#we plan to watch this gacha series he's obsessed with

[tfshouldidohere]

just drove to and arrived at my cousin's house, watch me merge with his floors

[canmom]

Animation Night 60: FATE

Or to be precise: Fate/Stay Night: Heaven’s Feel!

It’s Animation Night no. 60, a big old milestone! Six tens and you’re all still lining up for me to pour anime into your eyeballs. Wild.

So what’s the plan? Tonight, we’ll be watching some of the biggest anime film series in recent years: the Ufotable adaptation of the Heaven’s Feel route of the eroge visual novel Fate/Stay Night as a trilogy of anime films.

No, come back! I promise it’s good!

So. Fate, and the broader ‘nasuverse’ such as Tsukihime, is a sprawling franchise, replete with word salad titles like Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya. Where do you begin? I suspect if you’ve heard anything about it it’s 1. king arthur is a girl lol and 2. “people die when they are killed”. Or maybe you know a weeb who’s obsessed with the Fate gacha game. Perhaps you’ve heard about ‘most famous anime trap’ Astolfo (who’s from the gacha game). But like... what actually is it?

To give the basic pitch, the Fate series depicts ruthless wizards summoning instances of historical and mythological figures in a ritualised fight for the Holy Grail, a nigh-omnipotent wish-granting magic artefact. The main character, Shirou Emiya, is (get this...) a high-school boy (no way) who finds himself unexpectedly drawn into the wizard battle after he accidentally summons a powerful Servant called Saber - ‘King’ Arthur, who is in this universe, was actually a girl.

From there... things get very complicated, but in short the wizards enact various complicated schemes to kill each other and their servants, we learn more about the conspiracies afoot in every direction, alliances are made and formed, and eventually after the cast thins out, we find out about the horrible secrets of the Grail.

The original Fate/Stay Night was an eroge visual novel by the pseudonymous author Kinoku Nasu, co-founder of Type Moon - a doujin circle turned full-fledged studio. This is to say, the sprawling storyline full of intricately cross-referenced lore, wide-ranging mythological allusions, and elaborate magic systems was initially ‘just’ a porn game.

Whether the eroge succeeds as a work of erotica, I can’t say, since I’ve encountered it exclusively in adaptations... but the general sense I’ve receved from people who have read it is ‘not at all’ and a general sense of feeling sorry for people who might have bought on that basis. But Fate became wildly popular all the same, even more so than Nasu’s previous novel Tsukihime... enough to launch a massive media franchise, especially when it became a gacha game. But more on that later.

As with most VNs, it’s a game with multiple routes: Shirou can get with one of three characters, and each one takes him to a different ending...

in the ‘Fate’ route, it’s Saber herself. they have to fuck for magic reasons or something.

in the ‘Unlimited Blade Works’ route, it’s wizard girl Rin Tohsaka, who is from an old and evil wizard family but herself one of the more well-adjusted characters

in the ‘Heaven’s Feel’ route, it’s a different wizard girl, Sakura Matou, whose magical abilities are augmented by the efforts of her abusive wizard dad’s nasty worm rituals

The eroge was given a light novel prequel, Fate/Zero, written by Gen Urobuchi of Madoka fame. This focuses on a character who would eventually become to be Shirou’s adoptive dad, the cunning utilitarian Kiritsugu Emiya, in a previous round of the Grail War. I’ll talk more about that in a minute.

Got all that? ...yeah that’s just a blizzard of names isn’t it. Don’t worry, the film will introduce it more gently! Let’s talk about anime...

The first brave souls to attempt turning Nasu’s massive novel into animation were Studio Deen. They took on a version of the story consisting primarily of the ‘Fate’ route, but with elements borrowed from the others. Unfortunately, their version was... not a huge success, remembered mostly for janky lines like the above and poor animation. I haven’t seen it, but I’m told it’s the most insufferable depiction of Shirou, and generally even extreme fans of the franchise (such as this guy) seem to suggest giving it a miss.

The second attempt came at the hands of the renowned studio Ufotable, who first took on adapting Fate/Zero in 2011-12; their interpretation proved a hit, and they followed it up in short order with an adaptation of the Unlimited Blade Works route; this pair is so far my entire exposure to the franchise, and they form a pretty good story in their own right.

