#old hollywood cg's

[accidentallyburneddownthelastone]

Old Hollywood cg's

Breakfast/lunch/dinner with Elvis

Meals??? What are those? Actual meals are rarely, if ever, eaten. Its all just snacking.

[vintage-agere]

Gregory Peck

Cooling a tantrum

Tries very hard to shut it down as soon as it starts

“Now, there’s no need for that”

tying to be very stern yet gentle at the same time

comes to hug you in a vice like grip as you continue to squirm

please chill out he’s like so close to losing his marbles at all times

is very likely to send you to time out if this behaviour doesn’t stop

feels kinda guilty as e watches you fitfully facing a corner, but can’t really figure what else to do

will leave you there until you calm down

a long but gentle lecture to follow

[cutiecorner]

I know this won't be everyone's cup of tea but I'm gonna do it anyway cuz I'm having a bad day. Anyway, regressor Alfie headcanons under the cut

Regresses due to a traumatic chidhood

He was very close to his mom, but she passed when he was young. His dad wasn't kind to him, nor was anyone else really.

The Waynes would look after him while they were together

he regressed very infrequently after Bruce was born and stopped all together when the Waynes passed

he felt it was something that only the Waynes would love him enough to do

he can only be small when he trusts the other person a ton, and even then, he's wary and shy

his caregivers are Martha and John Kent + Jim Gordon

small alfie is very particular and fussy. He's not a very happy regressor, it's more cathartic for him than anything

he's still very independent. He doesn't want the kents to do things for him, but he does want them to watch him do it himself. And maybe help. Just a little.

He doesn't baby talk, but his voice definitely changes. It gets quieter and a little higher.

Very very nervous... doesn't want to bother anyone. Needs a lot of reassurance that he's not a burden

loves dolls. Especially baby dolls and their accessories (bottles, strollers, etc)

He has a lot of vintage dolls, it's more of a collection when he's big but he does play with them when small. They all have shakespearean names: Juliette (his favorite), Eleanor, Iris, Rosalin, and Imogen.

they all have very special care routines and personalities. They gossip about each other at tea parties

The social world of his dolls and toys is ruthless and debauched

He has other toys he likes, mainly a wooden duck he carved, a pound puppy from Jim , and a roll along dog from the kents.

Doesn't really throw tantrums per se, but does have meltdowns.

Number one cause of meltdowns is not being allowed to help cook. The injustice is staggering

Cuddly but awkward about it. He has no idea how to ask or what to do with his body while it's happening.

So particular about clothing. He has like one outfit he HAS to wear

Loves to play schoolhouse and put on plays

Does like, reverse story time. He's the one reading

Loves nursery rhymes. Has a million memorized, including in other languages

Likes to sing and hum to himself, but gets flustered when you catch him

Likes animals, but from afar. He is afraid of farm animals

Generally not a fan of getting dirty (he will cry)

Has trouble calling cgs mom/dad. He uses miss and mister instead

Wants to help with everything. Will not chillax

Loves movies from his childhood, the ones his mom would take him to, old Hollywood classics

[superemeralds]

i think about ur piece with shadow captioned “welcome to the promised land” ALOT… with that, i wondered what your thoughts are on the sonic movies (both the ones that came out and the new one thats coming) in regards to their portrayal of the police/military/GUN.

I’m personally really disappointed in whats been done so far (with Tom being a cop, like cmon man what. and with the goofy portrayal of the military, especially that old general guy in the second movie) and im really nervous about whats coming, with team sonic working WITH GUN (and now Tom and Maddie wearing military uniforms) in the trailers. I have a suspicion that Maria’s death will be an “accident”, like a very MCU style “sometimes the military makes mistakes…” bullshit. itd really suck to see this series become another piece of copaganda, especially since like. its so out of character, like sonic is unique in the way its been blatantly anti military (for the most part) in the games. it wasn’t revolutionary by any means but it is arguably a core part of the original story.

What are your thoughts? sorry for the long ask, I’m a big fan of your writing and thoughts on sonic (huge heart of a monster fan!). Hope youre having a good day!

big same. I've made the comic in question as a response to the first trailer for sonic 3 actually.

the trailer made me feel a LOT of emotions, mostly negative if im honest, and the only thing that I liked from it was the scene of shadow bursting from his tank thing and being sloppin wet that looked like he was standing in the rain. so i went and made a comic of shadow in the rain. and i made it as anti military and anti capitalism as i could.

becasue sonic 3's marketing, in my opinion, especially after the second trailer came out, is a perfect axample of everything wrong with the current western (mostly USA, but the USA influences the entire world so.) society. it exemplifies capitalism, militarism, consumerism, a lack of emotional depth and the infantalization as well as mliking (for a lack of better word; i mean how advertizements are usually heavily marketed at kids because parents will buy anyhting to shut up their crying annoying meat bags and therefore spend money on shit they dont want nor need) of children (that detective pikachu bit was so painful). and let's not forget the fatphobia. it was so painful to go back and watch the first trailer to freshen my memory for this reply oh god.

when sonic 2 came out i was really happy with the movie. i think sonic 2 is miles better than 1 in terms of characters and fun, most obviously because there's more of actual sonic characters in it now then the first. the first felt mostly like a pilot honestly. the second one had much more fantastical details and elements thatreally leaned into sonic's world. Or at least... the environment artists tried with it. I remember being OBSESSED with the fact tehre was a mural of perfect chaos in that labyrinth for like 1 second and theorized about what it could mean. while watching the movie i even speculated it was foreshadowing that perfect chaos was gonna be the secret final boss of the movie as that was only the halfway point of the runtime. having sobered from the hype i understand its a neat detail from the cg department that means absolutely nothing.

the worst thing is that the movie (sonic 3 now) itself might be like. a well made movie with good (enough) writing and good visuals and whatever. sonic might betray the military and go his own way bc here he's a little younger and he's learning (he didnt grow up w military so he might be blissfull yunaware bc hes only been fed propaganda through hollywood movies so far) and him meeting shadow and learning about his fate might change his mind. we don't know yet.

The marketing sometimes is detatched from the movie itself so it'll misrepresent things for the sake of "bait" to get ppl to spend money to watch it (the teenage kraken movie suffered from that bc it was fun imo i liked it). Or even just to get people to make viral reactions to get even MORE news of the movie out and attract more people. Especially when adapting a story that already exists I think it makes them reveal a LOT of the movie (I saw ppl complain they reveal the entire movie in the trailer, i think given the fact we already know all those key moments shown it's fine)

actually. does anyone know if the us army funded this movie? i know it does a lot of movies ever since iron man

idek where im going w this rn im just. eghh.... def not gonna see it in cinema ♥ my money goes towards literally anything else

[starsurfacemortalkombat]

Hi sorry for requesting again but I was wondering you had CG Headcannons for Mk 11 Johnny Cage ? He's a comfort character at the moment and I'm happy to see you do content for MK 10,11 and 1 :) sorry again for being awkward in my first ask I've been off tumblr for a while and recently came back ...

MK11 Johnny Cage!!! <3

And your fine, don't worry one bit!!

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

CG Johnny Cage MK11 Hcs

💫 Depending on where we are on the timeline depends on how ‘good’ on a CG he is (all CGs are good, they're trying their best <3)

💫 Younger Johnny is more of a babysitter or older brother figure, but still a pretty good CG

💫 Older Johnny takes on a more stable CG role (we're gonna focus on him)

💫 You have so much Johnny Cage merch!!!!

💫 Any kind of doll or stuffie made of him, you've already got it!!

💫 You've even got some shirts with his old movie designs

💫 Mostly you have these because he gets a copy of almost anything ever made of him (and he likes to spoil you <3)

💫 Older Johnny has kinda left his old Hollywood life behind, joining the military and doing some movies here or there

💫 He's settled down, more to Earth than his other selves

💫 That will not stop him from buying anything you want, no matter the price

💫 You want a yummy treat? What kind? He's already got his wallet put

💫 He knows you have a thousand and one plushies . . . But a few more can't reeeeeeally hurt anyone

💫 You are his baby and nothing is allowed to harm a hair on your head

💫 You think your clingy? Psh, you haven't seen Cage Clingy

💫 Constantly wants to hold or coddle you, your just so cute!!

💫 But like, he guesses he can let you go run off, but he has to be nearby and you have to be in eye distant!!!

💫 Matching Johnny Cage inspired jammies (he happened to have them already)

💫 He has a habit of babying you even if you regress older

💫 If you like being treated like a princess/prince/royalty? Brilliant!! He's got you covered!!

💫 If you want more independence, he's decent with it, and will treat you more your age

💫 Finds middlespace regresses entertaining (mostly if your an emo regressor)

💫 Loves making bracelets and drama when your bigger

💫 Drama can be almost anything, including this dramatic thing that happened in your favorite TV show

💫 Babble encourager!!!

💫 Full blown conversations with babblers, he thinks they're adorable

💫 If you want to have him dress up and have a tea party, he's so for it

💫 Make him wear a tiara and tutu, he'll do it with pride

💫 Will also let you paint his nails any color you want

💫 While he loves and babies you, he also puts his foot down >:(

💫 If your a rule breaker, prepare for a bunch of timeout time, because there's almost not changing his mind (unless you regress really small)

💫 Won't punish you if it was an accident though, he's not terribly mean

💫 If you ever offer to spar or wrestle him while your tiny, he'll generally laugh

💫 Not at you!! Well, kinda

💫 It's just, your so cute!! Thinking you could beat him up, that's so adorable 🥺

💫 He'll let you fight him though (and probably let you win, but you don't reeeeally gotta know that)

💫 He'll treat you with ice cream when you ‘win’

💫 He's getting old, but he's got the energy he had when he was in his 20s (y'all he's like almost 60 in MK11 can you believe that??)

💫 If you regress as base, your either right by his side holding his hand, or your always in reach just in case

💫 There is a not touching rule on everything if your small on base, there's a lot of dangerous stuff and Johnny's not having you get hurt

💫 He'll do his little “Here's Johnny!!” while playing peek-a-boo

💫 Sometimes he'll egg you on to do naughty things he finds funny (like prank Sonya by putting a bit of salt in her coffee)

💫 Will also take the blow when Sonya starts getting pissy because someone (👀) ruined her coffee

💫 Your naptime? Nuh-uh. Our naptime 😎

💫 Man's old, he'd love to just laze around and cuddle

💫 But he's also got the spirit of a child, and would love to run around with you

💫 If your small while he's working out, he'll laugh as you try to pick up his weight

💫 He'll probably give you one of those workout balls or some super light weights so you can be just like Daddy :D

💫 . . . Dad jokes 😒

💫 And sometimes they're not even good!! Most times they're just to poke or annoy you!! >:(

💫 Most times they're actually really funny though

💫 Favorite CG nicknames are Daddy, Dada, Papa, Bubba, and literally anything you wanna call him

💫 Your go-to babysitters are Sonya and Cassie

💫 (Maybe also Jax and Kenshi)

💫 Cassie and Sonya both love you, you've got the whole Cage family behind your back

💫 Favorite little nicknames to call you are Princess, Baby Girl/Boy, Little One, Sweetiepie, Honey, Little Star

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

I hope they're more MK11 Johnny and not MK1 Johnny, and I can always do more or something like that. <3

[morkitten]

KAMEN RIDER MEGAPOST

I've been deep in the Kamen Rider hole after taking a blind chance on it about a year ago and it's been one of the most rewarding discoveries I've had, so I'm doing a megapost where I try to convey what's so interesting and unique about this series that you can literally just start anywhere. There's a Kamen Rider series for everyone, and I hope to convince you of it and point to where you can give it a try for yourself. Click on the read more to see more!

