#and then the doa arc started and I was like... Actually maybe it wasn't a mistake

[kwillo-o]

BSD S5 E11 theory with spoilers (obviously)

Kind of a 2 in 1.

So l've been thinking about the last episode a lot over the past couple of days. Mostly about how unsatisfying it felt. It's been about 6 years since everything with the DOA started in the manga. That's 6 years of wondering what's going to happen. How are the ADA going to get out of this one. Are my favourite characters going to be ok.

Only for it to end up being that they where never in any danger to begin with.

It was all staged. Tanizaki and Kunikida would have been fine no matter what, all you had to do was unplug the machine. Chuuya was never a vampire to begin with. Dazai escaped the prison and got the antidote. Fyodor is finally killed. Everyone's fine. It was all just a convoluted set up.

But then that got me thinking. It all ended a little too perfectly.

Enter the book/page.

What if someone wrote in the book to help the agency so that everything would end happily ever after. The machines where dangerous. Until someone wrote in the book that they weren't. Chuuya was actually a vampire. Until someone wrote in the book that he wasn't.

And so on.

So then who would have access to the book/page. Well we don't know where the book is, that's what everyone is looking for. People most likely to actually know where it is would be Taneda and of course Natsume. Of those two Natsume is the most likely. We haven't seen him since the Canabalism arc and we know that he's always working behind the scenes to help out. So what was he doing while the agency was being framed?

But let's leave that as a possibility for now and move onto my second theory.

The page. Last we saw Fukuchi had it. So that leave's Fukuzawa, Ranpo and Teruko with easy access.

But here's what l'm thinking.

The otherside of the page was supposed to be written on that night. But if Fukuchi was already planning on dying then how would he do that?

The answer is he wouldn't. But you know who could? Teruko.

We already know she talked with Fukuchi before everything went down and that she was on his side. So what if Fukuchi gave the page to Teruko and told her what to write. Or maybe just gave it to her for safe keeping.

Either way Teruko would have the page. And what would you do if you where just forced to kill someone you love and you have the ability to manipulate reality. You'd try bring them back.

Enter weird Fukuchi from the end of the episode.

We already know that the book/page can bring people from inside the book outside the book because of Sigma. So what if in Terukos grief she wrote on the page for Fukuchi to be a live.

But because our Fukuchi was already dead it wouldn't make narrative sense for him to suddenly come back to life. So what if instead the book brought a different Fukuchi from inside the book into the main world.

Or if we're going of how the book works in Beast then main world swapped with a world where Fukuchi was alive. Which would also explain Akutagawas weird outfit.

Anyway that's my weird theory about the last episode. Guess we'll find out in like 2 years if l'm right or not.

TLDR: The ending of the last episode was weird and I think that either Natsume wrote in the book to help the agency or Teruko wrote on the other side of the page to bring Fukuchi back and that's why everything went to shit.

[fuckinguniquename]

Attack on Titan Season 1 soundtrack. AoT has been one of my favorite anime for quite some time now, and the composer for it- Hiroyuki Sawano- has been my second favorite composer for years (nobody can top my beloved Kevin Penkin). I've listened to many of Sawano's works innumerable times and this album in particular might be one of the highest on that "most listened to" list. I started writing notes for this review around the start of April but I'm lazy as fuck so I procrastinated writing this for far longer (even though I fucking love writing).

I think the thing that stirred me to actually start writing this was my beloved friend buying me this album on cd at Momocon in Atlanta because he knew I loved Hiroyuki Sawano's music. The drums- "DOA" especially- go so fucking hard on my shitty 2003 subaru forester speakers.

I feel that one of Sawano's biggest strengths and defining sounds is his drums- er, more accurately- his use of percussion in general. Sawano has been almost "type cast" as a powerful composer with militaristic music. In this and many of his other albums, percussion is often used not only as a defining beat for a song, but as a beat for marching. AoT is certainly a militaristic anime, so having the music make you feel a part of the warring world is such an awe inspiring and powerful feeling. Hearing the drums beat so solidly and rhythmically makes me want to jump up and march right along, holding that signature salute firmly on my chest. Occasionally, the beat isn't made of percussion, but bass, which has a similar but different feel that I don't feel like thinking about rn cause I'm lazy.

In the vein of militant music, many of the songs on this soundtrack feature male chanting, as if a whole regiment of men is chanting their war mantra before jumping into battle.

Speaking of battle mantras, there's this one song in the score for "Promare" that has an epic battle mantra. Unsurprisingly that soundtrack was also made by Hiroyuki Sawano, though that one song in particular wasn't (the song is called "Kakusei" and it's by "Superfly"). Sorry, I've been listening to it recently cause it's awesome and i wanted to mention it, though I prolly coulda saved it for the Promare review... Anwyays...

One of the slightly more niche sounds of the album is that of lonely, echoey strings, or something akin to banjo. The former conjuring images of vast empty fields or farmsteads, and the latter conjuring a rural country vibe (such as in the track "2chijou")- which we oft see throughout the show, such as when Eren goes on his first scout expedition, or in the Utgard Castle story arc when we get to visit Conny and Sasha's small towns. However, those same lonely strings can be used to build tension (such as in the amazingly named track "凸】♀】♂】←Titan").

