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lotus-tower · 1 year ago

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the orochi revisited: the takagin edit

the digital version of yaoizine vol.2 has been out for a while, so i thought i'd finally post my essay on here! some of the jokes don't work as well without the context of the zine's cover but lol. hope you enjoy anyway. a very brief overview of the takagin relationship in relation to my first essay's framework

The following paper is a commentary on and tribute to My Orochi Stood Up: A Draconic Response to "eat shit and die” (1948), in celebration of its 75th anniversary. Though much has changed in the anal-ytic landscape since Orochi was first published, much is still the same. As the pioneer of ouroboros theory, a now interdisciplinary framework that has made many valuable contributions to the study of literature both anally inclined and not, My Orochi Stood Up is a foundational work that has remained relevant and resonant across years and disciplines. However, in this text I will be focusing on Orochi’s roots first and foremost as a piece of Gintamaology.

To begin, we must acknowledge that it is impossible to discuss My Orochi Stood Up without also accounting for the work it was written in response to, T. S. Hirt’s eat shit and die (1938), or the original unnamed poem where most of its ideas first took shape (1944). Unfortunately, providing a commentary of the former would be beyond the scope of this paper. Readers interested in anality are strongly encouraged to familiarize themselves with this watershed text in Gintama escatology, as it lays the groundwork for everything that follows. As for the poem, it is referenced at length in My Orochi Stood Up, but I have decided to omit mention of it–among many other things–owing to this journal’s physical constraints. While I regret the necessity of this, there is simply too much to say on the subject of “the pole and the hole” in Gintama–particularly the pole, which Gintama explores with endless fascination. The sword, the pillar, the Terminal, the gravestone, the tree–with its fondness for substitution as well as its love of dirty things, Gintama’s collection of treasured motifs has no shortage of things that stand erect.

Both pole and hole are equally important to the cycle of self-fertilization first described by My Orochi Stood Up almost a century ago. Yet Orochi was, understandably, primarily preoccupied with explaining its ouroboros thesis, leaving it with limited room to discuss in-story logistics beyond the conceptual framework and Gintama’s broad thematics. As you may have guessed, this paper will attempt to do so–and for this purpose it would be more efficient to start from the bottom up, so to speak. So this essay is dedicated instead to the hole, that gaping void named as Gintama’s ultimate antagonist. Let us now revisit the holeistic framework of the serpent swallowing its tail while examining one of Gintama’s most fraught relationships: Gintoki and Takasugi.

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First, it cannot be overstated how much Gintama relies on duality and parallel structures. The Gintama cast and narrative is constructed like a hall of mirrors, parallels upon parallels upon parallels organized on each side of a central divide. This intersecting line, as shown in Figure 1.1, is what creates the reflection in the first place, allowing characters to be mirrors (or, in the prized language of fandom, foils). One could consider it the glass of the mirror, or the organizing force of the narrative itself. The creation of this dividing line provides structure to the characters, the world, and its temporality–but it is also an act of violence. See Fig 1.1.

Fig. 1.1: ⭩🢥⮀🢛❑⮅⮡🢜

On a diegetic level, bad things happen to the characters because life is difficult, and mostly similar bad things happen to everyone because the series rests upon the Joui war and its related conflicts the way a world rests on the back of a turtle. But perhaps more relevantly, Gintama’s central conceit is that one’s ultimate enemy is always oneself, so naturally all enemies can eventually be conflated. It is an efficient tautological loop.

What separates the characters on each side of the dividing line, then, is not the degree of suffering they undergo but their response to that violence. My Orochi Stood Up terms these unfortunate souls who end up on the wrong side of the divide “hole-sided.” Their lack is caused not by their injury, but by their own response to it, by their failure, for a time, to live up to their own humanity. This is the position occupied by the antagonists (and, intermittently and continuously, yet somehow always away from the reader’s eyes, our protagonist Gintoki), those who have failed to fill the lack in their souls like responsible adults.

That which Gintama prescribes to fill these naturally and unnaturally occurring holes in humans is dirt: the debris accrued from a lifetime of living, brushing shoulders with other people, becoming stained by them, becoming dirty and worn as you mature, subjecting yourself to the deeply humiliating and humbling experience of being alive. Of course, as both eat shit and die and My Orochi Stood Up illuminate, in Gintama “dirt” is also a synonym and euphemism for “shit.” We are thus not talking about just any dirt-filled hole, but specifically about the anus. The vulgarity of Gintama’s framing of bonds–as shitting onto and into each other–and its use of shit as a humanizing trait is highly characteristic of both the series’s general sense of humour and the ways in which it mixes gags and serious delivery of narrative to create a densely layered non-linear experience in which absurdity and tragedy are forcibly, jarringly concomitant.

As T. S. Hirt wrote in 1948, “the anus—the dirty human things—is the home for the phallus—the ideals we hold, the source of our power.” Indeed, were Gintama not so irreverent about its most valued symbol, the sword, due to its fondness for wordplay and for low-hanging fruit, perhaps the nationalistic bent of the series would be more questionable. But as My Orochi Stood Up argued, Gintama’s emphasis on wordplay and its fearless decision to call itself the equivalent of “Ligma” are integral to a thematic understanding of the series, and are key to the ouroboros thesis in particular.

But perhaps the singularly most important example is the -tama in Gintama, with its plethora of potential meanings, each of them just silly and dirty enough that you have to take it seriously. Beyond the obvious joke on kintama (balls) and the “silver soul” direct meaning, we’ve seen that tama is also easily conflated with atama (head), and even with tamago (egg). This is clearly demonstrated with the series’ fixation on beheading leading to the salvation of the soul and the bodyswap arc hinging on the pun between soul and egg. [...] The fact that the characters end up turning into giant turds, likening the soul-egg-balls to an asshole, only drives the point in further. (My Orochi Stood Up, 1948)

To return to the unfortunate hole-sided, these are the characters who lack dirt, who could not withstand the mortifying ordeal of being alive. The natural assumption to make here would be that Gintama then juxtaposes opposing forces, setting “desiring-pairs” of head and hole, sword and scabbard in conflict with each other. Indeed, Gintoki is stabbed again and again, with all kinds of blades–but the villains do not want to stab him as much as they want him to stab them, with his much more meaningful sword. Yet those who are hole-sided do not seek to be filled.

[...] But this is a different process than emptying yourself, which is what the antagonists are doing. All Gintama villains are hole-sided, desperately trying to destroy themselves while pretending, as hard as they can, that they don’t know that you can’t destroy a hole–only make it bigger. (My Orochi Stood Up, 1948)

Takasugi desires Gintoki, not because he believes Gintoki can make him whole again, but rather because he knows he cannot ever be whole again, and that is because of his love for Gintoki. Moreover, the series’ consistent use of language such as “broken” versus “unbroken” swords implies that those who cannot be filled are also those who cannot fill others. Just as the serpent cannot swallow its tail without filling its own mouth, its mouth cannot be filled without having a tail to swallow. As My Orochi Stands Up makes clear, the process of self-creation and other-creation are effectively one and the same in Gintama.

All Gintama antagonists are in parallel with each other and in mirror with their counterparts, who in turn contain echoes of our protagonist, Gintoki. In this way, the entire story can be folded in on itself, side over side, into the shape of Gintoki, the microcosm, like a piece of carefully designed origami. One of the most popular endings of the anime, ending 25, “Glorious Days,” demonstrates one half of this as Gintoki stands unmoving and unchanged as the anime’s large roster of antagonists replace each other before him in quick succession, different times and places flashing past without emphasis. “Nothing has changed,” Gintama constantly claims, while simultaneously showing us how the world has entered a different era, a different century, a different genre, in the span of ten years.

In the ending, Takasugi and Gintoki haunt each other’s footsteps. Takasugi’s feet in Gintoki’s reflection in the water lag one step behind, unable to keep up with him but unable to stop chasing after him, while Gintoki’s ghost is not even visible in Takasugi’s reflection; instead, Gintoki’s presence is indicated by Takasugi’s own reflection stopping and looking back.

