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ravenhatesisekai · 2 months ago

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The Saint's Magic Power is Omnipotent is Pretty Good

Title: The Saint’s Magic Power is Omnipotent Studio: Diomedéa Release: 2021–2023 Overall Score: A

Genre: Shojo Isekai Art Value: B+ Story: B+ Protagonist: A+ Additional Cast: B Length: 2 seasons, 24 episodes Ending: Acceptable but room for more OPs and EDs: Inoffensive Reason to Watch: Comfort Food Where to Watch: Crunchyroll

As you may have gleaned from the name of this blog, I hate isekais. Vanishingly few stories are enhanced by shoehorning in a protagonist from the real world. More often than not, all it does is make that protagonist less likable. As a form of wish fulfillment I reluctantly get it—this hamfisted genre exists because capitalism is killing us all. But as a writing tool it’s a lazy crutch for authors who can’t be bothered to invent an original character, or who don’t know how to introduce a fantasy setting without someone cluelessly questioning every single thing they see. You know the genre is bad because it’s exactly what Hollywood does every time somebody decides to cash in on a popular video game franchise. Every isekai protagonist should be legally required to be voiced by Chris Pratt until they stop making these damn things.

Unfortunately, I quite like The Saint’s Magic Power is Omnipotent.

As justification for being an isekai goes, it performs better than average. Main character Takanashi Sei is magically summoned to a fantasy kingdom in need of a savior. Her identity as a person from another world is important to the plot and is openly known to the rest of the cast, a nice change of pace from the convenient secrecy and narrative forgetfulness more typical to the genre—so many of these damn shows do their isekai, drop into the main plot, and then never mention it again, proving my point that isekais don’t need to be a thing. The Saint’s Magic Power actually makes use of the stupid isekai gimmick. Sei pursues the same hobbies she had before the isekai happened, she talks fairly often about her home country and culture, and she even still looks Japanese in a setting full of Standard Fantasy Renaissance White People, since she mercifully didn’t have to get murdered and reincarnated for this particular isekai. It's more Narnia than Super Mario Bros. Movie, so just this once we'll give an isekai a pass (reluctantly).

Sei is the best reason to watch her own show. Voiced by the incomparable Ishikawa Yui (Violet Evergarden, 2B, Mikasa Ackerman), she does pretty much all of the heavy lifting to make it compelling. Skeptical, grown up, cautious to the point of dragging her feet, and more interested in her hobbies than other commitments, she’s a likable and relatable isekai heroine atypical to the genre. She’s also surprisingly funny. Sei’s frequent internal monologuing gives Ishikawa Yui opportunity to show off her comedic talent in a way you don't see as much in her more serious action girl roles. The show relies on the strength of Ishikawa’s performance to make Sei sympathetic—a safe bet on one of the very best in the business. She carries the whole thing.

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Apart from its main character, the rest of The Saint’s Magic Power is Omnipotent operates firmly in a B to B+ range. Its setting is your absolute standard post-medieval European isekai country, utterly identical to similar offerings from shows like Surgeon Elise, Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady, My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!, and many others I’ll refrain from naming just so their titles don’t eat up my entire character limit for this review. But they basically all do this. There’s some fantasy world out there where all of these alternate Europes are just neighbors with each other, absolutely drowning in imported isekai heroes. The story is more original. The imperiled kingdom attempts to summon a holy saint to save it from an epidemic of monsters, but ends up getting two. Sei, a blandly ordinary 20 year old office worker, is initially passed over in favor of the younger Aira, who better looks the part. The crown prince of the kingdom decides Aira must be the saint and Sei is pretty much ignored and cut loose. It’s a funny premise that works well: obviously, as the first season develops it becomes clear that Sei is the real saint, but those first few episodes where she’s just left to her own devices set up a lot of why the show works. She has time to prioritize her hobbies, applying some amateur real world cooking and herb gardening knowledge into a new career as an alchemist. More importantly, she realizes she has time to prioritize her hobbies, at which point she starts getting on board with her new life and I start envying her a little (isekais are a popular genre for a reason). And, of course, she starts meeting hot guys.

It's obligatory

The show’s cast apart from Sei has a lot less to offer. This is shojo so almost all of them are good looking men (see above). They’re also mostly incredibly flat characters, even for the genre. There are some standouts: I like Sei’s magic teacher Yuri, who has a great design and the attention span of a hamster. She also has female friends in the form of Elizabeth, your standard hair drills ojou type (these characters are always named Elizabeth) and later Aira, but these two receive little screen time. Aira in particular feels like a missed opportunity, basically exiting the plot after it becomes clear that Sei is the real protagonist. The manga adaptation actually has a spinoff starring Aira titled The Saint's Magic Power Is Omnipotent: The Other Saint, something I hope might be in the cards for the anime as well considering they bothered to cast another pretty significant name for her in Ichinose Kana (Suletta Mercury, Sousou no Frieren’s Fern, the Tuesday part of Carole & Tuesday).

Unfortunately, one of the flattest characters in the cast is Albert, Sei's main love interest. He’s voiced by another heavyweight in Sakurai Takahito (Jujutsu Kaisen’s Geto Suguru, Taki Noboru from Sound! Euphonium, Cloud Strife from those games with Cloud Strife in them), who does his best, but there’s little to do. Albert is the good looking knight-commander of his kingdom's Third Order of Knights. His personality is that he's a good looking knight. I call these characters Budget Tuxedo Masks. You can find one in just about every B grade anime with a female protagonist. They're usually some form of knight or royalty or both, they almost always have blue eyes and either black or blonde hair, and they exist solely to say chivalrous lines, be in love with the main character, and occasionally fight a dragon or something for as long as the budget will allow. This is not at all different from western het-female-targeted romance where the male lead is usually some awful variation on either Mister Darcy or Edward Cullen, but it’s still very funny.

Now featuring the Mamoru Everywhere System

A bit frustratingly considering how little there is to him, Sei and Albert's romance is also pretty well written for the type of show that this is. A lot of time is spent on the two of them agonizing over each other and on Sei’s feelings in particular, eventually becoming the focus of most of the show's second season and reaching a satisfying resolution by the end of it. Here Sakurai’s voice acting does shine—even if Albert has absolutely nothing else going on inside his head, you do believe that he REALLY loves Sei. Ultimately, I don't really hold Albert's flatness against him. He does just enough, and Sei carries the rest fine on her own. It’s okay for a pretty bimbo to be the love interest now and then. Isekai is about wish fulfillment, after all.

And that's more or less all there is to say about The Saint’s Magic Power is Omnipotent. It has a predictable but gracefully handled story with a fun premise and a focus on cozy wish fulfillment. Its extended cast exist pretty much solely to fill their roles in the story, but they fill them acceptably; and the main character is a cut above. I'll spare just a moment more for the art: firmly B grade, but with solid designs, a good sense of humor to accommodate Sei's more comedic moments, and enough budget saved up to go higher resolution for the important moments. It's Fine and pretty when it needs to be. Most isekais don't try to be anything but mass produced, but through skill of execution and a great main character, The Saint’s Magic Power is Omnipotent aspires to a little bit more. I wouldn't mind watching more of this—they should make that spinoff.

#anime #review #The Saint's Magic Power is Omnipotent #TSMPIO #shojo anime

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talenlee · 2 years ago

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Story Pile: My Next Life As A Villainess: All Routes Lead To Doom!

This year has reminded me of something I truly, truly love about anime as a genre: You get a self-contained story idea, usually something with a bunch of familiar anchors, and then says ‘okay, now here’s the idea we’re working with in this space.’ You get useful, familiar tools for telling a story (so you don’t need to reinvent the wheel to communicate ideas), and then that lets the story highlight what parts of it stand apart from the standard patterns.

Here’s your standard template: an anime that tells the story that plays out in your typical otome game dating sim, where the characters are divided easily into ‘the ones you want to have sexy stories with’ and ‘the ones who are rivals or hindrances to your sexy stories,’ set in a magical mid-fantasy kingdom where you get fancy outfits, princesses and magical colleges, but also there’s no conspicuous mention of plague or weird pooping habits. Then, there’s the also-standard form of it being a story focusing on a single individual who is from our world, an isekai story, or if you’re familiar with the Christian media space, Narnia-likes.

Here’s your twist: The world she’s in now is the world of a videogame she played when she was in our world, she knows how this type of game works, like the things that signal you’re on the wrong track, but she’s not in the role of the hero of the story like when she played it.

She’s the villainess.

And the villainess, in all the routes of the games, is screwed.

Our heroine villainess in this story is one Catarina Claes, a haughty, superior mean girl archetype, usually popular in this kind of game because the players want her to step on them of how her awful behaviour enables dramatic scenes. After all, if your hunky boy dream rescues you from a mean bully, that bully had better be actually mean to raise the stakes. Catarina is at the centre of a whole web of relationships in the magical academy, as she is a good student, rich, and has a lot of social importance, being the daughter of a duke, and being engaged to an Important Hunk as this genre represents them.

She is also, now, in this version of the story, a Japanese schoolgirl who played this game and absolutely does not want to be killed to death because of a stupid misunderstanding about dating boys. Beginning at age eight (when she first discovers her past life, thanks to an absolute cracker of a head injury) Catarina dedicates her life to the task of Not Dying by doing everything in her power, strategically, to prepare for all the possible outcomes that could befall her. This includes swordfighting lessons, magical study, learning how to farm and make her own food, searching for weaknesses from people she knows will be a danger to her later, and then, most importantly, not being a massive asshole to everyone around her.

Now, if you’ve played this genre of game, you might have wondered about how terribly the dialogue options forced you into being some varity of dickhead, and have the followup thought of: Man, imagine if someone who was just basically nice showed up here? Yeah, that’s what Catarina does, and the result twists the whole story around her new role, despite her prior positioning, all preparing for the moment the ‘hero’ of the game comes along.

That’s your basics, whatever, that’s kind of all covered in the pitch. Why did I like this, specifically, why did I find this series on a whole so engaging and why do I like Catarina so much? Sure, it’s an anime that tells a story through the medium of games, but that’s common enough, the only thing this does that separates it from those other anime is this one’s not awful about it. Seriously, there’s no appearance of characters pulling up RPG menus and god damn if that didn’t thrill me when I realised it. Nonetheless, that’s more avoiding negative marks, let’s talk about positives. There are, in my mind, three basic things that to recommend Very Long Title I’m Not Going To Copy-Paste Right Now.

First of all, it’s funny. One of the most damning things for me when it comes to romantic comedies — an exhausting genre that’s been the spine of whole time slots for my entire life — is that it’s not actually very funny. A lot of the time, comedy in that genre relies on delivery from characters, and not actually anything that happens in the type of story it is that generates humour. It’s about characters being embarrassed or humiliated or it’s about a character having witty dialogue, and those things can be removed from romantic narratives. I dunno, it feels like this is a genre that doesn’t tend to work with itself; it’s more ‘thing A, while being thing B.’

Second of all, and this is a big part of how it’s funny, Catarina is an idiot. Oh, she’s not stupid: she’s focused on her task, hard-working, charming, sweet, and emotionally sensitive. When presented with a social strata of aloof nobility, she differentiates herself by being, well, a normal gamer gremlin girl trying to solve for a game’s outputs, and that means a lot of astute planning and note-taking, but also, eating food with her hands off the ground and not noticing when she’s demolished an entire basket of muffins. These planning experiences, rather than having her internally monologue extensively, are done by showing five chibi versions of her in a little mind palace display negotiating what they think is the best course of action, and one of them is a self-important type with a fake mustache and I find that very funny, of its own.

Hang on, you may say, if Catarina is smart and inclined to plan, and kind, how is she an idiot? Because,

Third of all, god damnit, Catarina is a bisexual casanova who hasn’t noticed the sheer scope of her kingdom. Every single major character in the game and a few minor ones all wind up caught in her orbit. Sure, one of them was going to be engaged to her anyway, but in the game, he maintained that relationship to avoid any other inconvenient engagements and he didn’t actually like Catarina. In this case, Catarina’s swerve into being the best little gremlin meant he grew up finding himself attracted to her, and so to for all the other characters that the heroine is meant to be picking from.

The thing is, she doesn’t stop there, because each of those boys has a love interest who’s designed to be a barrier for the heroine of the game, as well, and Catarina manages to seduce each of them by sharing common interests and being the coolest girl they know growing up and showing them care and attention and sharing books with them that are definitely gay porn, and then when the heroine of the game shows up, Catarina’s plan to Not Die to her makes this otome-game leading marshmallow girl into another one of the Claes Of Sixty Nine.

Everyone wants Catarina, and Catarina is so focused on not dying she doesn’t realise it.

This is an anime focusing on a kind of game that I normally find dreadfully difficult to play, because they often rely on arch character types and uh, way too much handsiness from dudes who are garbage. The otome genre is populated by a lot of games that rely on pleasant aesthetics and sometimes untranslatable complications, which means that the behaviour of characters can seem incomprehensible to me, a person who’s not already heavily invested in their space.

I find it very funny to appreciate the way that, yes, actually, if you wrote characters that behaved like characters and weren’t fixated on a limited number of possible solutions (that meant the writers aren’t under a huge burden), and if you can recognise that bisexuality and polygamy exist, actually, a lot of these dumb games about silly narratives are very easy to resolve in an uncomplicated way.

I thought this series was an absolute corker. Season 1 is a lot stronger, where it focuses on the actual challenge of getting away from the narrative inevitability of dying, but Season 2 has a lot of great moments of Catarina being an absolutely perfect goblin. Season 2 does also focus a lot more on resolving some of these things, and introducing more of that otome game fanservice, which I found less interesting.

This is the series that introduced me to the term bakadere, and I love it.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

#Media #StoryPile

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my-queer-collection · 4 years ago

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Light Novel: I’m in Love with the Villainess

Ordinary office worker Oohashi Rei wakes up in the body of the protagonist of her favorite otome game, Revolution. To her delight, the first person to greet her is also her favorite character, Claire François–the main antagonist of the story! Now, Rei is determined to romance Claire instead of the game’s male leads. But how will her villainous lady love react to this new courtship?!

Title: I'm In Love With The Villainess

Writer: Inori

Artist: Hanagata

Publisher: Seven Seas Entertainment

Format: Digital/Print

Steam Level: Not Steamy

Status: Ongoing

Book 1: https://www.rightstufanime.com/Im-in-Love-with-the-Villainess-Novel-Volume-1

Book 2: https://www.rightstufanime.com/Im-in-Love-with-the-Villainess-Novel-Volume-2

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

If there was a way to give a higher recommendation I absolutely would, I loved it that much. This series is ongoing (to at least volume 4 so far) though these two volumes make a complete story arc. I haven’t read an Isekai story before and now can understand why they’re so popular, it was a bunch of fun. According to Wikipedia, isekai is “a genre of light novels, manga, anime and video games that revolve around a person from Earth who is transported to and has to survive in another world, such as a fantasy world, virtual world or parallel universe.” Revolution, the game Rae is transported to, is set in a fictional Europe but reading between the lines (and with a name like Claire François as the love interest) its setting is a fictional France and the French Revolution. The characters are super fun and I greatly enjoyed watching them change and grow. Normally, stories with political intrigue bore me to tears so this world fascinating me and keeping me wanting to learn more was a big surprise. How the world is explained was well done, not at all feeling like a tedious info dump, just what you need to know a bit at a time stacked on what you have already learned. I really loved that Rae’s deep knowledge of this world is because she researched deeply into it to write fanfiction for Revolution. Who hasn’t done that? For the most part, first person narration annoys the heck out of me but this was a delight and the conversational, jokey tone didn’t go overboard. There is a mention of suicide in book two from Rae’s life on earth that is just heartbreaking though, thankfully, isn’t gone into detail. From what I’ve read, the original text does use honorifics like “-san” and “-sama” but those are changed in this translation to “Miss” and “Master” which absolutely makes sense in this setting of a fictional Europe.

After I finished reading, I wanted to immediately reread it to catch all the little hints of what is going on (and what will happen) that I completely missed. Inori tied everything together beautifully. One of my two biggest complaints is how little art is sprinkled in the books, there were so many amazing scenes I would have liked to have seen. The second thing is in book two, I could not get a grasp on how much time passed between the last chapter and the epilogue (though the special extra chapter helped with that.)

There was some controversy recently (March 2020) about a passage left out that explained and helped make Rae sympathetic. It is absolutely understandable why people are put off/uncomfortable with how Rae acts towards Claire, I took her over the top antics for what they were, Rae protecting herself and at the same time what an insecure Claire needed (no hiding and consistent feelings.)

Here is a very good post about it all: https://yurimother.com/post/646128158505041920/light-novel-im-in-love-with-the-villainess

It took me three days to read both books (I had to work one of those days or it would have been two), I could not put these down and I already preordered the next book. Do yourself a favor and get these books.

