#what I said about Britain also goes for Japan

[summerblueringo]

*cupping my hands around the mouth to yell from the other side of the continent* How do you rank the GPs of this year on a scale of 'hot chili' 🌶️ to 'not so hot chili'?

I've decided to take some cheeky inspiration from Nando's for this ;)

On to the reasonings!

Extra Hot

Singapore! The first GP I’ve watched live where my favourite driver won, and let me tell you, the feeling is amazing. We literally jumped for joy and hugged when Carlos crossed the finish line, and the DRS trick was so so spicy. Often imitated but never replicated etc etc, the only non-Red Bull victory of the season yet still a Red Bull junior, the narratives in my head appreciated it very much.

Spicy

Interlagos the iconic legend that you are, literally everything happened. The Pérez vs Fernando drag race was chef’s kiss, one of the best wheel to wheel fights I’ve seen, it was beautiful and so much fun, I hope we get more of it next year!

Monza also makes it here because of Carlos’ amazing pole that sent the tifosi’s spirits through the roof and his amazing defense against Max that reminded us that dreaming is for free and set the stage for his victory at the next race :’)

Australia was SO FUNNY TBH it was a MESS and Carlos sounded sooo hot pleading on the radio and his big sad eyes were <333

Mild

Bahrain got some flavour with Lance hitting Fernando and the engineers refusing to tell Nando who did it lmao.

I’m obligated to put Miami here based on the quali alone.

Canada. Albon P7!

Britain. My boys didn’t do that well but yours did and I think it was around this time that I started to notice Oscar more! Plus it gave us the iconic pobrecito saga.

Hungary. Daniel was back but Ferrari still need to hire me so I can destroy them from the inside.

Netherlands. It rained, and the marshals knew how to party, and Carlos was very sexy from what I remember.

Japan gave us Sebzuka but ofc I overslept and missed half of the race, but from the highlights it was a bit messy and the Pérez penalty thing was so funny but I still feel cheated by the McLaren boys not kissing the trophy!

Austin. Late penalties DO have rights sometimes :^) Also Max’s PLEASE no talking when I’m breaking!!!!

Mexico. Ohhh that was heartbreaking for Sergio…. but the entertainment value.

Lemon and Herb

Saudi Arabia… I could not tell you what happened in this GP. I’ve watched the highlights and I still can’t remember, but it’s not Flavourless level so it’s here.

Azerbaijan… I legit fell asleep during the race but the exchange between Max and George after GR torpedoed Max’s car in the sprint was funny.

Kimi was right about Monaco, enough Monaco, we as a society are past the need for Monaco, no more Monaco! Carlos had spicy radios and we got Estie bestie on the podium baybeeee, but I cannot put it higher based on that alone.

Spain. Another one I can’t remember, but I don’t remember hating it either so it goes here.

Flavourless

Austria. What do track limits even DO??

Belgium. This race lasted one lap. Brundle gets paid to explain things and said he couldn’t be bothered to do that.

Qatar has no rights. Oscar in Qatar is separate and he was very funny and spicy but the GP itself stays here.

Las Vegas has no rights. Not even “send them my regards” can save it.

Abu Dhabi has no rights. Maranello delenda est.

[canyouhearthevoices]

I was reading your analysis of the BOUNCY MV and loved it (your comments also made me laugh eheheh)! Also since you said you weren't sure about the red lights in the bike part of the MV, I was talking to a friend about the MV and they mentioned how SeongSang's shots are very reminiscent of AKIRA (the manga/film). The plot goes something like post-apocalyptic Tokyo which is corrupt and there's anti-government protests, terrorism, and gang violence etc etc. There's a bunch of biker vigilantes etc etc etc~ And the scenes are also very reminiscent of the MV itself, which I found super cool (I once mentioned how it'd be super cool if ATEEZ had footnotes for all the references they make lolol)

Ahh thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it :)

Yes, I completely agree with it being similar to AKIRA. I've never actually watched AKIRA (which is probably why it didn't come to mind) but I agree that the themes and aesthetics are similar. The shots you have included are great examples. I imagine that KQ/ATEEZ/the creative directors did this on purpose - AKIRA is very influential and impactful on anime media, so this is yet another visual shortcut they've used for storytelling. Thank you for bringing this to my attention... maybe I should watch AKIRA.

We know that ATEEZ have a lot of inspirations from influential texts from various cultures - Britain, America, Korea, China, Japan - so it makes sense that they have done this. I think it's amazing, because, as I said, it synthesises and plays with older media to make something new, and it uses those medias to make the story easier for the audience to understand.

One of my film professors is big on the idea of using conventions of a genre to make your story easier to understand, while adding a unique flair to it - and that's exactly what ATEEZ do.

As far as their references - yes I would love to see them (although I think we can get a pretty good idea just from the way they express these inspirations). Believe it or not, I have had a not insignificant number of dreams that just involve me grilling Hongjoong on the storyline and begging him for the answers. I wake up in the middle of the night sometimes and see my ATEEZ poster and break out in a cod sweat because Hongjoong is staring at me and I know that he knows all of the little details of the storyline and gleefully watches us get it wrong but will never tell us...

It's a love-hate relationship.

Cromerteez also added this;

I think I probably forgot to add this but the Z logo on the wanted posters is very zorro logo-ish 👁️👄👁️ (again, I'm pushing the footnotes agenda lol)

For those (like me) who don't know - the Zorro logo looks like this;

Or at least, I hope this was the one you meant.

Yes I definitely see it. I had a little Google and it seems that Zorro is about a man who is hunted by the authorities but continually outwits them, and uses his sword to carve the 'z' into his defeated enemies. I can definitely see the similarities to ATEEZ's storyline. The only question I then have is - did they write the symbol on their own Wanted posters - to show that they would never be caught? Or is someone/something (Guardians?) else hunting them and has put the symbol on the posters as a threat?

The scene is ambigious enough that it could be interpreted either way - and we might need to wait for another MV, the Diary version of the album, or the next comeback to get an answer.

But thank you so much for sending this ask in! I really appreciate it and it definitely sorted out some of the questions I had about the MV. And reinforced my point about visual shorthand in storytelling.

<3

[kukuandkookie]

I don’t know how but in a tired/sleepy, nostalgia-induced haze, I ended up watching “Beijing Welcomes You” (《北京欢迎你》)—the 2008 Olympics song which is, you know, very catchy. It also just makes me happy and warm and fuzzy inside. But the thing is, I ended up on a version from years ago that happened to have English subs, and I scrolled down to see some comments like “Oh, this is such a good message, but I’m so sad about how things turned out now :( ”

Naturally, that made me go 🤨 because “are you saying you miss when the US hadn’t ruined its relationship with China, or…?”

And yeah. The answer was not that lmao.

People were responding with stuff such as “Yeah! It’s so sad how China’s become so aggressive and authoritarian now” or “I do still want to visit China, but the CCP is just too aggressive” or “it’s a pity what China’s become” etc.

And it’s just like. Hello??? China didn’t just one day turn around and decide, “Hey, fuck the world, I want to threaten everyone and cut all ties and never again welcome newcomers into the country.”

I mean, sure, the nation is a lot more disillusioned with foreigners, but again, it’s not as if that shit happened without a reason. China isn’t unfriendly. Anybody who goes would tell you that Chinese people are very open to community and making friends, and back in the day, they did really love when foreigners would come visit.

It’s just too fucking bad the west had to ruin that!!!

Basically, I’m too tired to articulate this properly or intelligently (forgive me, I have been doing difficult and lengthy readings for my classes all week and I am so sleep-deprived), but it really is exhausting seeing people label China as “being bad without reason.” They always treat the country like it’s just naturally or inherently or essentially evil in some way. And sure, these commenters suggested instead that China has become evil, but it’s still the same message: they’re acting as if China became this way for no reason.

But that’s seriously not it!! I mean, if you provoke a nation enough, it’s going to fucking retaliate!!!

The US really took one look at China’s growth and said, “That’s a threat” and then immediately set out to discredit China in every way. As someone who got more interested in my Chinese roots because of the sinophobia surrounding me, I’m not fucking surprised China retaliated!!!

I feel like I’m sitting here gesturing wildly at the sign of “Let China Sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world”—because clearly, Napoleon fucking warned everyone all those years ago, and yet the world (and the US especially) went, “Fuck it! Let’s poke the sleeping tiger!”

And again, China’s not even that aggressive right now. Like yes, there’s a degree of nationalism and patriotism fuelling the government’s moves now as they work to secure and maintain their rising power and potential as a superpower, but many nations try to do that (and some were even worse about it, like the US and Britain and Japan and Germany and France and the USSR etc, because idk countries that get strong enough just seem to have a habit of trying to get a little too colonialist. So at least China isn’t too much to that degree).

Like if it wasn’t for the global pandemic, China would still be fairly open to foreigners. Perhaps still less, as again, Chinese people have grown increasingly disillusioned and/or desensitized to the presence of foreigners, but that doesn’t mean the country would shut itself off and/or attack all the visiting foreigners (again, if it wasn’t for the pandemic and all the extra ensuing hate following that).

So there’s perhaps a sense of vindication I get, knowing that the China of 2008 that these westerners are so busy lamenting no longer exists. I mean, I remember 2000s China. It wasn’t that bad, but it wasn’t necessarily all that great either. Pollution was still a major issue, as was cleanliness, and I did notice some “uncivilized” behaviour from citizens some of the times I went back. There was always this sense of distance and even disdain I kept, separating myself from the nation despite me being of Chinese descent myself.

But it’s hard not to, when you’re surrounded by reminders that China makes rip-offs and is dirty etc etc. And truly, back then, foreigners were a much bigger rarity, and Chinese people would flock to them with curiosity and excitement. I used to get satisfaction getting special attention on the communal playgrounds just for speaking English with my brother, basking in any of the praise and awe I received from parents and children alike.

So there was this…admiration of the westerners, you know? These trendy, powerful, wealthy, intelligent, pale people that looked so different from the Chinese, who were curious enough about our culture that they bestowed the nation with their presence.

It’s just too bad that there were—and still are—so many foreigners that never actually had any real respect for China as a nation.

Idk. I guess I’m just salty that even before China was being painted as a monstrous creature or one of the worst James Bond villains to ever James Bond villain, China was still viewed negatively. Back then, the country was something poor and dirty, with what just so happened to be brainwashed citizens who were also poor and dirty and uncivilized—but back then, that was more okay, because at least China was weak. It was something to be pitied, not something to be hated and feared.

It’s why my salt piles up even more knowing that these YouTube commenters are going, “God, I miss the old China,” because the old China they speak of (~2008) would be the China that would happily welcome—as the song says—yet also deeply admire them. And it is a little bit like…these kinds of people probably don’t deserve to be admired, you know? At least, not that much.

Sure, it’s always nice when someone takes interest in your country and your culture, but not everyone who does is necessarily viewing you as an equal.

