#and I get that’s what he is but the English dub just doesn’t capture the nuance well I think

[saltyfilmmajor]

Case Closed modern English dub, I’ll never forgive what you did

[lilyginnyblackv2]

Daughter Daddies - 10-Year Time Skip - Sub vs Dub Comparison

I’m going to make a proper post for both Episodes 11 and 12, but I wanted to make a short, separate post for the Daughter Daddies segment of Buddy Daddies in Episode12. Having watched this scene in both sub and dub, I’m thinking the disconnect that some people are getting from the character interactions here are from a combination of two things:

1. The one degree of separation that comes about from listening to one language but reading the interaction in another. We know which characters are saying what words and we can see the way the characters are emoting and interacting with each other, but there is still a disconnect with the language being spoken and the translation being read.

2. The sub translations for Buddy Daddies have been extremely good. But having watched the series both subbed and dubbed, I feel that the dub translation comes out a bit more on top. I think that comes from the fact that there is a little more freedom and wiggle room to work with and dub translations tend to fit spoken language better/more, while sub translations tend to lean more into written language and direct translations a bit more. In most cases, these differences don’t really matter, but with this 10 Year Time Skip scene in Buddy Daddies, I really do think it makes all the difference.

And I think that disconnect that some people feel from that time skip scene is due to the combination of these two factors. It resulted in the sub not really being able to capture the back-and-forth/play off of each other nature of Kazuki, Rei, and Miri in the scene that the English dub is able to properly capture. There is a flow there between the three characters that you can hear in the Japanese, but can’t quite see happening in the subtitles. 

I’ll try to show that aspect as clearly as I can in this comparison post, but I also highly suggest just giving the Daughter Daddies segment in Ep. 12 a watch in the English dub to really see (and hear) what I mean. 

Anyway, let’s dive in!

-----

There really isn’t much difference in the scene where Miri is up in her room and Kazuki calls her down, so I’ll start with when Miri is down in the diner area with Kazuki and Rei.

Sub Miri: Papa Rei! Papa Kazu! Ta-dah! (Rei & Kazu: Oh!) Well?

Sub Rei: A high school student.

Sub Miri: Bingo!

------

Dub Miri: Papa Rei! Papa Kazuki! Ta-dah! (Rei: Nice!, Kazu: Hey!) How do I look?

Dub Rei: Like a high school student.

Dub Miri: Ding-ding-ding! (They had her say this with the Santa snow art scene too).

Thoughts: It’s small, but the addition of Kazuki and Rei actually say things like “Nice!” and “Hey!” (a “Hey” like in “Hey! Looking good!”) and having Miri ask specifically how she looks, instead of just “Well” and having that question be connected to Rei’s answer with “Like” instead of just “A high school student” helps with the flow and connectiveness of the scene.

Sub Kazu: I’m so glad you didn’t break bad! 

Sub Miri: What in the heck?

----

Dub Kazu: I’m so relieved that you never ended up breaking bad!

Dub Miri: Huh? Breaking bad...?

Thoughts: It’s small, but by having Miri repeat the “breaking bad” part as a question also helps with that flow I was talking about above and with it feeling like a more connected conversation.

Sub Kazu: When you’re a parent, there’s so much to worry about. The ten years I spent since opening this diner really paid off!

Dub Kazu: You don’t know what it’s like! Parents have so much to worry about! That’s why I decided to open this diner ten years ago, and devote my life to honest work for your sake.

Sub Rei: Honest work?

Sub Miri: Didn’t you slip out yesterday to go drinking with a girl again?

Sub Kazu: That doesn’t count!

----

Dub Rei: Really?

Dub Miri: I seem to recall someone cutting out early yesterday to go drinking with the ladies.

Dub Kazu: Sorry, what was that?

Thoughts: In the Japanese, Rei does parrot back, “Honest work?” like he does in the sub, but I feel that comes across a bit differently than it does in English. Here the “Really?” sounds a bit more teasing and being more general, and feels less accusatory in nature, more just disbelieving about Kazuki’s statement in general. 

Meanwhile, Miri’s English dub statement clarifies that the doubt that both Rei and Miri express in regards to “honest work” is very specifically about the fact that Kazuki left work early, not that he was drinking with a lady or ladies. Also, Miri saying “drinking with the ladies,” makes it clear that he was likely at a Fairy Lips like establishment and really just out for drinks with them. Not on a date with a lady in particular or anything like that.

The Fairy Lips establishment worked in a similar way as a hostess bar, just with a gambling aspect as well, so nothing sexual (as in sexual acts) are actually allowed (though, I have no doubt that they do sometimes happen at establishments like that). But the true appeal of those places are the illusions of sex and just female company in general. 

Sub Rei: Miri. Eat.

-----

Dub Rei: Eat up, Miri. 

Thoughts: By having Rei say, “Eat up, Miri,” instead of just “Miri. Eat,” the feel comes off less like a command and more like a general statement that the food is ready for her to eat. There’s a softness to “Eat up, Miri.” Still a command in some ways, but gentler. I also think that in English, one word verbal commands always come off as could and harsh on some level, while in Japanese having a verb just existing on its own is way more common and therefore doesn’t hold the same sort of feel to it. Of course, since we know Rei as a character, we also know that Rei doesn’t mean anything harsh by “Miri. Eat,” but there is likely still a left over feeling of coldness or distance there.

----

The Rei and Miri exchange of her saying thanks for the food, him asking her how it is, and her saying it’s yummy as always is pretty much the same as the sub without any substantial changes or differences. Basically, nothing worth mentioning here.

Sub Kazu: I’m glad you got a signature dish with that toast, but shouldn’t you expand your repertoire a little?

Sub Rei: But why?

Sub Kazu: Ever the one-trick pony...

Sub Miri: Hey, it’s fine! Since Papa Rei’s the best!

----

Dub Kazu: Listen, I know the toast is your signature dish, and that’s great, but shouldn’t you expand your repertoire?

Dub Rei: What for?

Dub Kazu: You are such a one-trick pony.

Dub Miri: Hey! There’s nothing wrong with that. The important thing is that his one-trick pony is yummy!

Thoughts: The use of “listen,” and “that’s great” definitely makes Kazuki’s statement to Rei feel more like general constructive criticism, while Miri’s words in the dub come off more like a warm teasing (like this is possibly a conversation that they’ve had before, lol). Kazuki’s “You are such a one-trick pony” statement also comes off more as more as a warm, sentimental line sort of thing.

The sub translation comes off a bit colder. The way Kazuki’s first line is structured sounds more like just general criticism, as does the “ever” part in his one-trick pony line. Miri’s line as feels less connected, even though it is still on topic, so the comradery feel found in the dub is less present. Of course, tone also matters here and I think the dub really allows for the more teasing and warm tone of the scene to come across than the sub does since, as I mentioned, there is a bit of a disconnect with subs that isn’t as present with dubs.

Sub Kazu: It’s fine like this, right?

Sub Miri: It’s not! Come on, we’re family!

Sub Rei: Family?

Sub Kazu: Can’t be helped, right?

Sub Rei: Hey-!

-----

Dub Kazu: Can’t we make it work like this?

Dub Miri: No way! C’mon, we’re family, aren’t we?

Dub Rei: Well, are we?

Dub Kazu: Get over here, you big lug!

Dub Rei: Hey-!

Thoughts: The dub translation makes things a bit clearer by adding more words and context. In the sub, Kazuki just questions, “It’s fine like this” but what is meant by “it”? The dub line makes the “it” easier to figure out. Adding “can’t we,” “make,” and “work” together with the it makes it clear that the “it” here is referring specifically to the photo arrangement that they had going on (Kazuki and Rei on either side of Miri).

Miri’s lines are largely the same, but by adding “aren’t we?” to the end of it, and then having Rei parrot that with a “well” in front of it, gives a feeling of Rei and Miri sort of coming together in solidarity on this, a little teasing on their end. And Kazuki just going all in on it, with the dub giving him a line that implies a lot of sentimentality on Kazuki’s part towards Rei. “Big lug” is a term of endearment, and implies someone (usually a man) with a strong physique, but a gentle personality, which does fit Rei. 

The Japanese does have Kazuki saying the Japanese equivalent of “can’t be helped,” but...A lot of Japanese translators view that translation of the phrase as being overused and not necessarily the best translation all the time based on situation and context. And this would be one situation and context where I think it doesn’t quite work. 

Kazuki is being put on the spot by both Rei and Miri, “we are a family, right,” him saying otherwise wouldn’t be right and they all know that, while Miri has made it clear that they can’t do their usual photo arrangement, they have to try something new. So, yes, in a sense there is “no helping” the situation. But by the way Kazuki latches onto Rei,bringing him into a one-armed hug, and the huge smile on his face, we know this isn’t a sort of ‘-sigh- can’t be helped!’ kind of situation that that phrase often implies in English.

The dub translation of choosing to translate that as “Get over here, you big lug!” easily implies that Kazuki has accepted this new arrangement for their photo and that they are, of course, a family. The dub has Kazuki use a slangy term of endearment, because that is within his personality. He uses slang and overfamiliar grammar and words, so he would say something like that.

I think the dub does a great job of capturing this new change in the Kurusu family! <3 

[medea10]

My Review of Cat’s Eye

How did I get into this anime? Oh, just another case of curiosity hitting me. I’m still on a mission to watch more animes that came out in the 70s and 80s. Plus, I do recall a couple second skit from Lucky Star that referenced this series.

Yeah, I see what you did there, Lucky Star!

The Kisugi sisters (Hitomi, Rui, and Ai) run a café named Cat’s Eye during the day. By night, they are secret cat burglars known as Cat’s Eye. The fact the police didn’t put two and two together that these two correlated is beyond me. Plus, the police station is really close to the Cat’s Eye café. Like, next door! Seriously, how do you not…?! That’s like having Jeffrey Dahmer open a restaurant named “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Human” right next door to the police station.

Then you have Toshio Utsumi. He’s a detective for the police department investigating all the burglaries made by Cat’s Eye. He’s also dating Hitomi Kisugi. Seriously, dude? Toshio has been foiled at every turn by these cat burglars. Cat’s Eye don’t steal just any old art item, everything they steal has one connection. They were all made by an artist named Michael Heintz and this man just happens to be Hitomi, Rui, and Ai’s biological father. With each item collected, the girls feel they are one step closer to finding their father. Do the girls find their father? Does Toshi catch Cat’s Eye? Let’s find out!

BETWEEN THE SUB AND THE DUB: Made in 1983, this anime got a later release in the west by distributor Nozomi Entertainment. And in more recent years, Cat’s Eye has gotten on streaming sites including Crunchyroll, Tubi TV, Amazon’s Freevee, and Retro Crush. And just my luck, Crunchyroll got rid of Cat’s Eye right in the middle of me watching it. There is no English dub if you’re wondering. At least when it comes to the original series. There’s a City Hunter movie as well as a Lupin III special where Cat’s Eye appear. They both have dubs…and they’re different from each other. The sub surprised me with several voice actors I seem to know including the late Kenji Utsumi. I have to say, I enjoyed his comedic performance as the chief. Here’s what you might recognize these folks from.

*Hitomi is played by Keiko Toda (known for Anpanman and Osono on Kiki’s Delivery Service)

*Rui is played by Toshiko Fujita (known for Tai on Digimon, Alfredo on Romeo’s Blue Skies, Matilda on Trapp Family Story, and Big Mom on One Piece) [R.I.P.]

*Ai is played by Chika Sakamoto (known for Yaten/Star Healer on Sailor Moon Stars, Nuriko on Fushigi Yugi, and Agumon on Digimon)

*Toshio is played by Yoshito Yasuhara (known for Aoshi on Rurouni Kenshin and Louis XVI on Rose of Versailles)

SHIPPING: So, the big ship here is between Hitomi and Toshi. The two have known each other since high school and maybe even before that. But can this ship truly set sail when one of them is trying to catch a cat burglar and the other is the actual fucking cat burglar? I guess it helps that Toshi is dimmer than a 3-watt bulb and really can’t put two and two together.

Now these two do progress, but not by much. There is an episode where Hitomi and Toshi do get engaged. Unfortunately, it’s only going to stay at an engagement. The reason behind that is Toshi says he doesn’t want to marry Hitomi until he captures and arrests Cat’s Eye. Good luck with that, because Cat’s Eye has duped you every chance you even got close to them. We do get a wedding episode, but it was just a fake wedding between Toshi and Hitomi to do a sting operation to get Cat’s Eye. Didn’t work!

Despite the fact that these two have gone out since high school, they sometimes act awkward during some crucial moments. Like the time Toshi stayed with the girls and shared a room with Hitomi. I know Hitomi is nervous because she and her sisters have special rooms dedicated to Cat’s Eye and possibly a few stolen items. But there’s such a thick layer of bashfulness here. Not to mention the flirting Toshi does every now and then. He isn’t a full-blown pervert like some other notorious anime characters, but he does have a weakness for blonde women. And Hitomi does let her jealousy show at nearly every moment. Do they actually hook up in the manga? I don’t know. I doubt it. But I’m going on my doubts I just listed with this ship.

HALFWAY POINT: So, about 30+ episodes into the series, we notice a few things happening to help turn this slow-moving cog of an anime. First of all, Toshi and Hitomi finally got engaged. But as always, work will always trump relationships. Toshi will only marry Hitomi if he catches Cat’s Eye. But duh, Hitomi is Cat’s Eye so how the fuck is that gonna work. She and her sisters are already one step ahead of Toshi and the police.

Well, it looks like Toshi added two extra brain cells! He decided to look into all of the pieces of work stolen by Cat’s Eye to see if they have a connection. Yes, they do! They’re all by Michael Heinz. Unknown to all, but to Rui, Hitomi, and Ai, that is their missing father. Toshi tries to learn more about the elusive artist, meanwhile the girls get a hot tip saying that Heinz is in Paris. That only lasted for one episode, now they’re back in Japan.

Yeah, despite getting a bad-ass new opening theme and a short-lived costume change for Cat’s Eye, the show goes back to the formulaic plot of Cat’s Eye stealing a piece of art work and foiling the police for another 30+ episodes. Now don’t get it twisted. There are some episodes that are pretty good. There are a couple of episodes where Toshi does suspect Hitomi of being Cat’s Eye. He gets close, but then something absurd happens and Toshi drops the suspicion. Toshi’s workmate Asatani never did drop her suspicion of Hitomi and the others though.

ENDING: Okay, do we get a conclusion? Do we move away from the crime of the day for Cat’s Eye? Does Toshi and the other detectives catch the elusive cat burglars? Are Hitomi and her sisters finally revealed to be Cat’s Eye? Do the girls get a special clue about their mysterious father?

Imagine if you will, the girls are about to steal a valuable diamond and announce their crime in their usual way. And Toshi has been given the ultimate, final warning from the chief where he has to arrest Cat’s Eye this time or be fired from being a detective. Now imagine that Toshi finally catches Cat’s Eye and learns that it has been Hitomi, his fiancé all along. Hitomi let’s herself be caught because she knows Toshi’s career is on the line this time.

Keep imagining because none of that happened for real. This was all part of a play written by Ai. Wow, what a shitty pay off for the series finale. I’m sorry, you keep people on the line for 72 episodes of the same old song and dance. Cat’s Eye commits the crime. The police department is incompetent. Cat’s Eye steals the priceless art item. And then when you get to the 73rd episode of the series, the finale, it’s all part of Ai’s play. And Ai is the worst person in the world to have make a school play about Cat’s Eye. First of all, she has almost slipped her tongue about being Cat’s Eye on numerous occasions throughout the series. We can chalk that up to her being young and stupid. And second of all, SHE’S PART OF FREAKIN’ CAT’S EYE!

From what I heard; the manga does end much differently. I would have chalked it up to the anime ending with a weird ending in order to entice fans to read the manga. It might have been that, but then you notice that both the anime and the manga ended in 1985. In fact, the manga ended six months before the anime. Okay, I have no theories on that. All I know is that the anime has no conclusion whatsoever. Toshi still doesn’t know that his girlfriend and her sisters are really Cat’s Eye. The notorious art thieves he’s been trying to capture this whole time! Hitomi and her sisters still haven’t nailed down the whereabouts of their elusive father. And apparently, there’s still many more pieces their father made that are scattered around art museums all over Japan and beyond. Yes, Cat’s Eye the anime is over…but Hitomi, Rui, and Ai live on.