Ufotable is now just over 20, and kVin (of course, who else?) has a detailed retrospective on the studio’s life here. Founded as a small studio in 2000 by Hikaru Kondo and a group of experienced anime industry workers in several departments, it grew around a vision of a studio prizing cross-discipline work:

his dream was a studio where creators could gather around a table and, regardless of their standing and specialty, have a say in a very diverse array of activities—“the more you do, the more likely you are to do something well” being his amusing motto

Kondo is elsewhere described as an outright ideologue, and he has a little of a chequered reputation now after he got done for tax evasion; but for better or worse he’s the personality most defining this studio. His first engagement with Nasu’s work was an extremely ambitious seven-film adaptation with The Garden of Sinners; with Fate/Zero they settled down into a pattern of lavishly adapting high-profile works, with Fate being one of the biggest. With Ufotable (when a project goes well) you can expect the flashiest compositing tricks, rigorous and expressive key animation, and all kinds of striking shots and setpieces...

So that brings us to tonight’s movie trilogy, Heaven’s Feel! These movies took on the last route of the VN, and with the time and budget of a film production, they can push that fancy animation even further. You can read about some of the names involved here (where would I be without you kVin?) for the first film...

As noted above, this is Sakura’s route; one in which Saber gets possessed by evil powers so the main Servant character is ‘Rider’, i.e. the life-draining witch Medusa... and thus, the one where we finally get a confrontation with Kotomine, the sinister priest who runs the Grail War. In the meantime: lots of character drama and astonishingly choreographed and effects-rich fight scenes key animated by people like Nozumu Abe and Hironori Tanaka.

But also, well. Focusing on a character like Sakura takes the story to some pretty dark places, and I’ve been advised the second movie especially involves some ecchi moments - by which I mean, iirc, lavishly animated bodily fluids and a lot of stuff involving worms - that might be rather uncomfortable! So I’m taking a bit of a risk showing this; I think if we could handle Made in Abyss we can probably handle this, but I’m definitely not going to throw us in without a bit of warning.

I’ve gone to the trouble of pulling down the fansubber recommended 34GB encode of these movies which took several hours... you can witness a fierce debate in the comments section here about the best ways to filter grain and whether honorifics make these ‘cancer subs’, as is typical of nyaa, but passion begets commitment to really fancy subtitling I guess. Of course I’m then going to absolutely murder this beautiful encode by cramming it through real time Twitch! I’m terribly sorry.

Anyway, I’m already over time with this writeup; we will have to save any sort of in depth thematic analysis of the Fate series for some other post. (Probably not written by me.) What I am pretty sure I can promise is that these movies should represent a kind of spectacle of all that is possible in the current era of anime, the era of the webgen and the digital composite... in every affective direction. Let’s take the plunge together! (Nasuverse nerds, this is your time to shine. Make sure we understand what we’re missing out on by jumping in at totally the wrong place!)

Animation Night 60 is starting... right now! Head to twitch.tv/canmom, I’ll be up in just a second.

[riskeith]

good morning love! (or afternoon for you hehe)

deku vs kacchan part 2 is my favorite ep of the entire series actually. i’ve watch that ep so many times as well it’s just perfect. i got into them when i watched that episode actually! the voice acting god..... literally shivers. now that i think about it it might even be my favorite anime ep of all time help. i just love how bakugou lets it all out and we get to see that side of him.. the insecure scared child he tries to hide. god i could ramble about it forever idk just love it. OH YOU WATCHED THE MOVE RIGHT AFTER? a scene with bakugou and todoroki is guaranteed a good time.. and they work so well together. haha that’s such a nice coincidence tho their dynamic is great in that movie even if it’s mostly kiribaku sjsksjk. what do you think about kiribaku btw?

