#one: high school baseball (and just baseball in general) in really popular in Japan

[doctorsiren]

I think he would play baseball in high school 😁

[hellopedia-translations]

Morning Musume ‘20 Ayumi Ishida’s love for her Hometown Suumo Interview: “Tohoku Soul” is always in my heart

For the past 22 years of Morning Musume’s history, Ishida Ayumi-san is the first member that is from Tohoku. After passing the 10th generation auditions, she had to move to Tokyo from her hometown, Sendai city, at the age of 14.

“I dream of becoming a celebrity who can’t walk along Sendai’s Arcades (streets),” says Ishida with passion. She has a regular program on a local TV station, where she shows her love for Sendai and recommends popular souvenirs.

|| “Tohoku Soul” is always in my heart 

― Whenever Morning Musume has a concert at her hometown in Sendai, Ishida-san often shouts out “Tohoku” isn’t it?

Ishida Ayumi (will be hereinafter referred to as Ishida): It’s all thanks to the fans that made me think that “the 6 prefectures of Tohoku are as one”. I introduced myself as “Born in Sendai City of Miyagi Prefecture”, but fans of other prefectures told me that “we’re happy that a child from Tohoku has joined Morning Musume!”. From then on, I became to want to “make Tohoku as my home”.

― It’s probably because your love for Tohoku got across to others, that you became an “Eagles Girl” for Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles.’

Ishida: “Eagles” is the main symbol of Tohoku. Above all, I think that “Tohoku” Rakuten Golden Eagles is even better. I love the feeling that “Tohoku is as one team” rather than a different team for each prefecture. They were not a strong baseball team from the start, instead there was some drama. But when Eagles became the best team in Japan in 2013, I remember that in Tohoku, it was merry just like a festival. As it is an icon of Tohoku’s revival, I will always be supporting them.

|| Moved to Tokyo with a longing for 109

― Ishida-san moved to Tokyo from Sendai when you were 14 years old, isn’t it? Before joining Morning Musume, did you ever feel that “someday I want to visit Tokyo” ?

Ishida: As I was still a kid back then, and although I didn’t know anything about Tokyo at all, but I strongly wanted to go to Shibuya’s Marquee. For my junior high school’s school trip, we went to Tokyo. There was a free day where we could go anywhere we wanted, so I decided to go to Shibuya 109 without any hesitation, and I was really looking forward to it. However, since it was before the earthquake, I couldn’t go in the end…

― Did you have any interest in gyaru culture, even just a little bit?

Ishida: No, I was just an ordinary junior high school student that read “Pichi Lemon”. But for me, when it comes to Shibuya, I had the image of Shibuya 109. Because I didn’t know anything else about Tokyo. I thought that there was only 109 in Shibuya from shopping segments on TV programs. Only after moving to Tokyo, I realised that Shibuya is such a big city.

― When it comes to a shopping centres for youngsters in Sendai, people would think of “Forus”. Where did Ishida-san go for shopping?

Ishida: The elementary school that I attended had rules governing areas where we could go alone. So I hardly went to Sendai Station to play. At that time, I thought that “Forus” & “E Beans Sendai” were places that “I will only have fun at when I grow up”. It was only when I went out with my family, that they would sometimes buy me clothes.

|| Classmates who warmly sent me off without saying anything

― What were the reactions of your friends from your hometown when it was decided that you’ll be joining Morning Musume & moving to Tokyo?

Ishida: I didn’t tell my classmates that I had auditioned or had passed the auditions. But, it seemed that everyone knew the day after the announcement was made at Nippon Budokan. I was grateful to be treated with the exact same attitude as before.

― If you pass, normally you would be in high spirits, but why did you keep it as a secret?

Ishida: I was somewhat embarrassed, so I couldn’t tell my friends about it. Of course I was happy that “I’ve become part of Morning Musume”, and although it was an amazing thing, but at that time I only decided to join. I felt that as I hadn’t accomplished anything with my own strength yet, I thought it wasn’t something to talk/brag about.

― Although you were only 14 years old, you were already so mature. Did you not miss your friends from your hometown when they bade you farewell?

Ishida: When it was decided that I had to move to Tokyo to debut with Morning Musume, everyone in my class surprised me during my last English lesson. When I was reading out an example sentence, something like “I’m good at taking photos”, the teacher suddenly started to do a skit (lol). I also took a group picture with everyone…it’s so nostalgic.

 ― Are your friends from back then still supporting you today?

Ishida: Actually, when it was decided that I will be joining Morning Musume, my handphone number and email addresses were all changed. “It’s because I’ve become an idol”. So, there will probably be people that are suprised. But, whenever we have a concert in Sendai, some of my friends will come. I’m really happy when that happens.

|| The goodness/merits of my hometown that I felt after coming to Tokyo

― As Sendai is an urban area, did you feel any gaps/differences between living in Tokyo & living in your hometown? 

Ishida: I struggled a lot with the trains. In particular, it took me about 5 years to get used to Shinjuku Station. Although I checked the train’s route map with the app and what train to change, but I didn’t know which stairs I should go down smoothly. It’s difficult to get to the meeting point for work without knowing the exit. As I couldn’t afford to be late for work, I was terrified every time.

― Shinjuku Station is challenging, isn’t it? Even people in Tokyo sometimes get confused.

Ishida: But when I went back to Sendai a few years after I moved to Tokyo, I thought “Eh? The trains aren’t coming at all”. As Sendai is quite an urban area and although there are many trains, I was surprised to see myself getting used to the feeling of Tokyo where the trains come one after another in just minutes.

― Did you ever become Sendai-sick (home-sick)?

Ishida: When I first joined, I didn’t really feel home-sick. As Tokyo and Sendai are both wonderful towns in their own ways, I liked them both. But after a few years, I suddenly felt that I wanted to go back to Sendai.

― Did anything happen?

Ishida: When I was a new member, I just did my utmost best at the work and lessons that were in front of me, and everyday was so packed. I didn’t have the time to think about the memories of my hometown or feel lonely. But after working hard for several years, I realised how intense the activities were and the many difficulties of being an idol. At that time, I suddenly thought “I’ll go back to Sendai in a short while”.

― In any event, your hometown is where you feel the most calm, isn’t it?

Ishida: When I got off the train at Sendai Station, I was relieved. Of course, there are still many things that I can still do when I am away from Tokyo, such as updating my blog and etc, but I cannot completely take a rest. But just putting my feet down in Sendai allowed me to settle down. There’s a unique atmosphere in Sendai.

|| If you come to Sendai, please come to “Akiu”

― Ishida-san performs at concerts in Sendai at least 4 times a year. What are some spots that you recommend fans coming from all over Japan to go to?

Ishida: Although it’s a little far, but I recommend the “Akiu” area. From Sendai Station, it takes about 50 minutes by train and bus. I travelled around Akiu on a bicycle before, and I felt so refreshed since nature is rich there, and there are many many fields.

― Do you have any gourmet that you recommend in Akiu?

Ishida: There is a tofu shop known as “Ota Tofu Store” that is located in between Akiu Onsen and Akiu Otaki, so I want you to stop by. The tofu is served in a bamboo, and you have to sprinkle salt over it. The water is also very clear and beautiful, and it’s really delicious too.

― It’s not only healthy, but also looks very delicious

Ishida: There are many hotels in Sendai, but I would like you to stay slightly  further away, at a guesthouse at Minamisanriku because it is really easy to interact with the locals there. Also, the people of Sendai have a very strong sense of hospitality. I really felt this as I’ve been working with a local eventer.

― What are some of Ishida-san’s favourite classic spots near Sendai Station?

Ishida: If you go in winter, there is an illumination known as the “light pageant”, and it is very beautiful. Also, the area where the statute of Date Masamune is located. You can overlook the city of Sendai, and there are old photos of Sendai, so it would be fun to compare them to modern day Sendai. You will get to study the history of Sendai.

|| It’s not just about ox tongue! Gourmet in Sendai recommended by Ishida-san

― What is Sendai’s PR point that isn’t well known yet?

Ishida: Although ox tongue is famous, I also want you to try Seri Nabe since it is not very familiar to people from areas/regions other than Miyagi. Seri is a leafy vegetable, and it’s known as the seven vernal flowers/spring flowers. As it is usually sold at the supermarkets in my hometown, I like to make it whenever I come home. The roots are also crunchy and delicious. It’s wonderful to be able to eat the whole vegetable without having to throw any part away, isn’t it?

― It’s true that the people of Tokyo are not very familiar with Seri Nabe. It’s a taste that’s unique to Miyagi.

Ishida: I also want you to enjoy the seafood. Until recently, I couldn’t eat sea urchins and oysters and I wasn’t good at eating raw fish. However, I became to like the “Kirakira Don” which can be eaten at “Sansan Shopping Street” in Minami Sanriku. The ikura too, were sparkling and everything was so incredibly delicious and impressive. If you eat the sea urchin here, you might not be able to eat it elsewhere anymore. The contents/ingredients of the rice bowl change depending on the season, so it’s fun every time you go.

Ishida is using her hands to describe and explain how the ikura in the “Kirakira don” were sparkling.

― When you think of Sendai, you’d think of “Hagi no Tsuki”, but what other souvenirs do you recommend?

Ishida: I recommend “Kuma no Te Shurasuku” from the cake shop “Arpajon”. It is a rusk with a baked chou (t/n: pastry in cream puff) inside. It’s reasonably priced and girls will love it. If you’re talking about Sasakama, then I like “Kanezaki”. When you buy a piece, a piece will be given for free. You can also buy it at the Station, so it’s a good deal.

― Such valuable information just like Ishida-san who likes saving! What are your favourite flavours?

Ishida: I like Ox Tongue flavoured, cheese flavoured, savoury flavoured, and although there are various flavours, I recommend the premium Sasakamaboko “Tairyoubata”. Although it’s a little expensive, I hope you can try it and compare it to the normal Sasakama. It is worth much more than it’s price.

Original interview: https://suumo.jp/town/entry/sendai-ayumi_ishida/

[makotothedweeb]

「Gofer Project AU」Rozu O(u)ma’s Story

So this is Rozu O(u)ma’s (Kokichi’s mother) story.

Before I jump into it: I’ll be writing backstories for most of the characters in this AU, including the sixteen protags. I won’t post them on Wattpad, just on Tumblr. 

Click keep reading for the story.

  I’m O(u)ma Rozu; they call me the Ultimate Disguise Master because I can disguise myself pretty well. 

  I’m a 35 year old woman with two kids, Kokichi and Kaeto, and two sisters, Sakura and Hana. Hana is a complete bitch who works as a supermodel. Since she secretly knows I live in Rozae, she’s going to move here at some point. 

  Sakura knows I’m here, too. Sakura is the opposite of Hana; she’s sweet, but really lazy. She lives with a severe heart disease that can’t be treated partly because of her diabetes. She’s expected to die before her 40s. 

  Hana, Sakura and I are triplets. Multiple births at the same time runs in my family, and I, myself, had twins. 

  You’re probably wondering if I know how my sons turned out. Don’t say anything; I know. Kaeto is moving to Rozae (just like anywhere else) and going to university, while Kokichi was a participant of the Gofer Project. 

  I, like every single other pink-blooded person, saw through the Gofer Project’s founders’ intentions, and didn’t want them anywhere near my sons. But, my ex-husband’s brother...

  He’ll be dead soon, guaranteed. 

  Anyways, I should stop yakking about what’s going on now and talk about my life, right? 

                                                               -

  I was born on July 15th, and even though I’m Rozaen, I was born and grew up in Japan.

  Something else that runs in my family is psychosis; the youngest of the children born will have it, which I have the great honor of being the last-born triplet. 

  Because of my psychosis, I would be bullied often at school. My psychotic demeanors were a hell of a lot worse when I was younger, but by my first year of middle school, I had it under control. However, a lot of people in the school didn’t acknowledge this and teased me relentlessly for it. I dealt with it for a while until one of the popular cunts at school called the police on me for a crime I didn’t commit. 

  My once controlled psychosis was out of control again once the police left. I picked up a nearby baseball bat and let her have it. And you know what? I got away with it… somehow.

  Since then, something new clicked inside me. I loved the feeling and thrill of murdering people. But I knew that murder isn’t/shouldn’t be a hobby, so I forced myself to have hobbies like a ‘normal’ girl.

  I’m generally an antisocial person, partly because of my fear of hurting anyone else. This lasted until I saw him… Nufuni Jokichi. I decided I had to have no matter what it costs. After killing his best friend, I figured out he liked me back, and we dated until after high school, when I proposed to him. He said yes, and we got married. 

  I should’ve done my research, though. My (at the time) husband came from a long line of rapists.

  ...Not that I’m any better, though; I come from a line of psychopaths that just happen to be Rozaen royalty. 

  Anyway, back on topic: six months after our wedding, he impregnated me. We were both happy to have a baby, but what neither of us knew was that we were having twins. 

   I feel horrible for Kokichi; he was born unexpectedly, and after that was realized, his father and his family didn’t want him. Two months later, Jokichi and I got into an argument about this, and we divorced. He took Kaeto, I took Kokichi. It was soon made clear that I couldn’t take care of Kokichi on my own, so I gave him to my brother in law and joined the Japanese army. My brother in law, after learning I joined the army, turned around and gave Kokichi to the Gofer Project. This was a hard blow to my mental stability, and my fighting got sloppy, leading me to get captured by the Rozaen army. I just decided to while my way here in Rozae until I die. 

  Recently, the Emperor had figured out the location of the Gofer project participants and brought them to Rozae. They’re staying with him until their families are found.

  I don’t want to be found. Kokichi doesn’t deserve a horrible mother like me.

   ...

  “I’m sorry Kokichi. I’m sorry I couldn’t be a better mother. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you from the Gofer Project…”

  After writing this, I look at the gun I keep and wonder...

                                                                                                                                Jokichi O(u)ma is next.

[aki-chan2014]

The SHSL Survivors’ Society-second generation headcanons

As promised, here it is! Shizuka is included in this list too, but she is of course not my creation. All the other kids mentioned are though, but not all of them have information about them beyond name and date of birth, because there’s a lot of kids here and coming up with that much info is...tricky.

Anyway, enjoy!:

Survivors’

Chieko Akamine and Koutarou Ueda

Shizuka Akamine (surname later changes to Kita), DOB 3rd December 2010. Appears prominently over the course of the story as a six-year-old and has a POV in the final epilogue as a 16-year-old. Shizuka is the first of the second generation, and also has the distinction of being the only one who has a parent who died in the game as well, and because of that tends to feel a greater responsibility for remembering the events that happened and preserving those memories for future generations. She is shy as a small child, but mostly grows out of that over the course of her life-though she remains a quiet sort of person. She is kind, sweet and thoughtful, and adores animals to the point of becoming a vet in her adulthood (as well as helping out at the Towa City Memorial Garden).  She takes to calling her little sister ‘Mushi’ (bug) as an affectionate sort of nickname in the same sort of way Koutarou used to call Chieko ‘Moyashi’, and when she eventually has a child of her own, she names him Koutarou.

Chieko Akamine and Masashi Kita

Haruka Kita, DOB March 13th 2023. Definitely the more extrovert sibling of the two, Haruka is sunny-natured and a little bit of a tomboy, preferring to keep her hair shorter and avoid dresses where possible (much to the despair of her aunt Misa). Though there’s a slightly more parental aspect to their relationship owing to the age gap, Haruka is close to her big sister (even if she gets annoyed at the nickname).  She’s also particularly close to her cousin Hayate (see below) as they’re the same age separated by a few months. She becomes interested in gardening at a young age, and though for her it’s little more than a hobby/pastime, Haruka’s gardening helps Chieko to feel like she’s got that aspect of her life back in some respect and so though she doesn’t directly help out, the mother and daughter bond a lot over gardening.  

Tyson De Guerre and Wakana Abe

Felix Shouta De Guerre, DOB May 26th 2025. As a child, Felix’s speech is delayed and he struggles in school, resulting in him becoming generally unconfident and shy. He looks up to Tyson a lot, and visiting and helping to maintain the Towa City Memorial Garden does boost his confidence, and as an adult he goes to live in Japan, becoming the main gardener/groundskeeper for the garden.

Oliver “Olly” Kanato De Guerre, DOB August 1st 2028. A dreamy, absent-minded sort of person, Olly is always getting into scrapes due to not paying attention to his surroundings or just losing track of time. But he’s so good natured and amiable that it’s really difficult for anyone to ever get angry with him.

Verity “Vivi” Suzune De Guerre, DOB January 14th, 2031. The adored youngest child, Vivi is basically a ray of sunshine in the way her mother was pre-game, though she tends to be more honest with her feelings. She’s pretty proud of her mixed-race ancestry, and always introduces herself by her full name.  Though she is musically and artistically adept, she doesn’t ever pursue either of these things beyond the hobby level.

Akira Kazama

Nanako Kazama (former surname Sawatori), DOB October 31st 2008, fostered January 2020, adopted end of that year. She is streetwise and hot-tempered, and doesn’t trust many people outside of her adoptive family, and the Survivors and their families.  

Yuichi Kazama (former surname Ishi), DOB November 12th 2010, fostered April 2021, adopted March 2022. When he got fostered by Akira he ended up in the same elementary school as Tsubaki Higuchi, and as a result is fairly close friends with both her and Shizuka. He is a bit grouchy and puts on a tough-guy act a lot, but he looks up to Akira in a big way and follows in his footsteps to become a very popular Student Council President in his high school.

