#related to redub

[war-finding-reason]

working on something

[notnights]

Thinking about Jax's level of assholery doesn't reach to disrespecting Zooble's gender identity.

Before questions: Zooble is gender-non-conforming, we don't know a specific gender label for them at the moment (aka if they identify as something like, non-binary, genderqueer, or agender, etc) but is okay with any pronouns.

Some how related trivia: in the spanish dub for the pilot, when Jax refers to Gangle as "crybaby," he originally said "lloron." While sometimes the "masculine" version of a noun can be used in "default," as gender neutral it's not a common practice. This caused a lot of confusion about Gangle's gender among spanish viewers. This line was later redubbed and corrected to "llorona."

If this correction hadn't been made one could say spanish dub Jax would've reached a whole new level of assholery by misgendering Gangle, or at best making a snide comment about her non-feminine appearance.

[karizard-ao3]

My reactions to the End of Evangelion

First, I know I have some asks about romcom Shinji waiting for me, but I felt I must watch this first because I am a little bit freaked out about what's going to happen and I need to just face it and get it out of the way. Also, I have a feeling I'm going to want to think about cute romcom Shinji afterward to aid my recovery. I have been led to believe it's pretty intense.

I am literally sitting here with the remote, avoiding pressing play.

Okay. I did it. It's starting.

I wonder if this is with the new VAs. Did they redub this as well? I'll find out soon.

The world is flooded, it looks like.

Shinji visiting Asuka and asking for help.

This is the new dub.

Ope, he accidentally made her naked.

Jesus Christ, Shinji.

Confirmed that their intent is to force humanity to evolve. They wanted to use Lilith but instead will have to use Unit 1, its only offspring, since the Spear of Longinus is lost.

Yui chose to stay in the Eva. "The human condition lies in how it struggles for survival".

There's Rei.

She finally broke the glasses.

Shinji's music player ran out of battery. He's just been laying there thinking about what a creep he is.

Misato found the real truth behind the second impact. Should I go back and pause to read the page?

Seele's trying to hack NERV HQ.

So was Unit 0 made from Adam, then?

Wait. So, Seele wants to do the forced evolution, yes? What is Gendo's motive in all this?

They're hiding the kids in their Evas. Rei is missing.

Shinji is hiding. Is he jerking off again?

These guys are going through and very efficiently killing everyone in NERV.

No, Shinji is just feeling depressed and hopeless and probably hating himself.

How does Rei feel about all her destroyed bodies?

They were about to kill Shinji and he was going to let them, but here comes Misato to save the day!

"Help, Asuka. Help me." Suicidal Shinji.

Humanity caused the second impact by trying to revert Adam to an egg state before he could awaken any more angels. Humanity came from Lilith and is the 18th Angel. I was not expecting that.

The other Angels were humanity how it could have been.

Shinji needs to destroy the Evas to prevent the third impact and save mankind.

Okay, so the human instrjmentality project is Gendo ans that's the forced evolution. Third impact is Seele's goal. I think.

Asuka has woken up.

They're bombing outside her capsule.

Does that let her sync?

Did she see her mom because she died? Oh no.

Oh, wait, it was the first thing.

The AT field was her mother protecting her? Is her mom also in the Eva? Are they really just farming people's mothers to make Evas?

Go, girl! Kick ass, Asuka.

She's so happy to realize her mother loves her.

There's the other Evas. Are they also crafted from mothers?

It's nice to see Asuka with her confidence back.

Which one got shot?

Misato.

I thought probably given ep. 25 (was it?)

Shinji does bad things to other people to hurt himself.

That's a good message from Misato.

And then she went and did that. Ugh. Misato, I knew you were going to do some shit like this. And promising him the rest when he gets back. What a weirdo. But I guess she's dead now? That's too bad.

Ritsuko is sabotaging Gendo.

But she failed.

The spear of longinus is back and it got her!

I was wondering if they would stay down. She probably has to destroy the S2 drive.

Do these ones have pilots?

Oh, they're eating her. And she is connected by nerve link.

Ohhhhhh no. Asuka...

He couldn't go to the Eva so the Eva is coming to him.

He saw what happened to Asuka and absolutely lost his shit.

Should I take a break to discuss this half of the movie since it's split into episodes, or should I wait? Umm.... I have until the end of this song to decide, I think. Uh... I think I'll just wait until the very end.

Rei's arm fell off.

Gendo wants to reunite with Yui, which is something I had kind of toyed with as an idea because he talks about her a lot and is very partial to everything that relates to Yui except for Shinji (maybe sees too much of himself in the boy), but I hadn't really spent a lot of time thinking about it because I hate Gendo and he keeps hooking up with other scientists.

He has become one with Adam somehow. He needs to unite Adam and Lilith to commence the human instrumentality project and then go to where Yui is (the quantum plane, perhaps?)

Quite honestly, I'm still not completely clear on what Seele wants versus what Gendo wants.

He stuck his whole hand inside her.

Rei senses Shinji screaming.

Were there two spears of Longinus?

Oh, they made a replica.

They are rerutning man and Evas to their true forms.

Several replicas.

They're going to use Unit 1 and therefore Shinji as a sacrifice.

This is the lead up to the third impact.

There is a huge explosion.

Looks like an eye.

They're returning earth to its true form?

Rei decides not to help Gendo. And she regrew her hands. She's going up to help Shinji by going in Lilith.

And with that, Lilith is fixed, with her legs not weird anymore.

That is Lilith, right? That's what Kaworu said?

A giant incorporeal Rei to the rescue!

Shinji screaming at the sight of Rei.

They're syncing with Rei. Once again, that's a lot of fucking Reis.

Shinji is losing his mind.

kaworu appears, coming out of Rei's body. But there's the spear. It's absorbed the spear. Now he's in the tree of life.

"Rei is in your heart. A perfect reflection of your wishes."

"What do you wish for?"

He's alone at the playground because the other kids went home with their mom and he doesn't have one.

His little Mary Janes.

Built the sand castle, knocked it down in a fit of rage, then started trying to put it back together and crying.

Did this stuff Shinji is seeing actually happen or is it happening in his head as part of human instrumentality?

Now he's choking her.

Seeing all the worst of humanity.

Shinji bouncing back and forth between everyone should die because they don't love me, and I should die because I don't matter to anyone.

Rei just sprouted from the atmosphere.

Everyone is truning to jelly. Primordial soup.

"I'd only hurt Shinji. That's why I left him alone." He's just like Shinji fr.

The Eva series are shoving the spears further in.

Rei is vacuuming something into her palms, it looks like. Is that souls?

The tree of life thing just went into the eye hole/ keyhole/ vag in her head.

Now we've got some actual footage from the real world.

"You made a convenient fantasy to get revenge on reality."

Rei and Shinji are kind of fused together. Everyone is merged into one, which is what Rei said Shinji wished for. But he realizes that's not really what he wanted.

AT fields are what keep us separate and cause our pain, but Shinji realizes that he wants to be with others again more than he wants to run away from the pain.

So now Rei is bringing everyone back, I think?

Yui wanted to make the Eva to be a testament that humanity existed even after the universe dies.

Shinji wakes up next to a red sea abd Asuka. Shinji sees Rei for just a moment, and then she'd gone. There is a red ring around the earth. He's trying to choke her and crying, then she touches his face softly and he stops. He cries. She calls him disgusting and the movie ends.

In Conclusion

Well.

Well, well, well.

First off: I am still confused because it seems like Seele and Gendo were trying for the same thing and I am really not sure of the difference. Maybe it was just a matter of how they wanted to carry it out. I feel like I must be dumb as a rock for not getting it, but also maybe it's just mental priorities. I spent more mental energy trying to figure out other stuff.

This movie leaves me with a lot to think about. I'm already googling things about it, but I'm going to stop for now. I want to let it percolate a bit more, I think. Also, I should watch my DVD extras! Probably not today, though. I need to spend some time with my kid.

It seems that the third impact still affected the planet, but Shinji elected to have everyone be individuals so it was an apocalypse but not one that turned everyone into a single, liquid consiousness.

I don't really think everyone's Eva is infused with their mother, but I'm a little perplexed by Asuka saying her mother is why she has an AT field. Maybe she just meant because of how her mother shaped her identity. Not really sure. I mean, I would understand if Shinji had that revelation but not sure on Asuka.

Yeah, this is another one that's going to have to sit for a while in my head, I think. There's a lot to sort through.

I do love that the connection between mother and child seems to be so important in this series. It's kind of sad because Shinji feels so alone and uncared for, but we can see that his mother is always watching him and protecting him, whether it's as Rei or as Unit 1 or as a metaphysical version of herself. But we also see Asuka dealing with a lack of love from her mother. That poor girl.

Also, can we really love anyone when they are mixed together in a soup with us? Shinji could be merged with everyone in the LCL sea but they were no longer separate people, so he still couldn't really be with them, because there was no longer a them to be with.

I do slightly wish the objectives between Seele and Gendo had been slightly clearer. I get that it's all secondary to the real message but I get hung up on this kind of stuff when it's not clicking.

Yeah, I don't think I've got anything really definitive to say right now. This is definitely another thinker and I need time to let my thoughts form.

I am left wanting more. Not of the story, but just of seeing the characters together. I wish we could get an Evangelion slice of life series and just see their day to day lives as Eva pilots with only a very loose plot to tie the series together. I want to see them all existing and coexisting and I think I could happily watch several seasons of that.

Okay, well, I have a couple people to text now that I've finished the movie and I need to sit and think some more. I want to look up more stuff but I feel like maybe I should wrap up this watching experience with a better conclusion post. I think I will try (only try, no promises-I've got a head full of questions) to hold off on looking anything up while I sort through things and maybe look at my notes and then attempt to gather together my thoughts and post them.

