powers to restore people to health as a combat medic.
She started the army of chefs that keeps the fleet fed, and wrote up the principles of agriculture and livestock they follow to this day. She’s since become one of the heads of a corporation-analogue called the Carnival Bazaar; the fleet’s source of wealth, where they sell their goods as they travel from world to world. She’s less a CEO and more of an HR department head who keeps people stabilized and counseled, but in practice she runs the whole thing. She’s very close with Steven Universe, the two of them dating from time to time, and they’ve had many children together.
She is clearly mutated with troll mods; her blood is tinted faintly fuchsia, and she has a few mutations indicating her troll-themed genetic mix. She and Feferi are quite close, and the latter is responsible for stabilizing some of Jane’s complications.
John Egbert: A cheerful and helpful guy, and very tiny, standing below five feet tall. Polynesian, chubby, and incredibly solid for it with muscle. He drifts from ship to ship, going wherever he pleases, and proves to be popular wherever he goes and does his best to keep everyone happy. He’s extremely fast and mobile, and surprisingly destructive in a straight fight, using massive hammers bigger than he is.
Dated Vriska at some point and they’re still very close. No one is sure how the size difference was coped with but he doesn’t seem to mind being totally dominated by extremely large women.
Dirk Strider: Mechanics expert, roboticist, and key engineer in both shipcraft and mech maintenance, though he declines to actually pilot them. Aboriginal, a bit shorter than average (5’6), and has that bishounen ‘thin but pretty and fit’ look. His powers allow him to effect magic directly, and the soul directly; damaging their essence, or turning heroic spirit into raw damage. It gives him a great insight into creating AI, which led to the creation of  his… son? Brother? Something? Anyway, that’s where Li’l Hal came from.
Prefers not to put himself out there and likes being a support guy. “I don’t want to be the guy to kill the bad guy. I want to make the weapon that kills the bad guy.”
Dave Strider: Studies monsters of all kinds, and is a forensic expert and coroner. He also does part time in one of the many bands the fleet does in their flirtation with being cosmic pop stars. He doesn’t like fighting, but he exhibits absolutely absurd speed related to his growing powers of time travel. Aboriginal, smaller than Dirk (5’4), and on the plump side. MILFs of all kinds gravitate straight towards him in a ‘oh, you POOR Dear…!” way. He is the father of many children now, having a huge weakness for gentle, protective mom-types.
Roxy Lalonde: one of the fleet’s head scientists, heavily influential in their alchemizer program, and loves messing with bio mods for fun. Her playful demeanor hides how frighteningly smart she is, and she loves messing with people on account of it. (NOT an alcoholic of any sort here, either.) When she is involved in fighting, she uses high-powered rifles and does sniper duty. Indian, a classic hyper curvy hourglass and about seven and a half feet tall. She can manifest objects out of raw magic, but this takes a lot of work and requires her to understand them in and out. Has a lot of cat-themed mods that sometimes give her pink fur, a tail, cat ears, and functional claws.
A true mom friend to everyone around her, Roxy is a sweet and good-natured person who loves helping people and being a Science Hero FOR GREAT JUSTICE; she’s very passionate about what the fleet does, and actively encourages everyone to be more proactively heroic. She fears that she has a tendency towards addiction, and is compelled to mass produce children whenever she has the chance, with the possibility that she has an integrated alchemizer to ‘produce’ items herself through her powers.
Rose Lalonde: Expert in magical power and theory, specializing in arcane magic, but she also has channeled power from mysterious eldritch entities that are nonetheless apparently benign. They have left their mark on her; while she looks human if she concentrates, in her true form she is a monstrous eldritch monster girl, with tentacles for legs, glowing multiple rows of white eyes, and immense spookiness. Probably at least Roxy’s height, but can be a lot bigger as she powers up. Hard to say how her powers will interface in the AU, but she is certainly an EXTREMELY powerful magic user, on par with a D&D Warlock, and takes a methodical, experimental approach to her powers. Indian, pear-shaped, with very large hips, massive butt, thick tentacles, and large breasts. She tends to favor more inhuman mods, for more multiple… well, everything if she wants it. Her weapons of choice are a pair of deadly wands that channel her magic, and can stab really well too.
Rose is deeply spooky to a lot of people, and she enjoys unsettling others. She gets annoyed that John, Dave and the others don’t fall for it so much anymore. She has a close romance with Kanaya, whom she has had many children with, and they enjoy a mutual spooky aesthetic of eldritch/vampire goodness. She is deeply fascinated by the mystery of what happened in the ancient cataclysm, and has resolved to solve it.
Jake Harley: An explorer and famous fleet scout, often flying off on his own to report on new worlds and see if there is first contact to be made. Able to channel optimism and happiness into raw destructive power over a period of time, he’s situationally very powerful, but tends to be a glass cannon, easily taken out once he Does The Thing. He’s First Nations, and a massive super-cute beefcake of a man; he flexes and people thank him. Likes to use a pair of customized pistol-lasers that channel his powers. About seven feet tall. He may have some genuine angelic essence in him, which can be very spooky.
