#and the ones in japanese which i really like this post would become so long

[roseofthewind]

Genshin impact's English translators have had a lot of honorifics and forms of address to try and wrestle into something that makes sense in English, and I just had a moment of stark clarity on how I desperately wish they had handled Furina's honorifics.

If you had to pick, what form of government would you say Fontaine employs? I say, a monarchy!

In addition to being an administrative building, the Palais Mermonia is quite like a royal palace. The prophecy explicitly references Furina crying on her throne, and you have her literal throne as her seat in the opera house as well.

In which case, the Archon is the king, and Furina would be addressed as Your Majesty.

This localization would also make it much easier to get across that Neuvillette does not refer to Furina the same way the common people do- they are more or less equals, after all. If everyone else is calling Furina "Your Majesty," then Neuvillette can call her "Lady Furina," and I believe this would be much more in line with the spirit of the original.

[enhasparadise]

TOKYO ON EDGE. ˒˒ ﹙ niki! ﹚

╰┈⪼ moving to Japan wasn’t really on your plan through the year, but with your specialty being Japanese you had no choice but to accept. arriving in the middle of the year you found it strangely easy enough to integrate into your well-known class but over the days everything seemed to become boring and everything looked the same, the only thing that seemed to interest you was discovering the streets of Japan and the cultural differences with your native country. but, what you hadn't imagined was coming face to face with a car race, where one of the participants was one of your classmates, Nishimura Niki.

pairing ‎⸝⸝⸝ street racer!niki x student!reader 𓄷 iηcℓudᥱs 𓈓 older brother!jay, best friend!sunoo, best friend!haerin, bully!woonhak and heeseung.

genre﹙💬﹚⸝⸝⸝ serie, street racing au, enemies to lovers, kind of bully!niki, slow burn.

warnings ‎⸝⸝⸝ harsh talking, mention of violence and bullying, mention of drinking and smoking, cursing, mention of mental health, niki’s really dumb sometimes.

words count ‎⸝⸝⸝ 2282 words

taglist ‎⸝⸝⸝ @r1kification @cherryrikis @moonpri @who-tf-soddhi @heeswif3y @yangjungwonnie comment to be added to the taglist !!

rain’s note ‎⸝⸝⸝ i wanna scream because i hate how this chapter is looking and i didn’t even know if it’s a good chapter or not. plus im sorry if it was so long for this chapter to be posted but i didn’t had time to write since some day so i only posted it today, and im really sorry if you didn’t like this chapter (sadly it’s really bad..) but i will do my best for the next one ! love y’all !

all feedback and reblogs are welcome! ♡

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002. OH GOD, HE’S SO ANNOYING..

"no, but you don't understand! This boy really annoys me, he gets on my nerves all day long and the worst part of all is that it amuses him!" you finally said as you held your phone to your ear.

and as soon as you had said this sentence, your brother's laughter was heard on the other side, which simply managed to annoy you even more.

"Jay I'm not kidding!"

"It's not like I can really do much about it Y/n, I'm not in Japan with you" your brother ended up responding while he seemed busy doing something else entirely. "Just be patient and he'll end up lacing it up, guys are all like that so as soon as he gets tired of annoying you he'll go see another girl to do the same thing"

Laying down on your bed, a sigh left your lips as you listened to your brother's words while trying not to get angry in the worst way against your pillow. The more you heard your brother's words, the more you had the impression that nothing was going to work out with Niki over the next few days. But on the other hand he wasn't wrong, maybe he would end up getting tired of behaving like that with you and would therefore go somewhere else.

But at the same time with everything that had happened since you arrived at high school you weren't really sure. The first day only you had to be there at the wrong time, and bump into Niki's chest for him to see a certain hatred against you, simply because his uniform had ended up being stained by his coffee. And this, despite the number of excuses you had said to him, he in no way seemed to listen to you and had simply pushed you, making you fall to the ground before he left without no glance to see if you were okay. And just when you thought it was all over, everyone around you started laughing at the situation.

Then it came to the next day. And the day after that. And then so on until today.

Even thinking about it you never understood why Niki hated you so much, because the coffee spilled on her uniform was a total accident that you wouldn't have wanted if you knew it was going to happen.

"I don't think Niki will end up lacing up Jay... he's unbearable and he does everything to get on my nerves. Just yesterday he made fun of me on purpose in mathematics because I hadn't answered just to the professor's question and, right after, he managed to get a good answer."

"Y/n.. the school is full of idiots, so obviously Niki must be one of them if he behaves like that with you, but try to ignore him for the rest of the week okay? Then it's not as if you were all alone, Sunoo is with you and from what I understood there is also Haerin so don't be unhappy just because of a boy.."

A sigh left your lips as you listened to your big brother's words because deep down, well, he spent most of the time lecturing you to prove to you that you were dramatizing the events that were happening in your family a little too much. life and that, on the other hand, Niki's behavior was nothing.

"Besides by bewitching you will talk I have the impression of being back at the time when you were still at home complaining that Jake hadn't spoken to you all day while he was at home with Me.."

Hearing Jake's name, your cheeks quickly turned red from embarrassment.

"Jake and Niki are not the same people!" you ended up responding to defend yourself. "Niki is a complete idiot who thinks he's the bad boy at school and annoys me. Jake is adorable to me and much nicer and more attentive than Niki will be to me."

"You're just saying that because you had feelings for Jake."

"That's not even true!" You answered almost immediately, sitting up, your phone still against your ear and you weren't surprised to hear your brother's laugh.

"Oh stop... I know when my little sister is in love..." he replied, knowing perfectly well that he was right about what he said. "Especially if she's in love with my best friend... and you're not at all discreet, you know?"

"I hate you."

"I love you too, little sister."

But you didn't even give him time to finish his sentence before you hung up directly, showing your big brother that you didn't appreciate it when he made fun of you like that and your phone ended up landing on your mattress.

The screen lit up a few seconds later to display a message from your brother but you didn't bother to read it, getting up from your bed to sit at your desk, since even though classes were over , you had no other choice but to do all the homework you had during the day, even if deep down you didn't want to.

you had barely finished settling down on your desk when a sigh left your lips as you realized the number of notebooks on your desk, realizing then that unfortunately you were probably going to have to spend several hours sitting down having to work on all of this then that you didn't even want to.

deep down, you had never been one of those people who spent all night working or even studying for any reason, just because they were good at class, their parents put pressure on them or that it was simply their future that worried them and they wanted at all costs to have one of the best futures. But knowing that one of your classmates was bound to make fun or brag about having a better grade than you, you couldn't let yourself go and not work.

except that the more the days pass, the more you find your situation truly ridiculous. Niki did everything to drive you crazy and unfortunately the school aspect seemed to be her favorite part. whether it was just for simple homework that didn't count or for very big exams during the year and he knew perfectly well that, if he had even a single grade higher than you, you would be completely crazy. However Niki wasn't the type to work, it didn't fit with his behavior in any way so how could he get such good grades if he never worked?

Just trying to understand how, you realized that at no point had you started working, your pencil still in your hands while none of your homework had progressed. even when he wasn't with you he managed to drive you completely crazy and you couldn't stand it. did he use some sort of magic to even remotely annoy you when you weren't in high school.

The next day, when you had just crossed the high school premises, you couldn't really stay awake. Because of all that work you had last night you had slept very little and you weren't even surprised to find yourself sleeping on your math books, letting you understand that you had finally fallen asleep in the middle of a revision session.

Crossing the corridor, the noise present all around because of all the girls screaming even though it was only eight o'clock in the morning and you had slept poorly during the night, you had broken your ears and you had regret not having simply returned to your bed when you woke up again in the morning. And just with this thought a sigh left your lips as you really wanted to find yourself lying warm under your covers so you could sleep right away. Your eyes had closed at the mere thought of it, but upon opening them almost seconds later, you weren't particularly surprised to notice that unfortunately you weren't there but, instead, you had been forced to join your class in deepest discontent.

“Oh my god, you’re making one of those faces..” Sunoo said as he put his bag down right next to you, coming back to his place next to you. “You have huge dark circles, did you sleep last night?”

“Please don't talk to me about sleeping Sunoo..” you moaned almost immediately upon hearing the words of your best friend, who at the same time seemed to be making fun of the way you were acting while the rest class was arriving and class was going to start soon. "I barely slept because I spent most of my time studying for classes and making sure my homework was finished perfectly."

“So focused that you forgot to answer my calls for the presentation, right?” Sunoo asked, knowing full well that it wasn't your fault, but even with your tiredness you picked up on the annoyance in his voice.

"Oh no.. Sunoo I'm so sorry..! I was so focused on all this that I totally forgot.. then I had to call my brother and he just bothered me so that I explain to him how annoying Niki was.." you replied almost immediately, knowing that Sunoo didn't blame you, even if he would have preferred not to expose him alone.

“So this is how we’re talking about me?” A voice came from behind you, and as soon as you heard you froze in place. “It’s cute to know that even though you say you hate me, you talk about me outside of school.”

despite your tiredness, hearing his voice made you aware of everything that was happening around you and almost immediately you turned towards him, seeing him sitting in the office right behind you while his legs were stretched out. 'to under your own chair. he once again had this air of self-confidence and too full of himself to realize that he was the stupidest person in the room. well... that was simply what you thought, seeing it that way.

“Niki she didn’t ask you absolutely anything you know..”

“You, the little blond, we didn’t talk..” Niki replied without even bothering to look at Sunoo and he slowly stood up, his arms coming to rest on his desk while all his attention was on you. “So like I said, are we talking about me? It’s all interesting.”

"Interesting to hear me say that I'm complaining about your behavior towards me? Seriously, even my brother would be capable of hating you.." you replied almost immediately, not wanting to spend more time talking to him. “Now just leave me alone, I don’t want to waste my time talking to you when the teacher will be here soon.”

Following your words, the silence in the room proved that the teacher had just entered, and after giving Niki one last look you returned to your chair, not wanting the day to be horrible in any way. simply because of him.

except that, bad luck for you, while the class had just started and you tried as best you could to concentrate on what your teacher was saying and pray not to fall asleep, Niki had decided that, the fact of Being behind you in class was going to be very useful in getting you worked up.

so it was only after ten minutes of class that you had received a blow to the bottom of your chair, and you had not taken the time to think to know that it was simply that idiot who was behind you who had nothing else to do than bang your foot on the bottom of your chair to get angry.

and, while he was having fun letting his foot knock against your chair, he noticed your head turn towards him and a smile appeared on his lips seeing the expression you had on your face. and you took it upon yourself not to create a scandal in the middle of the class, already because you were extremely tired, but also because you knew to what extent, no matter what you were going to say, nothing was going to be enough seriously to make your teacher react. but on the other hand, all the girls in your class would have started to hate you simply because you spoke badly about their favorite boy.

It was almost completely pathetic the way all his daughters were blind simply because Niki had a pretty face.. very fortunately you had never fallen under the influence of her beauty and you will never be under her influence because you hated him. and then you could never imagine that because it would totally make you want to throw up just from that.

unfortunately for you, Niki didn't seem to stop there since you felt your chair being pushed forward simply because Niki was still having fun hitting the back of your chair, knowing perfectly well that it irritated you . and that amused him. It was definitely one of the things he loved doing, getting on your nerves and annoying you until you finally broke down.

and today was definitely going to be one of his days because he didn't stop at hitting the back of the chair. oh no, far from it. since, as soon as you thought that he had realized what he was doing and that he had finished annoying you, you started to receive little balls of paper. Niki was really proud to know that he could annoy you by doing the simplest things, and he used any way to do it every time, which was truly horrible for you. especially today since you barely slept or at least slept very poorly.

[kikokus]

Lucci and Kaku: An Analysis

I haven’t done long analysis/meta/essay-style posts in a while, but after seeing a comment that amounted to “every time Lucci’s shown an interest in something that doesn’t have to do with killing, Kaku’s involved” it made me think about whether or not that's true and, more specifically, whether or not there’s been sufficient build-up to justify what happens in Chapter 1111.

So let’s explore, shall we?

First of all, basic disclaimer that I’ve been heavily into One Piece since 2008 and Water 7 has been my favorite arc since the first time I read it that summer. Kaku, in turn, has always been one of my top characters in the entire series for various reasons…but this isn’t about him (at least, not entirely), so all of that is just to say that I’ve thought about these characters a lot over the years.

And I think what always struck me about them is that not only are they so fundamentally different, but that realistically Lucci should not tolerate Kaku at all. He’s pretty much everything Lucci’s not, and they’re more-or-less a perfect example of the ‘someone will die…of fun!’ meme in a lot of ways (and honestly it’s what I think of every time I see this card, but I digress):

At the same time, what happened in the latest chapter didn’t surprise me, because there’s been hints all along, and I’ve personally been waiting years for it to pay off…even though part of me thought it never would, or at least not in the way it did!

Still, how did we get here?

But First, A Bit About 相棒

So. Why is the fact that Lucci calls Kaku his “相棒” (aibou) so significant? Mostly because of the…individualistic meaning of the word. It literally translates to ‘partner’, but not in a romantic/life-partner way (not to say that it has never been used like that, but it’s not the inherent meaning of the word).

Unlike words such as 友人 (yuujin), 友達 (tomodachi), and of course, with Luffy, 仲間 (nakama), aibou generally only refers to one person. You can have many friends, teammates, crew members…but only one aibou. So by calling Kaku that, Lucci’s already placing him on a different level to anyone else in CP9 or CP0 and acknowledging openly that Kaku’s important enough to him to have earned that distinction.

Which is why a lot of us were very excited about it, since this is not a common occurrence where Lucci’s concerned.

That aside, let’s get to the actual canon content.

Water 7

Obviously at the beginning we find out they both work at the shipyard, but that in and of itself isn’t entirely significant…until you consider that, since Kalifa is pretty much with Iceburg all the time and Blueno’s running the bar, the two of them are working in much closer proximity to each other than to the other CP9 members in the city. 

The first real indication we get regarding their comfort level with each other comes in chapter 327 when Kaku gets back from examining the Merry and goes to sit down to explain what he’s discovered. Paulie’s the closest to him, but he actually ends up stepping past both him and Lucci in order to sit directly beside Lucci on the same level.

It’s quite a while before we see the two of them alone again, and it doesn’t happen until chapter 339 when they’re speaking with Robin. Of course at the time we’re not supposed to know it’s them, but there’s really nobody else it can be since this is happening at the exact same time that Blueno’s talking with Franky and Kokoro at the bar. So, as will become fairly common, the two of them are again acting as a unit of their own within the larger group.

And then, of course, we get the infiltration of the mansion prior to The Big Reveal (which I’ve spoken about before because for me it’s still the single greatest reveal in the entire manga because of how carefully crafted it is, right down to Kaku’s limited dialogue in this section being completely devoid of his usual speech quirks in the original Japanese text). Once again, Blueno and Kalifa are doing their own things while these two are working together.

This panel has always been interesting to me because immediately prior to this Lucci says he can’t let Paulie live, and then he decides to just restrain him instead. In Luffy’s case it makes sense because they gave their word to Robin not to harm the Strawhats, but he has absolutely no reason to spare Paulie, and the little lines of shock/surprise beside Kaku imply that he hadn’t expected Lucci to do that, either. The ‘why’ is still unclear, but it’s interesting nonetheless, and it’s also…noteworthy that it’s the only thing Lucci asks Kaku to do. All of the actual damage Paulie takes comes from Lucci and he never asks for or expects Kaku to harm him.

I never connected these two panels before but it’s obviously very deliberate to have Lucci telling Iceburg that feeling emotions is a sign of humanity followed immediately by Kaku…demonstrating exactly that and thanking Iceburg. It’s important to establish that part of Kaku’s character, but keep in mind Lucci’s lack of a reaction here because it’ll come back later.

Again, very tiny moment, but there’s a lot of examples of Lucci deferring to Kaku or letting him take the lead without any hesitation, and I like this because Kaku’s noticed something that Lucci hasn’t and Lucci just goes with it immediately.

I’d forgotten about this but Kaku’s also the one that decides to take Usopp with them, first by recognizing him as one of the Strawhats and then going through with it even after finding out he doesn’t consider himself a part of them anymore. And Lucci just…stands back and lets him give out orders to the others while doing so.

Okay so this is what I was referencing earlier. Kaku shows actual emotions with Iceburg and Lucci’s silent, but the moment Kalifa gets even slightly happy about completing the mission he’s berating her instantly. Kaku’s expression here is interesting too because he looks absolutely haunted and it’s very telling.