Another sound, maybe not so niche but I'm at a loss for a good transition to this topic so bare with me, that is used well, is: Bitcrunching. If you're unsure what bitcrunching is, so am I, but I know how it sounds sooo... Based upon my limited knowledge, I would assume bitcrunching is essentially taking a sound and breaking it up into "frames" and then extending the sound in each "frame" (almost like decreasing the framerate for the sound). I'm pulling this out of my ass so don't sue me. Bitcrunching in practice sounds like distortion. One of the best examples of this sound in action is the previously mentioned, creatively named, "凸】♀】♂】←Titan". (why does he name songs like this...). I really like it, but some people probably won't. There's a couple times throughout the anime where my friend was like "Is my speaker broken?", no, it's just a niche sound in the stage of film/show scores.

Luckily, if Bitcrunching isn't your favorite kind of distortion, we have plenty of electric guitar distortion to fill you up. For some reason I really don't expect to hear electric guitar in soundtracks, but I fucking LOVE when I do. The guitar in songs such as "DOA", or "Attack on Titan", or even the intro to "The Reluctant Heroes", sounds so fucking epic it makes me wanna ***.

Oh I forgot to mention another niche sound that Sawano used, that being church bells (or just bells in general I guess). Unfortunately, when I took that note, I didn't write down which song/s I heard it in and I'm at work right now so finding it again would be a bit difficult, but I trust my past self to have noted this correctly and not have hallucinated it like I do with other sounds. Bells, or church bells, being implemented into the soundtrack is actually fairly important due to the fact that religion plays a pretty big role in the AoT story and lore. Also, bells are a pretty grand sound which is fitting for so grand a soundtrack.

On to the final distinct sound I noted and wish to meowntion, horns (brass instruments more generally). Oftentimes, brass takes the lead, galloping forwards like Erwin, leading the rest of the song behind it in a triumphant charge. Also, Horns and trumpets often denote royalty or a system of monarchy, which are things that are intrinsically tied to the history and story of AoT.

Often times, many of these sounds are used to expertly build tension throughout the song until we get to that big payoff where the drums and horns and vocals go vigorously tramping off. It gives a feeling of steady growing power or strength within, or the feeling that we are building up to a big payoff- which we get to in season 3, where many of the character and story arcs merge together or end as questions we've had for ages are finally answered.

This is actually visually represented in the opening and ending of season 3 part 2 (and the glitchy prophetic vision of the future we get at the end of season 3 part 1), by various shots from previous opening and endings or scenes from the show being spliced together as if our life was flashing before our eyes. The ending for season 3 also- wait I'm supposed to be talking about season 1... dangit, not again.

The last thing I want to talk about is the various leitmotifs sawano created for the show. Leitmotifs are an important part of scores and music in general as they help to lead the listener to certain conclusions like they're a dog getting ready to eat at the sound of a bell ( click good puppy). There's a really good video about leitmotifs in "My Hero Academia" called: "Why Does You Say Run Go With Everything?" (Posted by "The Cartoon Cipher") that explores the many, many, different songs in the My Hero soundtrack that make use of the Allmight leitmotif in obvious or hidden ways. If you're unfamiliar with leitmotifs, I highly recommend watching this video. I think the largest leitmotif in season 1 of AoT is what I call the "Recruit Motif" which is heard in many of the songs- though it mostly stays in season 1 because after that the main characters aren't truly recruits anymore. Here are the notes I wrote on it: "makes you feel like a triumphant underdog that has overcome a lot of adversity to be where they are. It feels like there was a long buildup and this motif is the payoff, even though that buildup doesn't really exist sonically. Notably, the motif lacks the emotional weight of many of the other motifs, as the recruits are still young and a little innocent. Its more of an "I feel awesome and badass" motif than something like bertholt's whose motif is more like "my feet bring destruction, everywhere I go is annihilated and my social circle is thusly limited"." This leads me to the second leitmotif that is quite common which I call the "Bertholt Motif". I didn't write any notes on it or any other motifs (fucking stupid dipshit) so I'm wingin it here. The "Bertholt Motif" is most prominent in the song "You See Big Girl/ T:T" (season 2), but is heard in lesser degrees throughout the whole of the soundtrack. As mentioned above, the "Bertholt Motif" represents the immense potential danger of Bertholt's very presence. I wish I had written down the other leitmotifs but I'm fucking stupid so ill write about them whenever I review season 2 or 3 cause I'm comin up on a blank right now.

Overall, I think I'd give the score for season 1 of AoT an... 8. It's a masterclass of a soundtrack, but season 1 is mostly setting up a couple leitmotifs or sonic themes for season 2 and 3 (like the previously mentioned "You See Big Girl/ T:T"). It's similar to how I feel about The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The Fellowship is a great movie, but it's mostly setup for the next 2 movies. The Return of the King has to be my favorite cause of the emotional payoff of all the character stories convening and fighting for airtime. I'm sorry it took so long to write another one of these soundtrack reviews... I absolutely fucking love writing and often get writer's high quite quickly, but starting is sooooooo hard and I'm lazy as FUCK. Hopefully my 0 loyal readers aren't too annoyed by my delay. It will happen again.

Ok, BYE BYE!!!!!! :)