#IN SHORT BASICALLY i was reminded of that introduction scene in the anime after reading chapter 146 [THUMBS UP]

[chojiwithahat]

secret hat talk #1: a creative decision in windbre's anime adaptation that I really really like (S1 EP 2)

⚠️ references to manga story past season 1⚠️

*rubs my grubby hands together* I've been working on this essay-ish thing for a few months now on windbre (the topic on the manga and anime mediums in conveying the same story), but I felt that I was taking way too long on it so I decided to try a different approach on it!!!!!! Random rambles!!!!!!!! Starting with a thing that caught my attention!!!!!!!!!

🎉Nirei Akihiko's Introduction Scene 🎉

from S1 EP 2: The Hero of My Dreams

First, a note on adaptations across different mediums:

I find that adaptations, like windbre's anime, are interpretations of the source material work. It involves different people taking the wheel than the original creator (though sometimes it CAN be a collaboration with the original creator, such as the shishitoren storyline in the upcoming windbre game, something fully supervised by Nii sensei!!!); since it's also through a different medium, changes are inevitable.

Manga and anime both use a sequence of images to tell a story, but they are constructed and presented in very different ways. Different skill sets and insight are called for between the two mediums, and so in turn, different lens are necessary when analyzing them.

That said, since an anime production is also a large collaboration effort involving multiple departments, it's an amalgamation of interpretations from various artists across different fields, joining together under the director's vision (with a dash of production-related obstacles and other limitations). For more perspective, here is windbre's anime staff list compiled in KeyFrame Staff List. There are different episode directors or story board artists across the episodes, some reoccurring but yeah 👍

Since this anime adaptation is very close to the manga's story, this makes for more like... you can take in the seemingly smaller differences between the mediums in how they present the same exact scene. What's the sound design like? Animation choices? Color design and composition? What can only be done in manga, likewise in anime? Think prosody, the harmonious marriage between lyrics and music: how does the medium and story support each other?

There's quite a lot of differences between windbre's source material manga and anime adaptation, ranging from small details (cuts ordered differently than how the manga is panelled) to adding completely new stuff (choji and togame's first meeting, so on so forth). A scene's mood can also feel different—presented as what the staff interpreted, perhaps—so among these changes, there is this one creative choice that I kept thinking back to and ended up loving very much:

The moment Nirei slams open the door during his introduction scene!!!!!!!!!

Storyboard: Akai Toshifumi Episode Director: Ueda Shinichirou unfortunately couldn't find the key animator(s) for these cuts 😔

For comparison, here's the manga counterpart (I've clipped the anime to match how this scene looks in the manga as a full spread).

Wind Breaker Volume 1 Chapter 2. Kodansha English Digital Edition 1.0.1.

As you can see... Nirei is never (seen) dramatically slamming open the door like the anime!!!!!!! It's a choice that the anime people decided to add in!!!!!!! Though before I go on about what exactly I like about it, I want to start with breaking down the scene as it is presented in the manga >:)

First of all, manga are usually made with book spreads in mind: two pages, everything on the spread for you to immediately perceive upon flipping to the next page. As for anime on the other hand, you only know what comes next the moment it is shown on screen.

And so, a major difference between the manga and anime mediums is how much story you can see at a time.

I'd say this holds pretty big influence in what choices are made, and can even inform changes that had to be made, or maybe just like, more suitable given the medium—and of course based on the director/staff's intuition and or taste.

Nirei's introduction is the main story beat for this singe, two-page spread. Perceiving all of these panels together, the association that Nirei is the immediate example of an "interesting folk" is created. This is led to a standard way windbre's manga introduces characters (a full body at the right half of the page accompanied with a close up + character introduction box). Chronologically this is the second time a character is introduced this way, with Kotoha being the very first instance. The close up and character intro box are sometimes omitted.

With these two pages side by side, there's a pattern with how the tiers (singular row of panels) are used in the page layout:

Tier 1: Introducing one of the interesting folks, Nirei Akihiko

Kotoha's panel being the largest (along with the fact her close up is closer/larger than Nirei's) + Nirei's full body that overlaps two tiers, hence very eye catching, makes the "interesting folk" Kotoha says easily associated with Nirei's introduction. They're also both the "start" of their respective pages—Nirei's legs help guiding the eyes to the next page.

Tier 2: Sakura's reaction + Nirei yelling and about to trip

Note that on the right page, we don't have Nirei tripping until the next tier, and by then he's already face flat on the floor—this creates a contrast with the left page, where we get to actually see how he trips.

Tier 3: (Right panel) Nirei on the ground -> (Left panel) Sakura reaction continued + Nirei cheerfully saying a thing

Both Nirei on the ground panels got a loud onomatopoeia accompanying him. Similarly to the previous tier in that we don't see how Nirei trips originally, we also don't get to see Nirei's face at all on the right page. After Nirei is properly introduced, we can see his face in comparison.

And so, here we have a visual parallel side by side showing essentially the same interaction in immediate succession AND in very similar panel layout: one where this random stranger trips in, and the other where we this stranger doing the same exact thing a page ago but this time with a name and face. Granted we learn more about him later in the story, but with just this spread alone, the first impression can be easily solidified just as assumptions are made! Nirei Akihiko's goofy! Very excitable! Silly! Sakura staring at him judgmentallyᵀᴹ!!

Prior Nirei being properly introduced, his face is invisible and we don't see him until he's already tripped—his very very very first appearance is also drawn VERY small with him splatting on the ground. This gives a sorta out-of-no-where, not a big shock though and VERY NOT intimidating, just a random guy first appearance of a new Furin student. The fact that all of this is wrapped up in one spread kinda makes Nirei's presence unassuming despite his "showy" outfit. He's just a random guy. It's a huge contrast to the previous AND first time we met another Furin student in the story (super cool badass hiragi san rescuing sakura):

Wind Breaker Volume 1 Chapter 1. Kodansha English Digital Edition 1.0.1. Slight tangent but it's cool how for this spread, we don't see Hiragi's face in great detail until the next spread, where he YELLS AND SNAPS A METAL BAT 🔥🔥🔥 That said the uniform is also emphasized in both introductions—Sakura super shocked that a student with a furin uniform came to his rescue, versus his reaction to this random gremlin who still has his tags on the same furin uniform.

And so with the recent very cool epic screen toned with back lighting Hiragi san burned into memory, this new guy........ be kinda underwhelming, which leads to Sakura being like this:

Zooming in to Sakura's face:

NOW A RUN DOWN OF THE ANIME'S VERSION

The first major difference (aside from Kotoha being horizontally flipped) is that we do not have the small tiny Nirei splatting on the ground as his first physical introduction. We have a J cut audio of Nirei yelling "KOTOHA-SAN" starting when we're still at the Sakura and Kotoha cut (reminiscent to Nirei's offscreen dialogue in the manga), but instead of immediately seeing Nirei on the ground, the scene cuts to a low angle, medium close up shot of Nirei slamming open the door as "-SAN" is yelled.

Then, we are cut to a high angle, close up shot of Nirei—in slow motion, and it becomes quiet, the door chime and door slamming sounds fading away and it's dramatic, it's tense, it's epic and then Nirei's feet, still in slow motion, hits the door sill and he slams down onto the floor with a pathetic sounding "ack."

And then three seconds of pure silence.

After that, the progression is mostly the same as the manga:

These two panels highlighted above are joined together into a single cut. Skipping Sakura's confused turning motion, Nirei is animated standing up and spinning around with a sparkly pink background with kira kira noises before it cuts to a close up shot like its panel counterpart. The transition feels seamless due to the close up shot having same sparkly pink background that quickly fades into the cafe door.

After that, we are cut to a wide shot where we can see all the characters in Cafe Pothos with a short but obvious silence, much like the earlier three-second silence. Sakura then says the tag line, and the OST Snail-Funk starts playing as Nirei wiggles around. He is animated to slowly sink into the ground (a change from his leg tripping panel and the loud "PA-BAM"). Both anime and manga Nirei still wiggle some more on the ground though, but in the anime we get to see his full body as he wiggle waggles.

At last, these two panels are joined together: starting with Sakura's live reaction by itself before Nirei rises into the shot and joins.

And so, there are many nuanced decisions that the anime has in adapting the manga—SO BACK TO THE ANIME-ONLY NIREI SLAMMING OPEN DOOR THING‼️

Earlier I mentioned that some decisions might had to be made, given the medium and all. In this case, I'd say that dramatic door Nirei isn't exactly an addition that "had" to be made; I find it suitable, though, for many reasons!! Lots of them!!!!

Unlike the manga, this first appearance is incredibly dramatic. However, it change doesn't change anything in terms of Nirei's character/personality, which is great!!!!! The high/low angles and slow motion juxtaposes the moment we finally get the tiny Nirei splatting onto the ground, playing with the audience's anticipation and further highlighting Nirei's clumsy goofiness, which is ALSO GREAT because that's the point of this introduction!! Showcasing Nirei's goofiness!!!! (It's kinda like having Hiragi san and Nirei's manga introductions side by side, but it's all Nirei 👍) For those who already read the manga, this probably also makes a refreshing and exciting feeling meeting Nirei again!! It's also a cool way of supplementing the chapter/episode's theme, too (with the coffee fruit color question): the "superficiality" of the dramatic editing matches Nirei's flashy clothes.

What I like most about this choice, though, is when considering it with the context of the the story's future events; that and the fact that instead of the tiny Nirei splat, this is the first visual instance we see Nirei in the anime's story.

The thing about serialized manga is that not all details are set to stone as it's being created. This might not apply to all authors, but usually, there is only a number of chapters and plot points planned at a time as the manga is being published. Plans might even change as the story progresses over the years. For Nii-sensei specifically, their workflow on a weekly schedule is described in this interview.

For example: while there's a pattern that Suo doesn't eat during pre/post battle food time, there's this one early panel of Suo eating a taiyaki with the guys, which contradicts that. The anime changed this to Suo giving the taiyaki to Nirei.

And so for seasonal anime, as long as things goes well, the pre-production process is there as a time to plan out the story as a complete season. That's an advantage adaptations have: to reinterpret what is already written and recreate it with a new vision. An example's like how story from volume 7-8 is referenced at the beginning of EP 1 (Season 1 adapts volumes 1-5)!!!

But for this scene, it's a bit more subtle/nuanced. It's not exactly a "correction" like Suo's taiyaki, and it's not something as big as completely changing the presentation of Choji and Togame's emotional talk post-Ume headbutt therapy. The creators' intentions are always a different story, and yeah it totally can be done solely just to make the scene even funnier! But like the anime staff having knowledge of the future story, the same for those who already read the manga:

Nirei becomes a character with growing importance in the story.

As a character, Nirei was originally created to move the story along in chapter 2 (as noted in the character book interview, and this older interview from May 2021). Perhaps that plays a role in how low-key his manga introduction is (once again, in comparison to hiragi san), but either way he's meant to be represent the "ordinary person's perspective." But as the story progresses, Nirei grows to become someone more than that initial role. He becomes a character that holds an increasingly significant and emotional weight, and there's a satisfying feeling of a promise being fulfilled.

Putting the manga and anime side by side, the manga presents an organic writing progression of a character's development. We follow Nirei who starts off as a small tiny splat in a small panel to who he is now. As for the anime, with how memorable these first few seconds of his introduction are, there's perhaps a sense of foreshadowing.

Coincidence or not, this emphasis of Nirei slamming open the door and literally bulldozing into Sakura's life—I find it really, really reflective of just how much impact Nirei [will have] towards Sakura. It's a silly gag moment, but that dramatic energy, however superficial at the time, will transform into something of substantial and emotional weight.

Something something..... in his own way, Nirei will become epic like badass cool hiragi san🔥🔥🔥

kiryuu-kun jumpscare (chapter 110: discipline)

AND YEAH THAT'S ALL HOPE THAT WAS COHERENT YEAHHHH

🌹✨thanks for reading ∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿

[the-blue-wraith]

My review for Dragon Age: The Veilguard (SPOILERS BELOW)

These are my personal opinions and not personal attacks to anyone who loves the game.

Pros:

Combat is invigorating.

Exploration is just fine, not too overwhelming.

Side quests are not lengthy.

CC was great and had lots of sliders and lots of good hair too.

Harding, Bellara, Lucanis, and Emmrich’s voice acting are in point.

NPCs are more active in terms of animation, unlike in previous games.

The codex you found in areas is short and easy to read.

Dragon fights are more challenging.

Banters outside the Lighthouse are compelling.

Emmrich and Harding's quest are impactful.

No major glitches, only encountered a few minor glitches.

Cons:

Writing is just basic. Humorous/aggressive dialogues are not totally funny/aggressive. Companions/Rook are too polite.

Dialogue after the fall of Weisshaupt feels off, they don't need to say directly to players that companions need to resolve their problems before fighting the Gods.

Interaction inside the Lighthouse feels like an interaction inside the workplace. I wish I was kidding.

Some dialogues are repetitive (ex. “The elven gods have broken free from their prison” “Dragons don’t have kings, they have queens”).

Factions lack introduction. We didn’t get to know each faction in depth.

Story and companions lacks conflict/disparity.

Choices from the last 3 games didn’t matter, and became a wasted chance to explore in Veilguard.

Can’t talk to NPC like in DA:I.

What's the point of having gifting scenes where all they could say is "thank you"?

Some voice actings are a bit off, lacks emotions (American Female Rook/Neve)

Enemy designs are repetitive.

Ability wheel is lacking, it should’ve let us get 5 abilities to use in battle.

Qunari designs are not good.

Overall music is too ordinary.

Romances are lacking and have no growth

I really enjoyed the combat it reminds me of Mass Effect. The best part here are the dragon fights because this was one of the things that I anticipated years ago, and I'm quite satisfied! I like the flow and conflict at the end of Act 2 up to Act 3. That scene with Varric in the Fade still hits hard to me. 😭 I know it was sad, but in that phase I was motivated to finish the game. I just wish the flow of Acts 1-2 were intense like Act 3. Like I said, it lacks conflict.

After finishing the game, I ended up liking Emmrich and Harding. I didn't give a shit about Harding back in DA:I but now I like her even more 😆. Emmrich's quest was the most impactful to me, I chose to revive Manfred, and after that, I saw how much he loves him, that scene was heartwarming. Kudos to their voice actors 🙌🏻

I resonate with Bellara's quest, but I wish it could've been more dramatic. Like after what happened to her brother, her companions should've given her a hug and comfort. But I still like her quest; kudos to her voice actress too.

What bothered me was that Varric and Solas both got sidelined. I wanted Solas to have more screentime! I wanted to see him more as a villain. I don't know why Bioware decided to kill Varric, to me, it felt like they just used him in the game to attract fans. If you ask me, that's disrespectful to Varric's writer, who got laid off.

The romance here sucks. I was disappointed in how they handled Lucanis' romance. I didn't feel the buildup of my Rook's relationship with him. I felt like he was interacting with me as a friend 😭. Veilguard has the weakest romance system in Bioware games.

Overall, I would rate this game 6/10. I think the game is decent, but not for everyone. This game is for casual players who want to experience different RPGs, but for DA fans? It really depends. As a longtime fan, I would say I'm half-satisfied with Veilguard. I just wish the writing/dialogue could've been better and not repetitive. I wish we had an option to become evil and upset companions if we make bad choices, but sadly the game lacks conflict and disparity. Veilguard didn't keep up with the current RPGs, despite its lack of RPG elements.

Will I replay this game? Yeah, someday maybe.

Do I think the game is that bad? Nope, but it's lacking. The game is not for everyone.

Do I think the game deserved the hate it got? Yes and no. Yes, because the writing/dialogue in this game is basic and some times felt off. And no, because I still think the game is fun.

Do I want DA5 to happen in the future? Sure, why not.

Despite all my criticisms of this game, I still love Dragon Age. This series saved me in high school. If my younger self were here and witnessed Veilguard, I know she'd be happy because she waited so long for this game.

[bethanydelleman]

Northanger Abbey Readthrough, Ch 7

John Thorpe has arrived... yay. His introduction is anything but auspicious:

they were prevented crossing by the approach of a gig, driven along on bad pavement by a most knowing-looking coachman with all the vehemence that could most fitly endanger the lives of himself, his companion, and his horse.

We have another clue that James and Isabella have some sort of attachment:

his devoirs were speedily paid, with a mixture of joy and embarrassment which might have informed Catherine, had she been more expert in the development of other people’s feelings, and less simply engrossed by her own, that her brother thought her friend quite as pretty as she could do herself.

I love how Catherine will later gather all these clues that General Tilney is a wife-murderer/imprisoner but she misses every clue of basically everything else.

John Thorpe isn't even hot or well dressed guys:

He was a stout young man of middling height, who, with a plain face and ungraceful form, seemed fearful of being too handsome unless he wore the dress of a groom, and too much like a gentleman unless he were easy where he ought to be civil, and impudent where he might be allowed to be easy.

At least Willoughby and Wickham have the decency to be eye candy! I have NOTHING good to say about Mr. Thorpe. He reminds me of Donald Trump to be honest (I try to stay non-political here, but the constant lying and aggrandizement and saying contradictory statements one after another... it's so Trump). He also swears a lot, which Austen delicately writes as d---. The way that James jumps in every so often with the real truth, but John just glides right past his corrections, ug. (but funny).

Then John Thorpe becomes Sir Walter Elliot, though worse because at least Sir Walter is hot:

Her companion’s discourse now sunk from its hitherto animated pitch to nothing more than a short decisive sentence of praise or condemnation on the face of every woman they met; and Catherine, after listening and agreeing as long as she could, with all the civility and deference of the youthful female mind, fearful of hazarding an opinion of its own in opposition to that of a self-assured man, especially where the beauty of her own sex is concerned

Sir Walter also judges both sexes, because of course he does my beloved, pansexual dandy:

The worst of Bath was the number of its plain women. He did not mean to say that there were no pretty women, but the number of the plain was out of all proportion. He had frequently observed, as he walked, that one handsome face would be followed by thirty, or five-and-thirty frights; and once, as he had stood in a shop on Bond Street, he had counted eighty-seven women go by, one after another, without there being a tolerable face among them. It had been a frosty morning, to be sure, a sharp frost, which hardly one woman in a thousand could stand the test of. But still, there certainly were a dreadful multitude of ugly women in Bath; and as for the men! they were infinitely worse. Such scarecrows as the streets were full of! It was evident how little the women were used to the sight of anything tolerable, by the effect which a man of decent appearance produced.

It's always interesting to me to compare Northanger Abbey and Persuasion because the heroines and the feelings towards Bath could not be more different! Anne Elliot hates Bath, Catherine LOVES it. Anne is the wisest, most grounded heroine and Catherine is the most naive. But here we have parallel scenes where a man critiques the looks of other people and the heroine is not happy about it.

Now we get into John Thorpe getting down on novels.

“Not I, faith! No, if I read any, it shall be Mrs. Radcliffe’s; her novels are amusing enough; they are worth reading; some fun and nature in them.” “Udolpho was written by Mrs. Radcliffe,” said Catherine, with some hesitation, from the fear of mortifying him. “No, sure; was it? Aye, I remember, so it was; I was thinking of that other stupid book, written by that woman they make such a fuss about, she who married the French emigrant.”

John Thorpe may be the only outright racist (xenophobic?) and anti-sementic character we see in Austen. So good for him, I guess? But also clearly an idiot. Also, The Monk, which John says he did enjoy, was a very controversial novel at the time. It features rape, murder, demons in women's bodies, etc. The titular monk kidnaps a virtuous maiden, which is a hint at what is to come...

