#and well first of all it was the 'adult animation art style' which is a seperate sin

[dullahandyke]

Watching so many dynamic animatics has really heightened my appreciation for ways that music and animation work together which has mostly culminated in a firm belief that if you're animating an upbeat song and your art direction is boring you should be put to death

[mel-addams]

Get Started Drawing...

...even as a complete beginner!

In my efforts to help some friends who are only just starting to learn to draw (as adults! glorious!! <3), I kept digging around for resources that cover things I remember learning in the various art classes I've taken...but that does a better job than I can of laying it all out in a comprehensive, but not overwhelming, manner. (I am far too prone to rambling as you can see from this post, and bounce around topics as I remember them, rather than in a sensible order.) I've found a few guides here and there that cover one thing or another decently well...but I've finally found a free site I'm really keen on as an overall source if you're just starting out with learning to draw!

It's incredibly clear and concise, whereas many of the other sites and books I found could sometimes be overwhelmingly detailed. It's arranged in a way that reminds me of the flow of art classes, starting at the very first steps--how to approach art if you've never done it before, and the fact that you only need basic tools to begin with. If you go in approximate order, it then establishes that you should start sorting out a solid foundation by practicing simple lines and shapes--the same way you learned to write letters so you could ultimately make words, sentences, stories... This includes some neat little practice exercises with questions to consider while you do them, so you also learn to see and observe things like angles and proportions, which are critical for being able to accurately draw more complex things.

It evolves from there into how to take those basic shapes and turn them into simplified human bodies--and from there, how to consider more complex 3D versions of the shapes to give those bodies a sense of dimension and physicality. It even touches on things like composition, silhouette, negative space, and line of action--all in a quick, straightforward manner. It plants the seed of understanding for these more complex illustration concepts, which you can then research further, armed with relevant terminology to dig up more in-depth resources as they catch your interest!

The style itself is usually simple, but even if your aim is to draw with a more detailed style, this one can serve as a base sketch to add that detail to. (Combine learning this base with photo studies, plus more detailed style guides for wherever you want to take your art, and you could use this as a base for comics, cartoons, anime, realism...the core concepts and skills remain the same!) There's also examples of how to adjust for varied body shapes, so it provides more flexibility than some drawing guides do, which often only focus on one "ideal" body type. (This style can also be used for that, if it's what you want--you just adjust the proportions of the basic shapes as you need! But this provides examples of how to handle variety, which will give you a better foundation for drawing people and characters so they don't all look the same, instead of having to figure out how to adjust for it later on.) The Shape Dolls for reference are also incredibly delightful, and a great cheap way to have a little pose reference mannequin of sorts!

There's also links to sources if you want to dig into concepts more deeply--available both as a general source page, as well as some specific topics including relevant sources at the bottom of their respective pages. There's also a patreon with some extra thoughts that is fully accessible for free, but has a paid option if you want to support Tan for providing such a lovely resource! (Also they have a legit vegetable farm?? How cool is that.)

So yes! If you have any interest in learning to draw--whether you've ever tried before or not, and no matter your age--try looking through this site, and let it guide you through the process!

[hetalian-veteran]

Art Styles I Personally Think the Hetalia Characters Looked Their Best In (and Why) Part 2

Link to Part 1, Link to Part 3

Please note that I am referring to the show and not the webcomic. This is primarily because I didn't always have access to the webcomic and thus the show is what I've always been most familiar with. I will also refrain from talking about characters that have only appeared in one season.

Also, please keep in mind that these are just my opinions. And if you have any different ideas of what designs looked better, that's totally okay. At the end of the day, I'm just here to have fun.

America: Seasons 1-4

It was kind of hard to choose which design was best for America, seeing as they are all very similar to one another while also having different qualities that I liked. But I ultimately settled on the one from the first four seasons. I adore the WWII bomber jacket, as well as how the character in general was animated back then. Not to mention that the older art style just fits him so well. A lot of Americans have an "if it ain't broke don't fix it" attitude about things, so I find it fitting that, at least in my opinion, this also works for aph America. He looks great everywhere else, but I won't deny I have a nostalgia for the original. This was an exceptionally close tie with his design for season 5. Not to mention I once drew aph America fanart for an art project in middle school and got an A on it.

England: Season 5

Okay, I'm gonna be real here. This all came down to the eyebrows. Well, not entirely, but it definitely played a large part. I never had a problem with England's design in seasons 1-4, but those eyebrows though. They were so distracting. I understand wanting to give characters a prominent feature that makes you go, "Yep this is (insert character here)." But I think England's eyebrows were too overdone in the previous seasons. However, I also believe they were far too thin and lightened up in seasons 6-7. Season 5 had a good balance. Not too thick but not too thin. Also, I feel like his facial structure and design made him look kinda weird in season 7.

China: Season 5

So... I'm gonna be honest here. All of the other designs for China make him look like a young girl to me. Yes, he still looks sorta feminine in season 5, but not like he appears in seasons 1-4 and 6-7. In season 5 he actually looks more like an adult man to me. Not to mention his hair. Because holy crap that is some of the most beautiful hair I have ever seen put to animation

Russia: Season 6

This was a close tie between all his designs, but it ultimately came down the hair. Yes, I know, I talk about the characters hair a lot. But that really was the deciding factor for Russia. All his designs look great in that the long coat and vertical lines throughout give me the impression of a Russian nesting doll. Now, whether that was intentional on Hima's part or not, I cannot say. But it's a cool detail that I always notice whenever I see him. When it comes to his season 6 design, I like not only how innocent he looks (which is an important part of the design Hima intended from the beginning), but that his hair has some more fun detail too it. It looks so soft and fluffy, not like the previous designs that made it look like he had water dumped on his head.

France: Season 5

What can I say about this design that hasn't been said already? The only other character who had a bigger glow-up than France was Spain (who you can see my opinions on in a previous post). Literally everything here is an upgrade from his design through seasons 1-4. His hair looks so silky and soft, not like that yellow plastic we had earlier. Also, the hair ribbon tying it back looks so elegant and refined, fitting perfectly with the character. I also love the small detail of the ribbon being the same color of his eyes. It's a nice touch. His outfits this season are great as well. They are very simple, but still elegant, with soft, curved lines and balancing both warm and cool colors. Especially in his outfit during the Joan of Arc episode.

Canada: Season 5

I think I'm starting to have a favorite season in terms of character designs here. Canada just looks his cutest here, primarily because of his outfits. He has one of the most adorable and cozy wardrobes this season, and I want to raid this man's entire closet. I love the flannels and cozy jackets and hoodies that he has. As someone who grew up most of her life in northwest Montana (which, if you ask the rest of the US, is basically just lower Canada), I think I have to be a little biased here. Canada's design gives me the feeling of home in a way, and this is definitely a wardrobe that I embrace for a time growing up.

Austria: Seasons 1-4

The hair curl in his cowlick hits harder here, just getting that out of the way. There's more of a curl to it, which is more reflective of Himaruya's art style. And even though his wardrobe in the latter seasons is great, this one all around looks better to me. I like the royal blue lined with the deep red. And the cravat is just a fabulous detail that I love. Now that I think about it, everything about this design just feels very Himaruya. Like, this is one of his best character designs. There's also the placement of the mole on the bottom right-hand side of his face. In other designs, it's not as prominent. But here it's easier to see. I feel like it makes the design all the more unique.

Hungary: Seasons 1-4

THIS. This design for aph Hungary is top tier, and nobody can convince me otherwise. Something that has always intrigued me about Hungary is that she was raised primarily around men. So much so to the point where she saw herself as one growing up. But when she got older and realized she was actually a woman, she ended up adopting more feminine clothing and characteristics. Aph Hungary is a female character who balances both feminine and masculine traits. And her design from seasons 1-4 emulate this balance perfectly. Her long hair is a pale brown color, and her eyes a dark green. Unlike later seasons where she's given long, shiny, elegant hair and sparkling eyes. She's often found wearing either military uniforms or pretty dresses. We even see the evolution of her fashion from child to adult, where she goes from wearing her hair shorter to wearing it longer and with a flower. Her design encapsulates the idea that, yes, she is a woman. Yes, she is feminine. But at the same time, this is someone who has seen war and battle. (I might have to do a separate post about Hungary, because her design and character are honestly fascinating).

[specialagentartemis]

in ice age story which one uses magic caves to trans their gender

Her name is Tanúngia (possibly Tanúngie, haven't decided yet) and she's an Ice Age trans lesbian and I love her.

The thing with the Sacred Cave is that it's not, like, a place of magical transformation. It's the place of the clan's origin story and the heart of their theology. It's the place of emergence, the cave/womb out of which the earth was born and humans first were created into the world. It's associated with (re)birth, initiation, and truth.

The thing about the Paleolithic is that we know people thought caves were important (cf. all the cool and super famous cave art). But we don't know for sure if Ice Age people thought caves were uniquely special, or if caves are just really good at preserving art and artifacts and there's preservation bias at play here. However, my idea of the sacred cave draws from the cross-cultural use of handprints as rock art, particularly using red ochre. The cave plays an important part in the clan's origin story, both as the place of the birth of the world and humanity, and the place of the (re)birth and ethnogenesis of their clan, and as such, it's a place for initiation ceremonies. To reach adulthood (and in certain other initiations/rituals), you go into the depths of the cave. The adulthood/initiation ceremony involves placing a handprint on the cave wall in red ochre (in my conlang for these people, the word for ochre is the same as the word for blood, łu. If you need to specify, ochre is łu gélun, "blood of the earth," and blood is łu kitsan, "blood of the body.") Then you return to the outside world, being sybolically reborn as an adult, and a son or daughter of the clan, taking your place as a fully fledged adult clan member.

Being reborn and announced as a son/daughter of the clan is the key part here I want to pull out: you can make a decision whether you want to be announced and reborn as a son or daughter of the clan. It's part of the sacred ritual that in the womb of the earth, in the depths of the cave, you are Becoming, and if most people go in as a girl and come out as a woman, or go in as a boy and come out as a man, there is absolutely nothing stopping you from going in as a boy and coming out as a woman, or vice versa. And once you are - if you are reborn in the depths of the cave as a woman and announced at the mouth of the cave as a daughter of the clan - then you are. It doesn't matter if you were a girl before, if that's what you did in your adulthood initiation rebirth ceremony, you're a woman now, and you will wear women's clothing and jewelry styles and take on women's social role in the clan. And what is anyone gonna do? Argue with the Sacred Cave? You were reborn in the Sacred Cave, no one can argue with the Sacred Cave From Whence The Earth Was Born. No one argues though because this is an established part of their culture.

