#this is for both anime-only and manga reader audiences

[tamayokny]

so far, i think muichiro's episode in the hashira training arc is my fave. this is not only because he's my fave hashira (and just like me), but they added a lot of his personal quirks in to flesh out not only muichiro, but also the demon slayer corps members and the hashira training arc overall. it was nicely done.

[tentenarchive]

In Defense of Tenten - the Chunin Exams' Written Test and Her Mirrors

A common joke made about Tenten is how obvious her mirror and line contraption, used to share answers with Rock Lee during the written exam, is. In this post, I'll show how her solution is perfectly reasonable and why she wasn't disqualified by the ninja proctors.

Firstly, we have to stablish what the objective of this written test is: to cheat. The written test was designed to be too difficult for ninjas of their level to be able to answer, forcing them to cheat from each other. Such is stated by Ibiki in the end of the First Phase chapters:

Next, the proctors are all higher level shinobi, better prepared and used to seeing various tricks and jutsu. It's not an stretch to suppose they're aware of EVERY cheating attempt made by those Genin, but were responsible for judging if their technique is too sloppy, obvious or ineffective.

My theory is supported by this scene, where Izumo eliminates one of the ninjas doing the test, claiming he took "five strikes".

It implies the competitors are allowed five errors before being disqualified, and one of the eliminated Genin makes it clear to the reader the "five strikes" are five times being caught cheating.

Naruto is also implied to be caught almost cheating when Hinata offers him her test answers (it can be interpreted either as Naruto being closely watched or Naruto's nerves making him think like that, half the proctors' job is to scare the Genin) and even then he is not automatically removed.

Tenten's technique may be obvious for us, as readers who have been shown by the author himself how she did it, but it's a single and successful attempt, and it's not commentated by any other characters, meaning no one caught on her besides the proctors, and they would only disqualify her if she did it more than once (which wasn't needed, she found the mole with all the answers!).

A pettier criticism i've "how isn't anyone seeing the lines?" to which the answer is very simple: manga is a visual media and the author needed the audience to understand how she was manipulating the mirror. If you take in consideration Tenten's fight with Temari in the anime - which is filler, btw, and it's up to you reading this to decide if it's a fair assessment on their abilities or not - she's shown using invisible lines to manipulate her weapons after throwing them. The lines are, conveniently, only visible when the animation needs us to understand how the weapons are moving backwards. Any other frame they're invisible.

You can see in the panel how the lines fade out towards the bottom and only show where they're attached to the mirror.

Finally: that's exactly what Ibiki expected the genin to do. There have been a few posts, specially on twitter, asking "how are you supposed to pass if you don't have a kekken genkai??". Like Tenten. That's how.

Kankuro and Tenten are the only characters which Kishimoto showed us cheating that didn't use an exclusive DNA super power. Kankuro and Tenten both use hidden threads, one uses chakra lines for puppetry and the last manipulates mirrors. They also pass their answers to their teammates, Temari and Lee.

(Sakura is the only confirmed character to do the entire test without cheating. Congrats Sakura!! You could argue Hinata used her byakuugan to cheat like Neji, but if you think she did it by herself, I will give you the pleasure of congratulating Hinata too. Congrats Hinata!)

Tenten's method was practical, and used her specific skill set: summoning and kunai work (where do you think the mirrors came from? a scroll, that's for sure). It was probably set up before the test started, during the commotion Team 7 created with their arrival. We're not shown it because Tenten is a tertiary character and Kishimoto wouldn't invest 2-3 panels of set up for a 3 panel sequence pay-off that works by itself very well. She is smart, did great and made sure her teammate was not left behind.

Tenten is not even the most absurd method used in this exam, so, as a treat, i will show you, in order, the most obvious cheats shown in the manga from least to most!

Sasuke's Sharingan If you're a ninja from the Leaf Village, you know who Sasuke Uchiha is and what a Sharingan is capable of. Unfortunally for him, the Exam is being held at the Leaf Village and all the jounin and chuunin there are from the Village. Any proctor looking at his direction in a position in front of him could see clearly his eyes and know exactly what he was doing.

Neji's Byukuugan Like the Sharigan, you can physhically see when it's activated, with the downgrade of being noticible by people sitting at up to 95º from him, as the veins are visible on the sides of his face too. A fair trade for the ability to see better than the Sharingan, even if you're not able to copy, in my personal opinion.

Ino's Mind Transfer Jutsu The jutsu's hand signal is simple and can be missed, but it's still obvious for any Konoha ninja watching, it is a very recognizable ability. There's also the higher chance of Ino being caught since she needs to do it three times (once for getting Sakura's answers, twice to pass them to Chouji and Shikamaru). Besides, the "dropping dead on the table" thing can be disruptive in a mostly silent classroom.

Akamaru and Kiba's communication Akamaru is barking all the way through the exam, and while the balloon used for the text is the one for thoughts, it's also the same used for whispered conversations up to this point in the manga. The anime makes the barks happen in the real world, and not in their thoughts, and as far as i could find, Kiba can understand dog language but there's no psychic talk between them. By the noise alone he could be caught. I think he wasn't expelled just because a full conversation between dog and human is a novel enough ability to not be considered by most ninjas unaware of the Inuzuka clan's special abilities.

The Most absurd one: Kakuro and his Puppet He put an entire guy no one knows and has never been seen in a room where all the authorities are from the same village and have, at least, a vague knowledge of each other's existence. To increase the absurdity, somehow everyone let Kankuro use his own puppet to guide himself to the bathroom. I cannot express enough how unlikely it is that, in a real info gathering mission inside a single room where all the higher rank ninjas are exclusively from the same village, Kakuro's plan could work. Most decent sensors could also catch the chakra line's signature.

I'll give it to him, making the puppet talk helps with the disguise, but it only fools his fellow attendees, not the proctors. He's too confident that he didn't raise any alarms.

But Ibiki goes as far as insinuating he knows (and has known from the start) about the puppet's existence when Kankuro comes back from the bathroom.

If Kankuro was able to finish the test and not get disqualified, even if he had what I consider the most obvious cheating attempt from the named characters shown, it's fair game for Tenten and all the other important cheaters. Besides, it's a single attempt at cheating, even if it required an entire prep work for it, so it doesn't matter if all the high level ninja's are aware, that's not enough to kick him out.

I cannot leave out the meta reasons why these characters weren't removed from the class: they're important to varying degrees to the story and they need to advance through the first phase to keep readers engaged.

Regardless of how absurd I think Kiba's and Kankuro's methods are, they need to go all the way to the fight tournament after the Forest of Death, where they have important roles to fill: Sasuke and Naruto are main characters and are prioritized by the narrative; Ino and Sakura will have an important character developments and flashbacks during their fight; Neji has an entire arc that only concludes all the way in his fight against Naruto; Kiba is the rival for Naruto in the surprise fighting tournament and he is one of the few characters able to match Naruto's silliness so he can win in a silly way; Kankuro and Tenten are both part of the two strongest cells present in the event, the Sand Siblings and Team Gai, both introduced as real threats to Team 7, and having anyone from these cells lose would undermine the narrative created around then. All of them would get through anyway.

Tenten losing against Temari in future parts of the Chuunin Exam has narrative importance too, a fight I will cover in the next In Defense of Tenten, but in short Tenten was introduced as a threat alongside Neji and Lee, her abilities and experience surpassing Team 7's. Having her lose against one the Sand Shinobi serves to show how big their gap in power is: if someone more experienced and well trained than them can't win against them, Team 7 has no chance. It's part of the build up for the future Naruto and Gaara fight, and the suspense about their real strength (since the fight doesn't exist in the manga, only the result is shown).

Conclusion: people are overly critical of Tenten because she's seen as a "lolcow" in the Naruto fandom, in part by the bad adaptation of her fight with Temari to the anime, which poisoned any feat of hers before and after it; but also because Naruto and Boruto don't give satisfying ends to any of the original female cast besides Hinata (she marries the man she loves and becomes a housewife away from the battlefield, an honorable decision i will never shit on, she never wanted to be a ninja and is a kind mother and wife, good for her!) so all female characters are seem as weak and useless when compared to their male peers. Naruto is a work riddled with undercover misogyny, never out right stated but always preventing the girls to achieve any meaningful resolution or permanent development.

That added to the ever expanding powerscalling abilities and fights make characters with simpler and down to earth abilities and feats outdated by its own universe. Knowing how big the Naruto fights and jutsu get in the future make people look down on crafty solutions like sealing scrolls, kunai and mirrors, when that is a perfectly respectable solution within the series and matches the powerlevel presented this early in the story.

Tenten is not weak, or bad, or useless. She's misrepresented by the most popular media consumed: the anime, and further misunderstood by the fans of said work. Large fandoms can be allergic to text interpretation and infighting is stimulated to the point fans of smaller characters are bullied off social media and forums (i.e. the forum where I got the list of all chapters Tenten is in is filled to the brim with comments about how OP should move the topic to "fan works" since no one would want to read about it in the canon work page, or how the mods shouldn't allow him to have a thread). I respect Tenten's feats, as well as other small characters', and refuse to be fed the same "uselessness" narrative this fandom always had, because i actually enjoy Naruto, even if i have many problems with it, and I take it seriously.

