#like. i do know that there are quite a few manga/animes that treat their mixed characters well but god the fucking ratio to animes that-

[mayoiayasep]

yes i know that in anime having the characters be japanese is a default bc most of the time the anime is set in japan but would it really be too much to ask for darker skinned characters who aren't treated horribly/are shitty rep??? please???

[seasaltmemories]

Top 30 AMVs of 2024 - Intro + Honorable Mentions

So after having read quite a few “best of” amv lists over the years, last year was my first attempt at making a list of my own. I also planned to include a write up of each entry, but after some tech troubles deleted my list, I thought the playlist was fine enough. Well this year I had more time to really think about my faves, and so I decided to go the full nine yards and try doing a proper ranking ala these other editors.

Some guidelines, I am sticking to 30 because I am not quite sure I have the stamina to write about 50 amvs, but the extra entries will give me more time to build pacing and excitement. Next, I just wish to emphasize this is a purely subjective list. I am biased towards certain circles and likely missed out on a lot of great vids this years. And there are amvs I might even say are “better” or more “well-made” that won’t be making it on this list bc it is about what gets my specific weird tastes.

I am including all sources on this list, including live action, so know when I say “amv” I am speaking broadly. The ranking is also kinda arbitrary to the nature of this list. Depending on the day I might have ordered it differently, so what matters most is knowing I love something about these specific vids.

Starting tomorrow I will drop 10 new entries a day. To give us some fun though, I included some honorable mentions here, vids I want to talk about even if they didn’t make my list proper. So let’s get into it:

Gojo vs Sukuna by NinjaristicNinja

Audio: Bloody Power Fame by coldrain

Visuals: Jujutsu Kaisen

If you are a mmv fan and still aren’t subscribed to NinjaristicNinja, then this is your sign to get on the much deserved bandwagon. In a medium defined by static images, his work is always kinetic, often mixing 3D background and other assets to make fights pop to life.

This is his latest tribute to JJK, going on all in on one singular fight. In theory this should limit the variety of the vid itself, but he does a great job with set-up, anticipation, and making each turn and reversal nail-biting. There are so many smart choices that keep the action exciting yet clear to leave, that honestly most of it is likely above my expertise. But I think anyone who is a fan of seeing how mmvs and animation can be pushed, or just love a good show, will get something out of this.

A Fool’s Garden by Fay-Sa

Audio: Fools by Lauren Aquilina

Visuals: Bloom Into You

Last year I edited with Bloom Into You, and this year I took the time to read and finish the manga, so I am very attached to my girls. I had high expectations for what it means to do them right, and this vid delivered in spades.

So much attention is given to each moment of intimacy and the build up to a touch or kiss. Editing-wise, the drums get a lot of attentions, mimicking the intensity of a pounding, anxious heartbeat. Each time the chorus comes around, it feels like a triumph. Overall it just oozes the joy and thrills of a first love and taking that risk. And as a queer woman who loves the way the source material also tackles the concept of identity, it just all comes together in a way that elevates both the audio and visuals.

Uptown Funk Anime Mix by monomogu

Audio: Uptown Funk by Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson

Visuals: Multisource

Sound sync amvs are a type of vid that I am a more of an outsider to. The idea is that on top of syncing to a music track, they also add original and/or anime-based sound effects to these moments of sync. As someone who likes to treat song as queen, this usually distracts from what I tend to focus on, but I’ve admired monomogu’s sense of rhythm and how he mixes the various audio in the past.

And for this vid, he goes all out on the masking to create what feels like eye-candy it in its purest form. Each transition borders on somewhere between hypnotic and motion-sickness inducing in a way that really scratches my brain positively. Not to mention there is a lot of cheeky lyric sync that just makes me smile and really accentuates the best of its main audio’s strength. I am gonna do a lot of waxing on about all the different strengths and appeals amvs for this series, but this just feels like an extremely detailed and well-done execution of one of the mediums most visceral joys.

A Nuclear Family by Kyapture

Audio: Two Tribes by Frankie Goes to Hollywood

Visuals: Spy x Family

Fun fact, I only learned about this band earlier this year thanks to a specific video highlighting this group’s other big song, but the moment I realize just what this vid was doing I was on the edge of my seat.

This is the first time I’ve seen an action Spy x Family action amv played perfectly straight. It’s so much fun to lean into its Cold War aesthetics and spy side of the title (tbh the parts of the premise I wish the series leaned more into). When it kicks into gear at 0:35 I got so hyped up. I also love the transition at 1:35 and in general the use of some well-placed masks. POE 2024 was my first time coming across this editor, and this vid made me a subscriber. The channel description mentions they’ve recently come back from a long hiatus, so I am excited to see what else they might have planned.

[r0s3s26]

This is @shxtodxroki here for our match-up exchange, I’m just sending this from my main blog :>

Name: Bee

Age:19

Pronouns: She/her

Gender for Matches: I would be happy being paired with any gender! And I'd like romantic matches please :D

Fandoms: Haikyuu and JJK :>

Character Preferences: If possible I’d prefer no villains in JJK like Mahito or Sukuna (Though like you said in your ask, my exception would be Choso!) 

Appearance: Bright pink hair (which is wavy if I take care of it properly) that goes a little past my shoulders, 5’7” with green eyes, pretty pale and I have freckles but you can see them much better in the sun. Tend to prefer more cute, pastel and/or feminine styles, but I also like to mix things up sometimes and try different styles especially anything cozy (and I like wearing nerdy/silly t-shirts and shorts/sweatpants almost all the time when I’m at home). I have stretch marks on my legs that I’m a bit insecure about, and lots of little freckles/moles on my arms! 

Personality: Introvert, I love spending time with the people I care about but I also need at least a little bit of alone time each day just to decompress and relax. I have pretty bad anxiety, so I tend to overthink and I’m frequently stressed even if I don’t show it, and even about small things that most people don’t even think about. I’m also super awkward and shy especially when I first meet people especially since I sometimes struggle to read social situations, I’m really not the type to initiate conversations much at first and I even struggle with initiating physical affection with someone I’m close to. Once I feel safe and close with someone I tend to ramble quite a lot about my interests or just topics I’ve dived into recently, and I think I’m a pretty good listener as well! :) I try my best to generally be a friendly person and look out for others, and I tend to avoid conflict unless someone I love is being hurt. My worst trait is probably my procrastination. I’m currently in college and studying to hopefully become an either an ELA or sociology professor, not totally sure yet. I really love learning about things I find interesting/important and getting to share what I learn with people :] I usually enjoy staying up somewhat late as I just like being up and being able to use my time how I like.

Qualities in a Partner: Confidence/willingness to initiate since it’s something I struggle with, someone who’s patient and willing to listen when I’m having a hard time (and I’m more than happy to do the same in return) and someone honest and loyal. Since I’m very anxious, I’d prefer someone who’s open with their affection with me! They don’t have to make it super obvious in public or anything though:) And someone who’s willing to kill/get rid of bugs! My ideal first date would probably be something simple like going out for coffee/a sweet treat and a walk, something that would give us a chance to talk and get to know one another!

Love Languages: Gifts and physical touch for giving (I love getting to see people’s reactions when I get them gifts I know they’ll love) and physical touch and words of affirmation for receiving.

Interests/Hobbies: I’m a big fan of horror or mystery movies/media. (My favorite movie is Knives Out) I really enjoy reading and writing too! I enjoy anime/manga (my favorite anime is Yuri on Ice) and there are a few kinds of video games I really enjoy like visual novels (especially spooky ones), games like Danganronpa or or “cozy games” like Minecraft or Stardew Valley! I also play the cello and I work backstage as the stage manager in most of my school’s theater productions. I really enjoy all kinds of music, I listen to anything from k-pop to musicals to “emo” music to just regular pop. I’m currently trying to learn how to play DnD, and I really enjoy collecting things even when I lose interest! (As in, even after I stop fixating on an interest so much and switch over to a new one, I never get rid of the merch because it still brings me joy and reminds me of how important that thing was to me :> ) I like anything that makes me emotional, whether it’s soul-crushingly sad or super heartwarming, I just like when media can make me feel things, and I’m a big crier since I tend to get emotional pretty easily :]

Dislikes: Bugs, math, people with an ego that makes them treat others poorly, vanilla-scented things

Sorry this is so long, I tend to ramble on and have trouble condensing things lol but I hope this is enough, and thank you so much again for agreeing to this exchange! I’m excited to see what you think :)

Your Matchups are…Kurro Tetsuro and Nanami Kento

<3 He would think your style is super cute

<3 Would buy you accessories that he thinks would look good on you

<3 Also buys matching nerd t-shirts

<3 Because his best friend is kenma he has a lot of experience with introverted people

<3 I feel like he is a secret omnivert but he puts up a extravert front

<3 Like pretends to be super social but actually get overstimulated super quick(projecting)

Like picture this:

You both just left early from a work party at his job because your social battery was going down and you had been wanting to leave for a bit. Once you guys get home and start settling into bed he gets his over the ear headphones he usually uses for working out, and he gets into yalls shared bed and just starts cuddling into your side and is just super quiet. You pull him closer and whisper “are you ok?” he nods his head yes and just nuzzles his head into the side of your neck and wraps his arms around you and just calms his breathing

<3 When you guys first met/started to hang out he was super ok with carrying the conversations for a bit until you wanted to open up more to him

<3 He would help you stay on track and study for your degree

<3 Study dates would be 50% actually studying and the other 50% would be talking shit about your classmates and the people at his job

<3 He would tell you fun facts each day just cause

<3 When he gets little gifts from you he ether puts them on his work desk or his desk at home so he always has a little piece of you to remind him off

<3 Would try getting into some of your hobbies with you like horror movies and manga

<3 But for video game stuff he introduces you to Kenma because he is a streamer and now you are a regular guest on his streams when he plays games like Minecraft, Danganronpa, or any other game he thinks you would also enjoy to play

(Kurro secretly loves that you and his best friend also get along so well cause you 2 are the most important people in his life)

Song:

<3 You and Nanami are pretty similar in certain ways

<3 Like you are both pretty introverted and will probably keep to y’alls selves most of the time

<3 Likes the style/aesthetic difference between you both

<3 Also will buy you stuff that matches your style

<3 Both of these rich ass man ready to spoil you, lucky asf

<3 Secretly would like physical affection

<3 Like the biggest cuddle bug but don’t tell anyone else that or he will be mortified

<3 Would kiss your stretch marks, and whisper things he loves about you to make you feel better like this:

You both had just gotten out of the shower and ready to unwind for the night. You are in a pair of his boxers and an old Yuri on Ice shirt reading a manga you had recently bought. Nanami goes and lays next to your legs on the bed, slightly laying his head in your lap. He sees your exposed stretch marks and starts to kiss them and whisper sweet nothings into your skin. Stuff like “You're so beautiful my love” and “Love you so much”. Just being such a lovey dovey sap for you

<3 Loves going to cafes with you

<3 Has a list going on with you where you rank the best cafes in the area so you both know which ones to go to next

<3 So we both know what Nanami looked like in high school

<3 EMOOO

<3 I feel like he still listens to that type of music still

<3 Like has playlist full of Panic! at the Disco, Pierce the Veil, Paramore, MCR, maybe some green day in there

<3 Also still has his old t shirts so sometimes you both wear the same band tees unironically and laugh at each other

Song:

(Authors Note: Sorry if it isnt super long, im still trying to get my groove with this😓)

[mh-dreamscape]

Introducing Myself!!

Since my birthday was a few days ago and this account is a little over a year old, I thought I’d do a “get to know me” kind of post. I also thought I’d make a monster high persona for myself to use!

Read below to get to know me and the thoughts behind well, my character design!

I’ll start with character design since that’s what I’m most excited to talk about and what y’all are prolly more interested in 😅 the first couple of pictures are one of the final products and infused with G3 styling while the concept art (last one) is more G1-based since I like both!

Her design is a mix of spectacled parrotfish (my childhood favorite species) and an Atlantic salmon (my current favorite) with the coloring and markings. The scales and moles on her face and shoulder are modeled after my own freckles and moles and I chose the salmon color of them to bring that species out more. The spotted eyebrows also mimic Atlantic salmon spots. Originally, she was supposed to be a light gray but that didn’t really scream “me”, so I made her my favorite color range and gave her some parrotfish characteristics:

The outfit is loosely based on one of my own with a change in color and added minimal patterns. I always have a necklace I wear and glasses, so I gave her one and made the glasses into an almost diving mask/sunglasses instead to also show how dedicated to marine life I am! Her earrings are also supposed to be like tangled fishing bobbers.

By the way, I highly encourage making a persona! She was so fun to design and concept! It’s nice to show who you are/who you want to be without actually showing yourself (I am and I know quite a few people are timid and shy about it)

Now onto the “getting to know me part”!

Usually online, I go by the name/title “Witchyfishy” or “Witchi” for short which is based on another fish I love and a certain OC I have who’s the daughter of the witch flounder.

Some of my hobbies are writing, drawing, playing video games, and learning! I always love to update my knowledge of things or get more certifications and such!

Some of my interests/topics: Monster High, anything aquatic, Stardew Valley, Sun Haven, Little Nightmares (I actually tried to create some of my own boss designs 🤫), World of Warcraft, League of Legends, cats, reptiles, tattoos (I want some someday and I just love seeing what people design or get), cooking/culinary arts, manga and anime (I’ve watched a lot but right now my hyperfixation is Delicious in Dungeon/Dungeon Meshi)

My favorite sweet treat is usually a doughnut and my favorite food has to be tortellinis!

To be honest, I’ve never done these before so I don’t know what else would be that interesting but I hope you liked getting to know me and seeing my character!

Please let me know if you want to know anything else, wanna just talk about an interest, or if you have any questions about the design and concept!

[prismatoxic]

so, back in, like... january? i was between fandoms. my most recent interest hadn't panned out in a way i found satisfying--i liked the media fine enough, but attempts to engage with the fandom largely went nowhere, and the only person i was really sharing the space with (my partner) was falling out of being super focused on it, so i ended up following suit. we both kind of just returned to being into our own OCs for a while.

there's this post i saw recently--something about how the act of your art being perceived is, for many of us, part of the process of making art. the work isn't complete until it's been acknowledged. you have worth, anon, and your work matters, but i fully understand how empty it feels to go unnoticed, to be unseen.

in february i became aware of something newer: an anime adaption for a long-running manga that wrapped up last year. (yes, it's obvious what i mean, but that's not what this post is about.) i told my partner it looked interesting, and by the end of the month we finally watched it. we'd both fallen into a creative slump post-last fandom, even with our OCs to play with; within days of starting this anime, we wanted to do things with it.

the sting of being kind of a nobody in the last space made me feel like maybe i'd be better off staying away from fandoms. it wasn't anybody's fault, after all; it just made me sad, and i was better off avoiding situations where i'd feel that way. (and obviously, in worse states of self image, such a thing can make you feel quite worthless.) i didn't intend to try and get into this fandom. the ship i liked had 11 fics on ao3, and i only ended up checking the tumblr tag because i wanted to see what fanart there was.

it was... more than i was expecting! i'd been distancing myself from tumblr, but i was captivated by all the art and posts for what seemed like a rarepair, and everyone was actually interacting with each other. i wasn't hopeful, though. i told myself i would still go unnoticed, and it would hurt all the more for glimpsing this shimmer of a community i'd love to be in. i started reblogging fanart of the ship--i went all the way back in the tag, there still wasn't that much--and followed a few people who posted about it, but i intended to sit on my hands, do my own thing and try not to expect much.

it started with one person. i'd been having some really surface level interactions with reblogs and meta posts, but i got to talking with someone about the ship, someone who was also relatively new to the fandom but already seemed to know people. i was terrified of the possibility of rejection but excited anyway; we got to talking on discord, and i even shared some of my fears, concerns that i would be a ghost in this fandom too, that my presence wouldn't matter. but talking with them gave me a little bit of hope. i started reaching out to some other regulars in the tag, and people i'd become mutuals with over the aforementioned meta posts and my own nonstop reblogging of ship content.

season one of this anime just ended. there will likely be only two of them; the second one is in production. our ship tag hit 100 fics not too long ago. people love the fic i started writing before i even finished the manga, and i have dozens of people i consider friends, several even close friends, who i met through this fandom. my partner is also in that mix, making his own work and being recognized for it, a welcome member of this community that's built up and solidified around this ship.

i understand how it feels to feel worthless. like a nobody. i have my partner, yes, and the loneliness stings less with someone at your side, but i was still lonely. i'm someone who thrives on validation and community. i wanted a space where people would value what i had to say, and the things i posted, and i had no idea how to make that happen.

it started with one person. ao3cotd is right about that. they're also right about how you should treat yourself--you have to be more gentle, and understand that you're not flawed for not being seen. fandoms are big places. sometimes people fall through the cracks, and it hurts and it sucks, but it's not because there's something wrong with you. you're not a loser; you're a fan, same as everyone else, and you belong in these spaces as much as anyone else does.

you can find your people. i turned 29 this year and this is the first time i've ever felt this involved in a fandom space that made me feel this valued. i've been in other good ones, though, and even there, it started with one person, one hesitantly posted fic, one enthusiastic meta post. you have to exist before people can find you. and they will find you, rarepair or unpopular character or otherwise. but you have to take a step out into that direction first.

don't give up. you have value, as a person and a writer and a fan, and you can do this.

do you have any advice on what to do when you know your writing issues are connected to wanting a community, but no matter how hard you try, you can’t find a community? or you know that if you go ahead and write for the rarepair/fandom/character of your heart, you’ll have no one to write for and look like a total loser? there are some fandoms i want to write for so bad, but i know no one would ever read anything i write, and i can’t find a point in writing when that’s the case.

I really want to give you a hug, anon 💗 You're being so mean to yourself, and you really don't deserve it.

Why are you so sure that no one will read anything that you write? And why do you think you'd be a loser if that were the case?

Community is a really important part of creating for a lot of people. They draw energy and motivation from sharing ideas and getting excited about each other's art. They get inspired by talking to other people about their projects or about the source material or about a shared love of a trope.

But from what you wrote here (and I could be wrong, this is just one paragraph), it sounds like you need a community in order to find your self-worth. You are describing your success or failure, your value or lack thereof in terms of what other people think about you and whether they react to your work.

You are good and important and worth knowing whether other people read your fic or not ❤️❤️

When it comes to finding a community, I recommend starting with just one person. Find someone who's blog you like or whose writing or art you enjoy and reach out to them. Send an ask. Drop a comment. Try a DM. Whatever you're comfortable with, get to know them a little and see if you want to be friends. Once you've got one person, it's easier to find more.

But at the same time that you do that, try to change the way you talk to and about yourself. I know it's hard and it might even feel awkward, but it makes a difference if you can keep it up. It even stops being hard after a while.

Remember that no other person's opinion is more important than your own. You created your work and you understand it best. Your first audience is yourself, after all.

You'll never be able to control what other people do - whether they read your fic or comment on it, whether they like it or hate it or leave a kudos.

Instead of thinking about those things, think about what you can control. Choose what stories you write. Do the things you're passionate about. Celebrate goals like word count or completing a fic or writing a really great line. Those are all achievements too, and none of them depend on the opinions of others.

It is really hard to separate your desire for attention or approval from your desire to participate in a fandom, and it's going to take time to untangle them from each other. But we're all here cheering you on, anon, and we'd love to help you on your way.

[lostcauses-noregrets]

Hey, Lost! Do you know if an Isayama quote I vaguely remember is true? Something about not drawing how Levi mourned Erwin's death/buried him because he couldn't portray the veterans' relationships as more special between each other than others. I've always had a suspicion he was censored on queer characters, like Hange's gender in the anime, and if that quote is real, that's one reason why I suspect it. If you're not comfortable answering, that's fine. Thanks!

Hi Anon, I think a few things may have got a bit mixed up here. I'm not aware of any quote from Isayama along these lines, unless I'm missing something, however he did talk about Erwin and Mike's death during the Oita autograph event Q&A in 2018.

Isayama on Erwin’s remains

Q: What happened to Erwin’s remains?

A: Although at that time he couldn’t go immediately, at a later date, Levi brought back Erwin’s skeletal remains and buried them. Although a lot of people died, it seems that only Erwin received special burial.

Source

Full Direction Quote

Q: Did the captain have a burial for Erwin’s body?

A: Yeah, it was special only for the commander…That day, Levi went back once, but it was impossible to do it, because so many people died. When he managed to, Erwin was pretty much skeletonized. I think he was pretty much skeletonized when he was buried.