WHAT IS KAMEN RIDER?

Kamen Rider is a superhero that rides a motorcycle who's often bug-themed, but not always. The Kamen Rider franchise started in 1971 and, with the exception of a few periods of dry spells, keeps making new yearly series to this day. It's part of Japan's many, many decades old craft of special effects-focused TV shows and movies, called "Tokusatsu" (literally, "special filming"). It was conceived and spearheaded by Shotaro Ishinomori, an incredibly famous mangaka in Japan, responsible for not only Kamen Rider, but also Super Sentai, Cyborg 009, Zubat, Kikaider, and many other TV series and mangas. The amount of works he has produced in manga and TV is incredibly huge, and his works have been incredibly influential to Japanese culture as a whole. Kamen Rider can be argued that is his biggest, most important contribution.

A consistent theme in early Kamen Rider series is that he's a lonesome, grieving hero, in which his sadness fuels his righteous anger at the evils that he's fighting against. He's been transformed into a monster against his will, and now must fight against the very forces that created him. In every Kamen Rider series, the power that the protagonist wields is the same power that fuels the evil forces he fights against. In a way, you can see it as a metaphor for Kamen Rider's production itself: It must use the evil power of mass media to carry its anti-authoritarian messages that go against the very forces that even allow it to exist. It's the tale of every artist trying to create something earnest and culturally and artistically enriching in the cynical mass media space.

WHY WATCH KAMEN RIDER?

I was never really sold on Kamen Rider at first. I remember watching a bit of Kamen Rider Black when I was very young, so I was always nostalgically curious about it. But whenever I saw the newer Kamen Rider stuff pop up on Twitter or whatever, I had always dismissed it as "eh, whatever bug bit you I guess made you interested in that". Something about the super toyetic costume designs and super fake CG just never really inspired my attention, and it was easy to dismiss it as something for kids, something in that same place in my mind as "what shonenheads are into". I guess what I mean is that I saw newer Kamen Rider as "low art". It's easy to categorize it as such, people in silly suits selling toys, doing really silly comedy, with silly CG. I've seen Power Rangers before, it's just that. It has to be cynical!

I had never done such a big 180 before. Yes, Kamen Rider is "for the kids" (with some exceptions), yes it has a ton of silliness to it, but there's also a lot of good cinematography, fantastic stunts, and really great, serious drama. Kamen Rider is seen as a cultural institution in Japan for all those reasons. It's a way to keep a lot of theater traditions alive in a modern space, a way to have many young, extremely talented actors have a big break, a way to keep tokusatsu traditions and craft (analog special effects, stuntmen, martial arts actors) alive, employed, and continuously evolving, to create something that bridges the gap across all generations in Japan.

It's difficult to explain, but Kamen Rider has the important positive qualities of extremely good older television like Star Trek and Columbo. A TV show that doesn't want to aspire to be a hollywood movie like Netflix series cheaply try to do, but that sees the value of theater and theater skills in television.

Another thing to note is that because Kamen Rider is such a huge cultural institution, if you enjoy anime and japanese video games, there's so so much about what you love on your favorite anime and games that are directly inspired by Kamen Rider. Every japanese action game you've enjoyed? Ninja Gaiden, Shinobi, Devil May Cry, Viewtiful Joe, Hagane, Bayonetta, they -all- have an incredibly huge amount of Kamen Rider in them. Nearly everything Gainax, Hideaki Anno and Studio Trigger made. Pokémon, Digimon, Dragon Ball, One Piece, Yu-Gi-Oh (especially on the superb monster designs), Taiyo Matsumoto, every japanese character that has ever stricken a dab. It's not just references, there are fundamental things about pretty much all of these games, mangas and animes I've listed that are directly attributed to Kamen Rider. So if you enjoy anything I've listed, you ought to give it a try.

OKAY, WHERE TO START?

One of the greatest things about Kamen Rider is that since every series is its own closed continuity (there are crossover movies but they largely don't matter), you can pretty much start anywhere you'd like. Of course, with this many ice cream flavors, one can't help but become paralyzed by the abundance of choice, even though, and I can't emphasize this enough, every Kamen Rider series I've watched so far have all been pretty good to fantastic. I'm sure there's a couple of stinkers I've avoided, but a hitrate like this feels miraculous, I don't understand how does Kamen Rider from so many different eras can keep such a consistent quality even when they can feel so different from one another and be spearheaded by such different creators. You can maybe look them all up and decide what theme you're most attracted by, or, I can maybe help you and tell you about the ones I've watched!

So, here's a list of the Kamen Riders I've watched, with short descriptions of each of them and what makes them appealing, and a mini-list of recommended episodes to sample, in case you're still not sure whether to jump in:

SHOWA ERA (1971 - 1994)

KAMEN RIDER (1971)

The original, and also the least I've watched so far, haven't even gotten to 10 episodes yet. It famously started with an incredibly small budget and it's magical to see what tricks the production employed in order to make it work and be exciting and fun while spending as little money as possible. The stunts are very dangerous but very cool to see. A long, very episode-by-episode affair, but if you get excited on cheap sets and cheap cinema tricks and special effects used very cleverly, this is going to light you up like a christmas tree. It also employs some thriller-inspired cinematography that is very exciting. The writing doesn't offer much substance, but it has this quality where it really believes in itself and in the ideals that Kamen Rider is supposed to represent that is very easy to feel wrapped up in. Might bore you if you're not already sold on the appeal of old tokusatsu.

RECOMMENDED EPISODES TO SAMPLE: Episode 6: The Grim Reaper Chameleon! Episode 7: The Grim Reaper Chameleon Showdown: Old World's Fair

KAMEN RIDER AMAZON (1974)

It's basically just the 1971 Kamen Rider but the main character is Tarzan. It runs only half as long as other Kamen Rider series so if you wanna do a whole Showa-era KR series quickly, it's a very solid recommendation. It's very violent for a children's show, with Amazon often slicing and mauling his monster opponents in bloody messes, and it looks really sick. The suits and special effects are better than how the original Kamen Rider starts off, but it still has that appeal of being old and budgeted for a TV show, which in this case is a huge positive, imo. Also again, the writing isn't much to write about, so don't expect big narrative payoffs or anything like that, you really have to enjoy it on an episode-by-episode basis, which is fine, because the monsters and special effects are extremely cool, the characters are charismatic, and the little episodic plots are fun.

RECOMMENDED EPISODES TO SAMPLE: Episode 4: Run! The Raging Jungler! Episode 11: The Golden Snail is the Grim Reaper's Envoy!? Episode 16: Garanda's Tokyo Sea of Flames Operation Episode 17: Mt.Fuji Big Explosion?! The Tokyo Fry Pan Operation

KAMEN RIDER BLACK (1987)

This was supposed to be a revival of Kamen Rider into public interest after being dormant for a while, so it also feels like a retelling of the first Kamen Rider in a sense, has a lot of common elements, but with slick 80s production and sensibilities all over. If you love how 80s action, sci-fi and thriller movies look like, you'll love the cinematography and production of Kamen Rider Black. It's edgier, sleeker, and even scarier, borrowing a lot of horror/thriller elements that were in vogue at the time, while still being a hopeful, heroic and uplifting presence for children. Has an overarching plot that develops over time but it's, again, really about enjoying it on an episode-by-episode basis, as the overarching plot develops veeeery slowly and in very small portions. I supremely love how this series looks, I love the special effects, I love the suits, and it has my favorite transformation sequence.

RECOMMENDED EPISODES TO SAMPLE: Episode 1: Black!! Transformation Episode 2: Monster Party Episode 18: Sword Saint Bilgenia Episode 20: Rider's Grave Episode 23: Marumo's Magic Power Episode 24: College Girl's Nightmare

SHIN KAMEN RIDER PROLOGUE (1992) (MOVIE)

This doesn't have anything to do with the Anno movie, the Shin here is written differently. A movie that celebrates the series' 20th anniversary that tells its own story with its own Kamen Rider, so it feels like a "reboot" or "re-interpretation" of Kamen Rider. It's darker and scarier, with a Kamen Rider that looks much more like a monster than an armored hero, and leans more into the horror side of Kamen Rider, being more adult-focused. Very violent and very cool.

KAMEN RIDER ZO (1993) (MOVIE)

This was supposed to be a full-fledged Kamen Rider series but the 80s bubble popped and they decided to shift production into a short movie instead. Might be a good introduction point, since it's a short 1-hour watch, and has a ton of really great special effects. Everything that is great about Black's cinematography, propwork and special effects apply here, except since it's just one movie, they're really throwing everything they've got into it

HEISEI AND REIWA ERAS (2000-Present)

Kamen Rider went dormant in the 90s until it was revived back into its TV format by Kamen Rider Kuuga, which was a major success. Since then, there's been yearly new Kamen Rider series on Japanese television, non-stop.

The difference between the Kamen Rider of old (Showa era) and the Kamen Rider series past this revival (Heisei, Reiwa) is that newer Kamen Rider series, despite also being monster-of-the-week romps, tend to have a more complex overarching plot which they tend to lean more into, and less of dangerous stunts and practical effects. Episodes also tend to be two-parters, so maybe calling them monster-of-the-week is innacurate, it's more like monster-of-every-two-weeks. This shift is fine because their reliance on denser plots with a much larger supporting cast of characters, more than makes up for it. It feels less that they're stretching episodes into two-parters and more like they're filling these episodes with so much other stuff that making them 2-parters makes sense.

Also, to note, as modern Kamen Rider goes on, there's more reliance on CGI, but all the monsters (and Kamen Riders) are practical suits and there's still plenty of practical effects, so don't let the super artificial candy-colored videogamey CGI effects trick you into thinking that that's all there is to modern KR.

KAMEN RIDER KIVA (2008)

Kiva is the only "Heisei phase 1" series I've watched so far (early to late 2000s), and I absolutely love it, one of my favorite Kamen Riders. It's considered to be a bit of a black sheep of Heisei phase 1 Kamen Riders but I think fans severely overlook and misjudge Kiva. Kamen Rider Kiva is vampire-themed and is about this shut-in, extremely shy boy who, mysteriously, is also the heroic Kiva, that springs into action whenever Fangires (vampire monsters) are about to kill humans. However, it also takes place 20 years before, in the 1980s, where Fangires are also attacking, but there's no Kiva around to stop them. Instead, humans have created a secret vampire-hunting association and are developing their own technology to stop them. What's the connection between the characters from each time era? Mysteries...!! It has a large cast of characters and incredible soap opera drama and romance that'll keep you heavily invested in all of its twists and turns. It's a very narrative affair which makes it difficult to recommend episodes out of order since it can be confusing to catch things out of context. The fact that it takes place both in the 2000s and in the 80s means every episode has both an A-plot and a B-plot, which avoids the pitfall of some modern Kamen Riders of two-parters that don't have enough going on, because Kiva is absolutely overstuffed with great characters and narratives. The drama is great, the romance is great, the comedy is superb, and the fights are awesome too. I really can't recommend it enough.

