#Tokyo Broadcasting System[

[manhonphiedu]

Ikebukuro West Gate Park (2000)

[deadc0py]

I feel you man.

[gbhbl]

Horror Movie Review: Infection/感染 (2004)

A doctor's mistake unwittingly creates horrific consequences for the staff at the hospital.

SInfection (感染) is a Japanese horror film directed by Masayuki Ochiai, releasing in 2004. After seeing Ringu (1998) at a somewhat tender age, I developed a bit of a J-horror obsession. I’d seek out any film that was distributed by “Tartan Asia Extreme” as this was usually the seal of approval that I was in for something great. One such movie was the one I am reviewing now, Infection. The film is…

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

How long would Death Note be if Light was actually a completely law-abiding, if vaguely narcissistic, citizen during the kira murders who just so happened to tick off L's "he's a serial killer" radar?

I mean, that's the thing, he wouldn't tick off L's radar

Why Did L Suspect Light Anyway

L does single-mindedly pursue the theory of "Light Yagami is Kira" to an utterly insane degree, even accepting for things like "he conveniently got amnesia for no reason" and "even though I put cameras in every corner of his house I didn't catch him" and "even though I handcuffed him literally to my side I couldn't catch him"

It is nuts.

However, I will give L credit, he didn't pick Light out of a hat.

L's initial theory was simply that Kira was in Japan and taking a stab in the dark probably the Kanto region. Light confirmed this for him due to an egotistical hissy fit with L having to put in very little effort.

This brought L to focus on Tokyo.

L further figures out fairly early on that Light has a student's schedule, not a working adult's in Japan, and this is because Light at the time didn't realize he could control the exact time at which a person dies and by the time Light changes his method it's already too late.

Now, what happened then is that Light intentionally tipped his hand. After Lind L. Taylor, Light took L's existence extremely personally and nursed quite the grudge and the vendetta. To "win" as Kira, to prove he's a god to himself and the populace, he must personally kill L. As a result, Light does many things that put him in danger/do nothing to help him as Kira just to have his chance at L.

The big one is that he starts using information only known to the Japanese police force. He intentionally does this so that L focuses enough on Tokyo and the police there that Light can get a firmer grasp on him, what Light didn't account for was that L would immediately narrow in on him and him alone or the lengths he'd go to in order to investigate Light as a suspect.

But thanks to Light, L did know that whoever was doing this had access to police information not available to the public. Now, Light was likely hoping L would assume it was a cop, but L expanded his search to the police and their family members, presuming that family members may have access to these networks due to insecure home practices and such (which Light does).

Now, L never explains canonically why he's so certain Light is Kira, but if I'm putting myself in his shoes I can take a wager as to why Light made him go "ding ding ding".

L's looking for the type of person who would become Kira. He already knows this person is Japanese, likely a student in a rigidly structured school day (so not in university), but someone with good enough English to have followed the Lind L. Taylor broadcast, someone savvy with the internet so as to kill international criminals.

What he also knows is that Kira is obsessive, manic, single-minded, and unquestioning of his beliefs. Kira is also someone with an absurd amount of faith in law enforcement and the justice system (Light... doesn't spend too long questioning whether or not the people he sentences to death are guilty of the crimes they were sentenced for/the life circumstances which might lead to someone committing a heinous crime and whether or not that matters) which makes sense for a workaholic policeman's son in homicide whose son idolizes him.

Not to mention that, aside from his hatred of L, Kira is extremely respectful of the police in general. He never goes after the Japanese police the way he does L (only the FBI agents tailing him) and it's clear that his great rivalry is with L, not the Japanese police, interpol, or any kind of cops.

So, we're looking at someone who really respects the law... without understanding what the law even is, why it exists, or why "no, Light, murdering thousands of people does not magically make you exempt".

Adults typically don't act like Light does. Even after the six-year time skip, Light's still obsessive but he has changed greatly from the boy he was. And Mikami, an adult who is inspired by him and kills in the same way is... a very different kind of person ultimately driven by a victim mentality.

My point is, it would make sense for L to suspect a teenager rather than an independent adult. The schedule lines up, the personality lines up, and while this is very likely a highly precocious individual (and someone who knows he's very clever) they still feel young.

So, L narrows it down to a set of families and look what we have: Light Yagami, brilliant young man who scores first in the country on every exam he ever takes, talented in athletics at a national level, has succeeded at everything in his life and is the pride and joy of his family, utterly adores his police chief father and has repeatedly shown interest in following his career path and even taken steps towards doing so as a high school student.

And L says "bingo".

But Back to Your Question

Putting aside whether or not anyone else would ever go as ham killing the types of people Light did for no particular reason (Misa, for example, would probably have only gone after her parent's killer. Mikami would have gone after his childhood tormentors/his mother. Higuchi went after corporate rivals) there's also whether they'd have that police information from Japan (probably not likely), and if they'd act the way that Light did.

Basically, while it is a nice thought... I don't think L would suspect Light in these circumstances as he'd ultimately be dealing with a very different person who acts in very different ways.

Light would never tip off his radar.

[tobiasdrake]

Digimon Adventure 01x35 - The Fairy of Odaiba! Lilymon Blooms / Flower Power

Previously on Digimon Adventure: Vamdemon didn't even realize he had the ultimate Chosen Children Collector's Item in his possession until he'd already taken it out of the package. Amateur move. Can you really even call yourself a Chosen Children fandom nerd if you can't even name all eight Partner Digimon? What a scrub. Fake nerd vampire.

This is another episode that I've been eagerly waiting for! Now, at long last, it's time for the best evolved Digimon in the show to debut. Yes, even the Ultimates/Megas.

We open on the Rainbow Bridge. Traffic is congested due to Vamdemon's fog bank, slowing traffic both for drivers and for the public transit system.

Tachikawa Keisuke, Mimi's dad, is on his way back to Odaiba. He checks his watch and sighs. It's 9:02 PM.

Keisuke: I'm screwed.... Announcement: Please excuse this interruption in your travel plans, but the train must slow down due to heavy fog.

We find Vamdemon up on top of the Fuji Broadcasting Center or FCG, which overlooks Tokyo Bay across from Daiba Park. Vamdemon is performing an eerie incantation with his hands, conjuring up the fog bank.

Vamdemon: Soon this fog barrier will be complete. Then this land will turn into Hell. Hmhmhmhm Ah Ha Ha Ha Ha....

In the dub:

Keisuke: (checks watch) Oh boy.... Announcement: Due to the continuing heavy fog, we'll be experiencing some delays up ahead. Please bear with us. (Cut to FCG Building) Vamdemon: Ha! It's almost done. Huhuhuhahahahaha!!! Soon now, not in fire or ice but in fog, this world will be mine! Huhuhuhahahaha HUHUHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Kinda feels like "this world will end" would be the natural follow-up to "not in fire or ice but", but maybe that's just me.

Out in the playground late at night, Mimi is feeding Palmon. Unlike the other Partner Digimon who can just eat leftovers from their Partner's dinner, Palmon has to plant her roots in the dirt.

She's not impressed.

Palmon: Tokyo's soil doesn't taste very good. Mimi: Guess what? This place used to be part of the sea. Palmon: ... Mimi: ^_^ Here, you can have this. Palmon: Thank you!

Mimi's little anecdote there is an attempt to explain why Palmon's not enjoying the soil. Odaiba is a man-made island constructed from transported soil, some shipped in and some drudged out of the water. Palmon's eating ocean dirt.

Though they do have a bunch of parks there, so maybe Palmon's being snobby.

Mimi pours bottled water onto Palmon's roots for sustenance. Palmon seems much happier about that, right up until Mimi suddenly throws a sheet over her in a panic. She hears footsteps.

Mimi: (wrestling with the sheet) Shh! Quiet!

Keisuke, walking home from the station, comes into view and spots her.

Keisuke: Huh? Mimi! Is that you, Mimi!? Mimi: PAPA!!! Keisuke: What are you doing out here so late? Mimi: Uhhhhhh nothing special. I'm here to pick you up.

See, this is why Mimi rarely lies. Because she is the worst at it.

In the dub:

Palmon: Yuck! This soil's polluted! Tastes like gasoline and old candy wrappers! Mimi: I've got this bottled water! Try it; It's fresh and pure as a winter morning in the Swiss Alps! At least, that's what it says on the bottle. Palmon: Okay! Pour it on my roots! (enjoying) Mmm, yummy. Yodelayheehoo! (BLANKET) Mimi: Hush!

American kids aren't going to understand Mimi's comment about Odaiba's history, so the dub team came up with a different explanation for Palmon's dissatisfaction. American kids do understand pollution. Especially 90's kids, who grew up in a time when messages about personal responsibility to clean up our planet were everywhere.

The rest of Mimi's dialogue space is used for a charming exchange about mass-produced mineral water.

Keisuke: Mimi? Is that you? Mimi, what are you doing out here? Mimi: Oh! Hi, dad. Keisuke: You should be inside. Mimi: Well, you see... Uh... I was just waiting for you!

To sell her panicked claims, Mimi plops her hat down on top of the giant lump of bedsheet in her arms. Absolutely nothing to see here! Just a sweet and trustworthy face that is definitely not up to anything.

Nothing suspicious here AT ALL.

Mimi: You're home late today. Keisuke: The train took its time because of the fog. Hey, I have to ask, what's in the blanket? Mimi: EHHHHHHH!?!?

Mimi practically screams with alarm at Keisuke's question, then grabs his arm and starts speed walking home, practically dragging him along.

Mimi: Let's hurry home, Papa! Mama must be worried! Keisuke: Uh....

THE BEST at lying. XD Look, don't go to the Crest of Purity if you want talented deceit.

Dub Mimi lies a little better.

Mimi: So Daaad... Why are you so late, anyway? Keisuke: It's this fog. It's got everything tied up in knots. Say, what's that you've got under your hat there? Mimi: Oh, it's just a, uh... (Mimi grabs Keisuke's arm and starts pulling him) Mimi: Brr, it's getting cold out here! We better hurry up and get home or Mom will be worried!

She does not scream in her father's face because of the question, though she's still clearly trying to change the subject. Consequently, the original version is funnier, though I like the dub's addition of "It's cold out here!' to Mimi's avoidance waffling.

Once they're safely tucked away in Mimi's room, she explains herself.

Wow, her room is small. Taichi and Hikari's room is a lot bigger. Though, to be fair, it has to fit two kids.

Mimi: I'm sorry. It'd be nice if you got away with pretending to be a stuffed animal, but I don't want them to think I have bad taste. Palmon: Bad taste? (wilts) You mean me? Mimi: Ehehe, don't read too much into that. Palmon: :( (Long, awkward pause) Mimi: Tehe!

That last line from Mimi is basically like a "Teehee!" She's trying to raise Palmon's spirits. But Palmon is so fucking offended by what Mimi said.

In the dub:

Mimi: Sorry, I could have pretended you were my doll or a stuffed animal, I suppose. But I have a reputation for good taste to maintain. Palmon: I'm in bad taste!? (wilts) Is that what you're saying!? Mimi: Oh ho ho, Palmon, I didn't mean it that way! Really! Palmon: :( (long, awkward pause) Mimi: Really!

The wording's a little different but the core idea still gets across. Mimi says some offensive shit to Palmon and then fails miserably when she tries to backpedal.

This builds off of what we saw in the first episode of the kids' return to Japan. Remember when Mimi completely bailed on Palmon because she saw her human friends? All Mimi ever wanted was to get home, to be safe again, and to stop having to do all this Chosen Child and Digimon conflict. She took being drafted as a child soldier harder than anybody.

She has never wanted to be a part of that world.

Meanwhile, out in their tiny apartment's dining room, Mimi's parents are fucking adorable.

Satoe: I made kimchi fried rice and topped it with whipped cream and strawberries! How is it? Keisuke: (nom) Mm, it's good! This tastes so great! Satoe: Yay! Eat as much as you want! Say, 'Ahh!' Keisuke: Ahh! Satoe: Ahh!

That last bit is delivered over a closeup of the kimchi so it's not clear if she took the spoon and is feeding him or what. Either way, they're adorable. At least somebody in this group has zero family drama.

The Tachikawas may be squeezed into a fucking closet but they love and cherish each other dearly.

In the dub:

Satoe: I made this dish up myself. I call it shrimp-fried rice with whipped cream and strawberries. Well? Keisuke: (nom) You've really outdone yourself this time, honey. Satoe: You mean it!? Oh, I'm so glad you like it! You mean it!? Keisuke: I mean it! Satoe: Really!? Keisuke: Really!

Yeah, they're just as cute over here.

Though I have to say, the size of Mimi's tiny-ass apartment is inadvertently hilarious in the dub after all that time spent playing her up like she's the heiress to the Bezos fortune.

Meanwhile, across town at Cram School, Jou's life is ruined.

Narrator: Around this time, Jou was in the city outside Odaiba. Jou: A 54. This is the worst grade I've ever gotten in my life.

Gomamon pokes out of Jou's duffel bag.

Gomamon: Cheer up! Life's full of ups and downs.

This meager encouragement works, bringing a smile to Jou's face.

Jou: I should call home and tell them I'm being kept after classes today. (Jou tries to call) Recording: The number you have dialed is not in service. Jou: That's weird. There's no reception.

The dub cuts the shot of Jou's graded test. At this point, we're pretty far past trying to conceal Japanese text from the audience; In fact, there's Japanese text on the windows of his cram school, which the dub keeps. So I imagine they cut it so they can lie about what it says.

Joe: I can't believe I got a C! There goes Med School. And my dad wanted me to call right away and tell him my grades! Gomamon: (pops up) A C? Forget about Myotismon; This is a real disaster! Joe: (smile) You're right. Clearly this grade is the result of all of the stress from the monster attacks. Gomamon: Well, if you can't get into medical school, I'd try politics.

First off, they undersell the severity of Joe's bad grade. 54 isn't a C. That's an F. The Japanese system is a little different from the American one but 59 and under is still an F. Jou is here to prepare for his entrance exams, which will determine the quality of middle school he's able to attend, and he fucking failed the test.

It's a good thing this was a practice! Jou is brutally unprepared to return to academia. Probably because he just spent the last four months or so on an alien planet foraging for berries and trying not to be killed by monsters. It's hard to study algebra under those conditions.

I do like that the dub makes a direct connection between Joe's bad grade and the Digimon battles, though they undersell that too.

They also removed Jou's attempt to call home, which sets up the signal problems that Vamdemon's fog bank is creating for Odaiba. He mentions he's gonna, but he never makes the call and finds out Odaiba no longer has phone service.

Jou isn't the only one having signal reception problems. In Yamato's single-dad apartment, even tinier than the Tachikawa home, the TV's gone to static. He attempts multiple esoteric poses with the TV remote to try and bring the signal back.

Yamato: No! Come on, work! (pose) C'mon! (pose) How (pose) about (pose) this!? (surrender) Ugh... It was just getting good!

In the dub:

Matt: Oh no! Gimme a break! Come on! (goes through all the poses without saying anything, then surrender) Aw, man! Right when it was about to get to the best part!

So, bad nights all around, it seems. Let's not forget that Taichi and Hikari are out there having the shittiest night too.

While Vamdemon's doing his fog ritual up on the roof of the FCG Building, his father Hiroaki is working late inside. We join him at a vending machine, retrieving his change to put into his wallet. His eyes linger on an old family photo from happier days.

Suddenly, one of his colleagues runs past.

Hiroaki: What's going on, Chioka? Chioka: Ah! Ishida-san! You're awake? We've got big trouble! None of our station's transmissions are working! Hiroaki: What!? Chioka: No one knows what's causing it! It could be a system crash or something faulty in the electronics. Both transmission and reception are down!

Nobody ever suspects Rooftop Vampire. But, up top, Vamdemon finishes casting his fog spell.

Vamdemon: No one will escape. That includes, of course, the Eighth Child. Hmhmhm HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!! AH HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!

The dub renames Chioka.

Hiroaki: Hey! What's going on, Charlie? Charlie: You're awake! I was just coming to get you! The whole system's gone down! Transmitters, satellite feed, the whole shebang! Hiroaki: What!? Charlie: If it's a system glitch, it's like the Godzilla of all systems glitches! But we can't even check it out because communications are down too! It's like the end of the world or something! (Meanwhile, on the roof) Myotismon: No one will escape! No one! Not even the Eighth Child! Hmhmhmwahahahaha! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

I really like Charlie referencing Godzilla, because that's a pop culture reference that someone in Tokyo might reasonably make.

Returning to wherever Jou's cram school is, we find him unable to return home.

Announcement: Due to heavy fog in Odaiba, we will not be able to provide train service to that area. It may be some time before service is restored. Jou: Even the public phone booths don't work. What a hassle.... Gomamon: (peeking out of duffel bag) This world has its problems too.

Over in the dub, the effects are even worse.

Announcement: Due to a systems failure, all trains will be delayed indefinitely. We apologize for the inconvenience. Joe: The pay phones don't work either! What's going on? Everything's falling apart! Gomamon: (peeking out) It could be worse. We could be stuck on the train!

All trains. The signal-scrambling fog in Odaiba is so bad that it's nuked the entire train network in the greater Tokyo area. Was that necessary, Myotismon? Little bit overboard there, bud.

Back at the FCG Building, Hiroaki confers with his team about what's happening. Well, with two of the three; Sakurada is listening to a tape cassette while Hiroaki chats with Chioka and Yuki.

Chioka: The broadcast system's been going haywire ever since the fog showed up. Hiroaki: So it happened while I was tossing out the papers.... Yuki: None of our phones are working either. (Hiroaki throws on his jacket and starts to walk away) Yuki: Where you going!? Hiroaki: Isn't it obvious? I'm going to investigate. That's our job. Yuki: Understood.

Yuki and Chioka move to follow Hiroaki. Without missing a beat, Yuki yanks the headphone cord out of the radio on the desk, disturbing Sakurada.

Yuki: Sakurada-kun, let's go. Sakurada: O-Okay!

With the headphones unplugged, we can hear that he's been listening to the chanting of sutras, like the one Jou used to weaken Bakemon way back when. Something to chase away the ghosts and demons that could be emerging from the fog.

In the dub:

Charlie: Everything started going wonky ever since that fog came in. Yuki: Even my cell phone isn't working. Of course, it wasn't working before but still... (Hiroaki throws on his jacket and starts to walk away) Yuki: Hey, where are you going? Hiroaki: To earn my pay! To investigate this thing. That's what I do, after all. Yuki: We'll come with you. (Yuki pulls out the headphone cord) Jeremiah: Huh? Radio: Believe in yourself. Say it. "I believe in me." Good.

Yuki's expositional line that all the phones are down is replaced by a laugh line. We're kinda losing track of the fact that the phones have been disrupted. This is two references to the phones that have been replaced, with the only remaining one being Joe's ambiguous statement that the pay phones in the train station don't work.

Yuki says nothing when she yanks out the headphone cord so now it looks like she was messing with Sakurada, now named Jeremiah as revealed later in the episode, for funsies.

As with the Bakemon episode, the religious chanting has been replaced by self-help affirmations. Next time I meet a possessed kid, I'm taking them to a TED Talk. Apparently that's the trick.

At the Yagami residence, a terrified Hikari peeks out at the night through the curtains.

Hikari: ...Tailmon....

Taichi sits up and leans out of the bottom bunk.

Taichi: (determined) Wait for tomorrow. I'll call everyone tomorrow morning, and then we can go save her. Agumon: Hikari-chan, Taichi is worried too, but you should get some sleep. Hikari: (closes curtains, defeated) Mm....

Hikari climbs up into the top bunk and pulls the blanket up.

Taichi: Can you sleep? Hikari: (covers her face with the covers) I'll try. Taichi: Good. Leave everything to me.

Hikari is distraught. Holy shit, her face in this scene is heartbreaking.

In the dub, Kari wakes Tai up on purpose.

Kari: Hey, Tai? Do you think Gatomon's okay? Tai: (empathetic) Sure she is, Kari. First thing tomorrow, we'll go find her. Agumon: Don't worry, I think we'd better go to bed. We'll need our rest to fight Myotismon. Don't want to fall asleep on the job, do ya? Kari: Okay.... (Kari climbs up into the top bunk) Tai: You scared, Kari? Kari: (covers her face with the covers) Not really. Tai: Attagirl. Leave everything to me.

Tai and Kari talk about Gatomon like she just ran away from home. Agumon goes too far the other direction. Uh, no, Agumon; Kari does not need her rest to fight Myotismon. The plan is still that she goes nowhere near him.

I do like the way the dub uses Kari's last line. Juxtaposing her dialogue against the animation of her hiding her face under the blanket, to convey that she's not as tough as she's trying to act. Her voice even quivers a little. That bit is perfect.

