#put character development on this boy Toei

[kitty-pilled-gamma]

don't worry Satoru you are Kenough

[my-rose-tinted-glasses]

My memory is terrible so I wanted to do a breakdown of my stuff every once in a while. Might be monthly, might be whenever I feel like it.

QL - Currently Watching

🇯🇵25 Ji, Akasaka de [7/10] - I do love when Japan does a pov change and this was no exception. Hayama is so far gone. Like we already knew what, but he's been a goner ever since he read his name. He's being worshipped by all these people around him because apparently he's too good looking for anyone to be normal around him, and all he sees is Shirasaki. He said one sentence to him in school that he kept as a reminder. Man is obsessed. I'm so curious about next week. The lines are getting more and more blurred and eventually someone's gotta give. Also Hayama should give lessons on self-control. I have never seen anyone so completely out of his mind in love and jealous and at the same time, so put together. I'm in awe.

🇹🇭 Knock Knock, Boys! [2/12] - Strong start. It's fun, I really liked the flat sharing concept, it reminds me of my London days and kinda like Thanwa, being the mom of the house. I'm wondering if they will settle into their own in-house pairs soon or if there will be cross over, cause that would be fun. Give me mess.

🇹🇭 My Stand-In [1/12] - For a number of reasons I'm waiting to binge this one. I do love watching the gifs on my dash though, pretty is pretty.

🇹🇭 Only Boo! [8/12] - So we're done with highschool and that last episode felt a bit rushed trying to finish all those loose threads but I like that we're getting to a new chapter of their relationship. They continue to be too adorable for words. Side couple - dream kisses my beloathed. From the preview and also the number of thai bl's I've watched I'm thinking this will be a pretty straightforward 'it turns out you like him but now he moved on (not really) and you have to grovel'. I'd love to be surprised though.

🇹🇭 Wandee Goodday [4/12] - I am loving it. Pretty much everything about it. Before I say anything else. Thor is gorgeous and he should do all the shows. Forever. He and Cher are delightful and I love that they are an established couple that seem to have their own roles in the gym and their own relationship with Yak. I said this in tags before I think, but I'm finding it interesting how we collectively talk about this show ending, more often than not, with the caveat 'let's see if it holds up'. We have been burned before and not that long ago so we are all holding our breaths. Contrary to my usual state, I'm feeling cautiously optimistic about this. I think the bones are there for a good show all the way to the end. No one is perfect - except Kao, he is perfection and the ace rep I only dreamed of - and that's great. They are both smitten and complete idiots. I'm looking forward to seeing more of the backstory, and in Yak's case how much of what drives him is a consequence of loss.

🇹🇭 We Are [9/16] - Still enjoying the friendships and still bummed we have no development with Chain/Pun. We had one second of development and it was a look. So much in that look. Not really but at least it seems that Pun is aware of his feelings, so that's something. The last episode kept reminding me of Love Sick because of all the camp stuff. It's an entertaining show but the Q/Toey plot is annoying me a bit now.

QL - Finished

🇹🇭 23.5 - This show lost me about halfway through and I never really connected after that. Even if it really wasn't for me, I'm happy it exists and I hope gmmtv invests in more gl's in the future. I wanted more of the teachers but I'm not greedy and was happy to see that they are together by the end.

🇰🇷Blossom Campus - What a mess. I still cannot believe this came out of Strongberry. I posted my reactions while watching. Final thoughts here.

🇰🇷Boys Be Brave - I really liked this one. Just to get it out of the way, the side couple felt a bit unfinished and could've had a bit more screen time. All the characters had their own stuff going on and 8 episodes just isn't enough to explore that depth in a satisfactory way. With that said. I adore the mains. JinWoo built a wall, put a list on it and we got to see Kiseob slowly tearing it down in its own unhinged unique way. I did a rewatch and something I didn't notice the first time is that when Kiseob is 'caught' with Inho and is explaining what happened while JinWoo hides under the bed, he enumerates what happened just like JinWoo always does. I thought it was so endearing. I found Kiseob's presence on screen always so bright and JinWoo's actor was really compelling to watch. Overall this was a really nice surprise.

🇯🇵 Living with him - Writing this when I literally finished and it's strange. Cause they are so cute by the end. That whole festival date was so adorable, and I think they played the awkwardness of the dynamic change really well. I do think the show dragged in parts and Natsukawa became a tiny bit annoying to me at a certain point. Because he found out so early that Kazuhito liked him that I thought the indecision was too much at times. I kept comparing it in my head to I Cannot Reach You, and the way both Kakeru and Natsukawa's lack of confidence plays a part in how they deal with the friend liking them, but I think in this case the back and forth in his head was irritating to me. It was always one step forward, two steps back. When he found the magazine in that last episode I wanted to punch a wall. Like, oh crap here he goes again. It's great that the friend was passing by so he could do all the work and get these two finally together. For the most part I really enjoyed it.

🇰🇷Love Is Like a Cat - That was a show that I watched. Final thoughts

Rose Watches OJBL

The Novelist (2018) - I put off this one for so long because of reasons and I was so wrong. It's not necessarily an easy watch but it's so good. It's beautifully shot and acted. I went through a whole journey with Kijima, from 'who is this guy?' to 'I fucking hate this guy' to ''I need him to be happy, please'. I will have to rewatch it after I watch all of them because the series is full of details and I'm sure I missed a bunch. Definitely happy I started this journey if for no other reason cause I finally managed to watch this.

Takumi-kun Series 2: Rainbow Colored Glass (2009) - The sad just came out of nowhere. It's got some of the same problems as the first one, choppy editing and even though the cast is new the acting is still not that good. I was less confused throughout which is good, Takumi annoyed me a lot though and the tragic plot was messy and rushed. I'm not sure if I'll watch all of these but probably at least one more and then decide.

Other - Watched

🇨🇳Running Like a Shooting Star (2024)🇯🇵Barakamon (2023)🇯🇵Ghost Yankee (2024) 🇰🇷Wonderful World (2024)

4 Thai BL's coming in June June 7 | My Love Mix-Up (so many mixed feelings) June 9 | Love Sea June 15 | Sunset x Vibes June 26 | The Rebound

As usual my ask box is open for questions or requests. Have a wonderful day/night💜

[historyhermann]

Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure Spoiler-Filled Review

Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure is an original magical girl series directed by Koji Ogawa. It is produced by Toei Animation (which uses the "Izumi Todo" pen name for studio's producers as series creator), a studio founded in January 1948. It's known for over 240 anime, including Cutie Honey, Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon, Smile PreCure!, and Sailor Moon Crystal. Ryunosuke Kingetsu is the show's head writer. As a warning, this review will discuss murder, death, trauma, attempted murder, psychological manipulation, and other mature themes.

Reprinted from Pop Culture Maniacs and Wayback Machine. This was the sixty-eighth article I wrote for Pop Culture Maniacs. This post was originally published on March 3, 2024. On PCM it says this was posted on Mar. 4.

This series has an intriguing story. A girl named Sora Harewataru (voiced by Arkia Sekine) travels to Skyland's main city to watch the birthday of Ellee, the Kingdom's only princess. In an effort to escape her captors from the Underg Empire, she and Ellee (voiced by Aoi Koga) end up in Sorashido City, within Japan. While there, she comes across Mashiro Nijigaoka (voiced by Ai Kakuma). Later on, she meets Mashiro's grandmother, Yoyo (voiced by Tomoko Shiota), a non-human animal named Tsubasa Yuunagi (voiced by Ayumu Murase) which can transform into a Puni bird, and a young adult woman named Ageha Hijiri (voiced by Ayaka Nanase). All of them work together to stop the Underg Empire's evil deeds, and planned kidnapping of Ellee, even if it puts their lives into jeopardy.

Originally, I hadn't planned to review this series. The series isn't as environmentally focused as Tokyo Mew Mew New, nor a dark fantasy like Puella Magi Madoka Magica, a comedy such as Tweeny Witches, or a magical fantasy like Little Witch Academia. I changed my mind after reading an Anime News Network chat-log stating that the series "breaks the mold" by introducing the first boy in the Pretty Cure franchise, and an Anime Feminist article by Cy Catwell, which described the series as enjoyable, upbeat, feminine-targeted, and "incredibly empowering."

Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure is more than a magical girl series where Sora transforms into Cure Sky, Mashiro into Cure Prism, and Tsubasa into Cure Wing. Sora has some of the strongest character development of any character in the entire series. She goes from someone who claims she is a hero to the reality, with many bumps around the way. She is only rivaled by what Tsubasa goes through, who is a species of bird, and can't fly, causing his fellow bird peers to make fun of him.

Like other magical girl series, there is yuri subtext, specifically between Sora and Mashiro. In fact, both of them have a combo attack against any Ranborgs summoned by Kabaton (voiced by Yasuhro Mamiya), a general of the Underg Empire. As the series goes forward, their connection with one another gets stronger. It interlinks with camaraderie between the PreCures. For instance, Sora and Mashiro reassure Tsubase, increasing his self-confidence, helping him face his fears and insecurities.

One of the more interesting twists is the reveal that the grandmother of Mashiro, Yoyo, is from Skyland. She helps out the protagonists by connecting a magic mirror back to Skyland, and later, an inter-dimensional tunnel, with the right materials. She is a wise, guiding force, for the characters, and is often aware of more than what she reveals.

While Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure has characteristics typical in the magical girl genre, including transformations, friendship, heroic elements, youth, and femininity, this series is more than that. There are no heterosexual relationships. Rather, there's the aforementioned yuri subtext and a focus on friendship, with the creation of a found/chosen family among the protagonists. Unlike Sailor Moon, two characters buck the idea of the PreCures as princesses: Sora and Tsubasa. Both appear to be more down-and-out fighters, not royalty. Mashiro is the closest to being a princess-like apart from Ellee (an actual Princess).

Uniquely, Sora sees one of the key generals in Skyland, Captain Shalala (voiced by Saiga Mitsuki), as her rolemodel-of-sorts, rather than a king or prince. Just as significant is the fact  Tsubasa is a part of the team, showing that the magic-based and gentle power of magical girls isn't just for girls. Instead it makes clear that men can fight without punching or having lots of physical training. In fact, the latter is done by Sora but not anyone else.

There's some parallels between Tsubasa and Steven Universe, in that both do things seen as "girly" and "feminine." However, the latter develops it more than the former. Steven uses his mother's shield (with a rose in the center), his power for self-defense, rather than offense, and often cries, to name a few elements. Despite these differences, Tsubasa is a relatively well-developed character, as much as any other protagonist in this series.

Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure is more than a series focused on heroism, which uses sky as a main motif and features characters with their own signature power moves. For one, it is novel that Sora spares Kabaton life after he fails his Earth mission for the Underg Empire. As a result, he lives a new non-evil life in Sorashido City.

Sora is just as compelling. She makes up with a fellow guard that she trains alongside in Skyland, showing she has become more of a hero. She wants to fight evil and cares about those around her. Of course, this is not unique to Sora. Other protagonists act similarly, including those in other magical girl series. For instance, the Sailor Scouts in Sailor Moon often go out of their way to protect others, especially if those people are near and dear to them.

Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure shares the message that any obstacle can be overcome, even if it seems insurmountable. Something similar is communicated in Ippon Again!, except the latter series primarily states that hard work can lead to good results. The former is different, as it is more about the value of teamwork and friendship. Of course, this is present in Ippon Again!, but fights are more one-on-one, while those in Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure often feature multiple heroes fighting at once.

The Skyland arc is one of the more gripping plotlines. Sora becomes a member of the Azure Guards and fights against the villainous Battamonda (voiced by KENN / Ken'ichirō Ōhashi), along with other defenders of the city. This arc indicates that near-impossible challenges can be met. Mashiro and Sora use all of their magical girl energy to stop a bomb from destroying the capital of Skyland. This two-episode arc is short-lived. It ends in the fifteenth episode, setting the stage for a return to Sorashido City. The King and Queen are incapacitated by a curse-of-sorts. Captain Shala presumably sacrifices herself to save the city.

In the next two episodes are some of the series' strongest. This arc features protagonists returning to Japan and the grandmother, Yoyo, finding a way to heal the King and Queen. They work together to cheer up Elle and Battamonda follows them, declaring he will stop them no matter what. As was the case in episodes before this, there are huge battles, but everything is always rebuilt afterward. There is also a nice bonding scene, in another episode, between Sora and Mashiro during a relay race, bringing them closer together.

There was some controversy about the sixteenth episode of Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure. Some claimed that one of the banners used had a Japanese imperialist origin. Whether that is the case or not, it pales in comparison to what happened with Oshi No Ko (which is returning with a second season this year). There were even complaints about a subset of that series fandom harassing the mother of professional wrestler Hana Kimura. She previously said that she doesn't want to blame anyone and praised the series for raising "important issues" but wondered if anyone gave it "the proper consideration before releasing it out into the world."

Apart from that, the camaraderie between the characters, the aforementioned yuri subtext between Sora and Mashiro, and the value of self-love are important series themes. When the heroes are pinned down, they use all the strength they can to beat the villains, even if they are facing stronger monsters. This is the case in the eighteenth and nineteenth episodes. In those episodes, Ageha Hijiri goes from being an 18-year-old woman who teaches at a nursery school to a magical girl named Cure Butterfly. She becomes an integral part of the PreCure team. The new opening in the nineteenth episode features her in a much more prominent place.

One of the best parts of the eighteenth and nineteenth episodes of Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure is the fact that Ageha is not some refugee from a magical land (as is the case for Sora and Tsubasa). She's an ordinary person in more ways than one. Having a character who is passionate about primary school education is great. Many magical girls are teenagers, so they aren't necessarily thinking of their future careers. That sets Ageha apart.

Surely, Mashiro is also an "ordinary person," but Ageha is different. She cares about the students of her nursery class. She defends them, and the school, after she transforms into Cure Butterfly. By the nineteenth episode, she has settled in with everyone. She even works with Tsubasa, who's worried about her, to develop a joint attack named "PreCure! Titanic Rainbow." This magic spell involves one person using a paintbrush, turning a being into rainbow, and then using it against an enemy, if I understand it correctly. Basically, it is "death by bird butt," to put it simply. It's even more powerful than Mashiro and Sora's joint spell, named "Updraft Shining."

Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure harps on a theme expressed in episodes of Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, Cleopatra in Space, and in I've Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level. Viewers are told that overwork is bad and that breaks are good. This series goes even further: it makes clear that no one should take on everything by themselves, but should share the burden with others. By the end of the nineteenth episode, Tsubasa, Mashiro, Sora, and Ageha all divide up the house duties, embodying elements of a cooperative housing situation.

Ageha's overwork and over-dedication are the result of her determination to give back to everyone. The series depicts the former as something people shouldn't not strive for. Fitting with the anti-overwork message, collaboration is emphasized. This is not unique to this series. It is present in many magical girl and superhero series, especially when characters in those series are part of a team. Coming back to Ageha, I am reminded of the twenty-eighth episode. In that episode, it's revealed that Ageha knows a well-known model (Maria Saotome), and a well-known model and designer (Kaguya Saotome). Both are her sisters. A divorce separated them and they took different paths. The episode ends with each sister agreeing to do their best and bring a smile to faces of other people, whether in the fashion world or within the classroom.

Ageha isn't the only one who struggles in Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure. Throughout the series, Mashiro often works on picture book illustration and writing. In the twentieth episode, she has writer's bloc and is unable to come up with a "good" original story. She believes she is borrowing from too many other stories. A mother reading to their daughter inspires her. Although there is an obligatory fight scene in this episode, with a monster summoned by an annoyed Battamonda, she still submits her drawing in time for the town's picture book contest. Even though she doesn't win, she dedicates herself to drawing again, which comes up later in the series.

Otherwise, some characters use their knowledge to assist their fellow team members. In the twenty-first episode, Tsubasa defeats Battamonda's summoned monster because he knows that clouds are made of "tiny bits of water and ice." He is helped by the other PreCures, who use their magical attacks, including a joint attack with Ageha. At the episode's end, Yoyo gives him a book and Mirror Pad to help him learn more. In a later episode, Tsubasa connects with Shoko Amauno who knows about airplanes and flying. He uses it to help defeat the summoned monster. The former episode made me think back to a middle school science class I look which included a lesson about different cloud types. I probably still have the handouts from that class!

One of the most heartbreaking Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure episodes follows. Battamonda tricks Sora. He claims that she planted the dark hatred in his heart. Captain Shalala is inside the monster he summoned. He manipulates the monster to attack her. Other PreCures save her, but don't purify the monster after he claims that Undergu energy is keeping her alive. The monster-of-sorts, and Battamonda, disappear. He declares he will continue to play with them until their hearts are "in pieces." The latter happens with Sora. After she says she "doesn't want to fight anymore," her mirage pen disappears, so she can't transform! In this way, Battamonda is one of the worst villains in the entire series. He engaged in psychological warfare against Sora because he tried to make her feel afraid / hopeless / less confident without physically hurting her.

The twenty-third episode brings this full circle. Sora returns to Skyland, believing she has lost everything, since she can't access her powers. While her parents respect her decision, her brother does not. Her friends are worried about her. Yoyo says that she doesn't know how people move forward when their dreams are shattered. Her friends Ageha and Tsubasa are unable to get her out of her funk. Instead, she thinks about the good times she had with Mashiro and that running away isn't what a hero does. While reading Mashiro's letter, and blushing, a new mirage pen appears (a product of her feelings for Mashiro?). Her father tells her that a dream isn't a one-time thing, but can come back repeatedly. Almost like Superman descending from the sky, she comes back with force, and does an amazing Sky Punch.

Unsurprisingly, Battamonda is annoyed. The Mirror Pad collects the right amount of energy before their purification. After Sora does her combo attack with Mashiro, known as PreCure! Updraft Shining, the Captain is released from the monster-of-sorts. She is weak and recovers. The yuri subtext here is strong. Sora and Mashiro hug one another, with Mashiro calling Sora a "hero girl." Mashiro gives Sora back her hero journal. Sora says she will get stronger so that Battamonda, who's on the run, won't hurt her anymore. After this high-stakes action, it is no surprise that they somewhat relax in the next episode after healing the King and Queen with the potion they have collected, and become famous in Skyland.

Ellee is ominously described as a "child of destiny." She appeared out of nowhere, then the King and Queen adopted her. Ageha predicts, in the twenty-fifth episode of Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure, that Ellee will get her own magical powers. They first manifest themselves in her being able to talk to animals. These powers come in handy when fighting a monster summoned by Minoton, another villain of the week, as you could call them. This comes up again in the twenty-ninth episode. Ellee bonds with a stuffed animal, in contrast to Sora, who's terrified out of her mind (she dislikes the animal as it is kowai rather than kawaii), until she learns the animal can talk because it is magic.

This mixes with episodes which have comedic moments or lessons. At the end of the twenty-sixth episode, Mashiro's parents arrive and spend time at the cooperative house-of-sorts she is living in. They have "I Love Mashiro" shirts with them. This embarrasses her, but they only stay a short time before flying back overseas. In another episode, all the PreCures are pulled inside the mirror pad. After Ellee accidentally activates "hidden wild lessons" mode, they go through lessons of sorts. Somehow, they get back just in time for the fireworks. The "obligatory" beach episode, episode thirty, is a bit laid-back. Even so, it includes scary parts: Sora almost drowns while fighting Minoton's summoned monster. In the end, they all have fun time and eat a meal at a beach restaurant.

This series never criticizes the beauty myth or beauty industry. On the other hand, Ageha could have been a model like her sisters, but chooses to be a nursery school teacher. As such, this series bucks the usual storyline, where she would become a model. It echoes how Fuuka Miyazawa, protagonist of the The Aquatope on the White Sand, chooses to leave her idol life behind and work at an aquarium in Okinawa. At the same time, Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure is less girly than Tropical-Rouge! Pretty Cure, which is much more centered on makeup. The focus on makeup being part of magical transformation is not new, but its central to this franchise.