In 2019, another retro anime by the name of City Hunter reemerged on the scene with a new movie. And wouldn’t you know it, Hitomi, Rui, and Ai appeared in the film as Cat’s Eye. Strange, right? It is until you realize that the creator of City Hunter is also the creator for Cat’s Eye. Amazing to hear and see these girls in our updated animation of whatever the hell period this is. Of course, Toshiko Fujita had already passed away by the time this movie came out so, Rui is now played by Hitomi’s seiyuu Keiko Toda. Add to that, the girls of Cat’s Eye have English voices in this movie.

And more proof that this is not over, in 2023 Cat’s Eye had a crossover with Lupin III. Don’t get too excited for a conclusion here either. Crossovers are not canon to the main story. I have severe doubts that Lupin III even knew Cat’s Eye’s father or that both animes coincide with each other for real. It’s probably to celebrate Cat’s Eye’s anime anniversary as 2023 marks 40 years. Anything else I should say about the movie? Nostalgic music, weird hearing an English dub, and tripped up by the animation. Seeing anything compared to it’s 40-year-old counterpart is severe whiplash. The English voices here are different from the City Hunter cameo the girls had four years prior. And in the Japanese Cast, they got Rica Fukami to do Rui’s voice this time.

After sitting through 73 episodes with no big pay off, no catch, and no ultimate conclusion, I can’t really give this a glowing recommendation. Only to say that if you’re curious to see a vintage piece of media, maybe consider watching a few choice episodes. I’m sure there’s some wad on Reddit that has a list of episodes to watch without being bored with the same running gag over and over again. And yeah, for the men in the audience, you might be enticed by the sex here. Hitomi and Rui are bombshells. And yeah, Rui is another character I would go gay for.

In the meantime, every episode is available on Freevee through Prime Video as well as Retro Crush and Crackle. The newly released Cat’s Eye vs. Lupin III movie is also on Prime Video.

[xarrixii]

Chapter_45 : "From Afar"

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CW: mentions to abuse archive masterlist | masterlist

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“Relax,” Raiden waves off Harlow’s objections, roughly a minute before all of the highschool kids were meant to be let into the building. “Just stick your earbuds in most of the time if you don’t want to know my name that badly.”

“That doesn’t negate the possibility,”

“It’s not that important anyway. Look, I have a plan. They won’t even know some random dude’s walked in.”

“This is stupid,” Harlow hisses.

Raiden shakes their head. “I’m hellbent on winning this bet with my dad. If you want to back out, I’ll get you out of here. Whenever. Promise.”

It’s not like Harlow’s never wanted to be inside of a public school. Surrounded by other people his age who also struggled being themselves. Captured by problems not nearly as heavy as what time to return home at to avoid confrontation.

Breaking into a government institution for the feeling was just a bit… different.

With a heavy sigh, “What’s the plan?”

“The plan,” Raiden’s winner smile creeps up, digging out a pair of wired earbuds to stick into the cracked screen of a phone that was Raiden’s-now-Harlow’s. “Is a Yugenztch accent.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I am not. I now dub thee the farlander my dad is hosting from Yugenztch who is trying to learn English. Come on, you have a pretty good accent. You also know, like, a few words.”

“Yeah, from the pawn owners. That doesn’t mean it’s a good plan.”

“Nobody’s gonna know.” Raiden nods as people start to shuffle inside the building.

“Someone will.”

“Music. Trust me, I’m proving this place could give less of a shit about who and what is inside it as long as they sit down and shut up.”

Harlow admits defeat, sticking the earbuds into his ears and blasting his favorite song while allowing Raiden to take his arm and lead him in, letting go once the bulk of student body to get washed away in was dispersed along winding brick hallways.

Raiden stopped them both in front of a locker and tapped their ear while opening the door. They shrugged off their backpack as Harlow took out one of the earbuds.

“No backpacks in the classrooms.”

“Really?”

Raiden rolls their eyes as subtly as possible. “ ‘Tripping hazard.’ ”

Harlow snickered and put the earbud back in before setting the backpack on the ground and taking out a laptop, notepad, and mechanical pencil. When his eyes returned upward again to hand Raiden his backpack, Raiden was in conversation with someone.

The person waved at him.

He took the earbud out again, mentally preparing to go with Raiden’s plan.

“Hello! Annabeth, she/her,” said while the girl was tying up her long hair. “Usually it’s just Beth.”

“ ‘Cause it rhymes with Meth.” Another person walks up, multi-colored sleeves on a black hoodie one of their hands was stuck in. “Reggie. He/they.”

“Reginald,” Beth corrects.

“The fifteenth,” Raiden juts at Harlow’s arm.

Harlow stands in a stunned silence, not really sure what to do about this. Say. Would someone who barely speaks English respond in the same way? How would he even apply the accent to his own name?

“Need help?” Raiden ends up suggesting.

“No, no. Sorry.” Harlow says a curse in Yugenztch under his breath. “Harlow. He/him.”

Beth beams. “Shy is okay. We’ll do most of the talking.”

Raiden politely shoves Harlow’s backpack into their locker and starts walking. Everyone follows.

“So, where you from, Harlow?” Reggie makes some finger guns. “Mayland? Alandor? Khiefan?”

“Scotthoue?” Beth adds to the list.

Harlow takes note that they aren’t going to notice as much if he screws up the accent. “Yugenztch.”

“Oh. Wait, you’re not a telepath, are you?”

“Beth!” Reggie lightly punches her between the shoulderblades, setting his other hand on top of Harlow’s shoulder. It takes a lot of Harlow to keep from smacking the hand away.

Raiden turns around and moves Reggie’s hand away a little too passive-aggressively. “No, he’s not.”

“Shit! You don’t like being touched, do you? My bad.” Reggie’s arms fling into the air.

“You’re… good.” Harlow paused in the middle as if he was deciding on the right word, picking up the earbud strewn over his shoulder.

Raiden gives him a thumbs-up before leading the conversation away. “While he may not be able to read anyone’s mind, he is wildly good at playing Flash…”

Harlow cut off the world by sticking the music back into his ear, instead focusing on following Raiden to the first class of the day. If any of them tried to talk to him, he didn’t notice.

“One more hour. Think you can make it?” Raiden takes off their dark green jacket and holds out their hand for Harlow to toss his into.

“Probably. I don’t think running around a track is the most sociable activity.”

“Well, I don’t know. Beth and Reggie are in this class too. They just like showing up late to it.”

Harlow looked down at the gym floor they were both walking around on after handing off his jacket to Raiden. They’d made sure to walk out of overhearing distance from everyone else, not that they’d care.

A group of slower-walking girls kept giving him glances though.

“It’s not like I can’t just manually separate myself.”

“You sure? Beth does soccer and Reggie does basketball.”

“That might complicate things.”

Raiden shrugs. “You’ve got earbuds. I won’t bother you.”

“I think I can do it,” Harlow gets out his phone and turns it off, effectively pausing the music. Then he wrenches the earbuds out and hands Raiden the phone-earbud combo to put away with the jackets. “Talk.”

“You sure?”

Harlow didn’t get a chance to answer, as Beth and Reggie had finally made their way into the gym. Raiden left to go put the stuff into the locker room as the gym teacher led everyone outside to the track.

Raiden caught up while the teacher was unlocking the gate.

“Hey, Harlow. You wanna set the pace?” Beth’s eyes light up with a competitive spark when they switch from his to Reggie’s. “We don’t wanna leave you behind.”

“I’d take any excuse to beat her time, actually,” Reggie returns the competitive glaring.

“Raiden’s got more stamina than you do. If I don’t kick your ass, they will.”

Harlow gets taken aback for a moment.

“Oh,” Raiden catches it too. “They call me that too, you’ve actually heard them over the game before. So they don’t slip up while I’m online.”

Harlow sends Raiden a look screaming, Would’ve been nice to know earlier.

Beth and Reggie didn’t seem to catch it, arguing over who was faster.

“I can… set the pace. Yes.” Harlow mentally cringes at himself.

That, Beth and Reggie listen to. Beth’s the first onto the track regardless. “Well, then after you, mysterious Yugenztch exchangee. As fast as you can go, don’t hold back.”

Harlow takes in a deep breath, thinking about it. Like you’re running home.

Then he takes off.

“Holy shit.” Beth says. “Could’ve used a warning!”

He slows down to let them all catch up.

“You, my friend,” Reggie laughs, “Are exceptionally fast. What do you do back home? Besides video games?”

“Run,” Harlow says automatically. “Walk. I don’t own a car.”

“Not even a bike?” Beth relates.

“No.”

Raiden, though, seems the most surprised. “You’ve been holding back on me?”

“You said they were ‘chill runs,’” Harlow has to remind himself about the accent a little too much.

“How long has he actually been here?” Beth exasperates. “Have you been keeping him to yourself, Raiden?”

“Don’t say it like that.” Raiden makes a lax face of… disgust? Embarrassment?

Harlow isn’t given time to dwell on the matter of Raiden’s facial expression.

“Oooh, not every day you see hot rich women walk up to the track,” Beth is practically craning her head to look toward the entrance, where a police uniform, the gym teacher, and a blonde woman stood.

Harlow stopped dead in his tracks.

“Dad!” Raiden yelled after looking over. “What are you doing here?”

Raiden jogged up to the edge of the track. People stopped running to watch, including Beth and Reggie.

Harlow’s breath caught.

People were speaking. He could see it. He couldn’t hear it.

Raiden turned back to look at him. Then their dad did. Then the teacher.

And finally, his mother stared into him.

He barely felt the time passing as she walked up, preparing for the electric shock. To show it wasn’t happening, to pretend to be fine, to prove he was normal. Normal around her, normal around people, normal being himself when he wasn’t.

She placed her hand on his shoulder. He didn’t even move, just stared back at her.

And it didn’t come.

Of course it wouldn’t. She’s not stupid. She wouldn’t attempt to in front of the police. She knows it’s illegal, she knows she hurts me.

He tore his eyes away for a moment, watching Reggie’s widen.

“Let’s go home,” his mother finally delivered. “Away from this bullshit. What were you thinking?”

She let him stand in silence beneath her grip before he found enough courage to finally speak. “I don’t know.”

“Don’t know what?”

“Don’t know what I was thinking. Doing.”

She bends down to whisper in his ear, “My son does not stoop to talking with the trash.”

“Yes, mother.”

And then she pulls away, and he follows as she walks him out.

“So he’s not from Yugenztch, is he?” He hears Beth asking Raiden.

Raiden took a moment to respond, “No.”

“Where’s the phone, Harlow?”

“What?” It takes him a second to realize his mother is talking to him.

“The one I tracked to find you. Where is it?”

“The locker room. In one of the lockers.”

“I have the keys, Mrs. Collins. There’ll be no trouble,” the gym teacher is the last one to speak until they get back into the building.

The gym teacher clears his throat as Harlow opens the locker, “Hey, kid. If you ever wanted to join the track team, I wouldn’t blabber to nobody. You run good.”

“No thank you,” Harlow shakes his head. “I’m not available most of the time.”

“I understand.” Harlow shuts his eyes as he puts on his jacket again. You never will.

next chapter

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kind of a slightly sillier fanfiction style.

[once-upon-the-earth]

Im German and literally bought the book in English only because of this.

Overdramatic Rant™️ incoming.

It bugs me so much. I know why it got translated, until the 90s and a bit longer lots of made-up „English“ names were translated to German because people didn’t know how to pronounce them correctly (its how we got for example Kankra from Shelob in Lotr). That was mostly fine because most of the time the translators found a way to match the vibe of the original. Some cases of it make me want to cut off the translators fingers to make them stop typing though.

See, the german word for Archangel(s) is „Erzengel“. Im fairly sure that they used the word „Erz“ in Erziraphael to reference that, and then made „-raphale“ into Raphael because people are familiar with that, it’s already the name of an Archangel, it gets rid of the English pronounciation „phale“, everything’s perfect, right?

It’s just that Aziraphale is not an Archangel at all. So using „Erz“ is simply stupid and gives off the feeling that the translators wanted him to appear way way more powerful than he is, because there was no reason, none at all, to give him that name. „Aziraphael“ is perfectly pronounceable in German. Why did they want to bring the Archangels into it?? It makes no fucking sense.

It also just sounds stupid. Putting an i behind words is a common German way to make something sound cute but in this case it does not sound cute it simply sounds ridiculous. Why act like he’s a powerful badass archangel only to then go „yeah but only a little one.“ The English equivalent of it would be calling Gabriel an Archangelly. What the fuck were the translators thoughts behind this. Also, and this is a little less important but still makes me mad just from a writers perspective - the first letter of the same determines to much of the vibe the name has. So once you get used to a characters name beginning with an A, it better fucking stay an A, otherwise it stops matching the vibe of the characters name, which really means it stops being that characters name. It might be something I’m just more sensitive to but tell me Aziraphales name would still feel like him beginning with an E. It doesn’t.

(Also OP i fully agree the German dub is strange. There’s lots less feeling behind what they say, the way they talk isn’t really captured - why is Aziraphale saying „okay“ in that scene? He does not know that word even exists yet and if he did he would not say it for at least another five thousand years. It annoys me less than other scenes but I’m just sad that he doesn’t talk like a mix of English professor and friendly grandmother like he does in the original. The way Crowley talks is fine at least even though I don’t like how it sounds.)

In conclusion, the German version of Aziraphales name is horrible, funny as fuck, and I hate it. Thanks for reading that whole rant.

I'm trying to get the motivation to torture myself through gomens season 2 and just looked at the episode description....

Tell me why the German translation for Aziraphale is Erziraphael and why that sounds so funny

In general, I've just noticed the differences between German and English good omens.

Like, what are those voices?? Erziraphael saying okay during thenflaming sword scene????

[mortallyclearwonderland]

Kung Fu Panda Legends of Awesomeness - "Kung Fu Day Care"

Episode 1 Season 2 - 27th overall

Synopsis:

Po and Tigress rescue young goose named Zan from Fung and his gang of crocodile bandits, who had kidnapped Zan and were holding him for ransom. Crane and Viper are then sent to find Zan's parents, while Tigress must look after the child, who has taken a shine on her. Not particularly fond on kids, after several awkward attempts to entertain Zan, Tigress starts teaching him kung fu. After another failed attempt to kidnap Zan, the crocodiles are joined by Fung's younger but larger cousin Lidong. Lured to a farm, Po, Shifu, Monkey and Mantis get attacked by the crocodile bandits, while Tigress stays in the Palace as the child's protector. There, they are attacked by Lidong and Fung, who manages to capture Zan, but Tigress eventually defeats them, kicking Lidong off the Palace, and then obtains a motherly role to the child. At the end, Zan's mother, who turns out to be the Emperor's sister, comes for Zan, who has meanwhile endeared to Tigress.

Characters:

In this episode we explore Tigresses softer side. She’s not trying to be mean or cold. She just doesn’t know how to play or loosen up. Watching her trying to take care of Zan is adorable, but also kind of sad. It's rare for Po to be the smarter one between the two, so it's nice. It totally makes sense. Po is great with children as many times proven in the show.

Shifu's insistence on Tigress taking care of the kid comes off as some kind of challenge for her and a growing experience. He knows what he did.

Zan is cute and lovable. I can see a kid behave like him. I watched with a Polish dub, so I don't know what his English voice sounds like. But the actress in my native language is great. It's so easy to make a kid character annoying or awkward when you can hear the adult just making a baby voice. I hope Tigress keeps her promise and visits him.

Villains: Fung and the Croc Bandits were funny as always. I love how they trying to be bad, but go out of their way to be careful and not wake up Zan. Lidong is intimidating, especially for a kid like Zan. I wonder if that fall killed him. It’s a kid show, but they didn’t show the body.

[luxshine]

Smallish update because I’ve seen some missunderstandigns going on.

Ok, so yesterday was a day. 

I am still reeling of a lot of it, which is why I have not been able to do a transcription of the panel (although the ones I’ve reblogged, made by other people, are very accurate and their only “fault” is not being in my head to know why I had some troubles translating Guillermo’s long answers as he spoke too quickly and too passionately so I had to paraphrase rather than translate literally as I did with the shorter answers, and at some points, I admit my short term memory may have failed me)

I am trying to get the panel off the facebook page to put it on my youtube (With permission from Harlecon’s organizer, Harleyquinnarts, whom you should all follow in Instagram and follow Harlecon on facebook because she’s amazing and made this possible by giving us the space to have the panel. BTW, I have heard that there IS a version already on youtube? If it is, please, please, please, put a link back to Harlecon on it, yes? These small cons deserve all our support)

I am ALSO trying to contact Adrian Fogarty, the dubbing director (NOT the translator, as some people are mis-reporting) who is, in the end, the one who has the answers as to where the hell the “Me too” came from.

