#I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS AND THE MOVIES RELEASED IN JAPAN LAST YEAR

[swan2swan]

*grabs you by the front of your shirt*

Do you remember when Sailor Moon Crystal did their second opening THREE TIMES, with the first version being the high voice, then the second one being a low voice, and then the third being the two of them harmonizing, and it was BEAUTIFUL?????

#THEY DID A WHOLE DARN CHORUS AND HARMONY AND IT WAS PHENOMENAL #THE TEAM GREW AND THE OPENING #sailor moon crystal #now WHERE IS MY FINAL SEASON???????? #I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS AND THE MOVIES RELEASED IN JAPAN LAST YEAR #JUST MAKE YOUR PRODUCT AVAILABLE TOEI #COME ON #sailor moon #Youtube

[moon-struck-net]

Yahoo Japan/Josei Jishin Interview July 4th 2023

https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/1d9cf92309815982cc6fa71684362c64fc9763ea

Up until now, the impression I had of age 50 was "the end of your life". I was conscious of Oda Nobunaga's saying that "life has 50 years". But now I understand that "life has 50 years" doesn't mean you can only live for 50 years, it’s about how much can you get done before you're 50. You can't go back to being in your 30s or 40s. I came to feel that what's most important in life is how much you were able to run at full speed up to that point. 

Previously I had been wondering internally how much I could get done by age 30, and I thought that it would be downhill from there and end at 50. So honestly what I'm thinking now is "Somehow I'm still alive," and "I've made it this far," that kind of thing. 

GACKT had his 50th birthday on July 4th. The release of the long-awaited movie that he is starring in- "Fly Me To The Saitama: From Lake Biwa With Love" has been announced for November 23rd. GACKT had previously kept his age secret from the public, and first announced it in 2009 along with the production of the play Nemuri Kyoshiro Burai Hikae, which he was starring in. We asked his honest thoughts. 

The question of whether to announce my age or not wasn’t really on my mind. But at the time, I wondered if it might be time to say it. My fans didn't know either.

The producer I had back then happened to suggest that I tell people my age, so I said "Ok". It wasn't something I particularly wanted to hide. So then I think there were a lot of people who thought "Wait, he's younger than me? He acted like he was older (laughs)."

[Translator’s note: GACKT is talking about how in Japanese culture, younger people usually defer to people older than them, but GACKT was behaving as though he were the one with more seniority]

There was only one reason that I concealed my age. When I was 20 and I moved to Tokyo and started doing music, everyone around me was senior to me. So if I said how old I was I'd immediately be treated as a junior and they'd walk all over me. The roles of senpai (senior) and kouhai (junior) are just decided by age, right? If I said my age, people older than me disrespected me, so I never told anyone my age, outside of my band members at the time. So I made up that I was 448 years old.

If someone was like "You're definitely younger than me. If you're going to have a disrespectful attitude toward me, then I'll crush you," I'd be like "You wanna go then?" Back when I was in a band it was like that all the time.

Most years, GACKT celebrates his birthday with a private party

On July 4th I usually have a concert or a birthday event, and when that's all over and I'm tired out I have a private party. 300 to 400 people attend, so I prepare a large amount of alcohol. In the beginning it was wine, but for the last 12-13 years it's been tequila. Even if each person speaks for one minute, if 400 people are there it takes 400 minutes, 7 hours. It's tough to keep drinking wine for that long, right?

So I thought I'd make it a "tequila survival challenge" party for everyone to participate in. I contact people and tell them that only those who are always in a state of readiness should come. I make them sign a contract at the door too. Saying no matter what happens here it's their own responsibility.

When my birthday party begins, my friends come on stage and immediately drink 10 shots of tequila, so it's tough (laughs). So everyone rapidly fades. At the end only about 30 people remain. At the end everyone staggers home.

I'm all alone when everyone leaves. But I'm totally hyped up and can't sleep, so from morning I start texting everyone. Of course no one replies. When it gets to the afternoon, finally people gradually start to reply "Are you okay?" I reply "I've been texting people all morning. I'm lonely."

At those times I think, "Maybe this is what the battlefield is like." They say people who survived the war and came home, go back to the battlefield. They can't psychologically accept everyday life and feel a sense of emptiness. No one wants to drink any more, and it's not that I want to drink either, but I understand the feeling of wanting to return to an extreme situation. Though people will probably call me strange for thinking things like that (laughs)"

But, when I went on hiatus due to my health issues, I became unable to handle alcohol. I couldn’t drink 5 or 6 bottles of tequila like I used to. On my previous birthday, I only drank about 3.

At the end of last year, in an interview with this magazine, GACKT spoke of writing a will during his one year hiatus. It seems that ahead of turning 50 he had an opportunity to think about his end-of-life plans.

I wrote about 20 wills. Saying things like, "Divide my fortune like this, sell my cars". I wrote about leaving my pet dogs in the care of my sister and my staff, that kind of thing.

I've also told my sister about my burial. I said, "Scatter my ashes in the sea in Okinawa." I don't need a grave. I've never wanted one. I don't want people to visit my grave. It's enough if people will look at the sea and clasp their hands in prayer. I thought about this when buying graves for relatives and things like that. I don't want to be in a grave.

Every year I go back to Okinawa and clean my family's tomb. That's become my role now. I bring at least 20 to 30 staff and clean the graves.

I've been helping clean the graves since my late 20s, but everyone else in my family got old and couldn't do it any more.

Okinawan tombs are big in the first place. Ours is in the mountains, and was rebuilt because it was old, but it's still the size of this studio (where today's photo was taken).

It used to be bigger. I remember when I was 6. We'd go through the sugar cane fields in a car, and then walk the paths between the fields into the mountains, so it was a hard time even getting there. Moss and weeds would grow on the big tomb, and we had to clean off all the dirt too. We tried to go at times when habu (Okinawan pit vipers) wouldn’t come out.

There was an altar as well as the tomb, and the altar and the tomb are in different parts of Okinawa. My ancestors originated in the southern part of Okinawa. So the tomb is in the south, and because my great grandfather founded a town up north, the altar is in the north. So it's not possible to clean the tomb and the altar on a day trip. At the very beginning I went in a group of 6 people, but we couldn't finish and it took two and a half days just to clean the tomb.

I don't want the generation after me to have to do unpleasant things like that. If people have to keep organizing things every year after I die, that will be tough on them, right?

So scatter my ashes. I'll be happy if people come to the sea and I can say "I'm here". And if eventually people stop coming, it won't cause trouble for anyone.

#gackt #interview #translation #hey I'm still alive and so is gackt #isn't that great?

[curejiraiya]

What do you guys think the King of Prism announcement is going to be? I'm coping really hard but here's the facts

The actual event is a nationwide showing of all the King of Prism media (twitter pointed out to me that they're showing best 10 before SSS which is out of order and they've also never done it in that order before)

After the first showing (March 22nd) there will be an announcement presented by the director + Shin's VA (Junta <3333). According to twitter this is the first public greeting by Hishida (the director) since 2019!

