#manga Ichigo 100%

[frankencanon]

I'm curious to see how the results will change now that the top contenders from each poll are all being pitted against one another!

—

※ Why were these specific characters chosen?

All of the characters above were taken from the top six results of the two preliminary polls.

※ What do you mean by "best protagonist"?

Which character would you most prefer to have in the role of protagonist?

What sort of personality, backstory, attitude, skills, motivations, morals, and various other traits would you prefer for the protagonist of a shounen series to have?

(It's also fine to just vote for your favorite character however since "likability" is, afterall, a very important, very vital part of being a protagonist...)

—

The results are in...!!!

The Best Shounen Protagonists as Voted by Fans are... 🥁

Top 3:

1. Edward ‐ 1,886 votes

2. Luffy ‐ 1,653 votes

3. Mob ‐ 1,420 votes

Runners up:

4. Maka ‐ 534 votes

5. Gon ‐ 376 votes

※ The vote counts were estimated based on the total number of votes multiplied by each character's percentage.

[averinna]

Big list of anime to show you that the most popular ones don't mean that the medium is only made of shonen nekketsu, shonen romcom and isekai.

There's of course more example but I didn't watch all anime in existence, I think it's still a good start.

[chxxrybxxmb]

So you’re telling me Ichigo Kurosaki placed 80th on the top 100 most handsome and his twin Kunigami got 30 GIRL THEY DID MY MAN ICHI SO WRONGGG 😭😭

Anyway although I think my hero placed a bit to low (in my opinion) I’m happy that he placed at the top 50, pretty sure Kuni would accept that rating

[jpegmaestro]

[recurring-polynya]

a cool thing about writing bleach fanfic is that i have read certain parts of the canon so many times that i feel like i know it really well and then i'll realize there's something i have absolutely no clue about. today's example: in the wake of Ichigo storming Soul Society, how widespread was the knowledge that Urahara had been assisting him?

Aizen knew, obvs, for Aizen reasons, but some of the stuff he mentions, like Urahara's known base of operations being in West Rukongai-> the involvement of known Urahara associates Shiba Kuukaku and Shihouin Yoruichi and other clues probably had a number of characters such as Yamamoto, Ukitake, Kyouraku, Unohana suspicious. I feel like Soi Fon and Kurotsuchi could easily have put it together as well, but I did not get that vibe from them so either they didn't or they were just too distracted or in Kurotsuchi's case, he probably did put it together and just didn't care (or pretended not to care)

When the captains finally show up in Hueco Mundo, we learn that Urahara had been working with the Gotei for some time so obviously his involvement has been known at some high enough level of security clearance.

Did Byakuya ever officially report the fact that Ichigo Hollowified right in front of him, which may not have meant much to him, but probably would have been a big tip-off to Yams. On one hand, it does not feel very Byakuya of him to leave something like that out of a report, but on the other hand, I really feel like he just kept it to himself.

Would Rukia have mentioned Urahara in her debriefings after she was arrested? On one hand, I do not think she understood who Urahara was and would not have thought much of mentioning him. On the other hand, Rukia is a "snitches get stitches" type to the marrow of her bones and I feel like she would have intentionally wiped any mention of him from her narrative 99% on principle and 1% for the purposes of protecting Ichigo

If I were banished from Soul Society and hiding out in the Living World, I would use an assumed name, probably all the time, but AT VERY LEAST for the case of interacting with active-duty shinigami. The only person who actually did this was Isshin and I honestly believe he just changed his name for wife-guy reasons.

Ichigo did, very much, straight up tell Ikkaku that Urahara taught him to fight and it was quite clear that Ikkaku was fully aware of who Urahara was. Did Ikkaku tell anyone this or otherwise do anything with this information? I feel like he did not.

Does Ikkaku have a security clearance???????

I would not give Ikkaku a security clearance

If I were going 100% by the manga, I would assume that Yoruichi ghosted after they failed to arrest Aizen, given that she's still very much banished, but in Honey Dish Rhapsody, she apparently hung around with Soi Fon for a while. Is it possible that she had some meetings with the Gotei higher ups in the interests of re-establishing a relationship/working on getting the banishment reversed? My heart wants to say no, but Yoruichi often makes herself freely available to the Gotei in filler arcs, so who knows?

