#SPOILERS UP TO THE END OF THE FINAL CHAPTER OF GOLDEN KAMUY

[eyedelater]

this important scene between koito, tsurumi, and tsukishima at goryokaku (chapter 295) was greatly changed in golden kamuy volume 30. the volume version is above. i decided to translate and then analyze it.

EH scans translated the magazine version of the manga as it was being released, so they haven't done this version, to my knowledge. and VIZ hasn't gotten this far in their official translation yet. so neither of my main sources have done it! that's why i'm translating these pages. i don't know if anyone else has translated this. if someone has, then you can look at their translation AND mine and compare them if you want. (and you can send me a link to their version.)

i want to show you the magazine version for comparison. this is the translation by EH scans:

you'll notice that the page count increased by two for the volume version. you'll also notice that the first and last pages haven't changed at all; i only included them for context because that's the whole scene.

while reading the raw manga, i had intended to check on one of the lines in this scene to see what it said in japanese and compare the translation. the line in question was the one where tsurumi talks about entrusting things to splendid koito. but that line is completely obliterated in the volume version, and i can't find the raw magazine version of this particular chapter, so i'll forget about that forever i guess. it doesn't matter because it's not canon anymore.

now, because i love koito and tsukishima so much, i went to the trouble of typesetting these pages with my own translation. so i'll include them here for your reading pleasure, and THEN i'll go ahead with the inevitable overanalysis in terms of translation and plot significance.

(i typeset it clumsily and also committed the vile typesetting sin of not using an all-caps font. but paint 3d didn't have any all-caps fonts, okay?? i'm very lazy! i'm not gonna go download a font just for this. also i didn't really need to do the first and last pages here because nothing changed and EH scans translated it just fine, but for the sake of completionism, i did them anyway.)

so that's my translation, and you can just read that and walk away if you want. but i'll write a lot more anyway.

line by line translation notes

in order of speech bubble, by page. a slash / indicates a split in a compound speech bubble. a double slash // indicates two separate speech bubbles in one entry. transliterations are rough and not based on any real standard of romaji.

PAGE 1

raw: 月寒あんぱんのひとがついた甘い嘘… transliteration: tsukisappu anpan no hito ga tsuita amai uso… EH scans translation: The tsukisappu anpan person ended up telling sweet lies... my translation: The sweet lies that the Tsukisappu anpan person told... notes: it's a sentence fragment. it makes you think there's going to be a second part to the sentence, but there's not. because there's not, to avoid confusing the reader, EH scans turned it into a full sentence. that's fair. my translation is more literal, so i didn't turn it into a full sentence, but it doesn't sound as good... i guess i didn't need to retranslate this one if it doesn't sound any better... let's move along.

PAGE 2

raw: あなたは嘘をつきすぎて / 嘘で試した人間の「愛」しか本物と思えないのでは? transliteration: anata ha uso wo tsukisugite / uso de tameshita ningen no [ai] shika honmono to omoenai no de ha? my translation: Haven't you lied so much / that you can only believe someone's [love] is real after you've tested them with lies? notes: "love" here is "ai" 愛. it's the same love that tsurumi talks about with his judo teacher when he talks about inspiring love among his soldiers so they will actually kill instead of pretending to kill. it is not "koi" 恋 romantic love, but it is love in the broadest sense.

raw: 鯉登少尉! transliteration: koito shoui! my translation: Second Lieutenant Koito! notes: no translation notes, but tsukishima's face did get slightly altered, and the speech bubble has wavery edges now, and dramatic motion lines were added. it's an emotional exclamation!!!

PAGE 3

raw: 中央から見ればここにいる者たちは全員 / 政権転覆を図る反乱分子です transliteration: chuuou kara mireba koko ni iru monotachi ha zen'in / seiken tenpuku wo hakaru hanran bunshi desu my translation: From Central's point of view, all of the people here / are insurgents plotting to overthrow the government. notes: seiken "political administration," tenpuku "overturn/overthrow," hakaru "to plan, to plot, to strive for," hanran "insurrection, rebellion," bunshi "member(s), element(s)." this isn't the first time we've heard the phrase "hanran bunshi." in chapter 78 (volume 8), shortly after tsukishima kicks him and then yells at him for killing maeyama, ogata uses the phrase to describe tsurumi's men. i think a fair translation of "hanran bunshi" would be "rebel faction."

raw: 勝てば官軍負ければ賊軍 / この戦でなにも得られなければ transliteration: kateba kangun makereba zokugun / kono ikusa de nanimo erarenakereba my translation: If you win, you're in the right. If you lose, you're in the wrong. / If we gain nothing from this battle… notes: the first line must be an existing saying, because when i searched zokugun on jisho.org, it brought up that first sentence word for word as one of its example sentences. so i made that the translation, word for word... you know, cos it's an existing saying... plus it's nice and concise...

raw: 我々は軍の裏切り者として裁かれる transliteration: wareware ha gun no uragirimono toshite sabakareru my translation: …we will be judged as traitors to the military.

raw: 私たち親子がここまで来たのは / 自分たちの選択ですからどうなっても受け入れます transliteration: watashitachi oyako ga koko made kita no ha / jibuntachi no sentaku desukara dounattemo ukeiremasu EH scans translation: The fact that my father and I have come this far… / That was the choice we ourselves made, so I can accept whatever comes of it. my translation: My father and I have come this far by choice. / Whatever happens, we will accept it. notes: i learned the word sentaku 選択, meaning "choice, option." it is different from sentaku 洗濯, meaning "laundry." also it seems that this line was not changed in the volume version; it was only moved around. that's why there's an EH scans translation for this entry. i would say their translation is slightly more accurate, but i'm happy with the concise way i phrased it.

raw: だがもしもの時は部下たちを中央から守るために… / 私はあなたを… transliteration: daga moshimo no toki ha bukatachi wo chuuou kara mamoru tame ni… / watashi ha anata wo… my translation: But if circumstance demands it, in order to protect my subordinates from Central… / I will … notes: "moshimo no toki" refers to unexpected circumstances. moshimo = what if, toki = time, so it's a "what if time." you could translate it as "if anything happens," and i was about to, but i had already used the word "happens" in the last speech bubble and i didn't want it to echo. so i took a liberty and made it sound cooler. as for the second half of the speech bubble, the literal translation is "i will ... you" and the verb is left unsaid. you can imagine the verb implied would be either "stop" or "kill." this is the pain of translation from SOV word order to SVO word order. also, there were very similar lines in the EH scans version, but because they didn't match precisely and i haven't seen the raws they were translating from, i couldn't be sure that the lines were exactly the same. so i didn't include EH scans's translation in this entry.

raw: 負けるつもりはない // すべて手に入れる transliteration: makeru tsumori ha nai // subete te ni haireru my translation: I do not intend to lose. // We will obtain everything we seek. notes: note that this is 100% different from the previous version where tsurumi tells koito to kill him. he just flat-out doesn't say that anymore. the first speech bubble is easy to translate. the second one isn't, or rather, it's hard to make it sound good? subete = everything, te ni haireru = to obtain. i took a minor liberty by making it a "we" pronoun because i think tsurumi would emphasize that his goals are for everyone's sake, not just his own. and i added "we seek" for clarity. also it sounds cooler.

PAGE 4

on this page, i changed the order of the contents of the speech bubbles to make it more of a cohesive sentence in english.

raw: 「私のちからになって助けてくれ」と // まっすぐにアタイを見てそげん言ってくいやっちょったら / そいでもついて行ったとに transliteration: [watashi no chikara ni natte tasukete kure] to // massugu ni atai wo mite sogen itte kuiyacchottara / soidemo tsuite itta toni my translation: All you had to do was look me in the eye and say, // [Stand with me and lend me your aid,] / and I would have followed you. notes: most prominent note is that koito lapses completely into satsuma dialect for the parts of the line that aren't in brackets. it isn't played as a joke this time; he is not speaking rapidly. tsurumi was able to understand him speaking like this when they first met, and he can understand him now. he says the bracketed part as what he wishes tsurumi would have said to him, and then he says the rest in dialect. "chikara ni naru" = "to be helpful, to be dependable, to stand by (someone)." if taken literally, "chikara ni naru" would mean "become my strength." but to my understanding, it does not have nearly the same intense connotations as the phrase "become my strength" does in english. i think. so that's the part i translated as "stand with me." then, "tasukete kure" means "help me, save me, assist me, support me." gotta figure out which verb makes the most sense in context. it's in the context of joining his team in a military sense, so it implies in the long term, and i think a phrase with a similar feeling that implies a longer term than "help" would be "lend me your aid." so that's how i arrived at "Stand with me and lend me your aid." this is a super important line; i'll write more about its significance down below. one more translation note: he says "massugu ni" (straightforward, frank, honest) with the verb "miru" (look at). so he's saying to "look at me straightforwardly." i phrased it as "look me in the eye" because that's what you do when you're looking at someone straightforwardly. honesty is the important implication (in contrast to sweet lies).

PAGE 5

raw: いくぞ月島 transliteration: ikuzo tsukishima EH scans translation: Let's go, Tsukishima. my translation: Let's go, Tsukishima. notes: could've also phrased it like, "We're leaving, Tsukishima." i have a feeling this line just slipped out of koito's mouth without any thoughts attached to it.

PAGE 6

raw: 月島? // 私の味方はもうお前だけになってしまったな? transliteration: tsukishima? // watashi no mikata ha mou omae dake ni natte shimatta na? EH scans translation: Tsukishima? // It seems you're the only ally I have left, doesn't it? my translation: Tsukishima? // Now you're the only ally I have left, aren't you? notes: tsurumi's use of "shimatta" carries the implication that this is how things have "ended up." a very literal translation could be, "my allies have now ended up becoming only you, huh?" but of course that doesn't sound natural, so it must be finagled. anyway, probably EH scans' version is better than mine. i just wanted to shed a little light on how you can translate the same sentence different ways and both can be right because japanese grammar is so different that there is no single direct counterpart.

plot analysis notes

i think it goes without saying that the changes to this scene are pretty significant in terms of the plot. some reasons are as follows:

when tsukishima calls out to koito in distress (page 2, second panel), it comes after a different line in this version. in the old version, he interrupts a line about koito and his father having come this far. there's not much significance to that except that he was maybe trying to stop koito from saying too much. but in this version, tsukishima cries out after koito's line about testing people with sweet lies. koito has come out and said too much right away. tsukishima is more upset this time because confronting tsurumi about sweet lies would reveal that tsukishima had talked to koito and given away the fact that the kidnapping was a ruse. tsukishima is distressed because he doesn't want tsurumi to think that he is turning on him as well.

new lines show that koito does understand the nature of tsurumi's rebellion against central. honestly it was kind of up in the air before this, given koito's earnest nature and the fact that his high-ranking father would have had to be in on it too. but now we know for sure that he understands. it's easy to look down on koito because he's so naive and emotional, but he's not stupid.

by changing this scene, noda-sensei makes the most of this confrontation, which is koito's last chance to have a calm conversation with tsurumi. (the only confrontation they have after this is when koito yells up at tsurumi on top of the train and tells him to set tsukishima free. but the subject matter is completely different at that time, and the tension is much higher, so that would be no time to bring up sweet lies again.) in terms of wrapping up the unresolved conflict of the kidnapping incident, it's gotta be this scene or nothing. in the altered scene, koito can now say what he wants to say to tsurumi about the kidnapping, make it clear he knows it was a lie, and gauge how tsurumi responds.

tsurumi no longer taunts koito (saying "kill me" when they both know he won't; implying that he would trust koito to carry on his plans because he's just that splendid when they both know he can't). those lines are tossed in the garbage and don't exist anymore. what he now says is short and simple, and it avoids the heart of the matter completely; he ignores 95% of what koito said and only focuses on one aspect (what might happen if they fail). koito hears this bad-faith response and understands that tsurumi will not voluntarily come clean about his lies. that's why he says his emotional next line and leaves it at that.

the line "Stand with me and lend me your aid" (「私のちからになって助けてくれ」) is a very important addition to this scene!!! the reason is that it is the line that koito says to tsukishima in the final chapter! (i haven't gotten there in the raw manga yet, but i've seen it A Lot in japanese fanart, so i recognized it right away.) that later line becomes a callback to this moment! i had no idea! if you had read the magazine version only (and i think we english language readers are all in the same boat in that respect), then you wouldn't have had the full context of that line in the final chapter. it is more satisfying and makes much more sense this way. and this line carries so much weight in both scenes. koito wishes that tsurumi would have earnestly asked for his help instead of tricking him with sweet lies. then, in the final chapter, koito earnestly asks tsukishima to join him by using that same line! it's a complete rejection of tsurumi's "sweet lies" modus operandi! there doesn't need to be any pretense between the two of them! they can just rely on each other honestly and with their whole hearts! (note: EH scans translated that line in the final chapter as, "Lend me your strength. I require your aid." that's good. i like mine better. maybe someone else could translate it even better. i really don't think VIZ will, though.)

tsukishima has an emotional reaction when koito says that. we get a whole new big panel of his face, so that's our cue to think about how tsukishima must feel at that moment. he looks surprised and thoughtful. i think he is impressed by koito's resolve and frankness and the way he made himself vulnerable in that moment by speaking his mind (in his native dialect). he must also be thinking about how this means that the whole kidnapping scheme was a waste of time and caused pain (and cost lives) for no reason. and he's probably thinking about how nice it would have been if tsurumi had said something like that to him instead of trapping him with sweet lies as well. it's a moment where tsukishima is struck by how koito is honest and honorable, and it stands in stark contrast to tsurumi (especially considering the monster that tsurumi has become). this moment helps us better understand why tsukishima sticks with koito at the end of the story.

the following was clear in the other version too, but when koito says it's time to go, tsukishima is clearly turning to follow him (he turns 180 degrees right in front of us). that's notable. first of all, i don't think koito said that and expected tsukishima to follow him in a "you better choose me or him right now!" kind of way. i think it slipped out. tsukishima has become a staple in his life, and he expects him to be at his side at all times, so he tried to walk away with him out of habit without considering what it would look like to tsurumi. on a similar note, i don't think tsukishima was about to follow koito in a "now we're turning our backs on tsurumi forever" kind of way. it was a kind of subconscious movement; he found himself turning to follow the person he really wanted to follow. and there are motion lines showing that he stops moving when tsurumi calls out to him. if tsurumi hadn't stopped him, i wonder how far he would have gotten before catching himself and thinking about how it would look to tsurumi if he followed koito out of the building.

it seems that that after this scene, koito isn't exactly working toward tsurumi's goals anymore. in the last panel of the last page here, he notices tsukishima isn't following him. that's probably when he thinks about the implications of trying to take tsukishima with him, so he goes off by himself. the next time we see him, he confronts fleeing shiraishi and fights nagakura on the bridge. but why is he doing that? maybe because he thinks tsurumi getting the land deed would be better for japan than if team hijikata kept it. it can't be blind allegiance to tsurumi at this point, right? and then a little later (after jumping in the moat), koito sees tsukishima riding away with tsurumi on horseback, so he follows them and ends up at the train. why does koito board the train and fight hijikata? is it still in pursuit of tsurumi's goals? or is it to protect his subordinates on the train, especially tsukishima? it has to be the latter, right? he doesn't do anything explicitly rebellious, but his allegiance to tsurumi is basically gone at that point, and that's why he is able to confront tsurumi in tsukishima's defense on the back of the train car. so in essence, the scene in this post was the final turning point in the relationship between koito and tsurumi. his goal has become "protecting his subordinates (especially tsukishima) from being sacrified by tsurumi."

in conclusion, i kinda wish noda-sensei wouldn't make sweeping changes to art AND dialogue in very important scenes... but i think this change was pretty good.

EDIT: i found out that piduai also translated these pages, and they ended up with a very similar translation to mine for that one important line! yeahh! i've discovered the MVP piduai! i encourage you to compare the translations.

[kashilascorner]

Oh ok. I get now why a lot of people didn't vibe with the ending.

All and all: excellent manga, overall very good final act, too rushed final 2-3 chapters but weak and honestly mediocre epilogue, which makes the high of the ending kind of leave a bitter taste. I think Noda had a good steed and suddenly he had to finish and had to rush all. So the ending in the sense of the final arc was good but the ending proper (final couple chapters) + epilogue......... Not so much

[parameciam]

Welcome to my blog!

I'm a 30+, autistic she/they, fanfic writer and passionate hoarder of fandoms, trinkets and useless knowledge :D

You can talk to me in either español or english <3

THIS BLOG IS ABSOLUTELY NOT SPOILER FREE!

Also: I write and reblog NSFW things :3c

You can find me under the same username @ ao3 / twt / discord / bsky :)

Some of the fandoms I post/reblog: persona series (esp Persona 5/Royal), ORV, several danmei novels (MXTX, QJJ, 2HA, SPL, DVAWTK) (but the danmei list is going to slowly increase with time), Golden Kamuy, JJK, BNHA, genshin impact, honkai star rail, and many others. Really, this thing is just a constant roulette.

i'm deranged about a stupid amount of ships, but if you value your sanity, don't ask me about shuake, songyu or quanyin.

Also I ramble about personal things from time to time!

Disclaimer: if you dislike/hate shuake and/or songyu, please block me on sight, thank you very much <3

anyone else: i hope you enjoy your stay in this silly blog. spam rb, send asks, whatever you want. i'm always happy to interact! :D

divider from: @sweetmelodygraphics

Links to some of my works on AO3, and some teasers of my current wips, under the cut!

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Finished works

Resurrect the heart beneath the ruins

QuanYin, 39k+ words, rated E.

Post-canon QuanYin solving their issues and getting together. Self-indulgent fest centered on Yin Yu's POV with a side of smut and a focus on Quan Yizhen's autism.

It's sacrilege, you say

QuanYin, 5k+ words, rated E

Quan Yizhen efforts to convince Yin Yu that he will love him, no matter what. Believe it or not, it's a (really explicit) character study.

No money, no honey

QuanYin, 6k+ words, rated T

QuanYin getting married with a healthy dose of shenanigans and hijinks in the way. And a side of tearful moments.

if you ever come back

ShuAke, 22k+ words, rated M. This is the first part of a series!

Akira's grief over the years reach the point where, ten years after canon, he finally feels the need to open up his heart and reach for help. It's the start of a long, long journey.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ☀︎ ⋆₊⁺⋆

WIPs

I won't let time write you an epitaph

QuanYin, multi-chapter fic, rated E

Canon-divergent reincarnation AU, angst loaded fest with a happy ending. I'm being CONSUMED by this at the moment. Fully outlined, I'm not going to disclose much about it until I start posting it, though (even if i'm DYING to talk about it, but I need this to be revealed slowly to keep the mystery)

Unintended

ShuAke, multi-chapter fic, rated M.

Second part of my post-canon shuake series. This part focuses on Goro Akechi and what happened to him after canon + his long journey back to Tokyo, to get closure and confront his past. Mitsuru Kirijo and the Shadow OPs are closely involved in this. I have 15 chapters already written, but I want to have it finished before i start posting (to avoid any possible continuity/plot hole issues)

Don't wait for me (it's not a happy ending)

SongYu, multi-chapter fic, rated E.

Modern AU where Yao Yuanzhuo has a chronic, degenerative illness. There's background political plot, but the focus is on exploring topics of disability, agency, care taking, and death. I have a chapter and a half already written, and I'm doing my best to make this 5 chapters long, at most.

[these-detestable-hands]

Hiii I'm normal here's my revenge tier list

Each story is ranked by how well I think revenge is portrayed and how good the writing is.