(Though "What is anyone gonna do? Argue with the Sacred Cave?" is a significant plot point later on...)

So. Tanúngia is a good hunter and super knowledgeable about animals, one of the clan's experts. She's also a woman who was a boy when she went into the sacred cave as a child and reborn as a woman as an adult. She takes part in the women's rituals, and shaves her facial hair and wears her hair in women's styles. Physical transition options are limited but it's more about the spiritual aspect: she is now a woman in the eyes of the Sacred Cave and thus the clan as well. This did cause some conflict because she then married a woman named Wohdzígigío who decided to join her clan, and Wohdzígigío's clan was pissed because if Tanúngia were following men's rules she would be supposed to leave to join Wohdzígigío's clan. Matri/uxorlocality. But because they are both women, socially, even though they are capable of producing children, they follow the same-sex partnership rules.

It causes a little bit of tension during the summer reunions. Nobody's a dick about Tanúngia's gender directly but there is some fallout re: marriage rules that Wohdzígigío's family still kinda resents. Wohdzígigío sticks up for her wife though because it WAS her choice to move! And these ARE the same-sex marriage partnership moving social rules, and nothing was done wrong! And part of the resentment is YEAH she's a woman and nobody is contesting that (who is gonna argue with the Sacred Cave?) but the whole POINT of the rules is that they're SUPPOSED to be for couples who can't have children and you CAN and it's not the SPIRIT of it even if it's the LETTER. Too bad though the clan was glad not to lose Tanúngia to another clan because she really is the Knower Of Animal Things which makes her super skilled at hunting and trapping and such.

She and Pendíkhia are friends.

[firedragon1321]

Fun fact- child!me was able to identify one of the Digimon storyboard artists by instinct.

Masahiro Naoi did storyboard art for a few episodes. I remember Prisoner of the Pyramid and Sora's Crest of Love, though there are definitely more. In these episodes, everyone is weirdly...off model.

All the above screenshots were from one of the two episodes I mentioned- both heavy hitters when it comes to their writing. Prisoner of the Pyramid solidifies a lot of lore and sets up for Tai's Crest of Courage activating. Sora's Crest of Love...well, I bet you can guess from the name. But it's a Crest activation episode, plus it establishes Sora's backstory. I love both of these episodes. So it's a little disappointing that the animation looks...like that.

I know the animation industry can suck sometimes and I don't blame anyone for being under the effects of crunch. It could even be the case here. But this "off-model-ness" only happened with this one storyboard artist, to the point I associated it with him over the years.

My clue-in as a child was Tai's hair. All I cared about was fluffiness. It's distinctly shorter and therefore less fluffy.

I used to call him the "bad animator" (for which I apologize greatly- first because he's a human being just like me, second because he's a storyboard artist). I was a simple person. I just wanted fluffy Tai hair. I knew the other storyboard artists provided- just not this one. And that was the extent of it at the time.

But I feel like most kids wouldn't notice? The writing in these two episodes is so solid that even most adults would brush off the animation. Of course, drawing and monkeying with this art style means I was destined to notice sooner or later.

This was a formative moment in discovering the behind-the-scenes aspects of cartoons. It wasn't the definitive moment (that would be Pokemon, when I learned the show comes from Japan and gets dubbed into English at age ten). But it's something I find interesting as an adult.

[blue-thief]

do you perhaps have some headcanons about mr. isagi? <3

OFC!! <3333

on top of having 2.0 vision (and well, metavision) his VVIQ score is a perfect 5

this helps him a lot with art and he's actually pretty good at it even though he's not as passionate about it as he is with football/soccer

he started drawing through doodling his favourite manga characters and he's able to recreate art styles almost perfectly

he's actually pretty careless when it comes to his schoolwork (esp for STEM) so sometimes he'll hand in incomplete work bc it looks like he's already filled in certain questions

like no. you doodled an eye instead of solving for "x"

he canonically hates science, but if he had to choose one branch as his favourite, it would be chemistry (not boring & derivative memorization like bio but not absolutely insane like physics)

something might contradict this in canon but i hc his handwriting is pretty shitty lmao

since so many sports anime characters look like him (nanase haruka, kageyama tobio, etc) i like to pretend they're all cousins and they meet up at family reunions to compete to see who's better at their respective sport

so yeah despite having no siblings he has a shit ton of cousins who he's really close to

he was conceived by accident 💀 his parents love and coddle him despite this

despite showing the exact opposite of the typical symptoms (great spacial awareness, scarily good empathy, etc) i still say he's got autism lmao. he just has a really unique type yk

his hobby is canonically walking, but i wanna expand on this a little bit

he somehow doesn't listen to music on his walks

(in fact, he doesn't listen to much music at all. that's why his fav song is from a commercial 💀)

furthermore, he rarely ever brings his phone out on walks at all. he likes being at one with his surroundings and he doesn't want his phone to distract him

which is understandable. unless we're talking about how he'll sometimes walk 2+ hours to go to a friends house AND HE DOESN'T HAVE IT?? NO GPS??? NO MAP NOTHING

he's just spent so much time walking around saitama he has a map of most of it installed in his mind

he really doesn't use his phone much at all. he has a few accounts in case he wants to check something out, but he doesn't post anything + barely follows anyone + even has a blank pfp on everything

he apparently received 0 valentine's chocolates in the previous year, but a few ppl from school had a crush on him

he's not popular or anything but some ppl over the years thought he was a genuinely sweet guy and quietly observed him from a distance

he's completely oblivious to this

his school friends all have way more romantic experience than him and they all tease him for this

he gets really frustrated about this and tries to convince himself he likes certain ppl in hopes of something sticking

when he genuinely likes someone he's oblivious to this too lmaoo

he's the type of guy to take dodgeball in PE wayyy too seriously

the first time he swore was when he was eight and got mad at his teammates for slacking off

he got in trouble for this and never swore in front of an adult ever again

(the lack of any physical adults in blue lock made him fall back on his foul mouth)

his fav class is PE in canon but i think i remember something about isagi hating baseball? that might have just been someone else's hc but yeah

he enjoys basketball and badminton, but he thinks volleyball is mid

the one time his school tried floor hockey he enjoyed it well enough

american football is just way too confusing for him

he had no backup plans in case football/soccer didn't work out, but he'd be fantastic in psychology and/or politics

[anime-grimmy-art]

It’s this time of the year again, folks. Time to wrap up the art Ive made in the last 12 months in another Year in Review! I’ve noticed that this is my fifth Year in Review in a row, so I’ll be making an extra post looking back on the progress in those last 5 years!

I've got a lot to say about this year, but purely art wise, I've gone all when it comes to comics, damn! I've kinda found a format that is messy, and therefore more time efficient, yet still looks good. I even made 2 animatics and lotsa shorts/reels! All that on top of opening coms twice, and, oh yeah, MAKING A WHOLE ASS 4MIN ANIMATION ON MY OWN.

How is my hand still alive.

2023 has been….interesting, to say the least. The first half year I was working on my thesis project, aka making an animated short all on my own (in the art department), which makes it honestly surprising how much I managed to churn out between animating. Trigun rly did have me in a choke hold.

Summer was a bit more spotty, esp. with me not being able to draw anything during August as I was writing my thesis (and doing commissions). And towards the end of the year, Kingdom Hearts tried to save me, but alas, Genshin Impact has finally sunk its teeth into me and dragged me to the bottom of the rabbit hole. It all started with me watching a story summary and lore videos while I was sick after my thesis and I was too intrigued to not dig deeper and well, first I fell in love with Kaeya and then the ships started dropping in left and right.

I’m not gonna lie, the last few months have been weird. I finished my masters in October, and have been on job hunt since, sadly without success so far. I’m existing in this weird limbo of still not grasping I’m not a student anymore after 18 years in education, not really being able to accept I’m an adult, yet desperately trying to find something so I can make a routine, cos rn Im too scared to build a rhythm as I know I’ll have a so much harder time readjusting again. It’s left me in a weird emotional state, where most of the time I feel fine, but when it counts, there’s just, nothing. No joy at getting my diploma, no anticipation to finally go to a convention again, neither any sadness hearing my grandfather died. It frustrates me that it extends to my art as well, there’s excitement over ideas and concepts, but no motivation to pick up the pencil, which makes me either not finish art at all or making so many shortcuts and just ending up with sth not satisfactory to me since it’s not the idea I sought after.

Tho, not everything is doom and gloom. I DID finish a whole ass short animation and got my masters degree, that IS sth to be proud of. Also, while Im struggling at drawing, I’ve also kinda started integrating my shortcuts into my style and some stuff I’ve thrown together actually turns out real good nowadays. Also, and this might be a bit of a weird one, I’m so fucking happy to know I can still enjoy gay ships. I’ve been a bit uncertain over the last few years because when I was around 16-18, I had a real big yaoi phase, which mostly came from the fact so much stuff came out that tickled my brain in the right way (Free, Haikyuu, etc.). But over the years, my enthusiasm died down, and I even started to resent some ships because it’s all some fandoms produced. I often found myself liking a hetero ship more than the popular gay ship, which really made me not wanna stick around because I did not care for most fanart and you can only go through a tag with art you don’t care about so long before you lose interest. I think in retrospect that it rly had nothing to do with the ships being gay ships but rather cos the fans just shoved it in your face when you didn’t care (and shipping culture nowadays also can get real scary). But I’m so happy to see I can still get obsessed with a ship and it’s all thanks to Haikaveh/Kavetham. It really just needed the right flavour for me to dig in again. And oh my god, I FINALLY like a ship with a SHIT TON of art and fanfictions, no more scrounging the crumbs from the bottom of the barrel. 

Anyways, enough lamenting. Here’s to hoping I can bite my tongue and get shit started properly in 2024, and that my brainrots may make me obsessed enough to churn out an obscene amount of fanart again.