Source

[Translation by @yusenki]

Surrounding people’s reaction toward Mike’s death:

Q: How did Erwin and Levi react toward Mike’s death (any portrayal/description about), it was necessary, right?

Bakku-san smiled bitterly.

Isayama: We must have been in a hurry and didn’t manage to draw it properly.

Bakku-san: We lost good people pretty early

Source

Isayama on Mike’s last moment:

Quote from Isayama: I aimed for grimness and as the result, either he was cornered until his dignity was trampled or he was forcefully exposed to the side of him that he didn’t want to show. I thought whether that was the cruelest thing and somehow I did it to him.

Source

[Translation by @yusenki]

(Thanks to @momtaku for reminding me about the quote about Mike, I'd forgotten about that one.)

I'm not going to lie, I was extremely salty when we didn't get to see any kind of burial or memorial service for Erwin, particularly when it was confirmed in the manga that there would be a burial for the fallen Survey Corps soldiers "at a later date". I know I wasn't the only one who was really annoyed when the time skip happened and that later date never came. However it was some comfort when Isayama confirmed that Levi went back to Shiganshina to retrieve Erwin's remains and bring him home, and that he was treated with the dignity he deserved, and his sacrifice honoured and commemorated.

That being said, I don't think the reason that Isayama didn't draw these scenes is due to censorship, I think it's more down to plot and pacing, which have always been problematic in the manga. Some scenes that you would expect to carry weight are glossed over or missing altogether, while others are done to death. Historia's whole arc is a case in point.

I'm also not sure I agree that Levi isn't shown to mourn Erwin in the manga. I think it's quite clear that Levi is grieving after his return from Shiganshina, even if he does so in his own quiet, stoic way. And the fact that he never forgot his vow to Erwin is further proof of the lasting impact that Erwn's death had on him.

Regarding censorship in the anime, I know this is something that some fans have been very vocal about. I'm not really familiar enough with the anime industry to know what authors, producers and studios can and can't get away with in different genres of anime. However I do know that SnK is a massive multi million dollar media franchise so I suspect every decision taken is a compromise between the author, the producer, the studio, and all the other stakeholders involved. I'm sure that different forms of "censorship" are rife in the anime industry, but I couldn't say how much of an impact that has had on a franchise like SnK. Isayama has always struck me as quite a canny operator, and I suspect he's done a pretty good job of telling the story that he wants with treading the fine line of what's acceptable to portray on screen.

I'm not going to go into the subject of Hanji's gender here, but if you want chapter and verse on the subject, I can highly recommend this post by @tsuki-no-ura.

[physicalturian]

[G] A promise of hope - Gojo Satoru X GN!Reader

Request from @waywarduniversityshepherdturtle “Hi can i request for a jealous Gojo Satoru where out white haired guys is *kinda* intimidated with his s/o's good looking ex? Can start with an angst and end with a fluff ❤“

[No pronouns used for the reader, no physical description; Everyone +18] [No spoilers from the anime or the manga]

Words: 2817 Warning: Angst, fluff, mention of death (thought he died)

It all happened because of one small thing, one joke. But it was the joke too many. I was trying to have a proper, serious discussion and he had to take it light-heartedly. He had to fool around, I loved him deeply but now was not the time. I was worried for him. Yes, he was strong, one of the strongest if not the strongest, but I could not help but get antsy, waiting for him to come back to the apartment we shared. We had promised each other to always come back, it was a stupid agreement to come to considering our line of work, but it helped us, or at least it helped me get some sort of reassurance.

 Except he did not come home last night, I was left waiting alone in the apartment, anguish eating me up as I sat in the couch. From there I had a good view of the door, and I could see him if he entered, bloody, beaten or just tired. Most of the time, it was just tired, and I was glad for that, and on rare occasion there were a few scratches covering his clothes and skin. We would treat them, then go to bed.

 But tonight, was not like that, I waited and waited. The clock ticking nearby reminding me of the silence that was wrapped around me, the lack of presence in my home. The lack of partner being loud and obnoxious. I just waited. Time was running by, but not quickly enough, it was painfully slow and my heartbeat was going as fast as the awful thoughts in my mind. Maybe the curse was too strong? Maybe he was working with someone and they turned on him? Maybe he was… maybe he was dead.

Those thoughts plagued my mind and never left as stress coursed through my body. I was tempted to call him, but I knew it would be too risky to call during a mission. My hands clasped on my knees did not stay there long, I kept moving, shifting on the spot, hands dry and cold. My stomach churning. I could not get any ounce of sleep that night, I simply waited, and waited some more. He never came home.

 At some point during that restless night, I fell asleep. When I heard a sudden noise in the house, I was startled awake and was ready to use my power when I saw the grinning face of my partner who stood by the fridge. The door of the latter was open as he looked at me over his shoulder. Slowly, I let my arms fall to my side and felt all the tension leave my body before shuffling towards him. I did not know what to say, maybe I was overexaggerating, maybe… but I dreaded his death, and here he was, fresh as a daisy. “Heya, I didn’t want to wake you up, you seemed sound-“ “No. Don’t.” I interrupted him as I gripped his hand and made him let go of the fridge door.

 I then closed it and stood by him; I do not know what I was feeling. Enraged? Relieved? Seething… Exhausted, sad… “What? Are you okay-“ “I’m not! I’m not okay, I thought- I thought you had fucking died Satoru!” He chuckled in response. He waved a hand in front of me, dismissively, while smiling. “I can’t die that easily, come on, who do you think I am? Ye of little faith-“ “You did not come home…” I breathed out. I was surprised by how weak my voice sounded as I looked at the floor, I wanted to sleep. But I was very awake, so many emotions were mixing up inside me. “Itadori let me stay at his place, I was too tired.” He explained, adding that I was overreacting.

 “Am I? Am I really? … Maybe I am… but, you know you- we-“ I gulped and shook my head. “That promise of coming home, I’m holding onto that every night, because you promised you’ll come home…” He laughed, he placed a hand on my head and laughed. “Come on, it’s just a silly little thing-“ “It’s not though, I care about that a lot, so when you did not come back, I panicked.” I explained a bit heartbroken. I thought we both needed that promise, I thought it helped us both but maybe it was only to indulge me.

 Cradling my face in his hands, he looked at me without ever taking off his glasses, “You got a little worried for me? How cute, look at you all-“ I slapped his hands and turned away, feeling some sort of humiliation from how he was treating me. “Satoru? Fuck you, I’m asking you to be serious for two fucking minutes and you’re being an asshole. I thought you were dead; can you get that through your thick skull? Can you at least try to understand what I’m feeling or is it too much to ask?” I had no control over the anger, the frustration, seeping through my words. I was tired.

 Taking a deep breath, I exhaled in a calming manner, hoping it’d help. Once I calmed at least a little bit, I placed a hand on his cheek. “Forget it, you’re home, right? That’s what matters, right? So how about you get some rest, and I’ll go see a friend.” I tried to force a gentle smile on my face, but deep down I felt a need to let it all out. He reached out for me, but I shook my head, taking his hand a few seconds before letting go. He said he could get changed and he could come along, but I refused, telling him I just wanted to spend some time with my friend.

 After getting dressed, I left the apartment in a rush and called my old friend that also happened to be my ex-boyfriend. He picked up quite fast and greeted me energetically, I tried to match his eagerness but he noticed how off it sounded and asked me what was going on. “I… I need some advice, someone to talk to- It’s okay if you’re busy though- you know what, forget it-“ “No, no, I’m just jogging in the park, let’s meet up there? How long will you take?” He asked softly, I heard the microphone rub against his shirt as he ran and it was slightly unpleasant but I couldn’t say anything, at least he picked up.

 “Give me ten minutes, and I’ll be there. The usual spot?” I asked, he agreed and said we’d see each other soon, before hanging up. I arrived right on time at our usual spot, being a picnic table under a big tree by the pond in the park in which we met a few years back. I don’t regret our relationship, but we only dated because we thought that’s what was going on between us, love, except we were better off as friends.

 Once I arrived, I could see him sitting on the table, not the bench around it, as he chugged his large bottle of water. He was very sweaty and no amount of slight breeze could freshen up his looks, and yet he was still pretty handsome like that. I suppose I had taste. Even though I did not feel anything for him anymore, I could observe a painting and see he had charms, that did not change. “Hi gorgeous beast.” He said as he tried to pull me into a hug, but I pulled back telling him he stank. He chuckled and patted the spot next to him, “It’s the smell of hard work, you wouldn’t know.” I would usually laugh, but right now I was not in the best mood, and he noticed.

 He did not waste time and asked me right away what was going on, I was taken aback but told him, vaguely what was going on. I did not say my boyfriend was a sorcerer, nor did I tell him about curses but I mentioned we were in a dangerous line of work both of us and everything else he needed to know. “… And he always jokes around, most of the time I love it but today, I was just… I genuinely thought he had died, and he did not realize that and kept treating it light-heartedly.” I sighed.

 My friend hummed pensively before speaking, “I think he’s masking his own worry with jokes, and tried to make you feel better by doing it to you too? Like, you know, like, maybe if he made it seem like he was perfectly fine, you’ll feel better? I don’t know the man, but I don’t think he meant wrong- he’s just lacking some social cues clearly.” He explained with a light tone as he drank some more. “You’re right… I just, I just wished he had sent me a text, or at least hugged me when he got home, perhaps apologize… but that one is stupid because he did not do anything wrong, I don’t know what I want…”

 Huffing a laugh, he wrapped an arm around my shoulders and brought me in a side hug. “Tell him that, I’ll give you a hug, if you want you can cry too, I’m already very moist anyway so, tears aren’t going to change much.” I hit his chest playfully when he said that and draped one arm over his back as I thought. “Yeah… you’re right… I miss him, I really want hold him right now, to feel him, know he’s alright, you know?-“ “Alright there, that’s a bit too much here, touch him if you will but please don’t tell me about it.” He said jokingly as he let go of me before standing up. “But now, for real, tell him that. I’m sure he’ll understand, he plays stupid but he ain’t dumb.” “Right, right… yeah. Thank you so much for indulging in my little twists and sob stories.”

 “Hey, anytime. I’m always there for you, alright? Come on, take care, see you around!” He said as we bumped our fists, before jogging off.

 After that, I went back home. When I walked up the stairs, I could hear heavy footsteps inside the apartment and slowly opened the door, careful not the make noise. What greeted me was no burglar, but it actually was my boyfriend who seemed to be pacing in the living room. I knew I could not catch him off guard, so when I dropped my keys in the bowl by the entrance, he turned towards me and rushed to my side. “Are you going to leave me? He’s hot, sure- but I can do better, I swear I didn’t mean-“ “Wait wait wait, what are you on about?” I cut him off in his ramble in a confused expression.

 “The man you were with-“ “You followed me? Satoru… Privacy, just privacy, I’m asking for a tiny bit of that…” He shook his head and gripped my biceps hard, “You were with another guy! Is it because of something I did? Do you want me to be more muscular? He’s hot, yeah, but is he as strong as me-“ I cut him off once more but gripping his jaw, not too tightly, but enough to purse his lips. “You’re jumping to conclusions. Do you think so low of me? To cheat on you?” “No- no cheating, like not yet but I would understand because he’s kind of looking like a Greek god-“ I sighed and let go of him, asking him to stop talking for one second.

 And surprisingly, he did. I took that opportunity to measure my words, before speaking carefully. “Don’t stalk me, and don’t assume shit about me, that’s the first thing.” I waited for him to nod, then continued, “He’s my ex-“ “You’re going back with your ex?! For one joke- come on, that’s-“ “I’m not cheating on you, what the fuck? Why do you think so low of me? What do I look like to you? Wait, you know what?” I hit his chest, not too hard but enough to let some anger out, then once more, and again, and again until I couldn’t feel the need to do it anymore. “That one fucking joke, I hated it! You’re strong asshole, sure, sure, ok. But anything could happen out there! And you did not come back, okay?” I let out a shaky breath, making Satoru a bit confused as he took off his glasses and looked at me, lost.

 “You might not care about that promise, but it helps me a lot… and until last night, you kept it… and in my head, the only image I could think of, was your motionless body, somewhere….” I let go of his shirt and moved away from him to sit on the floor, my back sliding against the wall. “And you laughed it off… It felt humiliating, and then, you think I’m cheating on you? No, I asked my ex, my best friend, what I should do, because I was hurt… and he just gave me good advice… As a friend.” I reiterated that part, to make sure my boyfriend understood who the man I hung out with, was.

 For once, the famous Gojo Satoru was speechless and he slowly knelt down by my side. His expression had no cockiness, no pride, no joy, just pain, understanding and sorry. “I did that… I didn’t mean to, I just feel like, I have to… I wanted to make you smile, I didn’t know how, so I thought you’d laugh a bit then kiss me, I didn’t realize you were that worried… I fucked up…” He was not a man known for his great words, he also had a hard time apologizing but I could feel he was feeling bad about it, but so was I and while he was sorry, my chest still ached. “I’m sorry babe… I really hold onto that promise too, I just… I don’t know why I said that, I want to come home to you as much as I want you to come home to me safely.” He whispered as he took hold of my hand.

 Sighing I looked at our intertwined hands and tightened my grasp on his hand, his slender fingers brushing the back of my hand. “You’re strong, I know that but I can’t help it Sato… And I really want to know you’re safe-“ “How can I make you understand that I’m fine? I’m peachy, I swear, want to see my hot body-“ When he started to lift his shirt, I interrupted him, “Hug me. Just hug me, please.” My words struck confusion in him. He stared at me as he let go of the hem of his shirt, then slowly let go of my hand before bringing me close to his chest and laying down on the floor with me, not letting me go.

 It was a tight hug, not bone-crushing but perfectly tight. Warm, reassuring, loving…. I heard him whisper gentle words to my ears and brush his hands over my back as I enjoyed the moment. The ache in my chest was slowly dissipating, letting the heartwarming feeling of comfort take most of the space in it. But there was still one thing left to discuss.

 Clearing my throat, I heard my boyfriend hum curiously. “Did you really think I’d cheat on you just because he was hot?” I asked, dumbfounded. The white-haired man chuckled nervously and looked to the side, “I mean, to be fair, he’s like super hot, so you’d be in the right-“ I hit his chest, “Never! I would never cheat on you, plus you’re so much hotter, if that’s what you were worried about.” It was one of the rare times I could see a blush on his cheeks as he looked down at me, the angle making his chin look funny. But the blush quickly disappeared, “I know I am, I’m Gojo Satoru- I could probably beat him at his jog, I have a lot of stamina- and you know about that, I know how much you like what I do with my hand when you-“ “Hey, hey, it’s a cute moment, don’t ruin it. Yes, you’re cute, you’d beat him of course, hugs now.”

 He laughed and held me tight as his head hit the ground with a thud. “Don’t ever scare me like that again, I love you too much to go through that again…” I mumbled shyly against his chest. He placed a hand on the back of my head in response and kissed it gently, “I’ll try, I promise.”

 Those promises were not worth much in our line of work, but they kept me hoping and hope is what makes us live, hopefully it’ll be a long life.

[i-simp-for-gintoki]

JuJutsu Kaisen school headcanons

“some jjk school headcanons? not with a reader or anything but just how itadori and the other first years are in school?”-anon

This was pretty fun! Each character is pretty short but it still turned out longer than it needed to be oops.

So we all know that theres a proper private school to teach upcoming shamans. Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical College...thats a long ass name no wonder i didn’t remember it. But in the manga and anime, they dont exactly go into details of what they do for the school(i might be completely wrong just lemme know)

In the yuuta 4 chapter story, we kinda get a glimpse

Gojo is one of the few teachers and he teaches first years in a small classroom. i dont know what exactly he teaches but sometimes they go outside to train and well when yuuta and the others were training i forget if he was actually teaching anything. Like he gave him a sword to help with his powers and gave a brief explanation but thats about it.

Anyways.

Itadori Yuji:

Is late to class for the first couple days since he doesn’t remember the lay out of the campus

Its so huge for so little people

Sometimes he’s late just cause he slept in

doesnt really understand whats going on

He only just recently learned this world existed so of course he’s out of the loop with everything

he probably naps in class alot or spaces out

‘If i were to feed sukuna’s mouth on my hand...where would the food go? What would happen? How deep does it go?  What the hell has my body become??’

As his thoughts continue to derail, gojo would call on him and he might yell in response

he often asks megumi or nobara for help but they just dis him or ignore him

He tries to study! He really does! But he gets distracted and loses focus quite easily

during training he gets super excited thinking hes going to unlock abilities 

but thats quickly shot down and hes usually just forced to do something really mundane like run laps or jumping jacks

He might get another dummy to help control his cursed energy while gojo does his best to annoy him (honestly it doesnt take much for gojo to be annoying)

believes everything gojo says 

The blindfolded teacher definitely uses that to his advantage

“if you lick this rock it might help your overall abilities” “...really?” “are you doubting your sensei?” “is that...mud?” “Its just part of the rock. Besides you ate a rotten old finger for power im sure you can deal with a little bit of dirt”

He got sick for a week

Fushiguro Megumi:

Hes the kid who sits by the window and just stares out of it the whole class

He finds gojo’s teaching style incredibly annoying

Yes he learns stuff but because of the way Gojo teaches it, he ends up doubting all the knowledge he knew before in the process

Probably does well on tests or whatever homework their assigned

This kid probably makes himself a neat little bento for lunch

During lunch Yuji saw it and asked if he could have one next time instead of always buying food

He rejected his request for a while

But eventually he decided ‘why not its not like it would take that much more effort’

Nobara saw and was like “oh so you made one for a dunce like him but not me?”

Queue a large sigh

Within a month or two he makes everybody lunch (gojo included because he got tired of him always coming by and swiping a bit of food from everyone)

During training he pets his animals quite a bit

When gojo demonstrates a new self defense technique, megumi always gets picked to help demonstrate

110% of the time it ends up with his face being smeared into the floor

Wont ever admit it but he kinda enjoys class with yuji and nobara

Kugisaki Nobara:

Pretty short since i don’t quite know her character that well sorry

I feel like shes a mix of passing but also failing idk

Like during some tests she’d pass with flying colors and without a doubt will show off to the boys

But in other things she’d completely flunk

Draws little doodles in the corner of her notes and thinks about her childhood friend

During training she dislikes learning hand to hand combat

Mainly because she knows shes not capable of beating yuji and that ticks her off

So instead she beats him with her rubber mallet when given the chance

When yuji asks her to join him and megumi, she often complains or makes sassy comments but she never really ignores them

If she wanted to she could just hang by her self but she enjoys being with the two

Gojo Satoru:

This guy never shows up on time

Once he almost did so he simply turned around and decided not to show up at all

He doesn’t necessarily dislike teaching, but he finds giving detailed explanations kinda boring

‘I just told you what would happen, so why are you asking for a reasoning of the reaction’

He wants his students to have a fun teenage life so he often cuts class short by an hour or two just to hang out or go out

He explains how to counter certain types of curses or what to do in some scenarios pretty well

Gojo tries to teach regular stuff like math or history but...i dont know actually

Im not sure if he would happily teach it or just give up after a couple problems

I have a feeling he might just randomly give stupid hard problems and laugh as the first years struggle and fail to solve it

If any of his students do well on a test he’ll give them a small treat

And it may be small for him but its probably hella expensive

I mean he literally just wears clothing that is a couple thousand dollars each

His socks are most likely worth more than my house and everything inside it

Theres probably a small rule book of what he’s supposed to say and what hes not supposed to say

So just to piss the old man off he says everything he shouldnt

He encourages stupid behavior and absoluetly loves it when Yuji and Nobara thanks him for getting treats

[dreamerwitches]

Manga reviews!

