#saint going “you really love me.” in ep 1 to shin going “i love you saint.” in ep 16 is cinema

[srnileforme]

SAINTSHIN + ‘LOVE’

HIGH SCHOOL FRENEMY (2024)

[becausegoodbye]

a few of my favourite albums of 2020

Jogging House - Be ... (plus Morimoto Naoki - Hibi) (plus Green-House - Six Songs for Invisible Gardens ...) (plus Denis Tremblay - SLEEP BETTER IN NOISY CLASSROOMS ...)

2020 was the year I got super into ambient music. There've always been albums I felt worked best nestled into the background, and Brian Eno's 'Ambient 1' has been a favourite for almost a decade, but this year the search took on a different energy. I approach ambient music with an extremely indulgent kind of simplicity  — "Are these pretty sounds that make my ears feel good?" — and there's something really gratifying about setting yourself a question simple enough that you know you'll always be able to answer it. The ambient albums I loved this year I discovered almost entirely through Bandcamp, which is replete with so many tiny cassette labels that you can find ones that cater to every possible sub-calibration of ambient vibe (my personal favourites are Seil, Constellation Tatsu, Aural Canyon, Dauw, Global Patterns, and 梅レコード). It feels a little rude to combine several different albums into the same entry here, but for me, my unwillingness to analyse them is part of their strength. I just put them on and sink into my chair. They feel good the same way a fluffy dressing gown feels good against your skin, or a cat feels good pressing itself against your shin. This year, I decided that it didn't need to be any more complicated than that.

Dan Deacon - Mystic Familiar For a microfiction competition late last year, I wrote a short story about everyone in the world simultaneously deciding to lie down permanently and let the bugs eat us. The idea was to try and describe something intuitively repulsive to us (beetles licking your eyeballs, ants carrying off your flesh) in a way that made it feel meditative and beautiful. Then not even a week later, the video for ‘Sat By a Tree’ came out, which was about almost the exact same thing. This album doesn’t seem to have struck a chord with very many people, and I can get why: the vocals are still too shyly buried for lyrics people, and too nakedly earnest for folks who just want to bliss out. Even I can’t deny that I’d probably like this album more if the vocals were treated differently, or if it were reworked as a totally instrumental piece. But there’s a pursuit in all of Dan’s music that resonates with me on a subdermal level, and it’s carried through on this album beautifully. It’s the quest for density, for something maximal and full enough to approximate the teeming microscopic and macroscopic busyness of life. When I listen to Dan Deacon, I always think about microbes: about how each of us is a teeming metropolis more than a singular being. It’s the missing perspective that allows a person to see that being eaten by bugs isn’t so bad; it’s the most appropriate possible thing that could happen to us. (Emphasis on the ‘us’.)

Waxahatchee - Saint Cloud

Nobody needs me to tell them that Katie Crutchfield is a great songwriter. This is a classic album of heartbreak, of regret, of sobering up: a splint on an arm that’s still holding onto what it’s lost. The lyrics are pitched at this particular allegorical intensity – hells, landslides, scientific cryptograms – and the country-inflected indie-rock instrumentation largely has the sense to simply get out of the way. There’s a sympathetic wisdom to the songs here, focused less on the worst intensities of grief than on the life you figure out how to live afterwards. It’s an arm on your shoulder and an eye to the horizon. 

“You might mourn all that you wasted That's just part of the haul Tangling up all your good fortune Bearing the heart of the fall You won't break it after all”

Dirty Projectors - 5EPs This is silly, incautious conjecture on my part, but Dave Longstreth feels like he's putting in the work of redemption. I was close to writing him off after the arch bitterness of 2017's self-titled record (a break-up album that was nauseatingly heavy on the arrogant self-righteousness), but 2018's Lamp Lit Prose did a lot to re-interest me. Its smile felt forced at times, but its melodies and rhythms were undeniable: reminders of why I was invested in this asshole in the first place. This year, Dirty Projectors put out five separate EPs, the first four each with different lead singers, then everyone coming together on the fifth. It feels as though Longstreth is making a conscious effort to bite his tongue, to clutch his micromanaging hand under the table, so that everyone else can have a chance to breathe and actually enjoy being in this band. The result is a collection of songs with a really pleasurable lightness: not the tortured and perfectionistic Artistic Statements that Longstreth's been prone to over the years, but a pigeon's glide, a coin's flash -- a less ponderous engagement with Longstreth's peculiar musical gravity. It's a lovely bunch of songs even without this projected-on story about Longstreth's personal growth, but try as I might, I can't not hear that story.

