#and I don’t only mean the gijinka design I made

[dagrapesody]

The king and his jester, but they’re big boy evil

[gameboy-berry]

Chainsaw gijinka TAKE 3!!!

Now all of the Brackets are done! Again.

This means that there are only 4 characters left to redraw and tweak: Knight Helmet, Post-It Note, Loaf and Santa Hat.

Explanation and transparent version under the cut:

My gijinkas of the initial 3 Bracket members are based on types of delinquents. Slipper is based on greasers, Basketball is based on jerk jocks, and Chainsaw is based on motorcycle gang members. I don’t exactly know if my thought process was for a “noise pollution” joke involving the two machines or not? I know it’s likely the most conventional approach with the Chainsaw gijinkas we have, but it felt like such a perfect fit. I can’t really imagine him fitting any other delinquent role. So to compensate, I decided to add little details to set it apart from the other designs more. One of these ways was by leaning more into the “chain” aspect of a chainsaw. Hence all of the little do-dads he wears. I like to think he rips up his clothing by accident but leaves it that way because he thinks it makes him look badass. He seems like the type of person who would dress like that.

“Where’s his handle?” He still has it! It’s just in the back of his head. It’s just not visible with the angle shown here. :P

When revamping the gijinkas, I wanted to convey his heavy buff stature more. I changed the forearm segments to make him appear more foreboding. I also realized I could implement his head asset in a way that added to the body type. I think I’m pretty proud of the result.

The other reason was to make up for some… Unfortunate implications with the previous design. If you can’t tell by the other designs I’ve made, I really do not care if my gijinkas look a certain way because I feel certain things shouldn’t be ascribed to a specific gender or lifestyle. That said, my previous gijinka was part of a headcanon that I got kind of peer pressured into subscribing to. To make it more even and less egregious, I didn’t restrict the headcanon just to this character. That said, I feel bad for the people I might have hurt with it. There are unfortunate implications when it comes to headcanons, but there are also people headcanon a character a certain way to reclaim it. It’s a whole other topic really. Very complicated. I feel it’s probably not my business to decide here anyway, so I dropped it.

FUN FACT: The reason why Chainsaw doesn’t adhere to the “color of team captain’s team is their respective team color” rule is because green doesn’t really look good with the color scheme he has. I feel it’s fitting for Team ] being an impromptu team anyway.

This is also why I couldn't change the design to be less conventional: One of the rules I have for team captains is that they have to wear an outfit relating to a profession. Motorcyclist is a profession... I'm sure.

[dokidokitsuna]

Gijinka- Fecto Elfilis

Brought to you by creative insomnia...I’m very tired right now

(spoilers ahead, obviously)

As you can probably tell, the biggest change I made (besides the clothes and the humanoid legs) was the ear design. I knew at a glance that F/E’s canon ear-pattern would NOT look good if I tried to draw it. Its strengths are its intricate construction and complex color blending-- two of my biggest artistic weaknesses. ^^; So yeah, I needed a workaround...and I decided to come up with something totally new and make an eye-mimic pattern. Given how oddly natural this looks, and the prevalence of evil-eye imagery in the Kirby series, I’m willing to bet that something like this may have been one of the rough draft designs for the character. Of course, if that were true, I could also understand why they didn’t go with it: it’s too noisy for canon F/E’s elegant design, and distracts from the heart-silhouette thing they have going on. But I think it works in this context~

Of course, choosing the colors for the eye-mimics was a long battle. ^^;; I still don’t even know if I like this...I feel like maybe the coloration should be a little less crazy? But then, the point of eye-mimics in real life is to stand out and scare off enemies...idk, we’ll stick with this for now

You wanna know something? I sympathize with Fecto Elfilis, I really do. :T I mean, obviously I don’t agree with the whole planet-killing thing they have going on, but given all that happened to them during the timeline of the game, I feel like it makes sense that they’d be really pissed off by end of it. Just imagine: you arrive at some random planet, probably intending to have some fun, wreck shop and go on with your day; only to get captured and imprisoned by the primitive creatures who live there for decades, possibly centuries. Listening to that stupid song/pre-recorded announcement over and over again, getting experimented on and treated like a sideshow, watching your captors profit off of your abilities and then just...leave you stuck there, dead to the world and missing half of your soul. Fast-forward through the actual plot, and after several setbacks and frustrations, you finally become whole again and have your chance for revenge...aaaaand then you get hit by a truck and die. ^^; Heck, at that point I’d be out for blood too, even from beyond the grave. There’s only so much ignominy a galaxy-level threat can take...

[fruit-sauce]

More headcanons I thought of since the last one

- Prince Fluff (gijinka, I don’t think puffballs can do this) knows how to do ariel silk so he has a tendency to just fall out of trees right next to people at eye level, scaring them as he dangles

- that does mean he hangs around with Taranza quite a bit.

-After the events of epic yarn, Fluff trained himself to properly use his whip to the point where fighting him is actually scary. He also uses it to grab things he needs, wether it be on the top shelf or just out of hands reach. He uses it so often that he’s able to grab a full cup without it spilling, very spiderman like.

-DDD is stupid good at rhythm games, mostly taiko no tatsujin; Meta enjoys shoot/beat ‘em ups and bullet hells; Kirby mainly plays puzzle games and platformers

-None of the main 4 Meta-Knights are cis. There is no way.

-The only plant that Kirby can keep alive are (maxim) tomato plants, he has tried branching out. It does not work.

-Morpho Knight makes their own teas, most are floral.

- Meta can’t drive. Legally or physically. Don’t let him drive anything, he is impatient and will always speed and crash. No, he can’t drive the Halberd either, that’s what Axe Knight is for

- All the star allies have a star somewhere on their uniforms/armor/clothing, very Steven Universe/crystal gem like, I thought it’d be cool

- DDD was definitely the type to make bad interior design decisions. Like, he would put a shirt on a hanger and put it on the wall or paint his walls that one bright aqua color that every kid painted their walls and/or have an eyesore of a wallpaper. Thank Nova for the dees.

Also, all the star allies, and just most of Kirby’s friends, are close with one another and will often train and spar together. This not only gives me the excuse to pair up random characters to do mundane stuff like shopping and hanging out, but also let’s me make random scenarios for the on and off battlefield:

- going back to Fluff, he typically tries to get his opponent’s weapons out of their hand, if they don’t have a weapon, oh well.

- Fluff also figured out that he could grab and throw people, this ended up in him accidentally grabbing Meta Knight’s leg as he was in the air and slamming him on the ground. There was already quite a crowd, so the silence was deafening. (Meta recovered quick and was very impressed).

- DDD found out that hitting the ground hard enough will disorientate people, he uses it frequently

- Ribbon is one to rush, making quick, fast, up-close movements

- Taranza lays webs everywhere he can, one wrong step and you’re wrapped up like a present

- Ribbon vs Susie = cowboy standoff

- Marx just tries to scare people out of bounds, he has no plans

- The animal friends and the mage sisters just enjoy having like 8 people on the field

- Bandana dee and Fluff like to play sandbox and simulator games (think slime rancher, stardew valley, job simulator, the sims, etc.) it’s very calming.

- Those born/made in the mirror and yarn dimensions don’t feel pain as strongly as others, especially out of their own dimensions. This does mean Fluff and Dark Meta have, on multiple occasions, have worked themselves to exhaustion, but they’re never by themselves when they get too tired, as stubborn as they both are that they don’t need help.

 - Parasol, Sailor, and Bandana dee are all identical triplets, only in looks though, personality wise, very few similarities.

- When Dreamland was no longer yarn, Fluff hated the way grass and water felt. On the other hand, gooey, dark matter swordsman, 0, 02, etc, love the way grass feels

- Sailor dee is very good at sewing, if anyone on the Halberd has a tear in their clothes or wants something made, they go to Sailor. None of them know how to buy formal wear, Sailor makes all of it. Spear Knights likes to help.

- Queen Ripple, Prince Fluff, and DDD like to hang out. They don’t act all royally, they already do that all day, what usually happens is they get take out, crash on the couch of whoever’s castle is closest and gossip

- Gooey, Parasol Dee, and Nago sun bathe and nap together.

