#So we might get some season 2 news?? Maybe VA casting for a few more characters?

[cerulean100-blog1]

back with the wind breaker read, spoilers for 83-87 under the cut

-Tsubaki putting on the Older Sister hat to lovingly but firmly lecture Shizuka on her actions without going too far, we love to see it (also again all of what he said can apply to Sakura in the next arc)

-everyone talking about how Shizuka and Nakamura should date already has the same energy as the “hey you two should kiss!” meme lol

-Sakura questioning Nakamuras “it doesn’t matter if we win or loose” mantra and naively wanting a scenario were no one gets hurt *looks at the next arc* uwwwoooiggghhhhh

-I like that even tho Shizuka completely empathizes with Gravel (since they’re all from Sunaba) she’s still visibly a little freaked out by them when Suzuri apologizes, good characterization

-god Endos introduction is so good, smarmy guy coming out of nowhere to be the mastermind behind the last two arcs, implies Sakura should be a loner and gets jumped for it, looks like a dumbass jumping off a roof, just overall acting like a dick. It’s great I hate and love him lol

-Ngl the jump from Endos introduction to the restaurant back to Endo was a little weird, I get why it played out that way tho

-the food scene…Suzuri wanting to play games and getting so excited….Tsubaki crying….*sniff* (also Nirei if you value your friendship do NOT let Sakura play Mario Party or Dokapon)

-I think I know how I want the anime to rearrange things to end on Takiishis introduction now

-also I might be overthinking it but it’s interesting that Nakamura seems to know Endo?? I don’t think he went to Furin so maybe Endos hung around Keisei Street before, or he knows about him from Tsubaki and Ume. -great arc!! Could argue the start is a little slow and I’d love to see more of the street (maybe in a later arc?) but once it got into the fight with Gravel it really got going and I loved that.

-(also there are several Suo panels I’d like to point too to show to people who think he doesn’t care about Sakura/his friends, he may be a liar for fun but he does not play when it comes to them)

[masterhandss]

‘My Next Life as A Villainess’ Anime is over...

SO WHAT NOW???

A lot of us are disappointed that Katarina’s adventures are finally over, and a lot of us are gonna miss watching the wacky hi-jinks of our dense villainess. I’ve seen a lot of people say that they will stop posting or paying attention to hamefura after the anime ends, and while I might be the same to some extent, I just want to say that there are still a lot of hamefura things to look forward to after the anime ends!

These are actually some very obvious things to look forward to, but you know I’d still like to share them so you can use them to fill the hole in your heart that the anime left behind.

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Edit: (9/30/20) I added stuff, as well as a cut for all yall who says my posts are too long qwq

The Manga

Hamefura still has an on-going manga that is currently in Chapter 3 of the Light Novels! A lot of you already read it, and understand that it can get frustrating when there’s a lack of updates on the english side of things, but if you’re really curious, you can go over and check out the JP releases every month so you can have an idea of whats to come for the manga :DD (The fan translation of ENG Chapter 26 came out a few days ago so you know it’s not dead!!)

I’d recommend reading the english translation on Mangadex, since most translation groups officially upload their translation on there. 

The Spin-off (Hametsuo/Bakarina Alter)

It deserves it’s own category for just how unique it is in terms of its reception in the western crowd. I know a lot of people probably read it, but I guess people barely talk about because it’s not really that far into it’s premise yet. 

I just can’t stop recommending this manga to people (despite not going where I thought it’d be) because of how good the art-style is and how much promise it has. It updates monthly, which I know is a long wait, but it does pay off when you see the quality of everything. Plus it’s just fun to imagine how hamefura would go if it followed the typical “villainess otome isekai” format.

I actually love talking about hametsuo, so maybe my posts are woth the look ;; w ;;

The Light Novels

credits to @sparckle-art​ for the scans!

I’m happy to read that a lot of people are gonna go switch and buy the light novels after the anime ends! By the time the anime ends, the Vol. 6 of the LN would release a week later, acting kind of like a replacement of what is supposed to be a new episode for that week.

