#ok that first gif is my fave and the lighting in that whole scene was so perfect

[thoselittleboats]

Raphael + :) (threateningly)

[greyfongschemmenti]

overall thoughts on tdp??? Now that you’re done watching, which season/story-line/character (besides our iconic queen General and Aunt Amaya 👑) was your fave? Any moments throughout that you really felt or really spoke to you?

The dynamic of characters in this show is so interesting. The theme throughout the whole show is something that resonates with me because it's how I live my life. Despite what you hear about a certain group of people you should have an open mind. This is just some of my thoughts and opinions on some of the characters. There might be spoilers so read at your own risk.

I love Seasons 1-3 and if it wasn’t for the wedding preparations and scenes with Amaya. I wouldn’t have watched season 4. I felt like the whole season was complete filler. The series could’ve ended at the 3rd season and be solid. Season 4 didn’t really get my attention compared to the previous seasons. I hope the story picks up in season 5. I just need more Amaya 😭 lol

Callum starting as a kid who doesn't know where he belongs because he isn't a fighter or have anything useful to help the kingdom. He is the stepson of the king. Turns out he is a mage and he instantly knows that he wants to be a good light mage and nothing like what his former crush, Claudia is. Speaks on his character and reminds me a lot of his mom.

Ezran, such a baby doll, is quirky and awkward. Has a difficulty talking to people and has a special connection with animals. He has a kind heart and sees the good in people. He doesn't allow outside comments deter his judgement on a person. He reminds me so much of Antonio from Encanto. He is a fave for sure. He is a type of King that I would love to see in the real world.One that rules with kind and compassion instead with a drive for power or holier than thou.

Rayla being a moonshadow assassin. While Rayla claims to despise humans, on the inside she doesn't truly hate them. She doesn't see them as lesser beings than herself, unlike the rest of the elves. It causes this inner turmoil on her belief as a moon shadow assassin verses her morals. She constantly checking her morals and doing better. Willing to put her life on the line to do the right thing.

Claudia, her development was scary, I know there's some good but she continues down this dark path, that its sad. I was so hoping that she would run away with Soren. I really hope there is some way she can redeem herself in the upcoming season but I feel like she's so far down the rabbit hole that it's too deep a hole for her to come out of. The reason why I say Claudia's development is scary s because she knows she is becoming darker. Each season she is at a point where she pushes that morality further. She crosses that limit and instead of realizing ok that's enough. She knows it's bad and accepts it with no regret. Only to surpass it again the next time. There is nothing that will stop her to get what she wants.

Soren, at first I didn't care about him because he was this jerk who constantly picked on Callum, but Soren definitely grew. The first season I feel like the creators wanted us to see Soren as this idiot jock that heavily relies on his physical strength. It also didn't help that Viren and Claudia also treated him as such. As the series goes on he is so much more than that. His development throughout the series is one of the best, imo. He has this emotional intelligence that came to a surprise. He does have silly moments where he acts first but then he realizes his mistakes and changes. When Soren realized how he was manipulated by his dad. He went against his dad. This is so hard to do. He loves his dad and his sister so for him to renounce his loyalty from his family and follow the crown. Then on top of that having to go to war and the person you're fighting is your own father and sister. That hits the heart in more ways than one. His redemption arc is honestly chef's kiss. Soren is a good boi.

Amaya, my my my Amaya. She is wife. Once she appeared on the screen I had heart eyes immediately. Like I was already shopping for rings! I think I have a thing for strong stoic types who are really big softies. She's both an immovable object and an unstoppable force in battle. Amaya is thoughtful, honorable, compassionate and smart. Brutal, driven and capable. Pragmatic and adaptable. Her character design and fight choreography is stylish af. I could watch her fight it's like watching a dance. Her shield is honestly really cool and interesting design. Even though she's a tough person that flips switches so fast once she's with her nephews. She turns into this big softy that is so adorable and honestly is why I fell hard for her. She has a heart of gold and isn't afraid to jump into the line of fire to protect the people she loves. Her nephews, Gren, Janai, her soldiers, her kingdom. I could go on about Amaya.

Bait, Bait is the best. I can't get over him. He has a range of emotions and is the bestest boi. He deserves all the tarts.

Bonus:

I can't get over the fact that Amaya threw Bait in a perfect spiral throw. Bait is beauty. Bait is grace.

