#the original image has 3 characters in the 2nd panel but i didn’t feel like drawing another sona lol

[sonicf64]

merry pridemas, here’s my single contribution (original image is under the cut)

(here’s a link to the original post too)

[tododorkies]

Todoroki Family ages after CH 188

Alright so after thinking it over a bit, I decided to write on two conclusions about this whole Todoroki family children mess. I will not be including much on any of the twin theories since a lot of people have already written on that. Anyway, here are two possible takes. These aren’t the only two options I’ve thought of, and there are certainly more, but here goes explaining the first two. If you disagree, please disagree nicely. Under the cut since it’s long.

#1 Dabi is the smallest son

The manga has kept a very important detail consistent: We cannot see the smallest son’s face. In the panel with them playing soccer, we can’t see his face. In the panel with him standing with Fuyumi and Natsuo(?) from this most recent chapter, we cannot see his face. There is still a Todoroki child who’s been completely left out of the story. The face, name, age, everything about this child is consistently kept hidden. If this child isn’t Dabi, and isn’t Natsuo, what’s the point? Why is he being left out if he’s not important? Where is he? Probably Dabi.

The most obvious issue with this child being Dabi is the age. Horikoshi has specifically stated that Fuyumi is the 2nd eldest, the other two boys are 1st and 3rd, and Shouto is 4th. If Fuyumi is 22 and Shouto is 15, the 3rd son’s spot is automatically given to Natsuo, who is 19. The only remaining spot is the 1st son. This assumes that Horikoshi doesn’t break his own canon, which based on the character designs staying the same, he’s not doing. It’s still possible of course. Or vaguely breaking it (like the twin theory) but yeah. The only canon spot for the smallest son, regardless of if it’s Dabi or not, is the 1st slot. That means he’s 22+ at a minimum.

The issue with this? The smallest son is indeed very very small. Based on the image of them playing soccer, if Shouto is 5, Fuyumi is 12 and Natsuo is 9. If we keep the 3-4 year age gaps, the smallest son would be 15-16. That’s the same age as our main cast and just... Kids can be short, but this boy is very very small.

This is where the twin theory comes into play- he could be one of the other siblings twins, fraternal and considerably smaller, clearing up this issue. If he’s Fuyumi’s twin and only older by a few minutes, the age order technically isn’t broken. Outside the twin theory, he could also be only slightly older than Fuyumi, say ~ 13 y/o.

Another idea to explain how small this smallest-eldest son is is some sort of illness. Perhaps a frail, “runt” of the litter. If he was born with some sort of health issue, pre-mature, etc, perhaps (and this is just spit-balling) Endeavor didn’t hesitate to try for a second child after his birth. Maybe the smallest son was deemed useless right away. He’s not only short and thin, but he’s standing in a way that makes him seem very timid, self-conscious, etc. Even if it’s not this specific idea (and let’s be real we know it isn’t haha) it could be something similar. Is this weird because Dabi seems very tall? Yeah. But I guess he had a growth spurt.... OTL

#2 Dabi is the tallest son

We were just introduced to Natsuo this last chapter. He looks like this, for anyone who forgot.

And dropping this image again...

He def looks like the tallest son, like he really does. Honestly this should be above in the #1 option haha. Look at the eyes. But looking at it closely with magic stretch glasses on.. While his hair is spiky like the tallest, and Natsuo appears pretty tall anyway, there’s an inconsistent detail- the red streaks. Hori has kept the original manga design consistent. The smallest child’s hair was not changed to red like the anime. It’s white like he originally had it, and the other child still has the streaks. This makes me think that Hori is fine with changing/correcting the anime to fit what makes the most sense (aka red haired small son) but does not want to make the manga inconsistent- perhaps he’s not changing the designs because he doesn’t want someone to flip through his series and see him changing up designs.