The announcement is said to be "fitting for the 8th anniversary"?

The 7th anniversary had multiple kuji/merch lines and none of them had a public announcement like this, which leads me to believe it'll be bigger than that. The vark virtual lives ALSO did not begin with a public announcement though going that far back it may have still been pandemic related, unsure.

The Prism Rush setting materials released a few months back, very very late like years after the game shut down. Could be coincidental or could be pandemic related, or could be announcement related.

Junta himself retweeted the announcement (duh) but also TWO separate former King of Prism composers and a choreographer retweeted the announcement with excitement.

None of the VAs have posted about the announcement yet (which honestly could be a sign in itself because Minato's VA (Igarashi Masashi) is known to post about KinPri every once in awhile).

Shoutan (Louis' VA) has been posting about an unrelated event called the King Super Live and it's caught me off guard more than once lmfao. Also if you really want to reach Shoutan posted a twitter photo of him with the caption "dubbing" without any other context lmao.

The Rainbow Live 10th anniversary event is happening RIGHT NOW and lots of Rainbow Live VAs and Staff have been posting about it. This is kind of unrelated to KinPri but who knows?

Last year Hishida marked March 25th as Pretty Rhythm day and promised some sort of campaign to raise money for new Pretty Rhythm content. He had no more details than more content and money however.

King of Prism was on NHK World Japan in a segment with Idolish7 (A still VERY active male idol franchise) in January, the first time Hishida and KinPri has been on the segment in years.

This is only tangentially related but I feel like it should be mentioned in the fact section, last summer the official King of Prism account searched for people to help with One Piece cheer screenings which is wild to me, but apparently because of the help the cheer screenings themselves did pretty well.

Also related to that PolPri (same production company) has been doing really well and itself has plenty of cheer screenings. There's rumors that Tatsunoko has their hands full with more PolPri and the CG for the IRIS movie, but I mean no one really knows about their inner workings lol. Regardless they DIDN'T take the new season of the Pretty Series anime AiPri, leaving them open for new projects.

Ok now that we have all the facts (that I know of lol) what do we think the announcement is?

Things the announcement could be in order of how likely they are in my opinion, and why:

Merch Kuji (if you don't know what a Kuji is (I didn't until recently) it's a merch lottery where you put in some money and are guaranteed to get a piece of merch but the character or design is random. Most modern anime merch is like this ;-;) Let's be honest, KinPri was dead for almost the entire second half of 2023. But between May and September I can count 6 different King of Prism merch lotteries (LOL?). There's also a Kuji running right now that's astrology themed that will be over by the time of the announcement. Leading me to believe that it would be the perfect time for them to open a MEGA merch lottery, one fitting of such a big announcement. Of course I would want more than this lol, but I think given the current precedent the franchise has given us this is the most likely outcome.

Regular around the country screenings. (the country is Japan btw sorry fellow Americans) I'm on the fence on whether or not this will be the announcement because why would they announce more screenings at a screening? But ever since Hiro's birthday in October the amount of King of Prism cheer screenings have shot up dramatically and they don't seem to be stopping. It would be a pretty huge announcement for them to say that the screenings are continuing at this accelerated pace for the time being. If this is the case I would also assume something bigger is coming over the summer lol because they wouldn't just increase the amount of screenings for no reason.

Ok now we get to the fun stuff

3. New Music!! I'm trying to keep my expectations low, but it feels slightly strange that the only staff talking about this are composers and choreographers, no? And the way they're wording the announcement makes me think it's supposed to be BIGGER than the two options above because those are the two things we already have, leading me here to the next step. With Prism Rush we were getting regular singles, and I think it's about time we get a new Septentrion song!!!!

4. Something like the Pretty Series VLives. The VLive format seems to be doing really well for PriChan, and King of Prism has dabbled in the format before, something more but not a ton of work would be something akin to the PriChan highschool live. where there's a shallow story but it can be rebroadcast over and over (at future cheer screenings?). Bonus that the PriChan one was crowdfunded, and there's nothing stopping them from attempting that again (though idk if they would if whatever is happening on 3/25 is also crowdfunded.) I think if we're getting any new content content this is the most likely because of it's cost to profit ratio AND the uptick of them being made for the Pretty Series, but of course I can dream about getting more, as in:

Anything past this point is not very likely but I want it anyway

5. PRISM RUSH 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ok I cannot lie, I really want this one just because I want to play a mobile rhythm game and SIF2 is approaching end of service lmao. But it feels kinda weird that the Prism Rush 1 setting materials came out so late, right??? Plus maybe all the composters retweeting were hinting at new music, and what needs a bunch of new music if not a rhythm game! SynSophia has finally gotten out or announced all their backlogged projects (Idol Land though they didn't do much of that one, Fashion Dreamer, and TWO AiPri arcade games) leaving their dev team open to work on a brand new game. Yeah??? :) Plus people complained that most of the Prism Rush story wasn't in the setting materials, maybe this is their chance to re-release the event stories :) (coping!)

6. Another Super Live! Every time I watch one of the Pretty Series Lives where they bring back the VAs from now dead franchises (rip PriMagi) I wonder why they stopped doing these for King of Prism (other than like the pandemic). There's still plenty of Prism Rush songs that have never been done live, plus everyone wants to hear the SSS songs again. And I mean they're getting Junta for the announcement, it would make sense for Shin to announce something like this! I don't think this is very likely, rather it would come if there was new media with new music that was doing really well, but it is something I'd enjoy a lot.

6. A NEW ANIME!!!!!!!!! Ok we save this one for the bottom because it's the least likely, especially for an 8 year old anime and one that hasn't had a new movie in 4 years. But I mean, this is what we all want right? Director Hishida, save us all 🙏

I considered taking this entire post and making it a Youtube video lmfao but I don't think I'd get an audience who wants to listen to me ramble about King of Prism news. But uhh what do you think, I'm so so so so so so so so so so so excited! aaaaaaaaa

#king of prism #!!!!!!!!! #i'm so excited #long post #ramblings

[mcbitchtits]

I can’t remember if I already sent an ask about this sometime in the last month but thinking about the fact that I’m almost certainly going to have to wait until it hits digital release to actually get to see Dial of Destiny a second time further reminded not only of how badly Disney has handled the physical release of the soundtrack (I saw a copy of the CD listed for five hundred fucking dollars) but also I still want to know how a 2 hour and 34 minute movie has a 1 hour and 9 minute soundtrack. I definitely heard cues from ToD in the movie that aren’t on it but not enough to make up for the extra hour of missing music

I think somewhere in all the comments back and forth you had mentioned they did rewrites at one point? Which could be anything, but, idk. I'm not sure if it's an editing choice or a music choice or what to make soundtrack albums that are re-edited rather than just matching the film cues 1:1, but it drives me nuts. On the other hand, the score really felt underdeveloped/poorly edited to me (and this is maybe a product of a few screenings with bad sound balance), so I'm guessing they pared it down to the better parts. Which is uhhhhhhhh not a compliment. (I am still thinking about how badly the first Raiders March cue we hear is just out of left field with no build whatsoever. WHAT'S A CRESCENDO. WE JUST DON'T KNOW.)

