#omotion

[princepsed]

My brain is occupied by an foreign object called “Love”

[tanuki-kimono]

Most formal outfits for upper ranks samurai - Sokutai and Ikan formal court dress

(as worn by upper-ranked samurai of the Edo period - great charts by Nadeshico Rin). You can find more about samurai ranks and their regulated attires under the tag "samurai kimono".

The Sokutai

束帯 Sokutai is the most formal attire worn by Edo period samurai of the 4th rank and above.

It first appeared during Heian era as a ceremonial court dress worn by 公卿 kuge (nobility/Imperial court) and 殿上人tenjôbito (courtiers/court official​s). Usage was kept well into Edo period by both the Imperial court and the Tokugawa shogunate.

The intricated garb includes:

冠 Kanmuri - hat, with distinctive 垂纓 suiei "tail" hanging in the back. Materials could include silk, lacquer or horsehair and were strickly regulated

袍 Hô - a round-necked robe with large boxy sleeves. Colors and patterns were strickly regulated.

Shown here is a pattern used by the Shôgun, the 葵に丁子唐草 Aoi ni chôji karakusa (cloves with arabesques, and hollyhock leaves - which is the Tokugawa crest)

笏 Shaku - flat ritual sceptre

平緒 Hirao - a wide flat braid wrapped around the body with ties left hanging up front. Colors and weaves were strickly regulated

(飾)太刀 (Kazari)-Tachi - (mock) long sword for ceremonial use

表袴 Ue-no-bakama (or omote-bakama) - white overpants, shorter hakama pants worn over the aka-ôkuchi

赤大口(袴) Aka-ôkuchi(bakama) - red underpants, a tad longer than the overpants

下襲(の裾) Shitagasane(no-kyo) - visible train part of an inner robe worn under the 袍 hô. During Edo period, train lenght got up to 1丈 (around 3 meters/10 feet).

襪 Shitôzu - a type of ancient socks (construction is different than tabi - they don't have a sole for ex.)

石帯 Sekitai - leather belt used in ceremonial court dress, covered in black lacquer, and decorated with stones and jewels

The Ikan

衣冠 Ikan - while still very formal and worn by Edo period samurai of the 4th rank and above, ikan looked much more simpler than sokutai.

First used for nightime duties (夜間宿直) in Heian era, it gradually came to be worm during daytime too. From Muromachi period and onwards, it had become the work uniform of the Imperial court.

Like sokutai, it uses the hô+kanmuri, and wearers were allowed to carry kazari-tachi. Yet, note how the pants differ from sokutai ones: those are large bouffant pants called 指貫 sashinuki (or 奴袴 nubakama).

You can also note that wearer here is not holding a shaku scepter: it's a folded 檜扇 hiôgi (formal folding fan made of cypress also of Heian history. Those were unpatterned as painted ones were for women).

[yaoi-reading]

Ura Omote no Koiwazurai

[dampfloks]

Dampflokomotive Yvonne von 1893 auf dem Festival Vapeur der 3-Täler Dampfeisenbahn. Leider am ersten Tag zum Teil mit sehr wechselhaften Wetter, was bei der offenen Bauart dieser hübschen Lok etwas ungemütlich ist. Aber die beiden Herren auf der Lok ließen sich nicht entmutigen und waren bester Laune. So durfte ich auch einmal auf diese wunderschöne Lokomotive, die früher Ihre Arbeit bei einer Mine in Liege verrichtet hat.

Steam locomotive Yvonne from 1893 at the Festival Vapeur of the 3-Valleys Steam Railway. Unfortunately, on the first day, the weather was partly very changeable, which is somewhat uncomfortable with the open design of this pretty locomotive. But the two gentlemen on the look were not discouraged and were in the best of moods. So I was allowed to step on this beautiful locomotive, which used to work at a mine in Liege.

