#utena log

[pja-party]

Actually the bow thing on Utena's handle and the teabag on Walter, both ideas are from the casino cups au.

(But you guys probably already knew that.)

[bonjourxrenae]

Ughhh this means I’m gonna have to queue stuff up again

[elfiepike]

reading log: case study of vanitas

(read panels right to left)

noé's definitely peak himbo which is a huge charm point but i super enjoy how grounded his particular himbo qualities are in this universe (and also his FACE and his straightforwardness etc etc)

the first time we meet riche she is being attacked by a curse-bearing vampire and i was like, oh well, they can't all be badasses with big arm weapons, that's fine. but no. she has INTERESTS!! i love her. like she's still probably not a badass but that's what jeanne is for!!!!!!

[librarian-system-vtuber]

Media thoughts - October 2022

October wrapped up a couple of days ago and I have a lot of thoughts on Geats and G-Witch, so I thought "why not try doing this as a sort of monthly blog?" As a result, this will be the first of a potential series of monthly roundups on the media I'm keeping up with.

First off is Mobile Suit Gundam: the Witch from Mercury. I made no secret about how much I was excited for this series (the two posts I've made about it have gotten more traction than anything I've ever posted on Twitter, lol), and so far it's been an interesting ride. The similarities to Utena are honestly kind of ridiculous in spots, from the absolute authority of duels to having a pinkish-purple-y character named Chuchu. I'm really looking forward to the duel between Gundams next Sunday.

Kamen Rider Geats is next. Until they said "it's time for the final round" in the preview for episode 7, I hadn't considered the survival game inspiration going so far as to have multiple games over the course of the season. It's a very interesting idea to be sure, very unique compared to previous battle royale seasons like Ryuki. It makes the addition of new Riders make a lot of sense, too. New games mean new participants, new participants mean new Riders. I look forward to the next 'season.' Also, I think I might be sexually attracted to Rider suits, so that's something I'm gonna need time to come to terms with.

Something I don't talk about as much, though, is Digimon Ghost Game. October's episodes were fucking solid. I loved Memory of Eternity and Crimson Harvest Festival in particular (despite my Thing about eyes), and the form of body horror in a lot of recent episodes has felt like a good way to lean into the horror elements in a way that isn't too intense for young viewers.

Other than these three, Toga finally convinced me to start watching Log Horizon. A lot of interesting concepts are covered, especially at the point I'm at in season 2. We just finished Akatsuki's arc with the murderer last night, and I'm excited to see how the rest of the series shakes out.

Finally, we've slowly been making our way through the Summit War saga of One Piece. Sengoku revealed the power of his Hito Hito no Mi Model: Bodhisattva and other shoe finally dropped regarding Mr. 3 very obviously being one of the second duo sent out to behead Ace. However, I've known Ace's fate from this arc for over a decade in real time, long before I wanted to start catching up, so I'm a bit anxious about how things are obviously about to go wrong when we finally had such a high point after a string of lows.

And those are my thoughts on what I was watching over October. I actually quite enjoyed getting to write this and might keep at it. In the meantime, though, I need to get back into streaming regularly! I hope to see you all soon, be it here or in the library proper, but until then, bonne lecture!

[filmcel]

my friends r so so so so cool

[captain-harpo]

rip freud you would have loved nsync

[arielluva]

utena and anthy if they were in fantasy life :)

ok rambly time. i made utena a paladin because. duh. and anthy is a wizard. utena is just wearing a variation of the basic paladin uniform, and her sword is based off of the azure rose. both because its shape resembles the sword of dios and also has rose in the name. anthys outfit is loosely based off the grand wizard outfit, and she is using a palm wand. (and also the round specs)

i imagine that if it wasnt a spot for the player to move in, that they could live in that little log cabin in south castele. out in the farmland near the horse stables and whatever, i think it’d be nice for them.

i tried to get as close to how the actual art style would draw them, by looking through the character creator and going off the hair and eyes in there. unfortunately theres not a pink color close to utena’s in the game, but otherwise i was able to figure out how to stylize them. i was originally gonna give anthy the almond eyes, but i couldnt figure out how to get it to look good, so she has more basic ones

[festeringfae]

*chewing on a log* the way we know from how Juri chooses to dress to go to sleep by herself and how she wears the most visible amount of jewelry to a student council meeting where she knows only Miki will show up demonstrates that Juri would actually prefer to have gender presentation more feminine than most other girls. She's not doing it to compensate-- she only does it when she doubts there will be anyone around to see.

