schneereggen

[schneereggen]

first ever complete gs piece how we feeling. alien stagee round 6 redraw

[schneereggen]

I'm still so obsessed with this art by Asami like UGHHHHHHH STOP BEING SO IN LOVE

THEY HAVE VALENTINE'S DAY ILLUSTRATION TOGETHER 😭😭😭

AND SHINYA'S FLIRTY AF LOOK??? EXCUSE ME SIR IT LOOKS LIKE YOU WANT TO EAT SOMETHING ELSE THAN THAT CHOCOLATE. PUT THAT TONGUE BACK IN YOUR MOUTH

And Guren is just.. oh god he's so cute. I understand why Shinya is looking at him like that. Holding a heart shaped chocolate... next to Shinya... I am not ok. I hope they kissed that day

Happy valentines everyone.........

#on the occasion #catastrophe at 16 #owari no seraph

[schneereggen]

I'm late to the party... But the English translator seemingly also gave up at this point 😂

Husband...? Husband?! I mean, you could have chose partner or spouse. And we all know shinya is flirting. But HUSBAND?!?!

#owari no seraph #seraph of the end #ons #catastrophe at 16 #catastrophe at sixteen manga #guren ichinose #shinya hiragi #gureshin #shingure #the german translator of the novels ar least lasted until book 7 before they started the gay stuff #yeah husband... let the fanservice be heard! #English made it even gayer congrats

[schneereggen]

I finally know how Shinya keeps whispering to Guren in class.

He just takes a seat at Guren's table... Why did I never consider this? 😄

#owari no seraph #seraph of the end #ons #catastrophe at 16 #catastrophe at sixteen manga #guren ichinose #shinya hiragi #GureShin #shingure

[schneereggen]

If Guren doesn't want to, at least Shigure is there to step in and be there for Sayuri. Give that girl a head pat!

#owari no seraph #seraph of the end #ons #catastrophe at 16 #catastrophe at sixteen manga #sayuri hanayori #shigure yukimi

[schneereggen]

idk if i am right but, kagami wrote cat16 (and probably wra19 too) when his writing was not influenced by the bl ships but despite the fact kagami wrote gureshin in a rather "more than just friends" way. like im not disrespecting any ship but the fact that shusaku and narumi dynamic was also written in a rather sibbling like. okay but talk abt gureshin NEVER once did kagami try to put a sibbling relationship. next is out of all his friends' death kagami made shinya's the most hurting for guren, to a level that guren say that if 'he becomes angry at mahiru then shinya will be sad' and that 'there was no meaning of causing the catastrophe if shinya died.' kagami could have used a female chracter for that, also ik he goes on alwayss commenting how maahiru is a godess etc, etc BUT he makes guren more inclined towards shinya's views. infact he shows in wra19 how guren kind of despised mahiru whereas was sooo deemed to save 'shinya and the others'. and then all that heartbeat, meaning of life talks and hugging for 1 hr scences i mean-

not to mention while shinya was always shown to be heavily admired to guren especially with that "meaning of life was meeting you" and how shinya grew up surviving even killing others but when it cam to guren he risked is life more than once; guren was also shown to always think abt shinya's words, to a level that when his friends died he was able to keep his sanity only because shinya said so. and there is just SO MUCH MORE abt them. again not disrespecting any other ship, but i dont think any dynamic was written this well in the early times.

so, i dont know if i'm being too much delusional but like given kagami's love for boobs and women, i always wonder WHY would he want his fav chracterr (guren is his fave chararcter, no one can change my mind) or even if i dont consider him the fav chracter , but like one of the protagonist to have such a dynamic with a GUY?

not to mention the type of PERFECT women mahiru was shown to be kagami just went to make guren somewhat despise her and kinda made thier relation tocxic.

all these thing make me woner did kagami really wanted gureshin to a thing?, or kagami just wanted guren to have a harem with a guy in it? or was he planning to all that family kind of thing (they are too gay for family thing ngl). idk therefore i'm asking u.

DO U THINK EVEN IF KAGAMI WAS NOT EFFECTED BY THE POPULARITY OF THE CHARACTERS AND THE BL SHIPS, GURESHIN WOULD HAVE BEEN CANON??

Thanks for the question, anon. God this brings back old shipping memories and I can't help it. I miss GureShin...

Nevertheless, about your question, I always say that Kagami wrote GureShin by accident. And by accident I mean that he never intended them to become this close. Friends, of course but both of them got a dynamic by themselves that Kagami probably didn't even expect.

But let me start from the beginning.

