#maybe its just the braindead ness getting to me

[cheiyunn]

[Wind Boys] Nanri Yahiko SSR | They who are here [1-2]

[1 - Inner Thoughts]

Yahiko: I see…. This is this year’s purchasing lineup

Yahiko: The number of sales from last year will decide the development of this year

Yahiko: This one’s a bit difficult to replace. Here is one that’ll present everyone with a new and surprising experience

*Door opening*

Yahiko: Okay. Lets continue to lend a hand by helping with the work of the Atsukage’s student council. Now then, the next material is-

Atsukage: What are you doing?

Yahiko: Oh, Atsukage ! You came back !

Atsukage: ...how many times should I tell you to not enter the student council room without permission? 

Yahiko: As long as there are elements that make ‘Atsukage’ that exist in this space-

Yahiko: There is no substance that can hinder my curiosity

Atsukage: Is that… a declaration that you will still continue to enter without permission..?

Yahiko: That reminds me, may I hear your opinion on the ‘incident’ during the entrance ceremony?

Atsukage: ...incident?

Yahiko: There seemed to be a freshman who interrupted the entrance ceremony by playing the trumpet

--

Atsukage: The wind ensemble club isn’t in service. Therefore, there will be no performance this year

Minato: Then-

Minato: Then I’ll do it. Both the performance and the wind ensemble club

Atsukage: …!

Minato: Because I came here to participate in the wind ensemble

--

Atsukage: Iizuka Minato..

Yahiko: Even when you told him that there was no wind ensemble club, hence no performance he went “I’ll do it”

Yahiko: The courage to not back down despite being isolated and alone. The fact that I was unable to hear his words is quite frustrating

Yahiko: What did those who heard his words think…. For example, the one who he told head-on Atsukage; how did you feel?

Atsukage: ….nothing changes. The wind ensemble is still in suspension

Yahiko: It’s almost like you’re warning yourself

Atsukage: …!

Yahiko: Did you not feel anything when confronted by his performance and words?

Atsukage: ….

Yahiko: Even me, who only heard of it, is quite intrigued by it. Were none of your emotions truly swayed by it?

Atsukage: ...Its as you say, its not like I had no emotions. If I had to say, I felt something like guilt

Atsukage: That he enrolled in Ibuki to play in the wind ensemble…. As the former captain, I feel bad

Atsukage: But that is all, Nanri. The feelings you expect from me, I don’t possess. 

Yahiko: Thats fine.  The matter that Iizuka Minato brought forth-

Yahiko: Indeed. At the time being, the thoughts within you are still abstract and incomplete in form.

Yahiko: However, once the time comes for those to come to fruition, for ideas to manifest, your inner passions shall-

Atsukage: ...Nanri. Due to the extra time cleaning up after the entrance ceremony, I still have work to do

Atsukage: Apologies but could you move your thought-dumping to another day?

Yahiko: I see, got it. It was not my intention to be a distraction to your work

Yahiko: I’ll go home for today

--

Yahiko: ...Well then Atsukage

Yahiko: What ideas this matter will manifest from your inner feelings-

Yahiko: -and what kind of sound will be created, I look forward to it. Fufu

[2 - Prove your existence]

*Door opening*

Yahiko: Yo, Atsukage! Today I request your opinion on what is the strongest animal on the planet -! 

Ryotaro: Yahiko, sorry. Atsukage is currently away

Yahiko: Thats too bad. I’ve been brainstorming topics that Atsukage may be interested in...

Ryotaro: ...

Yahiko: You seem pretty busy Ryotaro. Ah...getting ready for freshmen?

Yahiko: Don’t you think year’s freshmen seem pretty interesting

Ryotaro: Yeah. I got the request to jump in and join, and thanks to that, I have to coordinate stuff left and right

Yahiko: ...Oh, what a wonderful development! 

Ryotaro: Wonderful my ass. I shouldn’t left this stuff to Atsukage...

Ryotaro: … !? Yahiko, didn’t you know about this...

Yahiko: Well? I did say the it would be fun for some trouble to pop up with the freshmen, but I wouldn’t actually know what could happen

Ryotaro: ….

Yahiko: ‘Oh shit’ is written on your face. Don’t worry, I won’t tell Atsukage

Ryotaro: ….whew

Yahiko: I do hope you can tell me what's happening with the freshmen

Ryotaro: ….

Yahiko: …. Do speak

Ryotaro: …fine

Ryotaro: Every year there’s a program highlighting the recruitment of new students to clubs.

Ryotaro: There were requests of re-adding the wind ensemble club to the list

Ryotaro: Even though the schedule has already been finalized… so I’m just worried about parts of it

Yahiko: Oh, the suspension of the wind ensemble group has seemed to be lifted. Thats a good thing.

Ryotaro: No it hasn’t

Yahiko: ...what do you mean?