She did great.

[nevermeyers]

regarding the whole jjk& gege hatespread movement going on rn, i think this is the perfect illustration of what happened when """trendhoppers""" (i really do not like that term) get into a popular manga because of the characters (fangirls) or the powerscale (..reddit anime bros?😭). and like, to some extent, that's fine!! fangirls are and will always be a big part of fandoms and are a big part of what keeps the community alive. i think the problem lays on the fact that jjk got a wide audience who is used to very binary good guys/bad guys representation in anime with same schemes repeated all over and never questioned their grounding bases. and some really don't like to be confronted to new characters paths or visions (especially if they do not accord to their own).

also the fact that people tend to move to the next shiny thing when the hype is over usually leaves the fandom with people who are actually interested in the story, whereas jjk never left the big screens. so i feel like a lot of the people who take a lot of place in this discourse are only there because they want to argue about who bodies who and "x could wipe the floor with y" and "x is so me guys" etc. they completely disregard the story and it's building, which is (besides interesting (and it is always good to remind it)) the WORK of SOMEONE who puts his time and effort into it.

most people treat work as content (which is bad)(coughcapitalismcough) and get angry when it's not presented in the way they want it to be☹️

You are so right anon!

And do you know what's the worst thing I've ever seen? Someone who said that Satoru couldn't die because the consumer (us, the readers) is always right ☠️ That take is so fucking disgusting, I don't even know where to begin to express the disgust I feel. There are people in the fandom who don't understand anything, they are the typical self-centered people who believe it's okay to throw trash on the school floor because there are hired cleaners. They are disgusting, I don't regret saying it.

The good thing about these chapters is that it's being shown who in the fandom are good people and who are narcissistic and ethnocentric wrecks who believe they have the power to decide on the author of the work. I've spent the last few months mass blocking these guys, ugh, I can't stand them. Worst of all, they live in their own delulu world where a sad ending (or//insert any ending they don't like) is not allowed. They really think jjk should have an ending where Sukuna is defeated and that is, again, self-centered. They say that, otherwise, everything would have been for nothing. Hmm? Since when does letting evil win undo an entire story? They are unable to value jjk for its history. They are doing the same thing that the jujutsu world did with Satoru, they are dehumanizing everything and they are so self-centered they don't even realize it.

People are literally dehumanizing both the author and the characters themselves, forcing their own vision of the narrative at the expense of whatever. Also, I've noticed that many of these profiles just spew hate, literally. That's their whole personality. You see a review in your dash, you enter the profile and surprise! that person hates everything they consume, they don't have a single good word in absolutely any chapter, they hate the author and claim that “Gege doesn't know his own characters” (as if characters aren't allowed to change and evolve in their views, ideology, etc, lmao)

These people are the worst, they spread super negative vibes. They seem very immature to me, because, if you don't like something, why would you continue consuming it? That's straight toxic, and I don't think they have a proper mental health if they're like this with the rest of things happening in their lives. They like to hate and they live off it, that is the only answer.

On the other hand, they are forcing “Gege has a bad narrative” to cover up the fact they are incapable of leaving the fandom and seeing the characters as characters and not their puppets, they force their fanon vision on them and then cry when they discover that they aren't like they expected. Shoko is an example of this. She was always certainly cold, but the fandom always painted her as Satoru's super hyper bestie, as a victim of Satoru's “selfisness” after the kfc breakup (god forbid a teenager grieving) and forced on her that she's a very good person when in reality she is still a doctor who passed her exams by cheating and who showed no empathy in lots of situations, when seeing, for example, Yuuji's corpse.

People also complain that the final fight is taking too long, lol, fights in shonen are like that, that's the point of the genre, babe, jjk is literally sold and promoted as a fight shonen. I honestly think that those who say that are people with a tiktok span of attention. (they would complain if the fight lasted for ten chapters too) Also, what a coincidence gege's narrative dropped when they started waiting weekly for a chapter, huh? What a coincidence they started disliking jjk when they started waiting, also all characters now seemed to be bad written after they started waiting another coincidence! Fast consuming has RUINED people's perception of media.

The moral of this is: enjoy what you consume, be mature about your consuming choices and have a good relationship with the things you like. Stay away from the negativity! And, most importantly, don't treat the author as your slave.

By the way, ik people have a twitter mentality so i'll say this for those. I'm not saying people can't have their own opinions, don't force that narrative on me lol It's the way you express your views that categorizes wether you're a normal person or an asshole. For example, I would have loved Yūta to stay out of this and leave Sukuna to Yuuji, since it was his time to shine! I think Yuuji deserves to have the spotlight and end everything (or try to), carry the final fight and all that. But I won't complain about it, nor drop the manga, because I'm not an inmature self-centered fifteen year old :)

Thanks for coming to my ted talk

[cripplecharacters]

Hello! Your blog has been incredibly helpful for me, thank you for doing what you do

Disability is a core theme of the stories I make, so accessibility is one of my most important goals. For reference, I write books but my main project is a show that’s sometimes semi-animated and sometimes similar to visual novel style dialog.

Some of the things I’m doing now are subtitles and narration that’s baked into the show itself, sticking to a simpler style of writing, and making it free to watch. It’s one part practicality and one part frustration at being told these things “ruin the experience” for others. Now they’re a core part of the experience.

But those are just the things I find personally helpful, I only have my own viewpoint. My question is what are other things I can do to make my story more accessible?

Specific things I’ve been struggling with are showing nonverbal communication (The narration covers a lot of this, but not enough) and conflicting needs. I know some things will help some people but hurt other’s experiences (ie, subtitles) which is a really hard thing to navigate! So advice on that would be helpful

Thank you!

- @interroblog

Hello lovely asker!

So I'm gonna throw out some ideas here at the start and these are in no way me saying "You have to do this". No, just me tossing some ideas out and maybe they hopefully help! 😁 Let's try this.

First off you also mentioned that it's part of your style in the way you're animating as well. I think if it's your style that you shouldn't have to change that either. It's both something that is unique to how you choose to do things and it also aids in accessibility. You shouldn't feel pressured to change it because some people find subtitles or Narration annoying. It ultimately comes down to how you want to do it, so again here are some things I could think of.

So if the site you're hosting your show on allows you to have toggle on subtitles and audio descriptions I would do that. If not what you can do is when you put your animation through you can have multiple. Kinda like with certain shows or movies you have a version in its original language and a version that's Voiced over with another language. If you want to accommodate your audience perhaps you can have a version:

Without any subtitles or audio descriptions

With subtitles

With audio descriptions

With both the subtitle and the audio description

Granted going this route may be more work than just doing it all together (I'm not 100% sure, I don't know animation very well) but it's certainly an option. I think the process of rendering and saving it at the end (having to do it multiple times) and in regards to space may be an issue.

Another thing you can do is write up a description transcript for each episode so that people can look at it for reference. Some people use screen readers or braille displays that read over this information for them if you're worried about the text itself. Here's a good example of one done from a DeafBlind film done in the 60's at Perkins [Warning for typical 60's language regarding disability]. It usually includes what an audio description would just typed out.

Another thing you can do is see and look around for anyone who is fluent in the local Sign language that your show is in and see if anyone could record and interpret it for you too, if you want to have that option for people as well.

You could also do kinda like comics and Manga do where they mark the sounds/actions on the panel/animation it self.

[Manga panel from the Manga "Shino-chan can't say her name"]

For instance in this manga panel there's no dialogue but the author gives us multiple cues which the translator also translates as well. There's the foot steps with the text getting bigger and bigger letting us know that the sound is getting closer and the direction, then in the next panel we have two exclamation points letting us know she's alarmed and aware. The text of the foot steps is now darker and bold and we see the streaks around the characters hands letting us know that she hurriedly wrapped up her box. Then we have the word "Sneak" in bold lettering against the wall where the character is pearing over.

Now I'm not sure what type of nonverbal communication your using so I'm gonna go over things a little vague.

Sign Language [Mostly in ASL because that's the sign language I'm most familiar with and can understand the most]

Here's two animations by @scoliwings and they're both in ASL and the way the person made them is with captions into the animation (also they're very cute and lovely). The show ThisClose also does this with their entire Pilot episode but then only does it with their ASL scenes moving forward in the series. The people who wrote and produced the show note that while they made the show surrounding the deaf community and about the deaf community they wanted the show to reach their hearing audience.

This scene that is with a translator has no captions whatsoever. While this scene between the two main characters using ASL does have captions. Then this one does have captions that go away when the characters communicate verbally.

This is a constant thing of multiple different medias is they kinda choose between which audience they want to pertain to. And whoever they choose, it usually ends up leaving the other out or not 100% involved usually at the fault of accessibility on streaming services/wherever the media is being hosted.

If someone Deaf/Hoh wanted to watch this show and there's no captions available on whatever platform is hosting it then it wouldn't be accessible to them. And if they are fluent in ASL, those parts have captions all the way through. For instance those videos on YouTube, not all of them are accessible because they don't have the toggle on Closed Captions. So the moments where there's characters who speak English and don't sign ASL, especially if the camera isn't on them when they're talking, it's just not accessible.