Mimi peeks out of her room to say goodnight to her parents.

Mimi: Have a good night!

Then she realizes Palmon popped out with her and has to stuff her back into the room, while still awkwardly smiling to her parents.

Parents: Good night!

Meanwhile, at Yamato's place, he's written a letter to his father.

Letter: To Dad: There's boiled mackarel in the fridge. Underwear in the laundry. Yamato: He's working overtime again.

Yamato tries the TV again, but still only gets static.

Yamato: This is so weird.

In the dub:

Mimi: I'm dying my clothes pink again! (Mimi stuffs Palmon back into the room) Satoe: Okay!

At 11 PM!? Why!? Weird-ass line change!

The dub cuts Yamato's letter but keeps the dialogue.

Matt: Looks like Dad's working late again. (Matt tries the TV again) Matt: Something weird's going on!

No boiled mackarel for Dub Hiroaki, it seems. Gabumon probably ate it all.

Hiroaki and his team continue working to bring the FCG Building back up. They've taken a van out to go scout the mystery fog and figure out how far it extends.

Hiroaki: And so, this is what the fog encompasses. Chioka: It only covers Odaiba. Yuki: It's like someone is controlling the fog. Like a wizard or something! Sakurada: ...maybe we should go back to the station.

Superstitious Sakurada is not pleased about being out in the Ominous Wizard Fog. He's immediately proven correct when the ground shakes suddenly, rocking the van. A colossal monster stomps through the night, passing in plain sight near their van.

Sakurada: K-k-k-k-- Chioka: (claps a hand over Sakurada's mouth) Quiet! Yuki: You saw that too, right!? Both: Mhm!

The Fuji team pile out of the van for unclear reasons.

Hiroaki: Perhaps the fog has something to do with these kaiju....

Yamato's dad is on the right track. These things are, indeed, related.

Over in the dub:

Hiroaki: The fog's disrupting our entire area! Charlie: Why isn't any other part of town seeing fog? Yuki: It's like some alien power's controlling the fog bank with magic or something. Jeremiah: Magic? Stop trying to scare me! (Giant Digimon stomps past) Jeremiah: What's that!? Charlie: (claps a hand over Jeremiah's mouth) Keep it down. Yuki: You both saw it!? Both: Mhm! (Everyone exits the van) Yuki: Good! At least I know I'm not the only one going crazy! Hiroaki: What's the connection? Somehow, the fog's tied in with all these monsters we keep seeing.

Pretty straight adaptation. It's phrased very differently but all the key points are hit. Yuki also gets a silence-breaker as they're exiting the van so she can punchline the "You saw it too!?" moment.

Suddenly, getting out of the van is proven for the bad idea that it was.

A swarm of Digimon attack the crew from all directions. Yuki screams while the narrator goes into the rundown.

Gizamon is a Child-stage Virus-type Aquatic Mammal Digimon. The name comes from the onomatopoeia for a sawing motion. Gizagiza. They're the sibling evolution to Gazimon, evolved from a Pagumon that didn't get hugged enough. Their evolutions that have appeared thus far are Devidramon, Flymon, and Raremon.

Narrator: Gizamon. Though they prefer to live underwater, these ferocious Child-stage Digimon can jump like frogs on land. Hiroaki: Careful, everyone!

The swarm descends upon the Fuji team.

In the dub, the Gizamon do their own rundown.

Gizamon: Let the human scream! It doesn't bother us Gizamon! We travel in packs, creating terror! Whether on land or underwater! Hiroaki: Everyone, get in the car!

Good advice! I don't know why we got out of it!

We leave our Fuji crew there, under Gizamon assault. Time passes, and we come to the following morning, when news crews outside the city have discovered what's become of Odaiba.

Takeru and his mother Natsuko are watching the news, where a helicopter pilot reports on the fog bank.

Reporter: It's fog! This fog has completely covered Odaiba! We cannot contact anyone inside! The safety of Odaiba's residents remains unknown.

Takeru dramatically drops his spoon in his cereal bowl and stands up.

Takeru: (determined) I have to go. Natsuko: Takeru! Takeru: (more firmly) I have to go! Onii-chan and Papa are in there!

Staring at the fog bank on the screen, Natsuko's mind drifts to images of Yamato and Hiroaki superimposed against the fog. Then Takeru snaps her out of it.

Takeru: Let me go! Natsuko: ...okay, we'll go together.

They're going to have a hard time getting into Odaiba, but Natsuko agrees to go look for Yamato and Hiroaki.

In the dub, they use Takeru's point about Yamato and Hiroaki as a silence-breaker, in place of Natsuko thinking about them herself after he says it.

Reporter: An impenetrable fog has sealed off the main district of the city. Incoming reports also verify that all communication systems appear to have been rendered useless. T.K.: (drops breakfast and stands up) I'm coming, Matt. Nancy: T.K.! T.K.: I have to go! You don't understand; Whatever happens, they'll need me there. Nancy: Mm-mm. T.K.: Aww, mom! (superimposed images) Matt is there! And so is Dad! We can't just leave them! Nancy: Oh... Alright, then. We'll go together. Get your coat, son. T.K.: Yeah!

I feel like, as a parent, she should be scrutinizing the line "Whatever happens, they'll need me there," a bit. That's a weird thing for her kid to say about a mysterious weather phenomenon.

Takeru can come off like a scared kid who's just determined to help his brother and dad, but T.K. said a weird thing and Nancy should be questioning it.

Meanwhile, Hiroaki bursts into Yamato's room. His clothes are ripped and ragged and he's shoveling food into his mouth from a bowl while using his foot to nudge his son awake.

Hiroaki: Yamato! Wake up! Yamato: D-Dad? What happened to you!? Hiroaki: I'll tell you later! Hurry up and get dressed!

No change in the dub.

We next move to Shimbashi Station, pinpointing Jou's location. The sun has set and come back up, and still Jou hasn't made it home.

Jou knocks back an energy drink before getting up and starting to walk.

Gomamon: Jooooou... Where are we going!? Jou: Hinode Pier. Maybe the boats are still working.

That's a good idea. For reference on the map, the Red Marker is Shimbashi Station, where Jou is now. The green circle is his destination, Hinode. It's not too far; About a mile's walk. The black circle, as usual is Daiba Park, with Odaiba to the south and east of it.

The dub cuts Jou's energy drink. Poor Joe; He has to deal with fatigue the old-fashioned way. It also takes off the specific location reference, but keeps the main point.

Gomamon: Joe, where are you going? Joe: Down to the pier. Maybe we can get in by boat.

Meanwhile, in Odaiba, Yagami Susumu (Taichi's dad) is at the train station trying to commute to work. A clock shows the time as 6:02.

Announcement: Due to an unknown incident, train service has been suspended. Susumu: What the...?

Before he can even think about that, the station is filled with the sound of screams. Phantomon enters, flanked by four Bakemon.

Phantomon is a Perfect-stage Virus-type Ghost DIgimon. You might think they're the evolved form of Bakemon. That'd be the natural conclusion to make. Weirdly, no. Though Phantomon is a Nightmare Soldier, they do not evolve naturally from any Digimon and exclusively require Jogress, like Pumpmon.

Bakemon's natural evolution is Vamdemon.

Susumu: W-WHAT ARE THOSE!?!? Narrator: Phantomon. A Perfect-Stage Ghost Digimon whose giant scythe with chains is his trademark. His special attack is-- Phantomon: SOUL CHOPPER!!!

Before the narrator can even finish the rundown, Phantomon cuts him off to attack the ceiling display. Presumably to get everyone's attention.

Phantomon: By order of Vamdemon-sama, you are all coming with us!

Yeah, this quiet conflict has been getting steadily less quiet with each "mysterious kaiju battle" but now it's gone loud. With the revelation that the Eighth Child has been found and not by him, Vamdemon is not playing anymore. This is an invasion. You are all under attack.

The dub seems to get a little confused here.

Announcement: An announcement will be made when service has been restored. We apologize for any inconvenience. Susumu: Poor kids... (Screams and ghostly wailing) Susumu: Huh? WHAT IN THE WORLD IS THAT THING!?!? Phantomon: (rundown) I'm Phantomon. You don't want to be near me or my frightening little friends when I start to swing my... Phantomon: SHADOW SCYTHE!!! (Phantomon cuts down the display) Phantomon: Myotismon requests your presence and he won't take no for an answer.

Susumu's line, "Poor kids...." seems disconnected from anything that's happening. The only explanation I can come up with is that maybe they think he's in Shimbashi Station, watching Joe leave dejected?

I can see why they might think that. We cut from outside a train station to inside a train station so logic follows that it's the same train station. That is such an easy mistake to make, if that's what happened here.

But it's not; Susumu is in Odaiba trying to go to work. Vamdemon's forces are not rounding people up on the outside of the fog bank.

Morning comes to the Takenouchi residence. Piyomon seems to have recovered from her Pyokomon cooldown.

Piyomon: Where are you going so early in the morning? Sora: Soccer club's morning practice. I'd like to talk to Taichi about what we should do, as well. I'll be back by breakfast, so keep quiet, okay?

On her way out, Sora says farewell to her mother, who's chopping vegetables in the kitchen.

Sora: I'm off! Toshiko: (unenthused) So long. (thinking) Again with soccer....

Toshiko's still not about Sora's hobby.

In the dub:

Biyomon: Are you really going to soccer practice today? Sora: Tai will be there, and I really need to talk to him about our plan of attack. Besides, I could use the practice. (Sora heads out) Sora: MOOOOM!!! I'm going to soccer! Toshiko: ... Sora: Mom? Toshiko: ... Sora: Well, I'll see you in a little bit. Toshiko: ...

Toshiko gives Sora the complete cold shoulder. Fucking harsh. Continuing the trend of dub Toshiko being meaner than original, who at least gave Sora a courtesy goodbye.

A minor note, but Toshiko's activity changes between versions. She's chopping vegetables in the original but washing dishes in the dub. We see her doing something at a kitchen counter, and the sound effects fill in the blanks.

At this point, I'm fairly convinced that they would give the editors a silent copy of the animation and everybody's voice recordings, and the editors just had to cut it together with whatever sounds looked right for the scene. There's a lot of these little effects changes or outright missed sound effects throughout the series.

Meanwhile, at the Yagami home, Taichi and Hikari are trying to call around like promised. Unbeknownst to them, an army of bakemono, of wicked spirits impersonating a human guise, have invaded Odaiba and are moving from home to home.

Taichi: (at the phone with Hikari) This is weird.... Yuuko: Taichi, don't you have morning practice? Taichi: This isn't the time for that! Yuuko: Oh, is that so...?

At once, in synchronized motions, the bakemono ring many doorbells.

Yuuko: (teasing) Look, your teammates came looking for you.

Yuuko prances off to go get the door, leaving Taichi and Hikari with the malfunctioning phone.

Yuuko: Yes, yes, hello there-- AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

The clearly inhuman bakemono pushes Yuuko down, then drops its guise and reveals itself to be a swarm of Bakemon. Three Bakemon swarm into the house. Agumon throws open the bedroom door, firing back at them with a Baby Flame to protect Taichi and Hikari.

Taichi & Hikari: (relieved) AGUMON!!! Yuuko: TAICHI!!! HIKARI!!! AHHHHHHHH!!! Taichi & Hikari: MOM!!!!

Three Bakemon carry Yuuko away while more flood into the apartment.

In the dub:

Tai: Oh, great. The phone's still out. Yuuko: Oh, your poor father. I hope he's not stuck in the subway. Tai: We're not watching that video again! Yuuko: The TV's still out, sweetie.

This is a little confusing but the "video" Tai's referring to are grainy shots of the bakemono moving into position and ringing the doorbells. The dub implies that the Kamiya family are watching this happen as a movie while it is also happening in real life?

I think the grainy horror movie effects on the bakemono shots might have thrown the dub team.

(Doorbell) Yuuko: I wonder who'd be dropping by unannounced? (Yuuko gets up to go answer) Yuuko: Coming! Hello? ... AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! (Bakemon attack; Agumon fends them off) Tai & Kari: AGUMON!!! Yuuko: TAI!!! KARI!!! AHHHHHHHH!!!

The original version of this scene flows better, because Yuuko riffing Taichi about skipping soccer practice connects directly with Sora's preceding scene. Though the dub version does try to connect to a previous scene as well, through Yuuko fretting over Susumu.

After commercial, we go to a few more homes under bakemono assault.

Keeping Palmon under a blanket, Mimi and her parents find refuge in an elevator.

Keisuke: It's okay now. Satoe: What were those things!? Mimi: Mama, I can explain--

Before Mimi can explain, the elevator arrives at its destination and opens to about a million Bakemon. The Tachikawa family screams in unison and we cut away.

In the dub, Keisuke takes charge with a silence-breaker.

Keisuke: Run! This way! Hurry! (Family enters the elevator) Keisuke: Alright, we're all safe now. Satoe: Yeah, but honey, what are they!? Mimi: It's a long story, Mom! (Ground floor, Bakemon central)

Mimi doesn't even try to bring them up to speed this time.

Cut to the Takenouchi home. We arrive in time to see several Bakemon blasted out the door by a beam of Magical Fire. Toshiko is about having a heart attack.

Toshiko: Y-You... You're not a stuffed toy!? Piyomon: (fiercely) Where does soccer club hold their morning practice? Toshiko: (shaking with terror) In the elementary school's schoolyard.... Piyomon: I have to hurry. Sora's in danger!

When Piyomon says that, Toshiko suddenly stops shaking. All of her fear evaporates in an instant.

In the dub:

Toshiko: You just talked! I saw you! I thought you were a stuffed animal! Biyomon: Well, life's full of surprises! Where's the soccer field? Toshiko: It's down at the school! Why do you ask? Biyomon: All you need to know is: Sora's in trouble! I've got to find her!

She did a little more than talk, Toshiko. She blew a bunch of ghosts away with a spiraling death beam. XD

The Bakemon gather the people of Odaiba together at the Big Sight convention center. Vamdemon instructs PicoDevimon on where to go from here.

Vamdemon: Separate the adults from the children and have each of the children meet Tailmon. We'll go through them all in sequence. PicoDevimon: Why overcomplicate it? Killing them all would be much quicker. Vamdemon: That doesn't suit my aesthetic. But.... (Tailmon is raised by a crane behind him) Vamdemon: You understand, of course? If you play dumb, they will all die for it.

Vamdemon doesn't have a good answer for PicoDevimon but honestly, Vamdemon's right. If you kill all of the kids without ever confirming that the Eighth Child is among them, then how can you really know for sure that you got them? What if they weren't here after all? What if they got away?

If you didn't get them, then you won't even know that this isn't over.

And even if you did, you won't have the certainty of it.

Set the haystack on fire without finding the needle and you'll never really know. You'll never have peace of mind again.

All this talk of mass slaughter's a bit too dark for the dub, of course.

Myotismon: We'll start by separating the children from their parents. Ah, how they'll scream and weep! Delicious!

The next two lines between DemiDevimon and Myotismon while they fly in are cut, replaced by various Bakemon going "Gyarkle snargle blark". Miscellaneous monster noises in place of tactical discussion.

Then, as Gatomon's being raised on the crane, she addresses Myotismon.

Gatomon: I guess you're not as powerful here in the real world as you thought you were! Myotismon: Power isn't anything I'd concern myself with if I were you, especially since you don't have any! You little traitor!

She's awfully uppity for someone who's hanging limp from a crane while Myotismon is holding all the cards and there's no sign of impending rescue. I don't know what about this situation could possibly make her think this is an appropriate context for an "Aha, see how weak you are!?" type Gotcha.

Cut to Yamato, Gabumon and Hiroaki hiding out on a scaffolding. Evidently Hiroaki's "GET THE FUCK UP AND COME WITH ME" moment earlier was him successfully getting his son clear of the impending bakemono assault. Good for him.

We've also skipped the recap on Yamato's part, it seems.

Yamato: Tell me what's happening! Hiroaki: I don't know either! But in the meantime, both of you stay safe here. Yamato: What about you, Dad?

Through the construction beams of this little hidey-hole they're in, the FCG Building can be seen right across the way.

Hiraoki: I'm going to the station. I need to contact the outside world and tell them what's happening here. Gabumon-kun, is it? Protect Yamato for me. (Hiroaki starts walking away) Gabumon: Yes, sir. Yamato: Be careful! Hiroaki: Yup. (Hiroaki leaves) Gabumon: Are we sure about this, Yamato? Yamato: We have to trust my dad.

Gabumon's iffy about letting Hiraoki go out there alone, but Yamato has faith in the man.

(I don't. What happened to the rest of his crew? Did they get eaten by Gizamon?)

In the dub:

Matt: Now, will you tell me what happened, Dad? Hiroaki: I hardly know, myself. But I want you to stay here out of sight. Matt: Where are you going? Hiroaki: The station. To try to find some way to communicate with the outside world! Smoke signals! Anything! You'll be safe here; Stay with Gabumon. (Hiroaki starts walking away) Gabumon: How do you know about me!? Matt: But Dad... HOW!? Hiroaki: Never mind how! Just be safe! (Hiroaki leaves) Gabumon: You know, I think he likes me.

According to the dub, Matt has said nothing to Hiroaki about the Digimon and just dragged Gabumon's limp, heavy frame over here. Nonetheless, Hiroaki is so well-informed that he actually knows all about Gabumon already. Uh. Somehow.

In the dub's defense, we did skip Yamato recapping things for Hiroaki and that is a little confusing. The giveaway that Hiroaki has very recently learned about Gabumon for the first time is when he addresses him as "Gabumon-kun ka."

Using か ka to end a sentence recontextualizes the preceding sentence as a question. It's basically the Japanese question mark. Hiroaki is saying Gabumon's name as a question, as if he's unsure about it.

This is implicitly something they already had to talk about on the way here, and Hiroaki only kind of gets it. But it's still pretty vague and rushed-through, and as a result the dub winds up making a grand mystery out of it. We're never going to find out why Hiroaki has known about Digimon all this time, because he hasn't.

Meanwhile, at the Yagami family's apartment complex, Taichi has a plan to save Yuuko.

It is exactly what you'd expect of a Taichi plan, and it does not go well.

Yuuko panics when she sees Greymon explode out of the apartment complex. Presumably the neighbors' bad days also just got worse because that did a lot more damage than just taking out one apartment.

In fact, the Yagami apartment is about two or three floors down from the top of a thirteen-story complex. They made sure to go down to first or second floor before doing this. So none of the apartments they just cratered are theirs. XD

In any case, Yuuko quite reasonably flips the fuck out when Godzilla joins today's festivities.

Yuuko: A DINOSAUR!?!? NO!!!

As Greymon turns, Taichi and Hikari are on his left shoulder.

Taichi: This isn't what it looks like, Mom! Greymon, save Mom! Yuuko: NO!!! MY CHILDREN!!!

Greymon stomps over towards Yuuko, but he's suddenly cut down by a sharp slash to his arm, spraying black blood everywhere. His assailant, Phantomon, leaves it at that.

Phantomon: It's useless to resist. (thrusts his scythe to indicate direction) Now! Take them all to Vamdemon-sama!

The Bakemon force-march their captives in the direction Phantomon indicated. Yuuko desperately tries to push through the crowd

Yuuko: TAICHI!!! HIKARI!!! Greymon: MEGA FLAME!!!

Greymon suddenly lobs a sucker punch at Phantomon from his spot on the ground. Phantomon teleports before it can hit him, causing Greymon's shot to "harmlessly" blow off another chunk of the complex. But it buys them a second to act.

Greymon: I'm sorry, Taichi. I promise to save your Mom later! Right now, we have to run!

Given that it's been less than twelve hours since we tried MetalGreymon and only got one shot out of him, Greymon's probably right. We aren't in good shape to throw down with Phantomon. Greymon bails, leaving poor Yuuko down there not understanding a thing she's seeing.

Taichi & Hikari: MOM!!! Yuuko: SOMEBODY HELP!!! MY CHILDREN!!!

Right now is a bad time to be a parent in Odaiba.

In the dub:

(Greymon explodes from the building) Yuuko: Oh no! Another monster! Tai: Don't worry! This monster's on our side! Get my Mom, Greymon. Hurry! Phantomon: SHADOW SCYTHE!!! (Greymon falls to the ground, bleeding) Phantomon: Well, Greymon, it looks like your time is up. (thrusts his scythe to indicate direction) Get the rest of the crowd! Yuuko: NO!!! STOP!!! Greymon: NOVA BLAST!!! (Greymon chases off Phantomon with a sneak attack) Greymon: Sorry, Tai, I'm losing it... We'll get your Mom later... Right now, we've got to get out of here! (Greymon books it) Kari: MOMMY!!! Tai: MOM, WE'LL BE BACK!!! Yuuko: KARI!!! TAI!!!

