#we got keiichi's flashback

[fern-thee-otter]

//spoilers

i feel like one of the most bittersweet moments in alice in borderland, (if not the most) is the K◇, especially its ending. we got everything needed to emotionally damage us

[8bitsupervillain]

Higurashi When They Cry Hou Ch. 5 Meakashi pt. 3

Rather than wax philosophical about being a moderate during times of major political upheaval I'm much more interested in the notion that prior to the Hinamizawa Dam protests no one really worshipped Oyashiro. Specifically I'm interested in whether the priest was originally from Hinamizawa, or if he was originally an outsider before marrying into the Furude family. I presume despite having a small following the majority of the Furude family was still interested in the idea of reincarnating Oyashiro by having the eight first born daughters happen. Outside of Hinamizawa was there a sect of Oyashiro worshipers out in Japan, or do you think the majority were entirely in house? I want to believe that for the most part it was localized entirely within Hinamizawa. I seem to recall in Watanagashi "Mion" mentioned that the people of Hinamizawa were generally looked down upon by the rest of the general populace of Japan because of their religious beliefs.

I can sort of understand the view that you shouldn't say things that might cool passions when you're in the midst of the protests like that, but I sort of get why the Furude priest was trying to express a more wait and see approach. Maybe it wasn't really due to any centrist, wanting to wait and see feelings, but maybe Rika had mentioned to him that she'd had a vision about the protests ending in their favor. So he was simply wanting to see if Rika's visions were correct. Of course, I don't think anyone would buy that if you said you were waiting to see if god was going to personally intervene in the protests.

Meanwhile in the future:

I know that doesn't mean she hates her, but you don't say things like that if you think your relationship with someone is great. Also, that's a very silly line "up until birth, we were perfectly equal."

So part of me wants to believe this is a double ruse. They wouldn't be foreshadowing so hard if Shion wasn't going to turn on Mion and become actively evil. But another part of me wants to think that everything is going to be A-okay forever for everyone. I know, and you know that's not the case, I don't think this would be one of the highest regarded chapters if everything was peachy-keen for everyone the whole way through. Eventually some delicious delicious dramatics will have to happen. And I don't mean the flashback to Satoko and Satoshi's child abuse extravaganza.

I wonder if this is to do with the rumors that Sonozaki Sr. got in trouble for dealing in canned human flesh during World War II? I'm willing to bet it's because of that. Boy, am I gonna feel embarrassed if we get back to the events of Watanagashi and it turns out the Mion who confessed to all the dirty deeds and tried to kill Shion and Keiichi was in fact really Mion, and not Shion like I think it is.

Then Kasai and Shion have a conversation about how Oryou has found out that Shion has made her escape from St. Lucia's private academy. And how Shion reckons if she's caught she will have to cut off a finger or three as penance for her antics. I have quite a few extra screenshots from throughout the chapter I haven't posted because it's excess exposition. I don't always strive to hit the maximum amount of pictures, but maybe I should post them for a stronger sense of thoroughness? Anyway, the chapter ends, and now it's on to the not at all depressing TIP.

I was off by a couple of chapters, but here he is. Allegedly one of the swellest guys in the story. Very exciting, and also extremely telling that the narration shows he's not quite the saint the rest of the narrative has painted him as in chapter 3. Well, more so anyway, since the first TIP accuses him of murdering his and Satoko's aunt. Not exactly a stellar person if you're going around committing murder. I figure in the next subchapter (section, part, I need to decide on a particular word for it because calling these chapters, and the larger chapter itself a chapter is a bit confusing) Satoshi will become an actual character and not just a flashback character/hallucination that he's been up until this point.

[felixcloud6288]

Higurashi: Dice Killing Chapter 6

It's the final chapter of the series.

I really love the title page to this chapter. It's like a visual representation of the question "Which Rika will Rika choose to be?" Will she choose the world with Hanyu or the one with her mother?

Rika tends to assume the worst and the start of this chapter is no exception. She thinks her parents are going to think she's crazy and is a bit surprised that's not the case. They instead conclude that they haven't considered her feelings about everything that has been happening to Hinamizawa.

The more Rika acts like Rika, the more she can feel the part of her that is Frederica fade away. And maybe she thinks that's a good thing.

And then we get the big reveal to why Hanyu hasn't been able to enter this world. In every other world, Rika was the incarnation of Oyashiro-sama. But in this world, her mother was the incarnation instead. So by the rules of this world, Hanyu cannot interact with Rika because she is not Oyashiro's incarnation.

And with that discovery, Rika has found the fragment she needs to destroy to return to her world.

Rika and Mion's moms were apparently friends growing up. That's definitely Akane in this flashback.

We've got signs of character development. Earlier, Rika said she wouldn't hesitate to kill her parents if necessary. That was when she was still "Frederica Bernkastel." Now that she's started to embrace being "Rika Furude", she feels the weight that comes with that action.

This series has depicted Rika's struggles to live past June 1983. For 100 years, her only concern was figuring out who was behind her murders and how she could overcome destiny. But now, she has to choose what life she wants to live.

Hanyu informs Rika that this world is good for everyone. Keiichi never shot anyone, Mion and Shion weren't mixed up during the inheritance ceremony, Satoko got along with her step-father, and even Takano is living a happy life.

I feel like the story really glossed over the Mion/Shion part though. The correct twin was taken to the inheritance ceremony in this world. This means the Mion of this world is Shion in every other world.

So I'm going back to that thing I mentioned in chapter 2 when Mion called her Rika-chama. In all the other worlds Shion uses -chama when addressing her. So since this Mion is actually Shion, I think it could either be an intentional hint to her real identity. If it was a translation error though, I'd guess it's because the translators realized that was actually Shion and used -chama because of that.

And do you know who I wish to know what they're doing in this world? How are things for Detective Delicious Ooishi? In this world, the Dam War and the series of murders never happened. The Construction Manager was never killed so Ooishi hasn't spent the last four years fighting with the Sonozakis and accusing them of murdering his friend and father figure. He's probably been spending his free time playing mahjong with his crew and will soon retire peacefully.

Getting back on track, Hanyu tells Rika that she must fight; she must choose between two unknowns and accept whatever happens. There is no going back on this decision. Rika has until sundown tomorrow to choose. If she does nothing, she is choosing to stay in this world.

And just in case she chooses to stay, Rika makes sure to say her necessary final words to Hanyu.

That above panel looks like she's praying and thanking god.

And the next day, she decides to be Rika Furude for the day. She goes to school; she plays games with her friends; they walk home together; she meets her parents at the shrine; she watches the sunset over the village from the lookout point behind the shrine.

As the sun sets on this world, Frederica Bernkastel reads the entirety of the poem from chapter 1. The snippet by itself told of a god who offers boons to its worshipers but they always lament that what they're given is not something else. Eventually god decides to make it rain until they decide what will make them happy.

And now the story continues. The people continued to lament about whatever god sent down from heaven and as this continued, god sent new things down to address whatever the people lamented about from the last time. The lamentations only stopped when god sent down boulders from heaven.

After, god sent down rain from the heavens and travelers thanked god for the rain as it would help them continue their travels. The enjoyed the rain and called it a blessing because it was unexpected, while the people who used to always be with god complained about god's gifts not being what they wanted. "God saw them off without a word. As it should be, Gods and dice are best when silent."

This is my favorite writing from Frederica, and it probably is because it's more of a parable than a poem. It also comes with two back-to-back double-page spreads of the final shot of the village as the sun sets behind the mountain. I could vividly imagine the sun moving down the sky as I read the poem. And at the final verse, it has fully moved behind the mountain, the world fades to black, and we say goodbye to it.

Rika wakes up and the first thing she sees is Dr Yamamoto Irie. She's been unconscious for a month since colliding with that truck. As Rika composes herself and processes that she's back in her world, she realizes this means she killed her mother. But Hanyu assures her that it was only a dream and nothing more.

So Rika was unconscious for a whole month? Good job Rika. You wasted your first summer vacation in who knows how many years cause you insisted on doing something dumb. Satoko wasn't able to attend the Famicom launch event cause she was too worried about you.

Rika ultimately chose this world but then she begins to lament that this is a world built on sin and misery. But everyone assures Rika that she made the right choice. In that other world, they may be guilt- and sin-free, but they hadn't grown as people because of their hardships and trials.

And when Rika asks if it would be better to live in that world if they had the choice, Rena dodges the question by giving Rika a quick challenge. She takes some candy and asks Rika to guess which hand it was in. Rika chooses Rena's left hand and wins a piece of candy. And when Rena asks if Rika is happy, Rika says she's happy because she won. But then Rena shows what was in her right hand.

And Rika suddenly thinks she lost because she was made aware of a better option.

So I guess Rena's answer is there is no point in considering what-ifs and what-could-have-beens. You can't go back and change things and maybe you won't actually be happier if you could. You can only choose one thing, accept the outcome, and find whatever happiness you can out of it.

Rika has spent 100 years trying to live past June 1983. During that time, she forgot how humans only have their one life and their one chance at everything. When things didn't go Rika's way, she had the option to start over and try again. But this approach to life can never give her a happy life because she could always consider how can she make things more right and more perfect rather than accepting what is, and trying to make the most of now and the future.

Once Rika and Hanyu are alone, they have a serious discussion about what Rika has done to get to this moment. This is not a perfect world and many lives were lost to get to it. Rika knew her family would die in 1981 but she neither did anything to stop it nor care that they would die. That other world made her realize that she chose to let her parents die.

The chapter says she chose to kill her mother in every world. But I think that's a bit too harsh. Even if Rika tried to save them until she no longer could, her parents would likely have still died in the end.

What I think matters most is she understands what she has actually lost with their deaths. Before, she saw this as a perfect world where she got everything. But in truth, there are some things Rika had to give up in order to get to this point. And like her friends, Rika now has some things she regrets from her past but can use to understand why she needs to treasure each day.

Once she's out of the hospital, she intends to visit her parents' graves and mourn what can never be. Then she will begin to truly live her life as Rika Furude, a human who is neither a witch nor divine. But for now, she rests and thinks of who Rika Furude is.

back

[zazzander]

Dosgred Disappoints: Character Bloat

One of the biggest downfalls of this manga is the sheer number of characters. The author loses sight of the main cast very quickly, to the point that it gets really confusing what’s going on in the story.

I’ve spoken about Chapter 1 already. In that chapter, we meet: Rou, Haruna, grandpa, Keiichi, and Koichi. This is, presumably, our main cast. It makes sense that they are all introduced in the first chapter.

As I said in my previous post, the story fumbled it’s introduction of the cast. By the end, we don’t know much about Rou and Haruna. We know even less about Keiichi and his brother, Koichi.

Chapter 2 gives more information. The brother’s dynamic is solid. They're on good terms, nothing much to see there. As for the twins, Haruna blogs about her brother which is lowkey kind of weird. She seems to have no hobbies outside of this – again, weird. Like she says ‘Rou’s going to a local middle school’ even though they are twins. Surely, they would both be going. So this blog is seemingly for the benefit of Rou's fans back home.

Everything going fine... until Page 22. Things start falling apart from here.

On this page, we are introduced to Rou’s middle school ice hockey team. Despite Rou and Keiichi both being walking distance from the same lake, they apparently don’t go to the same school. This isn’t crazy, it happens all the time, but it was a little confusing because it seems unlikely they live close to two middle schools considering this is supposed to be Hicksville.

(The author is inconsistent with the size of this town. For example, there isn’t any major shopping location nearby. It’s primary industry focuses on a single large factory. Yet we have evidence of multiple middle schools and apparently four skating rinks.)

The entire middle school team is introduced all at once – yikes – and here begins the character bloat. There are four main guys on this team. Their role in the story is basically to convince Rou to play a game of Ice Hockey. That wouldn’t be a big issue but for the fact that their story completely takes over the plot.

Considering that this is the first time Rou and Keiichi play agaisnt each other, you’d think that would be the priority. He’s the rival! Rou and Keiichi are the main characters and should be the focus. Instead, at the start of chapter 3, we meet even more characters. This time, some guys on Keiichi's team (but not Keiichi's friends).

Now, in chapter 3 we have a total of 11 "important" characters. I have to class these new guys as important because they get flashbacks. You heard me, these random kids get flashbacks but actually important characters like Rou and Keiichi don't.

It's a really strange choice. Yes, it explains why the match means something to these boys, but it feels like a waste of time for the overall story. Rou and Keiichi should be the most compelling characters right now! This kind of minor character exploration is something that should happen much later.

We get hints at Rou-Keiichi conflict in chapter 4. The members of Oino high’s team, including Keiichi’s brother, show up. Oino's coach watches the game. He’s got this unreadable expression. Considering how often we see him, and his involvement later, we probably have to call him relevant character #12.

Basically, he’s watching the game and he should be watching Keiichi BUT he's actually focused on Rou. Rou plays weird but he’s clearly got talent. This is potentially such a big deal for Keiichi and a means of solidifying their rivalry. If this coach expressed an interest in this random newbie over him, Keiichi could get all huffy about it. He might try to play better to get the Oino coach's attention.

That doesn't happen. The coach's commentary is unknown to the players themselves.

By chapter 8, we are introduced to yet more characters. This time it’s several guys on the Oino team. Plus, we get reintroduced to a figure skater who had been Rou’s rival before he quit. I didn't call this guy important before, but since he's here again and gets a speaking role, he gets upgraded. "Important" characters: 15.

Dogsred gives us no time to breathe as it mostly ignores Rou yet again to depict high school championship finals. Now, I do understand why we need to show this game.

Oino loses here. Suddenly, there’s a team even better than they are! And that’s crucial because this is going to be Rou’s team soon.

Rou makes the choice to go watch this game rather than the ice skating. This symbolises how invested he’s getting in the sport.

However, the choice to depict the entire game is where the story suffers. Hears an alternative way to present the same plot information but without losing sight of our main characters:

Haruna tells Rou about this ice skating tournament and he seems like he might go, missing out on watching the championship game.

POV switch to Keiichi, there’s a break in the game and he’s gone to get snacks with/for his friends (does Keiichi have friends? I assume so, he’s the captain of his middle-school team there’s so many characters it’s hard to keep track).

Suddenly! Rou shows up. He's here to see the game, after ditching his sister and the ice skating tournament.

The boys argue. This is a good chance to really establish why they hate each other.

Then, while they were distracted, the final part of the game starts. Oino is losing!

Keiichi ignores Rou in favour of cheering on his brother. The game ends in a loss.

Keiichi gets huffy at his brother. “I can’t believe you lost! It’ll win us the championship next year!”

Basically, we focus the story on the character interactions because the two main characters aren’t on the ice. We don’t know the people playing (outside of Koichi who is by-and-large just Keiichi’s older brother at this point).

Regardless, this choice can be forgivable. Chapter 12 however… cannot.

In chapter 12, the author decides to completely ditch the main plot to focus on the rival high school, Sameoh. We meet several members of the team. That's twenty characters with names, personalities, and the makings of a plot. Twenty!!!

Then for all of chapter 13, we focus on these guys as their hometown get hit by a tsunami. This is a big setback for them – and completely derails any tension that was set up by them ending that 19-year streak the main team, Oino, had going. LIKE WHAT. I’m so serious right now, that undercuts all the tension.

It is only now, in chapter 14, that we finally arrive at Oino high school and Rou signs up for the actual team he will play for. That’s so late, guys. Arguably too late.

I’ll use an example of a hugely popular sports manga that started the characters in middle school too: Haikyuu!! Do you want to guess what chapter Hinata arrived at Karasuno High? Chapter 1. That manga covered Hinata's entire middle-school journey in less than a character. Now, Dogsred doesn't have to be that quick, but at minimum this moment should have come within the first five chapters.

This is what I mean by character bloat. The plot has been bogged down by all these unnecessary characters.

The good news is the next few chapters focus on the try-outs.  We meet no new characters and the reader has a chance to get their heads around what's actually happens. That ends in chapter 18, when we get the backstory of random two defence players on the team. Relevant character count #22.

