#Manga logic is flawed. Big surprise there...

[thelunarfairy]

Olá! Não sei se já viu o novo capítulo! Um usuário no Twitter postou:

https://twitter.com/VibingLemonArt/status/1768463127153164583?t=q_Hv8-AL_mZy95zPpZ3_SA&s=19

Spoilers:

I hope Aidalro knows what they're doing because that would be the best possible ending for the series. The only flaw in this timeline is that Amane isn't the same age as Yashiro.

The manga is about wishes, and it always shows us some very good endings for the series. The fake world of No. 4, Aoi sacrificed in place of Yashiro, and now, the butterfly effect. None of these endings are perfect, but they were better than the literal end of the world (which is what Sakura wants)!

I believe the series' end will be tragic. Simply because the characters aren't content with any of these endings. They're all trying to prevent Yashiro's death, but they're not willing to sacrifice anything for it.

Anyway! This chapter left me with many questions.

Is Tsukasa alive? If Amane became a teacher, Tsukasa was never murdered.

Why is Sousuke Mitsuba alive? Does that mean his death was really connected to the Red House? So, did "No. 3 Mitsuba" never exist?

Didn't Mei have a terminal illness? How is she alive!? How Tsukasa influenced in her death?

How are the Seven Mysteries? Tsuchigomori is still supernatural, and Akane is still a Clock Keeper. But who is the No. 4 and the No. 7 of the mysteries? Sakura? Natsuhiko? Does any of them remember who Hanako was?

I could keep going the whole day!

The big problem is that there will ALWAYS be someone who will sacrifice themselves. You understand?

There is always someone who needs to die for things to work, but no one wants to die, no one wants to lose who they love, and that's where the key is.

Will Amane be able to leave Tsukasa? That's why it all happened.

Will Nene be able to leave Amane?

Will Kou be able to leave Mitsuba?

Even in the perfect world of the PP arc, everyone was alive, but nothing was real, it was as if they were inside The Sims.

Talking and having fun with dolls was not ideal.

Nene would survive if Aoi was sacrificed and Hanako walked away, but it wasn't ideal.

And now, a world without Tsukasa, Aidairo wants to show us another possibility of something that is "not ideal"

As if he wanted to tell us all the time that the possibilities of a good ending without someone sacrificing themselves or something artificial happening are impossible.

"Look at all the possibilities I'm showing you, there's no way they can be happy"

Or, Aidairo will surprise us and show us the best possibility for the ending. But since she's a fan of bittersweet tragedies, I imagine it won't be something catastrophic, but it won't be happy, in the same bittersweet tone as usual.

She is showing us that if Tsukasa doesn't return, many people's lives will "return" or improve.

Mitsuba, Mei alive, Nene popular, hmmmmm interesting?

Could it really be Tsukasa's absence? Or is it a number 1 thing? "a good reality for Nene not to try to change things"

Same logic with the fish who wanted to take her to their world, saying it was a much better place than where she is now.

If Nene accepts this reality, everything will be in order. But we know she won't.

See, how would Tsukasa influence Nene's popularity? How would Tsukasa influence Kou to talk to Mitsuba alive?

It's not just about Tsukasa, it's about the clock keepers.

Despite this, I believe that Mitsuba and Mei's deaths are linked to Tsukasa. I've already mentioned Mitsuba's in other posts, since he had the photo of the red house, but Mei is still a mystery.

About the mysteries, Tsuchigomori is still there, he is a supernatural, why would he be at school for no reason? Hmm…. and the God still exists, but was it necessary to seal him?

hmmmm……..lots of questions

E obrigado por compartilhar o link comigo!!!! 🧡🧡🧡

[asksythe]

Would you consider writing a Itachi/kagome FanFiction? Or one were Kagome is born and lives in Kohona? It'd be cool to see how her character would change! Ah and I really recommend "Something Blue" by cherrynekochan its a beautiful ita/kag if you'd like to see a variation of their dynamic or just a adorable read. Thanks !

Maybe? I’m not sure to be honest. In terms of characters, I don’t feel particularly drawn towards Itachi. Is he a complex character with lots of room to play with? Yes. But do I feel drawn to him and excited about possibly building his character?

…. 

…. huh…. 

…. I think my one issue with Itachi is that his character is pretty much railroaded by the Japanese sense of fatalism. From the moment he came to comprehend the world he lived in in a philosophical scale, Itachi had already committed himself to defeat and failure. In the manga, this sense of fatalism is very much understated and subtle. But if you read his book or watch the Itachi gaiden part of the anime, it’s just… in your face. It’s a slap to the face. That part where Itachi thought ‘like is born, life suffers, life is dead…’… that is the quintessential self-defeating thought process of fatalism school of thought. Even with my meta knowledge on the Japanese tendency for fatalism due to their abnormally high rate of natural disasters (earthquake) breeding a mentality of ‘it’s inevitable for something to come along to screw you over so it’s better not to bother to begin with’… it’s still hard to stomach. 

Every time I read Itachi’s part, I just want to scream ‘grow a pair of fucking balls, weasel boy! You want to talk about being born in crapsack world to a crapsack society? You don’t have a fucking clue! The Naruto verse is bad, true. But its horrors are a drop in the bucket compared to what our real world has witnessed… in the last century alone. You ain’t never seen your country bombed to shit by some other country with a misguided sense of justice and self righteousness, or watched your fellow children be poisoned from birth by weapons of war, or seen your motherland be ran roughshod over by a bunch of dicks for brains dictators in communist shirts, and be completely helpless and powerless through it all, forced to grin and bear it and keep on living until one day when you or your children can actually do something’. 

… I’m sorry… my feelings regarding Itachi borders on being uncomfortably personal. I dislike that sense of fatalism, that subtle arrogance of thinking that nothing and no one will be able to change the world except for the thinker themselves (even if he is the first one to throw in the towel and admit defeat by helping gank his entire clan out of some misguided belief that this is the best way, that this is the only way. It’s so frustrating, so short sighted, so stupidly naive that at times, I want to punch Itachi in the face in the hope that it shocks some actual critical thoughts into that dense head of his. So much for the genius of his generation. He can’t even think outside of the ninja box of solutions at all. Count on trained killers to always resort to murder to solve their problems. Naruto geniuses are over rated. They are only genius when perceived by the flawed mentality of their universe. Put them in our real world and most of them can’t tell their knuckles from their asses. That’s my personal feelings about them. Count them geniuses and I’ll tell you. Itachi - fucking moron with a failed messiah complex. Madara - retarded and uneducated and so unaware of his own self it’s amazing he crawled out of his mom’s snooch at all, Neji - my god, son, talk about being completely unable to think critically at all. Sasuke - hahahahaha, this boy was dropped on his head when he was a baby. Tobirama - completely unable to think objectively through his bias at all, and also possibly unaware of the hole in his own reasoning. Out of them all, only Shikamaru has some hope to him but it’s barely even worth considering)    

Compared to the geniuses of our world, the actual thinkers, actual philosophers, actual designers of our society, our champions and our brightest… these guys are dim candles in the wind. Certainly for a teenage audience who haven’t had much real world experience, they are impressive… but to an adult who frequents intellectual circles in multiple countries and cultures….. ha ha ha… it’s sad… yeah… 

I’m sorry… I don’t mean to just… rant at you and bash these characters. To be fair, they are great in their own way, especially for the genre and the medium. They are heads and shoulders above characters from series of the same categories. They are geniuses in their own way… just… not in our world, and probably not by our rules. It’s not really their fault. 

It’s just that… when I think about them… just my personal feelings and nothing else… it becomes a completely different ball game altogether. You have read my stuff. You have an idea of the level of critical thinking I operate on. The result is that I tend to be quite a bit more critical on characters compared to the fandom average. If I don’t feel excited about a particular characters, it’s hard to devote so much time and effort into working with them, building them, taking them apart, so on and so forth. 

It’s kinda a case like that for Itachi. Certainly I can do it, but if I write Itachi, it’s probably going to be a deconstruction piece. I will take him apart. I will destroy him on some level. And then I will rebuild him again. It’s not going to be a pleasant process for Itachi, especially considering the heavy themes that he clothes himself in.

Blood, family, betrayal, loyalty, the greater good. Especially the greater good. What is the greater good? The greater good for who and how much greater are we talking about here? Where does the greater good end and a self-serving upper echelon merely using its name to further itself begin?

… I don’t know, man. In some way, I want to write Itachi, if only to punch a hole in that flawed mentality of his. Hah… greater good. If your measure of the greater good is only on the level of a single village, your village, then your understanding of greater good is woefully inadequate. But… on the whole… I just feel… I don’t know… daunted I guess. it’s going to be a lot of work for this character. Not even sure I have the time for him .. And it’s also hard to summon enthusiasm when I myself don’t feel excited about this character to begin with. 

… As for Kagome, it’s a joy to write her… but I have written 2 big stories about her and her character arc. Unless I think up a completely different and unique character interpretation for Kagome, I’m unlikely to want to work with her again…. especially in the same universe setting. I just don’t like rehashing stuff. It’s boring. And for a Kagome born in Naruto-verse, unless it’s reincarnation style where she starts remembering things, then it’s going to be a Kagome in name only… and that’s… a completely different can of worms. 

And thanks for the rec. I actually haven’t read fanfic in… a long time now. And I actually have a pretty long list of books I need to read. But yeah, when I have the time and a hankering for ItaKag, I will check that out.   

[lacrow]

Chapter 34...

...and the smash heard ‘round the world!

Thus the tennis mini-arc comes to a close, however we still have a few more chapters to go before we’re fully through the arc proper. More on that in a minute, but first let’s sort through this meaty chapter.

Yor vs. Fiona! The confrontation that everyone saw coming, but no one could have guessed would come in the form of an impromptu tennis match. I have to say, I love how it all played out. Everything about this fit with the tone of the story and characters;

Fiona’s completely flawed logic that being good at tennis makes her wife-worthy

Yor’s equally flawed logic that Loid will dump her if she’s not good at tennis

Anya getting hyped in the background through all of it

Meanwhile, Loid is just done with everything

It was completely ludicrous and hilarious. Also @xnightdx​ (and others) pointed this out back in ch. 31, but now it’s basically confirmed that Loid knew full well that Yor was a beast with a racquet and likely based his serve off hers. Comparison shot here below.

With a serve like that, mama-Forger kept her title for another day. The ideal outcome, although I fully admit to feeling a little bad for Fiona and her tear-filled exit although that didn’t stop me from snorting in piteous laughter all the same.

These dorks.

I have to detour here for a bit, because I absolutely love this panel for two reasons. One of them I’ll get into a second (the big takeaway of this chapter), but the other is just how into it Yor is right here; she just whooped her kinda-sorta love rival fair and square, and Loid’s muted reaction just isn’t enough for her. She wants confirmation, dammit! Loid’s fluster and confusion in the top left is 24k gold to me; he has no idea what to say, mainly because Yor has no idea what she wants or why she even feels so hyped in the first place. They’re both idiots right here, and I love it.

Briefly, the Zacharis Dossier ended up being a bust. I’d like to say I was surprised, but Endo isn’t normally one for the heavy stuff and having a tell-all document of the various war-crimes between two nations in his story does seem a bit out of place in a comedy manga. With that said, I do hope the story goes more into the alleged POW massacres committed by Westalis and the human experimentation in Ostania (especially since Anya is directly related to the latter).

After all of this chaos- the love confrontation, the hilarity thereof, and the spy recap back at Safehouse G- we’re left with a tired Forger house. These are the meager bones of an otherwise hefty chapter. The bottom panel of Yor took the wind out of me; I literally said “Poor thing” out loud when I first saw it. The light’s gone from her eyes. She’s clutching a pillow, wanting to hold onto something but Loid isn’t there. Yor looks dead to the world here, and I’m fairly certain she doesn’t even know why she feels this way. Just like with needing confirmation from her (fake) husband, something’s missing and she’s desperately trying to grasp at straws in order to fill the hole it left behind. Tired, lost, and unsure of what to do, she just stares out into nothing. Waiting for something to change.

And thus the final takeaway of the chapter (and a little bit of a prediction for the next one). Loid feels put-out having to lie to Yor and Anya, that much is plain. Regardless of any feelings he may or may-not have for them, he’s starting to feel uncomfortable with the lengths he has to go in order to deceive them. This is something that’s going to haunt him for the rest of the manga, and nothing short of coming clean is going to absolve him of any of these feelings.

However.

I’m cautiously optimistic about the next chapter. I’m hoping the randomness of him going to a bakery at the end has something to do with him trying to cheer Yor up, either because he’s still a complete dork and thinks she wants to celebrate her win over Fiona with a cake (kinda true) or because he simply wants to play papa and treat his family for a change. With that said, I’m hesitant to think this will all be a-okay by the end of the arc. Typically Endo likes to leave stories on a cliffhanger or sour-note (the only exception being Volume 4) so we’ll just have to wait and see how it all plays out later, as always.

Also, BONUS.

Anya gets it.

[luna-rainbow]

jdorama 2022 winter (1)

Mystery to Iunakare (Rating: 13.2) Stars: Suda Masaki

I can't get my head around this drama. This is based on a manga, and has all the strengths, quirks and flaws of...being a manga. Firstly, the structure is really bizarre. There are climaxes and resolutions that happen in the middle of an episode, with the second half of the episode being build up, which is not the sort of structure you'd expect from a case of the week series. Being manga-based, it is very character driven rather than plot driven, and resolutions to cases are just a little too neat or take too big a logical leap. The characters are...more dramatically interesting than they are realistic. Luckily, they have Suda Masaki and Nagayama Eita playing off each other, both fantastic actors who can telegraph entire stories with stillness and it's just the most mesmerising thing to watch.