And also another visual representation of Lucci and Kaku being equal to/on the same level as each other.

I didn’t include the panel but Kaku was ‘sleeping’ when Corgi was giving them all of the information about Nero while Lucci was (seemingly) wide awake, and yet Lucci has no idea who he is and relies on Kaku to have all the information. Which he does.

Kaku being the one to take charge again and direct the others even though Lucci’s standing right there. They do this more than I’d realized at first, especially since Lucci always seems to be looked at as the unofficial ‘leader’ of CP9.

Enies Lobby

We’ve made it to Enies Lobby, which is the first glimpse we get of these two interacting with the full CP9 group outside of any sort of ‘mission’ environment.

Mostly it entails Lucci being more combative (especially with Jabra) and Kaku being more annoyed, but again I can’t really imagine anyone else taking this tone with Lucci and getting away with it while Kaku does it fairly often and Lucci never retorts or gets angry with him.

And while Kaku’s not immune to taking Jabra’s bait in the right circumstances, his typical tendency is to de-escalate situations if he can and here he’s refusing to engage despite being deliberately called out…and Lucci, without being asked, immediately takes his side and defends his choice.

This is practically the next panel and while both Lucci and Jabra are kind of equally at fault for this little display, Kaku only berates Jabra for it while Kalifa’s directing her comments at both of them.

Now that I’m actually looking for these sorts of things it’s becoming more obvious, but again we have Lucci and Kaku in an equal position to each other at the front of CP9.

This isn’t just to Kaku since Kalifa’s there as well, but Lucci’s still encouraging them to eat the fruits and I have to believe it’s coming from a place of good faith because he’d know whether or not being able to swim is that big an issue in their profession. I also want to note that Kaku echoes Lucci’s ‘it’ll be fun’ line when he actually does eat his fruit, so obviously that resonated with him.

I’ve put these two together because they both highlight the same thing, that being in both of these sequences we get almost all of CP9 giving out their individual thoughts/comments on what’s happening but Kaku’s statement both times is a direct reply to what Lucci says, so again the two of them are paired off in a way that doesn’t include anyone else there. 

The only other thing of note in this section is that while Robin’s talking about what happened during the Buster Call on Ohara, Kaku and Lucci are the only CP9 members to kind of…break formation and actually look at her while she’s speaking, which is interesting.

And for the rest of Enies Lobby they aren’t together so there’s not too much more to say here other than Kaku of course being the one to have the actual key to Robin’s cuffs, but it’s never made explicit who came up with that plan or handed out the keys so…if I ever actually do the thing and write a full analysis of Kaku’s character we can talk about it then Lark you’ve been saying you’ll do this for years IF I EVER--

Interlude - CP9’s Independent Report

Besides the fact that this is still one of my favorite cover stories, there’s a couple of noteworthy things here, the first of which is that Kaku again is taking the lead. Even though he’s the only other CP9 member other than Lucci to be injured badly enough that he can’t walk on his own, he’s still the one directing them where to go.

Other than that, I love seeing all of them just…interacting like friends and being very relaxed and casual, and pretty much every panel where Kaku and Lucci are together they’re directly beside each other so I’ve included a bunch of those here.

Dressrosa & Egghead

The next time we see Lucci and Kaku is at the end of Dressrosa, where they’ve been promoted to CP0 Oda can we please get some explanation of how this happened and let me tell you, I remember this vividly because the spoilers at the time just said that Lucci was talking to ‘someone’ and when the raws came out you can bet I went right to the dialogue to see if it was Kaku because his way of speaking is so telling.

But even in this little scene, we can see they’re having an equal conversation and there’s a major difference between how Lucci’s speaking with Kaku and how he addresses Spandam mere seconds later.

After this we have the Reverie/Levely/what-even-is-this-thing-called arc where they get all of a single panel together and while it’s the first time we actually ‘see’ Kaku after the time-skip, nothing really interesting regarding their relationship happens, so let’s move on to…

The end of the colored manga! And Egghead.

We start with a very familiar situation: Lucci asking Kaku what’s going on, and while Kaku this entire arc seems more outwardly annoyed with Lucci than he ever was in the past (which is never really explained but then again, Lucci spends a lot of the arc doing things he’s specifically been told not to do, so maybe it’s understandable…), he still has all the information and relays it.

Though Kaku’s also much more comfortable letting his real personality show despite them being on a mission while before he was always completely serious after the Water 7 reveal, especially around Lucci. It came through with Zoro and Jabra but during the cover story he’s smiling and laughing a lot with Lucci right there so it makes sense he’d be more willing to let his guard down even ‘on the job’ by now.

So here’s the first real instance of Lucci showing concern for Kaku, something which escalates pretty quickly throughout the arc. It’s subtle, and though he’s framing it as a suggestion to Stussy, if he didn’t care at all he wouldn’t have said anything. 

At this point it’s fairly obvious that Lucci and Kaku don’t really have any authority difference between them and Kaku spends a lot of time in this chapter especially telling Lucci to Not Do The Thing. Anyone that’s ever lived with a cat knows how well this works.

I’ve always found this bit of dialogue particularly interesting because Kaku’s very openly…praising Sentomaru for choosing his loyalty to Vegapunk over assisting the government, and there’s no way Lucci doesn’t hear him say this but he doesn’t say anything in return. There’s no real evidence that Lucci knows about Kaku willingly giving up the key to Zoro or how conflicted he was about Paulie and everyone else, but this seems to imply that at the very least, even if he doesn’t share those sentiments, he wouldn’t think less of Kaku because of it.

Putting these two together since they’re in the same scene but at this point it’s not even subtle concern anymore, Lucci’s genuinely worried for Kaku and you can tell this caught him off-guard.

Kaku’s the first one to suggest working together but Lucci immediately backs him up and goes with the idea. It’s logical in the sense that it’ll give them the biggest chance to survive, but willingly working with pirates isn’t exactly the sort of thing that Lucci, especially in the past, would have so easily done regardless of the situation.

So at this point it’s becoming clear that this whole 4-v-2 section is supposed to be the most…light-hearted thing going on right now and a lot of it is played to be comedic, including Lucci’s inability to lie, but yet again there’s almost nobody else that could get away with scolding him the way Kaku’s doing here.

…And then we skip ahead a day and things happen that I really hope get explained at some point because they seem important, but while Lucci’s never going to have impeccable bedside manner, he’s very concerned with getting Kaku to rest and while Kaku’s trying to justify what happened Lucci really doesn’t seem to care about that. It’s a big departure from him being willing to write off anyone he deems ‘too weak’ and it’s a nice character moment.

I’d mentioned on my liveblog that some of the things Lucci was doing after this point were confusing, but if you look at them through the lens of him wanting to protect Kaku, it makes a lot more sense. Yes, he’s deliberately keeping him out of the loop, but Lucci I think has decided that he’s going to throw caution to the wind and act alone since if Kaku can’t prove he knew about the plan, he’s probably safer being left with the Strawhats, and if the Marines show up he should be safe anyway or so Lucci thinks…

When this chapter came out, I’d said something about Lucci being a hypocrite considering what the rest of CP9 did for him when they could have easily just left him at Enies Lobby, but given what happens almost directly after and likely what he’s trying to do with this entire fight, these words feel even less genuine…

And that brings us to this. The moment that I’ve been thinking about for almost an entire week now. The moment that, looking back at…oh, wow…almost 3000 words of analysis maybe shouldn’t be as surprising as it was for most of us, but it does feel like the payoff for a long, long buildup that’s taken nearly twenty years to reach. Because really, there’s no other way to describe them other than ‘partners’, and probably hasn’t been for a long time…and I’m so glad that Lucci acknowledged it.

To summarize, I think what surprised me most about re-visiting all of this is how much the manga has framed them as equals since the beginning even though it was never explicitly stated between the characters themselves. Lucci’s always been far more lenient with Kaku than with anyone else, and Kaku in turn has never had any fear of Lucci even if he wasn’t really expressing his true self with him for a long time.

The cover story being the turning point makes perfect sense, and the progression throughout Egghead of Lucci being more outwardly willing to show his concern and Kaku not hiding his emotions at all seems like a natural progression of their relationship and their level of comfort around each other.

And the fact that Oda is never really…hitting us over the head with any of it until that final moment when Lucci says everything so plainly because Kaku’s life is the most important thing to him even when faced with a literal monster… It’s so effective. 

I don’t know where we go from here. To be honest, I’m kind of scared of where we go from here. But regardless of the outcome, I hope this little essay has been at the very least interesting and perhaps allowed you to look at these two in a different light.

Thanks for reading.

[kelin-is-writing]

kelin may i hear more about rockstar touya \(★ω★)/

I was planning to post other headcanons before going for these, BUT I’ve got some for Rockstar!Touya that are pestering my mind these days and your asks come in the right moment, so bear with me please 🤧

࣪𖤐… ROCKSTAR!TOUYA

The first time Touya knew that he wanted to become a rockstar was in middle school, right at the age of thirteen, his influent CEO of a father was trying to mold him into a carbon copy of himself to rival Yagi Toshinori’s Enterprise. While taking a break from studies, he saw his sister watch on TV a rock concert of “Loudness” and to say Akira Takasaki is his role model is the least. That’s a true legend to him.

After “Loudness” and Akira Takasaki, he discovered “Metallica” and Kirk Hammett which made him go like “HOW??? HAVE??? I??? MISSED??? ALL??? THIS???”, scolding himself for taking so long to fall in love with the electric guitar and its sound. The next week he’s blasting full volume “The Final Countdown” by Europe inside the Todoroki Mansion like the good old stamp rock fanatic he is, getting himself scolded and grounded by Enji who is a fan of traditional Japanese music so yeah…

At one of the Todoroki family gatherings during the weekend, he was scrolling down his phone looking first of all where to take guitar lessons and second for a guitar to buy, but he knew his father would never agree to get him one. That’s when his grandfather, peeking at his grandson’s phone, butted in and asked Touya if he’s interested in music. He wasn’t sure if it was a good thing to answer that question, since he’s the father of his father, but he did and hell has it been the best thing he did!

On his fourteenth birthday, Enji’s father bought Touya his very first electric guitar, a good old Fender Stratocaster CUSTOM MADE for him. It’s snow white like his hair and has a his name engraved on the bottom left side of the guitar, while on the other side there were engraved tiger’s fangs, all in turquoise… The color of his eyes. And this has been by far Touya’s best birthday ever.

After finishing Middle School he choose to attend an Art School, taking the music classes as main classes of course; he may or not have done it to piss off and raise Enji’s blood pressure from how mad he got for choosing something different from Finances and Management. Oh his father was livid and Touya was so proud of himself for that.

He has formed a rock band, of which he’s the guitarist and vocalist, with Tenko Shimura (Bassist&Vocalist) and Shuichi Iguchi (Drummer) called “The Villains”… Are we even surprised about this name? Really? Because I am not. Tenko suggested, Iguchi supported strongly and Touya just went with it because complaining and thinking about another name was “Too much effort”. He likes it a lot but will never admit it.

At the age of nineteen, Touya owns a Fender Stratocaster (Custom Made), an Elite Stratocaster, an ST-83-80 Japan (1983) black, Lone Star Strat, IC350 black, IC50 black, ICHI00 white, Gibson SG Standard mahogany and a Jackson Pro Series DK Modern HT6 MS. He also owns four acoustic guitars for songwriting, like a Martin GPC-X1E, Martin 000-28 Modern Deluxe, Taylor GS Mini-e Rosewood SN LTD and a Taylor AD22e. Did he pay all them with Enji’s credit card? Hell yeah. Did he do it out of spite? Absolutely. Did he care about his father’s blood pressure rising even more? Not even remotely.

His favorite groups are Loudness, Metallica, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Europe, Scorpions, Slipknot, Three Days Grace, Green Day, Skillet, Linkin Park, The Rasmus, L’Arc-En-Ciel, UVERworld, Nirvana, Guns N’ Roses and Evanescence to list some, because there are many more he adores honestly. He isn’t a picky ear as long as the song gives him chills and inspires him, being someone who’s driven by emotions that’s what makes him likes something he hears.

Atsuhiro is their homeroom teacher, at the Art University they attend, who introduces them to Giran, a friend of his, who has an agency for new talents and after they sent him six of their songs wants to launch their very first album by August to make them debut at the “Rock In Japan Fes.”

Touya, being the emotional driven type of musician, is the one put to write the lyrics for the band’s songs and most of the times are hits, especially because his and Tenko’s voice brings to life the emotions of the lyrics in a way that it reaches the listeners right into the heart and soul.

You will never catch Touya’s fingers empty, there’s always rings decorating them and some rings are even custom made by his cousin Geten, who owns a Jewelry shop that he promotes a lot on his social media. One of his most precious rings is the one that he got made for him, with his birthstone carved in it, when he turned eighteen.

He has three earrings on his right ear: an helix, mid helix, conch and low helix. Four on his left one: two helix, a low helix and one on the lobe, plus three nostril piercings on the right side of his nose.

After “The Villains” debuts and proving his father that he could succeed through music without his help nor his name, Touya owns now a black card that he lets Fuyumi and Shoto use to their heart content.

Last, but not least, be ready to be the muse of Touya’s songs the instant he falls head over heels for you. The moment it happens everything, and I mean everything, to him becomes about you driving Tenko and Iguchi to pure exasperation.

[richea]

[Translation] Kratos of the Expiation: Chapter 1 parts 2-3

This update brings us to page 28/317. As I mentioned in my prior post, please think of this as a first draft translation. Starting with this post, I'll be linking to a playthrough (both dubbed and subbed) for those who wish to watch along to the corresponding game cutscenes as they read. Dubbed / Subbed (video picks the wrong choice, here's the choice in Japanese)

Chapter 1: Part 2 of 6

It has been 15 years since Kratos last descended onto earth.

Long ago, Kratos betrayed Cruxis and defected from the organization. He had since then rejoined Yggdrasill’s side, but only on the condition that he wouldn’t be allowed to descend onto earth as he pleased.

Northwest of the Tower of Salvation lies an area thick with trees. Along the shoreline, at the foot of a small mountain, a village can be seen. It’s Iselia, which was known to be the headquarters for the Church of Martel. This is the place Kratos set off to visit.

The entire world has its watchful eye on Iselia. This is due to the fact that the Chosen One was born within its hold, of whom would set off on the Journey of World Regeneration, saving the world from destruction. On the Chosen’s 16th birthday, she is to receive the oracle from an angel of Cruxis and set off on her journey. Today is that very day.

Thinking of the phrase “World Regeneration” brought back harsh memories for Kratos. It was as if a pain pierced his heart. However, there was nothing Kratos could do at this point. He had become completely void of any way to fight against Mithos. In a way, maybe that was for the best. Even if the path there wasn’t pretty, so long as the world would be regenerated, then―

The sound of people fighting grated Kratos’ ears the second he looked at the plateau to his left. He has a heightened sense of hearing. The range of which he can pick up sounds is expanded, and he is able to hear things with clarity that are not normally able to be processed by the human ear. The same is true for his vision. By focusing his attention on something, he is able to see things far away, down to their very texture. Thanks to this, he’s able to tell that there’s a rather intense battle happening atop the plateau.

Kratos took a deep breath before spreading a radiant blueish-white light from behind his back. It glistened and swayed, like the shimmer of hot air. Protruding from his back were wings of condensed mana which allow him to fly. A circulation of his bodily mana takes form and is expended from his body in the form of radiation.

Kratos’ body lifted into the air, and he beelined it towards the plateau. Below him, he could see a cluster of corpses spread about. They were all priests of the Church of Martel. It seems a scandal unbefitting the Day of Prophecy has taken place here.

Atop the plateau lies the Martel Temple. A fight was breaking out there. Kratos landed at the base of the plateau without a sound, put his wings away, and dashed up the stairs towards the temple.

What he found in front of the temple was a band of infiltrators that seemed familiar, and a group of kids who were picking a fight with them. It was immediately clear to him that the kids were at the disadvantage.

“Man, this guy is really tough!”

One of the boys had floundered about in his stance, and the enemy took advantage of that. The giant man he was fighting was swinging around an iron ball above his head, and brought it down to strike the boy.

In the nick of time, Kratos put himself in between the iron ball and the boy, unsheathing his sword to strike at the weapon. He cut the chain that held the ball in a flash, rendering the weapon useless.

“Huh? Who are you?”

“Get out of the way.”

Kratos ordered the boy to stay put and closed the gap between himself and his opponent. He leaped towards him and thrusted the tip of his sword towards the man’s throat.

“Are you the rats I was told to exterminate?”