That being said, after trawling through all of this, the story has several great moments. There’s a lot of potential here – I just think the manga needed some serious reworking before it got picked up for publication.

What do I mean by that? Typically with sports manga, the introduction has three main plot points to hit: why does the MC love this sport, some kind of set-back in middle school, and them joining up for their high school to achieve their goals. Now, Dogsred didn’t have to hit every one of these beats. Big Windup, for example, skips the first one.

In Big Windup, we start with the MC’s “set-back”. Mihashi was hated by his middle school team because he was a terrible pitcher. He signs up to his high-school team and is allowed to be the pitcher because they don’t have an alternative. Mihashi really wants to play baseball though, despite his shy demeanour. It's clear he loves baseball, even if we aren't given an exactly "why".

Within the first few pages, Big Windup jumps into it's MC joining his new team and fills in backstories later. Dogsred could have done the same. Start with a flashback of Rou’s decision to change sports and jump forward to him walking onto the field to join the ice hockey team. Everything else can be elaborated on later. To hint at the past, a couple characters could recognise him as “the Rabid Prince” but Rou brushes off their questions.

We could even have Keiichi recognise him from the lake and him go “but you’re a figure skater!” and have a brief flashback to their fight on the lake.

All in all, my point is that this manga meanders and runs breakneck at the same time. It tells us about all these random characters who don’t matter. Because of that, it got lost.

The good news is - Dogsred seems to have finally gotten back on the path! Now that Rou is in high school the plot is moving forward at a much more standard pace. I guess we’ll see where it goes from here.

[olivereactsaboutgarbage]

Higurashi When They Cry - Tatarigoroshi Chapter 1

Good news, everyone!

I got my tax refund this past weekend, so I was finally able to buy the next arc of Higurashi. Plus, the personal life drama that had been distracting me from One Piece has settled down now.

So those are both of the posts you can expect from me this summer!

And this is the first of them.

This episode starts with the dramatic reveal that the well had a happy snake in it. Presumably the well in question is the murder well from the end of last time. However, it's also clear that this snake is not the sole perpetrator of the incidents in Hinamizawa, because anything which happened anywhere other than the well is something the snake doesn't even know about. Still, I'll have to keep this plot-essential snake in mind for all my future theories.

A miserable faceless woman gets tormented by a faceless cackling man. There are all sorts of corpse varieties, like Cuddly Creature variety, Feathered Friend variety, and Naked Normal-lady variety. Wow, are we skipping the entire no-murders-have-happened-yet first half of the story this time? And also skipping the part where Keiichi, Rena, Mion and the Toddlers are involved? Neat!

A faceless cop wants to eat the Naked Normal-lady corpse. Not a lifestyle choice I agree with.

Oh, darn, now Keiichi is the POV character. On the upside, though, it's well and truly time for a genuine return to Lunch Arc. Here's what happens in Lunch's return: -The Toddlers proclaim that Mion has an excellent lunch -Mion reveals that this so-called excellence is naught more than a ramshackle old people menagerie -Keiichi points out the importance of visual artistry towards any mealtime experience, devastatingly countering Mion's humility -Everyone wholeheartedly agrees, but Toddler 02 provides an opportunity for Rena to assert artistic dominance -The Toddlers just wanna grill for God's sake -Toddler 02 claims her rightful place as heir to the Housewife Throne -Five seconds into the events of this arc and Keiichi already hasn't been paying attention to his surroundings -Seven seconds into the events of this arc and Keiichi is already screaming -Toddler 01 almost dies -In a tragic flashback, Keiichi's parents are revealed to be busy right now -Keiichi says that curry is bad and everyone starts panicking -The teacher with pronouns is revealed to be a security guard from a stealth game -Keiichi almost dies -Rena tells Keiichi not to be a bitch baby, but Mion and Toddler 02 are also bitch babies -Keiichi willfully ignores that and is now emboldened and shall no longer be a bitch baby.

Finally, we segue out of Lunch Arc and into a recap episode of Kaiji Joke Part 16.

Toddler 01 declares that Toddler 01 is competent. Keiichi says nuh uh. Toddler 01 says "Double-nuh-uh, I will someday be competent." Um, moving the goalposts much??? -_-

Toddler 01 asks Toddler 02 if Toddler 01 will ever be competent. Toddler 02 says nuh uh.

Rena declares that Toddler 01 is competent. Keiichi says nuh uh. Asshole.

...Admittedly I'm already primed to expect Toddler 01 angst from this arc. But also, I can relate to Rena's propensity for smoothing over social situations, and it would tick me off something fierce if someone cockblocked my kindness like Keiichi did to Rena just now.

I shan't be forgiving Keiichi for this... ever... I will soon kill him...

Anyway, Toddler 01 gets TOTALLY OWNED by one of Rena's sickest burns.

Rare green cauliflower...

Anyway, the stage has been set for a Lunch Arc Kaiji Joke Part. This is it... the ultimate culmination of everything Higurashi has been building towards...

okay this bit of narration right here is kind of hysterical

Keiichi says that he's gonna make Toddler 01 take her shoes off and everyone gets excited.

...God, my opinion of Rena has risen to high-as-fuck levels over the course of the break... I remember thinking of her as a Keiichi-tier loser like it was yesterday, but she's actually kind of based and Mion-tier and the light of my life. Anyway, I'm not going to describe this Rena scene to you because it's not that interesting. Trust me. ;)

oh god dude

"more exciting"

yeah manm

Keiichi succumbs to the Devil's Influence and decides to wreak evil, but Toddlers put a stop to his madness.

this is so awesome

i like higurashi

Ah, you can tell it's the Toddler 01 arc this time because of her new and previously-unseen behavioral patterns. What's with her eyeball. Why is her eyeball acting like that.

Toddler 01 tells Keiichi to admit to being a hothead and a dweeb, so Keiichi wails that he's the scum of the earth. I guess that counts as going above and beyond... so that's admirable then...

You can tell she's 8 because she thinks a 9-year-old is 19. Unlike me, an enlightened 25-year-old whose views on people's ages aren't skewed in the slightest.

The Beast within Keiichi is not satiated by these meager offerings. He demands Pandemonium. The only Relic with the power to quell his Inner Inferno is Toddler 01's Cursed Eye...

Hmmmm methinks I detect some SEXISM from Toddler 01... very uncool... -_-

Toddler 02 delivers exposition about how Toddler 01's sexism is actually nostalgia for when her brother hadn't yet exploded. Fascinating.

Even with this correctly-forecasted sudden hailstorm of Toddler 01 character depth, it's kind of hard to take her seriously when she keeps doing her ohoho laugh. Still, I suppose nothing less than the exact bearing and manner of an Ojou-sama is appropriate for the Bearer of the Cursed Eye.

BECAUSE OF THE HUMAN PISS

BECAUSE OF THE HUMAN BLOOD

BECAUSE OF THE HUMAN NEEDLE

I've already figured this arc out. I know all about the dark upcoming plot twists.

Yeah... you're still cringe as hell man.

Ah, good. I was getting worried about where he'd get his daily intake of Rena Points in this timeline untouched by Rena's warmth.

wtf, apparently this 3-year-old is bearing the weight of the entire world

Meanwhile, in Side Story Land...

wtf, apparently this 3-year-old is a little shit

normal reaction to encountering any object

self-explanatory

[earthenterran]

(tsumihoroboshi)

I wasn't sure how the perspective was going to be handled in this arc. I'm liking this moving between Keiichi and Rena's point of view. Excited to see how it continues to navigate further in the story.

[shipcestuous]

manga rec: Saraba, Yoki Hi. Summary: '"Newlyweds" Akira and Keiichi moved to a new place and are adjusting to their new lives.' If the quotes around "newlyweds" pinged your radar, good! They're brother and sister, the story reveals (raised together too). We get LOTS of flashbacks of their earlier life, how they got here. Their relationship is treated seriously not as a joke, there are sad moments, but not all doom and gloom, they're sympathetic MCs who really love each other. Manga still ongoing

What? This sounds amazing!

And I actually have heard from a couple of people who were interested in a story about siblings posing as a married couple.

I just hope it has a good ending!

Thank you so much for this recommendation!

[thewhitefluffyhat]

Thoughts on Gou Episode 16

Welp, that sure was the most LambdaBern thing I’ve seen in a while!

Which is a very strange feeling given that I don’t see Episode 16 as proof Satoko is the mastermind.

Indeed, my read of the scene was that Rika had just hit her breaking point, and interpreted Satoko’s leading L5 ranting to fit her own worst fears.

As for Satoko, recall that Satoshi also becomes convinced that Oyashiro-sama is cursing him because he wanted to leave the village.  Particularly after he had a talk with Rena (who leads him to that conclusion because that’s what she believes about herself, from what I remember.)  

It’s a slightly different fixation than the ones we’ve seen before - i.e. wanting a cure for the parasite (Akasaka, Keiichi) or being convinced the Three Families need to be stopped (Mion, Akane, Ooishi).  But we saw in Onidamashi that Rena’s L5 fixation also contained hints of her own backstory, so perhaps Satoko also got that treatment.

And no, I don’t believe for a minute that the moral of this story is that Rika should be grateful and stay in Hinamizawa.  We’re only on the third episode of the season, no way we’ve got our solution yet!

But this episode does give me a few ideas about where Gou is going. More on that later, though.  First:

Well played, Ryukishi07, well played

...Was the main thing I was thinking of while watching the first half of the episode.  I’m amazed at how well he seems to have predicted the “Satoko is the mastermind” theory as I’ve seen on Reddit and elsewhere, even down to Satoko’s “motivation” being her feeling abandoned after Rika leaves the village.

And then this episode takes that theory and crushes it by having Satoko be just another L5 like the rest. While also showing how bad it would be for Rika if that motivation was true.

It sure feels like Beato slashing one of Battler’s theories to bits, is what I’m saying.  Pity about the lack of Red.  (I mean, there was plenty of red this episode, but not that kind...)

Speaking of Umineko, I suspect this scene comes across very differently if you’ve read Umineko as opposed to just Higurashi, for a number of reasons.

First, after stuff like the first murders and Tea Party in Turn of the Golden Witch, this level of gore still feels relatively grounded and tame. 

(Look, I kept expecting Satoko to try and eat those intestines, and I’m very glad she didn’t! DDD:)

Second, knowing that there’s a future version of Rika who does this kind of thing with her girlfriend for fun takes a lot of the sting out of the horror.  

And third, after all the absurdly, gratuitously cruel stunts Bern pulls in Umineko, it’s hard not to feel like Rika miiight retroactively deserve this?  Just a little.

(Hey, if Miyoko can have her miracle granted in advance, I suppose the opposite is fair play too.)

A quick note on Takano

So yes, I totally started this episode thinking “woahh, am I about to bingo the whole Satoko column on my board?” and then ended the episode wondering if actually I’d get the Takano column next episode.  It could just be that Takano goes L5 and kills Rika immediately, but I actually think it more likely that we get a team up instead (as @tsuisou-no-despair​ speculated!)  Either way, I find Takano to be a very fun character to watch, so I’m looking forward to it!

I’m also quite impressed by how well Gou is threading the needle with not actually revealing Takano was the old culprit - the flashback scene in this episode makes it look more like she’s a victim who needs to be saved.  Which... isn’t even entirely wrong, heh.

Oyashiro-sama the culprit?

It’s a pretty common theory that Featherine is the mastermind in Gou, but this episode (especially the idea of Rika allying with Takano to fight a god) got me thinking more deeply about this possibility.

On the one hand, this is proposing an entirely supernatural solution to a When They Cry mystery, which feels like giving up and falling for the same old trick the series often plays.

On the other hand, it is an intriguing reversal of the original Higurashi twist, where the seemingly evil curse god was actually friendly. Gou repeatedly emphasizes that this is not the same Hinamizawa as before, and “in this Hinamizawa, Oyashiro-sama is malevolent” neatly captures all the major differences. (Including Hanyuu being absent like she was in Saikoroshi.)

That being said, the thing that makes me most hesitant about this theory is actually the possible Umineko connection. Much like Hanyuu, Featherine is usually a passive observer, and screwing over Rika this actively and sadistically is far worse than anything we’ve seen from her before.

It also contradicts the idea that Featherine abandoned Bern… though the specifics of what happened between those two are some of the most vague parts of Umineko. Heck, maybe this not a Bernkastel origin story, but rather the story of how Featherine “trained” her?  Who knows!

What’s up with Rika’s motivations? Part II

Last episode, I wasn’t sure where the story was going with Rika apparently wanting to leave Hinamizawa.  But with this episode, I think I see where the thread might be going.

Given how heavily this episode hints that Rika being forced to stay in Hinamizawa is the bad, “Rika gives up” ending, that suggests all of this is setting up for Rika leaving Hinamizawa to be the “good” ending.

I still find it a bit unsatisfying - it feels like Gou introduces a new character motivation for Rika out of the blue.  And then in the same breath as introducing the change, also tries to present it as her deepest flaw.

After all, in the original ending to Higurashi, Rika very much wants to stay in Hinamizawa, to the point where Saikoroshi mines a whole mini-arc out of Rika’s desperation to go back to the Hinamizawa and versions of her friends from the Matsuribayashi Fragment. So it’s very strange that Rika would want to leave Hinamizawa.

But… what about Bernkastel?

Before Gou aired, my best guess as to “what is Bernkastel’s deal in Umineko?” was that she wanted to stay in Hinamizawa, but being rejected by Rika in Saikoroshi meant she genuinely couldn’t.  Hence why she’s a Voyager Witch rather than having Hinamizawa as her territory.

And the bitterness over being the only one who worked so hard yet didn’t share in Rika’s happy ending was presumably what drove her to be so twisted. 

Now with Gou, I’m starting to think I had it backwards.  If Gou really is a Bernkastel origin story, then the ending is predetermined - Bern will successfully find her miracle and become a Voyager Witch.

So this whole subplot with Rika feeling trapped by Hinamizawa itself?  I think it’s a means to arc Rika’s character from “I want to stay” to the opposite. A way to make an ending where Rika/Bern leaving home to go explore the multiverse can be portrayed as much less of a downer than it might have been.

Speaking of which - I don’t know about other people, but for me, one of the reasons I’d be pretty excited for this to be a Bernkastel origin story is that… honestly that’s a pretty happy ending!

Heck, if Lambda is involved in whatever Gou is doing, that just makes it even better - because when all the dust settles, as of Umineko, she and Bern will be best friends.

Even Featherine isn’t that different from Hanyuu in her God Mode. Her interactions with Bern even retain a bit of a mother/daughter vibe.  (If you see Bern as her teen daughter going through an edgy contrarian phase, haha.)

Sure, the lasting trauma is going to suck, but setting traps and playing games with a loving girlfriend is hardly the worst way to spend eternity.

oh no, it’s my kind of trash

I can totally understand and even agree with the arguments that the first half of this episode is overly gory and ends up as uncomfortable torture porn.

I have no issue with “Satoko kills Rika and in her despair, Rika latches onto her rambling” as a plot development, but if Passione wanted to sell it as a tragedy, then they probably would have been better off pulling back from the explicit blood and guts.  Let the scene focus on the characters’ emotions, particularly Rika hitting her lowest point.

But as usual, Passione opts for Maximum Over the Top Gore.  That managed to work to their favor in Episode 15, but here it may be a step too far. The average viewer (or at least, my younger brother) appears to have been both desensitized to any genuine pathos and bored after we just had a whole montage of dark comedy.

Although… 

Now it’s time to lose any credibility I have as an analyst by admitting that I actually… really enjoyed it anyway...

Indeed, the bizarrely over-defined swimsuits in the latter half of the episode legitimately made me more uncomfortable than any of the gore!

IRL, I’m actually very squeamish and afraid of needles. But apparently rather than hitting a “nope” button like for my brother, this episode managed to hit my “oooh maudlin hurt/comfort yasss” button.

