#a character she actually spends the entire manga with and has a developed relationship with and that she clearly loves

[death-rebirth-senshi]

Now that I've finished dungeon meshi I have to say, while I understand the disappointment with fandom's constant obsession with shipping two dudes in fandom typical ways and ignoring the women/men that don't fit a certain mold and basically ignoring the entire rest of the story...

People acting so indignant that people would do gay or even straight shipping, because this manga is such a super women-led yuri show that's all about the power of Marcille's all-consuming love for Falin, are absolutely fucking bonkers and have lost the plot.

That is not to say that these shippers are not insane or can't be annoying in the typical ways that they are, or that Marcille/Falin aren't the most shippable pairing and just about the closest you're gonna get to something romantic in Dungeon Meshi (it's a platonic ass story and I love that), or that it wouldn't be nice for the fandom around something to stay mostly devoted to the closest to a canon pairing most shippable F/F ship. It would. But like. I don't know I'm kind of upset by that attitude now

And my intention is not to be super negative about Marcille/Falin fans, because they are certainly not all like this, it's just. WHOO! That is just so not remotely what Dungeon Meshi is about to a degree I still wasn't prepared for despite being aptly warned.

[aihoshiino]

chapter 166 thoughts

As of chapter 166, Oshi no Ko has finished a roughly four-and-a-half year run started back in 2020. While there's some speculation about an epilogue or some extra content in volume 16 when it drops, this is where the main story ends. And you know what that means!!!

OSHI NO KO HAS OFFICIALLY ENDED WITHOUT ADDRESSING OR ACKNOWLEDGING THE FACT THAT RUBY KISSED HER BROTHER IN CHAPTER 143

please understand that this is FUCKING BOGUS

I'll probably do a longer post on this subject specifically, but my main critique of 143 when the chapter dropped was that while I liked the individual beats in it and I was really glad to see Akasaka finally addressing this tension bubbling underneath Aqua and Ruby's relationship, the immediate swerve away from showing us the aftermath of that kiss felt to me like an admission that the story was going to needlessly draw this out even more. Now that the story has ended and we can see that moment had literally no impact on the plot or even the character dynamics, I'd like to revise that statement - it feels like an admission of compromise. It feels like crumbs thrown to AquRuby fans to tempt them to keep reading and to stir up the waters of the ship wars, so people would keep reading and stay invested in the manga right to the very end. But most of all, it feels deeply disrespectful to both Aqua and Ruby as characters. Rather than exploring their feelings and giving both of them interiority and complexity in relation to incest or even just fucking acknowledging that the kiss had happened and letting their dynamic evolve, the series just memory holes the entire event and asks that you do too. Rather than letting Ruby have any development whatsoever as pertains to that relationship or, god forbid, let a female character move on romantically from the male lead, the series ends with her feelings so up in the air that I literally could not tell you what she thinks of Aqua by the time he dies.

ANYWAY… FINAL CHAPTER. BREATHES OUT VERY HARD.

I really can't believe it's taken us until the final chapter to actually deal with Ruby's grief over Aqua lol. We got a snippet of it last chapter but it was so brief that it really just felt like a tease. I also just think it's kind of bizarre that we're spending this little time on Ruby having feelings about Aqua's death to the extent that I have no idea how or when she found out about it.

It's also kind of hard to feel particularly strongly about Ruby's grief when the chapter doesn't really bother to explore it all that much. It's just a montage of Ruby quite literally Screaming, Crying and Throwing Up while Akane dispassionately narrates it all. The art also doesn't really help in terms of connecting with the emotions at play - I usually really like Mengo's expression work and the way she depicts extreme emotions but this all just felt like of… I don't know how else to put it. Goofy??? Is that an insane thing to say about Ruby grieving her brother???

Idk, something about both the panelling and just the extreme on-the-noseness of Ruby, again, literally Screaming, Crying Throwing Up while she's wearing a Burning cosplay Just In Case You, The Audience, Didn't Get It only for her to abruptly be done crying with no exploration or insight as to what's going on in her head that allows her to move forward.

Honestly, this is kind of the issue with everyone in the cast. The resolution is just sort of "Aqua died and we were sad about it but then we stopped being sad". I know what the story is trying to go for here - it's trying to express that even when you're in pain, life goes on and so you have to find a way to go on with it. But the result is that we spend all this time oogling at their pain without spending equivalent or even meaningful time on their recovery process.

It feels both excessive and undercooked at the same time and I'm left with the same icky, voyeuristic feeling I got from Aqua's funeral last chapter. This should be the point in the story at which we empathize with Ruby the most, but she remains a frustratingly distant figure right to the final pages. Part of this is an unfortunate consequence of Akane's narration directing these final chapters meaning that we're hearing about Ruby from an outsider's perspective and thus don't really see what's going on in her head… but if I can be frank, this has been an issue of Aka's with Ruby in particular basically nonstop since chapter 123.

As others & myself have noted, despite the absolutely catastrophic downward spiral Ruby is in at that point, Aqua revealing himself as Gorou basically flips it all off like a switch. There's some mild lipservice paid to the idea that Ruby is just using her dependency on Gorou to prop herself up and it's pointed out that the issues that contributed to her breakdown haven't actually been resolved - but none of these issues are ever even acknowledged again, let alone resolved. So, functionally, that reveal does fix all Ruby's problems in the space of a single chapter and the result is, again, that we spend multiple chapters gourging on depictions of Ruby's absolute rock bottom only for her to ping back to normal like a lightswitch. As such, the depictions of her pain feel less like explorations of Ruby's interiority and more like voyeuristic oogling at Ruby's misery and trauma and the effect is that the resolution to it all is both unsatisfying and a little gross. The result is that it feels like Akasaka is just indulgently mining the imagery of cute girls suffering because it causes simple thoughts neuron activation but doesn't respect these girls enough as characters to build them back up.

It doesn't help that this is basically the in-universe excuse for Ruby's career further skyrocketing. Instead of Ruby becoming a star on her own merits as the story keeps insisting she was supposed to, she's artificially buoyed by the public's morbid fascination with her tragedy. If I was feeling charitable towards the story right now, I would say this is an avenue of intentional critique but… well, I don't feel super charitable about the story right now lol

I WILL say that the one part of this chapter I did just uncomplicatedly like was the beat of Mem trying to suspend activities (presumably in the wake of her grief for Aqua) only for Kana to basically immediately explode into her room and help her get back on her feet. It's a beat that would've been much more effective if we'd, you know, seen it, but I otherwise enjoyed it and I thought it was sweet.

But. pbbbbtttt. I guess I can't talk around it any longer… let's get into the Dome concert.

To start things off on the immediately worst note possible, Akane describes Ruby performing at the Dome as being 'everyone's dream', including Aqua's. I'm reminded once again of the strange turn the story took in insisting that um, actually, performing at the Dome was totes Ai's dream all along (even though she literally didn't give a shit even a week before she was due to perform there herself) so Ruby performing there is fulfilling that dream for her!!! and I can't help but wonder if this abrupt shift in focus is an attempt to make readers forget what Ai's actual dream was - to see her beloved children grow up happy and healthy. Hell, it wasn't even really Aqua's dream, until the story suddenly had to try and convince us that his entire purpose for existence was to kill himself so Ruby could be an idol for slightly longer than she would've otherwise. The only people whose dreams she's textually fulfilling are Ichigo and Miyako and Ruby herself, but…

Honestly, is this really Ruby's dream anymore?

Who is Hoshino Ruby? What does she want? Why does she want it? These should be the very least of what we can concretely say about not only a protagonist but a character who has become a central figure of the entire story as Ruby has, but with the way Oshi no Ko has warped and distorted her, I find myself increasingly unsure of what the story wants her to be or how I should answer those questions.What does Ruby feel about Aqua? Was she still in love with him? Had she moved on, romantically? Was she still waiting for a response to her confession? Did she finally realize it was probably kind of shitty to respond to her brother going "lowkey wanna kms" by sticking her tongue down his throat? I Guess We'll Never Know.

This extends to whatever the fuck Ruby's relationship with idols and being an idol is. Almost the entirety of Ruby's time in the story has been spent reiterating over and over that Ruby cannot just be an idol who imitates Ai and that to truly shine, she needs to step out of her mom's shadow and shine in her own way. Ruby even literally tells Kana in no uncertain terms in 137 - "I'll be a star in my own way. I won't be like Mama."

While this has always been the text of the story, as I've pointed out before, the actual art with which Ruby's idolhood depicts her basically just as Ai 2.0. It relies so heavily on mining the imagery of Ai's charisma and personality as an idol and using them as the measure of Ruby's success as an idol that Ruby essentially has no visual or conceptual identity of her own as an idol. She's just Ai, But Arbitrarily Better, For Reasons The Narrative Fails To Actually Establish But Hopes That You Just Accept Anyway. This was always kind of annoying, but now that friction seems to have been resolved by… just making her Ai 2.0, But Arbitrarily Better (etc, etc) in the text as well. The fact that we're given no further insight as to Ruby's feelings and continue to just have Akane Explain Ruby's Character Arc to the camera also doesn't help.

All this combines to make the Dome concert and the final few pages feel exceptionally cold in a way I really don't think was intended by Akasaka. Yes, that splash page was nice and flashy but… I just felt nothing. I have no idea if or why Ruby cares about this. And even though the Dome concert has been hyped up through the entire story as the peak of Ruby's achievements as an idol, I feel no sense of accomplishment in her finally being there - not just because her journey to it was basically sneezed at us across two panels, but because it just feels hollow as a victory lap for Ruby. Again, she feels so distant and abstracted as a character that I can't bring myself to feel very strongly about her good or bad.

I think the perfect encapsulation of this are the final four pages of the story. Ruby's words here are very clearly intended to be a callback to Ai's words to Gorou in chapter one but as @all-of-her-light pointed out in our initial discussions of the chapter, Ruby very much does not have an equivalent to Ai's conclusion that she nevertheless wants and values the opportunity to find personal happiness and fulfillment outside of being an idol. Are we supposed to believe that simply being an idol is all that Ruby needs to achieve a similar degree of happiness and fulfillment? Is there no more to her than that?

I've seen a lot of people interpret this ending as exceptionally bleak and, as usual, gleefully predicting Ruby's immanent suicide because her beloved oniichansensei isn't around but this is indulging in, if you'll allow me to be frank, some pretty transparently ship-motivated flanderization. Despite what certain sections of the fandom would like to believe, Aqua and Ruby's lives, past and current, have never revolved around each other to the exclusion of every other relationship in their life. Ruby has a massive support network of people who love and care for her and actively want her to get back on her feet. I can one hundred percent believe that she does not need Aqua in her life to be happy and content.

The issue is that we don't see enough of Ruby to understand that ourselves. Again, she has become such a distant figure with so little insight into what she's thinking and why that this ending is basically a Rorschach test in which you can interpret basically whatever the hell you want or assume because we have so little canon basis to support or debunk our assumptions.

and yes. don't think i didn't see them. it IS both grimly hilarious and weirdly tonally appropriate for this ending that ruby has a bunch of oshi goods of ai and aqua including their fucking autographs set up to say goodbye to every day.

AND…… WE'RE DONE!!! THAT'S OSHI NO KO, BABY!!!! well, technically, there's going to be a 20 page extra chapter in volume 16 but I don't see it being big or substantive enough to meaningfully change my feelings about the ending so… I guess we're leaving it here. Damn. Feels crazy to be done with it.