[mugami-jmn]

[yurioutofcontext]

Seiyuu Radio no Ura Omote - Kō Nigatsu

[waterlinkedgirl]

Musical Touken Ranbu: Gou on Stage ~ Satomi Hakkenden; New Edition english sub

At long long last I am able to present you the subtitles for the senshuuraku of Goumyu! After a very turbulent year, I'm glad to be lowkey picking up subtitling again. For this performance, though, I won't be able to do a tl notes file. If I were fair to myself, I'd allow myself to write my grievances with what Goumyu's plot does to what had been established for Kogitsunemaru and Mikazuki when those are relevant, but if I were fair to you all, I wouldn't give you a file that's 90% complaining and 10% actual notes or background.

Don't let my grievances distract from the performance though, it's still genuinely fantastic even if the theming choices may be painful to me. Especially Oodenta is fantastic. Goodness gracious.

Keep in mind that this is only the subtitle file, timed and tled to the DMM senshuuraku. The archive version will have a talk at the start, so the starting times of the subs will have to be delayed accordingly.

Download the subs for Goumyu here!

[mojinchiimanga]

[yugiohcardsdaily]

Water Omotics

"Transform the water overflowing from a jar into attacking dragons."

[mydictionary-yume]

I am not ready for tomorrow(boyfie on stage)

[holyofdeath]

I just thought it would be pretty cool to draw Ko-Omote. I kinda have to work on the body too-

[dampfloks]

8511 Tigerli

[pplatonic]

Hi! Due to that one extremely popular fan PV, EVERYONE thinks that Two-Faced Lovers by wowaka ft. Hatsune Miku is about teenage pregnancy and careless sex, and as someone who is very probably manic right now, I’m here to channel my manic energy into hopefully somewhat comprehensible ramblings about why you’re wrong and I’m right. 

So the basic literal story of our girl starts with waking up from a dream. She says that “Love” takes over, and continues on to spew out lines upon lines at rapid speed all about how her emotions are all over the place. On the pre chorus, we stop focusing on purely emotional and shift over to physical sensations, where in the chorus it all boils over to some striking imagery involving body parts.

It basically repeats the same thing over again with her consequences starting to sneak up on her, but she jumps back into that emotion and physical sensation nonetheless. The pre chorus and chorus play out straight, until the key shifts up and the chorus repeats and ends with the banging chant of “Love love love love--NO!”

So that’s our literal story. And many people will interpret the colorful physical sensations to be sex, and you’re not wrong the song is literally called Two-Faced Lovers, but I’m telling you that’s NOT ALL THERE IS TO IT.

Let’s start at the start, line by line!! 

“I woke up from a dream full of delight inside my head-space

A perplexing thing called Love took over, and then”

These are pretty self explanatory. The girl is brimming with happy emotions at a dream full of delight, and then an emotion they don’t understand and find perplexing - Love - takes control.

“I couldn't keep my heart-space from splitting in two

Never had the capacity to control it in the first place”

First of all what should be noted is that of the contrast between a “head-space” and a “heart-space.” Most simply, there’s a disconnect between the girl’s logic and the girl’s emotions.

The lines themselves further this theme of disorienting emotions, saying their heart-space has split in two. (This will be brought up again later.) The girl then acknowledges they couldn’t control it in the first place - this was bound to happen with her wild emotions.

“With my mostly naive theory of emotion somewhere in that spray of words

I was someway, somehow looking for a pair of eyes to find out where it's at--LIFE”

I cannot prepare you for the absolute RAWNESS of these lines. Firstly, the way they straight up just acknowledge that the way they connect with and conceive their emotions is naive and pathetic outright?? And they’re just spraying words out rapidly - they’re looking for the eyes that can even see where that theory of emotion is, where that meaning is, and then they just go, “Aw, shucks, that’s life son!” WOW. 

So the first verse sets our stage: an emotionally disoriented girl, trying to make sense of life. The next verse will add on to this by demonstrating the emotional confusion all of this intense emotion of Love is causing her.

“Every day is full of "why" did this, did that, but in the end, it's sayonara baby”

The first part, asking why they did this and that, is the nonsense that life has become with this emotion of Love plaguing her. Her life is nothing but questions, but in the end, all she’s doing is saying goodbye to another baby. Which like, you can interpret that to mean she’s getting another abortion which like perfectly demonstrates the consequences of her careless actions and fits with the theme, yeah, but also what about “baby” as in the pet name for a lover? What if the same line could have a double meaning of hopping from one love and life to another, saying sayonara, as soon as you blink twice?