Gintoki and Takasugi are the most important pair of mirror selves in Gintama, and inarguably the most yaoistic. Rather than homoeroticism, however, what they have could perhaps be termed a sort of homothematicism. Whereas Gintoki has filled himself with dirt and debris from the series’ overflowing, enormous cast, learning and re-learning how to be human, Takasugi is caught in an incandescent storm of rage and grief, a serpent futilely trying to swallowing itself in the literal sense. But he can never succeed, because he has nothing to fill his belly with other than himself; there is nothing he values in the self he is trying to destroy; thus, he can never satisfy his desire to hurt himself.

Takasugi’s immortality is of the same kind as Utsuro’s, which is to say, hole-sided. It is not that they cannot be killed, only that they cannot die. Takasugi therefore turns to the same drastic final resort as Utsuro: destroying the world in order to destroy themselves. Again we can observe Gintoki’s role as the microcosm in comparison to Shouyou and Utsuro’s exaggerated, macrocosmic style. My Orochi Stood Up details how Utsuro as well as the eponymous Orochi’s identities blur into that of their respective planets, likening them to world snakes. Tied to the Earth itself, Utsuro’s existence cannot end independently of it; his only recourse is to destroy Earth, and perhaps take the entire universe with it.

To Takasugi, however, the world is synonymous with Gintoki.

Takasugi’s doomed love for Gintoki affords him an interesting position in the narrative, where his conflation between Gintoki’s sword and the pillar of the world aligns with the story’s folded structure centered around Gintoki. Takasugi is Gintoki’s shadow, Gintoki’s “other self”, as Gintama terms it, but weak, diminished, unable to carry the burden of living or live up to Shouyou’s teachings. Gintama’s villains–and its weaklings–are those who will recklessly hurt others in order to harm themselves; its heroes are those who will fight themselves in order to become better versions of themselves. Conveniently, in this cast the villains are the heroes are the villains–and so in defeating the villains, the heroes overcome their own shadows, while the villains knowingly throw themselves into this process out of desperate hope that this will finally end their miserable roles in this story.

Takasugi, then, tries to destroy Gintoki because it is the only way he can destroy himself. On one level, part of him possesses the same general meta-awareness that all Gintama characters have about their allotted roles, and knows that if they were to clash, Gintoki would be the one to successfully devour him. But for the most part, Takasugi’s motivations are painfully earnest and straightforward: harming Gintoki simply hurts more than harming himself can ever hope to accomplish, and if Gintoki were to die, so too would Takasugi’s world crumble to nothing.

What is interesting is Gintoki’s response to these violent advances. Gintoki, of course, understands full well what kind of story he is in at all times. “Too bad,” he tells Takasugi, scraping himself back up from the ground. “I won’t fall. Until you stop, I’ll keep standing back up.” Here Gintoki himself is positioned as one of those things that stand erect. The Gintoki in Takasugi’s memory that is invoked is “a figure that stands before Takasugi”–or, put another way, Gintoki understands his duty in their relationship as that to keep standing, for as long as Takasugi needs something erect to throw himself against.

Thus, when Takasugi says that the world will not end as long as Gintoki’s sword remains unbroken, while Gintoki says that the only way to stop Takasugi is to stop his breathing, Gintoki becomes the immovable object and Takasugi the (un)stoppable force. However, in a fascinating inversion of the usual connotations, here the object is presented as something the force has chased after all its life, something unattainable and unreachable and yet no less immovable. Meanwhile, the force traps itself in a circular, looping motion, its unstoppable momentum doing nothing to help it escape its labyrinth. But in their battle, Takasugi and Gintoki do manage to reach each other; not because of Takasugi’s desperate violence, but because Gintoki’s interiority is as vast as the story they are in, and he is able to take Takasugi into himself.

My Orochi Stood Up’s ouroboros thesis is famously anchored in western alchemical and philosophical concepts. It frames Gintama’s mission of human-becoming as the enacting of the Great Work, viewing Gintama’s parallelism through the lens of the individuation process. On the ouroboros as a symbol of two becoming one, it quotes Carl Jung:

In the age-old image of the Ouroboros lies the thought of devouring oneself and turning oneself into a circulatory process, for it was clear to the more astute alchemists that the prima materia of the art was man himself. The Ouroboros is a dramatic symbol for the integration and assimilation of the opposite, i.e. of the shadow. This 'feedback' process is at the same time a symbol of immortality since it is said of the Ouroboros that he slays himself and brings himself to life, fertilizes himself, and gives birth to himself. He symbolizes the One, who proceeds from the clash of opposites, and he, therefore, constitutes the secret of the prima materia which ... unquestionably stems from man's unconscious. (The Collected Works of Carl Jung, Volume 14: Mysterium Coniunctionis, 1977)

Gintoki’s assimilation of his shadow, of his other self, is best represented by the moment where he finally visibly attains “a human’s sword” at the end of the series. Takasugi’s reflection in Gintoki’s blade bequeaths upon him the honour of being the face of Gintoki’s “human’s sword.” This is a similar use of the reflection as in Ending 25. What is made clear by comparing these two moments is the same obvious truth that Gintama has impressed upon its readers all along: Gintoki is capable of containing Takasugi within him, but Takasugi is not capable of the reverse.

Or, more accurately, Takasugi is chiefly defined by the fact that he carries Gintoki’s ghost within him–and was driven insane by it. Gintoki was able to quietly shoulder the knowledge that his actions caused Takasugi’s descent into madness, but Takasugi was never able to inure himself to the sight of Gintoki’s tears. Takasugi is hole-sided primarily because he hollowed himself out in a vain attempt to scrape the image out. But dirt, as My Orochi Stood Up states, is what remains.

Takasugi’s crushed left eye has ever been his most obvious hole. Indeed, confronting Gintoki again made him aware that the image of Gintoki’s face that he had been carrying around in his eye like a grain of sand was in fact a speck of “dirt.” And of course, Takasugi was never empty: though the Kiheitai are sparse characters, they serve quite clearly to illustrate that Takasugi had never stopped being surrounded by people who trusted and depended on him, people who could participate in Gintama’s dirty gags and absurd comedy in the ways he could not, and people who, on multiple occasions, physically emulated Takasugi in order to inject his likeness into the series’ gags even when he was not present. People who, in short, supplied him with dirt.

The linkages between the gross and vulgar nature of Gintama’s preferred jokes and the double entendre in the meaning of “dirt” are an intrinsic part of both Gintama’s vision of life and the ouroboros framework. As T. S. Hirt explained, “the persistence of those dirty things marks the permanence of one’s relationships. something clean would never stick so.” Gintama posits that living is mortifying, humiliating, and while not shameful, certainly full of shame and debasement. To be a character that clings to dignity–or to whom dignity clings to–in Gintama is to accept an unfavourable life expectancy. Takasugi, while participating in a few gags, was never thoroughly embarrassed by them. His friends’ actions thus helped to tether him to the world of the living, even at his most ghostly.

Holes do not need to be completely empty to be deemed holes. Such a proposition would be absurd. Holes are identifiable even when filled partway with soil–even, perhaps, when brilled to the brim. No one is truly empty. My Orochi Stood Up makes clear early on that “head vs hole” is not a false dichotomy, but a misleading one:

You can reduce everything in Gintama to essentially two things. Shouyou and Utsuro. Gintoki and Takasugi. Humans and monsters. [...] Those who take in and those who are taken in. Those who keep struggling and those who don’t. And then you can also always reduce these two things to one thing: Shouyou/Utsuro are, after all, the same being [...]. You can’t pick yourself back up if you never lost in the first place. We know that Gintoki has managed to become “a splendid human” by the end of the series–so what was he before that? Was he really a monster? At what exact point in the series did he become human? Was it while he was on-screen, while we were looking, but without us noticing? Was it off-screen, while we were flipping the page, or in the space between the panels? The answer, of course, is that he was learning to be human every day of his life [...]. And so “which one is the head and which one is the hole?” is the wrong question. Even if you assigned one to each half and managed not to be wrong, since they’re collapsible into one anyway, they’ll always be both. (My Orochi Stood Up, 1948)

To be hole-sided is not to be the hole. It is to be stagnant, to be trapped in a state of needing to be filled without being able to carry out the process of self-constitution with the dirt that is received. In the end, Gintoki, the “reluctant hole” as T. S. Hirt iconically termed, is the one who takes Takasugi into himself. My Orochi Stood Up quotes philosopher Bernard Stiegler: “The I is essentially a process, not a state, and this process is an in-dividuation [...]. It is the tendency to become one, that is, to become indivisible.” This is, I argue, the climax of their homothematic relationship. Not coincidentally, it is also the climax of Gintoki’s personal quest to become human, the individuation that Jung and Stiegler speak of.