When the Advance Team first goes to the Living World, Renji goes to stay at Urahara's in the interest of "asking" Urahara why he put the hogyoku in Rukia (I assume "asking" is a euphemism for breaking his nose). I feel like this could be the natural follow-on to the idea that Renji just got handed a file of classified info related to this mission and is freshly Hot Mad at this dude he didn't know existed up until now.

Presumably, Rukia also could have given Renji a more detailed version of her time in Karakura in a non-official capacity

Presumably also, the Karakura kids could have gone around telling anyone who would listen about their Mysterious Shop Keeper Friend

I think the answer I'm leaning towards is that the Gotei higher-ups knew about Urahara's involvement and re-established communication with him, possibly in an obfuscated way so as not to run into trouble with Central 46 (fairly easy to do, since they were dead at the time). It's a pretty poorly kept secret, but on the other hand, Gotei op-sec seems to lean pretty heavily on the assumption that people who accidentally learn state secrets don't know what they are looking at and will most likely forget it in a day or two anyway.

[sunflowersandcherryblossoms]

Hi! I just read one of your recent posts about today’s episode (the one about everyone just standing there) and I just wanted to say I agree with it. When I read the manga I never gave too much thought to Yhwach I didn’t love him but I didn’t hate him. Then with the anime adaption I was like… okay he’s kinda cool. Then today I realized why I thought he was cool… it’s cause the anime is making him better by making everyone else worse!!

Like you’re telling me as Ichigo was fighting him FACE TO FACE he didn’t notice that The Almighty wasn’t activated???? The same Ichigo who said he can read the hearts of his opponents?? Like I love Ichigo in Cour 1 and 2 and even in the first episode of Cour 3 but this episode made me cringe a bit.

And I guess I can understand everyone standing there as Yhwach and Ichigo fought. It was probably too fast for them but when Ichigo was about to cut down the Soul King THEY DID NOTHING. They didn’t try to stop him but then had the audacity to look shocked. And as all this is happening Ichibei is having a freaking yap session about “you’ll never beat Yhwach” when he could be up there trying to distract Yhwach!!

And that scene where Ichigo arrives and says “we’re here to stop you” I had to pause my screen to look at the line up cause who’s we??? It’s just you and Yoruichi there to stop him cause what the hell are Chad, Ganju and Orihime gonna do once Uryuu and the Sternritters arrive? I don’t think El Directo is gonna cut it anymore😭

The biggest issue with the entirety of Thousand Year Blood War, from my perspective, is that in order to make the Sternritter and Yhwach seem really powerful, Kubo nerfed just about everyone. (by everyone, I mean the Shinigami...)

The Visored forget that they're... Visored...

The Captains forget that they can use Kido.

Ichigo forgets that he would never go to Hueco Mundo first after being informed that THE ENTIRETY OF THE 1st SQUAD WAS KILLED!

Urahara forgets that they should have spilt the team and HE should have gone to Hueco Mundo to investigate and gather Intel (Get Nel to safety, who would actually care about saving the rest? They're Hollows!)

Suddenly Ichigo's amazing Bankai blade gets easily broken by Aschwalt's sword.

Renji just fucking stood there as Byakuya was being attacked by Senbonzakura, instead of attacking on the spot after they realized the Bankai had been stolen. (even with zero intel, logic should have told him they could only steal one Bankai per medallion and attack right afterwards.)

Byakuya should have remembered to use Kido. Specifically Danku to prevent Äs Nödt's attack (Yeah, sure... The shock and all that. But he's a Shinigami. The first two Arcs of this series have been telling us they're supposed to react differently from humans. Japanese mythos tells us they are bloody Death Gods!)

Ichigo should have rejected the Quincy imposter inside his blade and himself. He should have purged the Old Man.

Inoue should have stayed down there helping to heal everyone.

The team that went to the Soul King's Palace was the wrong one...

Why did Ichigo, Renji, Byakuya and Renji got healed and strengthened by Squad Zero, if not to become the ones who would defeat and totally annihilate Yhwach to absolute smithereens?

What was Ganju even doing there?

Why did they all sit down and waited while Ichigo was fighting Yhwach?

Why did none of them react when he crashed down unconscious on the floor in front of them?

Why didn't Inoue rush to him to heal him? (because that's not a love story, point period blank...)

What the hell was that flimsy attack that Yoruichi did?

It's a mess. A convoluted senseless mess.

