#and without getting into spoilers and putting the ending aside the arcs that everyone else goes through is really satisfying

[sinscythe]

berseria ending may have flopped but it cemented rokurou as the funniest character ever

[violeteyebeams]

The Rebuild of Scott Pilgrim

It's been ages since I used this page to give my wider thoughts on a thing, but I just finished Scott Pilgrim Takes Off and... hoo boy, holy shit, do I have Thoughts™ that I'm not sure where I can put elsewhere for now.

Spoiler free verdict tho? It's good. Damn good. Especially if you're aware of an enjoy the previous source material. It's got great character-writing, spectacular animation, and some very nice music, to name a few things.

And that's basically all I can talk about without dipping into spoilers, do without further ado...

The show starts off with a pretty faithful adaptation of the first issue of the original comic. We meet Scott, Wallace, Kim, Stephen, Knives, and everyone else and the story plays out as you might be familiar with. Although you do notice some slight differences from that original. Ramona working for Netflix instead of Amazon, an extended scene with the Evil Exes, and Scott talking about Sonic the Hedgehog cartoons during his first conversation with Ramona instead of Pac Man. Some changes you might see and go "Huh, neat" and then move on, simply thinking they were fun, if not inconsequential changes made during the adaptation.

But no. Those are just a small taster as to what's to come later.

As stated, the first episode adapts the first issue of the comic, right up until the fight with Matthew Patel. It goes as you expect, beat for beat almost, but then... Scott is seemingly killed off. Patel wins the fight, and not Scott.

As the title says, Scott Pilgrim has quite literally Taken Off. He is GONE for a majority of this series! Instead, the series chooses to focus on Ramona as the central protagonist.

And that's far from the only wild deviation the story takes too. If you're expecting a simple animated adaptation of the comic, this is very much not that. Bryan Lee O'Malley said that this was going to be a different take, and boy was he not kidding.

As Ramona tries to figure out what happened to her would-be suitor, we see her and the other characters in Scott's life take the spotlight, and even the Evil Exes get more of a shine this time around. Ramona getting a chance to talk with them and go deeper into their past and why she left them to begin with. They actually feel like characters and get actual characterization rather than simply being one-note (if not still entertaining) antagonists for Scott to beat and move on from. Not only that, characters like Kim, Neil, and even Knives get whole new story beats and arcs to explore. Even JULIE POWERS gets an interesting new wrinkle about her. The only downside there tho, due to the character/story reshuffling, is that folks like Envy Adams are relegated to the sidelines, unfortunately.

Not that Scott himself is left out entirely. He's still very much there. But they do something very interesting with him. Having him be the crux of a side plot surrounding the concept of age and what holding onto toxic feelings can do to us in the long term, even after the events of a happy ending, like the one he gained at the end of the original comic.

And if the post credits teaser at the end of the eighth episode is any indicator... we MIGHT be getting more of this? Maybe? We see a budding relationship between Gideon and Julie, with Julie seeming to have some more villainous intentions aside from just finding Scott to be an obnoxious loser. Especially as she seems to have aligned herself with Gideon for whatever reason.

All of this is of course, backed up by a fantastic performance from all of the returning movie actors and some killer animation from Science Saru. These have to be some of my favorite animated fight scenes in a good while. The one between Ramona and Roxy is an especially stellar standout I can see myself coming back to every now and then.

It's a wild series, I had one hell of a time with it, and I can't recommend it enough. Definitely give it a watch.

[fyeahbachisagi]

Why Showing Bachira’s Flashback in Episode 2 is a Good Thing + Some Manga Hints on Bachira’s Backstory

【this post contains Blue Lock manga spoilers】

Edit (Dec. 11, 2022): This post is very outdated now and needs to be updated.

Manga readers were in for a big surprise when they saw a flashback scene from chapter 70 being animated very early on. I myself was just as surprised.

But initial shock aside, I found the early addition of the flashback a good thing, and I commend the studio for doing it.

For context, I joined the fandom only recently and just caught up to the manga last week, so the manga is still very fresh in my mind. In the manga, most scenes are in Isagi’s point of view, and we won’t get to know more about a character until it’s their arc.

This is why when it was time for Bachira’s backstory, I was actually quite overwhelmed and taken aback to see just how deep Bachira’s affections run for Isagi (and you don’t even have to interpret that romantically). Up until then, I’ve always viewed him as a happy-go-lucky guy who just likes to stick to Isagi a lot. Who would’ve thought that underneath his sunshine exterior was an insecure guy who was very afraid of being left alone.

I actually went back to the earlier chapters just to see hints of this. Heavy developments must be foreshadowed, after all. And to my surprise, there were actually indications of this, but it’s very subtle that you have to know what you’re looking for to find them.

Here’s one from Chapter 43. In forming teams for the second stage of the Second Selection, he automatically includes Isagi into his team without even asking for his opinion.

If it were just this, then one could easily brush it as just the thing that friends do where you don’t even have to ask coz it’s considered a matter of course.

But then we have this:

When Nagi asked Isagi to join his team, we see Bachira’s panel in a dark lighting while everyone else’s remain bright. [Edit: This turned out to be something that's only found on the fan translation. In the official translation, all panels are lit the same. The image above has been changed to show the official one.]

And in the next panel, we actually see Bachira worried:

And although Isagi chose to be with him, Bachira’s smile doesn’t look so happy. It even looks forced... Because he knows.

He knows Isagi would want to team with a powerful player like Nagi:

Edit: Okay, the one above turned out to also be from the fan tl. In the official one, instead of Bachira saying "Figured," he just says "Totally."

There are more hints in even earlier chapters. For instance, the scene from Chapter 3 that got included in episode 2:

The manga version of the scene is very tepid, though. (Oh my god, Rin’s favorite word is now also becoming my favorite.) Unless you’re reading immersively and not just scanning through the dialogue to get the plot, then you can hardly feel its impact.

Whereas, in the anime version, it feels more meaningful: The sudden silence in the background and Bachira putting away his smile and looking serious... it tells the viewer that what he’s saying is important.

Several more hints can be found in the manga, but to keep this post short, let me just get to the point now:

Bachira is a very important character, probably only second to Isagi. But for such an important character, we hardly knew anything about him beyond being that "cute guy with a crazy side and who makes metaphors about monsters and stuff" until almost the end of the Second Selection arc. Once animated, anime-only's would be quick to dismiss him as just another stereotypical "crazy" character.

But by showing Bachira's flashback in episode 2, and even going so far as to animate the Monster itself, the anime is sending a message that there's more to Bachira than a stereotype.

The scene above speaks volumes. We have this kid not getting along with his teammates, gave the enemy team an advantage by losing the ball, and then he's even seeing things that other people can't. He surely hasn't been living well

And shortly after this scene is him telling Isagi how glad he was to have come to Blue Lock since he could meet him.

From all these, we are already given the impression that this guy is lonely. This guy is weird and crazy, and nobody wants to play with him. But then comes Isagi.

The anime is already setting up for Bachira's arc this early on, and I think they're doing a better job at it than the manga.

[itsjustbyler]

S4/Avengers 3 and 4 analysis - P1

Obviously, spoilers from Avengers Infinity War and Avengers Endgame.

Improtant: This analysis is also from a byler pov. The next ones are going to be based on these characters, the parallels between them in the show and the movies and predictions to S5.

The characters and their parallels

William Byers and Steve Rogers

Both characters are kind and selfless. Both were victim of bullying and aways seemed as weak, small for his age and not manly enough. That only changed for Steve when he got his "powers". Will is still a target for bullying, but what used to be based on homophobia, turned into him being called a freak, "zombie boy". Those two characters are known for putting the others feelings before themselves. While Steve put his own well being in danger to save his best friend Bucky, lying to Tony about his parents, Will put his own feelings aside, lying to save the relationship between his best friend and his sister. While Steve throw himself in the airplane into the water knowing he was going to die, Will asked them to close the gate knowing he could die too.

Steve fell in love with Peggy Carter and he never moved on. She is the love of his life, but they couldn't be together because Steve "died" and when he came back, a long time had passed, she married someone else. After Avengers Endgame, Steve actually married Peggy and he finally found his happyness with her. William Byers is in love with Mike Wheeler for a long time. He is the love of his life but they can't be together because Mike found someone else when he was kidnapped. He tried to move on when he moved to Lenora, but he could. He thinks that they will never be together... Who knows?

El/ Karol Danvers/Tony Stark

El and Karol Danvers are very similar. Both characters don't know about their past, they think they are working for the good guys but find out that they are being used because of their powers. Karol Danvers was the first avenger when everyone thought it was Steve. El was the first Vecna's victim, while everyone thought it was Will. It all started with them. Their arcs is about finding independence and fighting for what they believe and not what people tell them they should. Speaking of "it all started with them", El also parallels Tony Stark. While Tony tried to create Ultron to save the world for them and ended up creating a monster (Ultron), El tried to stop One for killing more people and ended up creating a monster (Vecna). Both tried to live a normal life, but could never move on from their past. While El frustrated Vecna's plans since S1 without knowing it was him, Tony also frustrated Thanos' plans before endgame, to the point that Thanos recognized him. They never lost before. El now blames herself for not being able to save Max the same way Tony blamed himself for Peter. Tony did everything in his power to bring Peter back and he did it. Let's wait for El.

Vecna/Thanos

These two don't parallel to much, but we can find some. It was them all along. While Vecna was in control of the mindflayer possessing Will, the Demogorgon who killed Barb, was opening portals into Hawkins and Billy trying to kill everyone to get El's powers, Thanos was there from the first movie, working behind other villains to get the infinite stones. While Thanos used his "family", Vecna used the UD's creatures. Infinity War is Thanos' movie. Season 4 is Vecna's. Both nearly lost, nearly had been killed. But they won. At the end of Season 4 and at the end of Infinity War, both are missing. Thanos was found at the beginning of Avengers Endgame, but just to prove there was nothing they could do, they lost for real. It took them 5 years to find a way to finally defeat him. Vecna? Well, maybe it will take a while... Maybe 2 years?

***Please tell what do you think about this, I'm going to post the next part soon.

[steddiesupportgroup]

Man, for a show I’ve fallen in love with and had so much anticipation for, I ended up kinda wishing I hadn’t watched vol2.

Spoilers and a huge rant under the cut

The whole time I was literally shaking with nerves about what was gonna happen to Eddie, to all of them. His last moments (the whole last two eps honestly) dragged on for what felt like hours. It wasn’t fun; it was nerve wracking. And yeah, maybe it’s my bad for getting so attached to a fictional character in a show where people die, but so what? He makes us happy in a time where things aren’t going super well, brought us comfort. If we can’t use fiction as an escape, what’s the point of it?

All that aside, I’m still disappointed about other things. El saying goodbye to Brenner and finding her strength was great, as was the whole thing with Hopper, but other than that? I spent the whole four hours dreading what was gonna happen. I feel like they took the whole “all hope is lost” thing way too far. Watching Lucas hold Max while she begged to die made me fucking sick, as did watching Eddie sacrifice himself. I hate this trend of having people guess who’s gonna die, it’s just sad. Lucas getting beaten up by Jason, who, yeah he died, but didn’t get what he deserved. He was grieving and deranged, and then he was nothing.

And like they touched on Steve’s character arc for a split second before taking ten steps back. I don’t believe that he wants to get back with Nancy because he keeps finding new people in his life, new experiences that change his worldview. Why go back to a girl that is hung up on someone else? This isn’t even a steddie thing- they could’ve touched on his growth without involving her. He’s someone who protects people now, who keeps putting others before himself and doesn’t stop fighting no matter what. Maybe he doesn’t even need a canon relationship to find worth and value. The dream with the kids was cute, but he’s so much more than some guy who can save the world but can’t move on from his first love. I want them to have love for each other, but they both need more.

And man, Nancy and Jonathan are really dragging on. I like them as a couple, really! But couldn’t they have other conflict? Or keep the conflict without involving Steve? All that buildup for them to lie to each other about how good they are, it just doesn’t make sense. I expected Jonathan to tell her the truth about college, or have him circle back to thinking about what it would look like if they kept holding on.

And yeah, Robin and Vicki at the end was just some hetero “we don’t know how to write queer relationships” bullshit. Just because they’re both girls and can have things in common doesn’t mean they need to be the same person. Robin deserves better than that, even someone who knows what she’s been through (winking at you ronance shippers).

