#southeast asia and oceania singles regional winner

[sheltiechicago]

“Retrieving the Dead”

“Resistance fighters from the People's Defense Forces (PDF) retreat with the body of a comrade, following a clash with the Myanmar military, in Moe Bye, Kayah (Karenni) State, Myanmar, on 21 February 2022.

© Mauk Kham Wah.

Southeast Asia and Oceania Singles Regional Winner.

2023 World Press Photo Awards

[jj-baruch]

A Brief Description of the False Unicorn (Pseudomonoceros Tyrans ferox)

While true unicorns and their near cousins can be quite dangerous enough on their own, the false unicorn, Pseudomonoceros, is a unique case of mimicry by an entirely unrelated family of animals. Indeed, it is recommended that one treat a unicorn encountered in the wild as if it were a false unicorn until proven otherwise. Among the true unicorns, there are well-documented cases of this mimicry for all types except the Arctic unicorn (Monoceros arktos). With regard to related genera, there are only a very few poorly-documented instances in the Old World generally and none at all in the New World, Australia, Oceania, or Insular Southeast Asia. That said, when any variety of true unicorn has been imported to a new geographic area, reports of false unicorns, some well-attested, inevitably follow.

Referring to true unicorns as “true” is more a matter of custom and convenience than of genetics or actual relationship. Their phylogenetic history remains elusive with respect to one another and with respect to the other animals they superficially resemble. It is uncertain if there even is a relationship. False unicorns are similarly obscure with respect to one another, true unicorns, and the other animals they resemble. What is certain is that the earliest fossils of a true unicorn (the poorly named European unicorn, M. monoceros) come from the arc of mountains north and east of the Tigris-Euphrates Valley and somewhat eastward on the Iranian Plateau. False unicorn fossils, though considerably rarer, also appear here first.

What follows is a description of Pseudomonoceros Tyrans ferox, which mimics M. monoceros. This is considered the type species of the group and other types mimic their respective true unicorns in almost identical ways. T. ferox is also the most aggressive of the false unicorns and, as such, presents a special danger.

T. ferox, like other false unicorns, represents one of the most extreme cases of sexual dimorphism among terrestrial vertebrates. Like certain deep sea fishes, the male and female are vastly different in size and morphology, with the male eventually merging into the female body and becoming little more than a sperm-producing appendage.

A single pregnancy may result in several hundred young, male and female alike. However, the females are carnivorous and cannibalistic even within the womb. As they reach parturition, they begin eating one another and, eventually, eat their way out of the womb, bursting the mother’s body which provides them with one last meal. At this point, the sexual imbalance may be as high as 25 males for every female. As the females mature and compete for territory and/or dominance, this ratio increases dramatically.

Males are herbivorous in nature. Upon birth, they range from 0.5 to 0.75 cm in length, their main body concealed within a shell that will, in time, grow to a horn 25 cm to 100 cm in length. At birth, the poison sac at the tip of the horn already exists and is a danger that may be fatal to children, the elderly, or those with compromised health. At maturity, the poison is invariably fatal to human beings, leaving them in agony for approximately nine days at which time death follows. It is important that anyone who dies by this method, especially if a female T. ferox is at or near sexual maturity in the region, be cremated. Religious considerations must be set aside at all costs.

Males will do battle for access to mates, jousting with their horns. As these growths are enervated and vascularized, even a nominal winner in such contests may be so badly injured as to die in the aftermath. There is no established correlation between length of shell and reproductive success but rather strength in surviving impacts from other combatants. The strength of the male’s shell along with its poison, combined with the physical mass of the female with which it later unites, is one of the principal defense mechanisms of the species. Sexual maturity is generally attained in the first two to three years but may be delayed in colder climates.

Upon birth, a female T. ferox appears indistinguishable from a fully grown normal horse (Equus equus), albeit small enough to fit in the palm of a human hand. Actually doing so is inadvisable as they are carnivorous from before birth and will eat human flesh as readily as any other. Over the next five to six years, they will maintain this form as they reach sexual maturity. At full size they are the same size as a regular horse, if not somewhat larger than average. Sentience slowly grows as the body matures and, at full maturity, they can begin to control minds of other animals, including humans, around them. Young people, especially pubescent or pre-pubescent youth, and those who have died due to poison from the male are especially vulnerable to this control. While those who are still alive at the time of contact may resist for a greater or lesser period, those who are dead have no such protections and are often used as lures to gather in more food for the female T. ferox. This process accelerates after mating.