“One side facing truth, one side running, my two-sided heart”

This is what I think the heart-space split in two is referencing. One side faces truth - one part of her heart is ready to be self-aware and accept what’s happening, the unhealthiness going on. But the other side runs away further into delusion - further into the madness - and such is the dilemma that our poor girl faces. People say listen to your heart, but which side of her heart does she listen to?

“Is there no good out there? I ask my topsy-turvy self

Inside myself, beside myself, insides turned inside out, ahhhh”

A question given out in utter desperation, sprung up by endless confusion and toil - is there any good to be found in the world? She acknowledges that she’s all over the place right now, before she falls apart completely, getting wrapped up in that emotion before we spring into the pre chorus.

“Just touching by instinct with nothing to say

Hurting, touching, gasping, feeling like I could climb to heaven”

Acting purely on instinct now with no thoughts running through her head, experiencing a whole breadth of human experience, using the phrase “like I’m in heaven.” The emotion of Love is taking control of her body and mind, she’s getting totally swept up in emotion.

“But I'm stuck going nowhere here and there”

She acknowledges that just for a second, this is leading her nowhere, that it’s all going towards disaster, but -

“Take that leap to the other side”

She submits anyway, giving into the whir of emotions, leading us into the chorus!

“Get head over heels in love, breathe from your diaphragm

Jump into a intense taste, front side, flip side, big as life

Force them together, stick them over your retinas

Just give yourself to love! Want-don't-want to see you--NO!”

The start and end of the chorus clarifies fully that she’s giving into the perplexing emotion of Love, even romanticizing it. Other parts of the chorus are vivid imagery of physical sensation - breathing from your diaphragm, sticking them over your retinas, jumping into an intense taste...The end of the chorus is a girl in conflict, does she go to see him or not? In the end she just says NO to it all!

Obviously this can be read as sex, but that’s not all it is. The sex is a metaphor, guys, I’m not crazy. Committing such a personal, intimate, beautiful act entirely on a whim - and facing the deadly consequences afterwards. That’s what this song is about. And the next iteration of the song proves that.

Not much has changed - our girl obviously hasn’t learnt her lesson. She’s still singing nearly the exact same lyrics! Our first key that something is off is that the dream is now full of misery. Then, the end of the verse shows us what’s wrong:

“Mostly vaguely innocent calamity strewn by my swollen ego

Telling me where I'm at, these words I think I've grasped”

She becomes self aware for just a flash about her ego - swollen - leading her to jump straight into scenarios that seem fun but end awfully, causing calamity and chaos in her life. All caused by her listening to her big ego about what to do - she thinks she’s finally starting to understand what’s happening, but she continues back into the same loop anyways… 

I honestly don’t think the second chorus needs a line-by-line breakdown. It’s just a show of how chaotic her life has become, she’s completely lost in the loop and even though she acknowledged before what’s happening she can’t stop it. Then, the key shift happens and the chorus repeats, with the iconic ending “Love love love love--NO!”

(Personally, I like to interpret the last “NO!” as her realizing the full consequences of her actions just as it’s a second too late. Teehee.)

All in all, this song isn’t about teenage pregnancy. That’s the most literal interpretation of the lyrics - a girl carelessly throwing herself into unsafe sex and getting the consequence of pregnancy. But why would she do these things? What’s the underlying message behind that? The sex is a metaphor, guys, I’m not crazy. 

This song is about, TO ME (I WOULD LIKE TO CLARIFY) getting caught up in a whirl of emotions, and bright-eyed naive you just gets swept up in them while you don’t fully understand them. Even though a part of you is aware of what's happening - and your actions are starting to come back to bite you in the ass - you still continue letting yourself get whirled up in this amazing delightful sensation, and then the consequences of your actions hit you full force. 

As someone with bipolar disorder, this song is just so highly relatable! And it’s why I’m so passionate about it not just being about teenage pregnancy, and instead something more. That amazing whirl of emotion that comes to you like a dream, that takes over your whole life, forces you into impulsivity, hypersexuality, and never thinking about the consequences of your actions. How a part of you wants to aim for recovery but the desire for manic energy nags at your heart, wanting to run deep into the madness. And you ignore the red flags and warning signs, but once everything’s said and done, you’re sat there staring at the horrid consequences of what you’ve done while swept up by mania.