In contrast, at Touga's birthday party-- where Nanami, Nanami's cronies, Anthy, and even Utena-- are all wearing formal gowns, Juri is only in her student council uniform. At Nanami's jewelry party, she does wear a necklace specifically to upstage the piece Nanami is celebrating-- but she wears much more jewelry, in a much more ostentatious style, when she's with Miki in the privacy of the student council hangout. If out-showing Nanami was her primary goal, surely it would make more sense for her to go all out at the party. Instead, she wears one necklace--she has an excuse, it's to show up Nanami, she's just the trademark High School Mean Girl Pulling a Stunt, she can get away with one tiny trinket she actually wants to wear without it attracting the attention of men. If she wears a shirt that basically looks like an even plainer version of her student council uniform. If she wears pants exactly like the ones she wears every day, just in a different color. Not gender conforming enough to read as an invitation, not GNC enough to reveal herself by mistake.

She indulges herself with a grand entrance and a new, sparkly necklace at Nanami's party, but she makes a beeline for Miki the second it's over. If any boy saw the brief moment where she allowed herself to show off feeling beautiful and decided it meant he should possess her, maybe he'll assume she's already Miki's property & leave her be.

Juri doesn't change out of her ridiculously feminine, over-the-top nightgown when she goes wandering at night. We see her out roaming the campus in it twice, in two separate locations. There's no reason for her to do that, instead of putting her uniform back on to take her walk.

The moments where we see Juri in the nightgown are all moments where somebody is seeing Juri as her most unguarded, most authentic self-- the audience, Utena, Ruka.

It makes me think Juri decides to wear her nightgown when she goes out, when she thinks enough people will be sleeping to risk it, because she just wants the brief chance to dress like herself in public.

[canmom]

Animation Night 163 - Yokohama Kaidishi Kikou

Good evening everyone! It's time at last for Animation Night. And what do we have this week... did you guess an OVA from the 1990s? That's always a safe bet with me and sure enough that's what we have tonight: ヨコハマ買い出し紀行 Yokohama Kaidishi Kikou, or in English, Yokohama Shopping Log.

I'm going to keep my writeup tonight brief, because I am fully kvin's homework on this one and I think rather than paraphrase what he wrote, lemme link the article. Here is an introduction to the series...

Nearly 3 decades after it was first published, Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou remains the poster child of mono no aware works in otaku media. Vaguely set after a catastrophe that collapsed both the planet’s ecology and human civilization as we knew it, an event that the series has no intention to explain, YKK stars android Alpha as she runs the desolate café that her long-gone master entrusted her with. Her episodic adventures are all about the appreciation of the moment, often with an emphasis on the evocative environments she casually comes across; after all, author Hitoshi Ashinano was inspired to pen this work by his fondness of taking a stroll or riding a motorcycle without a specific goal. Despite being an ode to spontaneity, YKK is also a thoroughly focused work—and the recipient of that focus is the passage of time, as well as how different beings process the ephemerality of things.

The manga is beautiful, and highly influential in establishing a certain genre of gentle post-apocalyptic works like Girl's Last Tour. But tonight we're here to see the OVAs, each of them just an hour, pulling out a selection of favourite episodes from the manga.

These two adaptations, despite coming just a few years apart, come at a point of major historical change: the first part is in the cel era, the second in digital.

