#his gags don’t take up 10 minutes of screentime in the manga

[kuroananosanji]

Heart eyes noodle dance tornado sanji is cute I’m not gonna get gaslit into thinking opla “fixed” him 😭

[themattress]

Wow. Tomoko Kanemaki SUCKS!

I decided to be masochistic and read back through the KH2 novels by Tomoko Kanemaki. And I just have to say: that there are actually people out there who like her writing and consider it to be in as good or superior to the games astounds me. These books are awful.

When they just straight-up adapt the game to text like the KH novels and the COM novels (except for the R/R one, but R/R sucks anyway), it’s fine. They even do the visits to Land of Dragons, Beast’s Castle and Olympus Coliseum better than the KH2 manga does, plus swaps in Agrabah for the far more important Port Royal. But that’s the only good thing I can say about them. In literally every other regard, the game and manga are infinitely superior.

The main problem is simple to sum up: Kanemaki is a fanfic writer. A pretty stereotypical KH fangirl. This in of itself wouldn’t be a problem if she weren’t adapting the games, but she is, and when she combines the game adaptations with her own fanfic based on what she wants to see, there is inevitably going to be a clash between them. The story written by Kazushige Nojima that she is adapting to novel form does not gel at all with what she writes, and as a result she has to either change that story (to the detriment of both it and its characters) or she neglects to change it even when it directly contradicts her own writing. This happens so much that it really makes for an excruciating reading experience. So let me list all of my problems with these novels point by point, to clarify just why Kanemaki’s writing fails so hard.

- I’ll get the biggest one out of the way right off the bat: Kanemaki is obsessed - and I mean obsessed - with the existential plight of the Nobodies, which includes the Draco in Leather Pants treatment to Organization XIII (”Is it really wrong to seek what you’ve lost?” is asked at one point, as though it’s a profound question. Um, when you’re doing so by inflicting that exact same loss upon millions of innocent people, yes it is!) The worst part is that characters (usually Namine, but Axel, Riku, Saix, Xemnas and even Ansem the Wise get on it at some points) are constantly repeating the exact same angsty inner monologues and internal (and sometime external) quasi-philosophical debates about Nobodies. I’m not kidding, it’s usually word-for-word. “Is it right for Nobodies to exist?” “Nobodies have nowhere to go or call home”. “Do Nobodies really lack hearts?” “What defines a heart?” “If Nobodies don’t have hearts, then why do they feel such-and-such?” “Why were Nobodies even born?” “Nobodies aren’t meant to exist, but does that still mean...?” And so on and so on, blah, blah, BLAH. Hearing this over and over and over and OVER again throughout my reading of the novels doesn’t make me more sympathetic of the Nobodies, it actually makes me less sympathetic and want them to go away so I don’t have to keep reading the same damn woe-is-me grade school-level existentialism! I want to keep reading about Sora, Donald and Goofy, damn it!

- Three characters who were mostly on the sidelines in KH2 somehow get a majority of time and focus here: Riku, Axel and Namine. They are even forced into an apocryphal trio together. They are basically treated as the de-facto secondary main characters next to Sora, Donald and Goofy, with their actions and development being given equal importance. Actually, that’s a lie - Riku, Axel and Namine are honestly given more importance. There is so much wrong about this - not only does the trio not feel organic and reek of bad fanfic, but each character in it isn’t well portrayed at all compared to the game or even the manga.

- Riku had the most potential, since he’s always a major character and a more talented writer could’ve come up with more feasible things for him to have been doing off-screen during KH2. But what Kanemaki has him do is ridiculous. If it’s not just stalking Sora, Donald and Goofy as a silent protector (which is the least interesting thing you could do with him), it’s bullshit with Axel and Namine, or fighting Saix midway through even though Kanemaki still keeps Saix’s later line of “Didn’t Roxas take care of you?”, or having him fight Xemnas in the Old Mansion only for Ansem the Wise to show up and Xemnas then just...retreat for no reason, letting Ansem live and thus ensuring the later destruction of his Kingdom Hearts like a dumbass!  And through all of this, she frequently makes Riku default back into snarky, arrogant asshole mode, which doesn’t fit his character at this point at all. Also, while I saw no deliberate yaoi bait in the writing of the KH2 game, it’s definitely present in these novels.