In the episode "Into the Mystic" on Supernatural, they introduce Eileen's character. This is the only episode that she uses ASL by itself, every other episode she is in uses SimCom and she code switches or uses English. Again captions are in the episode Everytime ASL is used except for scenes where she's signing in the background for instance this scene. From This Gifsets by @winchestergifs

[Gif of Eileen from Supernatural. She's sitting across from an older woman on a couch and she signs in American Sign Language "You" while pointing at the older woman, then she forms her fists into a 'S' shape one on top of another and moves them to the right, she then finger spells "Bait".]

It's never translated, not even in the script or the transcript. Even while this show is targeting their hearing audience they still gloss over things like this. (I also want to note that me and Mod Rock spent a while trying to figure out the second sign and came up empty handed as well 😅)

Now when it comes to Audio Descriptions, it's usually "[Character name] signs [dialogue in Verbal Language]". If it's the first time introducing the character or the character is switching languages, then specify what Sign language off the bat, ASL, BSL, ISL (SEE, SSE,) etc. It's the same as in writing that you write the character dialogue followed by "[pronoun/character name] signed". The shows that I know of that have characters using Sign language and have Audio Descriptions is The Boys (kimiko's scenes), ThisClose also has them, Bridgerton (episode 1 scene in s3, it's one scene in BSL but it's there!), and I'm pretty sure Echo does too (it should, I'm looking at you streaming service) but I've yet to watch that last one. Listening to them might help you with getting a grasp of writing them if you have any signing characters.

Ex. Eileen signs in ASL "You sure you don't want both?"

Another thing with Sign language though is body language and expressions and even things like story telling are there also. So describing an action can give a lot of context of feeling and what is going on in the scene. Here's another ASL animation that is in the works and they go more in detail of how they are animating body motion, face expressions and such. Craig of the creek is an animated kids show that also has BASL and ASL in it (and I love how they go about the characters dialogue, the signs are so well animated, and the friend translating and the others learning for him too.)

There's also Pro-tactile & Tactile Sign language. Granted I've never seen or do I know of a show/movie/short with pro-tactile in it or Tactical Sign Language but if anyone were to do that the audio description would probably be like "[Character A] puts their hands over [Character B]. [Character B] signs [dialogue]". That would be for the Hand over method which is Tactile Sign Language.

For Pro-tactile, this involves other forms of communication such as back channeling, mapping, haptics. It should be translated much the same I believe because these certain elements of the language are used to portray emotional tone, contact/interaction, as well as directions.

Here's some examples of pro-tactile and tactile sign language since I know it's not largely known: (all ASL)

Pro-tactile: Video 1 (Captions & No Voice Over), Video 2 (Captions & Voice Over) and it goes further into specifics of Hand placement, Back channeling while Standing & Sitting, Video 3 (Voice over & Captions). Here's five vlogs in PTASL also, no captions or voice over so Fluency in ASL is needed.

Tactile Sign Language: I was having a hard time finding videos (for some reason) but Here is a segment in a video where they show it. Here is another short video too!

Of course you don't want to describe every movement when it comes to Sign language but you want to describe the base movement. If someones Tracking, (this is where a person holds the wrist area of the other person who is signing so that it's in their field of vision) you might describe that before the dialogue. "[Character] puts their hands over [characters] wrist" and so on and so forth.

Haptics/Mapping may also be very similar but they're mostly used in describing the layout of an area someone is in, directions to somewhere, how to navigate the surrounding area. This is gonna be just explaining how they are moving. The same can be said with Visual Vernacular. It's movement to describe something or to tell a story it's not Sign language but a movement of general understanding. Here is a video where an interpreter details Visual Vernacular alongside ASL. Here's the one without the voice over as well.

AAC

The movie Come Play is a horror movie centered around a non-verbal boy with autism who uses an AAC app on his phone. His device is the one where speech is generated from the different buttons that correlate with the words he clicks. I couldn't find an example of an audio Description for this movie anywhere but it might be similar to the next example.

The Boys again also has scenes with Kimiko where she uses her phone to communicate and such. And the audio description usually sounds like "Kimiko types on her phone, it reads [dialogue]". The only difference in Come Play would be that the Dialogue wouldn't be narrated because it's already done so by the AAC device in the movie, but subtitles would be needed.

Speechless gives a lot of examples between low-tech and high-tech examples. This scene in particular where all the characters are in one scene. The main character (JJ) uses a laser pointer and a word/alphabet board with the assistance of an aid. In this instance the aid reads aloud everything that JJ communicates. If you're one on one though, much like with sign language, you wouldn't really read aloud everything they say especially if it's a private conversation. Instead the pov would probably show the characters AAC method they use whenever they communicate. For the audio description it might be something along the lines of "[Character] points and says [dialogue]".

I've never seen other types of AAC in media so it would probably be the same when it comes to Audio Description when describing another method like print on palm. it might be something like "[character] grabs their hand and writes [dialogue]".

In the show In The Dark the scenes with braille are described as "[character] runs their fingers over the braille, it's read [dialogue/text]". And on that topic, In the show All The Light We Can Not See, it has a really (really really really) good basis of what an Audio Description should be like. It also has multiple featurettes and an audio introduction with it that goes more in depth to explain the costumes, settings, the characters, and other visual information that is often important but left out in the audio descriptions due to the pacing of the show/film.

Immersion was the goal, much like with the production of Romeo and Juliet in PTASL that was performed. Introducing your characters and settings in a little short animation before hand or at the begining as a little segment may be something you can do/consider.

This video details some other forms of communication that I may or may not have left out (Auslan & Voice over). Finger Braille (Video of one handed with translator), Lorm Method, Touch Glove alphabet Method, and some other methods I think can all be described relatively the same. You want to describe the base action of what they're doing (writing, pointing, typing, grabbing, lifting, touching etc) and then focus on their dialogue.

Also I don't use any form of AAC to communicate so if anyone who does finds error, please correct it. Or even if there has been a discussion on this before among the community please reiterate or link to it so we have first hand experience and voices as well.

Known problems with audio Descriptions

Here's a Small history and more in depth article written by someone who needs audio descriptions. They primarily talk about its lack of rush to be used in cinema and primarily the UK.

Describing everything but the characters race: I've heard that this is an issue specifically for Netflix that the audio descriptions are good but they never mentioned the race of the character which some people have made note about. (I don't know much about this I will say just I've heard it around here and there)

Here is a post that goes more into detail about Audio descriptions as well by @accessibleaesthetics. And here is an all around really Good source as well called The Audio Description Project.

Forgetting character entrances & exits: This is important because people need to know what characters are in the scenes. Much like in a play with stage directions you need to know who comes in and when they exit.

Over describing/under describing: I read a debate about the use of over describing and under describing when it comes to AD's. The example given was when describing facial expressions. Option one is to just say "[Character] is surprised". Option two is to describe the facial expression in all its little details "[Character] opens their mouth, their eyebrows raised and eyes wide". Under describing in general seems to be a issue but when it comes to things like body/facial expressions it's best to keep it simple and to the point for another reason that I list down below.

Forgetting small details: the audio descriptions of All The Light We Can Not See, and The Boys do a fantastic job of small details. For others some things are glossed over but then don't make sense later on in the scene. For instance, if the character picks up a knife and this isn't narrated but then the part of them stabbing another person is then, it's kinda like "Oh well I guess the character picked up a knife at some point" but the exact moment isn't specified. In this article, the person who makes Audio Descriptions tells that he had described someone as Smoking a cigarette when he was in fact smoking Weed. He says the reason he realized the difference is because these are two separate substances that change the perception of the character. The little details matter because of the implications and importance to who is doing it and why, when gathering all the information and understanding a character.

Misnaming/mixing up characters: The same article I listed right before also says how mixing up characters is an issue sometimes too.

For audio descriptions in general I think listening to a few different ones might help with getting a grasp on how to do them/better do them. AudioVault is one place that if you can't find audio descriptions of your shows or movies, they might have it there. In this instance, maybe listening to your favorite movies or shows with the audio descriptions on might help you. Most shows/movies that are original to Netflix have them, the same with other streaming services like Peacock and Amazon Prime.

I don't use audio descriptions a lot because my tinnitus makes it difficult but I sometimes turn them on (when available) to understand scenes that are confusing to me. Certain actions and how the cameras frame them don't make sense to me sometimes, or even I can't see because of the lighting of the show or movie and so I need to know what's going on. This brings us to that beside people who are low vision or blind, many other people use Audio Descriptions for different reasons too. The same points can all be made for people who use Subtitles/closed captions as well.

Issues with captions/Things that need to be more common with captions

Names: Some captions have the names of the characters next to their dialogue. A lot don't do this. I think it should be done because of many reasons but mainly it makes it easier to follow along for everyone who uses captions.

Tonal Cues: As I mentioned before Tonal Cues in Captions would be so very helpful for a lot of people.

Don't censor: Don't censor swear words, slurs, anything, write it as it's said. Unless it's actually censored in the audio (which is usually done for comedic reasons) then do that.

