joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

This is attention to details man

Ganon holds a bow straight while Link holds it at an angle.

Ganon also draws the bow like a samurai, (since this Ganon is more samurai like) he positions/aim the bow then draws.

(Not shown here) Even if Link uses a long bow like Ganon he will still aim at an angle since he is a soldier. He positions/aim the bow and draws at the same time.

The bow Ganon uses will recoil meaning this is a heavy bow. (They didnt need to add that detail in, but they did man)

#zelda #absolutely fascinating #24.4.24

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

they tackled racism in this episode

#bartender #24.4.24

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

This was definitely one of the more unusual resolutions to a supernatural conflict I've come across in anime but I had fun so

#air #24.4.24

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

"I had a dream. A strange dream about the sky."

So yeah, I started watching this today, because my buddy @joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh is watching it, and I am easily influenced by outside forces I suppose.

This is Air, a 2005 Kyoto Animation production from just before their legendary run that began with The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. It's adapted from a KEY visual novel, and my first impression is that it is very visibly "VN-y" indeed.

The main feeling I get is one of overwhelming "summer energy." There are near constant cicada sounds in the backdrop, the skies are a clear crystal blue with huge, billowing white clouds which flip to creamy streaks of the Milky Way across an inky black at night. Everyone, especially our main character, is sweating all the time because it's so goddamn hot, and the whole thing takes place by the shore. The vibes are absolutely on-point.

In addition to this impeccable sense of place---a deliberate artistic vision---there is also a decidedly non-intentional sense of time. This show absolutely radiates 2005, most obviously from the character designs which are of a highly sexually dimorphic kind that was common in VNs and adjacent work at the time. The main guy is tall, lanky, and angular. Almost all of the women are comparatively short, round, and have the massive headlamp bug-eyes inextricably associated with the period.

The plot, such that it is, is simple but also rather odd. Essentially, our main character, Yukito, who we are given no backstory for at this point, simply arrives in town one day, nebulously "looking for" something, and attempting to earn money by plying his trade as a puppeteer---it is very much worth noting that he appears to control his puppets with no strings or other tricks---but has little success. When he meets an odd, clumsy girl named Kamio Misuzu, who trips a lot and says "gao!" when upset or frustrated, he ends up following her home, and improbably, the girl's drunkard mother drafts him as a live-in babysitter.

Some of this is probably a remnant of the show's origins as a VN---an eroge, at that, although this particular pipeline of H-game -> clean visual novel -> anime or manga adaptation was not rare back in the day---where a man randomly shoehorning himself into the lives of various women about town is the norm.

About the "gao" thing; Kamio's mother disapproves, and this dynamic can't help but remind me of Rosa's disapproval of her own daughter Maria's verbal tic from Umineko, itself a visual novel that later got a (particularly poorly-regarded in that case) anime adaptation. So far, the dynamic here seems far less fraught and abuse-laden, but it's an interesting parallel, and given that Umineko postdates Air, I wonder if it was an intentional reference. (Ryukishi07 surely would've been aware of Key at the time.)

The second girl our protagonist meets seems to style herself an alien, from a planet where everyone is "free." Freedom. Air. 'Free as a bird'? There's something here, especially when she rebuffs the idea later and makes fun of Yukito for believing her in the first place.

I cannot shake a strong feeling that this show is keeping its cards close to its chest. Given how crazy the visual novels of this period could get, I really have no idea what to expect. Although, to sell the show more on what it's doing *now* than what it might do *later*, the comedic aspects are very well done. It's a nice mix of slapstick and conversational comedy. Also, as mentioned, the show's atmosphere is just absolutely immaculate; you can practically taste the salt of the sea on the wind as you're watching this.

At the end of the episode, at around sunset, Kamio gives a little speech as she's standing, arms stretched out, with her head tilted toward the sky. I don't normally just include a bunch of screencaps in these little writeups because I like to keep them short, but what she says here just struck me as so…profoundly odd, strangely beautiful, a little reminiscent of my own experiences with mania and spiritual fervor, that I just kind of need to include it.

In a much more serious sense than usual; what DOES she mean by this? This is the most taken I've been with the first episode of an older anime in quite a while, and I really feel like I need to know more.

Sadly I probably shouldn't watch more right now, so I suppose I'll save my next batch of episodes for tomorrow or Wednesday....but gah, the temptation to just stay up until 6am and try to marathon this all at once is SO present.

#air #hi jane #24.4.24

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

We're following on from last week's theme of establishing Anthy herself as a character more, although I definitely don't think this is the direction I expected lol? Super duper funny though so not complaining. An observation - the snail got a border, the octopus got a border, but the snake did not get a border. Interesting bias, Utena.

#utena #23.4.24

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

#23.4.24

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

fart the animation has been dropped

#wind breaker #23.4.24

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

dab

#spice and wolf #23.4.24

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

wait is he like

#loser ranger #23.4.24

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

I like Kano

#air #23.4.24

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

Some banger fuckin visuals this episode, and hey a good episode at that! Akira is causing the exact problems I expected to although surprisingly I'm not really as bothered by it as expected. Lots of the stops and places we go are weird and wonderful or freaky and unnatural, so that's good. Ending is exciting as well, woo.

#shuumatsu train #22.4.24

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

I wasn't giving it so much thought when I watched the first episode because I was in a vc and so wasn't paying my 100% attention, but as I watched this episode I kinda had the thought that, wow, this adaptation seems pretty barebones. I've not read the manga so I don't have a real frame of reference, but while watching I feel like I can see every single panel just in the show. It has colours and the camera moves, sure, but there's no real direction. This is just putting the panels on-screen. At least, that's how it feels. So yeah, if I'm going to engage with this at all I'd rather just read the manga.

#sasakoi #22.4.24

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

mzmf cutiessssssss

#pjsekai #hi koro #22.4.24

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

cult

#henjin salad #22.4.24

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

pretty hype episode, the violence is such a good contrast with the rest of the show up to this point

#precure #22.4.24

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

Occurred to me that I'm going camping over the weekend so I won't have time to watch Knuckles the day it drops, rip

#sonic #22.4.24

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

Drummer Cream kinda hype

#sonic #22.4.24