#it's karekano i believe

[mysticdragon3md3]

People are doing what now????

I thought western otaku fandom had long accepted that anime/manga is just going to have multiple names, not just because of localizations, different translations, but also because Japanese fandoms also give series nicknames: KareKano, Kodocha, HeroAca, etc.

I've been around to see manga get passed around to different licensors, and official title translations change several times. And some anime get licensors different from the manga of the same series, so they either must use a different title or they just disagree on what an official translation of the title should be. That's why now some licensors give up and expect you to just learn the Japanese titles. Like "Kimi ni Todoke" and "Natsume Yujin-cho".

And then there are the anime and manga that got popular thru fansubs and fan scanlations, long before an official licensor released them in our region. Fandom communities are just used to different names from the fan subs/scanlations, vs official releases. But also because different fan subbers/scanlation groups will translate the same series title in different ways. We just learn all of them.

Are kids these days just complaining about having to search/use multiple tags? I know i do sometimes, but believe me, just 2 titles---"Dungeon Meshi" and "Delicious in Dungeon "---are EASY and NOT worth complaining about.

Is this because Dungeon Meshi is on Netflix? Are non weebs, new to anime, complaining about multiple titles in Delicious In Dungeon fandom? My advice: just think of it as how Americans try to turn every phrase into an acronym or initialism. I think the Game of Thrones fandom often used the tag "GoT" instead of the full name.

[doublenuzlocke]

Platinum series notes #3

This is the first couple of doodles i’ve made of the twins last year, around the time i was finishing the emerald series. It’s basically what @moaccyrk​ used as reference for their designs later lmao. The idea was pretty simple honestly: i was thinking about all those old Olsen twins movies where they always had a very feminine sister and a complete tomboy sister needing to work together for some dumb reason.

At this point it’s already a tradition reading the pokespe arc of the game i’m nuzlocking, so anyone can pick up that i used the same “base” personalities for them. The major differences that i thought it’d be interesting was Platina be actually completely faking her persona, and changing Dia’s gender (it was supposed to be just a fun sidenote for anyone who pays attention to details, it’s not rly something relevant to the story)

(For reference of what i had in mind for Platina i’d recommend watching Karekano, that’s the gimmick of the main character as well)

After we’ve started playing the games and i got a better grasp of the characters, i’ve decided to update some stuff this year. The base is practically intact and the only major change was deciding to go down the full enby route with Dia, bc i think Crys already made a pretty solid job as a standart tomboy character. Ah, also, Platina is totally a lesbian, and believe it or not that’s actually kinda plot relevant but i’ll properly explain why later lmao.

previous notes

[courage-a-word-of-justice]

Wave!! 6 | Fruits Basket 2 8 - 11 (33 - 36) | Fruits Basket the Final 1 (51) | Sk8 9 - 12 (FINAL, not counting recap) | Horimiya 2 | Dynazenon 1

I was watching Furuba the Final with someone else this one time, so we started on s3. I still owe all the eps. of s2, though.

Fruits Basket 33 (s2 ep 8)

It’s been about 5 months since I last watched Furuba…that’s how far behind I am. I’m back because the sequel is about to air on April 13th, though.

I don’t think I’ll ever get used to these natural-looking clouds…

Oh no! Mr Hermit Crab!

The subs didn’t quite sync with the dialogue for one line.

Fruits Basket 34 (s2 ep 9)

(no notes, sorry!)

Fruits Basket 35 (s2 ep 10)

(no notes, sorry!)

Fruits Basket 36 (s2 ep 11)

(no notes, sorry!)

Fruits Basket the Final 1 (s3 ep. 1/ep. 51)

(no notes – sorry! I tried the dub with this episode and so I may have missed some stuff, though.)

Wave!! 6

Masaki has a “record book” (kind of like the notebooks in BnHA). That’s his 3rd.

Who calls their dog “SG Hammer”…? Update: As we find out later, SG Hammer = Shichirigahama.

Who runs along the seafloor with a weight, anyway…?

Shirasu = whitebait, as known from Tsuritama. Loco moco is a Hawaiian meat and egg rice dish.

Between Wave!! and Sk8, winter 2021 was a very good season for board sports anime.

LOL, Nalu is still on his ukulele after all this time. Also, Masaki hasn’t dressed up his computer and Zoom looks very simple…(LOL?)

Apparently Japan and Hawaii are 19 hours apart, so while it may seem to be night for both, Masaki is almost a day ahead of Nalu.