Lyrics/music/background sounds: So not only making sure to include the songs that are playing over certain scenes but also making sure to include the soundtrack and background music that is playing. Almost every movie and show uses music as an indication for tone, often times characters or certain situations have their own theme too. These are all important to note when writing captions. The caption writers of Stranger Things did amazing when it came to background noises, writing every creak and bang is important especially if it's being heard and reacted to by either the characters or the audience.

Include language changes: This has long been an issue when you're watching something in one language and then when they switch languages it just says "Speaking in [language]". Instead write out what they said in that language. So instead of "Speaking in Spanish", actually write out "Sana sana colita de rana". If the character knows what they're saying because they speak the language you can also put another set of subtitles under it translating it. If you're doing a sorta comedic scene where the audience needs to know what is said but the character doesn't, then do the same, write it out in the language "Ay dios mio!" And then under/above it put the translation "Oh my God!".

Include different speech patterns: If the character has a stutter write it, if they're slurring their words together write it.

Auditory/Visual Learners: Some people just do better retaining and understanding information when it's in an auditory form. For some people, they're able to retain information more by reading it rather than hearing it as well.

People Who Have Trouble With Social Cues: Okay so a continuation to the "Over Describing/Under describing" bullet points above. For people who have trouble reading body/facial cues, the audio descriptions help by describing it as The character is happy, scared, shocked, surprised etc. This is part of the reason why it's best to use those words instead of describing every movement that goes into a person's expression/body language. Like wise Closed Captions with Tonal Cues would also help and serve much of the same purpose but those are rarely ever seen (in my experience).

Help People Learn The Connection Of Words And Actions: a lot of people are always learning new languages and being able to connect the word to the action helps with the understanding of new languages. Again the same for closed captions, being able to look at how words are spelt while listening to them helps grasp a better understanding.

Overstimulation: For some people looking and listening to something at the same time can be too much and it becomes overwhelming. I know I often turn off the sound to a lot of movies I watch and just use subtitles because sometimes commotion/yelling especially in like action movies is a lot. For some people, a lot of visual movement and constant rapid actions can be overwhelming as well.

Dark Screens: As I mention, especially more recently in the media industry, things are a lot harder to see nowadays. The same can be said with dialogue and why a lot of people may opt-in for subtitles and captions because things are just so hard to hear now.

The Busy Bees: Some people just like to multi-task and much like an audio book, you can do something (chores, crafting, homework etc) while listening to the show and not miss any visual information. Multi-tasking also helps some people concentrate better on what they're working on too much like music helps some people.

People With Other Medical Conditions That Make Viewing Screens Inaccessible: If your having a migraine or headaches, a screen is the last thing you want to look at, and for some people, noise is a trigger for them. They're also a known trigger for many people with epilepsy/seizure disorders. People who have photophobia also may AD due to the light sensitivity. People with ADHD, autism, Prosopagnosia, Processing Disorders, and many many other things that I can't possibly list them all, all may use Subtitles or AD's for multiple different reasons.

Okay, that was a lot, got a bit long, but hopefully I covered everything! Things could be more organized but it works so hopefully this helps! I'm not very familiar with animation so anyone who is, please feel free to add on in a reblog to share a few tips and tricks!

~ Mod Virus 🌸

[thot-farm]

The brooding Todorokis

I love how I made this post thinking I'd only post a picture and three words. Haha, silly me! Long (5 paragraphs) Todoroki talk under the cut! (❗️I AM NOT CAUGHT UP PAST DABI DANCE + some out of context clips of Dabi on TikTok❗️)

TLDR: I want an in-depth Todoroki family spin-off

I wish Horokoshi (or a different artist but that still has to get Horokoshi's approval) made a spinoff where it is just day-to-day of what happened in the Todoroki household, but they showed what everyone was thinking and how their trauma manifested, and the progression of Endeavor's abuse, and what happened to all of them after Touya's 'death'. Like depth, there is the main chapter which details what happened from the perspective of the reader, the observer who sees everything at face value of the words and actions of everyone, then a chapter from Endeavor's perspective and shows his thoughts and how much everything got to him, and then a perspective for each relevant Todoroki for each chapter.

Or a chapter for every Todoroki, to showcase the differences in all of their day-to-day lives, what it was like at school for the kids, what Natsuo and Fuyumi never experienced compared to Shouto and Touya, and show more of how Rei was with the kids.

I'd honestly like to see how it goes from what happens in Touya and Endeavor's perspectives glorifying Endeavor and his actions, minimizing them, to how they would both eventually see Endeavor as a monster compared to how Shouto practically came out of the womb knowing his dad was a monster.

And I want to see how Shouto felt after the eye incident, I know the show says he wouldn't visit or something along those lines, but it kind of glazes over how much trauma Shouto holds, how he knows his mother lost herself in that moment because of Endeavor's actions (and maybe some of Touya's), like I know I shouldn't want to see if Shouto had panic attacks, but it never shows the fear he might feel seeing his mother after the incident, the thoughts of that he may remind her of Endeavor or Touya that lead him to stop using his flames as a way to rebel and gain a slight bit of control.

But I feel an anime like that would be too much for the average MHA fan to comprehend and it would probably get review-bombed because bad no action too much thinking, but maybe that's my cynical nature and my assumptions about the fandom from who I know watches and has watched MHA, maybe the audience has changed from a few years back when I was mega into the show. But I bet a lot of the fans would like to see more of the Todoroki family. I would personally probably prefer this in manga format anyway, less triggering to me and I can read it fifty bazillion times.

[joyce-stick]

Good evening,

I am contacting the team in relation to the current policy of the tag wranglers on "All Media Types" tags. I have heard from various community members that the policy of the tag wranglers is, as of this moment, to remove these tags. I am writing primarily to express my opposition to this policy, as it is not clear what problem it is intended to solve, and broadly has the potential to cause more harm than good (if any good at all).

You have likely already heard about the impact this policy has on anime and manga fandoms, as many Japanese media franchises exist across mediums and installments that share a singular continuity, and many adaptations are 1 to 1 transpositions of the source material's narrative to the target medium with no meaningful narrative deviation. Bang Dream, the Monogatari series, and virtually every manga with an anime adaptation (such as Bloom Into You, Bocchi the Rock, and My Hero Academia) all fall into this. There are counter-examples, such as Fullmetal Alchemist's manga, and its 2003 anime adaptation which takes a drastically different narrative direction, but these exceptions are few and far between.

Anime and manga fanfic writers often tag both the anime and the manga of the series they are writing about, because the fandom for both is often one and the same. Removing the All Media Types tag makes the act of searching for fics in any anime/manga fandom more difficult, as well as making it harder to filter out crossovers, because the option to do so removes any writers who have tagged both the anime and the manga for the reasons of fandom continuity mentioned earlier.

This policy, if applied consistently, also has the potential to have an incredibly destructive impact on the searchability of any fic for a media franchise split across a large number of installments and continuities, which can potentially number in the dozens, and in some extreme cases, the hundreds. The Transformers franchise, in particular, has numerous spinoffs across many mediums and continuities, as do many other popular franchises such as Sonic the Hedgehog, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Gundam, and a litany of others. There are also the obvious examples of franchises such as Star Wars, Marvel, and DC, many of whose installments also share continuities or other elements. Removing the All Media Types tag makes it difficult for people who wish to search for fics from any of these franchises generally with no interest in any particular spinoff, and solves no apparent problem.

The child tags already exist for readers who want to search for media based on any specific installment, as well as for writers writing a fic not based on any spinoff or continuity in particular. Someone writing a more general interpretation of a popular character may have to pick a single piece of that franchise to tag the story under, where they might otherwise simply use the general "All Media Types" tag. This is a serious oversight, as while the wranglers may claim that the removal of these tags is to make the search easier, it in fact makes it more difficult for writers to reach their audience, and audiences to find stories they might have otherwise discovered more easily.

I would strongly encourage the wranglers to observe the following posts, and the response to them, which should be ample evidence that many in the community are not in favor of this policy and that for many fandoms it does not have the intended impact of improving the website's ease of use;*

[1] [2]

If there are no plans to reverse course on the policy, I would strongly implore the staff to publicly announce this change and open a dialogue with the community on how to handle this. I personally am opposed to it, but I am obviously not the only one. Right now the general perception seems to be that this practice is of no convenience to anyone except the tag wranglers themselves, and that they are ignoring the voices of anyone contacting them to say that it is not appreciated. At an absolute minimum, I believe transparency from the team about why and how this policy is being implemented is required, because right now, there is no open communication on this that I have observed and the only way this became openly known was by people on social media passing around screenshots of individual email responses from the Archive's support team.

You can rest assured that I will be doing the same if the response to this inquiry proves unfavorable. Regards, Joyce Celeste Silvia Fisher

*I put a plain colon rather than a semicolon in the original message but tumblr didn't like that for some reason.

Proof:

[kaurwreck]

Whatcha think of how Mori is depicted by Asagiri? People are always mad about it, so I do wonder your own opinion of it.

