#gen urobuchi I'm looking at you

[tothepointofinsanity]

What would you like to see in the upcoming new madoka magica movie

I hope more than anything we get to see the usual play with different mediums to capture that dream-like sequences from the past few shows. To satisfy my thirst for the fancy pancy artistry, of course.

Secondly, it is imperative that I cherish every new scene with Sayaka in it. Someone else mentioned it already, but if Sayaka was to fight Homura (angel versus devil), I would pass out in the cinema/pos. I wouldn't mind if God and the Devil talk it out. We love good x evil tropes.

Lastly, regardless of what happens, I want to see everyone have a happy ending. Homura included. And I'm praying it's not a "they all died and lived peacefully in heaven!" ending.

[loveselenade]

Madoka 1.5

Since I’m watching PMMM for the first time (with a lot of it spoiled due socmed lol), I figured it’d be fun to write my thoughts so far, 1.5 episodes in. It goes without saying, but don't send me any further spoilers, as this is only fun if I can manage to remain as ignorant as I am now.

Things I knew before hand:

-Kyubey is a bastard.

-It has Shinbo Akiyuki's artistic sensibilities all over it (reason I started watching, tho I'm unclear what exactly his involvement in this is lol). Also, Urobuchi Gen is the main writer for this lol

-Madoka dies.

-Madoka is the paragon of good.

-Lesbian Satan.

-Homura has catholic guilt??

-Someone's backstory involves a brother or something.

-Guns

-Time loop.

-Jewel seeds but evil (this only makes sense if you've watched Nanoha, sorry lol)

-Witches

-Madoka saved a cat

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¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Illusory motion.

[image id: top view of a monochromatic, distorted staircase that looks like a spiral.]

An upwards climb or a downward spiral? The irregular curving of the stories and the pattern alternance sure makes it look like it's spiraling inward. As our lace curtain lifts so the play can begin, this is our first look at the kind of world that awaits us.

[image id: gif showing a close up to Madoka's legs and then a panoramic top view as she runs through a monochromatic hallway with a chessboard pattern]

I don’t have a lot to say about the witches’ labyrinths yet, but I’m always a sucker for dreamscapes (I loved them dearly in Flip Flappers, where they had the incredible work of Studio Pablo strengthening the storybook look), and I’m assuming the labyrinths symbolize something about the interiority or the difficulties the witch in question faced. I don’t have a lot to go by with the two labyrinths in episode one, but I did love the glimpse of the one we get in the opening sequence. I love the effect that it creates when alternating between panoramic shots or extreme close-ups to Madoka’s legs and back as she runs—respectively making her look too small against this overwhelming set piece or claustrophobically trapped in her impotence. As the camera moves along, there’s a sensation that the different patterns in the floors are moving. Because of the way we perceive depth via ascertaining the apparent parallelism or convergence of lines and value/color contrast, among other things, the pattern alternance in this monochrome set piece creates illusions of either motion or that each row is a step more elevated than the other. It’s a properly trippy place. I enjoy it. The straight white for the lighting and tiles creates an artificial and alienating atmosphere. The uniformity of its looks is disorienting. Is Madoka going the right way?  It’s really a fantastic introduction to the world of Madoka Magica.

The path you must follow has been prepared for you.

[image id: A green, flourescent exit sign is centered in the screen, hanging above a dark path framed by silver chain fence]

Despite the disorienting feeling, Madoka follows mostly straight paths and there's a clearly labeled, correct exit. This brings to mind the predetermined paths present in Revolutionary Girl Utena's imagery.

Additionally, I find the way Madoka’s run is boarded reminiscent to Utena’s chase after Anthy in Adolescence of Utena:

[image id: gif showing a panoramic view of of landscape shwoered in sunset lighting and red, square pillars towering over the space. Utena, looking tiny, runs further into the place.]

[Image id: gif showing a top down view of a long monochromatic corridor with chessboard pattern that Madoka, a mere pink dot in the screen, crosses running. The corridor is right in the middle of the screen and surrounded by different equally black and white mandalas that turn slightly.]

We get panoramic overhead shots emphasizing the disorienting, geometrical maze and the impotence of our heroines' tiny figure against them.

Before reaching their destination, they both cross a stairs-bridges of sorts; Utena, towards the dueling arena where Anthy waits for her to continue the dueling cycle with Utena as champion; Madoka, towards the foyer where she can find her exit to where Homura is struggling against another hopeless, fighting cycle, one which Madoka choses to perpetuate when making a contract with Kyubey…

[Image ids:

The image to the left shows shows a stich of two Adolescence of Utena's screenshots: the one on top showing Utena crossing a bridge; due the top down angle and the inclination of the bridge, the planks on the bridge look like stairwells. The image on the bottom shows Utena crossing the bridge against the creamy, pinkish sunset sky. The bridge railing is shown a black silhoutte in the foreground.

The image to the right is a stich of two monocrohmatic Madoka Magika episode one screenshots: the on the the top shows Madoka crossing a corridor, the foreground is dominated by abstract geometric shapes. The one on the bottom shows Madoka going up an ample stair well, and the surrounding walls have a similar geometric patterning.]

Absolute Reality.

[Image id: Predominantly black and white screenshot showing a dark tree on the foreground and black debri flyaing around. A little to the right of the middle line stands Madoka, with Kyubey sitting on top of some fallen pillar. The subtittles are Madoka's dialogue and read: "Can I really do something to help?"]

The offer that tempts Madoka into a contract is the promise of agency. She can’t stand the reality where there is nothing she can do, thus it's the promise she does actually have power to influence the narrative and help others and stop their suffering what Kyubey dangles in front of her. Madoka feels deeply moved by the pain of others and has a strong empathetic response that makes it very easy for her to be preyed upon by our resident ugly cat here. It’s detrimental to her. Maybe Homura has a point in reversing her wish to be the divine embodiment of Goodness. 

It’s then interesting that she expresses disappointment upon waking up not only in the premiere but in episode 02, as well. Her waking up animation might as well become bank during this introductory arc (I’m betting it does, can’t wait to be wrong). When confronted with the thought the world her senpai Mami introduced to her, one of great danger but also apparently fulfilling and actualizing, Madoka expresses disappointment. Even though she has a happy, easygoing life full of friends and family that love her and that she loves in return, there is something else she is looking for.

Confronting your own humble plainness again.

[Image id: Screenshot of Madoka's room dimly lit. Madoka is drawn towards the bottom left edge, hunching and hugging her huge body plush with a beleagered expression.]

Appearances, facades.

Trained confidence. 

[Image id: Screenshot showing makeup labelled with numbers, as if to indicate the order of steps.]

Following Madoka’s "dream", we learn about her homelife anchored around her interactions with her mother as they talk about the love lives of the people around Madoka, contrasted to Madoka's own assertion that no one has an eye on her. Their whole bathroom conversation could be characterized as "girl talk": they go on about love and the need to maintain an appealing image as means to reach it. I could easily accuse this scene of being sexist (and it did rub me the wrong way initially), but the dialogue is naturalistic enough to paint a trusting, warm bond between mother and daughter; plus the repetition of the make-up motif in the second episode while interspersed with Mami's explanation draws attention to themes of appearance and desire.

A remark that can easily be taken as reinforcing gender essentialism lol

[Image id: Screenshot showing the sinks at the foreground barely visible at the bottom edge, with Madoka and her mother in front of them. Madoka is holding her red ribbons with her left hand hesitantly, while her mother has her hands over her hips, talkig matter-of-factly: "A woman's appearance is the one thing she can't afford to get looked down at."]

The contrast in the way mother and daughter carry themselves is apparent. When Madoka relays her reports about her homeroom teacher's love life, her more experienced mother offers keen observations about the possible state of the relationship. Where Madoka takes things at face value, her mother can see deeper. The same applies to the image they project to the world— where her mother has a set (numbered) method to achieve her ideal image, Madoka fumbles and fusses about her ribbon choice and not being seen as too much. The frame pan showcasing the end result has Madoka standing timidly with her hands folded over her lap and her back reflection shown in three different angles in the background mirrors, as if she's being thoroughly scrutinized. While her mother confidently observes her reflection in the mirror, Madoka shrinks at being observed.

[Image id: Screenshot showing Madoka in the middle with a dopey and hesitant expression and her arms drawn close. Her reflections are shown in the mirrors in the background.]

I can't say that Madoka’s self-confidence is worryingly low given what we’ve been presented with—while she lacks the self-assurance her mother possesses, she doesn’t seem particularly self-deprecating. While her affirmation that no one looks her way reflects that self-consciousness, Madoka doesn't further put herself down. Instead, it could simply be that she's a teenager only now discovering her identity, what she's comfortable with, what she wants and what place can she carve for herself in this world. Her mother advises her to train the image and behaviors of someone confident as a first step to grow more certain of herself. The scene places emphasis on the process of purposefully building the image you project, which becomes relevant as episode two's layouts play with a reflection motif around talks of desire. 

While thinking back on Kyubey’s proposal of granting them one wish in exchange of risking their lives, Madoka ponders about what she wants. Her waffling contrasts to her mother’s immediate, cutting  response concerning pragmatic concerns from her work life when Madoka echoes the question to her. Although, of course, her mother lacks the whole context that makes the decision heightened, Madoka’s roof talk with Kyubey and Sayaka reinforces that there isn’t anything she wishes for that strongly. Yet. 

Additionally, when Madoka proposes a bigger ambition to her mother (“Wouldn’t you rather become CEO yourself?”), the image her mother projects into the mirror changes drastically into a more fierce and dangerous look, complete with the repetition of her labeled make-up symbol. This ties a connection between the image people project and what they desire. And just like Madoka has a rather inhibited persona, so do her desires appear mild.

This takes us to Mami, their helpful senpai.

A slightly distorted image seen from below the glass table totally screams trustworthy.

[Image ID: Screenshot of Mami drawn in a low angle, showing her sitting with her legs neatly folded under her backside and her hands resting on her lap. Despite the sunset light filtering through the windows, she's very dimly lit. Most of her image, from the waist up, is shown slightly distorted as its filtered through the glass of the table. The table legs curve outwards and frame her the image in a strange way. The subtitles present her offer: "You should see for yourself what it's like to do battle with witches."]

Knowing the spoilers that Homura is trying to save Madoka from death via time loops and preventing her from forming a contract with Kyubey has an interesting effect— that is, it casts suspicion over other characters. Mami is the helpful senpai that shows up in the nick of time to save them from the witch, heals Kyubey, explains the situation to them and even promises to protect them from Homura at school. She also offers to show them the fieldwork so they can make up their mind about whether to become contracted! The earlier, careful portrayal around purposeful appearances and the reflection motif repeating during their talk can’t be coincidence. Clearly, she wants to be seen as someone who’s dependable, and whether this has more sinister implications or is stemming from personal wishes is unclear to me yet. Mami feels more like Kyubey’s sales associate than anything else. “You can come observe” it’s the pitch you give someone unsure whether to join a club so you can lure them further in. She’s encouraging them to take on a responsibility that can have rather grim outcomes, despite her early assertion that magical girls don’t necessarily work together to reap the rewards of fighting witches—a statement that further reinforces the narrative of Homura as an antagonistic force to our young heroines. Mami either is very upstanding and thinks it’s a duty they should take on since they were chosen or there is something deeply fishy going on here.

For all intents and purposes, Mami is a completely separate entity to our young heroines, not unlike Homura. She’s the one who’s a magical girl already, they’re the uninitiated. They sit on the same side of the table, opposite to her. This shot emphasizes their separation through the black leg of that foreground furniture.

There’s clearly a lot we don’t know about her.

[Image id: screenshot showing Mami's living room. There's sunset light still filtering in, but the room is mostly dimly lit. Mami is on the side of the wall, so she's in the shade. They're sitting at the table, Madoka and Sayaka together on the same side and visually opposite to Mami. The black legs of a furniture are shown in the foreground, creating a strong visual barrier between Mami and her juniors.]

Isn’t it just so fun how this reflection shot obscures her face? Like she’s covering it with her hands in sorrow. Seems charged that it coincides with her explanation about witches causing suicide and murder, does she know of someone who was a victim of them? OR better yet, someone who became One?

I know that magical girls become witches in this series, which also poses interesting possibilities…

[Image id: Screenshot showing Mami's lap with her hands resting on top of it as she sits in front of the table. Because of the top angle, the reflection of her face shows dimly on the glass table. Her face overlaps her hands. The subtitles read: Many of the inexplicable suivides and murders that occur..."]

Are my suspicions on Mami’s intentions totally off-mark? I have no idea, but it’s incredibly fun to doubt her  lol

Speaking of despair lore, I usually raise my eyebrow—think it’s full of shit— when there’s worldbuilding that links suicide and violence to supernatural entities; it’s a run-of-the-mill battle shonen explanation, Noragami also uses it with Ayakashi as amalgamation of negative feelings and energy from the people of the places they haunt. Now, this could still work on an allegorical sense of how oppressive environments lead to such emotional outcomes, since most stories don’t engage with the structural causes of such problems… It can be that, or end up attributing a metaphysical cause as the source of all darkness without even so much extending understanding and sympathy to the people who suffer from it. Where does Madoka Magica fall, I wonder…

Blessed fools.