I will also think about those Shinji romcom asks.

This was a very good show. I will definitely be watching again, and quite possibly very soon. I confess that I put in a bid for a boxed set of the Perfect collection, which should have the original dub, so if I win it I'm going to buy it and then watch it with the original dub because I'm curious to see the difference.

[bulbabutt]

There's this interesting throughline of the Big Three Kid's Shows in that they're all some degree of Japanophilic in some way or another.

Transformers started because some executives grabbed a bunch of cheap Japanese robot toys, put them in front of a team of writers and animators, and said "Turn this into a cartoon so we can resell these". Mostly nods to the Japanese origins is cute stuff (Dominique Fishback's character in Rise of the Beasts looks at a paper with someone named "Asahi Takara" as a writer, Takara is one of the toy companies in question) rather than anything explicit.

TMNT was fully American-made, at least when Eastman and Laird were inking issue one, but it was a reaction/parody of Daredevil's reboot that was very ninja-y, and by the time the first show was around, and as it's gone on it's been somewhat more respectful of Japanese culture (though despite Saki being a female name and Hamato being entirely made up, those will stick around just because they're too engrained).

Power Rangers was just "take this existing kid's show from Japan, and replace the footage with Japanese actors with a multiracial American cast". At first, they didn't even acknowledge it in the shows. Still, as time went on they started having a little fun with it (Lost and Found In Translation, one of Dino Thunder's episodes, is basically the gang watching a dubbed version of an Abaranger episode that was already goofy even back in Japan but ends with them going "maybe it's weird but it's not bad"). You could argue that this is an example of cultural appropriation or imperialism, or just America having no original ideas and needing to steal from other countries but I wouldn't go that far, and it has been some degree of equivalent exchange. (Japan got made-for-themselves OVAs of the first two and Power Rangers gets redubbed into Japanese for them, so they clearly enjoy it.)

Sorry for the long-winded ask-essay, just had Thoughts and you're smart and cool so you're receiving them.

I actually didn’t even know that about power rangers that’s really interestsing. I guess it’s related to them all being toy shows too, right? Tmnt seems more incidental on account of the daredevil parody like you said (also it has a lot of Orientalism as a result), but for the others it’s originally Japanese toys/shows coming to the west so thats interesting.

also im not smart but i do appreciate receiving interesting thoughts like that

[gothicprep]

i'm listening to "the witch trials of jk rowling" so you don't have to. i'm morbidly curious and i want to see where they're going with this, and like to listen to podcasts while i chug through work.

one thing that is probably worth pointing out is that this was produced by "the free press" which is bari weiss's editorial publication. so, given that, the angle that this is probably going for is the encouragement of open dialogue and discouragement towards reliance on partisanship/tribalism. i'm also pretty familiar with bari and get the sense that she's being honest in her commitment to nuance in a way that someone like elon isn't, so i'm taking that into consideration.

the first episode of it is mostly jkr talking about her life when she began writing harry potter and her reaction to how it caught on. she shares more details about her abusive ex husband, and talks about the incongruity of dealing with public attention while having an abusive ex husband still fixated on you. it also probes her psyche as to why she thinks her accomplishments are specifically a feminist endeavor, detailing her backstory as a single mother who wasn't making a lot of money, the fact that "jk" is a pen name manufactured so young boys wouldn't be discouraged from reading her books, and how her abusive marriage is in the backdrop. timeline wise, it takes you to roughly 2000. it doesn't get into her views on gender, sex, and politics.

the second episode is, in my opinion, pretty good. it talks about how the 90s were somewhat of a prototype of present-day american culture wars. it brings up the rodney king riots, the controversy over hip-hop, the anti-psychiatry sentiment, the boom in wicca, columbine, and how these things empowered fundamentalist christians. what i really liked about it is that it brings up two things about columbine that are reliably memory-holed – the public freakout that took place when it was reported that the killers took antidepressants, and the religious martyrization of cassie bernell. megan phelps-roper talks to some lawyers who litigated harry potter related book banning cases. it's intercut on occasion with joanne talking about the book bans, but she's a secondary character to what's being laid out.

my big concern with all this is that megan phelps-roper is a memoirist and essayist, not a journalist. i don't get the impression from her that she's willing to challenge an interview subject as fit for a journalistic piece. some of her questions sound like they were redubbed in post-production, and i read that as her not being a good interviewer.

i'm also curious about where this will go, because so far, it draws a lot of connections between joanne's politics and the arguments of prior unsubstantiated freakouts and christian fundamentalism, and that reflects on her poorly.

i'll post updates on tuesdays/wednesdays as the episodes release depending on when i get around to listening to them, and i'll let you know.

[ahiddenpath]

Hopes for 2024

I'm not making resolutions for the new year, as the last few years have generously enforced the folly of planning. But I have hopes for 2024, and I'll share them beneath the cut, if you're interested!

Life hopes

-Thrive, don't excel

2023 was a year of difficult, painful growth. I allowed a coworker to take extended advantage of me, to the point where I was nearly doing two jobs. I completed several projects that my seniors could not do. It's not an exaggeration to say that I learned every single gosh dang day on the job.

Growing is good! It's something we should strive for! But not to the point where we deplete ourselves. My goal this year at work is to be gentle with myself. I want to perform well, but I do not want to hurt and push myself. It's just not worth it. I've been in this industry for over ten years. All you get from working hard and excelling is more work.

Related, but looking over my daily journal for 2023... I'd say about 85%+ of the entries are exclusively about work. It's taken over my life, and that is not what I want. I'm unclear how to achieve this in a capitalist country, but I've got to try.

-Be messy, be experimental

Gorgeous notebooks, art supplies, stickers, and prints, pristine and untouched. Projects never started, because it won't turn out well, anyway.

This is all understandable. No one wants to mar their nice supplies with inexperienced hands, or to use them on silly or clumsy projects.

Frankly, I'm tired of worrying about that. I'm hoping that I can release some of that anxiety- and by the way, perfectionism is simply a form of anxiety. I want to make messes and bad art and failed projects, because anything is better than never knowing what I might have made or done.

Light the nice candle. Eat the expensive chocolate. Use the fancy notebook. What good is it doing you in a drawer?

-Health

It's been a hard year. It's been a hard... several years. My body survived, so I won't be disdainful of the wear and tear it sustained.

But I do want to take care of it (especially given the increasing difficulty of receiving and affording medical care). I want to give it exercise, healthy food, rest, and sunshine.

Mental health is always a battle for me, and I was challenged this year by my new job and by a particularly bad situation with my mother.

I'm not sure what the solution is here, but I'm cognizant of the strain and of my need to act.

Creative wants

I have so many projects on my mind, but this is not a to do list. It's just a picture of where my brain is now, creatively.

-Finish the next three chapters of Puits d'Amour

I went to do some editing on PdA today, and I found a whole new chapter I had forgotten about?! Apparently, I thought there needed to be a brand spankin' new/additional chapter between the last one I posted and the next one I planned to post. It's about Yamato's parents talking to him about Sora, whom he was seen escorting to a party.

This is not the first time I've forgotten about my own content, and it will not be the last, but. The point is that I'd like to wrap up the next three chapters of PdA, which I have content for.

I'll worry about what happens next with the story after that.

-Watch Kizuna

I read the Kizuna novelization and avoided the movie. I never felt mentally ready to watch the events described in the book, but I kind of have to for Infinite Possibilities. I am hoping to pick up some little visual and audio things (gestures, voices, outfit choices, seasonal information, etc).

-Print stickers

I want to make Eimi stickers!!! And other stickers of my art! I love stickers! That is all.

-If the redub of the digimon movies comes out this year, I would like to use the bluray quality images to book bind After August again (the cover is a still from Bokura no War Game).

-Commission cover art for Infinite Possibilities phase 1. I reached out to an artist today. Wish me luck!

-Edit phase one of Infinite Possibilities. This one is going to take me a while, lmao!

-I'd like to book bind a new fic. PdA seems a good place to start, as it's recent.

-Continue editing some older works and working on open projects (TIL, PdA, FY, etc).

I have other non fandom related projects that I want to tackle, too, but they require a bit of background. Suffice to say, there is a lot I want to do! I doubt I will match or beat 2023's 75,954 published words and an additional 53,979 words written for Nanowrimo in 2024, but I hope I do a lot of fun and satisfying creative work.

Please take care of yourselves in the new year <3

[residentdormouse]

Hey, hi! You are on my BINGO card (like last year haha) and I was wondering if you could tell me literally whatever you can muster about Hayden and/or Stephanie (what they did before the world went to shit, their interests, hobbies, their personality, style, quotes, lyrics, colors relating to them, etc.)

Thank you so much and also eternally thankful to you for all the comments you left on Save a Prayer - I saw them and they made me really happy ❤

Hey there 👋 (and I'm still eternally grateful for last year; that gif makes me so rediculously happy.)

Most information on the 'Jumping to Wonderland' series can be found on this main post - questions/asks/playlists are towards the bottom. Granted, most of that is for Hayden (she has a full 101k story to herself before Steph and my others OCs really join in with Diving.) The best segments for her are: General History and Interview Questions.

But that's a lot of nonsense to dig through. More consise answers:

Hayden (Hadley) Flynn

Hadley worked for an organization that was constructed to help protect against supernatural elements. At first, her role was in experimental expeditions, and assisting in dimensional travel. When conflicting agendas were discovered within the, now redubbed, 'Institute', Hadley moved to a first line public safety position which better situated herself to help peaceful individuals. Shortly after, disturbances outside of their universe were picked up by her old department, and Hadley was tasked with investigating. Unfortunately, as they had found from prior missions, there was a barrier between their worlds and her knowledge was barred from her upon entry, along with most of her memories. With no recollection of her past, she could only stumble into this new world, picking up the name Hayden from one of her first companions - Stu Redman.