- Flamberge and Dark Meta are good at death metal screams, neither of them even listen to any genre of metal.

- Meta Knight is still in contact with Sword and Blade Knight, he makes sure to invite them whenever a big event is going on

[gamebunny-advance]

Hm...

Thinking about that time someone literally copied one of gijinka designs for social clout, then just flat out denied it when I called them out.

At the time, I had buckled under the belief that “I’m probably being paranoid. There’s so few notes on this thing, and it’s so old, there’s probably no way they would have seen it.” and I had deleted the call-out. 

Honestly, I still get really aggravated when I feel like someone is “stealing” from me (and it happens a little more than you’d probably think), but I just don’t feel justified in calling anyone out because it’s mostly with fanart, and neither of us are profiting from it, so neither of us have anything to lose or gain from it except a bigger number next to a little heart icon.

I guess what upsets me about it is them getting recognition for something that isn’t theirs. I put in the work to make the thing, but they get to knock it off and get even more recognition from it? That’s just unfair. But in a way, all fanart is like that, right? It just seems more okay to do it when it’s a character from a company or something, because they’re not really being *hurt* by fanworks but hurts when fanartists copy other fanartists because we occupy the same space and thus are in competition with each other.

Tangent aside, my feelings basically boil down to: “Am I really gonna start drama with someone for saying they stole the design of a character neither of us own”? At the time, I’d decided, “no,” so I just kinda let it go. There really wasn’t anything for either of us to lose or gain by pushing it further.

But I recently saw them getting called out for other shit, so I got reminded of that incident.

I 99% believe that they stole the design from me, but because they made their design more “woke” and maybe because I didn’t watermark my original one, that somehow made it “okay” for them to do.

I don’t really wanna start shit now because it’s been over 2 years since it happened, but I would just feel a little better if the “proof” was out there. I’m not gonna repost their art here, but if you go to my main blog, @gamebunny-color-sp​ and search “kirby character design”, I’m sure you’ll find what I’m talking about if you’re really that invested in this tale of mine.

That said, I am going to talk about the differences between the two like you’ve seen theirs already.

Now, I’ll concede that puffy sleeves/shorts is a kind of obvious thing to do for a Kirby gijinka. He’s a round ball made of smaller balls, and those very easily translate into “puffy” features. And big ol’rubber boots is another easy way to translate his feet. I’m not gonna be mad at every Kirby gijinka that has puffy sleeves and boots.

But why the cape? No Kirby forms really wear a cape unless you wanna count Meta Knight, but he wears his very differently. My reasoning was that, besides the hat, I wanted him to have something that would show his copy ability. It’s actually a carry-over from an even earlier version of the design I’d made where I actually played with that idea.

But you know, a cape still isn’t an *uncommon* design choice. It’s basically a staple of the hero archetype, so whatever. A cape doesn’t necessarily mean that they got the idea from me.

But what gets me, is the yellow stripe motif. I don’t think there’s *ANYWHERE* that Kirby is associated with yellow stripes, or stripes at all for that matter, and yet (un)coincidentally, both of our designs have them.

When I first started making gijinkas, I really just did whatever I wanted without too much concern for if it actually fit (arguably, I still do that *cough*bigtittyrob*cough*). You can see that in this old timeline I had made, chronicling my iterations of this design.

Why was my first thought to give him blue accents? Who knows. But it’s also where the yellow stripe on his cape started and had carried over to each new design, just because I liked it and thought that it still went with the yellow star motif that I’d added. So for me, it was just an evolution of my bad design choices getting better.

But, if you didn’t already start with the stripe motif, why would your Kirby have stripes at all? And it’s not like stripes are uncommon. I realize that. But there’s just no logical progression to it unless you just happen to think in the same stupid ways that I do/did. If you wanted to accent the cape, wouldn’t you just add it like a border, like I did with my first 2 designs? Or add more star motifs to it? Why the stripes? And why add 2 except to make it seem more different than mine? There’s other little things, but I think my point is clear: there were just too many “coincidences” for this to not have been a case of plagiarism.

Like I mentioned earlier, I’m coming out with all this because the person in question got called out on a pretty vicious forum site, so they’re probably dealing with a lot right now. They’ve basically deleted/private all of their social media accounts, so whatever ‘clout’ they’ve gained from my design, and possibly others’, just up and disappeared, but I don’t feel any catharsis in that because that really has nothing to do with what happened to me. And you know, the person who did it is younger than me (I’m 23), and this happened literal years ago. They probably just didn’t know any better at the time and were still in the mindset of “stealing is fine if I add positive representation” like a lot of kids still have these days.

I don’t really wish ill will on anyone that does me wrong. I just want things to be set right, but given how long it’s been since the incident, I’m probably never gonna hear, “Yes, I stole your design. I’m sorry.” from them. My catharsis is in now standing my ground and saying, “Yes, my design was stolen, this is why I think so, and even if I’m the only one who cares, at least it’s out there.”

I gave in back then because I didn’t have much confidence in myself. I thought I was wrong because I know I can get over-emotional and that I was too small to be seen by anyone and thus couldn’t be stolen from. But I feel like I know my worth a little more now, and I’m not going to let this happen again if I see it. At the very least I’ll blog about it vaguely like I’ve done today to let off steam.

[ladylyra]

how do you keep track of all your gjinkas/ocs? do you write everything down?

i don’t make ocs randomly, so usually when i make a concept, i’ll immediately create a design and then also write a small bio. this helps me remember them a lot better, but also means that for all my ocs, there is always going to be reference art i have of them!

for gijinkas, same applies with just having references for every one i have. they don’t have bios, but it’s kind of hard to forget who exists when they’re usually a team member for a period of time and i’ve made content of them.

also, i keep everything in separate folders. for each separate oc universe i have it has its own folder, so i can keep track of separate projects. with my nuzlockes it is the same way; i have my pokemon art in a folder not only separated by the generation of pokemon it is, but within that folder a folder specifically for art of my current nuzlocke for that game.

[palossssssand]

I'm going to be very upfront with you. I've seen your yv gjinka going around a lot and the fact that you, a nonblack person who's gjinkas are mainly people of color, making one of the most black coded characters have almost pitch black skin is horribly antiblack and racist. It's made me and several other black ppl very uncomfortable and I would simply ask either for a design change or just changing the skintone because it's been heavily exhausting to see it most of the time.

Hey, anon, you are completely understandable and this is something that’s been on my mind ever since someone pointed it out. I’m going to post this in a readmore so that it doesn’t get long on someone’s dash but I think it’s important for everyone to read. 

I’m going to be upfront in that I legitimately do not know how to handle something like this. This is an issue that is very much touchy for a lot of people and I have never been confronted about issues of skintone in character/gijinka design so please bear with me here. 

First of all, I am sincerely sorry for any discomfort I may have brought you and others. I try to be mindful of the design choices I make but it’s clear to say that I fucked up. Yes, as a nonblack person, I’m not as cognizant towards this issue as I’d like to be and I do acknowledge that I cannot compare my experience as a POC to this situation because it does NOT excuse my from being unintentionally racist. I’ve been asked by another anon about this and I never replied, so I’m sorry about that too. I never replied because I didn’t know how to answer and I was, admittedly, a little taken aback by it. 

I might be going off on a ramble about it but here are some thoughts I have about this situation. I will disclaim that under no circumstances are these answers excuses for my actions, rather, they serve as explanations and maybe might help point me in a better direction as to where I went wrong. 

In regards to the design itself, it’s very much... a tricky situation because the source character is most definitely a stereotype. Most other gijinkas I’ve seen are either black or physically black WHICH, BY THE WAY, just because it’s common does NOT mean it is acceptable. In regards to Yung Venuz, he’s the embodiment of that rap “gangster” culture. His voice actor isn’t even black but it’s coded that way because the creators made YV that character. YV’s entire canon personality consists of caring only for money and guns and hating the police. Is YV’s entire character problematic?