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rantheon · 5 years ago

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the bakarina anime is done! it’s just a drop in the ocean that is the otome isekai genre so these are some recs + what you need to know about them. i just listed most of my favs otherwise it’d be too long :p

in no particular order. includes some non-isekai ones too. needless to say most of these aren’t completed yet

my next life as a villainess: all routes lead to doom

using this to plug that there’s more bakarina content in the form of light novels, manga and 3 spin-offs

an observation record of my fiancee - a self-proclaimed villainess

told in the pov of prince cecil, whose fiancee bertia straight up tells him she’s a villainess of an otome game from her past life

if you ever wonder what jeord from bakarina might be thinking half the time, this is probably close. cecil is the same kind of prince who initially finds things bored and predictable until they met the mc

the things cecil would get up to for bertia? hoo boy

also the way the mangaka draws hair is addicting to look at

the villainess cecilia silvie doesn’t want to die so she decided to crossdress

the title speaks for itself~ after remembering an otome game she played in her past life, cecil (previously cecilia) is now the one capturing the hearts of the academy ladies instead

it’s fairly new so there’s not much of it yet :c but it’s pretty interesting

the original otome game had a whole rpg combat system going on and i’m hyped to see how it’s gonna lead the story

the Angelique vibes are strong in this one

the villainess wants to marry a commoner

isabella used to play an otome game in a past life, but she was really only interested in a side character named ursch. and then one day she finds him in her mansion garden

her past life self is such a mood - i too have 100% otome games in hopes of side characters getting hidden routes but alas

definitely deserves the ‘video game’ tag. isabella can see status screens and character stats/skills etc, and all the gacha rewards and grinding transferred over after her reincarnation. she’s the isekai female protag we’ve always wanted

seriously the main ship is too op for their own good aha

deathbound duke’s daughter

in a past life, erika only managed to finish 2.5/7 scenarios of an otome game thanks to an unlucky encounter with knife-kun. with the different flags of her impending doom approaching, she takes things into her own hands years before the game events start

very fantasy-oriented (the most on this list) and pretty action-packed, once you get past the game exposition in the first 3? chapters

the world building is brilliant, from the hafan mages to the aurelian alchemists, and there’s beasts and wands and spells and dnd stuff sprinkled in

the cast has quite interesting dynamics and interwoven plotlines, and they’re all dorky in their way :>

beware of the villainess

melissa remembers a novel from her past life and desperately tries to cut off contact with the male leads, but they still make her life hell & she rages

she’s just so done with everyone and you can’t help but relate to her

definitely the funniest on this list XD melissa and her reactions takes the cake but even the shit characters are hilarious in their own way

there’s also a lot of parodies to memes etc & best of all, there’s cussing. all the shits and fucks. a whole lot of it

it’s great

death is the only ending for the villainess

penelope wakes up as the villainess from a game she’d been playing in her past life, only right now it's on the hardest difficulty where death is literally everywhere. thus she tries, well, not dying

what’s cool about this is that penelope has access to the original game system. she can see menus, choice options etc. the male leads even have affection percentages floating above their heads :> which is always cool to see (and what i’m a sucker for)

but it’s definitely one of the darker ones on this list. iirc there’s depictions of violence, abuse, drugs and then some. just a fair warning

the daughter of albert house wishes for ruin

upon realizing that she’s the villainess from a past-life otome game, mary decides to stay as one. chaos ensues

i love this manga so much, everyone is so quirky and there’s something to laugh about on almost every page. the story almost feels self-aware of itself and just lets the characters do whatever. like ride bikes

addie is so cute ;o;

it’s definitely something everyone should experience

i’m a villainess daughter so i’m going to keep the last boss

one of the finished ones!

post-annulment, aileen pulls a Lisa Tepes and asks the demon king claude to marry her. he refuses. hijinks ensues

mostly on the fantasy side, as it builds on the world of the monsters

the cast is pretty fun! aileen’s smart, funny and pretty competent in her own right. plus she and claude are positively adorable together

milady just wants to relax

post-annulment, ronia decides to open a cafe in the countryside. it later becomes the frequent hangout of a beastmen mercenary group, who are intensely feared by the townsfolk

well... beastmen. that’s all you need to know /wink

okay, that aside, it’s just as chill as the title suggests. ronia slowly makes friends she can trust, and the beastmen find a second home in the only cafe that’s willing to accept them. it’s pretty wholesome

the banished villainess! living the leisurely life of a nun making revolutionary food

despite actively trying to change her ‘villainess from a past-life otome game’ fate since childhood, elizabeth gets annulled, her noble title stripped, and is sent to a church in a neighboring kingdom. she enjoys it more than expected, despite the appearance of the ever watchful leonid

there’s plenty of 21st-century food like sandwiches, cotton candy leonid’s muscles <3

the entire cast is lovable, and can chris get an f for all the heart attacks leonid keep giving him

seduce the villain’s father

yereninovica (or just yerenica) realizes that she’s in the world of a novel she read in her past life, but as the aunt of said novel’s mc. after thwarting a kidnapping that’s basically the mc’s origin story, she takes it upon herself to also prevent the tragic death of emperor belgoat

a bit different since it switches the roles around (side character x side character) and goes into the “parent generation” of the original work

there’s also an interesting bit where the world seems to recognize her as a hijacker, and where that takes her, we’ll see in due time :o:

plus the way yeni habitually calls him ‘father’ cracks me up every time

transferred to another world but i’m the savior of an otome game

after a ritual gone wrong, “yamada tarou” (fake name) is stuck in the world of an otome game. the only way back is with a magical ring, normally obtained after becoming the lover of one of the male leads. he of course says no i’m going adventuring but the game doesn’t like that

it’s absolutely hilarious - the leads treat our mc like a heroine, and there’s a lot of otome tropes that are called out on/parodied. like the seiyuus’ names oh my god

tarou’s reactions are great and his appraisal skill is the funniest thing alive

endo and kobayashi’s live commentary on the villainess

in modern japan, endo and kobayashi start their playthrough of an otome game, which becomes a bit glitchy and odd. they discover that siegward, a male lead in the game, can hear what they’re saying. they use this chance to finally give lisolette a happier ending

much of the story’s focus is on the characters slowly warming up to lisolette, and a bit on endo/kobayashi’s irl relationship. despite being the primary drive of the story, lisolette herself hardly moves the plot - if you know what i mean

regardless it’s undeniably adorable

tearmoon empire

no isekai, more of time travel? chronoskimming?

mia wakes up 10 years in the past after being sentenced to death. now afraid of guillotine-kun, she strives to solve the issues in her kingdom that had previously led to her doom

a bit similar to bakarina in terms of concept: avoid death flags, unknowingly recruits the people she meets into her little saintess cult. the misinterpretation is very strong, and in brilliantly funny ways

it has really fun narration ngl especially in the light novel

of course, i’ll claim palimony!

to prepare for her annulment, yulia starts scheming recording her fiance’s meetups with the heroine to use as evidence. if you’re gonna lose a suitor, might as well get some money out of it, right? along the way she gets involved with rudonik, one of the male leads

no reincarnation. rather than an otome game, the villainess story comes from a book written by a side character, and the “heroine” just decided to play it out in real life

the cast together is a riot, and it’s entertaining to watch yulia only think in profits and every connection she can make to achieve it

the villainess’ slow prison life began with her broken engagement

no isekai, just a plain old villainess

post-annulment, rachel is sentenced to imprisonment. which she enjoys and is thoroughly, hilariously prepared for

everyone’s a little afraid of rachel and for good reason. it’s better to find out yourself through the LN or manga, but let’s just say that even the king doesn’t want to deal with her XD

the holy grail of eris

now this one is interesting, putting the villainess trope into a mystery ghost story. that said, no isekai either

our innocent heroine constance attends a party and encounters scarlet, an executed villainess from ten years ago. a body possession and some public embarrassment later, they decide to team up to solve the mystery that might be behind scarlet’s death

i mean, ghost villainess? sign me up

+ some honorable mentions

i favor the villainess (the heroine goes for the villainess- girls? girls? yes)

a bellicose lady got reincarnated (a delinquent reincarnates as a heroine; what a concept :o unfortunately there’s not a lot of english content for it yet)

it seems i got reincarnated into a yandere otome game (i like that the mc actively makes it so that game can’t ever happen the way it should; plus, yanderes are always interesting to study)

inso’s law (modern isekai, and quite cute!)

the reincarnated young lady aims to be an adventurer / holy guardian tiger (similar to deathbound duke’s daughter in that there’s more of a focus on the fantasy aspect)

expecting to fall into ruin, i aim to become a blacksmith (so far the only one with a shounen tag that i like; its main charm is probably the cast and their interactions with each other eliza best girl)

since i’ve reincarnated as the villainess’ father i’ll shower my wife and daughter with love (big big wholesome vibes)

level 99 villainous daughter (severely op lady who takes no shit from the people looking down at her, and regularly thinks about blowing up the academy within the first 4 chapters? hell yeah)

may i please just ask one last thing? (post-annulment, the mc literally punches everyone in the room; it’s great)

this is getting long now oops

edit: i also made a visual-friendly personally-tagged-by-me bookshelf here!

#masterpost #otome isekai reviews #rip tags i'll just stick to the english titles #my next life as a villainess #an observation record of my fiancee - a self proclaimed villainess #the villainess cecilia silvie doesn’t want to die so she decided to crossdress #the villainess wants to marry a commoner #deathbound duke's daughter #beware of the villainess #death is the only ending for the villainess #the daughter of albert house wishes for ruin #i'm a villainess daughter so i'm going to keep the last boss #milady just wants to relax #the banished villainess! living the leisurely life of a nun making revolutionary food #seduce the villain's father #transferred to another world but i'm the savior of an otome game #endo and kobayashi's live commentary on the villainess #tearmoon empire #of course i'll claim palimony!#the villainess' slow prison life #the holy grail of eris #i favor the villainess #a bellicose lady got reincarnated #it seems i got reincarnated into a yandere otome game #inso's law #holy guardian tiger #expecting to fall into ruin i aim to become a blacksmith #since i've reincarnated as the villainess' father i'll shower my wife and daughter with love #level 99 villainess daughter #may i please just ask one last thing

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recentanimenews · 4 years ago

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FEATURE: Meet the Stars of Princess Connect Re:Dive

Going into Princess Connect! Re:Dive, I knew little about it other than the fact that it was an adaptation of a mobile game. That didn’t bode well; my experiences with video game adaptations have been less than positive.

Imagine my surprise, then, when it turned out to be hilarious. When a pair of ridiculous-looking wolves started dragging off our protagonist, I completely lost it. I found myself constantly laughing at the KONOSUBA-esque humor — it was only much later that I’d learn that Princess Connect and KONOSUBA shared the same director. It was also well-animated and delivered some impressive-looking action scenes and spell effects.

At the end of the day, however, this is a comedy anime through and through. And comedy anime live and die on the basis of their voice acting. Unsurprising, then, that Princess Connect features an all-star voice cast, with the actors from the mobile game reprising their roles in the anime. Let’s take a look at some of the talented voice actors that bring the characters of Princess Connect, both the game and the anime, to life.

Pecorine (M·A·O)

Mao Ichimichi, also known as M·A·O, is probably better known for her non-anime roles — she started off her career in tokusatsu (live-action often with heavy special effects), most notably playing Luka Millfy in Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger. She later ventured into anime voice acting. She voices the cheerful and energetic (and perpetually hungry) Pecorine in Princess Connect. She has also voiced Iris in Fire Force, Luluco in Space Patrol Luluco, Hondomachi in ID:Invaded, Vorona in Durarara, Bela in Bem, and Remi Ayasaki in the currently-airing Horimiya.

Kokkoro (Miku Ito)

This isn’t the first time Miku Ito has played a character named Kokoro, having played the character of the same name in the BanG Dream! franchise. Her most well-known role is probably that of her own namesake: Miku from The Quintessential Quintuplets. Her other roles include Shimamura from Adachi and Shimamura, Ann Akagi from Action Heroine Cheer Fruits (in which she starred alongside fellow Princess Connect actor M·A·O), and Nana Mifune in Gleipnir.

Karyl (Rika Tachibana)

Rika Tachibana has an extensive voice acting career in video games, featuring in such titles as Granblue Fantasy, Magia Record, The Idolmaster Cinderella Girls, Street Fighter V, and of course Princess Connect, where she plays Karyl. Tachibana’s anime voice acting roles include Sae Kobayakawa from The Idolmaster Cinderella Girls, Reiko from Shomin Sample, Naruse from The Island of Giant Insects — in which she starred alongside ... you guessed it ... M·A·O — and African Wild Dog from Kemono Friends.

Yuuki (Atsushi Abe)

Our main protagonist Yuuki may not say much, but Atsushi Abe manages to make whatever little he says absolutely hilarious. Abe garnered widespread recognition for his role as Touma Kamijou in A Certain Magical Index and its spinoffs. His other roles include Moritaka Mashiro in Bakuman, Koichi Sakakibara in Another, Takashi in B Gata H Kei, Akiyuki in Xam’d: Lost Memories, Soya in Planet With, Inojin Yamanaka in Boruto, and Sougo in IDOLISH7.

Kaiser Insight (Shouta Aoi)

It is not uncommon for female voice actors to voice male roles, especially younger characters. But male voice actors voicing female roles? Extremely rare. Shouta Aoi’s unique, “angelic” voice allows him to do so, with him voicing main Princess Connect villain Kaiser Insight. Aoi is better known as a singer, but he made his voice acting breakthrough as Ai Mikaze in Uta no Prince-sama. Since then, he has voiced Hideaki Tojo in Ace of the Diamond, Licht in The Royal Tutor, and will voice Subaru in the upcoming adaptation of Tokyo Babylon.

Maho (Maaya Uchida)

Maho is considered by the other Princess Connect characters to be slightly delusional, so of course she is voiced by Maaya Uchida, best-known as the voice of out-of-touch characters like Rikka from Love, Chunibyo, and Other Delusions and Ranko Kanzaki from The Idolmaster Cinderella Girls. Her non-delusional roles include Yoshioka from Blue Spring Ride, Norman from The Promised Neverland, Yuki Yoshino from Food Wars, and Catarina Claes from My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom.

Miyako (Sora Amamiya)

I mentioned earlier how Princess Connect feels incredibly KONOSUBA-esque, both in its setting and its sense of humor. Makes perfect sense, then, for it to feature the voice of Sora Amamiya, known for voicing “useless” goddess Aqua from KONOSUBA. Amamiya’s other notable roles include Elizabeth from The Seven Deadly Sins, Touka from Tokyo Ghoul, Akame from Akame ga Kill, Kaori from One Week Friends, Isla from Plastic Memories, and Asseylum from Aldnoah.Zero.

Hiyori (Nao Toyama)

Nao Toyama played her first major role as Kanon Nakagawa in The World God Only Knows, which kickstarted her music career. Many people also know her as Yui Yuigahama in My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU, or Chitoge Kirisaki in Nisekoi. However, the role for which I personally recognise her the most is as the quiet Rin Shima in Laid-Back Camp. Other major roles include Karen in KINMOZA!, Ruka in Rent-a-Girlfriend, and Nozomi in Sound! Euphonium.

Suzume (Aoi Yuki)

Aoi Yuki has been earning plaudits this season for her energetic portrayal of the titular spider in So I’m a Spider, So What? Yuki has had many significant voice roles over the years, including Madoka from Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Tanya in Saga of Tanya the Evil, Froppy in My Hero Academia, Tamaki in Fire Force, Diane in The Seven Deadly Sins, and Mami in Rent-a-Girlfriend.

Rei (Saori Hayami)

Saori Hayami is one of the most in-demand voice actors of recent times. She is known for portraying Yukino Yukinoshita in My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU, and received considerable praise for her performance as Shoko Nishimiya in A Silent Voice. Her other notable roles include Shirayuki in Snow White with the Red Hair, Shinobu in Demon Slayer, Tsuruko in AnoHana: The Flower We Saw That Day, Yumeko Jabami in Kakegurui, and Himawari in Boruto.

Jun (Ayako Kawasumi)

Jun is a classic knight in metal armor. And who better to voice a knight than Ayako Kawasumi, best known as the voice of Saber in various installments of the Fate franchise. Kawasumi is also a talented pianist, which explains her role as Nodame in Nodame Cantabile. Some of her other major roles include Fuu in Samurai Champloo, Erina Pendleton in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Alice in Pandora Hearts, Melfina in Outlaw Star, Natsuki in Initial D, and Lafiel in Crest of the Stars.

Io (Shizuka Ito)

Shizuka Ito won a “Best Actress in Supporting Roles” award at the 10th Seiyuu Awards for her performances as Meiko Shiraki in Prison School and Sailor Venus in Sailor Moon Crystal. Some of her other major performances are as Himawari in xxxHolic, Ran in Texhnolyze, Kaori Kanzaki in A Certain Magical Index, Boota and Darry in Gurren Lagann, Yayoi in Psycho-Pass, Rei Hasekura in Maria Watches Over Us, and Hinagiku in Hayate the Combat Butler.

Yui (Risa Taneda)

Risa Taneda is undoubtedly best known for her roles as Erina Nakiri in Food Wars and Kaori Miyazono in Your Lie in April. But to me, she will always be Saki from Shin Sekai Yori, where she delivered an excellent performance spanning many ages, and performed the first ending song too. Taneda’s other significant roles include Rize in Is the Order a Rabbit?, Mirai in Beyond the Boundary, Yukina in Strike the Blood, Ai Mizuno in Zombie Land Saga, Xenovia in High School DxD, and Yukari in YUYUSHIKI.

Labyrista (Miyuki Sawashiro)

Miyuki Sawashiro is one of the most prolific voice actors of all time. She first came to prominence as the voice of Puchiko in Di Gi Charat; she famously reprised the role in the English dub of Leave it to Piyoko, becoming the first anime voice actor to voice the same character in both sub and dub. A few of Sawashiro’s other major roles include Kurapika in Hunter x Hunter, Celty Sturluson in Durarara, Bishamon in Noragami, Fujiko Mine in recent installments of Lupin the Third, and Kanbaru in the Monogatari series.

Aoi (Kana Hanazawa)

Kana Hanazawa needs no introduction, being one of the most popular voice actors of our times. She rose to popularity as Nadeko in Bakemonogatari and its sequels, performing the iconic opening song “Renai Circulation.” Some of her other anime roles include Akane from Psycho-Pass, Mayuri from Steins;Gate, Angel from Angel Beats, Kosaki Onodera from Nisekoi, Hinata Kawamoto from March Comes in Like a Lion, Kuroneko from Oreimo, and Ichika from The Quintessential Quintuplets.

Who is your favorite Princess Connect voice actor? Let us know in the comments!

By: Manas B. Sharma

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

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masterhandss · 4 years ago

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Hamefura♪ Idol AU! (part 3)

Thank you so much to the people who have voiced their interest for this AU! I honestly wouldn’t have planned on writing any of this and just planned to keep it all in my head if no one asked :’’DD Special thanks to @ineedglassesalways for the song reqs for this one! please check her out she has amazing art!

Please bare in mind that my thoughts are an absolute mess and that what i’m talking about switches between Fortune Lover and Hamefura at the snap of a finger. Most info is the same, so just try to understand which i’m talking about while reading fjhgsdjhfg

(Also i’m gonna start calling this “My Next Life as an Idol?! All Routes lead to Doom!!!” or HameFura♪ now hgfjsdgf)

Directory: Hamefura♪ Part 1 - Fortune Lover || Hamefura♪ Part 2 - hamefura

Edit: I added a cut bc i’m starting to sympathize with the people who has to scroll passed all this gjshgf

Random Plot and World-building stuff

Sorcier Entertainment is the biggest entertainment business for the past 2 decades, bringing out and producing the best quality of idols, actors, models, composers, musicians, DJs etc. It is a parent company to a lot of branches and agencies.

Sorcier Pro. is the main sub-branch of SorEn, being the most popular agency for producing the current hit in the market, which are idols. There a few other agencies within SorEn, but they wont be important until later. Geoffrey Stuart is the president of Sorcier Entertainment, and is the overseer of the main idol branch (no one knows why though, probably bc his lil bros are there). Entertainment is such an important and prevalent part of Society that the combination of the Stuarts holding power of the the entertainment industry, as well as Mr. Stuart being the prime minister, they are truly considered to be the most influential family in the country, which is added by the fact that every member of the family is an outstanding and well-respect individual.

Sorcier Pro. has a variety of high quality facilities for their idols, and even had a dormitory where they can stay in. This was done for the sake of maximizing the idol’s work hours while giving them a comfortable and accessible place of rest. Not all idols are living in the dormitories, and is usually just housing the popular ones at the time.

All of the main characters (except Sirius, and Villainess!Katarina) are living in the dormitory during the events of the “game”. Nicol and Sophia has rooms there, but they usually return to their home because they are more comfortable there. Katarina and Keith also regularly visit their parents whenever they are free, so their stay is a 50/50. Maria doesn’t visit her mother often (as her house is too far from her private school and work) so she’s always at the dorms.

A lot of the well known powerful, political and celebrity families (that are the equivalent to “nobles” in this world) are collaborators and sponsors of the company, one of the main sponsors being the Claes Family.

I thought of just making the setting an “Idol Academy” like in Aikatsu! and EnStars!, but I though nah, that’s just too easy. Industry idols are much more interesting to me, and that plot works better for a “idol rhythm game/producer simulator”, specifically for what M.C. gets to do in the game (plus I was listening to IM@S when writing the first part so hgfsdjhfdgsj)

Most prestigious families has their kids be home-schooled, especially ones that are involved in the entertainment industry. This is so that they can focus on their career while they are still young. The exception to this was Maria, until she became an idol and had to take a hiatus from school as Sorcier Pro. expects her to focus on expanding her career. She takes supplementary classes on the weekends.