Hayden is naturally curious, and loves learning, but she is also a fan of the arts and relaxation. Especially relaxation. Good stories are essential. Comfy blankets, fluffy pillows, warms drinks, fires. As somebody with a higher anxiety level than others, she struggles to find a calm sometimes, and has been known to study breathing techniques and coping methods (some of a potentially questionable variety). Mediation also helps aid with setting up and maintaining an easily accessable mind library, which is a necessity for travelling. She is also an animal lover, which helps establish a light tone for her first interaction with Kojak, and in turn, Glen.

Teal is a color that is significant to her, and attached to a mental key of sorts. Her full playlist is here, although 'Smile' by Wolf Alice and 'Underworld' by Cyprss are go-tos for her. Style is more about comfort and practicality. Sweaters, jeans, sometimes a blazer for 'nicer' occasions. Layers and heavy coats are a must as she usually runs cold.

Stephanie Graham

Steph served as the 'tech guru' for her community. Working on the IT department of the hospital was primary, but she also set up her family and their friends. No, you can't just use the browser that comes with. That's your password?! Is that phone from this century? While she had her job, and was very close with her family, a good deal of her free time was spent in her apartment. A safe haven full of adopted house plants and stock piles of games. Video games, board games, multitudes of 20 sided dice. Her desk was a shrine to her fandoms and online activity. Does she have a Tumblr? Maybe, but she likes your shoelaces. Does she read fanfiction? C'mon that's not taboo anymore, right? It was a comfortable life. A manageable life. Until everybody started coughing...

Anxiety is also something that Steph suffers with, although that partly stems from her untreated ADHD. It is not uncommon to see her fixating, or obsessing over little things, and excitedly babbling on about something. There are many topics that she cannot be normal about, and expect her to really get 'in it'. Words coming out faster than they have any business being, and still not fast enough for her thoughts. This also happens when self consciousness kicks in too. Catch her appologizing for appologizing, and she appologize once more. For good measure.

Much like Hayden, Steph's color is in the green category. But while Hayden's is more of a jewel tone, Steph's is a reflection of her plants, and leans towards more of a forest shade. Her playlist is here, but her main song (and the original song I used when developing her) is 'Life is Short' by Bufferfly Boucher. Style is also a comfort concern for her. Flannels and t-shirts with jeans and chucks. Nothing fancy, she wouldn't know where to begin with any of that.

[carthagesubbing]

Self-Introduction: AdPro

Hello everybody, my name is AdminProductions. But these days I go by AdPro. I am one of the newest members of Carthage Subbing. I used to be a full-time YouTube content creator, but I've taken a break from uploading. Since French is the origin of Code Lyoko, I have been wondering what it would be like to experience the series in its original language with subtitles that help people understand in English. I am from America, so I grew up with Code Lyoko on Cartoon Network when I was little, and even grew up watching the whole thing on YouTube back before Mediatoon decided to upload the series on there themselves.

As those of you may be aware, I am the person who posted the "Garage Kids 20th Anniversary Redub Version." I was the director, script editor, sound designer, and voice of Jeremie for that project. I am also involved in the Code Lyoko Japan Project, I was formerly a translator for Season 1-2 episodes, but I am now a digital designer for their YouTube channel and I guess you could say their "Lyokopedia." To be honest though, it's not just in CLJP that I'm a Lyokopedia, many people regard me as being extremely knowledgeable about Code Lyoko since I've been paying attention to every detail and every line that's said by the characters over the 15 or so years I've been watching the series, and for context I am currently 22 y/o. MRCL is also a big project for me since I am a resource collector and artist for that team, so I also collectgraphic and audio resources related to Code Lyoko, anything from the Supercomputer ID Cards to the sound effects used by the Scanners, I try to get them all. There are a lot of other Code Lyoko related projects that I'm a part of, but those are pretty much the gist.

As for me, I'm a weird puppy floating around in space, I'm nowhere and everywhere at the same time. I am a fan of Ace Attorney/Ghost Trick, Professor Layton, LEGO Island, Pokemon, Tomodachi Collection/Life, Rockman.EXE, and many more. Currently I am a full-time College student with a goal of getting a degree relating to computers, hopefully landing a programming job.

That's pretty much all from me, I do not think there's anything else to say. You all can expect my translations for Carthage Subbing to show up soon, see you all there.

[mostlynotwork]

Going really retro this week with some classic comic books. Robotech: Invid War is an early 90’s comic that expands on the stories of the original 80’s anime series. 

I’ll just get this out of the way up front - I’m a fan of all things ‘mecha’ related. Movies, TV shows, books, comics, the lot. If it involves giant robots, especially in the classic japanese style, I’m down for it. Yes, that includes Pacific Rim in its various iterations. And maybe even ‘Atlantic Rim’ films when I’m in the mood for films so bad they’re entertaining.

Robotech is a classic example of that late 20th century period where American television networks aired Japanese anime recut and redubbed to fill early morning or late afternoon time slots. In the 1990s, these classics found their way to VHS cassette, then in the 2000s, anime lovers sought them out on DVD or torrent sites. Now they’ve made it to various streaming sites.

But nothing beats the thrill of finding original comics…

I was browsing through one of my favourite second hand bookstores when I stumbled across two bound volumes of Robotech comics. It's been a long time since I’d watched any of the series, but I immediately fell in love with these beautifully preserved volumes of original comics. 

‘Robotech: Invid War’ tells the story of the fight against the Invid. The plot of the comics skips about a bit since it’s interwoven with the original animated series. Yes, every edition of the comic is in this collection, so there is a complete story. But the story for me was secondary to the joy of finding a classic 90’s anime/mecha comic and just soaking in the comic book style and artwork of that era. Oh - and the throwback 90’s advertising!

This collection of comics is both niche and unique. It’s something of a collector item, although something collected for the love of what it is rather than the monetary value. For that reason it’s not a book I can recommend you go out and buy since you’ll more likely need to buy the individual comics.

Rather, my recommendation is to keep on visiting and supporting those second hand books stores that still exist. Help keep them alive and thriving because you never quite know what treasures they might hold.

[dynamite-derek]

Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest: Another Side, Another Story

Please note, this is the latest entry in my series of Final Fantasy retrospectives that I write for a website called vidyathoughts.com. I am not able to post every single one of them on tumblr due to image restrictions, so please consider checking out the site and reading my other reviews in full. This post was edited slightly to remove some images that put me over the limit, so I apologize for the occasional long block of uninterrupted text. Thanks!

Here’s your new Final Fantasy, bro

Final Fantasy IV had come and gone and Square was very intent on making a push into North American markets. They had released SaGa games and redubbed them as spin-off Final Fantasy titles (The Final Fantasy Legend, Final Fantasy Legend II and Final Fantasy Legend III.) The first Mana title had also made the journey stateside, rechristened as Final Fantasy Adventure. The franchise seemed ready to really spread its wings with Final Fantasy V set for release in Japan in December of 1992.

Let’s revisit a quote related to the release of Final Fantasy IV in North America.

“I guess the biggest change is that they made it a little bit easier for the U.S. market, but that was because we already had Final Fantasy I, II, and III in Japan, whereas Final Fantasy I was the only one released in the states,” Final Fantasy IV lead designer Takashi Tokita said in a 2007 interview with 1up. “Final Fantasy II and III had some experimental elements to them, and so for U.S. users to suddenly dive into IV… it just seemed a little bit difficult. So we balanced it out to present it as a follow-up to Final Fantasy I. And, you know, the NES platform had a very wide range of users where the bottom end was very young, and we took that into account as well”

The difficulty issue was weighing heavily on the minds of those at SquareSoft. Final Fantasy V was the most difficult Final Fantasy title yet and the West was comprised of RPG babies at the time. They didn’t get to experience the other two Famicom titles and grow with the franchise, so they could not be expected to handle the hardcore gameplay of V. So a decision was made to release a Final Fantasy game specifically for North American audiences in order to get them more accustomed to the genre. Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest was born.

Despite being made for an American audience, development for Mystic Quest was handled by an internal Japanese SquareSoft team led by Kouzi Ide. Ide’s most notable work to this point was as the lead for the third SaGa title, which North American players would receive as Final Fantasy Legend III. Ide would only direct one more game after Mystic Quest, Treasure of Rudras, which only saw release in Japan. I would normally say that since it’s been nearly 30 years you shouldn’t count on ever getting a version of that game in North America, but they released Live-A-Live over here eventually so I guess anything is possible.

Mystic Quest is also the first game credited to Ted Woolsey, who was the lead localizer at SquareSoft during the SNES era. His translations are known to be a tad bit more colorful than your typical works of the time. This leads to a lot of his writing quirks being referred to as Woolseyisms. This ranges from his take on Frog speaking in olde English in Chrono Trigger (despite nobody else in the middle ages knowing what thees and thous are in that game) to Kefka’s infamous “Son of a Submariner” line from Final Fantasy VI. Most of his work has been retranslated over the years, but odds are if you played a SNES game made by SquareSoft, you’ve experienced his work in some way.

Woolsey at his finest, in my opinion anyway, is Super Mario RPG. I think his quirky style helped give that game a lot more of a life than it could have had. SMRPG was my very first role playing game and I credit it with getting me into the genre. It accomplished what Mystic Quest was trying to.

