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seiin-translations · 4 years ago

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2.43 S1 Chapter 1.4 - Young Yunichika

4. MISCONDUCT

Translation Notes

1. Bon refers to a young man from a well-to-do family

2. These are lyrics from the opening theme for the famous volleyball anime, Attack No.1

3. I know nothing about Attack No.1 so I have no idea what this is referring to. The original line is “ヒロイン訛ってるって”. If you know anything about this, let me know

4. The kanji for Meisei is 銘誠. 銘 from 座右の銘 (means favorite motto) and 誠 is pronounced makoto by itself

5. Meisei-chuu as in Meisei Middle School

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Haijima Kimichika was an idiot. No, his grades overall weren’t that bad. He was slightly above middling for his third semester finals. However, Kuroba was dumbfounded when he saw the breakdown of that “slightly above middling.”

In regards to math and social studies, he was well above the average, and in fact, he was at the top of the class in his grade. Math, ninety-five. Social studies, ninety-nine—that was the first time he ever saw ninety-nine on an exam paper. He was taken aback by the brilliance of the two 9’s next to each other.

But, things didn’t look good from there. Science, seventy-three. English, sixty. His marks around here were so normal that it made you wonder what his high marks in math and social studies were. Apparently, his strong areas were unusually inclined towards calculation and memorization.

Japanese,

Thirty points.

…They really were unusually inclined.

“Ooh, there’s a whole row of x’s here. What a nice view.”

It was a question about close reading a novel. The answers to “What are the emotional states of the characters”-type questions were continuously absurd, and the way the x’s were written was becoming increasingly desperate, as if to represent his Japanese teacher’s emotional state.

“For the question ‘Please answer in eighty words or less why you think the king forgives Melos,’ you answered, ‘Melos was naked the cow,’. I can see the signs of suffering from trying to write a little more, but not being able to write a sentence and getting frustrated. …Cow?”

“Shut up. You’re always joking about people’s exam answers.”

“Ow ow ow!”

Kuroba groaned as he fell prostrate on the exam papers spread out between his legs with a weight pressed tightly against his back. The other club members laughed at the two stretching as a pair.

“You shouldn’t laugh at other people, Yuni. You got forty-two in math and fifty-five in social studies.”

“Hey, don’t read it aloud. This is an invasion of privacy.”

“Japanese…oh? Eighty-seven. Not bad.”

“For real?”

His back lightened with Haijima’s upset-sounding voice. He lifted his body with a self-satisfied look that said “Fufufu. Japanese is the only thing this guy’s good at,” but Haijima, who snatched and returned Kuroba’s Japanese exam paper, once again pressed down on his back tightly with his entire upper body while staring at his answers with a slightly displeased look on his face. Kuroba grumbled “Ow ow ow” while facing the floor in an open-legged forward bending position.

“Why did you answer the cow question like this? I don’t get it at all.”

“First, let go of the cow…I think the first issue is that no cows appear in the story. I’m getting worried about whether or not you can get into high school.”

He briefly wondered if one could get into school through a volleyball recommendation, but even if one could, it didn’t matter because there was no chance of their weak club reaching the point where they could get noticed in a big tournament. If Haijima was in his previous middle school, recommendations might come, however—he hadn’t asked Haijima himself, but there was no doubt that he had been in a fairly strong volleyball club with a decent coach. He had no idea what a full-scale stretching regimen was until he started practicing with Haijima. Next, Kuroba laid on his back as Haijima took his legs and thoroughly stretched them.

I thought that since Haijima would have nothing left if you took volleyball away from him, it would be his greatest desire to go to a strong volleyball school, but…

Haijima Kimichika was a volleyball fanatic.

The ban on club activities, which had been suspended a week before finals, had been lifted, and they held a practice day at once. With people turning up once they knew it was active, the boys’ volleyball team, which used to be as good as non-existent, had more or less taken on the appearance of club activities recently. With just barely six people, they still haven’t been in a match yet.

It was when they stood up and stretched their backs after finishing their brief stretching session.

“Kuroba, how tall are you now?”

Haijima said while looking up at his hair whorl.

“Hmm? Didn’t I say I was one-seventy-three?”

“When did you measure that?”

“Um…in fall, I think…November?”

He tamped down his hair whorl, but his bed hair bobbed back up. He felt depressed when he wondered if he had been exposing this hair to people all day since morning.

There was a scale on the door frame of the gym equipment room that could be used to measure height, and was used to compare heights for fun during club activities and gym class. It was probably the work of students from decades ago. It was the culmination of very precise work, with each millimeter being carved out from one-fifty to one-eighty centimeters with a utility knife.

“One-seventy-five-point-zero.”

Putting an empty powdered drink box to the top of Kuroba’s head, Haijima read the scale out loud.

“Ooh, I grew two centimeters?”

“My turn.”

They exchanged places and now it was Haijima with his back to the scale.

“Don’t raise your heels. Um, one-seventy-two-point…seven.”

“Ah. I grew too.”

But, Haijima didn’t seem too happy about it. With a sullen face, he left the scale and grumbled “Two centimeters off.”

“Two-point-three centimeters off. Don’t round it down. You’re a setter, so you don’t have to be so worried about your height, right?”

“I have a favorite player. It’s Abe, who was selected for the national team. He’s a setter, but he’s one-ninety-one. Even for setters, the bigger you are, the better you block and the faster you set. And, Abe’s ambidextrous, and he has a good left dump.”

“Huh? That reminds me, do you also…”

Haijima served with his left hand. But which hand did he hit with outside of those times...he didn’t have a clear impression. He felt like he recalled him hitting with his left and with his right.

“Use both hands?”

“I do,” He said carelessly, but was that something so easy to do? “There’s still an eighteen-centimeter difference, huh… But Abe can’t hit jump serves, so once my height catches up, I’ll be better.”

When it came to the subject of volleyball, Haijima became more talkative than usual. The way he spoke was basically like cutting short the front part of the context and throwing away the back end, but he came to be able to speak fairly long lines in a polite manner. He must love it a lot, he thought in half amazement and half admiration.

“I’m not sure if you have way too much confidence in yourself or is just an idiot…but I never thought you’d compare yourself to a member of the national team.”

He forced a smile, and got glared at with resentful eyes. He got scared, wondering if he said something that made him angry. He still wasn’t very good at knowing what set Haijima off.

“Kuroba, at the practice game, you see blocks and differentiate between hitting the ball cross and straight, right?”

“Cross-court and straight…oh, straight is where you hit the ball right down the middle, and cross is where you twist a little and hit it outside.”

“It’s the other way around, dumbass.”

He had answered with hand gestures while tilting his head to the side in confusion, but was completely denied with an insult.

“A cross is a spike that passes through the court at an angle. A straight is a spike that goes straight and parallel to the sidelines. When you’re hitting on the front row, you tend to step towards the center in front of the net a lot, so if you hit it straight on, it becomes a cross, and if you hit it with the intention to twist it outside, it will be straight.”

“So complicated…”

“It’s not that complicated, but…oh well. I’ll teach you step by step.”

He thought “Teach me?” every time, but why was he naturally acting like he was above him?

“Even if you don’t understand it with your head, you have good eyes, so you can deal with blocks. Being able to naturally rotate your trunk midair, the length of your time in the air, the suppleness of your shoulders…those are qualities you’ve probably always had. You will get good. It’ll be in no time if you do it properly. You’ll be taller, too.”

“…? Do you have a fever?”

He stared at Haijima’s face suspiciously and got a suspicious look in return.

“What. Did I say something weird?”

“No, it’s just that you’re always so self-important, so I thought you were someone who wouldn’t praise or acknowledge people in that way.”

“If there’s something to acknowledge, then of course I’m gonna acknowledge it. But, there’s no way to acknowledge what’s not there.”

Haijima stated, pouting and seeming truly upset.

Haijima never flattered. He wasn’t humble. He couldn’t hold himself back. Indeed, he might be sincere and straightforward in a sense. …But, he thought it was probably a tough way to live. Most people didn’t want to be told the truth right to their faces.

“You will get good.”

Afterwards, slowly but steadily, a ticklish feeling welled up in the depths of his body. It was uncool to take someone at their word, so he purposely looked indifferent and said,

“I have a talent for volleyball, huh. It won’t make me all that popular though.”

He feigned ignorance and talked big. Unlike Haijima, he felt like he had been drifting through life frivolously, with a bunch of façades lined up in front of him, obscuring reality.

***

The days have become longer, and the chill had subsided considerably. It was now often possible to sneak peeks at patches of blue in the sky which had been covered by depressing snow-laden clouds in midwinter. The sun had completely set when he nearly ran over Haijima in front of that karaoke box in February, but by mid-March, there was still some faint light left in the sky at that same time of day. A rusty copper sunset fringed the ridgelines of Mount Nokude in the distance.

Since their houses were in the same direction, he ended up going home with Haijima on days they had club activities. Their enamel bags, slung over their shoulders, rattled, and they tread on the rugged road in their snow boots. Although the snow on the road melted during the day and was close to becoming sherbet, it had begun to freeze again in the shape of punched-through car ruts and footprints. During the snowfall season from December to March, elementary and middle school students were prohibited from cycling to school, so it took forty minutes to get there on foot. There was no doubt that they would starve before they reached home, so the two stuffed their cheeks with sweet bread as they walked. Incidentally, he stuffed himself with two pieces of bread before club and of course he was going to eat dinner when he got home. At any rate, he was hungry. And at any rate, he was sleepy.

Until one or two months ago, he would have wanted to skip over middle school and become a high school student as soon as possible, but come to think of it, he had stopped thinking about that recently. He had no time to think about superfluous things because after he finished club activities, went home, ate, and took a bath, he immediately went to bed. He fell asleep feeling like he was sinking into the floor with his futon, and then when he woke up, it was next morning.

Finals were over, and now it was time to neglect everything and go into spring break. And whether he left it alone or made a fuss, once the break ended, he would become a third-year. The word examinee still didn’t really strike home for him.

“Haijima, what are you gonna do for high school? Are you taking it here?”

He finally broached the subject that actually wanted to ask him about during club, but hesitated over.

“Well, I was thinking of taking it here, but…”

He got stuck on how Haijima trailed off at the end of his sentence, which was unusual for him.

“But? Is there a condition or something?”

He once again asked Haijima’s profile, which was bulged out with the bread he stuffed in his mouth. He wasn’t wearing his glasses right now. Haijima always followed the procedure of putting in contact lenses and taping his hands before club started. If he taped first, he wouldn’t be able to handle his contacts. When club activities were finished, he followed that procedure in reverse, but there were days when he went home as he was, perhaps because he couldn’t be bothered. From the point of view of Kuroba, whose vision had never fell below 20/20 and whose fingernails and bones seemed healthy and strong, he had a difficult constitution.

“More importantly, new first-years will come in April.”

“Hmm? Oh yeah. Skilled guys would get picked up by the other clubs, so it’s better not to get your hopes up, but maybe we can get one or two people.” More importantly? He had a feeling he was changing the subject, but the timing to repeat the question escaped him.

