#i'll post the picture and the comparison to the now covered version when i can

[antikristvs]

I got the old goat fixed up at last! 🤘🏻⛧ He's healing now of course.

[nanabansama]

scorpion's heart

Sometimes while thinking about TBHK thoughts will run through my head that I realize aren't universal among the fandom. I have actually touched upon this topic before, but I still wanted to make a quick post for the uninformed about an official parallel drawn between Tsukasa and a moment in a beloved piece of Japanese literature.

Night on the Galactic Railroad is a classic Japanese novel often taught in Japanese classrooms, similar to how English classics will often be taught in the Anglosphere. It's well known in Japan for this reason, and for the sake of this post I'll assume you either haven't heard of it or that you don't know much about it. Regardless, this post is centering on only a small portion of the novel, so you won't come away from it with a total understanding of what it's all about. I encourage you to check it out yourself!

As you might be able to tell by the name, the story involves a boy riding a train through a fantastical version of outerspace. During his trip through the cosmos, he meets others riding the train. One of these people tells him the story of Antares, the brightest star in the constellation Scorpio. Already there is one connection to the story of Hanako-kun, that being Amane's infamous monologue about the star during the Picture Perfect arc.

The story goes as follows: a scorpion was being chased by a weasel. In a last ditch effort to escape the weasel, it threw itself into a well. But the scorpion had no means of escape, and realized it was going to die there. The scorpion bemoans this fate, because as a predator it has only ever taken life away. It regrets not taking the chance to help the weasel, even if it would only help the weasel live a single day longer. And now the scorpion is going to die having helped no one.

So it prays to God, and asks that its body be used to bring happiness to everyone. And as if God had heard its plea, the scorpion's body burst into a brilliant red flame. This same light is said to be the star Antares, the heart of the Scorpio constellation.

...so! Already somewhat superficially you can compare this story to Tsukasa and the Red House. Little guy jumps into hole/well,

little guy makes a wish to a God to bring happiness to others,

little guy bursts into flames...

Personally I find these alone to be staggering similarities, but it leaves you asking: What is the significance of this?

Well, I tend to interpret it as a reflection of Tsukasa's selflessness. I think Tsukasa's intentions as a child were very pure. But later on it seems like this selflessness distorts into something else, something more twisted. Regardless, Tsukasa's motivations involve destroying himself for other people's happiness. His own destruction will bring happiness to Sakura (she needs all the yorishiro to be destroyed to have her wish granted) and also Amane, who has a wish of his own he wants granted.

Anyway, besides Amane comparing himself to Antares in Picture Perfect, we also have this official Night on the Galactic Railroad AU art with Tsukasa bearing the tail of the scorpion:

Note the red flame on the tip of his stinger. (And most importantly note his cuteness. 🦂🔥❤️)

Touching briefly upon Amane's Antares story in Picture Perfect, there aren't many obvious comparisons to draw between it and Night on the Galactic Railroad. However, one thing I'll touch upon is how Antares is a binary star, or a "twin star." It being a binary star isn't talked about in Night on the Galactic Railroad, but Amane mentions it. He also mentions how you can't normally see its twin. This is because its twin is a main sequence star, much less bright than the red supergiant Antares. It was only ever discovered that Antares had a twin when the moon covered the red supergiant and an astromer spotted the main sequence star beside it. Perhaps Amane and Tsukasa are supposed to represent the red flame of Antares in different ways, but it does make me wonder if Amane is meant to represent the little main sequence star too, since Tsukasa is very clearly the red flame in this story. But considering Amane's analysis of Antares is so much more scientific than the fantastical version seen in Night on the Galactic Railroad, I think it's safer to regard these as fundamentally separate stories. Still fun to consider however.