“Rgh...”

The large man froze and awkwardly turned his gaze towards his superior. That was enough of an answer for him. Without hesitation, Kratos plunged his sword deep into the man’s neck, and then pulled the blade out as he kicked his body backwards. Using the recoil he hopped back, as a rain of blood poured onto the spot he had just been standing.

“I never thought you’d show up.” The man’s superior stood on the other side of the pool of blood, glaring at Kratos. “Retreat for now!”

At that order, all of the soldiers left in a hustle. The remaining survivors carried the corpses of their fallen allies and skillfully scampered down the stairs of the plateau. Kratos shook his sword to fling the blood off of it and sheathed it.

I see, so it’s just as I heard. This Chosen is a perfect match. That must be why the “rats” are making their move.

As the enemies dispersed, the children who had been discouraged all of a sudden perked up. He kept his back turned to the teenagers who were being their typical, noisy selves, and an old woman approached him. He could feel an air of refinement from her. He could immediately tell she wasn’t just any ordinary old lady.

“How can I ever thank you for saving the Chosen?”

At this, Kratos turned his head to look at the children. The silver-haired one seemed to be in his early teens. He used magic during the battle, so he must be either an elf or a half-elf―Kratos found the latter more likely. He felt something off about the boy in the red outfit, but it was probably nothing to worry about. In any case, both of them are boys, so it’s not either of them. The Chosen of Regeneration would be a girl.

“...I see. So this girl is the next Chosen.”

Kratos shifted his gaze towards the blond-haired girl, who the two boys were guarding. When the girl met his gaze, she seemed startled for a second, but then innocently smiled at him. He wondered if she was aware of the fate set before her. Kratos frowned, and the girl’s face suddenly lit up.

“That’s right! I have to go accept the oracle!” The girl rushed over to the old woman, continuing on with a dignified voice. “Grandmother, I’m going to undergo the trial now.”

“What trial?” asked the boy in the red outfit.

“The monsters, I assume. An evil presence radiates from inside this chapel.”

He wasn’t lying. The temple was normally under a holy presence, but he could sense monsters lurking about. Since Kratos was pretending to be a mercenary, he figured flaunting this knowledge might prove useful. He needed to show off a little so they’d let him guard the Chosen.

As expected, the old woman seemed impressed by his analysis and turned to face him.

“Yes, that is correct. The Chosen is to receive judgment from heaven. But the priests that were to accompany her fell at the hands of the Desians.”

Kratos’ mouth twitched at the word “Desian.” I see, so the rats are doing a good job at hiding who they really are. But what good would killing the priests do if they just left the Chosen alive anyway? It seems like their leader’s habit of never being able to do anything right rubbed off on his subordinates.

“Then I’ll take on the job of protecting Colette.”

All of a sudden, the boy in the red outfit cut in between Kratos and the old woman. So the Chosen’s name is Colette. Kratos couldn’t believe how ridiculous the request the boy made was. He was probably self-taught, but the way he wielded his dual blades was hard to watch. Kids can really have way too much confidence sometimes.

“Lloyd? ...I would be uneasy with just you.”

Hearing this, Kratos’ entire body jumped. He whipped his head around to look at Lloyd, this time really studying his features.

The image of his lost baby son popped into his head. It was as if the memories he had tried so hard to bury came bursting out the door of his recollections.

Fifteen years ago, he had a family. It was him, his dearest wife Anna, and their son, Lloyd.

But his son is dead. By all means, he should be dead. He was 3 at the time, and had he survived, he would be the same age as the boy he sees here, but...

“Your name is Lloyd?”

“Yeah, but who are you to ask for my name?”

Lloyd gave Kratos a sharp look.

Fifteen years had passed since then. There’s no way he’d know for sure. Children grow fast, and their faces totally change. And Lloyd was only 3 at the time; there’s no way he’d even remember him. Really, he had no proof that this boy was his son, Lloyd.

As if to escape Lloyd’s gaze, Kratos turned back to the old woman. His mission took priority right now.

“...I am Kratos, a mercenary. As long as you can pay me, I’ll accept the job of guarding the Chosen.”

The old lady sighed and nodded.

“...Under the circumstances, I have little choice. Please be of service.”

“It’s a deal, then.”

Kratos nodded back at her. That was a relief. Now he could guard the Chosen. That’s the most he could do. He started walking alongside the Chosen, Colette.

“W-Wait! I’m going, too!”

Lloyd ran after them.

“Lloyd, you’ll only get in the way. Be a good boy and wait here.”

Hearing Kratos’ rejection, Lloyd’s face bubbled with anger.

“What did you say?!”

“Did I not make myself clear? You’re a burden. Go home.”

As if to prevent Lloyd from running his mouth further, the Chosen, Colette piped in.

“Um... Mr. Kratos, would it be okay to take Lloyd along, too?”

“But...”

“Please. I get nervous when Lloyd’s not around.”

There was a warm smile behind Colette’s words, and Kratos sighed. He figured the Chosen always stuck up for Lloyd like this. Well, it’s not like the monsters in the temple were that bad anyway.

“...Do as you wish.”

Kratos said this with his back turned to them and made his way towards the temple’s entrance. World regeneration can’t even begin until the first trial is cleared. And the Renegades will likely become a hindrance along the way. He really wanted to get this first trial over with, quickly.

“...Let’s go, Genis!”

“What?! I’m going, too?!”

“Of course!”

Kratos heard Lloyd and the silver-haired boy―Genis, apparently―bickering behind him.

He let out another sigh. Such a bustle brought back some memories of long, long ago.

“This isn’t a field trip, you know.”

While trying to conceal how pleased he was at the nostalgia he was experiencing from overhearing them, Kratos entered the temple.

Chapter 1: Part 3 of 6

The base of Cruxis, Derris-Kharlan, is a massive comet. The central part of the comet houses the residential area, Welgaia, as well as Vinheim, Mithos’ castle. It is rumored that a part of the facilities are recycled from when the ancient elves lived there, but the details are not fully made clear. Even among the Angel Class, only a tiny portion know the truth behind it, so there is no way that Pronyma―who is of the Desian Class―would know about it.

Holding such a massive celestial body in place above the earth would normally be impossible. What makes the impossible possible is a sword known as the Eternal Sword, which the Summon Spirit Origin gifted to Yggdrasill. This sword is capable of manipulating both space and time, so Yggdrasill used it to both split the world in two as well as hold Derris-Kharlan in place. Pronyma admires him, honoring him as such a magnificent person.

Though “respect” on its own doesn’t convey the magnitude of the feelings she holds towards him. Perhaps “affection” or even “yearning” fits the bill better. She finds Yggdrasill so awe-inspiring, and even finds herself attracted to him.

Half-elves are viewed as heretics just for existing. Humans fear them for their outstanding powers, while elves abhor them for having human blood. Among all of the people who live on earth, half-elves are considered the race that nobody loves; they’re considered the people in the middle, and are oppressed.

Pronyma was once a victim of such oppression. She was ridiculed, abused, and recruited as a weapon for battle due to her abilities. Had Yggdrasill not saved her from such a fate, she likely would have met her end on the battlefield, never seen as more than a weapon. Yggdrasill is a savior in Pronyma’s eyes, and he is her hero for trying to make a world for half-elves to live in. She would do anything if it meant helping him. Being used by him is enough to make her happy.

Pronyma is currently working as one of the Five Grand Cardinals, which commands over the Desian Class.

Cruxis is made up of two classes: the Angel Class, who are given hi-Exspheres―Cruxis Crystals, and the Desian Class, who are given regular Exspheres instead. The Desians operate to terrorize the people while the angels instill an offering of peace to them via spreading the word of the Church of Martel. Between the both of them, they have full control over the hearts of mankind.

Those in the Desian Class are given all sorts of jobs. They always operate in the declining world. By doing so, the people in the declining world will pray for salvation, while the people in the prospering world will fear their eventual decline. This setup ensures that both worlds turn their prayers to and rely on the Church of Martel.

Just recently, the Tower of Salvation appeared in the declining world, Sylvarant, marking the beginning of World Regeneration. Though describing it as “appearing” is a tad misleading―the tower is always there, it’s just hidden behind a sort of shield so that people in the declining world can’t see it. To ensure that the two separated worlds aren’t sucked up into the dimensional rift between them, there are two points in which the worlds hold contact with one another. One of these is the Tower of Salvation. The top of the Tower of Salvation is connected to Derris-Kharlan, and it’s used to allow the angels and the Desians to communicate with one another.

What made the tower visible is that Sylvarant's Chosen of Regeneration had embarked on her journey to become Martel’s vessel. Pronyma needs to hold a meeting with an administrator in Welgaia in order to move the Desian Class into action. This is just a practice that’s held every time a Journey of Regeneration begins, but to Pronyma, it means something more. It’s an exciting time, where she is able to closer visit the place where Yggdrasill resides.

Pronyma used the transporter to teleport from the Tower of Salvation to Welgaia. However, the angel that was normally there to give her the order was nowhere to be found.

“I was under the impression I was to receive orders from Lord Kratos.”

Pronyma inquired this to the gatekeepers by the teleporter, and one of them replied to her.

“Lord Kratos is currently on Sylvarant on a mission. I regret to inform you that you will not be able to meet with him.”

“Lord Kratos is down on Sylvarant?!”

Pronyma couldn’t help her face from warping with fury.

“What is the meaning of this? He is a traitor, who defected from us 70 years ago. Mi... Lord Yggdrasill may have forgiven him, but to think he would be permitted to go down to earth!”

“Not another word, Pronyma.”

“...I know. It is not my place as one in the Desian Class to speak poorly of one of the Four Seraphim.”

Still, Pronyma couldn’t accept this. Sylvarant was where Kratos fled to when he betrayed Cruxis so long ago. When he was eventually accepted back into Derris-Kharlan, he was forbidden from going back down there.

Pronyma never liked Kratos. He’s the only human among the Angel Class. Him being a human was irritating enough, but he’d also taken advantage of Yggdrasill’s trust and betrayed him without warning. He disapproved of the Age of Lifeless Beings and left the organization. In the end, all he’d accomplished was finding a lover, having a child and playing make-believe at having a family. All he did was run away from reality. The damage he did to Yggdrasill from his silly game of playing house was immeasurable. Pronyma saw his suffering up close, and due to this, she started to seriously distrust Kratos.

“Pronyma. The messenger has arrived.”

A gatekeeper called to her and Pronyma turned to look at the central part of Welgaia. Amidst the soulless looking angels silently floating about, she saw a messenger angel headed her way. But it wasn’t one of Kratos’ messengers. Based on the color of the band on the arm, it was one of Yggdrasill’s.

“On Lord Yggdrasill’s orders?!”

The unexpected development had Pronyma’s heart pounding out of her chest, and she took a deep breath to calm herself.

Pronyma wasn’t in a position that allowed her to see Yggdrasill very often. The last time she had seen him was when Kratos shamelessly came back 15 years ago.

Pronyma was determined to not let Yggdrasill suffer like that again, and she vowed to do whatever it took to ensure that.

[red-hot-kick]

Theory: Ryuji was popular, before.

I'm not entirely sure if anyone has really talked about this but I maintain my interpretation that, in the canon of Persona 5, Ryuji used to be very (or at least moderately) popular prior to the events of the story.

This is something I've gotten into before when talking to friends who like the game and the character, but I haven't really considered writing it down until now. The main argument I have is based on three things:

Things Ryuji alluded to in canon (but no one believed him on)

The deliberate choice of making him a track athlete

Typecasting for voice actors

1: "There were girls all over me!"

I don't really have the time to go on a deep dive through all the instances in which he hints at his reputation before the Kamoshida incident, but I think the most clear-cut representation of this was during the scene where he and Ann spend the day with Futaba during her post-palace social rehabilitation:

So here's the thing...I don't think he's lying about this. Nobody in the room would be that impressed to find out whether Ryuji was popular since they are already friends (or in Mona's case, he really just doesn't care), so it wouldn't make sense for him to lie.

Regarding everyone's reactions though, here's my impression: Ann was simply not aware of what was going on with the track team, being predominantly focused on dealing with rumors, her friendship with Shiho, and her modeling career (and eventually Kamoshida's advances once he started doing that shit) and she mentions a few times that she and Ryuji weren't actually close before joining the PT; they were just in the same class in middle school. Futaba hasn't interacted with anyone her age in years and isn't the most reliable source when it comes to what people generally find attractive; just because she doesn't have any interest in Ryuji doesn't mean that nobody her age would. And Morgana is a cat that brags constantly about how cool he is, so he shouldn't be throwing rocks.

There are many other times in the game when you get little glimpses of his social savvy, and from my understanding of Royal (I'm an OG vanilla P5 player and haven't done 3rd-semester yet, so don't kill me) when the track team returns to "how it was", he is getting along extremely well with everyone. Not only was he the team's ace: this kid was also expected to become the captain by his senior year (as briefly mentioned when he bumps into his former senpai at the gym, iirc). That's huge! If his team held him in such high regard, then the general student body of Shujin surely had a similar opinion. This brings me to my next point:

2: Girls like boys that run fast(???)

This is honestly something that baffles me. It's also really difficult for me to substantiate; any source material on this is obviously in Japanese and if I could find any of it, I sure as hell can't read it. The only English-language source I know of I cannot find anymore; I think it was an old Tofugu article? However. If you've watched any romance anime set in a high school during the last 20 years, you might have seen this trope at some point: the school sports festival is happening, and the relay race is kind of a huge deal (it's the final event! a make-or-break moment for the class!). The boy thinks to himself "If I win this race, I'll be able to win her heart/ask her out/etc." Low-stakes drama ensues. Maybe a confession happens.

This is (from what I've been told) based on a long-standing trend of girls and women self-reporting in surveys about how, oftentimes, their crushes in junior or senior high school were simply "the boy who ran the fastest in the races". I have no idea what this means in a broader cultural context. It makes no goddamn sense to me at all. Do not cite me on this. But I think it's worth keeping in mind, even if it's almost entirely speculative (and possibly outdated) information. And even if it's just based on rumors, don't you think it's pretty in-character for Ryuji to go for a track scholarship—despite being adept at other sports like baseball and football/soccer, as mentioned in P5 and P5D—because he was aware of the potential of being more popular with girls? Of course, his priority would be getting the scholarship and paying his way through school to lighten his mother's burden, but hey, getting a girlfriend on the way up wouldn't be half bad!

I think this could also inform us as to why Kamoshida (as a predator who wanted attention from high school girls) felt so threatened by the track team in particular, and why he felt a need to specifically knock Ryuji down a peg and sought out a weakness to do so (as opposed to targeting any of the probably just-as-popular boys on the many other athletic teams and clubs in the school). Just some food for thought on this one! Also, if anyone can find a source or has any insight on the relay race thing, please share. I am so confused about it.

3: Typecasting

So this is something that you really only notice if you are very into keeping up with seiyuu in Japan. I am not one of those people. But I do have some favorite voice actors! One of these being Mamoru Miyano.

So I freakin' love this dude. He's voiced a lot of my favorite characters, sings incredibly well, and has an unreal sense of comedy. He's stated in interviews that his acting inspiration is Jim Carrey, and let me tell you: it shows. He is also quite consistently typecast into certain roles, predominantly as princely pretty-boy types, Coolguys, or complete fucking nutcases. Sometimes all three at the same time (shoutout to my boy Ling FMA!)

ATLUS definitely cast him for P5 because of his comedic chops. But I think they also cast him because having him voice someone like Ryuji is a great way to subvert expectations for the player. I think it's supposed to give you whiplash—"what do you mean the voice of LIGHT FUCKING YAGAMI is coming out of this guy's mouth?" "why does the delinquent character sound like king of the host club Tamaki Suou?" "isn't that Rin Matsuoka's voice?" etc. etc. etc.

(here's a quick list, just to really get the idea across. maybe you recognize a few.)

This is obviously a non-comprehensive list, but something that a lot of the characters he's voiced over the years have in common is that they were considered cool, handsome, or popular. Not just for fans, but within the canon of their stories! So...what does that mean? What does that say about how we should see Ryuji?

I think players are supposed to expect that he will fall into one of those categories too, and then be surprised to find that it's not the case—that he's been isolated and made bitter and resigned by what happened to him the year before.