Kai Kazama (former surname Takamura), DOB April 5th, 2013, fostered June 2021, adopted same time as Yuichi. A sporty and determined person, Kai eventually becomes a skilled and successful baseball player with a huge fanbase.

  Siblings/Friends etc.

Kazuki Kita (Masashi’s older brother) and Orihime Nanto (Hokuto’s little sister)

(Note: yes, this means that Chieko’s, Masashi’s and Hokuto’s families are all related by marriage)

Daigo Kita, DOB October 9th 2020. Level-headed, sensible and a bit of an old soul, Daigo takes an interest in Café Tanabata from a young age and helps out there a lot even before he decides that he’ll take it over as an adult with the help of his little brother. Given to talking in riddles, especially when he’s annoyed or tired.

Hayate Kita, DOB October 9th 2023. A combination of being impulsive and forever salty about the fact his birthday falls on the same day as his older brother’s, Hayate is more often arguing with Daigo. Luckily, despite this they get on inexplicably well, which is a good thing considering they eventually take over Café Tanabata from their mother and aunt. He’s an extroverted joker type of person.

 Hikari Kita (Masashi’s younger sister)

Kyohei Matsushita, DOB October 12th 2019. Fairly calm, amiable boy who is rather introverted and can end up overwhelmed by his extended family, all of whom he loves dearly. Ends up in the same elementary and middle schools as Athena and Lexie Cain (see below), and the same high school as Lexie, and thus is friends with them.

 Benjamin ‘Ben’ Cain (Erica’s sister)

Athena Cain, DOB October 17th 2017. Cheerful and outgoing like her late aunt, but less intense and generally more thoughtful. Though she takes an interest in mythology due to her name, she isn’t actually all that interested in history (sure, her family’s past interests her, but she hasn’t got the history obsession her late aunt did). She becomes a storywriter and artist instead.

Alexandria ‘Lexie’ Cain, DOB February 21st 2019. A charismatic, attractive girl, Lexie is enigmatic and slightly manipulative but in spite of this (or possibly because of this) she is very popular. She can be a bit prissy sometimes as well, but would put her life on the line for anyone she actually cares about (which is a very few people). She has a crush on Kyohei in high school, but is far too stubborn to admit it because he’s not her usual ‘type’ and she knows too well that he only sees her as a friend.

 Yasu Kazama (Akira’s older sister)

Akiko ‘Kiko’ Shimada, DOB April 25th 2020. The eldest twin by nine minutes, Kiko is academic and driven, but despite this is compelled to become a voice actor like her late aunt. Though never as popular as Hibiki was, she does do quite well for herself, and after a while decides to become a coach for voice-actors.

Akemi ‘Emi’ Shimada, DOB April 25th 2020. Though identical to Kiko, Emi is quieter and struggles academically, and often feels like she is just a pale imitation of her sister and that she doesn’t fit in with her family, despite the fact they do clearly love and value her just as much.  She takes an interest in the Towa City Memorial Garden, and as an adult is one of the people in charge of the funds that help to maintain and organise it, as well as the employment of people who do the actual maintaining and organising.

 Sadao Taneda and Ayame Edano (Noriko’s childhood friend and little sister, respectively)

Airi Taneda, DOB September 30th 2024. Born with albinism, Airi’s birth is what helps her mother and her aunt have a closer relationship, as Ayame often seeks advice from Noriko about how to help her. Unlike Noriko, Airi is never embarrassed by her white hair and indeed likes to learn elaborate hairstyles to show it off, something which eventually leads to her becoming a hairdresser.

Toshio Taneda, DOB June 14th 2026. Quiet, slightly socially awkward, and very intelligent, Toshio basically spends his whole life in education-from being a complete swot in school to pursuing an academic career relating to maths and physics.

Yuuji Taneda, DOB July 7th 2030. Between Airi’s outspokenness and Toshio’s nerdiness, Yuuji finds himself embarrassed by his elder siblings constantly, and tries to distance himself from them in public, but he does love them really, and if anyone else teases them he will be on them like a shot. Indeed, he gets into a lot of fights in school because of defending people from bullies.

 Hitoshi Edano (Noriko’s younger brother)

Isamu Edano, DOB December 9th 2026

Yura Edano, DOB May 24th 2029

 Chikako Ueno (Daisuke’s older sister)

Daisuke ‘Isuke’ Hiraoka (surname later changes to Ikeda with Chikako’s second marriage), DOB February 26th, 2024. Eccentric and slightly flamboyant, this Daisuke actually can play musical instruments, and eventually becomes a professional clarinet player. Isuke is also the classic slightly over-protective brother who scares his siblings’ boyfriends/girlfriends. Also, nobody knows where his nickname came from or why-nobody admits to giving it to him.

Souta Hiraoka (surname later changes to Ikeda with Chikako’s second marriage), DOB August 21st 2026

Rie Ikeda, DOB July 18th 2032

Yumi Ikeda, DOB January 31st 2035

 Shouta Kobayashi (Oshiro’s friend)

Hiroto Kobayashi, DOB May 1st, 2031

 Mio Fujioka (Oshiro’s friend)

Masahiro Fujioka, DOB April 18th, 2032. A devilish, charming prankster, Masahiro is the type of person who just sails through life. He looks for every opportunity to pull off a prank or some sort of joke, and the twin-switch one used to be one of his favourites as a kid-or rather, it was until he decided to pull it on their mother and she freaked out when she realised. Though he’s well aware of the Killing Game and the Despair cult and all that, and that she knew someone who had died there, he’s never probed too deeply into why she had this reaction, as he feels vaguely uncomfortable thinking about all this.

Takeo Fujioka, DOB April 18th, 2032. A little more calm and straight-laced, Takeo is nonetheless a very fun-loving guy who generally enjoys taking part in Masahiro’s pranks, but naturally refuses the twin-switch ones after the reaction their mother had. He takes more of an interest in the past than Masahiro, so he knows more about what lay behind their mother’s reaction, and as it happens, he does pursue becoming a historian as a career because of this.

 Atsushi and Kanade Arata (Kimihiro’s parents)

Hisae Arata, DOB April 6th, 2018. Though very much unexpected and unplanned, she ends up being the thing that puts back together her parents’ marriage, which had been slowly disintegrating under the grief for the older brother she never knew. With a name written with the characters for ‘long time’ and ‘blessing’, her parents have heaped a lot of love on her and are very protective of her, meaning she grows up living a sheltered life. As a result, she is a very sweet, very shy and soft type of person who ends up heavily dependent on others to look after her.

 Tetsuya Yamaguchi (Kimihiro’s friend)

Taro Yamaguchi, DOB February 10th, 2025. He is slightly spoiled because he was the only child his parents were able to have, so sometimes he comes across a little entitled and haughty and coddled. But really, deep down, he’s a good guy, and does well in life. Not stunning or outstanding, but well. He also inherits his father’s whimsical approach to acquiring hobbies, and thus he tends to be interesting company in parties with all sorts of tricks and anecdotes to pull out.

 Ichiro Usami (Shiro’s brother)

Shiro Usami, DOB March 5th, 2022

Akane Usami, DOB April 26th, 2024

Midori Usami, DOB May 30th, 2027

Gin Usami, DOB June 17th 2030

 Yujiko Usami (Shiro’s sister)

Nanae Aikawa, DOB June 18th 2021

Namika Aikawa, DOB September 3rd 2023

Natsumi Aikawa, DOB January 14th 2030

 Zenzo Usami (Shiro’s brother)

Aiki Usami, DOB February 2nd 2023

 Goromi Usami (Shiro’s sister)

Kanon Tajima, DOB August 25th 2025

Kanade Tajima, DOB November 3rd 2030

Hotaru Mori (Hideki’s accquaintance)

Shiki Mori, DOB March 31st 2032. Reclusive as her mother, but probably a bit more practical and assertive, generally speaking.

[asterinjapan]

Red is the color

Good evening again!

It’s starting to cool down a little here in the Kansai region, which in practice means that we’re almost considering 35 C ‘cool’ now, pff. Apparently today is predicted to be actually worse in the Netherlands though, so good luck with that!

A slightly different report today, as my friend and I split ways in Kyoto.

I purposefully made that sound really dramatic, because it really wasn’t, haha. Here we go for a two-sided walk in Kyoto!

You see, my friend had decided to visit the famous Fushimi Inari Taisha before she was even sure she’d go to Japan this summer. It is very popular, after all: it was named the best trip in Japan for several years in a row, or something or another that they proudly proclaimed on a banner. So obviously, she couldn’t miss out on this on her first trip to Japan! And it truly is worth a visit. 

So first, we took the train to Kyoto. Theoretically you can take the JR Kyoto train or something, but why do that when you have a JR pass and take the shinkansen to be there in 15 minutes? Exactly. So, we hopped on the Kodama shinkansen (meaning ‘echo’) and zoomed over to Kyoto, where we had to transfer to the local Nara line. Luckily it had just arrived for us, so two stops later, we arrived at our destination: Inari station.

The station itself is already appropriately themed, in case you were still wondering why all those tourists were taking a local train through the outskirts of Kyoto: all the bars are red. The station itself is tiny, so there was quite a queue to leave it, but once outside, you’re immediately confronted with the biggest draw here. A giant red torii gate shimmering across the road, marking the entrance to the Grand Shrine of Fushimi Inari. It’s one of many, many of those gates, and I bet that if you ever saw a commercial for holidays in Japan, it’s one of the images they’ve used to lure you in. Inari is the name of the mountain as well as of the god of rice and business, and a miles long trail of red gates leads you all the way to the top. Those gates are bought by companies, families or private persons and inscribed with their names and the year of donation, which gets pretty funny when you start spotting very modern names like, Panasonic or something.

Obviously we first took a lot of pictures posing with the gates, although we also inevitably had pictures of fifty other people attempting the same. We followed the trail leading up through the forest, and then paused for a little to have some melon pan we’d bought beforehand. (Melon pan means melon bread, named so for its shape and not its taste. It’s pretty sweet bread, so naturally I’d convinced my friend this was something she absolutely had to try.) At this point though, I was looking up and saw the tons and tons of stairs that led all the way to the top of the mountain, whereas before it had only been an uphill road. I knew that was a tad too ambitious for me this week, so this is where my friend and I parted ways. She was going to make her way to the top of the mountain, while I was trailing back to take the train a few stops further ahead. We agreed to meet up at the entrance of the shrine by 2:30 and went our separate ways.

(Oh, and before you call me a weakling – I’ve already walked the entire trail twice before, so I can definitely do it, haha.)

As said, I walked back to the station, where the train arrived just as I reached the platform, so that was nice! I rode it for a whole 7 minutes to make my way to Momoyama station. It’s a tiny station, and there was no-one at the manned gate, which meant that I couldn’t show my JR pass to get out of the station. I had to ring a bell and then show my pass to a camera, pff.

Anyway, I got to go through and made my way to my new destination – Fushimi-Momoyama Castle! Yep, another castle. I actually didn’t know this one existed until a couple of months ago, when I’d downloaded an app to keep track of Japanese castles (because of course I had an app for that). I was browsing the Kyoto area to find a castle I’d never heard of before. That would be Fushimi Castle, or Fushimi-Momoyama Castle.

I’m not the only one who hadn’t heard of it before, because there was barely any signage, and the parking lot was so deserted I was starting to wonder if the area was even open. I saw some people walking in the distance, so I shrugged and walked on.

As it turns out, there’s a baseball field in this park as well, which gave me slight paranoia as our hotel got invaded last night by a huge group of baseball players. This morning, we had to wait out 4 elevators because all of them were full of said baseball players, so I was getting kinda twitchy at the mention of the sport, haha. (Turns out there’s a high school championship going on at the Koshien stadium in the next prefecture over, so maybe they’re just here for that and I can spot them on TV. There’s a lot of baseball on TV this week, so…)

No matter the baseball though, because a huge entrance gate suddenly showed up in between the trees. The castle grounds were open, although the castle itself is closed and there are warning signs that you shouldn’t get too close in case of falling debris. You see, Fushimi Castle has a bit of an unfortunate history. The current construction dates back to the 1960s: the original castle was intended to be the retirement home for Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a famous war lord and one of the unifiers of Japan. Fushimi Castle was furnished beautifully unlike other castles, since it was supposed to be a home instead of a defensive structure, and it was famous for its golden tea room. Alas, within two years an earthquake destroyed the castle. It was rebuilt, but it played a pivotal role in what turned out to be decisive battle in Japanese history, after which it quickly got dismantled again. Parts of the castle were then used in temples around Kyoto. (Fun fact: these temples used the floor boards of Fushimi Castle as their ceilings. A big group of samurai had committed ritual suicide after the last battle and their blood stains (including a bloody hand print) can still be seen on those ceilings even now. Sweet dreams tonight! Hey, I did say red is the color for today…)

Anyway, the former site of the castle is now sacred ground as the tomb of Emperor Meiji rests here and cannot be entered. The castle itself was rebuilt a little further ahead as a museum in the 1960s and served as a part of a theme park called ‘Castle Land’, but it was closed in 2003. The castle remains closed to this day, but the area is accessible and so you can just wander around in the park like area and take a bunch of photos as you please. And it’s super quiet! It’s a stark contrast to Fushimi Inari Taisha, as I spent quite a while here and saw maybe 10 other people in total, tops, including a father and a son who seemed more preoccupied catching bugs than looking at the castle, haha.

The skies turned blue after a while, allowing me to take some very nice shots. The castle probably looked better in the past: one of the giant fish on top was missing, and some roof tiles were sliding off, so I can imagine it can be dangerous to get too close.

Still, though, I really liked this detour. I actually planned on seeing the original site for as much as possible, but I got distracted by a plate for a different tomb/mausoleum: that of Emperor Kanmu, who ruled at the end of the 8th century and was the one who moved the capital city to Kyoto (Heian back in the days), where it would remain for over a thousand years until the capital eventually moved to Tokyo in 1868.

Although the first few dozen of emperors of Japan cannot be proven, Kanmu has been verified to have actually existed, so I was pretty excited to be this close to such an old part of history. Even if all there was to see was a stone torii gate in the distance, marking the entrance to the tomb. Sacred grounds, you see…

I didn’t stick around for very long, but it was an interesting little side step. Actually I met an older couple here, coming over from Osaka, who seemed very excited to find me here of all places and speaking Japanese to boot, haha. So that was a nice chance to practice my Japanese a little, which is not as atrocious as I was fearing, even if my vocabulary leaves a lot to be desired.

On my way back, I stumbled upon the Nogi Shrine, dedicated to general Nogi who took his own life after the funeral of Emperor Meiji in an ultimate gesture of loyalty. What a fun visit so far, huh… Anyway, it definitely felt like a much more modern shrine, with horse statues and some brick parts. I didn’t spend long here, but the shrine buildings were a nice change of pace during my return to Momoyama station. (I also stumbled upon a plaque warning for Japanese giant hornets, so after that I jumped out of my skin every time something even remotely resembling a flying insect came across me, haha.)  

As it turned out, my friend had returned from the mountain victorious as she’d made it to the top, and we arrived at almost exactly the same time at our meeting place. We browsed the souvenir stalls a bit before deciding to call it a day and headed back to Kyoto, where we exchanged our respective stories over drinks and took the shinkansen back to Shin-Osaka.

When we went out for dinner (omu rice! Rice covered in omelet, haha), it was 28 C outside! Gasp! That honestly felt cold to the touch, it’s incredible. Weather forecasts are consistently predicting 33-35 C for the upcoming week, which is still hot, but much more doable than 38+ C.

So we made plans for tomorrow and then went to our rooms, from which I’m typing this blog right now, haha.

Keeping tomorrow a surprise, but there won’t be any castles for once, wow! See you~

[royz-yade]

Royz Subaru Rock and Read 047 (English Translation)

Magazine: Rock&Read 047 Release Date: April 2013 Type of Interview: Personal Interview Translator & Photos: VerwelktesGedicht for Royz-yade Note: Subaru did talk about his rebellious youth already at lives held in his hometown but for everyone who couldn’t go to those lives... here you can finally read an interview about it! If you’re a Subaru fan then I really recommend this interview! But also for Royz fans in general because it gives a deeper understanding of Subaru’s lyrics and also gives you some insight about Subaru joining Royz. Please also note that this interview is from 2013, so a couple of things weren’t known that well back then, for example facts about his twin brother. Have fun! And if you really want to translate it into another language based on this, please post a link to this original English translation. Thank you!

-- Subaru-san, you were born and raised in the Kansai-region? Yes. I was born in Nara. The house of my mother’s family is still in Nara. After that I lived in Osaka but only until I was 1 or 2 years old, so I don’t have any memory about this but when I was in High School I lived in Osaka again for a bit. We moved to Katsura, Kyoto, but because it was just a regular housing area, there were so many mansions.

-- Like a place made only for living and nothing else? I wouldn’t go so far to say that but… No, now that I think about it it was like that (bitter laugh)

-- Is your memory not clear about that? No (laughs), I have photos, so I remember what it was like. There is a photo…  Ah, I have a twin brother.