A pained smile framed behind by bars, a surefire sign that someone isn’t totally trapped. 

[Image ID: Screenshot showing Sakaya's back with her face turned in profile towards the right. She's smiling ambigously and her right hand is holding to the white chain wall that dominates the background against the bright daylight sky. The subtittles read: "Well... Maybe the pair of us are just fools?"]

Given our young heroines lack of direction, ardent ambitions or anguishing desires, Sayaka muses that perhaps the fact they don’t have anything they’d die for is a sign they’re blessed fools. This rings true for Madoka. She’s a happy kid with a supportive family and friends. Despite her longing for something more—her own agency? confidence? Romantic love?—, there doesn’t seem to be anything that is making her actively miserable. Her mild adolescent ennui is not necessarily something pernicious and would’ve likely resolved itself as she experienced and tackled more challenges in her life with the guidance and support of her family. This whole business paints more ill-fated for her (and I mean, I know it is. What a tragedy, hers).

But is this true for Sayaka? This brief shot with its ominous red sky and its bedridden figure shrouded in darkness begs to differ… The fact she feels guilty over being chosen, thinking there’s people who’d make use of a miracle much better than them makes me think it’s rather someone she knows… Is this her motivation to get into Kyubey’s magical girl agency? I don’t have a lot to go by…

[Image ID: Screenshot representing a short-haired person in bed shown facing right . Most of the shapes are represented as black silhouttes, sans the translucent curtains and the ominous red sky framed by the window. The subtittles read "We've been so blessed.."]

Sayaka and homoeroticism.

Welcome back, Shinohara Wakaba. 

[Image id: Screenshot showing Madoka, Sayaka and their irrelevant friend Hitomi at the park. Sayaka is hugging a slouching Madoka from the back, saying "You must be my bride, Madoka!".]

The Girl Talk in episode one continues as we follow Madoka’s commute to school with her two friends: the blue one, the to-be Magical Girl, Sayaka and this one random girl that I'm surprised it's even there. The banter and physicality to Sayaka and Madoka’s interactions is fun and warm, selling their chemistry as friends. And near the end, Sayaka playfully proclaims Madoka must be with her, which immediately brought to mind Revolutionary Girl Utena’s Shinohara Wakaba's own ambiguous, very physically affectionate date-play with Utena. 

Rather than being a maiden in the sidelines, however, Sayaka is positioned as Madoka’s protector against Homura. Given Homura is fighting to be Madoka’s silent protector herself, this is unbelievably funny to me. When Madoka finds Homura's staring off-putting during P.E., she hides behind Sayaka. When Madoka— with Kyubey in her arms— is alone facing the inscrutable, darkness-shrouded, threatening Homura, the one who shows up to save her is Sayaka. When they're alone within the creepy labyrinth, Sayaka protectively embraces Madoka. When Madoka is worried that Homura might try to attack them at school, Sayaka offers to punch Homura. This antagonistic placing of Madoka's two protectors is hilarious, and I'm curious to see if the dynamic fizzles out as we delve into Sayaka's innermost wishes and struggles or if the tension will boil over into something interesting.

'Get behind me, Madoka! I got the fire extinguisher!' 

Such a hilarious way to break the tension.

[Image id: Screenshot showing Madoka and Sayaka in a dark parking lot, with most of the background shrouded in shadows. Sayaka is holding a fire extinguisher that she's shooting towards the left, and Madoka stands behind her, holding Kyubey.]

Even their sitting order in class positions Madoka behind Sayaka lmao Does Sayaka have a thing for Madoka or just a hero complex? 

[Image ID: Screenshot showing Madoka and Sayaka sitting in their classrooom. Sayaka is shown sitting a row in front of Madoka, a column to the left. Madoka is holding Kyubey in her arms. The subtittles read: "If she tries anything on you, I'll punch her lights out!"]

The show acknowledges the homoeroticism between the two in a tongue-in-cheek manner during their commute in episode 2, when their normie friend feels put off by the apparent intimacy of their silent (telepathic) communication:

"You've been staring so intently into each other's eyes… What on earth did you do after I left yesterday?!"

This girl is too homophobic to become a magical girl, smh. 

[Image ID: Screenshot showing Sayaka, Madoka and their friend Hitomi drawn in profile at the park. Sayaka and Madoka are positioned on the left side of the screen, with a tree in the background subtly serving as visual barrier between Madoka and Sayaka. Madoka is slouched and halfheartedly reaching to Hitomi. Hitomi is positioned on the right side of the screen, with her hand to her heart and running towards the left. Her dialogue reads: "Don't you see that it's a love that can never beeee?!"]

Madoka points out that their normie friend's remarks sound a lot like what Sayaka tells to her on a regular basis, lending credence to my Wakaba comparison lol This gag could simply be an acknowledgement of the charged homoeroticism present in the series, but it still amuses me so far a lot of it has circled around Sayaka and Madoka. 

Akemi Homura

Her soundless, despaired scream as she catches sight of Madoka with Kyubey was so cinematic ❤️

[Image id: gif showing a zoom out of Homura's face as she screams. She's resting on a tree branch that's represented as a black silhouette, with debris floating around represented in the same way.]

Speaking of homoeroticism, it's time to talk about Homura. I actually felt a little sad that I already know about her motivations because she's so incredibly off-putting, I'd have had a lot of fun speculating about the meaning of her actions, the way she's framed and the meticulous way her micro expressions are portrayed. However, it's not like there isn't still some room to have fun reading into them. She enters the picture via the classic transfer student trope. From her introduction alone, she creates an awkward atmosphere with the way the standoffish silence lingers due her laconicism. 

Despite her aloof demeanor, and in pure transfer-student fashion, Homura still stands out both in academics and physical feats (she even breaks the regional high jump record lol!); as such garners the attention of her peers. Nonetheless, she couldn't be more uninterested in them, as the one she can't keep her eyes off is Madoka. Her taciturn, blank-faced and cutting demeanor can paint her staring as downright aggressive. This is further reinforced by being color coded with the darkest values in the cast so far: black and purple are her signature colors, classic villain palette. 

Her conversation with Madoka as she rehashes the "could you show me where the infirmary is" routine is the big standout of hers in episode one —the tropey nature of this encounter makes it very easy to imagine how their first interactions went down the first time—. The low angle that emphasizes her head tilt and the accentuated shadows on her face and body make her look haughty and intimidating.

She's literally staring down Madoka lol Worth noting this same framing is repeated as she warns Madoka in a few minutes, complete with rotating animation for gravitas, contributing to Homura's bad vibes. 

[Image ID: Screenshot showing Homura's face and shoulders slightly turned to the right side of the screen. The right side of her face is heavily shadowed and so are her shoulders. She's looking down on the viewer. Her dialogue reads: "May I ask you to accompany me?"]

While one could think that the reason she approached Madoka was to issue her warning, I'm actually not that certain. It could be due the way her anguished reactions to being around Madoka make her look quite erratic as she tortures herself with these distorted echoes of her memories—but I also have to point out the abrupt way she brings the interaction to a halt, stomping and suddenly turning. The way she behaves through the whole interaction feels quite impulsive, which gave me the impression of Homura purposefully trying to recreate the past (whether out of indulgence or to torture herself, I'm not really sure).

It's really fun the way this obscured close-up to her profile hiding her eyes— making it difficult to parse her emotions— paired to how the next highlighted extreme close-ups have her clenching her teeth led credence to the "Homura is a hostile party" narrative. Personally, the timing is what gets me. She reacts deeply upset to the fact Madoka politely yet impersonally addresses her as "Akemi-san" lol This girl was in the trenches. 

[Image ID: Screenshot showing Homura's shadowed profile facing left. She is holding her face up, seemingly imperious and her mouth is tightly shut.]

The way the timing makes it seem like she's really pissed at Madoka’s remark that her name is weird + subsequent fumbling is very funny lol I wouldn't say she's not upset from it, but mostly in the "it's painful to be around you" way. 

[Image ID: Screenshot showing a extreme close up to Homura's clenched mouth, as she lowers her face. There's heavy shading on the left side of her face and lens flare coming from the right side of her face.]

There's a lot of natural verticals in the panels of their classrooms and the windows they transverse that create visual divisions between the two. I found it particularly noteworthy that while there's a natural sense of distance and awkwardness between the them, Homura is the one who accentuates it and fully brings herself to the other side of the threshold when she suddenly skips forward ahead from Madoka. The idea she's intentionally cultivating a distance between the two is very intriguing and appealing…

[Image ID: Screenshot showing Homura and Madoka facing left as they walk through the corridor with blue window panes. There's a particular wide vertical division in between Madoka and Homura, placed more or less in the middle of the screen. Homura is on the left side of the screen, but closer to the blue vertical division. Madoka is falling behind, with more white space between her and the middle.]

Their sitting order reinforces this idea, situating Homura all the way to the front, completely out of reach. 

[Image ID: Screenshot showing Homura sitting in the front row, looking back at Madoka's seat.]

They look fully at odds with each other thanks to the high contrast between the bright windows and the shaded frames. The dark values to their visual barriers fully bring out the tension brought by Homura's sudden halt-and-turn as she issues her warning. Homura is framed as thoroughly oppositional to Madoka, and she herself doesn't bother to correct any misunderstandings. It's pretty interesting she's fine with being vilified if it might grant her any slight chance to get what she wants.

[Image ID: screenshot showing Homura and Madoka drawn in a symmetrical composition, separated visually by the regular window panes. Homura is drawn towards the left edge of the screen, facing right and standing imperiously. Madoka is drawn on the right side of the screen, towards the edge as well, slightly slouched and in a timid pose. Subtittles show Madoka's dialogue: "Yes, really! I couldn't lie about that."]

Homura's dead-eyed ominous warning vs Mami's personable, smiling offer of support, fight!  But this is truly why I can't trust Mami lol Should you really be tacitly encouraging them, Yellow Senpai? A cutting warning really seems more befitting here…

[Image ID: Extreme close up to Homura's blank left eye with the right side of her face being heavily shaded. The subtittles read: "Because if you do, you will end up losing all of those things.]  

Odd ends. 

There's a lot of small gestures that really bring out charm to the interactions and feelings, but if I pointed out absolutely everything, I'd never finish this lol 

There's one thing from the Madoka-wakes-up Bank I do want to point out, though: the odd feeling Madoka’s head turn with the hard shading gives me. Now, I know it's a Shaft™ thing, I've watched another TV series directed by Shinbo that was produced there and I've heard of it. But I still find the timing peculiar— after the opening sequence with her running to the rooftop in episode one and the brief recap with Mami's transformation in the second, just before she wakes up. Of course, this reinforces that sense of being at the verge of waking up from an odd dream, which Madoka fully believes, but it can also get a sense of deja vu. Typically, one would assume that Madoka’s run towards the rooftop is a glimpse to an event that will happen later down the line. But given the nature of this being a time loop and Homura's insistence on preventing Madoka’s death via preventing her contract altogether, which it's implied to happen in that sequence, I don't think there isn't any reason to think that it's not something that didn't already happen. If this ends up being the case, I'm curious how that'd affect further loops.

Tell me your secrets, you pink little one. 

[Screenshot showing a extreme close up to Madoka's eyes facing towards the left. Her face is drawn almost facing front, leaning towards the right. There's heavy shading on her face and a black background.]

Expectations for the rest of the introductory arc:

-Second half of episode 2 will end in a cliffhanger that'll destabilize routine while they fight a new witch. 

-Said cliffhanger will involve Mami (I HOPE IT DOES). I'm suspicious of her and hope she does something terrible, but I think it's equally, if not more, likely that something terrible happens to Her lol

-🤷🏻‍♂️

Hmm that's it. I'm not very good at imagining scenarios lol 

I'm also half-expecting to be wrong about nothing making Madoka miserable, mostly because I've been obsessing over Takamachi Nanoha, another seemingly well-loved, normal kid who turned out to have Important Baggage lol

[atamascolily]

some thoughts about the Clara Dolls

A year ago, I posted a very long essay about Homulilly and her familiars which was inspired by all of the questions I had about the Clara Dolls (specifically, why there are so many of them). While I feel like I have a decent grasp of their canonical attributes--at least as they have been revealed thus far--there's one area that still puzzles me, and which by definition, doesn't have an easy or authoritative answer.

Over my time in fandom, I've noticed that many people have a radically different interpretation of the Clara Dolls than I do--that they pay far more attention to them as individuals than you might expect for minor background characters that are never directly named in their source material, especially given their limited screen time. Which naturally begs the question: what is it, exactly, about the Clara Dolls that appeals to people so much, more so than any of Homulilly's other familiars?

Here is my guess: the Clara Dolls are compelling precisely because they are so individually detailed. Unlike the interchangeable masses of Lieses (birds), Lottes (soldiers), Lilias (teeth), Lisas (airships), all of which are variations on the name "Elizabeth", each Clara Doll has its own name and costume. While they are all still clearly variations on the same theme, both in terms of their doll-like bodies and the "sins" they represent, each of them is unique in a way that the other familiars aren't, and the supplementary material released with Rebellion goes into great length about their different personalities.