My Orochi Stood Up capitalizes on the ouroboros’ nature as a symbol of fertility to liken dirt not only to shit but to seed, and the hole to the womb where the tama (egg/soul) is fertilized. It is an intentionally paradoxical and anachronistic framework, where one must have an unbroken sword to be able to be fertilized by the dirt of others, yet it is only through that fertilization that one’s sword can be forged. This is simply another iteration of the classic chicken-or-egg dilemma, as befits the motif of the ouroboros. But for the characters of Gintama, this paradox reflects their continuous responsibility: the task of becoming human is a Sisyphean one that will span their lifetimes and beyond.

In other words, as Takasugi was folded into Gintoki, he found that he was already there; that his lack was filled by Gintoki because he was filling Gintoki; and that being a ghost did not preclude anyone from being human.

I have spoken at length about holes and serpents up until this point without mentioning the eponymous dragon, Utsuro. This is partially because this essay was focused on Takasugi and Gintoki’s relationship, and partially because practically all insights regarding Utsuro are contained within the framework of the ouroboros thesis itself. As the world snake, his body and bones were used to construct the theory we have been discussing, his lack identical in essence to the other hole-sided. It is worth noting, however, that for Gintoki, Utsuro represented the unreachable object. Gintoki’s deepest anxiety was over his blade not reaching Utsuro, because he had been told that he could only reach him with a human’s sword. In the end, as we have seen, he does indeed manage to reach him, with Takasugi’s soul in his hands.

Takasugi, too, manages to reach Gintoki in the end. Cradled in Gintoki’s arms, he is brave enough–and selfish enough–to ask for a fleeting smile. My Orochi Stood Up argues that the moment Gintoki’s tragedy was revealed to us through Takasugi’s eye was the one that broke Gintama’s own narrative cyclicity. This was, of course, the original bit of dirt flung into Takasugi’s hole that he could not cope with, that halted his process of individuation. As previously mentioned, the ten years that separate the end of the Joui war from the present day span an entire age. At the very end, this eternity spent wandering, too, ruptures, and Takasugi finally finds his way out of the labyrinth, only to look back and see a clear and straight path through the trees.

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This essay has been a brief exploration of Takasugi and Gintoki’s relationship in the context of My Orochi Stood Up’s innovative ouroboros framework. In the seventy-five years since it was first published, it has been transformed in diverse and exciting ways. However, I thought it only fitting that for this major anniversary, the focus be brought back to the Gintama characters that first inspired it. Rather than the iconic dragon, Shouyou/Utsuro, this piece has chosen to focus instead on his two most intertwined disciples. While not necessarily treading any new ground, I hope to have presented an interesting snapshot of this relationship known for being simultaneously transparent and opaque.

As we have seen, this relationship is one made possible by the intense parallel structure it embodies. Just as Takasugi serves as Gintoki’s shadow, their journey and the cannibalistic nature of their duality echo the conflict represented by their teacher, and in many respects parallel the shape of the narrative itself. In this way, the position they occupy in relation to these other draconic structures–micro- or macrocosm–is perhaps a reversible one.

In short, though Gintama “cannot resist the phallus,” as T. S. Hirt said, it is also singularly concerned with holes: how they are filled, what results from them, what constitutes them. The only question it does not ask is what creates them. It is instead implicit that human beings naturally possess holes, that they are a natural part of the anatomy of both our bodies and souls. And thus, it is natural both to fill them and to fail to fill them; the fertile infinity of the ouroboros guarantees that should one fail, there will always be tomorrow.

#gintama #takagin #well. just take it #a lot of unavoidable overlap so not as much value as my first essay but. you know #i was NOT going to assume hapless yaoizine 2 readers would know what the fuck i was talking about.

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shysheeperz · 1 year ago

Note

love ur blog!! I check it out before starting an anime/manga 💞

just wondering do u have any recommendations for complete anime/mangas?

thank u either way!!!

Completed??????

Manga:

Fullmetal Alchemist- the gold standard

Silver Spoon- by the same person who did FMA. Agricultural school stuff. Cute.

Agravity Boys- space sci-fi gag comedy, a wild ride to say the least, I miss my stupid boys

Magu-chan: God of Destruction- cute digimon/pokemon-shaped gods get woken up and mingle with a bunch of middle schoolers. Cute fluff mostly, will occasionally pull at your heartstrings (including the ending)

High School Family: Kokosei Kazoku- comedy/ slice of life, about an entire family attending high school. Has a volleyball arc that rivals the likes in haikyuu!!

Haikyuu!!-sports manga, if you want to cry over boys and their love for the game then this is for you, Boys x Volleyball is the tru otp of the show

Hell's Paradise: Jigokuraku- dark historical fantasy, so very, very good. Don't get attached.

Dr. STONE- sci fi, technically the main story is complete. We still have been getting the occasional side chapter or three that continue where the main story left off tho. A very solid shonen jump series. includes one of the best shonen jump dads in the history of ever. Will make u emotional over lightbulbs and stuff. hard not to root for the main cast.

Dr. STONE Reboot: Byakuya- a non-canon little one volume spin-off about byakuya and mainly about a funky lil robot that will make you sob uncontrollably I'd personally say to read up to the end of the Treasure Island arc in the main story first before tackling this one (about ch 140ish)

Dr. STONE 4D Science- a continuation of the main story, only a couple chapters, the ending is a really cruel tease imo and if Inagaki/Boichi don't give us more may they be cursed to lose all their left shoes forever

Food Wars! Shokugeki no Sanji- spin-off of sanji side stories by the duo who did food Wars. ONE PIECE related ofc. Tasty looking food. Sanji too cool for school. One volume.

Astra Lost in Space- space sci fi survival, solid story that deserves more appreciation, the ending is just a tad lackluster in actually showing what a lot of readers would have liked to physically see. By no means ruins the story tho.

Blue Flag (Ao no Flag)- high school, romance, slice of life, boys and gals just trying to figure out life and relationships. Solid.

Mashle: Magic and Muscles- gag comedy that leans a little too much into the shonen battle-esque stuff towards the end imo, but a decently enjoyable time. A mash up of Harry Potter and other various manga like mob, opm, etc.

Mitama Security: Spirit Busters- comedy, axed but I enjoyed it. Goofy fun. nothing spectacular but reading it won't hurt anyone.

My Hero Academia: Vigilantes- spin-off of mha obviously, average joe Koichi >>> deku FIGHT ME, the goodest of boys, world building u don't get in the main series, Aizawa's backstory, Knuckleduster is the man the myth the legend.

Chihayafuru- screaming crying throwing up, it's niche it's technically a sports manga, romance, female MC, growth™, love triangle but at the end of the day that's not what's important

My Love Mix-Up!- comedy romance, big big mix-up on who loves who and lots of shenanigans ensue.

Noragami- TECHNICALLY not complete until like 2 days from now when the final chapter releases. my emotions! MY EMOTIONS!!!! 😭

Gintama- comedy/gag with dashes of really good drama

I have no idea what your tastes are, anon, so here's a mix that I've personally enjoyed. Some of them were axed, but technically that makes them complete so I included them :P yes I cheated.

Anime:

There's a lot less of them bc I haven't actually watched a lot of completed series.

Run with the Wind- more boys x sports but this time it's about running. Also the boys are in college. Will trick u into wanting to run.

91 days- ol timey story about VENGEANCE. Set during the prohibition.

Tengan Toppa Gurren Lagann- makes you emotional and feel all fuzzy inside, sci fi, mecha

Cowboy Bebop- a classic

Samurai Champloo- also a classic and I actually prefer this one over cowboy bebop tbh, god tier baseball episode

Astra Lost in Space-the anime version, if you'd prefer watching over reading, but I always prefer manga > anime just cause.