For the first, we have director Takashi Anno, veteran of The Hakkenden (AN122) and magical girl anime such as Magical Emi. His characteristic direction style puts a huge emphasis on setting and atmosphere, lingering on quiet moments - something he truly ironed out in Semishigure, which returns to the protagonist of Magical Emi years after the events of the story. Which made him a perfect fit for Yokohama. kVin is full of praise for the colour design, the strength of the layouts, and especially the soundtrack.

The second OVA Quiet Country Café dir. Tomomi Mochizuki takes a radically different approach, skipping forward in the manga and introducing a boldly experimental style:

Though its color design can’t match the exquisite work of the preceding series, it makes up for it with the radically distinct art direction by the late legend Shichiro Kobayashi—best known for the likes of Utena, Gamba, Ashita no Joe 2, Castle of Cagliostro, Beautiful Dreamers, Windy Tales, and unarguably being one of the most important figures in the history of stylized Japanese animation. In contrast to the grounded scenery of the first OVA, Kobayashi’s evokes reality with stark forms, implications of movement, and downright expressionistic paintings. Compared to the gentle embrace of the first series, his work feels like it’s demanding your attention in a more proactive way.

kVin describes the second episode's direction as characterised by more active and layered camerawork and a more 'involved' score - he's particularly taken with the sequence where Alpha returns to her café after the devastating storm that sets the OVA going. He compares it to Mochizuki's direction of the Ghibli film Ocean Waves.

So two approaches to the same material, two different vibes, but it sounds like both should be very strong. Tonight the plan is simple enough: we'll watch both OVAs back to back! (Apologies for the late start, as mentioned I've been having tech problems.)

AN 163 will be going live shortly at twitch.tv/canmom. Both OVAs are pretty short so we'll be watching from about 11pm to 1am UK time. love to see you there nya~

[izutsoupmi]

LOOKING UP TO MAGICAL GIRLS ANIME NEWS ELEGANZA EXTRAVAGANZA

Everybody clap

Animated Trailer

Seiyuu (so far)

Fuuka Izumi (Utena Hiiragi / Baiser)

Kaori Maeda (Haruka Hanabishi / Magenta) - Shizuku Oosaka (Love Live! Nijigasaki HS Idol Club), Nice Nature (Uma Musume)

Misato Fukuen (Venalita) - Himiko Toga (BNHA), Yami (To LOVE-Ru), Kurumu Kurono (Rosario + Vampire), Chibiusa (Sailor Moon Crystal)

Staff

Directors

Masato Suzuki ((new) Fruits Basket, Peach Boy Riverside)

Atsushi Ootsuki (To LOVE-Ru Darkness, BanG Dream!, Kanokon)

Series Composition

Noboru Kimura (Mondaiji-tachi ga Isekai kara Kuru Sou desu yo?, Haiyore! Nyaruko-san, Healer Girl, Princess Principal movies)

Character Design

Tomoka Ootaki (Otonari ni Ginga, Girls' Frontline)

Sound Director

Satoshi Motoyama (Death Parade, Oregairu, The Irregular at Magic School, Hinamatsuri, Haiyore! Nyaruko-san)

Music

Yasuharu Takanashi (Naruto, Fairy Tail, Log Horizon, Zombieland Saga)

Akinari Suzuki (SHOW BY ROCK!! STARS!!, Redo of Healer)

Johannes Nilsson (Redo of Healer)

Music Production

Lantis

Animation Studio

Asahi Production

[leatherbookmark]

☁️🐚🍄🍓(all, or any combination you want) for the fanfiction author ask meme

kissing your hand reverently for the ask etc

☁️ ⇢ what made you choose your username?

i just like leather bookmarks!! originally lb was a non-kpop sideblog, and i wanted something that wouldn't be fandom-specific (i don't really like changing usernames) but that at the same time would fit my current fandom (the hobbit hehe). so, leatherbookmark!!

as for my ao3 username, oenanthe is a name of two genera: birds and plants, but i took mine from the bird one. specifically, this little guy. i love that the latin name is so pretty (wine+flower) but both english and polish taxonomers went "this bird has a white ass. alright then here you go"

by the way, huh, these arrows are fun! they're not -> but ⇢. they're dashed. cute