- Axel. Oh my God. Anyone who hates what was done with him as Lea in the games, you should blame Kanemaki, since she actually ran with that kind of writing and characterization for him in these novels long before that happened in the games. He is treated as a totally trustworthy good guy who is a great friend to Roxas, Riku and Namine. The one dick move Kanemaki has him make is quickly backtracked on and then swept under the rug. His whole villainous role is whitewashed at every turn, from both what he intended with Roxas (legit deciding to kill him is changed to attempting a murder/suicide so that he can die with his best friend) to everything concerning Kairi (no, he didn’t kidnap her at all, that point is hammered in frequently, he was going to take her to Namine and they’d then see Sora together! And he didn’t want to turn Sora into a Heartless, that was a wrongful assumption on Saix’s part! And Saix summoned those Dusks on Destiny Islands, not Axel! Axel is chivalrous and heroic and does everything possible to protect and save Kairi! Gag me.) It’s so obnoxious, and beyond removing all of the character’s edge, it’s a blatant case of giving a character a major role in a story that they aren’t supposed to have one in just because he’s a favorite of the writer.

- Namine is an equally blatant case of this, but her case might be even worse. Not only is she THE source of the repetitive woe-is-me existential Nobody monologues and debates, with her whole character arc being changed to revolve around this which honestly makes her unintentionally unsympathetic and annoying, but this portrayal of her has a negative effect on her in both fandom and canon. In terms of fandom, a cult of bad apples (usually yaoi fangirls who already hated Kairi) arose around Namine following KH2, declaring her as superior to Kairi in every way and worthy of being the real main heroine of the KH series. Not only is this false, but it arguably got started because of these novels (translations of which had made their way online long before they were localized), where a character who literally only got 10 minutes of screentime in the game literally gets transformed into the main heroine and one of the most frequently appearing characters in general, even if her “character development” is horribly written and amounts to her being a mouthpiece for Kanemaki’s views. Then again, maybe they just projected onto Namine due to her introverted, fond-of-drawing nature, and Kanemaki was just one of them and thus produced something that kept them going. It’s a Chicken/Egg type of thing, I guess. But whatever the case, what it did in canon was worse. Kanemaki was the first to write for Namine after KH2, in 358/2 Days, and her characterization of her translated in game form to the stagnant caricatured plot device that Nomura then realized was easy to write for and convenient for making other convoluted plot turns happen. 

- Come to think of it, Kanemaki’s partnering up with Nomura for Days probably did a lot more harm than just with Namine. Because her obsession with the “What Measure is a Non-Human?” trope never truly leaves the series after Days. It doesn’t pop up in BBS, since that was being worked on before Days, but everything afterwards is sure to feature it in some abysmal way or another, whether it be Nobodies, replicas, data copies or beings of pure darkness. The “Nobodies have hearts after all” comes straight from her writing (even if she had it as a needless overcomplication of the original idea that strong hearts can share feelings with those without it and thus serve as a heart for them too, while Nomura’s retcon is just “Nah, the body can regrow a heart, Xemnas lied”.) A lot of KH3′s worst writing might have not existed had Nomura not picked up on Kanemaki’s fixation with woobified “non-beings”.

- Sora honestly feels like an afterthought for Kanemaki. She’s so eager to write new fanficcy material for other characters, but not for the actual main protagonist, who only gets straight-up game adaptation. Oh, except that some of his lines that were “mean” to the Nobodies (and thus “OOC”, as both KH2-hating anon and Kanemaki seem to think) are changed or cut out.