Speaking of his tone, I think it's very telling that Ryuji actually forgets to keep up the delinquent act a lot in the original JP audio, which unfortunately doesn't really carry over in the ENG translation. The delivery of his JP lines sounds a bit more subdued in comparison too—yeah he's got a lot of energy and is very hotheaded, but when he gets to talking about serious shit, he sounds a lot more regretful and melancholy as opposed to the EN delivery which depicts him as more resentful and outwardly angry. I think before Shit Went Down, he probably had the Coolguy vibe. Still a bit of a rowdy idiot and a showoff, but I think he probably came across to most people as a very friendly, sincere, and popular guy.

So yeah, the girls probably were all over him, at least for a short while.

[dekusleftsock]

Hey, so you said in your tags about how katsuki is a freak in his own way, could you please expand on this idea a little and when it comes to Izuku?

Sure!

I actually made a post about this very concept semi recently but that post also didn’t really have organization lmao

The main reason I’ve always thought Katsuki as “a freak” as I dub him is for the very foundations of his personality. I think the main reason why no one in the western fandom looks at him and sees him for his (kinda) socially inept aspects is because of a combination between cultural differences and the nuances that hero society throws into Japan specifically.

It’s well known that Horikoshi’s story/world is heavily influenced by American super hero comics. Superman, Spider-Man, Harley, Poison Ivy, Bat-man, Captain America, ant man, etc. are all very obvious influences throughout the story, with characters like Allmight often feeling like a combination of Superman and Captain America.

The reason I bring this up is because the very aspects of these super hero comics is kind of in direct contradiction with Japanese society, especially as those heroics within the world affect the society around them.

Heroes are this curve ball thrown into a society that teaches its citizens to be polite, complicit, and quiet. That’s not to say that this is necessarily a “wrong” way to have a society, but I think it’s with this context that Katsuki’s character (and therefore the intentions behind it) become clearer.

Heroes are bright, loud, and powerful. But long before Katsuki was a hero he already was these things; how does that affect his social life? How do the people around him treat him in the context that he is both not a hero nor having of a quirk? If heroes are the “exceptions” to the society around them, and Katsuki is not yet an exception, then he is an outcast, right?

It’s this context that I feel most people forget. Katsuki understands the people around him, he’s very observant and nosy, but he also just doesn’t care. He is unabashedly himself at all times. Those jokes Aizawa made about keeping him out of the spotlight showcase this perfectly, Japanese society expects a certain standard for the social context around him—which he actively ignores.

It’s a very ironic aspect to his character given that most people admire and/or envy him. It puts a whole new light on izuku saying that he was the one “actually in his life”, that Izuku may have admired him before his quirk for simply being himself. Not to mention how it makes sense that he would believe izuku was looking down on him for admiring him before his quirk, because Katsuki was bullied! I think that’s an often overlooked detail given that he only became “acceptable” to most kids around him when he gained his quirk. The memory this is showcased in is entirely Izuku’s pov, which is heavily biased in the sense that he admired Katsuki. Getting jumped by kids two years older than you though is so weird, and I can’t help but wonder if the perspective might’ve changed were it in Katsuki’s pov.

To me, the idea that Izuku’s memories of Katsuki being this social god come from blind childlike envy and admiration, especially as the contextual things happening (Katsuki is a REALLY big hero fan, he’s rude, he doesn’t remember people’s names, actively terrible at making friends at UA for a good couple weeks, getting bullied to even a minimal extent) in comparison to the words being told. You are told by Izuku that Katsuki is amazing, brilliant, talented, energetic, crass, and in reality (especially when they enter UA), to most people Katsuki is annoying, loud, mean, a little intimidating, and not nearly as cool as he thinks he is. His friends spend the entirety of the beginning of their first year actively making fun of him for thinking he’s tough shit when he so obviously isn’t.

And I think the biggest most important part to this “Katsuki is a bit of a social outcast” discussion, is that the villains thought he was like them! They thought he would hurt people because he screamed “die” and didn’t like winning when he felt he didn’t earn it.

The only reason Katsuki is not as much of an outcast as, say, Izuku, is simply because he won the lottery. He earned that extra point. He caught that curve ball to Japanese society and honed it into something greater.

And, see, Izuku can’t really know/comprehend that Katsuki would be, I don’t know, unpopular to any extent (shown in the beginning of the series when he’s freaking out on the bus that HES being complimented and Katsuki is being insulted), because to him Katsuki always acted like a hero. And in a way, he does! But it’s in the way that hero society throws that curve ball, contradictory to social norms, and of course it makes sense why they still happened at all; the past was dangerous! It was life changing! Disparity and violence and death, desperation fueled this huge monumental change. And what is izuku “I don’t know how to make people like me” Midoriya going to do when this kid, Bakugou Katsuki, acts like one of the heroes on TV? He’s not gonna call the Geneva convention and ask why the hell this child isn’t acting like a normal citizen—he’ll admire him to such a visceral degree because it’s almost like he was born a hero.

I like the concept that, because heroes and villain are cut from the same cloth, relatively similar in concept and strength and past hurts in their history, that this also affects how they are socially. You are outcasted by society: you want to oppose societal norms to live freely as yourself and others as theirselves, you want to make sure everyone can smile at the end of the day because sometimes you or your parents couldn’t, you want to be the best because someone told you that you couldn’t, you want to be just like the hero on your TV, who inspired the hero in your life.

Also you need to be at least a little bit of a freak to be listening in on people’s business all the time because it involves your childhood friend/rival to literally any degree. Like bro what is wrong with you come HERE BBG LET ME PICK YOUR BRAIN APART PIECE BY PIECE

More side note: idfk where I got the Geneva convention thing. I was just thinking about how mha has genuinely had violations against the Geneva convention

[meimi-haneoka]

Report of CLAMP's Twitter Space - April 1st, 2024 (part concerning Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card)

As it was quite predictable, CLAMP sensei opened a Twitter Space on April 1st to celebrate this important and special day, which they consider their "birthday" as a creative group. ✨

It is also the birthday of quite a number of characters in their works, but it's hilarious they mentioned later in this Space how April 1st is actually only CCS!Sakura's and TRC!Sakura's birthday, as all the other characters have "ambiguous" situations going on. 😂 I'll delve into this part later.

You will find the full report under the cut, since the post became considerably long once again - it was inevitable since they kept bringing Sakura things up and the Space was almost 50 minutes long! 😅I also wanted to feature as many info as possible, and where I could, I wanted to translate their conversations directly rather than making a summary of it.

CLAMP celebrated April 1st going to a beloved cafè in Kyoto (they later revealed in their IG stories it's called Mont and there's always a cute dog there), spending some nice relaxing time drinking something all four together. That's when they got the idea to open a Space to celebrate with their fans too. CLAMP reiterated several times during the Space how grateful they are for being able to do a creative job like this, even after 35 years. A job none of them really imagined when they were little, as "to become a mangaka" wasn't a specific dream any of them really had.

And then, Ohkawa introduced the part of the Space where they talked about CCS Clear Card, starting by the mention of the release of volume 16 (which happened precisely on April 1st)!

Ohkawa: A serialization that lasted 7 years and a half, isn't it? Mokona: So long, right? Ohkawa: Yeah, quite long! Satsuki: Elementary schoolers have already graduated by now. Ohkawa: Yeah, the readers who were in the first year when the serialization started have graduated elementary school long ago. We had decided that Sakura would start middle school when Clear Card Arc began, and readers of her same age reached adulthood by now. Satsuki & Mokona: Ah, it's true! Ohkawa: They've stayed with us for long time, right? And now the final volume is out. *they all applaude* Mokona: It's quite a happy end, isn't it? Ohkawa: Uh? Mokona: a happy, happy, happy end. 🥰 Ohkawa: 😨...you mean, an APPEALING end, right? (Nekoi echoing her: right?) (note: happy and appealing start with the same pronounce in Japanese) Nekoi: 😅(to Mokona) What are you talking about? Ohkawa: What do you mean, Mokona? 🙃 *Mokona laughs nervously* Nekoi: Is that your headcanon or something? Ohkawa: Is this okay to say? Nekoi: Or rather, is this your conspiracy? 😂

Of course they all joked like this because they wanted to avoid spoiling how the story ended 😂 Ohkawa thanked all the readers for sticking with this story for such a long time. Long time after Sakura Card Arc, when the right opportunity came, they were able to draw this "Clear Card Arc". In that regard, Ohkawa mused that she can't even recall why the previous arc is called "Sakura Card Arc", despite no one actually calls those cards as "Sakura Cards" in the story itself (she said the characters do call them "Sakura's Cards", but not "Sakura Cards"), and Mokona seemed to agree with her, but here sensei was simply forgetting that it was Tomoyo herself the one who named them that way in volume 7 😅(in the beginning she wanted to call them "Sakura-chan Cards", then she settled for "Sakura Cards"....unforgettable Sakura's comment: "It sounds like the name of a credit card..." 😂) It was long ago, we can forgive them. 😉And they made sure to repeat the same thing with Clear Card Arc, since in this story NO ONE ever calls those as "Clear Cards" but actually just "transparent cards" or "new cards". 😂

Ohkawa added that middle schooler Sakura grew up a bit more in the last part of the story, and people who have already read the last chapter can understand what she means by that. She also said that she'd like to leave a more in-depth talk for another time, when they get the right opportunity, but the biggest reason why they decided to open this Space was to talk about unknown "behind the scenes" trivia that the fans could ask about using the hashtag of "CLAMP day" and those of the campaigns organized by Kodansha (in particular, the one to win the big A4 size clear bookmark). She also said that she wanted to give this opportunity to Satsuki and Nekoi to say something about Clear Card since the last time they all talked together, they didn't get the chance. Ohkawa also brought up the last CLAMP Kanbukai podcast, where she talked about the trivia of Fujitaka's iron kettle and that shocked both her colleagues, cause they didn't know about that detail! 😆

Ohkawa: The story I'm about to tell you is something me and Mokona know very well, since there's a precise reason behind this trivia. In Clear Card Arc there's a "key character" called Akiho. Akiho's last name is "Shinomoto" and that was decided ever since the very beginning, but her first name was originally Sairi! Her full name was Sairi Shinomoto. Mokona: It gives off a different vibe, right? Ohkawa: Indeed. I had already decided the kanji for it and all, but at some point, before we even started to draw chapter 1, whenever I talked to Mokona...(to Mokona) please explain what happened. Mokona: Whenever I tried to write the hiragana for あいお (aio) in our conversations on Line, the autocorrect on my phone would change it to 秋穂 (Akiho). (Note: another reading of the kanji in Akiho's name is indeed Ai'o) Whenever I tried to write those hiragana characters, the autocorrect would change it to akiho once the message got sent, and I was like "what's that akiho?? I didn't want to write that". I couldn't understand, because it's not like I had ever used that word with other people (note: she means the autocorrect didn't learn it from other conversations). Ohkawa: The first 2-3 times it happened I was just perplexed, but then as this "akiho, akiho, akiho" kept happening every time, I just asked her "Mokona, are you doing this on purpose??" and she was like "no, not at all!" 😂 She told me "Look what (the phone) converts this into!", but when we tried to do the same on our phones, it didn't come out to any of us! Mokona: But I did show it to you, right? That it came out like that to me. Ohkawa: Yeah, you did! I found it strange cause she said she doesn't even have any friend who's called Akiho-chan, she even tried to recall if there was a character of any series that's called like that... Mokona: Right, but I didn't know any! 😅 Ohkawa: So we started to think about it...Akiho seemed like a really cute name, it combines the characters of "autumn" (秋) with the ear of rice (穂), we pondered about it for 0.02 seconds and then I said "Let's use 'Akiho' for her name". And that's how she became Akiho Shinomoto. Satsuki: You thought that the ear of rice was a nice "opposite pole" to Sakura's spring. Nekoi: What were Sairi-chan's kanji? Ohkawa: Well, it doesn't really matter now but initially, I had designed for her name to bear a kanji only for the "ri" part, and leave the "Sai" part in hiragana. In CCSakura all the characters have their name either in hiragana or kanji, and there isn't any character who's got a name that mixes both. So I thought to do that for her. Ohkawa: Speaking of Sairi-chan, it's a good moment to mention that there's this morning drama show on NHK starting right today, called "Tiger with Wings" where Sairi Ito is starring. I really love her as an actress and I think Sairi is a really cute name, so I had decided for Akiho's name to originally be Sairi, just like hers. It's not like I created the "Akiho" character in Sairi Ito's image, but I just thought that Sairi was a really good name and there was a time when I thought that it would be better for her to have a name closer to Sakura's one, so I had initially decided for that one. But thanks to Mokona's fated intervention, she became Akiho.

Many fans who were listening started to try to type "aio" on their phones and uploaded the screenshots of how their autocorrect would suggest "Akiho" as a conversion! Ohkawa and Mokona looked at the screenshots and commented that the same result can be obtained both on an iOS phone and on a Mac computer. Mokona felt relieved that it wasn't just happening to her! 😆 Ohkawa: It might be that Mokona-san unilaterally changed her name for us, but...😆 Mokona: it's not like I was scheming for it or anything! 😆 A fan also brought up the fact that in the prefecture of Yamaguchi there's an onsen facility called "Aio Onsen" written with the same kanji of Akiho's name, and CLAMP were quite surprised to find that out.

Ohkawa: If you look at the story you'll know what I'm talking about, but in the finale Akiho reveals her true name as a 'final move', and I did think in the past that the spoiler about her true name would show through the fact that we gave her an autumnal name, but Mokona writing that 'Akiho' all those times was just so guided by fate, to the point it shocked us. And it came from writing something trivial like "Yo!" (note: Mokona wrote "ai" as a colloquial way to say "yo", "hi!") 😆 Mokona: It seems like it's quite an unusual name but don't worry, it's not like I was scheming for it! 😅

Then, Ohkawa asked Nekoi and Satsuki if there was a particular scene or part of the story they liked or if they had a fun episode to tell about...while she was waiting for their answers, she said they received lots of praises for the cover of volume 16, with many comments saying how beautiful it is, and for them it's already enough if people can even just look at the cover on the internet.

Ohkawa: By the way, you said the tone used for Kaito-san after his eyes changed was quite bothersome to you, right? Nekoi: Yeah, because I kept forgetting it! Satsuki: I wonder if people will notice...his eyes are so tiny, right? Ohkawa: Were his eyes huge, before? Satsuki: No, I mean, when turned into a tankobon his eyes look so tiny... Ohkawa: Ah, I see, I see. Nekoi: it's because we're used to see it on a screen. Ohkawa: Lots of stuff happened to Kaito-san in volume 15, and....lots of stuff happened to his eyes too, as a result. Because of that, we added a tone finish to his eyes, and it would make me happy if people noticed it. Mokona: There's quite a non-human feel to his eyes, now. Ohkawa: Indeed, indeed.

Ohkawa then asked Satsuki for her own tidbit about Clear Card, and she mentioned a color spread she really liked was the one of chapter 55, with Sakura and Akiho seemingly springing out of water, each on a side of the spread. Satsuki commented it's "a pose quite common in our artworks". Ohkawa recognized it and said the spread was actually two pieces drawn separately (as it's quite deducible by how the spread is composed). Satsuki added that in general all the art of the last volume is quite cute.

Ohkawa: What about you, Mokona? Mokona: As for me.... As you know, right in the middle of the play written by Naoko-chan, they end up in the world of the book. Well, it's not like they really go to another world. When we reach the part of Syaoran's action, both Sakura's POV and Syaoran's POV progress simultaneously...and I think if this were a video, there would be a way to portray it smoothly, but when we were working on it, Nanase told me "I want you to find a way to portray it that is fitting for a manga". So when I've got down to draw the storyboard, I've arranged the panels in a way that was quite understandable to me, but I started to have doubts whether people would be able to get easily what was going on...💦 I could understand it completely because I knew the story, but what about somebody who was seeing it for the first time...? Would it be okay...? I was quite worried about that. Ohkawa: Ooh, I see. I think somehow they were able to understand it.

