#the comic reaching its climax/most dramatic moment: me:

[screams-of-the-damned84]

don’t think I’ll ever have time to properly finish this so here’s a slightly cleaned up version of that wip from forever ago <3

[named-jiang-or-wang]

SHANG-CHI (2021) Fan Revision

In my previous posts in @welcome-to-the-cafe I posted multiple rants about the movie itself. (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). For such a great movie, there were still some flaws, which I will attempt to correct here.

Large fish first.

I hated the final CGI fest. Not the Ten Rings battle between Wenwu and Shang-chi, the one with ugly CGI monstrosity. "Dweller in the Darkness", for a name so mysterious, the result sure was a pretty generic bat-winged western dragon-shaped bastard. Really, as soon as it popped out of the cave, it stopped being scary; it stopped doing the one thing that made it more frightening than Wenwu, which was telepathically manipulate Wenwu using his dead wife's voice. That shit was creepy! Why stop it for the climax?? We need to involve the Ten Rings themselves in its creepiness. They should be empowered directly by the Dweller and dark feelings, and the Rings should partially transfer to Shang-Chi at his lowest, most-rage filled moment.

Plus, for all of the Chineseness of the rest of the movie, the Dweller in the Darkness looked incredibly Western. I can't think of one thing it references in Chinese mythology, which was strange since Morris does! It's a Hundun （混沌）, one of the Four Perils (四凶), why not use another one of them, like the Qiongqi (穷奇）. Especially the Qiongqi, since it supposedly eats people, so we can keeping the soul-sucking mechanic.

The little bat-spawns are also poorly-designed, and not fun to watch the martial artist army fight. Martial arts are meant to fight other people, by the Heavens, not weird flying tentacle things. Why is Ta Lo's training anti-human instead of anti-monster? Because anti-human training looks cooler. And we can keep that, with a solution I'll explain after complaining about the Dragon.

The CGI Kaiju battle between the dragon and dweller was cinematic, but it eliminated the kung fu from the final fight, reducing both Shang-Chi and Xialing to boring dragon riders. The dragon wasn't really something that deserved to be a character. I get that Shang-Chi is supposed to have his 'awakening' moment, where he embodies the dragon his mother teaches him about at the beginning of the movie. But the dragon doesn't have to be "real", it should be more of a spirit that goes into him, or comes out of his heart and empowers his body. Either way, it should be more of an internal instead of external dragon. This better reflects the internal emotional conflict of Shang-Chi, his guilt over not saving his mother and then doing terrible things to get revenge; he has to let that go, accept her loss, and with that, he can let his inner dragon out. Just like...shit, just like in Kung Fu Panda 3 lmao.

So what are my solutions to the climax?

1) Make Dweller in Darkness possess Wenwu. Or suck his soul, and then take his shape. Maybe even take the shape of the mother as well at first!

2) Make the little soulsuckers transform into shadow martial-artists. They still can only be killed by dragon weapons.

3) Make the dragon a spirit that rises out of the water that goes into Shang-Chi and Xialing, enabling them to fight Wenwu/Dweller more evenly.

Here's my altered sequence of events.

The 5 humvees still arrive, the small skirmish between the Ten Rings and the villagers still happen (without the giant lions). Wenwu and Shang-Chi still duke it out, and Wenwu knocks him away. Wenwu makes the big leap to the sealed cave, and Xialing and the aunt notice. The aunt activates a magic thing that raises a giant bridge from the depths of the water and Xialing crosses over to fight her dad. Wenwu pounds the door a bit more, and the Dweller's minions shoot out in black mist, forming into humanoid shapes that begin fighting the villagers and Ten Rings.

Meanwhile, Shang-chi is having a flashbacks in the water of killing his mother's murderer, in the process, one of the Ten Rings that is knocked away during Xialing and Wenwu's fight finds its way into the water and revives Shang-Chi. He joins the fight just as Xialing is knocked aside, apparently over the cliff. Shang-Chi loses it, and fights his father more brutally, until 5 of the rings transfers to him. They whisper to him to make his father pay, and he knocks his father into the door, shattering it, and seemingly killing Wenwu. Shang-Chi is appalled at what he's done, and he collapses and drops his 5 rings. He hears his sister calling for help, and he rushes over to see her hanging off the edge of the cliff. He can't reach her, and he cries to her that he's sorry for everything. Xialing forgives him for abandoning her before, saying that him coming to Macau meant a lot, and that their mother would be proud of him. With effort, he pulls her up, while the 5 rings to his father who rises from the rubble. Shang-Chi said their mother wouldn't be proud after what he's done for revenge, but Xialing tells him that he needs to accept what has happened.

Wenwu looks triumphant at the open gateway, but a dark mist spills in front of him and take the rough shape of his wife. He is about embrace her, but she grabs him around the wrist and possesses him through the Rings. Dweller uses Wenwu's and Ying Li's voices to taunt Shang-chi and Xialing.

Shang-chi finally lets go of his guilt and stops "running away". The spirit of the dragon rises from the sea and goes into him and his sister, empowering them. They double-team the Dweller/Wenwu until he blows them back with "Enough!". The little soulsuckers return with their spoils, strengthening the Dweller, and now he has the advantage. He defeats both of them, holds Shang-chi down, trying to steal his soul. Xialing is trying to pull him away. Shang-chi looks his father in his eyes and tells him he forgives him and he is still a good man. This awakens Wenwu inside the Dweller, and in one dramatic moment, transfers the Ten Rings to his son. With this, Shang-chi knocks Wenwu/Dweller back, and Xialing restrains him with the ropedart. Shang-chi performs exorcism, deleting Dweller forever, but Wenwu is mortally wounded. He tells Shang-chi and Xialing that he loves them, and he will tell their mother how proud he is of them, then dies.

Rest of the movies is the same.

Oh, we do need to deal with the secondary characters.

Katy shouldn't be good at archery, but could save Guan Bo/Razorfist/Death Dealer in a key moment, maybe just by tacking. She could do more to counsel Shang-Chi and Xialing before their big moments.

Death Dealer was wasted. Unique, memorable design (if kinda half-assed), only to be ignominiously soulsucked first by CGI uglies. He is basically Shang-chi's primary martial arts tutor, so should know a variety of martial arts styles. To incorporate his opera mask (a full-faced one), and add even more mystery, he should be a bianlian (变脸), a Chinese facechanger, and for each face he has a different kungfu style. This could be used to semi-humorous effect, with mocking faces and angry faces. And a Monkey King face when he's using a staff! We should not see the glint of his eyes. Before Xialing runs across the bridge to fight Wenwu, she should have a showdown with Death Dealer to show she did learn kung fu even without him. They fight to standstill, until the aunt steps in and they kick his ass together. I think he should live too, and have a team up with the aunt to delete soulsuckers.

Oh I know now, Katy, Morris and Slattery should have a comical chase/fight with Razorfist. He screams "You! I recognize you from the bus! And you stole my car!!!", and he charges at them, ignoring everyone else. They find a way to beat him up, and think they've lost him, but he gets back up and almost has them, until the soulsucker bois nab him. Katy, being a good person, fires and arrow and saves his ass.

These, and some aesthetic changes, like giving the young mom a thin flowy cloth mask instead of her noisy bamboo one, would bring the movie up from a 7.5 to a 9.5 for me.

[orangeoctopi7]

It’s Fine (It’s not fine)

@forduary week 1 is Hurt/Comfort. The one’s definitely more on the hurt side of things, but I promise there’s some comfort at the end!

Stanford Pines is six years old. He’s in his bedroom, reading quietly. He’s just getting to the climax of the adventure story he’s reading when his brother Stanley crashes into the room. It wouldn't normally be a problem, Ford is really good at tuning out the world around him while he reads, but Stan is complaining loudly.

“I’m booooooard!” The boy moans, grabbing onto the post of their bunk-bed and dangling off it dramatically. 

“Whaddaya want me to do about it?” Ford asks in irritation, not looking up from his book.

“Let’s go play on the beach! Or go to the comic store! Or… or something!” Stan suggests. “Anything but just sit around here doin’ nothin’!”

It was a hot summer afternoon. Ford didn’t want to go down to the beach or the comic store when he knew for certain anywhere they went today was bound to be crowded with people. He just wanted to sit and read in his room and enjoy some time to himself. 

“Can’t you go by yourself?”

“Are you kiddin’? Ma would throw a fit!”

Ford heaves a long-suffering sigh, places a bookmark to hold his place, and snaps his book shut before thumping it down on his bed.

“Well we don’t hafta go if ya don’t wanna.” Stan says lamely.

“It’s fine.” Ford assures him.

“Are you sure?”

“It’s fine.”

* * *

Stanford Pines is ten years old. He’s at recess, trying to lie low. Stan got held back for the whole half-hour because he’d been caught trying to sneak the class pet, a newt, into his backpack. This of course leaves Ford at the mercy of Crampelter and his thugs, who have little to no mercy on any given day. 

“C’mon freak, fight back!” The towheaded bully taunts him, holding Ford back by the forehead as he tries to struggle past the blocking arm for his backpack, held just out of reach. “I know I seen you taking boxing lessons back at Mel’s Gym!”

“It’s ‘I saw’ or ‘I have seen’, and just b‘cuz I’m taking lessons doesn’t mean I’m stupid enough to pick a fight I know I can’t win!” Ford protests. 

“Pfft, you’re no fun.” Crampelter scoffs, before grabbing onto one of Ford’s hands while he continues to reach vainly for his backpack. “But y’know what does sound fun?”

“Let go of me!” 

“Seeing how flexible your extra fingers are!” Crampelter starts to push Ford’s pinky finger back with his thumb, stretching it to its limit.

“Stop it! That hurts!”

But Crampelter just keeps pushing and pushing until Ford is sure some tendons are going to pop, when a shrill whistle echoes across the playground.

“Hey! Crampelter! Drop the freak!” The teacher on recess watch commands.

The bully finally lets go, and Ford stumbles to the ground, holding his injured hand close to his body.

“Here, lemme look at that.” the teacher pulls Ford’s hand away to check it. “Eh, ‘snot bleeding or broken, you’re fine.”

As they walk back from school that afternoon, Stan rants over and over that Crampelter Will Not Get Away With This, plotting various methods of revenge, most of them too fanciful to ever come to fruition.

Ford is silent the whole time, his gaze turned towards his shoes.

“Hey.” Stan suddenly stops his ranting and places a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help.”

“It’s fine.” Ford mumbles.

“I promise I’ll try not to get held in for recess again.”

“I said it’s fine.” Ford assures him, knowing that hoping Stan won’t get held back from recess again is like hoping it won’t snow in January. Technically possible, but highly unlikely. 

* * *

Stanford Pines is fourteen years old. He’s a freshman in highschool, and he and his brother are in detention after he was caught letting Stan look off his algebra test.

It’s not that Ford has anything against sharing his answers with his brother. It’s not like he has any sort of moral high-ground here. It’s just that Stan is always so carelessly obvious about it!

“I said I was sorry, alright!” Stan hisses at him, trying not to draw the teacher’s attention.

“We’re not in middle school anymore, these things actually go on our record now!” Ford hisses back. “You have to be more careful!”

“Well maybe if you would actually slip me your paper instead of making me crane my neck over your desk! Nobody’s gonna notice if you hand your test in two minutes before everyone else instead of five!”

“That’d be even more obvious! Maybe if you wore your glasses for once!”

“Maybe I would, if you could hold your own in a fight!”

“What does that even have to do with anything!?”

“You don’t wear glasses in a fight, genius! That’s just asking for them to get broken! And I know I’m always having to step in and save your skin, so why would I even bother wearing them in the first place?”

“Hey!” The teacher overseeing detention snaps at them. “No talking!”

The boys shut their yapps and go back to studying, or at least pretending to study.

“I’m sorry.” Stan murmurs, once he’s sure the teacher is no longer paying attention to them.

“It’s fine.” Ford grunts back.

* * *

Stanford Pines is 17 years old. He is begrudgingly walking down to the beach with his brother.

“C’mon Ford, it’s October, there’s only a few more days of weather nice enough to work on her left! And the dumb science fair isn’t until April!”

“I still have so much research to do before I can even start!” Ford complains. “Not to mention procuring parts, testing different models--”

“That all sounds like stuff you can do once it gets cold.”

“I should be in the building phase by then!” 

“Alright, look,” Stan jabs a finger in his brother’s direction. “If you wanna spend the last few warm days of the year cooped up in the library, that’s your problem. But I’m gonna enjoy the sunshine and the beach, and finish fixin’ up the Stan’o’war. We’re so close, I can practically taste the treasure and babes!”

“...Fine.” Ford grumbles.

“No, no. You go do your nerd thing. I’ll put the finishing touches on this thing we’ve been working on together since we were pipsqueaks.”

“I said it’s fine.”

* * *

Stanford Pines is 17 years old. He’s just come back from the most humiliating moment of his life (thus far). He confronts his brother, the offending evidence crinkling in his clenched fist. Stan tries to play it off like it’s not a big deal. Like he expects his brother to say It’s Fine.

It is most definitely not fine.

* * *

Stanford Pines is 20 years old. He’s showing his new roommate around their humble apartment.

“I really ‘preciate this, Stanford.” Fiddleford McGucket tells him for the sixth time that day. “Most folks wouldn’t offer to put their TA up in their apartment, ‘specially not when you’re lucky ‘nough to get yer own place!”

“Well, I’ll be starting the Doctorate program myself, next year! That makes us equals, in my mind.” Ford says proudly. “And I’m happy for the company! The only reason I have the apartment to myself is because my last roommate and I parted over… differences.”

