#WHERE IS THE BLOOD TOEI????

[chaos0pikachu]

Two Flavors of Japanese (BL) Cinema

Recently I came across a post that proposited that Japanese cinema hadn't changed since the 1950's and came in, essentially, two types. 

Let's discuss that. 

I can’t go into the history of all Japanese cinema in a singular blog post like that’s just not possible, there’s literal books and classes you can take on this subject, and I will be linking further reading down at the bottom of the post so you can do just that. 

This fact alone, should already disprove the point that Japanese cinema hasn’t changed since the 1950’s. Other than the fact that like, Japan isn’t a static society that is forever unchanging because human beings do not work like that. 

Which is why I’m writing this essay at all. 

I love cinema, I love storytelling and filmmaking. And, frankly, I may not be an expert but I am annoying. I own that. 

Japanese cinema has held influence over many directors, writers, animators, and so forth. 

Just watch this playlist of Sailor Moon references across various cartoons. Or how Satoshi Kon influenced the work of Darren Aronofsky and Christopher Nolan. Or how James Cameron and the Wachowskis were both influenced by Mamoru Oshii’s 1995 Ghost in the Shell. And then there’s Akira Kurosawa who’s been cited as a major influence for directors like: Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Martin Scorsese and a slew of others.

I want folks to know there’s a slew of amazing films from Japan and that distilling the industry - the blood, sweat and tears of its creators - to a strict dichotomy of this or that, either/or is disrespectful at best and xenophobic at worst. 

It’s also just a shame because, like, guys there’s so many great films from Japan! There’s also probably a lot of great live action shows from Japan but I’m not super knowledgeable about them - I mainly watch anime so that’s not a great metric in terms of Japanese television - so I’m just talking about films in this post. 

Ok so main points I’m gonna address: 

Japanese Cinema hasn’t changed since the 1950s 

Japanese film style falls under an extreme dichotomy of cinematic/sweeping (described as “atmospheric”) or cartoonish/slapstick (described as “live action manga”)

Baby does any of this have to do with BL? (no, but it IS more gay than you think)

With these four films: The Hidden Fortress (1958), Lady Snowblood (1973), Gohatto (1999), and Kubi (2023). 

I picked these four because they’re all “period pieces” taking place feudal Japan - or with the aesthetics of feudal Japan, The Hidden Fortress nor Lady Snowblood aren’t based on actual historical events, like Gohatto and Kubi are, however loosely, but take place in an amorphous 15th to 18th century Japan - and I think they strongly show the development of this singular genre in Japanese cinema. 

Plus the latter two films, Gohatto and Kubi, are gay as fuck and I know my people. 

[you can also read this post on this blog post which includes additional links as tumblr has a limit and for easier readability as this is a long post]

The Hidden Fortress 

Released in 1958, directed by Akira Kurosawa it’s probably the most well-known film on the list. It’s a film that exists within the “Golden Age” of Japanese cinema alongside films like Kurosawa’s own Seven Samurai (1954), Yasujirō Ozu’s Tokyo Story (1953) and Kenji Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu (1953). 

It was also the era where, after the American Occupation post-WWII a boom of movie distribution took place with new film studios such as: Toho (y’all know them from any Godzilla movie ever made), Toei (if you know One Piece you know Toei but they’ve done a ton of films both animated and live action) and others. 

The story is straight forward, two peasants, Matashichi and Tahei who bicker their asses off like an old married couple the entire film, happen upon a Very Hot Man with the Only Thighs Out (Toshiro Mifune was a BABE) named Rokurota and his companion a icy young woman named Yuki. 

Matashichi and Tahei have just escaped like, a ton of ~circumstances that include failing to become samurai, being broke as fuck, getting captured and forced into servitude - don’t worry that lasted like 6 hours tops - and then find gold hidden in a stick on a mountain. 

Turns out Rokurota has all the stick gold they could want! So they team up neither realizing Rokurota and Yuki are actually part of a clan that’s been recently wiped out and they’re on the run from a rival clan who has wiped theirs out. Yuki is the princess of said clan and it’s only survivor, while Rokurota is her samurai general and retainer. 

Tahei and Matashichi, living in ignorance of these facts, try to steal the gold away from them because they live that hustle life until the end when all is revealed and Yuki grants them both with a gold piece to share (this is a really big piece of stick gold). 

There’s other things that happen, like a fight scene between Rokurota and rival clan member, Yuki owning every single scene she in - I fucking love her - but that’s the gist. 

The story is, again, pretty uncomplicated, it balances the comedy of Tahei & Matashichi with the stoicism of Rokurota and Yuki well, and all the acting is strong. In terms of its film style, by modern day standards it’s not especially “cinematic” Kurosawa doesn’t favor fanetic camera movements, his camera is often very still and the movement he employs is often in individual character ticks, and/or background set pieces. This film has a lot of great set pieces. 

Kurosawa didn’t employ camera techniques like panning, he doesn’t really do extreme close ups, there's no swooping shots or fancy tricks, I’d say a majority of the camera shots in The Hidden Fortress are a combination of mid, and wide, with a few mid-close ups. One thing to notice is Kurosawa’s use of scene cuts; instead of a cut he used pan sweeps to change scenes. If you’ve ever watched a Star Wars film you know exactly what I mean. 

The Hidden Fortress, first and foremost, is an action adventure film. It has more in common tonally with Top Gun Maverick or Star Wars A New Hope, in that it's straight forward, sincere, and grand in scale, grounded by a very honest set of characters who are strongly motivated. 

I feel like in modern day discussions we association “action/adventure” films in a sorta of negative way; this is probably due, in part, to the oversaturation of the high budget blockbusters of the last ten years - oh MCU, how you’ve fallen - that are overly bombastic, overly complicated, overly connected, and the root of what audiences connect with - the characters - tends to be lost. 

Scott Lang's motivations in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania are to protect his teenager daughter and the family he's built, which are simple, strong, and relatable character motivations. However, they got lost in the conventions of the plot, the frantic energy of the film, the simple amount going on around Scott that his motivations become less a central focus and thus he becomes small within his own film. We, the audience, become distant and it grows more difficult to connect with what's happening. This can still work on some level, the Fast and Furious franchise isn't successful because it's sophisticated, but the Fast-chise has embraced it's cheesier conventions and spectacle, while blockbusters like the MCU's output, simple juggle to much all at once. It also helps that while the cast keeps growing in the Fast and Furious films, there's still less than ten characters you have to actually know and care about. To fully understand and connect with the characters of The Marvels, you have to watch Ms. Marvel and WandaVision on Disney+ and the task becomes more akin to homework than simply the enjoyment of watching a movie. 

The epic scale grows so large it feels daunting, rather than exhilarating. 

I think this is why a film like Winter Soldier, more so than most MCU films of the last decade, has continued to be a fan favorite of the universe and of blockbuster lovers whether you are a fan of the MCU or not. At its root, Winter Soldier is character driven, with deeply motivated characters,  which is what makes the action and adventure aspects stick. 

The Hidden Fortress is similarly character driven with a simple and straightforward story that is about honor, loyalty, a princess, a loyal samurai/knight, rebuilding a decimated clan, and two “normal” characters to keep everything grounded and relatable. Which in turn, helps make it timeless. While the filmmaking itself isn't grandiose as what modern audiences may be used to, Kurosawa knows how to direct a scene and more than that, direct his actors. Mifune is commanding as always, but for me, it's really actress Misa Uehara as Princess Yuki that steals the movie. 

Lady Snowblood

Released in 1973 and based on a manga of the same name by Kazou Koike and Kazuo Kaminura, directed by Toshiya Fujita, Lady Snowblood and its sequel Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance are considered cult classics. Lady Snowblood, famously, is Quentin Tarantino’s inspiration for his Kill Bill saga (like, a freaking lot). 

Lady Snowblood is a part of the era of “new wave” and “pink films” that were emerging in Japan and elsewhere. Stateside I think a close equivalent to both the style and content of Lady Snowblood and other films like it are exploitation films. In fact while watching Lady Snowblood I couldn’t help but get exploitation film vibes just off the aesthetics and thematics of the film itself. 

To break down Lady Snowblood’s plot it goes like this: Yuki is tasked with getting revenge on four people who had a hand in her father, and older brother’s murder, and her mother’s rape (which is seen on screen so warning for y’all this is def a Does the Dog Die movie). 

Yuki’s mother kills one of her rapists, but is imprisoned before she can kill the others and while in prison she purposely gets pregnant so her child can carry on her revenge after she dies. Yuki is born, and raised by one of the fellow inmates and a priest who trains her in martial arts. She’s raised as a “demon”, whose only purpose is revenge for her mother, father, and brother. And boy does she get revenge the film is violent and graphic (even if by modern day standards the blood looks fake as fuck the emotions are there). 

Like The Hidden Fortress this film is very character driven, with a highly motivated protagonist but it’s also revels far more in it's violence and the spectacle of that violence. Yuki, in comparison to her earlier counterpart Princess Yuki, is the driver of the action in the story. She's an active participant in the plot, and the story centers around her. Princess Yuki is commendable, she's compassionate, and she makes decisions, but the story is more about what she represents - a fallen princess - than what she does. She's symbolic, the embodiment of a leader, a samurai spirit of nobility who becomes a leader worth following. Yuki, on the other hand, needs no protection from others, she's a much more direct and active part of the story since the story is hers - and her mothers - she's more elegant than regal, and there's nothing necessarily 'noble' about her.  She's not seeking to rebuild her clan as a leader, her motivations are singularly about her revenge quest to fulfill her mother's dying wish. 

In some ways, they're very similar - Yuki also feels compassion for another woman who's been used by the men around her as Princess Yuki does - and in others they are very different and speak to the changing expectations and idealizations of women from the 1950s to 1970s. 

Lady Snowblood is also way more violent than any Kurosawa film I’ve watched including The Hidden Fortress. While there is action in The Hidden Fortress, it’s all employed with specific purpose. Which is one of Kurosawa’s strengths as a director. It’s calculated and singular. Yes blood spurts up in Yojimbo but it's limited; quick and efficient, with more in common with John Wick or Collateral than the more fantastical and aesthetic Tarantino or Robert Rodriguez fare. 

Lady Snowblood revels in the aesthetic violence, there’s no “purpose” for Yuki to cut an already dead person in half, she does it out of pure frustration and for the glory of showing the audience that internal rage. Of a body hanging, dripping blood and gore onto the clean floor as the curtain draws to a close. 