I’ve read quite a few of the Madoka Magica manga, mostly to find witches.... So I thought I’d do a little review of the ones I’ve read! Enjoy! (also, they’re my own opinions and it’s meant to be a little funny so I exaggerate a little... so please don’t get angry!! Also kinda spoiler-y)

Madoka Magica (og manga)

Just a really compressed version of the anime. Has some changes but not often good... I only have the first one in physical and I think it’s the only one I’ll get cause it’s the most interesting part. 0/10 cause they completely removed Gisela... Also not too fond of the art style, some things are drawn really badly.. Though I’ve fallen in love with manga Gertrud. Not too fond of it but I like having the manga on my shelf. 4/10 watch the anime instead

Madoka Magica Rebellion

Will be biased cause I love rebellion. A really lovely manga, better than the og manga cause it doesn’t compress the story and even expands it. Suits three volumes better than the original. Treats familiars really well, we get bonus bartels, dora and polina~~! Doesn’t have all the fun of the movie cause it obviously doesn’t have the amazing soundtrack but it’s a really nice manga anyway. Bebe is drawn really well but the Clara Dolls aren’t. 9/10 almost as good as the movie

Kazumi Magica

Plot: seven magical girls trying to do good stuff and Kazumi, the protag, has amnesia I was surprised how much I loved this manga... I enjoyed it so much and got attached to almost all the characters. Though, spoilers, all my favourites either died or turned out to be evil... Lots of plot twists. LOTS. A wonderful lack of kyubey too... I found the story to be so intriguing. It took a spin on the original series far better than - imo - Oriko did. Really ace witches too. Only downside was sometimes the art. Too many ass shots thanks. Also a lot of the magi outfits were a tad distasteful (and some distasteful jokes too). 8/10 pretty darn good

Oriko Magica

Plot: two girls want to kill Madoka cause they know about Homu’s shenanigans. Has a pretty out there story, gets quite serious at the end. First time reading I didn’t care about it but I’ve grown fond of some of the main characters like Oriko, Kirika and Yuma. I found Kirika annoying and op first time reading. The addition of the original Madoka characters feels weird even though they are in the same universe. Original characters are also sometimes unrecognisable because of the art style. I almost never recognised Kyoko... The bonus stories are really fun, I liked them a lot. They’re short but nice. New and interesting witches too! I probably preferred Extra and Sadness prayer to the original story (Sadness prayer is like, basically a retelling of the og Oriko story but better) 6/10 for main story (feels a bit like babies first fanfic), side stories are probably a 7/10 (writer probs had more experience)

The Different Story

Plot: Mami and Kyoko backstory plus a spin on the original story. A really fun and interesting read, especially if you like Mami or Kyoko a lot. I loved the expansion of the original characters, it’s really great. I got a bit lost at the end but I was kinda scanning through... Art is by the same artist as the original manga but it’s certainly improved. Really amazing witches too~! Read it again when I got volume 1 for Chrimbo and its far sadder than I remembered... hm. Lovely art though, and very powerful scenes 7 or 8/10. I’d need to read it in full again to give a better judgement

Suzune Magica

Plot: Very edgy, lots of die. Never got attached to Suzune like I did with the Oriko characters. Some costume designs are also gross and pervy. Didn’t find it memorable and didn’t care much about the characters. Nice witches though. 3/10

Haven’t read Tart magica and don’t have any opinions on it yet. Hate the artist so I don’t think I will ever read it. (witches also look like afterthoughts... boooo)

Wraith Arc

Gave it a scan aaannndd.... didn’t enjoy it...... found it so boring. Wraiths are so boring as the enemy. Bland and have no character or inu curry flair. I feel you’d really enjoy it if you adored Homura and Madoka. I don’t so... I don’t think my opinion would be justified for this one.

Homura’s Revenge

Plot: Homura, Madoka and Kyubey go back in time before Madoka turns God. I. HATED. This one. Sigh.. It was the most frustrating manga I’ve ever read. Kyubey just gets in the way and not in a funny or clever way. Kills off Mami too early too. The witch designs are also crap like the artist don’t care about them. Illustrated by the same artist as Tart Magica and they’re a creep so it’s an automatic ‘euch’. Homura just resets in the end anyway. Just like Wraith Arc, I feel you’d like it more if you really liked Homura and Madoka 1/10 I liked the part with Elly and that’s it

The Veranda of Madoka

Plot: All five girls are living in the same house as sisters. Spoilers, this is my favourite manga... it’s so so cute and lovely! It’s a 4Koma (four square panels for a joke/story but sometimes has longer stories) manga with cute humour and fun stories. You really care about the girls and want them to be happy together. I’ve only read volume 1 cause it’s the only one translated but I really wanna read the rest cause it seems to add Nagisa. Only downsides are it has some tasteless jokes like breast sizes and Homura’s sometimes kinda pervy towards Madoka (remember, they are sisters in this one) but those things are rare in the long run. Has lesbian Hitomi which increases the score tenfold. The art style is also adorable, I prefer it to PAPA’s current style honestly. 9.5/10 would be 10 if it didn’t have some questionable jokes sometimes

Mitakihara Anti Materials

Plot: Homura accidentally winds up living with Mami. I thought I was gonna hate this one. Turns out I love this one. If you ship Homura and Mami, it’s the best, but it also works well for a platonic friendship. It’s a lovely slice of life with lots of fluffy bits with Homu and Mami but also the other girls. Sayaka also for some reason has the super hots for Mami (I mean, who wouldn’t). Sadly, has some tasteless jokes like Veranda which bring it down. Taking pictures of people against their will and body-swapping, I just wasn’t into it... Art is pretty generic but works just fine. 8/10

Mami Tomoe’s everyday life

Plot: The girls are older. Excuse me while I vomit. Read a few pages and quickly ran. CLEARLY written by a perverted old man. The girls are all married and only talk about husbands and their weight and things men think women talk about. Also. Homura is married to Tatsuya, excuse me while I hurl again. Just look at the covers and you can tell the artist is a porn artist. -10/10 kill it

Welcome to Cafe Grief Seed

Plot: The girls work at a cake cafe. I um, love this one, it’s so soft and wonderful. The art style is so adorable, I’ve shamelessly stolen it for some of my art cause I love it that much. It’s a sweet mix of Sailor Moon and Ghibli. The pages are laid out like 4Koma but like Veranda, they often have longer stories. The take on the witches are really fun and imaginative too (they’re simply problematic customers). A really nice and harmless read (no pervy jokes, thanks). 9/10 wish it was longer and the artist seems to have not done anything else...

Pomu Magi

Plot: Homura is tiny and chibi for some reason. Reeeaalllyy didn’t gel with this one. Seems kinda like someone’s fetish... Just felt weird, I stopped reading quickly. Not disgusting like Everyday Life but made me feel uncomfortable. 0/10

Mahou Shoujobu

Plot: the girls make a magical girl club in a school shared with witches. Although it apparently involved witches it barely included them. LIES. Disappointed, Homura was also really weird too. 1/10 got to see witches but they weren’t portrayed well

Homura Tamura

Plot: take a look at lots of different timelines. I liked this one but damn it was all over the place. Every chapter is a different wacky timeline, and I mean wacky. A world where Mami rules and everyone wears hair drills, a world where Sayaka drives an Oktavia mech. Wacky. Kinda hard to follow first time through. But funny and quite charming. Made me laugh out loud sometimes. On a re-read for images I enjoyed it just as much as the first time, even more. 8/10 good if you like humour and silly jokes

[snkpolls]

SnK Episodes 73 & 74 Poll Results (for Manga Readers)

The poll closed with 135 responses. Thank you to everyone who participated!

Please note that these are the results for the Manga Readers’ poll. If you wish to see the results for the Anime Only Watchers’ poll, click here.

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RATE EPISODE 73: SAVAGERY 129 responses

As expected, this highly anticipated episode didn’t fail to deliver and fans absolutely loved it, with over 95% giving it a 4-5 star rating. 

I loved the episode 73. The fight between Levi and Zeke was spectacular! The animation was 10/10, definitely worth watching. Good, old Kenny's theme brought memories back. I have to admit that Mappa made Levi look hundred times better and definitely more masculine. 

RATE EPISODE 74: SOLE SALVATION 128 responses

While episode 74 generated slightly less enthusiasm across the board, it still managed to garner a high rating from respondents. 

when i read the manga version, i wasn't that much moved by zeke's backstory. but with the music, voice and color additions... it's fucking heartbreaking. mappa did an outstanding job. and the tension when he activated the thunder spear???? the animation? we were blessed. ALSO! the movement of the bodies when they threw the ball looked so realistic! it's a tiny detail that i loved. 

Zook

WHICH WAS THE MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT OF EPISODE 73? 128 responses

Levi vs. Zeke 2.0 got the largest piece of the pie, getting 23.4% of the vote. Behind that was the moment when Levi had to kill his comrades in titan form (14.8%), Armin punching Eren in the face (14.1%), Eren disparaging Armin and Mikasa (11.7%), and at 8.6%, that one screenshot of Armin the entire fandom was thirsting over. Shoutout to the person in the comments who wanted Mikasa to pin them down (the pollster writing this feels the same!).

💥🐒 mOnKe and Lebi 🍄and Jean go BOOM 🐎💥

For me, the real gem of EMA talk isn't that one Armin frame that everyone's going crazy about. It's the frame before it, that low angle of Mikasa half sitting on the table holding Armin down. Holy...I wanted to be Armin so bad right at that moment.

WHICH WAS THE MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT OF EPISODE 74? 127 responses

35.4% felt the most memorable scene from this episode was the ending scene where Zeke triggers the thunderspear and sends Levi flying. Behind that was the moment where Zeke listens to Grisha yelling through the door (18.1%), Zeke and Ksaver coming up with the euthenasia plan together (8.7%) and Ksaver telling Zeke to sell out his parents (7.9%).

EPISODE 73 IS TITLED, “SAVAGERY.” OF THE OPTIONS BELOW, WHICH CHARACTER DO YOU THINK BEST EXEMPLIFIED THIS WORD? 128 responses

In an episode filled with both verbal and physical violence, we asked which character you thought best exemplified the episode’s title. 35.2% felt that Eren was the worst offender with his words and actions against Armin and Mikasa. 29.7% felt that Levi’s violent acts against Zeke were deserving of the title “savagery.” Only 22.7% felt that Floch most suited the episode title, while just a small handful, 12.5%, felt that Zeke is the one most deserving of the term.

HOW BADLY DID YOU FEEL ABOUT LEVI HAVING TO KILL HIS OWN SQUAD? 127 responses

The majority felt, on at least some level, sorrow for what Levi had to do in order to survive and catch up to Zeke. Though a small handful didn’t feel too bad for our Captain.

ON A SCALE OF 1-5, HOW WOULD YOU RATE LEVI VS. ZEKE 2.0? 127 responses

In general, the fight received positive reception. Though it wasn’t all hype, as the highest ranking was actually a 4 and not a 5. It was hype, but not quite hype enough for us manga readers. 

I loved Levi vs Zeke 2.0 but they really should have used the instrumental version instead of K21, I laughed out loud when I heard that beacuse I felt like it took all the seriousness from the scene

levi and zeke goat

WHY DO YOU THINK FLOCH MADE THE RECRUITS BATTER INSTRUCTOR SHADIS? 128 responses

The majority of respondents feel that Floch’s motivations are a mix of factors. For those who did think there was a more specific reason, though, 16.4% felt it’s simply a matter of Floch having a massive ego trip. 10.2% feel that Floch truly believes what he says about taking out the old and bringing in the new, and 7.8% believe Floch simply wanted to make an example out of Shadis (presumably alluding to the fate of those who resist the Yeagerists). 

He was testing if the recruits can go this far

He wants to intimidate people into joining his cause by using violence and threats of arrest and also make them feel empowered by his ideals.

Standard protocol when there's a change of regime, you'd want to eliminate the old guards' influence ASAP.  

That's how fascism works

All of the above and the fact that he's a fascist.

HOW CUTE WAS BITTY ZEKE? 130 responses

After a long time waiting, we finally got to see child Zeke in animated form. The vast majority think he was cute as a button, ready to pinch his little baby cheeks! Only a small handful think bby Zeke is anything but cute.

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT GRISHA’S TREATMENT OF ZEKE? 130 responses

This chapter created more controversy surrounding Grisha after it’s publication. In general, fans still aren’t particularly proud of Grisha’s behavior. 36.9% felt that Zeke didn’t deserve any of the treatment he got from his father, and 24.6% outright want to give Grisha the award for worst parent in the entire series. 24.6% don’t approve of Grisha’s behavior, but they do empathize with the way Grisha must have felt. 10.8% feel that while he could have treated Zeke better, he also could have been much worse. 

Zeke was a sweet child but no child deserves to be treated like that regardless of how nice or well behaved they are. Grisha is disgusting.

Grisha was a large dick and asshole and he deserved the all punishment he got. 

Grisha is a terrible father but such a well written character 

it's crazy to me how people really thought grisha wasn't that in the wrong in terms of how he raised zeke.

DO YOU FEEL THAT ZEKE WOULD HAVE GROWN INTO AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT KIND OF PERSON IF GRISHA HAD TREATED HIM BETTER? 129 responses

Just over half of respondents think it’s possible Zeke could have become a different kind of person if he’d had a brighter and happier childhood, though they didn’t want to say for sure as they feel that Grisha’s treatment wasn’t the sole reason why Zeke sees the world the way he does. 41.9% believe that the outcome of Zeke’s mindset would have been completely different. Only a few think that he would have come to the same conclusions about the world either way. 

Unless Grisha gives up being a restorationist I don't see it as better treatment, if he does then yes

Yes. The whole point for the euthanasia plan was that Eldian children don't have to go through what he went through.

WHO DO YOU THINK HAD A BIGGER IMPACT IN SHAPING ZEKE’S WORLDVIEW? 126 responses

When it comes to “father figures” in Zeke’s life, 65.1% believe that Ksaver holds much more responsibility than Grisha does when it comes to the way Zeke views the world.

WHO TURNED OUT MORE LIKE GRISHA, IN YOUR OPINION? 128 responses

Between Grisha’s two sons, 68% of respondents feel that Eren is the brother who turned out much more similarly to Grisha, leaving only 32% who feel the opposite and think Zeke ultimately turned out more like Grisha in the end (For those who are curious, 81% of anime-only fans feel that Eren is the one who turned out more like Grisha).

WHO WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO PUNCH IN THE FACE AFTER THESE EPISODES? 129 responses

There was a lot that happened in these episodes that could have bred resentment from fans. From the options provided, 35.7% of respondents would most like to punch Floch in the face. 22.5% wish to channel their inner Armin and give Eren a sock to the face. 14.7% felt more visceral toward Grisha. 11.6% don’t want to punch anyone at all. For those who wanna punch the pollsters, meet us out back at 16:00 hours.

Floch sucks

HOW DO YOU FEEL FINALLY GETTING TO SEE THE PAINFUL EMA CONVERSATION IN ANIME FORM? 127 responses

A lot has happened since chapter 112 published, but the chapter still continues to stick with us and spark conversation. With such a highly anticipated scene finally being animated, we wanted to know how you felt seeing the scene reimagined with music, voice acting and color. 29.9% just felt that the chapter hits much differently now after the contents of chapter 138. 25.2% had a much harder time watching the scene in anime form than they felt reading the manga. 12.6% felt even more strongly, expressing extreme heartbreak over E/MA’s breakup. Only a handful of respondents felt the scene hit much harder in the manga.

I'm over it, I felt nothing. Props to Yuki Kaji though, his voice acting is as amazing as ever.

I liked both manga and anime versions, but hearing Armin's sharp intakes of breath from being hit ;~; MY POOR BABY!

M M G H, boi

mmgh

There is no pain, only support for whatever horny animator drew that shot of Armin.

I love EMA emotionally destroying each other and Mappa made it SO FUCKING GOOD, I watched this scene like 100 times

Eren = me | Armin's fist = EMA scene punching me across my expressionless face | Mikasa = my anime-only gf

BEFORE THE FINAL CHAPTER HITS, WHAT DO YOU THINK WAS EREN’S “TRAIN OF THOUGHT” IN REGARDS TO HIS WORDS IN THIS CONVERSATION? 126 responses

With the last chapter just over a week away, we’re hoping to finally get some closure in terms of Eren’s characterization and the choices he’s made. 42.9% believe that Eren chose to be cruel to his friends in the hope it would drive them to be willing to put an end to Eren’s life. 24.6% felt the opposite, hoping that Eren would push them into a corner where they wouldn’t interfere with his plan at all. 18.3% still aren’t sure what to think. Will we get answers, Isayama?!

He wants to "free" Mikasa and armin from himself because he knew he was gonna die

Probably the first option but there might be some truth to what he was saying.

He definitely wanted to push them away and antagonize them but I'm still not completely sure why. I don't feel we've gotten a satisfying explanation. 

He chose to be cruel to Mikasa and Armin in an attempt to make it so they wouldn't mourn him when he was dead and could be free of him entirely.

Eren still has heart warming feelings to Mikasa and - by being cruel - he wanted her to let him go (and most likely) kill him. His feelings to Armin however are much colder and they don't seem to like each other anymore. They are way too different. Armin and Eren are like two deities who will always fight each other.  

Like he said in 138, he wanted to push them away so they would move on from his death and live happily without him.

SOME DIALOGUE FROM THE EMA CONVERSATION WAS CUT OR SHORTENED. WHICH PART(S) DID YOU MISS THE MOST? 125 responses

Due to time constraints, the EMA conversation took a big hit in terms of how much content was cut from it. Of the cuts we noticed, the dialogue snippets that were most missed by manga readers were; Eren bringing up Armin’s good judgement when they were younger, Eren telling Mikasa that the “real her” disappeared in the mountain cabin, the mention of Ackermans being a “byproduct” of titan science, and the mention that Ackermans manifest the power of titans in human form.

OVERALL, HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE AFOREMENTIONED CUTS? 123 responses

When it comes to how manga readers actually felt about the cuts in the EMA conversation, 35% agreed that they felt bitter about them, while still understanding that there was probably little other choice. 22% think it was just too watered down and cut down the impact significantly. 14.6% didn’t care, 11.4% felt the cuts were actually a positive thing, and 10.6% feel that the manga is simply just the superior medium for this series.

I find it interesting that the titan science stuff was cut and wonder if maybe Isayama agreed to those cuts bc he knows he won't have time to really explain in the last chapter of the manga.

Oof, too many important informations have been cut. 

I'm okay either way!

Although I would've loved to see all of those aforementioned cuts animated, I understand why they had to be cut in the first place, so I'm not bitter by it at all. I still think the conversation still had the impact it was intended to have.

I kind of understand why some dialogues would have to be cut but it lessened the impact of how Eren tried to hurt his friends which I personally think is too much even if he might have good intentions in doing so. I also like how MAPPA rearranges scenes to better fit the airtime limitation of each episode.

MAPPA CHANGED EREN’S EXPRESSION AFTER HE WAS CALLED OUT BY ARMIN. THOUGHTS? 127 responses

A small change can impact a lot… or perhaps not. 34.6% felt let down by the change in Eren’s facial expression after Armin calls him out for hurting Mikasa, feeling that his original expression spoke volumes about his true feelings about what he’d done. 28.3% didn’t notice any change at all and so are unaffected. 15.7% are on a similar page and feel that there really wasn’t enough of a difference to gripe about anything, and 9.4% actually preferred the way MAPPA handled Eren in this snippet. 

as they did when mikasa calls him out in liberio, they harden his expressionstry to make him look like a heartless monster with no empathy for his friends. this expression hinted that he was hurt by telling all of that to his friends, so his self sacrifice motivations can be misunderstood by anime onlies, or worse: they may even think it comes out of nowhere.

The manga was just superior here, from his expression to the fact that Armin did manage to make him bleed. It was disappointing.

I read this chapter way too long ago, I don't remember this stuff 

He looks a lot more hurt and regretful in the Manga. Anime just looks annoyed.

Not a big deal to me. Manga is definitely superior though.

In the manga Eren was more human, while here we can clearly see his anger towards Armin's words.

THE ANIME ADAPTATION CUT OUT A BIT OF CONTEXT IN REGARDS TO LEVI STATING THAT THEY WILL FEED A YEAGERIST TO HISTORIA AFTER SHE GIVES BIRTH. DO YOU THINK THIS MAKES THINGS CONFUSING FOR THE ANIME-ONLIES? 123 responses

Historia’s pregnancy plot continues to get the shaft (for better or for worse), with the mention of her eventually eating the Yeagerist that eats Zeke being cut out entirely. 39% of respondents felt that this was a poor choice on MAPPA’s part, feeling that it will make things confusing for anime only fans (“why would they feed Zeke to a Yeagerist?”). 26% feel the opposite, and think anime only fans should be able to put 2 and 2 together to realize where Levi was going with his idea. 22% aren’t sure if it actually makes things confusing, and 10.6% just don’t care. 

I'm not sure how confusing this makes it for anime-onlies but them cutting out mentions of her pregnancy makes it seem even less important than it already does.

That plan was shut down so quickly it doesn't matter

I don't/didn't really understand this. None of the Yeagerist have royal blood... maybe I'm missing something. I figured he was just joking? Bc, tactically, what does Historia eating a Yeagerist do or have to do with anything?