The first exhibit is the first interaction of Guren and Shinya in Vampire Reign. It's when Guren was sleeping in the meeting room and Shinya steps in to prevent him from trouble. Considering what "later" (in universe before) happened in Cat16 and Res19 this scene feels so out of character to me. But in my eyes it shows how Kagami thought Shinya's and Guren's friendship would develop into. And hell was he wrong. It gets better when Shinya appears a second time in Nagoya. But a lot of things happened already in Cat16 at that time (as both VR and Cat16 were written an parallel).

To keep it short, in the beginning Kagami didn't know where their friendship was going and most of it happened while writing Cat16.

This is underlined by his after words in the novels where he said he never intended Cat16 to turn out this long and the characters had much more to tell. I suspect Shinya was one of the characters that got a lot more screentime and character arc than intended and probably got a lot more chemistry with Guren than planned.

Writers that rely more on feeling than planning - so called pantser and Kagami is definitely one - often experience that their characters develop.a "will of their own". It's not like the author can't control their actions but the characters are so lively that ideas keep popping up a lot and the dialogue basically writes itself.

And I suspect this is what happened to Guren and Shinya (and most likely with the other characters of Cat16 as well). Their interactions started to generate more ideas and it felt right for the characters to become closer.

I don't think Shinya was intended to be part of the harem. He just happened to find more liking in Guren and Guren in him - sort of. And Kagami wrote along.

Also, Mahiru probably was never intended to end up with Guren (and hopefully never will). Guren rejected her from book one. She's a femme fatal and she's the antagonist of Cat16. She's meant to be attractive, addicting but evil and unpredictable. She isn't meant to stay but be the sweet danger she is.

Shinya happened to be the opposite. The steadiness with a friendship ideology Guren wanted to believe in. And not the power hungry path of Mahiru.

But your question is valid. Why would Kagami have one of his favorite characters have such a dynamic with a guy? When he already has a harem and a beautiful bitch that wants him.

I think he wrote it in a sense of "found family". Though the story this found family is always more important than romantic or sexual love.

You can be really close to someone without liking them romantically or sexually and probably Kagami writes Guren and Shinya as close guy friends. Not as siblings that's true, but just pals being their whole world for each other (*cough*)

Hell, why did he had to write them with so much sexual tension and banter between them? I always say, in the end it's up to every person if they want a relationship with someone they have a tension with. And in Guren's case neither him nor Kagami probably even considered the possibility. But in stories this kind of tension is difficult to ignore. The ship isn't coming out of nowhere. Though I feel that Kagami doesn't intended to ever make them canon as in admitting they have romantic feelings for each other.

Still, I always say they are and will stay canon because their (plantonic) feelings are still valid and very much canon. So that's undeniable.

But why all the romantic stuff if they aren't intended to be romantically intertwined? One point is that Kagami is intentionally fueling the ship with fan service. He knows fans ship it and whenever he has an idea, he will write it down because he knows it will have an impact on the fans. He doesn't have to, especially since he doesn't have to write Guren to be as fond of Shinya as he being the only one that he can fully trust. But yet here we are, with so much fan service that makes their romantic platonic feelings for each other valid canon.

In addition there is a lot of gay and bi erasure in Japanese culture. It's getting more accepted over time but it's not yet at a point where it is fully recognized in media and in everyday life. It's a wild guess and I can't say if it's true but I kind of suspect Kagami to not even considering that Guren and Shinya's relationship could be anything but a found family. Like haha, look at the fan service, not nah they can't be gay. They are both guys. They like women. At least Guren does... bi people exist... You know? Accepting to be bi can be a long process and accepting that a character that was never intended to bi could be into a guy could also take forever or be ignored forever. This is heavily speculative. But I always feel as of Shinya wants to tell Kagami he really likes Guren and Kagami is like "as a friend, right?" and then hell proceed writing fan service about them.

To sum it up, GureShin probably got "canon like" by accident. They never were intended to end up together and probably won't but as always, I'm still here for the gayness and I'm happy about every fan service crumb I'll get in the future.

#owari no seraph #seraph of the end #ons #catastrophe at 16 #catastrophe at sixteen #guren ichinose #shinya hiragi #gureshin #shingure #vampire reign #shinoa is also a case of bi erasure because no straight girl is that obsessed over boobs #i mean boobs are great but they can make you bi #anon ask #meta

[schneereggen]

what does your username mean?

It's actually a misspelling of "Schneeregen", the German word for snowy rain. Because this name is always taken, I added a g. Because "reggen" is the German neologism for regeneration in games and I thought it's funny.

