#tho i started out watching the English dub and I had to switch to the original Korean a third of the way through

[wolfofcelestia]

Reactions to Homecoming Wings - Vanishing Skyward Ch 4 & 5

In which half of my attention isn't even on Caleb adnflaskdjfadf

There are some changes in the Eng translation due to the family aspect being cut out but

There's also a bit of a concerning line they tried to cover up and kinda just made it worse tbh

MC: It's my turn to interrogate you!!!1

Caleb: *Answers absolutely nothing*

tHANKS

I'm playing with JP voices now and the switch from niichan to colonel is so much more distinct. I hope his Eng VA is able to portray his colonel side clearer in the future because this is like... integral to his character tbh

Because MC saying he sound "strict" ("scary" in the jp dub) wouldn't really work if he just sounds like he usually is

It's easy to tell when he's in colonel mode and when he's just being Mahiru

...his uniform is really doing a number on me tho asndflasdkfj Every time he walks on screen, I just wanna push him down

Oh...

🥺

Pretty sure Zayne would not approve asfnaslkj Doesn't she have regular appointments with him? He must be worried sick after she disappeared in the N109 Zone and now just... literally disappeared off the face of the earth

"The room you picked is mine"

This is the main story right? I know they have a history together but it kinda feels unfair to see this in the main story when the others weren't like this. I guess you could call it his route but still

I would've appreciated some more build up to warm the players up to him, because even though I'm positive-leaning-neutral towards him, it feels way too fast. I would've expected the hurt he put MC through would bring them both back to zero, but she's acting like nothing ever happened

I'm watching him do the head tilt animation and I'm just here like

....I miss Zayne

That "something" was never explained? wtf? What do you mean it wasn't a light tap or smack? Did Caleb hit her?

"Suddenly, Mahiru hits my head with a stern look on his face"

...I mean, yeah. But the way they translated it in English really makes it sound like he punched her in the face. They could've just said he smacked her lightly on the head instead of making it really weird

But the fact that he did raise his hand at her doesn't bode well tbh

Holy shit, there's a big difference in dialogue here because they had to cut out all the references to being family

In JP, she said, "If we're always apart, we won't be able to call ourselves family anymore"

Caleb: "Do we have to be family [to stick together]?" or "If we're not family, that means we can't stick together?"

"Do you want me to be by your side only because I'm family?"

"Just kidding. Are you so surprised that you can't speak?"

Just realized that if he's still using the same account to text her and stuff, wouldn't he be able to see her avatar? And my avatar is me and Zayne looking like a married couple LMAOOO

He's not gonna say anything about that???

Lowkey laughing that they named this kid "Mia"

As in MIA

As in Missing in Action

As in Caleb asdfnalsdkfj

IS MY HUSBAND HERE???😭😭😭😭

CRYI N G 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

IT'S MY BOY!!! 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Can't believe he showed up here just when I started missing him asdfnasldkfajsdflkj

LOOK AT HIM BEING ALL SMILEY AAAAAAAWWWWWWWWW😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

His voice is really quiet here though. What's wrong baby 🥺🥺🥺

Oh we're going to see her together 🥺👉👈

His voice is so super soft here when he's speaking to the kid 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 MY ZAYNIE POOOOO!!!!!! 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

I'M FUCKING DYING 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

OH GOD I'M FUCKING ASDFNASDLFKSJF HE'S SUCH A GOOD DOCTOR UGH I WANT HIM TO RAM IT IN ME

LOOK AT HIM LOOKING ALL SLY BECAUSE HE KNOWS HE'S GONNA GET MASS PUSSY FOR THAT

[rhainintheattic]

If any of you get the chance to watch JUNG_E on Netflix, please do! I fully recommend it

[lesbianakaashi]

The Forgotten Shounen: Katekyo Hitman Reborn

This is not a “Why you should watch/read khr” or anything like that. This is just me going into the deep dive and throwing my findings at you. I’m making this because khr used to be my favourite series when I was 15 (I had plushees, posters, tradingcards, the art book etc) and now as an adult I constantly find myself baffled at how unknow it seems to be.

1. Okay first what is khr?

Katekyo Hitman Reborn! or just Reborn! is a series by Akira Amano which was published in Weekly Shounen Jump from 2004 to 2012 (with 42 volumes) and got an anime adaption which run from 2006 to 2010 on Tv Tokyo (with 202 episodes and one OVA).

2. What’s it about?

Khr is a parody of the italian mafia and plays in a world where the mafia is heavily influencial. The protagonist is the japanese middle schooler Sawada Tsunayoshi who is known as “No good Tsuna” because of his failing grades, general weak and cowardly personality and weak physics.

