#or going to MP100 I see a lot of girl Mob which is great adorable interesting canonically resonant

[daisyachain]

Hmmmm how to say. There’s a certain peerhood of character dynamic that comes from two people in a work being both girls/both boys/both neither. That isn’t to say that life isn’t fluid or that you can’t build a dynamic between male and female characters that ignores this divide.

To take an example at random—MP100. Emi, Asagiri, Tsubomi all interact with Mob as Girls. They’re foreign, agitating or destabilizing elements in Mob’s world (the audience’s world) as non-peers. His interactions with them are always in the context of Gee I’m Talking to a Girl. Mezato is an edge case but still Girl. Mob ends up misinterpreting her journalistic curiosity as interest in the Divine Tree arc, which only makes sense if she’s viewed as Girl before Classmate. Tome, on the other hand, is fully a Peer character. She’s Mob’s closest friend from what we see in-canon, they go on what he describes as ‘dates’, but she’s so far out of the Girl social role that Shigeo never associates her with the fresh intrigue of the Girls. Instead she’s a comforting, reassuring force on the story in the way that Reigen and Ritsu are. She even steps into Mob’s shoes for the oneshot! There are gendered roles and non-gendered roles and actual gender doesn’t have to define them. Tome is a girl and not a Girl.

So, it’s interesting to play around with his characters’ genders can shape even non-romantic dynamics, or how dynamic is itself gender. People who are similar feel kinship. A tomboy will hang out with boys on the playground or a kid bullied for being a sissy will be part of the girl group. That gets complicated when genders bend around in-story.

Specifically DGM Alma Karma was born from the transmigration of a woman’s soul into an an artificial male-assigned homunculus. Her/his/their key dynamic is with Kanda as two-of-a-kind. Both experiments, both exorcists, both (assigned) boys growing up together. The sense of sameness and equivalency is important to that relationship. They have no one else in the world like them except each other.

PastKanda’s dynamic with PastAlma also fits into a strictly gendered structure: Kanda is a brooding gruff man searching for a lost cheerful kind woman. They’re the action hero/deadwife cliché. Kanda has abstracted PastAlma away from any semblance of personality because he doesn’t even know her, he just has a vague impression. The woman is separate, unknowable, distant, and though Hoshino is a lady herself, the trope is a misogynistic one that relies on the idea that women are mysterious creatures rather than human beings with thoughts and dreams.

By then transposing the somewhat gendered relationship of childhood friends-twins-equals-peers on to the irrevocably gendered trope of sadman/deadwife, Hoshino then challenges the way that gender informs the whole story. Kanda’s view on Alma is wholly interior. Alma is himself reflected, openly expresses what Kanda feels and hides, is the one person who truly knows and understands him. Then his view on PastAlma is entirely exterior; she is an inscrutable ghost, an invisible gap in his life. Kanda has idealized PastAlma and resented Alma for a decade only to find out that they’re the same person. Which begs the questions: did he think of them differently just because he thought Alma was a boy? Was PastKanda even a man? Do we the audience read PastAlma as opaque just because she’s a woman, where Alma is such a lively screen presence? Would Alma present as a woman if she weren’t trying to go incognito, or did they genuinely identify with the boyhood he was assigned?

Who knows. Social pressures always weigh on the edges of a story. Even if they’re not obvious, they inform how events unfold and how audiences interpret them. Gender (patriarchy) is such a pervasive hierarchy that a writer/reader’s got to consider how it influences plot events. Alternately, ignoring it has got to be a deliberate choice and you’ve got to think hard to keep gender from sneaking into the reading (eg a perfectly neutral interaction between girl characters will read as misogynist between a girl and a guy).

[sarazanmai]

Thoughts on the MP100 English dub. Episode 12.

I can’t believe we’re DONE what?

before getting to the episode I can finally cite so many voices

Shou is voiced by Casey Mongillo and she is a co founder of the website GTAGaming and has been in games like “Star Trek Online″ and “Red Dead Redemption”

she is also transgendered and has posted some youtube videos about her experience

Koyama’s voice actor is Kieth Silverstein who voices Hisoka in the HXH dub, Speedwagon from Jojo, and Vector from the Sonic franchise

Ishiguro with the mask on is played by Cristina Vee who is the current voice for Sailor Mars and plays Killua in HXH

Sakurai is played by Xander Mobus who was the narrator and voice for Master Hand in Super Smash Bros. for the Wii U and 3DS

I have no fucking idea why it took so long for this info to be on MP100 wiki, but I’m glad I can finally give them credit

also I thought I had mentioned this before, but Reigen’s voice actor Chris Niosi has a tumblr account @kirbopher if you’re interested

anyway its time for the final episode (at least until we get a season two)

Teru really does look like Naruto with this hair

at some point we’ve all said it, but the foreshadowing in this intro is overwhelming

