#i think if he is referring to his own life/loss it would only be Oda

[threadmonster]

Someone analyze and make theories for me, I'm lazy (⁠^⁠～⁠^⁠;⁠)⁠ゞ

I'm joking (kind of 👀) but no, I always thought this is interesting because of how much Dazai does refer to his experiences, such as with Kyouka when she was so focused on how many people she'd killed and how she didn't deserve a world of light. I dunno.

[kaurwreck]

Oh I loved your post about the whole guild arc and ADA&PM complicated relationship, that was beautifully written and it captured everything that I couldn't put it into words myself.

And the way you talked about Mori? Thank you, thank you thank you! While I'm don't mind the fandom misinterpretation of characters, it was quite refreshing to see someone talk about Mori as a human being that's not purely evil.

Now if you if you don't mind.. I need to know your opinion on this hypothetical theory: that Mori regrets everything he has done to Dazai and Yosano (this is canon) and he is actually trying to change and do better (the hypothetical part).

This is why he wants both Dazai and Yosano back, other than the fact that he cares for them, he also wants to try again and do better.

My reason for saying this is:

Looking at chaptet 14, if everything is taken at face value, when Mori makes the strategic decision to sacrifice Akutagawa for avoiding an all-out turf and keeping peace, it's really similar with how he sacrificed Oda to avoid bigger conflicts in future**.

But while looking at the meeting Higuchi had with Mori at the start of the chapter, somethings bothered me 1) Mori's inscrutable stare at Higuchi's reaction when he mentioned the possibility of Akutagawa not recovering 2)how Mori specifically lets Higuchi to know what will becomes of Akutagawa's situation and what PM's solution for it would be.

This made me think Mori knew what action Higuchi would take later and was counting on it. Plus I'm pretty sure Mori knows Akutagawa and Gin are siblings, so he also knew Gin also would go save her brother.

And I find it odd how in this chapter everything got resolved with 1)PM winning and their enemies destroyed 2)PM managed to take back their stolen agent 3)the whole thing was in the end just a squabble between agents and nothing more.

What I'm trying to say is, I like to think Mori values his agents more now and wouldn't just sacrifice them in a cold and calculating scheme. Maybe I'm reading to much into things here...

(**I know comparing the dark era situation with Oda and chapter 14 like this isn't quite right but that's the only frame of reference I could think of)

anon thank you <3 I don't get why people want him to be pure evil. it's so much more fucked up and richly acidic that he loves fiercely and jealously and feels their loss like a brain bleed.

i don't think he regrets it though. he says as such to hirotsu with regard to dazai while staring at the old boss's bed. he'd do the same, again and again and again. what he did re: the great war was try to stop war; and because of what he did re: mimic, yosano and dazai live in a world where they are safe and loved and driven to save and love others. mori may want them back, but mori wants lots of things he can't have (control, ango's head on a spike, verlaine to stop smoking indoors). he can live with want. it's senseless loss of life that won't do.

also, re: akutagawa, yeah, i have no idea why people think mori would sacrifice akutagawa. like, even if you think mori is evil, like. why would he do that. to what end.

but!!!!!!!!!! anon, you've misunderstood our wife. mori didn't make a strategic decision to sacrifice akutagawa either. mori made the strategic decision to surround akutagawa with people who won't let him self destruct. mori is aware that akutagawa is a horse hellbent on breaking his own legs, and he accounts for it.

and it's not because he's changing. he doesn't need to change, there isn't anything wrong with him. that is how he loves; he meets the needs of his people by placing with others and in positions where they have a support network. this is literally canon, like, it is both illustrated and exposited in stormbringer, and also literally every arc.

mari mori wrote about this trait of irl mori's btw:

"It was not his fault if his love, despite its depth and greatness, lacked warmth. Like a creature carrying its shell, he had this lump inside him and yet he loved people. I can see this clearly in my mind's eye."

he's also always valued his people. when the flags were killed, mori attended their funerals with their families. re: oda, mimic was destabilizing the city and killing his people. mimic was an existential threat who wouldn't stop until they got what they wanted. the special division backed mori into a corner by predicating legitimacy and his capacity to realize the entire point of him spending years in the grime and bloodshed that was seizing control of the port mafia on him demonstrating that the port mafia could contain the violence. and they had JUST started to recover from the dragon head conflict. it wasn't cold or calculating, it was a trolley problem and mori doesn't love it when the french kill his people en masse, which is a thing that keeps happening to him.

anyway, below i explain why mori was livid at higuchi. it has to do with higuchi being a horse girl.

Akutagawa kills the way pet dogs and cats do when allowed to free roam, which is superfluously and way outside of the scope of necessity. He quite literally violates his express orders from Mori so frequently that Mori says, "Besides, Akutagawa-kun has always been that way. Going rogue, destroying everything in his path, and contributing the most in the end. One could say he has a knack for it. There's no need to punish him as long as he keeps succeeding."

Consider what "succeeding" means in the context of that particular quote from Mori— Akutagawa has both protected the city and himself survived it. The only time Mori has remarked that Akutagawa failed, it's not only that Akutagawa did not traffic Atsushi, it's that he lost himself, engaged in relentless violence without any regard for his own life, and blew up in a ship because of it. And he did it for nothing. Nothing was gained from him nearly self immolating. There was no purpose to it. Not only has Akutagawa potentially rendered himself permanently comatose, but he did so in such a way that invited others to come finish the job, and Mori can't act to protect him without risking greater escalation.

Mori is furious, not because he considers Akutagawa expendable, because Akutagawa treated himself as if he were. He doesn't even call Akutagawa a liability; he says being retaliated against is a liability, Higuchi accuses him of calling Akutagawa a liability, and he affirms that Akutagawa is talented and his violence (their currency) outclasses anyone in the Port Mafia, and then asks her, "But what about you? Have you ever thought about whether you are suited for this work?"

Mori knows and values Akutagawa for who he is, but because he knows who Akutagawa is, he knows Akutagawa is prone to and invites violence onto himself. Higuchi has a skill, but not one that is apparent or combative. She is clumsy, not particularly skilled at fighting, and hopelessly silly. She also adores Akutagawa, she looks at him like he hung the moon, she trips over herself to attend to him. And, when she thought Byakko was about to kill Akutagawa, she intervened to draw it away from him, and when Akutagawa thought Byakko was about to kill her, he did not hesitate to lash out to kill before it could. He does not instinctively protect himself, that's much of what Dazai's acts of violence were meant to build from scratch, but he does instinctively protect Higuchi.

Mori is angry at Higuchi when she wasn't even on the ship with Akutagawa, and he remarks with utter disdain on the choices they made that led to that moment, including the raid on the Agency. He tells her Akutagawa is good at violence, but does she really think she's suited for it? Gin holds a knife to her throat, and Hirotsu reminds her that while she has the authority to command them, it isn't their titles that command their loyalty, it's their reverence for Akutagawa, and she should consider what there is for them to respect with Akutagawa unable to move. It's easy to construe this as suggesting they don't respect her or would be quick to kill one another if given the opportunity because they're scary, violent mafioso. Then, she flashes back to Akutagawa's deranged bombing of the smugglers. Which he did without her, she was running to catch him and insisting she was supposed to assist him, he tells her he doesn't need anyone, and then he scampers off to go make terrible choices. She reflects to herself that she isn't suited to the Mafia, that she sought to leave it but then stayed, evidently because of him. In the end, it's her stubbornness and willingness to rescue him that compels Black Lizard to not only join her but give her deference as their commander.

She is not suited to violence, but her authority in the Port Mafia is such that she only answers to Mori and Akutagawa.

irl!Higuchi added a special awareness of suffering and sensitivity in her exploration of low-life characters. That's what she's good at. She shouldn't forget it, those low-lifes need her.

(but also, literally, yeah; Gin is his little sister and Mori has ALWAYS trusted his silliest, most idiot babies to Hirotsu. Hirotsu is like that elderly gray wolf in yellowstone who just gave birth for the 10th time and uses her aged sagacity to keep the other wolves out of trouble. just like that wolf, Hirotsu is old as shit by Port Mafia standards. and has shown no evidence of menopause.)

[sakura-samsara]

There was a famously tragic incident in the Genpei War that took place during the Battle of Ichi-no-Tani in 1184.

After the Heike had suffered devastating losses at the battlefield of Ichi-no-Tani, and their last line of defense was broken by a Genji attack, their soldiers fled via the ocean by swimming to their ships. Kumagai no Naozane, a warrior fighting for the Genji, rode his horse into the ocean in pursuit of escaping enemies and saw a Heike warrior, Taira no Atsumori, trying to swim away. Naozane beckoned Atsumori to return to the shore and face him with honor instead of showing his back to the enemy like a coward. The two warriors fought on the beach, and the seasoned war veteran Naozane prevailed. He knocked off Atsumori's helmet to deliver the final blow, but he was shocked to see that his opponent had a beautiful face painted with makeup and appeared only around 16 years old—the same age as Naozane's own beloved son. Naozane pitied Atsumori and wanted to spare him, but other Genji soldiers had arrived by then and he knew that Atsumori would not be able to escape alive, so he tearfully took Atsumori’s life. Later in life, Naozane became a Buddhist monk, and it is said that part of the reason he did so was his great remorse for killing Atsumori.

As for how all of this relates to IkeGen... Today I was reading an article about the incident, and I found out that Kumagai no Naozane's son's name was Naoie, which is also the name of the featured/recurring side character in Shigehira's story (it's even written with the same characters)! Since IkeGen often has little details thrown in about the history, folklore, and literature surrounding its setting, I think it's possible that IkeGen's Naoie could be a reference to the story of Naozane and Atsumori (although I have no idea if he's supposed to actually be Kumagai no Naoie). If it really is the case, I think it's a super neat detail!