I know I can’t fully say these guys are sinophobes—perhaps they’re just misinformed—but it’s still frustrating. Like I can’t help but be reminded of shitty assholes that took advantage of China’s “we welcome you” attitude such as Laowhy86 and SerpentZA (I think that’s how you spell their fucking usernames. I hate those fuckers so much I’m not going to bother to double-check because seriously, fuck them. The less space they take up in my brain, the better). Because it’s people like that that give me some schadenfreude that people have to contend with a China who won’t just solely and unconditionally welcome you.

I mean, even my younger brother’s growing disdain for white men who expect Chinese women to be submissive and devoted and worshipful of them (and with his disdain of Chinese women who actually do fit these expectations) demonstrates how there are frustrations with the way the west treats China versus how China treats the west.

And again, China really isn’t even that hostile!! If you want to go, you can still go and people will happily welcome you, but just know that you’re a lot less likely to get special treatment. And sure, that sucks, but I’m glad, in some ways. I’m glad that China is really growing back into its own—even though of course there are flaws, as there are with every country. After all, China really did get torn down during the 20th century and had to really build itself back up.

Hell, even China itself has been getting more and more in touch with its roots. You can see it with the hanfu movement but also with the viral Douyin videos where different shaoshu minzu (people in any 1 of the 56 recognized ethnicities within China) dress up in their traditional clothes. We’re not all just wearing qipao/changshan-inspired clothes anymore—and don’t get me wrong, qipao and changshan are great too! It’s just that such clothes became such a commercial and stereotyped sign of China that it’s refreshing getting more diversity in the portrayals of traditional Chinese culture. And I mean yes, the “Beijing Welcomes You” song definitely does also demonstrate Chinese culture, but you know. Chinese people embrace their heritage(s) now more than ever, and it’s nice.

It’s kind of like…if the rest of the world won’t appreciate them, Chinese people will appreciate themselves. 😆

Anyway, to get back to my initial point: as long as you’re not an ass and you show some interest in the country’s culture and everything, Chinese people are more than happy to “welcome you” the way the “Beijing Welcomes You” song claims.

As for the rest of the west, for the ones that keep treating China like shit and then get all surprised when China throws their shit back at them? Well, they can get a proper, warm, open Beijing welcome when they learn to fucking play nice.

[mmorgjoe]

Rapelay game for sale

#Rapelay game for sale for free

#Rapelay game for sale series

In games and videos, genitalia are obscured, even if it is animated. Japan does have censorship laws for sexual content. Now, once a game goes on sale in Tokyo, it is digitized and shared everywhere. But before the arrival of the Internet, such items stayed in Japan. This country has long produced products the rest of the world would call pornographic. Along the way, the player can rape a number of other girls and women. The object here is also revenge: Find and rape the woman who fired the player from his imaginary job. In minutes, we found a game similar to RapeLay. Step into a game shop in Akihabara, Japan's electronics district, and hentai games are readily available. Some of the games are violent - depicting rape, torture and bondage in detail. Those games are known as "hentai games." Almost all feature girlish-looking characters. But the governments do have a role in trying to regulate this sort of extreme pornography of children, both in their countries, and through the Internet ," she said, adding that they were calling for the Japanese government "to ban all games that promote and simulate sexual violence, sexual torture, stalking and rape against women and girls. "It's obviously very difficult to curtail activity on the Internet. What happened to RapeLay is an example, said Bien-Aime, of why Japan needs to police game makers. It is still readily available on dozens of Web sites, sometimes for free.

#Rapelay game for sale for free

"I think the idea that you can do it by wholesale banning is just never going to work anyway because we downloaded it for free off the Internet," Gardner said. That was how Lucy Kibble and Jim Gardner in Britain heard about it. "This was a game that had absolutely no place on the market," said Taina Bien-Aime of women's rights organization Equality Now which has campaigned for the game to be taken off the shelves.īut the controversy that led to stopping sales of the game instead took it viral. Taina Bien-Aime helped yank the game off store shelves worldwide. It is little wonder that the game, titled RapeLay, sparked international outrage from women's groups. The reason behind your assault, explains the game, is that the teenage girl has accused you of molesting her on the train. The game allows you to even impregnate a girl and urge her to have an abortion.

#Rapelay game for sale series

Then you can follow her aboard the train, assaulting her sister and her mother.Īs you continue to play, "friends" join in and in a series of graphic, interactive scenes, you can corner the women, rape them again and again. With the click of your mouse, you can grope her and lift her skirt. That is when you, the player, can choose your method of assault. She notices you are looking at her and asks, "Can I help you with something?" Tokyo, Japan (CNN) - The game begins with a teenage girl on a subway platform.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Do you have any advice for writing a setting that would basically be a look into Earth 20-30 years after Animorphs happened? I like your exploration of post-canon so I'm curious about your thoughts about what further in the future might look like.

Biggest piece of advice: research galactic suburbia, and then figure out how to avoid it.

Galactic suburbia refers to any work of fiction set in a time and/or place that has no logical reason to reflect the social divisions of the author’s own time and place, and yet does.  It’s more obvious in works from earlier eras, such as how 2001: A Space Odyssey is filled with people acting out mid-1960s white American gender roles... in space!  But it’s definitely still present today; everything from Mistborn to Kingkiller Chronicles to The Expanse to Six of Crows will either pretend that sexism doesn’t exist in that universe or that sexism was solved years ago, while still portraying female characters as concerned with ornamenting themselves and male characters concerned with being in charge in order to ascribe to gender norms.  Obviously, this can be applied across identities — don’t get me started the way some sci fi works decide to address ableism through removing all disabled people from existence, because if that’s not American eugenics then I don’t know what is.

Some books that do an excellent job of breaking out of this trap: 

City of Thieves takes place in a culture that definitely has sexism, but cut along different lines than contemporary American culture — women are the source of all bloodlines, men are considered more expendable, and family units are comprised of adult siblings working together to raise children whose fathers are usually unknown.

Ancillary Justice is narrated by a character who comes from a culture with no conceptualization of gender, who frequently makes gaffes while navigating a culture with gender norms.

The Left Hand of Darkness takes a society where all people change sex as they age, and plays out that thought experiment into every aspect of the culture.

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet is about a crew from a variety of cultures working together, including one character who comes from a culture with no nudity taboos where group sex is an everyday pastime and a different character who comes from a rigidly conservative Earth society, both of whom have to learn to respect each other’s differences.

Please note: I’m just rolling with the sexism example because it’s what came to mind, but it’s not hard to extend this to Inexplicably Homophobic Fantasy Cultures, Kingdom of White = Might = Right, etcetera.  All of those examples also have excellent subversion of or commentary upon racism, heteronormativity, classism, ableism, or all of the above.

ANYWAY, Animorphs.

A few ways I could see the technologies and cultural shifts of Animorphs having a long-term impact:

At least some people, at least some of the time, can change their bodies into completely different bodies.

Plus: probably greater ability for trans or disabled people to transform themselves for their own comfort and quality of life, with interesting implications for gender confirmation.

Minus: probably greater pressure upon disabled and trans people to “just change your body!” while ignoring all of the reasons they might be perfectly happy how they are and/or not in a position legally or financially to take on a whole new appearance.

Turns out, mind control is a thing.  And it’s perpetrated by alien slugs.

Plus: probably interesting neuroscience research implications, if all participants involved give their fully informed consent first.

Minus: everything I explored in Eleutherophobia.  Outsized fear of morph-capable hosts.  Inappropriate jokes about “I didn’t scratch your car; aliens made me do it.”  Suggestions that some people (i.e. no one I know) should just let yeerks control them because they can’t run their own lives.  Legal messes around intentionality.

Humans are not alone in the universe, and a lot of our neighbors are sentient.

Plus: cross-seeding of ideas, probably to the benefit of all cultures’ science and technology and arts.  Redefining of rights and protections, ideally to include hork-bajir and taxxons.  Broken view of humans as the center of the universe, or even the most important species on the planet.

Minus: whole new batch of prejudices.  Probably some people straight-up wanna annihilate the hork-bajir and taxxons, and feel comfortable saying so in public.

Andalites and humans canonically swapped z-space technology for Krispy Kreme recipes.

Plus: lots of new opportunities for humans to learn from andalites with regard to interstellar travel, peaceful breakup of urban centers, and how to run a society filled with lots of morphers.

Minus: you know that one American friend we all have who is, like, uncomfortably obsessed with British culture?  To the point of writing “colour” and saying “petrol”?  You know how that one person treats British culture as automatically being more valid and sophisticated than other cultures, and doesn’t take constructive criticism about that view being just an eensy bit imperialist as fuck?  Yeeeeaaaah, now just imagine it’s a human doing that with andalites.

That’s not meant to be an exhaustive list, just a bunch of spitballing to give you an idea of what I’m talking about.  Rather than asking how cars and cell phones would change in light of z-space technology, instead consider asking how flying and intergalactic phones would change us as a society.

[hnnyoongs]

akai shuichi headcanons

shuichi wears a beanie all the time because he's self conscious about hir hairline .... and I mean who can blame him? id be too

shuichi saw gin when he was visiting Japan in the 10 years ago flashback and was like ooh long hair is cool AND it'll piss ka-san off flash forward 5 years later when shuichi infiltrates the BO and is like fUck cool long hair dude is a psycho

shuichi cut his hair off when he heard akemi was killed by gin he kinda went into the whole mental breakdown mode and was like fuck this shit because he started growing his hair out cuz of gin and also akemi really liked his long hair

shuichi used to be a band kid when he lived in England and wanted to pursue a career in music (much to the chagrin of Mary) but after tsutomu disappeared he was like fuck that and stopped playing until he entered the BO

shuichi has a really bad memory about things that dont have to do anything with his job kinda like BBC's Sherlock but not as bad

shuichi used to find dead bodies when he was a kid just like shinichi but it wasn't as often maybe like a dead body once a year or something

shuichi named himself dai because that's what Mary actually wanted to name him when she was giving birth she was screaming die die die and tsutomu wasn't there yet so she was like aight die sounds like the japanese name dai the only reason shuichi wasn't named that was that tsutomu burst in and was like FUCK NO

shuichi was picked on when training for the FBI since compared to 6 foot jock white men shuichi was a 5 foot 7 asian with long hair and dressed like a teenage girl who frequented Starbucks in the toxic environment of the FBI for anyone who doesnt fit the mold shuichi had it cut out for him

shuichi showed signs of multiple mental illnesses but they were all difficult to pin down so he was never diagnosed with anything since he refused to talk at the FBI mandated therapy sessions

shuichi's type is someone who is kind but could wield a gun

he used to dislike kids but being around them as okiya has made SOME kids special in his heart

before tsutomu's disspeareance he taught shuichi how to hunt with a shotgun

shuichi lived off of sports drinks and bars whenever he was single since he couldn't rely on take out due to it being unhealthy which wouldn't help his FBI styled life

shuichi taught akemi simple self defense techniques but refuses to teach her how to shoot a gun saying he didn't want her hands to get dirty

shuichi and shukichi blackmail each other for favors by using the "ill tell ka-san you did that one thing that you blamed dad for when we were kids if u dont help me out"

