#anyway i just finished a rewatch and looped straight back to the beginning for another

[crehador]

baccano rewatch #819673 ✧ episode one ✧ luck gandor & maiza avaro

[godkilller]

@izzabizz139

I wanna hear you rant about the Gin vs Hitsugaya anime fight bc I love seeing your pov and you clearly write better than whoever extended that scene :) pretty please

          out of character.  DON’T ENABLE ME SO MUCH !!  No but I cackled when I first saw this ask because oh my god, clearly you saw a taste of my annoyance about the anime adaptation -- no, adaptation implies it was accurate, I’ll say the anime’s take was “inspired by” the manga’s quick run-in. I’ll start by saying this moment is supposed to be a bit important considering, via the audience’s point of view, THIS IS THE FIRST WE SEE OF TWO CAPTAIN-RANKED SHINIGAMI CLASHING. The only other captain-involved fight we’ve seen thus far in the manga is Kenpachi  ( who is an outlier and should not be counted... no, I joke... but, still, Ichigo was not an equal to him, his sword was sliced through like butter. )  The whole reason I enjoyed this encounter between Toshiro and Gin was simply this; it wasn’t some fancy multi-chaptered fight. IN THE MANGA, THERE ARE ONLY TWO BLOWS MADE. One, by Toshiro, to begin the fight. The second, to end it, is Gin’s strike.

          I want you to know that I’ve rewatched this specifically to answer this ask, and only due to this, as I wouldn’t have ever sought it out otherwise. HONOR MY SACRIFICE.

          Read more for length. I’m merciful.

          In the anime, they monologue at each other, and it’s mostly a combination of Toshiro making three separate death threats  ( he starts this off by saying “I’ll kill you before Hinamori arrives” and then goes on rewording it each time, and then also repeats the death-threat he gave Gin prior to this conflict about “I’ll kill you if Hinamori bleeds” )  and then also Gin and Izuru talking about how truly powerful and amazing Toshiro is -- no, this isn’t me being bitter or petty, I literally shit you not, Gin has a line that is legit “AS EXPECTED FROM HITSUGAYA TOSHIRO, CAPTAIN OF THE TENTH DIVISION, A CHILD PRODIGY OF TH' SORT THAT ONLY COMES ALONG ONLY ONCE EVERY FEW CENTURIES. HOW VEEEERY DANGEROUS. YOU’RE SERIOUS, AIN’T YA?” like don’t get me wrong, love a good sarcastic little shit comment like that, but the amount of times the anime pumps Toshiro up like he’s their shinest new cash cow ( and he is, at this point, it is not even 50 episodes into the series and they’ve realized everyone likes him and he’s jumped to high ranks in popularity polls... earning him filler spotlights, and eventually his very own non-canon movie )  so everything coming out of Gin’s mouth feels like more bullshit than necessary. Izuru’s already literally monologued, internally, how powerful and amazing Toshiro is anyways. Why this ?

          Not to mention that, prior to saying that long-winded shit, Gin’s haori changed length three times  ( and once it was longer than his entire body by several feet, and no not in a ‘to show motion’ way )  and most importantly Shinso was drawn, consistently, at katana-length for the duration of their little spat where the following, too, happened: Gin frog-leaps after doing a backflip, Toshiro gives Gin two (2) haircuts, Gin ruins some floorboards and gives Toshiro at least one splinter in his arm, Toshiro whilst wearing socks lands on Shinso’s blunt edge and pushes the sword down with his footsie because that’s how that works, there’s another backflip somewhere in there that Gin doesn’t need to be doing, twirl, twirl, and ballet, Gin’s face elongates until his chin is bigger than his face, Gin spends ten+ seconds purely dodging very close strikes to his face as Toshiro is the only one making breathy growly and ‘tsuuaaah’ sounds, there is a brief moment of no gravity as Toshiro keeps hacking at Gin midair and Gin blocks it over and over again but they still stay in the air but they’re not standing or jumping or using reiatsu they’re just like, momentum-locked I don’t fucking know, Gin frowny faces as he blocks because like somehow this kid who doesn’t even have more reiatsu than him, whose arm strength should not be an issue, is like. making him nervous?? as sword sparks fly. if you know me at all you know I hate when they fuckin’ firework sparkler-ify swords clashing.

          Anyways, all of this happens whilst Shinso is the wrong length and Gin’s hair is getting purpler by the second and this entire thing is somehow a big jack-off to Toshiro’s immense strength even though he’s screaming and wailing at Gin like a child and Gin’s just a vessel at this point to Enhance Toshiro, which, fine, okay, but at least be more accurate with it god damn. ANYWAYS,

          THEY JOUST. They literally run at each other, swords centered, and run past / to the side of one another. Jousting. “Cause that’s how that works. No slashes, no cutting motion. Just swords centered, because the animators were like “no worries guys I know swordfighting basics that’s a legit pose�� yeah it is WHEN STATIONARY. Not rUNNING IT DOWN.