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE ADAPTATION OF THE ZEKE RUNNING PANEL? 124 responses

When Zeke ran from Levi in the manga, the scene was memed to death. 46.8% of respondents weren’t disappointed in MAPPA’s adaptation and felt it was just as enjoyable as it was in the manga. 29.8% felt even more strongly, thinking MAPPA did an even better job than Isayama had done. 17.7% still prefer the manga version. 

It was funny in the manga but not in the anime and that's probably for the best given the weight of what's about to happen.

I  honestly don't remember the running panel lmao

Funny monke

HOW WELL WAS ZEKE’S BACKSTORY ADAPTED, IN YOUR OPINION? 126 responses

60.3% felt that MAPPA did an incredible job with executing Zeke’s backstory in the anime, with the impact feeling even greater than it did in the original manga. 37.3% agree to a lesser degree, simply being pleased that it was faithful to the source material and feel thankful enough for that. Only a sliver of the pie felt that MAPPA didn’t deliver well on this or didn’t care. 

Made him too sympathetic/made grisha look even worse

MAPPA REPLACED THE MONKEY PLUSHIE WITH A RAM PLUSHIE IN KSAVER’S VISION. THOUGHTS? 125 responses

We got a couple of Easter Eggs in this episode, with one of them being the inclusion of a ram plushie in place of the monkey doll that was in the manga. Knowing now that Ksaver’s Beast Titan was a ram, we were curious how many of you caught this. 55.2% absolutely loved the easter egg, and 31.2% just felt that it was neat. A few were confused, missed monke, or wanted to squish the adorable plushie. Baa!

I jumped out of my seat seeing that little fecker. I was literally like "...!!!! THE RAM!!! WE KNOW KSAVER'S TITAN NOW SO THEY PUT IN A RAM!! YOU..!!! ISAYAMAAAAA!!" It was hilarious XD

THE DOLLS IN KSAVER’S VISION APPEAR TO RESEMBLE ARMIN, MIKASA AND HISTORIA. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS? 121 responses

Aside from the ram plushie were also dolls that some thought seemed to resemble Armin, Mikasa and Historia. We got very mixed responses on this question. 20.7% felt that it was simply just a fun easter egg and didn’t hold any kind of narrative meaning. 19% were unsure what to think at all. 16.5% think the third doll actually represents Ymir Fritz and not Historia. 15.7% felt it was meant to represent the three people Eren is working hardest to protect, and 9.1% didn’t think they represented anything. 

i thought that was ymir fritz, zeke, and either eren or levi

I think the two dolls inside the box look more like Gabi and Falco but I'm not sure who the doll with the pink dress is, Ymir Fritz maybe?

I didn't even notice this, lmao. I'm bored of overthinking things like this, there's one chapter left y'all.

Oh, I thought it was Eren, Zeke and Ymir lol.

Reminds me of the Eren doll in the Lost Girls OVA. 

The box represents those who we will see in the final chapter. Sorry Historia :'(

All of the above xD

The doll isn't Historia - It's Ymir Frtiz - and her position under the wagon means that Eren values Mikasa and Eren more than Ymir/anything else. I think the wagon is also significant to that bit where Eren confessed to the squad that they were the most important people in his life, and that he doesn't want anything bad to happen to them.

EREN TELLS ZEKE, “I’LL PUT AN END TO 2,000 YEARS OF TITAN DOMINATION.” EVEN AFTER EVERYTHING, DO YOU BELIEVE IT’S POSSIBLE THAT THIS WAS HIS TRUE INTENTION, AND THAT HE CAN STILL BE THE ONE TO MAKE IT HAPPEN? 122 responses

Will there be a final twist in the series finale? 34.4% seem to think so, hoping that Eren’s words will ring true and he will somehow abolish titans from the world. 23% feel similarly, though they think he knew his actions would lead to the catalyst to rid titans from the world, rather than him doing it himself. 12.3% feel the opposite, and think Eren was simply just lying to Zeke about bringing an end to the titan power, and 9.8% think he’s just too dead at this point to accomplish anything. 19.7% aren’t sure what to predict. 

Yes, ending the era of titans and setting Eldians free is one of Eren's goals.

GIVEN THAT ZEKE’S FLASHBACK ELEMENTS FROM 115 WERE ALSO ADAPTED IN THIS CHAPTER, DO YOU THINK THE FINAL EPISODE WILL HAVE ANY ANIME-ONLY SCENES? 124 responses

The episode has already aired and we can now confirm that there were no additional scenes. 41.9% were correct in their hunch that the remaining contents would be enough to fill an entire episode - in fact, they didn't even end up animating all of it! What about Levi and Hange?!

Since we won't reach Ch. 121 or 122 I don't really care. 

Since Mappa took over, not anymore :(

What tou MEAN ”the final episode”?!

HOW DO YOU FEEL KNOWING THAT ANIME ONLY FANS WON’T HAVE A SOLID ANSWER ON LEVI’S FATE FOR MONTHS? 127 responses

We didn’t expect this question to come off as cruel as it now feels after MAPPA didn’t even throw us a bone in episode 75 about Levi’s fate. That being said, 29.1% are ready to snack on their popcorn while they watch anime onlies worry and theorize over Levi’s fate. 21.3% are simply feeling mischievous. 9.4% think it’s cruel to take any delight in anime watchers’ woes, as we also had to experience the same thing for several months. 33.9% think it will be next to impossible for anime only fans to avoid being spoiled about Levi’s fate. 

It should be fairly obvious he's alive when they show Hange jumping in the river with him next episode.

Good. I think most of them will assume he's not dead yet though.

Maybe it will inspire some of them to read the manga to find out.

Ugh, I hope they won't be complaining as much as the manga readers did even though it was obvious he's not dead.

THE PREVIEW ONLY REVEALED ONE SCENE TO US. SO INSTEAD, WHICH MOMENT FROM CHAPTER 115/116 ARE YOU MOST ANTICIPATING? 126 responses

31% of respondents were most looking forward to the moment where Pieck declared Eren as the enemy. 23% had most anticipated seeing Ymir revive Zeke (rip) and 19.8% were most looking forward to seeing Hange dive into the river with Levi’s injured body (double rip). 10.3% were most anticipating the scene with Eren, Pieck and Gabi in the jail room, and 7.1% were most hyped about Marley’s airships showing up onto the scene.

WE’VE ONLY GOT ONE EPISODE LEFT FOR THIS RUN! HOW ARE YOU FEELING ABOUT IT? 125 responses

59.2% were feeling hyped to get an announcement about a part 2 of the season. 24%, on the other hand, are bummed out and have a new void to fill in their heart while they wait. 11.2% feel similarly and on a greater level… the seasons between the SnK anime seasons are just the worst anime seasons of all!

Too distracted by manga-ending-anxiety to feel much about it

Disappointed. It's not actually the final season.

I'm ready for this season of heartbreak to be over thank you just put me out of my misery and stop dragging me along behind the car

I can't believe it's near ending already

DO YOU THINK WE WILL GET AN ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT THE NEXT ANIME INSTALLMENT NEXT WEEK? 122 responses

54.1% of respondents were hopeful for a part 2 announcement and the good news is that MAPPA didn’t let them down. 19.7% were right on the nose with this one!

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODES?

GOAT

The scene with Levi's comrades turning into Titans was one of the most visually stunning moments for me; the whole panning out throughout as they all started turning sort of gave me chills. Levi's reaction to it all, and ultimately having to kill them too was heartbreaking. Honestly that entire scene was quite gripping. I hate to admit that watching it in anime form has sort of solidified me resonating with Zeke in regards to his relationship with Grisha. Dude just wanted to spend time with his freaking dad and instead went through all of that, I don't blame him for the resentment at all. Still a douche for some of the stuff he's done. And ersonally I prefer him over Eren. Eren never went through that kind of treatment from Grisha and ended up... like that. Also!!!!!! Love me some Bertholdt crumbs, thank you Mappa! God, I miss him. :(

The removal of mostly anything mentioning titan scientists/research and Ackermans being a byproduct of titan science makes me wonder if Isayama regretted introducing that. I was already disappointed the manga didn't expand on that and the anime made it worse. Almost nonexistent tbh. Loved seeing Zeke's backstory, like all the other children in this series, he deserved better.

The ost during Floch's speech was brilliant. Young Zeke and Grisha VAs also. Makes me want to adopt Zeke right there. Not sure if Pieck and Porco already appeared as background characters (in ep 13&14) there were some figures that looked like them so I can't wait for the next episode! 

Nah, I just loved them 

These were one of the best of the season!

i just want more, also i loved MAPPA's style so far

In those episodes, the emotions weren't as strong as in the manga. I didn't feel much. And for the EMA talk... well, I liked Eren's neutral expression in the manga better, it was more fitted. And the animation of his "fight" with Armin was absolutely terrible, and it's sad to say that when you know that Mappa can do so much better.

*points at Zeke* WITNESSED!! 

MAPPA stans Armin, it shows, and I am 100% here for it. 

Being aware if latest chapters, I see young Zeke with different eyes

Mappa has done a fabulous job so far. The only thing I hoped for is that they should not have made the face difference so obvious from previous seasons to the last one, for the benefit of anime-only people. Yes, they stayed true to the manga, but their animators had to have control over it, which is what happened in S1 where girls had some sort of gloss on their lips and Yams requested for them to be removed in succeeding episodes.. that tells me that the animators/mappa have some semblance of control over how the characters look 

I think MAPPA is doing a good job with the episodes.

Feels. That is all.

I really loved how Mappa executed that scene wint Ksaver's wife's murder/suicide. In the manga, they just outright depict it happening in the room. In the anime, they blended it in with the present surroundings. It literally gave me the chills. I do worry that the missing dialogue from the EMA scene, especially Eren explaining how Mikasa's dedication to him is nothing but science. I also worry about him not mentioning the slave/freedom thing, bc afaik the dialogue in the leaked panel of 139 says ""you are free"", and I always thought it was gonna be related to that. 

WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES? 118 responses

Thanks again to everyone who participated! We will post the poll for episode 75 soon!

In the meantime, please feel free to send us up to 5 of your favorite characters via ask or submission for our ongoing popularity poll - that poll will close on the 10th of April! :D

[softslashers]

Wildflower.

Pairing: Flower Shop AU! Asagiri Gen x Reader 

Word Count: 1,798

Summary: Gen runs a flower shop; Y/N comes in to buy some flowers and can’t help but be drawn in by his mischievous smile. They find themselves coming in more often than they truly need flowers.

Warnings: None that I can think of, its pretty wholesome.

A/N: Important to note that I already posted this on AO3 a little over a week ago, read it here! I plan on coming back to this blog and doing more, I think limiting myself to just slashers kind of set me up for failure tbh. I’m going to expand to a few animes/mangas I like, but there will be a lot of villain/slasher content on this blog still!! If you want to unfollow I totally get it!! I’ll post some updated rules later tonight!

              Spring had finally arrived and brought with it all the best parts of the year. The weather was pleasant when you had left the house that morning, electing to spend your day off taking a walk around the town that you had moved to only weeks ago. There was so much you wanted to see, but the busyness that comes with moving and starting a new job had left you unable to experience the town you now called home. A cool breeze brushed past you as you stepped out, it was cool, and the sky was dotted with clouds. Taking a deep breath in, you watched as leaves and freshly bloomed flower petals floated in the air, stepping forward, you allowed the wind to carry you along with them down the street, towards your destination.

              There were many small buildings that lined the streets of the town: boutiques, family run restaurants and cafes, even a little flower shop that seemed to catch your eye every time you passed on your way to and from work. You had wanted to visit all the shops in the area, help support the local businesses and grow acquainted with the flow of people in town. Unfortunately, over the weeks that had passed since your arrival, you had only managed to visit the nearest grocery store. You decided that you would make the most out of the day, visit as many places as you could, and treat yourself while you were at it.

              The first store you had wandered into had not been too special, it was a small clothing boutique that had clearly recently stocked for the spring weather that was now upon you. Nothing in particular caught your eye. A bookstore was next, everything they sold was second hand, and you ended up making out like a bandit. This continued for a few hours, weaving in and out of stores, slowly accumulating more bags as things caught your interest. Eventually, you had worked up enough of an appetite to decide to stop in one of the cafes in town. Purchasing yourself a small meal and a beverage, you finally took notice of just how sore your feet had gotten from all the walking you had been doing. As you took a seat at one of the tables, you decided that you should be heading home soon, and after you finished your meal you would only allow yourself to visit one more shop.

              It had not been a difficult choice in the slightest. You had been wanting to visit the cute little flower shop that you seemed to pass every day, and besides it was spring, what better time to get something floral to liven up your apartment! And like that, your excitement began to build again. You quickly finished your food, threw out your garbage, grabbed your bags and, once again, you were off down the street.

              The flower shop was adorable, white walls were accented by the colorful bouquets sitting in the window display, vines climbed their ways up towards the roof, and what appeared to be a hand painted sign sat above the door. As you entered, a soft bell chimed from above you and you stepped into the warm light. You were the only person in the store it seemed, with not even an employee sat behind the counter to greet you. Yet the store was still inviting, warm light cast over the array of blooming flowers, quite a few of which you had never even seen before. It smelled heavenly as you approached the first display to the right of the door.

              Lost in thought and unsure of what to purchase, minutes had passed and you hadn’t even noticed the man that had now come to stand behind you, a nearly mischievous grin on his face and his arms crossed in front of him.

“Hello,” the man’s voice startled you, causing you to jump and whip around to face him. A chuckle left his lips as his grin seemed to widen even further. “Are you looking for anything in particular?”.

“No,” you responded, “just something for my counter”.

The man nodded his head and appeared to get lost in thought for a moment. You were curious about him, he was not particularly tall, probably around 5’6 or 5’7, he was slim, and had dark lashes that brought out his gray eyes beautifully. What had really struck you about his appearance was his hair. You could only think of describing it as an asymmetrical bowl cut, with one side having a long piece that reached his chin. The cut wasn’t the only interesting thing about his hair, it was split down the middle, half black and half white, yet it didn’t seem like it had been dyed that way, the parting was too indistinct to seem purposeful.

“I haven’t seen you before,” he brought his eyes up to meet your gaze, “you must be new.”

“I just moved here a few weeks ago, I haven’t had the time to explore until now.”

              The man hummed at your response, turning his head away from you again. He wandered around the store for a moment before coming to a stop in front of a display of yellow flowers, picking up a bundle, he turned on his heel and approached you, grin still present on his face.

“These,” he then shoved the bouquet into your hands and stepped back, “they’ll look lovely on your counter, I’m sure.” As you held the flowers, you recognized them as yellow daffodils, and smiled back at the man before nodding your head and walking over to register with him.

              He had been right, they did look lovely on your counter. Every time you spotted them out of the corner of your eye, you found your thoughts drifting back to that interesting man. From that point on, you decided you would go back to the store every week, once the flowers started wilting, for a new bouquet.

              The first week you came back, man had greeted you with that same grin, and asked you what you were looking for this time.

              “Dealer’s choice!” You had responded, hoping your excitement might cover up your nervousness. This response seemed to please him, as he hummed in agreement and began to wander around the flower shop once again. This time he came to a stop in front of a display of chrysanthemums, picking up a bouquet of pink ones, he then returned to you and placed them in your hands, before staring at you with an expectant look.

              “Well?” his gaze shifted from your eyes to the flowers and then back up.

              “They’re beautiful!” You could have sworn you saw a bit of pink tint his cheeks before he turned and made his way to the counter.

              This tradition continued for months; you had never missed a week. Always stepping into the store with a warm smile, excited to see what the man would pick next. You had eventually learned that his name was Gen, and as the weeks passed, found yourself staying longer with each visit. Your conversations grew from short interactions about different kinds of flowers to what was going on in your lives and personal troubles. Gen began to feel like an old friend, always willing to listen and offer up his advice, which you felt would sometimes get you into more trouble than you were in to begin with, but he had not led you astray yet. He even began to open up about his own life, you had hoped that it would quell your curiosity, but taking in information about him only led to wanting to know more. Feelings had bubbled to the surface, and you liked Gen more than you felt comfortable admitting. Maybe even loved him. For the time being, you had decided to suppress the feelings and force your current friendship to be enough to satisfy you.

              It was a Tuesday in late summer when, upon stepping into the store, you found Gen sat behind the counter, a bouquet already in hand and a bit of red spread across his face. He stood abruptly, the stool he had sat on let out a shrill squeak, and quickly made his way over to hand you a bouquet of small yellow flowers mixed in with larger white ones. His smile seemed less mischievous and more genuine today.

              “Do you know much about flower language?” he asked as he took a step back. You shook your head.

“You should really look into it. Those are gardenias with yellow acacia.” Before you could ask him anything, he shifted the conversation elsewhere. This visit had been your longest yet, you had entered at midday and did not leave until he had begun to close up for the night. Though it had been hours, you never once found yourself bored, and when it was time to leave, you even felt a bit disappointed. When he said goodbye to you that night, he seemed different, maybe a bit nervous. You tried not to focus on it as you made your way home.

It was only when you crawled into bed later, laying there half asleep, that you remembered he had told you to look into flower language. You forced yourself to sit up, ignoring your exhaustion, and grabbed your phone from your nightstand. When you saw the results that appeared after looking up the contents of the newest bouquet he had picked out for you, you felt your heart clench in your chest and heat rise to your face. You were giddy, like you were in middle school again and your crush had just acknowledged you for the first time. Falling asleep that night proved to be rather difficult as excitement coursed through your veins, you were going back tomorrow.

              Morning came slower than you hoped, and you were out of bed as soon as the sunlight shined through your window and onto your pillow. You had to practically force yourself to slow down and wait until you knew Gen would be at the shop, time had never passed more slowly.

              When you eventually did set out, you found your quick paced walk evolving into a near run. You had to see him. You had practically thrown the door to the shop open, the small bell ringing out into the air. This had startled Gen from his place at one of the displays, where he stood setting out freshly prepared arrangements of various colors. He had whipped around, face looking unlike anything you had ever seen on him before. He seemed scared, but hopeful.

              After taking a moment to catch your breath, you met his gaze. A smile crawled its way up your face,

              “I love you too.”

[human-enthusiast]

Absurd Person #1 - Monkey D. Luffy (kid)

 Let’s start with not only the main protagonist of One Piece but also the first character to give Luffy any sort of injury...

...his dumb, seven-year-old self...

*Disclaimer: I don’t own this image - screenshot from Episode of East Blue

The last time I wrote this, I forgot to hit save and my browser just reloaded the page and lost everything. After that I just went “I’m done” and rage quit Tumblr for the night (which I normally don’t do). That’s how my Sundays usually go😒🥴

Now Onward!

Basic Classifications

Real World Ethnicity/Nationality: Brazilian

Class: farm / country / lower class

Culture (the one he grew up around): Dawn Island - Sea-side village

Fishing community

Farming / Ranching community

Hard work ethic

Small and close community members; relatively friendly; little to non-existent conflict

Selective mix of being open towards strangers (especially with merchant vessels for better trading opportunities) and weariness towards those they expect to be harmful (likes Pirates; I’d imagine the people of Windmill Village were understandably unnerved with the Red-Haired Pirates first showing up).

Core values (personal to Luffy): pride, physical strength, adventures on and outside his home village,

Relation to authority: neutral - shifting slightly towards negative (no clear basis of opinion; can only go off on Luffy’s fascination with pirates as the main viewpoint)

(The added information feels a little scatter-shot but figured I give it a try based on little information from the manga panels and how it lines up with real-world similarities. Most information is based on logical speculation and could change with new information in later chapters.)

I know that the Romance Dawn arc consists of the chapters up until he meets Coby and Alvida (I think...), but the depiction of Luffy’s character in the first chapter seems different from when he is seventeen and setting out to sea. So, I’ll treat kid Luffy as a separate character for the first analysis.

First Impressions and Introduction

Now, I am an anime watcher, first and foremost, so my first impression of this character stems from the Anime. My introduction towards this ball of chaos was when he popped out of a barrel, that he put himself into after realizing that a whirlpool suddenly appeared (how he missed it? - It’s Luffy), and then inexplicably took a nap in. That was the absurd reason I was able to stick with One Piece in the first few arcs (until Baratie became one of the major reasons I stuck with it - I’ll explain why when we get there).

And since the first chapter was used for episode four in the anime, I was already somewhat familiar with how the story started and who Luffy was as a kid. However, reading the first chapter felt....different than what I would’ve expected. And because the anime cut out a few details from the chapter, there definitely are some things to take from kid Luffy at that point.

So my first impression was, as follows:

The kid is unhinged...That explains some things...

Complete wild child of a backwater village from Day 1. 