FMA 03/FMA BROTHERHOOD- the gold standard. I appreciate both versions. 03 goes the anime original ending root bc obviously the manga wasn't completed yet no biggie.

Mob Psycho 100- MOB!MOB!MOB! and tumblr sexy man reigen arataka

Gintama- animated version alternative lol. The voice actors bring the characters to life.

Obv there are the old school classics like Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura, Gundam and all that jazz if you haven't already checked out some of those. Oldies but goodies.

#ask #manga rec #anime rec #pretty positive i've read more axed manga than those who've reached thier natural conclusion #doesn't mean they shouldn't get some appreciation #manga #anime

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morallygay · 4 months ago

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“Right now you have the eyes of a samurai… and of a father”

Moodboard for when you just watched for the first time “farewell shinsengumi arc part 7: karma” episode of gintama aka the one where utsuro appeared and then his mask was broken and it was [redacted] but not (in other words me rn)

#just realized how without context it sounds lame as hell but I SWEAR #it’s so uhdjjthtjhhhhfhhrrrrrraagggghgh #found family will kill me #also gintoki foil moment…..#yes he has lost people and he can treasure their memory while also moving on #he has new people (or rather 1 person) he cares about and wants to protect………#don’t touch me #gintama

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azukisoul · 2 years ago

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Translation of HijiGin manga: Diary Exchange by saki1010_gt (Twitter)

I think about this manga literally once a week because I think it's akin to something Sorachi would write, so I'm sharing a translation here!

MANGA LINK | Out of courtesy to the artist I'm not reposting her art here, please visit the tweet, refer to the translation as you read along, and show the artist some love!

And the link to the Twitter thread of this translation if anyone is interested!

Translation

[page 1]

G: Oh, so you like me, huh, Vice Chief-san?

G: That's not a good joke to go along with this alcohol.

H: Even so, this is a once-in-a-lifetime confession. Don't make light of it.

G: Hmm.

G: Well, if you say it like that,

G: I can probably answer you through a diary exchange.

H: ...

H: Okay, sure!!

[page 2]

H: Who would have thought that a man one would assume to have dysfunctional relationships like him would suggest a diary exchange?

H: 70% of the world's HijiGin starts with physical contact (based on experience), how hard to get are we being, really? Even rural middle school students are more chill in their relationships than us.

H: Still, handwriting and way with words are also treasure troves of information on one's personality.

H: Maybe it's unexpectedly also a good way to know more about this guy who is the hardest to understand in all of Gintama.

H: I gave him some questions in my first diary I passed to him so he wouldn't have too much trouble writing his, let's see what his reply is...

G: The fleeting spring is slipping away and the heat is encroaching upon us, but I hope you are doing well as you are... Or whatever, doing that each time is a pain so I'm just gonna talk normally from now on like you told me.

H: Hmph, he's unexpectedly a decent writer.

G: Um, first off, my favorite food, right? It'd have to be sweets for sure. Anko and dango are my favorites, but recently I'm into fresh cream too... Yaaawn. I woke up early today so I'm getting kind of sleepy...

H: Hm?

K: My favorite food is sukonbu.

[page 3]

K: I can eat boxes and boxes of sukonbu. I also like foods that go well with rice. Stuff like seaweed tsukudani is the best.

H: Why is the China girl the one answering!? Anyway, the diary exchange thing got completely found out by the kids! Whatever happened to his personal life!?

S: A place I'd like to go have fun at would be a Terakado Tsuu concert.

H: Glasseees!! You too!?

S: Ah, but you don't have to trouble yourself with going with me. I'll just go with the Yorozuya. You can just get us the amount of tickets we need.

H: Plus, he's rude and no fun at all!

G: Wait, what? I was dozing off and suddenly the page got filled up somehow.

H: Yorozuya, realize that you've been infiltrated by an entity called your family! And either way, why don't you read the page back a little!

G: But this kind of thing isn't bad, too. I can say stuff that are hard to say out loud here. To be honest, about you, I... I actually quite...

H: *ba-dump* Huh? Yorozuya?

[SADAHARU PAW PRINT]

G: Man, that's so out of character to say! I'll never write that again! Well, then, until next time. —Gintoki

H: THAT DOOOOOOG!!! I CAN'T READ THE MOST IMPORTANT PAAAAART!!!

#ginhiji #hijigin #gintoki x hijikata #gintama #gintama translations #sakata gintoki #hijikata toushirou #ghg translations

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disabled-characters-showdown · 1 year ago

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Disabled Characters in the Showdown Currently

Notes:

1.) This list is subject to change, so if you see it off a reblog, please check the link to this post here. At some point this will probably stop updating, as we tend to forget to. Before we kick off the showdown there will be another post. Characters are under the cut, the list is currently unorganized, but might get organized later.

2.) If you see a character on here and you want to submit propaganda for them please feel free to, there is no submission limit or character per fandom limit. Here is the link to the submission form. Characters from the prior round of this showdown are fair game except Toph, Toothless and Hiccup. Additionally, most characters from @gay-disabled-characters-showdown are also fair game.

3.) The amount of submissions will not affect how likely a character is to get into the showdown. If you submitted a character and they are not here, we probably just haven’t gotten to verifying your character yet. If it’s been more than 3-4 days since you submitted the character you can shoot us an ask as to why they are not on the list, it might be an error on our part.

4.) When will submissions close? We have no fucking clue. At the earliest sometime October, as we are still working on setting up over @gay-disabled-characters-showdown which is still accepting submissions here. Additionally, as we need to write image descriptions it takes us a ridiculous amount of time to get set up.

5.) If you think a character doesn’t qualify you can send us an ask or leave a comment, and we can show you the explanation we have for the character as to how they count.

7.) If there is a character or media on here you think is problematic you can send us an ask and we will evaluate. That being said it’s not about being the best most perfect representation.

Tougou Mimori- Yuuki Yunna is a Hero

Olivia- Fear and Hunger 2: Termina

Edward Elric- Fullmetal Alchemist

Takashi ‘Shiro’ Shirogane- Voltron: Legendary Defender

Narti- Voltron: Legendary Defender

Shirou Emiya- Fate Stay Night

Red Haired Shanks- One Piece

Neil Watts- To the Moon/ Finding Paradise/ Imposter Factory

Harrowhawk Nonagesimus- The Locked Tomb

Wei Shi London Arelius- Cradle

Clint Barton- Marvel Comics

Barbara Gordon- DC Comics

Anna Tromedlov- Hench

Chirrut Îmwe- Star Wars: Rogue One

Imperator Furiosa- Mad Max: Fury Road

Long John Silver- Muppet Treasure Island

David- Four Weddings and a Funeral

Kaz Brekker- Six of Crows

Wu Zetian- Iron Widow

Cassandra Cain- DC Comics

Entrapta- She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

Bran Stark- A Song of Ice and Fire

Heart- Moonlight Chicken

Wen Kexing- Faraway Wanderers

Hartley Rathaway/Pied Piper- DC Comics

Wen Kexing- Word of Honor

Zhou Zishu- Word of Honor

Baiken- Guilty Gear

Draal the Deadly- Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia

Petra- 1992 Summer Paralympics/ Cobi Troupe cartoon series

Twyla Boogeyman- Monster High

Kaladin Stormblessed- The Stormlight Archive

Nath- 100% Orange Juice/Sora

John D. Cort- Baywatch

Ming-Hua- Avatar: The Legend of Korra

Takane Enomoto (Ene)- Kagerou Project

Sylvette Suede- Tegami Bachi

Sunny- Omori

Basil- Omori

Stone- ONE by Cheesyhfj on YouTube

Parker- Leverage

Eustass Kid- One Piece

Fujitora- One Piece

Nog- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Ashton Greymoore- Critical Role