Then we have John's address to his mother, "“Where did you get that quiz of a hat? It makes you look like an old witch." which I assume is derogatory (affectionate). This seems to be his way with family, "On his two younger sisters he then bestowed an equal portion of his fraternal tenderness, for he asked each of them how they did, and observed that they both looked very ugly."

Now Catherine, it should be noted, does not like John pretty much immediately, but she's flattered and convinced by both Isabella and James into thinking somewhat better of him. She is also engaged to dance with him, which considering her previous disappointments, is a logical feeling.

Ug, men in Austen knowing nothing about women again, "He is as good-natured a fellow as ever lived; a little of a rattle; but that will recommend him to your sex, I believe" Will it? Does it? I have a hard time imagining any Austen woman liking Thorpe, except maybe Lydia Bennet or Anne Steele? The man is insufferable! Also, Lydia goes for looks so maybe not even her. Come on, James! Have more faith in women!

And then Catherine goes home and gets right back into reading Uldolpho, which is exactly what I would have done too. Elizabeth Bennet is not your book-obsessed heroine people, it's my girl Catherine!

[muffinwalloper]

Let's talk about the villain's wardrobe - Cruella De Vil (Part III)

As I've pointed out in Part I, Cruella's character is shown immensely through her wardrobe. She wears gloves with nails on them, loves furs and animalprints in general and everything about her is meant to make everyone's eyes follow her.

Now, this is the first outfit she wears in the movie. While the costume is strictly business with a high collar, there are a few details that make it stand out. For one, the stripes are made out of glitter which is not only an eyecatcher but also adds a glamour to the outfit whenever Cruella moves in it. The details such as the mix of black and white fit her hair perfectly and the sharp looking shoulder pats make her appear broader than she actually is (she's rather short and thin) which means, her outfit helps her to take up more space than she physically can. Paired with her beloved heels and gloves it radiates professionalism. Of course, she wouldn't forget the fur, which she carries as a coat with a long trail which makes her appear like a royal (remember the family crest). Also, there's a frowst which she carries for stylish reasons, also in black and white. Her hat, along with the net surrounding it was a perfect choice for her introduction because it hides half of her face and again, adds something royal and ladylike to her appearance. Everything about that outfit screams highclass. Signature makeup: the blood red lipstick and her black eyeliner. Her hair is positively wild but when she's in her office and has set down her hat, she checks it in a mirror and makes sure it stays that wild. I think it might be another way for Cruella to take up as much space as she can.

Not sure if it's a dress or a dressing gown, though I think it might be a gown because she only wears it in her private home. Again, the black and white combination is outstanding. Her hair looks a little tamer than before which is probably due to the fact that this is supposed to be Cruella's 'lazy outfit'. The arms and the collar are littered with feathers and again, there is a long trail at the back, also made of feathers. She's wearing gloves again, though this time of a thinner material but still with nails on them. It also has a deep cleavage which is also one of Cruella's outfit signatures: sexually revealing. In contrast to Anita who never wears anything with a cleavage and mostly pullovers in grey or beige colours, Cruella's clothes are always flashy and I wouldn't be surprised if they were uniques that she has designed herself. In combination with furs and her striking makeup she uses her sexuality in an almost grotesque way. But all of that is her intention because no matter where and with whom Cruella is she needs to be the centre of attention at all times!

cleavage - check!

animal print - check!

gloves - check!

Notice how on the outside of the coat the print is tiger and inside the coat it's leopard. Underneath Cruella wears a combo of a tiger corset and a long black leather skirt. This time, she's wearing boots but still with heels. To make it a Cruella outfit you can't leave out the fur. Here, it looks like another frowst but this one's smaller than the black and white one. Also, her hair in this shot is tamer than it was in the scene where she wore this outfit:

Another outstanding feature is the high collar and the shoulder patches once more. Like in her first outfit, it makes her look broader than she is. Also, notice how she manages to get Anita and Roger to stand with their backs against the doorframe (in their home!) by simply pushing past them. Cruella's aware of the fact that she isn't the tallest person, so she accents other parts of her body to intimidate people. I mean, just look at this cleavage!! As for jewelry; I'm not sure what her bracelet is made of but as the rest of her attire, it looks agressive.

Now, for another outfit of Cruella which was cleverly used at the beginning of the movie to show the depths of her character:

At the very beginning of the film, it's established twice that the white tiger went missing from London zoo. Anita watches a report on TV on it while Roger reads about it in the morning paper. Only after Cruella's been introduced to the plot, the film shows a scene where Horrace and Jasper enter Cruella's private home to bring her the fur of said missing tiger. As the news already suspected that it might have to do with fur dealing, nobody would suspect a single fur obsessed woman behind it. This scene is important to show the audience how far Cruella is not only prepared but used to go to get what she wants. Perhaps she tried to buy the tiger first (as she did with the puppies) but was declined by the zoo. So, her reaction was to steal this endangered animal, let Skinner make a fur coat out of it and have it brought to her by her minions Horrace and Jasper. The puppies are not the first animals she's stolen and it's likely that she would do so with any animal as long as she loves their fur. Also, rewatch the scene when she takes the tiger fur to the mirror and basically starts flirting with it: it's downright creepy how obsessed she is!

Finally, her last outfit which she wears as she hunts down the puppies herself. As it's the film's climax where the tension is at its highest, so is Cruella's mania and it's reflected in her outfit. She wears a blood red and black attire with leather pants and boots and the thickest fur coat of the entire film. At times, she has trouble to move in it and it actively slows her down and puts her at a disadvantage on her hunt for the puppies. However, she doesn't even think of taking it off. It's like the fur has become a part of her that drags her down to her inevitable ruin. The aggressive colour also shows that her mind is completely off the rails now and that she's out of control. Also, as her name is devil, the colours fit those of a demonic being and she finally looks no longer like a lady but like the monster she is inside. Again, the bracelet and the earrings this time look aggressive but even more so because they remind you of teeth and/or a razer. The claw gloves are of course firmly in place again.

To sum up: Cruella's outfits all follow the theme of animal and/or monster. She wears the fur of endangered species, has literal claws on her hands and her blood red lipstick accentuates her pearly white teeth which she loves to flash at anyone. On top of that, the sexually revealing aspects of her outfits come across as agressive and excessive, serving the purpose of making anyone look at her but feeling uncomfortable at the same time. As the saying goes: clothes make the woman, for Cruella this one's 100 percent true!

[human-enthusiast]

Absurd Person #1 - Monkey D. Luffy (kid)

 Let’s start with not only the main protagonist of One Piece but also the first character to give Luffy any sort of injury...

...his dumb, seven-year-old self...

*Disclaimer: I don’t own this image - screenshot from Episode of East Blue

The last time I wrote this, I forgot to hit save and my browser just reloaded the page and lost everything. After that I just went “I’m done” and rage quit Tumblr for the night (which I normally don’t do). That’s how my Sundays usually go😒🥴

Now Onward!

Basic Classifications

Real World Ethnicity/Nationality: Brazilian

Class: farm / country / lower class

Culture (the one he grew up around): Dawn Island - Sea-side village

Fishing community

Farming / Ranching community

Hard work ethic

Small and close community members; relatively friendly; little to non-existent conflict

Selective mix of being open towards strangers (especially with merchant vessels for better trading opportunities) and weariness towards those they expect to be harmful (likes Pirates; I’d imagine the people of Windmill Village were understandably unnerved with the Red-Haired Pirates first showing up).

Core values (personal to Luffy): pride, physical strength, adventures on and outside his home village,

Relation to authority: neutral - shifting slightly towards negative (no clear basis of opinion; can only go off on Luffy’s fascination with pirates as the main viewpoint)

(The added information feels a little scatter-shot but figured I give it a try based on little information from the manga panels and how it lines up with real-world similarities. Most information is based on logical speculation and could change with new information in later chapters.)

I know that the Romance Dawn arc consists of the chapters up until he meets Coby and Alvida (I think...), but the depiction of Luffy’s character in the first chapter seems different from when he is seventeen and setting out to sea. So, I’ll treat kid Luffy as a separate character for the first analysis.

First Impressions and Introduction

Now, I am an anime watcher, first and foremost, so my first impression of this character stems from the Anime. My introduction towards this ball of chaos was when he popped out of a barrel, that he put himself into after realizing that a whirlpool suddenly appeared (how he missed it? - It’s Luffy), and then inexplicably took a nap in. That was the absurd reason I was able to stick with One Piece in the first few arcs (until Baratie became one of the major reasons I stuck with it - I’ll explain why when we get there).

And since the first chapter was used for episode four in the anime, I was already somewhat familiar with how the story started and who Luffy was as a kid. However, reading the first chapter felt....different than what I would’ve expected. And because the anime cut out a few details from the chapter, there definitely are some things to take from kid Luffy at that point.

So my first impression was, as follows:

The kid is unhinged...That explains some things...

Complete wild child of a backwater village from Day 1. 

LIKE-- The anime episode DID NOT explain how he got that scar and the guy didn’t bring it up ever. To be fair, that wasn’t a big focus because the anime didn’t make it a focus. Reading that part though did more for his character and a little of his upbringing, through speculation, making it a rather slow-building but also fascinating introduction into this series.

Just a bit of an add-on, but if the manga introduced Luffy in the same level of neutrality as what the Anime did, It may not have fully made it clear if Luffy was going to be the main protagonist. Then again, it’s a shounen manga, maybe it was rather obvious to everyone else. Regardless, his introduction served to 

(1) Make his entrance memorable

(2) Establish his character that could either compare or set him apart from his teen self.

(3) Act as a sort of precursor towards the introduction of Luffy’s world and upbringing (which isn’t completely established until the last few arcs of Pre-Time Skip)

Personality

The best way I could describe Luffy at this point is a stereotypical kid...

Energetic, short-tempered, adventure-seeking, easily impressed, and ignorant...

That last description is actually something I brought up in a separate post about the “Fluid themes” of One Piece. Because I found that a small but overarching part in many (almost all) themes and world issues that One Piece reflects has some level of unawareness or apathy. Jimbe put it best during the Fishman Island Flashback when they found Koala (paraphrasing)

“They are afraid of us because they don’t know us.”

Know us referring to acknowledging them as people on the same level as humans.

Because of that and plenty of other instances from the East Blue, it can be a potential center for many characters who go up against or wish to explore the world and find that they are a frog in a well.

And that’s what kid Luffy represents. A rather aggressive frog in a well that wants out.

Granted, he is a seven-year-old, whose schooling has a closer equivalent to the 16th and 17th centuries of our world, living in what appears to be a farming community, so I’d imagine his education only focuses on at least the basic levels of reading/writing, mathematics, etc. A small, unexciting farming village probably has more concerns over their melon crops rather than what the world has going on. Adding in Luffy, you get a kid who dreams about being a pirate and adventuring outside the isolated village, making him avidly interested in a world he has no experience with. Or in a world he thinks is all fun and games.

That’s pretty standard for any child that has a mild and peaceful life. No doubt Shanks and his crew would tell him stories about their adventures. Not as a sort of attempt to make him a pirate, but because he was easily entertained by it, building up this expectation with stereotypical pirate personas. And whether he has his “destructive” tendencies before they became a fixture in Windmill Village, they definitely seemed to amp it up enough for Luffy to try and prove he was “man enough” to be a pirate at seven years old.

Then when you add in this idealistic expectation with the selfishness of a young child, it creates an opportunity to learn. Because, as any kid may go through, will find that their fantasy of the world won’t be what they expected, and will often react negatively. Luffy’s expectation of Shanks is that he is the strongest man worthy enough to be a pirate.

Now, Luffy’s view of a “real man” stems a lot from this stereotype of men solving their problems through fighting only. Which also embodies this rather damaging philosophy of never running away or backing down from a fight (which I refer to as stupid bravery - something that comes up in a certain other character).

The amazing thing about all the combined aspects of this kid is the ability to create a learning lesson for Luffy. Which can become a motivational factor in his pursuit as a pirate.

His easily impressed nature makes it known both when the Red-Haired Pirates talk positively about piracy adventures and when Shanks leaves the village. The difference between the moments can be showcased by the difference in determination and will to make an effort to achieve his dream. As he declared he wants to be King of The Pirates, he sets himself to work at it, rather than try and go with others.

How He Shapes the Story / World Around Them

I don’t know if anybody else made a similar connection (I wanna say someone DID but I can’t remember where) but in combination with Luffy’s general enthusiasm growing up hearing wild stories, his narrative reminds me so much of Don Quixote De La Mancha.

It’s been a while since I last read that story-- and by read I mean translate some paragraphs from Spanish to English during my Spanish I class in freshman year of high school. Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed the story. Part I entails an old man who, after indulging himself with various stories of knights and valor, decides he wants to partake in his own adventures. Under various delusions and misadventures, his story becomes a rather well-known one.

Don Quixote was called the first “modern book”. That was something my Spanish teacher mentioned regarding its acknowledgment by the world and always stuck with me. It was one of the first stories of the early medieval period to focus on a regular man. Other stories before this tended to be about legends, gods, demigods-- individuals who often were referred to as legends because they were born into high status (often above humans). Either through original texts (often for religious purposes) and then through varying interpretations (such as the Arthurian Legends), these tales were a part of the status quo.

Kid Luffy is a person that reflects so much of the Don Quixote story (And not just because his village has windmills-- the most iconic scene about the knight’s story). He is that simple, normal boy that longs for his own adventures when there seemingly is already a well-talked-about story about someone who achieved infamy. In place of that is a man named Gold Roger whose execution we see in the manga’s opening. At this point, we don’t have much understanding about how it impacts the world as of yet, we just know it is setting up for something significant to the story.

Luffy becomes that “regular” person from a small-town with big expectations for a grand adventure.

That perspective can slowly build into the story by starting in a simple setting with a character going through one of the first dynamic changes in his life. Luffy’s experience with Shanks’s sacrifice sets a course in his own adventure. A story that trails into a rather bonkers adventure at the end of chapter 1.

His development is what shaped his world. It’s the way he learns when as it stems from the consequences of his actions. Especially ones where the smaller ones turn out to be very costly, making it a hard lesson that ingrains into the young kid. His actions created by his old ideologies sparked an intense reaction in the people around him. Especially Shanks, who felt he was worth losing an arm towards.

How The WORLD Shapes HIM

So, for the sake of the fact that kid Luffy’s “World” in Chapter 1 mostly consists of Windmill Village, I’m adding in Shank’s and his crew’s influence to extend and further give credence to his influence. Because, as of this point, Shanks represents a glimpse into the life of a pirate that Luffy strives for.

With Luffy being in a quiet environment all seven years of life, there is growth through basic schooling and healthy child development (theoretically since Makino seems to be the most likely one acting as his guardian), instead of doing things outside that norm. Now Shanks is the odd factor that creates new development into Luffy’s dreams and future ambitions. 

The crew’s stories, charisma, and connection towards the kid actively (and probably unintentionally) created a positive expectation if he chose to pursue his dream. While that sounds inspiring, there were also negative aspects. Such as driving his ignorance and impatient nature to seek it out too early in his life.

Shanks then became a mediator. Luffy often has mixed feelings with Shanks as the man begets a level of encouragement while verbally making fun of Luffy for being a kid constantly. Despite that, it doesn’t completely deter Luffy’s ambitions. All it does is slowly drop his high expectations in Shanks after the first bar incident. This is again done by his childish outlook of physical strength and bravery equating to his ideal of a real man.

With Higama, Luffy learns about real-world dangers, and how bravery won’t always be enough to win battles. The same can be said for physical strength but at that moment it doesn’t apply to Luffy. 

Shanks’ and the crew’s involvement helped Luffy’s views change. His expectations are fulfilled, which in turn reveal that he was wrong about them.

Finally, seeing Shanks’ sacrifice unfold drove Luffy into a pang of newfound guilt. By then, he was able to change one part of his world views from a childish fantasy into the beginnings of a mature way of thinking. 

He gains some level of patience. Along with a set goal to work with. Attributes which are identifiable with Luffy in the chapters last few panels.

Patience = Luffy took time to train and learn to set sail at age seventeen.

Set goal = Be King of the Pirates

Add-Ons

When I say that kid Luffy, after Shanks’ sacrifice, gained a level of patience, it is meant as a deduction during that chapter. By no means am I insinuating that it became a permanent trait for his character. Because as of chapter 1, all of Luffy’s personality has yet to be revealed.

And this will apply to other posts for various characters. They may behave in ways during or in response to a particular event but it doesn’t necessarily equate to that becoming a whole personality trait. Calling Luffy patient, with having full acknowledgment of his personality during the bulk of One Piece, is completely off. But, there can and will be moments where Luffy will act patient when he deems it necessary.

This is a little hard to articulate but I hope it makes enough sense.

🏴‍☠️🐒

After-Notes

Here’s my first attempt at this analysis. It felt scattered even after editing everything. Breaking down characters sounds easy (and most times it is) but articulating and connecting things takes a lot of work.

Here's to hoping it gets easier with the next character. And maybe shorter paragraphs.

Up Next: Shanks (East Blue)

[smallersocksx]

Why the Wallace Cup Arc is one of the best returning character arcs

Introduction:

For those who have been following the Pokémon Journeys anime, know that Dawn was one of the latest former cast members to return the series for a two-episode arc. As I admitted in my episode 74 review (I’m contemplating reviewing episode 75 as well), should know I hadn’t really been keeping up with the anime up to that point as I felt all the issues, I had mentioned in one of my previous posts all culminated and I needed to take a break as I wasn’t enjoying the series. It felt more like a chore to watch the Journeys series rather than a pleasure and I felt horrible feeling this way about a series that I had loved for such a long time. However, if you’re enjoying the series, that’s great and I’m glad you find some enjoyment watching it.

Nevertheless, those that have read my posts or know me personally know DP is one of my favourite Pokémon series and I absolutely love Dawn, her Pokémon and Contests to pieces. So, when they announced she would be appearing for two episodes, I knew I had to watch. However, after sitting on these thoughts for a couple of weeks, I had to admit overall I was a little disappointed. This is a shame because I absolutely love Dawn but the reasons, I felt disappointed were:

The pacing/length – in both episodes, I felt like some areas were really slow and could have easily been cut out which in turn caused the areas that should have been slower and more fleshed out to feel incredibly rushed such as the battle with Matori Matrix. I felt like another area that could have been sped up was the exposition/discovery of Darkrai and Cresselia’s symbiotic relationship, don’t get me wrong it was interesting but I feel like it could have been handled better. I think if this DP arc had been four episodes long like the Sword and Shield arc, the pacing could have been better, we could have explored Ash and Goh’s side of the story more and we could have actually seen some Contest action. Additionally, it would give us a break from the episodic and slightly disjointed nature of the Journeys series and engage more with the story.

Chloe’s development – Now for those that have read my previous posts, should know that I like Chloe and I’m interested to see where they go with her development. Especially considering she’s meant to meeting an Espeon and Umbreon trainer in the upcoming episode. However, it kind of felt like the only reason they brought Dawn back was to help Chloe develop. It would have been nice to allow Dawn and her other Pokémon to shine more. Also, as  I mentioned in my episode 74 review, the argument between Chloe and Dawn felt completely unnecessary to me. In my opinion, one of the ways Chloe had subtly developed under Eevee’s influence was that she learnt to relax a little bit and not take things so seriously. This is why I was finding her behaviour in episode 74 to be a little annoying.

Also, it would have been nice to at least see Chloe attempt to participate in a Contest and at least try something out once even if it's not for her. Considering, Pokémon is an anime tailored towards children, it's better to send out the message of at least trying something even if it's not something for you in the end. This was something I would have liked to have seen with Serena, as before discovering Pokémon Showcases, she didn’t really try to find her goal/path. However, judging by the preview, at least the writers are acting on the idea of Chloe meeting other Eevee and Eeveelution trainers.