#anon ask #should have named myself Schnegen instead #which is a combination of Schnee snd Regen just like Snain

[schneereggen]

Hello, I hope I haven't disturbed you, there is a topic that bothers me a lot, and since you are a writer yourself and have a very good analysis of how to write, I decided to ask you about it because maybe I am the one who is wrong. My question and problem is related to the current story of Seraph and its fandom. I don't know why, but I have the feeling that the author is trying to force Yu or the original Mikaela to be the hero of the story also forcing his ideals to be the right ones, in a way that questions all of its logic until now. For example, I remember during the war between Guren and Yu, when Yu forgave Guren, everyone was upset because of why he forgave him, but now, according to the title of this new chapter, which is forgiveness for everyone, the author has actually accepted that Guren, Mahiru, or Krul, for example, should forgive all the troubles Shikamaduji brought to them, and the interesting thing is that exactly the same people who had a problem with Yu's forgiveness of Guren, have now accepted it easily, and it doesn't seem to matter to them at all that Shikama made a thousand times worse disaster to Guren, Mahiru, Farid, Krul, and his friends in exchange of what they did to Yuu. Shikama brought it to them. What kind of stupid logic is this? Yu was nothing but a toy until a few chapters ago, and now he has completely changed his personality and turned into a complete genius who seems to have the right to choose for everyone. Whether Mahiru, Ferid, Guren, Krul, Shinya, Kureto, Shinoa, etc want to forgive Shikamaduji or not is not up to Yu. If God is bad in this story, Shikamadouji, who created humans and planned their whole lives from beginning to end, is not much different from God, and he is also bad because both of them performed and played exactly the same role just for different people They, Shikama and God, are two sides of the same coin so how can we just accept one is bad and the other is good? I am really tired. This story has no meaning, it's just a series of ideologies that the author is trying to forcefully feed us, and MikaYuu fans or not, it's better to say Mika fans praise it wherever it benefits them and wherever it harms them they are knocking I really don't know what to do anymore, this story doesn't feel the way it did in the beginning and it's very upsetting to me so I decided to ask you to see if I'm just overreacting or what I'm feeling is true.

Sorry for taking so long for the answer. How long has it been? I don't even remember. All the new chapters come and go every month without me remembering much.

First thank you :) I learned a lot about writing from an editor and it's always fun to project them on series.

So back to topic, you are valid anon. I also get the feeling that the story is forced - a lot. Though I don't know if I would say for me that Yuu is the problem here but he probably plays a bigger part in the current mess.

My biggest problems with the current arc are two things:

No stakes and no consequences

Events are happening without characters having a proper motivation

No stakes and no consequences

No stakes is simple, Yuu has nothing to lose. If he doesn't succeed nothing will happen or rather we don't know what will happen. So we don't care. This is the biggest issue that makes the story meaningless. There's no tension, no real goal.

Having Yuu as the main character, a guy with no brain and the naivety of a child isn't the best choice to begin with. Especially if he doesn't have a plan. So the problem with Yuu is that he doesn't have a clear goal, a plan and the story has to bend to his benefit so he won't get killed in all of this.

Events are happening without characters having a proper motivation

Second thing is that characters now do stuff for which they don't have a reason or a motivation. Characters do stuff because they have to do it. And in the end it doesn't line up. E.g. Why should Yuu now go to Saito? Why should Yuu forgive Guren at that moment? Why should anyone understand Shikama? There's no reason behind it, not even one that you can build yourself. And that feels wrong. The story had been good in the past because characters did what made sense according to their individual goals and beliefs. Now it's all over the place.

To me it's almost as if Kagami decided once how the story should go and now doesn't know anymore how to do it. How to get to the point he wanted the characters to be. And instead of reconsidering and rewriting, what you should do as an author if you notice your story don't line up anymore, he just proceeded to write events. The only thing that is narrative consistent atm are the single chapters in itself. But that's not enough to have an engaging story.

On top, the inconsistency breaks the suspension of disbelief for me. At the beginning of the story I wanted to believe that everything that was happening had a reason. And eventually I found the reasons. But now that the characters act inconsistent and not according to their motives I started to doubt everything that's happening before I get proof that it makes sense.

Considering this, it makes sense that you start to doubt the reason for the story and what it is all about. To be at least it doesn't seem that the story is heading towards forgiveness - even though it had been a bit too fluff in the past for my liking. But I at least feel that Shikama will be the last to be forgiven even though Saito felt empathy for him? Which doesn't make much sense. But Shikama is still the villain even though he has gotten a motivation and motivation isn't bad.