He becomes aware of the mafia world when a 2 year old baby called Reborn arrives at his house claiming to be the greatest hitman and declaring himself his home tutor. Reborn was send by the 9th head of the Vongola famiglia who is ready to retire and looking for a new heir. Which of course, is supposed to be Tsuna and now it's Reborns job to shape him into a worthy sucessor.

Tsuna rejects the violence of the mafia world and refuses the position as the 10th. Thanks to Reborn and his general craziness Tsuna meets different people and starts to make real friendships. Reborn wants 6 of those friends to be Tsuna's future guardians, basically a group of people which will be closest to him in the vongola famiglia. Tsuna might have no interest in those positions but the friendships he builds with them become really precious to him.

Reborns arrivial also brings in the enemies of the Vongola family which leads to Tsuna being forced to engage in battles. Generally Tsuna openly avoids fights and prefers to run away but will put himself in danger for his friends' sake or because of something Reborn did.

Through out the series Tsuna matures and gains strenght but he never becomes a power fantasy. He's just a guy with many flaws who grows through the human connections he makes.

Personally I think the relationship between Reborn and Tsuna is one of the best student teacher reltaionships in all of manga only topped by Mob and Reigen from Mob Psycho 100. Especially the last arc really underlines their unique relationship to me.

Furthermore, khr offers a new and unique battle system: The flames. I'm not gonna go into to too much detail but the general idea is that one fights with their dying will flame which basically turns off your the savety switch so you can fight with everything you have. The flames are seperated into different categories such as: sky, storm, mist, rain, sun, lightning and cloud and have different attributes asigned to each one. Tsuna's use of the sky flame and his transformation when using it is still one of my favourite shounen transformations to this day.

3. What happened?

The series did really well and then not so well over the course of its serialisation. After the manga got an anime adaption it increased in populairty and video games, light novels, and other products such as CDs were created based on the series. Reborn is one of the best selling series of Weekly Shōnen Jump and has sold around 30 Million volumes overall. It was and still is very popular in Japan but rather unknown in the west.

According to the article "The Rise and Fall of Weekly Shonen Jump: A Look at the Circulation of Weekly Jump" khr was the 10th bestselling series in Weekly Shōnen Jump, with a total of 7 million copies sold in 2007.

This number increasing to 15 milion in 2008. Which placed khr into the 4th best selling series of 2008 in Japan.

Between 2008 and 2010 those sales declined but still kept strong with khr as the 6th top selling manga in 2009, 8th best selling in 2010 and then 24th best selling in 2012.

In November 2014, readers of the Da Vinci magazine voted khr number 17 on a list of Weekly Shōnen Jump's greatest manga series of all time.

After the anime came to an apprupt stop in 2010 for unknown reasons the manga sells took a visible hit. (Apparently the studio wanted to put the anime on halt because they were busy with other projects and give Akira Amano time to develop her story but I couldn't find any source for this claim) Furthermore, the rushed last chapters of the manga in 2012 declined the popularity of the series even more. There's no offical statement as to why the manga was ended in such a way but it's reasonable to assume that Jump either cut it considering the decreasing sales or Akira Amano choose to end it for personal reasons.

Nontheless, Tsuna not being included in Jump Force (a fighting game where you can play as different characters from Jump) in 2019 even tho he made it in earlier Jump Stars games also underlines the decreased interest in the series.

Rumors on a reboot or anime adaption of the last two arcs surface from time to time but are genereally unlikely. Artland the studio which made khr has gone bankrupt around 2015-2016. It might be taken on by another studio but rather uncommen especially with such an old series.

4. Art style

The khr anime ended over 10 years ago and the old art style might not be appealing to newer audiences.

Especailly because the anime adaption follows Akira Amanos old art style which heavily developed within the years. Here a picture comparing characters in the new art style:

A modern anime adaption in the new art style would be aesthetically pleasing. It would probably look similiar to Psycho Pass since Akira Amano did the concept art for this series.

(My personal art student hot take is that both art styles are unique and fun. Up to this day Akira Amano still has my favourite art style and even if the amount folds in the characters clothing is a little extreme I love it dearly.)

5. Criticism

The show is not without flaws and even if I greatly enjoy it it wouldn't be right not to adress them.

Daily Life Arc:

A lot of people view the first 20 to 25 episodes as fillers and quickly lose intererst in the series. This is due to the fact that Akira Amano inteded the series to be a gag manga and focuses the first chapters on world building, character introduction and comical narratives. It's rumored that the decision to develop the story into a battle shounen was made because the sales weren't doing well enough at first. So the first chapters/episodes may seem titidious but are necessary for the story and the development of the characters. The tonal shift from a more gintama like gag manga to a darker battle focused story can also be offputting to some viewers.