If it's just a coincidence, then... well, I look really silly for making this post. But the story itself is still cool! Atsumori's death at Naozane's hands is one of the most famous scenes recounted in the Tale of the Heike, and it's been dramatized in a number of noh, bunraku, and kabuki plays. Supposedly Oda Nobunaga's favorite noh play was about Atsumori, and it's said that he performed it several times himself—in fiction, he's often depicted performing it before his own death in the Honnō-ji incident. (Or, if you play IkeSen, before he was saved by a time-traveling fashion designer.) Here's a very very rough translation of a famous verse from the play that's associated with Nobunaga:

50 years of human life, compared to the life of the heavens, are as fleeting as a dream. Is there anything that lasts forever?

[soyouareandrewdobson]

Alex ze Pirate Mini Review 4: The EED: Emotional Exposition Dump. Or why THIS is not friendship

So here we are. The last part of this 45 page three parter, meant to be about what Sam really means to the crew. And what have we seen so far in the previous parts? That Sam is not just their underappreciated, but downright exploited slave (yeah, did you know that in ancient Greece slaves supposedly had more rights than Sam in this one? At least they could buy out their freedom one day), that Dobson has no idea how to genuinely pace a story, turning what could have been a decent 100 page story if planned out and presented with more care into a 45 page short snore fest and that Hat Andy’s idea for jokes are either based on abusing token buttmonkeys, turning annoying memes into even more unfunny jokes or making dark comedy with dead orphans.

At least when South Park makes jokes about children dying, they are appropriate in that dark setting and the death is still in some way handled or refered to as a horrific event. In Dobson’s case however, it just leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.

Sorry, I just can’t get over the orphanage thing. If Dobson wanted the reason for Sam leaving be that he finds out someone he cared about from his old life is dead, that is one thing. But did this asshole have to destroy an entire building with countless victims to do it? Couldn’t he just have one person die and the rest be still at that place? Honestly, I think it would have been funnier and more meaningful emotionally, if Alex and Co actually interacted with people from Sam’s past and in doing so learn more about him as a person, by genuinely visiting a still standing orphanage. Give the comic some meat on the bones and in doing so actually create the impression this comic is truly about Sam and not just about characters doing random stuff in relation to finding him. Instead Dobson goes for a literal overkill, which he then does not even treat as a tragedy but as a joke.

Dobson, THIS is a better and more dignified joke about orphans than the shit you did.

You got outclassed by Chuck Lorree of all people on this planet, you disgrace of a storyteller. A storyteller who can’t even keep his own barely existing continuity in the Alex-verse straight, now that I think of it. After all, according to Legends, the orphanage was closed and all the orphans were sold out to others, with Sam being the last of the litter

Which again is just unintentionally more horrific than Dobson likely intented. But you know, dumb people don’t know when they do dumb shit.

But I digress Let us just get into the last part. In which we finally see the “emotional” pay off of everything that happened so far.

 Spoilers, this is my reaction to that pay off.

And here is what everything led up to now.

 Sam ran away, because he wants to say his final farewell to his sister figure, we never knew about at all and about whom we do not learn one single thing really.

 Where do I begin with how this revelation fails?

Let’s start with the fact that this in execution does not have the emotional impact that was intended. And why is that? Because Dobson doesn’t bother to actually introduce us to the sister as a character.

If I may digress a bit to talk about One Piece here: In the manga, oftentimes Oda will “interrupt” an ongoing story arc to feature flashback chapters, through which he tells about past events referenced in the “present” chapters prior. Through those flashbacks he further gives meaning to why in present time the characters facing certain foes or having to win in their current situation, is so important, even on an emotional level. In short, those flashbacks are no interruptions, they are integral in giving those story arcs emotional weight.

Because now we are not just “told” why we should care about things and people, we have been shown why we should care. The old rule of “show, don’t tell” being followed on.

A good example from a more “recent” storyline I can think of, is through the flashback chapters of the Dress Rosa story arc, where we are not only being shown how De Flamingo took over the kingdom of Dress Rosa and brought pain and misery over its people for years to come, but also the past of characters such as the gladiator Rebecca and Mr. Soldier, her father figure that raised her up from the time she was 10 and De Flamingo took over… only for the flashbacks to also reveal properly how Mr Soldier is not just a father figure for her that took her in, but her biological father Kyros, who had been turned into a toy by one of De Flamingo’s henchmen via a power, that also took Rebecca’s memories of her dad away so she never identified the toy as her dad.

This way Oda achieves multiple things at once; Among other things, he establishes how evil De Flamingo is, how tragic Mr Soldier and Rebecca’s lives really are, adding to us the readers wanting to see them and Luffy beat De Flamingo into a pulp and it makes the later “present day” moment when Mr. Soldier and many other victims turn back to normal and Rebecca regains her memories and is reunited with her dad so much more sweeter. Cause now we care.

Truth be told, I myself believe that Oda is one of few storytellers on this planet, who truly has “mastered” the technique of emotional flashback storytelling.

A technique Dobson could have used in this part of the story, but didn’t. Cause honestly, the way he tells how Sam’s sister was “important” to our poor cabin boy is not emotionally engaging from a storytelling perspective. We are told she is important, but we learn genuinely nothing about her, not even what her name was and what she looked like except from that one picture in the locket from over 15 pages ago. Nothing about how “close” she and Sam truly were is revealed through showing, only telling and as such we don’t even begin to care for her relationship with Sam and how her loss is genuinely important to him. So the main goal of this story, to make us the readers feel something for Sam aside of pity for how he is treated by his supposed friends, has not been achieved.

 … Dobson, you are a hack. You can’t even use flashbacks, a basic technique in the realm of storytelling, to show us why we should “care” more, heck, even at all, about Sam and his loss.

If you just had adjusted a few things, you could have had something good here.

By adjustments I mean the following: Take the first page of this chapter as well as the first panel of the second page, and combine them into the final page of the previous chapter. In doing so creating a proper cliffhanger for part two. Then start chapter 3 of with a few pages (lets say 6 or so) showing young Sam and his sister interacting in the orphanage in doing so turning her from a nameless plotdevice into a genuine person to care about. And then use content of page 2 and 3 of this chapter, to elaborate on their relationship, potentially with small cuts always between present day Sam at the grave explaining himself and saying his farewells, with pictures of the past showing what they meant to each other.

 But nope. This very basic idea a fanfic writer now has come up with, a fanfic writer who never studied literature or took writing classes by the way, something I doubt you did at college the more I read your work, has never crossed your “superior” mind.

Also, I find Sam’s text on page 3 really, really backwards in a way. Like, I get that we are meant to consider it a good thing Sam is this way. You know, being genuinely selfless and wanting to make others happy. And don’t get me wrong, generosity and selflessness are virtues I hold in high regard. But the way Sam talks about how he just wanted her to be happy while sacrificing any fulfillment of basic needs for himself feels more like a pathological disorder in that case than something to reach for. In fact, psychology speaks from different forms of generosity and the thing Sam describes here is likely “compulsive giving” or “unrelenting generosity”, a pathological variant that can be highly toxic for all people affected by it.

Funny how Dobson, a person who wants to claim he is all for mental healthcare, is essentially “promoting” the positivity of a psychological disorder via Sam.

 Then again, this also feels more like Dobson putting words into Sam’s mouth (in a literal sense) to retroactively make Sam’s treatment look less horrid. Cause now Sam doesn’t just do all the work because he is ordered around, he deep down is “happy” doing all of the work and gain not even some basic respect in return, because he cares so deeply for his friends.

… I feel myself get livid again here.

And the next few pages don’t really help me “calm down”.

 Cause now the “justifications” just go on. The thing that is meant to be a heartfelt farewell turning into Sam “justifying” that hey, it must be good that he ended up with Alex and her crew. Cause after all, by being abducted years ago and being treated as a slave who in the ginger’s eyes is worth less than lint, he likely avoided dying of shitting his pants and a crushing roof. Ignoring the fact that he was going to be sold out anyway back then and would have potentially ended up with a more generous master than the crew of non Captain Syrup.

Also, just all of the shit going on in page 6. Sam asking his “sister” to be at peace, when likely, if the girl could still talk, she may even just ask Sam the following: Who the heck are you. Cause really, if you think about it, if Sam did all the nice things for her in secret, did the girl even realize she had a “big brother” figure to watch over her? Also, him saying he is happy and he is doing quite alright for himself?

All the pictures of him sighing and looking in misery in this story alone, plus the cavalry of strips I posted about how Sam is abused in the first part of this post series tells me another story.

Finally, Sam’s message “At least now, we are both free”? Sam, she is dead, likely having died in pain when a house crushed on her, weakened by a deadly disease and traumatized by other children around her dying of said disease. And you are stuck with a bunch of people that haven’t shown to care for you up until this story and the only reason they may even care for you now is out of “sympathy” because you lost your sister figure, not because they genuinely love and care for you as a person. As far as I am concerned, you would be better off being the slaveboy of some nymphomanic pirate princess in the world of Berserk than you are on this plane of existence.

And now that the “emotional” farewell is out of the way, Dobson can go back to focus on the characters he really cares about in this shit anyway: Little Bitch Annie, lesbian chocolate rain Miroku and Deadpool’s pubes.

 Oh Alex, you are such a rascal. You really make me want to shoot you with a crossbow, stab you in the eye, hurl you out a window and shove explosives where the sun won’t shine.

Yeah yeah, you are a pirate, but that doesn’t mean you need to be that awful as a person or even protagonist.

Christ. For someone who complains how toxic Walter White is to the point he believes “sympathizing” with the character turns you into a nazi, Dobson certainly is blind to how awful Alex really is, particularly as protagonist in a comic series intented for little kids. Compared to her, I can think of freaking slasher movie villains with more of a moral compass. Like say what you want about Jigsaw, at least he never victimized genuine children or teenagers.

And Talus, thanks for ruining the “emotional” moment Sam “earned” by pointing out how weird it is he kissed a gravestone. Also, I am glad I know what happens in the next pages or else I would assume Alex’s great idea includes to dig up his sister and turn her into a life sized doll for Sam to cuddle.

