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yurimother · 4 years ago

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LGBTQ Manga Review – Syrup: A Yuri Anthology Vol. 1

Shakaijin Yuri, stories featuring love between adult women who have left school, is a well-established corner in the Japanese Yuri market. Over the past few months, the scene started to pick up its full force in the West. English audiences are experiencing new Shakaijin series, both contemporary like Still Sick and older such as The Conditions of Paradise. For me, there are few works so prolific and intrinsic to the Shakaijin boom as Syrup. In Japanese, the subtitle reads Shakaijin Yuri Anthology. While the English release drops the subgenre's label, the content remains the same, an anthology dedicated to nothing but Yuri love stories featuring adult women from some of the Yuri industries best. However, Syrup's focus on mature and workplace stories more than piqued my interest. However, readers will likely be disappointed with this inconsistent and often forgettable anthology that is just as sour as sweet.

One of Syrup's main draws is its contributors. Some of the best in the Yuri world touched this manga, and even Western Yurijin will likely recognize a few of the names like Yukiko (Futaribeya), Itou Hachi (Kindred Spirits on the Roof), and of course Morinaga Milk (Girl Friends). It is always exciting to read a story from one of your favorites. Even I, who cares rather little for authorship, was happy to see Ohi Pikachi, who wrote the incredible Our Teachers are Dating, among the list. It also provides readers with a chance to familiarize themselves with unfamiliar creators like Amano Shuninta and Kurogane Ken, who grace the anthology with some of its best chapters.

Another benefit of having such a variety of contributors is the plethora of different art styles in the anthology. There is such a stark yet fun contrast between more mature or sensuous styles like Matsuzaki Natsumi and Ito Hachi's bubble moe characters. The manga spans almost every point between these two styles, and just flipping through the pages to look at the artwork can be a fun experience. Of course, some are more polished than others. Mochi_Au_Lait's simplistic and flat style stands as an unfortunate outlier among some other fabulous artists. However, their story, "The Cram School Teachers," is one of the funniest in the anthology. Not every story's aesthetics will suit all readers, but that is the point of a collection, to sample a wide array of talents. Fly's beautiful cover illustration wraps the fantastic art within, standing as a crown jewel of Yuri manga covers.

Unfortunately, the plot and characters are not nearly as enjoyable as the art. While a mixture of aesthetics can add to a work, different story styles often feel inconsistent. For this reason, I usually prefer collections of a single author's short stories, like Rouge Nagashiro's Eve and Eve and Morishima Akiko's The Conditions of Paradise. However, a unifying theme can often correct this issue. Sadly, a few too many of the stories seem to revel in the more "adult" allowances of adult characters and ironically created some of the most immature entries in the anthology.

Before diving too deep into the weeds of mediocrity, there are some chapters in Syrup worthy of highlight. Two of the best chapters, Shioya Teruko's "Promise" and Kurogane Kenn's "Rose Quartz" feature women in established relationships taking the next step in their relationship. Reading about these women celebrate their feelings for each other is wholesome, charming, and even sensual. The latter of the two stories is also one of the few to use adult content in a way that feels more mature. It clarifies the characters' love and attraction for each other, rather than just flashing a panel of exposed breasts for fanservice. It is great to see artists use their allowance to show a little more in profound ways while not letting it run away from them. It demonstrates admirable restraint and thoughtful writing that respects its characters.

Other interesting chapters include "Mama X Mom," which is less about the sexual relationship between two women and focuses on the character's emotional bonds in a unique situation. Ito Hachi's "First Grown-Up Love" perhaps lives up to the Syrup title the most, as it is an adorably sweet and fluffy tale of first love at adulthood. As one of the longer stories, it also has a bit more time for subtly and, thus, it includes some of the stronger and more interesting characters.

Sadly, most of the stories in Syrup are incredibly mediocre. Telling a compelling narrative with interesting characters in such a brief form, in some cases as short as six pages, is a daunting task that most chapters fail to overcome. They are utterly dull and forgetful, with characters designed with little more than maybe a job and the fact that they are interested in a woman in mind. They leave little impression, and even in the moment of reading, one finds themselves tired and wishing for the passage to end. A few tales show some modicum of potential, like Kodama Naoko's "Daily Smile," but they often end before they can get going.

A few dull chapters are acceptable, as tastes will vary, and many will enjoy some of the stories that left me utterly unenthused. However, where Syrup struggles are in its weak chapters. Some, like Yoshimura Kana's "Coward Queen," a confusing and offputting depiction of two women making a pornographic movie, and Matsuzaki Natsumi's "My Femme Fatale" revel far too much in displaying as much nudity as they can get away with before being labeled as porn. The former of these portray a lust for sadism that clashes with the rest of the primarily mundane anthology. It might even spoiler the next several chapters, as it is one of the first stories and leaves readers with immense displeasure.

There are some questionable attitudes towards boundaries and crossing lines, even outside the more salacious and exploitative stories. Depictions or descriptions of actions like staring at a woman's underwear or breasts, or awkwardly splurting out "I'm a virgin," are tossed out casually, often portrayed as romantic. Now, this manga is a work of fiction and can be enjoyed even with some more questionable aspects, as they usually are not deal breakers here. However, the dated attitudes feel like something out of an '80s comedy, not in a manga that, in all else, appears to at least attempt to hold an air of realism. This pervasive element at best makes an already struggling story worse, but it can add unpleasant notes to otherwise delightful offerings.

There is no better example of potentially compelling work squandered by its unsavory elements than Morinaga Milks "Working with an Angel." It starts pretty well, introducing readers to an entertainment agency manager with a forbidden otaku friendship with a model. However, instead of taking a more intelligent or realistic approach of the two trying to keep their growing relationship secret or a heroic, "consequences be damned," declaration of love, the story turns sleazy. The model wants to show her naked body off to the manager as the latter admits that she spies on the models while they change. Off-putting is the most generous review of this final chapter.

While Syrup: A Yuri Anthology has a few bright offerings of sweet and compelling relationship between adult women, it is incredibly bogged down by forgettable and mediocre stories. Few stories can present more than a weak premise and characters best described as "female" within their short page count. More objectionable, with a few notable exceptions, Syrup muddles its attempts to show how grown-up Yuri can by mistaking boobs and fanservice for maturity. Yes, Shakaijin stories, tales of adult women can be sexy. In fact, they should be more than willing to describe inelegance and lust; after all, for many people, that is what love is. Still, too often, Syrup forgets the heart, affection, and emotion, substituting them for cheap, uninspired story beats and characters. There are some chapters worth readers' time, but unless you are a hardcore fan of a contributor, this is an easy skip

It is challenging to award ratings for Syrup, as each story's merits vary. Some are a comfortable 8 or 9 and others a measly 2 or 3. However, the majority of the book was unobjectionable yet poorly constructed fluff, as respected in the scores below.

Ratings: Story – 5 Characters – 3 Art – 8 LGBTQ – 6 Sexual Content – 8 Final – 5

Review copy provided by Seven Seas Entertainment

Purchase Syrup: A Yuri Anthology Vol. 1 digitally in print: https://amzn.to/39ObT5F

Legally purchasing manga helps support creators and publishers. YuriMother makes a small commission from sales at no additional cost to the consumer.

#yuri #manga #reviews #lgbt #lgbtq #lgbtq+#queer #gay #romance #art #lesbian #lesbians #wlw #girls love #gl #syrup #sweet #comics #anthology #collection #literature #books #anime

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canmom · 4 years ago

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The origins of horror characters in Gothic novels [with animation gifs]

Last night’s Halloween-themed animation night went fantastic, thanks to everyone who tuned in for a bit! Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust in particular was an unexpected hit - @lyravelocity described as I think a prog rock album cover world and I haven’t seen actually seen very many album covers but that sounds about right. It was full of great images, not just with like Yoshitaka Amano’s style being translated into animation, but all the weird creatures and machinery and random cross-based weapons and such, it was great.

And Birdboy was as fantastic the second time around as the first. We also loved the goofiness of Yamishibai’s twists, and the great mask and city aesthetics of Kakurenbo.

Anyway, here’s the original work-in-progress for my announcement post, a long tangent about Gothic novels which reached the point where I realised I probably should start the whole thing over. But no sense wasting that research! This is basically a list of the 18th- and 19th-century novels which established the various stock characters of Halloween.

Maybe that’s interesting to you...

So why do we have a ‘horror’ genre, anyway? We might as well start by asking what

horror? I’m pretty sure you already know the answer to that question, but let’s take a shot anyway like you’re some kind of alien who’s just landed on this planet, because I think that’d be fun. Horror is a very broad art movement that’s concerned with the things that society at large considers scary and disgusting.

The paradigmatic concept of horror is, probably, to induce a kind of controlled feeling of fear, by ratcheting up tension, getting you to invest in characters who might get killed at any moment, and reminding you of actually IRL-threatening things. Of course you’re not actually in fear of your life, just like the suspension of disbelief in fantasy doesn’t mean you actually expect to meet a wizard. But you can simulate it for a bit, and some of us find that fun for whatever reason!