I'll probably do a bigger post down the line about my thoughts on the ending as a whole but in terms of just How This Chapter Made Me feel, I guess the word is just… meh! It's definitely not an ending I like and I think the execution is sloppy and rushed but I also just don't really have the energy to feel angry about it. Maybe that's sad in its own way but tbh… I still really love Oshi no Ko! I still find it engaging and I find the characters I enjoy rewarding to talk about. I like the artistry of the anime adaptation. I don't blame anybody else for being so turned off by this ending that they're done with the series but for me, I like what I like about OnK too much that this ending could retroactively ruin it for me. Whatever else happens with the OnK franchise, whatever directions the anime and live-action take, this will always be the series that gave me Ai and the Hoshino family and. look at me. look at what she's done to my brain. could I really ask for anything more than that?

That being said, I'm definitely not done with discussing the series! I have fics to write (including a VERY exciting large scale project lined up with some friends), my Ai analysis post to finish and I also want to do a re-read of the series and finish my anime rewatch. I'll be here to discuss Oshi no Ko as long as I have things to say about it and as long as you guys will have me! Despite how the series ended, I've had a genuinely wonderful experience in the fandom and I really don't want to let go of the little community we've built together just because the series is done. I'm Ai's fan for all eternity!!!

[linkspooky]

What in particular inspired you to write Burn This City, Burn This City Down? It's a very unique fic.

Oh man I hope you're ready to take my hand and go on a journey with me because this is going to be long ride.

The first version of this fic came from 1) the ending of the Search where Azula runs off into the woods and we were just left on that cliffhanger for years. The first story that ever gave me the inspiration though was Katanagatari by Nisioisin, especially after I read the translated light novel for the first time.

Katanagatari is a story of a former princess who wants revenge teaming up with a human who was raised as a weapon known as Yasuri Shichika who comes from an entire family of martial artists living on an island. She takes Shichika out to the world and they gather twelve magical swords for the shogunate government. Basically, it's easy to see how you could put Azula into this scenario. Except instead of swords it was just going to be Azula wanting to resolve different political issues or, my earliest idea was killing members of the red lotus in the colonies far from Zuko's jurisdiction.

Lio came from this initial idea and he was one, a person in the forest that Azula met, and two a very strong martial artist who is unhealthily devoted to her. Basically it's what Azula thinks she wants in a relationship, a perfect solider who follows her every order and is unconditionally loyal. That relationship eventualyl breaks apart though as Azula eventually has to go back to her real friends, because Lio mirrors like all her bad flaws at her.

I had serious trouble coming up with an overarching plot though, because Katanagatari's plot is just "go to the place, fight the guy, get the sword" and it was just hard to come up with 12 seperate guys for Azula to fight. Also it wasn't feasible because she'd basically spend all her time away from canon characters. I tried to throw Jet in too so it wouldn't just be Azula and this OC, but it never really got past the planning stages.

There were a few manga I read that were also Azula adjacent that helped further my ideas along. I've referenced Akatsuki no Yona before, and TGCF too, but those were a little bit too much like Katanagari. I liked the idea of like Azula roaming the country side with a partner character improving things by herself for awhile like Yona does with Akatsuki no Yona but I ran into the same problem again it would be 90% Azula and this oc with no canon interaction. I did like making Hua Cheng really weird though, and that became Lio like, developing entitled, posessive and borderline stalkery behaviors.

I'm sure you've noticed the fic hasn't become incredibly surreal and weird yet. So the actual tone and the way the fic portrays mental illness comes from three works in praticular. Tokyo Ghoul, which is kind of where I got my start on this blog, Kara no Kyoukai, and Tsukihime. The idea to make Lio a disassoicative disorder personality so Azula would have someone to sympathize with her and understand she's hallucinating came from a character named Shiki Ryougi who is also a character who has a system.

The prose style that is lowkey horror comes from my best attempts to write in a Nasu style in Tsukihime. Basically part of the reason the fanfic is so surreal is because I want to use elements of horror to add to the surrealism in order to make the audience viscerally fear the feel that characters like Azula do when they lose control over the reality in front of them.

When going in the forest for the Search I wanted to lean heavily on the Suicide Forest or the Forgetful Valley being an actually terrifying or unnerving setting to be in. I also thought the Mother of Faces was a cool idea for a spirit that the comics completely blew. So one of the improvements was making Mother of Faces a genuinely terrifying inhuman entity where the entire forest is basically her playground and humans are her puppets. It's a continued trend I want to do in this fic to make spirits like genuinely terrifying, and at the most indifferent to humans and at the worst extremely hostile.

The second was making the forest an actually scary and confusing place to be in. The forest is the head, and Azula is the head, and she's dreaming the forest. The forest is a metaphor for how Azula is lost inside her own head and trapped because no one in the world empathizes with her or tries to understand her, and like, Zuko sees her run into that huge forest twice and just watches her go even though she could end up dead in a ditch.

There's two big inspirations I took for describing the forest itself. The first was the book roadisde picnic and the movie STALKER which are about a zone in Russia which is fundamentally altered by aliens where nothing in that zone follows the laws of physics and instead follows their own abusrd laws. The second was from the book and movie annihilation. In annihilation the strange zone where strange things happen is nature actively like, retaking the earth, and changing the humans who enter that territory into something else.

As for Azula's narration itself and the way her mental health is depicted, I basically got her narration style down especially in her trippy points by reading Girl, Interrupted roughly one hundred times. My general rule of thumb is that Azula's narration is incredibly dry and mechanical and straight to the point, and her prose is very minimialist until it's not. Azula is very high functionning until she is not. Then the self-loathing, and the paranoia, and the voices begin to creep in. Yet on the surface Azula will do absolutely everything to pretend she is not loosing her grip of things until she has, full on meltdowns. This pattern continues ad infinituum, Azula just gets better at hiding her sympatoms and appearing more functional. Girl, interrupted though with the very detached kind of narration, the anachronistic order I employ a lot in this fic.

So the fic rewrite existed for awhile, like there were ten different drafts of the first chapter where Azula just finds a masked man in the woods after running away from Zuko.

So, okay I lied there is one more inspiration for the way I write Azula which is Zaregoto by Nisioisin and specifically the way he writes the main character IIchan and this very detached narrator voice who like, clearly suffers from some type of schizo-type and will have the most surreal moments of narration. That is primarily a mystery series so that's what gave me the plot in it's final form. It's basically like a mystery series that's led by two unreliable narrators Azula and Lio, and Zuko who let's be honest another unreliable narrator, and then Katara and Aang who are the most reliable narrators but they're also kind of like, they're not as aware of the dark side of the world and are more naive. I basically told myself like, I'll write it like a mystery novel. Instead of solving murders though it'll be political intrigue, where we have to follow two unreliable narrators. Two unreliable narrators who we don't know everything about bevcause the narration skips along their history in anancronistic order, and that'll be a metaphor for the weird way that Azula and Lio both experience reality because of how disordered their thinking is now.

The surraelist stuff started to finalize into like a solid plot when I read another fic. I don't know if I should like, mention this fic. I'm going to complain about it so I probably shouldn't mention it by name. Okay I'm just going to be vague about it. There was a Zuko / Sokka fanfic where Azula has been fully redeemed by her brother and they get along great and she is basically, playing political games in the court for her brother's sake. Sokka however doesn't know this and becomes suspicious of her and becomes embroiled in the politics too. In this version Azula is kind of just Zuko's attack dog which was very funny.

It's a fic where I did like Azula and Sokka's characterization, and like revitalized my desire to write avatar fic but I also had just as many faults in it. Basically my biggest nitpick in any Zuko and Azula fanfic is where they protray Zuko as a compassionate brother who helped Azula in her rehabilitation because like, that's just not what happened. So Zuko kind of just felt like a non character because there's no acknowledgment that Zuko can really be just as bad to Azula as Azula is to him and like... I need that drama in my life.

It also like timeskipped past her entire recovery and like I don't want sane Azula, I want barely functional Azula wearing a mask of sanity and convinced she peaked at fourteen and just trying to feel like the way she did when she was fourteen. I need her to be like "oh yes, I'm fixed now" and then have her start to break down again because she never actually learned to deal with stress.

The other was that the ocs in the fic were absolutely boring, like the villains were one note. It was this grand spiraling political plot but the villains behind the plot had no human motivations and Azula killed them in like five minutes. I was like no, no I can make my own ocs. I will have this new fic have actual compelling antagonists who feel like they are characters in the story and actually move the plot and challenge the main characters.

So to Summarize this long ramble, basically my idea for this fic came from the collective works of Nasu and Nisioisin. It started out as like, a journey through the colonies and help people fic to like, taking place entirely in Caldera City. That's where the current idea of Azula dealing with factions who are trying to take her brother's thrown from her, and also she's trying to play the political game that everyone else is playing comes from. Azula is playing political games but like, also, the people she's playing against aren't one note bad guys they're actually interesting characters.

I also want to basically adapt a kind of like, mystery novel character following the mystery through all the political intrigue and finding the answer. I guess you'd call that "Noir". Like the confusing surrealism stuff in the search part of the story shows how lost Azula is in the forest. The confusing surrealism stuff in Caldera City will now be about how Caldera city is a city of liars, where everyone has their own hidden motivation and Azula has to navigate all of that again.

Okay, I hope that answered your qusetion. I can cite some more sources on scenes that inspired me. That scene where Lio saw Azula and the first thing he thought about was how he wanted to stab her a whole bunch is a reference to Tsukihime where Shiki meets Arcueid for the first time.

The story for Azula, Interupted of someone else framing Azula for killing cats and turtleducks comes from a really brief flashback in Tokyo Ghoul where Mutsuki remembers killing cats as a child and gets made fun of for it. Then she remembers running all the way to where she buried all the cat's tongues, and picks the jar up and cries and begs for the cats to forgive her. I know that's kind of a weird scene, but basically that whole chapter came from my idea of Azula remembering getting slapped by her mom for killing the turtleducks and begging someone to believe her and then it suddenly flashes forward to the future and Azula is still crying about it.

That's all I can remember referencing or getting inspired by for now.

[pumpkinmetaphor]

I read a post a week or so ago but Tumblr refreshed and ate it on me. But the jist of it was something along the lines of Kyoya not being motivated by romance. And I think that's so correct BUT I would push it a little further and say it's not just that Kyoya's arc is unromantic and he's motivated by factors other than romantic love. I think...most characters are. Ouran is fundamentally a bit of a bait and switch when it comes to romance. It's supposedly a rom-com; where no one's arcs have much to do with love.

The love triangle doesn't significantly come into play until about half way through the manga. I made a post before about the primary character motivations being friendship, family, and freedom. I stand by that! Because sure, people are in love in Ouran. Hikaru loves Haruhi, Haruhi loves Tamaki, Tamaki loves Haruhi, there's other stuff happening lmao. But all of these "loves" can also be read through the frame of friendship, family, and freedom.

Family and friendship is SO important to Tamaki that he's willing to operate entirely in the delusion that his love for Haruhi is familial. Hikaru's realisation that he's in love with Haruhi is framed entirely by the breakdown of his familial relationship with Kaoru, and then as it develops past that Hikaru spends half of his narrative time crying over possibly ruining his friendship with Tamaki. So much of Haruhi's arc is realising that she actually cares about these guys, she has been consumed by their found family, and they are genuinely her friends. Her crush on Tamaki is there, but her actions towards the end of the manga (AND ANIME) are because she loves the host club as a unit, and they can't be a family without Tamaki. Ouran the anime, classically ending with no kiss kiss fall in love but instead the heartfelt declaration that Haruhi LOVES the host club, they all do!

Back to Kyoya- of course Kyoya isn't motivated by romance. I can't think of a less romantic guy. But, like every other character, he's motivated by family, friendship, and freedom. And like every other character, these elements come into conflict. So I think that actually makes Kyoya a hysterical rom-com protagonist. Completely unwilling to be there, adamantly refusing to participate in the asinine qualities of a rom-com, refusal to even accept that this might be the genre he's stuck with. He deserves his corporate BBC drama! He deserves a CBS procedural about international trade! But he's got terminal side character syndrome so he's stuck in this rom-com with these other gay losers!