After this, Ohkawa mentioned Motoko Kumai (Syaoran's, Sumomo, Nataku's VA)'s quote-retweet of their announcement of the Space, where she wished them a happy CLAMP day and said all of the meetings with those characters are a treasure to her. She added "Thank you for pouring your heart in everything you do". It was very funny to hear Ohkawa say "I wasn't the right person to read this, I get embarrassed with these praises! 😳But no, really, thank you very much." ✨

Ohkawa then said "We've been told by Kodansha that they've never had a single manga that continued for two volumes after the end was announced...well, this is our volume 16 that was extended twice 😁"

Ohkawa: I say this every single time, but in my heart, this was the story where Sakura-chan acted as a proper main character, till the very end. I think this is the story Sakura painted for herself, following her own feelings. Sorry, but this is how I feel. Of course I think it's possible to not see it this way and you're absolutely entitled to it, but we think our Sakura-chan really did her best. Mokona: She truly did. Ohkawa: Also, we got lots of comments saying that Touya used too many cheats 😆But I would like to remind everyone that Touya was a "cheater" since long time ago. Mokona: Despite not appearing often, we stacked on him many strong points. Ohkawa: He was really a cheater all along. (note: of course here with "cheater" they're meaning his abilities that allow him to do unexpected and powerful things in the plot, in order to help Sakura at the most convenient moment) I'm talking about Clow Card Arc right now (note: this is a part concerning Sakura Card Arc, actually), but to have a magical power that allows you to transfer all of it to a magical being created by Clow is already a cheat to begin with. Satsuki: he can also see (non-living beings). Ohkawa: Sakura-chan was refusing to do so, but she's also someone who can see them.

While looking at the hashtags, I can't understand if this was Nekoi's personal comment or the comment of a fan, but she said "It's good that it wasn't Touya the one finding the Cards", mocking the way he would've said the incantation to capture the Cards, and Ohkawa replied "Well, he would probably be 'Cardcaptor Touya' now. But he was an high schooler! Feels a bit off..." and Nekoi along with Satsuki mused even more on the possibility of him having a transformation scene like shoujo heroines or if he would just go capturing cards in his school uniform 😂 Mokona: I don't really think Tomoyo would put that much effort in creating costumes for anyone other than Sakura-chan 😂 Ohkawa: Yeah, Tomoyo wouldn't make a costume for him. Therefore, despite it would be quite troublesome because I don't really think Yukito is particularly skilled in sewing, what I can think of is that he would make for him some kind of awkward outfits that don't even look like cosplay costumes. Satsuki: He'll make them by himself. Ohkawa: Well, it's not like Touya would make them... Nekoi & Mokona: There's no reason for him to do it, after all. Ohkawa: He wouldn't be doing this with a serious spirit. Nekoi: So he wouldn't feel a particular reason to change clothes. Mokona: What if he wants to hide his face? What do you think? Ohkawa: Ah, you mean a mask? Nekoi: Well, it's not like Sakura-chan herself had ever any eyewitnesses, after all... Nekoi: He gives me the vibe of someone who would go and capture cards swiftly like he just dropped an item...and hey ho! It would end immediately like a yonkoma (note: four panel manga)! Mokona: He might just pay attention to not get his school uniform dirty. Ohkawa: Then, if Sakura was in Touya's place, she would just go like "Oh, I think I've heard a noise" Satsuki: "There's some rustling" Ohkawa: But I don't think Touya would try so desperately to hide it from her, like she did with him! 😁

Then, Ohkawa tried to bring the topic back to the theme of the day, Clear Card and the release of volume 16.

Ohkawa: it was the first time we happened to draw again for one of our series after almost 20 years. Of course there's been a change in the design, it was impossible for us to keep it the same. I'd be happy if you could enjoy nonetheless. Moreover, at the end of the story, the front and the back of all the Cards changed. We were able to show the back of the Cards when the special chapter was published on Nakayoshi, after the story was over, but as for the front of the Cards themselves, we have just shown a peek. Mokona: Right, and just a few of them. Ohkawa: Truth to be told, we have modified all of the Cards in their manga version. (to Mokona) It was hard, right? Mokona: Yes. Ohkawa: Mokona has rewritten all of their names, too. Because the design is different. Mokona: Yeah. I had colored them too. I thought I would die. Ohkawa: Nekoi and Satsuki worked really hard on them too. Despite that, the truth is we have no opportunity to show the new designs of all the Cards in their manga version! Mokona: It would be good if we could show somewhere the colored version of even just one Card... Nekoi: Since we worked so hard...

Many people in the "CLAMP Day" hashtag suggested for them to show them at the CLAMP exhibition of this summer. Then, back on the topic of volume 16:

Ohkawa: I know there might be people who won't think in that way about volume 16, and everything we're talking about might be a spoiler for others, but I personally think that both Sakura-chan and Syaoran-kun matured little by little during this last volume, and I'd be happy for you to see it. Eriol ended up being that kind of character, as usual... (note: she impersonated him saying something, but unfortunately I can't really understand that line) Mokona: Beside him, the "camera" of the story focused properly on all the other characters, including the Kinomoto family. Ohkawa: This is something I wanted to do since long time ago, but...Fujitaka himself didn't have any powers, and although he didn't understand very well what was going on, he trusted Sakura-chan and in the end told her something like "I knew you were going out of the house at night!" 😁 I'm really glad we could draw that scene for him. I've always wanted to portray at least once what the characters of the "parents generation" did inside the story, it's not like Fujitaka-san was spacing out in a corner oblivious to everything...and I'm glad I could portray that in the story. Satsuki: He's collected lots of suspicious books too, right? Ohkawa: Yes. There's something I asked my three colleagues to depict long time ago, and it's connected to what happens in the end. Akiho-chan in the end says something like "I want to aim for a job like this in the future!", but not only that, she also looks for rare books while travelling to many countries around the world. The first time I wanted to portray what kind of rare books she would be collecting was in a scene of long time ago, when the girls visit Fujitaka's library. I asked to please put an homage to Cthulhu over there. Mokona: It's true! Please look for it! If I remember correctly, they were some kind of grimoires that appear in the Cthulhu mythos. We have included them clearly so please everyone, have fun looking for them! Ohkawa: We have intended all of those as homages, so I'd be happy if you could look at them. (note: the chapter they're talking about is the 26th one)

Mokona: It looks like something terrible is going to come out at any moment from a corner of Dad's library....💦 Ohkawa: Yeah. But Fujitaka is like "any kind of book is welcome here!", even with books like those ones. Ohkawa: And then, there's the matter of the chocomint. There have been questions like "why do you keep bringing chocomint up?" before. Among CLAMP, the ones liking chocomint are Nekoi and Satsuki. Mokona, what about you? Mokona: I've recently started to be able to eat the chocomint ice cream from Häagen-Dazs. Ohkawa: You didn't really like it before, right? Mokona: Yes. People from the "chocomint side" will probably think it's pretty mild tasting, but...😅 Ohkawa: As for me, I can't really eat it. 😅But I feel like when a person you love eats it so eagerly, you can't help but wanting to try it too. That's the reason why we employed chocomint in the story. Maybe people who like chocomint will disagree with me, but to me it's quite a divisive kind of food, you either love it or hate it. Mokona: Its color is so overwhelmingly cute too. I always end up wishing to eat it. Ohkawa: Are you like "ugh! This was a mistake" or "well this is quite good" when you actually try it? Mokona: If I do my best, I can eat it till the end. Ohkawa: Well, we have Lilie, an older character appearing in the story, whose person she fell in love with started to like chocomint precisely because she likes it too. That's something that can happen too, right? Mokona: Indeed. For Syaoran it was the same. Ohkawa: Uhm, right, didn't Syaoran dislike it? Nekoi: Yes, but when he tried it he actually started to like it. Mokona: He could eat it because it was something Sakura made for him! Ohkawa: Isn't that amazing? Mokona: It is 🥰

After this, CLAMP started to read some messages from the fans, and also mentioned that the word "Sakura-chan" ended up trending on Twitter. Ohkawa: We have realized it today for the first time, but among our characters, Sakura-chan is the only one whose birthday is TRULY on April 1st! Satsuki: The double Sakura-chan, right? Ohkawa: Right. First of all, I'm not sure we can consider as a 'birth day' what happened to the existence of xxxHolic's Watanuki. Then we have the birthday of Tsubasa's Syaoran, which was decided deliberately by princess Sakura, so even in his case it's ambiguous. Another one is Seishirou from Tokyo Babylon, and in his case the birthday is a lie. So that leaves us basically with just Cardcaptor Sakura's Sakura and Tsubasa's Sakura as the only characters who are truly born on April 1st? Mokona: In the case of Sakura from Tsubasa, I wonder if we should consider her calendar the same as ours. Ohkawa: Ah, right!! Because she lives in another country, right? Mokona: And another world too.

After reading some more messages, Ohkawa said that she's very happy even just with fans of the old Clow Card and Sakura Card Arc loving the new arc too, but what makes her the happiest is to know there are people who have discovered the CCSakura series thanks to Clear Card Arc, and will keep treasuring it from now on. They also mused over the fact that they've been in activity as authors for more than half their lives and the time they've spent working together is far longer than the time they've lived at their parent's home. All four of them are extremely grateful for being able to do this artistic job as a creative group for such a long time.

Taking the opportunity of a fan mentioning the CLAMP Exhibition in July, Ohkawa gave a warm suggestion to try to visit the exhibition if possible, because judging by the current condition of their original artworks and the difficulties they're having moving them around, they don't think there is going to be another opportunity to do this again in the future. 💦

Then, a fan sent them a particular question: "Do you have plans for another arc of Sakura and Syaoran from CCS? Maybe about their wedding?" Ohkawa: Hum, in my idea it'd be best for everyone to imagine Sakura and Syaoran's wedding in their own hearts, but if there's the possibility of a continuation after the events of the last volume, we will certainly let you know.

The person asked about an xxxHolic continuation too, which of course Ohkawa re-confirmed (they're currently preparing everything to resume the serialization) and asked us to wait just a bit more for the announcement from the editorial team of Young Magazine!

After some more messages from the fans, CLAMP gave their final greetings on such an important day!

Nekoi: We only have you to thank for reaching this anniversary on this day. Thank you very much. (they all clap their hands) There will be lots of things to enjoy ahead, and I invite all of you to gaze at the pink color of Tokyo Tower. Ohkawa: It seems we'll be able to watch it from Youtube too, so please don't miss the chance. Satsuki: I want to thank everyone for your support. Just as Nekoi mentioned, we have plans for more things ahead, there's the return of xxxHolic too, and...I wonder if there'll be a new work too? Ohkawa: (laughs) Well, more than anything, there's the Clear Card anime adaptation too. I think it will take some more time but surely, without fail, the announcement from Kodansha will come, so please stay tuned. Mokona: This one volume marks the end of Sakura's story. (note: the term Mokona uses, 区切り, seems to not be a "definitive end", but rather seems to be indicating more a point of "break", a "delimitation", a "place to stop"; there's still a marked sense of "end" - whether it's just to an arc or the entire story is not clear, so I chose that translation but I wanted to point out the other nuances in the term). I am extremely grateful to everyone who watched over Sakura-chan's growth and even those who grew up along with her! We look forward to your continued support. Also, I would like to add something that is probably a bit off topic, but there are also some anime projects we have created character designs for. Ohkawa: Oh, right, of course!! That's very important. Mokona, I knew I could count on you, thanks for reminding me. Netflix announced the "The Grimm Variations" series, then Code Geass, which we've been making character designs for long time, will have a new series: "Rozé of the Recapture". Moreover, the new season of the Vanguard D anime series was announced too. Please watch those too. 🙏 And then, as a leader, this is my turn for the final greetings. I truly feel like you've been watching over us in many, many ways for the past 35 years. Whether you've liked us before and now you're taking your distance from us, or on the contrary you weren't interested in us before but now you're following us, please know all of you are still very precious to me. If you stopped reading our works, it's all right. I hope we can be reunited with you again one day through another work that you'd feel like you want to read. For the moment, I would like to thank all of you from the bottom of my heart for all of your efforts, your strength and lots of energy that allowed us to carry Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card Arc to the final act. I'm sure Tokyo Tower will shine with a bright pink color tonight! Please make sure to listen to our podcasts, and to other Spaces we'll open when we can. Thank you very much! ✨🙏

[bibururokku]

I don’t think people realize just how many have failed Kaiser since he was a child... (long rant post incoming, UTC)

I'm pretty illiterate in JP, but I get the gist and understand when speaking, so after running his profile data from his Egoist Bible page to make sure it wasn't vague or outright mistranslated bc shit happens, what stood out to me was what he said about his best and worst school subjects.

得意科目>授業なんてまともに受けてねぇ Tokui kamoku > jugyō nante matomo ni ukete nē Best Subject: I didn't take any classes seriously.

苦手科>学校行ってねえから知らん Nigate-ka > gakkō ittenēkara shiran Worst Subject: I didn't go to school, so I don’t know.

While this is a Japanese manga and, therefore, not likely to be extremely realistic, if we take it from a realistic point of view, Kaiser's past becomes a lot more tragic.

School is mandatory, and homeschooling is not allowed. It is very illegal to not send your child to school in Germany, so parents can be fined a hefty amount for not sending kids to attend. Repeat offenders also run the risk of facing prison time, and the police actually do go out of their way to find children who don't attend, and given their living situation, I don't think Kaiser's father would've run that risk. Especially when he, despite being an absolute garbage of a father, very specifically told Kaiser not to steal from people to avoid getting involved with authorities and, y'know, getting in trouble, and the kicker is that a few panels in the manga support the idea of Kaiser going to school to avoid that.

You see his bag? It's a bit reminiscent of schulranzen, basically a school bag, for German students, which most have because of social peer pressure. It's basically the norm to have one, and as a seemingly old man with no other family, Kaiser’s father doesn't seem to have a need for one, so he probably got it for Michael secondhand from someone else because they're quite pricey so he could go to school and sorta blend in without raising any questions.

Seeing as Kaiser never once spoke to his father, I think Kaiser would've had to take support or remedial classes early on as a child, which would excuse him from the regular classes as any school would be concerned for his development and try to help him meet academic standards there. Things like speech therapy and such would provide the reason as to why Kaiser says he didn't take his classes seriously and didn't go to school. I mean, if you just took supplementary classes, instead of going to the usual classes with your peers, would you really say or consider that going to school, given social norms? Especially with Kaiser's pride? Probably not.

I think this also explains his decent height and the miracle that is the fact that he is still alive. Being from a single-parent household with poor living conditions, I'm pretty sure Kaiser would qualify for free school lunches, which explains where in the world he got the proper nutrition to physically grow as normally as he did. Not to mention, attending school would mean that, at the very least, his father wouldn’t be able to beat him extremely or to death without repercussion. I mean, how the hell is the guy going to explain that?

He can brush off a bit of abuse as Michael being a mischievous kid often getting into trouble or something, sure, but for the kid that's constantly black and blue, to not go to school and suddenly perish? Eyebrows are going to be raised, and people will start talking and asking questions. Not to mention, prisoners are not kind to those who've done shit to children, so I would imagine Kaiser's father trying to avoid it as much as possible.

That being said, I still have a bone to pick with the people who would theoretically be teaching Michael. I mean, he definitely had to be taught a bit because how the hell else would this kid be able to pick up and understand something as complex as psychology by reading and taking notes to study within the short period of time that was him being in prison and taking part in the Bastard München tryouts?

Seriously, the fact that he had an acquaintance who framed and named him as an accomplice for burglary means there are enough legal records of Kaiser’s existence for police to narrow things down enough to find him. Try searching Michael Kaiser without specifying Blue Lock. That is a fairly common name! This guy had to have gone to school.

Anyways, why the hell did they not report his dad?

Like, Kaiser, may have been a quiet child, sure, but he also shows signs of being very avoidant and is usually battered up, all of which are signs of abuse so what is the excuse here?

"Maybe they weren't taught to recognize these signs or scared to make a report!"

But even then, you have to ask how many people over the course of his life saw him like that and didn’t say a thing? How many people saw this battered child in the streets on his own without a guardian in sight and just turned a blind eye? I know kids can go off on their own because it's a relatively safe country, but hello????

He's probably out there for hours trying to avoid his father or because his dad is out gambling and is out somewhere inebriated anyway! Why not ask the kid who's always out on his own some questions?

There had to have been a person who noticed! Like the people at the sandwhich shop who were nice enough to give him the leftover bread crust to make rusk! Because surely someone there would've gained his trust by giving him those?

But nope!

You know who else failed him?

That's right! Every single person he's interacted with from PIFA and Bastard München!

Ray Dark appears to be extremely suspicious, but here's the thing about him picking Kaiser up. He basically made a gamble, and Kaiser did as well. I say this because he is specified to be a PIFA agent, so I'm assuming this also makes him Kaiser's sports agent. Kaiser took the gamble because he didn't want to rot away with the life he had. That's obvious. Mr. Dark? He made a gamble in choosing to represent some random kid that he heard took down seven police officers.

But the thing is, he's a PIFA agent. He can do that with multiple players. It's less of a gamble for him because even if Kaiser doesn't make it big, well, he can still look for other talents to represent while leeching off their paycheck as well.

Honestly, the only good thing Kaiser has in his shitty life is the fact that he was born in Germany and is German.