Most media follows what TV Tropes The Law of Conservation of Detail, meaning that there is a tendency for any given details to be relevant; unlike real life, superficial and unrelated details are omitted for narrative convenience. Thus, I think it's only natural that people would look at the individualized Clara Dolls and assume that they must be important, or else why would the creators go to so much trouble to distinguish them from each other?

To be honest, though, I'm not sure the Law of Conservation of Detail applies to Rebellion, at least not in its entirety. Rebellion's defining visual characteristic is its copious attention to details, many of which are barely visible or discernible outside of freeze-frame. Rebellion is a kind of fever dream, dominated by excesses and so packed that I've spent years untangling the meaning in each still frame, and barely made a dent in it.

It's not that these details aren't important. Far from it--they greatly add to my enjoyment of the film and my interpretation of Homura's character. And while I enjoy unpacking the symbolism, I'd argue that the film's meaning does not depend on any one in particular--that they support what is already there. They are icing on a particularly complex and elaborate layer cake, but it's possible to enjoy a hefty slice without ever digging into them.

And I think the Clara Dolls fall into this "decorative" category, in the sense that plenty of casual viewers watch Rebellion without ever realizing that there is more going on with them than is apparent on the surface--to the point where you could remove their scenes entirely, and the general plot would progress more or less without a hitch (and casual viewers or first-time viewers might not even notice their absence!) They are excellent, but I'm not sure I would call them essential.

Narratively speaking, the Clara Dolls are a mass, a mob, a chorus. Unusually for such a group, they are also visually distinct from one another. Hence the disjunct, I think. This is true for a lot of things in Madoka Magica as a whole, and can be best summed up as the difference between Gen Urobuchi's script and Inu Curry's vision of it, but that's a whole 'nother essay in and of itself, so I'll leave it at that for now.

Inu Curry very clearly loves and cares about the Clara Dolls or else they wouldn't have gone to all the trouble of creating them--but that's different from how the Clara Dolls appear in the final product, which is a composite of multiple peoples' work and effort and all the competing priorities that go along with that. What works for a worldbuilding draft or a still image doesn't necessarily work for a finished film, and while I enjoy the Rebellion Production Note and other supplementary materials immensely, I will always treat the finished film as the primary canon, which supersedes all else.

Thus, I find it hard to get excited about the Clara Dolls as distinct individuals or to believe they will play a larger role in future installments. It's not that they couldn't, it's just different from the role that they were playing before in Rebellion, which seems like a dramatic shift to me--especially if we're talking adding 14 distinctive characters into a 2-3 hour movie! The question I ask myself is, "what would be gained, narratively speaking, by doing so?" and I keep coming up blank. Maybe Walpurgis no Kaiten will surprise me by providing an answer, but I doubt it.

This is not to suggest that people who see the Clara Dolls as individual characters or who want to see them with an expanded role are doing something wrong, by the way. I think it's fine if other people want to flesh them out in fan creations--that's the whole point of fanworks!--just that this particular aspect doesn't appeal to me personally, and I don't think it will ever be of major canonical important. You do you.

It probably doesn't help that I don't have a very sympathetic view of the Clara Dolls in general--there are strong hints that Homura was horribly bullied as a child and that the Clara Dolls are simultaneously the dolls she played with as a substitute for friends and the bullies who tormented her. They don't seem to have any respect for "God" ("Gott is Tott!" and the thrown fruit at the Madokami stele) or their erstwhile master (they mock Homulilly on her way to her execution and cry crocodile tears; they throw more fruit at devil!Homura at the end of the movie). Homura can command them, but it's not clear to me that they will obey; they are wild cards more than anything else. The Clara Dolls are only interesting to me inasmuch as what they reveal about Homura herself, not as characters in their own right.

For what it's worth, I have the exact same reaction to Hitomi: I've seen a lot of people get very excited about the idea of Hitomi becoming a magical girl, to which my reaction has always been a blank stare and a ".... and what would that accomplish, exactly?" Hitomi's narrative role is to be the Ordinary Friend who gets drawn into the protagonists' problems, the perpetual victim who must be rescued from the monsters again and again. Hitomi is defined by her normality; removing it would completely change the character and derail the story as it stands.

Would that divergence be an interesting story? Sure. But that doesn't seem to be the story Madoka Magica is interested in telling. You can sense that in Gen Urobuchi's most-likely-unserious answer to the question of what Hitomi would wish for: "for Kyubey to disappear immediately". Kyubey is the messenger of magic, his narrative role is to guide Madoka and her friends into their roles as magical girls; for Hitomi to reject him as her wish sends a pretty strong message. But it's a moot point, because it will probably never happen--as soon as Hitomi became a magical girl, her role would have to be filled by someone else, and she wouldn't necessarily add anything else to the existing team. (Again, not to say that she couldn't, but that it would be a very different story if she did.) Madoka Magica is centered around a core cast of five magical girls, with Nagisa Momoe already serving as an impromptu Sixth Ranger in Rebellion--what else is there for Hitomi to do?

As I mentioned earlier, I think many, if not all of the disjuncts between various fan interpretations hinge on the difference between Gen Urobuchi's script and Inu Curry's interpretation of it. AFAIK, the Clara Dolls as distinct individuals only exist in the latter, but it's an open question for me how much Walpurgis no Kaiten's script will build on the visual elements in Rebellion versus ignoring them or going in a different direction. So much of the movie ultimately hinges on this question, and I think the role of the Clara Dolls is definitely one of them.

Given that Walpurgis no Kaiten appears to be focused on mirrors and reflections, with at least two different Homuras running around, I think it's natural to wonder if the Clara Dolls are involved in all of this in some capacity. That said, they're not the first thing that leaps to my mind in all of this, and I find the divergence between my assumptions and that of other fans absolutely fascinating. Can't wait to find out what is actually going on when the film is released!

[mirai-e-jump]

Uchusen Vol. 182 (Autumn 2023) Kamen Rider Gaim 10th Anniversary Commemorative Book: Muso Interview with Series Producer and Designers (other pages and translations below)

Publication: October 2, 2023

Producer Takebe Naomi Interview

-Recruitment of Main Writer Urobuchi Gen-

"One of the major points of Kamen Rider Gaim, was the recruitment of Urobuchi Gen-san as the main writer, someone who's worked on video games and anime."

Takebe: That's right. Looking back, I'm amazed that he was able to do it. Currently, due to Urobuchi-san's schedule, I think it'd be difficult to have him on for a whole year, so I think it was a very important year for us.

"What were some of the characteristics of Urobuchi's scripts?"

Takebe: The dialogue was heavy, wasn't it? Each one was long and contained difficult expressions. Also, I remember saying something like, "New actors can't speak more than 3 lines" (laughs), but the choice of words in their dialogue was amazing, so I don't think it would've made a big difference even if they were made alittle shorter.

"Speaking of which, in an interview at the time, you said, "I’ve learned to write shorter lines after working on Kamen Rider Gaim" (laughs). We think it was also adventurous for you to treat dance as one of the important themes that make up the show."

Takebe: In the beginning, that was the initial setting by both Urobuchi-san, and Director (Ryuta) Tasaki, who was in charge of the pilot, and it made me think, "Wow, this is an area I'm not familiar with" (laughs). It wouldn't have been a problem if it was an anime, but as a live action show, the cast has to practice, and it's time consuming to film them dancing, so it was very difficult.

"Come to think of it, the flow of the story until the end of the show was already decided in the beginning."

Takebe: From the world of the kids on the dance team, to the adult world……the interactions with Takatora and the others, and then learning the truth from them, was all set up like chapters. When I met with Director Tasaki and Urobuchi-san for the second time, we had notes on the overall flow of the show, which was roughly divided into four parts. The final setting was established, and it ended up being almost unchanged, so it was a new experience for me because I hadn't worked in that way before. Usually, I think about what to do next while working on a show (laughs).

-Impact of the fruit armor-

"In contrast to the serious and hard hitting storyline depicted by Urobuchi-san, we think the catchy appeal of the fruit themed Kamen Rider characters were a key point of the show. The transformation sequence where the fruit falls from above, covers their heads, and transforms into their armor left a great impact."

Takebe: Since it's fruit, the colors are vibrant. The design is very interesting, and the characters stand out from the outside. I think the fruit were incorporated very well, including the gimmick of putting it on the head and having it expand into armor. However, you wouldn't know Baron is a banana if you weren't told, and Gaim is an orange, but we still tried to create a cool Rider image.

"We think that the tasteful styles of armor incorporating Japanese, Western and Chinese, also contributed greatly to expressing the individuality of the characters."

Takebe: That was a last minute differentiation. If you change the armor with a form change, you lose the identity of the character, or rather, the more you change the armor, the more you'll lose track of what makes Gaim look like Gaim. That being the case, we decided to classify the armor, with Gaim being a Japanese style, Baron in a Western style, and Ryugen in a Chinese style. Also, we decided not to lend or borrow armor to anyone other than Gaim. It might be better to play with toys by using armor that can be used by alot of characters, but that would make it hard to tell who's who.

"It was also interesting that the Lockseed transformation item had a lock motif."

Takebe: As an item, I think we made the locks very cool and cute. It's just the right size, with a nice fit in the hand, and a slightly responsive weight. In fact, I'm glad to hear that the Lockseed toys sold well.

"What other Riders or items were particularly memorable to you?"

Takebe: The introduction of the adult team (new generation Riders) who transform with the Genesis Driver. It was nice to have a group of 4 Riders on the enemy side. The bow weapon (Sonic Arrow) was also cool, and the production of Kanada Osamu's team (episode 12), which appeared for the first time, was also good. Apparently the Genesis Driver sold well, which when you think about it, is amazing, considering it's the enemy's Belt.

-A wide range of casting oddities-

"As a multi Rider show, many characters appeared, so what did you pay special attention to when casting?"

Takebe: Rather than conducting a general audition like we usually do, we called on potential candidates, and narrowed our selections considerably. The dialogue written by Urobuchi-san is difficult, so we were thinking of someone with experience rather than a total newcomer. For one of the main actors, (Yuki) Kubota-san, he was a good choice. We had an interview with him, and I think it was more like casting, rather than an audition.

"So the cooperation between the new cast members, who played the main roles, and the supporting cast of skilled actors, helped to create the multi Rider story, huh?"

Takebe: I think that Producer Mochizuki's casting of Namioka Kazuki-san, Yoshida Metal-san, as well as other adults were well balanced. (Tsukui) Minami-san and (Aoki) Tsunenori-kun were also casted rather than auditioning, but I think the casting of the 4 new generation Riders really worked well together. It was abit of an adult world, in contrast to the childish world of the main characters. So, when I think about it now, it was interesting to see the wide range of ages, and the unique characters played by everyone, including the young cast members. Of course, that was created by Urobuchi-san, so I can only say that I'm very impressed with him.

"According to Suit Actor Takaiwa Seiji-san, Gaku Sano-san, who plays the leading role is, "The most mobile of all the leading Rider actors in history," and he showed off his pre transformation action moves, taking advantage of his physical strength."

Takebe: That's right. The Action Director, Ishigaki Hirofumi-san, incorporated alot of action. Gaim had many episodes by Director Kaneda (who came from an action background), so that may have been one of the highlights of Gaim.

"Overall, we think the casting was fascinating."

Takebe: I think Urobuchi-san also enjoyed that part. By working with real life actors, things will gradually change. Actually, I think that the character of Mitsuzane changed quite abit. Mitsuzane was played by Takasugi Mahiro-kun.

"At first, you had planned to have Mitsuzane leave the show with 3 months left. However, as he was writing the story, Urobuchi-san thought, "Isn't it wrong to have Mitsuzane disappear?," so he changed the direction of the story."

Takebe: It's similar to Isuzu Daichi of "Geats," where people like that are allowed to be in a world where everyone can be happy. So, I wasn't aware of it, and I don't think Takahashi Yuya (Geats's Director) has watched Gaim either, but I thought Gaim and Geats were similar. For example, with Gridon, we thought about, "Wanting to make a lock from a nut instead of a fruit," so we'd say, "Then let's also make a nut Rider," but Geats also has small buckles including hammers, don't they? It started with the idea of creating a buckle made of wood or stone, so we were thinking the same thing, just like Urobuchi-san had already done before (laughs). I thought of this when I was rereading books related to Gaim for this interview. I didn't remember much about it while I was working on Geats, but I thought it was following a similar path. It's also the same that he becomes a god in the end (laughs).

-Various developments due to multiple Riders-

"Overall, what was the most memorable episode of Gaim?"