(cough) Anyway. I don't think Kyoya would ever do anything for love. But he doesn't have to because Ouran is a series where everyone does everything in the name of friendship, family, and freedom. And Kyoya would do absolutely nothing for love, but he would do it for his friends, he would do it for family, and he certainly would do it for freedom.

(And technically, if you're in love with your friend, it's tearing the closest thing to a real family you've ever had apart, and this game doesn't feel like winning your freedom any more; well maybe that's motivating enough without love ever really coming into it. Who said that.)

[yinyuedijun]

bluebird chapter 2 warnings and explanation (cw teenage sexuality, child sexual abuse)

hi everyone, bluebird chapter 2 deals pretty heavily with themes of teenage sexuality and csa. there is no onscreen csa or underage sex in this chapter, BUT there are extremely uncomfortable and explicit discussions about sex between teenagers, sometimes with reference to literal children. a lot of this takes place in a high school context where gross teenage boys are just doing things like rating girls, or teenage girls are just talking about their crushes on upperclassmen, but a lot of this also happens in the context of the foster system and the near-absence of social support experienced by the two protagonists of the story, who are both orphans.

now, as creating fiction about underage sexuality and csa is essentially the most cancellable offense of fandom (lol), I do feel compelled to explain my intent here. bluebird exists in conversation with the canon csm material, which is somewhat infamous for featuring a cringe 16y/o orphan boy who starts out obsessed with having sex, spends entire manga chapters trying to touch women's breasts, and is groomed by an older woman into risking his life for her agenda. I hope this is not surprising, but as this fic features two orphan teenagers who eventually fall under the control of this same older woman, these dynamics and themes become pretty much inescapable in this fic. underage sex, dubious consent, and grooming have been warnings on this fic since day 1 for a reason. this chapter is setting the stage for all of that.

I am building the narrative this way because the reader character of this fic is intended to be somewhat of a foil to denji. she is sexually impressionable and anxious because of her lack of support network (something I am trying to get at with this chapter), eventually gets groomed (unfortunately, she does not dodge the bullets that denji does in canon), and becomes hypersexual and heavily controlled by sex because of her circumstances (aka where denji could have easily ended up). after this initial descent into misery, the plan is to create an arc where she finds a family and develops meaningful, non-sexual relationships that allow her to heal - not too different from csm proper.

I actually don't know how much I will continue this fic. I suspect this chapter will be badly received because of the two-year gap in updates AND the cringe teenage behaviour rip. the writing is also not the best and two years of struggling over it has not changed that SDLKFSKDFJ. this actually makes it worse - without having the full context of the fic, I worry that someone out there is going to read this chapter and be like "huh why is this author so focused on teenagers/children having sex with each other? what a creep!" so I am posting this note to give full context as to why this chapter is the way that it is lol.

thanks for reading!

[skania]

What’s ur opinion on aqua and kanas relationship? I genuinely feels like they are going to platonic route and kana will soon get over her little crush on aqua and be genuinely good friends until the end. I have never gotten romantic feelings vibes from aqua when he’s with her.. yeah kana has lots of romantic moments and panels with him but it feels one sided and innocent compared with aquas relationship with Akane? Idk but I’m curious to what you think

I feel like this is the question. Where exactly does Aka intend to take their relationship?

Because, on one hand, I feel like the manga is written in such a way that it wants you to think it is romantic. It uses the subtlety of a hammer, the most low-hanging fruit possible (like characters continuously commenting on Aqua's feelings for Kana even when they spend dozens of chapters without interacting), in order to get the reader to assume Aqua has romantic feelings for Kana.

And it's even easier because after reading a few manga/watching a few anime, you come to recognize that when a girl is essentially said to be the light to a boy's darkness, it's safe to expect romance from that trope.

But the thing is, this all kind of falls apart when you take a closer look at the manga, because why are all the big scenes with Aqua going to Akane? Why have Akane and Aqua received so much development while Aqua and Kana have barely developed beyond Chapter 40?

So either Aka is going the route where the intended love interest is left on the sidelines, doing nothing of value until the end is near, and ends up with the main character simply because that's the character's entire purpose.

Or we're not supposed to take their relationship at face value. Considering how good Kana's character is, I feel like this option is the better deal out of the two.

This leads me directly to your question, because I do think that Aqua's feelings actually being platonic is the most interesting route and the one that gives more depth to the story. After all, it would also resolve the hanging question of: What exactly did Aqua feel for Ai? Because it seems pretty clear to me that Kana is his Oshi in very much the same way Ai was.

Pretty much everything Aqua is said to like about Ai, you can apply to Kana.

How cute she is? Check.

Her adorable ego? Check.

How tough she is? Check.

Her frank personality? Check.

Standing out? Check.

And of course, the way she shines? Check.

They're both even compared to the sun!

Even when Aqua describes Ai as his ideal girl, you can apply everything he says to Kana. So his feelings for Kana are intrinsically tied to whatever it is that he feels for Ai. Needless to say, Aqua's feelings for Ai falling firmly in platonic territory would be the best outcome for more reasons than one lol

Even then, maybe Aka wants to show both feelings being very similar but different all at once? Like having a "romantic" Oshi and a "platonic" one?

Could be, but according to this interview, Aka seems to see "Oshi" in a strictly platonic sense. He says that "Oshi" is a mentality where the fan does not want to have romantic feelings or ulterior motives towards the one they support, and that they just want to genuinely support and root for the person.

This isn't the first time he explores that concept either, he did the same thing in Kaguya-Sama and even used the exact same word to describe the girls' romantically-coded yet very much platonic feelings for the boy: Oshi [推し]

This is how he explained it:

With this mind, it's interesting to look back at the Love Now arc and at the First Concert arc, because there seems to be a clear contrast between the two.

Aside from this moment in Chapter 1, the nature of Goro's/Aqua's feelings for Ai was never questioned. At the contrary, he was deeply troubled by how inappropriate it would be for him to see her naked, etc., thus supporting that the "emotions driving his fandom" were indeed as pure as he claimed them to be.

When Love Now happens though, we see Aqua questioning what Ai was to him, and also referring to her as his first love only to admit that he doesn't actually know if it was romantic love at all.

So in Love Now, the focus was on romantic love, and Aqua only starts to seriously give this some thought after Akane starts playing her "Ai" character.

He concludes that his feelings for Akane aren't the same he harbored for Ai, and this in turn allows him to make a very clear difference between Ai and Akane in his mind, so that everything he feels for her from there on out doesn't have Ai's lager than life shadow hanging over it. This is why he is shown giving his feelings for Akane so much thought afer he thinks his revenge is over: because he doesn't have anything to compare them to.

Meanwhile in the First Concert arc, despite the romance, the focus is actually on being a fan (thanks to @miko-ishi for bringing this up to me).

It's not a coincidence that while the climax of Love Now involves Aqua kissing Akane, the climax of the First Concert literally involves Kana saying she'll be Aqua's "Oshi".

That arc also showed that while Ai performed because she wanted somebody to love, Kana performs because she wants to be loved. This is why she only shines when Aqua acts as her motivation, because unbeknownst to her, he has become the fan she has always been looking for. Someone who looks at the actual her, someone she can give it her all on stage for.

Romance doesn't need to be involved there, and I think this would explain the reason why Aqua's relationship with Kana has hardly developed since then. I think Aqua's feelings for Ai are very ambiguous to him, to the point he may even misinterpret them; and if he has misinterpreted his feelings for Ai, it is very likely he has done the same regarding his feelings for Kana for all the reasons mentioned above.

The series hasn't reached the point where it can truly have an introspection about what Oshi means to the narrative, and I feel it's only then that it'll finally address the true nature of Aqua's feelings for Ai and thus of his feelings for Kana.

All this to say, it could go either way. Either we're supposed to take it at face value, or we're supposed to ask ourselves questions. In either case, I personally would love for them to go the platonic route, because I feel this is the route that provides a deeper reading of the manga and its themes lol

[praline-elegy]

✿ This looks like fun! ✿

[Fandom game post here]

A - Ships that you currently like a lot. (They don’t have to be OTPs because not everyone has OTPs.) Friendships, pairings, threesomes, etc. are allowed.

Seiji Katayama x Nicholas Cox (Fence)

Draco Malfoy x Harry Potter (HP)

If you want to read my Fence related answers, jump to letters: M N O R S T V or Z

B - A pairing–platonic, romantic or sexual–that you initially didn’t consider, but someone changed your mind.

Nastu Dragoneel x Gray Fullblaster (Fairytail) - I’m mainly a gruvia shipper BUT I came across this brilliantly written gratsu fic a few years back and it rewrote my brain chemistry entirely.

C - A ship you have never liked and probably never will.

I don’t like saying mean things.

D - A pairing you wish you liked but just can’t.

Shinsou Hitoshi x Kaminari Denki (MHA) - Monoshin has my heart <3

E - Have you added anything cracky/hilarious to your fandom? If so, what?

I wrote about an established relationship where character A wanted to give character B a gift. A asks B’s bff what to give him. Bff tells A to give B a rock. A proceeds to spend the day meticulously picking out a rock to give to B. A later presents this perfectly picked out rock to B, and B loves this little gift. This story oddly resonated with a lot of people in my old fandom lol. Moral of the story? People love rocks. Give your friends rocks. They will love you.

F - What’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom?

About a decade? I started watching Pokémon for as long as I can remember (still love it!), but I fell out of the fandom when my parents stopped paying for cable.

G - Have you ever had an OTP? If so, do you remember your first one? Who was in it?

Zutara. Zuko and Katara were everything to me. Fire and water? Their antagonistic relationship? There was so much tension there. It just made sense to me.

H - What is your favorite source text for fandom stuff (e.g., TV shows, movies, books, anime, Western animation, etc.)?

The first half of my life was dedicated to TV shows (when I had cable). The rest of my life is dedicated to printed material (books, manga, comics, etc).

I - Has Tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why?

No. I only joined this platform about two months ago. I haven’t come across any negativity on this side of tumblr.

J - Name a fandom you didn’t think about until you saw it all over Tumblr. (You don’t have to care about it or follow it; it just has to be something that Tumblr made you aware of.)

Little Goody Two Shoes (indie game)

Temeraire (book? I think?)

K - What character has your favorite development arc/the best development arc?

Juvia Lockster or Flare Corona (both Fairytail)

L - Say something genuinely nice about a character who isn’t one of your faves. (Characters you’re neutral about are fair game, as are characters you merely dislike. Characters that you absolutely loathe with the fire of ten thousand suns are exempt, as there is no point in giving yourself an aneurysm over a character that you hate.)

Can’t think of a character I actively loathe or dislike at the top of my head.

M - Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend.

Sungchul Park (Fence) - He seems cocky and I like that.

Luna Lovegood (HP) - She’s just got the VibesTM you know?

N - Name three things you wish you saw more of in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice).

Nicholas coming over to visit the Katayamas for winter (or summer!) break.

I want to get severe secondhand embarrassment from something that Nicholas does in front of Seiji. I want to fluster that boy so bad. I want him to feel so embarrassed he could melt into a puddle of liquified Cox. And after all of the chaos I want Seiji to find that Nicholas actually looks rather cute when he’s blushing and flustered :) I’m evil.

‼️ MORE ‼️ BLUSHING ‼️ NICHOLAS‼️

I also want to explore more of Nicholas’ (fandom assumed) fear of the dark.

Would love to see more of Nicholas being vulnerable around Seiji.