“If we get more members, I wanna go to a tournament. I don’t know the tournament schedule here, but there should be a prefectural tournament before the summer inter-school.”

“Tournament, huh. But even if we can be in it, I don’t think we can win at our level…”

“It’s no fun if you don’t play a game. I wanna be in a match. I’m gonna train you all to be presentable enough by summer. I’ll take care of the rest.” Once again, he said that he was gonna train us without hesitation. Is he treating us like performing monkeys or something?

Ah, there it was. The sparkle in his eyes like that of a dinosaur-loving elementary schooler. Though he was just being arrogant and saying something self-centered, when he had that look in his eyes, he couldn’t help but feel that it was as though it was being secretly switched with something of pure purpose. Kuroba realized that he couldn’t oppose those eyes at all.

“Ooookay, got it. We need an advisor to be in a tournament or it’s no good, right? Let’s ask tomorrow.”

When he said that with a sigh, a crude voice called out to them from the side of the road.

“Hey, isn’t that the head house’s bon walking there?” (1)

It came from in front of the signboard of the aforementioned “Karaoke Box Monshiro”. Was this the only place to hang out? Well, it probably was. There were three men. Two 125cc motorbikes and one moped. Each of them was sitting astride their seats and hanging their butts on their tandem grips, smoking cigarettes as they tucked their chins inside their collars of their jackets, looking cold. They had the appearances of what countryside delinquents should be.

“Oh, Yori-chan!”

Kuroba called out to him with a smile, but Yorimichi only took a glance at his appearance and looked away.

The other two were Yorimichi’s senpais, both from the neighborhood. When someone other than his relatives called him the “head house’s bon”, it was probably filled with ridicule, but since he was used to it, he didn’t react to it every single time, and Kuroba greeted them in a friendly manner as well.

“’Sup. It’s been a while. I didn’t know you guys are back.”

“It’s spring break in uni too. Bon, how much you got today?”

“Oh…I only have some coins. I’ve been doing club activities lately so there’s a lot of times when I’d be leaving my bag alone.”

“’Club activities’?”

The two repeated it with a rising inflection that contained laughter.

“Oh, is that what Yorimichi was talking about?”

Smirking, they eyed Kuroba from the top of his head to his feet. He uncomfortably let his gaze escape to Haijima, who was waiting next to him. When he looked at Haijima, he could see his own appearance like he was looking into a mirror, or rather, he was just copying Haijima, but—he was wearing a knee-length padded coat over his jersey with his rectangular enamel sports bag slung over his shoulder, and he really did look like he was coming back from a sports club. In regards to the padded coat, Kuroba saw Haijima’s and also bought one recently.

“You do receives or something, how did that go again? We didn’t do it in gym in high school, so I completely forgot.”

The two had mean smiles on their faces, pointing their chins. Either the smoke of their cigarettes or the whiteness of their breath from the cold made their stubbled mouths misty.

“Um, it’s like this, I guess…?”

Kuroba had no choice but to drop his hips on the spot and did the posture for an underhand pass, and the two cackled and applauded.

“Wow, looking pretty good, aren’t you? I know, it’s that thing, Attack No.1, right?”

“That old manga? It’s that ‘I won’t cry, I’m just a girl’ thing, right?” (2)

“The heroine spoke in dialect. Gyahahaha!” (3)

“Haha…”

When Kuroba forced a smile while feeling his face turning hot, his bag was suddenly pulled on. The strap was biting into the pit of his stomach. “Gueh,” he groaned as he turned around.

“Haijima?”

“You’re just getting looked down on. We’re not playing around. Don’t keep them company.”

Like he was pulling on the leash of a not particularly disciplined dog, Haijima primly started walking while gripping the strap. “Okay, okay, don’t pull me. It’s dan…” Right when he twisted his body around and rushed to follow him,

“You’re hanging out with us, right, Yuni?”

Yorimichi called out to his back.

Haijima turned around, not even trying to hide his annoyance. Kuroba also followed his gaze while feeling lost. Turning away and smoking his cigarette, Yorimichi snorted sarcastically.

“Don’t tell me you’re getting’ influenced by Fighting Spirit Chika-chan, are ya? You’re the one who’s gonna be embarrassed later.”

“Hey…oh, hey Yori-chan, are you mad at me? Sorry for not hanging out with you lately. We’ll do stuff together during spring break.”

“Kuroba, we’re practicing during spring break too.”

Haijima’s dissatisfied sounding voice pierced the back of his ear. “We can’t practice everyday, right?” When he turned around with a half-smile, his face seemed to say, As a matter of fact, of course we are. “If we’re going to the summer tournament, we’ll still never make it in time even with that.” “Are you serious…” He was of course ready to have fun and relax during spring break, so when he was told to be prepared to completely spend that time on club activities… I underestimated this guy’s volleyball obsession.

“Yuuuuni. You understand, right? It’s no good for you. It’d be less embarrassing if you stop playing around. I ain’t patient either, so I can’t wait too long for you.”

“Hey, even Yori-chan’s being mean? You’re not serious, right?”

He looked at Yorimichi again with a twitching smile. “Oh, you’re pretty popular, Bon. If you pick one, you have to cut off the other. This is a real mess.” The two university students irresponsibly jeered and aggravated the situation.

“You, you get it, right? I have the same blood in my veins as you, so we get fired up and cooled off easily. I’ll probably get bored halfway, right?”

He ended up prioritizing putting Yorimichi in a good mood with a joking tone. A cold sweat ran down the nape of his neck as he felt Haijima’s burning gaze scorching it.

He knew that he was playing it safe. He was still afraid now that Yorimichi would throw him away. He wanted to secure the warm place he could always return to if things got tough. Don’t put me together with you, he grumbled in his mind. Haijima, who didn’t have an ounce of doubt about himself doing volleyball, probably wouldn’t understand, but for us until just now, guys who went hardcore for club activities were just something to be watched from a distance and gawked at.

Yorimichi bared his teeth and grinned.

“Haha, that’s right. You’re the same as me.”

Relieved, Kuroba also slackened his cheeks.

And, the heat wave of Haijima’s gaze that was burning the back of his neck also abruptly disappeared. The strap was released to send him flying.

“Then quit now.”

Haijima said it bluntly in a cold voice, a complete reversal from the heat of earlier.

“Hey, no need to go that far…”

“I don’t want to the tournament to get messed up.”

“Messed up…”

He immediately guessed that he was talking about scandals that would result in a suspension. Kuroba himself didn’t smoke or drink, but he overlooked Yorimichi doing it. It wasn’t illegal to ride double on a bike, but having only one helmet was probably not allowed. It wasn’t a good look to sneak into karaoke bars either. He didn’t really care about it until now, but it was somewhat understandable that school sports were sensitive to those kinds of issues.

Haijima’s concern was reasonable, and perhaps this was where he should be sorry. But on the contrary, antagonism reared its head. So, from the beginning, he wasn’t worried about whether or not Kuroba would continue to do volleyball or not, but about that?

“You showed your true colors, eh!”

Yorimichi’s loud voice suddenly rang out. Haijima glared suspiciously at him and Kuroba was also confused. Peeling his lips back in a vicious grin that made him draw back a little, Yorimichi continued to speak in a theatrical way.

“The infamous ‘Genius Setter’ of Meisei Middle School only thinks about satisfying his own desires, right?”

“Yori-chan? What are you talking about?”

“You were the one who wanted to know, Yuni. You asked why he came back here. That’s why I investigated.”

Haijima’s sharp gaze immediately moved to Kuroba. He did voice his doubts, but he thought the conversation ended there, so to think that Yorimichi would investigate it…

“Oops, you’re barking up the wrong tree if you’re blaming Yuni. It’s that ‘you reap what you sow’ kind of thing, right?”

Yorimichi came down from his bike and stepped on his cigarette to put it out. He thrust his hands into the pockets of his down jacket and approached him with bowlegs and swinging shoulders, looking particularly vulgar. “Move, Yuni,” he said, pushing Kuroba aside and standing before Haijima.

“I could have easily gotten the name of your school from your grandpa through mine. Well, I used Itoko though, since I’ve been given up on by Gramps. So when I quickly searched the net…oh look, there’s slander of the ‘Genius Setter’ who reigned over Meisei Middle until last year. The net sure is terrifyin’. Everything’s on there. Well, I guess it means you’re not liked very much.”

The more Yorimichi talked, the stiffer Haijima’s expression became. The color disappeared from Haijima’s face that seemed to embody the world’s arrogance and fearlessness, and his gaze dropped downwards. The shadow of Yorimichi, who was a size bigger in height and width, hung over the head of Haijima, who was looking down and biting his lower lip. “Oi oi, look at the poor guy, Yorimichi. Don’t bully middle schoolers. You’ll make him cry.” The two university students saying insincere things were completely taking the role of spectators.

“Yuni.”

“Huh? Y-yeah.”

Kuroba reflexively responded, unable to catch up with the conversation very well. Yorimichi’s face changed from that of someone tormenting a dying animal, and when he turned around, he was no longer smiling. It was an extremely serious expression.

“I don’t have anything against Chika, but I don’t really care. I think it’s petty to talk about other people behind their backs online. It’s all for you. Don’t get too absorbed in it. After all there was apparently someone who attempted suicide because of this guy——”

An instant later, Haijima barked something that couldn’t be expressed in words and grabbed Yorimichi. “Oh?” Although Yorimichi staggered a little, their physiques and amount of fight experiences were different. He grabbed Haijima’s face and thrust it aside, just like he was grabbing a ball—a dodgeball instead of a volleyball—with one hand and throwing it violently. Haijima was lightly blown off two or three meters away, the side of his face crashing into the muddy snow-covered road.

Because it was the first time he heard Haijima’s enraged voice, Kuroba was temporarily distracted by that. He hurriedly broke into Yorimichi’s path.

“Yo-Yori-chan, stop! Violence is no good!”

“He was the one who charged at me. Ah, it’d be no good for a sports boy to be violent, right? Didn’t you say that yourself? I’m being kind by ending it with just knocking him down.”

Yorimichi threw mocking jeers at Haijima over Kuroba’s shoulder. Kuroba turned around and ran up to Haijima, who was crouching and holding his hand to his face. “Oi, you’re alive…” he knelt down and was about to touch his shoulder, but what Yorimichi said flashed across his mind and he stopped his hand.

…Attempted suicide…?

“Let’s go back. My ass is frozen.”

Urging the two university students, Yorimichi returned to his bike.

“Yuni, get over here.”

Summoned, Kuroba looked up at the chin of Yorimichi, who was sitting astride his bike, but hesitated and returned his gaze to Haijima. His earlobe, which was poking out from the gaps between his hair, were terrifyingly white. No way, is he actually dead? He thought, but he saw a fist clenching the snow underneath his face pressed against the ground. Mud soaked into his white taping and stained it brown.

He couldn’t leave him here and go home.

“Even if you say go home, you won’t let me ride double anyways. I’ll send him home, okay?”

“Well, whatever.”

Yorimichi backed down easily with just a shrug of his shoulders. The sneering had already disappeared and he returned to his normal self.