Either way a lot of people blame this arc when discussing why khr never got an english dub or didn't end up on Toonami. I've also read that the manga never finished serializing in the north america. However, it finished in other western languages like german and spanish.

Censoring:

The anime censors A LOT. From Gokudera's smoking habit, Yamamoto's whole character arc which deals with heavy themes such as depression and suicidal thoughts. The general bloodiness of the manga was censored and sometimes whole chapters and characters were left out even if those were important to the devolopment of others.

Filler episodes:

Out of the 202 episodes the anime has around 29 filler episodes which makes roughly 14 %.

Sexism:

Even if Reborn was written by a woman most female characters are rather flat and their storylines often tied to a male character in one way or another.

Genereal things:

Khr, like many other long running series, is sometimes criticised for a lack of world building or unpopular narrative choices.

6. Hope?

Khr isn't exactly dead. As stated before the series is still very popular in Japan and still gets new merch pretty regulary. There are also petitions floating around for a reboot or a new anime season but those never get a lot of traction. Furthermore #Reborn2期アニメ化 (#Reborn2ndAnimation) used to get some traction on twitter not too long ago. Last year the Anime News Network did a poll on which anime the readers would like to see a rebooot of and khr placed second.

Either way here's a collection of recent khr things I could find.

- In 2018 a new bluray set was released in north america

- The khr stage play reached yet another new season

- A mobile game was released last year

- Currently ongoing anime cafe event called "Concerto di Vongola"

- Last month there was an event with the former VAs and stage play actors where they discussed their favourite khr episodes.

- There has been an increase in blind reacts to the openings on youtube which might bring in a new fan base. The biggest one I could find had around 90k views and was made in 2019. On this note check out the soundtrack. The first openeing Drawing Days by SPLAY still makes me go insane (but I'm biased of course)

There also renewed hope for a new season/reboot because Shaman King, Inuyasha and Bleach got anounced for new seasons after a long hiatus. It's important to keep in mind that the circumstances for those series are differnt tho. For example bleachs new anime is often tied to the immense success of the gatcha game.

7. Conclusion

Khr is a series which used to be a flagship for Weekly Shounen Jump and is deeply beloved by it's fans, especially in Japan. It influenced other shounen series like bnha. It would be nice to see it gaining a bigger fanbase in the west :)

[cringecompilationin480p]

thinking about complaing abt dr some more so here we go

even if chihiro is "technically a boy", it would realistically take a bit to adjust pronouns. as soon as everyone in the game found out that shes "really a boy" they immediately started to refer to her as he and using masculine name endings (like -kun) showing that the developers only made her trans as a plot device 😃

not to mention getting picked on for being girly all your life and then just deciding to "pretend to be a girl" isnt a thing that actually happens to anyone source: im transgender.

toko is a fucking disaster of a character. evil alters who are murderous and crazy do not exist. literally the most overused and not to mention harmful stereotype. and the way they switch is comical at best. bruh. a sneeze. yeah lemme just call my protector out real quick *grabs pepper from the cabinent to inhale* like really? & genocider wouldnt be capable of murder if toko wasnt. toko faints at the sight of blood.

also they refer to her multiplicity as anything but what its actually called. i believe in the game its referred to as "schizo" (😬✌) the anime as "split personality" and the english dubbed anime as "dissassociative identity disorder" which isnt a real thing u got SO close lol (also referred to as "split personality" in the play -_-) toko as a character is poor and ableist representation source: i have DID.

hifumi is a fatphobic stereotype. this is obvious

i also hate him lol

yasuhiro did not deserve to live til the end im not sorry. he contributes nothing to the plot and is comic relief at best. will comend him for being the only one to care about taka after mondo died tho.

TAKA GOT FUCKED OVER. in every single possible way he got fucked over. as soon as mondo died you can tell the writers had no idea what to do with him & this is evident at the existence of kiyondo (which in reality is just taka using a poor coping mechanism. saying that its him & mondos spirits combined or whatever really just feels like a thinly vieled excuse.) they literally just killed him off because they had no intelligent ideas left on what to do with his character that they wrote into a hole 😛

taka should have lived til the end instead of hiro. this would work so much better in the finale. what does hiro have to be filled with despair over that is genuinely compelling? he doesnt have a personality except for "im kind of a dumbass and probably high all the time"

having taka live until the end would give makoto the chance to instill hope into him. to have him live on for mondos sake, something similar to what he told hina.

i mean for fucks sake watching the person who is your only genuine friend die a horrible and violent death, starving yourself because youre paranoid that the food was tainted with the butter that your best friend was made into, and losing your sense of identity because you cannot move on from your grief is way more compelling than "i want to get out of here." but nope taka had to get bonked over the head by fat guy stereotype so the devs could get rid of the dead weight THEY created. lol.

