#kitagawa production

[c-worldproductions]

The greedy demon meets a Shizuku Kuroe cosplayer.

💳 Mammon: me

🎭 Marin Kitagawa / Shizuku Kuroe: adalin.ix (IG)

🗓️ Event: @otafest 2023

[autonomousxselves]

RANDOMLY GENERATED HEADCANONS

use this generator to create some randomly generated headcanons for your muse(s)!

Yusuke is a theatre kid.

Yusuke crashed a riding lawn mower into their fence.

Yusuke bites their nails.

Aigis shops exclusivaly at Claires.

Aigis has an incredible short-term memory but an awful long-term memory.

Aigis fucked your mom.

Ken believes in Santa.

Ken is an introvert.

If Ken was presented with an intergalactic portal, they would enter it without question.

Katsuya likes to eat straight coffee beans.

Katsuya uses two-in-one shampoo and conditioner.

Katsuya needs a nightlight to sleep.

Nanako watches My Little Pony.

Nanako cries while watching disney movies.

Nanako bullies kids on roblox.

Ryoji is a cry baby.

Ryoji voted Reigen in the tumblr sexyman poll.

Ryoji can't sit in a chair properly.

I wish I could tag but it literally will not let me tag anyone I know nor the blog that tagged me, idk what's going on here but i angy. you may steal if you like friends.

[mechazushi]

So I'm cross posting the link to the My Dress Up Darling fic I finished. It's here on Tumblr as well, but I seem to get more traction if I cross post anyway.

And since I didn't just want to leave it at that, I want to talk about a headcanon idea I've had in mind for Wakana Gojo for a while now.

Basically, he makes street wear, but with his own take on it. He makes his samues and jinbeis, but now they're anime themed. And I'm not saying they looked like they were bought from Shein or Temu. You know, those cheap looking shirts and jackets that look like Goku's top or Deku's hero uniform that you sometimes see in shitty ads. I'm talking well thought out, genuine effort went into this, top quality design.

design description under the cut.

For example, I'm using the in-universe game "Coffin" and I'm gonna assume that it's their version of our Doki Doki Literature Club.

Could you absolutely take a samue, make it black and white, and just slather it in blood stains and nun imagery? Sure, but that's not what the game is. It was implied to be a subtle and unnerving build up to the bigger picture. So here's my idea on how to go about this.

First off, the base of the top would be made out of two different fabrics, but made to be the same color. For example, cotton and velour. While the same color, they catch and reflect light differently. The way I'm seeing it is since they're the same color, you could make a subtler pattern that might not be noticeable in low light, but more pronounced in brighter or more direct light. Looks like a black top, but wait! There appears to be a picture of severed hands praying.

There is red in the outfit, but it's all on the inside. You could only see it if you bent the right way or lifted your arms up enough to look down them.

There is nun imagery, but it's not blatant. Stitching on the cuffs looks like little white crosses and instead of the small bow tie that holds the top's panels together, it's a belt made out of wooden beads to represent a rosary. Maybe some of the little crosses have a red X on them to represent the dead sisters that get murdered in the game.

It's meant to come across as gothic and simple in inspiration and entices you in closer to look at its details, but once you do, you can't help but see that it's actually disturbing. That's what the game was and that's how Gojo represents it through clothing design. ( or a possible example at least)

I could totally see him coming up with a design for Flower Princess Blaze or Mandate of Heaven. (Mayyybe not Slippery Girls. (*・～・*).

Just something he could come up with to wear to conventions without feeling out of place or left out. He gets wears something he's comfortable in and its nerdy/ high quality so that's bound to make friends/meet people that could share interests with him.

[relatableblorbopoll]

Round 1 of preliminaries, group 11

The first two places get a place on the bracket

Little reminder: there will be 2 more rounds of preliminaries, the losing blorbos of this poll still have 2 chances of getting in the official bracket

Propaganda under the cut

Mae Borowski (Night in the Woods)

"Spoilers! She's a college dropout in her early twenties, who suffers from untreated mental illness and dissociation and had a complete breakdown at college, causing her to come home. Now she's living with her parents again, but life in her dingy little hometown went on without her. Her friends are adults now - in a relationship and planning on moving to the big city, or having to waste away in a dead end job instead of following their dreams. Mae is the only one without a new adult role in life. She's not great with people either - she's blunt and often doesn't think things through, and in many ways just doesn't get the world of adults. She's also prone to petty crimes and general anarchy. She's kind of lost and purposeless, and trying to find meaning in life by desperately clinging to the past. Her decision to drop out of college probably saved her life, but it's also put her family in a tough financial situation and is viewed by most people as her just thoughtlessly doing whatever she wants. She's also kind of shamed a lot about not having a job or other productive role in life, despite the fact that her untreated mental issues are actually disabling for her. She also plays the bass real bad. Anyway, i love Mae a lot. Playing this game as a college dropout in my early twenties, sitting in my childhood bedroom in my mom's attic, back in my dingy little hometown, desperately missing my old friends who have all moved on to better, resposible things in life... yeah, it felt like the game was pointing dead at me. Given tumblr's general demographic, i figure i must not be completely alone in this"

Shigeo Kageyama / Mob (Mob Psycho 100)

"autistic. likes milk. if we reach a certain level of emotion we turn into a psychic bomb. cool brothers :)"

Barry the Quokka (The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog)

"Their only skill is working the microwave, they're non-binary, when seeing a trash bin their first instinct is to look through it, they're always the most normal person in the room, they can beatbox, and they were only hired due to being the only one who applied."

Kaveh (Genshin Impact)

"In a fantasy world, be a guy with a regular profession losing his goddamn mind. Poor guy has a guilt complex, (so true) and a lot of deep embarrassment regarding his life.(ehe) He just wants to do what he's passionate about but capitalism is evil and also he keeps getting scammed. Claims to not want anyone to know Things, goes into depth about these Things anyway. Is probably most definitely gay. Can be found face down on a table lamenting his fate. Terrible sleep schedule. (HA) He is such a guy. Wants to believe the world is a good place and people are inherently good. And wants to help people and do good himself. It's just hard. [And he has a roommate. Oh my god he has a roommate]"

"He was, and still is, regarded a genius. He aced his Akademiya days, he has the admiration and appreciation of so many people because he is oh-so remarkable. But what for, when reality is that he sits at home depressed and with guilt consuming him, faking the image people have of him, not only broke as fuck but actually in debt, drowning his sorrows in wine."

Yusuke Kitagawa (Persona 5)

"highschooler who wants to spend the rest of his life doing what he loves. is obsessed with art and beauty and it's on his mind 24/7 received help from his now friendgroup to break from his abusive foster father who he still have complicated feelings with had to move into school dorms and am struggling to live independantly since he'd rather spend money and time on his art but he's still surviving and enjoying the good times id say also ends up saying whatever is on his mind and is pretty eccentric. very passionate about what he loves. doesn't want to do anything else."

Nanami Kento (Jujutsu Kaisen)

"Ex-salaryman, now jujutsu sorcerer. During one life-and-death fight, kept talking about how it was almost six pm with is when he is getting off work at 6pm no matter what because he hates overtime. While his opponent repeatedly almost kills him. Normalest adult in this shonen anime. Teen MC: "Let's go all out!" Nanami: "No. Where moderate effort will suffice, use moderate effort." Some of his quotes from the anime: "I studied at Jujutsu Tech and one thing I learned is that Jujutsu Sorcerers are shit! Then I worked at your typical company and one thing I learned is that work is shit! If both are equally shit I'll take the one I'm more suited to." "You've faced several life-or-death situations, but that does not make you an adult. Finding more fallen-out hairs on your pillow, watching your favourite stuffed bread disappear from the convenience store... The accunulation of these little despairs is what makes a person an adult." "I don't praise or disparage anyone. I adhere to facts and judge on that basis. That's who I am. There was a time when I mistakenly believed society operated the same way." "

[chernobog13]

Suit actors Hirofumi Ishigaki (Mechagodzilla/Kiryu) and Tsutomo Kitagawa (Godzilla) take a breather during the production of Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (2002).

[manias-wordcount]

GRGRGLEGLEF i hope ur taking requests at this time because I cannot find a “reqs closed” sign anywhere

can i request Yosuke Hanamura or Yusuke Kitagawa w a male S/O who likes photography??? And maybe one day they ask them to model in one of his photos?? thank u!!! (Headcanons :P)

again very sorry if your reqs were closed D:

S/o who likes Photography HCs (Yosuke Hanamura, Yusuke Kitagawa)

𝗔/𝗡: 𝗼𝗼𝗼𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗮 𝗹𝗼𝘁 𝗳𝘂𝗻! 𝗶 𝗵𝗼𝗽𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝗶𝘁!

𝙒𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚? ⇒ 𝙈𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩

𝙟𝙤𝙞𝙣 𝙢𝙮 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙘𝙤𝙧𝙙 𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙚𝙧?

𝙗𝙪𝙮 𝙢𝙚 𝙖 𝙘𝙤𝙛𝙛𝙚𝙚?