“Don’t forget. Wash your hands of him as soon as possible. From his reaction, it doesn’t seem like those are groundless rumors. Be careful on your way home. I’m talking about the snowy roads and your teammate next to you.”

Perhaps Yorimichi also felt that he went a bit too far. He awkwardly turned his face away, made his engine roar its usual crude and vulgar sounds, and departed on the Komashi-gou.

***

“Mei from zayuu no mei and makoto, Meisei. (4) It’s called Meisei Private Academy Middle School. It’s a middle and high school in one, and their sports clubs are pretty strong. Apparently the distribution map of famous private schools is common knowledge among Kanto kids. You can’t really experience it here, can you? There aren’t enough schools to choose from. Hey, everyone’s gonna hang out in the city after the end-of term ceremony, so do you wanna come with us? I wonder if Haijima would come if we invited him. You guys have been getting along well lately.”

“Um, oh, yeah. If that’s all I can ask then I’m good for now. Thanks.”

He hung up first because it seemed like the conversation would never end if he left it alone.

Itoko said “Everyone”, so the group probably included girls. To tell the truth, he was really jealous of this merry spring break-like event. Normally he wouldn’t be able to refuse. But, it was only today that he couldn’t get into the mood at all. He was willing to bet that Haijima would never come either.

He put the phone handset next to the desk and turned towards the computer again. Since he had an agreement to not own a cell phone until high school, the only place he could access the Internet at home was the laptop in his dad’s study. When he tried to convert Meisei-chuu (5), he realized he didn’t know the kanji for it, and since Yorimichi said he learned it by way of Itoko, he called to ask her directly. Based on the current feeling, Yorimichi had really only gotten the school name, and it seemed he didn’t tell Itoko more than that. He felt relieved about that.

A school with a strong athletic department. If this school was that famous, then it might not be strange for there to be a rumor or two to float around the Internet. After all, there was even a message board titled “[Monshiro Town] Old Man Kuroba [Yokai]”—Yorimichi thought it was hilarious and told him about it, but Kuroba never searched for it because he was scared of learning the contents.

“Tokyo meisei academy middle school boys volleyball club attempted suicide”

He entered the search words, and just when he was about to click the search button, his finger stopped. He couldn’t easily press the key. Of course he was unbearably curious. But, he was afraid to find out the contents for that more than Grandpa’s message board.

“Yuni? Where are you?”

His mother’s voice came from somewhere on the other side of the sliding screen door. He twisted himself around on the tatami chair and raised his voice.

“In here! The study!”

“Why are you there? Aren’t you going to take a bath?”

“Okay!”

After thinking about it a little bit, he ended up pressing the backspace key to delete everything he typed in. Once he did so, he completely gave up, closed the computer and stood up.

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#2.43: Seiin Koukou Danshi Volley-bu #2.43 book 1 #2.43 translation

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fictionstuff · 4 years ago

Photo

Ikebukuro West Gate Park 池袋ウエストゲートパーク

Plot: Crime-ridden Ikebukuro is a haven for violent gangs, the Yakuza, and home to Makoto Majima. To protect his friends, this charismatic troubleshooter mediates disputes among the warring factions—even fixing problems the police can't. But when a rising tide of violence results in Makoto losing a loved one, can he ride out the storm, or will he drown in all the spilled blood that floods his streets? (Source: Funimation)

Episodes: 12

Main Characters:

Majima Makoto

Andou Takashi (King)

Ozaki Kyouichi

Points: 7.5/10

Different from almost all the reviews I've read, I actually enjoyed IWGP quite a lot. It is quite charmy, although I am not even a fan of episodic stories. Hence I understand why many don't like it much, because getting engaged in any of these characters was halfway impossible. The stories however – no matter how short – were quite interesting, exciting and sometimes also quite sad. The plot itself revolves around Ikekukuro and its inhabitants. The plot mentions lots of violence and gangs, but they were almost only present in the beginning and the very end. Nonetheless does it feature many heartwarming moments with many different characters as Makoto helps them across their problems and conflicts. That sometimes ends up quite unrealistic, cause the police and gangs all act to his liking and that's hardly believable.

Either way, what I wanted to say is, the anime is not as bad as people make it out to be on some sits at least. The premise of a city with gangs fighting isn't too original, but he story focuses much more heavily on the normal inhabitants and Makoto, how he helps them forgive, compromise, live on. Overall I'd say the anime is a slice of life anime with mystery, drama, tragedy and slightly violent themes. It often focuses on a grey zone of right and wrong and shows us how people deal with different setbacks, problems or dangers. The anime adapts a Japanese novel series which I will sadly never get to read for obvious reasons. I would have loved to keep reading and neither do I know what the anime exactly adapted.

The show really focuses on a lot of themes not many animes feature: abuse, abandonment, gang fights, drugs, murder. It really is nothing for the lighthearted among you, but it also doesn't depict anything specific, so no worries. Almost every story resolves within one episode, so you don't have to remember what happened a week ago, except for the last 2-3 episodes where the plot finally became a bit more interesting and engaging. By the end you probably will remember 3-5 characters at most and character development is something non-existent here as the characters have been halfway introduced to us. The ending was neatly wrapped up, the design and animation were very well done as well, so the only bad points are the episodic story telling and the hoard of characters nobody can get truly engaged in. Not even Makoto is a character that receives much backstory or an explanation as to why he has become someone who will solve anything and everything to you or how he has established all these bonds to all these people. This makes even the main character seem rather flat and uninteresting, which is sad, because he is a good boy and always does his best and I am sure there is more to him that has been shown to us.

Nevertheless the anime will leave you thinking about what happened and that's a nice reaction in my opinion.

#review #anime review

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mewgagotoku · 6 years ago

Text

Tags/Verses Masterpost!

Figured I should probably make one of these to keep track.

Yakuza-series independent RP blog; open and welcoming to AU, multi-fandom and OCs. Expect canon-typical violence and dark metaphor; NSFW/explicit content will always be tagged. [THIS POST IS A WORK IN PROGRESS, EXPECT UPDATES ~ posting it now before it gets any longer...]

Robz, 21+; RPed for a long damn time; friendly, but shy. I write, draw and sing - or at least make motions to that effect. 日本語で書いてことできるんだけど恥ずかしいから英語のほうがいいんです。よろしくお願いします。Interests include: music, video games, horror. Ask for my Discord ID, and lets plot shenanigans!

CHARACTERS

[Majima Goro] [Goromi] 真島吾朗 ~ The Mad Dog of Shimano/The Lord of the Night; Sharp as a blade and stabby to boot, Majima is a yakuza through and through - unpredictable, violent and just a bit smarter than he lets on.

[Makimura Makoto] マキムラマコト ~ Not All Who Wander Are Lost; A young woman caught up in a world of darkness she could never hope to fully understand. Makoto is determined and independent, and perhaps just a little reckless. (Somewhat canon-divergent after Yakuza 0 - rather than returning to Hogushi Kaikan, Makoto instead begins working with charities focused on helping human trafficking victims and other vulnerable members of society. She won’t sit around and wait for a hero any longer, instead, she wants to become her own.)

[Oda Jun] 尾田純 ~ Tachibana Real Estate’s Lap Dog; Unrepentant and proud, Oda knows his place in the world because he carved it for himself. He won’t let anybody stand in his way.

[Dojima Daigo] - Testing~

[Hana] 菊川花~ Sky Finance’s Backbone; Hana sometimes wonders why she bothers coming to work in the morning, but it’s a good job she always does.

[Akamine Tenji] 赤嶺典二「天使」~ OC; a host originally from Gifu who has no idea what he’s about to get himself into. Polite, gregarious and kind, his sweetness hides an ambition for greatness that he will pursue to the end of the earth. (FC: Mizushima Hiro) Tenji now has his own blog over at @hachidorinoko with both Yakuza and Persona 5 verses!

[Hayashi Bara] 林薔薇 ~ OC; daughter of Hayashi Hiroshi, Bara is something of a tearaway punk trying to find her place in the world. Rude and obnoxious, she is in truth as vulnerable as she appears, though she’ll go to any lengths to hide that. (FC: Tsuchiya Anna) Bara now has her own blog over at @splinteredthorn !

[Futaba Sakura] 佐倉双葉 ~ Persona 5. Not active on this blog, but she has her own sub-blog at @hikikohacker

Hit me up, who knows what’s next.........

RULES

Setting these up as I go along, so forgive me if they’re a bit lax...

DBAA ~ Don’t Be An Asshole; plain and simple!

No minors, please; I keep my NSFW stuff tagged, so it can be avoided if you’d rather not read it, but I will not generally place it under cuts and nor do I wish to feel as if I should. Absolutely no smut with minors, no exceptions.

We don’t have to be mutuals to interact! We don’t even have to be from the same series/universe/whatever. If you wanna RP, just hit me up and we’ll figure something out!

If you’re not sure about something, ASK ME! I don’t bite, and I certainly don’t want to cause confusion or frustration with anything I’ve written. You can message me through tumblr, or ask for my Discord so we can talk things through.

I WRITE A LOT -- I like big paragraphs and I cannot lie... don’t feel like you have to keep up with me! I’d prefer a reply which is short and to the point than to feel like you’re stressing over matching my waffle.

I may unfollow RP blogs which post a lot of OOC/irrelevant content. This doesn’t mean I don’t like you or don’t want to RP with you, it just clogs up my dash and I don’t really like it. Drop me a message if you have any questions, but I can guarantee it’s nothing against you personally! Your blog, your rules -- you do you!

VERSES (in no particular order)

ALLEGORY (verse) - Oda/Tachibana; set shortly before and during Yakuza 0 (iloveoda-san)

[Colder Heavens] - In which the heating in the penthouse gives up the ghost during a snowfall. [NSFW]

[Bad Dog] - Unaware of his surroundings, Oda disrupts a very important meeting. [NSFW]

[Lacryma Christi] [2] - Oda unwittingly catches Tachibana in a vulnerable moment.

[imagining noises] [2] -~ During Tachibana’s forced exile, Oda finds himself alone and invisible.

DOG TEETH (verse) Kiryu/Majima; various. (fourthchairman)

[uroboros] [2] (the snake which bites its own tail) - Majima has been trying to wrench Kiryu and Makoto apart for too long - Kiryu has finally had enough. [NSFW]

[Love on the Brain] [2] ~ Majima/Kiryu - Absence makes the heart grow fonder... and more obscene. [NSFW]

[All I Want Is You] [2] - WHOOPS. Majima makes the kind of mistake he can’t just sweep under the rug.

[Road Trip] [2] - Following on from All I Want Is You, Kiryu and Majima take a road trip down toward Okinawa... [NSFW]

A PALACE FROM RUIN (verse) - Nishikiyama and Makoto; post Yakuza 0 (iheartkiryu)

[Blossoms] [2] - Looking for flowers to brighten up her apartment, Makoto runs into an acquaintance, and finds an unexpected new friend.

[Debts Unpaid] [2] - Hunting after the one-eyed man whose name she knows not, Makoto falls afoul of the Shimano Family who don’t take kindly to curiosity.