Here is what Woolsey said about the prospect of moving Final Fantasy V westward in an interview with Super Play Magazine in 1994:

���The Final Fantasy series basically has two separate tracks: the odd series (FFI, FFIII and FFV) are controller command drive games, whereas the even series are more story line driven games. As for FFV though, well, although we’re sure it’s a great title it hasn’t been a hit with too many people in our focus groups, although experienced gamers loved the complex character building – it’s just not accessible enough to the average gamer. But we’re determined we want to release it so we’re going to wait and introduce it once there’s a larger audience for that particular style.”

Now obviously Woolsey isn’t a major decision maker at Square. He didn’t pull aside upper management and warn them about the dangers of the Job system. But he would certainly know of what games are being localized and why certain ones are being skipped over.

Mass appeal

From the above quote, we can guess that Final Fantasy V’s fate might have been determined by focus groups. Before I even sat down to write this retrospective, the feeling I had while playing Mystic Quest was ‘this is a focus grouped Final Fantasy.’ It’s nice to have the lead localizer sort of confirm that there might have been a little truth to that. The original plan for Final Fantasy V would have seen it released as a spin-off title of some sort, but I will get more into what they did with V later (Spoiler: not release it in America at all until the next console generation.)

Mystic Quest would release in North America just two months before the Japanese release of Final Fantasy V. It would later go on to release in Japan as Final Fantasy USA: Mystic Quest in September of 1993. Final Fantasy VI was released in April of 1994, so expectations probably weren’t too high for the spin-off title in Japan.

The first time I saw MQ was as a middle schooler. I wasn’t terribly interested in playing it, I was too hyper-fixated on the PS1 Final Fantasy games I could not play for myself at the time, and for some reason a shard stuck in my mind that correlated Final Fantasy II (IV) with it. So for a long time I knew the first four mainline Final Fantasy titles North America got as: Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy II: Mystic Quest, Final Fantasy III and Final Fantasy VII. The 90s were a different, more confusing time.

In discussing how Mystic Quest differs from your standard Final Fantasy, let’s explore the focus group idea a little bit. Allow me to pretend to give feedback to SquareSoft as a non-RPG playing fella on Final Fantasy IV and talk about how these concerns were addressed. Remember: Square wants Final Fantasy and role playing games to be a massive hit in North America. They want what Enix had with Dragon Quest where Japanese police officers beg them not to release the game during the school week. Final Fantasy definitely had a host of hardcore fans in North America, but an absolute mainstream fervor would not encompass the west until Final Fantasy VII’s release.

“Five is a lot of party members, I can’t keep track of all this stuff!”

Mystic Quest trims your party down to only two characters and if you so choose, you only need to control one character. The game defaults to your secondary character acting automatically, though you can press a button to change to manual commands. MQ also utilizes the Final Fantasy II and IV approach of having characters constantly entering and exiting your party. The secondary character is always a fair deal stronger than your main character when they show up but by the time they leave, your protagonist should be equal to or greater than them. It’s an easy way to determine whether someone is going to leave your party soon or not. Are you their level? If so, prepare to say goodbye!

I find that if you play on auto, the computer will cheat for you. At some point I switched to auto mode because I wanted to move this along. The combat system isn’t terribly deep with two people so the battle-to-battle strategic decisions didn’t matter so much. I would notice on certain turns that sometimes my main character would get hit with a big critical by an enemy and then my partner would heal me back up before it became time to input moves again. My character gets stoned – no I do not know a better way to word this – and my partner would cast heal. In manual, I would have had to plan ahead for that. I guess they try to give you every leg up that they can?

There were a couple of times later on I had to switch back to manual combat for my partner to do something specific, but it was very seldom.

As a result of having only two party members, battles don’t have a lot of strategy. Towards the end of the game, some encounters will feature minor hurdles with enemies that will reflect your magic or give you a status effect if you attack them physically, but outside of that most encounters feel the same. The only real differences come down to the sprites. You either both attack or one of you heals. There are status effects to manage but there’s no buffs or nerfs. It’s very straightforward.

“This ATB system is so hard to figure out. I was browsing that old guy’s spells looking for meteor and some random bad guy called Red Eye swooped in and killed me while I was looking!”

True turn-based gameplay is back. So if you were getting sick of holding it in while you wait for battles to play out, you can once again tell your main character to act and then run out to the bathroom while everyone takes their turn. Given that you only have to put in your main protagonist’s commands if you’re on auto battle, this can lead to some very repetitive encounters. For a large portion of the game, I was just having my two characters attack. I know I said in my FF1-3 recaps that I spend most of my battles just physically attacking but at least there were four party members to choose from. Like if I wanted to attack enemies in other ways, I definitely had options. It felt a little more in depth.

“What’s the deal with all these status effects? How do I cure them? What’s the difference between confused and charmed?”

Status effects remain, but dealing with them is a little simpler than it was in the past. Up to this point, each status effect could be cured with a specific item. There was also the ‘cure all’ item, remedy. These are usually rare and expensive, so it encouraged the player to only use those in emergencies. Better yet, use Esuna! Forget items!

In MQ, there is only one item that heals status effects. It is pretty easily obtained and ensures that status effects will never really hamper your playtime unless you just outright ignore them for some reason. Which you can certainly do because I tackled the first major dungeon of the game poisoned for at least 3/4 of it. Your rotating secondary party member almost always has some white magic, so they’ll usually be able to heal you too. And if they can’t heal you, they’ll probably have the Life spell which will revive you. They also very generously make Life the equivalent to Full Life in Final Fantasy IV, i.e. you respawn with full health.

I will say that with two party members, encountering enemies that throw around status effects willy nilly can be slightly frustrating. There were a couple of times where both my party members were confused or asleep or something and I had to wait for the enemy AI to smack me before I could do anything. I also had a couple of unlucky battles where both of my fellas would get stoned right away, which is an instant game over. It doesn’t happen enough to be annoying but it does happen. Generally if you heal status effects as they come, it’s no big deal.

“Why are there so many spells? How do I know which one to use? Is Fire 2 better than Blizzard 2? Why does Fire need a sequel? It takes me forever to see my spells!”

Your total spell count is really low. Observe.

The spell book on the left is the main character’s magic and those 12 spells represent your entire catalogue. You have four white magic spells, four black magic spells and four wizard spells. For white magic you get Cure, Heal, Exit (for leaving dungeons) and Life. Black magic gets Quake, Fire, Blizzard and Aero. Wizard magic gets Thunder, White (holy, or as Kingdom Hearts fans know it as, Pearl), Meteor and Flare.

First, as you can see the magic charge system is back for some reason. I don’t understand the logic behind it because it’s far less user friendly than MP but whatever, maybe they were operating under the assumption that Americans were scared of big numbers not tied to their health pool. The game defaults to having a lifebar instead of HP numbers, you have to opt in to seeing more precise health statistics. Second, the limited number of spells really lowers the number of strategies you can use in battle. No buffs, no debuffs, just the basics on white magic. Black magic? In what could be described as a series tradition at this point (not counting IV), black magic isn’t very useful. There are some enemies with elemental weakness out there, but usually you can just hit them every bit as hard as you can magic them. It’s also really weird that the first spell you locate (we’re back to finding our spells, the main character can’t learn anything) is quake. Quake! That’s endgame shit! Well, not here, but you know what I mean. But there is another reason black magic isn’t useful.

Wizard spells just eat their lunch. It’s black magic but good. I have no idea why thunder was upgraded to a wizard spell away from its blizzard and fire brothers but good for it I guess. If you’re ever in an argument over which basic magic spell is the best one, I guess you can just point to Mystic Quest. Every single wizard spell hits hard. Yes, you have fewer magic charges for those, but they can get you through battles very quickly.

Now you might be thinking having fewer magic charges for wizard spells helps balance things. You might feel desperate enough to actually use quake or something! But no, because…

“This item conservation business is hard work. I run out of MP or mana or magic or whatever weird thing halfway through a dungeon and it sucks. Why can’t I just buy ethers easily? Rydia should be able to nuke at will. Also why are there like eight different potions? What’s the difference?”

MQ offers you the ability to purchase MP restorative items called seeds. Seeds are fairly cheap for how effective they are. You only need to spend something like 25GP to get one and there really isn’t much to spend your money on so it’s pretty easy to get a whole horde of them to carry you through the majority of the game.

By the time I unlocked White, which was immediately my best spell by a country mile because it targets every enemy and hits them for a respectable amount of damage, I basically exclusively used that ability. There was no reason not to because why would I conserve? Yeah I only had like four wizard spell charges but the second I run out, I can just pop some seeds and go right back to town. It makes battles go blazingly fast but it just lowers the already low difficulty level. I am not kidding when I say I barely used black magic. I do not think I ever ran out of black magic charges. Wizard charges though? Wewie brother, I was popping those seeds like mad to keep it up. I think by the end of the game I had eight charges, which felt luxurious. I could make it through eight battles without opening the item menu!

There are other consumable items, but just like with seeds, you don’t ever have to second guess using them. You only have one type of potion that cures something like 300 HP. They are littered all over the map and you can also buy them. You get bombs and arrows but around every other corner there is a treasure chest that contains 10 bombs or a merchant that will sell you a bomb for 10 GP. It’s so wild going from playing Final Fantasy I, a game that demands the player horde their items like some sorta dragon, to playing MQ, a game where you have such an embarrassment of riches that tossing out an item here or there just doesn’t matter. Nothing matters! Why I could say this is a commentary on the haves and have-nots in society but I don’t have enough brain power to activate a think piece like that.

“I keep getting lost. I don’t know where Mysidia or Myst or Riven or whatever is and it’s seriously driving me insane.”

The world map as you know it is completely gone. Instead, you get what looks like a Super Mario World map.