The film also features on screen rape, sex, and nudity which The Hidden Fortress does not. There’s an implication that characters in the film would assault Princess Yuki if they could, but nothing ever goes beyond brief implication (still gross tho guys come on). Whilst in Lady Snowblood, the rape is brutal, the violence is brutal, and the emotions are far more intense because of it all. 

The allowance - for lack of a better term - of this kind of material showcases a cultural shift overall in the terms of visual storytelling filmmaking began experimenting with in telling, and in what audiences were responding too. Lady Snowblood was a beloved success for its overall low budget. In comparison to the two, The Hidden Fortress is filmed better, with more technique and focus, Lady Snowblood almost seems rustic in comparison, but it's a sort of rustic that speaks to experimentation. 

Low angles from a characters pov staring high above her, extreme zooms on Yuki's burning eyes, the oversaturated colors of red-orange blood or green walls or white clothes, the starless pitch black sky as powdery snow falls. The images are arresting even if at times they're choppy, and while the film opts for non-linear chapter breaks to create a story flow in comparison to Kurosawa's iconic screen swipes and straight forward narrative, yet, both work. 

Gohatto

Behold, the promised gay cinema I promised. 

Gohatto is a 1999 film directed by Nagisa Oshima based on the short story, Shinsengumi Keppuroku by Ryotaro Shiba. 

Gohatto is a pretty late entry in the new wave/pink films of its heyday but those films were Oshima’s bread and butter. Often dubbed as one of Japan’s cinema outlaws for his anti-establishment films, one of his films, Night and Fog in Japan (1960) was pulled from theaters all together. Most people in the west will probably know him even tangentially for his queer film Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence starring David Bowie and Beat Takeshi or for this absolutely banger quote from the New York Times article, A Japanese Film Master Returns to his Cinema: 

(If you’re a BTS fan, the composer Suga and RM like, Ryuichi Sakamoto, both starred and composed the main theme of Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence Forbidden Colors, he plays the guy in love with David Bowie’s character)

Gohatto combines the setting of a Kurosawa film, with the more experimental storytelling of Lady Snowblood, whilst imbuing the film with more surrealistic elements and more complexity. And making it gay like - for real for real. 

Gohatto goes like this: it’s the late 18th century in Japan, everything politically is on shaky ground, and the shinsengumi are looking for newbies to join ranks. Welp, they find two promising newbies and wouldn’t ya know it one newbie, Kano, is like, hella pretty. He’s got bangs. 

He’s so pretty in fact that all these other dudes in the shinsengumi crew wanna smash, I mean down bad like the Taylor Swift song or whatever I don’t listen to Taylor Swift. 

This is all treated with a lackadaisical normality; there’s teasing about “I never considered sleeping with a man before, but damn that Kano kinda…” but there’s never a moment of “omg they’re GAY?”

Beat Takeshi’s - who’s also in this film, he’s been in a lot fo queer films I'm noticing - character Vice-Commander Hijikata Toshizo often asks other characters not if they’re attracted to Kano - the implication being that they are - but rather if they are in love with Kano. Because lust is fleeting, but love is dangerous to your duty. 

Kano also might be a spy, or a murderer, it’s all very ambiguous and the ending isn’t a “happy” one. This isn’t a film about a love story of any sort, it has more in common with erotic thrillers than the action adventure of The Hidden Fortress, or the rape revenge fantasy of Lady Snowblood. Where as the former films have definitive endings, Gohatto ends ambiguously. 

What actually happened? And why did it happen? What did it all mean, in the end? The film offers no strict answers to these questions, asking instead, that its audience to come to their own conclusions. It’s also much more historical than the previous two films, taking real life historical figures like: Hijikata Toshizo, Okita Soji, and Kondo Isami and asking the question, “hm, what if they all maybe fell in love with this super pretty man before being overthrown and what does that mean metaphorically?” 

The Hidden Fortress doesn’t ask its audience to interrogate society in any meaningful way and that’s not a knock against it, it’s just an observation. Lady Snowblood specifically presents the plight of women, and a slight take on classism within the system, through the lens of violence and destruction. Gohatto is much more metaphorical, it’s not providing the audience with a direct message like the former two films, but presenting it’s thematics in a much more abstract way. The Hidden Fortress is an action adventure, with heroes who achieve their goals and overcome their obstacles. Lady Snowblood is a rape revenge with an understandable protagonist who succeeds in her bloody revenge. Gohatto has no heroes, and offers no straightforward catharsis at the end of its story story. 

Its film style is also far more atmospheric compared to the epic scale and straightforwardness of The Hidden Fortress, or the lower budget charming violence of Lady Snowblood. 

There’s lots of mood lighting, overhead shots of characters dimly lit, camera cuts to rain after two characters have sex, extreme close ups of one character observing Kano’s eyes and lips. It’s not a black and white film like The Hidden Fortress, but it’s not nearly as saturated in color and brightness as Lady Snowblood. 

Lady Snowblood drips with color, and light, even at night there always almost seems to be a spotlight on Yuki with an empty starless sky in the background. Gohatto is much more grounded in realism than high visual aesthetics, opting to create more of a lingering dreamlike trance or fog to the cinematography when the story’s final act begins to unfold. 

Yet, one thing Gohatto has in common with both The Hidden Fortress and Lady Snowblood is its violence; operating somewhere between the two. Like The Hidden Fortress the violence is quick, purposely, and specific, and like Lady Snowblood blood spurts, gushes, and heads are displayed proudly and grotesquely.

Kubi

Kubi is a 2023 film directed by Takeshi Kitano aka Beat Takeshi - this is the third time his name has been dropped in relation to a queer film in this post go Beat Takeshi - based on a novel of the same name that Kitano also wrote. 

Kubi is like Beat Takeshi’s sengoku period slash RPF fanfic come to gruesome bloody (literal, not British) life. A period piece epic; Kubi is both about samurai warlords and a historical event known as the honno-ji incident, which took place in 1582. It features various historical figures like Oba Nobunage - if you’ve watched some anime or played some JRPGs you’ve probably at least heard of this name before - and other prominent historical figures of the time. 

The basic gist of the movie is Oba Nobunage is both really good at his job, so he’s super powerful politically, but he’s also a grade-a asshole whom all the other important samurai lords fucking hate. However, they also all fucking hate each other and all want to take Nobunage’s place and get all that sweet, sweet power for themselves. The honno-ji incident involved one of these guys doing a coup for reasons still unknown today and then pretty much almost immediately dying swiftly after leaving another samurai lord to take over. 

Kubi takes these historical events, and is like “okay but what if we added some gay innuendo and gay sex to this drama?” with more beheadings than a French revolution. 

Out of all the films on this list Kubi is, admittedly, the one I enjoyed the least, however, it’s an interesting retrospective on the growth of both the Japanese film industry and this specific genre in and of itself. 

Kubi’s film style is very modern, it’s beautiful, it’s sleek, it’s expensive looking. And yet there’s specific scenes that feel like callbacks to the Kurosawa era, like the black and white flashback between Nobunage and his fellow samurai lords. One of Kurosawa’s top films was Kitano’s Hana-Bi (1997), and Kitano has worked with Kurosawa’s daughter on costume design on four other films as well, so these references feel not only purposely because of general influence but also referential in a way. 

In terms of story and tone, Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress is sincere and straightforward, Lady Snowblood is experimental and fearless, Gohatto is introspective and suspenseful, whilst Kubi is unrelenting and even feels mocking at times. There is no break in Kubi's violence, there's almost no tenderness or softness, characters are selfish, and self-centered. The selfish, but joyful peasants in The Hidden Fortress don't exist here, and are replaced with a peasant character who murders his own friend and then rejoices over being relived of his family once he discovers they were murdered too. At times, Kubi feels like a subversion of the more glamourous depictions of the samurai in film. Which feels as though following similar footsteps established in Gohatto which also explored, subtextually, the faults within the samurai media persona. 

At times the film feels almost like a dark comedy, it doesn’t glamorize these samurai warlords, nor their clans, nor their ideals in the way The Hidden Fortress does, nor does it interrogate them in the way Gahotto does. Instead the story at hand is presented with a brutal realism, objective if a bit mocking with a side order of gay sex. Which isn’t presented in a mocking way so much as just an everyday aspect of life. 

When Mitsuhide and Murashige are caught by spies sleeping together there’s no shock or awe about it, just a calm report and the bigger issue is Mitsuhide hiding a fugitive more so than him sleeping with a man.

Similarly, when Nobunage is literally fucking one of his vassals in front of Mitsuhide, it’s not to disgust the other man, but rather a powerplay of sorts to make the latter jealous - at one point Nobunage promises if Mitsuhide accomplishes a mission for him, he’ll sleep with him - and it seemingly works to some degree. There’s subtext throughout the film that Mitsuhide might be, if not in love with Nobunage, want him in an obsessive way all the same (including being down to bone). 

Like with Gohatto the queerness is inherent, just a part of the culture. It’s not “romance” by any means, but it is simply a part of life and the culture itself. 

In terms of characters, Kubi's characters couldn't be more different from the characters in the previous mentioned films. The Hidden Fortress characters like Princess Yuki and Rokurota are easy to like, honorable, quiet, steadfast; while Matashichi and Tahei are less outright likable they offer a grounding and relatable to the big presence that are the former two. In Lady Snowblood, Yuki is quiet, calculating and menacing in her own right, truly embodying the idea of cold vengeance which makes her intriguing. In Gohatto Kano is elusive, which adds to his sensual allure, Okita is playful yet clearly hiding a more sinister air about him, and you just feel bad for Tashiro who’s pushy but seemingly sincere in his affections for Kano. 

Kubi has no by-the-by “likable” characters, every character is out for themselves in some way shape or form. So much so that the brief tenderness between Mitsuhide and Murashige is like a balm to a burn. Though I did absolutely enjoy the scene-chewing of Ryo Kase who played Nobunage. While Nobunage isn't a "likable" character by any means, he was so fun and engaging to watch he became a highlight of the film. 

Stylistically, this is a very modern epic film; it’s the type of film in terms of scale I imagine Kurosawa could have made if he had access to the same technology, but also wouldn’t because there’s no stillness or sincerity to it. The violence is also more in line with Lady Snowblood, but with a budget. Heads are lopped off with ease and at times with glee, dead bodies, headless bodies with crabs crawling out of the necks, a literal pile of heads for trophies it’s all here. It’s beautifully and dynamically filmed, it has a similar scale of a Lord of the Rings, or a Creation of the Gods I: Kingdom of Storms. 