I knew Byler wasn’t gonna happen, but man, they really couldn’t have had Will and Jonathan have a better conversation? Even at the end? It’s like “everyone knows so it doesn’t need to be said” but why not?? How is Will any different from Robin, who is somehow the only character who can openly talk about her queerness? Because he’s a boy? Because he’s young and in love with his best friend? I don’t wanna watch him cry in the back of the van with Mike if they’re not gonna have some kinda resolution.

I am gonna keep talking about Eddie, actually. His death was wretched, yeah. But the thing that breaks my heart is that now his name is tainted beyond death, and the people who loved him are silenced and pushed to the side. The Munson Murders, what a tragic end for a character who was so loving, so kind and gracious to everyone around him. And how are the writers gonna act like no one else in the group is bothered by his supposed death? They got to know Eddie, they risked everything to save him, and you can’t tell me that it’s business as usual after all that. If he is dead, it’s the worst insult to his memory. Ya know what’s better than dying a hero? Getting justice! Living to see another day with the people who love you! He could’ve become a braver person if he lived and he was already a fucking hero, because just like Steve, he cares about the kids. I can’t imagine what Dustin will go through and I really don’t want to.

So yeah. I know that the writers won’t see this, but I hope with enough pushback they’ll revive his character. If they can do it with Brenner after having his brain turned to mush, they can do it with Eddie after getting the same wounds as Steve. Especially after El brought Max back from the dead.

And man don’t even get me started on Netflix feeding into the Eddie love the whole time, it feels so vicious of them. Rbing steddie fanart and acting like his character was going somewhere. Like we get that little tidbit about Eddie’s dad teaching him to hotwire a car and for what? To never see him again? I don’t believe it.

Okay, I need to stop. Thanks for reading, I’ll be writing a fix-it fic within the next few days <3

[amanda-519]

Rise of the tmnt movie spoilers!! Read at your own risk! I just finished the movie so these are ALL tbe spoilers!!

WHAT A MOVIE!! God I've literally been waiting the while entire day for this!! Checking my watch, waiting for the time to pass, and now that it has, can I just say it was WELL worth the wait!!

I loved every bit of this movie!

Let's start it off at the beginning, the opening shot?? Amazing! I was really worried about spoilers, since I intended to go into this movie completely blind, but couldn't help myself and look up rottmnt on tumblr and hears about the KANG and future Casey and all that. I was worried that we wouldn't see the future till like, 20 mins into the movie but no! It jumps right out at ya at the start!

Gosh I absolutely loved the future versions of the characters!

Ok but can we just talk about Mikey real quick - he's my favorite of the brothers, my favorite character in the whole series actually. And apparently he can TIME TRAVEL?? LIKE FUTURE LEO JUST TELLS MIKEY TO MAKE A TIME PORTAL LIKE HE COUPD ALWAYS DO THAT??

And!! And!!

At the end of the movie he just!! Opens a portal!! Like Leo does!! Granted, it was extremely hard, but Mikey can create portals kinda like Leo can?? Ohhh, what if Leo is the "space" part of "time and space" and Mikey is the "time" part!

Gosh I would really love a future episode, here's to hoping that they get another season, were Mikey finds out he can pull items from the future/past. Maybe it's an accident at first? Like, he keeps accidently grabbing things from the future and/or past. Everything he puts down weirdly disappears. Like, at the start of the episode Donnie can't find something, and complains to everyone else, which makes them realize that things *have* been going missing around the lair lately. And at the end of the episode, when the problem has been solved, Donnie complains about his thing still being missing, only for Mikey to pull it from the past and present it to him like, "ohhhh, you mean this?" (This causing the thing to go missing in the first place)

Also! More about Mikey because like, as I said, he's my favorite turtle. Casey said that Mikey was the "best mystic warrior" in the future. The emphasis on "mystic" really made me wonder. All throughout the movie i was waiting for him to be the first to break out of the mystic power down thing, since he's supposed to be the *best* at mystic stuff. But him getting a new power was also really neat to see!

Also, if I could go on a teeny tiny rant about Mikey and then I swear I would be done talking all about him: I feel like he's the brother without really, a "thing".

Each of the brothers has a "thing". Donnie has his cool tech, Leo is arrogant but is shown to lack the skills needed to gain that arrogance, Raph is prone to outbursts and has the strongest moral compass out of tbe group. I know you're going to say that Mikey is the sensitive one, the artist, and I agree! It's something I really like about him! But I feel like in the show he's kinda always shoved aside. I could go on, but that little rant could be it's own post all on its own-

Back to the movie! If I were to have one criticism of it, is that besides for Leo and Raph, a lot of characters weren't really given much to do? Like, this is undoubtedly a very Leo movie, he has a character arc and everything. Which is fine! I like Leo. I feel like tbe writers should get a chance to explore each bother on their own. But I wish tbe other characters did more stuff, and weren't shoved to the side as much.

I'm sorry Donnie stans, that Donnie didn't really do that much in the movie. Like, when he gets uploaded onto the ship and has full control over it, he doesn't really do much? I think he should haven gotten more of a "moment". Like, maybe he shut down all tbe KANNG monsters on earth or something. Just a way for him to save the day. Raph got his "save the day" moment while he sacrificed himself for Leo. Later Leo got his saved the day moment when he sacrificed himself. Mikey got his when he opened the portal. I think it's very important when you have a group of characters, like the brothers, you need to make sure each of them gets their "moment", their moment when they get to be cool and save the day. Idk, maybe Donnie stans are satisfied with what they got. Let me know! Actually, any other brother/character stan, let me know how you felt about your special character. I was wondering how tbe Raph stans felt, since because he was captured, he wasn't really in the movie as much as the others. Do yall like his character in this movie? Or do you feel upset that his character was just kinda used to father Leo's character arc? Let me know! I'm realy curious.

Also! What was up with those blue vitals April grabbed??? I kept waiting for them to be brought up! When Leo is giving his pep talk on the building I was waiting for April to bring it up but nothing! One vital took up a KANNG whole eye! Why didn't they break into the university and steal more??

I really hope the university is brought up more in the 3rd season, if we get one. They could be next season's big bad? And that's why they weren't focused on more??

Talking about tbe 3rd season, man I really hope we get it! There's literally so many ideas for the 3rd season.

Firstly is, of course, Casey! He's here to stay,which must be weird! It messes up the timeline, not to mention how Cassie (Cassandra) would react when she finds out that she has a SON! Also, it seems like Casey isn't really used to the present, or well, past world. It'll be really interesting to see how he learns to cope with it. It has already been shown that he doesn't do well with people, an episode focusing on how he learns to live in the present world would be cool! Maybe he could even go to school with April!

The 3rd season could also introduce the brothers new mystic powers! Like I said above, I think exploring Mikey's would be cool! Also just a bit more focus on Mikey in general maybe?? Like, ok so, I've kinda always had this idea of Mikey getting insecure that he doesn't really have a "thing" like his other brothers. He can't take hits like Raph, or he isn't a genius like Donnie is, nor is a good leader like Leo is. I think giving him the ability to be more in tune with the mystic side of himself would be interesting. Real Anng from avatar vibes. Especially since there's the wholehidden mystic city and everything. Maybe there's spirit's only je can see? Oh! And that could lead back to Draxum, since he is so intune with mystic stuff and since he's been around for so long. It makes sense because out of all the brothers, Mikey is definitely the closest to Draxum.

Talking about Draxum and possible future episodes! I think he and Donnie should really get an episode. They both really like science, and Donnie looks like he's warming up to mystic stuff. Plus, they're both not really good with their feelings lol. Seeing an episode were they bond would be really interesting!

Anyways, that's all I have to say about the movie right now. But come scream at me in my inbox or my messages if you want to talk more about the movie, or just rise in general! I would really love someone to talk about all of this with!

[animechick2015]

Anime I Watched in 2022 Part 1:

1. Belle 3/5

*spoilers ahead*

Ughhh I really wanted to like this one. The songs and ost’s were amazing and the visuals were beautiful. I think the creators focused so much on the music that they lost sight of the plot. I had so many questions at the end of the movie: why did she go to rescue the kids on her own; couldn’t her father or some other adult go with her? Why did they build up a romance between her and Beast for nothing to come of it? Why after the entire movie of her friend not being interested in her, he suddenly showed romantic interest? I really wanted to love this movie like everyone else did but I can’t.

2. Promare 5/5

EPIC. The only word I can use to describe this movie. From the soundtrack, to the visuals, storyline and likable characters,this one will hook you from the opening scene. This one will have you feeling like you’re on an acid trip but it’s a good one, trust me. This is one anime movie I can see myself rewatching many times and never get tired.

3. Banished from the Hero Party 4/5

Such a cute romance. Very likable characters. The plot was interesting and the romance was so adorable; my only criticism is that it felt a bit rushed at the end but overall it was a great series. Doubt we’ll be getting a second season though 🥺

4. The Boy and the Beast 4/5

This movie got a lot of negative reviews and I can’t understand why. It was so interesting and going in blind I didn’t expect certain events to take place. I really enjoyed this one. The artwork, the soundtrack and even the characters were all amazingly done. If you haven’t watched this one give it a chance. Ignore all the bad reviews and go into this with an open mind.

5. Demon Slayer Season 2 10,000/5

Where do I begin with this masterpiece. Uzi Tengen has my heart, ; honestly he’s my second favorite Hashira (Giyu being the first ofc). Can we nominate Inosuke as the MVP of this season? This was a relatively short Arc but my god the studio did such an amazing job that every Sunday I was glued to my screen. Once again the Op and Ed were greatly done. The animation was top tier. The voice acting was superb. This is one of those series that I’ll actually sit down and rewatch with no problems

6. Moriarty the Patriot 4/5

This one has been sitting in my watch list for a while. I don’t know why I never gave it a chance before but I’m glad I did. This was such a nice twist on the Sherlock Holmes world. It was so good that in the beginning I didn’t even realize that the characters were based on the Sherlock novels (yes I missed the first couple minutes of the first episode but don’t worry because I binged it after I was done); this series got me supporting criminals without even realizing it. The writing in this was so good. And the chemistry between Moriarty and Sherlock 😚. My only criticism is that after reading the manga A LOT was left out that really fleshed out the stories and characters. Seriously hoping for another season but from that ending I really doubt we’ll get one.

7. Eight Six 86 5,000,000/5

I really want to kick myself in the behind for this one. I started this late last year and dropped it after the first episode. I really wasn’t feeling it. Maybe because mecha isn’t my favorite genre of anime but I wasn’t hooked so I put it aside and convinced myself that I would continue once the second season had been concluded; I didn’t. But a tiny voice at the back of my mind persuaded me to watch it and boy am I glad I did. The soundtrack was godly. Jesus Christ I don’t think I’d love a soundtrack more than AoT and Gintama but this won me over. The characters were all likable; expect the republicans of San magnolia, they can all rot in hell. It depicts a more realistic take on racism and war that your heart breaks for the soldiers especially knowing that most of them are children. Shin and Lena, two characters that never met face to face had so much chemistry that they could give a lot of Shojo animes a run for their money. I loved this series so much that I went on to read the novels. I might do a more in depth review on those later but seriously everyone needs to give this anime a chance.

8. Ranking of Kings 10,000/5

This is another series I almost ignored but thank goodness good sense prevailed and I gave it a chance. I was one of those who judged it because the artwork looked like classic cartoon drawings but my first indicator of this being a spectacular series was that it was being produced by Wit Studio. The character development in this one was amazing. What I loved about this series is that we couldn’t judge a character from first meeting them. Everyone had their reasons and stories for being the way they were. Boji is not your typical anime protagonist, with many disabilities that made the people of the kingdom judge him harshly, he definitely deserves best boy award and the world. Watching him at the beginning of the series had me crying in the middle of the night. Seriously he deserves everything. And queen Hilling is the MVP of the series; she took the clichéd step mother role and turned it on its back. If you haven’t given this one a try please do, you won’t regret it.

9. Attack on Titan: The Final Season Part 2 5/5

There are no words to describe how much I enjoyed this season. Seriously, Mappa outdid themselves. I know a lot of people are upset that we have to wait for Part 3 but I actually prefer that they take their time to animate the ending because there’s still so much to cover. Also can we talk about how amazing the OST’s were this season. Like goddamn!