[capn-twitchery]

I'm sorry did I see you say you did your masters' thesis on character design? could you tell us more? 👀

YES ABSOLUTELY thank you So much for giving me an excuse to go off about this oh my god--SO!! 👀

my masters was on animation, specifically concept art & pitch bibles for animation (i'm not sure how well known those are but basically it's a document/book you bring into a pitch, contains all the basics of the show!) so it focused around making an animated show concept, a pitch bible & a visual development portfolio (just a fancier way to display more concept art) & the thesis (was supposed to) document the thought process behind making it

it was classed as a science masters, which meant the project had to be based around a hypothesis, so things got Muddled (hypothesis was on the rarity of adult horror in western animation) but the core of it was: i wanted to make a pitch for a fake tv show and write about character design & analyse art styles. so i did! there was stuff on stereotypical design traits & what they imply, environmental storytelling, how to show story through character design, how genres affect art styles & why, stylising animals for animation, sticking to historic research vs visual shorthands/readability, off the top of my head.

i will spare you hours of ramblings BUT i will not spare you the chance to show off some of the stuff i made >:3c the show concept was an 1800s (vaguely) southern gothic horror vibe, i went for anthros bc i had never tried them before and wanted something more challnging than humans. story concept was based around ergotism, mass hysteria, unreality, weird creatures in the fields that may or may not be real, power struggles, etc. etc.

the pitch bible i am still so Unbelievably proud of--i made everything basically from scratch myself, drew so many things i'd never even Attempted before, and although i'd change a few things now (mainly the writing/formatting) i'm still proud of it! i think the visitants pag is the coolest thing i've ever made still >:3c here's a handful of pages, and i'll put a few of the visual development portfolio ones under the cut & the links to the full things if anybody is interested!!

i never did get to finish the visdev portfolio bc of a bunch of health issues + a surgery, which is a shame. i do still really like this project tho and i'm immensely proud of getting the degree even through the Fuckery 😌

i'd love to come back to it someday, there's a lot of things i'd like to change now i'm not under a time limit (better historical reference, for one) but it's the first uni project i've still felt passionate about after submitting it, so thank you for giving me the chance to talk about it :D

if you did wanna see the full pieces, the pitch bible is here and the portfolio is here (albeit unfinished)

[effypcfcwrites]

The Owl House

(Originally posted on my personal Facebook dated April 25, 2023)

This is probably the first time I'll be posting a detailed review of a piece of media that I like, so witness me sing all of my praises for this animated series from the House of Mouse, because wow, I've never been so invested in a Disney show after rewatching Gravity Falls.

For those unfamiliar, The Owl House revolves around Luz Noceda, a teenage girl who stumbles upon a portal to an alternate world called The Boiling Isles, meets a witch named Eda Clawthorne, learns magic under her tutelage and eventually enrolls in Hexside, a magic school where she makes many friends and goes on multiple adventures.

I binged this whole show in a span of weeks and even stayed up all night on my day off to finish it up to Season 3, the first 2 Seasons being on Disney+ and the latter on Disney Channel's YouTube page.

Simply put, I love it so much! I love how it reminds me of Avatar: The Last Airbender, Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, and, dare I say, Harry Potter, which it even poked fun at, at times. Well-deserved, considering J.K. Rowling’s transphobic views and HP’s underlying anti-Semitic undertones.

I loved the pop culture references to Thor: Ragnarok, Howl's Moving Castle, Metal Gear Solid, and even Hades, among many others! I thought those were very clever and funny, and just a treat for fellow nerds, geeks, and fans of fantasy stories, anime, and video games.

I love the LGBTQ+ representation all throughout the show, which was such a bold move considering Disney’s iffy stance on the subject. None of them were antagonized for it, and it was treated as something normalized in both the Human and Demon Realms. The show featured 2 gay dads, non-binary and aromantic-asexual characters, and one of the internet’s favorite sapphic/WLW couples Lumity, which is the ship consisting of canonically bisexual Luz and implied lesbian Amity Blight, whose rivals-to-friends-to-lovers relationship was just so wholesome, so natural, and very healthy, considering they're both teenagers. Suprisingly, there was very little melodrama, not once were they petty towards one another whenever either party did something wrong, and they never got tired of showing affection towards each other. I found myself shamelessly gushing over how cute, adorable, and supportive they were together, and tearing up a lot during key moments of their relationship, especially when they both found themselves in dire straits as the story progressed.

I love the writing and the character development of them all! None of them felt static, they all grew throughout the series, maturing, getting better, and healing from their own insecurities, trauma, and guilt. The humor and comedic timing was a nice touch, and I was really taken aback by how S2 ended on such a dark cliffhanger with all stakes raised to the roof, similar to A:TLA S2 and The Empire Strikes Back, as mentioned earlier. That season wasn’t afraid to have such a grim ending, with such a great payoff by the end of S3 which is worth celebrating.

I love the animation and art style, which blended colorful and whimsical with eerie and ominous in just the right amounts. As a sucker for animated movies and series such as Adventure Time, The Prince of Egypt, and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, it was just such a delight watching it.

I love the overarching message of the show, which is to be truly yourself, to embrace your quirks, and never to limit yourself and your potential based on what the majority of society and the powers-that-be expect from you. All throughout, you’ll find the characters challenging pre-established norms and roles, and it’s just so satisfying seeing them all win.

11/10 top-tier show. Don’t @ me, it’s hard for me to find something I disliked about the series. It's definitely a must-watch, especially if you're sick and tired of all the bleak nihilism of modern adult animation, and you just want to baby your inner child and escape to a whimsical fantasy world with characters you can all relate to. Betting my bottom peso you'll all be hooked, like I was.

[mcyt-summer-of-yuri]

Hello all!! With the event nearly upon us, I figured it was about time (finally) to post a sort of FaQ for the event! So buckle up, everyone, this post is gonna be a bit of a long one.

What is the event timeline?

March 14th - March 28th: Mod applications

April 21st - May 4th: Signup period

April 21st: Discord opens

May 5th - May 18th: Assignments sent out

May 19th - June 29th: Gift making period

June 9th - June 29th: Pinch-hits period

June 30th - July 13th: First gift posting period

June 30th - July 20th: Second gift posting period

August 31st: Treat posting deadline

Is there an age limit to the event?

Since this event is run through Tumblr and an event Discord, the age limit to join will be 13 if you wish to join the Discord, but if you will only be participating via Tumblr, there will be no age minimum in place. To create/receive any NSFW gifts, on the other hand, the age limit will be 18 and we ask that your gift be censored when posted on Tumblr if it is a visual art medium (though if you wish to DM your giftee with an uncensored version, go right ahead!).

What is definitely not allowed?

• Themes of incest (canonical or in relation to headcanons specified in sign-ups)

• Themes of pedophilia (referring to ships containing minors, such as Child/Adult, Teen/Adult, Child/Child, or Teen/Child pairings, with an exception to platonic or romantic pairings consisting of only characters between the ages of 14 to 17 for Teen/Teen relationships)

• Themes of underage drinking/drug use (consumption of substances by characters under the age of 18)

• Themes of abuse (physical/mental/sexual harm inflicted on a character or mutually between multiple characters involved)

• Usage of slurs (words used in a derogatory fashion against a character in regards to aspects of who or what they are)

• Lack of consent (while dubious consent may be allowed if requested in your sign up, a lack of consent entirely will not be tolerated)

• AI generated art (this applies to fanart generated by AI, fanfic created using chat bots, and anything else along these lines)

What are the gift requirements?

There will be a few options for what kind of gift you can make, as well as the option to DM a mod either here or on the discord once it opens if your preferred gift type is not listed or if you would like to make your giftee an extra gift of a non-listed art type. The options and their requirements are listed as such!!

Art - clean sketch with lineart minimum (or whatever point of the process this would be in your art style if lineart is not applicable)

Writing - 1,000 word count minimum (if you intend to write multiple chapters, you must have at least 2/3 of your total story written by posting period and the first chapter must be no less than 800 words long)

Playlist - 2hr length minimum

Moodboards/Stimboards - minimum of 2 boards equaling out to 18 elements

Webweave - at least 1 board containing 10 elements

Video Edit - at least 45 seconds in length

Poem - 100 word count minimum (or multiple shorter poems with a total of no less than 100 words)

Other Original Content (DM a mod on the Tumblr or once the Discord opens for more information on alternative gift suggestions such as cosplay videos, original songs, animations, or other such ideas)

What are the included fandoms?

What are the Included Fandoms?:

For the sake of this event you will be given a list of fandoms to choose from in your sign up form to determine which series' you are willing to create/receive a gift about as well as listed characters in each series (with a section to include unlisted characters, though those will be taken as optional rather than required for the sake of matching you with a potential gifter) The selected series are listed (in no specific order) below!!

Life Series/Traffic Life SMP

Empires SMP

DSMP

QSMP

Witchcraft SMP

Rats SMP

Pirates SMP

Outsiders SMP

One Life SMP

X Life SMP

AfterLife SMP

New Life SMP

Hermitcraft

Kingdomcraft

Minecraft Diaries

MyStreet

What counts as "yuri"?

For the purposes of this event, we will not be accepting genderbends or trans headcanons of canonically cis male characters. Yuri would include any pairing or character who would be eligible to fit into either the Sapphic or Trixic umbrellas.

What if I just don't have the time?

Well, if you're worried about not being available during the creation period but still want to participate, you're more than welcome to sign on as a beta reader (not just for looking over/helping out with fics!) or a pinch hitter/bench warmer!! Beta readers are anyone who would like to help someone out in the creation of their gift, such as glancing it over for any errors, brainstorming ideas, or other helpful things!! A pinch hitter (also known sometimes as a bench warmer) is someone who steps up in the event that someone who was signed up previously decides that - for whatever reason - they would be unable to finish the gift on time, and it is given to someone else to make on a more time-crunched schedule!! Both of these roles are very helpful and valuable to have in an event like this, so if you aren't sure about joining the event as a primary member, keep in mind these roles may also be options for you! Beta readers will be a Discord-only role, but pinch hitter roles will be available to anyone interested on both Discord and Tumblr, just be sure to respond quickly or someone else may take the offered hit before you!

Is this a Tumblr-only event?

Yes and no. While the event is run on Tumblr, you don't have to only post your gift here during the posting period! Edits may be posted to YouTube/Tiktok, fics/poems may be posted to Ao3/Wattpad/ffdn, playlists can be uploaded to Spotify/YouTube, wherever else you would normally post your content!! The only thing asked of you is that you don't post any spoilers before the posting period begins. No "here's an update on an edit/fanart I'm making for a gift exchange" videos/screenshots or the like, no posting poetry/fic snippets, and keep any playlists made on Spotify privated, for example!! You'll be DMed on Discord with your assignment if you join the Discord, and DMed your assignment on Tumblr if you don't! No stress either way.

Is joining the Discord required?

You don't have to join the discord to participate if you don't want/are unable to!! The discord is just a hub for those participating to talk about things and interact with one another, but if you aren't able/don't want to join for whatever reason, that's perfectly okay! There will be a deadline countdown every so often on the Tumblr, and on the Discord as well, so those not in the server will stay in the loop on that front!! If you don't plan on joining the Discord, just mark that down in your sign up sheet and everything will be just fine.