[plunder-heaven-and-devour-god]

im gonna go full english lit under the cut

I saw measure for measure??? with my local Shakespeare in the Park about  month and a half ago and im mcfucking obsessed with it. So much so that ive tried to find every clip of every film, every show, rehearsal, production, that i can to compare how scenes played out. I even listened to a harvard lecture about it, i’m that far gone. I BOUGHT. A SHIRT. I bought the book with additional notes and discussions because this play is fascinating.

WHY AM I OBSESSED?!

All readings through different lenses are there in full force, fully supported, living side beside with one another. And professors, actors, directors, scholars etc, all seem to congregate on the fact that not one reading is more valid than the other. Theyre so well balanced without ever really given moral answers but merely presented, almost like the Jacobean meaning of the “glass” both a mirror to predict the future and reflect on oneself. And in a post elizabethan age where puritans were outlawing plays and putting stricter holds on licentiousess this play is so close to upsetting the dominant religious force.

And the READINGS! ARE ALL! SO GOOD! There is historicist reading (king James I), Folkloric, Religious, SadoMasochist, Psychosexual, Moral, Feminist, and Capitalistic readings. THEY ALL EXIST SIDE BY SIDE.

And the staging of the play determines how many of these a production can pull together. I think that is why I wanted to see as many scenes are possible. 

I think just the way Angelo and Isabella are played will determine which main reading the play tackles. 

I’ve seen some versions of the interview scenes that are truly horrific acts of sexual violence that made me watch between my fingers. In this the feminist reading can come into full force, the full underline of Angelo as a sexual predator is made prevalent. And the line “and with an outstretched throat i will tell the world what man thou art, Angelo” being present that strong feminist reading IS ALWAYS THERE. (DID I MENTION I LOVE ISABELLA FLAWS AND ALL). The idea that Isabellas voice is the most crucial device in the play is FLOORING.  

The Duke being a nearly godly figure who knows all and manipulates all, Angelo as his emissary becomes like an angel in the process of self corruption, from the inhumane ice he is so dubbed to warmed by the sins he so condemns. And Isabella defending the thing she so hates because it is her brother who commits the sin is the defense of someone who does not truly believe her brother is just. Mercy as justice. To wield power and to use it for mercy is so profound, and she is the only one who carries her ethos through like this to the end ofthe play. I’m not a theologist but so far this is the reading of theologists into the matter.

The version I saw in person he practically throws himself at her feet and it becomes an interplay of the psychosexual and moral. His knees buckle under her touch, it becomes the interaction of repressed sexuality channeled into both law and religion. In the Stratford production Isabella wipes her brow with water out of disgust or heat, no one is sure. it’s left ambivalent. In the one I saw Angelo was made almost comedic and sympathetic, which made ISabellas mercy still feel like an axe coming down upon his head. 

And then characters like Barnadine just using comedy, the genre of the gods as the greeks called it, to dimish law, to put it to shame. To put the godly/playwright Duke in his place.

The folkloric bed switch (which is folklore yes but Im not totally comfortable calling it consensual even tho Angelo is a sexual predator you can bring modern sensibilities to the reading), is indicative of oral traditions that predate shakespeare. The idea that every character must do in this play the thing they most loathe to do.

Claudio fears death so he must die, Isabella must have sex to save a life when she has sworn herself to chastity. Then they both sort of hurt each other, Claudio by asking her to yield herself up to this non consensual sexual coercion of upmost grossness, and isabella by telling him to be happy he will die because there is nothing so painful as being alive (ISABELLA HES AN EXPECTING FATHER). He asks her to do the thing she loathes most in a fit of desperation because the man who loves life must die. And Isabella the woman who “would wear these keen whips as rubies” would have have done anything but sex, tells her brother that living isnt worth it. ITS INTENSE. LIKE WOW.

It’s absolutely no surprise that Isabella and Angelo are my favourite characters in the play. This awful sexual coercion (the degree of violence is dependant on staging which is like holy shit WTF), lives side by side with the fact that they are the two only people whose language, diction, beats, and intelligence matches each other. They both have the same fervor for their moral divisions and hierarchies. The idea of strict testing of morals and faith is in the text. Isabella wishes for harsher, more challenging, and harrowing tests of faith. You can argue as to why, I personally think its for the strengthening of faith and connection to the divine. Meanwhile Angelo is the one setting restrictions for hundreds of thousands of vienna, setting those on other people to strengthen the connection to a higher moral fibre, and I think in some respects faith as well but thats my interpretation. 