The country has several laws to protect children, so they have several individual rights, which makes it more difficult for him to be taken advantage of since the bureaucracy and courts will have his best interest in mind. Especially given his situation as an underaged teenager at the time. He gets a good amount of say, and the laws have his best interest in mind, so he's pretty well-protected and would be challenging to take advantage of, legally speaking. At 14, he has the legal right to veto important decisions regarding himself, and he started playing at 15, so Kaiser is very safe now that he's away from his father.

Yet, no one has bothered to teach him this in his four years at Bastard München.

I really have to question what the hell is going on inside the higher-ups' heads here because this guy got into a fight his first day, and not a single one considered getting him therapy? This kid was scouted out for them and definitely has a record they can pull up to see.

Not to mention, since he got into the team, they probably sent him to a sportschulen or sports school to help develop his talent. Hell, with the studying he was doing in there, it appears that the team has their own for their underaged members because they're a German team. Formal education is compulsory for children from 6 to 18.

Sorry, Kaiser, I don't buy your "I didn't go to school" BS; you just had a non-traditional type and style of education, goofy.

Seriously, what the hell are the adults around him doing? He's been playing for the team for 4 years and is still in survival mode! Just look at the way Noel Noa looks after him. There is no hope for this guy. Everyone around him has failed to help him meet his basic emotional and psychological needs! Even Ness, who I will give a small pass to because he is equally as messed up to a different degree, was of no help in that sense because he just affirmed Kaiser's bad traits!

He's also in the do-or-die hellscape of Blue Lock now, and he does not need to be there. What he needs is to be locked in with a therapist for his own sake because, I swear, this guy is going to self-destruct in a bad way one day if he doesn't.

We see him do that mildly here when he says he thought he got over his father, but this guy hasn't gotten over anything and only feels that way because of the front he's put up. It currently works because no one has gotten in his head and made him highly vulnerable. Which, in turn, just makes him susceptible to having the biggest breakdown ever.

At this point, I'm begging. Someone help him. Please. He's just been screwed over his entire life. Do something.

If you made it here to the end, congrats! You managed to see half of my thoughts. The other half will be in a separate post for Ness.

I was not kidding when I said the new Egoist Bible pages had me thinking and cooking something in my head.

[jariten]

July 2024 roundup!! (Part 1!)

Had a great month for catching up on and starting new series with August already shaping up to be a wrap-up month. This round up will be a 2 parter, one for English titles and one for Japanese!

First is Ima Koi by Ayuko Hatta. 9 volumes is such a perfect length for the Margaret campus romance and what's better than a campus romance by someone who's been making them for 20 years. I can't find anything that I think is unique about the series aside from the fact that it hits all the right beats, the characters and their relationships are well rounded, and Hatta (known for titles like Wolf Girl and the Black Prince, and Bye-bye Liberty) knows just when to be restrained and when to give the readers what they want. I just really enjoy it when an author becomes so competent in a genre in this way and had a great time the whole way through. Hatta in the columns also expressed wanting to move on from the campus romance, which I'd love to see because I think an adult romance would release her full potential, but in the final volume announced that she's taking a hiatus from manga to explore various jobs in the food and service industry. I love that for her, and if she graces us with manga once again I will be there to check it out.

Hirayasumi by Keigo Shinzo I won't linger on for too long since I'm the one late to the party and only one volume in, but I already love the cast and how they interact and the tempo of the narrative. I'm so looking forward to keeping up with this series!

Her Frankenstein by Kawashima Norikazu is the debut title in Living the Lines Books new horror imprint Smudge which promises to deliver exciting deep cuts from the pulp world of horror manga. Her Frankenstein follows a man with a shattered sense of self which is further fragmented when he becomes haunted by his own past. Accompanied by an always thorough Ryan Holmberg essay this is a great read for psychological horror fans and horror manga fans interested in acquiring an even broader look at the genre landscape. The next title in the imprint will be UFO Mushroom Invasion by Shirakawa Marina expected to be released on October 1st

Last but certainly not least, I finally got my hands on Viz's long overdue edition of Ai Yazawa's Neighborhood Story volumes 1-2! Overwhelmed with things to say but will keep it short. First time I read it I was ever reliant on a dictionary but was nontheless swept into this tale of adolescent love, friendship, and growth. Coming back to it since then I'm once again overwhelmed with adoration for her work and how she is able to capture the ups and downs of the emotionally volatile teenage years. Timelessly stylish and one of a kind artistically I am so happy that new readers have yet another way to stumble across this work and that long time fans can finally have it in their collection! When I ran a poll a couple months ago asking if I should switch to english caps of the series when the time came the english caps won out, so next time I refill I will go back to volume 1. Will try to avoid dupes in order to speed things up, but if there is a specific cap I've posted in the past that you'd like to see posted again but in english let me know.

[l-in-the-light]

Advice for One Piece theoretists about the upcoming Strawhat crew members

I watched this vid so you all don't have to. The only thing Ohara got right is Law tbh (but the arguments he listed for him are so-so, he could have fished out so much more). I saw lately a post with big advice for One Piece theoretists to go back to their roots (early sagas), so now here's my piece of advice for all of you who want to crack the mystery of who the last Strawhats are gonna be:

crewmate (nakama) =/= friend (tomodachi). The word nakama appears in manga only when Luffy means "crewmate", it's been always consistent, because that word is clearly a big deal for Luffy. Someone who travels with Strawhats isn't automatically a crewmate. Not every friend will end up becoming a new crewmate either. Remember Water 7? Being a crewmate is a serious business, it's not just regular friends we snatched on our way. Once you're a crewmate, you're part of the family, basically. Family yakuza-style, might I add. Once you join you can't just quit because you feel like it, it's a commitment. So friends like Rebecca, Viola, Stussy, Lilith, Carrot, Bon Clay, Koby are not gonna become actual crewmates. They will always remain friends with Strawhats though!

not every crewmate will choose to take the journey with Strawhats. Take Vivi, Kin'emon or Momonosuke for example. They have their own responsibilities. That being said, if their duties ever get fullfilled, they're hopping on the crew 100%. I can see that happen with Vivi, not so much with Kin and Momo though, Wano is not gonna go anywhere, right? (or is it? :D)

Luffy made promise to Yamato. It's a promise he wants to keep in Ace's stead. This is important for him. People should start taking this seriously and I'm not sure why they don't.

plot convenience isn't enough of an argument for someone joining or not. That would be kinda bad storytelling ngl. Just because someone has "no other place to go" or "would be so useful on the crew" doesn't mean they will become a Strawhat. Being a crewmate ain't so cheap.

potential crewmate doesn't even have to be a friend at first to become a crewmate. Remember Franky's or Robin's case? Luffy was hostile towards Franky for the whole arc, not counting the very final chapters when Franky build them a new ship for free, which is The Moment when Luffy finally started liking him. At the literal end of the arc.

Luffy's final word is the most important one. Try to think of his own criteria, instead of trying to guess what's in Oda's head. Luffy is a simple boy, his criteria are also pretty simple and every Strawhat fits those. It's not about long, tragic and satisfying flashbacks (Zoro's flashback is short, for example), bonding over food, or stuff like that. You want to find Luffy's criteria, go all the way back to the beginning when Luffy meets Koby and then Zoro.

the last Strawhats do not have to be people from early sagas! Early sagas are important, but ignoring the later ones is a huge mistake. There are a few really nice theories that help you narrow it down: for example the theory of 13 Strawhats. Since as early as first OP chapters Luffy's crew is called Mugiwara Ichimi (which means Strawhat crew, but ichimi can be read as a pun: ichi means one, san means 3, Oda loves puns and number plays like that and uses them all the time, also in chapter titles). People also noticed this helpful pattern: there are always four Strawhats joining from each sea Luffy adventures in (Nami, Sanji, Zoro, Usopp from East Blue; Chopper, Robin, Franky, Brook from Paradise; that leaves us with Jimbei and three others from the New World).

Yes, I'm a believer in 13 Strawhats theory, just like most Japanese fans. Oda likes giving obscure hints for that theory scattered around. But the actual answer lies in this image:

You have all 13 Strawhats here, disguised as cats. All you need to do is crack the code and figure it out. Have fun!

My hint is: start from who Luffy considers and called a nakama. You need to search through the whole story for it :D

[nocandnc]

I saw some discussion floating around on what Momo and Okarun might name their child if they had one, which got me thinking about it as well. This inevitably led me down a deep rabbit hole of Japanese wordplay and research that really needed its own post, so here goes...

Naming hypothetical Dandadan kids!!

Fandadan kids...?

I'll be covering Momo x Okarun, Aira x Jiji and Kinta x Vamola below the cut for those who're interested - it's very long and very silly.

Momo x Okarun

If it were up to me, I'd name their child Tou. Why?

Well. You. See! Okarun's real name is Ken, written as 健 - meaning 'health' or 'strength'. However, 'ken' is also how you pronounce the word for 'sword' - written as 剣. This refers broadly to swords of many varieties. A more specific word would be 'katana', written as 刀, which refers to Japanese-style blades in particular. Another way of pronouncing 刀 is 'tou'.

Momo's name means 'peach' and is written as 桃. An alternate way of pronouncing 桃 is also 'tou'. Furthermore, the word 'momo' is also one way to read 百, the kanji for the number 100... as in the number of kilometers an hour a certain old lady can run.

So Tou feels like a wonderful name to me, as it loops all in and around Momo and Ken's names and even Turbo Granny to boot. It's a masculine name, but I feel like they'd still go with Tou even for a girl. A very tough girl!!

Aira x Jiji

Whether these two end up becoming a proper pairing in-series remains to be seen, but I've become totally hooked on them recently ^^;; and they're both so good with kids, I can imagine them having two or three... but I think the first one should be Buyuu.

Aira's name is written as 愛羅, which is a nod to the phrase 愛羅武勇 - read as 'I love you', or アイラブユー (ai ra bu yuu) - said as if one were speaking in English, rather than the Japanese line 'aishiteru' for example. A very fun line that showcases Aira's passionate side!

'Buyuu' would make for a very nice boy name to match his mother, written of course as 武勇 to follow Aira's 愛羅. Jiji is a fun and sentimental guy, so I think he'd be fully on board with this kind of wordplay!

武勇 can also be read on its own to mean 'bravery', 'military prowess' or 'valour'. Jiji's real name is Jin, written as 仁 and means 'benevolence', 'compassion', 'charity' etc. - while not directly related, 'jin' and 'buyuu' both point towards virtuous qualities that often go hand-in-hand. Buyuu refers to warrior-like traits especially, which also serves as a nod to Jiji's power both with and without the Evil Eye.

I can certainly think up good names for more kids too... but let's move on for now >///<

Kinta x Vamola

This ship might be a bit polarizing, but I honestly think they'd be so sweet together once they have time to grow! Another reading for Vamola is Bamora, written either way as バモラ - neither reading is right or wrong from a technical standpoint, but I prefer Vamola as it sounds more alien to my ears.

It also matches with Vega, which is the name I'd choose for her and Kinta's daughter!

Vega is the brightest star in the Lyra constellation, and is known in Japan as 織姫 or 'Orihime' - as in Orihime from the popular folktale of Tanabata. The story is about two lovers (Orihime and Hikoboshi) who are separated by the Milky Way and can only meet on the 7th day or the 7th month. A lonely maiden from the stars... almost like a certain alien girl!

But the connections don't stop there. Sakata Kinta (坂田金太) also happens to be a folktale reference! 'Kintarou' (金太郎) is the name of a very famous figure in Japanese myth, particularly known for slaying the fearsome oni overlord Shuten-douji. He also may or may not have served Minamoto no Yoshitsune under the name of Sakata Kintoki (坂田 金時). Folktale father, folktale daughter.

Kinta is such a bombastic guy, Vega just might be on the normal side of his naming preferences... but I think Vamola would find it all very sweet and moving. That said, Vega herself might choose to go by Orihime amongst her peers to avoid the questions and weird looks >.>

(And of course, if they had a son it'd be Altair instead!)

So... yeah! Those are my thoughts and ideas on the matter ^^;;;

I love researching Japanese terminology etc. so this was really just an excuse to ramble about all that... Hope some folks enjoy!

[peaterookie]

Trials and Tribulations of Scanning: Lupin III Manga

Hi!

It's been a while since I've made a proper Lupin essay, and this one is going to be a bit different from all the ones I've done too.

Throughout the years in the manga community, I've gotten very accustomed to the process of scanning and archiving this series, it's something that I sincerely do enjoy doing so I wanna just dedicate a post talking about it and also bring attention a huge project of mine.

Disclaimer that this isn't really gonna be a comphrehensive history with a bunch of details about the scanning process done on the series before I entered the fandom, I just wanna talk about certain parts that I think are worth writing and my experiences doing it myself.

Okay this intro's gotten long enough let's get started.

Let's talk about the tokyopop scans of the OG manga and HOW SHIT IT IS.

Oh poor og manga... you were doomed from the start from the moment you were uploaded publically. Because who the hell is going to want to read something that looks like this???

An important step when I scan my pages is cleaning, it is the process where you take the initial scans, which I call raws, and polish them to make it prettier. When you see the scans of the og manga, it is very very clear that the person did not bother to clean any of these at all.

The coloration of the pages (which should not have been there at all if they decided to scan in grayscale) gives it an unpleasant old vibe, and should have been editted to turn into something more black and white.

I honestly do not understand why anyone would just leave a page this bad and assume that people would be fine reading something that looks like this. I am very convinced that the quality detered some people from checking the manga out any further because at its worst, it's unreadable and the details of the art is hard to decipher.

It's very easy too!! I can easily take this place and edit it on my phone to turn it into...

This!

Ain't that much better already. and it only took me a minute to do just that, imagine just how better the rest of the scans would've been if the person gave a bit more effort to clean their pages?

One of the many things i've learned is that when you do something for a community, whatever you put out might stay there forever and become a permanent impact on the people using your product, so it's important to make it look good!!!

What is good about the OG manga + new adventures though is that there exists high quality scans of it, just in japanese. So while there is still no good scans of the english version, people can always find a better alternative elsewhere.

Shin Lupin III though... is a different story.

(insert cool transition here or something)

Here is what I really wanted to talk about.

Shin Lupin III, literally. has. no. good scans. It's all shit. You get trash or garbage and that is it.

"But Peater! What about the Tokyopop scans! They're pretty good right?"

You're absolutely correct! Until you realize that Tokyopop did not fully translate Shin Lupin III, leaving approximately 100 chapters worth of manga in horrible quality 😂😂😂

Those missing parts are the ultimate problem, and the guy that is now in charge of translating the rest of Shin Lupin, Oranges, does not do the scanning justice (the one above.)

I do not know what kind of source he uses, but it is absolute horseshit, and again, he doesn't seem to bother with editting them to make them look better. I'll just provide more examples, to really emphasize how horrible it looks. You can barely see what's going on with some of them.

Someone pointed a flashlight while scanning this

(Editor's Note: So it seems like Oranges did the bare minimum and fixed the scans on the San Francisco arc so he is slightly forgiven)

And what the Japanese scans? Hahaha, it gets worse.

From an simple look at it, you might be tricked into thinking that this is a good scan! has nice lighting, black ink, BUT THIS IS WHERE YOU'RE WRONG.

Look closer. The lineart is melding into each other, the cross hatching is blurred, the kanji is barely readable.

This is the works of an Al upscaling tool.

AND THEY DID THIS, FOR EVERY SINGLE PAGE! THEY LURE YOU INTO A FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY LIKE "omg!! san francisco scans!!" AND THIS IS WHEN THEY TRAP YOU INTO A MELTING POT OF AI SHIT TO NEVER BE ABLE TO HAVE GOOD SHIN LUPIN SCANS EVER AGAIN AND AM SICK OF IT!$_+$(2!(_(!_(+7(0#+#?@!

And so that's why I'm going to be doing something about it!

My project for this year is to rescan Shin Lupin III in higher quality. No AI upscaling involved, everything will be done by hand. Here are the previous panels again but scanned by me!!

See the differences now!! This is what happens when someone puts effort on their scans!! wowwwww

I've already finished scanning the raws for every single page, and now it is only time to clean them.

When will I finish this? I can't tell you, but I promise that it will be done and released before the year ends. I hope you guys are looking forward to this!!

Darn, I actually didn't get to talk much about my process and how i got into scanning huh? Maybe some other time if people are interested.

But for now, goodbye, and thanks for reading!!