RECOMMENDED EPISODES TO SAMPLE: Episode 1: Fate: Wake Up! and Episode 2: Suite: Father and Son Violin (2-parter) Episode 17: Lesson: My Way and Episode 18: Quartet: Listen to Your Heart's Voice (2-parter) (I have trouble recommending more episodes out of order because this series is very narratively-involved!)

KAMEN RIDER W (2009)

W is a very well-received and loved series, and it's easy to see why. It's one of those things that if you watch it you immediately go "oh, if I watched this as a kid I would be so so into it". It has fun, charismatic characters that you want to see every week, simple to understand and easy to like. It's detective-themed and the Kamen Rider is actually comprised of a fusion of two people - Shotaro, who wants to be a tough, hard-boiled detective but is unintentionally kind of stupid and goofy and isn't seen very seriously by people around him, but has a heart of gold, and Phillip, who is an androgynous autistic introvert that basically has the entirety of Google inside his mind, and uses this to help find information to solve cases. Together they transform into Kamen Rider W (W as in "double", get it?), with each controlling a literal half of the suit (right and left), that they can switch properties of and create different combinations. They're great characters but who really steals the show is the comedy relief sidekick, Akiko. She's an immensely funny actress and character.

RECOMMENDED EPISODES TO SAMPLE: Episodes 1 and 2: W Search Episodes 9 and 10: S Terror Episodes 23 and 24: L on the Lips Episodes 25 and 26: P's Game

KAMEN RIDER OOO (2010)

OOO is another extremely beloved Kamen Rider series, and the one I actually started with. Its themes are "desire" and "currency", and the evils and necessities of living in a world that depends on them. The main character is a lovable homeless hippie (Eiji) who's egged on by his extremely androgynous edgy greedy demon boyfriend (Ankh) to collect "medals", because said demons are greedy for them and require them for power. These medals also allow Eiji to transform into Kamen Rider OOO (pronounced "Os" or "Osu"), and different medals can be slot into his transformation belt to create different combinations. Other demons, that are not Eiji's demon babygirl, want to use humans' desires as piggy banks to generate more medals for their own greed, at the cost of these humans' lives. Eiji needs to stop them and collect all the medals before they do. Again, easy to enjoy, easy to see why it's beloved. Filled with a light-hearted fun energy that you can feel as soon as you watch the ska-inspired opening. There's a small stretch of it that feels a bit by-the-numbers, but the drama ramps up and pays off immensely well as it goes on. An extremely fujoshi Kamen Rider series.

RECOMMENDED EPISODES TO SAMPLE: Episode 1: Medals, Underwear and a Mysterious Arm Episode 2: Desire, Popsicles and Presents (2-parter with Episode 1) Episode 13: A Siamese Cat, Stress and the Genius Surgeon Episode 14: Pride, Surgery, and a Secret (2-parter with Episode 13)

KAMEN RIDER FOURZE (2011)

Fourze is written by Kazuki Nakashima, the Studio Trigger writer responsible for stuff like Gurren Lagann, Kill la Kill and Brand New Animal, so that may be something that's either going to extremely excite you, or make you very wary of it. I personally feel he's not a very good writer, but that's okay, because the rest of the production is fantastic, and I still enjoyed Fourze a good amount! The main character is an extremely likeable and charismatic school delinquent that wants to befriend the entire school and creates his own Kamen Rider school club after being bestowed with the Kamen Rider Fourze technology thanks to, uh, a portal that sends him to a space base on the moon? So it's a half-and-half school theme and space theme Kamen Rider. The school club has a large cast of characters but the show doesn't really know what to do with them unless the episodes focus on a specific club member. Fourze really, really drags in the middle (this is when the problem of two-parters feeling stretched out when the writing isn't very strong hits hardest), but as it crescendos to its finale it gets -very- good again. This might be the weakest Kamen Rider out of the ones I've watched, imo, but still, I think there's quite a lot to enjoy here.

RECOMMENDED EPISODES TO SAMPLE: Episodes 1 and 2 (Youthful Transformation and Space Superiority) (2-parter) Episodes 5 and 6 (Friendship, Inside and Outside and Electric Shock, Steadily) (2-parter) Episodes 13 and 14 (School Refusal and Stinger Onslaught) (2-parter)

KAMEN RIDER AMAZONS (2016) (WEB SERIES)

Wait, didn't I review this one before?! No, no, this is AMAZONS, plural! It doesn't actually have that much in common with the original Amazon, being very much its own thing, and what it borrows from Amazon is mostly just to help frame this series as a more adult, violent affair, since Amazon, despite it being very much for kids, was back then known as "the violent Kamen Rider". It's also an Amazon Prime-exclusive series, so they did it for Branding, too. A very dramatic, violent, adult Kamen Rider show that's spearheaded by my favorite Kamen Rider director, Hidenori Ishida. He's a supremely good director that brings his A-game to this series. It follows an extermination team that hunts terrifying man-eating monsters called Amazons. There's two Kamen Riders, Alpha and Omega, that are also Amazons but they largely fight against other Amazons. Alpha is set on killing every Amazon, while Omega has just awakened into an Amazon and a Kamen Rider himself, and has to decide what he wants to do and who and what to fight for. At least this is the premise of Season 1, Season 2 I will not spoil but it is the production going "oh, Amazon season 1 did well enough for us to do whatever we want, and we'll do exactly that". It's the most well-equipped artists in tokusatsu breaking off their shackles and doing a dramatic magnum opus. It's dark, edgy, but also earnest and sentimental. It's my absolute favorite Kamen Rider show. Also, the fact that the monsters are called "Amazons" is used for extremely pointed stabs at Amazon (company), which is hilarious.

This series is completely narratively-driven, so I can't recommend episodes out of order! Watch the whole thing!

KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE (2019)

Robot-themed! Zero-One takes place in a future where robots and humans live together, like Megaman or Astro Boy. It's about the struggle of humans and robots to live in harmony with one another, and it develops those themes and its world extremely well. The main character (Aruto) is very goofy and wants to be a manzai comedian but his lame puns always bomb. He is, however, also the heir of a massive company that builds all the robot people! Aruto is suddenly, unexpectedly, thrown into the company as its President after his grandfather dies. This responsibility is too much for him, but he decides to take on the mantle as he wants to bring a smile to people's faces, and that he legitimately cares about robots, as he was raised and saved by one as a kid. With this in mind, he takes on his grandfather's KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE technology and uses it to attempt to stop a terrorist robot faction (METSUBOUJINRAI.NET) that's bent on killing all humans, and corrupting other robots for that goal. All while also trying to advocate for a harmonious relationship between humans and robots. This is honestly fantastic, and may seem super goofy at first but gets very complex as it goes on. Very great balance of lighthearted comedy and serious drama, and another one of my absolute favorite Kamen Rider series, right up there with Kiva and Amazons.

RECOMMENDED EPISODES TO SAMPLE: Episode 1: I'm the President and a Kamen Rider Episode 2: Is AI an Enemy? Ally? Episode 5: His Passionate Manga Path Episode 6: I Want to Hear Your Voice (2-parter with episode 5)

KAMEN RIDER GEATS (2022)

Battle-royale themed Kamen Rider, with a lot of inspiration on korean dramas and reality shows. It definitely feels inspired by, say, Squid Game. Gods select people to compete in a Kamen Rider battle royale, and the winner of the final round gets to remake the world in whatever way they see fit. The production is a bit cheap after the last two KRs before Geats underperformed, and they had to scale the production down. The fact that the series tries to convey the excitement of extremely high stakes so often only for those stakes to completely deflate thanks to how the premise works, creates a situation where you don't know what to care because anything can get undone and completely changed so often anyway. Near the end the series gets particularly bad with this. Still, it has some good characters, some nice drama and some fun comedy, so it's not bad, but definitely on my lower tier of KRs alonside Fourze. Again: No KR I've watched was bad! So, even the ones that might sound that I'm down on them I still very much enjoyed.

(Too narratively-driven to recommend episodes out of order! Try the first couple of episodes!)

SHIN KAMEN RIDER (2023) (MOVIE)

Hideaki Anno's film! Hideaki Anno is a huge Kamen Rider fan and it really shows throughout the movie, with a lot of pulls from the Kamen Rider manga specifically, while also being nostalgic for a lot of the original Kamen Rider TV show from 71. Still, it ends up feeling less like "a Kamen Rider movie" and more like "an Anno movie" with a Kamen Rider-theming to it. It doesn't put its focus on the stunts and the fight choreography that you'd see in other Kamen Rider productions, but more on Anno's style of cinematography, his sense of timing, special effects and animation. It also retreads several of the themes and elements that he's drawn from before, a lot of Evangelion is in this. It's good, I like it!

KAMEN RIDER GOTCHARD (2023)

Currently ongoing! Very Y2K nostalgic, with a Kamen Rider suit that has that Y2K aqua color to it, and is themed around... Pokemon cards? There are these creatures called Chemys, that are contained inside alchemical cards that have been let loose and need to be captured again, or at least kept away from the villains. The main character is this super earnest, almost helplessly naively optimistic schoolboy called Ichinose that has been unexpectedly thrown into the secret world of alchemy and given the power to become Kamen Rider Gotchard, as a powerful benevolent alchemist dies in his arms. As a promise to him, he vows to find the Chemys. Ichinose also believes that they're extremely good-natured beings that are only corrupted by human malice, and really believes in the friendship of Chemys and humans, while other alchemists feel Ichinose's ideas of Chemys are too naive and soft-hearted. It's, uh, I don't know what to think of it, honestly! The first couple of episodes really did not sold me on it, but it gets better and better as it goes on, though, it's also, like, a lot of Big Important things keep happening in rapid-fire in a way that I can't tell whether the show has a higher plan for all of it or if it's just throwing things for easy hype. Nearly every episode there's a new Kamen Rider transformation, it's kind of insane. Still, this is preferrable than the stretches of not much happening that plague some other KR seasons. I've been enjoying it a good amount, honestly!

RECOMMENDED EPISODES TO SAMPLE: Episode 5: Burn! Fight! Wrestler G! Episode 7: Goodbye, Saboneedle

And those are all the Kamen Riders I've watched! Something else that can help you decide on which series to try out, is that the NHK made a public popularity poll of Kamen Rider series, with the results being found here! From here, you can tell which KRs are most beloved and well-remembered in Japan, and use that as a guidance for yourself, if you'd like. But again, I must emphasize, you can really start most anywhere, so feel free to do exactly that!