Yosuke Hanamura

When you said you were into photography, Yosuke thought it was going to be one of two things

“Boring” nature shots of Inaba OR cool, epic action shots (*cough* of him *cough*)

So imagine his surprise when you ask him to model for your photos

And imagine his surprise becoming even bigger and MORE dramatic when you tell him you don’t want action shots of him splashing in the take or riding a scooter- you want to take portraits of him

Begrudgingly, he’ll accept (because he loves you too much hehe) but he’s going to be awkward about it the whole time

You’ll probably take him around beautiful sights around Inaba like the shrine or the Flood Plains around sunset and have to coach him through all these different positions and poses

You’ll probably have to tell him a thousand times to “smile normally” and “stop looking miserable” because he’s starting to get bored just “standing around and looking pretty for you”

But once you show him the final product, don’t worry- he’ll be amazed at your skill and just amazed at how good you made him look

Sure, he may grumble a bit about how you took hours dragging him around only to end up with less than 10 photos that you’re satisfied with but he does thank you profoundly 

You made him feel beautiful and loved when you showed him just how good your favorites looked (in the most, manly way he swears)

Yusuke Kitagawa

Yusuke is a guy who GETS it (kinda)

Since the man is (primarily? completely?) a painter and you’re medium of choice is photography, there are definitely some rules and ways of going about finding and showcasing a subject that differs between the two of you

But an artist can absolutely appreciate another artist’s work, even if you both engage in different forms of art so expect this guy to 100% be your biggest hype man

Y’all probably go back and forth with trying to spark inspiration for each other when one of you is stuck in a slump

Either way, Yusuke is not only honored- he’s thrilled to pieces when you ask him to be your model one day

Though he’s a bit difficult to work with at first

He has his own eye for aesthetics and naturally prefers to do his own poses and expressions (while maybe even directing how you should frame him in the photograph)

But once he cools his jets and lets you do your thing, everything works out

He’s more than happy with seeing your final product and he’s really able to understand your vision once he sees it come alive in the printed photographs

Might even make him so happy that he’ll make a completely abstract painting of his emotions in that moment and even name it after you haha <3

[brucebocchi]

Winter 2024 anime, Pt. 2: Mixed reactions, the bench, and the gems

hey y'all, this is also up on my ko-fi! it's free to read both here and there, but i'm struggling financially rn so i could appreciate if you'd throw a few bucks my way if you liked it! part 1 can be found here.

And we're back for part 2! Here's all the new stuff I finished this season, and one more I'll get back to later. As with before, these are sorted alphabetically within each category and are not ranked as of yet.

Also as before, the OP for each series is linked in the title. Check them all out if the header images aren't giving you the right feel for each show, but also check them out because most of them were actually pretty damn good this season.

[Solo Leveling OP voice] LET'S GET IT!

Mixed Bags:

Hokkaido Gals Are Super Adorable!

Your standard, quasi-harem “easily flustered Regular Guy wins over hot girls just by being really nice” shonen romcom. I really don’t have much to say about this one other than if you’ve seen My Dress-Up Darling, you’ve basically seen this already. The only thing that really sets it apart is the setting.

Tsubasa (voiced by Nobunaga Shimazaki, in a FAR cry from his turn as Mahito in Jujutsu Kaisen) is a straight-laced Tokyoite whose family situation lands him in a small city in the frozen boonies of Hokkaido. While looking for the bus to his new house, he runs into a gyaru in the snowy wild, the underdressed, hilariously-proportioned Minami, and they hit it off. It turns out they go to the same school, there are other cute girls there who take a shine to him as well, it’s nothing new.

I ultimately don’t have much to say about Hokkaido Gals, but I do have a soft spot for series like this, and after reading ahead in the manga I felt obligated to see it through. This is all junk food, but it’s all stuff you’ve seen done better in other series. I also have a soft spot for gyaru in anime and manga, and while I do like Minami just fine, she isn’t Marin Kitagawa or Rumiko Manbagi. I don’t really have it in me to recommend this show to many, though, at least not until another season rolls around, if that ever happens. The manga genuinely does get a lot better as it goes on, but the really worthwhile stuff may not happen until a third season, and I just don’t see that happening. 

The manga has issues that the anime isn’t willing or able to solve, chief of which being the visuals. The art style of the manga is wildly inconsistent, and getting a mediocre animation team on this didn’t help matters at all. While the colors often pop nicely against the pretty, snowy backdrops, nobody looks all that great overall. The characters are recognizable, but they just plain don’t look great a lot of the time, nor do they look consistent from one cut to the next; I said that Minami’s proportions are hilarious, but just as hilarious is how wildly they vacillate from one scene to the next for the sake of trying to titillate the viewer.

My biggest takeaway from both the manga and anime was everything I learned about Hokkaido in the process, and if the series is taking subsidies from the island’s tourism bureau, then it’s a job well done. I want some goddamn jingisukan now. The OP is a great time, though. I’m shocked it took over a decade for us to get a proper “Uptown Funk” knockoff in an anime.

Metallic Rouge

I’ll be upfront in saying that this was my biggest disappointment of the season by far. This show had so much going for it, and what we got was… ugh.

There was an unbelievable amount of promise from the outset: This was Studio Bones’ commemorative 25th anniversary production, and coming from the studio that gave us all-timer adaptations like Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood and Mob Psycho 100, not to mention later works from Cowboy Bebop creator Shinichiro Watanabe (including the Cowboy Bebop movie), you can’t fault anyone for having high expectations. It looked to be a fitting production as well: Watanabe’s influence shines through immediately in the gorgeous, lived-in cyberpunk off-world locales and racially diverse cast. Action takes the form of dope robo-tokusatsu transformation fisticuffs, and it’s entirely in 2D animation to boot. The first couple of episodes were killer, too; everything looked and sounded amazing, and there were just enough plot threads teased out that I just had to see how they’d unravel.

It brings me no joy, then, to say that Metallic Rouge collapses into a jumbled mess. I don’t even want to bother talking about what happens in the show because I don’t fucking care anymore. There are few media experiences more sobering than to have it dawn on you over a span of several weeks that “oh… this isn’t actually all that good, is it?” Episode after episode piles on with sloppy lore, weak worldbuilding, warring factions whose names you immediately forget, pointless double-crosses, and the most predictable twist you’ve ever seen. For a while I was willing to accept the fact that I didn’t know what was going on half the time and expected things to become clearer, but now I’m not entirely sure the writers knew either. The stakes apparently kept rising and everything just kept getting more claustrophobic. I’m glad it’s over, if only because if I had to hear “Clair de Lune” one more fucking time, I was going to go ballistic. 

There are several attempts at emotional beats, as the story is rife with tragedy and sacrifice, and every single one lands with a wet thud. Nobody gets enough time, motivation, or characterization for any of these things to feel like they actually matter, and that’s especially a shame because the finale might have been able to stick the landing if the previous episodes were less dense and better paced. Emphasis on “almost,” though, because just before the season ends, we get the absolute most pointless fakeout I’ve seen since The Rise of Skywalker, which is the lowest point of comparison you can make for any work of sci-fi.

This is especially frustrating because on paper, there is so much to like here. Rouge and Naomi are likable-enough deuteragonists with a fun dynamic, and they’d make easy yuri bait in a better show. The characters are all pretty and uniquely designed across the board, and the overall aesthetic, almost a pastiche of late-90’s anime futurism, is undeniable. The toku suit designs are neat and several of the action scenes are gorgeous. The score and soundtrack are outstanding (except for the aforementioned Debussy indulgence). I have few complaints about how the show looks and sounds; the style is great! All of my issues lie with the substance.

Metallic Rouge may have had all the ingredients, but it just needed more time to cook; whether that would have been by doubling the episode count or by more carefully planning the pacing and trimming some of the fat from the lore, I’m still not sure. Probably both. It probably needed better writers, too. Maybe it just isn’t as smart as it acts and there was no way to satisfyingly resolve the clumsy civil rights allegories that bring it uncomfortably close to the likes of Detroit: Become Human. So all of the above, I guess. I tend to adore stories that involve artificially-intelligent beings developing their own wills and emotions and learning to cut their own strings (the likes of Blade Runner, Nier Automata, even a couple of character arcs in the Persona series), but this ain’t it. I’m not even mad anymore. I’m just disappointed.

If there are two positives that will stick with me, though, they would be the absolute banger of an OP and, of course, Naomi Orthmann herself (pictured above, left). Outstanding character design. I’m mildly obsessed. She deserved a better show.

The Unwanted Undead Adventurer

This one isn’t even worth talking about, so here’s a brief synopsis, then I’ll add some commentary, and then we’ll all move on with our lives. 

Rentt, a beloved but mediocre adventurer in a fantasy town, gets lost in the mysterious labyrinth that all adventurers explore for personal gain, gets waxed by a dragon, and awakens as a shitty-looking CGI skeleton. He notices, though, that he’s able to level up better as a skeleton than he did as a human, and with the more monsters he defeats, the more he evolves into something closer to human. The rest isn’t really worth discussing.

If I’m being honest, I should’ve dropped this show much sooner. It looks kinda lousy most of the time, the plot (inasmuch as there even is one) is boring, character designs are forgettable (except for Rentt’s closest ally, Lorraine, holy hell) and it seems wholly uninterested in actually building its own setting. If it returns for a second season, I won’t be there, nor will I feel like I’m missing anything. Each episode felt like a chore to watch. I probably only saw it through because 1) I liked looking at Lorraine, I know what I’m about, and 2) I didn’t want to lump it in with the shows I did drop. The Unwanted Undead Adventurer isn’t as patently upsetting or frustrating as those three, but it just plain isn’t a very good show.

The Witch and the Beast

This show could have been so much more. I was drawn in by the gorgeous character designs and intriguing blend of Victorian gothic aesthetics and architecture with modern infrastructure, and very quickly disappointed by just about everything else. The first episode is an exceptional proof of concept, and almost everything that follows is an upsetting showcase of what could have been.

The story centers around Ashaf, a languid, chain-smoking agent of the governing church with a big-ass coffin strapped to his back, and his partner Guideau, a snarling hyena in a young woman’s body, as they investigate abuses of magic across the continent in search of nefarious witches. Guideau in particular has a bone to pick with witches, as the body they presently inhabit is the result of a witch’s curse, and they remain in furious pursuit of the one who cursed them. The curse can be temporarily undone by a kiss with a witch, allowing Guideau’s true body, a hulking brute confined to the coffin, to escape and wreak havoc. Meaning that on a few occasions we get a girl-on-girl kiss followed by a big dude wrecking shit. There’s also other investigations of serial killings, necromancy, and a cursed sword, and here’s hoping you like those, because the coffin breaks are few and far between.