- Y’know how the KH2 manga made Kairi even better than her game portrayal? Yeah, well this novel makes her far worse. First off, her defiant “you’re not acting very friendly!” to Axel is cut because Axel is whitewashed in that moment (he even readies himself to defend Kairi from the Dusks which Saix summons). Later, she does not get away from Axel because he was never kidnapping her to begin with here. She then realizes that he’s really a good person before Saix kidnaps her, with Axel desperately trying to protect her. She then only shows up toward the end when Axel once again comes to be her hero (again thwarted by that dastardly Saix), with her moping about how she can do nothing to help the brave, noble Axel. (I feel sick just typing this...) In the finale, not only does Kanemaki not take advantage of the potential Kairi development that the game relegated to optional text boxes, but she actually destroys Kairi’s entire arc long before BBS did by making one of her few additions to Kairi be an inner monologue she has on the shore of Destiny Islands alongside Mickey, Donald and Goofy just before Sora and Riku make it back, where she’s just wishing with all her heart that they’ll come back because “We’re here waiting for you. We’ll always wait for you.” BULL-FUCKING-SHIT. Kanemaki, just like Nomura and Oka, clearly has no interest in Kairi as a character on her own. She is used here as a plot device for the character development of Axel and Namine, characters she is interested in, even though Kairi had more significance and screentime than them by far in the actual KH2 game. Geez, even Nojima tried with her!

- Roxas is written just fine during the prologue, since his scenes are just lifted from the game. But when he resurfaces in the final novel, added material make Axel be the most important thing on his mind. Even his final thoughts as he makes the full merging with Sora is that he hopes to meet Axel again. More deliberate yaoi-baiting, and more shoving Axel down our throats. Hell, that last novel is even named “Anthem - Meet Again / Axel Last Stand”. God damn it, Kanemaki, Axel was not important to KH2. It’s not his story. Get over it already!

- Hey, remember how in the game DiZ/ Ansem the Wise did a total character 180 due to offscreen reasons when he came back after the prologue? That was dumb. The novels add new scenes for him, so Kanemaki could actually rectify this issue....OR she just repeats it, since the first new scene she gives him also has him in 180 mode due to offscreen reasons! 

- Xemnas and Saix both have their levels of menace neutered thanks to the existential angst of the Nobodies affecting them too, with none of their inner monologues bemoaning their fates really adding up with their actions. The game let you make up your own mind as to whether you found them sympathetic despite their monstrous behavior, but Kanemaki is clearly trying to force the sympathy angle, and it really lessens them, especially Xemnas. 

- Really, only Xigbar, Xaldin, Demyx, Luxord, and the trio of Hayner, Pence and Olette were written completely accurately out of the KH-original cast. Nothing felt out of place with them.

- Other nonsensical fanficcy events besides what I’ve already mentioned include bringing stuff from COM (like Repliku) back up frequently instead of keeping focus on the story at hand, a totally different version of how Namine and Axel split from Riku following the prologue (one that continues making Namine unintentionally unsympathetic), Riku having Mickey make the promise after the prologue before Kanemaki’s own 358/2 Days retcons this to happening before it, Riku meeting with Maleficent in Hollow Bastion, Mickey meeting with Axel in Hollow Bastion, Axel being the one to wake Goofy up after his “death”, Axel having a sort of odd friendship with Pluto, Ansem the Wise being the one to provide the box of clues for Riku to give, Axel pretending to betray Riku and Namine so that he gets let back into the Organization and thus be able to rescue Kairi, meetings between the Organization where they talk about totally different and less interesting matters than they did in the game, and having Namine stalk the group throughout the finale as she thinks her last pretentious inner monologues. Also, given its subject matter and how it plays during Days’ opening, I swear to God that Kanemaki created the Axel/Roxas ghost scene that Nomura added to KH2:FM. That it shows up in the last novel, word-for-word, a month before KH2:FM’s release, proves this.

- The misplacement of Disney Castle. This one REALLY bothers me. She places Disney Castle between Beast’s Castle and Port Royal in the third novel. This makes no sense whatsoever, since not only was this meant to be Maleficent’s re-introduction to Sora, Donald and Goofy, but now it comes after Maleficent already made an alliance with Sora and his friends at Hollow Bastion! And then all of a sudden, she’s no longer keeping the Nobodies at bay and is back to self-interested villainy! And there isn’t any dialogue explaining this away or anything!  We still have Maleficent saying “If it isn't the wretched Keyblade holder and his pitiful lackeys!” as if she hadn’t agreed to temporarily join forces with said wretched Keyblade holder and his pitiful lackeys! Way to ruin one of the best Disney world visits, Kanemaki!