Doesn’t help that it’s quite beautiful and well-animated?  With the whole scene becoming a wash of reds, and all that detailed secondary animation on the ribbons and bells of the ritual implement and so on.  Plus Satoko gently stroking Rika’s face and hugging her as they both cry in the midst of all the carnage? wow excuse you, that’s my number you have there

It was especially surreal for me because I’ve read in fanfic (and just this week was contemplating writing myself!) similar scenes between Lambda and Bern.

...I’m going to be really sad when there’s no actual LambdaBern in Gou, aren’t I?  Haha.

[tsuisou-no-despair]

Higurashi Sotsu Thoughts - Ep. 1

Oniakashi-hen, eh? That's going to make Wataakashi (Watakashi? Watanakashi?) weirdly redundant given the name of the arc's original answer, heh.

Man, I didn't realize how much I'd have killed to see an arc that's just Onikakushi from Rena's perspective until we got that teaser of it at the start of the episode. Stupid Satoko, forcing everything off the rails...

So the new opening's gorgeous and I'll probably link it here at some point in case you missed it.

Once again it's time to play "are we seeing scenes from the VN that haven't been adapted, are these new, or did I just completely forget these flashbacks happened in what I read/watched?"

Not gonna lie, I'm a fan of all the little reflection/mirror tricks we've seen so far. They're fun.

I think the most interesting part for Oniakashi isn't seeing how Rena gets to the point where she kills Keiichi, but rather what's going to get her to pump the brakes and not hit maximum hold-the-school-hostage levels or end up in a state where her issues can't be ignored before she even gets to go to the festival.

New EP is alright. Probably not going to give it much thought until it inevitably grows on me.

Anyway, surprising no one, it turns out an episode focusing on the best character (period, not just within Higurashi) is good. On to the next episode!

[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Higurashi Gou Ep18

This week in Higurashi, things are relatively peaceful and mundane, which somehow has me just as nervous as all the shit that went down in the last arc.

Thoughts under the cut.

The preview images we got obviously included stuff from Matsuribayashi flashbacks, but I guess now we know that the entire episode was focused on Matsuribayashi and it’s aftermath, with no follow-up to the end of Nekodamashi. I think we’re going to spend a few more episodes on this flashback [which feels like a weird way to describe it since we’re dealing with new post-Matsuribayashi content, but it still happens chronologically before Gou], and to me this makes it feel more likely that when we cut back to the end of Nekodamashi, Satoko will get stopped before she can shoot Rika, and that arc will continue on and be the ‘true ending’ of Gou. Unless this ends in a super tragic and depressing way, which I guess is possible if they really lean into this being a Bernkastel origin story.

Anyway, at this point it looks like we’re just going back and seeing what happened with Satoko between 1983 and 1988 that convinced her to make some sort of a deal to go back in time and punish Rika for her sins, and it’s nice to finally start getting some answers. We haven’t really figured out anything to do with the mechanics of the different murders of the first three arcs happened, but we’re getting a much clearer image of Satoko’s backstory and her motives.

There’s still clearly a lot left to happen to her since things only really come to a head in 1988, but this episode already sets the stage for showing how the whole friend group is starting to break apart over time, and how all the traditions and norms of the village are starting to change. On the one hand it’s really satisfying to see this sort of pay-off after everything that happened in the VN, but on the other hand it makes sense that it all ends up just making Satoko feel alienated and abandoned by everyone.

Even on top of stuff like Mion graduating and Rika wanting to go to St Lucia’s, there’s also other stuff going on like Keiichi taking over the club and removing all the tricks and schemes that Satoko liked about the club games, and the village heads publicly putting an end to the dam war, and declaring the curse as basically just being a myth.

Even after everyone met Hanyuu and found out about the true nature of the curse, I can see how Satoko wouldn’t be very happy about having everything with the curse and the dam war cast aside and moved on from. It’s a good thing in the long run, but it doesn’t really erase all of the stuff it caused Satoko to go through.

We also found out about how the disease is starting to clear up all on it’s own, probably as a result of Hanyuu’s big change of heart and her deciding to ‘go to sleep’ after the events of Matsuribayashi, which Satoko at least seemed happy about, but it makes me wonder what happens with Satoshi after all this. One of the big reasons why Satoko’s motives for starting this new loop confused me is just because Satoshi should have already been cured by 1988, so even if Satoko had begun drifting away from her friends and having to adjust to life at a shitty Catholic boarding school, she’d at least have her brother back. But this is making me wonder if maybe he never actually gets cured, and if that might be part of why she’s looping in the first place.

Even with the disease disappearing over time, it’s possible that Satoshi had basically gone past the point of no return, and that even if they woke him from his coma, he’d never properly recover. Or maybe he ends up getting killed, directly or indirectly, as part of the clinic being shut down.

And on the whole topic of Satoshi, we also didn’t hear anything about Shion in this episode, which also makes me wonder how she’d respond to whatever happens to Satoshi in the future, and what her relationship with the club ended up being like. It also feels like one of the reasons why Rika and Satoko are going to St Lucia’s in the first place rather than any other school might just be so that Satoko can end up interacting with Shion there, but I’ll get back to that in a minute.

Aside from that, the whole scene where Rika and Satoko talked about how they both disliked how Keiichi was getting rid of the dirty tricks in the club games, and how ‘Rika’s pure soul had been tainted from all the games she and Satoko played’ just felt like they were going out of their way to mess with people like me who want more Bern and Lambda content, lmao. That whole scene really makes it obvious how those two end up with the sort of relationship they have in Umineko. It’s an extreme, exaggerated version of them playing games together that involve foul play and punishments. Also, I feel like both Rika and Satoko’s teenage designs make them look more like Bern and Lambda, which is interesting.

There’s speculation about whether or not Satoko will pass her entrance exams to St Lucia’s, but in her scene in the OP she’s wearing the St Lucia’s uniform, rather than the one she wears in this episode, so I think it’s very likely that she’ll get in, and that the real problem will just be what happens once she starts going there, considering how bad of a time both Shion and Ange had there.

We already know that Rika thinks very highly of her time there, and I think it’s pretty likely that she’d have an easier time fitting in than Shion and Ange did, but it seems pretty inevitable to me that Satoko would end up getting bullied and isolated. I think she ends up drifting away from Rika as a result of this, while Rika winds up not noticing what’s happening to Satoko because she’s too busy enjoying her new happy school life. And since it looks like Satoko probably spent about four years there before everything went to shit, that’s a lot of time for things to get really bad for her.

Considering that this episode also proves that Mion was just about to enter high school at the end of the VN, it’s very likely that Shion was still attending St. Lucia’s at the same time as Rika and Satoko, so I think we’ll end up seeing them interacting, which will be interesting. I could see this tying into whatever ends up happening to Satoshi, since both Satoko and Shion are invested in him. I also think that having Shion become more important this way could also let them finally include some material from Meakashi, so we don’t just entirely skip her whole backstory. Similarly, I get the feeling that we might see more of post-Matsuribayashi Rena in a way that delves more into her backstory and her family, and gives some answers in hindsight about what she was going through in Onidamashi. Which wouldn’t really be the most satisfying substitute for the entire Tsumihoroboshi arc, but it’s something.

The other big reason why I think Shion might get involved soon, and part of why I think Rika and Satoko are going to St. Lucia’s in the first place, is that we might find out that Shion is more or less Satoko’s accomplice. This is mainly inspired by the theories people have made about how Satoko seems to be holding Shion’s hair ribbon on the cover of the new ending theme’s CD jacket, but in general I think it makes a lot of sense that they’d end up working together. I don’t necessarily think that Shion is also a looper or anything, I think Satoko has probably been reaching out to her at the start of each loop in Gou to make her an accomplice, and their interactions at St Lucia’s might set the foundation for why she’d do that.

At the very least, if that time at St Lucia’s lets them become closer, it’d make it easier for Satoko to figure out how to get Shion on her side in each loop once she starts looping, but I think it’d also tie into Satoshi’s fate. If Satoko finds out exactly what happens to him, and she can convince Shion to believe her, that might help get her to become her accomplice.

I don’t really think Satoko did much of anything in Onidamashi, since nothing Rena did had anything to do with Rika, and we also didn’t even see Shion at all, but I think Watadamashi would have been the start of this. It’d also explain why Shion doesn’t even show up in Nekodamashi and never went L5 in spite of being the most obvious person to go L5, if Satoko was intentionally protecting her.

I don’t actually have any real concrete idea of how Shion being Satoko’s accomplice would relate to the mechanics of anything in Watadamashi or Tataridamashi, let alone all the loops in Nekodamashi, but it at least makes sense in terms of their motivations, lol.

Shion’s role in Watadamashi has always felt super weird, though, what with her strange phone call to Keiichi after the festival, and her apparently getting killed by Mion. And there’s also the whole mystery of why Satoko even bothered going to the Sonozaki estate at the end of that arc, since Rika had already died by that point. At this point I wonder if maybe Shion was still alive by that point, and only died at the end of the arc, instead of being killed on the night of the festival like we’re lead to think happened.

I think Shion being the main accomplice would help explain the logistics of how people like Kimiyoshi and Akane apparently got injected and turned L5, though. It still seems like a stretch to think that Satoko would be able to do it, and that they’d even listen to anything she tries to tell them, but I could see it happening if Shion was the one who did it instead. 

I’m hoping that eventually this whole flashback will reach the point where we start seeing Satoko’s perspective on the first three arcs, since there’s still a lot that needs to be explained about them. It wouldn’t be as fleshed out as a full series of answer arcs like the VN had, but still.

Onidamashi’s kinda weird because it feels like it can be ‘solved’ almost entirely just with knowledge about Rena’s character from the VN. Satoko might have been involved with it, but it’s very easy to imagine how Rena could have just gone down the same route as Tsumihorboshi without any intervention from Satoko at all. So since Gou doesn’t really seem all that interested in actually answering all the mysteries for new fans, I could see them not really going into detail about that arc, and only explaining the very end of it with Rika and Satoko dying, since VN fans could just figure out the solution for Rena’s side of things on their own.

Watadamashi is probably the arc that needs the most explaining, at least in terms of the different murders and how they happened and who did them. At this point I guess we’re just meant to take the story of Tomitake and Takano fleeing the village at face value, and that there’s probably not much else going on there, but we don’t know exactly what happened that lead to Kimiyoshi, Oryo, and Shion dying, or who exactly killed Rika and why they did it, or why Satoko went to the Sonozaki estate and wound up getting killed there. I’m still honestly not very sure what happened in that arc, even now that we know a lot about the bigger picture of the story. Even now that we know more about Satoko’s motives, it’s still hard to explain why she bothered going to the Sonozaki estate after Rika had already died. Since her whole motive just seems to be about Rika, it feels like she would have just wanted to reset the loop as quickly as possible, and there’d be much simpler ways to go about killing herself to make it happen.

Tataridamashi is also kinda weird, but less in terms of it’s murder mysteries, and more in terms of what was going on in the background of that arc in general. I don’t really buy the idea that Satoko was entirely faking all of the abuse in that arc, considering that in Nekodamashi she had an entirely genuine panicked response just to seeing the jack-in-the-box again, which makes it feel very unlikely that she’d be able to completely fake a way more severe PTSD attack. There’s also the fact that, even if we’re dealing with a Satoko from the Matsuribayashi timeline, she doesn’t necessarily remember the timelines where Teppei comes back to the village. It feels pretty unrealistic to imagine that just because she’s aware that she’s in a time loop, she suddenly doesn’t have any trauma toward Teppei anymore, and is able to be a master manipulator who can fake her own abuse just to mess with people. I also just don’t even know what her motive for faking her abuse would be, aside just wanting Rika to feel bad. But that feels like a pretty convoluted way to go about it, and in general it just feels like it’d be an insensitive way to handle child abuse as a topic.

It also just feels odd to me to think that this version of Teppei either wasn’t actually abusive, or just randomly changed his tactics entirely. But I do think it’s noteworthy that they drew visual attention at the end of the arc to Satoko’s lack of bruises, and that we didn’t physically see Teppei after the visit from Chie [aside from when he attacked Keiichi, which might have just been a hallucination]. Rather than Satoko just completely fabricating her abuse, I think that Teppei did start abusing her like in Tatarigoroshi, but Satoko ended up killing him in self-defense, which might have happened shortly before her big breakdown, which could still mean that whole scene was genuine, in it’s own way. And even if she did kill him, we already saw in Tatarigoroshi that Satoko is able to hallucinate him as still being alive even after his death, so even if she killed him in self-defense, it’s possible that she wound up convincing herself that he was still alive and abusing her.

Even with the meta-knowledge of being a looper, and what we know of her disease curing itself later on in time, it’s still likely to me that she genuinely still suffered from HS during the Gou loops. I mean, we know that Rika of all people went L5 at least once, in spite of knowing about the disease and everything. We saw in Nekodamashi that even after all this, Satoko apparently stilled believed in the existence of Oyashiro-sama as a conventional god figure who curses people, so I can imagine that even after she started looping, she could still develop HS and get paranoid about things.

I’m still not entirely sure what happened with Ooishi behind the scenes in that arc that lead to him going L5, and what exactly happened to Keiichi at Satoko’s house. It seems very likely to me that Teppei was already dead by that point, and he was just a hallucination, but usually the hallucinations don’t cause people to hear people say things that they aren’t actually saying, so the fact that Satoko mentioned her uncle in that scene when Teppei showed up might imply that she was in the phase of hallucinating him being alive as well.

Anyway, I think that this section of the flashback will end with Satoko in 1988 being contacted by some sort of supernatural/meta entity posing as Oyashiro-sama who convinces her to go back in time to punish Rika, so I’m curious to see exactly how that plays out, and how much it might tie into Umineko stuff. I still think it’s likely that Lambda decided to make Satoko her new piece, at least. But I dunno if we’ll explicitly see her in that case, or if it’d just be like Satoko hearing a disembodied voice in her head.

I’m not sure exactly how long I think this flashback will go for, though, with both the post-Matsuribayashi stuff, and any flashbacks to the first three arcs of Gou. It’d be kinda nice if we at least get one full episode going over each of the first three arcs, but we’ll see. There’s still about four more years left to go in this flashback until we get to 1988, but I don’t think it’d take that many episodes to get there.

In spite of this being a fairly sparse episode, I ended up having a fair bit to say about it, lol.

[catsvrsdogscatswin]

Higurashi Gou Liveblog: Episode 7

Starting off on the break-in, good start.

Yes Keiichi its an abandoned building –YES KEIICHI TURNING THE LIGHTS ON WHEN YOU BREAK INTO SOMEONE ELSE’S PLACE IS A BAD IDEA. How did this boy ever get top of his class back in Tokyo. He rolls like a 0 on his perception and wisdom checks, constantly.

Shion, slapping the lights off ten seconds later: Keiichi you absolute moron.

Oh I’m getting INTO this. Much like Takano. Hearing them fill in the details for Hinamizawa and the Higurashi meta stuff as a whole is so much fun. Having etymology explained in the anime is very validating.

I’m just now realizing that Oyashiro-sama’s robe/scarf/fabric thing in this flashback arc curves behind him just like Featherine’s “memory device” which in turn evokes Hanyuu’s horns, and I SUPER don’t like that. Fuck off Featherine. No one wants your manipulative bullshit or the manipulative bullshit of any other witch.

“Violence isn’t the answer to everything,” says Shion, who arguably has the bloodiest kill streak of the entire series.

OHO. Takano calls Oyashiro-sama “kind and benevolent” which is like the absolute opposite of what she thought in all the rest of the arcs. Also the “he was so nice even the demons couldn’t attack him and bowed down before him” is definitely new information.

WAIT. WAIT WAIT WAIT. In the original series, the legend just says that Oyashiro-sama came down and made peace and gave the demons human form, but in this its framed more like “And Oyashiro-sama the awesome and good came down from heaven and everyone was like ‘Ooh wow you’re too awesome for us’ and then he fixed everything with his incredible power” and what I’m saying is that IF Featherine is here and IF she’s the one tweaking things, that’s basically just her using Takano to stroke her own ego, which is simultaneously annoying and hilarious.