scotch once told him that bourbon's type was a white milf (in reference to Elena who was white and was a mother) so shuichi was scared as fuck when rei met Mary's adult self for the first time

shuichi hates being compared to his mother but the truth is they're the most similar and they both started mimicking tsutomu after his disappearance

the only thing shuichi knew how to cook before meeting yukiko was plain white rice as that was the only thing tsutomu was able to teach him

shuichi mimics an American accent while talking in America or talking in English unless he's talking to his family or he's mentally shook up and his British accent slips out

he thinks in British accented English as well (idc if the animanga shows him thinking in japanese it makes no sense that western raised people like Jodie and camel think in japanese) but he does use some japanese like ka-san and when he's trying to get deep into his okiya persona

he tries very hard to keep the polite speech patterns of okiya Subaru since as akai shuichi he's very .. rude

shuichi's sniper skills were so good the fbi was willing to overlook his disrespect of authority and his tendency to do everything by himself without consulting everyone

shuichi slips into a British accent around James if he's feeling really comfortable

he felt bad about using shiho since she was only a year older than masumi and she hadn't done anything wrong so he vowed to get her and akemi out of the BO

he had a plan to get akemi and shiho out by convincing the higher ups to grant them immunity if they testified but akemi's death derailed the entire thing

he hates to admit it but his family is the most important thing to him he may not contact them that often but he's going to such lengths to bring his father back because he cares for his family so much

shuichi didnt really know what he wanted to do with his life once he took down his father's pursuers but after akemi and scotch he decided that if he solved his father's disappearance first he'd hunt down the BO next tho once learning that Haneda Koji’s death had something to do with the BO he's back at the thing where he doesn't know what to do with his life without revenge

he promised shukichi that he'd be the one to solve shukichi's death if what happened to Haneda kohji also happens to shukichi

he isn't a fan of dates in amusement parks but if it makes his partner happy and smile he'll have fun

dating Jodie was a quiet thing most likely from an attachment maybe due to a bad case or a loss of a mutual friend depending on the agency they might have been legally allowed to date each other but it is usually looked down upon I dont think they went out together often probably spending time together at home ... doing stuff

he identifies as bisexual it was normal to him in childhood since both Mary and tsutomu talked about their past relationships to their children he never told anyone due to the fact it would affect his FBI status since it was illegal in America shukichi and Mary know he's bi but shuichi has no idea Mary knows

akemi and shuichi would take strolls in parks go shopping and go to cafes

he's very self conscious about his height and whenever he goes to Japan it makes him feel good about himself since he's relatively tall there

Mary was the one who drilled japanese into his head not tsutomu

the last time shuichi talked to Mary was when he called her up to tell her to take masumi and leave Japan for Britain after masumi cornered him and scotch him and Mary had a whole argument and after that they stopped talking to each other, not that they talked to each other much in the first place

shuichi learned jee kun do by watching training videos from vhs tapes/cds/YouTube depending on when you consider detco taking place I personally believe conan shrinks in 2018 meaning that tsutomu disappeared in 2001 and shuichi used a mixture of tapes and cds to learn

shuichi can read people really well but has a hard time manipulating people by being nice he can use people by being a jackass very well but trying to be a normal person is hard for him

Yukiko and yusaku remind shuichi of his parents before tsutomu disappeared but like more upbeat

shuichi dislikes full body hugs

akemi and shiho were both anime and romance drama fans so he knows random things about the shows and uses that info to connect with the DB and especially haibara

he considered himself British first and foremost but when asked about whether he considers himself white or asian he'll always go with asian

he started smoking soon after his father disappeared since his father used to smoke and he needed to cope but didn't wanna fall into drugs like cocaine

smoking is heavily looked down upon in America and is seen as unprofessional which helped shuichi go undercover a bunch due to him being a heavy smoker

akemi would make him stop smoking around her and shiho saying that second hand smoking was dangerous and that shuichi who was smoking constantly was going to get lung cancer but he would tell her that he just couldn't stop smoking he did stop smoking around shiho and akemi tho going outside to do it instead

as okiya it makes him go wild because he desperately needs to smoke to cope but okiya cant smoke it doesnt fit his image so he smokes a shit ton at night during his nightly drives

shuichi forced himself not to smoke during his time visiting Japan when he met masumi because he knew Mary would get even more upset with him

shuichi was terrible driving American styled cars and he got so upset that he perfected his drive-in techiuque over the years just to spite the instructor that said he was barely passing

he likes to go on late night drives and speed on the high way because he's a thrill seeking idiot

he has no social media but he created on as okiya Subaru to keep an eye on haibara's higo stan account

he takes offense to the idea that he's stalking haibara he's just p r o t e c t i n g her

he wants shiho to be happy more than anything so he's an avid coai shipper and is exhausted in Conan's obliviousness

shuichi didnt tell shukichi he wasn't actually dead shukichi just walked up to okiya Subaru one day and was like shuuichi-ni-san right? shuichi has long stopped questioning shukichi's weird ways of knowing shit he shouldn't know

shuichi is a sherlockian but he's not like shinichi or hakuba in that he does not hate BBC's Sherlock and actually enjoys it a bit

one upside to shuichi living in America is that he gets to hoard guns because he's obsessed with them he thinks they're really cool it's like conan with Sherlock he starts yapping his mouth of about them

bourbon once dangled a gun on in front of a sleeping shuichi cuz he didnt believe scotch when he said that rye was obsessed with guns and started saying incorrect shit about the type of gun he was holding and shuichi just shot up and started berating him

shuichi hates that chianti is a killer because she's the only person who's as much as a gun fanatic as he is

he tends to steal Jodie's car a lot

he likes fucking with peoples heads it's very fun to him to watch them get all worked up

shuichi hasn't mourned his father yet because he doesnt believe his father’s dead

deep down he blames his father for his mother going slightly bonkers

he didnt want masumi to be a detective at first but now hes proud of her

he drinks a lot as okiya Subaru since he cant smoke as much

he's willing to go to hell if it means he can rip gin from limp to limp

he really hates gin yall I dont think I can convey how much he hates gin

[justintaco]

Can you tell me more about this...Bubuki Buranki (BBK/BRNK)? The action packed, hidden gem of a show, made as a 10 year anniversary celebration from SENIZAWA studios. With Yuuji Kaneko (the lead art director of the fan favorite show Kill la Kill) and directed by Daizen Komatsuda who's other works include storyboarding Triggers widely acclaimed movie, Promare, as well directing and storyboarding in many big shows (BNA, AoT S3, TTGL, Evangelion 1.0, 3.0, and 1.0+3.0)

Oh well I would be very glad to!

Just one correction though, it was actually an anniversary anime for studio SANZIGEN, who produced Promare alongside studio Trigger. You also forgot that the character designs are by Yusuke Kozaki, who's done designs for Fire Emblem Awakening/Fates, No More Heroes, Pokemon Go, and a lot more!

The first season did very poorly, commercially. However, SANZIGEN said that they already promised they would celebrate their anniversary with a 2 season anime no matter what. So the second season went ahead even if they knew it wouldn't sell, and I have nothing but the utmost respect for that kind of passion project. I actually thanked the director on Twitter when it finished airing and he replied!

I don't usually bring up these kinds of things when I talk about anime but I know they're very important to some people so I'll list them here. The show is impressively diverse. It features characters from Japan, Russia, Taiwan, India, America, Britain, France, and they even spend time with an Inuit and/or native Siberian girl for a bit! (it's not specified which). Team America itself does poke a little fun at US stereotypes, but their team is very diverse: the usual white guy and girl but also a Hispanic guy, a black girl, and one guy that I'm pretty certain is Algerian.

A ton of them come from different backgrounds and walks of life, and it just makes the show feel so colorful.

I also mentioned in another post, that I can't read Shizuru as anything but being on the autism spectrum. The show treats her really well but doesn't skip over some of the difficulties she goes through.

Beyond that stuff, the cast is full of really talented VAs, and a lot of ones I really enjoy. Ozawa Ari, Ishigami Shizuka, Komatsu Mikako, Kobayashi Yuu, Megumi Han, Hikasa Yoko, Tsuda Kenjirou, and Kaede Hondo to name some of the most notable (to me).

Overall really fantastic show that's been totally slept on. Everyone please check it out!!

[x0401x]

Jeweler Richard Fanbook Short Story #5

Feel free to message me about possible corrections, and please consider supporting the creators by purchasing digital copies of the official releases: Novel || Manga || Fanbook. In case anyone is feeling generous: Ko-fi | PayPal. ( ╹◡╹)っ’･*

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Iolite of Cloudy Skies

Iolite. Its Japanese name was “blue flower stone”. The gem was blue with a purple tint stronger than that of a sapphire and had a unique viscosity that made it seem as if it was coated with a bit of dew. The level of hardness was seven. It was called iolite when treated as a gemstone, but when treated as a type of mineral, it was also called cordierite. It was an eccentric stone, which also appeared to have a grayish brown color instead of blue depending on the angle that one looked at it. Etc., etc.

“What happened, Seigi? Your eyes are dead.”

“How can I put it...? Surfeit, I guess.”

“Haah?”

I couldn’t memorize the stones’ names. They were too many.

The client who left just now had come because they wanted to see many sorts of blue stones, so Richard’s treasure box was packed with a great variety of blues. There were sapphires, of course, and also tanzanites, lapis lazuli, blue chalcedonies and this iolite.

Half a year before I had started working part-time in Etranger, the image I had of gemstones was limited to things such as diamonds, rubies, sapphires and emeralds, I believed. Now I knew about the existence of a stone named zircon, which shone in the same way as a diamond, and also knew about the spinel, which was red like a ruby, as well as that the color of sapphires was not just blue, having a wide range from purple to yellow, and I had seen transparent jades that were impossible to tell apart from emeralds.

If I had as much knowledge of minerals as Tanimoto-san, I would’ve managed to sort stones inside my head by the differences the in chemical composition of each, but unfortunately, I was unfamiliar with such things, and I currently didn’t have enough enthusiasm or willpower to study them. If I were to explain figuratively, it felt like going out to hunt for clams at a beach, and when you innocently dove into the lake, you’d see the Mariana Trench spreading out below. It was a beautiful world, thus also too wide and too deep. And endless. To a terrifying extent.

When I told him roughly this, Richard laughed, the depths of his throat trembling with giggles. “It is not as if you are aiming to obtain a GIA or FGA qualification or anything, right? Isn’t it all right for you to observe as much as you like?”

“That might be the case, but...”

I found myself thinking that it was a waste.

After all, I’d be on my knees listening as Richard went, in earnest, through the trouble of introducing all kinds of stones to me one by one. I often heard from my senpais that “job hunting is a connection for people”, so I felt sorry that my connection with stones remained scoreless. Regardless, it wasn’t like I was suddenly going to get any smarter.