Katarina’s solo unit name in Fortune Lover is Nobelia (a combination of “nobilis or noble” and “lobelia”, the blue flower of malevolence or evil). She sometimes gets temporary teammates to join for tournaments and projects, but she is a solo idol.

So the units are Fortuna (Gerald, Keith, Alan and Nicol), Amour (Maria, Sophia, and Mary), Nobelia (Katarina solo), Picotee (Sophia solo), Marigold (Mary solo), Alcea (Maria solo), Regalis (Gerald and Alan), Edel Herz (Keith and Nicol).

The name’s origins being: Fortuna as the greek of ‘Fortune’, Amour as the french of ‘Love’, Picotee as the dual colored flower (that can be white and red), Marigold (bc obviously) as the flower of passion, Alcea from alcea rosea (the pink hollyhock, which almost means strength and healing), Regalis as a root word/synonym to royal/royalty, Edel Herz being just a google translate of “noble heart” in german teehee (pls appreciate all the googling I had to do dhfgsjhfdg yes it’s mostly flower names bc I have no originality)

yes i changed the names form my original post, don’t call me out asdfgh

Idols don’t really need a stage name if they are a solo idol, but most popular idols are associated with one so it just became a trend to have both stage names and unit names.

In the original game, Maria’s default stage name is “Cinderella”, which you can then change into the username or player name. This is so that Maria can keep her name while still giving the players a custom name.

Maria’s original stage name is a nod to a lot of things: the “Cindrella syndrome” that her character is based on, The name of Fortuna’s fans/fanbase (as most players really are a fan of the boys), and is also a reference to how you are the main love interest for the boys (as you are their true Cinderella)

Katarina doesn’t retain the same stage name “Nobelia” as Villainess!Katarina does, in fear that it might her more similar to her, leading her to a doom end. She doesn’t have a stage name, unlike her friends. Her fans would call her “Bakarina” online though, but she never finds out about it jhagjsfg

Fortuna is an all-around male idol unit, one that can take on different images and genres with ease. The image of the unit changes depending on which boy is the center/lead of the song:

With Gerald, the music focuses on the instrumentals or the orchestra, giving a royal or heavenly vibe. The songs have an emphasis on righteousness, the beauty of life and a prosperous future. The songs for the fans usually has a theme of “reminiscent love” or “looking forward to a future with their partner”. A good example of a unit center song for his is Genuine Revelation from EnStars, and Flower as a solo song from his VA

With Keith, the music becomes more mature. The songs have more seductive lyrics, and has an emphasis on “forbidden love” or “having a secret relationship” with the fans. The lyrics are usually innocent in nature, until you read in-between the lines. Sometimes, his center songs throw a curveball and becomes about a “pure and innocent love” or “longing to be loved”. A good example for his solo song is Gekkoujou no Aria from A3 (please listen to it, it’s by Keith’s VA and the lyrics screams “Keith”)

With Alan, the guitar, violin and piano take the center stage.The music usually has more instrumentals than lyrics. The songs are primarily about being one’s true self, loving who you are and looking back at the past. Friendship and Identity are common themes in his songs. Sometimes, his center songs would throw a curve ball and be about something like “not acknowledging one’s feelings until it is too late”. A good song that represents his usually themes is Bokura no Kizuna from A3

With Nicol, the music is more slow and deep. The songs are usually about self-conflict, self-development and change. His songs sometimes have a theme of having an extreme adoration for the fans, a love so strong that time nor age can make it falter. “Being the only one for him” is the theme of his more popular songs. A good example for his solo song is Sword and Soul from his very own VA!

Yeah, basically the image of the center idol is reflected in the performance.

I don’t have a full list of idol song recommendations yet, but my friend who i mentioned above already recommended a bunch of good duo songs for the boys!: (feel free to suggest stuff if you guys have any :DD)

Gerald/Keith - Es No Yutsu from A3

Keith/Nicol- Plastic Poker from A3

Alan/Nicol - Don't Cry from A3

In the original game, all four boys we’re scouted while the girls all auditioned to become idols. Now, since they are all close friends, Gerald was able to market the talents of his friends and was able to get them all scouted into Sorcier Production.

Fortuna has a producer before Maria, but by the beginning of the game, he had to leave due to health reasons, leading to the sudden application for a new producer. While many producers offered to take care of the boys alongside their other idols, Fortuna insisted that they want a new producer who would focus solely on them.

Mary and Sophia also have their own producers, but they are barely present because they are busy handing other idols (and eventually, will let go of Mary and Sophia once they decide that they want Maria to produce them)

While Fortuna, Mary and Sophia’s careers were able to skyrocket quickly do to their appeals and talents, Katarina’s career grew slowly compared to her friends. This is because, despite to protests of her Producer Anne, she usually takes smaller gigs in far away towns, malls and small live houses. This is because Katarina wanted to perform in front of people who can’t easily access or attend live performances outside of the internet, just like her own small town in her previous life. She knew how happy she’d feel if there was an idol performance near her area, so she wanted to share that joy to other people.

Katarina doesn’t join her friends in doing acting and modeling jobs until much later, when Maria joins their group.

Anne Shelley acts as Katarina’s fitness instructor, personal health manager, and producer. She was brought into Katarina’s life even before she regained her memories, only exclusively as a health manager recommended to the Claes Family. She ended up taking on more jobs that involves watching over Katarina as the years pass by, as the young girl started gaining more and more interests and hobbies. Katarina wonders how Anne is able to be qualified for so many jobs, but she just sums it up as Anne being amazing! (Katarina: I guess she’s kind of like a maid!... or a babysitter...) Anne was (somehow) able to become a producer in Sorcier Productions and was easily recommended for Katarina due to their history. Anne cares a lot about Katarina in her happiness, and will do anything to support her (both version of her, in fact), so much that she is willing to juggle so many careers in order to stay by her side.

Katarina has a small farm that she tends to in her free time (since she doesn’t get a lot of job offers in the first place) that is located in the garden grounds near the main office of Sorcier Pro. Her visitors/helpers differ each day, depending on who is available (and who intentionally made themselves available to make sure they can spend as much time as they can with Katarina)

While her friends constantly get fan mail, the delivery man is always wondering why Katarina always specifically gets a small light box. In reality, it’s packages sent by Tom the gardener, from the Claes Mansion, showing her all his new prototypes for the snake toy. While Katarina first started out as making them out of paper before deciding on buying them online, she knew her family would be suspicious and question why she’s making such a purchase, so she was surprised when Tom started joining her in making fake snakes, until the snakes started to look even more realistic than the plastic ones online!

Maria Campbell: A Girl Chosen by Destiny

Since “Maria” is an involved protagonist, she gets to keep her name in the game, with her idol alias being the “username”of the player

Just like in HameFura, the game doesn’t give much on Maria’s actual history.

The game does have an implied personality for her, being a kind and hardworking girl who puts all her focus on the task at hand. The game implies that she is also a bit introverted, with her personality becoming more open and outgoing as the game progresses (implied through the slight changes in dialogue choices).

She’s a bit of a country bumpkin who moved into the big city in order to experience the world outside her town. She was able to gain a scholarship to a school in the city, and moved alone to stay with her aunt from her father’s side.

Due to her father leaving the family when she was young to due to rumors that she might be the daughter of a different man, Maria’s relationship with her mother is still very strayed. Thanks to these rumors, her father left her and her mother when she was young, and her town heavily criticized the two for the adultery that her mother apparently committed. These rumors stemmed form the fact that even as a child, Maria was beautiful (with clear blue eyes and bright blonde hair, that are in contrast to her mother’s dull eyes and dull hair). While her mother was fare-faced, the appearance that Maria had was usually associated with celebrities or artists, making people believe that Maria didn’t come from her father. Despite Maria’s mother claiming that none of it was true, the rumors got so out of hand that Maria’s father became ashamed of his family, leading him to leave without a word.

In the beginning of the game, she stayed with an Aunt from her father’s side, on the condition that she somehow pays the bills by herself, leading her to want to get a job.

Maria saw the announcement of Sorcier Production being in need of new staff, so she applied quickly in order to start saving money. Thanks to a set of misunderstandings, she accidentally got the role as a producer, despite her lack of credentials (not knowing that she was the beginning of a big project of SorEn)

Maria is an extremely hardworking person, believing that if she worked hard enough, she will be one day rewarded with the love that she’s always dreamed of receiving. Fortune Lover makes you think that Maria is naturally able to produce 7 idols, but in reality, it’s at the expense of Maria overworking herself to the bone, with almost no time for herself at all. Sometimes she sleeps in her small desk office instead of the household that she’s paying the bills of, in order to maximize her work hours. She dedicates every second that she has on the four boys, so when they shower her with love and attention, she was able to easily fall in love with them as well (and sadly becomes dependent on their validation as a personal reward for her efforts).

A month before one of Fortuna’s biggest live performance (or a little bit after Maria joins them as their producer), Maria oversaw the training of another idol who came to her and ask for help (not knowing that she was just trying to get close to Maria to get close with the Fortuna boys). Maria helped her train her dancing and singing, and even memorized her choreography in order to critique her steps. She became too dedicated in helping that idol improve, thinking that the girl wanted to be friends with her. When the event happened, the female idol was hit with bad karma and injured her leg just as the live started, leaving her unable to perform. This causes an uproar among the staff, as the set list was too complicated to change in such short notice. Gerald, who is aware that Maria has been helping their colleague, encourages Maria to take her place since she knew the lyrics and the dance. Thanks to the encouragement of the boys, Maria debuts in front of a huge crowd, gaining instant popularity as the cinderella idol that saved the live event.

Most of Maria’s job as a producer in arranging the schedules of the boys, staying in contact with their costume designer, staying in contact with their personal composers and lyricists, sorting through job offers, keeping watch of their health, watching them while they practice and accompanying them in their jobs. When she isn’t there to accompany any of them, another producer temporarily takes her place.

As Maria’s popularity increases, she is given job offers that prevents her from focusing on being a producer. Since the boys are very fond of Maria, they are very encouraging of her desire to become an idol too, and offers to help support her and themselves moving forward.

The game itself doesn’t make the changes in Maria’s occupation obvious, since Maria’s idol life is only prevalent in the Idol Rhythm Game Mode, but in reality the increase in workload is slowly eating her up (not that she’d let anyone know that)

Maria, as an idol, gets constantly harassed by her peers (especially Katarina) for being a nobody idol who took the spotlight away from them, as well as for being a close ally to Fortuna. A lot of scenes in the story mode is the boys saving her from the harassment (leading to a lot of good CG art that are sold as posters :P)

Depending on whose romance route you are on, Mary and Sophia start out as very hostile towards Maria, as her existence takes away the attention that their loved ones were supposed to give to them. Sophia warms up the fastest, as Maria’s lack of hostility towards her makes both her and Nicol easily attached. Even after the three starts as unit as Amour, Mary’s relationship with maria is mostly professional, before she slowly warms up to her somewhere near the end of the Alan Romance Route. The three can be considered friends, but they still seemed more like colleagues in the eyes of other people.

When Katarina meets Maria, she was very surprised to know that the Maria she played as in the game was a more humane person than the game shows up (somehow who isn’t perfect in every way, and works hard and long to be able to provide for both herself and the four boys)

Their meeting and friendship bloomed in the same way as the Otome Game version (because i’m too lazy to jot down every minor difference hgfjsdgf), surprising Katarina that baking hobby that was just mentioned in text or used as a plot device is actually real and flourishing, and is something she actively supported Maria.

Due to Katarina’s slow popularity gain, and Maria being a novice idol, they usually took and accepted jobs together since they both needed a boost. Instead of the quick burst of popularity that Maria has in the game, this time she wants to take each step slowly with Katarina, with the desire for them to grow at the same time.

Since Katarina is now aware of the hardships that Maria must be facing as both a producer and an idol, this time Katarina and Anne often help Maria with her paperwork and organization. Whenever Maria isn’t there to follow Gerald, Keith, Alan or Nicol, Anne now takes over if she’s available or she’d recommend a colleague that she knows would assist the boys like a pro.

Katarina insists that Maria doesn’t have to shoulder all her burden alone, and that she has all their friends around to help her and support her as they do with each other. Katarina tells her that it’s okay to ask for help and even offers her hand constantly (wow, Katarina can easily carry all these boxes of documents? My hero~) and Maria takes this lesson to heart.

Even though Maria felt nervous about joining Katarina’s friend group so suddenly, which even includes the very idols that she’s meant to watch over, Katarina was very insistent that Maria’s wonderful and warming presence would let her blend in so easily (Katarina isn’t aware of how the relationships of the characters were like in the original game since she never finished). Maria is eventually able to become friends with everyone, and is easily able to hold conversations with Mary and Sophia without Katarina around. Maria is there to act as a straight man to Mary’s exaggerated attempts at hindering the boy’s time with Katarina, and Maria often acts as an ear to Mary’s gossips about other idols. Maria, while not an avid fan of novels as Sophia and Katarina, can still join conversations about books by asking details, recommendations and insights on books she’s already read. Maria can easily get along with the boys as well, since they are in each other’s presence most of the time due to her role. They don’t hesitate to help Maria whenever they can (despite her resistance), and she’s usually the one who stops the arguments between Gerald and Keith whenever they are in the middle of a job.

Since Katarina ended p being so attached to Maria, the boys sometimes takes advantage of Maria’s role as a producer to have her work instead of attending to the woman of their affections (of course they feel somewhat bad about it, but it’s better than watching them look so love-struck with each other!) but it ends up backfiring when Katarina lets go of all her activities in favor of assisting Maria with her job as a producer.

Whenever Maria is free, she insists on borrowing the small kitchen in the Office in order to use the small over to bake some pastries and treats for her friends. Katarina constantly endorses the amazingness of Maria’s sweets, and they are both happy whenever their friends compliments the results of Maria’s hard work.

Compared to her work schedule in the game, Maria can now work comfortably as both an idol and a producer, thanks to the support and help of her friends.

Sirius Dieke: The 5th Love Interest

Sirius Dieke is a non-payable character in Fortune Lover, who usually appears in Gerald and Nicol’s stories and side story events to explain things about the world and the past relationship of the characters.

He is another idol in Sorcier Pro, and is an old friend to Nicol.

In reality, he’s actually a hidden character within the game that can only be playable if you get a Friendship Ending in the first playthrough. Getting a neural ending is already super hard, so Sirius being playable wasn’t revealed until two months after the game initial release. The game is so good at hiding this fact that not even the dataminers were able to find evidence of his existence outside of being an NPC.

Getting a Sirius Route is only possible in the New Game+ Mode, with story events and side story events dedicated to him alone. He only comes with only one new song though, so people in forums usually don’t recommend going to the Sirius Route in the second playthrough (unless you’re a completionist dgjfd)

There’s also the fact that Sirius’ Route has a completely different tone than the rest of the game. The developers of the game planned on removing his route in their game update, but due to the outcry of his fans, they kept it in, and even included a payed DLC where you can instantly unlock his route on your first playthrough.

In Sirius’ Route, it’s revealed that he was the son of a former celebrity and one of his maids, and that his real name is Raphael Wolt. His mother quited her job just before he was born. They were ultimately hunted down by Mrs. Dieke, who refused to believe that her husband had a mistress.

Raphael and his mother were kidnapped by people payed by Mrs. Dieke, and as his mother begged for her to spare their lives, Mrs. Dieke’s plans were revealed: Her own son is ill and was slowly dying from an illness, and in her jealousy of Raphael’s strong physique and health, she has decided to take Raphael as her own son, as both him and her original son both looked like their fathers more than their mothers.

In front of his eyes, Raphael’s mother was murdered in cold blood and Raphael was left to suffer from various degrees of shock therapy and blunt forces to the head in order to forcefully induce amnesia without killing him. He wakes up in the hospital bed with no memories of who he is, and Mrs. Dieke graciously plays the part of a concerned mother who is visiting her own son in order to sell the idea that Raphael is her own.

In the background, a news headline states that a mother and son was found dead in an abandoned warehouse.

The doctor tells Mrs. Dieke that her son “Sirius” might not recover his memories, and despite the glee in her voice, Mrs. Dieke acts and pretends to be devastated by the news. Unbeknownst to both of them, Sirius did eventually regain his lost memories over time and realizes that the woman claiming to be his mother is in fact the very person who had killed his only family.

Sirius learns that the reason Mrs. Dieke is so insistent on having a son was to be able to nurture and create a new star that would dazzle the entertainment world, with hopes of being able to live vicariously through her son’s career and success. Feeling disgust and hatred towards the woman that he is now forced to call “mother”, he plans to enact his revenge by destroying the entertainment world from the inside, exposing its ugliness to the world.

Sirius ends up becoming an idol because of the encouragement of his “mother”, leading him to be affiliated with Nicol and Gerald. He had already met them when they were all young, and he even planned to have them as allies in his quest to destroy the entertainment industry, only to find them as disappointingly bright eyed teens when they reunited.

When Sirius finds out that it was the effect of Maria Campbell, their new producer, he decided to wage war against her for acting as a thorn to his perfect plans. It’s revealed that a lot of the bullying scenarios in the story mode was orchestrated by Sirius himself, in an attempt to get maria to lose her reputation and her job.

Maria was able to trace back all the incidents to him, and confront him alone in the Office at night, before he left to go home. Sirius laughed and admitted to all of his past and crimes, and mocked Maria for having no proof against him. Instead of condemning him, Maria hugs him while telling him to change his ways. Despite the violent ways that he tries to get Maria off him, she doesn’t let go, trying to convince him that his way of acting in correspondence to his grief is wrong. Sirius cries as Maria spoke sense into him and dissected the flaws in his grand plan, until only the sound of his crying is left in the cold and empty office that day.

In Hamefura, When Sirius finds out that this was the effect of the “saint” Katarina Claes, he had orchestrated various events that could lead Katarina to being condemned by the public through her supposed “bullying” of the public darling Maria. This plans fails, so he plans on using Maria as a form of blackmail to get Katarina to leave the entertainment world in exchange for her friend’s safety. Maria disappears for a few days, causing her friends to be very worried for her, especially Katarina who is somewhat aware of the events that were occurring. During the search, she was able to find Sirius and tried to engage in some small talk, until she remembered a detail that her old friend Acchan said about a dark and secret love interest. Without any thought, Katarina questioned Sirius about Maria’s disappearance, surprising him with her sudden awareness.

Sirius admits to his crimes, and before Katarina can escape, Sirius hit her on the head so she can lose consciousness, but not before screaming about how he hates her ignorant enthusiasm, how she changed his pawns and made them better people, and how he wont let her take his heart and change him as well before he could enact his revenge, with tears in his eyes. This act leads to Katarina going unconscious for a few days. In this come state, Katarina was able to gain information from her old friend Acchan that she can use to save Sirius and Maria.

In the abandoned warehouse where “he” and his mother supposedly died, Sirius has Maria locked up, with no plans of letting her escape until he can guarantee that Katarina is out of the picture. He is shocked to find out that Katarina and her friends were able to find both of them; he goes on a rampage about how he wants to destroy the Dieke family and everyone associated with them and the cruel world they have created, before the feeling of despair and fear for his future leads him to almost taking his own life as a final escape.