The fan-translated version of the web novel is available online, up until half of Vol. 4, but I still recommend buying the books on bookwalker (i don’t know if the sale is still there, but I’d recommend picking up the book regardless!). If reading the fan translation piqued your interest, then playing for the books would definitely worth your money if you ask me! 

An increase of sales might show them that there’s interest for this light novel, and might make them translate the JP novels even faster! (or maybe i’m just too impatient to wait 2-3 months for Volume 7 dshfjsfgs who knows?)

My only warning is that the tone really does shift post-arc 1 (Fortune Lover I) so if you’re looking for harem hijinks, from spoilers I’ve seen I think there would less of that and more of world building. (ps. please stop asking me where to read it ;;-;;)

Edit: Volume 8 is coming out in a few months, with Volume 9 probably being released at either Jan or Feb next year, then after that it’ll be a yearly update

StoryMe Otome Game

credit to the hamefura reddit discord for the screenshots!

I’m surprised a lot of people doesn’t know about the StoryMe game, despite it updating every week alongside the anime. Just kidding I didn’t either lol, I actually found about this thanks to the hamefura reddit discord server! StoryMe is a choose-your-own-adventure otome game, kind of like those “Episodes” or “Chapters” game that gets recommended on Youtube a lot. 

It’s still in japanese, which is probably why not a lot of people knows of it yet, but it seems like you can play as Katarina and romance anyone from the entire harem (yes, the girls too), so keep you eyes peeled for if ever it gets an english translation!

It’s basically the bluray Fortune Lover game with the DVDs, but instead of Maria, you actually get to play as Katarina!

(I’ll make a separate post for this later, maybe)

Edit: The game just came out in English in September 16, and just spat out a 11-episode update at September 30

tldr: go play it, it has 19 episodes out right now

Katarina’s Farm

It’s a newly announced mobile game with a web trial version that centers around playing as Katarina, trying to earn money and points for expanding your farm land, planting more expensive plants and getting the other members of the harem to join you! It’s a 2D pixel game that seems like it wouldnt take too much time to play (you can get the first 4 characters within 30 minutes of gameplay, but that might be adjusted in the mobile version) so I understand if it might not interest some people, but that’s still something to look forward to!

I made another post about it so check out the link to the web version here!

The Bluray Otome Game

While I can’t say this for certain, but maybe if there was ever an official english bluray release, it might include the Fortune Lover Male Capture Target Routes that are included in the game. Maybe someone will play it and translate it even! It would interesting to see how different the boys are, and give us further appreciation for Katarina’s influence and changes!

There’s a preview for a CG in Keith’s Route, which comes with the second bluray (no pv for Geordo ;; w ;;)

Edit: All the boy’s routes are out in Japanese

We don’t know if they’ll ever be released in English though, so hopefully someone translates them at least ;;w;;

The Manga and Yuri Anthology

Missing the hilarious and heartwarming antics of Katarina and her harem? Then you should check out the Manga Anthology (that has just been been translated in its entirety). It’s 14 chapters of absolute hilarity!

There’s also a Yuri Anthology, featuring the 4 girls of the harem! If you’re looking for more of that then, it’s an absolute recommendation!

Spin-off Visual Novel

Edit: They recently just announced a spinoff visual novel! It takes place after the Fortune Lover 1 Arc and features sexy pirates hgsjhgsdf

It’s just recently announced so there’s not a lot of info besides the company making it (it’s Otomate) and the fact that it’s gonna be an all new Bakarina adventure uwu

Bakarina Radio

I heard there’s a Bakarina Radio too, featurning the VAs of the anime cast. 