Jade Harley: A monstrously big and obscenely powerful amazon, so heavily modded that she looks like a werewolf girl even when not monsterized. Her heart has been replaced with an infinite energy generator, she calls it the green sun,, and it is powered by her own resolve, and she uses it to channel a wide variety of technologies secretly fueled by her own powers. She can alter space in many ways; shrinking herself and others, growing herself and others, opening portals, or unleashing incredibly destructive blasts of green energy. She is obscenely powerful, and one of the fleet’s heaviest hitters, bar none. She can even channel it into herself, giving her immense strength or size. She is First Nations, standing… however big she wants, but often over twelve feet high. Muscular and amazonian, she has absolutely enormous curves but focuses on gigantic breasts. Her canine mods are advanced enough that she has furry skin, canine features, and can generally pass as a low-level beastwoman. One of her favorite alternate forms is a dogtaur form. Jade turns Grimbark whenever she uses enough power, but this is more of a super mode, not a bad thing, and she just becomes a lot more aggressive and domineering.
Working heavily in the science departments, Jade is a major leader in the fleet, and a powerful witch as well. She takes a more carefree approach to her magic, doing whatever seems like an intriguing idea for her spells; an artist, to Rose’s technician. She is one of the most prominent human characters here, and her raw power is simply awe inspiring. She’s very sweet, if prone to sassiness and a short temper. She’s rather dominant with boys, too.
Joey Harley: She has no conflict with Jake here, so did not take another name out of spite. A talented dancer and xenopsychologist, she prefers to do ‘real work’ and research, but enjoys dancing and regularly demonstrates her skills at the fleet’s clubs. She is First Nation, with a bulk similar to Jade’s but slimmer, with smaller breasts; instead most of her curve mass is in her cybernetically enhanced legs, which are absurdly powerful. Her kicks are very strong, she can leap great distances, and she augments them further with special weaponized shoes with built-in cannons. Nine feet tall.
Jude Harley: A self-proclaimed strategist and existential threat theorist, he is deeply worried about the threats that the Ringers have supposedly seen, and organizes a group of people who are trying to figure it out as well. He otherwise works in the Zoo, the facility where the pet monsters, summon creatures, and powerlink beasts are cared for, and he happily tends towards the avian ones. He’s made a lot of friends with Flying-type Pokemon and avian Digimon as well. Built on broadly the same lines as Jake but shorter (a little under seven foot) and very softly built.
Li’l Hal: Dirk’s robotic offspring, and while an AI, he can upload himself into robotic bodies as he pleases. He and Dirk have a very complicated relationship, and with being often subject to harassment, oppression and worse by humans, he has a very negative attitude towards organics in general from sheer spite. He’s warmed up a bit since joining the fleet… to just being instantly suspicious of anyone outside the fleet. He’s in sincere love with Jane and Roxy, but doesn’t seem to realize it. He’s quite close with the other robots of the fleet, idolizing the Dinobots as liberators of robotkind, and wishes to one day upload into a Cybertronian frame.
Unexpectedly, he has his own share of unusual abilities unrelated to whatever body he is using. This appears to be related to soul-themed abilities; he can weaponize the essence of genuinely living beings, or tear organics apart at the very soul. While Dirk can destroy in ways he can’t Hal’s actual combat powers are superior to Dirk’s.
Squarewave and Sawtooth: Hal’s robot brothers, and performers in the fleet’s various bands, pop groups, metalheads, and other musical interests. Both of them are loyal to Dirk and are generally considered legally Striders, and think Hal needs to calm down on the ‘meatbags are out to GET US’ front. Squarewave uses destructive sonic attacks… by yelling really, really loud, and comes off as an earnest kid brother. Sawtooth, on the other hand, is just plain cool, everyone wishes they were as cool as that. It must be a Strider thing. He employs integrated weaponry and sonic weapons, often narrating his actions in musical form and working it into his performance.
The Consorts: A wide variety of strange creatures Roxy and Jade created, producing happy little creatures modeled after the canon consorts, and they seem happy to act as servants to the fleet as a whole, bustling in and tidying up or serving people, washing people in the communal baths, and so forth. The fleet tried to get them to be more independent and less servile, but they refused to listen, so they’re just left to their own cheerful devices.
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odaibamemorial · 7 years
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15 May 2017
Returned to Odaiba accompanied by the same friend who I first visited there (and Hikarigaoka) back in March 2008, and his new wife. We also went to see the Digimon: The Real World exhibition.
Counting my blessings every day! Ears trained for Bolero in the ferris wheel. I guess we'll never know for sure whether Bolero was in Digimon Adventure because it plays in the ferris wheel...or whether Bolero plays in the ferris wheel because of Digimon Adventure.
We stayed at the Hilton; I wanted them to have a really nice experience for their first day in Japan. The Hilton (formerly the Hotel Nikko Tokyo, which is what you'll see on the front-page map) is where I stayed for my breathtaking view of Tokyo Bay over Christmas 2009, and of course it didn't disappoint this time, either. We did Joypolis, a walk on the promenade in front of Palette Town, the Daikanransha, DECKS' boardwalk and FujiTV. Only one night before we moved on to new digs in Ikebukuro, but a fun side-venture.
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tokupedia · 7 years
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How to invest in Tokusatsu Part 2: The List
Toei Co. LTD
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Ticker #: TYO 9605
Dividend (Late 2017): 0.45 USD per share
Dividend Yield (Late 2017): 0.05%
Price: $105-106 USD (Late 2017)
Licenses: Super Sentai, Kamen Rider, Metal Heroes, various heroes created by Shotaro Ishinomori, Sailor Moon, Pretty Cure.