-- Really!? Yes. We’re identical twins, so our face is also pretty much the same. There’s still a picture at my parents’ house on which we’re quite young, holding an insect box and the stuff we need to catch them. It makes me think: “There were also times when we were cute like that…” (laughs) When we were young we were always together. We had a bunk bed but we used to sleep together in the bottom bunk (laughs)

-- Subaru-san, you are the older brother? Yes. I have my younger twin and an older sister as well as father and mother. That’s our family.

-- I wonder what it was like to go to the same school as twins. We went to elementary and middle school together. Many people compared us to each other.

-- Sorry, I’m comparing you now… Who of you was better in studying? It was me. My brother hated studying. I didn’t think it’s interesting but I somehow did it. I also went to a Juku [=tutoring school almost every pupil in Japan goes to for further study]. Before I could enter college I started my band but my brother really gave his best for the entrance exams for college.

-- How about sports? That was also me. I love sports. When I was a child I wanted to become a baseball player. Together with my brother we went to the entry test of the baseball “little league” where people are aiming at becoming professional baseball players. Unfortunately both of us failed (laughs).

-- So, you were good at studying and sports and were also popular in school? You may call it “popular” – or you call it “loud” (bitter laugh). I think I was sticking out. I’m someone sticking out by nature [note: what he might mean is him being a half, so it’s literally by nature]. Also, we moved to Shiga in the end of my 6th year of elementary school [about 12 years old]. For the three years in middle school I played soccer. For our school festival I was in a band. It wasn’t anything official but it was the first concert in my life. We played BUMP OF A CHICKEN’s “planetarium” but back then I played the drums.

-- Not even guitar? (laughs) It was impossible for me to play the guitar (laughs). My girlfriend from that time played the drums, so I wanted to play it too! I decided it right away and really begged my parents a lot. I got drum lessons on an electrical drum set. Without understanding anything. (laughs)

-- You didn’t listen to Visual Kei songs back then yet? I did. I started being interested in it in my 1st year of middle school [about 13 years old]. Chakuutafuru [note: a site where you could download songs] was popular back then and I thought I want to get to know songs other people don’t know and searched for it and it made me think: „This is SO cool!“ But when I showed it to my friends they said: “They should stop wearing all that make up.” I thought it would be nice if a person close to me would like it too, so I showed it to my brother but he disliked it (bitter laugh). That was a shock for me. I didn’t tell my parents. I bought magazines but I hid them. But even though I hid it from my friends I did like it and listen to it all the time. At that time I was a light-hearted, fun child but after that I entered my teenage rebellion and all that fell apart all of a sudden. Even my parents are telling me “We’re so glad you are over that.”.

-- When was that? As of my 2nd or 3rd year of middle school. Well, that’s when it usually happens, isn’t it? I gave my best at the entrance exams and did enter a private high school but I quit after 2 or 3 months. I got kicked out of my parent’s house and didn’t go back for about half a year.

-- That was the time you mentioned when you said you were “living in Osaka for a bit”? Yes. To tell the truth, I lived at the house of my girlfriend that I dated at that time. But without any explanation I got kicked out there as well.

-- Why again all of a sudden? They asked me if that was the high school I wanted to go to. It wasn’t like that. But my friends told me they would go, so I thought I could go, too. In the end, when I really went, I wondered if this was really what I wanted to do. It was fun and my friends where there but something was wrong. And with that I quit high school. And there is a white blank…

-- Did anything happen? I did hikkikomori (=not going out of the house anymore). For about a whole year I didn’t leave the house – not even one step. After quitting school I felt like there is no place for me to be anymore. I also didn’t even think to go out for a part time job. I wanted to have a save future, so I thought it would probably be better to go to school. I also told my parents about it but it was probably just too sudden. Back then I destroyed the stuff in my parent’s house and had fights with my brother – so that even blood was shed. I cried every day like “Why did it become like this?”. Around the same time my brother also quit high school and didn’t leave the house anymore.

-- So… the older and the younger brother were… Yes. And then my mother got sick. When I went out of my room to watch TV after my parents went to bed somehow I took a look at our shelves. There were books people with depression read and books about getting a brighter heart again. I realized that I’m the one who was to blame. But I couldn’t do anything. And without being able to do anything, I got so nervous about everything again.  I also stopped contacting my friends. They told me: “What are you actually doing?” and “Go back to school!” Even when they tried to call me I didn’t reply. I even changed my number without telling anyone. I was completely alone. I didn’t know at all what to do. And then, I don’t know what the reason was, I realized that I can’t continue like this and decided to enter a correspondence school. When I went out to take the photos for my application for school I realized that I haven’t seen the sunlight in such a long time. Had it always been like this? There has been a photo booth at the supermarket close to my parents’ house and I remember that I only went there and came back home and it was so exhausting.

-- And with that you were accepted at a correspondence high school? There were schools in Kyoto and there was a guy with red long hair. I thought he would definitely like Visual Kei, so I scrape up some courage and tried talking to him. As I thought he liked it. Because that guy’s house was also in Shiga we went home together. He was in a band. He asked me to come if I want to, even though Shiga has a really tiny fandom. I went and thinking back now, there were almost no fans there. But seeing him standing on stage within that exploding music made me think that this guy is amazing.

-- Had you been at lives until that time? 1 or 2 times. I also haven’t watched any live DVDs. Another day we went to Karaoke. Just when we were about to go home he said to me: “Our vocalist will stop. I’d like you to do it.” That was my dream. While being locked up in my room bands like DIR EN GREY-san and Alice Nine-san as well as the whole Visual Kei music became my pillar, so I always thought that I wanted to be in a band.

-- What kind of band was it? There were candles on the website. It was a super dark band [kotekote]. I gave about three lives together with them and realized that this is different from what I wanted to do. I wanted to sing songs with a nice melody. I wondered what to do from thereon. There was a friend of a friend who was in a band. He had been living in Hiroshima but at that time he was living alone in Osaka, going to college. It seemed like he was searching for members, so I asked my friend to introduce me to him. We came into contact and he told me that he wants to compose nice songs as well. “Let’s do it together!”, he said. He was a bassist and I was a vocalist, so we couldn’t find members at all (bitter laugh). But he seemed nice, so I wanted to be in a band together with him.

-- When did you meet the other Royz members? Right at that time. I took a look at my “member search” that I had posted on Mixi quite some time before and Koudai contacted me there. He was living in Osaka but I was from Shiga. Living in Osaka and having a band there means that you are popular.

-- There’s such a difference? There’s a huge one! Only knowing that there are Shiga-bands that perform at Osaka-events made me go “Seriously?!?”. And looking at Koudai’s picture it felt like his band is selling well and that they are really serious with what they are doing. Thinking about it now, everything was chaotic (laughs). I thought: „Isn’t this guy super popular?“ I wanted to be in a band together with him but I had already promised it to the Hiroshima-guy. I was determined about it and told Koudai: “I’d be happy but there’s another arrangement…” and he answered: “Isn’t it possible to call you even once?” I explained him the situation and that there’s already someone I promised to be in a band with. “Did you already decide for the other members? We already have all the rest, so don’t you want to join? I will call this Hiroshima-guy!”

-- Koudai-san was pretty serious about it, wasn’t he? (laughs) He was (laughs). After we hung up he messaged me asking “Don’t you want to think about it once again?” After that we phoned again and at that time he let me hear their demo song. He only held his phone close to the speakers, so the quality was very bad (bitter laugh). But I was really moved. We didn’t have a demo yet. We had our ideals but didn’t make any step forward. And since the weapon of a band is its songs… I listened to it for the first time and thought that I really want to be in a band together with them! So I called the Hiroshima-guy myself. I was really so sorry, so I told him everything while being in tears.

-- And then you joined Royz. But before joining Royz there was something like a “test”. First of all we went to Karaoke. I sang Janne D Arc’s “Gekkouka” but I was so nervous. I was happy I could finish the song even under these circumstances but when I had finished nobody said anything. Back then I did think that my singing was good, so I thought they would tell me “You’re good!”. Finally Kazuki said: “Doesn’t anyone tell him that he’s good?” (laughs) I remember nobody did.

-- I think they were fascinated by it. That’s why you could join. Actually, they had a live scheduled for one month later and if they couldn’t have found a vocal until then it would have been pretty difficult. I remember sitting there thinking “What does that mean!?”

-- Various things happened before you could join. But various things also happened after I joined…

-- What happened? To be honest, I thought about quitting Royz. I got depressed like never before. There were various things that were just too heavy and I didn’t know what to do. But I also thought that I shouldn’t wreak my own sorrows on other people. So I went to ask Koudai for advice. He asked me if it wouldn’t be good to ask my parents for advice as well. I went to my parents’ house but my parents were against me being in a band. They told me: “We don’t want you to be in a band anymore.” But that opened my eyes. What have I achieved in life until that time? I found myself again and what was really important to me in the end: this band. I wrote “AREA” with the feeling that the members and fans have saved me back then. At that time what has saved me from this deep was really the existence of this band. If that time didn’t exist I don’t think I would still be in a band now.

-- Something like that has happened… Now, of course my whole family is supporting me. When I returned home the other day, they have made a corner for me (laughs). Magazines that have been released until now, ripped out files. I was really happy. I do think that I’m the one who has caused the most worries to them. But even though I did, they are still supporting me and it makes me happy. When I talked to my brother about these worries the other day I said: “And you told me to stop!?” (laughs) Sometimes my parents come to events and since my brother and me are twins, also the fans sometimes mention him. Sometimes messages arrive saying “Your little brother, he is more handsome.” And I go all like: “Ungh! That idiot!!” (laughs) But this is funny, so it’s completely fine.

-- You overcame various things. Within one year you made it from Shibuya O-EAST to Shibuya AX. The capacity is way bigger and the scenery will change. But I also think the pressure is quite big! It’s amazing, isn’t it? When we got signed under that label I didn’t know anything about it. Holding MCs, composing songs, making guests come to our lives, all that was just fumbling. The expectations of everyone around us got so high. Even now I’m worried about that. But we made many experiences, had failures and learned from them, so we became tough. Maybe people don’t think that it’s amazing that we came from there to here. Personally I also am a person that is like this but I think I have to fight that feeling.

-- You’re a person that gets in a sad mood quickly, aren’t you? When I think “This is good!” it also happens that I return home and get into a bad mood all over again. I don’t like showing people my weak side. Long ago I didn’t tell anyone what I was thinking in the bottom of my heart. I didn’t want people to see my suffering self, telling them what was really on my mind.

-- But I’m sure everyone wanted to hear it. Especially the members. I came to be able to speak about it with the members. And now I want to tell it the fans as well. Long ago I was someone I made up myself. I thought I would be useless if I wasn’t happy in front of our fans. I didn’t want to give them any bad feelings. This really went on for several months. As of our AX oneman I want them to know everything about me.

-- Definitely, until now you’ve already created great sounds and words [to describe everything] but it feels like you’re breaking out of a shell now. I think you can’t convey it if you write lyrics about things you don’t feel. I didn’t write lyrics like that in the past but the things you feel and the experiences you made… For example in “heartless” I wrote about the time in middle and high school when I felt the worst. When I exposed all my true feelings, the reaction was amazing. Somehow… People barely say this about new songs but often our older songs were described as „whitewashing“. I don’t understand that meaning at all. Maybe they are but the things I wrote weren’t „whitewashing“ anything. They were wishes. “I want to do this” or “I want it to be like that”. That’s what I thought when I wrote it. And also, there weren’t only good things I wrote about. There were also many dark topics, weren’t there?

-- Maybe people, who are holding prejudice thinking that if [your songs] aren’t kirakira then they’re useless, are thinking that it’s whitewashing. That’s what I think. We’re often described as “kirakira kei” but I don’t want you to describe a band with only one word. Maybe in the beginning we were really only that but we don’t think we are only that now. “Inauthentic” or “whitewashing” – I don’t want to be called that anymore, that’s why I’m conveying my real feelings now.

-- Like “From now on I want to lay Royz bare even more”. Yes, I want to do that with these 5 members forever. This is just a hypothesis! But for example, if one of the members dies, I don’t want anyone else to join. I think we will disband then. I think of this as my first and last band that’s why I want to keep on going like it is now. I think we shouldn’t stand still. I don’t like free days because I think too much when I have free time. I go like “Is this really okay? Can’t I just do anything?”

-- Is there any switch that can make you rest? I like being alone. I like drinking alone. Eating, drinking, getting drunk, sleeping. (laughs) That way I can sort things out. I want this for the fans as well as the members: to laugh. When I’m with the members I talk a lot. I want to die laughing (laughs)

-- So you do have time to rest? We do have that! I think it’s dangerous to not take the time to rest. I’m completely aware of that.

-- That’s good. I would be a bit worried if you don’t have time for that. When rushing ahead I think there are times when you can’t move forward at all if you don’t take the time to rest. I know what you mean. Back then, each time I got depressed that was all what I thought. I also thought a lot about death. I wrote light-hearted lyrics but also some with the topic of death.

-- Definitely. Like “Because death exists – How shall we live our life?” In the end, human beings are short-lived. Not long ago my grandfather has passed away. It was terminal cancer and we knew how long he had left. I went to see him off but I did meet him a little earlier. Even though he seemed fine he was hooked up to IV and things like that and couldn’t move around at all. I often thought it won’t be that long anymore. I think that’s also something I might write about in the future. But it’s not like I think that I want to die.

-- Yes, because we want to live we think about death. Yes. That’s also what I think.

-- Today you really surprised me. I didn’t have that dark image of you. The Subaru our fans know probably isn’t really the Subaru we’ve talked about. I thought this would be a good opportunity to talk about it.

-- You don’t really tell what’s wrong when someone asks you “Has something happened?” It’s like that with all the members (laughs). Even though you’ve talked so much about it, as soon as I ask, you avoid it and go “Well… no…”. Because we think it’s not good to show our worried, weak side.

-- Yes. That thought is really strong. But that avoiding makes people think: “There definitely has to be something!” (laughs) Hahahaha! But in the end it’s because I want everyone to smile.

[akanemachurida-blog]

18/02/12 - Port Messe Handshake Report

I went to the SKE48 handshake on February 12 at Port Messe, Nagoya. It was my first time at Port Messe and my first kobetsu handshake event in two years.

I’ll start with Churi. I only had 3 tickets so this will be short.

Churi’s voice was very hoarse and she warned us about it on Twitter beforehand.

She recognized me when I entered her lane and she told me it had been a long time she hadn’t seen me. I agreed and said I wish I saw her more. I then congratulated her on her role as a voice actress for the new Disney/Pixar movie, Coco. (It’s called Remember Me in Japan) She said thanks and I told her I like Disney so I’m really glad she got that opportunity. She then said she’s happy I also like Disney and asked me to come see her again.

For the second time I lined up before she came to her lane. I was very lucky, as the members lined up near Churi’s lane to announce the April concert as well as the continuation for Musubi no Ichiban. Makiko was the one speaking. Afterwards I met Churi and told her that I miscalculated my tickets and just found out that she’s not going to the Kyoto handshake due to her play. She told me that’s correct and invited me to watch her play in Osaka. I told her I’ll definitely go if it lines up with my school dates.

For the last ticket I told her that unfortunately this is my last handshake of the year probably. (With her at least, since she won’t be in Kyoto) I told her I’d support her as always and come back next year for sure. She kind of nodded but suddenly realized what I had said and yelled “Are you serious!? The year’s just begun and you’re done for the year? What? Why?” I reminded her I’m leaving next month but she still looked visibly shocked.

Churi says she’s having the most fun out of her SKE career right now, but she looked exhausted today. The other fans all said the same thing, and apparently she wasn’t feeling well a week ago. She’s incredibly busy with her acting practice and has to go to Tokyo for it tomorrow. Most members went by plane to Niigata but Churi took a train from Tokyo for the tour since she was doing her practice for Basara.

White privilege definitely exists for idol events. I haven’t gone to that many events and I always buy a tiny amount for Churi at handshakes, but she always remembers me. I spent the day with my fellow Churi oshi from Taiwan, but Churi doesn’t recognize her despite her going to far many more events than me and buying more tickets. I felt like my interactions with Churi went well but my friend had trouble, saying Churi looked exhausted and didn’t say much and they had some trouble communicating. As usual, it was great meeting all the regular Churi oshis. I’ve gotten to know quite a lot of them and I spend my time around her lane bouncing from one to the other. (At least in one of the many Churi factions. I still haven’t talked to the vast majority of fans.)

Before I talk about Maya, I’ll talk about the other stuff that was going on today during the handshakes.

There was a sales stand for various things. The lines were huge and I thankfully didn’t have to line up in it. My Taiwanese friend bought me these stickers while I was eating lunch. They are called and look like stickers but they are actually the badges from the Muishiki uniforms that you can stitch on a bag. I think I’ll put them on a bag when I get back home. The Maenomeri sticker looks too girly for me but the Chicken Line one looks metal. Shame since I really like Maenomeri (the song) and don’t really like Chicken Line. I’ll probably buy Kataomoi Finally if there’s a next time.

The biggest thing that happened other than the concert announcement was the unveilment of the third generation draft members. They appeared with Yuasa and Makiko on a stage. I couldn’t get a good view but it was neat. They announced they were going to have a very quick handshake with the D3 members, free of charge. I wanted to go but I didn’t make it in time when I ended my lunch. My friend went and said they were cute.