Geordi La Forge- Star Trek: The Next Generation

Nicholas Benedict- The Mysterious Benedict Society

Hermann Gottlieb- Pacific Rim

Johnny Joestar- JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure

Linh Cinder- The Lunar Chronicles

Percy Jackson- Percy Jackson and the Olympians

Genya Safin- Grishaverse

Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, Fire Emblem Three Houses

Wylan Van Eck- Six of Crows

Jesper Fahey- Six of Crows

Havelock Vetinari- Discworld

Stiles Stilinski- Teen Wolf

Charles Xavier- X-Men

Hitori Gotoh- Bocchi the Rock

Vash the Stampede- Trigun

Gintoki Sakata- Gintama

Big Boss- Metal Gear

Black Raisin Cookie- Cookie Run Kingdom

Daan- Fear and Hunger 2: Termina

General Amaya- The Dragon Prince

Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader- Star Wars

Sir Alastair Hammerlock- Borderlands

Alinta- DC Comics

Norma Khan- Dead End: Paranormal Park

George Mullner- Stardew Valley

Rani- Disney Faries

Joey Wilson/Jericho- DC Comics

Pit- Kid Icarus

Chai- Hi-Fi Rush

Sarah Sharpe- The Sea Beast

Gregg Lee- Night in the Woods

Arthur Lester- Malevolent

Kim Kitsuragi- Disco Elysium

Zee- Total Drama Island Reboot

Ignis Scientia- Final Fantasy XV

Komugi- Hunter x Hunter

Cheza- Wolf’s Rain

Maedhros- The Silmarillion

Ballister Boldheart- Nimona

Doom- Mashle: Magic and Muscles

Ianthe Tridentarius- The Locked Tomb

Talbot- Curse Words: Spellcasting for Fun and Prophet

Aka Ashi no Zeff- One Piece

Charlotte Webber/Sun-Spider- Marvel Comics

Zolf Smith- Rusty Quill Gaming podcast

#polls #disability #poll #fandom polls #disabled characters #disabled characters showdown

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goldenlaquer · 2 years ago

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From the lovely @kuromitos who correctly answered Cringer: "＼(^-^)／ Hijikata and Teito falling for the same person headcanons please 🙏"

Gintama Headcanons:

Love. Well, damn, shit, fuck, Hijikata recognizes it like an old enemy that he thought he finished off several seasons ago, back again like hell hath no fury; Teito is, more or less, in an even more difficult position— he has no idea what he's even up against, staring at this new, unfamiliar budding feeling straight in the eye, and on the most instinctual level, he knows he doesn't deserve any part of it.

Neither of them wants it. Well, that not true is it? Every fucking lie is just a mirror hiding the plain truth. They can't want it. Hijikata can't go through it again, no fucking way, he knows how his stories end. Teito thinks he's something like damaged goods. How can you give someone a mistake and ask them to love it back? He can't.

It doesn't matter how you tilt your lovely upturned face at them, or how your smile warms their soul, or how your voice cradles their ears, or how endearing your quirks are, or how they think about you every last distracting minute of the day. They've already got it in their heads that they know how badly it'll end, that they know what's best for you.

But as much as they're fighting themselves over this, they recognize it the other like comrades. They see how the other looks at you, the longing so bald and miserably concealed.

And y'know what the most stupid thing about all of this? What they see in each other, what they know and discovered through the years of working together and having each other's back through thick and thin like blood brothers— what they can't see in themselves is precisely what the other knows would be right for you.

The loyalty and strength and kindness in Hijikata... the respect and responsibility and honesty in Teito... you deserve someone like him.

And so, Hijikata practically throws Teito on you. Patrols that coincide with your daily schedule. Missions that involve him escorting you to dangerous places like the grocery store or great heavens, your front door. Doesn't matter that barking those orders feels like gravel on open wound. Doesn't matter that seeing you together makes him smoke enough to kill a small country.

And Teito practically sings praises about Hijikata to you (praises that might or might not be a tad bit exaggerated). Encouraging you to take gifts to the surly vice-commander, rebuffing any doubts that the man would hate it, ah but how could he ever hate anything that comes from you? No, he would surely treasure it. Never mind that Teito feels more twisted than his beaming mouth suggests. Never mind that each time he's reminded of your presence of Hijikata's person, that it feels like he's slipping off.

Both men, these two stupid, overcomplicated men. Someone needs to shake some sense into their damn heads.

And poor you, who has to endure this strange and confusing episode of being passed back and forth like a ping pong ball, by these two men who won't, can't make their intentions clear.

It's the most frustrating thing, when the answer is so obvious.

#emotionally constipated every last one of em #sougo has popcorn and movie glasses on #gintama #gintama headcanons #hijikata toushirou headcanons #harada teito headcanons #gintama oc #my oc

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username-janai-katsura-da · 2 years ago

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Gintama OC Introduction: Tora

Art by the wonderful @ratscantwrite-alt !

French version: here

Name: Tora

Age: 23

Date of Birth: 13 of July

Race: Half Human / Half Yato

Height: 159cm (5’2)

MBTI type: ESFP

First Appearance: Harusame Arc (Episode 13 / Chapter 12)

Personality: Tora is a friendly and outgoing person who enjoys being around others. She is well liked in her neighborhood for her cheerful personality and generosity. She is always willing to help others, whether it be by giving advice or offering assistance, so much so that she often finds it difficult to say no or go against others.

Tora is a hardworking and diligent person who puts her heart into everything she does. She takes great pride in her little convenience store and works hard to keep it running smoothly. She is also very attentive to her customers, always offering them a warm smile and a kind word.

However, Tora can sometimes be a little too stubborn, refusing to ask for help when she needs it to the point of overworking herself. She is also known for her raw honesty and lack of filter. She often speaks without thinking about the consequences of her words, which can put her in awkward situations. While she never means to intentionally hurt others, her innocent remarks can sometimes be misinterpreted.

Backstory: Tora is a half Human, half Yato young woman. Her father, Zenjiro, is a retired Harusame division captain and close friend of Housen. During a mission on Earth when he was younger, he met a beautiful woman from Yoshiwara with whom he fell madly in love and ended up having a daughter with. Shortly after Tora's birth, he decided to take her to Rakuyou to raise her according to the traditions and customs of the Yato tribe, claiming to her mother that he could offer her a better life than in the underground city where she lived and where the children of courtesans were killed. She reluctantly accepted.

Tora grew up among the Yatos and soon realized that she was different. Although she was much stronger physically than a regular human, she was still weak compared to her peers. Add to that her mother's tan skin, which was quite different from the pale skin of other Yatos, her warm and bubbly personality, and her aversion to violence, Tora stood out from the others and was often mocked and bullied for it. It was not uncommon for her to come home with scratches and bruises all over her body from fighting other kids her age who were bothering her. She'd never let anyone walk all over her, although she rarely came home victorious from these fights.

Growing up, Tora only sought one thing: her father's approval. Even though he never said anything to her about it, she knew full well that her weak body weighed heavily on him and that she crushed his dream of seing his child follow his footsteps: How could a such a strong and feared captain as he was ended up with such a successor ? Tora tried her best to get his attention, but it was pointless: no matter how hard she tried to become stronger, the look of almost pity in her father's eyes never changed.

Zenjiro ended up in an arranged wedding with a high-ranked Yato woman a few years later, with whom he had twins. Tora was very attached to her siblings and loved to take care of them, even though their mother tried her best not to let them get too close. Her relationship with her stepmother was hardly cordial: they just ignored each other and pretended to get along when Zenjiro was around. To her mother-in-law, Tora was just an intruder in her family and all she wanted was for her to grow up and leave.

Tora had always felt like something was missing in her life. Even though she had no idea who she was, what she was doing on Earth, or why she had never heard from her, she still felt a strong attachment to her mother. She needed answers and to meet her at least one time: her treasured old photo found in one her father's closet wasn't enough anymore.

That's when she decided to leave Rakuyou, the only place that she always knew yet where she always felt like a stranger. The plan was simple but risky: make her father believe that she wanted to join the Harsuame, blend up with the crew and escape at the first halt on Earth.

Tora ended up easily joining the seventh division thanks to Zenjiro's old connections. Everything was going like she intended to, but Tora felt absolutely horrible for lying and betraying her father after seing how proud he was of her for the first time in her life. Life with the Harusame was much harder than expected too: between pillaging other planets, killing innocents, dealing drugs and weapons, and other immoral activities, the more time passed, the less Tora was able to look at herself in the mirror. Every day was a day of violence and she hated herself for being a part of it. Fortunately for her, the day she had been waiting for finally arrived: a stop on Earth.