Toei is massive in terms of what cards it has on the table. Name a popular anime in the past 10-20 years and there is roughly a 7 out of 10 chance it came from this studio’s animation department.  Even Gen X American childhood favorites like Muppet Babies came from this studio’s animation department. Aside from that, they are the film and TV production company of Super Sentai, the original source material for Saban’s Power Rangers series, as well as Super Sentai’s older sister series Kamen Rider. Both are beloved staples of Japanese pop culture that make Toei some serious bank. If not for people like Shotaro Ishinomori, this company would not be known as the crown jewel of Japanese superhero media.
The downside is Toei isn’t cheap for some, 105 bucks is a lot to ask for. But it is justified as it is one of the most successful international animation studios outside of Disney and has made cult live action hits like Battle Royale.
The company as a whole has: Real estate, animation and live action film and television production, movie theaters, home video distribution (V-Cinemas and Hyper Battle Videos being an example), internet streaming content distribution, film studios for developing movies for clients, a high tech film R&D department, a Feudal Japan theme park (which many period piece shows or scenes use for filming). They also hold art exhibitions, stage shows and have a global marketing firm so people like Mr. Saban can get Toei licensed properties for international television.
Toho Co. LTD.
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Ticker #: TYO 9602
Dividend (Late 2017): 0.11 USD per share
Dividend Yield (Late 2017): 0.73%
Price: 33 USD (Late 2017)
Product: Godzilla, Mothra and various popular Kaiju characters. The now defunct Chouseishin series.
The House of Godzilla is a proud company that dates back to the early 20th century and one of the most respected Japanese film studios in Hollywood thanks to being one of the studios that supported the projects of film legend Akira Kurosawa.
As far as what it does, Toho has its own chain of movie theaters, an animation studio division that makes popular hits like My Hero Academia, a TV production company, Real estate, a movie studio, a theatrical play production studio and film production and special effects studios. They also hold the film distribution rights to many popular anime such as the globally beloved Pokemon series which gives them a slight edge on the competition. In recent years, Toho is adapting to the times in a good way by reviving Godzilla on the big screen and expanding into the market of online streaming/sales distribution. This has resulted in great financial growth in the past 2 years that could go on if Godzilla’s box office takes for both the Japanese and US film series continue and further expansion into the internet through digital distribution and partnerships with licensing to companies like Netflix. Proof that the King of Monsters can still pack a mighty roar!
Bandai Namco Group
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Ticker #: TYO 7832 
Dividend (Late 2017): 0.11 USD per share
Dividend Yield (Late 2017): 0.62%
Price (Late 2017): 34-35 USD per share Lowest price in 2017 was 27 USD
Owns: Digimon and various video game franchises, has partial ownership of Ishimori Productions though absorbing a large money sharehold of that company in 2007 (Ishimori Pro is still family operated though through Akira Onodera). 
Toy Licenses: Seemingly Almost EVERYTHING UNDER THE SUN. Star Trek, Marvel, DC, Ultraman, WWE, Dragon Ball Z, Kamen Rider, Super Sentai, Metal Heroes, Sailor Moon, Gundam etc.
Easily the largest behemoth in Japan’s toy industry and now owner of the company that made Pac-Man among other things, Bandai is only spared from being compared to a maniacal corporate super villain in terms of power by having its global competitors live in harmony with it. 
It produces in toy manufacturing of various types including model kits, DX toys, card games, premium collectibles, stuffed animals, Sofubi, electronic toys and video games. It also owns a few theme parks, manufactures arcade game cabinets, makes movies, TV and music, owns a trucking company, has a bakery to sell seasonal food stuffs online to customers, gashapon vending machines, clothing...They also own the famed animation studio Sunrise and have their own media distribution network. Yeah, Bandai is scary big! 
However, that large amount of corporate product diversity and business means potentially that Bandai is stable and safe in most situations. If one falters, another could spring Bandai’s finances back on its feet. Bandai has recently expanded its global operations by opening a Premium website in the USA to sell adult collectible toys directly to customers online. So there is definitely growth potential!
Tohokushinsha Film Corporation
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Ticker #: TYO 2329
Dividend (Late 2017): 0.14 USD per share
Dividend Yield (Late 2017): 2.52%
Price (Late 2017): 6.79 USD
Product: The Garo Series
Tohokushinsha Film Corporation or TFC for short is the distributor of the Garo Series. While Garo creator Keita Amemiya has his own studio, Crowd Inc., to produce the show, it is a private company with no stock investments. So the best way to invest in Garo is to support TFC. While Garo is the thing they are most proud of, TFC’s core business is being a film dubbing house for Hollywood movies, taking the dialogue and translating it so the moviegoers in Japan can understand what the heck people like Harrison Ford are saying in their own language. Its other core business is film archiving and storage.
Owning TFC includes these sectors: TV/film production, special effects studios, Marketing firms, TV commercial ad companies, Cable TV (red flag!), Supermarkets, a furniture store chain, a beauty salon chain, a brewery, anime production, moichandising sales and home video sales. They also have a licensing firm in Los Angeles, CA called Cente Service (which presumably is how Kraken Releasing got the rights to those shiny Blu-Rays of Garo Season 1!). 