As I said this, Richard laughed again and beckoned me with a hand gesture. He then took something out of his suit’s pocket. One of those subdivision vinyl bags that I’d often see when he was handling jewels in the back room. It seemed there was an iolite inside. There was a label stuck to the bag packed with absorbent cotton, and something was written on it in horizontal letters. “Viking sunstone,” it read. Vikings? Like the ones that you’d imagine wearing horned helmets, carrying axes and coming from the sea on a ship? As I asked for confirmation, the jeweler nodded with a “precisely”.

“The words written on this label are associated with the former ‘purpose’ of the iolite. In the past, people used iolites as sun stones.”

“‘Used’ them as ‘sun stones’...?”

I didn’t understand anything from A to Z. What did that mean? For starters, why was gem of such a cold-looking color made into a stone of the sun?

Before I even had a breach to ask, the beautiful shopkeeper began talking, a smile ghosting his lips, “You might already know this, but a portion of the people residing in the current Britain are descendants of those who went through the Norman Conquest that began around the ninth century - in other words, of the Vikings. They were famous for having the skills to travel long distances, which was unusual at the time, so Seigi. If you were someone who travels the sea for long periods, how would you know your way?” Richard asked me.

A means to know the cardinal directions in the open sea. So it was a situation where there’d be no piece of land to act as a mark. The only thing I could use in such a case was a magnet. No, wait. Richard had said earlier that it was the ninth century. The compass would be invented only much later. I recalled memorizing that this was the invention that triggered the Age of Discovery back in high school for history class. If so, I recalled the words on the label. “Sunstone”. Yeah, it connected.

“They knew the directions by using the stone of the sun?”

“Good for you. Exactly. Isn’t it clear?”

“K-Kinda!”

“Then, what about under cloudy skies, when the sun is not visible, Mr. Enlightened Part-Timer?”

Speaking of which, the weather changed easily at sea. I had also heard that England was a country where the skies tended to be overcast. Bad weather must be frequent in those coastal waters. If the sky stayed cloudy for three or four days, what should I do? Was there nothing more that could be done at sea?

When I made a puzzled face, Richard smiled as though he had hit the nail on the head, his white hands displaying the iolite under a fluorescent light. “For instance, let’s try to put a mark on any of this iolite’s faceted sides with ink. Another one on a different side. On sunny days, we would record in which direction we can see the sun from one of these two points at given times, and on cloudy days, we would look for parts where the two points overlap. When doing so, since this stone can detect even the faintest light, we would be able to tell the sun’s position,” he said.

“So we can know the position of light with that stone...? Then couldn’t it be any other stone?”

“Light refracts. If it were passing through thick clouds, the human eye would find its shine in a different direction from the sun’s actual position. Iolites acted as polarized lenses, so to speak. By using this stone, the sailors could tell the correct position of the sun. Yet the most famous sunstone is not iolite, but a type of refraction stone called ‘Iceland spar’.”

A polarized lens. Now he was talking about physics? But I did remember the stuff about light refraction. Got it; so that was why it was a “stone of the sun”.

“I don’t get it very well, but I feel the gemstone romance from it. I like that kinda thing,” I said enthusiastically, Richard giving me a calm smile.

“You do get it. Just as you said, you ‘don’t understand stones very well but like them either way’. That is exactly why your eyes were open, so you thought only about how far your destination was and felt your teeth set on edge at it. You mustn’t expect to be able to understand everything overnight. Go steady, without rushing. Do not waver at the impatience stuck back-to-back to your ambitions. That is different from having no one to depend on due to not knowing where you are headed. The hardest times are probably the ones when you have no idea where you should go, but you know the exact position of the sun.”

So, in short, I knew exactly where I wanted to be?

While I remained quiet, Richard shrugged and added, “Of course, this is a metaphor. Even if little by little, the stones should definitely be leaving a trace inside you. Aren’t you supposed to be treasuring this instead of chasing after what goes away?”

Lastly, Richard threw in the trivia that, in the world of power stones, the iolite was said to be a stone that showed people the “right direction”. Taking the backbone of it into consideration, that was indeed a convincing talk. But more than that...

“It’d be great if you were by my side forever.”

“Hah?”

“You’re an expert at noticing what’s troubling other people, aren’t you? I really think you’re a handy guy, like a compass. Aah, ‘the world’s most beautiful compass’, huh?”

“Those are quite irrational words, on top of being illogical. You were born in Japan, raised in Japan and aspire to become a public servant of Japan, so why are you calling an English jeweler a ‘compass’?”

“Well, I don’t plan to ask you about how to prepare for the public servant exams, but I can rely on you when I run into bigger problems, right?”

Richard sighed with a face of thorough dismay. I could understand how he felt. This was like a child in nursery school saying, “It’d be great if my teacher could always be there to help me out.” Long story short, I was acting spoiled. Even though he was my superior at work.

“That’s right; about the custard pie that today’s costumer brought, it looks like it’s quick to expire. Wanna eat it? I’ll make some tea.”

“If you would. Aah, the sugar...”

“Holding back on it this month, right? I know.”

“Help me with half of it. The amount of sugar in it concerns me.”

“Leave it to me.”

This guy was truly good at leading the mood around, and the same applied for the not-too-straightforward way that he phrased himself when recommending gemstones to the customers. Apparently, he thought I was feeling down.

I cut the crunchy pie in half while the tea leaves boiled, then shared it with Richard in the reception room and we both ate it. Covered with powdered sugar, the pie was a dangerous white little thing, as the colorless powder could scatter around from the pie’s surface just by us breathing on it a tiny bit, so the snack time turned into a moment of silence. I felt like laughing at the much too surreal sight several times, but if I happened to cause a big damage to the beautiful shopkeeper’s high-grade suit by doing that, my pay would be reduced. In the end, I ate the pie entirely while looking at the wall.

On the way back home that day, as I looked up at the night sky, I thought about the Vikings of over a thousand years ago. It was said that they were after new lands. What about me? Where was I headed? Would there ever be a day when I would fall into a philosophical concern, like, “I have no idea where I’m trying to go”? Perhaps Richard too? I insolently prayed that the stones may help us out at least in times like those.

Stars were beginning to twinkle in the purplish-blue night sky. There was no doubt that the stars appearing in the sky had not changed ever since the Vikings’ era. Thinking about that as I walked, I mistook one of the streets I should have turned. I had the feeling that I heard Richard’s voice, telling me to mind at least my own steps. I get it, geez.

I decided to wait patiently for the benefits of the stone. It was best for something like that not to happen, but there was no guarantee that both of us wouldn’t lose our ways at the same time one day.

[bagadew]

The Great Ace Attorney Playthrough: The Adventure of the Great Departure (Part 1)

So it’s finally here, The Great Ace Attorney! I know practically nothing about this game, except that it’s a) set in Victorian London, b) has the themes of racism and xenophobia you’d expect from a game where you play a Japanese immigrant in Victorian London, and c) features Herlock Sholmes the himbo detective! (Also I think there might be a cereal killer plot, but I’m not too sure.)

Right away I’m being given a lot of very useful information regarding the historical setting for this game. Unfortunately I’m unable to fully process it because two seconds in and I’ve already been accused of murder!

Oh Ace Attorney how I’ve missed you.

Hello Kazuma! I like the way your headband billows even though there’s no wind, and I hope you have a much longer and fuller life than my last Ace Attorney mentor.

Ok so it seems like we’re both students at the same university, but Kazuma is the protégé golden boy, who’s about to be sent abroad because he’s just That Good. Fortunately I (Ryunosuke) am his beloved best friend, and will therefore be allowed to tag along (which is a really damn good job because I’m the one front and centre of the box).

Say what you will about incredible aura, but I’m pretty sure Kazuma’s just set up some sort of fan mechanism under there.

Hello Pink Lady from the box!

As a seasoned Ace Attorney player I am immediately suspicious of anyone from the first case who isn’t a main character. I’m watching you professor!

Ok so from what I can gather from our exchange the Professor Mikotoba is the forensics pathology professor at the university (I wonder if his daughter, or whoever the pink lady is, will be our Ema Skye), and if Kazuma the golden boy takes our case an loses he won’t get to go fulfill his dream of studying abroad.

Frankly, from all their idealistic chatter about jolly old Britain, I feel like these boys might be in for a bit of a rude awakening once they actually make it to London. And I’m not sure Ryunosuke, with all his beautiful naïve innocence, is going to do too well.

And speaking of beautiful naïve innocence...

No Ryunosuke! Don’t agree to things like that!

I’m beginning to suspect Ryunosuke’s just being used as bait for Kazuma. Like someone out there really doesn’t want Kazuma to go abroad for some reason, and so they’re using his less good best friend to trap him in the country.

Oh Ryunosuke...

In all my years playing Ace Attorney I have never been more torn by a suggestion box. On one hand, the first time I play an Ace Attorney game, I try and play it in the way it should be played. And so, even though this is an UNBELIEVABLY STUPID DECISION, I feel like Ryunosuke, a man who doesn’t seem to have the words ‘Set Up’ in his dictionary, would not even hesitate to bellow I do because Professor Mikiller told him to.

On the other hand this is an UNBELIEVABLY STUPID DECISION and Kazuma should clearly be in charge.

Ok, I’ve decided I’m going to press it (partly because I think the game might punish me if I don’t) but I will have my head in my hands as I do so.

See Kazuma agrees with me.

Oh fuck, the victims John Watson Wilson!!!

Ok, so I’m re-evaluating my assumption that I (Ryunosuke) was simply bait for Kazuma, it looks like I was instead the poor expendable mug who can be pinned with causing an international incident. Is it bad that I feel like I’ve been promoted?

My god, everyone must have had a heart attack when Kazuma the Golden Boy stepped up to defend me. No wonder they didn’t want him involved!

Ok let’s bring out Professor Mikotoba the witness, so he can explain how he’s played us like a damn fiddle-

WHO THE HELL IS THAT!?!

I would like to take this opportunity to apologies to Professor Mikotoba, who is I can only assume a beloved recurring character. I’m very sorry sir but I did not see you on the box. Yes I understand that, as someone who’s favorite character is Gumshoe, this was no excuse. Please forgive me.

Side note though: Satoru’s whole *hacks up blood* ‘It’s nothing, this just happens sometimes, please ignore it and continue’ thing is the most relatable thing I’ve seen so far. As someone with a chest condition whose lungs sometimes just bleed, this is literally the response you develop. I know this guys probably a murderer and that’s probably Crime Related Blood, but for now the two of us understand each other.

Ok, so from that cross examination we’ve got one mysterious lady the waiter says he never saw, one unwillingly received Buisness card from Satoru Hosonaga, and one coughing fit my lungs started after watching Satoru wheezing away.

WHAT IS THIS!!??!!

MORE WITNESSES!!??!!

ON A FIRST CASE??!!!

DO THE SACRED LAWS OF FIRST ACE ATTORNEY CASES MEAN NOTHING TO THIS GAME!?!??

This is a neat mechanic though, and one I’ve been hoping would make it to a cannon Ace Attorney game since the Professor Layton crossover. It seems like we’re just sticking to standard testimony listening for now, rather than checking between reactions, but I’m very happy to see it’s return.

GET HIS ASS KAZUMA!!!