The thirty-ninth episode is a turning point. It marks the introduction of Skearhead (voiced by Mitsuru Miyamoto). He claims to be ruler of the Undergu Empire, working on behalf of Empress Underg (voiced by Takako Honda). He kidnaps Ellee, to the shock of her friends, but, somehow, she escapes and new PreCure emerges: Cure Majesty. She saves her friends. He withdraws, saying he will remember the name "Cure Majesty." They all are glad that Ellee is ok. In the end, Sora resolves they need to get stronger to defend Ellee from new enemies. This mixes with superb animation throughout, which is often rad and tip-top.

In the next few Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure episodes, Ellee comes into her own. The fact she is Cure Majesty becomes apparent, even though she can't transform at will at first. Skearhead tries to eliminate her, with Minoton reborn with Undergu energy. He wants all the PreCures to disappear. Whether she gives off vibes from the beginning of Steven Universe or not, her friends are more than happy to help her, as the first toddler PreCure in the franchise. Aoi Koga does a great job voicing all her iterations! Coming back to the character, she leads the way to an ancient ruins where they come across the Majestic Chroniclon, giving them all a super saiyan power boost, and they beat back the dark energy.

Mashiro attempts again to become a picture book author in the thirty-fourth episode. Battamonda, living in the human world as "Monda," in a terrible apartment, next door to Kabaton, tries to "discourage" Mashiro. He claims he is an art student and tries to gain her confidence. However, this does the exact opposite. Mashiro felt down after reading her story at the local library and some kids called it "boring." Later, she thanks him for his words and which surprised him. This was the first time someone cheered him on. At the same time, Skearhead makes more appearances, even as the heroes beat him back with the Majestic Chroniclon's powers.

Episode thirty-five is one better Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure episodes. It centers around Tamaki Shinomiya, a student who also attends Sorashida Academy. She requests Sora be their special coach. Tamaki is injured and can't throw before the next tournament. This puts the team in jeopardy because she's their ace. This episode isn't notable because Skearhead appears, Tamaki learning that Sora is a PreCure, Sora carrying Tamaki in a bridal carry, nor a baseball pitch defeating a conjured monster. Rather, Sora finds a friend who connects with her, even though she isn't a hero with magical powers. Secondly, the episode realistically shows the time of Tamaki's recovery. As a side note, the baseball club loves Sora. The yuri subtext is as strong as when people cheered for Marika Kato when she entered the academy in an episode of Bodacious Space Pirates.

Skearhead gets more dangerous, threatening kids in a nursery school in the thirty-sixth episode. He arrogantly declares, in the episode afterward, that only he needs to know why he is targeting the PreCures. In the process, Tsubasa and Ageha fight alongside one another. Ageha cheers up a sad kid (Takeru) who wants to stay at nursery school. She meets the nursery school teacher who gave her confidence all those years ago. That teacher happens to be Takeru's mother! Ageha and Mashiro also reflect on when their friendship began. They learn that their favorite tree was chopped down and made into a swing that everyone can use. In the second of these two episodes, the monster fight seems unnecessary and obligatory. This is an issue with some, but not all, episodes in this series.

The PreCures continue to take risks. They meet a "flightless" dragon tribe with Tsubasa's help, while Skearhead harasses them, even turning a bell into a monster. In the latter case, Ellee watches a television special about weddings with Aegeha, Sora, and Mashiro. Afterward, she's determined to marry Tsubasa. While he agrees to "play wedding" with her, Ellee is serious about it, and Tsubasa has a nightmare about the marriage. She even holds his book hostage in response and declares she hates him. The episode ends positively. Tsubasa vows to be Ellee's knight and protect her forever. She sees the other PreCures as her friends forever. She doesn't think she is married to anyone. This makes clear that the "marriage" was only a method to ensure she would be friends with Tsubasa forever. On some level, this episode shows the problems with child marriages.

Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure's forty-first episode shakes everything apart. It begins with Mashiro struggling to come up with a theme for a writing contest. Monda acts nice, claiming that power is only for the ones who succeed. She tries to cheer him up and says she likes fallen leaves. Later, Skearhead calls Monda worthless, saying he doesn't deserve to exist, and she defends him. But she is not the one shaken: rather it is Sora. She confronts Skearhead who says the "one they love" wants them to attack the PreCures. She isn't sure what he means. While Monda's words about fallen leaves echo in his mind while the words of Skearhead echo in hers.

This leads to the next episode. Tsubasa researches how to generate a specific type of energy, specifically having in mind a protective shield around Skyland (this foreshadows what happens in a later episode). Sora begins to have feelings of self-doubt. She puts on a strong front to the Captain, but wants to figure out these feelings by herself. Her friends say they will be there for her, supporting her where necessary. It's revealed that Skearhead knows about Tsubasa's research, implying there is a mole providing information to him. Sora continues to hesitate to fight. This clears up when she talks to Skearhead, explaining why she stopped fighting, saying that PreCures are fighting on behalf of the "one they love."

Skearhead retreats but is unfazed. Typically, he declares that "thinking and worrying creates self-doubt in battle" and threatens to destroy the city. In response, she asks if he ever hesitates or worries when he is fighting for someone. She demands an answer from him as to why he is hurting others and making everyone suffer. He says she doesn't need to know why. Instead, in his mind, she needs to "disappear." He calls her naive, saying her beliefs will result in the city's destruction. Sora doesn't give up. She doesn't care if she is naive. She uses her Sky Punch to purify the energy he's gathered. Before he can talk, he's shaken by her power and cowardly flees. Sora later tells her friends what he told her. She remains committed to learning why he is hurting people.

These serious Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure episodes are mixed with fun ones, like the Halloween-themed thirty-ninth episode. Battamonda dresses up as "Cure Pumpkin" and claims he is a PreCure. He wants to make the PreCures look bad, but his plan is an utter failure. He runs away, ashamed and apologized, while all the PreCures get candy. In some ways, the episode sets the stage for the forty-third one. In that episode, Monda agrees with Mashiro, who tells him that she decides her own worth. He attacks Skearhead, who believes that those without power are "worthless."

In addition, he gives Mashiro back her transformer-pen. She is able to, with help of her fellow PreCures, fight back against Monda. He was turned into a monster-of-sorts by Skearhead. Although they almost lose, Mashiro uses one of her spells to make Monda's heart "shine." A combo attack by the PreCures allows them to purify him. He is forgiven by Sora. He apologizes to Mashiro for ripping her notebook. It almost seems he is on the road to becoming a better person/being.

In the series final arc, more about the "far past" comes to the forefront. Empress Underg tells the PreCures, in the forty-fourth episode, that the Skyland castle was built on "tears of sadness." She wants revenge for what happened in the past. In an almost Steven Universe-esque manner, Sora proposes they talk with her, but she challenges them instead. Their massive attack fails. Their strength is no match for her, and they fall down, transforming back into their usual selves. The Empress blames everything on Ellee, who is shocked to hear this slander. In response, she freezes time thanks to the Majestic Chroniclon.

Ellee, Sora, and Mashiro travel back three hundred years into the past. They meet Princess Elleelain of Skyland. Sora and Mashiro are unable to transform. They do what they can to fight the Ramborgs. Sora remembers the classic stories. As the Empress declares, fighting only brings tears. This episode of Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure makes one thing clear: Ellee is the reincarnation of Cure Noble. This is continued in the forty-fifth episode. Cheer Noble is cheered on, condemning the Emperor of the Underg Empire for attacking against defenseless Puni birds. The Empress, a being born from the sea of Undergu energy, says that strength isn't "everything," standing against Skearhead's conceptions.

What I found fascinating is that the male characters are the ones who promote the idea that strength is "everything." This is one of the feminist messages of this series. Even the Empress tries to stop the fighting, but her father won't listen. Her effort is successful and supported by Cure Noble (who says that fighting brings only tears), and the present-day PreCures (Sora, Mashiro, and Ellee). This is scuttled by Skearhead. He uses the meeting between Cure Noble, the Empress, and Emperor of Underg Empire as a trap/distraction to attack the city. Rightly enraged, Cure Noble goes on the attack and accidentally hurts the Empress. Even so, they achieve peace, but Skearhead is unhappy.

These events have reverberations in the present: the Empress is hardened and refuses to consider peace. Instead, she plans to wipe them out. The PreCures beat her. Skearhead whisks her away before they have a chance to talk to her. This plotline is interrupted by the forty-sixthSoaring Sky! Pretty Cure episode. It centers around ways to cheer-up everyone in Skyland's main city. They have a celebration which resembles Christmas. That episode is one of the only ones without a villain battle. It includes nice Sora/Mashiro moments, with both pledging to protect the world together.

The audience learns about what really happened at the same time as the PreCures. This includes the revelation, in episode forty-seven, that Ellee is a manifestation of Morning Star, otherwise known as Princess Ellee-Lain. She tells them that she put her power in the Majestic Chroniclon. She informs them that good relations between Skyland and the Underg Empire suddenly ended, without warning. Fading away, she tells them that the world's fate is in their hands. Hilariously, while Ellee remains as a teenage girl most of the time, she goes back to becoming a little kid when she gets hungry.

Skearhead is crafty. He claims that he would lay down his life for the Empress. On the other hand, he traps two PreCures in a bubble. He intends on draining their power and attacking the city. Skearhead disappears into nothingness after Ellee (as Cure Majesty) attacks him. He claims this is his "last lesson" to the Empress. Understandably, she is horrified. Sora tells her the truth: if she had talked to them, it wouldn't have come to this. The Empress claims that Cure Noble attacked her father and ended the relations between her country in Skyland. Conveniently, Skearhead isn't there, so no one can get to the truth and question her story's validity.

The story that the Empress tells gives the audience a window into her perspective. She believes that Skearhead saved her and says she has lost everything. She claims she has nothing left due to the reported "death" of Skearhead at Ellee's hand. Echoing Cassandra's wildly-powerful moonstone powers in Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure, she calls forth all the Undergu energy, and tries to destroy the entire city. The PreCures do what they can to stop her. Some citizens are evacuated. Even former villains, like Kabaton, Minoton, and Battamonda, reappear. They are now on the side of the PreCures.

At first, it seems like the PreCures have made a breakthrough. She goes back to her normal form after they tell her that strength isn't everything. Mashiro and Sora do their PreCure Updraft Shining combo attack to purify her. Before she can say anything, Skearhead, like a unhinged groundhog, pops out of nowhere. He stabs her through the body with a spear. This action is either attempted reginicide [killing of a queen] or, more specifically, attempted tyrannicide since the Empress is effectively a tyrant.

Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure's penultimate episode raises the stakes. Like a light bulb flickering on in a dark closet, the Empress remembers something she'd forgotten: Skearhead killed her father. He replaced her actual memory with a false one. To cover his tracks, he created the memory that Cure Noble betrayed her. This ensured that her body and mind would be tied to Undergu energy. He reveals his true form to the PreCures: an incarnation of Undergu energy named Darkhead. He psychologically damages the Empress even more, declaring that he doesn't love her at all. This causes her to realize that everything she believed has been a lie. This is all part of the series' feminist themes.

This all leads to one of the best series sequences. The PreCures travel to the Underg Empire to save the Empress. Along the way, PreCures continue peeling off to fight the Ramborgs. By the end, only Sora and Mashiro are left. They confront Darkhead who only saw the Empress as an effective "vessel" believing that a "hero's light" was inside her. He sees Sora as a better vessel. He uses the sea of Undergu energy to turn her into Dark Sky! While this energy flow is poisonous to PreCures, she fights him regardless. Through her determination, she beats him, with the help of Mashiro. She is able to purge him from her body permanently.

Although Skearhead / Darkhead is gone (in a sense) and the Empress is healed, as a side effect, their battle is not over. Before they begin, they bond with the Empress. Sora defines a hero for her: a person fighting no matter what stands in their way and believing that your convictions are right. She admits that she isn't great or naive enough to call herself a hero. Her friends have always supported her. The PreCures prepare themselves to fight, and win against, an evil snake beast known as Daijurg (another form of Skearhead / Darkhead).

In the Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure series finale, the Empress rejects Daijurg/Darkhead/Skearhead. They all de-transform since they have been transformed too long. Sora raises their spirits, declaring that the ability to be a PreCure is infinite, and inside them. In effect, she says that everyone has infinite possibility. Somehow, they are able to defeat the snake monster on Earth and purify it. Everything ends happily. The Empress declares that they will have a lasting peace in Skyland. Kabaton, Minoton, and Battamonda join her.

A fissure appears: Ellee, Tsubasa and Sora prepare to go back to their world (Skyland). Mashiro stays behind on Earth. They say their goodbyes. The most emotional moment is between Mashiro and Sora. She even jokes about how many times they held hands and says she loves Mashiro's smile. In response, Mashiro calls her cool and strong. This break doesn't last long. The next morning, Ellee, Tsubasa, and Sora come back so they can eat breakfast together. The series ends with Mashiro making a picture book featuring all of them, and herself. It's akin to Rapunzel's journal in Tangled. In a post-credits scene, Cure Wonderful, from the currently airing Pretty Cure series, Wonderful PreCure!, makes her debut.

This series is better than the decent adult PreCure, entitled Power of Hope: PreCure Full Bloom, a clear nostalgia trip. Its longer than Delicious Party Pretty Cure, the previous series in the Pretty Cure / PreCure franchise. That series had forty-five episodes. After this series ended, Wonderful PreCure! replaced it in the same time slot on All-Nippon News Network. Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure could have been longer. In a weird and unfortunate coincidence, Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure had more episodes, including the film as one episode. That is despite the fact that final season had its final series order cut from thirty-six episodes down to twenty-one, resulting in a total episode count of sixty.

If the series received another ten episodes, it could have involved a corrupted Cure Sky becoming Dark Sky as a cliffhanger, possibly turning against her fellow PreCures. She could become a fallen magical girl of sorts. The latter led to fanart of Dark Sky and Cure Prism together, sometimes in very compromising positions. In the series, as it stands presently, the day is saved, arguably, by lesbian love between Sora and Mashiro. Additional episodes could have canonized this yuri subtext. To my knowledge, there aren't any canon lesbian characters in the PreCure franchise. There's only subtext which fans recognize from time to time.

Whether there is wasted potential or not, the writers clearly wanted to quickly wrap up the series. This allowed the series to set the stage for Wonderful PreCure!, the next PreCure series.Although I enjoyed the series conclusion, since it tied up loose ends, I don't understand why all the PreCures couldn't have lived together in the human world. Perhaps some fanfiction writers will imagine these possibilities, and others, adding to the over 180 fics for the series on AO3.

The show's crew and cast are talented. Series director Koji Ogawa worked on other Pretty Cure and magical girl series, along with Chaos Dragon and Dragon Ball Super. Ryunosuke Kingetsu was head writer for Ninja Nonsense and Futakoi Alternative and a writer on Märchen Mädchen. Series character designer Atsushi Saitō, worked on Clannad, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Healer Girl, Is the Order a Rabbit?, K-On!, and Love Live! Superstar!!. The fact that I enjoyed watching most of these aforementioned series made me like this series more.

Voice actors for the show's four protagonists are just as experienced. Akira Sekine voiced Princess Charlotte, a protagonist of Princess Principal, along with characters in Asobi Asobase, Assault Lily Bouquet, Akebi's Sailor Uniform, and Birdie Wing. Ai Kakuma voiced Hazuki Kudo in Kubo Won't Let Me Be Invisible, Ilia Coral in The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady, and Natsu Umehara in Ippon Again!. She will voice Kaori Tachibana in Whisper Me a Love Song in April and Yuri Shibasaki in The Masterful Cat Is Depressed Again Today in July.

Ayumu Murase and Ayaka Nanase, who voice two other protagonists, are also seasoned voice actors. Murase voices Kento Yamada in Skip and Loafer and Hachi in My Roommate is a Cat. Nanase voices Mary Read in Fena: Pirate Princess and Noa Shiragiku in Tsurune. Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure voice actors Aoi Koga, Tomoko Shiota, Yasuhro Mamiya, and Saiga Mitsuki are known for their roles in Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, The Demon Girl Next Door, Asteroid in Love, Princess Principal: Crown Handler, Yurikuma Arashi, Ouran High School Host Club, Maria Watches Over Us, Spy × Family, and Stars Align.

Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure can be streamed on Crunchyroll, and, hopefully has a DVD or Blu-ray physical release in the U.S.

© 2023-2024 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

[tsuki-sennin]

Episode 40 of HiroPre! A play wedding, how precious~! Now don't worry, despite initial worries about Toei making it weird, this is all above board and wholesome. Very wild of them to make this the episode there's a delay for though, but I guess life's just funny like that.

Spoilers, I guess...

-I see Sora likes BBC's Walking with Dinosaurs.

-Sagely studies~!

-Oh ye gods, weddings.

-Ohhhh, worldbuilding!

-An all night party following an announcement of engagement. Don't even need to dress up.

-Quite a fun time, actually, I wish weddings in our world were that easy. And it might just be you two up there next, Mashiron~!

-...I have to wonder how polygamy works up there.

-Y'know, now I've got much more PreCure knowledge accrued, I've noticed that the casts have gotten smaller over the years.

-It's not necessarily a bad thing, mind you! It certainly makes sense, as the teams get bigger you'll have less time to devote to big supporting casts, but this has a side effect of us feeling isolated to our heroes.

-We still have plenty of weirdos to go around in Hirogaru Sky, but having more of them stick around more often would be fun. How's Berryberie doing?

-Just sayin', we would've really benefited from a Masukomi, Kaoru, or even a Yuriko.

-Ah, the cake. All the motivation you need.

-Kinda like Booster in Mario RPG.

-Royal wedding, yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay

-I'm sorry Elle, I don't care how much cake we eat or how shiny your cardboard crown is, nothing can make me give a crap about a royal wedding. In my junior year of high school, people were really going wild for Harry and Meghan, and I had no idea who these people were so I just kinda had to sit there in the corner.

-I see Ageha disagrees.

-Tsubasa-kun, your bowtie is somehow a brighter red than your jacket's orange.

Ageha: You're doing great, boy~! Just think of the doves flying out~! Tsubasa: No talking during the ceremony!

-Best of friends!

-Ageeeeee~!

-That was nice, wasn't it?

-Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand there's the rub~!

-I have to hand it to Murase, Tsubasa sounds genuinely terrified here.

-I don't think Yoyo can officiate anything, so

-You should marry Mashiro twice over, Sora.

-I suppose it's not too surprising Elle could develop a crush on Tsubasa, considering he's like... the only boy she knows. Still though, I get why some people were put off by this.

-Frankly, I'm really surprised Toei haven't been doing a Dipper and Wendy ship tease thing with Tsubasa and Ageha. Thank god they haven't, by the way, that was always the worst part of Gravity Falls.

-I guess Toei knew that would be a little much, especially with the (quite understandable mind you) backlash Nozomi and Coco's relationship gets nowadays.

-Nightmare time.

-King Bitchin' Mustache can add Shotgun Papa to his list of titles.

-Even his own parents!

-He has been left comatose.

-That looks like quite a heavy book, I'm impressed she can carry it.

-"Nooooooooooooo?"

-It's always the simplest sentences coming from a kid that kill you, huh?

-Ladies and gentlemen, the bird boy is dead!

-Ageha appears.

-In the pursuit of great knowledge, one has neglected their friendship. A tale as tragic and old as time.

-That uh

-Might've been a good thing to let him in on earlier, Ageha.

-Skearhead appears.

-A wedding beast.

-Majesty leads our charge today.

-Skearhead's not even talking today!

-Oh, nevermind.

-Aaaaand she's caught!

-That Wing, ever gallant a knight and pal.

-Oh cool, team attack. Paralleling the cake cutting.

-Knighthood is much more fun than marriage.

-Friends and family forever!

-I'm... perplexed! I was expecting 24 minutes of mid cringe comedy, and got a fun and sweet exploration of these two characters' friendship instead on top of well executed cringe comedy. What a ripoff.