Bleach should have leaned 100% on the richness of Japanese mythos. It should have blended Buddhism with Shintoism exclusively. (Shinigami are part of the Shintoist mythos)

The Quincy shouldn't have been more than the footnote we were told they were in the Soul Society Arc and if not have the entire series end in a Open way with the Lost Agent Arc, at least the following final Arc should have brought a purely Japanese mythology antagonist.

I didn't need for the Quincy to be transformed into a bloody Nazi metaphor.

And I surely didn't need hints of Judeo-Christianity in Yhwach and the Soul King...

[linkspooky]

what are your thoughts on yuji and where do you think he ends up as a character in/after the current arc? i really wish we get more focus on him and his rs with kenjaku after this fight is over cause yuji has felt very underwhelming ever since mahito left him

I think your frustration at the lack of focus on Yuji is understandable anon, but I think Yuji being out of focus is sort of the point. I've always seen Yuji as a "Decoy Protagonist", because he's what the audience would expect the protagonist to be due to all of his typical shonen protagonist traits. Whereas, the real protagonist of the story is Megumi. In the story itself Kenjaku says something along the same lines, that Yuji eating Sukuna's finger was the initiating event of the story, but he's no longer the center of Kenjakiu's schemes. He's more of a trigger than a driver of the plot.

To me this is part of the appeal of Yuji himself. He's a well-intentioned kid who may be a heart of the friend group he's a part of, but he's never given any special treatment by the story. He doesn't have protagonist privilegeTM so-to-speak.

Usually the main character of the story because they're the central focus are given a lot of leeway to make mistakes. It's their story, the story is focused around their growth and development so it makes sense the world and character sin the story are going to center around them to an extent. They have plot armor because of course they do, there's no story without the main character. If they're losing a fight they'll get a convenient power up in time. If they're cornered one of their allies will show up to save them.

By doing away with a lot of the convenience that happens to a lot of main characters in Shonen manga, Yuji becomes a very atypical main character.

The story does not treat Yuji any different from the rest of its characters. Especially during and after Shibuya where Jujutsu Kaisen shifts to more of an ensemble piece than just following Yuji's story and development into a sorcerer.

Mahito lampshades this very fact in Shibuya. That Yuji up until this point viewed himself as the protagonist of a typical shonen jump exorcism manga. He assumes that things will work out because he's the good guy, here fighting evil curses and good always triumphs over evil or whatever the line is. However, Mahito points out that they're just members of opposite factions fighting in the streets of Shibuya. Mahito wants to usher in an age of curses and Yuji wants to kill curses for the sake of humans. Considering curses don't really follow human morality and rules it's not a good vs. evil conflict, it's ust both of them fighting for which side is going to dominate.

"You came to Shibuya with half-assed determination, didn't ya!? How naive, you stupid brat! This is war! Not a battle to fix what's wrong! But a clash of truths you and your fragile justice! You are me, Yuji Itdaori! I kill without a second thought... just like how you save people without a second thought! The instincts of a curse... against the so called dignity obtained by human reason! It's a battle to determine who will be left standing in 100 years!"

One of the biggest mistakes Yuji makes in Shibuya, letting Sukuna take control of his body leading to the massacre of thousands of people is I think a great example of the way the story treats Yuji differently. There are a lot of protaognists who have demon sides that occasionally go berserk. Often giving them a mid-fight power up when their own skill isn't enough to beat the enemy.

Naruto has the nine-tailed fox. Ichigo has Zangetsu his inner hollow / zanpakuto who occasionally tries to usurp control of his body and fight for him. In both cases however, there usually isn't any real consequences for the protagonist losing control. The worst time Naruto rampaged with the nine tails against Pain the village was already destroyed. When Ichigo loses control in the fight against Ulquiorra, he stabs Uryu but the wound heals and no one holds it against him.

Compare this to Itadori who has the deaths of thousands of people on his conscience because of his inability to control Sukuna and is then made an enemy of Jujutsu Society.

Yuji never benefits from plot conveience, in fact assuming things are going to go his way because the world will follow storybook logic is exactly what leads Yuji to making some major mistakes. There's always hard hitting conesequences to Yuji's actions because he's not special, he's just one character among many who are all fighting to survive in this world.

The one thing that gave him a claim to be the main character, being Sukuna's vessel even gets taken away from him. The whole premise of the story is that Yuji is supposed to consume all twenty of sukuna's fingers and then be executed in order to permanently seal him away.