[27emailsicantsend]

Season 3 Episode 3 Thoughts

First of all… do I have any???? Its giving no thoughts, head empty

Before we get to Rina🥹, I’ll give some of my other thoughts

Ok I was sus about Ashlyn’s rose in the last episode and I made some thoughts about it in a post. I had a feeling this had something to do with her recognizing her “beauty from within” as the rose song said and I was right! I’m like really proud of this for some reason 😂

Kourtney and Carlos had me CACKLING. The whole scene about the thing in the woods being homophobic and Kourtney being like “I’m too hot for this”. Just comedy GOLD

I still feel like my “outside casting” is right where Jet and Ricky give off Kristoff and Sven energy and this episode proved it more. But it’s interesting because we also had the layers of Kristoff and Anna as Ricky and Gina with Ashlyn being Elsa going off to “find herself”. But Maddox and Jet were also showing a very Anna and Elsa dynamic. Just layers and layers and layers. I love looking for all the frozen hints/references in the character development SO MUCH

Also I know Ashlyn can care a lot but I really did not expect one comment about her rising sign to throw her into this whole self discovery/major upset storyline. It felt a ~little~ out of place, but I do like how they concluded it (that she was misplacing her anger)

I know Maddox got hurt but I did like seeing Jet come out of his shell and joke around. That was nice :)

EJ’s song… while different… was sang really well by him. But also like we got this and a million sorrys??? I would love ONE serious song by him because he’s got such a nice voice. This show does him and Carlos (Lumiere/Olaf comment) SO DIRTY 😂😂

Carlos and Kourtney’s tent is EVERYTHING to me. It was literally for one night and they put up decorations, hung lights, made it real cozy. Obsessed

And now… my faves 🥹🥹🥹 (there might be a lot of yelling over the next few bullet points you’ve been warned)

THIS WAS THE CUTEST DAMN EPISODE ARE YOU KIDDING ME

WE FEASTED. WE WERE FED. RINAS ATE WELL TONIGHT AFTER CRUMBS BEYOND CRUMBS

Not me STILL looking for crumbs around all of the amazing scenes tonight though 😂

The scene where they are talking to Ashlyn?? They share a “look”. And part of it is sus because of what she said about learning something new and they’re new. The other part is sweet because it was a very, VERY understanding look. They saw their friend sad and shared a look that she needed to talk some more. No words were needed. They just UNDERSTOOD?? That’s soul mateism. I’m just gonna say it: It literally felt like two parents comforting their child and that was REALLY tender to me

Also gina said “love is an open door” and who TF said that SAME LINE?? Oh I don’t know?? Ricky?? Episode one in the intro?? Are you kidding me with the parallels??

And like the stark difference between Gina trying to get through and talk to EJ and he barely listened. He just got in his head and pushed her away (Hans) to Ricky and Gina talking and just GETTING each other. Their sweet conversations, Ricky saying how proud he was of her, them taking their time to hear Ashlyn out… the way they ALWAYS communicate? (Kristoff and Anna) I’m just saying the differences are palpable.

Also, sorry not sorry, no other ship got this much screen time together. Any of them. Literally. Adding up all of the seasons and screen time. Ricky and Nini MIGHT be up there but I think Rina is getting them beat. It is so obvious who our endgame is!!

And like I DEFINITELY want Rina dating scenes and storylines AND I LOVE the build up of them. It reminds me so much of the office (which Tim definitely got inspo from in this show) and how we saw the entire build up of Jim and Pam AND their life after they got together. We got everything. I would love to see that with Rina.

And like the way they flirted?? The stolen glances???? The AMOUNT OF TIMES THEY TOUCHED LIKE THE HELL THEY WERE ALL OVER EACH OTHER

There is a scene right before they go into the barn with Ashlyn where Gina asks if they should see who is singing and Ricky says, “I mean we’ve come this far right?” And then he looks at her and she returns the look and they just stare at each other and you CANNOT TELL ME that line wasn’t symbolic of their relationship. They’ve come this far?? They’re scared but they should keep going?? It’s not as scary when they reach the end??? YEAH. YUP. YEAH.

Also I need to dissect the song Ashlyn is singing and how it parallels rina. There was a LOT of conversation and scene cuts back to them in between the song. To me that is purposeful. That is the writers saying, “hey look! This song symbolizes Ashlyn AND this other couples journey we keep flashing back to”. I’m just a wee bit tired to dissect it now but I think there is a lot of connection between rina and the song

Also jealous EJ when Carlos says they went missing?? EJ would not literally leave this thing that has been stressing him out all night, that he kept blowing off literally EVERYTHING including his girlfriend for, if he didn’t feel threatened by them being gone. You see it in his face! He KNOWS they’re friends. The tough part is that Ricky has been trying to create a closer relationship with EJ after all of the Nini stuff and I worry that this is gonna send EJ. I’m a little scared there might be a fight or revenge of some sort 😳�� it makes for excellent show writing though lol I’m HOOKED

lastly, every time I thought we wouldn’t get a rina scene, we got another. And another. And another. They just KEPT COMING. This was by far one of my favorite episodes. I will absolutely be screaming about this over the next week so don’t mind me

Ok rinas I love you all and I hope you enjoy another one of my episode rambles! I’m off to bed now ❤️

Gif credit: @rcsitastark

[canmom]

Animation Night 33 - WINTER_HOLIDAY escape zone

Hi friends! It’s the 24th of December, and you know what that means... it means it’s Thursday and time to watch some animation, where did you think I was going with this?