Phoebe Bridgers - Punisher

Ambient soothing aside, life's complications still exist, and Phoebe Bridgers is the queen of them. She's the only musician who seems like she thrived in quarantine, somehow cotton-candy-swirling all this loneliness and introspection and yearning and 'fuck it' into an album that feels miraculous and inexhaustible. Punisher is without doubt my favourite album of the year. It's anxious, funny, miserable, and sly. It's a dog-shaped helium balloon majestically floating into the stratosphere. I can't say enough good things about the production side of it, which maintains this perfect illuminated-manuscript balance of enhancing the text/song/scripture without ever overshadowing it. At the centre of it, though, is a songwriter who's figured out how to make every song its own entire world, keening and quaking in resonance with whatever you're going through. This has been a shit sad year, and it’s been a lot better facing that with this album than without it. No question, Phoebe was the year’s MVP. 

[empty-dream]

86 S1 anime is over so time to yell into the abyss

Me, an FGO fan, seeing the illustrators for the light novel: "Hey! I know you! And you!" (It's Shiirabi for the novel illustrations and I-IV for the mecha design)

I mentioned that 86 reminds me a lot of Aldnoah Zero. It turns out pretty different. Personally, I fucking love 86.

Putting aside all my biases, Aldnoah Zero and 86 (season 1, cuz idk how's it going in the light novel) ultimately have different topics altogether.  The former is more about mecha military tactics and political warfare, while the latter focuses on people's relationships and lives in political warfare with mecha in it.

I call this a story of communication and I love it for reasons I'll explain (naturally spoilers)

Imma go read the LN. I can't contain myself anymore. I can't wait until October. My self-restraint is already *THIS* thin.

Character Relationships & Story Dynamics

I love how the story doesn't automatically make Lena a saint and get accepted by the 86 just because she's the only Alba alive on-screen that cares about 86 and wants to fix the Republic. Quite far from that, in fact.

She doesn't really know anything beyond what's presented by Republic and her father. Some of what she says comes off as insensitive because she doesn't know the real situation. She doesn't even know the story of Annette's neighbor, or what the Spearhead squadron really is. It's not that it's her personal fault, it's just that being raised in a privileged family in a privileged race does make a habit in her.

Best discussed in ep 3 and 4 that she gets called out epically for being too idealistic yet never calling Eighty-Six with their real names. She's not intentionally being rude, it's simply out of habit. She's used to believing in her ideals and she's doing good that it never crosses her mind that she's being rude.

Once she's taken in where she is in the wrong, she doesn't run away. She immediately admits her faults and apologizes, then tries to fix her mistake. Even when Theo and Raiden bluntly tell her that they will never accept her as one of them, she doesn't persuade them to. She just strives to do the right thing, this time with more knowledge.

True, idealism/dream alone isn't enough. But idealism/dream is the start of everything.

Everything makes sense after approximately episode 7. How it's all foreshadowed from the beginning. For instance, why the Spearheads are generally more receptive and less snappy to Lena, as opposed to her previous squad. Why they just smile when Lena encourages them to think about what they're gonna do after their service is over. Why there is graffiti in the barrack that says "Welcome to the base closest to heaven'

It all makes sense because they are absolutely gonna die. It isn't gonna cost them anything more anyway to at least listen and humor Lena's attempts to befriend them. It's killing time, like Raiden says. And they have made an oath to 'not become a scum just because they're treated as such.' Besides, it IS their first time getting a Handler like Lena. It's logical that they're at least curious about her.

And this is what I mean by the story of communication. Lena and the squadron never meet face to face, don't even know how the other party looks like. The only way to work together is by listening and by talking. Obviously, as mentioned only Lena thinks that they are friends at first, then it gets very rocky, but slowly they build a relationship, trading stories, state secrets and whatnot, which creates positive trust between them. Lena immediately coming back after (understandably) freaking out during Shin's ghost whisperer session definitely won her a lot of points from the squadron.