10. Parasyte: The Maxim 4/5

I really enjoyed this one. I did. Honestly. If you ask me why I feel so cheated with the ending I can’t tell you. I guess I expected a more of an all out war between Migi and the other parasytes but nope. Trust me I get it, the ending was the most reasonable but I still felt like something was missing. Maybe I need to rewatch. But story wise, it was great; the main character was very likable. Seeing him turn from a regular teenager to cold, emotionless and back to his self was enjoyable. Tbh I didn’t really like the female lead but I guess she grew on me in the last episode. Also, the opening and ost’s were giving me an eargasm.

[itsclydebitches]

I was once more thinking of vol 8 and other works to compare it to. I hit Harry Potter, specifically Order of the Phoenix. Literally all that happened there showed a much better "proactive Hero" and "Big Bad vs Big Good" battle that it feels unfair to compare. What say you Clyde?

It's been a very long time since I read Order of the Phoenix, but putting aside that and the series' problems with representation (something that always feels like it needs to be acknowledged when discussing HP nowadays), Rowling did a good job of setting up both motivation and justification for Harry's actions. Which isn't to say that he was never wrong — quite the opposite, especially in OotP — but that Harry's involvement in this war is justified in a way that Ruby's involvement is not. He's not just generally active (no tea sipping equivalent scenes), but we understand why he's the one taking that action.

Harry is an unwilling participant forced to fight due to a prophecy, so when he stumbles along the way, we as the reader are understanding because jeez, what else what he supposed to do? Literally no one else can do this and he's trying his best. Ruby, in contrast, is not necessary to this fight. We might have gotten that with her silver eyes, but we didn't, so when Ruby willingly steps up — or, in Volume 8, forcibly takes control — and then gets upset because things didn't go well, the viewer (or at least some viewers: us) are far less forgiving because she demanded this responsibility and then found she didn't like having it. When Harry rushes off to the Department of Mysteries, endangering many of his friends in the process (even if they volunteered) we understand that this action is done out of love. We've spent five books establishing Harry's desire for a family, it's literally his greatest wish according to the Mirror of Erised, so going after Sirius, while reckless, is such an in-character, relatable, human decision. It's integral to who Harry is as a person. Compare that to the lack of work done surrounding Summer and the unanswered question of why Ruby is fighting Salem. Because it's the right thing to do? Great, fantastic, but uh... that doesn't really explain or justify why she's leading the charge when all these other huntsmen — with the same goals, more experience, better plans, etc. —are trying to do The Right Thing too. When thinking about HP vs. RWBY, my mind always goes back to that moment at the end of the first book when Harry tries to tell McGonagall about the stone and she brushes him off. "Ah," I thought later. "That's why three 11yos are going off to save the magical artifact when there are adult, full-fledged wizards around to do it instead. The kids tried to turn hand this off to the adults and the adults failed them." Now, combine this with Harry's growing tendency to go it alone, the implication that Dumbledore may have been allowing him to face certain threats to get stronger, each book's individual situation like a hidden chamber that only Harry can enter, his Godfather being on the run, a magically binding contract that keeps him in a competition because the bad guys are specifically after him... Harry is at the heart of the story. He's integral to it, his part in the fight inevitable, so all that's left is to see how he bears that burden.

Ruby is not integral to this fight, her presence and even her silver eyes are not necessary, her facing down Salem is only inevitable from a meta perspective regarding expectations for a protagonist (and then, in Volume 8, Ruby didn't face her.) There's no clear personal motivation to drive her. There's not even a Guardian's of the Galaxy-esque motivation in the form of, "We'll step up because no one else will." Others do keep stepping up and Ruby keeps forcing them to follow her instead, insisting that her way is better. Only problem is, it's arguably not and that's when she has a plan at all. It's like if instead of going after the stone because his professors won't, or going after Sirius because he loves him, or going after Voldemort because a prophecy and a life of having a saving-people-thing has pushed him to that, Harry made his way to the front of this war Just Because, rejecting everyone else who fought in the first war, has more experience, and actual plans along the way. Why does he do this? Because his name is in the title of the book, I guess.

RWBY throws in lost of classic ideas and setups, but doesn't seem to understand their point. Even something as simple as that Big Bad vs. Big Good conflict in Volume 8. Putting aside how muddied this has gotten between the Gods' involvement and Salem's dip in the grimm pool, Volume 8 took the threat of our Big Bad arriving with an army and... ignored it. Instead, they ran with Ironwood as the primary antagonist of the volume, the guy trying to stop Salem, a previously established ally, the guy who just gave up his arm to capture another clear-cut villain, and who throughout Volume 7 demonstrated none of the manipulation we would attribute to a Dumbledore-like figure. Rather than running with their Big Bad's arrival, RWBY asked how they could force one of the good guys to become a bad guy instead, hence the sudden shooting of Oscar and murder of the councilman. This is a far from perfect comparison (and I take my virtual life in my hands bringing up another controversial character lol), but it's a little like if after we learned about which side Snape was truly on, he suddenly tried to kill Hermione, succeeded in killing a minor character like Professor Flitwick, and then made plans to destroy all of Hogwarts. Meanwhile, everyone is ignoring Voldemort standing on the front lawn because the narrative randomly made Snape the biggest problem instead. So a lot of the fanbase is like, "Yeah he's absolutely a dick and his horrific past/contentious choices are the point of his character... but he's also supposed to be one of the good guys at the end of the day? And the Big Bad is right there? We can argue about how 'good' Snape is until we're blue in the face, but he's no Voldemort. Why did you feel the need to chuck the morally gray character off the deep end for our heroes to oppose when our primary antagonist is literally right here, trying to kill them?" From this, to introducing a dead mother that in no way motivates our cast, to having Oscar face down Salem with an improvised weapon instead of Ruby with her eyes, to giving Penny an arc about accepting her android body only to rip it away, etc. etc. RWBY continuously throws out ideas without understanding what they're meant to accomplish. There's a lot to criticize about Harry Potter nowadays, but a lack of logical development isn't one of them.

And just to chuck in another text — because I too think about what has done Volume 8 themes better lol — consider: Loki. Stop reading now if you don't want spoilers, but a couple episodes in Loki and Sylvie end up on a dying planet that is only evacuating the rich. That's said overtly in both the dialogue and visually in the mise-en-scene, with poor people screaming that only the rich are getting tickets for the rocket and elaborately dressed elites enjoying the comforts of that ride. Then, just as they're about to escape, leaving the rest of their world behind, a piece of the moon hits the ship, either killing them instantly or stranding them with the people they abandoned. And I thought to myself, "See, this makes sense in a way RWBY never did." Evacuation was never about wealth in RWBY, despite what the fandom continually claims. Ironwood was trying to evacuate everyone and only stopped because they all assumed Salem would be killing them momentarily. This situation included Relics and a Maiden that would easily turn the tide of the war, meaning their safety influenced the whole world, not just these people. Mantle was not necessarily about to be destroyed — indeed, we find out later that Salem had no interest in it — and it was always a bad faith (and OOC) assumption that Ironwood was leaving his kingdom for good. The story doesn't even acknowledge the huge number of Mantle citizens already on Atlas when the attack begins. I was just sitting there thinking, "This two episode mini conflict in an insane show with alligators and time shenanigans somehow holds up better than RWBY's 27 episodes that are trying to be deep. How does that happen?"

[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Higurashi Sotsu Ep15 [FINALE]

For better or worse I think Ryukishi achieved exactly what he set out to do with this series, and I guess everyone’s just gonna be forced to reckon with how they feel about his own perspective on this franchise versus how they feel about it, lol.

Anyway, thoughts under the cut, plus Umineko spoilers.

I’m not entirely sure where to even start with this, but I guess the TL;DR is that I honestly think Gou/Sotsu was ultimately just fine despite it’s issues, and part me of can’t help but be like ‘I told you so, lol’ about how this really did end with this episode, and also committed pretty hard to the Umineko prequel elements.

It’s not like all of my theories were correct in the end, but I at least think I was pretty spot on in my prediction last week that this would end with the miracle of them side-stepping the sword issue entirely and choosing the third option of forgiveness and reconciliation. And also them ending it with an epilogue where we go back to the Matsuribayashi timeline and get a happy ending for Rika and Satoko that provides a ‘non-magical interpretation’ for the story while also giving us an idea of how Bern and Lambda formally split off into their own entities and start the relationship we see in Umineko.

I didn’t quite expect them to go down the route of having them agree to just spend a few years apart and accept that they don’t need to literally always be together, but I think that was a really good way to wrap things up between them. It’s pretty much the healthiest compromise to their conflict that doesn’t come across like it completely invalidates one of their dreams. I get why it feels too anti-climactic and convenient for people, but when you pull at that thread you get into wider topics of what the entire story is about, since this was always going to end with Satoko being redeemed and forgiven. People might not have taken him seriously, but Ryukishi was 100% genuine about his regrets about Matsuribayashi’s ending, and how part of why he came up with this new story was to create a better ending, while also doing more with Satoko as a character.

Basically I think a lot of the fandom negativity towards this boils down to people fundamentally disagreeing with the idea that Matsuribayashi was even ‘flawed’ in this sort of way to begin with, or that Satoko was badly written. It’s valid to disagree on this stuff, but at the very least we all have to grapple with how Ryukishi has his own specific relationship with this series.

People like to focus on how he’s a troll who likes to mess with people, but I feel like this is a bit of a wake-up call for people about how he’s actually extremely sincere, almost to a fault, and he likes to use his stories as a vehicle for expressing his personal philosophies and ideals. 

This whole story is also a good example of how he just sees this as ultimately being a fictional story about fictional characters, and not literally a matter of real people who need to be sentenced for their crimes or whatever. As early as the original VN he was almost being outright preachy about the message that nobody is irredeemable, and that philosophy carries through to this. But to be more specific, nobody *in this story* is irredeemable. He’s pretty open about the fact that in practice you can’t apply this sort of ideal to real life, but fictional stories are their own separate matter.

I think this whole issue of how he views this as a story first and foremost is also the central reason why this ended in a way that comes across as Satoko being let off too easy for her crimes. One way or another, Ryukishi’s made it clear that he sees this as being no different to how other characters had arcs where they committed crimes but still got forgiven, or how Takano is basically a straight up war criminal who also got forgiven for her crimes.

Anyway, this episode at least committed to the Umineko stuff, so that was satisfying. Sure there’s people that still want to deny it, but at this point I think a lot of people are just being stubborn, so it’s not like anything would have really convinced them, lol. I’m also genuinely not sure what people even would have expected them to do beyond what we saw her, aside from having the two of them literally put on their gothic lolita outfits and turn to the camera and go ‘we are literally Bernkastel and Lambdadelta from the video game series Umineko When They Cry’. I almost feel like there’s some kind of misunderstanding from people who aren’t familiar with Umineko when it comes to the idea of what it even means for this to be ‘an Umineko prequel’, or ‘a Bern/Lambda origin story’. I mean, this is quite literally exactly what I expected and hoped for in that regard. It’s not like I was expecting them to incorporate anything related to, like, Beatrice or the Ushiromiya family.

I think this is also one of those things where you just have to decide for yourself whether or not you want to earnestly engage with the story that’s being told, or if you want to assume that there’s some level of malice or trickery going on.

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting them to literally have Rika and Satoko recite part of Bern and Lambda’s final conversation with each other word for word, lmao. Combined with the scene at the end where ‘Witch Satoko’ talks to herself about how she’s going to give her body back to Satoko while she goes chasing after Rika, it was literally just the exact origin story of their relationship as it’s depicted in Umineko.

I still feel like this would all only really be ‘worth it’ if we actually get something like a full on anime remake for Umineko, but at this point I can’t help but feel satisfied with this part of it all.

It’s not like I think Gou/Sotsu as a whole is perfect or anything, though. I don’t hate it as much as basically everyone else does, but I think Ryukishi’s the sort of VN writer who really struggles with the shift to writing for an anime. I think a big part of the frustration people have is just from how this is formatted as a weekly anime series spread across basically an entire year, instead of being something like a stand-alone VN chapter that you can read at whatever pace you want, even if it ultimately takes the same amount of time to read as it would to watch all of Gou/Sotsu.

There’s also the whole issue of this being a sort-of-remake, which snowballed into a whole list of structural problems. They absolutely tried too hard to have their cake and eat it too, and they should have just committed to it being made for old fans only, instead of trying to sincerely incorporate elements from the VN that old fans don’t care about anymore because they’ve gone over it already.