To this day, she still has no idea what happened. The Harusame were in charge of delivering a shipment of a new drug in vogue on Edo: the Tenseikyou. She didn't know exactly what had gone wrong, but while she had been waiting all day for the right moment to get away without attracting attention, a series of explosions began to detonate in the cargo holds of the ships where the merchandise was stored. It was the perfect opportunity: someone was attacking them and she had to take advantage of the chaos to get away. The last thing she saw was a strange silver-haired man dressed in a pirate costume running away from one of the ships, carrying two teenagers still tied up under his arms.

The early days on Earth were complicated for Tora. She had to get acquainted with earthlings way of living and learn to manage on her own, without the help of her father or other people. The money she stole from the Harusame's coffers before she left was of course a great help but it only made her more and more paranoid: what if they found her ? What would they to do her for betraying and robbing them ? What would her father think ?

Tora eventually got used to Edo and its peoples. She ended up investing part of her fortune in a small convenience store in a popular part of the town, not far from the Shinsengumi. Her peaceful daily life was something that she'd trade for nothing in the world and she couldn't have been happier with the friends she met. As the months went by, Tora slowly let her guard down: for some strange reasons she didn't felt like her former comrades were looking for her. Why ? She had no idea. Maybe they didn't even notice that she was missing since she was barely useful to them anyway ? It was most unlikely but she decided to take this as a sign to start over and forget everything about her old life, hoping that her peace will never be disrupted...

#gintama oc #my oc #tora #gintama

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ciaossu-imagines · 11 months ago

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Personalization Prompt #2 – Ketchup

BLACK: what face claim from an anime, comic book, or cartoon do I associate with you?

Oh, this was a hard one! Of course, there’s that sort of lean towards your icon or plain out just seeing you as Apple, but just taking a step back, I think I have to go with a cartoon character here instead of an anime character, but Audrey Ramirez from Atlantis: The Lost Empire, is probably the closest I could come to how I picture you!

WHITE: what flame type and box weapon do I think you’d have in the khr!verse?

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but there’s a couple different ideas I do have for you as far as Flame types go. Of course, because of your impressive creativity and interesting ways of thinking, there is the desire to put you as a Mist Flame, since you are someone who could easily create things with that brilliant mind of yours. However, overall, I do think you give off the Aura of someone with a Rain Flame slightly more, so I do have you as a Rain Flame type. As far as box weapons go, I definitely think a Rain raven box weapon would be what you use, because of the obvious spiritual, emotional, and intellectual beliefs around the bird. In my head, it normally perches on your shoulder but it can fly around, spreading the Flames over a fairly wide area or it has the added ability of being able to calm and almost tranquilize whoever it lands on that is not you.

RED: what aesthetics do I associate with you?

The smell of home-cooked meals and the act of making food alongside friends or family, with shared laughs and memories to treasure forever. Backpacking abroad, new adventures with every step of a hiking boot clad foot. Calm and peacefulness. Kindness, always choosing to reach out a hand to those in need. Intelligence and compassion mingling beautifully. Thesis papers. Always having multiple things on the go, always moving and doing and thinking. Soft music in the background, soothing the soul. Bright smiles and sun-bathed skin. Soft faux-fur.

BLUE: what are three songs I’d put on a playlist for you?

LOST BOY, ruth b.

A CLOSE FRIEND, james newton howard

I SWALLOWED HARD, LIKE I UNDERSTOOD, 65daysofstatic

YELLOW: what fictional world out of all my fandoms would I picture you in?

Obviously, hands down, it’s Katekyo Hitman Reborn. However, I could easily see you fitting into both the Nanbaka, Servamp, and Saiyuki universes!

GREEN: who would I pair you with out of all my fandoms?

Obviously, for KHR it’s Reborn. For K Project, it’s Munakata. For Nanbaka, it’s Jyugo. For Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun! it’s Goemon. For Bungou Stray Dogs, it’s Akutagawa. For Servamp, it’s Tsurugi. For Saiyuki, it’s Hakkai. For Eyeshield 21, it’s Kid. For Ronin Warriors, it’s Rowen. For Kekkaishi, it’s Makio. For GetBackers, it’s Emishi. For Black Cat, it’s Train. For Karneval, it’s Gareki. For Gangsta., it’s Nic. For Bleach, it’s Byakuya. For Naruto, it’s Kakashi. For Deadman Wonderland, it’s Nagi. For Ouran, it’s the twins, both of them. For Durarara!!, it’s Kadota. For Yu Yu Hakusho, it’s Kuwabara. For Gintama, it’s Kondo. For Mystic Messenger, it’s Yoosung. For Ikemen Revolution, it’s Kyle. For Blush Blush, it’s Cashew. For Date Warp, it’s Nathaniel. For Hatoful Boyfriend, it’s Sakuya. For The Outsiders, it’s Sodapop. For Class of the Titans, it’s Neil. For Ultimate Spider-Man, it’s Harry. For Gravity Falls, it’s Stan. For The Mighty Ducks, it’s Adam. For The Covenant, it’s Tyler. For Jungle Fury, it’s Dom. For Ninja Storm, it’s Cam. For Mystic Force, it’s Nick.

PURPLE: what gif reminds me of you?

PINK: if you were an AU, what type of AU would you be?

Maybe I’m being influenced by recent conversations we’ve had, but I do think it would be an isekai AU, based around platonic bonds and building a found family 😊

RAINBOW: if i were to write a khr sequel, following Tsuna’s demise, and could only use my reader’s as characters, who would you be?

Okay, I have two ideas…bear with me as they’re both kind of implausible, but I like to believe fun nonetheless. We’re going to set aside the fact that going canon means there will be no future generations of Arcobaleno, but if there were, I’d see you as the next Rain Arcobaleno. Otherwise, I see you as part of the Vongola, as one of the medical team…as in, someone finally realized how important mental health is in the Mafia and you work alongside the doctors and nurses helping the Family members maintain their mental health and you have friends and family and loved ones and your life, despite being a part of the Mafia goes nice and peacefully and you’re treasured and valued and it’s all nice and soft and peaceful and I like that for you.

#unrequested prompts #ketchup

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medea10 · 2 years ago

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My Review of Overlord

Okay, I’ve managed to blow through Konosuba, Re:Zero, and The Rising of the Shield Hero in the past several years. Now, I think it’s time I blast through this isekai so I can get to Isekai Quartet. I know it’s absurd to push up a wonky spin-off like that. But I watched Carnival Phantasm when I clearly didn’t know half of those characters. We learn from our oopsies and mistakes. I’m older and wiser now. Once I finish this, I’ve watched all…

But don’t you have to watch Tanya of the Evil too?

(ノ゜Д゜)ノ︵ ┻━┻

Momonga is a working man, who in his off-time plays an MMORPG named Yggdrasil and plays a character known as Ains. After so many hours playing this game, the servers are going to shut down and he is the only one left with his memories of the good times playing. He decides to stay on the server until midnight when the servers plan to go dead. Midnight strikes and he’s still logged in. Problem is, HE CAN’T LOG OUT! Welcome to the Isekai rabbit-hole! But unlike many other isekais, Momonga has a legion of loyal servants to do what he says. Hell, he can cop a feel on a hot girl and she’ll just moan and beg for more.

Albedo is all kinds of kinky!

So, let’s watch as Momonga (or Ains Oon Goal) navigate this world where the NPC’s do a lot more than you’d expect and a world that’s different from the game. He is the overpowered overlord that will one day rule the land. Get ready. There’s about four seasons and a million chapters of light novel to this.

BETWEEN THE SUB AND THE DUB: Say what you will about FUNimation, they do give us some quality dubs from time to time. And in the first season, I was so happy to hear Ed Blaylock’s voice in what was probably his final role (that wasn’t One Piece related) before his passing. I’m also impressed with Chris Gurrero’s voice going from Momonga to Ains like that. I almost thought it was two different voice actors, so color me impressed. If you’re wondering, I did watch some of this series subbed. A lot of the specials and movies were sub only so I had no choice in the matter. But by the time season four came around, I was already caught up so I caught the sub there.