-I guess if I had to bitch about anything, I think having them talk as Wing and Majesty more would've been a fun way to tie the battle into their conflict.

-Speaking of which, the battle was pretty dang weak, they... absolutely could've done more with that. And why pick a church bell, Skearhead? Like, diegetically. In-universe. Watsonian argument. I usually don't mind this kinda thing, but like... a bell and a holly wreath are very specific imagery to just conjure up out of nowhere, but I think it'd make a lot more sense if Skearhead weren't just... seemingly slapped into the script because they needed a monster fight that episode.

-Like, Skearhead happens to see Elle and Tsubasa's play wedding and considers playing mind games by preying on Tsubasa's worries about the whole thing, or hell, even just wreaking havoc at someone else's wedding to draw out Pretty Cure would've been good enough for me.

-Anyways, forget all that, we're celebrating a harvest next time!

-Hi, this is Mashipan. I'm out looking at the fall colors. Please leave me a message, and I'll call you right back.

-Monda jumpscare.

-Business as usual, we see!

-See you next tiiiime, maybe!

[ankhisms]

Okay heres my gotchard ending thoughts (i watched the last 2 eps tonight) and ill put all spoilers under the cut but tldr: i really love gotchard and my love for the characters and the show overall is larger than any gripes i have with some character decisions very later on, i did feel a little confused at points in the ending and there were some things i wish were expanded on more but overall i thought it was a good ending and i loved the show im gonna miss it (":

Ok now spoilers ahead

Trying to collect my thoughts so sorry if this is jumbled but man i still really love the sisters i just wish that there was more time for development with them where lachesis is allowed to have negative feelings about her family and that they arent just magically getting along again but that they could work towards reconciliation and clothos dream of wanting her sisters to be safe and happy together.. i also wish that toei hadnt pushed lachesis/spanner so hard and wish that lachesis was allowed to still be a little mean even as she was becoming more human. However this part did make me cry im very predictable

And this also made me cry everything with the sisters really made me feel 500 emotions where again i wish we had more time to expand on it but still

I did feel a little like man i wonder if they had to cut stuff or if theres some longer cut of the last episode or the last two episode because even in the beginning of the last ep i was like wait a minute did i fucking miss something. There were just little things that confused me or i felt like something was missing/felt a little rushed and i think thats just a general thing with reiwa rider where i wish things were overall given more time to breathe but anyway.

Lots of good little moments in the end too like with rinne and her dad and the chemies all helping that was very sweet and then even though the whole turning the world gold villain motivation was never really my favorite i still think at the end it was utilized well where i was fucking clapping and cheering and screaming and crying when hotaro gets turned to gold and he just keeps fucking going and keeps fighting and everything he said about how you cant just preserve things as they are for eternity like gold you have to keep going and keep growing like THATS MY BOY AND IM REAL PROUD!!!! i do wish that rinne could have been there with him to deal the final blow now that im done watching the ep but it still was good i was cheering. And then the end check ups months later were so cute and good with new alchemist freshmen and rinne studying hard and this hurt me so bad

Like WAAOYGHHGHHHH

Anyway i loved gotchard a lot i wonder what any after show movies we get are gonns be about im truly fucking shocked that hotaros dad was like never revealed or important but aint that just the way. In the end i loved all the characters and the show and im gonna miss it

[duhragonball]

[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (221/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball,  which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation.   This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made  on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: This story This story takes place about 66 years after the events of Dragon Ball Z.

[6 March, Age 745. Earth.]

"This is important, Goku. If you ever meet a girl, treat her nice. Do you understand?"

The little boy nodded his head, then put his hand to his chin thoughtfully. At last he said: "No, Grandpa, I don't."

Son Gohan chuckled and sat down on a well-worn tree stump. He ran his fingers over his thick white mustache for a moment before explaining.

"Listen, my boy," he began. "It's one thing to act up and be silly with your family. That's all well and good. But around strangers, you have to be a little more polite. It's just showing the proper respect."

"Okay!" Goku said. "I guess that makes sense." He began to sniffle, then he wiped his nose with his arm and wiped his arm onto the front of his blue gi.

"See, that right there. That's what I'm talking about, son," Gohan said. "You shouldn't do things like that in front of people you don't know! They'll think you're being mean and they won't want to be your friend."

"Ohhh," Goku said. "Sorry, Grandpa."

"That's all right, Goku," Gohan said. "But you really should be more careful with your clothes. They don't wash themselves, you know."

"It's okay, Grandpa!" Goku assured him. "They'll get good and wet the next time I go swimming. That'll clean 'em off for sure!"

"Hmm… I suppose that would do the trick, yes," Gohan said. "Anyway, we're getting off topic. It's just you and me out here in the wilderness, which is fine and all--"

"What about that old monster that you warned me about?" Goku asked. "The one you said only comes out when the moon is full?"

"Huh? Er… never mind him," Gohan said. "He doesn't count."

"How come?" Goku asked.

"Well, er… well… Because you said it yourself," Gohan sagely replied. "That monster only comes here on nights when the moon is full. He must not live around here all the time, like we do."

"Oh yeah," Goku said. "I never thought of it that way."

Gohan sighed before continuing. He had once lived on Mt. Paozu alone, using the solitude to hone his skill in the martial arts. Then he found the metal ball lying in a crater. He knew little about such things, but his only guess could be that it had been sent to Earth from some other world. He found a baby inside, but the boy was stronger and more developed than any Earthling infant he had ever heard of, and he had a tail, like that of a monkey. Son Gohan took the boy in, but when his parents never came to find him, he gave the child a name, 'Son Goku', and resolved to raise him as his own grandson. He saw a bright future for Goku in martial arts, but had second thoughts when he learned the boy's secret.

When the boy looked at the full moon, he would undergo a terrifying metamorphosis, becoming a gigantic ape-like creature with immense strength. Even Gohan, one of the world's foremost martial artists, was helpless against the ape's ferocious power, and only moonset seemed to reverse the transformation. And so, Gohan was unsure how to proceed with the boy's upbringing. He could warn him against looking at the full moon, but he thought it best to train him in seclusion until he was old enough to learn to control his power.

The problem with this approach was that he had to teach Goku how to behave in social situations without any society present to demonstrate. For Goku, the world began and ended with Mt. Paozu and his grandfather. He simply knew nothing else.

"Think about your mother and father, boy," Gohan said as he tried again. "We don't know what happened to them, or why they left you out in the woods as a baby. For all we know, they might still be out there, wondering what happened to you."

"Huh," Goku said. "Maybe they forgot about me."

Gohan suspected the truth may have been much darker than that, but he had decided long ago to keep the spacecraft a secret from Goku. The only person he had ever told about it was his martial arts teacher, the invincible old Master Roshi. Roshi agreed that they should never speak of it to anyone. Nevertheless, Goku's curiosity about his parents was one surefire way to get his attention.

"For all you know, you might bump into them someday and not even realize it," Gohan said. "And you'd want to be nice to them, don't you? So the only way you can be sure of that is to just be nice to everybody."

"Gosh. I never thought about it that way, Grandpa," Goku said. "But that's okay, because you already taught me to be nice to people, so I was gonna do that anyway!"

"Good, then you do understand," Gohan said with a smile.

"No, I don't," Goku replied. "I know why I'm supposed to be nice, but I've never seen a girl before."

Gohan blinked a few times as he realized his oversight. As he considered the problem, Goku sat down on the smaller stump beside his, and began kicking his heels as he waited for his grandfather to continue.

"Er, uh… well," Gohan said, tugging on the ends of his mustache as he considered the problem. "I hadn't thought of that. Girls are, uh… well, they're very special, son."

"Uh-huh," Goku said. "But what do they look like?"

"Well, they're…" he blushed as he considered it. In his younger days, Gohan was quite the ladies' man, and now… well, he was eighty-seven, but he wasn't dead. He didn't want to give Goku too narrow or too broad of a definition, and he taking him to the nearest town wasn't an option either. All the while, Goku stared at him with those loving, admiring eyes, eagerly waiting his grandfather's answer.

"Er, I'll explain it to you when you're older, Goku," Gohan finally said. "Let's just say it'll make more sense to you then."

"Aww," Goku said.

"Trust me, son, you'll know a girl when you meet one," Gohan assured him. "And they wouldn't likely keep it a secret anyway. But when you do( meet one, I want you to show them a lot of respect, you hear? Don't just fart in front of them like you do in the house."

Goku laughed, "I think you do that more than me, Grandpa!" he said. "It'd be pretty funny if I was a girl, and then you had to hold it in all the time! You'd probably pop!"

They laughed together for a long time after that.

[9 May, Age 791. The Tuffle Planet.]

A few months after his fateful clash with Beerus the Destroyer, Son Goku was contacted by another god, the Supreme Kai of Time. She warned him of an attack on West City that was connected to a wider conflict involving the Time Patrol, the band of mortal warriors who helped her safeguard history. The Kai deputized Goku into the Time Patrol, and assigned him to defend West City against three villains who had been revived and enslaved by the Demon God Demigra. There he was joined by one other Time Patroller, Luffa the Legendary Super Saiyan who had lived a thousand years before him.

He took an immediate liking to Luffa. She was brash and rough around the edges, and she reminded Goku of many of the other Saiyans he had met in his lifetime, but she also had a tender side to her that she wasn't very good at hiding. She also seemed to hold Goku in high esteem. They didn't always see eye-to-eye, and sometimes she expressed annoyance with his personality, but she believed there was a bond between them as fellow Super Saiyans, and it meant a great deal to her.

After they defeated Demigra, they agreed to fight each other, and Trunks had arranged a special battleground in an isolated fragment of time. The Tuffle Planet was a recreation of the world where Goku was born, but in orbit around the Earth's sun. It was uninhabited, and therefore the perfect place for an all-out brawl between Super Saiyans. Luffa had cooked Goku breakfast before the fight. Goku told her that it was Luffa's example that inspired him while he struggled to control his own Super Saiyan transformation. She wept when she heard this.

She had tried not to show it, but Goku knew. She had said she was chopping onions, but there weren't that many onions in his omelet. He wasn't always good with reading people's feelings, but Son Goku's stomach had an uncanny perception for these things.

No one remembered Luffa. Most of the Saiyans in Goku's era were dead, and few who remained knew anything about the Super Saiyan legend. Vegeta had said that the last Super Saiyan had only been able to maintain his power while in the giant ape form, and even then, his rage caused his power to consume and destroy him. In fact, that Super Saiyan was a woman named Luffa, and she had proven to be very much in control of her power. But her story had been lost to time, and so she was very touched to hear that Goku had heard anything about her, and that her example had helped him in his own ascension.

He respected her a great deal. He had done everything he could think of to give her the kind of fight she craved, to be an opponent worthy of her ancient status. But she was still standing, still too strong, still expecting more.

During the fight with Beerus, Goku had briefly used the power of an ancient form known as "Super Saiyan God". His body somehow "memorized" that power, and he discovered that he could continue to tap into it even after the god form expired. But it was getting harder to do as time went on. At first, he could approximate the Super Saiyan God form simply with his ordinary Super Saiyan form. But each time he tried it, he lost a little more of that god power. He found that advancing to Super Saiyan 2 would compensate for this, but not completely. It was still a tremendous power, though, and it was good enough for most opponents, but not Luffa. It just wasn't enough.

There was only one thing left to try.

It wouldn't be easy, but it he had to attempt it.

For her.

All Luffa knew was that Goku had withstood her last attack and he was now floating in the air and screaming. She couldn't get a clear reading of his ki because she had polluted their battleground with her own ki to interfere with his teleportation ability. Still, it was clear that he was trying to raise his power level, and she imagined that he was pushing himself beyond what she had seen from him so far.

That worried Luffa a great deal. She had surpassed Goku in strength and was certain she had nearly defeated him. Whatever he was doing now could only be a desperation play. He no longer cared whether it was prudent or safe. Now Goku was just looking to make his last shot count as much as he could. And while Luffa was honored by the gesture, she was horrified by the implications.

Luffa had never heard of Super Saiyans before she became one. The mighty heroes of Saiyan mythology were just that: Saiyans, with no mention of them having glowing yellow hair or green eyes. There was no one, dead or alive, who could completely assure her that her transformation was natural, or permanent, or safe. Over time, she grew more comfortable with the form, but in the back of her mind, she always wondered if the next time she transformed might be the last. She wondered if her body would simply tear itself apart from the strain.

As she watched Son Goku now, she discovered a new dimension to her fear. He had already done the unthinkable with his Super Saiyan 2 form. What if he had finally pushed himself too far? What if he didn't realize how fine a line he was walking? What if he burst apart in a flash of light, right before Luffa's eyes?

"Kakarot!" she shouted. "You've got to stop it! You're going to hurt yourself! Kakarot!"

He did not answer. With the way he was screaming, she wondered if he could even hear her. A wind rose up and the folds of Luffa's yellow pants began to flap like a flag in a storm. The turbulence was so intense that she wrapped her tail around her waist to secure it. She held her arm over her face to protect her eyes, but she never looked away from her opponent. She was afraid that if she lost sight of him, she might never see him again.

"Kakarot, answer me!" she screamed. "Give me a sign! Dammit!"

There was no reaching him. If he could still hear her, then he wasn't listening, or perhaps he couldn't understand. That left her only one choice: to stand by and watch him die.

"Like hell…" she muttered as she charged her ki. She had lost enough in her short life. Her family, her friends, her place in history, and all the little indignities she had suffered along the way. On some intellectual level, she understood that Goku had already died twice before and could be resurrected again if necessary. But emotionally, none of that mattered. She would not lose him. That was all she could think about.

As she had done so many times during their battle, Luffa charged at Goku once more, but not to defeat him. This time, she was determined to save him from himself.

It was dangerous to attack a warrior while he was raising his power level so drastically. Most martial disciplines frowned upon it as dishonorable conduct, but even the more ruthless warrior cultures understood that it was foolhardy at best. A rapid increase in ki energy was unpredictable, and the opponent might become much more resistant to attack from one moment to the next. That made it difficult to determine how hard to strike, and what body part to target.

As a Super Saiyan, Luffa had enough of a power advantage that she didn't have to worry about such things with most of her foes. She preferred to let them power up anyway, since she wanted them to give her as great a challenge as possible. But she had seen what happened to weaker opponents who tried to attack her in mid-transformation. One raider captain had tried to take her by surprise, and the feedback nearly killed him. It was possible for Luffa to transform safely in close contact with other beings, as Zatte could have attested, but in a combat situation, it was best to just let the enemy carry on with their business.

But Goku was in grave danger, and Luffa was willing to risk the consequences. If she could just hit him hard enough to knock him out, then everything would be all right.

This was the sole thought in her mind as she pushed through the air currents and inched closer and closer to the edge of Goku's brilliant aura. She led with her fist, and just as she thought she might reach him--

Luffa was flung back like a bullet hitting a steel plate. It was also like the plate was electrified and a bolt of lightning zapped the bullet as it bounced away. And the bullet felt a great deal of pain from the experience. And the bullet began to mutter ancient Saiyan obscenities.

Luffa did not fly to a safe distance, for the sheer force of Goku's aura was enough to drive her back whether she wanted to be pushed away or not. As she recovered from her first attempt, she continued to stare wide-eyed at Goku and wondered what she could possibly accomplish with another try.

"There must be a way to get through to him," Luffa said, almost pleading with herself to find it. "A ki blast would just bounce off him at this point. Hell, it might even blow him up even faster. What's left? Dammit, I've been trying to beat this guy all morning and nothing's worked! What else is left?!"

She began starting at her hands, which were trembling now, almost as badly as they ever had. Then the answer came to her, and she steeled herself for another advance on Goku's position.

"Please, let this work," she murmured as she forced her body closer and closer to him. Once more, she led with her left hand, but instead of a closed fist, she extended her fingers, hoping to touch Goku's face.

Saiyans possessed a measure of telepathic abilities, and as Luffa advanced from Saiyan to Super Saiyan, she discovered that those abilities had increased. She could read the minds of other beings, even aliens, simply by touching them and applying her ki the right way. It had little use in combat, and she had never considered using it against Goku since she assumed another Super Saiyan could resist it. But this was no longer a combat situation, and she hoped that if she could get through to Goku's mind, even for just a moment, then she could get through to him long enough to calm him down.

It had to work. It was his only chance.

She was still inches away from his face, but somehow she could feel it working. She just had to get a little closer…

And then, she made contact!

Luffa immediately regretted it.

What he was doing now wasn't easy, but he had to keep pushing. He had to keep trying!

It wasn't just the pain of loss! It wasn't just anger! There was something more!

He was a small boy, waking up to find his grandfather was gone. There was a full moon out the night before, and the monster had come and smashed the house and the trees and everything else. He looked and looked for his grandfather, and finally found his dead body, crushed inside a gigantic footprint.

He was a young man, in the fight of his life against the Saiyan Prince Vegeta, who had just revealed he had the power to transform into a monstrous giant ape. Gradually, the horrible truth became clear, and he knew that he and Vegeta were both monsters, but at least Vegeta took ownership of his monstrosity. He, on the other hand, had killed his own grandfather without even realizing it.

He was a boy cradling his best friend's corpse in his arms. He swore revenge, but the enemy beat him within an inch of his life. Then the one who ordered Krillin's death came, and there was nothing he could do. His heart stopped, and he was left for dead, helpless to save anyone, even himself…

He was an orphan, when his brother appeared and revealed to him his true origins, proudly declaring that they were the last of a race so wicked and cruel that he was ashamed to be one of them.

He was on the ground, bleeding out from a hole in his chest the size of a baseball. He had sacrificed himself to save his son, only to leave the boy to face a hostile world without a father.

He was in the afterlife, sacrificing himself again. The explosion of Cell's self-destruction was like falling into a giant furnace, and then… oblivion. And then… the bitter realization that his sacrifice was not enough.

He was on the battlefield, feeling a pressure inside his chest so intense that it seemed like his entire body would burst. The virus had affected him so suddenly that he never knew to take the medicine until it was too late. But now he was on the battlefield, at the worst possible time, and the pitiless machine that had been programmed to kill him would not wait. Eagerly, the assassin stepped forward…

He was on the heavenly palace, dead for seven years, listening to his youngest son calling him a coward. What answer is there? All he can do is bear his son's contempt and wait for a chance to redeem his reputation.

He is a patient in a hospital, for there are no senzu beans left to heal his broken body. For weeks he lays helpless in a bed, while his son journeys headlong into danger, taking his place. His beloved wife, who is so much stronger than she will ever know, is wracked with worry and heartache, but she bears it with all her strength. And still he lays there, unable to do anything but wait…

He is a boy, battered and beaten at the hands of the martial arts prodigy Tien Shinhan. The beating is nothing, but the paralysis is what truly enrages him. For long, agonizing minutes, he can only endure the pain, helpless to fight back.

He is a young man, and in a moment of indiscretion he receives a terrible injury to his shoulder and chest. Piccolo is not satisfied, and he breaks yours legs and injures your other arm as well. And you know you can still seize victory from the jaws of despair, but you have to wait for your moment, and in the time that takes, you must lie helpless and endure the cries of your dear friends, your beloved wife, and the men who taught you so much. You want to tell them it will be all right, that you can win this and make it right, but you have to wait, and wait…

You are a coward. Why didn't you fight Majin Buu? Why didn't you save Vegeta and Gohan? How could you just let them die?

You are a fool! Why did you let Trunks and Piccolo and your own sons die? So you could save Dende and Mr. Satan instead?! Ridiculous!

You are a fool! Why would you send your own son to defeat Cell and then give him a senzu bean? What have you done?

You are a fool! Why would you give Vegeta a senzu bean? What have you done?!

You are a fool! Why would you give Piccolo a senzu bean? What have you done?!

You are a monster! You killed your own grandfather, the man who took you in when no one else wanted you. He raised you like his own child and you repaid his kindness with blood!

