#jkjk tysm for keeping tpn's legacy alive km I really appreciate it! also for checking my stuff bc that makes all the effort worth it

[1000sunnygo]

Ooo stories! 🍿Let me open my history book lol

IIRC, tpn replaced Bleach and the then-popular scan site Mangastream was promoting a new series. The image was the good old first chapter color cover (Emma sitting on a cliff), the editorial texts gave away something eerie going on. I read the first chapter the exact day it came out on mangastream pre-official release (back then, manga+ app didn't exist and we only had the fan scans).

I wasn't blown away but that Cony panel left an unsettling feeling, so I kept coming back to read its updates every week.

It was... mostly text-heavy and boring, almost all chapters felt the same. But I wanted to know how they escape. The moment I really got hooked was Norman's shipment announcement, and the remaining chapters of escape arc were all extremely good. I wasn't convinced by Norman's 'death' at all but Ray's suicide as a cliffhanger got me good 😅 I thought the arc's ending was amazing.

The came the Forest arc, I wasn't sure what exactly should I look forward to. Yugo annoyed me (he was like that in early chapters), GP chapters weren't extraordinary, Norman's Lambda update didn't excite me much either (because ofc he was alive. Why did anyone ever doubt?) Some time after following the series, I eventually dropped it.

Me in the Haikyuu server lmao I used to get mad at tpn chapters always coming out before Haikyuu (back when KnY was far less popular than tpn and used to release last hahah)

Fast forward to inevitable anime announcement, I checked the PV (because I still loved the escape arc conclusion) and was thrown off by adult female seiyuus voicing the boys..

the funniest thing is that I ended up never watching the Dr. stone anime.

Early 2019, TPN was on my watchlist but I didn't immediately start it. I tuned in to watch the clip of Norman catching Ray in ep. 4 when it came out (one of the few moments I remembered), and I do think I watched episode 1 pretty early. Then finally decided to binge it along with Dororo around episode 6/7 release week.

One thing the anime made me realize that I didn't until then: Norman was so. Freaking.

CUTE.

He'd always been my favorite of the three but I never particularly cared him until then. Anime Norman completely rearranged my brain program. Look at that ball of marshmallow, how can you not.

I checked out the latest manga chapter (ch. 119). I didn't know TPN had a timeskip so, for some reason, Emma's tall legs in the hugging panel caught my attention more than Norman's growth spurt lol. I kept peeping the spoilers on and off without properly catching up.

That's also when Norman's sudden reappearance bummed out some fans are the controversies started brewing. I was immediately on defensive mode lol.

even though I wasn't sure about his developments myself..

But thanks to the anime my protective instincts were all time high... and Shirai did the Cruelest thing Possible - releasing Norman and Emma's 'argument' chapter the same week Norman's shipment episode aired. I remember sitting with my lunch box when some spoiler panels came out, I was so sad I completely lost my apatite...

Alright I'll cut the topic there and move to my, uh, "rise in the fandom"... *coughs*

Long series like OP and Naruto were rich in background information, and Haikyuu had an outdated but an excellent masterlist. Luckily, TPN wikia's interview page was a good collection of links. I started reading them even before I caught up on Goldy Pond, and made a Google doc to store the important links myself.

I found that novel 1 of TPN hadn't been translated and heard rumors that it had some noremma scenes. I browsed Eastern sites and finally found some untranslated pages. I could read some Japanese but didn't consider myself reliable, so I made a Twitter account and replied to the most popular translator to catch her attention. Luckily I did, and she then bought and translated the entire novel. So it was partly my contribution that novel 1 story 3 got translated during a bad noremma weather kk

I joined TPN's reddit server, and sometimes translated fanarts on twitter. Around this time, the "TPN telephoneland" event was released, where you could call a number and hear recorded speeches of the main characters. I understood most of the Japanese audio but others were struggling with it, so I decided to translate them myself, those were the official TPN content I translated. If the server hadn't been so supportive, I probably wouldn't have taken the risk.

I posted the translation on twitter too, and found the courage to pick up TPN's drama CDs for translation. The Spanish-speaking Norman fans found my Twitter account and were mostly responsible for spreading my posts, so I was slowly becoming more active on twitter.

Early 2020, I watched the YouTube video "Five Norman facts you didn't know" (?) and cringed at how basic it was. I wrote some lesser known Norman facts on the comment section, but decided to delete the comment and make a Twitter thread instead. The post popped off, people loved it a lot haha.