Takebe: After the TV series ended, we did two V-Cinemas (Gaim Gaiden: Kamen Rider Zangetsu/Kamen Rider Baron and Gaim Gaiden: Kamen Rider Duke/Kamen Rider Knuckle). It was impressive. When I was working on "OOO", I was approached to produce a V-Cinema version of "W", but I turned it down because I thought at the time that a spin off of Ankh, for example, would never be possible. However, I decided to work on Gaim just in case there were people who were looking forward to it, and all of them turned out to be impressive works. One of my favorites among them is "Kamen Rider Knuckle." Of all the Gaiden stories, Knuckle is the only one that takes place after the conclusion of the TV series. It's a positive story that continues into the future, and it's still one of my favorites.

"We think the key to Gaim's success was that it had so many sub Rider characters and was so popular that side stories were made. As a result, 6 years after the main show ended, a spin off featuring Gridon and Bravo (Kamen Rider Gaiden: Kamen Rider Gridon vs. Kamen Rider Bravo) was distributed."

Takebe: During the second Gaiden, we were talking about whether to use Knuckle, Gridon, or Bravo, and we decided on Knuckle, but Metal-san commented something like, "Hmm~, I wasn't chosen." When I heard that, I was surprised to see that he was so eager to work with us (laughs). In that sense, I'm glad I was able to do something I had left undone.

"As a project unique to Gaim, the year before Gridon vs. Bravo, a stage play adaptation was also produced with Zangetsu as the lead role."

Takebe: That was made possible when Nitroplus told us that they wanted to turn it into a stage play, but I do agree that it's something that doesn't happen very often. The casting was done by Nelke Planning, and it was great to meet such charming cast members, such as Mashiko Atsuki-kun (Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger) and Goto Dai-kun (Kamen Rider Zi-O), who would later be cast in other productions. The screenplay and direction by Mori Nobuhiro-san was also very good, and the idea of retracing the story of Gaim in a setting where Takatora has lost his memory is very appropriate for reconstructing Gaim on stage. I think it was an extremely rare success story in that Kubota-kun's Zangetsu was able to successfully tell Gaim's story in a way that was truly unique and without the original cast.

-Looking back on Gaim-

"Looking back on it like this, it was a show that covered many different topics. There were also many collaborations with other works. There was a history of collaborations with Super Sentai (Ressha Sentai ToQger Vs. Kamen Rider Gaim Spring Vacation Combining Special), and even Kikaider appeared in the TV series (Episode 30: The Red and Blue Kikaider) in conjunction with the "Kikaider Reboot" film."

Takebe: There was also a film (Heisei Rider vs. Showa Rider: Kamen Rider Taisen feat. Super Sentai) where all the Kamen Riders gathered. That's when the number of Showa Riders (Kamen Rider Ichigo-Kamen Rider J) and Heisei's main Riders (Kamen Rider Kuuga-Kamen Rider Gaim) were the same (15). I think it was created as a result of hearing about it from the staff, and conveying it to Shinichiro Shirakura. Actors who have played Kamen Rider in the past, including Fujioka Hiroshi-san also appeared in the film….It was certainly a work that did alot of different things. We had a cooking showdown as a bonus video for the TV series, and since we had multiple Riders, we had a large cast, so we were able to do alot of different things. That's why I remember the event being so popular. As an artist, I think I appeared at the "Super Hero Festival (Kamen Rider x Super Sentai Live & Show)" 2 years in a row (2014-2015). Kobayashi Yutaka-kun and Shida Yumi-chan, who were active as idol artists, were good at talking, so the final stage was very lively. And then, Sano-kun cried through the whole thing. He was crying for the very first time, and we all said, "Eh? This is the first time?" (laughs). But, I felt that he had worked very hard for that whole year.

"We've reached the end. Now that 10 years have passed, we'd like you to look back on Kamen Rider Gaim and say a few words."

Takebe: It was great to work with Urobuchi-san and to be able to challenge myself in various ways, including with V-Cinema. The content was abit challenging and mature, but I think Rider is able to pull these things off well in a Rider like way. Of course, it's good to have a work where each episode is complete. However, I think it's good to have this kind of show once in a while. Personally, I like Taiga dramas, and I think it's something that can only be done in a production that lasts for a year. Looking back, it's been a long time since we've had multi Riders. Currently, it's not unusual to have a large number of Riders, but it was interesting to see the development that came from having a large number of Riders, and in that sense, I think Gaim has expanded the variety of the series. Urobuchi-san and Nitroplus also found it interesting to work on Kamen Rider for the first time, and I think it was a truly valuable and interesting show that'll never be replicated again.

Designers Tanaka Sojiro x Tsurumaki Takuya Interviews

"A year after the TV series ended, the spinoffs, "Gaim Gaiden: Kamen Rider Zangetsu/Kamen Rider Baron" and, "Gaim Gaiden: Kamen Rider Duke/Kamen Rider Knuckle," were released as V-Cinemas, featuring new forms of the main Kamen Rider's from each title and many new villain Riders, but basically, they're recolored existing suits to create clever variations."

Tsurumaki: Gaim was originally a multi Rider series, so you can change the color of the forms in an infinite number of combinations (laughs). However, the inner suit is tied to the identity of the person, or rather, to the one transforming, so when it comes to a new form, we did them according to Gaim's rules, that you can change the color of the armor to some extent, but not the base.

"Zangetsu's Watermelon Arms (Kamen Rider Zangetsu) is a successful way of turning Melon Arms into a Watermelon by just recoloring it."

Tsurumaki: I think it was quite the discovery to make them look like other fruits just by repainting them. For Zangetsu, we used a melon pattern and painted it with a watermelon pattern to give it a completely different appearance. Everyone has their own impression of the fruit, so we were able to successfully create it by working backwards from that impression. In that sense, I think it's more meaningful to recolor in Gaim than in other series. That's why, because it's that fruit, it's that color.

"What about Kamen Rider Idunn (Kamen Rider Zangetsu) and Baron's new form (Kamen Rider Baron), both using Ringo Arms?"

Tanaka: In the beginning, we thought of using an apple as a Lockseed because it was a "forbidden fruit," but we couldn't find the right time to use apples, so we decided to use it in the film (Kamen Rider Gaim: Great Soccer Battle! Golden Fruits Cup), and Kamen Rider Mars and Kamen Rider Kamuro finally used apples. However, Toei still wanted to use the apple in the form of a "forbidden fruit," so it was decided that the apple would once again appear in Gaiden.

"Kamen Rider Tyrant (Kamen Rider Baron) has a design that's unpleasant to look at."

Tsurumaki: That's true (laughs). We first used dragon fruit in the film (Kamen Rider x Kamen Rider Drive & Gaim: Movie War Full Throttle), but even before that, it was a fruit that we wanted to use. The shape is distinct and the colors are flashy. So I'm glad that we were able to use them in the film and also in Gaiden. They also released a figure of Duke's Dragon Energy Arms (laughs).

"The second wave of Gaiden was "Kamen Rider Duke" and "Kamen Rider Knuckle."

Tanaka: Duke is a new generation Rider who transforms with the Genesis Driver, right? However, Gaiden (Kamen Rider Duke) was a story that also depicts the past, so we thought there should be a previous version of Duke, so we designed Duke as a Rider who uses the same lemon Lockseed as Lemon Energy Arms and transforms with the Sengoku Driver.

"In "Kamen Rider Duke," the villain Kamen Rider Saver has a unique design."

Tanaka: Definitely, when I saw it, I thought that we made something amazing (laughs).

"Since it's called Blood Pomegranate Arms, the association of Pomegranate and Blood (Orange) makes it one of the most sinister in the series."

Tsurumaki: It gives off a dangerous image (laughs). As a slightly irregular villain, he does alot of things that go against Gaim's design rules.

"Also, in "Kamen Rider Knuckle," you designed Black Baron as a color change of Baron (Banana Arms) with the other being Knuckle Jimber Marron Arms."

Tsurumaki: Knuckle was originally going to be Walnut, right? How did he become Marron?

Tanaka: Wasn't it to group him up with other nuts?

"We think the fact that Knuckle's signature fist weapon as a chestnut burr also left an impact."

Tsurumaki: That's true. And, it has a two layered structure where the burrs peel off, and the gloves come out (laughs).

"After that, in 2019, "Stage Play: Kamen Rider Zangetsu Gaim Gaiden" was performed, and a new form of Zangetsu appeared."

Tsurumaki: It was designed by Tanaka-san, right?

Tanaka: That's right. Since I was the person who designed Zangetsu, I was asked by the leader of the Rider team at the time. It was decided that the Zangetsu would be powered up with Kachidoki Arms, so we rearranged Zangetsu as Kachidoki.

"The following year, Gaiden (Kamen Rider Gridon vs. Kamen Rider Bravo)" was revived as a miniseries, with Gridon and Bravo unexpectedly playing the main roles."

Tanaka: Come to think of it, Bravo (Durian Arms) was the first Rider designed by Tsurumaki, right?

Tsurumaki: The first Rider I worked on was Kamen Rider Sorcerer in the film "Kamen Rider Wizard in Magic Land," but I think Bravo might've been the first Rider I worked on as a regular TV character. I also worked on Knuckle and the Black Shadow Troopers in Gaim, so I think it was one of them.

"Bravo's King Dorian Arms is basically just a recolor, but the addition of the cape was a major one. By the way, the cape played an important role later in the series."

Tsurumaki: That's right. It's a cape that looks quite evil.

Tanaka: If you want to make something look evil, just add a cape (laughs).

Tsurumaki: An all purpose evil cape (laughs).

"What about Gridon's Lychee Arms?"

Tanaka: That was an issue.

Tsurumaki: Should we talk about it? (laughs).

Tanaka: I originally designed Gridon (Donguri Arms), so I'm very attached to it. The design of a Kamen Rider is completed after receiving opinions from different people, but for Gridon, I was able to quickly draw it from the beginning and get the OK immediately. I was so attached to it, that I even named my cat "Guri" after Gridon, and when I heard that Gridon would be the main character in the next new production, I suggested 2 rough patterns that I would've liked to have used. However, after that, a rough draft that Tsurumaki had drawn the day before the meeting was added, and that ended up being used (laughs).

Tsurumaki: At the time, I was on assignment at Bandai, and when I looked at the design proposal that Tanaka-san sent me the evening before the meeting, it looked like a samurai, or rather, Japanese styled, but didn't Gridon use a Western style? (laughs).

Tanaka: I intended to include a Western styled design, but it didn't work out (laughs).

Tsurumaki: So, I added one Western styled proposal and it was chosen…..(laughs).

Tanaka: Well, it was frustrating, but when I saw Tsurumaki's design later, I thought for sure that it would be chosen (laughs).

"We see (laughs). By the way, what are some of the design points of Lychee Arms?"

Tsurumaki: There were very few fruits left that we didn't already use. So, I thought that the only way to make this work was to take advantage of the base of Gridon's armor, and thought about what fruits I could apply to it, and by process of elimination, I settled on lychee. Also, since Gridon isn't that strong, I think I designed it based on how I could make him look strong while still retaining Gridon's armor.

"What about the other one that appeared, Kamen Rider Sylphi?"

Tsurumaki: When we first received the concept, we were told it'd be a female Rider, and that it'd be a good idea to use the fruit of the Helheim Forest as a way of presenting the Lockseed, which would probably be the final one of the series. So we decided to design a new Lockseed, not a recolor, and Bandai decided to commercialize it with a new mold. The design of the Rider itself is reminiscent of a witch who presides over Helheim.

"However, even after the show ended, you continued to design quite a few Riders."

Tsurumaki: That's true. It's not so unusual these days, but I think it was the first time I've drawn so many variations.

Tanaka: Rather, I think that Gaim was the catalyst for the spin offs that became the norm after the main show ends, and for the trend of designing many Rider variations.

Tsurumaki: In Gaim, the Rider transformation itself was the system that easily created variations, so I think that was a big deal too.

Tanaka: I think it was a good idea to create a format where the body and armor can be switched around.

Tsurumaki: It's like a puzzle (laughs).

"Finally, please look back at Gaim's design works and say a few words."

Tanaka: I've participated in a few Kamen Rider projects, but Gaim is the only one I worked on from start to finish, so I have particularly strong feelings for it. Gridon was initially intended to be a mass produced Rider, but when I saw the actual situation, I was glad to see that they made him into a proper character…..This is a story about Gridon, not Gaim (laughs).

Tsurumaki: Today was alot of fun looking back on Gaim after such a long time. Like the Lychee Arms stuff (laughs).

Tanaka: I still hold that in my heart (laughs).

[maguro13-2]

Legacy of Shinra Reboot ~ Origins of the Ink Demon Chapter 1 Remake Finale (2/10) ~

Seto : Solva. Hey, Solva. Do you know that where can we find something incredible for us to get to space?

Solva : Oh, right. Sounds like not a half bad idea or sounds way to negative for that effective part. But where on earth can you find something. But first let's go ask that guy over there.

Seto : What guy?

Solva : That guy over there. *points to Black Star walking out of the clothing store*

Seto : Hey, isn't that one of Maka's...Oh no, it couldn't be.

Solva : [To Seto] What he's doing at the clothing store? Shopping for robes perhaps?

Seto : [To Solva] He's not here for the robes, he was there for something else, probably his girlfriend.