Only for us to learn that the one thing we thought made Yuji special wasn't unique to Yuji. Megumi also had the potential to be a vessel to Sukuna. Sukuna never planned on staying in Yuji's body from almost the start of the manga he was hatching a long scheme to leave Yuji's body and take Megumi's instead.

The quest given to him by Gojo and Megumi. The thing that only he was capable of doing is gone and Yuji is left with nothing.

So what is Yuji's role in the story then, if he's not a main character? A friend of mine pointed this out recently and it helped me understand a lot about Yuji's character: he's sort of a mirror. The story describes Mahito who's set up as Yuji's foil this way as well.

Yuji is for the most part a normal kid (except for the part where he's a science fair project made by Kenjaku) who doesn't have any strong idea motivating him. Which is why it's very easy for him to adopt the motivations of the people surrounding him instead. He starts out repeating his grandfather's words of helping people. The more he interacts with people, the more his motivations become like theirs as well.

He starts out with the vague goal of helping people. When he is given the role of eating Sukuna's fingers he jumps at the chance because it gives him something that he can only do. Even if he dies at the end of his quest he'll die satisfied and on his own terms because he went out helping people. He realizes how poorly thought out his motivation is when confronting Megumi and starts admiring Megumi instead.

When he fails to stop Junpei's death, which is really failing at his goal to save people from "unnatural deaths" as Junpei is twisted into a horrid form by Mahito, Yuji becomes obsessed with killing Mahito instead. In a way he's reflecting Mahito here because violent mahito with no regards for life at all brings out the killer in Yuji. He almost shifts again away from just helping save people from unnatural deaths to becoming someone strong enough to exterminate Mahito.

Towards the end of shibuya, Yuji finally seems to reflect on the emptiness of his own goal. As someone devoid of a purpose he instead just takes whatever purpose someone else around him offers him. Once again playing his role as a mirror, Yuji himself as a character offers nothing but he is someone who reflects and contrasts the people around him.

Yuji doesn't need a purpose for himself, but by being a cog he's still a part of the grander scheme of things. Yuji himself says that he's insignificant but honestly I think it's the same symptom of before Yuji wanting to have a place in the world and a task given to him, but not wanting to contemplate what his own motivations are or what he wants. He wants these things to be given to him instead because he's a mirror, he reflects other people he doesn't not reflect upon himself.

Even thinking of himself as a cog fails because the one role he was given to play, to eat the rest of the fingers and die as Sukuna is now given to someone else because he no longer contains Sukuna in his body. I think Yuji's arc will continue however when he chooses to act selfishly for the first time.

By that I mean he can adopt Megumi's philosophy of "choosing to save people selfishly." Yuji is right now the only person interested in actually saving Megumi from Sukuna's possession and finding some way to do so, while everyone else sees him as a target to be defeated. Which is understandable because by utilitarian logic "the needs of the many outweight the needs of the few, or the needs of the one."

The choice to deliberately try to save Megumi and prioritize his life over the lives of thousands of people that might be killed if they don't put down Sukuna permanently and pioritize that is a selfish one.

However, there's already foreshadowing for Yuji making that choice. There's also a circular storytelling sort of logic to it. The story begins by Megumi making the selfish choice to spare Yuji's life even though he's dangerous to others because of Sukuna inside of him. Therefore Yuji making the same choice to save Megumi even though the less risky thing to do is just kill both Megumi and Sukuna together is Megumi's choice from the beginning of the series coming full circle.

It's also an answer to the question Megumi posed to him in their first contronation. "What if the person you save goes on to kill someone else?" Yuji acknowledging that possibility and going on to save Megumi anyway has a lot of weight to it.

The covers of the key animation books released so far also seem to foreshadow the ending fights of the series. We're already in the middle of a Gojo and Megumi confrontation which is the cover of Key Animation Vol. 2.

Considering both Yuji's own nature as a mirror and the way the story itself started with Yuji eating Sukuna's finger I think it makes far more sense for Yuji's last battle to be against Sukuna. Especially since Sukuna now considers Yuji as someone far beneath him even abandoning him as a vessel. The best battle for a character to function as a mirror is to fight their mirror image, and he already did the same with Mahito which was Yuji's most significant fight so far.

As for Kenjaku, we may get some revelations about Yuji's creation but honestly I don't think there's going to be any confrontation between the two of them. There's far more setup for a final confrontation between Kenjaku and Yuta. Number one, Kenjaku is in Yuta's body and that's always been Yuta's rival.

When Kenaku appears and seals Gojo he states he's not worried about Yuta because he doesn't have the potential to surpass Gojo.