I don't think they had even released the physical album yet? I preordered it ages ago because I sold my soul to Lucasfilm and that is the way it goes. I do not even have a record player. I want to say it was shipping in September, maybe not. Disney Music does not seem to give much of a damn about putting out actual albums, just collector vinyls. Most of that company is so steeped in not having original ideas it's frankly astounding anything happens at all. $500 is insane. (But also, here I am, yelling at Disney Music for never releasing non-streaming non-collector albums of The Mandalorian, so what do I know. I'm just a chump with average spending money.)

Then again, it took, what, 24 years for the Temple of Doom score to get a release outside of Japan at all initially????? So maybe this is an improvement. (Although I am not personally willing to give them that credit; I think Lucasfilm has really been dropping the ball on everything since Disney bought them.) For years all I had was the Prague Symphony Orchestra album that's like a "best of", and I hadn't ever hunted down the Raiders or Last Crusade albums, so I'm not sure if those were as rare or not.

Wait, horrible thought, do you think they temp-tracked DoD with previous scores? I don't think I heard any KotCS really but that's a fairly obvious exception given... all of it.

BUT THE REST... :/

(Does John Williams temp-track? I feel like no. But he's so close to continual retirement, I mean...?)

#indiana jones #dial of destiny #music

[medea10]

My Review of [Oshi no Ko]

Oof. The spring anime season of 2023 was kinda lax with the sequels and reboots. This was welcoming news for me as I was happy to take on any and every new anime that dropped. And I was ready to give the top prize to Skip and Loafer or even My Love Story with Yamada-kun. But then, this anime smashed in like Jack Nicholson in The Shining. This anime was already seen as the most, highly-anticipated anime to enter this season. Of course, the creator also made Kaguya-sama. It’s going to be awesome! And that’s stiff competition as Demon Slayer and Dr. Stone both returned with positive feedback. On the day of its official release, the first episode alone was seen as #1 on all of MAL. Gee, how long did it take for the FMA fan-idiots to nuke the score of this series? About four weeks. Guys, get another hobby.

Besides becoming the #1 anime on MAL with just one episode out, Hidive received the highest amount of traffic to their website for the first time ever. The music video released by YOASOBI for Oshi no Ko trended for a full week and as of May 17, 2023, the video reached 100 million views. Add to that, YOASOBI’s single has been dominating on the global Billboard charts. Manga sales have exploded. This anime is definitely one to behold. Let’s hope that nothing happens to the anime to make it falter.

Before I talk about the synopsis, I should really go a little further when it comes to the first episode. We all know, the average anime episode is roughly 21-25 minutes as it varies. This of course doesn’t include the length and time of recaps, openings, ending themes, or previews. But then, you get several episodes that are 40-50 minutes. I call that the, “Aniplex wants your attention episode”. Yeah, it’s because most of those I see are in Aniplex animes. Especially the Monogatari series. But in most cases, these are just the first or last episode. I just learned to accept it and enjoy the extra-long episode of SAO or Demon Slayer. Plus, it’s just their way to fill in as much content for the season. Oshi no Ko’s first episode clocked in at a whopping 82 minutes. This first episode alone could have been a feature-length movie. Japan actually did put the first episode on the big screen weeks before the television premier. This seems to be a missed opportunity for Sentai Filmworks.

A REQUEST: I do have a request for those blindly stumbling upon this review. If you are reading this part and have not watched at least episode 1, I kindly ask that you close this page and go watch Oshi no Ko’s first episode. Do not even read the synopsis to the episode. It is best that you go in blind. If you have already done so, please disregard this message and let’s get at it!

Ai Hoshino is an idol in a group called B Komachi. She is loved all around Japan. One particular fan (Sarina) loves her dearly. It’s the one thing in her life that gives her joy as she is currently battling a rare form of brain cancer. She dies. She was only 12. A doctor (Gorou Amemiya) who befriended her kinda got into Ai shortly after Sarina’s death. And now he’s hooked. One day, Gorou gets the surprise of his life as one of his incoming patients is 20 weeks pregnant with twins. And surprise, it’s famous idol Ai Hoshino.

Oof. I’m sorry, seeing them talk to a 16-year-old girl who is pregnant is not a pleasant topic I like to talk about nowadays. You all know the country I hail from and how angry I get talking about real world topics.

Gorou took care of Ai for the next twenty weeks to ensure a safe and healthy delivery. The night Ai went into labor, Gorou was murdered by a man who asked him about the whereabouts of Ai. In his final moments, Gorou recalled a conversation he had with Sarina about what it would be like to be the children of a famous idol.

With that, Gorou died and is reincarnated as one of Ai’s twins (named Aqua). The other twin (named Ruby) was Sarina reincarnated. We watch Aqua and Ruby grow as Ai’s children. But their identies were shielded from the public due to fear of Ai’s career being ruined forever. Still though, when Ai is with her children, it’s some of the happiest moments of Ai’s life considering her life prior to idol fame was dreadful. As for the kids, Aqua got into acting and Ruby got into dancing. And even though it took several years, Ai’s popularity began to grow past just being a teen idol and was ready to perform at a super dome. This happiness was shattered.

The stalker that killed Ai’s doctor stabs Ai in her residence and with Aqua as a witness. In Ai’s final words, she was able to give out a sincere “I love you” to her children. Ai is dead. The stalker killed himself. The children’s biological father could be the source of all that has just occurred. Aqua is ready for revenge.

Now, at age 16 is when the real story begins for Aqua and Ruby. Ruby has ambitions of becoming an idol like her mother, but Aqua wants her to steer-clear away from that business because of what happened to their mother. That doesn’t stop Ruby’s ambitions as she ends up restarting her mother’s old idol group B Komachi. As for Aqua, he gets several television appearances. He has no interest in that stuff, but this is the only way to get answers about Ai and their possible biological father as he might be the key or the reason behind Ai’s demise.

BETWEEN THE SUB AND THE DUB: Oh good! Rie Takahashi is in the main cast. Oh…she plays Ai. That’s just sad. So, is Ai still technically a main character even though she gets killed by episode 1? Just curious! As for the sub, Sentai has a dub out. My premature thoughts went straight to Monica Rial. I’m sniffing around to see if she’s even in this. I can sense Rial up in here.

several research voice actor moments later

Okay, Monica Rial isn’t part of the main cast…but her sister is. I was close and thought that either one or both Rial sisters were going to be there. I thought these people did a good job considering the major hype to the anime. I know I usually never give glowing recommendations for any dub done by Sentai. This, they did fine with. This is my first time hearing most (if not all) the main cast.