Ohmigosh, Kosuke is so strait-laced, he’s a real anime villain! (Haha…)

“Surfing yappe!” really is a context-dependent sentence, huh? (noting what Masaki was saying from the mouth flaps)

If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from creative writing classes, it’s that exaggerating a character does not necessarily make it good. (I once had a character with an exaggerated accent who stood out in every scene he was in…Needless to say, I’ve scaled back on that stuff significantly since then.)

…goddang it, whenever anyone says “beef or chicken?” now, I think of that one swindler dad *points accusative finger at HypMic’s Rei*

…I’m still wondering: is Sho actually dead? You couldn’t tell from the previous episodes.

Sk8 9

According to the rules of Pokemon and the like, power moves like Power Break are best used by muscular guys like Joe.

To be honest, the reason I fell away from anime for a bit is because I was feeling like Langa in this episode. I guess I should applaud people who can keep up with long runners like Pokemon consistently on a weekly basis.

Sk8 10

What is DAP anyway…? Update: Apparently it’s that hand slapping thing some people do…if you believe Urban Dictionary…

Come to thik of it, we’ve never seen Oka skate.

I think I mentioned this with one of the other eps as well, but Koko ni netete means “Lie here”, not just “come here”.

Sk8 11

Ainosuke is just a naughty child, lashing out…in a man’s body, of course. Update: Something similar to that is said in episode 12, as well.

Sk8 12 (FINAL)

Note I skipped the recap episode because I have enough stuff on my list as it stands.

How can this anime use horror tropes so well…?

This rainbow world…it is known as The Zone *scare chords*…(Nah, scrap the chords.)

…c’mon! I was joking about that name (“The Zone”)! I didn’t actually mean it…!

…and that’s done! That was great, although (for reasons unrelated to this anime – in fact, I drifted away from anime for a bit...for more details on that, see episode 9's notes) I know I really lost myself at one point. That’s why I’m really thankful to Sk8 for getting me out of that funk.

Horimiya 2

I watched KareKano today (March 25th 2021) and I think Horimiya is very much following in that anime’s legacy. The double-sidedness of Yukino reminds me of Miyamura, to be precise. That’s why I’m back, after abandoning this anime for so long.

Man, since I was away since week 1, this is like watching the anime fresh for the first time again…

Marketing Script! Whoo!

(spoilers) I know this from rolling him in Mudae, but Miyamura’s first name is Izumi.

I almost thought with this development, it was all, “Call me Kyoko!” as well, but…nope.

Aren’t you just being used, Hori…?

Sengoku’s scary…but not as much as Honobono. (My automatic response to the name “Honobono”, after listening to the 2nd DRB drama tracks from (HypMic) is to mutter “F*** Honobono” and give her the finger, LOL.)

Why does this ping pong scene remind me of the volleyball scene in Boueibu…? (lol)

Dynazenon 1

Ume!!!

“Scarred Souls Shine like Stars”…ooh…

This is even more brightly coloured than Gridman…I love it already.

All these wide-open spaces…

That lollipop is a Chupa Chup. I’m sure of it.

LOL, Special Dog strikes again.

…it was bugging me, so I checked it up. Yomogi = Japanese mugwort.

(Tw: death) Did Kano…die?

Anyways, this is interesting, but like Gridman, it has a lot of questions that need answering.

[toxioinc]

His and Her Circumstances REVIEW

Why did I watch this to begin with?

I came into this despite finding Neon Genesis Evangelion to be a nihilistic structural mess. Though this shares that same trait (indicating Anno's involvement) there were many times during watching that I thought this was clearly a stronger work than Evangelion.

This work (KareKano) seems to have moved from the appropriation of 'experimental' film of Evangelion to a kind of 'experimental' film masquerading as storytelling. But it is still aimless.

KareKano, which I watched over months, was more of a slog than Evangelion yet a more interesting experience that I learnt from. On paper this is an interesting work but it takes much more focus and consistency to make a project like this worth 'following'.

A project eaten away by indecisiveness and trying to exist on the boundaries of techniques, rather than breaking them. Say, if the work is trying to make the dialogue very central, why is it read like the news? And why adapt the manga work in the first place?

I watched KareKano without subs, as a non-native at Japanese input, and it was significantly harder to input than the majority of media I've viewed (probably even the news). Maybe this is precisely because the visual structure ironically seems so determined on drawing you away from that very dialogue.

Native speakers would likely absorb that dialogue on a (contradictory?) secondary level, and subtitle readers will likely be at a crossroads of which 'path' to follow based on the necessity of having text overlayed onto the screen.

But KareKano reminded of me of the fact that I used to watch August&Nina's vlogs without understanding almost a word of Russian. In the end I strongly believe dialogue is a minor element of filmmaking that should have little sway.