Which is the missreporting I;ve seen going around, and which I need to adress.

During the panel, Mr. Rojas went from talking about the “Original” Script to the “DUB” Original Script without making it obvious that there was a different. Understand, for MOST actors, when they talk about the Original Script, they’re NOT talking about the Original English Script. They don’t get that. They get the Original TRANSLATED script, which can be then FURTHER changed by them or the director in order to fit cadence, and lip sync. 

And yes, we come again to my old nemesis, lip sync.

So he said that the original script said “Me Too”, as a reply to Cas’s “I love you”, and THEN Alejandro Fogarty, who has a TON of experience adapting on the fly, and is a very respected dubbing director, changed it to “And I you,Cas” because it fit better Dean’s lip movements.

This DOESN’T mean that Fogarty ADDED the Me Too. IT WAS on the Original DUB Script that Guillermo was reading.

He said that Dean didn’t reciprocate Castiel’s words too, but that was AFTER he said he didn’t HEAR what Dean originally said (Which, granted, could be him misremembering as he admitted he had a bad short term memory). This is not to say that he lied when he said Dean didn’t reciprocate, but that that’ts the reason why two different versions of what he said may be running around. This was when I said that then we had to ask Fogarty about the origin of the dub script “Me Too” as he’d probably be the one who knows.

He also said that while it was a surprise, that the writers had been very subtle creating the story between Dean and Castiel, and that it made SENSE. 

There are a few things I could say here about voice actor culture, but I won’t as it could muddy the issue and I want to wait until I finish the transcription.

What he corrected from my previous assumptions was that there was no Warner Bros quality control. They finish dubbing, then send it to air and as far as HE knows, there’s no WB exec checking the files. He admitted he might be wrong on that, but it’s more probable that he’s right. So IF the “Me too” was added, there would be no final check to stop it. HOWEVER, there has been no request to RE-Dub the line, so we can assume that, now that the horse is out of the barn, WB and CW don’t really care that, in Mexico and LataM, Dean Winchester is bisexual, canonically.

Which brings us back to the REAL question: Where did that Me Too came from?

Now, I want to make clear this I DON’T BELIEVE THERE’S A BIG CW CONSPIRACY TO KEEP DEAN STRAIGHT. What I do believe is that, due to a bunch of mismanagement of the series, PR, confusion of what their demography is, old-boys club mentality AND good ol’ network censorship, they may have ended up accidentally creating the ILLUSION of one.

And to be honest, I preffer to know the ACTUAL truth, which could very well be a rogue dub director (Which, if you check my previous posts, was a possibility I raised, that if there HAD been a rogue dub translator, the director HAD to be on it too), or a different audio version sent from the US.

I’ve seen script captures from the Original English Script that were leaked, and there Dean doesn’t reply ANYTHING. Not “Me too”, not “Don’t do this, CAs”. HE just goes 404,File not found, Being Loved by an angel, doesn’t compute.

So we know that DEan’s answer in english was Ad libbed by Jensen. 

However, we also know that Jensen had to re-record some lines. 

So he could’ve ad-libbed again, something different (Either by choice, or by the director’s request. I frankly don’t know nor care. I just assume that there were two different readings and the “wrong” one was sent to the Latam Translator. Wrong here to mean “not the one that aired in the US”)

And the only way we’re going to get closer to which was it, is asking the dub director, which is what I am trying to do. And I do hope that by now, you trust me enough to know that, IF the answer was “Oh, yeah, we decided that it was more logical” , I’ll tell you straight (Or, you know, organize another panel so that you hear it from the horse’s mouth just as I did with Guillermo Rojas)

Also, yes, Guillermo didn’t say the words “I ship Destiel” or “I am a Heller”. However, he DID say that the ending of the arc of Dean and Castiel having a love story was the closing of the series, that Dean reciprocating Cas’s feelings made it make sense and that it was beautiful. So he is a heller, in spirit if not in name.

ETA: I had to fix Adrian Fogarty’s name as someone pointed out I wrote “Alejandro Fogarty” and this proves that I need at least a week of sleep as this show has broken my brain.

[shihalyfie]

Kizuna itself vs. the two versions of the novel

Written on request from a friend who wanted to remain anonymous. This is more of an editorial than a meta, and while I usually have a policy of “this is an analysis blog, not a review blog” it goes into more of my personal impressions and opinions than usual, but it’s something I write hoping to be helpful.

There are basically three “official” full versions of Kizuna: one being, of course, the movie itself, one being the Dash X Bunko version of the novel, and one being the Shueisha Mirai Bunko version of it. While it’s certainly not to say that any of the three is an “incomplete” version of the narrative, if you really want as full of a picture of the story as possible, somehow, each of all three versions of the story happens to have really important information that the other two do not. If I had to pick only one of these three versions to recommend to people, I would of course pick the movie itself; it’s obviously the base story everything else is based off of and was the one the production centered around as a priority, but the novelizations have a surprising amount of info that provide a lot of insight into the movie’s story and themes.

I get the impression that the creation of Kizuna involved making a lot more story and background details than could fit in a 95-minute movie, so these novelizations, which were based directly off the original movie script, ended up being an outlet for a lot of these details (and as much as I could be harsh on the movie itself for being a bit “reliant” on extra material, I have to admit that Adventure and 02 were both like this too -- a lot of our current understanding of the series comes from the Adventure novels and drama CDs -- so frankly I’m thankful we at least got this with a 95-minute movie instead of a yearlong series). On the flip side, while I'm not going to say that the novels are completely and utterly inaccurate representations of the movie, in a perhaps too-close approximation of Adventure and 02's writing style, this is a movie where even the nuances in a single line or split-second moment carry heavy implications, which become much blurrier or harder to identify when they’re presented differently (or not even presented at all) in the novel’s context, especially when they emphasize very different things from what the movie itself was emphasizing.

The short version of this is that I believe the Dash X version contains the greater amount of “plot and story” information but significantly misses out on the emotional themes and presentation, whereas the Shueisha Mirai version abridges and cuts chunks of content but is much better at conveying the intended message. More on this below the cut. (Note that the following post spoils Kizuna’s plot events.)

The movie itself

Since the following parts are more “in comparison to the movie”, I’m not going to go too much into this in this section, but one thing I will say is that the official English subtitle translation for the movie is really not great. Even if you take out nitpickiness about the fact it misses several significant nuances (the difference between “unchangeable fate” and “changeable destiny”, or the fact that Gennai refers to partnership dissolution as a “case” and not like it’s something that happens overall) at really plot-important moments, some lines (thankfully, usually not plot-important ones) are just straight-up incorrect. And worse, there’s evidence the official English dub was based on that translation! (I’m not faulting the people in charge of the dub for this, but whoever handed them that translation to work with.)

The dialogue in the Dash X Bunko version is transcribed effectively word-for-word from the dialogue in the movie (or perhaps vice versa, given that the novel is based on the original script), so I highly recommend checking that version as a reference for dialogue or if you want to do any intimate analysis on it. I don't want to go as far as to suggest not supporting the official version of the movie because of this, but at least please be aware that the translation used there is not entirely reliable.

Dash X Bunko

If you talk about “the Kizuna novel”, this is the one that people usually tend to be referring to, for two reasons. Firstly, it was translated shortly after the movie’s release, and due to the unfortunate circumstances of Kizuna being delayed in accessibility outside Japan for several months, this basically served as the only comprehensive source of info about the movie outside Japan for a very long time. Secondly, in Japan, this one was marketed as “the one for adults” in contrast to the Shueisha Mirai one being “for kids”, which meant that a lot of people assumed that the latter one was just an incredibly stripped down version that was otherwise disposable or replaceable. (This is very, very much not the case, and is extremely ironic when it comes to a movie that partially centers around the dangers of looking down too much on things associated with childhood.)

When it comes to “plot and story info”, this is the one that probably serves as the best reference (especially for fanfic writers or those who need a refresher on certain plot events or to look up something quickly), and probably has the most “comprehensive” listing of plot events surrounding the movie. The dialogue in it is a word-for-word recreation of the movie’s script, and actually includes more scenes than the movie itself does, including two that I suspect to be deleted scenes (a detailing of the specifics behind the initial plan to pursue Eosmon, and a conversation between Koushirou and Tentomon) and adaptations of the first and second memorial shorts within their context in the movie. It also contains some interesting background details and extra context for some things in the movie that you might think would normally be animation flair or something, but take a very interesting implication of story importance if they’re going out of their way to write this in the script. (There’s a scene where Agumon and Gabumon appear in front of their partners when they’d been behind them a minute before, and it’s easy to think this might be an animation error, but not only does the surrounding context make this unlikely, the novel itself actually directly states that their positions had changed.) Given that, I think it was very fortunate that this novel was available to us for those outside Japan waiting for the actual movie to come out, because this level of detail was very important to have on hand rather than fragmented spoilers on social media.

However, the part where I think the novel is significantly deficient in compared to the actual movie (and also to the other version of the novel) is that it describes the plot events in too blunt of a manner and doesn’t bring out its themes very well. (It’s kind of like having a long and very detailed Wikipedia article plot summary; it definitely got all the hard facts down, but the emotion is gone, which is still a pretty significant issue when media’s all about the feelings and message in the end.) While “considering the movie to be more cynical than it’s probably meant to be” happens regardless of which version someone’s working from, I’ve talked to perhaps an unnervingly high number of people who started with the novel and were absolutely convinced that the movie’s message was about adulthood sucking and needing to just accept it, until they saw how the actual movie pulled it off and the surrounding atmosphere and realized it definitely was not. (I think one really big factor here is that a lot of the visual imagery makes it extremely, extremely hard to miss that Menoa’s mentality is completely screwed up and her way of seeing things was dubious to begin with; prose descriptions really just don’t capture the way they slam this in your face with visual and musical cues during the climax of the movie.)

You can figure this out from the novel itself, but you have to really be looking closely at the way they word things, and on top of that it’s hard to figure out which parts you should be focusing on and which parts aren’t actually that important -- in other words, the “choice of priorities” gets a bit lost in there. Even the little things lose a lot of value; it’s theoretically possible to use the novel to put together that Daisuke is wearing his sunglasses indoors during his first scene, but you have to put together the context clues from completely different paragraphs to figure this out, none of which compares to the actual hilarity of visually seeing him wearing the thing in a very obviously dimly lit restaurant because he’s our beloved idiot. (For more details, please see my post with more elaboration on this and more examples of this kind of thing.)

I wouldn’t say that the movie itself isn’t guilty of (perhaps accidentally) having some degree of mixed messaging, but I would say this problem is rather exacerbated by the novel’s way of presenting it due to its dedication to dropping every single plot detail and event without much in the way of choosing what to contextualize and what to put emphasis on (as it turns out, treating practically everything in the movie as if it has equal weight might not be a great idea). So, again, for that reason I think the novel serves as a good reference in terms of remembering what happened in it and knowing the movie’s contents, but I also feel that it’s really not the greatest deliverer of the movie’s message or themes at all.

Shueisha Mirai Bunko

The second version of the novel was not translated until several months after the movie first released, and shortly before the Blu-ray and streaming versions of the movie itself came out anyway, so my impression is that on this end a lot of people don’t even know it was a thing. On top of that, even those who know about it often dismiss it as the “kid version” -- and to be fair, it did baffle quite a few people as to why this version even exists (Kizuna is technically not unacceptable for kid viewing and its plot is still understandable regardless of age, but since the movie is so heavily about the millennial existential crisis, it’s not something kids would really relate to). So a lot of people tended to just skip over it...which is really a shame, because it contains some interesting things that actually aren’t in the other two versions at all. For instance, did you know that, as of this writing, this is the only thing that plainly states the specific explanation for why Yamato decided to become an astronaut, for the first time in 20 real-life years?

While there are still some things that weren’t in the movie proper (mainly the Eosmon initial plan and the adaptation of the second memorial short), for the most part, the actual events are somewhat abridged compared to the movie and the Dash X version, and other than a few stray lines, there’s not a lot of extra information that would be as helpful for referencing the events of the plot. The version of the novel here is rather broadly interpretive of the scenes in the movie, so several things are condensed or taken out (and, amusingly, because it’s assuming that the kids reading this don’t actually know the original Adventure or 02, it has to describe what each character is like in a quick one-liner).

However, interestingly enough, it’s because it’s so heavily interpretive that it illuminates a lot of things that weren’t really easy to glean out of the Dash X version. For instance:

Some scenes are described with “other perspectives” that give you info on someone else’s point of view. (For instance, we see more of Yamato’s perspective and thoughts when he has his first phone call with Daisuke, or a bit more detail in the process of how Eosmon kidnappings work.)

We get a lot more information on what’s going through everyone’s heads during each scene, and what emotions they’re feeling at a given time. (This is something that you could at least get to some degree in the movie itself from facial expressions and framing, but would often be a lot blurrier in the Dash X version; here, it’s spelled out in words.)

When things are abridged, you get a clearer idea of what the intended point and theme of the scene was because it’s stripped down to include only that part. In one really interesting case, the scene with Agumon finding Taichi’s AVs has a “censored” equivalent where Taichi’s pushed to a corner because he can’t find anything non-alcoholic in his fridge -- so when you look at the two versions of the scene and what they have in common, you can figure out that the point isn’t that it was a lewd joke for the sake of it, but rather that Taichi’s forcing himself into boxes of “adulthood” that are actually meaningless and impractical.

Some of the descriptions of the characters, scenes, and background information make it a lot more obvious as to their purpose in the narrative (it outright confirms that Miyako being in Spain means that her personality is getting overly enabled there).

The scene where the circumstances behind Morphomon’s disappearance are revealed makes it significantly less subtle what the point is. In the actual movie, a lot of this involved visual framing with Menoa seeming to become more and more distant, but in this version of the novel they basically whack you over the head with the final confirmation that Menoa is guilty of neglecting her own partner, which contradicts her own assertions that “they were always together” (maybe not emotionally, it seems!) and helps clarify the commonality between her, Taichi, Yamato, and Sora in what exactly led to their partners disappearing.

Bonus: this version of the novel really wants you to know that the ending of the movie is about Taichi and Yamato fully having the determination to turn things around and lead up to the 02 epilogue. (The movie’s version of this involves the extended version of Taichi’s thesis and the credits photo with Yamato obviously next to a rocket, while this novel’s version involves more detailed fleshing out of how Taichi and Yamato decided to use their experiences to move onto their eventual career paths and what kind of hope they still have at the end. The Dash X version...didn’t really have a very strong equivalent here.)

In other words, while this version of the novel isn’t the greatest reference for plot or worldbuilding, it does a much more effective job being straightforward about the intended themes and message of the movie, and even if the scenes in it are much more loosely adapted, it’s much better at adapting the emotional nuances of the things that would normally be conveyed via visuals, expressions, and voice acting. (Although I would still say that the movie itself is the best reference for that kind of thing, of course.) If you just want lore or plot ideas, I don’t think it’ll help you very much, but since this series is so much about characters that had their ways of thinking fleshed out in such incredible detail, and about strong theme messaging, this is all still very valuable information in its own way.

[lovesanmotion]

yandere!ateez as fanboys

Hongjoong: 

The moment he hears one song from your latest album, it immediately swept him off his feet from the ground and made the decision to stan you. You are his favorite soloist. The moment he hears your latest comeback album, he immediately listened to all your other songs and made his research about you that night. Of course, the caffeine boosting him. 

He made a lot of social media accounts just to follow you. Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, you name it. He would follow your every move and post. But is still didn’t feel the same. To Hongjoong, he felt like he was still missing a large chunk of your life and he didn’t want that. The next night, he pulled a couple of strings and ta dah! had access to your very personal information. And he felt so complete afterwards. 

To you, Hongjoong was just one of your few male fans that you adore. I mean, the guy makes covers of your songs. And part of you agreed that when he made his own remix of your songs, it would sound 10000% better than the original. However, you just didn’t noticed the subliminal messages and tones he inserted in his remixes. 

Seonghwa: 

Seonghwa was one of those rare male fansites you have. Being in a 7 member girl group called Starlight, you are the group’s visual, main dancer, lead vocalist, center and face of the group. Once your group made its debut, fame automatically found you. 

Endorsements here and there, landing yourself in various commercial films and even coming to be a guest of variety shows. Your popularity instantly swept off and in a blink of an eye, the whole of South Korea knew your name. And your name tasted delicious in HwaLight_Y/N. Seonghwa’s fansite name dedicated to you. He thought of a name that would connect him to you. Hwa meaning star, replacing the english word and thus the birth of the fansite name. 