When ready to mate, a female will send out a signal, it is uncertain if this is pheremonal or mental in nature, to attract all nearby males. Males will then compete for access. Survivors will unite their bodies with the foreheads of the females, thus producing the classic true unicorn appearance. If a female later decides, for any reason, to rid herself of the acquired mate, she can break it off and find another. Upon union, the nervous, circulatory, and other systems merge and the male loses any identity. If separated, it dies.

During the early stages of pregnancy, the female remains mobile and able to forage but increasingly becomes sessile as the reproductive tract expands and all internal processes become geared toward advancing the pregnancy. Legs disappear within the expanding torso and the mental control function becomes a necessity rather than a convenience. Servitors in this period function to lure others to the den as food for the pregnant female and, at the end, become food themselves. The precise nature of this mechanism is not understood, only that it is extremely dangerous and thus requires the extermination of all false unicorns, male and female alike, as thoroughly as possible. Servitors, especially the dead, will try to prevent this, which is why they must be destroyed. Living servitors who survive the death of their mare are forever mentally damaged and will seek out another mare to serve.

There are advocates for the conservation of these creatures, pointing out that they are even rarer than true unicorns in the wild today. This is true. However, such advocates should be examined for previous mare service. As for the false unicorns, if allowed to go unchecked, they will consume all life, plant, animal, and otherwise, in a district before moving on. They have been known to turn lush forests into wastelands in relatively short periods of time. As with humans who have died from the male’s poison, females are able to control other dead false unicorns for the purposes of foraging and defense. Cremation, dissolution in acid, and other similarly thorough disposal methods are the only known ways to prevent this postmortem control in any species taken as prey.

They must be rooted out wherever encountered.

For more stories, please visit https://patreon.com/jjbaruch

[recentanimenews]

Decade in Review: The Most Watched Anime of the Decade by Country

  We are mere hours before the end of 2019, which means we’re also just about to close out the 2010s. With the end of the decade within our grasp, we on the Editorial team thought it would be fun to look at some of the viewing habits and trends of our lovely Crunchyroll users over the past 10 years.

  In this article, we’re taking our viewership-by-country map and showing which anime was watched the most during the last decade in EVERY. SINGLE. COUNTRY. Let’s see which anime each country loved the most over the past decade. Throw on your hiking boots and take my hand as we go on an anime world tour together!

  North & Central America

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  Naruto, Naruto, Naruto. The Seventh Hokage can stand tall knowing that he is beloved not only by the US and Mexico, but a whole host of others like Puerto Rico, Panama, and about 10 more. There’s a phrase we use a lot around the office–“Crunchyroll is the house that Naruto built”–and that’s honestly really true! Shippuden was not without competition, of course. Luffy literally became a pirate of the Caribbean, with One Piece showing up in the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Barbados. Neighboring island nations saw the Straw Hats’ shonen colleagues with Black Clover in a few countries including Anguilla, and BORUTO laying claim to Haiti and St. Vincent & the Grenadines. Taking a jump up North, our friends in Canada were quite the holdouts, being the only country that watched Attack on Titan the most. The scouts couldn’t oust Naruto from the throne, despite valiant efforts. Growing into a kind, responsible, loving person, achieving his dream of becoming Hokage, and now taking over the majority of North America–Naruto Uzumaki is a truly unstoppable force.

  Overall Most Popular in North America: Naruto Shippuden

  South America

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  While it may appear that we have another Shippuden-heavy region, that’s mostly thanks to the sheer geographic area of Brazil. In reality, we only have three countries where Naruto took the crown (and NONE where Boruto won!). The real MVP here is Mr. Shonen himself, Goku. Starting at Venezuela and Colombia, Dragon Ball Super makes an unbroken victory down the western coast of South America, through Ecuador, Peru, Chile, and numerous others along the way. Getting a new sequel to the Dragon Ball franchise was a truly historic event for anime. For many of us, Goku and his friends were the first characters to welcome us to the world of anime. Dragon Ball Super felt like coming home for many of us, and the fact that it was really, really good makes that return all the sweeter.