Only, actually trying to scare people isn’t the only thing that horror is concerned with. Horror’s also an artistic tradition and aesthetic, which can be played for humour (nobody is likely to be actually scared watching something like ParaNorman). There’s plenty of comedy-horror that leans on familiarity with horror films but isn’t trying to scare anyone, or horror stories that are dealing with a serious dramatic theme (like Jordan Peele’s Get Out or Us which are about anti-Black racism), a purpose for which creating those feelings of tension and fear is often useful narratively. But then the same vagueness is true for any other ‘genre’ label, like ‘science fiction’!

So of course, if the visiting space alien asks ‘why horror’, our answers are gonna be pretty varied! I could drop some sort of serious answer about like, how for plenty of us, our experience of the world leads us to value the stuff that our society would like to paint as grotesque, or we want to be able to talk about the unpleasant things, or we’re just unconsciously drawn to it as a matter of stubbornness... but also sometimes horror is just stupid fun to indulge in as an aesthetic, like haunted houses and such, where we play along with the kind of cultural ritual/injoke type thing! which is good tbh

OK, so the ‘why’ of horror might be a little hard to answer because the motivations of a splattery zombie film are probably totally different to something like Parasite! Instead, we can trace its origins through history. It seems that most or all cultures (whose stories we have recorded) would tell stories about monsters, murders and other such scary things, but the modern horror genre is usually traced back to the Gothic novel movement, which began in the 18th century in Europe, and exploded in popularity in the 19th, as the means of reproducing lots of text became much much more widely available, and most of the population got literate.

Early Gothic writers - Wikipedia names Horace Walpole, Clara Reeve and Ann Radcliffe - were responding to the old tradition of ‘chivalric romances’ and the more recent ‘modern novels’ which were strictly realistic; Reeve for example said she was trying to capture the best features of both genres. They also leaned a lot on like, Orientalist fascination with the ‘exotic’ following the translation of the Arabian Nights, so novels like Vathek (which @baeddel has been telling me about recently!) adopted the framing of a translation from Arabic.

I admit, I’ve not read any of these novels, so I’m not sure if the emphasis on the tension between supernatural elements vs emotional or scientific realism is really a big theme or just a preoccupation of the article editor. There was apparently some genuine concern that if the fantastic elements weren’t made extremely obvious, “simpler minds” might believe them, because you can’t get 18th-19th century without weird snobbishness I guess. Anyway, from my extremely cursory reading, a lot of these novels seem to deal with the mysterious, terrible old world of deposed aristocrats refusing to die, and intruding on the new, rational world being established by the bourgeois.

So these books are the main ancestor of ‘horror’, and also for that matter sci-fi and fantasy in their modern forms. A great deal of writing has been written about them! Fucking loads of it! There’s whole journals of it! I’ve read basically none.

As well as just plain old history interest, the Gothic novels are relevant today for establishing the vast majority of the stock horror characters and motifs. These include:

ghosts: a very big one!; Wikipedia cites the ghost stories of M.R. James, Sheridan le Fanu, Violet Hunt, and in one case Henry James, featuring the disembodied consciousnesses of dead humans which remain in the world, typically due to unfinished business. The spiritualist movement was also very popular in the 19th century, with mediums using various bits of sleight of hand to convince rich people that they were in communication with the spirits of the dead, so dead spirits were definitely on peoples’ mind. Thanks to spirit photography, which used tricks like double exposure to create the appearance of transparent people or objects, the image of a ghost got established as a white fluttering shape or semitransparent human.

vampires: John Polodori’s The Vampyre (1812), James Malcolm Rymer or Thomas Peckett Prest’s Varney the Vampire (serialised 1845-47), Joseph Le Fanu’s Carmilla (1872) and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), all about supernatural bloodsucking aristocrats, right from the start presented as romantic as well as dangerous. This drew on a wide spectrum of previous mythological monsters, who would often be required to obey certain magical rules like not crossing a threshold without permission. It also established the Romanian Count Vlad Țepeș, who was known for impaling his enemies on spears, as a vampire called Count Dracula whose portrayal in film inspired most subsequent depictions of ‘vampires’.

werewolves: literally ‘man-wolf’ via old English, a human who can turn into a wolf (either at will, or compulsively, usually at the full moon). This one has a strong basis in mythology; there was actually a guy called Peter Stumpp tried for werewolfism in 1589, aligning with the witch trials (scroll down!). Gothic novels involving werewolves include Sutherland Menzies’s Hugues, the Wer-Wolf (1838), Catherine Crowe’s A Story of a Weir-Wolf (1846), and well, a whole bunch of others. The idea that vampires and werewolves are two clans at odds with each other seems to have come much later...

Frankenstein’s monster: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) told the first story of a scientist who stitches together dead bodies to create a new living person, and it was one of the most popular gothic novels, such that it’s gotten approximately one million adaptations since and the word ‘frankenstein’ has become a general term for a cobbled-together combination of two unfitting parts! Shelley’s story focuses a lot on the character of the ‘monster’, who is shunned by his creator, just as much of a monster in the author’s words; later film adaptations would add all sorts of standard traits like a big square jaw and head, random surgery scars, and a big bolt through his neck.

mummies: Jane C. Loudon’s The Mummy!: Or A Tale of the Twenty-Second Century, about preserved bodies of ancient Egyptian monarchs (which were at the time actively being eaten by Europeans as a form of medicine!) coming back to life, typically wrapped in bandages, to take revenge on European tomb-robbers

Jekyll and Hyde: another one associated with one specific novel, by Robert Louis Stephenson; a scientist takes a serum which makes him turn into a really nasty dude at night.

the Spanish Inquisition: Edgar Allan Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum (1842) is the main one I’m familiar with, but there’s plenty of others! the Inquisition, which began in the 15th century, was a system of Catholic religious tribunals and persecution; it targeted, variously, forced converts from Judaism and Islam (accused of continuing to practice those religions), other “heretics” who disobeyed the religious orthodoxy (which was still heavily integrated with the social system), and various religious crimes such as witchcraft and ‘sodomy’. By the 19th century, the Inquisition was recognised as something horrific, and so novels such as Poe’s often imagined lurid tortures of the Inquisition...

Not all Gothic novels involved supernatural stuff, plenty of them dealing just with intrigue, murder, and character drama, including Emily Brontë’s famous novel Wuthering Heights. And there were plenty which were influential despite not establishing a stock character for adaptations, like most of the works of Poe. But we’re here to trace the origins of the horror genre, so we can’t chase every tangent.

Other stock horror characters also date back early modern Europe:

executioners and torture instruments: specialised torture devices such as the iron maiden and the rack, as well as imprisoning underground people in ‘dungeons’. Although such devices are usually considered medieval, typically displayed in castles, they were mostly invented, sensationalised and in certain cases actually used for punishment or interrogation in the early modern period instead (not that torture or corporal punishment was foreign to the medieval period, but they didn’t need specialist devices!) The image of an shirtless, hairy executioner in a hood became associated with these devices, though I can’t figure out where it came from. Of course, if you’re Don Bluth, you can be incredibly horny about them:

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the guillotine: in 18th-century France, means of execution-by-torture like the breaking wheel were replaced with the ‘more humane’ guillotine, which was heavily associated with the French Revolution and specifically the period called the Terror which saw frequent public executions - another popular subject of Gothic novels!

witches: the 17th century was the peak of the European witch trials, during which thousands of people (in many but not all countries, mostly women or gender non-conforming people, and often practioners of folk medicine) were put to death on charges of “witchcraft”; at the same time lurid tales of witches doing blood rituals were spread, heavily overlapping with anti-Semitic tropes of blood libel, and colonialist mythology of ‘barbaric’ practices by non-European cultures such as cannibalism. these were mostly over by the heyday of the Gothic novel, but the image of an old woman with a warty nose in a peasant’s conical hat, riding on a broomstick, survives as the stock witch character. (witches have seen a revival recently as a much more positive character, hopping over into the fantasy genre!)

(Little Witch Academia is by no means horror! but it’s a good example of modern interpretations of ‘witches’)

Faust: the legendary story of a doctor who makes a deal with the devil, which most commonly seems to get adapted into plays, e.g. by Marlowe and Goethe. I can’t see mention of it as part of the Gothic movement, but especially in Goethe’s take, it definitely seems to share common concerns such as the limits of scientific rationality and emotional drama.

serial killers: the modern obsession with serial killers seems to go back to the murders of “Jack the Ripper”, who murdered a number of sex workers in late-19th-century London. He was hardly the first serial killer, but he was one of the first to have his career sensationalised by the tabloid press of the time to a much larger literate audience. These newspapers’ presentation of the murders took after contemporary serial fiction like ‘penny dreadfuls’, setting a tone for coverage of future killers, and later horror fiction about characters being menaced by a human murderer

...and we could probably go on but, hopefully this has set the picture: gothic novels did a lot! People loved that shit! While I’m on the topic, I mentioned that I was researching gothic novels to scattermoon, and she said her favourite is the German novel Der Schimmelreiter, by an author improbably named Theodore Stormabout a man trying to build a large dyke (cue snickering) in the Wadden Sea, facing superstitions of the locals and the stormy weather. Despite being a classic that’s taught in schools in Germany, it’s rarely appreciated in English.

Anyway that’s all I had, then I started over. Hope this was of interest anyhow ;)

Next week we’re going onto the subject of nuclear war, so that’s gonna be a fascinating one to research (seriously). See you on art streams til then...