I think Kafka Asagiri is cheeky and clever, but I'm not very objective about his choices because I knew next to nothing when I first began watching the anime, and researching complex, multidisciplinary, and context-laden subject matter about which I have very little prior knowledge is something I love doing so much that I've made it my career and most of my hobbies. I'm very, very easily delighted by layers I can sink my teeth into, and I get immense satisfaction (i.e., a lot of dopamine) from untangling patterns, recognizing references, and exploring contours I hadn't initially noticed by deepening my contextual knowledge.

The rush I get from learning means that engaging from a starting place of near total ignorance and then retroactively piecing together more information ensures I'm continously starry eyed and dazzled by the depth I'm perceiving. But I'm an American reader who was entirely unfamiliar with the Japanese literary references or relevant Japanese history prior to watching the anime or reading the manga, and I'm piecing together context from limited English-language resources. So, much of what I'm getting a rush out of learning for the first time is likely common knowledge to the native Japanese audience. It's easy to think that the water is deep when you first jump in and can't touch the ground.

For an example of how my unfamiliarity manifests as bias: I love Fitzgerald as an antagonist and then uneasy ally, and I enjoy that Fitzgerald's skill manifests as green light. But I've already chewed his themes and source material references to bits, having studied the Great Gatsby and its period-relevance re: the disillusionment of the jazz age in high school. I was already familiar with the significance of the green light to Fitzgerald's relationship with wealth and how it enchants him such that he becomes so obsessed with its hazy distortion of his dreams that he forgets himself. I liked how the anime and manga both interpret the green light, and I especially like how the green light wraps around his body, lightly paralleling Chuuya's Corruption runes and thus tinting Fitzgerald's skill with the suggestion of possession/loss of control.

But although it's a lot of fun to trace those familiar patterns in a novel interpretation, it can't compare to the thrill I felt when I belatedly realized that Vita Sexualis isn't erotica but instead a skeptical reflection on sex and the purported objectivity of naturalism; or when I learned that irl!Mori was the most girl dad to ever girl dad. With Mori, my expectations were subverted, Mori's character became brilliantly nuanced where he was flat to me before, and I felt the same rush of pleasure as if I was made privy to an inside joke. Fitzgerald felt comparatively like rediscovering a favorite blanket buried in the back of my closet; warm and fond, but not gripping or perspective-shifting. (Unlike when I first read the Great Gatsby, and thought it saturated in clever and well wrought commentary that complicated my prior feelings and prompted me to grapple with my own sources of green light.)

In other words, I don't have any objectivity here for the same reason I shouldn't be trusted regarding how badly any of my tattoos hurt. I remember vaguely that they did, but the process flooded me with enough endorphins that the edges of my memories are blunted and tinted rose.

So, to actually answer your question, I think Kafka Asagiri's depiction of Mori is brilliant and witty and subversive, layered with insight into the blurred lines between love and imperative, fear and intuition. I think Mori is emotionally wrought but manicured with pathological attenuation, which renders his bursts of passion all the more compelling. He's also funny and silly and horrifying in how his levity only ornaments and never softens the weight and gravitas of his presence.

I used to feel like Kafka Asagiri's suggestive playfulness regarding Mori was in bad taste, given the severity of the implications. I don't anymore; Kafka Asagiri is hardly as irreverent as academic commentary on Mori Ogai's medical legacy regarding beriberi or Mari Mori's love for him. I wouldn't enjoy Mori nearly as much if he were reduced to an easily digested archetype or caricature without any of the dissonance that humanizes him.

I also can't take seriously my own first impressions of Mori's character either; I've rewatched and reread bsd several times over, and I can't recall the narrative ever affirming or validating my initial presumptions. I reacted rather than engaged, which is fine as an instinct, but I certainly shouldn't conflate it with analysis.

But, as I said, I'm not objective about bsd. I think Kafka Asagiri is brilliant and fun and thoughtful. I think Mori is a watermelon full of hamburger meat that I love gnawing. I think bsd is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Carthago delenda est.

[guiltycorp]

Not that i mind but i wonder if some changes to the shown dynamic were purposeful? The ending especially showed a lot of Gojo's regard for Geto, it was very cute (although I did think that Geto's depressive state in it would influence anime-onlys to see him as this typical brooding teenager who is annoyed by Gojo... and also im still certain that Geto showing middle finger in the group photo wasn't really in character for him). The lyrics of the opening and ending also add a lot of context for sure!

Then in the last episode they did a great job of adapting Gojo's emotional reaction, going even further with the excellent voice acting, erratic movements and bleeding from clenching his fist too hard... And of course the ambiguous redness under his visible eye after the dream, i'm sure we aren't going to get any confirmation whether it's from tiredness or tears (or allergies, or artstyle) but the implication alone is enough.

But!! At the same time in that final episode they chose to downplay the scenes where Geto mentioned Gojo before defection. And they didn't erase those moments but instead chose not to show his face fully.

It's like... His last hidden warmth towards Gojo, only shown to the manga readers. I'm not sure what the animation team's intent might have been with this, but I have to say - to me the manga had felt more ambiguous in regards to their relationship, their emotional states and feelings remained mostly subtextual (and i don't only mean the romantic overtones but just specifically Gojo's attitude towards Geto in the backstory). Meanwhile the anime chooses to focus a little more on Gojo's appreciation for Geto, clarifying a lot of things on his end but leaving Geto's side of things a biiiit less apparent? Which might in the end be for the best in order to make the sealing moment unambiguous. As it is, it was easy to interpret Gojo's fatal hesitation as an understandable shock at seeing a person from his past that he had killed. One could imagine him reacting the same way to Toji, for example. This way, however, Gojo's feelings will be clear. Also, I do remember how before s2 a lot of people claimed that Gojo didn't care whatsoever, citing that as the reason he had missed all the signs and why he 'had no problem' killing Geto in jjk0 (as if he hadn't avoided it to the last possible moment). So I believe it's very important for the audience to see that Gojo absolutely did care, and their sincere friendship just wasn't enough to overpower the messed up world they were living in, at least not without Gojo understanding that the system required change (which he didn't fully get until after Geto snapped, and even then... haha...). This in my view makes for a more complex narrative than just Gojo being a narcissistic person without personal attachments? It wasn't a one-sided narrative, both of them really were friends and liked each other outside of just going on missions together, it just wasn't enough. Anyway yeah, it feels like the anime showed a bit less of Geto's POV when it came specifically to Gojo, but we got more of Gojo's emotions in return, so yay!

[fishing-lesbian-catgirl]

🔥 Otherside Picnic

I actually have 3 for this. They aren’t THAT unpopular of opinions but I’ll still say em

The anime isn’t bad actually. Is it the worst of the 3 ways to experience the story? Yes I will wholeheartedly admit that, for all the many reasons that everyone who talks about Otherside Picnic knows. But is it bad? No I don’t think so. The anime was very enjoyable for me and I rewatch it occasionally when I want to see my favorite girls. It was what got me into Otherside Picnic in the first place (which is actually the point of a lot of one season anime, it’s essentially an advertisement to get you to buy the manga/books) and for that I am very thankful bc Otherside Picnic is one of my favorite things ever

This one is only really “unpopular” in certain circles of fans here on tumblr. I personally don’t think the Sorawo + Toriko + Kozakura poly ship is very good or likely to develop further. Kozakura’s attraction to Sorawo is pretty clearly one-sided and Sorawo only has eyes for Toriko. I also don’t think Toriko and Kozakura have much between them in the way that Sorawo has with both Kozakura and Toriko. I do think that Kozakura having an obvious crush on Sorawo is very funny and a very interesting dynamic, but even Kozakura herself seems to recognize that Sorawo will never think of her the same way

This is the hottest take of them all I think: Toriko isn’t dumb! It’s understandable how someone could read Otherside Picnic and think that Toriko is kinda dumb given how she often comes across, but she very much isn’t. Most of the conversations in Otherside Picnic are about weird phenomena that follows templates made by ghost stories partially based on what the Otherside finds in human minds. So with this being the most common subject the girl who is extremely autistic about ghost stories and the girl who is literally a brain scientist are both going to sound smart, which leaves Toriko as a partial stand in for the audience that the other girls can explain things to. Basically everything about her position in the story makes her the least knowledgeable about relevant things and make her come across as ignorant. She doesn’t know much about ghost stories or how the human mind works, and she’s also not from Japan and is less familiar with the customs and culture than all the other characters (even though it’s somewhat implied that her mom who isn’t the soldier is Japanese, she is still a white girl from Canada who has only been in Japan a few years). And on top of all this she sort of gets dumber when she’s feeling particularly attracted to or horny for Sorawo, which is pretty frequently. Given that the story is told from Sorawo’s perspective, it’s understandable why Toriko appears “dumb” to many readers. She’s impulsive and a bit naive, but when she actually gets to show off the things she’s good at (mostly knowing about guns, shooting guns, and being generally badass) she’s actually an extremely competent woman:

[piracytheorist]

Damian Desmond, the bully and the victim

I'm prefacing this by saying I was bullied as a kid at school. It was not the worst bullying story you'll ever hear, but that makes no difference in bully victims, cause no amount of "It could be worse!" can heal the life-long scars bullying leaves in you. I'm not saying this to evoke pity or sympathy, but to give context for my point of view in this analysis.