So, if I had to design a gijinka, what to do? Not make one at all?

the following is NOT an excuse for me being ignorant, it is 

When initially designing him, the one thing I had in mind was like. well, He’s an alien. From Venus. If he was canonically a human person before the apocalypse I would design him as a human person with regular features. But since he’s canonically not from earth I wanted to design him differently, his inhuman features are because I wanted him to have a more extraterrestrial feel but still humanoid. And in-game, his limbs, are black. Now, making racial caricatures under the excuse of “they’re an alien” is shitty. But I didn’t take “oh hes black coded” and translate it into “ok so he’ll have black skin”, I took “well he’s an alien” and went “so he can have one eye and skin that humans don’t have”. The point i’m trying to make is that if all I knew about YV was that he was a white triangle with black limbs and from space, I would have physically designed his body the same. If he wasn’t black-coded I would have designed him the same. I like the black/white/gold contrast and his whole silhouette still looks like a triangle with stick limbs. 

 Again, this is NOT an excuse, I’m not trying to justify that his design isn’t harmful, it’s merely to serve as my conscious design choices.

I’ve been having a lot of thoughts about this sort of thing and it’s definitely been stressing me out a little, I want to avoid being the guy who brushes off these concerns as “ruining fun” because that’s absolutely not it. I don’t want to end up like v*vziepop’s h*zbin h*tel designs which are all harmful stereotypes. I really do want feedback for change but it’s still tricky when the source material has elements that may be taken as inherently harmful. 

Genuine questions I have: is it an ‘erasure of culture’ for a black-coded character to have straight hair? Do the same rules apply when considering alien characters as opposed to human characters? At what point do black coded characters become acceptable/unacceptable and at what point can you represent something without it becoming a caricature? 

I don’t have the answer to these questions and I’m not trying to be patronizing but does show how much I don’t know about what I’m “allowed” to do because I’m not part of the particular community. So I really appreciate any sort of feedback/explanation without things escalating out of hand. It’s not my place to have this judgement on this issue in character design. 

Sorry if you didn’t want a long-winded ramble but, I did do some potential changes or fixes that might make the situation better. I’ve gotten really attached to his general design but I’m definitely going to make a change if I’m going to keep drawing him. 

I don’t know if any of these genuinely avoids the problem but again, it’s not my place, and I’m open to suggestions for change. Again. I’m really sorry about this whole ordeal, I didn’t mean to cause any harm for anyone. 

[cerillosvillage]

I love your gijinka designs, how do you come up with them?

God this was really hard to answer, honestly. I’m probably gonna sound like a douche saying this but I don’t actually put a lot of thought into my gijinkas. Very rarely do I plan them beforehand and I generally don’t change anything between the sketch and the ink phase. 

Really the only thing I do for my creative process is that I open up Pinterest and look around a bit until I find a pose I like, and then I look for outfit inspiration. (Sometimes I may realize I do want a specific pose, and in that case I’ll photograph myself doing it.) I save the things I like plus the dragon image, and then I just fire up CSP and start working. My drawing process is both very organic and somehow simultaneously industrial. What I mean by that is that I just sort of follow my gut instinct, but my process is also very streamlined so I don’t really get a chance to stop and second-guess myself. 

Like... okay, this was one of the more recent gijinkas that I’m really proud of:

And here’s what the working file looks like:

Basically I found the outfit randomly on Pinterest and knew I wanted to draw it, found a dragon I thought would suit it (specifically looked for a Gaoler or Snapper with oilslick primary), took a picture of myself posing and then just started sketching. I made shardflank into horns bc I like demons, I made the tiddy window and belt heartshaped bc I made this around Valentine’s Day. Then I just used the eyedropper to color pick from the dragon. 

I’m actually kind of self-conscious about my approach to art, because I have a few friends who went through art school and who are used to doing things like thumbnailing, doing multiple drafts, doing lots of self-editing, etc. I’m entirely self-taught and have always cranked out art really fast, ever since middle school, and part of me wonders what would happen if I did slow down and really thought things out, but I’ve had more or less the same process for 15 years and it’s hard to change that. 

Idk if this really answers your question anon, sorry! I don’t really know how to explain my process, it just kind of... happens. 

[deltaengineering]

Winter Anime 2019 Part 3: High on Concept

If you wait long enough, you’ll find something good to say.

Doukyonin wa Hiza, Tokidoki, Atama no Ue / My Roommate is a Cat

What: Misanthropic mystery author picks up tough stray cat, both get healed.

✅ The cat acts like a cat, the misanthrope acts like a misanthrope.

✅ The approach of telling the same simple story from the perspective of two characters that can’t really communicate effectively is interesting.

✅ This is very basic, but it works. I like both characters, and it's generally inoffensive. Pretty much Barakamon with less of a focus on telling you exactly what to feel. Might watch more of this.

❌ I see we’re now at the point where shows get localized titles that sound like lazy translations of bland Japanese names even when the Japanese title is not that bland to begin with. Lovely.

Dimension High School

What: A bunch of kids press XXX and YYY and are sucked. Wooow.

✅✅ The wraparound segments look extremely realistic. If there was more lensflares and shots of feet I’d almost say someone has finally beaten KyoAni in making anime look like a cheap, egregiously overacted J-Drama.

❌❌ Sadly, the puzzle dimension they end up in just looks like homemade MMD animation, because it is. I mean, at least it’s mocapped, but apparently with a Kinect.

❌❌ E.g., they make jokes about clipping and they kinda have to because everything clips into everything else all the time.

❌❌ Did I mention that all they actually do is solve lame puzzles and fail to be funny about it? It’s really getting to the levels of the dreaded “barely animated voice actor improv podcast” at these points.

♎ Suwabe’s in it, and that’s never an outright bad thing. He’s voicing the quizmaster, in the process proving he’d do anything for a paycheck. I wonder if he has a fiverr acocunt.

Domestic na Kanojo

What: Highschooler loses virginity to one night stand, finds out that it was the sister of the teacher he has a crush on. Incidentally, the mother of both also just married his father. Zany!

✅ This is presented like a low-key, slow drama, and it’s not even bad at that. Some good directing going on here, at least in the beginning.

❌❌ Really just too bad that it’s impossible to take seriously with a setup as contrived as this, not to mention taking it as seriously as it apparently wants to be taken. It’s also not exactly original.

❌ I’m not gonna say that sketchy relationships can’t work (it worked fine for KoiAme, for example), but embedding your suddenly also incestuous pupil-teacher affair in the setting of a harem comedy, complete with other sister walking in on attempted drunk blackout kiss, is not giving me confidence that this has the chops to pull it off.

❌❌ The show this reminds me the most of is Love and Lies, and that’s a real bad calling card to have.

Girly Air Force

What: Girl-shaped fighter jets fall in love with a dude.

❌❌ It’s just another military-hardware-is-cute-girls-actually show in the vein of Strike Witches, the kind where they think that having a few plane CG models is already thrilling content.

❌❌ But then it doesn’t even turn out to be that in practice, because most of the episode is taken up by lame “worldbuilding” (i.e., coming up with excuses for why your fanservice show has to be the way it is) and trying to make your bland harem lead interesting, which is a futile endeavour.

❌ The most interesting part is still the CG dogfighting, such as it is. It’s not great either. Also, girly planes are pink.

♎ Honestly got a laugh out of them randomly picking a Gripen as heroine unit  in addition to actual JSADF hardware, because that’s a sleek-looking plane. The biggest prank the JSADF ever pulled on the otaku industry is buying the chubby F-35, which is nowhere to be seen here.

Go-toubun no Hanayome / The Quintessential Quintuplets

What: Empoverished highschooler is hired as a tutor for some rich quintuplets with large breasts.

❌ This is a blatant harem setup that would make a 2003 bishoujo VN blush.

✅ However, in practice it’s much better than it sounds. It knows it’s a wacky romcom with a dumb premise and it does not pretend otherwise.

✅ So it’s lighthearted, but it’s also surprisingly classy. In fact, it’s classier than Domestic no Kanojo, which is a show that’s actually trying to look respectable and failing.

✅ The relationships are also very feisty, with an energy that a comedy needs. There’s a lot of sass to go around here. Probably the best of these I’ve seen in a while, so I’ll give it three eps.

Kemurikusa

What: After getting pulled off the sequel, the Kemono Friends crew made their own version. Presumably there are blackjack and hookers in this show’s future.

❌ If you are a fan of KF’s “charms”, fear not, you would not be able to tell these people made another anime before. It's still total amateur hour.