- The whole finale and especially the ending itself, which were so powerful in both the game and even the manga, has no power in the light novel style of writing Kanemaki uses. Part of that isn’t Kanemaki’s fault, since so much of the finale’s greatness is visual and that obviously can’t be recaptured in text form. And yet she still makes some baffling pacing decisions, with stuff like the aforementioned Namine stalking passages throwing the whole thing off, LOL moments such as Riku himself outright admitting that he has no idea where he got Kairi’s Keyblade also breaking the immersion, character alterations like to Xemnas and Kairi ruining the effectiveness of things they do, and a truly WTF-inducing final chapter where the entire Secret Ansem Report is put before a novelization of both the credits scene where Sora sees Kairi’s drawing in the Secret Place and the epilogue scene where they get the King’s letter.

Overall, these novels just don’t feel like Kingdom Hearts II to me. Even the KH2 manga, the middle of its first half notwithstanding, felt like it. This does not. And that’s because whatever the faults in its narrative, KH2′s story was first and foremost a fun Disney/Square crossover adventure starring Sora, Donald and Goofy, with angsty existentialism merely being one of its themes and meant more for players to think about and discuss rather than the characters. The novels tell a story about angsty existentialism starring characters who think about and discuss it, with Sora, Donald and Goofy’s adventures being a passionless afterthought. That there are people who honestly think that Kanemaki doing this “fleshes out the characters” is shameful. Constant angst and grade school-level philosophical circle-jerking is not character depth. It is pretension of depth, hence the word “pretentious” which fits perfectly here. It takes a lot more than talking and expressing feelings at length to constitute character development. It requires meaningful actions, and it requires some form of growth and change. Kanemaki’s characters are largely static, simplistically characterized beings who spin their wheels in terms of both actions and growth. Riku does not change: you can barely tell he has any kind of depression or has experienced any kind of humbling. Axel does not change: he’s a great guy from the start and has no internal problems to overcome, only the external one of being separated from Roxas. Namine does not change, she goes through the same questioning and angsting over her existence and the existence of other Nobodies until the last minute where the answer just suddenly comes to her (in fact, it was apparently in her all along and she just forgot it. Shades of Sora’s dumbass “Power of Waking” arc in KH3 here...)  Any actual development that happens with some characters (like Ansem the Wise) comes straight from the game...and Nojima didn’t write that all too well either!  There is just very little that’s enjoyable about the KH2 novels to me, and Tomoko Kanemaki’s writing is to blame for that.

In the words of Lemony Snicket: I highly advise you to not read these books.

[entamewitchlulu]

Homura’s Flash Reviews [September 2017]

Sound! Euphonium (Hibike! Euphonium)

Following the development and growth of a high school concert band, Sound! Euphonium is a story about hard work, ambition, and reaching the goals that you initially only believed in on paper.

Overall, this was, I think, a very, very good anime, and I will be watching the sequel.  The animation is absolutely glorious, the characters generally feel very real and very much like real high schoolers, the music is great, and so much about it is inspiring.  I found myself feeling nostalgic for long days of practice in choir or when I was taking flute lessons, working hard to make beautiful music together.

The cons, though: unfortunately, the series suffers from same-face, which is unfortunate because otherwise, the designs are very cute.  It just would have been nice to see a bit more facial variety.  And as muuuch as I loved the relationship of Reina and Kumiko, there was that constant niggling reminder that all of it was queer bait and queer bait alone that occasionally soured the experience.

overall: 8/10

Kids on the Slope (Sakamichi no Apollon)

I went from one music anime to the next music anime, lol.  This one follows MC Kaoru, a rich, intelligent boy who’s moved from school to school for his whole life.  He meets delinquent Sentaro and his childhood friend Ritsuko at his newest school, and the two of them pull him into the world of jazz music.

Okay, I’ll be up front with you guys, I stopped watching partway through episode 5.  The good things about this anime: the animation was absolutely lovely, very smooth and the style was super nice.  I appreciated the art style as something charming and endearing in its almost old-timey style, even though generally it wasn’t my cup of tea aesthetically.