“Heh, you too, eh?” McGucket chuckles. “Least you weren’t kicked out, like I was!”

“Why were you kicked out?”

“Oh, several reasons. I think the robot in the kitchen was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

Ford laughs. “Well, I for one would love to have a robot that does our dishes and cleans the counters.”

McGucket grins and leans against the table.. “See, I knew we’d make great roommates!”

Unfortunately, McGucket’s leaning is more than the wobbly table can take, and it tips over on its side, scattering textbooks and papers everywhere. The two friends begin cleaning up the mess, McGucket apologizing profusely. 

They’ve almost finished putting everything back onto the table when Fiddleford picks up an old photo of two little boys standing before a derelict little boat.

“Well bless my soul! Is this you, Ford?”

Ford’s heart skips a beat. He hadn’t realized he left that photo lying on the table!

“Ah, yes, that’s me. That was the day I decided I wanted to be a researcher--”

“And lookit this little fellah next to ya!” Fiddleford interrupts Ford’s soliloquy. “He looks just like you! I can’t believe I’ve known you for three years, and you never told me you had a twin!”

“Er… it just-- it never came up.”

“How in tarnation does yer own twin brother never come up?” Fiddleford asks incredulously. “So, what’s his name?”

“Stanley and I are not on speaking terms.” Ford says stiffly. “I haven’t spoken to him since I was a teenager.”

A multitude of expressions dance across Fiddleford’s face before Ford can hope to interpret any of them. “I’m sorry to hear that.” He finally says.

“It’s fine.” Ford says tersely, snatching the photo back.

* * *

Stanford Pines is 21 years old. He’s trying to get a good night sleep before his first dissertation tomorrow. 

Trying being the operative word.

The past year rooming with Fiddleford McGucket has been great, for the most part. Ford loves spending time with an intellectual equal. McGucket accepts all of Ford’s idiosyncrasies, and Ford accepts all those of his friend.

Well, almost all of them.

It didn’t take long after they started rooming together for Ford to realize one of the several reasons McGucket had been evicted from his last apartment had nothing to do with his penchant for robotics, and everything to do with his penchant for late-night banjo playing. As much as it cut into Ford’s sleep schedule, he didn’t have the heart to complain to his roommate about it. He knew he had plenty of his own bad habits that were difficult to deal with, like his coffee addiction, his antisocial behavior, his tendency to start a project and just leave it laying wherever he was around the apartment, and his few dozen subscriptions to cryptozoological newsletters.

The digital clock on Ford’s bedside table reads 2:20 AM when the music finally, thankfully stops. He sighs and turns over in his bed, hoping to finally fall asleep.

When he wakes in the morning, groggy as a hung-over sailor, Fiddleford at least has the decency to look apologetic.

“Sorry, did I keep ya up last night? I kinda got lost in the music an’ lost track of time.”

“It’s fine.” Ford mutters as he pours himself a large mug of the strongest coffee he can brew. This is the first roommate he’s gotten along with since… since he started college. He can put up with this.

“Well, if’n ya need me to, I can start headin’ up to the practice rooms in the assembly hall fer my jam sessions--”

“It’s fine.”

* * *

Stanford Pines is 31 years old. He’s spreading thick globs of slimy aloe vera on his hands. He’s been letting his muse take control of his body while he sleeps for about a week now. Bill says he’s not used to the limits of a physical human body. He’s injured Ford’s body just about every night so far, but last night, when he picked up the hot coffee pot by the pot instead of by the handle, was the worst by far. 

“This keeps on happening, Bill. You need to be more careful.” He gently chides his muse.

“WELL HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT’D HAPPEN? WHY DIDN’T THE IDIOT WHO DESIGNED THAT THING INSULATE THE WHOLE CONTAINER INSTEAD OF JUST THE HANDLE? YOU COULD DESIGN A COFFEE POT WAY MORE EFFICIENT THAN THAT!”

Ford smiles, blushing. “Perhaps I’ll get around to modifying it someday. But for now, as I was saying, could you please be more careful with my body at night?”

“HEY, YOU’RE ACTUALLY LUCKY THIS HAPPENED. IF I HADN’T DROPPED THAT POT, I WOULD’VE TRIED DRINKING IT THE SAME WAY I DO IN MY NORMAL FORM, AND THEN YOU’D PROBABLY BE BLIND. SO WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT, YOU SHOULD BE THANKING ME!”

Ford pales. “Er, perhaps I should help you practice using my body first, just to decrease the risk of that sort of thing.”

“OH, I’M SORRY! DO YOU NOT WANT MY HELP? DO YOU NOT WANT TO ACHIEVE GREATNESS AS SOON AS POSSIBLE?”

“No! No of course not! That’s not what I meant!”

“DON’T FORGET, I’M DOING THIS FOR YOU, SIXER! I’M AN AGELESS BEING OF PURE ENERGY! THE ONLY REASON I’M HELPING YOU SPEED UP THE PROCESS ON BUILDING THE PORTAL IS BECAUSE I KNOW HOW PATHETICALLY SHORT YOUR MORTAL LIFE IS. YOU’RE JUST GONNA HAVE TO TRUST ME. OR ARE A FEW BUMPS AND BRUISES TOO MUCH FOR YOU TO HANDLE?”

“Of course not! It’s fine! I’m fine!” Ford insists, finishing bandaging his burns.

* * *

Stanford Pines is… probably 45? He’s not quite sure. He’s lost track of time after traveling the multiverse for so long, especially after the Do-Over Dimension.

He’s making his way through a crowded alien market, hoping to find something he’ll be able to use in his Quantum Destabilizer, and also hoping not to be recognized by any bounty hunters. It’s annoying, having to wear a hood and goggles and mask everywhere he goes, but that’s just the way it has to be now.

It’s fine.

It’s only until he can complete the Quantum Destabilizer. After that… it didn’t matter what happened after that.

It’s fine.

* * *

Stanford Pines is 62 years old. He’s sitting in a hospital bed. Despite what that may suggest, his life has finally taken a turn for the better. Bill is gone, Weirdmaggeddon is over, and, miraculously, no one died. Stanley was going to be ok. The kids didn’t hate him. He’s achieved his goal of destroying Bill Cipher, and survived! He’s fine. They’re all incredibly, wonderfully, fine.

The doctor is giving his vitals one last check before officially discharging him from the hospital. It’s obvious that under normal circumstances, Ford would not be leaving the hospital any time soon, but thanks to the incredibly persistent insistence of his family, and the fact that the hospital is already absolutely filled to the brim with people who were injured during Weirdmageddon, and the fact that Stanford was instrumental in stopping Bill, they’re making an exception. 

“Alright, you’re free to go!” The doctor finally says, handing his clipboard over to Ford to sign. 

“Hooray!” Mabel cheers as her uncle signs his exit papers. “Now you’ll be able to help us set up for our birthday party!” She slings an arm around his neck to hug him, completely forgetting about the thin layer of bandages around his neck. Ford can’t suppress a yelp of pain.

Mabel reels back, hands flying to her mouth. “Ohmigosh, I’m so sorry!”

“It’s fine.” Ford forces a smile.

“I wasn’t thinking!”

“Mabel, really, it’s fine.”

“Ford.” Stan says firmly. Ford recognizes the expression on his face from the last few days. It’s the look he gets on his face when he’s remembering something painful. “You gotta stop doing that.”

“Doing what?” He asks, confused.

“Saying ‘It’s fine’ when it’s not.”

Ford raises an eyebrow. “Stanley, it was just an accident. It really is fine.”

“Oh, yeah, of course this was…” Stan stammers, apparently coming back to the moment. “Mabel’s not-- this was just an honest mistake. But you say… uh, or at least, you used to say that a lot. Even when I could tell it wasn’t really fine. You gotta stop that.”

Ford shifted in his bed uncomfortably. “I’m just being polite.”

“There are ways to say things aren’t fine while still being polite.” Dipper points out.

Ford can feel himself flush. “I’m not good at that. I always come off as rude… or angry.” Saying it’s fine is just easier. He can just move on and forget about it. Control his emotions. Remove them from the equation for the time being, process them later when he’s alone, so nobody gets hurt.

Stan takes a deep breath before he speaks again. “You just gotta trust us, that we’re not gonna leave you just ‘cuz you get angry sometimes.”

Is that really what he’s been afraid of this whole time? That certainly seems to be a part of it, but not the whole. All the same, he does at least feel that he can trust his family. And he can try to be more honest with them when something is bothering him.

“I think I can do that.” he says as he gets up from the hospital bed, ready to go home.

[davidmann95]

Your ranking of RWBY seasons?

Coming at this having binged 1-6 in a few months (and I pretty much never binge) last summer:

7. Volume 1

Oof. As I’ve said before, I started watching this because I was interested in the DC tie-in comic, and this fell exactly within the realm of ‘fun enough to distract me on the treadmill, but not good enough that I felt the need to watch it properly on my laptop when not on the treadmill’. Some of the building blocks are there from day one - the music slaps, the fight choreography is top-notch, the characters are generally likable enough, and the aesthetic is in place - but it feels like light, airy empty calories, and Jaune is genuinely insufferable before his arc begins in earnest (and even occasionally after for awhile there!). And then it sort of...stops, more than properly ends, was my experience of it? With the big character development being “the rich asshole racist girl has tacitly agreed to be less racist”? It’s...I understood from what I’d heard going in that its rougher edges were sanded off over time, but I was in retrospect investing a ridiculous amount of trust in it at the time. I’d probably like it a lot more now knowing where it’s all going, but even so.

6. Volume 2

Apparently it’s considered a Hot Take to think the first two seasons were the rough patch the show had to get through rather than the gold standard it never again reached. Which I kind of get given that’s where original series creator Monty Oum was involved before his tragic passing, but also I don’t get even a little bit and I just have to throw up my hands and admit there’s no accounting for taste. While this carries over most issues from the first - and also painfully hinges the conclusion of one of its biggest subplots on a guy-in-a-dress gag, even if feels less cruelly intended than it probably *could* have in 2014 and is paired with a dope dance number - it does feel more fleshed-out and cohesive, with the beginnings of serious character development for most of the major players, and also it’s the one where a corgi is fastballed at robots.

5. Volume 5

This is sort of difficult, because the culmination to this leg of Yang’s arc is about as good as the series has ever gotten, and that makes up a LOT of this season, nevermind the catharsis of the band getting back together bit-by-bit. But also this is where the Faunus allegory climaxes in a respectability politics message that plays incredibly rough, especially now (doesn’t help that it was as I was catching up that Jonathan Hickman’s “what if fuck respectability politics actually” X-Men relaunch was coming in like a nuclear piledriver), and *also* makes up a lot of the season. The rest of the cast’s the decider, and while there are several really good moments, it is also literally them waiting around for a season for the bad guys to show up, and then when they do it’s less the titanic showdown between the two opposing camps you’ve been waiting for so much as “we need Cinder to run into Jaune to move his arc forward, and to deal with Raven for the sake of the plot and her stuff with Yang, so I guess the other bad guys have to be there too until we can shuffle them offstage”. It’s all still very solidly executed, there’s more good than bad, but it’s definitely the most uneven of the series.

4. Volume 3

Ah, the tournament arc, except that’s not really what it ends up at all. For all the trappings, and all that it does move everybody forward, this volume is really Pyrrha’s story with the rest dipping in and out. It *has* to be, because her death has to bear the weight of being the emotional and symbolic foundation that the entire rest of the series will stand on, and god if they don’t put over her shattered heroes’ journey to the point that by the end I went “dammit, in 3 hours this took me from my treadmill distraction to the piece of media I’m currently most engaged with emotionally”. She’s the season in a nutshell: the big threat came about 2 or 3 seasons earlier than they would have been ready for it, and they don’t manage to come through and save the day anyway, and now everyone has to live with the consequences. An incredible achievement coming from this crew on the heels of a real-life loss that easily and justly could have brought the show grinding to a halt as it instead fully grew into its potential. Also I feel like this season has the best ratio of absolutely banger fights in the franchise.

3. Volume 7

I strongly considered putting this at #2, and while I didn’t quite get there, I’d still say without hesitation that this is the most cleverly structured and thoughtfully put-together season of the show. As Volume 3 was Pyrrha’s story, this is Penny’s (with major beats for Ren/Nora/Weiss on top, and if not character development significant character definition for the rest), as the robot girl learns the value of humanity in parallel to the tin man rationalizing an unthinkable monstrosity to himself. A volume about how no, it’s never going to go back to being like Volumes 1-3 again, the characters have been through too much and this is a different show now. One that in this instance forces the leads to apply their hard-earned moral lessons in a relatively realistic context: basically, shōnen will to win and stand by those who need you vs. the seemingly pragmatic lure of military realpolitik that threatens to slide all the way into fascism at essentially any moment depending on where the top guys’ head is at. While it’s not as emotionally intense as some other seasons (which is sort of necessary, as there’s an illusion of ‘everything’s gonna work out okay now!’ that needs to be built up before it can be shattered), I’m really, really enthused about the direction for the series going forward this seems to set up.

2. Volume 6

The worst I can say here is that it’s segmented severely in a way that none of the other seasons are, but each of those segments is AAA+, so I can’t really complain too much. Everyone but everyone’s put through the wringer with this one while coming out the other end stronger, the superstructure of the plot is finally fully revealed, it flips genres on a dime from RPG quest to fantasy epic to supernatural horror to weighty domestic dramatics to a climactic samurai showdown to fucking Pacific Rim, and it has the single best fight in the series. Unless you’re one of the weird “Adam was shortchanged!” folks I know are out there, I can’t imagine not loving this one.