Where others live their vices without restrictions, these two set limits for either themselves and/or others to be something more. They are in the way that motif of the “glass” The mirror. In that sense they reflect each other, but they also become each others foil. Which is why I do think a case can be made for the parallels with the psycho sexual and the SadoMasochist readings. Restraints for rewards, the repression on both their parts is there.

I’m not saying that negates the strong feminist reading or in anyway shape or form validates the absolute horror of the coerced sex/rape. I just say that they exist side by side with each other. They are equals in text/language/fervour AND YET they are not because he holds every power over her and her brother. He wants to restrict others where he cannot restrict himself, and Isabella restricts herself in part because she lives in a Vienna full of vice. She has a control over her own self that he proves not to have. And HE has a control over the world of the play that she cant. 

AND YET. SHE IS MARRIED TO THE DUKE. SHE MARRIES INTO PROMINENCE. I don’t love the idea that she does not become a nun, her original want, and is instead coopted by the shitty duke (i am not pro duke sorry). The only upside at the end of the play is that Isabella can, in some measure, have political sway over the masses. Meanwhile Angelos fall and forgiveness put him into a marriage where his vice of coercive sex becomes consummation of a sleeping marriage. IT FEELS LIKE they sort of mirror each other the whole way through the play. ITS WEIRD BECAUSE THERE IS SO MUCH SEXUAL AND POLITICAL INEQUALITY TO THEM. ITs a play full of contradictions which I LOVE BECAUSE IT IS NOT SIMPLE NOT BECAUSE IT IS RIGHT. I do think there is a case to be made that Isabella unwillingly comes face to face with sexuality, his and hers, and its not on terms she wants, but it happens. And you see her struggling to maintain the authority over her own autonomy. But then she has to contemplate sex for herself, “to give up her boy into saucy sweetness, licentiousness, the filthy vices”. What does ISabella do when she comes face to face with her own sexual needs, whatever she may be? We have productions in the Stratford archives from 50 years ago that make an ambiguous case that the meeting of morality and sex might actually do something for her? I DON’T KNOW. The readings keep coming. There is a possiblity for a strong Ace reading for her which no one really touches on. 

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

This play has my favourite sexual innuendo. When theyre like “WHAT DID CLAUDIO DO?”

“Her?”

“no! What did he do to get taken away by the provost”

“HIS GIRLFRIEND.” 

(god and isnt it nuts that the first man on the scaffold for unlawful fornication IS IN A CONSENSUAL LOVING RELATIONSHIP WITH HIS GIRLFRIEND, A BOND AND CRIME THAT THE LAW (ANGELO) HAVE DEEMED IMMORAL. YET THE LAW (ANGELO) WOULD HAVE IT PARDONNED BY A NON CONSENSUAL SEX FOR EXECUTION PARDON. THE MASK OF MORALITY OF ANGELO. JFC HES SO FUCKED, like hes AWFUL, because he ends up sending claudio to death after he thinks hes had sex with isabella. LIKE WHAT A PIECE OF SHIT ND YET STILL WEARS THE LAW AS HIS MASK AFTER THE ANGEL HAS FALLEN. ITS COMPLEX AND I LOVE IT)

God and just…the sex jokes, the black comedy of barnadine right next to the high shooting morals of angelo, isabella, and mariana (another complex af character. The 1976 version certainly makes a psychosexual explanation out of that, which im not sure i enjoy. Again the psychosexual has its limits in a play about sexual coercion and rape)

AND THE FACT THAT MERCY IS WHAT SETS YOU FREE, LIKE PROSPERO FORGIVING HIS ENEMIES, ISABELLA FORGIVING ANGELO IS A HERCULEAN FEAT, IT FEELS CLOSE TO GODLINESS IDK MAN. AND I UNDERSTAND WHY SHE TELLS HER BROTHER NO I WONT SLEEP WITH HIM FOR YOUR LIFE BECAUSE ITS RAPE, BUT THEN IS LIKE BE GLAD BEING ALIVE IS SHITTY ANYWAYS. Im like? ISABELLA? WHAT?! ISabella does not know about herself that she can be desired because GOD DOES IT TAKE HER A WHILE TO UNDERSTAND ANGELOS MEANING, and yet shes got such a force for words. I find it hard to think being married to the duke that she wont have some power. 

And the exchange of Angelo and Isabella in the second interview.