#history #horror #animation night

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what-the-fuck-khr · 4 years ago

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Thoughts on how the girls could have been developed more in khr? Any TYL headcanons 👀

I still fucking think we should have at least been told what their!! goddamn!! FLAMES WERE AMANO UH?? god,,, GOD

Kyoko, I think she’s such a sweetheart,,, I truly, TRULY believe she could handle basic self defence and how to use a gun! she’s not an idiot! she’s watched Ryohei fight how many times, and you expect me to believe she can’t learn?? also she wanted to be a ballerina or a police officer, teach her how to use a GUN DAMMIT?? IMAGINE HER TRAINING WITH COLONELLO MY HEART,,, I also wish stuff with Hana was expanded on more; they’re best friends, so why did they barely ever do things together? hello? also highly wish we saw her interacting with the other characters in general more and not just Tsuna lol but ya know. I think Hayato specifically would take a lot of care of her TYL, probably mostly for Tsuna lol but you know he’s a good right-hand that looks after everyone. I think it would be so fucking cool if she had a fox for a box animal, and I still think she has Mist flames based on the game and cards bc that’s cool as shit to me

Haru!! I think she’d be SUPEE GUNG-HO ABOUT LEARNING HOW TO FIGHT!! she’s a gymnast, so TYL I think it’d cool if she learnt with I-pin and learnt a martial arts style properly!! THAT or based on something when talking about Lightning Guardian Haru, if she could use a whip??? that would be so fucking cool???? training under Dino hello???? she’s kick ass. also give her a gun. and squirrel box animal!!! I think TYL, she and Kyoko would be good with people!! I feel like they’d be good at Vongola hosted events and dinners and parties and stuff bc they’re so sweet and people just,,, just really love them. so nice,,, also think she’d be super fast. idk I just feel as if she’d have some good speed on her, or be good at kicks!!

on the note of I-pin, I think obviously before the future arc, TYL!I-pin give up fighting for studying, but I think after the events of the future arc, I-pin would continue training so she doesn’t become rusty and actively uses her abilities instead of having them “dormant”. I just feel like all that future stuff would’ve stuck with her more than what it would’ve with Lambo??

and Hana; godddd I just wanted her to SHOW UP LMAO??? I think she should be told about the goddamn mafia if she doesn’t know already like hello??? HELLO??? I think it’d be super cool if she had storm flames!! smth about her scream keep fucking fighting until you can’t goddamn move anymore hah. absolutely at the heart of the storm. that way, she’d be able to be with Kyoko much more TYL aside from whatever it was with Ryohei she had going on skfjdnkdsn

I spoke about Bianchi in another ask, but here’s quick bits for the rest of the girls: M.M I think would be a slightly active part of the Vongola/Kokuyo ordeal between Italy and France (since she’s French obviously) and sometimes has to work with Fran. which she hates. she’d rather die. is a little better with Chrome. Chrome!! WE SHOULDVE FUCKINF SEEN HER TYL WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT??? WE ONLY GOT A FULL SHOT IN A CALENDAR AMANO DREW IM??? JSJFJFJSS WHAT THE FUCK,,, think she works well with EVERYONE, gets along vaguely with Kyoya bc he’s not dumb anymore lol

Lal deserves to be more than her relationship with Colonello so fuck that. PTSD about being protected by him when they were cursed. PTSD from the memories she received from the future. just. please help her I love her. Oregano also deserves better (so did Turmeric) so fuck that also so pretty. I think she’d be super good with guns!! so good!! also, Aria deserved to LIVE WHAT THE FUCK,,, Aria deserved!! happiness!! I thank the anime every day for giving us actual Aria content omg. Uni also,,, baby. she’s baby. gets to be with Bluebell often!! they’re like, basically the same age,,, so I think as they get older, they get along better!!!

#did i miss anyone #ask #lovely anon #oh anon this was long im so sorry IM SO SORRY #95 #86 #88 #96 #m #01 #aria #66 #oregano #87 #are these even really headcanons... im sorry i rambled #06 #my opinions

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cosplayinamerica · 5 years ago

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SUNLIT RIDDLE

I first learned about cosplay back in 2001 when I saw a beautiful Cloud crossplay. My brain lit up, I pointed excitedly, and shouted, “That! I want that!” Back then both the internet and cosplay as we know it today were in their infancy. The common construction methods we take for granted now were prohibitively expensive. Molding and casting were within the realm of trade professionals only. I learned how to sew the old fashioned way: my grandmother taught me quilting and my mother taught me clothing. But I had to teach myself a lot more once I had exhausted my mother and grandmother’s realm of practical sewing knowledge. I’d developed roots in the practical and grew into the fantastic. None of my costumes are built like something found in a theater. They’re all clothing.

I feel like the early 2000’s were a huge changing point in cosplay. What started as papier-mâché turned to fiberglass resin and to EVA foam as materials became more available. I was on the cutting edge of cosplay construction before life forced me into a half-decade hiatus. When I returned, things that were once outside of our financial reach were now commonplace. I can’t tell you how much I wanted a 3D printer back in 2008. Within just a decade, there are now affordable desktop models. Laser Cutters? Sublimation? All right here. It’s made that unattainable level of craftmastery available. For those who can’t afford the machines, there are commissioners who can do that for you. The way cosplay has developed as a hobby and business is astounding.

The skills I learned in cosplay, garment construction through building skit props, helped me get my current job. I am now a custom lettering artist – I put mascots on cheerleading uniforms and athletic wear. I learned how to vector while working on a background for a Soul Eater skit. Cosplay in general helped me refine my ability to read patterns and understand how sewing works. And, in turn, my job has further reinforced the skills I already have. I have a better understanding of pattern construction and fabric types. I’ve always had to modify patterns – something my mom taught me to do – but I’ve progressed to drafting up my own patterns from measurements based on historic garments.

My long time friends asked me to join their Adventure Zone group as Taako. It was a challenge, considering there are no official character designs. I had to go off the descriptions within the podcast, which were basically just the existence of items. Fact: Taako has a hat, a wand, a couple of spell books, etc. Beyond that, there was little detail.

The challenge was to create a silhouette that’s readable with or without key items. Taako’s signature item is an umbrella known as the Umbra Staff. The only description we receive within the entirety of the podcast is that it’s utterly normal looking. Considering that it is found next to a skeleton in a red robe, I felt the color needed to be red. However, since this item was found on a corpse in a cave, it was not bound to Taako’s personal style. In fact, I wanted it to be as separate from him as possible.

I put on my researching hat. I looked up fanart of Taako, elves, wizards, fantasy garb, Final Fantasy garb, historic garb; I listened to the source material; I listened to other McElroy podcasts; I discussed options with my team and other friends. I came across the “official” Cut and Sew Taako pattern, but I wanted a Final Fantasy vibe to this since it’s heavily referenced in the podcast.

In the final design, I kept the blouse and pauldron concept from Cut and Sew, but I changed the pauldron base to a slightly modified Evil Ted’s Vampire Hunter (because Yoshitaka Amano did the art for both Vampire Hunter D and Final Fantasy). I used Reconstructing History’s 1770’s-1790s Fall-Front Breeches pattern because I wanted something that would come to my knee and show off the Black Mage striped stockings. Keeping with the Amano Final Fantasy look, I made a sash to match the stockings, then layered with what we affectionately call my “fantasy fanny pack”.

The hat was my crowning achievement. I knew that there were ways of making big, dramatic hats – Kentucky Derby, the Royal Family, Old Hollywood glamour – but I found little in the way of tutorials. It reminded me a lot of the old days when cosplay research was accessible only for professionals in the industry. I deconstructed a witch’s hat from Party City to see how it was made, then reverse engineered it from there. The flowers in the hat were fun to collect. I wanted to keep with Taako’s culinary backstory, so all the flowers are edible – roses, chamomile, lavender, chives, and borage. I started trying to stitch them into place, but I soon started to just pin them into the brim. I’m pretty sure that’s how flower arrangements are supposed to be done, anyway. I’m still trying to figure out how to attach my artichoke.

I designed the pauldron to be a fabric with stripes and trim that had little triangles in it to continue with the Amano Final Fantasy feel. I attempted a “corset” technique where yarn is used instead of steel for boning. That worked perfectly and left a subtle stripe on the pauldron. There was no trim out there that fit what I wanted, so I built a loom and did some simple inkle weaving. I’m not skilled enough at weaving to make little triangles as originally planned, but I could do small stripes. I had enough materials to trim the top of the pauldron only, so I purchased black tassels for the bottom edge – inspired by Final Fantasy XIV’s newly announced Blue Mage’s pauldrons.

I feel that this costume is somewhat more like Ren Faire garb than it is an anime convention cosplay. It’s the sort of costume that grows over time, that will change and evolve and level up every time I wear it. I’m already back at it, researching new skills and methods to add embellishments or structure or just that Certain Something that will enhance Taako, or at least how I see him.

(Top : 2018 / Bottom 2009)

#cosplayinamericaV3

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eirikrjs · 5 years ago

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I remembered having a conversation about D&D bahamut with a friend a while ago, and dug up this image he posted. Dunno if it’s THE Bahamut image that FF ripped off, but it might be. ______________________________________________________________

Yeah, that’s the Bahamut portrait from the original monster manual. How much influence did it have on Square????? Were there original illustrations in Japanese-only D&D books Square copied instead???? Why is there no Amano art of Bahamut until FF3???? I’ve honestly run out of things to say about D&D and FF Bahamut. Except I like the animatronic head, practical-effect style of Bahamut in this Nintendo Power FF guide art:

But time to move on.