And as I’ve said several times before, it was a major issue for them to decide to put Nekodamashi in the middle of Gou and then spend like 20 episodes on flashback answer arcs until finally getting back to that cliffhanger. I’ve been waiting until this all ended to decide exactly how I feel about that, and now that it’s all over I still think it was a really bad idea. I don’t think it was an issue for them to reveal that Satoko’s the culprit that early, but having the gun cliffhanger specifically happen that early just gave people misguided expectations and tainted the answer arcs because people were just impatient to get back to the cliffhanger. And then the cliffhanger itself ended up being somewhat anti-climactic, which is what I’d been fearing would happen. It would have worked fine if they shuffled it around so that the cliffhanger happened right before Kagurashi and was followed up in the very next episode, or if this was a VN where you could binge your way through the flashback stuff, but spending like half of an entire real-life year to get back to that point only to have the resolution be ‘Satoko just shoots Rika and the death loops keep going’ just didn’t really work properly.

I’m a lot more generous towards the Akashi arcs than most people are, since I think they really over-estimate how much re-used content there is there, but they still suffer from the central issue of the show trying to be accessible for new fans. It could have been heavily condensed otherwise, without losing anything in terms of Satoko’s whole character arc.

On the other hand I think the first half of Kagurashi was awful specifically because it highlighted how bad of an idea it was to put Nekodamashi so early in the story. They still ended up having to go back to that arc and repeat it anyway, in the most 1:1 recap-y way in the whole show, but that wouldn’t have even been an issue in the first place if that was instead the first time that arc happened in the show.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I would rearrange the story to make it flow better while still following Ryukishi’s intentions, and I think they could have condensed it into a 2-cour season with this sort of structure if they did something like this:

-First arc where Rika gets thrown back into the loop and quickly figures out that somebody intentionally caused this to happen, and it’s not Takano because at least in this idea of mine she’d try and investigate her only to find out that this version of Takano regrets everything and is planning to flee the village with Tomitake.

Basically I think this could tie into the idea of Satoko initially wanting to just concoct an idea world for Rika so that she won’t want to leave this time, but sort of like what I think happens in Saikoroshi, Rika would still reject it, and this time around there’d be the additional layer of her knowing that somebody did this to her for an unknown reason. Maybe they could even initially market it as a new adaptation or a remake of Saikoroshi, and then reveal that it’s a sequel, to keep that whole element to the series. Either way I think this would end with everything going to shit when Rika rejects that fragment and wants to go back to St. Lucia’s, and Satoko basically snaps and kills her, and that way the audience can find out about her being the culprit without Rika finding out about it yet.

Maybe there could even be some dramatic irony where Rika’s attempts to meddle with certain ‘trigger events’, and her displaying her looper side, inadvertently triggers people around her to get paranoid, and the whole fragment would start to spiral into tragedy from there. I think they could at least use the whole conflict in Tatariakashi about Teppei actually being good this time as a starting point for that sorta thing.

-Second arc, rounding out the first cour, which is basically just Satokowashi. I don’t think there’s much that you’d need to change here, but like I said above I like the idea of her initially trying to just invent a perfect world for Rika and her to live in, instead of jumping straight to murder. But maybe instead of her literally just watching Rika’s loops, she could instead just be stuck using her looping powers to try and figure out how to create that ‘perfect world’ in the first place, by personally investigating all of the different tragedies and how to prevent them.

-Staring the second cour, a third arc where we basically just get to see those loops Satoko goes through, and her whole process of solving the tragedies and ‘purifying’ characters like Teppei and Takano, until we eventually see her perspective on the first arc, and how she reacts to Rika ultimately rejecting the world she tried to make for her.

-A fourth and final arc which is basically just Nekodamashi + Kagurashi, where she just totally snaps and tries to just torture Rika into never wanting to leave the village again, and eventually Satoko gets exposed and they have their direct confrontation with each other.

With that sorta story structure, you’d keep all the relevant bits of Gou/Sotsu as it is now, while being more focused on Rika and Satoko instead of doing kinda half-assed reruns of the Rena and Shion arcs. It’d also push the big cliffhanger between them until near the end of the show, while still revealing to the audience relatively early on that Satoko’s the culprit.

I’d also like them to do more with Satoshi and Shion, so maybe like with how Teppei gets redeemed and Satoko almost gets to have a happy life with him in Tatariakashi, the central question arc of this hypothetical story could also involve Satoko making sure that Satoshi wakes up from his coma, and Shion also gets to have a good relationship with all of them. You could probably do something interesting with the idea of Satoshi and Shion being in the camp of not trusting Teppei and his whole redemption arc.

Honestly I could spend a long time talking about how I would have done things differently, lol. For one thing, I think the Akashi arcs would have been much better if they just changed it so that Satoko used psychological tactics to make people paranoid, and we completely cut out the whole syringe plot device. I get how it fits with Satoko’s whole certainty gimmick, but it made those arcs way too predictable. Even if we knew the outcome, it’d at least be entertaining to see exactly how Satoko might go out of her way to set up the different tragedies. We kinda got glimpses of that sorta plot point in Wataakashi when things seemed to go outside of her control, but they didn’t really do much with it.

Anyway, this is a whole lot of words to say that I think that in spite of the serious structural issues going on, I think Gou/Sotsu as a whole is fine, and was at least working with a lot of perfectly good ideas that could have been executed much better.

Also, on a side note, that one scene during their fist-fight at the start where the art-style changes a bit was kinda weird, but I really liked how it looked, and part of me almost wishes the whole show looked like that, lol. I like Akio Watanabe’s character designs, but I feel like that sort of stylized, almost TWEWY-ish art style would have been really fitting for this series, especially in the horror/action parts.

Oh, and the new rendition of You was so good it almost felt emotionally manipulative, lol.

[theonceandfutureking6481]

BBC's Merlin Season 1 Episode 1: The Dragon's Call Analysis

*SPOILERS- FOR THE WHOLE SHOW*

So I just re-watched episode 1 of Merlin, The Dragon's Call and I thought I'd post my thoughts here, since this is the kind of thing I always wanted after I watched Merlin for the first time. Sorry, it's quite long!!

This episode is great fun to watch but also really interesting from a thematic perspective, as it introduces all the key characters and many key themes that continue throughout the show.

Setting it up as subverting traditional telling's of the legend

The wonderful thing about Arthurian legend is how many ways you can tell it, there is very little canon, it's whole point is that it has been reinterpreted time and again to say different things, be that as it may there are traditional elements which tend to remain constant and Merlin keeps some of these but many it takes out and it sets that up here.

The introduction is like a fairytale, "the young warlock arriving at the gates of Camelot", feels very much like the introduction to a fairy tale. This is on one hand telling us that this is a story we know like any fairytale, but the very fact that Merlin is young shows us that it is going to be different.

On the side, I love the line "A boy that will in time father a legend", because there's just this wonderful gap between the audience and the characters (as there is throughout the whole story), we know that Merlin will do great things, we know that Arthur will too, they are stories we have heard (tying again into that fairytale esque introduction), and its wonderful to know that, to see Merlin and know that he is destined for greatness.

Introduction to characters:

I haven't got a specific section for Merlin here, but its sort of strewn throughout everyone elses.

Morgana:

If you know Arthurian legend you will know that in many (even most) versions of the story Morgana is a villain, so her introduction here is both scary and fascinating. She is so clearly not a villain, and you wonder (if Merlin stays true to this element) what is going to change and happen that she will become one. I knew from the start that Morgana would become a villain (I had heard a lot of spoilers), so it was especially tragic and interesting to watch her character arc because I always knew. Interestingly she is immediately set up in alliance with Merlin, even though they barely interact. We know that he is a sorcerer, and her first lines are oppositional to Uther's stance on magic, she out of everyone in Camelot seems the most likely ally. This is the start of what becomes parallel character arcs, Morgana and Merlin are both fighting for magic to become legal but they end up going about it in different ways, and one is the main villain, the other our hero. They are the same and yet opposites, and the setting up starts from here.

Arthur:

Arthur appears quite simply to be a spoiled bully, not exactly what we expect from the King Arthur we know and love. The position he starts in though is important for a key element of the story which is Merlin and Arthur creating a better world in many ways directly oppositional to Uther's teachings, based on love, kindness, willingness to put others first and respect for others. Uther's world is one where strength is rewarded and he is (in a more adult way than Arthur) a bully, as we learn later he is someone who takes his anger and fear out on others, who takes advantage of his position to hurt people even those he loves. Uther can be a good king, but not when it asks him to make sacrifices of his worldview or things that really matter to him. Uther teaches Arthur some important things but there are many things Arthur has to unlearn, and these bullish tendencies, and lack of respect for others inherent in them are one of them. We do however see Arthur's inherent nobility and goodness in this episode. When he lets Merlin go because even though he's an idiot "he's a brave one", it shows us how Arthur respects what people do rather than who they are. Uther wouldn't of let Merlin go (though to be fair Uther probably wouldn't of picked a fight with a peasant), he would have thought that the law had to be upheld no matter the individual circumstance. Merlin attacked the prince that is definitely illegal but Arthur respects his courage (even though it came at the cost of his humiliation), and there is something different to Uther in that, even good.

Merlin and Arthur:

This episode aside from setting the tone for the more hilarious aspects of Merlin and Arthur's relationship establishes some other interesting things about what they are going to be to each other in this version of the story. Traditionally Merlin is Arthur's teacher, often tutoring him as a child, obviously this doesn't happen here but they retain that element of teaching here. Kilgharrah literally says that maybe it is Merlin's job to change the fact that Arthur's an idiot. Merlin challenges Arthur from the start, willing to criticise him and treat him as an equal (which Arthur actually appears to love), and we see perhaps what Merlin is going to teach Arthur and the more noble elements of Arthur's character that Merlin's going to bring. It is also only within the context of his interactions with Merlin that we see Arthur's best side (at least in this episode). Merlin shows Arthur that he has to treat all people with respect, Arthur recognises that Merlin is brave and full of qualities that Arthur himself admires. When Merlin saves Arthur's life you can see Arthur re-evaluating everything he thought he knew about him, there is a respect there.

Arthur's Mum Igraine

She's not a big part of this episode but she was mentioned and I think its interesting how she's represented. In many ways her representation is highly simplistic, she falls to the fate of many fairy tale mothers in being dead before the story begins, she's a plot device. She is presented (not outright but implied) with all the stereotypical virtues mothers are ascribed with, the woman who's trying to kill Arthur this episode talks to Uther about how hard it must have been for Arthur to grow up without a mother. It's not a huge scene but its an insight into Arthur's character, he was brought up with all the hate and bullishness of Uther without a mother who could have taught him love and kindness. As we later learn Igraine's death triggered the great purge, her loss very much symbolises the loss of love within the kingdom, both in what Arthur's like at the beginning as well as what Camelot has become under Uther's leadership.

Gwen (and Merlin):

She is wonderful and sweet and interestingly (especially for an audience that knows Arthur is going to marry her one day) a servant. It is interesting that the two people who become in the show (and we know as an audience will one day be) closest to Arthur are servants.

The thing about Arthurian legend is that typically its very much set within a context of Medieval feudalism, which means stringent social barriers. The code of equality inherent in the idea of a Round Table is equality among nobles, the code of chivalry is a code of honour for knights not for ordinary people. It's a reflection of the social realities of the era that inspires much of the aesthetic of Arthurian legend as well as the era in which most key tenants of the legend were formed. In making Merlin (Arthur's teacher & (in this show) best friend/soulmate) and Guinevere (Arthur's wife) servants, this show is changing this idea for one more reflective of our own times. It is about absolute equality of all people, and as I've said already the inherent value that every single human being has and the individual capabilities for nobility and goodness and everything the Knights Code admires. It thus sets the tone for what Arthur is going to represent, not just the ideal of knighthood and courage but the ideal of kingship for all people and the ideal of the world that matters to every person.