Other than that, there were two badminton nets set up to play with the members. I sort of wanted to play but the line wasn’t clearly indicated. I was changing clothes in the washroom and when I stepped up Maya and Yunana were playing. I tried finding a way in but greeted some nearby acquaintances and gave up on it, since they finished playing a few minutes after. I stuck around and saw Nacky, Kumachan, and Rara play. An hour or so later I checked again and Satokaho and Yukina were playing, dressed in Cheongsam. That was quick the sight lol, they were pretty good too.

While I didn’t go to any other lanes, I noticed some of the lanes next to the ones I went to. I was most impressed by Uchiyama Mikoto’s lane. She had a lot of people in her lane despite not being a very popular member. I guess Strawberry Punch has helped her out. As expected, her lane is full of females. Her interactions with her fans is as you’d expect, they look very enjoyable and funny.

In much the same way Yuzuki’s lane looks like a ton of fun. About half of her fans are dressed in baseball uniforms of their favourite teams/players. I don’t follow Yuzuki that much but I was a bit surprised by how little Dragons uniforms I saw. They’re Yuzuki’s teams and yet people were sporting uniforms of all sorts of teams.

Another member who I was impressed by looking at their lane was Arai Yuki. I like Yukichan a lot but I am too cheap to go to her lane. She has a style I like a lot. She’s able to combine looking very sweet and cute with a certain kind of coolness.

Now for Maya, whom I had 30 tickets for.

For the first meeting I introduced myself. She greeted me with a “Oh, thanks for coming after coming two weeks ago!” before I said anything, so she definitely recognized me. I then told her I recently became her fan and that I’ve been a fan of Churi for about four years now… but that recently I like Maya a lot. She asked me what caused me to become a fan and I told her that seeing her in the theatre really made me like her. She was really happy to hear that and was glad that I got to go to the theatre. I also told her I always comment on her blog and she asked me for my e-name. I said Jaylitt but she didn’t understand so I said it again and she said “Oh! I know you! Thanks!” I’m not really sure if she knew what my name was since I didn’t pronounce it the way a Japanese person would and I think she was trying to be nice.

For the second one I told her I’ll be voting for her in the sousenkyo and I’m trying to work with other international fans for votes. I told her she has about ten or so oshis outside of Japan (that I know at least). She told me she’s very happy to hear that and is looking forward to it. I told her I wrote messages from fans during her seitansai and asked her if she read them. She told me she hasn’t been able to read them yet. I’m not sure if that means she didn’t get them or hasn’t had the time to do so.

The third time was really bad on my part. I picked on a topic and rehearsed it while waiting but when I found myself in front of Maya I totally blanked out and forgot. I didn’t hesitate and instead complimented her on her clothing. I told her it was really cute and nice and suited her. She said she picked it out yesterday night and thought it suited her, so she’s glad I think so too. She told me she always has rather simple outfits but she likes those kinds. I told her I like them too, and that at any rate the colours are nice. She told me that she’ll be wearing her school uniform at the next handshake in Kyoto.

During the next slot (#3), I told her I translate her tweets and blogs and she made this really funny face of surprise. It felt like her facial expression changed 500 times in 2 seconds. She then said my Japanese is really good and that I’m probably better at kanji than her. I told her there’s no way that could be true since I have trouble with it. So she said it’s our common weakness.

It must be redundant by now but I am short. Despite this Maya seems to think my legs are long and she told me she’s jealous. Whenever I enter/leave the handshake booth she notices that my limbs are long for my height. I laughed and asked her why she’s jealous of something like that. She answered that we’re both around the same height and she just thinks having longer legs is nice. I told her that running is my hobby so I put them to good use. She replied that that must be it, running is the reason for my long legs. She told me she’ll try to run to make her legs longer. I told her that might not necessarily true but who knows. Good luck.

I told her I’d probably go to the Kyoto handshake before I go back to Canada and she was very happy. She again told me she’d be wearing her high school uniform and I said I’m looking forward to it. She started dancing a bit and I told her I’m also looking forward to her school uniform gravure that she’s always talking about. She told me she really hopes she can get that done before graduating.

When I returned she remembered I said I was leaving so she asked if this was my last handshake ticket and asked me again when I’m leaving. I told her again that I’m leaving next month and that I’d probably go to Kyoto before leaving in March. She realized that I already said that but she told me she’s happy that I’m staying a little while longer and can make another event.

My first communication problem happened. I asked if she had any orders (meirei) for me for when I go to Canada. I have a hard time pronouncing the r sounds in Japanese so she misunderstood this as Meimei. She told me she hasn’t met Meimei since her graduation. Luckily this was only one ticket, but it still sucked to kind of waste it. At least I learned something.

I told her that unfortunately overseas fans can’t watch Empty Canvas since you need a Japanese credit card. I told her that I’ve been hesitating sending mail to the show since I won’t be able to watch it anyway. She told me that’s a shame but told me I could still try. I asked her if she’d rather I send messages to her other radio shows, and she told me that’d be better if I can listen to those.

On my penultimate (before last) ticket she looked worried and asked me if this was my last one. I told her I had another one left. She squeezed my hands and told me she’s really happy I came. I wore my green scarf on this occasion because I was cold and it is green and I wanted to see Maya’s reaction. She saw it and laughed, saying I’m super funny for buying a green scarf and touched it. I told her I got it for that reason and she told me she knew. I just laughed and told her she’s the best and she made this massive smile.

For the last ticket I told her that today was a ton of fun. She told me she probably had way more fun than I did and will be waiting for me in Kyoto. I told her I’ll always support her. She told me “Let’s laugh together and reach new places!” To which I gave a thumbs up which she mimicked. She likes giving thumbs up, I notice her doing it with a lot of other fans too. She told me to watch out and have a safe trip home if I can’t come to Kyoto. I thanked her doing our usual nodding (I do this with Churi too, but for whatever reason whenever we say something sarcastic/funny or something “heartfelt” like that both people nod their heads quickly.) I asked her to please remember me (yeah, selfish and dumb of me to ask that but I guess my evil side took control of me) and she told me there’s no problem since my face is really distinct and gave me a thumbs up and laughed, thanked me for the last time, and I left.

This event was very different from my other handshakes since I spent about 70% of it waiting in Maya’s lane. Maya sold out her handshakes and it was my first time at a sold out lane. The amount of people was quite incredible and the longest wait I had was thirty minutes. This happened during the second, third, and fourth blocks. Despite her fifth (final) block being sold out, it was late so I think some people used them all up at the beginning to leave early. Thanks to this I was able to use my tickets individually for the final block, but for the other ones I was forced to use three or four tickets per time. Still, I got a ton of conversation of my tickets and I really understand why people like stacking their tickets and buying a lot. With three+ tickets you’re actually able to have a conversation rather than you just blurting something out and the remember saying something back with no time to think. It’s especially great when it’s all on one member, since you can build up a sort of conversation and feel a sense of satisfaction having talked the whole day. I spent nearly seven? hours standing in Maya’s lane, so my feet hurt a lot afterwards.

I also took part in a Maya community meeting where we did a sort of meet and greet for other fans. Two people talked about stuff they’re organizing for the future, namely the Miyagi handshake event. It was kind of cool just being there and listening in, but I didn’t know anyone and felt a lot of stares.

I also took part in both Maya and Churi’s farewells. Despite selling out, Maya’s slot ended first and I ran over to Churi’s afterwards. Maya didn’t make her way forward but Churi did. Churi tried talking but her voice was so hoarse that no one could hear anything.

At any rate, Maya was great at reacting and initiating conversation. I really don’t regret buying so many for her, although I sort of wish I had more for Churi since I found out today that there she won’t be in Kyoto. Maya gives a feeling that she cares and she clearly puts a lot of thought. She’s really on-the-ball with her replies. As you can see we talked about a lot of stuff despite the time limit. I hope Churi can find some time to relax, but her schedule is so hellish, especially when I think she has to appear in the wrestling as well and practice for that.

On the way back I got a lift from the king of all Churi oshis, which was an honour. It was my first time riding a car in Japan and it sure beats the train since the roads were empty.

[hazuukashi]

Leon Portrayal (@Hazuukashi)

Yo! This’s probably been long overdue, but with the sudden influx of other-fandom followers, it’s probably wise to finally drop this. This spiel’s probably gonna be relatively-mandatory reading for interacting with this blog (if you haven’t already of course), and I’ll update my rules to say such. I would APPRECIATE if you’ve read this post to give it a like so that I know you’ve read it, though that ain’t mandatory. All this is really gonna be is discussing how this blog portrays Leon and what you should know when interacting with him. I do ask that you read it, since things obviously won’t necessarily match up to other people’s ideas of ‘Leon Kuwata’. Here goes under the cut:

Some general information on Leon to start. He’s an extraordinary baseball player, often being the ‘Super High School Level’ baseball player, although this blog also transfers the talent to his adult life depending on the verse. Most verses, Leon is between the age of 16-21, with a school verse being closer to 16, and anything else edging upwards to 19-21.  

To be clear, this blog’s portrayal hopes to hit the English voice for the character. Grant George did a phenomenal job with Leon’s voice, and I respect him completely for that. If you want to hear voice samples of what Leon sounds like, please refer to this video (DR1 spoilers obviously). 

Something that’s probably different than what people expect from Leon: He actually does really like playing baseball. This is shown in the manga, as he’s being dragged away. He says that he ‘just realized’ that he actually loves baseball, and admits that he wants to continue playing it. On top of that, it’s quite clear that he pretty much only says he hates what he’s good at to maintain some sort of image. In a sense, him ‘hating’ baseball isn’t incorrect though. Leon genuinely hates how he has to change his looks when he plays, and he’s not exactly excited about rolling around in the grass and the dirt. What he does love about baseball is the crowd, the energy, and quite obviously the praise he gets due to his immense skill. In general, though interactions claiming Leon doesn’t like baseball are fine, please do note that he actually does, even if he’s reluctant to admit it.

He also knows that athletes can’t play for their entire life, so he has plans to become a musician. He’s not great at performing, but he can sing at the very least. I would argue that his voice is around a 7.5/10 for anything in his repertoire (he can sing in English, mainly Beatles and Sex Pistols of course).  On top of that, he’s learned to play guitar himself, though he’s nowhere near phenomenal. Aside from that, Leon’s not capable of performing much, and he certainly can’t dance or sing well outside of his song repertoire. Still, he’s very open about his desire to sing and will usually upon request, though it’s clear he’s very embarrassed or at the very least iffy when it comes to singing on the spot.

As far as interacting with this blog’s portrayal of Leon: Note that a lot of his interactions are going to be him either trying to befriend or charm your muse. He’s naturally outgoing, and finds it very easy to be social, so most of his interactions are going to lean towards this path. Him flirting doesn’t necessarily mean he’s interested in your muse, though he does compliment pretty much everybody. You’re free to compliment him back, yell at him, or simply reject him. What’ll probably get him really angry is if you try to make fun of him though, as he’s got an immense ego. This’ll definitely be a quick way to make the interaction go south fast.

Finally, Leon’s a celebrity baseball player. Baseball is huge in Japan, and even in his school verses, he’s still well known. It’s proven that he, along with some of his other classmates, are ridiculously popular in the media, and with Leon’s outgoing personality, I have no doubt that he’s one of the more common ones to be featured. If your muse doesn’t canonically interact with him (especially those that are in another fandom that I interact with), it’s entirely possible for your muse to still recognize him because of his status. You can use it to your advantage when trying to think of a way for us to interact. Your muse may have heard of him, or seen him somewhere, and whether or not they like him is entirely up to you. In some verses, it’s quite possible that he’s on television, doing interviews, or at the very least in popular magazines. Your muse might have heard about him due to his flirtatious nature, since he ‘canonically dates a new girl every week’. Wouldn’t be too far of a stretch to have heard of him through those rumors too. He is rather wealthy as a result, and he can pretty much buy whatever he wants within reason (he’s not going to go around buying mansions anytime soon, but he can afford many dates, some rather expensive houseware etc.)...

[aion-rsa]

Why Pokémon Has Endured For 25 Years

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In 1996, Joseph Tobin was a professor of early education at the University of Hawaii when he decided to walk into a hobby store in Kaimuki for field research.

“They had some Pokémon stuff—the Japanese versions of the cartridges,” Tobin recalls. “People could buy them in this store before they were even available elsewhere. We interviewed the owner and decided that Pokémon would be a really interesting thing to study.”

Tobin had a pre-existing interest in Japanese culture from time spent in Japan as an exchange student and therefore continued his research in other hobby shops and toy stores throughout Honolulu. As the years progressed, he traded Pokémon cards with children who were adamant that he would not get ripped off in lopsided swaps. He followed as a colleague’s six-year-old son spent 90-plus hours with his Pokémon Blue cartridge for the Nintendo Game Boy, learning to read, understanding maps, and calculating sums in the process.

The years of Poké studies culminated in Tobin hosting an academic conference in 2000, where educators, anthropologists, and other cultural experts gathered in Honolulu to discuss this massive, yet certainly fleeting, Pokémon phenomenon. The findings and arguments of the conference were collected in the insightful and thoroughly-researched, yet tragically named, Pikachu’s Global Adventure: The Rise and Fall of Pokémon.

“We thought we better hurry and get this out before the craze is over,” Tobin says.

25 years later and the Pokémon craze is nowhere near over. 

Today, Pokémon is one of the most successful, if not the most successful entertainment entities in human history. Pokémon is the highest-grossing media franchise of all time, having taken in an estimated $88 billion in revenue. According to eBay, there were 160 million searches on the platform for Pokémon cards last year, and they outsold even baseball cards. In December of last year, a Base set 1st edition PSA-graded 10 “shadowless” Charizard card sold on eBay for a staggering $350,100. The Pokémon games are now in their eighth generation and have sold over 340 million units. The long-running anime is in its 24th year and features more than 1,100 episodes. 

In defense of Tobin and The Rise and Fall of Pokémon’s title, the franchise, created by Game Freak and Nintendo, did seem like it was on the ropes in the early 2000s. “Pokémania” had largely died out and financial markers like the Pokémon card market had cooled. But Pokémon didn’t need a lengthy Pokémania to become one of the most successful entertainment franchises ever. To find success, all Pokémon needed was a consistent track record of innovative creators behind the scenes and a dedicated fan base of children—and eventually adults—willing to catch them all. 

“This will probably be something you hear from me and the rest of the team at Pokémon a lot. But Pokémon really is for everyone,” says Daniel Benkwitt, Senior Manager, Communications & Public Relations for The Pokémon Company International. “As long time fans will tell you, Pokémon has always been around throughout many iterations. The fans have been dedicated to Pokémon for 25 years, no matter when they came in.”

Benkwitt has a unique perspective on the nature of Pokémon’s ebbs and flows. Now working on the franchise’s 25th-anniversary celebrations, Benkwitt joined the Pokémon Company during Pokémon’s 20th anniversary—the same year that the massively popular augmented reality mobile game Pokémon Go debuted.

“I was excited to work on an exciting franchise, but who knew what it was actually going to be once Pokémon Go had launched?” he says. “Truly, Pokémon Go on the 20th anniversary brought Pokémon back into the zeitgeist.”

In many ways, Pokémon Go served as a reminder of what the Poké die-hards already knew: this is Pikachu’s world and we’re just living in it. Whether it be through the series of beloved games, a highly successful card game, long-running anime, or sheer power of brand alone, Pokémon is one of the last quarter century’s big pop culture winners. 

The reasons why Pokémon survived its early fad status to blossom into a titan of entertainment are varied and innumerable, but it all starts with accessibility.

“There’s a variety of different ways and different touchpoints that fans can enter into Pokémon. My personal story is the anime,” Benkwitt says. “For a lot of folks, it was the video games, because that truly is the core of the franchise. Everything emanates out from there.”

Let the Poké Games Begin!

Pokémon Red and Green first premiered in Japan on Feb. 27, 1996. Its English counterparts, Red and Blue, would arrive in North America in 1998. Just about everything that’s appealing about the Pokémon franchise is apparent in those first two installments: exploration, training, trading, battling. The games capture creator Satoshi Tajiri’s experience of collecting insects as a boy in Japan, scaled up and fine-tuned for a larger, and eventually more Western audience. 

The games have evolved over the years, moving from a Matrix-green original Game Boy sprite display to the gorgeous, full-color three dimensions of Nintendo Switch. Along the way, new generations of fans have found their respective access points into the games and the franchise at large.

Pokémon content creator Ron Sroor is part of the next wave of Pokémon fandom, having been born after Red and Blue even debuted. He knows as well as anyone that the appeal of Pokémon has been constant, even if the heights of the franchise have waxed and waned. 

“To the people who were around at the beginning of Pokémania, it seemed like it was dying down, and it definitely was,” Sroor says. “But it never stopped being big. It was going from the biggest thing ever to just a normal, big thing.”

Like Benkwitt, Sroor came to Pokémon through the anime before coming to appreciate the larger tapestry of the franchise through the Pokémon Black and White games, which are set in a world approximating his native New York City. Now Sroor interacts with Pokémon fans via a variety of creative YouTube videos in which he discusses elements of the games like tier lists for powerful Pokémon, and shares his own artistic Pokémon renditions.