You just guide your little protagonist to the next area and go from there. You usually go to a town and talk to a bunch of NPCs and one of them will say something like “hey bro, go to the bone yard to get the earth crystal” and then a new map will open up for you to explore and you go from there. There’s no fear of getting lost or deciphering NPC dialogue to determine where certain towns are. I mean, as someone who gets lost all the time in real and fictional life, I certainly appreciate that there are people looking out for me. But this format really hampers this era of Final Fantasy where world exploration really feels like it’s part of the experience. A map of this style wouldn’t come around again until Final Fantasy X and X-2, where I feel it’s handled a lot better for what those games are going for.

Part of the leveling process of old Final Fantasy titles was running into random battles while you desperately searched for where to go next. Since that’s no longer the case, Square implemented 10 encounter long “battlefields” throughout the map. You just fight 10 battles, one at a time, and at the end you get an award…sometimes. Other times it’s just a bunch of EXP. So if you ever feel underleveled, just do those. I did them all because I hate myself and try to do every objective that comes across as long as it’s reasonable, but the average person can just skip these. I do not see ‘being underleveled’ as a problem many people will have with this game.

Probably the strangest part of this title is when at the very end you need to backtrack for an item called the Thunder Rock. Since you don’t need to get into an airship to fly to a different part of the world, you just move your character across the map city by city until you get to where you need to go. Then you go into the city, talk to the NPC, and then go back. There isn’t a boss battle, the NPC doesn’t give you any narrative, there’s no trick – you just get your item and that’s that. It takes like five minutes and I can’t understand the purpose of it. It’s like in a modern game when you need to flip a power switch but oh no! The power is out! You need to flow power to it in order for the switch to work! It just comes across as pointless padding.

“I never know when I’m going to get into a battle. Cecil will just be walking around and POW I’m in a fight. That’s so annoying, I’m just trying to become a Paladin.”

For the first time in the franchise, random battles are completely gone. Instead, you just see enemies on the world map. They are always in the same spot no matter what you do and they will always reload if you exit the dungeon or whatever you’re doing, but you can avoid excessive battles if you want to. Even though the implementation of encounters is kind of basic and makes the world feel very artificially created, it’s still nice to see this in a SNES Square game. They would later go on to do this better in Super Mario RPG. Really if you look at the basics of how this game operates and then compare it to Super Mario RPG, it’s very similar. One is just way better and actually did convince people to try this strange turn-based genre and the other is Mystic Quest.

For mainline Final Fantasy titles, non random encounters would not appear for quite a while. I don’t count XI in this because an MMO with random encounters seems absurd, so the first single player game you see this in is Final Fantasy XII. Encounters have been not-so-random since then. It’s interesting that they kept that staple of the franchise in for so long since other Square games like the aforementioned Mario RPG and Chrono Cross both ditched them.

“Why are there so many weapons here? Should Cecil use a sword? A bow? No weapons? It’s a little overwhelming.”

Early Final Fantasy games were pretty lenient with what they would allow your characters to use. With I and III it makes a lot of sense because those characters are just avatars for the player, but II and IV were pretty loose with it too. If you’re more familiar with later games in the franchise, you’ll know that they eventually migrated to a system where each character has a weapon dedicated to them. You can’t have Squall equip one of Quistis’s whips for example.

Mystic Quest dumbs this down to the point of just removing the ability to equip things entirely. Yes, you will find new weapons and armor, but they will just stack onto your character and replace what they had beforehand. If you get a sword upgrade, you can’t switch back to the old sword. You just have your new blade. Going to the equipment screen is just for reference. Your character has access to four weapons (sword, axe, a grappling hook-like thing and a bomb) and you can switch between them as much as you like by pressing R and L. In old Final Fantasy titles, flying enemies were often weak to bows but not very many other enemies had weaknesses related to physical attacks. That is not quite the case here, with multiple enemies having weaknesses to your various weapons. I would like to think this is to make up for how shallow the magic system is.

To me, the way this works comes across like an old Zelda game. I’m thinking Link’s Awakening here. You get your seashells and then you get your fancy new sword and the old one just vanishes. That works pretty well for a more action-focused game but in a turn-based RPG, I think it takes some of the player agency away. What if I wanted to have a challenge run and equip really weak items? I guess you could just avoid all treasure chests if you really wanted to but…oh who am I kidding, who the heck would try a challenge run of Mystic Quest?

“The overworld is so boring. All you can do is walk and talk to people. You can’t even swing your sword out there!”

Speaking of Zelda, I feel this part of Mystic Quest was probably designed with games like Zelda in mind. In the overworld, your character can take various actions. You can swing your sword or axe, you can blow up certain rock or bone formations with your bombs or you can use your grappling hook-like-thing to climb up walls. You can also jump! This leads to some dungeons having some very light puzzle elements. Combined with how massive some of these places are – seriously the dungeons here are about as long as Final Fantasy II’s and definitely longer than most of IV’s – you have some really annoying levels.

My least favorite was probably the ice temple. This might have been my emulator legal SNES playing tricks on me, but this was the one place in the game where random encounters were turned back on. Enemies were still stationary but I couldn’t see them, so it felt like an older game. That dungeon was like a giant maze where you had to jump carefully over things, fall down multiple floors and flick switches with your sword to open new paths. Combining that with the non-random battles, it was probably the most miserable I have felt playing one of these games so far. I was trying to figure out where the hell to go and then every fifth step I’d have to fight some battle and it’d really break the flow of things.

The jumping thing leads to some really unfun positioning puzzles that require you to leave the area and come back in some way. They aren’t hard by any means, but with the glacially slow walking speed it sure is annoying putting blocks in the right place. This game would have been a lot more tolerable if it kept things simple. But hey, it’s neat that jumping made its debut here. The next Final Fantasy title to try that was X-2 and it was in very limited quantities. You couldn’t jump on will until XV. No, MMOs do not count.

“This story is too wacky. Some moon guy hypnotized some guy named Golbez and also Golbez is your brother? A little kid fell into some weird dimension and aged into an adult? What the fuck is a Namingway? Also those fakeout deaths had me sweating.”

MQ is like a meeting ground between NES-style Final Fantasy storytelling and the FFIV style. The overall narrative is very straight forward – the crystals have been shut off and the world is fucked and you need to fix everything. You go to four distinct areas and fight your new version of the four fiends and then you find out the true master behind it all and deal with him. NPCs have more dialogue here than they do in the older games, but it’s more flavor text than anything.

You don’t actually learn anything about your character though, he’s just a plucky brave kid trying to save the day. There are no character arcs to be seen here, but your entire cast is still well more defined than the main cast of II I suppose. It’s not bad or anything like that, it’s just exceptionally dull. It feels like a giant step backwards from Final Fantasy IV.

Now you might remember IV had a lot of fakeout deaths. I would like to think this was based on feedback from Final Fantasy II, but whatever. Some characters are gone for hours of game time only to pop back later.

Here, there is exactly one time a character is seen to be in mortal danger. You’re walking along a bridge and some bad guys attack you. Your party member of the hour, Reuben, bravely sacrifices himself so you can escape. You aren’t even allowed to think he’s dead for a millisecond as the screen pans down so he can assure your protagonist that he’s okay and you just move on. Come on Reuben, the enemies in this area were kinda weak, I probably could have just cast White and finished them! There was no need for that kind of bravery!

“So if I lose and I didn’t save, that’s it? I lost hours of progress?”

Here is what the game over screen of Mystic Quest looks like:

If you click no, it just restarts the battle from the beginning. It’s a convenient feature because you will waltz your way into an accidental death or two, but it makes marching into any battle feel bereft of consequences. Going into battle and just mashing on the A-button over and over again will usually get the job done anyway, but if you blindly do it and get yourself killed, it’s cool. Just try again.

I think retries are fine. It’s just that this game is already so devoid of challenge that placing a little player inconvenience there wouldn’t really hurt. You can already save whenever you want, so even if you did die to a random battle, odds are you wouldn’t lose a whole lot of progress. Still, a feature like this is console generations ahead of its time. Very few games just send you back to the title screen anymore. It’s just a little weird to see such convenience in a 90s RPG for the SNES.

“That music sure kicks ass”

You’re damn right it does and I can say that Mystic Quest also has an excellent soundtrack. The main composer credited is Ryuji Sasai and he turns in a performance that is different from what you’d hear from Nobuo Uematsu, but is still one that you won’t want to mute.

I’ve mentioned the walking speed very briefly before, but let me reiterate: it’s slow. Like, heinously so, to the point that I think most players would probably drop this game without utlizing an emulator’s fast forward function. If this game had a bad soundtrack, I truly believe most people would bail in order to play something a little more fast paced. The music here truly carries MQ and in some ways saves it. This is a game almost nobody talks about anymore and yet it earned a place in the most recent Theatrythm (Final Fantasy rhythm game) title. That’s impressive! I don’t think it’s a top-tier Final Fantasy OST by any means but it could have been so much worse. Like, have you played Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood? …If not, please don’t.

While I may have come off as slightly harsh on this game, please understand that there are things I do like about it. It’s not one of the worst games ever made, or even close to it really, but it’s painfully boring and slow. It feels like a weird missing link between the Famicom titles and Final Fantasy IV, even though it was released AFTER IV came out. The cover art does say “Entry-Level Role Playing Adventure” so I guess they do try to warn you a little bit.

Notable characters

For the playable characters, this title does not include character portraits like the mainline games do. So I grabbed character portraits from the instruction manual (thanks to the Final Fantasy wiki) so you could get an idea as to what your heroes are supposed to look like. The chibified character art is pretty common in the series up to this point, as seen in the Super Famicom cover for Final Fantasy IV.

I like that the art style can at least be tied to the original series.