So, with that in mind, looking at the most recent Todosib image... The tallest son has red streaks. Natsuo’s hair is pure white like the smallest son. Perhaps Natsuo dyed the red out of his hair (since he’s already proven very resentful of Endeavor) or this is a clue that Natsuo is the small, faceless son and the taller, spiky haired son is Dabi. If this is true, it’s easier. Dabi can be that taller son, can be the eldest, etc. While I feel that this would be a little odd (the tallest son’s eye shape really reminds me of Natsuo, his face is shown while the other is not, etc.) I’m not going to count the idea out. Anything’s possible right now,,

Anyway, wrapping up this post, it’s important to note that honestly, it’s unrelalistic to think that another Todoroki child is living in the house (which is what it would be if this smallest son is not Dabi nor Natsuo). Shouto is noted to be the youngest, so I doubt Hori would change that. Regardless, if this child isn’t Dabi and isn’t Natsuo, and isn’t the oldest, he’s under 19 years old. When you’re under 19, the chances you live with your family are pretty high. Unless this kid is ran away and just became completely irrelevant, or just is pointlessly left out of the story because he’s busy at school... It just doesn’t make sense. One of the children is consistently left out of the story. This child has to be Dabi, has to be Natsuo, or just a completely different plot point entirely.

This isn’t super well written but it’s the best I’ve come up with so far. If you disagree, please disagree nicely. I’ll write more if I somehow come up to an amazing conclusion,, Oh and if you’re curious, I’m more on board with option #1. 

[herotheshiro]

[new thing i’m gonna do is put the manga’s cover on my review posts so y’all who don’t know/memorize titles can tell/remember what manga i’m talking about at a glance. photos will purposely not be good quality, i’m just grabbing off of google images and this isn’t a scanlations tumblr or anything]

so. today i’m writing about hate no kouya de vacances wo/the world’s end. it’s actually made up of 3 one-shots, and i’ll be reviewing the 2nd and 3rd ones -- i didn’t read the 1st one bc it’s not stuff i’m that interested in reading (ageless demon picks up human child, child grows up and he and the demon get together as adults).

2nd story is called the frog boy i think, it’s about a HS boy who’s really pretty but he’s disgusted by himself and his own looks. he befriends a classmate who’s really into bugs and fossils and etc and obviously this is BL they get together at the end. this was a nice read, i liked that when the classmate finally confesses near the end, you know he likes the main for more than his looks even though the beginning of his confession is like ‘i’ve been thinking lately you’re prettier than a luna moth...’. tbh i was afraid the story was gonna take a morbid turn and the main disfigures his own face out of personal disgust or something and the classmate would be into it, but nah it was basically just a ‘i like you for more than/past your looks’ story. ending where the main suddenly stops being nauseous abt his looks didn’t really make sense bc you just don’t suddenly stop hating yourself just bc someone you like confesses to you but whatever, story logic where everything gets wrapped up in the end nicely is how it is.

3rd story is called something along the lines of vacationing at world’s end [characters on cover are for this story], and man tbh this is the story i really wanted to write about in this post. (spoilers oncoming bc i’m just gonna give the entire story here so i can discuss it) main character shin is a scientist/astronaut living alone on a planet carrying out research missions while he keeps contact with a scientist rurikiya (was that his name? i forgot) back on earth (who he is also actually in a relationship with. more on this later in my thoughts). he’s been out there alone for years, so occasionally he has his mission support AI (designed by scientist dude) take the form of the scientist dude and he sleeps with him and eventually just hangs with him in rurikiya form. finally it’s time for shin to return home but turns out a year prior earth had been completely destroyed by an asteroid and also rurikiya died then ... and turns out the person he had been talking to for that entire year was the AI, which turns out rurikiya put all his neural info into up until his death which was why the AI was basically able to develop as and be rurikiya without shin realizing something was up.

ok now that the summary’s out of the way ... stories like this always really pull at my heartstrings. technically it’s a “happy” ending bc in the end shin and rurikiya are together ... it just brings up the decades-old question of “if you copy a person exactly, DNA and thought patterns and all .... is that copy really the same thing as the original person you copied from?” which is hella complicated to even begin to unpack in post that’s just a manga/BL review. there’s another BL that comes to mind that touched on this which is that one abt the main who meets this guy who travelled back in time and is like ‘we’re destined to be together’ and eventually they get together but then the guy dies and idr how the story progresses but the ending is the main living in the future with a robot clone of the time traveller dude ... and now that i’m thinking about it, there’s also a couple other stories i can think of which had similar stories/concepts, and all of them just make me feel so sad...

