#but once i saw they were gonna have nendoroids for both of them i was immediately like I MUST MAKE THEM HOLD HANDS

[rouge-the-bat]

I HAVE OBTAINED THE DEMON HUSBANDS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[lia-nikiforov]

Weekly Anime Ra...mblings?

Once upon a time, in a faraway land, I decided to finally start using a Tumblr account I’d created ages ago just so tumblr would let me look at more Free gifs. And the reason I decided to give actual use to this long abandoned account was that I wanted a space to talk about and discuss and engage about the seasonal anime I’m watching, hence why I had this little feature very unoriginally called “Weekly Anime Ranking”, basically listing my favorite and least favorite episodes of the week.

After a few seasons I realized it wasn’t very feasible to write a little paragraph of all 14-20 shows I was watching on a weekly basis, not to mention that I felt I wasn’t really enjoying the episodes because I was constantly thinking of what I’d say in the review and trying to find a good screenshot to use etc etc. Besides, I wasn’t getting a lot of engagement/discussion out of them, ‘cept for that one time the typemoonies got mad at me for hating rape-enabler Archer :’D.

So recently I thought doing a lighter format with just randomly commenting on moments from this week’s episodes that stood out to me instead of forcing myself to find something to say about every single episode could be more fun and this week I had a lot of thoughts that I wanted to vent! So let’s get it started and see how this feels

The first thing I kinda want to talk about is Centaur no Nayami which is one of the most tonally bizarre shows I’ve watched in a while. It’s oddly political but in a noncommitant, fait accompli manner that I find quite strange because it’s not really clear what they’re trying to say at this point.

But what I want to talk about for this episode is this group lesbian vaginal examination because I am so confused.

For context, Hime is commenting on how one time a boy made fun of her asking her if her vagina looked like a cow’s udder, so her two friends agree to show her their vaginas and look at hers to appease her insecurities –due to her centaur anatomy, she has no way of looking herself- and hence this scene.

On the one hand the show’s been pretty upfront about its lesbian characters so far, but I’m so puzzled as to why we had to dedicate 10 minutes of the show to girls looking at each others’ vaginas. In concept it sounds grossly fetishistic, but in execution it’s weirdly non-sexual so I’m… not sure what to make of it??? Is it being critical of how society fabricates reasons to make girls feel self-conscious about their bodies? Is it just trying to be kinky? What is your deal, show?

I think we’ll never know so let’s move on to another strange thing:

So… why is anime getting it on with my lord and savior Quetzalcóatl?

For those who don’t know, Quetzalcóatl is a nahuan (not exclusively Aztec, the Aztecs –which are more properly called Mexica but I digress- were one of many Nahuan peoples) god also known as the Feathered Serpent and is one of –if not the most- important deities in the Nahuan pantheon. Prehispanic Mexican deities pretty much never get portrayed in anime beyond a swashbuckler mixture of sorta Aztec sorta Mayan imagery and “human sacrifices” anecdotes, but in the past half year I’ve seen two references to Quetzalcóatl –as a dragon in MaiDragon and now in Centaur both in mention and also appearing as a new character that shares his name. There’s been some hints at a mystery surrounding the Antartican snakes sprinkled over the show and I’m just like… what are they gonna do with this I’m so confused.

And continuing with the theme of weird Mexico representation, now I kind of wanna bring up the episode everyone’s talking about because it is such a glorious disaster I don’t even know what to say? I think this screencap says it all tbh

Vatican Miracle Examiner was one of my most anticipated shows of the season so it is a little disappointing that it’s becoming the meme of the season and that it deserves it to boot. What started as a potentially interesting -if unoriginal- mystery somehow became a clusterfuck of “exotic” catholicism/satanism that peaked with the revelation that the real life Gestapo official Heinrich Müller somehow smuggled Hitler’s cryogenized corpse into the Mexican jungle and used Hitler’s cryogenized sperm to inseminate two women in the hopes of bringing the second coming of the Fuhrer. There was also some satanic seances and drug-cult-child-sexual-abuse going on in the sidelines (probably the closest thing to actual Catholic church procedures all things considered) and it all culminates with our heroes defeating Hitler’s demonic son by burning him alive and setting him on fire through holy water...

Or was it?

This is so hilarious I can’t find the words. Am I supposed to interpret this as “catholic priests have so little faith in their own religion they carry sulfuric acid because they know holy water wouldn’t work for shit”?

By the way I’m very upset they didn’t do St. Catherine’s martyrdom right. I really wanted to see some dude shredded by a spiky wheel. The Saw franchise’s got nothing on them pre-millenial Catholics

On to less joyous things, Ballroom continues its merciless quest of not living up to its potential to the point I’m starting to believe Amazon’s exhaustive ad campaign and aggressive hype fabrication has actually hurt the show because people expected it to be so much more and it just... isn’t.

We also gotta talk about the animation... or lack thereof. Episode 4 ruined what was supposed to be an incredibly intense tango scene, not only by abusing still shots which is par for the course at this point, but also by committing the grievous sin of telling instead of showing. On my first watch I was so bothered by it that I timed it (loosely): out of a 4:13 minute long dancing scene, two minutes are spent on the actual dancing (and that’s counting the still frames, without them the actual animated dance is barely 50 seconds), whilst the remaining 2:13 minues (half of the scene!!!) are wasted on audience pans and commentary telling us how amazing Hyodo’s dance is. If it’s so amazing let me fucking see it

We also gotta talk about this fucking jerk:

Jerk guy that is actually not a jerk are a commonplace genre staple of shonen anime. THe problem here is that Sengoku has so far shown to be 100% a jerk with zero redeeming qualities and his jerkness crosses the line repeatedly. In particular the way he treats Shizuku is gross. He basically disrespects her in every possible way and never owns up to it and fucking calls her a skank for being reasonably upset and petty because no one talks to her and they treat her like decoration rather than the talented dancer she is and this fucker comes and slutshames her and it’s framed as a fucking joke. 

Actually all the men treat Shizuku like a trophy rather than a person and I hope they all die, none of them are worthy of her.

The last thing I want to talk about is Re:Creators because this week was yet another episode of Meteora talking for 25 minutes straight with some bonus “look at us, LN writers, we’re so great, we’re the bestest ever”. It’s kind of a less industry-insider Bakuman.  

Something I didn’t mention in my WonFes breakdown was that they showed photos of the Meteora Nendoroid as well as announced a scale which made me wonder because there is no indication any other character of the series is getting any figure treatment: is Meteora the Rem of this show? And most importantly: WHY. She’s literally the exposition mouthpiece and little more and if it were on me she would literally never talk again.

The only thing I got from Re:C this week was this:

English must be stopped 

Immediately.