Yuta also states his direct goal is to kill Kenjaku by himself so Gojo won't have to kill his best friend a second time.

That's pretty direct foreshadowing in favor of Yuta, and also I think fits with the theme of Yuji not really being the main character of the piece. Kenjaku is pretty much the main villain and the orchestrator behind the plot so him being taken out by another character pushes Yuji away from the center of things. Kenjaku himself even says that he's washed his hands of Yuji, Yuji's no longer the center of his schemes he's moved onto other things.

[maoam]

I find it annoying how some people claim if you don't support ichi/hime you hate Orihime. I find the ship boring and I also don't like dynamics where the characters don't challenge each other. Orihime has good dynamics with other characters, like with Tatsuki, Ishida and Ulquoirra which are far more interesting than her dynamic with Ichigo.

Not that I care to speak for ichi/ruki either, because so many of them are hypocrites who insist SS/NH from Naruto make sense while bashing ichi/hime; despite the fact ichi/hime is better than both of those ships (and so is ichi/ruki). They claim Orihime can't do anything for Ichigo despite the fact that's 100% Sakura's dynamic with Sasuke. She even lamented about this herself during her confession; "I can't trade blows with you, I can't get close to you, all I can do is cry and beg." "Orihime is afraid of Ichigo's hollow" well Sakura literally withers like a dying flower when Sasuke ignores her or says something that could be considered a critique. "Orihime's feelings were onesided! She was just a friend!" well Hinata wasn't even a close friend, just a comrade/classmate.

Anyway I didn't like the ending or how Kubo handled Orihime and Rukia's characters in the last part of the manga.

[littleeyesofpallas]

Ya know, a ways back someone had asked me if I had any takes on Yoruichi's tattoo --I forget in which ask, but there was a bigger question that I wound up answering and I sort of forgot about the tattoo part entirely. But at the time, I really didn't have anything to say about it anyhow, but I don't think Kubo had released that art of the original Gotei at the time. So as it happens there are some odd little adjacencies now, although not especially strong ones... but I figure I can squeeze a post out of it.

So originally Kubo did a little color spread of all the Bleach girls in swimwear at the beach, and that in turn got adapted into a dumb little filler thing in the anime based off some other omake. It's also shows up in Bleach Brave Souls.

(weirdly a different swimsuit specialadds a different, unrealted, tattoo on her right thigh??)

But in the body of the manga itself, she's never actually shown with it. In most cases we don't get a 100% irrefutably clear view, but there are plenty of moments where her left upper thigh is definitely visible enough that if the tattoo was canon it should have been visible. The most obvious contradiction being her first appearance in her human form on account of, you know... her being entirely naked for that...

Now, one of the most immediate evocations of the sun tattoo would seem to be Ichigo's "Black Sun" motif --although it seems like a "tribal" style tattoo, which would be solid black anyway, making it hard to really assume it's a deliberately associated color-- which is itself actually kind of weird because it started entirely meta textually as part of the pair of databooks, SOULs and VIBEs: the former being the manga databook, and the latter being the accompanying anime databook, together featuring the phrase

"the rain drags black sun down, but the rain dried by white moon".

But this actually conflicts with the manga's use of a black moon motif for Ichigo, and doesn't really appear in the text at all. In fact the only real association Ichigo has with the black sun in the story proper might be the tangential association with Yhwach calling him, "my son born in the dark" when Yhwach himself is associated with the sun and light, and his own mirroring of the black flame(?) motif.

Otherwise the only loose link between Ichigo and the phrase "black sun" is that zangetsu's crossguard in bankai is a manji/swastika --a symbol used in Japanese Buddhism, via Chinese Buddhism, via Indian Buddhism, but originally taken from Indian hinduism where it was itself a sign of the sun god Surya-- and the SchwarzeSonne:"Black Sun" rune was a part of Himmler's stupid esoteric LARPing horseshit he did in the N*zi party, where he just mashed up the swastika, Nordic runes(𐌔), the alchemical sol niger:"black sun", and the Arthurian round table concepts so he could have that dumb mosaic built into the floor of the Wewelsburg castle he had requisitioned.

Sorry i got off topic... point being: the BlackSun was kind of like a leveled up swastika as far as n*zi symbols go, so it kind of follows that Ichigo's devloping powers imply a black sun as the next step past swastika.