“I think the Pokémon are the draw of the franchise. They’re the perfect formula for creating creatures that aren’t too monstrous, but also not too childish or too cute,” he says. “Every single Pokémon is based on something, whether it be an animal or myth, and every location in the game or in the show or whatever is based on places in the real world.”

Cardboard Craze

Though the Pokémon series of games were the progenitor of the franchise, Pikachu and friends quickly proved too big to be contained by only one medium. The Pokémon Trading Card Game was first published by Wizards of the Coast in October 1996, just eight months after Red and Blue’s debut. These days, the Pokémon Trading Card Game (now under the auspices of The Pokémon Company) is considered one of the “Big Three” TCGs, alongside Magic: The Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh!. 

Competitive Pokémon TCG player Andrew Mahone recalls experiencing the first wave of Pokemania when he was in fourth grade. 

“1999—it was everywhere. Kids were playing the cards at recess, at the pool, wherever we went. I got captivated by the initial craze as it was the cultural phenomenon happening at the time. And being 10 years old, you’re the same age as the hero in the Pokémon franchise. So it really hit home with me there.”

Like many other kids of his generation, Mahone set Pokémon aside throughout his high school years and picked up a diverse array of other interests like soccer, skateboarding, and competitive running. It was during college, however, that Mahone met back up with the franchise that never truly went away, playing Pokémon Diamond and Pearl on the bus to and from track meets.

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“I fell in love with the franchise all over again doing that, and I played the DS game for hundreds of hours throughout my college career. When I graduated college, that’s when I was like, ‘Okay. Well, now I want something else that’s competitive to do now that I’m done with sports.’ That’s where I got into competitive Pokémon.”

Mahone attended his first competitive TCG event in 2012 and won his first regional championship in 2015. By 2017, he was making YouTube videos about the competitive Pokémon TCG scene. That channel has now evolved into his multimedia enterprise Tricky Gym, supported by Full Grip Games.

As part of the Pokémon TCG diaspora, Mahone has had a front-row seat to the game’s latest renaissance, this time likely driven by young adults looking to connect with their past while stuck indoors due to COVID lockdowns.

“We see a lot of young adults now in their mid-20s and 30s revisiting Pokémon because they have such strong nostalgic feelings for it. It came out in this very impactful time in their early childhood.”

I Wanna Be the Very Best…

One of the reasons that so many adults have warm fuzzies for the franchise is the storytelling around it. Premiering in 1997, the anime story of Ash Ketchum and his quest to become a Pokémon master has been a constant companion of the franchise through 24 years and hundreds of episodes. It also had a tremendous impact on the woman who would one day voice the young hero of Pallet Town.

“It was hard for me even as a kid to see it as a fad, because of the show,” Sarah Natochenny says. “It had heart, relatable characters, and adorable, unique creatures. This wasn’t just a game or set of toys. Pokémon had a story.”

Natochenny is an artist with eclectic talents and interests. After winning a bronze medal at the Junior Olympics in rhythmic gymnastics in 1999, she studied at the Strasberg Theater Institute for four years while also doing improv at UCB, and taking voice and dance classes on the side. In 2006, she auditioned for the role of Ash Ketchum in the Pokémon anime’s English dub, taking over for the role’s progenitor, Veronica Taylor.

“Pokémon was the biggest job I booked. It was only my second voiceover job, after a medical industrial,” Natochenny says. “I was the perfect age when Pokémon first came to America, and I loved the show and remember begging my parents for the cards. I had one deck. I have no idea where it is or whether or not there was a million-dollar card in there.”

Since 2006, Natochenny has voiced Ash, his mom Delia, along with a host of other human and Pokémon characters (Buneary being a particular favorite because it’s very cute). As part of the Pokémon 25th anniversary, Natochenny is most looking forward to wrapping up work on Pokémon the Movie: Secrets of the Jungle, along with some of the other planned festivities. 

“I’m looking forward to celebrating with fans and continuing to bring joy to people who grew up with my portrayal of their favorite character. I’ll also probably dance to the music that comes out, so tune in to my social media to see if those dance classes paid off,” she says. 

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25 Years of Pokémon

As Natochenny suggests, The Pokémon Company indeed has big plans—musical and otherwise—for the franchise’s 25th anniversary.

The team has been working on the celebration for over a year and has partnered with UMG and Katy Perry for a year-long musical campaign called P25 Music. Other corporate partners include Build-A-Bear Workshop, General Mills, Levi’s, McDonald’s, Jazwares, Scholastic, Mattel, Funko, PowerA, and The Wand Company (which is manufacturing a lifelike Poké Ball). And there are still more announcements to come.

“All I can say is, stay tuned because the rest of the year is going to be quite exciting with more surprises. Pokémon likes to surprise its fans,” Benkwitt says.

One thing that wouldn’t surprise its fans is if Pokémon one day observed a 50th- anniversary celebration, or even a centennial. It certainly wouldn’t surprise Tobin, who is still an early education professor, now at the University of Georgia.

“I’m not surprised that [Pokémon] has lasted this long in the sense that I think it’s really good,” he says. “It was really cleverly designed and it has a really rich narrative. I’m happy to see that it’s made it.”

Shop Pokémon on eBay today!

The post Why Pokémon Has Endured For 25 Years appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[megareviews]

Okay I’m pretty late on this one as the Spring 2018 season is about 4/7ths finished by this point, and I could be giving excuses, or I could just get to the review. I’ll opt for the latter, so here we go for first impressions of Spring 2018, under a read more because this season is pretty massive, and I realized the first one should probably also be under a read more.

3D Kanojo (3D Girlfriend): The main character is a super otaku in high school with only one other friend who’s also an otaku dude. After being late one day he gets stuck cleaning the pool with another late student, who happens to be female. Judging her on her appearance and tardy frequency, he assumes she’s not going to come help clean. Surprise surprise, she shows up and is earnest in her work cleaning, and they end up getting along. I like the female lead, but I hate the main guy and also the concept of the show in general so that’s a no watch.

Aikatsu Friends: There’s a lot of Aikatsu and I’ve never planned on watching any of it as of this point.

Akkun to Kanojo (Akkun and His Girlfriend): A guy who’s a jerk to his girlfriend, but actually loves her very much and can’t express it well. The show is a short about a guy who’s a tsundere, but it’s pretty painful to watch for even a few minutes, especially since I’m not a big fan of the tsundere archetype in the first place.

Alice or Alice: Siscon Niisan to Futago no Imouto (Alice or Alice: The Siscon Brother and His Two Sisters): Well the title of this show is one of the largest red flags I’ve seen in a while, and it’s just about as bad as what can be expected from the title. From watching one episode it seems like the sisters are more into their brother than the other way around but that’s still pretty bad the way the show portrays any of the characters.

Amai Choubatsu: Watashi wa Kanshu Senyou Pet (Sweet Punishment: I’m the Pet of the Guards): This is pretty much a hentai that just barely sneaked by without the hentai tag. Don’t.

Amanchu! Advance: It looks pretty cool like the first season, but I have that on my plan to watch so I can’t say or watch anything about the second season.

Beyblade Burst Chouzetsu: I generally preferred playing with Beyblade toys or games rather than watching the anime is most cases, and this is the third season of Burst, so there’s really nothing I have to say on this one. Why are there so many sequel seasons at the beginning of the alphabet this year?

Binan Koukou Chikyuu Bouei-bu HAPPY KISS! (Cute High Earth Defense Club HAPPY KISS!): I was not a fan of this for the first episode of the first season, so I’m definitely not watching the second season of it.

Boku no Hero Academia 3 (My Hero Academia 3): Finally, a second (third) season that I’m actually watching and can talk about with knowledge. While the first episode was kind of pointless and more of a recap of the previous seasons, two of my favorite characters will be introduced in this season, so I’m looking forward to it.

Butlers ~Chitose Momotose Monogatari~ (Butlers x Battlers): I almost understood what was going on in this show, and then everything, including the genre, changed. Then I look up the description of the show and got even more confused, because there’s like butlers who travel through time and fight things, which wasn’t indicated at all through the first episode. I’d only suggest this for people who could be oddly curious as to what the heck will happen in the show.

Caligula: Our main character here is a psychology geek, but besides annoying his friends every so often with attempted psychology lectures, lives a normal high school life. That is, until he goes into his high school graduation ceremony and the speakers start giving entrance ceremony speeches. After that people start turning into monsters and attacking the people who are still normal. After fleeing the school, we run into a guy with a black spike running through him and a black arm holding a black gun. I really liked the character designs from the game this is based on, which I never got to play, so I’ll be watching it to see how it goes. I’m also a fan of the importance the music seems to play in the show, so bonus points there.

Captain Tsubasa (2018): Probably like the one from 1983, but in 1080p. It’s an elementary soccer anime, so there’s pretty much no reason that I’d watch it, but it’s probably fine for fans of sports anime or the original.

Cardfight!! Vanguard (2018): Another season of a card game anime. I physically own a deck of CV cards and that’s about the extent of my knowledge of the series.

Comic Girls: After ranking poorly in her magazine, a young mangaka moves to an all-female dorm for mangaka to learn from / with others. Knowing that she has issues writing high school kids despite being in high school herself due to the fact that she has no friends or communication skills, she accepts readily. After meeting her roommate and some neighbors she finds out she’s got a long way to go in the manga business, but is hopeful of the possibility of getting better with the help of her new friends. I’m a fan of many of the content creator anime, and this feels like a moe version of Bakuman., but I think I’ll just put it on hold now for other shows that I’m more interested in for this season.

Cutie Honey Universe: Another reboot of a popular Nagai Go series, I’m not sure how much information I’m supposed to have of the series before watching this iteration of it. The other series, Devilman: Crybaby, seemed much more comprehensive in how the story was told so that someone starting the series from there could understand what was going on. Either way I’m applying the same decision to this as to D:C, watch the original first, and then try this one.

Devils Line: Don’t let the title fool you, this is about vampires. Vampires who get sexually aroused by human blood. The show has the main female plot device and the actual main character is a half-vampire in a police division for fighting vampires. There’s plenty of shows with similar concepts that are better than what I’m feeling from this with the amount of murder and rape alluded to as of ep 1 and the fact that there is a romance tag in the genres.

Dorei-ku The Animation (23 Slaves and Me / Slave Ward): The main object of this show is called an SCM, and what it does is let the users of It engage in duels, with the loser becoming a slave of the winner. The term duel seems to be pretty loose and left up to the users, which is pretty interesting, mostly consisting of some type of game. The show seems pretty edgy with characters being introduced with an into card of their name and them in bondage, plus the whole “slave” thing, and the implied rape scene. Since I pretty much consume any media with characters fighting each other through games, no matter how edgy (No Game No Life, Rengoku Deadroll, etc.) I will be watching this, and I’m pretty sure it’ll be interesting, if nothing else.

Duel Masters!: It’s a children’s card game anime, there’s a million of them and I have no clue what season of this it’s supposed to be. It could be the first or the fiftieth, and I would be none, the wiser, not that I care.

Fullmetal Panic! Invisible Victory: My friends all say FMP is good, so I’ll watch it… eventually. This is a sequel, so not much I can do to change people’s opinions on watching this.

Fumikiri Jikan (Railroad Crossing Time): It’s a short about conversations that people have while waiting at the crossroad for trains to pass. It looks like just a series of episodic conversations that are only slightly absurd from the description and the first episode, so you’re not losing much by trying it out.

Future Card Buddyfight X: All-Star Fight: I feel like I’m repeating myself a lot at this point, but there are so many children’s card game anime airing this season. And this one is coming in as the fifth season, so my dig at Duel Masters! Is justified as I write these all in alphabetical order.

Gegege no Kitarou (2018): A youkai child who goes around helping humans not be annihilated by other evil youkai. This is a reboot for the fiftieth anniversary of the series, and it looks pretty interesting. From the first episode, it’s probably going to be episodic and aimed in the family friendly direction, so anyone can watch it and enjoy.

Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu – Die Neue These- Kaikou (The Legend of Galactic Heroes: The New Thesis – Encounter [wow, one of the few times I can use my German and Japanese knowledge at the same time]): There sure are a lot of reboots this season too, and I’ve seen a couple of people with mixed opinions on whether you should watch this or not, whether you’ve seen the original or not, so I decided to skip this one until I make it through the original Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu.

Golden Kamui (Golden Kamuy): A war veteran of the Russo-Japanese war is trying to eke out a living during the Hokkaido Gold Rush, and hears about a hidden Ainu stash of gold with a map etched into the bodies of a bunch of prisoners as tattoos. As he starts his search for the pieces of the map he runs into an Ainu girl, who helps him survive in the wild and collect the map on the condition that she won’t kill anybody for the map. I enjoy the dynamic between the two main characters and the show has a really good balance between comedic wilderness survival sections and brutal combat scenes, so this is near the top of my watchlist.

Gundam Build Divers: I got no clue on how the Gundam Build series fit together, and maybe I never will.

Gurazeni (Money Pitch): It’s a major league baseball anime where the main character is a left-handed relief pitcher, who enjoys studying the salaries of other players in the league. The show description says that player’s performance determines their salaries, but as far as I know, that’s just how it works in America, and I don’t know if it’s a different system in Japan, or if the show just gets really focused on the money aspect of it.

High School DxD HERO: BOOOOOOSTO! (I’ve watched literally no DXD). This is the fourth season, and the studio animating the show changed for this season, from TNK to Passione, a newish studio that I’ve enjoyed how all their shows looked, if not the shows themselves.

Hinamatsuri: After a tough day of yakuza work, the main heroine drops onto the yakuza man’s head in metallic egg thing. A day later the yakuza releases her and she starts going on a psychokinetic rampage and breaking a bunch of valuable vases. After the yakuza generously decides to accept this girl into his house until further notice they just try to live together in as peacefully as possible. It’s full of a lot of goofy scenes played completely straight, which is pretty funny. The artstyle constantly reminds me of Tsuki ga Kirei, which is pretty much the only reason I’m not adding it to my watch immediately list, despite the comedy being right up my alley.

Hisone to Maso-tan (Hisone and Maso): The main character is in the Japanese Self Defense Force’s air force when she gets transferred to an assignment that very few people have been able to qualify for. This assignment involves being eaten by a dragon that can transform into an aircraft and piloting it from inside it’s digestive tract. The artstyle is pretty unique, and I can’t quite pin down a genre to call it, so I’ll say check it out, but I won’t be keeping up with it in season.

Hoozuki no Reitetsu 2: Sono ni (Hozuki’s Coolheadedness 2: Part 2): Have you watched part 1 of season 2? Then you can now watch this.

Inazuma Eleven: Ares no Tenbin: You only need to have watched the first Inazuma Eleven to understand what’s going on in this soccer anime. Unfortunately, I don’t even have that fraction of the Inazuma Eleven series watched.

Juushinki Pandora: As humanity continues to make scientific progress, accidents are going to happen. One such incident caused the world to be blanketed by a mysterious energy, that caused most life on earth to start hybridizing with machines. These hybrids then started evolving at a faster rate than humanity’s technological progress, and start destroying humanity. Various mechs are piloted by humans to protect the dwindling lands that can support humanity, and that’s where the main character steps in. A brilliant scientist on the verge of a breakthrough that will bring the mechs built by humanity up to par with the wildlife, or even stronger. While I like how the hybrid wildlife looks, that’s about the only thing I like about the show and don’t care to sit through CG mech fights for that purpose. That’s what Horizon Zero Dawn is for.

Kakurio no Yadomeshi: The main character of this show has grown up being able to see youkai, and enjoys feeding them to prevent them from harming other humans. One day a youkai shows up and brings her to an inn in the youkai world, telling her that her grandfather owes him a large debt, with her being the collateral. To this she responds with a swift “No way” and decides to work off her grandfather’s debts instead. To this end she tries to find someplace in the inn where she can help, and by the end of the episode finds a café in the yard that’s about to be closed down, so she decides to work with one of the kitsune employees to reopen the café so she can start paying off those debts. Not my cup of tea so I’ll be passing on this one.

Koneko no Chii: Ponponra Daibouken 2 (Chi’s Sweet Adventure 2): CG kittens doing CG kitten things I would assume from what I know about the series, but it’s the second season, so, even more kitten things.

Kiratto Pri☆chan: With a massively popular system for a variety of user created shows and capabilities to upload from any device, the Pri☆chan system can let anybody be a star. The two main characters decide to become an idol duo basically through a challenge, and end up doing well with their debut live show. The CG for the live show is pretty good, but I’m not really a fan of idol shows so I don’t have any plans on further watching this.

Kuroneko Monroe (Monroe the Black Cat): I have not been able to find a source on this one, which is an issue with a lot of the children’s shorts.

Ladyspo (Lady Sports): After getting about 5 minutes in, I had to give up. It was a different still image every 15~30 seconds of women on the toilet while some kind of mascot character talked to them. There is no subbed version of this so I only got the gist from listening myself, but this barely qualifies as animation.

Last Period: Owarinaki Rasen no Monogatari (Last Period: Story of an Endless Spiral): A show of magic-users called Periods fighting monsters called Spirals. Though the guild branch of the main characters suffers from the theft of everything of monetary value, and the main characters are tasked with taking quests to recover enough money to buy back their guild hall. That’s the setting at least, and as revealed later in the show, the show’s just really about making fun of gacha games while (probably) following the plot of the game it’s based off of. I think the roasting of gacha games is an untapped anime market, so I’d recommend this to anyone else who suffers on their own quests for full ☆☆☆☆☆ or UR teams.