1. Volume 4

Okay if volumes 1-2 being considered the best are “there’s no accounting for taste”, knowing that 4 is apparently one of the more consistently derided is utterly beyond my ability to summon up a rationale for. If everything beforehand was functionally an extended prologue, this is where the story starts, where every single character grows beyond an archetype and a sympathetic background into the struggles and strengths that will define them for the rest of the show. This is where you get where Weiss is coming from and trying to move past, this is where Blake articulates her pain, this is where Yang is understood as the brawler who’s about to be faced with nothing but problems she can’t just punch past, where Jaune’s efforts at holding himself up as a macho hero stop being cringe comedy and become the disastrous means of coping that’ll define him for several seasons, where Ren and Nora become fully-formed, engrossing figures instead of gag machines, and where Ruby becomes who can hold it all together. It accomplishes more in defining these people and why we should care about them than any other season has come close to matching, and handily takes the win as far as I’m concerned.

[mst3kproject]

The Devil’s Eight

The nasty misanthropic Ross Hagen revenge movies were among my least favourite episodes of MST3K, so it’s no surprise I haven’t done one as an Episode that Never Was.  But this blog isn’t about movies I like, it’s about movies that were or should have been on the Satellite of Love.  The Devil’s Eight is from American International Pictures, and as well as Hagen it features Leslie Parrish, whom you’ll remember as Ev from The Giant Spider Invasion, and Cliff Osmond, whom you probably don’t remember as the Sheriff in Hangar 18.  And on a super-duper-extra-promising note, it was written by Willard Huyck, who did the script for American Graffiti… but also for Howard the Duck.

FBI Agent Faulkner has been assigned to arrest a powerful crime lord.  Several of his colleagues have already tried this mission and been killed, so rather than use fellow agents, he frees a bunch of criminals from a chain gang and forces them to be his underlings, because we’re here to rip off The Dirty Dozen and we don’t care if it makes sense.  Driving specially souped-up cars, this unwashed and unshaven bunch infiltrate the crime boss’ moonshine operation only to realize that he’s set a trap for them.  The movie climaxes in a free-for-all of shooting, driving, and blowing shit up, and I have no idea what was happening for most of it but Ross Hagen got to hug his girlfriend at the end so it must have worked out okay.

My number one complaint about The Devil’s Eight (and I have many) is that there is only one piece of music in the entire film.  It’s a repetitive and obnoxiously catchy two-line melody that is arranged in a dozen different ways, attempting to sound ominous, mischievous, romantic, dramatic, and so forth, but the only thing it ever actually does sound like is comical old west saloon music.  It repeats through the whole hour and forty minutes of the movie and then we have to hear a ditty about the characters sung to the same tune over the end credits.  I can already tell it’s gonna be in my head for days and it’s making me want to stab something.

From the beginning, The Devil’s Eight is very badly constructed.  We start with the prison break, which was probably a good idea, and follow it until the surprise moment when they find the helicopter there waiting for them.  This scene is weirdly reminiscent of its counterpart in Starcrash and I assume both of them stole it from some better movie.  Once they’re in the chopper, however, we segue into a flashback of Faulkner and his boss talking about the mission.  Skipping back in time to a couple of guys talking in an office totally derails the momentum the first scene built up.  We want to know what’s going on, but the same information could have (and partially was) imparted by Faulkner talking to the rest a moment later!

When he does talk to them, he is maddeningly vague about what their plan is.  It involves secretly armored cars and throwing grenades while driving them – we can gather that much from the montages that follow.  The ultimate goal is to find a guy named Burl, who brews his own moonshine and apparently ‘owns’ most of the cops and politicians in wherever this is, and whom we know nothing about until the movie is half over.  When things finally do start happening, we still don’t really know what they’re trying to accomplish, and we’re not sure the characters are.  Faulkner acts like he knows what he’s doing, and the other guys (and the audience) just have to take that on faith.

In addition to telling us what the hell the characters are trying to accomplish, the first third or so of the movie should be spent getting to know them and setting up their arcs.  The Devil’s Eight tries to do this but it’s pretty half-assed about it.  There’s Sonny, the drunk troublemaker, who resolutely refuses to evolve even at gunpoint. There’s Chandler, the guy who is trying to better himself by giving up violence and reading the bible.  He turns out to be the most brutal hand-to-hand fighter of the lot, absolutely creaming half of Burl’s guys in a barfight, but he’s given no resolution to his desire for a pacifist lifestyle and is gunned down moments after admitting he doesn’t know whether to believe in god or not. And there’s Henry and Billy Jo, the black guy and the bigot (respectively), who learn to appreciate each other.  I have to give this arc a couple of grudging points for ending with Henry weeping over Billy Jo’s dead body rather than the reverse… congratulations, guys, you were slightly less racist than you could have been.

The character with the biggest personal investment in this and the one who tries to have a real story arc is Ross Hagen’s Frank. He used to work for Burl until, for unknown reasons, Burl framed him for murder, killed his younger brother, and stole his girlfriend.  He’s now itching for revenge and is personal stake in the mission leads him to take charge and enforce order when the others try to rebel against Faulkner.  That sounds like a pretty good storyline for the main character in a movie.

Then they blow it.  When Faulkner tells him they have to bring Burl in alive, Frank gets mad and insists he deserves to die.  Then, like that other Frank in T-Bird Gang, he gets no resolution for it.  The audience expects him to have a moment of confrontation with Burl and then either kill him or decide not to do so. The final confrontation, however, is between Burl and Faulkner, while Frank just fucking stands there.  It seems incomprehensible when it’s his girlfriend Burl is threatening to shoot.

This scene also has a perfect opportunity to pay off another thing The Devil’s Eight set up earlier – there’s a scene in which Faulkner demonstrates his skill as a marksman by putting three holes in a target without hitting the man who is reaching to take the target off its stand.  When Burl began threatening to shoot Frank’s girlfriend, Faulkner stood up and I was sure we were going to get a payoff for that, with Faulkner shooting Burl in the leg or the hand to make him let go of the woman, without hitting her.  But instead, Faulkner just drops his gun and walks forward to parlay!  It’s a failure of Chekov’s gun with an actual gun in it.

I think Faulkner is supposed to be the actual main character.  He’s in charge, after all, and he’s the one who gets things like flashbacks and climactic confrontations.  The problem with this is that Faulkner never learns anything, never grows, and we get no insights into his character.  He’s just a huge asshole to everybody from his girlfriend to the prisoners to the rookie agent the FBI sent to assist him (this character’s age is never established. He’s implied to be young and naïve, but he’s played by an actor who looks like he’s around forty).  Faulkner’s final line is not to place Burl under arrest, although that’s coming, but to make fun of him.

If Faulkner is a crummy hero, Burl is a terrible villain.  We don’t even meet him until the movie’s half-over, which I guess is supposed to build suspense.  The problem is that until that moment, we have seen nothing to tell us what kind of threat he represents.  Characters have talked about it, but that’s all.  We got a vague impression of a local crime king, but when Burl actually arrives in the narrative he’s a Joe Don Baker-looking guy who lives in a ramshackle log cabin in the middle of nowhere, with a bunch of other hillbillies who differ from him mostly in being dirtier.  All he seems to actually do is sit around eating.  He never comes across as threatening, just as a hick with pretensions.

Without a compelling hero, a threatening bad guy, or much of an idea what this is all even building to, where does that leave The Devil’s Eight?  It’s an over-long movie about dirty men driving huge cars and punching each other. The movie had plenty of time that could have gone into rising action and establishing character and playing up Burl’s threat and so forth, but instead it’s just training montages of driving and punching.  Once the actual plan is in motion that turns out to be just more driving and punching as they run Burl’s moonshine deliveries off the road.  The driving scenes are set to that annoying single piece of music that sounds more comical than exciting, the bluescreen backgrounds are dire, and the actors are utterly incapable of making their fake driving look anything but fake.

Everybody in the entire movie is filthy, by the way. I don’t know if this is actually supposed to invoke the ‘dirty’ part of The Dirty Dozen, or if it’s an attempt to show how rough and tough these guys are, but they’re all grimy, sweaty, and gross.  I could almost smell them through the screen.

MST3K would have had a great time with The Devil’s Eight.  I can picture Crow and Tom trying to make their own moonshine… Mike tastes it and doesn’t like it but tries not to insult them, and then they reveal it’s distilled from things like old o-rings and Joel’s socks.  And I know exactly what the stinger would have been, too.  There’s a bit where Burl and Faulkner are attempting to size each other up over dinner, and Burl orders Frank’s ex-girlfriend to mind her manners and give Frank a slice of her inexpertly-iced cake.  I don’t know why this is so funny, but I don’t know what made half the stingers in the series funny, so there you go.

[emmaaspris]

𝑵𝒂𝒓𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒐𝒓𝒚

Monday 2nd December 2019

𝑴𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒍𝒔:

Paper

Pen

𝑰𝒎𝒑𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝑲𝒆𝒚𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒅𝒔:

𝑵𝒂𝒓𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒆 - a spoken or written account of connected events; a story.

𝑺𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚 𝑨𝒓𝒄 - an extended or continuing storyline in episodic storytelling media such as television, comic books, comic strips, boardgames, video games, and films with each episode following a dramatic arc.

The aim for this session was to begin to understand what narrative theory is and identify the different parts and their roles.

𝑺𝒕𝒂𝒔𝒊𝒔 / 𝑬𝒙𝒑𝒐𝒔𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏: 

The definition of the word ‘exposition’ is: a comprehensive description and explanation of an idea or theory. This is a good explanation of what the beginning or opening of a story involves. It’s the first time the viewer is introduced to the characters, so the stasis will be, in my opinion, the most important part of a plot to think about. During the exposition, the viewer will need to get a good grip of who the characters are and be set up for what the rest of the story will involve. It needs to reflect the themes and make the genre obvious, yet also at the same time make sure it is hooking enough to make the viewer want to continue. 

𝑹𝒊𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑨𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 / 𝑻𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒈𝒆𝒓:

The trigger is usually located at the beginning of the story. It is the point in the plot that effects the main protagonist directly and spurs them to go on an adventure or journey. This will be the start of the story and by this point, the plot begins. This typically only comes after the stasis, because its a way of moving away from setting the scene to jumping into the plot. An example of this could be the main character receiving a letter, requesting them to kill the dragon on the other end of the forbidden valley that is destined to destroy the kingdom in a couple of days. 

𝑸𝒖𝒆𝒔𝒕: 

The Quest is the main part of the story which involves many adventures and character development. It centres around thermion protagonist and the choices they make which will affect their journey. Likely they will meet many new characters and form friendships or enemies. As the protagonist’s needs and desires change, so could the quest. So when planning this part of the story, it needs to be thought over carefully and analysed how a character may be before embarking compared to how they are coming home. An example of a quest could be a pirate sailing the seas for treasure. The quest would only end when he/she has found that treasure, or become satisfied enough that they don't feel the need to look for it anymore. 

𝑪𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍 𝑪𝒉𝒐𝒊𝒄𝒆:

The Critical Choice is a very hard decision or situation that the protagonist is faced with that is both a struggle for them mentally and physically. It could be a moral question such as being faced with choosing which fo their friends live or die, or being faced with an offer from the antagonist to ‘join forces.’ The latter is quite common in narratives, as it will show if the hero’s heart is truly ‘pure’ or inclined more towards evil. This brings not only high tension, but makes the viewer either worry about the character or become confident of their abilities. 

𝑪𝒍𝒊𝒎𝒂𝒙:

At some point within the story, the rising action and quest finally reach a point where everything the character has been working for comes down to one moment. This is where the antagonist and protagonist meet, likely in battle. Other characters may also be involved to help out the main character, but it should all boil down to just the main good and evil fighting. At the climax, there is high tension and the viewer is influenced to become worried about the character’s well being, hoping they survive the fight and see the ending. It is common that a character will use their life in sacrifice, for dramatic effect and to have a lasting effect on the audience. In order to get the ending that they deserve and have been working for they need to pass this final test. It is very rare that the protagonist will lose this battle, but sometimes it does happen. 

𝑹𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒂𝒍/𝑺𝒖𝒓𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒆:

The reveal or surprise can happen either before, during or after the climax, but rarely during the middle of the quest. This is where the viewer is introduced to a truth they could not have foreseen and as a result, are shocked by the dramatic turn of events. An example of this in a narrative is a side character or close friend of the main protagonist turning evil at the last minute or exposing their true motives and side with the antagonist. Occasionally it is a pleasant surprise, but most commonly it is negative to make the situation before the climax feel more hopeless than before. 

𝑹𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒂𝒍:

This is a part within the climax, usually near the end, where things seem to turn around for the protagonist and make them feel like they have a better chance of winning. this could also be used in a negative way they, such as just when a character thinks they will win, things are switched around and because of a mistake they had made in the past, they lose. Though the negative effect of this sounds harsher, it is most commonly used in the horror genre. The reversal must feel natural and flow correctly with the rest of the story. 

𝑫𝒆𝒏𝒐𝒖𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 / 𝑹𝒆𝒔𝒐𝒍𝒖𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏:

The definition of Denouement is ‘the final part of a play, film, or narrative in which the strands of the plot are drawn together and matters are explained or resolved.’ This is the part where all unanswered questions must be resolved in order to end the story effectively. This resolution must make the viewer feel satisfied with the ending and the new life that the characters may live thanks to their quest. An example of this may be the character’s lives going back to normal, being able to live peacefully without evil or worry about the antagonist showing up again because the battle is over. This may also include showing some of the bad characters justly suffering the consequences for their actions. It is in stark contrast to the high tension climax just before it, instead carrying an aura of peace and positivity. (Or negatively depending on if you want a good ending. But in fantasy genre, it is rare for there to be a bad ending.) 

