scumcoin

[scumcoin]

finished willdress s1. i think it was pretty decent, the last few episodes were a solid 9 but the first half was like... a strong 7 at best. the anime needed an extra 13 episodes that's for sure, but i think the semifinal fights were so awesome, and the new characters were resoundingly great.

the post got a little long so my thoughts under the cut. i spoil obviously.

the episode where it was raika v tohya was pretty great cause it was all the new characters (the ones with actual presence) commentating. i do think -dress's greatest weakness is how blackout are a set piece and its refusing to break them up even a little, but by the third season its like, eh? they definitely contributed to how "okay" the first half of the series felt... megumi isn't suddenly gonna matter to me but i think it's funny they're driving the jobber angle so hard with her, at least it's honest.

and down in the nitty gritty that's what i enjoyed about willdress the most so far, even if it was very rushed it didn't really force a lot of conventions— raika and yuyu hate each other's guts by the end still but raika acknowledges blackout nonetheless. i do think it is in character for him to concede that much i guess, given he lost. i guess what i'm saying is "things made sense"— i think a big issue with not only vanguard but a lot of anime in general is that it seems like in an effort to resolve things, characters are bent in ways that are kind of irksome. like, i'll never get why anyone got along with kai in the original series aside from idk, miwa and aichi. getting along is kind of pushing it,

but speaking of kai, i find raika quite refreshing because he's a born hater. there's no real excuse for his behavior: he grew up to be an unpleasant person. i think there's a lot of people like that in hobby spaces, people who develop superiority inferiorty complexes because they're chronic tryhards first and foremost. as mentioned before i like that he is still a hater. come s2 i hope he keeps being a stupid bitch boy.

i do think my favorite characters however were urara and michiru. i don't think there is anyone who watched the show who would disagree with my assessment. urara was the beating heart of this season no questions asked. i don't think there was a single moment that had me going "what the fuck is she doing?!" because she was solid. it's quite easy to mess up shrinking violet blorbo characters imo. i would have loved more episodes to flesh out her troubles, but out of everyone, her arc was the most strongly realized and it is satisfactory enough as it is. she achieves both being cute and being a well constructed character all at once, despite the limited runtime alotted to each character. as the beginner character this season, i really do wish she had been the protagonist instead of yuyu... i don't have much to say about him in particular except that i was just going "lol idc" for most of his screentime. for some reason he became a really cool guy for the last few episodes of the season... but i don't consider it. it doesn't feel thoroughly earned. definitely an issue of the anime being one cour. but yeah, she kind of reminds me of naoki from the original in a way, except she avoids the pitfalls naoki had... i do think it was quite cool that naoki SUCKED ASS at vanguard but i loved that urara had a strong win record. the fight that ended her streak was quite good, she didn't feel cheated out of it at all like it usually feels like when a female character loses in vanguard. L O L.

i thought i wouldn't have much to say about michiru, but what a tour de force of a character. THIS is how you do GAR, not whatever the fuck they were doing with danji in season 1. it's not enough to say "this character is well liked and awesome". that's a lot of tell, no show. not to mention danji's actions were rather aggravating and got in the way of the plot constantly to the point where i remember the first season was more than halfway and it was nothing but danji dicking around performing clamp brand cringe. none of that with michiru: he looks like he just got out of bed constantly... and has looked this way for at least a decade. it's kind of amazing. he might as well be 40 years old and i'm subscribing to that idea personally. i was worried that they'd write the character voiced by a famous johnny's idol(!) to be a lame overpowered Thing, but he was incredibly charming. he really is overwhelmingly strong after all, but they made the right call of pushing him to the background and making him a moeblob who does funny funnies and can't read the room sometimes. infinitely charismatic character. he is everyone's ideal, and no one seems to be able to reach him, even though he's so down to earth... i truly do love the contrast. raika being a huge fanboy adds to it because when he finally lost me and fabio kept hooting and hollering and that was probably the only way i think most people were gonna root for yuyu at all— if raika's entire raison d'etre crumpled up and collapsed before his eyes (it happened quite literally too....hehehehe. iykyk.)

small bit for taizo— the only character who feels a little robbed, but i do think it was a little brave of them to kill him off and not let him advance to the semis out of courtesy of him not being one of the non-characters. but i guess that's how the bracket works given he lost two or three times in a row? (i forgot, but he missed his chance thoroughly). i hope his promise to not give up on his dream of capitalism means he'll be in s2 cause i quite liked him, i wasn't as invested in him as urara but it really is a case of feeling bad for the loser, you know.

dunno when we'll catch up to s2 but i hope it's while it's still airing. i like the designs of the new characters :)

#final impressions #willdress

[scumcoin]

Pondering and Rambling About Isekai A Little Bittttt.....