-His moral stance on unlawful fornication starts with abortive language, the harsh restrictions but DEVOLVES INTO THE SEXUAL WITH THE INTELLECTUAL DICTION, It becomes a mirror of himself until he is explicit of what he wants from her. (OH GOD TRULY HE GIVES ME NAUSEOUS AND YET THE ONE IN THE PLAY I SAW HE WAS ENTHRALLING I HATE THE RANGE OF THINGS ANGELO CAN MAKE ME FEEL). His mask of morality is slowly removed

-ISABELLA must argue on behalf of her brother, believing in restrictions of the kid angelo speaks of, they believe in restraining oneself to achieve a higher form of being, and yet has to straight up defend something she hates because she loves her brother. And ANGELO CAN SEE IT. I WISH THERE WAS AN AFTERMATH WHERE WE SEE HER USING HER INTELLECT AND WORDS FOR HER ENDS. 

I truly think the second interview scene is one of the best exchanges Billy Shakes wrote. Because it ENDS LIKE THAT. GOD the david tennant one is chilling, the oregon shakespeare festival one is fucked. The 1976 which is the most psychosexual was so intensely disturbing that the Angelo got applause for it. IDK What that means and im too scared to ask. Idk how the RSC managed because youtbe doesnt show me that. The Repurcussion theatre was the most varied array of contradictions for angelo instead of just corrupt judge. It literally is all the shakespeare villains that do the most heinous things that Im like THATS MY FAVE. Iago was just RACISM/Sociopath and fifteen year old me was like YES HIM. I mean Richard III is bad but hes fun. ANGELO AT THE BEST IS A SEXUAL PREDATOR AND YET IM STILL LIKE WOW HOW COMPLEX ALSO THE ACTOR WAS SO GOOD LOOKING AND PLAYING UP THE BDSM BOTTOM ANGLE I WAS GONE. 

And the Isabellas go from wilting lily, to some sort of quiet and reserved girl, and the one i saw was literally “she is tiny but fierce” like her voice was really forceful and i thought it was amazing. 

THIS PLAY IS FUCKED WHEN IT COMES TO THESE READINGS LIVING SIDE BY SIDE BUT BOY IS THIS INTERESTING. 

if you made it this far wow holy shit. thanks for coming to my ted talk.

[jeonggukingdom]

Omg you are from Italy? :OO wooow that is amazing i totally thought english was your first language!! If you don't mind me asking, how did you learn English so well; to the point you write flawlessly in it? 💞

I am! Born and raised ♥Omg, really?! I don’t think my English is that flawless to be honest, especially when I’m tired, lolI use Thesaurus, google translate and Grammarly a lot to fix my mistakes, misspells and such because my first drafts are actual disasters xD But thank you for the compliment!

I learned English in school so I had a general understanding of how the grammar worked and I knew a decent amount of words for a foreigner but, of course, that was really really basic.I always loved listening to American music so I started translating songs myself to understand what I was singing along to. I also had a passion for tv-shows so what I did for a long time was this: I would watch an episode of something (usually, at that time, it was Charmed!) dubbed in Italian and then, as it finished, I’d rewatch it with the original voices. That way I already knew what was happening and what they were saying, more or less, so I trained my listening skills.After a while, I started watching stuff directly in English but with Italian subtitles. I was an avid tv-show consumer so that really helped with my understanding skills. After a lot more time, I started watching episodes with English subtitles to help me with the words I didn’t know/understand and before I realised it, I could watch everything without subs.I’m always on youtube now, watching American, Australian and English YouTuber and it feels like listening to Italian by now.

So, next was my reading skills! I started by re-reading the entire Harry Potter series in the original language. I already knew the books by heart so, it was all about learning new words and after I did that I looked for short and simple books to read and now I can read pretty much anything, though sometimes I still need to look up some words eh eh Honestly, reading fanfictions helped a lot as well!

As for writing... I’d say this is really all about practice. I can see my improvement over my first fics and now, I also started interacting with people more so that helped me develop the communication skills needed to write scenes and describe stuff. Reading helps with this as well because the more words you learn, the easier it gets to write. 

I used to struggle writing fake texts when I first started and now I’m here writing 20K+ fanfictions xD I’m still trying to improve, to be honest, but after two years I’ve finally started implementing my writing style in my English works. I wrote in Italian for all my life and I found it really hard to switch to another language at first and still retain my writing style but as I become more comfortable with the language it gets easier.

One thing I suck at still to this day is my speaking skills. I didn’t get the chance to train that much since I don’t have anyone to speak out loud to so my pronunciation is really bad and I can’t talk as fast as I would in Italian... it takes me longer to think about what to say compared to how fast I write and that’s normal, I have much more experience in writing than speaking, after all.