Tonight I’m well aware that a lot of you will have other obligations, and moreover unlike Hanukkah which has a nice juicy seven nights, there’s only one DAY_PRIOR_TO_WINTER_HOLIDAY. With that in mind, I’m going to try to avoid showing something that people will feel too bad if they miss out; and instead aim for an eclectic collection of things that’s relatively easy to drop in and out of. With that in mind, it’s time for a selection of 90s and 2000s 4°C and Madhouse short films and OVAs!

(which, you know, since I am pretty sure @mogsk​ is gonna be there I kind of picked stuff with her in mind :p)

With that in mind, and considering we’ve hardly watched any properly weird shit in a while, I’m going to throw back to the early days of Animation Night, where we’d watch package films by studios like Madhouse and 4°C.

So as far as 4°C goes - the studio part-founded by our early fave Koji Morimoto along with Eiko Tanaka. Tonight, I’ve managed to track down some of their earliest compilations like Sweat Punch and Digital Juice.

As we’ve seen, 4°C‘s work in package films like Genius Party is wildly varied and endlessly experimental, and drawing on a much wider range of influence than a lot of anime, notably the French comic scene. Sometimes this results in an absolute god tier hit like Tekkonkinkreet or Koji Morimoto’s shorts in Genius Party, other times it totally fails to land like (imo) Mind Game or, well, much of the rest of Genius Party. That’s OK though - trying to do something interesting always entails taking risks!

Still, I suspect Sweat Punch, also released as Deep Imagination, is going to be similarly varied. The general consensus seems to be that the strongest part is Kazuto Nakazawa’s film Comedy, a heavily stylised short about a swordsman in the Irish War of Independence. But there’s also intense real-robot action in Beyond, and some properly weird experimental stuff in the first two shorts which I hope will end up landing! All in all, Sweat Punch adds up to about an hour of ten minute films to bring back some vibes from the turn of the millenium...

Digital Juice, meanwhile, is at the short end of shorts: nothing really over three minutes, the whole thing packing into just 20 minutes of animation. Light on dialogue, it is a showcase of what was going on in the really early days of 4°C. Some of it is previews for other things we’ve seen, like Morimoto’s Tojin Kit, other parts are quite original music videos or short films. The only question is whether I can get an English-language version.

Last from 4°C, I have the extravagant 1997 short film Noiseman: Sound Insect, another project of Koji Morimoto, featuring the scientist character from his lavish Franken’s Gears segment of Robot Carnival. This time around, the scientists creates a kind of bizarre creature which starts ruling over a city as the scientist accidentally divides his soul from his body, or something like that? I’ve seen it described as...

Noiseman: Sound Insect is about as defiantly anti-mainstream as animation gets whilst still remaining watchable. Barely fifteen minutes long, more like twelve if you consider the ending credits last nearly three minutes, it crams in enough material for a feature length film with hardly a pause for breath and rarely if ever stops to explain a thing

which honestly sounds incredible. gonna shatter my temporal lobe.

Next up after 4°C, we have another one of those classic Madhouse OVAs. This time around, I figured I’d pull up their old adaptation of Gunnm, commonly translated as Battle Angel Alita, Yukiko Kishiro’s manga about an amnesiac robot girl in a decaying trash heap city.

Although Alita has attained infamy more recently when it received a very dubious CG adaptation directed by James Cameron, that was not the first time it was adapted to film - back in the 1993, Madhouse adapted the first two tankōbons of the manga into two half-hour OVAs. This necessitated compressing the story a bit, but a short runtime should also mean Madhouse had room to really polish up what they had. So, classic cyberpunk and cel animation... even if the story of the manga is compressed, this should be an aesthetic delight at least!

Also on the old-school Madhouse angle, we have classic ‘no trans subtext here’ OVA Birdy The Mighty/Tetsuwan Birdy, about a space cop who accidentally kills a boy, and decides that the only way she can save him is to kind of allow him to hitch a ride in her body, meaning the kid’s drawn into various sci-fi stuff in which he must occupy the body of a hot action girl (oh how zany! what is this ‘sub text’ of which you speak). Birdy is better known for its later TV series adaptation Decode, which was the debut of many now-famous webgen animators, so depending on mood and time it might be interesting to contrast how the two versions approach the story.

And, in case we find ourselves running short on time, I also have the short OVA Dragon’s Heaven (1988) by studios AIC and Artmic, which features a gorgeous style of linework that calls to mind Moebius more than any anime I’ve seen. It’s a bizarre little story about a girl who discovers a long-buried mecha, and joints its war against a cyberpunk hell nation confusingly named ‘Brazil’ (I don’t know why either) and its robot overlord, El Medine. Along with the fantastic art style and extremely strong cel animation, the OVA also has a very cool opening sequence involving a model kit of the main robot.

So! Eclectic selection, yes, but that should give us a pretty diverse selection of weird, stylish semi-oldschool anime to drop in on when your celebrations of WINTER_HOLIDAY permit, which we can naturally augment with anything that people missed on previous Animation Nights and would like a second chance to see.

Animation Night 33 will begin at 7pm UK time at twitch.tv/canmom as usual. Look forward to seeing you there!