Solva : [To Seto] Hey, I'm the only friend right, but I do know that Maka has never been friends with a shinobi who want us to get his autographs. Oh no, someone's coming with him...

(Tsubaki is shown coming out of the store)

Seto : Hey, that's a high school student. A 16 year old? Better go talk to him immediately.

Black Star : Well, I finally got these new pair of shoes that I wanted to try out to compare for that Naruto douche. Let's see he likes it.

Seto : [To Black Star and Tsubaki] Hey, you. Stop right there. You a Shinobi doesn't look like you're a teen, but you're just a pre-teen in your teens. Where have I seen you before?

Black Star : Eh? Who the hell are you, blondie.

Seto : Oh I'm just a young girl with a passion to be on a good life.

Solva : And I'm--errr--her--umm---Best friend. Yep, I'm her best friend and second in command. We're just two girls having a life on the run. What are you doing here?

Black Star : Minding your own business, I'm just doing some cool hobbies and I gotta get good on my excercises! I haven't seen Soul Evans or that girl named Maka anywhere. She had been missing from this country since Sora was looking after her.

Tsubaki : It's true what they say, another Maka appeared but with silver-hair like Soul's hair.

Seto : Silver hair like soul's hair?

Tsubaki : Yeah, I believe she apparently looks identical to the other Maka with the same face and same hairstyle, I believe she has incredible and beautiful silver hair. I think that this other Maka took the actual one is to believed some kind of clone or something.

Seto : Oh really? How about this. Let's give you some instructions on interrogating your butts.

Black Star : Yeah right. Thanks for the classy informations, but we're wasting our time with no intentions on telling you.

*SHING*

Black Star : *in shock*

Seto : [threatens Black Star] I said...I give you instructions on interrogating your asses!

Solva : Solva, take it easy! I'll handle to this ya.

Black Star : Oh yeah, twintail girl that I've known about sometimes? You gotta problem with that, Magnetic Brat? So what about your terms on interrogating my stupid sorry butt on all these terms? What this girl with magnets on her head gonna do to me , crush my arm?

Solva : True, in a minor fashion way

(scene changes)

*Stretching*

Black Star : OW! OW OW! Hey, man! Let go of my arm! Please, I was just doing my business!

Solva : So you know about Maka being the hero of a story that is all make-believes, secondary hero of the story.

Black Star : Look man, I don't know any Maka, but I do know about her, but she never met me as Kids! I was so busy of being Shinobi wannabe, but I was inherited from the influence of Shinra Kusakabe! Our author may be a weird guy, but he's like another Gen Urobuchi that writes crazy stories that are make-believes and nonsense!

*Solva continues crushing arm*

Black Star : Ahh! That smarts!

Solva : Enough chatter! Either tell me where is Maka Albarn or I'll continue disciplining you!

Black Star : Okay! Okay! Look! I know who the other Maka Albarn is she, she looks identical her, but has the same hairstyle and only the humanoid man knows about that, the other father that Maka knew!

Seto : So now you tell me something. Who is Maka's other father? Tell us now?

Black Star : Umm...I believe it's Ph-Phanto! Phanto's the other father of Maka!

Solva : And her sister.

Tsubaki : Wait, girl with magnets on your head! I know who the other Maka Albarn, she might be another Maka Albarn, she has beautiful silver hair and is the identical twin sister of her.

Seto : And who is that might be?

Tsubaki : Her name was Moirai, Moirai Albarn. Maka Albarn has been keeping her family a secret for almost a year and we believe that her father Spirit was a foolish man to keep it all a secret to himself. Please, I'll help you out. But just to remind you, don't tell anyone or that Ansem seeker that I told you before, or...Or King Bradley will fire us!

Seto : King Bradley? Wait, isn't he Fuhrer of that Amestrian country in Edwarld's world? I don't know why that man owns half of the company and rules a fictional European-like country?

Tsubaki : It's just our luck. Don't be ridiculous, I might help you out to find Maka. But Black Star won't be coming along, he'll have to stay put at Square Enix.

Seto : Don't tell me you're a Naruto fan that pretends to be a Shinobi?

Tsubaki : I'm not just any Shinobi, I'm a Kunoichi working for the Japanese government. I'm only under protection of my guardian?

Seto : Guardian?

Solva : Wait? Who's the guardian?

Tsubaki : Hibana. That's the name of my Guardian?

[Echo Night - Beyond/Nebula : Track 20]

Solva : Hmm? Hibana? Where did I eventually heard that name before.

Seto : I bet she was talking about the woman was very interested with Shinra Kusakabe. That's it, that woman's name is Hibana, she was the woman in her 20s that was part of Shinra's story and it was doubled by either Iris or this Kasugatani that had much to fear from love before the Time Eater destroyed the Entire Ohkuboverse.

Solva : Who knew that Shinra Kusakabe was attracted by women and is quite the lucky guy that is a lady's man?

Seto : Humph. It's no wonder heroes like him in the past had his hand on every women he encountered, but what about this one person that Shinra knew about? Any other subjection that there is one who also knows about Shinra? What was this girl's before? Shinra knew Haumea and Inca were the other women that were puppets of bad influence due to the manipulation of the Ohkuboverse's creator, Demon Vibe.

Tsubaki : Of course, Shinra known women in his world and all of them died or either disappeared to Real World AU. And other girl that Shinra knew about, he was talking about Tamaki Kotatsu.

Seto : Tamak Kotatsu?

Solva : We never heard about Tamaki Kotatsu. What she...

Tsubaki : Yes, a somewhat comrade to Shinra Kusakabe, she was one of the Ohkuboverse's worst humans being in all of it's history, but eventually, this Lucky Lecher Syndrome is definitely off the hook.

Shinra the Devil Chao : Actually, Tamaki's Lucky Lecher doesn't exist. It's because I removed it with the help of the emeralds to make her a better human being.

Seto : Well, look who it is. If ain't the guy who created Soul Eater, Shinra Kusakabe.

"Shinra Kusakabe : The First Hero of the Ohkuboverse"

Shinra the Devil Chao : It's true. I was the one who started this whole Soul Eater thing. Soul Eater was my responsibility to bring all of my efforts and finding the true paradise to bring a world of hope. The gift that I discovered that i was light from the mysterious entity called Angel Vibe.

Seto : So you knew about everything. You were the one responsible for Maka's story?

Solva : Goodness! You are responsible for everything that you did in your life. I heard that Shinigami was born at the beginning of time.

Shinra the Devil Chao : That wasn't Shinigami, it was Darkside Death that I created. Shotaro was Shinigami, the dokeshi that was the slave to Darkside Death, a heartless that I created to benefit Mankind. But then after I created him, I was scolded by the Time Eater and I got everyone involved in the parts of my story. Manipulation of one's story was all just a dream. And eventually, I had my own reasons that I was becoming like this for you see.

*flashback*

[Doctor's Story by Yutaka Minobe plays]

"I was called the hero of a lifetime after the Ohkuboverse was created by Demon Vibe in order to rule the universe by conquering the Galaxy. I was the person that had a nice good life, I was perfect, I had a brother named Sho and a mother named Mari. We were perfect and we would be grateful to be together. Until bad things to started happen, my mother and brother were separated from me, and Demon Vibe made me a scapegoat by making everyone to call me the Devil who created Soul Eater, and if Soul Eater was the responsibility of me, the was only thing was to put the blame for this madness was Demon Vibe, because that cosmic entity ruined my life and including me, manipulating my family, Haumea, and everyone else that got involved in the part of my story. Devil this, devil that, Devil loses family and home to a stupid fire scene that isn't Nibelheim."

"I couldn't take this manipulation from Demon Vibe no more! To put a stop to Demon Vibe wicked plans of ruling the entire universe, I had go through my story to get everyone involved, even my comrades, Obi, Maki, Hinawa, Arthur, Tamaki, Vulcan, Viktor, Lisa, and of course, the girl that I even met with my own eyes is Iris, sweet beloved Iris. They helped me to make myself a hero that will save all of humanity of being a meddlesome hero to stop Demon Vibe's plan of destroying the planet and would bring the peace to a new era for all of humanity. One day, I discovered that Sho, Iris, Haumea, Inca and the othesr were being used as eight pillars that would be the to unlocking humanity's future and new era including as well to the addition of it. But this was all part of Demon Vibe's plan to think that he would create a new era for humanity."

[Tragedy by Kenichi Tokoi plays]

"But eventually, now I realize what Demon Vibe was planning on using to engulf my world in a ball of flames called Firaga, cause this was Demon Vibe's real intention of manipulating humanity. Angel Vibe told me that Demon Vibe was not trying to create a new era for me and my people. It wanted to rule the entire universe by unleashing Darkness into the universe of Real World. Galactic conquest was his dream all along and everyone including me had been fools to that monster the entire time! So when Demon Vibe gifted with the Light hope, I reunited with my mother and Sho to create technique that combines the heart and soul into one powerful force and became the God that is really me, Shinra the legendary Banshoman! Angel Vibe and I finally put a stop to Demon Vibe and banished to a realm where he would not be forgiven. And it's all thanks to Demon Vibe. It was all thanks to my comrades and even haumea as well that I saved from that monstrosity's manipulation."

"So after created my man-made son Darkside Death from my own hear and eventually the world and story of Soul Eater, it became a perfect time for the Ohkuboverse to be free and peaceful in harmony. But peace was short-lived when Time Eater and scolded me for creating Death and Soul Eater itself. Thus, began the annihilation of my world including me and my comrades, but except for others like Tamaki and others who were transferred to Real World AU by the powers of an Ocarina."

Shinra the Devil Chao : With my 1000 years of death along with Iris who became my beloved, there might be those were transferred to real world AU and even resurrected their selves like me, a guy in his teens have taken the body of a lifeform that turn into the form of a God of Destruction. With the emeralds, I was quicly able to find out the whereabout of completing my story, my story to end tale was it the Seven World Rings that needed complete my tale.

Seto : Well, I 'm glad that really worked out as well. Your tale was a such a pleasant tale was such one big tragic backstory. Well, I'm glad that finally figured it out that you were the one who truly created Soul Eater it's because of your responsibilities, your influence has spread across the world including the galaxy, truth was eventually seeking out those who wanted something they want to bring. Being called the Devil may not be a Good thing, but it's also used for Good or Bad ways to say it. You're a hero just like me. Once you'll get back on your feet, you will be the hero that you were always be.

Solva : Yeah! Just the hero you are, Mr. Kusakabe.

Shinra the Devil Chao : You really mean it. Now I can finally become hero again and I will fend off evildoers whoever messes with me! I will be the hero that everyone respected me shall make me great again!

Seto : And of course, I bet Maka Albarn, would suspect that she would be the hero of this world just like you were once and eventually she'll be happy to see you again, buddy!

Shinra the Devil Chao : Maka, you say? That girl that I've known about? Of course she'll happy to see me as the hero that she known about. You are definitely correct, Seto the Deathless. And one more thing for me.

[Road to the King by Yutaka Minobe]

Seto : Hmm? What is it?

*clenched fist*

Seto : Huh?

Shinra the Devil Chaos : When that blue hedghehog said Little Buddy to every chao in the garden a thousand times over...I told him to stop saying that and you know it's buddy this, buddy that, little buddy give me a fruit to eat. I'm Shinra Kusakabe the hero and buddies were being called a hero, there's solution to put my finger on it.

Tsubaki : Why is that matter to you?

Shinra the Devil Chaos : Because...*raises fist*

Seto : Eh!?

*DBZ SFX : Strong Punch*

Shinra the Devil Chaos : MY NAME IS NOT LITTLE BUDDY! And it's not the devil either! Sonic has been driving nuts calling Chao buddies. That ship is sailed when the Dreamcast lost to the Playstation! All I was to be the hero of my life, my story, my everything, I made everything for the responsibility of my own, I wanted world without the Darkness or the despair that happened in the Ohkuboverse. And why did the Time Eater scolded me for the responsiblity of Soul Eater's beginnings?

Time Eater's Voice : Only a hero who would reach the end of his or her tale, but you failed to the reach the end of your tale without gathering the Seven World Rings, I will erase everything that you hold friend, your existence, your world, and this universe that you live. Only a fool is too worthy to be a hero of each the stories that were foretold. But without the World rings, you will have nothing in your life, not even you could spare one's life in a 1000 years.

Shinra the Devil Chaos : With that responsibility, the Time Eater destroyed the Ohkuboverse for real after the annihilation and ceasing everything to be exist. But when I resurrected into this? Things from the Ohkuboverse would never be the same. I had that responsibility from Robotnik, but I gave him that advice with the help of finding in the past mistakes. But remember, this is a job that is worth the life of a hero but it could be risky to fight one's ideals, but the most important thing of in that concession. You can't even deny or can't count on anyone or anybody but yourself, especially when it comes to your heroes, you don't even get the chance.

Seto : Eh, okay, I get it. Look! It's really a hard-knock for ya Shinra, I mean...This was not how it goes. Maka was wrong to follow your footsteps of becoming a hero and I'm sorry that the Ohkuboverse you all known about is gone, The Time Eater had no reasons to destroy universe that both you and Maka lived.