          And then Gin’s sleeve is cut, somehow, from the Jousting, because wow Toshiro wow wow wowowowow, and then Toshiro comes back and starts wailing at Gin again and Gin blocks it, again, and it’s all very annoyingly repetitive, and Gin’s frowning and sparks are flying and Gin’s using Shinso, the katana-length wakizashi I guess, with two hands because like I said, the animators knew basics and basics are “katana are used two-handed” like. Okay, you’re not wrong, but I cannot stress this enough: SHINSO IS NOT A KATANA. It’s shorter and meant to be used single-handed!!!! sTop!!! So then Gin rips off the tattered part of his sleeve and throws it at Toshiro, who swipes it away from his face using his Zanpakuto because that’s intelligent and a piece of cloth was definitely threatening enough to use your sword to bat it away  ( btw, Hitsugaya wasn’t holding his sword with two hands at this precise moment, so he could have just... used his other hand )  and then Gin goes in for the classic “stabby stabby rapidly at you while the animation gets a little breather because we repeat this cycle a few times with flashy bgs and phew money made” ... WE ARE FOUR MINUTES AND THIRTY SECONDS INTO THIS FIGHT BY THE WAY. Gin does this for seventeen (17) agonizing seconds straight. Yes, I counted. That was sixteen and a half too many seconds for me, personally.

          Toshiro somehow lassos Shinso whilst Gin is stabby stabby-ing with Hyourinmaru’s chain component. I say component like it’s somehow some type of beauty guru’s lipstick holder, but really am I that wrong ? When else has he ever used this feature ? Anyways, he lassos Shinso because yeehaw I guess, god I’m falling apart at this point can y’all tell????? I need a drink.

          and so, because now Toshiro has Gin’s sword somehow trapped with chain even though it’s just looped around it, he backflips over Gin for a cool trickshot, no blow issued, just vibes, and Gin uses a big brain moment to tug Shinso and the chains slide off. okay now what. We’re past five minutes into this fight, nonstop.

          SOUNDS LIKE A GOOD TIME FOR GIN TO PAUSE AND APPRECIATE TOSHIRO AGAIN! “I see, I shouldn’t have underestimated you, HItsugaya Toshiro” I’m starting to have a feeling Gin’s VA was told to just wing these lines because the amount of times he fills silences / Gin’s mouth movements with Toshiro’s long-ass name is astounding, he’s definitely drawing blanks here but he sure as hell knows one thing: that damn ice-boy’s name. He continues by saying “I suppose I’ll end up regretting it afterwards.”

          Toshiro says that’s not enough, and it’s really dramatic and cool. His eyes even glow all icy and blue and pretty, like his flowy reiatsu. Aesthetic points were gifted entirely to Toshiro’s animations in this scene. Gin was finished in MS Paint and each new scene they had to draw Shinso from memory and try to remember what hue of purple his hair was at gunpoint. Toshiro lets off a big wave of reiatsu and then it vanishes, and he jumps up reaaaally high. like this guy’s flying. his eyes arent glowing anymore that’s sad. Bring Back Glowing Eyes For Strong Shinigami 2k21.

          Toshiro releases his Shikai, and it’s badass, the sky darkens, Izuru looks distinctly more worried than usual, and Gin’s frowning with his teeth out like Bugs Bunny’s having a bad day, all is right in the world. Toshiro and his released Shikai have a nice moment for the Pics, and a big epic freeze frame blur moment happens with it all coiled and swirling around him. Wrow!  ( click the ‘wrow’ it’s a link to my exact reaction )  Izuru narrates for the third time about how powerful Toshiro is, his reiatsu, his Zanpakuto being a deity who is only unlocked every few centuries. The strongest ice-type sword. Pardon the pun, but that’s... you could say, so cool.

          It can even control the weather. So hey, next time it’s rainy, cold, icy, or snowing and you’re unhappy, it’s time to direct a big fuck you at Toshiro.

          Gin dodges the first dragon, and blocks the second with Shinso because blocking water and ice with a sword makes sense right? This actually takes a solid amount of seconds as Gin cuts through the entire length of this ice dragon noodle. Things dissipate, and pause, too, to really drag this out. Surprisingly, this reveals that Gin’s made a boo-boo, his left arm’s frozen, which doesn’t even mean anything because Gin is right-handed, and Toshiro teleports himself behind Gin in true fighty fashion.

          We have arrived at seven minutes and just under twenty seconds of this fight, and Gin turns, DOES THE UNTHINKABLE, gasp! He opens his eyes. His red, dull, evil, gray-eyebrowed with purple hair eyes, and shoots Shinso through its hideout spot behind his haori. This nearly takes off Toshiro’s eye and upwards of his head, but the little guy dives down fast. The rest happens in slow motion, supposedly, because it takes an eternity and people talk entire full sentences in its span of time.