Gotta say, I love Phantomon's dub voice. In the original, he's a high-pitched fast-talking goober. The dub plays him for ~woo spoo~ooky ghost but with a hint of menace and edge in it that really works.

Very minor quibbles: "A DINOSAUR!?!?" was a funnier reaction than "Oh no, another monster!" Also, Phantomon doesn't call his attack in the original; Greymon suddenly stopping and spewing blood comes as a total unexpected shock.

Over at the soccer field Taichi was supposed to be at, Piyomon and Toshiko have a great plan foiled by a timing.

Pulling back the hoods on their makeshift Bakemon disguises, Piyomon and Toshiko look across an empty soccer field already pilfered by bakemono assailants.

Piyomon: We were too late.... Toshiko: (fearful) Sora....

The dub seems to think there's a trail here.

Toshiko: We'll follow them and find out where they've taken her! Biyomon: But will it work? Toshiko: ...we'll see....

It's not clear who they intend to follow, since the Bakemon are already long gone and they're standing alone in an open field. Maybe they plan on finding some other Bakemon at work elsewhere in Odaiba and following those ones.

In any case, they will be at Big Sight next we see them, so this dialogue serves as a gap-bridging purpose to explain how they get there.

Following their train of thought, we find Sora among the crowd at Big Sight. Mimi creeps up on her from behind.

Mimi: (grabbing Sora's shoulders) Sora-san! Sora: Ah! (Mimi sits next to Sora) Sora: They caught you too, Mimi-chan? Palmon: (peeks out from under the blanket) Want me to evolve?

Sora takes a quick look around the shopping center.

Sora: The enemy is all around us. Let's lay low for right now. Palmon: Got it.

The girls have an ace up their sleeve. They just need to pick their moment.

In the dub:

Mimi: (grabbing Sora's shoulders) Sora? It's you! (Mimi sits next to Sora) Sora: Oh no, Mimi! They got you too? Palmon: (peeks out from under the blanket) Psst! I can Digivolve any time. Just say the word! Sora: (looking around as she speaks) There's too many people and too many of them. (finishes) Let's see how this plays out. You'll be our trump card for later. Palmon: Got it.

Differently phrased but same ideas.

Sora takes a look around the station and finds Yuuko with Susumu. Yuuko is weeping inconsolably.

Yuuko: The children... THE CHILDREN.... Susumu: Calm down! Yuuko: I CAN'T!!! That orange dinosaur must have eaten them by now....

Sora approaches Yuuko to offer what she knows.

Sora: Please don't worry. Yuuko: Sora-chan? Sora: The dinosaur is with us. He's going to come here with the other good Digimon and save us.

I'm glad someone was here to explain this to Yuuko. Can you imagine?

In the dub:

Yuuko: I can't stand it! I can't stand not knowing! Susumu: Calm down, dear.... Yuuko: How can I calm down!? For all we know, that monster's devoured the children by now! (Sora approaches) Sora: Don't worry; He's one of ours. Susumu & Yuuko: Huh!? Sora: There's a lot more where he came from. We've got some powerful friends. Besides, we've got truth and justice and all that good stuff on our side!

Susumu comes off as a dick in both versions. Japanese Susumu tries to get Yuuko to stop crying by barking it at her as an order. Kinda harkens back to his drunken "WHERE MY CHILDREN AT!?!?" midnight antics from the OVA. Susumu's in that grey area where he's not abusive but he still kinda sucks.

Meanwhile, dub Susumu has this whiny sound to his voice like "Ugggggh I can't believe she's doing this right now...." He's passive-aggressive instead of aggro-aggressive but still comes off as unsupportive.

Hey, Susumu? Your children have been eaten by Godzilla. You could stand to care a little about that.

Without the context of what she's talking about, Sora sounds a little deranged in both versions. But original Sora is concise and to the point about her wild rambling, while Dub Sora wanders wildly off-topic and starts ranting about superhero themes.

In her defense, she's 11. Static Shock took a lot of cues from Batman comics early in his career, before he was retconned into the DC Animated Universe proper and met Actual Batman.

The actual problem with the dub version is that Yuuko provides zero contextual information that Sora could possibly use to realize she's talking about Greymon. Sora has to conclusion-jump to her role in this scene based solely on the description, "that monster".

Dressed in their Bakemon disguises Toshiko and Piyomon arrive at Big Sight.

(You know, there's something deliciously ironic about a human masquerading as a fake bakemono. Turnabout is fair play, assholes.)

Toshiko: Where could Sora be? Piyomon: Let's have a look inside. Toshiko: Yeah. ...um, Piyo-san, this might be a strange question but has Sora ever said that she hated me? Piyomon: Never! In fact, what she said was this.

Piyomon flashes back on Garudamon's debut episode, just after they escaped Vamdemon.

Sora: I was acting just like my Mom. Pyokomon: Sora.... Sora: That's when I realized my Mom loved me all along. Pyokomon: Ehehe! I felt it too! I felt your love! Sora: Hehe, I'm sorry about that. (Return to Present) Toshiko: (taking off her hood so we can see her smiling fondly) That girl....

Aww, now Toshiko's up to speed on Sora's character development.

In the dub:

Biyomon: Well, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Toshiko: Now let's go inside and find Sora! Biyomon: Right! Toshiko: Wait. This may be a strange question but, did Sora ever say... Did she tell you... Does Sora hate me? Biyomon: What!? Oh boy, do you have it wrong! (Flashback) Sora: Then I realized I was worried about you just the way my mother worries about me, and now I know for sure. My mom loved me all along. Yokomon: And it was your love that helped me Digivolve, Sora! Sora: I'm glad! (Return to Present) Toshiko: (taking off her hood so we can see her smiling fondly) Sora....

The start of this version flows awkwardly. They have Toshiko be the one to say we should go look inside, and then Toshiko interrupts Toshiko's plan to ask her question.

Also, I don't think Biyomon knows what that phrase means. "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!" would have been a great line the first time we saw the Bakemon disguises. However, for the second scene that they're disguised in, it comes out of nowhere.

Inside Big Sight, the parents and two Chosen Children make plans. By which I mean, Susumu is trying to get himself killed in a fit of machismo.

In addition to the Yagami and Tachikawa parents, Hiroaki's crew have joined the party.

Susumu: Understood? The men will take down the guards. While we're keeping them busy, you take the women and children and you run. Yuki: Understood!

Susumu's plan of attack is "We'll get 'em with our masculinity!" This is why women live longer. That said, I see where Taichi gets it.

Suddenly, a big green mascot pats Yuki on the shoulder.

Chioka: Eh? Susumu: Do you want to help too? Mascots: (silently nod) Satoe: (standing up) Excuse me.... Susumu: What is it? Satoe: Please don't make my husband participate in such a dangerous plan! Keisuke: Huh? Hey, now-- Satoe: (to Keisuke) Not now, Sweetheart. (to the group) There are plenty of men here, so my husband doesn't have to join in, right? Susumu: Uh, ma'am, that-- Satoe: (bawling) HE'LL DIE!!! IF MY HUSBAND DIES, I'LL FOLLOW HIM IN DEATH!!! Susumu: Uhhhhh okay, okay, I understand! Well then, Tachikawa-san, you escort the women outside. Satoe: (stops crying INSTANTLY and embraces Keisuke) Isn't that great, Sweetheart!?

I also see where Mimi gets it. Tachikawa Satoe is Life Goals. She just made Yagami Susumu back the fuck off. This woman is pink as fuck and stone cold.

The dub cuts out Susumu and Yuki's initial lines, opening this scene on the mascots joining the conversation. It also gives them dialogue.

Yuki: How could it be worse? Mascot: You could work for minimum-wage in a foam rubber suit with kids kicking you all the time. Right guys? Mascots: (nod) Right! Satoe: (standing up) Ahem. Mimi: What is it, Mom? Satoe: I just can't stay in this place one second longer! Keisuke: Well, you've been wanting to get away; Look at this as a vacation. Satoe: (to Keisuke) WHO ASKED YOU TO TALK!?!? (to the group) I'm sorry, children, I didn't mean to yell. It's just that I'm not used to being held captive by creatures from another world. Chioka: Don't worry, lady; You'll get used to it. Satoe: (bawling) But I don't wanna get used to it! I wanna go home and sleep in my own bed! I wanna live life to the fullest! I wanna clean lint out of my dryer! I wanna pick up after my doggy! I wanna know what's happening on my soap operas! Wahhhhhh! Satoe: (stops crying INSTANTLY and embraces Keisuke) I'm so glad I got that off my chest.

This whole exchange sucks. They cut Susumu's entire ill-conceived plan of attack and replaced it with the mascots whining about their jobs. Uh. Nice filler dialogue but we were talking about something important.

This also means that Satoe sticking it to Susumu to defend her husband's safety gets cut. Instead, she just whines for ten seconds straight then abruptly stops for no reason. Where the original was a nice "Like mother, like daughter" moment, here we see "Like daughter, like mother"; the dub screws Mimi like this a lot too.

Keisuke and Chioka's lines are pretty bullshit too. "Think of being kidnapped by Thriller like it's a vacation?" "You'll get used to being abducted by monsters?" What the hell are these men on about?

Before the attack begins, Sora notices that Sakurada has been hugging his radio and listening to a tape through this entire conversation.

Sora: What is he listening to? Yuki: Sakurada-kun? When he gets stressed out, he listens to sutras. Sora: Sutras?

Sora flashes back on what she learned from her Jou-senpai back on File Island.

Jou: To counter ghosts, you have to chant a sutra and pray for God's grace! Sora: Chant what!? Jou: By chanting the sutra, Bakemon-sama will lose his power!

Back in the present, Susumu is raring to go.

Yuuko: Honey.... Susumu: It'll be fine. Now, let's go, everyone!

The men suddenly attack the Bakemon crowd. Susumu, Chioka, Sakurada, and the mascots all grab metal bars and start swinging at any ghosts they see.

(Credit where it's due, getting them with raw masculinity seems to be working.)

Yuki: EVERYONE, STAY WITH ME!!!

Unfortunately, all of Susumu's ghost-punching doesn't amount to shit once the crowd is past him. More Bakemon descend on the fleeing Odaiba citizens from the front.

Sora: Listen to this!

Sora turns on Sakurada's stereo at full volume, blasting the Bakemon with Buddhist sutras. They fall helpless to the ground.

Sora: Now! Hurry! Hurry!

The crowd of hostages escapes Big Sight into the daylight! Well, what daylight can pass through the fog bank, anyway.

In the dub, since we didn't use the planning scene to plan, Sora abruptly decides we should come up with a plan.

Sora: Enough of this! We need a plan! Yuki: Yeah, Jeremiah! Why don't you help us instead of listening to those mind-over-matter tapes all the time? Sora: What'd you say? (flashback) Joe: The only way to weaken Bakemon is with mind over matter. Sora: Huh!? Mind over what!? Joe: It's an old Roman technique. You repeat a phrase over and over again and it helps you focus your mind. (Return to Present) Sora: That's it! We need some of you to attack the Bakemon, creating a diversion while the rest of us come up with a Mind Over Matter chant! Yuuko: What's that mean? Susumu: Just do what she says, alright?

Having to remove the religious elements of the Bakemon episode now has a knock-on effect that makes this scene absolutely ridiculous. Sora's plan is rooted in absolutely nothing but a bunch of nonsense Joe said to her one time that inexplicably worked.

Made even funnier because of the way they butchered the previous scene. Like. All of these adults were ready to sit here and wait to die until Sora said we should give the Bakemon a self-help seminar. And now they're like, "FUCK YES. I pledge my sword to the inane ramblings of this preteen." XD

So the assault begins.

Susumu: Half of you come with me! LET'S GET 'EM!!! (Charge!) Yuki: Women and children, follow me! (Bakemon attack the crowd) Sora: PUMP UP THE VOLUME!!! (Sora holds up the radio) Crowd: BAKEMON LOSE YOUR POWER!!! BAKEMON LOSE YOUR POWER!!! (The Bakemon fall to the ground and the crowd escapes)

The curse of the Mind Over Matter chant continues to plague this scene. Sora said we need to come up with something but then they just reuse Joe's. I guess they got impatient.

More glaringly, the plan is for the crowd to chant something. When Sora holds up the radio, nothing comes out of it. They have no recording saying "Bakemon lose your power". How would they? It's the crowd that all chants the words at once.

So. Like. Why did she take Jeremiah's radio away from him and then brandish it at the Bakemon if it has no bearing on this fight?

Escaping into the foggy daylight, Satoe cheers.

Satoe: Yay! We made it outside!

Whoops, too early for jubilation. We have a third new Digimon to analyze this episode.

DarkTyranomon is an Adult-stage Virus-type Dinosaur Digimon. They're from the Pagumon evolution tree like Gizamon, but are not available for Gizamon to evolve into. They're basically peak evolution for their tree's Adult-stage; A well cared for Pagumon will become Gazimon, and a Gazimon that's well cared for and supremely well trained will become DarkTyranomon.

Satoe: There's another one! Narrator: DarkTyranomon. A ferocious Digimon whose heart and body were infected by a computer virus. His special attack is Fire Blast.

While everyone panics, Keisuke gently pushes Satoe off of him with a fierce look on his face. He runs off into the crowd.

Satoe: Where are you going!?

Jumping into a nearby motor scooter, he scoots into action to avenge his earlier emasculation.

Keisuke: I am... A MAAAAAAAAAAN--

DarkTyranmon's gigantic claw slaps the scooter and sends Keisuke flying ineffectually through the air to his doom. This is why women live longer.

In the dub:

Satoe: We made it! We're safe at last! DarkTyranomon: (exists) Satoe: Oops, spoke too soon. Palmon: (rundown) It's DarkTyranomon! He was actually a nice guy once until he was taken over by an evil computer virus and his personality did a 180. (Keisuke suddenly separates from Satoe and runs into the crowd) Satoe: Huh? Where are you going? Keisuke: (scooter) YOU COULDN'T BE IN SAFER HAAAAAAANDS-- (Swipe)

A lot of the comedy of this scene didn't make it through. Satoe's reaction to DarkTyranomon is too reserved. Since we lost Keisuke's emasculation in the earlier butchered scene, we also lose the punchline to it here; He suddenly makes shockingly bad choices for no reason and it's not half as funny.

That said, Palmon's diegetic rundown covers all the pertinent information and is good.

Watching Keisuke fly through the air, Mimi has feelings. That she punches DarkTyranomon in the face with.

Mimi: PAPAAAAAAAAA!!!

Palmon rushes through one of the fastest evolution stock animations we've ever had to preserve the momentum, then uppercuts DarkTyranomon to the ground. Our ace in the hole has now officially been launched.

While Togemon's keeping DarkTyranomon busy, the Tachikawa women hurry to Keisuke's side.

Satoe: Are you okay, Honey? Keisuke: I am, but I made a fool of myself. Satoe: No, that's not true. You were very cool out there! Keisuke: Really? Satoe: Really! (hugs Keisuke) Keisuke: REALLY!? Satoe: REALLY!!!

While Gomez and Morticia are enjoying each other's company, Togemon and DarkTyranomon are still having it out. DarkTyranomon has hoisted Togemon up into his claws, giving her a great vantage from which to juggle punches into his face.

Mimi: Hey, this isn't the time for that! Keisuke: Once in a while doesn't hurt. Satoe: Yeah! Mimi: But you're always like this!

Mimi's parents wear their hearts on their sleeves. Again, it's easy to see where she gets it from.

In the dub, Togemon gets to quip as she comes out.

Mimi: DAAAAAAAD!!! (Palmon evolves and Togemon uppercuts DarkTyranomon) Togemon: Back to the Stone Age with you! Mimi: Dad! Daaaad! (The Tachikawa women run to Keisuke) Satoe: Honeybunch, are you okay? Keisuke: Ugh... I guess I made a fool of myself, huh? Satoe: Mm-mm. Don't be ridiculous. That was the bravest thing I ever saw! Keisuke: Really? Satoe: Really. (hugs Keisuke) Keisuke: You mean it!? Satoe: I mean it! Keisuke: Oh, honey.... (Fight raging) Mimi: Uh, Mom? Dad? I hate to ruin this love fest but maybe we should run for cover or something!

Dub Mimi is a lot more supportive of her parents' mushy PDAs, which means we lose a funny gag and a fun bit of characterization.

Unfortunately, the fight takes a turn while the Tachikawa parents are having their moment.

DarkTyranomon throws Togemon down on her back, then follows up with their Fire Blast.

Mimi: Ganbatte, Togemon! Togemon: (pained) ...I'm trying to ganbatte....

As a reminder, ganbatte is the Japanese cultural construct of perseverance in the face of tremendous hardship, using hard work and dedication to pull through and overcome the impossible.

While Togemon's struggling, the Bakemon regroup. They chase the crowd back inside the convention center. Sora runs around blasting the sutra with Sakurada's radio, but there's only so much she can do.

Mimi: Why? Why!? Why are they doing this to us!?

We see Susumu's group inside, still fighting it out with the Bakemon. Back out here, the regrouped Bakemon swarm towards Mimi's parents.

Mimi: (tears in her eyes) I can't let this... I WON'T LET ALL OF THESE DIGIMON DO THIS!!!

The dub puts a commercial break on Togemon getting Fire Blasted, which is a pretty good pick for a commercial cliffhanger. Then we return on Mimi inexplicably telling Togemon to abandon everyone.

Mimi: It's no use! Save yourself! Togemon: (pained) I got it under control, no problem.... (Bakemon regroup) Mimi: Oh, this is the end. It's over. Myotismon will rule the world. (Bakemon swarm towards Mimi's parents) Mimi: (tears in her eyes) This is terrible! Now my family's going to suffer and so are my friends! There's got to be something I can do!

The dub doesn't play Mimi's meltdown half as hard as original Mimi's. Mimi has never wanted to be a part of that world, and now all the hardship and trauma has followed her home. She's never understood why this has to be her life.

Here, it's basically a tantrum that actualizes her power. Not unlike the one from that destroyed Devimon's Black Gear. Not unlike the one her mother just used to vanquish Susumu. The Tachikawa women channel incredible power when they let their feelings run wild.

Mimi doesn't want to have to fight these Digimon conflicts. She just wants it to stop. So her feelings erupt and she claims the power that will make it stop. Mimi fights so that she won't have to fight again.

Dub Mimi falls into despair because the bad guys are winning. Then she quietly decides to try and help, and somehow that's sufficient to light her Crest. It lacks both the emotional power and the resonance with her storyline to this point.

Mimi's overwhelming feelings cause her Crest to ignite. Togemon CHOU-SHINKAAAAAA!!!

Let's have a warm round of applause for the best evolved form of an Adventure 01 Digimon, Lilimon!

Mimi: Togemon evolved? Lilimon: FLOWER CANNON!!!

Lilimon announces herself by pelting DarkTyranomon in the chest with her Flower Cannon, and we go into her rundown.

Lilimon is a Perfect-stage Data-type Fairy Digimon. She would not release as a V-Pet until several months after this episode aired, when she became part of the 0.5 rerelease for Wind Guardians - Replacing Blossomon as Togemon's Perfect evolution.

Mimi: Lilimon? Lilimon: Hi! Mimi! Narrator: A Perfect-stage Fairy Digimon who flies through the sky using the four wings on her back. That is Lilimon! Her special attack is Flower Cannon.

Between letting Phantomon cut him off and now changing up the typical rundown format so he can respond directly to Mimi, the narrator's rundowns have been pretty fun this episode.

Lilimon: (teasing) Am I in bad taste? Mimi: Not at all. You're so pretty! And cute! Lilimon: Thank you!

Once the rundown's finished, Lilimon immediately pays off the "bad taste" bit from earlier and makes Mimi eat her words. As she should because Lilimon Best Evolution.

The dub calls her "Lillymon", not only changing out the second I for a Y to shore it up into English but then promptly misspelling the word "lily" with a second L. Um.

Mimi: Where'd she come from!? Lillymon: FLOWER CANNON!!! (Lillymon blasts DarkTyranomon) Mimi: Whoa! Who are you!? Lillymon: It's just li'l ol' me! Lillymon: (rundown) Or should I say "little old us"? I'm Palmon and Togemon too! This is just my fully Digivolved form. You can call me Lillymon! Lillymon: Am I in bad taste? Mimi: No way. I'm sorry I ever said that. Lillymon: No biggie!

Dub Mimi apologizes for the objectionable comment, while original Mimi gushes over how cool Lilimon is. Both are valid ways to play this scene. It does make Dub Mimi come across as a little more mature than Original Mimi, but it wouldn't be the first time.

