#Overflow Universe

[theshadowmenlounge]

The Mystique of Tomaru Sawagoe

I would say I've never been so fascinated by a villain who's actual stories I haven't read directly, but then I remember way back in 2012 when I hadn't bought any Paul Feval Novels yet but was reading about them on places like the CoolFrenchComics website and thus already compelled by the Aurora around characters like Colonel Bozzo-Corona.

Given Tomaru's wealth and connections Headcanoning him to be a Blackcoat is very plausible.

The late Brian Stableford often talked in his Introductions and Afterwards of his Translations often talked about how many Feval Villains were treated more as Personifications of specific Sins rather then believable people. And in that sense Tomaru Sawagoe fits in with Paul Feval villains perfectly as the personification of Rape and Child Molestation.

[poopeth]

today i found out that school days is even more messed up than i remember.

[firstfullmoon]

Zakaria Mohammed, “Untitled Poem, IV,” trans. Lena Tuffaha

[skyward-floored]

fic idea for lu where all of the Links dead bio parents are chilling up in the sacred realm or wherever and they all get together and watch all of their sons meet and goof off and are basically just the unseen cheering section

[sugar-grigri]

I just saw someone name me as their favorite CSM artist? How about I cry in front of you?

[normal-thoughts-official]

It's still so funny to me that Mal tastes like dates and cinnamon. like. his mother's name is Maria. he is associated with dates. but also with cinnamon. is he coded as latino, south east asian, or middle eastern/north african? yes

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Overflowing Basin by Marina Ortega Lorente

[mindshelter]

“you go blank inside” babygirl. you are dissociating

the abuse that hal suffered at martin jordan’s hands (and words) are. pretty indispensable to understanding hal’s time as a GL leading up to becoming parallax... hal became part of the corps pre-conditioned and primed for easy indoctrination. despite recognizing martin’s behaviour as abusive, and hoping to never become like him, compliance at one’s own expense was all hal knew. it was what felt safe, what felt familiar, and made up that last tendril of sanity—the universe couldn’t be that cruel, and a parent wouldn’t be so hateful for no reason. there must be something hal can fix—can compromise—to be accepted. if only hal could have given martin what he wanted, whatever that may have been. if, if, if. 

fealty won’t earn you happiness—only survival. 

when that illusion finally crumbles—when the realization that decades of loyalty to the corps and to the long-deceased father has reaped zero reward—so does the remainder of hal’s belief system. 

captions below: 

1. dc comics presents: green lantern (2004)

Willpower. Absolute concentration. Split second timing. Where does that come from?

Instead it’s all feed in more trim and if you’re still nose-down, put your feet in the stirrups and blow the canopy before you red out. You do what you do. You go blank inside.

2. back issue #80, on Green Lantern

Fearless people tend to be cocksure of their actions and tend not to question anything, including authority. I recall a number of John Broome[-written] stories where Hal was totally (and happily) subservient to the Guardians of the Universe. 

3. zero hour: crisis in time (1994) #0

I used to be the errand boy for the Guardians of the Universe. It was a thankless job. I knew that. I had never asked for anything. 

The one time I did, I was denied. It dawned on my just how unfair the universe really was…

4. green lantern (1990) #63

Your rules. Your rules kept me from any happiness. I served the corps more faithfully than anyone, and my loyalty got me nothing. 

5. dc comics presents: green lantern (2004)

Like what you learn at the end of someone’s arm. You learn to go blank. 

Like maybe things with him would change if could just give him what he wants. If you would just take it like a man. But nothing ever did change. He just kept calling you a loser. And if he ever had a warmer opinion, you never heard about it. You took that like a man, too. 

6. back issue #80, on Green Lantern

I always believe it is very hard for people to actually change their personalities. So the best Hal could do was reach a happy medium, intellectually realizing he should be feeling differently about a situation, but emotionally having trouble doing so.

7. dc comics presents: green lantern (2004)

I don’t think I can do this anymore. “Fearless.” It’s all a crock.

8. green lantern (1990) #50

9. dc comics presents: green lantern (2004)

You go blank inside. 

Maybe sometimes that’s all that stands between this thing on my finger and the hot green end of everything. 

[numbuh424]

WHO sent the ask about my death note oc and do you understand what you are walking into asking for more info about them 🫵 /lh

[kuuderekun]

PureMail OVAs

PureMail is a 2 episode Hentail OVA from 2001 that is an adaptation of a 2000 Bishoujo Game Visual Novel made by Overflow the same studio that made School Days and its “sequels”.

It is also in the same universe, the character named Miki Sawagana is the older sister of Taisuke Sawagana.  That’s the familial connection that is made obvious by surname, but I'll get to the matter of Overflow Universe world building later.

First, what do I think of this OVA as a stand alone work of art?

The thing about Erotic Art that wants to be more than just Porn is that I want it to be more than just a Good Story with good fappable Sex scenes, they need to inform each other, to be firmly integrated.  There are lots of mainstream movies where it’s part of the Plot that sex happens, but it doesn’t need to happen fully on screen.  In Erotic Art it has to be more than just that Sex happens but the specifics of the Sex have to matter, some of the character development has to be tied to how they do or do not enjoy it.

And it’s that test which PureMail fails.  I find the story and characters very interesting and I found at least some of the H scenes very Fappable.  But those H Scenes also feel like they’re interrupting the story rather than enhancing it.  There are times when the conversion happening after the sex directly picks up where they left off before, but because it’s separated by the 5 minutes mindless screwing the viewer loses the train of the conversation.