»»--——————　♔　——————--««

𝑴𝒚 𝑵𝒂𝒓𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒆:

After looking at the simple Narrative Theory, I waned to see what my own narrative would look like as a similar chart. I also decided to add my own themes at the bottom, showing-casing the messages I want to send throughout my story. The end result of this shows a very similar looking diagram, but with another ‘mountain’. My own narrative holds a lot of what theory above has, but just has two climax’s and two critical choices to be made for each character: The Prince and The Wolf. I will lay my story from beginning to end below so that I can see it in simpler terms (as the plot has become quite complicated to try and explain out loud.) This will also help me when it comes to presenting my project to others, because then I will be able to explain it step by step with visual aid.

𝑬𝒙𝒑𝒐𝒔𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏/𝑺𝒕𝒂𝒔𝒊𝒔:

The viewer will be introduced to the prince very briefly, but shown enough that they understand what a ‘hero’ and ‘perfect person’ he seems to be. With good looks and all the qualities of a hero, there doesn’t seem to appear much room for development. His ‘best quality’ will be made obvious and something that the whole kingdom seems to know: his bravery. It seems that he can march straight into battle or be faced with any harsh situation and never falter. This is where the story will begin, mostly centred around the Perfect Prince and the state of the kingdom (where there is lots of segregation between species, humans ruling at the top of the chain.)

𝑻𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒈𝒆𝒓 + 𝑹𝒊𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑨𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏

After the brief introduction, the prince will find out for the first time about all the evil that is happening in the kingdom as he is suddenly exposed to the horrors that his father has committed and he has been blinded to. This moves him to action and he prepares to confront his father.

𝑪𝒍𝒊𝒎𝒂𝒙

The Prince confronts his father about the evil he has been committing. There is a battle and he finds out that it is not the king doing these things, but an evil advisor manipulating him from behind the scenes. The prince loses the battle as the darkness is too strong and the antagonist tries to make the king kill his son. He can’t make himself do it and snaps out of it for a moment in time to banish him out of the kingdom instead. But just before this, the monster takes away his greatest quality: his bravery.

𝑹𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒂𝒍:

The prince wakes up in the middle of an unknown Forrest said to be filled with the most dangerous creatures in the land. Despite the dangerous surroundings, there is a contrast of peacefulness compared to the harsh tension before. The Prince is now a coward and jumping at every little unnecessary thing. The situation looks dire for him and there is little hope.

𝑻𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒈𝒆𝒓:

As he is wandering around, trying to gather wood to put together a fire -insert light hearted humour here as he has no idea what he is doing- he is attacked by a huge monster. He tries to run away from it as best as he can, but at the last minute, someone comes in and saves him, redirecting the monster somewhere else. As he gets up to thank the person, he is immediately pinned down by Skylar, who has her sai to his neck. She examines him and says he wreaks of human royalty. Then she asks him if he is the prince, to which he declines as he doesn’t trust her. She accepts this and is about to leave to continue on her way to the castle. The prince learns of her plans and persuades her not to go. He makes up an excuse that he is a high servant to the prince and saw him get killed by the king. He convinces her that he is just a servant who escaped and that there is no chance of defeating the evil power controlling the king. Begrudgingly, she joins him in trying to find a way of defeating the king.

𝑸𝒖𝒆𝒔𝒕:

On their travels through the Forrest, they run into a fairy who knows of a legend of a magical sword that is so powerful, just its touch can even cut shadows in half. But only a human of royal blood can wield it. The Prince is revealed by the fairy to be the king’s son and Skylar is angered by how he lied to her. Hating herself for even trusting a human in the first place, she is about to leave him and find her own way of defeating the king but he again convinces her to help. He tells her if she helps him make it to the throne, he’ll give her riches. She accepts, but not for the reason of money. Now they go on a journey through self discovery and character development, where she teaches him how to fight and be brave again and he teaches her the meaning of friendship. They both will learn equality.

𝑪𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍 𝑪𝒉𝒐𝒊𝒄𝒆:

As they have achieved the weapon and are preparing to battle the king again, the prince has a weak moment where he realises he is still afraid of what is to come. In that moment, the evil force comes to him in a dream, tempting him towards the dark side in exchange for his father and an easy passage to the throne. The antagonist promises him he will never be fearful again if he chooses to change sides. He declines this.

𝑪𝒍𝒊𝒎𝒂𝒙:

The prince and Skylar battle the evil king in a hard battle. There is a full out civil war happening in the kingdom between humans and animals (friends the prince and Skylar have made on their quest.) The battle appears to be going well and they seem to be winning.

𝑪𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍 𝑪𝒉𝒐𝒊𝒄𝒆 + 𝑺𝒖𝒓𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒆:

As the battle is happening, the prince and Skylar as separated and she is tempted towards evil. Unlike the prince, she accepts because it fed her hatred of humans. It promises her revenge on all those who have wronged her and her tribe. The battle continues and Skylar and The prince end up fighting one another. This is were the plot reaches its highest tension and there are a lot of emotional parts. All seems lost for the prince and he fails. Skylar realises suddenly feels remorse but can’t understand why. After reflecting back on their adventure together, she pulls out of the darkness’s grip and together, they both run the sword through the antagonist and finally destroy it. But this also results in the king’s death, as he was still connected to the darkness when it was destroyed.

𝑭𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑨𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏:

The kingdom deals with the aftermath of the battle and tings are gradually going back to normal. But as the Prince is dealing with the loss of his father, he finds it difficult to accept the throne which he has now inherited. Skylar is there to comfort him (showing extreme character development, as she would have never shown empathy at the beginning.)

𝑹𝒆𝒔𝒐𝒍𝒖𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏:

The Prince becomes king and promises to rule the land better than his father did. He restores the device between humans and animals. He and Skylar part ways and decide to remain friends, (as they had developed feelings for each other). They are both needed in different places, so nothing is going to work between them. She goes home to her tribe to take her place as the alpha and the kingdom is finally at peace under the new king’s rule.

[thefinalcinderella]

DIVE!! Book 4 Chapter 9-RETURN GAME

Me at the start of this chapter: Lol this is the chapter where Keisuke discovers his son has no life

Me after this chapter: 

Even though this wasn’t the longest chapter, it feels like I put the most work in it, and I’m not gonna lie, I teared up a little in the end. It would be cheesy in any other story, but here it feels like something we’ve been waiting for for a long time.

We’re nearing the end of the competition soon!

Full list of translations here

Previous | Next

It’s from the final stage of a competition that the diver standing on the stage makes their essence shine in the empty space.

In the early stages of a competition, the divers, who dance one after another and then sink down, do not always expose their true faces. Putting on armor over and over again, and conscious of the eyes of the judges, spectators, and rivals, they played the part of the “self that I want to show”. From the middle stages of a competition, they melt their armor with the water they slip into once or twice, and their true faces peek through. Exhausted, their bodies were no longer hearing what was said, and their heads only thinking of results. Faced with the final rankings that were vaguely floating before them, the divers could be so cleanly separated into two types in the final stages that it was comical.

The types who go into defense and do half-hearted, passive performances, and the types who go on the attack and are assertive until the very end.

Keisuke felt greatly proud in his heart that all of his students belong to the latter.

Seeing too much assertiveness made one felt anxious, until there was no time to even take a breath.

The competition approached the final stages in the eighth round. Youichi, whose gait was unsure as he ascended the steps, defied expectations that he had already reached his limit by clearing the difficult inward dive with 3½ forward somersaults in tuck position with no mistakes. He wondered why his body that had been staggering on land suddenly stilled into top form in midair, and as he puzzled over that, he marked him with a high score of 83.52 points.

After him, Shibuki also showed off a performance with a sense of scale by doing an inverse dive with 2½ forward somersaults in pike position, and demonstrated it in the way of a bigshot who was strong at the last moment. He got added 73.08 points and came back to the top again.

Tomoki, who was last, also did a dive in the fourth group with an inward forward 2½ somersaults in tuck position. Tomoki first attracted the spectators with the height of his takeoff, made them ooh-and-ah with the speed of rotations, and precisely determined the angle of his entry. However, the lowness of the dive’s degree of difficulty had an effect and he didn’t catch up to the two before him, ending with 63.75 added points.

For now, the three succeeded without problems, maintaining the dream to “win with more than 600 points”.

But, as soon as he felt relieved, the top batter Reiji had already appeared on platform for the ninth round.

Reiji had just barely passed the preliminaries in the morning, and as expected, because of the differences in skills he was gradually falling back, the dream to the championship already disappearing. However, when compared to how he was usually, today he showed an astonishingly willful attitude with his breathtaking performances. Reiji, who until now stared at his feet and made himself compact when he was just climbing the steps, was looking straight up. Even just with that, Keisuke’s chest was filled with warmth.

Would I win or not? What place would I end up in? These were important questions for the divers themselves, but Keisuke thought that those who were coaches shouldn’t be moved by comparative evaluations like rankings, but aim to evaluate on an absolute scale on an individual-by-individual basis.

Do not overlook individual efforts that are not recorded in numbers.

If it is four people there then it’s four people, and if it is ten people there then it’s ten people; make evaluations according to each of their “nows”.

That is, fairly.

With that firm belief, Keisuke watched Reiji’s performance, ascertaining it with his own eyes until the moment his toes completely disappeared beneath the water, before finally letting his shoulders relax with a sigh of relief.

At the same time, Ooshima called to him from the seat next to Kayoko, who was sandwiched between the two of them.

“Coach Fujitani, Coach Fujitani.”

It took a while for his voice to reach Keisuke’s ears, as the stands in the main pool approached the climax of their competition, getting even noisier. The cheers of the cheering parties. The fervent applause. The mic echoes of the athlete introductions to their entrance music. To the divers who were in the difficult situation of standing on the platform, those flashy entrances could only be described as bad luck.

“Coach Fujitani!”

He finally noticed it by the third time.

When he turned, Ooshima dramatically leaned over and stage-whispered to Keisuke, “Over there, in the middle of the first row, you can see the backs of an old woman and a girl, right? Just now those two were hugging when they saw Shibuki at the top…”

“Ah.”

“I think that’s Shibuki’s you-know-who.”

With Ooshima’s raised little finger before his eyes, only the wrinkles between Keisuke’s brows deepened as he kept expressionless.

Ooshima was his underclassman from the Nippon Sport Science University, and he was a good, sincere man, but he was somewhat impatient. As the competition reached its climax, it seemed that he couldn’t endure the intensifying serious mood, and sometimes he tended towards meaningless, thoughtless words and deeds.

“That Okitsu-kun, who stays in the same room as you,” Keisuke said with some admonition in his voice, “seemed to have met with that young lady outside last night.”

Ooshima got a conspicuous “oh no” face.

“No, if it’s just for a short time then there’s no problem…um, I need to give him a lot of caution for physical relations as well. But, why did he do that?”

“It may be because you made a slip of the tongue.”

“Ah.”

“If the pheasant doesn’t sing, it won’t get shot at.”

Ooshima turned red, making his large body smaller.

Now that it came to this, Keisuke felt a little sorry, and spoke of his own accord, a rare thing for him to do in the middle of a competition.

“By the way, Hiro-kun and the young lady that he is in a relationship with have come to support Tomo.”

“Oh, that’s Tomo’s ex-girlfriend.”

“No, she’s Hiro-kun’s girlfriend.”

“But, she’s Tomo’s ex.”

“No, no, she’s Hiro-kun’s…”

“She used to be Sakai-kun’s girlfriend,” Kayoko cut in. “And now she’s his younger brother’s girlfriend.”

Keisuke was confused.

“So, they are the same person?”

“Yes. To make a long story short, it was an illicit love.”

“Hah. But, even that Tomo had a sweetheart…”

“A lot of middle schoolers nowadays do.”

“No, but, even so…”

Faltering, the wrinkles between Keisuke’s brows deepened even more.

“Even so, I don’t believe Reiji has one.”

“Huh?”

“What I meant was a sweetheart.”

“No, I don’t think Maruyama-kun has one.”

Kayoko quizzically responded, and Keisuke relaxed the stress between his eyebrows.

Ooshima drove home the final blow immediately after.

“But, there’s the fact that Reiji received a love letter.”

“What?”

“I think it was during his first year of middle school. He had no experience with it, so he didn’t write a reply, but even now he carries that letter around preciously… Youth really is beautiful.”

Keisuke no longer opened his mouth, and tried to calm his mind while he rubbed his brow with two fingers.

This isn’t a big deal. What do I need to feel disturbed for?

Even if Shibuki had a girlfriend who came all the way to Osaka to cheer him on, even if Tomoki had colorful, lively memories, even if Reiji carried around a love letter, that was that. Even if only Youichi spent his youth unbeautifully without having anything to do with those sorts of love affairs, as the head coach of the MDC, that was no reason to give special support to only his son.

Keisuke fired his spinal column up and turned to face the diving platform with his head held high.

Fairness to the last. I will maintain this belief until the very end—.

It was Tomoki who Keisuke about Shibuki’s girlfriend in the first place.

It could also be said that it was a product of an invited conversation brought about by time and coincidence.

Breakfast would also serve as a meeting at seven o’clock. All members were to gather at the restaurant on the first floor. Despite emphasizing that, when Keisuke went towards the restaurant on time in the morning, only Tomoki and Ooshima were sitting at the table.

“Youichi-kun and Sacchin overslept, Okitsu-kun’s taking a shower to get himself awake, and Reiji and Coach Asaki are still getting ready.”

Tomoki didn’t have to explain it; he had gotten a feeling that it would be like that.