Hey, I wasn’t going to miss out on Mamoru Miyano acting dorky. Here’s what you might recognize these folks from.

JAPANESE CAST: *Ains is played by Satoshi Hino (known for Sai on Naruto Shippuden, Kamui on Gintama, Rengoku on Demon Slayer, Yuuji on Shakugan no Shana, Hamazura on Index, and Gauche on Black Clover)

*Albedo is played by Yumi Hara (known for Takane on Idolm@ster and Kosame on Magical Girl Site)

*Narberal is played by Manami Numakura (known for Pieck on Attack on Titan, Rio on Assassination Classroom, Brandish on Fairy Tail, and Hibiki on Idolm@ster)

*Shalltear is played by Sumire Uesaka (known for Nagatoro on Miss Nagatoro, Chloe on Miss Kobayashi, Dekomori on Chunibyo, Aya on Tonikawa, Nanase on In/Spectre, and Anastasia on Idolm@ster: CG)

ENGLISH CAST: *Ains is played by Chris Gurrero (known for Moriah on One Piece, Valtos on Black Clover, Nobuta on Assassination Classroom, and Ichiya on Fairy Tail)

*Albedo is played by Elizabeth Maxwell (known for Ymir on Attack on Titan, Uo on Fruits Basket 2019, Caulifla on DB Super, Lisa on Fire Force, Jenny on Fairy Tail, and Cordelia on Gosick)

*Narberal is played by Anasatasia Munoz (known for Gracia on FMA: Brotherhood, Minerva on Fairy Tail, Mayu on Fruits Basket, and Monomi on Danganronpa)

*Shalltear is played by Felecia Angelle (known for Hagakure on My Hero Academia, Georgie on Miss Kobayashi, Asahina on Danganronpa, Tetia on Black Clover, Frill on Wonder Egg Priority, and Perona on One Piece)

DISLIKED CHARACTER: So, I hate this sick, sadistic bitch right here.

I know it feels weird to stick it out with a season one villain. Especially because season four had a treasure trove of idiots that deserve to be hated. I just hate Clementine.

SHIPPING: God damn, Albedo and Shalltear are THIRSTY for Ains.

Um…so which girl? Which girl or girls are to be Lord Ains’s wife or mistress or concubine?

Okay, obviously we will never get an answer to that unless we read the entire light novel series. And even then, is there really an answer? We know it’ll never be Evileye from season two despite her sorta falling for Lord Ains.

Let’s just chalk this section up to the only true ship in this series is Nferia and Enri. Cute moment from them in season one and savior moments in season three. And now they’re married. Oh and I suppose the lizards from season two. Last I saw, they mated and have offspring as of season four. Call it a win if you’re married and still alive by the end of season four.

MUSIC: All of the songs are lit. There’s really nothing more to say on the matter.

Voracity is my favorite.

ENDING TO SEASON ONE: Throughout the series, we’ve seen Ains in disguise when going on mini-missions throughout the land. He goes by the name of Moman and travels with one of his Pleiades maids Naberal (or Nabe). After killing off these dead-raisers and a very unlikeable villain, he returns to his base to learn that there’s been a betrayal amongst one of his loyal followers.

It would seem odd for any of these characters to turn against Lord Ains or anything like that, especially when you see it was Shalltear. But whoever caught Shalltear certainly has Ains sweating (if it’s humanly feasible for a skeleton to do so). Not many can compare to his strength. However, Shalltear is a different story. Statistically speaking, there’s a less than 50% chance that Ains can win against her in a fight. When Ains decides to deal with this situation by himself, this frightened many of his disciples. Ains is the only person left of his original group that brought life to many of these characters. If he’s gone, Albedo might lose her sanity. Not just her, but the rest of the characters too. So, when Ains went after Shalltear, it looked like his power was useless to zap her out of her trance. And she did seem somewhat conflicted going against her lord and master. Could it be that someone besides Ains was stuck in the game as well? Could it be one of his former comrades from before the game shut down?

The end of this season doesn’t give us that answer. But we were not disappointed by the Ains vs. Shalltear fight. Ains didn’t hold back in this fight and ended up using many items crafted by his former comrades who used to be a part of the game before the permanent shutdown. I know there’s a lot to be said about overpowered protagonists and how boring a show can be with one of those, but for some reason I can live with Ains taking down a rogue servant. Ains ends up killing Shalltear, but then resurrects her (for a very steep price).

Shalltear is unaware of what happened during that time she was being mind-controlled. And I suppose we will not know until the following season.

PLEIADES SPECIALS: What the hell? Is this shit animated by the same company that does Isekai Quartet? Son of a gun, it is! Every season, there will be these short episodes. These episodes have everything you would expect from your average short-run special including; fanservice, main focus on characters that we never focus on, out of place dialogue, and no one acting like they would in the main show (except for Albedo). As the name indicates, we focus on the Pleiades combat maids; Yuri, Lupusregina, Narberal, Solution, CZ, and Entoma. And there’s only one thing I want to say about the specials.

I got to watch Clementine die six more times.

Oh yeah, there’s also a Clementine special with the Pleiades. More Clementine torture! I can’t say no to that. But that’s just the first season. Later seasons feature many crazier characters like Pandora’s Actor. Mamoru Miyano is having so much fun with this role. I know he is.

SEASON TWO: Three years, two recap movies, millions of Rule 34 artworks featuring Albedo, and a multitude of Isekai Quartet-style specials later…

We’re watching the story of dragon tribes getting a stark warning in the sky, working together, and then defeating armies of the undead. Wait, did I pick up some other anime by mistake or is this really Overlord? Yeah, the first few episodes of this season we’re watching a lot of these dragons, learning about these characters, and then watch them die off (this time by Coctys). That is until Ains comes in and forces the remaining dragon clans to answer to him.

The rest of this season had a lot of screentime to Sebas. Sebas was found interfering in the human world. He took in and healed a prostitute named Tuare and assisted with helping the bodyguard of a princess. With Sebas doing a lot of questionable actions while undercover with Solution, Lord Ains might fear of another betrayal much like last season with Shalltear. But as we all know, the opening theme told us that Demiurge was going to betray Lord Ains. Maybe! Ains gave his decision and will not punish Sebas and will see to it that Tuare will be taken care of by having her serve at the Great Tomb of Nazerick.

As it turns out, a lot of factions in this part of the story want to put an end to a crime syndicate known as “Eight Fingers”. The kingdom (particularly Princess Renner) has her close allies (Blue Rose) and loyal bodyguard (Climb) take out their organization. Sebas has had his moments with these gentlemen, as the crime syndicate consisted of brothels with injured women. Along with Sebas, we also have season one veterans Brain and Gazef get involved. However, things get messy when several of these groups get a nasty meeting.

I mean it, this season is full of new characters that are either in several episodes in great detail or die off faster than their appearance in the opening sequence. And in usual Medea-fashion, I’m going to have to give these people stupid nicknames. Let’s see…

Fluffy and Fuzzy’s Guide to You-Know-What

Thing One and Thing Two

Isekai Jasper

Odvall

Fat Royal Armin

Blonde Yuno Gasai

Dead One, Dead Two, Corpse One, Corpse Two...

Feminine Obvious Ian Sinclair character

Gilgamesh Knock-Off

END OF SEASON TWO: What do you suppose is going to happen when Lord Ains’s diciples get involved in a messy situation? You’ve got Entoma eating humans and Demiurge slaughtering members of the princess’s allies in Blue Rose. And then Lord Ains shows up in his Moman disguise right in the middle of this cluster-fucking mess. We do get the fight between Demiurge and Ains, it’s just that Demiurge wasn’t under a spell like Shalltear was last season. This was more of a bigger plan as both of them are using their alias names. It’s all an act.

Things get messier when Ains gets involved in Blue Rose matters. First of all, Evileye shouldn’t be falling in love with Ains. Ains has no interest and two other thirsty ladies back home. Second of all, this story is already more twisted than Lombard Street in San Francisco. Well, we get a satisfactory conclusion for Ains as he was able to make more connections in order for his alias (Moman) to be the great adventurer. Fake fighting with his allies of the Great Tomb of Nazerick and “defeat” the bad guys. And we close with seeing knock-off Gilgamesh plotting something. Oh, I’m sure we’ll see it in season three.