I don’t know if its a regular thing or a one time thing, but its still worth checkin out!

https//twitter.com/hamehura/status/1309831738525278209

The Second Season of the Anime

I seriously wasn’t expecting another season, considering how different the next arc is, but I’m happy nonetheless for more Bakarina! I hope this motivates the fans to continue supporting the series, as a bigger reaction will definitely lead to more content for us to enjoy! I have a theory about S2, which I think is worth the read :3c

Other Otome Isekais

There’s a lot of other Villainess Otome Isekai’s that are worth the read, and a lot of them as just as interesting as hamefura, despite the lack of a harem (from deep rooted revenge to hilarious and crazy villainess, there’s a lot!) The quickest recommendation I can give is just looking up “Akuyaku” and “Villainess” on Mangadex (do both btw they dont have the same results), but theres a lot that doesn’t get recommended so do your research! I swear it’s worth your time!

Anyways, I hope any of these fill the hole that the hamefura anime will leave in our hearts as we wait for season 2! (sorry for repeating the same line again hdsfgdjhsfg) Feel free to add anything like fanfic recommendations and artists, as I can’t cover everything on my own, as those really help provide hamefura fans with content :DD

[jemstarearrings]

This might be late, but from your ask prompt, questions 1,6,8,10,12,15,16 and 18

I think I’ve answered a few of these already, so I’ll go ahead and answer the ones I *didn’t* do!

6. Do you read the comics? No, I don’t. Aside from not living anywhere near a comic book store, a few years ago an IDW writer found an untagged post on my personal blog venting about some identity politics regarding the Transformers (whether or not it was canon I don’t even remember, it was about someone trying to convince people that female transformers were all trans or whatever, some dumb bullshit hot take) and they called me a “whiny pissbaby.” I tried to defend myself honestly, but they just kept insulting me with childish insults and ignoring everything I said. Some folks dogpiled me, I got some really nasty anons, it was bad. Not as bad as my experience with Noelle Stevenson, fortunately, but enough to make me angry and bitter.

I don’t support IDW comics at all now. I don’t buy any IDW comics, and neither does the rest of my family. I don’t read them, either; no piracy, no standing around a store reading them, no nothing. I never have anything nice to say about IDW, and I never plan to. So help me god I will stay bitter and angry until the very end. “Whiny pissbaby” indeed.

That being said, I’ve seen plenty about the comics, and I’ve got Opinions™ that you could pretty much summarize as “I’m sick and tired of social justice warriors.” I know that phrase doesn’t have meaning in the year of our lord 2020 but whatever. I could get into it for ages, I better not. I just turn into Old Man Yells At Cloud.

8. Hot Take lmao speaking of hot takes. I just don’t like Raya and Jetta that much. I feel like they don’t add a whole lot to the dynamics, particularly Raya, who immediately turned into a background character after the season 2 premiere. Like idk, she’s just kinda boring. :\ I also really don’t like how she’s also pink, but Jem is pink, like, get your own color Raya, damn.

12. Least Favorite Character ...maybe Raya lol. There’s nothing wrong with her, I suppose, she’s just kind of boring. I’m not feelin’ her that much. Rio sucks absolute butts though. He’s always SO MOODY and unreasonable and explosive. Jerrica needs to ditch him until he straightens up, I swear.

15. If you rebooted Jem, what would you change? What would you keep the same? HAAAY lol. I don’t have a lot I’d change, but I do want to kind of emphasize the Jem/Jerrica difference. I’d want to make Jerrica more shy, less likely to kick ass and take names like Jem. She could totally come out of her shell and use that experience as Jem to get better at standing up for herself over time, but from the beginning I think it’d be legit to make Jerrica more of a pushover, so she could grow into this badass woman takin’ care of business. Like her alter-ego strengthens her and allows her to find that part of herself that means business.

I also would like to see Kimber and Stormer actually be a unit, because...my god, it’s so obvious what they wanted to do in the original series but just couldn’t. And granted the episode had to wrap up in 22 minutes so I understand why they couldn’t get into that even without Standards and Practices not liking gay things, but still.