(Kazuma’s quickly becoming my favourite, it’s a lot of fun to have the Edgeworth over your side of the courtroom for once)

Ok, so Kazuma (who’s name my iPad now autocorrects into all caps) has shown me how to examine evidence, meaning that if I had, shall we say, a receipt with the word Maya written on it, I could turn it over to see what was written on the other side.

So, while I now know that Dr Watson Wilson wasn’t able to have tucked into that big juicy steak behind him, I just want to check that business card Satoru was so unhappy to give away...

Interesting...

I don’t know what this means, but it sure is interesting...

Now back to slamming an old man with a stolen coin (that was probably taken by the penniless guy next to him)

I’m not sure how he’s managed it, but Auchi has somehow become the most slapable of the Pains.

GET THEIR ASS RYUNOSUKE!!!

(I like how his desk slam’s changed as he gets more confident)

DAMN STRAIGHT WE’D TAKE ON THE GOVERNMENT!!!

So there’s been a coverup! Well that explains the detective posing as a waiter, but it still leaves a huge question mark over the identity of the woman in question. Other than possibly Satoru, who I can’t see as having any reason to dress up, I don’t feel like any of the current witnesses could fit the bill. Whoever she is, though, it must be someone who’s involvement could cause more problems if she was found out, which would mean that she’s either someone with a lot of political influence in Japan, or she’s someone who followed the good Dr from England (and might well have a lot of influence there).

Either way I’m beginning to suspect that, in great break from Ace Attorney tradition, NONE OF THE WITNESSES COMMITTED THE CRIME!!! (Or at least not this one.)

Don’t worry Kazuma, I turned the receipt business card over this time!

Screenshots don’t do this justice.

I don’t know what makes this better, Ryunosuke’s cheerful mile wide supposition, or the speed at which Satoru cut him off.

...are they Satoru? Are they really?

At this point I would apologies to Satoru Hosonaga, however I feel like he might have been using me as the scape goat for this murder, so I’m going to say that I’m not sorry. (We still have a weird blood related understanding though, and for that reason I am not as hostile as I might have been)

Yeah, that’s fair Ryunosuke.

WAIT WHAT!?!

Oh, it’s just a flash back gunshot. I thought someone had just whipped out a gun and shot the detective before he could say another word!

Oh dear, this goes all the way to the top doesn’t it?

Poor Ryunosuke though, he’s not even made it to the stinky rainy streets of London and already his illusions about justice are being shattered. Given that this is effectively the prologue case, I dread to see what comes next.

HELL YEAH JUGE, WERE GETTING THE KILLER LADS!!!

SATURO HOSONAGA YOU’RE BACK ON THE CHRISTMAS CARD LIST (but on thin ice)

‘So it won’t be a problem?’ Ryunosuke, weren’t you listening, it’s going to be a massive problem! Fortunately everyone else in this courtroom has just decided that you know what fuck the government actually, and so we’re doing it anyway!

Hosonaga’s trying really hard to win me back over folks, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t working.

I like this hardass judge! I’ll send him a Christmas card too.

MADE IT TO THE FIRST HALF!

[centuriantalevevo]

A list of my MANY Draco Headcannons

Draco had an older sister who died a few weeks to a month before his first hear

His sister gave her life to save him, had she not done so, he would've been ran over. He watched her die in the hospital, after a few weeks of being in a ventilator (his father making them take her off of it), meaning he can see Thestrals.

He's bisexual and GNC (No! N O T Nonbinary. He's gender nonconforming, meaning he doesn't conform to gender roles), and is supportive of trans people, he has a younger cousin (the youngest of all his cousins) who is Trans (MtF) and woukd protect that girl with his life.

He finds Harry hot, and is jealous of him, but would not date him because he also hates him.

He can speak MULTIPLE languages, and is fluent in Japanese, he can speak conversational Japanese and can translate advanced slang. He can translate MASA songs, that tells you everything.

He has 3 different accents, he was born in Scotland grew up there for a time, then moved to Australia as a child, and then to Britain so he can do a Scottish, Australian and British accent. However, he cannot so an American accent and hates even attempting it.

He has a lot of exotic pets, a lot of tarantulas, snakes, even a few scorpions. He also has a dog, cat and horses. Of course he'd have horses, my mans he is filthy rich.

We're setting my headcannons in modern day setting, meaning like 2000s era, because it makes my life easier. With that said, as much as he makes himself out to hate all things muggle related, secretly he doesn't hate muggle things, he enjoys them but pretends he hates them because his father forces him to. He has a YouTube channel is amazing at using UTAU, Vocaloid, and other VSynths, he also works on his own VSynth and his own UTAU banks, he also is good at MMD.

If anyone dares misgender a trans person especially a trans person that is his family or friend, he will start a war

His mom is supportive of him and is the better parent. Draco favorites his mom over his dad

Megurien Luka is best girl to him and he would absolutely marry her if able to

When in around 3th year, some Icelandic kids asked him to help them start a language club, for those who wanted to learn languages, etc, because he knew the most languages, he agreed.

He's definitely had his fair share of boyfriends

Even though his father doesn't approve, he says fuck it down with approval

He more than likely finds Lil Nas X a little hot, same with CoryxKenshin and MacDoesIt, even if his gay cousin disagrees. I said what I said.

His first crush was a guy, back when he was about 9 to 10. That crush was his best friend as well, and a muggle at that. Unfortunately, the boy (who was also around his age), died of cancer. The boy was technically his first kiss. While in the hospital, the boy wanted to kiss a boy before he died, because that boy DEFINITELY knew he didn't like girls, Draco carried that for him. I made it sad didn't I?

His older sisters name was Alice

His cousins names, Oldest to Youngest, are Dominic, Darla, Demi and Jamie. Dominic is Gay, Darla is a Lesbian, Demi is Ace, and Jamie is a trans girl. Dominic and Darla are twins

Narcissa is SCARY when mad, and Draco is more likely to listen to her over Lucius

Draco loves playing Apex Legends-

He can speak Scots

This mans goes to Japan like every summer, he has some Japanese friends there, and goes to see Magical Mirai and NicoNicoCho Parties-

He likes playing VR Chat and often talks to the Japanese players, but also the French and Spanish players

He's trying to learn Chinese but is very butchered in the language

Since Hermione is a muggle, she definitely plays the game, and Draco has seen her in there over 100 times, and is often times speaking in Japanese when that happens so she never realizes.

He likes to insult her in game in various languages

This bitch made a freaking VTuber model you can't change my mind

He's good at math, and learned from his sisters friend Rowan (MAY OR MAY NOT be a reference to Hogwarts Mystery-)

He's Bipolar, has a hell of a lot of trauma, suffers from depression and has ADHD

He HAS been put in a mental facility quite a few times, and has tried to kill Lucius in his sleep

He has sleep paralysis

He definitely finds Blaise Zabini hot

He is unable to be canceled, he comes back from the grave

He hates Ron because, unlike Draco, Ron actually has siblings still (minus I think.. Fred dying, but Draco couod sympathize with George on that feeling), he's jealous if Ron because he still has his brothers and sister

My mans hates his dad so much holy crap

I plays a LOT of Project Diva and can complete a lot of songs on EXTREME and EXEXTREME mode

Common World Domination- he likes that song

His theme song(s): Rolling Girl, My Immortal, Unhappy Refrain, Unknown Mother Goose, Two-Faced Lovers, The Lost Ones Weeping, Futaride (The Two Of Us), World Is Mine

He loves Weekender Girl, Sadistic.Music♾Factory, and This Is The Happiness and Peace of Mind Committee

He definitely knows all the English Lyrics for This Is The Happiness and Peace of Mind Committee

He really wants to have like a Miku Expo or Magical Mirai esque show in Higwarts with nothing but the banks he has and holograms of them. Please just let him have holograms of the UTAU, VOCALOID, and SynthV Voicebanks he has- let this man's have a concert

Fuck you. Un-Dracos your Draco-

He absolutely goes to Pride and wants Hogwarts to have a Pride Month type of thing

He's a whole Atheist

I may or may not be projecting onto him

He's good at horse back riding

He plays piano

He for a while thought he was trans but just realized he's just GNC lol

We hate JK Rowling in this household

The Draco picture belongs to Anyeka, I just added the Bi pin and the background...

That's my lockscreen btw-

[asogisbrushwork]

Introduction/Welcome/Rules/Whatever

Hello there! This is a blog dedicated to the blog owner’s hyperfixation and character crush on Kazuma Asogi from The Great Ace Attorney games (and possibly other Ace Attorney series characters in the future). Here you will find headcanons, musing, gushing (screenshots sometimes included), and reader-insert content.

The owner of this blog is over 18 and will post content that is not safe for work (sometimes very not safe for work). With that in mind, I request minors (under 18) not interact with this blog.

My Kazuma x Reader Masterlist

Are Requests Open? Requests are currently closed.

 (3/3 Slots, Request writing in progress)

I will take requests from time to time on a limited basis, and will make an announcement when requests are open/closed, what sort of requests I’m accepting and how many, etc. I tend to keep strict caps on this sort of thing because I’m a rather slow writer and my writing motivation comes and goes, and I don’t want a long queue of people waiting around forever for a request to be filled. These are to help me be effective in filling out requests for readers in a timely manner while being mindful of my own abilities and circumstances.

Please be on the lookout, and if you see requests are open and slots are available, go for it!

Alright, with all of that said, just some ground rules/things to keep in mind:

-Don’t be a dick. Anyone whose a dick to me or other people on my blog or in relation to my blog will be blocked without notice and without exception. I am too old for bullshit. What I AM here for is to be an unrepentant sap.

-As this is a blog that’s more character/character crush and self-insert focused, I won’t be posting or discussing canon/canon content on this blog.

-The owner of this blog believes that all headcanons and interpretations of canon are welcome and valid. Unless something is explicitly stated in unequivocal terms in canon, you are 1000% free to make shit up. (Even then though, canon divergence is a thing, so go wild anyway. The important part is to have fun.)

-Reader-Inserts on this blog will usually be Gender Neutral unless considering scenarios where gender would be something that effects how things go. (The Great Ace Attorney takes place in the late Victorian/Meiji Restoration Era, albeit a heavily fictionalized version, but that era none the less. A lot of changes were happening regarding gender roles and women’s rights in both Britain and Japan for example but there was also a lot of sexism to contend with and certain cultural norms and protocols of etiquette, so that’s something that might come up from time to time.)

- For Not Safe for Work pieces that are sexually explicit in nature, the reader’s anatomy will not be specified unless it’s a request that specifies otherwise or whatever I’m writing necessitates the reader have certain anatomy or physical features. I write Kazuma as a cisgender man (having a penis) by default.

- I really love a variety of different moods for content, so you might find everything from angst, to fluff, to smut, to hurt/comfort, all that good stuff! I may also touch on heavy themes and sensitive topics, and I will do my best to tag and warn for these topics when they do come up.

-THIS BLOG WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR THE GREAT ACE ATTORNEY GAMES. PROCEED WITH CAUTION.

