aamaimonn

[aamaimonn]

happy almost black butler day to those who celebrate

[aamaimonn]

Pleasepleasepleaepleasepleade I’m nothing

#the apothecary diaries

[aamaimonn]

#kusuriya no hitorigoto

[aamaimonn]

I don't know if anyone caught this....

but the animators dropped an Easter egg in the episode this week! So if you watched the scene where Loulan is being presented at the garden party closely, you will notice an oddity - her handmaidens are all looking the same.

While you could say that animators do same-face for mob/bg characters to speed up the process, that is not the case with this series' animators, and esp not for this episode which did have a lot of background characters.

Novel/Manga readers, IYKYK. Anime-onlys, keep this in mind *wink*

#kusuriya no hitorigoto

[aamaimonn]

#kusuriya no hitorigoto #the loml she’s so cute

[aamaimonn]

#kusuriya no hitorigoto

[aamaimonn]

Pls share your thoughts as well!! Vol 4 is my favorite of all time and has been for a while. I need to know if anyone agrees lol

#the apothecary diaries #kusuriya no hitorigoto #knh #the apothecary diaries light novel #knh ln #maomao #jinshi #jinmao

[aamaimonn]

Apothecary Diaries is pog as fuck bc serious political issues and dynamics from a woman's POV are rarely depicted in ANY form of media

It's always a man's world where women's issues surround him. Even if we get a female perspective once in awhile- it all comes back to how it facilitates his game in the end. She's a footnote in the overarching scheme of things. Misogyny exists. Back to the real plot.

Apothecary Diaries is strictly from a female perspective and how each class of woman has to act, what limits they have, what rights they have and don't have between each class, etc. These women have to behave a certain way under a patriarchy, which you would think makes it a man's story, but it never is. The women are THE focus of this show, their struggles are THE plot. The focus is about how the patriarch effects them.

Take the concubines for example. The show dives into how bearing a child affects their rank, how traumatizing it is to lose that child, the consequences of that, etc. We have barely seen the emperor who sired all these kids because this is not about him.

Jinshi's personal plot is secondary to Mao Mao's journey- he is mostly there to provide new cases for Mao Mao to solve and to learn more about the shortcomings of his class when taking care of citizens like Mao Mao.

Jinshi is not a bad person, but by virtue of his position in the higher classes, he cannot understand how harsh life as a poor WOMAN is specifically- he can only catch glimpses of it from what Mao Mao tells him and feel outrage but powerless in his wealth and luxury

Mao Mao is a fortunate commoner woman for what privileges someone in her class should and shouldn't have. She happened to be adopted by a knowledgeable man. She is allowed to read, write, learn, and has enough skill to be a poison tester and have a job EXTREMELY out of her class limit as an apothecary, also a job not traditionally meant for women

Mao Mao is not a "noT lIkE oThER gIrLs" protagonist, she is FOR THE GIRLIES. She only wants to help the women around her, and women are whom she has the closest relationships to. She sees a woman being harassed and can't let it stand. She sees a frail, traumatized woman dying from the recklessness of those who should be caring for her and spends day and night nursing her back to health, while also punishing the people who were so careless with her needs.

My girl has STUDIED UP on THE BODY to TEACH these upper class ladies on how to really HEAT things up in the BEDROOM

Sex depicted in Apothecary Diaries is both something women are not shamed to be enjoying, while at the same time being acknowledged as an unfortunately huge economic necessity to market themselves.

Like shit is just so real in this series???

Listen, I can go on and on about how GOATED the series and especially Mao Mao is but you get the picture

[aamaimonn]

all of tumblr tomorrow, march 15th:

[aamaimonn]

a little sparrow

[aamaimonn]

Certified dungeon meshi moment

[aamaimonn]

new episode today hehe..

[aamaimonn]

A Sign Of Affection Episode 4: What Kind of Voice

Boy oh boy there is a lot to talk about with this episode. Incredible production, incredible boards, incredible plot and character developments- it's got it all. So much so that it's hard to really put it all into words, but I'll do my best.

First off, let me talk storyboards. Yuta Murano has been insane with this series, boarding every episode so far- and he's been killing it, hell, even carrying it on his back (since he's the series director as well).

Anyways, point being that Murano has been incredibly intelligent in regards to boarding with this episode. How, you might ask? Spacing. The whole episode really hammers home the idea of space, both around characters but also between them. Murano leans heavily into the wider layouts like you can see above, but similarly uses first person perspective to create a strong awareness of the space between characters to help provide more feeling to Yuki and Itsuomi's relationship.

One super easy example is Kyouya and Itsuomi's late-night interaction. The combined use of first person perspective between the pair, as well as the wider shots between to show the empty space around them, really highlights their nature as friends incredibly well. He also really likes using doors and whatnot to frame the characters, and I love it.