You are a monster! Your own brother says so. His only regret is that you aren't as monstrous as he is! He boasts of unspeakable atrocities and demands you kill a hundred innocent people and display their bodies on the shore just to prove your worth! You can refuse, but it only proves your weakness. The monstrosity remains, Kakarot!

You're a failure, Kakarot! You call yourself a Saiyan from Earth but you get beaten to a pulp almost as soon as you arrive on Namek to save the others. You say you'll fight Frieza alone, but you end up watching helplessly as he slaughters Krillin before your very eyes!

You're a failure, Kakarot! Why else would they send you to Earth, where you couldn't possibly be hurt? And yet you kept getting hurt anyway!

You're a failure, Kakarot! Bora deserved better and you were powerless to avenge him!

You're a failure, Kakarot! Krillin and Master Roshi and Chiaotzu deserved better!

You're a failure, Kakarot! Too slow to save Yamcha or Tien or Chiaotzu or Piccolo!

You're a failure, Kakarot! Best to shuffle out of life and hide in death, where your enemies cannot find you. It is the only way to save the Earth from the same fate as Planet Vegeta!

You're a failure, Kakarot! Cowering in your grave, and leaving your sons to fight in your place. What kind of man sends boys against a creature like Majin Buu!

I am Kakarot, alone and abandoned, left to die in the wilderness!

I am not Kakarot! I am Son Goku!

I am the World Champion! Number One Under The Heavens!

I am the Saiyan who came from Earth, for the sole purpose of beating you!

I am the warrior you've heard of in legends, pure of heart and awakened by fury! That's what I am!

I am the Super Saiyan, Son Goku!

I won't lose!

I won't lose!

Oh well, a loss is a loss, but I will not lose!

I will train hard and become even stronger, and I will not lose!

I know it's hard, but this is the only way! I have to do it! For all of them, for myself, and for her!

She fought so hard, all by herself…

She gave me her strength when we needed it the most!

She deserves to fight me at my absolute best, and I will not let her down!

No matter how hard it gets, I have to keep pushing! It's the only way!

It's not like the other forms, awakened through the pain of loss, or through rage!

It has to be awakened through regret! And through shame, and all the lingering doubts that I always manage to sweep aside!

Let them pile up again, like the dirt on Grandpa's grave! Like your friends' whispers when they realized you killed him and they couldn't bear to tell you!

It hurts… so much…

But that just means it's working! Don't give up now! Don't you dare give up on her!

This next energy… has to come deep inside! Push hard to find it!

He had to push harder! It was the only way to go even… further…beyond!

The backlash was even worse than it had been the first time. The first time, Luffa had only tried to punch Goku. This time, she had actually touched his mind, and when she came to her senses she found herself kneeling on the the ground with blood trickling from her nose.

Luffa did not know how long she had been unconscious. She awoke to the sound of distant screaming, and found herself on one knee, doubled over like she had been genuflecting for some alien potentate. She quickly rose to her feet and returned her attention to Goku.

Her mind was still reeling from the flood of memories and emotions that she had received from Goku. It didn't entirely make sense, but it seemed that whatever he was doing, it was intentional. He had not lost control of his power, but he was deliberately forcing his body to harness his power in a certain way. And he was channeling all his darkest emotions to do it.

For her.

"I don't deserve it," Luffa said in a small voice. "I don't want it. You have to stop this! Please. It's not worth it!"

There was nothing she could do, and so all that was left was to beg.

"Stop it now, Kakarot!" she shouted. "You'll tear yourself apart like this! Please! Don't do this to yourself!"

His screaming continued, only now it sounded even more painful, more desperate. It sounded like a cat being tortured in a nightmare, except she was wide awake, and helpless to stop it. It was horrible.

"Goku! You've got to stop!" she yelled. "I… I'm sorry!"

She winced at the thought of calling him by his Earthling name, but she didn't know what else to do. It was a core tenet of Saiyan culture to address one another by their Saiyan names. Even despised enemies deserved that much courtesy. But Goku was unfamiliar with the custom, and she was running out of words.

It was getting harder to see him now. He was glowing so brightly, and the tears in her eyes only made it harder to look at him.

"Just stop it," she whispered. "We'll call the whole thing off--"

And then, just when it seemed like the horror would never end, there was a brilliant flash of light from his body, and Luffa had to look away. In that moment, she realized it already too late, and she wondered if she could escape this unscathed.

Then the next moment came, and Luffa found that she and the planet were still there. So was Goku. The only thing that had been lost was the scream. A silence had fallen upon the battlefield. The quiet was so profound that Luffa almost missed the scream.

Warily, Luffa floated up to meet Goku, for she could not see him well against the yellow glow. As she approached, she saw his aura pulsing around him at an intense rate. It sounded like fish sizzling on a frying pan.

As she drew closer, she was relieved to see he was unhurt, but his hair had changed again. It was still bright yellow, but much, much longer now, and hung down over his back. A single cowlick from his bangs dangled in front of his forehead.

His eyebrows were… gone. The brows themselves seemed thicker and more pronounced. From beneath that heavy brow, Goku's blue eyes started out from the shadows. Unlike the Super Saiyan eyes she had seen before, Goku's eyes now had visible pupils in the center. It was a minor difference, and yet it made his expression all the more frightening to behold.

More than ever, Luffa understood the terror Saiyans had experienced when they saw her in the transformed state. Despite everything she had learned about herself, despite everything she had come to accept, there was still an internalized loathing for what she now saw. She swallowed her superstitious prejudice, and moved closer, pausing only to wipe the blood from her nose.

"What have you done to yourself?" she asked, her voice shaking as she reached out to him.

He smiled at her, as though seeing her for the first time, and Luffa found this even more frightening. From the nose down, it was basically the same man she had been fighting the whole time. It might have been easier to take if he had been replaced with a whole new person, or turned into some hideous creature, but the familiarity made it that much more unnerving.

Then, at last... he spoke.

"I'm sorry that took so long," he said. "But I've always had trouble with this one, and I wanted to make sure I got it just right. Besides… heh! It's like you said before. This is a special occasion. This is what I call a Super Saiyan 3."

Luffa said nothing. She could only float there, in stunned silence.

NEXT: It's a Fight From Here On.

[mahounomanga]

Mako ni Omakase

I feel like the term "knockoff" is overused, at least in the magical girl community. I don't think there's anything wrong with drawing inspiration from something more popular and putting your own spin on it, especially if you're among the first to do so. Leave it to Mako to do just that.

Mako ni Omakase (which translates to Leave It to Mako) is a 1969 manga by Akira Mochizuki. The story focuses on Mako, a young witch who is the daughter of the Great Demon King. The two come to Earth to wreak havoc, but Mako develops a crush on a boy named Inase and wishes to reform the negative image of witches from then on. The problem is, if she falls in love, her father will take away her magic. And so she tries to help her newfound friends by secretly casting spells, while trying to convince her father that humans aren't all that bad.

At least I think that's what happens based on the few (at times contradictory) plot summaries I've managed to find and run through a machine translator. Unfortunately this is another series I haven't been able to read in its' entirety. As you might expect, there's no English translation that I could find: no official international release, no fan translation, nothing. As always, I welcome the perspectives of people more familiar with this series than I.

In any event, it sounds absolutely fascinating, particularly in how it compares and contrasts with other early magical girl works. So let's put this in its' historical context. 1969 saw the debut of the second ever magical girl anime, Himitsu no Akko-chan (which was produced by Toei Animation). The success of that anime, in tandem with the success of the first ever magical girl anime, Sally the Witch (another Toei production), created a baseline for magical girls going into the 1970s. Most of the magical girl projects created in the early 70s (including additional Toei anime) borrowed elements from Sally, Akko, or both, and added new elements of their own to the mix. But in 1969, when the magical girl genre consisted of exactly two anime, a couple of live action productions, and a handful of manga that generally weren't associated with one another, here's Mako using the earliest magical girl formula as that formula was still being developed.

The setup of a witch coming to Earth and making friends with humans feels a bit reminiscent of Sally the Witch. Both Sally and Mako (as well as Akko) use their magic to do good deeds in a way that would become a staple of the Toei majokko. If we look to magical girls from outside of Japan, Mako wanting to shake the bad reputation of witchcraft is something we see in early iterations of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, the romance between a witch and a human is something seen in Bewitched, and the way Mako sticks her index finger in her mouth to cast spells reminds me of the way Samantha from Bewitched wiggles her nose to do so or how Sabrina tugs on her ear.

However, this manga also brings in ideas that would become more common in future magical girl works as well. For example, Mako has a talking crow familiar, one of the earliest mascot characters in the magical girl genre. He isn't as cutely designed as Luna and Artmeis from Sailor Moon or the fairies from Pretty Cure, but he is still a part of that lineage. Not to mention, this is one of the few magical girl works from this time period with a major focus on romance. Romance would make its' way into magical girl anime the following year with Mahou no Mako-chan (an unrelated anime despite both protagonists being named Mako), and that anime's themes of forbidden romance specifically are something it and Mako ni Omakase have in common. From there romantic story arcs would become a common staple of magical girl stories, at least in shoujo.

Allegedly, Mako ni Omakase was initially serialized in the elementary school edition of Asahi Shinbun, though I haven't been able to track down the dates of that serialization. The chapters were first collected in a single tankobon volume published by Teen Comics, an imprint of Wakagi Shobou, on February 1, 1969. On December 15, 1975, the manga was reprinted by Rippu Shobou under their Lemon Comics imprint as the first installment of their Romantic Series. Lemon Comics is otherwise known for the publication of various shoujo horror manga, and while Mako represents a pivot to romance, she does at times exhibit some creepy girl vibes that also tie her in with the aesthetic trappings of Lemon Comics' more well-known work. What's interesting to me though, is that this reprint was renamed to Majokko Mako ni Omakase.

This edition of the manga would eventually be given a digital rerelease (pictured above) through Office Man on February 7, 2014, still with Majokko in the title. To me, the change in title is another thing that makes Mako look a bit like a trend chaser. She may have been an early user of the majokko template, but by the time other similar works were gaining notoriety in the early-to-mid seventies, it seems the publishers wanted people to know Mako was using that template at all. I'll talk more about the term majokko and what it signifies for the evolution of magical girl terminology in a couple of posts when I get to Majokko Lily, but for now just know that it's a term that allowed early magical girl works to be more clearly associated with one another, so for this manga to add the term to its' title after the fact reads as an attempt to do just that.

As a slight aside, Majokko Mako ni Omakase was actually harder to search than just Mako ni Omakase. Majokko Mako brings up a bunch of results related to Mahou no Mako-chan. It seems Mako is a common name for magical girls, given that it's also the nickname of Makoto Kino from Sailor Moon, and there's a manga called Mako-chan no Lip Cream that I'll talk about at length if and when this blog ever gets to 2007.

Getting back on topic, Mako ni Omakase is a creation of Akira Mochizuki, a mangaka who got his start in 1957 with Soumei Kassatsu-ken, and went on to find his niche in shoujo manga, though he also worked in shounen. His most recent credit on Baka-Updates Manga is 1986's Merankorikku Kaidou, and his best known manga is his 1969 shoujo volleyball series, Sign wa V.

While an official English release of Majokko Mako ni Omakase is unlikely (especially at this point), I really do hope a manga fanslating group picks it up at some point. While it is derivative in some ways, I truly believe there's a lot that sets Mako apart from her contemporaries. She's an interesting and overlooked piece of magical girl history, I think more majokko fans deserve to know about her.

[shihalyfie]

Some things to know about the upcoming 02-related movie

As someone who seems to be known for being a 02 metablogger now (and 02 lover in general), and who’s been closely following Kizuna’s development and is generally fond of the movie itself, I figured I’d probably need to address the elephant in the room that is the announcement of the upcoming (unnamed, as of this writing) 02-related movie. This is also especially because I’ve personally been on the record saying that I absolutely did not want a Kizuna sequel. And, well, on top of that, to be a bit blunt about it, a lot of us, especially 02 fans, have a lot of reason to be skeptical of Toei right now given some of the things they’ve done with this series in the past, and 02-related things in particular (trust me, the wound is still extremely fresh), so it says a lot about what it took for me to get even remotely positive about this prospect.

Well, here’s the good news: while I of course still think there’s good reason to be apprehensive, and while I wouldn’t say everyone should be getting their expectations up for it to be guaranteed fantastic (which is something I would say about anything, regardless of whether it even has to do with Digimon or not), I don��t think there’s too much to be panicked about with this movie. Again, it took a lot for the staff to gain my trust in this respect, so it’s not something I say lightly. But if you’re a 02 fan and you’re extremely apprehensive, here are my reasons for feeling this way, and, hopefully, they might make you feel a little better too.

The reason this movie exists to begin with

One of the most striking things about this movie’s reveal was that they’ve literally only just started production on this movie. This was to the point that, at DigiFes, where this was revealed, even the voice actors stated outright that they knew absolutely nothing more than what the audience knew from the trailer. Katayama (Daisuke) only knew anything in the sense that they had him record those few lines for it. So even though it’s been a whole year and a half since Kizuna released to the public, it had only just been decided to make a new movie like this. All of the statements between Kizuna and now stating that there was nothing particularly in the works at the time were completely accurate. Of course, there are obvious hints that they were setting up for this possibility (many, many people noticed the suspiciously favorable position the 02 group was in during Kizuna, and the press releases were carefully worded so that having a movie about “Daisuke and his friends” would allow any statement about Kizuna being “the last adventure of Taichi and his friends” to still be technically truthful), but for all intents and purposes it seems like there had been no actual commitment to making this 02 movie until now, and that they’d at least wanted to gauge the surrounding climate and fanbase reactions for what people were looking for before they decided to go ahead with this.

The obvious reasons as to why this movie exist involve the fact that Daisuke and co. are pretty much the only “out” you can have to continue the Adventure universe without constantly defaulting to Taichi’s group yet again, because at the very least it’d be something that you can’t deny hasn’t exactly had the best representation in recent years. Of course they’re trying to capitalize on this! I’m not going to pretend they aren’t! But producer Kinoshita left a very interesting comment about a particular goal they have with this movie:

This time, the core behind the movie is everyone from 02! Daisuke’s group has their own different kind of charm from Taichi’s, and we want to express that precisely because we’re in the times we’re in right now.

That comment alone has a lot to unpack. (For a frame of reference, Kizuna released in Japan in February 2020; development had already long finished by the time the pandemic first hit, and it was unfortunately one of the first victims of the initial lockdowns because of how bad the timing was.) Acknowledging directly that there’s something different about Daisuke’s group and their dynamic, which makes them especially suited for what we need in “the current times”...hmm, what could that be?

The implied answer is one that many 02 lovers will know very intimately: the 02 group’s particular specialty is in uplifting others and giving each other emotional support. While Adventure had traces of these themes, 02 was the one that went really hard on the themes of dealing with grief and loss, the existential crisis of what to do with oneself in a world placing heavy pressures on you, and how to move on from hardships with the help of others. The fact that the 02 group specializes in this more than anything else is probably one of the most distinguishing factors between them and their seniors, so there’s a very heavy implication here that they understand what distinguishes 02 from Adventure, and what it uniquely would bring to the table in this kind of movie. So this isn’t just “we’re relying on the 02 kids because they’re part of the same universe”; there’s some degree of substantial understanding of what makes 02 as a series unique, and a desire to use this to its fullest extent.

Still don’t believe me? Well, how about this...

This staff really likes 02 a lot

Seki Hiromi, the original producer of Adventure and 02, was involved as a supervisor on Kizuna’s development. Seki was personally involved in the creation of these kids and 02 itself -- she’s the one who noticed the story of the nine-year-old boy skipping grades into Columbia University, the one that formed the basis of 02 itself and eventually came back for Kizuna -- and even personally vetted Kizuna’s script to make sure everyone was in character, gave her thoughts on what the kids would be like in 2010, and was (repeatedly) commented as seeming to love the kids like her own children. As of this writing, it hasn’t been confirmed whether she’s involved on the new movie, but even if she’s not, this means that the staff on Kizuna that is returning all listened closely to those discussions about what the characters are like, straight from the mouth of one of their own creators. The new character song releases had a brief mention in Lounsbery Arthur’s interview that there were apparently extensive discussions with the staff on what the characters should be like at this time, so while Seki’s involvement with that is unknown, at the very least, a lot of conscientious thought seems to be put in at all times into maintaining these characters’ integrity.

Of course, just having an original creator alone on it doesn’t necessarily do it by itself, so here’s another interesting thing: Taguchi Tomohisa, director of both Kizuna and this movie, is also very fond of 02.

I suspect we’ll be hearing more from him as this new movie goes further into development, but Taguchi himself implied that 02 was actually the one he happened to connect with in particular, and when you really think about it, given the circumstances surrounding Kizuna, it’s not actually surprising that a movie trying to be conscientiously aware of 02′s position in the narrative would have someone with a particular fondness for it on its staff. (Reason being: a lot of Adventure fans don’t care much for 02, but you’ll almost never meet a 02 fan who doesn’t also adore Adventure.) The really fun part about this, however, is that Taguchi has repeatedly stated that 02′s first movie, Hurricane Touchdown, is his favorite Digimon movie -- in a climate where everyone else was talking about Adventure. The expected answer for the majority of Adventure fans in terms of “favorite Digimon movie” is almost always Our War Game! by knockout, but no, for Taguchi, it’s Hurricane Touchdown, and not only has he said this, he won’t shut up about it. He’s been saying this since 2019. Even Seki noticed. A whole article got made about this. He brings it up whenever he has a chance to. To top it all off, when a Kizuna event asked everyone present about their favorite characters, and everyone gave Adventure-related answers, Taguchi’s response was instead Terriermon and Daisuke. And I mean, look at Kizuna itself -- its entire plot revolves around having to move on from unhealthy nostalgia, represented by kidnapping people and turning them younger and an antagonist swallowed by their own negative emotions, which, well, is literally the plot of Hurricane Touchdown. (Yeah, that Wallace cameo is very, very likely to be sheer self-indulgence.) And considering that Taguchi said his favorite human character was Daisuke, not Wallace, it means that he understands what Hurricane Touchdown brought out of Daisuke, what his interactions with Wallace meant for both characters, and how Daisuke’s best strengths lie in his ability to support and uplift others.

And, finally, we have Yamatoya, who was responsible for penning both Kizuna’s script (and, thus, being privy to Seki’s corrections) and the bonus drama CD that came with it, on the script, and he personally said that he enjoyed writing for the 02 group because he felt they were important to lightening up the mood of the heavy story Kizuna was becoming. In fact, every comment from this staff about what the 02 group brings to the table in particular has showed a good understanding of what their appeal is -- that they have to be “fun”, that they were “healing in a heavy story”, and Taguchi himself said that he got the impression that the 02 group had more straightforward paths to their epilogue careers (which is interesting, considering that I’ve also personally pointed out that the 02 group seemed to have careers with significantly lower bars than their seniors’ due to their difference in priorities). All of these things are observations you make when you know this group and the importance of the story they came from.

Extend it even further to the rest of the staff members and you’ll find there are a lot of 02 fans on there, including the animation staff, who made some very neat observations about 02 and its finale. Miyahara Takuya is a particularly amusing case, because he seems to love Imperialdramon so much that in the thanks booklet for the deluxe edition for the Blu-ray, he drew a picture of Daisuke and Ken with Imperialdramon Dragon Mode because he didn’t get to be in the movie. (As in, he actually said, point-blank in the caption, that he loves Imperialdramon and wanted to draw him because he wasn’t in the movie.)

Of course, even if you’re trying your best, things may not always work out, so I’m not saying having love for the characters will necessarily guarantee that the product turns out for the best. However, considering that historically a lot of our fears come from the idea of them milking the name value of the characters without really caring about their integrity or understanding what the series was about (especially since a lot of people in the fanbase itself don’t tend to read 02′s nuances very well), I think, at the very least, we don’t need to worry about the staff for this movie not being conscientious, nor the idea that they’re making this movie without understanding or caring about 02.