#D&D #final fantasy #fuck bahamut #submission

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pixelgrotto · 7 years ago

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Anime was a mistake, make it Conan

One of the things that’s always fascinated me about video game localization is the difference in the domestic box art for made-in-Japan games and their international releases. In the 80s and 90s, it was so common for games to receive dramatically different packaging in order to capitalize on what were perceived regional differences. Some of these examples are now the stuff of legend that have morphed into memes, like the Megaman 1 NES box compared to the Japanese Famicom original. Others are a little more obscure, and there are some particularly interesting examples when we look at Japanese role-playing games.

JRPG granddaddy Dragon Quest got a huge boost in Japan thanks to Dragonball creator Akira Toriyama providing the character art, and while some people tend to critique his art by saying that everyone looks the same, I love it. His designs are the sort of timeless ones that are prefect for all audiences, and much of the Dragon Quest work he’s done is downright wonderful. Nowadays, his work is accepted everywhere, but when Nintendo of America was trying to push “Dragon Warrior” as the next hot thing on the NES they went with safer fantasy box art instead. The art’s not bad at all - it takes the same essentials that existed in Akira Toriyama’s original composition and merely transplants them away from the realm of anime and into the world of Dungeons & Dragons, which was probably something that Nintendo of America thought Western audiences could understand better at the time. (The art used to promote the game in Nintendo Power was also substantially less cartoony, and is fantastic in its own right.) Subsequent games in the series would receive similar box art morphs when they were imported out of Japan until Dragon Quest VII. The first Final Fantasy’s another example of a JRPG that Nintendo of America pushed especially hard. This time, though, they didn’t bother to tell the American box artist to try to keep the same elements within Yoshitaka Amano’s original, like the Warrior of Light or the princess in the background - they merely crossed a sword and axe together and called it a day. To be fair, it would be difficult for anyone to emulate Amano’s flowing aesthetic, and even the Japanese sprite artists for later Final Fantasy games themselves pretty much gave up on trying to translate his illustrations into pixels. (Bartz Klauser from Final Fantasy V is a prime example of someone whose in-game sprite looks very little like the official art.) I also have a feeling that because the concept of electronic role-playing games were still considered a tough sell for young, fragile NES kids back in the day, a definite decision was made to go for the “look how much cool stuff you’re getting in this box” angle. (An 84-page explorer’s handbook plus a monster chart?! That’s the sort of thing you need to pay extra to get in a Collector’s Edition nowadays!) I remember Final Fantasy getting some huge spreads in Nintendo Power back in 1990 or 1991, with pull-out posters and a guidebook that depicted all of the game’s playable characters either as elderly wizards or Conan types in barbarian underwear. Once again, this was a case of tweaking things to try to appeal to what Western audiences understood, and even though they made the White Mage, who’s usually shown as a female in the Japanese version, into an Elminster lookalike, it’s not bad art in my opinion, just coming from a different place. I can’t entirely say the same thing for the two boxes that the Breath of Fire SNES games got in 1994 and 1995. The first one’s an okay piece, I suppose, but the second takes the Conan thing too far and utterly transforms boyish protagonist Ryu into a muscle meathead who’s screaming and waving his sword in a way that makes me think he’s being rectally probed by Bow, who’s standing behind him with that devilish dog grin on his face. It’s amusing that Capcom and Squaresoft made such a big effort to create specific American comic book-style art for these games, especially since the second Breath of Fire was released in the US on December 10, 1995. Chrono Trigger was released several months earlier on March 11, and the marketing folks thought it was okay to keep Akira Toriyama’s artwork on display for that one. Go figure! On rare occasions, however, the box art comparison turns out more in favor of Western audiences. Take the first Lufia game, for instance - or Estpolis, as the series was known in Japan. The Japanese art shows chibi versions of the game’s party looking up at the Fortress of Doom. It’s a decent enough box, reminiscent of the super deformed look that also graced the covers of the Japanese releases of Final Fantasy IV and V. But I prefer the American one, because I think the comic book-style actually works better here, giving me a glimpse of a cool cast who look like they’re about to storm an impenetrable fantasy castle. Granted, the characters also showcase that late 80s/early 90s style that I have a fondness for, and the way they’re drawn almost makes me think of a cross between the designs of Record of Lodoss War and the Conan the Adventurer cartoon. A mashup of East and West, in other words! Striking differences in box art and other promotional materials is something that’s less prevalent in this day and age, since games are largely going digital and anime character designs are no longer considered an instant kiss of death for Western audiences. But I do think it’s fun to look back on these old examples and remember a simpler time where kids in Japan associated the Dragon Quest games with colorful Goku lookalikes, while kids elsewhere thought of something far darker. And the occasional box art discrepancy where marketers are trying to appeal to the “more serious” international market still does pop up from time to time - just check how grumpy they made Kid Icarus on the cover of his newest game! All artwork found here and there, mostly on MobyGames.

#pixel grotto #game art #video games #dragon quest #dragon warrior #akira toriyama #final fantas #breath of life #lufia #estpolis

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tumblunni · 7 years ago

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I remember I wanted to try drawing all the FF9 cast in different outfits once, but it never really got off the ground cos they’re all such complicated designs and I Lack The Skill But like.. there were so many interesting armour sets you can buy, and I wish we could have seen what they’d look like! And the cast having those varied complex designs makes it even cooler, cos you’d imagine they’d have really varied versions of the same armour! And now i was just thinking about even more cool ideas for alternate skins!! Cos I found out that Dissidia gave Kuja his ‘King’ disguise that he was supposed to wear in Treno, but they removed cos the scenes were too short to justify it and they needed to save disc space. There were only concept art sketches up until now, it was so cool to see it fully rendered in even higher detail than it would have been in the original game! So it could be really cool to see alternate costumes based on the other beta materials!! Like Garnet had A LOT of beta versions compared to everyone else, and the Amano design for Amarant had him with a normal skintone instead of blue. And there’s the not-actually-freya-but-sort-of beta ‘rat knight’ design before the story had even been finalized, and it was originally supposed to be a Tactics style game with just nameless male and female units for a bunch of different classes. Seriously, there’s loads of intriguing stuff, yo!

Garnet’s billion betas are intriguing because it seems her status as a summoner was thought up before she was a princess? At some point she’d have a pair of ‘lolo’ creatures, which might have been a mascot-ified Leviathan summon? there’s a beta version of the opening scene of the game where her pendant is described as the Leviathan summoning jewel, instead of 1/4 of the one to summon Alexander. Its also a damn shame that she started off as a darker skinned character and so did Amarant, and then in the final game you can see more blue-skinned humans than ones representing real life other races... And i really prefer the poofy shoulders tuxedo style costume! That looks way more royal than a weird rubber butt suit over a baggy sleeved shirt. (How do cosplayers even manage to pull that off?? or.. well.. literally pull it off? i’d imagine you’d have to glue a lot of stuff down, lol!)

So anyway, it could be really cool to see these as alternate costumes if the full cast makes it into Opera Omnia someday! (or even one of the main dissidias!) I was also thinking that it could be cool to have character costumes themed after each other? Cos so much of the cast have really close friendships, it could be adorable to see vivi cosplaying as Zidane since he looks up to him so much! Or maybe not even cosplay but just a new and original costume for what if Vivi was Thief job class/a member of tantalus? I could imagine instead of his floppy hat he could have a bandana/balaclava combo covering his face, like Diz from kingdom hearts! Oh, or maybe Vivi wearing Qu style clothes like his grandpa? or a Treno Noble costume cos he grew up in that area? (though I suppose his Trance form is already like the fancy expensive version of his regular clothes) Oh, and maybe inter-continuity cosplays! like I’m imagining Amarant and Barret wearing each other’s outfits cos they’re both the Stoic Loner Boss Dad Figure Of The Team. or Barret and Steiner cos Barret was more comic releif than Amarant was? Maybe vincent and Amarant instead. Or Amarant dressed in a Salamander kigurumi cos that was his name in japanese XD (Amarant is a really cool dub name change tho, its just another synonym for red) Oh, and maybe costumes resembling all their classic job classes!! Well, Eiko already looks like a summoner and Steiner looks like a paladin, but Quina wearing the classic blue mage outfit would look loads different! Or, I mean, just maybe costumes so they can wear their Trance 24/7? or some interesting colourscheme swaps like Terra got in dissidia? I know for her it was because her hair actually got colour swapped between versions of the original game or something, but it could be cool to pretend that happened to everyone else and see what they might look like! It’d be a good way to add extra skins without actually having to model new clothes.