RIGHT!!! at least we have a couple days to decide hihi.... paimon no longer emergency snack.. only seelie. 🥴 oooh? what kind of thing have you envisioned? (if you wanna share ofc!)

i’ve seen so many people mention that!! like one of the worst parts of the game is that in the higher level you get the less there are to do.. ssjksjdk at some point all you can do is grind domains and try to level up shdkdfhdj

LEVEL 40 INTO A LEVEL 70+ FIGHT ok that’s honestly hilariously brave doesn’t she like die right away 😔 oh yeah you’ll be leveling up Again soon *praying for you*... can’t believe they don’t keep the easy bosses anymore sjdkfh that’s so rude. this game is just grind grind grind. WE NEED A BENNY STORY SO BADLY. like imagine a story with him wanting to seek out diluc because he wants to learn how to fight from a master or something like that. i saw it in a comic and i can’t stop thinking about it 😭 all of them deserve stories!!! there’s so many ways they could make it happen pls mihoyo... chongyun x xingqiu story... <333

shfkjdskdjhf nope right now i’m playing with noelle as my main damage dealer, traveller, lisa and barbara actually. so i think i have a pretty good balance atm.. 2 long range 2 short range-ish. i usually trade out barbara for another character if i have to tho, hehe. that’s only combat though ^ benny is with me when we explore. mood is me having a 5 star and not even using her... i still need to think of ways qiqi could fit into the group yk. is your group still looking the same as before? ooooh if you could rank the elements what would your ranking look like?

172!!!!! that’s a bit short though when you said tall i thought like... 190 or something sjksjdxk. wait how tall are You?

oh i just meant like... people bashing others for spending too much money on the game vs those that bash people for not spending money and complaining that they don’t get 5 star etc? idk yt comments can be so ugly though so it’s a good thing that you don’t read them sjdjdjdkd

that’s super smart!!! you just follow along the plan and delete when you come to the part. must feel so satisfying too i imagine. haha, what little notes i have i put in the notes app and just check up on when i need to. sometimes i even forget they’re there shdkdhsks. my notes are filled with half-assed dialogue or random one words notes that don’t make any sense to me anymore.. nskdhddjdj

you’re right!! so you write at night? sometimes i just open docs on my phone and write a bit before i sleep and when i wake up it’s either a grammatical mess or just... super bad hskshd the brain is simply too tired to create anything shakespeareian

nooo i’ll def check these out and let you know what i think. i’ve seen halsey being in pretty much every klance playlist on spotify so i imagine she portrays their vibes pretty nicely. doesn’t she have a song she sings about being blue and red or something... shdjfhdj such a bad description but i see it being used in edits a lot. also now that i think of it melanie has a song called pacify her that i really like!! do you like it?

THATS SO CUTE YOU ARE A CRYBABY. 🥺 same here tbh i actually like crying sometimes... sjskdjdjd like you said it just feels nice to get it all out. i cry to almost movie or series or book i read i’m a super emotional person but i also think it adds to the experience? you feel more immersed in it that way.

RIGHT??? ITS SO BEAUTIFUL!!! and it’s our boys 😭 and they’re cuddling 😭 under the sun 😭 ssjdjdhdjdj 😭

can’t wait to hear from you again <3 yours, ma <3

good night! more like ahhah

:o!! that’s so legendary of them wow.. <33 and yeah honestly the voice acting is phenomenal.. and all the implications behind the fight too? bakugou finally opening up? midoriya understanding that what he needs is to fight him? ugh. kiribaku is fine! fhdsjfks my brain is so full of todobaku that any other ship is really just... in the background hfskjfs but i can appreciate the relationship they have! with kiri being the only one bakugou has really acknowledged and seeing as being on the same level, that iconic hand clasp when bakugou was being rescued... i have a kiribaku fic in my drafts but idk if i can ever get to it ahha. you like them a lot right?

ikkk also i didn’t know we had to wait until the very end to buy? i have more than enough to buy it rn but when i clicked it said ‘must explore area 14 first’ and i was just... bruh. AHAHAH. okay so in my mind it’s like.. chongyun at a funky angle we’re kinda looking up at him and his body is like bent down towards us fhsdkjs idk how to describe it but i can picture it very well but i also cannot put it to paper/screen. and then his clothes are just black instead of white! HAHAH. tho i kinda wanna see if i can draw a xiao first to offer up to the gacha gods hfsdjkfs (and if i can i’ll do a version w a dark outfit too for u hehe)

legitttt im literally just logging in and grinding the talent domains every day fhsdkjfhskfhjd there are some artifacts i want as well but the domain is literally SO difficult for me fuck.