Though I'm not a fan of how 2/3 of the dub exchange including the rundown have to be spent explaining how Digivolution works to Mimi. Really? We're how many episodes into this?

DarkTyranomon tries to take a swipe at Lilimon from behind, but she's too nimble and easily dodges it.

Lilimon: Ehehe! Try and catch me if you can! Mimi: Be careful! Lilimon: Hey, Mimi! Your tears of purity helped me evolve. I want to cherish that heart of yours. That's why.... Mimi: What are you going to do? Lilimon: Watch this! HANA NO KUBIKAZARI!!!

Though her Flower Cannon is spoken in English, her second attack Hana no Kubikazari is in Japanese. It translates to "Flower Necklace". Lilimon zips around DarkTyranomon's neck, creating a ring of flowers that pacifies them.

Lilimon: I've removed the evil virus from them using my flower power. They're not our enemy anymore. (pets DarkTyranomon) Good boy. Mimi: SO COOL!!!

Lilimon can produce flowers that unfuck viruses. There is so much we could do with that!

In the dub:

Lillymon: Whoopsy! You'll have to be quicker than that! Mimi: Be careful! Lillymon: Your wish to save your family and friends brought me into existence. Mimi, you're a very special girl even though your wardrobe sometimes clashes. Mimi: What do you mean? Lillymon: Later! Right now, I have a dinosaur to tame! (Lillymon creates the Flower Necklace but doesn't call the attack) Lillymon: My flower wreath counteracted the evil computer virus, so he ought to be as gentle as a lamb from now on. (pets DarkTyrannomon) Nice Tyrannomon. Thattaboy.

Lillymon's too busy quipping to queue up her decision to use the Flower Necklace, despite the fact that explaining said decision is the point of her heartfelt monologue. She chooses mercy for DarkTyranomon to reflect Mimi's disdain for all this violence and desire for a peaceful life.

Mimi fights so that she won't have to fight anymore. Respecting her values, Lilimon uses her powers to end this without having to fight.

Unfortunately. And very symbolically. Mimi cannot have the peace she desires.

Vamdemon: Are we having a tea ceremony? BLOODY STREAM!!!

Mocking the hyper-femininity of this sweet moment we're having, Vamdemon cuts in and executes DarkTyranomon. One lash of his attack is all it takes to make DarkTyranomon disintegrate into pixels. The only thing left behind is the Flower Necklace, which hangs in the air for just a moment before falling hopelessly to the ground.

Vamdemon has seen Mimi and Lilimon's mercy, and answered that there will be violence. There will be blood. Mercy is not an option so long as he's driving this war.

Lilimon: How could you do that!? Vamdemon: Hmph. All I did was rid myself of unnecessary rubbish. You're next. BLOODY STREAM!!!

Vamdemon lashes at Lilimon with his whip. She darts away, dancing around his attack and returning fire with Flower Cannon. The fight is back on.

From here, the dub starts putting scenes out-of-order again. This is the last scene in their version, so we're gonna come back to this when the dub gets here. For the original, we leave Mimi here for the episode to go check in on how everyone else is doing.

Jou has finally made it to Hinode, only to discover that the boats are shut down too. He's so distraught, he starts complaining about the education system.

Jou: The boats won't work either... How do I get through that fog? Gomamon: Jou, don't they teach you that in cram school? Jou: Of course not! Stuff like how to make a fire or how to wash dishes? You never learn that in a cram school! Gomamon: Then what do they teach you? Jou: Who cares about that? What matters right now is that fog.

In the dub:

Joe: I should have known. What made me think the boats would be running when nothing else is? Gomamon: It could be worse. We could be stuck in some crazy-- Joe: Please stop saying it could be worse. I have news for you, pal: It is worse! The whole world is stuck in turmoil and we're waiting for a ride into town! Gomamon: We might as well just give up right now. Joe: Well, I wouldn't go that far. After all, it could be worse. Myotismon: Ahahahahaha HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Joe: Huh!?

Jou's dissatisfaction with the education system is replaced by a funny exchange about the phrase "it could be worse". Which is then inexplicably interrupted by Myotismon laughing so hard he can be heard three miles away at Hinode Pier. DemiDevimon must have just told a hell of a good joke.

I think they just couldn't come up with a valid reason for Joe to suddenly look at the fog when Jou says "What matters right now is that fog."

Takeru and Natsuko are on a train heading in; They're still far enough out that they haven't been stopped yet.

Hiroaki is sneaking around the FCG Building, avoiding a patrolling Bakemon.

Hiroaki: (thinking) Maybe if I try the satellite broadcast... That might work.

In the dub:

Hiroaki: Maybe if I can just get to that satellite dish....

Taichi and Hikari run past the scaffolding where Yamato's hiding out with Gabumon. Taichi is carrying the exhausted Agumon on his back. He's also holding Hikari's hand so she doesn't fall behind.

Taichi: Are you okay? Agumon: Eh, sort of.... Yamato: TAICHI!!! Taichi: Huh? Yamato: Over here! Taichi: Yamato!?

Taichi joins Yamato inside the partially constructed building. The boys go talk things through while Hikari tends to Agumon's injured arm.

Hikari: Does it still hurt? Agumon: It's gotten a lot better. Yamato: WHAT DID YOU SAY!?!? Taichi: It's true! Hikari is the Eighth Child!

So now three of the eight Chosen Children know the truth about Hikari.

In the dub:

In the dub:

Tai: You okay, Agumon? Agumon: I've felt better. Matt: TAI!!! Tai: Huh!? Matt: UP HERE!!! Tai: Matt!? Is that you!? Hey, we gotta talk! (Cut to interior) Kari: You feel any better? Agumon: A lot better; Thanks, Kari. Matt: What!? You're kidding me! Tai: No, it's true! Kari is the Eighth Child!

I really like Tai's "We gotta talk!" here. Delivered with all the urgency of someone who has news that will blow Matt's mind. And he does!

Meanwhile, back inside Big Sight, Sora's plan has run its course. This little rebellion is over.

Phantomon destroys Sakurada's radio, disarming Sora of her only weapon.

Phantomon: Try chanting the Buddha's name this time so you can die a peaceful death!

Phantomon is referencing a Buddhist belief that dying with the Buddha on your mind will positively affect your dharma and allow you to reincarnate into a better form than you would otherwise. You don't have to do the chanting yourself; Others can chant it for you. The important thing is that the Buddha is the last thought on your mind when you pass.

Two eerily grounded Bakemon approach Sora, grabbing her by the arms.

Phantomon: Your life is mine! Bakemon?: Not so fast! Phantomon: What.

Toshiko and Piyomon shed their garments, with Piyomon evolving instantly. Birdramon rushes Phantomon and the Bakemon horde, buying Toshiko and Sora a moment to reunite.

Toshiko: (embracing Sora) Sora... (After a moment, they stand up) Sora: Mom... Toshiko: You have to escape, Sora. Sora: You come too!

More Bakemon reinforcements close in on them. Toshiko stands out in front of her daughter, barking at her.

Toshiko: HURRY UP AND GO!!! Sora: MOOOOOOM!!!

Toshiko and Sora may not be able to connect over their interests, but if there was ever any doubt that Toshiko loves her....

The original episode ends here on Sora's scream.

Over in the dub, Phantomon has the unenviable task of having to try and make a deadly threat out of a self-help mantra that wasn't even coming out of the radio to begin with.

Phantomon: Enough! That new-age psychobabble won't help you where you're going, my pretty little miss!

He almost succeeds but then he gets super weird in the last four words. He also then clarifies that this wasn't a veiled threat; He really is dialing the violence down and just intends to put Sora in captivity.

Phantomon: Seize her! Take her away! Bakemon?: Boo! Phantomon: ...what? (Biyomon Digivolves) Phantomon: Oh, it's just a bird. A large bird, I grant you. (Birdramon rushes them) Phantomon: A LARGE ANGRY BIRD AUUUUGH!!!

Though the "Boo!" line is weak, the silence-breakers added to Birdramon's attack are amazing. Gold star. XD

Toshiko: (embraces Sora) Sora.... Sora: Oh, Mom. I'm so.... Toshiko: There's no time now, Honey. You've got to get out of here! Hurry! Sora: But what about you? (Bakemon reinforcements arrive) Toshiko: GET MOVING!!! I'LL BE FINE!!! Sora: NO!!! MOTHER!!!

This lands almost as hard except for one confusing point. Was Sora about to apologize to Toshiko for this morning's drama? Apologize for what? Going to soccer practice?

Maybe she meant to apologize for being unfair to Toshiko over the knee injury way back when. There was blame to go around there. But in recent memory Sora hasn't done anything wrong.

I don't know. It's not bad or contradictory for Sora to have apologetic feelings towards her mom given their relationship as a whole. Just a little awkward that she's trying to apologize right now for something that has barely been touched on in this episode, in a scene she wasn't part of.

Finally, while the original ends here with Toshiko's sacrifice, the dub loops back around to end with Mimi and Lillymon facing off against Myotismon.

Mimi: We woooooooon! Myotismon: We'll see about that. Back to the Digital World with you! (DarkTyranomon dies returns to the Digital World safe and sound) Lillymon: You are such a bad sport! Myotismon: You meddlesome little flower child! It's time I plucked your petals! CRIMSON LIGHTNING!!!

They then cut the footage of Lilimon dodging Vamdemon's attack and returning fire with her Flower Cannon, leaving her fate more ambiguous and desperate than seeing her give as good as she gets against Myotismon might have otherwise.

Narrator: Will Lillymon withstand Myotismon's Crimson Lightning or will Mimi lose her best friend? Next time on Digimon: Digital Monsters!

XD None of the above; She dodged it, asshole. Fuck out of here with your patriarchal false dichotomies!

Assessment: Lilimon is the best and her debut episode sees the plot ramping up, as Vamdemon abandons all pretense of a stealthy infiltration now that he's narrowed down the Eighth Child's location to a single district. We aren't sneaking around doing Animorphs shit anymore; We are going loud and doing last five or so Animorphs volumes shit.

The parents are now in on it, to varying degrees, and it's great to see them stepping up for their kids. Mimi's parents are adorable and hilarious, Sora's mom is trying to reconcile, Yamato's dad is a badass, and Taichi's dad beat up ghosts with a metal bar.

I said it before, but you really can see the traits that trickled down into the Chosen Children embedded in their parents. Where they inherited their best qualities, and also their worst.

The dub is fantastic for about 2/3 of the episode but then shits the bed once we hit Big Sight and never fully recovers. It does slowly recover, but never fully.

[friendlyloveaffair]

It was exactly 44 years ago when Ultraman 80 first came to us from a star. ⭐

First broadcast: April 2, 1980 on Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS).

Just a simple fan edit with the opening ("Ultraman 80") and closing themes ("Let's Go UGM"). I'll definitely make it better when it hits 45 next year.

[siderealscribblings]

The Thieves Den Mementos, the Metaverse

“What happened?” 

“Based on a thorough examination of our systems…everything blew up.” 

“Everything being-” 

“Ev. Er. Y. Thing,” Futaba said, shaking a burnt out old computer next to her ear before chucking it out the window in disgust. “Every wire and board I had hooked up to a magatsuhi battery discharged so fast the copper melted. Thank God, I haven't hooked the vehicles up yet…" 

"What has God done for us lately that deserves our thanks?" Ren sighed, rubbing his eyes. "Ryuji, how much juice do we have left?" 

"Well somehow we lost half the fuckin' pool!'" Ryuji growled, carrying bottles of magatsuhi in his arms as he emerged from the pool room. "The weird spinny machine thing that makes magatsuhi out of internet rumors is still working, but that stockpile we were sitting on is looking a little dry." 

"So not a total wash," Makoto said, biting off the last of her fingernails. "We can eat at least; the rest of the city doesn't look so lucky." 

Outside the window, Mementos was only barely coming back on. Magatsuhi flowed back into light fixtures here and there but huge swathes of the city were dark, making the twisting spires and shadowy caverns between buildings seem all the more sinister. 

"Keep the outer lights off; don't let anyone know we still have magatsuhi," Ren said, watching Futaba stick her hand into a monitor and wiggle her fingers around the insides a bit. Makoto and Ann could heal bodies; Futaba had an uncanny knack of making (or breaking) machines with a simple touch. Sure enough, the monitor fizzled on after a moment, bringing up a feed of social media links and news broadcasts from around Tokyo. 

"You think this is S.E.E.S' doing?" Makoto asked, scanning the screen thoughtfully. "Yoshizawa said they declared war on us; maybe this is an opening salvo?" 

"If they had some kind of magatsuhi draining weapon, wouldn't they have used it before now?" Yusuke mused. "Seems to be a powerful tool that could have saved their agents' lives." 

"You're asking why S.E.E.S. isn't doing more to save human lives?" Futaba sniffed, scanning the monitors with a glare. "Wait…what's that?" 

Futaba snapped her fingers, enlarging the smaller screen to fill the monitor. A tired newswoman was standing outside what appeared to be a jail, the words "KANESHIRO & SEVEN OTHERS ESCAPED" flashing on the screen as rescue workers carried people on stretchers out of the shattered remnants of the front door. 

"That's…bad," Ann said, leaning over Ren's shoulder to get a better look. "You're telling me that little bug is scurrying around Tokyo somewhere?" 

"All the better for us to squash ," Makoto said, glaring at the picture of Kaneshiro on screen. "We might not get a better chance; you know S.E.E.S. is going to be after him. It's the middle of the night ; we might be able to take care of this before even Goro or Yoshizawa know what happened." 

"Of course, that brings us right back to being thought of as monsters," Haru chimed in. 

"They're going to think that if they catch Kaneshiro anyway…" Ren growled, tugging at the back of his hair. "Do we have enough juice to jump?" 

"We're going now ?" Yusuke asked. 

"Why, are you washing your tail or something?" 

"Is it wise to leave our base unguarded when half the city wants what little magatsuhi we have?" Yusuke asked. 

"Not really, but when have we ever made a choice that has zero downsides?" Ren countered. "Yes, leaving the base unguarded is a risk, but so is letting Kaneshiro scurry around where he might be caught and forced to squawk about us. And I'll be more damned than I already am if S.E.E.S. isn't already in pursuit, ready to bring him in." 

Yusuke's lips twisted, but he said nothing as Ren turned back to Futaba. "Well? Can we make a jump?" 

"Probably," Futaba said, tapping some buttons and flicking off the overhead lights. "...maybe. Guess there's one way to find out. We might be able to trigger the earring and buy us some time to keep S.E.E.S off our backs too." 

"I thought you said that was a risk," Ren said. 

"Well, yeah, but-" Futaba shrugged. "Isn't everything these days? I could maybe get into S.E.E.S.' comms systems; figure out where Kaneshiro's gonna be. Maybe cause some havoc before bailing and cleaning up after myself?" 

Ren seemed to weigh this. "...how long can you stay connected to their system before you have to escape?" 

"Fifteen minutes, but by then it'll be too late," Futaba said, her usual confidence slightly shaky, but otherwise intact. "Can't promise they won't kick my gremlins out but-" 

"Nothing is without risk," Makoto muttered, nodding at Ren. "Time to roll the dice, I guess." 

"So we drop in, find Kaneshiro, and take him out before S.E.E.S. can mobilize enough to stop us," Ren said, clapping his hands together. "Agreed?" 

A murmur of assent rippled through the group. "Good…let's suit up and be ready to go in ten. Bring ammo, guns…anything you think Kaneshiro might not like." 

Ren snapped his fingers, heart skipping a beat as it always did when he donned Joker's mask and coat. Feeling his hands clench in infernal leather gloves made them feel stronger, if only because his fingers no longer shook. And from behind Joker's mask, the prospect of harming a fellow human wasn't quite so daunting. 

Ann lingered behind even as Makoto ran off to make her final preparations, disconcertingly waiting until they were alone before speaking. "What happens if we run into Goro?" 

Ren said as casually as he could. "...hope he makes the right choice, I guess." 

"Is that why you were talking to him when I came to find you?" Ann asked, sharp feline eyes scouring his face. "You had Futaba's phone upstairs…who else would you be talking to if not-" 

"Yeah, okay, it was him," Joker said, his voice tight and strained as he avoided her gaze. "Just…trying to give him an out before something bad happens. I figure…I figure we owe him that, don't we?" 

"Sure," Ann said, her warm hand tilting his jaw towards her so she could properly look at him. "As long as you make the right choice as well." 

Her warm lips pressed against his cheek, a tangible reminder of what Ren already had with the Phantom Thieves. He should have been happy; most people in their position would have died a million times over and if Ren had survived, it would be as something heinous without his lovers keeping him human. Most people would have counted their wins and walked away from the table; most people weren't as greedy as a master thief though. And to Ren, any win less than a jackpot was just leaving money on the table. 

Read More...

Start from the beginning

[jetspikepub]

HISTORY OF COWBOY BEBOP

Attention! This chronology is a mix of fiction and reality.

1965 - Shinichiro Watanabe was born

1994 - Faye was born

1995 - Shinichiro Watanabe debuted as a director in Macross Plus. First acquaintance with Keiko Nobumoto, Yoko Kanno, and others *1

*1 Macross Plus is still very popular

Cowboy Bebop project was initiated secretly. At first, the title was supposed to be Shooting Star Bebop *2

*2 Kawamoto's ideas and sketches as a project proposal at the very early stage of development

1998 4 - First airing of the show on TV Tokyo

6 - The broadcast on TV Tokyo finished with only 12 episodes aired. The final compilation-like episode, Mish-Mash Blues, was controversial

10 - The beginning of complete 26 episode ariring on WOWOW

11 - Masahiko Minami left Sunrise and established Bones animation studio *3

*3 Bones business card (back side)

1999 4 - The complete show broadcast finished on W0WOW. The question of Spike's fate in the final episode attracted a lot of attention *4

*4 Invitation to the launch party held on the night when the last episode aired

6 - Watanabe, Toshihiro Kawamoto, Keiko Nobumoto and others visited Morocco to gather materials for the movie *5

*5 In Morocco

8 - The Seatbelts live "Diggin' my POTATO Puti ~The Irresponsible Night to Dance~" was held at ON AIR EAST, Shibuya, Tokyo *6 (picture in brochure is missing 🤷‍♀️)

9 - A press conference dedicated to the movie production, later known as the "Phantom Lie Press Conference," was held at Blue Note Tokyo (at that time the movie release date was year 2000) *7

*7 Materials distributed to interested parties

2000 5 - The completion of the script

Autumn - Movie storyboard was done *8

*8 A storyboard by Nabeshin (Watanabe)

11 - Yoko Kanno's held the first recording of The Seatbelts in N.Y.

2000 12 - 2001 1 - The title "Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door" was chosen for the movie

4 - The launch of the official website

4-6 - The original novel СОЩВОЧ ВƐВОР Ц.Т. (Cowboy Bebop: U.T.) was published on the website; recording for the movie finished

7 - Ask DNA single release

8 - The completion of the movie, setting the preview at Kudan Kaikan, Tokyo *9

*9 Fans who came to the preview form lines

8 - The Seatbelts live "EARTH GIRLS ARE EASY Last Week End" at Shibuya AX, Tokyo

8 - Movie soundtrack "FUTURE BLUES" release

9 - Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heavens' Door release

10 - Seatbelts FUTURE BLUES videoclip release

2007 - Faye recorded a video message to future self that was supposed to be delivered ten years later *10

*10 Young Faye in the video message

2013 - U.T. (Ural Terpsichore) was born

2014 - Faye was put in a cryogenic sleep after a spaceship accident outside Earth's atmosphere

2022 - An accident occurred at Astral Gate located between the Moon and Earth. Earth suffered catastrophic damage, the period known as Turbulent 20's (Roaring Twenties) began

2035 12 - Jet was born

2044 6 - Spike was born

Vicious was born

U.T., a journalist responsible for entertainment section, became a bounty hunter. A chaotic period immediately followed after the enactment of the Cowboy Law *11

*11 Younger days of the legendary cowboy revealed for the first time in this illustration for the novel

2048 - Debut of The Seatbelts

2056 - The Seatbelts song"Tank!" became #1 in music charts of the Solar System

2058 1 - Ed was born (however, it is unclear)

2064 - Jet resigned from ISSP after losing his left arm *12

*12 Jet before he lost his right arm, about 29 years old

2066 - Ed suddenly appears in an orphanage on Earth

2068 - Spike left the Red Dragon syndicate *13

*13 Spike from the Red Dragon era… he looks angry

Jet and Spike teamed up

Faye woke up from cryogenic sleep *14

*14 Sleeping Beauty?

Ed disappeared from the orphanage *15

*15 Edward made up her name, the real one is Françoise, isn't it?