Protagonist

Here is the very first screen you are greeted with in Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest

It starts out totally blank, implying that there is no true name for this fella. However, if you open the instruction manual, you will find out that his name is Benjamin. Very cool. I decided to just name him after myself, like any good middle schooler would do. “Benjamin” is the only character in the game that you get to name. So if you wanted a group of you and your best bros to take on the Dark King, well, too bad. I have referred to him as ‘the protagonist’ up to this point in this retrospective, so I will continue to do so. Though if I accidentally call him Benjamin, Benny, Ben or Benmothy…I apologize.

The journey starts with your main character’s village getting destroyed by an earthquake. A mysterious old man shows up and tells him that this is because a group of villains called the “Vile Four” stole the power of the crystals and locked up the Focus Tower, which is at the center of the world and basically brings everyone together.

The old man says that there is a prophecy that states a hero will show up and save the world and wouldn’t you know it, the old fella thinks you’re that hero. Exciting!

The protagonist is the only character you have complete control of for the entire game and yet he spends a lot of the game being outclassed by your other party members because they always join like five-or-so levels above what your protagonist currently is. This changes in the late game when your protagonist has the best magic, but until that point your buddies will often be more useful than you are. Some legendary hero! I guess he’s by far the most useful character by the end of things, so it all works out.

Kaeli

Early on in the game, the protagonist travels to the Level Forest – a bad name for one of the first areas in the game, made me think the fire area would be called Level Lava or something – and discovers it is in bad shape. He takes a withered branch and presents it to Kaeli who is something of a nature lover and vows to go to the forest and help you fix it. It’s unveiled that an evil minotaur is poisoning everything in the vicinity and he also poisons Kaeli, but that doesn’t stop her from helping you send the Minotaur packing to save the forest. She still collapses from all this and your main character must now focus on saving her! Wouldn’t you know it though, the cure for her illness is in the BONE DUNGEON which is also where your first crystal is. How about that! Her illness leads to one of my favorite exchanges in the game.

It gives me some serious “LOOK MOM IT’S A DIGIMON, IT’S NOT A POKEMON, THEY ARE DIFFERENT.”

Kaeli’s defining combat characteristic is that she has an axe. It makes her very useful against creatures of the forest, like evil trees, because they are weak to axes. She comes back later in the game with an even better axe to use against even more evil trees. Heck, you enter a giant tree during her return to root out the evil in th…wait a minute, did Ocarina of Time steal from Mystic Quest!?

I think they hint a couple of times about her having romantic feelings towards the protagonist, but I might have been trying to find a character where there wasn’t one.

Tristam

Your mandatory ninja companion! You meet him while trying to save Kaeli and he agrees to let you have the elixir if you help him clear out the BONE DUNGEON. This works out because, as I said, the earth crystal is there. He sells you explosives once you get there, which will go on to become one of the most important items in the game.

When you get your single fake death in the game, Tristam rejoins you very briefly. Like 20 minutes later you run into another character who says he might have found a treasure somewhere and Tristam immediately takes him at his word and fucks off for the rest of the game. Well until the credits. I had a good laugh at him leaving you at the mere suggestion of treasure though. Maybe this fella was inspiration for everybody’s favorite Final Fantasy ninja, Yuffie Kisaragi.

Tristam uses ninja stars, which are not an infinite resource. I never ever came close to running out of ninja stars so I don’t know what happens if you ever do, but the number ticks down every time you attack so I figure it’s worth noting. He teases you early on with a grappling hook only to just give you one for free later on, which is very nice of him.

Tristam is probably in your party less than any other character in the game and that probably makes him my favorite one. As they say, absence makes the heart grow fonder!

Phoebe

You meet Phoebe while you are trying to find your second crystal. Her hometown, Aquaria, has been frozen over because the water temple has been taken over by an evil Ice Golem in the Ice Pyramid. Killing the golem frees Aquaria. Phoebe is the character you probably have in your party the most, simply because she is your companion for the final boss of the game, the Dark King. You’d think it would give her more of a character, but no. The only thing you need to know about Phoebe is that she loves her town and that her grandfather likes to dig a lot.

From a gameplay perspective, Phoebe hits really hard with her arrows and has the highest magic stats in the game. She has access to a wizard spell in thunder, which is extremely useful when you recruit her. During the final stretch of the game, she gets access to the White spell and has 10 wizard charges which is really nice. But for me, she was basically just around to heal the protagonist if he got put under a status effect or something. He has access to more powerful skills, so even if his magic stats are technically weaker, he still is more valuable than Phoebe because Phoebe can’t cast flare.

She’s also your partner during the most annoying part of the game, which most definitely put her in a negative light in my eyes. I cannot stress how much I hated the Ice Pyramid.

Reuben

Your final party member! Hey you make four friends and the main bad guys are called “The Vile Four.” Do you think there’s a correlation there? Who can say. You meet Reuben when you’re trying to find the fire crystal. He tells you his dad knows where it is, but his dad is trapped behind a boulder somewhere and he needs your help to save him! So everyone wins by this alliance. Reuben is the first party member you get who doesn’t seem like he wants to ditch you, so the game invents a reason for him to ditch you by giving him the half-a-second fakeout death I mentioned above. How rude. He comes back later to help you reach the final dungeon but quickly leaves again.

Reuben hits really hard but his magic skills aren’t terribly useful. The first time you get access to him, the only spell he knows is Life. Life is handy in case an emergency happens, but it’s not something you would get a use out of in every encounter. He returns with White much later on, but much like Phoebe, by the time he returns to the protagonist, your main character is just too strong. He’s there to support and keep ya moving. By the end of the game, I was pretty ready for it to be over so maybe I’m being unfair to these guys, but if the protagonist can solo most everything so efficiently, why would I shake things up?

Spencer

When grabbing screens for this game, I forgot to grab some for characters I thought were important. Every single stinking picture of Spencer I have in my FINAL FANTASY: MYSTIC QUEST folder is from a side profile, the end of the game with the entire main cast that would be really weird to use here or from the back like this. So I went ahead and attached my favorite Spencer screen and just hastily placed front-facing Spencer on there. There might be one or two more guys I do this with. Plus I just love this dialogue exchange because Spencer just likes digging. Dudes rock, ya know?

Spencer is Phoebe’s grandfather. He is trying to dig a tunnel from underneath Phoebe’s hometown of Aquaria all the way to a lake where another important character, Captain Mac, is trapped. The goal of this is to get Aquaria’s water into the dried lake where Mac is stuck. A one man digging operation seems like the most efficient way to do this, sure. Unfortunately Aquaria is frozen over when you reach that area and Spencer is trapped down in his little tunnel. Not to worry, his plight is why Phoebe joins your party, so his suffering is your gain. When Spencer gets free, our good friend Tristam lures him away from his work with the promise of a treasure hunt. He bails and then in the best scene of the whole game, Phoebe gets frustrated and throws a bomb in an effort to complete the tunnel really quickly but this fails and just destroys this guy’s hard work.

Despite not really needing his zany tunnel anymore, he goes back to it at the end of the game to continue digging. Even though Spencer doesn’t get a ton of dialogue, he came across as a crazy old coot (kinda like FFIV’s take on Cid) to me and I found him very charming.

Arion

This Indiana Jones looking guy is Arion. He is Reuben’s father and a major reason why that particular rapscallion joins your party. Just like with Spencer, the crystals going haywire has trapped him somewhere. In Arion’s case, he’s trapped behind a boulder that can only be destroyed by mega grenades (an upgrade for your bombs that Tristam so nicely hooked you up with). Once you save him, he just tells you where the Fire Crystal is, which allows you to finish up your journey through the fire nation.

Arion is also the NPC that you have to visit for that garbage fetch quest I mentioned above regarding the thunder rock, so I am inclined to dislike him a little bit.

Otto

This guy’s full name is apparently Otto CID Bekenstein. That’s right, even Mystic Quest has a Cid! Now I didn’t encounter this anywhere in the game myself, but I read it online and I choose to believe it. It also makes sense because Cid is a mechanic which falls in line with every single incarnation of Cid ever up until this point.

Otto operates a machine that generates a rainbow road, which would help the party get to the wind crystal that is located in Pazuzu’s tower and doubles as a sick go-kart track. Pazuzu is one of the Vile Four, for the record. His daughter just so happens to be trapped there too, but unfortunately there is a lot of wind disturbance going around and his machine is broken so he tasks your crew with fixing that and then saving his daughter. He’s also involved with the thunder stone fetch quest I mentioned earlier, so I can’t say that I’m a fan.

Since this is the last time I’ll mention it, I’ll just explain it real quick. The thunder stone is used to power up the rainbow bridge machine so that the bridge extends to Spencer’s zany tunnel, which allows your party to get to Captain Mac and his boat, which then allows you to get to the end of the game. Cool? Cool.

Captain Mac

Mac is Kaeli’s father and goes on an expedition at the start of the game to learn more about the prophecy that states a warrior will take down the Vile Four and restore the crystals. Unfortunately while he is sailing, crystal shenanigans occur and his boat is stranded in a dry lake. Using the powered up rainbow machine, your protagonist proceeds to set off another bomb in Spencer’s place which floods the lake Mac’s boat is stuck in. Whenever you reach the captain, he informs you that there was more to the prophecy than anybody realized. He states that the true fiend behind this is someone who is commanding the Vile Four: The Dark King. You then can take his boat, head to Focus Tower and finish the game.

Mac is strange because I feel like the game talks a lot about him before he shows up, but when looking over my notes while writing this section, I have towards the end “I still don’t really know who Mac is.” He’s important because he unveils the mastermind of everything, but I’m not sure how everybody in the world knows who he is or why Spencer is trying desperately to save him. I guess all we need to know is 1. he’s an explorer 2. he’s Kaeli’s dad 3. he has found some neat information and 4. he gives you his boat.