Big set pieces, big costumes, big landscapes, big battles, and bigger body counts. It also has the largest cast of any film on the list - kinda neat that Kitano and Asano Tadanobu were both in Kubi and Gohatto together - and the best costumes of the bunch. 

It also, in my opinion, has the most complicated plot of all the films because of the heavy political intrigue - though this, admittedly, could be because of the culture gap as I’m not overly familiar with Japanese history. 

Okay so like, where does all this leave us in terms of those original bullet points? 

The Original Bullet Points

Japanese Cinema hasn’t changed since the 1950s 

If there's one thing - well okay many things cause I'm greedy but overall - I hope I've been able to outline here with these four films is that obviously Japanese cinema has changed since the 1950s. And thoroughly at that. Not just in terms of style, but in terms of character presentation, tone, stories technology, experimentation, and a growing reflection of the shifting and developing culture. 

It’s not simply that all four of these films are different stories, but that all four of these films are addressing different aspects of their modern culture via these period pieces, as well as, viewing this time period in ways that reflect the filmmakers own experiences and how they feel or felt about the world. 

Kurosawa was born in 1910 to Kitano’s 1947, Fujita and Oshima’s 1932. Kurosawa’s father was a member of an actual samurai family, his worldview would be thoroughly different from someone like Oshima, or Kitano, or Fujita’s. Some overlap, sure, but also still thoroughly different. 

And I feel that you can see that in their films; Kurosawa’s samurai films are almost referential at times, not always, but his work with Toshiro Mifune often leans that way; in The Hidden Fortress Mifune’s Rokurota is deeply loyal to his lord, the Princess Yuki, to the point that he won’t shed tears over his own sister being executed in her place. He spares the life of a rival because he respects him even though they stand on opposing sides. 

The samurai in Gohatto and Kubi aren’t nearly so idealized nor idolized, there’s very little “honor” in Kubi and even less loyalty. Whilst in Gohatto there’s a deep and subtle interrogation of the strict and oppressive bylaws of the shinsengumi. In one such scene, Kano is having drinks with a man who is interested in him, Yuzawa, who’s passionately talking about how the shensengumi uphold oppressive ideals including classism. 

[And then he jumps Kano’s bones I guess politics got the dude going lmao]

The Hidden Fortress’ Princess Yuki is at first, masculine - in story she was raised as a man rather than a princess - from the way she walks to the way she talks. She’s fierce, and upstanding, while also being compassionate to other members of her clan; even saving a young woman who’s a member of her clan that had been sold. There’s a regal quality to Princess Yuki. 

In comparison, Yuki in Lady Snowblood is elegant, and feminine, before striking out violently. Princess Yuki never has an “action scene” and in fact for a chunk of the film has to pose as a deaf woman to hide her identity. While not a passive participant in the plot, nor does she directly drive the action herself. While Yuki, well the entire movie is driven by her actions and the actions of her mother. The story is first and foremost, hers. 

Meanwhile women just like, they don’t exist in Gohatto or Kubi they’re like, in the ether~~~ they’re drifting, keeping out - or kept out? - of the drama. 

Given the vast differences in both style, tone, story and execution, how can you say wholeheartedly that Japanese cinema hasn’t changed since the 1950s? 

Japanese film style falls under an extreme dichotomy of cinematic/sweeping (described as “atmospheric”) or cartoonish/slapstick (described as “live action manga”)

I’m just…not gonna get into the overall history of Japan's adaptation of manga into live action films cause it would derail this conclusion and I ain’t got the time for that. I would like to note, Lady Snowblood is a live action film based on a manga of the same name - and it is not slapstick. It doesn’t even have comedic elements, it is a violent rape revenge story; I don’t think there’s a single moment where I chuckled. The Hidden Fortress is far lighter in tone, while Gohatto has more in common with Lady Snowblood - deeply and sincerely serious - and Kubi goes for a darker sort of comedy. 

This is just incorrect information. Personally I’m of the mind that “cinematic/sweeping is too broad a spectrum to even quantify as a film genre they are descriptors. 

That said, I don’t think Lady Snowblood is cinematic or sweeping. Gohatto is the only one on the list that’s even close to “atmospheric” though all four films have atmosphere - because atmosphere is a film technique it’s not a genre of film - The Hidden Fortress and Kubi are the only two I could qualify as “cinematic/sweeping” because they’re going for a larger bombastic scale. Though I feel folks watching The Hidden Fortress in the modern day might not find it cinematic because of how static and slow the film can be at times - the first act is long and drags quite a bit. 

To place such a strict dichotomy on an entire industry of filmmaking is simply bad film critique at best and xenophobic at worst given the context here. I’ve only talked about four films in one singular genre, I didn’t mention the countless other new wave films, or the birth of the kaiju genre with Godzilla, the expansion into horror and grindhouse - where does a film like Tag (2015) fit into such a strict dichotomy? -  nor the long, long history of animated works from various insanely highly influential and/or successful directors like Satoshi Kon, Makoto Shinkai, Hideaki Anno, Rintaro, Mamoru Hosoda, Mamoru Oshii, Isao Takahata, I mean the list goes on and on. 

If you expand your horizons you’ll find so many amazing films that do not flatly sit in this one or the other imposed categorization. Think about what queer cinema you may be missing out on by adhering to this imposed binary. 

Baby does any of this have to do with BL? (no, but it IS more gay than you think)

So, in the end, what does this have to do with BL? I would say it has both little and a lot to do with BL/GL which are genres all their own in Japan and other neighboring countries; as such their subject to the same waves, exploration and expansion as the four aforementioned films. 

It’s easy, if intellectually dishonest and academically lazy, to look at The Novelist and What Did You Eat Yesterday and say “BL only comes in two shapes and sizes”. 

There’s chocolate or vanilla and that’s it. When in reality there’s lots of ice cream flavors available, even if chocolate and vanilla are the best sellers it doesn’t mean strawberry or mint chocolate chip don’t exist. 

Where does animated BL fall into this western imposed binary? How does capitalism affect the output of what gets made for the screen and how? How does the political climate affect what’s being financed? Are BL and GL works that are being made somehow unaffected, existing in a stasis state, by the works across the film industry? Even from other queer works of film? What are we, as outsiders, not considering when we engage with this media? 

If we’re only looking at BL/GL for “queer representation” what films and/or television are we missing out on from these countries? What BL/GL are we missing by only engaging with what's put in front of us, and not diving deeper into learning more, expanding our individual knowledge, and experiencing stories that might take some work towards seeing? Stories that might be outside of our direct comfort zones because they don't fall into those strict if seemingly comforting boxes. What exploration into queer identity are we denying or ignoring the existence of because of these imposed binaries? 

I know some folks who are more well versed in BL history that would and do consider Gohatto and Kubi BL or BL adjacent, but I also know most western, especially American, audiences would consider neither of these films BL. 

So where does that leave them?

Further Reading: 

Cinematic History: Defining Moments in Japanese Cinema, 1926-1953

A Brief But Essential Introduction to Japanese Cinema

Filmmaking from Japan: The Golden Age of Japanese Cinema

Nagisa Oshima: Banishing Green

JAPANESE SOFTCORE: THE LAST OF TOKYO'S PINK EIGA THEATERS

The Last Samurai: A Conversation with Takeshi Kitano

The Evolution of the Japanese Anime Industry

Check out other related posts in the series:

Film Making? In My BL? - The Sign ep01 Edition | Aspect Ratio in Love for Love's Sake | Cinematography in My BL - Our Skyy2 vs kinnporsche, 2gether vs semantic error, 1000 Stars vs The Sign | How The Sign Uses CGI | Is BL Being Overly Influenced by Modern Western Romance Tropes? | Trends in BL (Sorta): Genre Trends

[mirai-e-jump]

Hero Vision Vol.1 (2000/Winter) Changerion Reunion Interviews ft. Takashi Hagino & Aizawa Kazunari (translations below)

Publication: December 31, 2000

Takashi Hagino & Aizawa Kazunari: After 4 years, a date in Harajuku

Hey you two, how are you doing these days? It's been 4 years since the end of the broadcast. You two had a fateful encounter in "Choukou Senshi Changerion," an unusual heroic show that still remains popular to this day. We asked Takashi Hagino and Kazunari Aizawa, who say they still get along well with each other, about their memories of those days, and what their future plans are.

Main Interview Section

"I'm going to say it now. I mean it, I'm really going to say it right now! Changerion was really entertaining! It was truly a masterpiece! Suzumura Akira, a happy go lucky, good natured, 182cm tall, cat eyed, beautiful private investigator, and his partner, Hayami Katsuhiko, a 183cm tall, hot blooded and direct individual with a handsome face, are both on the side of justice. Kuroiwa Shogo, the Dark Knight, is an elite who's handsome, also quite tall I guess, and is running for governor of Tokyo in order to seize control of the city. A slapstick comedy and super cool tokusatsu hero show, with a mixture of fiction and reality, something like this most definitely existed in 1996 Tokyo. On the day of this interview, I was so excited to hear their voices saying, "Good morning~!" The appearance of those two standing there looked really really cool! And so begins the converstions full of laughter between Takashi Hagino, who plays the main character Suzumura Akira, and Aizawa Kazunari, who plays his partner Hayami Katsuhiko."

-Casting!! Secret Stories?-

Hagino: At that time, the role was the same as it always was, wasn't it? I went to a party at some production company, and someone was like, "Ah, you there," and told to come in for an audition. When I went to it, Shirakura-san, the producer, and Nagaishi-san, the main director, were smiling ear to ear once they saw me. I remember thinking, "What, why are you smiling like that?" I was 22 at the time of my debut, so it was about 5-6 years after I dropped out of high school. Before that, the movies that came out around that time made me think that acting was really interesting.

"You've also appeared in a V-Cinema that contains slightly adult content."

Hagino: It's bad. Please don't watch it (laughs). Watch something else where I look cool.

Kazunari: For me, I had just started acting, and my manager took me to Toei's head office to introduce myself. I announced that I was new and would be in their care, and then a strange old man came up to me and said, "Are you the one?" (everyone laughs).

Hagino: Wait! Was he trying to flirt with you?!

Kazunari: Uh, no, you see, my shoelaces became untied in the hallway, so I had to sit on the floor to retie them. He came up to me and said, "What's wrong?" I said, "Ah, no, I'm an actor," and he said, "Come with me then!" Things got carried away, and before I knew it, I went in for an audition.

Hagino: So, who was that guy?

Kazunari: He was……a really good guy to say the least, I actually don't remember his name.