Will there be an Ao3 collection?

There will be a collection you're free to add your gifts to if you so wish, but it will be moderated so only those with given access can approve it into the collection during the posting period! If you'd like to add a fic, fanart, series of poems, or whatever else to the collection, feel free to do so and it'll stay anonymous until the posting period begins!!

Finally, who are the mods?

Our lovely moderators are hard at work making sure this event can stay on track! Everyone give them a round of applause!!

@rutellingmeashrimpfriedthisrice (event runner)

@daisy-bugs @aliteral-ghost @feyscape @sexyinaratkindaway @kaije224 @blocky-tides @queercode-my-minecraft @muriers

[peculiar-potato]

raaaaaaaagh teaser image for the among us animated tv series dropped and I just have to scream about it and analyze it a little bit

(Source)

My ramblings under the cut:

I like the art style! It’s a bit different, I was expecting something closer to the game style/style of images they post on social media and stuff where it’s very clean with sharp lines, but I think this works really well for what it seems like they’re trying to do here. I like the lineart and the kind of texture everything has? It adds a lot to some of the other stuff I’m going to talk about here.

First of all, the atmosphere. Again, really kinda different from what I was expecting, but in a nice way! I was expecting kinda like a clean, cool-toned, space-age look, but this gives me a lot more like run-down office vibes and I am HERE FOR IT.

The warped ceiling tiles? The dirt and grime? The bent blinds over the window? The burnt out light by the window and different colored fluorescent lights like one of the bulbs was replaced? It feels like I’m in some old corporate building that hasn’t been properly maintained in years, which is so different and so fun from what you normally see in a spaceship and totally matches the vibes of (at least what I headcanon to be) a sketchy space corporation.

I also love all the little details here.

The little food window and vending machine so the cafeteria is actually a cafeteria, the pizza with who knows what kind of toppings on it (why is it green?? I’m so curious), and the fact that everything is held up with duct tape- even the fire extinguisher? It’s so fun I love all of it.

This is also actually a really faithful adaption of the map. Like, I know, of course it is, but I know things have to get changed a lot for animation sometimes and they did a good job of keeping it very similar.

I am going to be that guy and point out a few differences but just because I think they’re neat and interesting!! Not at all bad!

(At least between this and the classic game, I’ve never played Among Us VR)

First of all, the trash task and wires task actually swapped sides, on the map, the wires are on the left and the trash is on the right, but here it’s flipped. I also can’t find the download data task, unless it’s supposed to be the tv? Probably all just aesthetic choices but kinda interesting!

There’s also the big food window and the door, but if you look at the orientation of the walls of the room, it actually checks out! The door and window would be against the left wall, where you wouldn’t actually see it looking from the angle in game.

The vending machine isn’t there in the game, at least on the Skeld map, but that’s ok the beans deserve their snacks! I did notice there’s kinda a panel behind it so I’m counting that as the panel that’s on the right wall next to the download task being there (even though it’s definitely too small to be that). That and the wires are actually on the slanted wall, but again, I don’t care, this is just me pointing out every difference like an I-spy challenge.

Also the cafeteria tables have stools now instead of benches, and I kinda like that! I also like the stripe of kinda a maroon-ish color added to the tables and stools, really kinda ties together well with the walls and such. And the floor, thank goodness they did something about that floor for the animators’ sake. I like the original floor design but I know firsthand just how hard that floor is to draw, especially at an angle.

I don’t know how to really speculate on the party stuff other than I’m intrigued haha. Maybe it’s like they’re celebrating taking off and surviving or being the only crew with no impostor attacks or something (of course that’s implying a lot about the non-existent lore) and then everything goes wrong? Maybe the red is pizza sauce or ketchup and we’re being misled for the funnies?

I’m kinda hopeful about the humor here, with the “we’re not dead” banner and stuff, I’m really hoping this will be something I’ll enjoy too as an adult and the vibes I’m getting from this are encouraging. Like maybe a kinda workplace dark comedy?

I’m also sososososo curious about what we’ll get in terms of characters (I WANNA SEE THE BEANS SHOW ME THE BEANS) and worldbuilding and lore here, eeeeeeeeeeeeee

Ok, I’ll stop for now, but you know I’ll be following this very closely lol.

tldr: not entirely what I was expecting but I like it and the direction it’s going a lot :))))))

Edit 2/3/24- just noticed there’s no emergency meeting button??? Is it under the pizza?? Has it not been installed yet?? WHERE IS IT 👁️👄👁️

[suzuran777]

Revisiting Gakuen Handsome: Backstory + short review

I think every BL fan has seen something related to Gakuen Handsome at some point in their lives, it's a parody BL visual novel with quite the legacy. It was originally released in 2010 by Team YokkyuFuman and it also got its own OVA and anime adaptation in 2015 & 2016. The protagonist, who is an unnamed seventeen year old boy, moves back to the city after a seven year absence. He enrolls into Baramon High School, a prestigious all-boys school which takes pride in being the best of its prefecture. From now on, his life will be changed forever...

First of all, the developer team's backstory is probably one of the most unique ones. In 2008, eight film students from the Tohoku University of Art and Design formed Team YokkyuFuman (チーム欲求腐満). Their blog mentions that a year later, they attempted to submit the Gakuen Handsome opening movie to the 9th edition of the Niconico Film Festival (their submission was completely ignored). After that, the opening movie was uploaded on NicoNico Douga, where it was quite well received. The description of the video mentions “to be released in 20009”, as they originally probably had no intention to create a full game.

After it became a hot topic on NicoNico Douga, the team decided to continue production, and in 2010 they released the game "Gakuen Handsome". Their university even gave them permission to organize an official exhibition: Gakuen Handsome Matsuri (or just Gakuen Handsome Festival). Visitors could watch the opening movie, learn more about the characters and take pictures together with the life-sized cardboard cutouts. The exhibition also featured rare merch: A drama CD which would be released in "20009" and canned bread.

This exhibition was apparently not only held once, but many times according to their blog. The game was finally released in 2010 and many fans were happy to finally play it, supporting the team that created it. Togo Mito, who many of you know as the creator of (in)famous BL game Hadaka Shitsuji, also collaborated with them. These are some pictures I found on Togo Mito's old blog, Mizoguchi and Juro drawn by Togo Mito and the Hadaka Shitsuji cast drawn by Team YokkyuFuman.

Even after graduation, it seems like they would occasionally invite some of Gakuen Handsome's creators. In 2014, the university tweeted that they would not be able to host the exhibition that year due to renovations, but visitors could take pictures with the cardboard cutouts. There's also an interview from 2016 on the university's website, in which they talk about how things have been after graduation! I absolutely love how the university supported all of this.

Now about the game itself... Where to even start? You'll have to trust me, but the game is actually good. Many parody games can be quite a hit or miss, but this visual novel is something I still catch myself laughing at years later. The inconsistent art, pointy chins and strange jokes really create an experience unlike anything else. I don't think any commercial company would be able to create something like this, even if they tried. One detail that the anime adaptation doesn't really show is that many different artists worked on this, whose styles widely vary from each other, making absolutely no attempt to create one consistent artstyle. Most characters have at least 2 ~ 3 sprites that often look completely different from each other. For example, sometimes Saionji sensei looks like a clean-shaven teenager/young adult, but in the CGs he suddenly turn into an older looking man with a stubble.

Yes he's talking about eating paint in the screenshot above, why not. Anyway... the voice acting in this game is something else I wanted to talk about, because it adds so much to the game. Of course it's not professional, but I think that's what makes it amazing. You can sometimes hear the voice actors trying really hard not to laugh, and they will occasionally completely mess up their lines. Of course all of those lines are kept in the game and they didn't re-record them. I also loved it when they started swearing in English for seemingly no reason. Also, instead of just avoiding the name of the protagonist (who you can give any name you want) they pronounce it... by improvision. Just imagine how one would try to pronounce a "adfgdf" keysmash and you'll get an idea what it sounds like.

There are 6 characters in this game who you can romance. The protagonist's childhood friend Takuya, who is a bit obsessed with the protein bar Calorie Mate (which is censored in the new version of the game, so you just hear a BLEEP sound), outlaw teacher Saionji, school principal Juro who basically only functions as a save point, student council president Kagami, chuunibyou transfer student Shiga, and last but not least, the captain of the soccer team Mitsurugi, who also murders people with his chin sometimes. The protagonist's sister also has a (non-romantic) ending, which you need to play in order to unlock the extra scenario (which... is a ridiculous murder mystery story for some reason). I also could not find the guide I used a long time ago, so I just looked at some videos on NicoNico to see what others were doing and that worked pretty well...!

My favorite scene is probably still that one scene in Mitsurugi's route, in which he stabs people with his chin. It's also one of the scenes that gets referenced the most in fanart. The context makes it even more ridiculous, Mitsurugi gets really upset that some people like the chunky variant of red bean paste (tsubuan) and decides they should die. After stabbing his teammate and multiple other people he runs outside. The protagonist however, isn't safe either and also gets accused of being a "tsubuan supporter". If you survive though, you get a chance to marry Mitsurugi!

Honestly one of the reasons I wanted to write about this game is because many people only know the OVA and/or anime, but the game is so funny I think everyone should play it if they're interested. I also think the team behind it has such a funny backstory and I love seeing how supportive their university is. Right now the team is still active on their Twitter account and they sometimes create new content. Last year they released Gakuen Handsome Fighters, a short fighting game featuring the Gakuen Handsome characters.

If you are interested in purchasing it, I recommend getting the "Special" edition which can be purchased on DLsite! I couldn't find a working download link anymore of the older version, but I think the creators deserve the support, so I don't regret buying it (it was about 15 USD). It includes the original game and 5 shorter stories which were originally released as smartphone apps. While I think the original game is still the best one, it's fun to explore some of the extra scenarios as well. One of the shorter games takes place in an alternative universe in which the boys live in the Heian period, and for some reason some of the sprites are animated... yeah.