#blunni thoughts

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sovaz · 7 years ago

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5 OTPs and 10 facts

Tagged by @strane-stelle, thank you so much!! (And aahhhhhh the JAT replied to you that’s so cool! I would freak out too *_* I should try writing to him sometime too instead of just being supportive on tumblr where he’ll never see it ehheh ;;) and if you think you overdid this post just look at all the crap I wrote otl

Also I tag @chronicwhimsy, @kangofu-cb, @helmistress, @skystones, @kujicoo and other followers if you want to do this, because it’s pretty fun

OTPs (actually not in any particular order. and there are many more that won’t fit here)

1. Balthier x Vaan (FFXII) - THE handsomest sexiest OTP ever I mean come on. look at them

2. Tidus x Yuna (FFX) - I just love them ;_; so much ;__; they are so beautiful together and they deserve so much better than they canonically got from the creators it’s just a tragedy and don’t get me started

3. Duo x Wufei (Gundam Wing) - they are Adorable in the anime and all that but I actually ship the fandom version of them much more (aka when they’re in their 20s or above). It makes sense for all my GW ppl out there I’m sure. Also speaking about Gundam I wanted to put Charmuro on this list but I haven’t read anything with them forever and there’s basically no content with them to begin with so they didn’t make the cut I guess aw but I actually do still do Charmuro fanart occasionally and they’ll always be an OTP

4. young Grindelwald x Dumbledore (HP) - I was actually exclusively a HP blog for a long time before I switched to anime and games and that shit and mainly focused on Grindeldore. and let me tell you I am SCARED. about the upcoming Fantastic Beasts movie, I am scared about how they’ll handle Grindeldore, I’m scared to see if they’ll even admit they’re canonically a couple, and I’m scared of how the actors will portray them , as for most Grindeldore shippers Jamie Campbell Bower and Toby Regbo will always be my Grindeldore and they’re the ones I would always base my fanart on so I have very strong feelings about the casting and everything and I’m nervous and excited at the same time to see the movie but mosty nervous ._ . even though I don’t actively ship them nowadays I still count the fic Thirty-five Owls as my favourite fic of all time, it’s that One Fic I can never forget

5. Ignis x Noctis (FFXV) - This is actually sort of half a lie bc I don’t have an OTP from FFXV I just wildly ship AALLL of them with each other in every direction because all of the chocobros are so loveable and so damn Shippable, I started out reading mostly Promptis and Promnis but it escalated pretty quickly and now I just can’t chose anymore, my respect to anyone who can actually choose only one pairing from FFXV and stick with it. I chose Ignoct for this since I’m sure that’s what I’m going to be obsessing over for the next upcoming months and i’m gonna inhale every fic I see with them just like everyone else

5. Zidane x Blank (FFIX) - Can’t forget the original sky pirate boyfriends! shhhhhh what do u mean there’s already a 5

Facts

oh boy. here we go. im so bad at this

1. I’ve been in so many tumblr fandoms over the years and can you believe the first one was actually Sherlock. HAH

2. I learned to draw by copying Nomura’s FFX drawings when I was like 11 or 12, I used to just….look at his character designs and copy them over. and over. and over for a long time , and the funny thing is that I’ve experimented with so many styles for drawing faces over the years, and I’ve tried so hard to do more heavily stylized anime styles, but no matter what I do I always end up with that era of Nomura-style faces somehow. So I guess I’ve brainwashed myself with a certain drawing style at a young age and now I can’t escape it oh well. The thing is that I’m much more of an Amano fan now and I’m beating myself up for not learning to draw by looking at his art instead

3. Whenever I buy a piece of clothing that I like there’s a 95% chance that I’m going to return to that exact same store in a few days and buy the exact same piece of clothing but in a different color, I ALWAYS do that and it annoys the heck out of me but I can’t stop. it’s such a bad habit

4. I listen to pretty much only 80′s pop. those silly 80′s female singers with the hair and the everything. The more stereotypically 80′s the better. That or metal

5. I’m very bad at watching anime. And I also can never stick to any anime fandom because once I watch a show I get tired of it very quickly. Videogames work slightly better to fangirl over because there are always new thing to explore and you don’t really get tired of them in the same way

6. I collect moomin stuff i luv moomin. I’m weak, if it has a picture of moomin on it I will buy it

7. I’m fluent in 3 languages and am learning a fourth, I know that’s not very impressive but I’m running out of facts

8. I don’t like deep-fried food

9. now I’m totally out of facts

10. I accidentally locked our mailbox the other day, I usually keep it unlocked because no one steals here anyway and now I can’t open it because I don’t know how it works and also I don’t remember the code to unlock it so now it’s starting to overflow with letters and stuff and everything is horrible and it’s going to explode from all the letters being crammed into it any day now and we’re all gonna drown in a flood of letters and ads for hair salons

#long post #if u don't want to read all the shit i wrote the rules are just that u write 5 otps and 10 facts about yourself

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thenichibro · 7 years ago

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Summer 2017 Anime First Impressions

Well here we are again, four weeks into the season before I finally get around to catching up on the twenty shows I’m keeping track of. Not like anyone reads these anyway. Regarding this season, we can say one thing: at least it isn’t last season. Thus far there’s been nothing super stand out, with a lot of middle-of-the-road shows and a few ones slightly better. Much preferable to the shit show 16 weeks ago. As usual, here’s what I’m watching, with MAL links and original shows marked:

Tsurezure Children (MAL) Starting off, we have a webcomic turned serialized manga turned anime, and for good reason. Tsurezure is a 4-koma romcom focusing on way too many couples in bite-sized happy romance stories. Defined by reaction faces, exclamation points, and yet a surprising amount of exposition, it's a quirky comedy I glad I started reading. One of the main downsides of Tsurezure is that although it has overarching themes, minute-to-minute enjoyment is very much based on the current couple. Personally, I love the Class Prez/Deliquent, Chiaki/Kana, and anything with the Love Master. The problem, then, is that once you find the few you really like, it's kind of a shame you only get so much time with them. A simple art style that matches the manga belies an infectious humor that Toshiya has mastered. This is one short show I wish was longer. Watch this.

Aho Girl (MAL) Continuing the notable increase in half-length shows, we have this half-witted one. Aho Girl, lit. "Clueless Girl," follows Yoshiko, an idiot, and her friends(?), mostly childhood friend Akuru, trying to deal with her idiocy. A suitably odd OP, both in sound and visuals (or relative lack thereof), leads into Yoshiko's introduction through getting a 0 on all her tests. I guess that confirms the title, now doesn't it? Tsukkomis, wild attitude swings, and bananas are the name of this show's game. One thing I love right off the bat is just how blatantly annoyed Akuru gets with Yoshiko's antics. It's not hard to see the "he's supporting her because he does feel something," but that being shelved in favor of faces of disgust is just funny on a very essential level. This show knows exactly what it is, a dumb comedy about a girl being dumb. And yet it's dumb fun all the same.

Isekai Shoukudou (MAL) A somewhat restrained take on the well-worn isekai genre, Shoukudou involves Nekoya, a resataurant that serves fantasy creatures once each week, connecting to "the other world" through the restaurant's front door. Right off the bat, the upbeat OP is coupled with some fantastic visuals. I missed having a food porn show last season, but Shoukudou brings it back in force. Further, throughout each episode the background music keeps pace with events and is a very nice touch to the cool tones of this show. Indeed, this show absolutely exudes cool. The smooth tunes while the last few customers (albeit they being beastmen, wizards, and the like) finishing their orders, Aletta and the Master cleaning tables into the night, it's just so nice. Aletta is the new hire, a demon girl homeless in "the other world" who finds the door to Nekoya by happenstance and promptly gets a job and a new outlook on life. She's real cute. Shoukudou has plenty of the "customer narrates the intricacies of how good the food is" every time a new customer comes in, but it's great all the same. If this show is a slow introduction of new characters to Nekoya for the rest of the run time, I will be more than satisfied. AOTS contender right here. Satisfied with an isekai? What is this season coming to?

Koi to Uso (MAL) Marraige is arranged genetically for happiness at 16, and other love is forbidden. As if there was a premise that lent itself more to a high school romance-drama. I have to say, I am in absolute disbelief that Koi to Uso isn't penned/drawn by the same creator as Scum's Wish. The artstyle and really the whole tone, albeit Koi to Uso being a bit more restrained, I immediately thought it was the same author. Wild. Anyway, we're dropped into a modern Romeo and Juliet, Nejima and Takasaki confess, to each other, just as the government - the external circumstances - are pulling them apart. It's not a new path forward, but I think the latter half of the first episode conveyed the emotions pretty well. The beautiful artstyle helps, and with shaking hands, red cheeks, and streaming tears the ending scene got me into it, despite the expected outcome. ...Is what I was thinking as Nejima fucking fell on top of Ririna (his assigned wife) in the second episode. Why. Why do that? Why have that 6 seconds into the show? At least the girls are cute - Takasaki in a hoodie, shorts and thighhighs was just incredible, but Ririna with her curious eyes and attitude beyond her height, hoo boy - guess I'm rooting for the underdog now. Time to suffer. With Ririna's schemes, Koi to Uso is perfecting anxiety - having something so treasured so close, being trapped by things out of your control, being trapped by things inside yourself - so much anxiety. This show can't go anywhere except emotional turmoil, but if it's already getting emotional responses out of me, I'm going to stay interested. Especially after episode three's ending.

Netsuzou TRap (MAL) Yet another shorter-than-normal show, we have NTR. Yes, that NTR. The "fuck over the caring guy and get off on cheating behind his back" kind of NTR. Just now with lesbians. Even moreso, I dislike Hotaru's archetype so much it just makes me feel bad for Yuma. If you're into that, watch this. If you're not, don't. I don't know why I did. There are better fetishes.