JAPANESE CAST: *Aqua is played by Takeo Ootsuka (known for Tem on Beastars)

*Ruby is played by Yurie Igoma

*Ai is played by Rie Takahashi (known for Emilia on Re:Zero, Tomo on Tomo-chan is a Girl, Megumin on Konosuba, Ena on Laid-Back Camp, Sumi on Rent-A-Girlfriend, and Mash on Fate/Grand Order)

ENGLISH CAST: *Aqua is played by Jack Stansbury (known for Mendou on Urusei Yatsura 2022)

*Ruby is played by Alyssa Marek

*Ai is played by Donna Bella Litton (known for Ran on Urusei Yatsura 2022)

SHIPPING: This…can get really ewwie really fast.

Gorou’s obsession with Ai was borderline Lolita fetish. A grown-ass man obsessing over a 16-year-old idol can get really creepy really fast. I do give him props as he remained completely professional as Ai’s OB-GYN. Now, what happens when Gorou dies and is reborn as Aqua? Oh, he loves Ai! It’s just that Aqua was careful as humanly possible. That’s my tip-toeing around the scene where Aqua turns down being breast fed by Ai. Ruby doesn’t mind drinking from Ai’s teat.

16-year-old Aqua kept getting asked by his castmates for the reality show he was in what his ideal woman was. He tip-toes around it, but we all know he’s describing Ai. His mother! A woman who died over 10 years ago. And again, HIS MOTHER! Though, nobody else knows that fact so he just tip-toes around it by being as discreet as humanly possible. Because of Aqua’s looks, he’s a prime target for thirsty girls at his school. But thanks to the reality show he was in; he ends up in a fake relationship with Akane. Totally doesn’t help that Akane starts acting like Ai! Because those two “hooked up” during the reality show, they must keep up appearances with their relationship in the public eye.

We could end that shit topic here if not for little miss Kana being little miss tsundere whenever Aqua is around. Oh boy, Kana is a true tsundere here.

SADDEST MOMENT: That first episode killed it in more ways than one. There’s no doubt that every main character here has had their hardships in the past. Ai had parents that abandoned her and she winds up in an orphanage. When Ruby was Sarina, she was suffering from that rare brain cancer where it was a struggle just to walk. And as for Aqua, they never did find his original body. But I was not prepared for what happened when Ai answered that door in episode 1.

I was thinking that stalker guy was the father of Aqua and Ruby and we’re going to have this whole thing throughout the series. Instead, when I watched this guy try to kill Ai, I immediately got flashbacks of Selena. Oh yeah, who could forget that death?

Yes, everything about Ai’s final words killed me. The animation, the delivery, everything! And Rie Takahashi knocked it out of the park!

DO THESE STORIES LOOK FAMILIAR TO YOU?: So, I might be going out on several limbs here but hear me out. Watching Oshi no Ko, do you draw any kind of correlation to any character’s backstory and seen it with an actor who might have gone through this same sort of thing? This story delves into the dark side of the entertainment industry and mostly in Japan. But being American, I can’t help but draw connections to the sad stories I would see in the entertainment industry in the U.S.

When I watched a crazed fan attack Ai, I will always immediately think of what happened to Selena. Seeing Kana try to stay relevant due to being a child actor, I think of a lot of child stars that went on after the height of their careers and while there are some success stories, there’s…well, it didn’t end well for actors like Bobby Driscoll and Dana Plato. Look both of those up, it’s quite tragic. I know these are American actors and most of the story is revolved around what happens in the Japanese entertainment industry. I’m just using these an example because I learned about these tragedies and lived through some of them (especially Selena’s death). Despite all of those stories being decades old, a lot of dark things still take place in this day and age. And with the addition of social media, being an entertainer has become worse.

The Akane storyline…ouch. First of all, social media comments are toxic. I will admit, I used to “Egosurf” a lot in my 20s when I was somewhat relevant on certain sites. It did not do well for my mental health. But I’m not like Akane. I’m not an entertainer. I’m a dork that likes to write reviews for animes and proud of it. If someone on Tumblr tells me I suck, I just ignore it. I probably won’t even see it knowing me. Tee-hee! Back to the matter at hand though. Akane wasn’t really seen as anything special in the reality show she was in with Aqua. She didn’t stick out as much as her other co-stars. Despite it being kinda like a reality show, these kids are still acting or doing what their supervisors say. Akane decides to do something impulsive and it backfired. BADLY!

This resulted in people on social media exploding with hatred for Akane with the most disgusting of messages telling her she’ll never act again or just blunt ones that say “Just die”. Despite the episode clearly stating this is a “work of fiction”, you know they got inspired by the real-life tragedy of Hana Kimura. Kimura was a female professional wrestler for the most part. In 2019, she was in a reality show called Terrace House. During an episode, Kimura got in a verbal argument with one of the castmates. From what I’ve read, they asked her to stir the pot a bit and fight with the other castmate. After this episode aired, fans took to social media and posted a lot of hate-filled messages towards Kimura. This sent her in a deep depression. Two months after this episode aired and all of the horrible messages were blasted at top speed, Hana Kimura committed suicide.

I don’t want to say Oshi no Ko blatently used this one particular story for the Akane storyline. But I’m also not saying that either. This is eerily too similar. It also doesn’t help that this episode aired days before the anniversary of Kimura’s death. I know it’s coincidence, but weird-ass timing. Thank God Aqua saved her from jumping off the bridge. While Oshi no Ko is a work of fiction, what happened to Hana Kimura was not. And bullying the woman’s family is not helping anything whatsoever. Yes, Kimura’s mother is pissed at the anime for airing a story similar to the events that drove her daughter to suicide. She has that right! Don’t bully her because she’s mad at everyone involved with Oshi no Ko. If I was in her shoes, I’d probably be pissed too and for a long time too. Moving away from that dumpster fire…

And the biggest kudos goes to Hidive. At the end of episode 6, they put up a message to prevent suicide and well, you know what? I’m going to do so here too.

As someone who has unfortunately been in dark places like some of these characters, I encourage others to seek out help as well.

ENDING: Since the events of episode 1, we watched what Ruby and Aqua want to do with their lives. Ruby is committed to becoming an idol like her mother. Slowly throughout the season, she and Kana joined Ai’s old production company and started up the idol group Ai was in, B Komachi. It was just the two of them until the end of the reality show Aqua was in. That’s when Aqua suggested to his castmate Mem-Cho that she should become an idol in the B Komachi revival. This is an interesting mixture for an idol group with the daughter of an idol (though nobody knows that fact), a former child star, and a Youtuber that’s 25 going on 16 depending on her applications.