To sum up, for me the problem of the story isn't the forced ideology but the writing issues and that therefore the story doesn't know where it wants to go anymore. The true masterminds do nothing interesting and there's nothing the story is heading towards.

Seraph of the End had been so cool back then and it hurts me every time to see where it is now. There was no clear goal but it at least seemed as if Yuu had a chance to turn Mika back into a human. And he was a toy which wasn't bad because it was present in an interesting way.

So your feelings are right, the story became meaningless by now.

Last point the fandom, Well, yeah the Guren hate and Shikama glory in the fandom is tiring. Any mikayuu crumbs are good and everything that actually matters is not good enough. I don't know why it became like this but I have the feeling that most fans that were actually interested in the story already left the fandom. And now a lot of fans remained that are only interested in their ship. Though personally, I wouldn't want my ship if it was written badly. So I'm hoping we will slowly get some good story moments back that will actually feel genuine again because they make sense.

#owari no seraph #seraph of the end #ons #vampire reign #anon ask #analysis #meta

[schneereggen]

How is she this cute?!?!?!? 🥹🥹

#owari no seraph #seraph of the end #ons #catastrophe at 16 #catastrophe at sixteen manga #sayuri hanayori

[schneereggen]

Speaking of Guren becoming a demon... I noticed that this was the first interaction with a demon for Guren and the first thing the demon says is "I am you". Which makes the narrative more clear to me that after you make a contract with a demon you more and more become a demon yourself. And this means, you're not getting possessed by a demon, it's still you just fallen into darkness.

According to this, Mahiru became a demon herself. And also Guren has become a demon. They aren't the person they used to be.

#and it still makes me mad that it was never explicitly said in vr that Guren gave up who he used to be to finally become a demon #seraph of the end #owari no seraph #catastrophe at sixteen manga #catastrophe at 16 #ons #guren ichinose

[schneereggen]

I like that this page captures the duality of Guren's paths. He could choose Mahiru, become powerful but he'd "pay the price" and "Fall into the abyss". And then there's Shinya who immediately pulls Guren out of the dream.

Shinya never wanted Guren to become Mahiru. Knowing how it turned out... Guren fucked up.

#owari no seraph #seraph of the end #ons #catastrophe at 16 #catastrophe at sixteen manga #guren ichinose #shinya hiragi

[schneereggen]

I love how Mahiru is like a cat 🐱

Throws her prey in front of you, to show how much she loves you.

#owari no seraph #seraph of the end #ons #catastrophe at 16 #mahiru hiiragi #catastrophe at sixteen manga

[schneereggen]

Man, that's harsh....That was a rejection... 😔

#owari no seraph #seraph of the end #ons #catastrophe at 16 #catastrophe at sixteen manga #mito jujo #shigure yukimi

[schneereggen]

Gosh, the flirting is intense...

Kureto instantly found a liking in Guren, didn't he? 🤭

#owari no seraph #seraph of the end #ons #catastrophe at 16 #kuregure #catastrophe at sixteen manga #they just have this shippable dynamic it cant be unseen

[schneereggen]

The art of the second volumes of the Cat16 looks really cool. I like how both Mahiru and Kureto are holding a sword. Now everyone until now was holding a sword except Shinya.hea always waving around with spell papers. But look how cool he looks with it:

Also, Shinya always got Guren's back 😌

#owari no seraph #seraph of the end #ons #catastrophe at 16 #catastrophe at sixteen manga

[schneereggen]

Asami's no-nose compilation

#just for fun #how often did they not draw a nose #sometimes it's kind of cute #owari no seraph #seraph of the end #ons #catastrophe at 16 #catastrophe at sixteen

[schneereggen]

Speaking about chapter 133…

Since it has been a long time since I made long posts and these kind of chapters that focus on other characters, much less girls, much less Mitsuba, are rare, I felt like talking about it🤧

First of all: Screw this title and the boob joke.

Now, somehow I liked this chapter? It is the first time ever since chapter 17 that we see Shinoa and Mitsuba talking to each other about themselves. Although in small quantities, many of the things I wanted to see happened: Mitsuba addressing Shinoa’s change in behaviour, them talking about their sisters, how similar they are but also have their differences, their reasons to live, their relationship, the squad leader role and how Shinoa does not talk much about herself.

We didn’t learn anything new except for Mitsuba not necessarily seeking her family’s validation and Shinoa being able to control demons.

About the former, I am actually happy that Mitsuba is not necessarily seeking Aoi’s validation because someone like Aoi does not deserve that effort. But I am bit sad that after the things Aoi said to her in chapter 70, we didn’t get more than this. It does not have to be now but I hope eventually we get some flashbacks about the Sangū sisters’ past to explain why Aoi treats her like this.