~

My Rules for Requests are as Follows:

- To begin with I will only accept requests for headcanons (but there’s flexibility in this, it can be about a specific topic, headcanons for a particular kind of Reader-Insert). I will open things up for scenarios, ficlets, drabbles, and the like for future calls for requests, so keep your eyes open for that at a later date if you’re hoping to request something along those lines. 

- I have the right to refuse a request if I so choose, either due to comfort/workload or whatever reason. Please respect my boundaries if my answer is no/I don’t do your request.

- I’m a bit on the slow side, sometimes due to irl stressors, other times due to preoccupation with other projects. So I ask you please be patient with me if I’m taking a while on a request I’ve accepted. I will try to have your request filled as soon as I’m able.

-You may send a request either via ask or submission. (Please specify if you want to be tagged when the request is completed/if you want to remain anonymous, etc.) You may DM me if you have questions.

I will not write this type of content under any circumstances, either by choice or by request:

- Explicit Non-Con/Rape

-Incest

-Minor/Adult Content

- Scat, Watersports, Extreme Bloodplay (Light Blood is a-okay, but otherwise fluids that wouldn’t normally be involved in sex are off the table)

- Degradation/Humiliation

-Mommy/Daddy Kink and Age Play related stuff (You Do You, it just makes me personally uncomfy)

- Content with Heavy Gore/Extreme Body Horror Elements

- Successful Suicide

I am more than comfortable with topics of depression, suicidal ideation, and attempted suicide, but not scenarios in which someone is successful.

- Anything Pro-Bigotry

Because of the nature of the Great Ace Attorney games and their themes, there may be discussions of or mention of Anti-Japanese Racism (and Era Appropriate Racism and Imperialism in General) as well as Sexism and Misogyny of the time period. However, while I may write content that touches on these topics where appropriate (properly tagged with content warnings), I will not write content that promotes or endorses bigotry. Period.

- Yandere

Special Note: While I read and enjoy Yandere content when in a certain headspace, I am not comfortable with writing it myself. I may however reblog works from others who write such content, tagging it appropriately so others may avoid it if they so choose.

Soft Nos (Stuff I will probably say No to except in Special Cases and/or Stuff that I won’t accept requests for but I might write myself):

-Infidelity/Cheating

This one I will only write/accept requests for under certain circumstances. I am not comfortable writing a more standard cheating scenario, but I may write some scenarios that tow that line/have extenuating circumstances. Examples of this are when one party was forced into a marriage they didn’t want and their love interest is not the person they’re married to (and they don’t love the person they are married to), or if a person is on their way out the door in another relationship but has loose ends to cut and tidy up (like someone is broken up/legally separated from their spouse but isn’t legally divorced from them yet, a person’s current partner is abusive and they want to break off from them but they’re having a hard time physically/legally leaving them, etc.).

-Dubcon

I’m kind of touchy about this one. There are certain scenarios I’m okay with when writing myself (Sex Pollen, Both Parties are drunk/under the influence), but as a general rule I won’t except requests for these.

- Consensual Nonconsent

ie role-playing non-consensual scenarios where everything is discussed and planned ahead of time, everyone is clear on what the safe word is and what is still absolutely a no go under any circumstances, and everything stops as soon as someone says the safe word.

I will not accept requests for this but I might write this for myself if in the right headspace.

-Somnophilia

Will only write if Consensual somnophilia (everything is discussed/consented to ahead of time, everything stops the minute someone says stop).

- So I’ve made it clear what I won’t write or accept requests for, so what will I write?

     -As mentioned above, fluff, angst, smut, hurt/comfort are all on the table.

     -Monsterfucking is also on the table. I am myself a monsterfucker and will   happily write something like that for you. (But I may be more comfortable with certain scenarios than others. Vampires, Werewolves, Demons, Angels, etc. Hit me with what you’ve got!)

    - AUs. Please give me your AUs. I will eat that shit up with a spoon.

     -Polyamory between Kazuma, the reader, and another character (both general romantic stuff, threesomes, etc.)

     - Reader Inserts where the reader is a particular gender or have a particular characteristic (Fem!Reader, Male!Reader, Tall!Reader, Short!Reader, British!Reader, Japanese!Reader, Scientist!Reader, Clumsy!Reader, Forgetful!Reader, that kind of thing)

    - If you’re unsure if I’ll accept a request or not, just ask! More than happy to let you know if it’s something I’m comfortable with/able to write.

This post will be updated or edited as needed.

[askaceattorney]

Dear Anonymous,

I still have yet to play (or watch) DGS2, unfortunately, so we’ll have to save that part for another time, but I’d love to delve into the shared adventures of this adorable duo in the first game.

When Ryuunosuke first meets Susato, she’s nothing more to him than an ally in his defense in court.

He doesn’t see her again until he and Kazuma find themselves at the end of their rope.

It makes you wonder if she’s the one who founded whatever School of Interrupting at Just the Right Time so many Ace Attorney characters apparently went to, doesn’t it?

When she appears, “calm and dignified, in our desperate final moments,” to use Ryuunosuke’s words, she causes quite the stir.  Luckily, the five minutes granted to her by the judge to present some crucial evidence is all she needs to help him and Kazuma pull off the first turnabout in Ace Attorney’s history.

The mysterious legal assistant’s wish for Ryuunosuke’s good fortune was granted, apparently.

Thus Ryuunosu--  Um...  Is it okay if I call him “Ryu” for short?  Thus Ryu’s life was saved by a humble young woman who had the courage and decency to collect, summarize, and present the evidence that turned the case around in the nick of time.  After leaving to finish his acquittal procedures with a humble bow, she disappeared, never to be seen by him again.

Or so he thought.

Similar to Phoenix and Maya’s first encounter, Ryu and Susato's second meeting occurs under the most tragic of circumstances.  His close friend and classmate has been found dead in his cabin on the ship he managed to smuggle himself onto.  Unlike Phoenix and Maya’s situation, however, it’s the lawyer (or soon-to-be lawyer) who is initially blamed for his death.  To make matters worse, the young woman who helped to save his life isn’t feeling quite so compassionate this time around.

Her anger and distrust are understandable, considering that the evidence seems to point to Ryu as the culprit, on top of the fact that Kazuma was her foster brother.  Luckily, she’s polite and reasonable enough to hear Ryu’s side of things, and even claims that she wants to believe him, so the two of them are at least able to treat each other civilly.

That is...until he tries to start investigating.

There’s a bucket load of energy beneath that demure countenance of hers, it turns out.  Her move even has a special name -- the “Susato Toss.”  Who would’ve thought she came straight out of Street Fighter?

Thankfully, she still has a reasonable side.

By presenting evidence of his innocence, Ryu not only vindicates himself, but finally starts to gain Susato’s trust.

Sadly, her trust only lasts until a certain world-famous detective shows up to accuse Ryu of being a Russian revolutionary.

It’s hard to blame her, of course.  Who wouldn’t trust THE Sherlock Holmes’s logic?

Nonetheless, her determination to find out more about Kazuma’s death is strong enough for her to begrudgingly continue the investigation with Ryu.  One notable moment occurs here when he attempts to gain favor wither her by appealing to her love of mystery novels.

She’s no fool, of course, and only dislikes him even more for expecting her to fall for it.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say this was the “main characters don’t get along until they’re forced into a situation together” cliché.  This situation may not fit that cliché perfectly, but it’s not too far off if you ask me.

When Ryu is finally allowed to investigate outside the cabin, Susato begins to show a bit more sympathy for him.

I have to give her some credit for that -- it takes a special kind of person to show compassion for a possible murderer.  It also seems like she’s beginning to see Ryu as more of a human being than a heartless criminal.  Baby steps, as they say.

From that point on, their dialogue begins taking on a more friendly tone.  Thus Susato, whether on purpose or by fate, takes on the role of the first official assistant in Ace Attorney’s history.  And boy, does she pull it off like a pro.

To make a long story short, their cooperative efforts combined with the ridiculous logic of a kooky detective (as well as the assistance of the less kooky Detective Hosonaga) bring them to the truth of Asougi’s death in the end.  While this clears Ryu of the crime and offers some much-needed closure for both him and Susato, his death still affects them deeply.

Something wonderful stems from this tragedy, though -- a crucial moment, not only for the two of them, but also for the Japanese and British Empires.

With Asougi’s passing, the exchange program between Great Britain and Japan is forced into suspension, unless, somehow, a replacement attorney can be found before the ship reaches London.

It’s a shame it has to end this way after all they’ve been through together, but that’s just the way it goes someti--

...Oh.  Well, then.  Who would’ve seen that coming?  (Besides us, I mean.)

And strangely enough, the young woman who once saw Ryu as a cold-blooded murderer has this to say about him becoming an attorney:

Thus a new attorney/assistant pair arises from the ashes of one attorney’s passing (pun fully intended), and the two of them step into a new journey in their lives together.  And thankfully, it wasn’t exactly the cliché it appeared to be -- the two of them are now trusted friends, and Susato even offers to let Ryu toss her three times as punishment for not believing him.  (It doesn’t quite end that way, but that’s beside the point.)

The first leg of said journey takes place in the “centre of the world” the incredible city of London.  What a place to begin, am I right?

Thus their incredible legal adventure begins (or adventures begin, I should say) in beautiful Victorian Era Britain.  To describe their encounters here briefly (and so I don’t spend a whole year on this essay), they learn together how the British court system works...

...about its imperfections...

...how it feels to pull off a turnabout in a British courtroom...

...and perhaps most importantly, about the value of trust.

To say nothing of their misadventures with Mr. Holmes, his young genius assistant, and several other unforgettable British folk.

And a fellow Japanese immigrant, too, of course.  Who could forget him?

You know, I’m starting to wonder if he might be one of Larry’s ancestors.

The game throws one final curveball for the great legal duo before it ends.  After telling Susato she’s the world’s best legal assistant, Ryu gets a very unexpected response from her:

When he attempts to confront her about it, all he gets is another Susato Toss.

What could someone like her, who’s already proven her worth as a legal assistant several times, be hiding?  Unfortunately for Ryu, he’s unlikely to find out soon, since her father’s illness has called her back home, leaving him to pull off his next turnabout on his own.  She doesn’t go without leaving behind as much helpful evidence as she can muster, of course.

But, as fate would have it, a storm prevents her ship from departing for at least half a day, giving Ryu and his new flatmates a chance to see her off.  On top of that, it gives Ryu the chance to find out precisely what inspired Susato’s words of doubt.

He catches her preparing to throw a copy of the British Empire’s Code of Law into the sea.  What would cause her to do such a thing?

It turns out she broke one of the rules by tampering with the scene of the crime, and another by concealing that fact.  Her intentions may have been good, but her conscience became a little too heavy for her to let it go.  She takes it a step further by claiming that, for one moment, she began to doubt the law.

She may not be wrong in stating this (she learned it firsthand in the British courts, after all), but it still caused her to see herself as a failure of a legal assistant.  Luckily for her, though, Ryu had learned some things himself in the time they spent together.