I was surprised to hear they had brought in Eita for a guest role, and then I realised...he wasn't really a guest role?? His role in episodes 2 and 3 is weighted even more than the protagonist's?? And his character, being driven by tragedy and loss, is inherently more interesting than the main character, who we still don't have any backstory on (we don't even know what he studies)? Again this is a classic manga trope of the antagonist being just like the main character but tragic and attractive and enthralling, but whereas in manga I'm willing to suspend my disbelief, it's just a little too melodramatic in live action.

I mean...standing in the centre of an atrium surrounded by antique glass windows while dressed in ceremonial kimono and declaring "兄さんは私のもの" is really pushing belief there for live action.

Tonari no Chikara (Rating: 11.5) Starring: Matsumoto Jun, Ueto Aya

Umm. MatsuJun really does not suit this kind of role. I think the problem is two fold. I am fairly sure it's intentional, but Chikara is intrusive and mildly irritating and kinda useless. Now...some actors have an inherent earnestness and vulnerability to make this sort of role likeable despite the flaws. I'm thinking of someone like Takahashi Issei, who had pulled it off with a few toxic or useless characters. MatsuJun can totally do naive or silly, but he's just not hitting it with Chikara. I feel like part of it is because the dawdling, nervous and overly attentive Chikara is quite different to MatsuJun's own personality.

The other part is that...the script is really asking for a lot of faith. The first episode deals with the difficult subject matter of DV, and offers no resolution and minimal reprieve for the victims. Chikara's actions override a lot of Japanese cultural norms and sensibilities about boundaries (which are a lot more rigid and distant than Western cultures), and his interventions in the first episodes did not amount to actual good outcome that could justify what he did (and if he weren't the main character, it could very well be interpreted as invasive and presumptive). The second episode was much less ambiguous (and really should have opened the show, I think), with Chikara helping an old woman suffering from dementia and gaining her trust. The portrayal of dementia is disappointing compared to last year's excellent "Ore no Ie no Hanashi" but we won't talk about that.

I suspect the aim of the story is to reflect on the natural coldness in Japanese (urban) society where there is an expectation that you will both not trouble anyone with your business and also you will mind your business. Apparently the scriptwriter is quite famous, so I'm hoping there is build-up towards something more meaningful, which I think thematically it can do. Urban societies would benefit more from warmth and care and a sense of community, but at the moment Chikara just comes across as unnecessarily nosy and pushy.

[tundrainafrica]

Why the recent chapters of Attack on Titan are still good

This is probably an unpopular opinion but I just need to rant because I saw a tumblr answer here where someone actually compared the current Attack on Titan Chapters to GAME OF THRONES SEASON 8? REALLY. 

As a victim of Game of Thrones season 8, I am so offended for Attack on Titan and for Isayama who is still doing a good job on delivering the story.

And a lot of my timeline really is a bubble of complaints with every new chapter released. They’re shitting on everyone dying and they’re shitting on the whole Eren killing everyone thing and so many female characters sidelined unfairly and Armin being tongued.

The Game of Thrones ending was an insult to its fans. It was lazy writing. Yams latest chapters were far GOT lazy and not a lot of what he is building up to here in the final chapters is unfounded or as illogical as Tyrion Lannister deciding that hiding people in a crypt is a good idea or Daenyrys deciding to burn down King’s Landing or Jamie Lannister going back to Circe and getting killed by rocks. 

To be honest, the only thing I still have issues with is Hange dying in such a fashion (which hasn’t even been completely confirmed yet because the Beast Titan thing can still happen.)

But anyway, I’m gonna go through the complaints I see everyone on my timeline make every time a new chapter comes out and why they were pretty logical developments to the story as painful as they were.

Eren being Crazy and Everyone dying in the Rumbling

I just recently finished a rewatch of Season 3 Attack on Titan and the rumbling has been set up since then. There was one quote where “If the walls are disturbed, Karl Fritz threatens to release the titans inside the walls and flatten the world” and this was mentioned so early into the show as Season 3. And what happened at the start of the show? Colossal titan smashes walls, Eren’s mother dies, Eren goes crazy, 9 years later he starts the rumbling. Very Logical. Not at all unfounded. In fact, hinting at the rumbling so early into the story is pretty genius story writing. Making Eren responsible for the rumbling, masterful writing and masterful progression too.

Armin being Tongued

I brought this up in a previous post already but tongueing Armin like that when they wanted to kidnap him was the most logical choice. You know what’s lazy writing? Or a plothole? Not tongueing Armin because that brings up the question of “Why didn’t Armin just bite his tongue to turn into the colossal titan?” 

Levi being Useless and Injured

Okay, We understand Levi was supposed to be built up to some big character. But Yo, he survived an explosion less than a week ago. Of course he wouldn’t be able to fight. And of course he’d start coughing blood and almost dying in the middle of the battle. Wouldn’t it be more of a plothole if Levi just started going beyblade against them? Maybe it’s an unpopular opinion but the fact that Yams still put a spotlight on the gravity of Levi’s injury felt far better for me than if Yams just set it aside and made Levi fight like normal. Because Levi shouldn’t be fighting like normal? Especially after being bed ridden the past 7 chapters.

 “I feel like he’s just being dragged around.” The manga isn’t over, Yams will let something play out. I have no idea what it is but Yams has plans for Levi and I’m pretty sure the plans will still be better than what happened to Jon Snow. 

Hange being dead

I’m probably just being a Beast Titan Theory Simp now but...  The manga isn’t over, Yams will let something play out. If Hange’s death isn’t further explained, this will definitely be a flaw in my book. 

Hisu being Pregnant

As painful as this was, it had been set up since before. Eren mentioned it multiple times that he did not want to tell anyone about the royal blood because he knew they were going to turn Historia into a baby mill which was exactly what happened. Eren Kruger said the same thing when they turned Dina Fritz into a titan.  The “unfair tratment” of Historia’s character is just the mastery of a Chekhov’s gun being shot and a beloved character being the victim.

Falco and Gabi being Overpowered?

Mikasa and Eren were pretty overpowered too in the first season as kids. This is probably an Anime only flaw but Eren should not have been able to beat Annie or Reiner with the limited training he had yet we still accept that as fact because yo why not. 

 And Falco and Gabi swooping in to take over a lot for them is setting up to be a bigger thing. Yams will not introduce kids as important characters if he did not have plans for them. Falco being the first flying titan has been set up since chapter 90 and really, what would be the point of it if he didn’t save their ass at least once right. 

The Final Battle is Being Dragged on for Too Long

So, I’m assuming you want a Game of Thrones-esque final battle where Gabi just swoops in and stabs him in the back and he dissipates into pieces like the NIght King which only lasts two episodes? And they decide to go back for the rest of the chapters and play Quidditch? The pacing is not at all bad. So far, I don’t see Isayama doing some asspull with what’s been happening. The ending will not be the happiest but we kinda should have expected that when the story started with a massacre in Shiganshina.

Why are people so surprised and offended that Yams is hurting their favorite characters? Why is what happens to our favorite characters the measure of whether or not something is trash. While I’m at it, why is how Isayama treats his characters a measure of whether or not Isayama is “messed up” or “trash” too? (Like seriously, can we put personal insults at the author out of this?)

The writing is flawed but it’s far from a mess. It’s still very tight. The progression is still very logical.  They literally introduced the show to us with a massacre in Shiganshina district and people have been dying left and right since the show started. Why are people so bothered about the blood and the gore in the finale and where their favorite characters are. Fine, we’re all attached. I’m bothered too. But why is what’s happening to the characters, a measure of whether a chapter is good or not? In fact, shouldn’t the final battle be that gory anyway? It would have just been a crazy disappointment if they tuned it down right?

It’s painful to watch our characters go through this but to be honest, at this rate, I honestly admire Isayama for having the courage to kill off and destroy characters like this left and right. In fact, the fact that Isayama is so willing to do these to his characters knowing they are fan favorites is a true testament to someone who writes for themselves more than anything and are completely faithful to their story. This is something which should actually be admired. 

The characters were not at all Game of Thrones levels of butchered. The characters developed like expected and they were set up in very ingenious ways. They all just became a victim to the circumstances laid out before them which have been set up a hundred chapters ago already.

So are the people who are complaining angry about the circumstances? But the current circumstances don’t necessarily mean the chapters and the quality of the story are trash right? 

So are they latest chapters trash? No they’re not. IN FACT THEY ARE SO FAR FROM GAME OF THRONES ENDING LEVEL TRASH. 

Are their circumstances trash? Yes. Their circumstances are trash. 

Is Isayama being lazy? To a degree.

 But mind you, it has not been confirmed yet how many more chapters there will be. Isayama admitted that he hadn’t even completely storyboarded the ending. The director of the anime and the editor still have no idea when Yams plans on ending it.

I have my own qualms and complaints about the ending too and where this is going but so far, I’m seeing a net positive quality wise. A lot of the complaints IMO are unfounded. 

The claim that AOT is reaching GOT levels of trash? Unfounded IMO

The claims that Isayama is fucked up, messed up an asshole over how he chooses to end his story. Completely unfounded. Why the hell are we attacking the creator over what and how he chooses to end his story? 

I know a lot of people probably won’t agree with me on this but genuinely I have been enjoying the latest chapters even with my favorite characters getting hurt left and right. The quality of the story is still good, Isayama still manages to tie up a lot of the loose ends. He still manages to keep a lot of his characters in character. 

Like all of you though, I’m praying the ending won’t disappoint. 

[hopeymchope]

If you like Danganronpa, you might like...

I’ve discovered quite a few games/animes I’ve loved and even new fandoms by using recommendation engines/following online message board recommendations for people who already like the Danganronopa games or anime or manga, and I thought I’d give a quick rundown of how these things have worked out for me.

I’ve been wanting to do this for a while now, honestly... it’s just time-consuming to write it all up, y’know?

Today, I’ll focus primarily on the video game side. If I put “Danganronpa” (any entry) into a recommendation engine, these are the results that I see spit back at me the most... and now that I’ve tried all the most common results, here are my findings.

Persona

Why This is Probably Getting Rec’d: The storylines have teenagers in Japan having to investigate dark goings-on while counterbalancing that with scenes of daily life that are lighter and more humorous. There are also “social link” scenes with the other characters that could easily be compared to the “Free Time Events” in DR, wherein you learn more about the lives of your compatriots via some one-on-one time.

What I Played: Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden on my Vita, then Persona Q on my 3DS. And I watched the main anime adaptions for 3 and 4...

Did It Work for Me? Will it Work for Others? Persona 3 and 4 absolutely worked for me. Q didn’t so much; the Etrian Odyssey-style map-your-own-first-person-dungeon gameplay was a turnoff. Regardless, it’s hard to pin down exactly why there is SO DAMN MUCH crossover between Persona and Danganronpa fans - probably more than anything else I’ve got listed here - because they’re actually very different. These are RPGs with turn-based combat and fantastical story elements involving magic and mystical beings and other worlds. And yet... I do feel the tonal similarity, and the characters feel like they could be at home in a DR game or vice-versa. And I deeply loved 3 and 4. (The stories are individualized to each numbered entry with the exception of the two “Persona 2″ games, so you can jump in on any numbered entry without any problem). I am excited to one day play 5 (although it is so much easier for me to play portables so I really, really, really wish there was some portable version of 5 in existence). Also note that the “social links” didn’t exist UNTIL Persona 3, so you can’t really go back and find that aspect in the first few titles. I can’t say these will work for everyone, but the massive amount of fan overlap says something, so if you’re game for a turn-based RPG AND you like Danganronpa... have I got a soup here for you.

Zero Escape Series (”9 Persons, 9 Hours, 9 Doors” + “Virtue’s Last Reward” + “Zero Time Dilemma”)

Why This is Probably Getting Rec’d: Dark, complex storyline filled with twists, memorable characters trapped in killing game, a mysterious mastermind, visual novel-style presentation, off-kilter humor interjected at surprising times.

What I Played: All three games on the Vita (the first two are collected as “The Nonary Games”).

Did It Work for Me? Will it Work for Others? Yes and yes. Aside from maybe Zanki Zero (see below), this is probably the most obvious thing to recommend to Danganronpa fans, and I’m kind of surprised there isn’t even more of a fandom to it. I can see why it doesn’t have as big of a following as DR - I mean, the humor isn’t quite as widespread and the characters are a bit less quirkily odd - but it’s hard not to get sucked in and fall in love with these stories. The big point of separation for DR fans is that instead of “Trials” where you use logic to solve puzzles, you have to constantly do “escape rooms” and use logic to find your way out of those rooms by doing point-and-click style hunting for items and solving puzzles in those rooms. Just like in DR, however, you’ll find that the more you fail, the more the game gives you increasingly blatant hints as to what you’re supposed to be doing, so it’s not like anything should get you stuck for too long. There’s also the somewhat obtuse nature of how to progress at times, but if you use the branching storyline map whenever you get stuck to look for updated items, you’ll probably be just fine (I hear the DS version of the first game doesn’t have such a map - or even voice acting - so you may need to beware of that being the most obtuse version out there). I loved these games, even if my rankings for them are probably out of sync with how most of the fandom seems to feel.

Phoenix Wright

Why This is Probably Getting Rec’d: Visual novel-style plot and investigation scenes, murder trials with logic puzzles where you need to point out flaws in testimony/falsehoods using evidence, plenty of humor.