i just go in and use her skill then heal a bit and switch right away fhsdkjfsd it going alright! and then i go ham with my other 3 charas and switch back to her to heal again fhskfjd. OMGGG that’s so cute please... i miss diluc too... come back!! i wish we had a way to replay the old quests even if we get nothing out of them like i just wanna experience it again ya know.

oooo! that’s pretty nice. hfskjd you could switch barbara out for qiqi! since she’s a healer as well. omg wait you have lumine right? so your combat team has no males? legendary 😩 we love fighting queens! ya! traveller, chongyun, xiangling, fischl. and then i switch depending on the domain/boss i’m gonna fight. hmm elements I think would go: anemo, cryo, electro, pyro, hydro, geo, dendro? LMAO i reckon if i had diluc tho pyro would be higher... i also almost forgot to add geo to that list lmaooooooo oops, hbu??

I JUST SAW THE LINK.... AAAAAAAAAAAAH!!! the bestest boys look how cute they’re sjdkfjdjjdd i’m obsessed. the picture where benny has his back turned sjdudjdjddnd stop. 🥺 they’re so neat. 🥺 also NO ARE YOU SERIOUS? that’s so upsetting are you gonna try it out nonetheless or do you think it’s too risky?

they’re SO neat!!! and bennett facing the other way was so fhskjfd yeah cute <3333333 I KNOWWW IM SO SAD :((( and no...... im not gonna try 😭😭😭 i told my brother about it too and he asked how many rolls i was at and i said 70 and he was straight up ‘you can’t try then’ and i was like ‘i know 😔😔’. @ xiao... i am giving up xingqiu rate up for you 😤😤😤😤 ugh i hope i can still get xingqiu in xiao’s banner tho even tho the chances will be shit. are you gonna roll ganyu’s banner?

FHSKJFSD NOOOOOO don’t tell me 172 is average for you wtf... (apparently the average male height in japan is 160cm! for reference ahah) and i myself am. one hundred and. fifty something cm hfsdjfhskjdfhskdjfhw9uehdsifhwsdkjfhsdkfhsd 😔 big sighs lmaoooooooo. how tall are you? (im assuming much taller 😔😔😔😔😔)

ooh notes app? nice ahaha. fhdkjfhskfsk hdthat’s the mood tho! if i don’t have my laptop with me i’ll write out everything on notes first then transfer to my laptop~

AHAHAH yeahhh i think mostly i do? bc during school times i’ll only write after i’m done with my work which = night time. for a while Peak writing time for me was like 1am lmfao but i do that in a like half-asleep half-conscious state so when i come back the next day at a “normal” time i run into the same issue as you fshdfkjshfs

she does!!! it’s called colours 😩 but i think the one i related to voltron most is control! there was this really good shiro edit with that song i still remember it to this day <3 yeah i do!!! i like most of melanie’s songs actually ahahah. i think my favourite for a while was show and tell~

it totally does!! like it’s satisfying as well you know... like the characters have gone through so much and you experienced that with them so it’s natural to get emotional about it. that reminds me, what kind of books do/did you read? did you read all Those YA novels ahah talking about crying has reminded me how i cried reading those..

<333 i wanna be there with them 😩 actually no i want to BE them 😩😩😩

eager for your response <33 love, c.r.

[cutiecrates]

Cutie Reviews: Gacha Gacha Crate Sept 19

With this box it’s officially been a year that Gacha Gacha Crate began! Unfortunately they didn’t make any note of that so I feel a little disappointed they didn’t do anything special for it- not only that, but I actually didn’t like this box. I liked maybe 1 or 2 things in it and that is it. This review will probably be skimpier than the August one because of that, and I do plan on giving impute, I’ll just be leaving out the ratings.

But before I begin I wanted to address this so that I don’t sound like an ungrateful brat; please do not let this discourage you from checking out the box. The contents are not in bad shape or low quality, it’s just that you can’t be expected to like every box you know?