❌❌ It’s not even the “looks”, though those certainly are not a highlight. The design is okay and the animation is bad, but I’m not incapable of enjoying shows with bad animation. What really kills it is the editing. I usually don’t comment on editing because that’s almost always competent and only very rarely great, but Kemurikusa has uniquely lazy and badly timed editing. Every shot being seconds longer than it needs to be is already an annoyance in low-key dialog scenes, but the alleged action is laughable and allows you a long, unblinking stare at every frame of bad animation. I really do wonder why they even bother with it when it’s so terrible.

✅ The setting seems alright, even though it’s just a reskinned Kemono Friends. At least it’s not gijinka nonsense this time (which makes one wonder where the gimmick characters are supposed to come from, but I digress), and it’s more upfront about what it actually is too. I’d call it mildly intriguing.

❌ I don’t mind mystery and certainly prefer it to exposition bombs, but instead of that this episode quickly establishes the most basic facts... and then repeats them over and over and over some more. Combined with non-editing, this makes for horrible pacing. 

♎ I had no opinion on KF’s longer-term qualities, because the first episode was so boring I never got any further. I won’t have an opinion on this show’s long-term qualities for the same reason.

Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka

What: Magical girls are tragic, shoot gun’s.

❌❌ Yo bro, what if magical girls but dark? Surely such a thing has never been attempted.

❌ The particular source of grim here is that these girls are war vets and fight with semi-realistic weaponry, so there’s a fair bit of the ol’ milwank in this one as well.

❌ The best part of the entire show is that the enemies they originally fought looked like cute teddy bears. Of course, this is dropped in favor of just slicing and dicing some random terrorists in the main narrative. I guess “dark magical girl” is still too outlandish a concept, gotta go with ripping off The Punisher again.

❌ The characters so far are nothing special, you got your PTSD Rambo and the generically cute tomodachis she swears to protect. Such contrast!

❌❌ If you must make these 80s action movies with some otaku gimmick pasted on top, would you mind making the action look good at least? Because I don’t care how many gallons of blood you paint in your dramatic but conspicuously non-moving pans.

Meiji Tokyo Renka

What: Spiritually sensitive lonelygirl gets kitsuned to the Meiji era, which is full of delicious beef and some handsome men too I guess.

✅ This isn’t an outright comedy, but it goes all in on everyone’s fabulosity level to a degree that it’s really already three quarters to Dame x Prince.

✅ Similarly, the lead is not quite as unimpressed with these hams as Ani was, but she certainly has a lot more interest in roast beef than in these guys always trying to pull her into sparkly chin-holding poses &c.

✅ Meiji Tokyo Renka doesn’t seem to be anything special, but it gets the tone right and is expressive enough to not become boring.

♎ While certainly watchable right now, with these there’s always the chance that it decides to launch into real drama in the long run, which in turn almost always goes wrong.

Yakusoku no Neverland / The Promised Neverland

What: An orphanage’s happy daily life gets upended by the realisation that they’re just pizza rolls for some demonic entities.

✅ I watched this right after Kemurikusa and let me tell you, it sure helps if you’ve got professionals on the team. This is a highly competent show as far as cinematography and editing is concerned. While there isn’t any reason to go all out on the action sakuga, this show looks real good.

❌ I’m not feeling the character design, to be specific I think everyone’s chin is too big. This sounds like a real assholy nitpick, but be aware that this will impact around 90% of the time you watch this. 

✅ The premise is workable for a shounen manga, even if hardly original (remember Owari no Seraph?) At least it’s not kids with superpowers spamming beams at each other while discussing the nature of heroism, and seems to be going for a more mindgames-based approach in the vein of Death Note. The characters are just barely good enough so far. In the end it’s not so much the premise, but how well the production values are able to sell it. And that’s what Neverland is good at.

❌ It’s specifically a Weekly Shounen Jump manga, and that is huge red flag. Sure enough, while the visuals and mood deliver, the dialog writing justifiably assumes the reader is a moron. Almost every line in this is either straight universe exposition or someone reading someone else’s character sheet back to them. It’s insane and not even necessary because their actions establish all of this just fine, but hey, WSJ readers amirite?

❌ Also, since it’s a successful WSJ property, don’t expect an ending or be prepared to watch this show for years. Most likely both.

♎ This seems like it could be entertaining once the exposition is out of the way and the real meat of the narrative starts. Then again, at that point pacing would come into play, which is yet another achilles heel of WSJ-style shounen manga. Against my better judgement, I’ll probably have a look how this develops, but I don’t expect much.

[veryimportantsparkles]

Alright I’ve kept meaning to do sort of an infodump on my projects because I’ve been really slipping lately.  I dunno how obvious it is?  Probably kind of obvious.  I’ve also been really bad about checking messages and responding to people.  So I figure I can write up a status report and then point to it when I’ve been inadequate about communication.

My IRL job has been wiping me out.  I’ve been getting short, labor-intensive shifts in the evenings, and then random surprise morning shifts shortly after, which has been really hard to manage my time around.  My sleep schedule has been extremely broken and it’s affected my productivity a LOT.  Leadership in my department is about to shuffle around and I’ve been interviewed for the manager position.  If I get it I’ll be working an entirely different schedule, which could potentially be good for my sleepy brain but will definitely leave me with less art time overall.  I’ve also been enduring some back/shoulder issues over the past few months.  Nothing urgent, but it’s limiting how much I can draw each day.  I think replacing my desk chair is going to be a big factor but it’s not the only factor.  I just need to be a smart human and take care of my joints and not hunch over so much.  Working on it.

Here’s the current status of my various art projects:

Laserwing

I ended chapter 5 in June and said I would finish up some other side projects before I start concept work for chapter 6.  One of the projects I needed to finish was the Popkas Yugioh season 4 special, which I finished.  The other big one was my Neonmob card set, which is most of what I’ve been posting lately.  Once that’s out of the way (see below) I need to do concept art.  Chapter 6 will put all the Laserwing characters in new outfits which will need reference sheets.  I’ll need background sketches and layout diagrams so I don’t have furniture shuffle randomly around between scenes.  I also need to sketch out the chapter 6 draft page by page.  I’ve made Laserwing in GIMP up until this point and am going to try switching to Krita for chapter 6.  I might need to do a test page to make sure my process transfers over well into a slightly different system.  Once I’m ready to make real pages, those take a while.  Chapter 5 pages were going up maybe every 2-3 weeks.  I don’t know how many pages are going to be in chapter 6, nor can I say for sure how many chapters are in Laserwing.  An old outline had maybe 40 chapters.  It’s a story with a defined end point, I can say that for certain, but it’s intended to be long.

Popkas

I’ve had issues with Popkas for a while.  I keep picking new themes for dailies, thinking they’re going to be quick and easy, but then end up making them hard for myself.  It’s been to my benefit, I’ve forced myself into learning new art programs and techniques through Popkas.  But it’s hard to keep up the daily schedule.  Currently I’m doing the Paper Mario: TTYD bestiary, which has 124 enemies.  At a rate of one per day, by the time I’ve finished them, Pokemon Sword and Shield should be released and we’ll have all the info about the new Pokemon.  Those will be drawn in ‘Popka classic’ style (scribbly shitposts).  After those are finished, unless my IRL work situation dramatically changes, I’m considering putting Popkas on pause.  In order to do any other monster dexes I’d have to do a lot more research (for example, people have suggested Yokai Watch but I’ve never played one) in order to have anything meaningful to post.  Same deal with Popka Specials (the anime writeup things), those take prep time and anime-watching time that I might not have.  I don’t ever want to end Popkas, but a hiatus might be necessary.

Angelfire Hime

Did anyone even know about Angelfire Hime?  Well I want to post more but that involves finding, scanning, retouching, and transcribing my old high school scribble comics.  It takes as long as any other project but is also low priority because it’s all old content.  Nobody is waiting for the latest update because nobody but me actually knows what that content is, and possibly nobody but me can even read it.  It’s more a personal journey of self-reflection than anything.  I want to return to it but not at the expense of better work.