White or "Mysterious old guy"

Throughout your journey to save the crystals and the world, a weird old guy will pop in and give you vague information and then go away. He seems to know a lot about the workings of this world and he shows up a lot to sort of guide you along. You might even briefly think that he knows too much, but at the end of the game the nature of the mysterious old man is revealed.

He’s a crystal! Like, you know, one of the tentpoles of the franchise at this point? Kind of an interesting idea for a character reveal because it makes sense that a crystal would be interested in saving the crystals, but I wish this idea had been explored in a Final Fantasy game that actually has an interesting narrative. Wait…I activated and rescued all four crystals. How could he contact me while deactivat-

The title screen hinted at this. Five crystals! It’s right there! Well played.

The Vile Four

The Four Fiends return again and just like in the Famicom titles, they even come back from the dead at the very end of the game as part of a little boss gauntlet during the final dungeon. In the above compilation, the original bad guy is on the left while the revived one is on the right. The little fella in the middle is the overworld sprite of the original encounter. The final dungeon is probably my favorite dungeon of the game because it reminds me of Hyrule Castle in Ocarina of Time. What I mean by that is it’s comprised of tiny bite-size portions of the major dungeons you’ve encountered so far. This part of the game is pretty straight forward, so even the annoying ice pyramid isn’t so bad when it only lasts two screens. I’m just a sucker for when a game puts you through a microcosm of itself. It’s a trip down memory lane!

As for the boss fights themselves? They all kind of run together. The only one that requires any strategy is Pazuzu because there is a brief period during battle where he will counter your magic abilities. It is one of the few times the game outright forces you to ‘strategize’ so it stands out. The rest are just ‘cast a big spell and heal’ so I will take what I can get.

The Dark King

Here’s the final boss of the game. He’s the only baddie in MQ with multiple forms. He has four of them and in the little grid above they are ordered clockwise starting in the top left. There doesn’t seem to be any differences in the four forms as far as combat goes, so just look at it as a way to tell your progression. My favorite one is his second form because he looks like a poor man’s Gilgamesh from other Final Fantasy titles. Just like every other non-Pazuzu boss, all you need to do is hit him hard and heal and you’ll be fine. Somehow he is harder than the final boss of Final Fantasy II, but to be fair I used a blood sword when dealing with that boss so I might have had an unfair advantage.

As our good friend Captain Mac told us, the Dark King is the one behind everything. He’s the key to all of this. He has basically no personality outside of “boss of the bad guys.” It’s not quite a Necron situation because you’re explicitly told he’s the main bad guy by Mac before the final dungeon even starts and wait shouldn’t White have told you about him? He should know about this guy! Oh whatever. He’s evil and you need to kill him. Simple as that.

It started here

I’m not going to pretend later Final Fantasy games pilfered ideas from Mystic Quest, but I still wanted to point a couple of things out. Think of these as an early cameo.

No overworld, retries instead of a game over

Both mentioned above. The no overworld thing is interesting because every mainline Final Fantasy title would have one until Final Fantasy X. Then they just kinda vanish until Final Fantasy XV. That’s not to say other SquareSoft titles evaded an overworld, the other beginner friendly Square title Super Mario RPG also chose to go with a level select screen, but it’s definitely interesting to see a SNES title with Final Fantasy branding just not have that.

Battle damage

I would like to think focus groups were bothered by how you just can’t tell how much health random enemies have (without casting magic that explicitly tells you), so their solution to this problem was having enemies have different sprites based on how much health they have. It’s fun when you one-hit a bad guy because their battle damaged form will pop up very briefly before they vanish entirely. It’s actually admirable how they gave every enemy multiple sprites because not even later Final Fantasy games do that, usually the only characters to show a ‘weakened’ state are boss monsters. Going back to Final Fantasy X, a lot of bosses show fatigue when they’re close to going down but I can’t think of a single regular encounter that has enemies acting differently when they’re about to die. Mighta been kinda nice for when you’re fighting Sand worms or a Zu, ya know?

My favorite sprite in the game is the werewolf as seen above (you thought I forgot about that in my character recap? hah!) He’s CLEARLY waving a white flag. He’s surrendering to you! And yet the protagonist must wail away on him anyway to get that sweet EXP. My second favorite is the little Edgehog because it looks like he got a bad haircut. It’s cute.

Bosses have multiple damage sprites, which helps give character to those battles and helps those characters stand out from the rank-and-file. Hey man, the battles themselves aren’t that interesting so they gotta do something, right? The Dark King seems to eschew battle damage to give you forms, which I think is a poor substitution because it just makes the Dark King stand out as the only bad guy in the game who doesn’t show proof of your prowess.

Spin-offs

Now you might try to take me to task by claiming that Final Fantasy Legend or Final Fantasy Adventure count as the first spin-off titles but I disagree. Those were SaGa and Mana games that got rechristened so a North American audience might be willing to try something new. Mystic Quest, from the ground up, was designed to be a Final Fantasy spin-off title. It may not be the greatest game ever, but there are roughly 83,000,000 Final Fantasy spin-off titles now and this is where they start.

Before you ask, no, I’m not going to do retrospectives on every Final Fantasy spin-off game. The only other one I plan on doing right now is Final Fantasy Tactics. I will be doing select sequels (like X-2), but I don’t consider those spin-offs. I chose to recap Mystic Quest because it was the first major spin-off title and it is also what Westerners got instead of Final Fantasy V.

In conclusion

This is likely a game many people wouldn’t even bother with (myself included) if the words FINAL FANTASY were missing from the title. It’s a game that would probably be forgotten to history if it wasn’t for those two simple words. It’s not absolutely horrible by any means, it’s just dull and forgettable. A middling title in a sea of more interesting Super Nintendo games.

I think if Square’s aim was to get Western children into RPGs, this was a bad way to do it. They would eventually figure it out with Super Mario RPG, but I don’t think a playthrough of Mystic Quest would convince anybody to try out Final Fantasy IV or the relatively soon-to-be-released Final Fantasy VI.

[rehncohro]

I'm just making sure, is the post relating to Live Action K-on and Love Live a joke?

They're as real as me saying Chris Pratt voices Chika in a Sunshine redub.

[theniftycat]

is mfu funny?

sometimes. it can be funny in many different ways. sometimes you'll laugh at the production (like in The Neptune Affair where they had to redub the word "freon" and change it to "hydro", but didn't have enough time to get the actors back, so everyone was redubbed by the same guy which was super jarring). sometimes you'll laugh at the ridiculousness of its plots (like The Bat Cave Affair which featured a guy who just randomly was Dracula). sometimes you'll laugh at the blatancy of gay/kink subtext (like The Children's Day Affair which even in its name alludes to the scandalous Children's Hour, jfc) sometimes it's even intentionally funny.

is mfu subversive?

yes. it reinvented itself every season, it did everything from parody to angst. the whiplash could kill you.

does mfu explore cool concepts?

a zombie Hitler? a gang of killer blonde lesbians? a de-aging gas? a fear gas? programming Illya to kill Napoleon? idk what counts as cool to you, I was very well fed.

is mfu relatable?

Illya and Napoleon are literally two halves of my personality.

is mfu artistic?

in the way it gets away with gay subtext.

does mfu have great characters?

yes, of all time.

is mfu objectively good?

like 1/10 of it is. if you want good episodes, look at the top-rated ones on imdb.

is mfu a masterpiece?

it is. to me.

is the universe in mfu kind or cold?

it can be both, babey. get ready to get whipped.

there are many reasons why I can enjoy a show. some of them are funny, others are subversive, some explore cool concepts, some are relatable, some are very artistic, some are objectively good, some have great characters, some are just masterpieces.

like, Good Omens is funny, subversive, has a cool concept, and great characters.

Yonderland is funny, subversive, has a cool concept, is very artistic.

Succession is funny, very artistic, objectively good, has good characters, is a masterpiece.

The Terror has a cool concept, great characters, is objectively good.

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power is subversive, has a cool concept, great characters, is very artistic.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E., on the other hand, is simply the best show in the world.

[trcelyneart]

OBAN Star Racers 15th Anniversary

Hi fellow Oban fans!

As I said in a previous post, today was the celebration of Oban’s 15th anniversary, which was held in Paris in a little cinema. It was obviously hosted by Savin Yeatman-Eiffel himself, as well as Stanislas Brunet who worked on the mecha and background designs.

So it went like this: Savin made a presentation about the series in itself, how the idea came to be, the first sketches made by himself and his friends, and all the struggles he and Sav! The World studios faced during the production. The hardest part was finding funds to produce the series, since making a single episode can cost up to half a millions euros.

The French VAs of Molly and Aikka were there too, and they redubbed one of the scenes live! The funniest part was that the guy who did Aikka’s voice is a tall, bearded, burly guy with the kind of voice you’d expect from a dude with that build; and yet when he did Aikka’s part I was speechless!!! Then Savin invited two people in stage to redo the dub for fun. The girl who did it had a voice that strangely sounded like Molly’s, but the poor guy who did Aikka’s part probably didn’t remember the passage well despite the subtitles and stammered a lot. But it was nice!

Savin had planned to talk about The Two Queens movie but he didn’t have the time. I asked him about the project afterwards, and he told me that he still wanted to do it, but like Oban, he had troubles funding it. By the time he pitched it, Netflix was not into funding indie projects yet. He also started working on other projects with several studios so The Two Queens had to unfortunately be put on stand-by.

And then. OH THEN. He talked about the thing we ALL wanted to know:

The Sequel

Savin explicitly asked us to not film or take pictures, so I won’t talk about it in detail. But basically there is not one, but THREE project ideas:

1) A sequel based on the picture released back in 2017 with a brand-new plot but still related to the Oban lore. He doesn’t know if the girl would be Molly or Molly’s descendant.