What I Played: All of the first game (Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney) on the DS

Did It Work For Me? Will It Work for Others? Well... this is a little unfair, because I played the first one of these before I ever played Danganronpa, but... I didn’t like it. The humor was... lame for me? and I found the trials excruciatingly difficult because MY version of how the logic was flawed was never exactly how they wanted me to approach it. It was a matter of me attacking the wrong parts of sentences over the same general facts but... yeah... I didn’t get into this. Maybe I’m dumb, or was dumb, but it didn’t click for me and I only got through the first game using a guide and expending a lot of patience. I later tried out the anime because I heard it had a good rep (and this was after getting into DR and anime in general), and I didn’t care for that either. So I don’t know about this one.. it wasn’t up my alley. Will it work for other people? Well, clearly it DOES work for other people or this wouldn’t be considered a similar recommendation that comes up so often, typically in the top three of “if you like DR games” results! I do think the humor is FAR different than that of Danganronpa’s, and the characters lack the same kind of nuanced depth you see in DR (but again, that’s just from me playing the first game). But it’s easy to see from the “Why This is Probably Getting Rec’d” that there are elements that would definitely appeal to DR players. Give it a try for yourself if you aren’t already a fan, I’d say. My experience feels... esoteric to what most people think. I may need to try one again. These are on tons of platforms nowadays, many with demos, and often at discounted prices.

Zanki Zero: Last Beginning

Why This is Probably Getting Rec’d: It’s made by largely the same team using the same art style and presentation stlye and is an extremely dark story full of unique personalities and LOADS of weird off-kilter humor with zany mascots somehow overseeing apocalyptic circumstances and the characters look and act like they could easily be in DR and...

What I Played: The whole lone game from start to finish on my PS4.

Did It Work For Me? Will It Work for Others? HELL YES. Everyone who likes DR should really give this a chance. It gives off so much of a similar vibe despite being a “survival”-style game with navigation puzzles rather than logic puzzles, and you can turn off the survival/combat aspects entirely if that’s not your thing! And the story is excellent and the characters are excellent and really just please play this. Underrated game of 2019, and most underrated game that needs a fandom that I’ve ever played.

Fire Emblem

Why This is Probably Getting Rec’d: The bonding sequences you get when your units stand next to each other could be compared to FTEs. It’s got an anime design aesthetic, and the story can go pretty dark. Characters may suffer permadeath (even if other characters won’t react to this fact), so I guess there’s that...

What I Played: Awakening and Fates on the 3DS in their entirety (Yes, I did all three routes on Fates).

Did It Work For Me? Will It Work for Others? I can’t say I fully “get” this one. Fire Emblem is a turn-based strategy game that takes place in a medieval setting, so why is it always turning up in recommendations for people who play Danganronpa? Yes, I did enjoy it quite a bit. I became a newly minted fan of Fire Emblem. Success! And yet... I don’t know that the crossover is obvious to me, nor do I expect it would be a clear-cut case for most DR fans. I don’t even know that all of the traits Iisted under “Why This is Probably Getting Rec’d” actually apply to the whole series. I suppose that any game series that has a balance of darkness and humor plus a “character bonding” scene mechanic might just fall into the “if you like Danganronpa... “ pit, regardless of how incredibly different EVERYTHING ELSE is. But perhaps there’s a deeper connection here than I realize. Care to theorize?

[jcogginsawriter]

Hand to Hand: Mark Waid’s Flash

I have been a fan of comic book characters for a long time. I started with the cartoons, and as I got older, I began doing deep dives into wikis, reading fanfiction, and participating in that shallowest of internet past times, the vs debate. I dabbled in writing fanfic for myself, but I spent far more time thinking about writing fanfic instead. I would come up with all these ideas about what I would take from the various different versions of the characters, and don’t get me started on the idea of Crossovers.     The point is, I knew a lot of what happened in the comics, but I never read many comics. I didn’t know where my local comic shop was, and even if I did, I wouldn’t have had the money to spend on them. The comics that I did read were usually fan translations of manga. I did read a few comics, big name stories like Death of Superman or Crisis on Infinite Earths, but they were few and far between.

Recently, I’ve begun to change that. I now follow several comics as they come out, most notably the current X-line. This change sprang in part because I began reading a lot more comics criticism. In particular, I followed the blog of a certain Superman fan, and began to eagerly digest his various takes. I wanted to be able to ask him questions about new comics without looking like an idiot (This is how 90 percent of my interactions on comics twitter go, BTW) and that was a kick in the pants for me.

After getting into a steady habit, I decided to look into reading some of the classic runs I’d read so much about throughout life. To go from knowing them second hand, to knowing them first hand. After a bit of hemming and hawing, I’ve settled on Mark Waid’s legendary run of Flash Comics to start off with.

(Spoiler Warning for some 30 year old comics, by the way)

As of this writing, I have read up to the final issue of his story arc Dead Heat, wherein Wally does battle with the speed cultist Savitar. Before we get into things like plot and characters, I want to discuss the art, because no discussion of comic books is really complete without talking about the art. Unfortunately, the art in this run hasn’t done much for me, but that’s not really it’s fault. I read this comics in manner that they were not created to be read, digitally and zoomed in. These comics were drawn with physical issues in mind, and I don’t doubt that they’re good in that format. It also doesn’t help that I’ve read far more manga than I have American comics. American comics have never clicked with me the way manga does. Even now, I still find the layout of manga more legible than the layout of an American comic. That’s not a value judgment, it’s just my personal experience.

I do distinctly recall thinking that the art was better up to issue #79 (The conclusion to the Return of Barry Allen storyline), than it was after. I prefer the less exaggerated character designs, and lighter inks, though it could very well be a case of me having gotten used to the initial style and not liking the change. One thing that thing I can say about the art is that it helped me grasp how Wally’s costume differed from Barry’s. Before this, I was incapable of separating them in my mind, but seeing them side by side made it clear to me how different Wally’s Costume was colored and shaded.

Now, onto the writing of the run, we’ll start with the lead, Wally West. My previous touchstone for Wally was the Justice League series from the DCAU, which I watched a lot as a kid. The Wally in these comics comes off as more serious that his DCAU incarnation. Not too serious, he still cracks jokes, but he’s more on the ball. He takes his adventures as seriously as any hero would, rather than the more carefree attitude I recall his DCAU version having. This is not unsurprising, Wally here is the lead whereas there he was part of an ensemble cast, and here we get his internal monologue which gives us a much more thorough sense of his headspace. Not to mention, the DCAU version was voiced, so we know with no ambiguity what tone his dialogue’s in. In text, tone is more up to interpretation.

Perhaps the biggest thing that set Comic Wally apart from DCAU Wally is that the Wally in the comic was more consistently angry and frustrated. While his DCAU incarnation had hidden depths, I can’t recall a time when he got seriously angry. This Wally is frequently irritated, usually by things which are enitrely understandable. On occasion, his irritability causes him to be rougher with the bad guys than he could be, and that feels uncomfortable sometimes, though thus far he hasn’t gone too far.

Going into this, I knew that one of the issues that Wally had to overcome was his mental block about surpassing Barry, and to my surprise, it wasn’t as much of a through-line as I expected. I was expecting it to be a reoccurring issue that was solved by the Return of Barry Allen storyline, but in reality there are only one or two times something like it comes up, usually in the context of him not being able to do the vibrating through walls trick. In the Return of Barry Allen, it feels more like an issue introduced in that story than a long running plot line. Granted, it may only feel this way because I’m solely reading Mark Waid’s Flash. I didn’t read the issues prior to his take over, so that storyline could have been more apparent there for all I know.

Moving on, starting with Waid’s run had another knock on effect, that being that the character introductions aren’t introductions. I came into this expecting to see when Wally met Linda, when he met Jay Garrick, when Pied Piper redeemed himself, but all of that happened before Waid took over the book, so they’re already part of the cast from the start. Again, not a flaw of the work, it’s just a result of my personal experiences. Now, let’s take a look at some of these characters.

I’ve heard a lot about Linda and Wally’s romance, and so far it’s not bad. I wouldn’t rate it as one of the best of all time, but I haven’t gotten to most of the major moments yet, so that’s not a huge surprise. One thing that’s very apparent is the Lois Lane DNA in her character. Some of that is to be expected, which the love interest to your superhero is a reporter, but I see a lot of similarities in their personality as well. There’s a lot of the same fire in her. Fortunately, the fact that Wally’s identity is public lends a very different arc to their relationship than what you see with Lois and Clark, so Linda doesn’t come off as a Lois rip-off. Linda’s concerns that there’s no place for her in Wally’s wild superhero life is the kind of relationship hurdle that isn’t present in Lois and Clark’s Relationship.

Next, let’s take a look at the first Flash, Jay Garrick. Within this series, Jay is perfectly pleasant, and by no means unlikable, but he also comes across as...kind of superfluous? There are three elderly male speedsters in this comic, and of all of them Jay is by far the least defined and has the least role. Max Mercury is the Wally’s mentor in the ways of speed, the one with the most knowledge of the Speed Force. He’s basically what I expected Jay Garrick to be going into this. The third of the group is Johnny Quick, a speedster who is the father of another speedster, Jesse Quick. Jesse is also very skeptical of Max Mercury’s teachings, which veer from the scientific into the mystical.

Because Johnny takes the role of skeptic, Jay is left without a role in the narrative because being the nicest of Wally’s friend group. Veering over to Hollywood for a second, whenever a book gets adapted into a movie or TV Show, minor characters get lost in the transition. Either they get composited with other characters, or they get cut entirely. Game of Thrones is the most prominent example in recent memory. I bring this up because, if Waid’s Flash were to go through that process, it’s hard to argue that Jay wouldn’t get the ax. Despite being the most important of them in the context of the universe at large, Jay is the least important Speedster in this narrative. Of course, Jay’s importance in the context of the larger universe means that in this hypothetical adaptation, he probably be composited into either max or Johnny. More likely Max, since mentor is the logical position for the first Flash to take in the Third Flash’s narrative.

I mentioned Jess Quick there, so let’s talk about her. Thus far, her most prominent role in the narrative has been to call Wally out and be his critic, though she does have very good reasons to be angry. In the Terminal Velocity storyline, Wally believes he’ll die soon, and tells the Flash Family that Jesse will be his successor, but it turns out to be a lie in order to motivate Bart Allen to take things more seriously. Jesse has remained angry with Wally since then, though it hasn’t seriously impacted her hero work. That’s good, because her continued competence lends legitimacy to her anger within the narrative. She’s not being punished for being mad at Wally for mistreating her. Hopefully it stays that way going forward.

Now let’s take a look at the character Wally chose over Jesse, Bart Allen AKA Impulse. I’ll say up front that I’m not reading Bart’s solo series during this read through, as I didn’t want the hassle of going back and forth between books. As such, the only issues of it that I’ve looked at are the ones that tie into the Dead Heat arc. I feel it’s important for me to say this, because I’m basing my opinions of Bart primarily on his showings in Wally’s book, not his own. In Wally’s book, Bart’s character flaws are more on display.

Bart is a character deliberately designed to be obnoxious, and such characters are a hard tightrope to walk in fiction. Gotta be annyoing enough to get the point across, but not annoying enough to turn people off from the work. Bart in Wally’s book isn’t perfectly balanced, and tends toward the too much pile. Not to an egregious extent, but a little bit. I found myself echoing Wally’s frustration with Bart more than a few times. In Bart’s defense, Wally does share some of the blame here. He doesn’t do a very good job as a mentor, and handing those duties off to Max is probably for the best.

I find it interesting, that a character like Wally who is so defined by inheriting a legacy is a poor mentor, to both Bart and Jesse. He makes different mistakes with both of them, but he still fails both of them. I’m eager to see how that plays out in the future issues.

Now that we’ve discussed the supporting cast, let’s discuss some of the book’s villains. We’ll start with the one who is most infamous, Eobard Thawne. Thawne’s spends the majority of his time in this book thinking he’s Barry Allen, and if I’m being honest, he’s more effective under that guise that he is as Eobard. The scenes where what appears to be Barry Allen turns evil out of jealousy of his successor are powerful, more so than the more traditional villain Eobard displays after the reveal. Not that it would have been a good idea for it to actually be Barry, of course. Much as I prefer Wally to Barry, having Barry go full supervillain would have been very out of character. In any case, this run had a profound impact on Eobard’s character going forward, solidifying him as an agent of toxic fanboyism, making him a dark mirror of Wally West.

The next major villain of the run is the cult slash terrorist organization Kobra. That might bring thoughts of GI Joe to your mind, and you honestly aren’t far off. So far as this run goes, the biggest differences between DC’s Kobra and Hasbro’s is A) DC’s version prefer green over blue, and B) Hasbro’s version has more in the way of distinct characters. Kobra thus far is more of a plot device than  anything else. They’re generic terrorists with little to make them distictive. Their storyline, Terminal Velocity, is more notable for it’s introduction of the Speed Force, Wally preparing for his upcoming ‘death’, and Linda going on a revenge quest after said ‘death’. All things that Kobra is incidental to, any villainous organization would have sufficed.

The final, as of my current point in the run, major villain is Savitar. Savitar was formerly a soviet test pilot who gained a connection to a the speedforce, gave himself the name of Hindu god, and started a speed worshipping cult. It says a lot about my mind that my immediate thoughts upon reading Savitar’s origin were. “Huh, an AU where Hal Jordan became a Speedster the same way would be neat.”. Savitar is in some ways an improvement on the Kobra Cult from Terminal Velocity. This time the Cult has a more direct connection to the Flash and his mythos. Dead Heat is by no means a retread of Terminal Velocity, but if you wanted to mesh them into one story, it wouldn’t be hard. And it’d improve on both, in some ways.