Ryotaro: It hasn’t been lifted. But, in order to get the school to lift the suspension-

Ryotaro: -the freshmen have been trying their best

Yahiko: So you’re saying- the goal of the freshmen is to have a performance happen, and prove that the wind ensemble club still exists

Yahiko: In order to prove its own existence, I see, how exciting. A great idea!

Ryotaro: So before that, I gathered a set of applications forms so the freshmen can do that

Yahiko: humu… you?

Ryotaro: At this time, it’d be impossible to let the new students write it, there’s alot of small stuff as well

Ryotaro: They don’t have the time, so as someone who knows all the essentials, it’d be better for me to write it all

Yahiko: Well it is true that you’re on the receiving end of documents. And there are not many who know more about this process than you

Ryotaro: ...there you go. These documents should be good enough-

Ryotaro: The problem is the scheduling. ...As expected, with this kind of time slots, this number of performers is a bit...

Yahiko: By the way, will you also be on stage with the freshmen?

Ryotaro: …!

Yahiko: Cat got your tongue? You joined the club right?

Yahiko: or is it that you, who is not a member of the club, writes the application forms… how odd

Ryotaro: I didn’t rejoin the wind ensemble. I’m just… doing what Seri asked of me

Yahiko: Fumu...

Yahiko: Last year, you silently accepted the suspension of the wind ensemble club, and now you are aiding in rebuilding it.

Yahiko: Because the school decided to dispose of it, I assisted in halting all of its activities.

Yahiko: Ryotaro, does your intent lie there?

Yahiko: While I think it’d be boring to just sit there and accept the suspension like Atsukage...

Yahiko: ..I do think its logical to keep a distance once left, from the wind ensemble

Yahiko: On the other hand, you seem to have guilts left within the club, but hasn't made the choice of returning or not

Ryotaro: ...

Yahiko: If one chooses to be harmless and tepid, did you think you would be presented with a harmless and bland form of happiness?

Yahiko: Nobody can predict what sort of future may come upon you after the choices have been weighed. It may not even be a form of mundane happiness.

Yahiko: If that is your answer, then I can’t sense the existence of the one named ‘Ryotaro’

Yahiko: What guiding principles do you live by?

Ryotaro: You’re as harsh as ever Yahiko

Ryotaro: -its already this late huh. I’m gonna do a round and go home

Ryotaro: Atsukage will also be back soon. Take care.

Yahiko: ...to bring about a boring end to your student life without any hindrances

Yahiko: Are you truly okay with that? Ryotaro.

Yahiko: How boring. Since the wind ensemble club had its activities suspended, everything has become truly boring

Yahiko: How I pray that the performance of the freshmen do throw stones to this stagnation

[horrible-monstrosity]

the triggering continues................

Throughout episodes 5 and 6 the show acts like it's setting up some deconstruction-reconstruction thing regarding the place of witches in the modern day... buuuuut they can't quite make it work.

The main problem is that they haven't actually developed the magical part of the setting that well or deeply yet, especially how it fits in to the world outside the school. (Again it still fucking bothers me that magic doesn't work outside of the school and it hasn't been properly explained how you're ever supposed to get around this; that alone you'd think would disqualify any reason for it to be considered useful...) The magic system just seems to be pretty boilerplate with a little "quirky"-ness tacked onto it. The only really interesting thing I think we've seen is the ley line bus stop sign, which actually told us a bit about the world and magic system, that witches could ride these leylines on their brooms to somehow ease travel (given the sorcerer's stone thing, perhaps to save energy or serve as an alternative source of energy) and that it was like public transport to them. ... buuuuut then this was only seen briefly in episode one and promptly never brought up again. Why not have the kids ride the ley lines a bit in the Twilight episode once they escaped? Better yet, this one little detail destroys the ability of the setting to pass itself off as just le 100% generic magic witches school setting that might have been able to get away with minimal worldbuilding and just rely on "it's exactly what you expect, don't worry about it". Which would actually have been the setting you'd want to use for this if you're saying the silly frivolous idealized fantasy trope-world most people know and think of is outdated and flimsy. But now I find myself wondering about the details of this magic world, the exact culture and development and frame of mind that would have led to that sign... all of which would affect how it holds up to modern day tech.

Without that developed we can't really see how useful or useless or how out of date magic is supposed to be, so we just have to take characters' word for it... and that's basically what we've done. And then since there's no details to the magic, no one can say what it's actually good for so the only counterpoint we can have is Akko being so enthusiastic and shiny-eyed that her opponents just look at her and melt.

On the other hand, I find myself wondering why no one in the magic community has tried to modernize magic in even the slightest way. If there's some staunch traditionalists in places of power, that would explain why nothing's ever been changed, but not why no one's ever tried. You'd expect clashes of ideals. Especially given Akko is such a confrontational character- it would fit perfectly for her to end up having it out with some stuffy teacher over how magic is treated in the modern age.

Even weirder, Chariot's magic has been called "old-fashioned" before, even though it seems more flashy or modern compared to the staid structured no-nonsense magic the school teaches.