I want to see more of the Leventis/Levantis twins (I’m writing something myself, but still. Would love to see others interpretation of the boys)!

Nsfw-wise… I’d like to see more bottom or submissive Nicholas. I think fandom has mostly pegged him for a dominant top lol.

O - Choose a song at random. Which ship or character does it remind you of?

Kiss Me - Sixpence None the Richer is how I envision Robert Coste and Nicholas’ mother’s relationship to be like in one of my unfinished pieces. An au where Nicholas doesn’t know who his father is and has a loving relationship with his mom.

P - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas).

Needing to make dinner but the jar of sauce won’t open so character A visits their neighbor character B and asks for help in opening the jar.

Character A is staring at character B while walking down the sidewalk and accidentally walks into a light pole. A scurries away in embarrassment while B finds that kinda cute.

Accidentally blurting out a romantic confession whilst in the middle of an argument.

Q - A fandom you’ve abandoned and why.

I wouldn’t necessarily say that I’ve abandoned any fandoms, just outgrew them (show finished), left due to circumstances (no more cable or show on hiatus), or lack of inspiration to continue writing. It feels wrong to say “abandoned” because I still love these fandoms and would still go back to consume their content. I’m just not actively involved anymore.

Kuroko no Basuke. Miraculous Ladybug. Fairytail.

R - Which friendship/platonic relationship is your favorite in fandom?

The Leventis/Levantis twins (in my own personal interpretation of them). I have a sibling so I’ve mostly based their interactions on my own. The kind of relationship where you annoy each other but love each other fiercely.

S - Show us an example of your personal headcanon (prompts optional but encouraged)

I think that Seiji would own a dog.

Also!! Headcanon that Seiji runs warm and Nicholas has wonky blood circulation which leads to wearing tank tops and shorts in the winter but hoodies and sweatpants in the summer.

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending? 

Seiji is a dog person.

U - Three favorite characters from three different fandoms, and why they’re your favorites.

Reese from Scarlet Hollow - I yearn for starving artists. And he likes horror movies? Score! He’s also a little shy but also very cute. 10/10 would romance again.

Sebastian from Stardew Valley - Quiet loner that enjoys tabletop games similar to D&D? And he rides a motorcycle? Brb swooning at his feet.

I can’t pick a favorite from Fence ;v; I love Nicholas but I also love Scott and Thomas and Sungchul and Nate aaaaaaaaa

V - Which character do you relate to most?

In Fence? Nate Spencer. I was originally going to say Nicholas but after further evaluation I realize that I am in fact Nate. The kind of person that brightens up the room but also tends to gravitate to one person in particular despite getting constantly ignored (Aiden sksks).

W - A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom.

No happy ending. Hurt no comfort. Break-up fics.

X - A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom.

Enemies to lovers. Rivals to lovers. Sickfics. Inexperience (first kiss, first times). Not actually unrequited love. Secondhand embarrassment. Sex pollen/lust potion. Truth serum. Party games (i.e. truth or dare). Time travel.

Y - What are your secondhand fandoms (i.e., fandoms you aren’t in personally but are tangentially familiar with because your friends/people on your dash are in them)?

Call of Duty.

Z - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go! (Prompts optional but encouraged.)

I’m surprised by the lack of rarepairs in Fence. There’s so much potential with the amount of characters that have been introduced so far, but I guess I can see why. Nichoji are just so throughly entwined with each other it’s almost impossible to envision them with anybody else. Other than that, I would gander that there’s more interest in the main ships than exploring newer characters and even newer relationships. (I aim to change that though, a new rarepair is on the horizon!! Hopefully by Valentine’s day 👀💘)

I’m also rather surprised by how active this fandom is despite the small size of it. It’s nice and cozy here though and I like that.

This fandom is actually making me want to try drawing again. Just speaking out to the void here lol. I was pretty decent at drawing chibis when I was younger. Blushing Nicholas here I come… ✍️♥️✨

[tetsunabouquet]

If Zero and Ichiru were allowed to be normal people who didn't have to train to hunt vampires how do you think their lives would be? For example, what career path they might take on, who they'd date/their types etc. I love your HC's for them!

A/N: Thank you so much! I will be writing this from an AU pov where vampires don't exist at all, and Ichiru was just a frail child who grew over his chronic illness.

-If Ichiru's condition had been of human origin, Zero would not nearly have acted so sorry over Ichiru's condition. Whilst protective and caring, he didn't bash himself for 'taking something from his twin'. -Which is why their bond never took the dark turn it did in canon, and they grew up continuing to be close. With them being regular human boys, their parents never felt the need to seperate them from one another aside from letting them develop their own identity. -Which is also why, obviously, their parents never died. -Ichiru is likelier to get into a toxic relationship as Zero. The way Zero sees the red flags around the predatory women in the series when Ichiru ignored the ones around Shizuka gives me the idea Zero is more aware of a red glaf in a relationship compared to Ichiru. -Which is part of Zero's way of caring for Ichiru in this universe: being the shoulder Ichiru can cry his heartbreaks onto. -Zero's eventually comes home with girls who have a personality not entirely identical to Yuki but who in the general broad sense of the term, feel similar to her. But without trauma bonding and with his original preference in mind, she's not going to be physically similar to Yuki. I can definitely imagine a busty onee-chan kind of character with a good fashion sense to attract his attention in the end. -Eventually, Ichiru does find happiness once he lets go off dating older women who treat him like a toy boy and finds happiness with someone his own age. -As for their careers, when thinking about Zero's, that one sketch of Zero as a daycare worker with the VK characters as kids in that one manga volume actually comes to mind. Because Zero has a paternal nature in general and if his live had been ordinary and happier, then I don't think such a job would be too out of character for him. I could actually see him enjoying taking care of so many little kids and his wife to be pouting at him when he gets home saying that he should start making his own babies if he enjoys taking care of kids so much. -Whilst Ichiru was content with a small to medium sized family, Zero was deadset on having a large family. Once his wife suggested having kids, he immediately asked if she would be fine with seven kids or so. -Their parents actually got to have the chance to be at the births of their grandchildren and their sons respective weddings. -He, Yagari and Kaito Takamiya are teachers at the same school. Yagari's fianceé is alive as the school nurse. -A lot of the mothers have a bit of a crush on Zero, the ones who don't are crushing on Yagari or Kaito. -Ichiru is harder to imagine though. Because he doesn't cares for academics I can see Ichiru pursuing a career that doesn't requires a lot of years in college. He's honestly not that ambitious and is content to settle for an easy life, making enough money to keep himself and his family afloat. Ichiru's childhood makes him grateful for the healthy adult years he has and wants to spend as much time with his family as possible because his childhood did teach him life can be very short.

[risingfire17-the-weeb-trash]

40 Day Anime Challenge Day 10- A character you despise with all your heart and soul: Almost everyone in Welcome to the NHK (2006)

I was excited to watch this. It had great reviews, and fans raved that it was a realistic and positive portrayal of people with mental health issues. As someone with these myself, of course I was excited.

But here are my thoughts after watching the anime: 

1) It is not a realistic portrayal of people with mental illness, because the characters are not given much characterization beyond the problematic behaviors of their disorders, no redeeming qualities, and very little character development that was rushed at the end.

2) It is not a positive portrayal of people with mental illness at all. Once again, they are almost entirely reduced to stereotypes, and they’re pretty terrible people. If this is the representation people like me, who has put in a lifetime of therapy and self-reflection to continue overcoming my issues and have healthy relationships, then I fear what those without mental illness would think of me based on what they see in these individuals.

So let’s get to why I despise the characters, yeah? (Spoilers ahead)

Tatsuhiro Sato, our protagonist. 

I don’t have a problem with the fact that he is a NEET. I have a problem with the fact that he never got professional help. I have a problem with the fact that he lied to his parents to keep getting their money, and cursed them when they finally cut him off. I have a problem with the way he treated his friends, yelling, name calling, throwing things, and then guilting them into letting him mooch off of them. I have a problem with his attraction to Misaki. First, because she is a teenager, and instead of staying away from her so he doesn’t act on this, he continues to spend time with her, has her pretend to be his girlfriend at one point, uses her as a cook and housekeeper, and ultimately confesses his love and starts dating her. The second reason is that until a rushed confession in the last episode that may not even be genuine because he said it to literally talk her off the ledge, he was only attracted to her physically and because she would do anything he wanted. He told her multiple times that she was a nuisance, a nag, had a terrible personality, etc. He belittled and bullied her through most of the series.

Misaki Nakahara, our wannabe hero. 

Clearly, she’s a struggling teen and needs help. What she does not need to do is berate and enable a grown man that she only latches on to because looking down on him helps her feel good about herself (which she admitted to halfway through the series and never worked at changing afterward) She coerces him to go along with her “treatment plan” rather than encouraging him to seek actual professional help. She nags at him, bursts into his home, and often pushes him farther out of his comfort zone than he can handle at the time. She enables his codependency when she starts cooking and cleaning for him, all the while scolding him for not doing it himself, so he learns that he is incompetent and should just let her do everything and accept her criticism when he does. I’ll give her a bit more of a pass than the other characters, because unlike the other characters behaving like children, she is literally a child. But she is still a toxic and manipulative person and her problematic behavior needs to be addressed by her guardians (and a licensed therapist)

Hitomi Kashiwa. 

This girl was the catalyst for Sato having a breakdown, always talking about conspiracies. When she comes back into his life, she asks him to join a group she is part of for a trip, not telling him that they are all there to commit suicide! She takes her vulnerable junior, who, despite all his flaws, is at least trying to get himself together, and exposes him to a group exacerbate his depression and he almost gets killed because of it. I haven’t read the manga, but I am told she tries to have an affair with Sato after she is married with a kid. (And the person she is married to, Akira Jogasaki, is so sweet and supportive, he’s the only character I like in this show, so it really hurts to see her betray him like that.)

Kauru Yamazaki, Sato’s best friend, giving otakus everywhere a bad name.

 This guy is supposed to be the “functional” one of the group, being the only one who has a job and is in school to pursue a meaningful career. That’s great and all, but he has a shit personality. His life revolves around perving on 2D women, and complaining that real women can never compare because of the imperfections that make them human, like having their own personalities, motives, and goals. He voices this in a way that is very misogynistic, painting women as manipulative. When he finally starts to fall for a human girl, he pursues her after being rejected, gets mad at her for interacting with other males, and has Sato videotape his confession to her without her knowledge for reference for their game. After moving home, he dates a girl who looks just like her, implying that he does not love this girl, but just sees her as a stand-in. And this is the guy Sato goes to for advice, ugh.

Finally, Megumi Kobayashi. 

After finding out about Sato’s issues, she lies to him and manipulates him into joining a toxic MLM scheme. Even when he tries to get out, she tricks him multiple times into buying her stuff. Look, I feel sorry for her circumstances, but that doesn’t excuse her behavior.

This show was painful to watch. (Even with Akira Jogasaki carrying the whole show on his back) I don’t know if the manga did any better and never will because I’m never touching this series again. I hate these people. Time to search for an anime that is actually a realistic and positive portrayal of people with mental illness.

[peartato]

So I see this image shared a lot, and I wanted to talk about it a little.

You've probably seen it before - the panel where Riza is begging Roy not to give into the madness of revenge:

There's only one problem with it, though: the translation is wrong.

Here is the original Japanese text:

Riza tells Roy,

貴方はそちらに堕ちてはいけない…！

(Anata wa sochira ni ochitewa ikenai...!)

Here is the sentence breakdown:

貴方 (anata) - You

そちら (sochira) - that way, that direction

堕ちて (ochite) - to fall down, drop, sink, decrease (there are a lot of possible meanings you can find linked here)

いけない (ikenai) - not good

'Ochite' is usually written as 落ちて and not 堕ちて. Both are read the same. The difference is that 落ちて is usually used for something physically falling down or dropping, and 堕ちて is used for falling down morally - referring to corruption, depravity, etc.