Rewatching VS Knights of Lamune & 40 Fire. (mouthful of a title, henceforth 40 Fire)

For the unfamiliar, the Lamune series is SD mecha anime series, comparable to Mashin Eiyuu Wataru and Madou King Granzort. in both TV anime the hero is some bozo kid who gets sucked into a video game (in 40 Fire's case, a CD-ROM game that was inserted into a console that suspiciously resembles a playstation) only to be gilded with the title of the great hero Lamuness: in this case, our new protagonist Lamunedo is christened Lamuness the Third. It's pretty much text that Lamunedo is the son of the previous hero... I honestly don't wanna think about it too hard so I won't but his parents look like Milk, the last show's heroine and love interest, and the original protagonist.

It really be like that.

Given I've already watched this show (albeit over a decade ago and never in Japanese, and I suspect heavily censored as well), I probably won't be doing a lot of posts on it, but I recently rewatched a chunk of the original and I've been thinking about both shows approach to isekai and hell, the approach many other isekai shows take. Shows like this, Fushigi Yuugi, Those Who Hunt Elves, et cetera. There... wasn't much "I died and now I'm permanently in another world"... was there? But I'm not really thinking about those shows because I have seen neither, we're talking about Lamuness, a series aimed at kids. There's a lot to unpack about modern isekai's penchant for escapism in a Japan that's settled into its post-Bubble Era woes, but I'm not qualified to talk about something so culturally heavy nor is it super related. But I do wanna touch on the "method" of being spirited away into another world, and the story structure.

Like I said, it's anything but permanent. There's no truck, no sudden heart attack from overwork. Come, Lamuness, time to save the world. There's no time to waste. Get in the fucking TV. The method is an incredibly accessible one, arguably: getting sold a shady CD-ROM for like a dollar and getting whisked away when it boots.

The premise of this series is very goal-based, and it would not be an exaggeration to say that even if the person in these kinds of older isekai in general comes to love the world and decides to stay, there is always the goal of "get back home". Lamunedo has the hefty weight of defeating the demon god's henchmen before they revive him, and when it all ends he gets to go home (sorry for spoiling an anime that's like 25 years old at this point, but that's how most of these ended). In contrast to newer isekai shows where the story begins with the protagonist's life ending, cementing that this is their new life and that they have no real grand goal... unless the goal is to not die. You have to live your new life, effectively an escape from the old life lived previously. The protagonists often skew older in their original lives, office workers over the age of 20 or NEETs who have wasted their lives and what have you. The issue with a lot of newer isekai media is not that they're paint by the numbers, but that because there isn't much of an immediate goal in most, many cannot deliver on the breadth of the premise or many would consider a gimmick. They drown in trying to tick boxes of "you should know the genre the protagonist is stuck in if you've picked up this book/manga/anime, so I'm not gonna think too hard about it either". It's not a diss or anything, but if your protagonist is just going to live and adapt to a new world and you make it the entire premise then you better have thought of the world building at least a little, or give it an actual plot structure to follow that isn't just you going through a buffet table and piling on more cute girls/boys/etc onto the protagonist's plate. They overwhelm with technicalities like video game stats (STOP!!!!!!! STOP PUTTING STATS IN YOUR SHIT I'M GOING TO KILL MYSELF AND YOUR NAME WILL BE IN MY NOTE) and are indulgent in a lot of the wrong ways that may alienate those who do not consume the inspiration of the isekai much.

The best isekai that don't get immediately lambasted by the audience are isekai that dive right into the story without treating the outsider protagonist like someone standing behind the fourth wall at all times, and the rest of the world actually matters. Drawing attention to the fact that other characters are NPCs is tiring and makes me think I'm not supposed to care about them. It creates a vacuum where the only real person in the story is the protagonist and it's difficult to feel for a protagonist when everyone else is treated like an object. Both a literal object to interact with in a video game sense and in many cases a sexual object. Most good isekai will have you forget that the setting is based on something previously assumed to be fictional. It's not enough for the protagonist to be invested in the world, by the way. That's why shit like Shield Hero sucks ass even when you ignore the slavery shit (why would you though?!). I find that I prefer when it seems like the protagonist is in the story just like everyone else, rather than someone who consistently pushes against it. Of course there are many different ways to do it. This is a topic that's way too deep for me, and contrary to what my tone may convey I think that the genre is painted with an unfair brush so a lot of good shows slip through the cracks.

Or to be honest... the fact of the matter is that people are biased and judge stuff harshly just because they're a genre that's in vogue right now. Go figure. <-guy who hasn't even watched that many newer isekai shows

I'll make myself clear here: both old and new isekai are escapist fantasy and I dislike it when people try to paint escapism as a pathetic thing that only the NEW bad isekai shows employ. What's more escapist than being sucked into a video game and being told you're the hero that will save the world? You, a normal kid. What I find refreshing about the Lamuness series that I think newer light novels could learn from. There isn't any "I'll use my experience from the old world". Because Lamunedo is a child, and hero can never be an adult.