This wasn’t great! By the third episode I had the sneaking suspicion that the animation talent on hand just wasn’t enough to support the aesthetic. While the character designs are exceptional, almost everyone looks awful in any shot that isn’t completely focused on them. This is especially true of Guideau, who looks so inconsistently off-model from one shot to the next that I’m still not entirely sure what they’re supposed to look like, and that’s kind of unforgivable when we’re talking about a main character. Everything looks too dim and too shiny at the same time, and action scenes look like shit more often than they look interesting. I can see so many flickers of something excellent (or at least really good-looking) in Witch and the Beast, and everything else that keeps those flickers from actually igniting makes it so much more frustrating to watch. Maybe just read the manga instead; the panels I've seen from it were uniformly gorgeous.

Actually, yeah, you should probably just read the manga, because for a season of anime, the pacing is atrocious too. It’s clearly trying to angle for a monster-of-the-week format, but each of these mini-arcs is a little too dense for a single episode, so multiple episodes are dedicated to these one-off curiosities, most of which do nothing to advance the plot or show off what the show does best. And if one of them isn’t particularly interesting, you’re saddled with it for the next two weeks like you've been stuck munching on a mealy apple. And I know you can only adapt so much in a 12-episode season, but the decision to end the season on a flashback arc and a lore dump was baffling. That’s not world-building, that’s lazy, and it made the show’s existing pacing issues feel that much more inane.

I feel like I was sold a false bill of goods. I can only imagine how the mangaka feels about this. Dull and uninspiring all around. What a waste.

The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic

Isekai, unassuming high school boy gains a unique power, impending war with the Demon Lord, yadda yadda yadda. The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic isn’t anything new or special by any means, nor is it particularly well-animated or -paced, but at its best it’s silly and charming enough that it made a nice, brainless palate cleanser on Fridays.

Usato, your standard quiet high schooler, ends up walking home on a rainy evening with the popular, attractive student council president and VP, when an isekai portal happens. It turns out that it was just the seito-kai that was invited along for the ride (and President Suzune, as it turns out, is fucking psyched to get to be in an isekai), and Usato got caught along with them. When tested for magical aptitude, Suzune and VP Kazuki hit the jackpot with electric and light affinities, respectively, but things go awry when Usato’s reading turns up with healing magic. Terror strikes the palace as the intimidating dommy-mommy Captain Rose barges in to spirit Usato away from his new friends and into her squadron of goons to train him as a combat medic.

As character comedy goes, this one is actually pretty solid at times. Shogo Sakata is plenty of fun as the put-upon, lippy Usato (a much louder role than Chainsaw Man’s Aki Hayakawa), and Atsuko Tanaka (Major Kusanagi herself!) is a blast as the terrifying Rose, an uncompromising slave driver of a drill sergeant with a secret soft side. The dynamic between them is great, too; Usato is over Rose’s shit from the beginning and isn’t afraid to talk back to her, but before you know it, this transforms into friendly banter as Rose clearly takes a shine to Usato and knows he can handle any punishment she doles out. Suzune’s also a bunch of fun now that she’s broken away from having to be the competent, popular girl at school and gets to fully lean into being a complete dork.

Wrong Way also works decently as an isekai, because it makes an effort to stay rooted in high fantasy rather than fall back on JRPG mechanics, meaning there are no stat screens! It also avoids the trappings of wish-fulfillment isekai series by having Usato start out as a regular-ass guy; he’s not a Kirito type, just someone Rose sees as a rough gem in need of cutting. There are no cheat skills or OP weapons or anything, just a kid training every day to get stronger so he can protect the people close to him, and that’s the kind of anime protagonist you should want to be.

For better and for worse, I get serious mid-00s vibes from this one; watch the OP if you don’t believe me. Some of the colors pop uncannily in that early-digipaint-era way, and the animation is pretty middling; the most fluid animation we see is whenever Suzune is acting like a creep. Much like those mid-00s anime, though, Wrong Way may have benefited from being weekly (or twice as long) rather than seasonal. There’s a ton of planting with very little payoff, and it doesn’t feel like the actual scope of the story has even been addressed yet. We don’t even learn why the series has the name it does until someone literally says it aloud in the 11th episode. I may have to reevaluate this season after a possible second, if we ever get one, because this doesn’t stand too well on its own.

Of the anime in this “mixed bags” segment, I’d say I enjoyed Wrong Way the most, but it still had enough problems for me to keep it here. It’s not a particularly bad anime, but it’s not especially good either. I guess we can slot it into what Hazel refers to as “good mid.”

On Hold: 

Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?! (three episodes watched)

Man, what a title. That was the main draw for this BL series, which on paper is basically a gay version of the Mel Gibson vehicle What Women Want. 

Adachi (a surname that will always make me laugh thanks to Persona 4), a gloomy salaryman, has hit the big 3-0 without getting any, and now he can somehow read anyone’s thoughts just by making physical contact with them. Just as he laments that this is his life now, he accidentally bumps into his handsome, popular coworker, Kurosawa, whom he learns has been harboring a massive crush on Adachi this whole time. Well dang, what now? Kurosawa’s a really nice, thoughtful dude, but Adachi’s never even thought about being with a man before! And isn’t there something wrong with already knowing this secret? How can he even go into the office and look Kurosawa in those big, handsome eyes… every single day…

What I’ve seen so far has been pretty solid, if not particularly well animated. The visuals are really my only gripe here; I just put it off for way too long and didn’t have it in me to finish it on time to actually get this thing written and published. Yaoi isn’t my forte, which feels like a shortcoming on my end as a fledgling bisexual, and I’ve already remarked on the solid LGBT representation this past season, so I do plan on hopping back on this one.

I gotta say, the co-leading voice actors put in serious work this season. Adachi is voiced by Chiaki Kobayashi, who continued his role as Stark in Frieren, returned to Mashle as Mash Burnedead, and contributed to Metallic Rouge’s cluttered cast as Noid. Kurosawa’s seiyuu, Ryota Suzuki (of whom I’ll always be a fan for his masterful turn as Yu Ishigami in Kaguya-sama), also held down leading roles in Bang Brave Bang Bravern and The Unwanted Undead Adventurer. They’ve been great in the few episodes of Cherry Magic! that I’ve seen so far, and they’ll be a huge part of what brings me back.

The Gems:

Bang Brave Bang Bravern

I feel like the mark of a perfectly audacious piece of media is in the moments where I find myself incredulously shouting “WHAT THE FUCK AM I WATCHING” at the screen, and Bravern made me do that at least once per episode. I have so many things to say about what makes this show great but all of it can be summed up as “it fucks so goddamn hard.”

A joint military exercise in Hawaii between Japanese and American mech pilots goes south as a sudden invasion by metalloid aliens portends certain doom for humanity. Just in the nick of time, though, a bombastic, autonomous mech named Bravern arrives from space and insists that ace pilot Isami Ao take his reins. Isami reluctantly agrees, and to his consternation, Bravern goes full tokusatsu on everyone’s asses, complete with fully-diegetic theme music, and keeps the threat at bay. With Bravern continuing to pester him to act as a pilot, Isami is forced to take up the mantle of a reluctant hero as everyone rallies around Bravern to save Earth. Tagging along is blond-haired, blue-eyed American pilot Lewis Smith, who gets to live out all of his Top Gun fantasies, right down to the latent homosexuality.

That last point isn’t a projection or anything: This show is legitimately gay as hell, and it rules. Bravern’s feelings towards Isami feel far more romantic than what you’d expect from a literal robot, and his description of how it felt to have Isami pilot him for the first time, as relayed to a grim-faced military council, is riddled with hilarious innuendo. Isami struggles not only with shouldering the burden of needing to be a hero to all of humanity, but also being beset on both sides by a loud, insistent mecha and a dewy-eyed gaijin, both of whom very well seem to want to get in his pants. Intricate rituals punctuate Isami and Lewis’ angsty relationship as these broad-shouldered, muscular men grow ever closer. It’s also worth reiterating that Isami is voiced by Ryota Suzuki, who also voiced Kurosawa in Cherry Magic!, and that may not have even been his gayest role this season. I’m not super well-versed in mecha as a genre, but I do know that there’s a lot of Warrior’s Bond-type stuff in these series, and Bravern lays it on thick. And hard.

This show looks killer, by the way. CGI implementation in 2D anime is still a touchy subject, but Bravern features some of the best I’ve ever seen. Simple cel-shading goes a long way to the point where, outside of some uncanny motion, Bravern himself feels perfectly blended into the hand-drawn animation. Mecha designs range from realistic military-style tech to otherworldly sentient robots, and battle sequences run the same gamut as the stakes rise. As goofy as all of the above may sound, it’s committed to being a grandiose, big-time mecha showcase.

This is as good as camp gets in anime; Bravern does for the mecha genre what Akiba Maid War did for yakuza film pastiche (I have also heard positive comparisons to Samurai Flamenco, which I’ll have to get on ASAP). It’s an excellent mecha show in its own right, and wildly hilarious to boot. Bravern himself is very genre-savvy and seemingly a bit of an otaku himself; he loves acting like a mecha hero, to everyone else’s chagrin. Several of the villains (also mechanical beings, voiced by an all-star seiyuu roster that includes Kenjiro Tsuda, the aforementioned Atsuko Tanaka, and Rie Kugimiya) are total dorks themselves. A CIA interrogator tries to waterboard a mecha at one point. Bravern is a deeply silly show, but its heart is planted as firmly on its sleeve as its tongue is in its cheek: For as wacky as it can get, the story still unfolds with a straight face and excellent emotional beats. 