          Gin asks Toshiro if he’s sure he’d like to dodge that  ( it’s a little late for that ) and says that Momo’ll die if he does. SHINSO SCRAPING ALONG AGAINST HYOURINMARU STRANGELY MAKES NOT A SINGLE SOUND. Mute. Even though before they had no problem animating and adding sounds to them smacking blades earlier. There are soundless sparks though, so there’s that. Yay. Can you tell how exhausted this’s made me? I need a nap.

          Shinso is already more than halfway towards Momo, still unconscious, she most definitely has a serious concussion via Toshiro backhanding her midair consider she’s been unconscious for longer than ten minutes. Toshiro has time to get up off the floor where he dropped to dodge, realize with a shocked gasp, turn, shout her name, and watch as Rangiku arrives in a random glow of gold which never happens ever again and blocks the attack with Haineko. Haineko almost cracks on the impact, and continues growing in damage as Rangiku holds Shinso there, implying that she’s stopped it from reaching one-hundred sword’s lengths to pierce Momo. Yes I’m including that implication / note in here because we love to see Rangiku succeeding in life and being Not-Helpless, all while potentially damaging Haineko severely if it wasn’t able to hold him off. Yikes, Gin!

          Rangiku threatens to join the fight if he doesn’t withdraw his sword. Gin smiles, withdraws it, and then Shunpos away.

          Whatta mess. Oh, and the anime fight was pretty fucked up, too.

          This is a long post, but here’s the manga version:

Toshiro leaps into the air,

This is where the fight actually starts between them:

And end. 

Five pages. Two blows. Does not equate to ten minutes of non-stop fighting and monologues. Sometimes, and I mean this in the most unbiased way possible, less is more.

[creativityobsessed]

Be Brave Adachi, or the musical shaping of episodes 1-4

Part 4: Episode 4

This is part of a 4 part series. You may wish to start with part 1, where I introduced the main musical cue we’ll be following and how it represents Adachi questioning the world as he knew it. Or, if you missed part 2, or part 3, you might want to start there.  

If you would like to follow along, please cue up 13:15 in episode 4.*

HOO BOY does everything happen in Episode 4! I swear every time I went back to rewatch to check something I noticed 2 more things that were worth mentioning. Go get your drink of choice, we’re gonna be here a while.

Since we have so much to talk about, and there’s not much new going on, I’m going to gloss over the 1.5 rotations of Questioning that happen right after Adachi gets off the phone with Tsuge. Y’all probably recognize it by now, right? Right. 

The really interesting new stuff in this episode starts after Kurosawa rescues Adachi and Fujisaki, while they’re walking back to the office. Here, for the first time in full since episode 1, we get a repeat of the guitar music that I called Adachi-at-home in the first post in this series. Now, I’m gonna have to make a slight retraction because a) I didn’t know yet that this was gonna be important later, and b) it’s more interesting than I originally thought. So, to add some nuance, this guitar cue is not just Adachi when he’s on his own, fully relaxed, it’s that plus Adachi ruminating on how he doesn’t compare to Kurosawa. In the first case, he’s wishing for just one of Kurosawa’s good qualities. Here, he’s pointing out that they are “fundamentally different” with overtones of I am fundamentally worse than he is. The super interesting thing that I missed the first time around though is that this is the tune of the Home section. Sure it’s in C-sharp major (ish) rather than A major (not exactly a related key, but not an unrelated key either, at least if you ask Brahms^), but the melody is the same enough that I DEFINITELY should have caught that. What can I say, *shrug* pandemic brain.

So, anyways, given what I have since discovered about this guitar cue, I’d like to revise what I think it’s about - it’s about Adachi’s unacknowledged crush on Kurosawa. He still doesn’t realize yet that Kurosawa is something he wants, but moments like these show us just how much he wants it. 

Around 16:15, at the end of Fujisaki’s internal monologue in the elevator, Questioning comes in. This time, though, it’s not about Kurosawa in the slightest. When I was first trying to come up with a point to this series so my Intro to Musicology professor wouldn’t hunt me down for writing a “here’s some stuff” paper, I was all ready to say Kurosawa is the answer and call it a day. But if that’s the case, then why does Questioning start here? Sure, he just found out that Fujisaki knows about Kurosawa’s crush, but the worldview that he’s questioning isn’t that Fujisaki is more observant than he thought. It’s his reaction to her disinterest in relationships. Furthermore, this version of Questioning is far more stable than previous ones - instead of a tritone or other non-chord set of vertically stacked pitches, most of the Question phrases end on unison D, or some version of D + F-sharp (usually in the m6 orientation, rather than M3). Each Question phrase is approximately in time, or at least close enough that we have a sense of when the next will happen, where in the first few versions of Questioning the space between each phrase rotation felt indeterminate. I think what we’re seeing here is that even though Adachi still has questions, his life has already changed. He has a better sense of the people around him, and is less terrified of asking questions.