No, their ideas to assure he is emotionally save and to redeem themselves for years of taking him for granted/hurting him, is to throw him a surprise party.

… you know, I think you may be the only individuals in fiction, that Pinkie Pie would think do not deserve to throw a party or get one thrown for.

 But I guess Sam is just so nice, he even throws you a party for no apparent reason.

Either that or now that his “sister” is dead he will overcompensate even more and this is the next destructive stage of his compulsive generosity.

… Sam, I am sorry for your loss. But you need to get help. Once by the authorities who will hopefully get rid of Alex and then by some psychologist who helps you redefine your own self worth.

By the way, I find it funny that the banner he made also actually only mentions Talus, Atea and Captain Daphne with a bad hair day. It just confirms that Peggy either never bothered to join the others or that Dobson developed an early onset of dementia and totally forgot about the fact that the midget is a genuine character in this trainwrack. And I am convinced the later is the case, which really just makes me wonder how someone is able to do that. To forget a major character of the thing they create and want to turn into a money making franchise. Imagine if Disney did e.g. a sequel to Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, only to forget about the god damn dwarves themselves.

At least Talus finally realizes he is unworthy to get a party thrown or be Sam’s friends. Good. Now jump into a wood chipper and free ourselves from your existence you dog beaver thing.

Content of the next page in a just alternate universe… Alex: You are a better human being than I could ever be and this is all because my creator is a hack who does not know how to create genuinely likable personalities.

The reality:

 FUCK YOU, ALEX! FUCK YOU AND THE BIKE PUMP YOU FLEW IN ON! Atea and Talus have learnt more than you about what it means to be a friend and they don’t even bother to punch you in the face for still being the biggest red haired  raging cunt since Asuka from Neon Genesis Evangelion.

If this is how Dobson thinks “friends” should treat each other, it is no wonder he has a friendless background. Hey, Hat Andy, if you want to emulate manga, may I suggest you just become even more blatantly about it and simply copy paste One Piece? Cause Luffy at least knows how to be a friend. How much does he care for his friends, strangers and even at times former enemies of his?

He cares so much, that e.g. when a special military force that beat the crap out of him got hands on his crewmate Nico Robin, he did THIS:

He declared war on the world government. Fuck, even Jack Sparrow, who is an opportunistic jackass, in a movie where everyone stabs the others at least three times in the back, was less selffish than Alex, when he gave up his chance on immortality as Captain of the Flying Dutchman, just so Will would live in some form.

Metalbeard from the Lego Movie cared more about doing the right thing than anyone in Alex the pirate did. You created the worst friends and “heroes” I have ever seen in a webcomic since the entirety of sinfest. Congratulations for that accomplishment, Dobson. It really takes a special kind of anti-talent to show such level of not understanding the power of friendship as one of the most basic tropes in storytelling, to the point a show about pastel colored equines managed to profit of it for nine years.

 WOOOOO! We are the worst, we are the worst!

And look, Uncle Pennywise’s scrotum is back.

Anyway, here are the last two pages of this thing, to end on what is meant to be a whimsical note because Sam actually gets something from Alex that is not a beating or verbal abuse.

 Too bad anything that would feel heartwarming about this is drowned by a) me actually remembering all the shit Alex, the crew and the writer pull to get to this point (from abusive neglect of the characters to pathetic emotional manipulation on a narrative level) and b) the weird rapey face Uncle Peggy makes in the picture. Like Jesus, did Dobson try to emulate the Burger King here?

But hey, this story is over. And who knows, perhaps from this moment on, Sam will actually be treated better overall in the comic and Dobson will spend time actually developing an overall plot and the world of this com-

Tom Kenny: ONE COMIC STRIP LATER

And it is back to business as usual.

... How much would I need to pay for someone on the internet to write an alternate ending to the story where it turns out Sam actually poisoned the food at the party and while Alex is slowly dying, a now evil Sam who has finally broke under years of abuse, is going to become a genuine threatening pirat? that is after he villain monologues to Alex how much she sucks before scalping her?

Wow, I am entering a dark place right now. I think I need to take a break.

So I am going to give my final verdict on this story with the next post around the weekend most likely. Cause that is how much time I will now spend rereading One Piece and watching the Pirates of the Carribean movies in addition to playing the Pirates level of Kingdom Hearts 3, in order to forget this shit and remind myself why I think pirates are cool.

[monkeydluffy19920]

Respond: Is Sanji a pervert?

In reference to/inspired by [x] @cruising-on-pirate-dreams

It’s always been an interesting topic to see how people interpret Sanji’s character, in general. Usually, if he is not liked in fandom, he is seen as a hardcore pervert who thinks nothing more than that and all the arguments are based on his will to peep women and his nose bleedings. Then, there are other thoughts, that consider that his ero- kappa side is partly an exaggerated gag made by Oda-sensei.

Ever since the beginning, it's been fun to ponder the reasons behind the characters’ behavior and Sanji is not an exception. Actually, he was one of the characters I didn’t completely like in the beginning, because back then, during the elementary school, it was hard to understand why would someone fall in love with (almost) every lady they meet. Then slowly his characteristic started to open more to my blind eyes and the more I saw the soft side of Sanji and how much he puts effort on his friends, the more reasonable it was to see why he is so popular among fans. It seems like the hate he gets is mostly because people pay attention to his lust-side and examine it only from one point of view.

There was a very interesting analyze written by @cruising-on-pirate-dreams about Sanji’s personality and tendency to be called pervert. In comparison, the fellow fan used Absalom and there were good points to be lifted up:

Absalom without a shame used his devil fruit skills to lurk on both Nami and Robin and never gave a rat’s eye whether Nami or Robin liked his forceful style to approach them. Both of them were clear objects to him that he licked and touched without permission, he even said openly that he likes Nami more because she is weaker in his eyes and later he kidnapped her and made her unconscious so he could marry her by force.

Sanji has a tendency to put himself into the submissive position, especially when it comes down to interacting with women. Yes, of course, he has this “I need lady~!”-kind of side but it’s remarkable how the more familiar/closer the woman is, the more submissive he actually is, in other words, he never puts himself above the ladies, especially when it comes down to interacting with Nami and Robin.

Before the Whole Cake Island arc was published, I’ve written in Reasons to love Mugiwaras - Sanji - post that I actually do believe that despite the reputation and what he gives out of himself in public (being tough and ladies man), deep inside he is actually very broken and vulnerable and once more of his past was revealed after the time skip, the more sense all the headcanons and speculations started to become logical.

The flashbacks in the Baratie arc showed that he was on edge of dying after the shipwreck which gave a little pieces of information about him but after the Germa66 and Sanji’s links into it were revealed, it was even more clear that he indeed had a terrible and traumatic childhood and suffered from great amounts neglection and abuse by his biological family until he escaped. The new supplement/update of the background story finally gave a further and more detailed explanation of why Sanji doesn’t see self-worth in himself and always puts others in front of him. He has put himself under the target line for his nakamas many times without caring how his own life and his dreams of finding All Blue would be thrown into waste if the worst-case scenario happened.

Thankfully, there was someone from the family standing by his side and therefore Sanji grew very close to his mother. Unfortunately, she passed away early due to the illness (that actually protected Sanji to become an emotionless killing machine like his brothers) and then he was again left all alone in his personal hell.  Sora’s death might’ve left a certain gap in his heart. Perhaps the reason he treats women kindly (especially the ones he really adores) has roots in Sora’s way to support Sanji and maybe inside his core, he decided to continue sharing her mother’s legacy of kindness. He might appear like a tough guy who swears like a sailor but only the fact that he has saved an enemy from starvation tells that Sanji truly has a heart of gold, just like Sora.

It’s highly likely that behind the scenes and below the surface,  Sanji could be actually looking for similar acceptance and unconditional love he got from his mother. But why then do all that ero-kappa stuff and womanizing when being around women? Mainly I still believe that it’s a continuous character gag just like Zoro’s poor sense of direction or Nami’s greediness but somehow it feels that there might be logical reasons behind this behavior.

Of course, it’s easy to interpret and only think that he is just a lustful pervert from the fact that his locker is full of girl magazines and that especially during the crew’s reunion after the time skip when it felt like Sanji couldn’t control himself with his nose bleedings.

However, if one takes a look to past 20 years One Piece has existed, it’s remarkable to see how much Sanji actually does pay respect to women, especially towards his crewmates. He doesn’t only give compliments on their appearance (i.e how cute they look) or use polite suffixes (”chan” and “san”) while communicating with them, he also praises openly and sincerely their skills and how strong they are. So, it’s obvious that Sanji definitely sees more than just their bodies.

Then to body swap, what @cruising-on-pirate-dreams wrote as well in another post. It’s easy to be seen that Sanji was happy that Law happened to swap his and Nami’s bodies and yes, he took peeks and adored the body features. However, because of this ero kappa-gag, one perspective is easily being left out of the spotlights (if readers didn’t pay enough attention): He did take good care of Nami’s body and he was aware how his actions can affect on her body and reflected on them many times. He smoked in her body but felt bad for doing that. Now it could be easily argued: “If he cares about Nami, why did he smoke in the first place?” but the answer is simple, he is a chain smoker and besides, Nami herself did give him the permission and the cigarettes in Punk Hazard.

Well, despite Nami’s warnings, he did take her jacket away when she wasn’t looking but he had a good reason (Kinemon’s torso was underwater and he happened to be the best swimmer out of the options) and besides, he apologized, just like he apologized for harming her lungs with his cigarettes. He also kept constantly worrying whether the diving would be too much for Nami’s body under the circumstances.