Katarina stops him, and tells him that both of them has no future, as a secret love interest and as a villainess, and how she can’t save him the way Maria can. But that if anything else, she can a least stay by his side and take some of the weight off his shoulders, like what her friends have been doing for her since the beginning. Katarina calls him by his real name, Raphael Wolt, leading him to unlocking the final memory that he had lost from his temporary amnesia:

A memory of his mother, in her final moments, telling Raphael that she will always be by his side, and that she wishes for him to have a happy future, even if it wouldn’t have her in it. Katarina’s words made him realize that this wasn’t what his mother would wanted for him, leading him to see the error of his ways.

In both versions, it ends with Sirius turning himself in and confessing to the crimes of both him and Mrs. Dieke, leading to both of their arrest and the return/resurface of the Wolt Family murder case investigation. Sirius’ contract with Sorcier Entertainment gets terminated, and heavy manipulation of the media was used in order to prevent the story from coming into light.

Since Raphael lacked any crimes that would have him arrested, he was set free and left the Dieke family as it slowly fell apart from the controversy. He announced that he wants to spend his freedom as himself, but will one day come back to all of them as a better person.

Without Katarina realizing it, Raphael confesses that his rampage was caused by his fear of his desires for her and her company, and that he was scared that if she continued to open her arms to him in such an easy-going and warm fashion, he would lose all his will to have his revenge on the entertainment industry. Much to the annoyance of Katarina and Raphael’s friends, he takes her hand and promises to come back, to stay by her side, like she had promised to him.

In the Raphael Ending, Maria and Raphael meets again years later as both were on the way to work. Maria has already left the entertainment business and had no plans of returning, while Raphael became a changed man with a good heart and a steady job. Eventually, Maria was able to fall in love with the good man that Raphael was always meant to be/has become, and Raphael was able to rekindle the love and affection that he felt for Maria when they were still idols together.

Raphael had declared that he will back, better than ever! As an idol? who knows :3c But where will he go from here...?

Fortune Lover 2/Fortune Lover Re:Dive

Spoilers for Volume 3 of Hamefura and beyond, since this is about FL2

I’ve had a bunch of ideas that I’d like for Fortune Lover 2, but I’m not really sure if I want to put it out there because it seems too fanfiction-y in a way?

I feel like my ideas are straying far away from the original version, which disappoints me in a way, but then again, My Idol Game version of Fortune Lover is nothing like the Otome Game counterpart, so I’ll still write about it.

If you like the premise for an Idol Game style Fortune Lover, then feel free to just absorb the content above because for (my version of) Fortune Lover 2 to happen, Katarina will still get her bad end: Public Humiliation and Self-Banishment. I’ll save how it happens in part 4

In Fortune Lover 2, there would be 3 new produce-able idols, but in My Next Life as an Idol, there will be 5 new idols:

this is what i meant when I said the plot is gonna feel like a fanfiction :DD

Fortune Lover 2 isn’t really a sequel, as it is like a bulkier and softly rewritten version of FL, like how Persona 3/4/5 remakes are to their original games.

FL2 introduces a new Idol Agency that is affiliated with Sorcier Entertainment: Mahouka Production (also known as MahoPro), a recently established talent agency created by a mysterious Director. Despite being new, they were able to quickly gain a following through the eccentric idols in their line-up.

With a longer story, halfway through the game you start being introduced to three new male idols: Sora Smith, Cyrus Lanchester and Dewey Percy. They are idols that are under MahoPro, who dislikes the idols of SorPro and claims to be their rivals.

They start out as rival characters in the game, taunting you (Maria) and the idols of Fortuna constantly for a few chapters. Some time after your initial introduction, you slowly get to know the boys, until you’re finally able to gain their trust. You can then start to secretly “produce” them without their Director knowing (just like Shika from IM@S Stella Stage), which leads to gaining events, scenes, idol clothes, songs and CGs of the three new boys.

As the new character gets introduced later into the story mode, they are more of an optional route, as the game still prioritizes the original 4 boys over the new cast. You can still “romance” the 3 new characters, but since they are introduced late, it can only be done at the expense of focusing on them almost exclusively during story events and side stories so that you can quickly gain Relationship Points for them.

So basically, halfway through the game, you have the option to produce 11 idols: Yourself (Maria), Gerald, Alan, Keith, Nicol, Mary, Sophia, Raphael, Sora, Dewey and Cyrus. The first 5 being obligatory, while the last 6 are optional

Rufus Smith (or “Sora”, as he reveals to you his real name during the story) is new idol in MahoPro who was able to quickly gain a female following due to his attractive figure and maxed-out sex appeal. Many compare him to Nicol Ascart due to the fact that he is slowly taking a lot of his jobs (or works alongside him at times) due to his handsome face. While both of them are handsome models, the public is aware that there is no point in pining the two against each other since their beauty works in different ways.

In the story (and as hinted in a few side story events), he was a slum rat who didn’t have much for himself. One day, he met a man who had join him and his fellow slum dwellers into their territory, a man by the name of David. The man was able to give Sora a new perspective on life, his new name, as well as how to sing. After David died, he wandered around the country, doing dirty jobs for shady adults for money. A few years later, we was caught singing in the streets by a man who offered to take care of him and cultivate him as an idol at the age of 13, complimenting him for his beauty and his singing. While Sora rejected the offer, the man’s words never left his mind. He started out by singing in the street for change, then getting singing jobs at cafes/live houses/restaurants for money, until he suddenly got a small following as an underground idol. The Director of MahoPro offers a place for Sora, alongside with giving him jobs as a full-fledged idol that can help him provide for himself, leading him to be affiliated with Sorcier Entertainment.

Sora starts out having a rather sarcastic relationship with Maria, thinking that she is one of the many women who throws themselves at him to get his attention. He always gives her back handed compliments as always has a vicious tone when speaking. As the story progresses, Sora realizes that Maria isn’t disgusted by his history, and realized that Maria is truly a good and kind person. Sora starts to unconsciously seek her out, trying to reverse the bad impression that he must have left on her and to be with someone who doesn’t look at him lowly, like the other adults and idols of SorEn who dislikes people that aren’t of celebrity-upbringing.

Dewey Percy is a young idol that auditioned for Sorcier Pro. and won, but was rejected at the last minute in favor of a less talented wannabe-idol who was related to a famous actor. The Director of MahoPro came to Dewey with an offer as an idol, acknowledging his talents in music and dancing that he evidently have been polishing for years. In his town, Dewey was known as a Music Prodigy, as he was talented in singing, dancing, acting and playing instruments, though that’s not to say that those weren’t the effects of his own hard work. Because his family wasn’t the absolute best financially, he decided to audition as an idol in order to get jobs despite being young.

Dewey is revealed to be somewhat of a childhood friend to Maria, as he lived in the same town as her. Despite this, he is very wary of her due to the bad impressions left on his by Sorcier Pro. after he almost lost his chance at becoming an idol. Dewey absolutely hated asking for help, even when it was draining him down. He is very desperate to keep his title as a music prodigy, even though he knows it’ll be drowned once he’s in a battlefield of idols. (Also he tries very desperately to be seen as a mature and hot idol, despite his youth and appearance giving him a cute one instead lol)

Maria realizes how hard Dewey is pushing himself, and convinces him over multiple instances that he doesn’t need to be hard on himself and suffer alone. Maria offers herself as a shoulder to lean on, making Dewey embarrassed but happy at the idea that he can finally have someone to rely on, and that he doesn’t need to be alone anymore. They were also able to bond about their similar upbringing, making Dewey feel at home in the arms of Maria despite being miles away from their town.

Cyrus Lanchester is an idol from a different agency, who was transferred to MahoPro by the time the events of the game began. He has a very strict personality, and is an overall perfectionist as an idol. He was let go from his original Agency because his strictness and tendency to scold his fellow idols caused his peers (who are a bunch of lazy and stuck up children of celebrities) to take him out because they didn’t vibe with his attitude. Before his original producer was able to tell him that he was done as an idol, the Director of MahoPro offered a place for him in their new agency.

While being grateful to the Director for taking him in, he does not hold back in letting everyone know about his distaste for their odd Director. While is he very talented as an idol, he is just using it as a chance to learn more about the industry and gain connections that he can use to be a part of it in the near future.

While he doesn’t start as wary of Maria as his fellow male idols, he insist on keeping distance with her due to the fact that they are of different agencies, as well as the fact that he is not good at dealing with women.

Notes

(I’ll have to rewrite Cyrus and Dewey’s descriptions after Volume 7 comes out, since I don’t have much to work with. I’ll add the Sora, Cyrus and Dewey endings in the edit as well.)

I know some part of Maria and Sirius’ backstory doesn’t make any sense but just use your imagination lol hgjgfjsfgd

More about Katarina, the silhouettes, the Director, and how it affects the story on the next part :DD my fingers really hurt from all this typing hgjsdgfjs

If ever i’m dissatisfied with what I have here and end up changing things, don’t be surprised jhfjshdgfs

Next Part is gonna be plot points that I want for this AU and a bit of FL2, so sorry if the next one might not be that exciting fsjhgfjsd

feedback and suggestions are very much appreciated! Thank you to the few people who are interested in this AU :DD

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metalandmagi · 4 years ago

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Summer 2020 Anime Worth Watching!

Apparently it’s time for the summer anime season, even though it feels like time is meaningless at this point. But somehow, there are still new shows coming out, so if you’re looking for something to watch when you’re stuck at home, here’s a list of the first impressions I got from this season. I don’t really know if it’s going to be worth it, considering how the spring season delayed so much, but here we are.

As always, not all of these are available on Crunchyroll, but I’ll put a * next to the ones that are.

And if you’re looking for a bit more variety, I have lists for 2019 and the rest of this year’s seasons too...because remember when there was good anime being released instead of just everything being an ecchi or a second season?

2019 master list

My master list for every season of 2020 anime

New Shows!

*The God of High School: An over the top action anime consisting of one big tournament arc! It follows a group of teenagers competing in the epic “god of high school” martial arts tournament to determine the best fighter in the country. Following in the footsteps of Tower of God, this is the newest “crunchyroll original” that is being adapted from a South Korean webcomic. You can tell from the first episode that this will be a spectacle with crazy characters and lots of wild action and humor!

Great Pretender: When a Japanese con man pickpockets the wrong person, he ends up hopping on a plane to Los Angeles and getting wrapped up in a scheme with a sassy Frenchman named Laurent...who basically runs the mafia. There’s humor, there’s plot, there’s great characters, and it’s kinda gay. It’s an exciting original anime from studio Wit, so the animation is bursting with character, and both the music and the general vibe remind me a lot of Baccano or even Lupin III. And since it takes place in America with several foreign characters, there's hilarious English and accent shenanigans abound! The bad news is it’s still in Netflix jail, so if you want to watch it legally you’re kinda stuck for now.

Japan Sinks 2020: A giant earthquake hits Japan, and a family must cope with the mayhem together. Because what the hell else could possibly go wrong this year? This is a new series (based on a novel) made by Masaaki Yuasa, the guy behind Ride Your Wave and Walk On Girl, if that tells you anything about the style of this anime. I’ve only watched the first two episodes so far, but I heard it goes from being a gripping realistic disaster series to a balls to the wall adventure. To be honest, disaster shows/movies freak me out, and this one is pretty devastating so far, which is a testament to how well it's made. But I appreciate that they include glimmers of hope when they’re needed. The best moments are the quiet ones that focus on the actual people and the narration that juxtaposes the time periods. There’s so much atmosphere, and the music really enhances the experience. And it’s all out on Netflix now, with a dub and a sub!

Deca-Dence: When humanity has been pushed to the edge of extinction by monsters called the Gadoll, the rest of civilization is forced to live in enormous mobile fortresses and send groups out to battle the unknown monsters. So basically like Mortal Engines but the fortresses can turn themselves into giant fists and punch the monsters. We follow a girl named Natsume who wants to be one of the soldiers who fight the Gadoll, but she is constantly rejected because of her prosthetic arm. So she ends up with five years of cleaning duty supervised by a stern but mysterious badass named Kaburagi. I honestly don’t care at all about the plot of the anime, because for me the characters are what drives everything, and these character dynamics are great. I’m not going to say it’s the most original story, but I think it’s fun so far.

*Rent-a-Girlfriend: A typical harem/romance anime that follows the world’s most annoying protagonist named Kazuya. After Kazuya is dumped by his first girlfriend, he seeks out a rental girlfriend out of self pity….BECAUSE APPARENTLY THAT’S A REAL SERVICE THAT EXISTS IN JAPAN?! Like you can actually rent moms/dads/girlfriends/boyfriends and so on. Anyway, his fake girlfriend is the picture of anime waifu perfection...until Kazuya starts being his typical asshole self and she reveals her true nature of being an absolute sass master who don’t take no shit from no boring ass main character. Shenanigans happen and the two of them end up having to pretend they are in a real relationship. And I’m just calling it now...Kazuya’s grandma is the real best girl of the series. If you want a harem that’s actually funny and doesn’t mind roasting the protagonist, give this one a shot. Although I wish this were just a straight up romance instead of a harem because there is no way in hell that any girl, let alone more than one would want actually to date this guy.

Next Seasons and Continuations!

*Fruits Basket 2019 (Season 2): Thank goodness Fruits Basket wasn’t delayed or cancelled last season because sometimes I feel like it was the only thing getting me through the spring. I’ve ranted about how good it is enough by now. If it can’t brighten your year, then nothing will. Just watch it if you haven’t already.

*Re:ZERO-Starting Life in Another World (Season 2): Subaru is still trapped in another world, and he’s still as angsty as ever, but that’s not going to stop him from constantly putting himself through hell when he keeps dying horribly every time he needs to reset the timeline! There are mysterious new villains, nobody knows who Rem is (again) and I think there’s a plot somewhere under all the suffer porn. Seriously though, this show is pretty cool (even if I was two years late to the party). It’s one of the most interesting isekai anime I’ve ever seen, and it feels like it’s acting as a deconstruction of the genre, kinda like how Madoka Magica is for magical girl anime...both shows certainly have enough crying. The story is weird but interesting, the world building is cool, the villains (and sometimes the heroes) are batshit crazy to watch, and I like its moments of humor.

No Guns Life (season 2): The story of Juzo, the hard boiled detective who plays by his own rules continues in the second season of No Guns Life. In case you missed the first season, this is a mystery/action anime that feels like an old noir film had a cyberpunk baby. There’s underground conspiracies, there’s interesting side characters, and...oh yeah the main character has a gun for a head. That’s right. we came to see a bara detective with a literal gun for a face, but we stayed for the world building and mysterious plots!

*Fire Force (Season 2): I’m going to be honest here, I really didn’t know if I should include this one or not. I have a major love hate relationship with Fire Force, but I figured there may be other people out there who would like it more than I do. So in case you missed the first season, this show follows a group of firefighters who puts out fires caused by spontaneous combustion using a mixture of guns and super powers. It was created by Atsushi Ōkubo, aka the guy who made Soul Eater. So it’s bound to be amazing right?

Not necessarily. Strap in for this one lads.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed with this show overall. Its main characters just aren’t that interesting most of the time, it can’t decide on what kind of show it wants to be, and so much of it just dragged for a good part of the series. I don’t know if it was a problem of pacing or if the plot was just that uninteresting for a while. The first couple episodes set up a very unique plot, filled with intriguing moral dilemmas. And then it proceeded to abandon everything interesting in favor of badly timed fan-service. It just couldn’t strike the balance that Soul Eater had between its humor and its sincerity. If they wanted to make an ecchi show, they should have just made one instead of inserting the same overplayed scenarios into every episode. I don’t care if a show has fan-service as long as it fits the tone, or if it only has certain episodes dedicated to playing up the humor. But Fire Force has a habit of just inserting it wherever it wants regardless of what’s actually happening in the episode. Also, some of the humor revolves around one of the main female characters who has a really messed up self image because she’s slightly more muscular, and not a tiny delicate flower like some of the other girls. Not going to pretend that doesn’t bug me.

But that doesn’t mean there is nothing good about it! If there wasn’t, I wouldn’t have finished the first season, and I wouldn’t be including this one. So far, the second season has actually been funny because it made the first episode more like filler, instead of cramming in too much plot all at once. And to the surprise of no one, the animation is absolutely god tier. I wish it was being used for something other than clumsy fan-service, but it’s still really something to see. The world building is super creative and 100% my aesthetic, and there were a couple side characters I really loved later in the series (Benimaru). And I did like the twists and turns the series took later in the season when it actually focused on the conspiracy behind the fire force and the cult. When it follows the mysteries it sets up, it’s more fun to watch. Who would have thought?

TLDR: There’s good stuff and there’s bad stuff. This show is really something you have to watch for yourself to decide if it’s going to be worth it. I’m going to at least try the second season, because I want to see where this goes, but it’s on thin ice.

Honorable Mentions

Isekai edition! Both of these came out last season, but I hadn’t mentioned them when I made my spring list. But they’re both getting dubs now so I’m still counting them.

*My Next Life as a Villainess- All Routes Lead to Doom!: A twist on the isekai genre where our main protagonist wakes up as a character in her favorite otome game...only to find that she’s actually the bitchy rival side character who ends up either dead or exiled in every route of the game. So naturally she does everything she can to prevent this by becoming a sweet and caring supporting character...who inadvertently makes every single other character in the game fall in love with her. I ignored this show for the first few episodes because I need another isekai in the world like I need a hole in the head, but after hearing everyone rave about it, I caught up with it in no time. It’s a fun take on the otome game tropes, and it manages to be funny and sweet while not committing to any particular pairing.

*Ascendance of a Bookworm (Season 2): That’s right, it’s another isekai where an adult is reincarnated into the body of a child in a fantasy world. But this time, it’s a nerdy girl whose entire purpose in life revolves around reading books (can relate). However, when our main character Mine is thrust into this fantasy world, she quickly realizes that this particular fantasy setting is a little too...medieval for her tastes...meaning a family of commoners like hers would have no clue how to read and books are only meant for rich people or the church. So of course Mine has to figure out how to either get her hands on some books or make them herself. This is a super cute show that I waited a long time to finally watch, and since the second season is finally being dubbed I wanted to shout it out. It’s just a wholesome isekai version of Dr. Stone. There’s no real action, but it’s a relaxing watch if nothing else.

Well, there you have it. Hopefully nothing else gets delayed or cancelled because it’s pretty slim pickings as it is. And before anyone asks, I didn’t include GIBIATE because I thought it was a massive disappointment that somehow made a time travel horror anime plot boring. There’s also My Teen Romantic Comedy Snafu, but it’s been 5 years since I watched the other seasons and don’t remember anything about it. But there’s that too in case anyone is a fan of the series and didn’t know it got another season.

See you next season…if the world is still here by then?

#anime recommendations #2020 anime worth watching #ascendence of a bookworm #my next life as a villaines #fire force #no guns life #re:zero #fruits basket 2019 #fruits basket #rent-a-girlfriend #deca-dence #japan sinks 2020 #great pretender #the god of high school

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kiarcheo · 4 years ago

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Golden Crown and the Pink Menace

Catherine had known, intellectually, that her nemesis was a teenager, but it didn’t really sink in until the day their school called because her number was the only one on their emergency contact list.