[Hare Among Foxes] [2] - Determined to save other vulnerable girls from her own cruel fate, Makoto sets out to take on the underworld. Caught in a little white lie, she runs into an unexpected obstacle.

[Confessions] - Nishikiyama meets with Majima on Makoto’s behalf to arrange a meeting between the two of them.

[Antidote to Heartache] - Deciding to get out of the city for a bit, Makoto and Nishikiyama take a drive out to Sunshine Orphanage.

AFTER THE RAIN (verse) - Majima/Nishikiyama; Post Yakuza 1 AU. (fishikiyama)

[IDGAF] (In Despair, Grief, And Fury) - Six months in hospital have changed more than just Nishiki’s appearance. Still hurting from being left behind, Majima rises to the occasion.

[序盤] (joban; opener e,g in Shogi or Go) - Fortunately for Nishiki, banging a shogi board is complicated. [NSFW]

POETRY AND DEATH (verse) - Oda and Tachibana; set during the two years before Y0 (iloveoda-san)

[Poetry and Death] [2] - After a fight with a rival gang, Tachibana is shot, and Oda must fight to keep him alive.

[Marble] [2] ~ An intimate, drunken decision. [NSFW]

[Let it Burn] ~ Oda finds himself trapped inside a residential building when the Cornflowers decide to pre-rempt some revenge against his crew.

YOU KNOW BETTER (verse) Majima/Makoto; Post Yakuza 0 (italian-love-cake)

[Switches Never Flicked] - Majima and Makoto ~ A fire on Pink Street lands Makoto in unknown peril.

[Don’t Feed It, It Will Come Back] - Majima/Makoto ~ Despite his better judgement, Majima can’t bear to leave Makoto alone.

[Tastes Like Chicken] - Majima/Makoto ~ Majima meets Makoto after work to take her on a date.

WHISKY AND GIN (verse) - Majima/Nishitani; Yakuza 0 (dreamoffuchsia)

[Pushing Buttons] - Majima/Nishitani ~ Eatin’ some sushi, downin’ some drinks, smashin’ some faces... the usual. [NSFW content]

[Soaked] - Majima/Nishitani ~ Majima and Nishitani raid a group of loan sharks who have been preying on hostesses. Guns are dangerous. [NSFW content] [tw: drugs]

[Penance] - Majima/Nishitani ~ Alternate ending for Soaked. The tongues of dead men sing songs. [NSFW content] [tw: drugs]

[Smokin’] [2] - Majima/Nishitani ~ Where’ve you been all my life? Or at least for the last week. [NSFW]

[Foam Party!!!] ~ Majima/Nishitani - Do not leave Majima unattended anywhere ever, under any circumstances.

[Promises] - Majima/Nishitani ~ What’s that?! A wedding proposal?! [NSFW content]

[Boa Constrictor] - Goromi/Nishitani ~ Be careful what you wish for... [NSFW]

[MyMail] - After a New Years Day spent winding one another up via text, Majima comes home to find Nishitani has made some very particular plans for their time... [NSFW]

[Amour] - Nishitani has commissioned a very special gift for Majima. Would be a shame not to make use of it. [NSFW content]

[Puppy Love] - It’s Valentines Day, and the only logical gift for the man who has everything is... a puppy??

[Til Death Do Us Part] - Nishitani gets some bad news from the hospital. They’ve clawed their way through everything so far, but could this finally tear them apart?

JUNIPER AND VANILLA (verse) - Majima/Nishitani; Yakuza 0 (dreamoffuchsia)

[Anniversary of a Dead Man] - Majima/Nishitani ~ Nishitani struggles with a debt he can’t ever repay.

[Guilty Party] - Majima/Nishitani ~ When Nishitani calls him away from work, Majima understands that this is more than just a social call. [tw: suicide mentions]

[Demon Days] - Majima/Nishitani ~ After Nishitani’s death, he’s the last person Majima expects to bump into. [tw: suicide mentions]

[Modern Leper] - Some twenty-five or thirty years after Nishitani’s death, Majima wakes in the night to the unmistakable feeling that he and Saejima aren’t alone. [tw: suicide mentions]

SHE’S A MYSTERY (verse) - Majima and Owl Eyes O’Malley; various (rileysroleplayreservoir)

[睡蓮花] [2] (suirenka; water lily) - Majima and Owl Eyes O’Malley; set somewhere between 1995-2005.

[危険な水] (kikenna mizu; dangerous water) - Majima and Owl Eyes O’Malley; While searching for a golden macguffin - in this case, a watch - Majima find some interesting flotsam around the concrete edges of Tokyo Bay,

[Angry Birds] - Swooping in to pull Riley out of a fight he believes she can’t handle, Majima learns a thing or two.

[Hungry Eyes] - Fortunately for the Majima family, Riley is on hand to feed their boss before he eats them.

[Hellooo Nurse] - Halloween costume shopping.

[Smores] - Settin’ fires and eatin’ candy.

[Shoulder Rubs] - “My back’s always kinky, how about yours?”

[Petals] - Riley runs into a rather concussed Goromi. Like always, trouble sticks to the two of them like a magnet.

[Bellyaching and Babysitting] - With a broken wrist, Majima is more snappy than ever.

[Call of the Cicada] - When a former detective goes feral, somehow it falls to Majima and Riley to figure out what the hell went wrong.

[One Thought Too Many] - Too much to drink and too much to say about it.

UNCLE STABBY (verse) ~ Majima and Haruka; various (0tometal)

[Pumpkins] - Two kids (one significantly older) carving pumpkins for Halloween while Kiryu is away.

[Bonito] - Majima and Haruka ~ If uncle Majima knew anything about cooking, he’d be dangerous. He’s dangerous enough anyway.

[Jingle Bells] - Majima enlists Haruka’s help to decorate an enormous Christmas Tree at Kamurocho Hills

[Games Night] - Looking after Haruka for a night, Majima can’t seem to understand the appeal of Katamari Damacy when he can’t find the button to punch the King of all Cosmos in his huge grey face.

[Only Revolutions] - TBA

THE TRUE FOURTH CHAIRMAN (verse) ~ 2018; AU in which Kiryu retains the mantle of the Fourth Chairman (fourthchairman)

[In Clover] - Kiryu/Tenji; Fourth Chairman AU ~ When Tenji is at the very end of his luck, a chance meeting with the Tojo Clan’s legendary Fourth Chairman stands to change his life forever.

[The Jealous Boy] - Kiryu/Tenji ~ Try as he might, Tenji just can’t help being jealous of the men to whom Kiryu so generously gifts his time.

NO MAN IS AN ISLAND (verse) ~ Majima and Saejima (eighteencounts)

[Never Forgotten] - (post-Y4) The two blood brothers try to find footing with one another after twenty-five years apart.

[It Ain't on the Surface] - Majima/Saejima - Majima plans a date night at the top of Kamurocho Hills.

[Garnet] - When Majima is jumped and badly injured, there’s only one safe place he can go.

WALK TALL (verse) ~ Majima/Nishitani (trans) (dreamoffuchsia)

[Secret] - Nishitani has a secret that Majima is about to find out... will it change them forever? [NSFW content]

[Yes Sir] - Hard at work in the Majima Family offices... or not. [NSFW]

[Shameless] - Majima brings Nishitani and Saejima together in the bedroom. Best. Birthday. Ever. [NSFW]

TWO WRONGS MAKE A FIGHT (verse) - Majima/Kiryu; so many years unrequited, and Majima can’t take a minute longer. (fourthchairman)

[Drunk In Love] - Majima slips a little something into Kiryu’s drink to finally take what he’s wanted all these years... [NSFW] [tw: dub con]

[The Abduction] - Kiryu’s revenge. [NSFW] [tw:dub con]

SHE BRINGS THE MORNING SUN (verse) - Majima and Yuki (vineqar)

[Dondondondondonki] [2] - Majima and Yuki; Yakuza 0. Something very strange is going on in Club Sunshine, and it’s up to the dynamic duo to resolve it before opening - or tear each other apart in the process.

[Lose the Light] - Majima and Yuki; Yakuza 0 ~ Though seemingly unrelated, when Youda goes missing, Majima finds the weight of the world closing in around him.

[Sotenbori’s Finest Fashions] - Majima and Yuki; Yakuza 0 ~ tba

SNAKE’S NEST (verse) - Goromi and Nishitani; Yakuza 0 (dreamoffuchsia)

[Rattlesnake] - Goromi/Nishitani - Goromi is an A-List Queen strutting her stuff in the underground of Sotenbori. Is the Viper Vixen about to meet her match? [NSFW content]

[Cobra Queen] - Goromi/Nishitani - TBA [NSFW content]

FRIENDS WITH FINANCIAL BENEFITS (verse) - Majima and Akiyama; post Yakuza 4 (criminaldelights)

[Ninety-Nine Bottles of Gold Label] Majima and Akiyama ~ Drunk as a skunk, having lost his wallet somewhere along the way, Majima hopes to get a bit of help from a friend with a bit more liquid capital.

[Bad Parenting] - Majima finds an abandoned puppy and tries to give it to Hana to look after.

[爆発] (bakuhatsu; explosion) - Majima and Akiyama; While Majima is showing Akiyama around Kamurocho Hills, an explosion threatens both of their lives.

[Mad Dog Allergy] - Majima and Akiyama

[Clingy] - Majima/Akiyama ~ Majima doesn't want Akiyama to go.

[NSFW-ish] - Majima/Akiyama

[Fugitive Motel] - Majima/Akiyama [NSFW]

[Endangered Mousse] - Majima and Akiyama

THERE IN A HEARTBEAT (verse) - Makoto and Majima; post Yakuza 0 (criminaldelights)

[Laurel Wreath] Majima/Makoto ~ Almost a year after the events surrounding the Empty Lot, Majima sets out to find Makoto and see her one last time.

[Lady and the Tramp] - Makoto/Majima ~ Majima attempts to buy Makoto a puppy to keep her company. Trouble is, they're all too cute...

[Linked] - Makoto/Majima - Majima's last day in Sotenbori with Makoto.

??? (verse) - Majima and Saejima; various. (criminaldelights)

[Lord of the Cats] - Saejima smuggles a kitten into a restaurant.

[Absolution] - Guilt, blame and forgiveness cannot be extricated from one another.

[Mad Pup and Bear Cub] (pre Y0 verse) Majima makes an important confession.. and then tries to act like he didn't.

PLAY NICE (verse) - Goromi and Nishitani; Yakuza 0 (dreamoffuchsia)

[Well-Mannered] - Nishitani has been visiting Goromi for a while now at Sagawa’s request. Despite their initial nerves around one another, the two are beginning to form a connection.

NOTICE ME, SENSEI (verse) - Majima and Saejima; Elementary School Teacher AU

[Dirty Deeds] - TBA

[City Lights] ~ Kiryu and Makoto; post Yakuza 0.

[大理石龍] [2] (dairisekiryuu; marble dragon) ~ Kiryu/Makoto. An intimate moment. [NSFW]

[弱虫毛虫] [2] (yowamushi kemushi; cowardly caterpillar) - Nishikiyama and Majima; Yakuza Kiwami ~ In the process of recruiting, Majima falls afoul of the Nishikiyama family.