Dawn and her Pokémon – As I mentioned previously, it kind of felt like the only reason Dawn was brought back was to contribute to Chloe’s development. Whilst, it was nice to see Dawn and her Piplup again it would have been nice to have seen Dawn’s other Pokémon outside of a flashback. We did have that brief scene where Dawn gave Chloe a demonstration of a Contest Performance but outside of that we hardly saw anything else to do with contests. They could have done something similar to the Darkrai film and show the contest in the end credits as a one-off/special ED. Or if the arc had been longer, they could have devoted more time to the contest aspect and we could have seen Chloe and Dawn participating in the Eterna City contest. It just would have given Dawn a better opportunity to shine and show off her skills as a Coordinator.

They could have featured the rest of Dawn’s Pokémon in the beach scene at the end of Episode 75. I just wanted a Buneary and Pikachu reunion ToT

Apologies, for turning this into a critique of episode 75/this mini-arc. However, it brought me back to this point and I’ve seen people always make this comment or have made videos on it when critiquing Journeys. The problem Journeys has is that any returning characters have basically been treated as fan service that the older fans including myself have eaten up. But when you think about it, it's honestly doing these characters a disservice, and they deserve so much better. Take Korrina and Iris, Iris, in particular, they had hyped up their returns to the series and it ends kind of falling flat as they both lose to Ash to help him to further his goal (which contributes to Journeys pacing issue). Nevertheless, their losses end up diminishing all the development they built up to that point, particularly with Iris’ Haxorus, this was a Pokémon I would have loved to have seen develop more on-screen and when we see him fully evolved as he has always dreamed it was sad to see him lose.

This brings me to this point that I’ve made and so have others, that the Wallace Cup arc has arguably been one of the best arcs/methods of utilising a former main cast member. And it’s due to the reasons, I had listed were the latest DP arc fell short:

The pacing/length

May and her Pokémon

Dawn’s development

The setting

I feel like the setting, in particular, was one of the main reasons why the Wallace Cup arc was so successful. If you’re still reading this, thank you and sorry for the incredibly long introduction.

The pacing/length:

I feel like these two aspects go hand-in-hand so I decided to place them under the same bracket. Now I don’t know whether some count the Wallace Cup arc as five episodes rather than four as May does briefly appear in Our Cup Runneth Over! But I count it from A Full Course Tag Battle! Nevertheless, whether it be four or five episodes, this arc didn’t feel like it dragged on or rushed, it was the perfect length in my opinion. A Full Course Tag Battle! Was a great way to re-introduce us to May and her character, to learn of her progress/struggles in Johto and to see some of her Pokémon again. This episode had helped integrate May back into the main cast perfectly as we learn she keeps in contact with Ash and they both still have their halves of the Terracotta Ribbon and we see that May and Dawn develop a fast friendship through their shared interests and current hardships. In addition to this, I like the call-back to May’s Kanto Journey, with her fire-water combination in the Tag battle as well as the food-loving aspect of her personality (same May same).

The following episode, Staging a Heroes Welcome! Showed off one of my favourite aspects of Contests in the anime, the Performance Stage. In addition to this, it allowed us to see May’s new skills and style in a Contest setting. I really enjoyed May’s performance, as we learnt her timid Squirtle had evolved into a confident Wartortle (one of my favourite starter Middle Stage evolutions) and I loved their simple performance, it reminded me of a pebble/stone skipping across the water and you couldn’t take your eyes off Wartortle. I really enjoyed Ash’s performance, it’s not the first time he’s competed in a Contest but I love the fact he competed with Buizel, who wasn’t that interested in Contests under Dawn’s ownership. Additionally, I love the fact Ash used Dawn’s feedback to help with the performance but it honestly felt like an Ash performance, just showing off his and Buizel’s love of battle.

Finally, it’s getting closer to Dawn’s turn and naturally, she starts to have doubts, causing Piplup to launch a Bubble Beam at her face. It was a short but cute display of Dawn and Piplup’s relationship and how they support one another especially as Piplup tried to gently encourage Dawn throughout her slump. In this case, he decided to be a little more forceful. Despite a little stumble, Dawn and Ambipom ultimately delivered a simple and clean performance taking on Zoey’s advice. Ultimately being rewarded with a place in the Battle Stage. Overall, this episode was a brilliant way to introduce to the Wallace Cup, the beginning of Dawn re-gaining her confidence and seeing the Hoenn cast of characters.

Pruning Passel of Pals! Personally, this is the weakest episode of the arc, just for the fact it has the least amount of battling but we expand on DP’s main plot with the Lake Trio as Ash catches sight of Azelf and we expand on the Sinnoh lore. We also get a cute Team Rocket moment, where James and Meowth arrange for Jessie to act as a TV commentator for the competition, their sense of comradery is so cute (also if Jessie’s happy they’re happy). I liked the fact we got to see Dawn’s first battle of the competition after renewing her confidence and I did enjoy the battle, as we hadn’t seen Buneary in a Contest battle for a while. Up to the Quarter Finals, we mostly got still-shots or brief cuts of the other battles which is what makes this episode weaker in comparison to the others. However, it allowed us to see May’s Skitty and that her Bulbasaur evolved all the way to a Venusaur.

Once, we reach the Quarter Finals, we see Ash battle against a Coordinator named Kyle. Sadly, Ash ultimately loses the battle and is eliminated he didn’t entirely lose out as he and Buizel are more in sync and the Ice Aqua Jet that Dawn couldn’t perfect with Buizel under her ownership was finally successful. However, Kyle brought up an interesting point during his battle with Ash that stuck with me, that in these types of contests such as the Wallace Cup and the Grand Festival, varying your Pokémon is vital so your opponents can’t figure out all of your strategies. This was what led to Solidad defeating May in the Kanto Grand Festival as observed May’s tactics and battle style. I just found this observation interesting and it was something that stuck with me.

Finally, my favourite episode of the arc and probably one of my favourite Contest episodes ever, Strategy with a Smile! Now, this is how you conclude a Contest arc! There was plenty of action, the first Semi-Final Battle we have is between Kyle and Dawn, what I loved with this episode and subsequent battles was seeing Dawn confident once again and having faith in her skills re-using the spin tactic, she developed in Oreburgh City and combining it with Bide causing Piplup to glow purple and turn his opponent’s attacks against them.

Then we have May vs Zoey, which allowed us to see May’s new skills and battle style on full display. We also get to see May’s Beautifly again! One of my favourite Pokémon. Once again, we got to see, why Zoey is one of Dawn’s toughest rivals utilising the pool to electrocute Beautifly. However, I liked the way May turned the tables on her, something I don’t think we saw too often with her in previous Contests. But she didn’t give Zoey the chance to counterattack either. I just really enjoyed seeing this new fierce style, May had developed during her time in Johto.

However, the next battle had to be one of my favourite Contest battles of all time. What better way to conclude the Wallace Cup arc? Then having our two main Coordinators go head-to-head, DP was the series when the visuals for Pokémon began to increase in quality and I really loved the visuals throughout this battle. Not to mention we got to May’s newly evolved Glaceon shine in a Contest Battle as we hardly got to see it in action as an Eevee.

Some fans were upset at the fact, May the more experienced Coordinator had lost to Dawn and I’ll explore factors and reasons why this could have happened. But I felt the need to hammer this point, Dawn only won by half a point and Contests aren’t about strength, the winner is the Coordinator who best displays their Pokémon’s traits in a Performance and Battle. And say if May won, either way, both Coordinators would have had a positive experience, it would have been similar to the conclusion of Dawn’s battle with Maylene. Despite the loss, Dawn still would have regained her confidence but I think her winning the Aqua Ribbon gave her that extra sense of affirmation, as Dawn won a Contest that attracts competitors from all over the globe. I can’t think of a better way of renewing a character’s sense of self-confidence than in a setting such as this. All in all, it was a great way to conclude the Wallace Cup arc.

It felt like every episode set out to fulfill the job it was meant to do and succeeded. Naturally, they couldn’t show off every battle in the competition and it’s the same in other Contest episodes, utilising still-shots. But I generally enjoyed every battle they chose to focus on and the way the pool battlefield was utilised throughout the competition. In addition to the character development featured throughout this arc, we had some progression to the overarching plot of DP. This section ended up being an episode-by-episode review of the arc but I hope it gets the point across!

May and her Pokémon:

The issue I’ve been having as of late is that it kind of felt like the only reason former main cast members were returning was to help develop a current main cast member and that just doesn’t feel right. These characters deserve to shine and we want to see how they developed. This is why one of my favourite aspects of the Wallace Cup arc is that we truly got to see May shine and see the progress she’s made from the naïve beginner trainer she was in AG to the fearless Coordinator she is now. In addition to May, we got to see all of her Pokémon shine in their own way at least once (yes, I’m including still shots). Which is why I’m glad we had the Full Course Tag Battle! The episode gave us the chance to see her Blaziken, as using a fire-type in a contest that celebrates water-types in a battlefield with a pool probably wouldn’t be a good idea.

One of my main reasons, May split off from Ash, was because she felt like she was imitating his battle style and she wanted to develop her own. And we got to see that in the Semi-finals and the Finals of the Wallace Cup, where May defeated Dawn’s toughest rival, Zoey by utilising her own tactics against her in a very Ash/Drew-like style.

Nevertheless, we also saw that old habits die hard, as to some extent as May still relies on luck-based moves as shown in the final where May had Glaceon use Secret Power which worked the first time and paralysed Piplup however, the second time it backfired and ended up making Piplup shine more in comparison to Glaceon.

All in all, we also learnt of May’s progress in Johto we essentially got to see it for ourselves, which is something fans who have followed May’s journey appreciate all the more.

Dawn’s Development:

As I mentioned in the previous section, it felt like as of late former main cast members was being brought back to help develop members of the main cast. What I love about the Wallace Cup arc, was that even though May was the more experienced Coordinator, at the time they were going through a similar experience and were both on losing streaks. In Dawn’s case, she needed to regain her confidence after two consecutive failures in the Performance Stage, the second time in which she over-compensated for the previous loss.

However, from this experience, Dawn didn’t just regain her confidence, she learnt that simplicity is best and can allow her Pokémon to shine and be the focus. This can be seen in her later Contest performances and in Arriving in Style! In which her Pokémon do something as simple as spinning or jumping whilst uniquely utilising their moves and remaining the focus of the audience.

Moreover, many fans were upset that May, the more experienced Coordinator had lost to Dawn in the Finals. All things considered, Dawn only beat May by half a point, Dawn could have edged May out at several points in the battle as Contests aren’t about strength, the victor is who best displays their Pokémon strengths. With May, having relied on luck-based moves too much, to Dawn utilising previously used tactics such as Piplup riding his Whirlpool (from Dawn’s second Contest) to using May’s water curtain tactic from the Semi-Finals against her.

To this day, this is still one of my favourite battles from the Pokémon anime, not only because I love Contests, seeing our two main Coordinators going up against one another but seeing Dawn having the confidence in her own tactics but being influenced by those around her as well.

The setting:

As I mentioned in the introduction, I believe the setting is one of the core reasons why the Wallace Cup arc was so successful. Having May’s return be featured in a Contest setting just makes so much sense. Not only that, but it allowed us to see May’s growth alongside Dawn. However, we also got to see Ash and Buizel’s relationship develop and to see Ash successfully execute one of his best strategies for the first time with the Ice Aqua Jet.

Conclusion:

Overall, in my opinion, the Wallace Cup arc is one of the best narrative uses of a former main character. As it not only allowed our current cast to develop but it allowed us to see first-hand, May’s growth and aggressive battle style that she’s developed in Johto, especially those who had been following May’s journey from a naïve beginner trainer to the fierce Coordinator she is today.

Dawn’s growth was great from re-gaining her confidence and not allowing it to become over-confidence. Learning simple is best, and that tactic allowed her Pokémon to shine the most. Ash developing new strategies and bonding with his Pokémon. And some slight plot progression to the overarching narrative/story of DP.

The pacing and length of this arc, was just right, as it didn’t feel too long or too short and every episode fulfilled the job it had set out to do. It's nice to experience short story arcs, as it gives the audience a chance to be gripped to a story/narrative and I enjoy having that sense of focus in a story.

Honestly, I think the writers had hit the nail on the head, with this arc and it's sad they couldn’t really replicate the success of the Wallace Cup arc with future character returns. I have seen over the years that the Pokémon anime is capable of some great story-telling and amazing character arcs as shown by this entire post. This is why, I’m finding some aspects of Journeys frustrating, that they set up some amazing plot lines or potential development and fall flat on the delivery or don’t even act on it.

I don’t know if it’s just me setting my expectations too high or I’m being overly critical. I would like to think it's healthy to have some criticisms of a series rather than to just blindly love it. Initially, I did enjoy Journeys but after the episode 60 mark, my enjoyment began to wear thin which makes me sad as I genuinely love to watch the anime alongside playing the games. Anyways, I feel better getting this off my chest and if anyone actually read the entirety of this post thank you! I’m thinking of making another post possibly focusing on why I’m not enjoying the episodic formula of Journeys but that might be another day!

[reachfortheskiespeeps]

The Meeting

FANFICTION BY: ''You know who you are ; ))'' AU: #actorAU PAIRING: MIKHAIL x ARCHER (aka HS!AU Adult Emilio's actor and HS!AU Adult Abel's actor)

⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛

((A/N: I ended up writing this before the one I initially thought to do, I swear this is much tamer than the other 😂 Sorry to disappoint, no spicy scenes, maybe next time XD Thank you Eszii for your spicy art, I just about burst into flames from it 💞

It’s this ship again, Mikhail x Archer, bc I am currently in love with them. I don’t think I’ll get over them for a while. I wanna write about them going through classic shoujo tropes, like, idk, beach episode? xmas episode? kabedon? ‘A got sick so B took care of A’? Gimme ideas y'all. I wanna keep writing while I have the motivation to do so, since I’ve had a dry spell for a year now 😂

One thing to note before getting started, Idk how to phrase it, but basically this fic is not in chronological order–but also yes bc it’s in the order i wrote it–I hope it’s not too confusing. Aight happy reading!))

——

Mikhail loves leaving butterfly kisses and hickeys all over Archer’s soft and fair body. He has his favorite areas, which are evident from how many and how deep they are, so Archer can’t even look at his reflection without blushing. Mikhail likes the sight of his lover covered in marks he made, knowing it was he who made them. While he does want to make it known that Archer is his, he doesn’t cause trouble by leaving marks on areas impossible to cover. On days when Archer isn’t busy, Mikhail is given free reign to kiss wherever he wished. He doesn’t want Archer getting hurt, so he rarely makes blatant bite marks, and the only times he did that was because Archer was being naughty and had to be taught a 'lesson’. (Although Archer didn’t seem very hurt by them, and instead….)

Archer, on the other hand, likes biting Mikhail’s hard body. He bites, he scratches, he licks. He did it the first time because he was being pouty and petty–it’s tough being the receiver ya know? And Mikhail just lets him because he’s cute and it’s kinda hot to feel his fangs sinking in like that. But then Archer got used to doing it and eventually did it because Archer noticed that Mikhail seemed to like being bitten (by none other than him, of course). He once caught Mikhail looking at his body on the mirror with a happy little tug on the corner of his lips, looking very much like a content Big Bad Wolf. Archer could almost see an imaginary tail wagging. He loves Mikhail’s body for all its glory and imperfections, even if the man himself didn’t, so leaving those marks on him was one of Archer’s many ways to show affection.

So one day when Mikhail shows up to work without bothering to cover up (it wasn’t noticeable anyway, his dark skin, tattoos and intimidating aura was enough for people not to look long enough to notice anything), Logan, who was beside Mikhail getting prepared for a scene, saw a small portion of scratch marks on his chest, the rest hidden by the v-neck shirt Mikhail wore.

And before he could stop his mouth, Logan found himself asking, “You have a cat, Mikhail?” Yuki, who was in the room with them too, looked up from reading his script upon hearing the brave attempt of Logan to converse with Mikhail. He didn’t join them, but he sat there, just listening in on their conversation. He didn’t have the guts that Logan had, but he was still interested to see how their conversation would go.

Mikhail looked at him–it was an ordinary glance but Logan still almost flinched. “Oh?”

'It was a gentler reply than I expected,’ Yuki thought. 'He is in a good mood?’

Logan seemed to think that as well, so he carried on the conversation. “Since when did you have it? Did you get it vaccinated yet? Some cats are just really playful, they don’t mean to be naughty, so it’s better to be patient and discipline them when–”

“Why do you think I have a cat?” Mikhail interrupted.

“Hm? Ah, I saw the scratch on your chest. What does your cat look like, by the way?”

Mikhail thought about it before he answered. “Pretty, soft, round, and pure white, got some claws, but never intends to hurt me. It’s cute.”

“And the eyes?” Logan eagerly asked.

“Hypnotic.” Mikhail unconsciously smiled, though Logan didn’t seem to notice, too happy to talk to the man in a pleasant manner. “Makes the cutest sounds too.”

But Yuki did.

“You must really love your cat huh?” Logan, as well as the silent Yuki, was surprised to know that Mikhail had a soft side. Well, not so surprised. He’s only ever truly obedient to Archer, whether the two of them noticed it or not.

Mikhail thought back to the man resting at home. Archer’s next scene was scheduled for tomorrow, so he had enough time to recover the energy he lost.

Mikhail played with his 'cat’ a bit too much last night. His clothes hid the many marks all over his chest and back made by his oh so cute little cat who grew resentful of Mikhail’s stamina, yet still unable to withstand mewling to his irresistible charm.

With a mischievous smile, Mikhail said, “I do.”

—-

Bonus:

After the shoot, in the shower rooms.

Yuki’s reaction when he saw Mikhail’s back: やっぱりね~ [Yappari ne~] Not a ネコ [neko], but a こいびと [koibito]…. Well, maybe both.

((A/N: Fun fact, neko in Japanese slang can also mean the “bottom” in a relationship. The more you know~

Can you guys recommend some sexy songs? I need background music for when I write stuff like this lol))

——

The first time Mikhail 'met’ Archer, it was on the radio. He was in his car, driving alone to a destination that no upright citizen should have any business with. He wasn’t in a good mood. Everything ticked him off–the traffic that he’d already passed, the voices on the radio who thought they were being funny, the sun blazing high up in the cloudless sky. He turned the radio off because it was annoying, but the goddamn silence left him with too much space to think. He needed a distraction. So he turned it back on and chose a random station.

“–by Archer Charles,” after the introduction, a pleasant-sounding voice thanked and began to sing live.

When Mikhail heard that voice, he sharply inhaled through his nose, his slightly dry lips parting.

Mikhail was not very good at describing. He could only say what he felt upon listening to Archer’s voice. Mikhail, who had been irate, was awestruck. He had never heard a voice so…. erotic. It’s not that the song itself was sexy or whatever, but there was something about that voice that made him….

'Ah.’

“Damn.” Mikhail cursed when he looked down to check his pants. “Almost.”

Mikhail heaved a deep breath to calm himself down.

'Charles Archer, was it?’

Ever since then, he became a fan of Archer. He kept this interest a secret from his colleagues; he didn’t want to hear their ribbing. He supported the singer the best he could and eventually, an opportunity arised for him to meet Archer at last.

He took a day off and even disguised himself to look as normal and harmless as possible for a man of his stature. Of course, he got his hands on a backstage pass. It wasn’t difficult to get for someone like him. He asked the staff if it was possible for him to meet the singer before the concert, because despite having taken a day off for today, Mikhail was concerned he would have to cut his holiday short. What if there was an emergency at work halfway through the concert? No, he’ll make use of this backstage pass, he would make sure he wouldn’t leave this place without meeting Archer.