Julia went missing *16

*16 The woman Spike was thinking about

Rashid (Dr. Mendelo) appears on Moroccan Street on Mars in a new guise *17

*17 Mr. Mendelo, isn't it a little too much for a tanning salon?

2069 - Ein was born *18

*18 He must have been a genius dog from birth

A record of Vincent's death in Titan War *19

*19 He had short hair when he was in the army

2070 - Spike left a lobster in the fridge on the Bebop and forgot about it

2071 - The main story of Cowboy Bebop

[breakfast-cereal]

a cure for monotony

word count: 1.2k

description: Yagami Light was bored

notes: written for Day 1 of @deathnotetober 2024

[main masterlist] [work on ao3]

(c: Yayoi Kusama)

Yagami Light was bored, but not in the typical sense of disinterest. Light cared for various things: school, his parents, his sister, morality, justice. The list goes on. The thing is, life was monotonous. 

Every day, Light suffered the same idiotic ramblings of his peers. Did you hear that Aiko-chan is dating Haruto? I got so drunk at that party last night! Hey, Yagami-kun, do you have the answers to the homework?

It wasn’t limited to school. Wherever Light went, he was tortured with the knowledge of his superiority. These people wasted their time gossiping and chatting about nonsense, living out their immoral lives without a care in the world.

Maybe life was more than monotonous. It was torturous until Light saw the Death Note. 

He brushed it off as chain mail. Idiots loved those things. Forward this email, or you’ll be subjected to Reiko Kashima’s curse. Light scoffed but shoved the book into his school bag anyway. The black cover stained his hands. Call it morbid curiosity.

At his desk, Light flipped through the blank pages, fascinated and disgusted at the effort in creating the prank. He pushed it into his drawer, fighting the itch in his hands.

Light scribbled a few math problems into his workbook, glancing from his neat handwriting to the TV on his side table. He huffed and grabbed the remote. Morbid curiosity.

The news channel broadcasted the face of Otoharada Kurou, an older man hijacking a daycare. Light scowled as glee flooded his body. What depravity. 

In his seventeen years of life, he has heard several arguments against the death penalty but disagreed with all of them. Men like Otoharada deserve to die. When activists say it’s immoral to kill another human being, he nearly laughs. Is it not the pinnacle of morality to remove filth from this earth? The justice system exists to rid Japan of depraved criminals. He has never felt the urge to defend them.

Light scribbled Otoharada’s name, keeping his face in mind like the notebook said. He looked at his watch, noting the seconds ticking by. Forty seconds. In forty seconds, the world would be free of Otoharada. 

Thirty-five seconds passed, and nothing happened. Light flushed. He couldn’t believe himself, falling victim to a stupid prank like a common fool, too stuck in the emotions of it all. He shook his head, returning to his math problems.

The reporter gasped. Light swiveled, jumping from his chair to stare at the TV in horror. Otoharada died. Light killed him. Thickness welled in his throat, black like the ink staining Otoharada’s name on the Death Note’s page. Yagami Light killed a man. He wanted to vomit.

When Light picked up his pencil, his hands shook furiously. The reporter continued in the background, her words rattling between his ears. He couldn’t believe it worked. Was he a murderer?

He ran his fingers along the Death Note’s cover, sliding it inside his desk drawer. For the first time, Yagami Light was no longer bored. 

Light gripped his cram school books under his arm, slinking into the bright 7-Eleven. On his walk home, he watched the degeneracy unfold around him like clockwork. Darkness brought out the wicked, and he began believing the creatures of the night in horror films were nothing more than amalgamations of Tokyo’s midnight streets.

Drunks stumbling out of bars, harassing any woman they can get their hands on. Students around his age, hanging off the arms of older men from the club they got into with their fake IDs. People had no shame, no decency. It revolted him. While they weren’t criminals, Light couldn’t deny the world would be better off without them.

A scream sounded from outside the store. Light looked up from the rows of energy drinks, catching sight of a group of men assaulting a terrified woman. He sneered and ran his hands along the side of his bookbag.

Light pulled a magazine from the magazine stand and slid the Death Note between its pages. On the man’s lips hung his name: Shibuimaru Takuo. He scribbled a few iterations, crossing his fingers the kanji were right. Finally, he etched 渋井丸 拓男 [1] into the page next to plain characters reading traffic accident. 

The woman struggled from Shibuimaru’s grasp, starting down the street, her coat billowing behind her. Shibuimaru followed, revving the engine of his bike with furrowed brows.

Light scoffed. Of course, it wouldn’t work. He was naïve for thinking the first time wasn’t a fluke.  

He returned to the energy drinks, plucking out his favourite flavours. Shibuimaru’s gang shouted. Light stared at the scene; Takuo’s bike was crushed against the concrete. His hands shook, and he forced the Death Note back into his book bag. 

For the first time, Yagami Light killed someone who was not a criminal. Shibuimaru had not faced a trial in court, and he had not been found guilty.

Light stumbled out of the 7-Eleven, clutching his chest. He fell against the brick wall outside the store and felt dirty; his hands soiled with the death of an innocent. But that wasn’t a fair judgement. Shibuimaru was far from innocent. If Light hadn’t stopped him, he would’ve raped that woman. He would’ve been a criminal.

His body sparked with exhilaration. Yagami Light realized the Death Note was what he had been looking for all this time.

After Shibuimaru, Light spent his free nights scanning the NPA’s database and monitoring the news. Every stroke of his pen was liberating; every criminal erased from the world was a step closer to divinity.

The new possibilities unfurling elated Light. A world free of evil, free of cruelty. He held morality in his palm, and it was intoxicating. 

He understood the implications of his actions. Light was smart, smarter than the average person. He knew murder received the death penalty, but he would martyr himself if he had to. 

With the peoples’ interests at heart, Light trudged forward, correcting the NPA’s failures. He left the deaths blank but sensed the ripples of every heart attack along his spine. Light wanted criminals to know they were being punished. 

When he wasn’t studying or correcting, he spent some time on occult blogs, learning the intricacies of the Death Note. To his surprise, no Shinigami came to him. He imagined they observed him and agreed. 

The more he learnt about the Death Note, through use and reading, a strange reverence grew inside him. Not reverence for the Shinigami, but for the notebook itself. The gods blessed him with a tool to rid the world of evil. Light never wanted more. 

Light took his Death Note from his desk, placing it alongside his textbooks and a black pen. He scanned the list of names imprinted on the pages and flipped on the TV.

Morality and justice used to be concepts Light could only ever fantasize about. Now, he held the power to enact them in his fingers.

For the first time in his life, Yagami Light felt true, unequivocal love. 

[1]: The kanji for Shibuimaru Takuo

[newyorkthegoldenage]

The largest all-wave radio receiving system in the world was installed at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, April 17, 1935. Its already elaborate system, which had operated since it had opened five years before, was further enlarged by equipment designed to receive broadcasts put out in the short-wave band by giant stations in foreign countries. In addition to the usual domestic stations, patrons at the hotel enjoyed broadcasts from stations in London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow, and Tokyo.

Photo: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

[loonavrsl]

KanStarpress Interview with Loossemble: "We'll charm with various concepts" [ENG TRANS]

Consisting of members of LOONA! Cool and cute K-POP female idol group Loossemble! Exuding coquettish charm with their 3rd mini album "TTYL"! "We'll charm with various concepts"

[English translation by gointosubbit]:

First coming together under the slogan of "meeting a new girl every month", with emotional songs that sing of a sensitive girl's feelings and loved globally for their high-grade visuals and performance, members Hyunjin, Yeojin, Vivi, Go Won and Hyeju (Olivia Hye) of the Korean girl group LOONA formed the Korean girl group Loossemble, having a comeback with their 3rd mini album "TTYL" on September 2nd, and have finished their promotions for the album.

They had their Japanese debut as LOONA, and also had huge success with their Japanese concert "LOONA 1st Live 'LOONA THE WORLD in TOKYO'". In their "TTYL" promotions this time, they have appeared in many Korean music shows, such as the Korean live broadcast show "Music Bank" on the Korean equivalent to Japan's NHK, Korean Broadcasting System (KBS), and exuded coquettish charm with their performance that seems to lure in the person they are interested in. And so, here’s an email interview with Loossemble! Among the members, Hyunjin, Vivi, Go Won and Hyeju participated (in this interview).

-- The members of Loossemble have appeared in an interview with KanStar! before as LOONA members, but this is the first as Loossemble. Please first introduce yourselves to the KanStar! readers.

Hyujin: Hi! I'm the commander of Loossemble, Hyunjin! I'm happy to be able to meet you again! I look forward to today.

Vivi: Hi, I'm the Bambi of Loossemble, Vivi. I'm happy to be able to meet again. Please enjoy the interview!

Go Won: Hi! I'm in charge of cuteness in Loossemble, the cheese kitty Go Won! I'm happy to be able to meet again~!

Hyeju: Hi, I'm Hyeju, in charge of dancing in Loossemble! Please stay with us until the end of our interview!

-- There may be people in Japan who don't know about Loossemble, so please introduce what kind of group Loossemble is. Also, what sort of charms are specific to Loossemble?

Hyunjin: Firstly, with the group's name Loossemble, it's a compound word made by abbreviating LOONA ASSEMBLE, meaning it's a group that 5 members of LOONA came together to form. We've released 3 albums as Loossemble, with various genres and showing different concepts each time, so I think that sort of thing is what’s unique to Loosemble.

-- Then, what kind of album is your new mini album "TTYL"?

Go Won: Everyone that we meet is filled with different feelings and thoughts; "TTYL" is an album that contains the feelings of growing up by accepting how these people are different from yourself. Intro track "FANATICISM", title track "TTYL", twin sub-unit tracks "Cotton Candy" and "Confessions", "Hocus Pocus" with its light-hearted melody, and intense and captivating "Secret Diary", there's a total of 6 tracks included. It's an album with really good songs, so please listen to it a lot.

-- Then, what kind of song is the title track "TTYL"?

Go Won: "TTYL" is a pop dance song that leaves an impression with plug sound synthesizers, rhythmic up-tempo drums, and rich harmonies between Loossemble members. The addictive chorus and bouncy and lively melody has a bright and cheerful charm unique to us, and the lyrics express the cute and cold parts of the push-and-pull with the person you like.

-- I thought the vocals were refreshing for the summer, easy to listen to in the autumn; vocals you could trust in. How was the recording process?

Hyeju: It's a fun song with a fast beat, so we recorded being mindful of the rhythm. Just like you mentioned, I think it also fits with how the feeling of autumn is becoming stronger lately, so I hope you listen (to "TTYL") a lot.

-- What is the key point of the choreography?

Hyeju: Waving both hands in the "Talk to you later~" part of the chorus, or biting our fingers and twerking. I'd be happy if people in Japan were to do a dance challenge of these on SNS, etc.

-- I thought the music video was like a short-form movie. Please tell us about the key points of the music video.

Vivi: I also thought it was very interesting when watching the final music video! I think you can see the cold push-and-pull with someone you're interested in, as well as enjoy the members' unique charms in the music video. There's a scene on a rooftop in the music video, but it was really hot during filming. But I remember it being odd not feeling that when monitoring, and thinking it was good that it ended up beautifully shot lol.

-- I think there are many Japanese fans wishing for Loossemble to quickly come to Japan for activities. Is there anything you want to do in Japan?

Hyunjin: On top of wanting to hold a concert in Japan, I also want to travel around and film content. There are many good restaurants in Japan, so I think fans would be happy if Loossemble were to film something in those restaurants.

Vivi: It would be fun if we could also tour in Japan, and personally, I just want to go around the cities and travel lol.

Go Won: I want to try holding a concert and fansigning in Japan! Personally, I like Japanese food, so I want to go on a gourmet tour.

Hyeju: I want to hold a concert as Loossemble. Personally, I want to try going to Ghibli Studio lol.

-- Please share your TMI.

Vivi: I'm a sweet potato killer lol - I really like eating it. Grilled, boiled, even dried; it's so tasty that I can't stop lol. Everyone, please teach me about Japan's delicious sweet potatoes~!

Hyunjin: I break out in itchy, cracked skin (atopic dermatitis) if I eat too much of eggs, milk, flour or cheese (cry).

Go Won: I like the manga series "Atashin’chi", so I've read the entire series. And so, since I know the entire story, I'm reading the Japanese version. Hopefully it becomes a good way to study Japanese.

Hyeju: It's very random, but I am currently answering this interview's questions while lying sideways on the sofa. It's 8 am.

-- Lastly, a message to the fans in Japan

Hyunjin: Japanese C.Loos! I'm happy to meet you through this interview! Thank you for always supporting and loving us from so far away😍 We'll also work harder with that power! I love you🤎

Vivi: Japanese C.Loos~! Thank you for always supporting and loving us from far away. I want to go meet you soon! I miss you~

Go Won: Thank you for sending us so much support and love! I always receive a lot of energy because of it. I hope next time we can meet on stage in Japan!

Hyeju: Thank you for your continuous support. Please wait just a little more until the day we can meet~! Thanks for reading the interview until the end~

Translation by: gointosubbit / original article

[studentofetherium]

@previous anon: FUCK YOU

Serial Experiments Lain (stylized as serial experiments lain) is a Japanese anime television series created and co-produced by Yasuyuki Ueda, written by Chiaki J. Konaka and directed by Ryūtarō Nakamura. Animated by Triangle Staff and featuring original character designs by Yoshitoshi ABe, the series was broadcast for 13 episodes on TV Tokyo and its affiliates from July to September 1998. The series follows Lain Iwakura, an adolescent girl in suburban Japan, and her relation to the Wired, a global communications network similar to the internet.

Lain features surreal and avant-garde imagery and explores philosophical topics such as reality, identity, and communication.[3] The series incorporates creative influences from computer history, cyberpunk, and conspiracy theory. Critics and fans have praised Lain for its originality, visuals, atmosphere, themes, and its dark depiction of a world fraught with paranoia, social alienation, and reliance on technology considered insightful of 21st century life. It received the Excellence Prize at the Japan Media Arts Festival in 1998. Contents1 Plot 2 Characters 3 Production 3.1 Writing 3.2 Character design 3.3 Themes 3.4 Apple computers 4 Broadcast and release history 4.1 Episode list 5 Reception 6 Related media 6.1 Art books 6.2 Soundtracks 6.3 Video game 7 See also 8 References 9 Further reading 10 External links

Plot

Lain Iwakura, a junior high school girl, lives in suburban Japan with her middle-class family, consisting of her inexpressive older sister Mika, her emotionally distant mother, and her computer-obsessed father; Lain herself is somewhat awkward, introverted, and socially isolated from most of her school peers. The status-quo of her life becomes upturned by a series of bizarre incidents that start to take place after she learns that girls from her school have received an e-mail from a dead student, Chisa Yomoda, and she pulls out her old computer in order to check for the same message. Lain finds Chisa telling her via email that she is not dead but has merely "abandoned her physical self" and is alive deep within the virtual realm of the Wired itself, where she claims she has found "God" there. From this point, Lain is caught up in a series of cryptic and surreal events that see her delving deeper into the mystery of the network in a narrative that explores themes of consciousness, perception, and the nature of reality.

"The Wired" is a virtual realm that contains and supports the very sum of all human communication and networks, created with the telegraph, televisions, and telephone services, and expanded with the Internet, cyberspace, and subsequent networks. The series assumes that the Wired could be linked to a system that enables unconscious communication between people and machines without physical interface. The storyline introduces such a system with the Schumann resonances, a property of the Earth's magnetic field that theoretically allows for unhindered long-distance communications. If such a link were created, the network would become equivalent to Reality as the general consensus of all perceptions and knowledge. The increasingly thin invisible line between what is real and what is virtual/digital begins to slowly shatter.

Masami Eiri is introduced as the project director on Protocol Seven (the next-generation Internet protocol in the series' time-frame) for major computer company Tachibana General Laboratories. He had secretly included code of his very own creation to give himself absolute control of the Wired through the wireless system described above. He then "uploaded" his own consciousness into the Wired and "died" a few days after, leaving only his physical self behind. These details are unveiled around the middle of the series, but this is the point where the story begins. Masami later explains that Lain is the artifact by which the wall between the virtual and material worlds is to fall, and that he needs her to go into the Wired and "abandon the flesh", as he did, to achieve his plan. The series sees him trying to convince her through interventions, using the promise of unconditional love, romantic seduction and charm, and even, when all else fails, threats and force.

In the meantime, the anime follows a complex game of hide-and-seek between the "Knights of the Eastern Calculus" (based on the Knights of the Lambda Calculus), hackers whom Masami claims are "believers that enable him to be a God in the Wired", and Tachibana General Laboratories, who try to regain control of Protocol Seven. In the end, the viewer sees Lain realizing, after much introspection, that she has absolute control over everyone's mind and over reality itself. Her dialogue with different versions of herself shows how she feels shunned from the material world, and how she is afraid to live in the Wired, where she has the possibilities and responsibilities of an almighty goddess. The last scenes feature her erasing everything connected to herself from everyone else's memories of her and everything else that has happened since the premiere. She is last seen, unchanged, encountering her oldest and closest friend Alice once again, who is now married. Lain promises herself that she and Alice will surely meet again anytime as Lain can literally go and be anywhere she desires between both worlds. Characters

Lain Iwakura (岩倉 玲音, Iwakura Rein) Voiced by: Kaori Shimizu (Japanese); Bridget Hoffman4 The titular character of the series. Lain is a fourteen-year-old girl who uncovers her true nature through the series. She is first depicted as a shy junior high school student with few friends or interests. She later grows multiple bolder personalities, both in the physical world and the Wired, and starts making more friends. As the series progresses, she eventually comes to discover that she is, in reality, merely an autonomous, sentient computer program in the physical and corporeal form of a human being, designed to sever the invisible barrier between the Wired and the real world. In the end, Lain is challenged to accept herself as a de facto goddess for the Wired, having become an omnipotent and omnipresent virtual being with worshippers of her own, as well as an ability to exist beyond the borders of devices, time, or space.

Masami Eiri (英利 政美, Eiri Masami) Voiced by: Shō Hayami (Japanese); Kirk Thornton4 The key designer of Protocol Seven. While working for Tachibana General Laboratories, he illicitly included codes enabling him to control the whole protocol at will and embedded his own mind and will into the seventh protocol. Because of this, he was fired by Tachibana General Laboratories, and was found dead not long after. He believes that the only way for humans to evolve even further and develop even greater abilities is to absolve themselves of their physical and human limitations, and to live as virtual entities—or avatars—in the Wired for eternity. He claims to have been Lain's creator all along, but was in truth standing in for another as an acting god, who was waiting for the Wired to reach its more evolved current state: Lain herself. According to another Lain, however, he has never truly existed all along and would not have had any self-obsessed ideas about being God if he had.