Riza doesn't mean that Roy is actually falling down. She's talking about Roy becoming more morally bankrupt, hence the kanji spelling change to 堕ちて.

'Ikenai' literally means "unable to go", but it's used the same way as the similar phrase だめ (dame), meaning "not good" or "that's no good."

So the dialogue literally translates as something like "Don't go in that direction of moral depravity!" or "Going down that path of corruption is no good!"

Just like how 'Attack on Titan' was a mistranslation that became widespread, this panel came out before the English version of the FMA manga was officially translated and released, and thus is more widespread than the correct English translation.

Here is the panel from the official Viz Media English release:

Some more thoughts

It's interesting that while Riza spends almost the entire series calling Roy taisa (大佐, Colonel), for some reason she drops the formalities and addresses him as anata instead. I decided to ask my advanced and native Japanese-speaking friends about the possible connotations of this change in address.

Japanese relies a lot on honorifics, and anata is one of the most neutral ways to say "you" in Japanese. For that reason, it's used a lot in advertisements, textbooks, and online forums, or as a way of addressing guests (by a clerk/cashier), or a lot of other situations where you don't necessarily know the status the person to whom you're speaking.

Some say that anata is rude and that you should never use it to address someone. This is really only true for people who you know the names of, but don't know very well. So while it isn’t always used in real life conversation, it's not always impolite (here's a great explanation of the different connotations anata has). Like the article says, to go from a more casual form of address up to anata might sound frosty (someone who usually uses your name is now simply referring to you as... well, you). But going from a very formal manner of speaking (i.e, addressing someone as taisa) to a more neutral, informal tone significantly decreases the formality of the situation.

Some have pointed out that anata can be a pet name used by wives addressing their husbands (like 'honey' or 'dear')... so is this tantamount to some kind of romantic confession on Riza's part? Using anata to refer to your husband is a pretty outdated, stereotypical usage mostly employed by older couples (in the manga, Izumi refers to Sig as anata pretty much the whole time). But in this scene, all that happens is that Riza realizes that addressing Roy as her superior isn’t enough to get through to him, and decides to plead with him as a friend to show that she cares for him on a more human level, not just as a subordinate to her superior.

There aren't necessarily any romantic undertones to the use of anata here - but just like in English, a change in the way the characters refer to each other often represents a significant development in the story. In the end, the change in pronouns is intimate but ultimately ambiguous - just like everything else relating to Roy and Riza's relationship in the series.

(Thank you to 5五, LoyalXKnight and もちさん for weighing in on and proofreading the Japanese grammar explanations in this post)

[lesbian-kyoru]

obviously ship what you want! but i do want to discuss one aspect of fruits basket that takaya wrote so well: it’s how, with tohru, yuki, and kyo, she fakes you out to think it's a love triangle. but once you get to the end of the story and have the full context, you realize you were only “tricked” by the structure of the text and never by the actual text itself.

by the structure, i mean that the first act in particular alternates pretty evenly between yuki-tohru scenes and kyoru scenes. this repeated flip-flop between the two “pairings” is typical of a love triangle set-up. it essentially tricks you into thinking that the whole point is “which boy will she choose,” but fruits basket actually ends up being very subversive in this regard. once all of the characters’ feelings are revealed throughout the story (particularly after chapter 84, aka yuki’s realization and acceptance of his platonic love for tohru), it quickly becomes clear how different these scenes are that feature the two “pairings,” with regards to their tone, development, and overall meaning.

both relationships share so many meaningful scenes with great development, but they're meaningful in incredibly different ways. particularly, takaya absolutely nailed the tonal difference of platonic interactions vs romantic ones when writing yuki and tohru’s relationship vs kyo and tohru’s.

with yuki & tohru, there's an innate comfort and peacefulness in their scenes. they grow closer and get to know each other more and more throughout the series, but there's no romantic/sexual tension and there’s no push from either person to have that be apart of their dynamic. (it’s particularly interesting to note that yuki eventually realizes that forcing himself to flirt with tohru and forcing romantic interactions with her early on felt wrong and uncomfortable, which reinforces how purely platonic their relationship is.) theirs is a very well-developed and touching portrayal of bonding with someone in a fulfilling, platonic way. their friendship is meaningful for them exactly as it is, with no underlying romance.

meanwhile, as early as the first rooftop scene, kyo and tohru’s scenes really capture the heart-racing, almost anxiety-inducing nature of talking to someone that you're attracted to or are developing feelings for. they're still comfortable with each other as friends—they spend almost the entire manga as just friends—but there's still a distinct underlying tension and attraction present in all of their scenes. it’s clear that there’s something more there from the get-go. this only becomes more evident as they continually push those boundaries with each other and have very not platonic scenes. unlike with yuki and tohru, where yuki’s flirting felt uncomfortable and forced for him (and tohru never really flirted with him to begin with), with kyo and tohru there’s a consistent sense that they’re blurring the lines of their friendship as they bond, flirt with each other, and have more romantically charged scenes.

all this to say, takaya has done a really well-done deconstruction of the love triangle trope, where that's what it looks like at first—but upon further inspection, these characters actually have two super different relationships. more than that, i think it’s very satisfying how your first reread of the early manga almost feels like an “aha!” moment. once all of this information clicks in your brain, it’s so clear that yuki and tohru were always going to have a life-changing platonic bond, and it’s so clear that kyo and tohru were meant for each other and were always going to fall in love from the start—even if you were sure you were in for a typical love triangle.

more than the cleverness of how this was written, what i love most about this aspect of fruits basket is that, at the end of the day, both of these relationships (romantic and platonic) are presented as incredibly meaningful for tohru’s arc. it never was about “who would win her love” or “who she would choose.” it was about how two different relationships could be so special and life-changing for her in different ways—and also, for yuki and kyo, how meeting tohru was so important for both of them in, again, two different but incredibly meaningful ways. frankly, takaya went off with this one!

[vhenanshiral]

On the Topic of Seiya Kou.

This is a Sailor Moon post rather than a Dragon Age post. Shocker, I know, but Sailor Moon is another one of my loves. This will focus on the 90s anime adaptation of the manga. So do not come at me with “but in the manga,” because the 90s adaptation and the manga were incredibly different in multiple ways. Seiya will be referred to as she/her because the male form was a disguise. That being said, any interpretation of Seiya’s gender is valid and I love them all! Anyway. I see a lot of shit talking about Seiya and it’s honestly ... super tiring. So many of the “negative” points against Seiya are misinterpreted, misunderstood, and misrepresented for the sake of making her look like a dumpster fire. 1. “Seiya is creepy towards Usagi and stalks her.” Except ... she doesn’t. They meet by accident numerous times, and in fact Usagi even seeks Seiya out. They develop a friendship, and it’s normal and natural for friends to seek each other out. Usagi and the girls actually, literally stalk the Three Lights more than once during the season. 2. “Seiya thinks Usagi is weak because she told Mamoru to take care of her when they left.” This honestly makes no sense to me. It is repeatedly shown that Seiya admires Usagi’s strength, both as Usagi and as Sailor Moon. It is natural to want the people you love to be protected, and that does not mean that you think they’re weak and incapable of protecting themselves. Seiya knew Usagi was capable and strong because she had seen her demonstrate these traits multiple times. Throughout the season, Seiya repeatedly lifts Usagi up with her confidence in her capabilities. This is even before she knows she is Sailor Moon. Let’s not forget that when Galaxia kills all of the Inners, they ask the Starlights to protect Sailor Moon, so saying that Seiya telling Mamoru to take care of her means she thinks she is weak ... that must mean everyone else thinks she is too, right? It’s absurd. 3. “Seiya can’t take ‘no’ for an answer, always hits on her, and is constantly pressuring her into a relationship.” It is true that Seiya repeatedly quips about “having a chance” with Usagi. It’s also true that Usagi repeatedly reminds Seiya that she has a boyfriend. But it isn’t true that Seiya repeatedly attempts to coerce her into a relationship. It also isn’t true that she does it all the time. While she shouldn’t have done it even more than once (when she was unaware of Usagi’s relationship status,) it’s obvious from the context that she isn’t being serious. Seiya repeatedly making quips is an issue, and while those kinds of situations can and often do mean someone is being a “Nice Guy,” a predator, an abuser, etc., we know from everything that we see that it is not the case with Seiya. Let’s take the “date,” for an example: Seiya throws it out there (literally, just time and place and walks off) and Usagi willingly shows up the next day and is even irritated that Seiya is late. Usagi is not forced or coerced into the date; she retains all of the power regarding whether or not she shows up. She would not have gone if she didn’t want to. Actually, let’s look at these instances of Seiya hitting/making a move on Usagi. - In the “date” episode, Usagi thinks that Seiya is going to make a move on her. Some suggest that Usagi thinks she is going to kiss her, but the language, Usagi’s expressions, and her reaction to the truth seem to imply that she thinks Seiya is suggesting something more intimate. - In the episode with the beach monster when Chibi Chibi opens up the door and pushes Seiya over on to Usagi, Usagi is the one who, again, assumes Seiya is up to No Good, despite it being a complete accident and innocent on Seiya’s part. - In the episode where Seiya spends the night at Usagi’s because she’s alone and Seiya very nearly confesses who she is to Usagi while they’re in her bedroom, it is Usagi who believes that Seiya is going to confess to having a crush on her. - Later in that same episode, when they are hiding in the cabinet and Seiya again thinks about confessing her true identity to her, it is Usagi who thinks Seiya is about to suggest something intimate. In fact, throughout the season, it is everyone from Usagi, to the other girls, to single-episode characters, to even Luna who think that Seiya is going to suggest or attempt illicit activities with Usagi, and not Seiya. It is all but explicitly stated that Usagi is attracted to Seiya. Not just because of the implications of her assumptions, but also because she is scolded over it. In fact, Rei tells her that she needs to sort her feelings out. Haruka and Michiru forbid her from seeing Seiya because she has Mamoru. She may not love Seiya the same way, but she is attracted to her and she does love her (and Usagi being attracted to other people is not a new thing.) Let’s look at the softball episode, because it’s ... pretty problematic and people often point to it as being one of the episodes that paint Seiya as some creepy stalker who can’t just take a hint and tells everyone that Usagi is her girlfriend. It is Rei who thinks that Seiya training Usagi in softball is inappropriate (let’s remember that it is Ami who thinks that something illicit is going on with Seiya and Usagi in the bodyguard episode...) because Mamoru is Usagi’s boyfriend, not Seiya. It is Sonoko who insists that Seiya’s “relationship” with Usagi isn’t acceptable, and it is her that places the bet that if Seiya’s team loses, she’s not to associate with Usagi anymore. Seiya agrees because she’s competitive, hates to lose, has confidence in herself and Usagi, and knows that Sonoko is wrong. When Usagi tries to interject about the actual nature of their relationship (that they’re not dating,) it’s the girls who shush her because they’re expecting Seiya’s team to lose and that will give them the opportunity to make Seiya feel better. I want to touch on the “Seiya knows Sonoko is wrong” part. I think what a lot of people don’t think about is that when Sonoko placed this bet and openly stated her disapproval of Seiya spending time with Usagi, Sonoko was attacking Usagi’s worth as a person. She was openly saying that Usagi wasn’t good enough to be hanging out with Seiya in any capacity. Seiya took issue with this because she obviously believes and knows differently. She values Usagi as a person. Who is Sonoko to decide who is and isn’t good enough to spend time with her? Seiya is not approaching the situation with entirely selfish motives, unlike the girls who fed into the Seiya/Usagi romance for the hopeful eventuality of them being able to comfort Seiya after a loss when she’ll be forced to stop hanging out with Usagi. She uses this situation to help bolster Usagi’s confidence in herself. That doesn’t change the fact that the bet is stupid to begin with, but it is what it is. Oh, additionally ... Seiya doesn’t tell the school that she and Usagi are dating. Them dating is an assumption that Seiya simply doesn’t correct. It’s worth noting that if she did correct that assumption, it would feed into Sonoko’s declaration that Usagi isn’t good enough to be with Seiya. 4. “Seiya tried to make the rooftop scene about herself and used it as a way to try to take Mamoru’s place in Usagi’s life.” This whole entire scene is consistently misinterpreted and has all of the context ripped from it, because that is not what that scene is. No, it 100% was not the best time for Seiya to ask that question (and no, it is not “can I take his place?” that she says,) but people tend to forget that Usagi is not the only vulnerable person in this scene and it isn’t just about her. It is Seiya who triggers Usagi’s emotional breakdown on accident, and in these moments she is watching the person she loves crumble into pieces. The rooftop scene is about both of them and the context makes that clear. Up until this point, the only person who knew that Mamoru wasn’t keeping in contact with Usagi was Seiya. None of the girls knew, none of them. Imagine the amount of trust Usagi had to have in Seiya in order to share that incredibly sensitive information with her and with no one else, not even her closest friends. Usagi had told Seiya a whole 13 episodes before this one, and since finding out Seiya tried her best to make Usagi happy and to keep her mind busy. It isn’t until a few episodes after this that everyone including Seiya finds out that Mamoru is dead. So Seiya spends all of this time believing that Mamoru ditched Usagi when he moved overseas and that he’s a horrible boyfriend who obviously doesn’t care about Usagi. This is naturally hurtful to Seiya, who grows to genuinely like and love Usagi through the season. She cares for her and doesn’t want to see her in pain, which is why she does her best to help Usagi feel less alone. There is no point in the season where Seiya’s intentions are to maliciously shove herself into Mamoru’s place in Usagi’s life. She has no idea who Tuxedo Mask is. She had no idea that throwing the red rose - her own personal trademark - was going to trigger such an emotional response from Usagi. So here they both are on this rooftop in the middle of the pouring rain. Usagi’s breaking down over how alone she feels, and Seiya’s suddenly faced with the realization that not only did she cause this breakdown, everything she had been trying to do to help her wasn’t working and she failed again. She couldn’t save her system/planets, 99.9% of her people are literally dead because she wasn’t strong enough to save them, and she and the other two members of her team had no idea where their princess was or even if she was okay until the episode before this one. Immediately after the destruction of everything they knew, the Starlights had to flee to an alien planet with alien people, disguise themselves, and pander to a bunch of complete strangers that salivated over, stalked, and harassed them, all while searching for their princess  and fighting the minions of the person who ctrl+a ctrl+x’ed their home system. She had no time to process any of the unimaginable loss and failure she had suffered through. When people talk about the rooftop scene and about how Seiya “makes it about herself,” this is everything they’re forgetting. When Seiya is asking Usagi if she isn’t good enough, it isn’t Seiya trying to weasel her way in, it’s Seiya both coping with her own numerous losses and trying to remind Usagi that she’s there for her. In the end, Seiya is the one that Usagi credits with being able to get herself through everything she was dealing with.