TFC is cheap compared to the others. But cheaper stocks below $10 always have higher risk in some capacity depending on company performance, so be careful!
Shochiku LTD.
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Ticker #:TYO 9601
Dividend: 0.26 USD per share  (Does not make payments quarterly)
Dividend Yield: 0.35%
Price: 150 USD
What you are Toku investing in: Ultraman films
Shochiku is the toughest of the film studios in Japan, as it has been around since 1895!  Don’t believe me? This one Kabuki theater company turned film studio has survived the following: the end of the Meiji Era, World War II, US occupation, several earthquakes, changing technology, and stared down a near bankruptcy without even flinching. You know you have something special when a 122 year old company is still profitable and still growing. While they now focus on movies and media, Shochiku did not abandon their heritage as the Kabuki theater company that built it is still in operation, now expanded to doing other stage plays. Their core film business is Samurai movies, dramas and action/crime dramas
Shochiku owns movie theaters, a music record company, a film studio, an anime production unit, several stage theater companies including a costume department, real estate, restaurants, home video distribution, TV broadcasting etc. They also hold the rights to film distribution of the Ultraman movies.
Stock is a bit pricier, but it has had decent growth the past 3 years. 
Takara Tomy Co.
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Ticker #: TYO 7867
Dividend: 0.12 USD per share
Dividend Yield: 0.72%
Price: 16 USD per share
Owns: The Tomica Hero series, Transformers (co-partnership with Hasbro), Tomica toy cars
Takara Tomy is a famed toy brand thanks to the popularity of its products like Transformers and Beyblade. Recently, the company threw their hats back into the TV tokusatsu ring by making the magical girl series Idol x Warriors Miracle Tunes to compete with Bandai/Toei’s Pretty Cure Series.
While beloved, the grim shadow of Japan’s declining birth rate is making investors wary of Takara Tomy as their target demographic is younger kids. This leaves them in a very vulnerable position if Japan’s birth rate screeches to a complete halt, as no new babies means no future toddlers or preschoolers to ask parents to buy their products like PlaRail. Another blow to them recently is the loss of their long running Pokemon toy license to a rival company which will start selling their own toys in 2018. 
Some meanspirited money men are even speculating Hasbro will just buy out Takara’s ownership of Transformers and ditch the remains if they sink. However, not all is gloom and doom as things seem to be doing better this year. Time will tell if this toy company, one half of which is one of the oldest toy manufacturers in Japan, will endure. In the meantime, give it some love so maybe we can get the Tomica Hero series back! (holding a large amount of stocks gives you voting power over who leads the company after all!)
Takara Tomy’s main business is of course toy manufacturing. It also deals in the making of baby products, children’s books, video games, gashapon toys, candies and various other youth marketed goods and apparel. 
Sony
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NYSE Ticker: SNE
Price: $44.81 per share (11/4/17)
Dividend: 9 cents USD
Yield: 0.40%
Owns: Funimation, therefore indirectly owns the distribution rights to the Garo anime.
Now, I know what you are thinking. Sony? Well, yeah. Given a very recent event, this counts. See just a week ago, Sony officially bought Funimation. And Funimation had a deal with MAPPA to buy the streaming rights to the Garo animes. Plus, Funimation was in the middle of simulcasting Infini-T Force when it happened! In addition, the company is a major partner with Bandai and Ishimori Pro in making Kamen Rider video games for its Playstation family of game consoles like the hotly anticipated Climax Fighters game.
The company is often overlooked for bigger tech stocks like Apple, but they are so much more than a video game company. In addition to consumer electronics, the Sony corporation has a movie studio (which is debated in merit due to the quality of some of their productions) a TV studio in LA that produces shows and beloved TV game show staples Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy, an animation studio and that is just the visual media part. 
They have semiconductor manufacturing plants, record labels and music distribution, Networking, medical firms, insurance, banking, telecommunications, advertising....In short, Sony is one of the most diverse businesses in the entire world and a worthy addition to a portfolio.
And now one NOT to invest in...
Fields Corp.
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Ticker #:TYO 2767
Dividend: ???
Yield: 2.62%
Owns: Part of Tsuburaya Productions, the company that makes Ultraman. Also has a stake in HEROS, the manga magazine that distributes the Infini-T force, ULTRAMAN and Kamen Rider Kuuga manga.
As of this year...this stock is not worth your time. Fields is in trouble right now as the reports of its financials indicate a hard time. The company has lost a big chunk of its yearly income. It is in the negative in terms of debt in some areas and it is reporting major losses. Its primary business is Pachinko machines.
Figures, a company that invests on gambling would go down this year!
So there you have it, places you can support tokusatsu in the world of finance!
I know this was probably boring, but I promise the next post will be fun! 
Note: This data is from November of 2017 and may not reflect future financial data. 
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My Friend has been Falsely Accused of Tracing So I Will Defend Him
Okay I accidentally deleted the blog I posted this one because I’m a dumbass, so I’ll just repost it here even though I don’t use this blog anymore, but apparently I still have followers. Bless caches because I was able to get this back from google caches so I don’t have to retype everything. I added further evidence and refutes to claims that were not in my original post btw.
Anyways, I am making this post to help out my good friend @5ru9 aka Falco who has been recently accused of tracing/copy pasting other people’s / official art!