So the squadron members start to care about Lena in their own ways. What began as formalities to kill time for them turns into something they get so used to that when she doesn't call, they get quite restless.

And until episode 7, nobody ever tells Lena about the true nature of the squadron. At first, obviously, because why should they? By that point, it's Kurena who dislikes Lena the most who raises the concern here, out of concern for Lena. By the end of the season, they still manage to comfort her, despite never having met and will never cross path again. All because of a bond formed by them talking and listening to each other, every day, for those months.

Which is why the whole thing about Shin and Rei is heartbreaking. They both mean well, but because they can't talk to each other, the already messed up situation becomes more fucked up. Shin goes to hell and back to put Rei to rest, but believes that Rei still does not forgive him. Rei, on the other hand, never even blames Shin and wants to protect him, but the stress led him to strangle Shin and being made a Legion AI clearly worsens his mental capacity. They never get to talk clearly to each other, and that chance only comes at the very end of their bloody battle, when they can finally see eye to eye, through their respective drones. Understandably, Shin is shaken.

Anyway, the world building is well-written. It really does feel like they are adapting a novel.

Characters

I knew from the very beginning that Kirschblüte would be my fav. Guess who dies soon? Guess who keeps appearing or mentioned in each episode? Kaie did this, Kaie said that, I GET IT OK SHE WAS ALIVE AND SHE'S DEAD NOW T_T I love how wise she is and how she has no mouth filter. I relate to the latter part lol.

Daiya crushing hard on Anju is hilarious. Dude has the entire barrack helping him out and still gets no progress. If Haruto is the loud cheeky clown, he's the quieter poor clown lmao.

This might not make any sense, but I had a feeling that I was kinda attached to Haruto somehow, back when I was not attached to him. And then after his off-screen death in ep9, I realized I was attached all along because I cried when I saw his piece. I was glad at least I didn't see his death, AND THEN BOOM EPISODE 10 how fucking rude I lost my shit

Theo won an award for his epic angry callout to Lena in ep 3/4. And I like how honest he is, and the contrast between him and Kaie. Unlike her, who is also blunt but doesn't regret what and how she says because she does mean it, Theo spends an entire episode sulking over the aforementioned callout because he didn't mean to say it like that. Also for a snarky, serious-looking guy, he sure is quick to join Haruto and Daiya's antics, huh.

You know, Anju stands out. Personality and voice actor aside, her hair color looks quite similar to Alba, albeit a different shade. And the length impressively goes down to her thighs. Sure, hair length can be any length in anime, but in this otherwise realistic military camp setting, it sticks out like a sore thumb. None of the girls has the same hair length, not even Lena who lives in luxury and comfort. And you know how the camera sometimes lingers on her noticeably very long hair from the back? Or how she didn't take her clothes off in ep3? After episode 7 and on, now you get it.

I talk a lot about Lena before so I don't know what more to say. But I find it amazing that she decorates her room like it's on the barrack, downright to the stuffed black cat and the glass box to contain the pictures of the fallen members. It's also amazingly humane of her to treat the box like a makeshift graveyard and brings new flowers every day to put it beside it.

At the start of the season, I was wondering what kind of guy Shin is. Well, to put it bluntly, I wondered if he's a self-insert overpowered light novel protagonist. As it turns out, well, sure he's exceedingly strong, quiet, good looking, troubled past, the whole pack, but he is by no means emotionally aloof and stunted. The fact that the squadron trusts him 100% and doesn't shy away from him, and a member of another squadron (Hyades from Lena's initial squad) speaks highly of him, speaks a lot about his integrity. Him picking up Lena's worries just by voice also shows that he is perceptive of others. And the faces he makes when he faces off against Rei is a bit unsettling.

Speaking of Rei, I don't really buy the whole 'Because I'm a member of the Republic, I will fight for it too even when I'm Eighty-Six' thing he says to Lena. While it is such a great answer that it inspires Lena, his backstory with Shin clearly doesn't match what he says.

And the incident with Shin is fucked up. That kind of pressure with your parents killed and you're next will destroy anyone's mind, adult or not. And he knows he's the one at fault, no matter how much he didn't mean to do it. But he never got to apologize to Shin and then he died and got turned into Legion. How scary it is that the will is the same, but the method becomes so twisted.