Featherine maybe, taking over Takano’s game piece directly for five minutes: Haha yeah I’m the best god.

Ah here we go. Back to Takano’s usual “Oyashiro-sama is creepy and evil and so very fascinating to study.”

Is Keiichi gonna fucking snap and murder Takano on the spot. If so, good choice! I very much approve.

Aw he doesn’t.

Also its kinda weird that Shion –oh fuck she BROKE SOMETHING! Well I guess we know where the divergence starts for this arc. Murder ho!

Already broken, hmm? Did they change it and have that be the part that was broken instead of the hand that Satoko broke when playing hide and seek?

Anyways its kinda weird that Shion wasn’t hearing weird thumping noises from an angrily stamping Hanyuu as Takano explained all her cult theories. Traditionally that’s where Shion starts to fray at the edges for this arc, and it was also why Tomitake came in –he thought he heard it too. But nothing this time around?

OH AND THEY DON’T ALL LEAVE TOGETHER THIS IS VERY INTERESTING. I’ll eat my shoe if taking pictures was all Takano was doing in there alone.

I appreciate Keiichi very much but if he’s the one to snap this arc I’ll be very disappointed. He’s got the most focus in the last series, it’d be boring.

OHO AND WE GET TO SEE TAKANO AND TOMITAKE AFTERWARDS. Traditionally speaking this is right around where they die. I love how Takano is using her “we’re totally dating” façade to convince Shion and Keiichi to leave her alone with her victim.

“Oyashiro-sama’s curse may befall someone tonight” Shion says as Tomitake and Takano walk off to die.

Oh and they don’t mention the angry hopping at all, this is fascinating.

RIKA JUST FUCKING TACKLES HIM TO THE GROUND I LOVE IT.

Wait. Wait wait wait wait WAIT. Where’s Satoko!? She was never missing normally! What does this mean?!

My Mion/Keiichi heart just imploded even though I know its about to go horribly wrong.

Good to see Keiichi’s still a shit liar.

And Oishi too! Fuck nothing’s happening like it’s supposed to tonight. Oh, okay he’s just squeezing in the “Sonozakis are dangerous” speech earlier than he used to. I get it.

THEIR FAMILY HAS BARBED WIRE FENCES?!

That is a lovely shot of discomfort.

What’s this fresh fuckery –AND ITS STILL JUST MISSING, NOT DEAD! DON’T LIKE THAT!

Okay so they stole a truck together, left both bike and car behind, and zoomed on out of there. Why? Takano’s plan for killing Rika technically hinges on Tomitake dying, even though she actually tries to pay him off/sway him to her side in several arcs. She fails, because he has ethics, but what if in this new stuff she actually managed to fuck his moral compass right out of him?

This conversation is proceeding just like it always does, almost word for word, which makes me think that maybe Shion did turn murder-crazy.

THE CLOCK HAUNTS ME.

Okay, so is this Shion faking to be Mion like usual? Kimiyoshi’s missing like usual, which is usually indicative of her murder-crazy arc. And there’s Satoko! She’s fine too, right? RIGHT?!

And Rika’s skipping right on by plausible deniability. Good for her. Also, usually she’s beat up by Shion faking to be Mion at this point, so is Shion still the instigator? Satoko doesn’t normally pop out during the festival, either. Actually, that’s NEVER happened, and is making me very worried.

OH JESUS RIKA WHAT THE FUCK. NORMALLY YOU JUST TELL HIM ITS OKAY WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS.

Also I both do and don’t like that Rika’s eyes start glowing and shit when she starts talking with her adult voice. On one hand, its unsettling and unprecedented in a bad way, but on the other hand, it looks super cool.

[incorrecttowerofgodquotes]

If you’ve ready my fanfic (and I’m sorry for a late update, I’m working on it) then you’ll know I’m a fan of Higurashi. As such, I feel compelled to she my thoughts, theories, and hopes for the new season after this week’s episode. Spoilers for first and second season.

Going in, we all thought this was a reboot. However with episode 2, Ryushiki has stated that this is a new season, not a reboot. So obviously I was thinking “Maybe we’ll replay Onikakushi but this time there will be a few slight differences” and when Rika talked to Keiichi earlier in episode 4 I felt like I got it. The show was going back to every doomed timeline and this time Rika was going to save them. BUT NOPE! Rena’s actually crazy and tried to kill Keiichi, Keiichi kills her instead, Satoko and Rika are killed somehow, and being Mion is suffering.

So let’s figure this shit out. Keiichi and Rena are both suffering from the Hinamizawa syndrome, thus why Keiichi was having his freak outs and Rena went full murder mode. Rena was scratching her neck because of the feeling of bugs under her skin and that’s what the syndrome compels you to do, which is why Keiichi scratches his at the end. However, what started Rena’s syndrome to worsen? She states she has to do this protect her father so is something going down involving him? Did Onikakushi and Tsumihoroboroshi mix together and Rina and Teppei are involved? Why would killing Keiichi and disappearing help her father? Did Rena kill Rina and Teppei at this point and plan to take it all on herself so her father’s safe? Did her father kill them and Rena’s framing herself? But that’s not even scratching the surface of weird shit.

Also was his fight with Rena really real is another question. Despite how crazy the curse makes you, it certainly doesn’t make you superhuman but Rena cut through a gold club and Keiichi survived like a hundred stabs. Could it be that Keiichi actually went crazy after his dimension flashback, invited Rena in, and killed her. He had a neck brace on despite nothing seemingly being wrong with his neck during the fight, so did he start scratching at it?

Who killed Rika and Satoko? I don’t think it was Rena since her weapons were clean. Maybe Tokyo barged in during the Rena situation and took care of Rika and Satoko. But aren’t they supposed to disembowel Rika, so why not? Is this a new group going after them? Or did Rena actually kill them. I still feel like it’s not since it’s too obvious. Also Mion seems a bit too upbeat despite the circumstances. I understand she’s trying to be strong for Keiichi but still. Could Mion also be infected with the syndrome, or is this actually Shion? So many questions.

Finally, what the fuck’s going on with Tokyo. Takano and Tomitake both disappeared which is not how it’s supposed to go. Did Takano not kill him, or did she just hide the body? Why was Irie’s clinic going under construction? Those men in suits are obviously Yamainu so what are they doing out in the open? Is Irie still alive or did Takano dispose of him? Maybe Takano, along with Rika regained her memories of the past worlds and is now making sure Rika can’t interfere.

One final thing I would like to point out. The nurse at the end of the episode states “Does your neck feel itchy at all?” while on her table is a syringe.

I thought, man she’s probably in it with Takano. But then I saw something that definitely confirmed it. During the Yakusamashi arc (an anime original) this exact same nurse shows up

And you wanna know what this nurse does? When Satoko is buzzing the hospital buzzer cause she finally she realized the answer to what was going on, this bitch turns it off. She knew Satoko learned the truth, turned off her buzzer, and alerted the Yamainu who then killed her. This woman is a dirty snake

Now where is this anime going? I have no fucking idea. Maybe next arc, Mion really will be crazy. I’m confused but I love it. Is Tokyo really behind everything, or is there another group working even more behind the scenes? Let’s figure this out

[felixcloud6288]

Higurashi: Atonement Chapter 7

I'm getting a feeling that Keiichi is supposed to be the actual protagonist in this arc, but he's sharing that role with Rena because we'd otherwise have long expositions and flashbacks from Rena.

Consider what happens in this chapter. The first half is from Rena's perspective while she reads Takano's notes. Then the second half is from Keiichi's perspective. And during that half, Rena tells Keiichi everything she learned.

If this arc was entirely Keiichi's perspective, then we'd have to pause everything part way through to go over Rena's narration of what she did. Instead, we're just getting that directly from her and can skip over the part where she tells Keiichi everything.

Such horrible timing from Detective Delicious Ooishi. The only thing we don't know during Rena's part is whatever Ooishi called her about. All the info she says she got from Ooishi was in the car ride so she didn't share anything about whatever they may have talked about after.

Glad Keiichi is holding true to his promise. Unfortunately, Takano's false statement about the Sonozakis being behind everything is starting to infect the trust circle.

That's the same Toyoto van that nearly ran Keiichi over in Abducted by Demons chapter 5.

Recognize this guy?

This is one of the kidnappers in Time Killing.

Let's connect a few dots this man's appearance suddenly creates.

This man works for some organization called "Tokyo". In 1978, he kidnapped the grandson of the dam construction manager. We can say with high certainty the Sonozakis had no involvement with the kidnapping so "Tokyo" is an entirely third party in all this.

And Irie is likely associated with "Tokyo" because we saw him with a group who came out of that white van in the final chapter of Abducted by Demons.

This could also mean Takano and Tomitake were involved with "Tokyo" as well. Takano's connection is more obvious. Tomitake's is subtle. In Curse Killing chapter 11, Irie mentioned a Risa-san had died as well as Takano. Tomitake is the only other person who had recently died, so that's who Irie is likely referring to. Also, Jirou Tomitake isn't his real name.

Then let's consider Tomitake and Takano's deaths in every arc as well as Irie's strange overdose suicide in Curse Killing. If the three of them are part of "Tokyo", then they were likely targeted because of that. Takano and Tomitake were killed either to perpetuate the myth of the curse, or the curse was used to hide the actual killers and then Irie was killed and made to look like a suicide over their deaths.

"Tokyo" probably was involved in the coverup for Satoshi murdering his aunt and disappearing as well.

So depending on how much Takano knew about "Tokyo's" involvement, she either is very mistaken or straight up lying about the village fanatics idea she told Rena.

And we end on a big reveal. Hinamizawa is home to a localized brain parasite that has infected all the villagers and are the cause to the symptoms of Oyashiro-sama's curse.

Another typo...

NIPA BEAM!!

back

Spoiler Discussion

Nah. I've given enough info. Figure it out yourself.

[tarhalindur]

Well, that’s interesting.

Apparently someone fucked up and put more preview images from Gou episode 8 up than they were supposed to, and somebody archived them before the people responsible (Abema) realized their screwup and took them down.  They can be found here.

Two major takeaways under the cut:

- The GHD is probably *not* firing next episode - the pics are almost certainly chronological given both internal structure and how previous episodes’ previews have been handled and Ooishi appears too late.  (The only way that busts is if we get a GHD epilogue - which, to be fair, is how DEEN handled Tatarigoroshi-hen with the news story so we can’t rule that out, but the last three pics look like an epilogue on their own so I have my doubts?)  That means the only way we’re confirming whether the GHD is in play is if the episode timeline answers it in the negative (Rika’s body is in one of the previews, so by definition it was found) - in other words, if the episode ends within two days of the end of episode 7 then it’s still an open question, otherwise the question is answered in the negative barring a GHD epilogue.  (More likely than not the question remains unanswered, but the question is how long Keiichi is stuck in the Sonozaki dungeons.  Note that technically “Keiichi is stuck in the dungeon for over two days but it also takes that long for Rika’s body to be found” also leaves the question open, but I have my doubts. Not that if it *does* take 2+ days to find Rika’s body in Watadamashi-hen then the likelihood of Red-Eye in Episode 7 being a hallucination and/or Bern goes way up, because if Rika’s body *isn’t* in the Sonozaki estate it should probably be found before that, especially with the Yamainu out and about, and Rika braving the Sonozaki estate again doesn’t make much sense if Red-Eyes’s rant last episode was an actual Rika breakdown.)

- One of the theories that’s been floating around about Watadamashi-hen for a while now is “eye theory”, namely that the Sonozaki twins have distinctive eyes this time around and can be told apart that way.  (Here’s an image demonstrating the hypothesis.)  Looking at the preview images, if eye theory is correct then it sure looks like the Mion we see in all of the previews is in fact actually Mion, which implies that one of the following must be true:

a) Eye theory fails and the Watadamashi-hen deception is a Yomi 3 (it’s still just Shion after all!).  This is the level 0 option.

b) Keiichi is hallucinating Mion’s eyes on Shion-impersonating-Mion.  (Supporting both a) and b): the fourth preview image [one of the ones intended to be shown] is an extremely obvious spot for another flashback, and we *know* that was actually Shion in both Watanagashi-hen and Meakashi-hen.)

c) Ryukishi07 actually pulled the trigger on Mion being a/the culprit in Watadamashi-hen.

I’ve mulled over that last possibility for a while now, and concluded that it could make sense as anything more than a cheap twist (and I trust Ryukishi07 to do better than a mere cheap twist) if and only if it’s for one of two reasons:

c1) The tattoo incident never procced in Gou’s backstory; Mion was born Mion and Shion was born Shion, meaning that the reasons that Mion never goes insane in OG apply to Shion instead (modified by differential character development, in particular how Shion-born-Shion handled being sent to St. Lucia’s - then again, as I’ve noted before that might explain why one of the Sonozaki twins was wearing that St. Lucia’s uniform to give Keiichi the bento this arc when that seems awfully out of character for even Mion impersonating Shion in OG).  Not out of the question, especially given some of the Keiichi interactions with both twins in the early part of the arc and the ending of Rei (*especially* since the Rei character in question is a possible Gou culprit).  In theory Satoshi would be an issue here, since I’m not sure how the twins not being permanently switched would affect their Satoshi interactions, but then the usual Watanagashi-hen information about Satoshi has been curiously absent this arc...

c2) Mion initially kills for reasons *other* than previously developing high-level Hinamizawa Syndrome, and Rule X only gets her after that if it gets her at all (the one way I could maybe see Mion going L5 in spite of the character traits that make her least likely to succumb to the Syndrome is if she had to/decided to kill someone first for non-HS reasons and then succumbed during the cover-up).  Plausible mechanisms I’ve thought of: Mion killed Shion in self-defense during the afterparty and Rule X got her from there; Oryou did something so far over Mion’s red lines that Mion killed her then and there (IIRC it’s noted in one of the later OG answer arcs that she threatened to do exactly that in response to something involving the aftermath of the Hojo’s ostracism - I want to say this modulo loop memories is one of the reasons Oryou sold some of her family’s land to draw in new blood?) and Rule X subsequently got her from there; Mion is not suffering from high-level HS at all but rather is acting according to what her role as Sonozaki heir demands, presumably either punishing Keiichi’s transgression or mercy-killing him; or Rule Z no longer applies in Gou (read: the Sonozaki family is actually partially responsible for the Chain this time around) and Mion is acting according to Oryou’s orders.

(Note that if my posit is correct that victims of Gou’s Rule X-equivalent can be identified by who red-eyed!Rika appears watching on screen then unless Red-Eyes shows up again next episode watching whichever twin is wearing Mion’s clothes the solution must be one of the c) variants that involves Mion never actually succumbing to Rule X - so Mion acting in her role as heir and/or Mion acting on Oryou’s orders.)

[medea10]

My Review of Pokemon Sun & Moon

Hi all. Sorry for the delay on this one. I usually go all-out on my Pokemon reviews that I wanted to let out everything I wanted to. Plus I had real-life work and other stuff. With that said, here’s my final review of 2019 as well as the final review of the decade. See you in 2020!

As Ash mentioned at the end of XY, Ash said he was going back home to Pallet Town and “start at zero”. This means when he decides to go on his journey, he leaves all of his other pokemon at Oak’s lab and goes on a new journey with Pikachu. But unlike the start of other journeys, this one started with Ash’s mom, Delia and her pokemon Mimie winning a contest which resulted in a trip to the Alola region. And since they were heading that way, Professor Oak asks them to bring a pokemon egg to his cousin in Alola. So let’s begin with Ash’s adventure in the Alola region.