MeganFantastic dot com

I had a domain name linked to a tumblr that was supposed to be my news blog/front page and I barely use it.  Also, I let the domain registration drop.  Also, I had let a typo in my banner graphic go unnoticed for YEARS and still haven’t fixed it.  Even now, I’m writing this big post to my personal blog instead of the one for news.  The idea was to eventually buy some real hosting and make MeganFantastic a whole site of its own, but that’s a lot of work.  I’ve got a generally good idea of HOW I’d do it (probably wordpress) but I’m not a coder, it would take a lot of trial and error.  This would be a huge undertaking and eventually Laserwing, Popkas, and all my other junk would be contained on one big non-tumblr website.  But it’s uhhhhh not happening yet.

Hundera Youtube

My contribution to our LP channel is to show up, talk about video games, and then draw title cards.  All recording, editing, and channel management is maintained by Josh, and I can’t speak on his behalf about our update schedule.  I will say there are a lot of half-finished games we want to return to.  I will also say that when the new Pokemon comes out Josh is dead set on recording it.  I don’t know if he intends that to be a stream or a regular LP.  In the meantime he streams Minecraft with his friends every Sunday and we fit in our own streams and recordings when we can.

Commissions/Patron Art/etc

I’ve not been very good about this lately and I’m truly sorry!  I have a few things I’m working on, a few things I’ve promised to start working on, and a few things I’ve told people I can do once my workload lightens up, which hasn’t been happening yet.  I really don’t have an answer.  I almost never delete anything so if I’ve been sent a message in any form I should still have it, and I’ll be sure not to forget anyone.  And if I do forget someone feel free to throw rocks at me!

Rane Story 2

What the heck is Rane Story 2?  Well I guess I have to explain Neonmob.  Imagine if ChickenSmoothie and DeviantART had a baby.  It’s a virtual trading card site, which is fun and cute, and I’m drawing out a card series to release on there.  I’ve been using it as practice for painting backgrounds and to fill out some backstory for some 4th-string Laserwing support characters.  Before Mistaire came to Earth, she went to space high school, and that’s where Rane Story takes place.  You can preview the series, and when it’s finished I’ll post about it.  I’ll also repost all the art to DA.  If you scroll through the last several pages of this blog you’ll see some of the art.  I’ve put a lot of my brain energy into getting this done in spite of my work/sleep issues because I don’t want to resume Laserwing until I’ve finished it.  This is what’s stolen my life, guys.  Right now I have 6 more cards to make, and then I have to write and finalize all the text.  I should be done SOON.

Pokemon Nonsense

When my back and shoulder get too hurty and I have to take a break from drawing, one of the easy things to do is whip out a DS and play Pokemon.  I’ve done a lot of twitter shitposting about it lately.  I’ve also drawn up a bunch of gijinkas for my Pokemon.  I’m talking about it now because I also intend to draw up gijinkas for Pokemon to trade away.  I’ve already done a few.  However, I don’t know for sure how I’m going to distribute them.  The idea is people can trade actual Pokemon with me (in either X or Let’s Go Eevee) and the Pokemon they get will come with a character design for you to keep.  I was thinking I might do a discord server for organizing trades and such, but I haven’t yet.  Mostly because it’s low priority and I have SO many other things going on.  But actually playing Pokemon can happen when I’m too fatigued for real work, so the horde keeps growing.  Hopefully my posts and scribbles about it are entertaining.

I feel like there’s other projects on hold that I wanted to discuss, but right now I’m too braintired to remember, and some of my ‘projects’ never actually got talked about online so nobody’s waiting for an update.  My greatest problem seems to be that I try to juggle too many pointless side projects and then drop them all over the place.  Sometimes I’ll shitpost about an idea and even I won’t be sure if I was serious or not.  How do I end this post?  I don’t know.

tl;dr Megan is SLEEPY and dropped her spaghetti everywhere but somehow still has time to play POKEMON and WON’T STOP TALKING ABOUT IT

[minecraftgijinkadex]

MINECRAFT!!! YOU ARE LOCKED IN A DARK ROOM AND YOUR HANDS ARE TIED BEHIND YOUR BACK

THERE IS A LIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU. I AM HOLDING A BAT. MY BREATHING IS RAGGED, FRANTIC, SHORT.

“i’m going to fucking lose it,” i hiss, “i’ve fucking HAD IT.”

“Where am I?” you say tentatively. “Are you okay? Do you need to lie down, random internet stranger?”

I AM SCREAMING AT YOU

ABOUT & FAQ (you are here)

EXISTING ART

LORE

LIST OF GIJINKAS

TRUSCUM ARE NOT ALLOWED ON THIS BLOG

ABOUT

“Please,” you beg, “just stop fucking screaming.”

“NO,”

MOD MD - xey/xem or no pronouns, the OG MOD ASPEN - xey/xem, the (i kissing you)

Q. What is this blog?

I’m drawing every single tangible thing in vanilla Minecraft as a gijinka. Everything.

Q. Everything?

Everything.

Q. Will you be drawing [x] or [y]?

I will be drawing all Blocks. I will be drawing all Items. I will be drawing Fluids and Mobs. I will be drawing everything.

Q. Wait, so like villagers?

Actually, nevermind, not v/illagers. They’re already antisemetic stereotypes and I don’t wanna touch vanilla villagers nor illagers design-wise with a 10-ft pole.

Q. Okay, so not villagers. What about stuff like air, or—

I’VE ALREADY MADE GIJINKAS OF ALL THREE TYPES OF AIR

Q. What about removed blocks, cheat-only items, or Education edition stuff?

WHAT DOES “EVERYTHING EXCEPT VILLAGERS” MEAN TO YOU GUYS

Q. Soooo... are technical bl—

EVERY. FUCKING. THING.

Q. Why?

I can do it I have the power to do it no one can stop me

Q. Can I make my own Minecraft gijinka?

I do not own the concept of gijinkas, let alone Minecraft gijinkas, so just go fucking apeshit! However, this blog will only contain my own gijinkas. Anything you send me will likely be reblogged to my main, @mango-dolphin, instead.

Q. Can I contribute to this blog?

No. This is my personal pokedex quest, and my cross to bear. I am already dead. (何?) My qppt @neospouro gets a pass though xey get to do what xey want

FREQUENTLY ASKED QWILFISH

Q. Qwilfish?

Pokemon

Q.

I’m going to kill you I’m going to fucking kill you (readies my bat)

[scope-dogg]

Expelled from Paradise: Final Thoughts

When the first SRW T PV rolled in, this was the one entry that puzzled me a bit - while all the other long overdue returnees and new entrants were all well known to me one way or another, this is one I’d barely heard of - I’d seen one review video on youtube years before that delivered a verdict of “it’s okay”, and I barely even remembered that. However, interviews with SRW T’s production staff revealed that this one was actually pretty heavily requested in Japan. I couldn’t really get my head around that, this being a 100% 3D-CG anime movie starring a main character in a ridiculous outfit that had her entire ass hanging out and made her look like an xbox gijinka to boot. However, now that I’ve actually seen it I think I understand now - this is a 2014 movie by Gen Urubuchi, a guy who’s had a fairly chequered history with a couple of duds like the recent disappointing netflix godzilla trilogy and the lukewarmly-received mecha anime Aldnoah Zero, but has also knocked it out of the park with other works like Fate Zero and most notably Puella Magi Madoka Magika. I think this one should count amongst his successes, as it elevates itself above its apparent flaws and delivers a story that’s thrilling and interesting in equal measure.

The plot setup is that in the future, a catastrophe known as the Nano Hazard has left the Earth in ruins. To escape the desolation of the ruined Earth, most of humanity now lives on in the form of digitised consciousnesses called Personalities, hosted in a giant server called Deva in orbit above Earth. There, people are free to live in virtual luxury, while the few humans who decided to remain on the surface eke out whatever living they can in the ruins of the old world. However, a hacker known as Frontier Setter has begun breaching Deva’s security to deliver messages about an alleged space travel plan to Deva’s confused citizens. While nobody knows his true identity, Deva’s Central Security council won’t tolerate Frontier Setter’s intrusion, fearing that his true intentions are malign, and in response send their agent Angela Balzac to Earth in a cloned physical body in order to identify and neutralise the threat. There, she rendezvouses with Dingo, a gun for hire who knows the lay of the land on Earth, and sets out on a mission to track down the threat to Deva’s safety.