[What if...?] [2] ~ Tachibana and Makoto; Post Yakuza 0 AU ~ What if things had turned out differently...? [here be spoilers]

[Takoyaki] [2] ~ Majima and Makoto; Yakuza 0 ~ During Makoto’s stay in Odyssey’s warehouse..

[Billion Yen Opportunity] [2] ~ Majima and Ammy Highwind; Yakuza 0 ~ A real estate agent approaches Majima while the world falls to pieces around him. She seeks only one thing... [here be spoilers]

[King Among Fools] - Majima and Tamaki [Ouran HC]; Yakuza Kiwami ~ Majima is out to stir some trouble, and rescues a young host with such conviction, he doesn’t need rescue at all.

[石橋の仕掛け] [2] (Ishibashi no shikake; Ishibashi’s Gambit) - Majima and Tamotsu ~ Majima is given the task of delivering some documents to an unknown contact - it becomes quickly apparent that there is more to this than meets the eye.

[Beat It] [2] - Tachibana and Oda; pre Yakuza 0 AU ~ There is not a more feared officer on the beat than Tachibana...

[Skymail] [2] - drunk texts(?) from yakooziez

[Stray] - Majima/Makoto; post Yakuza 0 ~ Handing out leaflets for an animal shelter in Kamurocho, Makoto catches sight of the man she’s been searching for all this time.

[Silver and Gold] - Majima/Kiryu; Yakuza 0 ~ A Masquerade ball at The Grand

[Little Lost Rabbit] - Tachibana and Makoto, pre Yakuza 0; 6-year-old Makoto learns to deal (or not deal) with some school bullies.

[Rude Awakening] - Majima and Nishikiyama; After the supposed suicide of an important businessman, Majima grabs Nishiki to find his missing daughter, Aiko.

[Night and Day] - Makoto and Majima; Yakuza 0 ~ Whilst hiding out in a warehouse in Sotenbori, Makoto and Majima’s hiding place is stumbled upon by some unwelcome visitors.

[Vogue] - Makoto and Majima; post-Yakuza 0 ~ The girls head to an onsen to relax and find some time to chat and be themselves.

[Thorns] - Hayashi and Nishitani; Dead Souls ~ Realising her father is trapped inside the quarantine zone, Bara will stop at nothing to get inside and try to save him.

[Ten by Ten] Majima and Kiryu; Kiwami ~ Majima is far too proud of his increasingly honed ability to goad Kiryu into a fight, no matter the cost to his bones.

[Wake] Majima and Daigo ~ Attending a funeral for Mosugi of Yokohama’s Yamanobu Family, Majima uncovers hints of a plot.

[Secure] Makoto and Kiryu ~ TBA

[Emergency Contact] Majima and Tamotsu - TBA

[おしりかじり虫] (oshirikajiri mushi; bottom-biting bug) - In which Majiima is definitely not jealous of Daigo’s new friend.

[Break a Leg] - Majima and Shinada ~ Majima is tasked with keeping an eye on an injured Shinada while he recovers.

[Favours] - Majima/Daigo ~ A stolen kiss to save the chairman from a terribly dull fate.

[Asphyxiating Artist] - Majima and Tamotsu ~ Majima finds a rather handsome sketch of himself on the floor after a meeting. Somebody’s in trouble...

[Delayed Reaction] - Majima and Tamotsu ~ When a street fight goes wrong, Majima ends up more injured than he would care to admit.

[Last Wishes] Majima/Akiyama ~ Majima knows he hasn’t much longer left to live, but he has an important message to pass on, and Akiyama is the only person he can trust to do so.

[With All Your Faults And All] Majima and Makoto ~ Odyssey’s warehouse, an open door where secrets hinge.

[裏玉ご注意ほう！] (uratama gochuuihou; watch out for balls) Majima and Nishida - The tragic demise of one very greedy raccoon.

[How To Train A Hostess] - Majima and Sagawa ~ TBA

[Short Leash] - Majima and Nishida ~ TBA

[Clever Girl] - TBA

THE MAGNIFICENT

[iloveoda-san] Tachibana Tetsu @iloveoda-san

[majimaoneeyedfool] Majima Goro @majimaoneeyedfool

[fishikiyama] Nishikiyama Akira @fishikiyama

[fourthchairman] Kiryu Kazuma @fourthchairman

[iheartkiryu] Nishikiyama Akira @iheartkiryu

[vineqar] Yuki (Hostess) @vineqar

[yakuzaoflove] [kingofkamuro] Tamotsu Shimizu/Mamoru Azumi @kingofkamuro

[ammy-highwind] Ammy Highwind @ammy-highwind

[justsomedaddythings] Suoh Tamaki @justsomedaddythings

[rileysroleplayreservoir] Riley “Owl Eyes” O’Malley @rileysroleplayreservoir

[italian-love-cake] Makimura Makoto @italian-love-cake

[mmajimagoro] Majima Goro @mmajimagoro

[0tometal] Sawamura Haruka @0tometal

[dreamoffuchsia] Nishitani Homare @dreamoffuchsia

[snxkehips] Majima Goroko (genderswap) @snxkehips

[eighteencounts] Saejima Taiga @eighteencounts

[draconic-fury] Kiryu Kazuma @draconic-fury

[okunokanosei] / [criminaldelights] Akiyama Shun @criminaldelights

[criminaldelights] Majima Goro

[brassbounded] Dojima Daigo @brassbounded

[dxjima] [dojima-ryuu] Dojima Daigo @dxjima

[shofukucho] Makimura Makoto @shofukucho

[nishidawho] Nishida @nishidawho

[sagawawho] Sagawa Tsukasa @sagawawho

MISC TAGS

[open rp] (archive)

[wishlist] - a list of scenarios and AUs that I would love to RP in!

[ooc] (archive)

[inbox call]

[art] (archive)

[my art] (archive)

[meme] (archive)

[ask] (archive)

[answered]

[tagged]

[headcanons]

[nsfw] [bdsm] ~ filter these tags if you’d rather not see it! All explicit content should be tagged under this; please let me know if I’ve missed anything.

Trigger warnings: [tw: death] [tw: knifeplay] [tw: dub con] [tw: drugs] [tw: suicide mention]

Asks are always open!! Drop me a line with a question, a message, a plot, a prompt, a starter -- everything is welcome!

#masterpost #[rp]#[ooc]#[ask]#[tags]#masterlist

8 notes · View notes

datheetjoella · 7 years ago

Note

Hi! I love MakoHaru with all my heart too and can I ask you what's your favorite MakoHaru moment? Mine's when Haru got some goldfish and gave them to Mako. YOU CAN SEE THE LOVE EYES ARE STRONG ON THAT ONE! And probably because we mostly see Haru with a poker face and it's very rare when he smiles or shows strong emotions but when he looks at Mako like that, it warms my heart. Btw, i love your blog! Take care!

Hi Anon! I once got a similar question, asking about my top 10 favourite moments and you can read that here! But my favourite is a little harder to say, I can never pick one because all MakoHaru moments are beautiful and tender in their own way, but I’ll narrow it down to two scenes: one from the anime and one from one of the movies.

I already mentioned this scene the post I linked to above, but my favourite moment of the anime is season 2, episode 13, the “Okaeri/Tadaima” scene.

I’m repeating myself from what I’ve said before, but I love this scene so much because after their fight, we had to wait TWO WEEKS for them to meet up again. Two weeks spent in worry for me. This was the first time they saw each other after their first fight ever, and it was Makoto waiting for Haru at the airport to welcome him home. Haru deeply regretted what he had said to Makoto during their fight and he was scared of the confrontation, scared that the words he said to Makoto were enough to damage their years of friendship, of trust, of love, and that he would lose Makoto forever. But Makoto called his name and with just his smile and the simple words “welcome home”, he was able to ease all of Haru’s fears. He assured him that no matter what happens, he will always be there for Haru and forgives him for everything he said and that there’s nothing that can break their bond.

The second scene is the pool scene from High Speed: Free! - Starting Days.

Sorry I included so many screencaps BUT this is not even all the screencaps I would have needed to properly convey the beauty of this scene. This scene is so beautiful, it’s the exact type of scene that I would have sold my soul for to get except I didn’t have to because KyoAni delivered. This scene is just, ah, I don’t even have words to describe it.

Nao-senpai asked Makoto a question that made him doubt his entire existence (Do you like swimming or do you just swim because Haru is there?) In a need to find an answer to this question, Makoto distanced himself from Haru. Being in middle school, Makoto desperately tried to find his own identity, not realising that he was only forcefully changing his wonderful self for no reason whatsoever. He distanced himself from Haru because, like he says in this scene, he can’t think clearly when he’s around Haru and all his feelings get kinda mushed up, so he thought that taking a step back would provide him with the answers he was seeking.

Haru noticed Makoto was acting weird, of course, and he didn’t like it at all. He tells Makoto that “Makoto is Makoto” and that gives Makoto the epiphany of what he truly feels. And upon that epiphany, he drags Haru to the swim club to swim with their clothes on and he tells him the answer he found: denying Haru’s role and importance in his life and trying to find his identity separate from Haru is like denying himself, because truth of the matter is that Haru plays a very significant part in his life and there’s nothing wrong with that. (I even wrote a little one-shot revolving around this scene and my interpretation of it before, you can read that over here!)

I genuinely don’t have any words to explain how beautiful this scene is and how much it means to me, but I don’t think I have to give much explanation with this scene because we all know how amazing and heartwarming it is.

So those are my favourite scenes! Sorry that my answer is so long, I really couldn’t resist putting all the screencaps in so I hope you’ll forgive me for that. Thank you for sending me a message, I’m glad you like my blog and I hope you have a lovely day!