The self reproducing nature of love and hate

This is an idea which I've always viewed as the main theme of Merlin, the idea that hate begets itself, as does love. This episode is a perfect encapsulation of that theme which recurs again and again. Uther kills a man who is innocent (in the sense that he didn't actually hurt anybody) and the man's mother seeks vengeance and in doing so kills more innocent people because she hates Uther enough that she doesn't care who else she hurts to get at him. This happens again and again in the show, but what this show does that I love is turn it into a main theme by depicting the reverse. Arthur and Merlin are great because they act against this world of Uther's creation, they act with love and compassion and respect for all people, the ends rarely justify the means and most importantly, especially when their actions seem morally grey, they are always motivated by their love for others (not fear or hate- unlike Uther and any number of villains). Uther is the main villain of the show precisely because it is his actions that create every other villain they encounter, Morgana sums it up nicely and somewhat ominously (given what side she ends up on)- "the more brutal you are the more enemies you'll create". Uther views that brutality as strength, but it is the weakness at the heart of his kingdom, it is what makes Camelot a worse place it is what puts everyone he cares about in danger. Essentially the plot of the first episode sets up the cycle of violence that Uther started, though it doesn't set up Merlin and Arthur as breaking it it does set up the idea of equality and respect for all people that Arthur will learn and is essentially opposed to the brutality and cruelty and hate represented by Uther.

Fun non-analysis things

It mightn't seem like it but I do actually watch Merlin for reasons other than copious analysis of themes. It is a highly enjoyable show with characters and relationships (Merthur but also just generally the wonderful representation of friendship and loyalty) I love, and its actually really funny.

Gwen saying "Who'd want to marry Arthur" is peak comedy because we all know, well you.

The weird set up in Gaius' first scene as him being bumbling and slightly insane (in the mad wise old man sort of way), there is literally no carry through, he's not even like this in the rest of the episode, but its hilarious so who cares.

Merlin and Arthur's whole exchange is the funniest thing and Arthur had every insult coming. Also this is exactly how you set up enemies to lovers.

All the writers names begin with J? It's just something I notice every time the intro credits roll and it's just funny (Julian Murphy, Johnny Capps, Jake Michie and Julian Jones)- also two Julian's, I mean what are the chances?

[stargaze-issei]

"maybe i want to take you out!" (s. hitoshi x reader)

summary; shinsou hitoshi always thought you'd get along pretty well, with similar quirks, both aspiring to be a hero someday. what will it take for him to ask you out?

genre; fluff(?

word count: 1.8k

warnings: manga spoiler, joint training arc. two curse words(??

quirk; puppet master. you can control any person or object with invisible strings that come out of your body. the accuracy increases as more strings you use. usually, you only use your fingers because it's easier to control, but when needed you can use your tongue, feet, hips and legs. for it to work, whatever is your objective has to be in your sight at the moment of taking control, once that happened, the connection will break if they cross a five miles radio. when overused, your fingers (or whatever you're using) will bleed and give you instense headache.

                                                *.✧☆ﾟ.*･｡✧*⊰⊹ฺ

in class 1-a of the hero course, everyone got along, including you. you had bonded with everyone there, including bakugou somehow, but definitely your best friend was kaminari denki. maybe because your rooms were parallel from each other and that made you spent almost everyday with him, sometimes mina would tag along, or kirishima, or sero, but always you and him. don't get me wrong, it was totally innocent, there was really nothing more than a strong friendship between both of you, despite of what your friends thought. it was normal for you to have lunch together, or go for a run before going to sleep. anyone who didn't know you would've thought you were a couple, and that's what the purple haired boy from general studies thought too.

one time, after his personal practice, aizawa sensei caught him looking at you.

"you..." he wasn't that type of master, but he also wanted to bond with his student "you should talk to her, she's really nice"

"sorry, what?" his cheeks started to blush at a weird speed.

"you were looking at y/n, right? i said you should go talk to her, her quirk is similar to yours" of course shinsou knew that, that girl was one of the eight best from the sports festival, if only she were better at close combat, she would've totally won. at least, that what he thought.

"forget it, it's nothing" it had made him uncomfortable to have that little chat with his sensei.

however, aizawa knew he lied. it was something, and for shinsou to care about anything asides from becoming a hero was... unnatural.

you, on the other hand, never repaired on him that much. you knew who he was, you knew he had potential and was awfully cute, but that was it. sometimes you would think about talking to him, i mean, your quirks were similar, he'd get some things no one else would, he'd get you, but neither of you had the courage.

until one day, on your first joint train with class b, a surprise student showed up. it was him. shinsou hitoshi, in his flesh and blood. he seemed so different. it wasn't just that cloth in his neck giving him an eraserhead type of look, a new aura of self confidence surrounded him, making you feel a little attracted to him.

the teams were sorted out, you ended up with deku, uraraka, mina and mineta. given that your team had one more than the others, it was decided that shinsou would be against you. a shiver ran down your back, it scared you to fight someone similar to you. denki's team ended up with shinsou in it.

"denki, here" you approached to him handing over a cereal bar. he took it without saying a word as shinsou came closer.

"thank you for hav–" he stopped talking when he saw your face, what were you doing there? he always saw you around kaminari, were his suspicions true? were the two of you dating?

"you've got the face of a popular guy!" denki shouted "i'll bet you're popular with the ladies, trust me! look at y/n over here, drooling all over the place" he pointed at you with a funny expression.

"oh shut it" you were trying to hide the blush in your face by looking to the ground, dammit, denki "anyways, good luck shinsou, i... i look forward to our match" you walked away, feeling butterflies in your belly even though he didn't even respond. he was just too mindblown that you knew his name, that you looked forward to anything involving him.

"hey! what about me?" denki whined, but you ignored him. he realized that the purple haired boy didn't take his eyes off of you the whole time before the match, and figure out that maybe, he had a little crush on you.

as their match began, you accompanied deku to the camera room, recovery girl was there, just in case anyone got hurt. midoriya had his notebook in hand, taking notes on everything your classmates did. from time to time, he would mumble a couple things to himself.

"shinsou really improved after the sports festival" you said, thinking out loud. you swear you tried, but it was impossible to take your eyes off of him.

"does his hair pull up too? is it a cloth thing? i always thought it was because of eraser's quirk. what if he...?" deku rambled, and you didn't notice the sassy look recover girl was giving to you.

their match ended with a win of class a, denki happily hugging shinsou. the rest of the encounters left your team, the last one, with the duty to untie, each class won two times, whoever wins now takes it all. you hurried to gather up with your team, mina yelling at you to fast your pace. deku already had a plan, which involved him as a decoy. you had to be taken to higher ground, where you could see most of the arena, as a damage control person. once they're in the place of your ambush, you'd use your mastering to get them out of combat.

the exercise started, everyone in position. uraraka helped you get as high as you could, and then went to help the others. you helped mineta move whenever he needed while keeping an eye on deku, but suddenly, everything turned into a mess. you couldn't see deku, or uraraka, or mina, only smoke and screams. you rushed over there, worrying that something bad happened to anyone.

"deku!" you yelled, a strange black substance was coming out of his body, taking control of him, almost like a black whip. in anger, it turned to monoma, who was standing in shock. without second thoughts, you launched yourself to get the blonde guy of the way, arriving a few seconds early, but not enough time to save your own body.

it was impossible for the whip to stop at that speed, so you closed your eyes and protected your face, there was nothing else you could do. but the impact never came. the moment shinsou got there, his legs took life and jumped to save you. seeing you there, waiting for your faith like a scared kitten, made his heart break. and he did it, he saved you from izuku, but didn't realize how your head smashed into the ground.

you remember seeing dark purple eyes staring at you before passing out.

                                                *.✧☆ﾟ.*･｡✧*⊰⊹ฺ

"are you sure she'll be okay?" a male voice asked. it wasn't denki, or aizawa sensei, but he seemed worried about you. your head ached like hell, so you kept your eyes closed.

"what i answered ten times before won't change now, shinsou" you knew that was recovery girl, but what was shinsou doing there? why was he so worried about you? "call me when she wakes up, i gotta go" and like that, both of you were left alone.

he sat next to you, resting his hands on the gurney while letting a loud sigh out.

"tough day?" you teased without looking at him.

"you wouldn't believe" it took him a while to realize what had happened "you woke up! how is your head? are you okay? don't move, i'll get recover girl" shinsou jumped from his sit, somehow you managed to grab his wrist, blushing at the touch of his skin.

"wait, please" he felt his knees weaken below him because of your soft tone "can you tell me what happened?" then it was his turn to blush.

"um, i really think i should go get recovery girl" you let go of his wrist when he started to walk, with a hint of sour in your mouth.

as hitoshi left the room, kaminari appeared minutes later. his hair was messy, and still wore his hero costume, like you. after screaming, he hugged you tightly.

"don't ever, ever, do that again! oh go i thought you were dead or something, if shinsou hadn't throw you of that thing's way..."

"shinsou saved me?" he proceeded to tell you a detailed history of what he saw in the ground gamma's cameras. how that whip was about to kill monoma, how you saved him only to be saved later by shinsou.

recover girl arrived alone, no sign of the purple haired boy, and by the afternoon, you were ready to go home. at the dorms, everyone welcomed you, izuku apologizing over and over. but the boy wasn't there either. him was all you could think about. you wanted to talk to him, thank him, something to him. why did he run away? did you said anything bad? were you annoying?.

days went by, and shinsou wasn't anywhere nearby, not even the hallways. you were told to rest and get good sleep at nights, but you laid wide awake thinking if tomorrow maybe he'd approach to you. until one day, it was enough. eraserhead gladly told you to go to the forest at six, he would be there waiting for you. and so you did, only to find him in his training clothes, obviously not expecting you.

"what are you doing here? you should be resting" he shouted, trying to hide his sweating hand behind his back with the greatest effort to not let his embarrassment out in his voice.

"well i would be, if the guy that saved me didn't ghost me" why were you being that confident? he didn't owe you anything, half of you wanted to turn around and leave, but you never listened to that half.

"it wasn't a big deal! it's cold out here, where's your jacket?"

"forget about my jacket! why didn't you come back?" shinsou felt something shiver in him, why didn't him?.

"because you didn't need me there!" even he knew that was the lamest answer ever.

"you don't know what i need! i wanted to thank you!"

"well then do it!"

"that's what i'm doing!"

"great, thanks accepted, now go and put on a fucking jacket!"

"no! you don't get it, dammit" his eyes opened wide, he was completely lost.

"what is it then!?"

"i want you to care!"

"how do you know i don't?" your face turned red.

"because... oh screw it!" you turned around, ready to leave.

"wait! what do you want me to say!?"

"i don't know! what do you want to do!?"

"maybe i want to take you out!"

"maybe you should!"

"maybe i will!"

wait, what? did he said he wanted to take you out?

"are you... are you for real?" you asked, scared of his answer. both of you walked closer to each other.

"i mean, yeah, but it's totally okay if you don't want to, i would totally understand, like, you are you and i am me, so feel free to..." you lips pressed to his stopped him from talking. they were soft, perfectly in sync with yours, a little taste of mint coming out of his mouth. "i-is that a yes?"

"pick me tomorrow at seven" and you left, both had an idiotic smile stitch to your faces.

you were going on a date with shinsou hitoshi.

[iamnightduchess]

Reiner & Mikasa: A Retrospective Pt. 1

Why their combined synergy is poetic in potentially saving Eren by the end of SnK?

(Disclaimer: This is purely an appreciation post for my two favorite characters, [BR]OTP-influenced but in no way disregarding any other characters’ importance in the series) **contains spoilers for recent manga chapters & Ep. 63 of AoT’s Final Season. Image heavy.

Ever since they were trainees, Eren has always looked up towards both Reiner and Mikasa, although he wasn’t willing to admit to the latter in front of her face directly. But, in a feeling of helplessness, he confided in Reiner. He aspired to be just like the two strongest people in his life at that point: Reiner and Mikasa.

They are the top two cadets of the 104th batch and are almost always evenly matched in the multiple times they’ve tried to take each other down if it wasn’t for Reiner’s stroke of luck and Mikasa’s hesitance. (Mikasa managed to force him out of his Titan form using her last Thunder Spear but wasn’t enough to kill him even when she said she wanted to)

(Oh yes, she & Levi gave him enough trauma for his PTSD and he has recurring nightmares of her. But he still respects them. Enemy to enemy. Enemy to ally.)

Yet together, there’s still a fighting chance for them to stop Eren because of their deep bond with him. (Armin is important too that ARM still has a huge role to play in the second wave of the final fight. Especially now that he’s realized OG Ymir’s role in all of this. I hope)

At this current timeline of the manga, we have reached the point where Reiner and Mikasa, the very two people that Eren looked up to, have to be the ones (amongst the few) who collectively work together to defeat him, who’s under the Founder Ymir’s influence & in a way, saving him from whatever hopeless vortex he is in.