[astoundingbeyondbelief]

Kaiju Week in Review (March 10-16, 2024)

"It looks as though its Japanese producers, assisted by a stray American—fellow named Terry Morse, who is an alumnus of Hollywood's Poverty Row—made a close study of the old film, "King Kong," then tried to do substantially the same thing with a miniature of a dinosaur made of gum-shoes and about $20 worth of toy buildings and electric trains." —Bosley Crowther, reviewing Godzilla, King of the Monsters! for The New York Times

"The special effects are hardly special, but hey, what do you expect in a Japanese monster movie?" —Tony Kiss, reviewing Godzilla 1985 for the Asheville Citizen-Times

"Sure it's bad filmmaking. Sure it's a guy—actor Tsutomu Kitagawa—clad in a nearly vintage latex Godzilla getup and stomping through Tokyo, knocking down cardboard mini-buildings and upending toy-sized cars with his gnarly feet. But that's the point." —Bob Longino, reviewing Godzilla 2000 for The Palm Beach Post

Godzilla Minus One won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects at the 96th Academy Awards, sending a stunned Takashi Yamazaki (VFX supervisor), Kiyoko Shibuya (VFX director), Masaki Takahashi (3D CG director), and Tatsuji Nojima (VFX artist/compositor) to the Dolby Theatre stage. Said Yamazaki, reading from prepared comments in English, "To someone so far from Hollywood, the possibility of standing on this stage seemed out of reach." I could scarcely believe what I was watching myself, despite having given a presentation for a Wikizilla stream mere hours before on Minus One's very real chances of beating more expensive American contenders. Everything I said about its nomination goes triple for its victory; we'll be talking about this one forever. To those of us who remember when Godzilla was basically a joke in the American consciousness (including my Wikizilla colleague Darthlord1997, who had a speech of his own prepared), it's the ultimate vindication.

Never one to rest on his laurels, Takashi Yamazaki directed an ad for Ajinomoto about food waste which released this week. It features the unsubtly-named Foodlosslla attacking Tokyo and facing an Ultraman-esque defense team. As with Minus One, the ad's visuals are a clever combination of high-end (a detailed CG monster) and low-end (dropping plastic fruit on top of fleeing extras).

Last year, the 4Kids Flashback podcast interviewed Mike Pecoriello, producer and writer for the company's renditions of Yu-Gi-Oh! and Ultraman Tiga, and he delivered some major news about the latter. Although only 23 episodes of Tiga aired in the U.S., 4Kids dubbed the whole thing. At the time of the podcast's recording, he thought he made copies of all the episodes, but while that doesn't seem to be the case, he did provide 4Kids Flashback with the series finale. It's a good deal more serious than the episodes which aired, with the quips kept to a minimum. Let the hunt for the rest commence!

SciFi Japan has details on Kaiju Yarrow, a Japanese comedy doubling as a tourism ad for the city of Seki. The premise is very self-aware:

KAIJU YARROW! is set in Seki City, Gifu Prefecture. One day, 30 year old Ichiro Yamada, who works in the tourism department of a government office, is ordered by the mayor to produce a "local film.'' However, Yamada, didn't want to produce the typical "mediocre local movies'' that are everywhere nowadays, so he comes up with the idea of making a "monster movie'', which has been his life-long dream. However, his dreams develops into a major incident involving the city government...! Will Yamada be able to complete his life goal of making a monster movie??

Junichiro Yagi will direct; YouTuber Gunpee will star. Unknown quantities both when it comes to kaiju, so how this will turn out is anyone's guess.

Tickets for Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire have gone on sale in the U.S.—and as a reminder, the brief GKIDS theatrical release of The End of Evangelion wraps tomorrow.

[accidentallyburneddownthelastone]

Old Hollywood cg's

toys with Elvis

They are all over the place, seriously even as the "responsible one" Elvis just sort of shrugs and goes "why put 'em away if we're jus gon take 'em right back out?"

[vintage-agere]

Cooling a tantrum

cg!Marlon Brando x little!reader

He has quite the temper himself

he wishes he could handle better

but he’ll probably just leave the room

you’re screaming, crying, and throwing things? “That’s nice doll” and he proceeds to leave the room entirely

will not come back until it sounds like you’ve simmered down

he’s listening from the other room, he just doesn’t want to make it worse

but as soon as the noise stops he’ll peak in to see what’s going on

you’re probably passed out on the floor

sure the whole room is a mess, but at least you’re taking a nap, right?

if he hears you just start flat out crying instead he’ll wander in and try to help, but he’s very hesitant about it because he’s fairly certain he can only make it worse

more than anything he’ll just let you cling to him

if that helps you he won’t move a muscle until he hears you relax

[moviewarfare]

A Review of “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024)”

The Andy Serkis Planet of the Apes prequel/reboot was one of the most surprisingly enjoyable modern trilogies. The second movie in particular, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, is phenomenal! It was a great conclusion and didn't need more but when has that stopped Hollywood? The 4th entry no longer has Andy Serkis or director Matt Reeves. It is a whole new beginning of a new trilogy. Does it live up to what was done before?

Firstly, the film is visually remarkable! In an era where it feels common to see bad CGI, it is just lovely to see a movie where the CG is amazing. It also has great cinematography with a lot of gorgeous-looking shots. The movie being set 300 years after War of the Planet of the Apes, results in some great-looking world design. Seeing these old human landscapes covered in green in the background really showcases the time skip. It is also fun to see as well, such as a Baseball Stadium or shopping mall as places the characters go through. I also appreciate that they don't acknowledge it because why would they know what a shopping mall is? These locations are for us the audience to appreciate.

It was also difficult to make a great new protagonist after the amazing Caesar but I find Noa a good new protagonist. He is incredibly likeable and relatable, which is why it was easy to root for him on his quest. Proximus was also a solid villain despite only coming into play in the second half of the movie. He is basically a cult leader who is very charismatic yet menacing. There is also a great supporting character in Raja, an Orangutan that Noa meets. He is a fun character for Noa to bounce off. The actors all do a phenomenal job with special praise to Kevin Durand as Proximus. The first half with the adventure between Noa and Raja is the most fun and engaging part of the film.

Unfortunately, the second half is just not as good. Once the story has the character stuck in one location is when it starts to become kind of dull. There are many scenes where the characters are just sitting around and talking while the plot barely moves. The movie ends up feeling too long when it could easily shave off 10 minutes to improve the pacing. The music score is also very underwhelming. Michael Giacchino sadly doesn't return to compose and is instead replaced by John Paesano. However, he didn't do a great job as I didn't feel like there was a memorable soundtrack that elevated any of the scenes.

One of the strong elements of the Caesar trilogy is the strong human character to balance out with the Apes. Rise with Franco, Dawn with Jason and Gary Oldman, and War with Woody Harrelson. Kingdom has Mae played by Freya Allan but her character is just not that strong. Her story is very vague as it feels like they are leaving that for the sequel. It leads to her not being that likeable or interesting. It gets annoying in the second half when it starts to feel like she is taking the main character role away from Noa.

Overall, Kingdom is not as good as the Caesar trilogy. However, it isn't as bad as I thought it would be. There is a lot of charm in this movie and it is an engaging coming-of-age story. The ending is also intriguing enough that I would love to see where the sequel would take the story.

For more reviews like this visit:

https://moviewarfarereviews.blogspot.com/

[tigertaurus22]

Okay, so, I just finished watching the new live-action One Piece last night.

I gotta say… I LOVED IT!

The choreography, the sets, the acting, the actors themselves and the makeup and costuming departments did phenomenally well!

Apparently, it was filmed in South Africa? Correct me if I’m wrong.

I think Sanji is my favorite

For someone that hasn’t actually watched the anime or read the manga (I mean I’ve seen it around but I was always too invested in something else to really start), this series was a wonderful introduction and has made me consider watching the anime just to see what the live action left out.

You know, for context. Though the live action did a great job at giving us that too.

From what I’ve gathered, each episode is an arc in the anime/manga, culminating in them finally making for the Grand Line. This means each episode is almost an hour long, but it’s definitely worth it.

Zef kinda makes me think of a cross between Gordon Ramsay and Gobber from Httyd. I feel like the former was intentional.

I like Luffy’s new accent and fluffy hair

Usopp and Kaya are adorable!

I can’t really tell what Sanji’s accent is. Is it French, British or Swedish?

I actually watched it with my mom, and she said it kinda reminded her of the old Hercules and Xena show. I can honestly see the resemblance.

We also argued about whether Coby’s hair was purple or blonde. I thought it was purple (well, more of a lilac).

Zoro was awesome, Nami was cool (and NOT a girl-boss!) and Buffy was actually a good villain. He’s like their version of the Joker almost.

This show was a breath of fresh, salty air from all the woke bullcrap we’ve been getting from Hollywood and other big-name media. I just hope that any other adaptations (anime, manga and video games) in the future can be made with just as much quality and care.

They’re likely going to have to CG Choppy if and when they get to him.

These are just my opinions and observations about the show

[yesterdanereviews]

Superman (1987)

Film review #556

Director: B. Gupta

SYNOPSIS: As the planet Krypton is about to be destroyed, the parents of a baby boy send him to Earth to escape the destruction. He lands in India and is raised by a couple who soon realise he has superhuman powers, but keep his powers a secret, naming him Shekhar. As an adult, he travels to the city in search of his childhood, Gita, while his old rival for Gita’s love, Verma, is a tycoon and super-villain who aims to become rich by causing a series of natural disasters across India and buying up the land cheap...

THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Superman is a 1987 Indian film and an unlicensed adaptation of the comic book superhero. This is not the first adaptation into Indian cinema either, with similar (unlicensed adaptations) in 1960 and 1980. The film’s story follows the typical Superman lore fairly accurately, as in the intro, we see the planet Krypton about to be destroyed, and a young baby boy being sent to earth as the only survivor. However, rather than landing in the rural U.S. as is canon, he instead lands in India, where a young couple find him and give him the name Shekhar. They soon learn he has superhuman powers, but tell him to keep them secret. When Shekhar is grown up, he heads to the city to find his childhood Gita, now working as a reporter (the “Lois Lane” of this version), while his old rival for Gita’s affections, Verma, is now a crime-lord who attempts to get rich by creating a series of natural disasters across India in order to buy the land up cheap (being the “Lex Luthor” of this film). The story, apart from being set in India, fits the established story quite well...a little too well, as it is essentially copying the 1978 Superman film point-for-point. The capsule which takes Superman to earth as a child is the exact shape as the one from the original film, but obviously made from silver foil rather than expensive (for the time) CG. Also, it straight up steals footage from the 1978 film’s ending, where Superman flies around the Earth so fast he turns back time, alongside using the John Williams theme is definitely has no permission for. As such, we can’t give the film too much credit for it’s story if it’s just taking it from an other successful film, but it follows the beats of the film fairly well. It also adds in some usual musical and dancing numbers, but these feel quite underwhelming compared to other films I’ve seen; almost like they were focused on making a Superman clone and had to add in musical numbers because that’s what Indian cinema does. Alongside this, they also use Michael Jackson’s “Beat it” in one dance scene, which again I’m pretty sure they did not have the rights to do so.