Kana puts up a brave face in front of Ruby and Mem-Cho. But you can tell that Kana is scared. She’s been tossed around since becoming older, nobody bought her single when she recorded songs, her own mother even gave up on her, and all of these rejections kinda caught up to Kana. Regardless, Kana went up on stage with Ruby and Mem-Cho as a rookie idol. B Komachi got their chance at an idol festival to perform. It’s a start compared to a lot idols in other animes. On stage, it was clear that the audience was mostly there for Mem-Cho due to her popularity through the reality show and her Youtube channel. But Ruby got some attention from an audience member who remembered the original B Komachi and noticed Ruby kinda got that same aura as Ai.

Kana felt a little despair while performing on stage. But then we get a déjà vu trip as Aqua is in the audience doing a glow stick dance. Yeah, it was a lot like what happened when Ai was performing, doubt was swarming her, and then the twins start doing a glow stick dance. I guess the performance went well. It’s just that after that we see more tsundere moments from Kana. Mem-Cho finally sees that Kana likes Aqua. And then there’s some friction when we learn that Kana and Akane know each other and are rivals. And when I say rivals, I mean they are like Ash Ketchum and Gary Oak in the first season rivals, they are catty bitches. They’ve been at it since they were children.

A popular anime is about to be adapted as a stage musical. Akane and Kana are set to be in this production. The gentleman that Aqua has been in contact for a while now set him up with a role in that same stage musical. This theater company was apparently where things changed for Ai when she was an up-and-coming idol.

Could this be Aqua’s big lead to possibly meeting his biological father? That’s a question that won’t be answered today. At least season two is greenlit.

Soooooo…after watching episode 1 and the hype that came along with it, did the rest of the season grab my attention? Yes. It totally did. I mean it wasn’t at the hype it was when I had just watched episode 1. After one viewing of episode one, I had to tell anyone who would listen to me that this was awesome. There were however several other episodes that grabbed me. Yes, it was the Akane-centered episodes. Let’s just say any time I saw moments with Kana and Ruby trying to do idol stuff before Mem-cho came were a little boring. I just felt like they were just there and nothing else. Probably just a reminder that yeah, they exist, now let’s go back to Aqua doing what he’s doing.

Am I excited for season two? Oh yes, I am. I’m doing my best not to look at any manga spoilers. It’s hard. Every so often, a spoiler drops on Twitter and you just want to look. Or someone on Youtube will say something about a new chapter and you just want to take a quickie. NOPE! I’m going to stay strong and just practice good patience.

Medea read up about Aqua and Ruby’s father

No self control whatsoever! Not one iota of it. Whenever season two drops, it’s going to be a biggie. Will the anime continue to be a smashing hit when it returns? That’s for the future to decide. I truly hope for the best. As long as they stay with the original material and the same studio that’s animating it, I think we’ll be good. Full recommendation!

FINAL (IDIOTIC) THOUGHT: So, is Ai going to be the next member of Franchouchou on Zombieland Saga?

…I’m going to sit in the corner and think about what I just wrote.

All 11 episodes are available on Hi-Dive.

#anime review #oshi no ko #aquamarine hoshino #ai hoshino #ruby hoshino #mem-cho #kana arima #akane kurokawa #sarina tendouji #gorou amemiya

[the-moon-and-sea]

Trying something new bc im bored. Please imagine all the parenthesis are footnotes.

I have decided I'm going to watch the new Ghibli movie when it comes out. I saw ads for it in Japan (just posters on the movie theater wall at the mall, they intentionally didn't advertise the movie At All before releasing it there) and it was more intriguing than some of the other movies coming out (looking at you, ghibli look-alike about a chair??? who okayed that premise) but the timing wasn't right, plus I'd have to watch it all in actual Japanese and while I could do that for something simple like Way of the Househusband (great movie btw but I didn't know enough lore apparently) I figured I'd want to follow this one a bit better. Plus, my boy Yonezu Kenshi contributed to the soundtrack, so I have to watch it to support.

This movie is the first in a while (I'm not googling to see if this is correct) with the old duo of Hayao Miyazaki and Joe Hisaishi, and while there have been....other movies in the last 10 or so years....miss little witch etc was never very compelling for me. But based on the barely-over-a-minute trailer...I'm ready. We've got the creepy soundtrack, the same solid style, but somehow a level up in the animation?! some random old ladies, cute spirits, it's got it all. What it also has, very importantly, is a war reference. We all know Miyazaki remains heavily influenced by his nostalgia of wartime Japan (and aren't all of us (Please Read/Watch In This Corner Of The World)) so it's not surprising to see some bombings here. Some fire there. I'll bet you $5 there will be a plane in there somewhere. Mans loves his planes.

Anyway add onto that the ~mystical elements~ weebs like to love about Japan (please read Orientalism by Edward Said also) and I'm sure this will sell well. And I'm also sure, I'm probably gonna love it lmao

I was reading the official description on GKids which I guess is the site of the producer and distributer in America, and they mention Yonezu, my boy, right under Miyazaki. Joe isn't there. Poor guy. Anyway they say about Yonezu: "After posting a series of Vocaloid tracks under the moniker Hachi, Kenshi Yonezu distinguished himself from the crowd with remarkable results." This is. a severe understatement. I think I might end up writing my thesis on Vocaloid and the impact it STILL has on children today in America and Japan (my kids always played popular songs during lunch/cleaning and during sports, basically anytime the broadcast club had control; some of the kids in the art club literally only drew Ms Miku fanart) and amongst that Huge Library of Music (I won't call it a genre bc thats not what it is), Hachi was like. Top 10 if not Top 5 if not Top 3 most popular. If you listened to vocaloid at all before 2016 you know Matryoshka. That's Hachi. He was a wonder to all of us middle schoolers. More recently, he came out with Sand Planet, about the way time has changed Vocaloid and the people who enjoy and produce it. It was also really cool.

I learned about his Real Name career a bit after it had happened. I stumbled on Mad Head Love one day on my youtube rabbit holes, and it slapped, and I was like oh it's that guy. But then I lost track, forgot his name, and generally wished him well from afar. And then ! I refound him! And have loved him ever since (not really some of his recent stuff is weird but - actually hang on lemme actually write this)

Recently, and I mean in the last oh 3 or so years, he's done what a lot of popular Japanese artists do - make anime music. Some of it's okay, some of it is Absolutely His Thing, and some of it is like every other anime op ever and not very impressive. Spinning Globe (the song in this movie) is Pretty Good I think. I listened to it while crying on the plane on the way back to America. The lyrics are simple and easy to understand, it's got his plodding beat and an easy background. I could probably transcribe the piano part in 15 minutes. "The day I heard a voice patting me on the back, telling me to go ahead" is like. well it was really relevant to my personal time in Japan and a lot of the issues I've been facing so maybe I'm biased!