At least, that’s what he thought before hearing his voice.

They were separated by the door he was about to open, but he could clearly hear an angel from behind this flimsy slab of wood. Mikhail knew from Archer’s instagram story yesterday that he was singing a song from an animated movie he just watched and he really loved it. Archer sung the song slowly, gently, as if lulling a child to sleep, and yet it did not lose its cheer.

“I’ll swim and sail on savage seas With never a fear of drowning And gladly ride the waves of life If you would marry me,

"No scorching sun nor freezing cold Will stop me on my journey If you will promise me your heart And love me for eternity,”

Oh. Oh. Mikhail covered his mouth with his hand, feeling the blood rush to his cheeks. The staff were buzzing around in preparation for the concert, but all he could hear was Archer’s voice.

“I have no use for rings of gold I care not for your poetry I only want your hand to hold I only want you near me,”

His hands were trembling–from what, he wasn’t sure. It was as if he had no control over his body. He felt parched, but at the same time, while listening to Archer, he felt so good. The best ever, after all these years. Like he was floating, higher and higher, Archer leading him by the hands, and Mikhail did not feel a shred of fear of falling.

“To love and kiss to sweetly hold For the dancing and the dreaming Through all life’s sorrows and delights I’ll keep your laugh beside me,

"I’ll swim and sail on savage seas With never a fear of drowning I’d gladly ride the waves so white If you will marry me!”

The heart he thought that had gone cold was reminding Mikhail of its presence when he heard the loud beating, as if his heart were right next his ears. His body seemed to throb achingly along with every beat.

Mikhail was brought back to earth when he felt the vibrating of his phone. It was the right decision to use the backstage pass early. He had to go back now.

'Meeting Archer will have to be moved. Again.’ Mikhail thought, changing out of the disguise in his car.

He was pissed that his work disturbed his time with Archer. Mikhail knew that after today, it wouldn’t be enough for him to just listen to his voice from a recording. He was being greedy, he knew, but he couldn’t help himself. After hearing his voice in real life, after almost seeing those mesmerizing scarlet eyes for himself, after being so close to meeting the reason he’s been sleeping well these past few months,

How could it be held against him to want more?

Mikhail had been mulling over this for a long time, but now he finally had the resolve to do so. He had enough power, he could do it.

Mikhail wanted to be with Archer.

But first, he had to go to Archer’s world.

—–

“I only want one person to play Abel.” Mikhail demanded.

The director raised an eyebrow, meeting Mikhail’s glare with a steady gaze. “I chose you because you’re a perfect fit for the role of Emilio, even though you’re a complete rookie.” Milo went back to looking at applicants for the role. “You’re in no place to make demands.” Milo retorted, disregarding the fact that Mikhail was the drama’s biggest sponsor. From the short time he’s known the man, he knew Mikhail wasn’t so unreasonable that he thought the world should bow to his whims because of money. However, he did have no qualms in using to his advantage the fear of people towards him due to the rumors of his ties to a gang.

“Archer. Archer Charles.” Mikhail took a drag of his cigarette, rudely blowing smoke to Milo’s direction, although they were on either ends of a long table so Milo didn’t mind.

Milo paused. The name that Mikhail said just so happened to be the one he was currently looking at. 'He looks…. good. A singer? Hmm.’ Archer was the one who had everything Milo was looking for in Abel. But he didn’t want to indulge that brat. He wouldn’t admit out loud that the one Mikhail recommended looked fit for the role.

“We’ll see in the auditions,” is what Milo finally said. “let them all act out a scene with you. The chosen actor for Abel should have good chemistry with Emilio’s actor.”

In contrast to what Milo predicted, Mikhail’s eyes gleamed, a slight smirk on his lips as he scoffed, “Chemistry? I’ll show you chemistry. Careful not to burn your pretty boy face,”

Milo smiled sweetly. “My my, how thoughtful of you.”

Mikhail held his cigarette in one hand, using the other to flip the director off. Milo mentally laughed at his juvenile response.

After three candidates, it was finally Archer’s turn. From the moment he entered the room, he brought with him a soothing aura and such a genuine smile that they couldn’t help but return the smile, easing the atmosphere in the room. From the corner of his eyes, Milo knew that Mikhail’s gaze never left the singer.

“You’re not being very subtle, you know?” Milo teased lowly.

“Mind your own damn business, pretty boy.” Mikhail would have snarled, but his eyes were still trained on the angelic singer in front of them, and he didn’t seem to be capable of showing a bad face in the presence of Abel. There was no way Archer couldn’t notice it, so Milo admired the way Archer didn’t seem to mind. That in itself already won him plus points; despite Mikhail’s unconcealed disinterest, the other candidates were still visibly nervous because of him. Regardless of what Archer thought of Mikhail, he didn’t outwardly show it.

Milo asked them to do two scenes–the first was a very short, simple scene compared to the others: Emilio coming home after two days and Abel comforting his touch-starved husband.

The scriptwriter was already losing her mind, soundlessly slapping the producer beside her. She spoke in a tone that was between a whisper and a squeal, “Oh my god, oh my god. They’re so perf I cannot even. They’re like, they’re like, so good together. Archer looks so soft and warm and white like rice, Mikhail is a mouth-watering dish, and together they make a complete meal!”

The second scene was not so innocent. To see how well they’d work together ad lib, they were not given any lines, just a scenario.

Abel in heat, in need of his alpha.

The judges watched, engrossed in the scene played out by the two. Archer’s wet, glassy eyes, flushed cheeks, panting and whimpering as he stared up at Mikhail, wordlessly pleading to be held. Mikhail, rigid for all but three seconds, scooped him into his arms, his unveiled desire lacing his husky voice and the almost feral look in his eyes. “I got you, babe.”

Archer went limp in his embrace, letting his whole weight be carried by Mikhail, arms reaching up to hug his neck. He rubbed his cheek against Mikhail’s neck, bare skin on bare skin, and let the words breathily escape from his mouth: “Please, dear, please, hmmm….”

At this point, the scriptwriter couldn’t hold her shrieking anymore, and so the spell was broken; Archer moved five steps away from Mikhail, who looked terribly displeased at the disturbance. “You got it! Oh honey, you’re perfect!” She stood up from her seat and enthusiastically gushed about the chemistry between the two.

The producer tugged her sleeve and reminded, “We have yet to discuss it together, keep your crazy down.” It is notable though, that the producer did not refute her words.

“Fine, let’s talk about it now. What does director think?” she turned to ask Milo.

Milo didn’t reply to her. Instead, he looked at Archer with a welcoming smile. “We start shooting next month, please call your manager in and we’ll discuss in more detail.”

The moment the cameras were rolling–no, even if they were off, sparks would still fly, that much the judges could tell. They were so perfect for the roles, they even pulled off not being cringy or awkward despite being relatively new to the acting business. It was because they complemented each other, both as themselves and the characters they portray.

Granted, Mikhail played favorites and didn’t do his best with the others trying out for the role, but what he had with Archer…. was unique. Together they were like a flame. They made anyone watching them feel like moths unable to look away from the bright and warm light, and anyone who gets too close will burn. Milo knew he struck gold with these two.

Milo looked at the innocent Archer and the devilish Mikhail. 'Poor kid. He’s not letting you go.’ Milo mentally smiled mischievously. 'Oh well, this will be fun to watch.’

—–

Bonus:

Archer, alone in a room: w h y, he was so cool, I was so flustered I couldn’t even look him in the eye, I’m so lame aaaaaahhhhh

—–

“I love it when you sing for me,” Mikhail says, his fingers tracing random patterns on his wife’s chest. “Even better when I make you sing.”

Archer shot an amused glance at his fiance, catching the man’s wandering hand on his chest because it was starting to tickle and make him shiver, and he was not about to be led into another round. Archer is determined to stand his ground this time, not to be affected by Mikhail’s seduction. It was his own stubbornness really, because it was so frustrating that he was the only one who always got flustered and unraveled.

But he has yet to learn his lesson, since he naively asked, “What’s the difference?”

Mikhail softly nips at Archer’s exposed collarbone, and Archer all but melts into a puddle when his irritatingly charming husband-to-be whispers, Mikhail’s lips against the helix of his ear: “Let’s find out, hm?”

Archer thinks to himself, 'Whatever, it’s not like he’s bad at it.’ When Archer has these kinds of thoughts, he feels even more embarrassed, and takes it out on Mikhail, the bad influence, by biting whatever part of his body Archer can reach at the moment.

And years after, as Archer reads a book on the large sofa while Mikhail naps with his head on Archer’s thicc lap, he realizes something about his husband.

Mikhail had the power to make Archer’s knees tremble in the most delightful way. He could make Archer reach the limits of his vocal range as they exercised. He could crumble Archer with a single, rare smile–a genuine smile, not a teasing grin or a provocative smirk, not that they don’t make him feel butterflies all the same.

But Archer, it belatedly dawned on him who made Mikhail that way. Archer roused the fire in Mikhail, made it hungry for him, made it want him. Archer didn’t just see it–he heard it, he felt it. Everyday, Mikhail would kiss him. He was not shy to say 'I love you’ contrary to everyone else’s expectations; he would hug Archer’s waist, bury his head on the crook of Archer’s neck, and mutter, 'I missed you’ or 'Come home soon’ when either of them became bogged with a packed schedule. Archer didn’t even know if Mikhail was conscious that he makes puppy dog eyes when doing those gestures.

Archer makes Mikhail melt.

He was notorious in the industry for the rumors of his ties to the yakuza, and it didn’t help that he looked the part and always answered ambiguously when asked. There was no media coverage about their tying the knot, perhaps thanks to Mikhail’s interference, but the people in their industry know. Most, who have never seen or worked with them together, didn’t believe it would last. They had even been worried about Archer getting hurt.

Hurt? By this defenseless, naughty, loving man?

Archer’s nails dug into the skin of his hands and assured them that his husband was not that kind of man. He smiled, but deep inside he was angry. Angry at them, but also at himself. Because once upon a time, he was scared of Mikhail too. Scared of him because of the rumors, scared of him because of his daunting build, scared of how easily Mikhail could break him, scared of how, despite all that, Mikhail was still so attractive in his eyes.

But Mikhail was gentle. Yes he was teasing and lewd, but he was always so sweet, so caring. Mikhail would cup his hands on Archer’s cheeks, staring in entertainment at how he made him blush, then kiss his pouting lips several times. And then, Mikhail would smile. His eyes curved, whatever harshness on his face melted away.

Archer still remembers the day he said yes.

Mikhail had never looked as nervous, then dumbfounded, then jubilant in a span of a minute. Mikhail grabbed him into a hug and spun him around, bursting with an unrestrained, happy laugh. If others saw Mikhail then, they would probably be weirded out and think he’s on some sort of drugs. He was never so positively expressive outside of acting out his role, and even then, most of them were directed at Archer. For Archer, it wasn’t strange at all. Mikhail slowly opens up to him for each day they are together, in the more frequent smiles, in the stories of his tattoos and the scars underneath. He knew Mikhail was only like that in front of him, and he felt so childish for feeling proud of it.

Mikhail put him back on his feet, arms still around his waist. They were forehead to forehead, eyes focused on the other pair, and Mikhail swore, “I’ll be good to you forever,”

Archer smiled. He had half the mind to think, 'Oh, he was a forever man. Such a romantic.’ He said, “I know. I’ll be good to you forever too,”

Archer ingrained in his memories the look of absolute joy and love on Mikhail.

Mikhail stirred from his nap. “Um…. hey.” the man blinked a couple of times. “Did you eat yet? Sorry, just wake me up next time.”

“It’s too early to eat, dear, it’s only been an hour. You came home in the morning, you should catch up on your sleep.” Mikhail always rushed home after an out of town job, unmindful of the jetlag and exhaustion that would follow.

“Yeah,” there was still sleep in Mikhail’s tone. Archer knew he would go back to sleep if he just closed his eyes.

“Why don’t you close your eyes?” At this point in their relationship, Archer was aware that Mikhail liked being spoiled, and he liked it even more when he could flirt like this with Archer.

“I want my goodnight kiss.” Mikhail said righteously.

Archer chuckled and bent down to place a chaste kiss on his husband’s lips.

He put a hand on Mikhail’s forehead, brushing away the stray strands of hair. “There, now go to sleep, dear.”

Mikhail hummed, evidently pleased, and obediently followed his wife’s demand.

As for whether Archer stole a kiss from his handsome sleeping husband, and whether Mikhail was actually asleep, that would be a secret they’d keep to themselves.

——

((A/N:

Q: If Mikhail is so tired since he rushed home, why are they resting on the sofa? Isn’t the bed more comfy?

A: The bed is broken. They have yet to buy a new bed because Abel wants Mikhail to learn to be more restrained. Mikhail is okay with it, since this time, he is thinking of testing the durability of the sofa, the table, the bathtub….))

Bonus:

Preparing for the wedding.

Archer: Dear, do you think I should wear a suit, or a gown?

Mikhail: Doesn’t matter.

Archer: ( • ^ • ) ?

Mikhail: I’ll be taking it off anway. ( =-= ) ✧

Archer: *sighs* I should’ve known. (〃 - 〃)

Mikhail: Wear whatever’s comfortable for you. You look beautiful in anything, even in nothing. Especially in nothing.

Archer: Mikhail! (⁄ ⁄>⁄ꇴ⁄<⁄ ⁄) … . *whispers* You too.

[alexswak]

Notes on Animation Quality in Anime

I had a rare chance in 2017 to meet Hiromi Matsushita, one of Minky Momo’s most prominent animators. Matsushita is still active in the industry, and when I entered the room he was focused on drawing a scene, which he finished in around 10 minutes. I think he didn't lose his skills yet. I asked him for a drawing, of Momo of course, a request he found too hard even with the help of an image of Momo from google. More than 10 minutes passed, a lot of drawing and redrawing on the same paper, he handed me the illustration saying: “I’m sorry, this isn’t the real Momo.”

Now, I’m not saying he couldn’t draw her correctly because he got used to the radically different anime drawings of today, it may be because he just forgot how to draw Momo, or any other reason for all I know. Whatever the reason was, anime drawings and character designs had changed radically, evolved if you will, through recent Japanese animation history. The common answer to the reason behind this change always seemed funny to me, which is “because technology.” It’s not enough to just deny this claim, so I’d like to elaborate more on why and how anime drawings change over time. This is obviously a big topic, so what I’ll say here would be more of my (personal) perspective on the matter. Take it however you like.

I should start with defining what I mean with drawings. I’m not talking here about coloring, effects or the like, I mean the bare drawings themselves. This is literally the key drawings (frames), and to a lesser degree the in-betweens. Character designs are their own thing as well. This means that advancements in image quality and related technologies don’t count, since remastering a movie from the ‘70s in HD doesn’t mean the drawings themselves changed at all, forget about improved. Another point is the difference between the drawings on their own and how they move, i.e. the difference between animating and drawing, still there’s a direct influence between these two I’d like to talk about as well.

Sometimes, I feel like people look at the animation industry the same way they look at the gaming industry in this regard, not helped by the fact that mainstream high-budget animation productions in the US adopted the same technology for animating (CG). As for the Japanese industry though, it’s and has always been the pencil and paper. I’m not denying all the technological advancements that happened, but they weren’t fundamental changes that improved the quality of a drawing on paper. Even then, there were mostly only two new major technologies used introduced in anime production in the last decade: Digital coloring in the late ‘90s, and Xerography in the late ‘60s.

Xerography is basically a technique to copy drawings from normal paper to cels for coloring. Cels obviously can’t be drawn on due to their fragile nature, I believe. I rarely saw anyone talk about this technology before (in anime) so I’ll try to do a simple and short introduction. It was first introduced to Japanese companies through Disney’s Delmants 101, which caught the attention of Toei Douga (Toei Animation now). Toei took the device and modified it, most importantly adding an extra camera used for tracking perspective. Mainly to make drawings larger/smaller as they moved towards/away from the horizon. This device first saw use in Toei’s “Ken and Wolves” TV show early ‘60s. It wasn’t cheap nor easy, so Toei sought a better alternative, one of which was a device called “Trace Machine - ツレースマシン”, first used in “Sasuke” late ‘60s. It’s hard for me to point out how these two devices differed, but one advantage of the Trace Machine was conveying the original delicacy and feeling of the traced drawings better, something Disney’s machine didn’t manage to do quite well. Sasuke was praised for capturing the original soul of the manga, and it wasn’t Sasuke alone, Gekiga adaptations saw a rise in that era due to this machine making capturing the roughness of Gekiga drawings possible. Just look at Tiger Mask or Samurai Giants. I’m not sure here, but it seems like Xerography didn’t saw mainstream use until later in the ‘80s, probably because of costs. Anyway, here’s a Japanese article for more info.

As well-known it may be, we need a quick review: Astro Boy. Toei was aiming for a “Disney of the east” status, and really the idea of periodically producing anime was so strange back then, in Japan at least. The ~2 hours movies of the time needed years, so 20 minutes weekly was just insane. And insanely different were those TV productions from the quality movies of the time. You may have heard this before, but really watching clips of Astro Boy is the only way to understand how primitive it was. Nonetheless, it succeeded in becoming the standard for TV anime, and TV anime becoming the standard for anime in general later on even for movies. All the downgrade in quality of animation and everything.

This is where most people would start bashing the TV industry, yet I have a different perspective on the matter. The huge output of the Japanese industry is the main reason it reached its current international success and behind Japan’s status as the animation capital of the world. TV in America may have had a catastrophic effect on the industry, and wasn’t without negatives in Japan, but the way TV was handled and evolved is vastly different between the two countries and in turn the two vastly different outcomes we have now. TV in Japan presented a steady stream of relatively quick and flexible projects for Japanese creators to learn and experiment, a stream that only grew further increasing the variety of works and styles, the best thing the Japanese industry is known for now. Almost all well-known Japanese creators today had their start learning and experimenting in TV.

The huge amount of works produced was pretty useful for training creators in an environment that relies on learning by doing and still, to this day, mostly lacks any effective prior training system. Look no further than Tomonori Kogawa, who had a degree in fine arts, to see the important addition for properly studying and learning art. Kogawa kinda reminds me of Akino Sugino, not that their styles are similar or anything, it’s just that both care a lot about drawings quality. Ashita no Joe, which he supervised, had probably the best drawings quality of its decade.

When it comes to animation though, Toei Douga movies followed a similar realistic approach to Disney in treating characters as if they are actors on a stage. After TV anime emerged the principle remained the same, so creators just tried to replicate life in a working condition much more limited and restrained than that of Toei. Quality improved generally after some adapting and experimenting in this new landscape, but the focus mainly wasn’t on animation quality anyway. It was stories and direction that counted, Tomino and Gundam as a prime example. Even the “anime boom”, initiated by Yamato’s movie in ‘76, didn’t change that. The real change in that regard only came after treating animation in a more free way, free from the obligation of imitating real life I mean, which was the way Yoshinori Kanada treated it.

I won’t get into Kanada and his style, sources on him are enough anyway, what we need here is just the result of his wild popularity in the early ‘80s: Changing people’s view to anime. Before Kanada came, the only industry celebrities were directors, while animators stayed unknown. Not anymore. Kanada was maybe, for a time at least, number one in the industry, and this just goes to show the change in mindset: Animation is at the forefront now. And how did Kanada animate? Pretty unrealistically.