Furthermore, one thing I appreciate is that they’re actually leading the advertisement with a premise that is distinct from Kizuna’s. Of course, it covers a similar topic of “partnerships”, and it’s very possible it’ll cover the issue of the solution to Kizuna’s problem (especially since the answer was already hinted to have a heavy relationship with 02), but nevertheless, it’s an actual premise that’s not just “Kizuna’s story, but more of it”. It’s an understanding that something 02-related should be allowed to stand on its own rather than just tacking it onto an Adventure-related thing. Beyond that, while I think it’s generally expected that a side story like this should have an original character, I think it’s actually very good this time in particular that there’s a new element/character for the 02 group to interact with; again, as with Hurricane Touchdown and Daisuke, these kids often have the best brought out of them when they’re supporting others, and honestly, because the kids suffered so much in their own narrative, I’m not particularly fond of the idea of seeing them having to go through too much more trauma themselves (it’s a big reason I don’t like the idea of a 02 reboot). So while I’m sure a lot of 02 fans feel a bit antsy that the actual group itself wasn’t advertised first, I actually consider it a positive sign that they have an understanding of what context this group performs best in, and, moreover, well...the last time they unveiled something that was so focused on advertising the return of old characters that it forgot to actually be straightforward about the premise, I don’t think that ended well. So to speak.

In general, the track record is good

It’s easy to just smile and nod at the portrayal of the 02 quartet in Kizuna, because in general everything from them is in-character, but I just want to point out how significant it is that they were portrayed so conscientiously when it is really easy to mess them up. (As I like pointing out very often: even official has not historically been very careful with Daisuke’s character.) There are so many easy pitfalls you could have fallen into and pigeonholed the kids into, but Kizuna absolutely demonstrated the quartet at their best, showing off all the nuances of their character and bringing up all the parts that were most important, especially Daisuke’s best quality being “positivity and cheerfulness” and not all of the other things about him running in circles or having a crush on Hikari-chan. This even goes down to the casting; Katayama Fukujuurou sounds terrifyingly like Kiuchi Reiko in terms of all the little nuances and pitch shifts she had in her performance, and the cast themselves spoke of all the nuances present in their characters as they were studying for their roles. These are things that even fans of the series tend to miss, but the voice actors for the quartet nailed their roles so well that it’s very easy to tell that the direction understood exactly what they were looking for and needed, and casted accordingly. Even those who didn’t care for the movie much had a very hard time disputing the voice casting for the quartet (and this is saying a lot given how much voice actor changes are often a really sore point among Japanese fans).

But while the 02 group had a limited amount of screentime in Kizuna, the staff also had a lot of opportunities to prove themselves with the drama CD and the new character song CDs, and every single aspect of these reflects something that was represented in 02 itself -- again, things that often go over the heads of people who aren’t paying as close attention. The drama CD captures a lot of the essence of the dynamics between the group in only short lines, and all of the statements about the characters in the character song interviews are accurate (and remember: Arthur said directly that there were discussions with the staff about keeping them true to character). On top of that, not only do the lyrics in said songs directly mirror each character’s development from the time of the original Best Partner series, there are also a lot of things in said songs that demonstrate a nuanced understanding of each person’s character and what they got out of the events of 02. Someone with only a surface-level understanding of Ken or Iori’s character might think that Ken should only have a soft song, or that Iori shouldn’t want to do anything ridiculous, but the series goes ahead and gives Ken one of the most passionately emotional rock songs in the batch and Iori outright rap with Armadimon, which are both fitting decisions in light of Ken actually being one of the more emotionally assertive people in this group, and Iori only being stoic because he’s strict with himself and being willing to let loose in certain circumstances (especially after the events of 02).

As of this writing, I don’t know if the new movie is going to be featuring the entire group in a major role, and I’m not sure if I even want it to; as much as I do strongly feel like the group should always work together at all times, one minor personal complaint I had about Kizuna was that it tries to do too much in too little time, and I’m personally fine with this new movie being more Daisuke-centric or something if it means it can just get a nice story on the table (after all, if I wanted something that more evenly represents the entire 02 group, I’d just go back and rewatch a very nice anime series called Digimon Adventure 02). There’s also the very thorny question of what to do about Tokumitsu Yuka, since I don’t personally really like the idea of still dragging her out of retirement like this (but I also wouldn’t want them to awkwardly write around her just for this, and I’m wondering if Sonozaki voicing Tailmon in the reboot would let people accept her as a replacement without much fighting).

Nevertheless, I think Kizuna’s staff has proven more than well enough that they understand the essence of 02 and its characters, so, again, regardless of how it turns out, I at least expect that this can be made with some degree of conscientiousness, and at this point, that’s all I can ask for. I don’t think it’s fair to expect or want this movie to be the second coming of 02, because, again, if we wanted that, I think it’d be better for us to all go back and watch that lovely little 50-episode anime called Digimon Adventure 02. But in terms of being something that can add a little nice thing to the mix, I think, so far, this movie at least has positive signs of turning out that way -- and, remember, think about what I just said about initially being very against this idea; as a diehard 02 fan who has a lot of very picky feelings about how to best represent it, it took a lot for the staff to earn my trust in this sense.

[giuliafc]

Stuck in a Cabin (with you)

Stuck in a Cabin (with you)

Read on: Ao3 || FFN || Wattpad

Summoned to save his Lady's life, Adrien gets stuck with her in a cabin during a blizzard. Identities get revealed, feelings come out...but who's been plotting to kill Marinette? Will the culprit be punished? Read to find the answer :) (Adrienette)

Written by: JuliaFC

Betas: Khanofallorcs, Agrestebug, Etoile-Lead-Sama and genxha. Thank you all so much!

Cover Art credit: Rosehealer02 on Deviantart

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by (c) Thomas Astruc, TS1 Bouygues, Disney Channel, Zagtoon, Toei Animation. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

oOoOoOoOoOo

Chapter 1 — Lila’s plan

Lila sighed looking at the message that had just pinged on her phone.

Mamma: [Sorry, tesoro. I got stuck at work because of the snow, don’t know when I’ll get home tonight. If you want, you can order something. Otherwise dried pasta is in the first cupboard at the side of the hob. I’ll make it up to you. Love you!]

Even after all those years, messages like those left a hollow feeling into her heart. Lila had been moving around a lot in the last few years, because of her mother’s job. She hated her mother’s job. Because of it, Lila had had to leave her grandparents and aunt in Sicily and all her childhood friends. Besides, her mother had been completely absent since she started working at the embassy, sometimes not even coming back home before Lila went to bed. Sometimes she wouldn’t see her for days in a row because when she woke up to go to school, mamma was sleeping and when Lila would go to bed, mamma wouldn’t even have started to come home. Mamma tried to make up for it by filling her days off with a lot of activities they could do together, but that wasn’t enough for Lila. She wanted more. She wanted her mother all for herself, like she had been at home, when papà had been there and mamma hadn’t yet obtained her role at the Italian Embassy.

She had been moved around like a pawn: Vienna for a couple of years, then Berlin, Geneva, Dublin and finally Paris. A lot for a 14 year old girl, having to leave it all behind way too many times.

When she moved to Vienna, she had been bullied quite badly because of her accent and her difficulty speaking the language. She had been ostracised and had spent the better part of two years fighting against stupid kids that she couldn’t even understand very well. Add to the mix the fact that papà ended up having an affair and mamma decided to divorce and leave him, and Lila’s life became even worse, even lonelier.

Luckily her mother had been moved to Berlin, but the situation hadn’t improved for her. Vienna or Berlin, the language was still incomprehensible to her and the kids didn’t like her because she was new, uncool, and because her accent sucked. Because her skin was too olive. Because her hair was too brown, or her eyes too green. They used to make fun of her hairstyle, of her clothes, of anything they could put their hands on. Lila started developing a huge amount of rage, frustration and anger. Plus, she missed her papà terribly, and she couldn’t understand in her mind why her mamma had decided to leave him.

Then she moved to Geneva, and on her first day there she met a girl who ‘acted’ cool. She was a couple of years older than Lila; her name was Charlotte, but she allowed Lila to call her Lottie. She took her under her wing and gave her some very interesting lessons. Lottie was a manipulative wench. She used to be the most popular girl in class because she always knew what to say in order to flatter the interlocutor, twist words around and obtain their favour. Lila was fascinated by her ability and craved to learn how to do the same. She worked for months to copy Lottie’s mannerisms and behaviour.

‘In life, you need to always take the upper hand,’ Lottie told her. ‘Tell people what they want to hear. This will automatically bring them to your side, and when you have them wrapped around your little finger, there’s nothing that they won’t do for you. You just need to keep up the appearances and you’re set for life.

‘Always settle for the best. If you set your eyes on a boy, make sure that he’s the best catch in the whole school. Make sure to understand what he likes and slowly set your trap. Let him fall for you, and you’ll be automatically the most popular gal around.’ Lottie had proved her own advice right easily, and had ended up in a relationship with a pop singer that attended their school. That increased her popularity even more and Lila became much more envious of her.

‘If someone bothers you, destroy them before they can attack you, or as soon as you can after that,’ was Lottie’s last bit of advice.

Lottie taught Lila to act cool, taught her that image was everything. Soon ,they had become like twin sisters and instead of being the bullied one, for once Lila enjoyed the feeling of being the bully. They were L&L’s, and they were respected. Her heart broke the day her mother told her that they were moving again, but she had no choice. Saying goodbye to Lottie was one of the most difficult things she had to do in her still young life.

‘Stay strong, Lil,’ Lottie had told her. ‘Remember, image is everything. Teach those Dubliners how great you are and you won’t have any trouble. And if you do,’ she added with a wink, ‘send me a message and I’ll hop on the first flight!’

That had made her laugh. Lottie acted strong and rich, but Lila knew that in reality she would never have been able to uphold her promise, as she was still too young, and had no money.

Dublin hadn’t been that bad for her. Except the weather. The HORRIBLE Irish weather. She still had nightmares of the torrential rain and the storms. But at least, there was the sea. Lila had missed the sea so much in the last few years. She used to make excuses that she was sick, to skip school, take the DART metropolitan train and get off at Portmarnock, Greystones or Bray (more the first two than the latter, because the sandy beach reminded her more of the shores at home). She would walk on the beach without a care in the world, listening to the sound of the waves crashing on the sand.

She had followed Lottie’s advice and had acted cool as soon as she started in her new school. She had gotten used to lying when she was in Geneva under Lottie’s wing, and now the lies came out more natural than the truth. She had become immediately popular when she started, managing to get into a relationship with the most exclusive guy in the class (she didn’t like him, as he was a twat, so full of himself that you could hear him boasting from a distance, but she didn’t care. He was popular and that was all that mattered. He would never realise that she was only using him). She learned how to trick everybody, making them think that she knew all sorts of actors and celebrities. It was fantastic, she was loved and popular and her life was amazing. She was so upset when her mother was moved once more.

And that’s how she ended up in Paris — again far from her beloved sea. She hated the city, she hated the noise and the frantic way of life. Despite the horrible weather, she had loved Dublin because it was smaller and reminded her more of the small town she was born in. But Paris was massive, full of people, of noise. She couldn’t stand the noise. And she hated all those lights. Ville lumière my foot.

Immediately as she started in Françoise Dupont, she tried to remake the same setting she had carefully created in her previous location. But she found the big obstacle of Marinette Dupain-Cheng. The most annoying girl Lila had ever dealt with. Except Ladybug, obviously. Such a tiny girl, but such a big problem for her, and for her resolution to follow Lottie’s footsteps. From the very beginning, Marinette had never fallen for her lies. From the very beginning, she had tried to unmask her and show to everyone her true colours. From the very beginning, she had been an absolute and utter pest.

Lila had fought back. She wouldn’t make it easy for Marinette to win against her; Lila had soon managed to get every student in the class wrapped around her little finger, as Lottie had taught her. She had hoped that soon Marinette wouldn’t be a problem anymore. But unfortunately, she still was. Even more annoyingly, Adrien, whom she was trying to charm in order to again be the most popular girl in school who dated the most handsome and popular guy, seemed to believe Marinette.

Lila had tried all her tricks. She had tried to bring the whole class to her side, she had tried to even manipulate Adrien’s father and make him think that Marinette was a bad influence on his son. But nothing seemed to have an effect on the blond model, and Lila had gotten desperate. She had finally managed to set up a great trap and had gotten Marinette expelled. However, the joy hadn’t lasted long because Adrien had threatened her and had gotten to the point of making a deal with her so that Marinette would be readmitted to school.

Lila was seething that day, but she had no choice. Losing Adrien’s friendship would have been even more detrimental to her image. It didn’t matter if it was only a fake friendship; it would add to her image, and image was everything, as Lottie said.

The more time passed, the more Lila hated Marinette. She had tried everything she could to make her life miserable, but the young designer somehow always managed to resist. Even getting akumatised and trying to use Hawkmoth’s power against Marinette didn’t work, because Ladybug and Chat Noir would get in the way and protect her. They would try to expose Lila’s lies. She had had to make her lies become bigger and bigger and create more and more imaginative excuses in order to keep up with the popularity she craved. And it was never enough, because Marinette always managed to dismiss her claims and most of the time prove her wrong.

From Lila’s point of view, Marinette was the enemy. She was the sole obstacle left in her path to getting what she wanted, and she would get what she wanted, no matter the cost. In her mind, there was only one path left to take to get rid of her.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng had to DIE.

Finally, she had managed to come up with the perfect plan. The perfect opportunity.

The perfect excuse: a school project. She had cheated the sorting and gotten paired with Alya, and the weather today was giving her even more help. When something is meant to be, it’s meant to be. It had already been a cold winter up to then, but very unusually for Paris, in the last week the temperature had dropped way below zero. In fact, it had dropped so low that it had been declared the coldest winter in history, only topped once in the late 1800’s.

Lila didn’t like the cold. Her family came from a little village on the sea, where it was always warm even in the bad season. Yes, it had been cold from time to time, but the sea warmed the temperature up and made the chill more bearable. Her beautiful sea, which she missed so much after having gotten a taste of it back in Dublin. But there was no sea in Paris, only that stupid river… and no warm weather in the winter, especially not this year.

But that cold weather, for once, wasn’t upsetting her because it was helping her craft her plan; she had faced the freezing temperature that very morning before school, and had set up her trap. She would use the cold to her advantage. And this time, she’d have the perfect alibi, and not even Adrien would suspect of her.

This time Marinette would be gone. Forever.

“Are you all right, Lila?” asked Alya, her face showing genuine concern when Lila dumped her phone on the desk in front of her with a pout.

“Yes, I’m fine. Just another charity event being cancelled this week because of the snow,” she made up. Alya’s frown disappeared and the girl gave her a look full of admiration.

“I don’t know how you do it, Lila, your commitment to charities and people in need is admirable, really.”

Lila gave Alya her best puppy eyed glance. “This city, and especially Ladybug and Chat Noir, have done so much for me with all the times I have been akumatised. It’s only nice to give something back!”

Alya put a hand on her shoulder. “You’re a truly amazing person, Lila. I have been akumatised four times, and I guess half of Paris has been in a way or another, but nobody does all you do to ‘give it back to the community’.” The girl with glasses looked at her door thoughtfully. “But if you’ll excuse me a moment, I need the restroom.”

And that’s when the perfect opportunity arose. Alya’s phone was resting on the desk in front of them. Lila gave a cunning side glance to the brunette who had just stood up and was fixing her glasses on her nose and, with a graceful flick of her finger, she pushed Alya’s phone slightly making it fall to the ground, quickly kicking it with her foot underneath the computer desk so that Alya wouldn’t find it.

“Uh… I’m sure my phone was here a moment ago…” muttered Alya looking at the computer desk and scratching her head. She moved her gaze around superficially, but since she couldn’t see the phone anywhere, she sighed. “Well, never mind. I’ll be right back,” she said, looking at Lila before disappearing from view.

“Take your time,” said Lila, her lips curling in a wide smirk as she picked up the phone from the ground. Things seemed to be going her way this time. The phone was unlocked. Lila’s eyes had a triumphant gleam in them as she looked for a conversation with Marinette.

She quickly peeked to ensure that Alya was still in the restroom and opened the chat with Marinette. Then she typed the message she had been planning all day, clicking send immediately after.

Alya (Lila): [Hey, girl! The girls and I are planning to go to Lac Daumesnil. Fancy doing some ice skating with us?]

She kept eyeing the door of the restroom with concern, but Alya was still there. Soon she saw the three dots of the conversation flashing, meaning that Marinette was answering.

Marinette: [It’s been some time since I went ice skating. Last time was a disaster. Sounds like a good idea, Alya. I will be there in an hour]

Alya (Lila): [Great. Start skating if you get there before us. We’re on our way!]

Marinette: [OK!]

Lila looked at the messages with a smirk and took care of deleting each of them one by one. Alya wasn’t going to find out. It was after she had just deleted the last message that Alya emerged from the restroom and she put the phone down immediately.

Alya frowned at her. “Are you okay, Lila?”

“Yes. I found your phone; it was on the floor here.” She pointed at the side of the desk. “I thought I heard it notify you of something, but there’s no notification, nothing at all.”

Alya looked at her phone with interest. “Oh. Maybe an akuma alert?” She started scrolling through her phone, but she didn’t find anything new. “That’s peculiar, there’s no new announcement.”

“Don’t worry, I must have made a mistake,” said Lila, dismissing the conversation with a gesture of her right hand. “So we were saying, about Napoléon?”

This took Alya’s attention away from her phone and brought her back to concentrating on the project they were working on. Lila smirked — her plan was unfolding well.

Author’s Note:

Hi again! I know, I know, another story. I told you I was going to unload everything I had this weekend. This isn’t finished yet (well, one part is, and in theory it could be left like that, but the second part I thought is worth writing!) so I will update this, the AU and “When Magic Fails” as soon as I can. Hope you liked getting inside Lila’s head. The next chapters are not about her, don’t worry. Or rather, worry, because the next chapters are her plan unfolding. And the title of the next chapter (and the beautiful cover art) is kind of revealing… so, well, I’ll hide again… ^^;

In the next instalment of “Stuck in a cabin (with you)”, “Drowning”:

— “I don’t know, Marinette. This sounds fishy. Why aren’t your friends here yet?”

— “I can’t move, Tikki, I think I have cramps! HELP ME!”

— “Sugarcube! It won’t happen again, not if we can help it, don’t worry!”

Ehrm… I know. Doesn’t sound good, right? ^^ Please subscribe if you’re interested in knowing what is going to happen, so you will know when the next update is!

Last but not least, as usual, if you read this and you’re not part of our wonderful Discord server already, but you enjoy reading, writing and talking about Miraculous, please join our Discord server, Miraculous Fanworks (for people on FFN, discord dot gg slash mlfanworks). See you there soon. Not sure when I will update this story but it won't be too long! Promise!

[talkingbl]

The Good and Bad of Make It Right (MIR)

SPOILER WARNING. TW: rape, dubious consent, minors

I wasn't going to do this one for a number of reasons but honestly, my thoughts are so overwhelming that the review just wrote itself so...enjoy I guess

The Good:

FrameBook. If you've watched MIR, you had to know this would be king. Ohm is so incredibly gifted that even 15 year-old him had us all thinking Frame had genuine feelings for Book. Their intimacy just seems so natural at moments that it covers up some of the more amateurish aspects of Ohm's acting. But aside from the incredible chemistry Ohm is able to manufacture as Frame and the vulnerability Toey exuded as Book, it was the unconventional progression of their relationship from competitors (at least in matters of the heart) to lovers that made them so iconic.

Lukmo's character arc. As the series progresses, Lukmo becomes increasingly more sympathetic and is shown to be a loyal, loving friend. By the end of Season/Series 1, you're starting to get all the good parts of him and less of his obnoxious teen-boy "humor."