The Alola region is split into four different islands. Each of these islands contains trial captains, island challenges, pokemon of different forms, and pokemon guardians! But unlike the game, Ash ends up in the Alola region to go to school. That’s right, after being the envy of every child for the last 20 years, Ash must go to school. In this school, Ash will learn all he needs to when it comes to living in the Alola region. Along with new friends, a helpful professor, a Rotom Pokedex, an enthusiastic Oak that does impressions, and a special bracelet capable of unleashing powerful Z-moves, Ash’s journey is getting very interesting.

MEET THE CHARACTERS: This seriously has got to be the biggest ensemble for Ash’s posse. Each character has their own unique charm and their own speciality when it comes to their pokemon type preference (and their hairstyle will say so too). At the beginning, I was just okay on some of these characters, but I have definitely enjoyed watching them evolve. Here are all of Ash’s new classmates, professor, Pokedex and a brand-new Oak.

Mallow is a very cheerful girl with the love of grass-types and cooking specialty dishes for friends and pokemon. While some of her dishes can be a little surprising, even shocking, she has a knack for using only the freshest ingredients, mostly coming from wild pokemon.

Lana has a passion for the water and yes, even water-type pokemon. She’s quite soft spoken and spends a lot of her days fishing. She may even look into becoming a fisher like her father. But she does have an edge that makes her and her Popplio tough to beat. Not to mention, quite the sense of humor! She also takes care of her two younger sisters Sarah and Harper.

Kiawe is very handy in a battle with his fire-type pals. Unlike the other students in the class, he’s been given a Z-ring first as he has attempted the Island Challenge. Because of this, he’s rather high-strong about those who own a Z-ring. His days start early in the morning with delivering MooMoo Milk, then he goes to class, then comes home to take care of the farm pokemon, and let’s not forget all that training with Charizard and Turtenator!

Sophocles is what you’d call a computer nerd (yeah, we have another one). He’s able to handle any electrical error that comes his way with the help of either Togedamaru or Charjabug. The only thing he’s unable to challenge is sleeping in the dark!

Lillie is the mysterious girl with no pokemon (at first) and seems to get scared by them real easily. However, she knows quite a bit about pokemon without having physical contact with them. Luckily, Lillie lets her guard down later in the series when she gets the opportunity to take care of an egg. And when it hatched, she kept it. Other pokemon, it still takes her a while to open up to them, but when she does open up, it’s adorable!

Professor Six-Pack is too hot (hot damn)! Call the police and the fireman!

FINE, I’LL DO THE RIGHT THING!

Professor Kukui is the teacher to these fine pupils and has even allowed Ash to stay with him while Ash attends school. He seems a little laid back at first glance, but he does take special care into each and every lesson he gives his students.

Rotomdex is the talking Pokedex for Ash. Unlike all the other Pokedexes up to this point, this one can actually carry on a conversation with Ash. Not just that, but come up with strategies, watch detective shows on TV, and even write screenplays. It’s amazing how so much can come from a fushion between a Rotom and a regular pokedex!

Principal Oak…Okay, no, I can’t do that! Over 10 years ago, I wrote a fan fic called Romance 101. And I spent a good five years writing the words “Principal Oak” because that’s what I called Samuel Oak. This Principal Oak is just giving me vivid flashbacks.

…fine Principal SAMSON Oak is of course the principal to the Pokemon School. This Oak is a much tanner, buffer, and at times sillier man when you compare him to the original Professor Oak. He really loves doing pokemon impressions. And much like Professor Oak’s poems, Samson Oak’s jokes goes over a lot of people’s heads.

BETWEEN THE SUB AND THE DUB: With the exception of Kiawe, Rotomdex, and Samson Oak’s voice actors, this is literally a brand new experience for most of these new characters. And I gotta say, I hope these voice actors get more attention. I know Reina Ueda (Mallow) has been getting a lot more roles in the last three years and I love that. The Pokemon anime has had quite a history of either getting very prominent voice actors or voice actors who aren’t known for much else. But I do hope for more exposure for Lana, Sophocles, and Professor Kukui’s seiyuus. Extra points for having Nobuhiko Okamoto play Gladion!

I’ll mention more later in the review but due to the death of a very, very, VERY prominent voice actor, there was a major change. With the passing of Unshou Ishizuka, there were three important characters that had to be changed; Professor Oak, Samson Oak, and the Narrator. I started noticing the lack of these three (yes, even the narrator) in episodes prior to Ishizuka’s death. If we go several episodes without one of the Oak’s, it’s not a big deal. But the fact that the narrator wasn’t heard before the start of the show or at the end for several episodes at a time, it felt very weird. But after hearing about how Unshou Ishizuka died of Esophageal cancer, I can’t help but think he was doing treatments during the Aether Foundation arc. His replacement, Kenyu Horiuchi is not bad. But after listening to Ishizuka since…well at least two decades, it’s very noticeable.

The dub once again is putting hope in brand new voice actors and even a few veterans from the XY series. And so far, this is very promising since they casted Alsyon Leigh Rosenfield. However, one prominent voice actor who has been around for a LONG time has retired. Kayzie Rodgers, the replacement voice of Max and Wobbuffet (and long-time voice to Mr. Mime and Professor Ivy) has retired at the beginning of SM (2016). I can honestly say, I will miss hearing her voice. Out of all the dub changes, you were one of a few I accepted. That and I will always remember you as Professor Ivy and Mimie! With that said, here’s what you might recognize these folks from.

JAPANESE CAST: *Lana is played by Hitomi Kikuchi

*Mallow is played by Reina Ueda (known for Kisa on Fruits Basket 2019, Shiori on Sakura Quest, Jiro on Tokyo Ghoul, and Katra Paige on Inazuma Eleven GO: Galaxy)

*Kiawe is played by Kaito Ishikawa (known for Genos on One Punch Man, Naofumi in Shield Hero, Sakakibara on Assassination Classroom, Kaito on Tsurune, Mitsuo on Golden Time, and Urie on Tokyo Ghoul :re)

*Sophocles is played by Fumiko Takekuma

*Lillie is played by Kei Shindou (known for Carissa on Index III and Shijimi on Rosario to Vampire)

*Professor Kukui is played by Keiichi Nakagawa (known for Salamander on Beelzebub)

*Rotomdex is played by Daisuke Namikawa (known for Rock on Black Lagoon, Jellal on Fairy Tail, Italy on Hetalia, Kazehaya on Kimi ni Todoke, Fai on Tsubasa Chronicle, Yuu on Persona 4, and Arima on Tokyo Ghoul)

*Narrator & Samson/Samuel Oak (ep1-93) is played by Unshou Ishizuka (known for Mr. Satan on DBZ Kai, Jet on Cowboy Bebop, Hohenheim on FMA: Brotherhood, Dr. Gel on Space Dandy, and Grandpa Joestar on Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Pt 3) [R.I.P.]

* Narrator & Samson/Samuel Oak (ep93-present) is played by Kenyuu Horiuchi (known for Pain on Naruto, Mako’s father on Kill la Kill, Sasaki on Bakuman, Hachiken’s father on Silver Spoon, and Takafumi on Sekaiichi Hatsukoi)

ENGLISH CAST: *Lana is played by Rosie Reyes

*Mallow is played by Rebecca Soler (known for Hart on YGO Zexal)

*Kiawe is played by Marc Swint

*Sophocles is played by Alyson Leigh Rosenfield (known for Rio on YGO Zexal, Aina on Promare, and Ally on YGO Arc-V)

*Lillie is played by Laurie Hymes (known for Prana on YGO: Dark Side of Dimensions)

*Professor Kukui is played by Abe Goldfarb

*Rotomdex is played by Roger Callagy

*Samson Oak is played by Marc Thompson (known for Chaz on YGO GX, Astral on YGO Zexal, and Kevin/Mr. O’Neill/Mr. Demartino on Daria)

FAVORITE CHARACTER: Pokemon…why do you keep doing this to me? Do you want me to lose what little faith I hold onto?

With that said, this season has given me a “best girl”. Yes, the term “best girl” is given to the…well, you know, the best girl of the series. And ever since the creators decided to shake things up by giving Ash a new female companion every couple of years, fans have fought to the death on who is best girl of Pokemon. For me, my best girls of Pokemon were Prima, Zoey, Blue/Leaf Green, and Bonnie. But there are just a few problems there. None of them are Ash’s piece of arm candy! And there’s some unwritten law that it has to be the possible love interest like Misty, Dawn, or Blushy McIdiot. And my best girls have either been in only one episode of the anime, was just a rival to someone who isn’t Ash, a girl who was never in the anime, and too young. BUT…Sun and Moon did it! It friggin’ did it! It gave me a best girl! And that girl is…

LANAAAAAAAA!

I never tire of that Archer joke! But yes, Lana is best girl.

I knew I was going to like her when she first debuted, but I had no idea how awesome she was going to truly be. Is it her prankish nature? Maybe! Is it this creepy yandere vibe I get off from her every now and then? Possibly! Is it the way I’ve seen her grow as a trainer throughout this series. You fucking bet! Lana at one point seemed like the one character who wasn’t getting much growth when it came to catching and evolving pokemon. Then again, everyone (including Ash) gave me that impression compared to other arcs. But then she caught the shaggy Eevee! Serious wild card! No one expected Lana to catch Eevee. And then there’s Popplio. She and Popplio trained like crazy later in the series and it shows when it evolved into Brionne and eventually into Primarina. ESPECIALLY WHEN PRIMARINA EVOLVED! Did you see Lana and Brionne going toe-to-toe with that Kyogre? That was epically awesome!

Plus, she was like the only female in God-knows how long to reach the top 8 in the Pokemon League.

DISLIKED CHARACTER: My tolerance has taken a slight dip because there are three people I feel should be up here!

First, I would like to put up Cross from the 20th movie, I Choose You. I know that he isn’t in the actual SM series, but I’m putting him up here because I just downright hate him. He is on Damien levels of shit. That’s how much I hate the son of a bitch. He could cure cancer, kick Donald Trump in the crotch, and bring peace in the Middle East and I would still hate him. Cross was like a very bad combination of Damien and Paul. Abandons a pokemon the same way as Damien and shows this power assholeness that Paul has. But add to that, a bit of a cruel edge to him and sprinkle a bit of whiny little bitch on that. He has to hold a grudge against Ash in this movie because he was blessed with Ho-oh’s feather, but when he saw Ho-oh, he got nothing. Oh boo-freakin-hoo! Cry me a river!

Next…Faba! You fucking testicle! Heads up, I like calling Faba a testicle! When I first saw him, I thought that Lusamine was gonna be the one to hate because of the game setup. But this anime just proves how much Lusamine loves both of her children. The same can’t be said about Faba! At first, I thought Faba would be like Colress in a way…creepy how they almost look and act the same. But then his true side started to show. Oh, this guy wants them Ultra Beasts. And will not let anyone get in his way. Not little children, not birds suffering from Insomnia, not Team Rocket, not even his boss’s child! This greedy sonuvabitch is literally the reason why Lillie was afraid of pokemon and re-triggered it AGAIN thanks to UB Nihilgo. Yeah, fuck you Testicle!

Now after that incident, Testicle was demoted and serves under Wicke and Clefable (which is literally the best thing I could ever ask for). And in most scenarios where he’s shown, Faba was silly with his fanboy obsession with the Masked Royal or his stupid experiment shrinks the kids. So other than him being a dumbass nothing too damning! That was until the Pokemon League where he decided to play dirty by having his Hypno bring out Ash’s Meltan instead of going up against Pikachu. I’m glad he got beat within less than 2 minutes because this testicle needs to shrivel up now.

Who else?

Viren! I can’t help but think he’s this anime’s answer to Donald Trump. But I hate both of them so that’s a start! I could let things slide with him just being there for one episode where he’s trying to buy out Kiawe’s family’s farm and be done with it. BUT NO! This sonuvabitch has gotta wear out his welcome by showing up another three or four times doing that same shit! And even his very first episode where he uses illegal tactics to get Rango and Sima’s farm was warrant enough to hate this fucker. I just thought he would just be a one-and-done character much like the Mayor of Trovitopolis (OI episode). Aggrivating to say, this dickhead came back numerous times to do more shady-ass shit. And I hope to Arceus I never see him again!

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT: Kiawe and Lana’s mothers are total milfs.

DON’T ACT LIKE I’M THE ONLY ONE HERE! Kiawe’s mama, hell yeah total milf! Lana’s mother, I ended up having a lesbian dream about her and she became a milf.

Hey, usually I’m straighter than a honeymoon dick. But sometimes I peak over and can easily say that Sima and Lana’s mother are Mothers I Like to Fantasize about. Again, in the words of Forky, “I’m Trash”!

SHIPPING: Okay…let’s have some fun with this one. This is less vomit inducing than XY. Just keep that bitch in Hoenn for as long as it takes. I don’t want to see her for a long time.

Ash x Lillie: I honestly think this is rather cute. Ash is one of the very few who’s been able to help Lillie with her poke-phobia. Though this ship isn’t heavily pushed on us like a certain OTHER ship that just won’t DIE. I swear Amour is like the herpes. I really can’t say there’s much romance here. Although her goodbye to Ash was just honest-to-God cute! Now if there was one Ash ship that caused some sort of blushing, it would have to go to…

Ash x Lana: Whenever she could, Lana would drag Ash along with her. Whether it’s looking for a missing pokemon or on the hunt for a legendary pokemon in the water, she would take Ash by the arm and take him by force. However, none of this was romantically motivated. The only thing worth mentioning was her tsundere way of blushing and brushing off romance when her sisters pester if Ash is her boyfriend.

Mallow x Lillie: This was my OTP to be perfectly honest. While Ash was the actual first person to nudge Lillie to help her with pokemon, Mallow was like the best friend of Lillie’s. She would always show concern for her. I know this is more big sister syndrome, but I’ll still ship it. I never thought anything would happen until the episode where the class puts on a play and I see Mallow and Lillie dressed like Utena and Anthy from Revolutionary Girl Utena. To which I said, “HOLY SHIT, THIS IS AWESOME-BALLS”! Pokemon, are you trying to tell us something with this? You trying to tell us something with this clear and direct reference to one of anime’s famous Yuri couples?

Kukui x Burnet: THIS SHIP HAS SAILED! I’m actually surprised how fast this ship was. I know they’re married in all four games, but in the anime it seemed like they didn’t know each other that well prior to Burnet’s first appearance. And anime wise, they only spent 11 episodes with each other. And on the 11th episode not only did Kukui propose to Burnet with a ring, but they freakin’ got married! I guess there are such things as love at first sight. Kukui wanted it and put a ring on it. There’s a real man, yo! Now, he does lose some points here as he does lead that double life as the Masked Royal where he keeps it a secret from everyone, including his fangirl of a wife. But once she knew, she let him off the hook. And you know how much this ship is cemented? Watch the last 30 seconds of the final episode! It’ll blow your socks off!

On a side note, the way Kukui proposed to Burnet…BEST FUCKING PROPOSAL!

Nurse Joy x Officer Jenny: Amazing, it has taken over 20 years for anyone to think this is even humanly possible. But in Alola, there’s a Nurse Joy and an Officer Jenny that are constantly together. Maybe it’s because I hang out on Tumblr a little too much that it gets implied a lot, but I can’t help but have a guilty pleasure for this.

Pokeshipping: AAAAAAH! Yeah, Medea has to bring this old war back. Okay, okay, I won’t be long here. Just to let you know that I’m a fan of this ship, especially back in the day. As for Sun & Moon, at least we don’t see that classic tsundere syndrome Misty is known for. But she still cutefully teases Ash about several things from the past including the broken bike and their past gym battle. To add to this, Misty (and to lesser extent Brock) were the only ones from Ash’s past companions to see him this region...much to my dismay!

Brock x Olivia: Holy crap! Did Brock seriously get lucky? Is this it? Is this the woman to finally fulfill this pervy breeder/doctor? To me, it just feels like just another day in the life of Brock’s love life. However he has done his research of Olivia that makes me think he’s dead serious about her…I just think it’s a creative way to say he’s in the early stages of stalking. But nothing else came from it after Brock (literally) proposed marriage to her and joined in doing a Z-move with her. Then again, Brock does get a lucky break with at least one lady in each region. Sadly, that’ll probably be the end of that much like Professor Ivy, Pike Queen Lucy, Holly, and Autumn.