#Anonymous #asks #i'm sorry i'm stupid #makoharu #makoharu scenes #long post #again sorry it's so long i had to physically stop myself from putting in even more caps hahaha #anyway your fav scene is super beautiful too ahh i love how tender and thoughtful haru was in that scene #and how he always is towards makoto #also honourable mention is definitely the MAKOHARU MONTAGE FROM KIZUNA BECAUSE DAMN THAT KILLS ME EVERY GODDAMN TIME #but i didn't mention it here because it's more of a compliation of many different moments #otherwise i would have had to mention three lmao #I LOVE THEM SO MUCH ANON CAN YOU TELL #I'M CRYING OK SORRY BYE

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fablestarlet · 3 years ago

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i’e already said this in a Naegiri post on my intragram but i’ll say it again her. start with the beginning of history of how Naegiri became one of my top favorite ships in all of Danganronpa:

History

at first i’ve heard of Danganronpa by a few youtubers that i subscribed but had no interest in looking into the games because i wasn’t much of a gamer and i thought they were broing. I was very into Ninjago (and still am) as well as My little pony. around January, i saw my sister watching Danganronpa the animation on TV in the living room, where her friends recommanded the anime to her. i’ve was walking around minding my little business feel a little empty and bored so i decided to watch it with her for a while. and soon enough, i got invested and wanted to watch more. my sister was at that time in episode 1 where Sayaka had been murder already and Makoto pass’s out, and this really caught my eye having “this is your show hun.”. but at first, i thought this was those times where i just watch a show and never touch it for the next 2 to three years, but boy was i wrong.

more watching and i become impress with the character that were onscreen as well as the animated executions. when Kyoko appeared onscreen, i thought she looked nice, like i wanted to get to know her more. after epsiode to episode and we finally reached trial 5, where i was on the edge of my seat when Makoto was about to be executed and than saved by Alter ego, it was intense for me. than the trash sceen where Kyoko saves him, i was already like “ahh is this a new ship.”. i said to my sister “hey, they look cute together.” “don’t get there, we stil havn’t got farther into the anime.”, and this is going to sounds stupid but i dumbly thought that Kyoko was a but older than Makoto, i first thought Kyoko was around 17 or 18 while he was like 14 by the looks of him (look, i was dumb at that time, i quicky realise that wasn’t true.). of course after the final episode came, man this i feel like these two would be great friends at first. fast forward a few weeks and i immediately just had those feels where i found another series to like and characters to love to death. after thinking, i’ve decided to make my first Naegiri art, just them holding hands with a heart above it.

i tried to make it look in character as possible because i was worried i might make it a bit cheesey for a tv show that was rated mature lol. but now i’m drawing them so much with lots of hc, art, and fanfic ideas.

Why i like them so much

development, dynamic, chemisty, interaction, everything that i want to see in a relationship, ficitional or not. obviously, their trust is one of the most important things in their relationship and i love it so much. at first, i was a bit worried that there would’ve be some cheesy, out of nowhere ship teasing that would be in the anime for no reason but romance subplot. i don’t have a problem with a series teasing romance between two character together, some of those moments i find cute and alright, but there are times where i just feel like the purpose for the romantic moments is not for much story purpose and would come off kind of, forced.To honest, Naegiri never gave me those type of moments. the way they developed of how the story progressed and flowed without having any unnecessary romantic moments between the two, slight out of character flirting, or akward moments, it just feels so natural and heart-warming to watch.

With Dynamic, i am a sucker for the opposites attract trope, like outgoing person x reversed person as well as intelligent but serious x naive but sweet. i don’t really care about dynamic in a ship since in my opinion, that’s not what makes a good ship a good ship, it also how i feel these two characters would get along and how their relationship would go out, weither it be canon or non-canon. but back to dynamic talking. Makoto was the perfect person for Kyoko to open up to and pair with, he’s kind, forgiving, never gives up, very optimistc, and puts his trust on everyone he can deem as a friends. Kyoko on the other hand is not very expressive, a loner, intelligent, mysteryious, and doesn’t trust people who are deemed as strangers to her. i can understand why the two can care and adore each other as well as become a great team for one another.

Of course, i found Future arc and i was completely into the two of them more, and the worse thing that i did was spoiler myself on Kyoko’s death when my sister was watching that scene in the family room, thanks a lot. but aside from that, the moment in episode 9 where Kyoko comforted makoto with her words and burned hand had me in the feels. it was so refreshing to see Kyoko helping Makoto up from all the guilt and pain he must’ve been feeling in himself, like so many future foundation members died, Munakata was still looking to slaughter him and other foundation members in his way, and the killing game was still going, and he must’ve feel like he’s should be at all fault for it, as all he wanted was for things to end with little to no violence than additionally. and than the sacrifice, from all Kyoko and Makoto have been through, Kyoko had the option of sparing her life but losing the one that trusted her to most, or having to take her life and let the one that trusted her the most live. from all the pain and hardship they have been through, its shocking to see Kyoko finally deciding to let Makoto live and have her life be taken my the NG Code, almost. and when the final moments came, oh god did i feel like Makoto’s self-esteem when down to -10.Like for the love of god, this boy lost his good friends, first love, loving parents (possibily, not confimed if they are dead), normal life, home, and now he has lost the one that he truly loved and looked up to. the moment where he decided to stop grieve for her death to face munakata, then stopping to let the rest of his tears down still hurts my feels because of how much he has lost now.

more future arc than to hope arc, the Munakata and Makoto fight scene and Makoto’s who speech on how he would always be greatful of meeting Kyoko, even if that met he had to kill her if she been corrupted and aganisted him and the others. this just goes to show of how much he means to her, that of course and how much she (kyoko) means to him. oh, and let not forget that insane scene where he was brainwash. oh man, seeing makoto guilt from lossing not just his two loves, but also the friends that he lost too, this goes to show that he has not forgotten about the time in THH and does guilt over the deaths of everyone that he coudn’t save. i was sickly worried that he would’ve died, but he didn’t. Now hope arc is what i was happy to see. i know it has its flaws but i honestly enjoyed it, seeing class 77 again animated in their GD designs were fun to watch, and of course Kyoko. i don’t know if this is still an unpopular opinon to this day but to me, i think Reviving Kyoko was the best ending we got. like sure, the stuff i hear are “she should’ve stay dead for Makoto’s chaarcter development sake.” and “she literaly cheated death again.” and “it came out of nowhere when we literaly got evidence in episode 9.”. which i get, i respect if other’s disapprove hope arc’s ending but i love it. but honestly the “she should’ve died for makoto’s character development sake.” just doesn’t make sense to me, he already lost so many people that he admired and wanted to protect, how much more does he need to lose to get character development. and no, i don’t just love her coming back to life beause Naegiri can finally happened in the future, but it was nice to see a fan favorite character come back to the series alive so we can know make up what will happen in future with her and Makoto.

Conclusion

for almost a year, Naegiri has been one of my comfort ships for so long just because of how natrual and well-developed they are, as well as them reuniting after hope arc (i swear i wish there was an extra scene where they reiunited onscreen). its a ship that focus’s on two polar oppisite characters who trust each so much that they are will to go and sacrifice themselves for each other. their moments feel so well done than other tv show ships that i’ve seen and i’m happy for those moments to feel natrual to me because it’s what i believe makes a healthy relationship, fictional or not.

but little rant here, i do hate it when people say nonsense excuses like its forced, it’s boring, had no chemisty, “*insert other makoto/kyoko ship* is way better than naegiri, future arc ruined it for me, and its toxic because of that one scene in trial 5 of thh. yeah, they tend to push my button because of those reasons i just find them untrue with clear evidence from the games and anime, but i’m not going to go up and yell at them that its wrong because its best for me to just move on than butt my buisness into another person’s opinion. in my words, if you ship naegiri, i support you, if you don’t ship naegiri, i support you, why? because all of us have different views and opinions on what we like and not like. not everyone’s going to like Naegiri for many reason, stupid or not, and that’s alright. you fans have a free will to ship characters together (as long as its NOT problematic for god sake.), even if they they interacted, barely, not at all, go ahead. i fully support and repsect other Makoto and Kyoko ships,and some i find cute and interesting but some Makoto/kyoko ships do make me hell of uncomfortable. but you know what, i repsect that as long as it’s legal and healthy.

weither you see Kyoko and Makoto’s relationship as romantic or platonic, their development together is honestly the best out of what i’ve seen, and i’m glad that they make me so happy with how well written they are together as well as their moments in the game.

Happy Wednesday! I'm thinking of making these little posts a thing for maybe each day of the week. if Eon and or you guys don't like it, I'll stop.

So today I've found myself under a lot of stress and anxiety. It had me thinking about how I've noticed a few people this week have said Naegiri is their comfort ship. When you're feeling down, you have your favorite ship to think about and everything feels better.

So if Naegiri is your comfort ship, why is that? what about them makes you feel warm and fuzzy on a cold day?

#naegiri

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p5spoilersblog · 8 years ago

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on goro akechi v2 ft screenshot evidence because people are misinterpreting like everything about him & spreading misinfo

1. He got his persona powers 2.5 years earlier than the rest of the cast, and that’s important. He was a lonely child who had gone through life with absolutely no one, having to be constantly reminded that no one ever wanted him. He had nothing in his heart but resentment for Shido because he didn’t know anything else. He approached Shido and offered to use his berserk powers(no murder involved) with the intent of stabbing him in the back later because he had nothing else to lose.

2. Shadow Shido openly brags about being the reason he was using his powers to kill, because they were Shido’s orders to begin with.

Shido also talks about continuing to use the cognitive world for evil, even when he had planned to have Akechi killed right after the election.

3. There was no way he could’ve known about the power to change hearts. Morgana is expressly the one who told Joker and Ryuji about it. Without Morgana, they wouldn’t have known. They had to take extra precaution to not trigger a mental shutdown in Kamoshida, because the method to it is pretty obtuse. There’s 2 points in the game where’s he upset about not having known about it earlier:

4. The mental shutdowns weren’t his idea, they were the orders of Shido and his political buddies.

Here’s a compilation of evidence from the cruise ship of that: http://imgur.com/a/VE61s

So, yes, well established that everything was on Shido’s orders.

No, this doesn’t mean he’s 100% free of having to deal with the consequences of his actions, because he isn’t. He’s both a perpetrator and a victim, the game straight up calls him this.

The bulk of the blame should go to the person who actually wanted them dead rather than the hitman. In this case, the hitman was an abused kid who was in a do or die situation. No, the hitman is not totally innocent, this isn’t the point of this post.

(It’s worth nothing that if Shido wanted someone dead he more than likely would’ve found a way even if Akechi had tried to walk away. This is almost directly implied, as Shido talks about continuing to use the cognitive world after the election, when if everything had gone his way, he would’ve killed Akechi at that point anyway, as evidenced earlier in this post).

Here Shido offers a deal to the thieves, after Akechi was presumed dead, confirming that cognitive world things are going on with or without him. Along with a “those who disobey me must be eliminated.” The connection here is obvious.

In the text chat they have about him after sending the calling card, Haru says she thinks he was a victim too, Anne says he was a victim they couldn’t save. Ryuji says that while he can’t forgive him, he forgives Shido even less for warping him so badly. Makoto agrees with Ryuji. Morgana says that Akechi helped them all out in the end.

This should be obvious, his infiltration of the PT and assassination of Joker were on Shido’s orders. The first thing he does after Joker’s supposed death is call Shido and says that it’s done. The SIU director shows up occasionally talking to Shido on the phone talking about how their evil plan is going swimmingly, and at one point he even says “an idea so atrocious had to come from you(Shido).” Akechi was just a convenient tool to make that happen.

(The above cap is even before they learn that Shido was Akechi’s father).

It’s also worth noting that he got his powers earlier than the rest for a reason. As Lavenza revealed, he was cherry picked to be the one to oppose Joker. Akechi says that “be it god or demon, I finally had a chance” when he was talking about his revenge against Shido. Which, is fitting, considering Yaldabaoth chose him because he was a lonely kid with nothing but resentment in his heart. He had nothing to lose, he had no way of knowing how to change hearts, of course he went after Shido and made it worse for himself. It was rigged against him from the start.

To understand a bit more about the way he was treated and why he lashed out, I advise to read about the stigma of illegitimate kids in Japan and the treatment of orphans in Japan.