One of the things I like to do in my fanfic ideas is connect the other speedsters to Thawne’s theme of Toxic Fandom, and it wouldn’t be hard to do that with Savitar. His entire motivation is to deprive those he considers unworthy of their speed, and that can easily by played as a metaphor for gatekeeping.

Over all, while the run is far from perfect, I must say I’m enjoying these comics a good deal, and if you’re like me and have read a lot about comics without actually reading them, I don’t think you’d regret jumping into them.

[shijas]

Tell me about the heist au for the wip ask game if you like!!

heyyy! i answered it initially here, but i’m always up for more useless rambling, so here’s a pseudo-essay about how i came about with an almost stupidly over detailed heist au from a pirate shounen that’s been running for over two decades:

1. one piece: gold (embellished filler)

one piece movies tend to be more fight-filler than anything else but the glitz and glam of the gold opening really sold me a dream of a real heist movie with the strawhats who, after over 900 at that point chapters of reading, i had come to adore. and we did get heist elements which were really fun! but, the majority of the movie devolved to tragic backstories ™️ and luffy boss fights/strawhat minor fights, which was expected but still pretty disappointing on the heist front!

2. the one piece (ultimate macguffin)

i think one of one piece’s ultimate allures, is the titular item itself - a priceless unfounded treasure, left to us by the king of pirates himself. i don’t think i’ve ever read a manga or any fiction where the macguffin is so stupidly hyped or so painstakingly allows for a slow burn world! i got really excited about how the one piece (which for spoiler reasons i will not explain) and the age of piracy could work in a more modern take of the admittedly strangely advanced world.

3. a real world commentary (surprise, it’s not just a comedy action shounen)

a lot of shounen, i believe anyway, try to varying degrees of success pose interesting questions about human nature and the things that spawn from humanity’s flaws and successes. one piece of course, is not immune to this and has really interesting things to say about institutionalised power, good and evil, guilt/shame/blame, punishment and freedom, crime and lawfulness.

the idea of this macguffin for all intents and purposes being enough to trigger a great race to the seas although plausible at first look, allow a sense of comfort that is quickly broken when the story begins to delve into the nature of the society built.

by the time i had a clearer image of what the story was trying to say and how much of it i agreed with, it kind of hit me how blatantly these elements could be superimposed onto the modern day!

4. you aren’t really a good person, but god damn, you make bad look awesome. (no one could steer me right, but mama tried.) - a heist au

the one piece can remain the macguffin, an ultimate goal that on the surface level, everyone is vying for at the behest of the authority power. conveniently, the world government is exactly that a world government and so they could be the same too.

so what are pirates? easy answer: criminals! the funnest type in fact because they in real life and the original op universe they tend to fall under social criminals. so let’s keep pirates as criminals, and instead let’s make them commit the closes we have to social crimes we have in the modern day: stealing from the rich, distributing to the poor (or there about).

if the crime is theft, and the one piece is the ultimate macguffin than the only way to get it must be a heist right?

5. a love letter to whole cake island (the stupidest place to start a story)

who cake island, is one of my favourite arcs for reasons [redacted] due to spoiler content, but it also gave me a starting poirnt for what may be the silliest, most brain twisting logic fic ive ever dreamed up. so many features and messages of op can be stolen just from those 100 chapters and i thought well, what a fitting place to start a heist story right? with the crew getting together and defeating one big bad before getting information to defeat the next and inevitably come closer to their goal.

and that’s it, that’s my whole thought process and ramblings about what is well and truly a amusing parody of some amazing story arcs and world commentaries. just some criminal found family fun, but with high speed car chases, elaborate disguises and physics breaking acrobatics (i guess the main series has some of this too), instead of devil fruits and the harnessing of ones spirit (normal shounen stuff). also, fuck gold.

thanks for asking this is the most fun i’ve had all day!!!!!!!!!!! i hope you enjoy the tiny snippet in the other post too :D

[linkspooky]

Emma’s Sacrifice

In the most recent chapter Peter Ratri, in a last ditch effort to spite Emma and the children he’s decided to attempt killing Emma in order to void the promise to let them all escape. While this may seem like Peter’s pathetic last stand, there’s a chance that he might be partially successful. He might fatally wound, or even kill Emma. However, even if he does manage that the promise itself will not end. Because here’s my prediction, in order to use the promise to cross back itno the human world, Emma was always going to have to sacrifice her life. 

1. Emma’s Most Precious Thing

As any deal with the devil there was a clear condition that came with forging a new promise with the nameless god. A deal that comes with fine print is always suspicious, but it’s especially so to the reader in this case because we still do not know what Emma promised as a reward for the nameless entity in order to allow the children to return to the human world. However, there are enough clues in context to give an idea of what Emma might have to sacrifice. 

The first is that the god deliberately separated Ray and Emma. Nameless always knew that Ray and Emma were going to come and find them. They speak of knowing and anticipating their arrival. It’s also specifically Ray’s common sense, his inability to let go of his own sense of internal logic and bend his mind the way that Norman and Emma do in order to imagine the impossible.

However, it’s because Ray is the more conservative and logic one that he would never allow Emma to do something too risky, or sacrifice too much in order to forge the promise. If Emma were to try to sacrifice herself, Ray would have stopped her right then and there. Therefore if the god is trying to take a reward from Emma, it makes sense to separate the two of them. 

Nameless specifically outlines that they always want something important as the reward. In the case of Ratri’s descendant, they took his future to be free of the demons essentially, by chaining him and his family to working with the demons in the second world for the rest of his life. 

Emma’s something important could only be a few things. The most important thing to her is the happiness of her family, but killing all the children she considered her family would make the point of reforging a new promise moot. Her dreams? Her dream was for her family to escape to the human world where they could be happy and alive. Emma herself is an admittedly selfish person though, always thinking of herself, her love for her family, and her own dreams first before anyone else’s wishes. Her big flaw to overcome was for her to become aware of her own selfishness, and ask the rest of her family for help in dealing with Norman. A future where everybody escapes without her would be an ironic punishment, and a sacrifice that Emma herself would make. 

There are also two reactions themselves which inform us that the nameless god was asking for a lot as the reward. Emma knew that they were going to ask for something as a reward and was mentally preparing herself and even after that, what they asked her took her completely by surprise. We see her shock and horror in her expression, and the story uses the art to inform us of a lot that’s not directly spoken. After all, Emma’s true reaction to Norman’s plan was foreshadowed for a chapter with her horrified reaction when Norman announced it, before Ray got the answer out of her. 

The second hint is Ray deliberately thinks to ask what the reward they have to pay is, but then Emma avoids the question. She even says she’ll tell him what it is later, but it’s been chapters since then and Emma has remained mute. It’s likely Emma herself is planning on telling everyone right as they’re about to leave so they have no choice but to go without her. As if Ray did know Emma was planning on sacrificing herself he would definitely stop her. 

The cost of everybody else escaping is most likely Emma’s own life.

2. Emma and Norman Saving Each Other

Norman and Emma are character foils, set up as two halves of the same whole person since the beginning of the manga. I go more in depth with their foiling [here]. While Norman and Emma both seem like opposites, Emma the dreamer with her head in the clouds, and Norman the tactician willing to get his hands dirty they’re actually far too similiar. Norman’s main flaw is that he will always take the entire burden on himself. Emma’s flaw is she puts her whole family’s needs before her own. They are both people who consider their own lives expendable, but cannot accept the sacrifices of other people. 

Therefore, it makes perfect sense that Emma would go so far to stop Norman from sacrificing himself a second time, only to be planning to let herself die in order to forge the promise. Norman’s death is an unaccpetable sacrifice to Emma. She can’t bear to lose any of her family. The pain of losing them will always be worse for her than the pain of losing herself. Even when Emma is talking about the future she wants, she never really mentions what she wants for herself. She just mentions how she wants to save the others around her. 

Emma and Norman share the same fatal flaw (literally in this case), they will both always choose to kill themselves. Their needs will always come last. They are both people who are incredibly reckless with their own lives and unable to see the importance they have to the other people around him. This is even something that Norman realizes about Emma early on when he was trying to sacrifice himself for the first time. That she’ll throw everything away at a moment’s notice, rather than face the pain of losing someone else.

If the choice is between killing themselves and killing someone else, they’ll always kill themselves, over and over again. Norman does it by shutting down his true feelings, whereas Emma does it by her total recklessness and refusing to value her own life. 

The greatest cause of tension in Norman and Emma’s relationship is that both of them want to sacrifice themselves for the other. Neither of them realizes how important they are to each other. They both unvalue themselves against the other, which is why every time it looks like they’re going to get close they fight like this again. Which is why despite Norman knowing what his feelings are, and Emma losing Norman once, neither of them can let their feelings for the other grow and mature into anything romantic. They are both people who are terribly afraid of losing people, and self-sacrificing to a fault. 

Emma and Norman are both fatally unable to realize the importance they have to one another. That neither of them can just disappear and die without leaving a permanent wound on the other. 

Norman and Emma even have parallel sequences of saving the other at their lowest point. When Norman has succeeded in slaughtering the nobles, and stands over their corpses he sees Emma’s childhood self come to retrieve him. Norman who was speeding off to his own death because he reufsed to tell the others that the experiments had significantly shortened his lifespan is found in a pitch black void by Emma’s childhood self, who tries to lead Norman back to his own childhood. 

In Goldy Pond, Emma has a similiar and parallel experience. When she is stabbed by Lewis and about to die, once again a death caused by her own recklessness and disregard for her own life by charging ahead in order to finish the fight. Emma falls away from her body and sinks into a pitch black void.

When she is falling away from herself, and from life it’s Norman who appears to retrieve her. He’s the one who leads her back to the surface by taking her hand.

These scenes are perfectly in paralllel because when Emma and Norman boWth try to sacrifice themselves, it’s always the other that pulls them back. While they both want to sacrifice themselves, more than that both of them want the other to live, and to live with them.

Which is what forms my next theory. When Peter Ratri wounds Emma, she’ll tell everyone in the aftermath that it’s fine, because if they all escaped to the human world she was going to die anyway. At that time it will be Norman who saves Emma, by reminding the children of his original plan. Instead of returning to the human world, stay in the neverland and make it into a paradise for children. 

At which point all of Emma’s efforts into making demon and human coexistence possible, and stopping Norman from killing all of the demons present in this world will not go to waste as the children decide to stay behind. 

There’s one last piece of evidence, in that every single member of the trio has had a climactic moment where they tried to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the other two. For Ray, it was when he tried to burn himself a live to provide a distraction for everyone’s escape. For Norman it was when he tried to go through with his plan to eradicate the demons alone, and then die of sickness so Ray and Emma could live with their family in the paradise for children Emma wanted. The only character of the trio not to be saved from an attempt to sacrifice her life so far is Emma, and because Emma in both cases is the one who talked Norman and Ray down from the edge, it’s their time finally to save her from herself. 

[razeluxe]

Razeluxe’s Top Ten Male Characters

So I’ve been thinking about doing a particular list for my favorite characters across anime and games for quite a while and with some advice I decided to break it into my favorite male and favorite female characters. Most people that know me can probably guess at my top three favorites but if you don’t know me... well you ‘bout to learn lol. This was harder than I thought to compile...enjoy my fanboying of the boys lol.

By the by, I’ll do my best to keep spoilers to a minimum.

10) Apollo Justice (Phoenix Wright Series)

I’ve played only two games that this character was in (Apollo Justice and Dual Destinies, slowly working through Spirit of Justice) and this character particularly in Dual Destinies struck me even more than Edgeworth who is another amazing character. Apollo has an amazing spirit and it was only through playing Dual Destinies that I really got to understand Mr. ‘I’m Fine’ and his stupid ‘Here comes Justice’ puns. I feel his original game didn’t allow him to shine (still a great entry in the Ace Attorney series I don’t care what anyone says) and Dual Destinies allows him the development he deserves. He gets hurt during a trial and it allows a deep dive of his character even if his personality shifts for a while. Damn he’s savage. He’s considered the underdog in the Wright Anything Agency but he’s to me the hardest working person there who is also the most factual in court.

9) Gokudera (Katekyo Hitman Reborn)

Or as I like to call him, Scowludera since he’s scowling like 90% of the time. This Ichigo ripoff’s character development is insane. And I think that trend follows most if not all the characters in this list. His relationship with his sister is interesting and he’s pretty explosive in terms of personality and intelligence. His fights are all really interesting too, he has some of my favorite interactions in the series thus far (haven’t read the post anime manga chapters yet sadly, but he’s more than earned this spot on this list). He butts heads with people a lot and he can be ignorant but he grows from his experience and you get to see it bit by bit. This dude is loyal to the bone. RIP if you aren’t Tsuna or Reborn. Also, I’d like to shout out this anime as one of the few to do the shounen genre proper justice. Go watch it. Also his sister Bianchi is <3. Oh wait. Male list. Oops. Can we also talk about his weapon? Not gonna say spoilers but that thing is dope and probably one of the best ever designed weapons. And his kitty Uri <3

8) Joshua Bright (Trails in the Sky)

This will be short as I don’t want to spoil anything, but Joshua is a very easy character for me to connect to personally. His feelings, actions, development probably relates more to me than a lot of characters on this list. He’s got good people around him...I’m very happy for his ship and support it 120%. Also the Trails Series, both Sky and Cold Steel are probably my favorite series of anything period. Go play it. There is more to this character that meets the eye and has broken my heart more than once ;_;

7) Neku Sakuraba (The World Ends With You)

Neku Neku Neku. Another very relatable character for me (see the theme here? lol) He initially shuts out people and over time, through his experience in the Reapers Game, he starts to open up and bring people into his circle. He goes through some crap, like a lot of trauma. When you learn of him it’s no wonder he wound up disliking people and society. He’s extremely creative and that creativity manifests itself in different ways. Kinda like me. It’s worth mentioning I used to roleplay this character back in the day, the very first canon character I used to write for. 