Hagino: You're terrible! (laughs).

Kazunari: No, no. Look, it's because, it's just…anyway, so, at first, I was reading the script without knowing which one of us would play the role. Then, when it was down to just a few people, they asked me, "Which role do you want to play?" I was like, "Well, Hayami, I guess." I wondered if this was it, and then I passed, I passed……huh.

Hagino: Can we get some more joy here?

Kazunari: Well, it's because I really didn't understand. I didn't really feel it when I was suddenly told that I got the job. What's more, I still had no idea how hard it was going to be. No, rather, you really don't know what's going to happen in this world.

"Thank goodness for untied shoelaces and nice people"

-I'm not awkward!-

Hagino: I was asked to read my lines in front of everyone. Naturally, the producer told me that in the future, he would never have me read my lines at the audition for a leading role ever again (everyone laughs). No, I thought it went really well, and while I was a favorite to play this role, somehow I was also the worst. One of the more important people there looked as if he was going "?" all while tilting his head. He looked really nervous. He said, "From now on, when we present leading role auditions to the higherups, we won't make them read lines." He also said, "If you go with this guy, then shut him up and pick him already."

"It's true, Akira's acting wasn't very good, and I felt so embarrassed watching that I wasn't even able to finish the first episode. But, I could never think of anyone else playing Suzumura Akira but Takashi Hagino, and I still think that way after seeing him again after four years."

Hagino: But, back then, I definitely had some momentum. I was always told "You're a perfect fit for the role of Akira!," and a part of me got carried away over it, it felt like my nose was growing just like Pinocchio, except this nose is of brilliant glass. If Pinocchio's nose was made of glass, it would be really beautiful and sparkling.

"He smiles cheerfully and says that such things give him "the power" to play a role."

Hagino: But, you know, it's going to break someday. When that happens, only then will you understand.

"Afterall, Akira, aren't you suppost to be an adult?"

-First Impressions-

Hagino: We first met in an elevator, right?

Kazunari: Yeah, it was in an elevator. When I was on my way to the audition area.

Hagino: I said, "Huh? What's with the long hair?"

Kazunari: Yeah, it was really long.

Hagino: Incredibly long, it was tied in a single knot, along with wearing black jeans and a black shirt. I noticed him and asked, "What floor?" He said, "8th floor, hurry it up."

Kazunari: You liar! No, I politely said, "I'm going to the 8th floor, please."

Hagino: Well, I don't know, I guess that's just how bad my impression of you was (laughs).

Kazunari: Somehow, I never thought that the two of us would be working together.

Hagino: Yeah, I had costume fitting, and they told me that my partner was coming, and then the absolute worst guy came walking in.

Kazunari: Hey now (laughs).

Hagino: Because we seemed so similar in type, I thought there was no way the two of us would be together. Then he came in. And, as you can see, he's handsome, incredibly so. And…uwah. He stands out just by standing still. I really have to do my best here. Even still, I feel good with this guy. I can't imagine anyone else, as I'm already spoiled being stuck with him.

"Oh? Hayami is smiling shyly as he listens."

-Dramatic Drunks-

Hagino: When we drink together, we end up staying up until morning, right?

Kazunari: Yeah, when I see him, all he does is drink.

Hagino: When drunk, this guy tries jumping backwards. He gets really mad. When he stomps, it makes a nice sound.

Kazunari: I see… (pretending not to know)

Hagino: I end up joining him (grinning)

Kazunari: It seems I do alot of unacceptable things.

Hagino: Not really. He says that like I'm trying to wring it out of him. Well, guess I'll just go home then… (walks straight past him)

Kazunari: I do drink abit too much.

Hagino: I feel like a fighter when it comes to alcohol. I'm trying not to lose my memory here.

Kazunari: This guy makes people drink all the time. He'll ask, "Want some sake?" It seems I don't drink for myself, rather, I only drink due to the influence of other people. (to Hagino) Hey, you, you're the reason I always end up getting drunk.

"As usual, they are the best of friends."

-Acting, Theatre and Films-

Kazunari: Basically, about halfway through Changerion's filming, my impression of him was, "Ah, this guy, he's actually really serious.

"Oh? Somehow, Akira looks very happy."

Hagino: That's because, you know, it took me a long time to properly get into the role.

Kazunari: In our current ranks, we don't get into such big roles on TV or movies. I often get a role at the last minute, and have to act on the spot, so I think that because I can practice for a month on stage, movies really require alot of power in comparison.

Hagino: It's definitely different from Changerion, where we could say, "Let's take our time and work on it." I won't be able to make it if I try to wing it. But, if you ask me if I can act in the moment, I can't play the role of a big shot, because I think it wouldn't come off as authentic, but it'll be the best I can do, so it's important to know how much you can work with in such a short period of time.

Kazunari: I think about it alot. When I get a role, I'll think about it for a long time, doing research by watching similar movies, reading books, and so on, then, build up an image. Finally, once on set, adjust it as I see fit.

Hagino: My perception of acting has changed. I'll still watch the videos, and think, "Wow, I really did it~." But, there are also scenes where I'll say, "Oh, I don't think I can do this now." There are so many scenes like that. Although, it's a great opportunity to get into the swing of things, because you end up transforming yourself. The more I got into the rhythm, my surroundings were also in rhythm, so I was able to stay on track. Changerion was a a unique experience, and I don't think I could have done it alone.

Kazunari: The final broadcast was on Christmas, right?

Hagino: For some reason, I don't want to talk about the final episode. It went something like, I drank alot before the shoot and just had alot of fun, since we basically had a day off…

"Does this mean you were having a rough time before the end of the broadcast?"

Hagino: No, no, that's not it. We had about four days off before we started shooting, and I'd never had such a holiday weekend before, so I got alittle too relaxed.

"Does that mean things ended on good terms?"

Hagino: Yeah ❤️, that's how it felt. That's why I don't want to remember.

Kazunari: Like-I-was-say-ing, you…

Hagino: No, no! For me it may be just a past memory, but it's an important one.

Kazunari: Yeah, it was alot of fun.

"Never ending stories and overflowing emotions. I was happy to meet them. Changerion, beyond time…and for all eternity."

[retrosofa]

Let's jump into some trivia for Cutie Honey episode 12: A Red Pearl is Forever.

Screenwriter: Susumu Takaku

Art Director: Eiji Ito

Animation Director: Shingo Araki

Director: Hiroshi Shidara

The creative team behind Cutie Honey sure love James Bond. The title of this episode is a spoof of the 1971 film Diamonds are Forever.

This episode originally aired on January 30th, 1973 but was later shown in theaters as part of the Toei Manga Matsuri on March 16th, 1974. Also known as the Toei Animation Festival, this was a film festival created by Toei Animation to showcase some of their popular series during seasonal breaks in the school year. The festival not only included original films but “theatrical versions” of selected episodes from their popular series as well. 

The line-up for the Spring 1974 festival featured: 

Yaemon The Locomotive

Eye-Popping 3-D Movie: Inazuman 

Kamen Rider X (Theatrical version of episode 3) 

Mazinger Z vs. Dr. Hell (Theatrical version of episode 57) 

Limit Miracle Girl (Theatrical version of episode 5)

Cutie Honey (Theatrical version of episode 12)

Reportedly the theatrical version of episode 12 was going to be included as an extra for the original Cutie Honey Premium DVD-Box but the proper materials couldn’t be sourced. The "theatrical version" would've had the episode cropped for widescreen viewing and probably would've omitted the title card and next episode preview.

This episode marked the first collaboration between director Hiroshi Shidara and animator Shingo Araki. Reportedly, both men were set to handle the last episode of Cutie Honey but were too busy at the time working on Toei’s next magical girl series: Little Witch Megu. 

Shidara and Araki had such a fondness for Honey, they included her in Megu’s 27th episode, “The Curse of Scorpio.” The episode opens with Megu watching Misty Honey performing the Cutie Honey theme on TV. In that same episode, Non is seen wearing Hurricane Honey’s helmet.

Araki had previously included Seiji in the first episode of Megu, where he can be seen among a group of angry men. Araki would later include cameo appearances of both Seiji and Honey in UFO Robo Grendizer episode 50. That episode also featured characters from several previous Toei Animation series: Babel II, Devilman, and Getter Robo. 

The haunting siren’s song heard throughout the episode is taken from Kosuke Onozaki’s musical score for the 1969 Toei Animation film, Flying Phantom Ship.

For some reason Seiji’s car has two different license plates. One says “Shinagawa 5132” while the other reads “Shinagawa Maichi 300F.”

Despite her name appearing in the opening credits, Noriko Watanabe does not voice Sister Jill in this episode. Haruko Kitahama fills in for her.

The mermaids in this episode are Malala (マララ) and Tylulu (チルル). Their names most likely come from Mitsuru Yokohama's manga, Chibikko Tenshi. The main characters of that manga were two angels named Malulu (マルル) and Tylulu (チルル). And those two characters probably got their names from Blue Bird, a play about two siblings, Mytyl (ミチル) and Tyltyl (チルチル).

Special thanks to ehoba.

Sea Panther was originally designed by Ken Ishikawa, who most likely drew inspiration of the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Her finalized design was done by Shingo Araki.

Sea Panther was voiced by Haruko Kitahama, who previously voiced other Panther Claw minions. Amusingly, Kitahama would go on to voice the Sea Witch and one of the older mermaid sisters in Toei Animation’s 1975 film, Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid. 

Sea Panther is referred to as an “android”, though this is technically incorrect. An android is a mobile robot that is made to look like a human. For example, Honey is an android. She’s completely mechanical but looks like a human girl.

Since Sea Panther was originally a flesh and blood mermaid, she’s actually more of a cyborg, which is “a person whose physiological functioning is aided by or dependent upon a mechanical or electronic device.” However, since she was originally a mermaid and not human, I suppose the term “cyborg” is dubious. 

The other agents of Panther Claw (aside from Zora and Jill) are also referred to as “androids” in the anime, although it’s unclear if they’re fully mechanical or not. In the original Cutie Honey manga by Go Nagai, he makes it a point to mention the members of Panther Claw are in fact cyborgs not androids. It could be that the anime producers got their sci-fi terminology mixed up.

The music that plays during the closing scene is Auld Lang Syne, a song typically played or sung during New Years Eve. It was probably included due to the fact this episode originally aired on December 29th, 1973.

That's all for episode 12!

[marine-indie-gal]

I have been on a little binge on Powerpuff Girls Z (Remember that One Japanese Adaptation of the PPG where the Girls now go to High School, not even Sisters, and were just ordinary girls with Magical Girl Power? Or am I truly one of those kinds of people who have seen that?).