[kafus]

i’ve been showing my mom pokemon horizons (we just finished episode 8, will be watching 9 whenever we do another session) and like for context my mom is over 60 years old and not a pokemon fan (though she does have scattered pokemon knowledge because of osmosis from me and living thru pokemania in the 90s with my older brother before i was born)

it’s been interesting seeing how she reacts as someone at that age. like uh

- this is further proving to me how important the adult characters are in horizons. my mom isn’t super articulate with her feelings on media but she had a lot of visible/audible reactions to moments between friede and roy the past few episodes - like personally as a 24 year old i get a lot out of the adult characters but i think my mom does too because she relates to/enjoys the parenting dynamic, which is helping her enjoy it more overall

- in speaking of friede, them putting in a gen 1 charizard pikachu man was actually a very good decision because my mom has remarked on how cool charizard is and gets a kick out of cap’s smug energy. they’re very recognizable to her and she likes them LOL

- it’s really funny how much the anime art style can still confuse her though, despite being exposed to it heavily since i got into anime in the 4th grade in the mid/late 2000s. sometimes she mistakes a certain expression/emotion for another, like asking why liko was mad in one scene when she was actually Determined. she has asked me why anne only has one fang and why it keeps switching sides, and she asked if landau was even a human being and not a pokemon because she was so confused by his facial hair’s stylization and his wacky clothes (he actually freaks her out a bit. the only character she doesn’t like LOL it’s hitting some sort of uncanny valley for her)

- this is more applicable to my mom because of her exposure to pokemon and not the average older person, but it’s funny seeing her deal with the new anime structure with what little she previously knows. she’s asked things like “doesn’t he have more pokemon?” @ amethio continuously sending out ceruledge and “don’t they have other moves?” @ liko and roy spamming leafage and ember at each other. horizons tends to give everyone just one or two partner pokemon and catching and training up pokemon has been comparatively slow, which is actually something i enjoy, but my mom is a bit confused by it LOL

- on the note of my mom’s pokemon knowledge, i just found this really endearing: in HZ006 when rayquaza is first released, for one she excitedly asked if the pokemon was coming out of the ball, and then when she saw it she asked if it was gyarados. i said no that’s rayquaza. and she was like huh why did i think of gyarados. and i said well they’re both flying noodles. later she said she was surprised she knew that association/was proud of herself for it and i thought that was cool too LMAO

- she has no strong opinions on dot yet, we aren’t far enough, but i made sure to point at the screen really emphatically when she showed up and say THAT’S MY FAVORITE CHARACTER!! so she knows. she Knows i’ve been showing her all my likodot art anyway SORRY MOM

anyway those were just some of my thoughts watching it with her has been really enjoyable :)

[kikuism]

ranking gojo's outfits in the anime/manga!!! not counting official art and i might've missed some these are just what i remember off the top of my head

7: the collarbone shirt

the girls were going bonkers bananas over this look but im sorry it doesn't do anything for me. i don't care about his collarbones. i prefer a buttoned up gojo, the flashes of skin i like to see on him are not 'delicate' like shoulders/collarbone (seeing those on geto however is a different story, it suits him, that's more his style imo) but im going to expand on that later. such a shame too bc black is his color but this shirt is just Not it. and those fuckass glasses!!! ive always hated them good lord

6: wild side

okay soooo he's very cute in the ed i remember being very charmed by him when i first saw this but the clothes do nothing sorry. i think it's the colors. but i also think it's the collared half sleeve shirt that's just not working in his favor like either commit to a full sleeved collared shirt or no collar at all. also the shirt under the shirt doesn't work either. points for the blindfold though!!!!!!

5: baseball dad

again the way the girlies were going googoo gaga over this look.....no <3 this is Not hot. come on. this is the most office dad look i've ever seen. i do like the sleeves rolled up exposing the forearms that's always tasteful, and the one button left undone giving just a hint of neck. nice! and i like how this outfit is contained and put-together. i don't like the glasses though, i hate the shape. BLINDFOLD SUPERIORITY !!!!!!! for me what makes this kinda cute is more the context of the outfit, supervising the baseball game and bonding with his students <3 and also i like how it's his attempt to look more sophisticated and like a real adult that's cuteee

4: jjk0

CUTE!!!! a nice casual look. see, again i like how he's covered up lol it just suits him so much. i guess it just fits also bc he's so closed off from everyone around him and i like when his clothes reflect that but it's very stylish all the same. this is peak casual relaxed getting over his bf gojo and i love that for him. extra points for the blindfold once more !!!! black is his color 🖤✨

3. robes

ONE OF MY FAVES and we only get it for 30 seconds but the long loose flowy look is just superior on him and he's fully covered which i love. he fills it out so well too with his physique. any character wearing traditional clothing is always a plus for me!!!! really not much else to say here it's just so lovely

2: vs sukuna

HE LOOKS SO GOOD HERE. giggling and twirling my hair hiiiii gojo. this is a great look bc it's understated in its simplicity but highlights his physique very tastefully. like it's not even the outfit itself but more what it's conveying. he is strong!!!! there's a sense of power here, and i love how it's not overt either, we're not seeing like every single line of his abs, which would just give me the ick (sorry toji girlies), it's more like the charisma is on full display here. and i know it seems like thus far i prefer covered up gojo and yes that's true, but if he's going to show skin, it has to either be unintentional (hint of navel as his shirt hitches up, back of the neck exposed with the blindfold, etc), or purposefully on display like this. gojo’s not a skinny twink despite how mappa portrays him, and he's far from dainty in his mannerisms, so dainty displays of skin just don't work on him (the collarbone shirt). if you have a strong physique this is how you show it off!!! well done gege!!!!!!! i just really hope in the anime they don't give him ab lines like toji pleaseeeee that'll ruin it for me. he has such a nice build and this is coming from someone who really doesn't give a fuck about muscles...(pssst here's my veryyy unpopular opinion but that nanami scene that was making the rounds well i just didn't care for it bc i don't care at all for that insanely built look in fact it turns me off 😭)

1. the uniform™

the undisputed champion. number one in my heart always and forever. this is how we're introduced to gojo and im not ashamed to say it was over for me at first sight. how can you not want to know more about him??? it's such a neutral look, so simple and doesn't define or enhance anything but at the same time it's so sleek and sophisticated, all black and all straight sharp lines making up his silhouette. huge fan of how his neck is covered too like every part of him is hidden and inaccessible which is exactly who he is as a person <3 it's so unassuming that it becomes invisible in a way and elevates his charisma if that makes sense. while i really love the vs sukuna outfit, that one conveys a 'going all out' energy which is great but this one just imbues that easy breezy cocky confidence ('my students are watching so i'm going to show off a little' he says in this bedroom voice while his lips basically brush sukuna’s ear WHEW I'LL STOP) that enamored me to him instantly. not to mention the shibuya insanity <3 this really is the superior look!!! sometimes less is more and for someone with such explosive power and a larger than life personality, for this all to be contained in this totally nondescript uniform just clicks in my brain in the best way. the juxtaposition really makes this one. in conclusion he looks THE BEST when he's covered up and understated ‼️

[amywarrel]

Sonny Boy and The Lost Youth - an anime analysis by Amy Warrel

This analysis is enormous. You have been warned.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The world is confusing. No one knows how to properly navigate it. You’ll get a grasp on it eventually and there might be people to help you out, but one day you might also drift apart. That’s a very sad notion, but it also one that reminds us of one thing: what we lived has value, those memories of old are meaningful and our connections to other people will continue to shape us long after those relations are over. Sonny Boy is not subtle in its commentary about getting lost in the world and society. The characters are all transported to a world in which their school is the whole extent of said world. Everything beyond it is pitch black; you can reach for it, but you don’t know what you’ll be getting yourself into. Inside, teenagers try to make it into a functional society, but are obviously all lacking in resources and life experience to do so. Some people are more talented or stronger than others, and that is enough for social bubbles to emerge. I’m sure most of us can relate to the notion that we are getting left behind, that other people are finding their careers, finding what they are good at, have a decent idea of what their life will be like once they step out of school or even already have a future guaranteed, but we — or I — always feel like the outcast.

As someone who spent their whole teen days knowing the only path I could pursue in life was the path of art — which ultimately led me to turn to literature —, I can highly relate to coming of age stories and the anxiety of stepping into adulthood. I can barely manage adulthood even after having been an adult for supposedly four years and “getting ready” — you eventually learn that school is not as good of a leeway into working life as you were led to expect — for it for many more years, so I can see a lot of myself in these character’s emotions, struggles and decisions.

Nagara is the closest thing to a stand-in for the audience in this show, but has enough of a personality that he does not come out as simply self-insert material. Being an introvert does not mean you don’t have a personality, it just means yours doesn’t come out as much, especially in such a confusing age and place where opening yourself up to others is hard when you don’t know how they will react and harder still when you might not even understand why you feel the way you feel. Nagara’s character is used to talk about others' expectations in a very direct way in a couple of episodes, as well as the importance of social connections, while the “speaking up for yourself'' part is also shared mainly with Mizuho.

I am surprised to see Mizuho not being revealed as a transgender character later in the series, since she is reading Stop!! Hibari-kun! In her first appearance, a 1981 manga about a transgender girl going through school who also turns out to be the daughter of a yakuza, but as it turns out, I simply hadn’t realized that Hisashi Eguchi, the character designer for Sonny Boy, is the author and artist of Hibari-kun. Mizuho is by far the easiest character for me to relate to because of this, because of her relation to cats — I have more than twenty of them, it has gotten out of control, someone please help —, because I would have loved to look similar to her through my teenage days — having come out as a transgender girl myself after over a decade of suffering with gender dysphoria — and because she is just very entertaining to watch on screen. I also love her voice; Yuuki Aoi sounds like she is very close to the microphone when speaking just like how all the other characters are doing, which couples with the anime’s more simplistic art style dedicated to giving each character more distinct facial features instead of just telling everyone apart from their hair color, these being techniques that invite a lot more intimacy from the audience and drags them closer to the characters and, by extension, the themes. Having said that, something about Yuuki Aoi’s voice just entices me. I believe she communicates Mizuho’s melancholic and occasionally smug personality with impressive effectiveness.

Of course, the character’s don’t stand in school for long. The first episode’s arc is a very self-contained one about rules, authority and the dangers of it, in which losing said authority leads a kid to hit another one with a baseball bat in the head. Power is a dangerous thing, it messes with our morals, it makes us scared of risking it and can be used both for good and for evil, even by the same person. Give someone too much power and it’s a matter of time and circumstance until you get yourself a war.

I believe the first episode was presented this way with airing conditions in mind. Sonny Boy overall lands itself incredibly well on the style of episodic storytelling with a narrative and thematic throughline to glue it all together, honestly one of the best I have seen yet in that department. Making a first episode that presents the audience with a simple premise in a restricted environment is a great way to ease the viewer into the story.