Also also, in other news, TokyoCatch has began it’s early stages of testing :3 and I was one of those selected to test it! It’s a lot of fun, although we can’t really win anything yet, I’ve managed to get a handful of stuff and it’s a lot of fun just practicing. I don’t want to give too much detail right now though and risk breaching my agreement to testing, so if you’re curious in that you’ll just have to stay tuned~

For this month, the booklet features an article on Rilakkuma :3 including where he got his start, his concept and name, and his growing popularity; did you guys know he has a 3D animation out on Netflix?! If you want to learn more it’s called “Rilakkuma and Kaoru“.

Rilakkuma Figure

It’s really plain looking right? Well that’s because this is one of those build-able figures, the gachapon comes in the characters body and you just assemble it. So far I’ve gotten Donald Duck and Gengar, and now Kiiroitori- he pretty much came pre-assembled because there’s nothing else to do to him!

That’s kind of lame, but if you like him I guess it’s okay? I’m not a fan of him at all, I mean he’s a little cute but I prefer the bears.

Pokemon Keychain

This series of keychains was inspired by the remake(?) of Mewtwo Strikes Back. Besides Togepi we could get Mewtwo, Mew, Pikachu, and Dragonite, each on a thickly woven chain.

Although I won’t be using this (my phone doesn’t let me use charms on it sadly <_<), I think this is pretty cute. The paint job is pretty decent, but I do see a lot of small lining/indents and it seems the colors are a little off from their positioning. You can’t tell in the pic at all but in person it’s more obvious. I sill think it’s pretty good though.

MTV Keychain

This box is kinda obsessed with keychains don’t you think?

Anyway, this one ended up surprising me, this was definitely not something I expected to see, but because I’m a sucker for food-themed things I found it a little charming. They had a cola one though, I kind of wish I got that but this is just as nice.

This is a rubbery keychain made by Takara Tomy Arts, and each keychain is inspired by past variants of the MTV logo. When I was younger I used to watch that channel a lot, but I eventually outgrew it and it’s probably been 15 years since I watched it. I can’t say I miss it because I’ve become more into things like vocaloids and foreign music, American music doesn’t really appeal to me anymore.

Sushi Mascot

This was the only item I ended up really liking honestly, because it’s a squishy! These sushi sets focus on the various Sashimi plates one might find when preparing or eating sushi; like squish, shrimp, various fishies like tuna and salmon. I’m not a big sashimi type, I really don’t like fish at all, but I still think this is adorable~

The lid can be removed, but the rubbery-squishy pieces are stuck to the inside and can’t be removed. The detail on it is very nice, and the pieces are ultra-soft, this would be a fun item for re-ment or doll pictures. The only thing is that I noticed the little painted details on the shrimp and... whatever is next to it is a little messy. Oddly, those two are also a little sticky in comparison to the other two pieces.

Red Lantern

Red Lanterns (Akachouchin) are often strung up along traditional Japanese drinking and eating establishments and along the streets. There was a handful of possible options to obtain this set, each with their own writing, and as you can see you get 2 stickers, which I think is nice so if you lose a sheet or something would happen, you can replace them.

Also check this out

They light up like real lanterns! It’s really fun, and you can hang them up with the little loop on top of the piece. It’s a cute little thing if you like Japanese cultured items, it’s a bit too big to be used for re-ments though.

I wish we got this during summer, it would have been cute for them to do a fun summer festival themed box.

Dragonball Z Figure

Figures were also kinda hot in this box huh?

Our last item is this decent Dragonball Z figure, as usual I got Goku. I love the translucent hair, it’s neat to look at (it’s also super pointy), and it’s pretty neat for his outfit to be inverted in color. You have to assemble these but they only come in 2 or 3 pieces, plus a clear stand base that is usually a mystery as to how you use it; it took me about 5 minutes to figure it out this time.

As I said, I used to love this series but I can’t say I’m that big into it now; I’d rather get adorable things with anime girls, idols, PriPara and Aikatsu, Pretty Cure, etc... I’ll probably sell this or give it to someone I know.

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Okay guys, that will be it for this review. I know it wasn’t really a review, but I really wasn’t feeling it and I just wanted to hurry up and get through this so that I could get back on track. I’m really, REALLY hoping I like next months better...