With his good looks, he too became known amongst the fans. He was known as your handsome fansite master. And since he was one of the rare male fansites you have, you would immediately recognize him from afar. Smiling at his camera and waving at him. Much to Seonghwa’s delight, he felt like there was already a deep connection between you two. And he wanted more of that. 

He started coming to your unofficial group activities. Slippiing his way inside the venue just to be able to feel your presence a few feet from him. He started purchasing flight and hotel information from other “fans” and would purchase the seat closest to you or the room nearest yours. 

Didn’t noticed those red beaming lights hidden inside your hotel room when you’re changing clothes or taking a shower? Click click! Or you were dead asleep tired from rehearsals when someone barged into your room? Click click! Ever noticed how your favorite red lace underwear went missing only to come back with a stain? Click click! 

Yunho: 

At first, he wasn’t entirely dazzled by you. Yunho was just a regular idol manager who would follow you into your every activities and schedules. He needed the money, plus, companies like him for his tall and muscular physique. The kind of person that can ward off creepy or scary fans that tried to get close to you.

You, on the other hand, is an ex member of your former girl group but found fame as a solo artist. Your debut song swept the charts and immediately won every single music show chart. Topping music chart billboards in every country. Despite all the glitz and glamor that followed you, you felt lonely and desperate for human touch. 

It wasn’t supposed to be how Yunho, naked and in between your legs. How such alcohol can make you two do things that violates his contract with you. One night was all it takes for him to see a completely different side of you. And he wanted more of that. 

Yunho became more protective towards you. Becoming more aggressive to anyone who dares lay a hand on you. Even going as far as sleeping in one bed with you as he thinks “its completely necessary, who know, someone might be barging into your room in the middle of the night?”  You can never get away from him. Companies like him, remember? With his clean records, your company would do anything to keep him signed with you. 

Yeosang: 

Channel YNbyYS is a youtube channel run by Yeosang. It’s the platform wherein he posts his dance covers to your group’s songs. With a bit of his dancing elements and the original choreography of your group, the blend came out much nicer than what everyone expected. His heart leaped more at the idea of you endorsing a chicken brand. From that day forward, he became a regular of the certain chicken brand nearest to him. 

Yeosang may seem like a complete innocent and harmless fanboy. But do you ever what he is behind his dance covering youtube channel? Why, he is the second most influential person in your company. The son of your own CEO. He had his very own place within the company. And he uses it to the extent of getting closer to you. 

The gifts that came into your company? Those are ALL Yeosang’s gifts for you. From the dresses to the shoes. He shamelessly threw away other gifts’ that were for you because according to him “he is the only relevant and special person that can offer you gifts”. Anything else is directly to the bin. 

And you wonder how your “fans” know your taste in fashion. 

Mingi: 

Mingi, before being blacklisted by your company, was just a regular fanboy of your group. You were the group’s main rapper and the lyrics to your bars spoke volumes to him. He was just casually listening to your verses and mixtapes until one day, he realized that he wanted to be more than just your fanboy.

It started slowly when he would attend your group’s fansigns and even follow you towards the airport. But the bodyguards prevented him from coming anymore closer to you. And so he did the unthinkable. Knocking down a bodyguard that was shielding you and enveloping you in his arms. His heartbeat raced and he felt a second heartbeat between his pants. With you in his arms, he only realized how petite yet handful you are. Hands running all over your body, burying his nose in your hair inhaling that soft and sweet strawberry shampoo that you use. 

Despite being blacklisted, he never cared about going public and meeting you at your group or individual activities. Instead, he resorted to barging into your dorm. Whether you’re home or not. 

 San: 

You are your group’s maknae and visual. Dubbed as Korea’s IT Girl, your face can be found anywhere in Seoul. From commercial films to leading Korean dramas, releasing your own solo album and attending fashion weeks, you are always the talk of the town. Whenever your name comes up, its always met with praises. Of course, the people loves you! You are a crowd and fan favorite. 

And you had managed to capture the eyes and heart of San. Calling himself as your number 1 fan. He was never absent in any of your activities. Getting front row seats in your concerts, being present at your variety shows and even buying products that you endorse - soju, cosmetics, literally anything. 

To your fans, he is the biggest fanboy you ever had. And it was quite entertaining to watch him profess his love to you. You even chuckled a few of his pick up lines that he threw at you during your fansigns. When asked if you had anything memorable that a fan ever did to you, the answer would always be San. 

Behind closed doors, San kept a dirty secret. Remember how he always gets front row seats to your concerts? He hid a camera in his clothes to film your upskirt. Beating his meat every night to his own collection of your tight and revealing clothing. Remember how you would endorse anything? He’d buy it and imagine how ripping it off your body feels like. His greatest possession? Your black lingerie. Too bad, you’re never getting it back. 

Wooyoung: 

ForYN is a website account run by Wooyoung. He regularly updates his content - from posting your pictures that are uploaded today, to your daily activities, the products you use and a little sub website from his channel wherein he writes poems and graphical fanfiction of himself with you. But of course no one would ever read between the lines. The way how Wooyoung would write would be so poetical and endearing that it? doesn’t? have? any? hidden? meaning? 

He only came once to your fansign and gave you a pink teddybear. It wasn’t the best gift you owned but you liked it somehow. There was something about the teddybear that you didn’t know why you’re into it. Its just a plain gift but everytime you look at it, its as if you’re drawn to it. 

Maybe becuase you didn’t noticed how it has camera eyes? 

Wooyoung’s love for you deepened when he caught you humping on the pink teddybear. Cum splattering all over its face. It was just one gift, but it was everything to you. 

And Wooyoung’s working on the next entry for his fanfiction. 

Jongho: 

For today, you were having your own vlive. Doing what you called a YN mukbang. As the convenient food store you bought was placed on the table, you began to greet yours fans, asking them how they are feeling before digging in your food. Among the hundreds and thousands of viewers, Jongho was one of them. 

He was engrossed in two things: one, how adorable and beautiful you look despite just eating. Second, the rude comments that were popping up in your live video. Rude remarks of body shaming were what caught his attention. He took his time digging deeper into someone else’s username and IP address. Once he got a hold of their information, he would report those comments and head out. In his disguise while hunting the people who made disguisting remarks at you. No one should ever make such remarks to a goddess. 

[ashandpaulrivalry]

Miracles

Ash and Paul’s rivalry is one of the many peaks in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl. So much thoughts were put into this rivalry and the storytelling remains to be perfect, even after a decade. So I thought I’d analyze this rivalry and what makes it so spectacular.

I’ll be watching all the episodes from DP that focus on anything related to this rivalry. I’ll use the Japanese sub to present my analyses since it’s more accurate than the English dub.

(Note: Italics is used to represent me, the author, analyzing and making inferences and non-italics are used to describe what’s happening in the episode.)

_____________________________________________________

Paul represents the ‘Pearl’ in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl. His Japanese name, ‘Shinji’, derives from ‘Shinju’, which translates to ‘Pearl’. Even Paul is hinted to be derived from ‘Pearl’. Ash represents the ‘Diamond’ in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl. The diamond is to the pearl as the sun is to the moon. Both are the complete opposite to each other, however the presence of both is a necessity for life. This is Ash and Paul’s rivalry.

DP052

The episode continues directly from the last scene of the episode prior, with Ash reaching out a hand to Chimchar, offering him a position on his team, and Paul watching from behind. Ash is impressed at how strong Chimchar is; meanwhile, Paul taunts both of them and tells them they deserve each other for being useless. Ash chooses to ignore him and tells Chimchar that they can get stronger together and prove Paul wrong.

Cynthia’s words already come into effect here. While Chimchar’s pondering the decision to join Ash’s team, Paul stays for a bit just to see what choice he makes. In fact, he was visibly shocked and curious in the prior episode. Chimchar hasn’t even accepted Ash’s offer yet, and Ash and Paul are already connected because of Chimchar. Plus, Ash’s promise to Chimchar to prove Paul is wrong is not only foreshadowing but is also going to be the most prominent driving force for altering Ash and Paul’s rivalry.

Paul then chooses to walk away and Chimchar is about to accept – before being attacked by Team Rocket. (This was an annoying interference of Team Rocket). Chimchar’s captured by Team Rocket, and Ash promises to save Chimchar. Chimchar takes action in his own hands, destroys the balloon with Flamethrower before falling to the ground. However, Ash is able to catch Chimchar before he got injured. Ash offers Chimchar a spot on his team once again, and Chimchar doesn’t hesitate this time and accepts the offer.

Typically, I don’t include Team Rocket because they don’t add much to Ash and Paul’s storyline; however, this scene is the complete opposite of what took place when Chimchar was captured by Team Rocket when he was still in Paul’s possession. Paul didn’t care about his safety when trying to rescue Chimchar and even intentionally let Chimchar get injured. Meanwhile, Ash is evidently concerned for Chimchar’s safety and doesn’t let him get injured. Chimchar is really touched by this as well; he needed someone to give him the affection and love that he deserved that he never received from Paul. Ash being concerned and protective of Chimchar when he was captured was probably further evidence to Chimchar that he was going to find the love and affection he desired.  

Later that night, Ash and the gang are seen talking to Professor Oak; Oak is happy that Chimchar’s with Ash now but advises him that he and Paul still need to work together to win the tournament.

As stated before, what’s ironic is that Ash and Paul will win the tournament, but not due to their display of teamwork. Now situations have gotten more interesting. The audience will have their first look of what it’s like with Chimchar officially being with Ash, and how Paul reacts to the scenario during the tournament.

The Tag Battle competitions resumes and the next match-up is Ash and Paul against Brock and Holly. Ash sends out Chimchar to watch the battle before sending out Staravia to battle. (Chimchar is notably no longer drawn with scratches/injuries on his face and seems perfectly fine now). Paul sends out Torterra, while Brock and Holly send out Croagunk and Farfetch’d respectively.

Ash commands Staravia to use Aerial Ace on Croagunk, while Brock counters with Poison Jab. Holly has her Farfetch’d launch Air Slash at Torterra, who Paul commands to use Hyper Beam. The Hyper Beam breaks the Air Slash, slightly injuring Staravia in the process, completely knocking Farfetch’d out. Ash reprimands Paul for injuring his Pokemon yet again.

In the prior episode, Paul had an (albeit terrible) excuse for harming Ash’s Turtwig; he wanted to separate Turtwig from Zangoose so Chimchar could activate his Blaze by getting close to Zangoose. But now, Chimchar’s with Ash – Paul doesn’t have a reason to care about the competition anymore. He probably feels obligated to finish the tournament and thus couldn’t care less what happens to any Pokemon on the field.

Torterra’s now immobilized due to Hyper Beam’s secondary effect and Brock commands Croagunk to use Brick Break on Torterra. Ash commands Staravia to use Aerial Ace on Croagunk from behind. However, Croagunk slides under Torterra, and Staraptor stops the attack, not wanting to injure Torterra. Croagunk attempts to follow up with Poison Jab, leading Ash to command Staravia to turn around, but Paul angrily tells him to let him handle this himself. Torterra can now move again and uses Leaf Storm before Croagunk can attack again, knocking him out, giving Ash and Paul the victory.

Ash congratulates Staravia for doing a good job, but Paul commented that Staravia contributed nothing to the battle. He then glares at Chimchar, who turns away from intimidation and fear.

To be fair, Paul does have a point – Ash’s Staravia wasn’t able to land any attacks, and Paul’s Torterra defeated both of the opposition’s Pokemon, but that was only because he took full control of the battle and prevented Ash from intervening. I assume Paul just wanted to get the battle over with; he couldn’t care less about allowing Ash to contribute to the battle and developing teamwork with him. That could be the reason why he used his Torterra, his strongest Pokemon, for this battle. Meanwhile Ash still wants to win the competition – after all, he entered it just for fun; he also attempts to work together with Paul but can’t because he refuses to cooperate. Ash is a happy go lucky kind of person, willing to participate in any fun activity while Paul is extremely antisocial and reserved.

In addition, Chimchar seems to actually be scared of Paul now, which is given considering the amount of relentless and harsh training he went through. This feeling of fear from seeing his old trainer will continue for a few episodes.

After Paul heals his Pokemon, Ash and Paul intensely glare at each other. 

Moments were always tense between these two due to their clash of personalities, but now it seems to be on another level. This is evidently because of Chimchar; the audience is only getting a glimpse of what’s to come in future episodes. Stakes are going to be at a higher level with Ash and Paul’s rivalry.

The final battle is now taking place between Dawn and Conway against Ash and Paul. Ash sends out Chimchar while Paul sends out Elekid. Chimchar looks at Elekid worriedly before Ash reminds Chimchar that he’s with him now. 

Chimchar was once on Paul’s side with Elekid; now he’s on Ash’s side and he stands with Elekid together as a team, despite belonging to a different trainer now. Elekid and Chimchar will soon form their intense rivalry, mirroring Ash and Paul’s rivalry, although it was subtly hinted at even when Chimchar was with Paul. 

Almost whenever Elekid is present, Chimchar is there in some form, whether it be on the opposition, battling each other or side by side, even after they’ve evolved into their final forms. They have a connection and rivarly to each other as much as Ash and Paul do.

Dawn sends out Buizel while Conways sends out Heracross. Chimchar launches a Flamethrower at Heracross while Elekid attempts to attack Buizel with Thunder. Buizel’s able to neutralize Flamethrower with Aqua Jet and hit Chimchar; Heracross takes Elekid’s Thunder to power up Revenge, which inflicts double damage onto Elekid. Ash informs Paul that they’re going to lose if they don’t work together, but Paul retorts angrily. Ash refuses to give up and continue battling.

This is further proof that Paul couldn’t care about winning or losing the tournament now that the main purpose of entering the tournament in the first place is gone.

Dawn then commands Buizel to use Aqua Jet, allowing Paul to use Protect. Buizel then jumps and Heracross uses Feint, smashing the Protect, shocking Paul in the process. (The show acknowledges Paul’s defensive battling style, with Protect on Elekid being the most notable method )

Ash soon commands Chimchar to use Flamethrower on Heracross, but Buizel jumps in front of Heracross and uses Water Gun, creating an explosion. Elekid uses Thunder Punch while Heracross counters with Megahorn, the attacks colliding and creating another explosion again. 

Elekid’s taken a lot of damage and Chimchar looks notably worried for it, and to everyone’s surprise, Elekid begins to evolve, pleasing Paul in the process. 

If Paul couldn’t get Chimchar’s Blaze to activate during this tournament, Elekid evolving into Electabuzz was the next best thing for him. This is his true victory; obtaining a newly evolved and powerful Pokemon. Meanwhile, Ash will be content with the Soothe Bell and receving Chimchar on his team. They both will gain something valuable specifically to them and their ideologies during this tournament.

Paul commands his newly-evolved Electabuzz to use Thunder. Conway tells Heracross to get the jump on Electabuzz with Megahorn as Dawn tells Buizel to use Water Gun on Chimchar, but Ash tells Chimchar to dodge Water Gun and use Flamethrower on Heracross, right before Electabuzz launches Thunder at Buizel. Buizel crashes into Heracross, causing a huge explosion. They’re seen still standing after the smoke clears but soon fall to the ground, fainting.

Ash and Paul are officially the winners of the Hearthome Tag Battle competition. Ash and Pikachu proceed to cheer over their victory while Paul continues to remain indifferent.

Ash congratulates Chimchar and tells Paul that Electabuzz’s evolution made a remarkable difference during the battle. Paul retorts saying that the only reason they won was due to Electabuzz since Heracross was still standing after Chimchar’s Flamethrower and only went down when Buizel collided into him. Ash refuses to listen to Paul and still thinks Chimchar performed great during the battle.

Chimchar and Electabuzz both displayed effective battling, but separately, rather than working together, just like their respective trainers. What Paul states is ironic and hypocrtical because both Heracross and Buizel were standing after Electabuzz and Chimchar launched their attacks on them, yet Paul only rebukes Chimchar for this. Ash is able to accept and even acknowledge how strong Electabuzz is; meanwhile Paul refuses to compliment Chimchar in any manner right now. It really comes across as Paul attempting to purposefully get under Ash’s skin sometimes. 

Ash and Paul then receive their Soothe Bells and while everyone applauds, Conway notices how ironic it is that the team that cooperated the least ended up winning a tournament that emphasized teamwork. (Once again, Paul seems indifferent to the victory, even his Pokemon reflect those feelings, contrary to Ash and his Pokemon)

Later, while Ash is talking to Dawn and Brock, Paul suddenly appears and throws his Soothe Bell at Ash, saying he has no need for it and walks away. 

