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[yumetabibito]

You awaken in a decrepit old mansion… 

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saint seiya episode 36, the tl;dr version

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We discussed this, but it really is interesting to me how Milo’s PRIDE AS A GOLD SAINT manifests.  It’s the pride of being part of something larger than himself--and being at the top of that hierarchy as a Gold Saint.  When he feels like an action he is asked to do will cheapen the “worth” of a Gold Saint, he will push back.  Hard.

And it doesn’t matter if the person asking him to do it is his superior the Pope, or the very goddess he serves.  We see this in this episode--where sending a Gold Saint to flatten someone as weak as a Bronze Saint offends him--and in Hades, where asking to accept Athena’s judgment on the worthiness of Kanon is met with protests about Kanon not having met MILO’S standards.  (He even brings up Mu and Aiolia as fellow Gold Saints, as though he just called them up and asked their opinion on the matter.)

With that in mind, of course Milo is going to be a huge dick about Aiolia. It’s not that Milo hates Aiolia’s personality, it’s that having a “traitor’s brother” wearing a Gold Cloth makes Milo feel like his own Cloth is being cheapened. To Milo, the Gold Sainthood has no place for the “unworthy” like potential traitors.  This is also why when Aiolia’s brother is cleared, Milo can effortlessly wipe away his prior judgment against Aiolia and treat him as a valuable team member, as though the possibility of him being traitor-scum never existed. (I would wager Aiolia, having been on the receiving end of that suspicion, is less inclined to be charitable to Milo in return.)

This is something unique to Milo, though.  Even Shaka is not too high and mighty to follow the Pope’s orders, whether it’s defending Sanctuary against what should be a pathetic threat of a handful of Bronze Saints, or, in the manga, going to clear an entire island of Saint-rejects--pathetic little hanger-on’s that couldn’t even win a Cloth.  You can bet Milo would have been complaining to high heaven if he had gotten assigned that clean up mission!

In short, Milo is the Gold Saint that gives the clearest picture of how a Gold Saint is “expected” to carry himself.  It’s one of the most fascinating parts of an already excellent character.

The Inevitable StS Rewatch, Episode 36

One of the most truly pressing issues in Saint Seiya canon: why the fuck is Milo like this?

Keep reading

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i refuse to put any more effort into this

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Does this mean I, too, am a cool, talented writer because almost all my handles are dorky StS references?

when you’re feeling insecure about yourself as a writer just remember that ryukishi07 literally named himself and his flagship character ‘dragon knight lenna’ directly from his favorite final fantasy girl and also just straight up copypasta’d ciel from tsukihime into his work too 

and he’s still successful and amazing

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Oh wow, you're back! Little late but welcome back

Aw, thank you, anon! It’s nice to be back!

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The dread Yiling Patriarch and lofty Hanguang-Jun have arrived!  (And are guarding my doujinshi.)

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battlers writing expectation: shannon breasted boobily down the stairs

battlers writing reality: kanon is very manly and sexy and has a huge dick and also a name

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Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation is sooo good.

Dammit.

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I forgot that Black Jack’s hatecrush was getting his own spin off, somehow. But, hey, now that I’m reminded due to the fact that it’s ending, I went ahead and bought all four volumes currently available due to the Japanese reviews of the series.

Man, Dr. Kiriko was the perfect foil. I still remember the time he was just sitting in a cafe, having some lunch, minding his own business and Black Jack saw him from outside and just HAD to run in, sit at his table and start lecturing him. Dude, let the man eat a sandwich; it’s not like you caught him in the act of euthanizing someone!

Good thing BJ takes place in the 70’s. Black Jack’s weirdness over Kiriko is so strong that he’d definitely stalk his blog and rant about every post Kiriko made to Pinoko even if it was something like, “Got a new imposing black cloak today. It was on sale.”

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Mmm, delicious crow...

Having been a fan of Banana Fish more than half my life at this point, I’ve always militantly maintained that--while I love reading alternate takes endings and takes--nothing I’ve ever read has made me believe that the canon ending could have been any different than it was in the time that it had to work with.  Or in the very least, not different and still elicit the same emotional gut punch it had for me as a teenager.

I’ve mentioned before that my copy of the last bunkoban volume still has my tear tracks from when, in my excitement to finish the series, I read the end of it in the bookstore and started sobbing all over it.  Don’t get me wrong.  I actually love the ending.  I acknowledge (and agree with a few of) the issues people have with it on an intellectual level, but emotionally, I will be Upset if the ending is changed in any meaningful way in the anime adaptation.