I’ve known Falco for over 3 years, and we’ve grown as artists together. Once in a while we give each other advice on art (thanks for the mech and armor advice and teaching me how you line and color!), but most of the time we just meme each other.
Anyways, a lot of people have pointed out that they’ve seen him livestream before, and he’s already posted some of his block outs and other wips as proof that he does not trace in his post here:
http://5ru9.tumblr.com/post/168277137427/hello-i-have-been-informed-about-a-callout-post
To further prove his claim with solid evidence, I shall present to you!
Times he’s asked for advice on his art, or I randomly decided to mention things I notice in his WIPs!
Exhibit A-1:
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A Tenkai Knight he made up! I pointed out a few things I thought were awkward about the perspective in his WIP.
Exhibit A-2:
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He started working on this way back in July and didn’t finish it until much later because he was working on several other pieces at the same time. I suggested lowering the eyebrows and drawing the eyes a bit narrower to get more of the playful expression he was aiming for. In his final piece here, you can see that Falco continued to refine the piece.
By the way! The reason he sometimes posts a lot of detailed artworks one shortly after the other is because he sometimes works on multiple pieces at once! And then finishes coloring them around the same time.
Exhibit A-3
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Falco and I spent good time trying to figure out why he felt like something was wrong with his sketch! I thought maybe it was the trapezius and I decided to red line (or blue line i guess) it so it’d be easier for him to see approximately where i thought the line should go to fix it.
Exhibit A-4:
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The gif-ing process turned white bg into blue… anyways! Falco showed me an early version of his Tenkai Knights OC that he eventually used in an April Fool’s joke to pass off as a new character in the series. He mastered the tenkai style enough that at first glance, people really did believe it was official! Like you had to get a good look to realize Shiyu was not really a real new character! Btw I had to go into my old twitter acc to find this…. (Edit: the gif wasn’t working bc it was too big so i had to make it smaller… and choppier and stuff to fit the mb max)
Well now that brings us into!!!
Exhibit B
Some of his old art!! (I’m so sorry falco i’ll be exposing your ancient art to ppl now)
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Here you can see his progress from 2014 Tenkai fan art to early 2015! It starts looking more and more like the official art, which is what he was going for.
For reference, here’s what the character Ceylan Jones/Washizaki looks like:
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I blocked out fan art by everyone except falco (which i marked) that shows up in this google search. Everything else is official art. The two fan arts by falco you see here are more recent, the angel one being from 2016 and the chicken one from 2017 (i think he also made a version with sonic instead of the chicken? lol). They’re both on his dA accounts btw! The 2017 one really looks like official art, doesn’t it? But it’s his artwork! He practiced a LOT to reach that point, and I hope the earlier arts I showed above this one are enough to convince you in his art progression! Side note: i only used images w/ceylan because 1. i’m biased because ceylan is my favorite character and 2. he drew ceylan a lot because ceylan is his favorite character Also you can see his handle change from s3iwashi to burningbraven. 5ru9 is is a pretty recent handle.
ANYONE WHO HAS BEEN IN THE TENKAI FANDOM FOR A WHILE CAN VOUCH FOR HIM!!!!!
And now for the last one,
Exhibit C
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WHAT? WHO IS THIS???
This is my favorite character from a Chinese series called AOTU World! His name is Grey, or 格瑞。I commissioned Falco to draw Grey for me, and let me tell you it would be IMPOSSIBLE for him to have copied any of this. Why? Because the donghua is 3D and the manhua’s art is very inconsistent!
Let me show you the reference pictures I gave him to work with!
They’re all in my gdrive folder here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1CqwH5KS-pHX0ZqLHQpoIZBi6W-gsU_Tz
This is all official art from the manhua, except the 3D model is from the donghua. Look at how inconsistent the references are! There’s no way he could have copy and pasted or traced this! Grey doesn’t even do this particular pose anywhere. lol. I told Falco “give him a cool sword pose”. (I’m sorry for being so vague, Falco! But it turned out great!!) The style he ended up drawing in was a mixture of all of them.
Btw!! here’s the blockout and the sketch he sent me before I sent my payment for the commission!! You can see his construction in the block out!! The arm construction and leg construction is light, but it’s there. You can also see the block out below the sketch. Notice he actually fixed the leg length from block out -> sketch?
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ARGUMENTS AGAINST SPECIFIC ACCUSATIONS
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LOOK, thte actual drawing doesn’t even match the sprites that closely. Pay attention to the collar especially. The whole frankensteining the image and then painting over it thing is just way more effort than drawing it himself. They don’t even match that well in the overlays. Like wow it’s such a crime to try and stay on model.
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WHO WOULD EVEN NEED TO TRACE A MOUTH LIKE THAT? IT’S SO EASY TO DRAW. I CAN DRAW IT PERFECTLY JUST BY LOOKING AT IT. (well i AM an animator so I also do style mimicking)
Doesn’t the fact that you have to edit the sprites to match his artwork prove that you’re just a tryhard in making up fake evidence and not a tryhard enough at art since you think it’s so impossible for people to draw characters on model?