My two most prominent (and persisting) bullies through my school years were two boys, unrelated to each other and in different times (one was in elementary school and one in high school), who both had divorced parents and lived with their mothers. I don't know the full details of what their relationships with their fathers were, but I can easily guess that there were unfulfilled wishes in their lives, and once they found me they were like "That's who I'll burst out my frustrations on". As if I didn't have my own issues at home, but why would my problems matter from their point of view?

The thing with bullies (and abusers in general) is that, for the most part, they don't understand the pain they're causing - and if they do, they think their victim needs (tough love situation) or deserves it. Everyone is a hero in their own story - I regrettably made fun of a classmate a few times, out of my own need to feel superior for once after having been on the receiving end for so long. And I can tell you that my justification for doing so was something like "I am smart and this kid should listen to me, if he does he will become smart too!". It was only much, much later that I realized that didn't hold and the kid was actually hurt by my uncalled-for behaviour. Usually, bullies don't have the empathy, or if they do they simply don't put it to use, to see things from their victim's perspective.

And in all the praise I have to give Endo for writing Anya very realistically as a child, I also have to give it to him for how realistic the bullying is. It starts immediately, uncritically. It persists and the stupid excuse of "Just ignore them" doesn't work at all. Anya gets angry and upset at it, to the point of violent outbursts and tears (though thankfully presented in such a way that the audience doesn't blame her). Combined with his conflicting emotions about her, Damian has found the perfect victim for his bullying; Anya is an outcast (aside from having Becky, thank god), has physical attributes he can make fun of, and because of her wanting to help with Operation Strix she just constantly presents herself to him, when normally she would try her damnedest to avoid him (like Becky always advises her to).

Everything Damian does is an outburst of his own feelings of neglect. I know manga readers know more about the family dynamic, but as an anime only I've also been given enough to understand it's very, very problematic. But that's not an excuse. Having trauma on your own does not excuse thrusting trauma upon others. I mean, you think Anya, the orphan from the lab who didn't have anyone to give a damn about her happiness until she had to manipulate both her ways into getting a father and then a mother, has less trauma than Damian does???

It's not an excuse, but it's a dynamic for Damian to become better. Damian's behaviour problem doesn't only stem from him being neglected; it's also from the fact that he hasn't been taught sympathy. Which, like, makes sense. His father is an ambitious politician who genuinely believes that it's impossible for humans, even relatives, to understand each other, and had no qualms saying this right in front of his kid.

When it comes to Damian's behaviour, it does not matter that those words hurt him terribly. He doesn't have the emotional maturity and empathy yet to understand that he's only perpetuating the same toxic behaviour with his classmates. The fact that Donovan felt so comfortable saying those words in front of both his own son and a total stranger shows that it's something he's used to; and such traits can very easily be passed on from parents to kids without even consciously trying.

Meanwhile, while Anya had a much worse time while being used as a science subject, she was taught the idea of peace; in the first episode flashback, the scientists talk about how they can use her powers for world peace, to justify cutting her play time short in favor of whatever they were doing with her. When Twilight thinks that understanding her will lead to world peace, she immediately starts complying with that. And when she hears his thoughts about how he wants to create a better world, she decides to stay with him as his daughter to help him in the mission, despite understanding the risk and knowing that whether the mission fails or succeeds, Twilight will walk away in the end. She understands the idea of kindness and good. Maybe the way she was introduced to it wasn't the most noble - after all, the scientists were using it as an excuse to practically abuse her - but she still knows and understands enough about what it means for someone else to be happy.

Damian… doesn't. For the grand majority of his presentation he doesn't do things for someone else, in fact, he's so used to others doing things for him that we always see Ewen carry his backpack for him.

I do not doubt that Ewen himself, being the bootlicker he is, offered to carry it, but the fact that Damian never once went like "Nah it's okay man I can carry my weight today" is very telling about how not used he is to doing things for others.

However, his dynamic becomes interesting and receives redeeming qualities because of the times he does show altruism. First when he stops the ball from hitting Anya in the face during the dodgeball game, (though he instantly and openly regrets doing that). And it wasn't from conscious thought - it was an action purely out of protective instinct. Then, when he's the instigator of consoling George Glooman when the latter thinks he'll be moved out of the school. That one he also regrets doing, but it's much more understandable and it doesn't take away the sympathy he showed him.

There is something he constantly does, however, with someone else in mind; he studies hard and tries to excel at school to receive Stellas, in order to get his father's attention. His way of getting that attention has been so messed up by his upbringing that he thinks the only way of getting any positive interaction with his father is by working hard to not be a "failure". And even that hides some personal motives behind it, because the poor kid longs for some affection from his family. Donovan's character and the distance Damian has from him, his mother (when he calls home, he talks with their butler, not her), and his brother all combined do not allow the kid to understand the concept of doing something to make someone else happy, even (or especially) if there's nothing in it for him.

That's not selflessness; that's a neglected kid pushing himself to prove to his abusers that he's deserving of their affection, something he naturally craves and obviously misses from his life. Tough "love" is so prominent in the Desmond family that Damian had no hopes of growing any differently.

He has the potential to become better and has only been held back because of his family's toxic environment. But he needs to develop a conscious understanding of altruism first if his character is to grow into a morally better area.

You can't just give a character a painful backstory and expect audiences to automatically root for their happiness. You need to show your character also has grown empathy because of said painful experiences. We see it with all three mains. Anya was treated as a lab experiment; you start rooting for her when you see that she wants to help bring peace. Twilight went through a war as a kid; you root for him when he says he wants to create a world where kids won't go through the same thing. Yor lost her parents when she was very young; you root for her when you learn that she took care of her brother and gave him opportunities for education and a better future that she rejected for herself in his favour.

So yeah, I do feel sorry for Damian. But right now I only root for him to understand the meaning of making someone else happy — the meaning behind his own protective action over Anya in the dodgeball game and the sympathy he showed George. When he does that, and he realizes he has more in common with Anya than he dares to accept, it's only then that he'll grow from a layered but still toxic bully into a character audiences can root for.

It's also not the responsibility of Anya of all people to take up all the abuse from him and be the one to help him build up some character. It has to be him making the realization, and Anya can choose to be a friend to him as he does that, but in no way can his development depend on her.

(Again, anime only fan here, don't spoil me for the manga)

[the-east-art]

Rem Saverem, Mom Jeans, and the Ticket to the Future

aka gushing about Rem, clothing, and settings.

I was reading through some of @chuthulhu-watches analysis on Rem and it got me thinking about one of my own favorite Rem scenes and quotes and how it feels very different from the manga to the anime adaptations (granted I'm still four episodes from being done with '98 so there's a slim chance they'll include it? But I doubt it.

One of Rem's most famous lines and philosophies that she gives to her boys, specifically one we see Vash mention a few times in his journey is the concept of the ticket to the future. This is used as a way to accept previous events and progress forward despite mistakes or pain. I believe Vash uses this philosophy to help others understand how he can still have faith in people who have done bad things - as he sees it the tracks that someone has walked are always behind them, and do not dictate the future.

In both anime adaptations they show Rem telling the twins this analogy, in '98 I believe just as they're hanging out, and in Stampede she mentions it to them before she lets them leave in the escape pod (again if my memory is correct). However, I feel both of these negate the very touching and to me impactful way that the manga tells this story.

One thing that is very relevant in the manga but is not present in either adaptations is the slow realization of the world, and the comfort of the Ship Five. The world of Nomansland is strange to the viewer - just left of comfortable. We understand it as a facsimile of the wild west, but people wear clothes that don't quite fit any time period, and the technology is all over the place. When we realize that this is actually an alien planet, it makes sense to the viewer as their strange feelings are proven to have been valid. People wear strange layers and a million belts.

(this is all relevant I prommy)

And then in one of the first few chapters we see Vash and Rem together for the first time.

This is the first person I can recall seeing wearing something so simple. A t-shirt and jeans. And in this scene Vash is wearing a similar simple outfit. It instantly makes Rem stand out as if apart from the world, simplier and to the audience familiar. I could never imagine red coated Vash walking down the street, but something about this woman feels like she is real in a way. And here we see her mention her ticket to the future. (I could gush about this scene but I'll push on).

Anyways, I think that in Trigun clothing and setting and how the viewer relates to them is very important. We only see Vash in casual clothing when he is somewhere that he feels comfortable, when he is somewhere he considers home. One instance is when he is masquerading as Eriks, and one is when he is at Ship Five - the only two places he really seems to consider as his home at any points during the manga.

I really dislike the anime's decision to make the members of Ship Five have strange, futurist clothing. This makes the occupants of Ship Five feel strange and foreign to the viewer, separate from not only the world but from ourselves. I felt like Vash's time spend in this area is notable in the story and stands out because he is dressed so normally around others who are also dressed so casual. It tells you just how comfortable he is here, and again as a viewer it makes these people and Vash in this instance relatable and in many ways real. He stops being Vash the Stampede and we are able to see him as a person.

Okay okay - as promised let me talk about the Ticket to the Future. (several of these photos are taken from @lonelysnowymemes' edit of this scene - please go check it out if you haven't watched it!)