As mentioned, the characters from the Superman franchise are all recreated here quite faithfully, although being based in India rather than the U.S. Superman/Shekhar has Clark Kent’s naivety and Superman’s bravery, Gita has Lois Lane’s dogged determination, and Verma has Lex Luthor’s evil streak. We see the planet Krypton at the start of the film, adorned with a cheap set full of random coloured blocks, and there is also the fortress of solitude, where Superman goes to learn about his home planet, all loving recreated with nowhere near the budget of it’s Hollywood counterpart. Superman seems to have all of his powers such as super strength and flight, but also has telekinesis for some reason too, shown in a scene where he unwraps food and sets a table with his mind. The film has a decent mix of humour, action and drama, so it’s not uninteresting, although being released nearly ten years after the very successful film it is copying, I’m not sure if the audience would have already seen the original film subtitled or dubbed by that time. Nevertheless, I suppose it’s a pretty good adaptation of Superman, only because it is ripping off a good Superman film beat for beat. Otherwise, the obligatory dance and musical numbers are poor and uninspiring, and a bloated runtime of over two hours to incorporate more typical drama elements weighs the film down. The choreography, in both the musical numbers and the fight scenes is pretty dire, as you can obviously tell that none of the punches are connecting to anyone. Despite all this, it is still one of those films you really need to see to believe, so if your curiosity is piqued, then maybe you’d better put two hours aside to savour this cinematic wild ride.

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #669

Top Ten Films of the 2000s

As we draw towards the close of the year, I’m tempted to both look backwards at what’s gone, but also look ahead to what may be around the corner. We’ll be a quarter of a way through this new century, one which still feels like the future to me. It’s made me think about the films of the century – a topic I might return to next year – but in doing so I also looked back and realised that I needed to catch up with an old topic of mine. Which is: films of the decade!

A fair while ago now I ranked my favourite films from the eighties and nineties. And now, much belatedly, I return to the theme and rank my favourite films of the noughties. And it was quite a decade. The noughties felt defined in a lot of ways by films that came out around the turn of the millennium, but we also see the seeds of what would become popular in the following decade. The Matrix lead to loads of desaturated, bullet-time-heavy action films with goth-rock soundtracks; Pixar’s success kickstarted the CG animation boom; and a couple of fantasy-tinged epics helped usher in a new era of swords, sandals, and swollen runtimes. But we also saw the shoots of the later comic book boom; Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy made superheroes serious, whilst Raimi’s Spider-Man presaged the colourful, banter-heavy MCU films that followed.

It was a decade of transition as Hollywood moved away from star-led projects towards “IP”, in part fuelled by the success of brand-based, long-running film series such as Star Wars and Harry Potter. Meanwhile the heights of the DVD era not only allowed Disney to mine their back catalogue for stuff to sequalise, it also led to us all stacking our shelves with more diverse films, mopping up the kinds of foreign language movies, unseen classics, and niche genre fair that would have been expensive and more difficult to get hold of in the nineties.

It’s been really hard for me to rank these films, to be honest. Beyond the first three (technically five!) it was sort of anyone’s game; a lot of quality, but hard for me to sort it out the way I normally like to do. Ask me again in a couple of months and this might be structured a bit differently!

Anyway, that’s all the preamble, this is supposed to be a simple week. Let’s just go list ten films released between 2000 and 2009.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-03): look, I don’t even think it’s cheating. Lord of the Rings – taken as a whole entity – is probably the cinematic achievement of my lifetime, certainly of the last thirty years. It’s astounding that these films where made, when they were, in the fashion that they were, by the people who made them; it’s almost inconceivable that they turned out as well as they did. These are flat-out full-bore masterpieces of the highest calibre. Absolutely nothing whatsoever comes anywhere near them. They’re pretty good.

WALL-E (2008): my favourite Pixar film. Yes, it’s beautiful, and moving, and funny, and clever, and all that; many Pixar films are. But this is about the triumph of the human spirit, about rising from the ashes. And more, it’s a Superman story: it’s about someone who’s just so damn nice all the time, he inadvertently inspires everyone to be their better self. And it’s a love story. It’s damn good.

Zodiac (2007): Fincher’s best film, an incredibly dark and forensic examination not just of a series of killings, but also of the determined – obsessed? – individuals attempting to uncover the Zodiac’s identity. Astounding performances from three future MCU stars, and one of the bleakest, most upsetting murder scenes in history.

There Will Be Blood (2007): in the battle of the dark neo-Westerns of 2007, the (excellent) No Country for Old Men beat this one at the Oscars, but the story of oil man Daniel Plainview is the elegiac champ in my mind. An intimate character piece painted on a broad canvas, it’s a mesmerising examination of one man’s mania. And he drank your milkshake! He drank your milkshake!

Spirited Away (2001): my third-favourite Ghibli film overall and one of the best animated movies of the decade. A surreal fairy tail full of oddball characters and often disturbing visuals, it’s a magical wonder that manages to be suffused with tension and darkness but is ultimately incredibly uplifting.

Hot Fuzz (2007): the comedy of the decade, taking the template established in Shaun of the Dead and perfecting it, both in terms of Edgar Wright’s directorial style, but also in performance and – especially – scripting, with multiple layered gags, references, and call-backs – making this a violent, sweary, live-action version of an Aardman film. Also has arguably the best line of the noughties: “You wanna be a big cop in a small town, fuck off up the model village.”

The Dark Knight (2008): commonly thought of as the moment where comic book adaptations “grew up”, this is a sprawling Mann-esque crime epic where the cop happens to be Batman and the robber happens to be the Joker. Stunningly shot in what would become Nolan’s signature (cold?) style, it’s clever and mature and a ton of fun, even if it’s not quite as clever or mature or fun as it maybe thinks it is.

Moulin Rouge! (2001): a delightfully scattershot jukebox musical that’s like a glitterbomb going off in a student theatre society’s Christmas party. Energetic does not do it justice, it’s a rollercoaster of an audio-visual experience, but one that’s masterfully handled with two terrific performances at the heart of it, anchoring our emotional attachment. Should have won, like, half a dozen Oscars.

Pan’s Labyrinth (2006): another dark fairy tale, as a girl enters a threatening fairytale world that offers dangers and monsters, but is also weirdly an escape from the real horrors – namely the Franco dictatorship and a brutal Captain Vidal. Del Torro gives us sumptuous visuals and gorgeous creature designs, but it’s in its underlying themes and motifs that it really sings.

Munich (2005): Spielberg’s later films – basically anything post-Ryan – often get given short shrift; for one of the most successful directors of all time, he’s surprisingly underrated. This study of violence and vengeance is one of his most political films, and he doesn’t shy away from the horrors inflicted. It’s a bleak watch at times, but it’s in how Spielberg adroitly ties the Munich attack and its repercussions to America’s then-current War on Terror that makes it feel really dark.

Watch this space for the best films from the 2010s...!

[burningexeter]

OPERATION NO MAN SKY

This isn't a pitch but with that said, this is still an idea for a film that I want to make and already have several details about it written down so that there's an actual building ground instead of just making shit up as we go along.

Operation No Man Sky, hopefully coming to a theater one day in the future, is a WWII action-adventure steampunk film that carries the spirit of a 1920s adventure serial.

The premise is that set in 1943 during of course the second World War, we follow the daughter of a famed archeologist, Lilith Robinson, and a disgraced pilot forced to take the only job he can get, Cade Armstrong, discovering the Nazis' grand plan in winning this war and that's creating and controlling their own army of highly equipped robots and mechs.

I picture Carey Mulligan and Steve Zahn as the lead roles since I want the characters of Lilith and especially Cade to not be the stereotypical and generic action heroes who look like they just got out of make-up.

As for the movie's tone, saying that it carries the spirit of a 1920s adventure serial is just the bare basic for it. It's best described as a cross between Steven Spielberg's Raiders Of The Lost Ark and Stephen Sommers' The Mummy, the exact type of old school classic Hollywood adventure feel. But it'll clearly make it its own with the take on the tone being a bit more flippant and lightweight, taking itself seriously whenever it needs to be but at the same time not at all afraid to have fun with itself and not take itself SUPER seriously. I guess you could say it's more like Peter Jackson's original King Kong remake from 1996/97 that he was gonna do before the plug was pulled and he went on to make Lord Of The Rings, but less rushed and taking the Indiana Jones feeling and giving it a new look all around.

As for the effects, I want there to be a solid balance of both practical and CG without one overtaking the other. The effects will all be done by Weta Digital and Weta Workshop since I want to give the effects their own distinct aesthetic to them.

Now as for who is the director for it, that's interesting because I haven't quite got it down yet. However, I do have a shortlist — Robert Zemeckis, the Duffer Brothers, Adam Wingard, Jordan Vogt-Roberts and Christian Rivers.

Zemeckis has been in a huge slump with his last four movies and Rivers made his directorial debut with one of the biggest box office bombs ever Mortal Engines, so I want to give either one of them a hand.

What do you think of all this?

[fdotaku]

The Sublime Femdom of "Little Tyrant"

Preface: This is a review post about a non-porn, largely non-femdom story that deeply appeals to me personally, in part due to its major femdom themes. But don't expect fap material! It's a Chinese xuanhuan cultivation novel that was also adapted into a webtoon. If you're still curious, please hit the jump and brace yourself for an enthusiastic wall of text, sprinkled with beautiful art to try to help retain your attention.

Introduction I: A Dream of Mine

You can find countless varieties of fictional femdom these days. For example, there's drawn/rendered femdom porn in the form of comics/CG sets/games/still art, which is the main subject of this blog, i.e. "2D femdom". There's erotic literature, and voice dramas. There's a subset of photographic femdom porn that constitutes fiction. On top of that, a lot of fictional femdom eroticism is not porn: it's mass-marketed and often high-budget. Like scenes in Hollywood movies or music videos that involve sadistic women. Or anime with kinky dommes, often thrown in for comic relief.

All of us have different fictional/idealistic preferences and cognitive predispositions, which influence which mediums we take an interest in, and how we like to see our femdom fetishism represented in them.

Let me tell you about one of my dreams. For a while now, I've wanted to see a story with a plot that's genuinely interesting, and enjoyable in its own right… but with a protagonist who's unapologetically submissive, and a heroine who's dominant and for whom that dominance is respected and embraced within the work itself, who are romantically requited. That's right, I want a good piece of fiction to depict a satisfying femdom romance while also not having a romance focus. The femdom should be a feature, not a crutch to attract a niche to read a story they otherwise wouldn't.

We've at least moved past the old era where major 2D franchises' fictional characters could never have legitimized D/s kinks. For example, there's Darkness from KonoSuba or even better Tio from Arifureta. But those two are still far from my ideal, not least because they're cases of maledom rather than femdom. And editorial censorship is still rampant; such openly sadomasochistic lead characters could only be born because both of those series started as web novels, a medium which pushes the boundaries of acceptable expression.