Once again it’s almost 3500 words, so it’s easier, you can read it on ao3

A/N: I wrote this months ago and then forgot about it. I had some notes and plans to write more, but I don't think it's gonna happen anymore. I felt bad just leaving it in my folder forever so I decided to post it anyway. Hope you like it.

Heavily inspired by bethanythemartian's interpretation of this writing prompt

Catherine had known that she was young. Her so-called nemesis. Maybe it was some of her most athletic feats while escaping. How she was more active during holidays periods. The recklessness, which reminded her of her past nemesis, Green Phantom, and a time where Catherine had been younger too.

Now. That had been a true nemesis. Green Phantom had seemed to have two cornerstones in their villain career: environmental causes (hence the green part of the name) and antagonising Catherine’s heroic alter-ego. From making her look like a fool every time she failed to catch them (Catherine and everyone else, to her defence, hence the Phantom part) to leaving cheeky messages on the crime scenes, Green Phantom had been a pain in her ass up until the moment they suddenly disappeared.

Pink Menace was quite different. Catherine had not even realised there was a new player in the game, to be honest. Until some corporate bigwig had gone on a rant on live television questioning why the supposed protector of the city wasn’t doing anything to stop ‘this pink menace’. Next day everyone and their cousin was talking about the recent spree of attacks to very different types of businesses, the only common link being the perpetrator, who always seemed to wear some pink in her attire. And Catherine says ‘her’ because they have met and fought multiple times and she recognises a girl when she sees one, even in mask and costume, and not because of some kind of gender-stereotyping colours crap. Not that they were particularly good either. Good enough to hide her identity? Sure. But nothing more. She supposes that villains don’t really get sponsorships for that kind of thing.

So yes. Next day everyone was talking about Pink Menace and why Golden Crown wasn’t stopping her. Catherine isn’t sure what it is with monikers and colours. Not the name she would have chosen for herself but in their business you either proclaim your chosen name first or you’ll get stuck with whatever the media and the public decide to call you. And it seemed like both her and her nemesis made the same mistake. To be fair, Catherine knows she could have gotten something much worse, and a golden crown made a good symbol for merchandise at the very least. She was happy she hadn’t gotten stuck with some kind of animal, or worse, insect. Also she knows how to pick her battles, she made a career – a real life, no masks involved one – out of it. So she agreed with the sponsors. Yeah. It’s not a free for all, those things are regulated, you know? Not everyone can be a hero™. But some accountability in exchange for insurance (you never know when you’ll end up destroying something), financial support and protection of her anonymity seemed fair. Naturally she made sure that anything she signed was absolutely watertight.

Anyway. Back to the point. Pink Menace was obviously young. But Catherine thought she was college age at the very least. Maybe recently moved away from home. Surely her parents would have realised she was out all night doing crimes. Well, maybe not the crime part, but they would have known their child was staying out all night, right? Also, as mentioned before, more activity during holidays pointed towards her being a student.

So Catherine took it easy on her. Pulled her blows most of the time. Not to say that Pink Menace wasn’t good, she definitely could put up a fight. Catherine had more experience, but in a full-out fight? She wouldn’t be overly confident about winning. But they never came down to that.

So maybe Catherine let her go away easily, hesitated just that fraction of a second before making the jump, stopped to make sure that everyone else was fine (they always were) before continuing the pursuit and by then, Pink Menace had disappeared. And if she caught a flash of pink hair around the corner or up the fire exit stairs…nobody would know (but she kept thinking that she should really tell her to secure her hair better, because that’s a sure way to get identified and caught).

And if she was a bit laxer when Pink Menace’s target was one of Henry Tudor’s properties? Well, that just happened. Surely it wouldn’t hurt too much a man who called himself ‘the King’ (with the public going along with it). And it’s not like Golden Crown has personal matters to settle with him…now, Catherine might be a different story, but thank God for secret identities.

Of course, she couldn’t just let things go all the time. Accountability, like she said. Catherine thinks Pink Menace knows that too. So sometimes she’d escape abandoning her haul as if Golden Crown had stopped her. Catherine has her suspicions that they are mostly useless things and Pink Menace still kept whatever she actually broke into the buildings for. But she has no way to prove it nor any wish to do so. And Henry never publicly complained about it. Which on one side raised alarm bells, along with the fact that she has seen Pink Menace getting away with things that had not been included in the official report (perks of her real-life job). Why not admit that something had been stolen unless you shouldn’t have had it in the first place? On the other side, it was good for her because it left her good reputation intact…which is everything in the hero-ing business.

Also it’s not like Pink Menace was actually evil. Catherine would have classified her as a criminal rather than a villain. She always tried not to hurt people. Didn’t seem to have any grand plan besides robbing or destroying properties, mostly owned by Henry (or connected to him, she’d discover later). Media and public painted it as a rivalry, hailed Pink Menace as Golden Crown’s new nemesis after Green Phantom’s disappearance. And they got along with it. It was publicity and publicity brings money. For Golden Crown at least. It only made things harder for Pink Menace, but it’s not like they ask for the villain’s opinions in these cases. Still they had an unspoken agreement that it was for show. They both pulled their blows. Went easy on the other.

But, again, that’s not the point. The point is that Pink Menace was a villainess and Golden Crown’s nemesis. According to the press it was an all-consuming rivalry. In real life, Catherine didn’t exactly spend a lot of time thinking about it. She had a busy life. A busy double life. Superheroing doesn’t make you the big bucks. And while her real-life job gave her flexibility and freedom and, yes, money, it also gave her loads of responsibilities. In short, she got stuff going on.

So you can imagine the surprise when she got a call from a school. Saying that her ‘child’ had been taken to the hospital, nothing life-threatening, but needed to be picked up. The name they used was one of her identities. Yes, she has more than ones. Some more legal than others. She had her name changed…legally. She has a couple of identities associated with heroing…wouldn’t call them exactly legal, but they are sanctioned. But the one they called? Not connected to Golden Crown at all. She hasn’t used it in ages and she had almost forgot that she had even made it (that’s not to say that it wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny…she is nothing but careful and meticulous in what she does, always had been…with one big glaring exceptions that she tries not to think of). Anyway, she might have forgotten about it, but she was absolutely sure that she didn’t have any minor associated with it. And she certainly didn’t have a child in real life. It’s not like something you can forget until someone reminds you and you go ‘oh, yeah, I used to have one’.

She considered the possibility of it being a trap. But the identity was not associated to her hero alter-ego. Or to her real job, which also made her a fair share of enemies. The hospital seemed a weird location anyway.

So she went.

She wasn’t sure what she was expecting, considering the call she had gotten, but she was still surprised when she was shown to a room where a young girl, a teenager actually, immediately started to apologise as soon as she saw her. Saying that she had told them not to call her. A nurse interrupted the girl, explaining, probably not for the first time from the tone, that they couldn’t let her leave without her guardian signing her out.

It didn’t take long for Catherine to realise who the girl was. She didn’t know many teenagers, and those eyes were familiar. Perhaps surprising that she noticed that first as the pink hair were a dead giveaway.

As she was explained what happened and what medication and care the girl would need, all Catherine could think about was that she had hit a teenager. Less often and not as hard as she could have, but she still did it.

Catherine had a lot of questions, but she knew the hospital wasn’t the place to talk. So she signed her out. She had been prepared for a variety of scenarios, from being recognized and asked why she was using a fake name to being asked why she was picking up a random kid…but she didn’t need any of it. Apparently if you share the same last name and look old enough to be her mother (albeit a young one, Catherine would like to think), nobody asks questions.

They got out, Katherine trailing meekly behind her. Got in the car and started driving. The car was silent. Catherine was trying to reconcile the fact that not too long ago they were fighting on a roof and now she had her ‘nemesis’ in her car after springing her out from the hospital…her very teenage girl nemesis. Someone who had been a child not too long ago.

She found a spot and parked. She didn’t want to have the conversation while driving. She checked around. She wanted to be sure that they’d have privacy, but she didn’t want to come across as creepy…let’s take the teenager to a secluded spot and ‘talk’ kind of creepy.

‘So…Katherine, right?’ Catherine had been surprised that a supposed mother-daughter duo sharing a name, well, almost, didn’t raise any eyebrow…but better for her.

The girl nods.

Questions whirred around her head, but she settled on the two main ones. How did she know that name? And why did she give it?

‘I’m pretty good with computer stuff,’ the first words Katherine had uttered besides the panicky apologies at the hospital were soft-spoken. ‘And I needed an emergency contact for school.’ She chanced a glance at Catherine. ‘You’re, like, good. You’re a hero. And you’re a good person even in real life.’

Right, she knows about her identity because she is good with computers. Catherine would worry about that later, but she had a more pressing question. ‘What about your parents? Family?’ She’d understand if she had gotten hurt while out as Pink Menace, not wanting them to know about her…uhm, mostly nocturnal activities. But she got hurt at school. Surely that would make more sense.

She almost wished she hadn’t asked as Katherine unravelled her tale. How she had been the youngest of ten children, with her mom dying when she was around 5 and her father never really caring much for her. How when she was 13 her siblings’ music teacher offered to teach her too. Her dad didn’t want because he didn’t deem her worthy of spending money on but caved when Henry Mannox said he didn’t have to pay. So she started taking music lessons and she loved them…until she discovered that her dad didn’t have to pay, but she did…and not with money. How she went to her father and was told she was ungrateful and lying, an attention-seeking brat. How she was sent away and the same thing happened with her step-grandma’s secretary, and once again she was not believed. She was told she had been asking for it. Katherine had protested, saying she wasn’t. That she’d never ask for a man’s attention because she was a lesbian. She was kicked out. Her dad hadn’t wanted to do anything with her, her siblings following suit.

Catherine would have been worried about the strangely unemotional way she was telling her story (maybe the meds she was on were making her a bit loopy?), but she was too busy trying to remind herself that she couldn’t kill people. Both her lives depended on her reputation as one of the good ones, and good ones don’t kill, even child-abusive, homophobic assholes (or do they?). And how could anyone ever think that she could be a villain, the same girl admitting that she would feel guilty at pickpocketing and stealing even if she needed it to survive because she was 14 and homeless??

Katherine went on, seemingly ignoring Catherine’s turmoil. Talking about how she realised she didn’t feel as guilty if she was stealing from assholes. How she escalated from pickpocketing those who were rude to waitresses and homeless people to following those of them who were obviously rich to their houses and breaking in. How she got quite good with lock picking and acrobatics and security systems.

And then through her school, because yes, she still had that going on too, she got an internship at one of Henry Tudor’s firms. She thought it was the occasion of a lifetime. A chance to change ‘career’, to stop stealing because she would get some money while getting experience that would hopefully help her getting a job after school. Except he was just like the others.

‘How old were you?’ Catherine croaked out. She didn’t know why she was asking. She had seen the date of birth when she signed the girl out. There was no good answer. Every time she thought Henry couldn’t get any worse, he always managed to surpass even her worst expectations.

‘Almost 16.’

That was also around the time Pink Menace appeared. Katherine nodded. She couldn’t speak up. She knew that. If her own family didn’t believe her, what chances did she have against ‘the king’ of the city? He would completely destroy her and any hope for a better future that she still held. But she could get revenge. In a way. Do something, at least. During her internship she heard things. People would talk…and well, she was just a stupid pretty little thing, wasn’t she?

Catherine ended up driving Katherine home. If you could call that so. The girl could see it written on her face, apparently, because as they climbed the stairs, and wow, Catherine didn’t even want to start thinking about what was on the walls, on the steps, on the…well, everything. She just made sure to avoid even brushing against anything at all. No questions nor documents asked costed, Katherine calmly stated, while Catherine was playing a ‘everything is lava’ extreme version game.

‘What about your…extra-curricular activities?’

Katherine locked the door before answering. It was not like she could sell Henry’s secrets. Well. She could, obviously. But who could tell her that they wouldn’t end up in even worse hands? Not for the first time Catherine wondered exactly what he was involved with, because Katherine made it sound way bigger and way worse than just industrial secrets. And that would mean the dark net, Katherine continued, and there was always an element of danger in it, even more with what she would be dealing with, and she had enough to deal with at the moment, thank you very much. She was trying to graduate school, save the world and trying not to die in the process.

So yeah, what little money she actually made was mostly for rent. Food.

‘Can I offer you something? I have,’ Katherine opened the fridge. ‘Water, and-,’ she sniffed the milk, grimaced, and threw it out. ‘Water. Sorry.’

Not a lot of it, from the pitiful state of her fridge.

‘Don’t take it wrong, but what are you doing?’ Catherine interrupted her. ‘Why are telling me all of this?’

‘I was hoping that you also wouldn’t want to let Henry get away with it, because, you know…’ Right. The girl knows her real identity too. ‘I can give you what I have on him so while I’m in jail-’

‘Wait, jail? You took me to your place thinking I would send you to jail?!? What kind of person do you think– you know what? Don’t answer that.’ Catherine looked at the girl. At the bare flat. At the hard drives that she had taken out from what had seemed an empty cupboard. ‘I’m not taking you to the police…but I’m taking you home with me.’

‘What?’

‘You heard what the doctors said. How would you even do some of that by yourself?’ Some of the instructions definitely required a second pair of hands.

‘Like I did before.’ Kat shrugs, absolutely unfazed.

As if Catherine needed a reminder, thank you very much. She hadn’t stopped thinking about it. Like that time that she knew for sure she was hurt, because she had been slower in evading her hits, and she had stumbled away rather than the usually graceful exit…Henry had boosted the next day about his security team having managed to hit ‘the Pink Menace that was hassling him’. She couldn’t stop imagining her crawling to this hole, dealing with her injuries alone. And all the times her own blows landed? She had hit a 16-year-old girl?!? That will be forever on her conscience.

‘You don’t need to now. I want to help.’

Suspicion was clear on Katherine’s face. Like she was trying to figure out why Catherine would want to help her. Fair enough, considering her experience with adults. Which made her accepting all the more important. Half-hearted protests finally petered out, a sliver of relief that someone was willing to take care of her shining through despite Katherine’s best efforts to keep a neutral face.

Catherine could help being touched by the trust Katherine was showing her, as the girl collected what she wanted to bring with her. Some clothes. School stuff. Technology…quite impressive, but ‘Can’t hack or do corporate espionage on school computers!’.

‘Is this…?’ Catherine was trying to give her some privacy, but her eyes had fallen upon a familiar choker.

‘Voice modifier? Yeah. I had just started when I stumbled upon a…hideout? It was full of gadget and stuff, and well, I took some.’ Catherine knew it reminded her of something! Green Phantom also wore a choker, albeit it was…well, green and not pink. ‘I left most of the weapons. No need to make an enemy out of the owner, you know. Also I never really wanted to hurt anybody, so…’

‘Is this everything?’

It wasn’t much, but Katherine nodded. ‘I don’t need much.’ She didn’t have much. ‘And I will be back soon anyway.’

Not if Catherine had a say in it. All the times she thought she didn’t have maternal instinct? Sure, she might have wished for children during her marriage, but she had been so happy not to have had them and she never revisited the topic after. So she thought that maybe she had ‘wanted’ them because it was expected. Because it was what she needed to have a perfect family. To keep him. But maybe she never actually wanted them. Maybe she just wasn’t made to be a parent.

Maybe she was wrong, Catherine mused weeks later watching Katherine setting up a veritable workstation in a corner of her home office. The girl had agreed to remain with her even after her injuries had healed. She also agreed that Pink Menace would take a backseat while she focused on school. With her previous ‘nemesis’ turned tech support, Golden Crown’s life was definitely easier and less busy. Which meant more time to devote to taking ‘the king’ down. And once he would be dealt with, Catherine would move onto every single person who had ever hurt Katherine.

So yeah. Maybe she was wrong. Because Catherine is pretty sure that she had basically adopted a teenager and it had been the best decision she had ever made in her life.

#catherine and katherine #six the musical #six the musical fanfiction #six fic #six catherine of aragon #six katherine howard #soft catherine of aragon #six fanfiction #six the musical fic #six writing #my six posts #mywork #six fanfic #six the musical fanfic #my ideas #my posts #six au #six the musical au #superhero au

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takeyourcritique · 5 years ago

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Makoto Niijima: Good Girl, Bad Writing.

In video games, movies, TV, and books, there are always characters who receive copious amounts of praise. In Persona 5, it is no different. Some characters deserve the hype they get, and some.. do not. In my humble opinion, Makoto Niijima falls into the latter category and in this essay I will explain why, as well as delve into what I as a writer would do to improve her character. Because this is not a hate meta, it is merely me articulating my issues with her character and getting my thoughts in order. (She has potential, it merely needs to be utilized and with P5R coming next year, a girl can hope.)

1. Underwhelming Design

The cast of Persona 5, in contrast to the casts before them, are vigilantes, a band of misfits if you will. The entire theme of the game is rebellion against society and fighting the norm, and the characters should reflect this in their design. The only exception is the protagonist himself because he's on probation and attempting to keep a low profile: that's why he follows the dress code to a tee and appears as gentle as possible, because he's already in enough trouble as is. The first party member, Ryuji, has been a rebel for a good amount of time: his hair is a stark blond (which Kawakami-sensei does not approve of) and he wears a very casual version of the school uniform; substituting a bright yellow shirt for the white of the uniform, wearing sneakers instead of dress shoes, and not wearing his suspenders (they're attached though, at the waist).

Ann Takamaki wears a white clover hoodie under her blazer, red leggings under her skirt, brown lace up boots, and earrings; not to mention her hair, while a natural blonde, is pulled back into cutesy pigtails almost like a teenage Harley Quinn. Yusuke doesn't even go to the same school, so his attire stands out in stark contrast with the main trio. Futaba dyes her hair red and she doesn't go to school at all due to severe anxiety; Haru wears a poofy pink sweater over her uniform with Mary Janes and polka dot tights. They all stick out like little sore thumbs. Except Makoto. She basically also follows the dress code, with a few subtle changes:

•She doesn't wear a blazer, instead wearing a black halter vest over her turtleneck

•Black tights

•Brown boots

That's literally it. Nothing about her stands out, and even in her casual clothing she wears a lot of whites and blacks. There's a monochromatic vibe to her, perhaps alluding to her strong sense of justice and distinction between right and wrong which in and of itself isn't bad! But it doesn't fit with the theme of the cast, Makoto fits in too much with the rest of the world to fit in with them. Just by looking at her, you cannot tell she's supposed to be part of the crew and in all honesty she'd fit better working with Akechi due to their very similar views of justice and morals. Hell, some NPCs are more vibrant design-wise than Makoto is.

2. Her Metaverse design, Persona and codename are contradictory.

Makoto's Persona, Johanna, is based most likely off Pope Joan, (after doing research online and reading Johanna's profile on SMT wiki it seemed the best fit) who was a woman that pretended to be a man in order to rise to power in an otherwise male-only role in the Catholic church. And while the story is intriguing, it doesn't fit Makoto at all: she never pretended to be what she was not and while she's "the voice of reason" she's not the leader of the team; Joker is. This makes her codename, "Queen", even more confusing. Nothing about her costume design looks regal whatsoever; it makes no sense. It feels like writer's favoritism, in all honesty. A better name would've been something more related to the fact that she looks like a biker/executionist hybrid; like "Crusher" or something of more..violent nature.