Yonezu is so popular that he literally wrote a song for the Tokyo Olympics. He represents Japan. He has been a top singer in Japan for 10 years. This started with his landslide take over of Vocaloid music. Even my students who didn't know literally any celebrity knew him. And I know this is the English website so they probably don't expect anyone to know who he is, and don't care about the understatement, but listen. Yonezu if you're out there and you want anyone to write you PR in English. I've got u.

The Japanese title is 君たちはどう生きるか. It's based on a book of the same name from 2016. I'd literally translate that title as "How do you live" with the 'you' being plural, like 'you all'. I don't know anything about it. It's apparently semi-autobiographical. But they've chosen to translate the title as "The Boy and the Heron," the choice of which could be a thesis in itself. But I wish it had come out just a little sooner, because one of my favorite games to play with my kids was getting them to guess titles to ghibli movies in English and they would've lost their minds over this one.

#if you are not reading this bc its too long #good. #i think i should start a blog and just Say Things bc i have a lot to say all the time #not me writing a blog using the blogging platform for blogging #anyway i dont know where this went but enjoy #alissa likes to talk

[ylizam]

Tagged by @darkbloomiana

Rules: answer 10 questions and tag 10 people you want to know better

Relationship status: romantically single, platonically partnered

Favourite colour: orange!

Three favourite foods: clearly three is not enough, so I will list three savory AND three sweet picked at random from among all my favorites! three savory: pizza (team pineapple on pizza is good, actually, especially with bacon), tahdig, palak paneer. sweet: mango sticky rice, ice cream (chestnut, raspberry cookies n cream, ashta, black sesame, coffee, chocolate, sundaes, etc. etc.), chocolate in various forms.

Song stuck in my head: we’ve been attending shabbat services pretty regularly for about a year, so it’s all the shabbat bops all the time up in there

Last thing I listened to: Billy Joel’s Greatest Hits Volumes I & II

Last thing I googled: best restaurants 19ème arrondissement

Time: 14:44 EST

Dream trip: a long one (okay so one of my dream trips is to go to one country or whatever and just wander for like a month, visiting different regions and maybe friends. examples of countries we’ve considered for such a thing include the UK (or Former UK, depending on politics), France, Japan, New Zealand, Australia) (but also a month somewhere, in a house or cottage or whatever, like Ireland or Bretagne or the Lake District or I don’t know where, with day or weekend trips or whatever but a singe home base). I’ve also wanted to go to Iran for ages, which I know is not going to happen. 

Anything I really want: enough money to buy a house and not work, if we’re being honest

Currently reading: Spare, lol, I can’t help it. also Trespasses by Louise Kennedy and Even Though I Knew the End by C.L. Polk.

Last song: Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song) by Mr. Billy Joel (I said I was listening to his greatest hits, didn’t I?)

Last movie: Top Gun: Maverick, which is a morally bankrupt military rah-rah patriotism movie of the terrible kind and also total popcorn fun that I enjoyed despite hating it. next up: our annual attempt to watch a bunch of Oscar movies so we can be judgmental bitches about it all.

Last series: that I finished watching? Sort Of, or at least through what’s been made/released (so! good!), since they renewed for a third season. currently watching? Poker Face, which I’m loving, and my terrible copaganda programs and General Hospital and I was doing a Babylon 5 rewatch but they pulled it from HBO Max so I’m going to have to dig up my DVDS to finish that one. next on the list: Andor and another Russian Doll rewatch since that’s how I live my life.

Sweet, savoury, or spicy: yes, please, often in combination

Currently working on: building up a regular writing practice again

Craving: the butterscotch pudding currently in the refrigerator (we put a splash of Scotch in it, which is a delight if you like that sort of thing, which I do)

Tea or coffee: coffee by preference, but tea at this precise moment

Tagging: YOU—you know, if you want to.

#ten questions #a true story about me #meme

[ursbearhug]

Imagine being 40 something and needing someone to explain to you how certain experiences are self contained.

Because being serial complainer and professional hater is my favourite past time, I'll do the thing: to comment on something I saw that upset me, whilst never name dropping, just before I go to sleep.

Games can be self contained experiences. I remember similar 'scandal' happening when Elden Ring was just released and people were appalled that after a month or two the interest/buy/play rates have dropped. Of course they did. Players who considered getting the game resolved their interest, players who played the game did everything they wanted and there was nothing else for them to buy. Now, I haven't played Elden Ring myself, but, going off my impeccable gamer's instinct, and common sense, I glean that as with other souls games; you're with nothing else to do after your 3rd play through. I remember my fascination with Nioh; my first play through cheesing all of the bosses (exept Hino Emna and Giant Toad. Fuck these hoes), second when I tonfa my way through and third where I wanted to be a great magician. But what else am I supposed to do after all of that? I've tested all of the weapons, I tackled almost all of the content, I know the game in and out. That's 200something hours and finite things to do. It's impossible to came up with a game with infinite stuff to do. Even games like Minecraft or Terraria, Sims, or whatever have you, where you make your own fun with given tools, are finite. There is only so much to do. And that's fine.

Games are about fun and interactive experience. After the fun ends, it's time for some other media or a break.

So it makes it hard for me to put myself in a mindset of somebody almost 20 years older than me, incapable of grasping such simple concept. Do you grab a book and get upset after you finish it that the story reached it's conclusion? There is only so much paper for one book, there is only so much words somebody could put on a word document. Things start and things end, that's only natural.

As with the release of pokemon S/S, I was of the impression the game was rushed. Which was all but confirmed when it launched with bug list and 'features' list so long, it got it's own post on reddit. Pokemon SwSh, scarlet and violet and probably Arceus could use some extra time in development oven. A lot of games could. Sometimes they release games and the problems become more apparent because of foresight. These days they still have it better because they can fix it with simple patch notes. But sometimes, some problems, are not as readily visable and obvious.

I am a long fan of Tomb Raider series. But even I eventually out grew my fascination period and realised that last releases have close to nothing to do with tomb raiding and that's disappointing. Tomb Raider 2013, while not perfect, made a perfect set up for future games. And they did not deliver. From puzzle solving, platforming exercise, with tomb raiding and big tiddy lidy vignette to a pseudo survival game question mark. Tomb Raider 2013 (survival in Japan). Rise of the Tomb Raider; still not tomb raiding, survival but this time in Sybir. Shadow of the Tomb Raider, still no tomb raiding, survival but in America, ohh uuu so exotic. Might as well rename the trilogy to 'Daddy Issues' Raider: Survival in (throws the dart at the board) random place on the earth.

But these are not thoughts or feelings I had immediately after playing the game. This comes from some amount of time to mull over how I really feel about these. These are also not thoughts of a hater. Beside atrocious optimisation of Rise of the Tomb Raider, I really liked the games. I enjoyed playing them at the face value. But again, with experience or time, come new perspectives. And games, movies, books and all sorts of media deserve a little grace period. I'm sure even medias that do deserve critism (like Antisemitism The Game: Transphobia Crowdfunded or whatever Colleen Hover did), have gotten their somehow graced period only to inevitably flop.