While her methods were questionable at best, Ryu recognizes something in Susato that sets her and every just person apart from a criminal: a desire to protect the innocent.  Whereas Chrogray used her tampering as a way to protect himself, her only desire was to protect Gina’s life and to ensure that Ryu would be able to prove her innocence in the end.  In other words, her faith in the system may have been lacking, but her desire for justice, like Ryu’s, never faltered for even a moment.  With that knowledge in mind, the two of them can part with a better knowledge of the law, a better understanding of each other, and smiles on their faces.

So, to sum it up, Ryu and Susato go from being friendly acquaintances, to a murder suspect and suspecter (for lack of a better word), to investigative partners, to full-fledged legal partners, and finally, to a legendary legal duo.  Will their relationship ever go any further than that?

Also, full disclosure -- it’s been a long time since I watched Dai Gyakuten Saiban, so I had to do a hefty amount of re-watching in order to remember some of these details...hence why this essay took so long.  Thanks for waiting!

And hey, how’s that for good timing?

Don’t know about you, but I’m eagerly looking forward to revisiting this unforgettable saga.  And, y’know...doing it the proper way instead of depending on fan translations.

-The Co-Mod

[t4tlawlight]

u know L is .... like 3/4 white right? 1/4 English, 1/4 Italian, 1/4 Russian, & 1/4 Japanese..

Sorry i fucking forgot that there’s a magical percentage of Nonwhite Blood you need in order to qualify as a Real Person Of Color and the moment you drop below that number it doesn’t matter how culturally involved you are in your nonwhite ancestry, everyone will just view you as white-- Oh wait. You just invented blood quantum laws again. Fuck off.

Ignoring that there are plenty of ppl who are “only 1/4th” of any given ethnicity who look more like a person of color than they do white because genes can do that, including several of my mixed japanese friends who i’ve talked to about this and think that the “he’s only 1/4th japanese” crowd is racist as hell, sure, let’s get into this.

1) You’re not even accurate. You got that from HTR13 (which is notoriously inaccurate, btw, the heights for characters change between the japanese and english translations for instance, and it’s literally just a noncanon interview half of the time. It’s as canon as, idk, anything JK TERFling ever said about wizards shitting themselves.) the ACTUAL quote is “a quarter Japanese, a quarter English, a quarter Russian, a quarter French or Italian, like that”. this is just ohba pulling shit out of his ass in the moment, It’s not nearly so clear what he’s “supposed” to be he literally doesn’t know if he wants L to be french or italian. Also nationality =/= race anyways lol

2) HTR13 is about as canon as LABB (dubiously so), and LABB has naomi say that Beyond looks japanese and then later mistake L for him, so people whitewashing him so completely in art and then pointing to a dubiously canon source for justification is racist 

3) L, when he’s afforded the choice, uses nothing but Japanese aliases. We hear about other ones that he’s taken from people, but in canon standalone (i’m ignoring the “ryuzaki-is-from beyond” retcon for a moment but beyond taking a japanese name to imitate L when LABB is set in America and there’s no “need” to go by a Japanese name is.... telling) he takes Ryuga, he takes Ryuzaki, he takes Suzuki... he knows Japanese, he knows Japanese traditions, Watari goes by Watari and he’s KNOWN as L’s Proxy Watari outside of Japan so you KNOW it’s not just They’re In Japan So They’re Using Japanese Names, and people’s responses in-text to L are “You look weird” and not “You look like a foreigner, should I be speaking English to you?” the man is clearly connected to his japanese heritage and stripping him of that? IS racist

4) Literally the only indication that hes mixed in-text even is that he was raised in britain which is pretending that there are no people of color in europe. Which is wrong. And used to whitewash history. people just jumped to whitewash him the moment they read that Ohba considers him mixed and then they read that his last name is “lawliet” (and then butchered the japanese pronunciation that he uses.) Newsflash: Japanese people can have white-sounding names, esp mixed japanese people, esp Japanese people living in the West where they face discrimination for not having white-sounding names. (This is also true of Watari...)

all of this is not to say that L being mixed isnt true because being mixed is an important part of someone’s identity and i believe that L feeling somewhat disconnected from his heritage (both as a white brit AND japanese) because he’s mixed is excellent and plays into him being so socially isolated. i love L being mixed. this doesn’t mean that i erase his japanese ancestry though. and doing so, which is what i was talking about in the first place, is racist. Point blank.

[dangan-happy]

To any of the following; Junko, Miu, Kaede, Kyoko, Kirumi or Sayaka,

I don't know if I should break up with my girlfriend because she has abusive parents and I don't want to just leave her like that... She might be seeing other girls and she's doing things to save herself that I DIDN'T know about.

She said:

"I saw someone taking their shirt off during gym

So I started crying and repeatedly apologizing to her

she said it was fine and that her friend does it all the time

turns out her friend is pan (Just like her)

I’m sitting with them again 😳

😳

👉👈"

1. Why was she looking at someone while they were getting changed...? Hopefully it was an accident...

2. Who the fuck puts "😳👉👈" and dosent mean it in a love love relationship way... I think she might be catching feelings for them and losing feelings for me... after all they must be way better than me...

She also said:

"Hhh my friend is gonna try to be there with me and back me up

I guess I’m doing this

If anything happens just please know I will always love you and that will never change

Also, if I end up going to foster care, y’all should try to get me lmao"

AND HOW WOULD WE BE ABLE TO DO THAT WHILE WE ARE IN BRITAIN WHILE SHE IS IN JAPAN????? She's doing stuff without me knowing and also knowing we had a plan to save her... it was really good and would have worked too... "lmao" does she really think this is funny to abandon our plan...? I'm not ready foe this... this is all so sudden...

Also people are getting friendly with her all of a sudden and it's scaring me... I think she dosent love me anymore....

On top of that I have school tomorrow and this is piling up on my stress... I have a really strong urge to self harm and I don't have the guts to tell her any of this... im such a coward...

please advice, comfort, hugs from any of the listed please...? Im really not in a good place right now...

You know what I think Anon, I don’t think you should be with someone that you constantly are worried about. Especially if you don’t think they love you anymore and if it’s making you uncomfortable about people acting friendly, it doesn’t seem healthy.

Of course, this is all your decision Anon, but I think it’s best to put your mental health and own happiness first. Please don’t harm yourself hun, it’s never worth it to harm yourself. It can sadly get addicting and sometimes goes too far. I will give you a hug, I hope it makes you feel just a little better.

It’s as Sayaka said, I understand that she may have abusive parents and you don’t feel right leaving her, but you have to think about your own mental health. If she is in fact hurting you and you aren’t feeling the same, staying with someone like this isn’t worth it. 

And if this is causing you stress along with school, it’s best to take a step back and realize you can not handle a relationship right now. It seems to me you already have a lot on your plate with school, worrying about a relationship won’t do you any good.

As for a hug, I will give you one. I know you aren’t in a good place right now Anon, I’m sorry that you aren’t. I hope I could help a bit, this is a tricky situation but I do believe it’s best to do what is best for you. 

[mr-kamiyama]

I’m seeing some real parallels between anti Asian racism pointed toward Japanese people leading up to WWII and anti-Chinese rhetoric that has been going on this entire 21st century. I’m gonna lay it out below:

1860s: Japan, who has only allowed trading and visitors to offshore ports because the Dutch and Portugese tried to race each other to conquer Japan in the 1600s, has Admiral Perry, sent by President Filmore, force Japan at threat to open the ports in order to force Japan to assimilate to American ways in order to create a dependency on American goods, such as oil. They get some Japanese people really into this, and this is the end of Edo/Meiji revolution.

1990s: Because Nixon took away the backing of the US dollar amid inflation, “solving” the problem by making the currency worth “whatever you want,” more or less (Google “fiat currency,” that’s very simplified, but it is part of continuing woes for people struggling to live here), Japan, which has been America’s source of labour for pennies because it was already illegal to pay people in the US too little (though the US does have a small collection of sweatshops that prey on undocumented Latinos), and America has power over Japan even today, Japan gets on even financial footing because the yen stays stable against the plummeting dollar, and along with good STEM education, becomes a maker of high-end tech and is able to be a developed country. The wealthiest Japanese start buying real estate in the closer parts of the US. This is spun into “Evil Japs will conquer us all” rhetoric (plenty of books and movies are soaked in this, and that’s where that Styx song came from). Amidst all this, the US pivots to China as a source of unfair labour.

Meiji period (whole period was 1868 to 1912), Taishou period (1912 to 1926): Japan builds and develops Western style. The US, France, Britain, Spain are all divvying up East, South, and Southeast Asia among themselves and and raping and pillaging their way across the land. Japan wants in on this (“we were here before they were, ergo, it’s our right!) similarly rapes and plunders through Korea, Sakhalin, part of China alongside everyone else. The US flips out and has a fit because “the US would never uwu” (the Philippines, the Kingdom of Hawaii, Mexico, and a whole bunch of Indigenous Nations are calling...)

2000s and 2010s: The US throws fits over the sweatshops it’s hiring itself to make goods cheaper as a complicated circumvention of laws against inhumane treatment of labour and minimum wage. Mind what I said about US sweatshops. “The US would never uwu” The US starts bombing half of West Asia because of a major attack by a hate group that was opposition to the government of one country there that President Regean helped rise to power purportedly to fight communism. Islamophobic hate crimes against West Asian and North Africans in and even born in America become a reality for many years. The US is still bombing West Asia as of this post, in 2021, some 19 years later. China interns its mostly Muslim ethnic minority, the Ughyurs. America is suddenly a paragon of love to Muslims and “would never uwu” (Never mind Latino families being ripped apart and interned at the US border for four years, albeit that not being current policy) US goes to Japan to stoke anti-Chinese sentiment with the current ruling party that likewise is pro-war, pro-colonialism.

There does seem to be a degree of realisation that “Asian Americans living in California are not actually in China making policy as a CCP official” this time from the US government unlike making it illegal for Japanese people to even think of being Japanese people in 1942 or the failure to realise “Iraq is not Afghanistan” in the early 2000s, but I am seeing US capitalist greed being turned into two-faced rhetoric against an Asian country *again* (twice in the 21 years of this century alone, noting Islamophobic hate—I wasn’t alive in the first half of the 20th century, despite being part of a church community that mostly was and was here, and my own dad and grandparents were all alive for WWII) and especially amid all the rampant violence against us already, I just want people to think and notice patterns. We should absolutely not think positively of the Meiji government, the current ruling party, the LDP, of modern Japan, and the CCP 1949-present, but we should also note all this bogus rhetoric coming from the US government and all the enemy rhetoric that’s actually just about the US wanting more money (and no, the average citizen won’t see that money, either. It will not change the 1,200$/mo for a one room infested shoebox where all the neighbours spew your pick of hate group ideology) I just want people to think about this for once.

[courage-a-word-of-justice]

Higurashi New 2 | Wandering Witch 2 | Moriarty 1 | Taiso Samurai 1 | Kamisama 1 | Munou na Nana 2 | Golden Kamuy 3 1 (25) | Yashahime 2

I’m trying a seasonal challenge this time...so that means I have to leave some Crunchyroll anime to the side. That’s why I’m putting in the tags now.