Anyways, because I've been a little nostalgia watch on some Good Old Classic CN Childhood, I wanted to try on watching the Anime version of the PPG and so far, I actually like the Anime more than the Original (even though I still love the Original series no matter what). I dunno why, maybe it's because that Obscurity and Anime are always running down through my blood? IDK but chances are that the First Foreign Reboot is a lot better than that sh*t 2016 reboot with some Creepy-Ass writer for a Self-Insert.

Because in the Anime version that the Girls are no longer sisters and actually have families of their own (with their Creator now having his own Family with a Single Son and Wife but still acts like a Father Figure to the Female Trio), I was most likely bumped that we never got to see who the Parents of Bubbles (or at least, "Miyako" as she was actually called in the Anime of the Japanese Dub) are since it was confirmed that she does live with her own Grandmother where's Blossom (Momoko) and Buttercup (Kaoru) live with their own Parents and Siblings. Miyako (I'm just gonna randomly call the PPG's Anime Counterparts by their own Actual Names, deal with it) is an Actual Single Child with No Parents and this leads Me into wonder what the Parents of the Single Daughter might've looked like.

So yeah, because we never got to see an Interpretation of Miyako's own parents (most likely based on an Idea where each of the Powerpuff Girls weren't even Sisters and had their own Family Trees, so to speak), I've wanted to try to do a little personal fanon interpretation of how I think what Miyako's parents might've looked like in the PPGZ Universe. My Headcanon names for Miyako's Parents are "Hanami" (Meaning "Flower") and "Mizuwokakeru" (Meaning "Water") or just "Mizu" for short, because since "Miyako" is actually a Japanese name meaning "Beauty", I'd figure why not just pick Random Japanese Names for Miyako's own parents that have meanings similar to their Daughter's name (because in the PPGZ universe, it was actually set in Japan much like how PPG was set in America).

I imagine that Hanami (the Mother) would be a Fashion Designer just like how her Daughter wanted to be and even the Father (Mizu) as a Former Sailor who retired from Sailing but is still attached to Nature's Sea Life.

BTW, Not really a fandom-joining mood btw, this is just for random fanart of random HCs or ideas that I don't think big much on.

Powerpuff Girls Z (c) Cartoon Network Japan and Toei Animation Hanami and Mizuwokakeru "Mizu" Gōtokuji (My Personal HC Designs for Miyako/Bubbles Z's Parents) (c) Me

[ladyloveandjustice]

holy shit

holy shit

I was looking into YT's appeal again figuring I might as well send another one

and they have a thing where you can recover data if it's connected to a google account

I RECOVERED MOST OF MY VIDEOS.

Not all of them, which unfortunately include three of my favorites (the Abba one and the Kryptonite one and the Origin of Love one) but most of them! I think the ones I couldn't recover were the ones who got strikes, and considering they were all sailor moon, yeah I bet Toei was the culprit. But I have yona one! My stupid bad blood yona one! I have so many videos. Actual tears in my eyes,

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball: The Magic Begins (Taiwan, 1991)

We continue our exploration of the Gaijin Live-Action Trilogy with the second live-action adaptation of Dragon Ball, a movie called “Dragon Ball: The Magic Begins.”

I’d like to think the Taiwan studio behind this movie saw South Korea’s “Fight, Son Goku!  Win, Son Goku!” in 1990, and was inspired to make their own unlicensed film a year later.  But despite a number of similarities, the two movies have different styles.  “Fight/Win” was a very juvenile kind of film, using puppets and theme-park-style costumes to capture the cartoony aesthetic of the franchise.  It adapted Akira Toriyama’s butt-fart-poop jokes and worried that the movie might be too highbrow for its audience, so they threw in a scene where Turtle bites Master Roshi’s scrotum, and several moments where characters grab each other by hooking their fingers in each other’s nostrils.

The Magic Begins is probably also aimed at children, but it has a little more dignity.  It’s basically a standard kung-fu movie with Dragon Ball characters and situations.  For the most part, it’s a direct remake of the first animated Dragon Ball movie from 1986, what we now call Curse of the Blood Rubies.  So let’s be clear about the lineage here. 

First there was the original story arc, covered in the first 23 chapters of the Dragon Ball manga from November 1984 to May 1985.  You know the tale: Goku meets Bulma, they go searching for Dragon Balls, and eventually meet Yamcha, Oolong, and Puar, then end up having to thwart the evil scheme of Emperor Pilaf. 

Then, there was the Dragon Ball anime, which retold that same story arc in the first thirteen episodes across the spring of 1986.

Then there was the December 1986 movie, originally just called Dragon Ball, then renamed “The Legend of Shenron”, and then “Curse of the Blood Rubies”.  This tweaked the plot by replacing Pilaf with a different villain, King Gurumes, who was planning to wish for a cure from the curse that had afflicted him. 

Then Korea adapts the anime into “Fight/Win” in 1990.

Finally you get “The Magic Begins” in 1991, which takes the plot of the ‘86 movie, swaps Pilaf back in, and makes a few other tweaks.

 So yeah, if you’re looking for something original out of this film, forget about it. 

I always have trouble telling this movie from the Korean one, so I’ve put up a helpful image at the top to remind me.  On the left is the flag of Taiwan, and on the right is a white parrot, who played the role of “Snow White”, this movie’s version of Puar.  You might be thinking of the Puar puppet that smoked a cigarette, but he’s in the Korean movie.  In Taiwan, it’s all about white parrots.  Or maybe that’s a parakeet.  Who knows?

Everyone got new names in this movie.  I don’t know if that was a feeble attempt to protect the studio from Toei’s legal team, or if someone genuinely thought this would make the characters wholly original.  I have a hard time keeping them all straight, so I’m probably going to just refer to them by their true identities.  But for the record, the aliases are as follows:

First up, we have the Pilaf Gang.  Pilaf (center) is known as “King Horn” in this movie.  On his left is Shu, aka “Zebrata”, and the blonde on the right is Mai, aka “Malilia.”   Shu and Mai act a lot more like Bongo and Pasta from Blood Rubies, but their visuals are completely unique, so I’ll give them some credit here.  As for “King Horn”, he looks like Pilaf if he were tall and competent.  He also has some super-powers, and he leads his troops into battle, so he really has no connection to King Gurumes at all, except for his role in the plot. 

Next we have Son Gohan (left), who is known as “Sparkle”.  On the right is his adopted grandson, Son Goku, known here as “Monkey Boy”.  During the movie, it’s said that “Monkey Boy” is the 91st Descendant of Sun Wukong, the Monkey King from the ancient story “Journey into the West”. 

Then we have Pansy on the left, who is known as “Jade” in this movie.  If you don’t remember Pansy, that’s okay, she was a movie-only character who appeared in Blood Rubies, most notable for her all-red costume.  As “Jade”, she doesn’t stand out much here.  On the far right is Bulma, aka “Seetou”, and standing between her and Goku is Oolong, who is known as “Piggy”. 

Finally, we have Yamcha on the left, who is renamed “Westwood”, and on the right is Master Roshi, now called “Turtle Man”.   So for the most part, everyone’s pretty recognizable.  Roshi has a turtleshell, Oolong looks mostly human but his schtick is unmistakable, and the bad guys may be different but there’s no mistaking them for villains.  I think the only point of confusion would be Bulma and Jade, but they’re the only girls in this thing, and Jade is smaller, so it’s not too hard to work out who’s who. 

All right, let’s get started.  So the movie opens in Jade’s village, where her father, the new chief, receives the village’s prize Dragon Pearl in a ceremony.  Then Pilaf’s army invades, and basically mows down the entire population.  The chief and the local monks all pray in the temple.  Pilaf barges in and takes the Dragon Pearl by force, and kills everyone.  Since Pilaf already had a Dragon Pearl, that brings his count up to two.  And he already knows where to find the third. 

Meanwhile, Gohan and Goku are meditating in their home, when Gohan has a Bad Feeling About This.  He reminds Goku of their duty to protect their Four-Star Dragon Pearl, but doesn’t explain why they protect it or what would happen if it fell into the wrong hands.  Goku is confident that he can defend the Pearl, as he is armed with his magic staff, which can extend in length when he twirls it around.  Also it comes to him when he calls, sort of like the Silver Surfer’s board.

Then Gohan gives Goku a test of his abilities, by which I mean a pretty kick ass fight scene out in their back yard.  This is easily the coolest part of the movie.  I’m not familiar with the kung-fu genre at all, so maybe this movie is trash by comparison, but I’m pretty impressed with the action.  It’s hardly a breakthrough in special effects, and it’s definitely hokey, but it’s still fun, which is something I’ve needed after slogging through all of Dragon Ball GT.

This also seems to be the film’s main contribution to the wider Dragon Ball mythos.  We’ve never really gotten to see what life was like for Goku back when Grandpa Gohan was still alive.  All we know is based on their reunion during the Fortuneteller Baba arc, and various throwaway lines of Goku’s when he would reminisce about living alone in the woods with his grandfather. 

This is the first time I know of where I’ve gotten to see the kind of nonsense they might get up to during the day.  We know Gohan trained Goku, and this feels like the sort of exercises they would have had.  Just two guys bouncing off trees, shooting fireballs and trying to hit each other in the balls with the Nyoi’bo. 

I’m not sure why Gohan looks like Robin Williams playing Harry Potter, but otherwise, it seems pretty authentic.

For instance, at one point, Gohan catches Goku’s staff and uses it to fling Goku into the well  by their house.  But he doesn’t come up right away, so when Gohan gets concerned and goes to check on the boy...

BAM, Goku suckers him into taking a punch to the face.  Cool!

So Goku wins the test of strength, but then he loses a Rock-Paper-Scissors game and has to cook dinner, so he goes fishing.  And by “fish”, he means “crocodile”, because Goku doesn’t have a tail in this movie, so instead of doing what he did in the manga, he just swims up to a crocodile and shoves his staff into its mouth to incapacitate it.

On the way back, Goku runs into Bulma, and I think we pretty much know how that goes.  She nearly runs him down, but he stops her car with his super-strength, so she starts shooting, but the bullets don’t kill him.  Goku thinks she’s a monster or a witch, until she explains that she’s a girl, and thankfully we don’t get into the part where she offers to let him touch her butt.  However, once Bulma learns that Goku and his grandfather have the next Dragon Ball she’s looking for, she realizes that Gohan is in danger.  A couple of tanks filled with Pilaf’s goons drove past her earlier, and she now realizes they were headed for Gohan’s place.