But if we did want to talk about the scientific implications of Tsukasa being Antares, I'd bring up how red supergiants often become black holes, almost the antithesis of what the scorpion wanted to become. The scorpion wanted to bring light and happiness to everyone, but a black hole only devours and destroys, just the thing the scorpion didn't want to be anymore. I don't think Tsukasa started in the same place as the scorpion, who regretted its life of selfishness... but it makes me wonder if he's meant to be the anti-scorpion: a selfless being becoming a black hole of destruction. That's a very sad way of looking at things, but it's hard not to think of it when we see what's happened to him in the series as a whole:

In the context of Night on the Galactic Railroad, the scorpion is regarded as a selfless hero. Although another character expresses distastes for dangerous creatures like the scorpion, the character who tells the Antares story argues that the scorpion is a fundamentally good creature. It's another one of those little things in Hanako-kun that reminds me that Tsukasa, for all his faults, has good inside him too. But it does leave me wondering how far this comparison will go, and what that means for Tsukasa's fate. Will he continue to sacrifice himself till the end? And will that sacrifice be for the good of everyone, or only a few?

My favorite part about all this is there's no answer! It's just a fun comparison AidaIro made that helps recontextualize Tsukasa's character. Is this a meaningful comparison, or just a surface-level one? Will his story end the same way as the scorpion, or will he subvert expectations? Who knows! I mostly just think back on it and remember that Tsukasa started as an extremely selfless character that still displays these traits in the manga today, even as a nefarious ghost. Maybe he is isn't misunderstood like the scorpion, but he's certainly just as tragic. Thanks for reading!

[acaplaya-musings]

VoicePlay Visuals - Classical Chaos (part 2/2)

(The video itself obviously isn't a two-parter, but this post is! You can go to part 1 here!)

Fun fact: I'm actually typing both parts of this post less than 24 hours after the video's public release! Getting early access on Patreon means I've had ample time to process the video, and by the time it released on YouTube I simply could not wait to begin analysing it!

Okay so I ended part 1 at about 2 minutes and 17 seconds into the video (not quite halfway but close enough), and that is where we shall continue from!

Rachel has just pulled the spellbook back from Layne, and things are getting just a little bit more chaotic now!

Lol rip @ Eli trying to intercept the book-grab but stumbling/toppling forwards instead 😂

"Can I-" "Nope"

"Can I-" "NOPE"

LOL RIP ELI

(Also not a visual thing but I really must give credit and kudos for the inclusion of the Wilhelm Scream here - classic, iconic, we stan 👌)

Uh, Rachel, Ms White Witch...

(Also highlight and contour ON POINT btw)

*YOINK*

Geoff is just Vibing, we love to see it

(Okay but seriously this version of Fur Elise kinda slaps ngl)

Geoff: "Wait what are you doing?"

Pfft, remember how I mentioned the connections to the Little Mermaid Medley video in my first part? Now Geoff is the one having his voice stolen instead of the one doing the voice-stealing! 😆

Cesar @ Rachel: "Actually I'll take your voice too now!"

Pfft, Cesar really said "I might not have a huge role in this, but I'm still gonna do the absolute MOST" (seriously he's so hilarious in this video and I love him 😂)

Oh boy the book is gone again!

In most cases I'd say that the use of a horn is "pushing it" when it comes to acapella, but this is VoicePlay, and Violayne is a thing, so yeah this is mild in comparison 😝😁

Cesar is like "OMG HOW COULD YOU? HOW DARE YOU??" while Geoff is just like "dude, really?"

The whole Can-Can bit is utterly hysterical and I love it so much every time I watch this video - Layne bouncing and clapping along, fireworks suddenly appearing, Cesar actually doing the can-can, it's just absolutely VoicePlay Brand Of Dumb and I'm so here for it 😄

Eli's cast a love spell between Layne and Rachel!

Geoff's reaction is 10/10, I love it 😂

Uh oh, the spell broke!

And oh she is MAD

(Also love how Geoff appears to be the least scared of The White Witch)

Seriously the special effects/post-production stuff/CGI was freaking insane in this video! So good! That was all Layne too I guess?

Too hard to get a good picture of it (and I'm nearing the screenshot limit once again anyway) but I love how the fire starts shifting through the whole spectrum of colours during the In The Hall Of The Mountain King bit!

"The LAST PAGE. Very Important! DO NOT LOOSE!! Bad Things Will Happen!!!"