The first few episodes of TeeFuse. Tee is one of the better characters in this series and much of the charm of the series comes down to Boom's charismatic disposition, Tee's genuine and unquestioning interest in Fuse, and the way Fuse struggles with his feelings for Tee. Because MIR was made in a time before Thai BL tropes were really a thing, Fuse's struggles with accepting his feelings for Tee seem novel and are explored in a much more raw and almost childish way. This inner struggle is different from, for example, that of Pick in Puppy Honey because instead of becoming homophobic, Fuse's mulling over and ultimate acceptance is largely portrayed as more of general indecision and curiosity on his part. Specifically, indecisiveness about whether to break up with his girlfriend. Of course the internalized homophobia is part of why he doesn't accept his feelings for Tee, but not only does he not constantly vocalize it (and no, being in denial about being gay isn't *necessarily always* synonymous with homophobia), but his rejection of Tee also comes largely as a consequence of his already having been in a relationship with Jean.

Most of the actors are the same age as their characters. This roots the world the story takes place in and, by (most likely unintentional) extension, serves as an escape from all of the toxic standards set by shows that cast ripped 28 year-olds to play high school seniors.

The communication between all the couples at one point or another is some of the best in BL. With the notable exception of late series TeeFuse, all the couples have moments of brilliance where communication errors in a typical Romance show would completely ruin the relationships between couples. In MIR, the process of solving communication-related problems is either given realistic development or doesn't need development in the first place due to characters immediately solving any issues that could stem from miscommunication.

Yok as a concept. The fact that he is a main character and is more on the femme side (and has a best friend who is also quite femme) feels like a revolutionary step forward in Thai BL (until you realize it never really happens again 🙃).

The Bad:

FrameBook. This relationship literally should not exist. Its beginning is worse than even TharnType. And it's not really that you can't have characters experience trauma like rape in stories at all, it's just that you shouldn't then downplay it dramatically and then make the rapist a sympathetic character...

Lukmo. I fucking hated this guy at the beginning lmao. He's homophobic, colorist, gross, annoying, and just an all-around asshole. He had 0 redeemable qualities until he saw TeeFuse kiss

TeeFuse. Ch- I just- So Tee rapes a drunken Fuse and its effects are played for laughs, and then they spend the better part of the season not actually being together with Fuse just being completely indecisive about what he wants and Tee just?? doing whatever the hell with discount Saint Suppapong for a couple of eps to, I guess, move on from Fuse? I don't know girl the whole thing was just weird to me.

Most of the actors are the same age as their characters. So let's just address the elephant in the room that all of these kids behaved like adults at some point in the story...ESPECIALLY Frame, Tee and Fuse. This is quite controversial because while it's not out of the ordinary for teen shows to showcase its characters grappling with the complexities of sexual relationships, it is if the actors playing those characters are themselves teenagers. Peak would've been no older than 16 when he began filming for MIR, Ohm no older than 15, and Boom 14-15. And they were not just hinting at sex scenes but actually showcasing foreplay in their scenes.. I understand that it is normal/natural and am not necessarily saying teens can't portray teen issues, I'm just saying that some of it can be seen as a bit much given these guys' ages. Not to mention the fact that the entire approach to sex was very unrealistic. Like, the idea that Book and Fuse would basically be in severe pain for days after having sex just shows a lack of basic knowledge on how average human bodies work and the safe/enjoyable ways to engage in penetrative sex. But beyond the general unsafeness of the sex are some of the ideas that the show portrays as normal in teen relationships that are completely unrealistic--though I find that the most egregious levels of unrealism come in Make It Right 2.

The toilet humor reached new levels of gross with this one.

The casual colorism is just all over the place and is, in fact, one of the main character's primary motivations for befriending another main character (thinking of Rodtang and Fuse here). In fact, I stopped watching MIR 3 times mere minutes into the first episode after Fuse talks about his sister's line of whitening serums. The incessant worship of white skin (and consequent down-putting of dark skin) from multiple characters at several points throughout the show is not only extremely problematic but actually annoying.

The concept of "to get over a girl date a guy" is not even actually the joke it seems to be in this series and is, in fact, played as a legitimate coping strategy. The main problem I have with this is that none of the guys who use this strategy are ever actually interested in men before they try this out. They are painted as straight boys who can magically turn gay at the drop of a hat and, seeing as how it is never refuted, this is dangerous messaging.

I have like a thousand very complicated thoughts on this show but this is a good gist I think. So....yeah.

[cina-full-moon-xanadium]

I don’t like disliking Zero-One.

Like, okay, first of all; it makes me way more bitter than I ever want to be about any Tokusatsu show. There’s so much about Zero-One’s endgame that makes me extremely frustrated and it is never a joy to discuss at all between Ai, between Ark-Zero taking over the show from anything interesting, between every character either being turned on their head or having nothing to do. Contrary to what angry internet opinion people will try and make you believe, it’s actually not that fun to talk at length about something you dislike this much.

But more than it frustrates me because... I have issues with a lot of things in the Tournament arc like Yaiba and how it’s structured and how they never truly figured out how to actually integrate the Kamen Riding, right? But the story it tells is so close to perfect it blows my mind it even happened and I’m so sad that what followed never really came close to matching it. Fuwa and Naki’s arc was legendarily rich in development and parallels all over the place; the premise of each episode while perhaps a bit clumsily handled was still fantastic in interrogating how advanced robotics/AI would fit into many different industries and what moral questions those raised while also being a great fit for a kid’s show in getting them to think about a wide variety of jobs; Gai was... bloody fuck was Gai a scary good villain. I never expected them to take him as far as they did but the way he is always ahead of the game despite a show like this usually necessitating the hero win out in the end, and how a show about a CEO Kamen Rider straight up said “the nature of the CEO is such that abandoning all morals and feelings for the pursuit of profit is the one that will win out in the corporate world” is not exactly something I expected Toei or Bandai to be okay with having, but boy here Gai is; winning a workplace competition despite how the firemen and the lawyer cases had Aruto reach a great conclusion! That scene of Thouser rallying the public against Humagears as a whole and goading Aruto into a flustered, lost rage is one of the most terrifying things Kamen Rider has ever done, and the way it still leads on from that into Aruto deciding to forge his own path through creating a smaller company that puts Humagears first and doing it his own way rather than just using the tools and ideals inherited from his predecessors is... I’m rambling, but this entire arc was so rich in thematic beauty and it might just be one of the greatest heights Rider has ever reached for me. Despite the many many problems present, I was so willing to call this one of my favourite Rider shows for how expertly everything was fulfilled here.

And then Ark-Zero came along.

I’m not gonna act like Zero-One was this perfect work of art that had no problems which Ark-Zero suddenly intruded upon to make everything bad. In reality a lot of the seeds were there -- Yaiba was disallowed from having a character arc, Jin was a contradictory mystery of a character and not in the way the writers wanted him to be, Izu is a travesty of lost potential who never even so much has develops her own thoughts or disagreements with Aruto in a show about advanced AI very quickly approaching the point they pass the Turing test with flying colours. Said questions of AI gaining that sentience were also very often quashed under the question of how advanced AI would effect our lives. But no matter how inevitable these bad points were to the show and how they would at some point drag it down very badly, I could not predict the travesty that was everything after Raiden coming back to life and laser-eyeing the Ark driver into existence. Fuwa getting absolutely nothing to do, Naki’s entire development being reversed, Aruto and Horobi going in increasingly bizarre and out of nowhere directions, Gai becoming a walking parody of everything wrong with Rider’s insistence on handing out redemption arcs like candy, all pretence of the questions surrounding Humagears abandoned in favour of completely unearned character drama, Hiden Manufacturing’s point reaching its apex with Zero-Two only to be completely abandoned with Aruto basically never using that form again and walking right back to Hiden Intelligence, our main female lead being fridged for contrived drama...

It’s. A Lot. Despite so many negatives being inevitable this was just beyond the pale to me and it frustrates me deeply when Zero-One was previously a show that was breaking out of every bad pre-conception to try and prove its worth as something dazzling and new, only to go back to the same bad tropes that plagued the likes of Ex-Aid and Drive’s final arcs. It’s painful to see something this good dragged down this far.

[contextualalice]

Research Essay

Research

·       Born 5 January 1941) is a Japanese animator, director, producer, screenwriter, author, and manga artist. A co-founder of Studio Ghibli, a film and animation studio, he has attained international acclaim as a masterful storyteller and as a maker of animated feature films, and is widely regarded as one of the most accomplished filmmakers in the history of animation.

·      Miyazaki co-founded Studio Ghibli in 1985

·      Hayao Miyazaki was born on 5 January 1941, in the town of Akebono-cho in Bunkyō, Tokyo, the second of four sons.[1][c] His father, Katsuji Miyazaki (c. 1915 – 18 March 1993),[3] was the director of Miyazaki Airplane, which manufactured rudders for fighter planes during World War II.[4] The business allowed his family to remain affluent during Miyazaki's early life.[5][d] In 1944, when Miyazaki was three years old, his family evacuated to Utsunomiya.[4] After the bombing of Utsunomiya in July 1945, Miyazaki's family evacuated to Kanuma.[5] The bombing left a lasting impression on Miyazaki, who was aged four at the time.[5] From 1947 to 1955, Miyazaki's mother suffered from spinal tuberculosis; she spent the first few years in hospital, before being nursed from home.[4] Miyazaki's mother was a strict, intellectual woman, who regularly questioned "socially accepted norms"

·      He aspired to become a manga artist,[11] but discovered he could not draw people; instead, he only drew planes, tanks, and battleships for several years.[11] Miyazaki was influenced by several manga artists, such as Tetsuji Fukushima, Soji Yamakawa and Osamu Tezuka. Miyazaki destroyed much of his early work, believing it was "bad form" to copy Tezuka's style as it was hindering his own development as an artist

·      Miyazaki's works are characterized by the recurrence of themes such as humanity's relationship with nature and technology, the wholesomeness of natural and traditional patterns of living, the importance of art and craftsmanship, and the difficulty of maintaining a pacifist ethic in a violent world. The protagonists of his films are often strong girls or young women, and several of his films present morally ambiguous antagonists with redeeming qualities

·       Miyazaki's film Princess Mononoke was the first animated film ever to win the Japan Academy Prize for Picture of the Year, and briefly became the highest-grossing film in Japan following its release in 1997;[a] its distribution to the Western world greatly increased Ghibli's popularity and influence outside Japan. His 2001 film Spirited Away became the highest-grossing film in Japanese history,[b] winning the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature at the 75th Academy Awards, and is frequently ranked among the greatest films of the 2000s

·      Born in Bunkyō ward of Tokyo, Miyazaki expressed interest in manga and animation from an early age, and he joined Toei Animation in 1963. During his early years at Toei Animation he worked as an in-between artist and later collaborated with director Isao Takahata. 

·      In September 2013, Miyazaki announced that he was retiring from the production of feature films due to his age, but wished to continue working on the displays at the Studio Ghibli Museum

·      In August 2016, Miyazaki proposed a new feature-length film, How Do You Live?, on which he began animation work without receiving official approval.[155] In December 2020, Suzuki stated that the film's animation was "half finished" and added that he does not expect the film to release for another three years

 Possible Hayao Legacy’s:

·      Traditional Art/Animation (compare to Walt Disney – timeline)

·      Timeless messages despite set eras/worlds etc…

·      His artistic style

·      Expressionism and Surrealism doesn’t seem to stray too far from reality

·      Harmony of art and music

·      Tells his own stories through his work (like a grandfather to all his viewers exaggerating his life stories to the viewers)

 Walt Disney Overview:

·       Walter Elias Disney (/ˈdɪzni/;[1] December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966) was an American entrepreneur, animator, writer, voice actor and film producer. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film producer, Disney holds the record for most Academy Awards earned by an individual, having won 22 Oscars from 59 nominations. He was presented with two Golden Globe Special Achievement Awards and an Emmy Award, among other honors. Several of his films are included in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.

·       Born in Chicago in 1901, Disney developed an early interest in drawing. He took art classes as a boy and got a job as a commercial illustrator at the age of 18. He moved to California in the early 1920s and set up the Disney Brothers Studio with his brother Roy. With Ub Iwerks, Walt developed the character Mickey Mouse in 1928, his first highly popular success; he also provided the voice for his creation in the early years. As the studio grew, Disney became more adventurous, introducing synchronized sound, full-color three-strip Technicolor, feature-length cartoons and technical developments in cameras. 

·       Disney was a shy, self-deprecating and insecure man in private but adopted a warm and outgoing public persona. He had high standards and high expectations of those with whom he worked. Although there have been accusations that he was racist or anti-Semitic, they have been contradicted by many who knew him. His reputation changed in the years after his death, from a purveyor of homely patriotic values to a representative of American imperialism. He nevertheless remains an important figure in the history of animation and in the cultural history of the United States, where he is considered a national cultural icon. His film work continues to be shown and adapted; his namesake studio and company maintains high standards in its production of popular entertainment, and the Disney amusement parks have grown in size and number to attract visitors in several countries.

Miyazaki’s Legacy in comparison to Walt Disney

 ·      Miyazaki’s Legacy has the potential to keep developing as he has come out of retirement, whereas Walt Disney cannot because he is dead.

·      Disney’s iconic 2D style started to decline in 2005 after the release of Chicken Little, but officially came to an end in 2013 with their 3D movies rising rapidly to success.

·      Ghibli released its first 3D animated movie Earwig and the Witch in 2020 without Miyazaki’s involvement and ended up not being as successful. However Miyazaki himself is out of retirement and working on his own 2D movie for which is far more anticipated. Proves his legacy is still strong because the Ghibli name is so heavily tied to his style despite it not conforming to the 3D take over.

·      Although exaggerated, Ghibli seems to capture emotion more realistically imperfect that Disney.

·      A majority of Disney films are based on stories that are already out there, prequels, sequels, remasters etc… whilst although Ghibli takes some inspiration from pre-existing stories… is mostly original.

·      From the beginning till now Miyazaki represented strong, independent women. Disney on the other hand took a lot longer. Could be argued that Disney was around a lot sooner in History when people were less open minded.

·      Ghibli is a lot less censored than Disney, making t both more and less accessible to certain viewers. Even though a majority of Ghibli isn’t too graphic, there are some mature themes that put an age limit on 1 or 2 of the films. Could be seen as what makes Ghibli more realistic and emotionally

·      Though Ghibli has a lack of diversity in its characters, they are otherworldly enough, as well as relatable enough for all audiences to fall in love with. Disney has shown a lot more progression with it’s diversity and representation, however that can’t make up for the offensive undertones he began his legacy with. Neither are perfect but at least Miyazaki never insulted anyone from a different culture.

·      Practically all of Miyazaki’s main characters are human without power or fancy clothing, putting emphasis on the impact everyone and anyone can make on the world. Disney tends use a lot less realistic characters, even humanising those that are not, perhaps to avoid encouraging certain behaviour to children?

[reversemoon255]

Fifth Review: Kishiryu Sentai Ryusoulger

Controversial take: I think this is a good series. Not the best, but certainly not bad. And there are some people who read that and question what I'm talking about because they either love the series or think it's terrible. Well, for the first half of this series' run, most of the people I talked to did not like this series, to the point that I stopped talking to people about it. Now, I didn't stop because I thought their opinions were invalid, or because I was mad, but because hearing all that criticism was negatively impacting my opinions. I'd come off episodes feeling good, listen to what other people were saying, and suddenly my opinion would lessen. Ryusoulger does have some issues, but I feel like they were ballooned out of proportion to the point that the shadow they cast prevented people from seeing some very positive things this series had to offer.

The Good: This is a very trope heavy series, with both the goods and bads that come with that. And that does make sense, as this series was supposed to be a ratings grab season to bring in new fans. I know we all enjoy when Sentai breaks its standard tropes, but you have to establish what your tropes are before you can break them. And this checks all the boxes: having Red and the sixth getting the most focus, Red getting power-ups, big robot combinations, (Dino Sentai specific) having an important character die. It doesn't stray very far from the typical formula. But that's ok. Part of the reason we like Sentai is because we like the tropes, and to criticize the series for sticking to its foundation means you have an issue with Sentai as a whole, not Ryusoulger.

The series itself was also structured to help draw in new fans, which seemed to rub some people the wrong way. Episode one was extremely bombastic, with a few decent humorous and dramatic moments, and some over the top fighting. Following that, the first half plus of the show was very episodic, with not a lot of connecting elements. This was probably done to not alienate new viewers and make it feel like they could come in at any episode without missing much. The second half of the show had more connecting plots, like Gaisorg, Pricious, and Heras, to reward people who had stuck with the show and raise the stakes moving into the final acts. While I do prefer more threads and build-up, especially early on, I can appreciate what the writers were trying to do.

And Ryusoulger had a decent cast, if a little underdeveloped because of the aforementioned Red/Six trope. I'm not a big fan of Koh. He's fine when it comes to the goofier episodes, but he was hard to take seriously. Still like him more than Daigo. Melto felt like he might make a better Red, as he was a serious character whose nature easily lead him to being the butt of a joke. His relationship with Oto was actually cute and funny. I normally don't like the "legal loli" trope, but as everyone was far older than they appeared it helped to underplay that issue for me. Asuna had a lot of good moments throughout the season (being the first Pink since TimePink to defeat an enemy general) and had a great actress, but suffers from being the only female Ranger. In my opinion it's always better to write at least two female Rangers since it forces the writers to give them distinct personalities. When you only have one, like in Asuna's case, you normally end up with "girl in a boys show." Yes, she has quirks, like a bottomless stomach and super strength, but quirks a personality does not make. Towa is probably the least developed character, but felt like he had a lot more planned for him (like how he was able to summon Haya Soul's power without a RyuSoul in the final episode). Bamba is a darling, and I love him. The episode where we meet his ex-girlfriend says it all: a tough but kind man who has become better through his interactions with the other Ryusoulgers. I also don't like Canalo that much. His personality feels very responsive to the fact that Toei seems to be trying to subtly push having kids as a good thing to help with Japan's population crisis (which is much more evident in Precure if you pay attention to the fairy designs in recent years), and the fact that said higher-ups seemed to force retconned straight relationships on possibly gay characters over the last three season (which I think is more to do with the population agenda than anything else as Chocolate Macaroons is very much a canon thing). It just feels like he was written that way as a jab from the writers at the Toei big wigs (meaning he's purposefully annoying).

The design work in this series is also excellent. While I would have liked a little more armor on the main costumes, like shoulder pads, the armor given by the RyuSouls was nice, the villain and monster designs were great (as were their personalities, I just don't want to make this longer than need be), and the Megazords had much sleeker designs that allowed for a lot more movement (which seems to be carrying over to Kiramager). I also love the designs of the Kishiryu. Giving them a fossilized look helps set them apart from the dinosaurs that have preceded them, as well as helps with the ever shifting issues of how much feathering any particular species had. They also get huge credit from me as a toy guy for the amount of interplay and non-robot combining present within them. SpinoThunder, Pteramigo, CosmoRaptor, there were a lot of Kishiryu that could combine into other dinosaurs.

Episode to episode, as that's how most of the show was, was hit or miss. I typically loved anything that heavily features Tyramigo (as he was also a great character). Thankfully nothing was as bad as Pitch Cock from Lupin. As for ongoing plots, the Gaisorg plot had a few hiccups, but lead to a good death scene, a cool looking power-up, and some lasting impact on Koh. Pricious, after s/he showed up, easily demonstrated themself as a force to be reckoned with, and the pressure s/he put on the other generals lead to some great moments from the villain cast. The Heras plot had some neat twists to it, but I wish the ending resolved with Heras admitting that she was wrong before her death (since the current generation had overcome the long-standing feud between the two RyuSoul Tribes and had shown willingness to work with the Druidons, both things she criticized them for).