A Soothe Bell is a held item that increases a Pokemon’s friendship. Obviously, Paul doesn’t like terms such as friendship/trust and only relies on evoking a Pokémon’s raw power; he doesn’t believe in being friends with Pokemon. Paul giving the Soothe Bell to Ash, rather than just disposing it or something, could mean that he recognizes that Ash is his true opposite and would definitely want the item or is more deserving of the item due to his strong faith and friendship in Pokemon. As stated before, Paul’s true victory from this tournament was his Elekid evolving; he was able to power up his Pokemon, which is exactly what happened...it was just never meant for Chimchar right now, because Paul’s training methods were always highly ill-suited for Chimchar. 

The episode ends with the gang deciding to head to Veilstone City for Ash’s next gym battle – with a new partner on his team.

Closing Thoughts

The Hearthome Tag Battle arc has officially come to an end and the final episode was a perfect conclusion not only to the arc, but to the first season of DP as well. Everything has been perfectly set up for this to happen. Chimchar’s brutal and harsh training is officially over with Paul and is rightfully with the trainer that he deserves to be with - Ash. Ash and Paul’s rivalry are now at greater stakes with Ash and Chimchar’s dedication (and foreshadowing) to prove Paul wrong. Chimchar is going to make an astounding impact on their rivalry and will always keep the two connected. Chimchar is the ‘connection’ or ‘bond’ that Cynthia refers to.

Throughout this entire arc, it’s constantly explicated that Ash and Paul do not work well together as a team. They’re constantly arguing and going back and forth with each other, even after Ash has Chimchar on his team. Despite being the most divided and uncooperative team, they still manage to win the competition. As stated before, this is done intentionally. Ash and Paul still do not respect each other’s philosophies, but them winning the competition due to their separate efforts is a symbolic representation of both their ideologies proving to work. It won’t be until later in the series where the two really show signs of finally respecting each other. 

With Chimchar on Ash’s side now … Ash and Paul’s rivalry is just getting started.

[glitterytidalwavedragon]

Seto Kaiba – Confession of the Exaggerated Dramatic Flashy Jock-Nerd Head Cannon

Now most of us picture Kaiba, once he is older, to be tamer. What if, like GX hints at, Kaiba is still as much as a time bomb, makes no sense why he is doing this or thinking this way, nut that is much to loud and enjoys shooting things to outter space, Mr. I-will-make-duel-monsters-into-a-real-career-around-the-world and Mr. Ha-look-at-my-card-game-school type guy. You know, the guy that nearly screamed his intentions to the world and declared what was his while showing off that he can use a Jetback. The impulsive, fuck work I have duel monsters to play, dude.

What if that whole package became even bigger?

The day Kaiba realizes he likes you, the day he even feels the warm and fuzzies appear. He will test out just how much he gets those warm and fuzzies.

Somehow, Kaiba ends up being at all public events you attend. Went to a Comic Con? Kaiba is there promoting something but will abandon his station to walk around with you. Enjoying a parade? He has a float but puts supervision in someone else’s hand so he can hang around you. Just walking around town? Well somehow you just ended up eating with the CEO.

If you point out why he seems to be everywhere, he will be rather and shockingly honestly. “You have captured my interest. I have yet to determine if I like you.” He is so blunt it feels like a punch in the face.

If you haven’t asked and he does figure out he likes you… its not a simple confession.

Kaiba does not care where you were, what you were doing, or what time of day it is. Once he has come to the final conclusion, he likes someone well, he will show up. Be it at your work or at some ungodly hour of the night.

Kaiba has spent time with you to figure out his feelings, so when he confesses it’s a whole dog and pony show. Those little nick-nacks you were looking at?? Expect the whole collection being offered to you. Enjoy food? He will arrive with basket of whatever your favorite is, wine, and dessert. There will be some kind of gift in hand.

But the gift wouldn’t be enough. Oh no. The CEO does have a way with words…and dramatics. Expect him to be loud, firm, and flashy about this confession. He will yell it from the rooftops if he must (which he kind of does anyway).

He finds out you have a thing for romantic movies or romantic dramas, Kaiba will play into it. Wither it be he spins you into a fiery, passionate kiss that makes your head spin or is on his knees embracing your torso declaring that you accept his heart, he will be nothing which you expect.

Should you be in public… the whole ball game will change.

At work? Expect the security of Kaiba corp. to bust in through the doors and demand you come with them. This might leave you terrified, thinking you somehow made the CEO mad, but in reality, he just doesn’t want to deal with your boss or coworkers.

You dare to be out in public and refuse the limo ride… embarrassment might flare due to his dramatic nature.

Kaiba will rollup in his limo. His security clearing a path right to where you are standing. He won’t care if he has to stop traffic or disturb a whole restaurant. Oh lord if it is a restaurant. The CEO will sit himself down at your table and rule this encounter a date.

Just out in public? Ask him what is with the all the security, Kaiba will be smooth as butter. “They came to make sure the person I will be dating is safe. Afterall, who else is worthy of my heart?” With a gentle stroke of your cheek with the back of his hand and that killer smolder/smirk.

Kaiba played to your fancies like a professional violinist.

Not one for public or dramatic confessions? Don’t worry, he just won’t be as flashy.

Kaiba will invite you to a fancy business party, then explain to all his guest how perfect you are next to him. You better get the hint because if you don’t, expect one of the above to happen.

The whole thing could seem very Yandere-ish, but don’t fear. Should you reject him, while he over exaggerate how much you hurt him, he won’t push you. Nor will he awkwardly be around your favorite places.

Kaiba will be a dramatic bitch whenever you enter the room. Making it really clear while being loud how much he dislikes you being near him. Announce when he is leaving or where he is going like he’s an actor explaining the plot to a drama.

Don’t worry, he is just doing this in case you change your mind and want to follow after him.

But oh man…when you start dating him.

For that, you’ll have to wait till the fanfic one-shot! Hahaha! I really enjoyed the idea of a loud, dramatic Kaiba. Honestly this is mostly born from the English dub Kaiba because… the man is a Drama Queen. I will post when the chapter is up!

Also look towards a guided tour update come tonight!

Love you all!

For Kaiba FanFics click here! -> CLICK!

For my main Kaiba fanfic click here! -> Click!

[princesssarisa]

How "Cinderella Monogatari" Could Have Been Better

I've just finished watching the 1996 anime series Cinderella Monogatari ("The Story of Cinderella"). I'll share my overall thoughts on it later, after I've overviewed a few other versions of the fairy tale. But for now, I'll say that I liked it very much. That said, it does have its flaws. Below are the handful of changes I would make to improve it.

1. Have Cinderella's father be presumed dead through most of the series.

It's awkward to have Cinderella's father still be alive, and not a weak henpecked husband, but merely away on business. Why would Duchess Dalbin so extensively abuse and degrade her stepdaughter knowing that the girl's devoted father will eventually come back? I would have preferred for the Duke to leave on his business trip, and then, a few weeks later, have the family receive the news that his ship was wrecked in a storm and that he's missing and presumably drowned. Only at this point would the Duchess start to abuse Cinderella. This could also add a layer of depth to the Duchess's character. She could be portrayed as genuinely in love with her husband and distraught by his "death," and afterwards she would exclude Cinderella from the family because Cinderella reminds her too much of him, similar to what the 1997 version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical implies. But in the final episode, the Duke would come back and reveal that he survived after all: he's just taken this long to recover from his injuries and find a ship home. So we'd still have the blissful family reunion the actual series gives us, but with even more emotional weight.

2. Give Duke Zaral consistent motivation.

I like the series' addition of a "Greater Scope Villain" (to quote TVTropes) in Duke Zaral. But at least in the English dub, his motive seems to change completely at random from "Marry his daughter Isabel to Prince Charles and become the real power behind the throne" to "Murder Charles and force his parents to surrender the kingdom." This could be easily solved, though. Simply place the episode "The Disturbing Painter" (his first real attempt to kill Charles, when he tries to have his portrait painted by an artist who traps his subjects' souls in the painting) after the episode "Traveling Toward Happiness" (where his daughter Isabel runs away with her true love) instead of before. Since the series makes it clear that Zaral really does love his daughter, it would make much more sense for his murderous turn to be caused by losing her, especially if he found out that Charles had helped her elope. To quote TVTropes again, it would be his Villainous Breakdown, and it would give him a real character arc.

3. Cut the episode "Prince Charles's Secret," where Cinderella and her stepsisters are forced to work as maids in the castle.

While of course it's funny to see the stepsisters forced to do the same chores they usually heap on Cinderella, the context is ridiculous. If a wealthy duke like Zaral wants maidservants to spy on Prince Charles, why doesn't he just pay real working-class girls to do it? Why on earth would he insult a family of his own social class by tricking a duchess's daughters into visiting the castle only to have them forced into servitude? And afterwards, why does no one ever mention it again? Realistically, wouldn't a trick like that cause a scandal? The whole scenario is contrived and would be better off cut.

4. Make Cinderella less of a damsel in distress.

Now there's no shame in a heroine not being a fighter or needing to be rescued. But it's still a tiny bit tedious to see Cinderella repeatedly being captured or endangered and Charles repeatedly being the strong one who rescues her. Even after he teaches her how to swordfight in "Lets Get Rid of Those Bandits," she never uses the skills she learned in that episode again, particularly not in the finale when she's captured by Zaral. I say remove Charles from some of the episodes where she's endangered and have her rescue herself instead. Have her use the fencing skills Charles taught her throughout the rest of the series, particularly when she's kidnapped in the finale. Not that she needs to use a sword, but at least she could defend herself with a stick or some other improvised weapon. In the climactic battle with Zaral on the clock tower, I'd have Cinderella and Charles fighting him together rather than just Charles. Again, I'm not saying there's any shame in being a damsel in destress, but it would be more interesting to see Cinderella defend herself at least a little bit more.

5. Have the stepfamily rip Cinderella's dress before the ball, as in the Disney version.

The scene where they rip up her invitation to the ball is already a blatant knockoff of the Disney dress-ripping scene, but without the same power. So why not take the imitation all the way and have them rip her dress as well as the invitation? This would also enhance the next scene where Fairy Godmother Paulette works her magic. In the actual series, the fact that Cinderella is already wearing a fancy gown and Paulette's magic just brings its style more up-to-date is slightly underwhelming. We lose the sheer magic of the dress transformation that other versions of Cinderella have. If her dress were in tatters, this would be rectified.

6. Don't have Charles fall in love with the "mystery girl."

Cinderella retellings that give Cinderella and the Prince most of their romance arc before the ball always have a dilemma: what to do with the plot point of the Prince not knowing his beloved's name or where to find her after the ball? Some versions have found good solutions; this one is mediocre. After his series-long slow-burn romance arc with Cinderella, it's awkward to see Charles become enamored in one night with the girl at the ball, whom he doesn't know is Cinderella. Even if it is just because she "reminds him" of Cinderella, whom he thinks will never speak to him again because he lied about his identity, it still seems ever-so-slightly fickle. I'd prefer to have him only regard her as a friend with whom he can confide about Cinderella. Then, after the ball, instead of being depressed about her disappearance, he'd be depressed because Cinderella "never showed up" even though he invited her. But Alex and Hans would mistakenly think he was moping over the mystery girl and set out to use the glass slipper to find her.

7. Give the stepfamily a gradual redemption arc.

Maybe this is what the series was trying to go for, because there are assorted episodes where Cinderella does especially valuable things for her stepfamily (saving Jeanne's life when they're lost in the woods, learning to swordfight and guarding the house against the bandits, risking her life to find healing herbs for her dangerously ill stepmother, etc.) and momentarily earns their respect. But in every new episode, they're back to abusing her. So in the last episode, it feels very abrupt when they start being nice to her after she's betrothed to Prince Charles. If it were played for laughs like in the 1957 version of the Rodgers and Hammertein musical, and they were clearly only sucking up to her because she was the princess-to-be, it would feel less awkward, but it's not played for laughs. It feels as if we're supposed to see it as a genuine, heartfelt family reconciliation, which is completely unearned. And then when Cinderella's father the Duke comes home, they all reunite as one big happy family and the Duke never even learns that his wife and stepdaughters abused his daughter while he was away!

My solution? Put much more emphasis on Cinderella's gradually earning her stepfamily's respect over the course of the series. Don't have them forget the great things she does for them; have call-backs to the fact that she saved their lives, risked her own safety for them etc. Show them increasingly torn between their jealousy of her and their growing respect and gratitude toward her. While they would still have a final "Kick the Dog" moment by tearing up her mother's dress and her invitation to the ball, I'd show them feeling very guilty as they ride away in their carriage afterward. Maybe Jeanne could ask Catherine if what they did was right, and Catherine would reply that they had no choice, Cinderella looked too pretty, the Prince would have ignored them if he had seen her, etc.; but clearly she wouldn't be so sure. Then, after Cinderella reunites with Prince Charles, there could be a scene similar to the opera La Cenerentola, where Charles would publicly berate the Duchess and her daughters for their treatment of Cinderella and threaten to punish them somehow, only for Cinderella to declare that she forgives them and beg her fiancé to pardon them. This would move them to tears and they would finally, profusely apologize to her for all they had done. And when the Duke comes home, Cinderella's choice not to tell him about their abuse could be emphasized as her way of showing faith in their repentance and giving them a second chance.

I realize that all this would probably take up more than just a few minutes of the final episode. So because we've already cut the earlier episode where the stepsisters work as maids at the palace, I suggest we add a new Episode 23, in-between the actual series' second-to-last and final episodes. This entire episode would take place between the slipper-fitting and the royal wedding, and it would open with her reunion with Charles and end with her reunion with her father. Everything in between would be devoted to her reconciliation with the stepfamily. This would be a much more believable, satisfactory conclusion for them than what the actual series gives us.

It's a good series, but with these changes, in my personal opinion, it would be even stronger.

[oumakokichi]

hello! could you talk a bit more about the original (as in jp, not localization) ouma's personality and speech patterns? you've mentioned that he tends to trail off or speak more softly when it is implied he is speaking the truth, etc. and how he is not so loud/intentionally obnoxious. //btw when does he call himself a fairy? that's so cute

I got a couple of questions asking about the fairy line Ouma has, so I don’t mind sort of rolling them both into one! And I’m more than happy to talk a little more in-depth about Ouma’s speech patterns and personality in the original game, too!

Since I’ll be covering some late-game spoilers, I’ll put the bulk of this under the cut, so be careful when reading!

First off, I cannot stress how much I recommed playing ndrv3 with the Japanese voices enabled. If you’ve already played through the English dub but never experiened the original voice acting cast, I promise you won’t be disappointed. The Japanese cast are all fantastic, incredibly talented VAs who, unlike the dub, were hired specifically for these roles and not just re-casted from previous DR games.

Hiro Shimono as Ouma gives an absolutely incredible performance. The localization might still have many flaws in its translation and omission of certain lines or punctuation, but you can still very much get a feel for how Ouma’s character was intended by listening to Shimono’s performance. Re-playing the game with the Japanese voices will definitely let you hear how soft and tonally different Shimono’s performance is in places from the English dub, and compare it to the way in which many lines are written and punctuated as if Ouma’s yelling at everyone.

That isn’t to say that Shimono’s Ouma is never loud or excited: Ouma is a character whose moods and façades are all over the place, and therefore his performance requires a voice actor who can similarly change moods and intonation on a dime. Ouma is very much loud and haughty and deliberately annoying when he’s supposed to be, but his voice is also low and ominous at other points when he’s trying to be scary. And again, it’s soft and hesitant in places where he’s considering divulging some of his information, or when he’s insisting that all the things he does are for everyone���s sake, because he cares about them and doesn’t want anyone to die.

These moments feel so much more genuine in the Japanese version of the game--because they’re meant to be. As fantastic of a liar as Ouma is, it’s much easier for us, the player, to tell when he’s lying on a re-play, knowing the information from chapters 5 and 6 that we do, and looking at cues like his sprites (often his blank-faced ones) and, yes, his delivery of certain lines.

This probably sounds like me just gushing about what a fantastic voice actor Hiro Shimono is, and in part that’s exactly what it is, but I want to stress that pretty much every single voice actor in the Japanese cast is just as fantastic and that they all do their jobs incredibly well. With all that gushing out of the way, I’ll move on to talking about some of Ouma’s actual speech tics and the way he refers to other characters.

Like most things about him, Ouma’s speech patterns are sort of an interesting mix and even seem a little contradictory at times. He uses the very masculine pronoun “ore” (オレ), but he also refers to nearly everyone (with only a handful of exceptions) by their surnames and the much more childish honorific “-chan” (i.e. “Saihara-chan,” “Akamatsu-chan,” “Amami-chan,” etc.)