Let me detour a bit to talk about realism first. I remember some saying that Akira ushered in the age of realism in anime, a claim certainly far from the truth. Akira is rather the pinnacle of this long going approach. Pinpointing a start isn’t of much use in this discussion anyhow, and if not for my appreciation of documenting such info I wouldn’t have brought this up at all, but my argument is that the start of realism in animation is the start of animation itself.

Yet an important question must be addressed here: What realism are we talking about? If you think of it as just replicating life, then you’re oversimplifying animation as a whole. There’s only one way for things to move in real life, restrained by physics and all, but animation offers a multitude of approaches to represent movement, ways that imply realism nonetheless. And different approaches were popular at different times throughout anime history.

Take Utsunomiya for example, who wasn’t sure about joining the industry at first. He knew how the situation was, and how hard it would be to create anime in the same or similar to Disney and early Toei movies’ style that he so admired. I personally always found it weird how people held Utsunomiya’s style for realistic. His style is maybe considered as the epitome of what Toei’s theatrical realism aspired to achieve, and the main characteristics of that are exaggerated acting and theatrical movements, which is maybe not strictly realistic or natural. Nonetheless, as for weight and spacing, there’s no denying his accuracy and fine execution. Akira, and to a lesser extent Gosenzosama-banbanzai, are the embodiment of his and Takashi Nakamura’s approach in animating.

See this scene from Utsunomiya 

I don’t know much about 70’s and 60’s realism, but the main description I read at least was, again, the theatrical realism influenced by Disney. The Kanada “revolution” was more of an abnormality, since realism returned to be the dominant style of anime after a while, and its evolution didn’t stop anyway. A lot of the pioneers of the next realism wave started or matured under the Kanada age, such as Takashi Nakamura or Utsunomiya.

There are different aspects to realism as well. One of Takashi Nakamura’s famous scenes, his scene in Gold Lightan, is considered to be a very realistic depiction of debris and stones in his time at least. Others depict effects and liquids realistically and so on. I feel like this is just a matter of approach and perspective. Utsunomiya for example saw the characters as actors on a stage, Ohira saw them a lot of times as gelatinous almost liquidy shapes, but all those approaches and depictions induce a realistic feeling in a sense, and are finely (and realistically) timed and weighed in their movement.

See this scene from Takashi Nakamrua. Notice hand and mouth movement. 

Of course not all animators can do realistic movement well. Miyazaki and others complained about every other animator in the early 80s’ being a Kanada knock-off, a bad knock-offs in a lot of cases, yet Kanada’s style wasn’t hard to imitate, maybe not perfectly but definitely to a “good enough” degree. Realism on the other hand is hard, even harder in shows that lack talents such as Utsunomiya or time and budget. It was obvious after Akira, or even a while before Akira, which style the industry (or the audience) will prefer. And at that point the industry took a different approach to realism, not the realistic movement approach seen in Akira and movies that established this style in Japan to begin with, but an approach that gives the feel of realism in different ways, first being character designs and increasing the lines and details in drawings generally.

If we go back to the ‘60s and some of the ‘70s we can see many shows with designs rich in lines or styles close to realism, but it was mainly the exception and didn’t represent the main trend, some of which being caused by things like Gekiga or personal styles such as Sugino’s or Osamu Dezaki’s. Late ‘70s and early ‘80s mainly had simplistic designs which really helped Kanada’s style grow and spread. Simplicity contradicts realism by nature, and adding more lines or details to a drawing makes it harder to draw/animate. Straightforward, and this is just what happened after the demise of Kanada’s style, more realistic designs that barely move. Just look at any OVA from that period and compare it to any OVA from the Kanada wave. Amazing what 5 years could do!

Vampire Sensou in 1990. Interesting character designs, not much movement though.

Difficulty of drawing isn’t the sole problem here. Kanada’s style, despite its energetic nature, doesn’t require a lot of frames, actually the low number of frames is one of its strong characteristics. It’s a style born from the constraints of the Japanese industry to begin with, and if you think about it probably no other industry would have given born to such a style but the Japanese one. While you need a substantial number of frames to achieve a convincingly real movement. Maybe I’m over exaggerating here, but the Japanese TV industry tried two decades to achieve realism in an environment not suited for it and found Kanada’s style that embodied the sole of this industry, just to abandon it for an unconvincing realism.

Kanada’s OVA “Birth” in 1984 is probably the important turning point. Maybe you could say that the story of OVAs is also the story of Japanese anime, as OVAs reflected the state of the industry in general in each period. Maybe because OVAs were the direct way to reach the audience without the need for a TV channel or a distributor or even a high budget, in turn being a demonstration of the audience’s preference. It was definitely the free expression window for creators, young independent ones especially, free from any obligations for any big company. Obviously big companies were there, even more so in the late ‘80s after OVAs matured, but all in all it was the will of the creators that shined through. OVAs also played a decisive role in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, when anime (TV especially) was facing a hard time due to different reason beyond the scope of this article. This led to OVAs influencing the development of the industry in interesting ways, hard to imagine if you look at the state of OVAs now.

The Japanese industry relied heavily on TV since pretty early on, so any problem facing TV anime is a problem for the industry as a whole. Middle/Late ‘80s wasn’t the best time for TV, a long story with multiple causes such as the change in demographics and emergence of video games, but our concern here is the paradigm shift that happened. For the most part and up to that point anime revenue came from games or manga or something else, a separate product. Not the show itself, meaning that its quality wasn’t a concern as long as it supported the primary product well. This obviously didn’t hold Ichiro Itano back from doing his wonderful circus scenes, or Tomino from executing his different depiction of mecha anime, but those again were creative acts on the personal level not the project as a whole, and in the end it wasn’t Tomino’s direction and vision that saved Gundam, it was the Gunpla.

It’s a fine system as long as the audience keeps on buying your primary product, something a lot of companies struggled with later on, reaching the OVA system where you just sell the show itself rather than a separate product. A similar system to movies, but simpler, safer and with less parties involved. We take internet for granted today, but in the ‘80s OVAs were the only choice for creators wanting to self-publish something weird or radically different, something that obviously won’t be backed by big companies.

Anyway, selling the show itself is completely different approach with completely different focus points. Quality comes first now, and first of all is drawings and animation quality, since anime is a visual medium after all. Without constraints or demands from distributors or any tight schedules, and with making less episodes, you’re able to raise quality considerably, the main selling point of OVAs. Patlabor, Gunbuster or Gundam 0083 all had high quality and were big successes, not only setting the standards for visual quality in anime, but also showing how important visual quality in anime is, both for companies and audiences. After this model matured, attempts to replicate this success in TV anime started, where the potential is much bigger due to the wider reach, which led to the contemporary late-night model we have now, maybe the most successful anime model till quite recently. Evangelion is considered to have played an active role in establishing this model, and in increasing visual quality in TV anime generally, and Ryusuke Hikawa claims that what he calls the “Quality Revolution” in the anime industry started in the ‘90s. I also think that Evangelion played no small part in establishing the production committee system we have now in every show, but I’m not quite sure.

Before I end this I want to link two nice resources for further reading. The mecha history research and an article that came in Akira’s Animation Archive, both by Ryusuke Hikawa. 

[takerfoxx]

Read the Walpurgis Nights epilogue, and I gotta say: Is it wrong that I actually found the Charlotte and Candeloro parts to be the least interesting? Again, they’re not bad, but as is par for the course for your stuff, I always find the side stuff more intriguing than what the main focus is supposed to be.

In this case, it’s the introduction of the Flip Flappers. As someone who considers the show to be an underrated gem of the Magical Girl genre, it was a thrill to see them in the Walpurgis Nights universe, though this does bring up it’s fair share of questions, such as:

What were their wishes?

Does their hair still change color when they transform?

Why Osaka? Was there a particular reason, or did you just think of a random Japanese city name?

Can they even have a group with two green members? That throws off their pattern.

Regardless, I’m pleased we might see them in future installments, even if I am slightly worried Yayaka might become Ophelia 2.0.

Also, I thought about what you said about my preferences regarding my last review. And I think it has to do with the books I read as a kid. See, while other kids went through a Harry Potter phase, I was going through an ‘After Man’ phase, and if you’ve ever read that book, you’d know it’s a bit… different than conventional popular works. 

Point is I was more interested in that stinking Karnuk than I had any right to be. Though I do wonder how intelligent it is. On one hand, it is a predator, and its’ actions do suggest it possesses a good memory and possibly emotions, but on the other hand, the story suggests they are usually solitary creatures that probably don’t care for young, and they probably just overpower anything as opposed to pack hunting, which would suggest a lower intelligence. 

While reading this review, you might be hearing a slurping sound. That is me trying to eat the words I wrote regarding Charlotte’s encounter with her past self. Because THIS was the meeting between the two I was looking for! A delightful little moment that raises a lot of questions as well.

The final scene with Madoka’s family was beautifully somber as well. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I like it, because a lot of fanfic writers, even the more popular ones, tend to forget the importance of Madoka’s family. They were a huge influencer, arguably more so than Homura, on Madoka’s decision making in the end of the anime, so thanks for giving them their due.

In short, this is probably the second best chapter of this part, rivaled only by the one where all the witches meet their past selves. 

And one final thought: Every time you mention a tall, slim, athletic girl, I feel a little bit worse for Candeloro. She probably feels like the token fat kid by comparison.

1. Dunno. If I ever expand on that I’ll figure something out.

2. Probably. That whole business is gone though.

3. Osaka was pretty much chosen out of a hat. Also, I have a weird fondness for it due to...reasons. But yeah, most random details quite often have no deeper meaning behind them.

4. Ophelia is the way she is due her own unique circumstances. If anything, Yayaka will probably take more after RD Kyoko, minus all the spiraling sanity stuff due to not being on a torturous quest. 

5. As for the karnuk, I’m afraid it was mostly there as a plot device (give ‘em something to fight in the water), and the details were made up as needed (invisible to keep it from getting caught too early and to give it an edge, normally skittish to justify its initial behavior, etc.). Also there’s the Rule of Cool and Rule of Funny to keep in mind. 

Basically what I’m saying that with things like that I tend to mostly make them up as I go along, so any questions about its intelligence and social life I really don’t know.

6. With everything that this whole arc has been about, I really couldn’t think of any other way to end it other than looking back on those who were left behind. I mean, there’s been a lot of lighthearted cuteness in this story (well, there used to be anyway) that it’s easy to forget that most of them did leave grieving families behind. So it felt right to confirm that the girls are loved and remembered, but their families were able to pull themselves together and move on.

7. I truly doubt it. For one, I think you’re over exaggerating Candeloro’s curviness. And even if you’re not, I’m reminded of that time when Patrick Stewart was asked why Captain Picard is bald when baldness ought to have been cured in the future. His answer was that in the future, people don’t care.

Basically, Freehaven has enough weirdness going on already for anyone to really give a shit if someone’s put on a few pounds. Kind of hard to care when your new neighbor’s got those sticky-stretchy things for hands and hair that always points north for some inexplicable reason.

[keyofjetwolf]

Jet Wolf Summarizes Act 34

The manga and I kind of hate each other. This is unfortunate, but still, I’m determined to come out of this with something. Rather than spend energy on a liveblog that’s increasingly negative, I’m reading each manga act (mostly) silently, and then writing up summaries at the end. I won’t pull my punches. There’s going to be criticism and snark about the manga, either wholesale or in details. If that isn’t a thing you feel like reading, please skip this post!

To say there were parts of this issue that irritated me seems as unnecessary as declaring “my puppy is cute!” or “cheese is important!” Yet I’ll still post puppy pictures and shove cheese in my face, so necessity isn’t a great deciding factor for me, it would appear.

Ye GODS, I got irritated in this issue. But I also was interested for like two seconds. IT WAS WEIRD. The manga quickly reasserted itself and its hatred for me personally, but oh, those seconds.

First though, we have a mountain of crap to dig through.

We open with Chibs at the hospital. A doctor says she’s gone into cardiac arrest, and is dying, and everyone just stands there and looks at each other, which I do not think is the approved method for treating cardiac arrest. I realize I’m not a doctor, but I used to watch a lot of ER, so I feel pretty confident. Mamoru actually tells the doctor to leave, which seems like exactly what you WOULDN’T want in this situation, BUT MAMORU KNOWS BEST I GUESS.

I’m about to jump ahead a bit here, but jesus wept this aggravated me, so you can guess how much I care. Okay, so this is the panel just after Mamoru’s told the doctor to fuck off:

This one is seven pages later, after they’ve moved Chibs to Mamoru’s apartment:

SEVEN PAGES LATER AND A LOCATION CHANGE AND THIS IS BASICALLY THE SAME FUCKING PANEL AND I’M SO ANNOYED BY IT

DO THE INNERS JUST ALWAYS MOVE IN THIS EXACT ORDER ARE THEY LITTLE SOCCER MEN ON A FOOSBALL STICK

AMI EVEN HAS HER FUCKING HAND TO HER  CHIN IN BOTH SHOTS

AND I MAYBE WOULDN’T EVEN MIND SO MUCH IF EVEN A SINGLE ONE OF THE INNER SENSHI HAD A FUCKING LINE TO THIS POINT BUT THEY DIDN’T

THEY ARE BASICALLY BACKGROUND SCENERY AND THEN MAMORU DISMISSES THEM BECAUSE EVEN THAT IS TOO MUCH FOR THEM AND OH MY GOD I ACTUALLY SCREAMED WHEN I SAW THIS I AM A CREATURE OF PURE IRRITATION

Whew, okay. Glad I got that out. Back to the summary.

So Chibs is dead dying. Cardiac arrest is like pneumonia now, who knew? This is of course the perfect time for the Outers to visit and tell everyone they want nothing to do with them! They drop a glut of reasoning and exposition that they really should have no way of knowing, but someone has to do it, and they drew the short straw this episode. They talk about daimons and possession and it not only doesn’t make sense but is boring in precisely the way the worst info dumps always are. Anyway, they have people to kill, later.

Mamoru makes a keen medical decision.

YES A HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT’S SINGLE BEDROOM APARTMENT IS BY FAR THE BEST CURE FOR BLOOD NOT FLOWING

All the doctors apparently agree with Dr. Chiba’s stellar treatment plan as we’re next at Mamoru’s, where he does that life force sharing thing. In the manga, he can just do that now. In fairness, however, in the anime, THE CATS can just do that now. Incidentally, I am delighted to no end that the anime’s solution for a big manga question mark is “THE CATS I GUESS”. Kitty ex machina.

Mamoru tells the Inners to GTFO, and as Usagi is angsting over what to do, he makes out with her over the comatose body of their dying future daughter. AS YOU DO. Making out gives them both a vision because romantic love is fucking ~*~magical~*~ you guys, and Mamoru blah blah I’m still so pissed the Inners were fucking dismissed from even being four lingering worried faces shoved into the same panel THEY CAN’T EVEN HAVE THAT.

Meanwhile, at Casa de Bad Guys, Mistress Nine is trying to cut her hair, and I cannot for the life of me fathom why. OUT OF CONTROL HAIR IS KIND OF YOUR THING. Tomoe and Kaolinite grovel at her feet, functionally no different from any mini-boss and Big Bad exchange we’ve seen so far, just somehow more boring. Mistress Nine brings Chibs’ ginzuishou to Pharaoh 90 (it’s not so much a planet-sized eldritch abomination here, more like a talkative gust of Febreze), and they shave a decade or so off my life by talking about fucking crystals again. Why the manga didn’t just own that it really wanted to be about Mamoru and crystals, I have no goddamn clue. Kaolinite meanwhile resurrects the Witches 5, as they were so effective in their previous singular appearance.

Usagi wanders out of Mamoru’s apartment who the fuck knows how many hours later, to find the Inners all patiently waiting for her outside, like dogs tied to the bike rack. They pledge to go get Chibs’ soul back (BLOOD NOT FLOWING = SOUL) and go to Mugen. Usagi spends the whole time lamenting that the Outers aren’t with them. You know, Usagi, if you could focus on one fucking problem at a time, that’d be awesome. They enter, see the Witches 5 twins, and then everyone gets separated.

HERE’S WHERE IT WAS INTERESTING FOR A COUPLE SECONDS. THE INNERS ACTUALLY GET SOMETHING TO DO I COULDN’T FUCKING BELIEVE IT. AND SEPARATELY LIKE THEY WERE MAYBE INDIVIDUAL PEOPLE IT WAS AMAZING.

Sort of. They each get a couple of pages/panels where they face off against their Witches 5 counterpart. It’s psychological-focused! It actually deals with each of the girls in a different way! The fact that it’s the most basic possible insight into their characters actually doesn’t even bother me because it’s fucking SOMETHING. After 30+ chapters and I don’t know how many hundreds of pages of story where the best I could hope was that they wouldn’t be shoved aside immediately (AND WAS OFTEN DISAPPOINTED), my god, it’s like getting a thousand page character-based novel.

But this is the manga, and it gives, only to cruelly take. What punishment will it dole out to this poor innocent Jet Wolf, trying only to salvage a morsel of pleasure? Perhaps Mamoru will somehow be shoehorned in? Maybe the situation will exist only to highlight how Usagi is the super besty best? Perhaps the arc will steal one more moment to remind us that Haruka is cool, Pluto’s not dead, and Michiru is also there?

WOULD YOU BELIEVE ALL FUCKING THREE

These scenes, where the Inners face a moment weakness and uncertainty exist only to show Mamoru And Usagi Are Connected By Miracle Romance

AND OH NO HOW HARD IT IS FOR HIM TO NOT BE THERE IN THIS FIGHT POOR MAMO-CHAN :( :( :(

That Usagi alone is strong enough to see through this and break free

And that the Outers have to come save them.

So yeah, that character-based moment the Inners got, their first since their introduction? Solely to build up LITERALLY EVERYBODY ELSE.

Fuuuuuuuuuck yooooouuuuuuu

Then everyone powers up Usagi into Super Sailor Moon, she maybe kills Kaolinite? No one really cares. Mistress Nine does something with Chibs’ ginzuishou, but it’s impossible to tell what.

I’m going with her throwing up from that mad kegger last night. Look, you can’t prove I’m NOT right.

Oh, and Chibi-Usa’s glowing now. I checked WebMD, and it says glowing is a side effect of either blood not flowing, meningitis, or cancer. Thanks as always, WebMD!

[danschkade]

ANALYSIS -- BATMAN: GOTHAM ADVENTURES #17

On a recent trip to visit my folks, I went through some boxes and found, sans cover, this copy of 1999’s BATMAN: GOTHAM ADVENTURES #17. Gotham Adventures was my full-stop favorite comic when it was coming out, a combination of me being smack dab in the middle of its target demographic and it being really, really well made. Tight story, dynamic artwork, clean, crisp colors and letters. As I transition from Vacation Dan back to The Schkade That Works, I thought it would be a useful exercise to go through this issue, page by page, to see how it ticks.

I’ll be focusing mainly on the pencils and colors by Tim Levins and Lee Loughridge, respectively, plus Scott Peterson’s script — Terry Beatty is one of my favorite inkers ever and letter Tim Harkins acquits himself expertly, so I won’t have much to say about them beyond “continues to be amazing, surprising no one.”

And please, feel free to check me on any mistakes I might have made, add your own commentary, or share similar examples of good comics done well.

Batman: Gotham Adventures and all characters contained therin are of course property of DC Comics, reproduced here solely for educational purposes.

PAGE ONE

We open strong with a full-page splash. Three distinct players whose suits, hats, and bad ties immediately code them in the Timm-verse aesthetic as ‘Hoodlums’ give us immediate sense of threat. Their momentum is heading left, into the fold, against the western flow of reading; this is because they’re bad guys — their actions go against the proper order of things, up to and including the reading flow. But also for another reason, which the right-most hood’s reaction sets us up for, compelling us to turn the page.