Though it was rare for Youichi to oversleep, Shibuki and Sachiya were always bad at waking up. It took time for Reiji to get ready, and it took time for Kayoko to put on makeup. Since still no one showed up after they waited five minutes, Ooshima got up to go and call everyone.

Only Keisuke, Tomoki, and the buffet plates they’d brought were left at the table. Tomoki was already greedily stuffing his cheeks with omelettes and sausages. Some people didn’t eat much before a competition, but he felt pleased when he saw Tomoki’s way of eating.

“Did you sleep well last night?” Keisuke asked while wrapping his white rice in toasted seaweed.

“Yeah,” Tomoki smiled as he gulfed down his French toast. “I fell asleep before I knew it. I think maybe Youichi-kun put a blanket on me.”

“I see. If you’ve slept plenty, you’ll be in perfect condition.”

“Well, yesterday I got relaxed in Kobe and for some reason I seem to be doing great.”

“Was Kobe good?”

“Yeah. The water gyoza was delicious, and we saw the night view. Kobe was great. Really, everything was great until Kobe. But after that, Reiji told us about Coach Asaki’s…ah.”

Tomoki clamped his mouth shut.

“What is it?”

“Umm, nothing.”

“What about Coach Asaki?”

“Nothing.”

Tomoki pushed a banana into his mouth, as though using it as a plug to stay silent.

Had he become fourteen years old?

Keisuke felt that at that moment.

Keisuke’s students usually joined the MDC when they were in the lower grades of elementary school. At the beginning everyone was carefree, and although they constantly chattered about anything and everything, from fourth grade on they distinguished between things they do and do not talk about. When they become middle schoolers, they almost never talked about things outside of diving. They might confide in a young coach, but it seemed hard for them to talk to a much older head coach.

“Tomo,”

Second-grade Tomoki. When he remembered his flabbergasted appearance from when he just joined the MDC, his mouth unconsciously began to move.

“I believe I did something bad to you.”

“Eh, what is it?”

“I didn’t perceive your talent.”

“Huh?”

“No, I did perceive it, but I never helped you develop it. Your kinetic vision and flexibility…even though I’ve seen them for five years, I wasn’t able to make them bloom in the end. I’ve always thought that I did something inexcusable as I watched you grow so fast under Coach Asaki.”

Tomoki was speechless for a short while, and then he dropped his fork. “What do you mean?” he pouted.

“If you say that, then it sounds like the five years where I was taught by you and Coach Nakanishi are useless, doesn’t it?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say they were useless.”

“Of course not. The current me is…I don’t know how to say this well, but the current me is made up of everything until now.”

“Everything?”

“Yep. I don’t have parents who were former Olympic athletes, or a grandpa who was said to be a genius phantom diver. But, I’ve always had a normal family. My dad, my mom, and Hiro were there. When I go to the MDC, Youichi-kun, Reiji, Sacchin, Ryou, and Okitsu-kun were there. And of course Coach Fujitani, Coach Ooshima, and Coach Nakanishi were there. Since Coach Nakanishi was gone, Coach Asaki was there. Everyone was there like that, just like how the sky and mountains and rivers are always there, and everything from those fourteen years combined perfectly together, making the me who is here now. I thought of it like that a lot recently.”

“…”

“My friends at school say stuff like how old people are smelly and clumsy, but I really think that. If even one person wasn’t there, it wouldn’t combine perfectly.”

“…”

“I really do think that!”

“I understand.”

Even while nodding humbly, Keisuke was getting the chills. Ah, this child will continue to grow without stopping in the future.

Tomoki was a fresh, brand-new child. In a way, he could be called empty. But, that was why he could have room to accumulate things within himself. He could absorb everything surrounding him—friends, family, coaches, the sky and the mountains and the rivers—and transform them into power to open up his future. Beyond this point, Tomoki could change all the things he encountered, the things he saw, and the things he touched into energy, and spread his wings to anywhere on earth.

In contrast, Shibuki was already clogged with too many things inside of him, without an inch of space left. His ancestral blood. The dream his grandfather wasn’t able to fulfill. His grandfather’s and father’s deaths. His mother and two younger sisters who were left behind. The community of his Tsugaru village when he eventually returned home. Normally, those things would become heavy pressure, but Shibuki used them as a driving force, launching out explosive power. As long as he saddled himself with something, he would continue to be more and more astonishing in the future.

And then, there was Youichi—.

“Um, Coach Fujitani,” While Keisuke got lost in his thoughts, Tomoki timidly spoke up. “This might be none of my business, but I want to say it because I’m kind of worried about it, so…”

“What is it?”

“Coach Fujitani, I think you should only cheer for Youichi today.”

“What?”

“Coach Ooshima told me this earlier, but Okitsu-kun’s girlfriend came here to cheer him on for today’s competition. I think they’ve met up yesterday. I’ve also met her in Tsugaru, and she’s really pretty. And, Hiro’s coming to cheer me on. Along with his really cute girlfriend. But Youichi-kun only has you for a relative.”

“…”

“It’s an important match where the Olympics hang in the balance, and Youichi-kun’s been working really hard, so can’t you only cheer for him just for today, Coach Fujitani?”

“…”

“So, it really is none of my business?”

No… Keisuke shook his head, keeping silent as he didn’t know what to say next.

Coaches cannot watch over one student specially. In order to repay the parents who trust me and entrust their precious children to me, I have a responsibility to watch over all of you equally. Many reasons came to mind. But, those were probably not the reasons that Tomoki was asking for.

“If I…” Keisuke finally murmured in a hoarse voice, “cheer on Youichi, it won’t be helpful to him.”

“Why?”

“There are athletes born under such a causal star.”

Tomoki blinked, then tilted his head in puzzlement. No matter how much he ran out of words trying to explain it, Tomoki would probably still not understand. That there were athletes who couldn’t make everything external into energy like Tomoki, or make everything internal into energy like Shibuki.

Always trying to surpass yourself, standing on the edge of the depths of solitude, and only after that could you demonstrate your strength.

Perhaps the ones who could understand the athletes born under such a star were the same kind of people.

This child is similar to me in some way.

The reason why Keisuke purposely didn’t teach Youichi diving in his childhood boiled down to that one sentence.

Inflexible stubbornness. High pride. Burdening himself with a load even when he didn’t have to, and a capriciousness to walk a thorny path on purpose.

Nowadays, although he had matured through his years of being a coach, Keisuke had exactly been that kind of athlete when he was young. He stopped in his tracks to think about everything he was doing, and he didn’t move a step forward if he didn’t agree with even one thing. When he didn’t agree with it, he turned on his coach without hesitation. He drove himself on by bragging to his rivals, then pouring his heart’s blood into practice in order to make those boasts truth.

Just like the current Youichi.

Although back then he got aggressive at anything he didn’t like, as time passed, as a coach who put a distance of one or two steps between everything, now it was painfully reflected in his eyes the fact that those kinds of athletes had a damaging disposition. He didn’t know how good it would to be like Tomoki—loved and pampered everyone, turning that into energy and growing.

He wanted to let Youichi walk that way as well if he could. He tried to nurture his sociability by giving him the position of the MDC’s leader. Even at the time when Youichi went to directly appeal to Chairman Maebara, though on the inside he was thinking that it was something that was waiting to happen, he drummed into him fussily that he was insolent to go against the organization.

However, somewhere in his mind Keisuke was resigned to the fact that Youichi was his son after all. Because I was born under that causal star, as long as I am active I have no choice but to continue to be burdened with my karma.

If there was just one saving grace, it was that Youichi had much more outstanding talent than him. Fujitani Keisuke participated in the 1972 Munich Olympics and was easily eliminated from the preliminaries. Youichi was different from him, who was winning with his reputation as a coach nowadays, as he had the qualities and talents to do well in the world.

During the time when he was an instructor at Sakuragi High School, he took the seven-year-old Youichi to the diving pool of the diving club for the first time. It was unavoidable that he would come with him as his wife was absent, but he was also a bit interested as to what kind of response Youichi would show. If he showed interest, perhaps he could try diving from the one-meter. But that was not necessary. When Keisuke took his eyes off him, Youichi ran up the five-meter.

When he became aware of that, he was already dancing beneath the blue sky of August.

It was a magnificent dive.

In that moment, Keisuke might have already been resigned to the fact that that child’s talents could not be sealed. But openly he didn’t approve or disapprove of it, continuing to taking the position of leaving diving to Youichi’s autonomy and independence.

Such an ambiguous attitude was not permitted when Keisuke was enticed from Sakuragi High School to the MDC.

“Could you please come and take the position of head coach at Mizuki’s newly established diving club?”

From the start, he had not hesitant when he received the late chairman of Mizuki’s personal invitation. Keisuke had been coaching diving for ten years since he retired from his athlete career, and although he felt that this job was fulfilling and worth doing, he had always had a fundamental problem with it. It was too late to seriously train divers from high school who would be able to carry the Japanese diving world on their shoulders. Training for months and years from childhood was an indispensable condition. And so for Keisuke, who was concerned about the poorness of the institutions for that purpose, the establishment of the MDC was exactly a dream came true.

What he was hesitant about was what to do with Youichi.

At the time, Youichi was still ten-years-old. Even though he was obsessed with diving, there were also other possibilities left. Now he could still return from the thorny path. He hesitated about bringing Youichi to the MDC at this stage, which might decisively orient his life.

And then, putting his own disposition aside, if Youichi joins the MDC, it was apparent that from then on that between them the relationship of a coach and athlete would be prioritized over a father and son relationship. He cannot concentrate his biased affection to only his son. Such self-control could also widen the distance between him and Youichi more than necessary.

It was on a certain Saturday night that Keisuke finally reached the point of giving up after hesitating and hesitating. After coming home from volunteering at a diving experience class for half a day, he was having a drink in the living room after taking a bath, and could hear his wife and son talking in the kitchen through the thin curtain that separated the rooms.

“What did you do at school today?”

“The teacher read us Run, Melos!” (1)

“Ah, how nostalgic. How was it?”

“Well, it’s Melos’ victory strategy, right?”

“Eh…how?”

“Because even if Melos left early and ran normally, he wouldn’t have the time to easily help his friend. But, because he was having fun at his little sister’s wedding party, sleeping soundly, and humming songs as he walked, he became panicked in the end. I think that was definitely his strategy.”

“Strategy?”

“Yep. I’m sure that he won’t have enough time. It has to be more last minute, more of a close call, more of a really desperate situation with no escape, or Melos won’t be able to get fired up.”

A few minutes later, Keisuke weakly broke the news to Youichi, who was sitting at the living room’s dining table, about the MDC.

There was no need to confirm his willingness to join, as Youichi’s eyes were shining.

After that it developed just as he had expected it would, as Keisuke became Youichi’s coach before his father, and his relationship with Youichi, who was entrusted to his mother from the beginning, became more and more formal. Although in the beginning he was bothered by what to do about that, nowadays they had gotten used to their mutual coach and athlete relationship, settling into a strange state of affairs.

In his seven years as head coach of the MDC, there were only two occasions where Keisuke exposed his face as a father.

The first time was during the spring of Youichi’s fifth grade, when he failed at his forward reverse somersault and gotten a head injury.

The second time, when he learned that Youichi was going to do the new dive with those unlucky forward reverse somersaults for the last round at these qualifying trials.

As the first time occurred when it was still just under half a year since the MDC opened, because he was wholeheartedly set on not instilling terror in the hearts of the children who were just beginning to dive, he strenuously restrained himself from becoming distraught.

However, for the second time, he was a little unable to keep his self-control, and regardless of leaving the dive events entirely to Kayoko, when he became aware of it he shouted wildly to Youichi that his new dive was impossible and reckless. The next day he was ashamed that he did something immature, reflecting and regretting that perhaps it was himself who was dragging out the trauma of that incident more than anyone else.

However, in any case this was his last look at a lifespan-shortening competition. If he thought about it like that, it became some consolation.

With the results of this competition, whether the MDC continued on or was driven to shut down, Keisuke had decided to resign from being the head coach.

The MDC was a club that was planned, heavily engaged in, and ended up realized by Mizuki Shinnosuke. He had no hesitation about handing over the essential role of head coach to Shinnosuke’s granddaughter, Kayoko. Kayoko was a coach with a rarely seen genius, and though young she had an unwavering conviction. In addition, that confidence. Even though he still hadn’t talked to the person herself yet, Keisuke would be relieved if it was to Kayoko he entrusted his students to when the time came.

And as for Keisuke himself, he was thinking of transferring to a newly established adult course in the MDC after retiring.

Even if it avoided closing, MDC would continue to be in the red. As a part of his breakthrough solution, he had an idea of maybe trying to teach diving to a wider range of age group as a hobby. Although it was still in the planning stages, in the event that it was realized, Keisuke planned on volunteering to become the full-time coach for that adult course.

At Sakuragi High School he taught diving to high schoolers in their growth period. At the MDC he taught diving to children who would be growing up from then on. It was a good time to associate with diving from another angle, and leave the center stage of winning and losing soon. This was also a way of expanding the spread of diving, and honestly, he didn’t want to see his precious and innocent students suffer in the world of competitions anymore.

Of course, if the results of the qualifying trials were unsatisfactory, there was the possibility of the MDC itself disappearing, to say nothing of an adult course. In that case, he had already said it. Keisuke would take responsibility and leave the diving world, and made up his mind to take up the teaching job at the Otaru university. What would be left for Fujitani Keisuke if diving was taken away from him? It was obvious that everyone was saying that, but Keisuke also wanted to find that out for himself. What would be left for me if you take away diving? What would I lose, what would I drag along with me, what would I aim for next?