It’s quite an interesting premise right out of the gate - the concept of digitised personalities isn’t exactly new to sci-fi but I think it was captured in a fairly novel way here. Seeing as it’s a short movie at around an hour and three quarters, it’s difficult to talk about the plot without spoiling it too much, but I thought it was pretty well paced and had its fair share of interesting ideas. My initial impression before watching was that it was a fanservice movie meant for the lowest common denominator, but it had some surprisingly intelligent things to say, even waxing philosophic at points. I’m not saying that it’s a deep galaxy brain story either, but it’s definitely not dumb schlock. Of course, however, the whole reason it’s in SRW T is because of its action and it doesn’t disappoint with that either - while mecha aren’t super prominent until the last half hour or so, that last half-hour is a thrilling rollercoaster ride featuring some really impressively realised mecha combat. In short, whether you like your sci-fi stories loud and exciting or a little more slow-paced and pensive, you’ll probably find something you like in here.

I thought the movie’s characters were pretty good too. While Angela’s outfit is a lot to get past, I thought she was a well-realised protagonist with an equally well-realised character arc, mostly centred around her struggling to come to grips with life in a physical body on Earth having existed purely as data up until that point. A lot of that comes across her interactions with Dingo, who I thought was a really great character - he’s a cocksure and clever rogue who’s out to make a quick buck first and foremost, which is a personality that clashes with Angela’s more by-the-books, results-driven approach in entertaining ways. The real stand-out, however, turned out to be Frontier Setter, for reasons that would be spoilery to go into.

As far as presentation goes, it’d be very understandable for you to see that this is 100% 3D, for both human characters and mecha, and assume instantly that this would look like shit. 99% of the time you’d be absolutely right. However, not this time - clearly this movie’s budget was enough for the 3D CG work to actually look good - and not just passable either, I mean really good. There are times it looks rough, most notably in the movie’s opening scene. However, the rest of the time you can barely even tell that it’s been done solely with computers. It’s backed up by solid visual design - while I do have to once again point out that Angela’s outfit is a glaring exception to the rule (seriously, the lead character designer deserves a slap for it) it’s otherwise superb. Whether it’s the cyberspace inside Deva, or the strangely beautiful desolation of Earth, the environments are really well realised. The real star of the show is the mecha combat however, with the high-tech New Arhan exosuit leading the way. The battles at the end of the movie look fantastic, with superbly choreographed action scenes featuring some of the genre’s trademark flourishes and just a highly mobile, high-intensity, carnage-filled approach in general. It turns the movie’s final act into a huge thrill ride. When Demo D reviewed this movie on youtube, he said that he “felt the hype.” I concur completely.

Overall, I’d strongly encourage anybody who hasn’t seen it to check it out - while there are aspects to it that would be red flags elsewhere, I’d still urge everybody to give it a chance. Perhaps the fact that it was just a short movie with snazzy visuals has me slightly hoodwinked, but out of everything I’ve watched so far for the first time in preparation for SRW T, this is probably my favourite, beating out Rayearth by a whisker - something I really wasn’t anticipating.

As for SRW T, I do think that they’ll have to use some creative license to make it work in the larger plot - I think certain events will have to go down very differently, and they’ll also probably have to push the story past the point where it ends in the movie. However, I’m still looking forward to its contribution to the story - I think the presence of some of its plot aspects will make the world of SRW T a lot more interesting, plus I think there’s room for them to intermesh with a variety of the other stories that’ll be around, from Gun X Sword to Votoms, or even Might Gaine and Gaogaigar. I definitely think from a gameplay perspective the inclusion was warranted, as the New Arhan is going to have a variety of strong and exciting attacks it’ll be able to pull off.

And with that out of the way, there’s only one series left to watch (well, two if you count the OVA) and that’s Aura Battler Dunbine. I’ve heard mixed things about it and don’t really know what to expect, but I’ll be finding out next.

[cerastes]

With all these Belmonts, is there a concise family tree?

Concise, yeah, though not all the details are filled, and some stuff has been left open-ended or simply not enough information was given. The traditional timeline’s canon Belmonts, and their tree, is as follows:

The short answer is Leon -> Trevor -> Christopher -> Soleiyu -> Simon -> Juste -> Richter -> Julius.

The long answer is

Leon Belmont (Lament of Innocence): The earliest known Belmont who went into a vampire fortress alone and unarmed to beat the absolute crap out of whoever it is that kidnapped his wife in the year 1094. A baron who was widely believed to be the strongest knight in Europe, he started the Belmont Clan’s tradition of killing vampires and respecting women. Quotes of his include “I’ll kill you and the night!” and “Mark my words, from today on, I and all my descendants will not give you peace! The Belmont Clan will hunt the night!” which proves that people named ‘Leon’ in PS2 era games are just treasure troves of quotes, and not small time. Actually didn’t fight Dracula! He did best Death, though. He was engaged with Sara Tantroul, but during the Mess that happened during Leon’s adventure, as she was dying, she infused her soul with the Whip of Alchemy, turning it into the Vampire Killer. This means that every Belmont is practically swinging their great great great grandmother at Vampires to beat the utter piss out of them and she couldn’t be happier. Leon later married an unknown woman, which I hope wasn’t too awkward for his now Whip Wife.

Trevor Belmont (Castlevania III and Curse of Darkness): Almost 400 years pass, and in 1476, Trevor becomes the first Belmont to defeat Dracula, alongside future wife Sypha Belnades (a powerful spellcaster from the magic-focused Belnades Clan) and close friends Alucard (that Alucard, Dracula’s son) and Grant Danasty (a noble thief from Wallachia), and then assists a Devil Forgemaster that defected from Dracula’s service named Hector (a very strong and good boy) kill Dracula after Bad Vlad resurrected prematurely. Although an incredible warrior proud of his skills, he is also cautious, and kind of a rude jackass but he has a heart of gold. Has a REALLY good boss theme for when you have to fight him. He also starts in the Castlevania Pachislot game, which has a soundtrack too good for a fucking pachislot game, what the hell.

Christopher Belmont (The Adventure and Belmont’s Revenge): Around a hundred years later, in 1591, Dracula resurrected tougher than ever. Luckily, Christopher Belmont, great-grandson of Trevor, was lifting pretty much every day, so he went and clowned on Dracula. He was very happy about this, and he also very happy that 15 years after this fight, Soleiyu Belmont, his son, was coming of age as a Vampire Hunter. He was going to give him the Vampire Slayer, as per tradition, to make him the main Belmont, BUT THEN, Dracula, the tricky willy, HADN’T ACTUALLY DIED from the fight with Christopher, and had just been left very very weak, but due to this, he couldn’t do anything, so he possessed Soleiyu to recover his power, which Christopher DIDN’T LIKE, so he went at him again. After defeating his son Soleiyu in a duel and freeing him from Bad Vlad’s influence, he went and beat Dracula SO HARD that he did die this time, and for a while at it.

SIMON FUCKING BELMONT (Castlevania, Simon’s Quest, Super Castlevania IV, Harmony of Dissonance, and Chronicles): THE LEGEND HIMSELF. Simon Belmont, the hero of the very first game, and thus, the “first” Belmont in that way. Simon grew up hearing stories and legends of his lineage’s finest feats: His ancestor Trevor, his great-grandfather Christopher, even his grandfather Soleiyu, and always felt anxious of whether or not he was worthy of the name Belmont, worthy enough to be in such a kickass family, always wondered if he would be able to stand up to the expectation. A chance to find the answer to that question would come in 1691, when Dracula revived AGAIN, and Simon, age 22, who had spent his whole life training and becoming a monster truck gijinka, went and absolutely fucking eradicated Dracula, just gave him those kind of punches that send you to another side of the map, blew him across his own throne room as if he was on 200% damage in Smash Bros, just pulverized him. Dracula, however, managed to inflict a wound on his back, and he cursed it with his dying breath. The wound never healed, and Simon just kinda accepted that.  7 years pass and Simon’s all bummed out ‘cause he’s gonna die from this one little fuckin’ nick on his back, when a Mysterious Woman tells him “hey, find Dracula’s body parts and burn them to heal your curse” and he was like “sounds good to me”, so he did, assembled the parts, and ended up reviving Dracula, who immediately looked at Simon and went “Oh bother” before Simon unleashed the mother of all beat downs on him, tore him apart AGAIN, and now burned dismantled Bela Lugosi-looking mother fucker for good measure. This undid the curse, because exorcisms and blessings are weak and inferior to some good ol’ ultraviolence. The Belmont Clan was kinda ostracized before this because people were afraid of their superhuman power, but Simon’s feat of kicking Dracula’s ass, and then reviving him so he could kick his ass even harder was so awe inspiring that the people were like “that’s pretty cool dude!” and now they loved the Belmonts, and Simon became a legend, and a village formed around the Belmont Clan household out of respect for them.