I mean Mob doesn’t even get the broccoli seeds in this arc

“Honestly I really don’t wanna hurt people.” I like how Sakurai seems surprised by this, like he can’t fathom pacifism

Reigen’s just like “bitch you THOUGHT”

I feel like I’ve made this clear, but Reigen is just adorable to me

“listen, REAL adults don’t have time to play with toy swords. its time to grow up!” OOOOOHHH

“that’s it? what a weak ass punch, are you a plushie?”

meanwhile Ritsu is in the corner pondering reality

“wow I’m in great shape today”

the “Mob had successfully run away” part is one of my favorites

something I like about this episode is how much blue they chose for the palette

Ishiguro you are not ambitious, if you were then you wouldn’t be subservient to a man who doesn’t even grant you access to his name

for real what is Touichirou doing this whole time?

“get up, nobody wants to hear you monologue”

oh my God here it comes, tragic backstory time

I do like the paint on glass animation for young Sakurai

“back when I was in grade school, it was around fourth grade, I forgot to tell my parents that it was sports day at school. so I was the only one with nothing to eat”

beautiful, marvelous, spectacular, I wept

this is one of my favorite moments in the series, its so perfect

jokes aside I do think about how there’s probably more to Reigen’s past than we’re aware of, especially knowing his childhood ambition was “to be somebody”

gun

again I like the constant reminder that these Claw people are fundamentally being childish

God I love that our big climax is a sweaty man in a cheap suit roasting the bad guys

“look I’m a commoner! and I’m much more powerful than any of you will ever be! so tell me, what the hell does that make you!?”

“he dragged them out of their illusions and back into reality, shattering their dreams and putting them in their place.” when will your faves?

“I actually thought he was a girl this whole time” I’m not gonna lie I kinda wish Ishiguro really was a ten year old girl

 okay unmasked Ishiguro sounds familiar and the only voices that are listed for him in both languages are his voice with the mask on, of coarse

“wrong. having psychic powers doesn’t make you popular” Mob just summed up the whole show

“see? there you have it. you’ll never be popular, so give it up.”

I’m just realizing....what was Shou doing this whole time?

Shou’s voice really has grown on me, I like how youthful it is, its a shame the bulk of his screen time is after the events of this arc 

generally speaking when it comes to the esper kids in this series both languages did a great job at making sure they still sound like kids and I appreciate that because I am really bored of adults trying and failing at playing teenagers

not just in anime, in general

“and as for you, listen up. I’m disappointed in you, you coward.” whatever Shou you’re like twelve

ah yes, the famous Shouritsu look

I never understood what Shou was doing with his hand when he teleported away, it looks dirty

congrats Reigen you can now see Dimple!

and...that’s about it

I like this “return to moderate normality” sequence, its soothing

I love Mob’s surprised reaction when he’s looking at Tsubomi, someone broke it down frame by frame and they put a lot into it

“you are such a spaz” do kids still say this?

I still hate Shinji, but I guess he learned his lesson

why is Ritsu still hanging out with him though? and outside of school too

I still feel bad for Tenga, but at least he found a place in the Body Improvement Club

“JUST GIVE ME A DAMN MINUTE!!!!”

I like how Ritsu’s having his nice brother speech and then Mob legit passes out

again Teru REALLY looks like Naruto with this hair

I love the animation on Reigen rolling up the newspaper, its these small character animation moments that really give these characters personality

“did I do something he thought was lame?” yeah but he’ll get over it in a few arcs

I still don’t like the Kageyama parents, they really bother me

aaaaand there he is, the next great Asshole Anime Dad

he doesn’t sound like I imagined

then again I imagined him sounding perpetually unimpressed

“yes, I’ll return very soon” COUGH COUGH

this omake just makes me so happy, I’m really thankful that Bones didn’t see ONE’s art as inferior or not good enough

in fact this really drives home that ultimately the anime took his style and cleaned it up a little, softened the edges, they didn’t flat out change it like what happened with OPM (again not to knock Murata’s illustrations because when I read OPM I do read the version with his art)

I love the way they drew the forest

“its hUGE!”

for real this is such a nice omake

and with this we are finished

overall I went into this dub not expecting much, but I love MP100 so much that I figured I’d try it out and I’m impressed. I like that Funimation didn’t fill the cast with their bigger name actors, not to knock them but its nice that they gave these opportunities to voice actors who aren’t as established and I really do hope we get season two. when we do I definitely will watch the Japanese and English versions. everybody did good and I’m even willing to say that its on par with the Japanese. I’m impressed that they pulled through and I’m definitely going to keep my eyes peeled for when they release the Blu-Ray set in America. I really want to be able to watch it on my TV in glorious HD at my own convenience. 

I had fun doing posts like this and I kind of want to do this for other dubs of anime I love, I’m thinking I should give the OPM and BNHA dubs a try. as far as which one I’ll do first I’ll think about it but stay tuned for that