So, if Sanji really does only see Nami as a sexual object he wouldn't have feel an urge to apologize for things he did when their bodies were swapped. If she’d only matter to him for lustful reasons and for good looks, he could have taken the advantange on her by taking everything away and do more exploring (if he was alone) but he didn’t because obviously, they were busy solving the mess Caesar made but mostly, (putting aside the comedy-reasons) he knows that going further would have been way too disrespectful and would have violated their nakamaship (and would be against the fact that he has protected her purity back in Thriller Bark and tried to avoid to stain her) especially if he later got caught somehow and it would anyway make no sense if he wanted to hurt her in any way intentionally. 

So, at least for me especially Punk Hazard was an arc that proved that despite the comedy, Robin and Nami are clearly not objects for Sanji and although he surely has felt some lust towards them, he respects the boundaries treats them well and speaks with much softer tones to them and even uses certain suffixes while addressing them. 

Someone asked the reasons behind the suffixes and whether there are any deeper meanings  Oda’s response was that he was basically inspired by his older staff members who wanted to be treated as they were younger. Zeff taught Sanji chivalry and perhaps this detail of the story was really based on Oda’s real life.

Back to the previous topic, why is Sanji portrayed as a pervert? Well, mainly for sure to make balance with comics on heavy storylines and because being interest in opposite-sex openly seems to be part of who he is but then thinking below the surface, what if those wild nosebleeds and dreams about peeping women are all actually just a mask of him? Yes, he does have a crush easily on women he meets and flirts with them but what if there is more than that?

Actually, one of the headcanons I’ve had for years is that Sanji has experienced a traumatic loss that has given him the deep fear of losing the others he holds dear (and that’s why he'd be so sacrificial) and Whole Cake Island sort of supported that thought. It can be possible that because he was strongly bullied by his siblings and despised by his own father (being called a weakling and so on), this all has stained his self-confidence below zero for good and it still will take time to see that he is worthy. Hopefully, Luffy’s words back in Baratie and the retrieval team’s efforts and experiencing his lowest point before the tea party opened his eyes for good and gave his character the chance to grow.  

Like many fans agree, the only place where Sanji has complete confidence is anywhere that is related on his profession, cooking because Zeff convinced that the “chibi-Nasu” really does have potential in becoming a chef, otherwise, he can be surprisingly insecure although he doesn’t show it up openly, perhaps he hides it with this kind of actions.  On top of that, Zeff raised Sanji to respect women so if he really was a pervert and didn’t care about what his foster father taught, then perhaps he would act more like Absalom. However, (again setting the comical aspects aside), I think Sanji himself knows where to cross the line when it really comes down to women. Most likely Zeff wouldn’t approve if Sanji really thought that women are just objects of lust and Sanji probably doesn’t want to disappoint (even unconsciously) someone who saved him from certain death and raised him as his own child. 

Only Oda-sensei knows completely his character and knows the answers but Sanji’s behavior makes me wonder that what if actually at some point he has created kind of an “alter ego” to protect himself? What if he built himself a personality full of confidence so no one would see that deep inside, there is a fragile boy and a wounded man? Well, this is all just speculation so it’s hard to say whether there is any truth behind these thoughts or not but shortly said, Sanji is a great character and there are definitely reasonable reasons for his behavior, in general. However, he indeed is stuck in these ero kappa- gag and it’s sometimes a shame indeed that some (potentially shippy) moments are ruined by those weird faces or when he goes too lustful but on the other hand, it might be just Oda’s way to keep the series’ focus on the main points instead of romance

It’s really hard to believe that Sanji would actually be a pervert as in the term is officially described but once again, it’s all about interpretation. However, if one takes a closer look to the comparison between Sanji’s and Absalom’s interest in Nami (and other women) and comparing it to the facts of what perversion is in terms of human behavior,  it can be easy to tell that out of these two, Absalom is the true pervert.

[mistress-of-the-obvious]

Despite the need to have quick takes on subjects, sometimes if not often times, it’s better to let things settle wait for more information, and find out your opinions on things.  With this, I’m going to go back over the events with Spacecraft, Yuki Kajiura, and Kalafina.

On March 13th this year Spacecraft finally announced Kalafina’s dissolvent. @westkana pointed out to me that this was also the date that Spacecraft confirmed that Keiko was leaving. Here’s one of his sources: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2018-03-13/singing-unit-kalafina-agency-confirms-1-member-will-leave/.128905

The owner of https://vk.com/club_kalafina, Webteste Doityourself (be sure to follow his site – he’s awesome) noted that Wakana’s pamphlet from last year was in the Kalafina area and not in her new one.

A few months later we started getting some songs released from Hikaru and Keiko is now back touring with FictionJunction.

All signs point to there being a non-compete clause in the contract regarding Kalafina that lasted exactly a year. During that year span from March 13, 2018 to 2019, all content was contractually Kalafina. That is why Wakana’s pamphlet last year is placed there. This was likely so that Spacecraft and Sony could better sell the 10th Anniversary movie, concert, as well as the Best Of set.

One thing I found absolutely fascinating were the tweets from Japanese Twitter. There was a lot of anger stating that Spacecraft had no right to announce such since Kalafina was Yuki Kajiura, Keiko, Wakana, and Hikaru and they did not announce such. It was one I could understand on an intellectual level, but not an emotional one.

Prominent voice actor Jouji Nakata was voiced his own displeasure by posting a photo of himself with Kalafina stating, “I hope my princesses will be back someday!” He also liked and retweeted a tweet by Kyorakuhigurasi, which went viral. As you can see, I provided both with a Google translation. It was tweet after tweet with the same sentiment. It’s rather uncommon to see so many Japanese people angry like that. This explains Yuki Kajiura, Keiko, and Hikaru’s joint statement. Which you can see here as a refresher: http://fictionjunction.com/kalafina20190314/#

Spacecraft owns the trademark so technically they’re right about Kalafina disbanding. Fans are also right about Kalafina not being a name, but the people who comprise it. Had Spacecraft been a US company it would have been phrased something like this, “We are saddened to announce Kalafina is no longer managed by us. Right now, each have their own personal projects. We support all involved in their endeavors now and in the future.” As for why Spacecraft didn’t? Seems pretty obvious that it’s because they’re bitter.

Trademark is also based on use/disuse unlike copyright. The phrasing of the announcement could be considered abandonment, which I find really interesting. Of course, I’m not a Japanese trademark lawyer and time is what typically shows abandonment. I’ll return to my thoughts on the trademark claim a bit later here.

A few months later we were greeted to The Weekly Bushun article. I’ve seen a couple of versions of the article. Interestingly, the online Weekly Bushun article left out a big detail that another versions got (which makes me think it’s an also a paper - it’s also possible I just missed it there). Here’s where I got the information: https://news.livedoor.com/article/detail/16444902/

For a recap, when the last president of Spacecraft retired and the new president took over, he brought in a female official from Takarazuka Revue. He wanted Kalafina to be managed more like a typical pop group diminishing Yuki Kajiura’s role. This happened in 2016.

Yuki Kajiura was by far the longest talent in Spacecraft going back to at least 1997. She was also their big money maker. I don’t know how far back in the company Mr. M, assumed to be Yasunori Mori, goes back. Just that he was a long time trusted manager.

I can confirm this part of the rumor. I’ve heard that the new president was a big fan of Takarazuka Revue and wanted to change the company to fit more in line with his interests much to the dismay of various talent for a few years now. I also heard about a mystery female executive taking over Yuki Kajiura’s role in the Arena Live tour.

The key critical detail I didn’t notice on some other articles, which is in the Live Door version (doesn’t mean it wasn’t there, just that I didn’t see it) was the setting where the president yelled that Yasunori was a “spy” for Yuki Kajiura. The location was at Budokan at the Arena Live concert. He yelled this in front of his friends, family, and co-workers.

One of my favorite classes that I took in college way back in the early 2000s was Introduction To International Business. I love culture books that are often marketed to business people moving to nations long term and still buy them. One of the big things in business in Japan that is drilled: Do not scold, correct, or praise someone in public.

Japan is a culture based on harmony, so if I were a manager overseeing Japanese people if I noticed someone making a simple mistake and went over stating, “Oh you did this wrong. It needs to look like this. Simple mistake, it’s okay.” I disrupted harmony and gave that person a loss of face. Face can be summed up as something that can cause someone embarrassment, unwanted attention, or otherwise. It’s a little more complex than that, but it gives you an idea.

Another aspect of Japanese culture is sometimes referred to as “The Iron Rice Bowl.” This means it’s expected to promote within the company rather than bring in someone from outside. The idea is if you get into a company you should be promoted with good work until you retire. This decayed a bit after the great recession in the early 1990s, but it’s still there. So to bring in someone new at high level management is going to bring in a lot of discomfort, and the executive was going to face increased scrutiny. Some of this goes back into the concept of harmony. It certainly doesn’t help that based on the article, some thought she wasn’t qualified and she wasn’t able to handle her new position. This may also be why the current president got into his position. He may have simply had the most seniority.

While you do see the loud boss yelling in anime, anime is like comparing Hollywood to real life in the U.S. It’s not tolerated here in the U.S. and it’s not typical or accepted in Japan. One can only imagine what the president said to Yasunori or Yuki in private especially after this incident.

I was talking to someone else (not sure if they want to be revealed) about much of this stuff and we agreed that with all the activity with Kalafina’s Harmony fanclub with trips to Taiwan and the like, that Spacecraft and Hikaru, Keiko, and Wakana thought things would be able to continue somehow.

All signs point to negotiations about how the group would continue breaking down by late autumn. This can be found in the Question and Answers section in FictionJunction Club 35 (Winter 2017 – the content is typically done a few months in advance). I’m going on memory, but Keiko’s comment was something along the line of how their year went, “The first half of the year went well. I started learning Chinese. The second half went poorly. I hope next year will be better.” Hikaru stated “Road,” while Wakana said, “Smile.” I remember Wakana’s sounding particularly sad and upset. I looked for Putschki’s translation, but couldn’t find it. I know it’s there somewhere.