It also hurts the setup that we don't know how advanced technology is in this world that it can entirely replace magic. how technology is the technology that magic is *entirely* replaced? Even today, things like medicine and surgery aren't entirely perfect and have all sorts of risks and side effects. Technology- or rather, the energy used to power it- has costs like pollution. You'd think being able to magic someone well or power things with sorcerer stones or whatever would still be desirable as an alternative or at least a companion to modern tech. But all we get is dragon guy's comedical millions of screens with le funny graph things on them.

oh and then the episode right after this kills the entire thing by mentioning witches doing useful stuff with their magic like investigating crime scenes an shiet... so fuck that i guesssffff................

So the more I think about it, the less I understand what the point of Lotte and Sushi's characters even is. Like, we understand Akko, but why are the other two here? Sushi's just there for mushrooms and doesn't give a fuck about classes, okay, but how much does she know about witching to begin with? Is she experienced or does she just only give a fuck about her one area of interest and just ignores everything else? The other students seem to be basically novices, is she older than them or something? I just don't get her... thing. What is she?

And Lottie, just... why is she with these cunts? She's not particularly, like, trying to be the voice of reason for them, going after them when they start shit because she knows she's the only one who even has a chance of keeping them in line. She just... continues to exist in their general area. The twilight episode (gaggg) show she has her vices, but it doesn't take her anywhere near enough to the other two to be a "not so above it all" thing. She doesn't steal pies, she doesn't fucking straight up try to fucking kill people... Her only "crime" is being late to the entrance ceremony because she was in the general vicinity of the others. Even if that gets her saddled with the other two, just looking at them you'd think she'd be out of there on good behavior in no time. Or she'd get directly pulled into their bullshit and be blamed along with them more often, but she's kind of just... there when they fuck shit up.

So the Stick Rod and the arch gate thing are both tied to the Big Dipper/Ursa Major... I'm not quite sure why. It's not really a significant constellation you'd expect to be tied to any magical power, like, say... the Pleiades, maybe? cause, you know, gainax did a pleiades anime, an we wuz gainax n shieeeeetttttt It's occurred to me that the teacher's name was probably Ursula even back in the original (and I can't really be bothered to check) and so the "seven stars" was probably always the big dipper... but, like, I'm sticking to my guns here. It really feels like Trigger wanted to drag Houkago no Pleiades into their little incestuous cycle of small reference circles and endless self-backpatting, but they either were stopped because unlike Gurren Lagann (which was done right before they split off and I think had a lot of the same staff members) they really had fucking nothing to do with it (the shorts would have been made before the split but I don't know how much staff overlap there actually was), or they thought better of it... but not better enough to stop them from doing an erzats version instead of actually coming up with something original. So they swapped out the Pleiades for a different seven-star constellation (because they were really attached to the number, I guess?...), except they couldn't find one with anywhere near the level of lore and actual meaningful-ness (because that's just so hard) so they just... this. Come to think of it, I said before that Sushi is like a shit version of Nanako, and Pleiades has sort of a witch-like motif with the car broomsticks... hmmmmmmmmm.

If they wanted to stick with the Big Dipper, they could have done something cute like use a bunch of constellations that're well known to children and make it kind of cutesy and nostalgic. So say the stick has the little dipper on it because it's the "child" of the arch thing which has the big dipper, the school has some other constellation or stellar object as its main motif (instead of a... triskelion? why the fuck is it that? I can get the crescent moon they use for some of it but why is the triskelion also a thing?)

...... Anyway episode 5: i like how this readaptation of the ova plot just has some lizards randomly fucking came up and took the fucking stone... guess we don't really need any protection on the most important thing to the school or anything....... oh and then the teachers fuckijg punish akko and redhair for ALERTING THEM TO THE FUCKING THEFT OF THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO THE FUCKING ACADEMY BECAUSE THEY BRIEFLY STOPPED CLEANING TO DO IT... why is everyone in this universe just full-on turbo-cunt? also there's no backup systems at all? fucking nice

... the moon has the fucking trigger star on it? just like flatly pasted on. it's not like the moon is a sphere or anything. also why is it there? evangelion pandering? ... Come to think of it, for all the wanking Trigger does over its own works and anything from Gainax they can vaguely call their's, they've never really touched Eva even though it's a fucking cultural juggernaut. Well, there's a girl in Franxx who looks like an Asuka clone, but she doesn't seem to have the same personality at all (the first episode will probably be out by the time I post this but rest assured I won't be watching it any time soon..... gotta let that succ juice marinate)

episode 6: every second of akko's live is succ because she sucks at everything and fuck her, we get it already. something about this is just cringy and depressing to watch... this is the first time these girls have ever seen a male of the human species before

ep 7: akko is too braindead from trying to open a window all night and not sleeping to exams and if she fails she gets kicked out of the school and she's too shit fucking do anything right, we get it already urrrrrrrrhghg lol how'd she get a b minus for literally not flying at all. I... guess it's nice to see her getting a fucking break for trying for once, but still, what? and then akko fucking kills a professor and drops them down the sink. lol rip