Yasuo Iwakura (岩倉 康男, Iwakura Yasuo) Voiced by: Ryūsuke Ōbayashi (Japanese); Barry Stigler4 Lain's father. Passionate about computers and electronic communication, he works with Masami Eiri at Tachibana General Laboratories. He subtly pushes Lain, his "youngest daughter", towards the Wired and monitors her development until she becomes more and more aware of herself and of her raison d'être. He eventually leaves Lain, telling her that although he did not enjoy playing house, he genuinely loved and cared for her as a real father would. Despite Yasuo's eagerness to lure Lain into the Wired, he warns her not to get overly involved in it or to confuse it with the real world. Miho Iwakura (岩倉 美穂, Iwakura Miho)

Voiced by: Rei Igarashi (Japanese); Dari Lallou Mackenzie4 Lain's mother. Although she dotes on her husband, she is indifferent towards both her kids. Like her husband, she ends up leaving Lain. She is a computer scientist. Alice Mizuki (瑞城 ありす, Mizuki Arisu) Voiced by: Yōko Asada (Japanese); Emily Brown4 Lain's classmate and only true friend throughout the series. She is very sincere and has no discernable quirks. She is the first to attempt to help Lain socialize; she takes her out to a nightclub. From then on, she tries her best to look after Lain. Alice, along with her two best friends Julie and Reika, were taken by Chiaki Konaka from his previous work, Alice in Cyberland. Mika Iwakura (岩倉 美香, Iwakura Mika)

Voiced by: Ayako Kawasumi (Japanese); Patricia Ja Lee4 Lain's older sister, an apathetic sixteen-year-old high school student. She seems to enjoy mocking Lain's behavior and interests. Mika is considered by Anime Revolution to be the only normal member of Lain's family:[5] she sees her boyfriend in love hotels, is on a diet, and shops in Shibuya. At a certain point in the series, she becomes heavily traumatized by violent hallucinations; while Lain begins freely delving into the Wired, Mika is taken there by her proximity to Lain, and she gets stuck between the real world and the Wired.[6] Taro (タロウ, Tarō)

Voiced by: Keito Takimoto (Japanese); Brianne Siddall4 A young boy of about Lain's age. He occasionally works for the Knights to bring forth "the one truth". Despite this, he has not yet been made a member, and knows nothing of their true intentions. Taro loves VR games and hangs out all day at Cyberia with his friends, Myu-Myu and Masayuki. He uses special technology, such as custom Handi Navi and video goggles. Taro takes pride in his internet anonymity, and he asks Lain for a date with her Wired self in exchange for information. Office Worker Voiced by: Shigeru Chiba A top executive from Tachibana General Laboratories. He has a personal agenda, which he carries out with the help of the Men in Black. He looks forward to the arrival of a real God through the Wired, and is the man behind the Knights' mass assassination. There are many things he does not know about Lain, but he would rather ask questions about her than disclose his agenda. Men in Black Karl Haushoffer (カール・ハウスホッファ, Kāru Hausuhoffa), Voiced by: Jouji Nakata Lin Suixi (Chinese: 林随錫; pinyin: Lín Suíxī), Voiced by: Takumi Yamazaki The Men in Black work for the above "Office Worker" in tracking down and murdering all of the members of the Knights. They are not told the true plan, but they know that Masami Eiri is somehow involved, despite having been "killed." They see no need for an almighty, all-powerful God—let alone Lain—in the Wired. Chisa Yomoda (四方田 千砂, Yomoda Chisa)

Voiced by: Sumi Mutoh (Japanese); Lia Sargent4 A teenage girl who committed suicide at the beginning of the series. After her death, she e-mails Lain, Julie, and a few other kids, saying that she is still alive in the Wired, leading to the series events. Reika Yamamoto (山本 麗華, Yamamoto Reika) Voiced by: Chiharu Tezuka (Japanese); Lenore Zann4 One of Alice's friends from school. She does not seem to care for Lain, since she harasses her quite a lot. She is more serious than Julie, and also somewhat meaner. Julie Kato (加藤 樹莉, Katō Juri)

Voiced by: Manabi Mizuno (Japanese); Gracie Moore4 Another friend of Alice. She also harasses Lain, but not as severely as Reika does. She is sometimes insensitive to other people's feelings. Masayuki (マサユキ) Voiced by: Sora Fujima (Japanese); Dorothy Elias-Fahn (English) Taro's best friend. He is usually seen hanging out with Taro and Myu-Myu. Myu-Myu (ミューミュウ, Myūmyuu)

Voiced by: Yuki Yamamoto (Japanese); Sandy Fox (English) A young girl who hangs out with Taro and Masayuki at Cyberia Café. She has feelings for Taro, so she gets jealous when he flirts with Lain. Narrator Voiced by: Takashi Taniguchi (Japanese); Paul St. Peter (English)

Production

Serial Experiments Lain was conceived, as a series, to be original to the point of it being considered "an enormous risk" by its producer Yasuyuki Ueda.[7]

Producer Ueda had to answer repeated queries about a statement made in an Animerica interview.[6][8][9] The controversial statement said Lain was "a sort of cultural war against American culture and the American sense of values we [Japan] adopted after World War II".[10] He later explained in numerous interviews that he created Lain with a set of values he took as distinctly Japanese; he hoped Americans would not understand the series as the Japanese would. This would lead to a "war of ideas" over the meaning of the anime, hopefully culminating in new communication between the two cultures. When he discovered that the American audience held the same views on the series as the Japanese, he was disappointed.[9]

The Lain franchise was originally conceived to connect across forms of media (anime, video games, manga). Producer Yasuyuki Ueda said in an interview, "the approach I took for this project was to communicate the essence of the work by the total sum of many media products". The scenario for the video game was written first, and the video game was produced at the same time as the anime series, though the series was released first. A dōjinshi titled "The Nightmare of Fabrication" was produced by Yoshitoshi ABe and released in Japanese in the artbook An Omnipresence in Wired. Ueda and Konaka declared in an interview that the idea of a multimedia project was not unusual in Japan, as opposed to the contents of Lain, and the way they are exposed.[11]

Writing

The authors were asked in interviews if they had been influenced by Neon Genesis Evangelion, in the themes and graphic design. This was strictly denied by writer Chiaki J. Konaka in an interview, arguing that he had not even seen Evangelion until he finished the fourth episode of Lain. Being primarily a horror movie writer, his stated influences are Godard (especially for using typography on screen), The Exorcist, Hell House, and Dan Curtis's House of Dark Shadows. Alice's name, like the names of her two friends Julie and Reika, came from a previous production from Konaka, Alice in Cyberland, which in turn was largely influenced by Alice in Wonderland. As the series developed, Konaka was "surprised" by how close Alice's character became to the original Wonderland character.[12] A young girl in a white shift sits with her back to us in the dark, focusing her attention on many glowing computer screens which surround her. Lain's custom computer features holographic displays and liquid carbon dioxide cooling.

Vannevar Bush (and memex), John C. Lilly, Timothy Leary and his eight-circuit model of consciousness, Ted Nelson and Project Xanadu are cited as precursors to the Wired.[11] Douglas Rushkoff and his book Cyberia were originally to be cited as such,[6] and in Lain Cyberia became the name of a nightclub populated with hackers and techno-punk teenagers. Likewise, the series' deus ex machina lies in the conjunction of the Schumann resonances and Jung's collective unconscious (the authors chose this term over Kabbalah and Akashic Record).[10] Majestic 12 and the Roswell UFO incident are used as examples of how a hoax might still affect history, even after having been exposed as such, by creating sub-cultures.[10] This links again to Vannevar Bush, the alleged "brains" of MJ12. Two of the literary references in Lain are quoted through Lain's father: he first logs onto a website with the password "Think Bule Count One Tow" [sic] ("Think Blue, Count Two" is an Instrumentality of Man story featuring virtual persons projected as real ones in people's minds);[13] and his saying that "madeleines would be good with the tea" in the last episode makes Lain "perhaps the only cartoon to allude to Proust".

[14][15] Character design

A young girl in a white shift kneels facing us with scissors in her hand, and hanks of her own hair on the ground, leaving one forelock uncut. The background is blue. ABe came up with Lain's hair by imagining Lain cutting it herself and making a ponytail of what was left.[8] This was later included in his An Omnipresence in Wired artbook.[16]

Yoshitoshi ABe confesses to have never read manga as a child, as it was "off-limits" in his household.[17] His major influences are "nature and everything around him".[6] Specifically speaking about Lain's character, ABe was inspired by Kenji Tsuruta, Akihiro Yamada, Range Murata and Yukinobu Hoshino.[8] In a broader view, he has been influenced in his style and technique by Japanese artists Kyosuke Chinai and Toshio Tabuchi.[6]

The character design of Lain was not ABe's sole responsibility. Her distinctive left forelock for instance was a demand from Yasuyuki Ueda. The goal was to produce asymmetry to reflect Lain's unstable and disconcerting nature.[18] It was designed as a mystical symbol, as it is supposed to prevent voices and spirits from being heard by the left ear.[8] The bear pajamas she wears were a demand from character animation director Takahiro Kishida. Though bears are a trademark of the Konaka brothers, Chiaki Konaka first opposed the idea.[12] Director Nakamura then explained how the bear motif could be used as a shield for confrontations with her family. It is a key element of the design of the shy "real world" Lain (see "mental illness" under Themes).[12] When she first goes to the Cyberia nightclub, she wears a bear hat for similar reasons.[18] Retrospectively, Konaka said that Lain's pajamas became a major factor in drawing fans of moe characterization to the series, and remarked that "such items may also be important when making anime".[12]

ABe's original design was generally more complicated than what finally appeared on screen. As an example, the X-shaped hairclip was to be an interlocking pattern of gold links. The links would open with a snap, or rotate around an axis until the moment the " X " became a " = ". This was not used as there is no scene where Lain takes her hairclip off.[19] Themes

Serial Experiments Lain is not a conventionally linear story, being described as "an alternative anime, with modern themes and realization".[20] Themes range from theological to psychological and are dealt with in a number of ways: from classical dialogue to image-only introspection, passing by direct interrogation of imaginary characters.

Communication, in its wider sense, is one of the main themes of the series,[21] not only as opposed to loneliness, but also as a subject in itself. Writer Konaka said he wanted to directly "communicate human feelings". Director Nakamura wanted to show the audience — and particularly viewers between 14 and 15—"the multidimensional wavelength of the existential self: the relationship between self and the world".[11]

Loneliness, if only as representing a lack of communication, is recurrent through Lain.[22] Lain herself (according to Anime Jump) is "almost painfully introverted with no friends to speak of at school, a snotty, condescending sister, a strangely apathetic mother, and a father who seems to want to care but is just too damn busy to give her much of his time".[23] Friendships turn on the first rumor;[22][24] and the only insert song of the series is named Kodoku no shigunaru, literally "signal of loneliness".[25] A series of drawings depicting the different personalities of Lain—the first shows shy body language, the second shows bolder body language, and the third grins in an unhinged fashion. The different personalities of Lain have their names written using different scripts.

Mental illness, especially dissociative identity disorder, is a significant theme in Lain:[19] the main character is constantly confronted with alter-egos, to the point where writer Chiaki Konaka and Lain's voice actress Kaori Shimizu had to agree on subdividing the character's dialogues between three different orthographs.[19] The three names designate distinct "versions" of Lain: the real-world, "childish" Lain has a shy attitude and bear pajamas. The "advanced" Lain, her Wired personality, is bold and questioning. Finally, the "evil" Lain is sly and devious, and does everything she can to harm Lain or the ones close to her.[12] As a writing convention, the authors spelled their respective names in kanji, katakana, and roman characters (see picture).[26]

Reality never has the pretense of objectivity in Lain.[27] Acceptations of the term are battling throughout the series, such as the "natural" reality, defined through normal dialogue between individuals; the material reality; and the tyrannic reality, enforced by one person onto the minds of others.[22] A key debate to all interpretations of the series is to decide whether matter flows from thought, or the opposite.[22][28] The production staff carefully avoided "the so-called God's Eye Viewpoint" to make clear the "limited field of vision" of the world of Lain.[27]

Theology plays its part in the development of the story too. Lain has been viewed as a questioning of the possibility of an infinite spirit in a finite body.[29] From self-realization as a goddess to deicide,[14] religion (the title of a layer) is an inherent part of Lain's background.[29] Apple computers

Lain contains extensive references to Apple computers, as the brand was used at the time by most of the creative staff, such as writers, producers, and the graphical team.[12] As an example, the title at the beginning of each episode is announced by the Apple computer speech synthesis program PlainTalk, using the voice "Whisper", e.g. say -v Whisper "Weird: Layer zero one". Tachibana Industries, the company that creates the NAVI computers, is a reference to Apple computers: the tachibana orange is a Japanese variety of mandarin orange. NAVI is the abbreviation of Knowledge Navigator, and the HandiNAVI is based on the Apple Newton, one of the world's first PDAs. The NAVIs are seen to run "Copland OS Enterprise" (this reference to Copland was an initiative of Konaka, a declared Apple fan),[12] and Lain's and Alice's NAVIs closely resembles the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh and the iMac respectively. The HandiNAVI programming language, as seen on the seventh episode, is a dialect of Lisp; the Newton also used a Lisp dialect (NewtonScript). The program being typed by Lain can be found in the CMU AI repository;[30] it is a simple implementation of Conway's Game of Life in Common Lisp.

During a series of disconnected images, an iMac and the Think Different advertising slogan appears for a short time, while the Whisper voice says it.[31] This was an unsolicited insertion from the graphic team, also Mac-enthusiasts.[12] Other subtle allusions can be found: "Close the world, Open the nExt" is the slogan for the Serial Experiments Lain video game. NeXT was the company that produced NeXTSTEP, which later evolved into Mac OS X after Apple bought NeXT. Another example is "To Be Continued." at the end of episodes 1–12, with a blue "B" and a red "e" on "Be"; this matches the original logo of Be Inc., a company founded by ex-Apple employees and NeXT's main competitor in its time.[32] Broadcast and release history

Serial Experiments Lain was first aired on TV Tokyo and its affiliates on July 6, 1998, and concluded on September 28, 1998, with the thirteenth and final episode. The series consists of 13 episodes (referred to in the series as "Layers") of 24 minutes each, except for the sixth episode, Kids (23 minutes 14 seconds). In Japan, the episodes were released in LD, VHS, and DVD with a total of five volumes. A DVD compilation named "Serial Experiments Lain DVD-BOX Яesurrection" was released along with a promo DVD called "LPR-309" in 2000.[33] As this box set is now discontinued, a rerelease was made in 2005 called "Serial Experiments Lain TV-BOX". A 4-volume DVD box set was released in the US by Pioneer/Geneon. A Blu-ray release of the anime was made in December 2009 called "Serial Experiments Lain Blu-ray Box| RESTORE".[34][35][36][37] The anime series returned to US television on October 15, 2012, on the Funimation Channel.[38] The series' opening theme, "Duvet", was written and performed by Jasmine Rodgers and the British band Bôa. The ending theme, "Distant Scream" (遠い叫び, Tōi Sakebi), was written and composed by Reichi Nakaido.

The anime series was licensed in North America by Pioneer Entertainment (later Geneon USA) on VHS and DVD in 1999. However, the company closed its USA division in December 2007 and the series went out-of-print as a result.[39] However, at Anime Expo 2010, North American distributor Funimation announced that it had obtained the license to the series and re-released it in 2012.[40]

Episode list

No. Title Directed by Original air date

1 "Weird" Ryūtarō Nakamura July 6, 1998 A high school girl commits suicide by jumping off a rooftop late at night. A week later, students are getting emails from the girl, named Chisa Yomoda, which claim that she only gave up her body, but is actually still alive inside the virtual world known as the Wired, saying that there is a God that exists there. After getting one of these emails, introverted fourteen-year-old Lain Iwakura becomes much more interested in computers and asks her techie father, Yasuo Iwakura, for a new NAVI computer system. When she returns to school the following day, the blackboard writes a subliminal message, inviting her to come to the Wired as soon as she can, revealed to be written by Chisa herself.

2 "Girls" Ryūtarō Nakamura July 13, 1998 At Cyberia, a hardcore techno club, a man buys a nanomachine drug called Accela. On the way to school the next day, Alice Mizuki, along with her friends Julie and Reika, tell Lain they saw her during their first visit to Cyberia, but with a far more vigorous and forceful personality. Lain has her father set up her NAVI computer system at home later that evening. After some persuasion, Lain decides to join Alice at Cyberia that night to prove that she was not there before. However, Lain becomes involved with a shooting in the club by the same man under the influence of Accela. She approaches the man, saying that everyone is connected in the Wired no matter where they are. This leads the man to shoot himself out of psychological shock and trauma.

3 "Psyche" Jōhei Matsuura July 20, 1998 The following day, Lain is scolded by her cold mother, Miho Iwakura, for waking up too late. When she leaves the house, she believes she is being spied on when she sees a black car parked near her house. Furthermore, she hears a voice calling out to her when she enters the train, telling her that she is not alone. Her life is thrown into further disarray when she is anonymously sent a mysterious computer chip. She asks her father what it is, but he says he does not know. When she goes to see Taro, with his friends Myu-Myu and Masayuki, at Cyberia, he recalls seeing Lain on the Wired once, noting her Wired personality being the complete opposite of her restrained real world personality. Mika Iwakura, Lain's older sister, comes home the next day, only to see Lain not acting herself as she starts to modify and upgrade her NAVI computer system.

4 "Religion" Akihiko Nishiyama July 27, 1998 Rumors are flying around school and on the Wired in regards to numerous senior students of various high schools committing suicide, with each of the deceased being addicted to the online action game known as PHANTOMa. Interested, Lain investigates only to discover that the game was glitched with a tag game for kids, in which a little girl scares the students to their deaths. Moreover, she finds out that the deaths were most likely caused by the elite secretive hacker group known as the Knights of the Eastern Calculus. Later at night, she senses the Men in Black, who had been spying on her earlier. When she tells the two to go away, a sound wave penetrates through her window, causing the two to fall back and drive away in their black car.

5 "Distortion" Masahiko Murata August 3, 1998 Amidst the events surrounding Tokyo having its traffic information transmission system hacked to cause deliberate accidents, Lain experiences a series of hallucinations that teach her the nature of the Wired in relation to the real world, by means of inanimate objects in her room and eventually her parents. In the meantime, Mika is driven to terror from the Knights repeatedly communicating in unusual ways for her to "fulfill the prophecy."

6 "KIDS" Ryūtarō Nakamura August 10, 1998 At night, when Yasuo checks on Lain, he sees a dramatic change in her room arrangement and the upgrades on her NAVI computer system, which worries him. As Lain hangs out with Alice, along with Julie and Reika, in the district, she notices that children are looking up into the sky and raising their arms, only to realize that they are looking at an image of herself that appears in the sky. Lain searches for the reason behind the strange happenings and finds Professor Hodgeson, the creator of KIDS, an experiment that started fifteen years ago that tried to gather psi energy from children and store it, though the result of the project destroyed the children. Now it seems that the Knights have gotten hold of the project's schematics. When the Men in Black return, Lain goes outside to see them. The coolant system in her room bursts, leading the Men in Black to confirm that the Knights planted a parasite bomb there.

7 "SOCIETY" Jōhei Matsuura August 17, 1998 As Lain gets more and more involved in the Wired world, albeit at home and at school, Alice starts to worry about her closing up again. It is reported that the Knights cracked the firewall of the information control center of the Wired. As the activity of the Knights begins to surface, the network is in search for Lain. The Men in Black ask Lain to follow them to an office in the Tachibana General Laboratories, where the Office Worker in charge of the Men in Black, after her help of fixing his computer, shows Lain a projection of herself in the Wired taking out one of the members of the Knights. After the Office Worker deduces that Lain in the real world and in the Wired are one and the same, he questions her about her origins. However, she breaks down for not knowing, altering her timid personality to that of a more serious one before she shoves her way out of the room. 8 "RUMORS" Shigeru Ueda August 24, 1998 Lain's family has been acting weird lately, much to her surprise. Upon further investigation, Lain disbelieves that she is omnipresent in the Wired, while she is merely a body, more or less a projection of herself, in the real world. A rumor is spread in the Wired about Alice having sexual fantasies about a male teacher, and a second one says that Lain has spread the first. To cope with the distress of rejection, Lain acts directly on reality for the first time, finding out that she can "delete" the event of the rumors. A lookalike duplicate of herself with its own distinct personality starts appearing more frequently, which leads her to question her own existence.

9 "PROTOCOL" Akihiko Nishiyama August 31, 1998 Throughout the episode, background information is being shown from "archives". Information regarding the Roswell UFO incident, the Majestic 12, which was formed by President Harry S. Truman, engineer Vannevar Bush, who developed what is called memex, physician John C. Lilly, who conducted experiments with dolphin communication, pioneer Ted Nelson, who founded Project Xanadu, and the Schumann resonances are all mentioned, explaining how the human consciousness can be communicated through a network without the use of a device. It is also noted that a man named Masami Eiri has suddenly committed suicide. During that time, Lain gets a computer microchip from J.J., the disc jockey from Cyberia. She then asks Taro on a "date" and takes him to her home, where she asks him about the microchip. After becoming frightened, he admits it is a computer code made to disrupt human memory, and it was made by the Knights. Although he defends them, he admits not knowing much about them. He later kisses Lain before leaving. 10 "LOVE" Masahiko Murata September 7, 1998 As both are seen to have switched bodies, Eiri introduces himself to Lain as the creator of Protocol Seven, saying that Lain no longer needs to have a body in order to be alive. As she, back in her own body, comes home, Yasuo says his farewell after realizing she knows the truth behind her existence. Eiri is considered the God of the Wired because he explained that he is worshiped by the Knights. Knowing this, Lain deals with the Knights once and for all by leaking a list of all of its members onto the Wired, leaving a trail of murder by the Men in Black and suicide in its wake. Even with the Knights gone, Eiri still claims he is the God of the Wired, since he says that the real Lain exists in the Wired, not the real world.

11 "Infornography" Jōhei Matsuura September 14, 1998 Lain lies exhausted in her room, and wakes up to find herself all wrapped in electrical cords. After a really long and complicated memory flashback, seen throughout the series, Eiri appears in her room and congratulates her, for having succeeded in downloading her NAVI into her own brain to see and hear all that is happening. However, he warns her about her "hardware capacity," and that she is merely a sentient and autonomous software computer program with a physical body in the form of a teenage human girl. Lain later appears to Alice in her room to make things right with her again concerning the false rumors. Lain declares that anything is possible now, as devices are no longer needed anymore to enter the Wired freely. The next day, nobody seems to remember the rumored incidents and Lain smiles at Alice's complicity.