🐚 ⇢ do you like or dislike surprises?

oh boy i really don't... i used to when i was a kid, but at this point it's just a source of stress. though like -- depends, because if someone gets me a little postcard or a souvenir that's right up my alley, it's great and i'm happy they thought of me!, but if it's a big expensive gift... yeag

🍄 ⇢ share a head canon for one of your favourite ships or pairings

fascinated by the separation of ship and pairing here, btw

ohhhh my god i gotta get my fandom brain back in order.

xiyao. what do i think about xiyao? i like to think that in a better world they'd love to Eat. try out different stuff, ranging from "drowning in grease and made by a 78yo uncle who spits into his hands spiritedly before kneading the dough" to... hm. would they go for the "lick the citrus foam out of the plaster cast of the chef's mouth" dining, uh, experience? probably not, but lxc would be amazed and interested, half sincerely and half because he wants to check at what point jgy will go beloved, what the fuck.

but ALSO i think they'd just enjoy meals as a way of spending time together! so whether it's a modern au or not, they whip out the nice tableware, make sure there's a nice plantly being/something decorative on the table, etc. (they don't play music/put on tv in the background because they don't believe in that.)

(all of the above also means their meals take WAY longer than you'd expect, or rather -- as long as they can make them. breakfasts come with dessert now icydk)

🍓 ⇢ how did you get into writing fanfiction?

hm!! i think i just... started doing it? when i was a kid and browsing blogs about the witch comic series, i stumbled upon some blogs that weren't like, character profiles and comic arc summaries, but instead basically chaptered fanfiction. and since that, i kind of seeked out people's fics, often more than canon material like scans, databases and such lol.

iirc i started out making comics about my OCs, weird little AUs (like... utena characters, but magical girls/boys lmfao), or "original" comics obviously were just crazy mixes of whatever i was into at the moment. i only started writing fic when i was, idk, ten? and even then it was more like "ough i have a certain scene/image/mood/feeling in my brain and i need to get it Out" than actual stories :')

another thing that hasn't changed until sort-of-very-recently was me just.... starting anew every new fandom. i'd be into fandom X for years, produce tons of fics, and then once i got into fandom Y i was like oh fuck this is all so embarrassing, STARTING A NEW ACCOUNT RIGHT AWAY OR WE DIE. 👍 on one hand cool, on the other i sometimes envy writers who don't have to log into three separate accounts to see all their stats ='D

[filmcel]

i told my sister idk what i should cosplay for anime con and she said “spongebob”

[to-revolutionize-my-world]

I remembered the log in for the email I set up for this blog! There was nothing in it but security alerts because I logged in from my phone!

Anyway, hi everyone, legitimately am going to be active on here more often! Hopefully! Probably!

(On the aside if you’re by any chance looking for new media recs and liked Utena, try the podcast Mabel)

[randomstufftournament]

I was planning on going through the list and picking the top ones to make the bracket with, but I didn't want to deprive you of any of the list (106 items long!!)

So it's going to be a bigger tournament than I expected!

At the end, the three winners will go head-to-head and we'll be able to crown a first, second, and third place winner.

The (randomly generated) first round of matchups will be:

a raccoon standing on its hind legs and making too much eye contact vs. imagined dragons

<3 vs. backwards baseball cap

A single small pellet of cobalt-60 vs space heater

Necklace chain (no pendant) vs sweet potato maki

Jellycat Amore Dog vs Syzygy

Seagull with a whole chili dog vs Wojtek the bear

Tomorrow vs A leaf with a tiny bug-sized bite taken out of it

Roasted parsnips vs bread

Thursday the 12th vs the first email account you ever made

Those ergonomic mice that are sideways and tall vs A Geiger counter but for great pussy