The Questioning section actually pauses when Kurosawa notices Adachi’s wound, and we don’t head into the next section immediately. In fact, we don’t ever get the next section here - we jump straight to Home, as Adachi starts back in on how much better Kurosawa is than him. It’s in the piano here, I think mostly so that they don’t have to change instrumentation midway through (we’ll see why in a second). This version of Home is the same slow tempo as the guitar version, and it’s very dry. All of the harmony is in block chords, which contributes to a kind of emptiness. But that’s ok because it doesn’t last. 

After a single (musical) sentence, Adachi begins to hear Kurosawa’s own self-loathing through his thoughts. As this happens, the chords that were once in blocks stretch out into arpeggios, filling in the spaces around the melody, in a move that reminds me so much of the way that letting go of a bit of anxiety can feel like unfurling from a tiny space.** Kurosawa’s “I’m sure he finds me annoying” is immediately followed by the addition of a cello line - and I’m about to go do some rewatching looking for where cello is important, but my first impression hypothesis is that cello represents Kurosawa’s inner headspace, particularly after some of the ways I noticed it being used in ep. 7. The cello twines around the piano line that we’re already familiar with, possibly as a metaphor for the way that Adachi and Kurosawa are having similar thoughts. And, as with earlier episodes, we end without a full resolution - we get a cadence, sort of, but the piano continues for a bit and ends with a cluster of notes with G as the main thing that catches our ear. For those unfamiliar, G is not a particularly tonic-feeling note in A major. It’s flat 7, which helps tremendously in feeling like we are NOT in major, better suited to the melancholy nature of the various thoughts flying around here. 

And then. Ok, and THEN. The part I have been writing this entire series to talk about. So, to set the scene, right? Adachi thanks Kurosawa, Kurosawa deflects but gives Adachi a direct, blinding smile, and for once Adachi doesn’t squint. He returns the smile. He has become comfortable here. 

As if that weren’t enough, the music comes in, and yes, we’re back to Questioning, but it is absolutely in time, with two beats of 6/8 between each iteration of the Question Phrase. Furthermore, this version has both guitar and glockenspiel in it - the guitar is Adachi’s home instrument, and here it suggests he’s become comfortable with questioning the world around him, while the glock does more to highlight the difference in the treatment of time. 

We don’t move on from this section for a bit, because Fujisaki interrupts his thoughts. We do, however, get hints of the next section - a rising line in the piano timed in the same way as the next section will start, for example. The underpinnings of the Questioning section provide a lush background for Adachi’s monologue on visiting Fujisaki’s mother, something the first version of Questioning could not have done. Adachi is being very brave here, and the changes to our favorite cue are a reflection of that. 

As he finishes we head in to the section of the piece, which is mostly accompanying shots of Fujisaki being overwhelmed, Adachi being worried that his attempt to be brave has gone wrong, and not much happening. There’s a weird loop in the middle, which makes me think that they tried it with the whole track and it felt waaaay too long without anything happening. 

Anyway, after she reassures him that his bravery is appreciated, we head into the Answer section. Adachi and Fujisaki’s chitchat isn’t what’s important here. The important thing is we have the Answer section, and here it is fully scored, electric guitar and bass, percussion, the works. Not only that, but the cue ends, and it ENDS ON THE TONIC. We did it folks! We found the resolution! And it turns out, the way to get there was to BE BRAVE.

This may not be the end of the whole series, but this is AN ending. This is the pan-out that we get at the end of every 90s Hollywood teen romcom. Adachi has Learned Something with capital letters, and it’s not that he loves Kurosawa or even that he needs to give up his low self-esteem. It’s that he can be brave, and he can contribute. It’s hard, and it may take four episodes of building to it, but he can do it.

Which is a lesson he’s really gonna need for the beginning of 5. But that’s a story for another time.

If you’ve followed my nerdery this far and you’ve enjoyed this series, please let me know via likes, replies, and/or reblogs. I may eventually continue the series if there’s enough interest (there’s some FASCINATING things that happen to this cue in episode 7, for example), but for now, I’m gonna go take a nap.

I did a follow up in response to an ask, if you really really want more.

*All video timings and quotes are from Irozuku Subs videos. If you’re watching somewhere else, your mileage may vary slightly.

^If you’re a SUPER HARD CORE theory nerd, look up Neo-Riemannian Theory for how this works. Or just if you want your brain to explode. Either way, have fun, cause I need it for my dissertation and I STILL don’t quite understand how it works.

**Not an Academically Approved metaphor. This is why I’m doing this on tumblr.