LIKE-- The anime episode DID NOT explain how he got that scar and the guy didn’t bring it up ever. To be fair, that wasn’t a big focus because the anime didn’t make it a focus. Reading that part though did more for his character and a little of his upbringing, through speculation, making it a rather slow-building but also fascinating introduction into this series.

Just a bit of an add-on, but if the manga introduced Luffy in the same level of neutrality as what the Anime did, It may not have fully made it clear if Luffy was going to be the main protagonist. Then again, it’s a shounen manga, maybe it was rather obvious to everyone else. Regardless, his introduction served to 

(1) Make his entrance memorable

(2) Establish his character that could either compare or set him apart from his teen self.

(3) Act as a sort of precursor towards the introduction of Luffy’s world and upbringing (which isn’t completely established until the last few arcs of Pre-Time Skip)

Personality

The best way I could describe Luffy at this point is a stereotypical kid...

Energetic, short-tempered, adventure-seeking, easily impressed, and ignorant...

That last description is actually something I brought up in a separate post about the “Fluid themes” of One Piece. Because I found that a small but overarching part in many (almost all) themes and world issues that One Piece reflects has some level of unawareness or apathy. Jimbe put it best during the Fishman Island Flashback when they found Koala (paraphrasing)

“They are afraid of us because they don’t know us.”

Know us referring to acknowledging them as people on the same level as humans.

Because of that and plenty of other instances from the East Blue, it can be a potential center for many characters who go up against or wish to explore the world and find that they are a frog in a well.

And that’s what kid Luffy represents. A rather aggressive frog in a well that wants out.

Granted, he is a seven-year-old, whose schooling has a closer equivalent to the 16th and 17th centuries of our world, living in what appears to be a farming community, so I’d imagine his education only focuses on at least the basic levels of reading/writing, mathematics, etc. A small, unexciting farming village probably has more concerns over their melon crops rather than what the world has going on. Adding in Luffy, you get a kid who dreams about being a pirate and adventuring outside the isolated village, making him avidly interested in a world he has no experience with. Or in a world he thinks is all fun and games.

That’s pretty standard for any child that has a mild and peaceful life. No doubt Shanks and his crew would tell him stories about their adventures. Not as a sort of attempt to make him a pirate, but because he was easily entertained by it, building up this expectation with stereotypical pirate personas. And whether he has his “destructive” tendencies before they became a fixture in Windmill Village, they definitely seemed to amp it up enough for Luffy to try and prove he was “man enough” to be a pirate at seven years old.

Then when you add in this idealistic expectation with the selfishness of a young child, it creates an opportunity to learn. Because, as any kid may go through, will find that their fantasy of the world won’t be what they expected, and will often react negatively. Luffy’s expectation of Shanks is that he is the strongest man worthy enough to be a pirate.

Now, Luffy’s view of a “real man” stems a lot from this stereotype of men solving their problems through fighting only. Which also embodies this rather damaging philosophy of never running away or backing down from a fight (which I refer to as stupid bravery - something that comes up in a certain other character).

The amazing thing about all the combined aspects of this kid is the ability to create a learning lesson for Luffy. Which can become a motivational factor in his pursuit as a pirate.

His easily impressed nature makes it known both when the Red-Haired Pirates talk positively about piracy adventures and when Shanks leaves the village. The difference between the moments can be showcased by the difference in determination and will to make an effort to achieve his dream. As he declared he wants to be King of The Pirates, he sets himself to work at it, rather than try and go with others.

How He Shapes the Story / World Around Them

I don’t know if anybody else made a similar connection (I wanna say someone DID but I can’t remember where) but in combination with Luffy’s general enthusiasm growing up hearing wild stories, his narrative reminds me so much of Don Quixote De La Mancha.

It’s been a while since I last read that story-- and by read I mean translate some paragraphs from Spanish to English during my Spanish I class in freshman year of high school. Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed the story. Part I entails an old man who, after indulging himself with various stories of knights and valor, decides he wants to partake in his own adventures. Under various delusions and misadventures, his story becomes a rather well-known one.

Don Quixote was called the first “modern book”. That was something my Spanish teacher mentioned regarding its acknowledgment by the world and always stuck with me. It was one of the first stories of the early medieval period to focus on a regular man. Other stories before this tended to be about legends, gods, demigods-- individuals who often were referred to as legends because they were born into high status (often above humans). Either through original texts (often for religious purposes) and then through varying interpretations (such as the Arthurian Legends), these tales were a part of the status quo.

Kid Luffy is a person that reflects so much of the Don Quixote story (And not just because his village has windmills-- the most iconic scene about the knight’s story). He is that simple, normal boy that longs for his own adventures when there seemingly is already a well-talked-about story about someone who achieved infamy. In place of that is a man named Gold Roger whose execution we see in the manga’s opening. At this point, we don’t have much understanding about how it impacts the world as of yet, we just know it is setting up for something significant to the story.

Luffy becomes that “regular” person from a small-town with big expectations for a grand adventure.

That perspective can slowly build into the story by starting in a simple setting with a character going through one of the first dynamic changes in his life. Luffy’s experience with Shanks’s sacrifice sets a course in his own adventure. A story that trails into a rather bonkers adventure at the end of chapter 1.

His development is what shaped his world. It’s the way he learns when as it stems from the consequences of his actions. Especially ones where the smaller ones turn out to be very costly, making it a hard lesson that ingrains into the young kid. His actions created by his old ideologies sparked an intense reaction in the people around him. Especially Shanks, who felt he was worth losing an arm towards.

How The WORLD Shapes HIM

So, for the sake of the fact that kid Luffy’s “World” in Chapter 1 mostly consists of Windmill Village, I’m adding in Shank’s and his crew’s influence to extend and further give credence to his influence. Because, as of this point, Shanks represents a glimpse into the life of a pirate that Luffy strives for.

With Luffy being in a quiet environment all seven years of life, there is growth through basic schooling and healthy child development (theoretically since Makino seems to be the most likely one acting as his guardian), instead of doing things outside that norm. Now Shanks is the odd factor that creates new development into Luffy’s dreams and future ambitions. 

The crew’s stories, charisma, and connection towards the kid actively (and probably unintentionally) created a positive expectation if he chose to pursue his dream. While that sounds inspiring, there were also negative aspects. Such as driving his ignorance and impatient nature to seek it out too early in his life.

Shanks then became a mediator. Luffy often has mixed feelings with Shanks as the man begets a level of encouragement while verbally making fun of Luffy for being a kid constantly. Despite that, it doesn’t completely deter Luffy’s ambitions. All it does is slowly drop his high expectations in Shanks after the first bar incident. This is again done by his childish outlook of physical strength and bravery equating to his ideal of a real man.

With Higama, Luffy learns about real-world dangers, and how bravery won’t always be enough to win battles. The same can be said for physical strength but at that moment it doesn’t apply to Luffy. 

Shanks’ and the crew’s involvement helped Luffy’s views change. His expectations are fulfilled, which in turn reveal that he was wrong about them.

Finally, seeing Shanks’ sacrifice unfold drove Luffy into a pang of newfound guilt. By then, he was able to change one part of his world views from a childish fantasy into the beginnings of a mature way of thinking. 

He gains some level of patience. Along with a set goal to work with. Attributes which are identifiable with Luffy in the chapters last few panels.

Patience = Luffy took time to train and learn to set sail at age seventeen.

Set goal = Be King of the Pirates

Add-Ons

When I say that kid Luffy, after Shanks’ sacrifice, gained a level of patience, it is meant as a deduction during that chapter. By no means am I insinuating that it became a permanent trait for his character. Because as of chapter 1, all of Luffy’s personality has yet to be revealed.

And this will apply to other posts for various characters. They may behave in ways during or in response to a particular event but it doesn’t necessarily equate to that becoming a whole personality trait. Calling Luffy patient, with having full acknowledgment of his personality during the bulk of One Piece, is completely off. But, there can and will be moments where Luffy will act patient when he deems it necessary.

This is a little hard to articulate but I hope it makes enough sense.

🏴‍☠️🐒

After-Notes

Here’s my first attempt at this analysis. It felt scattered even after editing everything. Breaking down characters sounds easy (and most times it is) but articulating and connecting things takes a lot of work.

Here's to hoping it gets easier with the next character. And maybe shorter paragraphs.

Up Next: Shanks (East Blue)

[the-starless-sky]

A Day Off of Loitering and Investigation

A translation of the first chapter of Jujutsu Kaisen’s first light novel “Departing Summer and Returning Autumn” by Akutami Gege and Kitakuni Balad.

A Day Off of Loitering and Investigation

If we are talking about the few “definite things” in this modern day and age, there are only three at best.

That Mito Koumon[1] will win.

That Sazae-san[2] will air on Sunday.

And lastly, that Kugisaki Nobara’s shopping will drag on for a long time.

Because of that, when Kugisaki said, “I want to go see Ame-yoko[3],” Fushiguro had prepared himself for the outing that will surely take a long time. It would probably take around same time as when Gojou suddenly shows up on a Sunday morning and suddenly said, “Megumi, let’s go to Parque Espana[4],”.

What’s out of his prediction was that Itadori wasn’t too keen on going.

He had thought that a television-person like Itadori would show interest in famous spots like Ame-yoko, but he said:

“No, I have some place else I want to go.”

“Oh, that so. Then let’s meet up after.”

And then they all readily move on their own afterwards.

For Fushiguro who had accepted the natural fact that he would get stuck in the middle of Itadori and Kugisaki’s noisiness, it was as surprising as the fact that corbel pieces actually don’t contain that much iron.

Of course, Fushiguro also thought to make use of the situation and move alone.

He’d go home quickly - after all, he wanted to read the continuation of the book he’d bought the other day, and he also wanted to arrange his table’s drawer and his closet.

Even so, Fushiguro is a fundamentally earnest person.

A concern like: “is it alright to let Itadori, Sukuna’s host be?” kept crossing his mind no matter what.

When we’re talking about the area around Ueno and Okachimachi[5], it is a town filled with life and history.

In the hustle-bustle from the post-war market town that continued until modern day, strange ghost stories run rampant and there lies a possibility that not yet active curses are concealing themselves somewhere.

Moreover, it’s Itadori, a person whom if you let go from your sight will suddenly buy a shitty sunglasses, and who had said Tachikawa’s[6] “essentially Shinjuku”.

If Itadori, by chance, got lost and strayed until Chiyoda Ward[7], he’d just think of it as a lucky spot, and take Instagram-able photos in Masakadozuka[8].

That’s the reason why Fushiguro chose to move with Itadori, but... truth to be told, he’s very much regretting it.

“So like, Fushiguro, if you don’t have any interest in Akiba[9], why are you even coming after me?”

“Shut up, don’t think about it.”

“’Kay. I really want to go through all of Akiba at once, y’know.”

“Do you have anything you want to buy? There’s probably nothing but manga, games, and electronics there.”

“Eh, sight-seeing. Shibuya or Shinjuku is also okay, but the Akiba I saw on TV has this otherworldly feeling to it... or, more like, it gave off a theme-park kinda feel?”

“Is it?”

If you live within the metropolitan area, you probably wont feel it, but in truth Akihabara is a strange city.

The atmosphere outside the station is particularly unique. It’s filled with anime culture to the brim as a matter of course, but in any case the amount of information from the advertisements are nasty.

The overflowing signboards with smiling game characters gave the town a theme park-y impression.

If you were to give another example, then it’s the cosplayers that sometimes mix in with the tight crowd. Maids devoting themselves to attracting customers and handing out flyers. And when you think a rare foreign car is going through the streets, for some reason a giant robot’s large scale model is being transported by a truck.

Is it possible to suppress Itadori’s curiosity in such a town? Impossible.

“Darn, Fushiguro. The game centers are lining up like convenient stores.”

“That’s ‘cause it’s Akiba.”

“Darn, Fushiguro. The maid-sans kept coming enthusiastically.”

“That’s ‘cause it’s Akiba.”

“Whoa! Fushiguro! Is that an ecchi game? Isn’t that a billboard for an ecchi game? Uwaah, is it okay, that kind of huge billboard... Oh no, I’m still a minor, will I get scolded?”

“Shut up!”

It’s a fundamentally noisy city, but for Fushiguro, Itadori’s three times noisier.

There’s still a few hours until the meet up with Kugisaki.

If he thought about that, Fushiguro’s head ached. Unknowing of Fushiguro’s feelings, Itadori was nonchalant, without a care in the world.

“I’m glad Fushiguro’s with me. This area’s so messy I’d get lost.

”It’s better than Shinjuku.”

“Don’t force that Tokyo-sense on me. Vending machines where you can use electronic money on every door, Pepper-kun[10] in front of shops, a city on this level’s only Tokyo, you know?”

“No, there really aren’t that much Pepper-kun.”

“In Sendai, you can only see it in ‘Man-made Onsen, Toposu’[11], you know.”

“Don’t pull out local shop names like it’s natural. Where the hell’s that?”

“In super sentou[12].”

“Pepper-kun being in super sentou feels more culturally advanced, ain’t it.”

“Well, well, well, anyways, rather than alone, being together with someone who’s knowledgeable about the area’s definitely more reassuring. I’m still not good with subways even now, after all.”

“There shouldn’t be anyone getting lost around the Yamanote-sen[13].”

“Aah, there it is, the Tokyoite-sense. Naturally coming out like that.”

“In reality, you don’t get lost that much anyways, do you. ‘Cause you went here and there day after day.”

“Ah, Fushiguro. Let’s eat kebab, kebab.”

“Continue the conversation, damn it.”

Fushiguro had felt that Itadori and Gojou’s rhythm are quite similar, but now that he’s by himself talking with only Itadori, that feeling only grew stronger.

After all, conversational catch-ball with Itadori is, at most, on the level of dodge ball. For Gojou, it’s more on the level of hitting-only golf, or a batting center[14].

Come to think of it, today he hasn’t seen Gojou in the dorms nor school. It’s up to him where he wanted to be during his day-off, but now that Fushiguro thought about it, Gojou really is a mystery.

As he thought such things, he let Itadori’s words in through his right ear and out through his left, going into his “gloss over” mode.

After all, it’s on almost the same frequency as the city’s noise, so if he’d just turn off his awareness he could just process it as part of the background, environment noise.

If he were to respond one by one, he’d just get tired. Nobody would tell him off even if he put his brain in energy-conserving mode, anyways.

By the way, speaking from the results, this action of his would end up making his anxiety worsen.

“...Ha?”

When he came to, Itadori was gone.

Fushiguro hurriedly turned his head, and he barely saw someone with red highlight on their hair going into the depths of a game center.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Playing a game. Ah, are you talking about the title?”

“No way in hell, you special grade idiot.”

After climbing to the fourth floor of the thin and vertically long building of the game center, Fushiguro finally found Itadori.

In the fighting game corner, going in deeper. Away from the areas where people who seemed super serious about gaming gathers, in the retro game corner where one credit to play starts from 50 yen, there he was, that Itadori.

Moreover, he’s sitting in front of an especially boring looking game machine.

As he pouted, he explained how he got there to Fushiguro.

“I mean, you know, it’s not realistic wasting hours of time just walking around outside, right. There are a lot of game centers, so I thought, why not.”

“At least say something before steering away to the side.”

“I did.”

“...”

As Fushiguro’s the one who had glossed over Itadori’s conversations, while feeling a little bit awkward he changed the subject.

“By the way, what’s this game?”

“No matter how you see it, it’s ‘Battle Corporation Warrior, Business Fighter’ isn’t it.”

“I won’t know it’s ‘Battle Corporation Warrior, Business Fighter’ no matter how I see it.”

“It’s also my first time seeing it so I’m not really sure, too.”

The game Itadori chose looked extraordinarily boring it’s miraculous.

It seemed like a fighting game, but the characters are mostly old men who looked like company employees, and everyone uses business suits properly that it’s hard to differentiate who’s who.

Even if it only costs 50 yen, Itadori’s resolution to spend money on this game is an amazing thing. Well, if he’s like this then guess he would eat Sukuna’s fingers, imprudently Fushiguro thought.

Without caring about such Fushiguro, Itadori seem to be running as usual.

He’s even looking for a competition.

“On the contrary, I’ll just ask you: you’re not going to play, Fushiguro? It’s a fighting game machine.”

“I don’t want to pay money for that kind of game.”

Even so, a fighting game machine is supposed to be played by fighting another person.

Moreover, to play an already-boring looking game like this alone just feels empty. No matter how much Fushiguro didn’t want to play, Itadori wanted to at least fight with him.

“What the heck, you’re running away? By the way, don’t tell me you’re actually bad at games, Fushiguro? You don’t have any confidence that you could win against me?”

“It’s not confidence I don’t have, it’s the will to play.”

“If you run away here it’d be treated as a loss by default, you know! Are you okay with that!?”

“Do what you like.”

“No, really, please! Then I’ll even pay for your share!”

“Are you serious? ...Sheesh.”

Losing to Itadori’s persistence, who’d even start to talk about paying - or, actually, Fushiguro just don’t want to see Itadori begging like that, so in the end he put in his own money and sat in front of the machine directly opposite to Itadori’s.

No matter what, a fighting game’s of course funner to play with two people.

As he felt deeply grateful for Fushiguro who’d finally relented, Itadori cheerfully started choosing his character.

“Then, I’ll go with ‘Company President Yamada’.”

“...Then I’ll go for ‘Chief Clerk Oosaki’.”

“What, youre going with him, the initial cursor character? Well, I guess he’d be easy to use, so it should fit a beginner like Fushiguro.”

“Didn’t you just say you’ve only seen this game for the first time?”

“Actually, before you got here, I managed to get to the third stage of the arcade mode.”

Anyways, finally the battle starts between the two of them.

“Eat this! The sure-win tactics I devised in fifteen minutes!”

“That’s a hell of a short training.”

Immediately after the battle starts, Itadori used the easy command, ‘Business Card Shuriken’ repeatedly.

The Chief Clerk Oosaki that Fushiguro controlled jumped up to dodge Yamada’s shurikens that comes in an equal intervals, surely approaching the latter. When one thought he’d turn to a strong kick after jumping in, he actually threw Yamada and forced him to the side, as he viciously beat the latter.

“Eh? Huh? Wait, wait, Fushiguro. Isn’t that a a command technique? That’s a command technique, right!?”

“...”

Small punch, small punch, medium kick, medium kick, and to top it off Fushiguro used the ‘overtime gauge’ he managed to fill with the hits, triggering a super special lethal move, ‘Overtime Rage Fist’.

Fushiguro scored a brilliant victory.

“What the hell!? ...Eh, Fushiguro, how could you use special moves? You’re good at this game?”

“No, the command chart is there above the screen.”

“So you’re cheating!”

“You’re actually not that good at games, aren’t you?”

“No, even I could win if I used commands! One more, one more!”

“The heck, this idiot actually put in multiple coins…”

Itadori who had battled it out with Fushiguro for around an hour, still lost in the end.

✄┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈« 

They both go down until the first floor’s UFO Catcher corner and bought a cola from the vending machine, engulfed by a sense of emptiness.

The feeling of aftershock left after the heat and enthusiasm cools down look very visible on their faces.

“Aah... why did I even spend 1000 yen on that shitty game...”

Fushiguro looked at Itadori, who’s currently hanging his head, with eyes that look like they’re looking at an idiot.

“If you’re satisfied already, we’re going out. You can kill time in game centers, but they eat your money.”

“That’s true... ah!”

“What? Just because you found another shitty game, I’m not going to play with you anymore.”

“No, that’s not it, Fushiguro, look, look at that!”

Fushiguro reluctantly looked at the direction Itadori pointed with narrowed eyes.

And then, his eyes widened in surprise.

“...Gojou-sensei?”

“Right?”

Truly, on the other end of the two’s sight is Gojou Satoru.

Rather, the only person who would walk inside a dim-lighted game center wearing an all-black clothes with a black blindfold can’t be anyone other than Gojou Satoru - it’s hard to think of anyone else.

“Eh... wait, Fushiguro, what’s Gojou-sensei doing?”

“Isn’t that an UFO Catcher? The ones where you could get snacks from.”

“Why? Is there a person who wanted to eat snacks so much they’d go to a game center alone and play an UFO Catcher by themselves?”

“Don’t ask me, how the hell should I know?”

“Ah, and he’s even giving up!”

“That’s fast.”

As Gojou pouted in discontent, he walked towards the game center exit with swaying steps.

Well, it was a hard to understand action, but perhaps it’s normal coming from a hard to understand person. Fushiguro decided to stop thinking too deeply.