But like I said, that's a super loose correlation within the text itself. Rather, the black sun in Bleach actually seems to be a weird recycling of something Kubo did in Zombie Powder: The black getsuga tenshou's black flame motif being a kind of throwback to the black flames of Akutabi Gamma's Karinzanjutsu, and the Ka-rin[火輪]: "Fire Ring/Wheel" having a symbol representing the sun, thus the sword style's black flames making its symbol a black sun.

So what's the point in bringing all this back up if what we're asking about is Yoruichi? Well, Yoruichi may not have had any sort of identifiable sun motif herself, but her ancestor, Chika, does. His name can read as "1000 Sun", although in the context of Yoruichi and Yuushirou's names both having words for "night" in them, it makes sense that Chika's name should actually be read, "1,000 Days", or very possibly "1000th Day" since Yoruichi's name is clearly meant to be read as "1st Night" considering her birthday is January 1st.*

*Her overall gimmick is a reference to hatsuyume[初夢], a tradition/idea that your first dream of the newyear --taking into accounts that you stay up until midnight on new years, your first dream is on Jan 1-- is supposed to have some prophetic qualities. (Incidentally, Urahara's birthday is December 31st, and given his partnership with Yoruichi could imply he's meant to be associated with the Omisoka holiday? but I'm not getting into that here.)

Anyway... all that just to say that her sun tattoo isn't really canon but if it were, it might have something to do with her ancestor, Chika. Although given that their family crest features a moon and they have a night theme to naming, I'd assume Chika's name is meant to be kind of an outlier rather than directly reflective of any family themes.

I dunno, I guess that's not really much of anything actually, since the whole black sun tangent doesn't even link back around... I guess the only thematic link is that in rather literal terms a "black sun" might be most readily envisioned as an eclipse, which in both the Shihouin and Ichigo's cases would be a way of aligning the moon and sun motifs.

(Technically I guess Isshin's relationship with Masaki is a kind of eclipse, as its the overlap of her sun/center of the universe iconography with Isshin's own moon motif via engetsu, but honestly Isshin was never actually moon themed and his shikai just felt like a lazy tack on detail that Kubo gave no real thought or consideration to beyond it being a derivative of what Ichigo already had going on.)

edit: oh you know something i didnt think to mention in the first draft of this.... For a brief window where the soul king had been shown with all his limbs and then none and then we learned about the hand creatures and the heart, some people had the idea in their heads that Yoruichi was somehow or for some reason the left leg of the soul king?? I have no opinions on this as a theory other than it being silly

[uraharasfavoriteexperiment]

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[aihoshiino]

Surpriiiiiise! The English TL of chapter 1 of Spica, The First Star has just been released!

I've been quietly working on this with the rest of the TL team for the past few weeks and we're finally done with chapter 1! Progress is being made on the rest of the novel and while we don't have an ETA, we're hoping to get them done soon!

For those of you not caught up on what Spica is or who are just hearing about it for the first time, here's a rundown!

Spica, the First Star is a single volume light novel that serves as an optional prequel to the main story. It contains a reprint of Viewpoint B, written by Akasaka and a new pair of parallel stories focusing on Goro & Sarina and Ai & Ichigo.

These new stories were not written by Akasaka or Mengo! They were written instead by an author called Hajime Tanaka who is new to the franchise.

It's not super clear how much Akasaka and Mengo contributed to the book - both of them simply have a 'gensaku' (原作) credit, which typically refers to the creator of a spinoff/secondary work's main story. We don't know how much either of them actually contributed to the contents of the book (though Mengo obviously did the art!) but my best guess is that Akasaka gave a rough idea of what the book should be about and the actual plot and details were Tanaka's work - that's typically how it goes in this situations, as far as I know!

As for whether it's canon, the answer is yyyyess... mostly. This has always been the case for spinoff stories like this and Viewpoint B, which the novel is bundled with, is absolutely canon. However, Spica does contain a handful of inconsistencies with main story chapters published both before and after the novel's release and as mentioned before, was written by an author who is not Akasaka or Mengo. I've basically just settled on calling it 'schrodinger's canon' in my head and in places where it seems to contradict the manga or the other side stories, I take Akasaka's and/or Mengo's word as canon over Tanaka's.

Basically, Spica is just some optional supplementary material that fleshes out the world a bit more. I would not say it's as important to read as Viewpoint B or especially 45510 just yet but it's a bit of extra content that you can read and enjoy but isn't 100% necessary to be keyed in with. That's just my onion anyway and I do hope you enjoy our work on the TL!