The use of “-chan” is very interesting. Honorifics in Japan are extremely complicated and tend to mean different things depending on who is using them. Typically, “-chan” is seen as a very feminine way to refer to someone else, commonly used in close-knit friend groups among school girls.

There are, of course, a few notable exceptions to this however: often times, middle-aged or elderly people will call a child “-chan” regardless of gender, as a way of showing they find them cute and endearing. And sometimes, people will use “-chan” to refer to other things they find cute, such as pets, or even to refer to themselves in a sort of informal, tongue-in-cheek way.

The fact that Ouma uses “-chan” as an honorific to refer to nearly everyone in the game stands out quite a lot: by and large, boys don’t use this term to refer to other boys. Using “-chan” to refer to anyone you’ve just met or don’t know very well is already somewhat frowned upon, but a boy using it to refer to other boys is especially rare. This helps set Ouma’s character up as someone who is both incredibly casual and informal with others (not to mention, you know, quite coded). Considering childishness and lightheartedness are traits Ouma values, and how much emphasis is put on him having “a very innocent, childish streak that’s hard to hate,” it makes sense then that he would talk like this.

Not counting Monokuma and the Monokubs, the only characters who Ouma doesn’t refer to with “-chan” are Gonta and Kiibo, who he simply calls by name. This also says some interesting things about his character.

Gonta is easily the character who Ouma interacts with the most often, as well as the charater he hurts the most in the end. Ouma’s choice to exclude Gonta from his usual way of calling people is, I think, a testament to how much Gonta really wanted to be friends with him, even if their friendship was never exactly on equal footing.

Meanwhile with Kiibo, I feel the choice to exclude him from his usual way of addressing others is indicative of how much Ouma tried to remind himself that Kiibo “wasn’t human,” and therefore how suspicious he found his presence in the killing game. We know Ouma suspected Kiibo and likely even had an inkling of his role as the audience proxy/camera in the game, due to how Kiibo’s picture is one of the only others set aside on his whiteboard besides Saihara’s, with the word “weird” written next to it (he also clearly guessed about the cameras after Gonta’s line in chapter 2, as we see from how he commissioned Miu for the bug-vac).

Ouma clearly enjoys teasing Kiibo a lot, and their banter reads very much like a manzai comedy duo; I feel like Ouma often tried pushing himself to remember that Kiibo “wasn’t human” on purpose in order to not get too attached to him or too distracted from his goal of ending the killing game. I don’t think Ouma’s decision to exclude Kiibo from the way that he very particularly referred to most of the rest of the group was just an accident or a coincidence.

Honorifics aside, Ouma also refers to several characters in interesting ways. He often uses “daisuki na ___-chan” (大好きな) to refer to some of the other characters, a phrase which more or less equates to “my beloved.” He uses this phrase with Saihara more than any other character of the game, but there are a few other instances where he does use it with Amami, Momota, and (if I’m remembering correctly) Kaede. Pretty much every single instance where the localization put, “because I love you” or “because you’re my favorite” whenever Ouma was talking to Saihara was usually a point where he would specifically call him “my beloved Saihara-chan.”

In chapter 4 during the scene where Ouma is alone in the parlor of the VR world, he also specifically, exclusively refers to Saihara as “suki ni natta hito” (好きになった人), literally: “the person I fell in love with.” This line was changed in the localization to, “when there’s a person I like,” which is more or less literally correct--however, the phrase “suki ni natta” is much heavier and more loaded with explicitly romantic implications than “suki” would be on its own, as it’s often used in Japanese love songs and shoujo manga love confessions.

Worth noting in my opinion is the fact that this is the exact same phrasing Maki uses to describe her romantic feelings for Momota. Since Maki’s feelings for Momota are considered canonically confirmed because of this, Ouma’s feelings should be considered equally canon, but a lot of people don’t know this because, well, it’s sort of been lost in translation.

And now, on to the fairy line! Ouma calls himself a fairy in chapter 3, when he pops up in the middle of Saihara and Korekiyo’s discussion of the katana in Korekiyo’s lab. Full of enthusiasm, he decides to touch the sword and examine it for himself; Korekiyo starts to object, but Ouma interrupts and says:

“Come on, it’s not a big deal! I’m like a fairy, so it’ll be fine!”

I’ve always really loved this line and thought it was super adorable, both as a nod to how fairies aren’t supposed to be able to touch steel in most fae mythos, as well as the fact that fairies tend to also have a love for mischief and pranks and lies. The localization apparently didn’t like it so much though, because this line is simply changed to, “Come on, would I lie to you?” instead.

One final thing I can think of as far as Ouma’s speech tics go is that his laugh in Japanese is romanized as “nishishi” instead of “neeheehee,” as this is closer to the Japanese onomatopoeia for the sound horses make--but I actually don’t mind this localization change at all! “Neeheehee” definitely looks a lot closer to the word “neigh” and helps capture that horse joke in a way that I feel like western players can more easily understand.

All in all, while I still definitely feel people can like and enjoy Ouma’s character from playing the localization alone, I still stand by my opinion that listening to the original Japanese voices helps give a much better picture of how the character was intended to come across, and really shows how much depth Hiro Shimono put into his performance. He’s quoted in the official ndrv3 artbook as saying that he believes Ouma is someone who’s actually “really meek if you take away his strong wish to outwit everyone” (credit to @kaibutsushidousha for the art book translation), and I think this interpretation of Ouma really shows through in so many of his lines.

Thank you both for the really fun questions! I hope I could provide some more interesting information about Ouma and the translation!

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

If there was an animated adaptation of the Twilight series, who would you pick as the voice cast for all of the vampires?

Thoughts on an animated Twilight series.

We’re going to play a similar game as this, where we can pick and choose people across the time space continuum with a TARDIS. And also we’re ignoring language barriers.

With that, here we go.

Crispin Freeman as Jasper

Casting Crispin Freeman’s voice for me is a given. It’s sad, but if Crispin Freeman is cast in a role I will watch that show and I will watch it dubbed. The man is phenomenal and is not only charismatic in every single role he plays but plays a myriad of different personalities so damn well you almost don’t recognize it as his voice.

I honestly would put Crispin Freeman as pretty much anyone and expect him to pull it off. However, I think he’d do particularly well as Jasper. Of course, this would make Jasper one of the most charismatic characters on screen per voice alone but in an ideal world this is a more ensemble cast anyway.

Crispin Freeman as Kirei Kotomine in Fate/Zero

Bridget Hoffman as Esme

Bridget Hoffman is able to get across not only great raw emotion but also a clear sense of over the top, artificial, femininity that is very present in Esme. I think she could confer Esme’s general creepiness, as well as her likeability and mother persona, with a young voice very well.

Bridget Hoffman as Irisviel in Fate/Zero (same clip as above)

Rachel Lillis as Rosalie

I know Rachel from a very different role in the dub of “The Revolutionary Girl Utena” as Utena Tenjou. However, her voice is very pleasant to listen to, clear and melodic, and able to carry great emotional weight and pain when necessary. She also sounds very young when needed.

Rachel Lillis as Utena Tenjou in The Revolutionary Girl Utena (note, they start speaking about two minutes in)

Mamoru Miyano as Edward Cullen

And this is where we start drifting from English voice actors. The English dubbed Light Yagami sounds young but, well, he never sold me on the role the way the original Japanese voice actor did. This guy not only sells Light’s inherent creepiness, his charisma, his brilliance, and his sheer threatening persona. There are so many aspects to Light Yagami and the voice actor captures them all.

Many of these same aspects exist in Edward. Edward must at once be appealing, charismatic, terrifying, and completely mad.

Alternatively, David Vincent, who played Gilgamesh in Fate/Zero and most of the modern Fate franchise, and does contempt so damn well with an imposing but very young voice. However, we’re going to put him as Caius for similar reasons.

Mamoru Miyano as Light Yagami in Death Note

David Vincent as Gilgamesh in Fate

Lisa Ortiz as Victoria

Lisa is a phenomenal voice actress I’ve seen carry off a lot of different roles with several different personalities. What brings her to the table for Victoria is what she did with Shiori in the Revolutionary Girl Utena dub. Shiori carries such bitterness that turns itself into madness, and is overall such a desperate and miserable character. Lisa’s voice conveys all of that.

Many of these traits exist in Victoria as a character as well. Bonus that it makes Victoria sound younger and rougher around the edges.

Lisa Ortiz as Shiori in The Revolutionary Girl Utena (same clip as above)

Sarah Anne Williams as Jessica Stanley

Yes, we’re casting Jessica. Sarah played the role of Sayaka in the dub of P3M and greatly conveys a normal human girl who then falls into despair. Jessica doesn’t go quite that far, but I imagine the emotions of the movie disaster with Bella would really come through here with this voice actress.

As well, of course, as Jessica’s later contempt for Bella.

Sarah Anne Williams as Sayaka the Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Takahiro Sakurai as Aro

We get another Japanese voice actor because I can think of no better Aro. Takahiro perfectly portrays an otherworldly, ethreal, presence through his casting as the Medicine Seller in Mononoke. The Medicine Seller has a distinctly different persona than Aro but it’s that otherworldly aspect that I think is needed most of all.

Takahiro Sakurai as The Medicine Seller in Mononoke

Jamieson Price as Emmett

Jamieson is able to relay huge, easy going guy, so easily just through the sound of his voice. He’s not quite so Dudebro in the things I’ve seen him, but you easily get the idea of “huge” as well as someone with good humor and simple tastes in life.

Jamieson Price as Iskander in Fate/Zero

David Vincent as Caius

I brought this up earlier in Edward’s section but as Gilgamesh David Vincent is the king of contempt and disdain. This makes him an excellent and imposing Caius.

David Vincent as Gilgamesh in Fate (Same Clips As Earlier)

Peter O’Toole as Carlisle

Yes, we’re going back in time for this, but I’m not actually in charge of casting this show so I can do what I want. It helps that this was my vote for the live action fan cast of the movie, but beyond his sheer persona, I think his voice also fits Carlisle very well. There’s a whole range of emotion in there while, at its base, being something very charismatic and in certain moments kind.

Peter O’Toole as T.E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia

Christina Valenzuela as Bella Swan

As Homura in the P3M dub, Christina has nerves of steel, but she also does despair so well. I believe she would easily pull off Bella’s depression throughout the series and especially in the New Moon arc.

Christina Valenzuela as Homura Akemi in Puella Magi Madoka Magica

I swear I have a choice for Marcus somewhere in my head, but it’s not immediately coming to mind. I might cast Freeman for him as well, and since Marcus has so few lines and does such different roles so well, probably no one would notice and or care.

So, I’ll quite while I’m ahead.

[deeranger]

Fic Writer Questions!

@oddsocksandstuff tagged me in this, thank you so much, sweetie!  ❤️

 1) How many works do you have on AO3? I’ve got 40 so far (of which 25 are SPN fics). There’s more to come! 

2) What’s your total AO3 word count? 486,667, apparently. That tells me each of my fics has an average wordcount of 12,166.675… Seems about right. I was never any good at keeping things short.

3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they? Uhh… On AO3 I’ve written for Supernatural, Supernatural RPF, X-men (Cherik) and McFassy (James McAvoy/Michael Fassbender). But I’ve written a lot when I was younger that has never made it online, including NCIS, Pirates of the Caribbean, and lots of weird one-shorts starring everyone from Michael J. Fox to Kevin Sorbo from “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys”. 🤨  

4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos? “A Lesson to be Taught” – an SPN Wincest pwp fic where a dominant Dean fucks (and spanks) Sam and they discover that Dean apparently has a daddy!kink. Comes with a photo manipulation too! There be dick.    

“Taking Game” – a semi-dark medieval Cherik (Charles Xavier/Erik Lehnsherr from X-men) AU. Basically, Charles is a poacher hunting on king Erik’s land to his great dismay. And so, he’s captured and gets the choice between losing his life or serving the king for a bit… Dubcon and smut ensues.   “Only Like This” – a little SPN Wincest dub-con fic about hopelessly pining Dean doping Sam just so he can touch and kiss his oblivious little brother. It’s okay. Sam won’t remember when he comes to.   “It’s Only Carnal” – A dark SPN Wincest noncon fic where soulless!Sam needs to blow off some steam. And when it comes to carnal activities his brother isn’t exactly a novice – so why not use Dean’s body to make them both feel good?   “Demonized” – a long and dark af SPN noncon fic written in collaboration with the awesome @palishere. Sam is captured by some nasty demons who use him to lure in his brother. At first it seems the demonic scumbags are just really perverted and have a weakness for sexual torture, but they turn out to have ulterior motives…  

5) Do you respond to comments, why or why not? Yes, always. I think it can be a bit demotivating for a reader to leave a comment and get zero response – and so, they might not bother to comment on the next fic. At least, that’s how I feel personally. And besides, I really want to let readers know that I appreciate them taking the time and effort to actually tell me what they think.  

6) What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending? Oufff… Seriously? How can I possibly pick just one when 99.8 percent of my fics are not only dark af but have gut-wrenching ambiguous endings as well? I, err… I’m gonna have to think really hard about this one, hold on… *Insert buzzing cicada sound*… Uhh… Well, I guess it might be… “Play or Pay” – a dark female!reader-insert Wincest fic where demon!Dean has you and Sam trapped somewhere underground. Sam ends up being on the receiving end of the demon’s cruelty when he tries to save you. Using Dean’s body the demon ends up raping Sam while the reader tries to escape to get help... There’s a little twist in the end. Loads of dead dove here, including death (not Dean or Sam).     “The Orange Hour” – where undercover inmate!Dean has to rape CO!Sam in order to save both of their lives and get them out of the jail in one piece. It doesn’t go completely as planned. (Comes with an nsfw photo manipulation).  “Demonized” – loads of bottom!Sam torture, full of hurt and absolutely no comfort... It’s just… I dunno, I think I and @palishere had a collective meltdown in the noncon and angst department. Sorrynotsorry.      

8) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written? Nope, I’ve never in my life written a crossover. Usually, I’m too laser-focused on 1 obsession at a time. I can’t multitask, okay?   

9) Have you ever received hate on a fic? Yes, the fandom purity police has visited me on AO3. The usual self-proclaimed know-it-alls vomiting their bullshit all over the comment section about how “problematic” noncon is and how “sick” I must be. I thought about moderating comments for a while, actually – but I just deleted their follow-up comments until they left me alone. 😤

10) Do you write smut? If so what kind? Yes!! Gimme! Usually, I write noncon smut or just good ol’ pwps that feature some sort of dominance. That’s it. That’s my jam. In general, the only smut I don’t write is the cute, fluffy, feel-good, cuddly stuff… My smut’s usually pretty rough and/or some sort of dub/noncon.

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen? Yes. Someone stole “It’s Only Carnal” and posted it as her own on some Portuguese fanfiction site. She even replied to comments, answered questions and talked about how much she loved writing it, etc… Luckily a sweet mutual on Tumblr let me know about it and I reported her for plagiarism. The stolen fic was taken down shortly after and the account deleted. Goddamn thief. 😡  

12) Have you ever had a fic translated? Yes. Honestly, I can’t remember which fic(s). But people have contacted me on AO3 and asked for permission to translate my stuff into Chinese. I have - of course - happily allowed them to. It’s such an awesome compliment to get, I think!  

13) Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yes, 2. “Demonized” and the fluffy Ficfacers prompt fic “The Masks We Wear” starring Sam and Dean taking their pranks a step too far. Basically, the brothers get angry with each other and they need to talk it out… No smut in this one, can you believe it?!! But that was kinda the prompt we received. The prompt was literally: “Sam and fluff”. Anyways, both fics are co-written with the lovely @palishere. You can find her AO3 here. 😊

14) What’s your all time favorite ship? Wincest!!! Definitely. Gimme all the brotherfucking, please. No contest. And coming in on second place I guess there’s Samifer – never paired consensually, though. I just love Lucifer messing with Sam’s head and torturing him in all kinds of cruel ways.    

15) What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will? Oh, that’s a mean question… I have a noncon WIP where Sam and Dean are in prison. I wrote a whole story outline, gathered my own little dictionary of prison slang, etc… But I never made it past page 10 or something. Sam was supposed to get jumped by a gang of inmates and then Dean was supposed to helplessly watch from the sideline, offering to trade places if they’d just leave his little brother alone… And after that it’s all about a mix of healing and vengeance… But the story has been lying on the shelf for more than a year and I doubt I’ll ever continue it. Oh, wait! I almost forgot – I have a long Cherik WIP sequel to “To Have and to Hold”! Just checked, its wordcount is 18,729! Holy crap…. What a waste, huh? But I honestly don’t think I’ll ever finish it, because I’m not into Cherik anymore. That ship has kinda sunk for me…. So, now I’m hyperfixating on Supernatural, yeah?     