But Itadori just couldn’t do the same.

“Okay, let’s follow him.”

“How’d it come to that?”

Itadori started to follow Gojou who had exited the game center. Fushiguro immediately drank his leftover cola, threw it in the trash can, and followed afterwards.

“I mean, don’t he look like he’s on his off mode? I feel like I don’t know what he’s up to when he’s in holidays or when he’s free.”

“And?”

“Of course we’re going to tail him.”

“Don’t say that so naturally.”

“I mean, in reality, don’t you feel curious, too? Surprisingly I feel like I don’t know Gojou-sensei that well. Of course, if you don’t feel like coming then you can just wait.”

“...”

In any case, despite all the conflicts the two had, they finally decided to tail Gojou together.

Gojou is a dependable teacher and a shaman they respected, for sure.

However, from the eyes of Gojou’s students, his frivolous personality, busyness, appearing in unexpected places at unexpected time, personal history, thoughts, and range of behavior, all point out to him being a man full of mystery. The figure of him nonchalantly walking around town was something you don’t see everyday.

In sum, Fushiguro decided to follow his curiosity.

He’s probably also very mentally exhausted from playing a shitty game with Itadori.

In any case, the two of them started to search for the figure of Gojou they had lost sight of.

✄┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈« 

Gojou was, surprisingly, easily found.

“Fushiguro, isn’t that Gojou-sensei?”

“...You’re right.”

The next thing they sighted was Gojou, walking around as he ate crepes.

Looking from the package, it’s from the rather famous crepe shop looking out the main street.

It’s one of those extra ones with cream, tiramisu, macaron, and even chocolate spray.

There it was, the figure of a 190 cm adult walking around as he ate crepes that look like the dreams of all children.

“That’s amazing, Fushiguro. It’s not something you can just do when you feel like doing it.”

“No, you won’t even think of doing it in the first place.”

“Is it some kind of a sorcery training?”

“If you can get stronger by doing that, everyone’s gonna just do it.”

As they keep a steady distance, the two of them tailed the adult chewing on crepes.

Even in the city full of wonders, Akihabara, the sight still look quite out of place.

After he finished eating the crepes, Gojou stopped still in front of a rather old looking store.

“...Vacuum tube specialty store.”

Fushiguro looked at the sign Itadori read with a dubious expression.

After thinking for a while, Gojou stepped into the jumbled-up looking shop.

“He went into a really maniac shop, didn’t he.”

A dubious-looking Fushiguro. On the other hand, Itadori tilted his head to the side in confusion.

“By the way, what is a vacuum tube? I’ve heard that name before, though.”

“It’s an electronic component. The ones you use in old radio or audio player.”

“Is Gojou-sensei an audio maniac?”

“No, he looked like someone who’d just use YouTube to listen to music, don’t he.”

“Aah, yeah, he does have that kind of image.”

As they spoke to each other, Gojou came out of the shore with a paper bag. It seems like he’d bought something.

“Oh no, we’re going to lose him!”

Itadori went after Gojou who had turned into an alley, and Fushiguro followed suit.

They were a little late and lost him for a while, but one minute hadn’t passed and they’ve already found the tall man clad in black in the middle of the crowd.

“There he is, Fushiguro. As expected, Gojou-sensei stand out a lot. He’s huge, after all.”

“He’s around 2 meters, after all.”

“He look like he’s really strong at basketball, don’t he?”

“I can’t imagine him playing basketball at all, though.”

“Relatable.”

As the two came into an agreement, they followed after Gojou’s steps.

Tailing someone while keeping a steady distance in Akihabara’s complicated streets is quite a hard labor.

Because he’s tall, Gojou’s steps are wide and he walks fast, it feels like you’re going to lose him when he drift into the crowd.

Next, Gojou went to a second hand audio shop and rummaged through the paper-jacketed analog recordings.

“Earlier you said some things, but don’t you think he’s actually an audio mania, Fushiguro?”

“No, I’m sure he’s not.”

“But he’s looking at Bach’s recordings!”

“Does he look like he has any interest in classical music? That person?”

“No, he look like he’d listen to alternative rock.”

“See? It’s definitely weird.”

For a while, Gojou rummaged through the recordings exhibited on a wagon, and after buying an old movie’s BGM collection long play record, he left the store.

As they tailed him, Fushiguro became more and more suspicious.

Fushiguro thought that perhaps it’s just them that had different images of Gojou and he’s actually a person with vintage hobbies in his private life, but soon he rethought and ended up with: “Nah, no way.”

After walking a bit unsteadily for a while, Gojou stopped in front of a store with a yellow signboard.

“Fushiguro, what’s that shop?”

“...Capsule toy. It’s the so-called gachapon[15] specialty store.”

“What? A gachapon specialty store? They exists?”

“They exist, that’s why it’s Akiba.”

“That so? Ah, sensei’s pulling a gacha.”

“I really don’t want to see the sight of a teacher I know rolling a 500 yen gacha. ...What kinda gacha is that?”

“Mushroom keychains, right? The real ones.”

“If he’s going to spend 500 yen anyway, couldn’t he just go to a supermarket and buy one?”

“You really don’t understand, huh, Fushiguro. It’s good because you can’t be sure of what you’ll get.”

“I don’t want to understand that in my life time.”

“Ah, sensei’s opening the capsule, I wonder what he got?”

“Looking at the lineup, isn’t it a poisonous mushroom? He looks really frustrated, after all.”

“Buhahahahaha, I guess you can’t eat that!!”

“No, you can’t eat mushrooms that come out of a capsule toy no matter what it is.”

Gojou unwillingly put the keychain in his pocket, and continued to loiter around.

When you thought he went to a computer store just to hold a mouse, he moved into an electronic store and tried on an electronic massager on his shoulder.

And when you thought he’d vanished, he’s suddenly inside a book store, free-reading a manga, and moved into a sideway to look at old games on wagon sale. He moved around according to his interests, wherever he wanted to go.

“...It doesn’t look like he has a specific purpose in mind.”

“Seems so.”

Itadori, now suddenly wearing a strength-measuring goggles toy, replied to Fushiguro’s muttering.

“Where the hell did you buy that?”

“In some second hand shop. I thought Gojou-sensei would be interested since he reads manga, too.”

“You’re really light on your wallet, aren’t you.”

“A man is a creature that uses their money when they think it’s the right time.”

“Was that shitty game earlier also ‘the right time’?”

“Ah, Gojou-sensei went inside a building. No, that’s wrong, I meant his ‘energy’ went inside the building!”

“You don’t have to correct yourself.”

“Oh no, we’re going to lose him. We’re following him, Fushiguro!”

“No, wait.”

“Gueh!”

As Itadori was about to step into the building, Fushiguro pulled his parka’s hood to stop him. It’s a very dangerous act, so don’t imitate him.

“You wanna kill me or something!? What’s wrong, we’re already this far in and you want to stop tailing him halfway?”

“You... don’t you see the building’s signboard?”

“Eh? ...... Eh!?”

Itadori looked up as he was told.

Reading the signboard written in a pop font, his expression turned into that of a flustered one.

――Angel Maid Cafe, “SHOW WARU☆Cupid”[16]

The rather maniac cafe located in the second floor of the building.

No, it’s not like it’s an indecent store or something. It’s an ordinary cafe with maids serving the customers, that’s all.

Even so, for normal people, it’s the kind of shop that needs a lot of courage to go in to. It’s even worse for boys in their puberty.

 “...... As expected this place’s a bit... no, even for Gojou-sensei’s level, this kind of place is really surprising.”

“Hey, his aim is probably this.”

The thing Fushiguro pointed towards was a poster on the wall. It advertised something like: “Authentic French technique! Exquisite pancakes that makes even patissiers groan!”

Indeed, that could be it, Itadori also nodded in agreement.

“This is definitely his aim, for sure. How much sweets is he planning to eat, anyways?”

“When he’s busy, Gojou-sensei tend to eat more sweets like these, after all...”

“Alright, now that the mystery’s solved, let’s stop tailing him. I mean, it’s embarrassing having to go in to a place like this.”

“That’s a clever decision for you.”

“――Welcome, Masters!”

“Eh?”

“Eh?”

A cheerful voice filled with business enthusiasm jumped out from behind them.

It was a veteran maid who had thought of them as - and admittedly they do look the part - ‘customers who are hesitating whether or not to come in to the cafe’ called them out, looking to make them the cafe’s source of income.

That’s right. Neither Itadori’s genius physical senses nor Fushiguro’s polished curse presence-sensing abilities could catch on the maid’s presence.

✄┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈«

‘Did I do something bad in my past life?’, Fushiguro thought.

While looking on in blank surprise, he was pulled into the maid cafe together with Itadori.

As they were brought in, they were made to wear angel wings and halo made of plastic and wire, said to ‘let them feel heaven when they’re here’. Both his outside appearance and his mental condition is dead.

On the other hand... 

“For first-time customers, we recommend the Precious Set - Mellow-mellow A~” [17]

“Eh... I see. Well, I guess for the first time it’s better to just leave it up to the staff. We’ll get two of the Precious Sets. With extra melancholy.”

“Understood, Mastereincarnation☆”[18]

“Eh, what’s with that cool sounding word. Is it German?”

“It’s English☆”

“So it’s English!”

Just like that, Itadori’s already talking normally with the maid.

Naturally cheerful people... or, more like, those with party-people tendencies, and people with positive, bright vibes usually do well in places like this.

On the other hand, earnest-by-nature people like Fushiguro have the most difficulty in situations like this.

Fushiguro could feel his heart dying by the second just by looking at the fact that he’s currently sitting across Itadori, wearing a pair of angel wings and halo.

“And hey, Fushiguro, it’s about the crucial thing, but...”

“What?”

“As expected, seems like sensei’s aim was the pancake.”

“......... Yeah...”

The most important part of this investigation, Gojou, had especially sat down on the seat by the window where you can only see the neighboring building, and has since started his tea time, eating the pancake in grace.

He wore the angel cosplay very naturally as if it was his uniform, yet the way he sipped his cappuccino look like he was from a hard-boiled novel. The way he made himself ‘at home’ was in a different dimension when compared to first-time customers like Itadori and Fushiguro.

On the other hand, even taking into account the fact that Fushiguro is still a beginner, he’s almost on his limit. If he could, he’d leave this place even a second faster.

“Oi. Now that we know Gojou-sensei’s true aim, if you’re satisfied then let’s get out of here.”

“Eeh, but I ordered already.”

“Just pay for it and get out.”

“But it’s not good if the food we ordered go to waste, right?”

“...Well, that’s true, but...”

Fushiguro wanted to leave the cafe even if it meant paying for nothing, but he’s a kind person in nature, so when he’s told something like that, he just couldn’t complain.

On the other hand, his eyes that look like the deepest gulf peeking into the night, started to look duller and duller. Once again, Fushiguro attempted to turn off his awareness.

Numbness is a safety device for the living. He must protect his heart at all costs - or else, it wouldn’t be strange for a curse to be born.

It was a stark contrast to Itadori, who, despite being restless, look like he’s excited to try out an attraction in a theme park.

However, the maid cafe’s true baptism starts from here.

“Here’s Precious Set - Mellow-mellow A~”

The true form of Precious Set that one couldn’t ever guess from the menu at all is actually an ordinary looking omurice[19].

On top of the plate was a panda drawn with ketchup - and, it’s most probably a coincidence, but it look like Panda-senpai so much that Fushiguro’s heart ached.

On the empty spaces in the plate was written words like ‘Precious...! Makes me feel frazzled...!’, but the only one actually frazzled here is Fushiguro.

On the other hand, Itadori’s already completely adapted to the situation.

“Well then, I’m going to ask for Masters to add on even more melancholy on the dish~”

“What should I do to add on the melancholy?”

“Please tell me one precious, melancholic, and emotionally moving scene from your favorite anime! If you can make me feel melancholic without telling me the title, you pass~”

“Eeh. Dang, it’s kinda hard to choose. ...Ah, then that one where the main character is a boy who really admires heroes.”

“Me too, I watch that, too. It’s one of my favorites~”

“There’s this character with an inferiority complex towards his father... and then there’s the scene where he remembered that he wanted to become a hero, and he finally used the ‘left hand’ that he never used. I like that one.”

“Ah~ That’s a definitive episode, that one. But the scene choice is too cliche, so try another one!”

“Ah, then another anime. The main character lives in the ninja village. At first he got ostracized by his friends, but then he grew up and there’s this scene where he’s finally recognized as a proper ninja and got tossed up high in the air by his comrades...”

“Ah~ that’s a really emotional scene, isn’t it~”

“And the part where the teacher, who was his only ally, looked at him and got moved to tears... it’s definitely something you can’t miss.”

“Ah~ you’re going in really on point, aren’t you~”

“The part where they said, ‘Right now, there’s a hero in front of me’, right?”

“I understand, I understand so well~~~~ That’s super extra melancholic, and because I feel hit right on the heart should I add on a topping for you?”

“Ah, so it’s that kind of system?”

“It’s a 400 yen a la carte menu, ‘Melancholy Potato’ add-on~”

“Wahh, that makes no sense――! So much carbohydrate!”

“Well then, let’s say it together: Emo――i!”[20]

“Emo――i!”

In a rather messy fashion, the potato was added on on top of the plate.

It’s definitely got that ‘refrigerated food’ feel, but it seems for an a la carte it goes for 400 yen. When you’re having fun you stop caring about such things, but Fushiguro was so bothered he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t help but to get bothered about various things.

And when he thought so, the tip of the blade is now aimed at him.

“This Master, too, together~!”

“Come on, Fushiguro, there’s topping there, too!”

“Okay, e――moi!”

“E――moi!”

“...”

Fushiguro didn’t reply. However, the event continued.

“Well, now that we have added on the topping, let’s take a cheki[21] with the dish. Okay, come closer, come closer~”

“Eh, there’s that kind of thing in this cafe?”

“Because it’s the Preciouse Set.”

“Heeh, I don’t understand at all but I see!”

“There’s this heavenly-feel, right?

“I dunno, is there? Might be.”

“...”

“Well then, excuse me for sitting beside you~”

“Eh, aren’t you too close? I’m a bit embarrassed about these kinds of things.”

“You have to experience this kind of embarrassment to be an adult, you know~”

“Is that true?”

“Yup, it is~ Here goes, cheki☆”

“Che-cheki!”

“...”

“Thank you very much~”

“Oh darn, this is so embarrasing! Wah, my face’s so hot! It feels like I just paid off a really important thing! Am I okay? I’m still a minor!”

“Kyaa~ You’re so innocent it’s cute~ Well then, the Master over there, let’s go.”

“After all, the type of closeness is different to that of a folk dance. Fushiguro, be careful! You’ll get embarrassed! Super embarrassed!”

“Please prepare for taking the cheki~!”

“Fushiguro, it’s gonna start.”

“........................ No.”

Echoed a fragile, feeble, delicate voice like that of a dying duck.

“............ I’m......... okay......”

Fushiguro has finally reached his limits.

✄┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈« 

“Aah, I unexpectedly ate a lot. But the taste’s kind of ordinary, wasn’t it.”

“The inside of my mouth’s dried because of all the potatoes.”

Thirty minutes passed.

Fushiguro and Itadori safely got out of heaven that took 500 yen to go in to.

“Fushiguro, I got the cheki we took earlier, you want it?”

“The next time you joke like that, I’m going to jam in paprika up your nose.”

“Isn’t it just something you don’t like! No, I understand, I understand that’s the limit to your harassment!”

“There’s a temple near Kanda. We’re going to burn the photos there.”

“Does it have to be in a temple!?”

“The only thing to do to cursed pictures is burning it for offering.”

“I’m sorry, okay! I didn’t know you were in that much pain!”

From Itadori’s perspective, Fushiguro always looked like he’s in a bad mood, but today, once again he got a look at ‘an actually angry Fushiguro’.

Now that it’s become like this, even Itadori couldn’t get into his usual rhythm.

A bit awkwardly, he thought of how to continue the conversation as he scratched his cheek - and then finally he decided to go back to the start of everything.

“B-by the way, in the end we lost Gojou-sensei, huh.”

“Yeah, but who cares about that.”

“Wa-waah, I wonder where he went......”

“What’s this about me?”

““Uwaaaaah!?””

The person who stepped into their somewhat awkward atmosphere in a suprising timing was Gojou, appearing from behind them.

Moreover――

“Go-Gojou-sensei! Since when were you behind us...... huh? Kugisaki’s here, too? Why?”

“Don’t ‘why’ me, you ass.”

Behind Gojou, Kugisaki shows up in a bad mood... or rather, full of malice and resentment.

For Itadori, it would be that another angry classmate shows up.

“Eeh... Even Kugisaki’s in a bad mood.”

“Of course I’d be. Because you guys loitered around Gojou-sensei, we...”

“Oh, come to think of it, Gojou-sensei, is it your day off today?”

“Don’t ignore me, you!”

Sensing that Kugisaki would complain in a more assertive fashion than Fushiguro, Itadori quite bluntly changed the subject.

Although, in the end, the subject didn’t change.

“No, I’m working as usual.”

“Eh? But you ate crepes and walked around town...”

“If you’re as busy as me, you wouldn’t have time to walk around town and making rediscoveries if not as you work, y’know. I might look like that but I’m actually doing my job.”

“And that is?”

“Looking for a dungeon.”

“...... Dungeon?”

“To use a different term, I’m looking for a nice cursed spot that could be used by the first years to acquire experience. In other words, I’m doing preliminary inspection.”

“.........Yes?”

The memories from when he’d first transferred to the Curse Technical College resurfaced on the back of Itadori’s mind.

That day, they were going to sight-see Tokyo, but in the end they had to participate in a curse exorcism recreation in an abandoned building.

Gojou continued indifferently.

“That maid cafe’s neighboring building’s mostly empty of tenants, but a strange rumor seems to have shown up on the internet, you see. And, because of the old record shop with quite a long history rented the place, the curse story’s credibility went up.”

“Ahh, that’s why you kept looking at the window despite there being nothing to see but the building.”

“Then, this is supposed to be a task for another day, but in a happy coincidence, the three first years are all present, so... ‘This is nice, I’ll just have them challenge it today!’, I thought.”

“Eh... eh!?”

“Don’t worry. I’ve moved around the amp abandoned in the building, played recordings like what’s written on the rumors, and other stuff to provoke the cursed spirit. So, you guys will be able to meet a very lively cursed spirit no problem!”

“......... Eeh...”

Itadori immediately moved his gaze towards Kugisaki.

He finally understood the reason for her face full of resentment.

In contrast, Fushiguro looked sharp and firm.

“Alright, we’re going.”

“Wh-why are you so eager!?”

“I feel much better doing this than going to a game center or a maid cafe.”

“Eh, what, you guys went to a maid cafe? Forget Itadori, but you too, Fushiguro? You look composed but you’re actually a lecher, huh, all of you!”

“It was inevitable.”

“What do you mean, forget about me!?”

“Who cares, let’s go.”

“That’s why I’m asking, why are you already in battle mode, Fushiguro!?”

“’Cause Megumi didn’t get the chance to show his abilities in the abandoned building the other day, he’s still all about it.”

“I’m not all about that.”

“No, your face clearly looks like you’re all about it.”

“You’re actually the type to hold a grudge for a long time, aren’t you.”

“Well then everyone, be careful on the way. I’m going to go eat age-manjuu[16].”

“You’re still going to eat!?”

“Let’s just go.”

“Don’t ‘let’s go’ me! Shit, good bye, my day off――――!”

“My Ame-yoko―――!”

From a day off gone wrong, being able to get in touch with a shaman’s ‘usual atmosphere’ helped Fushiguro recover quite a bit.

On the other hand, there are Itadori who had his satisfying holiday cut off, and Kugisaki who’d missed eating Ame-yoko’s specialty, Hyakka-en’s fruits[22].

Gojou saw off the three, noisily heading to exorcise the cursed spirit, with his usual light smile.

“Hm?”

Something fell off from Itadori’s pocket. What is it? Gojou tilted his head in question as he picked it up.

And the next moment, he burst into a laugh.

“Mm, hahahahahahahahahaha!”

Gojou couldn’t stop laughing as the image leapt into his sight.

“Ku, kukuku......... Aren’t they actually having the time of their life, those youngsters.”

80% of his smile was due to the strangeness.

20% of it was due to the pleasantness.

It was said that for some time, Gojou laughed with the picture of Itadori and Fushiguro with a maid wearing angel wings in hand.

Megumi-sama ♥ ♥ Please come again!!