[wyrmmaster]

I decided to watch a bit of the new Bleach anime as a "might as well" type deal. I got like 10 minutes in before I closed it and was like "I am not getting back into Bleach".

So then I reread Bleach over the past few days.

It holds up pretty well. I was a bit surprised at how just being able to hit "next chapter" on a cliffhanger really takes the edge off a lot of the more meandering and frustrating parts. The first half was still pretty great. The more iconic fights are still absolutely bangers (Grimmjow and Ulquiorra in particular), a lot of the plot is less ass-pull than "huh, actually, that kinda makes sense if you think about it" because you just read the ~context like an hour ago as opposed to a year. The emotional beats are still decently impactful. Also, watching Kubo's art improve over a 15 year period in a couple days was fascinating. I enjoyed myself.

The main takeaway though, what I actually got from the whole thing:

This one?

Still Best Girl. It's not close. Teenage me was right and I still Absolutely Would The Antelope.

Adult Nel has like 100 panels total screentime but it doesn't matter, bro. Someone mentions Bleach and I think of Ichigo first but .0002 seconds later it's the 3 on Nel's back. I got to the point in the Hollow World arc where her kid form shows up with her dumbass servants and was just kind of vibrating waiting for The Thing

to happen. This is AFTER Ulquiorra nearly kills Ichigo (effortlessly) and sends him into complete despair by showing he's only #4, and being pushed to his absolute limit by #6 who was actually playing fair and being amicable. It was obvious she was a bit more important than just Random Child simply because she was an arrancar but #3? Even after the (ostensible) power increase of the 10 from her time it was a wild jump

The past visions of her being arrogant and superior to the weak ass misogynistic loser Nnotria (along with that arrogance being her downfall because she refused to take him seriously on principle - him working with Szayelaporro was Entirely out of her scope of what he was willing or able to do). The instant mood swings from cold and in control to Ichigo Must Be Tackle Hugged. Her absolutely dunking on present-day Nnoitra is still legendary despite the outcome because she was weakened from the get-go and if she'd been slightly more ruthless to what she still saw as a weakling she'd have ended it before her time ran out

Then 380 chapters later she finally reappears and is just her usual goofy affectionate self with a side of casually Asserting Dominance on Grimmjow for telling her what to do. Queen shit. Deserved so much more spotlight.

The funny part is Kubo seems to agree. Apparently he's spent the post manga years simping for her, making her co-ruler of the hollows with Harribel despite the latter being the top dog previously (and implicitly stating if Grimmjow fucked around he'd find out), making her super important to the politics of the setting by being the one the shinigami want to use to make a peace deal with the hollows, and even giving an alt of her a second stage of her Resurrección (that fucks)

Buddy even retroactively declared her the curviest woman in the series over Rangiku and says his swimsuit alts of her in Brave Soul are the greatest swimsuit art to exist.

... He might not even have been using marketing hyperbole.

[dangerousbride]

Can you give me some advice on convincing one of my friends that Rukia and Ichigo work better as a couple?

Unfortunately shipping is not about facts and/or logic but about feelings and taste. You could show your friend a 100 page essay telling them why they're better (I'm sure other IRs have such essay ready since 2009 and keep updating it... love them for that) but if they don't vibe with the couple then it's like talking to a wall. Proof of that is that even the author himself created such a potentially interesting, fun, sexy couple with a incredibly meaningful bond, beautiful parallels and poetic themes attached to them and still went with the plain, generic ones by comparison for his canon. So, if someone's taste's shitty enough not to appreciate the potentially best power couple in shonen manga there's nothing we can do about it.

My advice is to enjoy the ship and surround yourself with other people that loves it too instead of trying to convince others as if it's some kind of religion. That's exhausting and takes away the fun. Just get a better friend with better taste.

[jpegmaestro]

[myrskytuuli]

one thing I really have commend Tokyo mew mew new crew for is how they chose the more difficult road of grounding the series to realism as opposed to the original. And I mean this 100% sincerely.

The original manga and anime were very much aimed for an audience of 12 year olds. Which I was when I devoured them on our lord’s year 2006. The character’s were stated to be 12 and looked and acted like adults, which I as a 12 year old myself felt to be competely normal, because that was exactly how I perceived myself. A tiny adult that was unfairly being treated like some kind of 12 year old. The romances were melodramatic and fitting for the attention span of a 12 year old. Also, incredibly sexist, but that was just a background feeling I was vibing with at that point of time, not an actual complaint. The point is that it was very delibaretly over the top.