Solva : And basically, what did Maka said anything on her thirteenth birthday?

Shinra the devil chaos : The thing she said something to me is like this. You'll probably know why she wants to follow my footsteps to the path of becoming a hero.

*flashback to Chao World*

[Echo Night - Beyond/Nebula - Track 14]

Maka Albarn : So listen up, Shinra. Beg me for this. I've read about your story, Mom and Dad told me that the world you created would never fall into despair. But why are you telling that you were the one who fell into despair? You are the hero that I want to follow to your footsteps and I just wanted to be that way.

Shinra the Devil Chaos : Are you saying that you wanted to be a hero like me? Do ya, Maka? You don't get it, do you? Being a hero is a dangerous job and it could put your life in danger. You don't want to get involved into serious situations like these do ya? How are you gonna show something to this world that you wanted to understand?

Maka Albarn : What I really wanted because of your influence. Your influence has made me the way what a hero can do to their selves, I'll show the world what courage can do for me, and this Soul Resonance is the only thing that I truly i understand! This is what means to be the world's greatest hero that has ever seen in my life!

Shinra the Devil Chaos : No you don't! Showing the world your courage is stupid and this Soul Resonance that you said, there is no Soul Resonance! I made that up for you, you know!? Don't you know what it's like to live in the real world? Listen to me, wake up, Maka! Open your eyes and seek into the truth! I fooled you to think that you you just wanted to be obsessed with anyone in your life so that you could be the hero of your own story that I made for you. And courage has nothing to do with the world! It's valor I said, Valor! Do you know what Valor.

Maka Albarn : Is there's something wrong? But what does this mean? Are you sure about that? I look forward into following your footsteps and I don't care what happens to my life! I will show the world what my courage can do! Whether you like it or not! *leaves*

Shinra the Devil Chaos : Maka! Wait! *Maka stops for moment*

Maka Albarn : What is it, Shinra?

Shinra the Devil Chaos : I warned you. Don't risk your life fighting for your ideals, you'll be in danger when you follow footsteps of becoming a hero and when you do, you'll dies and eventually loose your body, just like mine that I lost to the Time Eater.

[Echo Night - Beyond/Nebula : Track 21]

Maka Albarn : Am I really going to die? I only wanted to show the world how great being a hero that I can do. I...I...Just wanted to make everyone happy. What's so wrong about that? Why can't you even just make believes and just deal with it?

Shinra the Devil Chaos : *nods*

Maka Albarn : (turns to Shinra) You have my word. I promise that even if I followed your footsteps of being the hero you are, then I'll make sure that I will protect the earth from harm. Heck! I would even save a galaxy or defender of the universe! No evildoer shall stand in in our way saving the world and bringing hope the galaxy! From this day on, two heroes of the long-lost Ohkuboverse will have their stories interwined, linked to another! I will be Maka the hero!

Shinra the Devil Chaos : Nah. That's my line. But I definitely I like that appreciation of yours.

Maka Albarn : True, that will be the appreciation of our destiny that will be intertwined with our destined fates. Let's make an oath to be the world's greatest heroes that they ever dreamed of.

Shinra the Devil Chaos : Agree. *fist bumps* I appreciate that, friend.

Maka Albarn : Same to you, hero.

*flashback ends*

Shinra the Devil Chaos : ....Now you finally understand the hardships to even let yourself to follow the dreams wherever you go. Making us heroes is what we do and that is our job to be heroes.

Seto : Wow. You knew about that, huh, Shinra? Are you saying that both your story and her's are linked and intertwined together. Was it your tale to be the greatest hero that you imagined when you were a human child. Childhood have always got great memories that foreshadows their dreams of becoming a hero. I bet that I too be a hero one day, when I was a kid, I looked into my father's steps of chosing to be the hero that I could be one day. Master told me anything about that much of a appreciation, even Solva and I known each other at school. We've been like this together as a heroes, savior of humankind, protector of the innocence, and most of my favorite part. The only thing what this world really wants is...

Seto & Solva [together] Love and Peace! *does a peace sign*

Shinra the Devil Chaos : Oh, I finally remember now. The new world in the Ohkuboverse I created was meant for love and peace. But all of that love and peace go to waste when the Time Eater came and destroyed everything. Don't worry, I'll bring the love and peace back together when I wiil use my full potential and save the world from danger!

*RUMBLING*

Shinra the Devil Chaos : What's going on now?

Seto : Uh-oh. This is bad.

Solva : What now?

Darkside C's Voice : Shinra Kusakabe. The time has come. I will put an end to everything that you hold dearly.

Shinra the Devil Chaos : Oh no. It's the foolishness that I caused. I did all of this! What have I done. That wasn't part of the New World of the Ohkuboverse that I made.

Solva : Sounds like Trouble in Tokyo, but right there's more trouble than here in Tokyo, straight up to the moon where they are at. Come, Seto! We gotta find out the solution! Tsubaki, come along with us quickly! I bet your guardian Nightshade will come get you any time.

Tsubaki : Right.

Shinra the Devil Chaos : You guys go on ahead.

Seto : What about you, Shinra. Aren't you coming along with us?

Shinra the Devil Chaos : I got other plans to do back at the garden. I'm heading towards abandoned aircraft that crashed landed in the ocean during the Chaos incident in 1998. Doctor Eggman told me that I would head be heading over seas to a huge aircraft that he once built. I got meet an old friend who wields excalibur. Of course, we've been partners a long time ago in the Ohkuboverse, but now he's out there somewhere after his resurrection.

Seto : Right. You can count on us, if you want to. But don't forget who followed your footsteps of becoming the hero you are, Shinra Kusakabe.

Shinra : Thanks, I won't. *Jumps off and leaves*

Seto : Alright everyone, you two follow me! We're heading to the solution right now! *Seto runs off*

Solva & Tsubaki : Okay! *the two runs off as they leave Black Star*

Black Star : W-Wait! Tsubaki! Where are you running off to!? Don't leave me here! Please don't tell Bradley that I am off work from Square Enix for desertion that I told you this before! They'll fire me! Tsubaki?...WAAAAAIT!!!

~ Scene 19 : Heroes Between the Past and Future ~

[canmom]

Great additions, tysm - and I very appreciate you pulling up those quotes, hard to do that from here on a phone lol. As you say, his work can address a political situation, worldview, era... without being partisan for a specific ideology or party-political cause. And like, it would be crazy if Anno believed the same things now as he did in previous decades, nobody is that static. So it would be wiser to talk about a trajectory, just as we can talk about Miyazaki making a break from Marxism in the 90s. For Anno the story that gets told tends to be about a personal trajectory, mostly about his depression and how it fed into the ending of Eva.

I think a lot of JP creators nowadays refuse to be drawn on political subjects in interviews, and interviewers nowadays often edge around political topics even when very relevant to the work, but yeah Anno kind of predates that. Still, we get a pretty scattered picture depending on what gets translated, and of course people can run a mile with even a single poorly translated interview quote (look at what has been said about Gen Urobuchi). And for Anno, I'm not aware of a Starting Point-style compilation of all the interviews and magazine articles he's ever written - I'd love to have one lol. But, accepting that limitation, beyond the general sense of disillusionment towards institutions expressed in some of those quotes, I don't get the impression he's particularly ideological. I think that 'anti-politics' makes sense as a frame, at least for the 90s.

@dirtreally observed in the comments (paraphrasing) that there is a kind of sense in the later 'Shin' films (Kamen Rider, Ultraman) of kind of wanting a sense of national identity he could actually believe in, despite all the problems he has with Japanese society as it is. But I'll have to watch them to comment more on that!

Do you think Hideaki Anno is right-wing or is it too difficult to tell from his works?

Haha that's a question.

I'll focus on nationalism rather than trying to get into, say, gender politics here, since that's the accusation that most seems to follow Anno around.

Anno's politics are... hard to pin down from his work alone, I think. He's like... a prototypical case of that generation of 'apolitical' otaku that followed after the Anpo generation, with Eva pretty much the definitive statement of the 90s psychological turn. But that said... I can definitely see the argument that there are nationalist themes in some of his works like Gunbuster, though I definitely don't buy every reading in this series (lots of dubious kanji reading). He definitely has that otaku fascination with war machinery and war media (apparently he's a big fan of The Battle for Okinawa and watched it over 100 times), which can easily blend into imperialist ideology.

But there's complications here. For example, the Animekritik series cites the setting of Gunbuster in Okinawa as something formative to the nationalist ideology they are trying to illustrate - in part in relation to the ongoing controversy over American military bases in Okinawa. Anno has at least been on record as saying he's disinterested in Western culture, and I can see the reading of Jung-Freud as an external Other who is shown up by the Japanese girls, somehow simultaneously representing the USSR, Europe and the States. But anti-Americanism in Japan can come in both left and right wing flavours (c.f. Anpo). Communists want the Americans out too! Portraying Okinawa as a military training camp in a Japan-led military coalition certainly comes across as a more nationalist take on that whole matter, but I feel like it's got about the same level of serious nationalist commitment as Doctor Who putting random British people all over space.

When Gainax has played around with nationalist imagery it's usually been in a kind of ironic sendup way - see Ash's writeup about the Aikoku Sentai Dai Nippon controversy, in which Daicon Film staff were disdainful at the accusation that their goofy toku film reflected a genuine nationalist sentiment. While Imaishi takes it further, a lot of Anno's work is also about playfully reappropriating past works. In Anno's case a lot of that is classic tokusatsu, Ultraman in particular, and also Leiji Matsumoto's scifi, notably Space Battleship Yamato, which, well... you know the deal there lol. But it's not so simple to go from that to 'Anno is a nationalist'.

Eva doesn't tend to attract these accusations, but I recall the controversy came back around with Shin Godzilla, though to my mind it's hard to find a straightforwardly nationalist reading of that movie. (It's a film about the experience of the earthquake and Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown, and it's critical of Japan's bureaucracy, but equally one where the JSDF repeatedly get their shit handed to them and civilian infrastructure is what actually stops Godzilla - not to mention Godzilla is painted as quite a tragic figure here!) It all feels pretty tenuous.

I haven't seen as many of Anno's live action films as I'd like, so I can't comment as much on the more recent Shin films, Love & Pop, Shiki-Jitsu etc. And it's always possible for subtler allusions to slip by the anglophone viewer. Still, I don't personally think Anno's post-Gunbuster work is particularly nationalist in outlook. I certainly haven't seen any evidence of him favouring, say, war crime denial, anti-Korean sentiment, remilitarisation, etc etc. - he's definitely not as dubious a figure as someone like Hajime Isayama. But it's not like, anti-nationalist either! It's just kind of hard to read in those terms.

So I lean towards your second option, I'm not convinced he's a nationalist or particularly right wing. He happily associates with Hayao Miyazaki, who's definitely not a right wing guy. But Anno'll also let hilariously cooked stuff like whatever On A Gloomy Night was supposed to be into the Animator Expo. So I don't think he's particularly left wing either, he's no Ikuni! But Anno's fiction is very individual focused, full of psychoanalytic themes and internal conflict. He can vividly portray trauma and complex power dynamics. There's a lot to appreciate in works like Eva from a left-wing angle. I don't really know why this association of nationalism follows him around.

Idk, maybe there's a bunch of interviews I'm missing! Presumably you have a reason for asking this question...

[doubleca5t]

you’re a massive Madoka fan—how do you feel about Gen Urobuchi apparently being involved with whatever “Team RWBY Project” is? The announcement for the first episode or w/e credits him with the concept

I'm nervous b/c although Urobuchi is involved, Ubukata is writing it and apparently the last time those two teamed up the end result was Not Good. Additionally one of the main reasons I tend to like SHAFT anime is because of Akiyuki Shinbo's direction and he isn't even directing this one so I feel like the odds of it having that distinct SHAFT Look are pretty low

Basically I predict it's gonna be mid to bad

[toskarin]

so re: urobu chi in madoka we are just replacing the "man/ghost" with a girl with grey hair, right? I buy that.

I think he has strayed away from these basic conventions a lot as of late, but he also has been working a lot less in general. I'm curious if you have a favorite of gen's work or if you feel you haven't absorbed enough of it to have an opinion (or maybe you just don't like any of it). while it does boil down to the basic framework you describe I feel like on the journey to that he explores some pretty interesting ideas. Just as well I also like the different ways he resolves his "everything sucks" narratives. at least I feel by the end usually there is more there than that basic idea but sometimes it takes too long to get there.

As far as zero is concerned, Nasu approved it basically all the way through its release and worked with gen on it so there is that. And when you consider Gen was basically given free reign there's no real reason for him to stick to the original concepts, I don't think (but I understand the argument for him to do just that). I guess my takeaway is if you find them incompatible (zero and stay) then that's fine because they were made by two completely different people, the same way I don't have Aliens in the same headspace as Aliens. They are different things that just happen to have the same characters.

I spent a lot of time just stating my own opinions rather than asking yours, sorry. Whatever you feel about Gen (I'm not a big fan but he's made some stuff I like), it's hard for me to say he did some interesting things that a lot of authors would be too afraid to do (or perhaps simply wouldn't be allowed to by their publishers).

anyway if you can/want to point me to where you've written more about these topics I'd be curious to see it!