This show also has the most unskippable ED of any anime since Chainsaw Man dropped a new one every week. I will not say what happens. You cannot predict what it is. Just watch it. One of the top YouTube comments on that video says “When I saw this ending after episode 2, I thought I was going crazy.” That’s a ringing endorsement.

Chained Soldier

On the heels of 100 Girlfriends completely rewiring my brain, I was raring for some more good old-fashioned anime trash. I was told that there would be plenty this season, but you can consult the “dropped” section to see how well that worked out for me. Chained Soldier came with some significant hype, and soon enough into the first episode I realized that I’d actually skimmed through this manga before (don’t ask why), so I was on board immediately. Now here’s some nice trashy fun.

The world is in peril thanks to creatures called Shuuki that can advance on our world via portals from another dimension. Women primarily lead the charge against these monsters, as this dimension produces a special fruit that can lend them (and not men) otherworldly powers to help them in the fight. Yuuki, a perfectly normal young man, ends up in grave danger as he stumbles into a portal, where he is saved by the beautiful Kyouka, a commander who is able to subjugate Shuuki at will and use them to fight others. In a bind, she asks Yuuki if she can subjugate him, which he agrees to by licking her finger and transforming into a monster himself, at her beck and call. Because of his utility in battle, Yuuki is enlisted into her squad of baddies (and also an 11-year-old), living in their home as a caretaker and answering directly to Kyouka as her “slave.”

I know. Hear me out.

I put “slave” in scare quotes because Chained Soldier fortunately isn’t going full Shield Hero on us; this arrangement has a give-and-take baked in. See, every time Yuuki completes his service, Kyouka (or whomever else takes advantage of this anomaly) is compelled to carry out whatever suitable “reward” springs from his unconscious, and this is where the ecchi kicks in. Sometimes it’s a kiss, and sometimes it’s something a little more; the reward corresponds to the length and intensity of Yuuki’s contributions to battle, so the heat can turn up in the form of, say, clothed face-sitting, a good scrubbing in the bath, or some nice, casual CBT. All of this is to say that “slave” is a bit of a buzzword here: It’s more of a dom/sub situationship with a lot of extra steps.

Yes, just about everything that isn’t an action setup is full-on harem trash, and Chained Soldier lays it on thick, right down to full-on nudity. Nothing about this show resembles high art, but I can’t help but admire such a high level of commitment to its aesthetic, including the sleaze. It fully commits to the bit and doesn’t even bother lampshading its own trashiness. Chained Soldier knows what it’s about, and I respect that. It also has the good sense not to sexualize the youngest girl, which is a point in its favor that I can’t award a couple other shows previously discussed.

And while this show is plenty fun, the action sequences often excellent, and the character designs usually delightful, there’s not actually a whole lot going on here. As I said with Mashle, I know that battle manga like this can take a minute to really get cooking, and as I said with Witch and the Beast, 12 episodes may not always be a sufficient runtime to adapt enough to break ground, but the debut season feels more like a proof of concept than anything else. That being said, Chained Soldier’s manga has a very effusive audience, and its praises don’t seem to entirely be about the boobs and butts, so I’ll wait patiently for the second season. I think it’s earned that much.

Delicious in Dungeon

This is the one I’m having the hardest time writing about because it so confidently and so completely speaks for itself that anything I could add would feel like scattering sawdust at the beach. Dungeon Meshi (I refuse to call it by its official English title) is a widely beloved manga among those who’ve read it, and for Studio Trigger to do an honest-to-goodness manga adaptation for the first time might as well be front page news among anime fans. 

The story follows Laios, the deeply weird human hero, as he delves back into a bizarre and mysterious dungeon to rescue his sister Falin from the belly of a dragon, along with his misfit party: The neurotic half-elven mage Marcille, the temperamental halfling rogue Chilchuck, and the dwarven warrior-slash-chef Senshi. The party is frequently low on supplies, so to survive the trip they’ll need to subsist on the most abundant resource in the dungeon: Monsters. Senshi’s aptitude in the kitchen helps ensure that everything is edible and sufficiently tasty, regardless of how nasty the monster it came from may have been. With monster obstructions out of the way and their bellies filled, our party delves deeper into the dungeon as the mysteries deepen in kind.

I love the character dynamics in this so goddamn much. Marcille and Chilchuck are frequently put off by the dubious monster food presented to them, but their consternation is worsened by the fact that Laios’ fascination with the monsters it came from annoys the shit out of them. I referred to him as “deeply weird,” but that doesn’t begin to describe his absolute galaxy brain, and I mean it as a term of endearment. Laios is deeply knowledgeable and curious about the fauna in the dungeon, and not just how they taste: He is vocally curious about how certain monster attacks may feel, sings along with siren songs, and even keeps a hardcover bestiary inside his breastplate. He’s one of those people you turn to if you have a question on a hyperspecific subject, but you have to be careful how you ask it or else you’re trapped for the next two hours. And I love him for it.

Even putting the comedy aside, there is a fascinating human element at play in Dungeon Meshi, and I can tell that that surface has barely even been scratched yet. Marcille is just as dogged in her pursuit of saving Falin as Laios is, maybe even moreso (remember what I keep saying about LGBT representation this season?). Chilchuck continues to convince himself that he’s only in the job for his own personal gain, but you can see that mask slipping. And I still wanna know what Senshi’s deal is. Even with the five major players I listed, there’s an increasingly deep roster surrounding them—showcasing a broad spectrum of races and ethnicities, both real and fantastical—each with their own histories and motivations, and I cannot wait to see how they play out and interact with one another. There seem to be much deeper themes at play here as well as we learn more about perceptions and grudges between differing races, oppositional magics, clashing ideologies, and the monetary incentives that drive both the dungeon’s exploration and its very existence. I’m here for it.

I’ve been holding off on reading the manga until the season is up in June (though I could crack any day), but I know a loving adaptation when I see one. Not that Trigger ever slacks off in the animation department, but they absolutely brought their A-game here. Everyone looks bouncy and cartoony in the way only Trigger can pull off while still looking as close as possible to Ryoko Kui’s source material (as far as I can tell). As with Frieren, the action sequences aren’t frequent, nor are they entirely what the show is about, but they look incredible every single time. And the food, of course, looks incredible, no matter how weird. This is practically a cooking anime and a fantasy dungeon anime at the same time, and both aspects are visually on point at all times.

I’m obviously speaking from my own bubble as one of the six people who still use Tumblr in 2024, but I rarely see new anime make a splash like this on social media every single week, and the ones that I do are usually the monster shonen hits like Chainsaw Man or Jujutsu Kaisen. Dungeon Meshi deserves the exposure and success it’s attained, and I’m excited to see it continue. I’d easily slot this right up there with Bravern as one of the best new anime of the season.

A Sign of Affection

I’ve seen a hell of a lot of shonen slice-of-life romances in the past year and change, so a nice fluffy shoujo like this was an excellent palate cleanser. There were a hell of a lot of Big Action Setpieces and panicky teens and grim dungeon crawlers this season, and at the end of the week I wanted to unwind with a bunch of pretty twenty-somethings falling in love with each other.

The show centers on Yuki, a young woman living with congenital hearing loss, making do at a public college after growing up at a school for the deaf. Though she’s able to get by with LINE messages and lip reading, she’s unprepared when a foreigner asks for help, but she’s saved by a handsome and mysterious young man named Itsuomi. He’s able to help out, and takes an interest in her when he realizes his fellow undergrad is deaf, and Yuki takes an interest in kind because he’s really goddamn hot. It turns out that he’s a polyglot and an avid world-traveler, but sign language is not in his purview. This mutual interest sparks the concern of her childhood friend, Oushi, one of the few people in her life who already use sign language, who wants to be sure that nothing untoward is happening. And it isn’t, because this is just a really lovely, low-stakes romance story.

This is pure, unfiltered shoujo at its best. Yuki’s internal monologue is peppered with flowery prose, and everything and everyone looks soft and beautiful. Fashionable, doe-eyed women and pillowy-lipped ikemen abound (seriously, holy shit, the lips on these boys) as the scope widens and the main love interests’ friends explore their own possible love stories. Itsuomi is very much of the “mysterious boy” archetype you’ll find in romance stories in this demographic, but he’s not hiding any sort of dark past like you’d typically expect; he’s just an interesting guy who keeps his personal life close to the vest. He’s a self-appointed world citizen who loves learning about how people of all cultures live their lives, and in Yuki he sees someone within his home turf who happens to live in her own world entirely. And it’s easy to see his forward behavior with Yuki as infantilizing at first (Oushi sure does, and I’ll get back to him in a second), but as they grow closer Itsuomi quickly becomes much more considerate of her boundaries and learns to accommodate her as he studies sign language and gestures that help ensure her comfort. This is a story about Yuki’s horizons broadening just as much as it is about Itsuomi wanting to be let into Yuki’s narrow world, and that sort of synergy makes for some exceptional romance.

A Sign of Affection deserves some credit for refusing to shy away from Yuki’s disability and making a point of depicting her world as one that does little to accommodate her. Very few people in her daily life ever bothered to learn sign language, she relies on a friend to take notes during lectures, and work is hard to come by. It’s an honest depiction that makes an effort not to be exploitative, which is a breath of fresh air. Not only that, but there’s some interesting meta-commentary in there: The only major conflict in the story stems from Oushi’s jealousy, and his reservations about Itsuomi possibly “taking advantage of” Yuki almost feel like he believes that he’s the only one who knows what’s best for her just because he’s done the bare minimum to accommodate her. He thinks he’s coming from a good place, but he winds up accidentally infantilizing her in exactly the way he thinks Itsuomi might. That’s a particularly interesting bit of irony!