And I was kind of expecting the reboot to take the over the top route, but instead they did the opposite. The reboot really feels like it is aimed for the late 20s early 30s fans who grew up with the original. While the characters have been aged up to a more realistic age of 16, they feel younger. Like you are finally seeing them as the kids they are, instead of what a kid imagines herself to be like. All the relationships have been extremely realistic. Tokyo mew mew new is probably THE most realistic depiction of teenage dating I’ve seen in anime. When the characters go on a date, it really feels like teenagers on a date. Ichigo and Masaya feel like a real couple. Lettuce and Ryou felt so very much like real people having an awkward conversation about dating. It’s just...really good.

And I cannot appreciate them enough that they are making the girls be the instigators in all the romances. Ichigo asked Masaya out. Lettuce made the date between her and Ryou happen. After growing up in the early 2000s media landscape, it just feels so good to see my old faves have agency.

All in all, considering the ridiculous premise they were given, I am very impressed how they managed to make a magical girl show that feels more grounded than most others I’ve seen. They have long conversations. They take time to evacuate civilians. Sometimes clothes are a hazard in a fight. They take punches and give punches between all the magic sparkles.

I just really love the grounded feel of tmmn. 

[buscaminas]

Bipolarism made into a manga (Oshi no Ko) and other illnesses…things that children should not go through.

Because that illness is linked to the manga (I will explain it with facts and theories) and in fact it is hereditary. Ai Hoshino

Ai's mother was not well, probably she is one of the most hated characters in the series, in fact I have the theory that she conceived Ai, a music producer (it's ironic, really), she put glass in her rice, she physically mistreated her by burning her, hitting her or telling her that she was worthless (Ai's mother was a prostitute) and she was bipolar, the situation was so serious that the mother robbed a supermarket to lose custody of Ai and another curiosity is that she collected 500,000 yen insurance and squandered it on parties and revelry with her lovers. Ai knew about that. The worst thing of all is that the reason for his contempt towards his daughter was because his clients considered his daughter prettier than her mother 🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢 The curious thing is that bipolarity does not mean changing to the opposite emotion, for example hate-love, anger-happiness, it can be any emotion at any time and with different intensity, it is a shame that he never sought help and sought happiness in such superficial things (parallels). Hikaru Kamiki

He is a particular case, his parents abandoned him (I have no idea why and I don't want to know, I don't want to understand those things, they just make me angry🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬 I want to break those parents' faces). One thing in common with Ai is that having grown up without any affection he thinks that no one cares about him so he doesn't care what he does. Also a bad experience with women (that shi**** woman who took advantage of him and makes me want to kill) and partly Ai who already wanted to sleep with him very quickly (something very common in victims of physical abuse and their desire to have a family) that's why she invites him to her house. But he really couldn't have that will to tell Ai that he loved her because both were good liars apart Ai didn't want to give him more burdens with his other son although I recognize that that situation felt somewhat forced, but well that's not bad with this manga. Hikaru was the mastermind of all this, he was very clever, he even became a millionaire, but he never loved again. I also find his bipolarity to be very forced, it's more crazy. I know he tried to go against Ruby, but he's not 100% responsible for Ai's death, and what Aqua did is stupid. I just hope that wherever he is, he has found peace.

Aqua and Ruby Aqua and Ruby's situation is summed up in that they saw their mother die, and Gorou Amemiya and Sarina Tendouji didn't have proper paternal or maternal figures in their lives.

Kana, Mem-Cho and Akane Here it's not so much bipolarity, but the pressure of being famous at such a young age and believing that you're only worth something when you're successful is a very cruel capitalist concept. Tell me how much you have or what you've achieved and I'll tell you how much you're worth. Speaking of that, something that is already confirmed is that Ichigo did exploit Ai because they falsified documents to change her age since the age to work in the entertainment world is 18 years old or older. But I will not deny that I did appreciate her as her father, I wish that good concept had been maintained in the manga. I also notice that the fantastic part of the series about reincarnation and the crow goddess Tsukuyomi or something like that is forced because it came out of nowhere that Hikaru and Ai are gods I don't see much sense in it (it's an idea without head or tail) the same as the story and the manga are already disappointing. And I hope the ending is leaked… I must upload it. In the end, may everything be God's will.