Hell, I'll take it a step further too. See how Itsuomi is able to see Kyouya's face, but Kyouya can't see Itsuomi's? That's intentional, and shows how open Kyouya is vs how closed Itsuomi is. Very very great work.

And then there's this example with Shin and Emma. It's really subtle, but we never get a first person shot from Shin within. Even with Emma's singular first person shot he's slightly off center. The whole interaction is framed as Shin being there for a reason other than what Emma feels he's there for. His body language and demeanor, the way he reacts to Emma's words, there's considerable distance between the pair, and that gets illustrated very easily with the table in front of them.

Of course, my favorite pieces of this are with Yuki and Itsuomi. No barriers, no space between the pair, all of their shots really sell the idea of the empty space that exists around them as a pair.

I also just love that Murano has Itsuomi's personality down so well. He always strikes the exact same pose when focusing on talking with Yuki

Speaking of him, I love how catty he got with Oushi earlier on in the episode. Really fun addition to his very playful but reserved personality.

But lets rewind and dig a little deeper into that whole sequence.

Oushi, once again, really shows off his true colors a little too blatantly when talking with Yuki. The easiest comparison to make is the fact that Oushi is hitting Yuki's head while Itsuomi only ever pats it. Combined with the sign language for "cute", you really get a grasp on the challenges that face Oushi. Does he not pat her head because he knows what it means in sign language? It's hard to say, but paired with how he plays with her hair I think it's pretty easy to say that he does have some awareness of those things, and it probably comes from Itsuomi.

Anyways, moving forward again. While questionable behavior that does highlight Itsuomi's more... challenging side, I might say, the interaction between him and Oushi is really really great.

Firstly, because Oushi tries to use his familiarity with Yuki and sign language to put down the people around her so that he can take the top spot, but also because Itsuomi claps back and completely destroys him.

Of course, when it rains, it pours, so there's plenty of other character interactions in this episode.

Really, it's something that I'm incredibly critical about with my slice of life and romance series. The world itself is very wide, and people have more than a few friends. Being able to express that while preserving the core intent of the series can be challenging, but it makes a massive difference in overall quality and breadth.

And A Sign of Affection aces that aspect. Kyouya and Rin, whatever Emma's got going on with Itsuomi, then of course Oushi as well. There's a solid cast of characters that exist to surround Itsuomi and Yuki, and even more that exist in the periphery. It makes it feel so much more alive, and creates far more interesting dynamics that can ebb and flow based on which characters appear and where.

Though obviously, the main focus is Yuki and Itsuomi here, so that's where the majority of the effort goes, and it's entirely worth it. Just even simple things like Oushi only being seen in a crowd today vs Itsuomi being isolated when with her.

You might say that's just how the visuals shake out, but obviously a Costco isn't ever going to be that quiet so the idea is that because of Yuki, the focus is on Itsuomi so we don't really see much of any background characters.

Add on top the incredible sound design, and in this episode voice acting, and it's just a flawless experience. We as viewers experience the world in a surprisingly different fashion to Yuki, and the episode highlights that with things like the tone of Itsuomi's voice.

Incredibly simple and small details pepper this episode and the story at large, but they end up insanely important to comparing and contrasting the viewer's experience against Yuki's, challenging us to think and view things through her (very cute) eyes.

Anyways, let's put the icing on the cake here with animation and other work.

We know that this production is hand-obsessed due to the sign language, but that quality extends to other aspects. Being a very reserved and casual series there's not a lot of room for impressive animation, but the episode still finds way to show off with cuts like Shin cutting hair here.

Similarly, 2D vehicles? It's really a whole other flex. The requirements for keeping such a detailed object on model, all while in motion is really really incredible. And there's a surprising amount of those cuts in the episode.

Overall, A Sign of Affection continues to hit home run after home run with each episode, and delivers an experience that is only possible because of the medium. Creative to the max, it does everything in its power to elevate the source and create and entirely unforgettable experience. Saturdays really have been great this Winter season.

#a sign of affection

[aamaimonn]

Cute girls!!!! ❄️💕

#yubiren #yubisaki to renren #a sign of affection #yuki itose #emma nakazono #anime #shojo #manga #myart

[aamaimonn]

♡ antoinette appreciation post ♡

#ouran #tamaki suoh

[aamaimonn]

A Tighnari spread I started last year that I finally finished 🫶🏽🌿 I def got lazy toward the end lol oops

[aamaimonn]

There are Ouran light novels. Shojobeat when I catch you !!!!!!!

#Ouran #I want them so bad #I might just buy them and use Google translate #I just need them #talkies