Either way, these Olympic representative qualifying trials would be the last competition with his students that Keisuke would be directly involved in.

“Later, when you have time, come to my room.”

Last night, he spontaneously told Youichi that when he returned from Kobe, because his mind was unconsciously worked up before the last day, probably. He shouldn’t say much until the end of the competition, and keep everything to himself, but even he didn’t know why he blurted that out.

Although he tried telling him to come, he didn’t know what he should say. In a restless mood, he was trying to write a manuscript titled “Spiritual Training—To Dance with One’s Heart”, until around nine there was a knock on his door. Keisuke set down his pen and showed Youichi into his room.

“As we welcome tomorrow’s battle, I just want to say one final thing. No matter who wins, who goes to Sydney tomorrow, that is merely a prologue. Fujitani Youichi. Okitsu Shibuki. Sakai Tomoki. You three are divers who possess the qualities to become exceptional. However, you are still young. Your battles continue even after Sydney. Even if you win this time, that is only the first step. Even if you lose this time, there is still ample room for recovery after that. Please capture the future with wide eyes, and from now on I want you three to devote yourselves to head for the top of the world, while mutually encouraging each other to improve. And if possible, outside the water I want you to be good friends who support each other.”

Keisuke thought that after saying that, he might want to do something like taking out three arrows from travelling bag, and say, “Snap them. You can’t, can you? One arrow by itself is weak, but three together is strong.”

But, of course, he did not stock three arrows in his bag, and his fingers, driven by haste as to what to say, grabbed the camera and film.

“I was asked by the JASF’s public relations department to take pictures at the Namihaya Dome. I am not really skilled with machines.”

His return game as a father had only just begun.

Loud music resounded from the main pool again, as a group of swimmers entered the venue with their hands thrust into the air. It was the men’s four x hundred-meter medley relay. As the final event, the cheering squads were leaning forward at this critical moment, making their energetic cries resound.

Matsuno, who went up on the platform during that time, hastily dived from being overwhelmed by that atmosphere, and was resigned to low scores from doing a small performance due to the fear of making a mistake.

After him, Asama broke both his feet doing a twist in his performance, yet another one in bad condition.

As an unpleasant mood hung over everyone, Youichi finally appeared on the platform again.

Slender and long limbs and a symmetrical physical beauty. His appearance that could capture the spectators at a glance was the same as usual, but at a closer glance his complexion was not good, and only his eyes were glittering strangely.

Keisuke noticed Youichi was destroying his physical condition without having to be informed by Kayoko. He knew it the moment he first saw Youichi arriving late at the restaurant. Oh, have you backed yourself into a corner again? You look like you’ve looked down into the dark bottom of a valley from the edge.

Could he dive until the end in that state?

Or would he fall along the way?

Either way, as a coach, there was nothing to do but to watch with his own eyes until the end. Calmly, fairly, watch one of his students betting on their last chance to go to the Olympics.

His ninth-round entry was a backward 3½ somersaults in tuck position and handstand.

As everyone in the MDC was staring at him, the whistle for the beginning of the performance sounded.

Youichi took a deep breath, then tilted his gaze down. After that, he slowly hung his head down from his forehead, bending his waist while maintaining the stability of the lower half of his body. A graceful movement that abounded in flexibility. In that position, he bent his upper body, at the same time extending his hands to the tip of the platform.

“Hosei University has set a new record in Japan!”

The spectacular fanfare resounded from the main pool just before Youichi’s fingers tried to touch the platform.

“Congratulations, this is the best record for men’s four x hundred-meter medley relay!”

The venue was instantaneously engulfed in thunderous applause, the spectators doing a standing ovation in the main pool’s stands. Towards the four people hugging on the poolside, the cheer squads lost control and screamed. It was as though they had gotten an Olympic gold medal.

The dome was instantly swallowed up by a huge swell.

Contrasting that uproarious main pool, the diving pool had fallen silent without even one sound.

Everyone, from Keisuke, Kayoko, Ooshima, Sachiya, the divers who were waiting for their turn, the judges, to Youichi on the platform, stared dumbfounded at the festival on the opposite shore.

If the whistle hadn’t sounded at that time, everyone might have been frozen to that spot forever.

“Oi, this is awful.”

Ooshima was the first to returned to himself.

It was the second whistle from the head of the referees. That was meant as a warning to the divers who were hesitating on the platform. The diver would have a score of 0 if they did not begin their performance within one minute of the warning.

Keisuke’s, Kayoko’s, and Ooshima’s faces were streaked with tension.

But, Youichi in that situation was standing still on the head of the dragon like a puppet with its strings cut. The eyes that had been glittering just a while ago were blankly roaming around in the air, and his feet were wobbling. There was no time for him to waver. There was no room for hesitation. If he didn’t start doing his handstand right now he would fall to last place. Nevertheless, Youichi didn’t try to move his body without so much as a twitch.

Ten seconds passed.

Youichi didn’t move.

Sweat floated on Kayoko’s forehead.

Twenty seconds passed.

Youichi didn’t move.

Tears appeared in the eyes of Sachiya who was holding his flag.

Thirty seconds passed.

Youichi didn’t move.

Hosei University’s cheer squad was beginning to sing their school anthem.

Forty seconds were about to pass.

That was when Keisuke moved.

“Stop that, this is not the time for singing, my son is about to dive!”

Suddenly, the cheering squad’s chorus came to a stop from the bellow of Keisuke, who was standing upright like a guardian Deva king. Within the venue that was covered in a silence like a desert at night, gazes like sandstorms pierced into Keisuke from all directions.

Kayoko’s crimson mouth was left hanging open, having forgotten to close it. Beside her, Ooshima had forgotten to breathe. Sachiya, who had forgotten to cheer, let his flag slip from his fingers, hitting his hair whorl with a clunk. However, Keisuke did not see any of that.

Keisuke’s eyes were only intently following Youichi on the distant platform, lifting his body and his feet that were firmly stepping on thorns, with his two arms.

At a height of ten-meters, he drew a perfect ninety degrees, an immovable handstand.

An indomitable will and strength.

“Ah,”

When the spectators finally returned their gazes to the platform, Youichi had already left the ground, making a brilliant arc glitter on the water.

Only when his body was sucked into the water soundlessly, did Keisuke collapse into his chair for the first time.

Rankings as of the Ninth Round (Cumulative)

①     Okitsu Shibuki (552.09 points)

②     Yamada Atsuhiko (519.24 points)

③     Fujitani Youichi (514.83 points)

④     Sakai Tomoki (510.45 points)

⑤     Asama Takashi (493.71 points)

⑥     Ogawa Shinobu (473.58 points)

⑦     Matsuno Kiyotaka (451.74 points)

⑧     Tsuji Toshihiko (447.03 points)

⑨     Nakayama Masahiko (425.91 points)

⑩     Moriya Kazuteru (408.27 points)

⑪     Maruyama Reiji (405.48 points)

⑫     Kaburagi Shinji (359.31 points)

Translation Notes

1. Run, Melos! (Melos Hashire) is a novel by Osamu Dazai. You can read a better summary on Wikipedia, but it’s basically about this guy Melos who got his friend to replace him for his execution, and had to run back to him in three days or else he dies. 

[pomegranate-salad]

Seeds of thought : Wicdiv #32 & #33

Work work work work work. I’ve never worked so much in my life. The college student easy life is a lie, kids. So I’m doing a 2-in-1 type of thing on the last two issues. I didn’t have much material on issue 32 alone anyway and I think these two issues make more sense as a two-parter finale, so I guess it works well. Thoughts and opinions under the cut, spoilers of course. And fuck Woden.

 THE LAST LAUGH

 “Well this looks ridiculous”

This was my - and I assume an unneglectable number of people’s – first reaction to the last page of issue #33 in which we see the severed heads of Lucifer, Inanna and Tara displayed on an altar. This scene was probably effective on some, but for me it immediately called back to Disney’s Haunted Mansion and Futurama, and I was effectively done for : there was no way I could take this visual seriously.

There’s no two ways around it : this scene is silly. First we have what should be one of the biggest reveal of the entire series casually thrown at us by a character who’s not even looking at the audience, Then the camera cuts to this grotesque display of living heads, and the scene is complete with a classic Luci one-liner that seems aware of how out-of-place this entire sequence is. Really, all that’s missing is the laugh track.

You could say anticlimactic ; but really should it be called that when it’s the creators themselves who intentionally destroy the dramatic potential of their own scene ? If you’re not convinced this was intentional, try a little thought experiment and imagine rewriting this scene to amplify its dramatic intensity. By doing so, my conclusion is that this ending had every chance of being a huge finisher like the ones we saw in Fandemonium and Rising Action, but every writing and artistic decision was deliberately made to be as wrong as possible, to ruin every emotional weight this scene could have had.

 This is not an anomaly : in these last two issues, the creators seem to have engaged in the systematic destruction of every dramatic beat by way of grotesque and ridicule. It’s an undercurrent that ran through the entire second part of Imperial Phase, but only reached its full potential toward the end.

It started on the very first page of issue #32, trivializing Amaterasu’s death when the issue before that still gave it all the gravity fitting to the first death of a Wicdiv arc. Then Dio’s last moments of bravery reveal themselves to be a total waste, on top of ruining One More Time forever. Even Woden’s bad guy monologue is sort of too shitty to really muster the kind of epic hatred you’d want to direct at this character. Then we have Sakhmet’s death, caused not by her lover or her sort-of-nemesis Baal, but by a thirteen year old on her first kill. And that’s not even touching on the awful reminder of her fate we get at the end of issue #33. Then there’s of course the beep machine, and issue #32’s hilarious finish, which I think call for no commentary. Issue #33 is divided in two big reveals, the first one forcing on the us the awful visual of David Blake’s head on Woden’s suit and one of the most fist-curling yet somehow pathetic bad guy monologues in history, and the second one being that ridiculous finish scene. The two are even separated by an intimate scene between Cass and Laura that literally gets cut because there’s a stranger tied up two feet from them.

 So if these issues somewhat feel like they’re played all wrong, we know where it comes from. They feel like a multipart climax that got flipped on its head, so not a punch would land or beat would work. That’s not to say there aren’t some really impressive character moments in there ; but for each of them, there’s an inversely proportionally bad joke or ironic twist sweeping right in to undercut the whole thing.

And that’s something worth examining, not as a mistake but as a creative direction. Humour used to be a respite in Wicdiv, a welcome break from all the bleakness and emotional scorching of the characters. Each of them had their own wit, from Luci’s cool girl referencing to Baphomet’s failed swagger, to even Cass’ dry deliveries. But now, humour is just another weapon to hurt us. It prevents us from caring about our characters, from connecting with their emotions, from taking the story seriously. As I was reading through what I knew were Dio’s last moments, all I could focus on was Woden’s villain’s speech and the fact that he was right, and that Dio’s death was probably going to be a complete waste, because that’s how Wicdiv works now. Just compare the weight of Amaterasu’s and Dio’s respective death scenes : they’re not even separated by a full issue, yet the light that’s shone on them is completely different. No matter how much dignity went into crafting Dio’s last scene, it doesn’t matter when it’s put back to back with the textual affirmation of its uselessness, the fact that we don’t even get to give him a proper goodbye, and even after that, Laura’s awful line about his life support. In 2017, I don’t think I need to explain anyone the power of humour in trivializing the most terrible situations and undercutting people’s empathy for each other. This is what Wicdiv has been doing to us these past two issues, against our will. Stopping us from caring. Keeping us at bay even when we’re trying to connect and get involved in the story and characters.

 What does this change in the use of humour mean ? Personally, I link it to the change of our purported hopes as an audience. At the beginning of the comic and up until Imperial phase, we were still allowed to believe, like Luci, that a solution could be found, that the 2-year sentence wasn’t real, nor was the great Darkness. That it was going to be okay. But right at the moment when the characters allowed themselves to think that there could indeed be a solution, we, as an audience, started to know better : there was no loophole, no escape, no way to prevent the inevitable, whatever that was. We could no longer hope that things were going to be okay. So what do you hope for when things cannot be okay ? You hope that they’ll be worth it. If you have to die, let it be a worthy death. A beautiful one. If you have to go, go in a blaze of glory. If you have to fail, let it be at the hand of a worthy foe. Let it be worth it.

But it isn’t. And that’s what humour’s there to prove. When our hopes were that things would be okay, the comic responded with tragedy ; now that we simply want them to be worth it, its weapon of choice is ridicule. As such, it’s definitely not a coincidence that the 455AD special preceded Imperial Phase part II, as it sets the tone for the entire arc, up to its back quote : when it’s clear Lucifer won’t be able to outlive his death sentence, all he want is to be allowed to burn. But he won’t be. He will bleed out and his body will be dragged across and city and cut to pieces by an old lady then fed to the river. Such is the fate that awaits our character. Pathetic and grotesque in equal parts, useless unless it serves someone else’s purpose, following rules you do not understand.

If Imperial Phase is the arc in which the gods are allowed to think themselves kings and queens, then the creators are the King’s fools, the ones allowed to tell them their real value because they do it through jokes and flip-overs.

This arc is a constant battle between the story the characters wish they were in and the one they’re actually in. That’s why it would be wrong, for example, to think of the beep machine as a McGuffin : its thematic utility goes beyond a plot device. When just last arc, it was the subject of a joke to relieve the tension between two characters, now it knocks them back to their actual scope. Something so small and silly is the kind of device they deserve. The big, ugly, scary machine ? It does nothing. Did you think you’d be handed a huge plot revelation as the crowning achievement of this arc ? Of course not. Instead, what we get is a sad, banal story of parental abuse from a man who’s not over leaving his youth behind.