As far as the same goes, I feel like I wouldn’t be as radically different as some reboots would be, I want to keep a lot of what made Jem special still present. The big hair, the outfits, the colors, the music, a lot of it is just timeless even if it’s from the 80s, and making it hyper-modern or even futuristic just...idk, it feels like it takes away some of what made Jem special. I’d like to keep a sort of timeless quality to it, where it could be happening in the 80s or the modern-day, but it doesn’t really matter anyway. I know that music recording technology has changed drastically since so I’d kind of have to pick a side, but eh? *shrug*

though honestly now that I’m thinking about it, the intro to the series is really convoluted and has a lot of stuff going on (Howard Sands, the mansion, the battle of the bands, countess duvo...however you spell her name, Kimber splitting the group, Ashley adjusting to being a Starlight girl,) I feel like if I made a reboot, I’d want to expand those first 5 episodes into the whole first season. Make it compelling, get a little deeper into each story, and that way when it all ties together in the end, it’s more satisfying because it’s a season finale. Then we can hop into the second season with the Starbright trilogy and probably stretch that out a little too. Get more mileage from the old story arcs before making brand new ones.

16. Ideal voice cast for a reboot? Oof, that’s hard. I don’t know a whole awful lot about who’s out there singing/voice acting right now. I do know I want Kesha to do Pizzazz, though I’m not sure if she would considering she’s changing her life in the wake of the whole Dr. Luke thing. I think Mandy Moore (Rapunzel) could make a cute Kimber...and naturally I’m inclined to pick VAs from shows I watch, like Grey DeLisle or that one woman who voices literally every black girl on TV Cree Summer. I haven’t thought about it enough.

Though something I wonder, Techrat was meant to be androgynous in the bible, but in the show he was this like, Cobra commander raspy whisper, so maybe Techrat’s voice should change completely...hmmm.

[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Fruits Basket 2019 Episode 25: “Summer Will Be Here Soon”

I was a little worried about how this episode would turn out, since it was obviously going to be a sort of set-up/transition episode for season 2 rather than being super dramatic and climactic like the last episode was, but I think they handled it pretty much perfectly, and this was probably the best place to end this first season.

Now we just have to wait for Some Point In 2020 [tm] for the second season :)

Anyway, thoughts under the cut, plus some of my overall thoughts on the season as a whole now that it’s done. [Plus spoilers for the whole manga]

There’s something hilarious to me about how right up to the last minute they kept surprising me with the different choices they’ve made with how they’re structured this adaptation and what parts they’ve included. After they revealed Rin’s VA and character design a few days ago, I figured that meant she’d be the only new character getting teased at here, but then literally right when the finale came out they were like ‘oh yeah and here’s Kakeru and Machi lmao’.

They REALLY leaned hard into making the whole second half of this episode a giant tease for season 2, but I can respect that. They handled it really well, at least.

Specifically, this episode adapted chapters 34, 35, and the final scenes of chapters 42 and 48. I was worried that it’d feel weird to tie scenes from multiple different chapters together like that, but they integrated it all together really smoothly. They had to change a lot of the context around the bits they included from chapters 42 and 48, but they did it really well. I was mostly worried about how they’d handle Kakeru and Machi’s teaser scene, but having Tohru and Yuki just walk past them down the stairs at school was a surprisingly simple way to do it. It’s interesting to note that because they included that scene without the overall context of chapter 42, we don’t know that they’re going to be new members of the student council. Which is kinda interesting.

I also liked what they did with tying the ending of chapter 48 into the small scene with Ayame at the end of chapter 35, by bringing basically all of the Somas together for the final scene. It all tied together really naturally. And I still think that that whole monologue the episode ends on was definitely the best place to end this season. It’s a really blatant end-point that teases what’s about to come in the next major arc. I also thought it was neat how they mentioned how Hiro was going to be late, which lead into the whole Rin scene.

And on that note, her whole intro scene was largely the same as it was in the manga, but it’s worth noting that they give her a little bit more dialogue where she actually mentions the curse, which is interesting because it takes a bit of a while for us to find out in the manga that she’s trying to break it. I think it’s a really good idea that they pretty much laid it out immediately. As much as I love Rin as a character, I’ve always felt that the way she was introduced into the story felt very awkward and kinda confusing, and part of it was because we don’t know anything about her motivations for a while, so this is a good change.