But by the time they get there, it’s already too late.  Mai and Shu have wrecked the whole house and there’s no sign of Gohan.  Goku and Bulma chase after the bad guys but Bulma’s jeep gets destroyed.   This is playing out pretty much like Curse of the Blood Rubies, except the chase was aerial.  Also, when Bulma’s vehicles got wrecked, she would just get out another one from her store of Hoi Poi Capsules.   But none of that seems to exist in this movie, so instead Goku recruits an elephant to take them where they need to go.

This leads to the part where Oolong is chasing after Pansy, except... well, Oolong looks very problematic to say the least.  In Blood Rubies, he looked like a giant red monster, but here, he’s normal-sized, and the actor is covered in black paint. I’m... pretty sure this is not as accidental as the studio would probably like you to believe.

Fortunately, his true form just looks like a regular dude with a dumb haircut, so we can move on. 

Then Yamcha and Puar show up.  At first, Yamcha looks like a gunslinger from a Western film, but when Goku deflects his machine gun fire, he removes his hat and poncho to reveal...

Revolutionary Girl Utena?  They went to a lot of trouble to recreate the scene from Blood Rubies where Yamcha draws his sword all cool-like. 

It’s a pretty cool fight, which ends with them grabbing each other by the nostrils, a la Polnareff and Hol Horse in Stardust Crusaders, but then Bulma shows up and Yamcha loses his nerve. 

It’s basically the same as Blood Rubies, although Parrot Puar kind of changes things up.  He’s not a shapeshifter like the real Puar, so he doesn’t have a backstory with Oolong, so instead they just argue over who will win the Goku/Yamcha fight.  Then, after Yamcha flees in terror from Bulma, Puar mimics Bulma’s voice to terrorize him some more.

Later, Bulma asks Pansy about her backstory, and she reveals that her father was the village chief from the start of the movie.  Her parents were killed during Pilaf’s invasion, and before she died, Pansy’s mother told her to flee and seek help from Master Roshi.  Oolong has heard of Roshi and knows where he lives.  Bulma quickly realizes that Pilaf must be the one behind the attack on Goku’s house, and he must be planning to gather all seven Dragon Pearls so he can summon the Dragon and have his wish granted.  Pilaf said as much at the start of the film, and Bulma knows the same legend.  What the gang doesn’t know is that both Yamcha and Mai are spying on them, and they each run off to act on what they’ve learned. 

As in Blood Rubies, Yamcha plans to get the Dragon Pearls for himself and wish for courage around women, so he can finally marry.  Unlike Blood Rubies, he already had a Dragon Pearl in his treasure horde.  This doesn’t affect the plot much at all, but it’s treated like it’s important later.

So while he rides a jet ski (!) to get to Roshi’s island first, Mai reports back to Pilaf, who plans his own attack on Roshi and the others to shut them down before they can interfere.

So now we enter into the Roshi part of the movie.  I don’t know why, but the people who made this movie really love Master Roshi.  I say this because the scene on his island starts at about 42 minutes in and continues until the 65 minute mark.  Plotwise, it’s virtually identical to the Roshi’s Island scene from Blood Rubies, but it gets heavily expanded.  Here, we actually see Yamcha contact Roshi and warn him about Goku. That’s pretty superfluous, but what’s worse is that they show Roshi even before Yamcha arrives.  He tries to use the Magic Cloud, but it won’t obey his instructions.  In this continuity, he can stand on the cloud, but he falls off as soon as he tells it to do anything. 

When Goku and the others arrive, Goku and Yamcha fight a little, then Roshi settles things with the cloud, and since Goku can ride it, that proves he’s telling the truth, so Roshi gives it to him for keeps.   As for Yamcha, Roshi tells him he can’t leave the island unless he surrenders his own Dragon Ball to Bulma. Yamcha agrees, and when Bulma kisses him in gratitude...

His eyes turn into slot machine rollers and they land on hearts.  He panics and flees on his jet ski. 

But we’re still not done, because Roshi has his own Dragon Ball, and he offers it to Bulma in exchange for nudity.  As in Blood Rubies, Bulma convinces Oolong to impersonate her.  Oolong agrees, but demands nudity for himself as payment.  Bulma’s like “Dude, you can look exactly like me whenever you want.  You can see me nude any time you feel like it.”   That doesn’t seem to bother her much at all.  Anyway, Oolong-as-Bulma meets Roshi on his front steps and they do some weird dance together before she takes off her top. 

But we’re still not done, because the gang decides to ask Roshi if he knows where the seventh Dragon Ball might be located, since they now have six accounted for.  Roshi is too horny to think straight, so he can’t answer.  It’s like they forgot that Bulma has a machine that detects Dragon Balls.  Wait, Dragon Pearls.  Sorry.  Maybe her Dragon Radar got lost when her Jeep was wrecked?  I don’t think so. 

Then the bad guys attack and blow up Roshi’s house, just like in Blood Rubies, but not quite.  This time, Roshi shoots some ki blasts at them, but he doesn’t blow them away like he did with his Kamehameha from that movie.  None of his attacks make any difference, as the bad guys can just teleport back into their aircraft once they have the Dragon Pearls.  Roshi tells the others to flee on the Magic Cloud while he holds them off, and it seems like he’s killed in the battle...

But no, we’re still not done with this guy, because he shows up to meet the heroes when they regroup on the mainland.  And this is where things start to deviate from the plot of Blood Rubies, because in that movie, Roshi refused to help Pansy save her people, because she had already gathered all the help she needed from Goku, Bulma, and the rest.  Here, Roshi’s pissed about his house, so he’s rarin’ to give the bad guys a whoopin’.  Then Yamcha shows up and asks to join their team because his Dragon Pearl got stolen too.

So now we have five characters--Goku, Bulma, Pansy, Roshi, and Yamcha-- each personally connected to a Dragon Pearl stolen by Pilaf.  So the whole team has a stake in this, except Oolong, who....

No, wait, it turns out Oolong had a Dragon Pearl this whole time.  He said it was given to him by the Pig Fairy, his distant ancestor who had some connection to the Monkey King.  Oolong says that he was told to keep it a secret, but somehow he knew these guys were part of his destiny, I guess?   Anyway, he says that this was why he chased Pansy in the first place, because he knew it would bring him into contact with the other five Pearl-Bearers.  I mean, I’m kind of paraphrasing it, but that’s the way I understood what he said.

So then the good guys just storm into Pansy’s village and start shooting everyone.  Oolong takes out a bunch of Pilaf’s soldiers and even kills Mai while she’s fighting Goku and Yamcha.  What the fuck?  Why is Oolong suddenly so important?  Anyway, Roshi fights with Shu, and then Bulma shoots Shu in the back while he’s distracted.  This seems a bit underhanded to me.  Mai and Shu are ridiculously OP in this movie, but still.

Then Pilaf comes out and reveals he has Gohan held captive, and threatens to kill him if Goku’s group doesn’t surrender the last Dragon Pearl.  Goku wants to give in, but Roshi reminds him that they’ll all be killed if Pilaf gets his way.  So Pilaf tosses aside his hostage and tries a different trick...

Zombies!  I think?  He uses some kind of power to put a blue filter over the camera, and then all of the townsfolk appear and start attacking the heroes.  Maybe they’re still alive and they’re just being mind-controlled, but Pansy’s parents are included in the group, and Pansy said they were dead.

Things look hopeless until Goku summons the Magic Cloud and rides it over the villagers’ heads, knocking down Pilaf and cancelling his spell.  Then all the villagers collapse, so I think they’re all dead.

Then Gohan and Roshi get together and Gohan tells him that the other six pearls must be in Pilaf’s stomach.  I’m not sure how he knows that, but he must have seen Pilaf swallow them, or he watched Curse of the Blood Rubies and remembered that this was where King Gurumes hid his Dragon Balls.  So Roshi decides that they’ll put the seventh Pearl in his mouth and that way Pilaf will explode when the Dragon emerges.   This all made a lot more sense when Bulma figured all this out with the Dragon Radar in the Blood Rubies film.

Anyway, it works, and Goku usess his staff to drive the last Pearl down Pilaf’s throat, so at least he helped kill the bad guy.  Then this yellow thing shows up and says it’s the Dragon.  I’ll just take his word for it.

Pansy wishes for her village and its people to be restored, and then her parents turn out to be okay, so maybe they were resurrected, but I’m not sure.  Anyway, the good guys win.

Then Yamcha turns to Goku and goes “I have one more wish.  I wish to fight with you!”  And Goku’s like “Well your wish is granted, buddy boy, let’s rock!” and the movie ends with them leaping at each other.   Weird how they went with this instead of Bulma and Yamcha getting together, but that plotline didn’t seem to get as much attention as it did in other versions.  Also, you’d think Goku would be more relieved to have his Grandfather back. 

And that’s the end.  Akira Toriyama is completely un-credited here, even though he created all the characters and like 70% of the plot.  Maybe more than that, depending on how much input he had on Blood Rubies. 

It’s a fun little movie to watch, but definitely not something I’d recommend to newer fans.  On the other hand, you can find the English dub of the movie on YouTube, so the price is right. 

For my part, I’ve heard about this thing for years, and I always wanted to check it out, and now I’m happy to say that I’ve scratched that itch.

[basedkikuenjoyer]

Lingering Snowblood: The Saga of Oyuki

Alright class, who’s ready for a fun bonus post? Waaay back in the start of this journey, we talked a little about Okiku potentially being inspired by a figure it the story that is likely an inspiration for Kin & Momo. Lone Wolf & Cub, it’s one of the most famous series of classic samurai movies. What Hawk & Chick are based on for any Bob’s Burgers fans and the TV adaptation had the actor Oda’s said their names come from in the lead role. 

In that franchise, there’s a woman named Oyuki who pops up a few times. Dancer background, unassuming lady who’s absolutely deadly when pressed, tattoo used a lot like the mask, and has a calling card of taking topknots from her fallen foes. Sounds a lot like Kiku, yeah? And if you didn’t know, “yuki” means snow so we do have that shared motif. Feels like in both cases, and the ones we’ll get to, the archetype is leaning a bit on the mythological Yuki-Onna. I was wrong though, that was just the tip of the iceberg. 

So...this character transcends franchises. Wano has made me really interested in jidaigeki, I’ve actually grown quite fond of them and have a buddy who’s into old Westerns so we love talking how they play off of each other. As an aside, any RPG game masters out there...go binge an old Western TV show like Tales of Wells Fargo and you will find a gold mine of session ideas! Turns out Oyuki has a pretty cool history, and yeah it includes Kill Bill. 