Yes, even the David/Jon Blake storyline, arguably the one preserving most of its dramatic intensity over these two issues, cannot help but feel like a sad joke when you consider that David Blake’s motivations are basically the evil queen from Snow White’s. This is what caused all this. This, an old wrinkled lady, and a thirteen year old on a mission from God. Those are our villains, everybody. As for dying a worthy death, our heroes’ options are a pool of blood or a mounted head on an altar.

 None of this is worth it. At this point, it’s even hard remember why “this” sounded so appealing in the first place. And all this goes to contextualize even more Laura’s breakdown speech halfway through issue #33 : she wanted everything they had, and she’d have given anything for it. For power, for glamour, for this. For this joke of a fate that’s not even that funny. That’s what cost her the death of her family, multiple friends, and the rest of her life.

It’s also fitting that Jon finally voices something that has been on my mind for a long time : just how little do you have to think of yourself to think two years of superpowers would be worthier than a fully-lived life ? Through this character who, just like the other gods, is too good for this deal, but unlike them, seems to realize it, it’s yet again the sheer impossibility to make this deal worth it that’s shown to us. Because what becomes clear after this reveal is that if Ananke allowed you to become a god, it’s so she could see that you’d waste away your potential. House always wins, and when you burn the House down, another opens up next door.

 So this is where we are : our hopes of seeing any of it be worth it have been ridiculed, and all that’s left to uncover is precisely which joke our heroes have been the butt of. Cruel ? Maybe. But if fiction so often serves as a way to quench our thirst for grand emotions and epic stories, it’s precisely because outside of it, it feels much more often like one big joke than a sweeping tragedy. After all, Henri Bergson said it best : comedy is much truer to real life than drama.

  WHAT I THOUGHT OF THE ISSUES

 I KNEW IT IT WAS ME I FIGURED IT OUT I KNEW IT WAS DAVID BLAKE I AM THE GODDESS OF FATE BOW TO ME MERE MORTALS !

Alright, I’ll stop.

But while seeing yourself being right is immensely satisfying, it cannot help but damage your read a little ; like I said many times before, I want writers to be smarter than me, to be able to take me by surprise. So if I’ve managed to guess something, that’s great for my ego, but it also makes me a bit sad : that’s just another plotpoint that won’t reach full impact with me because I had so much time interiorizing its potential.

And that’s sort of my problem with these two issues : they revolve around two kinds of plotpoints, some that didn’t surprise me (Dio and Sakhmet’s death, Woden’s identity, the reason for Laura’s attitude) and other that were impossible to guess (the beep machine, Minerva’s “identity”, the talking heads). Meaning that while reading those, I was pretty much letting the plot carry me without being able to pause and care. As I’ve said above, part of it is intentional, but it also means that there aren’t many punches in these issues that landed for me. I’ll definitely count Laura and Sakhmet’s last conversation as well as Cass and Laura’s fight as a success, but the “big” intimate moment of issue #33, the conversation between Cass and Laura, didn’t do much for me, probably because it seems to me that anyone with a functioning brain and ears knew exactly why Laura wasn’t her best self since she had become Persephone. I understand why Cass didn’t see it – as we’re discussed before, she is a factual thinker, meaning she can’t grasp with Laura’s guilt when it is so obviously unfounded – but I still don’t understand the decision to make this a big character moment when literally every sentence Laura had pronounced since the beginning of Imperial Phase revealed what she was going through. There’s nothing more infuriating that being fed information you already think of as canon. If you ask me, this moment is much more important and interesting for what it isn’t, that’s to say a romantic scene, than for what it is. Seeing Laura being rejected by Cass, and therefore breaking the pattern  of dragging people in her self-destroying orbit, is much more defining than her whole speech on guilt.

The problem is that most of the work these issues do is retrospective : if the Jon/David scene on its own has limited impact, the new depth it gives to all the Woden scenes we’ve already been through is vertiginous. Like I said, I did consider what the meaning of David Blake being Woden would be, but that’s another thing to be confronted with the actual fact. When you consider that David is talking to his decapitated, imprisoned son when he’s pouring out his thoughts make issue #14 go from merely quite repulsive to one of the most skin-crawlingly nauseating pieces of media ever written. I can’t imagine what the creators went through crafting this issue while knowing the entire story.

 As for the rest of the reveals, it’s a little hard to weigh on them without devolving into hardcore theorizing. We’re basically at the last stop before the comic has to lay out its hand ; it already managed to delay it through two entire arcs whose very point was to see how long they could get this blind game going. But for me as a reader, it also means I’m at the point in the story that’s the least interesting to me : the one where I have no choice than to follow the train as it’s well on its tracks, without any possibility to pause or jump ahead. I have to wait for the full story to know whether any of these twists paid out or not ; at this stage, I have both too much and too little to really be able to do something with it emotionally or intellectually.

 So as a final verdict because I have to go back to cramming for administrative litigation, I’d say these are two issues I’ll have to revisit once the comic is over, because I suspect they’ll be a lot better with the full story in hand. Most of its impact is on the issues before them and in the groundwork they lay out for the final year. So as a stop point, they may not hold much interest, but I can definitely see them be one of the comic’s most astute cogs once it’s done and over. As a two-parter finale, I like it more than the Imperial Phase (part I) finale : it’s more coherent in its construction and doesn’t try to bite off more than it can chew. It’s mostly plotpoints and twists, meaning it’s my least favourite kind of read, but once I’m able to put that aside to see it instead as a character work thread in a bigger design, it’ll probably hold my interest much more. But as of right now, I can at least commend it for how much it makes me want to reread everything from the beginning. Which I definitely do not have the time for right now. Damn you. Damn you all.

[broadwaybydesign]

The House We Live In: Costuming “Grey Gardens”

Good afternoon, everyone! I hope you all had a nice weekend and enjoyed the mini-reviews. It’s Monday, which means it’s time to take a look at a new show. I’ve switched gears a little bit, and I’m taking a look at a designer who I’ve mentioned on the blog but have yet to give a full review to: William Ivey Long. Mr Long is a wonderfully talented costumer who has won 6 Tony Awards in his career, out of a total of fifteen nominations (and counting). Today, I’m going to take a look at his Tony-winning designs in 2006′s Grey Gardens.

I chose Grey Gardens for my first Long-costumed production not only because I love his designs, but because I think this is a musical that deserves more attention and appreciation than it gets ten years on. I remember enjoying the cast album when it first came out, and a re-listen this weekend reminded me that it has some beautiful songs and wonderful performances from start to finish. Based on the 1977 documentary of the same name, the musical revolves around the complicated psychology of the mother-daughter relationship between Edith “Big Edie” Beale and Edith “Little Edie” Beale, the aunt and cousin of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy respectively.

Unique, I believe, to this production is that the role of Big Edie is played by two different actresses in two different time periods, while the role of Little Edie is taken on by the actress who first plays her mother. For the original Broadway run, the role of Big Edie in Act I was taken on by Christine Ebersole, who won a Tony for her performance in the musical as a whole, while Mary Louise Wilson (who also won a Tony for her role) takes over for Act II; Ms Ebersole plays Little Edie for the duration of Act II. It’s a dramatically interesting production, and Mr Long’s designs help to make it even more worthy of a look.

One of the hallmarks of a William Ivey Long production, much like Catherine Zuber, is that he takes his cue from the original era of the musical and then adds a twist, usually involving bright and lively colors. Let’s take a look at the production, starting with Act I:

Long Island, 1941. The scene is set at a beautiful family gathering as Big Edie (Christine Ebersole, in pink) holds court in her stately New York home, kitted out in high fashion. At her feet, the young Jacqueline and Lee Bouvier listen as she animatedly sings in comic fashion.

I offer the description of the scene because I think it helps to give some context for the costume designs. I’m going to start with the most obvious piece, the one that immediately draws the eye, Ms Ebersole’s. Looking like the stately grande dame she is in Act I, Big Edie is costumed in a beautiful salmon-pink dress with an elegant floral-patterned silk robe or kimono over it. The dress is a light fabric and the color acts as a stark contrast to the grays and blues that predominate in the Beale household that forms the majority of the set. The ensemble is complemented by the addition of a long red beaded necklace that is draped so that it hangs down towards Ms Ebersole’s lap.

In contrast to the theatrical Big Edie, the children at her feet are costumed in much more muted colors. Lee (left) is costumed in a floral white shirt and blue overalls, while Jacqueline (right, played by future Modern Family star Sarah Hyland) is in a more formal blue and white floral dress. The fabric of that dress is a little rougher than that used for Ms Ebersole’s costume, and I think that is an intentional choice on the part of Mr Long. After all, clothing for children has to be a bit more durable!

Take a look at the costumes in a bit more detail here:

You can really see the 1940s styling in Ms Ebersole’s costume in this shot. The salmon-pink dress flows beautifully, with the mid-century pinch at the bosom; that makes the fabric bunch up into a beautiful set of folds that is almost reminiscent of a bow without the addition of another fabric. I’ll take a look at the robe itself in more detail in a moment, but look at the subtle color of the garment; Mr Long has managed to find a bolt of pink silk that is so light that it’s almost creamy in color and texture, and the way it catches the light is absolutely perfect for giving off the air of a rich sophisticate.

The children’s costumes continue to offer a counterpoint to their aunt’s costumes, simpler in design and scope and still muted; I like the way that Jacqueline’s costume mirrors the wallpaper of the parlor in a way, albeit in a lighter shade. It helps to tie together the vision of Mr Long as costumer with the vision of the scene/set designer (Allen Moyer for this production). I harp on it a lot, but it is so vital that the set designer and costume designer have a good relationship and work together to bring a production to life; the sign of a good Broadway production is when the costumes and sets fit together seamlessly.

I said I wanted to look at the robe in a bit more detail, and while the lighting is not perfect, I did manage to find a still that allows us to take a closer look at this beautiful garment:

In the interwar era (1919-1941, so Grey Gardens’ Act I is just under the wire), Asian-inspired designs were popular, especially when mixed with Western color schemes, and that is what we have on display here. The robe resembles a kimono with wide, sweeping sleeves that hang down and add an extra layer to the robe, and it is constructed out of thin, elegant silk in a pale, pale pink color. There are a number of floral emblems throughout, in shades of pink, gold, and brown, with the occasional touch of blue for a contrasting color.

Silk is a fabric that is always a joy to work with, even if it cannot stand up to a lot of abuse. Its innate sheen allows it to catch and reflect light beautifully, and it adds a richness that other fabrics simply do not possess. It makes sense for Mr Long to have used silk here; the Beales were fantastically wealthy members of the New York society set, and Big Edie would have insisted on having the finest available. The floral emblems that decorate the robe are exquisite in their styling and execution, and really make this garment pop, regardless of the lighting or Ms Ebersole’s position onstage.

The costumes in Grey Gardens’ first act continue to be sumptuous as the Act reaches its climax; take a look at this set of dresses from near the finale:

Once again, we see that Ms Ebersole in her role as Big Edie is given an outfit that contains significant elements of salmon pink, this time complemented by grays and whites. Her daughter, Little Edie (played by Erin Davie), is outfitted in a snow-white, spaghetti-strap wedding gown; the bodice is a satiny fabric, while the bell and body of the dress consist of an internal satin layer with layer upon layer of tulle. The tulle itself is decorated with a series of lacy floral elements which add to the luxury of the dress--but it is still, overall, a bit simple of a design. I think I actually like that, because it allows a contrast with the more colorfully and richly costumed character of Big Edie.

Big Edie’s dress for the end of Act I is classic William Ivey Long in that it is richly patterned and fits the actress absolutely perfectly. Custom tailoring is not easy to do, and it’s pulled off expertly here:

The bosom of the dress is once again pinched to provide layers and folds, and the dress itself is off the shoulder; if that looks familiar to you, it may be because Christine Ebersole wore a similar style of dress to the 2017 Tony Awards ceremony. There is a thick, predominantly pink cummerbund element below the bust, which then gives way to the beautiful fabric used for the body of the dress itself. I said earlier that it is a floral design, and I stand by that--but rather than being open buds, the splashes of pinks, oranges, and lavenders in this dress put one in mind of flower petals. I think that’s a neat idea for a formal dress, and it’s one that I associate with Mr Long; his twist, as it were, on style of the era of a period piece is to take the expected (florals) and make them slightly more modern (the use of petals rather than buds or blooms). Very clever technique, and it really draws the eye to the dress.

But if Act I is all about classic 1940s style and beautiful costumery, Act II is about the fall from grace experienced by the Beales by 1973, when the second half of the musical is set. By then, the women had become codependent on each other, and the musical explores their fraught modern relationship. The estate, grand and beautiful in the 1940s, has fallen into disrepair, and the costumes that Mr Long designed reflect that to some degree. While they take cues from the 1970s, there’s some intentional shabbiness that reflects the collapse in circumstances the main characters have experienced. Take a look at this costume for Little Edie, now played by Ms Ebersole, alongside one of Mr Long’s sketches:

Gone are the grand cuts and the sweeping fabrics, away have gone the detail elements, and what we are left with is a fairly simple red dress and headscarf combination. Without disrespecting Mr Long’s work, there is a shabbiness to the simplicity here, though it is intended. Little Edie really isn’t much worried with her fashion choices; she’s dressing in what’s comfortable and, perhaps more importantly, what’s available. Part of the story of Grey Gardens is that the Edies barely ever left their home, becoming famous recluses on Long Island. Indeed, until the documentary, most neighbors assumed the estate was abandoned and simply a home for feral cats.