6) Shulk (Xenoblade Chronicles)

One of the only blonde’s on this list. Shulk is a character that is driven by revenge but eventually changes. He goes through some pretty traumatic stuff that I absolutely will not spoil. His personality when he encounters a certain characters shifts big time and it’s kind of scary considering how early you see this. Also he gets points for being a notably intelligent character. I mean, the dude has his own lab...and is able to fix and adjust stuff. He’s really a great and well balanced character despite all the crap he goes through. Also I used to make fun of this character and dislike him a little bit, but then I grew up. 

         The list gets real starting...now. Not that it was fake before. :o

5) Jaden Yuki (Yu-Gi-Oh! GX)

Anyone who has actually watched the entirety of GX might know why he’s here. His character development in the latter seasons so unreal and interesting. I’m not spoiling crap but there is a lot more to the character than meets the eye. Like a lot lot. Over the course of the series he loses his innocent eyes and his personality changes a lot...His character is probably one I can relate to in terms of the reasons for his actions, the way he gets down about himself, the way he acts in the final season...it hits me hard...he’s too dang relatable...just like..

4) Rean Schwarzer (Trails of Cold Steel)

Surprise surprise. Rean is here. -hears crickets- Guess you’re not surprised. I wonder why. I think I relate to this character more than anyone else on this list. Except number one. Number one is in his own league. Rean is a character who generally carries a happy disposition...he has a unique power but you can see he is actively scared of it. It’s something I actively deal with...he’s so scared of himself that he puts distance between family and friends. He never feels he’s good enough. He’s made headway through this, but...

One thing that’s extremely interesting about this character is his selflessness. You may think this is driven to the ground in character stereotypes but for Rean it’s different...his selfless has been described as abnormal by characters in game, and it’s not for positive reasons...Rean deals with some real unhealthy stuff. This is getting long.

As of this post Cold Steel 4 comes out in one month and I’m extremely worried for his character. If you’ve played 3 then you’ll know why. Also if you haven’t played the Trails series, go play it. No buts. Heck I’ll even buy the game(s) for you if I can.

--

Oh look we’re at the top three. I want to say that while numbers two and three here are pretty interchangeable, these characters have been in my top three for over a decade and a half and I don’t see this changing anytime soon. Rean I love you but you have your work cut out if you ever want to breach the top 3. I wanna post a few honorable mentions here. They didn’t get into Smash but they do get Mii Costumes at least! -shot-

Davis Motomiya (Digimon Adventure 02) 

This character was everything I was when I was a kid. The way he tries everything to woo Kari is too cute. Also his unwavering faith in Ken. Also Davis Cries Veemon.

9S (Nier Automata)

Not mentioning any spoilers. Just watch this character and see how his vision of the world changes over time.

Okabe Rintaro (Steins; Gate) 

Okabe’s shift from his ‘persona’ as things get real and his efforts to fix everything is too relatable for me ;_;

Yosuke Hanamura (Persona 4) 

No, I do not ship him with Yu. They’re great buddies for sure, and he’s pretty cool. Really likable character for me personally save for a few moments in the game...he’s also the main in the Arena games. “Let’s do this, Jiraiya!” He’s so cool lol.

                    Top 3 time. Fiercely dedicated to these guys.

3) Robin (Teen Titans Go! 2003)

Robin is such a raw character that carries his past and tries so hard to move from it yet it embodies him to his core. He has since gained a softer side from forming a team, and has been doing normal teenager stuff...which is good for him. However at times that Batman side impacts him so hard that he can only concentrate on his mission, and starts shutting out everyone and everything to do things himself. It actively gets in the way of his interactions. He deals a lot with moving on from failure and acknowledging his friends more, which he does get better at over time. He is also represented by the color red. My favorite color. He’s badass and yet carries so much crap. I connect to this character a lot even now. Third canon character I ever wrote for.

2 Lloyd Irving (Tales of Symphonia)

I love Lloyd. I love his voice, I love his attacks, I love his stupid double sword logic. He says wielding two swords makes him twice as powerful lol. I love his development. I love his idealism and how it matures over time. I love everything about Lloyd. It was legit love at first sight. I remember being 15-16 and seeing him on that Gamecube boxart and saying “I wanna play that guy” Most people I feel (guys in particular) probably looked up to certain characters growing up as a child/teen. Lloyd was mine.

1. Zidane Tribal (Final Fantasy IX)

While it was love at first sight for Lloyd, that was not the case for number one on this list. I was 13 when I first played FFIX. Zidane upon encountering him, I always thought he was a cool character, but he was nothing special.  Even at Zidane’s lowest point I thought he was an okay character at best. I had not finished the game.

Fast forward a few years and I decide to play FFIX again, this time determined to finish it. I had went through some things, grew up a bit before turning this game on. This damn bandit...I remember writing this bit years ago: “His infamous mantra labeled above describes him well, but under his ability to console others with a smile, to cheer people up and meet them at their point of need with his abundant optimism lies a blonde who masks his pain and keeps his issues to himself. Despite his many friends and buddies he harbors a deep loneliness that, like his problems, he keeps to himself. One would have to look carefully to notice his character flaws for Zidane does an impressive job of hiding these problems. Whether it be through his energy, his theatrics, or focusing on other people, Zidane can cover things up quite well.”

Zidane has an absurd amount of depth to his character that I was never able to comprehend as a kid, beneath his flirting, his playful attitude, he hides a lot of feelings, a lot of anger, a lot of sadness. It used to boggle me how he’s able to uphold his sense of virtue despite what goes on in his life and the end of disc 3 answers this for me. It goes without mentioning that this was the second canon character I’ve ever written for, and I still love writing him. I could and write walls of text about how Zidane is so amazing, a chivalrous thief, a lover and a flirt but I think I can let you go lol. Hit me up if you really want to hear me ramble about any these characters, also play FF9.

...So I wrote all of that and forgot to write about Zidane’s ship...have to give it its own paragraph because I love these two together and she does wonders for Zidane as a whole as does he to her. She’s a princess and he’s a thief, they take their time to show them together through different things, different ordeals...particularly the ordeals. Its interesting seeing them both at their worst moments and the many funny moments..Man, that boat scene gets me every time...If I ever write a top ten couples list this couple would no doubt be in the top two if not number one. And I’d probably write way more than this about them because they’re great. Also they’re canon. A healthy canon. Also Dagger’s hot. Oh wait wrong list.

Okay finally done. Not editing this anymore :P

[gunmaestro]

My Problems with Bungou Stray Dogs.

I want to preface this by saying that Bungou Stray Dogs is my favorite animanga. I’m not trying to tell Asagiri how to write the story and I’m not saying these things make it a bad concept--I just wanted to share my criticisms about the show and manga. These things absolutely don’t ruin it for me, and most of them are about the anime only anyway. Note that this list will NOT include the Tanizaki siblings although I do have a problem with their relationship because I’m focusing mostly on storytelling and character analysis. But without further ado, I’ll get into my first criticism. This one, my biggest problem with the series, will be above the cut, but the rest will be under it for length.

Dazai Osamu.

Given that Dazai as an author is a very significant presence in Japan, it’s understandable that he would play a large role in a series based largely upon Japanese authors. The fact that he has a large role is not the reason I dislike him--in fact, he’s been getting a lot less screentime in the manga recently. The reason I view Dazai as a problem with Bungou Stray Dogs is because of his mental prowess which borders on omnipotence.

It shouldn’t come to a surprise that Dazai would play a role in every major arc, given that he’s a main character and all. However, it’s very frustrating and almost boring to have arc after arc resolved because of Dazai. It’s even more frustrating when it’s implied that everything our protagonists do has already been specifically calculated by Dazai, as if their actions are not their own. Having an overpowered character like him makes the narrative seem boring.

At the time of this being written, the manga is in the middle of its arc with the Hunting Dogs and the Decay of Angels. I’m not sure if this is just me, but because of the characters (Ango, Atsushi, Dazai himself) admitting that Dazai had planned for certain events all along, I feel almost no stakes for the arc as a whole. It’s very hard to feel suspense whilst getting constant reminders that everything bad happening is all according to Dazai’s plan. I won’t even bother going into the dick measuring contest between him and Fyodor, either, because I’m sure we all know how that sort of thing can get annoying very quickly in stories.

Dazai being the super genius he is also weakens other characters around him. A striking example of this is Edogawa Ranpo, a character whom I have no problems with at all, speaking in terms of characterization. Ranpo’s entire character hinges on the fact that he is a brilliant detective and the smartest person in the agency--and to people like gifted kids, he’s a very relatable character. It greatly diminishes the quality of Ranpo’s character to introduce the idea that there are characters who know more than him; though Dazai has admitted to not being as smart as Ranpo, the narrative does not reflect this statement. Ranpo as a character works because there is grounds to his bragging--take away his status as the smartest in the series and he becomes nothing.

Similarly, Dazai negatively impacts the characters of Atsushi and Akutagawa. They’re two very interesting characters, but part of the reason they seem to fall flat to me is that they only ever act together when forced into it by Dazai. In fact, it feels like every single character on the side of good in this story would be helpless without Dazai there to guide them--and that makes them far less impactful characters.

Unresolved Plotlines and Bad Math.

Maybe I’m being nitpicky, and I didn’t mind this at first, but there are a lot of cliffhangers and inconsistencies throughout the story. Examples of the latter are easy to come by--Kunikida was initially stated to be a math teacher before joining the ADA, despite being only 22 at the present time in canon. Fitzgerald’s daughter would have been at most 14 at present assuming she was born when Fitzgerald was 18, which is hardly old enough for her to be sent to a boarding school in ANOTHER COUNTRY. These are small, but they somewhat decrease the quality of the story when questioned.

The unresolved plotlines and cliffhangers have a much bigger impact on the story during a time where it is still being released one chapter a month. John Steinbeck’s return has not yet come after two full arcs, despite it being teased by his appearance during Fitzgerald’s return. Going back further, we’ve seen astonishingly little of Agatha Christie--even though she was introduced around the same time as Fyodor.

In smaller cases, there’s the fact that we didn’t get to see what happened with Yosano, we don’t know where Akutagawa is at this point in the narrative, and we weren’t told what happened with the truck containing Margaret. These are small things that won’t be as annoying to read back on once they’re resolved, but having a story set up where everything is left open after every chapter is very disengaging for readers who just want to know what’s going on.

The Anime.

I know what I said at the beginning. The truth is, though, that there’s so much about the anime adaptation that bothers me that I have to summarize it by just saying the anime as a whole bothers me. I’m also aware that it’s very uncommon for mangas to get a perfect, spot-on anime adaptation.. but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a problem with it.

Here’s a speedround of things I don’t enjoy about the anime.

The art style. I’m sure we’re all very tired of the fish-eye lenses, and the weird smiles they’ve incorporated from Dead Apple. This being said, there are times when it looks good, but that doesn’t help the fact that I actually physically cringe whenever there’s a character who’s afraid or overly cocky making a facial expression that reflects this emotion.

The focus on certain characters (Dazai). I’m among the group of people that wanted untold stories to be animated this season instead of Fifteen, because it would have fit better with the plot of the season. The fact that the anime chose Fifteen was a good decision for drawing more attention to the show, since the fans of Chuuya and Dazai are in the majority, but it fits very poorly with the rest of the season. In fact, sorry for the spoiler, but Dazai and Chuuya aren’t even shown interacting in the main season, whereas Fukuzawa plays a major role in the cannibalism arc and Ranpo was visibly shown to have an important connection with him.

The tone. There’s not much to say, here. The anime takes everything very seriously, and one of my favorite parts of the manga are its humorous lines.

The humor. Speaking of humorous lines, they’re always said in a very obnovious way in the anime that makes it seem like they’re trying too hard. This is an opinion rather than an analysis.

The left-out details. Though the conversation between Fyodor and Agatha was not very important to the plot and nor was Steinbeck’s removed appearance in season 3, they both served as teasers for future arcs, and removing them shouldn’t have been completely necessary. 

The changes to characters. The Guild is a particular victim of this particular point. Whereas the characters in this organization don’t come off as a completely serious group of people in the manga, they sure do in the anime. Logically, I can understand why this would be done--they’re the arc’s antagonists, and they’re more intimidating if they aren’t funny. But it completely changes some of their characters if you remove certain aspects of their personality.

The Fandom.

It goes without saying that no fandom is perfect, and a lot of them aren’t even good. The Bungou Stray Dogs fandom comprises mostly of s/skk fans, which is unsurprising, but what makes me compelled to put the fandom on a list of my problems with the show itself is how much they completely warp the characters of Dazai and Chuuya.

I know I have a whole section explaining why I think Dazai is a major flaw of the series, but despite that I actually do find his character interesting, if a bit annoying with how big his presence is. I dislike the fandom’s interpretation of him, specifically the way he interacts with Chuuya. Did he not blow up Chuuya’s car? Did he not let Chuuya suffer for a few more seconds just because he thought it was funny? Did he not make Chuuya embarrass himself for no reason other than his own enjoyment? It’s very disheartening to see him portrayed as someone who would never betray Chuuya’s trust and who is completely devoted to Chuuya.