Even a name related to her wanting to go into the force would've worked well: Chief, Lieutenant, etc. Queen is nice, but it doesn't click with Makoto at all, unlike literally everyone else's Persona and codename. Ann's Persona, Carmen, is a femme fatale that kills men. Captain Kidd is a pirate, an iconic symbol of rebellion; Milady, Haru's Persona, is a reference to a villainess of the same name in the 3 Musketeers; Goemon was essentially a Japanese Robin Hood which fits Yusuke's entire kitsune/warrior aesthetic. Joker's Persona, Arsene, is a direct nod to Arsene Lupin; who was one of Sherlock's rivals and a gentleman thief who left calling cards to the people he robbed and a direct parallel to Akechi.

3. Her introduction as a whole, and to the team, is abysmal.

When Makoto is first introduced to the player, the entire school is in turmoil over Kamoshida's abusive actions towards the volleyball and track team. Many people don't know the truth about what's going on, and others simply turn a blind eye because as an Olympic medalist, the gym coach brings in a lot of popularity for the school. Being the student council president, Makoto has power that many other students do not have; so one would assume that upon learning that a victim was in danger she would spring into action, no?

Wrong.

When Ann confronts Makoto about her inaction, she turns the question back on the blonde, asking "What have YOU done for Shiho?" as if it's Ann's fault that Shiho had been jeopardized (which it was not, Ann allowed herself to be blackmailed by Kamoshida in order, so she thought, to protect her best and at the time, only friend). And she doesn't do anything about the situation, claiming that "It has nothing to do with me." (This is how abuse victims DIE.) Even worse, her elder sister is a prosecutor, she could've easily gone to Sae and asked her to look into the matter. Goro Akechi later calls her out on this, as he should; telling her that she is a "good-girl pushover". And when Kamoshida is punished for his crimes, Ann, who was bullied and outcast, goes to Makoto and apologizes to HER to make amends, as if she were wrong. Makoto then replies "We both made mistakes" in a sorry apology (she doesn't even say "I'm sorry" iirc), and asks if she can call Ann by her first name and without honorifics, which in Japan is a symbol of close friendship. (Edit: this apology actually takes place after Kaneshiro's arc, not Kamoshida's, I misremembered.)

You see, calling someone by their given name, even if you are the same age, has a ton of meaning in the culture. Just a year difference between two people can separate them as senpai and kouhai, and while the senpai can call their kouhai by their first name without raising any eyebrows it's not the same for the younger person. Calling someone by their given name in Japan is a privilege, not a right; it represents trust, respect, everything that Makoto and Ann did NOT have.

Now, let me get this straight.

Makoto did nothing when everybody called Ann Kamoshida's hoe, allowed her, Shiho, Akira, Ryuji and Mishima plus many others to suffer abuse (and Shiho attempted suicide!), gave a laughable apology, victim-blamed Ann; and now she wants to be buddy-buddy? What, in any reality, about that is okay? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. But of course, because the writers want us to love Makoto, they have Ann forgive her and let her call her by her first name. And after all that, Makoto is still president, despite her clear nonchalance to the matter. She also does nothing to help the Kamoshida victims after his crimes come to light, when there was literally no excuse anymore not to assist them and help them get back on their feet. Even if she felt powerless with Kamoshida around, that doesn't explain her inaction after he's gone.

Flash forward two Palaces later, when she joins the team. Makoto stalks the protagonist around to gather evidence that he is a Phantom Thief, and then blackmails her way into the ranks. The team of course, is not happy about this at all. Makoto gives them the target; Junya Kaneshiro, who's basically forcing people into debt. The problem here is she has literally no personal ties to him; unlike the main trio all having connections to Kamoshida and Yusuke being Madarame's essential foster son. Tired of Sae calling her useless, Makoto jumps in front of the mob boss's car in desperation (and Ryuji gets her out of the way JUST in time, but he very easily could've died) which puts the entire team in danger and later on is literally pinned down by the mob and the crew have to go and save her because she was so determined to take this dude down she walked into the lion's den without any form of a plan. (He was also going to sell her into prostution to pay off the debt he'd given the Thieves.)

Her Awakening is also really weak: the speech from Johanna is extremely short and then Makoto stomps the ground to avoid falling over, rips off her mask with a bunch of overdramatic screaming (iirc we don't even get to see blood) and whoop-di-doo, she's got a motorcycle! And suddenly, despite all she's done, everybody loves her and thinks she's a total badass when she literally just threw an adult-sized tantrum. The motorcycle itself is also very lazy, it's just a motorcycle with a face. That's it. That's Makoto's Persona. A motorcycle. With. A. Face.

And from then on, everybody's suddenly a-ok and buddy-buddy with Makoto. It's ridiculous and just makes her come off as a Mary Sue because if somebody endangered my life I sure as hell would not be rubbing shoulders with them and I'm quite sure most people feel the same way. And again, after all this, Makoto does not get in trouble or even harshly reprimanded by the school for her extremely reckless actions; when she should have, and had the power to, just call the police or Sae. And all the Thieves somehow are now her friends and she gets to become a superhero.

So let me see if I understand. This girl stalks these people, blackmails them and forces them to go after hardened criminals (she was going to snitch on them if they didn't comply to her demands), goes in guns blazing by HERSELF to attempt to take down the mob boss, has to be rescued..

And gets praised and dubbed a badass for this???

And before you accuse me of having bias against Makoto, let it be known I in no way, shape or form condone Yusuke stalking Ann or Futaba blackmailing the Thieves either. It's. Still. Wrong.

Also, if you unironically think Makoto's stalking is cute, you're wrong. Stalking is creepy, regardless if it's a girl or guy doing it; no one gets a pass.

In addition, Makoto couldn't be bothered to help out at school but then goes after a MOB BOSS and puts herself in unnecessary danger? What's up with that?? If she felt powerless against Kamoshida, why in the world would she take on the Yakuza?

4. Her backstory doesn't mesh well with the rest of the team.

The gang are all outcasts and misfits in one way or another, and their pasts are less than savory.

Protagonist: Falsely accused of assaulting a woman, expelled from school and sent to Tokyo on a year probation despite his innocence, victim of nasty rumors by other students at his new school; abused by his gym coach, no contact with parents.

Ryuji: Abusive, alcoholic father who beat him and llater left him and his mother, abused by his gym coach, leg broken by his gym coach and labeled as a delinquent because his coach lied and acted like Ryuji attacked him, thus alienating him from the track team and by extent; the entire school. Losing his track scholarship because he can't run anymore, ruining his academic career.

Ann: Two parent household but they're never home, leaving her with a caretaker. Faced bullying and isolation due to being biracial (she's a quarter American), only having one friend before joining the Phantom Thieves. Blackmailed by the gym coach and sexually harassed in order to keep this one friend on the volleyball team, labeled as a slut because no one took the time to find out the truth of the matter. Friend is later raped and attempts suicide, Ann attempts to get help from the student council president but is blamed herself for Shiho's predicament. Also judged just for her looks, which she despises.

Yusuke: Biological father died presumably before his birth, biological mother had a seizure and died due to his mentor's negligence. Said mentor then takes Yusuke, a very small child at this point in time, and raises him in isolation. Psychologically (and very likely emotionally) manipulated, Kitagawa grows up in an abusive household and when confronted with the truth, is unwilling to believe it is so (as many abusive victims realistically behave). Later learns the truth about his mother and his mentor's plagiarism and detaches himself from him, but is extremely socially awkward out of touch due to isolation and as a result is isolated at school because no one wants to talk to him.

Futaba: Was blamed for her mother's death (whom she lost at 13-14) and lived with an extremely abusive uncle who underfed her and didn't even let her bathe herself. Developed severe anxiety and became suicidally depressed for over a year, refusing to even come out of her room. Had a friend who was abused by her parents and upon finding out the two fell out and only reconciled years later through the Internet. Bullied in school for her intellect.

Haru: Lost her mother at a young age, engaged against her will to an emotionally abusive, selfish fiancé for the sake of her father's company. Has deep-rooted trust issues due to people being kind to her solely because of her status; or mean for the exact same reasons. Later on lost her father as well at the age of 17, leaving all the responsibility of the company to her as she was the sole heir.

Morgana: Has no memories of who, or what, he used to be and suffers existential crises; suffers from vivid nightmares. Puts up a façade of arrogance to hide insecurities.

Makoto: Mother died when younger, father died in the line of work, older sister forced to become caretaker and work her rear off to provide for the both of them. Pressured into perfection by Sae.

That's.. literally it. Yes, she has no friends at school, but that's by her choice; she isolates herself in her studies and as a result is socially awkward and doesn't know how to interact with people (which makes her even less suitable to be put into any type of leadership position so how she became student council president is beyond me.) Makoto's life is heaven compared to the other Thieves and most of her issues would go away once she gets to college: the rest of the team doesn't have that luxury. By the way, please don't think I'm saying she doesn't deserve to be on the team because she doesn't have as deep a sob story, I'm not saying that at all. It's just that her backstory isn't really utilized as well as it should be and often times conflict is used to try to get the player to feel sorry for her (i.e. Sae calling her useless)

5. Her Confidant is abysmal and cliché.

So Makoto's Confidant actually starts out not half bad! You take her out to play video games and help her come out of her shell initially. But then it shifts to Eiko, an old friend of hers, who is a bad relationship. And this is when the Confidant begins to suffer, because it's not even about Makoto anymore. The president tells Eiko about the danger she's in, and her old classmate does not listen; declaring that since the older girl does not have a boyfriend she couldn't possibly understand. This logic is very flawed; it's like telling a smoker to stop smoking and they tell you "You don't even smoke, you don't know how bad it is". Yet Makoto listens to Eiko and comes to you, the protagonist; and asks you to pretend to be her boyfriend in order to convince her friend that she DOES understand. But it's so awkward Eiko's boyfriend and the girl herself can tell you're not genuine. And you have to keep this up for the rest of the Confidant, not to mention MAX Charm is required from Rank 5 onward in this route. Why?

Because apparently you're not attractive enough otherwise. And it's not even for Makoto, it's for Eiko, to convince her that you're hot enough to compare to her boyfriend; Takase. (Geez, shallow and childish much?) And then at the end of the Confidant, the romance angle comes off as very odd because you're literally treated like an afterthought the entire time and then suddenly Makoto turns around and wants you as her actual boyfriend?? Uh..where was her falling for you during the time spent together? It just feels like it comes outta nowhere, not to mention she wants to be a cop which the law literally ruined Joker's life soooo why is he getting into a romantic relationship with someone who wants to be associated with a source of his trauma? That's like a metaphorical slap in his face.

"Hey, I know you were literally beaten and drugged up, manhandled, falsely accused and put into solitary confinement by the law enforcement, causing you to suffer severe anxiety and you to possibly be scarred forever but I wanna be a cop even though I don't think straight in stressful situations and act on impulse and don't take insults or criticism well; and I want you to stay by my side even though I blackmailed you, stalked you, and endangered your life and did nothing while you were being abused by your gym coach."

(Let's not forget she also didn't say anything about Sae having a Palace until it was almost too late and Joker almost lost Futaba as a result.)

For Valentine's Day she declares "I've been waiting for you for so long" and that genuinely bewildered me because you don't really see her pining at all during her Confidant, nor during other events (the closest thing you get is her clinging to you in Sojiro's house but that's honestly not even romantic that's just her getting frightened and needing assurance in a very unnecessary "ship tease" moment). Same with the scene in Futaba's Palace, while Joker saving Queen was very sweet, he literally would've done that for anybody of his teammates. Makoto is not special in that regard.

6. How to better this character

•Introduce her to the Thieves in a better, more plot driven way, or remove her from the team completely.

Kaneshiro's arc should honestly just be scrapped, it was a sorry attempt to get Makoto on the team. A better time for her to join would be Sae's Palace since she actually has emotional ties to the Palace owner and by this time in the game could've developed to be a better person from the Kamoshida arc, wanting to make things right. This could also be a good start for her and Ann to begin to be on better terms- not even necessarily friends (because after what happened I honestly don't think Ann would want to be friends, at least not close), but learning to at least be civil. That, or she joins out of desperation because she doesn't want anything bad to happen to Sae and as the infiltration continues gets more and more nervous and ultimately rats their plan out (because Makoto as the traitor would be much better, writing-wise).

Alternatively, Hifumi joining instead of Makoto would also be very refreshing with Makoto covering up for them at school and supporting them on the sly.

•Treat her flaws as actual flaws, she's not perfect.

Makoto does have some bad traits, a few being:

•bad tempered

•reckless

•stubborn

•nosy

•hypocritical

•bossy

•socially awkward

But these are almost never treated in a negative light. With the Kamoshida arc and Kaneshiro arc, all is simply forgiven, same with her smacking Eiko across the face in a moment of anger. Even when wrong, Makoto is never wrong per say and this makes it difficult for her to be believable as a character. To fix this, having her suffer the consequences of her actions will make it more realistic. For example, getting Eiko to break up with her boyfriend but cutting ties with her too as a result would give Makoto the rude awakening that you can do the right thing the wrong way and people will not always forgive you for the mess you put them through (nor should they).

Her being punished for unnecessarily putting herself in danger with Kaneshiro would also be understandable (she should've been at least suspended, she could've gotten herself killed, plus all the then existing Phantom Thieves); as well as actually apologizing for the hell that was Kamoshida's drama. And not just to Ann, but everyone who suffered. That would show maturity and a willingness to change, and put her in a better light.

I want Makoto to get mad and she's fully in the wrong and she acknowledges she's wrong, have her recklessness get her or a teammate wounded in battle, etc. And have the others call her out when she's wrong and refuse to let it slide. Have them talk it out, grow as a team. Just..make Makoto fallible, flawed, broken even. She's an orphan, I want to touch more on her having to grow up quickly, feeling lonely and unsure of how to connect with people; talk about how her father is a driving force in her values and morals and how she wishes to honor him by following in his footsteps.

Delve into how she feels less than worthy if she does not achieve excellence but do it in a way that does not demonize Sae unnecessarily and try to make the reader/player feel sorry for her. Have Makoto spend more time with people in her team outside of team duties and while being awkward, genuinely interested and actively working to better her relationships. (She barely interacts with anyone besides Joker, Futaba, and on occasion, Haru) When Makoto is realistically flawed, she then becomes relatable and much more likable.

I want her fears to be plot relevant, not just slapped on for the sake of making her look "cute". Her being scared of the dark was never relevant, unlike Rei from Persona Q who was scared of the dark and had to go through a pitch black room in order to find key cards to help her friends escape a locked room or Yukari being terrified of death and having to come to terms with that. Same with her fixation for Buchimaru, it's cute but it doesn't add any depth to her character whatsoever or even her apparently knowing aikido? We never see Makoto fight outside the Metaverse unlike Chie or Akihiko so it feels like a character trait just slapped on to make her 'cooler'. It feels lazy, because it is. It's like the writers wanted her to be this strong, independent young woman but at the same time a scared, awkward little girl and the two ideas often clash; coming off as contradictory as if they couldn't make their minds up as to who they wanted Makoto to be.

Again, this is not an attack on Makoto fans. If you like her, that's valid and I respect that. I'm merely explaining why I don't and how I feel the writing failed her character and what I believe she'd be if her potential was maximized.

That's all, have a good day.

#meta #critique #persona 5

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marksarmel · 5 years ago

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Another edition of What I’m Consuming for you to consume.

What I’ve Been Consuming 05/13/20

Look, we are not heroes for staying home and watching ungodly amounts of tv, but it’s the smart thing to do. So let’s all be smart while calcifying our brains with movies, tv, video games, comic books, Zoom meet ups, the FUCKING INTERNET that contains the entire collection of human creation and knowledge and our favorite snacks. I’m settling in with Flaming Hot Cheeto’s popcorn, Pork Rinds and the occasional edible with my favorite cocktail. I wash all this down with my nightly dose of Simvastatin, my cholesterol medication.

Also, let’s get out and walk around since it’s beautiful weather right now. This is especially important for those of us in the Midwest who were blessed with snow just last week!

Recently finished the Amazon series Hunters. It was good, but looking at it as a whole it seemed to be holding something back. The characters felt like they were supposed to be larger than life and more bombastic, but they were instead subdued. Even Al Pacino is reserved. Was it a comic book adaptation or an inspired-by-actual-events type show? it was a compelling story somewhat overshadowed by not being sure what kind of show it wanted to be.

Midnight Gospel! Oh my god where to begin? This is simply great tv. The rhythm of the show sets in super fast and all you can do is hold on for the duration. I’m nearly done with the season and it’s deconstruction of philosophy and life and death are pretty timely, but never preachy. Just sit down and enjoy. Best served with a side of your favorite marijuana infused edible.

The new limited series RUN from HBO quickly got me hooked. It’s premised on two old lovers who have a pact to meet again if one texts “RUN” to the other. After 15 years one texts the other and our story begins! It was no struggle for me to dive into this show since I’m already well along in my Merrit Weaver addiction. She has been a spoonful of sugar with a side of cake in shows such as Godless and Unbelievable. I’m making room on my calendar now to watch her in Nurse Jackie and I’m super embarrassed to admit that I had no idea she was Denise in the Walking Dead. Ok, enough about Ms. Weaver, Domnhall Gleason is in this show too.

I’m rewatching Watchmen because it was one of the best shows of 2019. It is great to see Damon Lindelof stick the landing like Simone Biles on this one. It was completely engrossing in every way.

For a much needed salve of humor in these times Middleditch and Schwartz is absolutely sting free healing. It’s a short three episodes and all three episodes are solid, but one and two are the best.

Killing Eve is back and I couldn’t be happier! So so happy to have all of these characters in my life. So so sad at what happens to them.

Quick Bites - Last Week Tonight with John Oliver is still living its best life. Real Time with Bill Maher not so much. Still keeping up with Homeland, but season 5 is not the best. The Westworld season finale wrapped up a wobbly season with a solid if forgettable final episode. I miss the heady hard to understand first two seasons. Props for some good action sequences this season though.

I need to get back too… I started Lock and Key a while back and lost it somewhere in the ether. Also, an FB convo reminded me to get back to Doom Patrol. I never finished Counterpart either. (Looking back at my post from last moth I see that I also mentioned getting back to Counterpart then too, so it’s probably safe to say I won’t be getting back to it.) Not sure if these shows were good or bad or just not coming at me the right way. Oh, oh! Devs I do want to finish that, but yes I do agree with others comments that the main character’s acting is… not the best.

MOVIES

The Apostle - Starring Dan Stevens from Legion, The Guest and Downton Abbey this movie starts out a bit slow, but winds itself up to a flat out bonkers ending. Worth watching with the lights off and no bathroom breaks.

I started the great Korean action flick The Villainess, but I fell asleep before finishing it. Can someone call a movie great if they fall asleep during it? If that someone was absolutely thrilled by watching the opening sequence then yes, yes they can.

GAMES

Still finding myself indulging in the occasional Mario Kart binge. Also got some friends together for Bomberman which is frivolous fun. Spent a few hours back with Mario Odyssey too. Purchased Child of Light a few days ago so I’m hoping to get to that soon.

BOOKS/COMICS

Not much in the way of books month. In the comics world I did start JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, but was thrown off by the revelation that the book I’m reading, which is marked book 1, is actually part two in the story. Shrug emoji.