That shabbiness and reduction in glamor and luxury is even more stark when we consider what’s happened to Big Edie, now being played by Mary Louise Wilson. Recall how beautiful her costuming was in Act I when played by Ms Ebersole; it was bright and lively, and it felt like it positively oozed luxury and beauty. Now in her dotage, her costuming is far more simple and even a little bit threadbare:

Instead of a flowing ballgown, we have what appears to be a bathrobe or housecoat in a much louder, much more mass-produced floral pattern. The silk robe of Act I is long gone and what she has now feels like it could have been store-bought rather than tailored directly to her. Mr Long is clever in his choice here, because I think the floral design--which once again includes petals!--is designed to be a direct counterpoint to the beautiful gown in which the Big Edie character ends the first Act. I love the contrast, and the simpler costuming forces the audience to really think about what has happened to these two women.

The idea of counterpoints is strong in this Act, with many of the costumes bringing to mind earlier, more heavily designed numbers. Remember the luxurious silk robe and the beautiful dress from the beginning of the musical; there was even some accessorizing in the form of the long, elegant beaded necklace. But those are faded memories now, and what Big Edie is left with is this simple, almost homespun number:

The hat is a limp straw, more for accent than anything else, and the pink shawl--tying directly to the pink dress of the first Act--is loose and relatively inefficient. It’s not going to do much to add warmth on a blustery Long Island afternoon, and it adds an air of almost sadness to the overall look. Add in the blanket in leopard print--hardly the choice of a woman of sophistication in this era--and the overall effect is to drive home just how little these women have been left with.

One last piece of costuming deserves a bit of commentary, and it’s one of Little Edie’s numbers:

Sunning herself, Ms Ebersole gazes into a mirror in a tiger-print bathing suit and a black swimming skullcap. It’s a mournful costume, and she’s holding a mirror and gazing upon herself. The swimsuit is hardly couture (and yes, couture swimsuits do exist) while the skull cap is plain and dull, even with the addition of the brown ribboning on the sides. What Mr Long has done with this costume is drive home that these women have lost almost everything through some circumstance or another: their sense of fashion, their rich fabrics, their grand lifestyle, and in a sense, everyone in their lives except each other.

I enjoy the costumes that Mr Long produced for this musical, because they offer such stark contrasts to one another. Part of that is the split in time period between one Act and the next, but much of it is because he masterfully uses color and pattern to tell the story. What was rich and beautiful in Act I has become cheap and mass-produced in Act II, and that’s not necessarily an easy thing to pull off. There are subtle nods to the time period in each Act--the pinched bosom in Act I, and the scarf/skullcaps in Act II--but the designs are on the whole original. They are definitely worthy of a Tony not only for their designs, but for the way in which they complement and mirror one another.

Before I close out the review, I want to just offer a few brief words about the musical itself. This is one that is very much deserving of a listen and not just a look at the costumes. The music by War Paint’s Scott Frankel, the lyrics by Michael Korie, and the book by Doug Wright all combine to tell a fascinating story not only of two peripheral historical figures (Kennedy relations by marriage), but of a complex and intertwined, even codependent, mother/daughter relationship. Both Christine Ebersole and Mary Louise Wilson put in Tony-winning performances that are pretty apparent from even a cursory listen. They bring passion and drive to the production that is not always evident on Broadway or in a recording.

Overall, I think this is a musical that deserves to be appreciated more than it has been in recent years. It’s a hidden gem despite its success at the Tonys, and I really encourage you all to check it out when you have a chance. I don’t think you will regret it!

That wraps up my first foray into the costumes of William Ivey Long, but it is far from the last time I will look at his designs! I hope that you enjoyed today’s review, and as always, my dear readers, please feel free to send feedback by Ask, Submission, or by Message.

Until next time, stay tuned!

[solarsail00000]

Journal

The short film Extinguished displays many cinematic elements to support its premise and to help tell its story effectively. The logline of Extinguished would be: After being burned by a former flame, Matt must learn to trust and love again. The theme of the film is "love will prevail". The genre is a romance, love story. The tone of the film is lonely throughout the beginning as Matt is rejected but keeps seeking love. The tone finishes out positive and warm toward the end as Matt shows his love for the girl and she shows her love back to him. The basic dramatic structure of the film was clear and simple with the inciting incident arriving when we see that Matt can't keep a flame in his heart, but neither can the blue haired girl. The main plot point 1 was shown when Matt meets the blue haired girl. Plot point 2 was shown when Matt sees the blue-haired girl again and he wants her even more. The climax of the story is reached when Matt realizes the girl he likes is leaving. He must make a decision to jump out of his window and risk his life just to get one more chance to tell her how he feels. He jumps out and uses the heat of his love to land safely into the car seat next to her. The resolution is reached when we see that Matt's flame in his heart causes the girl's flame to ignite and to show love for him as well.

The film utilized a number of cinematic elements to tell its story in the best way possible. As for production design value, the animated sets and locations used were very fitting for the changing tone that the film followed throughout. Matt's home seemed to be made to show dark colored walls, an emptiness, and a general cold lonely feel reflected from his character. Even the hair of Matt seemed to show his sense of loneliness and dismay. The clothes that the blue-haired girl wore were bright yellow and pink, and seemed to pop out in front of the dreary background of the apartment setting. The use of the woman's bra in the laundry scene was the perfect use of a prop to hint to the girl about Matt's current situation, and to give comic relief at just the right time.

The cinematography of the film certainly helped to emulate that of a feature-length romantic comedy, but keep a short-form sense of freedom about it. The camera positioning and movement throughout often seemed to follow in the perspective of the protagonist Matt. This perspective subliminally puts us as the viewer into the shoes of the desperate and hopeless main character Matt as he searches for someone that will share the love that he offers to them. The lighting used soft shadows and very limited light in most scenes, making it seem dark, sad, and lonely in the apartment building. This limited lighting helped to tell the story from Matt's perspective and to provoke similar emotion from viewers to those that Matt experiences.

Music was used as a successful storytelling element throughout the entire film. The jazz playing straight from the start sends a picture of a romantic night out and contrasts perfectly with the lack of romance in Matt's life. As we see Matt struggling with the rejection of the girl, and the lack of attention from family and friends, the visuals are accompanied by sad and gloomy piano music that digs deep into the heart of anyone that has faced rejection before. The moment that Matt meets the blue-haired girl at his door, we hear happy chime-like musical notes. These brisk notes subliminally give us a dash of hope for Matt's love life. There was no dialog whatsoever throughout the entire film. The lack of dialog only made it easier to watch as you aren't tied down by drug-out scenes of characters talking on and on just to get the story across.

As for the editing, each scene was just long enough to keep me interested without boring the viewer. The pacing was swift and fast in an exciting manner and highlighted each plot point in a clear but concise way. The viewers are only shown what needs to be seen and nothing sticks out that could have been cut. Overall, the editing was a seamless tool to keep the story moving nicely along.

Many of these elements can be used and taken into account when creating our low-resource film to support its premise. We can take note of the production design elements used in Extinguished, and how they came together to reflect the inner emotions of the main character of the film. We can use similar cinematography techniques in different situations to keep the viewer's attention and interest in each scene as it plays out. We will be sure to find the right music to fit the story that can be used at times to provoke emotions in viewers but to also help tell the story without visuals. The most obvious parallels between our story and the short film Extinguished is the practical limitation of no dialog. Extinguished is an excellent successful example of how a powerful story can be told with limited resources and no dialog. The lack of dialog within this film immediately sets it apart among other films which often lean on dialog as a sort-of crutch to tell their story. This film took advantage of action instead of dialog to unfold a compelling story that wouldn't have been the same had there been dialog within it. We can utilize this same quality of no dialog to push ourselves as storytellers to create a film that tells a story only through action of characters and interaction within their world.

[12hoursblog-blog]

The Work of Junji Ito and How Agency Shapes Art

Junji Ito (Ito Junji as written in the Japanese convention, where the surname is written first) is a manga artist whose work I find particularly engaging.  Junji is the kind of artist whose work is focused on a specific style and genre in such a way that it reaches depths and evokes emotions in a way other work does not. These sorts of artists, gifted with both talent and focus end up creating their own sub-genres that can in many ways be understood in absence of other bodies of work. 

This genre Junji Ito has created is a specific style of horror comic focused on the mysterious, strange, and terrifying. And it is exemplary in the ways it evokes these emotions. 

(You may have noticed my use of comic in the previous paragraph but my use of manga before. While these are similar it may seem odd to apply both words to the same body of work where one might be more specific and effective. The reason I use them interchangeably is because I do not think one of them is more specific or effective. While the word “manga” may tell you that these are works of Japanese origin produced for a Japanese market, it also bears with it a certain style that I am not sure Ito’s work adheres to. If you were to know nothing of his national origin some works read in English would appear void of any national characteristics other than the occasional mention of specific locations. This makes “comic”, a more generic term, a bit more natural of a word when describing Ito’s work.)

To begin unpacking it is important to understand that Ito’s art is unsettling. 

But not just unsettling to behold abruptly and without context, though certainly some of his illustrations are effective enough to have an impact when separated form their context. The art of Junji Ito builds itself up to the truly horrific sights he invites you to inflict upon yourself. 

And it truly is an invitation. Ito at no point deceives you into an emotion you weren’t expecting to feel. That may happen naturally, and you may not be prepared for even what you anticipated, but the point is that the effect of Ito’s work is not in shock. 

This is where I think Ito’s work becomes the most interesting. It stands alone in its brand of comic from what I have seen, at least in work I have discovered and found interesting. But it is not totally in isolation. The experience of reading Ito’s horror comics is a lot like playing a well crafted horror video game. 

You see, in both the terrifying and unsettling progression of the story events in Ito’s work is driven by the willing turning of the pages. This is essentially the same amount of agency one might have in the progression of a video games narrative, though progression in a game requires more intensive skill than what goes into turning a page. 

In this way Ito is allowed to do something very clever with the delivery of the climaxes of his stories. The point where the reader is presented with the source of fear or a sight that defies comprehension. Ito can make the action of the reader mirror the action of his characters.

The story will have built up an unease, an environment where some force is present but that you are not allowed to observe and understand. As the reader and character follow each other through the events of the story eventually we reach the final obstruction between ourselves and a view of the true problem. 

For the character it may be a door to open, a corner to round, or a “don’t look behind you” warning to ignore. But for the reader Ito can present a similar choice, a page to turn. 

If I haven’t already praised enough Ito’s ability to engage the reader, these page turning moments are a true testament to the effectiveness of his work. We feel compelled to see what is on that next page, and the moment we do the perspective of the reader and protagonist reach their closest point, with even the scene usually being drawn through their eyes. 

It is important to make the distinction in terminology that these are not jump-scares. With the comparison to video games it is easy to see the parallel. Certainly the intention of such moments in video games mirrors the intentions of Ito, since they share a genre connection and the moment of reveal looks just about the same. 

No, these are not jump-scares. Perhaps jump-scares used to be like this, and it was simply a failure of well defined values or well understood tropes in video games that led to the current sorry state of the horror genre. But the point is even a well-executed jump-scare has fundamentally different goals than Ito has. A jump-scare doesn’t really want to “scare” you in any lasting way. The impact of a jump-scare is primarily in the instinctual reaction to sudden changes in your environment, particularly at tense moments, its a “scare” in the way you scare a flock of birds not in the way watching The Shining as a 11 year old might scare a kid and effect the way they perceive reality in the aftermath of such a difficult emotional response. When done properly a jump-scare is the artist forcing a subject into your view in a way that an adrenaline response is triggered, a response that the artist is using to heighten your awareness of the subject which is hopefully in itself and in its context truly frightening. That is the transition from the purely physical effect of a jump-scare to the emotional effect of witnessing something horrifying. 

The impact of Ito’s work happens without the physical response, you aren’t forced to view the subject, you are simply invited to. Ito relies on the curiosity you must feel to guide you to the next page often in the same way the curiosity has driven the character.

To me this aspect of Ito’s work was an invitation to consider the way actions effected my perception of the world beyond media and narratives. In every day life it is easy to leave unconsidered how simple things like seating, position, temperature, movement, or any other number of factors can dramatically change our relationship to our environments and our mental state. 

Furthermore it comments on how we can be deeply effected by certain sights, smells, patterns, or carefully placed pen strokes. How the human mind can be seized and crippled by a problem it can’t solve, a sight it can’t believe, or a terror it can’t comprehend.  

If you wish to read some of his work there are some collections available online here: http://www.mangatown.com/author/ITO+Junji

(Collections are of course available in hard back and for digital download at places like Amazon, and I personally see hard copies of these comics to be something worth the money.)

There is so much more to talk about with Junji Ito, like the withholding of information from the reader or what choices make a drawing unsettling. This whole thing was nearly about how Ito balances the familiar with the unfamiliar, and how he can slowly shift that balance to immerse you in an alien world that you still think of as our own. Still, I don’t think I’ve come close to unpacking all of what these comics offer so I will happily consume any analysis presented to me (aka I’m bored and lonely and so crave the camaraderie of a shared interest in things).

If you are wondering where to start, I would recommend Uzumaki. Especially if you are interested in cosmic horror, a genre that really plays on what extremes of unfamiliar an artist can lead us to embrace as reality while simultaneously being irreconcilable with our worldview. This division is extremely powerful, as the sensation that the universe is not made for you and is more complicated than you can ever hope to imagine is a very believable perspective. 

However, as far as recommendations go the real recommendation here is just to read Junji Ito. I have not seen a series of his I haven't been impressed by so the choice is really yours as to where you start and what captivates your interest. Anyway, here’s another cute picture of a cat to wrap things up, and until next time, happy reading!