2) An Aikka spin-off prequel. I WAS SO HYPED.

3) A sequel where Molly takes up on Aikka’s offer to visit his planet.

He tested the waters to see which project seemed to please us the most, which was project 1 - I told him, to quote my own words “I’m team Aikka, so my hype for the second project is HELLA BIG, but I honestly won’t care I’m willing to pull out the chekbook as long as it’s Oban related” - and project 2 was rather popular but we suggested he switched media (like making a comic).

I asked him the same question I asked Thomas Romain when I met him at the Japan Expo Sud back in 2018: could we help funding it through Kickstarter for example? Unfortunately, like the original series, we’re talking about millions of euros here so we can’t help that much.

Then we moved on to the next part: VIDEO GAMES. There was a Nintendo DS game originally planned but the studio let him down at the last minute. He showed us some footage of the game which looked quite good (mid-2000s DS game relatively speaking).

He also officially announced that today was released an Oban fangame via Playstation Dreams called Oban Star Racers Dreams by Sky Isle Studios.

There’s also another game - still in its project phase - for PC which would hopefully be released in a few years.

Last but not least: if you guys follow Savin Yeatman-Eiffel on twitter, you might know that he got back the rights of Oban and has been gradually collecting the dubs that had been made (apparently the Brazilian release stopped at ep 18, which means they never got the end!!) to re-release the series as blu-ray. The said blu-ray collection will be up on Kickstarter in Frebruary 2022, with several stretch goals and packs - from the complete OST digital release to packs with original drawings and figurines - so stay tuned!

Although he knows the fandom never died, Savin hopes that we can gather new people and touch a larger public. I suggested for example to release the show on Netflix, because it will find some new public!

[sobsicles]

I spy in your tags that you recently read Beat Sheet. What did you think of it??? It's one of my favorites to go insane over

okay so i should really put out a well thought out fic rec later or something because ive read some recent bangers, but beat sheet was my most recent (psalm 40:2 before that and oh buddy, if you haven't read it, please go do that), so lemme get into that.

first, i don't often read many au's. like not really non-supernatural ones that don't have supernatural elements. for example, my favorite au is a mermaid fic by the lovely malmuses, and it has canon elements. things like college fics and coffee shop au's are lovely when im in a certain mood for them, but i usually tend to want to get punched in the face by canon repeatedly because i am...ridiculous, honestly.

anyways, a friend recommended beat sheet to me, and i had seen it a couple of times and was like huh, maybe i will one day, but my buddy was like sobs, go dip your toes into it and if it suits your fancy, go wild. needless to say, it suited my fancy, and i went very wild.

the whole subplot thing? literally didn't see it coming. literally was like, this journey dean is on is the main plot. the way i was so hooked into and relating to what dean was going through and like, having a meltdown about dean's friendship with charlie (my automatic tear trigger for reasons of which i could expand on if you like) and also just like. getting lost in the sauce the same way dean literally was. yeah. so when everything happened, i was like 😟 and just soooo taken in by it all. literally was losing my mind. also the characterization of literally everyone??? yes good. loved it so much. i hit chapter 10 and redubbed it as chapter "make sobs an emotional wreck" and saw that it was good.

also SPOILERS, this snippet that i screenshotted because it's more canon than canon and hit me like a gut punch:

[ihopesocomic]

Funny thing about The Animals Of Farthing Woods is that the first season was abridged for American audiences called The Journey Home: The Animals Of Farthing Wood. The first season was abridged for American audiences as a 78 minute film. Several characters where redubbed including Fox, (played by Ralph Macchio) Adder, and Weasel. On top of that several musical numbers where added. (Pretty hilarious for a mature show from Britain)

American producers taking something British and filling it with "better known celebrities" and adding weird musical numbers? In related news: the grass is green. lol - RJ

(but yes, I've seen clips. It's quite a trip hearing Fox with an American accent haha)

[usaghinanami99]

Urgh, yeah, that may seem like a small difference at first glance, but those two sentences really do convey different meanings, and one of them outright goes against the very basis of Takeuchi's worldbuilding... The misogyny shown by the anime's translation choice (having to translate the exact same original Japanese line as the manga's translator, so with even less excuses) is appalling, but it wouldn't be the first time the Viz version pulls off something super in line with liberal-leaning political correctness: I've read comments from English fans stating that the new redub of the old anime series has censored some homophobic comments made by the characters - which is hilariously the opposite of what the first dub did, and goes more towards a line I personally agree with, but I still deem it wrong to rewrite the past like this. But the worst has to be how the Viz English dub of the Sailor Stars season has characters outright use "they" pronouns for the Three Lights/Starlights (even when there's only one of them I mean, lol), which is an outright case of rewriting history since the anime was written and is set in a period when non-binariness hadn't been invented yet and certainly was not on anyone's radar in Japan, not to mention how it's very clear that the three of them undergo an actual, physical sex change when they transform (which we obviously know goes against Takeuchi's lore and worldbuilding but alas), not that they've got some sense of inner gender identity. Please keep in mind that I'm just reporting second-hand accounts though, since I've never watched the anime in English, either original or redub (though I have listened to the Dic soundtrack, which I appreciate far more than Arisawa's annoying BGM, lol), and I'm not even a fan of the old anime regardless of language, so please take these statements with a grain of salt. 😅 But I guess that "artistic liberties" like this are what happens when you give too much freedom to localisation agencies, and in the specific case of the English language it's been almost a constant, going through the Dic dub of seasons 1-2, the Cloverway dub of seasons 3-4, the Viz redub of seasons 1-5 and the Viz dub of Crystal 1-3... a constant that's been broken with the Netflix dub of Crystal 4, where the Japanese supervision upon *all* foreign language versions was so tight that it brought us this atrocious result: https://twitter.com/NJ_/status/1400346635935305728 What can I say, I'd much rather go for heavy creative liberty to foreign localisation - even if they come up with crazy and frankly pathetic results like the English ones mentioned above or the Italian dub of Sailor Stars - than having to witness this disgrace. Here's hoping that Crystal 5 will be granted decent, professional adaptations instead of following the trend set by its predecessor. 😓

-Insert rant here about how SM fans obsessed with political purity pretend that Takeuchi is a gendie like them ignoring all proofs to the contrary and treat disagreeing with this ideology like a mortal sin... But then they turn around and ignore all the little signs that Takeuchi is borderline a pa*do apologist if not outright fan.- I keep on giving them the benefit of the doubt because these signs are all in the form of little details that only someone who's researched Naoko Takeuchi's life and times very deeply and extensively could ever be aware of, so it's realistic to think that a portion of fans might be genuinely unaware of them... But if they were more coherent in their ways, the more knowledgeable fans would spread this information everywhere to cancel Takeuchi and claim that Sailor Moon is now theirs to own, instead of pretending this stuff doesn't exist and keeping the rest of the fandom in the dark. But I guess being a borderline supporter of paedop*rnography is not so heavy a sin as being a feminist in their mind. 🤢

I miss the days when the peak of PC-related discussion in SM spaces was which skin colour Setsuna is meant to have, sigh. But like in almost every other online fandom, The Great Cultural Shift of 2013/14 has made the English-speaking webspaces almost unbearable. I'm glad I can also frequent fora and webpages exclusively geared towards the French and Italian fandoms (where I pretty much only lurk, I stopped being an active member around a decade ago) and see how the worldview that dominates in English fora and social networks is only held by a minority that will never ban you for disagreeing. 😅

UsaMamo is THE OTP for me (as in not only in Sailor Moon, but my favourite fictional couple ever), but so many other characters are head over heels for Usaghi that I could never blame fans for wanting to explore the various possibilities in their head and/or fanworks. Helped by the fact that Usaghi is canonically a bisexual icon, the alternative non-canon ships almost write themselves. But then... who could not love Usaghi, unless they're already in love with someone else? If I were to meet someone so amazing, friendly, positive, inspiring, loving, strong, brave, unapologetic, outspoken, relatable, heroic, helpful and outright life-saving like her in real life, I'd fall for her too. 😍

I know, right?!? Every day it seems like the SM fandom is filled with more and more gendies who claim stuff like how Haruka isn't actually a woman or worse... And what's more, this is far from being the most deranged take I've seen recently, especially now that June has started. But then they'll turn around and claim that SM is actually the pinnacle of feminism in manga, when it's so clearly liberal-leaning and pro-beauty standards that it's anything but. What can I say, the sane people have to stick together! While to be honest I have to say that I don't share your shipping opinions in the slightest, I'd always admire a "rival" like you more than a shipmate who's also a hardcore TQ+ cultist. Sorry if my English isn't exactly the best, I hope I can convey what I want to all the same. ^^

I was absolutely devastated that in Crystal they seriously added the line 'Haruka isn't a man or a woman.' Like... sorry, no. If that was the case then why the hell did Michiru and Haruka get that awful "they're cousins" treatment for the western localization in the OG anime 🙄

I swear ....claiming that SM is a "feminist" work has to do with the fact that people don't want to admit that they enjoy things that aren't politically "pure". Because in their minds it would reflect on who they are as a person, and if something they enjoy isn't perfect, then they aren't either. Tbh I think there's a lot of unchecked narcissistic behavior in fandom communities as a whole 🤦🏻‍♀️

Oh GOSH. My shipping is a mess !! LMAOOO. I should be ashamed of it but I'm so shameless🤣 Tbh i recently started shipping Usagi with practically everyone 😭🤦🏻‍♀️ I'm ©onflicted, that's for sure

but hell yeah, shipping wars be damned, female solidarity til death >:] 😂😂

and omg no, don't even worry! I had no idea English wasn't your first language from your ask!! your message got across Crystal (🤭) clear ♥️