Clione no Akari (MAL) The fourth and last of the short shows, Clione no Akari begins with Takashi and Kyoko trying to help Minori, who is getting bullied. Its muted art style matches this tired premise. I know it's only nine minutes, but the first episode still felt like it dragged on for some reason. Moreover, both Takashi and Kyoko reflect on their weakness and that they want to stand up to the class for Minori, but then in the second episode all of that possible growth just gets passed over. They call out to her after she almost gets splashed by a car, and then Takashi says "After that, Kyoko and I grew so focus on how we could solve Minori's current situation, it was as if it were happening to us." So after they complain about their weak personalities, instead of forcing them to change, they simply get a way to help Minori while not directly standing up to the class. It seems like if it affected them that much you'd see a bit more exposition rather than nothing to "And then, we became super close to her" over the span of fifteen minutes. It might seem like I'm asking for a lot from a 9-minute show, but that's exactly the point - if a show aims to be an engaging drama about making friends and standing up for one another, it needs to have more substance packed into its short timespan, and Clione no Akari does not.

Hajimete no Gal (MAL) And the award for "highest percentage of animation budget used exclusively for cameltoe" goes to... First, make sure you eschew the HorribleSubs release on this one, because the censoring is bad. Not Terra Formars bad, not Shinmai Maou no Testament bad, but it's not great. Now then, this is a very simple decision: you watch for the fanservice, or you don't watch at all. I'm serious when I say the animation goes to Yukana, and to a lesser extent the other girls, because the male characters (even the MC) and everything else looks downright bad. The fanservice, however, is pretty damn nice. Junichi's delusions lead into some steamy scenes that are top tier gyaru action. Other than that, the OP/ED are generic, the other girls are lackluster, and the "comedy" is unfunny. Just skip through the dialogue until you get Yukana being cute, and this'll be somewhat enjoyable.

Gamers! (MAL) A nothing main character spoken to by the cutest girl in school because she's interested in video games and especially his passion for them, despite never talking prior. Wew. Karen, said cutest girl, is attempting to bring back the school's gaming club, where real gamers play games with their gaming friends. These are serious gamers, so serious about their gaming that they forget everything else except the game, like the true gamers they are. Episode one has fantastic lines like "I've been looking for new members who are undeniably true gamers" and "Why did you guys become gamers?," like it's something you have to awaken to. And yet even in spite of this, the glorification of gaming is still going hand-in-hand with the conceptualization of "gamers" as outside normal people. Karen hasn't told anyone about her gaming passion even though she's so popular (and it's foreshadowed she'll lost her widespread respect), and Amano gets the description "Games are his friends." Every character is just entranced with Amano's gaming spirit that they can't help but want to game with him. And just like a good MC, Amano is humble and pessimistic about his own gaming passion, but stands up for the game club and the gamers that make it up. This show feels like an E3 PR rep's ideal anime. The game references themselves aren't half bad, but that's certainly not saving this waste of my time. Guess I'm just not a true gamer.

Made in Abyss (MAL) I was originally off-put by the character designs, but I am glad I finally decided to watch it. A city sits on a massive hole - The Abyss - full of ancient ruins - and our main characters are delvers into the giant void. Importantly, Made in Abyss lets us know right off the bat that it will not be all idyllic landscapes - a close call with a dangerous monster now foreshadows so much better than suddenly changing the show's tone halfway through. Background music and art style both benefit this show greatly - the music rising and falling with he action while the art easily conveys the current state of the landscape - overgrown yet hiding secrets. Riko is a energetic girl at an orphanage guild, known for swiping Relics she finds and generally causing trouble. In the tussle with the monster, she is saved by a robot boy, Reg and promptly takes him back to experiment. Just the first episode sets up tone, characters, and the mystery of the Abyss with precision. The choice of children as main characters is an interesting one, but I almost didn't think twice because the rest of the people in Made in Abyss didn't think anything of it, either. Starting with a premise that has such a clear objective, like the Abyss' bottom, also relatively anchors the show against wild plot swings, which gives me more confidence in the story going forward. All these things combined are making for quite an enjoyable experience, and I can't wait to see where it goes.

Ballroom e Youkoso (MAL) Tatara is our typical despondent teen protag, who through a chance encounter is roped into trying ballroom dancing, and in it sees an opportunity to find himself. I picked this up solely on its premise, because I've never seen an anime about ballroom dancing before. It just seems so far from the typical slate that it caught my eye. This show's unique animation style, credit to Production I.G., has its ups and downs. For the most part, the show looks clean, the lines look great, and the motion is good. On the other hand, the actual dance scenes seem to lose a bit, in favor of dramatic freeze frames or showing the top halves of people rather than their legs moving or other intricate motion. I'm certainly not going to yell at the animators, for a show in which Tatara is won over by simply watching a ballroom dancing DVD, to get the viewers interested the motion, the visceral movements of the dance need to be shown, and more often than not they aren't. Oh, and the necks. Why is everyone's neck so long? Apart from Tatara, behind Sengoku's bombast lies a calculated, seriously powerful personality that is the perfect motivator for Tatara. And I don't know about you guys, but Shizuku is cuter in her practice/casual clothes than in a ballroom dress. Just my taste. Anyway, alongside the stalls in animation, I can't honestly say I like Tatara's VA. To me it just gives off the trying-too-hard-to-be-a-teen vibe too much for me to not notice it every time he speaks. While still enjoyable, these two faults are noticeable the entire time you watch the show. However, if you are interested in the premise, and don't mind animation quirks, then by all means, Welcome to the Ballroom.

[ORIG] Princess Principal (MAL) Alt history, 20th century steampunk London, and spies but also superpowers and made-up minerals, this is Princess Principal. Smooth jazz while a loli-ninja wearing a mushroom hat cuts up 20th century cars? Sure, why not? Cavorite, the aforementioned made-up mineral, allows for temporary control of gravity, allowing the girls to make their first daring escape with a VIP. Also, the girls are spying between the Commonwealth, or the West, and the Empire, or the East. Also the Princess herself is a spy. It's certainly a lot to take in immediately, but this show seems to revel in the craziness - echoing the fast-paced, spontaneous action of the spies themselves. Our main girl Ange lies to get through life, and is soft spoken and terse. The others in her immediate crew range from the authoritative onee-san to the cheerful loli. I personally feel like they could have made a perfectly enjoyable spy thriller with just alternate history and no supernatural element Take Joker Game from a few seasons ago - that even went so far as to be historically accurate in its place names and such, and aside from some same-facing was a wonderfully engaging show. While I do feel the personalities more in these femme fatales, I just don't see the "thriller" part as holding up as much. It's really not bad - I just feel my main gripe here is the overpresence of themes that don't need to be there. Still worth a watch if you don't mind it.

Centaur no Nayami (MAL) Having watched both MonMusu and Demi-chan and consequently becoming an Expert™ on monster girl shows, Centaur no Nayami is most certainly more of the former. I'll say at the very least that guys in school also being monsters is a welcome change, rather than including a harem. Hime, the titular centaur, acts just like her name. Nozomi is our sharp-tongued, tomboyish tsundere, while Kyouko (my favorite) is a terse, blonde tsukkomi. We get a surprising amount of world-building right out of the gate - the world is as it is thanks to a different evolution path, and to avoid the discrimination of the past, "equality" is aggressively and strictly enforced. The seemingly dark background behind the otherwise peppy slice-of-life is definitely off-putting, and seems immediately at odds with the tone. If while walking around town the girls maybe glimpsed an abuse or something similar, the aggressive equality mantra might seem like an understandable government reaction. Seeing nothing of the sort while hearing Kyoko not want to ride Hime because that's discrimination and she might get sent to a "correction facility" is more than a bit unsettling. Production-wise, the show looks and sounds great. Quirky music for quirky circumstances, and the motion of all the characters' different bodies is conveyed convincingly. The A/B Parts splitting the episode is something I haven't seen in quite a while, but I think it lends itself well to the SoL part of the show. Overall, this is a surprisingly endearing slice of life with a higher-than-normal amount of kissing, and I just wish they'd lay off the dramatic background. Worth a watch if you're into monster girls or slice of life more generally.

[ORIG] Action Heroine Cheer Fruits (MAL) Last but not least, we have Action Heroine - Heroines (as in those live-acted hero shows) are now super-popular, and the show follows one town that is way behind the curve on popular heroines. Immediately, I like the art. It seems like not too much more than "generic anime-style," but Diomedia has a way of doing soft lines and expressive faces that just looks great. Now I don't pretend to like hero/heroine-type premises, but even I can see this show's got remarkable heart. Spurred by her sister wanting to see Kamidaio, the current most famous heroine, Mikan, an earnest, caring sister teams up with Akagi, an energetic Kamidaio-super fan to put on a small-scale show, and the rest is history. Their first performance is carried singlehandedly by the effort the two girls put into making Mikan's sister's dream come true. Action Heroine gives off the feel of an idol show (he says, having not seen LoveLive nor Idolm@ster), with a diverse cast of girls all trying to be the best for their fans. While I don't think this show is exactly going to enjoy LoveLive levels of success, as I've said - you can see the heart it has. Some individual moments were also very strange - like a flashback where one girl loses a tennis match because a bug flew in her face, and another girl talks to her imagined anthropomorphizations of model trains. If you're into the nostalgia of hero/heroine shows, this plays right into that. Otherwise, it's a show you can pretty easily avoid.