anyway thoughts on story plot. story starts, and i’m like ‘omg... this is gonna be a case of AI falls in love with human or vice versa huh...’ and then halfway through the story i was like ‘ok the AI is actually gonna be rurikiya somehow, like rurikiya can actually see through the AI so he knows shin has been hooking up with him every night’ bc i thought it was gonna be a simple story where it ends with them together at the end in a HEA and then they hit me with the ‘earth has actually been destroyed’ revelation so then i was like ‘WAIT OMG... THE AI HAS BECOME SENTIENT AND IS IN LOVE WITH SHIN’ and then they’re like ‘well actually rurikiya put all his neural info into the AI so the AI is actually rurikiya basically’. basically a ton of whiplashes... i was under the impression that shin had a secret crush on rurikiya but also turns out (based on the side story at the end which is rurikiya’s pov of shin going off to the other planet and during earth’s doomsday) they were actually in a relationship or something (but then this kind of makes me confused re: that scene when AI rurikiya is like ‘isn’t that creepy? we’re basically the same’ and there’s a shot of shin and rurikiya in bed together ... was that supposed to be like ‘oh all along shin thought he was sleeping with an AI but he was actually sleeping with rurikiya?’ or was it a ‘oh we’re actually both interested in each other like that but that was a weird way to reveal it’. i mean the side story kind of basically says they were in a relationship w rurikiya being like ‘[shin] should have proposed before he left’ but idk. i guess you could argue otherwise) ??

anyway the manga ends with them being like ‘yeah the AI is rurikiya. now with earth destroyed ... at least they can be together for the time being’ which like ok but also i’m the kind of person who’s like ‘no the copy and the original are different entities’ so i’m conflicted ... the ending i feel like could also be interpreted as shin knowing that the AI isn’t rurikiya (bc he’s like ‘you’re dead’ to the AI’s face) but accepting him and his concept of rurikiya as a replacement since the “real” rurikiya is gone. though the acceptance of the ‘aren’t i enough?’ line could go (again) either way ... either 1. the AI with rurikiya’s neural info has memories of their relationship and basically his personality and develops as rurikiya so rurikiya is still with him albeit in AI form or 2. rurikiya and the AI are different, but the AI can take on rurikiya’s form and thus rurikiya can still “be” with shin. again the side story made me a lil confused here bc i was like ‘did rurikiya shift his consciousness to the AI’ with the ‘i can see it shin’ line bc if it’s just an AI then how ... or is rurikiya being like ‘in my mind here on earth i can see it’. the thing about this 3rd story is that i feel like it’s not entirely tight re: the whole AI situation as you would expect from a fully developed sci-fi story but i mean lol this is just a one-shot and there are enough details that everything makes sense (or you can easily make it make sense). also the comment about ‘when the meteroid was coming, only the millionaires, govt officials, and the barest minimum of staff got on the escape ships and i wasn’t able to get a ship to you’ made me so sad bc you damn know well that same shit would happen if this doomsday shit happened today.

anyway i wonder whenever rurikiya was updating the AI with his neural info did he see that shin was sleeping with him. i mean i think the whole sleeping with the AI thing didn’t happen until the year post-earth being destroyed but idr the story’s timeframe. also wanted to say my favorite panel in this story was the panel right after rurikiya tells shin that the earth was destroyed a year ago: it looks so different compared to the rest of the story’s style, and you can tell the raw horror/fear in that one moment.

other than the 1st story that i didn’t read, the 2nd and 3rd stories were nice even though the last one was really sad to read. stories like that which indirectly talk about the concept of forever and losing things always really make me feel some kind of way ... like eden in February and that one one-shot of the guy leaving his country home for college in tokyo both murdered me bc those were basically their themes. god.

[muramune99]

So, I ventured out to Anime Detour for the first time and it was interesting to say the least.

I did not run into any of my friends, as far as I could tell. I did see a few people I’ve met before, but I avoided making any conversation. One of which, was a girl I had a crush on years ago and I was clearly turned down. I didn’t want to make it awkward.