One of the best things about an anime adaption is the fact that it brings new fans and old fans out of the woodwork.  The first doujinshi I ever bought were Banana Fish doujinshi, so there’s a special sort of excitement to me when I see the fanbase begin to create new content for my favorite manga series.

I wasn’t actually expecting to read a fic that still had me sobbing a few hours later though.  

The author considers the ending of the series to be as important as I do, and they use direct elements from it in the reworking of it to a happier version. 

One of the smartest things the fic does is to never have Ash and Eiji directly talk to one another (lucidly) throughout the entire thing.  The mechanism for saving Ash is simple--Sing finds Ash, calling an ambulance to take Ash to the hospital and rushing to tell Eiji what happened.

But saving Ash’s life physically doesn’t actually “save” him.  Which brings me to another thing I loved about the fic; it’s labeled “Ash/Eiji” but it never (except for some in-character teasing from Max) takes anything further than the original series did.  It always seemed to me that mapping the exact dimensions of their relationship should take time that can’t be resolved in purely saving Ash’s life.

Instead, what bubbles to the surface is allowing Eiji to respond to the idea that dying with his letter in hand is “good enough” for Ash, without ever thinking about the horrible damage it will inflict upon the people that love Ash.  That using the letter as justification is actually a perversion of all the feelings Eiji imbued it with, his fervent desire to keep Ash safe, to allow him to live.

“Was I just a sacrifice for your beautiful death!?”

I always wanted Eiji to be able to say something along those lines, deep down.  Even Garden of Light doesn’t allow for Eiji to be angry at Ash for what happened.  In this fic, though, when Eiji confronts Ash as he’s beginning to slip away--after learning that Ash asked Sing not to call the paramedics--he’s described as the embodiment of rage. 

Even in the aftermath, after his outburst causes him to be banned by the hospital from seeing Ash for the duration of Ash’s recovery, Sing describes Eiji to Ash as both infuriated and distraught.

This narrative doesn’t actually fix anything.  It doesn’t postulate that all Ash and Eiji have to do is admit their feelings for one another--if sheer love had been enough, the canon ending would have never occurred.  It doesn’t try to explore things beyond its scope; a happy ending is now on the table, but we don’t know what form it will ultimately take.

And, yes, reading this was such a relief to me that I cried.  For more than half my life, I’ve wanted to believe that Ash could have been saved, that he could have responded to Eiji’s desire to be together, but I could never visualize the shape of the events that would have to occur in order for that to happen in a way that felt true to the characters and their relationships to one another.

This is the power of fanfiction.  It can transform the way we look at things, even things we love.  Maybe this fic won’t do it for someone that has recently read Banana Fish and is hurting over the end, but it’s always possible that they will find a happy ending that matches their own feelings--if not written by someone else, then from deep within themselves.

I just know I love Banana Fish all the more, now having the solace that a happy ending could have been just as beautiful to me.

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Welp, that sure was an episode of the Gyakuten Saiban anime. (Hey, at least it also kept the tradition of P/E OPs, though)

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Akatokuro beat me up and took my lunch money! :D

What!? And she didn’t even split the proceeds with me!?

Friendship cancelled.

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I ORIGINALLY CALLED IT “WORLD’S SLOWEST SPEEDREAD” IF YOU MUST KNOW.

Are you and akatokuro continuing the seacats reread? Sorry if this has already been asked, but I just found the archive and I love your interpretations.

Ahhhh, I can’t tell which asks are ancient and which ones aren’t!

To be honest, I’m not sure? Akatokuro and I are still peripherally active in Umineko stuff—and, I mean, she’s still doing a “speedread” on her tumblr—and probably always will be active to some extent. If she wanted to start Goats again, I’d probably follow…but to be honest a lot of what we wanted to cover in Goats feels a little obsolete at this point in time.

If you just want to hear me or her sob over our love of Yasu, we’re always up for that, though!

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Yes. It’s like you pried open my brain and dumped out my thoughts on Banana Fish.

It’s wrong to watch Banana Fish with expectations that it is good LGBT representation.

Like, seriously, you would be so appalled.

In literally the first chapter/episode, we are introduced to a gay pedophile, and he wasn’t the last. Whenever a male character experiences sexual abuse, it is by another man because for some reason women rapists didn’t exist in the eighties.

Regarding the main characters’ relationship, I’m aware that most fans call it romantic, but it’s really not. At the very least, it is canonically not a romantic relationship. Akimi Yoshida wanted to explore a relationship connected by feelings outside romantic ones. In which case, the closest description would be queerplatonic.