Other stuff I wanna add eventually:

Count of Monte Cristo anime

Count of Monte Cristo 2002 movie

Aserpa from golden kamuy

Explanation for each placement under the cut. Obviously there's major spoilers for everything on the tier list.

S tier

Edmond Dantes from the count of Monte Cristo: the 20 chapter pay off at the end of the book where Edmond gets his revenge and realizes he's miserable is immaculate. Nothing will top this ever

Thorfinn from vinland saga: Note: I have only watched the VS anime. He doesn't get his revenge and he's angry for a bit but gets over it and decides to help others in similar situations to him, it's perfect cause he's finally moved on, he's talked to his mom and sister again and he's helping others because he understands their pain.

A tier

Primrose from octopath 1: really I just love the final scene where she realizes she's not happier after getting revenge and is just as miserable because it doesn't glorify revenge. Also huge fan of her fourth chapter, it was really awesome and the writing is really good.

Gut from berserk: Note: I've only watched the 1997 anime and everything else is based on infodumps from my brother and a friend, his place on the tier list is likely to change once I read the manga. Guts does his revenge quest but it's never glorified. It's not as directly shown as CMC or Prim's story but the subtle metaphors are excellent, notably the one about his sword becoming duller since deciding to take revenge on Griffith.

Godot from ace attorney: I'm likely super biased because I just finish TT yesterday but I like his cause it's a little unique. It focuses on the feeling of emptiness without ever having done the revenge because he has the unique problem of both the person he wants to avenge and the person he wants to take revenge on being gone. He blames himself for Mia's death and uses that same logic to get pissed at Wright in attempts to find someone to let all his anger out on. And then the grand finale of just deciding to protect what's left of Mia by hatching this elaborate plan to protect Maya. I'll probably write a long post or smth about how great his story is in a few days once it's had some more time to sink in.

B tier

Erhardt from octopath 1: this one maybe isn't technically a revenge story but I'm including it because Olberic's story follows the aftermath of a perfectly executed revenge. It's been two months since I last played Olberic's third chapter so sorry if I misremembered something but I like that Erhardt has just kinda given up and is fine spending the rest of his life killing steroid lizards.

Osvald from octopath 2: As much as I love Elena, she ruined his story. The second she appears again, revenge is thrown out the window. You'd think this would be good because revenge is bad and this means Osvald has someone to live for, right? WRONG!!! In attempts to save Elena, he kills Harvey anyway. And what's worse, now with the whole thing of abandoning revenge to save Elena, SQ had to commit and make his story about love, so that's what they did, right? WRONG AGAIN!!! Osvald saves his daughter and even gains the magic power of love while saving her but he ABANDONS her. It makes perfect sense that he can't stay with her at home because there's 7 other Mcs and Osvald can't just be MIA if you wanna use OTM for their story battles and the other elephant in the room is journey for the dawn, but his excuse is so weak. "I have to track down Harvey's accomplices" OK let's list the problems with this!!

1. Osvald doesn't know for sure that Harvey has accomplices and, even if he did know for sure, judging by the fact that Osvald himself never encountered them, he could deduce they're simply not interested in him and helped Harvey for selfish reasons that have nothing to do with OTM.

2. "well Elena couldn't remember him so there's no point in staying" YOU BITCH listen to me. Osvald never even talked to her, he never popped in to say hi. We know from Castti's stories that the logic Solistia runs on is that amnesiacs will remember things if they see something from their past (idk if this is real too, that's why the wording is odd) and there's a travel banter about it, so why didn't Osvald try that? He didn't think to say hi? "but it might be overwhelming for her" NO LISTEN Elena saw the grieving golem, got stabbed by Harvey and has likely been medical malpracticed while in Harvey's care, how bad could meeting her bio dad be? Worst case scenario, she gets her memories back and remembers the fire but what's worse, not knowing your bio dad or having your bio dad play an active role in your life but you also remember your mother's death? CLEARLY THE SECOND OPTION. ELENA NEEDS A PILLAR TO LEAN ON AND CLARISSA JUST WON'T CUT IT, SHE NEEDS HER DAD.

3. "what if Elena didn't remember him upon seeing him?" so? We can't know if she would because Osvald never even tried it.

Tldr: Osvald is a stupid little pissbaby and coward and I think his entire story was ruined by the latter half of his final chapter.

The monster from Frankenstein: he had no one to lean on and was never given any chances because he looks like that, logically it makes sense he'd be pissed and want to kill the creator who gave him his miserable existence. I don't have to go into detail,

C tier

Polnareff and Ermes can be have the exact same explanation but with the names and pronouns changed, they suck got the exact same reason because Araki can write only write one (1) revenge story.

X's sister gets killed by Y stand user so they group up with Jojo to avenge their sister. The fight against Y is weirdly brushed over and the conclusion to their revenge stories are no biggie in the grand scheme of things because they're not the protagonist.

Not fond of either because they glorify revenge.

D tier

Todd from the Sweeney Todd musical (Tim Burton movie cause it's the one I've seen so idk if 2006 is different): this is hardly revenge at all, some dude just wanted to write a disturbing, gorey musical with the goal of making it as upsetting as possible. In his defense, it's 18+ so it's not like I wasn't warned but there's still no reason for it to be that dang gorey. Story ends with like 4 character deaths and the only people that get to be happy are Anthony and Johanna because they elope. There's no point to the story. Some songs are good though so it at least has that.

[translationandbetrayals]

Don't judge a book by its cover

That phrase up there is very much the truth, and I always end up confirming it when I try to judge things beforehand.

Last Sunday I was laying on my sofa after work, procrastinating some school projects, thinking about a way of relaxing. I wanted to watch anime, with the excuse of making my last post.

I searched through Crunchyroll and nothing caught my eye, so I give up and decide to look for a movie on Netflix or some other anime. The movie idea die soon on me because I was too lazy to watch something more than an hour long. I was checking the popular anime catalogue when a title piqued my curiosity. It was called "Romantic killer".

I watch it with zero hopes, it looked funny but what convinced me to watch it was the yellow thingy. And oh my god, I'm glad I pick it. I saw it in one go, all the 12 chapters, I have so much In my head still about this show.

I just come he to promote it, I almost drop it when I saw the horrible CGI for the otome game, but then I remember the bear in Golden Kamuy, and I remind myself that sometimes not very good-looking are indeed very excellent works if you can see past the bearer of aesthetically pleasing things.

Soooo, there is this girl named Anzu Hoshino, she has three basic needs in her life, her cat Momohiki, chocolate and games. Her romantic life is non-existence due to these things, but she does not care a thing. Every day after school she rushes to her house to fulfil her needs.

One day, she was overly excited to come home, because she brought a new game that she wanted to try for in while. To her surprise, when she run the game, it was not what she bought, it was a trashy otome game, but her surprise was even bigger when a magical yellow creature came out of the T.V.

The creature, called Riri, explained to her that she was selected to experience real-life romance due to the declining birthrates. Anzu decline the offer immediately saying that she was not interested in those things and that she had everything she needed in her life. So, Riri made a drastic decision, they confiscated the three joys of Anzu with the condition of giving back those things once she found love.

Anzu decides to accept the conditions but is determined to avoid the romantic situations as much as she can, but Riri makes it hard because they use their magic to make a lot of encounters with "ikemen" very much like otome situations.

With Riri's traps Anzu ends up meeting different ikemen, and the development of the character's relationship ships ends up in a very wholesome way. Is not a typical romance, Anzu always ends up making the best faces when she tries to be non-romantic and I love it like, it's so funny, I found myself genuinely laughing. But there's also the deep stuff because nothing prepared me for the dark events that happened in the final episodes ( I read someone said that the show goes from romcom to psychological thriller with zero warning, but there are some very not-so-obvious clues). Anzu is a very good and loyal and amazing MC (and very relatable), she helps others, believes in people, is a very good friend and is loyal to her standards. The other characters are also very cool.

I encourage you to watch it, it's very very good, I'm rooting for everyone, and it treats serious topics the way they need to be treated, also some characters are LGBT coded so freaking cool. So, yeah watch it, I tried to summarize without many spoilers.

-Francisca Scopesi ( •̀ ω •́ )✧

[sandflow]

So I just finished reading Golden Kamuy

 Oh boy I got lots of things to say about it.

Warning: spoilers from latest and final chapter 314 + rants that might anger people

[Edit] -  added new info from vol.30

So I’ll preface by saying that I first started reading Golden Kamuy because of  Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san which sort of advertised the series. And when I checked it out, I liked the combo of a grown ass man teaming up with a kid and hunting stuff. So it got me super hooked. 

I checked out the first season, and then I picked up the manga back when the latest chapter that around that time was 179. It was a super great experience.

Fast foward 5 years and it finally ended. Let’s start:

Pros:

1. The plot is simple and great, it starts off with a simple premise of finding the hidden ainu gold and then it slowly builds up with episodic criminals being killed off and skinned one by one. Sure it does go shonen tropey when it immediately followed with “you need to skin an x number of convicts to get to the gold treasure” but that problem is solved when they find out they didn’t really need all the skins.

2. The humor was mostly great, anime/manga doesn’t normally humor me but GK really delivered something more different than your average "main character gets slapped or yelled at because of a oh so funny misunderstanding har har”.

3. The overall positive and great portrayal of the indigenous group (ainu). The whole ainu theme really contributed to lore for the series. I admit there were times when I didn’t really pay attention to the trivia and cared more about the main conflict and characters but overall, or at least in the first half of the series - learning about the culture of ainu people and seeing the main characters + readers explore it was a nice breath of fresh air.

4. There are a lot of great characters. You just can NOT end up with a favourite by the end of the series. Every main and most secondary characters are likeable. Hell, the main character who is a child isn’t annoying as hell which already is a big + for me. While I did end up disliking some of them by the end of the series, they were still enjoyable at a certain point in the story.

5. Abashiri jail was the best arc in the series. Hands down. It got so well built up, the arc itself had amazing action, the factions blended in so well, and with a great shocking ending too. I may be biased though. Other amazing arcs were : the fake ainu village, Anehata, blind bandit, banya, circus, hospital rescue, and around half of the sapporo arc

6. Tsurumi ended up being a satisfying villain. Best mother hen for a bunch of normal and well adjusted soldiers. My only gripe was that he felt more of a gray to black area character in the first half of the series, while in the second half he fully became black, and that he didn’t get to kill off Sugimoto for good. But he was fine and didn’t drastically change his course.

7. I really liked the aspect of there being different factions having their own goals. It made it seem like there was no true villain. So when they were clashing you’d root for who you like rather than what the plot is trying to show how you should root for.

Cons:

1. The final arc was bad. Characters kept dying one by one and you just stop feeling any sadness or shock for them at some point. You’re just waiting for the next corpse. There’s also a ton of plot conveniences. Sugimoto being so exhausted, shot, stabbed etc etc only to still be able to lift an adult bear and let it hang unto him for at least 20 minutes, or Ogata who didn’t shoot Sugimoto directly in the head when he was pinned by the bear. Or Ushiyama who doesn’t one hit kill Tsukishima. Or Koito who easily killed Hijikata, and so on.

2. Goryokaku was boring. It was mostly filled with Wilk and Hijikata flashbacks. Wilk does have his importance in the plot since he was supposedly the initial “villain” in the series, but Hijikata ended up being a very boring character to me, so him getting around 3 separate flashbacks in the same arc really didn’t do it for me. Other than that, the arc spends a very big amount of time with characters killing off completely irrelevant background soldiers and criminals. 

It also had this style of advancing really slowly in the plot, but also rushing through it.

3. Sugimoto and Asirpa’s partnership was pretty cool and I liked their bond a lot. But after Asirpa rebounds with Sugimoto after Karafuto, their bond starts to feel very codependent. So codependent that Sugimoto turns from a soldier that had issues with PTSD, to a guy who at any time opens his mouth says “Asirpa”. If he’s not near her we see him monologue about “what’s Asirpa doing?”. That’s his whole character now. 

And Sugimoto kind of stopped having this active role in the story at some point. It’s mostly Asirpa who points the story forward, with Sugimoto burying the bodies left behind. Maybe it was like that even before Asirpa got kidnapped, but it’s a lot more obvious in the later half.

It also didn’t help how after Karafuto the plot kept hinting at Asirpa’s crush on Sugimoto even more. Boutarou full on shipping them like “oooh you care about him” and “take Sugimoto and have a family with him”. 

And in the end, Sugimoto chooses to live with Asirpa for an undetermined time as “partners”. 

I don’t ship Sugiripa and I don’t really care if other people do, but the ending was written intentionally ambiguous with slight shipping tones. I’d definitely think it would have been a purely comradery ending if Noda didn’t add in the numerous hints that Asirpa is crushing on him.

4. Koito was handled pretty badly by the end of the story. I was so invested in his character development. I was waiting in anticipation for his betrayal after he got bitchslapped by Ogata. And it was THIS }{ CLOSE to happen. 

But it didn’t....or....it sort of does? back when they’re in Goryokaku but it went like “Tsurumi you lied to me and dad but let’s say I’m fine with that now, but if nothing good comes out of all this then I gotta protect my men from you-” “oh ok Koito then kill me here and now” And Koito just looks down and leaves. Koito still keeps fighting for Tsurumi.

His character was severely limited to redeeming and saving his subordinate in distress Tsukishima.

[Edit] Since vol. 30 is out, Koito’s confrontation with Tsurumi has been altered slightly. Tsurumi instead of the line “kill me now” he now says “I have no intention of losing” and Koito feels sad that Tsurumi didn’t persuade him to being on his side. “W-why don’t you ask me to be by your s-side? FINE I’m leaving let’s go Tsukishima.” Lol. And Koito still fights for Tsurumi’s goals on the train. A strange and kind of useless addition if you ask me.

5. Tsukishima was frustrating to watch. I truly liked him up until chapter 210. But then he swears total loyalty to Tsurumi and threatens Koito’s life. But then he saves Koito from the Sugi stab. But then he actively hunts down Tanigaki and pregnant Inkarmat just to kill them. But then he’s saved by Koito who reminded him of his ex finacee! But then he gives death glares at Koito when he accidentally speaks normally to Tsurumi. But then joins in the Sofia interviewing thinking he’s finally seeing Tsurumi’s true colours! But then he’s loyal to him again and ends up (almost) killing Ariko (followed by sparkly eyes) and Kikuta.

 It’s like Noda wasn’t sure wether to keep him alive or die with Tsurumi. And Koito kept pushing his ass into redeeming him soooo so much that Tsukishima literally fainted.

Tsukishima got so exhausted of being constantly juggled around between Koito and Tsurumi that he ended up fainting in his moment of choosing any side. And in the end, he isn’t even taken out of his misery. He keeps searching for Tsurumi in the sea, and then Koito appears and asks him to forget Tsurumi and join the him as his right hand man. And Tsukishima is like "sure!”. Welp. That was fast.

6. Tsukishima and Koito end up not confronting Tsurumi at all. Which is honestly dissappointing. I was fully expecting them to have a final battle with him. Nope. Tsurumi fights the main characters. Not that he didn’t have to fight them too, but there was still unresolved tension between him and his subordinates. Tsukishima never finds out that Tsurumi played him again, and Koito still fought for his cause until he had to save Tsukishima from joining Tsurumi. 

7. Vasily was the most underused character in the series. He was put back into the plot just to keep Ogata away from sniping anyone from the Sugi group. He never got a backstory, he never got a proper character ending, he had an annoying language barrier with everyone around him which was lame because I really wanted to see him truly bond with ANYONE. But nope. He’s simply an extension to Ogata’s character. 

And his ending concerning his Ogata lynx painting is just....I mean...if he truly was obsessed with Ogata then why keep a painting of him dead rather than alive? Because it reminds him of how he failed to kill him? Oh wow that’s so romantic Vasilygirls please rejoyce.

I think what Noda truly wanted to do with Vasily is to portray him as the typical Ogata fan insert of the readers (who are also coincidentally creating a ton of Ogata fanart).  

8. Ogata was handled like garbage. He was a pretty complex character plus a total enigma. Lots of people wrote a ton of theories about him. Everyone was talking about him endlessly wether they loved him or hated him. 

But then chapter 304 dropped and it reveals that he just wanted to advance in rank because he wanted to see if a low life like him can reach such a high and esteemed position. Which was...huh? Ogata said he isn’t interested in ranks to Hijikata around the time they were about to attack Abashiri. Now he is. 

In chapter 310 he kills himself because he didn’t want to feel guilt. Because he killed his only chance at true love with Yuusaku. ?! He didn’t want to have anything to do with Yuusaku. He was unifying with the walls when Yuusaku was trying to approach him. But now he was his only chance at love?? What about his grandparents??

Oh and he also felt guilt because he was always born a blessed child just like Yuusaku. ???? Yuu was rich and had loving parents. Ogata was raised in poverty, with shitty parents and was being constantly ostrasized for his bloodline. By this logic, if your parents had sex once, had the child and then broke up, even if they did feel a little bit of true love in that moment, it fully justifies their child in being blessed from the very beginning and growing up just as blessed even if they’re raised in a shitty environment with a dysfunctional family. 

9. Sugimoto should have died. There were so many hints that he’d die in the last chapter. His name, his “going to hell” catchphrase, his numerous wounds in the final arc, the SWORD STABBED IN HIS HEART, his final line to Asirpa after he throws her off the train “I’m immortal you know?”, seeing him with closed eyes and being sunk deeper into the ocean.

Next chapter he’s okay and already found Umeko. He doesn’t even confront her directly, and he doesn’t even get emotional when he eats the persimmon. OK. So much for the pay off of that amazing emotional scene when he started crying inside the deer.

[Edit] 10. Sofia’s character was treated poorly. You start off with a really strong woman who can wrestle and ride a tiger with ease. But then she fights Tsukishima and overpowers him and she conveniently- I MEAN accidentally hits a pole thus now is Tsurumi’s hostage in the church. 

And afterwards, She kills a ton of 7th soldiers with utmost ease only to be killed by Tsurumi because she froze (initially) though in the volume version she tries to shoot him (even though she wasn’t able to even scratch him which makes me think she deviated her shot because of guilt).

Conclusions:

- don’t ever read an ongoing manga especially when you have no other series that you’re following. Noda was sometimes taking breaks in moments where he’d drop a chapter with a cliffhanger ending.  It’s paintful. Plus more and more expectations get built up the more you wait. So yeah, don’t touch anything that isn’t finished.

- the series was super great but then the quality dropped at around 65% progression of the story (around the beginning of the Sapporo arc). Maybe it was becoming a lot more serious and had less comical scenes. Or maybe I’m just hung up on Pre-Abashiri times lol.

[lostinlogicerror]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: ゴールデンカムイ | Golden Kamuy (Manga) Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Tsukishima Hajime/Tsurumi Tokushirou Characters: Tsukishima, Tsurumi, Usami, Kikuta, Koito  Additional Tags: Unhealthy fixation, Disturbing Themes, Canon Compliant, Spoilers for chapter 210 Summary:

Tsukishima has been looking forward to this reunion. For more reasons than one.

When the official assembly of their unit - or what's left of it anyway - is over, and the soldiers under Tsurumi's command are brought up to speed, it's finally time to meet in private. Away from prying eyes and curious ears. They choose an unassuming inn's room for that purpose. Or more like Tsukishima does, having prepared everything beforehand, anticipating that his superior officer would expect the unabridged version of the report afterward.