I’ve seen enough shonen-oriented romcoms where an unassuming Regular Guy gets flustered as a way-too-casual girl pushes his buttons (hell, I’ve already reviewed two of those this season), so it’s nice to see the formula flipped for a shoujo as Yuki and her best friend Rin blush and squee over Itsuomi and his coworker Kyouya, respectively. A Sign of Affection isn’t afraid to get a little silly with it, either; plenty of these moments are punctuated by characters’ faces going low-detail or full chibi, and they are cute as shit every single time.

This one was just cozy as hell. If you’re into this sort of thing, swaddle yourself in it and bask.

Solo Leveling

I let this one collect dust after the third episode and didn’t pick it back up until the season was almost up, and honestly, I was kinda dreading it: The trailers didn’t look too promising, the show was slow to start, and it looked like yet another derivative JRPG-style dungeon crawler that managed to get popular. Turns out, nah, this show actually kinda fucks and the web novel series and webtoon it’s based on are popular for a reason. The story is nothing special, don’t get me wrong, but it’s a perfectly serviceable turn-your-brain-off action spectacle with a bit more lying beneath the surface.

In a modern-day South Korea where portals to mysterious dungeons open up and threaten the populace, those who can brave the dungeons, known as hunters, are an invaluable human resource. Once someone is assigned a grade as a hunter, they have that grade for life, barring some rare occurrences. Sung Jinwoo is at the lowest rung on that ladder as an E-rank, incapable of improvement, assigned the epithet “the weakest hunter of all mankind.” He mostly shows up to portal raids as a warm body to fill a quota, and one such job goes haywire as most of the raid party, Jinwoo included, is brutally slaughtered in an arcane secondary dungeon within a portal. He somehow wakes up in a hospital, unharmed, and able to access a digital menu before his eyes that exhorts him to do the One Punch Man workout every day, lest he incur punishment. He gets hilariously chadly in the span of a few days in the hospital, including an inexplicable haircut, and finds access to dungeons only he can enter and levels up within this new system.

This one gets off to a slow start and may have benefited from a longer premiere like Oshi no Ko or Frieren, but once the table is fully set, Solo Leveling really starts to cook. Jinwoo’s titular leveling process is a blast from one fight to the next, and as he moves to work in the dungeons that other hunters can access, it turns out he’s been training with the weights on. He’s suddenly fighting way above his pay grade, and after staving off attacks from hunters taking advantage of portals for nefarious ends, he is recruited by an ambitious corporate scion to make some real coin and establish an independent association of hunters.

While it can feel like there’s a whole bunch of table-setting between portal sequences, it’s some smart worldbuilding on Solo Leveling’s end to establish how portal hunting became a central pillar of this society, and doubly so how political and capitalist interests can leave a wide berth for corruption and bad actors. If there’s money to be made in hunting, of course people will find ways to make even more at the expense of others, both at the corporate and individual levels. There’s a lot of talk in there about “survival of the fittest” and “natural selection” and that… makes me nervous.

Those are terms that can be used to justify immoral actions in the name of money, sure, but Jinwoo also uses them to justify his own process. To what end is he constantly improving himself? Sure, he's doing what he can to provide for his younger sister and their ailing mother, but I see less and less humanity in him as this goes on. There are constant hints at something far more sinister at play than just a dude getting stronger for himself, not the least of which being “the system,” the UI that implores him to keep taking on these “quests.” Something, or someone, seems to be guiding him. Whenever another hunter turns on Jinwoo, of course his self-defense instincts kick in, but system pop-ups instruct him to defeat X number of hostiles like it’s a normal video game scenario. There’s something eerily depersonalized about these encounters, despite them being full-on mortal combat, that gives me serious Ender’s Game vibes. Consider me intrigued.

I’d heard that the Solo Leveling manhwa’s main draw was its visuals, and though I had my doubts early on, I'm sold now. This is a pretty solid presentation! Hiroyuki Sawano turned in yet another banger soundtrack to punctuate all the action setpieces, helping to stitch together a fairly complete tapestry. Said setpieces are exhilarating and almost impressively bloody, and while the animation is nothing impressive in the day-to-day, it goes absolutely batshit when the gloves come off. Movement is inhumanly fluid and the visuals can go into the same loose, psychedelic territories we’ve seen in the likes of Mob Psycho and the second season of Jujutsu Kaisen. If this is the new meta for shonen action, I’m not complaining.

By all rights, this is a pretty decent show, but if I’m being honest, this one just hasn’t stuck with me much. And that’s fine! Sometimes I just wanna see some nutty action stuff and move on with my day. Solo Leveling hits that spot perfectly, and I'll be right back there when it returns for its next season.

‘Tis Time for “Torture,” Princess

I was surprised to learn that the gag manga this is based on, with such a seemingly simple premise, has been running for well over 200 chapters and counting. As the anime progressed, I was far more pleasantly surprised to learn that it actually works.

In a standard anime fantasy world where the forces of good are fighting the demonic Hellhorde, an unnamed warrior princess and her talking enchanted sword are taken prisoner and subjected to torture as they’re squeezed for intel. Said “torture,” as the title’s scare quotes would suggest, is mildly unconventional, as the demon baddie inquisitor, aptly named Torture Tortura, attempts to ply the princess by presenting her with tantalizingly delicious-looking food that she can only partake in if she coughs up some info. Naturally, the princess caves every single time, but her intel is often inane and useless, so the “torture” continues. It’s not all food, though: The princess is soon held out of arm’s reach of adorable baby animals by a gyaru beastgirl, pampered into submission by a spa-loving giantess, and is faced with a tsundere vampire faildaughter, who… tries. 

And you’d think that would be it; the joke wears thin and you move onto something else. Before you realize it, though, something’s changed: The princess and her captors are quickly becoming friends. The premise almost feels perfunctory: These inquisitors are actual people just doing their jobs, and whatever happens after the princess’ myriad confessions is fair game. There’s no malice or animosity, even during the “torture” sessions themselves: Everyone will have a blast and grow closer as friends, and then the princess will voluntarily go back to her bedless cell. It’s like Sam and Ralph after they clock out, except they’re almost always off the clock. Everyone is genuinely looking out for each other in all directions, and the only thing that keeps the torture going is the need for a status quo to return to, even as it grows more elastic. If anything, Time for "Torture" is a good example of committing to the bit without having to necessarily rely on it.

The real irony in all of this is that it becomes increasingly apparent that the princess is having her needs met in captivity far better than she ever did back home. In her proud proclamations about how she’ll never cave to the temptations before her (shortly before she does just that), the princess often talks about her upbringing and her time as the head of an imperial legion, but these stories often betray her lack of friendship or any of the little things that make life worth living. Her life as royalty was one of isolation and deprivation, to the point where she finds more freedom and fulfillment as a prisoner. She truly lives in a society.

Hellholm, on the other hand, has a surprisingly healthy approach to things like work-life balance, food, and leisure, and its most valuable prisoner is no exception. The Hell-Lord himself is a surprising exemplar of this; for as much as he looks and talks like your standard terrifying JRPG demon king, he’s a surprisingly good dude! He looks after his family, employees, and even the captive princess as if they are all one and the same; he exhibits strong principles and an aversion to conflict, sees to his employees' needs and wants alike, and is a supportive, loving father to his unbelievably precious little daughter (who also serves as a “torturer,” to the princess’ delight). He’s also a big time anime dork, and even bonds with a knight attempting to rescue the princess over their shared otakudom before sending him off peacefully. As “villains” go, he’s top tier.

Time for "Torture" is nothing groundbreaking by any stretch, but it’s a cute, silly time and it plays with anime fantasy tropes in the same way a six-month-old German shepherd “plays” with a cheap stuffed toy. How long the premise holds up is entirely up to you, but I had a lot of fun with it. I have no idea how this ended up being one of the better shows this season, but I guess it just scratched the right itch for me.

[adachimoe]

When the Visualive Persona 4 stage play was performed, each showing had a different name for the protagonist that were submitted by fans. The stage play always started out with the protagonist being named like in the game:

The only one I've known for the first Visualive stage play was Yuya Seta (lol I think a fan really wanted to combine Yu Narukami + Soji Seta) cause that's the one that was used on the DVD recording and the rest don't seem to be recorded anywhere?

But I found some bromides on a Japanese second hand store, Surugaya, earlier today that show more of the protagonist's names that were used:

The March 15th showing used the name Kyosuke Saeki, March 17th afternoon used Yukiya Kitagawa, March 18th evening was Sakuya Kisaragi, and March 19th afternoon was Yuri Sakura.

...hmm I think he's just gonna be Yu Narukami to me forever, but at least none of these strike me as "household cleaning products" like Soji Seta does lol.

[intoloopin-archive]

⌗ [ RU READY 2B RARE ? ]

──── RARE RHYTHM, also popularly known as RareRhy or RRR/THM, is a fictional south korean record label operating under the sino-korean entertainment and acting agency 4FORSIGHT.

──── Founded by three times debutee Idol SUH HYUNJUNG in 2021, RareRhy's characteristic bussiness strategy includes acquiring undervaluaded K-Pop acts from dying companies and remixing them into stardom - honoring the label's foundational philosophy of 'polishing stones into diamonds' and 'giving everyone who deserves it a second, third and even fourth chance.'

──── RARE RHYTHM's extremely big production value as well as their innovative approach to marketing keeps on adding fuel to the company's growing reputation as a safe haven inside the merciless jungle that K-Pop can be; but there are those who do find themselves wondering... Isn't it all too good to be true?

⌗ [ THE BOSSES : ]

┃ Suh Hyunjung - Founder, CEO.

┃ Bae Sangeo - Co-founder, COO; 4ForSight's founder, former CEO.

⌗ [ THE ROASTER : ]

┃ FairLand (2023 -)

⤷ Choi Sangah. Huh Nahyeon. Han Sooah. Song Minji. Jazz Tidarat Banruerit. Kitagawa Ichika.