One of the @tpnmanga translators were on the reddit server and talked about me with the account owner YAG. He DM'd me and invited me to the mod team. I contemplated but eventually joined so I could spread the drama CD translations I still think my arrival was a factor behind that translator slowly leaving tpn fandom she felt she was being replaced ;-; oh well

Later, some of us from reddit server made our own niche server. We began circulating and sharing information among ourselves. I could bridge the connections between server fans, TPNManga team and Twitter's fans, which greatly helped in gathering source materials and (later) translating the extra chapter (Dreams come True).

All the books I translated had been gifted to me. I had always been moderately active in fandoms but TPN fans really helped me to step up properly. I'll forever be grateful that they'd been so so supportive even though I'm clumsy as hell and my posts are full of silly mistakes 😭

Then TPN season 2 happened, idk how (probably thanks to YAG) my twt followers increased threefold and I started feeling uncomfortable by the over-exposure, so I hid behind a private account lol.

When and how did you get into TPN? For me I discovered TPN in 2021 through the Fandom page where I spoiled myself about Conny and some other stuff which I forgot and in 2023 I purchased the first two volumes of the manga and I fell in love. And the rest is ancient history!

Sorry about my little history lesson!

You're good! (If anyone else wants to share how they got into the series on this post I'd been down for that too)

My sister and a friend recommended the anime to me at some point (I want to say after it was on US Netflix) as something I might like. I did not pay any attention to this at all lol. They did lord this over me when it became one of my favorite series. But I managed to avoid all spoilers for it other than the orphanage being a farm, which wasn't a big deal to me since it happens so early on.

Fast forward to March 2021, within the ballpark of a day or two of the season 2 finale airing in Japan. I finished watching another series on Netflix, and it recommended TPN to me. I thought, I vaguely recognize this title, the description sounds interesting, and the thumbnail looks cute, so why not check out the first episode.

(dmotta3's blind reaction lives rent free in my head and inspired this post)

I got to the end of episode 6 and realized that my idea to just check out one episode at 1am was terrible because it was now 4am. But I had the day off from work, so after going to bed and doing everything else I needed to do that day I wrapped up the rest of season 1 because was hooked. I had to know what the fuck is up with these little babies with the mental fortitude and emotional maturity to handle this fantastical dystopia they found themselves in so well. And the final six episodes delivered and then some for me.

Me within watching the first ten minutes of S1e01: oh this kid with the black emo hair is going to be my favorite :)

Me upon watching S1e11: LKJFSDLKFLKDFJL OMFG?? OM?FG?? 🥴🙃🥴 THERAPY! THERAPY FOR A THOUSAND YEARS FOR YOU!!!

I noticed the second season wasn't on Netflix, so while avoiding as many spoilers as I could I took a peek around and discovered that a lot of people were unhappy with season 2. I asked some friends who had watched it if they liked it, and they said it was all right, but not as good as season 1. So what I ended up doing was figuring out where the first season left off in the manga, and then read a few chapters before watching the corresponding parts in the anime to see where it really diverged. By the time I got to the bunker in the anime and saw there was no dad to go in it, I dropped it entirely to focus on reading the manga. It took roughly four days from me putting on the anime on a whim to me reading the bonus chapters and epilogue, and I was initially kind of bummed about it for reasons I've discussed here.

(Chart I made to explain to a friend group my personal enjoyment of the series by arc because it's one of the silly things we do with each other, while avoiding some spoilers by removing the names of the last few arcs. I'd rank Cuvitidala and the human world arc a bit higher now and Return to Grace Field arc lower, but the rest is still largely the same.)

But even with my gripes with the series, it had nestled itself inside my heart and mind, and I was endeared to it enough to buy the blu-ray of season 1 and import the soundtrack.

Another crucial aspect for me was that @1000sunnygo was translating the mystic code book around this time as well as a plethora of other content that wasn't receiving official English releases. This kept me engaged with this silly little shounen that had endeared me so deeply, as I had new official content and information to look forward every now and then in addition to latching on to some fanfics that proved to be foundational for my personal interpretation/enjoyment of the series. It also helped explain some of the issues I had with it, one of them being the pacing toward the end due to Shirai trying to salvage his health after being in serialized publishing for almost four years while still maintaining his sense of artistic integrity by ending the series on his own terms. I don't think this frees said choices from critique, but it helped me personally accept them more.

And then after almost ten months after first watching season 1 on a whim, I made this blog, though I didn't really start using it until February 2022. It was a first for me since I usually just keep everything on main in a random hodgepodge, but the brainrot wasn't going away, and I couldn't put my mutuals through another major interest, so here we are roughly 2.5 years later.