Just to clarify, I am NOT saying this song is about mania. To me it’s about any old whir of emotion you get caught up in. But in the context of mania, it sure is fucking relatable!

Anyway hope that made sense share my ramblings with someone else spread the word kthx bye

[caramelcoconuts]

#314: Ura Omote Lovers

[maniacwatchestheworld]

So when I first saw Batman Ninja, of all the crazy-ass shit that they show us in this film, I was very confused by Two-Face's castle mech. Because like... Unlike the other castles, it looks more like a Buddhist temple/statue than a palace...? So like... What the heck is going on here!??? I'm all for the crazy shit going on in this film, but just... Why have this be Two-Face's palace...?

I figured that maybe at least part of the answer would lie with the name. Because all of the castles have names that they didn't really translate back into English (With the exception of Arkham Castle which is... You know... They took Arkham Asylum and turned it into a castle... Somehow... >.>), including Two-Face's castle!

So Two-Face's castle in the Batman Ninja movie is called, "Fudo Omote Two-Face Castle". Now obviously, the last two bits are just saying who owns it and the fact that it's a castle. And since I don't speak any Japanese, I needed to look up what "Fudo Omote" could possibly mean.

So from the looks of it, "Fudo" means "inmovable" and seems to be a Buddhist principle of sorts. Like... It seems to represent a kind of mental state that is unflinching and unwavering- inmovable, while also being fully aware of and focusing on everything. [Longer explanation and definition here.] I really think that this must be an idea that doesn't translate into English very easily. In this context, Fudo is likely also being used in reference to Fudo Myo-o who is a Japanese Buddhist god (primarily in Esoteric Buddhism) and a protector of Buddhism itself. Fudo Myo-o seems to be a kind of wrathful deity who is very unflinching in his faith, which is interesting when you try to relate that to Two-Face and what it might imply about his character in this particular situation. [There are a few things about this Buddhist deity that I really think would appeal to Two-Face as a character specifically, but I don't want to get into it. Regardless, you can read more about it here.] So with this in mind, Two-Face's palace likely is a Buddhist temple, and the influence shows. Personally it makes me think that Two-Face REALLY got into Buddhism while in feudal Japan, and that idea just tickles me and I think it's neat! :D

Meanwhile "Omote" means "outer", "surface", or "front" but is more likely referencing the idea of having an "outer face" or a "pubic face". In Japan, the idea of having a face that you show to the public that is wholly different from who you are privately is a common idea. It is expected that your "outer face" (omote) and your "inner face" (ura) are separate. And just... Oh yes... HELL YES! I can ABSOLUTELY see why Two-Face would have latched onto this idea! This concept is just... So... HIM! I absolutely love what this says and implies about this iteration of Two-Face! Omote and ura are the ideas of being two-faced, but divorced from the negative connotation that the phrase has in English! The idea that the person that you are in public and the person you are in private being different is seen as being deceitful in western cultures. But in Japan, this is seen as just how people are! It also implies that Harvey Dent isn't gone. He just went from being the "outer face" to becoming the "inner face." He and Two-Face just switched, and so now Two-Face is who you see out there in the public, and Harvey Dent is who you only see once he's comfortable with you, he lets down his guard, and drops the pretext. I just LOVE how this one little word being here implies so much about this iteration of Two-Face! It's a whole reading on his character that is deeply Japanese and just wouldn't happen in an English-speaking mindset! To be honest, it's kinda brilliant and I love it! [You can read more about the concept of "Omote" and how it relates to "Ura" here.]

So together I guess that the name of Two-Face's castle is something like, "Inmovable Outside (Face) Two-Face Castle"... Sounds pretty clunky to me, but hey! That's anime for you! I guess that "Inmovable Outside Face" kinda describes bravery...? You know, the idea of being inmovable on the outside in the face of danger, even if you're scared on the inside...? I don't know if that was what they were going for with this, but it sure is interesting at the very least! And I certainly understand what they were going for with this castle design a lot better now at the very least! :D