16) What are your writing strengths? Description, I think. I just love details and setting the mood. I like to think I’m pretty good at writing in English too even though it isn’t my native language… I wish to be better and expand my vocabulary but I’m doing okay nonetheless.

17) What are your writing weaknesses? Description, I think. Yes, you read correctly. I often describe things TOO much. Sometimes to the extent where the pacing gets so slowed down that I feel like the scene loses its ‘feel’. I don’t know if it’s just in my head, but that’s my major concern about my writing. That and my signature ambiguous endings, lol.

18) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic? Love it. It can be difficult to pull off, but if you get it right it can be magical. Just don’t overdo it and make sure that the reader can follow. I don’t think I have any fics online where I do it, but I’m not a complete stranger to it either.

19) What was the first fandom you wrote for? Ack, my poor brain trying to go back to when I was friggin’ 13… You know how many years ago that was?! 25!!! Okay!? *Huffs*…. Anyway, I THINK it might’ve been Keanu Reeves’ character in “Johnny Mnemonic”. Or maybe David James Elliott’s character as Harmon Rabb in the early seasons of “JAG”. I dunno. Either way this question makes me feel really old and I don’t appreciate it. Don’t @ me. 😅   

20) What’s your favorite fic you’ve written? That’s probably a tie between “The Orange Hour” and “It’s Only Carnal”. They’ve both got nice pacing and that’s my biggest challenge, I think. Also, I love the whole Morse code thing in “The Orange Hour”. I don’t even know what happened or how I came up with it, but hey, I can surprise myself if I want to, I guess! And of course there’s the smutty noncon and all of the hurt… So, those two fics are my personal faves. 😏  

I’ll tag @jackandthesoulmates, @pinkoptics, @palishere, @wrenseroticlibrary, @decadent-prince, @negans-lucille-tblr, @juinae and @impala-dreamer and everyone else who feels like doing it! Feel free to ignore, of course. 

[veeranger]

So you want to watch Precure!

Version 1.3

(Google Docs Vers & Changelog)

Maybe you follow people who like it, maybe you just love magical girls and never got into Precure, but there are over a dozen seasons and you don’t know how to jump in. Never fear, this masterpost is here to give you a rundown of Precure, and hopefully by the end you’ll have an idea of where you want to start. 

What Is Precure?

Precure (short for Pretty Cure) is a Toei Animation franchise started in 2004 and has been on the air nonstop since then. It’s a magical girl franchise, y’know like sailor moon or ojamajo doremi or other such shows. The main demographic is children so you don’t have to worry about any weird “fanservice” or panty shots or anything nasty like that, it’s very G rated. 

What Are The Shows About?

In a general sense, Precure is about a team of 2-6 middle school age magical girls fighting bad guys and giant monsters and saving the world on a weekly basis with pretty outfits and big flashy finishers and the power of love and friendship. Each season follows a pretty standard formula (toku fans should be pretty familiar with it for the most part), and each season is around 48-50 episodes long. 

In keeping with this toku-esque formula, most seasons will feature mid season additions to the cast, in the form of new precure heroes. For the sake of not spoiling these shows, these mid season cures will not be mentioned in our plot overviews unless they appear extremely early or something like that. Just know that almost every season will feature an additional cure joining the team later in the show. 

Additionally, every season has at least one movie, these days there’s usually two per season. Usually you’ll find the movies are a standalone self-contained romp, and a crossover movie with the preceding seasons, with a focus on the most recent 2-3 teams. These movies might as well exist in a continuity of their own, and have absolutely no bearing on the plot whatsoever, save for one except which I’ll mention when we get to that season. 

Why Should I Watch Precure?

Because it’s good. It’s a really stellar franchise with a ton of content and genuinely engaging characters and stories. Also this isn’t your mom’s magical girl show, these girls throw punches, and kicks, and big lasers. Precure is pretty well known for being extremely hands on with its combat compared to other magical girl shows, though don’t expect the same kind of fights you’d find in kamen rider or anything. Also a main draw for a lot of people is the amount of gay subtext in, frankly, every season. While there’s only one season with an explicitly confirmed gay relationship between two cures, every season has varying levels of subtext between cures, it’s pretty cool. We won’t discuss the subtext in every season overview but trust us, it’s in there. 

What Show Should I Start With?

It doesn’t actually matter which season you watch, every season is a new setting and with new characters and set in a new world (except for two sequel seasons i’ll explain later), so you’re free to watch whatever you want in any order! We’re going to spend the rest of this post talking about each season to give you, the beloved reader, a glimpse at what each season has to uniquely offer. Don’t worry, there’s no spoilers down there. 

Futari Wa Precure (We Are Pretty Cure) & Futari Wa Precure Max Heart

The original precure show that aired in 2004, and even received an english dub. Misumi Nagisa is a star lacrosse player living a normal life until one day a shooting star she wishes on turns out to be a fairy that careens right into her room, or rather, smacks her right in the face. The fairy, named Mepple, explains he comes from the Garden of Light, another world that’s been taken over by the evil Dark King and his Dark Zone in order to capture the Prism Stones, a number of heart shaped crystals that, if collected, could give Dark King the power to destroy not only the Garden of Light but also the Garden of Rainbows, Earth itself. Meanwhile, Yukishiro Honoka finds a box in her grandmother’s shed containing an item just like the one that smacked Nagisa in the face, and inside is the fairy Mipple, who explains the situation to Honoka. The two fairies, seeking to be reunited, drag Nagisa and Honoka along and the four of them end up meeting up, but are attacked by an emissary of the Dark Zone. Mepple and Mipple grant the confused duo the power to transform into the warriors of legend, Precure. As Cure Black and Cure White, Nagisa and Honoka manage to fight off their attacker and protect their new fairy partners. The girls are then more or less dragged into the battle against the Dark Zone, as the only hope for both Gardens, they fulfill their duty as legendary warriors despite their hesitations and desires to go back to being normal teenagers.

Futari Wa doesn’t exactly have any major themes to speak of, it’s just your standard magical girl vs evil bad guys kind of thing, forgive it for being the first season. What it does have to offer is the relationship between Nagisa and Honoka, as well as the action in fight scenes. The girls don’t start the season as best friends, in fact they barely even know each other’s names when they’re first flung together. It takes a few episodes and a major fight between the girls for them to really start opening up to each other, but soon enough they become inseparable and support each other in everything they do. It’s clear, especially near the end, that the girls cling to each other for support and strength in the face of the increasingly overwhelming odds they face as the Dark Zone gains strength. It’s very compelling to see their relationship deepen in the early season and see how deep their bonds truly go near the end. 

Futari Wa received a sequel show, Futari Wa Precure Max Heart, picking up the story where it left off in the first season’s finale. Honoka and Nagisa are still the main characters, and they’re still fighting the Dark Zone, but this time they’re joined by a mysterious girl named Hikari, who can transform into Shiny Luminous, not a precure but precure-ish. This time the girls are trying to recover the heart and soul of the Queen of the Garden of Light, before the Dark Zone can recover and destroy the queen in her weakened state. Also their precure costumes have changed slightly. 

The first season (that is to say, not max heart) is currently one of the few seasons available with official english subtitles on the streaming platform Crunchyroll

Futari Wa Precure Splash Star

Hyuuga Saki (Cure Bloom), a tomboy who loves playing softball, and Mishou Mai (Cure Egret), a quiet transfer student and aspiring artist, meet each other by chance one day under the Sky Tree, where they discover two creatures from the Land of Fountains named Flappy and Choppy. The two girls transform into the legendary Precure and are tasked with restoring Princess Filia and the Seven Holy Fountains, which were sapped of their power by the evil forces of Dark Fall.

Splash Star's main theme is the appreciation of nature. The main focus is on the girls rediscovering their relationships with their town and the nature and people in it. You get to meet a whole cast of characters in their community, who have a lot of heart and charm behind their writing and the show does a good job of getting you genuinely invested in their stories.

Unfortunately the romance in Splash Star isn’t much better than Futari Wa's (sorry to any Fujimura/Kazuya fans), but the main girls themselves are so engaging that it's easy to ignore. The villains are pretty goofy, but entertaining if you can accept that the show doesn’t take itself very seriously. There are two villains in the latter half of the season that really stand out, though. Without spoiling too much, I can promise you their character arcs will tear at your heartstrings in the best way.

If you've watched Futari wa Precure, Splash Star will probably feel familiar. Although it's the first "reboot" series in the franchise with completely new characters, Toei overall played it safe and Saki and Mai in many ways still feel like "Nagisa and Honoka 2.0". Splash Star is different in enough other ways to make the show stand on its own merits, but if you watch it immediately after Futari wa you might find yourself feeling some deja vu. Personally, I think it's interesting to see what Splash Star builds on and explores when compared to Futari wa, since it has many of the same themes and character archetypes but they play out quite differently.

Yes! Precure 5 & Yes! Precure 5 GoGo!

Nozomi is a cheerful, carefree girl, but she doesn’t have a dream. One day she meets a hot guy and finds a mysterious item called the Dream Collet, capable of granting any wish once all the fairies known as Pinkies are gathered inside it, in the school library. She discovers that the hot guy is actually a tanuki from Palmier Kingdom named Coco, and that the Kingdom has been destroyed by the Nightmare. Coco’s dream is to restore his kingdom using the Dream Collet, and Nozomi decides to make it hers as well. 

She’s joined by her jock friend Rin, Urara, an aspiring actress, Komachi, a writer, and the rich student council president Karen. Together they form Yes Sentai Fiveranger Yes Precure 5 and work together to prevent Nightmare from obtaining the Dream Collet before they can gather all the Pinkies. They also save Coco’s “”””””friend””””””” and fellow hot guy squirrel, Nuts, and he joins them as the second mascot/handsome love interest.

The theme of Yes is dreams and heterosexual furry romance. It pulls off the dreams part very nicely. The het furry romance is bad, mostly because Coco is Nozomi’s teacher at school and also her love interest. However, Coco and Nuts are fairly gay and if you look past the romance part they have very good dadly relationships with the rest of the team. 

Yespre, like Futari Wa, received a sequel show, Yes! Precure 5 GoGo!. After the defeat of Nightmare some time ago, a new faction called Eternal rises up and starts stealing treasures from various dimensions. When Eternal targets the Rose Pact belonging to the Cure Rose Garden, the precure are called back into action to fight against Eternal, with new cure outfits, a new fairy named Syrup, and a new cure-like teammate named Milky Rose.

Fresh Precure!

Fresh is sort of the defining series for modern Precure, introducing a lot of plot and thematic elements to the franchise that would be used repeatedly later on. 

A concert Momozono Love attends is attacked by a monster called a Nakewameke. When Love stands up to it, she is nearly killed, but is saved when she is chosen by a mysterious power to become Cure Peach. She is joined by Inori and Miki as Cure Pine and Cure Berry, and, together with the talking ferret from the Kingdom of Sweets, Tarte, they have to prevent Labyrinth, a grey world led by Mobius, from taking over the Parallel Worlds and transforming them into identical, machine-like dictatorships, and also figure out the secret behind the Magic Baby, Chiffon, that Tarte is entrusted with. 

Fresh’s themes are happiness and nature/technology and donuts. The donuts are important. Labyrinth operates by gathering misery; the Nakewameke are created from it and their function is to create more of it and fill the Sorrow Gauge. All the girls (and the mascot) have love interests and their familial relationships are explored a lot to bring out the general stakes and emphasise what they’re fighting for.

While Fresh is very strong in characters, plot, and thematics, its lack of budget is very apparent. It looks terrible. Fortunately, it isn’t that difficult to get used to the bad animation once you get into the show, although the lack of means tends to show up at inopportune moments, like new powerups.

Heartcatch Precure!

Featuring character designs and art direction from Ojamajo Doremi’s character designer Umakoshi Yoshihiko, and written by Ojamajo Doremi and Onegai My Melody writer Yamada Takashi, Heartcatch should look and feel familiar to fans of either franchise, especially Doremi.

After having a reoccurring dream about someone called Cure Moonlight being defeated trying to defend the “Great Heart Tree”, the shy and reserved Hanasaki Tsubomi moves in with her grandmother and ends up inheriting the will of Cure Moonlight and becomes the newest precure, Cure Blossom. Finding out her grandmother used to be the legendary Cure Flower, Tsubomi vows to protect the world as a precure and learn to change herself for the better. She’s joined by her new friend and the first person she saved as a precure, Kurumi Erika, a loud girl with a big heart who means well, but doesn’t hesitate to speak her mind. Erika becomes Cure Marine and the two become Heartcatch Precure, the newest precure in the long legacy of those who have stood up to the evil Dune, a mysterious invader who destroys planets and turns them into lifeless deserts. Heartcatch Precure fights against Dune’s minions: the mask wearing Professor Sabaku, his Desert Apostles, and the mysterious Dark Precure. Along the way they meet the former Cure Moonlight, now stripped of her power, and try to help her cope with her defeat.

Heartcatch Precure’s main theme is flowers and flower language. Everyone has a “heart flower” that the Desert Apostles take and use to create their monsters every week. As an interesting result of this, the monster of the week will be the main character in the plot of the week and often their big monster form will vent about their issues which will usually lead to a resolution when the precure return them to their regular bodies. Heartcatch also has a very nice backstory and lore to it. Unlike most iterations of precure, the Heartcatch girls are not the first precure to exist in their world, there are dozens maybe hundreds of precure that came before them, fighting against Dune and his forces for hundreds of years. It adds a lot to the narrative in small ways, especially later on in the season. Also the fight scenes are extremely excellent, especially when Moonlight is involved. 

Suite Precure♪

The musical paradise of Major Land falls under siege by the forces of Minor Land, led by King Mephisto. His goal is to steal the living notes of the “Melody of Happiness” and remake them into the “Melody of Sorrow”, throwing the world into a permanent depressive state. As a last resort, Queen Aphrodite scatters the notes into the human world and tasks Hummy, the cat-like fairy, and the Fairy Tones, to find the notes before the forces of Minor Lands can capture them. In the human world, Hummy meets Hojo Hibiki and Minamino Kanade, two girls who were best friends as children, but drifted apart as teenagers because of their tendency to bicker with each other. The two find themselves thrown together again by fate and transform into Cure Melody and Cure Rhythm to protect the things they hold dear. Not long after, the two rekindle their relationship and become closer than before, despite their bickering. Soon the girls run into the mysterious Cure Muse, a girl who appears to be a precure like them, but hides her face with a mask and refuses to join in their fight, claiming to be neither friend nor enemy. Melody and Rhythm battle against Minor Land and the giant Negatones they create from the notes they gather, as well as Siren, another cat-like fairy who used to be Hummy’s best friend before turning to evil and joining Minor Land. 

Suite Precure’s main theme is music, and it is a very encompassing theme. Hibiki and Kanade bond over their piano practice, the town they live in celebrates music frequently and is aesthetically music themed, and their powers take the form of musical instruments. Harmony is also a large theme for the two girls. Their precure power increases as they harmonize with each other, and the early season is very much about them learning to harmonize with each other. Suite also features several extremely well done mystery arcs, about the identity of Cure Muse, and various other things that I can’t very well talk about without risking spoiling things myself. If you manage to go into Suite not knowing anything consider yourself extremely lucky and be super sure not to get spoiled. The show staff went to great lengths to hide certain things, including leaking fake cure designs, and creating a second version of the second dance ending to further mask the identity of Cure Muse until her true reveal. 

Also something to note, usually precure movies have nothing to do with the plot of the show itself and can be watched whenever but the Suite movie is best enjoyed right after the arc revealing Cure Muse’s identity is concluded, it has a nice resolution to plot elements in that arc and sets the stage for the last few arcs of the show, so be sure to watch it then.

Smile Precure!

Written by Kamen Rider Kabuto head writer Yonemura Shoji, Smile Precure is the second season to feature a 5 girl team after Yes! Precure 5 Gogo!. Running late to her first day of school, resident happy-go-lucky klutz Hoshizora Miyuki runs face first into a small creature called Candy, a fairy from a place called Märchenland. The two are attacked by an anthropomorphic wolf named Wolfrun, and Miyuki transforms into Cure Happy to fight against Wolfrun and the big clown faced monster he summons called an Akanbe. After Candy explains that the legends say there are five precure, Miyuki recruits four new friends: the hot blooded Akane (Cure Sunny), shy artist Yayoi (Cure Peace), responsible older sister Nao (Cure March), and refined student council vice-president Reika (Cure Beauty). The five of them become Smile Precure and fight against Wolfrun and his allies in the Bad End Kingdom, who attempt to revive the slumbering Pierrot by trying to put the world in a “Bad End”. 