The last thing I'll go into is themes, as Life and Death were two very prevalent themes that were the focus of some of the best episodes. They went full ham on the downsides of the extended life of the RyuSoul Tribe, such as the episode where we meet Bamba's 60-70 year-old ex-girlfriend or the episode where another member of the Tribe wants to commit suicide because she's outlived too many people she's loved. The episodes with Shine and ShadowRaptor were probably my favorite, particularly the parts with Ui and her mom. It felt like a better version of what they tried to do with Kotaro in Kyuranger (which was, coincidentally, my favorite episode of that season).

The Bad: I already brought up a few issues. Focusing on Koh and Canalo isn't bad, but focusing on them too much negatively impacted everyone else's development until the last 10ish episodes of the show. Bamba got a decent amount because he had a backstory, but Towa got almost none and Asuna got little outside "team's girl." Going into power-ups, that is again not inherently a bad thing, but how you use them can be. This was a big issue I had with Lupinranger, as that series focused on two teams, but one of them stopped getting power-ups half-way through the show. Power-ups can be a physical representation of a character's growth, and if only Koh is getting them that means only he is growing. Bamba, Asuna, and Melto all eventually got to use one, but Towa wasn't seen using one until the second-to-last episode.

The Kishiryu are an offshoot of this problem. Koh essentially owns every Kishiryu outside the ones everyone started with. Furthermore, the Kishiryu were designed to be modular, but that was severely underutilized. There were no interesting combinations after they gained access to Five Knights outside of the final episode. Kishiryu-Oh's ability to move his parts around for specific attacks isn't seen outside the first few episodes. There was so much more they could do that they didn't. And I understand that part of that is costume design and budget, but you shouldn't bring forth that idea of modularity if you're not going to use it.

Then there's the aforementioned death scene, which, while I like it, highlights some of the issues with pushing all your plot threads to the end of the show. There were some writing hiccups involving Gaisorg and his relationship with the Druidons. In the death scene itself, it happens the episode immediately after they break the curse of the Gaisorg armor. There is no time to build up Nada's relationships, how grateful he is, how his dynamic might shake up Koh's with Melto or Bamba or Canalo; he's gone before any of that. And it's by a one-off villain. What should have happened, in my opinion, is Nada should have lived through that fight, proven his worth to the team, and then in the following episode died to Pricious. It would still be quick, but it would increased Pricious' threat level, given Nada more time with the team, and might have helped how they tried to nerf Max RyuSoul the episode after it premiered.

Overall, Ryusoulger is a popcorn series; one that is easy to pick up and watch, but isn't something that will blow your mind and you'll be talking about for years to come. It's a good show that is hampered by some sizable issues, but those issues serve as a benefit for the series as a whole and aim to keep it on the air for years to come. If we have to sit through a Ryusoulger every couple of years, I don't have a problem with that. It's not the best, but I still had fun.

[sailor-cresselia]

The Great Ex-Aid Rewatch: Ex-Aid & Ghost, Part One

:grabs the popcorn:

This is gonna be hard, because I wanted to try and do this without in-movie spoilers. I mean, I’ve seen the entire show at this point, and if you’re reading my liveblogs, I’m basically assuming that so have you, so not touching on plot points is a little impossible, especially with my overbearing love for going into meta and theories.

Also, it’s going to be in multiple parts. This first post covers about twenty minutes of run-time over the course of several hours of real-time, and nine pages.

Whoops.

(links to the other parts will go here)

–––

Okay, so. In the first two minutes, we have Dr. Pac-man’s three assistants start shooting up the GenmCorp lobby, and I’m pretty sure that the muscle guy broke a guards neck. And then they go after Kuroto, with a very… glitchy Dr. Pac-Man alongside.

We’re talking ‘pre-bugvisor Graphite’ visual glitching, here. As though he doesn’t quite have enough… I dunno, cohesion to stay intact on his own.

Thing is, Kuroto seems genuinely… if not scared, then at least shocked to see him. The dude’s supposed to be very dead, after all.

And seriously, why do people keep jamming proto-gashats into their bodies?! No! Don’t do that! Stop it! I don’t care if you’re a bugster or not, it doesn’t actually help you at all, it’s just going to make you physically unstable!

–––

And here we have Tougo, victim of the day. I have to say, I’ve never liked him much. He’s… annoying. Also, I’m aware that the choice of color for his school uniform is most likely ‘because Pac-Man’, but that doesn’t change the fact that’s it’s ugly. The girls jacket is a nice dark tan, but the boys have this gaim-awful mustard.

And then the Pac-Viruses attack.

–––

Emu’s such a good guy, helping one of his young patients out in both work and as a sort of mentor-friend. Pity we’re still very early in Ex-Aid, and he’s still a horrible klutz. There’s no time to be tripping over your feet, Emu! We’ve got people to save!

–––

…oh no… It never quite clicked before, but I think Takeru had to repeat a year! He was clearly planning on going to university, if only because he and Akari are/were in the same year of school, and she’d never let him live it down if he didn’t. And here? His teacher, who’s practically mocking him for being six months behind, is asking whether he’s serious about his entry exams or not.

So. Since it’s December now, and it was early April when he came back, Takeru missed the entire last half of what was supposed to be his senior year of high school. So here, he’s probably about three months into what he missed before.

Akari, Onari, please don’t disrupt the class like this, they probably all think Takeru’s weird enough as is without him getting called out for superhero business.

–––

You know, Akari reminding Takeru to be careful, because he’s got a regular body now, implies that he hasn’t been careful. Maybe not as Ghost, but… you know, in regular exertion stuff. (And as Ghost, because there’s probably a number of times he’s had to help Alain with. Like. Less-than-satisfied court members or something over in the Ganma world.)

So, both teams are here at the outbreak site. Team Ghost, consisting of Takeru, Akari, and Onari, and team Ex-Aid, consisting of Emu and Asuna. Both of the lads put on their drivers, and simultaneously notice the other one there.

They didn’t meet outside of the suits in Ghost’s final episode, which was an epilogue to his story and a Bonus Sneak Preview Of The New Challenger, so it makes sense that the drivers – both of which are very distinct – would be how they recognize each other.

–––

Of course, that gets us into the slight issue of ‘when does Ghost ep 50 take place.’

See, it’s implied in-show that it’s not long after Takeru comes back to life, which puts it in early to mid-April. He has a line about ‘are we really going to celebrate my birthday twice from now on?’, to which the answer was a definitive yes, so it makes logical sense for it to not be on his original birthday in October.

Except for how Emu couldn’t show up for his Big Damn Heroes moment if it were in April, because he didn’t put on the Gamer Driver until October.

So, when Emu comes to try and get the Shakariki Sports gashat from Ayumu, it isn’t quite chronologically possible… unless you take into account who Ayumu is.

He’s Takeru’s son. From the future. Meaning he time-traveled to get there.

It’s not even unprecedented for the season – Takeru’s father opened the portals that brought Takeru and Shinnosuke back and forth from 2005 in the Ghost & Drive movie, after all. So, it stands to reason that the portal ability, which Ayumu also shows, is a familial power.

What I’m positing is that Emu traveled back in time, and probably didn’t even know it.

He goes to the game worlds and battle stages fairly often, and since suddenly being in a different location isn’t exactly new to him… it would only makes sense for him to not realize that he’s in a different month, too. Especially when one of the stages looks just like the forest behind Daitenkuu Temple, and he has all sorts of flashy light effects going on all the time. An eye-shaped portal could totally just be another one of the standard special effects.

Yup, nothing unusual here.

–––

Okay, that aside, nobody actually gets to transform just yet, because the whole group is swarmed by Pac-Viruses before either of them can activate their drivers, with the viruses quickly singling Takeru out and chewing into him.

He doesn’t get hit with the literal fever that everyone else they’ve done this to are suffering from. No, in Takeru’s case… the Ghost Driver disappears. He pulls out his eyecon to try again… and it clicks uselessly.

Onari suspects it might be because he ‘hasn’t transformed lately’, adding more credence to his and Emu’s encounter being more than two months ago.

Since nobody else here can… time for Ex-Aid to make an appearance.

In level one.

Cue Opening Credits.

–––

So, Emu can’t so much as dent the Pac-Viruses, and then two of Zaizen’s lackeys show up. The man, apparently named Kazushige Ryuzaki, uses the Drago Knight Hunter Z proto-gashat to turn into… (quick search of the wiki) the Doral Bugster. Since I don’t feel like typing out his name, and it’s never said in show anyway, I’m just gonna be calling him Doral from here on. Similarly with the woman, Ageha Takeda, who uses Giri Giri Chambara to become the Giril Bugster.

So, you know, of course the one with a sword is the one Takeru faces off against. Why not? Not like he’s probably got some incredibly justified trauma relating to them. Not like it’s not actually incredibly ironic that his first heroic Eyecon arms him with a sword. Why not re-open some old less-than-metaphorical wounds right off the bat?

Doral basically corners Emu into the parking garage that Takeru and the others tried to bring Tougo through. Oh, yeah, they were trying to get that guy out of the area when he collapsed. I didn’t mention it because he’s not a good character, and exists primarily to guilt-trip Emu. So, yeah. Doral and Giril knock both our heroes down, breaking Emu’s level two transformation in the process, and here comes Dr. Pac-Man, being all ominous and glitchy, saying that he’s doing this for ‘revenge on humanity’.

Suuuure, that’s how you wanna spin it. Humanity in general. It’s totally not against a few very specific humans, one of whom you’ve recently had held at machine-gun point, and the other who has no idea what’s going on.

–––

They use the scene of bringing Tougo into CR for a brief exposition dump – which is fair, both in-universe and out. Takeru’s team wouldn’t know what’s going on, and it helps just in case the parents in the audience haven’t been following what their kids have been watching. It just gives us that little bit of elaboration on the bugster virus, enough so that people aren’t completely lost.

Tougo’s – oh, wow, his ‘infection ratio’ is already at 63%. Usually when they get someone in here, they’re only in the 30% range. But, of course, there isn’t any data to define what’s going on, because this isn’t one of the normal bugsters. There’d be no reason for Pac-Man to be programmed into a Genm Corp system.

(Which actually raises the question of how they were able to see an icon for Burgermon in episode 17, since he wasn’t supposed to be a Bugster, either. Then again, he is from a game Genm Corp was developing. But I digress.)

Anyway, Emu’s justifiably confused as to why Takeru doesn’t seem to be having any of the usual symptoms of an infection. Oh, sweetie, if you only knew- :ahem: sorry, distracted.

Takeru says that no, he’s not feeling any sort of fever, he’s doing fine.

Onari reminds him that ‘he’ll only get hurt if he pushes himself’, and Akari feels his forehead to make sure he’s telling the truth.

Once again, we’re getting the implication that Takeru has developed a habit of going too far.

–––

upstairs, we’ve got a conference call with Secretary Hinata, the Official CR team, and the Ghost team. Onari bursts out laughing at Poppy’s last name – and freaks out when she hops out of the arcade cabinet.

Both of these are understandable reactions, but maybe don’t immediately declare this a supernatural phenomenon? You know, since a government official was the one to first address her.

I will always be frustrated at the reverb effect they gave Poppy’s voice in this movie. There was no reason for Toei to do that, it’s just excessive, and it’s not like they did it in any of the promo materials or shorts, to say nothing of the show itself. Actually…

–––

I wonder if some parts of this movie draw from early planning stages of Ex-Aid? Like, there’s no explaining the voice thing otherwise, and Emu was pretty close to freezing up for a long time in here… despite the setting for it being explicitly between episodes 10 and 11, at which point they’ve already faced an approaching pandemic, with what Graphite pulled in episodes 9 and 10. So, either the team just didn’t think of that, or there were aspects that got… left over.

I mean, it’s not nearly as inexplicably different as the entirety of the OOO section of OOO & W, but it’s not exactly fitting with where Emu would be even just in the first few episodes.

And yes, I’m aware that OOO & W was made when they had one whole episode of OOO to go off of, but that’s why I think there might be artifact plot elements in here.

–––

Okay, back to the film itself. Again. Emu – Genius Gamer M – uses his genre savvy to realize why he couldn’t damage the Pac-Viruses. If, like some of the other bugsters, they’re operating on the logic of their game, then the only weakness they would have would be ghosts. AKA, instead of infecting Takeru, they burned out his ability to transform into Ghost, thus removing their biggest threat.

I mean, only some bugsters use their games that heavily. Motors, for one, the bugster from Bakusou Bike, is ‘prone’ to racing, and technically speaking, Emu and Kiriya cleared the game before destroying him, by beating him in a race. And the Doremifa Beat Collabos bugster was using music just like it would have been in the game itself – if you miss the notes, you get punished. In game, that’d just be a bad score. In the real world… painful explosions. Poppy, the actual bugster from Doremifa Beat, can’t sing without a backing track. And then there’s Burgermon, who was cleared in the same method as beating a level in his game – making a burger for him.

So, yeah, the Pac-Viruses might be in that class of bugster.

Anyway, enter Dan Kuroto and Hanaya Taiga.

Taiga’s all “No, I’m totally not here to help you guys, I’m just not letting these freaks run loose.”

Kuroto tells the ensemble that they stole the ‘heavily guarded’ proto gashats.

If by ‘heavily guarded’ you mean you were clearly reading their data out in the open, in your office. Again. And by ‘stole’ you mean “They had two machine guns pointed at me, and a sword, and I’m not immortal just yet! What was I supposed to do?! Just not hand them over?!”

…Yeah, he may be an evil bastard, but he didn’t exactly have a choice even if he wasn’t trying to keep up his ‘benevolent CEO’ facade.

Taiga’s comment of ‘those gashats are very dangerous’ is not only an understatement, but also… it’s foreshadowing. We know that Kuroto’s been using Proto Mighty Action X, and that it’s slowly wearing him down – Parad told us as much in episode 8 or 9. We know that Drago Knight was actually hurting Graphite, and he’s from there.

And, although we haven’t seen it yet, Taiga also has experience using them. Proto Bang Bang Shooting is what he originally used as Snipe, back in 2011. But we don’t know that even outside of the show just yet.

This movie came out in theaters in December 2016. We found out that the proto-gashats were involved during the Snipe Episode ZERO specials… the first of which wasn’t released until April 2017.

So… here, have some foreshadowing, I guess!

Emu asks if Kuroto has any idea who the culprits could be… and Kuroto pauses before saying he doesn’t. There’s a… not a scare chord, but a ‘you should be really, really suspicious right now’ sound effect when he says that.

I can’t tell if Emu looks disappointed or suspicious.

…Disappointed. He didn’t believe Kuroto could be evil until he revealed himself, so… yeah.

–––

At the totally not sketchy base, Dr. Pac-Man and his lackies are planning something. They’re waiting for Tougo’s symptoms to break out – he was the one they were targeting, after all. I think the Pac-Viruses went after Takeru on their own. They’re also working on something called the ‘genome graph’.

Complete with a diagram of a human gene… that starts off normal, and then becomes blocky… pixellated, almost.

So that’s not sketchy at all.

–––

…oh what the heck. The next scene is the next day. How can I tell? Everyone is in different outfits. It’s not just how Takeru is noticeably no longer in his school uniform, and back to his normal wardrobe. Akari and Onari are in different outfits, too, and Emu was wearing his yellow binary shirt, but now he’s on one of his dark blue ones.

How long does this movie take place over?

(No wonder Haruto was able to show up out of the blue! It’s been at least a day, so he’s had time to find out about this!)

Anyway, Tougo (finally) wakes up, and Emu and Takeru both start questioning him as to why the people in white were after him. Well, Emu’s telling him to go lay back down, because he can barely stand for more than a few seconds without wobbling, and Takeru’s asking questions.

Tougo cares not for your platitudes and worrying about his health, he’s got school and game development to do! Both Emu and Takeru take incredibly personal offense to this attitude.

Casual reminder, both of them were 18, the same age as Tougo, when things went wrong. Well, went wrong a second time in Emu’s case, when he went and decided that he needed to focus on his studies after… well, as we find out later, doing almost exactly what Tougo’s doing. Neglecting his own well being in order to do what he loves – games.

…ohhh no Emu is same hatting really hard with this guy.

(Listen, Tougo, as long as you don’t start identifying with the primary game designer in this show, we’re set. Just accept the fanmail gracefully, and everything will go much smoother.)

But, as Hiiro points out, they technically can’t force treatment on him. But also… well. There are some pretty nasty folks after Tougo.

–––

On the roof, Takeru and Emu have a little chat. They’re both basically going ‘how on earth are you handling the Rider thing?’ to each other’s situations.

Pulling out the Ex-Aid Eyecon, Takeru says that he couldn’t have imagined that the rider that gave it to him is a doctor. He was just so incredibly neon. But the fact that ‘Doctor Emu’ is saving lives as both a doctor and as a Kamen Rider… that really impresses him.

(Please note that Takeru consistently uses “Emu-sensei” to refer to Emu both here, and in HeiGen Final. No, there’s no hero worship going on here, what are you talking about? That’s silly!)

Similarly, Emu’s incredibly impressed by Takeru’s resolve to have kept fighting after dying, and speaking as a doctor, can’t even begin to imagine what that takes.

And then here comes Kuroto, asking to see Takeru’s Ghost Eyecon to analyze it, so they can make something that will effect the Pac-Viruses.

Since Takeru agrees, it means that he’s not tied to it the way he was in the series. It’s probably a different Eyecon completely – seeing as in-show, the Ore eyecon was literally him. Technically, the Takeru we saw was almost a projection – his tangibility depended heavily on his emotional state.

(There’s a reason I occasionally joke about Ghost’s Eyecons being ‘Soul Gem Two: Spooky Boogaloo.’)

(Also, Yurusen shares a VA with Madoka, and that just drove the joke home. Turns out Meduka Meguca is the cat, after all!)

–––

Hatesate Puzzle is an Android game – you can tell, because the list of files includes four different .apk files. Also, it’s up to version 7.21.

But the programming screen? Uses the same stupid block of text that all of the programming screens use in this show. Like, it’s even more egregious this time, because it’s shown very clearly, in decent lighting, unlike in Kuroto’s assorted lairs. Also, it talks about game physics such as collision detection for the ground.

This is a match three game.

Anyway, turns out Hiiro’s idea was to allow Tougo to leave the hospital, as long as he was still being observed. There’s a hundred thousand people infected right now, and the people who did it want him. So… Tougo is bait.

Needs of the many, blah blah blah you could have at least run this by someone, Hiiro. I get not telling Emu. But Asuna should have been informed, at least.

Almost immediately after Hiiro takes his leave, letting Emu take over, we hear static as Tougo staggers backward in his seat and passes out.

–––

We come to a busy office – a busy police barracks. Team Ghost waits anxiously on a visitors couch.

“I’m glad to see you’re back.”

Enter Officer Tomari Shinnosuke: Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department (active duty); Kamen Rider Drive (inactive).

Takeru and co had called in a favor, and Shinnosuke was only all to willing to help cover this case. Not only is it rider business now, but they’re threatening the city. Not to mention the police squad they destroyed yesterday – handily confirming that a day has, in fact, gone by – means Shinnosuke really wants in.

Turns out the three they’ve seen the faces of were all researchers into genetic therapy with the Next Genome Institute. Doctor Pac-Man is ‘most likely’ their boss, Zaizen Michihiko. Unfortunately…

They’re all supposed to be very, very dead. They died six years ago, as a matter of fact.

Most of the institute’s data was destroyed when the facility was sealed, but there’s a bit of closed circuit footage remaining of the event. Only a few seconds, but it’s enough to show them standing over an operating table, as orange lights encase and dissolve them, squares of light patterning the floor and walls.

Squares of light eerily similar to what they just say the other day, when people were activating Gashats.

Bugster work isn’t the only sketchy thing they’ve done – there were rumors of the institute working with cloning, creating mutants… basically, as Akari says, mad scientists.

(Anyone want to place odds on them being funded by Foundation X? No? Just me? Okay then.)

–––

Emu and Asuna are with Tougo as he wakes on a bench. THey’d moved him somewhere out of the sun, and he’s… An asshole about it. He never asked for their help, and he’ll die when it’s time, anyway, so why are they bothering?