12 "Landscape" Ryūtarō Nakamura September 21, 1998 Lain witnesses the frontier between the physical and the Wired worlds finally beginning to collapse. The Men in Black are approached by their Officer Worker, who gives them a final "payment" for their services, telling them to leave town away from any power lines or satellite coverage. After he leaves, both Men in Black suffer death from an image of Lain etched in their retinas. Alice enters Lain's eerie house and goes inside her room. Lain explains that she is actually a computerized program designed to destroy the barrier between the two worlds. Lain is still affixed on the fact that humans no longer need a physical body to stay alive, but Alice shows that her heartbeat proves otherwise. Suddenly, Eiri, first unseen to Alice, appears behind Lain, assuming she needs to be "debugged". Lain argues that Eiri was just an "acting god", for she is the true Goddess of the Wired. Eiri retaliates by transforming into a monstrous form to attain the vastly limitless power and strength that she possesses, but Lain manages to crush Eiri with her electrical equipment, wiping him out for good.

13 "Ego" Ryūtarō Nakamura September 28, 1998

Lain's attempts to protect her from Eiri's attack result in traumatizing Alice, Lain's only true friend; in order to fix this, Lain decides to do a "factory reset" on her life, deleting herself from everyone's memory. Distraught from doing so, Lain is determined to discover her true form and identity and takes radical action. She is confronted by her separate bolder self of the Wired, who reminds her that the Wired is not an upper layer of the real world. Her bolder Wired self then assures her that she is the true Goddess of the Wired, saying she is an omnipotent and omnipresent virtual being that can go and be anywhere she desires and merely watch the real world from afar. After causing her bolder self to disappear, Lain sees her father. Alice, now older with a spouse, spots Lain standing on an overpass, having some déjà vu about Lain but not recognizing who she is. Alice says goodbye and that she may run into Lain again someday. Lain asserts that this is true, since she is everywhere at once. Reception A suburban scene on a sunny day, showing houses and telegraph poles, but the shadows contain unnatural red splotches. Lain's neighborhood. The "blood pools" represent the Wired's presence "beneath the surface" of reality.[6]

Serial Experiments Lain was first broadcast in Tokyo at 1:15 a.m. JST. The word "weird" appears almost systematically in English language reviews of the series,[23][41][42][43][44] or the alternatives "bizarre",[45] and "atypical",[46] due mostly to the freedoms taken with the animation and its unusual science fiction themes, and due to its philosophical and psychological context. Critics responded positively to these thematic and stylistic characteristics, and it was awarded an Excellence Prize by the 1998 Japan Media Arts Festival for "its willingness to question the meaning of contemporary life" and the "extraordinarily philosophical and deep questions" it asks.[47]

According to Christian Nutt from Newtype USA, the main attraction to the series is its keen view on "the interlocking problems of identity and technology". Nutt saluted Abe's "crisp, clean character design" and the "perfect soundtrack" in his 2005 review of series, saying that "Serial Experiments Lain might not yet be considered a true classic, but it's a fascinating evolutionary leap that helped change the future of anime."[48] Anime Jump gave it 4.5/5,[23] and Anime on DVD gave it A+ on all criteria for volume 1 and 2, and a mix of A and A+ for volume 3 and 4.[42] Lain was subject to commentary in the literary and academic worlds. The Asian Horror Encyclopedia calls it "an outstanding psycho-horror anime about the psychic and spiritual influence of the Internet".[49] It notes that the red spots present in all the shadows look like blood pools (see picture). It notes the death of a girl in a train accident is "a source of much ghost lore in the twentieth century", more so in Tokyo.

The Anime Essentials anthology by Gilles Poitras describes it as a "complex and somehow existential" anime that "pushed the envelope" of anime diversity in the 1990s, alongside the much better known Neon Genesis Evangelion and Cowboy Bebop.[50] Professor Susan J. Napier, in her 2003 reading to the American Philosophical Society called The Problem of Existence in Japanese Animation (published 2005), compared Serial Experiments Lain to Ghost in the Shell and Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away.[51] According to her, the main characters of the two other works cross barriers; they can cross back to our world, but Lain cannot. Napier asks whether there is something to which Lain should return, "between an empty 'real' and a dark 'virtual'".[52] Mike Toole of Anime News Network named Serial Experiments Lain as one of the most important anime of the 1990s.[53]

Despite the positive feedback the television series had received, Anime Academy gave the series a 75%, partly due to the "lifeless" setting it had.[54] Michael Poirier of EX magazine stated that the last three episodes fail to resolve the questions in other DVD volumes.[55] Justin Sevakis of Anime News Network noted that the English dub was decent, but that the show relied so little on dialogue that it hardly mattered.[56] Related media

Art booksAn Omnipresence In Wired: Hardbound, 128 pages in 96 colors with Japanese text. It features a chapter for each layer (episode) and concept sketches. It also features a short color manga titled "The Nightmare of Fabrication". It was published in 1998 by Triangle Staff/SR-12W/Pioneer LDC. (ISBN 4-7897-1343-1) Yoshitoshi ABe lain illustrations ab# rebuild an omnipresence in Wired: Hardbound, 148 pages. A remake of "An Omnipresence In Wired" with new art, added text by Chiaki J. Konaka, and a section entitled "ABe's EYE in color of things" (a compilation of his photos of the world). It was published in Japan on October 1, 2005, by Wanimagazine (ISBN 4-89829-487-1), and in America as a softcover version translated into English on June 27, 2006, by Digital Manga Publishing (ISBN 1-56970-899-1). Visual Experiments Lain: Paperback, 80 full-color pages with Japanese text. It has details on the creation, design, and storyline of the series. It was published in 1998 by Triangle Staff/Pioneer LDC. (ISBN 4-7897-1342-3) Scenario Experiments Lain: Paperback, 335 pages. By "chiaki j. konaka" (uncapitalized in original). It contains collected scripts with notes and small excerpted storyboards. It was published in 1998 in Japan.(ISBN 4-7897-1320-2)

Soundtracks

The first original soundtrack, Serial Experiments Lain Soundtrack, features music by Reichi Nakaido: the ending theme and part of the television series' score, alongside other songs inspired by the series. The second, Serial Experiments Lain Soundtrack: Cyberia Mix, features electronica songs inspired by the television series, including a remix of the opening theme "Duvet" by DJ Wasei. The third, lain BOOTLEG, consists of the ambient score of the series across forty-five tracks. BOOTLEG also contains a second mixed-mode data and audio disc, containing a clock program and a game, as well as an extended version of the first disc – nearly double the length – across 57 tracks in 128 kbit/s MP3 format, and sound effects from the series in WAV format. Because the word bootleg appears in its title, it is easily confused with the Sonmay counterfeit edition of itself, which only contains the first disc in an edited format. All three soundtrack albums were released by Pioneer Records.

The series' opening theme, "Duvet", was written and performed in English by the British rock band Bôa. The band released the song as a single and as part of the EP Tall Snake, which features both an acoustic version and DJ Wasei's remix from Cyberia Mix. Video game Main article: Serial Experiments Lain (video game)

On November 26, 1998, Pioneer LDC released a video game with the same name as the anime for the PlayStation.[57] It was designed by Konaka and Yasuyuki, and made to be a "network simulator" in which the player would navigate to explore Lain's story.[12] The creators themselves did not call it a game, but "Psycho-Stretch-Ware",[12] and it has been described as being a kind of graphic novel: the gameplay is limited to unlocking pieces of information, and then reading/viewing/listening to them, with little or no puzzle needed to unlock.[58] Lain distances itself even more from classical games by the random order in which information is collected.[12] The aim of the authors was to let the player get the feeling that there are myriads of informations that they would have to sort through, and that they would have to do with less than what exists to understand.[12] As with the anime, the creative team's main goal was to let the player "feel" Lain, and "to understand her problems, and to love her".[11] A guidebook to the game called Serial Experiments Lain Official Guide (ISBN 4-07-310083-1) was released the same month by MediaWorks.[59] See alsoNoosphere

References

"Serial Experiments Lain BD/DVD Box Delayed 4 Months". Anime News Network. Archived from the original on June 28, 2018. Retrieved June 26, 2018. "FRUiTS October (No.15_1st/Oct./1998)". Cornell Japanese Animation Society. Archived from the original on January 22, 2021. Retrieved October 27, 2019.

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Manga Max magazine, September 1999, p. 22, "Unreal to Real" Benkyo! Magazine, March 1999, p.16, "In My Humble Opinion" "T.H.E.M.Anime Review of Serial Experiments Lain". Archived from the original on October 11, 2006. Retrieved November 24, 2006. "DVDoutsider Review of Serial Experiments Lain". Archived from the original on March 5, 2012. Retrieved November 24, 2006. Toole, Mike (October 16, 2003). "Anime Jump!: Serial Experiments Lain Review". Archived from the original on June 10, 2008. Serial Experiments Lain, Layer 08: RUMORS "List of Serial Experiments Lain songs". Archived from the original on January 13, 2007. Retrieved December 7, 2006. ABe, Yoshitoshi (1998). Visual Experiments Lain. Triangle Staff/Pioneer LDC. ISBN 978-4-7897-1342-9., page 42 Manga Max Magazine, September 1999, p. 21, "God's Eye View" Serial Experiments Lain, Layer 06: KIDS: "your physical body exists only to confirm your existence".

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Beveridge, Chris (July 13, 1999). "Serial Experiments Lain Vol. #1". Mania.com. Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved September 16, 2006. Southworth, Wayne. "The Spinning Image: "Serial Experiments Lain Volume 4: Reset" Review". Archived from the original on September 28, 2007. Retrieved September 16, 2006. Silver, Aaron. "Anime News Network: Serial Experiments Lain DVD Vol. 1–4 Review". Archived from the original on March 25, 2006. Retrieved September 16, 2006. Lai, Tony. "DVD.net: "Lain: Volume 1 – Navi" Review". Archived from the original on September 20, 2006. Retrieved September 16, 2006. Japan Media Arts Plaza (1998). "1998 (2nd) Japan Media Arts Festival: Excellence Prize – serial experiments lain". Archived from the original on April 26, 2007. Retrieved September 16, 2006.From the Internet Archive. Nutt, Christian (January 2005). "Serial Experiments Lain DVD Box Set: Lost in the Wired". Newtype USA. 4 (1): 179. Bush, Laurence C. (October 2001). Asian Horror Encyclopedia. Writers Club Press. ISBN 978-0-595-20181-5., page 162. Poitras, Gilles (December 2001). Anime Essentials. Stone Bridge Press, LLC. ISBN 978-1-880656-53-2., page 28.

Napier, Susan J., Dr. (March 2005). "The Problem of Existence in Japanese Animation". Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 149 (1): 72–79. JSTOR 4598910. Napier 2005, p. 78 Toole, Mike (June 5, 2011). "Evangel-a-like – The Mike Toole Show". Anime News Network. Archived from the original on October 10, 2015. Retrieved November 20, 2015. "Serial Experiments: Lain". March 16, 2002. Archived from the original on September 27, 2011. Retrieved April 17, 2015. "Serial Experiments Lain – Buried Treasure". May 11, 2000. Archived from the original on August 26, 2011. Retrieved April 17, 2015. "Serial Experiments Lain – Buried Treasure". November 20, 2008. Archived from the original on April 3, 2015. Retrieved April 17, 2015. "Serial Experiments Lain". Archived from the original on January 22, 2021. Retrieved September 25, 2010. "Games Are Fun: "Review – Serial Experiments Lain – Japan"". April 25, 2003. Archived from the original on September 27, 2011. Retrieved November 10, 2006.シリアルエクスペリメンツレイン公式ガイド [Serial Experiments Lain Official Guide] (in Japanese). ASIN 4073100831.

Further readingBitel, Anton. "Movie Gazette: 'Serial Experiments Lain Volume 3: Deus' Review". Movie Gazette. Archived from the original on May 21, 2006. Retrieved October 11, 2006. Horn, Carl Gustav. "Serial Experiments Lain". Viz Communications. Archived from the original on February 19, 2001. Retrieved September 25, 2010. Moure, Dani. "Serial Experiments Lain Vol. #2". Mania.com. Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved September 25, 2010. Moure, Dani. "Serial Experiments Lain Vol. #3". Mania.com. Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved September 25, 2010. Napier, Susan J. (2005) Anime from Akira to Howl's Moving Castle: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation ISBN 978-1-4039-7052-7 Prévost, Adèle-Elise; Musebasement (2008)

"Manga: The Signal of Noise" Mechademia 3 pp. 173–188 ISSN 1934-2489 Prindle, Tamae Kobayashi (2015). "Nakamura Ryûtarô's Anime, Serial Experiments, Lain (1998)". Asian Studies. 3 (1): 53–81. doi:10.4312/as.2015.3.1.53-81. ISSN 2350-4226. Sevakis, Justin (November 20, 2008). "Buried Treasure: Serial Experiments Lain". Anime News Network. Retrieved September 25, 2010. Jackson, C. (2012). "Topologies of Identity in Serial Experiments Lain". Mechademia. 7: 191–201. doi:10.1353/mec.2012.0013. S2CID 119423011.

External links Wikiquote has quotations related to Serial Experiments Lain. Look up Appendix:Serial Experiments Lain in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

this is definitely the new weirdest anon ive gotten

[joshthewalkingtrainwreck]

A step by step guide to making something with a niche application in Godot 4, as laid out like a cooking blog giving you a recipe (with art elements I've made for it)

A person has to have influences. Not just in who inspires them to create art, but who inspires them in their planning their avenues of attack, their planning, their sheer fuckin' gumption.  the utter balls they have to even show up after that nonsense they pulled last week. Nobody has ever said that about me, but life has a way of beating every last ounce of shame out of a person to the point where they feel there is the chance that could happen.

In my case, there are the people i think those who know me would say i would pick: people in game shows, people for whom 'bastard' has been an exclamation of both high praise and low curse. People like Jay Wolpert, for being perhaps the most experimental producer in an especially commercial genre (Whew, Shopping Spree, for attempting to make Trivial Pursit somehow exciting to watch instead of just to play); Bob Stewart, for being the man in the right place at the right time (one of those times was hearing Monty Hall tell him that old man goodson was looking for people); Reg Grundy, the aussie tv producer who would go on research trips to new york, spending the entire week in a hotel room with a copy of tv guide, a pen, and a composition book with a masking tape label bearing the caution of "original game show ideas do not steal" —and i am totally not hating on Grundy for that; IANAL but I've observed enough of it to make the opinion that you can protect how a game looks, reads, and sounds, but games are processes, and the intellectual property system here in the US does not protect the processes of baking a cake/formulating a fragrance/giving away merchandise to members of the general public according to arbitrarily set metrics presented as competitions of skill.

There have been at least two or three court cases where somebody *tried* to sue one show for being "a lot like" another game show, but those what weren't settled out of court (most recently Tokyo Broadcasting System vs Endemol over Wipeout being too much like Takeshi's Castle), were dismissed outright (e.g. Chuck Barris vs Haim Saban, over the defendant's “I'm Telling” being  too much like “The Newlywed Game,” the judge said nobody had a claim on inane bullshit  and told both parties to stop wasting the court's  time). Hell, it's the reason why Words With Friends was left unscathed (and eventually bought out) by Hasbro while Scrabulous had to shut down– Scrabulous danced a little to close of the “reasonable person” argument, in that there were actual ways people *could* confuse Scrabulous for Scrabble in that they used a similar board layout, similar scoring, etc.

But my influences extend beyond game shows, like film director/producer william castle, probably the most successful boilermaker hollywood could ever offer out of postwar america; there was a talk he gave to a college class. even though you might be able to tell in the speech that he felt somewhat disrespected by a class who knew him just from the movies he directed, he gave advice that stuck with me, even if the exact quote has peeled off in a couple of places in my mind from age: 'a producer is someone who is willing to step into any role in a project to see it through to completion.’ and I would say that's not just useful for having an understanding of how it all works, but it is incredibly important for a producer to learn patience, especially for anybody a producer works with. By learning how to edit, learning how to direct, and so on, you have an appreciation for the skills you're only just dipping your toes in; these are people who committed to that particular role and they are no less worthy of the patience, respect, and money that you would want for yourself for this.

Which has been why I've been learning Godot 4. That, and I am both too fucking broke to pay anybody else. Also there's the ifetime of neurodivergent trauma has made hyperindependence A Thing for me. That self-reliance, the rural Appalachian definition of it at least, is a Key Sign of Adulthood, and that an inability to do everything on your own is a choice of slothfulness. I can't ask people for help when I am still trying to figure out what it is I need help with. And if I hate being asked to help with no ready instructions on what to do, why would I want to put anybody else through the same thing?

So I try to learn it all and do it all. It's why a man in his 40s is just starting out in a career that most everybody else in his peer group are developing midlife crises over. It's why a man who has worked what was available hasn't been able to work what he wants to do, and why he still weeps at the end of the day over the years where it turned out he wasn't lazy or flawed or worthless, but had to work even harder just to get the same level of normal everybody else had no trouble managing.

I've also got in the habit of writing the stuff I've learned down, so if anybody else is looking to do the same thing, maybe they will have more time and energy to get to places I've not been able to find because I've had to do this, first.

So, if anyone is inclined/interested in making their own quiz projects, or just having a goofy little graphical element to represent a value within a game they are building, here's the workflow I've found so far for making trilons in Godot4:

(1) Make a new 3d scene. Add a new MeshInstance3D node to it, Look in the Inspector for the mesh just created > look for Mesh in the first entry > click the dropdown box next to it > select New Prism Mesh. Set initial mesh dimensions 1:0.866:1-- whatever changes made after this will keep things conforming to these initial proportions.

(2) find center mass: adjust it along your pivot axis by half of the height ( 0.866*0.5, or 0.433; look for inspector > transform > position > y-axis), then take that result and subtract the height, divided by 3 (0.433 - (0.866/3), or 0.144 in the same field)

(3) make your initial positioning; depending on where and how you wanna put it, the info i need to display on this is a maximum of three lines of text with some graphical highlights added. A landscape orientation will be what I need here. to that end, i set the rotation on the y-axis field to 90, so that only one face is visible to the camera when seen from the front. The pivot for its initial/"home" position itself will be done later.

(4) size it to spec; because we set the initial dimensions in step one, we can use the scale fields to size it to the specifications and still keep things equilateral. In the layout I've designed, I will need three of these, the faces of which being 295x95 pixels. Each face will need to be able to fit these proportions, so the x axis needs to stay at 1, the y-axis needs to be requested height divided by 100 (95/100 or 0.95 inspector > transform > scale > y-axis), the z-axis needs to be the width done the same way (295/100 or 2.95, next field over)

(5) create the controller; create a new Node3D, set the MeshInstance3D as a child to it. this will be what will have the animations attached to it later on. I renamed mine to 'controller,' because I lack an imagination at three-thirty in the morning.

(6) Set its starting position; change focus from the MeshInstance3D to its adoptive parent, bringing its fields up in the inspector. The default state needs to have one face as the only one being visible. The easiest thing I have found to do, especially considering the animations I need to set for this, is setting inspector > transform > rotation > x-axis to -90 degrees, as the animation player gets a little screwy if it tries to go beyond 360, plus or minus. it's a thing, i don't sweat it.

(7) Create the animations. Add an AnimationPlayer node to bring up the Animations panel, then choose the controller node. This will move the entire mesh by the center pivot we set earlier. 

You should notice a key icon in each heading of the transform section of the Inspector, that's for setting keyframes. Go to the Animation pane > click the "animation" button next to the greyed out dropdown box. In the menu that pops up, choose "new animation." 

(7b) For this, since I've got 3 faces on this (and it's possible to use more, it's possible to just have one plane, double-sided. I just figured a trilon was as good a starting place as any), there needs to be 3 seperate stops: from the 1st face to the 2nd; 2nd to the 3rd; etc. that's 120 degrees between each stop. For the first animation, I click the key under 'transform' (and it may ask you to confirm that you're starting a new animation track, it's okay). There should be a checkbox with the word 'rotation' and a dot next to the border of the timeline. 

(7c) Next, advance the animation shuttle (it's that blue stick that glides along the animation timeline whenever you hit the play button) to the other, accessable end of the timeline (it defaults to one second but you can change it), and then add 120 degrees to the x-axis rotation (should be showing 30 degrees). Click the key again to set the ending keyframe. Godot will now rotate the mesh from the position you gave it to start on to the position you gave it to end on. 