Tsukishima has been looking forward to this reunion. For more reasons than one.

All four of them gathered with First Lieutenant Tsurumi at their centre, it almost feels like they reversed the flow of time. Back to good old days. Except Superior Private Ogata has been permanently replaced with his equal in rank - Usami, Warrant Officer Kikuta couldn't look more out of place if he tried and Tsukishima... Tsukishima is someone else entirely now.

Then there's Tsurumi.

Once upon a time a distant and unreachable star - or at least that's the impression he adamantly showed to the outward world - you could gain access to now and bask in his light if only you knew how to ask. How to approach. And Tsukishima wasn't afraid to get burned. Not anymore.

He can't resist - doesn't want to - the pull of gravity and steps forward, with purpose. The initial surprise in First Lieutenant's gaze vanishes as quickly as it appears and he allows Tsukishima his forwardness. Following the impossible compulsion, he cradles his face reverently. Finally. Having confirmed the tangible presence of his Lieutenant with his own touch now, he feels something akin to relief.

Tsukishima's calloused fingertips begin to map out the familiar expanse of Tsurumi's face under the latter's watchful gaze - the high cheekbones that have become so pronounced over time, the dimples, the impeccable skin giving way to angry red of scarring. His superior closes his eyes and hums approvingly when Tsukishima's thumbs rub tenderly the place where the circles under his eyes would be, his attention drawn to the taller man's eyelashes that were inexplicably still present.

It'd be a lie to say he ever minded the difference in their height, and yet presently there's an undeniable curl of frustration in his gut at this mere fact. It won't do. So Tsukishima takes a deep breath and letting go of Tsurumi's face, grasps firmly at his forearms instead. He ignores the questioning glance. For his purposes, he needs to tower over the man. The next course of his actions already settled in his mind, he maneuvers him around and pushes into nearest beat-up wood chair, none too gently. The aged furniture creaks in protest.

There's an immediate if rather subdued reaction coming from his right, Usami's offended voice of upset, at his audacity no doubt, and Kikuta's almost inaudible gasp. Their worry relieved with Tsurumi's flick of hand in a dismissive gesture. It's alright. Do not interrupt.

Persistently paying others no mind, Tsukishima simply locks his eyes with his Lieutenant's. Finding nothing but approval in the intense stare directed at him, he presses forward, resting his right knee on the front edge of a seat, and spreading Tsurumi's legs in the process. Just a hint at his intentions.

He leans further down, one hand supporting his weight on the left armrest - mindful to not block the view of the other inhabitant of the room - he relishes the idea of having Tsurumi trapped under him, only mere inches between them. Tsurumi's arms, on the other hand, remain still, compliantly, at his sides. He doesn't need a worded command to understand his needs, he knows him so well, and Tsukishima's pleased.

Gradually, Tsukishima can feel the dreadful cold seeped into his bones melting.

It's been a couple of excessively long months and every tiny gesture feels like too much, too little. He tangles the fingers of his other hand gingerly between Tsurumi's silky hair strands and pulls his head up just a fraction to press his lips to the cold headplate, absent-mindedly noting the almost invisible trace his breath leaves on its surface.

He'd rather be kissing the actual skin of his scarred forehead, the threat of infecting the wound be damned.

Toying with the idea, he lets his fingers play with the leather straps. He's perfectly aware of how these are constantly grinding into Tsurumi's skin, his hair, rubbing it off in spite of Tsurumi's best efforts to prevent that. So futile. For his sake, Tsukishima wishes he could allow himself to take off this forehead protector more often. It'd be so easy to undo the clasps now.

Ultimately it's the presence of others in the room that helps him resist the temptation. This is a sight reserved for Tsukishima's eyes only (or at least it's what he tells himself, he's come to realize the reality doesn't matter nearly as much as your assumptions about it).

The atmosphere spreading around the room is thick, somewhat tense, yet Tsukishima couldn't feel more at ease. The insistent silence of his comrades is almost deafening and at odds with the muffled sounds reaching his ears, as if through a wad of cotton, that Tsukishima has been purposefully ignoring this entire time. He wills himself not to make eye contact.

It's Tsurumi's rather impatient huff that finally takes him out of his reverie. Tsukishima takes note of his dilated pupils and slightly parted lips and just like that, everything else ceases to matter. Almost without meaning to he brushes his thumb over Tsurumi's bottom lip, feeling the edge of his teeth, before finally diving in for the open-mouthed kiss.

He swallows the hitched breath and the following moan. Encouraged, he adjusts the angle so he can kiss him raw, desperate. Oh, Tsukishima has missed this sensation, badly.

It ends far too soon, when he registers the palm at his chest and a slight push, prompting him to regain control of himself. Tsukishima does. It takes them both a moment to compose themselves.

"Care to explain yourself, Sergeant Tsukishima?"

First Lieutenant Tsurumi inclines his head to the side, indicating the pitiful young man sprawled on the floor, bound tightly and securely, a gag in his mouth. Tsukishima meets his expectant gaze and then reluctantly follows his line of sight, finally acknowledging his other superior - in rank at least - registers the glistening sweat and helpless look on his face, but doesn't linger. Koito's no doubt in great deal of discomfort but otherwise unharmed. For the time being.

"You gave me the authority of final decision making, sir."

"That I did."

"Then I ask you to trust in my judgment."

Tsurumi draws out his breath leisurely, sounding almost exasperated. Tsukishima can't begin to guess what kind of tale will he have to spin to get out of this predicament, however, he's certain he'll manage.

"Very well."

[tren-fraszka]

Hate Exchange Letter

Dear creator,

Thank you for taking your time to check my requests. I know my requests can sound a bit tricky, but please don’t be discouraged. I wish you will have good time writing first and foremost!

My AO3 is Tren, if you wish to check it out.

Likes: comedy, casefics, canon compliants, AUs, time loops, bodyswaps, roleswaps, “being hoisted by your own petard” plotlines, snark, pettiness, rivals, enemies to friends to lovers, violence, friendships and character bonding,

DNW: explicit sex, A/B/O, mpreg, rape depicted as positive (so no “it’s okay, because the other person enjoyed it/it was what they truly wanted”), trans headcanons, soulmates, stories ending with surrender to fate/destiny, fourth wall breaking in canons where that doesn’t occur.

Also, I included what ships I’m okay with in each fandom. Please do not include any ships that aren’t canon and I have not allowed in those sections (if you feel really strongly about a ship, you can ask through mods just in case, if I didn’t include my opinion on it).

Additionally, while I almost never request fanart as possible medium, because I prefer my main gift to be fic, I would be very okay with receiving fanart treats.

                                                REQUESTS

PERSONA 5

Hate that ends

Hate that exists and continues

Hate that starts

Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira

I’m a big sucker for party traitors, so it isn’t really a surprise that I walked out of my Persona 5 playthrough with a new shiny ship. I love how messed up it is with both of them planning to outplay each other in a deadly game and yet still forming an emotional attachment. I also really love how they are mirror images of each other. They are extremely similar, and yet they are also each others opposites. There’s just something fascinating in watching them interact.

I’m okay with all takes on hate for this ship. Akechi has canonically very love-hate relationship with the protagonist, so you can spin this however you want. You are also free to make Akira as bitter about the whole thing as you want. I’m always a game for Akira having all the regrets about Akechi’s death and hating Akechi for leaving him with all the emotional turmoil.

For the story, I’m very okay with some in-between the canon flirting with the obligatory dash of scheming and mind games. I’m also all about different ways their confrontation could go down. Maybe it’s Akira who dies and Akechi lives through with his hateful feelings not coming any closer to being resolved? Or Akechi can’t keep his feelings in and slips at some point?

AUs 

I don’t mind AUs, just be aware that the messed up relationship between the two of them is a huge draw for me, so I would definitely opt to preserve that part in some form. You don’t have to do the exact same scenario, but at least make them childhood friends, who ended up on the opposite sides of some conflict. Or undercover spies who got in relationship without knowing each other true identities and they really should kill each other since they work for different clients. The exact setting is of secondary importance to me, so choose whatever you feel would work best. AU Divergences are also welcome. I’m always a game for Akechi surviving. Especially, if he gets to shoot the final boss in the face.

Akechi Goro & Self

He has so many issues you are practically spoiled for choice. Bastard by birth, believes himself to be a reason why his mother died, spent years in foster home system which just enforced his belief that he isn’t worth of love, became a supernatural assassin despite having strong sence of justice. And did I mention having to kill the only person he had formed a legitimate connection with? Yeah, just one of those things would be a great self-hatred fodder, but all those things together mix to create a true picture of self-hatred. You can’t go wrong with it. 

There are so many prompts you could potentially use for this in Akechi/Kurusu segment above (just take out the potential shippiness if the pairing is not your thing), I don’t think there’s much point in repeating myself. You are free to AU as much as you want and have fun.

Hate that ends

Sakura Futaba & Self

I loved the chilling exploration of Futaba’s problems in her palace and further revelations we get through Sojiro’s social link. I would love insight into her deteriorating self-worth post her mother’s death and then followed by slow improvements once Sojiro takes her in.

I would love insight into Futaba trying to figure out the truth about her mother’s death, her initial refusal to believe that it is her fault, followed by slow acceptance over the time, as she fails to find any evidence to the contrary.

I asked for Hate that ends, because I would prefer a take that is compliant with the canon story. I know this is pretty constraining, but at the same time it means that you don’t need to concentrate on the improvement factor. As long as the story ends heavily implaying that Phantom Thieves are about to help her with her issues I will be satisfied.

However, if you do dig the hope aspect I will love some quality Sojiro & Futaba family interactions and her slowly acknowledging that maybe she deserves more than a slow death in seclusion and decides to seek help form Phantom Thieves.

Ships

I ship Akira and Goro, and don’t want them shipped with anyone else. I’m okay with including pretty much any other ships, except for the ones between the characters who are still students and adults.

GOLDEN KAMUY

I’m reading manga chapters as they come out, so you are free to incorporate any new developments into the story. I will definitely be caught up.

Hate that exists and continues

Ogata Hyakunosuke/Sugimoto Saichi

If you know this canon I probably don’t even need to explain to you what I want. They hated each other from the very beginning of the story and the world may end, but their hatred would still live on. You don’t have to be too shippy with this, if you don’t want to, I mostly want to just get more off their passionate hatred we get in the canon.

For the prompts, I would love if they had to work together (just the two of them, or maybe with Shiraishi as a suffering third wheel), because someone kidnapped Asiripa and they had to get her back. Or chasing someone who stole the skins from them.

Alternatively, I would love petty matches over Asiripa’s attention when they act perfectly nice to each other, because she is there, but keep competing for her attention to annoy each other.

Also, this canon is ripe for tropes like huddling for warmth, or sharing one blanket, and would definitely encourage the hate-filled take on those. Also time loops with those two nd how much of a disaster it would be.

AUs and ships

I’m all for canon divergences or changed settings. You want Sugimoto and Ogata as coworkers in modern setting? Go for it. I would love any messing up with the story, because there are so many things that could have gone differently here. 

I have no strong ship preferences here as long as Asiripa is not shipped with anybody. Also I prefer Sugimoto to have no romantic experience, aside from his canonical one-sided crush, before he started to have feelings about Ogata.

THE RISING OF SHIELD HERO (ANIME & MANGA)

I watched anime and read manga, but have not checked light novels. So please, no spoilers for anything beyond manga.

Hate that starts

L’Arc Berg/Iwatani Naofumi

Naofumi spends a lion share of the plot having terrible trust issues after Myne’s betrayal and you can’t convince me that he isn’t extra salty about L’Arc.

L’Arc is literally the first person Naofumi willinglu opens up to after spending majority of the plot avoiding trusting anyone, so the fact that this person turns out to be his enemy must sting. While L’Arc isn’t a type to keep grudge, Naofumi certainly is. Which is why I just want Naofumi being all bitter about his feelings for L’Arc after the betrayal.

I would love some more adventures of those two before the Wave happens and everything goes to shit. Or maybe they meet after the Wave with Naofumi having been separated from the party and struggling with something, and L’Arc runs into him and helps him out (because he’s not the type of guy to stab someone in the back). Which just prompts Naofumi to be even more bitter, because he wants to really hate L’Arc, but unlike Myne he can’t just label him as completely evil.

Or Naofumi going through all the memories he has of L’arc wanting to find good reasons to hate him more, but just coming with more reasons why he loved him in the first place.

AUs and ships

Setting changes and canon divergences are all fine, as long as you keep the element of betrayal.

I’m okay with Naofumi also having some feelings for Raphtalia for an awkward romantic triangle, as long as his complicated feelings for L’Arc are the focus of the story. Other than that I don’t want either of them shipped with anyone else.

GINTAMA

I have watched anime up to Gintama': Enchousen, so please no spoilers beyond that season.

Hate that starts

Hate that exists and continues

Hijikata Toshirou/Okita Sougo

I loved their vitrolic relationship from the very start and the more we got of their backstory, the more I loved it. I would be okay with the story not being very shippy, as long as I get plenty of their amusing interactions.

I love how well they understand each other, including the reasons why they don’t get along, but somehow it is easier for them to maintain that animosity than to try and repair their twisted relationship. 

I always enjoy small tidbits of how terrible they are at working together when it comes to solving anything that isn’t Shinsengumi-threatening emergency. I loved that episode which was just showing Hijikata and Okita attempting to do normal police stuff and utterly failing to have any sort of law-abiding integrity while they were at it.

If you want to go to the backstory and how they already didn’t get along in the dojo I’m also all for it. Any involvement of Mitsuba to add oil to the already bright flames of mutual dislike is welcome. I love how her presence mellows both of them when she’s there, but in the long run it just made their relationship even more of a mess, because they both wanted the best for her in their own way.

For shippier request I would love a date attempt by those two homicidal idiots. There are just so many ways this could go wrong. Or Gintama staple of handcuffed together with Hijikata constantly having to stop the dismemberment attempts.

AUs and ships

I’m open to any sort of setting or canon divergence. Then again, I dare you find a cooler setting than samurai police in alien infested Edo.

I don’t want the two of them shipped for anyone else, except for maybe acknowledging  Hijikata’s canonical feelings for Mitsuba (because that just makes Hijikata and Okita’s relationship even more of a trainwreck). For other ships I enjoy Gintoki shipped with either Otae or Tsukuyo, and Kagura and Shinpachi as two characters who are not yet ready for relationship, but would make a nice match once they grow up more.

BOKU NO HERO ACADEMIA

I read the manga chapters as they come out, you can assume I’m caught up on all new developments.

Hate that ends

Bakugou Katsuki/Uraraka Ochako

I love how different the two of them are, but at the same time how well they compliment and understand each other. Also, while I love them as a pairing I won’t mind if you write them as friends, as long as you don’t pair them with other characters.

For this exchange I would love a more conflict driven beginning of their friendship. Bakugo says a few words too much about Midoriya? Uraraka tries to talk to Bakugo about how he treats Deku or just about how he acts in general and accidentally pokes his terrible inferiority complex? Or they run into each other before the UA entrance exam and somehow end up having a more bitter relation? All of that is good.

I would love if then they were forced to then acknowledge each others strengths as heroes, but possibly still feeling somehow bitter. Maybe they end up working together when UA is attacked? Or incorporating their duel during the sports festival (which I love, it’s what started this ship for me). Or maybe Uraraka gets kidnapped together with Bakugo during the camp and she ends up revising her opinion of him while they are in captivity together. 

For more prompts I would love having them complete some sort of exercise or exam together. I would love to see them pretend to be villains for the sake of exercise and butting heads, because they dislike each other. Or they work together on something for school festival. Like making a perferomance together. Alternatively you can go for a future fic where the two of them take part in an action to stop villains as full-fledged heroes, but they can’t let go of all the hang-ups they have about each other from when they went to school together.

AUs and ships

I would very much encourage any future fics for this pairing. I love seeing characters as fully-fledged heroes. I’m okay with other setting changes, though I would prefer for the competence aspect to still come in play somehow in them (with Bakugo being stupidly talented and hard working, while acknowledging Ochako’s potential). I’m also very okay with canon divergences.

I don’t mind past Midoriya/Ochako if you want to incorporate it into the story, but I’d rather not get any love triangles for this pairing. Either have Ochako’s feelings sizzle out or have them date and break up at some point in the past. When it comes to other pairings I like Midoriya/Todoroki and Eraserhead/Mic, but have no strong feelings on other characters pairings, so you are free to do whatever I guess.

FATE/ZERO

I’m well versed in Fate franchise so if you wish to expand beyond Fate/Zero to include either some parts of Fate/Stay Night or El-Melloi II Case Files I will be very fine with that.

Hate that exists and continues

Kotomine Kirei & Self

Kotomine Kirei and his self-loathing is unironically one of my favourite ships in Fate. I loved Kirei’s internal monologues in the novel, as he slowly inched toward the self-discovery that he is in fact the very thing that he was taught to hate the most.

Give me all the religious guilt. All the nagging thoughts that follow Kirei’s enjoyment of ruining other people’s lives. Kirei already thought of himself as lacking before the events of Fate/Zero and watching his doomed pursuit of finding something meaningful in his life was great.

Kirei was basically doomed to suffering, either by continuing his empty life or by embracing his true self and plunging himself into depth of self-hatred. And I’m all about that freefall, sponsored by the ancient king Babylon. So give me Kirei struggling within the confines of Holy Grail War, trying to find himself, yet suspecting that nothing good will ever come out of it.

AUs and ships

I’m okay with canon divergences, less about setting changes due to how deeply Kirei’s issues steam from his specific situation, but if you can make it work I will be for it. I would be very excited for canon divergences. Maybe Kirei making slightly different choices during the Holy Grail War? Maybe alternate timeline when he decides not to betray Tokiomi, but somehow still ends up on path of evil despite his efforts. Maybe he summoned a different servant, who influences Kirei differently? I’m always surprised by how interesting alternate scenarios people come with for Holy Grail Wars, just give me your take.

For alternate timeline takes, you can make my day by including wreacking Matou’s mansion and/or killing Zouken. Even if it’s just a footnote.

I very much ship Kirei both with his dead wife and Gilgamesh. You are free to incorporate both of those ships. 

Hate that exists and continues

Waver Velvet & Self

Another contender for the biggest self-loathing in the franchise. El-Melloi II anime reminded me just how much I enjoyed that aspect of Waver.

I would love an alternate take when Waver and Keyneth actually had a more proper face-off other than their first meeting on the battlefield. I would love if Waver saw Kayneth wheelchair-bound and blamed himself for that.

Or something more canon-compliant exploring Waver’s feeling of uselessness and guilt he has. Either is good. For extra self-loathing you could get the family Waver is staying at caught in the crossfire of one of the fights. Or Waver gets used by some other master to attack another and only belatedly realizes that he was nothing more than a tool used for murder. 

Just give me some quality Waver suffering and self-blame whether dislpaced or not.

AUs and ships

Similarly as above, I’m stocked for any canon divergences. Maybe Waver summoning a different servant? Waver making different choices as to how proceed with the war. Maybe making an allience that doesn’t work out for him in a longer run? 

For alternate timeline takes, you can make my day by including wreacking Matou’s mansion and/or killing Zouken. Even if it’s just a footnote.

I don’t ship Waver with anyone, so I would prefer no romantic plotlines for him. I find his relationship with Rider interesting and definitely important, but can’t see it as romantic.