(It's meant to say "do not lose" but it still kinda works, as it can also meant "do not set loose"/"do not make loose"!)

Also the other page appears to be from an old dictionary (what the spellbook was actually made from I guess?), specifically a page of words starting with O!

Surprise! Rachel/the White Witch had the last page tucked away the whole time!

Cesar, Eli, and Layne: *Panik* Geoff: "*sigh* Yep here we go again..."

(My god everyone was killing it with the facial expressions in this video! So many good ones!)

And it's bye bye Grundels once again!

What a queen, iconic, love her, we stan👑💜

(And make sure to stick around for the credits!)

Yeah, this video DEFINITELY needed/deserved to be split into two Tumblr posts, and honestly I wasn't sure if I was gonna hit image limit too soon and have to start cutting images from one or both parts, but thankfully I managed to cover just about everything I wanted to.

Hope you enjoyed these posts as well, and if you wanna know what posts I'll be doing next, click the link here if you haven't seen the post already! (I'm currently open to suggestions for "bonus" VoicePlay Visuals posts!) But until next time!

[commentator-ihy]

Update on the new version: I saw it in the bookstore a couple weeks ago and wanted to know how different it is from the old tokyopop version, so I snapped a few pictures of a couple pages to compare when I got back home.

I of course forgot for a while until going through my photos but there's some interesting stuff to see from the few comparisons I made

Overall summary: it looks like it has been retranslated, the sound effects are either "subtitled" or completely redrawn in English where the old one did not give any translation for sfx, and the layout/cut of the pages (sorry I don't know the proper terms here) seems to be better. I'll probably pick it up to put on the shelf next to my old copy.

Regarding retranslation I don't actually know how publishing really works but I'm going to assume Titan comics only got the rights to reproduce and translate the original Japanese version and not the scripts that were made by Tokyopop (or they just decided to refresh it anyway)

Here's a cover comparison, old version of the left, new on the right:

The mark on Meg's boob in the old one is some dirt or something so don't mind it for the comparison. The Japanese title is completely removed and the English version is made larger. It's hard to see because of the glare, but the "volume 1" indicator is now in a big green circle at the top, which you can actually see was brought back from the Japanese version shown in the original post. Obviously the signature Tokyopop branding on the side is not there any more either. The character art is zoomed in a bit more and the larger English title covers it up more on the bottom, but the removal of the Tokyopop ban does uncover some of it horizontally.

I took three pictures of the inside, just the first couple pages and the first page I found that had a lot of sfx on it. The first page with the contents visible:

You can see the new version redrawing the sfx in English. The shading may have been brightened up a bit, but that could also just be from my camera and lighting situation.

A couple pages in from there:

More redrawn sfx here except for the door handle "ka-cha" which is subtitled. The dialog and note are also different translations. And I'll point out in my old version that the text in that last thought bubble is off center, and you can kind of tell that the bubble itself is more cut off than the new version. This is what I meant by the layout/cut of the pages earlier, and it will be even more obvious in the next set.

For the last picture I took I found a spread that was entirely sfx in an action sequence:

The sfx are entirely subtitled rather than redrawn. And here on the sides it is quite obvious how the pages are more cut off in the old version; a man's entire shoulder is gone along with almost all of the last character of the sfx on the right, and on the left half the sfx is cut off and you can no longer see the end of Jo's coat.

Final verdict, I think it's worth getting the new one even if you have the old one based on the better cropping alone. Redrawing sfx is not a problem for me, especially when they don't cover any more than the original ones did, and subbed sfx is nice for those who can't read Japanese either at all or aren't familiar enough with it to read everything in the original language (people buy the book in English for a reason). I'll probably be picking it up either when it's all out or when I see it next time I visit the bookstore (Amazon says volume 2 is scheduled for release this month, December 2024, and volume 3 in March 2025)

New material for my gay shelf! It occured to me that there's a real possibility of unappreciated gems like this that didnt sell well becoming impossible to find, so I snatched them all while I could.

Bust Angel was one of the first yuri manga I ever read, and the anime is one of my favorites