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#ruin explorer

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Source: Eden: It's an Endless World! エデン

by Hiroki Endo

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Ruin Explorers Fam & Ihrie(1995)

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Ruin Explorers  | Kumi Konno | Dear Myself Dear Myself, don’t forget: When you’re feeling sorrow, Dear Myself, just smile and believe You will surely overcome. Hello, my dream! Remember Joy will soon fill all of the cracks in my heart. Hello, my dream! Even if it’s hard, Tomorrow will surely come.

#ruin explorer

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I understand not having context of things you haven't experienced, especially when you don't understand that "toys" are a big part of why things like Mecha shows and Tokusatsu are allowed to exist, the merchandising (and marketing of said merchandising, and marketing of the show through the framing of the merchandising) is an intrinsic part of their existence, and marketing will do what it does, which is make things look cynically made and shallow. This is in part because of how marketing operates in the west too, when a show is as much "about" the merchandise than the show itself, in the west, that means marketers are given way too much power of the artistic process and it means, well, the show is cynical garbage, and this kind of marketing signals this. Because the "toys" are just to wring money, and if the show is about selling toys, then the show is just about wringing money from children, and can't be allowed to be about anything else much deeper than that, lest you're taking a marketing ploy too seriously.

But Japan works somewhat different, in that the directors have much more power and control over the thing itself, and the people behind marketing are willing to cede and lose battles with them, and that the fans believe in the merchandising and toys as a genuine extension of what the show experience is. Hideaki Anno collects and plays with playmodels not because he's such a weirdo geek, but as part of his appreciation and support of the shows he loves. Playing with "toys" helped greatly most of Japan's most accomplished visual artists. Where do you think Akira Toriyama's incredible vehicle designs come from? Where do mecha designers start thinking about joints and shapes? Where do animators start thinking about posing and composition? Where do tokusatsu suit designers think about character and costume design? Toys! Figures! Model kits! That culture is paramount for these shows to exist.

So like, I get seeing franchises that are so tied together with merchandising and their marketing and assuming cynicism, up to a point. At some point, people really need to understand that assuming things without experiencing them and operating on those assumptions is dangerous and stupid, especially if you put yourself in a position of authority or of attention. There's an enormous variety of mecha shows about all different kinds of stories and tones, even within just a single franchise itself. Want a Romeo & Juliet romance tied with Vietnam-style guerrilla fighting? Want Top Gun? Want a silly superhero martial arts tournament? Want a 1900s turn of the century romance and adventure novel? Guess what, these are all completely different Gundam shows, and Gundam barely scratches the surface of the mecha genre. If anything, the West's perception of NGE is also colored by our chronic lack of Tokusatsu too. People seem to start to know better now, but most people did not realize back then that Evangelion is as much, if not more Ultraman than a mecha anime.

do you know what was the origin of "unlike most mecha, (x) is about the people"

if you mean the meme, it was making fun of NGE fans who got into mecha through it and would confidently repeat more or less that exact phrasing without watching other series. if you mean who said it first, I don't think there's necessarily one specific place it started

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#ruin explorer

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#ruin explorer

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Some food for me, myself and I.

I really love Ruin Explorers.

#ruin explorer

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#ruin explorer

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Brazil At Night, Various Photographers (Barbey, Burri, Franklin, Harvey)

#first image is Rio de Janeiro and the last image is Brasília like obviously #the other images i'm not sure #maybe Salvador on the second?

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underrated gohan look... he looks so cute here. very girl and i love it

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hakrene

#kamen rider black.....

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there needs to be a jesus on the cross emoji that i can use any time i have to go to work in an hour

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(Moomin no Daibouken, GBC)

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Breezy ‘Outrun’ Arcade

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interesting fact i have titanium in my spine