[guardianspirits13]

I wanna talk about Natsuo Todoroki for a second here.

tw// mentions of abuse, self harm, and suicide

Natsuo visibly has the most emotional trauma out of anyone else in his family (Touya not included), and I really wanna talk about why that is.

For starters, we haven't seen him really smile since he was introduced in chapter 187. He's introduced as having a friendly, easygoing persona and it's easy to imagine this is how most people outside of his family know him. However, every time we see him appear since then, another layer of his trauma is revealed and expanded upon, and it cuts DEEP.

I think the main reason that Natsuo still seems so vulnerable compared to the rest of his family is different than what you'd assume. Fuyumi and Shouto both spend a lot of time around Endeavor, and have been in close proximity to his (relatively recent) decision to atone. They have seen his growth firsthand and come to terms with it. Rei has obviously taken a very different path to healing- not entirely voluntarily- but she has been working with doctors and therapists for years to change and recover and reconnect with herself and her children. Natsuo is off at college, and takes every opportunity he can to avoid Endeavor. He (understandably) wants nothing to do with him, and shows stagnant resistance to his attempts to atone.

The reason why Natsuo can't move on from the past is because his trauma didn't come from Endeavor. It came from Touya.

Now initially we were led to believe that it was simply Touya's untimely death that still bothers Natsuo, and it makes sense seeing how Endeavor drove him to the edge. Losing his best friend and brother as a young kid without parents to support him or any therapist to speak of can absolutely been the source of persistent emotional damage, but the more and more we learn about Touya's situation, the more evident it becomes that Natsuo's trauma is much much deeper than even grief.

Touya, as we know, was driven by an ambition instilled in him by his father and experienced extreme rejection sensitivity when those ambitions were no longer realistic. Touya's relationship with his parents could be described as insecure attachment, a psychological term primarily regarding how kids react and respond to their parents and other close relationships. As he was raised, Touya learned to equate his potential to be a hero with his personal worth and similarly confounded attention with love. The difference being, of course, that love is unconditional, but even attention was being continually directed away from him as a punishment for continuing to train and burn himself so he could once again become worthy in his fathers' eyes.

This is where Natsuo comes in. At first it was assumed that all of the Todoroki children were born out of Endeavor's strong-willed desire to have a child that could surpass All Might, but we learned that this isn't exactly the case. I'd argue that it was narratively poetic on Horikoshi's part once this was expanded upon. Fuyumi was born to support and encourage her brother, and that is the exact role she plays 23 years later, keeping her family together.

Natsuo's case is even more intersting.

It was bad enough if Natsuo was only born for the potential of his quirk, but it's even more sinister that the sole intent behind his birth was to discourage Touya from his ambitions. I'd say it was to replace him, but it was more to promote the idea that Touya was expendable than to raise aonther kid with the same ideals but the potential to actually achieve it, although that was definitely a secondary motivation.

The parallelism in this is how much Natsuo's life revolves around Touya. He was born because of Touya, he looked up to and took care of Touya as a kid, and the absence of Touya in the present continues to drive him and his decisions in life (but more on that later).

I continue to pray that we will eventually get more solid backstory on Natsuo and Touya's relationship as kids and where it cut off, wether on a bad note or not, but there are a few things we know for certain. One, Touya was mentally ill. Yes, he was rejected by his parents but he seems to have been particularly vulnerable to this compared to any of his siblings since he was the first of them and thus relied only on his parents for validation in his early years. He shows early signs of a variety of different mental disorders, particularly BPD, which I have previously written a whole analysis for on its own. Touya is shown self-harming both by the very nature of his quirk and even by very directly ripping his hair out. He was incredibly self-destructive.

This is why it is so much more concerning to me that Natsuo, who was AT LEAST four years younger than him, was his primary source of comfort. Natsuo was too young to have known anything more than 'my big brother is sad that daddy won't train him anymore' and he obviously wasn't equipped in any way to handle Touya's severe mental illness. Touya most definitely needed professional treaatment as his forms of coping were abnormal even for the neglect and rejection that he experienced. Natsuo comforted Touya through breakdown after breakdown, and more than that Touya relied on him and came to him voluntarily for support. Natsuo was the best option he had, and he took full advantage of that. The main source of Natsuo's trauma was Touya's reliance on him.

Not to say at all that this was in any way Touya's fault- he was mentally ill and desperately in need of some form of comfort to keep him sane; it was almost a survival method at this point since neither of his parents really acknowleged him at all anymore. Touya's instability hurt Natsuo more than parental neglect ever did, but it was the neglect that enabled it and striped Touya of the supportive atmosphere he would have needed at this point not only to prevent but to heal from the mental damage he had already suffered.

Natsuo dealt with this for years and you can see how much it hurt him to see Touya in so much pain, not only from Endeavor's rejection but from his own self harm as well. For Natuso to know that his brotherly love would never be the same as having loving parents; would neve be enough- but at least it was something so he continued to love and care about his brother for little in return- is indicative of the kind of character he is.

(Edit: After the events of chapter 302 we know that Natsuo's relationship with Touya wasn't perfect. I will elaborate more on this in a different post, but I just wanted to clarify that although we were shown a very high-tension scene between them, it is implied that this was a regular occurrence that Natsuo was usually more receptive too but tired out of, in addition to Touya's spiraling mental health. It fit with the natrative to show the tension Touya was feeling with his family from all directions, but Natsu and Touya clearly had a stronger relationship up to and before this point, evidenced by their sharing a room and playing together regularly.)

He is incredibly selfless, and it's interesting to note how many of his positive qualities as an adult stem from negative experiences as a kid. He never really felt love from his parents, so he relied on Touya (and likely also Fuyumi) for that as well. If he grew up learning he had to give love in order to recieve it back, it absolutely influenced who he became in the future, a solid example of this being the responsibility he feels to reach out and have a relationship with Shouto and further regrets that he wasn't able to help his abuse in the past either. Another aspect of his character that intruigues me is how gentle he is. Personality-wise he seems about as opposite as he could be from the awkward, stoic, emotionally-stunted person that is Endeavor.

There are a couple of reasons for this, beyond what I've already discussed.

One, he had little to no contact with elements of toxic masculinity growing up, especially not from Endeavor.

Two, most of the influence he did have growing up was from Fuyumi, who is established to have endlessly cared for him since he was a literal baby.

Three, he grew up in a household where almost everyone around him was in much more literal, immediate pain than he was so he developed a very strong sense of empathy that might also have been tied to early survivor's guilt.

Now I have one important distinction to make, and that's the temptation to label him as a 'softboy' or something of the like after seeing him caring for his family and more pointedly, watching him break down in tears during chapter 252. While there is absolutely nothing wrong with men being soft or vulnerable (on the contrary it's actually so so important and relevant that Hori is writing characters like this in a mainstream shounen manga but that's an essay for another time), it is unfair to label him as such based on a moment when his trauma is being exposed.

Because his truama stems from such a young age, there is a blurry line between just being born with more emotional intelligence and the situation he was in fostering those traits. You know, the classic nature/nurture thing. My point being, it's important to tread carefully when discussing the nature of his personality to avoid invalidating his trauma; I have no doubt that he is very strong for having survived these things, and the moments we see of him onscreen are definitely among his most vulnerable.

Another thing that people less familiar with Natsuo's character might assume is that he is hot-headed and argumentative. I thought that at first too- after all, he doesn't seem to shy away from yelling at Endeavor when given the opportunity. However, this doesn't seem to be the case at all.

The first real scene we see him in with Endeavor, the man walks into the room and Natsuo decides he can't handle it and goes to leave. However, Endeavor happens to be blocking the doorway. Endeavor physically stops him and provokes him to his face, asking him to say whatever is on him mind. While Natsuo is notably not confrontational, Endeavor is. I think it's fair to say that he felt at least uneasy at this gesture. Natsuo is very honest with his feelings, and it's obvious that he's pissed at the audacity of Endeavor to be so oblivious to his own son. This is presumably one of the first real interactions they've ever really had, and at this point Natsuo has been dealing with trauma (caused by Endeavor!) on his own for years, and Endeavor seems completely oblivious to his pain and dismmisive to the rest of the family's as well.

Again during the internship arc Natsuo tries to get along with Endeavor and this time he actually gives it a fleeting chance. Tensions are high, however, and the conversation very quickly becomes uncomfortable, at which point he leaves. It is continually implied that Natsuo is uncomfortable being around Endeavor because his very presence brings up painful thoughts and memories of a time when sharing the same space as him was a warning to run and hide. This is later directly confirmed by Natsuo as he says that every time he looks at Endeavor's face he remembers Touya and the pain he was in.