I’ve watched two versions of PureMail.  I watched its English Dub unedited and uncensored on a Hentail website I won’t name here. And I watched an English Subbed version on YouTube that has the explicit parts edited out.  And it demonstrates my above criticism that the edited version actually felt like it had better pacing.  It removed vestigial organs while in ideal erotic art removing the sex scenes would be removing the heart and soul.

Unfortunately that edited version is no longer on YouTube, I neglected to download it and I don’t remember the name of the Channel, so it looks like it's probably now Lost Media that only I care about.

School Days and some of its “sequels” are known for not being presented how most Visual Novels usually are but being basically interactive Anime.  PureMail as far as I can tell wasn’t like that, it was a more normal Visual Novel.  I bring that subject up here because it means the actual source material for the Days series can be compared to PureMail’s adaptation at being an Erotic Anime.  Now I currently have not seen all the Erotic content that School Days HQ and Shiny Days have to offer, but I’ve seen some that definitely do succeed where the PureMail OVAs failed.  Even if it would be hard to argue anything is specifically absolutely necessary; they still convey things about the characters which those so easy to edit out PureMail scenes did not.

As the title of PureMail implies it involves some characters communicating via Email, so it’s perhaps one of the earliest Hentail to feature the Internet as a plot point.

One thing that I feel vindicates my vocal interpretation that Otome raped Makoto in episode 9 of the School Days Anime is that that Women Raping men is a theme in these prior overflow Overflow works.  The MC of Large PonPon was abused by at least 2 older women.  And in PureMail at least in the OVA version Kei is Blackmailed and Raped by Yumi Matou, and it’s framed as traumatizing not comedic or harmless.

So yeah there is good material here, if that edited version were the official version I’d probably give it a higher rating.  But I also imagine like many VNs adapted with so little runtime the storytelling was also hurt by being condensed and trying to make everything fit one timeline.

Now let’s return to world building.  The Overflow Universe Family Tree is a bit of a Meme to those of us who know it exists.  But in a way PureMail’s connections to all that shows how perhaps not well thought out it actually is.  Again I like most English speakers have no first hand information about these games, I’m mostly trying to draw conclusions from the overflow Fandom Wiki (I wish I didn't have to use Fandom but no one’s cloned this content on an alternative Wiki network.)

These PureMail OVAs are technically the only onscreen Anime appearance of Tomaru Sawagoe. In the games his onscreen appearances are in the Radish Trilogy, only they have character designs for him, and even the first of them came out after these OVAs.  Going off the OVAs Kei’s father isn’t mentioned by name and there isn’t even any hint at that father not being who he gets the surname Ogata from.  The OVAs felt they needed to actually animate a flashback and in it the character design of Kei’s father is a generic White Trash Wife Beater type who seems to be “Lower Class”.  Tomaru in the Radish games has a more distinct and flamboyant style and is very wealthy owning the titular restaurant chain and a hospital.

Basically Kei’s father being identified with the villain of the Radish series seems like a Retcon.

Online discussion of all these Overflow games focus on how they relate to School Days because only it ever became truly infamous in the general Anime community, especially in the Anglosphere.  So Tomaru Sawagoe is defined first and foremost as Makoto Itou’s father and all the games set before School Days are talked about as if they are prequels to School Days even though they were all made before School Days.

Snow Radish Vacation was made as a prequel, but to Large PonPon, Overflow’s first game.  The Inou and Sawagoe surnames originated there and then become the focus of Snow Radish Vacation; no surnames you recognize from the core cast of School Days are in either of those games.

Large PonPon, PureMail and School Days all seem like they are set in the then present of when they were made (9199, 2000 and 2005) like the average Visual Novel.  It’s only the Radish Vacation games that have to be Period Pieces for the Timeline to make sense.  But I have no way of knowing how good they are at feeling like Period Pieces.

Summer Radish Vacation was a sequel to Snow Radish Vacation, but Summer Radish Vacation 2 is in some ways more of a spin off then a sequel.  School Days I think was originally made without how it connects to the other games being all that set in stone originally.  In fact I’ve learned there was originally a family tree chart published by Overflow which made Sekai and Setsuna children of Tomaru rather than of Shun.

Summer Days' relationship to School Days is more of a completely alternate timeline rather than a Sequel or a Prequel.  But thanks to Shun’s role it’s actually more of a direct sequel to Summer Radish Vacation then Summer Radish Vacation 2 is.

Point is, the core world building starts with Large PonPon then goes through the Radish Games to end with the Days series.  PureMail and other Overflow games mentioned on the genealogy are largely afterthoughts.  The genealogy makes Ayumu the father of multiple PureMail characters and I really doubt the game was originally written with that in mind.

[harrylights]

i’ve verbalized this to a couple people now but honestly my biggest takeaway from louis’ show is how he brings out so much love, compassion, support, and acceptance in practically everyone at his shows. the amount of love i felt in that room was unparalleled. i am so grateful to him and so proud of him for the fact that by just being his authentic self he helps others feel seen for who they are, helps others heal, and in turn we help each other and love each other more and i’m just soooo thankful to him for going thru everything he has to get to this point. he deserves every ounce of love he receives and i’m so glad that he seems to feel like he finally deserves that bc he really fucking does <3

[deus-ex-mona]

[doom-dreaming]

well that post broke containment in a way i wasn't expecting

[strxnged]

IM SO HOT

[biandanxious18]

i just finished good omens season 2 and honestly i feel betrayed. i was really enjoying it but after the last episode or so i think i have never before seen such cheapening of characters and plots and themes and just. everything really.

i feel mocked and laughed at as an spectator. i feel like everything i cherished, everything that was meaningful about this story was thrown away in a way that says i was a fool for ever wanting it, ever caring about it. in a way that says “isn’t this what you wanted? have it your way! it sucks!”