I'm gonna apologize in advance because I'm using your ask to write my most comprehensive (and sympathetic) post on Urobuchi so far lmao

I should definitely open by clarifying that when I drop an opinion like that, I'm exaggerating my actual stance because I think it's funny to do it, so I'm not actually as anti-Urobuchi as I come off, it's just that I'm just not especially a fan (and at the end of the day, no matter what I say on here, I'm a pretty big Madoka fan who thinks Saya no Uta is a fantastic piece of horror and likes Nitroplus vns as a whole)

in general, when I sound overly negative about an author, it's usually because I don't feel the need to write out every time I find a piece of media okay or even good, so playing up some stronger opinions for a punchier line is always gonna result in what looks like a paradigm of blind praise and seething hatred. it can come off especially rough when preexisting connotations attach themselves to my rambles and rants

for example, me complaining about the misogynist tendencies of Urobuchi's writing is more of a ribbing than a hard moral judgment on whether it's got merit. I've got no idea what he's like outside of his work, besides that we like a lot of the same movies and he seems to get along with other people I hold in high regard. that's a big part of why I make a point of tending towards more tongue-in-cheek references to his choking fetish as opposed to anything with real substance

all that being said!

even though my stated opinions are oversimplifications of what I actually believe, I'm a little unfair to him, and I'm fully willing to acknowledge that. I disagree heavily with the way Zero was handled, especially in regards to how it handled preexisting characters, and it's one of those few situations where I wonder whether Nasu was actually right to lend so much creative freedom to a partner on a project he was (by all accounts) so closely involved with

Gen has a fantastic sense for horror and despair, and it's solely because he produces stories so close to what I'd consider amazing that I complain about the things holding them back. an example I'll point out is that I've never gone after the low hanging fruit of gun jokes because, while it is a recurring theme in his writing, I genuinely appreciate his fixation on the specifics of firearms

I haven't kept up with Urobuchi's stuff recently, largely because of time constraints, but I really do hope he's been working his way out of the boxes he worked himself into. if he were a purely mediocre writer who made consistently okay work, I don't think I'd have any opinions on him at all, after all

in the end, I really dislike Zero because of both what it tries to be and what it doesn't try to be. if it had been a more boring production, I'd have much less to say about it. I think that's a pretty good encapsulation of my feelings on him. I'm never bored, regardless of whether I'm having a good time

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

Do you have any Madoka Magica meta? Heretical or otherwise? I really love what you have to say about all of Twilight and everyone in it.

Heretical, not really, just that Gen Urobuchi is my god and I worship at his altar. I haven't seen all works he's been involved with on the writing side, but everything I have has been fantastic (this includes The Song of Saya, his visual novel in which he dabbled in tentacle porn... it got weird man, but it was great)

There's no heresy because so far as I know, I'm on the same page as him.

P3M is a very clear satire of the magical girl genre, with references to Cloud Captor Sakura, Sailor Moon, and more. It's a world in which these girls grow up on magical girls and of course don't see how a cuddly magical helper like Kyuubi could possibly be using them in such a way.

The original anime is excellent in capturing the world and our main characters in thirteen episodes, with Homura essentially defined in a single episode, where until that point, she'd never quite been boring, but her personality had certainly been "mystery".

I guess my heresy is that I was not overly upset by Rebellion. Now, was the movie as good as the show? No, but how could it be, it didn't have the time that the show had to get through what it needed to. However, the pacing was done fairly well and there weren't too many obnoxious reminders of "What is P3M even about?" that sometimes comes with anime films.

But what gets me is I'm not upset about the ending, in which Homura becomes Satan and launches the world into darkness. And that is because I am still holding out for a second series/film. This isn't the end, it's merely a stepping point, and the culmination of Homura's despair collected over hundreds of thousands of lifetimes.

From here we'll have to see Madoka not only remember herself but embrace the terrifying destiny she once chose all over again and destroy Homura, who was once her greatest friend and who, through varying timelines, she always forgot about and drifted apart from.

Theirs is a very star-crossed friendship that cannot go good places after Rebellion ends.

I'm looking forward to it, and if it never happens, then I can happily imagine it.

Otherwise, I suppose I do see Sayka/Sakura as well as Homura/Madoka, that's not really heresy but the show never outright claims the pairings are anything beyond strong friendship and I believe they've gone on record as saying "just friends" (though if that's to save their asses when it comes to controversial publicity is something I might guess at).

We're constantly reminded of how close these two pairs are across varying timelines and how far they go for each other across those varying timelines, and, of course, how can they can never be together except in false realities like that in Rebellion.

Basically, great show, love it.

[thankyoumskobayashi]

more to add onto here. kuuga and gaim spoilers here

fourth of all, the jyamato. we've already established that they're plant-based and they have their own language similar to Japanese. this puts them as the spiritual successors to the Grongi from Kuuga, who conversed in a language that was not Japanese, and the protagonists also couldn't understand their language. All that aside, what really puts the Jyamato as Grongi successors is the fact that for centuries, millennia possibly, the Jyamato have devised cruel and unusual methods of killing innocent civilians. Although this is endorsed by the gameshow, it is nonetheless a part of their culture due to being raised by the freaky gardener. In contrast, the Grongi, encouraged/directed by their leader Daguva, have a martial culture since at least 800 years ago of killing off the Linto (the farmer ancestors of modern-day Japanese) in a show of bloodsport. The first thing they did after being awakened in the year 2000 was get right back to murdering people. Although the methods and reasons are different, their actions and language are parallels to each other.

fifth of all, the cinematic parallels to gaim. first, we had neon and keiwa's refutation of gaim's core concept: that the world can only be changed by one person and whoever tries to stop that person should perish. By working together, they proved that changing the world sometimes requires a team effort, something likely borrowed from Kamen Rider's sister shows, Super Sentai and Precure. (Granted that I haven't watched Gaim and all of my plot knowledge comes from Dylan, I won't claim to understand much more than that. Fuck Urobuchi Gen's nihilism.) However, the fruit theme during the fruit bomb arc solidified Nadge Sparrow's position as Geats's nod to Sengoku Ryoma (Gaim). They will stop at nothing to realize a world in which they know all, and can lord that over everyone else. I think Nadge also used the bow as a more subtle nod to Ryoma's lemon but I don't remember rn. The jellybean-addicted Sugar Mommy of the Grongi's spiritual successors is the counterpart to Takatora or Marika (too early to know which so far).

something morg noted was that the contestants with the weakest desires always get eliminated first, and i think that sets a nice contrast to kamen rider ooo, where the unluckiest background characters all have one incredibly strong desire that gets sated beyond mortal enjoyment under the power of the Greeed's Yummies. imagine how much more difficult the competition would be if Mezool or Kazari was employed to do Tsumuri's job. They'd spend so long arguing with the Producer or the Devs about their shitty selection of humans, because the one living right next door to that one has a Much Stronger Desire, and if they think about it, the Fate of the World really shouldn't be left to weak-willed humans anyway... (what i'm saying is this is one thing the OG's characters are better at doing, but that's okay, because the rest of the reference is stellar). I'm still not convinced the buckles DON"T convert will of desire into raw fighting strength, because just look at Buffa! he didn't even die to Baby Chalice but Make Him Hyper Muteki. (I am trying SO HARD not to write this crossover you Don't Understand,,) But so far, the strongest force of will is Ace's desire to see his Mom.

the 2.0 in battle fight 2.0, explaiined. blade spoilers, kabuto spoilers, godspeed love spoilers/kabuto movie spoilers, den-o spoilers, and ooo spoilers (just in case) below please be warned

listen. i love blade, don't get me wrong. i've watched the 12 minute blade meme video more times than i care to count. that said, the battle fight in blade was really sloppily executed. who are the card monsters and why are they killing people? what are the risks and rewards of fighting the card monsters as a kamen rider? both of these questions don't get answered early on and the answers to these as they're revealed genuinely feel pulled out of the screenwriter's ass. (i'm not salty about the remote not working after all 4 suits have been sealed)

battle fight, was, at its core, a battle royale between standard suit deck of monsters. the winner got their wish granted by the shitty fuckin' mobius rock (fuck the mobius rock!) but that was only explained to us more than halfway through the show. the 2.0 appended to it implies an upgrade in every way. sure, we see that it's a dangerous, deadly battle royale from episode 1, where the winner gets a wish granted, but instead of becoming disinterested due to knowing all that already, mr takahashi builds the suspense by having us follow tanuki guy as he learns about the battle royale from scratch.

blade began knowing a bit about the monsters and why it was important to fight them, but i think the world ending shit was only thrown in during the early 40s episodes. however, we don't see a lot of memory-wiping stuff in blade unless it's like.... i guess hirose's dead dad's nice evil clone or something???? snyways, instead of relying on blade's vague outlines, geats does a nice job of blending some intriguing conceits and concepts from a few other kamen rider seasons.

first, the fact that contestants can get to the battle royale from anywhere in the city using their driver. this is a conceit that was used a lot in den-o, to both comedic and somber effects. geats takes this and amplifies this, with the phone calls to loved ones from the empty echoey hallway outside the battle royale lounge. (i bet that hall echoes wih the ghosts of dead riders past but we'll leave that for the fanfics, shall we?) it takes the contrast between isolation (the contestants aren't allowed to tell non-contestants about the battle royale) and connection (the phone calls as attempts to connect with the outside world) builds tension quite deliciously.

second, the fact that the focus character is a "weak, average guy" was something airlifted directly from shoji yonemura's kamen rider kabuto. the parallels between kitsune and tanuki, to tendou souji and kagami arata are almost palpable. there's even a grandma quote copypasted into the dialogue of episode 2. from the perspective of the "weak, average guy" we as an audience have the advantage of seeing the titular protagonist's brusque and rude side as well as getting to see his cool and kind side. the fact that the tanuki guy chose to sacrifice to let kitsune get the victory for the sake of humanity is parallel to a certain movie (hello godspeed love). the fact that we get to see the kitsune secretly stick up for tanuki guy to purple asshole in the card fight mission during round/wave 2 is parallel to the tendou souji who joined zect just to secretly help kagami stalk that doctor guy who got impersonated by a bunch of worms. howevery, geats makes this better by possibly swapping out the supporting cast each new wave/world. i can't wait to see who the next supporting cast will be!

third, straight from my heart and soul, the power behind the battle royale contestants' strengths to fight is desire. if you've seen kamen rider ooo you know the drill. however, instead of leaving the wish up to chance if they win, like in the blade's battle fight, geats forces the contestants to confront their desires beforehand. kinda like the imagin from den-o and the greeed from ooo, the characters must all make a wish, before confronting their own mortality and gambling their lives towards something they've always wanted. now, i have no doubt hino eiji would be a monster in this colisseum, but let's save that for the fanfiction as well. during the ensuing fights and power struggles, the contestants are once again reminded of their reasons for fighting, and that guides their decisions into the battle royale we see today. it's also lightly implied that the battle royale is powered by the strengths of the contestants' desires, but let's save that conversation for once again when i have more evidence to back it up.

anyways, battle fight two point oh is better in almost every way than blade's battle fights (which there were also two of, but i use point oh to disambiguate between blade's and geats's). i lobe blade but it was like watching a train wreck i just can't look away. geats is something else. i haven't yet figured out what metaphor defines it yet. but i'm thinking about it.

[kingkatsuki]

It’s an anime produced by Netflix, Warner Brothers, and WIT Studio (AOT) and loosely based on The Little Mermaid. A lot of big names were involved like Gen Urobuchi (Madoka Magica, Psycho-Pass, Fate/Zero), Tetsuro Araki (AOT’s Director in WIT), and Hiroyuki Sawano (composer for a lot of great anime like AOT).

I got excited for a sec and thought you were gonna talk to me about Worlds bubble up like soda pop!! But this looks super cute!! I'm gonna have to see if the lads in the gc wanna watch with me it looks like my cup of tea!💕

[silverswanqueen]

I mostly disliked RWBY since V3 because the dark turn and how they went about it I just subjectively didn't like(I was expecting it to be more akin to Harry Potter or Avatar The Last Airbender) and now its seems like its going through the same song and dance I've seen with Fate: Zero, Akame Ga Kill, Madoka Magica and Gen Urobuchi's other works. I get the points of those works, being righteous, moral, and noble in the face of tragedy, but I've just grown tired of it. But so many stans have built their ego and identity around these works that they can't allow anyone to openly and subjectively not like something anymore. And holy shit have I never felt the brunt of that than from the RWBY loyalists.

idk I'm not pretending I am speaking objectively here, but I feel like the very fact RWBY seems to becoming this kind of dark is what's drawing blind fanatics who hold it up as one of their secular religious texts and Monty as one of their patron saints, with the other works and writers being their other texts and prophets respectively

"It's awesome because its tragic and well-earned happy endings are bad"

One wonders how Inuyasha, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, Harry Potter, The Star Wars Original Trilogy, or even Bram Stoker’s Dracula or Hammer's "The Devil Rides Out" would be received if they were made today and not back in the day.