Higurashi New 2

Apparently, now this Higurashi is called “Gou”…I dunno what that means in the context of this series, but *Saitama face* OK.

Is this girl…Rika? Or this Hanyuu girl I heard of on ANN? Update: Wait a bit from that point. You’ll get your answer.

Do they ever examine why the girls in Higurashi are what they are? Rika seems to have something supernatural going on, but Rena…is just a psycho girl right now, so it’s hard to care.

LOL, I was wondering where this “nipah” Rika meme came from, but it is present in the dialogue.

I predicted that Gilligan cu-er, transition far too easily…

Why is that kid’s face so tanned (?) in comparison to the rest of him???

How did these girls get up the building so fast??? (LOL?)

Wow, the cicada noise was pretty loud there, so…props to the sound guys for making that sound stifling.

Can we really trust what Mion is saying about Tomitake…?

I thought we were going to see Watanagashi in ep 3, but…okay.

Satoko speaks rather formally. She says kochira de gozaimasuyo! instead of kocchi! or kochiradesuyo!.

Who’s that blonde lady? Someone from Umineko?

The bright colours really help to sell the ominous nature of this ED and anime. I don’t think I understand everything that’s happening in said ED, though…

Gonna pause it here because I heard you need to watch the OG and Rei to understand this, now that the new Higurashi is operating under its “proper” name.

Wandering Witch 2

…Elaina’s a bit full of herself still…

…what the heck was that instrument playing over the titlecard? Bagpipes…?

LOL, it’s the Attack on Titan world!

Did Elaina lose her hat when she fell? That must be a very stable hat indeed.

Ooh, particle effects! However…there’s CGI here, although it’s only kinda noticeable.

Have you never heard of money…?

Wait, witches get discounts???

It seems Saya comes from Japan.

LOL, this is basically Quidditch without a snitch!

I like mushrooms, so I don’t get why people kick up such a fuss about them.

Saya seems to act like this is yuri bait…*sigh*

Saya’s crying like her sister died…c’mon, it’s not that bad!

I’m hitting pause. If this is actually how the series is, then it’s primed for a drop, but I can’t help but keep it on for the spectacular visuals and the fact it’s basically anime Harry Potter.

Taiso Samurai 1

I keep swearing I’ll finish my old simulcasts…but then new ones pop up like daisies…(I guess it’s better than having no anime to finish, right?)

I just realised how pretty Jotaro’s eyes are…! The fact he just sort of splats and then doesn’t get up shows how weary he is, unlike Sakura from Moon Land, who would’ve probably gotten up and never tried doing gymnastics again if he were in the same position.

Just by glancing over the results when I google for this Montreal gold, it seems it was done by a Kouhei Uchimura, but I might be wrong on that front…oh wait, there are 3 golds, so it’s not necessarily just that one…

You can tell this is 2002 because of that flip phone.

Intai Zamurai…it’s constructed the same way as the anime’s title. Two characters and then “samurai”.

BB (Big Bird) on the side there is so goofy, he’s…kind of distracting. <- Note the official website refers to Big Bird as BB, hence my use of it.

I was wondering if Rei was the daughter or the wife…so it’s the former.

Kinugawa Ropeway…it rings a bell, somehow. Maybe the Boueibu crew went there as DVD/BD extras.

…does everyone know that a ryokan is like a mini hotel with a traditional set-up?

*snorts* LOL, Keanu (Reeves, obviously).

That montage was a bit worrying…maybe the CGI took out part of the budget? I was a bit worried when I could tell there was CGI in that one starting segment.

…LOL, wut. Agent Smith (from the Matrix)?

Yamakasi seems to be a parkour thing which has its own movie.

…I’m sort of wondering: was that ninja a woman? If Jotaro gets another wife…I dunno if I’ll like the anime as much. Things could become far too dramatic if he did. Update: You do find out later in this episode.

I think – from lip reading – the ninja used -de gozaimasu. I remember getting it drilled into me that people don’t use that these days, but in the time of ninja and samurai, they did.

…another anime set in Ikebukuro. I knew from the station, but…’bukuro must be a nice place if people are reppin’ it all of a sudden.

Was Tomoyo an actress…?

“Kinugawa, as in the river where ogres get mad?” – See, that’s the pun I made about Boueibu’s Atsushi years ago…

This Takizawa guy’s so expressive, LOL.

Gotta love a man in a suit, yes…

…they keep building up to this retirement, only for him to not retire??? Which is it?! (LOL) That declaration works better in Japanese because the -shimasen goes at the end of the sentence so the weird sentence structure in the English translation actually makes Jotaro look like he really messed up due to nervousness speaking in front of crowds. Update: He just sounds like he stopped in the middle of a sentence in Japanese, which he obviously did.

There’s no time travel for sure, but there are ninjas! Plus dudes in jumpsuits!...plus, of course, gymnastics! It could still work, but I keep swearing there’s something supernatural coming around the corner for this…Also, this “gymnast trying to retire” thing seems to be drawing me in because of my whole current lack of direction in basically everything, much like Rikuo of Sing Yesterday for Me.

Kamisama 1

Hmm…Kamisama ni Natta Hi…it doesn’t say the subject stating this became a god, so the pronoun could be “she” or “you” rather than “I”, which seems to be the current standard for it. Update: It says on the title card “I”, so it should have an I then…I guess(?)

There’s a fish on the logo.

…this girl, I already know her name is Hina. That’s the 2nd Odin this season (the first is in Sigdrifa…or however it’s spelt)…she’s gonna be annoying, isn’t she…?

What’s this about a date…?

There are two Izanamis this season, too. The second is Hifumi from HypMic.

Looks like there was an accident, according to one of the signs.

…This feels exactly like a visual novel. I’m surprised it’s an original.

I was wondering why “Key Ramen” (Kagi Ramen) sounded weird…then it hit me. Key! You motherf**kers!!! *shakes fist* You were hiding right under my nose all along!

Hey, Potato-kun! (I know his name is Youta, but…eh, aside from having a possible girlfriend candidate and being a Nice Guy, he’s still a Potato-kun.) Stop staring in disbelief and do something!

…Why Potato-kun, anyway? Is it because his name means “become god”???

…This Izanami is so emotionless…it’s hard to imagine her cheering, Youta was right on that front.

…that style in Hina’s background…I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it for Sailor Moon Crystal, but I’ve forgotten what the artist’s name is (the one that inspired that artstyle)…

I almost expected Hina to interrupt the confession, like Leo from Taiso Samurai.

I kinda just shrugged near the end of the episode and finished it just to see if the confession would be interrupted, so…big fat drop there. I must not like much Key beyond Angel Beats (and even then, it’s only okay because it’s the relic of a time gone by).

Moriarty 1

I’ve been picking up Sherlock-related things left and right ever since I was a fan of Detective Conan…not Sherlock, Elementary or that Robert Downey Jr. movie, but the stuff Conan Doyle had his hands in. (I’d also like to keep an eye out for that Miyazaki movie, but I don’t know if I can/should go out of my way for it.) Therefore, I was a pretty easy mark for a bishonen Moriarty.

Who’s this “El” guy anyway?

…That OP is basically Black Butler all over again. I admit I went, “Oh, stuff this” for a second when I saw Rasmus Faber’s name on credits – when I went to entire series for him, they always ended badly for me – but I couldn’t stop watching the episode (since I skipped forward to the actual episode due to background noise), so this might be the anime to change everything.

I’ll be real with you – aside from Japan, America and China (the former two of which I’ve gone to and the latter I’ve technically gone to Hong Kong, which I have stronger ties to anyway), I honestly don’t have anywhere on my bucket list. That said, anime (obviously, the London arc from DC was a big factor) and this one movie called What a Girl Wants have been pretty instrumental in making Great Britain…almost make the list of places I want to go to. Key word: almost.

…I want a dub. With accents like Princess Principal.

Also, I forgot Soma Saito was our Moriarty…LOL.

“…for Man of Standing” (sic).

Turn the other cheek, Mr. Tailor.

The eyes really tell you everything about a person in this anime.

Ooh, this has absolutely no holes in its logic. It’s a strong contender!

Yashahime 2

Holy s***, is that Kagome’s brother?(!) He kinda reminds me of Takagi from Detective Conan for some reason…

Come to think of it…writers like Takahashi don’t normally have androgynous leads like Towa, do they?

That was…not the best fight scene, man.

Ooh, naginata. I’ve read a bit about them, but I’ve never really seen one used in an anime before…not to my memory. Not even the naginata in Touken Ranbu (plural) can help with that.

…this Rainbow Pearl business reminds me of Sailor Moon’s…uh, whatever they’re called…Rainbow Crystals, that’s right.

There’s something oddly comfy about predicting the “it won’t be my crying face, it’s yours you’ll get!” line, as bad as that sign may be for predictability on the whole.

I’ve felt in the years leading up to now, the progressive nations are slowly causing the entire gender binary to unravel. The more I think about my own relationship with my concept of gender – I accept gender-neutral third-person pronouns because initially I wanted to be anonymous on the internet, but now I’m just generally fine with it, for instance – the more I can agree and yet also disagree because of the progress the LGBTIQ+ community has made in recent years.

Munou na Nana 2

Ah-hah! People were calling it that the enemies of humanity were actually the superpowered kids and this proves it.

Ah, I think this Shibusawa is Masuda. I was here for him, so here he is.

Nana just says konnichiwa, which is the most basic of Japanese greetings. I don’t think it was phrased as a question, so…why did the subbers go with that?

Nana keeps breaking her chopsticks by leaving a bit at the end.

Lemme guess…Shibusawa’s talent is actually reversing time, not stopping it.

Is…that Shibusawa Nana’s giving flowers to…?

Golden Kamuy 3 1 (25)

If this is episode 25, was this always planned as a split-cour with season 2? I wonder…

Lingonberries! Oh, lingonberries! They’re those berries Ikea puts into their jam, right? (I’ve never tasted a lingonberry, but…yeah. That’s how I know of them.)

The sign says “Hurep Honpo” (backwards, as some older Japanese/Chinese things do), so it really just says “hurep” (since “honpo” = main shop). Update: Hurep actually means “lingonberry” and not the berry wine like I thought it did here, so it says “hurep wine” after all.

Thank goodness for 2D bears! (LOL)

Ratel?...uh, honey badger! That’s what they’re called in English!

…uh, and then it turns out to be a wolverine. I don’t know my Mustelidae, it seems.

There’s nothing like someone throwing a wolverine to know this is Golden Kamuy…(as weird as that sounds.)

…what was that random line about boobs about…? (Maybe it was just said to be random…?)

…ohhhhhhhh. These yellow eyes work much better than the standard red eyes you see in Munou na Nana or Moriarty. They’re so sinister.

Why did it suddenly change to an interview style…? Weren’t we waiting for a fight? Update: Seems the answer is “padding”. Not that I mind, I think it was interesting actually. Do more of that if you can.