Layton Mystery Tanteisha: Katori no Nazotoki File (Layton Mystery Detective Agency: Katri’s Case Solving File): An anime about the famous professor Layton’s daughter, solving mysteries, just like her dad. It’s a mystery show for kids, the first episode’s mystery was kinda quick and weak, but the characters are pretty interesting. I can’t think of a detective mystery show that’s come out since Kindaichi R2 finished so this show can be useful for scratching that itch, and later episodes might have more interesting mysteries.

Lostorage conflated WIXOSS: There’s so much WIXOSS and I have no idea how they are ordered, but this definitely isn’t the first season of a show, which may not be obvious to people who don’t know the series. Unlike a lot of the other card game based shows that have way too many seasons for me to understand, I do actually plan on watching this one at some point.

Lupin III: Part V: Part 5?!

Mahou Shoujo Ore (Magial Girl Ore): There’s just… so much going on. The basic premise is a comedic magical girl show, except the transformation is into a buff dude. As of episode 1 it is a series of absurd comedy skits leading up to this reveal, and the show can go literally anywhere from here. Being a fan of absurdist humor is the main reason to watch this show.

Mahou Shoujo Site (Magical Girl Site): And now, the complete opposite, a psychological horror magical girl show. We spend the first half of episode 1 watching the main character get brutally bullied, then she becomes a magical girl through one of the creepiest ways possible, and then accidentally exacts revenge. The show finishes introducing another magical girl who seems to have her schtick down a bit better than the main character. I really like most of the visual aspects of the show, and am a big fan of dark magical girl series in general so this was a no-brainer watch for me.

Major 2nd: It’s a baseball show about a kid who’s father casts a large shadow of baseball greatness on his son. You get to watch the kid play baseball with his team.

Megalo Box: While this show was created for the 50th anniversary of Ashita no Joe, this show is unlike the reboots and alternate series of this season as this show is completely unique and separate from the old show. An underground boxer who makes a living throwing matches who wants to compete for real is given a goal of a countrywide boxing tournament called Megalonia. There are many issues with a nameless man with no citizenship trying to get into such a tournament, but a fight with the number one ranked boxer sparks a fierce desire within the main character. In addition to the show looking amazing, the boxing is also upgraded in the future that the show takes place in, with mechanical boxing gear that increases the offensive and defensive capabilities of each boxer.

Neko Neko Nihonshi 3rd Season (Cat’s Japanese History 3rd Season): Another short this season about cats, but now they’re teaching Japanese history. It’s the third season, so there’s about 12 hours of the show to catch up on if you want to watch this season.

Nil Admirari no Tenbin (The Scales of Nil Admirari): This story is about books which become infested with negative emotions to the point of causing readers to injure themselves. The main character’s brother nearly committed suicide due to one such book, and the experience caused the main character to see these negative emotions in books. Due to this ability she gets scouted for a secret branch of the government that deals with these books. I honestly can’t figure out how to make the show interesting with the way the story is set up now, so I might actually watch more of this to see what happens.

Nobunaga no Shinobi: Anegawa Ishiyama-hen (Ninja Girl & Samurai Master: Anegawa and Ishiyama Arc): The third season of ninja comedy shorts.

Omae wa Mada Gunma wo Shiranai (You Don’t Know Gunma Yet): As the main character is moving to the Gunma prefecture, he texts one of his old classmates that moved there before, telling him about the move. An immediate warning to not to is the response, but as he gets it, the mood on the train suddenly darkens and he can’t get off the train. Overall the show seems like a weird comedy with factoids about the Gunma prefecture, if you want to learn about it for some reason.

Oretacha Youkai Ningen G (We Are Youkai People G): I literally cannot find anything about this show, and the image provided is kinda terrifying to be honest. It seems to be related to the series with the same name minus the G, but they don’t look anything alike. Hopefully I can purge knowledge of this show from my mind after writing this.

Oshiri Tantei (Butt Detective): Another short that I cannot find any traces of online, even though it seems to be something Crunchyroll picked up and was supposed to air sometime this month. I’m just gonna go ahead and say it’s probably a lot of butt puns while vaguely following some mystery.

Persona 5 The Animation: An anime of Persona 5, just like it says in the title. The show seems to follow pretty closely to the game, so this looks like it might be a good way to get the story of the game without a lot of the grinding battles and relationships. It will be 24 episodes, so the entirety of the show is about 10 hours, rather than the game’s 60+, though whether this is a good or bad thing will only be known after the show is well on it’s way.

Piano no Mori (TV): This show is about two pianist children who meet each other in elementary school. One is the son of a prostitute who lives in the forest and plays an abandoned piano he found there, and the other is from a prodigious family who’s had piano lessons since he could reach the keys. I think this show could an interesting watch, except the CG used for the piano scenes is ugly as hell and keeps switching on and off depending on if a character’s fingers were on screen. CG on it’s own is fine, but the constant switching during a singular scene drives me crazy, the same issue I had with Toji no Miko last season.

Puzzle & Dragon: I cannot find subs of this version of the PAD anime, as it is completely different from PAD Cross. Now that I actually play the game it’s based on on occasion, I thought I’d check out the anime based on it.

Rokuhoudou Yotsuiro Biyori: A couple of dudes running a tea shop. That’s about it and judging from the first episode I’m going to say it seems like an episodic show focused on relaxing, both for the viewers and the characters. Probably a fine show if you’re okay spending your time watching the staff interacting with each other and learning about their individual traits and how they interact, but it’s not doing anything for me.

Saredo Tsumibito wa Ryuu to Odoru (Dances with the Dragons): The story of two bounty hunters in a world of magic and dragons. A human with offensive magic fighting with another humanoid species who fights with a sword and strengthening magic. The show’s visuals are pretty average and the story seems to be of the main characters balancing their personal lives and expenses with their abilities to defeat dragons. I wasn’t feeling like keeping up with it from the first episode, but it doesn’t look like a bad choice to watch.

Shiyan Pin Jiating (Jikken-hin Kazoku / Creature Family Days): Okay so a genius, a dog, a plant, a spider, and a psychic walk into a Chinese restaurant. This isn’t a joke, this is just what happens in the first episode. The main characters are all siblings who are exceptional in some way, the oldest four as being experiments of their parents, and the youngest child who is the genius. The story takes place some time after the parents of this family are arrested for performing illegal human experimentation, and are about the family trying to live the most normal life they can. I like the characters and their mix of supernatural traits, and it’s a pretty cute show overall. It’s a bit shorter than a normal show, but longer than a short, and airs with both Japanese and Chinese audio, so there’s a lot of oddities mixed into the show in many ways.

Shokugeki no Souma: San no Sara – Tootsuki Ressha-hen (Food Wars: Third Plate – Totsuki Train Arc): I still gotta catch up on the third season of this, but I’ll finally be able to see Rindo animated, so that’s great.

Souten no Ken: REGENESIS (Fist of the Blue Sky: REGENESIS): The second season to the prequel to Hokuto no Ken (Fist of the North Star), I think?

Steins;Gate 0: The Science Adventure Series will eventually be watched by me, as people keep yelling at me to watch it.

Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online: I can’t watch this until I fulfill both conditions of finishing the main SAO series and another project I’m working on, so it might be a while before I get to this. The author for this story is completely different from the main series writer, and I’ve heard that this is a vast improvement.

Tachibanakan to Lie Angle (Love to Lia Angle): After moving from her hometown as a child, the main character returns to a student dorm to start high school. Soon after finding it her dreams of a high class dorm are shattered, but at least there are plenty of other friendly girls living there, and two of them were friends from back when she used to live in her hometown. Other than that, the main premise seems to be related to the residents chilling in various states of undress, so I’m planning on just skipping this short.

Tada-kun wa Koi wo Shinai (Tada Can’t Fall in Love): After saving a foreign girl from the rain by bringing her to his family’s café, the main character learns that she came to Japan and even learned Japanese almost exclusively because of an old samurai anime. That’s all I really remember, and it’s a romance show where none of the characters really resonated with me, so I can’t vouch for it, and my reason to not watch is that I couldn’t find a reason to watch it.

To Be Heroine: A sequel to To Be Hero, which I couldn’t finish, so I couldn’t start this. The art looks pretty good from what I saw when searching for a screenshot.

Tokyo Ghoul:re: I don’t understand the order and relations between the Tokyo Ghoul series, so I’m still stuck somewhere in season 2.

Uchuu Senkan Tiramisu (Space Battleship Tiramisu): The show follows the ace of humanity’s alien defense fleet, one of the youngest men fighting to protect Earth. This age difference causes the main character to not get along well with any of his teammates, and he usually just ends up isolating himself in his mech’s cockpit for some peace and quiet. But things never go as smoothly as he likes, and the show is just watching this poor man struggle to relax in space, which has been pretty funny as of so far.

Uma Musume Pretty Derby (Horse Girls Pretty Derby): A show where we got racehorses, but instead of actual horses they are anime girls. I was somewhat dubious of this as an idea for a show, and watching made me realize how wrong I was to doubt this show. It’s pretty funny and while the main character doesn’t enter a race, one of the other main characters does race, and it looked pretty good. There’s plenty of factors coming together to make this into a promising show from the first episode, like the writing, the animation (90% of the time), and the fact that it’s exactly like an actual sport, but not actually.

Usagi no Matthew (Matthew the Rabbit): It’s a kid’s short, and therefore, nobody has bothered ripping and subbing the show, so I can’t really say anything about it.

Wakaokami wa Shougakusei! (The Inn Mistress is an Elementary Schooler): After her parents die in a traffic accident, the main character moves into an inn run by her grandmother. Then after a few misunderstandings mostly caused by trying to talk to a ghost and real people at the same time, she ends up getting formal training to take over the inn for her grandmother. I’m not particularly interested in where the plot goes and the characters are all kind of annoying, so I’ll be passing on this show.

Wotaku ni Koi wa Muzukashii (Love is Hard for an Otaku): This is one of the few shows where I’ve read the source material before watching the show so it’ll bias me a bit, but it’s a good rom-com. The main character broke up with her former boyfriend after he learned she was an otaku, and even changed companies because of how ashamed she was, only to find an otaku friend she hadn’t seen since elementary school. They start to date each other because they’re good friends and don’t have to hide their otakuness from each other, and just go through office life balancing work and fun. I relate very strongly with the guy and how he lives his life so I will follow this show to the end of the universe.

Youkai Watch: Shadow Side: Season ??? of Youkai Watch. What else can I say at this point?

[animeslovenija]

Hiroshi Shimizu interview

Interview: Studio Ghibli Key Animator Hiroshi Shimizu by Zac Bertschy

Sep 8th 2017

It isn't often you're given the chance to sit down and talk to someone like Hiroshi Shimizu. As a key animator, his work spans virtually the entire history of anime most fans these days are familiar with, from Studio Ghibli's groundbreaking, beloved work of the 90s to just about every flavor of Lupin III. A frequent collaborator of superstar director Sayo Yamamoto, Shimizu handled character design on Michiko & Hatchin – an experience that led him to work on just about all of Yamamoto's projects since then, including some key animation for Yuri!!! on Ice. With an unbelievable career like that, there's so much to discuss – which is why we were honored to get a chance to speak with the man himself at Crunchyroll Expo this year.

Of the films you worked on at Studio Ghibli, which one was the most memorable?

The most memorable one for me would probably be the first one – Only Yesterday. The big difference between that project and others that I've worked on is that I worked on it from one cut to one cut, fully animating. It involved a lot more work.

There's a scene in Only Yesterday where they play baseball. I did a bunch of research for this – I went to watch elementary school kids play baseball, and put a lot of effort in to trying to draw it naturally.

Which one was the most stressful?

Well, I originally became involved with Studio Ghibli because I wanted to work with Hayao Miyazaki. One of the first projects I worked on with him was Princess Mononoke, and it was difficult to meet the demands of production – the bar was really high, so I had some trouble with it.

You worked with both Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata on films they directed. How would you compare the two experiences?

Miyazaki is an animator, he can draw. He'll draw what he wants you to do – he'll illustrate the movement, hand it to you and show you what he wants. Takahata doesn't have that background – he has to explain to you using words what he wants to see. So it's a very different experience.

Did you see the documentary “In the Kingdom of Dreams and Madness”? What did you make of it?

Yeah, I saw that when it came out. They actually had a camera crew inside Studio Ghibli for 24 hours a day over several days – I think it was pretty accurate. Every time Miyazaki got angry about something the crew would rush over. Really any time he said anything they'd hurry over and make a scene out of it.

Are there any cuts of yours in the Ghibli films you've worked on that you're particularly proud of? Any we should watch out for, scenes we might recognize?

There's a scene in Porco Rosso where children are taken away by pirates and they're playing around, but the kids are causing problems playing around on their ship. That's when Porco Rosso arrives and starts firing. I had a great time working on that scene – and Miyazaki even complemented me on it.

What prompted you to leave Ghibli?

Mononoke Hime was very tricky to work on. Miyazaki-sensei was very strict – at the time, that was supposed to be his last movie. He had very strong feelings about it and was very demanding – everyone felt a lot of pressure. After that, I didn't really want to work at Studio Ghibli anymore.

You've worked with a huge variety of anime directors, from the late Satoshi Kon to Mamoru Oshii, and you've directed plenty of animation yourself. What makes a good animation director, in your opinion?

It takes someone who has clarity of vision and can clearly express what that vision is. It doesn't matter if it's Kon-san or Oshii-san – it needs to be someone who can explain things to their staff and clearly convey what they want and what they're going to need. Having that power of self-expression and being able to explain what you want is crucial to being a director of animation. If you can't – and you look at the work of someone who can't do that – their work is all over the place, and it doesn't really hold up.

Is there someone, or even a studio, you enjoy collaborating with the most? If so, why?

It was during my time on Mitchiko & Hatchin – working with Sayo Yamamoto, it was her first time directing actually and I got a lot of clear communication from her on that work. She was someone I really enjoyed working with.

You did key animation on Yuri!!! on Ice too – did that come about due to your collaborative relationship with Sayo Yamamoto?

Ever since Michiko & Hatchin I've been getting offers from Yamamoto-san to work on her projects – she called me to work on The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, and she called me to ask me to work on Yuri!!! on Ice. I was busy with a Doraemon movie at the time, so I could only participate in the last few episodes of Yuri!!! on Ice.

You handled character design on Michiko & Hatchin – was that a new experience for you? What lessons had you learned in key animation that prepared you for character design?

It's very different work – there isn't much overlap between key animation and character design. One thing I did think of is that it's important to make sure the keys are easy to move, to design things so they're easy to animate.

You were designing those characters from scratch, right?

For Michiko & Hatchin, yeah, it was from zero – I'd show the designs to Yamamoto-san, she'd give me feedback and I'd change it a little bit at a time, that's how it came together.

You served as animation director on Gundam: Reconguista in G – did you work directly with Tomino at all, and if so, what was that experience like?

I wanted to work on Gundam because I'm a fan of Mr. Tomino. A friend of mine from Studio Ghibli – Yoshida Kenichi brought me in. I'd heard these rumors that Tomino-san was super scary so I kept my distance. I basically didn't see him the entire time I did my work, so I didn't actually run into him until the closing party. I did get to meet him once there – because it was the wrap party, he was actually really happy, so I didn't have to worry about seeing that scary face.

You directed a couple episodes of Space Dandy, which you also storyboarded and did some guest character design for. How much creative control did you have over the story on your episodes? Was the production process on that show different than what you were used to?

I was contacted by Shinichiro Watanabe as the project was coming together, asking if I'd like to have input in the overall story, but I was busy with other work. He did bring me in to work on the storyboards for a few episodes, and I was able to put some influence in there, some of my own ideas for a change, but I didn't actually have any impact on the overall story.

There was a screenplay already there, but my creative contribution came in through the storyboards.

You've been animating Lupin III since the 1980s, through a whole array of character design changes and different eras in the show.  In what way do you think Lupin has changed the most over the years?

I watched Lupin III when I was a kid – I loved it. Then I saw The Castle of Cagliostro and also really loved that. When I think of Lupin, that's what I think of.

But I also really loved The Woman Named Fujiko Mine and also Koike's work on the franchise – those were more serious and realistic, that Lupin is cool too. In the old Lupin, you still had a serious side to it, but they had great gags – I miss the old gags, but I love the serious Lupin stuff.

Which version of Lupin was the most challenging for you to work on, and which version is your personal favorite?

Koike's stuff was the hardest – he has a very difficult style, very sharp. That was the hardest for me to replicate. There's a surprising number of people who have been working on Lupin for a very long time, across all these different styles.

Can you tell us a little about what it was like to work with Satoshi Kon? What was he like as a person?

I didn't do that much work for him, but he was actually pretty angry and scary. It might've come from the fact that he was so incredibly talented – there was probably no one better at drawing in the world of animation, period. It's difficult to be that guy. He was very strict.

What's your take on the current work conditions for animators in Japan? What do you think the major problems are, and what do you think it would take for change to occur?