I’m sorry for the long response, lol I get really passionate about learning languages because I always wanted to learn more fjdhbkjedbhkjed I’ll shut up now! Thanks again for the compliment tho uwu

[moistwithgender]

Anime I think I remember watching this year

I need to keep better track of this I guess.

Aggressive Retsuko: Great! Very likable characters (even the bastards), just the right amount of millennial cynicism. 9/10 Aggressive Retsuko Christmas Special: It's not about Christmas, it's about instagram. It's great and extremely real (watch the series first though). Digimon Adventure tri 1 & 2: This is actually very boring so far. I planned to jump back in with the english dub, which is honestly how I should have been watching it from the beginning. Unfortunately, I haven't gotten around to it. Kado The Right Answer: If this show had not been sabotaged from the inside out in the last 2-3 episodes, this would have probably been up there with classics like Bebop. WEST WING: THE ANIME, we would have called it, or something. I haven't watched West Wing, but it's all bureaucracy, right? 8/10 in this universe, 10/10 in the alternate universe where it didn't shit the bed. Angolmois: I got halfway through this before the low budget and my own exhaustion had me drop it. Unfortunate, since anime never adapts the mongol invasion. Planet With: In the running for series of the year, probably. A super robot show where the ultimate moral is that, actually, rehabilitating your enemies is better than killing them. Will rewatch in the future, I'm sure. 10/10. Asobi Asobase: Hina Kino (Hanako)'s is going to go down as a legendary voice actress if I have any say in anything. Which I do, because I'm in charge of the industry now. Which means we're taking out queerphobic jokes, wrap it up people. 8/10, would rank higher without the bad takes. Cells at Work!: Really fun concept, has *implications* of a deeper narrative to be had built into the worldbuilding, but ultimately the whole season is just "oh I bet this irl thing would translate like this in my setting" on repeat. Still, an easy watch. 7/10. Hanebado!: There's a lot that could be good about this. Themes of toxicity in competitive spaces, overwork, abandonment, and trauma. Ending had a lot of people upset because it either miscommunicated how the protagonist moved past her trauma (best case), or just completely dropped the entire arc because...I don't know why. I rated this 9/10 on myanimelist, but it probably deserves lower. I'm still over here wanting to believe I missed something in my interpretation. Hoping for either a second season or a faster manga translation. My Hero Academia S3: This season had some high points but I felt it was considerably less interesting overall than the second season. However, Deku vs Bakugou was genuinely one of the best moments of the series thus far. My Hero Academia The Movie: Pretty standard shonen series movie for the sake of having one. Nothing groundbreaking here. But hey, I got to listen to "You Say Run" in a theater, which was almost worth the price of admission on its own. 6/10. Ushio & Tora: Both seasons, thirty nine episodes. Waste of my time! Maybe this series was just meant to be consumed bit by bit, but I just found it really shallow in the end. 6/10. Chio's School Road: Another *brilliant* comedy that is ultimately brought down by the occasional queerphobic humor. Get it toGETHER, guys! In any case, I care about these stupid children now, and hope for a season two soon. 8/10. Angels of Death: It took about 14 out of the total 16 episodes before I suddenly stopped hate watching it and started laughing at its unwarranted self seriousness and paradoxical writing. Still, kind of frustrated I stuck with it anyway. 4/10. Night is Young, Walk On Girl: Gorgeous movie that has to be seen, but. I wonder if it's Yuasa or the original writer of these books that insists on the resolution to all conflict being "heterosexuality". 9/10. Haibane Renmei: I got four episodes in before the Funi/Crunchy split happened ;__; it's really good tho Dragon Pilot: Definitely gonna rewatch this one one day too. There is a density of theme and execution here that I cannot yet fully unpack and it's just so good. Also the english dub is good, and is how I preferred to watch it. It also has a lesbian and isn't afraid of her, even if her role is very small. It's something. 9/10, maybe 10/10. Mirai: I fucking love Mamoru Hosoda's films. 9/10. Zombieland Saga: I have the sneaking feeling that they wanted a few more HOT PROGRESSIVE TAKES to be fit in before the season ended, but restraints got in the way. We had a sex worker idol who never got her backstory episode, and actually Tae never got hers either. It's still a 9/10 for me, but I'm hoping for at least a followup OVA. And a movie. Granblue Fantasy: I finished the full season, save for the "omake" episode that I assume takes place in the alternate universe where Protagonist Is Girl. This was somewhat throwaway cozy saturday morning nostalgia for the old days of Final Fantasy before that game series became more grounded in contemporary and sci-fi settings. It was also something I watched as a primer for the incoming Platinum and ArcSys games, because I'm not gonna play two gacha games at the same time. Hilariously, the--like--twenty new characters from the gacha that showed up in the last episode were all more interesting than the cast of the full season. 7/10, 10/10 for having a race of hot girls with horns (there are also guys but who cares). Hi Score Girl: This show is a love letter to growing up with arcades in 90s Japan and also struggling with making friends and ohhh my god every time the idiot main boy stops paying attention to important interpersonal plot and just starts infodumping about a game, I tragically see myself. It's very good, the girls are GOOD GIRLS and deserve better and the writing seems fully aware of that.  The series unfortunately ends on a stock romantic plot beat cliffhanger that I have to wait until March to have ultimately resolved in THREE EPISODES. Despite that, it's easily a 9/10. I list a lot of 9/10s but it's been a good couple seasons and there's just...a lot of range there. Number scores are bullshit. Watch anime. Shin Getter Robo: Probably the last show I'll have finished before the year end. It's my second exposure to Getter Robo (my first was reading Getter Robo Go, which actually takes place after this), and it's still good, but oh god. These guys are dumb bastards but there's a note early in that has aged particularly badly in the MeToo era. Not sure if the show got better because I switched audio tracks to English with VAs I have nostalgia for, or because they broke through the bottom of a lake and wound up in alternate history Heian era Japan, stranded for multiple years. With a giant robot. I liked that part. 8/10. Shows I took a break from due to burnout and need to pick back up: Run with the Wind, Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai, Vento Aureo, SSSS.Gridman, Hinomaruzumou, Ms. Vampire who lives in my neighborhood, As Miss Beelzebub Likes It., Devilman Crybaby, That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san. SO MANY!!