Notes

(p.s. I'm not very sure about some of these, please do tell me if I got anything wrong.)

[1] Mito Koumon is the titular character (also a real person, his other name is Tokugawa Mitsukuni) of a period drama. Each episode always end with Mito Koumon, in a disguise, winning in a brawl against bad guys.

[2] Sazae-san is the name of an anime that has aired every Sunday since 1946 in Japan.

[3] Ame-yoko is an area in Tokyo famous for its shopping districts.

[4] Parque Espana is a Spanish theme park in Japan.

[5] Ueno and Okachimachi is also area in Tokyo.

[6] Tachikawa is a town in Okachimachi.

[7] Chiyoda ward is a special ward located in central Tokyo.

[8] Masakadozuka is the tomb of a beheaded hero.

[9] Akiba is the short term for Akihabara.

[10] Pepper-kun is a really famous robot from Japan.

[11] Onsen is a hot spring.

[12] Super sentou: sentou means a public bath, but in super sentou they have much more facilities than a simple bath, like sweets shops, terrace, and rest areas.

[13] Yamanote-sen is a railway loop line in Tokyo. It goes through famous places like Shibuya, Shinjuku, and Ikebukuro.

[14] It's a place with a ball machine (like Mechamaru during the baseball event) that you use to just... hit balls with a bat.

[15] That small machine you put in money and roll to get some surprises. Some of them are really expensive...

[16] SHOW悪 is, I think, a pun on 性悪 (shouwaru) = ill-natured.

[17] 尊みセット・エモエモ A. I'm not sure how to translate this (this whole maid cafe sequence is giving me a headache), but 尊い (toutoi) means precious. It's usually an otaku language when one talks about their favorite characters. エモ (emo or emoi) means emotional or melancholic. It's also usually used as an otaku language.

[18] かしこまリィンカネーション☆　= Understood-reincarnation. How am I supposed to make this work.

[19] Omelette rice.

[20] I give up. It's emoi. It's just emoi.

[21] Cheki is those polaroid pictures you take with idols, usually.

[22] Hyakka-en is a fruit store that's apparently very famous. Kind of expensive (but fruits are expensive in general in Japan), and for older fruits they chop it up and place it on a stick.

Honestly the novel is a treasure chest full of cute moments and amazing characterization information. I really love it - it’s probably my best buy. If you love Jujutsu Kaisen, you should really buy the book!

By the way, they’re going to release a second light novel soon.

[maddiicake]

Why Both FMAB and FMA03 are good and should be treated as Independent Stories:

I will go on the record of saying that Appreciate and Love FMA as a whole and love both series for what they are. And while it may sound like a broken record saying things like this... there’s still hateful words against those who like one over the other. So, I’m here to make this post addressing that both FMA2003/03 and Brotherhood are great in their own way and should be respected as their own individual stories.

Also warning there will be obvious spoilers.

What I liked about the Original (FMA03/2003) Series:

I watched 03 before delving into Brotherhood, and even before reading the manga. Now, I know Brotherhood and Manga fans are the small minority of the fandom, while 03/2003 fans make up the majority. That being said, many of these people simply can't get used to 03 after watching Brotherhood.

However, for me, I was happy because: A) I got more FMA to watch, and B) The differences in 03/2003 simply made it even more fun to watch, so for it was no trouble getting used to this anime.

But if I were to be specific of what I liked, I’d say I liked the following about FMA03/2003:

Characterization of the Protagonists and all the 'good' guys: The show heavily focuses on the relationship and tragedy of Elric Brothers, and 03/2003 portrays it much better with such a deeper level. The relationship between both brothers is intimate, and it feels like a genuine sibling bond. I also enjoy the fact that the anime shows that even if Ed follows his ideals, he, like any human, can break away from them under severe pressure, which was beautifully shown in the 5th laboratory arc. As for other characters: Scar in this version is a total opposite of his Brotherhood counterpart. He is written realistically in the 2003/03 anime. His absolute hatred for the military is more legit, and he feels morally grey in this anime. Izumi Curtis for me was also portrayed better in this version. Meanwhile, other Characters like Roy, Winry and Alex felt the same to me throughout both versions--so, not much change there.

Worldbuilding: The 2003/03 anime does a fantastic job at portraying the widespread effects of war and politics, Alchemy, etc. and how it has affected the people of the FMA World. For example, in Episode 16, “That Which is Lost”, Ed meet, a guy who had lost his limb while working as a soldier and was reluctant to use an automail prostetic because he wanted to “retain his wound”. Now, this episode itself was more so filler and didn’t really matter to the main plot of the story in itself; however, I feel that it was added to series to portray the depth of the FMA World, and how everyone has different reactions to the events that happened in the 2003/03 anime. Also, many of the events and how they unfold in this anime seem to parallel the middle east, which just makes all this feel realistic and provides some occasional social commentary which is quite nice. I also like how the first few episodes take their time to slowly and, with great subtlety, develop their world.

Thematic Depth: FMA2003/03 is dark, grim and kind of realistic--more so compared to Brotherhood. While, both versions of the anime deal with some important and mature themes, FMA2003/03 takes it to the next level. The 2003/03 series focuses on the Law of Equivalent Exchange, and shows how putting blind trust in it is a terrible thing to do. The show also focuses on how obsession, a denial of reality, and the inability to move on can be a bad thing. Moreover, sometimes life just simply isn't fair, and we should accept it; however, always try to improve what we have. All in all, we have to understand the consequences of our actions. That life is uncertain, and sometimes we don't get everything, and even we pay a price for it. All of these themes mixed in with the meaningful dialogues and the dark tone, made me appreciate this anime. For example, in episode 48, when Roy and Ed talk for the last time, that’s the pivotal point that brings all these themes together.

A Good Start: The Show had a better start than Brotherhood, simply because 1). We have more time with Maes Hughes and Shou Tucker, and 2). The Liore arc. Despite BONES studio and it’s tendency to create anime too early *when the mangaka is barely halfway through their series), they made it work, and, with the material they had, the 2003/03 series was given enough time to bloom. The 2003/03 series was simply immersive and very emotional, especially during The Curtis Arc, as an example.

Soundtrack and The Art Direction: I feel like both are equally good. However, I will go on the record of saying that I don’t think “art style” is what makes a series, nor is it an important factor. It’s nothing more than glorified “eye candy” However, for the sake of argument (especially since the “art style” is the first thing that “03 Stans” mention) I’ll be adding it in here. Both the 2003/03 and Brotherhood series have some amazing and beautiful orchestral OSTs in their respective soundtracks; thus, it added to the immersion of their respective series. In FMA2003/03, the color palette is very unique, sometimes it feels dull but it just suits the dark tone of the series.

All in all, I am impressed by a lot of aspects of the 2003/03 anime series, but as much I love and respect it, there are lot of things this anime messed up and I will note that as well.

The antagonists were... Meh: While I really love and enjoy the direction and depth BONES Studio added to the Homunculi... some of the other antagonists could have been better (or just not added at all imo). For example, Frank Archer... he has no reason being there except for convenient plot device to the point it feels forced. Though, him becoming that weird cyborg always makes me laugh just because of how dumb of a character he became because of it. Speaking of which, him becoming a cyborg was just... weird. It was like the Studio staff were trying to make him “cool” by making him into some crossover of The Terminator and Two-Face from Batman, but it just failed. As for Zolf Kimblee... He is still sadistic and likes making things explode, much like his Brotherhood Counterpart. But... that was it. Other than that, he was just boring. Him and Archer were both just the staple 90s Kids Cartoon Villains; not much to them except “Muahahaha I’m evil”. Now Dante... I’d say that she’s a good villain to an extent. Her as a villain is very subjective within the fandom, depending on who you ask. While I believe that she could have been just as great a villain as Father, her character was rushed and her goals were a bit vague and unexplored. I like how, like with Father, she had ties Hohenheim; however, that backstory and those connections were introduced a little late. So, in the end, she just came across as more of the generic Vindictive Ex-Wife, and just a generic female villain. As for the Homunculi... I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I LOVED their portrayal in 2003/03. They were the “saving grace” of the entire team of the villains within the 2003/03 series. My favorite of the bunch were Lust and Greed--namely Lust, because of her ties with Scar. Envy came at a close second, but only seemed so because of a way to back up Dante as a villain, and the other Homunculi seemed a bit more underdeveloped as characters. 

The Plot's quality drops after episode 35- Okay don't get me wrong. The first 35 episodes for me were 100/100. After that? a 60/100. Why? Because everything after that point feels contrived and feels forced. It's as tho, they are trying to do everything they can, even if it doesn't weave in, to make the brother's life miserable. Archer doesn't die and pops up, with his automail? Alphonse is there to be turned into a bomb, and become a philosophers stone. Okay, but why does this feel so forced? Also, can we talk about Nazi Shit? Now, I feel the brothers being separated is the perfect ending to this anime thematically and I have nothing against it, but A Nazi gate? Why? It was so sudden and pointless. It was never foreshadowed. They just showed it to make it as tragic as possible, because they didn't know of any other way to twist the plot, without convenient and totally forced plot devices. Also, How can Dante make Gluttony Mindless? Why is Juliet Douglass's Secret so obvious, when it can be fatal if leaked? Plot- Holes, Also, why are the Homunculli named the way they are? It just doesn't make sense. Also, FMA's Plot has an air of mystery to it, but it doesn't execute properly. I don't hate the end, I just felt disappointed, because the buildup towards it was terrible.

Now, I give a bit of grace concerning how the plot sort of dropped off and felt rushed halfway through, as well as the characters being underdeveloped and rushed. After all, Studio Bones was making up the majority of the material and took it in their own direction. Some factors to all of these cons in FMA2003/03 could be because of the Studio’s lack of a budget to flesh the characters and plot out more. Or, they had created so much additional material for this series that it became overwhelming.

As a writer, I can attest to the fact that “Character Overload” or “Element Overload” can either make or break a series, depending on how you handle it. That being said, there need to be a balance when it comes to these factors.

However, FMA2003/03 ended around 2004-05, So what we got is what we have.

Now, with that out of the way, let’s get on to the analysis of FMA: Brotherhood:

Characters: There isn’t a single character in this version of the series that I can choose as a “favorite”. Because, honestly? I lile them all. They’re all well developed and lovable in their own way, and have their own demension of depth to them. No, they’re not as deep as they aare in FMA2003/03, but from a writer’s perspective, that helps keep a balance with the overall plot of the stories. Now, some minor characters were just outrageous, but not to the level of boring (like 03!Kimblee and Archer), for example...  Darius and Heinkel. There isn’t a vast difference in Brotherhood’s and 2003/03's cast of characters. However, if I had to note a difference, FMA2003/03′s characters were are more on the edge of realistic and Brotherhood’s were just... Loveable. However, that doesn’t mean that one counterpart of a character is better/worse than another. Both are quite memorable in their own way. Of course, in my opinion Brotherhood's villains are just better than 03's villains. Sure, the Homunculi aren’t given as much depth, but, they have redeeming qualities near the end of their time (i.e. Envy, and GreedLing). When Father was first introduced... his character made me think of how Dante started out, and I was worried that his character would end up just as rushed and he would just be the generic cliche Shounen villain. By the Promised Day Arc, however, I was surprised. Yeah, Father was still very shounen-y villain, but still a pretty darn good villain. I feel his backstory, and how he discarded all his human qualities which led to the creation of Homunculi was well put together, and I felt the concept how he created Alchemy in Amestris, while Hohenhime helped build Alkahestry in the east was well put together, and helped build the world of FMA (literally). To put it simply, his character was much more interesting than Dante, because it was fleshed out more. The Homunculi were awesome as well, Lust did her job, Pride and Wrath were simply awesome, GreeLing's development from an anti-villain to anti-hero was exceptionally well written and not the cliche anti-hero, which I can appreciate. Envy is the character you love to hate. And Gluttony and Sloth did their Part as Well. While I enjoyed 03′s portrayal of the homunculi, I felt like they only fleshed out some for that series (i.e. Lust) while others were just left to fall flat. With Brotherhood, all the Homunculi were evenly balanced out in their characters, not too much depth and not too little. Solf Kimblee was still the sadistic baster, but at least his entire personality was more explored this time, and I liked how they portrayed his psyche as an added affect to why he has his views.

Plot: Bortherhood’s plot was more fluid and weaved in seamlessly. As a lover of all things continuity... Brotherhood did it right, and every time I find an analysis of a teeny tiny subtle continuity detail (i.e. Ed’s gash on his forehead that lasts a few episodes), I get a writer-gasm! Sure, there were few plot devices and filler here and there. But the plot in gneeral wasn’t rushed or choppy, nor did it leave any holes in it. The way Brotherhood portrays it’s plot is to keep you as engaged as possible, adding some silly comic relief here and there to balance out the dramatic intensity every so often. Unlike 2003/03 where is was just one depressing and dark element after another, Brotherhood added in the comic relief points not and again to give it’s audience a break. And, that’s what I really appreciate, and think is a great story writing technique. All in all the Brotherhood series is literal binge-watch material

A Great Shounen: Many Shounen anime have their Arcs for the purpose of portraying the progress of a character, and keep introducing new villains; however, depsite this, there is rarely a sense of mystery, intrigue or a moving plot in a Battle Shounen Anime. What Brotherhood did was just that, except make it more digestible (and not super long like Naruto or One Piece), and added a great thematic exploration. For a shounen it was quite deep, the plot structure was more like seinen, and characters were awesome. In a way, we got everything we could in a Shounen anime that only lasted a little over 50 episodes: Depth, plot, characters in a shounen.

Thematic Exploration: Both FMA 2003/03′s and Brotherhood’s themes are the same, but Brotherhood makes it a bit more lighter. All the while, it also manages to raise questions on additional themes: revenge, truth, knowledge, sacrifice, worth of a human life, and many other things.

Soundtrack and Animation: Same as the analysis in the part of FMA 2003/03, and, once again... I will restate that I personally don’t believe that art style is what’s important to a series. It’s nothing more than glorified “eye candy”. However, for the sake of this analysis, I will be adding it in here. While Brotherhood’s art style and animation is more simplistic, it’s much easier to create those dynamic poses and expressions on an animation level. While FMA2003/03 did have it’s dynamic moments, it was mostly only during battle scenes or the really heavy moments in the series. Brotherhood maintains it’s art style through the series and keeps it a balance, so that some scenes aren’t too much animation but also not too little. And, both FMA2003/03′s and Brotherhood’s OST Soundtracks are beautiful orchestral pieces that really add additional effect to a scene that the respective series are trying to portray.

A sense of conclusion: A lot of Shounen Anime get prematurely cancelled, most Seinen end in a bittersweet manner. That’s why FMA2003/03′s ending with the fate of the Elric Bros was a bit more preferable for those who like a more realistic ending. But, I enjoy a story with a more conclusive ending that wraps all the plot points up together without leaving too many holes. Yeah, the “happy ending” of Brotherhood is cliche, but “happy endings” wouldn’t be “happy endings” if they weren’t. Not to mention, those types of endings are rare, because people really don’t want to write them, and, when they do, they’re rarely done well. Ed’s entire charcter arc wrapping up to where he swallows his pride as an Alchemist and gives up his Alchemy to bring his brother back is both wholesome and satisfying, because, through the show, it shows his progression and growth from beginning to end. And, having an arrogant character obsessed with Alchemy give it up and learn to humble himself because of it.. it’s really uplifting.

Now let's talk about the Cons within the Brotherhood series, they aren't a lot, but still, they did affect my experience quite a lot.

Overuse of Comic Relief: While the use is a nice balance to the already dark and dismal atmosphere of the series, it felt a bit overused. So much so that some emotional moments were inconvenienced by the use of that kind of humor. It was a bit much and created dissonance with the tone the scene was trying to portray. Now, it worked more in the Manga, because of the more visual gag of it, but, sometimes the visuals within the manga don’t translate as well to an animated one.

A Rushed First Half: While FMA 2003/03 began “In Media Res” with it’s first episode and then started a “flashback episodic arc” with the next handful of episodes.. Brotherhood just jumped right into it. While, yes, it was a better balance to not have the characters’ depth right at the beginning (slowly revealing it as the show goes on), the first half of Brotherhood was 0-100 through just the first few episodes. To the point it feels like the audience has to catch it’s bearings. But, once you get on the same page, it’s enjoyable from there.

So what’s the Point of this Ted Talk-esq FMA Post?

I’m sick and tired of seeing 03 Stans  and MangaHood Stans fighting each other over just the smallest detail, especially when 03 Stans decided to bring leftist politics into it for no reason.

Personally, I just appreciate the fact that both series exist, ever since I've got in the franchise, it has become a part of my life, and still to this day is part of my life. Sure, I’m forever going to be part of this fandom.. but, I still see the beauty that peeks through the ruins and ashes of destruction now and then. I appreciate both series. Sure, I do prefer Brotherhood more, and get called a “Nazi” just because of it (ironic considering FMA: CoS was the movie sequel to 03... -__- ) , but 03 was excellent as well in it’s own way. It was very involving while FMAB was engaging. Both shows are something which you can learn something from and get attached to.

All in all, comparing both shows is okay, that's what I did here, but having a debate over which one is better isn’t just inherently bad... it’s TOXIC. Both series have their pros and cons, and they’re starkly different from each other. They’re two sides of the same coin. But, most importantly they are extremely important and impactful, so Pls don't have death battles over which one is better, don't say bad things about any fanbase, be respectful, and most importantly watch both and try to appreciate them. Because trust me liking both is a pretty darn good feeling.

[papers4me]

Fruits Basket, SE02, Ep20

This is a buildup ep for yuki’s confession, like most buildup eps in furuba they kinda seem awkward & a bit stretched, but overall this one is not bad. 

-The theme of “ letting go” & tohru:

Tohru needs to Not only let go of her excessive attachment to her mom, but also, of treating yuki as needing of much help all the time. tohru’s is the mother friend for all, she tends to care for everybody, however, since she lives with yuki, this instinct fire up & she provides care, nurture, support & worry lots abt him since she knows the sohma’s abuse. Their dynamics need to change as yuki is starting to depend on himself as equal leaving tohu’s nest, tohru needs to accept his change & support him differently from before. The analogy of yuki leaving the nest is also fitting of tohru’s need to focus on herself since her nest is now empty. Tohru has also been using her motherly care for others to avoid working/focusing on herself. I find it ironic that Arisa’s “ tohru come convince kyo, he doesn’t wanna be a prince” comes as tohru & yuki acknowledge the need of a modified dynamics between them & she sends him off with her “ do your best” instead of her usual “don’t overwork yourself”. She leaves him to go to kyo/her own personal life that she needs to focus on.

-The Endless Parallels:

As yuki is starting to open his lid to his pal, the focus is shifted to machi! I’m happy she’s back. Similar to kyo’s apology into tohru’s ears in Se01, machi was given the questionable behavior without explanation treatment to hook viewers & I’m hooked! I know I’ll love this girl. It was pretty clear that her & kakeru are yuki exclusive characters & if he’s the best buddy, she’s the love interest. To connect her with yuki, certain good parallels were hinted at from the beginning:

She always leaves a mess behind, yuki lives in a messy room.

She has to have traumatizing background in order to make her need yuki in her life cuz part of yuki’s wishes is to provide for someone who needs him the way kyo provides for tohru. Yuki is ready to give back, now that he’s healing. Machi is yuki’s person.

Her coping mechanism is a bit similar to yuki in SE01, she shuts herself from others, doesn’t talk much & is withdrawn. I love that they both have somewhat similar coping  mechanism regardless of the nature of heir trauma, it makes them both less ashamed of what they adopted to cope regardless if it’s wrong/harmful. 

 She has low self esteem & is shocked when someone notices her, very lonely which is why she noticed yuki’s loneliness since Day 1.

She saw through yuki’s resistance of his “prince” title. She’s perceptive in nature just like him.

She looks physically more similar to yuki than she’s to kakeru, her brother, (yuki’s family grayish hair/his mom’s /ayame’s long eyes). Not really fond of that, but no harm, I think it was done so she & yuki will have similar aesthetic & have similar color shades.

All these are amazing parallels above help connect characters together & build relationships. However, I’m kinda annoyed that the writer went over board with the parallels, to the point of semi-exact situation:

Machi & Kakeru are siblings who were not close at all due to abusive family attitude. Exactly Similar to: Ayame & Yuki.

Kakeru is the older brother & was able to stop his abuse cuz of his character or extreme behavior that saved him from being caged into the family’s grasp while machi, the younger, was unable to escape & isn’t free yet. Exactly Similar to: Ayame & Yuki. 