The funny thing is...if we’re talking Eiichiro Oda’s influences, it actually calls into question what was really pushing him to dust off Snowblood. See, she is a figure in jidaigeki, but a little before his time. That’s not a huge deal, Smokey and the Bandit came out over a decade before I was born and I still thought it was a cool Sunday afternoon movie that’s stuck with me from that single viewing fifteen years ago. Kill Bill was directly inspired by Lady Snowblood, coming straight from Quentin Tarantino himself. Oda loves Hollywood and American movies, so which one really piqued his interest for Okiku?

Because y’all...the deeper we go the more obvious this was part of the inspo for Okiku. Wano’s just a big kid giddy to show his young readers all the shit he thought was cool growing up.

Yeah, I bet you know this woman’s entire deal looking at this. Proper lady right up until that short sword comes out of the parasol...though she’ll probably whoop a wave of mooks with the umbrella alone. At the end it’s her standing in the middle of a dozen dead bodies without a drop of blood on that pretty kimono. The dancer or acrobat background is really common, vengeful motivation driving her as well as lowborn origins. Gotta have some reason she’s not content to start a family and all, right?

So this 1973 movie based on a 1972 manga’s it right? Lone Wolf was a little later and Oyuki there was mostly just a one-shot appearance that they reused for a movie. Well...see, we can go deeper. 

Finding stuff like this is what makes digging so worth it. See, if we’re talking beloved Okiku...the Kill Bill/Lady Snowblood inspo is missing the mark on one big thing. Kiku’s not cold-blooded or vengeful. Let’s go back to the late 60s though, the same era that gave us a pretty feminist wave of Japanese media like Attack no.1. This was a TV drama that ran for a season, Red Swallow Oyuki. Starring the lovely Junko Miyazono who’d go on to have a nice run of movies playing the same type of kickass lady. One of those by the way was Hannya no Ohyaku. Fun bonus tie. This aired in 1968, so likely influencing Lady Snowblood, and you can find the first two episodes on Toei’s official Youtube page. With subs! It’s awesome, imagine Samurai Champloo if Fuu was the badass in charge...so Bakura Town.

Where I really think this initial iteration of Oyuki shines through in Kiku is the personality. This version, she’s really cutely naive. Raised in isolation and trained to pass on her father’s sword style, but he balked at the end. Sent Oyuki away to “become an ordinary woman.” Only use the sword to protect yourself. But of course, when push comes to shove she’ll use it to protect the innocent. Yes, it does end up feeling a lot like Himura Kenshin which is it’s own obvious part of Kiku’s DNA. 

I also love this idea of Oyuki sorta taking on a life of her own. It’s very Kabuki, it was a cool character concept so why not lift and repurpose. Not quite the same, but reminds me of the thing about the name Kikunojo. How it has a history as a stage name for many famous Onnagata. But seriously...watch one episode of Red Swallow and tell me that isn’t what a story with Kiku in the lead role would feel like.

[tsuki-sennin]

Hail to the King, baby! Ohsama Sentai! Kingohger! ...or is it King Ohger? I'll tag it both just in case. It's a brand new Sentai, for a brand new tag!

"Rejoice O Swarming Evil! You're My King!"

I am immensely excited, so no more delaying.

Spoilers, I guess...

-Five Heroes, and their God.

-Well, the CG is certainly... better!

-I love the look of this planet.

-Tikyu, I believe? Might as well just call it Yarph.

-The Bugnarak are coming back!

-Pardon you?

-It's all very stylized and detailed, I appreciate that a lot.

-Shugoddam! A... very funny name, I hope it's not foreshadowing.

-Ahhhh, a festival~!

-I feel at home already.

-Lots and lotsa bug folk!

-A ceremony?

-The kings are comin'~!

-A whole roundtable, coming forth.

-Hello, you must be Lord Racules.

-I am honored to make your presence.

-This is Queen Himeno of Ishabana.

-Oh lord, that's so much shiny.

-I mean no offense, your majesty, but this is almost certainly going to be the most CG heavy Sentai season yet.

-Toufu! ...that might be the dumbest name for any of these kingdoms.

-Kaguragi Dybowski! ...I didn't realize Poland was a country Toei even knew existed.

-Ah yep, this one! Everyone was talking about them a hell of a lot.

-King and Chief Magistrate of Gokkan. Has so much GNC swag that it practically emanates off them.

-Thank you for this, Toei, seriously.

-Chief Justice Rita, I love you already.

-And of course Yanma-shachou. Cyberpunk himself.

-I might end up calling you Yanmega by accident, sorry in advance.

-Oh fuck, he lives in Peta, run my lord, they're gonna use your autism to lie about milk!

-Here they come. Royalty in a procession of CGI.

-Legendary Swords~!

-Considering how big and important it seems to be, I'm assuming Shugoddamn's also the center of the land's religion?

-That's pretty neat, kinda like the Theocracy of Allistel from Radiant Historia.

-Oh shit, real location!

-Sorry, I don't mean to harp on the CGI so much, it's honestly not bad at all, but goddamn.

-I suppose this was the blood price to pay for the demand of real suits for every ranger.

-Gira! King of Evil!

-Conquer the world!

-Oh come now Kogane-san, you gotta get into it!

-Oh fuck, taxes.

-Hmmm... I'm sensing a corrupt bureaucracy in our midst.

-Gira comin' in to commit a crime.

-Too cringe for Kogane-san.

-Yeah! Get fucked!

-Doing it for the people!

-Quite a good guy, this King of Evil.

-No more petty squabbles. Now is the time for unity.

-King Racles, offers is life for the people of the world.

-Oop.

-Seems like we've already broken down.

-"You need me. You need my power."

-Yeah, I don't trust you, Racles.

-Damn, Rita don't fuck around, do they?

-"I'm the top", yeah that's what they all say.

-Jururira?

-Sounds tasty.

-Oh fuck, here they come.

-The bad guy bugs!

-Big Daddy Desnarak.

-"Move out, my minions- I mean, my friends! Royal Arms!"

-Have to admit, the CG's at least growing on me a lot more than I expected it to.

-Kogane!

-Homegirl's dying!

-"The King... he'll protect us."

-...seems like that was an empty lie.

-Dickhead king.

-Jesus Christ, this man is heartless.

-"Once Emperor Desnarak's head rolls, Yanma Gust's and the people of N'Kosopa shall soon follow."

-Right, you're super evil.

-Hotdamn, Himeno's kicking serious ass.

-Everybody is, holy crap.

-Damn Toei, I see you.

-Hohohohohoho!

-Yanma's haxxor powers are no match for divine tradition.

-So that's why they pushed the whole King of Evil thing so hard.

-All the world shall be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies.

-Gira! Conquer the world in the name of God and people!

-Big Bug!

-"HOW!?"

-Qua God!

-March for the King of Evil, my friends!

-Royal Arms!

-Oooooooh, I love the amber

-You Are The King!

-Kuwagon! Let's fly!

-Oh my lord

-Okay, that's cool

-Shugod!

-Right out the gate! Time to combine!

-God has descended!

-Hot damn, I'm enjoying this a lot.

-Oh God, where did the Spider Shot come from

-"Insignificant worm! Bow before your King!"

-Yeah, this is gonna be a fun ride.

-Thank you, Kuwagon.

-The kings

-"Bring the traitor's head to me, minions!"

-Headed to N'Kosopa!

-Oh shit, ad read.

-OH FUCK ACE

-Ohhhhh, this is the SHT bumper.

-Sorry, the subs I usually find omit these.

-That's pretty sick.

-Love how he brought Big Sis Tsumuri with him, that's cute.

[astral-from-afar]

what's your favorite tokusatsu series

ik it's random but i suddenly became curious lmao I hope you don't mind

Nah don’t mind at all. I’ve been a fan for a little over two years now and while there is still a lot for me to consume, I’ve grown to love the genre of tokusatsu

This where my rambling begins now hehe

Out of the big three of Tokusatsu (Kamen Rider,Super Sentai and Ultraman), I gravitate more towards Kamen rider. I have seen a couple of super sentai shows and have enjoyed them (Toqger and Donbrothers being my personal favourites atm) and I’ve started to dip my toes into ultraman which is wayyyy easier as there are official releases on YouTube of their weekly episodes for international fans toei why can’t you be more like this

Kamen Rider is my personal favourite Tokusatsu at this point of time. I’ve seen all of Reiwa era, almost half of the Heisei era but nothing from the Showa era (that will change sometime in the future hopefully). Each season has a unique flavour to it and have casts that are pretty good. There is at least one season that resonates with fans, myself included and overall just a fun ride (is that a pun?)

Now for my favourite series I would have to say Kamen Rider W is my all time beloved. The characters are great, the humour is solid and the main message of family is heartwarming. It contrasts a found family full of weirdos (trust me none of them are normal) with the main antagonists who although are blood related, they are practically dysfunctional. The soundtrack is a banger and there’s one episode the actors sing one of the songs and it’s amazing.

If I were to recommend a kamen rider series to someone it would be W. Its the beginning of Heisei part 2 and started some trends that later seasons followed. It also depends on what type of show you’d want to watch. If you want a high stakes drama I’d go for kamen rider faiz, build or blade but if you personally like more light-hearted shows with friendship I’d go for den-o,w, ooo or Fourze.

Yeah that’s basically a long rant which hopefully answered your question. If someone wants to know where to watch it I use tokuzilla.net because I have no clue how or what torrenting is.

[asknarashikari]

Girls Remix 1:

Hana thinks Sakura doesn't want her.

As much as she'll like to know where she came from, she prefers her Family of Choice.

Her Girlfriend, her Brother, her friends.

Sakura Seeing Reika as an Older sister is adorable.

But I can see why Hana would be Jealous.

Since when could kamen rider Aguilera do Restyles?

It's funny how the only thing that needs to be changed to remove toei's Homophobic sisterhood thing is just change Reika's lines.

"Not the time for a lover's spat."

"Reminds me a bit of Magine and I when we channel our anger."

Wow, Riot in Bloom's magnificent.

Sakura would swoon if she heard it.

Girls Remix 2:

Yuriko is Gaslighting Hana.

Fake Demon Hana is really Pretty.

But Hana's always Pretty.

The Girls Remix team succesfully inflitrate a Mansion.

Sawa and Kanon are here.