[darkonekrisrewrite]

The Villains (specifically the Lov) Are Right

Especially about the civilians in Bnha

(2 Part Meta Civilians and Lov) (Warning spoilers and long Meta Post) (Permission given to re-blog)

The Lov, specifically the core League of Villains, don’t owe any consideration, atonement or apologies to the civilians in Bnha. Because since long before the Lov had even become villains, even when they were still children, the civilians decided that they don’t owe them anything at all.

Most people I’ve seen in the fandom say something like “I don’t justify or excuse the villain’s actions.”, when it comes to the destructive/murderous parts of the villain’s deeds, which is very nice and moral of them to say.

But as long as we’re talking about the average Bnha civilian, I definitely justify/excuse the Lov’s actions.

Because the “innocent” people in Bnha are awful.

Part 1 The Civilians

That’s not even an opinion really but rather a fact that’s been presented to us clearly, over and over again, in Bnha’s story.

That’s partially why I believe that, even at their worst, the Lov are still worth more than most of the civilians that we’ve been shown so far.

See Past the Labels

“Heroes”, “Villains”, “Innocent People”. All labels that are used frequently over the course of Bnha, but seeing past these, looking beyond what we’re told by the story and instead seeing what we are shown by the story, that’s where the truth is in what these characters are and the effects their actions have on each other.

In Hero stories, saving the innocent/civilians is pretty much a guarantee at any point in time, it’s a prerequisite.

Where in most of those fiction, the civilians (or any large social group of innocents) are shown to definitely be people that should be saved, that it would be a tragedy if even some of them died, no matter the numbers.

But that’s not the case here, because the civilians in bnha aren’t like what you’d normally find in a hero tale, so much so that they’re nearly incomparable to any other series’ “Innocents”.

Looking at them as a whole, they’re more like what you’d find in a horror story.

Starting with one of the largest by the numbers examples:

They’re personifications of the bystander effect/syndrome, taken to the highest degree.

A truth that’s sometimes overlooked is that, while All for One and the Shimura family played a part in making Tenko Shimura the Tomura Shigaraki that he is today, so did all the civilians above. If even a single one of them had tried to help the child that would become the most dangerous villain, no matter how that would have turned out, the person Shigaraki is now would be different, maybe entirely.

Even just one true attempt to aid the scary looking child, instead of leaving it to the heroes who weren’t there, would have made a lasting impact. Just like the civilians choosing not to lift a finger to help left a lasting impact on Shigaraki in the present.

They condemn people for things that aren’t their fault, even when the individual hasn’t done anything wrong:

These are pretty self-explanatory in the point, but these aren’t just examples of ‘bad luck’, they showcase a callous legal system and civilians willing to throw a 16 year old kid under the bus for something that was in no way his ‘stumble’ or fault.

(First Side Point: Twice didn’t turn to a life of villainy because it was his “choice”. There’s been zero evidence of any social help for victims of hero society’s circumstances, so there’s no reason to assume that Twice had any help in supporting himself after his parents died. Twice then getting fired from his low level Job and having a glaring blemish on his record (as shown above ^) was a death sentence for a normal life right then and there, especially considering the setting in hero society (Japanese culture taken to its most socially merciless), it doesn’t really need to be spelled out any more than that why he turned to a life of crime against a society that screwed him over at every level and left him to rot. Between becoming a tragic statistic that the hero state didn’t (and still doesn’t) care about or becoming a villain for the chance at having some kind of life, it’s not really a choice at all. The saying ‘Cool motive still Murder’ comes up sometimes when taking about specific villains in Bnha and my response to that would be: ‘Then Suffer and Die Nobly.’ There is no ‘being better’ because if they were better in their current circumstances, they’d just quickly become a statistic.)

They’d rather someone, even their own children; suffer in silence than be seen as anything but their “normal”:

Toga’s parents might seem like a more ‘personal’ point but they’re actually a prime example of the standard bnha civilian, caring nothing about their own suffering young and only about their own lives and normalcy. Even when Toga was obviously self-harming due to her quirk, something that couldn’t logically have been hidden from them, there was no real attempts to help her with this other than rejection (as evident by the parents stopping taking her height down on the wall when her quirk presumably manifested, clearly meant to be a hint that it was the point that they stopped caring about her) and sending her to “Quirk Counseling”, taking no responsibility in helping their child and taking none after Toga was broken under the weight of what was normal after struggling to hold back for so many years.

This mentality extends past Toga’s parents to most of bnha’s civilians.

When Dabi revealed himself as Toya and exposed the Todoroki family’s past the world, nobody cared. At least not in any way that could be considered ‘caring’.

Endeavor bought and bred his wife, and it’s very debatable whether or not the later ‘child making’ could be considered consensual.

Rei told endeavor that it was “too much” and “too cruel”, all but saying that she didn’t want to have any more children, and in the anime it’s played even more clearly:

This ^ does not seem like consent.

Also letting his first born son burn himself to his apparent death because he couldn’t be bothered to care enough to prevent it.

Endeavor knew Toya was burning himself and he never got him any psychiatric help, even though Toya was already having extreme signs of mental breaks alongside the burning, he never even thought about it.

Even if this failed in stopping Toya, Endeavor just could have pulled some strings as the number 2 hero and gotten Toya Hero tech/equipment/suits, anything that might have helped.

But all Endeavor did was tell Toya to stop and do “other things” and when that failed he simply ignored him, even though he knew his child was literally burning himself.

(Endeavor could be considered an unreliable narrator, I think other great Meta writers have already called him on that, with him telling Natsuo that he never meant to neglect any of his children, which is evident (by how he treated Toya) as complete Bullshit.)

Now do the civilians know all of this down to a T?

No, but even before the Dabi reveal there was more than enough sketchy events surrounding Endeavor to raise eyebrows on anyone paying attention.

A son burning to death alone on a mountain, another son getting a burn scar on his face and a wife in a Mental Hospital, more than a little suspicious. Nobody ever looked into it.

And after the Dabi reveal, after Endeavor confirmed what Dabi said to everyone, this is the only Civilian backlash he gets:

Nobody cared what happened to the Todoroki family; they only cared about how it affected them. The first half of that anger wasn’t even about the Todoroki drama.

And while the mention of Dabi’s victims and their families might seem like consideration, paired alongside everything else the bnha civilians are/do, I really doubt that the line comes from a genuine place of sympathy.

They have no loyalty to their best Heroes:

After everything Deku did for them, they wouldn’t risk a single thing for him. Most of them don’t even look anxious or afraid, just angry at their lives being disrupted.

Telling the kid who nearly worked himself to death, fighting so that they could have their lives back to piss off, while danger sense was being activated implying that they did mean him very real harm.

 Another big point against the Civilians that’s brought up a lot:

They’re violently racist. (Quirk-ist? Anti-Mutant? Basically against anyone very different in their appearance and/or their quirks.)

Mutants are an obvious Allegory for the racism/minority angle of the story, and it never casts the majority of the civilians in a positive light when it’s touched upon.

(Second Side point: Revisiting the end of ‘Side Point One’ because it pairs perfectly here, Shoji Mezo’s “Answer” to the horrible treatment the Heteromorph/mutants face is the opposite of that, and by that I mean Shoji’s answer is pretty much: Aspects of Uncle Tom’s Cabin Syndrome (an American theory/term but a Universal Theme) mixed with the acceptance of hero martyrdom.

His words to the Heteromorphs are this: “Let’s use that light to change the people who hurt us. So that they’ll feel ashamed to ever raise their fists against us again.”

Very inspiring…or at least it would be, were his words not disproven by his own backstory. 

Shoji got his Scars ^ after he saved the little girl, in fact him saving her life was literally the cause of it.

There is no greater way to Shine or be heroic than doing what Shoji did, saving the life of a small child from drowning to death, and for that act the “Innocent People” gave him the Joker facial treatment.

Seriously if there’s a group of people who “don’t deserve to be saved” in Bnha; it is civilians like this.

Yet Shoji’s answer is still to “Be better than mere Avengers” and if they don’t the Heteromorph’s “Children will become the next Target!” as if they weren’t already??

None of it makes sense when looking at the whole picture and it’s clearly not a great plan, to draw another American based parallel that fits too well not to be noticed despite it being American; Shoji Mezo is basically Sturdy Harris from the Boondocks TV Series (freedom ride or die episode).

Look up the character’s wiki info or watch the episode, the fact that Shoji is willing to use violence in some extreme instances might seem a difference between them but the fact that he urges the other Heteromorphs to “be better than avengers” and “use their light to change the people who hurt us until they feel ashamed”, giving no thought as to whether or not his fellow Heteromorphs could even survive living by that standard like he can, fits the comparison to a T.)

Back to the final few points about the Bnha Civilians:

Are the Civilians in Bnha conditioned to be this way, products of influence and circumstance much like the heroes and villains are?

Kind of but not really.

While it is true that there are mountains of propaganda in hero society, there’s nothing specific enough to point to and say that this is why the Bnha civilians are this level of callous. They’re conditioned to love heroes and fear the violent villains they’re fighting, not to ignore the suffering of children (even their own) completely, and they’re definitely not compelled through propaganda to reject them or scar them, nothing in the series is evident of that.

And even worse, all of these examples of the people’s flaws/incidents (excluding the Ordinary Woman Heteromorph) happened during Allmight’s “Era of Peace”, so there’s no shifting the blame onto the villain’s current actions and even less excuse for things like these to be happening.

Why should the Bnha civilians have peace or justice if they’re like this?

If they show no more empathy or loyalty than the worst, most unsympathetic villains in the series (Like AFO) then maybe their point of view shouldn’t be considered any more than his. (And even AFO had some truth in his points: Failed social framework and the Quirk Singularity.)

To draw one final example for the Civilians with another Manga series that has pretty awful ‘ordinary people’ in it: Naruto.

But even in Naruto, the Author still showed that there were good people among the Civs. Population that weren’t like that and that did deserve to be protected and live peaceful lives, people who were outside of the Ninja system and just genuinely humane.

Before Naruto became a hero who saved the village multiple times, before he was even a ninja, they treated him like the human child he was.

These characters deserve their own Meta, other Naruto fans have probably written them already.

But suffice to say that the people who treated right the abandoned and hated child, host to a demon Fox that could casually level mountains, Teuchi Ramen (Owner and Daughter), are an excellent example of giving narrative motivation to “protect the people”.

There’s not much of anything like that in Bnha’s story, not anyone to point at and say; “They are worth saving/protecting!” and having it actually be true instead of just ‘What the hero is supposed to say’.

 And if anyone disagrees with this, I’ll ask: Can one instance of goodwill be pointed to for the Bnha civilians? Any act of compassion, bravery or selflessness from someone in Bnha who wasn’t in anyway associated with heroes?

And no, the Civilians letting Deku stay at UA does not count.

It wasn’t even framed as selfless or compassionate anyway:

This ^ is a deal more than anything else.

Because the heroes (Deku) swore they’d fix things and the people practically made him swear it before they were let in.

Kota and the Ordinary Woman running to stand by Deku was a sweet and great moment but considering that he saved them first, it seemed more like a ‘returning the Favor’ sentiment. Same with the rogue Civillian group helping Shindo after he fought Muscular, more a give it back than a gift.

 Part 2 The Lov

Even at their worst, the Lov still display humanity and redeeming qualities more than most of the civilians.

And I believe that this is 100% truth because Actions/Dialogue without reason for deception and inner thoughts, imply genuine Truth.

Actions:

This ^ scene is referred back to a lot because it’s a good showing of Compassion/Bonds, one of the first really, in the League of Villains, in Toga saving Twice from ‘coming apart’.

Toga has no real reason to comfort Twice as much as she does in this series, in this first instance and in later ones, because aside from one time (no matter how cool and heartfelt it was) in MVA when Twice saves her and the rest of the League, Twice kind of messed things up more than a few times for the Lov.

Bringing Overhaul to meet the Lov without precaution resulting in the death of Magne (even though she herself rushed in recklessly), Twice’s personal hang-ups limiting his Quirk lessening his value to operations overall (from a purely strategic standpoint), and trusting Hawks (because he felt bad for him) so much he gave out Info that definitely shouldn’t have been given.

Yet despite having one singular success in MVA that Twice really pulled through among many other shortcomings, Toga still cared about him. Enough to try to help him hold himself together during the Overhaul business and then later go on a violent, rage filled assault toward the Heroes during the MLA raid after Twice was killed, giving little thought to her own safety.

Dialogue without reason for deception:

While Shigaraki is definitely an unreliable narrator, as evident by the monologue ^ in the bottom panel clearly contradicting what actually happened during the death of his family, the middle panel where he states that he only wants “Them” (definitely the Lov) to live as they see fit seems like the truth.

Because why would Shigaraki lie here? In this time or place to Redestro, someone he presently had no reason to manipulate, as they were in a life or death fight?

Shigaraki couldn’t have known Redestro would surrender, at this point he was talking to someone he fully intended to kill, further dissipating any suspect of manipulation.

Shigaraki does care about his comrades, their wishes and while he hasn’t really kept the promise he made as of current Bnha, I think that’s a result of All for One scrambling his Brain so much during the Mental Fusion stuff, the true Shigaraki barely seeming to know what’s going on half the time and only able to think about his past.

Twice and Spinner: Basically everything about them.

They might not think things through that much, but there’s no doubt that Twice and Spinner were and still are devoted to who they care about, true loyalty in all its successes and faults.

Inner Thoughts:

Dabi is…kind of a dick most of the time, even to the Lov, just to a much lesser extent than to everyone else.

It makes sense that he’d act that way though, given what he’s been through and the end goal of his plans, it’s understandable why he’d want to push everyone away in some form and not let them get too close.

But even underneath all of that, Dabi much like the rest of the core Lov never blamed Twice for his mistakes, and since this is an inner thought and thus having no reason for manipulation, it does imply that this is his honest truth.

Knowing that Twice would blame himself, although he never said it out loud, maybe he couldn’t with all of his own personal hang-ups, Dabi inside probably did want to reassure Twice that none of this was his fault.

The Core Lov do have empathy towards others abandoned and hurt by Hero Society like themselves, and they do care about each other, that is as much as they’re able to care about each other while being weighed on by their own individual issues.

 The hero kid’s parents

Lastly for this Meta, there are parts of Hero Society that shouldn’t ever be destroyed, but they fall into small groups and come with their own faults.

The Hero Kid’s parents shouldn’t be destroyed just by virtue of being so close to the better/more heroic characters, but even they aren’t that great with possibly one exception.

Inko Midoriya has technically tried to protect Izuku but she never really helped him. She basically apologies for his existence in the childhood flashback, and until Izuku got a Quirk and became a Hero, she was never really shown to encourage him in anything, even to find happiness in other things.

Despite having doubts herself about saying the wrong thing to her son, Inko later tries to keep him from going back to UA for very good reason from a parent’s point of view.

But then she’s pretty easily convinced by a promise from Allmight, that wasn’t in anyway kept. Cut to the Dark Deku stuff later, she never calls Allmight out on this.

It’s the same story with little difference for all the student’s parents, they’ve never been shown to try to protect their children, especially at the UA confrontation with the Civilian Mob.

Inko, Bakugo’s parents, Ochako’s parents, and I’m just assuming the rest of them to cause it makes sense for them to be at the UA shelter, none of them helped.

I know Inko was being held back by Mitsuki because it was dangerous, but couldn’t she have shaken her off?

Kota did and ran to Deku to try to help him, and he was a little kid being held back Pixiebob (a Hero).

That probably wasn’t what Hori was going for or implying but that’s what happened.

Is this an illogical thought process that would be dangerous or harmful for the parents? Definitely.

But that’s the point. The parental instinct that goes beyond self-preservation and logic to protect their children hasn’t been shown for any of them.

Except one.

*Current Spoiler Warning*

 Rei Todoroki in the recent chapter stands apart and above in this aspect, although this depends very much on how it’s framed going forward.

A mother fighting to stop her child from killing himself more than trying to stop a Villain from killing. Both true but one has to take front over the other for it to be meaningful, for Rei to show that she will stop Touya from burning himself this time, unlike how she wouldn’t before.

That’s character development, that’s parental instinct.

*Very current Spoilers*

 Rei is there for Touya  :)  trying to save her son…and also Endeavor maybe?

Close enough (Double Thumbs UP!)

 The children

Another group that definitely should never destroyed is the Young Children of Bnha, Kota, Eri, the work studies Kid group.

I put them into a separate category than the whole of the Civilians but it would take a lot to explain why that is and why they can be viewed as their own separate group, so I’ll put it in the next Meta and expand on how they relate to the existential parts of Bnha.