I very much like to draw light to this short, quick exchange between Reiner & Mikasa on the plane heading towards Fort Salta’s direction. The above panel, which highlighted Reiner’s perspective and his empathy, says “The weight of that unimaginable power & burden would not be easy to endure and that IF he was the one who has the Founder, he’d want it to be handled by someone else and if he couldn’t handle that immense power, he’d want the power to be stopped.” Some fans claimed that Reiner was ‘projecting’ his own innate desire to die on Eren but Reiner has always been the opposite to Eren’s character. The other side of the same coin as Eren’s.

The below panel follows and it’s very interesting to note that if we look at Reiner’s gaze as he was speaking, indirectly Reiner is admitting that he’d want to be stopped by someone he knows could do exactly that and that person or his kryptonite is Mikasa. Ok, woman, this man’s weakness is you. It couldn’t get any direct than that rofl

Reiner was being very mindful (and respectful) of his implication as he is very aware on how delicate is Mikasa’s feelings when it comes to Eren. (Tbh, I also observe the unspoken understanding & mutual respect between these two) Eren’s her family & to directly call out to Mikasa to be more proactive in her actions would be inconsiderate of him despite the situation they’re in. Just like at the harbor, before the showdown with the Jeagerists, Reiner gave them the option to stay aside & not interfere, knowing full well he & the rest of the Marleyan survivors would be no different than headless chickens without the SC’s support. He didn’t force them, just like he didn’t impose his thoughts on Mikasa.

Then BOOM -- PATHS INTERMISSION. Brought to you by OG!Ymir through Young!Eren. Coincidentally, as if ‘someone’ out there wants to place weight on Reiner’s suggestion.

However, after the Paths intermission, that might just be the first wake up call to Mikasa. It’s also interesting that once again we are reminded that no matter how fast or how hard Mikasa tried to chase after Eren, she’ll never be able to get close to him. She gave him her world yet he kept moving forward & leave her behind, chasing after his shadows as he keeps going down a path that no one else can follow. I think it’s interesting that The Paths looped her back to Reiner

The horrified expression on Reiner’s face in the panel below somewhat tells me that he knew his earlier implications are not just him grasping desperately at straws but it feels like there’s the ‘human’ side of Eren, still untainted by Ymir’s will, like he believes, who secretly wants to be stopped. He understood how horrible it is for Mikasa, especially with the look of absolute shock on her face to finally have the awful truth confirmed. (At this point, Armin is already past the point of holding back & will do whatever necessary to rip Eren out of the Founding’s form)

I would like to take the time to share my appreciation of these rich panels of Mikasa working closely with Reiner’s Armored (together with the rest of course). Mikasa doesn’t tell her feelings verbally but she always shows it on her face.

Oh yes, right after the above panel, she had to get out of the way but her face below explains the anger and the rage she felt when she saw the Colossal took a bite out of the Armored’s nape & toss its body away like it’s just point blank garbage.

She was desperately worried that Armin was taken, but at Levi’s behest, she trusted Armin with his orders and they forced themselves to move forward. But one can see she was about to go apeshit when she saw what happened to Reiner & his Armored.

While Reiner & Jean were having a Titanic bro moment here, which is also pivotal in my opinion as Reiner, once again felt he finally belonged amongst people who genuinely care about him Survey Corps Suicide Squad yo even after what had happened between them. (It was a symbolical scene as well where Reiner has to let go of his old bro, Bertolt to move forward with his new bro, Jean.) Mikasa swooped in & kill the random Titan form that was about to make Reiner its lunch. Can’t blame them, that man is a delicious footlong sub. This woman ain’t gonna share haha crack humor, people! 

“If we fight, we win. If we lose, we die.”

Yes, the breaking point of one Mikasa Ackerman. This is a wholesome callback to Trost arc, the day before their graduation. When she found out that Eren died, she went apeshit & went on a “fuck this shit. i have nothing to lose anymore” mode. Jean, as usual, being the tough guy Jean, is angry that she’s putting her life on the line. Again.

But what’s interesting to me was the helpless look on Reiner’s face. He knows she’s super strong, he respects her so much for that & she’s buying them time and was more than willing to die first before everyone does BUT he can’t do much at that point because he’s at his last limit and Jean’s not letting his hand go either. Seriously, THIS is the woman you should marry, bro. She’s willing to die for you & everyone else. This woman is a damn keeper!

Although I am very sure, everyone’s ready to die for each other at this point.

Back to the original pondering: The Reiner & Mikasa saving Eren with/through Armin going directly against Ymir.

The Final Exhibition played a lot on this Eren vs Reiner with Mikasa being in the middle. Touched on this briefly before.

The Final Stand highlights the confrontation between The Founding/Attack against The Armored, with Mikasa being in the middle of the confrontation, tipping the scales of the outcome. Before, she assisted Eren against Reiner.

We are seeing her working together with Reiner to take Eren down right now. The definitive final question that would be answered soon was printed on the wall featuring Eren & Reiner’s exhibition panel:  “Who’s the one that will disappear from this world?”

I just hope that the right one(s) persevere. Reiner & Mikasa are going to Bonnie & Clyde/ Cloak & Dagger / Cyclops & Phoenix that shit out

Read on their characters compatibility in Part 2

[woodswalker96]

Season 3 Talk: Part 1 (spoilers, obvi)

(Yes, I just used Brooklynn’s phrase for obvious) 

So, let’s just get this major point in the story out there first. This is probably THE biggest and most defining character dynamic change to come out the series. It was such a gut punch that I literally felt sick and could not sleep properly without thinking about the ramifications, how it could be resolved, or how it’ll affect the group’s dynamic. Despite this, I feel that it was or at least wonderfully adds to the cliffhanger at the end of the finale, leaving you really wanting more and to see just how this friendship will be resolved. By now you’ll likely picking up on the fact that I talking about the canyon-sized rift that has formed between Kenji and Darius. 

My GAWD, that was just completely brutal on the first watching and completely left me with this massive hole. So, let’s try to break this down.

First off, the summary. Basically, Darius AND Brooklynn decided that not letting Wu have access to his research to create more hybrids was the most important task they must complete, to the point that they voluntarily risked their lives, primarily Brooklynn’s but I can see the scenario playing out the same if their roles were switched. After the rest of the Fam regroups, Darius recruits a plan to both save Brooklynn and erase Wu’s work, despite objections from Kenji and, to a lesser extent, Ben. As the plan is set in motion, Kenji goes rogue and rescues his friend by giving the laptop back. Chaos ensues, laptop is collaterally damaged, Brooklynn is saved, everyone’s united, yay??? Not so, as before they say goodbye to Bumpy and the camera from Darius’ perspective pans around, you see everyone is smiling except for Kenji. Then after Bumpy leaves, Darius goes to assure Kenji is all well, only for Kenji to throw it back in Darius’ face, basically accusing him of willing to risk the lives of his friends and potentially dooming them to a not so good fate. Even with the kids leaving and Brooklynn having a heartwarming convo with him, Darius is still somewhat taken aback from Kenji’s rejection, leaving room for the next season to set up a lot of tension between the two, the significance of which I’ll discuss below.

So, Kenji is crossed with Darius and the fact that Brooklynn’s life was in danger because Darius came to the conclusion that the Fam had to put a stop to some nefarious overarching plan or scheme instead of just keeping each other alive. I think this comes from Kenji’s growing maturity and his attachment to his friends. Romantic shipping stuff aside, we can infer this from the first season with his reaction to Ben’s “death”, then we get more in depth with these feelings of losing his friends to the main villain of the Final Destination franchise when he talks with Brooklynn while they care for Sammy in season three. He cares deeply for his crew, as they are possibly not just his friends but likely the closest thing to a family he’s ever experienced. After Sammy heals, I kind of felt that all he wanted to do was just leave with his friends safely, such as when he gripes about Darius going off on his to fetch Ben when Kenji suggested they all go get him, and when the crew decide to get rid of the Scorpius rex. Brooklynn’s life being in danger and the crew deciding to play this elaborate plan to get two birds with one stone instead just doing the obvious and getting everyone to safety may just been the last straw for Kenji, causing him to possibly lose faith in Darius along with being furious at him. 

After the end of the finale, I don’t see how old aloof Kenji will return. This experience has definitely matured him to what I ultimately think is for the better, although I could also see how he can still have storylines where he still messes up and causes some detriment for the group (they all make these kinds of mishaps, and the effects of such range considerably). 

This is all speculative but I can see that rift will carry on throughout the season, and will be a major storyline for the plot. Darius and Kenji were basically not only each other’s friends amongst the campers, but the first of the campers to become friends, so this rift should be handled with great care to show how both sides make solid points, how it affects not just Darius but Kenji as well, and how it might ripple across the group. I think in the beginning of this hypothetically arc, Kenji will be cold and distant towards Darius, not to the point where it’s obnoxious but definitely noticeable by the others, especially Brooklynn. Darius may try to apologize at first but will still stand by his decision, further drifting them apart and potentially leading to Kenji to straight up challenge Darius’ leadership or any plans he makes directly. The may others may or may not take sides, and circumstances may occur that could call Darius’ leadership into question and see Kenji indirectly take over, with the others flocking to him. Throughout this, Brooklynn, who now has a strong friendship with both boys and sort of forms a trio with the two within the group, will be going to both sides, urging the other to take steps come back together. This could lead to Darius admitting to Kenji that he was correct to put the friends first above all else and not risk their lives, and Kenji letting go of his anger for Darius. This will likely occur either at the midpoint or the end of the fourth season. The process will (or should be in my opinion) definitely be an uphill climb, and Kenji may not immediately forgive Darius for his actions, where Darius could say his piece, admit his actions were unnecessary and could’ve led to a tragic outcome, and tells Kenji he has every right be angry and stay angry with him. 

I really do hope that these two amend their bond, seeing them rely on each other and be the best bros, especially in the earlier to middle portion of season 3 is great to watch. But things may not go back to being the same. They may amend their friendship, but lines were crossed, and I feel that Kenji may no longer be as much as the carefree and aloof person he has been so far, and his relationship with Darius will definitely change. But hopefully, even if it takes most of a season, it’ll be for the better. 

Thank you making it this far. These write ups may be a bit on the long side, so it may be only one or two every couple of days. Hope y’all enjoy my piece and enjoy season 3!!!

[chidoroki]

..You already know what I’m gonna ramble on about, right? What’s got us manga readers feeling a little bit like this? Yeah.. I have words.

Yes, I’ll be chatting about possible future spoilers, so scroll past now if you wish, but if you frequently check the usual tpn tags anywhere today (or over the next few days), I’m sure you’ve become quite familiar with this guy already, so.. here we go.

Let me start off by saying that I was beyond excited when we first found out we were getting a second season to this series. Having read the manga, I had high hopes that the anime would do so well, given the first couple arcs that follow the escape from Grace Field. From the very beginning, most of us figured it would touch upon the demon forest, the B06-32 shelter, Goldy Pond and quite possibly Cuvitidala. Of course, that was before we learned that this season had an episode count of 11 and would include some anime-only scenes, so we started to have some doubts. The new opening threw us through a loop as well, as a bunch of us speculated exactly how much this season was going to cover in terms of story and what chapter it would end off on. I was still a bit skeptical, but I put some belief in thinking we might be able to at least reach Goldy Pond. The more I thought about how many chapters this season could adapt, I remembered that Fire Force (another shonen series that has its fair share between action scenes alongside some calm, lighthearted ones) managed to fit 90 chapters into it’s first season, which was a total 24eps. I then thought it was possible for TPN’s second season to reach ch96, or maybe even ch101, since the total ep count for both s1&s2 would be 23. The upcoming arcs (GP especially) are undoubtedly more fast paced than the entire first season, which was very dialogue heavy, so naturally these action scenes would take up less time and require fewer episodes to show off. I won’t bash the second season for leaving certain scenes out and/or changing them (as the first season did this as well, albeit less noticeable), but the obvious ones come to mind. The full snakes of alvapinera scene? It was good to see the escapees overcome their first outside world obstacle on their own, sure, but overall it isn’t too important. Isabella’s scene at the gate with Grandma Sarah? Disappointing yes, but I figured they could always include that sometime later in a future episode.. at least, that’s what I’m hoping for. I can forgive the anime for those changes at the moment.. but after what episode 3 decided to pull? Oh no.. now they’ve done it!