[goldenkamuyhunting]

Golden Kamuy re-reading: CHAP 5: ‘Hokuchin unit’

Trasposed in: Episode 2 ‘Nopperabō’

Currently the story is at: Chap 171: ‘Karafuto Ainu punishment’

What follows are my ramblings over Golden Kamuy chapter by chapter, comprehensive of summary of the chapter, comparisons with the anime transposition, spoilers, theories, discussions about how a page or a panel was drawn and whatever else caught my attention.

As Golden Kamuy hasn’t ended yet I might miss some details that will be relevant in the future or make a wrong theory (or change my mind in the future on that theory). Consider yourself warned.

Also occasionally you’ll find ramblings for the covers or the extra contained in the volumes.

CHAP 5: ‘Hokuchin unit’

The cover starts the beginning of ‘weird’ covers… this one has Asirpa being friendly with a squirrel… instead than being interested in eating it.

The title of the chapter refers to how also was called the 7th division, about which we get some info written in superimposed text, while Ogata and Sugimoto face each other.

After the info dump we’ve Sugimoto thinking at how it was bad enough to deal with the prisoners but the soldiers would be a real problems… even if he thinks Ogata and Co would be the dregs of the unit… which is actually his assumption as Tsurumi’s unit isn’t bad at all and Tsurumi himself will admit Ogata is one of his best men.

Ogata, who was ready to fight him (we see him at first in combat position, blade toward Sugimoto), seeing Sugimoto isn’t attacking him immediately, relaxes as well and asks him what unit Sugimoto is from. Sugimoto replies he was from the 1st, though his term has ended and he was discharged.

Ogata comments they might have met up at 203 hill. It’s sort of fun how they’re chatting casually, but it hints at how neither of them is really invested in just killing the other if they can avoid it. Not that they aren’t ready to do it if needed, it’s just that they aren’t bloodthirsty.

Ogata suggests Sugimoto to let them (the 7th) have the tattooed body, implying otherwise they would have to kill him.

Sugimoto refuses, claiming he’s not doing this for money but for the woman he loves. This sentence is twice as relevant.

In that moment it will mark the point in which the chatting has to end because clearly neither is willing to back away from the tattooed skin. Ogata made clear that if Sugimoto insists in wanting to keep it, they will have to kill him and Sugimoto made clear not only that he won’t give up on it but also that he won’t even let himself be bribed as he’s not doing this for money. Hence they can only fight to death for the possession of the skin.

There’s to say that actually Sugimoto in that moment was in this for the money. Money he wanted to use for Umeko, all right, but always money. It’s not as he’s in this because Umeko is a skin collector. But well, I guess since Ogata hadn’t really offered they’ll buy the skin from him, especially at the price Sugimoto needs, the real meaning of the sentence is ‘I’m not in this because I’m greedy but because I need money for the woman I love’… so maybe there was still room for bargaining… though I don’t think Ogata was allowed to offer 200 yen for a skin, so it’s not like Ogata could bargain anyway.

The other thing due to which this exchange is relevant is that Ogata will remember it.

I don’t know if, at first, Ogata thought that Sugimoto was talking about Asirpa or not (Asirpa is a child and, although she has a crush on Sugimoto, contrary to what some think, Sugimoto so far doesn’t absolutely see her as a potential love interest and he’s still completely taken by Umeko…and the same goes for the whole cast as none of them see Asirpa as a potential love interest or a woman, Ushiyama, who would chase whatever female he were to meet, specifically tells Asirpa to grow up), but when Sugimoto will talk to Asirpa about how he’s doing all this for his best friend’s widow, Ogata will connect the dots and say that she’s the woman he was talking about when he said he was doing it for the woman he loved… indirectly informing Asirpa hers is an one sided crush.

There’s to wonder what Ogata thinks of the whole thing, since he saw his mother pining for a man who never returned her feelings. The whole parallel between Asirpa and his mother is made more ironic by how Asirpa will keep on feeding him and taking care of him, to the point we might say she’ll become his replacement mother…).

As a sidenote in the anime it’s Ogata who’ll bring the money topic up, asking Sugimoto if he’s doing this for the money, to which Sugimoto will reply he’s doing it for the woman he loves… while in the manga it seems it’s Sugimoto who does it, by saying he’s not doing it for money but for the woman he loves. Not a big difference though.

Oh, as Sugimoto spoke he fixed his hat… which is sort of weird (wouldn’t it be better if he had removed it?) but I guess it’s the visual way in which the manga shows us he prepared himself to fight… and this might be twice as powerful if hats are really meant to represent soldiers, as it would imply Sugimoto is ‘ready to go at war against Ogata’. But well, it might be just me.

Back to the story at this point Ogata attacks Sugimoto but, as said before, Sugimoto is AMAZING at close combat so it’s not like Ogata had a chance as Sugimoto immediately grabs his arm, sends him on the ground and breaks said arm.

In the anime, to make the scene a bit more action oriented, Ogata gets to swing the blade a little before Sugimoto grabs him. I understand why they did it, but Sugimoto and Ogata are actually meant to be opposite in their own abilities, with Sugimoto being horrible at shooting but amazing at fighting and Ogata being exactly the reverse, amazing at shooting, poor at fighting (though maybe not so bad as Sugimoto is at shooting).

When Ogata’s arm is broken, Ogata is also forced to let go of the bayonet, which Sugimoto grabs and try to use to stab his neck, fundamentally planning to kill him.

In the anime it’s not so clear as we only see Sugimoto holding the bayonet and remaining still but in the manga is more visible both by Sugimoto’s expression and how he was holding the bayonet pointed at Ogata’s neck and how his hand was already moving to deliver the blow.

Even Sugimoto’s gaze through the whole scene can tell us Sugimoto is ready to kill.

In short, Asirpa calling Sugimoto effectively stopped him from killing Ogata.

I’ve always wondered how Ogata sees Asirpa’s intervention. Is he grateful she saved his life? Or annoyed? Or he just didn’t realize it? Hard to say.

Anyway now we more or less know who Ogata is and the fandom has its own opinions about him but, back then, Sugimoto had no idea who Ogata was beyond that he worked for the 7th. Ogata could have been a good guy, like Tanigaki or even more than Tanigaki for all that Sugimoto knew, merely forced to obey orders. After all, later he’ll complain that Ogata betrayed the 7th, meaning he didn’t expect Ogata to go against the orders he received.

So why is he so ready to kill a guy that, for all he knows, might only be obeying to orders and that he had just rendered helpless?

Later Sugimoto will tell us when he was in war he learned to tell himself that Russians don’t have human hearts so don’t feel pain when they die and therefore there’s no point to feel guilty about killing them (chap 100).

It’s a belief Sugimoto tried to impart to Asirpa as well and that he applies to all his enemies. Ogata is an enemy at this point, nothing else matter, killing him for Sugimoto is the only way to survive, the way war brainwashed him into thinking, and it doesn’t really matter if Ogata is helpless. For Sugimoto he’s an enemy, a threat and threats have to be destroyed.

Even though Sugimoto didn’t manage to kill Ogata, Sugimoto will always distrust him. This moment will be always between them, haunting Sugimoto’s relationship with Ogata.

In the beginning it’s possible Sugimoto simply couldn’t let it go because, if Ogata had turned out to be a good guy, Sugimoto would have to face the guilt for having tried to kill a good guy who was only doing his duty. Later though, when Ogata (and Kiroranke) will escape with Asirpa after Ogata killed Wilk and shoot him, Sugimoto will likely start to see his failure in killing Ogata as something negative. If he had killed Ogata right then, the other wouldn’t have managed to take Asirpa from him.

We’ll see in chap 171, when Enonoka will be taken as hostage by a man, how Sugimoto will subconsciously see her as Asirpa and he’ll face the man in a way that will present various parallelism how his fight with Ogata went in this chapter…

...including the fact Sugimoto will try to kill that man by stabbing him after rendering him helpless. Sugimoto will be stopped from killing him again, by some Ainu this time, but he’ll insist it would have been better if they had let him kill that man.

After all, in the story, despite Asirpa speaking over and over against killing people and Sugimoto trying to humour her here and there, Sugimoto will remain persuaded that’s the best way to deal with enemies, and, after she was taken from him, this belief likely only grew stronger.

Sugimoto knows killing is wrong…

...but he will still think it’s the best option for him most of the times.

It will be interesting to see if he’ll ever manage to embrace Asirpa’s view against killing.

Back to the story, Sugimoto stops from killing Ogata because Asirpa called him, however, since Asirpa called him ‘Sugimoto’, Ogata finally manages to figure out he’s facing ‘Sugimoto, the immortal’.

…Really Sugimoto should have been hellish popular during the war, everyone and their moms know about him….

Ogata then manages to stab with his fingers Sugimoto’s eyes and catches that moment to escape. It’s worth to mention that, despite Sugimoto breaking his arm rather badly, Ogata too hadn’t made a single whimper when this had happened.

In this Ogata and Sugimoto are similar as Sugimoto too won’t flinch when hurt.

Anyway Ogata plans to escape because he knows he can’t win against Sugimoto the immortal, especially without weapons and with a broken arm and so, as Ogata is trying to run away Sugimoto… tosses his rifle at him. There’s to say Sugimoto is better at rifle tossing than at rifle shooting because he hits Ogata right in the head, causing him to fall down the slope, to hit his face hard enough he’ll broke his jaw and then to end up in a river… and I’m not even sure if Ogata remained conscious after he was hit by Sugimoto’s rifle as he didn’t really move as he fell.

But well, since he survived to it, he probably either was conscious or woke up fast enough.

Asirpa and Sugimoto watch the river, likely assuming Ogata couldn’t survive to the fall, but it’s interesting how Sugimoto’s figure is completely in the dark.

Sugimoto defends his actions, claiming that if Ogata had escaped, the rest of Ogata’s unit would have come after them so this was for the best. In short he’s claiming it’s a good thing Ogata supposedly died… even if, truth to be told, although he was about to murder him with the bayonet, I don’t think he planned to murder him when he tossed the rifle at him. That one had been purely an incident.

It’s interesting how Sugimoto is in the dark because the visual isn’t shying away from telling us that, although what Sugimoto is saying makes sense, what Sugimoto did is in no way good. Remember the whole talk about wenkamuy murdering and hell? Because that’s the subtle way Golden Kamuy has to tell us it hadn’t forgotten about it. Murdering is wrong, no matter the reason, and brings you to hell.

Sugimoto in the future will feel that, if he had killed Ogata back then, things would have been better. Things however could have been better also if he had managed to strike an allegiance with Ogata back then, as he’ll do with Tanigaki.

After all if Ogata had died, even if Sugimoto were to hid the body, for the mere fact Ogata would have gone missing the 7th would have come to search for him anyway, sooner or later forcing Sugimoto to deal with them. Really, I doubt there was a way out for Sugimoto at that point.

Also I wonder if Golden Kamuy also will face another discussion point.

Asirpa doesn’t want to kill people and she’s trying to desperately keep Sugimoto from doing the same… but, since she’s aiding him, she’s not completely blameless (and we’ll see here and there she’ll feel sorry for the ones who die). But well, only time will tell and I can’t really blame Asirpa as murders would probably happen even if she were to refuse to aid Sugimoto. Sugimoto wouldn’t have just given up on the gold as he’s desperate to help Umeko so it can’t really be helped. She’s in a harsh situation, really, where there’s no winning side.

Still, it’s really ironic how Ogata will, much, much later, return the favour and shoot Sugimoto in the head, leaving him for dead and causing him a head injury instead… with Asirpa witnessing both scenes.

I guess since they both attempted to kill the other they could consider each other ‘even’.

Back to the story Asirpa asks Sugimoto what his nickname ‘the immortal’ means. Instead than just telling her that it means he managed to survive to the harshest situations where people wouldn’t think he could, Sugimoto gives her a rather dark reply, its darkness emphasized also by how the visual shows his face is in the dark.

Sugimoto claims during the war he found out the trick to stay alive, which was not to let the others kill him. He doesn’t say out loud that this, to him, meant killing the others before they could kill him, but he defends himself by claiming he doesn’t enjoy killing however, if his life is on the line, he won’t hesitate to kill whoever Sugimoto will grow to believe he has to kill.

Sugimoto then goes on using Asirpa’s words to support his statement...

...reminding her how the strong survives and the weak perishes and how this is an universal truth and sort of normalizing the ‘law of the strongest’ as well as subtly implying he still feels he’s at war.

In the manga Asirpa doesn’t look at him, but she’s clearly troubled by his words.

In the anime instead Asirpa looks at him as he says so, and… well, we can’t see well her face so we can’t see if she’s troubled or just accepting.

I guess the anime is less invested in exploring Sugimoto’s dark side…

On a sidenote Asirpa takes really well the view of dead bodies and death in general.

Not only she didn’t flinch when seeing Gotō’d dead body but she just had a person murdered in front of her eyes (prisoner number 1) and another supposedly killed (Ogata) and she’s handling the whole thing in a really calm manner.

In the manga we see Asirpa and Sugimoto leaving the place to walk toward one of Asirpa’s hunting huts. Sugimoto asks Asirpa who taught her so much about hunting and she replies it was her father as she has no brothers. She also admits to prefer being out there hunting than at home knitting.

Sugimoto’s stomach starts grumbling, surprising him and Asirpa claims it’s proof he’s alive.

The anime skipped the previous bit, immediately jumping from Ogata’s supposed death to Sugimoto’s grumbling stomach… and yes, I can understand the bit that got cut wasn’t necessary but the whole thing made the experience a whole lot more casual.

I mean, we jump from Sugimoto supposedly causing someone’s death to Sugimoto being hungry. It really reduces the impact of what had happened. What’s more, the dialogue about Asirpa learning everything about hunting from her father is removed. Yes it isn’t really lost as it will be placed later on while they make citatap so it’s not so bad… but well, why moving it then? But maybe it’s just me.

Back to the manga Asirpa decides they’ll make Citatap (an Ainu dish) with the squirrels they captured.

Again we see Asirpa being completely casual as she skins and cuts the squirrels because this is everyday life to her, how she normally prepares her food. Asirpa kindly tells Sugimoto he can eat the squirrel’s brain. Raw.

Sugimoto’s reaction is… well, not enthusiastic as he’s definitely not used at this sort of things and I think a lot of Golden Kamuy readers unused to eat squirrel brain can empathize with him. Asirpa takes his reaction as him criticizing Ainu cuisine so Sugimoto feels sort of forced to eat it and doesn’t really sound sincere when, pressed by Asirpa, says it’s good.

We will see he’ll grow used to eat brains but he’s not at that point yet. I love character evolution though.

Interesting enough when she’ll offer woodcock brain to Ogata and Ushiyama she won’t force them to eat it. With Ushiyama she’ll just be sort of pleading instead than pressuring, with Ogata she’ll just let him not eat it when he’ll refuse… to Ushiyama and Sugimoto’s shock. Character evolution for Asirpa as well and, later, for Ogata too, as he too will start to eat brains.

In a way though, this contributes to define the relationships between characters.

In the Asirpa-Sugimoto relationship it’s Asirpa who mostly dictates the rules (and Sugimoto calls her Asirpa-san while she just calls him Sugimoto), although Sugimoto tries to do as he pleases here and there.

In the Asirpa-Ushiyama one Asirpa admires Ushiyama… or better ‘professor Penis’ and he’s sort of fond of her so she doesn’t force him but pleads him and he gives up to please her.

Ogata and Asirpa are complete strangers when she offers him the brain and, in a way, equals. She can’t force him into eating it nor she is invested in persuading him to eat it and the same goes for him, who, fundamentally, doesn’t trust her claim it’s delicious and turns her offering down even though he’s the one who took three of the  five woodcocks they have… although he’ll do it politely.

Back to the story, we’re then explained what’s citatap. Citatap is often made through the story but I think it’s not meant to be just a random dish. The whole idea between citatap is that everyone take turn mincing the meat and the word citatap that’s meant to be said as they mince means ‘We mince it’. When they will be about to try to get into Abashiri prison Asirpa will explain how she wanted everyone to work together as a team, hinting that she views Ogata’s refusal to say ‘citatap’ as a refusal from him to be ‘part of the team’. In fact Ogata so far had been the only one who had refused to say citatap even if he had taken turns in mincing the meant and, only in that instance he’ll say ‘citatap’ but so softly only Asirpa, who fundamentally was the only one interested in making him part of the team, will hear it. The others won’t hear and won’t be interested in the matter.

On a sidenote I mentioned previously how Sugimoto and Ogata sort of mirror each other. Ironically the food Asirpa will give Sugimoto in this episode matches with the one she’ll give Ogata (and Sugimoto and Ushiyama) the first time she’ll give him Ainu cuisine. The meat will be different as in this case is squirrel, in that case it’ll be woodcocks but it’ll always be citatap and then ohaw… but maybe it’s just a coincidence as Asirpa explains she makes ohaw because Sugimoto is a Sisam (Japanese).

By the way, in the anime they have Asirpa explains during the citatap how it was her father who taught her how to hunt, a scene that in the manga happened previously.

Sugimoto ends up enjoying the ohaw and learns from Asirpa how Ainu says ‘hinna’ to show appreciation for the food/thanks for the food a habit that Sugimoto willingly adopt… while Ogata will take a lot of time before he’ll be ready to say it. Again this chapter raises parallels between the two.

The scene switches and it turns out that Ogata has survived and was found by the 7th. They comment on how amazing it was that Ogata managed to crawl up onto the bank with those injuries and that had they found him any later he would have succumbed to hypothermia.

The soldiers have no idea what happened to him or why he was out there alone in the mountains and conclude they’ll have to wait for him to regain consciousness.

On a sidenote the visual of the scene is amazing. On one side there are Sugimoto and Asirpa enjoying their meal, on the other side there’s Ogata in a bad shape. In the middle there’s Asirpa’s hut... but it’s not at the center but on a side, the side next to Sugimoto and Asirpa eating happily. Next to the side where Ogata is there’s nothing, only the darkness of the night and a ballon saying ‘hinna, hinna’. Note also how, although both Sugimoto and Asirpa are in the hut, the one who’s clearly visible and clearly happy is Sugimoto.

Really, although subtle this page is set up to parallel Sugimoto and Ogata’s conditions at the moment. While Sugimoto is happily enjoying a nice dinner in a warm place with someone kind, Ogata is injured, barely conscious, hardly capable to eat food and likely feeling rather alone. Although the soldiers are around him, NONE of them is represented next to him. His situation strongly contrast with Sugimoto and the visual makes it very obvious.

Now, in regard to the soldier see some of them but their faces are kept in the dark, though, among them, one is clearly Tsurumi.

We could put up to debate if the other two who’re clearly visible are Tamigaki and Tsukishima but they seem slightly different from them (Tanigaki’s hair are slightly different and so is Tsukishima’s nose) so I won’t try to push for it.

Personally I know I’m repeating myself but I would really like to know why Ogata went ‘escape convicts hunting’ (Tsurumi acted as if he had no idea what Ogata was doing out there but it might be he’s lying for his own reasons so with him it’s hard to say) as well and if he really managed to pull himself out of the river or if he was helped by someone (Kiroranke) who made sure the soldiers would find him. We know that Ogata will change after this experience, that he’ll feel liberated which is why he’ll let his hair grow (soldiers should carry them short, especially if they’re low ranked)… and we know that he’ll end up being Kiroranke’s partner but we don’t really know when the two of them teamed up.