PAGE TWO-THREE

An even stronger followup with a double-page splash. Batman smashes in through the window in a powerful left to right movement, in direct opposition to the gangsters’ movement on the previous splash. The background establishes the family Batman is there to protect, as well as the shabbiness of their apartment and clothes. The fact that Batman’s cape can still be partially outside the window while he’s hitting the hoods who just came through the opposite doorway immediately sells how small the space is. What could these poor people possibly have that’s worth three armed gunmen kicking down their door?

PAGE FOUR

This page is all about one thing: establishing Batman as an overwhelming force. Strong left-to-right movement, always dominating the panel, no signs that this is especially difficult for him. His first line of dialogue: a piece of short, relaxed, confident detective talk.

PAGE FIVE

The first two panels do a lot. Batman converses openly with the Agronas family, who clearly trust him. He’s a terrifying physical presence, but a terrifying physical presence of the people. It also shows that Nicky Agronas is bright — wears glasses, reads the newspaper. As soon as they mention the husband, the husband appears, which is a nice clean introduction for that character. There’s no reason the husband could’t have been in the double splash that introduces his wife and son, but having him coming home in the middle of this scene is a great way to inject a little motion onto a page that would otherwise just have been four people talking in a room. Lastly, the sudden use of heavy black — enhanced by Loughridge’s shift to unnatural yellow lighting — makes Batman’s suspicion of the husband feel intimidating without having to change his physical demeanor, which would have both been over-the-top and undone the work the first couple panels do to make him a sympathetic protagonist.

Academic sidebar: Setting aside that this is an issue in a series featuring one of the most famous fictional detectives of all time, how do we know Batman the protagonist of this story? Because he’s the one doing things and asking questions, moving the plot forward.

PAGE SIX

Nice one-two beat with the first two panels on this page: Panel one, Mr. Agronas is calmly answering the question — he’s a good citizen with nothing to fear from Batman. Batman still dominates the frame, though. Panel two zooms in on Agronas, putting the question of his involvement to bed with a simple, honest mini-joke. Letting him have a panel all to himself to say this is a good way to humanize him. In panel three, Batman continues to tower, but there’s no threat of violence. Here, as on the high-angle shot in panel three of the previous page, we see some shattered glass to remind us of the damage to the window and door from earlier. The money Batman leaves them for said damage is totally understated, with only the bright green color drawing attention to it. Batman’s a stand-up guy, but drawing attention to it wouldn’t fit his image.

PAGE SEVEN

There’s nothing in this first panel that says “JAIL” or “POLICE” — it’s just a bluntly governmental-looking building (I believe it’s specifically the blocky grey columns that give it this feeling), but we can tell from the fact that there’s prison bars in the next panel that that’s what the building is. No need to add extraneous detail. I like the design Levins gave the head hood, first seen on page one — the unibrow is a great way to sell the change from frowning to fear. Note also how many memorable features the big prisoner has — bald, scar, blind eye, bad teeth. He’s easy to remember, which will become important shortly.

PAGE EIGHT

Loughridge’s sickly green colors of the previous page snap back to natural lighting on this page, immediately conveying the change in environment. And hey, how great is that Commissioner Gordon silhouette in panel one? That’s some smart use of character model. Regarding the design of the big prisoner from the previous page — we see here that he’s in fact Batman in disguise, which actually saves us a lot of space on this page; instead of showing him removing the disguise and then putting on the cowl, we only need to see him opening the shirt to reveal the bat emblem, and then in the next panel, bam, he’s Batman. We know Bruce Wayne doesn’t look like that. We know it’s a disguise. We get it. It does rely on the reader having a basic knowledge of these characters and this world, but all things considered, that’s a pretty safe bet. Couple other things: Levins keeps the energy up by skewing the axis of the four panel grid, which also gives this rooftop scene a nice sense of vertigo. I’m actually not a huge fan of the last panel — I find that the upside-down pose kind of undercuts the gravity of what he’s saying, I think the leftwards movement is weird, and the whole panel is just, like, tangent city. That said, still a strong page.

PAGE NINE

Again: Batman as an Overwhelming Force. I know I just bashed the previous page for its leftward movement, but on this page it works really well — the wreckage of Batman’s assault on the house leads leftward towards the front door, up the stairs, ultimately across Zarelli’s desk, towards the man himself. I think this counter reading flow movement really effectively sells Batman as an invading presence in this man’s home. This page also shows us the wealth and power of Enrico Zarelli, who we finally see in the last panel after being mentioned regularly for four pages; The huge house, the framed artwork, the dozen armed thugs. See also the confidence of his speech, and the fact that he’s shadowed just like Batman. There’s an implicit feeling that this is a meeting between equals.

PAGE TEN

Nice that our first full look at Zarelli has him in his own panel, with the cowled shadow on the wall behind him suggesting Batman’s off-panel movement towards him. Great acting here — I love how Zarelli no-sells Batman’s gimmick.

PAGE ELEVEN

Levins (with the round panels boarders) and Loughridge (with his deceptively-hard-to-pull-off-well use of grey and sepia tones) work together well here to make the scene a flashback without drawing attention to that effect. Note how we don’t need to see Zarelli’s whole body to know he can walk, we just need to see him moving at the same height as other, presumably ambulatory people. Cool dramatic composition in the last panel, placing us in the line of fire along with Zarelli and his men.

PAGE TWELVE

This use of shadow to cleanly yet powerfully suggest something gruesome off screen is something ‘Batman: The Animated Series’ did so well, and it’s likewise effective here. Seeing Zarelli’s clenching hand (the Z ring was established on the previous page) gives us just enough intimacy to feel his pain. The use of black as a costume design element in this scene makes Zarelli, his son, and Batman feel a little more important and real than the hoods on either side.

PAGE THIRTEEN

I like that there’s a batarang laying on the ground amongst the dead/unconscious gangsters. It’s not necessary, but we saw him throw it on the previous page, so it’s a nice little piece of continuity. The final two panels have added impact because they’re the last before the page turn, giving them a feeling of isolation and hopelessness (undercut slightly by the fact that the page turns to a very colorful double page DC Kids page encouraging young readers to enter a nabisco sweepstakes, recycle this comic, and, perhaps most puzzlingly, pick up the first issue of the ‘Day of Judgement’ crossover).

PAGE FOURTEEN

Good call having Batman’s cape closed over him on this page. It makes him less aggressive, almost judge-like, befitting the respect he’s giving this man who lost his son. The cool coloring in panel four adds impact to the dicey situation Batman now faces.

PAGE FIFTEEN

Appropriately, we go from talking about sons de facto and de jure to having Batman talk it over with Dick Grayson, his son by any other name. Here, the upside down thing actually serves to break up the mood after a heavy scene. The fact that they’re talking about serious business while casually practicing acrobatics makes the scene particular to these specific characters — even when there’s no one to punch and nothing to detect, there’s still always Batman stuff going on in this Batman comic.

PAGE SIXTEEN

This page rules. I love how much motion there is, even down to Dick’s change of arm position in the background from panels one to two. It makes the motion of Bruce pulling off the mask seem smaller and more intimate by comparison. And that last line is just all-american grade-A understanding of character. It’s informed by Bruce’s origins, but not directly referencing them. He can’t put his personal desire to see Zarelli’s empire destroyed before his human duty to give Nicky the chance to know his biological father. Panel two of this page also features our first and only bleed art (art which extends beyond the edge of the physical page, as opposed to art contained within the boarders of a panel), which further gives the Batcave a sense of hugeness, and nicely breaks up the layout of the page besides.

PAGE SEVENTEEN

Note that the only characters we can clearly see on this page are Nicky and Zarelli — the scene is about them, not Batman and the goons, who are all either far away or in shadow. Nice touch, the goons all being in casts and bandages. I can’t even put my finger on why that works so well; they’re not really there to guard anything, since Batman already went through them once without much trouble. I think their main purpose on this page is to make us feel how Nicky feels in this place; this big house full of men with guns, this intimidating world this man is asking him to be a part of.

PAGE EIGHTEEN

This page is lit warmly, with lots of sympathetic angles. It’s not until the last panel that Zarelli’s pitch is thrown into any kind of suspicious light. “Without family, you have nothing” — but family with Zarelli means gunmen, tainted opulence, and the looming, annihilating specter of Batman.

Now, I’ve eschewed ads in my scans until now, but I include this one as a particularly good example of how even the best writers have no control over what image might end up facing an important emotional moment.

PAGE NINETEEN

The first page dedicated entirely to Nicky and Zarelli. The very sympathetic first panel transitions into an intense close up in panel two that makes Zarelli’s offer feel almost like a threat, even though that’s clearly not how he intendeds it. Zarelli can’t help being the dangerous gangster he is. The first time Nicky speaks, it’s to ask about his parents, and I love Zarelli’s castoffish response, “The people who raised you?”

PAGE TWENTY

Another page solely of Nicky and Zarelli. If the last couple pages have been all about Zarelli’s pitch, this one is entirely about Nicky’s process. The Thinker’s a little on the nose, but I dunno, it works. And it goes towards our ongoing theme of Nicky Is Smart. He’s staged strongly throughout, reflecting the strong decision he makes. The choice to include the background in panel four helps reinforce Nicky and Zarelli’s spatial relationship, which heightens the act of walking away. That it’s this close to the end of the story and Peterson can still devote an entire page to this moment shows how well-paced the issue is.

PAGE TWENTY ONE

The goons become useful again in this final action beat. Batman Overwhelming Forces them into the doorjamb, a good use of the environment to make it clear he gets to them before they can get after Nicky, but his real rage is saved for when he turns around toward Zarelli. He’s huge in this panel, as aggressive and dangerous as we’ve seen him in this issue. Zarelli, by contrast, is made small by a high angle shot, his hands folded in his lap. The four panel grid is even skewed so as to squeeze him into the corner, in addition to making the action in the previous panels more dynamic.

PAGE TWENTY TWO

It’s Batman and Son again, with the green glow of the batcomputer establishing the change in location. The note to Lucius Fox in panel two is a nice large scale version of him leaving the money on the Agronas’ table on page six. And Nicky would be a good candidate, too — this is the (or at least a) payoff for Nicky Is Smart. Panel three is small and all utility, showing Batman’s change back to Bruce Wayne as we transition up from the cave to Wayne manner, a panel made necessary by the fact that we haven’t yet established that location in this issue. We’re left with a nice big final panel, rosy and nostalgic in direct contrast to the green of the batcave. Bruce looks from left to right at the portrait of his parents, mirroring the portrait in Zarelli’s study, cementing the emotional connection he feels to a man who is in all other regards his enemy. You could read the fact that Bruce’s sitting as an additional corollary to the wheelchair-bound Zarelli, but I think it’s just that a seated position works best for the horizontal composition of the panel. Strong ending for a very strong issue.

LETTERS PAGE

Nothing insightful to offer here, it’s just that I’ve always thought this next issue cover was rad. I probably have that one too, somewhere.

(The missing cover, by Bob Smith and Terry Beatty, is awesome.)

[recentanimenews]

Bookshelf Briefs 11/15/19

Accomplishments of the Duke’s Daughter, Vol. 5 | By Reai and Suki Umemiya | Seven Seas – We actually get a welcome reminder that Iris is a “reincarnated into an otome game” heroine in this volume, something that’s mostly been ignored aside from her accounting skills. But when her younger brother tries to apologize to her for what happened at school, her Japanese self wants to forgive him but the “Iris” part of her just can’t. It’s well handled. Elsewhere, Iris is going around looking into Yuri and also threats to her kingdom, and it’s starting to get her into trouble. She’s also falling for Dean, despite trying to have nothing to do with romance again. We end with a cliffhanger involving excommunication! Still a lot of fun—I’d love to read the novels. – Sean Gaffney

Anne Happy, Vol. 10 | By Cotoji | Yen Press – This final volume doesn’t really “wrap up” the main plot—there is no magical anti-bad-luck MacGuffin that can fix things. We do get a very small flashback of their teacher which shows that she had perhaps worse circumstances than the rest of them, but has learned to keep happy and carry on, so to speak. Which is the moral of the series, really—smile even though life is bringing you down. Hibari is the one who needs that lesson here, as a chance at a family reunion is once again fouled up by her parents’ busy lives. That said, we do see here that luck can also be changed through determination, which is nice. And is that some slight yuri at the end? Anne Happy was never anything but fluff, but it was highly entertaining fluff. Good ending. – Sean Gaffney

Dreamin’ Sun, Vol. 10 | By Ichigo Takano | Seven Seas – Well, I did it. I persevered to the end and finished Dreamin’ Sun. To the end, I never was fully convinced by the relationship between Shimana and Taiga, and that includes the big finale here, in which the gang is able to get Taiga’s dad to stop meddling in his son’s affairs—we never really get a good explanation why Taiga has remained under his thumb for so long—and thus Taiga is able to go to college (alongside Shimana) and finally pursue his dream of becoming a teacher. They also get married and I must boggle at the detail that they do so after having only kissed once, two years ago. I don’t expect realism in shoujo romance, but I guess my credulity has its limits. I did like Zen and Saeko, though. In the end, this never came close to measuring up to orange. Oh well. – Michelle Smith

Durarara!! re: Dollars Arc, Vol. 5 | By Ryohgo Narita, Suzuhito Yasuda, and Aogiri | Yen Press – Izaya is setting up his plots again here, when he’s not fighting with his sisters, but the real villains this time around are Ruri’s psycho fans, who bat Shinra bloody and also attack Anri. Fortunately, she is saved by her two best frie3nds. Unfortunately, one of them, Mikado, is revealed to now be the leader of the Blue Squares, much to Masaomi’s horror. You know all this from the light novel and the anime—once again the manga gets third place. Still, some of the fight scenes are good, and if you’re looking for a manga version of the story, this is that. Damning with faint praise. We’re still only up to book eight or so, too. You really should try the light novels, which have now finished. – Sean Gaffney

Fruits Basket Another, Vol. 3 | By Natsuki Takaya| Yen Press – The first chapter of this final volume once again irritated me for burying me in next-gen cast all at once (along with Hiro’s sister, who again is not a main character so gets to be seen). It gets better as it goes along, with a serious look at not letting your parents’ abuse become your own fault. Sawa, it turns out, is connected to the Sohmas in a far more serious way than she remembered, and one flashback scene verges on terrifying. (Shiki says “she slipped on snow,” but that’s not what we see.) Notably, the situation is not resolved—she’s still living with her mom in the end—but then, we also learn it didn’t resolve itself for the Furuba cast either—Ren is making Shiki’s life miserable, because she’s like that. As such, this justifies this spinoff’s existence—barely. – Sean Gaffney

Fruits Basket Another, Vol. 3 | By Natsuki Takaya | Yen Press – In this final volume, we learn more about Sawa’s psychotic mother, including that she had some involvement with the Sohma family in the past. When Sawa asks about this, with much dread, Mutsuki reveals the full story and that everyone knew who she was all along. In fact, Shiki was central to this past event and, with Ren continuing her reign of terror he felt kinship with Sawa and worried about what had become of her. The Sohmas were indeed trying to help her, but they were also trying to help Shiki, too. In the end, this did come around to being genuinely compelling and I wish there were more, because as Sawa notes, she still hasn’t made it out of her horrible situation. If only we could’ve been spared one last appearance by Takei-sensei. Sigh. – Michelle Smith

High School Prodigies Have It Easy Even in Another World!, Vol. 5 | By Riku Misora and Kotaro Yamada | Yen Press – The start of this book gives all the fanservice that four was missing and more, as we get naked massages before a bath. Half of this is tolerable, as Ringo tries to find it in her shy self to go on a date with Tsukasa, and we get her tragic past, which (surprise!) involves a lot of child abuse. The second half involves making more medicine since the penicillin isn’t prevalent enough—time for sulfa drugs. Sadly, there’s an evil doctor who’s in the way, so our heroin doctor, um, lobotomizes him? And this is presented as good and/or humorous? Yeah, OK, I’m out. This was a mildly entertaining take on the isekai fantasy with an entire group of OP geniuses, but what the hell? – Sean Gaffney

An Incurable Case of Love, Vol. 1 | By Maki Enjoji | Viz Media – Several of Enjoji’s manga series are now available in English, but An Incurable Case of Love is actually the first that I’ve read. Five years ago, Nanase was inspired to go into medicine after meeting an attractive and accomplished young doctor in the hopes of meeting him again. Unsurprisingly, Tendo’s not quite the person she expected him to be when she finally gets the chance to work with him. In reality, her idealized prince has a harsh and exacting personality. Even though Nanase’s original motivation for becoming a nurse was perhaps less than pure, and while it may not be immediately obvious to some, she really does take both herself and her chosen profession seriously. Had it been otherwise, I don’t think I would have liked the manga, but the first volume is a largely enjoyable start to the series and I’m always glad to see more josei being translated. – Ash Brown

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Part 4: Diamond Is Unbreakable, Vol. 3 | By Hirohiko Araki| Viz Media – One of my initial exposures to Araki’s aptly named manga series JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure was actually through a tangentially-related work, Rohan at the Louvre, which features the character Rohan Kishibe, a rather intense genius manga creator. Rohan made his first appearance in Diamond Is Unbreakable, so I’ve been looking forward to his introduction since I started reading the series. His debut happens towards the end of this particular volume, following several other short story arcs including one, much to my delight, that proves any manga can indeed be a food manga. This volume has a fair amount of humor to go along with its strange brand of horror and absurd action, too. As a whole, this part of the series comes across a bit more episodic and perhaps slightly more comedic than its predecessors. I’m enjoying Diamond Is Unbreakble in all of its glorious ridiculousness a great deal. – Ash Brown

My Hero Academia SMASH!, Vol. 2 | By Hirofumi Neda| Viz Media – I don’t think I reviewed the first volume of this gag series spinoff to the famous shonen manga, but that’s a shame, as it’s really well handled. The gags are personality-based, and the series is not afraid to veer totally away from the source material when needed—half the sports festival is different events, and some battles that don’t lend themselves to gags are omitted. And then there’s Gran Torino, who does not live up to the adorable tsundere granddaughter teaching Izuku in his dreams. There’s a lot of great Uraraka stuff here, for her fans, and a lot of great Yaoyorozu gags as well, though her fans may be a bit annoyed at how socially inept she’s shown to be. Basically, this is hilarious. – Sean Gaffney

Our Wonderful Days, Vol. 1 | By Kei Hamuro | Seven Seas – Given the cover art and the magazine that this ran in, I was expecting that I’d be reading about the lead couple on the cover. And I am, and they’re both cute—I like the fact that, despite having the “serious black-haired girl” personality type, Mafuyu is the only one whose grades are bad. But I’m actually more drawn to the other couple, Nana and Minori, best friends to main girl Koharu, who live in an apartment together to attend school and behave exactly like a married couple without actually being one. How yuri this will get is still unknown—so far we’re still at “I may like her”—but if you like your slice-of-life high school with a dash of sweet and cute, this will put a smile on your face. – Sean Gaffney

Shortcake Cake, Vol. 6 | By suu Morishita | VIZ Manga – I really loved how this volume of Shortcake Cake portrays Ten’s reaction to Chiaki’s surprising confession. She tries to let him down gently, and is upset about hurting her friend and conscientious about not leading him on. It’s not played for the drama of a love triangle—it’s just sad. And yet, she still does like Riku very much and wants to let him know that her feelings have changed, but now the Chiaki situation has made everything more complicated. Some really cute scenes ensue, but actually most of the volume takes place in Ten’s head as she worries and overthinks everything. We’re halfway through the series at this point and, though it seems like she and Riku will officially get together in the next volume, that’s a lot of time for things to go wrong somehow. Man, I love Margaret shoujo. – Michelle Smith

Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san, Vol. 2 | By Honda | Yen Press – The second volume of Skull-Face Bookseller Honda-san is much like the first, with Honda covering more aspects of the bookselling business, including the talented distribution chief with a knack for anticipating what will sell, dealing with “harmful publications,” wholesalers who never supply as many copies as are requested, the difficulty in promoting books that are receiving high-profile adaptations (particularly when bonus items feature popular idols), and dealing with a customer who happens to be a yakuza. It’s pleasant, but I was kind of bummed to learn that after Honda published the chapter about customer service training, she got in some trouble with her bosses and now has to get their approval for everything she writes and worries about being fired. That’s a shame. – Michelle Smith

Snow White with the Red Hair, Vol. 4 | By Sorata Akiduki | Viz Media – If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that this series was going to end with the next volume. The reason for that is a very surprise mutual confession between our two leads, something which I was not expecting to happen for at least a dozen more volumes. It is really well handled, though, and shows that these two shoujo protagonists are actually smart enough to pick up on signals. We also get some backstory for one of Zen’s two guards, Mitsuhide, who is asked by Zen’s older brother to watch over him and therefore must gain the trust of someone who doesn’t trust very easily—and even when he does, he seems to be betrayed. Zen and Shirayuki are very good for each other, and I’m excited to see where this goes. – Sean Gaffney

Snow White with the Red Hair, Vol. 4 | By Sorata Akiduki | VIZ Media – This volume almost feels like a final volume, what with Zen and Shirayuki affirming their feelings for one another and their determination to stay by the other’s side, come what may. The final page seems to suggest a happy ending. Except this is volume four and there are 21 volumes so far. Maybe this was the point where the series changed magazines? In any case, it’s a very nice volume, with Shirayuki showing her willingness to act in Zen’s stead when his station prevents him from doing so—and giving us a glimpse of the upbringing that led to her always trying hard and being independent—as well as a revealing flashback to six years ago when Zen’s friend betrayed him but he found a new person to trust in Mitsuhide. I really enjoy this series! – Michelle Smith

The Water Dragon’s Bride, Vol. 11 | By Rei Toma | Viz Media – There’s some gorgeous art here, which is good as it may take the mind away from the fact that this is really drawn out for a finale. The basic premise—send Asahi back and the water dragon dies—is obvious, despite Asahi’s protests, and you get the sense that the other gods will eventually do something about it, but it does take forever to happen, with lots of longing pages with no dialogue. Also, how does Asahi return to her normal life so quickly? Still, it’s a happy ending, and the last two pages of the “afterword” 4-kon section make up for it with a hysterical deconstruction of why the Water Dragon won the romance war and Subaru did not. Despite not quite sticking the landing, this was a very good series. – Sean Gaffney

By: Ash Brown

[terryblount]

Wolfenstein: Youngblood Review

Let me begin this review by saying the following: I play video games in order to be entertained (well…it’s also my job, but anyway). I don’t care about politics, agendas, races, sexes or whatever else that has nothing to do with gaming. Gaming is my hobby, and I am happy I can do this professionally. Having said that, my goal is to let you know whether a game is worth your hard-earned money or not. With this out of the way, let’s continue.

Discussing Wolfenstein Games

My last video review was on Wolfenstein: The Old Blood, back in 2015. While The New Order along with The Old Blood amused me, I wasn’t really a fan of The New Colossus. The game had very lengthy cutscenes, which felt unnecessary in a game where you should be shooting Nazis from start to finish. The New Colossus also wandered away from the more serious tone of the prior two games and tried to be funny but sometimes failed.

In case you don’t know, these rebooted Wolfenstein games have had rather serious tones, especially when compared to other FPS titles like DOOM, Serious Sam, or of course Duke Nukem. So with Youngblood they’ve greatly expanded the humor, which can be both bad and good. They’ve also went to great lengths to make this game feel almost completely different, which is also bad and good and makes me both happy and sad.

From the development side, it’s very noticeable that Arkane Studios (Dishonored, Prey) also worked on this game, along with MachineGames (the creators of the previous three Wolfenstein games). At first I thought the inclusion of a studio like Arkane could be awesome, but I became concerned when watching some gameplay videos. It turns out my fears were right. Maybe the two studios couldn’t mesh their different styles, or maybe something else happened, but Youngblood is a big mess.

I think the screenshot says it all.

Story Time & The ‘Terror Twins’

You play as one of the twin daughters of William Joseph (BJ) and Anya Oliwa Blazkowicz, named Jessie (Jes) and Zofia (Soph). It’s been twenty years since BJ killed Hitler and liberated the world from Nazis. Now, in the 1980s, for unknown reasons BJ has disappeared and the twins embark on an allegedly epic adventure to find ‘papa’ Blazkowicz, leading you to Nazi occupied Paris.

Jes and ‘papa’ Blazkowicz, enjoying a little bit of hunting.

The story mostly makes no sense and has little depth or sophistication. However, since this is a brainless first person shooter, I really don’t mind. It’s clear from the start the game is not trying to be serious, anyway.

I will confess I didn’t expect to like the new protagonists after playing so many times as BJ. For me, though, they are awesome. They’re fearless like papa but also funny, dorky, and sort of nuts. For instance, there’s an early cutscene where the twins attempt to kill a Nazi for the first time, which is hilarious and disgusting at the same time. Most of the dialogues between them are pretty funny, even if the writing is not that great overall, which is a plus for me.

First blood for the youngbloods!

“We were born to kill Nazis.” –Jes trying to convince the resistance leader to help them.

Now don’t get me wrong with my praise for the twins. I still love playing as BJ and I really like him, but he’s a very grim guy. So if I have to choose between serious or fun, I will always choose fun, even if I am not used to playing as female characters in first person games. I’m pretty sure that even the Doomguy agrees with me since we are talking about his “aunts.” At least these twins are way better than the Far Cry: New Dawn twins.

Soph and ‘mama’ Blazkowicz, enjoying a little bit of fighting/training.

Graphics, Performance, & Controls

Youngblood looks good, and the game engine (id Tech 6) works like a charm. The performance is remarkable, and I had basically zero problems with the game. I had some minor random stutters, but I am not completely sure it was the game’s fault. Either way it’s nothing to be concerned about. I only wish you could disable motion blur and weapons effects completely. I hate motion blur and some of the weapon effects fogged my vision. For more details on the subject you can read John’s performance analysis.

Half an hour into the game and I already don’t like these guys.

“We ain’t killed no Nazis .”

–Soph reminding her sister that they haven’t killed any Nazis.

The game controls just fine. I didn’t notice any kind of forced acceleration or smoothing. You can change the FOV (field of view), but unfortunately you cannot disable or even lower the atrocious head bobbing. I usually don’t mind it, but in this case it gave me headaches and the strong need of a good dose of Dramamine. The UI and menus are fine, even if the menus are totally designed for consoles.

Sound & Voice Acting

I love the short elevator cut-scenes and the 80’s music in the elevators. During gameplay the sounds are fine, but I couldn’t fall in love with the gun sounds. The voice acting is pretty good overall, with the twins voice acting being great. So the audio design is acceptable but nothing special.

Shooting Nazis In The Jugular

So let’s get down to business: gameplay. Sorry guys, but the game doesn’t play well. I know they tried to mix it up with new ideas, but they failed. After the introduction you reach the Paris catacombs, where the base of operations is located. From there you can restock ammunition, health, and armor.

“I only hunt Nazis Jes, not animals.” –Soph

Also in the base of operations you can talk to different NPCs (non player characters) and receive new side missions. Paris is divided into different areas you can fast travel to once you’ve unlocked the areas. Keep in mind that the game does not tell you which missions are main or side ones, which is weird.

More microtransactions?! Awesome, I love microtransactions, especially in single player games. Oh right, I almost forgot there is also co-op…

All areas are crawling with enemies, and you can engage them stealthily or go full-frontal. Of course you can also avoid them, though some areas are harder to sneak by unnoticed. Most obnoxiously, whether you clear out an area of enemies or not, all the enemies will respawn when you return, Far Cry 2 style. What a bullshit.

It’s especially terrible because you will be forced to return to many of the same areas in various missions, so you will have to redo everything from the beginning. Thankfully there are several different paths, which allow you to avoid most enemies. The world building is very familiar to Dishonored 2, likely because Arkane Studios was involved in the development.

“How the fuck should I know?” –Jes after being asked if they can make it, right before they jump without a parachute from an enemy zeppelin.

As for navigating the world using a map, the game doesn’t have a classic map. Instead you get an overview map just like in Dishonored 2, thus making path-finding really hard most of the time. The mini-map doesn’t really help either. Sometimes it took me five minutes to clear an area and twice that to find my way out. Thankfully you can fast travel from anywhere back to the base of operations, but everything will respawn, as noted already.

Weapons, Leveling Up & Some Other RPG Crap

Even though the shooting mechanics are pretty solid and most weapons feel unique with upgrades and attachments, I didn’t enjoy the weapons (even with all the upgrades and attachments). That’s probably because all enemies including the playable characters have levels. You read that right. Youngblood is yet another FPS to include RPG elements, just like Far Cry: New Dawn did recently.

Why is this leveling stuff in here? I really don’t get it, seriously. Making all human enemies bullet sponges only works in specific games. Even The Division 2 realized the problem with this type of design. I get they want to make the game lengthier and grindier, but it’s a god damn lazy and stupid game design.

How on earth did they manage to get these pictures? I will admit though, they look terrorific!

There are also two kinds of ammunition and some guns will do less damage to specific enemies. So you always have to check the enemy health bar to see what kind of ammunition is needed in order to achieve maximum damage. It feels like a chore, plain and simple. I find it completely unnecessary, particularly in a game where there are no limitations on how many guns you can carry.

“Just like daddy taught us.” –Jes after she and her sister wipe a whole enemy squad.

Since there is a level up system you also have skills available for purchase. None of these skills are anything original or even interesting. They even included lame skills like ‘extra health’ and ‘extra armor.’ Jesus… what the hell happened? You can unlock some melee skills that will make the game a joke. It’s way faster and easier to go and stab everyone in the face instead of shooting them, seriously.

Micro-transactions & Greed

To make things even worse, you can also buy stuff with real money. Yes, microtransactions are part of the game, with payable upgrades, skins, and boosters. Can you finish the game without paying for anything? Definitely, but that’s not the point. Even if these are “cosmetic” only, the whole practice is unethical, scummy and greedy as fuck. Screw microtransactions and shame on all publishers who push tactics as such. Also who cares for skins in a first person shooter?

Where the hell is all the blood? The gore is seriously messed up in this game.

Other Weird Game Issues

The game has weird blood effect logic relating to your armor suit. This is the same armor BJ used to wear, and it made sense when no bullets would penetrate it until the last shots, which then produced blood effects. In Youngblood when you get shot, you see blood squirts all the time, as if you’re armor suit doesn’t even work. It’s like some developer forgot to toggle off the effect.

“Yeah, that was a trip to creep city.” –Soph after being asked by Jes if she had “the talk” with their mom.

The dismemberment and gore system is also messed up, being almost completely random. Sometimes you can unload a whole clip into an enemy without damaging his body. Other times you shoot just once and open a hole in his chest. It really gets on my nerves when selling points of a game don’t work as intended, like RAGE 2 (another Bethesda-published game) having problems with blood and bullet decals. At least two months later they fixed it (in reality they fucked it even more). Thank you Bethesda…

Here the blood works as intended. What the hell?! Seriously, I have no idea what is going with Bethesda’s games lately.

AI & Stealth

The enemy AI is horrible, just awful. Enemies walk past you while you are in ‘cloak’ mode, but they can still tilt their heads and look straight at you while they keep on walking in a different direction. It’s hilarious and creepy, especially the first time you see it. Stealth is toned down compared to the previous games, even if you have the ‘cloak’ ability available from the beginning.

“Slick as a whistle, as daddy used to say.” –One of the twins right after they complete their mission objective.

The AI of your sister is actually not bad and she rarely blows your cover. Of course you will still do most of the killing, but she will assist when she can. One thing she doesn’t seem able to do is to use cover and melee. Actually, the cover system is awesome, ripped straight out of Medal of Honor (2010), where you can lean to every direction instead of being limited to left or right.

If the twins had a wish, it would be to bring him back to life, so they could kill him again.

Glorious Finishers?!

I used to enjoy finishers in the Wolfenstein games but not anymore. The animations are far too few and many don’t connect properly. They feel floaty. Sometimes the combat finishers don’t even work. When they do work and you manage to disarm the enemy, there is some fun to to be had with choosing to automatically play out the finisher or rapidly shoot to empty a whole magazine into an enemy. The later choice can be extremely satisfying, but it’s still not enough to make much of a difference in this disaster of a game, which brings us to our conclusion.

That’s what you get when you block other people’s shots.

R.I.P. Wolfenstein

Even if the game has some small parts that are actually good, the rest of it is just dreadful. This game might actually be the death of the series and no twin badass sisters can save it from doom. Honestly don’t even bother, especially if you are planning to play solo. Now if you like FPS games with RPG elements and you don’t care about the things I mentioned, then you will probably enjoy this game. I obviously didn’t.

“To capitaine Blazkowicz, cheers!”

-Juju, just Juju, enough said.

Ohhh. Come on, bucko. Don’t you want a… balloon?

I didn’t even finish the game because the last boss is actually SpongeBob himself. Seriously, the last fight lasts for ages, only because you have to shoot the boss a crap ton of times. If you don’t care about spoilers you can watch this video (FYI the video starts at the final phase), or any video as a matter of fact and see for yourselves. The amount of time you need to spend to take him down it’s absurd and plain dull, which can honestly summarize the whole game experience.

The Blazkowicz twins

Great performance

Cover System

Map design

Forgettable side characters

Absence of regular map

Bullet spongy enemies

Uninspired boss fights

Dull fetch side quests

Microtransactions

Enemy respawn

Boring skills

Terrible AI

No pause

DRM

Computer Specs: CPU: i5 4440, GPU: Palit 1660Ti OC 6GB, RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws X 16GB HDD: Crucial 275GB MX300, OS: Win7, 1080p

Playtime: 10+ hours total.

The post Wolfenstein: Youngblood Review appeared first on DSOGaming.

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[swipestream]

Sensor Sweep: John Carter Miniatures, The Metal Monster, Carcosacon, Call of the Wild Art, Robot Man

RPG (Modiphius): The John Carter Swords of Mars miniatures line is made up of 32mm scale high quality multi-part resin miniatures which come complete with resin scenic bases. The Swords of Mars campaign book includes a set of rules to play out battles involving squads and heroes, fighting across moving airships, desolate ruins or the beautiful palaces of Barsoom.

  Writing (One Last Sketch): A long while back, I wrote a short essay called “Writing the city” that I never published, yet the misgivings that went into that essay keep stirring my brain. The main question is this:

  In literary criticism of fantasy, why are long descriptions of the natural world and farmland or villages often labeled as boring, but when China Miéville fills page upon page with adjective-laden descriptions of architecture, this passes without comment, or even gets praise?

  Art (DMR Books): Fifty-five years ago today, Wayne Francis Woodard, better known as “Hannes Bok,” died in poverty. He was friends with, and had his work admired by, the likes of Ray Bradbury, A. Merritt, August Derleth, Farnsworth Wright and others.

I must confess that I’ve always been ambivalent about Bok’s art. While I find some of his work truly excellent, I consider much of it average or even poor.

    Fiction (DMR Books): It’s fascinating how the paths we take in life shape who we’ll become and what we’ll leave behind, when–on that fateful day–we’re blasted by the emerald lightnings of The Emperor’s Guard at the Pit of the Metal Monster.

For me, the dregs of life will be a room full of books.  For A. Merritt, luckily for us, it was his wonderful novels, few tho’ they may be, and the short stories and poetry he crafted during a relatively short lifetime.

But, whereas the ashes of our mortal clay will be scattered before the feet of the Metal Things

    Fiction (Gardner F. Fox): This is book #011 on the list of 160 books that Gardner Francis Fox wrote from 1953 to 1986. I will not be working on

Blank bookcover with clipping path

books in the order as Mr. Fox wrote them. I am doing the book cover designs based on when the transcribers who are assisting me, finish one. As they complete a book, it will be the newest release, so it will get a new book cover design. I also have to go back and replace the photo-bashed covers I made when I first started The Gardner Francis Fox Libraryin 2017.

  Conventions (William King): So that was Carcosacon and it was a lot of fun. A bunch of us drove up from Prague to Czocha Castle for a weekend of games, panels and live action roleplaying all dedicated to the Cthulhu mythos. We got there on Friday morning, checked in and were gaming by one o’ clock that afternoon in a library that looked like something from Dennis Wheatley complete with a secret doorway hidden in a bookcase that swung out to reveal a spiral staircase up to yet another gaming room. I thought there never was a better setting for a Call of Cthulhu session but I was wrong, and I’ll get to that later.

  RPG (Sorcerers Skull): Gygaxian Esoteric Planes: Places that often bear the names and some of the characteristics of various historical conceptual realms but are more defined in their characteristics. They are inhabited by supernatural beings that tend to behave like mundane beings, the only difference being “power.” Geography tends to be more important than in conceptual realms; planes can be mapped to a degree, and travel along associated terrain may be necessary.

Reviews (Don Herron): Our resident expert in everything Arkham returns to review a new (if repurposed) book on the fabled press. John D. Haefele certainly burst fully-formed on the scene with his A Look Behind the Derleth Mythos, but he’s done a ton of stuff on the subject, most recently a run of articles appearing in Crypt of Cthulhu. See his Amazon page for a thorough list of books, chapbooks, monographs, web and print surveys. He knows the turf.

        Cinema (Superversive SF): Can the story take a place on a bus rather than on a space ship without being fundamentally different?

Outland, an obscure movie starring Sean Connery at the low point of his career, cannot be set on a bus, but it most definitely did not need to be placed in space. It is, no pun intended, fully grounded in the traditional western genre in the theme, plot and pacing. There are even shotguns. Lots of shotguns. In a pressurized environment. All that’s missing is the tumbleweeds. We do get treated to the sight of some gyrating balls of… something, but the less said of those the better.

      Gaming (Rampant Games): In case you haven’t figured it out, I am a Virtual Reality enthusiast. I’ve been looking forward to the coming of consumer-level Virtual Reality since the early 90s. I expected it a lot sooner than it got here, to be honest, but I’m glad it’s here now. I love that I get to work with it as part of my day job. Anyway, I have been willing to sink a bit of cash into it this hobby… to the extent that I pre-ordered a Pimax 5K+. Offering about the highest resolution out there and 170+ degrees of field-of-view, it seemed like a game-changer for PC-based VR.

    Cinema (Men of the West): First, the good: As you would expect from any sort of Peter Jackson flick, it has gorgeous F/X. The visuals and modeling for the various vehicles and aircraft are marvelous. The colorizing to help set the tone, the costuming, etc., are all spot on. The acting was decent. The set design was pretty cool. The basic premise for the story was decent if absurd (mobile cities on treads?), with an interesting twist on the post-apocalypse genre. They had a fun dig at the near illiteracy of today’s people in the “screen age” (showing iPhones, etc), saying “they didn’t write much down.”

  Author Interview (Superversive SF): What does superversive mean to you? Superversive is the building of things never seen before to heights unreached. It builds where others have torn down, and gathers together all good things to be made into something greater and more wonderful than they were before. Where before one might find a blasted heath, one finds a garden growing by the Grace of God.