I’m sorry.. but who exactly thought this change was a good idea? The anime-onlys must think we’re going crazy right now but c’mon, CLOVERWORKS! Are y’all for real right now?? Yeah they never even announced his voice actor beforehand like they did with Sonju & Mujika before their debut, but damn it! Also, don’t take my word for this, as I only just heard and not completely sure about the credibility, but apparently after ep4, the rest of the season will be like.. original? And I’m not sure how to feel about that if it’s true? I’ll take whatever content we get because yes, I love this series to pieces and want it to last as long as possible, but after waiting almost a full two years to see these wonderful kids animated again.. I just wanna continue on with the story we all know and love, darn it. I know Shirai is overlooking this season and giving his approval or whatever too, so that’s comforting at least.. but still, I just wish we knew this a little sooner, rather than have us find out this way by cutting out one of the most anticipated characters of this entire series! (for the time being anyways.)

Yeah we didn’t see him this episode, but he’s around.. somewhere. No one else is around to write on the walls like that, let alone get into the shelter without a pen. (i also noticed it doesn’t say “poachers” anywhere, so that’s a bit odd too..)

I just hope that whenever our man does show up, whether it be this season or not, that it follows the manga because his introduction is fantastic and his interactions with the kids are so amusing. Honestly, he’s too important to cut out entirely. The same goes for the Goldy Pond arc, which I saw some others worried about too. It’s at Goldy Pond (ch73) where Emma and another man, who we’re also anxious to meet, both find out about how to cross over to the human world via the four premium farms, the supporters, and project lambda7214.

I also saw some people concerned about Mujika’s goodbye to Emma this episode and how upon giving her the necklace, our demon friend didn’t hint at The Seven Walls at all, which is why Goldy Pond suddenly becomes that more important for us to see because it’s also there where the place is mentioned, not only by the many secret files from the pen’s cap, but from Minvera himself (ch72).

Come on now, Goldy Pond arc also does wonder for Emma’s character and appearance. It’s here where we see just how serious she is about changing the world and saving everyone she possibly can. Even if she has to fight crazy, killing poachers, she’ll do it. (also one of those poachers becomes very helpful much later in the story, so there, yet another reason we can’t skip this arc.) Though this all gets me wondering if GP will still get blown up on Jan 29th.. oh season two, you raise so many questions.

Now, could this season completely change some of those scenes even further? Of course, they’ve already done so with other bits of information. Ray figuring out the demon’s weakness in ch62 during the trip to Goldy Pond? Sonju already explained it.

The letter from Minvera that we learn about in ch56 which was originally hidden in one of the manuscripts from the shelter’s archive room? Conveniently pinned to the wall in plain sight!

I didn’t notice this when I first watched the episode but remembered just now while skimming through the manga yet again, but the episode didn’t have Gilda list off the coordinates to Goldy Pond that Minerva noted in his letter.

So how will the duo find their way there? Well, you already know.. and since GP is such an important arc, that’s another reason I believe our beloved man will show up.... eventually.

Going back to the changes now, but it’s Dominic who reveals the secret room behind the piano instead of our favorite father figure.

Although this room, which is supposed to be a full stocked armory, is completely bare..

Like.. hello? Where are all the weapons?? Are they gonna make these kids go out and raid a bunch of the other fake/dummy shelters for weapons or something? which.. actually sounds interesting and fun now that I think about it.

I also noticed that the conversation about the mass-production farms Sonju mentioned back in ch50 was also cut, but I can see the anime easily adapting it into a future episode somewhere, since said farms are mentioned again in ch56, courtesy of the shelter’s many books.

For now it just seems.. I don’t know, a bit easier? like I recently spoke about how Ray had to figure out how the pen worked in terms of coordinates and yet the anime just had the pen show a simple map, then Sonju flat out told them how to efficiently kill a demon, and the phone that allows them to contact the supporters? Oh, they found that instantly, whereas geezer had no idea such a room even existed in those 13 years he lived at the shelter..

Have I spoke too much by now? Probably. None of the changes bother me too much, aside from the geezer’s obvious absence, but I’m still looking forward to the rest of this season, as I’m sure it’ll give more spotlight to some of the other kids aside from Emma and Ray. Season one just did so well with sticking to the manga that I guess we all got caught way off guard, huh?

[a-crimson-lion]

Ultimatum: The Art of Lying In A Made Bed

(Or Why My Experience With Chapter 285 Is Contrary To Everyone Else's)

[Manga Spoilers Ahead. Also Opinions. Feel Free To Ignore.]

After Chapter 284, many fans were wondering how the story of BNHA would follow up on Katsuki's development. Now that Chapter 285 is officially out, fans are clamoring about Katsuki's latest acts of heroism, about how his arc is finally kicking it into high gear.

I'd be inclined to agree, but… you know how these things go.

[Heads up fans/stans, if you like Katsuki you might wanna bail. The word vomit that follows is pretty much incoherent and reflects my disaster of a thought process.]

I was looking forward to Chapter 285. I had my reservations on the execution of Chapter 284, but if the next chapter could follow it up and then some, I'd be pleasantly surprised. But then the leaks came out. And then the fan translation. And as of today, the official VIZ translation.

While everyone else is cheering for explosion boy, I'm just… done.

285 didn't get me to see how far Bakugo's journey has come. 285 didn't get me to finally root for him. And maybe I am making this decision prematurely, maybe I am missing something, but…

...the way things are going in the story I just- I just CAN'T root for him.

And I'm not saying the rest of you can't, if you're still reading. Katsuki is definitely a different person compared to Chapter 1, a better person, and he's definitely been heading on the up and up! If you can and want to support him, then by all means, go for it, don't let me stop you! It's just…

For me, chapter 284 was a wavering torch: a flicker of hope that sometimes dwindled, but was still there. Chapter 285 was the moment where I wanted to jump on the Katsuki Development Train, to finally gain some semblance of respect for him. But when I jumped, I landed on the tracks, and had to crawl back onto the platform.

I missed my chance to jump on that train. Whether it's because of previous circumstances or recent circumstances, I'll never know…

You probably wanna ask me at this point, "But Crimson, why DIDN'T Chapter 285 make you see the awe inspiring pinnacle of character development that is Katsuki Bakugo???"

To put it simply: it's a culmination thing.

For starters, there's a sort of… whiplash with Katsuki's development in the last few chapters. People like me will complain that Katsuki's development is too slow, in the case of the last 2-3 chapters, it feels like a switch was flipped, and now it's become too fast. Perhaps it's a me thing, but let me try to explain…

Shoto starts out as a standard background character. By the time he gets his spotlight in the Sports Festival, he comes off as reserved and antagonistic. After the whole "it's your power" moment, Shoto is finally able to accept the side he always hated. Then Katsuki fights Shoto, and we're shown he still needs time to grow; his left side comes with a lot of baggage he can't just brush off in the span of a single sparring match.

Fastforward to Hosu. Shoto's starting to take other people into better account. He's starting to learn to better control his fire. He's reconnected with his mother. His goal is no longer one-upping his old man; he has goals, people, that he wants to protect. He's coming into his own and wants others to do the same, like Tenya.

He joins the Katsuki Rescue Squad because, like Izuku, he had an opportunity to save Katsuki, didn't, and now he wants to make up for it. When we get to the Provisional License Exam, we're yet again slammed with the fact that his growth is still not done via Inasa, that there's still a bit of Endeavor he has to shake off, even if it was in the past. And he does progress towards that with the Remedial Course Arc. And while I have my opinions on the Endeavor Agency Arc, I'll admit that it was another development opportunity for Shoto and the Todoroki family. Shoto's growth comes with setbacks, but overall it's consistent.

Let's shift gears to Tenya, who's characterization I find fascinating. He starts out opposed to Izuku when they first meet at the Entrance Exam. He sees how Izuku is (for lack of a better phrase) "better qualified" at heroics thus far, reassesses his position, and apologizes whilst making amends. When Tenya resorts to LITERAL MURDER against Stain, the narrative does not let him go off without reprocussions. His arms are damaged, his supervisor's teaching license is revoked, and while he managed to avoid legal charges via police cover up, it still came close. Tenya listened to Stain's words, and opted to improve himself by that notion. He tries to set a better example, be a better class rep. It isn't a one and done.

Him lashing out during the Hideout Raid Arc is an offshoot of that. He doesn't deck Izuku just to be a dick; he's trying to knock some sense into him. They're so focused on Katsuki that they're forgetting about everyone else. Their friends, their teachers, their parents. If they f*** up like Tenya almost did at Hosu, they'll have hell to pay, and he doesn't want that. Of course, once they explain that combat/murder is not their M.O., Tenya tags along, if only to ensure the operation goes smoothly without this hitch. And again, Tenya keeps up. He looks after his classmates, looks after Izuku during the Shie Hassaikai arc. His growth is also consistent.

There are probably more characters I could elaborate on (Ochako, Momo, Eijiro, etc.), but I'll stop there. So, what's the deal with Katsuki's arc?

Well, it's… frustratingly back and forth.

It's one thing to have setbacks like Tenya and Shoto. It's something else entirely to have multiple setbacks and to keep trucking on with only abstract signs of development, but otherwise feeling like a very similar character compared to several chapters ago.

This is (in my opinion) Katsuki's problem. If we're going by what the manga stated, his arc technically started in Chapter 11: "Bakugo's Starting Line." But this is a rocky start. Izuku tells him about OFA right from the getgo out of guilt, but this neglects the fact that he's technically lying to everyone about it (including his new friends Ochako and Tenya), that OFA is a world-shattering secret, and that Katsuki is likely the worst person to tell this to considering that Izuku just handed Katsuki's ass to him and Katsuki was willing to use lethal force in their Trial. That aside, instead of say, sucking up his pride and opting to try and learn from everyone else, Katsuki doesn't really change strategies or approaches. He essentially does what he was planning to do since the start of UA; he's only crying because, SURPRISE, people are better than him. You'd think he'd expect that considering he called his middle school crappy…

After the USJ, once everyone had their "Lol Bakugo sux" moment on the bus ride, we get to the Sports Festival and everyone is clamoring to join Katsuki's team despite his apparent unapproachability. This feels less like something happened in the two weeks leading up to the Sports Festival, and more like history repeating itself from middle school. Moving on to the tournament, we don't even get to see how capable Katsuki is at serious combat. Two of his matches resort to Deus Ex Machina pulls, and the other two are in his corner by principle instead of difficult.

First off, Katsuki vs Ochako. I don't know why people praise this fight. For starters, it makes Katsuki HEAVILY OoC. Ochako is the only person he asks if she wants to back out before the match even starts. The ONLY person, which kinda undermines the whole "he didn't underestimate her" thing. Then he takes a reactionary stance the entire battle. Like, I thought we were still dealing with the "fist first" Katsuki. He does this to Eijiro, Fumikage, even Shoto, but Ochako? Stay still and then attack. Even if he did get his gravity removed, couldn't he just… propelly himself and let her have it. If he was proactive, he could have ended the fight quicker. Instead, he just plays sitting duck and headless chicken. If you're gonna have Katsuki win the fight, don't bulls*** it.

Which brings me to the final bit of that fight: the meteor shower. Having Katsuki blow that away after supposedly expending most of his energy earlier in the match just does NOT sit right. Ochako gets the upper hand, and then you just… negate that? You expect me to believe that Katsuki could generate an explosion at that magnitude, if nothing else? And what exactly does that do for him in the end? No one else tires him out for the remainder of the festival, which is pretty sketch.

(And yeah, I know I know "What part of her was frail?" but that's more of a retrospective thing than in the moment, coupled with the facf that it's never elaborated on again in any capacity, with Ochako or with someone else. It's a throwaway moment; a waste. Moving on…)

You really can't say much about the matchups with Eijiro and Fumikage. With Eijiro, it's an endurance match, and Katsuki apparently has infinite stamina and is on the attack. And he just… rushes him, which I'm pretty sure anyone else would do. Then with Fumikage, Dark Shadow is weak to light. Katsuki's explosions emit light on contact. Do the math.

And I am especially mad at Katsuki vs Shoto because one, he stays in place yet again at the start of the match, and two, he can apparently ignore his Quirk' weakness to low temperatures. In a gym uniform. Against a glacier the size of a building. Even with his power output, you don't see his explosions dampening in magnitude. It's obviously in his favor, which defeats any tension the fight could have had. It sucks, and in the long run, as a wise man once said, "Todoroki should have folded [his] ass."