Introduction II: The Core Premises are Regression and Cultivation

Now then, the subject of this article is a web novel called Little Tyrant Doesn't Want to Meet with a Bad End (Chinese name: 恶役少爷不想要破灭结局), authored by Bells on Cat Ears (猫耳铃铛).

Little Tyrant, which I'll call LTBE from now on, is a medieval fantasy web novel in which magic and even deities exist. The male lead is a 10-year-old boy named Roel Ascart who lives in a medieval fantasy world, and suddenly awakens to memories of his past life: he was a college student from our world, and in our world he played a ren'ai game called Eyes of the Chronicler… and bizarrely, this world is the very world of that game. Based on Roel's knowledge of the game's plot, he knows that the side character Roel who he's currently reincarnated as is a mean-spirited brat of a noble family which loses everything; after that, he joins an evil cult, and years later is justifiably murdered by the game's heroines. Roel doesn't understand why he's in this odd situation, but the memories of the "game" match up to this world, so he fears for his life. Thus, he desperately tries to proactively change his fate, which means acting differently toward others and taking his life more seriously.

Over the course of the full 670-chapter, more than 1 million-word epic novel that spans many years, he succeeds beyond his expectations, though he encounters almost equal adversity. He tries to make the heroines he fears "not hate" him (result: they fall in love with him, and vice-versa!), and become "strong enough to survive on his own" (result: he becomes badass!). This much isn't a spoiler; the fact that LTBE is a harem romance and has a conditionally overpowered protagonist are core selling points for this kind of web novel. The real pleasure is seeing how everything plays out. The story is quite complex and dramatic at times, with constant near-death experiences for Roel.

LBTE is both a regression novel and a cultivation novel. I'm not sure if you, reader, have read many regression novels or cultivation novels before. Cultivation refers to a power level trope in which strength is divided into "realms", higher realms are reached through diligent and methodical strategy, breakthroughs often require one to risk their life, and the strongest people have lengthy lifespans and god-like powers. Regression refers to a story about a person who time leaps to the past to redo their (or someone else's) life and fix mistakes. (You may recognize this specific kind of regression plot from "villainess" anime like Hamefura or 7th Time Loop; the regression of a spoiled young noble is a popular premise.) Whether you will like LBTE ultimately mostly depends on whether you will like either or both of these novel genres. The femdom is far from the core appeal. If you try it read LBTE just for the femdom and don't like the rest of it, you probably won't make it very far in!

Now that I'm about to talk about the femdom, let me make this completely clear. As I stated in my preface, this novel is not femdom BDSM porn. There's no pegging or chastity cages. There's no 24/7 D/s relationships or even outright submission. You shouldn't have excessively high expectations. However, LBTE still has what I consider the most unapologetic femdom dynamic of any mainstream story I've ever read. And the story is actually good on top of that (if you like this kind of novel)! That's why I praise it as "sublime" in the title of this post.

Dominant and Controlling Heroines, and a Submissive Hero

LBTE is a little different from a typical power fantasy. It's not a story where the male lead is OP and the heroines are his sycophants.

The physical dynamic: For one, all four of the heroines are significantly stronger than Roel in a conventional context. Technically, if Roel is in perfect form and goes all-out and unleashes his trump cards in a battle to the death, he's stronger than the heroines. However, that kind of heroic scenario that makes Roel looks cool only happens at climactic moments. For the vast majority of the story, Roel either is forced to hide his power, he can't tap into it, or most often of all, he's in a severely weakened state as a result of his power's backlash. The four heroines, on the other hand, are absolute geniuses who possess combat ability that won't lose to anyone their age. They also wield greater wealth and/or influence than Roel. That means that for the entire novel, the heroines are almost always free to physically do whatever they want with Roel, and it's difficult for him to physically resist them. He often has to negotiate, or play on their emotions (they do that to him more than he does it to them, though!) if he wants to evade their advances.

The personality dynamic: Roel is a massive tsundere. He has a lot to worry about, and many secrets. Therefore, he tries to keep his distance from the heroines, aided by his sharp tongue and self-confident demeanor, despite how much he cares about them. However, they don't let him. They quickly realize he's all bark and no bite. He can't bring himself to ever say a mean word to them, and rarely ever pushes them away when they start to be intimate with him, unless it's in public and they refuse to let go of him quickly. They frequently play on his emotions, and he's even described as "weak to their tears". The heroines also often flirt with him forwardly in ways that make him actually blush. The novel isn't subtle about this dynamic, either. The narrative states that "the Ascarts' men seemed to have an inclination toward dominant women" in chapter 328, and "in view of the Ascarts’ odd preference for dominant women, Nora and Charlotte had paid particular attention to Lilian ever since enrollment" in chapter 332.

Yes, he's whipped, he's the bottom rung in this novel's love polygon, and I love it. That's just the kind of femdom hero I idealize: someone who doesn't have a subconscious insecurity about the fact that the girl they love is strong and assertive, and thus doesn't try to suppress her dominant demeanor, but instead plays the perfect counterpart to it, legitimizing and affirming it. There are many male leads in other stories who, when faced with a domineering heroine, will suddenly act in a way that sweeps her off her feet, and causes her sadistic smile to transform into a maidenly blush, as if her dominance was just a bluff or thin pretense to cover her true personality. I assure you, LBTE is not like that.

From here on, I'll talk about the heroines in detail, and you should expect SPOILERS. If you want to try this novel yourself first, I recommend that you skip down to the section "Where To Read It" instead.

Nora Xeclyde, the Sadistic Saintess

Nora Xecylde, the princess and future pope of the Saint Mesit Theocracy, is by far the most dominant heroine in LBTE, and also the only one of the four heroines explicitly called "sadistic" in the narrative. She experiences joy from abusing and trampling on others. In the original timeline that only Roel knows, she had to hide her true self for the sake of political stability, but she unleashed these cruel tendencies in combat as a way to relieve stress, which led to her being famous as the "Bloodthirsty Angel" who torturously butchered her enemies on the battlefield. That history changes when she meets Roel, the son of a noble who's part of her father's political faction, and she quickly discovers that is somehow aware of her true personality that she'd tried to hide. After realizing that he's someone who can keep a secret, she relishes the chance to toy with him and express her unusual desires; she's amused by him, especially his fear of her. Her sadism is also how she expresses her love, and over the course of the story, the more she truly cares for him, the more bullying him truly grants her happiness.

Nora's character is quite deep, and she's by far the best "femdom heroine" in LBTE. My brief summaries here won't do justice to all of a lengthy development she receives; you'll need to read the novel itself for that. Over the course of the story, Roel frequently complains about how perverted she is and expresses aversion to being the subject to her sadism, but from the start he acknowledges and accepts it completely. In one occasion where she expresses self-doubt about how her perversions make it hard for him to have a relationship with her, he vehemently corrects her and tells she shouldn't change, that her nobility, spirit of self-sacrifice, kindness, and sadism are all irreplaceable parts of who she is. She frequently talks as if he is already her property, or says that she wishes he would lie down and let her step on him, tie him up, and so on. On special occasions when he wants to make her happy, he'll even proactively cooperate with her wishes. Of course, her magically cultivated physique is superior to his, so he can't physically resist her anyway.

Early on, Roel and Nora meet Victoria Xecylde and Ponte Ascarte, distant relatives of their respective families who are also in a romantic relationship. What's incredible is that those two also have a somewhat femdom dynamic, and the story deeply emphasizes this. Ponte's powers actually have a ritualistic penalty which requires him to keep journals of his embarrassing thoughts, show them to at least one other person, and make sure they are never destroyed. Since he's Victoria's bodyguard, he ends up having to show her his journals in which he fawns over how cute she is and writes other fetishistic thoughts about her… despite being technically a married man (purely political and loveless; they haven't seen each other for many years). Victoria uses this as blackmail material to keep him under her thumb, and constantly teases him; she's also attracted to him, and tries to persuade him to elope with her (and eventually they do!). One pair of sentences I particularly like: "The two princesses of the Xeclydes displayed their dominant personalities, leaving the two subdued Ascart boys looking at one another. They suddenly realized just how low of a standing they seemed to have before these two women." And take a look at this humorous excerpt:

Roel didn’t just look at their interactions but the atmosphere around them and the subtle gestures they made too. While Victoria had hidden it well, from time to time, she would still exude a certain disposition that he was deeply familiar with. He shot a glance toward the well brought up Nora, and he suddenly understood where her sadistic tendencies had originated from. It’s a hereditary trait that shows up once every few generations, huh? Perhaps it was because she had sensed Roel’s thoughts, but Nora suddenly turned her head over and stared at him. Under her intent gaze, he quickly averted his eyes, only to be met with Ponte’s gaze right after. The two boys of the Ascart House exchanged looks, and they suddenly felt a sense of camaraderie with one another. It was a feeling of deep connection created by mutual sympathy for one another, due to suffering through the same plight. They were like oppressed peasants ready to raise up in arms against the Xeclyde girls… … though it was not as if they would really dare to do so. Their rebellion would probably just be quelled in an instant.

Most of all, I love the way Roel and Nora's relationship evolves after her second major character arc, a life-and-death crisis which is the most memorable arc to me. I'll hold back on details, but in that arc, he crafts a special magical tool for her, one which saves her from despair and also reaffirms the deep connection between the two of them. However, after the arc is over, it becomes clear that Nora now has full mastery of that tool, and can unexpectedly use it to control and dominate Roel. It's romantic and endearing how he finds himself unwilling to complain at having it used on him after she reminds him of the circumstances of the gift.

Perhaps to counterbalance her sadism, Nora is actually the main heroine who treats Roel with the most respect. She's the only one of the four who never outright kidnaps him.

Alicia Ascart, the Clingy Stepsister

Alicia is adopted by Roel's father shortly before the story of LBTE begins, and is a pretty but otherwise seemingly ordinary girl two years younger than her new stepbrother. However, Roel knows from the plot of the game Eyes of the Chronicler that Alicia is actually incredibly talented as a transcendent (magic user), and would become a church-affiliated assassin after the "side character" Roel Ascart mistreats her. And so, he's determined to make sure he treats her well in this life. But Roel accidentally dotes on his sister so hard that she falls obsessively in love with him. After that, she becomes a master schemer, and pretends to be a meek, innocent, and gentle little sister so that he will completely let down his guard around her.

I'll take this opportunity to provide an important disclaimer: if you're the kind of person who applies real-world psychological models to the behavior of regressors toward other young non-regressors and often finds it problematic, you may want to stay away from LBTE. Furthermore, if you don't like the idea of a young girl who isn't even double digits yet lusting after her brother who's barely older than her, you may want to stay away too! Yes, this novel is like that at times. Of course, she's just a kid, so there's no actual sexual acts or explicit descriptions, just, uh, a very physical obsession with him. She's seriously a horny kid. The webtoon adaptation (more on that later) actually chooses to turn a 1-year time skip into a 3-year time skip, and gives the heroines very full figures, and I think Alicia might be half the reason why. But anyway, back to the subject of femdom.