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Yes he referenced the broom and possibly the heels from this image, but your overlays for the leg and arms are disingenuous and you know it. The leg positions are different, and the overlay doesn’t even match up. Face tracing also makes no sense. You literally stretched the mouth to try and make it fit but it still doesn’t fit. Do you really think it’s that hard to draw mouths and eyes in the DR style? DR faces are really simple to emulate. Also you fool, if you follow Falco’s artwork enough, you’d realize the way he draws bodies is actually rather consistent even as he does different styles. Especially when it comes to hands. His way of drawing hands is how I recognize his art and know right away it’s his art and not official art or a trace (also his coloring style). The heels he drew are also reminiscient of how he typically draws shoes/feet. he draws them bulkier. The other art has dainty heels. At most he referenced how backside works because he’s used to drawing sneakers.
Also come on, if all you referenced from an image was a broom because you liked the style (his is also clearly drawn by himself since you can’t overlay it on the other one. like i said he mostly used the style as a reference for how-to-broom) and you referenced pieces from many other images, are you going to list every single thing you referenced? While yeah it’d be nice to, it’s a little ridiculous to expect all 5-20 references whenever they post the image. It’s a thing where, if someone asks, you’d tell them, but it’s too much to list all of it. This isn’t a 20 page thesis.
If it’s such a crime, then holy shit sue all those people who parody other people’s comics and sue everyone who dares!!! to ever draw something remotely similar to someone else. Dang.
Art doesn’t live in a vacuum.
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Okay, this one is just plain stupid. You distorted the sprite to match it up with his, but what would be the point for him to distort it just to trace? Also if he traced, can you explain the rest of the fingers that are drawn nicely but clearly different from the sprite? Also the thumbs don’t even match up. His faces more downward while the sprite is facing more forward. Also explain the turned body in Falco’s sketch, then!! And the hair! OH WAIT YOU CAN’T EXPLAIN IT BY ANY OTHER WAY THAN HE DREW IT HIMSELF!!! BECAUSE NO SPRITES MATCH IT AND YOU CAN’T FIND ANY SPRITES TO DISTORT ENOUGH TO EVEN GET CLOSE TO MAKING FAKE EVIDENCE FOR IT.
By the way, the style he drew it in is closer to the drv3 than this sprite. while it’s pretty much the same style as the older games, drv3′s art is more refined than the older games. Falco’s art is also more refined as you can see. (wow not only did falco’s art improved from back when we first met; even professional artists improve. shocker. /s)
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Dude what the hell? The overlays don’t even match up even ifi you tried to frankenstein them. And these are really common poses at really common angles, and once again, must every single thing we reference from be listed in the description of every place we post an image? Let me just list all 30 videos and 50 images i used as reference for one of my prints. jfc.
As for the saihara animation based on the digimon opening animation? It was pretty clear to everyone that it’s some kind of parody. Many people when making parody animations don’t mention the original video either?? It’s a fun thing for fans of the franchise to recognize the reference themselves. Yes he could have said it was the digimon opening on the description, but at least he didn’t say he thought of the idea himself? And if you talk to him about the animation, he will openly tell you it’s from digimon. And the fact that you think it’s a trace despite how much the overlays do NOT work out is practically proof that you’re just doing this maliciously and hoping that saying he traces enough with shoddy evidence will make people believe you.
ALSO PEOPLE LITERALLY TRACE ANIMATIONS TO MAKE PARODIES OF, DOWN THE STYLE WHERE ALL THEY CHANGE IS THE HAIR AND OUTFIT, AND YET SOMETHING WITH DIFFERENCES EVEN DOWN TO THE STYLE LIKE THIS IS SOMETHING YOU THINK IS A TRACE? Do you need a new pair of glasses?
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I was gonna ignore this one because it was the same as a lot of the others, but you literally erased Falco’s face line so it would match the sprite, and you covered the bigger boobs Falco gave her, and totally ignored that the angle doesn’t even match properly. Like you covered parts of his sketch in your overlay just to make it look more like it matches, but if you actually fucking overlayed it correctly, even with squashing it, it won’t fit. (Also sorry to point this out Falco, but the circles on your goggle lenses are too small compared to the sprite; Maybe if you actually traced like this person claims you’re doing, they’d be perfectly like the sprite. OH BUT WAIT YOU DREW IT YOURSELF SO OF COURSE THERE’S SOME DIFFERENCES. JUST LIKE HOW EVEN THOUGH ALL YOUR OTHER WORKS ARE REALLY CLOSE TO THE STYLE AND PRETTY MUCH ON MODEL, THEY’RE NOT EXACTLY THE SAME WITH THE SPRITES! SHOCKER...!)
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HOLY FUCK. I already pointed out and gave evidence that Falco started on the Nier Automata drawing waaaaaaay before he posted the actual picture. The 2 sketches are sketches! They don’t take a super long time. I busted out 10 inktobers in 1 day. (thumbnails of my artwork below)
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Look I even even lined and colored 5 fairly detailed chibis in 1 day (i did the sketches earlier though. btw i hand drew the plaid on ray. it was annoying)
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At the moment I have 5 wips. They’ll likely all be done around the same time. I know Falco often has multiple wips as well, and sometimes he also finishes some of them close to each other. Some artists (like my friend Fish) can pump out extremely detailed paintings in less than a day. WOW some artists can draw at a fairly fast rate. WHO KNEW? (manga artists in weekly magazines pump out 15-20 pages of manga in a week)
He’s still developing a style; he’s mostly doing style mimics of series he likes in the mean time.