He was a child who had known absolutely nothing but neglect and abuse his entire life; he was a child who was at the tender age of 14-15 when he approached Shido. He wanted to lash out and didn’t have the means to do so. And because of who his father was, because he had absolutely no way of knowing how to change hearts, he could only make it worse for himself. He didn’t decide “I hate my dad so I’m gonna go kill people to get his attention” he decided, “I hate my dad and have absolutely nothing to lose so I’m going to approach him and try to backstab him later and get myself into a situation where I would either have to die or commit atrocities to keep on going.” (It’s unclear whether he knew that Shido would have him use his powers to kill. Shadow Shido brags about being the reason for it, though, as evidenced earlier).

And no, he isn’t without regret.

Also, this Leblanc conversation post Okumura death.

The Leblanc conversation there also stands out because he goes on about it being the one place of comfort he had.

He wasn’t being 100% fake all the time. Morgana points out that he actually did like Joker, and it was true. That was the line that finally set him into full blown tantrum mode after his first boss fight. (The localization translated that as “You don’t hate Joker” when it should’ve been something more like “You cared for/grew fond of/liked Joker.)” (He also says that it helps that Sojiro treats him just like any other customer, which sticks out because he’s probably not used to being treated like an actual human being).

I think a lot of people’s problems is that they see him before and immediately after betrayal(when he’s talking to Shido) and think this means everything post betrayal was his “real self.” It wasn’t, he hates Shido, he wanted to ruin Shido, the evil villain act he put on in front of Shido was just as much of an act as he put on on TV.

He openly laments that they couldn’t have met a few years earlier, because that’s the big difference between him and the PT. While the PT had each other and other people in their lives when they awakened their powers, Akechi had absolutely no one. He had gone through his entire life all by himself and thought he was fine on his own because he thought he could never have anyone accept him for who he actually is. And this goes well past the hitman working for Shido thing. He also thought that no one would accept him if they knew about his birth or his past; as said before, in Japan, being an illegitimate kid is highly stigmatized. In his TV monologue in the cruise ship, he thinks about that fact that none of the people in the audience know he’s an “unwanted child.” And the game makes a point of his fans turning on him whenever he made mistakes. Even the girl in your class who was always going on about how handsome he is said she was embarrassed to be his fan. The public is fickle, and didn’t care about him much or at all to begin with, just the mask he put on in front of them.

He thought he could never have real bonds because of his upbringing.

5. Shido would’ve killed him if he had tried to walk away. This is established after this line, after Shido was telling him to go “deal with anyone [Akechi finds] suspicious.” Akechi replied to this by saying that they should wait a week until after the election, after in Akechi’s mind, he wouldn’t have to listen to Shido anymore. (He was trying to stall)

“Do you know what it means to defy me?” is also a valid translation here. Right here it’s established that if he had tried to walk away, he would’ve been killed.

It’s also worth noting that Akechi said that as if he was terrified to question him.

No, I’m not saying he did nothing wrong at all. The fact that he did it at all disqualifies him from doing nothing wrong, but, it’s important to consider how little of a choice he had in his actions.

His real thief outfit is one striped like a prison outfit, with belts binding his limbs. The symbolism there is obvious.

The Design Works description for Loki is also worth bringing up:

"Loki's true form is unknown. I gave him a design in which you can't tell if more of the pattern is white or black, and I had thought of and considered giving him this feeling of not being able to tell which side he was on. The design motif is the "dazzle camoflauge" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dazzle_camouflage) that was used on WWI warships. The camoflauge was meant to make the size and shape of the warship difficult to discern. In addition to that, the horns that protrude from the eyes I based off a snail parasite, and it emphasizes the unpleasantness of this feeling of not knowing where the individual['s true self] is (like where the parasite ends and the host begins, I presume). I thought it might interesting if people could get this feeling of "who is the real you?", as Akechi might say.”

How little independence he actually had is the entire point.

6. Shido, deep down, knew Akechi was his son and used that to manipulate him. Shido says he suspected as much because Akechi resembles his mother. Shido admits to using his childish need for acceptance and praise to manipulate him(which also ties back into his lonely upbringing), it’s why Akechi thought that Shido trusted him. Like I said in the last post, he’s a worst case scenario for the subject matter the entire game covers - someone who was in a situation where he couldn’t do anything about ends up walking down the same path as his abusers when given the means to do something, because he had no positive influences or support system to know what to do otherwise. He had no way of knowing what to do.

He was a child who was abused and manipulated just as(if not moreso) by rotten adults just as everyone in the PT was. In the end, he wasn’t so different from them. The main difference is that he was cherry picked by a false god to be set on a bad path from the start.

If you wanna take all of this and say “cool motive, still murder” then fine. But, context is everything, especially when in context, he was in a do or die situation where he had to act as a hitman for the person who actually wanted the targets dead. Especially when the entire game is about abusive power dynamics, especially when it comes to the power adults have over the youth. Him being the only teenage antagonist is very, very relevant. It’s almost appalling how many people I see list a number of reasons to vehemently hate Akechi and then list Shido off in a passing “yeah that guy was a dick I guess” because that’s deliberately missing the point. In the end, he wasn’t so different than the PT. He was abused and manipulated by the rotten adults just as much(if not more so). The same rotten adult that also had a hand in the lives of other party members, even.

You don’t have to like him, you don’t even have to feel sympathy for him, but, the amount of people I’ve seen that nigh have to be deliberately misinterpreting his situation is kind of exhausting.

He goes after the PT in the cruise ship only after he learns that they were going after Shido. A big character fault is his pride, and he said how he wanted to be the one to “personally take responsibility for Masayoshi Shido by thrusting him into a living hell.” It was his literal life’s mission. He admitted he was jealous of Joker; he said that he was jealous because Joker’s heart was always free, and his wasn’t. He saw Joker as the epitome of everything he could never have; someone who was surrounded by comrades who cared about him and could be acknowledged as heroes. He clung to his want for revenge against Shido, he clung to his false fame because it brought him the praise and attention he’d been denied his whole life. His childish want for love & praise was another very fatal character flaw. Which, again, ties into his traumatic upbringing.

Then, in come Cognitive Akechi. Cognitive Akechi informs the real Akechi that Shido was going to kill him right after the election anyway, because he never had Shido’s trust to begin with. He never would’ve been able to take Shido down alone. He thought he was fine on his own because loneliness was the only thing he’d ever known.

He realized what an idiot he was, he calls himself just that. He never could’ve done anything alone. Cognitive Akechi then gives him another chance to be the person Shido wants him to be.

And he turns around and shoots cognitive Goro, raises the partition wall, and says that if they had tried to fight cognitive Goro and his shadows while protecting him in his injured state and making sure he doesn’t get killed, they would’ve all been annihilated. He gave his life for the people that shattered his belief that the only way he could ever be accepted if he was putting on an act, in a final standoff against the manifestation of the puppet he used to be, and removed himself from the cycle of abuse instead of letting it go on any longer.

He was finally able to let go off his want for revenge and false flame he clung to because it brought him the praise and admiration he’d been denied so heavily as a child. Because in the end, he wasn’t so different from the rest of them, the difference was that he was cherry picked by a false god to be the bad guy. His death was nigh the only choice he’d ever been able to make for himself.

omake: his angry critical cutin and black actual outfit fit in far better with the PT than his white princely outfit and p3/p4 style cutin ever did

#persona 5 #p5 #goro akechi #p5 spoilers #heavy spoilers #seriously heavy #long post under cut #also pretty image heavy #i reiterate a lot of what i said in the last post but there's more + screenshot evidence this time

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ilyseok · 7 years ago

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Works in Progress tag

I was tagged by @kpopfanfictrash for the works in progress tag

I’m tagging @chanyeolspout @hobbitoh @aichan11 @dailydoseofdia @jeons-jalebi @inkyuns @kpopthrasher

Now, in no particular order, these are my current WIPs, excluding any drabble requests or random drabbles:

[Untitled - YoonseokxReader soulmate AU, royalty AU]

Status: Planning mostly, but a little bit of writing

Preview: “With this mark, I leave you the key to finding your destined soul partner so that you may never be lonely. After their coming of age, your soulmate will have an identical mark as proof of your fate,” she said. “But beware, if your highness has not found his soulmate by the end of his 25th year, his soul will not survive on its own. Good luck on your journey to finding your destined life partner, young prince, and may the blessing of the forest be with you.”

Title: Among Asters and Sunflowers [Summer AU yoonseok]

Status: Writing/editing

Preview: I published a longer preview here of a different excerpt He looked into their eyes to offer a more sincere apology, but instead his mouth formed a straight line and he rolled his eyes at the cheeky grin of the barista from the coffee shop next door.

"Nice to see you too, frumpy boy," he laughed. Yoongi cursed any and all deities for his bad luck that led him to this very encounter.

"My name is Yoongi," he repeated himself once again. It'd been three weeks since he started visiting the shop. Shouldn't he have learned already?

Title: Once Upon a Dream, chapter 2 [JiminxReader Makoto Shinkai AU, sci-fi/fantasy AU]

Status: Writing but on hold until Among Asters and Sunflowers is finished

Preview: It must have been years ago, the day we first met. It’s been at least one hundred days since I decided to stop waiting to wake up from this torturous dream – since I began to explore this world. It’d taken me at least thirty days to reach the train station. Even then it proved no good because the small building was completely empty. There was no sign of life ever existing, nor any signs of any trains or passengers passing through.

[Untitled - JungkookxReader royalty AU, alchemy AU] It is a little known fact that in February I started planning a small series for JJK aka The Noona Snatcher™

Status: I last edited this draft on February 23rd and it is now July 7th. What do you think? lmao

Preview: You noticed a small, black tattoo on his right breast - a family crest consisting of a single rose engulfed in a flame.

The Jeon family crest.

“Aaah!” you exclaimed, scattering backwards. “My deepest apologies, Your Grace.” You bowed deeply, clutching at the soft fabric of your white skirt. “I didn't recognize you in those robes. Please forgive my discourtesy!”

[Untitled - TaehyungxReader mafia AU]

Status: planning with some written, but again... I last edited this on Feb 25th lol

Preview: Taehyung thought about the proposition. On one hand, one doesn't simply make a deal with Bang Sihyuk with no strings attached. He was a dangerous man and not one you should ever make angry. On the other hand, how bad could it be to work as his errand boy? It was probably just collecting the money from the man’s many businesses, or maybe he would just direct the ships carrying Bang’s imported oil. It's not like he would be involved in anything really dangerous.

Right?

It's not a decision one takes lightly - to become involved with Bang Sihyuk and his boys. Bangtan, they called them.

#WIP list #WIP tag game

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fairymascot · 8 years ago

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Some of you were kind enough to enable me, and so, here it is. Almost 2,600 words of everything wrong with Makoto Shinkai's 'Your Name', because gosh diddly dang it am I tired of seeing it heaped with baseless praise. This analysis contains spoilers for the whole movie, so read at your own risk! Stashing it under cut for length. Everything Wrong with 'Your Name': A Really Long Chunk of Media Analysis

'Your Name' is a top-grossing, critically acclaimed anime feature by Makoto Shinkai. It is, in short, about a teen girl from a small south-of-nowhere town and a teen guy from Tokyo, who mysteriously find themselves spending entire days in each other's bodies. They fall in love, as every guy and girl are meant to do, and it is then revealed that (1) the boy lives three years in the future, (2) the girl's town is to be unexpectedly destroyed by a stray chunk of comet, and so the guy goes back in time through her body to save her and the people of her town. They meet like a decade later and presumably get married and live happily ever after, the end.