Repeat that until you've made animations moving along all three stops. A reset animation will be really handy here, as the default state will be showing a 'blank' graphic I made for this, so any time I need to introduce a new category with it, it will snap back to the ready state.

(7d, optional) I went ahead and made duplicate animations to speed up the rotation to make it seem a little more dramatic as mood dictates-- I went through and selected each animation from the dropdown box, clicked the animation button, and chose 'duplicate.'

it will ask you to give this duplicate a name, and I just attached the word 'snap' to it. I changed the overall length to .3 seconds, and adjusted the position of the ending keyframe on the timeline by clicking on the appropriate dot on the timeline, and changing the value for 'time' in the inspector to the end of the animation (.3).

Will I need to snap-flip whenever an ordinary category is played? Probably not, but I will need that snap-flip to happen if a modifier comes attached to the category (e.g. offering free picks at the board or doubling the value of the pot on a successful contract). I'd sooner have something and not need it as need it and not have it.

(8) Save the scene. 

As of right now, I admit this is only half-useful; I have the mechanics but no way of putting graphics on each individual face of this trilon. Trying to set a texture via the MeshInstance3D > Material > NewStandardMaterial3D > Albedo will just use that one graphic and stretch it across the entire mesh.

From what I understand, I will need to build a custom shader that will divide the face into three, and swap the individual graphics out as the state of play and game logic require. 

When I figure out how to do that, I'll put up what I did to get there.

For now, have a couple pieces of my poor craftsmanship:

[archoneddzs15]

Sega Saturn - Delisoba Deluxe

Title: Delisoba Deluxe / デリソバ デラックス

Developer: Cave / Sega

Publisher: Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS)

Release Year: 1997

Catalogue No.: 610-6803

Genre: Driving/Racing?

Here we have the truly most expensive and most rare Sega Saturn disc to ever be produced. Sure, Eyeful Home and Heim Waltz are rare, but this one makes them two look common. In fact, unlike the two house discs, this one is actually quite fun!

TBS (Tokyo Broadcasting System) made a joyful game show called Tokyo Friend Park for Japanese "celebrates" to participate in. The games or challengers in Tokyo Friend Park are all bright and colorful and require some physical skill. One of the challenges has always been a video game-based challenge called Delisoba or Delivery Soba to me and you. Soba is a type of noodles that the Japanese eat. The original game used for this challenge looked very much like Hang On. A few years later the game really did start to look dated, so they contacted Sega for an all-new game (They made the original you see). Sega, I guess went to Cave who in return came up with Delisoba Deluxe. This game was used as part of the TV show for many years however they never did show an actual Saturn. The contestants would sit upon a scooter in front of a big screen trying to control the game. This is probably why this game is analog-compatible as well as having digital controls.

The idea of the game is pretty simple. In a team of two, you must deliver the soba to the Fuji Network TV Studios (Where TBS made the show). Sounds easy and to be honest it is but still great fun. On your travels you have to avoid herds of cows, badly parked busses just like in real Japanese life, a banana throwing gorilla on the back of a truck and awful drivers, again, true to Japanese life (^o^).

The disc consists of 4 main modes, the TV game, Time Attack, Coin Attack where you have to collect as many coins as possible in a row to make the highest combo and finally the Edit mode. The edit mode is actually pretty cool since you can make your very own course to race on. Everything in customizable from the terrain, buildings and objects.

While Delisoba Deluxe is not the most exciting game out there it is indeed the best promotion disc I've ever come across for the Saturn. A genuinely playable game for once.

Now, I don't normally offer screenshots for my games but in this game's case, I'll make an exception due to the sheer rarity of them on the net.  Click the thumbnails below to see the full-size screenshots.  Also, don't forget to check out the video linked below.

[nawtponchoesquire]

Oh god, this manga is about me: Dead Dead Demon's Dedede Destruction

On December 2nd, 2022, a YouTube livestream broadcasted the rollout of Northrop Grumman’s latest technological marvel to thousands of people. Countless hours of R&D, cutting edge engineering, and assembly all lead to this moment. Northrop Grumman CEO Kathy Warden spoke from a podium about “the next generation of capability” and “defining what this nation is capable of when we work together” while the livestream chat gawked and called her Mommy.

After Warden’s speech, the hangar door behind her slowly opened. Blue stage lights cast a powerful aura over a hulking monolith draped in a white cloth. Cinematic orchestra music blared and the lights pulsed with the music. The chat screamed “TRUMP 2024”, “METAL GEAR”, and “MOMMY” still, if you can believe it. The music reached its explosive crescendo, and the curtains dropped: the B21 stealth bomber was introduced to the world in all its glory.

Admiral Christopher W. Grady called it an “Airborne Extended Deterrent”. In his speech after the reveal, Grady waffled a bit about national security, and about how this plane REALLY matters and was, like, TOTALLY worth the tax dollars, guys. “This isn’t just another airplane. It’s not just another acquisition. It’s a symbol and a source of the fighting spirit that President Reagan spoke of” he said.

Livestreams and marketing of this nature aren’t uncommon in today’s late capitalist dystopia. Gun manufacturer Heckler and Koch shows off flashy trailers of their submachine guns, edited with a slow-mo Booj and the musical timing of a Battlefield trailer. At the time of writing, there’s even an extremely late sale on their website for “MARCH MAG-NESS”, with a toggle at the top for civilian and law enforcement of course.

When looking at these pieces as part of my research for this post, I’m left with a sinking feeling that’s hard to describe. I feel swallowed by a culture and a system so determined to casualize warfare, to justify violence against a perceived, sometimes invisible threat. As the planet warms, the rich elude responsibility, and I whittle away my days at an office job, precisely one thought bounces around in my brain: “I can't wait to go home and play videogames”.

This exact feeling is captured in amber by Inio Asano’s latest finished work, Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction! (henceforth referred to as Dead Dead Demon’s). Set 3 years after a UFO appeared above Tokyo, Dead Dead Demon’s follows two high school grads just living their life while the literal and figurative “end of the world” looms overhead. What starts off as an unassuming pre-apocalyptic slice-of-life unravels into a deeply fascinating vivisection of our current geopolitical climate and how its effects trickle down to the youngest generations like countless streams of Ronald Reagan’s piss.

It’s impossible not to see the political implications of Dead Dead Demon’s. After the giant UFO suddenly appeared above Tokyo, The Japanese military panicked. They shot down the countless smaller UFO’s that poured out of the main craft, raining debris down on Tokyo’s denizens. Thousands were killed, including Kadode Koyama’s father. Kadode’s mother, left traumatized and paranoid after this tragedy, becomes the manga’s version of a conspiracy truther. 3 years after 8/31, Kadode’s mother leaves Tokyo and her daughter behind to live in a commune with her new boyfriend.

In the midst of her high school graduation and early college career, Kadode is left alone. Or, she would be, if not for Ouran Nakagawa, her childhood best friend. Ouran is Kadode’s rock-solid foundation. As the manga comes back to time and time again, they are absolute; an unwavering, unconditional love connects the two in a way that’s rarely portrayed in manga. A running theme throughout the manga is that the people you love can pull you through anything, not through fixing your problems, but simply by being by your side. Or at least, it would be. More on that later.

The duality of Kadode and Ouran is explored throughout the manga in such a way that it builds the two protagonists to be distinct but codependent. Kadode, a victim of bullying in elementary school, developed a discomfort with how easily society labels its ingroups and outgroups. Her only respite from relentless bullying was Isobeyan, an ongoing gag manga that her father worked on.

The titular Isobeyan and his incredible technological gadgets allow a neurotic teenage girl named Debeko to find wacky solutions to her problems. Debeko, unable to escape her own cycles of narcissism and self-loathing, constantly relies on Isobeyan’s gadgets to get her way. Kadode sees her own destructive tendencies in Debeko, and fantasizes about using Isobeyan’s gadgets to fix her own life; it’s a potent fantasy to give someone who is marginalized. Full-color snippets of the fictional manga bookend each volume of Dead Dead Demon’s, serving as a clear visual and structural metaphor for the invaders and how their advanced technology would seem to be able to fix anything.

While Kadode Koyama is cynical but reserved, Ouran Nakagawa is a firehose of sparkly anticapitalist rage. She’s brash and completely unfiltered, swinging from scathing cynicism about the future of Japan to raucous joy about the latest patch for her favorite FPS within literal seconds. Ouran is the candle that burns twice as bright and twice as long, loudly proclaiming herself to exist in equal parts joyous laugh and viscous battle cry.

However, that’s not the whole story. Beneath the mask is a deeply empathetic high school girl who really just loves the people she surrounds herself with. She may tease her friends after a bad date, but she’s there to hug them while they cry. Although she talks a lot of shit, she clings to her friends like they are the most important people in the universe to her. Ouran embodies both the hopeless circle-jerk of being at the bottom rung of late-stage capitalism and the boundless love that powers us through the worst of times within that system. And yet, further beneath that, something stirs within her. More on that later.

The alien invasion is a clear allegory for (INSERT HOT-BUTTON GEOPOLITICAL TOPIC HERE). It’s equal parts climate change, refugee crisis, and 9/11. The so-called invaders don’t exactly live up to their name, being about the height of a grade-schooler and waddling around with cute old-fashioned submarine helmets on. They are about as unassuming as an extraterrestrial threat could possibly be, and we even get some chapters with the invaders from their perspective as they try to survive in Tokyo’s quarantine zones. To them, Earth is a hellscape they did not intend to die on. And oh my god, do they die.

This is the part of Dead Dead Demon’s that pulls on some horrible discomfort deep within me. The genocide of the invaders is sponsored by tech industry giants like Samsung and Google, literally mowing down crowds of child-sized invaders with machine guns, while Kadode and Koyama go about their daily lives just a few blocks away. The dissonance between high school antics and the screams of what look like dying children hits close to home. It’s impossible not to see the parallels between how we, as consumers in a post-industrial society, often live willfully ignorant to the cruelties our lifestyles enable.

I’ve grappled with the question, “what is Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction about?” ever since I first sat down and read it. After a third re-read, I’m not sure that I could boil it down to one specific, sexy thematic clause, and that seems intentional. Inio Asano, the manga’s author, is notorious for creating stories that revel in complexity. Dead Dead Demon’s welcomes, interrogates, and explores a whole host of questions about life in the modern era. And then… the big reveal happens at the midway point; the truth of what this story was really, always about.

Spoilers from here on out, folks. The manga takes a pretty significant turn, one that I actually really like, but it will give you whiplash if you aren’t ready for it.

Okay. So. Time Travel.

The Ouran we’ve seen throughout the first half of the story is without a doubt eccentric. The glimpses of her that we see in flashbacks, however, look like a totally different person. As a child, Ouran is shy and quiet and rolls with the punches. She even stands idly by as Kadode is bullied by her awful classmates. For lack of a better term, she’s perfectly normal. Somewhere along the way, something seriously changed for her.

When Ouran and Kadode were young, they barely spoke. The story goes that they grew close over a summer cram school stuck together, but the secret that brought them together builds out the world and history of Dead Dead Demon’s in a pretty surprising way: Kadode and Ouran found an invader 8 years before the invasion of Tokyo.

Kadode and Ouran go full ET mode and keep the invader disguised in Ouran’s bedroom. After some debate on what to do, the invader finally speaks up for themselves using a small alien device as a translation tool. The invader’s purpose for coming to earth is clear; they are a scout sent by “the home country” to see if Earth is a good place to finally come and colonize.

The interaction here between the scout and these two schoolchildren is fascinating. The scout speaks in vague terms, but they make it clear that humanity exists on earth to create a breathable atmosphere for the invaders, much like how trees create a breathable atmosphere for us. Invaders are beings that aren’t so strongly tethered to a body or physical form; compared to humans, the invaders are actually much more spiritual and transitory. Their child-like bodies only exist as a vessel through which they interact with the world around them.

Kadode and Ouran are bestowed with an impossible burden. They believe that they must prove themselves, and by extension humanity, as welcoming and friendly to this alien civilization. The scout is content to watch this with scientific, unobtrusive collectedness. If they can get a clear read on humanity and its potential threat to the home country anyways, the scout might as well entertain these two girls’ efforts.

Through actively volunteering to do good, the girls feel like they are painting a good picture of humanity for the invader to see. However, it soon becomes clear that the system they are a part of is too big for two small girls to change. Kadode and Ouran can’t do anything about the scandalized politicians, con artists, and criminals. Kadode, fully grasping the situation and its implications, decides that she can do more. No, she needs to do more.

Kadode manages to steal a few powerful tools from the Invader. A small device that sends a devastating force out from its tip, enough to send a car tumbling sideways. An invisible cloak that perfectly obscures its wearer. A device worn on the head that allows one to fly. When these technological marvels are put together, Kadode goes from being an unassuming grade schooler to something else entirely: a vigilante dead-set on purging the horrible people from this world.

Before long, news started to break of a train wreck, and of a politician turning up dead after a hospital stay for a minor medical issue ended with a bullet-shaped wound. Ouran’s favorite pop band member quit, and suddenly the concert was canceled thanks to a technical accident. Over the course of a few days, Kadode has been tracking down horrible people, nearly killing them, and asking them one simple question, “Tell me the worst person you know.”

Ouran finds out that Kadode has been doing this vigilante work, and for the first and only time in the manga, they fight. Kadode, grappling with the sheer weight of trying to fix our world, is left cold, distant, and apathetic. Ouran finds this new side of Kadode to be frightening and alien, like she doesn’t even know who she is talking to. After an argument and a brief physical confrontation, Ouran is left alone for the first time. She is devastated.

Kadode doesn’t show up to class for a few weeks. Then she moves away. In one last ditch effort, Ouran goes to Kadode’s new home and asks to speak with her. Kadode is disheveled, but seems somewhat happy to see Ouran. Therapy has convinced her that Kadode hallucinated or dreamed up her vigilante spree, but talking to Ouran reminds her all too well that what she did was real. The people she killed, the burden of proving humanity to be good, and the destruction of her relationship with her best friend, all push her beyond her limits. She can’t do this anymore.

In the middle of their brief conversation, Kadode jumps from the fourth story of her apartment building.

This series of events, observed by the invader, force them to come to one conclusion: Earth cannot be trusted and should not be visited by the Home Country. Hopeless and devastated, Ouran asks the invader if there’s anything they can do to bring Kadode back. While the invader can’t bring back Kadode, he can do something else: transplant Ouran’s consciousness to a different timeline. This would come with all sorts of risks, such as mental deterioration, but it would allow Ouran to relive her summer school cram days to do things right. Ouran could direct the timeline so that the two never encounter the invader all those years ago. Ouran ultimately accepts the invader’s offer.

I’m kind of obsessed with this decision because it underscores the tragedy and beauty of Ouran as a character. The crazy, chaotic Ouran we’ve been with for the entire story is actually a time traveler from another timeline. Since she never met with the invader, the Home Country was not notified that Earth was dangerous, and thus they appeared above Tokyo, killing Kadode’s father among thousands of other people as collateral damage. When given the choice between inadvertently destroying humanity and losing the one person that gives her life meaning, Ouran chose for herself. I really can’t blame her for that. What good is humanity anyway?

There’s more to this story, entire twists and plotlines I’ve glossed over and cut out of this post, but this moment speaks to the core of what this manga is about. Dead Dead Demon’s is about aliens, time travel, and corporate espionage, but it’s also about the people that need to live beneath those exact colossal forces battling overhead. When the system is this fundamentally broken, filled with flashy ads for the newest line of submachine guns, giant alien-destroying mechs sponsored by pop stars, and live streams where the CEO of a death machine company is called Mommy, it’s impossible not to feel weighed down by it all. The sheer scope of capitalism has never been more visible and more damaging to its denizens.

I often feel like my life is a rollercoaster. Right now, I feel like I’m at the part of the rollercoaster after the big buildup, where an amazing view beckons to me. I’m at the top, but I can feel gravity subtly pulling me down. In our current moment, the system is buckling under the weight of problems created generations prior. The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and basic hopes like owning a house or even a new car are well out of reach for many, many people. Without sweeping change, we’re fucked.

I can’t wait to go home and play videogames.

[hotarutranslations]

Also There Is An Album Announcement!

Evening

Streamed today, Harami-chan no Haramifan Radio♪

Ishida Ayumi and Sakurai Rio, Visited as guests🤍

We'll be visiting this time and on next weeks stream too! Happy

Have you already listened to it.. Its amazingggg.. I was actually really shouting about this, Within the radio show, I got to sing, Alongside Harami-chan's live piano playing..😭😭

Eeehhhhh man, it was so cool..

Although I was singing, I was thinking, Nah, I'd like to just hear the piano, Really, thank you very much

You can express so much with just the piano..! I was really, really, moved so, Everyone please definitely listen to it😭🫶🏻

74th Single Commemorative Release Mini Live & Farewell Meet

It was today Thank you very much

.💿💿✨️

Yesterday and today, We've continuously been #1 on the Oricon for 2 days🏅 Thank you very much, for that!

The event was really over in the blink of an eye, Thank you very much enjoying it☝🏻☝🏻

Speaking of, during the event, Like, talking about the single… We didn't do that in particular but ⚠️lol

Magazine, Shows and Radio, We've spoken with varous medias so, (Further, we talked about it on Harami-chan Radio) Please search and look for them!

Nanadaka Sentimental na Toki no Uta..

SaiKIYOU..

Its interesting how the color is so different in one piece, Everyone who got their hands on the 74th single, Again, really, thank you🤍

Its the day after the single release but..

There was a big announcement today🌻

In the autumn, it was decided we'll release an album

This album finally, will be Ishida's last work💿💿✨️

Its an album so there will be lots of new songs, right, There are many songs that I can call my last work, I can imagine it even more~🤍

I'm really, looking forward to it🤍

The release of yesterdays single, We didn't say anything special with the release of it, I thought about it a lot in my own way

When I was writing the Tokyo Sports note Series, I may have whispered about it here and there~

I wonder if its difficult to be open about it~

Its not just that I couldn't give the announcement, There were many who didn't know it was being produced in the first place, There wasn't much to chew on either like, this is my..

Saying, its the first single of the 13 member system! I felt like that fit these songs that were aggressive,🔥 That's really the truth,

I was surprised to see myself on the thumbnail, of the Nandaka Sentimental na Toki no Uta.. MV, Partly because I had no intention of it being that way🙃🙃

I thought, huh~? Its like that~? lol

When asked about it suddenly, I couldn't really speak about it well with words like "last single", I ended up unintentionally using it, …There may be more like this in the future😕😕

Eeh, its like, I'm saving "last" for the album? I wonder if that's how I was feeling? I don't really get it myself?

I conveyed this with my graduation announcement as well but, Everything related to the graduation, will my last first experience of it so,

Its a problem, although I'm thankful😂😂 lol

There is a lot moving around in my heart, Isn't it becoming autumn, I'm excited🤤

Its less than a month until our first day of the autumn tour

Lets definitely have a fun autumn together😌🤍

Play▶️List

Graduation Announcement Blog🐣🪽

Hello! Station #531 I also talk about my graduation in this video

📺Otoboke POPS

TokyoMX August 17th (Sat) 9:30~10:00PM Ishida, Sakurai, Yumigeta are appearing💙🤎❤️

📺Hello Pro Dance Every other Thursday at 11:30PM~

📺Sendai Broadcast "Ara Ara Kashiko" Ishida Ayumi Goes~! I appear once a month as part of the AraKashi Family

The previous shows, and makings, are on OX VIDEO STORE!

Thank you for following.. Instagram💙🩵

💿 August 14th new single✨ "Nandaka Sentimental na Toki no Uta/saiKIYOU"

🪩Hello! Project 2024 Summer ALL OF US "Vega" "Altair" From July 13th~September 1st Traveling To 7 Cities Nationwide All Hello! Project groups are performing🔥

⚾️Rakuten Mobile Park Miyagi August 30th (Fri) Orix Match I will be making the ceremonial pitch

🪩"Morning Musume '24 Concert Tour Autumn WE CAN DANCE!"

Its Ishida Ayumi's last tour💙 I'm looking forward to seeing you

🪩"ROCK IN JAPAN FESTIVAL 2024 in HITACHINAKA" September 22nd GRASS STAGE 10:30AM~

→Tickets are on general sale

📻Morning Musume '24 Morning Jogakuin ~Houkago Meeting~

Airs Every Saturday, On Radio Nihon at 12:00AM~

Past Broadcast Episodes Are Available →Program Details

I visited as a guest🪽 "Sayashi Riho and The Time From Now On" presented by Meiji Bulgarian Yogurt

Can I ask this!

With singles and albums, What is the mindset, how is it different, I'd like to know if you can put it in writing🙊🙊

see you ayumin <3