The problem right now is, there are too many projects and not enough animators.  A lot of stuff winds up going overseas, to China and Korea, because there aren't enough animators to do the inbetweening work in Japan. So new animators can't learn via that experience and become better – there aren't a lot of new animators and the old ones are retiring. Good animators in general are starting to disappear. This whole process requires money and not a lot of people are paying animators very well right now – so that's another reason for the disappearance of good animators.

Do you think the responsibility is on the studio to pay the animators more?

They should probably provide more of the project budget to the animators – right now it goes other places instead.

Do you think the anime industry is in a production bubble right now?

Thanks to the internet, anime is popular everywhere and that means more and more people are watching it, and thus more and more shows get created. That doesn't mean more pay for animators and it doesn't change that much for me as an individual – but because of that passing popularity it could be a bubble.

What do you think it would take for things to change, for more of that production money to flow down to you, the animator?

I've heard that in America, it's more popular for creators to get some manner of royalties or IP rights that allow them to continue collecting residuals, especially if the show becomes popular. In Japan, you get a one-time payment, you don't collect royalties if the show is a huge hit. So I think we need a system more like that – where creators (and animators) can get some more of those residual payments, especially if the show is a hit.

Of the countless things you've worked on, what are you most proud of? Is there one cut, one piece of animation you'd like people to know you by?

I'm proud of the work I did at Studio Ghibli – it affected a lot of my other work. Also my work for Sayo Yamamoto on Michiko & Hatchin – that was very satisfying. Now that Yuri!!! on Ice is such a huge success, I'd like the fans of that show to go watch Michiko & Hatchin!

Thanks to Hiroshi Shimizu and Crunchyroll Expo for the opportunity.

[oumakokichi]

NDRV3 Transcripts: Ouma Consults Monokuma

I’m a firm believer that there are things that can really only be conveyed in a work’s original language. Danganronpa knows it all too well: while the localisation does a good job overall bringing this fantastic series to the West, there’s still so many nuances and details that are easily lost in translation.

So as we know, transcribing Japanese text is quite the laborious undertaking, and naturally I took it upon myself to perform this task.

The following scene occurs after one of Saihara’s nightly training sessions. Much like a couple of scenes in the previous games, this one does not happen in the presence of our protagonist. Rather, it is a quick exchange between Ouma and Monokuma, and I thought it was significant, so I transcribed it.

Not only did it surprise me, because I was not expecting it, it also scared the shit out of me, because I think it’s the first time Ouma pulls out one of Those sprites. So anyway, please enjoy!

Thank you so much for taking the time to transcribe all of this! I definitely agree that trying to take the time to look at original Japanese always gives the fullest picture of what’s going on. English localization companies do their best and work under time constraints, and always have to keep in mind how best to appeal to a wider audience in order to sell more copies of the game—but that does mean that sometimes the original meaning or intention gets lost a little along the way in favor of making the game more generalized. Cutting out honorifics or particular suffixes that are specific to a character’s speech habits is just one example of this.

I’ll definitely go ahead and translate the transcription here. This is a very fun exchange in Chapter 4, and it was definitely meant to shock and intrigue the audience. The fact that we see this whole exchange between Ouma and Monokuma without Saihara around at all emphasizes that this is particularly important that it would be shown to the audience and the players, even without the protagonist around.

For anyone who wants to see a particular translation of this scene, please be careful because spoilers for Chapter 4 will follow under the read more!

MONOKUMA:

はーい、右側の白い部分は炊きたてのお米のように白く、左の黒い部分は甲子園球児のように黒い…そんなモノクマの登場でーす！

Heeere I am, my right side white and fluffy like beautiful, freshly cooked rice, my left side dark and mysterious like a Koshien* baseball player… It’s your beloved Monokuma’s time to shiiine!

(* The Koshien Tournament refers to two annual high school baseball tournaments which take place in Japan. They are generally wildly popular, arguably more popular than professional baseball.)

OUMA: 本当に来てくれたんだね。へー、こういうのもアリなんだ。

So you really did show up. Huuuh, so this kind of thing is possible after all.

個別の相談事なんてのもさ。

This kind of one-on-one consultation, I mean.

MONOKUMA: 別にルール違反じゃないからね。それに…「コロシアイが盛り上がるアイデアがある」と聞いたら放っておく訳にはいかないよ。

Well, it’s not like this actually breaks any of the rules. And besides…there’s no way I could stay away after hearing that this “idea” would definitely make the killing game more exciting.

OUMA: でしょー？オレももっと盛り上げたいと思ってたんだよね。この楽しくて残酷なコロシアイゲームをさ！

Riiight? I thought about this entertaining, brutal killing game—and I realized I want to make it much more fun, too!

MONOKUMA: その割には、”あの動機”を使おうともしないんだね？

But in order to do that, you’re not even going to use “that motive” yourself, huh?

OUMA: ははっ、わかってないな…あれだけの”動機”なんだから、もっとドラマティックに使わないともったいないでしょ？そう思って、ずっと使い道を考えてたんだけど…ようやく思い付いたんだよ。でね、ここからがオレの提案なんだけど…”ある人”が面白い事を考えてるみたいだから、��こに、あの”動機”を絡める事ができたら…

Haha, looks like you don’t get it… We’re talking about “that motive” here, so it’d be a waste not to put it to use more dramatically, right? With that in mind, I kept thinking and thinking…and I finally came up with a way to use it. Anyway, this is just my own little suggestion, but… If “someone” seems like they’re planning something interesting, if you could find a way to get “that motive” involved with their plan…

とっても面白い展開になるんじゃないかと思うんだ。ね？詳しく聞きたい？

Well, I just think that would make for a very interesting development. So? Do you want to hear more?

MONOKUMA: …………

うぷぷ。オマエって根っからの悪人なんだね。

Upupu. You really are a villain through and through, aren’t you?

OUMA: そりゃそうだよ…オレは”超高校級の総統”なんだよ？

Well, you’re right about that… After all, I’m the “Super High School Level Supreme Leader,” you know?

みんなと、世界を、恐怖のどん底に叩き落す”悪”のね。

I’m the kind of “villain” mean to knock everyone, even the world itself, into the depths.

(Immediately after Ouma’s last line, the screen cuts to black and we watch tonight’s Monokuma Theatre. And because it has to do with lies and honest people, I also thought it was significant, so here goes.)

MONOKUMA THEATER:

正直者はバカを見るって言うけど、ボクはそんな事はないと思うよ。正直者は元からバカなんだよ。だって、嘘をつかないで生きる方が、嘘をつく事よりもずっと楽だからね。だから、正直者って言うのは、楽して生きようとしている怠け者達なんだ。ちなみに、世の中の”嘘はダメ”って風潮も実は嘘なんだよ。嘘つきにとっては、騙されやすい正直者が多い方がいいからね。嘘つきがバカな正直者を増やそうとして、そういう風潮を広めているだけなんだよ。…って、これも嘘かもしれないけどね。うぷぷぷぷ。

“An honest man ends up a fool,” or so they say. But I don’t really agree. Honest people just aren’t that smart in the first place. After all, compared to living your life by telling lies, it’s much easier to get by without lying at all. In the end, “honest people” are really just a bunch of lazy bums who sit around and enjoy life without thinking about anything. Oh, by the way, the idea that “lying is bad” is actually a lie itself.  I mean, it’s really a good thing for liars that there are so many easy-to-trick honest people out there.  Maybe it’s just a current trend to spread the word that liars are just trying to increase the amount of stupid, honest people in the world… Ah, but of course, this might just also be a lie, though. Upupupupu.

I apologise for any mistakes that are bound to escape my double-checking. So that’s it for now. I will definitely transcribe more scenes as I progress through the game!

I don’t think there were any mistakes at all, and thank you again for transcribing this! Transcription takes so much effort and can be so time-consuming; that you would take the time to do this helps so much!

I hope everyone who read this little translation enjoyed it. I’ve written many pieces so far on how Chapter 4 is essentially the start of Ouma having to really throw himself into the villain role, and how he felt his back was against the wall for a variety of reasons.

Looking at this scene is interesting, because on a first playthrough, obviously you get the same impression Monokuma and the audience get: Ouma is a villain, he’s ominous, he’s scheming something. Supposedly he wants to make the killing game more exciting for no reason other than because he’s having fun with it. It’s very, very easy to read Ouma here as an easy-to-hate, completely suspicious villain who is planning some huge scheme just to enjoy himself by making others suffer.

But looking through this and knowing what we do about the rest of Chapter 4, as well as the other chapters later on, there’s not really any way to avoid noticing some inconsistencies. What Ouma is deliberately leaving out is the fact that he clearly already knows about how Miu is “planning something interesting” (that she has already made up her mind to kill him).  He also knows perfectly well about the “secret of the outside world,” as Monokuma and he both allude to.

This knowledge itself was the motive to kill at the beginning of the chapter. As we see in Chapter 4 with Gonta, and in Chapter 5 with pretty much everyone else, just finding out about the state of the outside world is enough to drive literally anyone to be willing to kill themselves and anyone else with them, because that would seem preferable to staying alive in those conditions. This knowledge was pretty clearly supposed to turn into a surefire motive, which is why Monokuma wanted to use it—but Ouma has already taken it, looked at it for himself, and made the conscious decision not to actually kill with his own two hands if he can help it.

His counter-plan to Miu’s is clearly to combine these two events and use the motive video via the remember light, because that’s the only surefire way to get anyone to agree to kill in his stead. But this itself is already a much more complex and tangled situation than what he’s telling the audience and Monokuma. The cold and calculated nature of his plan is undeniable, but there is a world of difference between playing the villain just for fun, and playing the villain because the situation demands it and he’s determined to stay alive to try and enact his plans against the mastermind.

If this were a scene to be taken at 100% face value (even ignoring the fact that nothing can ever be taken at face value with Ouma, because he’s supposed to keep you guessing all the time), then there’d be no need for that Monokuma Theater at the end. Right here, we have more allusions to how incredibly smart Ouma is compared to the rest of the characters, and how lying, and keeping track of all one’s lies, is in fact incredibly difficult. It would be a million times easier for Ouma to stop lying, or rather, to simply lie in order to make the group like him and admire him if he really wanted to betray them all or sell them all out. In which case, the question becomes “…Why doesn’t he?”

This scene is supposed to make you uneasy, but it’s also clearly supposed to encourage you to think. There’s clearly a reason and underlying motive for why Ouma is doing what he does, and it’s pretty transparent in hindsight, but even on a first playthrough, this sort of scene is supposed to encourage players to realize that perhaps the exchange they saw just now was itself a “lie” from Ouma to Monokuma.

Anyway, I hope people found this interesting. @ne0dym did absolutely all of the transcription work for this, and I just did the translations, so please appreciate all the help they’ve been giving me! They’ve been extremely nice and a huge asset towards this kind of thing. I’m looking forward to being able to provide more translations for these kinds of scenes in the future!

[chemicalperfume]

Nanami Hiroki Personal Book: 100 Questions [translation]

Today, January 16th, is everyone’s favourite cheesy lines generator, Nanami Hiroki a.k.a. Kai’s birthday! Here is a thing in celebration (that I had -for once- conveniently forgotten in my drafts forever, and just now remembered). Happy Birthday, Kai! :D

Coffee or Tea

Morning or Night

Stars or Moon Back in grade school, I did a project on shooting stars

Meat or Fish I love Yakitori and Karaage

Baseball or Soccer

Spring or Autumn

Summer or Winter When it’s cold I can just pile on the layers, but in summer, no matter how many clothes you take off, it’s still hot! I can’t stand the heat.

Dogs or Cats

Hot springs or amusement parks

America or Europe

Red or Blue

Western movies or Japanese movies

The mountain or the sea

Sushi or Ramen

Sauce*(Worcestershire) or Soy sauce

Mayonnaise or Ketchup I use neither.

Udon or Soba noodles I love Inaniwa Udon.

Countryside or big city

English or Math

Vertical writing or horizontal writing

Texting or Phone call

Japanese sweets or Western sweets I like both, but I love chocolate so, western sweets it is.

The Tale of Genji or Shakespeare

Bread or White Rice Love savoury stuffed bread. Hate sweet buns.

Plane or Ship Being in transport for extended periods of time is agony. If it’s for an hour or so, then a ship.

Alone or in a group

Color or Black & White photography

Getting married japanese style or western style

Hokkaido or Okinawa No can do hot weather *laughs*. Give me cold instead.

A hot or lukewarm bath

Japanese or Western style room

Silent or Chatty

Outdoors or Indoors

Resort Hotel or Luxurious Ryokan I really love this feeling they have of offering attentive service to each and every guest.

Coarse or smooth sweet red bean paste

Elevator or escalator

Ballpoint pen or mechanical pencil Are there really people who go as far as liking or disliking either of these? *laughs* I don’t really use mechanical pencils, so the pen.

Roses or Orchids I love blue roses.

Tamagoyaki or Sunny-side up eggs Tamagoyaki and stock flavoured!

Rings or Watches

Bus or Train

Close-up or full-body photos I prefer taking a step back and taking medium shots

Sweater or blouse

Cleaning or Laundry Laundry is the one I still do. *laughs*

Preparation before cooking or cleaning up afterwards

Heavy or light futon How do people who prefer it heavy exist?!

Hard or soft pillow

Scuba diving or sky diving I want to do both! Since I like swimming, I guess i’ll pick scuba diving. I am a-ok with jumping from high places too.

Newspaper or Magazine I often flip through men’s magazines for research purposes.

Japanese liquor or wine Lately it’s white wine.

During winter, kotatsu or air-condition

Cookies or senbei

Okonomiyaki or Yakisoba

Nishikori Kei (tennis player) or Hanyu Yuzuru (figure skater)

Military uniform or Tailcoat

Lace or Velvet I don’t really like lace.

The Orient or The West

Green Tea or Oolong Tea

Roller coaster or Ferris Wheel

If you could hire one at home, a cook or a personal masseur Personal masseur all the way!!

In transport vehicles, window seat or aisle seat

During a discussion you mostly talk or mostly listen

Clothes with a flashy colour but plain design or clothes with a plain colour but flashy design

When staying in a hotel, high floor or low floor

A house with a big garden or a high-rise apartment with a beautiful night view? Taking care of a big garden is hard work so the high-rise apartment!

Nara or Kyoto

Arashi or Kanjani8 (boybands)

White or Black

Elisabeth of Austria or Marie Antoinette

Tragedy or Comedy I prefer playing tragedies but watching comedies.

Would you rather go to the future or the past? I want to watch the Earth being born on fast forward from the outside *laughs*

Tokugawa Ieyasu or Oda Nobunaga

Watching movies on DVD or in the cinema

Chirashizushi or Nigiri sushi

Fiction or Non-fiction

Suspense or Romance TV series

When riding a roller coaster, sitting at the very front or the very back

Freedom or Money Having freedom but no money or having money but no freedom...Talk about extremes *laughs*. Freedom, since money can’t buy that.

Christmas or New Year’s

Bed or futon

Group activities or solo activities Over 3 people, no can do *laughs*

If you could keep one at home, a tropical fish or a hamster? Couldn’t keep either! I wouldn’t be able to care for it properly and it would be a pity.

Gouriki Ayame or Nounen Rena (actresses)

When you’re lost, do you go back the way you came or, keep moving even if you don’t know where you’re going?

Guitar or Drums I can play the guitar a little.

Jazz or Classical music

Travel tv show or Foodie tv show

Hot or cold drinks I can’t handle hot food.**

Extremely sweet or extremely spicy

Sons or daughters I can’t really imagine such a thing… *laughs*

Super busy or super free

Getting ready for a trip, or sorting out the photos after you come back

Sports Festival or Culture Festival I like both. If you asked me to be in the committee for either of these, then the Culture Festival.

During a trip, chilling in one place or going around for shopping and sightseeing? I’d like to go someplace within Japan with hot springs and a beautiful scenery, stay in a luxurious ryokan, and just space out.

Boke or Tsukkomi

Staying up late or sleeping in

Cherry blossoms or Autumn leaves

Sleeping with a light on or in total darkness

Do you deal with bothersome things immediately, or procrastinate until the last minute? In my school years I would get things out of the way quickly, but since I joined Takarazuka I got lazy… The stage takes all of my effort.

If you were reincarnated, would you rather be a man or a woman? Next time, I want to work hard as a man.

Notes:

(*)When the Japanese say just “sauce”, they usually mean a thin Worcestershire, which is a popular dressing (**) 猫舌 (nekojita) Disclaimer: Recipes linked are just for reference

[rickhorrow]

10 to watch: Mayor’s Edition FOR THE WEEK OF JULY 30

10 TO WATCH: RICK HORROW’S TOP SPORTS/BIZ/TECH/PHILANTHROPY ISSUES FOR THE WEEK OF JULY 30 with Jamie Swimmer & Jesse Leeds Grant

This year’s MLB All-Star Game in Washington, D.C. generated a record $44.8 million in ad revenue. According to Marketing Dive, despite low viewership numbers on FOX, ad revenue for baseball’s mid-season All-Star Game surpassed that of any other major league sport this past year. In comparison, “the 2018 NBA All-Star Game in February brought in $43.9 million, the 2018 NFL Pro Bowl in January generated $3.9 million in ad revenue and the 2017 Major League Soccer All-Star Game generated $1.6 million.” Baseball tends to have an older viewership crowd with more fans attracted to traditional television as opposed to digital streaming which is one reason that advertisers are still motivated to purchase ad space at high and expensive rates. The All-Star Game’s top advertisers were Softbank, Mastercard, Berkshire Hathaway, Ford, and Exxon; AT&T and Berkshire Hathaway were the two most common advertisers across baseball, basketball, football, and soccer’s all-star classics. The MLS numbers will likely increase exponentially this week, as the league convenes its annual All-Star Game on Wednesday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta against Juventus – a popular new destination featuring a marquee team and the World Cup “bump” will help.