It might completely be that Ogata managed to pull himself out of the river on his own, but, as everyone remarks he was really in a bad shape since he had a broken arm, a broken jaw and I’m not even sure if he was conscious when he fell in the river… and I’ve no idea if the river was running fast but Asirpa (and possibly Sugimoto) looked down and she likely didn’t see him coming up for air… and we’ll see Kiro saving another man who’ll fall in a river (Shiraishi) so maybe that was the point in which Ogata ended up roped in Kiroranke’s plot.

Or maybe not.

After all if he was really in such a poor shape he couldn’t pull himself out of the river he probably wasn’t in the shape to make a deal with Kiro either, so maybe the deal happened in another time.

Really how Ogata and Kiro’s allegiance came to be is a huge mystery but I’ll say Kiro too was warned about Sugimoto’s presence by Ogata (he reacted oddly to the whole ‘immortal’ thing) so I think that allegiance came to be prior to Sugimoto and Kiro’s meeting. Though exactly when it’s hard to say. Kiro and Ogata both fought in the Russo-Japanese war so they might have met up there as well… or it can be that they got to know each other because they were both under captain Wada or… who knows. Everything is possible as of now.

The chap ends here.

The anime is faithful enough but… it has all the soldiers except Tsurumi dressed in the same way as Tanigaki (the manga had the soldiers dressed differently) and the scene ends rather abruptly so I think they could have handled it a little better… but I guess they wanted to patch in it as much as possible, in fact this episode covers the story till chap 7 included.

Something else that’s worth to mention is how many people assumed that Ogata wasn’t that important of a character as he was apparently defeated soon enough and, for a while, he won’t show up again. However if we look at the introduction order of the cast we get first Sugimoto, then Asirpa, then Ogata and only after him Shiraishi, Hijitaka and Tsurumi. Of course we can point out how Hijitaka’s existence was hinted prior to Ogata’s apparition (although in the same chapter in which Ogata shows up) and Tsurumi’s is hinted prior to Shiraishi’s appearance but well, they’re definitely introduced later. And Ogata will be mentioned more than once in the chapters following his apparition, just to make sure we won’t forget him. In short those were all subtle warnings he was meant to be important… but the author didn’t want to give it out too soon.

[flyingcookierambles]

Stuff I’ve read since the Prince of Fools/in 2018

Books

The Black Gate Chronicles by Phil Tucker (it’s an indie fantasy trash series lol. I binged it by buying all 5 books. Enjoyable but the quality of it goes from a high fantasy  to Black Clover with a ton of battle scenes. Also, yes. Black Clover, as in the manga/anime series. More on that later. Also, problematic, and I didn’t really want to talk about it too in depth so I didn’t mention this earlier or whatever)

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater (It took me a bit to get into this one, but when the action/plot kicked off, oh boy. It kicked off. I liked it and finished it in one night, mostly because I was trapped in an ice skating rink while my sisters skated and I had nothing else to do lol. I still have to read the second book, my reading queue is pretty long…)

The Dragon’s Blade Trilogy by Michael R Miller (I already wrote about this one here in a crappy review lol. Being Darnuir is suffering)

Sand by Hugh Howey (I think I actually read this before the Prince of Fools, but I just wanted to say that it was a pretty slow-paced book and when the plot kicks off it gets good. A family drama + post apocalyptic setting in a vast desert)

Artemis Fowl: The Last Guardian (I finally read this but also kinda forgot what happened in the previous books lol)

Redwall (this was enjoyable! Talking mice and a small war.)

Hunger Makes the Wolf (I’ve already written a crappy review on this)

Good Omens (I’ve already written a crappy review on this)

Senlin Ascends (The Books of Babel 1)

The Greatcoats (Traitor’s Blade/ Knight’s Shadow/ Saint’s Blood)

All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries 1)

Silent Hall (The Godserfs 1)

The Thousand Deaths of Ardor Benn

The Red Knight (the Traitor Son Cycle 1)

Prince of Thorns (uhh  oof. The Broken Empire)

Calm; Decay 1 - Who Killed Cock Robin?

Black River Chronicles (I’ve already written something on this I think)

Kneebone Boy (I’ve already written about this)

Un Lun Dun (I think ive already written about this)

Loom Saga (I’ve already written about this. Twice)

The Vagrant/The Malice (I love love love these!!!! Def should have warnings for major character death and body horror tho because of the post apocalyptic setting. I have a post for the Malice in my drafts, but so far (that is for the past few months) it’s just been the title in a post lol)

Red Rising and Golden Sun

The Wrong End of the Table: A Mostly Comic Memoir of a Muslim Arab American Woman Just Trying to Fit in (surprisingly nonfiction! A memoir!!!)

Shades of Magic

Epitaph for a Peach (also a nonfiction???!?! This was for class lol)

The Emperor’s Edge (as of Nov 10th, I’m on book 6, Forged in Blood part 1. I’m really enjoying it! We got slow burn romance, a conspiracy of evil capitalists, and found family tropes!)

Dance of Thieves (slept on it for a month and then finally just binge read it it the span of like 2-3 days)

Manga that I’ve read (please check my Kitsu for more info, since I am reading on-going series and they are too numerous to really list here)

Tegami Bachi (entire series), Case Study of Vanitas (only the first 3 books, please dont send me spoilers), Dungeon Meshi, Children of the Whales, Gangsta, No. 6, Golden Kamuy, Giant Spider and Me, Again!, Toilet bound Hanaka-kun (only #1, but it seems really cute and I’m looking forward to the anime), Niehime Kemono no Ou, The Dungeon of Black Company (only 1-2), Fire Punch (1-7), Nyankees (1-2), Of the Red, the Light, and the Ayakashi (entire series), Afterschool Charisma (1-11) To Your Eternity (1-current I think chapter 90 or something the series is on now?), All You Need is Kill (1-2), Satoko and Nada (1-2), Inuyashiki (1), 7SEEDS, Land of the Lustrous (1-4), Pandora Hearts (finally finished!!), World Trigger (reread 1 to current + I have a Viz subscription so I’m reading it when the new monthly chapter comes out), Hi-Fi Cluster, Daughter of the Emperor, eIDLIVE (honestly thinking about dropping), Bloody Sweet, Boruto, Golden Kamuy

Light Novels - Tokyo Ghoul: Days, Infinite Dendrogram 2, Slime Tensei 2

Comics - Saga by Fiona Staple and Brian K Vaughan (I’m all caught up to #9 and I’m sobbing), Descender by Jeff Lemire (I’m at #5), Fable (I think it is an omnibus edition. It’s a large hardcover. I’m already past the civil war thing), The Adventure Zone 1, Stand Still Stay Silent, Lumberjanes (only 1)

[iceepsy]

Cauterize

Fire Emblem Fates Birthright AU: What if Birthright was a tragedy depicting Corrin’s mental downfall?

Chapter 1:  In The End

Thanks to @cup-ah-jho for betaing! I can’t thank you enough; you’ve been a great help. Notes: Birthright ending spoilers from the get-go.

In the end.

Kamui doesn’t know when time started to slow. Did it start when she plunged the Yato one final time into Garon’s flesh, feeling the resistance of the blade? From Garon’s last moan and glazed eyes, a telling sign that the war is finally over? If not, then it must have began when Azura collapsed behind her moments after, the short-lived victory quickly replaced with a chill that ran from the base of her neck to the tips of her exposed toes.

In the months, years, that Kamui has known Azura, she has never seen the dancer look so fragile and helpless. She drops the Yato at the sight of her companion’s leg, bloodied and twisted at an unnaturally painful angle, and the sword lands with a resounding clang that echoes much too loudly in the demolished throne room. Kamui follows suit, collapsing next to her sword and cradling Azura’s head as the other’s breath catches.

“Sorry, but it looks like I wasn’t able to keep my promise,” Azura whispers as she weakly places her hand over Kamui’s, rubbing circles with her thumb as she had often done before. The once comforting motion that helped Kamui through sweat-drenched nightmares now makes her dread its inevitable end. All Kamui wants to do is scream—“You liar! You promised to see this world peaceful once more! You promised a future with me!”—but something holds her voice back and knocks the breath from her lungs. The most she is able to let out are broken sentences and uncontrollable sobs that her best friend tries to placate. “Kamui, I’m happy, truly. Don’t forget...this is the peace you and I have dreamed of. Live your fullest.” Really, Kamui thinks bitterly, who is the one dying?

“Please,” Azura asks, as her golden eyes dim, “can I see you smile one last time?”

And Kamui tries, returning a lopsided smile that has never felt so forced. Having finally found her voice, she begs Azura, “I can’t lose you as well; I can’t lose anyone else.”

It was not supposed to turn out this way; she was not supposed to have lost so much. After all, hadn’t she chosen the right path like the heros from her childhood storybooks? They slayed evil monarchs, fought for the poor, and have never lost or mourned. So then why, if she thought she had followed them, did she lose her dear siblings and friends? She looks to Azura for an answer to her silent questions. However, her best friend has already closed her eyes, deaf to her thoughts, showing a faint smile despite her other marred features.

Kamui looks around again at the desolate room. The regal tapestries that depicted scenes of Nohrian court life have been stained with ash, forever tarnished. The decorative columns were shattered from careless fighting, causing pieces of the expansive ceiling to give way. Any treasures that the throne room once proudly displayed have been raided by less honorous royal guards. To think Kamui once saw this palace as inviting, as home. Xander’s and Elise's deaths still haunt her. She can still see Elise, once the light of her life, now lifeless. If Kamui didn’t know better, save for the blossoming red spreading on her sister’s chest, she would have thought Elise was sleeping peacefully, wearing the pale makeup common for court royals. Kamui is still in disbelief Xander died. She had always imagined his death to be in a grand battle that people would remember for centuries and not a battle with his weak sister. Xander still sits in the hall as if he is resting: a pitiful death.

Kamui shakily stands up, laughing at the ridiculous turn of events. She picks up the Yato, thrown carelessly near Azura, still dripping with Garon’s blood. She half wishes her adopted father’s blood was another color: black, green, or even blue, so that does not feel like she just killed another human. If Garon were a monster, her approach would have been justified. Nevertheless, Garon’s blood will soon be caked into the divine blade like all the others: like Iago, Hanz, and all the other Nohrians she’s killed.

-----

She can still hear Garon’s maniacal laughter as if this entire war had been his original plan. When she confronted him, Garon stared out at the crumbling walls that gave way to the town hovering overhead. “Foolish child,” he spoke in greeting, “is this the peace you have sought? Look long and hard at the destruction you have caused in your wake. Look back at Nohr and see the outcome of the path you have chosen.”

“Of course!” Kamui retaliated, “The only means of peace is by killing you! You caused this war! You planted that sword! You killed my mother!” She wanted to strangle him slowly, gouge out his eyes, and break a finger for each of the wrongdoings he caused to her and to Hoshido. Though, Kamui thinks bitterly that Garon would not have enough fingers.

She was ready to attack but Garon’s next words kept her rooted in place. The king of Nohr turned to her and whispered with poison dripping from his tongue, “Now come, child, you must think of the future for both countries. Nohr needs to be restored to its former glory. It’s only you who can fulfill that role, you know.” Kamui’s ears felt stuffed with cotton balls. Garon continued, “Xander secretly always wanted you to ascend the throne. Camilla does not have the strength to rule. When you left, she only wallowed in her room: a despondent bitch.”

The thought Garon proposed was ludicrous; Kamui had, of course, objected. Despite her verbal refusal, her mind continued to think. Xander had always treated her differently—his little princess. He had let her win. He had protected her. He had said that she could lead this world to peace.

“By default, the next in line is you. Dear Corrin, you should know you are still my precious daughter.”

His words were like a spell weaving and twisting across her body, petrifying her. She as Nohr’s ruler? He must be wrong; he’s the enemy. Even as Garon charged at Kamui, Bolverk above his head, she stayed rooted in spot. Only after the sudden movement of a spear cutting between her and Garon, distracting him, did Kamui dodge. She was quite surprised at his strength considering she had only ever seen him sitting on the throne; there was now a deep impression where he had struck.

Kamui gave Azura a grateful look as the dancer found her way next to her. The two flowed like water, swirling around Garon, dodging his attacks by a hair’s breadth. Azura sang her song, empowering Kamui to attack faster, cut deeper, and guard stronger. They were winning, Kamui thought happily. That is, until Garon surprised them both by parrying Kamui’s thrust with his axe while using his other hand to knock Azura to the side with a sickening crunch.

“Azura!” Kamui cries. To her relief, she heard Azura reply with a winded, “I’m okay.”

Kamui took advantage of Garon’s next wide swing by ducking underneath the blade and slashing his knees in retaliation. He fell to the ground. Despite the wound, he only looked agitated. “I should have killed you when I had the chance.”

This was maddening. Kamui screamed back, “You’re speaking in circles! Which is it? Why didn’t you?”

Garon stood shakily; Kamui half expecting him to pass out. To her surprise, he charged again, cutting into her shoulder before she could move. Kamui yelped and quickly stepped out of the way before he could cut through the limb. It was by sheer luck that he didn’t hit any vital tendons or ligaments; Sakura could heal it later. Kamui tested the Yato in her other grip, making due with her non-dominant hand as blood dripped from her useless arm.

With him so close, she lunged with all her strength, pierced the gaps of his armor, and sent the sword through his stomach. Her opponent let out a bloodcurdling scream, coughing blood onto her as he once again fell to his knees, “Because you - you could get to Mikoto.” Bolverk slipped from his grasp, barely cutting her toes. “Because this was a test. A test to see if you had what it took to rule the dark, grand country of Nohr. And my child,” his gaze bore into her eyes, “you passed.” Kamui twisted the Yato in further; her hands were slick with splattered red. Garon continued to cough, rasp, grate as she stepped back.

The former king of Nohr was smiling in death with what seemed to be the delirious murmurings of a dying man, “Ah, Arete, to be with you again...Perhaps all I wanted was the sweet release of death.”

Sakura’s worried voice piped up as Kamui, grasping her injured shoulder, moved away, “K-kamui, are-are you ok?!”

She looked up and saw her little sister in tears. Kamui tried so hard to smile because this was Sakura, her precious sister who should have never needed to see the war. She replied back, “Yeah - I’m am. It’s only a small injury.”

In addition to Sakura, Ryoma was standing protectively a few feet away but never chose to interfere. He understood it was her fight alone with Garon and it was only honorable to let her finish. Takumi was behind a pillar, a few feet away from Ryoma. He peeked towards her when he heard Garon collapse. His Fujin Yumi was set despite the cold shoulder he had always directed at her. Hinoka was standing next to poor Sakura, mirroring Ryoma. Kamui spoke louder, addressing them and their retainers, “It’s over. Hoshido has won the war.”

Sakura’s rod brushed Kamui, mending her injured shoulder with a cooling breeze. “Thanks, Sakura,” Kamui says before addressing the others, “It’s been a long battle, everyone go on ahead to rest and celebrate.”

“Wh-what about Azura?” Sakura asks.

“I should be well enough to help Azura.”

Sakura looked ready to protest until Hinoka chastised her, “It’s alright; remember that Kamui is a budding healer. She can help Azura and take her to you if anything else is more severe.” Hinoka waved as she started to leave, dragging the younger girl with her; Ryoma and Takumi followed suit. Kamui gave them a comforting smile. Things were alright, right?

Kamui saw the blue-haired girl out of the corner of her eye, carefully maneuvering past the rubble. She turned to greet her, to thank her for the help. That is, until she saw Azura collapse forward onto the ground.

-----

Kamui looks back to Sakura’s crying; she had once thought of it to be of relief. Sakura was staring at her bloodied clothes that no amount of washing could remove. The white of her uniform was stained with the blood of her’s, Azura’s, Garon’s and countless others. It’s proof of her victories. It’s proof of Nohr’s defeat. It’s proof that she didn’t bring peace, that she was the warbringer. And Kamui doesn’t know how to stop. Sakura wasn’t relieved; she was frightened at what her sister had become.

Kamui carries Azura to the entrance of the throne room where the others are waiting. How much of a failure could she be? She was unable to live up to Mikoto’s name; she could still see her dead mother shaking her head sadly yet again. Of course Mikoto would have found a way to peacefully unite the two countries. Her siblings had been so proud of her only a few moments ago; she doesn’t want to see the look of disgust when they realize she killed their adopted sister. Kamui could see it now: Ryoma’s distant eyes telling her that she’s a scam; she isn’t MIkoto’s daughter.

The others all cry when they see Azura hang lifelessly from Kamui’s arms. Ryoma is struggling to maintain composure while Hinoka and Sakura sob visibly. Even Takumi turns his head away. They say condolences to her, to each other, but Kamui is not paying attention anymore. She stumbles out of Castle Krakenburg in a half-dazed, dream-like state.

Kamui boards Hinoka’s pegasus and sees the city as Garon had described, void of residents. She sees the roaring fire, the falling roofs, and the breaking walls. She smells the sulfur, chlorine, and soot that permeates the air. Kamui thinks back to Garon’s words. No, Azura, we didn’t achieve peace. She doesn’t know how Nohr can ever recover as Hoshido continues to prosper. The Nohrians can only cower in fear as brigands raid while the new monarch attempts to bring about a semblance of stability. She didn’t fix anything; it’s nothing like what Mikoto would have wanted.

Kamui still can’t get rid of the thought even by the time they arrive back in Hoshido. Garon’s right; it’s her birthright to rule, like her mother, father, and step-father. She can’t take over Hoshido - she doesn’t want to as Ryoma is destined for the title. Ruling Nohr, on the other hand, could be her chance to let her siblings see she can truly bring peace, that she is worthy of being Mikoto’s daughter.

She knocks on the crown prince’s room late one night, sliding the screen door after she hears his muffled greeting. Kamui asks Ryoma about the surrendered country.

[xtremedespair3d]

Anime Fall 2018 Final Impressions + Plans for Winter 2019

We’re now at the end of the Fall season and 2018 as a whole, but for now let’s focus on the shows I’ve seen this season:

Normally I would write my warning that these lists may contain spoilers but surprisingly they don’t feature spoilers here (or probably haven’t been featured in the previous lists, to be honest). I also noticed there isn’t an ongoing from Summer, so that’s kind of surprising too.

AOTS #1-A: Gakuen Basara: I’m no Sengoku Basara person but I had a good time with this show, the animation is not the best, but the humor was gold. My only complaint is that it was broadcast on October 4 (my birthday), raw torrents were nowhere to be found and I had to wait until the next day and I watch the show on Fridays instead of Thursdays, well, at least I had Zombieland Saga. Despite the schedules and poor animation (like gratuitous CG background people), Gakuen Basara is everything I wanted it to be for a school parody anime since Attack on Titan: Junior High. (Maybe I should binge the Sengoku Basara anime sometime...) 8/10 - Rank: A-.

AOTS #1-B: Zombieland Saga: One of the best original anime I’ve seen yet and a solid birthday anime, and I barely see this as a Cygames IP as I kept watching it. Amazing performances, especially Mamoru Miyano, maybe his character is his best one yet.

I genuinely want a second season, the tease at the end is too good to pass on becoming a full storyline (or subplot), and I don’t care if it’s going to be as shit as Rage of Bahamut: Virgin Soul, I just want it, already. 9/10 - Rank: S+.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 5: FIGHTING GOOOOLD!!! Another solid part of JoJo, my only complaint with the JoJo anime in general is that I’m not fond with the voice actor changes, some of them are good, some of them aren’t, the thing is that I’m mostly associated with the games like All Star Battle and Eyes of Heaven, it’s a little weird for me but it’s true. 9/10 - Rank: S.