LOL vs Batfish

Lightly sweetened whole grain cereal vs green gummy bear

Nikita Khrushchev's shoe vs The molasses flood

Noticing a new freckle vs Petrichor

Window that brings in a slight draft vs big fluffy bathrobes

Greeting cards vs the little fake hands you put on a finger

A rat holding a strawberry in its little hands vs the giant catfish in the Chornobyl reactor cooling pond

The Cuban missile crisis vs LipSmacker flavored lip gloss

Couch cover vs uquiz for what kind of kitchen utensil you'd be

Orange tic tacs vs Paw print set in concrete

Plastic animal figurines vs empty snail shell

Permian-Triassic Extinction Event vs single unmatched sock (its mate has been lost)

Revolutionary Girl Utena (1997) vs leggings with a run in them

Florida Man vs Funables Fruity Snacks, Mixed Berry Fruit Snacks, Family Size, 40 Count

Bath beads (shape of dolphin) vs wet log in the ground, home to moss and fungi

The shoes that Muntadhar al-Zaidi threw at George Bush vs Pi Day

The Chornobyl elephant's foot vs Matryoshka dolls

Pigeon vs candy necklaces from the 1990s

Swinging so high on a swing set that you become briefly weightless at the top of the arc vs ring pop

Sex dice that can only deliver confusing combinations vs the state of Florida

Queen Elizabeth's corpse vs sheet of cat stickers

SALE! 2/$2.99 Fresh Hass Avocado vs orange slime made by an 8-year-old and then left to dry out in the back of a closet for years

The color puce vs pill case

A nuclear-powered ramjet vs Chromodorus Willani

Red lava lamp vs glow in the dark stars to put on your bedroom ceiling

Ufo porno vs Lego three in ones

Disposable chopsticks vs garlic bread

Generic grocery store brand apple juice from concentrate vs skeleton

Three haunted porcelain dolls vs a duck with perfectly formed human hands instead of wings coming out of its shoulders

A bus pass with $7.33 on it vs The last of the gift wrap paper (not enough to wrap a present)

The SL-1 reactor in Idaho vs 1 yard of fleece

Glasses without lenses vs the rabies virus

There are a few byes that we'll come across in round 2:

Tapetum lucidum (will face the winner of matchup #1)

1 can of Goya brand black beans (will face the winner of matchup #4)

A dog who is normal in every way except that it can identify any plant by its scientific name (will face the winner of matchup #5)

Duke the Bush's Baked Beans mascot (will face the winner of matchup #6)

Jumbo binder clips (will face the winner of matchup #9)

Mead (will face the winner of matchup #12)

The smell of a Sears auto department (will face the winner of matchup #15)

The composer Fryderyk Chopin's heart, In case in a jar of booze in a church in the middle of Warsaw, Poland (will face the winner of matchup #16)

Sour cream (will face the winner of matchup #17)

A 2005 Honda Civic with a vinyl wrap of Sasuke on the side (will face the winner of matchup #20)

73 dachshunds (will face the winner of matchup #21)

$9.99 headphones from CVS (will face the winner of matchup #22)

The French language (will face the winner of matchup #25)

The number 11 (will face the winner of matchup #26)

The Weather Channel on August 28th 2005 (will face the winner of matchup #27)

World peace (will face the winner of matchup #30)

Glass swan sold at a gas station (will face the winner of matchup #33)

Discarded McDonald's toy found on the sidewalk (will face the winner of matchup #36)

Lube that just. too slippery to be useful (will face the winner of matchup #37)

@hillbilly---man's Archie comics phase World War II veteran who hates sharks (will face the winner of matchup #38) *I changed this one because quite a few of you don't know me and don't care about my Archie comics phase. Apologies to the submitter!

Roasted garlic (will face the winner of matchup #41)

White LEDs (will face the winner of matchup #42)

The placement of all of these was done randomly, but I'll try to seed future rounds based on performance.

The first polls will be published tomorrow

[menstits]

Every day people log on and say things about utena that make you clearly tell they have not only not watched it but also formed an opinion on it based on like third hand word of mouth summaries from people who only watched it because steven universe had "utena references" in it and were horrified to report back that it has Themes