So maybe don't pretend that drop of interest within 2 months of existance of a game is some loud statement. Not everyone has the pleasure of playing games 12 hours daily. Some players have to speed run the content to get the most of it in their busy days. Some will do the stark opposite. Some played and had to drop it. Some play little by little. Some got bored. Some got disappointed. Everyone is quick to judge too. 2 months is not that long. Think of it this way; Aristophanes had more than 2000 years to get better and have nicely established career as a funny man and his comedies are still dog shit.

Anyway, garlic bread and gay sex. Tell your friends you love them and drink your water.

#percy does things #will delete later

[itsadragonaesthetic]

Was taught about the atom bombs in middle school in grave detail with bits of brainwashing and then never learned about it that intensely until now and uhhh just wanted to share some thoughts. (I'm actually trying to cope right now and I feel like blabbering lmao) Trigger for general discussion of the bombs, personal fears and feelings, and mentions of Nazis. Please tell me if I should add more/different tags.

I was very thoroughly brainwashed about WW2 when I was in middle school. No doubt. Full blown "it was a necessary evil" and "Americans are the heros" and "the greatest generation" all taught by an asshole boomer (no literally) who forced me to watch reconstructions of people being vaporized by the bombs (I asked to not participate and he refused).

I genuinely look back on that similarly to how my mom looks back on the similarly brutal education she got. It was traumatizing. After that I just blanked it all out of my mind for years. I got to it in high school but didn't pay much attention and the curriculum didn't go in depth as to not be opinionated or traumatize anyone being forced to read about it against their will.

I've been learning about it again over the last few days out of curiosity, prime timing with a WW2 movie being released, and because I could feel some kind of weird wound in my psyche about those bombs that I wanted to explore.

Something new that has happened is that I'm beginning to comprehend that WW2 actually happened. I was told about it when I was a fucking child as to lessen the impact of how crazy it was. To make it impossible for me to fully process and question it. To make the event sound normal. Later I knew of the horrors of the Nazis, especially cuz some idiots currently decided to bring it up into politics again. I'm not sure if I'll ever fully process any of that honestly. I learned a lot about it in high school, but nothing too crazy.

That bombing tho, and the entire situation of the US relationship with Japan... it's hard to think about. I think it's hard because of that brainwashing. Even if I say I don't like America or whatever, I have to admit that there are some patterns in there that will always need weeding simply due to my education. Ableism, racism, harmful nationalism, disconnect from other countries, all of that doesn't fix itself when you yell "fuck america".

I was initially taught with the American pride ideas. We had no choice, the Japanese were evil savages, and America is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Woo pride for our troops or whatever. I grew up and realized it was all bullshit but I had a sort of... apologist perspective on the horrors. Those people were brainwashed. Those marines thought they were doing the right thing. Those poor Americans just wanted the war to end. They didn't know what that bomb did.

But I only thought that because that's the America I choose to see in the present day. I still talk respectfully to veterans simply because I pity them, and many realized they were duped by the Iraq war propaganda. I give them respect because they didn't deserve to experience that, nor did they want to. I also generally think of Americans as ignorant. They only think these wars are justified because they've been led astray by assholes at the top who want more money. Were all just a bunch of roaches at the bottom of a barrel being swayed by the tides of our upbringing.

This was not how it was in WW2. People were victims of propaganda, but many were truly evil. I liked to imagine people felt shock and fear after the first test, but no. People cheered. People were given medals after dropping the bomb. They had the mushroom cloud and news coverage play on TV and people said "we should bomb them again". They saw survivors years after the event and laughed at their deformities. Americans whined and bitched about the war effort, then took full credit for being good humanitarians after we won. Japanese Americans were treated like less than animals.

The Nazis were just... that shit is enough to give you nightmares for sure. But that evil feels far away. It feels like it's fueled by mythical monsters and misinformed people. Maybe the bombs are only shaking me so bad because it's close to home, but hearing about those bombings makes me feel... haunted. The power of the sun, creation itself, was released and it birthed a thousand demons that still stalk every person even remotely affected. Generations down, it feels like the spirit of some lost soul is looking for someone to blame. As an American, it feels like it must be me. The fact that I knew so many kids in high school who chose the WW2 special courses that unpack those horrors and many still came out as white nationalists reminds me that WW2 wasn't even 100 years ago. The mindset that unleashed the most atrocious horrors upon the earth isn't long dead like I was taught it was. Nor is it in some far off land. I am indeed superstitious, and it makes me afraid of demons disguised as people. When they said learning about this stuff is enough to make you feel like half of a human for an afternoon, they weren't kidding.

#ww2 #wwii #tw holocaust #vent post #my posts #dragon speaks #tw nazis #paranoia inducing

[marcuskurciviez-comm261]

Blog 2 - Ringu: A Deeper Dive

Ringu is a Japanese J-Horror film, released in 1998, follows the story of a news reporter, Reiko Asakawa, as she finds the roots of a mysterious tape that when watched will kill you in a week. Following her adventure, she has her ex-husband help her along the way, where they have tension throughout the film, but share one common interest which is their son-- who also watched the film. Overall, Ringu has proven to be a hit in the horror industry with remakes in America and spawning multiple sequels. It is also, “...Japan’s highest grossing horror film to date” (Horror Cult Films). Ringu has proven to be an influential movie in the horror landscape locally (Japan) and globally, and has been an important moment in the J-Horror industry. We will be looking at the influence Ringu has had in Japan, and the boom it started in the J-Horror sub-genre. 

The director of Ringu, Hideo Nakata, actually didn’t get his big break in the film industry through horror. Subsequently, he originally directed erotic films, which later became bankrupt in 1993. When the film studio he worked for went bankrupt, he would then travel to England for a year to make a documentary on film-maker Joseph Losey-- which took, “...several years to complete due to financing” (Horror Cult Films). Afterwards, Nakata would move back to Japan and would follow pursuit in small directing jobs to gain some money. This is where he made his first feature film Ghost Actress which ended up being the platform for Ringu by gaining the attention of Koji Suzuki, who was the author of the novel Ringu, and would later ask Nakata to be the director for the feature film of the novel. 

Ringu is interesting in the sense that it brought the slow buildup that many horror films before it were lacking. Throughout the entirety of the movie, up until the last part, the audience never sees who this ghost girl is up until the very end. Yes, we may see the reflection of her or very little parts that are not clear, but it leaves the audience wanting to finish the movie to see what happens. We know that there is something, but we don’t fully know what it is, or when it will come out. The scene that I am focusing on is at the very end, when the ex-husband is in his house and the tape starts to play, and we see a part of the tape that we didn’t get to see yet-- which is when the girl climbs out of the well and slowly starts walking towards the screen and actually climbs out of the tv. This is the first time that the audience fully gets to see the girl in its entire form, and clearly too. From the dimly lit lighting, to the high screeching sounds, and finally the desperate need for escape; the final scene certainly closes with a bang, and leaves the audience scared. The final scene is, what I can argue, makes it the perfect horror movie for its time. As it has the slow build-up tension throughout the film and leaving us feeling uneasy, when we finally see what happens to the girls victims it makes us feel petrified, and is a perfect way to wrap up a film. 