Doctor Pac-Man, still very glitchy, strolls up. “He’s right. None of you are needed here. Why not just hand him over?”

Running time!

–––

Back at the precinct, Shinnosuke promises that he’ll let team Ghost know as soon as they find where the Next Genome researchers are hiding.

Y’know, except for that part where he’s too late, and they’re already going after Tougo, and by extension, Emu.

Shinnsouke’s fired up and ready to go after them.

Y’know, except for the part where Krim locked all of the Drive tech in his depression garage the Drive Pit at the end of the season, and Shinnosuke can’t transform, which Takeru points out, saying that it’s too dangerous for Officer Tomari to go.

Of course, Onari, logically, tries to point out that Takeru’s in the same boat right now, to which Takeru hurriedly shushes him.

Takeru and his team run off to deal with the situation.

Sad music plays as Shinnosuke laments his lack of belt.

–––

And here’s where I decided I had to cut the liveblog for now! Because again, twenty-some minutes, and nine pages of text. This is going to take a while.

See you next game

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Z 265

Last time, Majin Buu got his ass kicked by Gohan, so he blew himself up and came back an hour later.... to challenge Gotenks instead.    No one knows why he would want to do this, but Goten and Trunks insist on taking him on, and Gohan doesn’t seem very firm about stopping them.

Meanwhile, some flesh off of Buu’s back has sloughed off and is slithering around among all the rocks, but that probably doesn’t mean anything...

So there’s a few things at play here.   First of all, no one gives Buu any credit for intelligence.   He’s demonstrated on more than one occasion that he’s smarter than he lets on.   The problem is that the characters who know that aren’t around to warn the boys.   Babidi got killed, and Goku’s stuck in Otherworld.  The Supreme Kai’s been warning anyone who will listen not to underestimate Buu, but no one’s ever listened to him on this point.  

Of course, Goten and Trunks’ immaturity plays into this as well.    They take Buu’s challenge at face value, and wonder why he’d ask for something so stupid.   It never occurs to them that maybe he’s asking to fight Gotenks precisely because it isn’t stupid at all, so maybe they shouldn’t play into his hands like this.  

What’s really dumb about this is that Buu made it pretty clear in the last episode that he was never in any real danger of losing his last battle with Gotenks.    He only kept fighting so he’d have something to do while he waited for Gohan to show up.   Gotenks knows this, but he doesn’t seem to care.

Finally, and most crucially, why is Gohan just standing around letting this unfold.    He knows it’s risky to let Gotenks fight instead, but when they complain, he just yields the floor and lets them fight in his place.   What was the point of getting that power up from the Old Kai if he wasn’t going to deal with Buu himself?   Why isn’t he attacking Buu right now, instead of standing there like a dope waiting for Buu to make his move?

It’s inexperience, pure and simple.   Gohan dominated Buu in their last encounter, and he probably figures that there’s no harm in letting Gotenks go first.    If the kid loses, Gohan can step in to help, right?  

I’d ask why Piccolo doesn’t object to any of this, but he had a nervous breakdown three or four episodes ago, so who can blame the guy?  The only one who does suspect something’s up is Bee.   I guess he can smell deception in the air?   Anyway, no one listens to him because he’s a dog.

So he has to run towards the fight and show them what he’s seen, but by then it’s too late.

Suddenly, the pieces of Buu’s body jump on Piccolo and Gotenks and envelop them...

Then they recombine with Buu, apparently infusing Piccolo and Gotenks into his body somehow.

Look, I don’t want to be too hard on Gohan, but this is EXACTLY HOW CELL TRICKED HIM SEVEN YEARS AGO.   Gohan was stronger than Cell, and he could beat him senseless without even trying, and then Cell revealed that he had a power Gohan couldn’t stop with punching.   Yeah, Gohan had no idea he could do this, but why did he let Buu live long enough to demonstrate this kind of ability.    In theory, he has the power to kill Buu with a single Kamehameha.    If he doesn’t, then there was no point in sending him down here, but if he does, then he should have just done that two episodes back.

Incidentally, why didn’t the Supreme Kai tell anyone about this?   We haven’t gotten to that episode yet, but later, he’ll explain how he’s seen Buu absorb people before, so it seems kind of odd that he didn’t anticipate this, or warn Gohan about it.   

When the process is complete, Buu has Gotenks’s Fusion vest, a longer tentacle, and a nose.    Also, he talks more eloquently.   This form is sometimes referred to as “Super Buu 2″.   I think I’ve seen “Buutenks” used before, but that sounds kind of dumb.  

Buu declares himself to be the “Mightiest Majin”, which is a line I’ve never understood.   Throughout this story, characters have referred to him as a “Majin”, as if he were one of a group of other Majin, and I’m pretty sure it’s just a word Toriyama made up for this story.   It’s supposed to be a portmanteau of “ma”, the Japanese word for “evil” and “djinn”, or “genie”.   Are there other Majins?  Does Buu know of any besides himself?  Wasn’t he already stronger than any of them to begin with?

Anyway, this whole development reveals a crucial flaw in any anti-Buu strategy.   As powerful as Majin Buu is, it’s not enough to just match him in strength.  If he runs into anyone strong enough to defeat him, he’ll just absorb that guy, or however many other guys he need to in order to stay on top.   It almost feels like this is some overriding aspect of Buu’s nature, like Bibidi programmed this into him.  

So why didn’t Buu just absorb Gohan, since he’s the strongest one.   Ah, but Buu wanted to have someone to fight once he increased his power.   There’s an element of risk to this plan, because Buu’s power-up is mostly contributed by Gotenks, and the fusion will expire soon.   That’s why Buu waited an hour before coming back to pull this stunt.   He didn’t want to absorb Gotenks back in Episode 262, because he didn’t know how much longer they would last.   This way, he got them right after they fused, so he has the full time at his disposal, however short it is.   

Even so, he has to beat Gohan before that time runs out.   It probably would have been smarter to just absorb Gohan, but Buu loves a good fight too much to pass this up.    Besides, he can always absorb Gohan later.

Seriously, why did anyone think Toriyama was going to make Gohan the main character?   More to the point, why did anyone want Gohan to become the main character?  

Let me back up and explain that for anyone who didn’t know about the story.   Years ago, there was this legend that Toriyama planned to make Gohan the protagonist of the Buu arc, but fans in Japan sent him death threats or something, demanding that he bring Goku back, so he changed the ending.  Kanzenshuu.com has a pretty thorough article debunking this rumor, but the quick version is that Toriyama did plan on Gohan taking the lead, then changed his mind at some point, because he felt Gohan wasn’t suited for the role.  

I’m pretty sure the rumor only got started because of wishful thinking and changed premises.    There was a time, however brief, where Toriyama made it clear that he was making Gohan inherit the role from Goku.    And then Goku came back anyway.    The simplest explanation is that he changed his mind, but I think fans have trouble accepting the possibility of authors calling an audible in the middle of a story.   They like to imagine that the story exists fully-formed in the creator’s mind, and any inconsistencies or changes are due to outside influences.   When Gohan got sidelined from the Buu Saga, it was easier for fans to believe that there was some sort of conspiracy at work.    Either Toriyama’s editor made him change it, or Toei pressured him to bring the more marketable Goku back, or misguided Japanese fans coerced him into rewriting the story.  

My take on this is that the situation looks pretty obvious when you watch the show.   Maybe I shouldn’t say “obvious”, because when I first watched the Buu Saga, I kept obsessively checking Funimation.com’s episode list to see what would happen in upcoming installments, and I knew that Goku and Vegeta would somehow return, use fusion, and fight Buu themselves.  And that was the main event, as far as I was concerned.   For my money, the whole point of this fusion business was to see Goku and Vegeta use it, so what do we need Gohan for?  

But besides that, what exactly is the alternate scenario here if Gohan remained the protagonist?   Presumably, we’d get this far, I would think.   Gohan is too much for Super Buu, so he absorbs Piccolo and Gotenks to give our hero a greater challenge.   And it’s not an impossible task.    If Gohan can hold out until Gotenks’ fusion expires, he’ll have the advantage again.

But then what?    Do Goku and Vegeta come back to help him anyway?  Does Gohan journey into Buu’s body to rescue his pals, or does he just kill Super Buu and wait four months on an empty planet to wish everyone back to life?   Does Kid Buu ever factor into any of this?  

These aren’t insignificant questions.    I get the impression that anyone who believes that Toriyama changed the story because of fan pressure or editorial pressure or whatever, they believe this because they’re huge Gohan fans who resent him getting a raw deal.    Or they just don’t care for the Buu Saga in general, and they like the idea that there’s a better version floating around in Toriyama’s brain, or maybe even scribbled into a notebook.   Basically, they’re just rejecting this story, the one we got, and they’re clinging to a potentially better story that probably doesn’t exist.   

But I think that’s unfair.   It’s easy to say that an imaginary comic is better than the one that saw print.   It’s completely safe from criticism, because no one can read it, and no one can say for certain what is and isn’t in it.   So my question to the Gohan-truthers is: What was supposed to have happened instead?   How does Gohan being in the lead and beating Buu improve anything?    Because the way I see it, the story we got kicks ass. 

This part of it?   Not so much.   This is just Super Buu dominating Gohan for three episodes.   That wouldn’t be such a bad thing, except that we’ve been getting a steady diet of Majin Buu steamrolling everyone this whole time.    Hell, this isn’t even the first time he’s beaten Gohan.    It’s just taking a little longer tis time, that’s all. 

What does work is that this new development only adds to the burden on Goku’s conscience.    He was the one who insisted on staying dead, that he was the one putting the Earth in harm’s way, and that Gohan could protect the world better than he ever could.    He was the one who taught the boys the fusion technique, and assured his wife that they would be more than powerful enough to stop Buu and save the world.   And none of it is working.  

For me, that’s the most compelling thing about this leg of the story.    There was a period where, yeah, it looked like Goku was going to stay dead, by choice, and for keeps this time.    And everyone was comfortable that he was making the right decision.    But this arc is revealing that Goku was wrong.  He never should have left, and the world now suffers for his mistake.   

That’s a sort of pathos that Gohan just can’t grasp.   He’s a good character and maybe you could make him the protagonist of some other story, but he’ll never be quite as compelling as his father.    These are fictional characters, after all.   Gohan can’t just inherit his father’s qualifications as a heroic archetype.   Goku’s an alien refugee who grew up in the woods.    He’s an outsider to everyone, and somehow he keeps making miracles happen.   He has friends and family, but he never quite feels like he belongs.   He has a restlessness to him, and a profound modesty.   That’s why he was so sure that staying dead and trusting his sons to carry on in his stead was the right call.   He just blithely assumed others could do the things he did.   But he’s lightning in a bottle.   The Legendary Super Saiyan.   Others can learn to imitate his powers, or even surpass him in strength, but that still doesn’t change the fact that there’s something special about him. 

Let me blow your mind with a crackpot theory of my own.   I think Toriyama changed his mind about making Gohan the main character pretty early on.   A lot earlier than people may think.    Goku died in Episode 188, but he continued to appear in the show all the way up to Episode 199.   And then... he returned in Episode 205, to tell Gohan that he would return to Earth for the tournament.     From there on, the whole story revolved around Goku.   Everyone wanted to see Goku again, and even though Gohan was still in the lead role for a few more episodes, all he was interested in was hanging out with his dad. 

To put this in terms of the manga, Gohan’s first chapter as the main character was #421, published on May 11, 1993.    The chapter where Goku announced his return was #426, published on June 15, 1993.   Goku’s actual return to the comics happened in Chapter 430, published July 13, 1993.   From there, he remained a fixture in the manga until it concluded two years later.  

My point here is that Goku never really went away.   He was absent from the Namek Saga longer than he was absent from the post-Cell Games era.  In-universe, yes, he’d been dead for seven years, but for us, the audience, we basically flashed forward right up to the point where he returns.    My suspicion is that Toriyama tried telling new stories with Gohan and Videl in Satan City, got frustrated with it, and decided to bring back Goku after about a month.   But fans who took Gohan-as-protagonist as a guarentee, they assumed that Goku was returning as a supporting character, and he would eventually leave and let Gohan have the reins again.    When that didn’t happen, they assumed foul play.  

Anyway, Super Buu is clobbering Gohan at will.   If Goku doesn’t save him, who will?   Tien?   Pfft, yeah right, like Tien’s gonna... oh, wait.  

[akatokuro]

The Inevitable StS Rewatch, Episodes 20-22

AH YES, AFTER TWENTY EPISODES, MY TRUE ANIME STS NEMESIS HAS ARRIVED....... THE ANTI-CAMUS.............

- When I first watched Saint Seiya a million (or six) years ago, I didn't really have a strong opinion on the Crystal Saint. Like, yumetabibito made sure to inform me what was actually up with the "Hyouga's master" situation, and it was obvious at a glance that Camus was the superior option for drama and Hyouga's development, but... he seemed okay for what he was?

- But on rewatch, phew, the Crystal Saint comparatively is... really, really bad!

- And it's not like Camus got much more screentime or anything versus the Crystal Saint. Camus is literally featured in like two episodes total out of 114. I don't even really count Camus as being present in the majority of the Hades arc, because he's there as part of a blob with a Saga-shaped head so Saga can dramatically Athena Exclamation at people. But even so, Camus is so much a better character in like every way possible holy cow.

- Before delving into that, though, I do want to note that a) Marin is super cool! and b) these early Aiolia cameos continue to be charming and also hilarious. I really seriously doubt Toei knew Aiolia was a Gold Saint at the time of writing these appearances, and only had his cameo in the first chapter of the manga to go off of. This leads to some really weird but ultimately interesting depictions, like the Silvers repeatedly disrespecting poor Aiolia hard. It was an accident, but it really works for his character and his endless, endless rage.

- Also, Shun and Saori's friendship is cute as fuck. See, this is why even though the filler is ridiculous, I do like some of the feelings of the dynamics we get out of it before the Bronzies get trapped by eternal stairs.

- I LOVE that Seiya repeatedly loses against Shaina early on and keeps having to be rescued from her by others. I really do like Shaina, but I think her having a crush on Seiya is super unnecessary and a total shame - I love her as ruthless and effective, but not necessarily evil.

- Marin throwing shade at Shaina and trolling her is fantastic. Shaina, fall in love with Marin, not Seiya, goddammit! She is objectively the superior option even putting aside Seiya's brain eventually going full broke for Saori!

- My Camusfamily-loving heart did eeeee to get a quick peek at the village I'm sure they had to go to to buy supplies and such. Please give me a filler episode of nothing but Camus terrifying the grocers as he simply tries to purchase carrots for his kids. Look, he doesn't mean to be scary, guys, he's really just figuring out which carrots to buy, it's just his face...

- I always wonder what's up with Camus (and his kids) wearing, like, the sleeveless shirts but also legwarmers? okay guys.jpg

- Okay okay okay. Crystal Saint time.

- It's really funny to think that the Crystal Saint actually probably preceded Camus as a character concept, since we know Kurumada literally pulled Camus straight from his ass ten seconds before introducing him. What makes it kind of a fun thought exercise to compare both of Hyouga's mentors is that they're really the same character concept and "type."  In some ways CS almost feels like a rough draft for Camus, honestly: Hyouga's kind-hearted master who loves him, and really wants the best for him, but whom Hyouga is tragically forced to fight and kill. 

- Crystal Saint, however, plays this absolutely straight with zero nuance or deviation from the script. He is a Good Guy (slaughtering the poor Sanctuary guards and snapping that one dude's neck aside) who objects to Sanctuary's brutality and evil. He smiles and laughs and pats Hyouga on the head and openly encourages him. The only reason he and Hyouga are forced to fight is because he is literally brainwashed.

- Aquarius Camus, on the other hand, needs no fucking outside influence or brainwashing to make a giant fucking trainwreck out of the situation involving the student he loves. HE DOES IT ALL ON HIS OWN, BABY.

- That instantly makes him a better character, because Camus - again, with pretty much the same amount of screentime - manages an interiority and an agency because he's conflicted about what he's doing and does not know the right or best thing to do, and his priorities are a complete tangled mess. He doesn't have it in him to just turn against Sanctuary on a whim. But he doesn't want Hyouga to die. But he doesn't go out of his way to find out what Hyouga is trying to do and if it's right or not, because oh my god Hyouga is going to fucking die aaaa aaaa aaaaaaaaaaa oh god aaaaaaaaaaa

- Part of what makes me like Camus so much is that he feels really interesting and unique for a "good shounen anime mentor" in what an utter fucking mess he is. Most characters in his type, like the Crystal Saint, essentially have their shit together to be very stable and solid figures for the protagonist to fall back on. They might put up a certain harsh facade in order to push their students forward, but ultimately they are in control of themselves and are deliberately orchestrating how they present and such for their students' benefit. I'm thinking of, like, figures like Hiko from Kenshin, or Izumi from FMA, those sorts. But not Camus. He is held in extremely high regard as a beloved mentor by the text - "not a day goes by that I haven't thought of you!" cries Hyouga (lol), and there's no questioning his love for his student, but he is a legitimate panicky fuckup who makes an assload of genuine, unnecessary mistakes in how he handles things.

- I should probably save some of my Camusramblings for when Camus, like, actually shows up though huh. OR I COULD JUST REPEAT MYSELF WHEN THE TIME COMES. YEAH. I'LL PROBABLY DO THAT.

- I also want to note that it's fucking hilarious that, like, Yakov tells Hyouga "oh no the Crystal Saint is evil now" and Hyouga is like "sounds legit" and fights him; meanwhile against the, er, "master of his master", Camus, Hyouga cries and breaks down and can't bring himself to punch him. I... hmm. HMMMMM

- But that's what makes Hyouga and Camus's relationship great and fun. The love between them is what gets emphasized, more than anything else - because their duty as Saints gets very entangled in the doubt that that love brings them.

- ANYWAY. MOVING ON. tl;dr, Camus is so obviously a superior option for "Hyouga's tragic mentor" in every way - as an individual character, and in his relationship with Hyouga, and how events play out - it's obvious why the franchise as a whole sort of innocently whistled and nonchalantly kicked Crystal Saint down a cliff.

- Shunrei and Shiryuu are cute as fuck! I don't give a fuck! They're sort of fun and unique in this setting as Shunrei is a "normal person" who is forced to just sort of deal with what it means for her beloved person to be a Saint.

- W-why do soldiers from Sanctuary have guns...?

- WHY BUILD A COMPLETELY RANDOM ICE PYRAMID?

- I like how they even ask the filler villain "why the fuck are you building a random ice pyramid" and it's like "IT'S A MONUMENT OKAY. FOR REASONS."

- I do like Hyouga being well-known and beloved by the villagers, though! I could totally see that! Playing interference for his extremely socially awkward master when they need to buy carrots...

- Camusfamily is forever my favorite, but Dohkofamily can be pretty fucking cute too...

- Boy, how many times is Saori's house gonna get blown up...

- Saori's reactions continue to feel really fluid and fun if you pay attention to her. I really like her panicking at first at her house getting blown up (AGAIN), but then forcing herself to hold it together and do the rationally correct thing, with obvious difficulty.

- Tatsumi you useless FUCK

- oh my god tatsumi giving in instantly and giving them information. why didn't you  guys let ikki kill him. jesus fuck

- It's a small thing, but I appreciate Saori remaining focused on her worry for Shun in this situation instead of, like, falling back on crying for Seiya or something. It's a bunch of little things like that that make me able to like them as a shounen hero/heroine pairing. Saori has a lot of different things on her plate, not just Seiya.

- Chains aren't the best weapon to fight against a fire-based Saint, huh, Shun? Try hard! If only your boyfriend was here!

- PHOENIX IKKI TRIUMPHANTLY REAPPEARS IN THE ANIME EARLY TO DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING UNTIL HIS MANGA REAPPEARANCE EXCEPT BE REALLY CREEPILY OOC. THANKS, IKKI!

- i know it's a meme but i still can't deal with that bit ikki waving shun's tears in his face what the fuck