Ash x Gladion: Guilty pleasure…is it wrong that I want these two to dress up like Yuri and Yurio from Yuri on Ice. No, didn’t think so! Not sorry for that image!

ANIMATION: I’m sorry, I can’t stay quiet about this like most of the other fans of the show. What the hell were they thinking? This is not supposed to be One Piece. This is not supposed to that Rock Lee spin-off. This is Pokemon. Poke-fucking-mon! Ash went backwards on the evolutionary chart. And people have nerve to go off on the BW series for giving him wider pupils and a mediocre outfit. You people owe the animators for BW a fucking apology for one! Ash’s design now looks like he’s cosplaying to be Monkey D. Luffy’s retarded cousin. Even my own mother, who watches one episode once every couple of months commented to say Ash looks stupid. Thank you!

SADDEST MOMENT: It’s been a good while since I’ve had a Pokemon episode touch me to a point of almost crying. Close, but the Misty/Togetic goodbye still has it beat (which was then beaten by an episode of Violet Evergarden…Dammit 2019!). And even then, the touching moments in Pokemon would be because someone of the main cast released their pokemon like Ash releasing Charizard, Jessie releasing Dustox, and OH MY GOD, NO! ENOUGH WITH THE SAD TOGETIC SCENE! But that was just it, at least no one died!

…Until now! That’s right, deaths were usually only a movie thing as we saw in the fifth movie with Latios. But in the last three years, Pokemon got a little dark in both the anime and the movie trilogies. The 20th movie we saw a Luxray freeze to death, the 21st movie we saw a Snubbull burn to death, and because the 22nd movie is a rehash of the very first movie, we’re going to relive Ash dying.

The SM anime did a few things we haven’t seen in the Pokemon anime before. In the early episodes of SM, we were introduced to Litten and watched a very sad episode dealing with death. Before Litten joined Ash, it lived on the streets with a very old Stoutland. Now think of every sad animal movie you’ve ever seen and you’ll have your answer of what happens to Stoutland by the end of the episode. They don’t show Stoutland’s death on screen, but we know. This episode was very clever at tackling the death topic on a kid’s anime. And up to this point I thought this episode was going to take the cake in the sad department. Boy was I wrong!

The 108th episode of SM gave us one hell of a tear-jerker and it almost got me. It almost got me! We learn in this episode that Mallow had a mother. And this is a first because no one in any of the main cast talked about a dead parent before this episode! We learn about Mallow’s mother being sick a lot and it caused a rift between the two. Especially when Mallow snaps at her mother because all she does is apologize for not being there. Unfortunately that exchange was the last time she ever spoke to her. Where does the sad part get heavy? Here!

While everyone was on Poni Island, we hear about how Tapu Fini is able to communicate with the dead. And among some of the dead we saw Hapu’s grandfather, Kiawe’s grandfather, and Stoutland. But in the mist, Mallow came across her mother. And that one moment where she finally can see her mother after so many years! She breaks down and cries. She apologizes for the horrible things she said as a kid to her. But those sorrys turn into thank yous. She thanks her mother for what she’s done, thanked her for being her mother! God damn it, this is now #2 in saddest Pokemon moments. The second I saw this I thought it was going to make me ugly cry and trounce all over the Misty/Togetic moment. To my surprise, it didn’t. But came super close!

In short, Mallow seeing her mother again…this moment! Feels! Fucking feels!

COMEBACK: I have pretty much given up on people from the previous series to pay Ash a visit in the newest region. After XY where we didn’t get a single sighting of Iris and Cilan getting shafted to an episode that they didn’t even bother giving an English dub, I just gave up. But that doesn’t mean we didn’t get characters who “came back”.

In SM, there were two times where we got a blast from the past. In two episodes we had Ash, Kukui, and the class make a trip to Kanto where (that’s right) we get to see Professor Oak, Delia, Misty, and Brock again. Not only that but we get two more episodes where Misty and Brock come to Alola!

As much as I love Misty…and toler…ate Brock, many other characters are overdue for a get-together with Ash. If you want me to be blunt, May, Iris, and Tracey are the only ones who should get attention and everyone else needs to FUCK OFF. That’s right, we don’t need to see Brock hit on more whores of the day. No more fishing competitions for Dento-fruit (much as I love him). Blushy McIdiot, Dingus, and Bonnie can go fuck off! And that goes double for Dawn!

Shit Medea, that was cruel.

Yeah it was cruel and I’ll continue to do so. It’s been 11 years since May was last seen/heard. Iris got royally butt-fucked by everything in the anime. And as for Tracey, I don’t owe you pissants a fucking explanation. Tracey deserves better! Speaking of…

AN UNFORTUNATE THEORY: With the comebacks of Misty and Brock, Tracey has just been NOT THERE! They go to Oak’s lab and he isn’t there. Not even mentioned. Not a word about him. When Ash calls Professor Oak randomly, Oak is there and even Muk, but no Tracey. When Ash asks Misty and Brock about back home, they don’t mention Tracey…which is to be expected since they have to talk about their siblings, but still.

Pokemon doing anything island adventure wise kinda comes with a mixed bag. The Orange Islands came with immediate hate because loyal Brock fans are ass-hurt about Tracey’s existence. The Sevii Islands were a bust during the FR/LG games. And the less mentioned about Decalore Island in the BW anime, the better. But when they decided to do Alola, fans caught on quite quickly with some comparisons to the Orange Island anime portion.

Unlike all the other gyms in other regions, Alola had four grand trials/leaders. Orange Islands had the Orange Crew, which was essentially four gym leaders. Both the trials and the crew had Ash do different tasks before an actual battle. Next, pokemon with different colors/forms! In the early episodes of the Orange Islands, we saw pokemon just a smide different from their normal looks. We saw Vileplume with a different flower pattern, other pokemon with a different shade of color to them, and interesting designs on Butterfree. In Alola, they expaneded on that by giving “Alolan forms” to pokemon like Meowth, Diglett, Exeggutor, Marowak, and even Raichu! I do love Alolan Raichu! However, the pokemon that had small changes in the Orange Islands were not brought to the Alolan table. So maybe Orange Islands and Alola are in far different parts of the world.

Where my theory goes from here is that I think Pokemon really wants to pretend the Orange Islands never happened. That means the gym battles, the special pokemon, and yes, even Tracey. That’s the only way to explain why no one has mentioned him even when we’re standing in Professor Oak’s fucking lab! I hate to be blunt and say something so horrible, but every time I watch SM, it really does feel like that. Yes, I admit it, the Orange Islands were just filler until Ash and crew could go to Johto. First of all, it exists. No matter how much you try to white-wash us with Alolan features, the Orange Islands was a thing. And it was a great thing! Ash was in his first six-on-six match (and won), Ash’s first double battle happened here, and stellar episodes like Pikachu Re-volts and Tracey Gets Bugged should not be cast aside. Those were all great! Pokemon, you cannot run from your past! You can improve upon it, yes. But never forget! These were a thing! These were great things!

Thankfully, my death theory was put to rest in the first episode of Pokemon 2019 when the Orange Island trophy was shown. That’s great, now where’s Tracey?

Another theory! They couldn’t get Tomokazu Seki. That could also be it!

RUNNING GAG: We got two running gags throughout the SM series! First, there’s the return of that singing ball of pink, Jigglypuff! This little singer has not been seen or heard from since AG. That’s well over a decade, people. Well…when Ash and crew visited Kanto, they ran into Jigglypuff and by sheer coincidence, wound up riding the airplane back to Alola. So now we see it every now and then in Alola, singing in a Karaoke bar.

And the other…Bewear! It hasn’t been officially caught by Team Rocket. They don’t use it in a battle. But Bewear has literally made it impossible for Team Rocket to BLAST OFF ever again. Their life-long running gag died the minute they fell into Bewear’s meaty arms.

Also it doesn’t help that I constantly scream “KUMA SHOCK” every time it comes to collect Team Rocket. Anyone who gets that reference deserves a high five!

BANNED IN THE USA: Welcome back, banishment! I knew you couldn’t stay away for long as we do live in a SJW/PC time. So what episode never got to see the light of day in the U.S.?

This one…yeah, I can totally agree with. So in the U.S. there is indeed ONE episode we were not given. In this episode, Ash decides to help a group of Passimian. And throughout the majority of the episode, Ash is dressed up like a Passimian from the pajamas to the…OH MY! I actually let it slide when I saw the Japanese viewing (because I’m half-awake at 2am), but I can definitely see why this one would ruffle a few feathers. Let’s just say Ash’s costume was a little too borderline blackface and that’s why it’ll never air in the states.

Anything else!? Not in terms of full episodes. Certain scenes, absolutely! Little baby things were edited due to being not kid-friendly. What’s in those drinks Kukui and Burnet are drinking out of at their own wedding? Champagne? Blasphemy! That’s Orange Juice now! What’s in Delia’s drink in the first episode? Oh we can’t have her pull a Miriam Pataki here! Turn that shit into Pinap Juice! Okay, besides the censorship of drinks, was there anything else? Why, yes, yes there was!

We all know how creepy Team Rocket’s Mimikyu can be. That’s why it’s placed in my top 10 list of characters that scare the shit outta me! Well one scene had Mimikyu’s shadow scare Meowth so horribly, the next scene had Meowth DEAD! Face down in the water! Don’t worry kids, Meowth comes back to life. The U.S. said “OH HELL NO WE CAN’T SHOW THIS! FUCK IS WRONG WITH JAPAN!” And so the face down scene was completely chopped from the dub. Add to that, there were several instances where Meowth almost dies and parts of those scenes are cut from American broadcast.

REFERENCES: If there was one thing this new animation has given us, it has open the doors to using references from other animes and even a few western media projects. And we haven’t really seen much of this since the original series and AG. And even back then, it was mostly just Rose of Versailles references with Team Rocket. I know I give the animation flack for it being a pile of shit compared to better animation shown in XY and DP. But I think the animators do have a little more fun when doing Sun and Moon. And I think it’s loosened them to using other animation styles seen in different and popular animes.

And boy did SM use a butt-load of anime references! Here’s a list of what I was able to remember!

*Facial expressions matching those scene in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure in several episodes *A Mr. Osomatsu reference tossed somewhere *Ping Pong the Animation being used when Illma entered in the Ping Pong competition *Kiawe doing the famous Gendo Ikari pose from Neon Genesis Evangelion in the same episode mentioned above. *Ash and Kiawe making the scary, demonic face Popuko makes when she’s mad on Pop Team Epic, when the two missed out on catching a UB Pokemon. *Transformation scenes with Ash and crew that match those of Power Rangers or every magical girl show. *The girl with many Pikachus has one Pikachu with hair like Boruto (Naruto Uzamaki’s son) *Ash and Pikachu looking like they’re doing the Kamehameha attack during their league match (DBZ, duh) *Rotomdex mentioning it wants to do a sci-fi feature and the image strikes a chord with Star Wars fans everywhere. *Lillie dressed like Utena. Mallow dressed like the rose princess, Anthy. HOLY SHIT, MY OTP IS DOING A REVOLUTIONARY GIRL UTENA REFERENCE! Take my revolution!

And the mother of all references goes to Jessie! Or should I say, her seiyuu Megumi Hayashibara! Pokemon animated many of her iconic roles in one epic scene. Just to name a few of Hayashibara’s roles shown there was Ranma Saotome (Ranma ½) Rei Ayanami (Evangelion), White Kitty (Hello Kitty), Faye Valentine (Cowboy Bebop), and everyone’s favorite Lina Inverse (Slayers). At least in the English dub, Lisa Ortiz popped in for the Lina Inverse moment! Epic on epic on epicly God levels of YES!

MUSIC: Okay in recent years, the English openings have gotten tolerable and the same can be said about the opening themes used this time around. So I won’t bitch about that. So how about I bitch about the BGM?!

Background music, I know a lot of complaints are expressed by loyal Japanese version fans that the English version has completely changed the BGM throughout most of the episodes and even the motion pictures! Yeah, in the I Choose You movie only ONE original BGM was used. The BGM topic never really got to me. But if I remember correctly when 4Kids lost rights to Pokemon and went to the new company, they said that they were going to keep a lot of things true and the BGM was one of them. Yeah, that went to the waist-side real fast! I do believe that they listened to that complaint because in the following movie, the entire score was kept (with the exception of the ED theme by Porno Graffitti).

The Japanese openings…I used to like Alola by Rica Matsumoto. Yeah…used to. Okay, that’s too mean. I don’t hate it on the lengths of V(Volt) from the previous series. It’s just that they used this song in certain scenes that took me out of liking it fully. Now anytime I hear Alola, all I can think about is Ash, Litten, Pikachu, and Rockruff wiggling their asses. Some of the other openings were just okay, I wasn’t too thrilled about them. But there was another thing I feel I should bring up.

Just like the English dub to XY, they wanted to capture a nostalgic feel to the general audience watching, Sun and Moon gave us some of that here. Because of the release of the 20th movie, Rica Matsumoto ended up singing her signature Mezase Pokemon Master again. And as a result, it was the show’s opening for quite some time. Not only that but the last ending theme to Sun and Moon was a cover of Rica’s other hit song Type Wild (now sung by Shoko Nakagawa).

MOVIES: The movies have taken a different turn from what we’ve seen previously. Let’s face it folks, the 10 movies that came out prior to these last three were average AT BEST. And with many other series doing reboots to their old classics, I guess Pokemon decided to do it on a large scale when it came to the story of Ash and Pikachu. With all new animation and a new story, we follow Ash and Pikachu in a much different take on their journey. A much faster-paced story where Ash doesn’t have much of the filler stuff and doesn’t travel with Misty, Brock, or the rest! To which I say, good! I know it means the Sun & Moon gang will never be in a movie, but it also means that animation won’t be there either.

I Choose You was the first movie and from the get-go, fans were upset over seeing a reboot of Ash’s beginning journey with Pikachu and not seeing Misty or Brock. Instead we get a kind of condensed version of certain moments of Ash’s original journey, mixed with new material and get introduced to new characters (who come from Sinnoh of all places). The pokemon featured was Ho-oh, who after all this time was going to be featured in a film and Marshadow because it’s not a pokemon movie without featuring a brand-new pokemon from this era.

The Power of Us, Ash ends up on an island where he meets several new characters who each have their own story to tell including a high school girl, a shy scientist, a pathological liar, an old woman who hates pokemon, and the daughter of the mayor. And we are introduced to another new pokemon, Zeroroa. All five characters (plus Ash) are put through their own trials and tribulations in order to save their town during a festival.

Mewtwo Strikes Back EVOLUTION: It’s the first movie…in CGI/3D/Robot-Chicken-ized, whatever! There’s no need for a synopsis since everybody and their mother knows this story. It’s literally the same story as Mewtwo Strikes Back. Ash and company get invited to an island, Mewtwo causes storms and clones to mess with the people, Mew appears, Pokemon fight, Ash dies, Ash doesn’t die, Mewtwo says profound speech that even Jon Stewart praises, everyone’s minds are erased, and that’s all! They even got the original cast to come back and reused Unshou Ishizuka’s old footage as the narrator for this movie!

The thing about this last movie is that, The Pokemon Company dropped the ball on this. SEVERELY dropped the ball on this! They had the perfect setup, the perfect opportunity to get this in the theaters just in time for the 20th anniversary of the first movie’s release in the U.S. and they do jackshit with it! Not even on Disney XD. For shame!

I will say that these three are a SEVERE improvement on the Pokemon movies. Can anyone with full honesty say that any pokemon movie that came out after the Lucario movie that any of the others were even good? Be honest, almost every movie since AG was just essentially a long side-story with an annoying mythical/legendary that can talk. It got annoying! Plus it just felt like Ash and whoever he was with would just be dragged in the middle of some bullshit and have to save the day. It was fine in the first couple of movies, but the pattern got worn out.