#tsurezure children #aho girl #isekai shokudou #koi to uso #netsuzou trap #clione no akari #hajimete no gal #gamers!#made in abyss #ballroom e youkoso #princess principal #centaur no nayami #action heroine cheer fruits #summer 2017 anime #my anime reviews

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animeindoblog-blog · 7 years ago

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Konohana Kitan [Anime Review]

New Post has been published on https://animeindo.org/blog/2018/01/21/konohana-kitan-anime-review%e2%80%8b/

Konohana Kitan [Anime Review]

Antoine Rizal

“Spirited Away: Cute Edition”

Episodes : 12

Genre : Slice of Life, Fantasy, Seinen

Airing Date : October 2017-December 2017

Producers : DeNA, GAGA, Genco, Lantis, Memory-Tech, Studio Mausu

Contains Spoilers

Konohana Kitan is based on the manga series of the same name by Amano Sakuya and was serialized in Comic Yuri Hime S. Yuzu, a young fox girl, arrives in a small, peaceful town populated by humans and animal spirits alike. Accompanied by her guardian Bikuni-sama, Yuzu went uphill to the magnificent hot springs inn named Konohanatei to work as a new attendant. At Konohanatei, Yuzu befriends other fox girl attendants as they greet and serve the visitors—be it human spirits, animal spirits or even gods—and help them heal their tired bodies, and rejuvenate their souls with the calming hot water and relaxing atmosphere of the Konohanatei inn.

Konohana Kitan is a short slice of life anime about fox girl spirits as they live their lives in Konohanatei. Yuzu was raised as an orphan by a nun named Bikuni, and having spent her childhood in solitude, Yuzu is oblivious to everything and sometimes have trouble communicating with people. Over time, Yuzu matures as she gained experience, warms up with the attendants of Konohanatei and earning their friendship. The anime also focuses on the inn attendants like Satsuki and her reason for working at the inn and her shaky relationship with her sister. Or Ren who is in love with her childhood friend, and also working at the inn, Natsume. Or Tsubaki, the inn’s Okami and how she ended up managing Konohanatei.

Throughout the series, the girls meet a cast of travellers from a man’s spirit refusing to leave the inn because he lost any reason to return to the human world after he went into a coma, a boy who wants to be a sumo wrestler and asks the tomboy Natsume for help, a mother mourning the loss of her daughter, a cursed doll seeking acceptance, and a mischievous spirit causing trouble to the inn like playing with the feelings of Ren towards Natsume.

Eventually, it’s clear that everything revolves around Yuzu for she gets into a lot of situations like interacting with various spirits, even going as far as accidentally entering realms that she may end up getting lost and never return. Yuzu’s friendliness, kind demeanor, and pure-hearted soul have helped troubled souls get back on track to fix their troubles. Yuzu’s aura can even reach the past—Much like Chuck Norris can roundhouse kick you yesterday, Yuzu can touch the hearts of the past. Believe us, it’ll make sense once you watch the show.

Like most Slice of Life anime of the cute-girls-doing-cute-things variety, Konohana Kitan is a show that’s perfect to distract yourself after watching a grueling anime episode where your favorite character revealed themselves as the villain or the girlfriend of the protagonist found a new lover. The girls at Konohanatei have colorful personalities that anyone can find a favorite. If you’re a tsundere fan, Satsuki is your girl. A love stricken girl who is in love with another girl, but doesn’t have the courage to express her feelings? Ren is your fox girl. You want a more loli type, is silent and very playful? Bam, Sakura is gonna make your day.

The stories, while they tug your heartstrings, they’re very light-hearted and melodrama-free. Each episode is Yuzu interacting with new guests of the inn, be involved with the stories of her friends, and an ending that gives you a warm and relaxing feeling. Another great thing about the stories of Konohana Kitan is its focus on Japanese fantasy elements from fox girls, animal people, settings, culture and how the characters are portrayed. Instead of the slice of life staple of a girl being late for school, or having trouble with their homework and love life, we get a cursed doll who ended up as an attendant in Konohanatei who wears a maid uniform, or Satsuki competing against her sister about who has the most skill as a shrine maiden. Or a god of war spending his free time with a girl because no wars have ensued for a while.

Discussion Time

Despite Konohana Kitan’s simple premise and its episodic nature with no overarching main plot, topics for discussion are very plentiful, especially on episodes that can be interpreted in several ways. As mentioned previously, the anime is set in a fantasy Japanese world with spirits and gods. Viewers who are not familiar with Japanese folklore will raise questions as to why this turned into that, or why that became this.

When Honey’s Anime and friends watched Konohana Kitan’s as it came out, the most common topics involve a story based on Japanese folklore. For example, the origin behind the story of a girl making a cloth out of rain, or a story of a girl who transformed from a baby to a teenager over the course of one day, and so on. The most popular of all, as far as we can tell at least, is what these fox girls will look like as they grow old. There are several hints like when a fox girl reaches a certain age, they’ll turn into humanoid foxes. Foxes or kitsune take on many forms with various magical abilities in Japanese folklore, so there are a lot of interpretations to discuss. It’s really interesting to have discussions about Japanese folklore after watching an episode of Konohana Kitan.

1. Focus on Characters and Stories

Konohana Kitan is episodic in nature and is strictly character-driven with no real main plot, especially for fans who just want their daily dose of cute fox girls doing cute fox things. While there are some weak stories, the rest are very good and they not only focus on one or two girls of Konohanatei, it also focuses on the various people they meet. And with the fantasy elements in play, a certain story will be hard to predict.

For example, Yuzu encounters a boy wandering around the inn because he ran away from an orphanage after his parents abandoned him there. After a few heart-to-heart discussion with a fellow guest of the inn, the boy returned back to the human world. A few weeks later, that very same boy returned and he’s now a teenager. Then it was revealed the boy was actually the spirit of a dog who finally got a new family. The stories may be hard to grasp but everything comes together in the end and it will leave you an “AH! I get it now!” moment.

2. The Calm Before or After the Storm

Slice of life shows come in many forms, and arguably, the most popular among fans are shows with the majority of the main cast being girls going about their daily quirky lives with no plot to follow or anything to be invested in. Shows about cute girls doing cute things calms you, relaxes you, and is a good tension breaker before and/or after watching a more serious anime. Konohana Kitan is that very same kind of show where you just sit back to unwind. Nothing in the anime is offensive to the senses. Konohana Kitan is the perfect tension-breaker.

1. No Main Plot or Important Story Arcs to Follow

The plot isn’t really a big selling point in a general slice of life because life goes on with no definite goals. All you do is watch episode after episode without feeling that each story presented gets you anywhere. While this isn’t a big negative, this may turn off fans who some definite conclusions to character relationships like, for example, Ren and Natsume’s romantic relationship, or a more detailed story arcs like the Satsuki’s bitter rivalry with her sister, or a more in-depth story regarding the Konohanatei inn’s power to cleanse the bodies and souls of visitors.

2. The Anime Was Playing It Safe

Konohana Kitan has many great episodes, but some are just unremarkable because the anime was playing it safe, especially in the character relationships. When something builds up, it dies quickly, and then repeats.

The biggest thorn in the anime is how Ren and Natsume’s relationship seem to drag on and each story doesn’t end with any satisfying conclusion. It’s been pointed out that Ren has been in love with Natsume since childhood and we get to see moments of Ren blushing because of Natsume – being the tomboy that she is, she acts cool and manly in front of her.

There are moments of jealousy when Ren overheard other girls getting swooned by Natsume at a festival, and by the time Ren gathers all her courage to act, the episode ends. This is very frustrating and feels like the anime is just dragging on to encourage viewers to continue watching in hopes that the next time we see Ren and Natsume, the episode ends with them accepting their love with a kiss.

Final Thoughts

Konohana Kitan, as a whole, is a decent anime series that delivers the right blend of cute girls doing cute things in a fantasy setting. The characters, atmosphere, the art style, the songs, and ambient music make Konohana Kitan a calming and relaxing series as it serves as a comforting break in between shows with a more serious, gloomy, oppressive, violent tone, and stories.

Slice of Life fans will surely enjoy the anime, but it’s not a good anime for people who want a good main plot or want characters to grow and move on, be it confessing their love to someone or see what their future holds. Though we’d still recommend Konohana Kitan whether you’re a fan of Slice of Life or not because, well, who knows, Konohana Kitan might surprise you with its characters and “stories”. It did surprise us, maybe it’ll do the same for you?!

Author: Antoine Rizal

I’ve been an anime fan for as long as I can remember. Actually, anime is very much a part of me now for I have extended my reach beyond just watching them. I am a fansubber for more than 8 years now and contributed a lot to the anime community. Me and my group has translated shows, manga, drama CDs and doujinshi. Right now I’m learning Japanese so I can better serve the community and read interesting stuff about the Japanese culture as well.

Top 5 Anime by Antoine Rizal

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chocodile · 7 years ago

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So for your Final Fantasy/Crystal Gems fan art what brushes did you use? I have been trying to do my own Yoshitaka fan art but I don't know what does it justice.

For the lines, something like this:

The lines should look kinda rough and sketchy, since they’re pencil. Also, draw it big and size it down for posting–that hides some of the artificialness of the digital lines.