We know Keiko sent out her resignation to Spacecraft requesting her contract terminated a few months early in late December. A few days after this, the trademark claim was filed. I thought because Yuki Kajiura created Kalafina, that perhaps she was somehow giving her claim to Keiko otherwise the trademark would belong to Spacecraft.

When Keiko left, it was simply two paragraphs that were approved by Spacecraft online as apposed to Kaori Oda’s long blogpost and Hikaru’s long handwritten note. All signs point to a very hostile work environment for Keiko and anger on the part of certain people in Spacecraft.

While the trademark claim was ruled and given a sentence of her claim not being valid without additional documents, it was actually rescinded a few days before. Less than a month later Hikaru left Spacecraft. Seeing how close they are, I estimate that this was not a coincidence, though that is just an assumption on my part. I now suspect Keiko thought she had to file the trademark claim for her own protection and possibly that of Hikaru.

Now focusing on Wakana, had her contract been up to be signed again before those negotiations broke down, this would mean her contract ends in the first half of 2020. We know that Spacecraft typically has three year contracts because of Ryu Murasaki.

If the name sounds familiar it’s because she was added to Wakana’s tour last year. I state this because it was made to sound like it was solely Wakana at first, then marketed as double bill. When I saw her name pop up, I looked her up. She’s formerly of Takarazuka Revue and joined Spacecraft in 2016 when the takeover happened. I found on the Spacecraft store, after Kalafina, she had by far the most merchandise. From there I also found out that she was also on the World Heritage Tour.

Going back to this I remember when Ryu Murasaki was added some of the responses were, “Oh, I guess they thought Wakana couldn’t handle the tour alone.” Again going back to the concepts of face and harmony, I wasn’t happy with the set up. It caused Wakana to look less capable and since Ryu was added later, gave her fans less time to buy tickets as well as create tension between Wakana’s fans that thought it would just be her.

Ryu left Spacecraft on May 31st, giving her resignation on April 20th this year. You can see the link here: https://hochi.news/articles/20190420-OHT1T50051.html

Exactly why, of course, we don’t know. While she came along with the female executive, she may have been uncomfortable with possible preferential treatment and the possible tense work environment.

From the time Hikaru quit, I went back from 2016 to then 2018 and found twelve talent left. During that time I could only find Ryu as joining. They do have a new boy band, TFG, so since then they have gotten more people. Still this will mean, from 2016, at least thirteen people have left at current date.

The one part of the article I have my doubts on is Keiko getting a massive ego. We know at a concert in the past she was visibly upset with the amount of attention she was getting over Wakana and Hikaru at an overseas convention. She has also stated in the 10th Anniversary movie that she grew as a person by learning to be attentive over Hikaru, and Wakana’s feelings as she was oblivious of that before. This of course, doesn’t mean she didn’t mess up at times since this was a growing skill for her.

Instead, I suspect any sort of conflict between the three had to do with the lack of direction and stress, as Yuki Kajiura and Yasunori Mori were restricted of their positions and left.  The high stress level could easily cause arguments that normally wouldn’t be there. If, for example, Wakana wanted to continue Kalafina while Keiko did not without Yuki, Wakana would be more sensitive to Keiko’s popularity. I need to note, I have no evidence or knowledge that Hikaru or Keiko have any conflict with Wakana and suspect it is an issue of contract issues, but I also have no evidence there isn’t a conflict either. I suspect that the informant meant things more like I state as the whole point of the article was to highlight the possibility of Kalafina reforming. If they hated each other, than one would think that would be the headline instead.

As to why Hikaru, Yuki, or anyone else hasn’t shown pictures or talked about Wakana much probably goes back to harmony again. If certain people within Spacecraft are angry at Yuki, Yasunori, and Keiko, I can imagine what the reaction would be if Hikaru posted a picture of her together with Wakana or if Yuriko Kaida tweeted something about her. Even if this wasn’t the case, showing such pictures and making comments alone can be seen as awkward.

Fast forward to now. There have been questions on Yasunori’s whereabouts since he left Spacecraft. I believe he may have helped with Yuri Matsuoka’s triple EP release .A, .B, and .C. Kaori provided backing vocals for some of the songs. Outside of that, I didn’t know where he was until recently.

Kugayama on the Canta Per Me Discord (which is where you can easily find me) was kind enough to buy me copies of Yuriko Kaida’s Porta and Jr.’s album along with the new pamphlet (he’s going back to Japan in a few days for the last two Tokyo dates – I’ve begged him for Yuriko’s new album and the photobook). While I was admiring Yuriko’s Porta CD, I looked at the back of the credits: Yasunori Mori (Highway Star). Kugayama had thought he retired.

I asked him about Highway Star since he mentioned it to me before and he said Yuki Kajiura’s FictionJunction Station seemed to be run on the same hardware. What I found was illuminating.

Highway Star delves into both PA Engineering and Artist Production. They manage Anisong artists as well as planning events and fanclubs. They are also invested in expanding to global markets (so anime conventions and potential concerts). You’ll see they have a lot of familiar names they’re managing: Jam Project, Masaaki Endou, GranRodeo, and Yorke from Old Codex.

Suddenly, a missing piece fit. When I was at Anime Expo last year, I noticed a lot of little things. Besides the fact that the FBM were May’n’s backing band, Ohira was the only manipulator for the entire concert, and the camera work for Yuki Kajiura was what I thought to be the best. Highway Star was likely the company providing the technical knowhow behind the scenes and some of the people likely worked with her in the past.

If you check their corporate site, you’ll see Yasunori Mori listed as an Executive Officer. The company was created back in 2009 and just recently announced a new business partner artist earlier this year: Yuki Kajiura. They also have ties to BandaiNamco.

You can see the links here: https://highwaystar.co.jp/about.html https://highwaystar.co.jp/ap.html https://highwaystar.co.jp/img/oshirase190304.jpg

I wouldn’t be surprised if either Hikaru or Keiko end up being managed by Highway Star for their solo careers.

So there’s my recap, with new information, and some idle speculation. We’ll never really know the truth, but the shadow of it still looms. I’m interested in all your thoughts.

[creative-type]

Why Tony Tony Chopper is my Least Favorite Straw Hat

I feel conflicted when I see people list characters from greatest to least favorite. Cut and dry lists in general - whether featuring power levels, most attractive, saddest backstory, etc - tend to elicit this reaction, because they’re so subjective and I think if an author has done a good job then the audience shouldn’t be able to make the list at all.

Which wouldn’t stop people from trying, but still. 

Using One Piece as an example, there are certain characters that resonate with me personally, the chief of whom is Nico Robin. I’m a total sucker for the misunderstood badass bookworm - Raven from the original Teen Titans cartoon, Tris Chandler from Tamora Pierce’s works, Roald Dahl’s Matilda, and Thistle from Daughter of the Lilies are just a few examples of this in other media.

But apart from Best Girl Robin, my feelings about the cast of One Piece tends to vary depending on how you define “favorite”. I love Luffy as a main character, but would hate to meet him in real life. I appreciate Zoro’s place in the crew, but find him boring and long wistfully for the days when he was allowed to be a goofball. Nami, Usopp, and Vivi grew on me over time, and if I could graph my feelings on Sanji over the course of the series it would look like I have ventricular tachycardia 

And then there’s Chopper. 

Just as I’ve liked Robin since her first appearance, I have never liked Chopper. I know typing it is akin to blasphemy amongst the One Piece fandom, but I was left unmoved by his backstory, and he’s never grown on me in the hundreds of chapters since then. The first thing I thought when I first saw his unused concept art was “what a wasted opportunity”. 

 A lot of this is subjective. I work in health care, so the quack doctor Hiliruk rubs me the wrong way on a purely professional level, which in turn makes it really hard for me to care when he dies. I dislike Chopper’s “mascot” status and how it’s affected his character design. I wish he would do more onscreen doctoring. I find his naivete annoying. I think his post-timeskip transformations look dumb. And so on and so forth, ad nauseum.

At the same time, Nami is never shown drawing maps and I regularly have her in my top 3-4 Straw Hats. Usopp and Luffy are just as stupid, but their antics don’t bother me half as much as Chopper’s do. When I decided to sit down and write about Chopper, I had to figure out what made me less tolerant about him specifically when there are plenty of others who share his same flaws. This is what I came up with.

Want vs Need and Forgotten Development

In his book The Anatomy of Story, John Truby describes the difference between a character’s want versus their need. While written with writing screenplays in mind, many of Truby’s techniques can be used regardless of medium. It’s an excellent tool for would-be writers, and I highly recommend it.

When looking at Chopper through the lens of want and need, it’s pretty easy to see what Oda had in mind.

Chopper wants to become a doctor who can heal any illness, but he needs to reconcile his human and reindeer natures and see himself as a complete person. Ironically, in doing so he willingly becomes the “monster” he was so afraid of.

 Since this transformation is for the sake of and with the support of his friends, it’s coded as positive when before it was negative. Chopper is no longer isolated and lonely, but an accepted and important member of an infamous pirate crew. Compare the above to his fight on Fishman Island

So Chopper does have a complete character arc through the first half of the series, and it’s a good one - simultaneously unique to him while bolstering the themes of One Pieces as a whole. Good job, Oda.

At the same time, I think there’s a secondary need that’s overlooked by the narrative, and by this point I doubt will be relevant to the story, and that’s the fact that Chopper needs to grow the fuck up.

To be fair, Chopper is only 15 at the start of the series, had spent the first years of his life as a reindeer and the rest isolated from the world for his own safety. It is understandable that he’d be naive. Dr. Kureha points this out for herself when he first joins the Straw Hat Pirates

What sets Chopper’s immaturity apart from, say, Luffy’s is that it is presented as something that he needs to overcome. This is especially true during the Skyepiea arc.

Remember that early on in the arc Chopper is left alone to guard the Going Merry. Chopper fails, losing quite badly to the Priest with all the strings whose name I can’t remember. Even with Gan Fall’s intervention it was plot armor sheer luck that kept the both of them from being killed. 