Also same for the villains/heroes and finally getting to the Quirk Singularity Theory.

To be Continued…

[midnight-in-town]

Frances Midford : The Mentor, a summary

To follow with my post about fighting against misinformation, here’s a first topic. 

Ciel’s remaining aunt is often viewed by the fandom as a mean lady who doesn’t care, because of a) all the mysteries around the family that Ciel doesn’t know about and b) the use of comic relief in Kuroshitsuji often used to hide some relevant clues, as previously demonstrated in this post. This is actually far from what her character really is about and I intend to demonstrate it now with a (long) recap post. 

I have talked about Frances a lot in the past, about her caring about our!Ciel and about her possibly knowing, like Tanaka, that he was lying about his identity. While the former is undeniably true, the latter is still up for debate. [X][X][X][X] However, with the upcoming adaptation of the Weston arc (probably) in 2024, I don’t want the old discourse to come back, so without further ado...

What Yana has said about Frances’ character

Besides our!Ciel, Frances is the last remaining Phantomhive (not counting real!Ciel as a BD). She’s Vincent’s younger sister, they both have the same parents (that is to say Claudia P and Cedric K. Ros) and she married out of the family (implying that maybe the Phantomhives have distant relatives still alive), becoming Lady Midford. 

According to Yana, Frances takes after their dad while Vincent takes after their mom and the same is true for her kids, meaning Ed takes after her (thus takes after his maternal grandfather) while Liz takes after Alexis. 

As far as her relationship with our!Ciel is concerned, here’s what Yana said in the guidebook : “Frances' strength of character is why Sebastian chose her as a role model Ciel should follow”. Since her relationship with Lizzie is sometimes also viewed negatively, I’d like to add that both in the guidebook and on twitter, Yana said that “Liz thinks her mom is kind and strong so she looks up to her mom as a role model she aspires to become”, hence the similar hair style.

TL;DR Yana’s overall description of Frances is that a) she’s kind and strong which is why b) she’s Lizzie’s role model, as well as the role model Sebastian thinks our!Ciel should follow.

Now that this is established, here’s what the canon story gives us, to illustrate Yana’s words. Spoilers for the entire manga series and long read below the cut.

Frances’ introduction

Frances is introduced in ch14 and, boy, what a generally misunderstood chapter by some parts of the fandom. xDD

Contextually, ch14 is Ciel’s birthday, meaning it is also the anniversary of the massacre of the previous household and Madam Red just died, after trying to kill him. For those who might wonder, the guidebook confirmed that our!Ciel was quite saddened by Ann’s death (obviously), so really, what a fun 13th birthday in perspective. Cue Liz and Frances. 

The comments on her strength aside, Frances’ introduction is otherwise often misread as her nagging being inappropriate but I beg to differ. As mentioned by @akumadeenglish​ and @chibimyumi​, Yana is Japanese author who likes to explore writing tropes in depth. Though it’s also important to remember that, before the curry arc, Yana didn’t know how long the series would run so everything had less intent, because the story was initially supposed to end quickly.

In other words, Frances’ introduction really is initially to be read as the severe mother-in-law (based on Japanese comical stereotypes) coming to check on how he handles his household, which is why Seb is so stressed out when everything goes bonkers. But that’s only the surface. 

Most importantly though, Frances showed up because it is Ciel’s birthday and, as said above, there’s a lot of negative and dreadful memories associated with this day. So...

...let’s change his mind, shall we? 

Phantomhives love games and Frances is a Phantomhive too, the last one besides our!Ciel, so she knows her nephew and chooses an activity she knew he wouldn’t be able to resist. 

Ch14 also introduces two important facts that are still relevant as plot points, especially as far as the Blue Revenge arc is concerned. The first one is that our!Ciel protected Lizzie from that bear, so Frances said she owes him. 

Secondly, as stated by Frances herself, she knows the ropes of the “game” (aka acting as the Watchdog) better than our!Ciel (”you’ve still got a decade to go before you can even think of winning against me”). 

In fact, like our!Ciel with real!Ciel, Frances was probably raised as Vincent’s spare [X][X], but compared to our!Ciel who knew next to nothing about his father’s real job until 3 years ago (at the time of ch14), Frances is an experienced veteran...

And that’s why Seb chose her as a role model for our!Ciel.

Therefore it is my opinion that ch14, despite being written back when Sensei didn’t know how long the series would be published, is still relevant as heck when it comes to Frances’ role in the series, aka acting as a mentor for our!Ciel (and for Lizzie, as Yana also stated). Kuroshitsuji is a slow story though, with a lot of build up and it’s why some fans still fail to see how significant Frances is to the plot and to our!Ciel’s development. 

Campania arc

Liz is the one who comes to ask our!Ciel to come with her whole family (thus introducing Alexis and Edward) on a cruise, but it’s also very important to note that she conveyed that Frances thought that our!Ciel should take time off of work:

This led some of us fans to theorize that maybe Tanaka used to send updates to Frances about our!Ciel’s wellbeing and how he fared as the Watchdog: the timing of the cruise works well with Frances’ remark, considering that the Queen just sent Charles Grey as a merry punishment for Ciel’s deeds during the Circus arc. 

This arc mostly highlights Frances’ bravery and strength : she didn’t hesitate to fight for countless of passengers unrelated to her (something that UT said isn’t very typical of Phantomhives, during Weston)...

More importantly, we finally get into Lizzie’s personal motivations and we indeed have the confirmation that...

...Frances is a big key to Lizzie’s strength, confirming the role model/mentor position that she holds in Lizzie’s eyes. I’d like to also point out that Frances completely trusts in her daughter’s abilities, which highlights a very positive mother/daughter dynamic.

Lizzie’s flashback gives us this very important bit...

...a part that’s unfortunately often overlooked by the fans complaining that Frances is too severe with our!Ciel and Lizzie. This scene however makes way more sense once we find out, after the Weston arc, that Frances lost her mother Claudia (the Watchdog before Vincent) when she was probably about 12 or 13 years old (Vincent being 15 years old then). 

To me, this is a big explanation as to why Frances is as serious about training as she is:

Indeed, she lost at least her mom (and later her brother) so, since her daughter is betrothed to the future Watchdog, she wants Liz to be strong enough to survive. All I see in the former panel is a mother saddened by the burden on her child’s shoulder and desperate to imagine that she will be exposed to a lot of danger as an adult. 

Side point there, but it’s likely there’s a very relevant reason Frances’ only daughter was betrothed to Vincent’s heir when they were young kids. We’ll dive into it later, but I believe the answer is tied to the Phantomhive lineage introduced in ch103. 

Lastly, our!Ciel’s flashback also gave us another important bit to explore...

...which is that our!Ciel directly applies what Frances once told him to his current path for revenge: 

Also note the allusion again to Vincent “losing the game”, creating a parallel with Frances telling our!Ciel in ch14 that “he still has a decade to go before he can even think of winning against her”, because he has a lot to learn from her, especially since even he admits that he knows next to nothing about his own family.

The previous spare teaching the spare. How fitting. :D

Weston arc

Even if Frances only appears in this arc during the cricket game, I think there is a lot to be deduced from it. First, I’ve said it long ago and I’ll say it again: I strongly believe Frances played a part into Vincent’s victory during the first blue miracle.

Mind you, Tanaka basically confirmed that Vincent cheated to win (since he knew what Seb and Ciel were up to) and I could totally see Vincent asking his strong little sister to crossdress in order to destroy the Green team. xDD Besides, she certainly seems uneasy whenever the topic is brought up and she also wasn’t fooled by Ciel’s act when he won, haha!

This is silly, but this shows (imo) that Frances and Vincent had a good sibling dynamic, with Frances supporting her brother as the Watchdog as much as she could, which is heartwarming because this means Frances would have no reason not to support her brother’s sons after his death. 

Tanaka (who, according to Yana, was already in the household taking care of Vincent and Frances as children) and Frances happily dancing together at the end of the tournament also confirms this. Vincent and Frances having a strong sibling bond would also explain why, despite Claudia’s death, Frances would agree to the betrothal between Lizzie and Vincent’s heir (and would keep it that way, even after Vincent’s death).

All that to say, I’m sure the cricket game confirmed to Frances how similar our!Ciel is to Vincent on some aspects (the second blue miracle attests to that), which probably makes him somewhat predictable (and reassuring?) to her.

One thing that I also believe is important is Ed’s mini flashback during the game. On this topic, Yana has said that she couldn’t draw his backstory in detail, so she’ll probably expand on that in the future, which makes me think that there is some foreshadowing in there. 

TBH I think it’s ironic that Ed would consider himself as “ordinary”, considering the whole lineage thing introduced one arc later. xDD But also, if we consider that the tale of Vincent’s first blue miracle is supposed to hint that Vincent and Frances were close as siblings, it’s nice that Ed, who takes after his mom the most, would also have his own flashback about loving and looking up to his sister a lot, despite his small inferiority complex. Considering that Liz sees their mom as her role model though, I guess that means Ed also sees his mom as a role model (though the Campania arc already made that pretty clear). 

During the Weston arc, Frances also managed to surprise Sebastian, both by recognizing him (lol) and by stopping him despite his intent to leave, which is, according to the demon himself, no small feat: 

Like the usual nagging she does towards Seb though, it’s played for laugh, but as introduced in this post, I believe overused comic relief is a way to foreshadow some hints and we’ll dive into it with the next arc. 

Last but not least, during this arc UT commented that our!Ciel was different from his ancestors when he willingly put himself in danger to save Joanne...

...but as presented during the Campania arc, it seems it’s a trait he shares at least with his aunt, furthering the parallels between them and the fact that she would definitely make a good mentor for our!Ciel, because they’re quite alike and can probably understand each other. 

Green Witch arc

The only relevant part of this arc with Frances’ character is the introduction of a special lineage in the Phantomhive family by German Shinigamis...

...something that might explain why our!Ciel was able to notice them, when even Seb didn’t. So this begs the question: who else in his family shares this lineage? And obviously, Frances and her kids might !

My personal opinion is that the lineage thing is old and is probably why the Phantomhive family became the Watchdogs, many generations ago. But also, if our!Ciel can notice Shinigamis thanks to it, could it explain why Frances was able to detect and catch Seb during opening ceremony before the cricket game at Weston? And why she always nags him about his appearance (both hair and face)? That remains to be confirmed, but...

...at the very least Bravat in the recent arc confirmed that some gifted people like himself can “sense” that demons are different. Just like animals [x][x], apparently. Bravat is irrelevant besides being a small scale villain though, so I take it as a hint for a more plot significant character, such as Frances, whose nagging behavior towards Seb is way too overused as comic relief anyway. 

The lineage thing is yet one more family topic on which Frances probably has answers to give to our!Ciel (the only other people who might know about it being Tanaka and UT). 

Bonus : if what Vincent said below about strong-willed women in the family line (from a side story “With Father”) is a hint towards the lineage thing...

...then it’s probably why Vincent wanted Lizzie to be betrothed to his heir in the first place and why Frances agreed. 

Blue sect & blue revenge arcs

I already mentioned that Bravat’s innate ability to recognize Seb as a demon was a hint that other characters, like Frances, might be able to guess that Seb is a demon as well, so moving on to ch151 :

This chapter confirms that UT has known Frances since she was very young (which is a hint to the UT = Cedric theory of course), which also explains why, knowing about her strength, UT went on with the whole BD massacre on the Campania despite the presence of our!Ciel and the Midfords on board. 

Also, while this chapter neither confirms nor denies if Frances knew about our!Ciel lying about his identity (like Tanaka and UT did), she didn’t show anger nor disbelief about the situation, just her incomprehension.  

More than anything, this chapter strongly hints that our!Ciel will at some point seek his aunt for a talk before the final confrontation with UT and real!Ciel, because both are seeking answers to their different questions (our!Ciel needs to find out about UT & his grandmother and the lineage thing, while Frances will want to know what’s the deal between the twins). Speaking of which, a talk between Lizzie and Frances is probably also in order, before Lizzie can choose our!Ciel’s side again.

Lastly, ch151 hinted that Frances doesn’t fully believe that real!Ciel’s return is “natural”...

...and, i mean, why would she? She faced the Bizarre Dolls on the Campania and, for all we know, Edward told her how the Weston arc ended so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ considering that UT has been involved every time, the Midfords probably aren’t far from connecting the dots about real!Ciel being already dead. 

To sum up !

Outside of the narrative, Yana said that Frances was Lizzie’s role model and that Seb also wanted her to be the model our!Ciel should follow. And, in my opinion, the entire series so far (as I tried to present in this post) is slowly building up to that because :

our!Ciel and Frances are very similar: both the spares & both survived their parents’ and brothers’ death 

both saved folks unrelated to them despite being Phantomhives, meaning that they are a bit alike and can understand each other

our!Ciel literally built his path of revenge following the advice Frances told him about how to counterattack an opponent

Again, to understand who targeted his family, our!Ciel needs to find out about his grandmother, about the lineage and about why his dad had to be killed amongst other things. The only people who can answer him are UT, Tanaka and Frances. 

I believe UT and Tanaka are more connected to Claudia, but also both are by real!Ciel’s side for now, making them less accessible for a talk. This leaves Frances for the time being and, as Vincent’s sister and Claudia’s daughter, it seems appropriate that answers would be coming from her. 

Also, in shonen series, usually the hero(es) have a mentor figure who will help them “unlock their potential” through training. Kuroshitsuji is not your usual shonen and I doubt our!Ciel can become better at fighting lmao, but Frances can certainly help him better appreciate the massive scale he’s bound to face when seeking his revenge. Especially if it all goes back to events from 3 generations ago and a worldbuilding full of supernatural elements, as well as a world war he doesn’t entirely comprehend yet. 

Frances acting as a mentor/role model for her own kids also foreshadows that they’ll follow our!Ciel on his journey and, like him, they’ll definitely need her wisdom/knowledge to be able to reach the necessary level for survival by his side.

As to when all that is going to happen, well, I’d say Frances will probably take on a more active role in the plot when, to quote Seb in ch14, "[our!Ciel] will overconfidently believe that he cannot lose and that it will be necessary for him to carry himself with humility while striving for his goal". Because by then, "an adult who will be firm with him is what he'll need". 

If that doesn’t foreshadow the current conflict between the twins, I don’t know what does. xD

Thanks for reading!! As always, let me know if I’ve forgotten anything !

[demonslayedher]

Links, why started, and why abandoned:

Rengoku+Akaza Sitcom: It was very silly and rereading it still makes me laugh. I've had passing ideas here and there and have made two separate attempts to continue it, but I haven't captured the same flow. Kyojuro's efforts to get me fired as the lead writer and keep this sitcom canceled have so far panned out.

Low-Key Married AU: When I look at the notes sometimes I am like, "wow, this must be my most popular AU, but it is such a mess and I feel so bad for people trying to follow it." I got as far as The Nezuko Incident, but it was already super long, and rather than being engaging it felt more like it was just trying to give chronology to this AU. ZenNezu Angst (no link): I was in such an indulgent, angsty mood when I wrote it, and I wrote myself into an angsty hole. It was whump with an intended happy ending but by the time I went back to it I was not in as whumpy of a mood and I had forgotten how I was going to build up to the intended happy ending and found it meh. Also, I am embarrassed by how whumpy it is and even considered publishing under a different name.

Raw Sword Production: I want so badly for the fandom to appreciate the intricacies of Japanese sword production, which is why I put it into fiction format in the first place with Teppi being the vehicle through which readers can learn a complicated but fascinating process. I wound up learning a lot more since publishing that, and wanted to fix some details, as well as make it clearer with more illustrations, and add on the full process of smithing (instead of glossing over it in the conclusion and focusing most of the smelting). Got to about the point of polishing (one of the last steps), felt overwhelmed by the amount of illustration it would benefit from to be clear, and lost confidence feeling that even with all that effort, there probably would not be many people who read all the way to the end. Filler Arc w/ Character Beats: I still really like the ideas, have had ideas for how to expand it to a proper flow and make a solid story out of it, it had a very cute start, but I lost steam. I want Ufotable to make it instead and just let me direct. EDIT: So far it doesn't seem this one is going to win the poll, so I reread what 5577 words I had, and gosh dang it, it was cute. So I have posted it.

Again, zero promises of any of these projects getting more attention, even if they win the poll. But knowing what people would enjoy reading might provide more inspiration. EDIT: Guys, if you want "other," ya gotta tell me which one! Also, if you want more than one, feel free to say so too. Again, the point is to see if I can work up the inspiration to finish. If.