┃ LOOPiN (2024 -)

⤷ Park Taesong. Na Seungsoo. Fukunaga Haruki. Dylan Hwang. Woo Gyujin. Oh Jimin. Lee Hanjae. Xu Jiahang. Kim Haegon.

┃ VIEWBYU (2024 -)

⤷ Endo Kazunari. Yoon Daekwang. Aaron Jang. Note Arthit Panomyaong. Lee Jongsung. Sahara Akihiko.

┃ DAYME-N-KNIGHT Project (2025?)

⤷ ???.

⌗ [ OTHER ENDEAVOURS : ]

──── CIRCLE CHATTING is an upcoming fictional mobile app and platform focused on providing subscription content and artist-to-fan communication, under development by 4FORSIGHT.

[real-life-senshi]

Sailor Moon was always by my side. Mitsuishi Kotono and Kitagawa Keiko's special conversation on Sailor Moon Cosmos

(OP: This was from July 15th, 2023. Somehow I missed this article when it was first released... Whoops. Here's the belated translation.)

In 2014, when the new anime Sailor Moon Crystal began, fans of the 90s anime were gushing. We get to see Sailor Moon again...! And now, with the movie version of Sailor Moon Cosmos (both the first and second parts are in theatres), the series has finally come to its conclusion. This time, exclusive to MOVIE WALKER PRESS, Mitsuishi Kotono, who plays Eternal Sailor Moon/Usagi Tsukino, and Kitagawa Keiko, who plays Sailor Cosmos, got their dream to share a conversation come true! They reminisced on their experience during production, how they portrayed their roles, and what the existence of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon mean for both of them.

「 What I worked hard for in the '90s has actually come to fruition… I really felt that. 」 (Mitsuishi)

― This movie is the culmination of the Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal series that started in 2014. From the initial Crystal series to this movie, people who grew up watching the 90's anime became the chosen cast… How was it for you, Mitsuishi-san, to work with the viewers of those days?

Mitsuishi 「 That's true. At first, I was the only confirmed voice casting for the film, and then the other Sailor Senshi auditioned and one by one, we finally came together. 」

― It is just like at the very beginning of the work, isn't it? At first, Usagi was alone, but then Sailor Mercury's Ami Mizuno, then Sailor Mars' Rei Hino, and so on, gathered together.

Mitsuishi 「 In the beginning I felt very lonely recording on my own, so I was glad when one by one the Sailor Senshi gathered together. Many of the cast and staff had told me “I’ve watched it back then”! “What I worked hard for in the 90s has actually come to fruition”, “the children who would proclaim ‘I want to be like Sailor Moon’ have become such splendid adults, all of them really flourished as a lady and just like a Senshi” was the impression I received firsthand. Of course, the girls are all professionals, so they were able to put aside their feelings as a fan and tackled their voicing roles seriously, and I felt that they supported me more than I did for them. We also get together in private, and I sincerely feel that I have made it this far because I had their support. 」

― Kitagawa-san, who plays Sailor Cosmos, is also a member of the so-called "Sailor Moon generation," right?

Kitagawa 「 Mitsuishi-san is a goddess to me. When I was a child, the first manga I picked up was Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, which I followed the serialization in Nakayoshi, and was part of the generation that also participated in Sailor Moon’s ``Great Service For All Applicants''. 」

― You can send stamps to the Nakayoshi editorial office and get cute goodies.  So nostalgic!

Kitagawa 「 Yes, that's right. When I first worked with Mitsuishi-san on the JDrama Rikokatsu, the first thing we talked about was Sailor Moon. I also loved Evangelion, so I recall we talked about that as well (Editor's note: Mitsuishi played Katsuragi Misato in the series Neon Genesis Evangelion.). I think it is probably the same for everyone from my generation, that I grew up listening to Mitsuishi-san’s voice, so during Rikokatsu it felt natural and comfortable for me to co-portray the roles of mother and daughter with Mitsuishi-san. Though we hadn’t worked together since the drama, we kept in touch from time to time, so it didn't feel like it had actually been that long of a time. 」

Mitsuishi 「 For me, because I often see you on TV.  When watching TV, I’d go “Ah, it's Keiko-chan! She's so beautiful!” (lol). So I also didn't feel like it had been a long time since I last saw you. 」

― When thinking about Kitagawa-san in this context, we’d easily think of the image of Sailor Mars from the live-action drama, but this time you will be playing a different role, Sailor Cosmos.

Kitagawa 「 I was happy when I initially received the offer, but I was also puzzled. In the live-action, Sawai Miyuu-san, who played Sailor Moon, was truly the center of our group, being supported by the 4 Senshi, but this time Sailor Cosmos’s role gives the impression of being " the root of the Sailor Senshi". Instead of being on the “supporting side”, that this role was so close to Usagi-chan's position, it felt like a sanctuary in a sense... a place that I felt I couldn’t jump into. So while I was very happy to be offered the role, and I was very eager to be a part of this new production, simultaneously I’d wonder “Am I the right person for this role?”… causing me conflicting feelings. I ended up seeking consult with all the members of what is referred to as the “Senshi-kai” (戦士会, Senshi Reunion) nowadays, the Senshi cast members of the live-action series. But, "This is the last production of the Crystal series, I’m so happy you get to play such a role in that, I definitely want you to do it!” was what everyone told me, and so they gave me the push I needed to accept the offer.」

― How was it for you when actually voicing the role?

Kitagawa 「 Before I recorded my part, I was provided a [voice] sample called a guide, and this time Mitsuishi-san was the one who dubbed the guide for me. It was already the perfect Sailor Cosmos. When I read the script, it was difficult to grasp the nuances of Sailor Cosmos' and Guardian Cosmos’s character, but Mitsuishi-san helped me realize it would be fine if I did it like this.  “Mitsuishi-san is amazing...”, I thought again in that moment. I feel that Usagi-chan's voice has also become deeper and deeper with each successive series. 」

Mitsuishi 「 About that, it's because the days have piled up...! (lol) 」

Kitagawa 「 Not at all, to have overcome many hardships, to be able to feel the image of “Usagi-chan of the present” really moved me. On the day of recording, Mitsuishi-san come to visit, as well as Takeuchi Naoko-sensei, so I was very nervous. (lol) 」

― For Mitsuishi-san, what were some things you were specifically mindful of when portraying Usagi-chan in this work?

Mitsuishi 「 This time around, her friends and Mamo-chan that she love all disappeared right in front of her, and in the second part, her friends appear as her enemies. Even though the scenario where everyone had become an enemy had also happened earlier in the series, this time was the toughest of them. Even though I felt fine when I was reading the script, it still became really tough when I actually heard the voices. Even when battered and bruised, I am determined to get back the people who are important to me, with a power that does not spring from hatred, it's with these thoughts I portrayed the role with a positive and great sense of power. 」

「 Having taught me many things, Sailor Moon is a series that is impossible for me to separate myself from. 」 (Kitagawa)

― Once again, what kind of existence does the work "Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon" mean for the two of you?

Mitsuishi 「 The reason I have made it this far as a voice actress is large because of this series, so it's a work that's very important to me. Since working on the Crystal series, I feel as if I'm giving back the energy everyone has given me when I was working in the 90s. Even in my daily life, I have the feeling that Sailor Moon is just around the corner in my mind. For example, sometimes the crescent moon is right above the Sky Tree, and whenever I see a picture of it on social media, my first thought is it looks like a big Moon Stick (lol). "If we had such a big Moon Stick, we could cleanse the entire Earth and bring peace to the world!" I sometimes think of outlandish things like that. 」

― That's an idea that only Mitsuishi-san, who has been playing Sailor Moon for a long time, could come up with... as expected!

Kitagawa 「 It really is! It's wonderful… 」

― And Kitagawa-san, what kind of influence did Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon have on your life?

Kitagawa 「 No matter with the series or with Mitsuishi-san, I've felt a sense of a destined connection with them. It was Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon that led me to make my debut as an actress, and when I worked as a lead actress on a drama series, or when I try my hand at voice acting, Mitsuishi-san often become part of such key moments of my experience. Moreover, this year marks the 20th anniversary of both the live-action series, and my career in the entertainment industry, I feel that Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon had been part of many significant turning points in my life. This is a series that is impossible for me to separate myself from. 」

Mitsuishi 「 In all honesty, I had originally been worried if I should bring up an old tokusatsu work with you given you are a major actress in the industry. 」

Kitagawa 「 I'm someone who prefers to speak openly and face things with dignity. I've always loved Sailor Moon, so much so I was like, "I'm going to audition and receive a role in the live-action version of Sailor Moon and work in Tokyo!" From the filming experience, I was taught filming methods, how to behave on set, how to act, how to dance, etc., and I really learned a lot. 」

Mitsuishi 「 Tokusatsu is a very difficult field. I've always felt that any actors or actresses who had overcome working in Tokusatsu would have the strength and spirit to survive in any field of the acting industry. 」

Kitagawa 「 It's the type of workspace and shooting site where you are required to do any and every sort of thing. Especially for the Sailor Moon series, even after transformation it would still be us actresses who are in costume, so that made it even more challenging. 」

Mitsuishi 「 Behind you it goes BOOM! And you'd still have to walk cooly in front of the explosion. 」

Kitagawa 「 At first I was shocked by the explosions, but I gradually got used to them, even napalm (explosions commonly used in Tokusatsu) I ended up not thinking anything of it (lol). I think the reason I've been able to do this for 20 years without faltering is that I have developed a great bond with everyone I have performed with the drama series. All members of the “Senshi-kai” (戦士会, Senshi Reunion) haven't left the entertainment industry, and we are all working hard in the same world. Even now would go to see and support each other's works, I am sure they will see this film as well. It's because of each other's presence that we have been able to continuously move forward, it's a sentiment that I hold deeply and feel very encouraged by. 」

― Lastly, for the Sailor Moon fans who have all grown up now, what are some of the highlights you'd like to share about this movie?