This loss nicely sets up Chopper’s battle with Gedatsu, which ended with Chopper’s first solo victory of the series. 

Chopper screams to the heavens that he’s a “real” pirate, which in context refers to reliable, brave, and strong. Note that this ties into his main need of self-actualization as the chapter before Chopper calls himself a monster just before hitting Gedatsu with his finisher. 

In doing so, Oda is effectively saying that Chopper needs to mature before he can become a complete character. In this way Chopper is like Usopp, whose desire to become a brave warrior the sea necessitates that he face his problems head on instead of run from them.

Later during the Davy Fight Back, Chopper is temporarily lost to the Foxy Pirates. He is understandably upset, but he goes overboard with his hysterics, causing Zoro to call him out.

Zoro in essence tells Chopper to man up. Now, masculinity as defined by One Piece is a pretty broad topic, and this isn’t the only time Chopper is told how to act “manly” by other members of the Straw Hat crew, one of the best examples I can think of being Sanji telling Chopper that “a man doesn’t believe a woman’s lies” when Robin tries to leave the crew. In this instance, however, I think “being a man” is interchangeable with “acting like an adult”, specifically in the area of taking responsibility for one’s actions. 

So we have the problem of Chopper’s naivete brought up by Kureha, the first steps of maturity seen during Skypiea, and the exposure that Chopper still has a long way to go during the Davy Fight Back. There’s even a moment during Thriller Bark when he has to deal with the realization that one of his idols is an evil dirtbag of Spandam-like proportion - a loss of idealism that most go through as a normal part of growing up.

The development isn’t fast nor especially profound. It’s never the main focus of Chopper’s arc because it’s not his primary need, and in a gag-happy series like One Piece I think Chopper’s childishness would always be the brunt of some sort of joke. But there is a sense of steadily marching forward toward a goal, and if things had kept trending in that direction I think it would have been enough to elevate Chopper from his dubious position as my least favorite Straw Hat.

But immediately after the timeskip we have this abomination of a scene

Words cannot express how much I hate this scene. Every other Straw Hat gets an awesome reintroduction. Nami and Usopp, who along with Chopper make up the so-called “weak trio”, even get to beat the crap out of some of the Fake Hat Pirates. 

Chopper mistakes creepy cucumber lady for Robin and runs away crying, undoing hundreds of chapters of development in one fell swoop. It’s stupid on so many levels I can’t even articulate enough to type them all out. The gag falls flat and makes it impossible for me to take him seriously going forward. I will admit that I’ve not done a lot of rereading of recent chapters to double check, but where Usopp and Luffy get plenty of moments post-timeskip to display a new-found maturity while maintaining their fun-loving nature, Chopper does not. He’s the same old Chopper.

I don’t have any way to confirm this, but I think part of this stagnation of character is due to Chopper’s status of cute mascot. To disrupt this status quo is to lessen his marketability. There is a reason why Chopper’s so damn cute when Oda originally wanted him to be kind of ugly. I mean, say what you want about Oda’s use of realistic body proportions, but there was a time when Chopper’s head wasn’t bigger than his torso.

Whether I’m right or not, I don’t think that it can be disputed that Chopper has gone through what I call “forgotten character development”. He’s just as immature (and in some places more so) as he was early in the series, and personally I can’t stand that kind of character. 

And again this is a highly subjective thing, but I don’t even think he’s that cute anymore. It’s a serious problem when your mascot ceases to be adorable and has no development to fall back on.

In the larger picture of One Piece, the loss of Chopper’s secondary development is a small thing, but it’s enough for me to not care about him at all. Sanji, for all his polarizing actions, at least makes me feel something. These days Chopper is just...there. 

I will admit that I might have let my initial distaste cloud my objectivity, so let me know what you think about Chopper’s development, or if there’s any other character that everyone else seems to like but you can’t stand. I’ll commiserate with the burden of having an unpopular opinion.

[deckspair]

Selling Your Soul | Shinobu | Trial 6.4 | re: Neo, Evangeline, sorta Chouko

“Th-The hell you are. Neo-kun, stop that, that isn’t funny and we both know it can’t be you, you’d never…!”

Shinobu would be the one to challenge him, though their voice hitched with desperation. It was clear that something had struck a nerve, and that the possibilities Neo brought up were not as inconceivable as Shinobu wanted them to be.

They stewed in silence as Neo revealed the logic behind what he said, and why he believed that this entire trial had been rigged against the few survivors. They broke that silence as he went on about how both he and Chouko had no family left to speak of – “you’re wrong, Neo-kun” – but was he really wrong? Chouko had confided in Shinobu about what the last motive implied to her. And Shinobu couldn’t remember seeing a Dr. Muneyuki being among the people confirmed safe aboard the ship.

(And then, a moment of realization and horror – no one ever said the people on board the other ships were still safe. Did… Did Evangeline ever consider that, too? Did she wonder if her parents were truly safe? Shinobu wasn’t going to be the one to propose the idea.)

“…No… No one’s punching anyone. Neo-kun brings up a good point. I-It isn’t just the five of us we need to think about. Th-though I don’t… I don’t know why the mastermind would ever put themself in danger too, especially if they…”

The observant, after all, would have seen Shinobu visibly flinch when Neo said Akira’s name.

Shinobu left the circle of podiums, retrieving the wheelchair they had set aside. It had been useful for transporting items of interest safely, but there’d been another reason to bring it, too. They cleared all the items on it off and onto their podium, and spoke gently and quietly to Neo – though, at this point, trying to be discreet about his health was futile.

Surely everyone could see the elephant in the room. Shinobu just didn’t want to admit to themself that all they could offer Neo was palliative care.

“Neo-kun, you need to rest… Please don’t overtax yourself.”

Whether or not he accepted their offer, Shinobu walked away, mulling over what the others had put forth. It made a lot of sense, but… but it hinged on some assumptions that were incorrect.

“Chelbamy’s not a student. He’s one of the researchers who was here originally – Chelbert Bellamy, the chief programmer, specifically.”

Shinobu began passing around a sheet of paper with a list of names and occupations, some of which might have seemed a bit familiar at this point:

LINDEMUTH LINTS - HEAD RESEARCHER CHELBERT BELLAMY - CHIEF PROGRAMMER TOKI HIKAMI - CHIEF ROBOTICIST KARINA CHOU - CHIEF BOTANIST TAKESHI ZHOU - LOGISTICS MANAGER CICLANA DE TAL - CHIEF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENTIST/ATMOSPHERIC SCIENTIST ANANYA KORE - HOPE’S PEAK OVERSEER SEOJUN KIM - CHIEF NEUROSCIENTIST DIVYA ANAND - CHIEF MARINE BIOLOGIST KALIYA SHIVA - CHIEF MYOCOLOGIST; BIOLOGIST

[Role Call] A list of names and assigned roles is crumpled up under a pillow in the Engine Room. You don’t recognize any of the names.

Along with that, Shinobu showed everyone an employee ID card for the Hope’s Peak Posidonias Atlantica vessel, with a photo of a curly-haired person with thick, foggy glasses and the following information:

Name: Lindemuth Lints Designation: Head Researcher Clearance: Admin

[Lindemuth Lints] An employee ID card for someone named Lindemuth Lints, given the designation Head Researcher and clearance Admin, was found in the Lily Pond.

“I found the list in the engine room and the card in the lily pond. There’s… a couple names of interest. Lindemuth Lints was the head researcher, who created the flower pods in the lab downstairs, and… and Lindy Moth is linked to them. Lindy wasn’t helpful explaining how exactly they were connected: Just that Lints is ‘the reason’ Lindy was created, that they’re supposed to help Lints and maintain their work, and that it was Bellamy who actually created them. I… I couldn’t get much more than that…

…that, and if Lindy is to be believed, Bellamy isn’t on the ship and left before our class set sail. Maybe most of the researchers were supposed to be gone, al…although I think one of them might’ve greeted us when we first arrived? I think one stayed at least for orientation… I recognized them from the photos in their dorm.

The other thing is… Kaliya Shiva and Devi Shiva are related. I-I don’t know if it’s just coincidence. Maybe not. Maybe we’re only here b-because they wanted to save a crewmember’s relative and the rest of us were bonuses. Or… or it was Ananya Kore’s doing instead, and they saw us worth protecting because we’re… we’re what? Young, talented, promising? Useful?”

After all, despite whatever individual circumstances they all came from, simply being brought into the fold of Hope’s Peak Academy granted them privilege above their old stations. And that, perhaps, may have been the one reason someone saw it fit to save the orphans, the terminally-ill, and the working-class among the students.

Shinobu crossed their arms in discomfort, centering in on something else Neo had mentioned.

“You’re right, though. Someone here, either in our class or from the research crew, was likely interested in the concept of mind preservation and transferal. Refer to the… which was it… the Coral Lab. There were books about neuroscience, psychology, and religion, with emphasis on the nature of memories and souls. In particular, what stood out to me m-most was…

Was, first, trauma-induced memory loss, and the potential for… f-for deliberately forcing such repression. Second, there were theories about the brain, the body, the memories, and the soul. And third, Lindy was furious when I told them Junshu-san nearly burned the room down.

It… It doesn’t say a lot on its own, but… but if FrogBot’s been talking about that sort of thing…? Then this sounds like the research of someone who wanted to manipulate the very being of people.”

So, what, not only did they have to consider the possibility of forced amnesia, but they had to wonder what else might have been mucked around with? Cool!

“I think that… Hope’s Peak sponsored the submersibles? Or at least had a link to them. I vaguely recall a newspaper clipping about it in the lab too, a headline about a vessel sponsored by the school going on its first voyage – it was dated several years ago, so it’s not us. It could have still been this ship and the original crew, though…

…And, ah… Speaking of lists. I found this in FrogBot’s desk.”