[cheydoesfandom]

Fifteen to twenty years ago, I felt strongly that subs are superior, for a number of reasons, ranging from accuracy to quality to snobbery (tho I generally allowed people to enjoy as they liked, I didn't hide that I disagreed).

However, the poor quality dubs of yesteryear aren't really the problem they were anymore, now that there's, y'know, money in the industry. The voiceacting is better, translations are more accurate, and the quality is just overall improved.

But some of those old dubs were extraordinarily bad. Storylines cut or rearranged, character relationships altered, genders switched, complete reediting to change aspects of the animation.

Sailor Moon's DIC anime changed a lesbian couple into cousins, cut and pasted episodes together early on, shortening the series by at least 2., and a character was swapped from male to female (I'm p sure, but maybe it was the other way) to reframe a relationship.

4Kids would alter out ANY blood, because they were marketing anime for teenss to children. They turned Sanji's cigarette into a sucker, anyone else remember that?? Even as a 14yo who only had the dub to go on, I could tell it was weird. HIS HAND POSITION, guys! No one holds a sucker like that!!

And of course, Brock's famous "jelly donuts" and other mistranslations for the sake of "dumbing things down" bc an American audience can't possibly comprehend a rice ball or other cultural reference.

Of course, there were few to no official subs back then, either, so if you didn't want to "suffer" the dubs, you had to watch fanlations, which were done amaturely but with love, and often under translated, leaving native words in the subtitles with notes translating them on screen as well. Which was mostly fine, if distracting (this was also common in manga scanlations and idk which came first), and maybe taught you a little of the language if you managed to read everything fast enough, but would never pass in a professional sub.

A culture was formed in those years, and its hard to unlearn, and of course people have personal preferences, and I generally still choose subs over dubs, but I recognize that things have changed and that there are people with different needs when it comes to media.

I'm a multitasking ND and when I watch things in English, I'm often on my phone, too. But I can't do that when I have to read subs. So I end up getting distracted and zoning out, or picking up my phone anyway. I know a lot of platforms use poorly designed subs, in colors that sometimes blend into the animation bc the lettering doesn't have outlines, and that's annoying even without a visual problem. Or sometimes you just can't read fast enough. Or you're so focused on reading you miss the action and animation itself.

And some people just can't see, or colorblindness makes reading harder, or they might be illiterate, or not fluent in the languages available.

Anyway, this has become a ramble and I don't know where I was going with this anymore, or what the point is, except to remind people that dubs aren't the dumpster fire they were in the 90s, so that excuse is starting to sound a bit hollow, and maybe the millennials clinging to the "dubs r trash" mentality should take a sec to consider other people's needs and also the state of the industry rn.

Goodnight

so sick of hearing “subs are better than dubs” “dubs are worse than subtitles” that is not how accessibility works