Smile Precure’s main theme is fairy tales, in a general sense. The Bad End trio are based off of the big bad wolf (Wolfrun), the oni from Momotaro (Akaoni), and the witch from Snow White (Majorina), and Miyuki herself is utterly captivated by fairy tales. The secondary theme is happiness, and the happy go lucky tone of the series often turns on its head during serious arcs to deliver extremely powerful emotional moments. Smile Precure is light on plot, and most episodes are an ultra happy experience, but the show knows how to get serious when it needs to and Smile is exceedingly competent at pulling off drama when the time comes. Smile knows how to get you invested in its characters and use that to pull on your heartstrings during the big moments. The last 10 episodes of the show are the absolute pinnacle of the show’s emotional drama, and each cure gets her own episode for closure before the finale sets in and emotionally destroys you. Also you get to play rock paper scissors with Cure Peace during her roll call so that’s always fun.

Doki Doki! Precure

Doki opens with Trump Kingdom’s destruction by the Selfishness as Cure Sword looks on, helpless. Switching to our world and brighter topics, we meet Aida Mana, Student Council President of Oogai Middle School, whose dream is to become the Prime Minister of Japan. Whenever Mana sees someone in trouble, she’ll help them out, so when a monster attacks the city, Mana does the obvious and tries to stop it. And when, chosen by the fairy Charuru (Charles? Cheryle? Cherry?) to become a Precure and defend the world, she meets Cure Sword, she has to befriend her and help her restore Trump Kingdom and find her happiness. 

Mana (Cure Heart) is joined by Rikka (Cure Diamond), her studious companion and supporter, and also the immeasurably powerful and rich (in that order) Alice (Cure Rosetta). Together they have to unravel the mystery of the man who gave them their transformation items, the missing princess of Trump Kingdom, the strange, evil girl called Regina, and Ai, the chaotic neutral baby who hatches out of an egg. 

Dokipre’s theme is love and selflessness. It also has Deep Lore, a lot of which is established in extra-series material. The show does try to explore concepts like past cures and manages a very nice repeating pattern effect with the plot, in terms of past and future happenings. There’s a lot of foreshadowing. Compared to most Precure seasons it’s very plot-heavy and even the filler usually ends up being plot-relevant. 

Happiness Charge Precure!

The 10th anniversary of Precure! The Phantom Empire is spreading across the world, and Precure are rising up all over the globe to fight them off. In Japan there are two active cures, Cure Fortune, strong and capable, and Cure Princess, scared and unsure of herself. As Cure Princess, Shirayuki Hime, struggles desperately to do her duty as precure, Cure Fortune refuses to work with her for reasons Hime doesn’t fully understand. Realizing her only hope is to find a partner to work with, Hime bumps into Aino Megumi, a super friendly girl who has a tendency to drop everything and help others any time she sees someone in need. Megumi becomes Cure Lovely, and bolstering Hime’s confidence, the two of them become Happiness Charge Precure, tasked with protecting Japan from Queen Mirage and her Phantom Empire. The two are joined by Cure Honey, and eventually Cure Fortune, and the four of them receive support from Blue, the God of Planet Earth. As the girls continue to fight and defend Japan, they are assaulted by Phantom, the ruthless Precure Hunter who has defeated and trapped countless Precure in his Precure Graveyard, and the Oresky Trio, the Phantom Empire generals who oversee the invasion of Japan. 

Happiness Charge Precure’s themes are romance and happiness. There are several arcs dedicated to the budding romances of the cures, and the backstory of the show is heavily tied to romance. Happiness might as well be Megumi’s middle name, she makes it her business to spread happiness to as many people as she can, and takes every chance she can to help others. Happiness Charge is also the first season to have form changes for the precure, each cure has a small selection of forms they can change to for different big attacks, and this concept would later be expanded and used as a core concept in Maho Girls Precure. Like Heartcatch before it, Happiness Charge exists in a world where multiple precure exist, but unlike Heartcatch all those precure exist at the same time in the present day. Other precure teams make cameos every so often and the concept creates a great world in which the whole planet is being protected by teenage girls with superpowers, creating a wonderful sense of scale that really makes the big victories of Happiness Charge Precure feel even bigger. 

Go! Princess Precure

The first precure series to take place at a boarding school! Years ago, a young girl named Haruno Haruka meets a very royal looking person named Kanata who gives her a Dress-Up Key, a big key shaped like a dress. A teenager now, Haruka starts attending Noble Academy, a prestigious boarding school, all the while holding tight to her dream of becoming a true princess, in a quasi-literal sense. Not long after starting the school year, Haruka meets Pafu and Aroma, two fairies from the Hope Kingdom desperate to revive the legendary precure to fight back against Dyspear and her minions who steal dreams to create their giant Zetsuborgs. Realizing what her Dress-Up Key is meant for, Haruka uses it and the Princess Perfume to become Cure Flora. Together with student council president Kaido Minami (Cure Mermaid), and Amanogawa Kirara (Cure Twinkle) a fashion model with huge aspirations, they become the new Princess Precure, tasked with learning to become true princesses along with protecting the Dress-Up Keys from Dyspear’s forces. 

Go! Princess Precure’s main themes are princesses (duh) and dreams. Dreams are a driving force behind all of the cures, and most of the plot of the week characters. Dyspear steals dreams to make monsters, and the precure fight to return those dreams. Characters follow their dreams with conviction, pride, and full commitment. This is also where the princess theme intersects, since it’s Haruka’s dream to become a true princess. One should note that princess is used sort of liberally in this series, it’s not that Haruka wants to somehow become someone of noble birth or have political power, she just wants to be strong, kind, and beautiful, the traits of a true princess in Princess Precure’s own terms. Also she wants to wear pretty dresses and such but who can blame her really. 

Mahou Tsukai Precure! (Maho Girls Precure!)

Quite literally putting the magic in magical girls for the first time in the franchise, Mahou Tsukai Precure was the first season to have its cures be actual magicians. Izumi Riko lives in the magical world, a world where magic is real and she attends a magical academy to hone her craft. She leaves the magical world to travel to the “non-magic” world, to search for a legendary item called the Linkle Stone Emerald. In the non-magic world she ends up catching the attention of another girl, Asahina Mirai, who sees her using magic. After trying to show off some magic and messing it up, Riko is attacked by Batty, a servant of the dark wizard Dokurokushe, who is seeking the Linkle Stone Emerald as well. As fate would have it, both Mirai and Riko carry stones that turn out to be the Linkle Stones Diamond, and the two of them use them to become Cure Miracle and Cure Magical, the legendary Mahou Tsukai Precure. Additionally, the power of the Linkle Stones grants life to Mirai’s lifelong companion, a teddy bear named Mofurun. Having discovered the world of magic and become a precure, Mirai is invited to spend time in the magical world learning magic alongside Riko, before the two, joined by Mofurun and a baby fairy named Ha, return to the non-magical world to search for the Emerald and protect it from Dokurokushe and his minions.

Mahou Tsukai Precure’s main themes are bonds and separation. It’s strengths lie in how it shows the relationship between Mirai and Riko. The show takes its time building their relationship in the first dozen or so episodes of their adventures in the magic world, highlighting their similarities and differences as they grow closer and learn to live with each other and fight as precure together. Well before the halfway mark it’s clear how strong their bond is and how deeply they care for each other, and the lengths they would go to for one another. Mahou Tsukai is an emotional ride in so many ways, every emotional moment hits its mark and the more you get attached to the characters the more the show will hit harder and harder with its moments, both sad and happy. Even side characters get satisfying and emotional conclusions to their storylines outside of the episodes they’re introduced in, it’s all wonderfully crafted.

KiraKira☆Precure A La Mode

Another return to the five cure format, Kirapre is also the second season to feature a sixth team member after Yes! Precure 5 Gogo!, as well as the second season to feature high school age precure after Heartcatch Precure. Usami Ichika is in her second year of middle school and loves sweets, especially making sweets. One day a hungry fairy named Pekorin finds her way into Ichika’s kitchen, and after being fed teaches Ichika about Kirakiraru, an energy source that exists in all sweets, and something that can be stolen and used for evil, leaving the sweets gray and tasteless. Utilizing the power of kirakraru in the shortcake she baked for her mother, Ichika becomes Cure Whip, one of the legendary patissiers, Precure. One by one other precure appear, the smart but shy Arisugawa Himari (Cure Custard), the rock band headliner Tategami Aoi (Cure Gelato), the fickle catlike Kotozume Yukari (Cure Macaron), and the responsible and helpful Kenjou Akira (Cure Chocolat). The five of them fight against the evils of Noir and those he has influenced: Julio, the mysterious masked boy who runs “experiments'' using kirakiraru, and Bibury, a mean spirited girl who uses her talking doll to steal kirakiraru and create monsters.

Kirapre’s main motifs are sweets and animals, and it has a pretty general togetherness and happiness theme going on, the standard precure stuff, mostly viewed through the lense of sweets and sweets-making. All the precure work as patissiers for one reason or another and it’s the main way the team bonds early on. The team, as well as the people of their small town, love sweets as a part of their culture and sweets maintain an important role as the emotional tie that binds most things together in the story. Overall Kirapre is a wonderful show with a great cast on both sides of the conflict, and a lot of care has been put into the show to make sure characters have their moments to interact with each other as well as have their own stories , even on a team of six every precure gets more than enough time to shine on her own. Kirapre is at it’s best when it takes two girls and puts them together for an episode, letting each unique dynamic play out in a fun and satisfying way. Kirapre is also noteworthy for the almost inarguably canonical relationship between two of the cures. It's not exactly explicit and it does leave something to be desired, since this is a Toei children's show, but there’s not really any other way to read the evolution of their relationship or their duet song, so I’m more than satisfied calling it canon.

This season is currently one of the few seasons available with official english subtitles on the streaming platform Crunchyroll 

HUGtto! Precure

Precure’s 15th anniversary! This season is in many ways a celebration of all things Precure, bringing together a lot of familiar elements from past shows into one. Hugtto! is another five cure season whose main themes are destiny and future. Nono Hana (Cure Yell) is a thirteen-year-old girl whose dream is to be a "cool and stylish woman," although she worries that others see her as childish. One day, a hamster named Harryham Harry and a magical baby named Hugtan fall out of the sky into Hana's house. They're being chased from the future by an evil organization called Criasu Corporation, who are trying to use Hugtan's power to freeze time forever. Hana makes friends with two of her classmates: the responsible class representative Yakushiji Saaya (Cure Ange) and the reclusive ex-figure skater Kagayaki Homare (Cure Etoile), and together they fight Criasu while taking care of Hugtan and figuring out the many mysteries surrounding her. Expect some light sc-fi elements and an emphasis on modern technology/social media.

Hugtto! explores its themes primarily through the lenses of childcare and the workplace, giving us a look at how each girl comes to terms with the transition from childhood to adulthood. This season does a good job of letting each member of the team shine; you spend several episodes with each girl (or duo of girls) and there's a real sense of a complete character arc for all of them. The romance aspect is, unfortunately, pretty bad: there’s a return of hetero furry romance between Harry and Homare, and Hana’s love interest exhibits some really creepy behavior towards her. There’s uncomfortable age gaps in both of these relationships too so it’s a just a bit…. Yikes. Thankfully, it’s fairly easy to ignore like past seasons, but a warning for it nonetheless.

Something that makes this season stand out is its LGBT subtext; there's a TON of it even compared to the normal amount that Precure is known for. Without giving away too much, two of the cures this season are heavily coded as lesbians (though not with each other per se), and there's a subplot concerning a side character who is pretty explicitly (well, as explicit as Toei dares to be) a gender non-conforming man/nonbinary person in love with another man, and it's all very wholesome and presented in a positive light. Again, this is Toei, so don't expect anything too radical, but I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised with how Hugpre handles it.

Finally I'll just say that while Hugpre is a fantastic season on its own, I would personally recommend waiting to watch it after you've seen some other seasons (notably Futari wa). It's not required, but since Hugpre is an anniversary season, there are a few episodes (especially near the end) that will really hit different if you have an emotional connection to the franchise already. Ultimately though this is a fairly minor part of the show, so watching this season first won’t ruin it or anything like that, it’s just something to keep in mind.

Star☆Twinkle Precure

Precure… in space! Our protagonist, Hoshina Hikaru (Cure Star) loves space and cryptids, to the point of drawing her own constellations. One of her constellations is an adorable alien puffball, who warps into Hikaru’s room almost immediately after she draws it. The puffball quickly befriends Hikaru, who names her Fuwa. They are later joined by Prunce, the team dad friend/alien mascot, and Lala (Cure Milky), a humanoid alien who is an adult in her own culture. After our initial duo gets off to a bit of a rocky start, they are joined by the student council president, Kaguya Madoka  (Cure Selene) and a biracial upperclassman who is considered to be the “sun” of the school, Amamiya Elena (Cure Soleil). Together, they explore the universe and befriend all sorts of aliens, while also defending them from the Notraiders, who want to rid the universe of all imagination. On top of that, the universe is dying and the cures need to find the 12 astrologically themed Star Pens to save it and the 12 Star Princesses. This series is notable for attempting to break the “monster of the week” format, instead making it a “fight of the week”.

The major themes of Star Twinkle are space, imagination, and maturity. The cures have to explore the universe to find the Star Pens, and in doing so, visit a bunch of different planets. About half the series is spent on Earth, but the world still feels developed! Honestly speaking, the theme of imagination is forgotten pretty quickly and I’d refer to it more as free will. The theme of maturity is where Star Twinkle really shines. All of the cures have had to grow up too fast in some way, and the series is partially about just allowing them to goof off. Lala is considered an adult on her planet, and this plot point is treated realistically. Well, as realistically as it can be. This is one series I’d recommend avoiding spoilers like the plague for, because part of the fun is in how the plot twists are pulled off. Also Star Twinkle is notable for featuring the first ever dark skinned precure, as Elena is half-hispanic. 

Healin’ Good Precure

The currently airing Precure season, as of this writing. The Byogens seek to revive their king by inflicting viruses on Earth, the Healing Garden sends three medical interns to combat them. These interns, fairies named Rabirin, Pegitan, and Nyatoran, along with a baby fairy princess named Latte, journey to Earth to find partners to become Precure. They end up meeting Hanadera Nodoka, a kindhearted girl who was hospitalized for most of her young childhood. After Nodoka risks her life to protect Latte, Rabirin chooses her to become Cure Grace. Joined by older sister type Sawaizumi Chiyu (Cure Fontaine) and the outgoing Hiramitsu Hinata (Cure Sparkle), they form Healin’ Good Precure, and defend their friends and the Earth from the Byogen’s newest wave of attacks. 

This season is currently one of the few seasons available with official english subtitles on the streaming platform Crunchyroll.

Where To Watch Precure Online

Unfortunately for us, Precure isn’t really a thing in the west. There was a dub of Futari Wa back in the early 2000’s and Smile and Doki both got “adapted” into Glitter Force over on netflix (I don’t really recommend checking those out), but really Precure just doesn’t exist over here.

However, as mentioned above, there are currently three seasons avalible for streaming on crunchyroll. The original Futari Wa Precure, Kira Kira Precure A La Mode, and the current season, Healin’ Good Precure.

Beyond these isolated examples of official releases, you can really only watch precure online on streaming sites or through torrents. You can find precure pretty much on any major anime streaming site, kissanime, gogoanime, the works. You can also try your luck torrenting the seasons, i’ve found that pretty much every season has a working torrent you can find on sites like nyaa.si or the like. For more recent seasons you should have little difficulty getting torrents, and last time i checked every season was on one of the aforementioned streaming sites. What I’m saying really is there’s no single place to find precure, but it’s not impossible to find for sure.

Thanks for reading this post, I hope you decide to check out precure and I really hope you end up loving it.Thanks to my wonderful friend @meltorights​ for writing the sections on Yespre, Fresh, and Dokipre, to @wonderlilane​ for writing the sections on Splash Star and Huggto, and @cure-cosmo​ for writing the segment on Starpre. 

If you have questions feel free to drop me an ask I’d be happy to help. I will literally go out of my way to help you if it means getting someone new into precure so please do not hesitate by any means.