As NFL training camps get underway in earnest, the Miami Dolphins are in line to receive a windfall from local government. According to the Miami Herald, the Dolphins and Miami-Dade County have agreed to an "extension of an existing 20-year subsidy agreement that could deliver the team" an extra $57.5 million in "exchange for moving its training camp from Davie" to a new $70 million facility in Miami Gardens. The original proposal listed on the county commission's agenda had a "more modest boost for the Dolphins as a reward for moving" its headquarters out of Broward County. That original proposal "could have earned the Dolphins" an extra $12 million. But one commissioner "introduced last-minute legislation that dramatically changed the proposal by extending the existing deal for another 10 years," adding $57.5 million to the "potential payout" through 2046. If this move comes to fruition, Dolphins owner Steve Ross will take yet another step towards creating a mini-empire in Miami Gardens, including the soon-to-move Miami Open tennis tournament. The strategy is similar to what the Cowboys have done in Frisco, Texas.

While the 2018 Ryder Cup in Paris just got a lot more interesting with Francesco Molinari’s Open Championship win and Tiger Woods’ top finish, sales for on-course hospitality for the 2020 Ryder Cup at Whistling Straights are booming. According to the Milwaukee Business Journal, sales are "so strong that PGA officials decided to add new options at Whistling Straits to accommodate demand.” The PGA of America sales team has "set October 1 as the target date" for companies to sign letters of intent for corporate hospitality suites and viewing space. 2020 Ryder Cup Director Jason Mengel said that the PGA "already sold out" 65% percent of the Hole 1 Village hospitality suites and has "only a few spots remaining for the 'village' at Whistling Straits’ iconic Hole 17." Mengel said that the PGA "added corporate hospitality to the first tee for the first time ever at a Ryder Cup." The "remaining Hole 1 spots are for 30 guests and cost $185,000." Remaining at the Hole 17 Village are "one 150-guest chalet for $600,000 and a 100-guest chalet for $450,000." To accommodate "more fans in a hospitality setting, the PGA added the 10th-Tee Village." This is a "departure from traditional hospitality areas in that it is designed to create a social atmosphere with a video board and an outdoor bar." The fan experience is paramount in pro sports, and golf is certainly no exception.

Youth on Course, the organization renowned for its record-breaking national growth to provide affordable golf access – continues remarkable growth with state and regional golf association partnerships increasing 120% in the last 18 months. In 2018, more than 41,000 members are on pace to complete 115,000 rounds at 900-plus golf courses nationwide. Now in 26 states, this marks Youth on Course’s largest growth period to date, continuing their upward climb towards their goal of providing $5 golf to kids in all 50 states. At the end of 2017, Youth on Course had 30,000 members across 19 states. According to the National Golf Foundation, golf is an $84.1 billion industry with golfers ages 6-17 making up 11% of all players. In 2017, 2.7 million juniors played golf, an increase of 12.5% since the last time this study was conducted in 2011. In addition to subsidized rounds, Youth on Course also facilitates college scholarships, paid internships, and a caddie program. Since the inception of the scholarship program in 2008, Youth on Course has awarded 222 students with scholarships totaling more than $1.4 million in financial support. The current Youth on Course scholarship retention rate is 98%, with 53 students already graduated. This is an exceptional program that not only provides a strong pipeline for golf industry growth, but will benefit the job market as a whole over time as well.

In addition to hosting the 2026 World Cup, the U.S. could find itself as host for another World Cup in 2027: the Rugby World Cup. According to the London Independent, San Francisco’s AT&T Park recently hosted the Sevens World Cup with more than 100,000 packed into the 41,915-seat stadium. “Hitting 100,000 is terrific, it’s a hugely-supported tournament in San Francisco itself and people have come here and really embraced the event,” said World Rugby CEO Brett Gosper. “I think this is obviously going to be a destination for the World Cup one day.” Similar to soccer, rugby has consistently remained more popular overseas than in the U.S., though hosting a World Cup could flip that script. The next Rugby World Cup is set to be held next year in Japan, with the following one coming in 2023 in France. The 2027 tournament bidding process is expected to come within the next two years, giving the United States time to plan and formalize a potential bid. The U.S. has an excellent track record hosting mega events – this should be no different.

Spanish heavyweight Real Madrid is in the process of raising $467 million capital to fund a massive set of renovations at Santiago Bernabéu Stadium. According to El Confidencial, Real Madrid is currently contacting banks and venture capital funds to source the money, following rival Barcelona’s recent move of contacting preeminent investment bank Goldman Sachs to “provide advising as the club looks to finance renovations to Camp Nou.” The club’s stadium, the Santiago Bernabéu, has a current capacity of 81,044 and is one of soccer’s grandest stages, having been constructed in 1947. The club “has to approach banks and private equity funds after the collapse of a deal it had with IPIC, which was going to provide the capital for the project in exchange for naming rights to the stadium.” One of the wealthiest clubs and biggest brands in international soccer, Real Madrid is not expected to have much difficulty securing the funding.

Formula 1 launches tech and business education series with MIT. Formula 1 is partnering with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to teach executives about technology and innovation on race days. Formula 1 and MIT will jointly create a technology and education series, the F1 Extreme Innovation Series with MIT Sloan Executive Education. The program will be held at select Formula 1 races and will give business executives around the world the chance to learn from F1 experts and MIT management school faculty researchers. According to F1, the program aims to lift the lid on the leading motorsport series’ high-performance environment to benefit business leaders. Sean Bratches, Formula 1’s managing director of commercial operations, said the racing league can teach business executives how it has been able to use “rapid innovation” to remain competitive in the crowded motorsports space and how to “embed F1-level innovation within their business.” “Formula 1 has not just been a sporting triumph, but a blueprint for business success as well,” Bratches said. “On-track performance from our teams relies on relentless technological innovation that corporations can learn from.” Subjects on the F1 Extreme Innovation Series agenda include how to gain an edge amid intense competition, how to build a winning platform, how to build a loyal customer base, and how to exercise resilience to succeed.

Microsoft brings esports to Special Olympics. Microsoft has been a major collaborator with the Special Olympics since 2014 by donating its time, money, and technology to the organization. This year, though, the technology company took on a much larger role as a premier partner, and brought something entirely new and innovative to the relationship: the addition of an esports tournament. Held at the University of Washington in Seattle earlier this summer, the inclusion of the Xbox Gaming Tournament featuring “Forza Motorsport 7” marked the first time that video games and esports were able to be included in the Special Olympics USA Games. The Special Olympics Games exist specifically to “serve as a catalyst for inclusion that showcases the power and joy of sports at the highest level, and create a community where people with disabilities are fully welcomed and valued.”

Cornell hockey game raises $120,000. The fourth annual Racker Rivals Big Red game raised more than $120,000 dollars for charity. The exhibition hockey game was played on July 14 in front of 2,000 fans at Lynah Rink. The game featured a star-studded lineup including Hockey Hall of Famers and several NHL and Cornell Hockey alumni. Among the participants were three-time Stanley Cup champion Joe Nieuwendyk, U.S. Olympic captain Brian Gionta, and U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame inductee Mike Richter.  More than $120,000 will go to Franziska Racker Centers, an Ithaca-based organization, that has been supporting individuals with disabilities and their families for 70 years by offering opportunities to learn and be connected with others, and fostering an environment of inclusion, where all people know they belong. “I’ve been involved on many levels with this organization since my days of playing as a student athlete,” Topher said. “We hope this grows to be one of the community’s most well-attended philanthropic events.”

10.INFINITI donates millions through NCAA partnership. INFINITI is proud to announce it has donated $1,160,680 to charitable organizations as part of the brand’s ongoing corporate partnership with the NCAA and the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC). Phil O’Connor, director of Marketing Communications and Media at INFINITI Americas, presented the checks to the winning philanthropies at INFINITI’s North American headquarters. INFINITI also donated an additional $349,000 to multiple charities individually selected by participating NCAA Division I men’s basketball coaches through the INFINITI Coaches’ Charity Challenge, in which fans voted for their favorite coaches on social media and online. Head coach Dave Rose of Brigham Young University won the challenge, and $100,000 was donated to Simmons Center for Cancer Research at BYU. “We’re proud to partner with INFINITI, the NABC and our NCAA coaches on the INFINITI Coaches’ Charity Challenge, which provides funding to organizations who in turn help individuals in need,” said Ellen Lucey, director of NCAA championships and alliances, corporate relations, marketing and branding. “The charity challenge is a great example of how the NABC and INFINITI support coaches around our NCAA men’s basketball tournament.”

[aeltonhqapps-blog]

Raz | 28 | CST | He/him

Desired Character: Yoshimoto Gen The series they are from: Cage -OPEN-

Their Age: 24 Location: Redlight, West 47th Court #1369 Artificial or Natural: Natural Idol Class: Alpha Branch Name/Profession: N/A [Failed Idol] Pupil Shape: Starburst

What technique do they respond to?: None. All techniques are greeted with the same response: annoyance and defiance.

Personality:

+Childish – Yoshimoto is very immature and seems to see the world the way a child would at times. Social interactions are rarely mature, and he handles things in a rather childish manner, resulting in a lot of miscommunication and frustration. People seem to have difficulty connecting to him because he always seems to be in his own little world, and he’s fine with people thinking he’s weird or immature. As long as he has fun, that’s all that matters in the end to him. He’s very bouncy and energetic, and he can go a bit overboard when things are treated like a game.

+Stubborn – If there’s one thing he hates, it’s listening to people. If he wants to do something, he’s going to do it without any question or thought, and if anyone tells him he can’t or he shouldn’t, he’ll do it anyway. Trying to get him to listen or do anything anyone tells him to is like trying to force a cat into a cat carrier: there’s no making him do it without someone getting hurt over it. And it probably won’t be him that gets hurt.

+Observant – Despite how strange his thought processes are, he seems almost frighteningly capable of reading how people are feeling just by looking at them, though he seems to have a tough time reading the mood.

+Instinct-Driven – Most people act on their emotions or logic. Yoshimoto acts purely on instinct and impulse. There’s really no thought or emotion behind his actions, they just happen, and he has fun with whatever happens. Because of this, people tend to underestimate his intelligence, and are often taken off-guard by his moments of lucidity and intellect.

+Delusions – He has undiagnosed psychosis, and a major part of his delusions involve games of some sort. He takes games too far, and has rather violent versions of common children’s games, though he never takes it far enough to kill anyone. However, if the game does too far, or it become apparent that it’s “that kind of game…”

+Short attention span – He has the attention span of a gnat. If something isn’t moving actively, or playing with him, or interacting with him in a manner that he deems entertaining, he’ll just flatly stare for a moment and walk away without a thought. Objects, people, TV shows. If they don’t hold his interest, he abandons them quickly and easily. Conversations about himself are also considered, by him, to be boring or lame, and he’ll generally ignore most questions asked about himself.

+Violent Tendencies – If it’s that kind of mood, a violent and aggressive mood, Yoshimoto can get rather violent, though he isn’t the type to kill intentionally. However, if the mood shifts to something more murderous, or a game becomes “that kind of game” then there’s no telling what he could do, especially if there’s a clean, distinct difference between “normal” life and the “game.”

+Empathy Impairment – High empathy for objects he’s attached to. He’s cried over tools and toys before, and names his favorite things. However, on the other hand, he has very low empathy towards people or other living things. He won’t cry or feel much is a person or animal dies, though there are people he can get attached to and will have high empathy towards. Because of this though, he doesn’t seem to have many friends, and he’s fine with that.

Biography:

Born as a natural idol from a surrogate mother in Hobara, Japan, located in the Fukushima district, he was always a little different, even by idol standards. He always saw the world in far different ways than other children (and idols) his age. His thought processes were drastically different, and he seemed to mostly have a very flat affect. His manner of speech was always strange as well, but his parents tried to ignore it. Their child was just an odd duck, they would say.

He was a wild child, who seemed to live more by instinct than intellect, and was often causing trouble for his parents and people in the neighborhood. At some point, a stray dog got attached to him, though only after he spent weeks feeding it and trying to play with it. He, uncreatively, named it Pochi. The only reason his parents let him keep it was because it kept him out of trouble, and it seemed to decrease his energy levels at least a little.

When he entered elementary school, he had a tough time making friends because of this, and was often bullied because of it. It was common for him to deal with razor blades tucked in his notebooks, his bag being dumped into water, funeral flowers placed on his desk while his classmates ignored him. He didn't seem to care though. Not until the age of 10 did things start to change. His delusions got a little worse, and he acted out a bit more. His grades started plummeting. Pochi kept his spirits up when the bullying god worse, though it was hard to tell if he really cared how his peers and teachers viewed him.

One day, Pochi ran away from home.

Yoshimoto spent every waking hour wandering the neighborhood, yelling for his dog while waving umaibo to try and get his dog to come home. At some point, his dog came home. It was battered and beaten, and missing an eye. It was barely alive, and Yoshimoto could only stare and think,

Did you fall in muddy water? Did it rain?

My Pochi, all muddied in wounds, all bloodied in wounds.

Poor, poor creature.

If you're so filthy, if you're so pitiful, surely nobody will love you.

Wouldn't it be better to die then?

So, Pochi...

I will kill you.

Without a second thought, he killed his dog and left it in the street, seeing no need to do anything with the corpse. He kept the kitchen knife he killed his dog with in his bag, the only reminder he had of his precious dog. The next time he attended school, he overheard some classmates bragging about hurting his dog, making it as “fucked up” as he was.

It was the first time Yoshimoto got angry, and the knife he kept in his bag was used to stab the classmate. The last thing his classmate heard were the screams of the rest of the children.

The student died on the way to the hospital, and Yoshimoto’s parents quickly took him out of school.

At this point, he was shuffled off to a hospital, but the staff there weren’t very well-versed with his situation and it mostly seemed to be a place where he could just be out of the public eye. When he was 12, Adamas officials picked him up out of the hospital, and his training began, though it was harder on his trainers than him it seemed.

When he was 14, he was moved to Aelton, where the mental healthcare was top-quality, rather than the shoddy mental healthcare Japan offered.

One of his trainers there in Aelton, an ex-cop, frequently protested to the harsh training and abuse Yoshimoto suffered as a result of his stubborn personality. He didn’t think Yoshimoto would be fit to be an idol, and insisted on trying to get Yoshimoto the mental help he needed, rather than the harsh Idol training. Adamas higher ups ignored him, and demanded they continue forward.

Yoshimoto had been, after all, an expensive Idol, and, clearly, not human. His wild personality, and rather animal-like attitude just cemented this idea. After all, animals could be trained.

The trainer, Yoshimoto decided, was an annoyance. Like a child purposefully disrespecting their parent, he caused all sorts of trouble for the trainer and always ran away from him. It was a hard job keeping an eye on him. He also refused all types of medications, and when attempts were made to force him to take them, he reacted violently. Three human trainers were injured and had to be hospitalized, and Alpha class security had to be called in to restrain him to make him take them.

His trainer, to try and make the entire thing easier on him, told him taking the medicine was a game, and that he would win if he took the medicine before the Guards got to him. And for a while, he was fine with it and took the medicine without complaint, because, hey, that was the game.

When he was 16, he got tired of it and stopped taking the medicine again.

And again, the Alpha security people were brought in. This time though, it was a different game he decided.

His trainer, the only one who managed to stick with him through it all, came back one day, prepared to deal with a cranky Yoshimoto. This was common after medication was forced on him after all, so he brought extra umaibo to placate him. Instead, he found seven dead Alpha security guards, heads bashed in and Yoshimoto standing in the middle of the bloodbath, a baseball bat in hand.

After that, the pills were slipped into his food, to minimize casualties.

For his training, they kept him focused on sports or other physical activities, but he always lost interest in them shortly after starting them, so he wasn’t released to the public until he was 20, when he had his first performance in a baseball game.

And didn’t show.

Instead, he wandered the Diamond district boredly, head in the clouds/

Missing shows became a common trend and, eventually, with his popularity rating hanging at a solid 0% for over a year, he was let go. Though, much to his annoyance, his old trainer still contacts him and shows up around him to make sure he’s staying out of trouble. He heard a rumor that his trainer actually quit so he could keep an eye on him, much to Yoshimoto’s annoyance.

Now, he lives, medication-free, in the Redlight district with a fellow failed idol, where he lives a free and troublesome life, and he’s the happiest he’s ever been. He works at a pachinko parlor as a trash collector, though he barely does his job and really only works there when he’s bored. He still lives a troublesome life, causing trouble and getting into messes, but he hasn’t killed anyone, and for that, his ex-trainer is grateful.

Stats: Public Popularity 0% | Single-handedly killed 7 Alpha guards | Stayed a 0% in the popularity polls for a year straight | Missed exactly 100 shows in a row