I feel like an important side note is that we have never seen Natsuo outside the context of his family, which is understandable, as the role he plays in the story directly relates to them. However, if you take a look at Shouto, even though his experiences have shaped him to become who he is, he definitely acts differently when Endeavor's not in the vicinity.

Back to Touya's death, it would be very rare that someone would mourn a death for an entire decade without finding closure unless there are other factors preventing it, and uncomfortably this seems to be the same thing for both Natsuo and Endeavor: guilt.

This is getting incredibly long already, but it's important to note that Natsuo probably felt an incredible responsibility to take care of Touya and protect him because of his empathetic nature. His love was never going to be the same as having loving parents. His encouragement was never going to be the same as having support from Endeavor. Even further than then neglect and abandonement, it was not being able to save Touya that really made Natsuo feel worthless.

He seems to try and remedy this inability to save Touya and diminish his guilt by doing everything he can to be better. He reaches out to Shouto to be a better brother, he consistently pushes his limits to entertain Fuyumi's notion of a happy family, and he's working hard towards a degree rhat will allow him to help people like Touya (and Rei) because he failed to do so in the past.

His bio mildly implies that he didn't have much of a direction he was heading in after high school, but Fuyumi's encouragement led him to seek out his current college career. This goes back to Natsuo's 'purpose' in a sense revolving arount Touya, from his birth to his relationship with him to his death, after which he lost his direction. They were always rather inseperable, so naturally their seperation hit Natsuo hard. He lost his direction in life so when Fuyumi encouraged him to rediscover it, he thought of helping people, because that's ultimately what he was born to do.

Thank you so, so much for reading this if you made it to the end! I clearly have a lot of thoughts on this. Let me know what you think about it as well, and hopefully we'll get more info on this soon in the manga :)

[ladyloveandjustice]

Spring 2021 anime overview: Quick Takes

Now for my Spring 2021 anime thoughts! I’ve decided from now on if a season’s like, 20- to-24 episodes I’m just going to wait ‘til it’s done to review it unless I feels super passionately, so though I watched To Your Eternity (it’s good!) and MHA (eh), I’ll comment on them next time. Also, for the record, I watched the first eight eps of Joran: Princess and Snow of Blood but I dropped it because it had clearly crossed the line from entertainingly dumb to boring dumb. 

I will probably give Supercub and some other stuff a shot later, this was a stacked season! May give updates on all that later, but this is what I have for now.

ODDTAXI

Quick Summary: A mild mannered middle-aged walrus taxi driver is drawn into a case involving a missing girl, yakuza, Youtube clout-chasers, manzai comedians and idols with big secrets.

It’s rare to walk away from media and be like “that is a singular experience I will definitely never see repeated again” but ODDTAXI is definitely one of those. A tense noir thriller murder mystery starring cartoon animals that spends an entire episode detailing the one (cat)man’s very fall into darkness triggered by addiction to gacha games and an online auction for a novelty eraser? Also there’s a porcupine Yakuza who speaks entirely in rap? Also there’s tons of meandering conversations about stuff like manzai comedy and the struggle to go viral on Twitter?

Admittedly, I had a hard time getting into the first episode, the dry meandering humor not being enough to hold my attention while I was sitting still, but once I watched this while I was working out at the end of the season, I found it an easy binge. A ton of characters with dark secrets or dangerous ambitions, each with their own part to play in a tableau of intersecting events- and it all actually comes together really well.(As for the female characters, it’s a pretty dude driven story, but they do get nuanced characterization and even some good heroic moments from one of them.)

 It’s a great example of a carefully planned narrative paying off, with all the twists appropriately seeded and foreshadowed to reward viewers who paid attention. Even when it ended on a perfect “OH SHIT” moment and denied me closure, I couldn’t help but respect it. If you that all sounds interesting to you, definitely check out the first couple episodes and see if you like it- you’re likely to have a memorable, satisfying experience!

Shadows House

Quick Summary: Emilyko is a ‘living doll’ who’s told she was created to act as the ‘face’ of her shadow master, Kate. The shadows and their ‘dolls’ all reside on the mansion and are required to pass a ‘debut’ to prove they’re a good pairing. If they don’t pass, they might be disposed of. And so the mystery of the Shadow mansion grows...

This slice of gothic intrigue was my favorite of the season, tied with ODDTAXI. With an interesting premise, slightly tense undertones and a strong focus on character building and relationships, it kept me hooked the whole way through. And for any squeamish fans put off by the hype about it, don’t worry, while there are some suspenseful elements, I wouldn’t qualify it as horror. I thought the relationship between Kate and Emilyko might end up being a completely sinister one, but it’s thankfully a lot more complex than that and it’s really interesting to follow how both their characters and relationship grow. The focus of the show is, unsurprisingly, on the “dolls” slowly discovering their autonomy and personhood as they struggle under the rigid system imposed on them by the mysterious elders of this weird Victorian mansion. Can they develop a more equitable relationship with their shadow “masters” (who are also shown to suffer under this system)? There’s a lot to dig into there, and the show has the characters develop through learning to understand and appreciate each other, which is pretty heartwarming. Our hero, Emilyko, is the typical plucky ball of sunshine (they even nickname her sunshine), but she’s also shown to be clever in her own off-the-wall way and she bounces off the far more subdued and cynical Kate well, not to mention the other ‘dolls’ she ends up befriending. 

What’s more, the show spends plenty of time to developing several other character pairings and combinations, and they all have their own interesting dynamic that makes you want to see more of them. Same-gender bonds are at the forefront of this show, and many of them are ripe for queer readings (I definitely appreciated the healthy helping of ladies carrying ladies), but even outside that it’s nice to see a show where a strong, complex bond between girls is at the forefront. My only real complaints about the show are the anime original ending is noticeably a bit rushed (though it’s not too bad, and leaves room for a season 2) and I wish the animation used the whole “shadow” theme more strikingly (like the opening and endings do)- instead the colors are a bit washed out which makes the shadows blend into the background sometimes. The “debut” arc also drags a bit in places, but it makes up for it by having a lot of good character integration.

I hope to check out the (full color)! manga soon and see more of this quirky, shadowy story. There’s some physical abuse depicted, sad things happening to characters and naturally the whole “oppressive familial system” thing, but otherwise not much I can think of to warn about. I give this one a big rec, especially If you’re a fan of gothic fairytales and stories of self discovery.  

Zombie Land Saga Revenge

Quickest summary: In this sequel season, everyone’s favorite zombie idol group must claw their way back into prominence after a disastrous show- the fate of the Saga prefecture LITERALLY depends on it!

This was a fun follow-up to the first season- if you liked the first zombie-girl romp, you’ll probably enjoy this one. In fact, there were a couple areas it improved on- namely, Kotaro failed, ate crow and embarrassed himself a lot more this season, which made him more likeable (as did the fact the girls gained a lot of independence from him). This season also shed more light on what the ‘goal’ of this zombie raising project is and what kind of shit Kotaro got involved with to make this happen, and it’s appropriately off-the-wall and ridiculous. We finally got some backstory for Yugiri too! I wish it had focused on more of her interiority, but she got to be a badass in it, and it was a treat to see this zombie idol show turn into a period piece for a couple episodes (also her song ruled).

 Tae also got a cute focus episode and there was a particular SMASHING performance early on! Also That revelation last season that had the potential to turn creepy hasn’t yet, and hopefully never will. The finale was heartwarming with big hints of more drama to come- I’m definitely down for more zombie hijinks!

Vivy: Flourite Eye’s Song

Quickest Summary: A songstress AI named DIVA (nicknamed Vivy) is approached by another AI named Matsumoto, who says he’s from the future and they must work together to prevent AI exterminating all of humankind 100 years from now.

This show is absolutely gorgeous visually with some really nice action scenes, but when it comes to the story my feelings basically amount to a shrug. It’s fine! I guess! Vivy starts out as an interesting layered character- and I guess still is by the end- with her stoic but stubborn determination bouncing off her fast-talking bossy partner Matsumoto well. She never listens to him, which is delightful. The way the show took place over the course of 100 years was an interesting conceit as well. However, it bought up a lot of themes and then sort of... dropped them. For instance, Vivy interprets her mission (PRIME DIRECTIVE if you will) as protecting humans at all costs, no matter how destructive said humans are or what their fate is supposed to be, and is perfectly willing to murder her fellow androids to do this, showing she inherently thinks of androids (herself and her own people!) as less worthy. Which is a little alarming! There’s a very dramatic point in the show where they bring this up as a potential conflict for her character but then it’s sort of...dropped. Pretty much.

Actually, despite the premise, the show doesn’t dip into the “AI rights” as much as you think it would with the main theme being more about Vivy’s search to find her own creativity and discover what it means to ‘pour your heart into something’. Vivy herself doesn’t actually care if she has rights or anything. Which is in some ways fine, because ‘AI as an oppressed class’ has been done to death, but IT’S ALSO KIND OF IN THE PREMISE, so that means that the show just shrugs really hard at a lot of the questions it brings up  basically just going “humans and AI should work together probably” and that’s it. There’s a lot that feels underexplored. The antagonists in the show also either have motivations that don’t really make sense or have boring hackneyed motivations. In the finale in particular, it feels like a lot of things happen “just because” and it falls a little flat.

I also have to warn that one of the arcs focus on a robot ‘pairing’ where the dude-coded robots actions toward his partner are straight up awful and rob her of her autonomy, but it’s played like a tragic love story. I suppose you could read it differently too, but it definitely made me go ‘ew’ the story seemed to want me to sympathize with this robo dude,

Overall, I wouldn’t anti-recommend this show, it’s an all right little sci-fic romp (and definitely SUPER pretty). My favorite element was definitely the episodes where Vivy develops an entirely new (an loveable) personality, because it played with the idea of of an AI getting “rebooted” really well and interplay between her two “selves” was done really well. But there are a lot of other parts of the show that just feel...a little underexplored and empty, making me have an ‘eh’ feeling on the show overall. It’s definitely an ambitious project, and while it didn’t quite stick the landing, there’s something to be said for a show that shoots for the stars and falls short over a show that just languishes in mediocrity.

Fruits Basket The Final

Quick summary: The final season of that dramatic drama about that weird family with a zodiac curse and the girl who loves them.

It’s very weird that after not cutting a lot out, they kinda sped through some material for, you know, the finale. I guess they thought they couldn’t stretch this final arc to 26 episodes? Or weren’t cleared for another double cour? However, though there were a couple places that felt awkward, despite being a bit condensed it mostly held together pretty well for a D R A M A T I C and ultimately heartwarming conclusion. I was really disappointed they kept the part where Ritsu cut their hair for the ‘happy ending’, I thought  their intro episode not showing them in men’s clothes meant the anime had decided their presentation didn’t need to be “fixed” but WELL I GUESS NOT. That was the only big upset for me though, otherwise the adaptation went about how I expected, sticking to the source material. Furuba has a lot of bumps, from weird age gap stuff to ...gender, but it also has a lot of important feels and great character arcs. It was a gateway shoujo for many and has its important place in animanga history, so I’m glad it finally got a shiny, full adaptation.