Juste Belmont (Harmony of Dissonance): ...And in this village is where Simon’s grandson, Juste, grew up! Even among Belmonts, Juste was particularly powerful due to his immense aptitude for magic in addition to his factory setting Belmont Strength, owing to the Belnades blood in his lineage. In 1748, his best friend, Maxim Kischine, wanted to prove he was stronger than Juste, so he emulated Simon’s feat from 50 years ago and collected all of Dracula’s body parts (which should have burned but Dracula is tenacious HOW MANY TIMES DO WE HAVE TO TEACH YOU THIS LESSON, OLD MAN), EXCEPT despite being a formidable lad, Maxim was nowhere near Simon levels of strong, physically or spiritually, so he got possessed by Dracula’s influence, lol. Not Dracula himself, though, he was still VERY dead after Simon got done with him, but his influence lingered in his body parts. Juste is also a very successful IKEA employee and loves interior design, skills he puts at good use in a room in Castlevania for some reason unknown to everyone but him. Despite his kitsch tastes, Juste, as said before, is VERY STRONG, and so he beat the influence right out of Maxim and then killed it AGAIN outside of Juste, all while traversing a physical Castlevania and a spiritual Castlevania brought to quasi-existence by Maxim’s psyche, all the while rescuing their mutual friend Lydie Erlanger. Fun Fact! What Juste kills is Dracula’s influence, not Dracula himself. The final boss, Dracula Wraith, is just the manifestation of his influence after draining power from Maxim (as formidable as the real Dracula, but not actually Dracula), making him and Leon the only two people in this list that didn’t actually kill Dracula. He then likely marries Lydie and they have a no doubt very beautiful home hand-decorated by Juste himself.

Richter Belmont (Rondo of Blood, Symphony of the Night, Nocturne of Recollection, Portrait of Ruin): Richter is either Juste’s son or grandson, we don’t know, but what we do know for sure is that he’s made of something harder than the strongest metal known to man. He is VERY strong, and said to be The Strongest Belmont, period (at least until Julius). Dracula revived again SIGH and ordered a bunch of women to be kidnapped to be sacrificed to him, which included Annette, Richter’s girlfriend. Richter kinda doesn’t like this, so much like Leon, he goes absolutely ballistic on 1792 and embarks on his quest to kick vampire ass. Unlike Leon, however, he does bring weaponry. On his path of asskicking, Richter rescues fellow Vampire Hunter and distant relative of the Belmont Clan, Maria Renard, and if you’ve been following this post, you’ll know that just one Vampire Hunter is VERY strong, WELL IMAGINE TWO OF THEM NOW. Holy SHIT, they just fucking suplexed the entire castle like Sabin on steroids, satellite lasers have less firepower than this duo. So Dracula obviously loses like the jobber he is, and everything’s ok. Unfortunately, Dracula has a hyper competent sidekick. No, not Death, that guy jobs, too, I mean a Dark Priest named Shaft, who, unlike what his idiot name might suggest, is actually really good at his job. He’s the one that revive Dracula this time, and boy howdy he was going to try again, EXCEPT this time he brainwashed Richter into helping them, and that’s when Alucard, ally of Trevor, bursts out of his sarcophagus and decides to lend a hand in this whole Dracula ass kicking, but that’s another story for another day.

Julius Belmont (Aria of Sorrow/Dawn of Sorrow): The last known Belmont and the strongest. Julius fucks. In 1999, he obliterated Dracula, we don’t know how, we never were told how it went down, but all that is known is that he absolutely did that. He then lends a helpful hand to Aria/Dawn’s protagonist, Soma Cruz, but that’s also another story for another time.

[kauniia]

Hi! I’m too nervous to come off anon, but I really want to say I love your old Meta Knight design (old like he’s an older man, not the older style)! You’ve only drawn it once or twice, but his long hair, stubble, and long scars over his face really represent the old, world weary warrior he is in the anime. I don’t see anime Meta Knight portrayed in older ages much, and I think it fits his anime version very well!

aw, thanks! i had a whole shebang as to why my current meta knight looks so young despite being so old. i felt that the younger looking design referenced his “orbness” very well if you get what i mean. i added scars to show his age, and as for the drawings with his long hair and stubble... that’s part of his backstory! lol he is capable of looking way older, but he prefers to be clean cut. though when he was younger, he was more of a stickler of looking way more professional. age and experience made him more lax about his appearance, hence why his hair looks so messy as opposed to maybe my older doodles of him that you’ve possibly seen where there’s not a hair out of place on his head.

before i closed my ask blog, i was going to get into this whole thing as to what kirby, meta knight, gk, and the gsa really were. needless to say, they’re not humans! meta knight was supposed to be younger (i mixed his game verse and anime verse together for my ask blog), hence why he looks young compared to say, arthur and nonsurat. galacta knight is actually the oldest out of them all, but due to complex shenanigans, she hasn’t aged very much. 

sorry, i got really into this. i forgot how much i had planned out for my gijinkas and their story lol. but i get what you mean! all in all, my current meta knight is supposed to be a mix of both the game verse and anime, along with my own headcanons. but those original doodles of him were 100% anime influenced.

[tumblunni]

I suddenly wanna draw gijinkas of my sun and moon team cos i’m getting kinda sad thinking of starting over in usum. I mean, I could trade them over and play with them again but that’d ruin the difficulty curve! I wonder if I’ll end up loving my second team just as much? i wonder who they’ll even be? my first team was totally not what i expected, a lot of mons i liked from the aloladex weren’t available in Sun version, or were only available super late in the game. so i ended up playing with some mons i never even considered, and then growing to apprciate them! It was a good experience! I wonder if the changed up dex will bring other mons to light? I mean in BW2 i’d never used an ampharos before and it made me love ampharos. But aaaa I don’t even have gijinka design ideas for all of them and i dont think i could finish it in time for usum’s release aaa! im so artblocked latelyyyyy all I know rite now is that sherbet the muk is the youngest cute lil bab and herald the mimikyu is a grandma and ampere the raichu is a mom. And maybe charlene the golisopod is like a super tall super buff super shy gentle giant? and suspenders the fomantis has to wear suspenders obviously. and uhh... well i don’t know for my starter pulcinella the primarina. i think any sort of cliche fashiony clown boy has already been done a million times. Maybe mix it up and try and go for a very not a clown design that just incorporates the same design motifs and colours? Like I dunno maybe he looks more like a hollywood celebrity and has a fancy suit? aaaa gijink is difficul

[ryo-maybe]

Which Kamen Riders have ya seen/finished ‘n what’re your thoughts on ‘em?

Less than I make it seem - for now. At my own pace, I’ll eventually watch them all, mark my word! Now, as for my opinions, let’s go with the order in which I watched them (while skipping solitary episodes or, god forbid, Saban’s Masked Rider):

Agito

Agito is the number one in order of watching and in my HEART. I love Agito to bits for so many reasons! The cast is made of likeable characters, beginning with The smile gijinka himself, Tsugami Shouichi: a killer combination of boundless positivity, quirky eccentricity and more justice than you could fit in a democratic constitution.

This is the picture they put up in maternity wards to substitute shrill crying with happy delighted baby noises. You wil emit happy delighted baby noises whenever you see this man smile at some ridiculous jape he just made. I couldn’t die for this man because if I so much as tried to, he’d distract me with the light reflecting from his 32 smile-shaped teeth and then spend the whole afternoon convincing me that life is absolutely worth living. What a GOOD protagonist to have for your series.