  Overall Most Popular in South America: Dragon Ball Super

  Europe

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Oh wow! Contrary to the Americas, Europe has no obvious winner, and many of the anime are well represented by multiple countries! Again, Shippuden makes a very respectable showing with Spain, Switzerland, Slovenia, and, interestingly, more ‘S’ countries. My Hero Academia gave our orange boy a run for his money with comparable representation. Users in the Vatican favored Academia, which makes me hopeful that at least a few priests and nuns are keeping up with Class 1-A. But despite Deku’s best efforts, Asta’s unending determinism can be seen through more countries favoring Black Clover over any other anime. Despite its relatively recent beginning in the Fall of 2017, Black Clover’s tale of unending perseverance and growth has become a mainstay in the shonen heavy hitter lineup. Asta and his friends have been embraced by the anime community, and, luckily for us, the series isn’t going away any time soon.

  Russia, a titanic country that spans two continents watched Black Clover more than any other Crunchyroll anime. We should keep in mind here that Crunchyroll was only recently rolled out in Russia, so there is a recency bias. This advantages Black Clover over other long running series that were airing in the earlier part of the decade–namely Shippuden.

  It must be noted that the tastemakers of Poland and Belarus are the first countries on our tour to have watched JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure the most in the past decade. Truly, two neighboring countries comprised of anime fans of the most refined tastes.

Overall Most Popular in Europe: Black Clover

  The Middle East

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  Contrary to their European neighbors, our users in Middle Eastern countries had a very clear cut preference. As with North America, Naruto Shippuden was the series of choice for Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, and a bit more than ten others. Our boy is coming in clutch again. Black Clover made a showing in Iran and Iraq, and BORUTO ended up being Yemen’s favorite of the decade. Interestingly, the anime that show up in multiple countries always occur in contiguous countries. I guess Naruto and Black Clover fans truly do stick together!

  Overall Most Popular in the Middle East: Naruto Shippuden

  Africa

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And we have another clear-cut winner! Our users in African countries had a pretty clear cut preference for Black Clover, being represented by a tens of countries including Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Coming in second is our stalwart Shippuden, showing up in Egypt, Nigeria, Sudan, and a few others. South Africa refused to conform and favored My Hero Academia above other anime.

  Overall Most Popular in Africa: Black Clover

Asia

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  Welcome……… to the world of Shippuden. If you thought North America and the Middle East had a lot of Naruto, Asia has both beat. In one unbroken, continental swath, Shippuden stretches from Kazakhstan in the northwest, east through India, Nepal, and China, and then down Southeast Asia through Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and countless others. The global influence of our favorite ninja really can’t be overstated, and that holds true for the region closest to the series’ country of origin–which, itself is rather interesting, but we’ll get to that.

  There are, of course, some holdouts. The contiguous trio of Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan favored Black Clover (the former two), and BORUTO (the latter). Now we need to talk about the elephant in the room. Japan, the country that invented and is majorly the origin point of most anime, watched RWBY, an American-made series, more than anything else. While a big part of this is the fact that most anime viewing in Japan doesn’t happen on Crunchyroll, the viewership of RWBY in Japan is actually quite impressive. Anime is becoming a truly global industry and fandom, and the fact that the country that invented anime has embraced a foreign animated series is a pretty beautiful indication of this.

  Overall Most Popular in Asia: Naruto Shippuden

Oceania

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  Oceania is comprised of an extremely diverse set of island nations, and that diversity showed up in our results in some very cool ways! We’ll start with the largest member of the region, Australia, and neighboring New Zealand. The Aussies and Kiwis both favored My Hero Academia and were actually the only Oceanic countries to do so besides the US Minor Outlying Islands. Shippuden and BORUTO made appearances, of course, with the former showing up in Papua New Guinea and Guam, among others, and the latter hitting the quartet of Fiji, Niue, Palao, and Samoa.

  Heavy hitters aside, Oceania had some fascinating one offs. Micronesia’s favorite anime was long-running shonen series Fairy Tail, Nauru favored the lawyer video game adaptation Ace Attorney–the only non-action oriented title on this map–, and Norfolk Island favored Bladedance of the Elementalers–the only series with an episode count in the teens.

  Overall Most Popular in Oceania: Naruto Shippuden

Antarctica

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  We’ll end our journey with one of the largest, most sparsely populated regions on earth. Antarctica.

  Yes, against all odds, we did have some video views recorded from users in the land of ice and snow. Regrettably, the most watched show here was not A Place Further Than the Universe. The winner, however, was fan favorite shonen series Hunter x Hunter! Truly, one of the best anime arcs of all time has to be Chimera ANTarctica. THANK YOU, AND GOODNIGHT.

  Oh, and for good measure, here's the final score:

  Most popular anime WORLDWIDE: Naruto Shippuden

  ---

  Cayla Coats is the Editor-in-Chief of Crunchyroll News. She tweets @ceicocat

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com