For the color, something like this:

You want a watercolor effect, which means the most important parts of making that look genuine are the layer effects and the fuzzy brush shape. Play around with density and size as you fill it in to do detail… remember that watercolor can be both really light and blurry or very vivid and Amano uses both to make all that amazing detail work.

Some other tips:

The most opaque/vivid colors he would use were usually bright red, black, and sometimes dark blue. I often use a brush that’s 90%+ density for those.

He also uses colors in a very specific way. I always had 3+ images open as reference while I colored my style emulations.

You can find really high res images of his work online–great for examining the underlying pencil lines.

Keep in mind the limitations of the watercolor medium–you can’t place a light color directly on top of a dark color. Look closely at the rosettes and other little details against the opaque red in this image. Instead of drawing details on top with a separate layer like you would with digital art, color around the edges and erase things out by hand. If the edge looks kinda wobbly or weird or has spots of white visible–great! It’s more authentic.

If you’re emulating Amano, you’ll probably be thinking “ugh, this looks like crap” right up until you put the finishing touches on. Everything looks MUCH more authentic after you add the vivid red/black and all the stripes and rosettes. Even if the final product isn’t totally style-authentic, it’s probably still gonna be cool as hell. So hang in there if you’re not happy with how the drawing looks!

For Pokemon fans, the water color + pencil effect is also good for style emulating Ken Sugimori’s older work. Here’s an (old as balls) Sugimori emulation I did. Very similar brush settings, but used a little differently.

#reply #replies #anon #ask #art tutorial #not an art post #style emulation #i'm sure anon has long since moved on to other things cuz this ask is like #a million years old #my inbox is a black hole... i am sorry #but i hope someone finds it useful #Anonymous

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100wordanime · 7 years ago

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This might seem like an odd choice for a list but I’m going to be honest, going into Summer 2017 there were only a few shows that on reading the synopsis made me want to try them and then most of those were unavailable to me. I did get to watch Elegant Yokai Apartment Life and it had the opposite problem of the write up makes it sound more fun that it is. So instead I got to just randomly sample shows that I went into expecting not to really like them very much and in some cases the results have been pleasantly surprising. That’s not to say these are the best shows I’m watching or the best on offer, only that they are actually more fun than I initially thought they would be.

Anyway, I’d love to know if there’s a show that has surprised you this Summer season by not being dreadful.

Please note: Probably only limited spoilers below.

Honourable mention this week to Princess Principal. Not only is it one of my favourite shows of the season, it is one that from the short synopsis I read and the character designs I was pretty positive I was going to drop, not because it sounded bad, but because it just didn’t sound or look like something I would enjoy. So glad I watched the first episode because it was great fun.

Number 5: 18if

After going to sleep like normal, Haruto Tsukishiro wakes up to discover something unbelievable—he’s stuck in dream world! Here, witches plague the dreamscape and are more than dreamy figments—they’re the trapped souls of young women who’ve rejected reality and are afflicted by the “Sleeping Beauty Syndrome.”

The above is the Crunchyroll synopsis and reading that it just screams that this is something to be avoided. Stuck in a dream world? Okay, here’s another chance for a writer to just be totally random for no reason. Oh, there are witches who are actually the trapped souls of young women? Suffering from a syndrome named after a fairy tale character. It all just seemed far too much like a desperate cry for attention and to be honest with each episode featuring a unique art style and tone you could be forgiven for thinking this entire story is just a project being made by an over-zealous art class full of students that all just want their turn at creating someone for Haruto to rescue. Despite that, it actually hasn’t been a bad watch. There’s been quite a bit of heart in some of the stories and there’s been enough cohesion with Haruto to carry us from story to story without too much confusion. Admittedly, this could still end very badly or not at all if they don’t bother to get to some sort of more definitive point before the season draws to a close.

Number 4: Gamers

“Would you like to be with me… in the Gamers Club?” Amano Keita is a perfectly mediocre loner with no particular distinguishing features other than his love for games. One day, his school’s prettiest girl and Gamer Club President Tendo Karen suddenly calls out to him. That moment changes Keita’s life forever, as he now finds himself in the midst of a romcom with beautiful girl gamers… or, well, that’s how it usually goes. Not with him, however.

As much as I like games and gaming, this anime didn’t exactly scream that it was something I wanted to watch. Everything about the synopsis is cliché and high school, club anime about loner boy getting targeted by the school’s ‘prettiest girl’ to join a club just didn’t seem like something I was going to get into. And the first episode more or less confirmed those fears and then it didn’t. Gamers managed to turn the trite and overused scenario on its head and admittedly it has marched us through a lot of tropes and clichés the way it manages to continue to defy audience expectations while remaining watchable is pretty amazing. The narrative is completely shot at this point because of all the twists they keep building in but it doesn’t really matter because I’m just caught up with these odd characters and their odd but charming interactions.

Number 3: Fastest Finger First

Bunzou High School is welcoming its new first-year students. One of them, Koshiyama Shiki, is chosen to participate against his will in an impromptu fast-buzzing quiz meet by the president of the Quiz Bowl Circle. As a quiet boy who loves reading and doesn’t want to stand out, Shiki is overwhelmed, but his classmate, Fukami Mari, is able to hit the buzzer and answer questions before the full question is given.

Once again, high school club with quiet boy getting dragged into things. What actually drew me to this one is that it was about quizzes and I really enjoy them so I ignored all my trepidations and took on the first episode. While I can’t say that this has truly defied any of my expectations, it is really quite watchable and mostly that is because of Koshiyama as the protagonist. He might be a quiet kid who doesn’t like standing out but there’s more to him than just that and he’s actually proving to be a reasonably well rounded protagonist. Does that make the show particularly good? Not really. Unless you like quizzes there really isn’t a lot to get into with the story. However, given what my initial thoughts were when reading that synopsis I’ve ended up finding this fairly okay.

Number 2: Clean Freak Aoyama-Kun

Aoyama kun is a hot, young soccer prodigy who plays midfielder for the National U-16 Soccer Team. But he’s also an extreme germaphobe! The TV anime adaptation of “Keppeki Danshi! Aoyama kun!” (Clean Freak!! Aoyama kun) portrays the friendships he forms and the challenges he overcomes in a “spotless” coming-of-age story!

Seriously? It is a story about a ‘hot’ soccer player who is a germaphobe and in case that isn’t enough to make your eyes roll right out your head at the sheer gimmicky nature of that match up we then get an incredibly tacky pun dropped into the synopsis just for fun. There was absolutely nothing about that write up that made this seem like it would appeal and to be honest, there’s nothing about the show that really should given its basically an episodic comedy that has a cast of overly zany characters that each seem to get one episode in the spotlight where their extreme dysfunction takes centre stage as we circle around Aoyama and then we move on. Despite that, I’ve been finding this anime oddly charming. Not every joke is a winner and some episodes are more tiresome than others, but overall, Aoyama has been kind of interesting and part of that is probably because despite the cheap jokes and gimmicks, for the most part it seems to respect people with conditions. There are a lot of tacky jokes in the series but Aoyama’s need to clean has for the most part been treated as a setting rather than the target of the humour.

Number 1: In Another World With My Smartphone

After dying as a result of God’s mistake, the main character finds himself in a parallel world, where he begins his second life. His only possessions are the body that God gave back to him and a smartphone that works even in this new world. As he meets all kinds of new people and forges new friendships, he ends up learning the secret to this world. He inherits the legacy of an ancient civilization and works together with the kings of some very laid-back countries on his carefree travels through this new world.

Right from the title you know what this show is giving you. It is another self-aware isekai story about an overpowered protagonist trapped in another world. Gimmick to throw in is he gets to take his phone with him and somehow it works. There’s really no reason at all this anime should have appealed to me and yet there’s just something about how it delivers its tropes that manages to entertain. It seldom crosses into overly cringe worthy territory and even though the last couple of episodes have started to become a little repetitive, due to Touya being all but an unstoppable force of nature at this point, there’s still plenty to make me smile about this show. Nope, it has no depth and it isn’t trying to actually make itself distinct or a satire on the genre or anything else. What it does is simply remember why these clichés became cliches and what makes them fun. It delivers lines that in most shows would all but be followed with a nudge to the audience to let us know that they are aware it is an overused line in an absolutely serious manner. Just as it delivers cloth dissolving slimes without a hint of shame. All and all, of all the shows I tried without really expecting anything from them, this one is the one I’ve ended up having the most fun with. Again, not exactly the best anime of the season but nowhere near as terrible as it could have been from that synopsis.

Over to you, which show this Summer did you find to be oddly not terrible after reading a synopsis that kind of made you wonder why you were even pressing play?

Thanks for reading.

If you enjoyed this post and like the blog, consider becoming a patron to support further growth and future content.

Thanks,

Karandi James.

Tuesday’s Top 5: Shows of Summer 2017 That Weren’t As Bad As Their Synopsis Made Them Sound This might seem like an odd choice for a list but I'm going to be honest, going into Summer 2017 there were only a few shows that on reading the synopsis made me want to try them and then most of those were unavailable to me.

#18if #anime #Clean Freak Aoyama Kun #Fastest Finger First #Gamers #In Another World with my Smartphone #list #Summer 2017 #Top 5 #Tuesday&039;s Top 5

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