Speaking of Chuuya, he’s probably the fandom’s biggest offense in terms of making a character unlikable. In my particular case, the way the fandom treats him has driven me away from his character, which I actually do like. Because of how often I’ve seen the fandom treat him like nothing more than a blushing tsundere whose feelings for Dazai are soooo obvious, I’m impacted by these interpretations when I read the manga.

To Conclude + A List of Things I Don’t Mind

No, I don’t think the series is bad and I don’t think these listed things make it bad, but I’d be lying if I said they didn’t bother me. But since I’ve been nothing but negative, here’s a few things that bother most people but don’t bother me at all.

Mori Ougai. I don’t condone his behavior or “preferences”, but I do not believe he is a problem for the show. He is not supposed to be a good character and, as we see with his behavior towards Yosano, his actions are not portrayed as good. There is nothing wrong with the villain of a series being a p*dophile as long as it is not treated as something positive, which it is not.

Tachihara + The Hunting Dogs. This is a spoiler for the more recent chapters of the manga, but despite the lack of foreshadowing I am not bothered by Tachihara’s reveal as the fifth hunting dog. I also don’t care that the dogs are hunting the agency, because it makes sense, story-wise. The agency are technically international terrorists because of what was written in the book.

Lucy and her supposed crush. Romance is not the focus of the show and, likewise, Lucy’s “crush” on Atsushi is not put at the forefront of the plot. However, I have seen fans get annoyed by the fact that she seems to like him.

I’d like to thank everyone who read this for taking the time to do so. I’m not the most coherent with my thoughts and I’m bad at putting said thoughts into words, but I hope you liked the things I had to say.

[dlamp-dictator]

A Bittersweet Prequel (Akame ga Kill Zero)

Akame ga Kill! Zero is the prequel to Akame ga Kill!, a shounen manga based around a corrupt medieval empire and the group of revolutionary assassins attempting to take the kingdom down from the inside known as Night Raid. This specific spinoff manga focuses on the female lead Akame and her past as an assassin for the Empire. You get to see her interact with her old team, the Elite 7, her earlier missions and life as an Empire Assassin, and how she ended up getting her iconic Murasame blade before betraying the Empire. Overall, I liked this manga a lot, and unlike most things I like I have very few asterisks to put in front of that statement. This is an honest-to-God good manga from start to finish. 

But I still have a few asterisks to lay out. Nothing that usually scares people away from things I like. This isn’t Senran Kagura, Rumble Rose, Wanna be the Strongest in the World, or... honestly, half the manga in my collection. No, just a few gripes and annoyances you might have when reading the manga I think knowing in advance would ease the pain a little. 

Ultimately, this manga has three big issues for me. 

Oh, and I’m using a “read more” for once to see how that goes.

Anyway, like I said, three main issues:

It’s a Seinen

This isn’t the criticism you might be thinking. My issue with this manga is that it’s pushing for a Seinen rating rather than the fact that it simply is one. The original Akame ga Kill was a darker shounen aimed at an older teenage crowd. It had its fair share of dark moments, gore, and violence, and while a lot of it felt like it was done for edge or shock value after about volume 9 or 10, it wasn’t going too far with it in terms of content, at least for my taste. This was a manga about killers, murderers, and assassins at the end of the day, so killings, murders, and assassinations happened. A lot.

But Zero… went further.

Let me put it this way, if I had to give the original Akame ga Kill manga a rating I’d say it’d be rated T, maybe even a 16+ as it had some rather gruesome depictions of blood, gore, general violence, and some light sexual themes. Zero has all of that plus a lot more T&A, and namely uncensored T&A. 

Now I’m no prude, seeing anime titties isn’t exactly going to make me go up in arms about the manga. However, this has more to do with demographics and author intent. Like I said, the original Akame ga Kill had a lot of dark moments, but most sexual aspects of it was typical shounen wackiness. Sneaking into the girl’s bath, boob gags, the occasion girl in skimpy clothing, things like that. Zero has all that more, and in much darker showing. At least three characters nearly getting sexually assault, there are several sex scenes both implied and nearly shown, a lot of naked girls walking about at points, and general Seinen wackiness happening. 

I wouldn’t say these are bad things, but... they make me raise my eyebrows somewhat. Again, the original had its dark moments, and losing your chastity unwilling was definitely one of them. Hell, one mission of Tatsumi’s was in a brothel. However… that was originally a manga aimed at an older teenage crowd, around 15-18 if I had to take a guess, and the prequel, which was ran alongside the original for a time, was a Seinen aimed at a young adult crowd of 18-20+. This is a somewhat concerning jump in ratings and target audience. I understand the original demographic that’d be curious would have aged to this point, but... it feels like more of a forced decision to add it rather than trying to keep up with the demographic of longtime fans. Again, nothing bad, but curious. 

I’ll also add that there’s a different artist tackling this spinoff, a Kei Toru instead of the original’s Tetsuya Tashiro, so this might be a matter of artist preference than the writer’s intent. Still, you take out all the T&A and you’d get a decent manga all the same, so I can’t help but feel the Seinen elements were tacked on to fanservice rather than to show darker elements. It’s not Tsugumomo levels of forced Seinen elements, thank Christ, but it feels tacked on regardless.

But anyway, the second major issue.

The Shingu

The Shingu are basically Teigu that exist to give Akame and the Elite 7 cool weapons without completely retconning the world-building of the original Akame ga Kill. Lore-wise the Shingu are basically knockoff Teigu, an attempt to recreate the great weapons of old but were ultimately inferior compared to the the genuine products. They were still handy and powerful all the same, and are used by trusted and capable fighters within the Empire all the same. However, their existence showed the flaws in trying to do specific world-building, at least if you’re familiar with writing. 

To go a little off-topic for a bit, something I often say on my RP blog and when discussing general writing is to never get too specific with your world-building. The more you add, the more you have to adhere to as you write, lest you’re called out on it when retcons happen. And when Akame ga Kill already stated only 48 Teigu exist, but only half of them are even around it destroys any potential to have addition cool weapons in a sequel or prequel without some maneuvering around the lore. It can be done, but it does more to hamstring you in the end, and savvier audience members will notice it.

The Shingu do this to a certain degree. They don’t break the world-building, as the backstory of the Teigu are still intact, but for a savvier reader its pretty clear the Shingu were... unintended. By the logic of Zero, there should be several soldiers, officers, and generals with the weaker,but more numerous Shingu to compensate for the lack of Teigu and still having an edge in battle during the coming revolution. The Shingu honestly are just slightly weaker than a Teigu according to the lore, so it’s no big comparison really unless we’re talking Esdeath-levels of powerful. To shoehorn them in just to give Akame and her friends interesting weapons just... feels annoying to me.

But again, that’s ultimately a small nitpick. They don’t break anything, just lead to a lot of unintended consequences if you think on it too hard like I do.

But onto my last big issue, and it’s not really an issue, but an inevitability that caused the first too issues, which is...

This is a Prequel

I don’t know if there’s an actual term for this, so I’m going to call this the Fate/Zero Effect, in which the prequel of a series is far more superior to the original in terms of writing and is only neutered by the on-rails conclusion that leads to the beginning of the original series. I only call this an issue because there’s so much I like about this manga that the original kind of... feels weaker by comparison. But to talk about how that is I’ll have to talk about all the good things about this manga first. To start with:

Akame’s Characterization was Great

Akame was a very believable character in this series, someone working for her father-figure teacher as an assassin that honestly believes she’s improving her messed up country from within instead of advancing the agendas of the wealthy and powerful. However, she’s sharp enough to realize that people aren’t getting better no matter how many revolutionaries her team kills. She questions it, and her father’s dodgy, almost threatening nature about her doubts only pushes her further to leaving. Her slowly questioning the horrors and cruelty of the world and being the only one in her team to really question her father’s goal is a nice touch. 

Another nice touch is that you really do buy that she’s the weakest of the Elite 7. She’s strong, of course, but compared to the rest of her team she’s lacking in some department. She doesn’t have the commanding presence of Najasho, the strategic mind of Green, the absurd strength of Guy, the Levelheadedness and charisma of Cornelia, the instincts and quick-thinking of Pony, or the loyalty and cleverness of Tsukushi. She’s just… Akame, the assassin that’s a decent swordsman and likes meat.

I’ll admit the only thing that felt forced was Merraid pushing her further to see the Empire’s cruelty while captured by her, as Akame was already questioning it to begin with, but that’s just a minor nitpick. All in all, I did enjoy seeing this form of Akame, especially seeing her relationship with Kurome while it was still on good terms. Seeing the sisters actually bond and care for each other really helped show how much Akame cares for her, and how she thought killing her was the best choice in the end if Kurome was too stubborn or brainwashed to leave the Empire. And that’s just the main character, I have to give my respects to the side cast as well. That being said...

The Side Cast

The Elite Seven was a nice addition. They’re about as kooky as Night Raid but keeping them all around the same age was probably for the best. Not to say Night Raid was bad, but having everyone being teenagers following one main adult boss just creates better cohesion. Night Raid was mostly teens too, but the Elite 7 just feel a lot more like friends. I can’t really describe it. Maybe because they were already a unit by the time the series started, maybe because the writer got a lot better at writing banter, I really couldn’t say. They’re all likeable in their own way, and all great fighters when the chips are down. Next to Akame, Pony was my favorite of the group. Both design and personality wise they’re all unique. The writer has a good track record of writing good banter and synergy with a ragtag group. Between Night Raid, the Jaegers, the Elite Seven, and even Hinowa’s regiment in Hinowa ga Crush, they’re very good at making likable characters… right before killing them off. 

And that’s the issue with this being a prequel, we know most of the Elite Seven were slated to die. With the two exceptions of Pony and Najasho, which was an honest surprise for me, I think it was fair to say most everyone in the cast were slated for the chopping block due to the nature of the prequel to Akame ga Kill. They can only be characterized so much before the inevitable happens. Fate/Zero had this effect too, as we knew Kotomine and Kiritsugu would at least survive the war, but everyone else was... well, fodder, no matter how charismatic they were. I know this is done to create tension and a bit of bittersweet longing for the what-if, but... I don’t know, I can’t help but be a little annoyed by it.

There’s on more thing I want to talk about before ending this essay, so I’ll talk about...

Art and Story

Now, Fate/Zero had a new writer do its story and a new studio do the animation, but in Akame ga Kill Zero’s case we’ve got the same writer and a different artist. As far as the writing goes it’s a lot better in Zero. It’s still got a tinge of silliness mixed in with the serious, but it’s a lot better paced in more delivery and frequency. Merraid being a useless lesbian at times didn’t completely take over her character or detract from it. The general silly moments with the Elite Seven were almost always during a slow period that could afford a gag here or there to punch out the slow pace. Everything felt a lot more cohesive… which makes the chronological series feel a little weak by comparison. Again, much like Fate/Zero, going back and comparing the original Fate/Stay Night anime to the more mature Fate/Zero really feels like night and day in terms of the writing. I’m actually rewatching the original Stay Night this month and next and while I’ll give a full piece on my opinion next month I’ll at least say while it holds up surprisingly well for a mid-2000s anime, it definitely is dated in a lot of ways. 

In the same way, the original Akame ga Kill feels a bit dated as well, a lot the jokes feel more distracting than funny, a lot of the characters feel a little less realized and the plot itself feels a lot more rushed, especially at the climax. The powerscaling is also an issue, but that’s a whole other Rambling. Zero on the other, being a prequel, can only go so far in terms of plot escalation and powerscaling. With a permanent lock on those two things you can afford to tell a much smaller scale story without the worry of having to increase the action to a large degree because you, by design, can’t extend the powerscaling past around the beginning of the first story. Granted there are exceptions. To go back to Fate, Stay Night was a war fought by a majority of high school students and people not too attune to magic with only 3-ish people of actual competence out of the case of 10+, but Akame ga Kill Zero, realistically, can’t do anything bigger than using Muramase in a flashy way, making a lot of the fights more tactical. My favorite part of this series was that Akame had Kiriichimonji, a Shingu whose wounds would never heal. This made Akame’s fights a lot more tactically, strategically wounding enemies to whittle them down or give Akame an opening in the future rather than just a pure one-cut kill.

Art-wise… I’m not much for art critique, but I did prefer the original artist to the one for Akame ga Kill Zero. I couldn’t explain why, but something about the lines just feels… too light. Not bad, but I myself have a preference for dark, thick, and even sketchy lines, and something about this new artist feels a little too clean at times for something as potential dark as Akame ga Kill. Again, not bad, but not my preference either. I do like a lot of the designs like Poney and Merraid, but that’s really it.

Conclusion

Overall, my nitpicks aside, I enjoyed reading this manga a lot. I think I’ll pick it up again next time in the mood for a decent action manga. I’m slowly catching up to Hinowa ga Crush and I’ve got mostly positive feelings about it, so I know the writer still has some gas in the tank in terms of their writer juices and I can’t wait to see more of the world he’s creating.

[filliteapot]

Due to a hand injury Natsuki Takaya was able to have direct involvement with the anime adaptation of Furuba, but but she and director Akitaroh Daichi did not get along. Takaya got a reputation for being a control freak – for example, she demanded big-name seiyuu be cast, something Daichi normally avoids.

I really dislike how Daichi makes changes in the adaptations and leaves out things. I also dislike how the takes away the original works depth by simplifying things. He (for example) pretty much butchered Kamisama Kiss’s story by removing a lot of things and plot lines etc in order to tell the story quicker and in a simpler fashion.