  Review (Fantasy Literature): As I mentioned in my review of Gray Lensman, Book 4 of E.E. “Doc” Smith’s famed six-part LENSMAN series, that installment, although it followed its predecessor, Galactic Patrol, by mere seconds storywise, was actually released over 1½ years later; 20 months later, to be exact. Book 5 of the series, Second Stage Lensman, would follow the same scheme. Although the events therein transpire just moments after the culmination of Book 4, readers would in actuality have to wait a solid 22 months to find out where author Smith would take them next.

        Art (Northwest Adventures): Jack London’s The Call of the Wild was serialized in The Saturday Evening Post from June 20 to July 18, 1903, only five years after the Stampede of 1898. It was an instant classic and the quintessential novel of the Klondike. The five-parter was accompanied by illustration from two artists, Charles Livingston Bull (1874-1932) and Philip R. Goodwin (1881-1935). Bull was hitting his stride, illustrating books for Charles G. D. Roberts as well as magazine covers but Goodwin was only 22 and just starting out on his career that would include illustrating Teddy Roosevelt’s book on hunting. The two artists together is a nice blend of Bull’s stylized poster art (which remind of Kay Nielsen’s fairy tale art) and Goodwin’s realistic dog forms.

  Art (One Last Sketch): No other imagined world has generated as much illustration as The Lord of the Rings. Considering the sheer amount of artistic material to draw from, however, even before the live action adaptations came out in 2001, we already had a consensus “look” for Middle Earth in John Howe and Alan Lee’s paintings. Why the collective consensus for what Middle Earth should look like coalesced around these two has a host of factors, one being how prolific they were, how often they appeared on book covers and ancillary material, and the last being their obvious skill.

  Fiction (Pages Unbound): You may have some familiarity with The Silmarillion and seen these newer works being published that are part of it. But maybe you are not sure where they came from, or how they fit in to the larger work. Here is the scoop: you can pick up any one of the three separate works from The Silmarillion that have been released as standalone volumes and enjoy it on its own. They are The Children of Hurin, Beren and Luthien, and The Fall of Gondolin. Some say the reading order should be publication order, but you would not be wrong to read Beren and Luthien first.

  Obituary (Washington Post): George Stade, a Columbia University literary scholar who became an early champion of “popular” fiction within the academy and worked as a critic, editor and novelist, most notably with the grisly satire “Confessions of a Lady-Killer,” died Feb. 26 at a hospital in Silver Spring, Md. He was 85.

  Tolkien (Alas Not Me): The Mouth of Sauron’s encounter with the Captains of the West in The Lord of the Rings has been reminding me of the Green Knight’s visit to King Arthur’s court in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

The initial set-up is quite different, naturally.  The Green Knight comes in uninvited without any introduction or explanation — the reader is thus in the same boat as members of Arthur’s court — whereas Tolkien gives us some backstory on the Lieutenant of the Tower of Barad-dûr when he comes out in response to the heralds’ challenge.  The Green Knight arrives alone on a color-coordinated steed that seems an ordinary animal except for its hue, but the poet hints the knight himself might possibly be supernatural (“Half etayn in erde I hope þat he were”).  Intriguingly, the similarly color-coordinated fellow who approaches Aragorn & Co. is almost exactly the inverse, i.e., a living man on a possibly supernatural mountm

    Sensor Sweep: John Carter Miniatures, The Metal Monster, Carcosacon, Call of the Wild Art, Robot Man published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

[bewarethewolfarmy]

literally.. you missed out the entire meaning of the post dear. i played a whole damn lot of original characters and canon characters, i seen a lot. generally, if an oc has a faceclaim that it's over-used, they are 'bonkers; or 'only copying other ocs with that face' but if some canon character uses the same fancast all over again it's ok. if a canon character becomes canon divergent, it is a good thing, but if an oc changes something in their bio they are deemed 'not stable characterization'

(First thanks for telling me XD It’s always good to know what people honestly mean when they write something and I prefer to not make asumptions but it can be hard. Also this topic is one I think about a lot and getting different opinions is important to get a stronger view of it.

Based on my own personal experience as an online roleplayer for thirteen years, this is my point of view and why I disagree with the assessment in your post. Read-more for length:

-“ generally, if an oc has a faceclaim that it's over-used, they are 'bonkers; or 'only copying other ocs with that face' but if some canon character uses the same fancast all over again it's ok.” While there are some faceclaims that are used very often, primarily based off of the popularity of the faceclaim themselves, the actual hate I at least have seen those muns get over their faceclaims is not based off of being “bonkers” or “only copying others”. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone be called crazy for having a faceclaim; if you have then a) I am so sorry you have had to deal with that and b) it might be important to recognize that not all fandoms are created alike. While MANY are full of assholes (ex-Classic Who fandomer and watcher of the madhouse that is Gotham fandom), many also do not go into a screaming fit about a faceclaim. As long as they are live action if a live action fandom/animated if it’s an animated fandom; now THAT, considering my primary muse had an anime based faceclaim because of an unique aspect of hers, is something I know that fandoms do in shades and will scream about for ocs while also accepting a canon who happens to use an animated faceclaim because they happen to BE Animated (Shalka Master/Doctor was a huge example; I as a DW-primary oc got a lot of hate and dismissal and advice to “change my faceclaim” because my fc was Kanra from Durarara, meanwhile Shalka Doctor was accepted and still loved though because it’s a short ANIMATED episode set has to have animated icons (despite being heavily physically based on his voice actor Richard E. Grant and thus under the same laws should have been made to use his face instead)). I have since changed my fc because I got tired of being hated on for being “a cartoon”. But once more, I really have never seen any oc in any of the massive amount of fandoms I follow (I highlight because I recognize that I do not follow all and I do not see all and there might be many accounts of it; I simply talk on the level of what I see and know of as a roleplayer) and interact with (being a temporal/dimensional traveler is always useful for making new friends) be hated on for being a popular/over-used fc. In addition I’d like to point out that canons do get hurt by using the same faceclaim because that goes into the idea that “all canons are alike” and thus can make the roleplayer feel replaceable because they are for instance an Oswald Cobblepot using Robin’s face but there’s like ten or fifteen others and they are suddenly not special enough to pay much attention to

-”if a canon character becomes canon divergent, it is a good thing, but if an oc changes something in their bio they are deemed 'not stable characterization'“ I would like to bring up once again my canon character Robert James Finn also known as RJ and the argument I still have to have about him being a druggie. I don’t know why I have to do this but I have to constantly remind people that no, RJ does not smoke weed, he is not high, my headcanon for him is as someone who is naturally a bit loopy and immensely intelligent; he admits himself that he often talks the way he does to confuse his enemies which denotes to me someone who recognizes the usefulness of acting a part and his part is the man who no one suspects. Now I don’t get straight hate but does everyone respect my choice in having RJ not do drugs and make sure to actually keep that in mind talking to him? No. And in general “canon divergence” is a very weird term; canon by nature is highly about interpretation. For example: The Doctor and Master. There is many interactions between them since the introduction of Delgado!Master back during Jon Pertwee’s era and especially then the relationship is shown to be a very give and take. There is many points, then and throughout time, where you could say that the Master at the very least is in love with the Doctor and even argue that the Doctor does share this feeling; the famous Mind of Evil “You were within an inch of dying” scene is one of the best examples of evidence for this. BUT similarly there are other interpretations to this; the Master could simply be a sociopath not wishing to lose his best “toy” for example. Which is canon? I have most of my muses as non-hetero, Merrick Baliton being the biggest example; Merrick canonically has never shown interest in boys, only being in love with the princess Shayla, yet mine has fallen in love with and been with multiple males, primarily males at this point. Merrick would be canon divergent and I have no doubt that there are multiple people who dislike my Merrick, my Dillon, my RJ, my Riley, my Bigby (who goes completely against his canon love for Snow by not having her be his True Love like in the comics), my Karone/Astronema, my Sarah or any of my companions’ own interpretations of their muses; people may not be as vocal about it but the fact of the matter is that it does happen. (added while writing the oc portion after this) I can name at least one very good example of an canon who is HIGHLY divergent and has not been allowed to get away scotfree over it; the mun plays an underaged muse from a certain Disney movie involving superheroes and plays them in an incredibly sexualized and discomforting way, to the point that my talking about canon divergence being interpretative? Yeah that doesn’t apply to this guy. His muse regularly from others I have seen gets called out on the disgusting behavior the mun has him engage in and is not dismissed as okay and while there are those who do roleplay with them, I would note that while following them (because I rarely unfollow) I have never seen any of the other muses from his fandom so much as come near him. He is a pariah in his own fandom.

As for ocs being seen as not having stable characterisation, this I can understand but once more I debate the idea that it is so much more rampant than with canons. There are cases in which a mun might change things because they decided they found an easier or simplier way to explain it or because of pressure because of a variety of things (Mary Sue accusations, peer pressure, trigger issues, further education that ended up contradicting something, or simply because their muse did not agree with the mun’s interpretation and they didn’t find out until during a roleplay which has happened to me a lot and is fucking annoying, muses, stop it); these I think are generally accepted, primarily because the change makes sense or the mun explains what they did and why.  Now once more fandom-may-vary but even within the DW fandom (which is my go-to “WHAT THE FUCK” fandom in terms of treatment of members by members) a change when it fits well with the character is seen with a grain of salt but does not cause an explosive blowup. On the other hand there are incidents in which yes, there is bad or unstable characterisation; it is almost always bad roleplayers who are creating characters without care to actually making them something to roleplay with. You know the type and no, it’s very rarely the ones who actually get called out about it; it’s weird but they almost always also get away with it because they find people who don’t really care and just want to roleplay with them. They constantly change their muses and while occasional change is something we expect (all muses and all mun change with time), the sheer number of changing is often the bigger issue. Having a character that you cannot keep track of what their past is, not because they have none but because the mun every day or so is changing something, can make for problem in interacting, especially when you are trying to discuss important points about the muse and work through issues and grief but the traumas keep changing or disappearing completely. Stable characterisation in general tends to be a difficult thing to do at times and if someone does throw around the term “unstable characterisation” at an oc, then it’s perfectly right to throw back at them two words: “the Joker”. Then move on because that clown should and can shut down ANY argument about bio changes and characterisation. Just say your oc is the Joker and laugh your head off.

In closing, basically: I do believe OCs have it inherently worse than canons. There are prejudices against them, ranging from not liking the wording of the about page to disliking a specific faceclaim because it’s a person you hate/animated/too attractive/not attractive enough to fearing a pre-established relationship if their about does include mentionings of your muse to not feeling comfortable with certain genders/sexualities to just plain not liking ocs. OCs by nature do have to work harder to get seen and to get people to want to roleplay with them since they don’t have the “advantage” of brand recognition that most canons do. But canons have it tough too, having to deal with whether or not they have the right headcanons, whether or not they are one of a million or one of a kind, whether their primary fandom is tiny or large, whether or not they ship the right ships and hate the ones others hate, whether their faceclaim is okay to use or not, whether they are too divergent or just divergent enough. Canons have to make themselves seen too especially when there are a lot of the same ones. Canons have to work on their bios to explain who they are, why they are the way they are, fill in the gaps and explain the nuances so that they can shine as a character of their own instead of just “Cersei Lannister” or “Newt Scamander” or “Heckyl of Sentai Six” or “Jan Kandou”. All the things you bring up, while I haven’t witnessed any of that sort of stuff, I have no doubt is not just oc problems when I see canons on a regular basis being bashed because their Loki isn’t “right” or their Ivy and Jervis are in a relationship and it goes against the other person’s perception of those characters or their Kimberly is a little too open with her love or their Dean is too out there or because they have a muse that is traditionally straight but in their version is not.)

[alexandrasadmissionportfolio]

IOANA-ALEXANDRA OROIAN

TÂRGU-MUREȘ // ROMANIA

T: (+40) 754 980 166

E: oroian.ioana.alexandra@gmail.com

P: http://alexandrasadmissionportfolio.tumblr.com

 Dear Members of the Admission Committee,

My name is Ioana-Alexandra Oroian, I’m a 20 year old girl from Romania, and I wish to apply to your Bachelor Degree’s Program in Graphic Storytelling. But most importantly, I truly wish to become a comic book artist.

My journey with art began when I was a young child and I could hold up a pencil in my hands. Most of my family describe their earliest memories of me always being with my nose in a coloring book, lost in a world of my own. At the age of 5, my curious nature led me to an old dusty cardboard box my parents had kept from their teenage years. There I would have found my first comic book which was Rune Andréasson’s ‘Bamse’. That discovery ended kindling a long lasting passion for the genre. Although I couldn’t properly read yet, I was so fascinated and amazed how I could still easily understand what was happening through the pictures.

After starting up school, like most children, I loved drawing and would engage in it in my free time as well, but unlike most of my classmates, my drive never faded and I didn’t put the pencil down. During middle school, I stumbled upon the Japanese anime and manga, especially through Masashi Kishimoto’s ‘Naruto’ and Rumiko Takahashi’s ‘InuYasha’. My style has been heavily influenced by their work. During this time I started nesting a love for literature as well, which would let me start writing short stories. My biggest influences come from the fantasy genre, with the likes of J.R.R. Tolkien’s ‘Lord Of The Rings’ trilogy or G.R.R. Martin’s ‘A Song Of Ice And Fire’ saga.

Unfortunately I grew up and still live in a small town, where the ‘starving artist’ mentality still prevails heavily. Because of this, I have always been pressured into picking a safer route in life and was persuaded into thinking that my passion for art remain at a mere past time. Due to lack of encouragement and being afraid to admit what I truly wanted, I chose not to attend a high school specialized in arts. However, even in a normal high school, my identity as the ‘art kid’ never left me; moreover, it found ways to return to me. As Jeff Goldblum’s famous quote from Jurassic Park goes ‘life finds a way’, in my case art found a way to slip back within the cracks.

My high school years ended up shaping me and introducing me to the world of graphic storytelling. In the 9th grade, I was honored to participate in a workshop held by one of Romania’s pioneer in the comic book industry, Puiu Manu. It began with a very basic introduction to figure drawing and story-boarding, and ended up with a regional contest called ‘Festivalul Benzilor Desenate’ where I managed to place first. As a result Mr. Manu advised me to pursue my passions, something I ended up wishing I would’ve followed more thoroughly. After that experience I started digging into the Romanian comic book scene, where I ultimately found ‘HAC!’ a monthly magazine that uses the beloved story of ‘Harap Alb’ as its starting point. The story deeply routed in our national folklore and the beautiful artwork of Andrei Moldovan and Daniel Rosa Durán still inspire and motivate me greatly.

Among other works that I hold dear, I would definitely include the following; the movie ‘Pan’s Labirynth’ directed by Guillermo del Toro for its breath-taking scenic atmosphere, beautiful music score and the tragically bitter-sweet story of Ofelia; the video game ‘Life Is Strange’ developed by Dontnod Entertainment for the way it made me conscious of the consequence of my actions in a way I think no other media can make you aware of. I especially related with Kate’s story line since I personally have personally been struggling with mental health issues as well. Finally I would mention Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s graphic novel ‘V for Vendetta’, as I loved the whole orwellian feeling the universe gave me and to this day I’m very fond of the complexity of its characters and the way the story line unravels around collective consciousness.

On the other hand, there are also a few works that I haven’t particularly resonated well with. I believe hate is a rather powerful word to describe it but I was never pleased with the creative risk and liberty the developers of the 4th installment of Heroes of Might and Magic took, namely the changes in game play, story line and graphics. In my opinion, the developers deviated too much from the original universe. Here I may also add the movie adaptation of the Max Payne game series, directed by John Moore. I believe the movie subtracted important story line plots in favor of more action scenes that were poorly executed to begin with and ultimately didn’t do the original video game any justice.

In the summer between the 10th and 11th grade I participated in a student exchange program at the University College London, for a period of two weeks. It was by far one of the best traveling experiences I have ever had and it hugely fueled my desire to study abroad. It helped improve my English speaking skills and I learned how to take care of myself on my own, considering it was the first time going abroad without my family or friends.

However, the biggest turning point for me, when deep down inside, I knew that being a comic book artist was my path in life, was when one of my good friends from high school got sick. Seeing her so miserable prompted me to do something, and I did what I do best. I drew her a short silly comic strip with our favorite characters from a video game we were playing at the time. I tried making the comic humorous and eventually ending on a sweet note. I handed her the drawing, and I watched her reactions closely. Her eyes started to glimmer; she laughed for the first time that day, and ended up thanking me with a big smile on her face. Until that point I’ve never felt a greater satisfaction. Knowing that something you crafted ended up brightening  someone’s day. The fact that even for just a little bit I managed to make someone go through a cycle of emotions is a feeling I can’t describe in words but I know it’s the closest it can ever get to real magic.

However, by the end of the 12th grade I sadly got diagnosed with clinical depression and social anxiety. I am writing this as I believe it was a great factor that influenced and dictated my course of action the following years after I graduated from high school in 2015. No matter how much everything was prompting me to pursue a career in the art industry, I was not ready to take a leap of faith. In my then mental state I decided to take some time off before my big step, in order to put my life together. At first I was frustrated and confused, and to a certain degree lonely, as most of my friends moved out of the country or to other cities to study.  I ended up retreating to a world of my own, in the silence and comfort of my drawings. No matter how sparsely I did it, for me, drawing always added an irreplaceable healing factor. But as time went by I realized that I either take the risk of trying to be happy or remain sorrowful for not allowing myself to even try.

I began by getting a job as a bartender to learn to be more responsible and earn something for myself. Then I wanted to prove that art was still worth it for me. I created a social media account, on Instagram, without telling any of my friends or family (to avoid any subjectivity), too see the genuine reaction complete strangers have.  Overwhelmed by the positive feedback I got, I became fueled by a strong motivation to pursue my dreams and finally take the next step forward.

I began searching for universities and colleges around Europe, since in Romania there is no such specific degree that can cater to my needs in a professional matter. I then came across The Animation Workshop, which I immediately felt like it’s the place where I could learn how to master the craft of graphic storytelling and discover new people and a friendly ambiance I can prosper in.

My biggest wish and aspiration is to become a comic book artist that can make a difference in people’s lives. Either by freelancing or working for a company, I want to remind people with my through my art or characters, that life is worth living and hope for the better is something invaluable. I am very interested in investing in the therapeutic side that art can provide, and I believe the genre is one of the  best media to achieve something in that regard.

The way I see it, as time goes by, the comic book industry will become one of the biggest pinnacles for freedom of expression, being able to tackle any kind of subject, be it purely fictional or even real, raising awareness of everyday social and political matters. For me this is very important as I believe in the beauty of diversity and the importance of art in our everyday lives.

Regarding my skills, I am currently very comfortable with working in traditional media, especially with materials such as COPIC markers, watercolors and colored pencils. I invested in a small Wacom Bamboo tablet in order to begin taking small steps in the digital area as well. It feels very overwhelming but by using online tutorials, I reached a beginner to medium level in Photoshop CS6. Being a self-taught artist has it’s limitations, as I’ve come do find out. I’m aware of the fact that I lack a solid foundation, and my style does not leave my comfort zone, but I am willing to learn and adapt, and most importantly, for everything that I’m missing I can guarantee that I will do my best through perseverance and hard work.

To finance my studies, I’ve saved up some money from my high school graduation, and most of my salary from my current job goes to my university fund in order to be able to pay for my expenses if I were to move to Viborg. If I’ll still be struggling with money I have my family’s financial support as well.

In the end, I believe the above letter will help you discover what kind of individual I am, and why I believe The Animation Workshop is where I can begin my career and follow my dreams.

As such, I sincerely hope, from the bottom of my heart that I can be part of your Graphic Storytelling Class of 2017.

Yours truly,

Alexandra