That structure gets quickly expanded upon as Nozomi takes a leap of faith towards the unknown world, and all the students now find themselves on a new island and with the information that there are many “This Worlds”. All weird places that no one understands exactly, all connected in some fashion that they are still to uncover, and all of it can be conquered by the kids’ specific powers — talents, as they are thematically shown to be — and give them different rewards that they then have to learn how to use. It is not hard to see what that means: its plot significance is one of adding flavor and mystery to the world to better mark the student’s progress as they peel off the mechanics of these worlds little by little, but its thematic significance is one of putting your talents and skills to use and being rewarded for your work.

However, that is just the first episode and there are eleven more to go. Yes, I’ll be going through this commenting “briefly” about what stood out to me in every episode, which I never do, but this anime is an exception and it deserves it. Full on spoilers from now on, you have been warned.

Each episode deals with a couple of different themes but there are always one or two clearly main ones. The series is more interested in discussing these themes in its surreal world than properly grounding every facet of the worldbuilding, which is totally unnecessary once you are shining so many lights on the relevance of the themes above everything else. Yes, the anime has a lot of small little mechanics the characters need to understand about each world, but these mechanisms are generally intrinsically tied to the theme of each world, so don’t expect the type of worldbuilding we are used to seeing. It is not important that we know everything about the island, how far apart things are and where everything is being built, it is more important that we understand how the characters react to their environment and how they communicate — or attempt to — through said world.

Episode two, for instance, leads to the canonical creation of cryptocurrency by everyone’s dearest Rajdhani, but really the important aspect of it is commenting on how a society gets formed à la Lord of the Flies. There are other elements to this episode, such as Mizuho having to speak for herself as I commented earlier, the fact that value is attached to things by our own decisions and how this value can be altered through the means in which these things are obtained, but episode two is still primarily about introducing Mizuho’s character and her struggles with being a kid who wants to be more than just a kid.

I particularly love the fact that at no point does the plot judge Mizuho for having a crush on her teacher. That sort of stuff happens. She can’t be blamed for developing feelings for a figure she sees as a guiding light in a twisted world. We are very clearly led to understand that she decided to wear a ring not because she was in an actual relationship with him, but because she saw that as a stating of her own maturity. Other characters later bring attention more than once to Mizuho’s emotional dependency, it used to be put at least partially on her teacher, but because of the blackmailing she suffered and the circumstances of being stranded, that then turned exclusively to her cats. And I ask again: can she be blamed for it? No, she can’t, and I appreciate the writing for being self-aware enough to understand that and respect her character instead of turning this into what could have been a generic villainization of teen sexuality. Please note that I am only talking about her emotional dependency and her having a crush on her teacher, I am not saying that actually being involved in a romantical and or sexual relationship with a teacher is ethical, especially considering that Mizuho is sixteen years old.

One of the great things that fantastical elements in a story allows is the literalization of metaphors. Episode three does this by using a rule that makes recluse people totally isolated within a pocket dimension of endless black curtains, all connected to each other through gaps in these curtains, meaning there is a way for them to communicate with each other. In this dimension they are all doing what they want to be doing: one guy is livestreaming Pacman, there is one buff dude that only wants to work out and a girl that is sewing multiple stuffed toys… you get the idea.

Society isolates people and that should be a given in any system created by humans. There is simply too much idiosyncrasies in our relations and personalities and it would be goddam boring if everyone was the same. Of course it can get to a point where it is detrimental to the isolated person, but that begins as a way to cope with our inability to communicate with people we feel we should be able to communicate with — because everyone else does, apparently — and our interests and passions not being well-seen or simply really hard to turn into a living. Who wouldn’t like to live in a world in which subsistence is a given and we can do whatever we want and repeat our hobbies for as long as we can stand them because we enjoy it?

Some aspects of Sonny Boy’s multiple worlds can maybe be related to the concept of a noosphere: a state of evolution defined by our consciousness, mental activities and interactions with other people, it is both above and ahead of the geosphere and the biosphere and envisions a world in which Earth is essentially a super-organism and there is a layer of consciousness and information enveloping it all. I am not claiming to be an expert on the matter and maybe the creators weren’t even trying to pursue this idea in particular — seen in the fact that they like mentioning Robinson Crusoe, so you could expect then to mention the noosphere —, but the many This Worlds in the story are described as playing with consciousness and the mind. Also, in a noosphere humans would be united enough to be able to deal with global problems and Earth can self-regulate itself, which these Worlds do by their own set of rules. I’m sorry if anyone has studied this and if I said something wrong about it.

Going back to episode three, it keeps pulling the thread of commenting about isolation with things such as no one noticing these people’s disappearance except those in direct interaction with then and these people might not even go looking for the missing ones, which is certainly how most people I know describe the feeling of being depressed and the notion that no one understands them. It also has some very direct commentary about our capitalist society through reflecting on the fact that the blue flames of the island take everything away from you that you haven’t paid for and with Mizuho complaining about people wanting to be friends with her power — what she can do —, instead of with herself — who she is. It is not a particularly complex exploration of the individual's relation with capitalism and their worth in it, but at least it is something.

This episode also turns Nagara and Mizuho into a duo, which is something we are going to see a lot more of through the remaining episodes. You get the drill: they fail to communicate, fight, then manage to properly communicate — which goes hand in hand with the episode’s theme of isolation caused by an inability to communicate — and solve the issue together, yadda yadda, we have seen that before. It is executed competently and makes sense within the story, but Sonny Boy is not a non-stop flow of impressive big ideas and unexpected twists and turns leading to their incredible solution, it is that just most of the time.

Episode four then comments more directly about how talent can distance people. That is a recurring theme through the whole show, but in this episode we see a story about an ape who wanted to play baseball, but could not because of the physical liability of only having one arm, but that did not stop him from loving the sport and ending up as an arbiter, however he was seen as the common person, relegated to a background position while other, more talented and successful people shine in the spotlights, leading him to be killed by an enraged crowd for standing up to his sense of justice. Before that all the apes were indistinguishable, having to stand out on the basis of their prowess, while some people are like the blue ape, clearly different and talented enough to steal everyone’s attention and moments to shine, which leads him to forget his origin as the target of prejudice and causing harm to another victim when the goal of being perfect becomes more important than enjoying the moment and the success he already has. Ace then goes on to say that the arbiter’s death was fair because there are common people who drown other’s talents — referring to his talent and Nagara causing him to lose an important game back when they played baseball —, but of course he is totally wrong in this. Loving something and having a competitive mindset about it can blind people sometimes and Ace does not realize this, while Nozomi, being by far the most conscious of her surroundings and constantly having insights about the other kids' psychology everytime the “camera” zooms in on her eyes, is the first one to call attention to the fact that the impressive ape in the whole story is the arbiter, for standing up for himself against everyone knowing that he would be seen as the enemy.

I know most of what I just said is spelled out in the episode, but since I am committed to reviewing the whole show I have to mention these details, because Sonny Boy constantly builds upon the themes of the last episode in the next one instead of just going for unrelated yet interesting themes or repeating the same ones like I feel other shows I don’t resonate with very strongly often do.

Nagara is also shown to not have enough control of his own power to determine where he wants to go. We find out that he can only travel to other This Worlds and not back to their original one. I believe Nagara to be the carrier of this power because he is just enough of a blank-slate to fit virtually anywhere while also not feeling like he belongs in any of them, having no clear goal in life and thus not wanting to go to any place in particular, drifting through whatever comes his way. Sure, he can bring other people with him, but it’s not as if he is going to any one place.

We end this episode with the introduction of Aki-sensei, someone the kids recognize as being one of their teachers back in the real world. Aki-sensei immediately tells them that the fun and games have ended and that there is no way to go back to their original world. While a lot of what she says is put to the test later on, Aki turns out to be a figure of authority manipulating these kids and creating even more distinction between the groups, managing to bring every single person that would be willing to trust a figure who is supposed to know what she is doing while the other groups are made of the students that want to find that out for themselves. Her primary target for manipulation is Asakaze and everything that was needed for him to trust her was hearing that he was special, that he deserves special attention and that he has a special future. Again, this is dealing with the psychology of people receiving power and status, in this case especially by someone who he sees as having a better grasp on reality and thus making her words all the more meaningful.

As soon as the sides are clearly divided conflicts start emerging faster and it doesn’t take long until we see three separate groups being formed. That is expected to happen whenever there is a society, especially when it starts to grow and people gravitate towards others similar to them and in whom they believe in. Aki-sensei is not right in her manipulations by any stretch, but her presence merely accelerates an ongoing process. The meaning of Aki-sensei in the story changes a bit once when we find out she is actually not Aki-sensei but another student playing as her, changing what was a figure of authority manipulating kids in vulnerable positions to being one of those kids, just as lost or even more lost than the others, pretending to be a figure of authority who understand the world better than they do and presenting it as necessity of maintaining the status quo while framing the other kids as potentially dangerous precisely because they are trying to lay change upon the world. Knowing all of this, it is no surprise what their actions later escalate into.

One of the most interesting ideas the anime introduces is in episode six, where they find a world that is a giant cinema filled to the brim with records from Nagara’s perspective. It fits his character considering Nagara is used to spending his days as simply an observer that takes no action and the way the mechanics are played with are interesting. What if we edit the records? What if we play it backwards? It doesn’t really matter how much this amounts to, the questions are interesting enough by themselves. Not all changes made to the films actually happen, even if Nagara is present, this probably means that not everything done to the films will actually change his perception of reality. If it is something that he can’t imagine happening or doesn’t have enough suspension of disbelief to accept, then it likely doesn’t affect the real world.

Yamabiko is a particularly interesting addition to the cast: a once student turned dog who has lived for five thousand years and finally gives us some answers, claiming that the reason the drifting happens is because their principal is God, explaining that only the school and students can get adrift and that it only happens with people from the same school they went to, no matter the time in which that happened. Though there is not much that can be said about Yamabiko and the themes revolving around his character before the episode dedicated to expanding on his background, he is still a fun and mysterious character that shares good synergy with Mizuho. He does, however, say that the kids from the current drifting still have time to go back. Our experiences through a structure like school and our teenage days shape us and once we step outside of it, we aren’t the same as when we first stepped in. Since the perception of reality is an important concept in this episode, then this means that if we changed, then the world itself changed, because our reality is simply how we see it. Nozomi, for instance, keeps talking about her compass and the light she believes will guide them home, but we don’t have to actually see that light to believe her. Yamabiko on the other hand simply can’t go back, because he has lost too much and been around for too long, to the point where he doesn’t even fit the actual real world he was used to.