—————-

I’m not sure about the source of the whole Akitaroh vs Takaya story, but I guess they did have a conflict. Takaya said the anime happened in the worst period of her life (it wasn’t clear if she would even be able to draw after her injury), so she couldn’t even enjoy it properly, let alone participating in the production (so I don’t see how she could be involved with the anime). I do know some things for sure: she holds dear the VAs work, the music and Ritsuko Okazaki, as she always talks about the opening song and Ritsuko when asked about the first anime. I don’t remember her telling anything more than that tbh.

The way Akitaroh directed it may be explained though: he had about 44 chapters (the latest chapter that came out before that Takaya’s long hiatus was the one where Ritsu appears, if i’m not mistaken), no idea what for many plotlines were in the story, no ending, no guarantee the author will ever come back, so he had to do something and he tried to make a logical closure. So i guess he did what he could or what he thought he could. We can understand he had to face some difficulties. And I think that everything that was turned after the manga without major changes was really good: what this director can do for sure is creating the right atmosphere. And also it has Hatori’s episode that got me dead and that was even better presented than his story in the manga, imo.For this I’ll be forever grateful to the director and the whole team. They did a good job.

But in my opinion, Akitaroh’s biggest mistake was to make a romantic-family-comedy out of Furuba: it’s clear since the begining that it isn’t the core of the story. I know, I know, many people loved it because of the humour, and I wouldnt claim it ‘gross’, but it’s not what Furuba feels to me. Akitaroh’s humor =/= Takaya’s humour, and i felt it even when i was watching it with no knowledge the manga exists: it just felt not so fitting for the story. I didn’t appreciate ‘the funny fillers‘ and even thought I should stop watching it, but Hatori’s episode and the later drama saved everything. Sounds ridiculous, probably, but drama can save a show for me - if it’s Takaya’s drama.

Also, I don’t really understand how it was decided what scenes to cut, what to replace with ‘funny fillers’ and what to keep. Why to cut off many scenes that are not really explained but fitting for the plot and relationships, like Kyo and Tohru’s moment in the episode about them visiting Kyoko’s grave, for example? It fits well even without getting into details and explaining the reasons of his words and reactions then. Also, why to change characters’ motives? Yes, we can make Kazuma a shady guy who acts upon Akito’s orders and does that thing to Kyo because he’s ordered and not because he cares about his SON - just to show how EVERYONE IS CONNECTED. And how about personalities? I’m not talking about Shigure, the post is getting longer than i expected already, but the main trio? What happens in the ending of the 25th/beginning of the last episode feels really OOC to me and it doesn’t give any feeling of closure. So, in short, congrats, with these changes you killed your chance to turn the second season.

Everything I wrote sounds like blabbing of a Furuba freak who will protect Takaya’s original manga to death, but I never hid what a creature I was, haha. But tbh I was pretty chill about Akitaroh’s adaptation UNTIL the last year when i saw his comment on the anime: he said that he ‘fixed the flaws of the original manga‘ and it got me really mad. I lost the link for that video so I may be injust and biased or i just misinterpreted it but it’s not the best way you treat the source material, ya know.

About Kamisama: I was not really into this story when I was watching it, and I never read the manga, so I liked the anime (first season). The atmosphere felt a bit like Furuba to me, and it’s the component I really appreciate in the first series. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it had the same problems as Furuba 2001.

[murasaki-murasame]

Episode 23 of :re continues to be a really solid adaptation, even if it’s of some very flawed material. And this final arc at least feels a bit less exhausting and overdone than it did in the manga, so that’s neat.

Anyway, detailed thoughts under the cut, and spoilers for the whole manga.

As I expected, this episode covers the first half of volume 16. Like, literally half of it. The volume is roughly 320 pages long, and this episode adapted the first 160 pages, lol. And as I also expected, it worked out just fine, pacing-wise. Barely anything actually got cut. A few scenes got made a bit more concise, and Takizawa didn’t watch Donato and Amon fight, but that’s about it.

At least in terms of the stuff specifically from this part of the manga alone. I think it’s worth noting that they bring Ayato back into the story in this episode, but they don’t really talk much about what he was up to, and it looks like they’re completely cutting out the detail of him bringing back some feral children that lived underground.

I think I like this change a fair bit, even though I can tell it’s gonna annoy a lot of people. I always really disliked how Ishida handled the entire plot point of Ayato finding that underground city and the corpse of the old dragon, so I can certainly live with how the anime is removing a lot of the focus on it. The time spent setting it up in the manga just made it all the more disappointing when absolutely nothing of value came of it, so at least in the anime it’s upfront about how much of a background detail it is.

On the topic of things I didn’t like from around this part of the manga, I’m vaguely disappointed that the anime kept the stuff with Eto being brought back at the last minute, but I can’t really blame them for just being faithful to the manga. I still think that the anime is at it’s best when it’s actively going against the execution of the manga, and this is something where I think they could have easily just cut it out. I have a feeling it’s also going to be something where anime-only people wind up understandably assuming that the manga must SURELY have done more with this plot point, and taken even the SLIGHTEST effort to actually explain why the fuck it’s happening, but yeah no lol. The way that Ishida brought her back out of absolutely nowhere and then almost immediately kills her off was so awfully handled that most of the fandom genuinely hates it and wishes it never happened. There’s a lot of things where I’m in the minority for disliking some parts of the writing, but trust me when I say that nearly everyone hates what Ishida did with Eto here. I honestly still don’t fully grasp what he was even trying to achieve with this, other than him trying to bring the Owl back for the final arc just to . . . make some last-minute parallels to the end of the first series? Who even knows.

That’s actually my only real complaint about this episode, though. Everything else was very solid and well-executed. They didn’t really add anything or flesh anything out beyond what happened in the manga, but they just adapted what happened in the manga in a really solid, satisfying enough way.

I remember disliking how the Donato-Amon and Yomo-Uta fights were handled in the manga, but I think that was mostly a pacing issue. The manga devoted several chapters exclusively to those fight scenes, which just felt unnecessarily drawn-out. It feels a fair bit more natural in the anime, partly because both of those fights are a bit more concise than they were originally, and partly because I think the anime cuts between them a bit more than the manga did, which makes it feel less like you’re following one fight for a weirdly long time. I’d have to reread this part of the manga to remind myself exactly how I feel about it, but I also think that the resolution between Yomo and Uta felt more satisfying and less underwhelming than it did originally.

Also, I can’t really remember if an anime-only person would know about Amon’s history with Donato by this point. I never got around to watching Root A, so I genuinely have no idea if that season talked about their backstory. I know that it hasn’t come up in the :re anime, but even in the :re manga there’s barely any references to Amon’s childhood. So maybe that whole scene was something that wouldn’t work at all for anime-only people, but I can’t tell.

I still have a lot of complicated feelings about Amon’s entire place in :re’s story. It ultimately just feels really unnecessary, like he was mostly brought back just so he could wind up dating Akira and have a happy ending. There’s not really much that the story actually does in :re to substantially develop him or explore his character. On it’s own his whole confrontation with Donato is very nice and bittersweet, and it’s good to see him acknowledging that he’s a part of the warped world he lives in, and that he can’t avoid taking responsibility for that, but overall it feels particularly odd to have his big final moment as a character be focused on his relationship with Donato, given how little screen-time that plot point gets, especially in :re. It feels more logical for the story to focus on how conflict with Kaneki, but that whole thing just gets kinda . . . brushed under the rug in a really unsatisfying way.

I’ll at least say that the disappointing aspects of how Amon is handled as a character are much less obnoxious and jarring as they were in the manga, if only just because the anime has been covering like two thirds of :re in twelve episodes. It’s more reasonable for Amon to not have THAT much focus or development in a 24-episode anime than it was for his moments to be so few and far between across 180 chapters of a manga that ran for like three years. It’s still not the most satisfying thing ever, but at least people watching the anime didn’t have to spend literal YEARS watching basically nothing happen with his character, lol.

Oh right, I just remembered that V exists, and that I guess they’re another part of the episode I disliked. I mean, they’re involved with the whole Eto thing, but my reasons for disliking them are entirely separate. They’re another whole plot point that I think Ishida handled terribly, and there’s not much the anime can do to improve that. They’ve always just been this really lame, cliche shadow organization with murky goals, and nothing much ever gets done with them. I can’t blame any anime-only people for thinking that they’re really boring and under-utilized and unexplored, but the manga doesn’t do much more with them. To be blunt, the fact that I completely forgot about them right after the episode ended kinda says everything you need to know about how badly they’re handled even though they’re kind of sort of the Big Bads [tm] of the entire series, lmao.

I said before that this episode didn’t necessarily add anything new to what was originally in the manga, but after going back through my copy of volume 16 [I donated my English TG manga collection to my local library last week but I still own the last three volumes of :re in Japanese], it looks like that short scene with Mutsuki getting protected by Urie and Akira was anime-original. Which is a bit surprising since it was a fairly minor scene that didn’t impact much. I really liked it though. It’s just a neat detail to show Mutsuki’s friends and colleagues protecting him, and there’s something really bittersweet about how it comes across like he was willing to accept his fate and let himself be killed by the fake Owl, and was surprised to find himself being protected. It helps really hammer in the character growth and reconciliation that’s been going on with him and those around him lately, and it just works really nicely. It continues to be really interesting to me that almost all of the most major changes/cuts/additions in the anime thus far relate to Mutsuki’s character, and in general improving upon how Ishida handled him originally. I really appreciate it, but I’ve already talked about that a lot so I don’t need to go back over it.

Getting to the final part of the episode, the whole scene with Kaneki confronting Furuta wasn’t substantially different to the manga in how it plays out, and what sort of a note the episode ends on, but it’s interesting that the anime is portraying him in a more serious and genuinely threatening light, whereas this bit from the manga really played up his joke-y attitude. I think I prefer it this way, but it’s not the biggest change ever. In general I really like the note this episode ended on. I think the fact that they cut out one or two instances of Kaneki cracking his fingers previously in :re helped make this moment feel more important and surprising, so that’s cool.

Now that we’re halfway into the final volume of the manga, that just leaves the final half of it to adapt in the final episode, which should be totally fine. There’s a lot of scenes that can go by REALLY fast in the anime. Especially the epilogue, since a huge chunk of that can probably just be handled as a montage while the ending theme or whatever plays, rather than how we had to slog through so many pages of so many pointless narrative exposition boxes in the manga. Some of the final scenes between Kaneki, Furuta, and then Rize also felt almost comically drawn out in the manga, which always felt a bit weird given how rushed the overall ending felt, and how tight of a schedule Ishida was working on. You could really tell that he tried and failed to get the ending extended by an additional three chapters.

We don’t know what the final episode will be called yet, but they’ll probably have that sorta info up in the next day or two. I’m kinda excited to see what they call it, since the final episode of :re s1 ditched the naming scheme of the rest of the episode names to give it something more unique. So it’ll be neat to see what they do for the final episode.

I’m of course gonna hold back on giving my final thoughts on the :re anime until it all ends in the next episode, but I think we’re close enough to the end that my feelings on it won’t really change much, so I just wanna reiterate that I genuinely really love it, in spite of it’s flaws. I would have preferred something more . . . ‘transformative’, if that makes sense, but as an adaptation that takes the existing story and just tells it in a better way, I think the anime works surprisingly well. This final season in particular has been a big step up from the manga.

All in all I just have a lot of affection for it and what it’s been trying to achieve [especially with how they’ve done so much to improve the endless list of issues with how badly Ishida handled Mutsuki as a character], and I don’t think that goodwill could be tarnished at this point with just one episode left. I’ve jokingly said before that even though there’s more objectively good options, this is probably one of my favourite anime of this year, but I think I genuinely stand by that. There’s been some REALLY great stuff this year, even in terms of just stuff I’ve fully watched [like Devilman Crybaby, Revue Starlight, Planet With, etc etc], but I just feel really strongly about the :re anime. Also there’s some recency bias going on, lol. It’s been so long since I watched Devilman Crybaby. This year was a goddamn decade long.

[lostcauses-noregrets]

Hi! I’ve been reading your meta posts greedily for the last hour and I love your opinions/logic. I was wondering what your opinion is on Isayama himself, his strengths/weaknesses e.g. character/world building etc. Who do you think is his most interesting character?For me, it’s Erwin I think his character is so beautifully complex and I often think he is under appreciated by some who just write him off as a monster. Also I completely understand it if this is too big an ask, it’s very hefty 😂!

Thank you so much for your lovely comments, and please don’t apologise for the ask, I love getting questions like this!

I haven’t really got much of an opinion on Isayama himself, as I’ve really only read a couple of interviews with him, but I’ve got plenty of thoughts about his writing.  I think his real strength as an author is in world building and characterisation.  The world building in Attack on Titan is amazing, even if the historical analogies are a little heavy handed at times, you can’t fault his originality and creativity.  It’s his characters that really shine though.  Isayama has a real talent for creating complex and ambiguous characters with nuanced relationships, and the scale and enthusiasm of the SnK fandom is testament to how closely people identify with them.  