Alicia not only keeps her affections a secret from Roel, so when she's physically intimate with him, he believes that she's just overly attached to her brother. And she keeps her power level a secret too, so that when she casts spells to send him into a deep sleep to stop his resistance when she sneaks into his bed at night, he doesn't suspect that she's the reason for his suddenly sleepiness. At one point, she does this when they're on a road trip, but screws up, so Roel's guards mistake her for a succubus-like monster and almost attack her. In any case, while he's in a magic-induced sleep, she will often kiss him a lot, and her behaviors both in the day and in the night are specifically designed by her to try to make him emotionally dependent on her and unable to live without her or unable to do what would make her unhappy. Later on in the novel, she uses her power as a kind of magical aphrodisiac, and she eventually secretly employs actual aphrodisiacs (just once, though; Roel does NOT appreciate this, and makes that clear). At one point, Alicia gives romantic advice to another woman and reveals a bit too much of her character in the process:

“When it comes to quickly advancing a relationship, the best way is still to rely on drugs.” “Ah? Drugs?” Chris was horrified to hear a potential criminal plan coming from a young woman's mouth. What further frightened her was how naturally Alicia mentioned it, as if it was perfectly normal. “That's right. Lord Brother is a smart person, but he's innocent when it comes to relationships. As long as I can 'secure' him, it would be my victory.” “No, I mean, won't most people get angry at something like that?” “Of course. Lord Brother would definitely get angry, but I'm not afraid. I just have to burst into tears, and that would soften his heart right away.” This woman is terrifying!

All of the Ascart family's servants (mostly maids) are Alicia's allies, who secretly support her in her efforts to advance her relationship with her brother; the plan is to eventually have her father un-adopt her, and then re-marry into the Ascart house formally, which would be societally acceptable. Her Origin Attribute that forms the basis of her transcendent powers is Perfection, which means that she grows in power the more she engages in efforts to be what she considers 'perfect'. And she chooses to be the 'perfect younger sister' and the 'perfect wife'. Alicia's personality is very yandere-ish, as she was the first heroine to meet him and wants to monopolize him; she's sweet to him, but cold and ruthless to those she views as her enemies. Well, later on in the novel, there's a major shake-up related to the secret of her bloodline, which leads her into brief dramatic confrontation with Roel, so it's not as if that coldness is never directed at him, either.

Charlotte Sorofya, the Merchant Heiress

The first scene with Charlotte introduces her as a high status young lady who uses her divination abilities to declare that a businessman associated with her family had become involved in gambling, and cut him off financially. Her ability to see through things and her calm personality and leadership abilities appear intimidating at first. That said, it's soon revealed that her racist mother abandoned her because Charlotte has some elven blood, and she yearns to have a family that truly loves her. Her Loyalty Origin Attribute also causes her to be unable to betray whoever she falls in love with, so she's clearly heroine material. In fact, for the most part, she's the least dominant of the four heroines. She never purposefully humiliates him like Nora, and never helps herself to his body while he can't resist like Alicia.

However, it's exactly because she is so sincere that she can without hesitation commit crimes to try to requite her love for Roel. And her gentle demeanor just makes it scarier. Charlotte's first character arc and second character arc happen one after the other… because she falls in love with him in her first arc, and kidnaps him in her second arc! This is still probably the second most memorable arc of the entire novel to me. She "stealth kidnaps" him such that he himself doesn't realize that he has been kidnapped even weeks later, coming up with various excuses and lies that let her take him further and further away from his home. When he's finally about to realize the truth of his situation, she suddenly asks him in a very meek way if he will forgive her if she does something wrong, and when he reluctantly says that he will, the next moment, she knocks him unconscious! And when he next wakes up, he finds himself in her bed in the neighboring nation. What's unique is that while she does all this out of a determination to marry him (well, she's also afraid that she'll be separated from him and thus unable to continue to provide him with critical medical treatment), she's still afraid of him hating her, so she comes up with all kinds of ways to ply him, which includes bribes. As the future leader of a nation ruled by merchants, her personal wealth in unimaginable, and she doesn't hesitate to offer to pay Roel for his forgiveness, and since he's desperate for money for various reasons, he always accepts. Roel is also familiar with the characteristics of her Origin Attribute and knows that she will always love him, so as the person who caused her to fall in love, he also feels some responsibility for her extreme behavior.

At the start of Charlotte's first arc, Alicia actually schemes with Nora and the Ascart family servants to frame Roel as a cruel womanizer, all to make Charlotte lose interest in him. For a while, they actually succeed, and the result is that for a period of time Charlotte looks at Roel, as well as speaks to him, like he is human trash. Her behavior honestly felt like femdom fanservice to me… I've actually fantasized about this kind of plot device, where a character is framed and it causes a heroine who could've loved him to despise him instead, in a femdom context many times. Also, while Charlotte is for the most part hands-off and gentle, she's not above teasing Roel either:

“How do you intend to measure me without using a measuring tape?” asked Roel in confusion. There was a gleam in Charlotte's eyes as she raised her hand and waved it about. “I'll be using this.” Under the dim lighting of the Dancing Butterfly Manor, a faint blush could be seen forming on Charlotte's beautiful face. She softly placed her dainty hands on Roel's chest and used her fingers to measure the breadth of Roel's chest. Roel felt awkward at the situation. The two of them were so close that all it took was a step forward to embrace her soft body. He could feel Charlotte's warm breath tickling his neck, and it sent a shudder to run through his body. “Ah. Did I tickle you by accident?” asked Charlotte. “No, it's fine.” Roel turned his head away and refuted her question. Charlotte stared at him intently for a while when realization suddenly struck her. Her lips curled upward. Instead of taking a step back, she took another step forward. “Is that so? I'll continue then,” said Charlotte with a teasing note to her voice. She placed her finger on Roel's chest once more and resumed her measurement of his chest, but her focus wasn't on the measurement this time around. She kept fidgeting during her measurement, causing her body to constantly lean in and bump into Roel's. … On the other hand, Charlotte was getting more and more absorbed in her teasing, especially when she noticed the gradual reddening of Roel's cheeks. It took her all she had to hold back her laughter, but it still didn't take long for him to catch onto her prank.

But for the most part, Charlotte does not express much dominance compared to the other heroines.

Lilian Ackermann, the Cool Senior

There's no doubt that Lilian is an imperious and authoritative character. After all, she's been in ruthless competition with her brothers for the imperial throne since she was a child. She doesn't have anyone she can trust. Overall, she's incredibly smart, powerful, and competent, and Roel is a noble a nation which is her empire's chief rival, so from the start of their relationship as fellow students, she takes pains to not be friendly with her junior Roel. That said, she and Roel eventually discover a certain mysterious connection that leads them to trust each another, but you'll have to read the novel itself if you want more details on that.

However, what truly amazes me about Lilian is her second arc and its massive oneshota energy. (This is another one of those arcs where my above disclaimer about people sensitive to "problematic" content in fantasy stories applies! Then again, if you can't tolerate lowkey oneshota you probably can't tolerate half of Japanese femdom, so you're probably? not a reader of this blog...) Simply put, Roel is magically transformed into a little kid as a side effect of his powers. This not only makes him physically smaller and weaker, it somehow makes him more emotionally unstable. Oh, and his clothes don't fit him anymore, so Lilian initially offers him a used towel that smells like her to wrap around his waist. Meanwhile, another character advises and tempts Lilian (who has just fallen in love with Roel) to try to take advantage of this situation to cement her relationship with him.

Yep, that's correct, this whole arc is about the heroine scheming to seduce a pseudo-shota. I'm not even exaggerating at all; the prose is outright psychoerotic:

Looking at the adorable little creature in her arms made Lilian feel like an arrow had shot right into [her] heart. Her breathing that had remained stable even as she scaled across mountains turned erratic, and her body started to heat up. … How would he taste like [referencing a deep kiss] in his current form? … Lilian stared at the person on the bed as her breathing hastened. She placed her trembling hands on his oversized clothes, knowing that she could remove it all with just a simple tug. Words couldn't begin to describe how attractive that notion was to her, but she felt like she would completely lose control if she gave in to her desires.

The issue here was that Roel had retained his hypersensitivity to mana as an Origin Level 4 transcendent despite losing his powers, resulting in the suppression he felt from Lilian being abnormally powerful. Naturally, the instinctive fear he felt toward her was much stronger too. So, Lilian changed her strategy right away. She first reined in her mana that had gotten lively due to her agitated emotions before slowly approaching the boy with steady footsteps. She tried to make her expression look as gentle and friendly as possible so as to not appear threatening. On the other hand, Roel was feeling greatly panicked and confused. His logical mind told him that the person before him was Lilian, someone whom he could trust, but for some reason, there was a pang of fear in his heart that identified her as a menacing threat that he mustn’t get close to. It was like the innate fear a peasant felt when standing before the emperor, a sense of inferiority toward a higher life form. It was so oppressive that he dared not to even look into Lilian’s eyes. Even when he felt the bed undulating from her climbing onto it and crawling over to his side, his eyes still remained firmly lowered, not daring to raise them in the least. On the bed, Lilian was crawling up to where Roel was, but the latter was still looking downward with a reddened face. Roel was feeling conflicted at the moment. On one hand, his innate fear was prompting him to stay away from Lilian, but on the other hand, he was enchanted by the gorgeous woman before him. These two intense feelings pricked at his nerves. Terrifying… but beautiful. I want to get close to her.

The solemn vow made Roel raise his head and look at her with widened eyes. This was the first time he was looking straight at her since the regression of his body. He found himself met with a pair of clear amethyst eyes that were tender and determined. They gleamed brightly as if there were stars in them, and the only thing reflected in them was him. The woman who stood firmly behind a towering fortress to protect him from the dangers beyond surfaced in his mind, and slowly, the fear he felt from the suppression of Origin Levels disappeared. In its place came a flood of shame. He felt awful for fearing someone who was willing to put her life on the line for him. Lilian noticed Roel’s self-reproach, but she didn’t say a word at all. She simply opened her arms wide with a smile, her action far surpassing the significance of any words. “I’m sorry, senior,” murmured Roel hoarsely. The two of them embraced one another right after. Roel was unable to reach Lilian’s shoulder due to his miniaturized physique, resulting in him being buried into Lilian’s breasts across the towel. He was uncomfortable with this, but at the same time, a mixture of gratitude and affection made him reluctant to part from her… not to mention that he was indeed unable to move at all. Lilian’s arm was holding his waist firmly, causing their bodies to be pressed together. He could hear her hastened heartbeat loud and clear. Bloodline resonance, despite being weakened, naturally occurred between the two of them. Time ticked by, and their bodies began flushing red.

That other character I mentioned, a mysterious ally with a seductive personality, tells Lilan that if she doesn't make Roel hers consensually, Lilian's inner darkness will compel her to forcefully make him hers later, and describes this doomsday scenario: "He will try to stop you, but can't. He'll be ruined by soft-heartedness in the end. He can't bring himself to kill you, and you will exploit his weakness to defeat him. By then, that twisted love of yours will compel you to murder all of the women by his side. What else will you do once your obsession for him runs amok? I reckon that imprisoning him is only the appetizer…" And crazily enough, Lilian knows in her heart that what the other character tells her is true: "Indeed, she was shaken not because of the terrifying prediction but by the realization that she actually felt a hint of anticipation for it. The feeling wasn't strong, but it proved that such dark thoughts did exist in the recesses of her mind."