Mitsuishi 「 I think that as we grow older, with all the talks about 'love' and 'justice' that Sailor Moon does, more and more often we may feel embarrassed thinking about it. But for those who have loved Sailor Moon since the '90s", Usagi-chan's 'love' and 'justice' taken root somewhere in their hearts. So, I hope that this film will help them remember those things that they may have forgotten, and empower them to move forward with their lives with positivity. 」

Kitagawa 「 It's as if I was given the strength of 'positivity' and 'dedication' from this film. As I got older, there was a part of me that became afraid of failure... Because I'm in my 30s now and have been doing this job for 20 years, more and more I began to think 'I mustn't make mistakes'. In this film, Usagi-chan has to face and admit her past mistakes and works to correct her course, the part where she stands back up again to face her challenges, I was touched by that part of the story. I thought to myself, rather than shutting myself away in fear of failure or making mistakes, "I want to live my life with dignity" and was inspired to face live my life with positivity. It gave me the courage to not hold myself back and to take things easier. I am certain many people of my generation are at that point in their lives, too, and I think through watching this film Sailor Moon would give them a push to face their challenges and reassure them "It's okay". 」

[bayothemayo]

🎃Whumptober Day 15: Suppressed Suffering (Phantom Thieves x Reader)🎃

Part 1 | Part 2

Ever since you left the group chat, you had just been avoiding them even more. At first you didn't mind it, but you begin to feel a little bit more lonely. You are not sure why, considering that you had been lonely like this before. Maybe you missed them or it could be something else. You did lose a good amount of friends, but oh well...You can make new ones and it happens from time to time. It ain't new.

Since you don't have anyone to hang out anymore, you decide to do something a little productive. Just to figure out on what they hell to do in the future. You got to be honest, you are a little jealous of your friends. It looks like they already figure out what to do in their lives.

Ren Amamiya, albeit quiet at times and doesn't talk about what to do in his life, is pretty much perfect so it won't be a surprise if he lands a career that he likes and get a good salary.

Ryuji Sakamoto will probably get a career that is sport related.

Ann Takamaki already has a modeling career plus she is very caring, so that will help out as well.

Yusuke Kitagawa's future is self-explanatory. Though, his finances will probably stay the same.

Makoto Niijima is very intelligent, and with the help of her sister she could probably get any job she wants. Maybe she even wants to follow in her sister's footsteps.

Futuba Sakura, while she have troubles socially, is also extremity tech savvy. It won't be a surprise if she decides to work remotely.

Haru Okumura is already wealthy. She could just sit around and do nothing while she gains more wealth. But she isn't like that, she wants to help out with her business by making a small café chain.

And you...well, you are one of the unlucky ones. Maybe not as unlucky as others, but you certainly do wish you have something like your old friends. You are averagely smart, your talent is mediocre compared to others, you are just someone in a middle class. It feels wrong to feel jealous, but you just can't help it. Since your friends did just hang out without you, you do feel like someone who isn't worthy enough to hang out with such extraordinary talents.

But you shouldn't think about that right now. Your parents are kinda pressuring you to think on what to pick your career. You don't want to be a burden to your parents and to society, even though society probably won't care about you, so you decide to do some research on other careers. You had to choose a career carefully, because your parents won't let you change your major if you decide you don't like it. Hopefully the job you got won't give you a death wise and hope that you rather die in a car crash every time you go to work.

...

...Maybe you shouldn't think that. Maybe it would be all right in the end, right?

...

Maybe you should stop thinking positively to avoid disappointment in yourself and in the future.

[konjaku]

隈笹[Kumazasa] Sasa veitchii var. veitchii

隈[Kuma] : Shading; style of kabuki makeup

笹[-zasa|Sasa] : Bamboo grass

There is a food product called 助六寿司[Sukeroku-zushi], which is 稲荷寿司[Inari-zushi], sushi wrapped in 油揚[aburaage](stuffed tōfu) and 太巻[Futomaki], thick sushi roll wrapped in seaweed, packed in a single food box. Sukeroku is a leading role in some of the Kabuki plays, and had a girlfriend, an 花魁[Oiran](courtesan) named 揚巻[Agemaki]. This is where the name came from. https://www.nsouzai-kyoukai.or.jp/sushi-roll-and-inari-stuffed-tofu-pockets/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukeroku https://collections.artsmia.org/art/22553/the-prostitute-agemaki-kitagawa-utamaro

The name Inari-zushi came from that foxes are messengers of 稲荷神[Inari-no-kami|Inari-shin](the deity Inari) and were believed to prefer aburaage. Sushi is written as both 寿司 and 鮨. Kumazasa is used for wrapping or placing food on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVdeB_G60wM

[skeletonpunching]

Buddy Daddies music composer interview

Interview with Kitagawa Katsutoshi (music composer)

Interviewer: How did you first come to work on the music for this series, "Buddy Daddies"?

Kitagawa: Since it was a story about assassins, they were looking for music with a prominent horn section and a jazzy feeling to it. They told me that was why they brought me in, and I was like, "Gotcha." (laughs) That's how it started out. At first, I imagined the main theme, "Buddy Daddies Theme", as a cool, fast-paced jazz piece - something that would go with car chases and other action scenes.

Interviewer: What sort of requests were made for the background music?

Kitagawa: I received a slate of requests from the audio director, and had some briefings with the production staff, but there were already dozens of songs on the music list - it felt like an incredibly detailed instruction manual. So I really just followed that list and threw myself into the work. And I didn't just create songs inspired by the series - there were also cellphone ringtones, videogame music, songs for sports day, and so on.

Interviewer: The songs used in episode 9, for the sports day at (Unasaka) Miri's daycare?

Kitagawa: From their entrance music, to the song for the tug-of-war, to the music for the foot race - I came up with about six pieces for that episode alone. And what's more, they were all sports day exclusives; they'll never play anywhere outside that episode. (laughs) During the briefing sessions, I thought it'd be easy enough to conceive of all this, but when I realised how many songs there were in total, I was like, "Wait, hold up." I was seriously at a loss at first - it seemed like it was going to be an endless undertaking - but it turned out like running a marathon. I made steady progress on it every day, starting with whatever ideas came to me.

Interviewer: Was there anything you were particularly focused on, when it came to the main theme?

Kitagawa: The main theme is playing all the time, so it's absolutely vital. I was told to make it a cool jazz piece, but so-called "jazz" has a pretty broad definition. And if I just wrote the type of jazz I personally like... Well, it was pretty tough finding a middle ground. I didn't want it to feel like something from a straightforward detective drama; I wanted something cooler, more stylish... But focusing on stylishness was tricky too. I'm afraid I kept everyone waiting for a while, before I finally hit on something that made me go, "This is it!" Once the main theme was settled, I used that melody to branch out into various different versions, like ones with a slightly comedic vibe, or melancholy piano-only pieces.

Interviewer: Which songs were composed with the specific elements and premise of the series in mind?

Kitagawa: Miri's mother's song. It's a sad song, but it ends up being a key plot point in the series, so the staff and I had a lot of back-and-forth in order to nail it down. This one also has multiple versions with different arrangements. Miri hums the tune in the show, but without the chorus; she's only humming the intro. I had no idea about that until I actually saw the broadcast on TV - I thought, "That's where they're singing it?!" (laughs)

Interviewer: Out of the songs you composed for this series, which would be your favourite, if you had to choose...?

Kitagawa: Probably "Mission Complete ~ Theme of a Mission Concluded", which is basically used as a secondary theme. It features a band and horn section, and also contains strings; I think it's kind of stylish, and pretty fun. At first I thought this might end up being the main theme, but we ended up going with the current main theme because it had a more exciting vibe. But I'm very fond of this song as it is. And then there's "Battle of Spanish Joint".

Interviewer: That song is also used in the pre-broadcast trailer.

Kitagawa: I was initially picturing something with a breezier feel, but as we progress into the second half, the rhythm changes, and the scatting gets into a nice groove - it suddenly turns into a rock song. I liked being able to incorporate that too. Anyway, I was requested to make it more forceful overall. They asked me not to water down the performance and the vibes, so I figured I'd go for something aggressive - so aggressive they might get mad at me instead! And so it steadily got heavier and denser. (laughs)

There's also "Commence Operation", which is kind of like free jazz. The recording of this song was basically improvised; the score was just a few chords I'd dashed off really quickly, and then it was like "One, two!" and we were off. I was recording with performers I know very well, so that worked out, but since they had no idea what each other would be playing, there was a constant sense of danger that fit the scenes even better than expected. It turned out to be an incredibly cool song.

Interviewer: The songs with vocals, like scatting and choruses, are also very memorable.

Kitagawa: One of the songs with a cute chorus is "Watermelon Woman", which is kind of sensual. When those girls appear in episode 1, it's playing at their place, and I was like... well, if it's ever gonna play, it'll have to be there. (laughs) The chorus was also composed with that in mind. I was requested to give it a sexy vibe, but without being crude, so I played around with some Latin music I personally like.

And there's one song which I did the chorus for myself, and I think it's pretty neat - "Jolly Tutti". This also has Latin influence, and uses a type of drum called cuíca... You can hear it in the interlude; it sounds kind of like "ooho-ooho-ho". I wanted to include that, and the performers kindly fulfilled my request. I quite like upbeat Latin songs that include choruses and scatting, and make use of this sort of percussion.

Interviewer: Taking a look at the tracklist, there is also a song used in Miri's scenes.

Kitagawa: Oh, you mean "Franny! Rudolph! Francesco!" That's the theme song for the kids' TV programme Miri watches, but I had no idea what the specific footage would be like, so I went off my own image of "a ten-minute-long puppet show with three characters", and wrote the opening song and lyrics based on that. I decided the characters' names were Franny, Rudolph, and Francesco; there's a small one, a skinny one, and an enormous one. They're all puppets. (laugh) That's the premise I arbitrarily came up with for their great adventure TV show.