Then we get to the Final Exams (ABOUT DAMN TIME) and… Katsuki hits Izuku for trying to cooperate, nearly gets knocked out once, and gets knocked out the second time around. He does not want to work with Izuku despite it being All Might, is petty enough to consider losing, and actively grumbles against working with Izuku. And all of his supposed self-preservation goes flying out the window when he's willing to try and beat All Might, leaving Izuku having to come and carry this boy out of the gate, which should not have let him pass.

Then there's the Training Camp attack. The second Izuku is mentioned, Katsuki decides to go AWOL, and while being kidnapped sucks, I am less sympathetic when you're boneheaded enough to help them capture you because you wanted to fight villains instead of getting to safety like the professionals recommended, all because of your one-sided hatefest with one of your classmates. Congrats, you played yourself.

Then we get to the Provisonal License Exam, which feels like a step in the right direction… until you realize this will boil over into Deku vs Kacchan 2, which will get both of them in trouble, which will give Katsuki insight into OFA while Izuku gets shunned by his classmates, and which will prevent Katsuki from the one ass beating that could have potentially taught him something. It's essentially the narrative covering his ass, and then he has the gall to be happy about other people potentially getting set back just because he was set back. Geez dude.

The Cultural Festival essentially undoes what the Remedial Course Arc accomplishes, having Katsuki look down on the rest of UA when he said NOT to look down on people earlier. And then his speech is still heavily antagonistic to the rest of the school, and to the idea of basic human decency and kindness in general. And if I'm being honest, that whole "he can play drums" feels like a big ass pull to keep him in the spotlight. At least the story brought back his ability to cook down the line.

The Joint Training Arc is just shoe horning in regards to Katsuki. It acts like his gearing up towards saving, but the circumstances are heavily, heavily in his favor, and not in a good way. I've already brought up how Katsuki won't get "saving" until the Endeavor Arc, and how here he's just doing it to show off, so I won't go into it here. Then apparently he gets to outwit a recommendation student 'cause why not? It makes him look more impressive than he actually is, even though he outright states he hasn't changed much if at all. Not to mention the narrative makes it sound like he was some sort of underdog, even though he only got kidnapped and didn't get his license. And I know those are big things, but not enough to warrant his victory feeling that triumphant. I'd probably buy it if he didn't win the Sports Festival or pass the Final Exam. Keep him in that slump for longer than you actually do, or it lessens the impact. And let's not forget, he might have been willing to help Izuku with Blackwhip via fisticuffs, but the second he realized he wasn't getting anything out of it, he noped out. And it's been what, almost 200 chapters since his "starting line?"

I don't have much to say during the Endeavor Arc (that was its own can of worms),  but as for the War Arc thus far… here's what I mean by "whiplash." The arc begins in Chapter 253. By Chapter 257, Katsuki will demonstrate how much he just does not give a f*** about Izuku's mastery over OFA so long as it looks like he'll come out on top. By Chapter 274, when Izuku's gotta split, it'll look like Katsuki has been thinking about some stuff, but by 275 he's gonna throw that out the window so he can attempt to one up Tomura and Izuku, and then he'll nearly get killed for it. And we won't know what exactly Katsuki is thinking until a flashback in Chapter 284 (which chronologically takes place after 257), where he has a conversation with All Might about his past with Izuku. Or at least the bullet points. If you're me, the start of the conversation feels less about Izuku and more so about his situation: his situation with OFA. And as much as I want to believe there was at least one good kernel in Katsuki that he was too stubborn to let out with Izuku, I feel like Katsuki only brings up him and his capabilities now because he got a Quirk. That's what put him on Katsuki's radar. That's what forced Katsuki to take notice of Izuku, what caused him to be unable to ignore his own weakness. Because of a Quirk. That's… borderline shallow, if not remarkably so.

And even when Katsuki is attempting to save Izuku in 285, his first thoughts are still on OFA. And even if we go by the line of thought that Katsuki is thinking "Even if OFA sucks, it's still Izuku's Quirk." And that's nice and all, but the flashback makes it seem like the Quirk is still All Might's Quirk as well. That all of Izuku's worth is hinged on the fact that he got a Quirk now and therefore can't be written off. Maybe he doesn't owe this to his accomplishments, but the narrative is terrible in its implications that Izuku wouldn't have gotten as much attention without it. At the end of the day, Katsuki is still associating Izuku's worth with his Quirk. And as much as I want to vaguely, vainly hope that this will change later on, I'm already at my limit

...and now that I've said my piece on almost the entire narrative thus far, let's shift gears to a few more tidbits in 285.

Again, the flashback. I think it's significant that they're shifting the focus briefly on middle school again. But you wanna know what sent me the wrong way? They didn't include the god forsaken suicide instigation. They can show Katsuki gloating. They can show Izuku up against a wall. They can even show a notebook and Izuku's face during the Sludge Villain rematch. But they can't show Izuku reacting with sorrow mixed with almost fury. That can't show Katsuki threatening him with a mere "What?" and the sparks on his palms. They can't show Izuku standing and crying, small and defeated.

"BUT HORI SAID HE WENT TO FAR WITH THAT SCENE!1!" Blah blah blah, doesn't change the fact that it still happened. Doesn't change the fact that it should be addressed, at any capacity. Doesn't change the fact that the story had the balls to recall middle school but couldn't bring itself to remember the one thing that could get its audience raising eyebrows.

But that's alright, it gave you the notebook; clearly it's done enough.

And maybe in another timeline, I could have let my jaw drop when Katsuki was hit and the chapter title was revealed. "Katsuki Bakugo: Rising" It would have been pretty damn powerful too.

...but with all the previous crap the narrative has pulled, it feels like more shoehorning. It feels like more Erasehead stepping in and shaming the audience. It feels like more All Might letting Katsuki in because he's not completely familiar with the finer details. It feels like more people. In narrative parroting that Katsuki changed when he does the bare minimum, as a hero or as a person. I can't treat this development legitimately, because so many other "legitimate" developments pulled a "psyche!" and headed out.

So, I'm done. I'm done with Katsuki, done with hoping his development will be done in a somewhat satisfying manner. Done with people telling me "it's actually good though!" like I'm blind and deaf or something, when I have enough brain cells to formulate my own opinions, and we both have enough brain cells to leave each other alone if we don't agree. Maybe when the series ends and we can all look at this in hindsight, and Katsuki has either found a way to redeem himself, or remain deplorable, I might talk about it then. But for now. I'm drawing the line. I might talk about what we've gotten up to this point, but everything past 285 I'm taking with a grain of salt. 'Cause I'm sick of hoping for something that obviously won't come through, and it's better for me and everyone involved if I just pack up and move on. BNHA isn't just Katsuki's story after all.

And if you made it to the end of all this… I hope you'll either respect my opinion, or respect my thought process. That's all I can ask.

-Crimson Lion (27 September 2020)

[fromthedeskofthecaptain]

For anyone who would like to know the contents of the Ghosts Empire Spoiler Special, I’ve summarized the discussion below.

There are two episodes, both centered on series 2, excluding the Christmas special. The first is Martha, Ben and Larry and the second is with Matt and Jim (and is better in terms of how deep they go into characterization and the writing process). I’ll skip the bits that are just chatter.

I’m not going to transcribe it all, but I’ll spend a few posts talking about the key points. I’ll do the second one first, because it’s the richest.

Writing process-

Storylining is done half a series at a time as a big group and then who writes each episode depends on availability and not being engaged on other projects. People will often write an episode because the plot was their idea, but it can work out that they write up an episode based on someone else’s outline.

They knew they wanted to show characters going against type - angry Pat and vulnerable Captain - and that they wanted to explore love between the Ghosts. They wanted to show humanity, add complexity and depth to characters and allow a range of movement into the present and the past. It was harder to write than Yonderland because there isn’t a new character with an “adventure of the week”.

Episode 1 -

The original idea for Pat’s DJ spot was that he would give an intro to Dexy’s Midnight Runners “Come on Eileen” and hum the first few bars, but it turned out to be £1000s to obtain the rights. Jim was so thrilled that it got such a laugh in rehearsal he considered paying himself. They tried a few others (2,4, 6, 8 Motorway) and then Jim improvised “Chicken and Chips” thinking he’d have a lot more tries, but Tom Kingsley moved them on before he could.

(Btw, they had no problems getting Kylie to agree to use of “I Should be so Lucky” because she loves the show! Music Club presented the same problem of having to ask for clearance and pay. Apparently there’s no standardized system so they had to think of something and ask, rather than picking from options with a price list.)

Episode 2 -

They came up with Dante’s plot to give Alison some way of moving through the house and interacting with everyone. They went with the Ghosts natural reactions to partying. Pat was conflicted between fun and the right thing. The plague ghosts and Mick giving everyone the plague was based on a play Matt was in years ago about a village where this happened.

They structured the episode by using the principle “what’s the worst thing that could happen next?” a la Curb Your Enthusiasm and thought the answer was the plague ghosts coming upstairs and there had to be a cause of that. The archaeologist was a good person to deal with the question of how is it they’ve just found out what Mick did.

Mary x Robin came from them thinking someone would end up having some intimacy with someone in hundreds of years without much stimulation or any other people, or even things, to touch. They joked about everyone having had ghost sex(!!) with everyone else at one point. (Editor’s note: I can’t really see this. Kitty doesn’t know what it is, Cap and Fanny are too uncomfortable with it so that leaves Julian, Thomas, Humphrey and Pat, who I suspect is too loyal to his wife).

Episode 4 - The Thomas Thorne Affair

There was an awareness that Thomas’s character could become a “one note joke” with no capacity for development. Jim described him as potentially like Pepe Le Pew. Matt asked Charlotte how she felt about the sameness of some of their interactions. They thought about having Alison just lay down the law as it were, but that would change who he was too much. They needed to “play the same tune with a different dynamic” in Thomas’s arc. They considered making his character a peeping Tom, but thought that would bore everyone quickly.

Episode 4’s plot structure came about because they wanted to promote the unreliable narrator idea. They knew some ghosts would have witnessed Thomas’s death and that, plus familiarity with characters, let them play with the format. Matt didn’t want to have the flashbacks to deaths to be done the same way each time. Pat’s in series 1 was obvious because he “wears his death” (Jim). Jim did an improv of Pat’s death in the writer’s room when they first had the idea of how he died. It worked because although it’s quite horrific, the audience knows he’s ok, in a sense, afterwards, so it can be comedic too.

Matt felt a bit guilty about being front and centre of the story he wrote. The unifying thread was Mike and Alison’s issues with truth / perspective. His death also establishes that some ghosts are present at others deaths.

They developed Thomas by writing about why he is as he is. Matt thinks that because Thomas died “heartbroken and fixated” Mary’s observation that “you stays how you dies” is psychologically true, too. They always knew he died in a duel over a woman, but elaborated it to include dying thinking he’d been abandoned. He transferred this state of unrequited obsession onto Alison. Thomas can’t cope with Robin’s point, re monogamy, about what would he do if both Isobel and Alison were alive.

They still aren’t sure if he’s a good poet - they wrote it so we know it’s bad BUT he can believe it’s good and the audience within the show are a bit confused about whether it’s just confidently delivered rubbish or not. They think he’s capable of good work but gets too caught up in his fixed ideas of what being a good poet is and tries too hard (the implication being that this blocks genuine creativity/ originality). His vulnerability is quite charming (Matt).

The idea of the cousin betrayal was thought up once they started. The first idea was just that Thomas tells a story and others interject to say it wasn’t like that and Kitty would tell her version which the audience would know to be true because she has no guile. The contrast was originally just in Thomas’s grand passion cruelly interrupted story versus the actuality of a not very good poet being deluded about a random woman who barely knew who he was. The twist of the cousin was a spark in the writers room that everyone was immediately excited about and that matches Thomas’s sense of the melodramatic.

(As an aside, they always knew there were different groups of people in the house before the Buttons and intended to use that to explore other stories and characters throughout history.)

Matt is a bit embarrassed that they didn’t really have space to give Francis a proper motivation for orchestrating his cousin’s death. They put in a bit about him appreciating Button House and added a line from Thomas - “don’t embarrass me, cousin” - to suggest perhaps Thomas bullied him a bit. They thought about giving Francis lines about having gambling debts to create an urgent need to marry into money, but that made it too obvious that Francis was a bad guy.

To be continued...