And like with with the Kakeru and Machi teaser scene, I think it’s interesting that, in terms of how the anime’s pacing things, we don’t know that Rin is Haru’s girlfriend yet. All we know is that she seems to be trying to break the curse. We’ll probably still get that whole reveal of their relationship early in season 2, but I just think it’s interesting that they made it so that the scene of her in the hospital is the first time we ever see her at all in the anime. I wondered if they might try and include Haru talking about her in this episode, but I’m glad they didn’t. They didn’t really have the time for it.

Also I’m in the middle of rereading the series now that I have the whole collection in Japanese, and I’m right in the middle of where we learn about Rin’s backstory and we start getting more development with Kakeru and Machi, so that’s pretty nice timing, lol. It’s really reminded me just how much we have store for us in season 2.

At some point soon, maybe when I’m a bit further into my reread, I’ll probably make a more detailed post about how I think season 2 will go, and how much of the story it’ll cover, but at the moment I’m kinda clueless about it, lmao. I wasn’t expecting them to adapt the content they adapted in this episode, so it’s kinda thrown off a lot of my predictions.

In general I still think that, if we get a third season after it, season 2 will probably end around the end of volume 16, or with the big Akito reveals, since that’s around the two-thirds mark of the story.

This is probably an unpopular opinion, but I also kinda hope that they only properly introduce Kakeru and Machi after the whole summer vacation arc ends. I just think it’s a bit awkward how in the manga they get introduced at the start of volume 9 and then basically vanish from the story until the start of volume 12. But we’ll see.

Before I get into my retrospective thoughts on the first season as a whole, I wanna mention that this episode had some really good animation and art in it. Especially in a lot of the scenes with Kyo and Kazuma. I just thought it was really nice, and slightly unexpected.

I also appreciate that we got a more thorough look at how the anime’s depicting the cat house, after last week’s shot of it. It looks like instead of being a basement of some kind, it’s an isolated shed or something that basically has a prison cell in it. Which is all kinds of disturbing.

Anyway, now that it’s all said and done, this first season was amazing and now I’m gonna have to try and impatiently wait for season 2 to start.

I dunno where to even begin, since I’m still not quite over how surreal and unexpected the existence of this series is. It’s not every day you see a classic shoujo manga get a multi-season anime reboot, especially one that’s so lovingly made. I know some people haven’t enjoyed it, but I think it’s been nearly perfect for what it is. You can really tell just how much love and thought has been put into this.

I don’t even hate the 2001 anime that much [ok there’s some parts where the anime-original comedy filler got extremely bad but still], but this is such a drastic improvement over it in nearly ever way. The 2001 anime still exists for those who enjoyed it, but I’m glad that this can serve as the definitive adaptation that people can get into. The manga’s really easy to get now because of the omnibus editions, but having a good, modern anime adaptation still goes a long way to bring new people in.

There’s some parts that haven’t quite aged well [*cough* Ritsu’s entire character *cough*] in a very 90′s kind of way, but as a whole this is the sort of story that has a sort of timeless emotional core to it, which is probably a big part of why it got a new adaptation.

You can also really tell that Funimation also has a lot of love for this series. With how they’ve been handling the simuldub, and how soon the BDs are gonna be coming out, I’m still convinced that they’ve been involved in the production of this new series from the start. In particular it’s been really neat seeing just how many of the 2001 dub cast they’ve managed to bring back for this. Including the reveal in this episode that they got Hiro’s old dub VA to voice Kakeru.

The more I think about it, the more fitting I think it is that this finale is very intentionally low-key and mostly serves to bring us back into the status quo while still hinting at future developments and mysteries. It’s just kinda nice to end the season off on a much more warm and happy note than how intense and bittersweet the last episode was.

Anyway, I’m probably gonna just spend the next however many months rewatching this while I wait for the second season, lol.