Goblin Slayer: It may have caused quite a controversy from the first episode alone, but overall, does the anime adaptation even work? Parts of the animation, like action scenes and all, aren’t that great, even Goblin Slayer is animated in CG frequently, but everything else looks decent even by White Fox standards (see Re:Zero, even that one looks way better than this). 7/10 - Rank: B-.

SSSS.GRIDMAN: I’m no tokusatsu person but this was a solid tokusatsu-based anime, and a solid Trigger show post-Franxx, speaking of which, seems like I haven’t seen a lot of hate like it did with Franxx, so I guess the reception for GRIDMAN is positive at best. Also, my Twitter timeline is always full of Rikka and Akane lewds, mostly Rikka’s (but I prefer Akane because I’m a boobs person). 8/10 - Rank: A-.

Gaikotsu Shotenin Honda-san: This one wasn’t in my radar until I kept seeing tweets of the old man buying a yaoi book for his daughter, that made me watch the show and it’s pretty good. This reminded me why I like going to the bookstore from a shopping mall. 7.5/10 - Rank: B.

Golden Kamuy season 2 (+ overall review): Everyone seems incredibly disappointed and offended with how the Golden Kamuy anime turned out, especially CG animals, but I found it fun and decent to make up for it. 7/10 - Rank: B-.

Senran Kagura Shinovi Master Tokyo Youma Hen: Aside from the fan service (which, not gonna lie, is something I always look for), I felt like I wasn’t a big fan of this storyline but I guess it was alright. 6.5/10 - Rank: C+.

Ace Attorney season 2: I had originally dropped the show at episode 5 but later I caught up until at episode 9 and I kept watching it. It was pretty weird for me to watch the entirety of season 1 but not watching season 2. 6/10 - Rank: C+.

Tokyo Ghoul:re season 2 (+ overall review): This second season is probably Tokyo Ghoul Root A 2.0 but much worse. Even if I haven’t read the manga, I had no idea what the fuck was happening. I genuinely prefer the first season more than this one. Once again, Pierrot fucked up. Season 1: 7/10 - Rank: B/Season 2: 5/10 - Rank: D.

If Sui Ishida were to make another manga (if he chooses to), I hope it could be adapted by a better studio than Pierrot. But to be honest, he seems better off working as an illustrator than a mangaka, just look at some records that the Tokyo Ghoul fan base was wild.

Dropped:

Bakumatsu: I don’t need to explain this one much since it’s a show that came out on my birthday, whatever show I watch, if they don’t convince me enough with the first episode, I’d drop them, and it’s basically what I did here.

Onto the show itself, this genuinely reminded me of Touken Ranbu with the time travel stuff, but everything else, eh... not much of my thing. The funniest thing I can highlight is that the characters have their factions imprinted on their hair lighting.

Honorable mentions:

Angels of Death: ...Yeah, there’s a good reason why do I have to bring Angels of Death like it’s some sort of ongoing, but it’s not actually a two-cour series, it’s actually 16 episodes, the 4 ONAs to end the series.

Honestly, I thought they were going to leave it at episode 12 on the TV broadcast and the final episodes should have been on Blu-Ray but they’re available online or something (They’re called ONAs for a reason...). At least they didn’t shoehorn 12 episodes of rushed story like Pierrot with Tokyo Ghoul.

You can read my final thoughts on the show overall on the previous post about the summer anime shows here.

Hiatus:

Attack on Titan season 3: Yeah, AoT somehow disappeared off the air... until Spring 2019. That’s the most baffling moves I’ve ever seen, but there has to be a good reason for it.

There might have been some sort of production issues or something, but it’s so weird that I’m gonna have to wait a long time to watch the second cour.

Now that the manga is gonna end, either there’s gonna be a 12-episode season 4 or WIT might rush to the finale or make an anime original ending or something.

At least they gave us the weirdest teaser for the second cour ever.

Now, let’s move on with my plans for Winter 2019! (Should really write down what shows to watch and when they’re coming out because I tend to forget some, I’m 19 and I got bad memory...)

The Promised Neverland - January 10th: While I don’t read the manga, I’ve always been following DemizuPosuka for her gorgeous art style, from what I’ve seen from CMs, the art style seems pretty faithful, I’m interested to see how this goes.

Mob Psycho 100 II - January 7th: I’m really happy it’s getting a new season, I wish One Punch Man S2 could have been a Winter anime so I could have a ONE combo but OPM being on Spring and Mob Psycho 100 on Winter is the closest I get to a ONE combo like I wanted.

I wonder if this season will adapt all the way to the finale, but if it’s going to be a one-cour season, I don’t think Bones would skip a ton of chapters and rush the story to the end a la Pierrot with Tokyo Ghoul, it may adapt the middle of it and if it gets a third season, that’s where it would adapt the final chapters. (Hasn’t read the manga at all.)

Kemurikusa - January 9th: With the departure from the Kemono Friends franchise (no thanks, Kadokawa), I wonder what would have been Tatsuki’s fate of making new anime (other than doing shorts and posting them on Twitter), but it seems like they were working on an anime project and it turns out to be an all-new series of the original multi-part web series. One question I’ve always had for a while was if this was a prequel or a reboot of the series, but we’ll find out when we start watching it and go through until the end.

Kemono Friends season 2 - January 7th: This one is either something I’m really not looking forward or cautiously optimistic, either way, I just want to see how will season 2 perform without Tatsuki. Many people are most likely gonna be boycotting this or definitely gonna watch it but for a different reason, being that the animation looks better than the first one (Please, don’t disrespect Tatsuki and the charm on studio Yaoyoruzu’s animation).

As of the writing of this post (Dec.11), the teaser trailer currently sits at 49k dislikes over 5.5k likes and over 8k comments, and at the same time, there was a BTS (Behind-The-Scenes) photo and from what I’ve seen in the replies, the reception is surprisingly positive albeit one Japanese person with the “Bring back Tatsuki!” mood, I do mean it because I thought it would always have negative press, but I think the teaser trailer is its own thing with negativity.

Still gonna watch it, regardless, because I’m on a mission to keep an eye on the future of the Kemono Friends franchise post-Tatsuki, at least on anime like the Japari Park short series, because games, like the Picross game released on October 4th (my birthday. Thanks, I hate it, Kadokawa) for the Nintendo Switch because I don’t own a Switch.

Kakegurui season 2 - January 8th: I’m still baffled how it’s getting a second season after the anime original ending from the first one. I really wonder if they’re gonna follow up from the anime original ending or they’re gonna retcon that ending and redo it with whatever went from the manga from the Yumeko vs Kirari match (Still haven’t read it and I’m lazy to do so).

Boogiepop wa Warawanai - January 4th: So I guess this is Shingo Natsume/Madhouse’s next anime besides One Punch Man season 2, huh? Regardless, seeing trailers of it, looks really nice, but then there were reports that the illustrator of the light novel series wasn’t really happy with the look of the character designs in the anime and it was all Kadokawa’s lack of communication, basically Kadokawa is back doing some property damages but not as scarring as Kemono Friends, so I think things are still gonna turn out alright.

Ikki Tousen Western Wolves - January 3rd: Kind of surreal there’s a new Ikki Tousen in this near-2020 age, as of the writing of this (Dec.10), I need to start binging the series now (even if there’s so many god damn seasons to get through and it’s gonna take me forever).

Manaria Friends - January 20th: This one seems interesting, it was in development since 2015 and it was supposed to come out in 2016 but for some reason it was put on hold, it was originally produced by studio Hibari but now it’s gone completely reworked by a brand new anime studio from Cygames called CygamesPictures. I never actually followed the news of Manaria Friends, so learning about it now feels kind of cheated.

I always thought it had the Rage of Bahamut in the title but it must have been removed (or maybe moetron always tweeted with the Shingeki no Bahamut title with it).

Regardless, after Rage of Bahamut: Genesis and Virgin Soul (the latter which is the most hated, I’m still confused why it is the worst season if I can even process what did I just watch, whateverl, like I care), Manaria Friends seems like it’s going to be a better Rage of Bahamut anime, I may be exaggerating but it could really be. (I’m not really a RoB person so can’t say...)

W’z - January 5th: This is GoHands’ next anime project, it’s going to either make or break as much as Hand Shakers. After the HS flop, I ironically want GoHands to succeed with new ideas and stuff besides the K series. Also, how the fuck do you pronounce W’z?

Mini Toji - January 5th: Thought I’d give up on Toji no Miko after the base show? Apparently not. This one’s a chibi spin-off and it’s going to feature the characters from the game, so it sounds interesting. At least this one is going to be 11 episodes long, instead of two-cours like the base show.

BanG Dream! season 2 - January 3rd: This one’s 50/50 because, first of all, I’d love to watch a new Sanzigen anime because I need more Sanzigen in my life, second of all, Bandori isn’t much my thing (I’m lazy to binge the first season and I got other anime to binge too).

...Despite what I just said, I think I might really consider watching it, after all and the third season in October, I don’t really need to watch the first season, I guess. (I lied, I might binge the first season now)

The thing about Bandori S2 and S3 being full CG is like a Monster Strike situation where the first season was 2D hand drawn and the second season went full CG, but the third season came back to be hand drawn with a bit of CG, it’s weird and inconsistent for Monster Strike, at least Bandori will remain CG.

Virtualsan Looking - January 9th: Okay, what the fuck, I did not expect this to exist out of the blue. I genuinely never expected an anime centered on VTubers, particularly centered on known names like Mirai Akari, Siro and others would one day exist and that day is here (No Kizuna AI and Kaguya Luna here, strangely).

On December 18th, the trailer, a preview of the opening and the website were launched (see thread by moetron). As for the opening, I felt like they could have chosen the hand drawn animation as shown in 5 seconds because I want to see a full series with the VTubers fully hand drawn animated, but oh well, maybe they would be faithful to their 3D appearances (but Tsukino Mito is kind of Live2D-ish but she was turned into 3D at some point).

Speaking of the trailer, it doesn’t show what the story is about or anything, it just focuses on the VTubers featured in it.

I mean, the concept of a VTuber-focused anime is a good idea and something I didn’t know I desire, but this one, even with its vague teasers, it has potential, could be fun or could be hot garbage, just saying.

Lupin the 3rd: Goodbye Partner - January 25th: I genuinely forgot this existed after it was revealed last month, but hey, there’s a new special happening. I still want a new season of Lupin the 3rd, hopefully as good as this year’s season or even better.

This concludes the list of what shows did I watch this Fall season and what I’m looking forward next season, in the next post, my New Year’s post, I’ll address my overall list of my personal best anime of the year, stay tuned and happy New Year.

Twitter: @HKomaeda.

[recentanimenews]

Peter's Fall 2018 Anime Premiere Recommendations

It feels like only yesterday I was writing this article for the winter season and I’m already giving my recommendations for the final season of the year. 2018 has been another great anime and fall looks to be ready to close it out in style with some returning fan favorite series like JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind, Golden Kamuy, Sword Art Online Alicization, and Fairy Tail, but there are a ton of new series that are already showing a ton of promise.

Having watched every single premiere so far I have, as usual, found a bunch of gems among the many anime getting their start this season. Here are my top 5 recommendations for fall 2018 based entirely on their first episode!

Run With the Wind

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this series that came into the season with so little fanfare but wow was it visually stunning. I tend to have a soft spot for sports series--it’s keeping me around that’s the hard part--but even beyond my personal proclivities, every single moment of the episode felt so beautifully orchestrated, even fitting in some awesome animation in between a considerable number of character introductions. A penniless thief who relies on his speed for quick getaways finding himself the newest member an all-male dorm about to be coerced by one of their members into running an insane marathon is certainly a strange premise. I don’t want to set expectations too high, but I’m getting some major A Place Further than the Universe vibes.

ZOMBIE LAND SAGA

The production committee played things super close to the chest in advance of this anime, giving out almost zero information about the show beyond some key art, title, and the insane ramblings of its lead voice actor Mamoru Miyano. What might normally be considered a bad business move feels like genius now. Coming into this show cold is probably the perfect way to experience it, which puts me in a rough spot sharing why it’s so good. Read on only if you don’t mind spoilers or, just trust me on this one, and watch it. It’s got all the makings of an idol anime except for the unfortunate death of the lead which leads to her pursuing her passion posthumously and necessitates a musical genre shift to death metal. It’s crazy funny, defies your expectations multiple times, and I still have no idea what to expect next.

SSSS.GRIDMAN

The first thing I thought when watching Gridman for the first time was “this doesn’t feel anything like a TRIGGER anime,” which might be a dealbreaker for a lot of people, but stick with me. I eventually did see a bit of that TRIGGER glimmer in the character designs and their interactions, but much of the first episode felt very muted and atmospheric. A lot of time was given to unnerving shots of urban decay matched alongside dialogue from the main characters that was decidedly pessimistic and the silhouette of a massive kaiju standing over the city. Then the episode finishes with a massive tokusatsu-style battle with all the kids coming together and using their unique talents to save the day. It was a huge shift, but the transition felt so natural and… right? I’m not usually a tokusatsu fan and TRIGGER has talked up the new techniques they’re going to be experimenting with on this anime, so I feel like I’m in for a lot more surprises.

That Time I got Reincarnated as a Slime

Before I talk about this show, I want you to know I’m super burnt out on isekai anime. I felt like the only two I could still have any hope of looking forward to are anything Re:ZERO forever and the upcoming So I’m a Spider, So What? Basically the last thing I expected was to end up putting this anime in my top 5 recommendations, but here we are. Normally the first thing that happens to the main character after they’re taken to another world is they do something really impressive to show off how great they are and set the tone. Our newly born slime coming across a dragon who, locked in a cave for 300 years, was starved for company, resulting in some tsundere interactions where it tried to keep the main character around while maintaining its dignity, did two great things. It took the focus off the main character to indicate the author had things they wanted to do with the world itself and showed a really wicked sense of humor--the PC in the bathtub being a perfect punchline.

RADIANT

There are so many reasons to be excited about this show as the first anime adaptation of a widely read shonen manga originally published in French. The success of this  show could mean all sorts of things for the future of the Japanese manga and anime markets and I’m pretty damn excited, especially because the manga is good! Master scenario writer Makoto Uezu seems to be speeding toward to good parts as he cut a lot of fat off the first chapters and so far the animation looks to be doing some serious justice to Valente’s awesome art. As we’re headed into the first real fight, there’s not too much to report back on yet, so recommending this might be cheating a bit, but everything shows a ton of promise. For example, Romi Park plays the gruff, one-armed mentor. That alone would have me waiting in line for this anime.

Short Shout-out: Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san

Including this because there are always a few short anime each season that are criminally underwatched and, well, Honda-san was just that good. This easily digestible comedy short has a pretty self descriptive title, Honda works at a bookstore and is a skeleton. This may seem out of the ordinary but none of the customers seem too surprised and many of his coworkers are monster of some type so I guess we’re just supposed to accept it. Having to explain to a bewildered dad what “yaoi” means and figure out communication with foreigners looking to buy shonen manga and BL, on the other hand, feels like a very believable problem for his line of work and the comedic timing is perfect.

Those are my top 5--or 6--recommendations for the season, but they’re far from the only great premieres these past two weeks. For those looking for lighthearted laughs, Anima Yell!, Between the Sky and the Sea, and Ms. Vampire who lives in my neighborhood. all had great premieres. RErideD - Derrida, who leaps through time and Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai both made strong showings with some supernatural mystery. For those who want more fights need look no further than Hinomaru Sumo and DOUBLE DECKER! DOUG & KIRILL.

As always, I hope this list helped you find some new anime to fall in love with and, if I didn’t give your favorite shows the love it deserves, leave a comment to let others know! You might help someone else find their favorite anime of the season!

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Peter Fobian is an Associate Features Editor for Crunchyroll, author of Monthly Mangaka Spotlight, writer for Anime Academy, and contributor at Anime Feminist. You can follow him on Twitter @PeterFobian.

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[goldenkamuyhunting]

Golden Kamuy re-reading: CHAP 7: ‘The escape king’

Trasposed in: Episode 2 ‘Nopperabō’

Currently the story is at: Chap 172: ‘On the banks of Lake Akan’ (scanlated), Chap 173: ‘My Ghost’ (raw)

What follows are my ramblings over Golden Kamuy chapter by chapter, comprehensive of summary of the chapter, comparisons with the anime transposition, spoilers, theories, discussions about how a page or a panel was drawn and whatever else caught my attention.

As Golden Kamuy hasn’t ended yet I might miss some details that will be relevant in the future or make a wrong theory (or change my mind in the future on that theory). Consider yourself warned.

Also occasionally you’ll find ramblings for the covers or the extra contained in the volumes.

CHAP 7: ‘The escape king’

The cover of the new chapter shows Shiraishi and Sugimoto still falling.

The story then starts with them ending up in the river (the same Ogata ended up in? Maybe…) and makes obvious how falling in a river in Hokkaido isn’t exactly a nice thing as the water is deadly cold. However, either the water in that point is actually pretty low, or Sugimoto and Shiraishi reached immediately low water because next we see is they can stand in it. They run out of it, finding the cold so terrible they can hardly cope with it. Sugimoto comes up with the idea of lighting a fire, or they’ll freeze to death. The narration in fact tell us they only have ten minutes to light it before they’ll die for the cold.

Even if it’s possible it wasn’t so terribly cold when Ogata fell in the river (but I won’t bet on it as Golden Kamuy started in late February hence it’s more likely the water was even colder when Ogata fell in it) he probably stood in it longer… or remained on the riverbank longer without being able to light a fire as he was found at dusk… which gives you an idea of how amazing it was despite his injuries and the cold how he managed to survive.

We’re also explained how the cold affects the brain, making harder to think.

Meanwhile Asirpa is waiting for Sugimoto, thinking she really wants to eat the hare, which I guess is supposed to be a scene that, considering Sugimoto’s situation, is meant to break the drama and insert a comedic effect. The scene is not in the anime because it was inserted much sooner, when Sugimoto started chasing Shiraishi.

It’s also a scene that define one of Asirpa’s main character traits, how she’s often hungry.

Meanwhile Sugimoto thinks he can use the bullets in his rifle to start a fire… only his rifle remained above the cornice from which they fell (how many times Ogata has to tell people never leave their guns? Though if Sugimoto had it, it would have gotten wet and, if he were to fire with it, it would have broken so no big deal…). His bullets too have fallen into the river. Telling to himself he’ll surely survive as he’s the immortal Sugimoto he tosses himself into the river to search for the bullets. He asks Shiraishi to help him but Shiraishi proposes him a deal. He’ll help him if he promises he’ll let him go.

This makes even more clear how counterproductive it was Sugimoto’s threatening technique. Shiraishi was SO SURE Sugimoto was out to murder him his actions are ruled by this idea. Not only he doesn’t answer to Sugimoto’s questions but he doesn’t even cooperate when his life is in danger because he thinks it’ll be a wasted effort if Sugimoto is going to kill him later on.

Sugimoto sort of wastes precious time discussing Shiraishi’s deal.

Fist Sugimoto claims that’s not the time to make a deal, then, when Shiraishi claims if he’s to die he prefers to do so watching Sugimoto freeze, Sugimoto insists they weren’t going to kill him but just to keep him captive until they were to find the gold. Now… since that wasn’t the time to discuss things, it’s a bit weird Sugimoto wasted time talking when he could have just said ‘yes’ because, supposedly, not killing Shiraishi was part of the plan… unless the cold is affecting his thought processes as well… but well, I think if that was the case both he and Shiraishi shouldn’t be able to make a coherent discussion. Anyway the point of concern is another.