Shinobu hesitated, before passing around another sheet.

[Feeling Listless] In a drawer in FrogBot’s desk is a list of names including yours and your seventeen fellow students’. It’s titled “TO MEET!” There are check marks next to the names of Kosuke, Law N. Oda, Sayuri, Mizuo, and Shinobu.

“…Now that I-I can speak freely… Yes, I went to FrogBot’s summons. They wanted me to… to spy for them. Give them information th-they didn’t have, in exchange for answering my questions. I… I didn’t… know what to do. I didn’t give an answer then and just left… but… but at the trial we learned they tortured Nakamura-san. And I knew I could never give them more ammo to hurt someone else.

…but this means FrogBot met with several people. Did… did anyone claim to meet them that isn’t on this list…?

Semi-related, I think I can… maybe speculate as to what Nishu-san got out of it? But it doesn’t really go anywhere, I… think. She just had a torn journal and a ruined photo on her desk.”

…well, crap. This stuff, Shinobu had forgotten to grab when they were gathering items for the trial. Everyone was just going to have to settle for video recordings of the objects in question.

[Journal] The journal looks similar to the ones found in the dorms. However, water damage has left most pages illegible, and it looks as if handfuls of pages has been directly torn out.

What little can be read appears on the last page. “Moving day… wonder what’s happening… others… I… miss… …ot. Hope… projects… …n’t destroyed

[Photograph] It’s a soggy photograph of a group of people.

It’s a photograph of roughly two dozen people, all smiling at the camera, though some smiles appear to be strained. Many of them are recognizable as students aboard the ship right now, but several more are not.

"And... And, no, I couldn't figure out where the Game Boy password goes, sorry. I even tried it on Bellamy's tablet, but no luck. I can't figure out his password at all -- I've tried that, Vita Nova, New Life, Plan Aqua... Are there any other ideas?”

[whiskasgirl]

Tenka Wedding Event (in the Lords’ POV) - Hideyoshi

@amigoingbananas ask and you shall receive~ Also tagging @shioune~ hope you’ll find this post useful and enjoy it! ^^

If you’d like to read the original event from december to catch up, please refer to this post. I indicated the same scenes with italics (there's some rewording and added bits here and there tho).

Spoiler warning - read at your own discretion!

Part 1

MC should be up already, but Hideyoshi can’t find her anywhere. He thinks this strange and has a bad feeling so he looks for her in her room, but he finds it empty. There’s a letter on her desk and he reaches for it with shaking hands. Its contents are the same as before. “This is just like that time”, he thinks. That time before he proposed to MC, Lord Nobunaga ordered him to take Lady Kodera(?) as his wife for strategical reasons and MC left him. [Note: I’m guessing this is referencing a past event? I’d love to read it D:] This is just a dream, he realizes, and yet his heart still hurts. The scenery suddenly changes and he finds himself outside, running. Even the gloomy rain clouds in the sky seemed to reflect MC’s heart at that day. It starts to rain and it soon turns into a downpour. He notices MC running away and he desperately chases her and calls her but can never reach her and it’s as if she couldn’t hear him.

Hideyoshi wakes with a start and MC’s worried face fills his vision. She apologizes for waking him up but it seems he had a nightmare. When Hideyoshi realizes she’s really there with him and everything is all right he strongly embraces her to calm himself.

The next morning, in the mids of the usual lively atmosphere while MC serves breakfast, Hideyoshi remembers again how much he moved up in the world, from peasant to a lord with a castle and how much he’s thankful for the people around him.

Nobunaga calls Hideyoshi to his castle and gifts him a delicate tea set for married couples. Hideyoshi looks up at him with surprise, as he thought they were going to discuss his appointment as general but Nobunaga only smirks and tells him to use the set when he gets married with MC. Leaving Nobunaga’s chamber he meets with Nagaharu on the hallway. Since Nobunaga appointed Hideyoshi as commander for the chuugoku region and not him, their relationship became strained and awkward. “I won’t accept this” is the only thing he says to him before leaving Hide behind.

Back at Nagahama castle they celebrate Hideyoshi’s appointment as general.  It’s late at night when it’s over and MC and Hide prepare for sleep back in their room. He wishes these peaceful days would just continue. While knowing full well that in these troubled, warring times it’s a naive thought, he still can’t help thinking it. As if reading his thoughts, MC snuggles up to him and he puts an arm around her in return. He tells her he wants to support Nobunaga in making a peaceful world without wars and MC promises she will support him along the way. Then he says that on way to Himeji castle they could also visit her mother in Kyoto and how nervous he is about it which MC founds cute and laughs a bit. With a playful smile on his face Hideyoshi pushes her down on their bedding and peppers her face with kisses. “I want to make you my wife soon” he murmurs sweetly, to which MC answers she wants to become his wife too. As they strongly embrace their kisses gradually become deeper and they make love until daybreak~

Part 2

As promised, they arrive at MC’s family restaurant, where Hideyoshi formally introduces himself and they eat dinner together. Watching MC surrounded by family warmth makes him feel lonely but he doesn’t let it show on his face. He can’t help but feel himself an “outsider” after all. While MC and her mother are back washing the dishes Yahiko addresses him with a serious expression. He tells him that he promised their father that he will protect his mother and sister, then asks Hideyoshi if he will protect MC from now on instead of him. Hideyoshi answers just as seriously that he will protect her with his life. To solidify this they make a pinky promise. Hideyoshi and MC spend the night in her old room. Hide confesses that her family reminds him of the warmth of his own family he lost in the past to which MC replies his relationship with Mitsunari and the others seems like a family and feels just as warm to her. Waking up early before MC, Hide goes down to drink something where he meets MC’s mom. She tells her the MC talked about him so happily to her and that she would be pleased if Hideyoshi would consider them his family too. Before leaving for Himeji castle MC’s mom gifts them a tea set for married couples which MC happily accepts.

Since moving to Himeji castle their plans to capture the region were coming along nicely however they recieve a report that Houzuki castle got attacked by the Mouri. They have fewer numbers than the enemy army but Hideyoshi still decides to go to their rescue while asking Nobunaga for reinforcements.

Part 3

They suffer great losses at Kouzuki castle but Hideyoshi still waits for reinforcements. They eventually receive a missive from Nobunaga with only one word in it: “retreat”. Hideyoshi thinks up all kind of excuses for Nobunaga but Nagaharu is very angry about this and yells at him. “Are you Nobunaga’s little lap dog?!” Hideyoshi still decides they can’t go against a direct order and leave the soldiers at Kouzuki castle to their fates.

As they return to Himeji castle, Hideyoshi secludes himself in a room and remembers Nagaharu’s cold and disappointed gaze on him when he left the main hall previously. “I misjudged you” Hide recalls his words with intense regret when a timid voice calls for him. Coming to himself, he forcibly puts on his usual demeanor as if nothing happened, but he still can’t bring himself to look into her worried eyes. “What is it?“ he asks, intending to sound cheerful, but it still comes out as snapping at her coldly. She excuses herself and tells him to call her when he needs her.

When he hears her leaving he automatically reaches out to her, but just as he would stop her he remembers Nagaharu’s retreating back as he stormed out of the main hall. “I’m alive while we left them all for dead at Kouzuki” he said. He let so many people die. Is it alright for him to touch MC with those hands? He lets her leave and lets out a self-deprecating laugh.

A few days after Kouzuki’s fall they recieve a report that Nagaharu betrayed the Oda clan for the Mouri and Nobunaga orders Hideyoshi to use starvation tactic on Miki castle. This causes a big uproar among his retainers, especially Kiyomasa is against the idea. That evening nobody appears for dinner at the main hall. MC brings their meal to their room instead and Hideyoshi notices with surprise that she used the set for married couples they received from her mom. MC asks him if he already decided what he wants to do “to protect the things he finds precious, the things he can’t give up”. When he hears this he sees his retainers and MC in front of his eyes. And that’s when he realizes when he thinks about the important people he wants to protect, Nobunaga is no longer among them. He gratefully hugs MC to himself while burying his face in her shoulder. Just thinking that whatever happens she’ll always stays beside him fills his chest with sweet feelings.

Part 4

Hideyoshi wants to spare Nagaharu so instead of using starvation tactic he decides to offer a chance to surrender themselves. Their plan succeeds as they manage to infiltrate Miki castle, however Hideyoshi can’t stop Nagaharu from committing suicide. Hideyoshi is so regretful that later he confesses to MC it made him start to think there’s a different road to unification apart from Nobunaga’s after all. MC promises to follow him whatever might happen and they embrace.

After things have settled down, they return to Nagahama castle to finally celebrate their wedding. The night before, Kiyomasa calls Hideyoshi to the main hall where they all throw him a bachelor party~ They’re all drinking when Kiyomasa asks Hide what is it that made him fall in love with MC. Just as he would answer, he notices a shadow at the door and he instantly recognizes it as MC. He starts to list her good points in a deliberately loud voice so she would hear it well. When Kiyomasa asks how many more does he want to list Hide chuckles. “I can’t decide, I love everything about her. But most of all” he continues to the shadow, “she regards you guys as a family just as me.“ At that he sees the shadow quietly leave.

Eventually Hideyoshi slips out from the party and returns to their room, where he teases MC for eavesdropping on them. (”I have a lot more things I love about you, do you want to hear them?”) Then asks her if she’s nervous about their wedding and shows her how fast his heart is beating. They kiss and spend a sweet night together~

They hold their wedding the next day and after it’s over, they take a walk together in the garden when it suddenly starts snowing. Hideyoshi holds an umbrella above them and looks down at MC with a loving smile. “From now on we’re husband and wife. Let’s make a warm family.” He cups her cheek and in return she places her hand on his and they share a kiss under the gently falling snow~

After you finish the route you receive a letter from Hideyoshi:

“You probably don’t even know how much your presence has saved me. You’re really unreplaceable and more important to me than anyone and I am no longer capable letting you go. I’m a blessed man that we became husband and wife, a family. I love you, Toyotomi Hideyoshi”

[mysticdragon3md3]

Randomly rambling my interpretation of Date Masamune’s characterization.