Kakeru, the eldest, is trying hard to reach out to his sibling & aid her as much as he can but fails due to his insensitive character or his failure to see where she stands. Exactly Similar to: Ayame & Yuki. 

In their relationship, kakeru is the extreme, bubbly & bigger than life character while machi is the vulnerable, silent, withdrawn one. Exactly Similar to: Ayame & Yuki. 

This is a ton load of parallels that is not much needed to make machi suitable for yuki. I know that the writer is aware that machi is introduced late into the story, & is eager to flesh her out to be loved, but I don’t think that adding all these similarities to yuki’s life is the way to go. In the contrary, it makes her seem like a female version of him without the curse. Machi should be fascinating without yuki or kakeru. I guess making her kakeru’s sister helps create situations of yuki knowing more abt her without her talking & can be used to redeem kakeru’s character if he was ever harsh to her the way ayame was cuz you bet kakeru will play matchmaker. but overall, it takes uniqueness from machi’s situation herself & draws more attention towards yuki & kakeru. More focus on what will yuki & kakeru do. I really love her form the few things I saw abt her & her reactions, but yeah, don’t mind me~ it was a fleeting feeling of disappointment. Oh well, it is what it is. I hope her own perspective of her situation is rewarding.

-Machi is NO weak woman:

She really isn’t! She took control of the situation when she noticed it needed quick intervention. That’s why, the first set of 6 parallels mentioned above is important for machi! She saw through yuki without needing to know abt the exact similarities of their abusive homes. You don’t need all that to see through someone who was in the darkness for years, cuz she too, must’ve been in the darkness as well! So, in unique fashion, she comes & destroys yuki’s walls. Don’t worry, I’ll save you. I see you.

-Cinderella ( what??):

I didn’t expect elementary school fairly tale to be chosen & I sure didn’t see the cast choices coming! XD I’m sure sth will happen & they’ll change cast. but It’s 100% awesomely spot on in a reversed manner!! So Ironic!

Yuki godmother means yuki in female dress???? similar to SE01, Momiji ep! poor yuki! plus godmother is a nonhuman character that is superior & grants wishes & yuki is considered stronger than normal human without training & despite weak health, all his skills are always extraordinary. But maybe becuz he’s nearly done healing/opening the lid, he’ll help the others now, godmother style. XD

Tohru is evil stepsister?? Tohru is kindness reincarnated! but perhaps tohru needs a hint of evilness to wake up for herself & be more assertive! plus tohru is considered evil by yuki’s fan club (there’s an entire ep dedicated for that lol).

Hana Cinderella?? The queen of darkness & eerie wave reports who can see right through humans will play the weak, powerless Cinderella. XD. But it suits her cuz she was once called witch when in reality she’s kind.

Arisa a prince! the woman who wants to be a model & is desperate to turn kureno’s head with her womanly charms & is dying for a kiss from him in their first meeting! XD. but it suits her as she used to be a gangster? XD.

Kyo the prince?! the most un-princely prince! kyo’s kindness & warmth is exclusive to kazuma & tohru, the rest of the world sees him as the always annoyed, easily teased, harmless dude! Princes are diplomatic with their words! kyo’s life would be over in a second if it depended on his words! XD. He depends on his physical body & actions to show affection & love. You want him to be shower girls with compliments the way princes do?XD. but it suits him in a way, cuz he stole the main female protagonist’s heart like in all fairy tales & he’s genuine with his affection. XD.

I want Cinderella play NOW! plz don’t change the cast!!

Side Note:

The ep started with yuki’s statement abt what he wants from tohru, however, failed to deliver an answer by the end. It is obvious that (a) the answer will be given once yuki explains himself (b) a tease to hook the viewers into waiting for yuki’s answer. However, it was badly done. Rather than giving anticipation, it gave a disappointing feel. It dragged a genuine & vulnerable moment for the entire ep for cheap hook by the end. It can be completely avoided by not opening the ep with yuki’s lines. The thrill/anticipation would’ve come 10 times stronger with his closing lines leaving viewers with “OMG, he’ll say it next ep!! rather than “ what? i was waiting for that all ep? man~, next ep perhaps?”. I duno what is the nature of the manga chapters. but there are times when it’s so clear to me (an anime-only) when the show adapts things via direct cut & paste rather than working them to suit the ep format. Generally, the show doesn’t know how to implement cliffhangers, so I really wish they avoid them altogether.

From the way he handled machi’s apology to his firmness with the chibi member, to his elaborated speech with kakeru, to his calmness inside the locked room & how the flashback didn’t affect him as much as I thought it would! yuki’s growth is 90% complete! =D! You go boy!

I gotta confess..I’m slightly disappointed that kakeru turned out to be another abuse survival child. I was loving the idea that yuki is connecting with someone via their own character/personality not shared past of similar experiences cuz there are TONS of those in furuba. Kakeru’s character with (mix kyo-ayame) & virtues/vices is a good balance for yuki, adding the abusive past is hinting that broken kids only befriends broken kids which isn’t true. Plus this means that all young characters “with importance to the plot” must be abused one way or another... I know furuba has a theme..but you don’t have to make it part of every important character. I still love kakeru tho. but if kimi turned out to be ANOTHER abused child, I’m quitting furuba! XD..jokes..

[cringeyvanillamilk]

Who are your top ten favorite black clover characters and ships? Talk about them.

YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR A LONG TIME AND I’M READY TO DELIVER 1/2 OF YOUR REQUEST! I’ll post my top ten ships on your other ask~! <3

Sorry for the long text! I kind of went overboard with my explanations!

My Top 10 Favorite Black Clover Characters!

1 Asta

Before I got into Black Clover, I always heard a lot of negative comments about Asta as a character. “He’s too loud” “He’s extremely annoying” “He’s just a generic character”. After hearing so many of these types of comments, I was curious to see if what people said about him was true. And now that I’m up to date with the manga and seen every episode of the anime (except the recent filler episodes), I can confidently say, “WHO THE HELL WERE THESE GUYS REFERRING TO AGAIN???”. Like… hello?? I don’t know if maybe I’m just not that critical as a person, but I found Asta’s character to be quite endearing! People hated his voice but I thought it was pretty fine! It may be because I watched the dub, but even his Japanese voice isn’t that bad. Asta is just seems like an overall solid character to me! He’s not generic because he has a lot of quirks that makes him unique. One thing I noticed about his character was how family-oriented he was. You can tell by how he played around with other kids or comforted them that he has a lot of experience with kids! It’s honestly adorable how great he is with kids! And even though he grew up in an orphanage, he was able to find happiness as a peasant. I liked how he dreamt big even though he was starting from the very bottom. He didn’t have magic at all but he still had the determination to fight against all odds and strive to be Wizard King. Do you know how inspirational that is? And he’s not just doing it for himself,  he’s doing for his family back at the orphanage! He said it himself, as Wizard King he’ll fix up the church and spread the message that it doesn’t matter if you’re a peasant or orphan, anybody can be Wizard King. Asta truly has a heart of gold because his goal isn’t just full of self-interest. I also like how he wants people to be held accountable for their actions. Asta is a very fair person and isn’t one to automatically kill the opponent to save the day. No, Asta wants these bad people to serve their time and make up for what they’ve done. Like??? Wow, Asta, you have a lot of mercy for a shounen protagonist. I think that’s what I love about Asta’s character. He represents hope for other people. And I’m a sucker for characters who fight for what’s right and not because of some heroic prophecy or selfishness. 

This is where I list out random things I like about Asta’s character: Asta’s crush on Sister Lily is hilarious because it truly represents ‘fighting against the odds’ in a comedic way. Asta’s short stature is so cute, I hope he remains short for the rest of his life and grows to be proud of it. I really love Asta’s character design. He’s short, his ash blond messy hair is cute and unique, his sharp green eyes are beautiful, his shoes are two different shoes sewn together, and his fashion sense is simple yet nice to look at!  A very distinct design! And his anti-magic and demon possession is a cool addition to his character! I’d gush more about him but I think this is already too much lmao.

2. Fuegoleon Vermillion

I’m going to push aside my thirst for this man and actually talk seriously about what I love about his character. I’m going to first talk about his character design. I really love how Tabata designed Fuegoleon. For one, I really love how he’s wearing eye makeup. I think it’s a unique family tradition for each of the kids to wear this distinct eye makeup no matter the gender. His eye makeup and burned symbol on his forehead really made him distinct from other characters! It’s subtle but visually pleasing! And ‘subtlety’ is a good word to summarize Fuegoleon despite how ironic that word is. When we look at Fuegoleon’s hair in comparison to his other siblings, his smooth hair tells us he’s more orderly and responsible but his curly bangs tells us that he isn’t completely cool-headed. His red eye makeup could also tell us that he has a fierce side to him, as if his eyes are glowing red with fire. And comparing his face with Nozel’s (both are around the same age), Fuegoleon looks older with his eye wrinkles, telling us that he’s more of an old soul and matured fast for his age. That and he probably overworked himself with a lot of responsibilities. His color scheme is also very attractive! He has a balance of warm and cool colors which makes him look… balance! 

Now as a character, I really love the trope he represents! He’s the mentor figure for Leopold, Asta, and Noelle! For a character who isn’t part of the main cast, I find it impressive how impactful his words of wisdom was to the major leads. But it makes so much sense after all the things we’ve learned about Fuegoleon as a character! Fuegoleon has a lot of strengths as a character that I couldn’t help but fall for. Firstly, his debut of a character was short but memorable for me. During the Magic Knights exam, he was the only captain who passionately yelled about the rules of the next test. That was such a character defining moment because those few seconds perfectly described how intense and serious he is. He could’ve calmly announced the next test but the fire within him told him to jump up and yell those words with all his heart. The next time we saw him, we finally got to know him a lot better as a character and man did he win a lot of respect from me. Despite being a royal, he stood up for Asta when no noble did. He was the first noble to treat Asta fairly right away. In comparison to other nobles we’ve come across, Fuegoleon was a breath of fresh air! He wasn’t discriminating or condescending, which made him a lot more likable! I liked how he came from a privileged background but his sense of justice was still a 5/5. You just can’t hate this guy! His visuals are not only attractive but also his personality! He charmed me even more when he was the first to act and became a temporary leader for the other captains! His leadership, inspirational words, and fairness makes him an overall respectable character! I found him even more endearing when we saw his socially awkward personality. Serious + awkward are perfect combinations for a cute character. I also find his fire magic, salamander, and fire arm to be cool as well! He’s just a great character to me!

3. Finral Roulacase

Okay I’m going to try and not write too much like I did with Asta and Fuegoleon lmao. I need to chill-. Finral is the type of underdog character I always loved in anime. The character people don’t think much of at first but then they undergo a lot of character development! I liked how we saw subtle changes within Finral throughout the series and the resolve he gained as an older brother to Langris. His character arc was overall satisfying to me, especially during his final clash against Langris! Finral just has that good amount of light-hearted times (mixers, casanova wannabe personality, cowardly moments) and family drama! I would never expect a lot of depth in Finral based on his character trope but here we are. Finral is such a likeable guy. I just can’t hate him. I also like how he isn’t a perverted character. He just wants LOVE. Also his spacial magic? I love how unique it is! He’s a walking taxi but the fact that he developed a new magic spell to use it during combat is amazing! I also love how kindness is a big part of his character! A very peaceful libra~! I think what made him above Noelle was that I found his character to be charming ever since the very beginning! That and the fact that he can be considered the ‘underdog’ of the Black Bulls!

4.Noelle Silva

Oh Noelle! You beautiful and frustrating character! I’ll be honest, I had mixed feelings about Noelle when I first got into Black Clover. I was never a fan of overly exaggerated tsundere characters and so I would get frustrated with her tendency to act this certain way in the beginning. It was the true definition of slow burn but it’s through this gradual liking toward Noelle that made me feel strong and positive emotions towards her today. Slowly but surely, Noelle began finding her worth as a person and magic knight. All her life, Noelle was put down by those she called family and other noblemen for her lack of control over her magic. And it’s through this understanding of her backstory where I truly get why she wears that tsundere mask with other people. She can’t take a compliment normally because not only had she never been complimented before, but she grew up in an environment that taught her how she should act as a royal. She was bound to be unlikable at first, but it’s through a lot of character development and understanding where I found my love for Noelle. Noelle to me is how most shounen female leads should be. She has a crush on Asta but that’s not her entire character. She has internal struggles outside of her love interest and went through so much development that she became one of the most powerful young magic users in the series. Like the power ups she went through?? HOLY SHIT. The fact that she made me forgive her tsundere tendencies shows how great her character was.

5. Magna Swing

Man, I’m also a sucker for characters like Magna! I just love the delinquent with the heart of gold! Magna appears like your everyday punk but he really is such a good guy! It’s fun to see characters that subverts expectations and Magna is no exception! It’s small actions from this guy that makes him so likable! I really love how aggressive and uninviting Magna was in testing Asta only to heart warmingly accept Asta into the squad once he passed! He does this again when he makes fun of Asta for having a very small room but then tells Asta to send letters back home so that his loved ones aren’t worried! LIKE HELLO?? Why are you so lovingly contradicting?! Magna really tries to uphold his tough guy image but does sweet things right afterwards!! Magna’s character said never judge a book by its cover! I also find his loyalty toward Yami to be so sweet! He’s willing to gamble his clothes for this man and I call that DEDICATION. Magna is that ride or die friend that I’d love to have in real life. His interactions with other characters are also hilarious and his presence always brings a smile to my face! 

I know I keep talking about character design but I can’t help it since Tabata’s character design is GREAT! Magna’s design… I LOVE IT!! He has the cliche leather jacket and skull motifs to bring his delinquent look together! And Tabata had to give him blue shades!! The perfect accessory to complete the look! I also love his hair style and color! Magna is this close to having a pompadour but stuck with a Mohawk look instead! I also like how his hair has two different colors! It tells me right away that people dye their hair in this world! Interesting information for subtle world building! Light gray and black is such an nice color combination, too! I like how he becomes more of a pretty boy when his hair is down! It’s a nice surprise~! And his most iconic character trait. HIS SMILE! I love anime characters with toothy smiles! We can literally count how many teeth they have- LDKAFJSA. Reminds me a lot of Totoro! 

I  JUST LOVE HIM SO MUCH.

6. Klaus Lunettes

Klaus… Santa Klaus… I think I may have a type because in my top three characters I’d date, he and Fuegoleon are up there together! Both are serious and high strung characters with a dorky side to them. These two truly captured my heart-! Klaus is overall a great character! Klaus is the straitlaced character who wants to be respected by others. Sadly nobody gives him that respect and I find that hilarious! I love how short-tempered he is despite how cool and collected he wants to appear to others! Everything about him is contradicting! His hairstyle and earrings are punk rock but his glasses clash with it. He seems disciplined and mature, but is the first to crack and get overworked by emotions. Klaus acts stern, but can be very protective and nurturing. His character did a literal 180 after Asta and Yuno saved them all from Mars. And when he gets worried over Asta and it always warms my heart!! Klaus is lowkey a tsundere but is actually subtle about it- wow! He’s so… comically dedicated. He doesn’t half-ass anything! Overall, he’s a solid character to me! I hope to see more from this nerd!

I’m just going to list out other things I liked about Klaus: I love how his character quirk is him readjusting his glasses. Like get some new glasses if they don’t fit you nerd. I bet he does it to look cool or something. Smh. I also love his outbursts! I mentioned that he reacts quickly and emotionally and I find these traits to be very charming! I like how he doesn’t make his worries towards Asta obvious. We only know this side of him through other characters! That’s so cute~!

7.Julius Novachrono

I deadass thought this man was shady af. I'll have to blame OP 3 and Tabata for clowning me like that but despite the initial suspicion, I really enjoyed his character! I really love how dorky and childish he is! I can never get tired of his fanboy moments in the anime! He's literally the strongest mage in the series but still gets excited over rare or unique magic! I also love how humble he is! He doesn't let his title give him a big head. Despite this quirky side to Julius, I liked how realistic and competent he is as well. He isn’t one to give hopeful answers to other characters. When he said in order to be Wizard King you must have merits, I respected his honesty. Having good morals isn’t all you need to be Wizard King and Julius made that very clear. When he killed off a few members of the Eye of the Midnight Sun, that’s when his character became more real to me. Julius has the experience needed to be a well respected Wizard King and his support towards Yuno and Asta made me like him more! Julius just has a lot of depth and I really appreciate that in a character! I found the path Tabata put Julius in to be very interesting to me! I’m actually glad he’s still alive but as a kid! The series isn’t ready to lose their Wizard King yet and there’s still a lot from Julius I’d love to see in the future! Julius truly brings a lot of humor and epic moments in Black Clover which is why he’s in my top 10 favorite characters!

I also love his character design! I think the short and blonde hairstyle with the royal king aesthetic is pleasing to the eye! He could’ve been a total snob like King Augustus but he strayed away from that trope! His name is similar to Julius Caesar in which represents his leadership and powerful authority as Wizard King, but subverts negative traits associated with Julius Caesar! Clever Tabata~!

8. Vanessa Enoteca

I’m going to have to shout out Vanessa’s arc for making her character be in my top 10. Like if it weren’t for the witches’ forest arc, she wouldn’t have made it in my top 10. I thought Vanessa’s character was a given for a shounen series where we have at least one sexy female character for fanservice, but I’m pleasantly surprised at how deep her character was! Who would have known that there was an actual reason for her to have a revealing design! I think it’s fine to have a character who wears revealing clothes for the heck of it, but I feel like Tabata went the extra mile to be pretty thoughtful about it. For one, she was always caged in (literally and figuratively) ever since she was a child. This backstory indirectly tells us why she wears such revealing clothing. That’s because it symbolizes her freedom as her own person. She went from the modest dress she wore when she was caged in to a sexy dress! I really understand this mentality!!

As a character, I found her lack of freedom to be very relatable. I also felt sympathetic towards her character when she didn’t receive healthy motherly love. I felt a lot of emotions for Vanessa and that made me appreciate her character more! I feel like her character started to leave a positive impression on me when she acknowledged Asta’s strength and determination as well as her helping Noelle as a proper older sister figure! Her arc solidified herself into my top ten when she gained the powers of red thread of fate because of her love for the Black Bulls. That power up shows how much she values the Black Bulls and it always makes me feel soft just thinking about it! Her magic ability is also pretty cool. Thread magic? There’s a lot you can do with that magic! I like how she had a prominent role of maneuvering Asta during the Veto fight, too. Vanessa is another female character with an incredibly strong magic power. It became so useful in so many moments in the series! 

Other comments I’d like to say about why I like Vanessa is her sexy witch aesthetic. I think she looks very pretty and her color scheme is beautiful!

9, Charmy Pappitson

OH GEMINI QUEEN. I love you so. What I like about Charmy was how many times she surprised me. When I first saw her, she looked like she’s a kid but she’s actually 19 years old. What? Then when I saw that she was the glutton, I thought she’d be selfish with her food but then she shares it with others. Huh? Then I assumed she was a harmless character but then she knocked out that witch when she mistaken her for stealing her food with her sheep magic. Oh? And just when I thought I saw everything I needed to know about Charmy, it’s revealed that she was a dwarf and has food magic. HELLO? Like what else am I going to learn about Charmy?! She’s such an unpredictable character and that’s what makes her so fun to watch! The thing is, she still remains the same after all these reveals! She doesn’t really go through a lot of character development but these surprises make up for it! Charmy is overall a feel good character. She’s not one to be taken seriously all the time and that’s okay! She’s just there to have a good time! She radiates good vibes and I like how light-hearted Charmy is! She’s also pretty badass, too, so great combination!

10. Gordon Agrippa

And finally we have Gordon. Gordon. is. such. a. good. boy! There’s no bad bone in this man! He’s so dedicated and loyal to his friends! And it makes me feel bad that he doesn’t get the love he deserves in the canon story! Everything about him is so pure and soft! I love how he’s very quiet and mumbles a lot but the words he says are very sweet! I’d love to listen to his friendship speeches all day! Gordon is the type of guy I’d definitely want as a best friend. His quiet voice and my deaf ears aren’t a great combination but I don’t care! Gordon’s personality is perfect to me! I really hope we get to see more from him in the future!

In terms of character design, I absolutely love it! His goth aesthetic contrasts so much with his actual personality. I love the Marilyn Manson inspiration behind Gordon’s design. His character design is so distinct from other characters which makes him stick out like a sore thumb. This is random but I love how thick his lips are. The black lipstick and eye shadow also looks great on him! His nose is also cutely big! 

Gordon is one of the best boi. No question!