This scene is a shock to the system. We don't know how long ago humans left earth, or how old Rem was when she left, and for the most part as the reader you have become accustomed to the setting. So at least when I was reading this, to suddenly see Rem on a train felt so... mundane. She isn't wearing special space clothes, she isn't even in her t-shirt and jeans from her time on the ship. She is wearing what perhaps I might wear if I was going somewhere special. This scene is so important because we know so little about Rem, and when we do hear about her especially in the anime adaptations she seems to be almost like a Virgin Mary figure, somewhere high up next to god, untouchable. And this mundane scene shakes that picture of her.

It is a slow and quiet scene in a hectic manga. And then, the scene comes to an end.

Rem wakes up in a room, alone. I always assumed this was on earth, before she became a higher ranking member of the SEEDS project. And you realize that Rem had this dream, this revelation, in the midst of a deep depression. While this analogy is applied often to the inherent goodness that people can accomplish in the future, here the ticket is a way to push forward. I get the sense that this was the start of a long journey. A little dream did not magically fix her world, or her pain. She still wakes up in a messy room, in the dark, and alone. But you can almost still feel the lingering lightness that she felt in the dream. Again I want to push the setting of this scene. A messy bedroom that could feel familiar to the viewer - as someone with bad priorities and depression, this is a familiar sight to me.

And finally, just to top it off. Why does this line convince Vash that people, despite their actions yesterday, can go on to be good tomorrow?

Because that is what Rem tells him. Vash struggles after hurting Rem, and this discussion of both the depression he feels from seeing Tessla and the guilt of hurting Rem as a darkness that he finds himself swallowed by, she uses the same analogy that pushed her out of her own depression to tell him to continue forward. Vash tells himself this, takes to heart this analogy of the ticket, not to ignore the bad things that he has done but to rather help himself to continue onwards.

Sorry if this is super scatterbrained I've just been thinking about these things a lot the past week or so.

anyways have you ever noticed that Rems' name is Rem Save Rem

[asukakuro]

How The Last shot on NH themselves

After having written the latest post [here] and drifting around Threads the social media, I got some inspiration to enlarge the gamblings.

The Last romance was built based on these basic clauses:

'Naruto has a crush on Sakura'

'Naruto and Sasuke are rivals'

'Naruto doesn't care (much) about Hinata'

Accordingly, they had combined 3 clauses into only one issue that we all know that:

'Naruto doesn't know about his feeling for Hinata'

As you can see it. The anime itself promoted the relevance of Sakura in Naruto's character. They supported the basic settings in his profile that "likes/loves Sakura", so audiences received:

'Naruto had been having a crush on Sakura just because of his rivalry with Sasuke'

Yeah. It's the worst thing The Last had done to slap on NH in the course of protecting the hero's wife. Some people read this and thought it was pretty good. But let me prove that it was such a wacky match, both in thought and done.

1. They confirmed that Naruto has no interest in Hinata. It also means he doesn't consider her as a potential love interest. Hinata stans freakishly admitted this without any semblance of a breakup.

2. The Last still did the same like they had done to promote Sakura - emphasize the relevance of Sakura in Naruto's character. No wonder Sakura stans are boasting about their bias was loved by the main character for at least 699 chapters, or 'Sakura let Hinata have Naruto' lol. Even in a NH movie, NSK still had their advantages.

3. Hinata herself prefer her crush than her sister who was in dangerous. The way SP portray her make her more useless. Hoping her rivals were fangirls of Naruto but... The fact Sakura push Naruto to Hinata actually mocking on NH.

Not regarding The Last movie stealing main couple tropes (you knew it), just a little oddity existed in how they lead scenarios would trigger the war between two ladies.

Sakura fans have put up with SS's unclear marriage and will surely cling to any clue that would indicate Sakura was attractive. NH was already the lowly compared to NSK. The only thing keeping them safe is the whole wedding and 'after The Last' dating. Those two factors are enough leverage for NH. As you can see, Hinata fans are winners in any S-H war.

SS obviously sucks. NH sucks in a subtle way. A normal reader who is somewhat confident in his or her own intelligence will come to the erroneous conclusion that Naruto manga's het relationship isn't as good as family and bromance.

[psychopathic-moves]

Why do you think Bones didn’t include those lines? 👀

This might be answered in the next episode, so I'll guess it'll be a spoiler warning until next week.

I have a feeling that Bones didn't want to reveal that ???% is a separate entity too soon. To someone who didn't read the manga so far it looks like this is still Mob, only extremely detached and under control of his powers more so than his powers being under his control. In no previous scene had ???% been given any sort of agency (both due to lack of exposure and keeping the suspense intact) to distinguish itself from Mob just losing control over himself.

I think that's the main difference between a 100% and ???%.

It was only hinted at during the Mogami arc, when he remarks at "the vessel being broken" - contrary to the anime, in the manga Mob is defeated by Mogami's spirits and ???% emerges when Shigeo's own mind/spirit has been eradicated.

It's paralleled during another scene that was omitted in the animation: when Mob lays injured on the intersection, right after the impact, his consciousness is slowly fading away.

That means ???% is presented with free real estate here. So far the only hint that anime-onlys have been given about its true nature (and the fact that it's neither a mindless manifestation of powers nor still Mob) is that it's still emotive and responsive to the actions of those around it.

Now, why wouldn't Bones want to include all that?

For one, pacing. Episode 10 has been packed with impactful moments, from the reveal of what followed the accident through Teruki's attempts at stopping Mob, to the return of Toichirou. From a planning standpoint, adding so far completely new information to so dense of an episode would've shifted focus from the main plot points. In the manga the main cliffhanger after the car crash was the emergence of ???%, who then said the omitted lines in the last pages of the chapter, whereas in the amine Mob's been left to bleed out on that street for a week; it was clear that the reader was meant to be left with a completely different information to digest than in the animation.

It also saves more tension and suspense to distribute for the next episode. My bet is that we're gonna see it interact with Mob next week, but we might not hear it speak for the rest of the series.

And two, it just makes ???% all the more terrifying. Without the cues it looks like an eldritch entity, cold and unmovable, with a little more agency but still very miles away from resembling anything human, which is much more in contrast with Mob's kind-hearted nature. Whatever image the audience has built of it on the course of last two seasons can influence the reading of ???% in this episode and I think that's also a reason why they didn't want to give it too much personality too soon.

I guess it all comes down to different ways of the storytelling. I'm sad that some of the pages didn't make the cut but I also think that Bones is doing a) a phenomenal job and b) god's work translating the manga to animation.

[anime97-99]

Jujutsu Kaisen

So I’m actually mad because there’s a lot of manga readers that likes to critic without really knowing what jjk is about.

. They say that Gege is misogynist because there are only a few women and all of them apart of Maki are dead, and Maki is alive because she is like Toji a man. It looks like they are forgotting the whole aniquilattion arc by Maki, yes, the objetive is to show that Maki can be, as a woman, as strong as the most powerful Zenin, Toji, or even stronger, destroying their conservative thoughts. Showing that women and men are equals. And Gege shows diversity with Kirara and Uraume’s characters that I love. Megumi is also probably pansexual because of the way he described his ideal type, which also matches suspiciously with Yuuji’s name meaning unwavering compassion (probably a wrong interpretation because of Japanese use of honorifics)

(Mai could also be bi as shown in jujutsu strolls written by Gege, when she felt attracted to Takada)

If there are a few women in the jujutsu world is because it was said in the manga that the higher ups believe it to be a world of men and Nobara corrected it saying that she is just Nobara and a sorcerer, nothing more nothing less, genre doesn’t matter. But at the same time it explains why there are only a few women because of the conservative thoughts still lingering.

And everyone equally dies, it is more noticiable in female characters because they only are a few. Basically Gege expose discrimination as a existing problem which is bad and wrong and has to change.

. The other part is that jjk has a bad time pace, I have to say that I agree with this. Jjk has a extremely fast pace which has cons and pros. A slow pace story, for example one piece, will let the author to deal with a better development of the story and characters, but can become boring and the story can lose purpose and focus missing the objetive and the meaning behind it. The fast pace makes the story have plot holes because of bad explain story or half develop characters, but can be more entertaining because it goes directly to the important parts.

Now both extremes are bad, and we know that all mangankas doesn’t work alone and the editors play a really important part.

Jjk because of these fast pace has suffer from critics with how Gege plays with emotions and impactful moments, Gege likes to kill characters to show that human lives are “fleeting” as Sukuna said. 

It doesn’t matter if you are the strongest your human nature is volatile like a flower like Yuuji’s name, which contains the meaning of humanity and flower, it is a metaphor that uses Gege the same with the love and the butterfly trapped in the spiderweb.

It is true that it would be better that the pace was slower to take more time with each character, still if you have curiosity you can read the novels and official books which are canon and contain more information, for example that Nobara was trained by her grandmother, which was a sorcerer…

. In jjk there are a lot of fights because first is a shonen manga and second they are constantly being attack for the enemy, and Gege puts a lot of effort in explaining the techniques which are really diverse and interesting, for example I really like Kirara and Hakari domains. My favorite is Megumi domain and Yuuta’s ability to mimic others techniques.