[camgirlkaminari]

so ive been thinking for a while now how bonkers it is that ochako has a floatation quirk and an almost identical hairstyle to inko midoriya, and now that we're closing in on deku mastering all 7 ofa quirks, I can't stop thinking that nana, a woman who has been textually compared to inko midoriya, ALSO had a floatation quirk. i wanna ramble about it a little bit:

inko's first introduction to the comic is her telling us that she can float small objects toward herself:

she's an older generation, so her quirk isn't all that powerful compared to the kids' quirks. this is apparent when ochako comes into play and can float much larger objects, but with less control over their trajectory. i think we're not ever meant to compare the two characters' quirks, since ochako is more powerful, and can also float herself. even further, inko doesn't seem to suffer any consequences for using her floatation quirk, but since we are only shown her using it once, there's no way to know.

(i find inko to be such a strange character. she spends so much time crying and being deku's mom that we forget that she is her own person. she's married. she has a quirk. what's her job? how does she pay the bills? how did she meet her fire breathing husband? does she have parents of her own? we know so much more about everyone else's parents than we even know about the main character's mom! this feels so deliberate, even beyond the fact that we are all wondering if deku's dad is somehow ~a villain~. like I don't care about deku's dad! what's up with his fucking mom!!)

so now we're so focused on ochako's journey to mastering her quirk and learning how to float herself in addition to huge objects that we almost forget how similar to inko she started out: her hair, her face, her kindness, her strength.

spoilers ahead: 

now, like 150 chapters later, we learn about nana shimura's quirk: float. deku knows what's coming, so he asks his friend ochako, who can float, for pointers on floating. this is excellent strategy, deku! good call! you don't know anyone else who can float themselves so you learn from ochako!

meanwhile, absolutely NO MENTION of how 'hey, my mom can float stuff too! weird coincidence!' despite him remembering all might's comparison of nana to his mother.

all of this leads me to have a few theories about the nature of afo & ofa, the relationship between ochako, nana, inko, and deku, and the major themes of legacy in bnha.

theory one: Gramps For All

there's a massive theme in bnha of grandchildren of importance. first, we learn that tomura shiguraki is the grandson of nana shimura, a pro hero, one of the three factions warring for a place in post-quirk society. then we learn Eri is an instance of this: she's the granddaughter of an equally influential player. The comatose boss of the yakuza, one of the three factions warring for a place in post-quirk society.

there's all kinds of legacies in bnha: shouto, the son of the number 1 hero, a direct victim of hero society. iida, the younger brother of a hero who was victimized by a villain hell-bent on changing hero society. hawks, the son of a serial killer, a victim who perpetuates the cycle of victimization in the name of upholding hero society. all these legacies, but we don't know anything about their extended families. what are endeavor's parents like? were iida's grandparents pro heroes too? does hawks really have no other family?

and where are deku's grandparents? did they ever watch him while his single mom was working?

my theory is that afo is not dad for one, but actually gramps for one. he had children, more than one, and they each had their own children. inko is one of them, and izuku is the resulting child.

deku, grandson of all for one, one of the three factions warring for a place in post-quirk society. eri, shiguraki, and deku, each representing the groups most affected by post-quirk society: yakuza, "villains," and "heroes."

theory two: ochako & deku are cousins

why the hell does ochako look so much like inko midoriya and NOT her parents?

(in the anime, they look a lot like her, but in the manga...)

gramps for one had children, more than one, and they each had their own children.

i think that ochako may be adopted, or one of her parents is, or perhaps even inko was, so ochako's connection to biological relations is distant or non existent. she may not even know. we've seen that horikoshi doesn't make character design mistakes, and he's gotta realize that every time he draws deku & ochako in the same scene that he's drawn the same face twice.

so either he's trying to throw us off, or he's making a grander statement about who they are. he's a fan of star wars- he's already done a reverse of "I am your father" with touya & endeavor, so I think it would be interesting if he's set up this ochako/deku thing as a fun homage to luke/leia, too. but they're cousins, not twins.

(that's just deku times two, babey!)

inko, unconnected to her family as she seems, may never know if she had siblings or half-siblings. ochako's parents may never have known about ochako's biological relations.

this is a much weaker theory, but i think quirk singularity theory can make some sense of it. we have the original float quirk user, nana shimura. I don't think she is related in any way to inko or ochako, but her quirk helps demonstrate the generational growth of power. she was a hero before all might, meaning she's an earlier generation and had an arguably weaker quirk. but since she was a hero, she honed her quirk so that it comes across as incredibly strong, however she seems to have only been able to float herself, not objects or people.

float quirk user number two, inko midoriya, who can float small objects toward herself. she's the next generation after nana, so her quirk is still kind of weak, and in fact looks incredibly weak compared to nana's and ochako's quirks. inko is a nobody, not a hero, just deku's mom. she had no reason to hone her quirk. who knows? maybe if she'd gone on to be a hero, she could float entire buildings if she wanted to.

float quirk user three, ochako uraraka. ochako can float objects AND herself. she's a hero and a strategist, and incredibly strong despite being 16. she can float pieces of buildings and people and herself all at once. she's a hero. she's powerful. she's thoughtful & kind, yet willful and strong. she's the ultimate culmination of the other floatation quirks as well as inko & nana's personalities. but since we were introduced to these three float quirks all out of order, it's difficult to see the exponential power growth that happens each successive generation.

I don't think that ochako's ever going to be a major player in the end of all for one, or even the plot overall, but i think the THEME of ochako being the ultimate floatation hero in the series is a major player in the final story. ochako REPRESENTS the singularity. the generation after ochako will be so strong, perhaps her descendants would be able to negate all gravity in the vicinity, maybe on the planet. who knows! even if ochako isn't related to deku, let's say dechako happens, they have babies. that's a lot of float quirk in one couple! their kids are gonna have no bones! no muscle development because they never have to fight gravity! ochako's existence represents such a huge, yet nearly invisible thematic element of bnha.

tldr: ochako looks exactly like inko and has a cumulative float quirk reminiscent of both inko & nana, and i suspect the parallels between the three is deliberate for some reason. i just think that's neat.

[marumafan]

Hi! I don't know if anyone have asked this before (I'm still reading the novels so I'm not at this point yet). But when do you think is the "moment" where Wolfram falls in love or fully dedicate himself romantically (not merely "I'm your fiance" sort of situation) to Yuuri and vice versa? Like something Yuuri did to turn that love switch on (I don't know the best way to present this question because the entire story is the great part about their relationship growth)

Hello Anon!

It's a matter of interpretation. There's no explicit "and this was the moment when X fell in love with Y" line in the novels, so I'll give you my interpretation.

If you have been following me for a while you'll know I'm convinced that Takabayashi-sensei is determined to make Yuuri and Wolf 'equals' in every way. So for me, they both 'realized' they were in love with one another in the same way.

1) Attraction

When it comes to 'attraction' I think they were both attracted to one another since novel 1 . With Yuuri it's easy to tell because we can 'read his thoughts' and when he met Wolfie he was gushing all over the place like ' gosh darn it this beautiful angel'. More specifically I'd say that by the end of novel 1, on chapter 10, we can really see that they're both attracted to one another.

for Yuuri you have this line: " From the far side of the corridor, the blond with wavy hair comes running. The intense navy blue uniform suits him; the mazoku Prince Wolfram. I muttered in a sigh 'Although he's a man, he's this beautiful, Günter'. Yuuri is telling Gunter how hot he thinks Wolfie is.

And Wolf a few lines after this: He glances here and there without looking at my face. It might be my imagination but his usually white, smooth cheeks were a slight red.

"Appearing without any treasure, don't embarrass my older brother and me!"

So anyway Wolfie was blushing because he was about to pledge to Yuuri and I'd say probably because he also kinda realized the double black was hot.  (Wolfie mentions in novel 2 that Yuuri is cute and Yuuri tells him he's cuter... plus all the other stuff )

2) Developing feelings

It didn't happen right away for neither Wolf nor Yuuri (despite the way their relationship was portrayed in the anime). Yes, they liked each other, but they didn't know each other well. The more time they spend with one another, the more they liked each other. Yuuri realizes that Wolf isn't just a hot tsundere, but someone who's always doing the 'right thing' (according to what he knows)... just like him. And Wolf also realizes that Yuuri isn't just a hot rookie, but that he actually also likes to do the right thing (according to what he knows).... just like him.

The thing is that they have very different backgrounds "so the right thing" meant different things for each of them, but over time and getting to know each other, and Yuuri changing what the 'right thing' is in Shin Makoku, they started seeing eye to eye and understanding each other better; and liking each other more.

3) Falling in love

This is my interpretation due to the way they act before and after what happens.

I think that they both realized they were in love with the other when they 'almost lost' the other person.

This happens for Wolf first during the Caloria arc.

Yuuri has travelled without being summoned by Ulrike. Gunter gets shot (killed?), they find Conrad's severed arm, and Yuuri is missing. It looks really bad.This is when Wolf barges into Shinou's Shrine having absolutely lost his shit demanding to see Ulrike. When she tells him Yuuri's alive, Wolfram is so incredibly relieved (his relieved smile in the manga gives me life), and after this he sneaks out (going against Gwen's orders) and goes looking for Yuuri. At this point, Wolfram doesn't give a flying fuck about anything other than finding Yuuri.

After finding Yuuri he pretty much tells him 'i love you' in the words "if that happens, then we'll fall together", in the scene where they both could have fallen down the cliff. (Wolf also slaps him back "as a reply to his marriage proposal" which I have argued several times he had replied to in the past (in novel 1), but he made it more clear in this arc after all of this.)

For Yuuri, this happens at the beginning of the Seisakoku arc, when Wolfram gets shot.

Yuuri and Wolf are on a ship that's being attacked, suddenly Yuuri can't feel Wolfram's hand that was holding his, and when he looks to his side Wolf is on the floor shot through the heart. Yuuri first tries to heal Wolf and when he can't (and thinks Wolfie is dead), he loses his absolute shit and turns into the maou (which he never did for any other "character death/injury" he had witnessed). He's about to fuck shit up when Wolf's like "Cut it out, I'm fine".

After this, they don't get to spend much time together, but Yuuri gets obsessed with Wolfie, and thinking about how he almost died.... He 'sees' Wolfie in places he couldn't be and finally, when they meet again, Yuuri tells him his ' i love you' in the words " I'm tired of pretending" before the bed scene, right after telling him he was happy Wolf was there with him.  (Also in the last novel he says Wolf is his 'most important person' which is code for 'the one they love' in the novels. Interestingly enough, the time when Wolfie almost died is brought up at the exact moment when he says the 'most important person' line.)

4) After realizing they've fallen in love

Wolf: For Wolfie is easy to see... he's not jealous anymore. He doesn't insist on the marriage, and he's more at ease with Yuuri and lets him do whatever. (When you love someone you just want them to be happy, so he's not obsessing anymore). Also, I think Wolf kinda knows that Yuuri's in love with him too, before Yuuri realizes, since he tells him during the Caloria arc: That it was a good thing Wolf made Yuu angry back in novel 1, or Yuuri would have never proposed and would be having a "one sided crush on Wolf"... XD I mean... Wolf would know best what his relationship to Yuuri is right? (I've talked about this before, Yuuri's an unreliable narrator and doesn't tell us a lot of things)

Yuuri: 1) the bed scene: he pretty much confesses he's in love with Wolf, asks to sleep with him in his bed and we get the 'cut to black' scene. (which according to a story that sensei herself wrote this, in Shin Makoku naughty books, cut to black means sex, but whatever if you think I'm overreaching I won't die on this hill -> it can have other interpretations) 2) The 'Are you asking for a divorce!?' line when Wolf punched him (to save his life-> for those who haven't read that far). Yuuri is kinda 'married' in his head now, so yeah. Plus 3) every single extra story from Crossheart, to Misepan2, to Love Letter, where Yuuri's super mushy in love with Wolf.

-> Misepan2: Yuuri: “ When it comes to things that I can give you, I would give you anything, Wolf."

TLDR: It's my interpretation they realized they were in love with one another after almost losing the other.

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