Interviewer: Looking back on the music composition for this series, what did you find the most memorable?

Kitagawa: Usually, I don't do that much background music, but this time I was told, "We want something in Kitagawa-san's typical style", and it felt like a privilege getting to do that. So I tackled the composition, putting in my trademark flourishes all over the place. There really were a lot of songs, so I worked on it regularly every day, chipping away bit by bit. This is the first time I've ever worked that way; it was really eye-opening to discover that I was even capable of doing this.

Also, I normally work with a variety of people, and I was delighted that so many people who've helped me out in the past could all come together for this recording. For example, Murata Yoichi-san in the horn section, Misawa Mataro-san on the percussion, and Kinbara Chieko-san for strings. These seniors were lending me their strength for the first time in a while, and that was kind of nervewracking but also refreshing. It felt like a nice dose of nostalgia. After putting together a lineup like this, I was sure it would be an amazing project, but the recording took place over two days, so there really wasn't much time to savour it. It felt like we were racing through it all at once, which was pretty rough. But it was fun.

Interviewer: Please tell us what you think are the selling points of this series "Buddy Daddies".

Kitagawa: All I can say is "the music". (laughs) Just a while ago, I was working on the mastering for the CD compilation; it was the first time in ages I'd listened to it all the way through in a proper studio environment. That was when it really sank in just how many good songs I'd made. So I do think the music is a selling point after all.

Interviewer: Finally, please give a message to everyone who is enjoying this series.

Kitagawa: Please do check out the music I composed based on the premise of "Buddy Daddies". The worldview might not be immediately apparent, but I do think that if you listen carefully, you'll be able to enjoy it while imagining the series.

[koinodancesite]

“Chu Chu Chu Bokura No Mirai”

Coupled with “Jinsei Never Been Better!”

Release date: June 8, 2022

Oricon Weekly placement: 2nd

Members: Akane Haga, Ayumi Ishida, Chisaki Morito, Erina Ikuta, Homare Okamura,  Kaede Kaga, Maria Makino, Mei Yamazaki, Miki Nonaka, Mizuki   Fukumura, Reina Yokoyama, Rio Kitagawa, Sakura Oda

The shakuhatchi flutes of "Chu Chu Chu Bokura No Mirai" were initially a hard sell, though maybe Kaoru Ookubo wasn't all to blame. A different kind of flute, I presume, but they rang close enough in memory for me to the one squeaking in the deranged production behind NCT 127's "Sticker," released about a year prior, for the Morning Musume song to echo some secondhand dissonance. Listening back, Ookubo's arrangement is nowhere as screwball, but on the other hand, it could use some loosening of screws: it remains steely to a fault, sucking away any potential dynamism, and a general stiffness dulls "Chu Chu Chu Bokura No Mirai" as a whole.

Behind an already-steely production, the idols' unaffected cool begins to sound monotonous than it does stoic. Their performance of cool in itself fits in tune to the narrative that deals with self-confidence and emotional clarity: "It's up to me," they sing in the opening refrain before they think openly about writing their own future. But other than few accents of extra bombast to prep for the chorus, the song hardly offers peaks and valleys, with moments of epiphany framed in the same serious tone as moments of questioning.

And there are genuine moments in "Chu Chu Chu Bokura No Mirai" that would add some humanity to a perfectionist idol group if only the song highlighted them as such. "We can't look into / 100 years into the future," the idols sing in the chorus. "We build the present / but who should we live for?" This humbling self-reflection arrives, too, after speaking as a role model: "You're going to grow up soon / a border made by someone else / you're already magnificent," they assure after describing a society mired by pressure. The song elevate neither parts, with one bleeding into the other.

To be fair, the ability to sing of both victories and tragedies as one juxtaposed stream of thought has been the magic behind the best Morning Musume songs. "Chu Chu Chu Bokura No Mirai" also mashes together two seemingly separate conversations with the idols aspiring to rise above society in the first verse and then indulging in vanity in the second, talking about wanting to be a billionaire and pursue on their own infatuation. But the randomness sounds too streamlined for it to stand out as a quirk, their stony cool delivering them all in the same tone. Morning Musume have impressed in the past with their stoic demeanor, but "Chu Chu Chu Bokura No Mirai" shows stoicness can also be a crutch.

[5]

[byneddiedingo]

Hitoshi Omika and Ryo Nishikawa in Evil Does Not Exist (Ryusuke Hamaguchi, 2023)

Cast: Hitoshi Omika, Ryo Nishikawa, Ryuji Kosaka, Ayaka Shibutani, Hazuki Kikuchi, Hiroyuki Miura. Screenplay: Ryusuke Hamaguchi. Cinematography: Yoshio Kitagawa. Production design: Masato Nunobe. Film editing: Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Azusa Yamazaki. Music: Eiko Ishibashi. 

I happen to agree with the title of Ryusuke Hamaguchi's film: Evil does not exist, or at least not as some demonic entity named Satan or Lucifer. What we call evil are manifestations of human frailty and fallibility like ignorance and greed. What makes Hamaguchi's movie so challenging is that he's able to state the case for, or at least not lay the blame for, both of those manifestations. There's a long historical precedent for doing so: As Thomas Gray put it back in 1747, "Where ignorance is bliss,/'Tis folly to be wise." More recently, we've had assertions that "greed is good," which is the underpinning of laissez-faire economics and the trickle-down theory. Hamaguchi takes a long slow time establishing the idyllic setting of a rural community and the apparently simple man named Takumi (Hitoshi Omika) who lives there with his small daughter, Hana (Ryo Nishikawa). Into this earthly paradise come representatives of corporate greed, Takahashi (Ryuji Kosaka) and Mayzumi (Ayaka Shibutani), who are tasked with persuading Takumi and the other residents of this rural community that it would be in their interest to allow their company to build a facility for glamping there. (Glamping is a pursuit that reminds me of the court of Marie Antoinette playing shepherds and shepherdesses at the Petit Trianon.) Takahashi and Mayumi are overwhelmed by the well-founded environmental objections to their company's proposal. Both of the corporate emissaries find the villagers' objections persuasive, but when they return to headquarters in Tokyo they're stonewalled by management and forced to return for another pitch, this time directed at Takumi himself. And so goes the setup for a moral tale that has no easy conclusion. And it doesn't get one: Hamaguchi chooses to end the film enigmatically. Evil Does Not Exist wasn't received as whole-heartedly as Hamaguchi's Oscar-winning Drive My Car (2021), and its slowness and ambiguity turned off some viewers, but it's a deftly characterized movie made with a capable cast of unknown actors, beautifully filmed with a haunting score by Eiko Ishibashi. 

[chaosandcrimson]

no way is that AKIRA 'KYRA' KITAGAWA.. they’re a 27-year-old HUMAN notoriously known for being THOUGHTLESS  &  MERCURIAL but there are some people who have seen them being WHIMSICAL  &  EXPRESSIVE.  if you ask me, they remind me a lot of streaks of brightly coloured hair, dancing like nobody is watching, and loving mysteries so much that you become one, but that could just be because they’re considered the MANIC PIXIE DREAM GIRL around town. just keep an eye on them  &  see if their true colors shine through..

But now that we're done and it's over I bet you couldn't believe When you realized I'm harder to forget than I was to leave And I bet you think about me

OVERVIEW

Name: Akira Teruko Kitagawa

Nickname(s): Kyra

DOB: November 16, 2096

Age: 27

FC: Mio Imada

Height: 5'2"

Pronouns: She/Her

Sexuality: Bisexual

Occupation: Producer at Kismet Studios / Writer and Director

Relationship Status: Single (Chem Testing)

[+] bright, whimsical, expressive [–] evasive, thoughtless, mercurial

BIOGRAPHY

Akira's family emigrated from Japan to the US when she was three years old. She came over with her parents, her older sister Asuka, and her twin brother Atsushi, otherwise known as Robin. Like her brother, she was raised bilingual and ended up going by a Westernised nickname, choosing the name Kyra.

Out of the two of them, Kyra is the younger twin, and anyone who meets them can immediately clock that based on their personalities alone.

As with her siblings, she was pushed toward pursuing STEM fields but showed very little aptitude or interest in it. What she did show interest in was anything that allowed her to express herself creatively—art, music, writing, fashion. She dabbled in all of it, but her greatest passion eventually became filmmaking.

Halfway through college, she managed to get into an exclusive party hosted by a local movie studio and production company called Kismet Studios. She was not invited and ended up getting kicked out by security, and yet somehow, she also walked away with a job offer. When asked how she did it, she said the same way that she got into the party in the first place—by talking her way into it.

She started out as a production assistant, running errands, making phone calls, and shuffling the cast from one place to the next. Being a social butterfly helped, given how many people she had to interact with on a day-to-day basis.

When she was 25 years old, she became a producer at the same company. She is mostly in charge of smaller productions but continues to create in her free time. She wants to write and direct her own projects, but she knows that the subject matter she wants to cover will not be greenlit by a Big Three-backed studio.

She has always been very outgoing and has an easy time making friends. She is the kind of person who comes up with a crazy idea and then drags everyone she knows along with her for it. She loves life, she loves love, and she embraces both with exuberant zeal, approaching every day like it's a brand new adventure.

She has had several romantic partners who treated her as their personal wish fulfilment fantasy and not as a real person with her own goals and needs. But in their defence, she definitely plays into that idea by almost self-identifying as a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. She is good at making people feel like they know a lot about her, when in reality, she shares very little about herself.

MISC

She has a tendency to change her hair colour on a whim, and whenever she does, she always convinces her twin brother to dye his hair as well.