Plus with this alternate timeline to the Pokemon story, it gave the Sun and Moon anime more to work with legendaries and mythical pokemon. Hell, all the main cast was able to catch (and later release) an Ultra Beast pokemon. Not only that, but Mallow got to take care of the mythical pokemon Shaymin for over 40 episodes. Don’t you wish we got that with May and Manaphy? Plus, Ash got to take care of Cosmog and Poipole for an extended amount of time. Okay, my favorite movie of the three.

I Choose You is my favorite out of the bunch. I loved the retelling of Ash and Pikachu starting out on their very first journey. I love the new path they took with this story. I love the new characters introduced, Verity and Sorrel. I love the pokemon that were shown as it gave us a bit of everything from every region up to this point. Yes it was a cluster-fuck in some portions as I had to see past characters shown way different. Cynthia’s Verity’s mother! I can’t unsee this shit! And I will never unsee the messed-up dream Ash had where he was in actual real-world with no pokemon and in a real school where I’m given vivid flashbacks of my fanfic. Regardless, I enjoyed this movie so much. And I got to see many things here that I would always imagine would happen in a final episode of Pokemon (where Ash dies, Pikachu speaks, and an epic fight with Ho-oh). It is now my 2nd favorite Pokemon movie.

+1000000000 points for showing Tracey in the ED credits! Medea screeched in the theaters. I apologize for nothing! Best five seconds I’ve had in years.

TEAM ROCKET UPDATE: As this region does not have Pokemon Contests or that tact on Princess crap from Kalos, we’ll find our favorite trio (+Wobbuffett) going after the twerps and wandering around the area. And while I do enjoy Jessie dipping her foot in the contest arena, this pace can be boring and a blessing at the same time. Unlike previous seasons, we will go episodes at a time where we don’t see Team Rocket. But the episodes where they do show up aren’t the most thrilling. Usually they’ll just be in the background serving treats to background characters.

However, one major improvement with Team Rocket this season is with their pokemon. In the past, Team Rocket has had some unique pokemon that they’ve captured (or stolen…still not letting the Yamnega thing go). In Kanto, James had Victreebel that would eat him. In Hoenn, James had Cacnea that would pinch him every time it came out. In Sinnoh, James had Carnevine that would eat him…Okay, a lot of it is James torture-porn! Regardless, they were entertaining to watch. And I felt a complete slump with their pokemon during BW and XY. This season, pretty much ALL of Team Rocket’s pokemon are entertaining.

Marenie loves James so much that she would blow off being with her own kind to be with James. Even hearing the sounds of wedding bells every time James asks a favor of her! It’s actually adorable to watch Marenie. Jessie’s Mimikyu…I’m almost convinced Mimikyu is the reincarnation of a serial killer. And the biggest pokemon to cause Team Rocket so much grief is one they didn’t even catch, but it sticks around to take care of them like they were children, Bewear! And trust me, they’ve tried catching Bewear. And Bewear smushed the pokeball into poke-dust! Bewear would just come right the fuck out of nowhere, defying logic, gravity, and absurdity to bring Team Rocket back to its cave! This, making it the longest period of time where Team Rocket went without blasting off!

Every time they had the twerps cornered, in comes Bewear to take them back! Whenever they were about to do their traditional blast off, Bewear would come in and take them back to the cave! Even when they’re in fucking Kanto, it managed to swoop in and take them back to the cave. Team Rocket even DEFEATED Ash in a battle and had the perfect opportunity to take the twerp’s Pikachu. But no, Bewear came in and swooped them up! These pokemon were fun to watch this entire series! This was definitely an improvement from the last few seasons. Seriously, I can’t even remember what pokemon Jessie and James had during BW!

BIG TEAM BATTLE: Just like in Unova, Team Rocket ended up getting more attention than the antagonists of Alola. Except here, it’s a little more accepting. It’s just that in Alola, was there really a big team to cause major havoc with world-shaking consequences? Technically, the Aether Foundation wasn’t the big bad team and Team Skull was just a bunch of angsty punks. Regardless, there were two arcs with something epic happening.

The first of course was opening the wormhole and discovering the Ultra Beasts. And in almost the same fashion as the game, Lillie and the rest have to go and rescue her mother from the Ultra Beasts (because Lusamine got taken over by one). Only difference is that game Lusamine wanted to use this power. Anime Lusamine pushed her children out of the way so they wouldn’t get taken away. We did get some great moments with Ash doing a new Z-move with Pikachu, Nebby evolving, and Lillie’s relationship with her mother become stronger.

The second big battle was with Necrozma. Now this one heavily involved Team Rocket as Giovanni disbatched several other members including his assistant Matori and some eye-patch gorilla to try and get this pokemon. However after this incident, we never see Giovanni try to get his hands on this pokemon again or talk about it again. Even when he makes a big foreshadowy deal when he dialed Nanu about it! But in this arc, a mysterious power throughout Alola was making all of the adults listless and lazy. And it was up to Ash and the other kids to get to the bottom of this strange phenomenom.

ENDING – POKEMON LEAGUE: Yeah, this league was going to be different. In the Alolan League, just about anyone can join this certain Pokemon League, as long as you have a Z-crystal, it’s all good. Well, Alola has never had a Pokemon League, which is sort of like what was in the game. So Professor Kukui decided to put this dream into an action and now Alola will hold its first ever Pokemon League! So expect to see the entire cast compete! I’m not kidding!

From the get-go I was worried since Ash’s team here in Alola is pitifully underdeveloped compared to past arcs. And if he were to fight, he’d probably lose to Gladion or Guzma! But since the first task was to knock 151 competitors down to 16, we all know Ash was going to survive this trial. Now in past league competitions and even Pokemon Contests, thinning a big number down would take some time like an episode or two. Here, IT’S A FUCKING FREE-FOR-ALL BATTLE! Trainers coming at you from all angles and you can only use one pokemon! It’s like a mini-game from Mario Party it was that crazy!

The 16 trainers that made the cut are all trainers we know! They all had at least 1 debut episode prior to this moment. So no surprise bastards like Tobias to muck things up! The sixteen competitors are Ash, Mallow, Lillie, Lana, Kiawe, Sophocles, Jessie, James, Faba, Aceorla, Mina, Ilima, Guzma, Hau, Gladion, and Samson Oak! Unbelievable! The entire main cast, Team Rocket, trial people in the games, the head of Team Skull, the island heartthrob, Ash’s two main rivals, and a freakin’ Oak! We could not make this up!

From the Top 8, we wind up with Ash, Guzma, Hau, Gladion, James, Sophocles, Kiawe, and Lana advancing. These next battles had some pretty decent moments including James trying to hold his own against Gladion, Lana and Primarina trying to survive a poisonous dick move from Guzma, and action-packed moments with Kiawe and Sophocles.

…

…

I don’t want to talk about it. NO, I DON’T! NO ONE WANTS TO TALK ABOUT ASH’S BATTLE WITH HAU! First of all, their rivalry only expands to like two episodes. One episode prior to the league and the rest during the league! You’re just butt-fucking us on this sweet little cinnamon roll. I know the anime really wants to stand out on its own by not giving us awesome rivals that we get in the games like Cheren or Brendan, but God-forbid if you give them some awesome moments before you have them get beaten by Ash and sent back to wherever the fuck they came from! And this battle is just an insult of every level!

I know Ash has been known to pull off some stupid moments in his day when it comes to pokemon battles. He’d put a clear type-disadvantage against a powerhouse pokemon. He’d put all his faith in one pokemon and if it failed, absolutely fuck all. And most common of all, have one of his non-evolved pokemon go up against a fully evolved pokemon. We get the latter when Ash’s insomniac-stricken bird, Rowlet, go up against Hau’s fully-evolved Decidueye. But before the battle, we get some last minute training in done by Toucannon and its bird-kin. You’ve got to be the stupidest mother fu…Forget it, you’re just wasting your breath! Well, it’s because Rowlet is DETERMINED so that gives the green flag to fight in Ash Ketchum’s book.

You stupid fucking idi…

During the fight, Ash and Hau did use their Z-moves early on and both did little to no damage to either one. But it’s freakin’ clear that Hau’s Decidueye is clearly more trained. That’s why the two birds duked it out to a point of both of them being close to knocked out. But in the end, Nanu calls the battle for Decidueye because it got up first. AND ASH LOST!

…Or did he?

No, upon further inspection, ROWLET WAS FUCKING ASLEEP! God, no! No! Good fucking God, what were you writers thinking? You’re trolling us again, aren’t you? Ever since the Sinnoh League, you thought it was a good idea to troll the fucking audience. Like Tobias having another legendary or Davey winning with a fucking Eevee or Ash losing to Alain. You people are fucking with us!

Long story short, Ash and Rowlet get a second chance. They win the battle. Hau cries. Moving on!

NO, WE’RE NOT MOVING ON FROM THIS SHIT! WHO THE FUCK DECIDED THIS TO HAPPEN?! A lot of us fans are still sore over that retarded call back in the Kanto League where Squirtle falling asleep was a K.O. I can’t accept this, not after all the league battles Ash has had before this. Especially the last league against Tierno, Sawyer, and Alain! They are probably watching you and facepalming. Bonnie is laughing at you! Lysandre is calling you a dickhead from beyond the grave! Serena tore up a picture of Ash and went lesbian! Okay, that didn’t really happen. But this episode got me so fucking twisted I find myself eating thunder and shitting out lightening.

And now with Lana’s defeat by Guzma, we’re now in the final four. So…huh…um, new category! I know this is where I’m supposed to talk about the ending with the league, but I feel like I should talk about this.

GENDER AND LEAGUE PLACEMENT: Is it just me or are most competitors and even winners of these things majority male? It’s unknown who won the Kanto League. Johto went to some douchebag no one remembers. Hoenn was won by Tyson. Sinnoh went to Trollbias. Unova went to Davey. And Kalos went to NOT ASH…Alain! And even in the top 4 and 8 sometimes, it’s all men. I really don’t want to put the pussy hat on and claim unfairness to a show I’ve been watching for over 20 years, but…putting Lana up against someone we all know is going to go to the semi-finals…come on man! I probably should have questioned some gender stuff especially with that princess crap in Kalos where it was most, if not all female. But Pokemon Leagues are usually coed! It’s just that prior to Lana, the only other girls I remember competiting in past leagues were Katie from AG and Astrid from XY. Maybe I’m making too much out of it.

BACK TO THE LEAGUE: Thankfully the semi-finals fights were great (compared to that bullshit Hau/Ash match I wish would die). Gladion and Kiawe bro-downed with their match! Guzma learned the hard way of being defeated in the semi-finals by a twerp. Guzma, you may be older than Ash, but Ashy-boy has been defeated so many times in this position it’s not even funny. So the finals were a three-on-three match between Ash and Gladion.

Ash got some good traction with his newly evolved pokemon Melmetal. Gladion was able to put his father’s pokemon, Zoroark into good use. And there was even a double knockout near the end. But somehow, we knew it would go back to a finale of Lycanroc vs. Lycanroc. And this was a nail-bitter. Who the heck knows who was going to end up victorious?

…Actually, a certain publication leaked the result three days before the episode aired…

I fucking hate the internet sometimes.

So Ash won…

*CRAZY-ASS APPLAUSE TIME*

You’d think Jesus “Tap Dancing” Christ rose from the dead with how crazy this was. The internet lost it because after the Kalos League’s close-call and Sinnoh’s B.S. match against the legendaries, they saw this as Ash’s staple in becoming a Pokemon Master. Whatever…

WHAT NEXT?!: Actually, much like what happened after Alain won the Pokemon League, the ceremony was quickly interrupted by the appearance of the gluttenous Ultra Beast, Guzzlord. And it took the power of everyone’s Z-Crystal to get rid of this beast. However, at the end of this powerful battle, Ash and everyone else learned a shocking secret of Professor Kukui.

Kukui is really Alola’s most famous battler, Masked Royal!

Well now that the Delcatty’s out of the bag, might as well have Kukui actually go up against Ash in a six-on-six match. NOW THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT! This was one hell of a match, spanning over three episodes (it was that bad-ass). Kukui’s got one hell of a line-up featuring pokemon from nearly every region. Now because of a certain battle, seeing Rowlet take out one of Kukui’s finest kinda pisses me off. But the biggest fights came from Incenaroar and Torracat. Because they fought, not one, not two, but THREE times! And their bout ended with Ash’s Torracat evolving and a double knockout! OH MY GOD, HOW COULD THIS GET ANY BETTER?!

In comes Tapu-Koko! He said, “Fuck your sixth pokemon, Kukui. I wanna battle this boy I’ve been stalking since 2016!” Yeah, we get one major fight between one of the Tapus and Ash’s Naganadel and Pikachu (and whatever pokemon that isn’t dead) and believe it or not, Ash won! He defeated all of Kukui’s pokemon AND Tapu-Koko. He’s seriously out-doing everything he’s ever done from XYZ! Even going above and beyond with Pikachu by doing a solid reference to Dragon Ball Z…You all know what they referenced.

So Ash, you just won the Pokemon League, you defeated your mentor, you took out one of the island deities, what are you gonna do next?

I’M GOING TO DISNEYLA…PALLET TOWN!

Yeah, I would choose that too Ash. Only for different and hornier reasons! Actually, Ash gave a lot of thought to what was next. Not only him, but everybody in his class! The biggest one of course was Lillie as she has been reading up on her father’s old journals and trying to figure out that gift he left her as a baby before he disappeared. I still can’t believe he got her quite a rare pokemon like Magerna. But Magerna has been a husk until Lillie took care of it and now it’s freakin’ mobil. Back to Ash, it wasn’t really until he fought Kiawe in a post-match fight that he buckled down on what he wants to do next. And I think Olivia mentioning traveling kinda sparked Ash for his next journey.

And wouldn’t you know it, Team Rocket at the same time gets word from Giovanni to pack their shit up and return to Kanto. Mimikyu in its satanic fashion tries to take out Pikachu one last time. But it failed, almost drowned in the water, and was then SAVED by the very Pokemon it’s tried to kill the last 145 episodes. Okay, vendetta over, later bitches. Team Rocket ended up leaving Maernie and Mimikyu in the dead of night. And Bewear promised to watch after them in their absence and gave us something we haven’t seen since this show began…a proper blast off! Team Rocket blasted off once more. I’m feeling quite nostalgic because it’s been a while.

Hey, I just realized. What happened to Jigglypu-

WHO CARES!

Okay then, I’ll probably see it in another 10 years.

Lillie decided to go off with her mother and brother to travel. Lusamine handed over her responsibilities to Rotomdex. And on the day of Lillie’s departure, she ends up almost in the same fashion as Serena’s goodbye (but thankfully we’re on a boat and she can’t do any last-minute smooches). Lillie remembered all that Ash has done for her and how much she’s grown, so she gives him a very earnest “Thank You”. Now for Ash’s goodbye to his host family! Now I’ve pretty much heard and seen the internet cherish this cute bond between Kukui, Burnet, and Ash. And yeah, it’s pretty genuine! Whenever we get an opening scene of them in Kukui’s home, they’re usually doing something family-ish. And they’re definitely going to miss that! Poor Burnet was even crying!

On Ash’s flight back to Pallet Town, he looks out the window and sees his friends giving him one final farewell as they fly through the skies with their partner pokemon.

In the aftermath we see, Sophocles leaving to go with his cousin, Mallow’s older brother returning home, Shaymin transforming into its flying form (yes, flying away leaving Mallow), Kiawe is doing some training with Olivia, Lana traveling with her father to fish for a mythical pokemon, Hau taking on Nanu in a grand trial, Team Skull just hanging there, Bewear looking after Maernie and Mimikyu, Lusamine traveling with the kids, and something that shocked the shit out of me! Even though I called it in the back of my mind!

We close out the episode with Kukui and Burnet sitting together and...

WHAT THE WHAT?!

NANI?

NANI THE FUCK?