Things that happened:

Roommates: They were okay at best. 5 other guys that were 28-60 years of age. I had just met 4 of them during the trip. My friend, who has different political views, was trying to pick up girls for the majority of the convention. I didn’t mind this, but I was a little concerned. Especially how he stated after the convention that he should lose weight on the grounds that it’s only a mental willpower that keeps people overweight, and that people should not cosplay a character unless they match their body shape/image. I hated the idea. Another guy had autism and apparently did not cope very well on our leaving time on the final day to return. The 3rd guy packed way too much, which caused issues on our return because he bought more stuff. The 4th guy kept ranting about something he did to antagonize his friend who was overseas. With the help of the 3rd guy, they carried around a John Cena cut out display and had people take pictures with it. Then, he kept saying, “We’re dead” over and over for 3 days straight, even to complete strangers. The 5th guy was old and had never been to a convention before. He enjoyed it though.

The Hotel: It was pretty big and organized, but it was on 3 floors: 1st, 2nd, and 22nd (Tabletop Gaming was here). The elevators were crowded with people trying to get to and from their rooms and the 22nd floor and back. This caused quite a bit of congestion, but was expected and managed by volunteers and staff. Room parties were not far from the cosplay area and the indoor pool. I had an issue with Cards Against Humanity not being allowed to be played in convention space for fear of children overhearing, or worse, wanting to play. All play areas were in 21+ aged room parties with alcohol, which I don’t drink and don’t really like the company of those who drink. I was left with the alternative, Apples to Apples. Much of the rooms were simply too small, and the Swap Meet was in the largest room available and many people were left to walking around the room with boxes of stuff because there was not enough room. On the plus side, the convention will be moving to a location at least double in size.

The Panels: All were pretty good, but there were a few that I think could be improved upon. One panel had a child talking about Yu-Gi-Oh, the panel was a Steven Universe panel... There was also some confusion about panel times and locations. I even went to talk to Operations to clear this up, and they told me to use the app because it is more up to date- and I still had issues with inconsistent times. I went to fanfiction panels and even to karaoke. I met someone that impacted my life for more than 10 years and he has no direct involvement with the creation or localization of anime or video games. He was the creators of animemusicvideos.org.

Consuite: Amazing and very much appreciated to get the opportunity to eat rice or sandwiches.

Dealer’s Room: It had several entrances and exits and had plenty of vendors. Prices were pretty good, at least for me buying Weiss Schwarz sealed product. I was tempted to buy other things, but dissuaded because of money. I ended up saving about $470, meaning I spent $220. Which I can flip what I bought for a profit of $250 easily. I was tempted to buy a Lisbeth keychain or a Ui figure. I couldn’t find a Hayate Yagami or Mikoto Misaka figure or keychain... Plus, Final Fantasy stuff was a little rarer than at other conventions.

Spoils of the Convention: 9 Weiss Schwarz Meister Sets (3 Disgaea, 4 Nisemonogatari, and 2 Idol Master) - I only like Disgaea... 2 Weiss Schwarz Trial Decks (Nisemonogatari) 3 Posters (The Boy and the Beast, Fairy Tail, and Attack on Titan- I think) Several hundred Weiss Schwarz Cards from Swap Meet (Had Persona 3, Persona 4 with TD, A Certain Magical Index/Scientific Railgun, Macross Frontier, Fate Illya, Fate/Stay Night, Idolmaster TD, Madoka Magica TD, Disgaea- including the original TD, Evangelion with TD, and Nanoha A’s TD) A pretty cloth (It came with the WS from Swap Meet) MLP card boxes (It came with the WS from Swap Meet and I do not plan on keeping them) A MTG card case (like the MLP card boxes) A Sephiroth wallscroll (probably going to use as part of my panel’s prizes at AI) A Certain Scientific Railgun Manga vol 01- I traded Hyper Rune vol 1 for it 2 Negima figures (got for free and will probably give it to one of my friends A Convention Badge Memories, I guess Thoughts about Anime Detour: I really liked it, but I still feel like something is missing. It could simply be the stress getting to me or even me wanting to experience anime conventions with others I care about. It may even be privacy from others that always want me to room with them or room with me. At Anime Iowa, I do not plan on sharing my room or transportation with anyone. Peace of mind is something I just want. Mind you, it’ll be different if I manage to get into a relationship by then. I am happy that they are moving to a different location.

On another note, I really didn’t like Mall of America. It did not have enough anime-related goods. Only Best Buy and Eagle Anime sold anything anime related. It just was not my thing.