Really, how fast Sugimoto assumed it would be to find the gold? Or how long he exactly planned to keep Shiraishi and whatever other escape convict imprisoned? And where? Either we’re to assume Sugimoto was secretly thinking to kill them when Asirpa wasn’t looking OR that he believed she would change her mind and be okay with killing them later OR that their plan is beyond naive OR the plot of the story is a bit shaky here.

And since we’re talking about shaky… okay, they caught the first escape convict because maybe he underestimated them and thought he could kill them (which was bold of him as he wasn’t that big of a deal apparently) but why Shiraishi let himself be drawn there? Was he curious to see who was searching the escape convicts? He’s not really planning to collect the skins as he isn’t willing to face Ushiyama or Hijikata or Henmi…

Maybe, Shiraishi was just curious but still this point is never addressed. Surely Shiraishi didn’t think to kill Sugimoto and Asirpa so it’s not like he only wanted to get rid of who could be chasing after his skin…

Anyway Sugimoto accepts the deal (in the anime he resists a little longer but it’s not a big trouble) and it turns out that Shiraishi also had hidden in his mouth a bullet.

The two of them finally manage to light a fire, then use it to warm themselves up and dry their clothes.

As they wait together Shiraishi shows he’s now willing to talk (see Sugimoto? Not threatening people can bring you far with certain people…).

Shiraishi tells Sugimoto the prisoners were 24 but he has no idea if many of them are alive… which seems to support the idea they had started to massacre each other… Shiraishi also admits he doesn’t know about Nopperabō’s friends as the only one who does is the leader who took charge of the escape (which will turn out to be Hijikata).

This is relevant because, if Shiraishi is being honest, it means Hijikata didn’t mention to him how they should search for Kochōbe Asuko… so Kiroranke knowing about how Nopperabō directed the convicts to search for her should have made him suspicious…

As Sugimoto asks Shiraishi which sort of man was the guy who took charge of the escape Shiraishi admits at first he thought it was just an old man who was a political prisoner, someone very quiet.

When the escape took place though, Shiraishi realized it was all an act. The guy took possession of a sword and killed in a second three soldiers.

The scene also shows us three prisoners who took possession of two rifles and a gun to threaten the other guards. One of them should be Nihei as he claimed he also killed the guards.

Anyway it turns out that Shiraishi thinks the leader is a samurai from the Shogunate, Hijikata Toshizou, the vice commander of the Shinsengumi who supposedly died at the Hakodate battle.

Shiraishi also tells Sugimoto that Nopperabō told them to head for Otaru but, as said before, he didn’t mention how they were meant to search for Kochōbe Asuko. I tend to think Shiraishi had no idea about it. The bit about Otaru isn’t something Sugimoto asked him about so there was no reason to give him a partial info. Shiraishi could have given him the complete one at that point yet he didn’t. Why not to mention about Kochōbe Asuko? Could it be because he didn’t know about her?

Anyway Sugimoto tells Shiraishi that the next time they would meet him he would take his tattoo… and here I facepalm because… Sugimoto, really, where had it ended the ‘we weren’t going to kill you’ thing you told Shiraishi before? Did you change your mind because Shiraishi helped you? Or was it all a lie? Or are you trying to scare Shiraishi afraid of you when it would be enough he were afraid of the 7th? Besides why would you need taking his tattoo? You have already copied it...

The good part in this mess is it could be a mistake in the English scanlations. In the official translation from my country Sugimoto tells Shiraishi next time Shiraishi ends up captured by someone they will take his tattoos. The sentence is constructed so as to imply that someone isn’t Sugimoto but someone else (which ties nicely with how Sugimoto mentions the others who’re searching for those tattoos). I personally prefer to think this is the right translation and not the one in which Sugimoto threatens to kill Shiraishi but well, I can’t really judge as I can’t translate Japanese.

Sugimoto goes on saying Shiraishi should give up on the gold and leave Hokkaido as the other prisoners and Nopperabō’s friends aren’t the only ones after the tattoos but there are also the 7th division (the visual showing an image of Ogata). Sugimoto adds that the others aren’t into copying the tattoos or taking the prisoners captives as they know the best thing is to kill them as the tattooed skins wouldn’t need to eat, are easy to carry around and wouldn’t escape.

Now… although he’s completely all right and it’s much easier to deal with tattooed skins than with captive prisoners, it’s still scary how Sugimoto coldly realized it… and… well, he is already showing he’s thinking at everyone else as a bad guy as he claims the others who’re chasing the convicts wouldn’t take time taking the prisoners captive or copying skins which is just his assumption as Hijikata DOES copies the skins and even makes alliances with the prisoners and some convicts weren’t interested at all in the gold or in harming the other convicts.

Shiraishi insists he’s the escape king so he’ll escape from whoever takes him captive in a cloud of smoke and it’s good how the visual takes advantage of the smoke of the fire to play with this idea, as if Shiraishi were about to disappear into it. It’s a pity the anime doesn’t take advantage of this idea as well as Shiraishi clearly only walks away.

In the anime though they have Sugimoto with a darken face as he watches Shiraishi leaving while in the manga he just watches him doing so.

It's worth to mention that this moment of peaceful interaction between the two can be viewed as the start of Shiraishi and Sugimoto's friendship... though their friendship will actually be something they'll build up slowly and that will be, in the beginning, merely a partnership. Personally I love how their relationship will grow and develop!

We switches back to the 7th division headquarter in Otaru where a soldier informs the first lieutenant Tsurumi of how Ogata had regained consciousness. To this Tsurumi replies by claiming he’ll pay him a visit.

Behind Tsurumi we can see the skin of a tattooed convict hanging on the wall... and I guess this means Tsurumi hadn’t started wearing it around yet.

Now… it would be really interesting to know what happened to Ogata while he was at the hospital. We know that, when he’ll met Tsurumi, he won’t be able to talk due to his broken jaw but managed to write ‘immortal’, hinting at Sugimoto’s involvement… and that he’ll remain in between life and death for a while… but that’s all. At a certain point Ogata will be healed and out of the hospital and, apparently, We know Ogata was already a member of the rebellion against Tsurumi PRIOR to ending up in the hospital… but we don’t know what was that something that happened AFTER his meeting with Sugimoto and caused him to feel ‘liberated’, hence he didn’t bother cutting his hair short when he left the hospital.

Oh well, we can only wait and see if this detail will be revealed.

With the scene of Tsurumi saying he’ll go meet Ogata ends the chapter, the first volume of Golden Kamuy and also the second episode.

In fact with only two episodes the anime managed to cover the whole first volume... however, while I understand they wanted to put as much plot as possible in those 12 episodes… the huge cuts about Sugimoto’s past which plagued this episode are a big deal.

Last but not least on the cover of the book, below the dust jacket, we can see Asirpa showing us how to wear an Attush, an Ainu type of clothing.

Also on the opening flap of the dust jaket there’s the writing “Kanto orwa yaku sak no arankep shinep ka isam” [Nothing comes from heaven without purpose] which is an Ainu proverb while on the ending flap of the dust jacket it’s included the coloured version of the image that was on the cover of chap 4.

I think this ends the info worth being mentioned about Vol 1. Next time we’ll move to volume 2!

[goldenkamuyhunting]

Golden Kamuy re-reading: CHAP 6: ‘Persecution’

Trasposed in: Episode 2 ‘Nopperabō’

Currently the story is at: Chap 171: ‘Karafuto Ainu punishment’ (scanlated), Chap 172: ‘On the banks of Lake Akan’ (raw)

What follows are my ramblings over Golden Kamuy chapter by chapter, comprehensive of summary of the chapter, comparisons with the anime transposition, spoilers, theories, discussions about how a page or a panel was drawn and whatever else caught my attention.

As Golden Kamuy hasn’t ended yet I might miss some details that will be relevant in the future or make a wrong theory (or change my mind in the future on that theory). Consider yourself warned.

Also occasionally you’ll find ramblings for the covers or the extra contained in the volumes.

CHAP 6: ‘Persecution’

We start a new chapter with Asirpa teaching Sugimoto how to capture hares… only to see that the hare they plan to catch was a human sized hare, Shiraishi.

I guess the idea is that this image works aslo as a cover for this chapter.

Anyway, basically, like the squirrel traps used in the previous chapter, the hare traps had been used to catch another escape convicted. Again I wonder if Sugimoto and Asirpa realized they could have killed Shiraishi instead than just catch him alive with a trap that basically was a rope that wrapped around his neck and pulled him up… but well, let’s let this slide.

The anime cuts the explanation about the hares, evidently thinking that it’s unnecessary and that readers can assume Shiraishi too was caught with a squirrel trap. They’re the same type of trap so it can work. There’s to say that this new chapter is also included in the second episode of the anime instead than standing alone in its own episode but the transition between the end of the previous scene (the 7th finding Ogata) and Shiraishi being captured is a bit abrupt…

Also the rope seems to be really tight around Shiraishi’s neck so really, it’s a wonder he didn’t have his windpipe crushed and died of suffocation.

Sugimoto labels Shiraishi prisoner number 2, as if to lull us into the idea he won’t be any different from prisoner number 1… except that… well… maybe... hopefully there won’t be Ogata around to kill him.

Or not.

Although Sugimoto had agreed to spare the prisoners he clearly finds things more comfortable when convicts ends up dead not because he enjoys killing but likely because he seems to think that convicts=bloodthirsty criminals=threats to his survival... and we know Sugimoto thinks that in order to survive he has to be the first to kill his opponent...

Besides, when he’ll expose his plan on what to do with the one he planned to keep them alive we’ll realize it’s... well, rather unpractical so…

Anyway Shiraishi ends up tied as well, with Asirpa drawing down his tattoo on some paper. Shiraishi though refuses to say a single word in answer to Sugimoto’s questions to the point Sugimoto wonders if the trap crushed Shiraishi’s windpipe, rendering him unable to speak.

It’s something that worries me because it means they were aware of this risk... and what makes it worse is that Sugimoto doesn’t really seem genuinely sorry… and while this could also be explained by how Shiraishi has no visible sign around his neck that would point out to a severe damage… (though, he probably should have some sign) Sugimoto so far isn’t being very sympathetic with the Abashiri convicts. As said before he’s likely assuming if they ended up in Abashiri they were all criminals but well, news flash Sugimoto, people who ended up unfairly convicted existed even in your time and actually if we’re to believe in his words, Wilk is innocent.

Long story short Sugimoto thinks that just by overpowering the convicts and, if necessary, threatening them, they all will obediently cooperate... and honestly, I think this modus operandi would have been a completely failure with many of them (discounting the fact it would be pretty hard for him to overpower some of them).

Okay, I still understand why Sugimoto feels like being unfriendly with those people but well, considering Sugimoto’s attitude and the situation, it’s not really surprising Shiraishi doesn’t feel like making friends with him and chat.

We’ll learn later on that, although Shiraishi is a pitiful fighter and one who wants to get himself in risky situation, he’s not one who let himself be intimidated so, really, Sugimoto’s idea of forcing him to give him info just because he has him tied down is really bad.

Shiraishi though finally decides to answer back to Sugimoto… but it’s to tell him he sees Sugimoto has his own pet Ainu and then he asks him if she can do any tricks.

A break here. Shiraishi’s words are more rude than they can look in Japanese as it seems Ainu (アイヌ) were discriminated also by calling them ‘dogs’ due to the following wordplay アッ、イヌ (“ah, inu” meaning “ah, a dog”). Hence even if it seems Shiraishi called Asirpa ‘Kaiinu’ (飼い犬 “Pet dog”) the reference to the above wordplay is evident and also explains why Asirpa will claim she’s used to this. Calling Ainu ‘dogs’ was a popular, degrading insult.

It’s hard to say what Shiraishi was thinking at the moment.

This is the only time we see Shiraishi insulting Asirpa due to her being an Ainu or making funs of Ainu in general (though in chap 47 he expected Kiro would be willing to trade huchen with candies... and while I don’t know the value of both at the time I get the feeling huchens are worth more than some candies...) so it’s possible that his rude words were merely due to the situation he was in, and not really aimed at offending Asirpa… in fact he spoke to Sugimoto and, although he does so by demeaning Asirpa, the words suggest distaste for Sugimoto who has her as his own ‘Ainu pet’. It’s not so weird that Shiraishi might assume Asirpa is Sugimoto’s possession or something like that, we saw a man previously, in chap 3, planning to sell Asirpa off, which hints at how this sort of things could happen.

Shiraishi, although always being interested in women, never expresses physical interest in Asirpa whom he sees as a child, so it can be he was just disgusted and aiming to offend only Sugimoto, though since Sugimoto is not even remotely seeing Asirpa in that way and the mere assumption Asirpa could be someone’s pet is offensive, it makes sense both Asirpa and Sugimoto would perceive it as offensive to Asirpa, not to Sugimoto.

Sugimoto in fact react violently, threatening Shiraishi to smash his jaw… which again isn’t the best thing to clear up things on how they don’t mean to kill him, or persuade Shiraishi talk… but well express how protective of Asirpa Sugimoto is slowly becoming.

Now... in chap 169 we’ll see Koito being offensive in regard to Ogata and some had wondered why Sugimoto didn’t react with the same intensity (though he claimed to find it a stupid joke)…

...but well, it makes sense he didn’t, as he’s not friend with Ogata, actually he’s murderously furious at him for killing Asirpa’s father, shooting at him and stealing Asirpa, never mentioning Koito is currently Sugimoto’s ally, not a random convict he just met. So really, I think what’s really meaningful here is that despite wishing to murder Ogata he still disliked people making such jokes, not that he didn’t feel like reacting like he did with Asirpa.

On another note I think it’s important for Sugimoto’s future development he’d heard Ogata too was subjected to have people speaking ill of him for things that weren’t his fault, especially if those people were people from the 7th, which Sugimoto blames Ogata for leaving without even knowing why Ogata did it (honestly Sugimoto, I don’t know if you would feel prone to be faithful to a bunch of guys who give you that sort of nickname as it’s clearly a nick which doesn’t inspire love toward the people who forced it on you…)

Back with the story Asirpa has to act as the mature person and tell Sugimoto to stop and… well, that she doesn’t mind it as she’s used to people saying things like that about her.

It hurts to see her doing this because she’s young and such words were cruel and yet… she heard them so many times she’s not reacting, she’s not even finding worth reacting to them. While her expression wasn’t pleased when Shiraishi said so, she’s not really flinching or cringing much… and she even ends up in the position of having to protect Shiraishi, who said such words, from Sugimoto.

Honestly, I think Shiraishi’s words had hurt her and her reaction or lack thereof is merely a psychological defence to deny such hurt.

Anyway Sugimoto at this point won’t say anything, he won’t even comfort her or voice his own thoughts which are absolutely sympathetic as he thinks Asirpa shouldn’t have gotten used to it which is a pity because Asirpa isn’t a mind reader so, if on the inside Asirpa is hurt and she’s just not showing, Sugimoto’s silence isn’t comforting her.

Meanwhile, as Sugimoto thinks Asirpa shouldn’t have gotten used to this sort of comments, Sugimoto’s face darkens, a visual clue he’s having dark thoughts/feelings and, then we immediately find out why Sugimoto reacted that way, why he can empathize so easily with Asirpa as a flashback starts and it explains that Sugimoto’s reaction is due to how he thinks he can relate, because he feels he’d been victim of something similar.

In the flashback we see a younger Sugimoto, one who is an adult but still didn’t have the scars on his face. Back then he was still living in his house, in his village. We learn that, when his family members got sick with consumption, he and his family started being discriminated by the other villagers in fear they would be infected as well.

People didn’t want to get close to him, they would held their breath and run as fast as they could if they were to pass in front of his house and suggest to burn it down.

Sugimoto likely sees this situation as similar to what Asirpa was going through as in that period he too was being discriminated, but while in his case discrimination was moved by fear of being infected, which would mean also fear to die, in Asirpa’s (and Ogata’s) case it’s just cruelty that moves people. Once fear of being infected would die down, people would stop discriminating Sugimoto… but cruelty instead is unlikely to end. Asirpa can’t stop being an Ainu (nor Ogata can stop being his mother’s son)… and, while Sugimoto’s situation is still horrible and cruel (he’s losing family members to an illness and fearing to be ill as well and instead than support he gets discrimination) it didn’t start when he had birth. Sugimoto had all the time to live in a normal environment, to be considered a normal person before fear of the sickness his family got turned tables on him.

What Sugimoto went through is a different kind of pain, one you feel when people abruptly and for no reasons start being horrible to you and you can realize the unfairness of it... but one which you can hope will end then the situation will revert back to normal.

On the other side Asirpa (and all the Ainu people in general) likely spent her whole life being considered in such way by not-Ainu with little or no hope things would change with just time. It’s no surprise people like Kiro feel they’ve to become rebels, terrorists, to force people to change and be acknowledged as normal human beings with equal rights.

So yes, Asirpa and Sugimoto’s situations are similar but nowhere near as equivalent… and no, this isn’t meant to say that one of them had it worse than the other. They simply had it DIFFERENTLY BAD.

Why is it relevant?

Sugimoto equates his experience with Asirpa’s, empathizing with her because he thinks they’re similar… but they’re actually not. So far the story hadn’t really addressed it and maybe it never will but this might cause Sugimoto to end up being ‘blind’ to Asirpa’s point of view because he could mistakenly think it should be as his own... which is a mistake Sugimoto, here and there, does in completely good faith.

But let’s dig into Sugimoto’s past more.

In the flashback we see Sugimoto actually had an ally in his village, Umeko, Toraji’s future wife. The fact she’s told she needs to give up on Saichi (if you’ve forgotten about it, Saichi is Sugimoto’s name), hints at Umeko’s feelings for him at how she’s not turning her back to him due to his family situation. We see her looking longingly at him while he’s standing inside his house. She also looks pained. She is suffering for him, for that situation.

While Sugimoto’s gaze as he looks at her seems emotionless (but he’s very, very likely just suppressing his feelings), she’s openly showing her own pain.

When Sugimoto’s house will start to burn during that night, she’ll run to check if Sugimoto was safe and, meeting him, she’ll express worry he might think one of the villagers might have done it.

It’s actually hard to say from a translation… but I think Umeko was hoping Sugimoto weren’t suspecting the villagers because it would only pain him further to think one of them could have burned his house.

Anyway the truth comes out.

It was no one else but Sugimoto the one who burned the house. Since he got a message saying his father died and there’s no one else, apart from him, who could call that house ‘home’ he burned it and decided to leave the village.

Now... I think the idea is that when his father got sick he was carried to a hospital or a sanatorium or something like that and died there but it’s actually not really clear.

Anyway look at Sugimoto’s gaze as he says so. It’s not as dark as it gets now but it has already that dark undertone.

Probably a part of the darkness inside Sugimoto’s heart had birth in that moment in which he felt he had to personally destroy his home, his place to return as he had no more a family, he felt he couldn’t stay with Umeko in fear of being sick and contagious and... was aware of how everyone else discriminated him.

In his own words there was nobody left to call that place home, which implies not even HIM would call it as such.

Now… it’ll be rather interesting how Golden Kamuy will, in the future, address the next part.

At the present we know that Sugimoto is a nice guy… and what he’ll do next will seem to confirm it… as it’s something nice guys do a lot of time in tales.

In fact Sugimoto will tell Umeko that she should marry Toraji, who loves her and would take care of her as her parents would like for her to do. When Umeko, crying, instead asks him to take her with him, he refuses, telling her to stay away because he might be sick as well, and how he doesn’t want to kill her. Then Sugimoto runs away, leaving Umeko behind.