Over the course of this arc, she also dresses up as a maid and Roel dresses like nobility, so they disguises themselves as a young master and his caretaker. Note that the novel specifically mentions that the maid outfit is very conservative, not at all like the maid cosplay Roel recalled from his previous life's memories, yet in the webtoon adaptation, they ditch that and just dress her in a sexy maid outfit. Hooray for non-faithful adaptations?

That's it for my overview of the main heroines' femdom elements, and I think I covered many of their best femdom moments. Let me just close by making two further points for the record. First, there's still a lot more femdom that I just didn't take the time to describe, so look forward to it. And second, don't forget that this is above all an epic action story with a genuinely rich setting, and a badass male lead; I just made him look pathetic because I highlighted all the moments where he's at his most vulnerable, which is in front of the heroines. But he seriously is a badass; just look at this Stand of his.

Where to Read It

You're in luck! The entire Chinese web novel has been licensed and officially translated by the website Hostednovel, and is available to read for free on their ad-supported website. That said, if you're so inclined, you may want to buy the cheap ebooks on Amazon which cover I believe ~70 and ~90 chapters each, around the first quarter of the entire epic, since those have been further edited. This TL project, which started exactly 4 years ago and finished around 7 months ago, has been a major labor of love by the prolific and experienced translator StarveCleric and their editors, even running a fan art contest. The Fandom wiki is also highly detailed.

As for the webtoon, that's a little more complicated. The original Chinese version of it was recently completed with 97+1 chapters total. ZeroScans fan scanlated to English 36 chapters of it, and it was licensed and officially scanlated by the international version of Bilibili Comics under the name "Evil Young Master Doesn't Want a Bad Ending" and scanlated there up to I believe chapter 59, but then the entire site shut down so it's not available anymore legally. Then as far as I can tell, the website Manuafast did a low quality scanlation of the rest of the chapters. So the only way to read it is to, for example, read the first 36 chapters on MangaDex and the finish the rest on a site like Manhuafast which pirates official scans to fill the gaps. Furthermore, the webtoon abruptly cut the story short, i.e it was axed: 95 webtoon chapters cover around 400 of the 670 novel chapters, then from the very start of webtoon chapter 96 it abruptly time skips and summarizes major future events, lore dumps, and adapts the last few novel chapters. Whatever you do, don't read past chapter 95 of the webtoon before you've read the full novel. Furthermore, the webtoon itself, while pretty to look at it, doesn't adapt all the details of the story, so I personally suggest you only use the webtoon as a way to check whether you like the style of LBTE's story, before you switch to the novel.

Final Thoughts

At the beginning, I wrote about a dream of mine. So, does LBTE realize that dream? Honestly, not quite. While LBTE is indeed a good piece of fiction that doesn't have a femdom focus, and it's also mainstream to the point that it received a webtoon adaptation and localization, it doesn't quite reach my ideal for a "satisfying femdom romance". Close, though. The reason is that Roel, while being a bit submissive, isn't submissive enough to completely receive Nora's sadism. She's constantly holding herself back for his sake.

I think the fundamental difficulty in seeing this "dream" realized is that the more explicit a story's BDSM, the more that story is likely to narrow in on the romance and take time to justify it and contextualize it. Nana to Kaoru (maledom) is like that. Many josei demographic femdom romance manga similarly try to characterize BDSM as a metaphor for trust, to try to make it seem less crazed to the vanilla. And in Arifureta (again, maledom), there's one arc where Hajime, a semi-closet sadist, and Tio, a brazen masochist, are mysteriously transported to another world by themselves, and they take advantage of the situation where no one knows them, to have Hajime fit her with a dragon-sized ballgag and whip her while riding her around in her dragon form; that incredible scene could only happen because they effectively left the main story behind and went off on a honeymoon, so there are no spectators. From easiest to hardest to see in a mainstream franchise, I think it's ranked like this: openly masochistic heroine < openly sadistic heroine < openly sadistic male lead < openly masochistic male lead. In particular, an openly masochistic male lead is a very hard sell to a lot of people; the #1 complaint I saw from English-speaking fans about LBTE is that the male lead let the heroines push him around too much. Still, I continue to dream. Similar to how IMO gay romances are best when they ditch the overly self-conscious drama and secrecy and just have side characters be casually supportive, one day I hope to see some femdom relationships where side characters are aware of it, understand it, and respect it. Web novels, and perhaps even web manga, will probably lead the way.

When I first read LBTE, I was so surprised and happy with what I found that I decided I had to post about it. And so, here we are. As I wrote at the very start: LBTE isn't a story every femdom fan will enjoy, because it's not outright erotica. But I hope this review has at least helped you appreciate its existence.

Side Talk

I first read this story back in April-May, and took extensive notes and screenshots as I read it to prepare for this post. And now, it's finally done… like I said before, I have many ideas for other posts. The next one I come up with will definitely be smaller in scale and not involve as much research. Lately, I've been playing a lot of Japanese femdom RPGs, so maybe I'll talk about those.

This year, the credit card duopoly has also been contacting various Japanese web platforms that sell 2D adult content one after another, 90% of those platforms not making any changes and losing access to the VISA/Mastercard systems, which now makes it harder sometimes for foreign users (as well as domestic Japanese users, if the alternatives are inconvenient to them) to buy from them. Of course, this affects femdom content. It's an unfortunate trend, but the steadfast resistance of many business has been reassuring. I probably won't bother to post a sequel to my post about femdom censorship, in part because I feel that excessive English language attention to this controversy can only worsen the situation, so I'll just sum up here what's happened. Getchu is the only company that seemingly outright folded to these companies and deleted industry content (old hypnosis fetish games). DLsite, which also runs Ci-en, changed their tags (in a sadly clownish way that I think was counterproductive) hoping to appease the duopoly, it wasn't enough anyway for the duopoly and they were forced to cut ties, but the tag names are still altered. Pixiv didn't change much; the status quo is mostly what I described in my previous post, except automated scanning of text inside images has now led some Fanbox users to preemptively censor some sensitive terms with the 〇 character. Other notable companies targeted include Fanza/DMM, Niconico (yes, the video site), Skeb, and Toranoana. And many more have been targeted but just received less attention, or people don't know about it. However, a few days ago, Yamada Tarou and Akamatsu Ken met with the VP of VISA in Japan and put pressure on them, which apparently could result in a reversal of this trend. As usual, it's hard to know the full story of what's happening behind the scenes, but if you ask me for my personal opinion, I'm not worried that the 2D femdom is any serious danger, because Japanese companies have collectively taken an anti-censorship stance, the Japanese public also vehemently criticizes this censorship, and most sales are domestic plus the Japanese have other payment methods to fall back on which lessens the financial impact on companies. Sites like Fanbox continue to support a larger variety of innovative femdom creators than ever before. In my highly amateur opinion, the only thing that I think could threaten this status quo would be if there's a significant domestic legal or political pressure which forces the major companies to switch their stance as a whole, or over the long term increased foreign investment results in greater foreign influence on the anime industry as a whole which results in a shift in norms.

All right, that's it from me; have a nice day.

[gaykarstaagforever]

Disney...come on...

Is this all we're doing with Star Wars now? Hours of flat, pointless lore shit only the worst people on the Internet care about (because they're mad that you got it wrong), with a tiny random cameo by part of Yoda at the very end?

You paid like $4 billion for this property. And you made one mediocre trilogy that was itself mostly confused references to the old movies, two good seasons of one TV show (The Mandalorian), then a whole bunch more TV and movie crap that amounts to pointing at the logo and going "See? SEE?!"

I didn't see Andor and I absolutely do not care about more stupid Space Conflict lore garbage, but people seem to like that. But people also seemed to like Rogue One, and, besides Donny Yen, I fucking hated that movie. But I also actually liked the Solo movie, so apparently I live in a pocket dimension that consists of exactly me and no one else.

My point is, you need to goddamn figure out what it is that is worthwhile about this IP, and focus on that. And the answer is "the three genuinely good movies from 50 years ago."

Those movies were a fluke, in that they were way better than they had any right to be, entirely because they were written and produced by boring Hollywood professionals who were just doing a job they were probably sick of. That's how that happened. The rest is Baby George Lucas bouncing around, screaming about how he likes Flash Gordon and DUNE and Triumph of the Will. And we know that second thing is not enough to make good movies, because that's what the Prequel Trilogy was, and aside from the podracing, those were also mid to awful.

...People also seem to hate the podracing. I guess that's another me in the pocket dimension thing.

Whatever. Stop making Yoda bonus DLC at the end of crap. Stop making weird CG versions of old and / or dead people bonus DLC at the end of crap. Just hire boring Hollywood people to do more stuff with the 70s characters, recast with young sexy actors, because that is all anyone likes and is coming here for. The rest of this is just wasted time and money.

"YEAH BUT THAT WAS BACK WHEN STAR WARS WAS 100% WHITE AND STRAIGHT, YOU TROLL!"

It's not my fault Disney keeps putting brown lesbians in bad movies and TV shows. One could argue they are only doing that because they KNOW this stuff is shit otherwise, and hope to hide behind their virtue-signaling. Which makes the brown lesbians look bad. And that's not good for anyone, especially the brown lesbians.

If you need Disney Stellar Struggle to provide you with queer media representation, you need to stop being a small child in Kudzu Country. They're not qualified to do that, and they do it terribly. Go elsewhere for that. Stop rewarding their shit version of that. Speaking as a big fat homo, I'd prefer Disney shut up and go back to the one thing they're good at, which is paying skinny teens to over-dance to remixed pop versions of cartoon movie songs from the 40s and 50s in overpriced theme parks. That's also lame, but in a fun way. Bad queer representation in crap scifi media isn't even the fun kind of lame. It's just embarrassing and gross.

Hire boring Hollywood people and let them make a good movie about good characters that people care about, that weren't specifically engineered solely to deflect criticism with pastiche liberal bullshit. Stop letting executive vice presidents of analytics stop the entire production and order rewrites because a computer told them people in Eastern Canada need less shots of fingernails. You can't make art nor product like this. As proven by the last 15 years of forgettable pointless Disney shit.

Luke Skywalker and R2 can hang out exclusively with brown lesbians. No one would care if it was written better.

...Okay. Obviously Ben Shapiro and Charlie Kirk and Shad Brooks would still care. But they are easily shouted down.

The writing (and production in general) are the problem, here. Probably because of this virus of "design by executive committee" shit, that is also murdering the MCU.

Disney has a LOOONG history of being bad at live action stuff. See the late 60s through the mid 90s. And always for the same reason: executive demands, based on mythical market "research". That has been demonstrably wrong and useless for 60+ years now.

Yoda isn't a cool extra. This is supposed to BE ABOUT Yoda. Stop using him as icing on your flavorless virtue-signaling cellulose cake.