This movie, with its gorgeous animation, artistic directing and beautiful original soundtrack by popular band Radwimps, was quick to achieve immense commercial and critical success. So just what is it that's wrong with it? Boy. Where do I begin.

It's phenomenally lazy in its writing.

The movie opens with intersecting inner monologues by the two main characters, in which they very melodramatically narrate the gaping void in their hearts without each other, and establish the fact that they are soulmates. Yes, five seconds in we are told are plainly told by the characters that they are soulmates, without knowing who they are or what kind of dynamic they have. This is a very convenient move: instead of having to go through the effort of selling us on their romance through the story, the writer just tells us from the get-go we have to be invested in it.

Unsurprisingly, at no point does the movie back this up with actual development.

By the nature of this story, the main pairing cannot interact. It's very on the nose with its star-crossed lovers thing. Their only way of getting to know each other is through memos they leave on each other's phones while in their bodies, and through how their surroundings treat them. Since they spend a couple days in each other's bodies per week, and only leave one memo a day -- usually a summary of what they did while in each other's bodies, to provide a reference for when they change back -- there is no real back-and-forth interaction even over text.

What I'm saying is this story is selling us an epic romance between two people who have never spoken once in their lives. It does this exclusively through cheap, external narrative stunts: first the monologues in the beginning, and then, around a third of the way in, through a supporting character telling the main boy that he's acting like he's in love with someone, which of course instantly opens his eyes to his feelings that the writer spent absolutely no time trying to actually develop. Oldest trick in the book.

The two of them interact for a single, two-minute scene, fifteen minutes or so before the movie ends. When the girl's town is about to be destroyed by the comet, through the magic of love and God-knows-what, their timelines briefly manage to intersect and allow them to interact. This hugely crucial moment in is written in the shallowest, most unsatisfying manner imaginable: in the story's biggest and only chance to sell the viewers on the depth of their supposed love, it offers us a stock guy-on-girl anime interaction, stuffed so full of stereotypes you could fill a bingo card with it: the girl cries emotionally at the sight of him, she blushes and huffily calls him a pervert and an idiot, she bashfully asks him if she looks pretty and then gets huffy, again, over his unenthusiastic response. The guy, like every main character in a romance anime, offers nothing but lukewarm, inane reactions, despite the fact he just spent half the movie scrambling to save this girl's life and finally gets to meet her against all odds. Not a word of real substance or emotional value is spoken between them, but the scene is framed oh so very prettily, with the sunset fading in the background accompanied by swelling violin music. So of course, we're supposed to be deeply touched.

Yeah, no.

It's so mind-numbingly stereotypical in its handling of gender and romance, you'd think it was written fifty years ago.

Instead of giving the characters actually unique and compelling personalities, the guy and girl's personalities can be aptly summed up as 'guy' and 'girl'. The guy is rough around the edges, quick to anger, loud and brash, physically strong, likes sports, incapable of doing anything too intricate or gentle with his hands. The girl is sensitive, emotional and highly concerned with others' view of her, gets self-conscious easily, good at sewing, and dreams of living a stylish life in Tokyo where she can go to cute cafes. There is not one, single aspect to these characters that betrays the generic societal expectations of what 'a guy' and 'a girl' are like.

Aha! But make no mistake. It's necessary for them to have these exact personalities, because 90% of the humor in this movie hinges on gender essentialist jokes. The whole first half of the film, where it's still light-hearted before gearing into melodrama mode, carries the punchline: 'Look! A girl acting like a boy! A boy acting like a girl! How wild is this, you guys?!' To name some of the fresh and inventive jokes it provides us with: the boy, when in the girl's body, cannot put her hair in the right hairdo; he sits open-legged; he gets into fights; he makes her suddenly excellent at sports, which earns her a long list of female admirers, much to her dismay. The girl, when in the boy's body, initially refers to herself in an inappropriately feminine manner; she acts timid and delicate; one of the guy's friends comments 'don't you think he's kind of cute today' while blushing, which of course gets him a weird look from his other friend, because what the hell dude, that’s, like, gay.

There's a lot that can be done with body-swapping narratives, especially when the swap is with a member of the opposite sex. It can be used as a tool for some incredibly interesting psychological exploration, as well as delving into potentially queer themes. The female protagonist herself even declares at the beginning of the movie that she wishes she could be a guy, but you know, not in a weird way, or anything. The movie isn't interested in that, of course, because it's very important for it to be about a boy and a girl who are very cis and straight and who fall in love in the most banal way possible. Which is fine, I mean, that's the standard, but couldn't it be a little less offensive about it?

The thing about this movie is that while it attempts to pass itself off as a dual protagonist movie, that's really not the case. Once the plot gets rolling and there's a comet to be stopped, the female character is taken completely out of the picture for maybe a third of the movie, now in the role of a helpless damsel for the guy to rescue. She is not active in any way; she does not contribute to the plot, despite it revolving around saving her hometown. The guy searches, researches, travels physically as well as metaphysically, plans, warns, blows shit up, evacuates, She only does one, single thing, at the very end, which is speak to the town's mayor -- her father -- to convince him of the coming danger. And that's not even shown on-screen.

Oh, yes, and a running gag throughout the movie is: every single time the boy wakes up in the girl's body, he spends a good fifteen minutes fondling her breasts. He even comments, at some point, that 'doing this is bad for her', before happily continuing on. The girl finds out about it -- through her sister commenting on it, of course, not like they guy would come clean -- and confronts him about it during their single shared scene (where she blushes and calls him a pervert), at which he lies and states that it was only the one time, and she forgives him and lets it go. Because that's how you treat the love of your life, folks!

Nothing about the plot makes any goddamn fucking sense.

The ultimate reveal of the film is that the guy and the girl began swapping bodies for the purpose of saving the town from the comet. It's revealed, in addition, that the girl's mother and grandmother went through similar body-swapping experiences in their youth -- except they never led to anything, and were written off as 'dreams'.

Let's go over this again. Some cosmic force of the universe wanted to save the townspeople from death by a meteor crash, and its way of doing so was... to have a certain family of women swap bodies with random big-city men from the not-distant future, over the course of fifty-odd years?

What?

Why?

Let's start with the time discrepancy. Why is it there? Oh, the answer is simple: so you can have the motif of 'love that crosses time and space' reappear in the movie over and over again, lest the audience forgets how epic this romance is. But otherwise? Absolutely no reason. Because, you see, while you could say that the boy could use his knowledge from the future to save the town in time... he doesn't. It's only until after the girl's timeline in the past reaches the point where she and her entire town are killed that the guy discovers it in his timeline, and to save her, he has to go back in time -- not just by his definition of time, but by her definition of time as well. So if the guy was going to find out about the destruction after the fact and go back in time anyway... what narrative purpose does the time gap even possess? None. None at all.

Continuing: why did they choose to mention this has been a thing for generations? It raises more questions than it answers. It didn't take long for the main characters to realize the body swapping isn't just some weird dream, seeing as it left a very real imprint on their real lives and was acknowledged repeatedly by everyone around them. How in the world would the generations before them somehow manage to overlook this? And what would even be the point of warning the town of an up and coming comet fifty years in advance, when there's no way to prove it or any chance anyone would believe it? Yet even so-- if that's truly the method the universe has its eyes set on, why did it just give up on the girl's grandmother and mother, content to bring them closer to annihilation while waiting for the next generation to be born? What are the logistics of any of this?

Then, of course, you have the biggest question of all: How is a seventeen year old Tokyo boy with no special skills equipped to deal with a meteor strike? If we're really meant to accept he was chosen for a higher purpose, wouldn't it make sense to have him be fit to fulfill said purpose? Had the movie waved it all off as some grand cosmic joke or whatever, then sure, it would've still been a total disaster, but at least we would've had one less point to critically analyze it from. But if we're to consider that the whole crux of the story, supposedly, is to keep the comet from wiping out the town, the whole thing completely falls apart.

There are a hundred more effective ways they could've gone about this narrative. First of all: there's no reason for the boy to even be involved. I mean-- again, yes, for the star-crossed romance drama. But from a practical storytelling point? The only advantage he has over the girl is the knowledge of the comet's arrival. That's it. So thinking about it logically, this could've been a movie about her and her alone, if she were just granted visions of the future. It sure would've saved a whole lot of mess, confusion, and needless bumbling around.

But since it needs to be about the both of them, for the romance and all, why not make it.... actually about the both of them? Why not make it about the both of them working together to save the town, instead of the girl being completely absent from such a large and critical chunk of the movie dedicated to her own life and home? Or better yet, why not have each one of them work to save the other's timeline? As things are, there's no reason for the girl to even get channeled into the boy's body in the first place. His timeline doesn't need her intervention, and does not benefit from it -- in fact, the central plot would not have suffered in any way if all scenes featuring the girl in the guy's body were cut clean off. Wouldn't this have been a much more compelling, logical story if it were about two individuals who were specifically chosen to intervene with each other's lives due to their individual skillsets and personalities? If they could do something for each other that they couldn't do for themselves, and learn from each other in the process? Wouldn't that have made a lovely movie?

Well, that's not Your Name. Instead, Your Name is a pretentious, overly-budgeted nonsense salad where the head writer seems to have produced the central motifs out of a hat filled with random things he finds cool. No element of the story can be backed up by the plot's actual demands, and a lot of them clash and override each other. The movie tries to incorporate the theme of past lives and reincarnation by alluding to it in dialogues and in the soundtrack's lyrics, for the sole purpose that it sounds epic and full of pathos, even when the body swapping has nothing to actually do with it. It incorporates the theme of star-crossed lovers traveling through time and space, even when, as mentioned, there's no reason for the time gap to be there in the first place. And most prominent and embarrassing of all -- the central motif of names is horribly, laughably forced at every junction. It's as though the idea of 'they fall in love without knowing each other's names' was the original basis for the story, but as it developed the writer realized it makes no sense for them to spend entire days in each other's bodies without finding out their names -- and stubbornly refused to let the motif go, because the feels, you guys. So the two protagonists, having found out each other's names, go on to forget them, recall them, forget them, recall them, and forget them again all in the span of about twenty-five minutes, with no rhyme or reason to it beyond 'this is what would make this particular moment especially dramatic'. It really encapsulates the whole movie's approach to writing: transparently manipulative with no logical backbone, dressed up in as many frills, ribbons and pretty words as possible to tug at the viewers' heartstrings, in the hopes of making them overlook the fact there's absolutely nothing of value underneath.

Well, what can I say. It clearly succeeded. Good on you, Makoto Shinkai.

#the soundtrack is fantastic though. listen to that.#text #kimi no na wa #meta #my rambles

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