My favorite part of episode six is when Nozomi is talking about how she doesn’t want to walk down the safe paths people have told her about just to think “Ah, good going.” That’s not what life is for her. Nozomi is a very brave and insightful person and she wants to do what she wants to do, she is a free spirit that can appreciate the present more than all the other kids. She can get anxious and scared, but that is precisely why she does it. Nozomi wants to feel, wants to live and wants to take risks. Honestly I would like to be a little bit more like her, but I’m simply not brave enough.

Hoshi’s White Knight Syndrome is also brought to the forefront in this episode. He knew the school was going to go adrift and that is why he went to school that day, because he wanted to help these people, but this is not presented as simply altruism. Hoshi had always been drawn as creepy and scheming if not necessarily evil, but as we also find out, this desire of him to help others does not exist because he actually wants to help them, but because he has a god complex and wants to be a savior. Meaning, he’s going about it the wrong way.

Episode seven is my least favorite of the bunch simply because it was the first to come out as too heavy-handed to me. You see, a lot in fiction boils down to promises and payoffs. The ending of episode six and the entirety of episode seven gave me the impression that the series was going into another direction, having the newly discovered plot about castaways that have been adrift for longer wanting to punish Nagara for ruining their lives take a more prominent place in the story. Don’t take me wrong, I’d much rather this current story that the anime has, but it did gave me the feeling that that was the promise being made for the long run, that this was the direction it was taking and by the ending of episode seven I was expecting it to turn into something similar to “us against the government”, so finding out that was not the case was both a relief and a confusing moment. Even after watching the episode again to try and judge it in a different light already knowing how the story ends, my view on this hasn’t changed.

This doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate anything that episode seven does, of course. Sonny Boy frequently calls attention to Nagara’s personality and the need to speak up for himself, but it is never offensive about it. Koumaru reaches the conclusion that Nagara can’t be blamed for drifting them and Yamabiko notes that God gave him that power with the intention of it being used for the drifting, which also means he can’t be blamed for being who he is since that power is so rooted in his personality. He can get more out of life by forming connections with people, but we don’t need to scorn him for that until he learns his lesson.

The world turned upside down is still a neat idea even if I don’t think it is used to as satisfying a conclusion as most of the other episodes do. It explores the idea of a stagnant society that makes its workers believe that they are changing it, no matter whether they believe it or even know what exactly they are supposedly doing, giving them a blind hope to help cope with their trapped situation. Since Sonny Boy constantly pulls threads from previous episodes it is pretty easy to relate this to Nozomi’s phrase of not wanting to walk down the safe path in life.

All it takes for Nagara to flip the world upside down is to take a step away from the safe spot. I get the message, but I feel like it is slightly too simplistic. Sometimes this anime does not deliver in the themes department as well as I would have liked, but thankfully the strength of the main characters is enough for me to see that as just a minor nuisance.

Episode eight, on the other hand, is among the amazing ones and it does a lot more for the characters and tone than any episode honestly even needs to in order to be satisfying. We jump from present to past as Yamabiko tells his sad story. In the present they are traveling along with Nagara, Mizuho and her cats, but the framing always keeps us close to the characters instead of zooming out to show the scenery, which is great to shorten the distance between audience and characters, hyperfocusing this episode in the people we are seeing and leaving the exploration of the world to the side for at least one episode. The muddier color design and music also helps a lot in keeping this episode tone-perfect all the way through.

The reason why I find this episode to be genius is because of how Yamabiko’s story recontextualizes the characters of Nagara and Mizuho. Yamabiko was a shut-in who simply crawled his way through life just like Nagara, but to a much more intense degree that leads him to completely isolate himself, instead of trying but not managing to speak up like how we see Nagara often doing, leading to a point where Yamabiko reacts violently to try and scare people away. He also brings attention to Mizuho’s emotional dependency by increasing that to the point where he turns into a dog to follow the lead of someone he trusts more than even himself, and it is these two things combined that eventually leads to the ruin of the people around him and himself.

Episode eight is primarily about ignoring your problems until it is too late. Yamabiko’s power gives him the ability of manifesting his mental state, this being the reason why he turned into a dog, but also being the reason why the epidemy hits Kodama and her friends. I don’t think it would be right to call these kids the new family Yamabiko has found, because his interactions happen almost exclusively with Kodama, being the pure guiding light — probably even motherly figure, since her power is called “M”, I know that might mean "Manipulate" or something, but we also know that Nagara has an issue with his mother who is herself a shut-in that doesn’t leave the house — so that he needs to go through life without thinking, leaving all his worries and objectives for someone else to decide. Thus, he is walking the “safe path” mentioned before.

The anime is clearly self-conscious about all of this, since not only do the personalities of these three characters relate in such a direct way, but also because we see Nagara saying he relates to it, while Mizuho starts the episode more playful and smuggy like we know her to be, but then gets quieter with every interlude to Yamabiko’s story. I have praised the anime for respecting its characters until now, but it is an even greater thing that it is willing to bring attention to how dangerous their paths can be. I agree with the message of following your own path and being yourself, but I am also not naive enough to pretend that all is well when it isn’t and, even taking in the fact that we all want to live our successful lives doing what we love, the world is not fair or simple enough to simply allow that to happen without any sort of friction. There are aspects of us that have to be fought against just like there are aspects of the world around us that we should fight against.

Since I mentioned music and tone, I want to take a short while to talk about the production of Sonny Boy. The reason why this anime feels like so much of a breath of fresh air is because it is almost 100% pure 2D animation, with as little post-processing and CGI as is possible. I’m not saying there isn’t great animation out there, but it honestly boggles my mind when I see so many people sharing sakuga moments from anime like Fate or Demon Slayer where half the screen is drowning beneath post-processing, artificial light from above to make every frame feel epic and world-defining and tons of CGI even if it is great CGI. I don’t want to sound like an elitist, I can enjoy those things for what they are, I’m not saying that CGI and post-processing have no place in the industry nor am I saying that the shows mentioned here are poorly produced, but every now and then I want to watch something different instead of having the feeling that every anime that ever comes out is trying to do the same thing to various different levels of success. I am eternally grateful to the team behind Sonny Boy for deciding to go with this style of production because it fits the tone of the series so much better then if it was trying to be flashy in its presentation.

Something else that I really like about the production is how the music is kept quiet. There are exceptions — especially in the last few episodes — for example in the more montage-like scenes, but generally the tracks are kept distant, while the character’s voices are kept closer, rarely having distractful lyrics, leaving the presentation and dialogue to pull most of the weight. What this also does is it keeps it from ever getting repetitive. Sometimes anime — especially more action-centered anime — will play the same tracks over and over again to the point where they run the risk of not being iconic and memorable, but also redundant and annoying. I’m not going to pretend I’m an expert in the matter, but Shouji Hata, the sound director for Sonny Boy, worked on a ton of really popular stuff, some that I even distinctly remember liking the soundtrack — such as Vinland Saga and Log Horizon —, so, if I can interpret the production this way, I also believe that a professional who has probably been working in the industry for longer than I have lived can do all of this intentionally.

Now proceeding to episode nine, this is one I’m not so hot on either. The highlights are everything related to the cats, of course. I did not expect them to start turning into actual characters — even if very simple ones — and it adds an extra layer of charm and comedy to their interactions.

I definitely enjoyed it more the second time through, knowing where the series ends and paying more attention to Asakaze’s and Nozomi’s interactions, but the overall plot and complexity of the themes just doesn’t hold up in my mind.

Aki-not-sensei wants the power of the twins, but only one of them. Since they are both the same person, this means that she only needs a part of the person being manipulated, everything else can just be thrown away and does not add up to your value — this is interesting to think about if you remember that Aki keeps pretending like she is saving the world and reducing the values of individuals she doesn’t need and overestimating others to do her deeds.

The twins are fighting over the fact that one of them has a single strand of hair more than the other. Clearly the point of this is that people overestimate the worth of some things only to pretend like they are better than others — and if these are the same people, then it can be seen as him not being able to deal with the fact he is not perfect by externalizing it into an enemy. Their power to reverse everything makes them forget the whole fight and they end up fighting eternally because you can’t simply go back, your experiences change you and nothing is accomplished by trying to go back to square one as if nothing had happened, he has to accept his own flaws and not try to reset everything to zero, but do things differently with the knowledge and experiences he gained on the way. Aki of course gets to him before he can realize any of this and the result is that by killing a part of himself, he kills the whole.

Maybe I would enjoy this episode more if it had been done with a character we already knew. Sonny Boy focuses its characterization in the four main faces of the show while leaving other characters very superficial and using them almost exclusively to explore themes. While I don’t think you can criticize the fact that the secondary characters aren’t that fleshed out since this anime is trying to do twenty times more things than most anime are, I still felt like bringing a wholly new character for this episode ultimately hurt the effectiveness of the message more than it did any other episode.

There are two characters in this show who try to mimic God: Asakaze and Hoshi. In episode 10, we see Asakaze being tricked yet again by Aki, who takes him to see the principal — God — who asks him to kill War, the character we met in Yamabiko’s flashback. Kossetsu — who we find out has the ability to read other people’s thoughts — convinces Nozomi to come along. Kossetsu loves Asakaze, but he loves Nozomi, so she wants Nozomi to help change him to a state where he might end up at her feet. Obviously, only tragedy could come from this.

Asakaze was so obsessed with the concept of a great mission reserved to him that he allowed himself to be manipulated by Aki and ended up losing sight of everything that doesn’t relate to pursuing Nozomi. He confessed to her, but got rejected because she couldn’t respect him. Asakaze then says that he was probably obsessed over her because he felt like he could never be as strong as her. At this point he realizes he should let her go, and, after conquering the world “War”, he actually manages to create death when Nozomi falls off the cliff and into the nothingness at the bottom of war, not managing to save her because as it turns out, his power is spontaneously activated. He did not want Nozomi anymore, therefore he couldn't use his powers on her. Asakaze’s power was born out of his need to keep everything and everyone at his reach. God definitely knew this and tricked him along with Aki.

The War we saw in Yamabiko’s past was still walking around, but the one we meet here is completely empty, falling to the bottom of a deep gorge yet never actually reaching it even though there is one; stagnant. Only Asakaze can bring him to the ground and his reward for that is a weapon.

War is a manifestation, a world himself, and conquering him grants you with the power to kill. There is a chance he was even tricked by God as well, since he was killing people before Asakaze, but God of course never bothered with telling him that death is a phenomenon that can happen there under specific circumstances. Since we find out that the drift was caused by the combination of Nagara, the cats and Mizuho all using their power unwillingly; Nagara creating worlds, the cats copying the kids and Mizuho putting them all in stasis because she doesn’t want to see anyone die, then conquering the world “War” gave them a power that could go against Mizuho’s power.