At the moment he’s mostly experimenting with the drv3 style, but he was practicing p5 earlier. By the way, he DESIGNED a phantom outfit for mishima. Who the heck would he copy that from? He made it up because he loved mishima and wanted to make him part of the gang in some AU fan art. Mishima doesn’t have artwork like this for him to trace, so it should be obvious it’s his own work.
And the pokemon and crash bandicoot ones are actually not that close. The pokemon one looks like a good attempt at imitating the pokemon style, but since he hasn’t practiced it enough, you can tell it’s a little off model because, well, he drew it himself and doesn’t practice the pokemon style a lot. Same with the crash one. Had it been a trace, with his level of control over his lines (which you can’t refute), it would have been much closer.
And you act like it’s a crime to imitate others’ art style. It’s really not. What is wrong with you? Do you want to slow down animation production by only letting the character designer draw everything? Or do you want animation where the art has 0 semblance of consistency because all the artists draw in vastly different styles? lol. What do you have against artists that try to stay on model?
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LOL THIS IS ONE IS SO STUPID WHERE DO I EVEN START?
Oh, I KNOW. Why don’t I do that same pose with my own hands?
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IT’S A MIDDLE FINGER, YOU IDIOT.
Just because YOU don’t know basic anatomy and can’t tell a middle finger from a pinky, doesn’t mean everyone else is as incompetent as you. He wasn’t doing the rock-on hand pose (sry idk if that pose actually has a name lol), and he’s drawn the rock-on hand pose properly before.
Closing statement
I believe I covered a lot of things and provided a lot of evidence here that Falco and his other friends did not cover in his defense against the false accusations.
I even added more counter arguments in this repost because apparently my original post wasn’t enough to convince people.
Perhaps the person calling him out meant well (no, I doubt it because they made a new side blog just to diss him because they knew if they did it on their actual blog, they’d be called out for being a jerk), but they did not do enough digging to find out if their claims were true or not (and they probably know well enough that they MADE UP THEIR EVIDENCE).
If you’re going to make a call out post, please make triple sure sure of everything before you accuse people. Talk to them first. Talk to those who know them too.
Many jobs require you to be able to draw characters exactly in the style given. Animators for example! There are multiple animators working on one series, and they all need the skill to draw consistently! Some games also have teams that need to be able to draw in the same style so they don’t have to leave everything up to one person. Comic artists often have assistants that help them draw background characters, but those background characters can’t be too different from the main style either.
As for the people who believed the call out post before, it’s perfectly understandable. I am also guilty of falling for similar posts in the past. Due to that, I decided it was best to double check before retweeting (i say retweet because i use twitter far more than tumblr these days. heck i almost never post anything on this blog) things, and if i wasn’t sure, I would just leave it be.
I hope my post was able to convince you on Falco’s innocence and all his hard work. And if you already believed him but checked out this post anyways… Thanks! ObligatoryPleaseWatchAotuWorld.
And again:
Art does NOT exist in a vacuum. All artists are influenced by each other and MANY artists, especially professionals, use a lot of references, whether it be from photographers, their own pictures, others’ artwork, life, or whatever. We all use many different resources. If you’re going to say that’s wrong, you just dismissed millions of artists in the world.
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jippy-kandi · 7 years
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Digimon Adventure - The Real World
Museum Exhibition (3 May 2017 -- 14 May 2017)
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destiny-smasher · 7 years
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So I did the “get to know me” meme on Twitter but because of how Twitter functions now it’s a hard to follow mess of a thread. Decided to post it all here -- and hey, if any of ya’ll are curious, feel free to read.
1) When I was 10 my abusive stepdad threw a spray at me. I ducked -- it scraped my head. Sent to school bleeding b/c he was too stoned to realize it'd get noticed and I'd get pulled out of that environment immediately. This moment changed my life, left a scar on head.
If I hadn't ducked, would've hit my stomach. No cut. Whole childhood would've been different. My first Butterfly Effect Moment.
2) I started writing fiction about Pokémon. First-person, from the Mons perspective. Rotating point of view each scene.
3) I moved on to crazy crossover fanfic where I constructed an entire war, personal and political motivations, so many ideas I still like?
4) Part of this involved detailed drawings of Mario-themed Keyblades I wish I still had.
5) Paper Mario 1&2 are some of my most influential inspirations. expanded such a simple world so much so fluidly. (Harder than it looks)
6) When I was a kid my sister would wake me st like 6am to watch dubbed Sailor Moon. Bothered me they all sounded like same person.
7) I can recognize voices very well and even specific sounds and songs. Couple years back my roommate ran a test - playlist of 100 NES tracks, he'd play the first NOTE, singular, and I could recognize exactly where it was from if I'd played the game.
8) My first computer was a PC I bought w/$ saved up during an entire summer of custodial work in HS. Had no Internet.
So I'd use the public library's very slow connection to download things to floppy disk and copy them over.
Eventually, I was able to graduate to a USB. Obtaining music was hellish so I treasured each song I could download -- most from OC Remix.
9) We had this tiny rabbit ears TV that could get WB and Fox sometimes if it was set up in a specific corner of my sister's room
And so I would desperately use it to try and stay up to date on Pokémon and Digimon, it was so bad
10) Teen Titans was arguably the most influential piece of media for my teenage mind. It formed the base of so much I care about re:stories
Fleshed out, varied protags who grew together and each had their times to step up and step down. Action w/character dev context.