It's also fucked up that while Shin does not blame Rei, he blames himself instead and thinks Rei really never forgives him. And putting Rei to rest is the only thing left that he can do for his brother. They are both obsessive to get to each other. It's also noticeable that even after Lena talks about how often Rei mentions his little brother, it doesn't cross Shin's mind that if Rei could talk so much about him to a stranger, then maybe he didn't hate him at all. That's how twisted their circumstance is.

I like how Kurena is really the little sister of the squadron. The girls tease her, the boys know she ruins a certain duo's romantic mood without even meaning to, and she really enjoys the time with them. Which is quite understandable when she throws a tantrum in episode 3 about Lena calling every day and taking everyone's time, especially given her shitty experience with Alba people. But everyone in the room is quick to either cover her up or talks privately with her, without raising any tension at all with Lena. I also like the details of her often turning off her PARA-RAID when Lena's talking. But as mentioned, even she gets considerably softer with Lena in the end.

Raiden, meanwhile, is clearly the big brother of the squadron. Perhaps even more than Shin, because unlike Shin, Raiden's way more talkative and gets pissed off when the guys don't do their work. But the romantic side of him is really nice to know, as Shin points out lol. I like how despite their differences, they both can chat and have friendly banters with each other. Plz gimme a story of younger Raiden and younger Shin.

I wish I get to see the other members' marks. I'd like to see what 'Gunmetalstorm' or 'Leukosia' is supposed to look like..

I know that there must be something deeper than 'let-them-eat-cake' attitude that Anette has. But I never thought that there would be such truth. Honestly, Anette and Lena's relationship is slow burn friends to less-than-friends and it's very satisfying in the end.

Love the character designs. As expected of Shiirabi. Everyone looks different with distinct hair and eye colors, some even have distinctly coored eye lashess... 86, that is. The Alba all have silver-white eyes and hair, physical traits that they deem to be superior and worthy to stay in the Republic. Pretty much white supremacy huh.

The Republic's military uniform has pretty color and crisp cuts. But the 86 people do not seem to have any other outfit other than their uniform. And even their uniforms are not exactly uniformed, as it comes with different articles of clothing and different color shades. Probably justified since they are all transferred from various units across the land, but that means for 86 as a whole does not have the same uniform. If you look at the character materials, some are ill-fitting, others are tattered. And everyone wears their uniform as they please, some don't even wear the tops anymore.

I love how you can tell a lot about their backgrounds based on their clothings alone.

It's stated in the light novel that Personal Names are not for everyone. Only the best fighters in the squadron have them. Spearhead squadron meanwhile, EVERYONE has their own personal names and marks. This speaks a lot about their capabilities and why they are called elite soldiers. The anime does not directly mentions this, only the part where they are best combatants. Instead it shows the difference through Lena's screens. In her previous squad, only two people have Personal Names (Pleiades and Hyades, the captain and presumably vice captain of the squadron), while the rest are just numbered generally like A-3, or Squad Leader E. Which means that everyone in the Spearhead squadron were most probably the captains and vice captains of their previous squads.

I love that aside from the main 5, Kaie, Daiya and Haruto, everyone else also have on-screen appearances. Even though some of them are not even voiced. But as long as they are still alive, they show up in the background. And once they die, they no longer do outside of flashbacks. As they die, the numbers of Shin's metal chips and Lena's papers in the glass box add up, while the numbers of active drone lists on her screen and the doodles on her board go down. No animation error about that. It really gives a sense of loss, despite me not knowing more about them. In fact, it makes me feel so sorry that I couldn't know more about them.

OST & Animation & Misc

Sawano Hiroyuki, Kohta Yamamoto, I owe you my life.

Insert songs, multiple ending songs, iconic emotional BGMs, you have it here.

The op song is cool, just not the type of song I'll blast 24/7. Avid, meanwhile is the reason why I picked this series in the first place. Hands up to the Sky used to mean everything is slightly better now, until episode 10 that is.

I know the 'Sawano OSTs all sound the same' joke but I don't care, they are fucking amazing. For me, it's more appropriate to call it 'signature style.'

Animation is amazing. I once heard the notion that A-1 studio can hit or miss, but clearly, they do hit it here. I don't know the technical details about animating mecha, so I won't judge anything about it. But for this one here, it works well.