. Jujutsu Kaisen for me is really good and one of my favorites, I have read a lot of different mangas of all different genres and I would say that it’s one of the best in the shonen genre, “Shonen is defined as a genre of anime and manga from Japan that targets young male audiences. However, though they target a young male audience, they are often enjoyable for all ages and genders. Generally, they are usually a little cleaner and focus on action, adventure, and fighting storylines”. Definition of shonen from movieweb

I wish for the author to continue the story, for the end of the series there’s a chance that the villains are going to win or the cm win but the end is going to be sour, Gege said there is no bad and no good characters and I believe that is the case even with Sukuna, most powerful curse=love most twisted curse, and he was originally human.

[jumpscaregoose]

ok I'm finally doing it I'm finally drafting up this post. if you've spoken to me about shaman king literally ever or even followed this blog for more than two days you know this one

goose's Renmei Thoughts™ aka:

(thanks @gelatinous-jellyfish for making me this wonderful image a while back)

(quick explanation for everyone unaware, renmei is the canon relationship between iron maiden jeanne and tao ren from the sk sequels. I never explain this in the post but if you want to read it and don't know that's what this is. also I mention this takei guy a lot he's the mangaka)

so pov you're me circa feburary 2022, currently unaware of the kzb manga ending or sequels because you got into sk 6 months ago and the 2021 anime isn't over yet. you're innocently googling your girl jeanne for idk drawing references or whatever and BOOM autocomplete drops the most confusing spoiler of all time on you

that's how I remember finding out renmei exists, and at the time I'm pretty sure I was like "oh this must just be a popular het pairing from the Olden Days or something it'd be ridiculous if that was-" it was it was canon. cue a terrible amount of suffering april 21st 2022 when episode 52 of the new anime aired and it was what it is

of course I was upset but in an attempt to not be That One Annoying Fandom Person I sat down and thought about it and gave the concept the benefit of the doubt for a bit and now I have a pretty solid idea of how I feel about it. my renmei thesis is basically:

well that could have been a good idea but wow did takei completely fumble it

part a why it's not conceptually terrible: this one's really simple it's just that they're both similar characters. I'm anticipating you the reader have actually read/watched shaman king so I'm just gonna present you with the chart I made a few months back

murderous child -> oh shit -> what now it's quite similar

btw this file was named "the.png". that is such an unhelpful file name I had to DIG to find it. wtf past me

basically if it was actually written properly I think we could have gotten some cool things out of a romantic relationship between these two characters. however

part b: we didn't

my favourite way to describe renmei is that it just wasn't written. because it wasn't. across over 300 chapters of mainline and spinoff manga they have maybe four interactions, three of which were after they were already a couple (and the fourth one is that time she raised him from the dead and they didn't speak. does that really even count?). and those three actual interactions were flashbacks and not... actually important. I think one of them was just about cheese. as a reader your experience is

2 characters who never interacted -> literally what the fuck when did that happen -> she's DEAD???

when my friend was reading the manga I had to tell her to reread a scene because the panel where they explain it is such a blink-and-you-miss-it moment

literally the same pacing and payoff as CANON DESTIEL.

their entire actual relationship happens during the downtime between the main manga ending and the sequels beginning. and I'm going to bring osp into this because I think this graphic is helpful

(side note as I was scrolling through this trope talk I noticed a problem red brings up that does apply to the sk sequels but that's for another post...)

this is from the osp trope talk on sequels, and it shows the difference in Stuff Happening levels between plot time (red) and down time (grey). the issue with renmei is that it is an IMPORTANT PLOT EVENT (two characters with little interaction having an entire love story) that happens during DOWN TIME, when the audience only sees things through flashbacks in snippets. and it doesn't help that we never get any flashbacks to before the event happened, before they got together. it's jarring because the ENTIRE THING happens during down time. plot time 1 (the main manga) ends with no interactions between them, and ONE scene that's supposed to set ren up for getting Straight Married that in my opinion didn't work. because it is stupid. plot time 2 (every sequel manga) starts after jeanne's death. it's literally the inciting incident for red crimson. their entire 7+ year relationship is encapsulated in foggy down time, and we're expected to care.

and this especially doesn't work because we aren't set up to care. again, 1 interaction in the main manga, where they don't talk (but I will go to bat for the inherent intimacy of raising someone from the dead like we could have done something there). it's pretty clear to me from rereading the manga that takei didn't know these two would get together when he was writing it. that one scene I mentioned where he tries to set up ren getting Straight Married? if you've read it you know it's incredibly vague and with how takei wrote literally everything else it sure doesn't work as intended. or I'm too aromantic and yaoipilled to understand his literary genius idk. it's clear from some other missed opportunities that the jeanne part of the equation wasn't exactly planned from the beginning. which is even more insulting tbh

part c jeanne character assassination: out of the both of them jeanne really got the short end of the stick in terms of characterization in the sequels. I say this because I actually really like ren in the sequels I like the way takei took his character, so holy shit does sequels jeanne look even worse in comparison. the whole housewife thing is eeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhh, not really a fan of that but I'm also not mad enough to comment. her death I do have some thoughts about. conceptually the beheading herself with shamash thing is BADASS AS HELL and I do like it conceptually, I also know like, the themes. yeah remember that time "atoning for your crimes with your death isn't the right thing to do" was an important part of the plot. TWICE. FUCK THAT I GUESS. there is some equivalent exchange bullshit happening with these two and the continuation of main manga themes and I want it to stop please

part d tao men: one thing I've thought about a lot is Why. why fumble this so badly. why do this at all. what do we get out of this. and the answer is an inciting incident and tao men. and the fumble bag continues because tao men deserved better this is a tao men appreciation account. we could have done some cool shit with his revenge thing but nope fuck that I guess. poor guy

part e contrast: so the sequel manga where renmei is most relevant is red crimson. I absolutely love red crimson I recommend it to everyone. and that's because of jun and pairon (and chapter 9 full transparency). jun and pairon in red crimson have one of the most beautiful relationships I've ever seen. they have an established dynamic and baggage to work through and that's what the manga focuses on. and it works it works really well. however this is also the Renmei Manga, and having most of that stuff right next to jun and pairon just makes it look worse

those are all my renmei thoughts I remembered while writing this post, I think that covers most of it but I may reblog this later with stuff I forgot

[nagirambles]

Rambling about Fairies - Manga Chapter 165

So it’s something that’s bothered me a bit-- Aries has a belt and pouch in the manga, and it makes her look a little more resourceful and workman-like than her anime counterpart. I like the contrast between it and her simple white fluffy dress, because it gives her a good design balance. 

(She has it in the Angel fight and in her Edolas appearance in the anime, but I don’t believe she has it anytime else including all future appearances and the Karen flashback. She always has it in the manga.) 

It makes her look a little younger and cuter, I think? 

As it is in the anime, her scenes are always more emphasized on her offshoulder top and curves which annoys me because, she’s so cute and sexy already, you don’t need to emphasize her boobs and hips, geez. It’s like “wooly cute wooly cute” was the only thing they wanted to tell the audience about her, not the literal work pouch she has to express her sincerely hardworking side. 

It’s a different appeal, you know? The cute thing about her is how meek and shy she acts, so she doesn’t need three times of badoonkazoonkas. Her first appearance in the anime looks kind of wonky because her boobs were bigger than her face, and she had a One Piece reminiscent pencil waist. That is not a good thing. 

Her later appearances are fine, they fixed the proportions to look more reasonable and petite, but first impressions matter, you know? 

Anyway, with the belt in the manga, it’s almost like she’s actually here to work, and I like that. She emphasizes firsthand, in both of her appearances thus far, that she takes her job seriously despite the odds (against Leo) and she is not here to do things outside her job description like service men (against Karen). 

I wish that this part of her personality, which shows she’s not just a damsel in distress but also a genuinely earnest worker, was developed further. But alas. 

Anyways, I went off topic. I wanted to talk about everyone. 

Can we talk about the fact that Scorpio’s tail is clearly a fucking machinegun???

I think he uses it to shoot sand, but, literal ability-type magic looks like that. He could have been shooting it out of his tail and we’d believe it because we’ve seen hands and vases shoot out similar vortexes of elements, so why does it look like a machinegun? Heck, Lucy can do all this with just her hands in her star dress, too! 

I want to see him prepping and charging up a energy laser blaster of sand, at least.

I understand now why the Scorpio-Aquarius dress went in the mecha direction, but in the exact same way, Like, you can make it look like a gun or a mech all you want, it doesn’t feel like it works like one, you know?? Scorpio has a gun that doesn’t need to be a gun. SxA has huge machine limbs, but Lucy can’t even heavylift or efficiently tread terrains in it, so what’s the point? A cool design is pointless if it's clearly just a whimsical decoration! 

I kinda want Lucy to have sci-fi laser guns in her star dress, if only just to shoot sand blasts with. Honestly that would have been better than the weird clunky metal parts. And it would feel like Rebecca, with twin guns, so it's in Mashima's nature to do as a reference for readers of both.