SEASON THREE: One anime season later…

God damn, that’s pretty fast for a Madhouse production!

Okay so, there’s still no word on who possessed Shalltear back in season one and no word on anyone else in this world from Lord Ains’s time as Momonga. Meanwhile, the guardians of the Great Tomb of Nazerick are planning their next plan of attack. Entoma wants revenge on Evileye from their fight at the end of season two. Solution wants to eat more humans. And Demiurge is looking forward to total world domination. And Ains is trying his best to stay the strong leader in front of everyone and still put out signs in case anyone from the game is there and finds him. With all of that happening isn’t it the perfect time for everyone to take a day off? Yeah, the first episode of this season was almost a throwaway.

Thankfully, we get back to the engaged storytelling and killing soon after. For a couple of episodes, we follow those humans from season one, Nfirea and Enri. And of course, they are the special kinds of humans Lord Ains trusts the most as they actually know Lord Ains by name and are indebted to him. Plus goblins! Enri controls a horde of goblins. I gotta give this girl some credit, she is pretty bad-ass.

END OF SEASON THREE: So Ains was not too pleased about random human scum entering the Tomb of Nazerick uninvited. In fact, that downright pissed him off. He kills the trespassers, has Shalltear kill off any runaways, and sent Aura and Mare to send a message to the kingdom with a pretty clear message of, “fuck around and find out”.

Now the emperor (Gilgamesh knock-off) made a legitimate attempt at forming an alliance to avoid more deaths like what Mare and Aura did in front of him. The royal family however decided to take matters in their own hands. One of the princes (not fat royal Armin) led an army to E-Rantel to take control. In another edition of “fuck around and find out”, Enri led an army of ogres into victory. That and Lupusregina annihilated any survivors. So now we’ve got a full-blown war between the Tomb of Nazerick and the kingdom. Ains has an army of goats that he’s bred to take out…

THOSE ARE NOT GOATS! No, don’t give me that “Baaa” shit. Those are not goats! Those aren’t even crimes against nature! They’re worse than that. They don’t have a name that they’re so…they shouldn’t even exist. Lord Ains, you are truly a wonder to behold!

And one warrior actually is given an opportunity to end the bloodshed by becoming one of Ains’s men. It was survivor of season one and two, Gazef Stronoff. Gazef refuses. Let’s see what happens in this edition of “fuck around and see what happens”. Gazef dies in 0.000001 seconds. The end result of this battle, the kingdom lost soldiers somewhere in the tens of thousands including Gazef, who was an essential warrior for the kingdom. Victory goes to Ains and the Tomb of Nazerick. And that’s where we end season three!

Still no word on who brainwashed Shalltear in season one! Still no word if Ains has found any contact with any comrade from before being sucked into Isekai Heaven over here. Let’s see what happens when Season IV comes out.

Hey, I only had to wait six months for this.

SEASON FOUR: The opening is still a banger and Ains is now supreme overlord of the entire kingdom (now known as the Sorcerer Kingdom). He is now using his actual form with those he’s never shown before instead of hiding behind his other persona of Moman. Though he will pop in as Moman or have Pandora go in his stead. The important thing is that Ains will be heard and will be obeyed.

We get some stories involving other creature characters including wolfmen, dwarves, and dragons. But other than that, we see more diplomatic scenes now that Ains and Albedo are frequently present at the kingdom. Gee, wouldn’t it suck if something were to happen to this kingdom? Like if something were to go wrong, do you think Lord Ains would do something so extreme like kill all humans?

ENDING: Something went wrong and now it’s time for humans to die.

“Someone” stole from the Sorcerer Kingdom. Yeah, this is the night bitches die.

Look, the kingdom should know to walk on eggshells with Lord Ains. Aura and Mare left a clear and present message for the kingdom in season three not to fuck with the Tomb of Nazerick. But leave it to one big, dumb, idiot, fucking asshole to ruin everything. Yeah, we’re talking about Phillip! The same idiot that tried to hit on Albedo this season, glossing over any other female in the room is the mastermind in stealing from the Sorcerer Kingdom. The balls on this man! Well, I’m pretty sure by the end of this season, the balls on this man will be torn asunder.

Prince Zanac (the guy I call Fat Royal Armin) took over royal duties for his ailing father. He has hopes of quelling Lord Ains’s fury and prevent the entire kingdom to be wiped out. And it went over as one would expect from this guy. His negotiations with Lord Ains fell flat and his own men mutinied and sent Fat Royal Armin’s head in a bag for Lord Ains. This is in hopes that these men and their families would be spared from Lord Ains’s wrath.

I gotta say, seeing Fat Royal Armin’s head in a bag brought back School Days memories. But I was just surprised Crunchyroll showed this. We see more season two survivors pledging loyalty to Lord Ains. And a shining armor guy with a fake name try to stop Ains from destroying the entire kingdom. Almost had Ains on his knees. I say almost because that wasn’t really Lord Ains meeting the knight, but Pandora’s Actor dressed up like Lord Ains.

The kingdom genocide is about to proceed as Cocytus comes through parts of the kingdom by freezing everything in sight. He also wound-up freezing Brain (one of the few characters that survived since season one). Princess Renner and Climb stay behind while their comrades of Blue Rose leave. The slaughter commences. Mare leads her army through the kingdom. Meanwhile, Lord Ains and Demiurge take out the king. Albedo ends up taking care of Phillip, that big, dumb, idiot, fucking asshole I mentioned before. Whether or not Albedo tears this guy’s nutsack asunder is up for debate, but I’d like to think she did. As it stands, it looked like Climb and Princess Renner were the last two seen alive. Climb ends up trying to fight Ains. He puts up a decent fight, but we all know the overlord was going to take him out. And now for the most disturbing scene of the season.

Climb wakes up to Princess Renner who is now a demon with ties to Lord Ains. She asks him to become a demon with her as well so they can live happily ever after for all eternity. The princess was behind this mass genocide. Most of the plans was from her. I KNEW IT! I KNEW THIS BITCH WAS TROUBLE FROM THE START! I KNEW THERE WAS NO GOOD IN TRUSTING PRINCESS BLONDE YUNO GASAI! NO GOOD! And then she sings a demonic Disney princess song while many viewers are pissing themselves in utter fright.

And with the fourth season’s end let’s check out the mysteries that remain so. Still no word on who possessed Shalltear in season one. No sign of any allies from Momonga’s time before the MMORPG became for real. Unknown connection with the latest characters we saw in the fourth season. And the kill count is infinity +1.

Overlord was not what I expected. Going into this, I thought this was going to be like the other Isekai animes that came out at the same time. For starters, there were characters I thought were going to have more screen time than they really did. The first 2 seasons, it felt like that when it came to Shalltear and Albedo. Most of the time we just saw Lord Ains in disguise with one of his maids, Narberal. But that’s the funny thing, we rarely saw any of the Pleiades in season four.

And then there’s the massive cast list for every season. Adventurers in season one, lizardmen in season two, goblins in season three, and dwarves, dragons, and wolfmen in season four. Add to that a myriad of humans that are going to be dead soon enough. You know when you’re watching Overlord’s many bomb-ass opening sequences and we see many characters with bomb-ass entrances? Many of their appearances are about as long as their couple of seconds in the opening. Don’t get me wrong, there are characters that have extended episodes dedicated to them. But some of them I don’t even remember when I replay the opening themes. I play them a lot. They’re all bangers!

So, what’s next? The light novel is still in publication and last checked it’s nowhere near being finished. One can wonder what we’re to expect next. Although, the final message in season four means we’re heading to a final arc of some sort or something might change if we’re to get another continuation. Whatever the case is, I’m all in and waiting for the next installment.

If you would like to check out Overlord, Crunchyroll and Hulu have every season available.

#anime review #overlord #momonga #moman #enri #albedo #demiurge #ains ooal gown #shalltear bloodfallen #sebas tian #narberal gamma #pandora's actor #princess renner #prince zanac

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