I like the way the world “War” is presented, as a hard to climb mountainous area that is then abruptly interrupted at the top by “a gorge that goes down forever, but the bottom is crimson.” The fall is the only thing you can expect after warring and whatever lies at the bottom of it is not going to be good. It stretches forever and is a wound delivered in the world itself. It might take time, but it will take its toll.

There might be more to be said about the imagery of War in this episode, but honestly this is all I’ve got.

Episodes eleven and twelve are a two parter to end this amazing ride. As you can expect to happen after Nozomi’s tragic end, the next episode is dedicated to mourning her loss and dealing with themes of grief and death. It is both heartbreaking and heartwarming. I had a slightly hard time breathing through the entire montage opening of Mizuho and Nagara honoring their friend and seeing how far their friendship has come. It hurt seeing both of them cry, it hurt seeing two people seeing their friends crying at their side at different moments of the episode without knowing what to do about it. And, above all, it hurt seeing Mizuho say goodbye to her cats.

Years of trauma and emotional suppression rendered me completely incapable of crying out of emotion, so every story that gets me even close to it surprises me. Last time I “cried” was recently and there was but a single tear, I can’t even remember how many years it was since the last time that I actually cried my heart out, with sobbing and sniffing and stuff. Fiction is what helps me deal with this, and I’m goddamn grateful to Sonny Boy for being on the list of stories that got me close to crying.

As my favorite author — Steven Erikson — once said, “Grief is not something you overcome, but something you get used to carrying the weight of.” I might be paraphrasing that, but you get the idea. We might not see Mizuho and Nagara for long enough after Nozomi’s death to see the full repercussions of this, but we know they are going to carry the weight of everything they lived in these two years adrift for the rest of their lives.

After ten episodes commenting about how things are hard to change, we finally begin seeing some clearer changes in these last few episodes. It began with Nozomi’s death, but we also see how Yamabiko has now completely turned into a dog and doesn’t speak anymore. We see how Rajdhani’s gaze has changed and he reflects on the fact he is growing more apathetic with time. He tells us the story of a man who could not accept reality and would create images of his home and his girlfriend that were not accurate at all, trapping himself in the made-up ideal world of his mind, which relates to the relationship between Asakaze and Nozomi.

Rajdhani also tells us the story of a student obsessed with the idea of creating “death”. Perhaps this can also be interpreted as a character trying to mimic God, since he is trying to create something that was previously impossible . First time through I was sure this was Hoshi, but it is very clearly War, my bad on that. We get the information that he conducted experiments in death and suicide and can assume that he got his badges from that. He created death by rendering his identity completely void, having no desires, no reactions, no emotions and no opinions. He created death by going against everything that defines a person, becoming a mere shape.

As Rajdhani puts it, “Life is an endless exercise in vain effort. But it’s precisely because it’s meaningless that I think the brilliance of this moment in life is so precious. Because that one moment belongs to that person alone.” Ultimately, the message of Sonny Boy is wholly positive. It is realistic enough to recognize the worst parts of life and it does not pretend everything will go right simply because we want it to, but it also finds it important to remind us that, once again, everything we have lived up until that moment is what has shaped us and thus has value. We don’t have to change the world, we just have to find a place to belong in it. Nozomi’s will still lives on, her compass still points to the light, unwavering in its determination, and her mark in the world and in her friends will long outlive herself.

And in episode twelve, we get the confirmation that Nozomi had always been right. The light had been there all along, she was the only one who could see it because she was the only one who's outlook on life matched what the story is trying to convey. It takes an astronomical effort to even get there because that is how much time they lost and enduring how much the world is going to strike you down is no easy thing. They only manage to do so with the combined efforts of Nagara, Mizuho, her cats, Rajdhani and Asakaze — handing them another compass, presumably the original one. But, even after getting to the light, there is this one beautiful scene where they are only able to capture the light by the efforts of Mizuho’s and Nagara’s hands. I always found it interesting that “light” was used for the analogy of the path in life. I mean, try to grasp a light like how Nozomi was doing. She could only reach it, but could never quite hold it, at least not alone. It is light, after all, and it will slip right between your fingers.

The last episode gave me a twist in the stomach when it felt like Nagara and Mizuho weren’t going to talk, but thankfully it was just them having a hard time talking about it. We get to see glimpses of what their life is going to be from now on: Nagara getting a shitty job — yo that’s relatable, kind of —, Mizuho’s grandmother having passed away, Nozomi and Asakaze ending up in a relationship in a world in which they can respect each other. Well, now that I think about it, I don’t think anything that they do in this last episode proves that they are dating, but they are clearly in better terms than their copies that went adrift. If the copies are still adrift and those are the parts of them as people that conflicted with each other, then this original version is the one where things went better for them.

In the past, Nagara ignored the dying bird. Now he cares about the birds that have lost their mother — you could say they are stranded just like the kids were —, but Nozomi had already thought about that and took the only surviving one with her, deciding to taking care of it until it is able to fly by itself, instead of trapping the bird and not allowing it go where it needs to go in life. This interaction shows us that Nozomi is still one step ahead, still striding forward in life and doing what she believes is right. She might not be exactly the same Nozomi we know, but her essence is still the same. Yet again, I wish I could be a little bit more like her.

I am also pleased to see Nagara and Mizuho not turning into a couple. This would have come off as weird and even thematically inconsistent I would say. Since Nagara and Nozomi never ended as a couple, then him ending up with Mizuho would send the message that she was the second option, or maybe that he was looking for the wrong person in Nozomi. The point is, either of these options would have diminished the characters. If they ended up as a couple, then a short arc where they learn to respect each other and brings attention to the morality of Nagara being suddenly romantically attracted to her after finding out Nozomi is with Asakaze would have been completely necessary not to break their dynamic. Either way, I’m much more satisfied with their current friendship than I would have been if any of these characters ended up feeling like a trophy.

I don’t think there’s much more to be said, at least not now. Sonny Boy is about and trying to say a lot of stuff, much more than most anime I watch are, and it accomplishes that in a shorter runtime than most do as well. I barely mind the fact that secondary characters are abandoned or that not every episode is tone-perfect. I didn’t expect it to be and neither does it have to. While I can obviously appreciate several different kinds of stories, my tastes are always changing and I am slowly becoming aware of some elements shared between most if not all of the stories that are connecting with me on a personal level in the past few years. While I would not dare to reduce this anime to a single theme after having said all of this, I just wanted to share one more idea: this story is about the loss of innocence, but it does not end there with a negative outlook on life, it takes the extra step of being about hope for the future and acceptance of our past; acceptance, not surrender.

I’m pretty sure I have told someone that I wish I had watched this anime when I was eighteen or something, thinking that it would have been fundamental in forming my outlook on life — pretty sure it would have lead me to take on the nickname of Sonny Girl as well once I accepted my dysphoria, wait… I actually like how that sounds… — but I take that back. Stupid-ass eighteen years-old me would not have been able to appreciate it the way my current jaded one can. And that is fine, at least that is what Nozomi would try to teach me.

I ended up having a lot more to say than expected while also feeling like there was a lot more to be explored.

Of course, I can't score this anything else besides a 10/10.

Oh, and sorry for the heavy usage of em-dashes — I love these things.

[gofancyninjaworld]

Started watching Mob Psycho 100. About 5 episodes in and yeah, I get why this show is so popular. It's good, even real good, so far. Mob is a good protagonist and the animation has been really impressive.

I also recently started reading One Punch Man and it's fine. I like the art and every now and again it gives me a chuckle. But ultimately I think OPM has a fairly conservative world view that makes me hard to enjoy it as anything more than easy fluff. It's all about the power of the individual and has some really questionable class politics in places. I know it's not intended for a deep read, but I can't help it. I'm glad I'm reading it through the library instead of buying individual volumes. I think I'm like 21 volumes into it.

Back to MP100, I'm still early so I can't say for sure yet, but I feel like it is the better written and realized of the two. I'm a sucker for the monster-of-the-week style format and so far it has been nailing while also developing the characters pretty well.

I gotta say, I'm impressed. I'm usually pretty cautious around checking out popular things since I tend to not enjoy them. So far that's not the case here.

First, I'm glad that your library has a lot of the OPM volumes: it's great for the series and a very wise way to read. If I didn't have my library cards, I'd be perma-broke and out of space in my home. :D

Second, I hope by now that you've finished reading Mob Psycho 100. I think it's a fantastic work and while there's a part of me that hankers for ONE to find something more he wants to say in that world and tell another story, a bigger part of me really respects that he's known how to tell 'a big story of a small step' and end there. It is one of the best coming-of-age stories I've read or watched. If you haven't checked out the anime, DO! It is incredibly well-realised, imaginative, and every season builds better on the previous.

Yes, now that you mention it, One-Punch Man does feel more conservative than Mob Psycho 100 in *some* ways. Whereas the latter is about middle schoolers exploring how to shape themselves, OPM is about the challenge of having a sense of purpose as an adult and balancing act of being an individual and being part of society. And no one quite knows what they're doing...

The various kids in MP100 may have challenges as small as getting someone to sign up for a school club or as big as stopping a would-be megalomaniac from taking over Japan, but they're free to focus on those problems. Their parents keep a roof over their heads, cook dinner, draw up budgets, pay bills, and prompt them to do homework. Their schools give them a ready-made social context in which to interact repeatedly and shape their goals. They're free to be children and it's precious.

OPM, almost everyone is an adult, and adult life is both less and more structured than that of childhood. There's a lot more to balance, you don't have infinite energy, time, or resources, and if you get it wrong, life gets super hard. We get Saitama: he's become the strongest man in the world thanks to his singular focus on being so strong that he can send any enemy flying with a single punch -- and he's also homeless (he's squatting in an abandoned apartment), with no post-secondary qualifications, no steady job (he's held lots of menial jobs, keeping them only long enough to quit and live off them so he can be a hero). The idealism of being a hero may get you thanked, but thanks don't pay the rent: that's why the Hero Association came to exist, in order to enable people motivated to be heroes to actually focus on it. It'd be a short story if Genos hadn't introduced Saitama to the HA.

Those checks and compromises necessary to survive and thrive in society do give OPM a more conservative feel. However, on the other side, there's no one telling you how far you can go. Difficult as it is, there's more scope for self-actualisation for the characters in OPM than there is for those in MP100. And there's no one way to do it. Swings and roundabouts.

Not sure how OPM will end yet, but so far, I'm still finding it compelling.

Given how long this has been in my inbox, I have no idea if you will read this. If you do (and I hope you do), thank you. Thank you for an awesome ask.