The rest of the cast, as I was saying, is likewise made up of delightful presences, with the police team in particular warranting attention for not only being a funny, disfunctional bunch, but for trying their best to both fight against a menace far grander than they can handle, and this dude’s unpredictability. Also, the G3X is a design born from dreams that are metallic and wet in equal parts, W H E W.

Let’s not forget Gills, who while having the ugliest super form ever, more than compensates by being raw as all fuck, like DAMN the shivers running down my spine the first time I saw the dude axe kick-stab a monster to death before spreading open his monstrous helmet’s mouth and screeching like a demon. And then, when you’re done feeling sorry for his unfortunate drunken porcupine of a super form design, you go back to feeling sorry for him in general because Gills sorta has a very SAD BAD LIFE...

The plot is engaging, with mysterious overtones that keep you on the edge of the seat, begging for more as if you were eating at a buffet organized by Naoki Urasawa, but the best part about it is that you can pretty much summarize it as ‘HUMANITY, FUCK YEAH!’ and if celebrating how fucking cool being us as a species is ain’t the best synopsis ever, what else could be. Agito is a dish where all the ingredients are finely selected, abundant and just damnedly delicious. Sing with me now: READY TO GO! COUNT ZERO!

Ryuuki

Now, I know I just spent five paragraphs gushing over how Agito is my number one, but you have to understand that I cannot properly think of Ryuuki as a mere “number two”. They graciously share the throne by doing perfectly well what it is that they do and holy roly moly poly does Ryuuki do it right.

A premise: I don’t like using the term “deconstruction”. It is one of those words that has become tainted by its overuse and misuse, both the term itself and what it represents I mean. You say deconstruction today, the first thing that comes to mind are names like Urobuchi, Isin, a whole number of titles that like to spend a dozen episodes or a hundred chapters ultimately pointing a metaphorical finger in your nose and calling you a dipshit for enjoying the narrative conventions that you like. That is not to say that deconstructions are all works of the devil, or that the term must imply the negative connotations I just mentioned: I say this because is the wonderful, wonderful exception to the rule.

It may sound ballsy to talk of realism in a series featuring guys in spandex suits fighting giant crab monsters hidden inside reflected surfaces, but the thing is that Ryuuki does exactly that - apply a layer of realism to a true and tried battle royale scenario, with all the consequences that would apply. In a series that, let’s keep in mind, has been presented as a children’s product, characters - both major and minor - can and do die. Spoilers if you haven’t seen Ryuuki but

the protagonist himself dies at the very end. There is no glory to it, no decisive final ultimate duel of destiny between him and his rival or the main antagonist. One of the thousands of minor expendable mooks flooding the place just so happens to hit him at the worst possible moment and he dies just like that, having saved a child but otherwise, in the most abrupt, uncelebrated way. It’s the culmination of a series of other similar moments, which are all geared towards enforcing just how truly brutal a scenario a battle between individuals vested with awesome power can be. How impossible the odds truly are, contrary to the hope spots that usually dot such series, right up to the end, when a convenient deus ex machina saves the day and brings about a happy ending for everyone involved.

Ryuuki is not cheap about what it does. Every character arc, every loss and victory, they all serve to convey that theme, and it still somehow manages to not only avoid dipping in a vat full of despair, but rather looks up towards a bright future. Life gets hard to deal with at times. Tragedy happens. Greedy people have it bad, but that doesn’t make sincere, genuinely kind ones immune from misfortune - and viceversa. It would take a whole separate post to analyze just how truly, impressively deep Ryuuki is, far more than its colorful exterior, or even the outer deconstructive layer would make it seem to be. I love and admire this show, because it has remained unbeaten by so many others that came out afterwards, and still failed to achieve such a balance of brutal honesty and sincere optimism.

Also on a less serious but equally important note: Ryuuki features my favorite Rider suit design ever, which ironically enough doesn’t even count as a real Rider at all! Who could it be, you ask?

Why, Alternative and its counterpart Alternative Zero! God look at how gorgeous this bootleg is! And it is tied to one of the most impactful arcs in the series, for bonus points!

Faiz/555

Ah, Faiz, Faiz... a series that shines aesthetically with some of the best designs among both the enemies and the Riders themselves! It’s too bad that the protagonist is flatter than Jotaro Kujou with none of the traits that make the latter actually likeable. This is somewhat compensated by the fact that 555 features one of the smuggest, heinous rivals in the history of rivalries and some truly sympathetic characters among the enemy faction. Yeah, curiously enough, Faiz is a series that shines more because of the guys you should be happy about seeing beaten down by the protagonist. The story isn’t helped by the fact that it relies too heavily by one of my least favorite plot devices ever: misunderstandings. Dear GOD was Faiz crippled by the awkward lack of communication between its characters.

It’s a pity, because like a said, the aesthetic? Hot DAMN the Orphnoch are up there as far as favorite Rider enemy designs go. And the 555 suit that comes with its own briefcase and instruction manual? Pure genius! I love that outright artificial aspect of Faiz, and Axel form was a joy to see in action, but everything else... yeah. Faiz had too unstable a plot that didn’t quite know what to do with its protagonists - hell, Delta was just some rando whom they seemed to have snuck in at the last moment and simply had to keep bringing up occasionally to remind kids that he exists and has cool toys, buy this merch PLEASE. Pity!

Blade

ONDURU RURAGITTAN DISUKAA!?

BLADE WAS BORING AS ALL FUCK. TACHIBANA SAKUYA DESERVES A HOT CUP OF COFFEE AND A DAMNED DAY OFF.

Hibiki

STILL GOTTA FINISH IT but I LOVE how positive of a show is what the hell, they extracted the DNA out of Tsugami Shouichi’s smile and decided to make an entire series out of it. Kamen Rider Hibiki has some of the HOTTEST SUIT DESIGNS OUT THERE, WHAT A RAW AESTHETIC GESù CRISTO!!!! and is just a joy to watch in general, it’s a happy slice of life where some of the characters just so happen to fight youkai with the power of music holy HELL Hibiki-san you are the best!

Double/W

FUN. FUN. FUN. A wacky detective show with a side serving of sentai action? Sign me the fuck UP, I adored W ever since I watched a single fight clip and outright skipped 30 seasons just to watch it before going back to follow the proper schedule, and it was WORTH IT. W doesn’t take itself 100% seriously but neither does it indulge in wacky comedy to the point it becomes outright ridiculous. I adored it even though in the end the noir or detective elements were nearly non-existent because Shotaro’s just so genuinely funny and endearing with his schtick, I can’t hold it against him for being the worst investigator ever. His dynamic with Philip and the “two people piloting a single Rider body” gimmick were very interesting to witness, along with the variety of forms and combinations. FangJoker is aesthetically GORGEOUS.

Speaking of aesthetic? The Dopants are my favorite enemy designs so far, right above Faiz’s Orphnochs. Nasca, Weather and Yesterday Dopant are such solid designs good GRIEF. And Nasca himself was a fantastic rival, right up to his abrupt execution, one of my least favorite aspects of this series. He deserved more appearances, especially after his Heel-Face turn! Speaking of the villains though, this series did a banging job of making the main ones come across as absolutely threatening right up to the end. It gave the whole series a sense of lingering tension whenever they came up that is pretty admirable, I think. Likewise, the fact that the line between villains and heroes became so blurry at times, especially because of that whole mess with that fucked up family of theirs. Imagine having a familiar situation THAT bad.

Speaking of people with unfortunate familial situations, Accel is another design and Rider that I LOVED to see in action, in both of his beautiful forms. The dude also tried harder than hard. You KNEW he meant business when Terui appeared, dismounted his cool motorcycle and started to drag this heavy as fuck sword before transforming into a motorcycle gijinka himself. I wish I had one third of Ryu Terui’s willpower.

All in all, W was first and foremost fun. The two main protagonists had a song number at some point in the series COME ON. And aren’t we going to talk about the theater bit? That was THE single funniest part of any Rider I’ve ever seen, period.

I really, really want to find the time to watch the W movie where Skull appears because

*FANS SELF* LIKE DAMN