#text is from the Wikipedia pages for:

[roridomyces]

Triptych

[okunyasunijimura]

[talloran-irl]

Mundus Imaginalis

[liquidstar]

and now for something stupid

[regicidal-defenestration]

Realised that Holstenwall is very much how I imagine Eskew to look

[ID: A series of photos of the sets used in the Cabinet of Dr Caligari. The architecture is at unnatural angles, and the shadows are painted on in sharp lines. End ID]

[xirae]

[crayon-firey]

perks of being a marine biologist or; this is what happens when I get into ducktales and chainsaw man at the same time

fethsteel’s a fun little crackship that’s been growing on me lately, and i thought if they went on a date to an aquarium it would go something like this

original manga page below the cut

[thebreakfastgenie]

The M*A*S*Hter List!

Continuously being updated.

[paxesoterica]

Utena & Mecha

Something that occurred to me while thinking about Revolutionary Girl Utena and its influence on Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury, is that Utena, while firmly in the magical genre, has a surprising amount of connections to the mecha genre.

Probably the most well-known of these is that Neon Genesis Evangelion[1], a show that was at least partially inspired by Hideaki Anno[2] being a fan of Mobile Suit Gundam[3], had staff (including Yoji Enokido[4], Shinya Hasegawa[5], Kazuya Tsurumaki[6], and Toru Takahashi[7]) who would go on to work in various positions on Utena, with Enokido and Hasegawa in particular being part of Be-PaPas[8], the pen name of the key group of people in charge of Utena's development. 

In addition to this connection, another member of Be-Papas, Chiho Saito[9], was also a fan of the original Mobile Suit Gundam, and not only has drawn art of Char Aznable and Lalah Sune[10], but was even inspired by the latter to make Anthy Indian[11]. As an aside, it should be noted that Saito, in addition to being the mangaka behind the Utena manga, also worked with Ichiro Okouchi[12], the main writer of Witch from Mercury, on a pair of light novels that elaborated on a couple of episdoes from the Utena TV series.

In addition to being influenced by mecha anime (Gundam in particular, both directly and indirectly), Utena has also gone on to influence future mecha anime.

The first of these would be FLCL[13], in which Tsurumaki and Enokido collaborated on another tale of surreal adolescence, albeit one which, among other things, substituted magical swords emerging from people's chests for giant robots emerging from their foreheads instead.

Another example is Gunbuster 2[14][15], in which Tsurumaki and Enokido worked together again on another story of surreal adolscence and giant robots, set in space this time, and with two leads who take visual inspiration from Utena and Anthy, one of whom was inspired by the other to become a prince mecha pilot.

Enokido would go on to team up with Takuya Igarashi[16], whom had previously worked with Enokido on Utena (under a pen name) and Ouran High School Host Club[17] (also influenced by Utena, though more focused on comedy), which resulted in Star Driver[18], yet again a tale of surreal adolescence and giant robots, but this time featuring a secret dueling game in a high school and a marriage of mecha fights with magical girl aesthetics.

Witch from Mercury is interesting then, in that it both hearkens to this history of Utena-influenced mecha but is also a departure from it, eschewing the surrealism of Utena, while sharing the show's appreciation of symbolism, theatricality, and queerness, and instead using and remixing elements of Utena's narrative structure and character archetypes. This more grounded approach to Utena, coupled with additional narrative elements from Shakespeare's The Tempest, as well as corporate politics and violence more traditional to Gundam, makes perhaps the most fitting tribute Mobile Suit Gundam can give to Utena and its history of strange association with mecha anime.

1. https://www.anime-planet.com/anime/neon-genesis-evangelion

2. https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/people.php?id=15

3. https://www.evamonkey.com/writings/animerica-virtual-panel-meet-hideaki-anno.php

4. https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/people.php?id=4290

5. https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/people.php?id=4289

6. https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/people.php?id=172

7. https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/people.php?id=1225

8. https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/people.php?id=4293

9. https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/people.php?id=5158

10. https://80sanime.tumblr.com/post/176161294827/chiho-saito-x-mobile-suit-gundam

11.https://daydreamycrustacean.tumblr.com/post/707714535034896384/ever-since-i-saw-that-one-gundam-fanart-by-chiho

12. https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/people.php?id=26763

13. https://www.anime-planet.com/anime/flcl

14. https://www.anime-planet.com/anime/gunbuster-2

15. https://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-feature/2019/11/06/15-years-later-gunbuster-2-still-represents-a-special-era-in-anime-history

16. https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/people.php?id=9803

17. https://www.anime-planet.com/anime/ouran-high-school-host-club

18. https://www.anime-planet.com/anime/star-driver

[amalgamationink]

NAPOWRIMO24 #20: Stonewall

[glassfullofsass]

[unproduciblesmackdown]

interestingly the only mention i can find of a monastery loquarium is (rendered "loquorium") in "the california padres and their mission" by charles francis saunders and joseph smeaton chase, a book in the public domain:

The Mission relics at Santa Inés are many and interesting. Besides those used in the present-day church services, and the beautiful old vestments that are in the sacristy, there is a considerable collection arranged for interested visitors in an interior room of the convento — a room formerly used as the loquorium, where daily, after dinner and after supper, the friars were at liberty to come to rest for an hour from their laboring and praying, and relax in human chat.

the next paragraph also mentions this room now housing relics "patiently got together from all sorts of places," including "from the earth of the surrounding fields as the plough turns it up"

[merevide]

soooo many thoughts about this. they tried to silence her lesbianism. he fucking fumbled the bag. she would not fuckimf do that. he deserved what he got and more

[cajolions]

hot take I don’t think the reason to research the lives of historical trans people should be to figure out exactly what kind of gendered language they would have wanted us to use for them, I think it should be to engage empathetically with the complexity of trans experiences in times different from ours. and also to acknowledge the impossibility of fully understanding historical people who can no longer speak for themselves, even as we keep trying to do it. 

[hua-fei-hua]

when i was a kid i really resented the fact that my mom kept forcing us to check out nonfiction books alongside our fantasy novels in order to "broaden our minds" and basically ensure we were learning Real Factsies(tm), but now that i'm older, if i don't go off and learn some Real Factsies(tm) every so often, then i'll end up finding my fictions dull and uninspired

[britneyshakespeare]

oh no I found out my girl is a conservative