What worries me more is that we already know Mitsuba’s reason to live so does that mean I will never get to see her demon? I mean, it’s those scenes where characters talk with their demons in that white world in their minds where we get to know more about them but Mitsuba already opened up a lot in the real world. At this point of the manga I am not expecting anything about Mitsuba’s character in the long run; it’s just that I want to see how her demon looks like (Also, 2024 is the year of the dragon so why not?🐉)

I’ve seen that the fandom is divided between those who took it literally and think the girls are seriously competing for Yuu’s love and those who think they were just joking to lighten up the mood. I am with the latter. The vibes their conversation gave me were lighthearted. Mitsuba has a crush on Yuu but she never made a move on him and it doesn’t seem like she ever planned to because her feelings are probably not that strong. Knowing how Kagami writes women he could have made this chapter much worse but “No comment” is all that we got. In all honesty, she seems more worried about Shinoa being depressed than Yuu leaving them. She even says it: “Will that be the first real reason to live you’ve ever found?”, and also blushes before deciding to participate in the ‘competition’ as if she is embarassed because all of this feels just too stupid but she still does it because it lightens Shinoa’s mood. Shinoa also does not take her seriously either. I am not saying my take is correct since the only one who truly knows what is going on is Kagami but I still strongly believe this.

Just like Yuu and Mika, the Shinoa squad finally decided to separate from Guren and become their own team (but I wonder where is Guren?). Shinoa being able to control demons gives them a strong card just like how the vampires’ team is really strong, Guren and Mahiru rely on experiments, and Yuu has Mika as his demon and the knowledge that they are swapped. Now that she is all motivated, could her powers be able to control Mika? I want to see Kimizuki, Yoichi and Mitsuba in action too (I am tired of katana fights). I am happy to see the squad after one year and I hope the next chapter follows with them again or the vampires that are not with Mika and Yuu.

This is like a competition on who makes Shikama more miserable💀 I understand where Shinoa is coming from since she can finally make Shikama pay back a bit for how much he ruined her life but at the same she looks so insane that she reminds me so much of Yuu and about how tired I am that Kagami is drawing so many parallels between characters that the individualities they had are being lost😞

The big question here is what this chapter means in the long run? Was it just to give have some funny scenes or is the chapter setting up something for Shinoa? Shinoa is aware Yuu rejected her and yet still tries. Her brain tells her it’s impossible but her heart says otherwise:

The way her feelings are delivered and the way Yamamoto draws her makes me interpret it as Kagami’s way of conveying how a sexist education can affect a girl’s mind (if I choose to believe in his writing decisions, that is). Again, Shinoa knows she is rejected yet still tries. This contradiction can be seen again when Shinoa tells Mitsuba that she loves her a lot but since she does not value her own life at all so she does not need Mitsuba or anyone’s validation because it would not change a thing…but still she craves Yuu’s validation. It’s irrational and powerful, showing how much the brainwashing got into her.

Will it take more for Shinoa to stop needing Yuu’s validation? What will it take? Yuu rejecting her more directly? Yuu trying to kill her after she tries to kill Mika? Will it be someone else’s intervention? Is this tied to how Mitsuba needs someone’s validation but it does not have to be her blood related family? Is the manga leading to a point where Mitsuba might help Shinoa break out of her brainwashing and in turn Mitsuba will find validation though Shinoa and altogether the girls stop crushing over Yuu?

I hope so because the way the chapter is written has that feeling in the air that Mitsuba actually likes Shinoa romantically. Yuu does not love Shinoa or her back yet Kagami instead writes about Mitsuba focusing on Shinoa and not Mitsuba being sad that Yuu does not like her back. The way she tries to cheer Shinoa up and how she kept talking with Shinoa about embarassing things despite knowing Kimizuki and Yoichi might overhear them because she was happy that Shinoa was finally opening up to her…hmm

Also, the “I love you lots and lots”??

These past two years Kagami has been especially explicit with Mika and Yuu’s feelings for each other, more than in the rest of the manga, so maybe he will get more bold as a writer when it comes to the girls’ relationship? Who knows…

Could this actually be a joke-turned-into foreshadowing?

I felt like this chapter was a bit better than previous ones and I am happy that their friendship got a bit more focus. However, I don’t expect that writing about them after almost 10 years of barely any focus will dramatically improve the development and depth of their friendship. A flashback about their past together before the squad was made could help on setting the bases for why they are close but there is still that big gap between chapters 17 and 133.