Fantastic themes important for growing humans; awesome moments "between the panels" instead of all comic book melodrama and action.
Then everything changed when TT GO attacked and pissed on everything smart and thoughtful because MONEYYYYY
11) Cowboy Bebop was the first "good" anime I ever saw and blew my mind open about what animated stories could do -- i.e. Not just kid stuff
I don't like "anime" in general because most of its common tropes but the shit out of me even worse than most western toon tropes
And yet like 50-75% of my most favorite shows ARE anime because thoughtful animated storytelling has so much potential.
11) I predicted months before Last of Us came out that you'd play as Ellie but when it happened I had to stop, cry happy tears.
I predicted the second I saw the Left Behind trailer what was going on w/those two and again, still had to stop and cry happy tears.
(I seem to have pretty good gaydar now but I also don't like, ship everyone together all the time)
It just hits me so hard when actual canon queerness happens in mass media and is done well, but we're still so bad at following through.
12) Favorite m/m ship: Troy and Abed in the Morning. Favorite w/w ship: Max and Chloe BFF Pirates 2008.
ATLA ships: Tokka the most, also Katang, also Smellershot. ATLA makes me more open to shipping than any other series?
Like, Zutara makes me feel kinda gross and some of the crack ships like Sokka/Azula scare me but otherwise I'm pretty chill w/ATLA ships?
13) When I was a kid, and we'd role play, I always wanted to play the girl characters. I was surrounded by boys so they always were weirded.
It was weird to me, too, honestly.
Now it makes perfect goddamn sense.
14) Apparently I was kidnapped as a baby by some mobster or something but it's hard to tell with my mom what's real or not.
15) Smash Bros. Melee was the first game I ever got genuinely hype over before launch. I still remember being startled to discover it --
-- existed via E3 trailer on GameTrailers back on my goddamn dialup connection in 2001. I had to wait all fuckin' day for that thing to load
And when it did, it was GLORIOUS (and had FZero music, which at the time I did not recognize) and I was FLOORED.
The screenshots made the game look too good to be real, and I was instantly sold on the GameCube, the first time I NEEDED new hardware Day 1
I got SSBM as an Xmas gift before my grandpa's GCN present arrived, so for a week or two all I could do was stare at the box/manual/disc
That game kind of changed my life -- SSB64 was the first time I'd gotten so invested in a multiplayer game, and SSBM crushed it.
A fire was born in me -- competition, something I'd never been much interested in w/games before, not against actual humans.
Those months between E3 2001 and finally getting to play SSBM felt like forever. And thus did I post online fiction for the first time.
That's actually how I met @SDiDuro , my first 'Internet friend' and what I'd consider to be my first proper 'reader.'
16) After college, I ended up working at a call center because it was  the only job I could find and I needed to support my disabled wife.
DURING college, I gave up on writing fiction and had focused on gaming editorial through a site where I'd engaged with an online community
But that empty space between phone calls eventually got filled in by writing fiction on a notepad, with a pen, inspired by Street Fighter 4.
Eventually, this evolved and radically changed into what is now (still in dev) DownRight Fierce.
Back then, I had no idea I'd be motivated to DO this, though -- write original fiction -- but the fire had been re-lit.
I wanted to write.
I was sickened by my "naive" adolescence crossover fics and wiped them from my http://FF.net  profile and started anew.
Having just come off of ATLA 1st time, I knew I wanted to explore that world/characters more, so I wrote a story about Toph & puberty.
That serving as "practice," I then went on to write SRU, and...well, that...changed EVERYTHING.
17) My biological dad (who I have never met) has OCD, to the point where he apparently washed his skin raw trying to avoid germs?
So as soon as I showed enthusiasm in gaming, my parents FREAKED and worried I was exhibiting OCD and they brought the hammer down.
They made me feel BAD for writing about video games when I wasn't playing them, but they never READ anything I fucking wrote.
Even now, my mom tries to comment on what a good writer I supposedly am, yet when I ask for her thoughts, I ask what she's read?
Silence.
I wasn't writing fiction based on games because I was THAT addicted to games.
I did it because a storyteller was awakening within me --
-- and I told stories through the worlds and characters I was familiar with.
(And my first genuinely "serious" fic was Teen Titans, anyway)
But even now, it really hurts that my parents will sometimes try to guilt me over not calling or whatever the fuck, when they never READ
never supported, and actively DISCOURAGED my writing, my storytelling, refused to understanding why I loved games.
18) I never watched Avatar until after college (years after it had finished), and I watched it because of the live action movie.
I watched halfway through the season 1 of the cartoon to get "read up" on it. Then the movie. Which was horrible. Then the rest of season 1.
At that point, the movie utterly baffled me. My wife and I proceeded to marathon the rest of the series. And it became my fav story ever.
But I ironically owe it to that terrible live action movie. ^_^;;
19) My taste in music is really weird. I couldn't tell you what my favorite genres are, and even fav musicians is hard.
Like, every year my top three fav musicians "change" because I just add more to the pile and spend the year focused on their music.
But music inspires my storytelling more than any other medium, I'd say -- in terms of me actually planning and growing ideas.
I didn't just give Nishiko and Seiko last names of my two fav game composers as tongue-in-cheek. In fact, that's not why I did it at all.
I gave them those names because I wanted some element of their very design to express how Japanese composers inspired me in my teen years.
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