Sawa has done Investigations about Black Satan and Ganma World before. Sounds like we missed some adventures.

SakuHana are a Family the way Rintaro wanted to be Family with Mei.

Riot in Bloom is even better this time.

Girls Remix 3:

The Transformation Scene was so cool.

I get why they couldn't let Kanon transform, and honestly I was never a fan of the Kanon Specter suit, but it still would've been nice if they filmed a fight scene for her prior to the suit's scrapping.

Tsukuyomi was great, even if the Jacket contradicted her usual Colour scheme.

The Girls' fight scene was so cool.

The old musical cues and background music, and Cherry-ish!!

KR Aguilera restyling is still strange.

Miss Titan's backstory is almost a 'blink and you miss it' thing.

Hana deciding to basically Adopt Yuriko was sweet.

The Photoshoot scene was nice.

Loved Izu's joke. Not that it was funny.

Honestly, other than the dialogue calling them sisters, everything here otherwise felt in character to their subtle gay relarionship in the show.

Sakura also literally went "look at my girl, she's so cute".

The actual photoshoot itself wasn't that in character, but that's not a simple thing to do.

This whole special was pretty good.

Though could've ditched the attempted straightification.

I swear, if either of the girls gets a boyfriend in the VCinema.....

Girls Remix or: Lady Riders and Companions Get More Screentime, to Everyone's Delight

I don't think Hana's feelings were just jealousy per se. I think part of her resents Sakura seemingly placing more importance on blood family as one's "actual family". With how Sakura acted over her finding a possible blood relative, it kinda looked like Sakura didn't think found family was just as important, even though that was all Hana had.

Hana could always do Restyles- her Driver's just same as Sakura's, just modified slightly to fit her aesthetic better. They were both designed by Masumi after all.

Honestly Riot in Bloom MV made me a bit uncomfy in light of some of the stuff that since came out about Yui Asakura. Apparently she's not very comfortable doing gravure-type things, and the MV comes off as very gravure-like to me. The song itself is pretty good though, and if it doesn't confirm SakuHana as canon then I don't know what does.

Ironically, Kanon Spectre was apparently scrapped and reused as parts for Aguilera. So yeah there was no way those two suits were appearing together. Hence Kanon not transforming.

My favorite bit was all the civilian fights though. Koichi Sakamoto, who directed the movie, seems to like them quite a bit. I love that they went out of their way to use the main fight themes for the ladies' respective main Riders- for example, when Akiko was slippering those mooks to submission, the BGM was Hard-boiled. (Yes, that really is the title for that specific BGM.)

I need a photobook for that photoshoot. I won't mind spending money on it because they all look so beautiful goddamnit.

[lemonde-enchante]

Maho no mako Chan — opening lyrics translation —

!! Not mine !!

Where did you come from, Mako, oh Mako?

What are you looking for

Wandering Mako?

Your tears are the light, In your blue eyes Blood is smearing, Over your white feet

Even at those times, At those days

I will hold your trembling hands

And a single tear, Will fall

Well, it's because I'm at that age Do you understand?

Maho no mako chan, toei animation, 1970-1971

Translation by @riceisyummy4034 on yt

hehe ! 🐟🌊🧜‍♀️✨

‧͙⁺˚*･༓ ༓･*˚‧⁺˚*･༓ ༓･*˚⁺‧

[alexeatis]

“Have you ever considered a fantasy where you’re happy and successful?” // *creeps around your meme tag*

|| From MST3K Prompts

"No, I like the one where I fight someone on the Toei beach better." Shiona doesn't say anything else until she's done preparing the daybed, fluffing the pillows and smoothing down the blankets. Sure, she's going to undo all that effort once she goes to bed, but the process is soothing in its mundanity. And being around Charles always makes her appreciate the mundane more. "I have at least three other answers to that question depending on why you asked it," Shiona says, candid and calm. There's a light in her eyes, a light that doesn't stem from the glow of the nearby Tiffany style lamp or from her curiosity. She scrutinizes Charles for a moment. Then she looks down. "But I think I'm going to be uncharacteristically candid and say that I don't think that fantasy wouldn't be much different from my current life. Well, except that there'd be a significant decrease in the number of times I see you covered in blood."

[tenshindon]

what makes me the most mad abt people hating on Yamcha for "being weak" is that none of his friends think that. no one has ever been like "Yamcha youre too weak to fight x" or "you should train more" or anything they have respect for him as a warrior still. in fighterz he puts himself down and without missing a single beat Goku and Krillin tell him thats not true and hes strong and a great fighter....like nothing but respect here anyway sorry this is longer than I intended

Bro no keep talking I agree !! I’ve been into DB and ergo have adored yamcha a good chunk of my life- everyone belittling him is honestly white noise to me at this point. It’s when the show and franchise start to play into that is when my feathers get ruffled; the fact goku never considered yamcha (let alone tien but that’s a post for another day) for the TOP is so disheartening to me to this day like. Really? GOKU? The guy who loves and values his friends above all else? Never considers them for a second? When he’s seen them Up Close And Personal about how capable they are of fighting? And instead his first instinct is to choose to seek out his mentor who retired twenty-seven years ago and a genocidal space q-tip over them?

Like goku has stood up for and praised yamcha for his strength before and just defended him in general ? Why didn’t he ever consider asking him to join ? Not to mention yamcha and chiaotzu’s exclusion from the res f saga; as much as I love tien Apparently making yamcha stay behind for his own safety, looking at it from a meta perspective it’s like... why? Yamcha might not be on krillin or Tien’s level, but he’s still a powerful fighter (definitely stronger than roshi which- Again, another post for another day)- he should have been allowed in the mix alongside chiaotzu (as for in-canon explanations tien the accident wasnt your fault you can let your homies fight PLEASE)

Thats not even to mention that in X2 krillin and yamcha have an interaction where yamcha proposes they spar a bit, to which krillin sincerely asks him to go easy on him. I’m very iffy about game content and it’s portrayals, but at the very least the acknowledgement that yamcha is a strong and worthy-enough opponent still rings true here! Like krillin’s genuinely worried yamcha might be too rough on him like ??????

The most you get from someone saying ‘you should train more’ is from tien in fighterz- but not only does tien say that to all his friends if he defeats them, he says it to yamcha so lightheartedly. As if it’s more so of a friendly invitation than actual advice you know?

TL;DR - yamcha dragon ball- even if he’s not the strongest character- is still a capable fighter in his own right and should be treated as such by canon opposed to as a walking punchline who’s never fought a day in his life

[iristial]

Trying to think of a Kamen Rider series that won’t tear out my heart at some point

Why are you even asking for the impossible?

I’M DESPERATE OKAY I DID NOT SIGN UP FOR THIS

You should’ve gotten the message in 2014 when you watched Koyomi die and sorta bawled

BUT

When Yuki was about to disappear and confessed she was as bad as the Gemini Zodiarts because she wanted to do bad things

OK

Even though she was put into a forced arranged marriage Mio was content with Wataru putting the first ring he ever gave her on her finger (which was the closest thing to their marriage) and she shattered into glass seconds later and Wataru tried to wipe himself out of existence to save her

I GET IT

Shotarou was weeping before detransforming and Phillip teared up before disappearing into the light and Shotarou kept acting like Philip was still there for most of the following episode

JUST

How about Ankh saying the ice cream tastes good in Heisei Generations and becoming a broken core again

WILL YOU

When Chase exploded into pieces of metal and leather

JUST

Micchy being a broken shell in the last episode and Kouta forgiving him like a light switch

STOP

The fact that Build ended several days ago and you’re in a denial phase

...

And when Poppy turned into -

SHUSH BRAIN

[feralphoenix]

the great big precure primer post

HEY YOU!!! yeah, you!!!

are you looking for some cheerful anime with a nice long episode count to binge watch in your downtime?

do you like the magical girl genre, but dark/edgy magical girl stuff aimed at adults doesn’t really do it for you?

do you specifically like kids’ cartoons, or are you looking for an anime series you can watch with kids in your life who are old enough to read subtitles but too young for blood and jiggle physics?

were you a big fan of the 90s sailor moon anime, but then tried getting into the manga or the manga-loyal anniversary adaptations only to realize that what you really liked about the 90s anime was all the character-centric filler?

if you’ve answered yes to multiple of the above queries, then maybe the PRECURE franchise is the right choice for you!

precure is a long-running, monster-of-the-week-style magical girl franchise aimed at elementary school girls, animated by toei. its major distinguishing feature among other magical girl shows is that it features MARTIAL ARTS COMBAT between the magical girls and the bad guys!

precure has been airing for 18 years now - at time of writing (december ‘21) its 18th series is about to wrap up - but the nice thing about it is that almost* every precure series (e.g. one-year, 45-50 episode run) is a standalone, meaning there’s no continuity between seasons and you can watch whichever ones sound appealing to you in whatever order you want to.

*two of the early precure series, futari wa precure and yes precure 5, have direct sequels that ran the year after them and are essentially two-year-long series.

so to help those interested choose what’s right for them... here’s a menu of all the seasons of precure so far, introducing them by title, year of broadcast, episode count, basic premise, and a little background about their production!

“great!” you may be thinking. “a couple of these shows sound like something i or children in my life might enjoy! now where do i actually go to watch them???”

very happily, CRUNCHYROLL currently has futari wa’s first season, kira kira precure a la mode, and everything past healin’ good precure! you can stream all of those series legally via their platform. if you search “precure” or “pretty cure” on their site, the available series ought to pop up!

for the other series you’ll have to rely on fansubs. there’s a nice little website called krdl dot moe where you can download fansubbed precure episodes and movies (they have tokusatsu too). you can also find them via torrenting platforms such as nyaa dot se.

if you weren’t around during the peak of anime fansubbing culture, remember that anything pre-2010s is probably going to be at least somewhat inaccurate because it was likely translated by amateurs at the beginning of their careers. fansubs MAY also include a mild swear or two so you may want to vet those privately first if you’re watching with your 8-year-old.

(i can’t advise on which fansub groups are the most accurate/friendliest for kids because i... don’t need subtitles and thus don’t use them!)

ALSO if you wind up really getting into precure to the degree you want to make fanart or fanfiction, please be mindful that this IS a series aimed at little kids: any fanwork intended for a mature audience needs to be kept to websites like ao3 or pixiv that lets you attach an age rating, so little kids won’t be stumbling upon it accidentally.

(additional quick note to parents & guardians that it is literally actually illegal in many countries to let kids 12 and younger on the internet without adult supervision!)

be safe, practice good netiquette, and have fun!!!