IS THAT A BABY BUMP?! It is. It freakin’ is! God I hope Ash didn’t walk in on them having sex. Don’t be silly Medea, they probably conceived this child when Ash was either training or having a sleepover. Truthfully, I say they did the nasty when Ash, Kiawe, and Sophocles spent the night in the woods training.

OOH, BETTER IMAGE! They did roleplaying during sex and Kukui wore the Masked Royal mask! Just let me have this moment guys. I really enjoy frolicking in my gutter mind!

Oh and closing message, “and your dreams!”

I seriously hope the English dub keeps the end credits to this. They have a lousy reputation of skimping on things like that. They even skipped the photo scene at the end of BW. Please for crap’s sake, keep the ending scenes!

Yes, in the back of my mind I thought Sun and Moon would be radical and give us a pregnant Burnet. I knew this would happen sometime after that wedding episode a year and a half ago. But then a few weeks before the Sun and Moon finale, I wound up dreaming about Kiawe’s mother pregnant and she was wearing the exact same dress Burnet is wearing in the final scene. Sometimes my dreams can be fucking spooky and spot-on at the same time.

WOW-EE-WOWEE-WOW-WOW! Okay, um. Some thoughts! This anime gave me such a huge slump during a lot of it. I cannot lie. There was a long period of time where I was just disinterested in Sun and Moon. And seeing how other people were (especially those who were staunch XYZ fans) yeah I can see that. One big, annoying factor was once again, the animation. Yeah, you whiny bitches complaining BW Ash was the worst? You owe that one an apology! Because this Ash looks nothing like the past 5 Ash’s! And they tried this comedic style that won on some parts and failed in other departments. Though, spot-on whenever we get a Jojo’s reference! There were episodes that were just absolute MEH. And this is coming from the same person who sat through all the fillers in Johto, MORE THAN ONCE! And I had some severe reservations about seeing a main cast this huge trying to get some character growth. I had absolutely no expectations for anyone and thought they were gonna serve as dead weight (except for Kiawe and Lana).

Once again, I’m glad to see my expectations are blown away. There has been massive character development and they managed to hit all the main characters and even some of the minor ones. Lillie especially has blossomed throughout the series. As a girl who was afraid of Pokemon, I am impressed at how far she’s come. She was able to overcome her fear of pokemon eventually, hatch a pokemon from an egg, excel the power of Z-moves, bring back to life a rare/mythical pokemon, and even make it to the top 16 of the Alolan League. While Lana is still my best girl of this season, Lillie is definitely a wonder to behold. Sophocles, I had the littlest of hope or care for him. I still am not a fan of him really, but when you see this boy overcome certain anxieties, hurdles, and one sad moment involving the meteorite pokemon, you see he’s a pretty solid character.

And then there’s Mallow…Dammit! So I just realized as I’m wrapping up Sun and Moon.

One of the biggest things I saw was “Family”. And seeing as Alola is a take on Hawaii and one of the biggest things people pride theirselves upon is family, this totally makes sense. In Sun and Moon, we saw a lot of different kinds of families. Small ones like Sophocles. Bigger ones like Kiawe and Lana. Families that have had their own share of heartache like Mallow and Lillie. Ones that end up starting like Kukui and Burnet! Hala and Hau’s little relationship. And even families that are reunited like Bewear and Stuffel! These particular moments and episodes were ones that touched me in a way only Miyazaki can reach. Particularly Mallow’s story! I already mentioned this in the saddest moment category, but Mallow with her deceased mother is one of the best character growth episodes in Pokemon history. Up until that point, we’ve seen Mallow pretty perky, a good cook, and a supportive friend, especially to Ash, Lana, and Lillie. But then we get hit with this one story that no one expected. And now, let’s discuss Ash in this part! We got to see Ash settle in with a second family life with Kukui and Burnet. I mean let’s face it, all the other places Ash traveled he would roam from town to town. Here in Alola, it’s like Kukui was the father he never had and Burnet was like a second mother. And I suppose they felt like Ash was a son to them. So quite fitting they wound up having a baby after his departure.

And it wasn’t just the humans that have grown, but their pokemon too! Many of Ash and his friends’s pokemon were able to grow and shatter all expectations. Two of Ash’s pokemon especially deserve that praise and that’s Lycanroc and Incenaroar. Back when Lycanroc was a Rockruff, he always strived to get stronger. And in later episodes, it looked up to other Lycanroc like Olivia’s and Gladion’s. Then it evolved and it’s been quite the journey to try and train this doggo to it’s full potential. And because this is one of Ash’s pokemon, this has gotta be a one-of-a-kind pokemon (dusk form). Well Lycanroc has overcome some tough obstacles (yes, including bearing through getting dirty) and went on to be one of Ash’s top pokemon.

Litten, THANKFULLY didn’t have a dickhead trainer abusing him like many of Ash’s other fire-type pokemon. But Litten’s story was far from perfect as it was a stray cat pokemon living on the streets with an old Stoutland. And Ash took in Litten after Stoutland passed away. Litten was a pretty decent member of Ash’s team, but definitely got the fire in his eyes when he saw Masked Royal and Incenaroar. That encouraged Litten throughout the series to get stronger. Even leading to one of the best fights during Kukui and Ash’s match! Good doggo, good kitty!

Oh yeah, probably should talk about the battles! Unlike the other gyms up to this point, Ash went through Grand Trials (just like you would in the game). Except Ash really didn’t do that many of those mini trials since Kiawe, Lana, Mallow, and Sophocles were his classmates and not giving out tests! But Ash still wound up battling the big kahunas like Hala, Olivia, Nanu, and Hapu. And in the old Ash fashion, there were battles he won like a champ, ones where he’d have to try again, and ones where he got supremely lucky. Yeah, that Ash vs. Hapu match was such bullshit. But I’d still take that match over Ash vs. Hau in the Alolan League!

I will NEVER get over that match. Yeah aside from that travesty, a lot of the Pokemon League matches were pretty stellar, even the ones not involving Ash. I really enjoyed Sophocles vs. Kiawe and the Lana vs. Mallow match.

LET’S LOOK BACK AT MY HIGH HOPES: At the end of Pokemon XY, I made a nice list of things I would like to see. Did any of my high hopes come to fruition? Let’s see…

First of all, NO, I DID NOT SEE MY ANIME HUSBAND! For fuck’s sake Pokemon! If Snorlax exists at the Oak lab, Tracey Sketchit should too. They both came from the same arc. But NO! He’s not at the lab and doesn’t even get a mention. That is messed up! I don’t know if this is because they couldn’t get Tomokazu Seki to stop playing Gilgamesh for a second to come back or they’re trying to distance themselves from the Orange Islands as much as possible, or if they just FORGOT his existence, but I’m not digging this. No, Medea hates this with a holy fucking passion.

Old characters returning under this new style! Yeah, it happened. I think I was only a fan of how the women looked, so Misty and Delia looked okay to me. I just wasn’t a fan of Professor Oak and Brock. Although, kudos to the anime for having Brock take his shirt off and show off his six-pack. DAMN BOY! The animation ended up staying the same throughout the series, but I managed to tolerate/muscle through it.

I know I forgot to write this part, but I really wanted Kukui to remain single for the series. Yeah, that fell at the waist-side! Kukui was single…but then he got married. Okay, I can accept it. That was the cutest proposal, I have to admit that. And I was howling when I saw pregnant Burnet at the end. So alls well that ends well!

Let’s see, Lusamine wasn’t voiced by Miki Itou like I wanted. Then again, this Lusamine wasn’t a psycho bitch. Although kudos for getting Nobuhiko Okamato voicing Gladion. I am forever happy with that outcome.

Did I get more Clefables? FUCK YEAH, I DID! Holy shit, I forgot Lusamine had a Clefable in the games and didn’t even think the anime was going to keep that, but HOLY SHIT THEY DID AND I’M SO HAPPY! Not only that but we were able to see Clefable every so often. It’s so adorable. I just wanna hug her!

Lillie’s egg of course wasn’t Cosmog, it was Alolan Vulpix. Cosmog can’t be hatched. It just magically appears. Hey, cute choice though!

Did Ash catch a psychic pokemon? Uhhhhhhh…no! Still no psychic type.

Did I see Wicke and Olivia, fuck yeah I did! Wicke is adorable especially when she bosses Faba around. My only thing with Olivia is that, I wish the anime didn’t make her into a clumsy oaf the whole time. My God, she tripped more times than Bianca did during Best Wishes. That’s sad! Now her being the object of Brock’s eye, that I wasn’t expecting. I’m wondering if Brock will keep in contact with Olivia or if he’s moved onto another booty-call of the day.

Overall, it was a bumpy start for me to get into Sun and Moon. But it wasn’t until we got to important things like the Aether Foundation, Mallow’s mother, and Guzma’s debut that got me back fully invested. I know it’s damn near impossible to convince staunch XYZ fans to watch this, but give it a shot for the stories. The animation is just so undoable after what XY has given us, but still.

Currently, most (if not all) episodes of Sun and Moon dubbed will be available on Hulu, Netflix, Pokemon TV, and Disney XD. Yeah, no one has gotten around to giving us legal subtitled episodes sad to say. Here’s hoping Disney XD will continue holding onto the Pokemon license as they happen to be the ONLY one that literally has all episodes available. On the channel, they still kinda restrict themselves to only playing the current season, but sometimes we get lucky with the movies.

MORE HIGH HOPES: Okay, new high hopes for the new Pokemon series, Pokemon…um, 2019? Seriously guys, what’s up with this cryptic-ass series?

*Signs that Tracey Sketchit exists. Just show him at Oak’s lab or somewhere in this series. That’s all I ask. I will even swallow my pride and allow him to be at the Waterflower Slut Brigade in Cerulean. Just please, for the love of Arceus, show him to me. That flash in the 20th movie does not settle me. Give him to me, now! Don’t care how, I WANT IT NOW! I am the Veruca Salt of seeing Tracey again.

*Aside from Tracey, and seriously show him to me already…If at possible, update on May and Iris. Everyone else can go fuck off! These two deserve an update if Ash is doing this around the world adventure with his new boy-toy Gou. I know it may be difficult to get their voice actors back as I’m sure Aoi Yuuki’s schedule is insane and Kaori has an illness preventing her from voicing. Still! Something from those two…AND ONLY THOSE TWO FEMALES! I’m sick of Misty popping in without giving us what we want. Dawn and Serena need to go to the Pokemon version of Antartica until 2030. And unless Mallow, Lana, and Lillie make a shocking discovery, I don’t want to see them for a few years.

*CLEFABLES! Okay, yeah, that goes without saying!

*YAMPER or as I call him, Winston Corgles Ein Handbanana the Breadloaf must be seen at least once every two episodes.The opening theme doesn’t count. I want to see Winston Corgles Ein Handbanana the Breadloaf.

*Eventually spend some time in Galar and fight gym battles there. I know the Pokemon anime wants to take a sharp left turn into WTF territory, but sometimes don’t mess with the status quo and have Ash take on some gyms. Mmkay?!

*If Team Rocket and Giovanni really have to show up again, could we PLEASE finally get Ariana, Archer, Petrel, and Proton to be in the anime? Or as my friend calls them, the Stupid Sexy Rocket Execs!

*And while we’re at it, could we get an arc in this series where Ash goes to the Battle Tower in Sinnoh?

*Give James a Galarian Weezing.

*Rica Matsumoto must eventually sing an OP theme for this series. Goes without saying!

*Give Ash a Psychic type.

*I know nobody ages in this show, but please don’t keep Burnet pregnant forever. Also, if Ash decides to visit Kukui and Burnet again, I wanna see their baby.

Final category (I promise)!

IN MEMORIUM: I would like to close my review to Pokemon: Sun & Moon to talk about a certain voice that has been at the center of the Pokemon anime from day one. That was Unshou Ishizuka. If you watched the Japanese version of Pokemon, chances are you have heard this man’s voice in any episode you watch. Whether as Professor Oak or the narrator! Not only those two, but voiced Alder in the Black/White series, Samson Oak in the Sun/Moon series, several versions of the Pokedex, Magikarp Salesman, and many notable pokemon including Misty’s Gyarados, Cilan’s Stunfisk, Dawn’s Mamoswine, Ash’s Muk, Brock’s Onix/Steelix, and even Tracey’s Scyther. In August 2018, he passed away from Esophagus Cancer. So losing someone of this caliber is a huge hit to Pokemon.

I didn’t start watching the Japanese version religiously until 2006 (right around the time the dub murdered eardrums). But I was able to hear him as Onix and Gyarados early on because they had the same voice throughout the entire series run in English. But I had a lot of fun listening to him as Professor Oak when I switched to the Japanese version.  Not to mention his other roles outside the Pokemon series including Mr. Satan in the later Dragon Ball series and Grandpa Joestar on JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. I seriously miss him. May he rest in peace.

[earthenterran]

(higurashi sotsu post ep 4) thoughts on satoko, yes *again*

I guess a thought I’ve had for a bit now... so a thing I’ve mentioned before is that Satoko has been.... essentially duped into this right?

Eua started the looping. She called Satoko in, she told her what was what, and then set Satoko on this course of spiraling for entertainment purposes.

With no one else to really talk to but the god that put you in this position... with the freedom of consequence from the worlds you travel and the promise of the life you want if you just dedicate yourself to this.... it’s not surprising for Satoko to fall down and do just that.

But the thought that’s been in the back of my mind that I’ve had a hard time to put down: Satoko.... could’ve been any of the higurashi kids. And I mean, specifically in that.... anyone susceptible to HS (so ig not Mion but everyone else).

Like, sure the story tells us she’s been ‘cured’ which I’ve stated before I don’t really believe. And even if she technically doesn’t have it there can be side effects that lingers. I’ve put it in another post of mine but its stated by Irie in Minagoroshi (the VN at least)

‘once a patient reaches L5 state like Satoko-chan has, it’s easy for them to re-experience hallucinations, similar to a patient suffering from flashbacks. those technically aren’t caused by the disease, but the normal defense mechanisms cultivated in the brain.’

Her brain’s not the same as it would be if she never had HS, nor if she never reached L5.

Anyway, I was thinking about how this could’ve been someone else. Like, imagine Eua grabbing Shion from Meakashi? Give that Shion looping powers, see what she does with them.

Satoko is falling deeper and deeper. It’s awful to see what she’s doing. But they’ve all been capable of it before. Keiichi and Rena and Shion. And Satoko too, before all this, with her parents.

Now part of the suggestion (idk how to phrase this) is that in the worlds when these murders were committed are where this group of friends lose their happy ending. But... it’s also not entirely true.

Grief happens, and it can change you completely, but you can also heal and live again (like we get the world where Keiichi and Mion go and hang out in the ‘bad end’ for Meakashi, if you removed the Takano element they could’ve lived with their grief along with Rena but also found ways to be happy as well).

Rena believed in Keiichi to the very end in Onikakushi.

Keiichi believed in Rena in Tsumihoroboshi, and got the rest of everyone else rallied behind her as well.

Rena and Keiichi wanted to believe in who they thought was Mion in Watanagashi/Meakashi.

Their belief in each other, even when it should be impossible. And their bad ends... they’re carried over. Even if Onikakushi Keiichi murders his friends, that experience follows the Keiichi of other worlds where he would never do that, but he still carries the weight of that life.

Unfortunately Satoko is being carried world from world. She doesn’t get to be reset. Placed in a environment, encouraged to traumatize her friends, promised a reward for doing so, added in with her own history of trauma and no room/resources to manage any of it.

As impossible as it might be, if anyone would forgive it, it would be her friends. Rika, Keiichi, Mion, Rena, Shion.... I think they would fight for her.

(in regards to the idea that the group will be split: I don’t think it’ll be so much a ‘whos side are they on’ vs like.... ‘what approach they might follow to stopping the conflict’)

Rika grabbing Satoko’s hand in the OP of Sotsu. Pulling her from the darkness.

‘People can’t live without hope’.