But this comparison I made to a vlog really made me realise a good vlogger's vast superiority in showing 'slices of life' to the utmost rigidity of the animated television series. And vlogging has grown naturally out of a progression from experimental filmmaking and home movies to being the most free rhythmic filmmaking in the mainstream sphere, if not in all spheres.

I've been watching アイドルのいる生活/みやもかダイアリー lovingly, seeing such a blissful ambiguous relationship and its intimacy, lulled by the flashes of familiarity planted into a rhythm like great jazz. KareKano has no sense of using familiarity in any meaningful way.

I also saw Atashinchi in a new light because of this comparison too, a series that seemed cute and small before is simply a much more focused version of what one might say KareKano to be. And it feels like judging it from this angle is actually more forgiving than claiming KareKano to fully be an experimental work masquerading as storytelling. That 'no one would want to watch 10 hours of continuous experimental filmmaking' but we want to use that form and have to adhere to 26 episodes, filling out wherever necessary.

So the trait that may make KareKano most interesting is the trait that exposes it's awful nihilism. That really sums up the conundrum of this story of mixed feelings.

[naari-q]

This is my all time favorite story.

The first time I encountered Karekano, I was a child. The anime hit me strongly, not only because it was an undeniable different shoujo to watch at my age. I mean, me and my friends were still hook to magical girls. But also because I identified with Yukino's personality and dilemmas (I probably will make a post about this another time).

Later, I would discover the manga as a teenager, this time it was Arima's story that resounded with me, and also Tsubasa's. I was fixated with the way both characters approached their romantic partners, looking for someone that would only (and ONLY) look at them. I found the intensity of their feelings beautiful, almost heroic. At my 15 years, it shaped the way I understood love. Ofc, this is so problematic but I only would comprehend it when I grew up.

I rediscovered the story once again as a young adult, I was around 22. This time I could already discuss how the manga carried the topics of individuality and dependency. I'm always thorn up when I try to decide if this is a work that romanticize toxic relationships (because yes, there are so many red flags in most of the arcs). I'm inclined to think otherwise since it has helped me so much to deconstruct my own toxic behaviour.

In shoujos, it's common that relationships have dependency traits, however, they don't get into why the characters -as individuals- can develop and encourage this type of relationships. Whereas Karekano address it beautifully. It gets deep into the background of each character, and allows you to pinpoint how they become a certain way. I still strongly empathize with Arima and Tsubasa, however now I'm able to distance myself from them and question their proceedings, and with that, question myself.

Maybe the story doesn't take a clear stance on how to build healthy bonds. However I believe it gave me tools to find my own responses. For example, in the captions above, the manga explains Arima's jealousy as a result of his realization that Yukino and him are individuals (among many other things). At 22, I was already into feminism and understood notions such as possessiveness. But it wasn't until I read this arc that I was able to connect the notion with my own practice. Karekano explains feeling in their complexity and, in consequence, it gave me vocabulary to figure out my own emotions.

So yeah, it probably wouldn't have made such an impact if I had discovered Karekano now. And it may not be so eye-opening for a teenager at this time since these topics are already well discussed. But as a 00s kid that was shaped in an all-girls catholic school, all of this was new for me. This work accompanied me as I grew and its meaning changed everytime I reread it, helping me mature. Karekano is just a resource among many others out there, as any literature work. But for me, it was the one that came at the right time.

For this, I will always be grateful with Masami Tsuda sensei.

[the-shy-fa]

Bananas foster, glazed donut, tapioca pudding

bananas foster: do you believe in soulmates?

I dunno, not in the sense that there’s like, only one right person out there for everyone I don’t think. I think there’s such a thing as people who naturally fit well together though. 

That said, there’s a Jewish tradition that since creating the world in six days, God has spent all the extra time playing matchmaker, which I think is cute. It’s not an absolute thing either, iirc. Like a soulmate relationship can still not work out, but even if it ends in divorce or what-have-you, it’s not like “wrong” to find a new partner.

glazed donut: would you rather visit a zoo or an aquarium?

Hmm, I didn’t grow up going to either really. I admit I kind of like aquariums because it’s such a different world, and zoos can be kind of depressing when it doesn’t seem like they have enough space... Although I did learn that zoos pair up cheetahs with labradors as friends and to calm them down, and they get really attached to each other, which is amazing and adorable.

tapioca pudding: favorite animated characters?

Ugh too many! But let me see. 

Pearl from Steven UniverseYukino from KarekanoLoran Cehack from Turn-A GundamTwilight Sparkle from My Little PonyDr Drakken from Kim PossibleI’m sure I’m forgetting a ton but that’ll do for now I guess.