I did finish the first trade in the Outcast series from writer Robert Kirkman, now superrich and superfamous creator of The Walking Dead and not so famous, but no less talented, artist Paul Azaceta. It is filled with great dread and atmosphere. It does not wrap up the story in the first trade which always irks me.

MUSIC

I was excited to see that Fiona Apple’s new album “Fetch the Bolt Cutters” came out! Then I listened to it. And listened to it again, and then listened to it one more time. It is an uneven album that frustrated me with how many songs are filled with the same refrain. I love the music, the writing not so much. That being said Under the Table, Rack of His and For Her are repeat listens for me.

Drake dropped a new album/mixtape called ”Dark Lane. Demo Tapes” and so continues my love/annoyance with Drake’s music. Listening to Drake’s music is like being in a 60+ year marriage and still being very much in love, but absolutely hating how your partner chews with their mouth open.

RANDOM NOTES

I discovered Coco Rico soda in a local Asian Market. It’s a lovely sweet coconut beverage.

As mentioned earlier Flamin’ Hot Cheetos Popcorn is becoming my new go to snack. Move over Doritos Cool Ranch because Chester Cheetah is here!

I was in a good running routine and then it started snowing and raining all the time. Back to the couch for me.

That about sums it up for this month. Don’t be afraid to skip your next work Zoom meeting. The work will be there tomorrow.

#Watching tv #playing games #listening to music #reading comic books #what i'm consuming #MarkSarmeldoesthesethings

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bugheadfamily · 6 years ago

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Bughead Family Discord Member Spotlight

This week the spotlight is on Mari ( @writeraquamarinara )! Click the read more link below to get to know our member!

Spotlight by Mila, @jughead-jones | Graphic by Katie, @betty-cooper

Mari | @writeraquamarinara

Name: Mari

Age: 18

Location: Montreal, QC.

Any other languages aside from English people can contact you in?: Italian.

Favourite Riverdale characters and ships?: Betty, Jughead, Pop, Fred, Mary, Kevin, Joaquin, Bughead, Joavin, and Choni.

Favourite moments from S1 & S2?: The scene that got me hooked to the show was when Reggie questioned Jughead about killing Jason, and he replied with a snarky little “It’s called necrophilia, Reggie. Can you spell it?” Other favorite moments are pretty much any Bughead scene from S1, but especially their first kiss. I had been shipping them together since the Blue and Gold scene in 1x03, but 1x06 really hit me hard. They’re both two broken kids who find solace in each other. As someone whose mother is all too similar to Alice Cooper, hearing Jughead tell Betty that they aren’t their parents made me so emotional. I rewatched that scene on repeat when the clip came out on Youtube the next day. To this day I can’t listen to Emily Afton’s Lost without crying. I also really love the hug from 1x13 after Betty, Veronica, and Archie go to Southside High for Juggie. S2 favorite moments are also only Bughead scenes, but not all Bughead scenes, if you catch my drift.

What are your hopes for S3?: Are a coherent plotline and consistent characterization too much to ask for? Also maybe have the parents on the show (other than Archie’s) actually respect their children and treat them well, but that’s never going to happen. On a more realistic note, I’m hoping to watch some fun interactions between Josie and Kevin now that they’re going to be step-siblings.

Other fandoms you’re into?: I don’t really have an online presence in other fandoms, but I do love to geek out over Percy Jackson, That 70s Show (specifically JackiexHyde), The Office, Parks and Rec, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, and nearly all of the Marvel movies.

What are some of your favourite movies/TV?: As I mentioned: That 70s Show, The Office, Parks and Rec, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, and Marvel. I’m currently bingeing The Good Place and The Mindy Project. I also went to watch Crazy Rich Asians in theaters and loved it. So basically I’m trash for rom and com. Sue me. (Or don’t. I’m a broke college student who can’t afford that ish.)

Favourite books?: The Book Thief, The Color Purple, Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women, Pride and Prejudice, and, most of all, The Glass Castle.

Favourite bands/musicians?: Nina Simone, Alicia Keys, ABBA, Of Monsters and Men, Christina Perri, and Imagine Dragons.

If you could live in any fictional world which one would you choose and why?: I thought a lot about this question. The obvious answer would be “one with magic, or mermaids, or superheroes”. But then I thought that I’d rather live in a world like ours, more realistic, but where women are equal to men, diversity is celebrated, people accept each other for who they are. That’s a very idealistic world, I realize, and (if my preteen love of dystopian novels has taught me anything) one that’s most definitely unattainable, but it’s still nice to think about it. If anyone knows of a fictional world like that, sign me up.

Favourite food?: Gosh, that’s a hard one. Probably my grandma’s lasagna.

Favourite season?: Fall, definitely. It’s my birthday season, and I love the colorful leaves and breezy weather and going apple-picking with my family and friends. Unfortunately, Canada’s fall doesn’t last much more than a day, so I missed out on all that this year.

Favourite plant?: Nelumbo nucifera, aka the Lotus Flower.

Favourite scent?: Aftershave? Weird, I know, but it reminds me of my childhood and my father.

Favourite colour?: Periwinkle.

Favourite animal?: Hummingbird.

Are you a night owl, an early bird, or a vampire?: Night owl, definitely.

Place you want to visit?: The Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain, the Jameh Mosque of Isfahan in Iran, and Ryoanji in Japan.

Do you have pets? If you do, tell us a little about them: I don’t have any pets that live with me currently, but I’ve got a pet back home with my parents. She’s a rescued pup from Mississippi, probably some kind of mix between a Pointer and a Labrador Retriever. Her name’s Sassy and she’s super energetic. If you had asked me this question a week ago I would’ve also said I had a cat named Puma but he was twelve and had cancer, so…yeah.

Tell us a little about yourself?: Um, I never really know what to say to that question. Like, what do you really want to know? I’m Mari (the name comes from my AO3/tumblr username, and not my real name). I was born in New Jersey, grew up in New York and Italy, now go to university in Montreal. I’m super passionate about art history, women’s rights, and politics. I hope to be a dermatologist, but honestly, who knows where life will take me. I’m the oldest of four and the first in my family to go through the American school system, so my parents have always referred to me as their “guinea pig”, and that totally hasn’t given me a weird obsession with being the perfect child, perfect student, perfect daughter. For some very obvious reasons, I relate way too much to Betty Cooper.

Fun or weird fact about you?: I fenced competitively for eight years of my life, traveling all around the US and to Europe for training and national competitions, including the Junior Olympics.

Asks for fanfic authors:

How long have you been writing?: I’ve been writing since I was little, but they were always stories with original characters. I didn’t start writing fic until I was sixteen, nearly seventeen, so it’s been a little over a year.

Which is your favourite of the fics you’ve written?: Geez, that’s a tough one. As much as I love my little one shots, I’d have to say Little Talks. It’s largely based on my own high school experience, and therefore my own way of coming to terms with the end of that chapter of my life.

Favourite fic/chapter/plot-point/character you’ve ever written?: Oof. Another tough one. Um, I’d have to say that I really love my characterization of Alice in Blue Sunshine and Golden Rain. She’s a villainess, but hopefully one you love to hate.

Which was the hardest to write, and why?: Again, Blue Sunshine and Golden Rain. I have a bit of a plot twist planned for the story, but I’m really not sure what kind of reception it’s going to get from readers, so I’ve had the chapter half-finished for months. I just need to get the motivation to finish it, and the courage to say “I don’t care if people hate this, or think it’s weird.” I’ll get there eventually.

How do you come up with the ideas for you fic(s)? (examples: Do you draw inspiration from real life? Listen to music? Get inspired by TV/movies?) Do you have an process to your writing?: I’ve answered this in a tumblr ask before, but I get inspiration from anywhere and everywhere. Mainly from real life, because I like to observe and speculate and ask a bunch of “what if”s and go from there. So, like I mentioned, Little Talks is largely based on my life. But there are definitely some plot points in the story that are a result of me going “well, what if I had done this? Or he had done that?” Another example of a real life-inspired fic is my oneshot I <3 You, which was inspired by that instastory (Cole or Lili’s? I can’t remember) of a cake with bright orange frosting that spelled out I <3 You. I also take inspiration from other creative works, such as books or movies. One of my many upcoming fics is based on How To Train Your Dragon, and another is a crackfic based on the Suite Life. Other times, fic ideas come to me out of nowhere. I was in the lab last summer, waiting for my breast cancer tumor slides to go through antigen retrieval, when I came up with the idea for Blue Sunshine and Golden Rain. My brain works in very strange ways.

Idea that you always wanted to write?: I’ve always wanted to write a lot of fics (I have a whole list of them), but they’re in the works so I won’t spoil any more than I already have. The main fic that I don’t even have an idea for but just want to write is a heartbreakingly angsty fic. One that makes me cry while I write it. Here’s hoping it comes to me soon, because I feel like that could be a really interesting experience as a writer.

Favourite character to write?: Alice. Which is strange, because I don’t like her in the show, but there are so many different directions you could take her character that she’s always so interesting to me.

Best comment/review you’ve ever received?: Oh, well, all of them? Is that an answer? Because all comments and reviews make me super happy. But if I had to choose one then I’d say any comment from @earthlaughsinflowers, @mothermaple, @dottie-wan-kenobi, or @notanotherotherone. I kind of cheated by not picking one, exactly, but oh well.

Best and worst parts of being a writer?: The best part of being a writer is putting a story that you put a lot of your soul into and getting support and love for it. Because I only put stories out there that I’m happy to write, happy to read, but to see that they make other people happy, too? That’s an amazing feeling. The worst part is the amount of time it takes to do absolutely anything, especially when you’re not in the right headspace to write. When I’ve had the worst week ever, and I have to physically push myself to spend time that should be spent resting to write because an update needs to come out soon, it goes from being a fun hobby to being a stress-inducing chore.

Do you have any advice to offer?: I haven’t been a fic writer for a long time, so I wouldn’t say that I’m going to offer up the wisest advice, but here’s what I’ve garnered so far: Do what makes you happy. That goes for all of life, not just writing, and is often hard to follow, but here’s how I see it: If you want to write a story because it makes you happy, write it. If you want to quit your WIP to start something else because that makes you happy, do it. If you need to take a break from writing altogether because it’ll make you happier, take it. Write what you want to write, at the pace you want to write it, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

This is the twelfth instalment of Bughead Family’s Member Spotlight series. Each week, a member’s url is selected through a randomizer and they will be featured in a spotlight post. In order to participate, please join the Bughead Discord (more information found here). Thank you.

#bughead #riverdale #bughead fanfiction #member spotlight #bughead family discord

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kimamanitranslatesnovels · 8 years ago

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Destruction Flag Otome v3c1pt1

← Previous | Index | Next →

T/N:

So I was going to post the whole chapter in one post, but then I broke the 10k word mark and decided that was stupid. Light novel chapters are much longer than web novel chapters...

Two notes:

1. I noticed some minor translation mistakes in the other translation, so you might notice some minor differences between my version and the other. I think the biggest error was just the omission of any mention of Katarina planning to buy food as gifts for the student council members, so it shouldn’t be a problem if you want to start where things were left off here. Just CTRL-F “What’s the matter, Keith?”

2. I was very surprised to learn that Nico’s name in the original Japanese was ニコル (Nikoru), not ニコ (Niko). While I prefer the name Nico myself, I couldn’t in good conscience translate ‘Nikoru’ as ‘Nico’, so his name is now Nicolle Nikol (as suggested by Nuclear Raven) in this version. All other names should be the same.

Without further ado, here’s the chapter!

Volume 3, Chapter 1: The Magic Academy’s School Festival

Part 1: Pages 8 - 46

I, Katarina Claes, am currently living very comfortably. I’m always in high spirits. The reason for this is that I’ve finally been released from the terror of destruction flags.

One day when I was eight years old, I bumped my head against a rock, triggering the return of my memories from a previous life. I shortly realized something very alarming - that the world I was currently living in was an otome game that I had been playing in my previous life, and I, Katarina Claes, played a villainous role that bullied the heroine.

Furthermore, this villainess Katarina was a love rival for two out of the four capture targets. If the heroine got a happy ending, Katarina was exiled to another country, while if the heroine got a bad ending, she was killed by the capture target – as someone who faced nothing but destruction flags, she was the absolute worst character to reincarnate as.

Realizing this, I despaired, but… the otome game didn’t start until eight years later, when I started magic school! Thinking that I might be able to overcome the destruction flags if I tried hard enough, I started planning. Until that day eight years on, I worked hard. To avoid being easily killed by a capture target, I trained in swordplay. In the case that I was exiled, I trained my magic, and just in case, I also studied agriculture so that I could become a farmer if necessary.

While I was doing this and that, I, the four capture targets, and other rival characters who weren’t supposed to be close to each other ended up all becoming friends.

Eight years passed, and last year, I, along with the capture targets and love rivals who had somehow become friends, finally entered the magic academy - the stage for the otome game. At the academy, the game’s heroine, Maria Campbell, had also enrolled. The very alluring Maria made my fiancé Jared and my stepbrother Keith fall for her in just a few days.

While worrying about her creating a reverse harem with her crazy allure, before I realized it, I myself had become enthralled by the sweet and kind Maria. I ended up becoming friends with the person who ought to have been my enemy in the game.

After that, things got pretty hectic thanks to a secret capture target, Sirius, who I had completely forgotten about, but all that was resolved by my trusty friends.

That’s how the previous year went as we approached last year’s graduation ceremony.

The last event in the otome game was the graduation party, where the heroine Maria would get together with one of the capture targets. Wondering who she would end up with, or whether she would perhaps even end up with a reverse harem, I waited with baited breath… but much to my surprise, the game ended with a friendship ending. That is where without getting together with anyone, everyone just stays friends. Thus, the rival character Katarina faces no consequences.

Maria was so charming and yet she still got a friendship ending… not to mention, there were a lot of weird things going on, like how the lines that Maria was supposed to say to her chosen capture target – “Please let me stay with you forever from now on.” – were said to me instead for some reason. Well, despite this, the game ended successfully.

I successfully defeated all the destruction flags!

After safely overcoming all the destruction flags, nine years after I regained my memories at age eight, I was living a splendid, fulfilling life.

************

“A school festival, you say?”

“Yes, a school festival,” says Jared Stuart, flashing a smile. Jared is the third prince of the kingdom and my fiancé.

Although he seems like your regular blue-eyed, blond-haired prince archetype from the outside, he’s actually a black-hearted sadist. You’ll regret it if you anger him by mistake. I’ve learned this by experience.

Despite this, he has a reputation as a kind, handsome prince that can do anything and is incredibly popular. He’s particularly popular among girls our age, and so there’s quite a bit of backlash towards me as his fiancée. With his excellent grades, Jared became the student council president in his second year, and is currently being bogged down by all his duties.

The phrase Jared let slip was “school festival”. Apparently, there’s going to be a school festival at the academy soon. But…

“There was no school festival last year, no?”

I started magic school last year, but the only things that happened were studying and lessons – there was nothing as fun as a school festival.

“That is true. The school festival only happens once every two years, so there was no festival last year.”

Aha, so I see, it’s only once every two years. It’s not every year like my previous life’s school. The magic academy is a two-year program, so if it’s once every two years, then all students would have an opportunity to attend once during their schooling.

A school festival… I haven’t been to one since my previous life, so I’m getting excited. I ask Jared what sort of things we do at the festival.

“Well, it seems as though stores from the outside come to sell snacks and students sell self-made goods or have displays. Apparently students sometimes hold plays and concerts. At night, a ball is held in the centre courtyard.”

Ooh, it’s more like a proper school festival than I expected! So stores will be coming to sell things at booths… I’m looking forward to that.

I wonder if they’ll be selling food like okonomiyaki and takoyaki… I haven’t seen anything like that even once yet, but if stores are coming, then they might sell it. I’m feeling nostalgic. In my previous life, I remember that I often went around with my friends at festivals trying to eat up everything in sight.

Okonomiyaki, takoyaki, yakisoba, chocolate bananas, caramel apples, sweet chestnuts, cotton candy, and then…

“Um, Katarina. Are you listening?”

“… eh hem. I apologize.”

I had forgotten about Jared for a moment, engrossed in thinking about the booths.

“… Well, anyways, since I’ll soon be busy with the preparations for the school festival, we won’t be able to have tea together anymore, so please take your time today.”

After saying that, with a smile, Jared pokes his fork into a pastry then holds it towards my mouth with a “Here you go.”

“Thank you very much.”

As I try to bite the pastry, it disappears, fork and all. Oh no, my pastry…

Looking up towards where it had disappeared, I see my stepbrother, Keith Claes, looking rather displeased.

“Jared-sama, you’ve been ignoring me for a while now, have you not?” says Keith, almost glaring at Jared for some reason.

Jared responds with his usual smile.

“For all you’re complaining, Keith, how were you, who I did not invite, able to come?”

Like Jared says, the only person who received an invitation today was me. I came because he said that there would be delicious sweets when he invited me to tea in his room… but after hearing of it from somewhere somehow as usual, when I made to leave, Keith popped up and said that he’d go too. It seems as though Keith has a real sweet tooth as well.

“I was naturally worried about my sister’s safety and came along as well.”

Huh? He hadn’t come because he wanted to eat the sweets? What a loving younger brother, to worry about me. That being said…

“Oh my, Keith. She just went to have tea in a room in the same dorm. Just how overprotective are you? Could please grow out of your need to hide behind your sister’s skirt?”

Yup, it’s just he says. I was going to a room in the same dorm, I would’ve been fine without getting fussed over.

I’m proud of my handsome, flaxen-haired, blue-eyed stepbrother who’s both good at studying and athletic, but he can be a bit of a worrywart. In particular, lately he’s been rather desperate about how “Whenever you go meet with Jared-sama, I’ll always come with you.”

It’s true that up until last year, when the destruction ending was still a danger, Jared may have exiled me or if I made one wrong step, killed me… but now, since the otome game ended safely in friendship, I don’t think I need to be careful around him.

As I muse, beside me, Jared and Keith continue their conversation, all smiles as they stare at each other.

“If you hadn’t invited her to your room I wouldn’t have gone as far as to come along as well. But it’s too dangerous to let my sister go to this room alone.”

“I haven’t the slightest what you might mean.”

“I would suggest that you ask your own heart, Jared-sama.”

… I’ve started to lose track of the conversation. Jared and Keith continue their conversation, both of them smiling, ignoring me as I’m unable to keep up. When the two of them are like this, it’s like they’re in their own little world, and it isn’t easy to break through. Since I’ve known them both for a while, I’m more than used to their friendly talks. So I begin to silently eat the pastries on the table.

Ooh, this pastry, it’s pretty yummy. I should get everyone else to try some next time.

And so, while being shut out by my fiancé and my stepbrother, I had my fill of the pastries.

************

Soon after I heard about the school festival from Jared, the preparations began in earnest. Although technically the magic academy is divided by year and into something like a class by classroom, as the size of a class is large, it seems as though each class won’t present something together like in my previous life.

Instead, apparently people get together with fellow students they got along with or relatives to submit an application together and sell something.

Alright then, I’ll submit an application too and sell the fruits – or rather vegetables – of my labour! Or at least, that’s what I thought, but Jared, Keith, and even Anne fervently opposed my idea.