Last night I was browsing some old DateSana fan-art from Xiaotakara.  (I'm still sad he left Tumblr!  ;o;!)  And his confident seme portrayal of Masamune was a stark contrast to the more vulnerable "switch" Masamune that I had been seeing in the fandom lately.  I had always thought that this discrepancy was caused by the difference between Samurai Kings Masamune and Judge End/videogames Masamune, because frankly, that had been my experience.  Despite there being so many portrayals of Masamune, besides the typical dominant seme, and I do enjoy him being secure in himself enough to be a "switch", I just can't fully accept the vulnerable/insecure Masamunes and dorky childish Masamunes.  So my mind got to spinning on why that is.

I love Samurai Kings Masamune because he was just so flawlessly admirable.  Even when he got his ass beaten, his spirit and dignity remained centered, particularly on prioritizing True Strengths, like Compassion, especially in his ideals about leadership, which is where it counted most.  So when I tried to play the videogames or watch Judge End, I simultaneously fell out of love with Masamune and finally understood some of the silly dork portrayals of Masamune, from doujinshi cirlces (like Propeller Shiki), probably drawn with less basis on the 2009 Samurai Kings anime.  -.-  Gawd...such a dork...  While Samurai Kings Masamune took losses, asking if anyone in his army were killed after he was knocked out, Judge End Masamune was throwing off his loyal soldiers and charging them into an unthinking death gamble, just to satisfy his raging temper tantrum.  ~_~;  When Katakura called him "Bontenmaru" and hit him before he got his own soldiers killed, I could only nod and agree that he should scold that child.  At least Samurai Kings Masamune knew better than to displace his anger onto his loyal, worried soldiers, and would rather just berate his own failings in the rain, through endless sword swings.  Maybe it's because the writing in Samurai Kings was heavily focused on reinforcing its themes through characterizations, I've always interpreted Samurai Kings Masamune as primarily motivated by Compassion, while the other versions of Masamune seemed more rooted in their "cool and wild" image, which fittingly have earned him that "snarky brat" reputation in the fandom.   What is integral to any Masamune's character is being "cool", but with subtle differences in characterizing his core motivations, different Masamunes seem to express different types of "cool" from their foundation, up.  Commonly, male anime characters are considered "cool" if they are minimalist in their emotional expression.  But why they choose to be stoic and what they choose to be expressive about can vary differently, depending on if he's stoic because nothing phases him since he’s secure in him self and never disturbed, or because he’s unphasable since he’s indifferent to everything, or because he's just really repressed, or because he's afraid to express himself, or because he's trying too hard to be "cool", etc.  This especially comes up in shipping fanfics, because romance stories usually have to address vulnerabilities in the characters (for couples to bond over). Everyone agrees that the trauma of Masamune losing his right eye, effected the foundations of his character.  But everyone interprets this in different ways, which become more pronounced when writing Masamune in shipping fics.  

The most logical thing, would be to hear that Masamune's mother Yoshihime pretty much abandoned him, after he lost his right eye, continually tried to undermine his claim to leadership, and tried to poison him, and then think that he has abandonment issues and anxiety about exposing himself to intimate connections again.  In this way, Masamune's "coolness" is more a protective facade.  Maybe in some ways, this can be more indicative of self-centeredness and seeking external validations (to counteract his mother’s dismissals), more than an already secure confidence.  This may also be what sometimes leads to arrogant and childish portrayals of Masamune.  His traumatic experience with his mother would cause him to be protective of his inner self, and to always carry a fear of nonacceptance by others.  No matter how small he squashed that fear into, he would still carry fears extending from that trauma of his mother turning on him.  

But I think Samurai Kings characterized Masamune differently.  Instead of the trauma causing him to protect himself, Samurai Kings Masamune seems to have directed his protection outward.  His mother abandoned him, so he wants to make sure no one else is ever made to feel that way again.  Like Batman, or something.  ^o^  He'll even give up things he personally loves (like duels with his newly found rival), if it will protect his "common" soldiers.  He'll even build his battle strategies around protecting his armies, by going alone to spring traps himself.  It's why entire episodes of that series are devoted to Masamune refusing to abandon even his "common" soldiers.  (Though in that specific episode, Katakura knocked him out so he wouldn't preform the rescue; but Katakura did say rescuing the "common" soldiers was Masamune's will.)  It's why the farm fields in Date territory are unharmed and actually still existing, even though most of history has proven that it's virtually impossible to keep war away from destroying your lands, especially farmland (unless it takes place on another continent).  But Masamune did it on a small island archipelago country, in the middle of constant civil wars, with enemies from all sides.  It's clear that protecting even the "common" people are a priority to him.  It's why he opposed Toyotomi saying, "Under your rule, only soldiers would be able to live."  Like Yukimura, Masamune recognizes that everyday people and a happy quality of life are worth protecting.  War for the sake of war was not his goal.  Like Keiji said, Masamune knows the difference between a Fight and a War.  His goal was to protect people's ability to truly Live.  Masamune knows that conquering the country isn't about leadership stroking one's ego, or dragging other people into resolving his personal issues via winning wars, or validating his over-confidence, or gaining all the wealth, or even using the power to conquer other lands.  All that stuff Keiji keeps saying throughout the series about life being about finding happiness and living every day with simple pleasures and friendship?  It wasn't just to contrast Toyotomi's obsession with obtaining "strength" (as misguided as his definition of "strength" was).  It was the same truth expressed by the 3 primary heroes: Masamune, Yukimura, and Keiji.  (All 3 of them were most prominent in the 2nd opening theme's sequence.)  Protecting ordinary people's peaceful happiness was something Yukimura instinctually felt (but took a long time to understand how to express as a soldier).  It was something Keiji lived and demonstrated through his simple vagabond lifestyle.  It was something Masamune understood and prioritized protecting, by seeking leadership.  And all 3 of those expressions of prioritizing peace and happiness, point to core motivations rooted in Compassion.  Masamune was confident enough about his understanding of Compassion's significance, that he was using his Strength to take leadership of the country in order to ensure and extend that Compassion to the people under his leadership.  It's why all his "common" soldiers loved him, why everyone was so loyal and considered Masamune so "charismatic".  They could all sense that his every action was rooted in Compassion.  Aside from his personal desires for excitement (through Fighting), Masamune's every action in Samurai Kings proved that he was motivated primarily by protective Compassion...as his response to his trauma.   

Despite it being more likely and reasonable to learn the repercussions of Masamune's lost eye and characterize that as a trauma that is still his weak spot, the Masamune in Samurai Kings seemed to give every indication that he had gotten over it.  Which is aligned with his function in that series to represent "always moving forward" and "pressing onward".  Having demonstrated the definition of Strength "doing what is most difficult", Compassion, Masamune also demonstrates the morally inapplicable Strength of being unmoved by others' influences.  Unlike Toyotomi who tried to convince himself to abandon all his previously held values, by killing Nene, in order to adopt Matsunaga's concepts of "strength" (which were really just Power in disguise), simply because Toyotomi was intimidated and afraid of being put in that mortal danger/fear again (and that mortal fear was somehow enough to convince Toyotomi that Matsunaga’s ideals were correct).  Masamune on the other hand is often unmoved from his emotions and beliefs, regardless of the intimidation or Power involved.  (Maybe that difficulty in being moved is why he's so intrigued by Yukimura's capacity to "set him ablaze".)  Masamune barely flinched when Oda was about to gouge out his last remaining eye, and was even ready to continue fighting if that gouge happened.  He wasn't phased when Katakura repeatedly attacked his right side during their duel, even though the person he trusted the most and who should know the most how traumatic the fallout of his lost eye was, was now the one attacking that very spot.  In fact, the only time Masamune made a direct motion towards his lost eye, was when he woke up, after realizing he almost got his army killed.  In effect, his weakest spot, was concern for his army.  Not only that, but all his actions, without directly referring to his right eye, reinforced his characterization as someone unphasable, so secure in himself (which is why he was able to always be so nonchalant; confident vs arrogant), always moving forward, and wasn't bogged down by internal emotional conflict.  His vulnerable aspects were no longer fears for himself but fears for the people he wanted to protect.  Whatever emotional conflicts he could have had, were probably honed out of his Samurai Kings version in order to better contrast against Sanada Yukimura's characteristic floundering, striving, and Growing in the Samurai Kings series. Compared to Yukimura, Masamune was so focused on the future and already so decided on his priorities, that he never hesitated when presented with 2 "right"/valid choices, the way Yukimura would hesitate.  His ideals being rooted in the future (responsibility over everyone in the country) and external (need to protect others), made his present self seem untouchable, unwavering, and just Strong.  A “limitless dragon”, as Takanaga once described him. Masamune’s values, his true self, his heart, were all rooted in places/times beyond himself, so he was able to continue "pressing onward", no matter what damage he himself took.  Masamune had already matured and felt wise, which was part of his trustworthiness.  The Masamune in Samurai Kings seems to have decided on his priorities, so long ago that he never hesitates, because he already has a standard ideal to measure against anything he encounters.  In contrast to Yukimura, Masamune had already completed all his Growth.  

Foremost, that series used its characters to demonstrate different aspects of the story's overall themes, so there was no room for characters with conflicting, dual aspects.  Masamune needed to perfectly represent the True Strength and leadership through the wisdom of Compassion, which that series advocated.  That series was all about condemning warfare, while condoning Fighting Spirit and accepting that sometimes battle was a reluctant and hopefully temporary necessity.  Only a perfectly wise, mature, and Compassionate protagonist could embody all those themes.  Which explains why Samurai Kings made the slight shift in Sengoku Basara Masamune’s characterization, as well shifting the entire Sengoku Basara story to center around Date Masamune.