But overall?  It was honestly boring as shit.  I don’t know if this is just me being overstimulated, but I couldn’t care less about the characters.  This was supposed to be about jazz music, but instead it’s about sort of boring characters in a very, VERY boring heterosexual love trapezoid, and god, I was so bored.  I tried to force myself through because it has great reviews, but I had to just...quit, when Kaoru told a 12-year-old in episode 5 that a boy who pulls her hair and is mean to her probably just likes her.  I don’t even care if it’s the timeframe or the culture, I just...no more.

overall: 4/10

Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun (Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun)

This is one I’ve been meaning to watch for a while.  A gag anime, it follows Chiyo Sakura, a high school student with a crush on a boy in another class, Nozaki, whom she finds out is actually a popular manga artist. She becomes involved with him when he mistakes her love confession as a declaration of being a fan of his manga, and ends up interacting with a whole host of colorful characters when she becomes his manga assistant.

This was...honestly, exactly what I expected lol.  It was a cute, funny anime that legitimately had me holding my sides from laughter more often than not.  The characters were legitimately fun, endearing, and honestly more than one was very unique from a lot of other anime casts I’ve seen. I’m honestly a sucker for the manga-artist plot in cute anime like this, and I found it ridiculously endearing.  The animation and sound direction was pretty decent overall.  The only thing that reallyyyy bothered me was that in the end, none of the romantic pairs in the series were very interesting??  Like they were almost obnoxious, most of the time that was funny but the rest of the time it was just frustrating that these people were not communicating or understanding each other at all.

overall: 7/10

Erased (Boku Dake Ga Inai Machi)

Former manga artist Satoru has the mysterious ability called Revival: just before something horrible happens, he finds himself transported back in time a few minutes before the accident occurs, so that he can prevent it. When he comes home to find his mother murdered and himself blamed for it, he Revivals back 18 years--to his hometown where a series of abduction murders of his classmates took place when he was a child. To save the children and his mother in the future, Satoru takes it on himself to protect the victims and catch the killer.

This show was...fucking fantastic. I put off watching this show for ages but god, I wish I hadn’t.  I was on the edge of my seat the entire show.  I had this ridiculous feeling of delicious nervousness in my stomach the entire time.  Even though the twist became painfully obvious by the eighth episode, it didn’t matter--the momentum had been built up so wonderfully that it was impossible to stop, and knowing the twist only made that more intense.  This show was absolutely beautiful in its animation, music, and story.  The character designs and personalities were all beautifully unique and endearing, and the emotional connections formed between the characters were heart-touching. I stayed up until 2:30 am so that I could finish this on the day before I had to go to work in the morning.  Worth it.

A lot of the few low reviews marked this show down for not being a good mystery, and if you want to watch it, I beg of you not to go into it looking for a mystery story.  That’s not, and never was the point.  This is a story about friendship, trust, and love, and it should every bit be taken as such.

overall: 10/10

Little Witch Academia

When Atsuko Kagari was a child, she attended the magic show of Shiny Chariot, a popular and extravagant witch with incredible magic!  Ever since that day, “Akko” has been determined to attend the school Chariot did, Luna Nova, in order to learn how to become as great of a witch as Chariot, and bring smiles to everyone with her magic--the only problem is, she’s not from a magical family, and her magic is almost nothing to speak of.

This show was--omg.  This was such a good month of anime for me.  The animation is refreshing and endearing; it’s clearly not the highest quality, but in some cases that only served to make it even MORE endearing!  The character designs are wonderfully unique and adorable, and every single character is so much fun to get to know and love--even the antagonist is great!  With wonderful music and an absolutely adorably eccentric world, I consumed this 25-episode anime in just a little less than a week, which is a big deal for me!

As some downsides, though, I thought maybe the magic wasn’t really...fleshed out?  Like, it was hard to understand what it was and what it could do.  And while the plot was a lot of fun, I think it might have taken just a little too long to get into the meat of what it wanted to do with the story, taking a lot of time for filler episodes that didn’t always even contribute to character development.  Similarly, there were a few weird threads going on the background that never fully got the screentime that I think they deserved, like whatever political intrigue was supposedly happening.  And I was very sad to see Lotte and Sucy kind of disappearing in the second half of the series :(

Other than that, this show was immensely endearing and inspiring and I couldn’t stop watching, if somehow you haven’t already seen it (cause I’m always behind the times) I sincerely recommend it!

overall: 9/10