We see that he actually thinks to stay away first one, then, he decides on two years, to see if he would grow sick and that he thinks if he doesn’t he could come back and then…

Even though he doesn’t say so it’s clear he wanted to come back for Umeko as he clearly hoped Umeko would have waited for him instead than marrying Toraji as he told her to do but… but when Sugimoto finally comes back Umeko is just marrying Toraji and Sugimoto can only watch the procession, smiling.

Now… on a superficial observer it can seem Sugimoto did the noble thing. Undoubtedly Sugimoto meant well, he loved Umeko and will never stop to love her and he wanted to protect her… but at the same time he didn’t consider Umeko at all.

He told Umeko what she should do (marry Toraji even though Umeko had feelings for him just because Toraji loved her and he trusted Toraji to take care of her). When Umeko made clear she preferred to come with him, he totally rejected her proposition and left her behind without explaining her anything…as he’ll try to do with Asirpa in chap 14.

While Sugimoto is prioritizing Umeko’s safety, while Sugimoto is trying not to keep Umeko tied to him in fear he won’t manage to come back... at the same time he’s disregarding her as a person capable of taking adult decisions and as a partner. He’s deciding for her, he’s not trusting her to be capable to chose on her own, to face the situation on her own, to even find a way to stay close to him that wouldn’t endanger her. He decided for her and forced his decision on her by escaping without even giving her an explanation beyond that he was worried to infect her.

He decided for her, he disregarded her decisions, her feelings but he still hoped she would wait for him… EVEN IF HE DIDN’T DARE TO TELL HER HE PLANNED TO COME BACK FOR HER IF HE WERE TO SURVIVE. He didn’t ask her to wait for him. For all she knows he might not meant to return even if he weren’t to get sick. She might have feared what he went through due to the villagers might have pushed him to want to stay away from the village and her as well forever.

Sugimoto is a nice guy, but, in his wish to be nice with the others, to take care of them, without realizing it he ends up forgetting they’re their own people.

He’s not trying to be mean to Umeko, he TRULY, GENUINELY only wants to protect her, leaving her should be EXTREMELY painful for him, he probably didn’t ask her to wait for him because, if he were to die, he didn’t want Umeko to wait for him when he wouldn’t be able to turn back but… but in doing so he’s not keeping the person that Umeko is in consideration.

Truth to be told, at those times it was very, very, unlikely that someone would keep a woman’s opinion into consideration. Sugimoto’s belief that he knows better than Umeko, that he doesn’t truly have to explain himself to Umeko, that he doesn’t have to discuss things with her, that the most she could do is wait for him, fits perfectly how the relationship male/female were at time… so it’s extremely amazing to see how Asirpa, the new kind of Ainu woman for a new age, will be the one to try to stuck in his head how wrong he was in trying to leave her behind for her own safety without even asking her about her opinion on that topic (see chap 20 ).

I don’t know if Sugimoto can draw the parallel between Asirpa and Umeko, how he tried to leave both for their own good and how Asirpa told him how wrong his idea was, but I think it’s sort of amazing such thoughts were put into the story as, as said before, many tales would just support Sugimoto and disregard the feelings of the person who’s left behind. I also think this too will be very important for Sugimoto’s future development.

Even though Sugimoto and Asirpa are supposedly partners, we’ll see their relationship change and evolve. While Sugimoto will grow to be further and further protective of Asirpa, he won’t try to leave her anymore and he’ll slowly learn to trust her more and more.

We know Sugimoto plans to return to Umeko. If the idea is that they’ll have to elope, I like to think that the Sugimoto who’ll return to Umeko (or to whatever person he’ll pair up with if it won’t be Umeko) will finally be a man who can see his loved one as an equal partner, thanks to Asirpa’s teaching.

And now let’s go back to the story.

As said before Umeko apparently didn’t wait Sugimoto but married Toraji. Truth to be told, as Sugimoto is back likely after two years if not more, Umeko has waited… even though she actually had no reason to. Sugimoto has fundamentally dumped her, leaving her with no obligation to wait for him.

Still Umeko in the end decided that Toraji, the man who refused to give up on her, the man who would fight Sugimoto even if he knew he couldn’t win him, was worth her love and loyalty. We don’t know what exactly happened between the two of them, maybe Umeko’s feelings for him evolved or maybe she never loved him like she did with Sugimoto but still managed to love him enough to want to marry him but we’ll see that, even when Sugimoto will be back, Umeko will stick to her decision to be with Toraji.

Umeko is a woman with a strong character, like Asirpa. If Sugimoto had taken her with him or had worked together a decision with her, she would have stuck by it. Abandoned by Sugimoto, she didn’t pine on him like Ogata’s mother did, but managed to find the strength to react and find another person worthy of her and her love… and after Toraji’s death and Sugimoto’s… disappearance, she’s still doing her best to take care of her own child.

Umeko is a very, very minor character of Golden Kamuy so far, so minor the anime cut out most of her already small role, but she’s still a cool woman.

Sugimoto shows he’s kind by accepting her decision. He won’t show up to disrupt her marriage, he’ll smile as he sees the procession. He’s again choosing for Umeko (and Toraji as, at this point, he’s also involved in the equation) but he’s again meaning well and, like previously, his choice is a painful one. He’s smiling, we’ll see he’ll keep on smiling when Toraji will face him, but he’s probably suffering A LOT on the inside. He’ll never stop loving Umeko… and maybe in his decision not to show up and meet her and Toraji, there’s also the wish to protect not only the two of them, which are the people he cares for the most, but himself as well.

In those two years he probably lived with the hope to come back home and find Umeko waiting for him… and instead he comes back home to find he just lost her. Maybe, as he’s smiling and forcing himself to accept he lost her, he’s at the same time wondering if, had he come back maybe only a day earlier, this would have been enough to make things different… this would have been enough to make Umeko chose him over Toraji...

What ifs are the worst form of torture but, even if Sugimoto weren’t indulging in them, this should still be VERY painful.

It’s interesting how Golden Kamuy is also a collection of characters who has no home or can’t go back home anymore. Home, the safe place that would heal the wounds in their souls, is also a place they can’t return to. They long for it yet they can’t go back.

Tanigaki will be the first to voice this clearly, but it’s definitely a common problem. Sugimoto, Ogata, Nikaido, Tsukishima, Kiroranke and, later, Asirpa as well, they all can’t, for a reason or another, go back home… and end up wandering. I think it would be great if, at the end of the story, they were to manage to go back home… or find a new place to call home.

And now there’s something that’s rather sad to mention and this is that THE ANIME WILL COMPLETELY CUT ALL THE FLASHBACK, basically stripping the story of an important part of Sugimoto’s past which also explained his motivations for searching the gold and why he felt so empathic toward Asirpa.

This is really a bad cut in my humble opinion.

Back to the manga the scene is interrupted by Asirpa calling Sugimoto because there’s a hare and it’s sort of interesting how the visual creates a parallel between that past Sugimoto and the current one...

...in more ways than one as while the Sugimoto of the past was alone, the Sugimoto of the present as Asirpa next to him... and while Asirpa takes a small part in the picture, as if to hint as of now she’s not that important for Sugimoto, she’s there and we know she’ll grow to become VERY important to him.

But let’s go back to the story.

Now… leaving Shiraishi unguarded in order to catch a hare isn’t the best idea, especially if one consider what had happened to their previous prisoner. Other people from the 7th might be out there searching for tattooed convicts... so actually I don’t even know why they’re interrogating him out there in the open. A more secluded place would have worked better.

The Watsonian explanation is that Asirpa and Sugimoto are actually very concerned about their food (especially Asirpa who’s a glutton for it) but it’s still a bit weak. The Doylist one is, of course, that they need to leave Shiraishi alone for the plot to move.

Anyway Sugimoto tries to point his rifle at the hare but admits he can’t get a clear shoot at it so he prefers not to shoot in order not to only end up on injuring it. Asirpa, who’s already drooling at the thought of eating the hare, tells him to toss a wand over the hare’s head so the hare, thinking he’s being attacked, will bury his head in the snow and will be unable to move. Sugimoto complains he’ll feel bad for scaring the hare.

Again we’re presented with the contrast between Asirpa and Sugimoto. Sugimoto, who could kill people in such a terrible way, would feel bad for scaring a hare he plans to eat anyway. Asirpa instead, who’s strongly against killing people, doesn’t even remotely cares about scaring the hare. For her the hare is just food, not something she could get an empathic connection with.

Most of the explanation on how to catch the hare is also cut in the anime, so we just see Asirpa jumping on the hare while a wand was flying toward it and, since we weren’t explained what the wand was for, we might even think they had tried to hit the hare with it and missed. That’s not so great.

While they’re busy with the hare, Shiraishi shows us how he gained his nickname of ‘escape king’. He actually had hidden in his mouth a razor blade which he’s using to free himself from his current predicament, but we’re shown also how he has others means to escape from the various prisons in which he’d been trapped.

In fact, as soon as Asirpa catches the hare, she realizes Shiraishi is already running away. Sugimoto runs after him, telling Asirpa to go back to the hut.

Asirpa tries to warn him he shouldn’t chase Shiraishi too far because the weather is going to change, but it’s not rare for Sugimoto to not pay attention to her warnings, thinking he knows how to handle things as he’s the adult between the two as well as a man and a veteran.

Too bad for him she’s the Hokkaido expert and the one who knows how things work there.

The anime adds a scene of Asirpa disappointed by this development because she wanted to eat the hare.

Back to the manga Sugimoto reaches Shiraishi and points his rifle at him, telling him if he won’t go back he’ll shoot him. Shiraishi tells him to shoot him as for Shiraishi it won’t change a thing if Sugimoto shoots him now or later. The problem here is that Shiraishi believed Sugimoto and Asirpa wanted to kill him and Sugimoto’s previous behaviour as well as his present one had done nothing to change his mind.

Do you see now Sugimoto why it’s not a good policy to scare people off? You didn’t mean bad but you got the opposite result to the one you were hoping for.

In that moment they hear a weird sound that Sugimoto exchanges for gunfire. Asirpa instead knows the cause of that sound is how the temperature is dropping abruptly, causing trees to split, but she’s not with Sugimoto and so she can’t tell him what’s causing that sound.

At the same time Sugimoto is still chasing Shiraishi but, as they were standing on a snow cornice, this one breaks down making them fall.

The chapter ends here the anime following it faithfully enough.

It’s sort of amazing how from such a poor first meeting the friendship between Shiraishi and Sugimoto will slowly develop and grow and, in a way, it’s also a clear hint to how Sugimoto’s threatening techniques don’t lead him anywhere. We saw here he didn’t get anything from Shiraishi, not even the smallest thing. When, in the next chapter, he’ll instead stick a truce with him, Shiraishi will be more than willing to answer to all his questions on his own.

Sugimoto will remain fond of threatening people... but I wonder if in the future this will be addressed as not the smart thing to do in order to get along with them. Oh well, we can only wait and see.

[xtremedespair3d]

Anime Spring 2018 Final Impressions + Plans for Summer

It’s been a long time since I made the last post on every anime I watched on winter, or posting anything on Tumblr in general, it’s time to come back to talk about what anime I’ve watched this spring season and what I’m going to watch this summer.

WARNING: This list may contain spoilers.

Spring 2018

Golden Kamuy: I’ve looked this one this entire season, even though I may not know much, after watching a few episodes, I was definitely impressed, but there are a few people who are disappointed with how the anime turned out, I kind of understand that, but at the same time it leaves me a sour taste in my mouth.

I’m happy season 2 got announced for October, definitely looking forward for more.

High School DXD Hero: I’ve always been skeptical about this season just by the new art style alone, even if it’s by the same studio that made the Citrus anime, but it seems like Passione pulled it off.

Not only the art is rather nice, as I stated, it looks to be faithful to the light novels, they retconned the Juggernaut Drive moment from Born from episode 0, it took me by surprise and learning that the rest of Born was anime original ruined my life and everything I’ve seen has changed.

Steins;Gate 0: Not a lot to add, but it’s definitely one of the strongest series I’ve seen this season so far.

Tokyo Ghoul:re: As someone who hasn’t read the Tokyo Ghoul:re manga, I’d say this one was decent. I saw this ComicBook post where fans were disappointed by the season finale, but hey, there’s season 2 coming in October.

(Man, what’s with these shows having season 2 in Fall?)

My Hero Academia season 3: It’s lower in my list because, while MHA is really good, I read the manga and I pretty much know everything that happens, even if I forget what happened since it’s been ages since I read the chapters the anime adapts, at least they refresh my memory.

Lupin the 3rd Part 5: This one is good, my only problem is that every few episodes with storylines end, there are those extra episodes that take place in previous jackets, like red jacket and pink jacket Lupin, I can’t help but think those are filler. It’s probably my first time I’ve been mad to filler.

Persona 5: The Animation: Totally did not expect the problems P5A has at all, from animation quality, like terrible fight scenes, to pacing issues, like everything is happening so fast and A-1 decided to rush the 100 hour plot into a 25 episode series. At least it looks better than Persona 4: The Animation.

Given by the episode count I mentioned, I’m looking forward to the surprise teased by the director, I hope I see a lot of people lose their shit like Darling in the Franxx (Heh, A-1), I kind of have the guilty pleassure to see people suffer in this case.

Caligula: This one I really was looking forward to hate. The animation was decent and all but all I can think of is the story, I really don’t like the world at all and I probably don’t care for any of the characters, especially Ritsu.

At the end of episode 10, Ritsu left Mobius and came back to reality alone while all of his friends are left behind, by that point, for some reason I thought “I officially hate Ritsu for that!”, but the more I waited, the less I considered that idea and decided to drop it.

By episode 11, it’s where things are getting worse: The Ritsu we were seeing all along wasn’t even Shikishima Ritsu, it’s a dude called Tachibana Shingo...

...and this dude right here IS THE REAL SHIKISHIMA RITSU!

LIKE... WHAT?!

I thought Mobius Ritsu was Shingo who took Ritsu’s name but it’s actually the real Ritsu who took Shingo’s likeness. Why? Why would he do that? It’s not even explained. (Not sure if the game does)

I wanted to drop around episode 8 but I was 4 episodes left to finish watching this trash, and the more I saw it, I felt interested to know what was going on in the story.

I cared less about everything that happened in this show. It’s not offensively bad as 18if, but seriously, the world of Caligula sucks.

The only highlight of the series I’d give credits for are the post-credits teasers by Pop Team Epic creator, Okawa bkub.

Winter 2018 ongoing

Darling in the Franxx: Darling in the Franxx has grown to be the most divisive series to date, mainly from the “Bitchigo” controversy ever since.

While I definitely enjoy the series and I feel defensive about it, I can’t help but think that this is Trigger (and A-1)’s most controversial anime they’ve produced to have such fan outrage. Speaking of which, I don’t think it’s even being animated by Trigger anymore, it’s probably only A-1 alone along with Trigger animators and they just slapped the Trigger name on the credits. (I’m probably exaggerating), and Darling in the Franxx is not even on Trigger’s website!

If this is another one of Trigger’s big flops (The second one being Kiznaiver which WatchMojo called it “disappointing” which made me pissed so bad considering that I loved Kiznaiver, fucking thanks for the trauma, you cunts. (Don’t ask)), then Trigger, as storytellers, have become one-hit wonders, and that one hit is Kill La Kill. (Speaking of which, it’s getting a video game... developed by the people who made Little Witch Academia: Chamber of Time, which turned out hot garbage, RIP)

As of the writing of this post, the series hasn’t ended yet, so we’re still gonna have to wait how the ending will turn out.

Toji no Miko: This one was alright, for some reason I expected the second cour to be somewhat time-wasting and trying to figure out the story because I was satisfied with the end of the first cour, but this one was decent.

Even if the anime series ended, while the mobage is currently on existence, I’ll never stop making Kancolle x Touken Ranbu jokes, at least the series had its own identity to make up for it.

Grancrest Senki: This one I was the least hopeful to watch, though not as trash as Caligula per se, but it’s just generic fantasy with some political drama, and ridiculously violent (Which there’s nothing wrong with it but the amount of gore is really something from a fantasy anime).

There were a couple of good moments but overall, it was meh.

Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card: I’m a little surprised that Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card ended with 22 episodes as opposed to 24 or 25 episodes, overall, I enjoyed the series, hopefully we won’t wait for a long time for another season.

Plans for Summer

Attack on Titan season 3: Reminder that we didn’t have to wait for another 4 years for another Attack on Titan season.

Angels of Death: This one has the potential to be one of the better anime adaptations of an RPG Maker game, unlike Ao Oni which failed spectacularly, considered that the Angels of Death anime is being made by JC Staff.

As of the writing of this video, it’s now confirmed that the total of episodes was 16 episodes, 12 of the regular series, and 4 OVA.

Overlord III: It’s still hard to believe that Overlord II was a winter show and this new season is a summer show, considering that I normally would expect shows having two seasons between winter and fall (Such as Shinmai Maou no Testament (2015) and Bubuki Buranki (2016).)

Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs: All I can think of is the titular character, Yuuna, is cute, and hot springs, what’s not to like?

Fate/Extra: Last Encore Illustrais Geocentrism: It still feels weird that Last Encore ended with 10 episodes, but at least there’s going to be more, but it’s going to be a two hour special, in two separate episodes. I thought I’ve seen sources that it was going to be episodes 11-13, I’ve seen a lot of sources and they confuse the heck out of me.

(Finally, a good line-up to watch)

BONUS: FLCL Progressive: Technically, FLCL Progressive came out on June 2nd on Adult Swim/Toonami, unlike the majority of the shows are all July shows.

FLCL Progressive and Alternative have quite the unique releases.

I was so baffled that many of the people I talk with were skeptical about FLCL Progressive, there were even stories of the original creator not wanting to make a sequel in the first place, I never gave a crap and ignored to what they said and just moved on to watch it.

After the first episode, it seems like the reactions were mostly positive (Maybe because a lot of people must be more newcomers than a few veteran FLCL fans), though the one thing that cringed me out was the part where Haruko (disguised as a teacher) made everyone watch porn.

Also, my bigger problem with watching FLCL Progressive (and Alternative) is that I have to watch them English dubbed and the subs got delayed until November (yes, that long; I’m not an English dubbed person, okay?).

Speaking of problems, as I mentioned that it was English dubbed, the parts where the characters say Japanese phrases is absolutely cringey as fuck, and with episode 4, at the beginning of the episode, Hidomi made a Jacksepticeye reference by saying “TOP OF THE MORNING!” and that triggered me so bad.

Speaking of Hidomi Hibajiri, she’s like my only highlight of this entire season, she’s such a cutie.

Like the original FLCL, Progressive and Alternative (I keep counting that one a lot, but, since it’s released on September, it still falls into Summer, I guess?) have 6 episodes, so as of the writing of this post, which ironically it’s almost 2 AM and it’s saturday, so new episode tonight, there’s at least going to be one more episode to end, and Alternative, while the first episode was released as a surprise release on April Fools, the rest of the episodes will be on September.

I wanted to add Tensai Bakabon to the list but now my interest to watch has turned off and I prefer Osomatsu-san over this one (This and Osomatsu-kun are made by Fujio Akatsuka and they’re being animated by Pierrot).

I hope you enjoyed my list of everything I saw this spring (while tryhard reviewing them in the process) and what I plan to watch this summer.

Twitter: @HKomaeda