Also it's pretty funny that in my Twitter timeline at least, the most prominent merchandises are the Lena ones, looking cute, wearing summer outfits and whatever. Meanwhile the actual content of the show is so depressing I took a deep breath every week before watching the new episode.

Just watched 86

If you find me watching mecha it’s definitely not because of the mecha itself.

The Republic San Magnolia lies about them having autonomous mecha; there are unregistered people inside and the military are commanding them from safe place to fight their war. Then a story about one particular major and one particular squadron starts.

I have no knowledge of how light novel goes so this is purely from an anime viewer. Not browsing about the LN either since I want to avoid spoilers.

Oh but the LN illustrator is Shiirabi whom I am a fan of, so that’s a lot of pretty illustrations.

The 2nd trailer was what pulled me in. The things that caught my attention were A) The citizens of the ‘fine’ republic all having silver hair while the rugged up 86th district have various colors, and b) SawanoHiroyuki[nZk]:mizuki

The 1st episode pacing is quite slow. I get it is to show how different life is for the 85 districts of the republic to the one that 86th has, using both Lena’s and Shin’s POVs. But at the end of it, I feel like the hook is not strong enough. In fact I need to see until episode 3 to form an opinion solid enough for me to talk about it.

Spent 3 weeks wondering about the pacing until it hit me: It feels like reading a prologue of a book, the one where the talking and the worldbuilding is done from the start. Thinking back, it’s the same feeling like when I watched the first episodes of LN adaptations (in my case, Fate series). But in that one, I had read Fate VNs/LNs so I didn’t really notice about their first episodes’ pacing.

I love the storytelling method. Usually, the first half of the episode tells the story either from Lena’s or the Shin’s POV, then the second half switches to the other’s POV explaining how it goes from their side until it reaches the same point as the middle.

It’s cool because even though they are involved in the same conflict, they have a very different life. And since they don’t meet, and can only talk and listen, the differences they have are highlighted.

For instance, Lena and Annete talk about how it is so rare to use a real egg for their food, while the Spearhead squadron has their own chickens and eggs for breakfast. On the other hand, the girls enjoy wealth and get nuisance in the form of marriage proposals, while the squadron live with tight resources and face death day by day. The juxtaposition of their contrasting circumstances are shown subtly, but in effect it becomes so glaring.

While no one can deny that Lena’s intention is good, and hell she might be the only decent Alba so far to actually do something with the republic’s shitty propaganda, I also like how her attempts to get to know the 86 is met with various opinions.

There are those who hate her from the start, those who play along, and those who think she’s a good person. Some wishes for her to break, some expect her to stop being nice soon, some wonders if she’s cut out for a job like this. They’ve got their own reasons to do so. And since Lena and the Spearheads never meet, it’s gonna be a very rocky journey to come to a common ground.

Also when both side have end-of-day conversations, on good note, with some persistence, they can talk about things that aren’t business. But looking in detail, it’s clear that Lena treats the conversations like calling a friend, but for them it’s more like humoring her. The shaky personal trust between them will definitely cause trouble in the future.

So like, Sawanodrop + A1 Picture + Mecha war + Racial classes + Quiet pragmatic black haired red eyed male protagonist + a wide-eyed idealistic noblewoman protagonist? Sure reminds me of Aldnoah Zero. While story-wise I am personally iffy about AZ in the end, it is otherwise great in other departments like OST and animation. So, 86 looks like it will have at least the same quality for those two factors.

But the LN has gotten some awards and fans so I assume the story is also good.

I keep mentioning Sawano but there is also Kohta Yamamoto in the music department who often works with him. Not that they don’t sound the same, tho.

Dude, their mecha looks like a weird hybrid between a tank, a spider and a T-shaped virus.

Not to spoil anything but Natsumi Fujiwara’s performance in EP3 is amazing. That’s the name of the voice actor, watch it yourself to see what happens.

The OP is lit too but honestly, Avid by SawanoHiroyuki[nZk]:mizuki is the winner for me.

Tl;dr Whoever thought of the class system and the propaganda surely didn’t think that, in addition of those gonna bite them back, it’s damn hard to differentiate people when everyone looks the same.