Thanks for the ask and I hope my rambling isn’t confusing!

I definitely get where you’re coming from, and while I’m not familiar with Gen Urobuchi’s works I’ve seen the name enough to know there’s definitely a correlation there. I for one wasn’t necessarily upset with V3’s conclusion, but I was also much younger, didn’t have an attachment to Penny or Pyrrha like many did, and thought more would be done with the characters than what was accomplished. However, I recently did some research for my academics similar to this phenomena which I believe I can apply! However, I cannot say my explanation of it is the be all end all, because I cannot account for every RWBY fan who exhibits this behavior, so take it as you will haha.

There’s a certain pocket of literature/media that focuses on what’s referred to as the “Grimmdark,” I believe, and I’ve seen shows fall back into this phenomena of “everything must be hopeless and tragic, every victory must be pyrrhic,” and while that’s definitely a narrative you can go with, it’s spread to multiple fan bases and media over recent years. This narrative is an “infection,” since lots of social phenomena can be synonymous with an infecting trait. I compare it to Teresa Brennan’s “Transmission of Affect,” a huge study on social phenomena and how (and this is me paraphrasing) humans respond physically to social situations, meaning while the “process” is social and origin, its effects are “biological and physical,” which we can see with RWBY loyalists. They respond to the Grimmdark social infection and alter themselves (i.e. identification and physical response) to require this sort of social engagement. This altering of self is done unconsciously, and while I don’t want to get into the agency of self, the self is affected by environment, and the environment of the Grimmdark, as a result, directly influences the self. They are “infected” with the Grimmdark, and thus must engage with it. Now this isn’t bad, since the transmission of affect exists and works on all of us in many ways, but it can breed some negative results, and I think the RWBY fandom is one of them.

Now, to preface here, I’m not bashing Monty. I was still an avid fan when he passed, and I still look up to Monty to this day because of his talent and passion as an animator. But Monty… he wasn’t what I would call the best storyteller, because he was very impulsive. He would think of something, hot potato it to Miles and Kerry, and sometimes the additions would break canon a bit. Add this in with the transmission of affect which has already been in the works with the Grimmdark storytelling for some time, and it eventually attracts those “infected” by it, and as a result, breeds a toxic environment. It’s completely fine to like the Grimmdark and be, as I say, “infected” by it, but to allow this fascination with it to declare a subjective view of how storytelling should be as objective is the exact issue the fan base of RWBY has.

RWBY has fundamental writing flaws and thrown in ideas that aren’t implemented in such a way to flow coherently with the rest of the currently set narrative and world-building, and often breaks the canon that leaves the loyalists scrambling to pick up the splinters and create headcanons that allow the world-building to remain untarnished for them. This is what causes the disconnect, because those that cling to the Grimmdark as the objectively correct way to tell a story are not only trying to say it must be dark, but also the way it was written, aka the method in which we’ve gotten to this dark conclusion, is the way it must be. This is where the issue is, because they see criticism as an attack on the Grimmdark and not a critique of the writing mechanics utilized within the Grimmdark.

Subjective criticism is suddenly viewed as attacks on things that are objective. And this is one of the huge problems that many fanatics won’t understand they’re perpetuating, or simply don’t care that they are perpetuating this issue. The Grimmdark is fine, but the Grimmdark is not the be all end all of storytelling.

I could ramble more, but this is getting a bit lengthy. Essentially, yes, you’re right, they cannot allow someone to subjectively dislike it, because to them, there’s nothing subjective about it.

[redlerred7]

4, 11, and 30? Hope you're having a good day!

Well, this is a surprising ask from the person I reblogged that ask meme from. Give and take, I guess. I'm doing p well. Currently cooking a late breakfast/early lunch for myself before I try to get something creative done, likely writing related.

4. Have you been published or want to be published?

Unless you count the short story I wrote for my highschool newspaper back in the day, no I have not been published—and I go back and forth whether I want to be. The thing with traditionally published fiction, specifically novels, is that it typically has to be published all at once. I just don't have the right mindset to be able to sit on a finished chapter until every other chapter is finished as well. As a result, I tend to stick to fanfiction, where unfinished stories tend to be more accepted (though I do still try to poke at OC fiction from time to time)

11. Books/Authors that most influenced your works

Oof, this is a hard question. I've read quite a number of books from various authors but none of them really influence me as much as works in other mediums have. I think all of the ones I can name off the top of my head are writers who worked on Japanese cartoons.

Okada Mari is a screen writer known for writing stories that have deep emotional impact. The reason she's near the top of my list is because of how well many of her works captured the distinct anguish of being a teenager, which really struck me back when I first encountered her works. A lot of the dialogue she's written can be considered eye-roll worthy, with characters declaring their own emotions out loud in the most melodramatic ways possible, but as a teenager without the life experience to know better, that heavy-handed drama was exactly what I needed for the emotions to land. Her later works also have more mature, nuanced characters, but the the emotional bludgeon is the reason she's on the list.

Urobuchi Gen, also known as Gen the Butcher, is known for writing extremely dark and depressing stories about broken characters trying to live in a world without fairness. He writes about systems, and ideologies, and the sheer horror that would result in taking either to their logical extremes. He writes about morality, will power, and choice to do what one thinks is right, even in the face of unbelievable despair. He writes about humanity in the most raw and unpleasant way he can, and yet demands that you to not look away, asks you to accept it, dares you to still love it, because for as much evil is in the world, the good is still worth fighting for.

And finally, NISIOISIN, perhaps one of the most unconventional authors on this list. He writes completely obtuse and seemingly incomprehensible stories about people who cannot possibly be real. And yet, buried under the sheer absurdity of their personalities, actions, and circumstances, are characters who are still undeniably as real and human as fictional characters can be. Ultimately, the stories he tells are pretty simple, but buried under layer upon layer of abstraction, distraction, and alarmingly illegal actions. It constantly feels like it's style-over-substance, until you realize that the style is part of the substance. The uncanny structure and pacing. The deliberately asinine plots. The stupidity and goofiness and absolute yikes of everything. All of it equals to greater than the sum of its parts.

I can probably think of more but I'll keep it at three. This one question has already taken me longer than I expected.

30. Fav story idea you haven't started writing yet

Okay, so nearly all the OC fiction ideas I want to write about are technically ideas I haven't started writing yet, and I'm not sure which of those ideas are my favorites. But that's a copout answer so I'll at least explain the story idea that I think people will find most interesting.

My primary OC story is about a dream-world afterlife where characters who die too early get to live the rest of their lives in an absurdist megacity run by wacky, petty, and/or unknowable dream gods. The catch is that they have to occasionally fight monsters, many of which are the manifestations of their own trauma. It's supposed to be allegory for entering adulthood with a mental illness, though I'm unsure if I'll be able to pull it off.

Whoo boy that was a long one. Thanks for the ask! I don't get these often, especially not writing-related ones. Feels good to talk about my works with someone.

[atamascolily]

Every single sentence of this Anime News Network review of Thunderbolt Fantasy 2x9-10 by Gabrielle Ekens is GOLDEN:

It's finally happened guys – Thunderbolt Fantasy has fully outed itself as a Chaos Dragon spinoff. Ever since the Funky Monk-ey's destiny became apparent, it was only a matter of time before Xie handed the blade over to her dopamine-deficient acquaintance, sending Dong Li into hell in the process. But I didn't expect that Di(ddy) Kong would turn out to have the exact same name – Lou Zhen Jie – as his D&D prototype from all those years ago. You know, Gen Urobuchi is really living the dream. The man is being paid to write high-profile puppet shows starring his goth qi-channeling swordsman OC. That's like the ultimate goal of anyone who has ever created a DeviantArt account. I'm green with envy.

You know, this explains so fucking much about S2, and I am HOWLING. I kept saying that Thunderbolt Fantasy reminds me of a wuxia-themed D&D game, but I didn't expect that to be LITERALLY TRUE. This is even funnier than the fact that Urobuchi started writing for Pili in part because they killed his favorite character off in their main series, lololol.

(For context: Chaos Dragon is an anime adaptation of Red Dragon, a six-session D&D game with Urobuchi and a handful of other well-known Japanese authors, in which Urobuchi spent most of his time trolling his compatriots and killing as many NPCs as he could get away with. The original Lou Zhen Jie--inexplicably gender-flipped in the anime version--is a warrior monk armed with a sentient sword and obsessed with death. Sound familiar yet?)

Ekens also calls Lou "the big bad Buddhist boy, Dong Li's worst therapist, the perpetual walking Evanescence song who's just renounced his vow of celibacy to a sword" and I cannot decide which of these epithets is my new favorite, so I think I'll go with ALL OF THEM.

Also, nothing will be able to, ahem, top, this passage:

... The middle of this ninth episode delivers some weirdly late setup for what's going to go down between Vape Wizard and Glasses Cop. At least Urobuchi takes the opportunity to slip in some Hot Yaoi Content™ in the form of Xiao leading Lin on a leash. (He could slip out of those ropes at any time...but he won't.) ...For all of [Glasses Cop's] bluster, it looks like the Enigmatic Gale has taught him a lesson in topping from the bottom. ... Grade: A

DAMN STRAIGHT.

[lozbotwfanart]

14. 27.

14. an artist (of any kind) whose work you look forward to seeing

Uhm, on tumblr? I really like Crimsonchain's art. I really liked cockismybusiness' art, but I don't think they're on Tumblr anymore. 🤔 uh there's so many really great artists here, aunt beef, eilera-chan, chicken-sandwitch, hertika, saltycatfish, waxydoll...... Fuck I can't think of them all. Just too much good art

Outside of tumblr, I'm looking forward to the third season of Thunderbolt Fantasy written by Gen Urobuchi. Though, there's a lot of moving parts to that show, I can't attribute it to one artist. Someday.... It'll happen...Maybe....

27. your favourite flavour and brand of tea

Ugh, that's tough... I guess i get Republic of Tea the most. Their ginger peach is really good, it stains my teacups though 😅 the honey green tea is really good too!! My favorite of theirs is a limited edition flavor that tied in with Downton Abbey, Mrs. Patmore's Pudding Tea 😱 oh!! It's to die for, it's so good!! Idk, if it's still around though. And I don't like vanilla flavors with my tea very much.

I think Twinnings has the best Earl Grey, it's just really balanced and smooth.

My favorite type of tea to drink though is oolong, which is a little harder to find in most places. Unless you go to the Asian market. Even the super cheap oolong I just love. BUT!! There's this semi local place here that sells full leaf tea. They used to have this AMAZING oolong. It was a Magnolia Oolong, scented with Magnolia flowers. Omg.... That's my favorite tea. But they don't have it anymore 😢 the next best oolong i had was the milk oolong from the Republic of Tea. But I can't get it unless I order online or go to the next town an hour away.

There's also a brand that the restaurant PF Chang's uses called Revolution. Their Dragon Eye Oolong is sooooo good. I don't think I could stop drinking it if I ever found it out in the wild.

I don't think I've ever had a darjeeling I didn't like, though I've had some very dry ass darjeeling 🤔 that one was disappointing. I think the brand was Numi. Their rose tea was pitiful too.

And I will avoid Lapsang Souchong like the plague. Tastes like cigarettes 😖 (yes I know what a cigarette tastes like, don't ask) but apparently it was Winston Churchill's favorite.

Thank so much for the asks!!! 🥰😘 especially the tea ask!! ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

[magicalgirlagency]

Umm, would you be willing to do a WBMR for Two from Drakengard 3, if you know about it?? it's just that she's my favorite intoner and (almost) every drakengard character deserves better than to be in a tragic world with no happy endings ;w;

I did a quick research on the series, and I'm now wondering... is Taro Yoko, like, the Gen Urobuchi of videogames or something...?

I swear, his works involve characters (most popular and memorable ones are female) in dark and gruesome settings, heavy burdens to carry, the Apocalypse has happened/is happening/will happen, almost everyone is an unstable asshole inches close of commiting mass murder/war crimes/any other nasty stuff, and any good character dies for the shock value.

And the fact that Two looks eerily similar to Miki Sayaka (Puella Magi series), a lively blue-coded female character who had nothing but good intentions in mind, is awfully scary to me.

Apparently, the game's artist, Kimihiko Fujisaka, has thought of such an aesthetic for her design, at Yoko's request; "think Puella Magi Madoka Magica", he told to the artist.

Anyway, without further ado, let's get on with your request, shall we? It's been a while...

Two is now Wave Maiden Nico, B-Rank Magi, Assigned Gemstone is Aquamarine, Essence is Water;

Her new name is Saito Nico (a reference to her seiyuu, Chiwa Saito);

Her mascot/familiar is her scarf, named Sonata. It can also act like a weapon;

She is the beloved guardian of an orphanage in Saaharia, alongside Cent (who is also a Magi);

Is a certified Mom Friend(TM);

Her hobby is cooking. She makes the prettiest bento boxes;

She'll love any story that has the Found Family trope;

Has ADHD and is autistic. She has problems with staying still in one place.