Then I’ll at least just hand them out for free, I thought – but that was refused as well. Apparently selling vegetables isn’t suited to a magic academy. I can’t believe my vegetables, that I put so much effort into, aren’t suited to a magic academy. After coming to school, I haven’t been able to use as many of my vegetables as at home, and so I have a lot left over. I’m terribly sad that I wasn’t able to use this opportunity to sell them off.

After seeing how depressed I was, like an angel, Maria said, “Please let me use your precious vegetables in my sweets.”

Ah, Maria-chan, how kind you are. My vegetables are overjoyed to be used in something as amazing as Maria’s sweets. After all, Maria’s sweets are as good as anything a pro chef could make, and so there’s no issues with her selling them.

I was told that “Well, I guess it’s okay if you sell them…” and so it was decided that Maria would sell sweets made from my vegetables.

Apparently at a magic academy composed mainly of nobles, it was unusual to sell sweets, but through my passion and “I suppose it’s better than selling vegetables,” it was allowed. We did it! As the person who brought up the idea, I’ll need to help out as much as I can!

After all, the student council members are all bogged down with a lot of other work due to the school festival. Thanks to high demand from the student populace, the student council would also be performing a play. The student council, filled with beauties and with many fans, would definitely look nice on stage. It’s not surprising that there was a lot of demand.

I was asked very strongly to join the play as a member, but I politely declined. Even in my previous life, I’ve only ever played rocks or trees or other such objects in plays. It’s too much of a burden for me to perform in a play with lots of lines. I did ask whether there was a role like a tree or rock, just in case, but they just asked, confused, “Would you need a role like that?” Even though it’s what I played in my previous life…

Since I would feel bad always taking their sweets yet not doing anything at all to help, I decided to help in backstage. Please leave it to me if you need anything thrown onto the stage! Since I spent so many years practicing throwing my toy snake, it’s my speciality! Hm? There’s no scenes where something is thrown on the stage? What a pity.

In this way, I helped with the preparations for the play and Maria with her sweets-making, and the days passed by in a blink of an eye. Finally, the day of the school festival dawned.

************

The school festival started with the student council president Jared’s opening words, and the high-pitched cheers of the noble girls upon seeing him.

Considering that even the noble girls, who are normally reserved, were visibly excited today, I was naturally over the moon. Even in my previous life, I always got excited at anything called a festival. And today was my first festival in this life! Although I was forced to go to balls and parties due to my position as a young noblewoman, I’ve never to been to anything called a ‘festival’.

And so, while I would already normally be in fairly high spirits, I was currently more happy than I had been since I enrolled in the school – no, since I reincarnated. I was desperately holding back my desire to skip around while humming. I was actually doing just that yesterday night in my dorm room, but Anne got angry at me. Apparently noble girls aren’t supposed to skip and hum in front of other people… it’s tough being a noblewoman.

There’s apparently going to be a lot of parents and guardians at today’s school festival to boot. My mother said “Since it’ll be embarrassing, I don’t really want to come,” but…

To say that it would be embarrassing despite being so forceful at home - is she the type to be timid around others? When I asked Anne about it, she said “I don’t think that Mistress is embarrassed about herself,” while looking at me in disappointment… in the end, I didn’t really understand why Mother would be embarrassed.

Anyways, regardless of what Mother said, Father apparently really wants to come to the school festival, so there’s a high probability that the lovey-dovey couple comes together. If Mother and Father came to the academy and saw me skipping around while humming, I don’t know how many times I’d be lectured. Yeah, I’d better be careful.

Despite holding back my desire to skip and hum, I wasn’t able to calm down in the slightest and ended up uselessly vibrating in excitement. My classmates, seeing the strange state I was in, asked in worry “Are you feeling alright?”

“I’m completely okay! Actually, I’m just looking so forward to this that I’m really excited,” I replied truthfully, getting a laughing “I see,” in response. My classmates are all so kind.

That’s right, today I’m together with my friends from class. Normally, I would be with the student council members but… today, as the representatives for the various sections of the festival, they’re all stuck in one place. So, I ended up going to the school festival with my friends from class.

Still, my friends from the student council all were very sad, saying things like “It’s the school festival, yet I can’t go around with you,” “If I knew that things were going to turn out like this, I wouldn’t have joined the student council,” “The school festival only happens once, and yet…”, and so I’m planning to go visit everyone once I buy them some food from the booths.

It’s sad that they can’t walk around the once-in-a-lifetime school festival, so I’ll buy them tons of food to try to cheer them up!

Alright! Takoyaki, yakisoba, okonomiyaki… thinking of food, I enthusiastically headed towards the booths.

But… to think that the festival booths would look like this….

The difference between the booths of my dreams and the booths of reality was so great that I was sinking into depression. When you think about festival booths, you would think that they’re slightly dirty and served by an older man with stained clothing or maybe a delinquent teenager saying “Hey, why dontcha buy something?”, right?

And yet… the booths here are squeaking clean and carefully built, served by trim young men in chef’s clothing politely greeting customers. Even if the magic academy accepts such a thing, I don’t!

But the number one shock is… sandwiches and croissants…

That’s right, at the magic academy’s school festival, the only things being sold by the booths are fancy snacks like sandwiches and croissants. No matter how much I searched, I couldn’t find okonomiyaki, or yakisoba, or takoyaki.

In fact, everything being sold was either fancy snacks like the type of thing you’d see at a noble tea party, or sweets from a sweets shop.

I had already readied myself to eat okonomiyaki, takoyaki, and yakisoba, and have chocolate bananas and cotton candy for dessert, and yet…

Seeing my excitement melt away in seconds, my classmates worry about me.

“Katarina-sama, are you okay?”

“What could the matter possibly be? She was so perky a few short moments ago.”

“Does your stomach ache?”

“No, perhaps rather she’s feeling hungry. I shall go buy something.”

My stomach is raring for food from my previous life… oh, this sadness at not being able to eat what I expected to eat… it’s too painful.

“Ka – katarina-sama. I – I have brought you something to eat. Please, eat this and cheer up.”

It seems as though a friend, still out of breath, has brought me a sandwich placed on a strange plate. It looks like they think I’m down because I’m hungry… is that how everyone thinks of me?

Truthfully, I didn’t want to eat anything other than something like okonomiyaki or yakisoba, but I thanked my friend who went to all that effort just to bring me a sandwich and bit into it.

After I did that… this is –

“What is this?! It’s completely different from what I usually eat! The bread is so fluffy and the jam is superbly delicious too! Where did this bread come from?”

Much too shocked at the deliciousness of the sandwich, I advanced at the friend who had brought me the sandwich, breathing heavily. Dragged along by my enthusiasm, the friend responded.

“… Ah, yes. In this country, the magic academy’s school festival is a fairly big event, so many famous stores bring new creations to sell at booths here, in particular delicious creations… I’ve heard that apparently there’s even people that call it the ‘Festival of Gourmet Food’ and come to the school festival every year just for these booths.”

What a shock! To think that these booths were so amazing…

I’m disappointed that there wasn’t anything like okonomiyaki, but looking over at the booths again, the various snacks they’re selling all do look delicious. Not to mention, apparently there’s famous stores bringing new creations… opportunities like this are rare.

It seems as though I can’t afford to stay depressed even though it wasn’t what I was expected. I need to eat, and eat, and eat as much as I can!

“Alright! Everyone, for now, why don’t we begin at the start!” I say loudly, spirits rising, starting to walk towards the booths.

Seeing that, my friends smiled, saying that it seemed as though I was hungry after all and that it was good that I restored my spirits.

And so, since my spirits were restored, I walked around and ate anything that caught my eye. Ah, this bread is delicious. Ah, that potato salad-like thing seems good too.

“… Excuse me, Katarina-sama.”

Ooh, I’ve never seen a dessert like that over there before, it’s probably a new creation – I’d better try it.

“… Katarina-sama.”

T- that cake looks good too, and that pudding.

“Excuse me, Katarina-sama!”

“Hm, ah, my bad. Did you need me?”

That was dangerous. I was completely drawn in by the booths’ food.

“… Excuse me, but I thought that you had planned to visit all the student council members today, Katarina-sama.”

“Ah, yes. That is the plan.”

“I believe that if you do not start visiting them soon, you will run out of time.”

“… What?!”

In response to my friend, who had an eyebrow raised, I frantically checked the time… a great deal of time had passed since I came to the booths, much to my fright.

“Oh no, it’s already this late!”

I had completely gotten distracted by the delicious food. If my friend hadn’t called out to me, I might’ve spent the entire rest of the school festival eating. That was dangerous… the allure of good food is frightening.

Having come to my senses, I ran around and bought a great deal of snacks for the student council members and some food for myself to eat later. I then headed to the student council members with the friends that had brought me back to sanity.

************

Deciding to go to the closest sections first, the first section we went to had displays about topics like the country’s history and magical research. In my previous life, it’s the kind of area no one would go near, but as expected from a magic academy, a fair number of students, parents, and guardians are looking at the displays. It’s lovely how dedicated they are to their studies. Though, I get sleepy just by reading a few lines on the displays, so I’ll refrain from joining them.

In this exhibition space, my stepbrother and our friend is greeting visitors with a smile. My stepbrother, Keith Claes, and Mary Hart, who’s also the fiancée of a prince and a Marquis’ daughter. As the fiancée of the younger twin brother, Alan, of my fiancé, Jared, Mary is in a similar position to me but there’s a world of difference between her skills and mine.

Mary, with her reddish-brown hair and eyes, is a beautiful young lady who naturally excels at academics, but is also praised for dancing as if she were a fairy and is said to be a perfect young noblewoman in her demeanour – a splendid example of a noble’s daughter.

Even the noble girls who in their admiration of the handsome princes say to me that I don’t suit Jared, say to Mary that she’s worthy of Alan.

It seems that all the preparation she had to do and dealing with all the visitors has begun to take its toll on even the perfect Mary. Unless she’s just hungry? Although it’s already past noon, she may not have had lunch yet. Once I think that, I feel bad for gorging myself at the booths all by myself.

Alright then, just for Mary, I’ll give her the specially created, newly designed sandwiches that I was planning to eat.

Thinking that, I grip my sandwich bag and head to Mary’s side, raising my voice in greeting.

“Mary, I brought you something to eat!”

“Katarina-sama!”

Noticing me, Mary gave me a bright smile. Her previously sad expression disappeared like the mist. It seems as though she was hungry after all.

“Sorry I was so late, Mary. These sandwiches are new creations.”

“Katarina-sama, I am overjoyed that you came to visit. I was worried after you didn’t come back from the booths after some time.”

“… Oops, I’m sorry.”

The truth is that by coincidence, before heading to the booths, I passed by this spot, ran into Mary, and told her that “I’ll come back once I’m finished at the booths”… it’s been quite some time since then. Anyone would worry. I’m sorry, Mary.

“We’re talking about my sister here – she probably got distracted by all the different food and forgot about the time, right?” says Keith, letting out a sigh.

As expected from my stepbrother, he hasn’t been in my family for over eight years for nothing. He understands his stepsister well.

“… I’m sorry.”

Again, I lower my head and apologize towards Mary and Keith who I had worried.

“Do not worry yourself over it. The most important thing is that you’re safe,” says Mary, ever-so-kind, but my brother, on the other hand, says that –

“I agree. Nee-san, you’re way too excited today. Please be a bit more conscious of yourself – it’s easy enough for you to get wrapped up in trouble as it is.”

– with a strict face. I feel as though Keith is becoming more and more like Mother as the years pass. What should I do if he starts giving me hours-long lectures like Mother does? Two Mothers… I wonder if I’d be able to stand that…

“Katarina-sama, it seems as though the crowd has begun to die down around here so we were just thinking about going to find something to eat. I am overjoyed that you’ve brought us food. If you would like, shall we eat the food you brought us together?” suggested Mary, as if she had noticed my downcast feelings.

“Really?!”

In truth, I didn’t really want to give away the sandwiches that were new creations. I wanted to try even a little bit.

“You’ve probably already eaten so much but you’re going to eat more…”

Keith is looking at me with in exasperation, and my classmates that went with me to the booths all look surprised.

Oh no, at this rate I’ll be thought of as a glutton… actually, I’m the normal one, these noble girls just eat too little.

Well, it’s true I might not be able to eat any more if my dress gets too tight.

On a side note, I purposefully had my dress be loosened so I’d be able to eat my fill today. My maid Anne, who loosened the trim on my dress for me, was quite opposed, complaining that I wanted to “loosen this dress on such a nice day.” But after threatening to wear my work clothes if she didn’t loosen my dress for me, she gave up and reluctantly did it.

And so, I can eat more than everyone else! It’s not that I’m a glutton!

But still, I say “… Um, I’ll have just a little,” just to cover my bases.

And so, Mary, Keith, and I ended up having tea and the sandwiches I brought in a nearby picnic shelter.

I invited the friends that had gone around the booths with me, but they declined, saying that they were full already so they’d be looking at the displays. Even though all they had to do was loosen their dresses.

“Wow, it looks so good!”

The sandwiches that were spread across the table were new creations from a different store than the sandwich I had first eaten.

“I concur. It looks very good. Thank you very much, Katarina-sama.”

Mary smiled slightly at the sight of me drooling at the sandwiches.

“Nee-san, you just ate a lot, so keep it to just a little. You’ll get a stomach ache if you eat too much,” lectures Keith, who understands his stepsister well.

“Okay...”

There’s still leeway in my dress so I should be fine. I take a sandwich and eat it.

Yup. It’s delicious. The first store’s sandwiches had its refreshing jam as its main ingredient and tasted somewhat like dessert, but this store uses ingredients like fresh lettuce and crispy bacon and tastes more like a proper meal. There’s also lots of variety.

Ah, that sandwich that has that potato-salad like thing in it looks delicious, but that egg sandwich looks good too.

Hm, I’m not sure what to pick, since unfortunately it’s true that I can’t eat everything.

Oh, I’ve got it!

“Hey, Keith. Do you want to split with me?”

“… Yeah. I thought you’d ask that. Sure.”

“Yay!”

The cooking in this world tends to have small portion sizes but much variety. Well, I say ‘this world’, but it could be just a noble custom. The point is that a lot of different dishes are typically served. And so, I end up being overcome by my desire to eat everything unusual or that catches my eye. I’ve taken my previous world’s mother’s words to “Eat anything you touch completely,” to my heart even now.

Thus, when I was little I often ate too much and ended up upsetting my stomach. Keith, in response to that, said that if I wanted to eat all those different things then I should split with him so he could eat the remainder. At the Claes mansion, I often secretly split food with him, although naturally we couldn’t do that in public.

Having gotten Keith’s approval, I split the potato salad-like sandwich that had caught my eye and hold up one half to Keith’s mouth.

“Here you go, Keith.”

Usually, Keith would immediately munch down on something I held out towards him, but for some reason he has a strange expression and looks troubled today. What’s the matter, I wonder?

“What’s the matter, Keith?”

“Ah, um, nee-san. Why don’t we not do this in front of others?”

“In front of others? But you said that it was alright to split things with you so long as it wasn’t in public. You said it was okay a second ago, right?”

“No, it’s not about splitting with you… I mean…”

I’m beginning to wonder about Keith’s suspicious behaviour.

“Oh? So long as it’s not in front of others, you two do this all the time?” asks Mary with for some reason a beautifully wide smile.

“Ah, yeah. When I want to eat something but can’t eat it all, we split it and I have him eat the other half.”

“I see. And Katarina-sama, you always take his half in your hand and offer it directly to Keith-sama’s mouth?”

“Yup. I didn’t do that before, but a little while back Keith said that he wanted me to feed him like this when we split things.”

Yeah, that’s the way it is. We’ve been splitting food for a long time, but a little while back Keith started begging me to just immediately feed him after splitting it in half. I’m not sure why he started wanting me to bring the food all the way to his mouth – I wonder if picking it up became too much of a pain for him? I'm not sure what his reasoning is, and it’s pretty bad manners for the typically well put together Keith.

Still, it’s a precious request from Keith, who doesn’t usually ask things of me. I usually avoid troublesome things, but for him, I decided to hold up food to his mouth when we split it.

After hearing my explanation, Mary’s smile grows wider and wider.

Huh? It seems as though the atmosphere has gotten colder…

“Keith-sama, did I not warn you to not take advantage of being family to get ahead?”

“W – what? Something like this is no big deal, right? I’m not trying to blatantly start something like Jared-sama is.”

“Please do not use Jared-sama as an excuse. He’s just unusual! … I miscalculated, I had thought that he had so many hidden plans that I could not lay a hand on him.”

“I apologize, but I heard that second part even though you said it in a smaller voice. Anyways, Mary, you take advantage of being the same sex as her all the time, embracing her and touching her and all sorts of things.”

“My, how rude of you to say that I’m ‘taking advantage’. We are the same sex, so it’s perfectly normal for us to embrace and touch each other. Eventually, perhaps we’ll even bathe together…”

“Um, no, no matter how I think about what you’re saying, Mary, it isn’t normal.”

“My, is that not an issue on your side?”

Just what about splitting food got the two of them so fired up? Ignoring me, the two of them have gotten all worked up.

I knew that Jared and Keith got along well but… looking at them now, it seems like Keith and Mary are fairly close as well. They seem as though they trust each other very much from how quickly they’re talking back and forth with no hesitation.

… Wait a second, no way!

I had thought Keith had been turning down countless engagement requests because he had fallen for the otome game’s heroine, Maria, but could it be instead… Mary?

Not to mention, unlike in the game, Mary doesn’t seem to have any interest in Alan at all… could it be, because of Keith…

A capture target and a different capture target’s love rival… it’s a pairing that could have never happened in the game, but this is reality, and the game has already ended. It’s not impossible.

Oh my, it seems as though my woman’s intuition is acting up. I gaze at the two of them, still engrossed in their back-and-forth.

Keith has no fiancée, but Mary is the fiancée of the country’s fourth prince, Alan. They may not have yet ratified the engagement, but Mary is very precious to Alan. In particular, lately I’ve often spotted Alan following Mary around like an underling… I mean, like a knight protecting a princess.

… in other words, this love won’t be easily permitted.

O Keith! Wherefore art thou Keith?

Ah, Mary.

I recall a famous play about a tragic romance from my previous life. In my mind, I replace the protagonists with Keith and Mary. Oh, how heartbreaking. I gaze at the two of them.

“Keith, Mary. If it comes down to it, I promise to stand by the two of you, so don’t worry! I won’t let it end in tragedy like with Romeo and his lover!” I declare firmly.

Hearing my passionate words, the two of them calm down and grow quiet in moments, as if they had never been fired up in the first place.

“Nee-san. I don’t even want to know what you're thinking, but… I am absolutely certain that you’re mistaken,” Keith says finally.

Huh? I’m wrong? But my woman’s intuition...

“I concur. I disagree with anything you imagined,” says Mary in a calm voice, sounding firm.

Wait, but, it’s true that I didn’t ask them explicitly, but maybe if I ask them straight-out…

“… Um. Keith and Mary, are you two in love – ”

“ – No,” firmly denied the two of them before I could even finish my sentence.

I see.

After that, the two of them looked at me in disappointment. But why?

I had begun to feel a bit embarrassed, so after responding to their question about who Romeo was with “The protagonist of a tragic love story,” I left the area.

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