If Isayama has a weakness I think it’s in plot construction and pacing, and I think the fact that he has had to release the Answers and Character Guide books to explain his plot and character motivations highlights this flaw.  In the run up to the Return to Shiganshina arc we were all desperate for the truth of the world and the secrets of the basement to be revealed, but I don’t think any of us expected those revelations to run on for months and then for the action to suddenly shift to a whole new cast of characters in the Marley arc. Abandoning the characters that readers had all become so invested in was a “bold” move on Yams part, and one that frustrated a lot of readers enormously.  It’s interesting that he has said he wants to use the anime to change some elements of the manga that he was dissatisfied with and it’s notable that Ymir’s back story was introduced much earlier in the anime.  Personally I’ve always felt that the story would have been much more compelling of Isayama had woven the Marley and Paradis plots together right from the start, rather than telling them as two separate threads.  It would certainly have made the Warriors much more sympathetic characters.

In terms of most interesting characters, you won’t be surprised that I agree with you.  Erwin is an amazingly strong and complex character. He starts out as the typical military strongman type; bold, heroic, ruthless, cold and tbh a bit one-dimensional.  But as the manga progresses his character becomes much more nuanced, complex and relatable. (Sadly that character development hasn’t really been reflected in the anime yet.)  Here is a man who doesn’t hesitate to send his soldiers to their death, but who is haunted by every single life lost under his command. A man who carries the guilt of his father’s death and devotes his life to chasing his father’s dream.  A man who in his darkest hour convinces himself that he has cheated and lied to his friends and comrades, but is still able to trust his closest companion to pull him from the depths of despair. A man who despite all his flaws and self doubts still has the strength to make the ultimate sacrifice and lay down his life for humanity.  But of course Erwin does not exist in isolation, and it’s through his relationship with Levi that we see the real depths of his character shine.  Levi is the mirror that reflects Erwin’s humanity, and that’s why I love them both so much.

I’ve already written reams about Levi’s character, which I won’t repeat here, suffice to say that it’s his contradictory nature that makes Levi so compelling. Despite his violence, he is one of the most compassionate characters in the series, and despite having lost almost everyone he was ever close to he never looses his capacity to trust those he loves.

In terms of the other characters, I’ve been really impressed with the way Yams has developed Reiner’s character and equally frustrated that Hanji has been so sadly neglected.

So there you go Anon, apologies for the loooong answer, and thank you for sending such an interesting ask.

[knightofbalance-13]

Gainax Retrospective Review 3: FLCL...drugs?

Everyone has a different way of handling depression. Some people handle depression through singing, some through working, some through alcohol and some use...sadder methods. In the case of artists, we use our work to get through this rough patch in life, usually working out our issues through the work. Sometimes we get something great out of it like The Starry Sky by Van Gough and sometimes we get something that could have been great but was bogged down by a deteriorating mental state like our last subject, Neon Genesis Evangelion. And then you get something so out of left field that defining it’s quality is in and of itself a challenge.

That is the case of FLCL. Released in the year 2000, FLCL is a six episode OVA made by Studio Gainax and was their first work after completing the massive storm of angst, sorrow and hate that was End of Evangelion. The anime was rumored to made as a sort of pick me up from EoE’s shitstorm and this ends up manifesting in the show as a driving force behind the anime that results in the show being the exact opposite of NGE. However, by the Horseshoe Theory, this makes FLCL have a similar feel to NGE just with different reactions. Whereas NGE was nonsensical because the anime was too serious, FLCL was nonsensical because the anime never once took itself seriously. NGE’s artstyle was erratic due to budgetary issues, FLCL was erratic because of the writing. NGE was a complete mind screw revolving around sorrow, FLCL was a complete mind screw revolving around joy. This happens much more in the specifics so let’s move on.

FLCL centers around the exploits of Natoa, a twelve year old who is obsessed with acting maturely and thus acts rather short tempered and stressed due to the wackiness of the people around him. This only gets worse once he meets an absolute mind fuck of a woman named Haruko Haruno, a supposed alien that ran him over with a Vespia, gave him 3-D mouth to mouth and hit him on the head with reved up guitar. Now he has phallic horns growing out of his head that form into monsters whenever he gets emotional, particularly when he has “fooly cooly” thoughts.

... Yeah, the plot is all over the damn place. Befitting the series’ erratic and hyper atmosphere, the show doesn’t really have a clear focus in the story. The first episode is Natoa dealing with Haruko as she keeps bugging him, the second is Natoa dealing with his older brother’s high school girlfriend Mamimi and the third episode is him hanging out with a female classmate named Ninimori. Episode 4 does give us the man who would help focus the plot onto Haruko and what she wants but the anime is clearly more interested in the themes of the story as well as being as weird as possible so let’s move on.

One of FLCL’s two themes is all about sex...and by that I mean sexual attraction and sexual feelings. FLCL itself is supposed to be slang for sex noises (I say suppose because no one knows what the hell FLCL actually is and even with the upcoming seasons I doubt we ever will.) This is constantly seen throughout the series as Naota, in his attempt to be mature, struggles with accepting these new and weird feelings in him, manifested through the said phallic objects that come out of his head. It’s also shown that Naota has a very childish look on sex as he actively avoids it and thinks that kissing a girl will make him mature. This is further reinforced by both Mamimi and Haruko’s advances on him...gross. And by the fact that most people in the show are obsessed with sex. It’s all about accepting that aspect of life and going with it. Neon Genesis Evangelion looked at the more psychological aspect of this while FLCL seems to tackle the more physical aspect of this and objectively they both do an alright but flawed job as both can get caught up in their respective attitudes to actually get the point across fully (NGE in it’s depression and FLCL in it’s insanity.)

The other theme of FLCL is the mass people wear and how unhappy it makes them. Naota wears a mask of maturity but all it does is isolate him from his peers and make his life miserable. Mamimi wears a mask of sanity but never gets any better. Ninimori wears a mask of maturity too and it actively hurts her as well. Even Haruko wears a mask and in the end she doesn’t get what she wants. It’s only the people that act like themselves, their crazy, illogical, stupid selves that are happy and comfortable The best example of this is actually Naota’s father Kamona, who acts very childish and silly and petty throughout the show but is the only one who actually ahs high spirits. In the end, the characters learn to stop wearing a mask and live how they should, growing in the process. Again, this is yet another thing that it has in common with NGE as it had an analysis of people’s psychology which involved masks and defense mechanism. I’d argue that FLCL’s message is more healthy as it revolves around overcoming this rather than just looking at it but NGE had a much greater analysis of it (even if the analysis was one sided.)

And finally we take a look at the humor. The humor in FLCL is rather crass and dependent on the watcher to be knowledgeable about classic anime if not that then Gainax anime in general as there are a ton of in jokes. FLCL’s humor is also based on taking the viewer by surprise through sheer insanity so if you happen to be familiar to this then you might see the jokes coming. For everyone else, it’s a weird, wild and fun as hell ride.

Moving onto the characters we’ll be analyzing four: Naota, Mamimi, Haruko and Kamona. First up to bat is Naota. Naota, as said before, is a twelve year old trying to act like he’s sixty nine or something, constantly frustrated and annoyed by the wacky antics of his hometown as he childishly insists that everything is ordinary. He wants to be mature because of his father’s immaturity and his brotehr’s perceived maturity but is often misguided in these senses as Naota confuses pessimism with maturity, looking at everything in a negative light and bottling up his emotions and feelings. The story rightfully treats this as wrong and shows the damage it can do as Naota is only seen improving as he lets himself go and accept what is happening around him. As a comparison to Shinji and Noriko, Naota does get more clear development than Shinji but he doesn’t really suffer enough for his development to have as much of an impact as Noriko nor is his problems that complex like SHinji or Noriko thus while Natoa does develop he is an all around less interesting character.

Second base is stolen by Haruko Haruno. Wacky as hell, more flirtatious than a succubus, not lacking in the looks department and her actual knowledge ranging from below to above average, Haruko is the essence of the show i.e. absolute insanity. Haruko is always gleeful and hyper even as she is causing destruction on such a massive scale most Shonen villians are taking notes, her wacky antics are just as likely to harm Naota as well as help him. There is this constant mystery to her that makes the pink haired woman completely unpredictable as you never know if she’s going to make a joke, sexual harrasess someone, taunt someone or kill someone with the variations in between. The only thing you can pinpoint about Haruko is that she is far from heroic. Her actions cause massive destruction and would probably kill people if everyone wasn’t made of the same crap as Looney Toons characters and the amount of property damage she has caused can be measured in the tens of millions. And this is Haruko at her best. At her worst she is a complete sociopath that doesn’t care about anyone but herself and uses everyone else as pawns in her game. This makes her an incredibly fun character to watch and she does have her more interesting moments when she lets out her more sociopathic side but unlike Naota Haruko never develops as a character. Even her sociopathy is just the logical conclusion of her insanity and actions so anyone who knows this came off the heels of NGE can see this coming. Since she acts as a mentor figure...I think, the best example to compare to would be Kazumi or Misato and while she is a definite improvement over Misato as she does help Naota even as she is trying to harm him, her personality is far too different to act as a proper comparison to Kazumi and acts more to see what would happen if you flipped her character around.

Third base belongs to Mamimi, the high school girl friend of Naota’s big brother and a constant source of frustration, confusion and just weirdness for Naota. Although she starts out innocent enough when she is just flirting with Naota, events in the story show that Mamimi is not well in the head, being completely obsessed with Naota’s brother to the point she calls anything she gets attached to “Taku-Kun” (Her nickname for his brother) and also causing massive destruction for the city due to her hatred for the city. The more Mamimi puts on her mask of sanity, the deeper and deeper she falls into the rabbit hole of her mind and likewise the less and less prominent in the story she becomes. Eventually she does get better due to being inspired by Naota’s growth but we never directly see it. Amongst a sea of wacky individuals, she just doesn’t stand out all that much.

And finally we take a look at Kamona, Naota’s father. Eccentric, childish, weird and just out of this world, Kamona is the main reason why Naota tried his hardest to act as grown up as possible as his father is a weird man child. In fact, he’s such a man that he once changed the entire artstyle of the show into manga form, shot his son with a pistol like he was swatting a fly, pretended he was from Nazi Germany for a war game over having sex with Haruko, once acted as a massage for Haruko and have I mentioned that Kamona is suppose to be a stand in for Hideaki Anno yet? If this is true, it explains a lot about the hidden depths of Kamona’s character as he is the embodiment of FLCL’s theme of being yourself as while he is childish and wild, he’s also one of the few consistently happy characters in the show, showing that he knows that pretending to be something he’s not will just lead to despair and constantly tries to get his son to act his age. The man is also surprisingly smart since as smart as Naota acts, Kamona is the one who is able to read people near flawlessly. He knew that Mamimi was homeless just from her shopping habits, he knew that Ninimori wasn’t fond of him from just a glance and he knows enough about his son that he trusts Naota when eh goes missing, knowing he’s just sorting things out. It’s also implied that he understands Evangelion and that alone earns him a shit ton of points in my book. In comparison he acts as the Coach Ohta of FLCL and he does that job surprisingly well due to his ability to read people, his observations and setting the tone of the series

Next up to dissect is the audio. The music used in FLCL is very great, jsing some very well crafted rock music to capture the essence of the wacky and crazy world, even the more emotional moments. Two of my favorite tracks are Shooting Star, the ending theme which sounds like it was made to dance to and I Think I Can which is a heartpoundingly awesome music used to company the final episode of the original OVA that captures the feeling of the ending perfectly. The voice acting on the other hand is amazing. Whereas Evangelion has on of the worst dubs I have  heard with screechy voices and monotone acting by many, FLCL’s voice actors manage to capture the heart of the characters in a time where good dubs can be counted on one hand. Naota’s voice actor manages to be both bored and childish, Haruko’s voice actress can go from wacky to scary on a dime and matches her energy. Mamimi’s voice actress captures her childish but slightly off voice and Kamona captures a wacky but smart adult excellently. FLCL was one of the first examples of a good dub and it’s definitely worth a watch.

And finally there’s the art and animation. Where’s Evangelion’s art followed a “simplistic but eye catching and consistant” style, FLCL goes for a “High detail, high drop” style in which serious moments have a lot of detail and are beautifully drawn but the more humorous moments have the art devolve into this super simple, off model...thing that catches every viewer off guard. One minute Naota’s drawn super realistically, the next his jaw is stretching to the size of his body. And honestly it works very well to the show’s advantage as it revels in it’s insanity and these sudden jarring shifts in art, as well as the music, make for some very funny scenes and I believe this style of art would latter e adopted by Studio Trigger to circumvent budgetary problems. But the art shifts don’t stop there as FLCL experimented in several styles at the time, one being 3D animation, another being a pseudo-manga style and once it turned into South Park...No, I am not high. These wacky art shifts again are just an extension of the anime’s insanity. And animation goes the same root as it can go from smooth and fluid to choppy and paper like, again another thing that makes me think FLCL is the prototype Trigger anime. In comparison to NGE and GunBuster the animation definitely improved.

All in all, is FLCL better than NGE? Objectively...no. They’re both the same level of objective quality. While NGE was very frustrating with some of  the characters, the pacing was alright and definitely good for the time, the themes were a nice idea and the show had more focus. FLCL has some better characters, better animation and more stuff to enjoy but it’s themes are buried underneath the jokes and the plot is a complete cluster fuck. In short: FLCL seems to have GunBuster’s heart and over the topness but NGE got the intelligence and the themes, thus making the two halves of the same coin, polar opposites but also similar in many way sand equals. If only Gainax had mixed the two together then they would have a chance of beating GunBuster.

And that was FLCL: A different but objectively equal experience to NGE. (Not to say FLCL is bad: NGE is just better than I gave credit for.) Next tiem it seems like Granny’s getting read to kick some ass as we will take a look at Gainax’s 25 year anniversary special: GunBuster’s Sequel Diebuster!

Prologue

GunBuster Review

Evangelion Review