So that's a modern isekai shorthand immediately eliminated. (Note that I haven't once called anything a cliche in this post, I don't have that kind of scorn for the genre. I think it'd be good for actual critics to remove this buzzword from their vocabulary unless they truly face off against something that is an actual ripoff, because people have now taken the word cliche and turned it into an entirely negative thing, same with the word trope. But I digress.)

The entire point of the series is to be an escapist fantasy for little kids who love RPGs, but you'll never once see a stat block nor will you hear much of bosses in the video game sense. Sure, maybe the tyke will wonder about home every now and then but after this point you're set off into the story with the express goal of saving the world. There's nothing deep to think about. Traversing through different "space"s and RPG village-like places is a given, and it seems like they're made up as you go unless they're on a map explicitly (they are supposedly, but they still feel made up). You won't hear much about what Lamunedo thinks besides the fact that his (and Da Cider's) BIG COOL MECHA has his blood pumping.

This is what I mean by goal driven: it ironically feels much more like a video game without constantly bringing attention to the fact that it's supposed to be a video game. A big greater goal punctuated by smaller goals and pitstops is how a lot of JRPGs progress. Perhaps it's prescient to compare a lot of newer isekais to an open world game: you're doing... something, there are story important cutscenes, but you meander around until you hit them and often you are sidetracked. It works when you're the one doing it, but when an isekai story is overwhelmed by the lack of nothing it is accomplishing that's when the audience disengages and starts wondering why the protagonist is a fucking idiot, and why they won't do something that actually matters. Have you ever watched someone dick around in Skyrim? Unless you really like Skyrim in my opinion it's not very fun to watch.

I find that this is why villainess isekai is so popular. Many employ the otome genre, which are much more linear in comparison. Sure, you make choices that lead you off to other routes and affect what ending you get, but everyone who plays Norn9 for example is playing the same Norn9 that the next person plays. Even with linear RPGs, you could be underleveled, you could favor certain characters, your experience can still be somewhat varied. Therefore, in a villainess scenario where the base is an otome game, there is an enforcement of an in-game clock where events will happen regardless of how much you dawdle. In fact, slacking tends to be punished. I'm aware that there are similar premises that don't employ a villainess or are based on other genres that are associated with women like management sims and mobile games, but in general they tend to emphasize proactiveness (also I'm speaking very broadly). Even the characters are treated with care. Sure, the heroine may casually spoil their supposed fate and metagame with previous knowledge, but they feel like actual characters.

In any case, as I've stated several times I carry no ire towards the genre. You'll catch me dead before I watch crap like Mushoku Tensei and Shield Hero but there's plenty of isekai manga and anime that I've either enjoyed or am looking forward to enjoying, past or present. But rewatching the Lamuness series got me thinking a lot about it. I wasn't even intending on writing most of what I wrote and I'll be honest when I say I don't consider myself a writer: I'm not the most eloquent and I struggle to express how I feel but by god do I express.

#general thoughts #cullen rewatches 40 fire #isekai #any comments feedback and reblogs appreciated :pleading: #anime essay #essay #isekai is such a fascinating genre even though i dont have much exp with it

[scumcoin]

watched the first episode of shamanic princess

i really missed watching quick one and done OVAs and what better to put on than the ishida atsuko romp, shamanic princess? i watched it dubbed. i think for stuff like this, watching dub is just pure vibes. takes me back to the days of yore when i had a few stray anime dvds and what i ended up rewatching the most were not the anime on them but the trailers bundled in the bonus sections on the menus.

it's about what you'd expect for a stylish OVA of the age: it's full on aesthetic and showmanship, but in true 90s OVA fashion the plot is yet to be explained but it's not in a bad way especially since a lot of newer shows suffer from too much handholding and treating the audience like they can't be left unattended lest they think for themselves. you're left to collect the clues the characters leave behind in their banter and biting back at each other.

speaking of banter— the tension between the protagonist tiara and her former childhood friend and current adversary lena is delectable. there's quite a heavy subtext despite a few things standing in the way. there's even a conversation between tiara and her new college classmates about how lena would be a good match for men and women (something tiara curtly objects to given they were implying she was smitten, she certainly is not— they have in fact become bitter rivals)

overall, i enjoyed the first episode, and honestly this really does seem like one of those cult classics so long as you take it at face value and for what it is putting on the table and not what you expect it to be nor what it should be to you. i think it'll be fun going forward!

#cullen watches shamanic princess #its a different format from my usual liveblogs #i think ill be doing this for lighter retrospectives

[scumcoin]

title

test

#tag