Ringu doesn’t rely on jump-scares to scare the audience, but however, the mood, lighting and sound is what truly makes this movie scary. Many scenes display some sort of claustrophobia where the shots are narrow, and the places are tight and small. This can make us feel anxious and uneasy as a viewer, which is what makes this film so good. After the release, the film has grossed over $45 million dollars in sales, and an American remake was made shortly after. The Irish Times describes this perfectly by saying... 

“The distribution of Ringu hipped audiences to developments in J-horror that had been afoot for decades. Ghosts could again be ghosts. The ancient worked its way throughout the modern. Certain tropes became overused – the scary wan woman with long black hair was suddenly at every unoccupied window – but the Japanese films’ openness to narrative ambiguity proved liberating.”

This quote is why Ringu became so influential and made way for a whole new wave of J-Horror films. It set the boundaries and limits to what makes a good Japanese horror film. Hence, why this film is seen as very influential for Japanese horror.

Works Cited

Wavish, M. (2012, August 5). "has 'Ringu' (1998) changed both Japanese and 

          American/western cinema and if so, how?" by Sara Clyndes: Part one.

          Horror Cult Films. Retrieved May 2, 2022, from 

          https://horrorcultfilms.co.uk/2012/08/has-ringu-1998-changed-both-

          japanese-and-americanwestern-cinema-and-if-so-how-by-sara-clyndes-

          part-one/

Clarke, D. (2019, February 28). Ringu: The most influential film of the late 

          1990s? The Irish Times. Retrieved May 2, 2022, from 

          https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/film/ringu-the-most-influential-film-of-

          the-late-1990s-1.3809951

[bts-weverse-trans]

210104 Weverse Magazine ‘Be’ Comeback Interview - Suga

SUGA “I'm grateful that there are still unvisited areas in the world of music” BTS BE comeback interview 2021.01.04

SUGA has this way of talking passionately with a deadpan look on his face. Full of passion about his life and music.

How is your shoulder? SUGA: Good. I think it’ll get even better once I take off this brace. Apparently, it takes several months for a full recovery, but I'm trying to get better as fast as possible.

How does it feel like to have resolved a problem that has distressed you for long? SUGA: First of all, I'm glad. The pain is one thing, but when my shoulders got worse, I couldn't even raise my arms. But when I heard that this might recur when getting the surgery at a young age, I waited for the right time and had decided to get it done early next year regardless of the COVID-19 situation. I had planned to get the surgery after the year-end stages, but I got it done this year (2020) because my doctors advised me to start preparing early for next year’s promotions and activities.

How does it feel like watching the other members doing promotions? SUGA: I can't say it feels great. I could see the emptiness because we've been together as a group of seven for so long. Not necessarily because I'm not there but because something that should be there is missing?

Is that what made you join the promotion as much as possible? You shot lots of video footage in advance and you even appeared in the Mnet “2020 MAMA” through VR. SUGA: Fake SUGA (Laughs). There’s this 3D studio where we shot it. I shot, scanned, and acted there, but couldn't see the actual result at the studio. I thought a sense of displacement was unavoidable, and that was exactly the case. (Laughs) I acted normal because it would have been aired anyway even if I hadn’t had the surgery, but it seems a lot because it’s aired after the surgery.

You must feel restricted not being able to go on stage. SUGA: The thing is, it's only been a month after I got surgery, but my absence on stage is so apparent. But my doctors keep telling me that I shouldn't be impatient and in fact, many athletes get a resurgery when they return to the field without proper rehabilitation. So I'm working on trying to care less. For the first two weeks after surgery, I felt so frustrated that I tried out new things. I even watched movies I didn't watch.

What movies did you watch? SUGA: I watched ‘Samjin Company English Class’ as it happened to be on IPTV, and now I have ‘Tenet’ on my list. ‘Parasite’ was the last movie I saw at a cinema. As the social distancing measures became stricter, I haven’t been going outside, except going to the hospital. I even eat at home. I'm also watching a lot of TV nowadays. Watching music shows like ‘Sing Again’, ‘Folk Us’, and ‘Show Me The Money 9’ made me think of what I should do in the upcoming days.

Could you elaborate on that? SUGA: A lot of candidates on ‘Sing Again’ are very talented but hadn't had the opportunity, and on ‘Folk Us’, I noticed that many took their own guitars on stage. I started playing the guitar lately and I'm having this urge to broaden my scope of music. And since my interest in the music industry in the U.S. grew, I'm getting prepared, studying English and all.

What fueled your interest? SUGA: In some ways it’s the most commercially developed market. You could lose the industry attention in a flash if it's not feasible. So in this system, you would try everything and that would be an efficient way. I want to do music for a long time, and to this end, I always want to learn more about the global music industry because I want to do music that’s loved not only in Korea, but also in the U.S., Japan and Europe.

Speaking of which, it seems BE was influenced from music of the past rather than today's trends. SUGA: I especially like impromptu music. I love the songs that were made in one take instead of being recorded several times. In this era of crossover genres, the desire to do better in music is growing inside me.

As the genres become more blended, the melody you use must be more important. Does starting to play the guitar affect your composing in any way? SUGA: I always liked using guitar sounds. And I have always liked the Eagles. If you play the guitar, it’s way easier to write songs because you can carry it along wherever you go, pluck on the strings to create melody lines. Keyboards are difficult to carry around. (Laughs) I usually work on my laptop but I had this thought that I definitely needed an instrument. It accelerates my work and improves my understanding of chords.

It makes me think you could intuitively make melodies. SUGA: It’s easier to write a song because you can intuitively make a progression and try many different things. During my work on ‘Eight’, IU had recorded and sent me a song from her phone. At the time I couldn’t play the guitar, so we tried to make sure we’re working on the same page when keeping track of each other's progress. That made me feel the need to learn an instrument.

This is actually before you started playing the guitar, but I found ‘Telepathy’ in BE very interesting. The varying melodic progressions between hooks for each member made me wonder if you wrote the melody intuitively for each part. SUGA: I tried writing a melody for the first time this year (2020), and as I started knowing the fun of music, it opened a lot of new doors for me. So it was kind of easy working on it. I just played a beat and wrote from the beginning until the end. Done. I wrote it in just 30 minutes. The song almost wrote itself. The trends of pop and hip-hop these days cross boundaries between vocals and rap. I like this trend.

When I listen to your singing, it feels like you’re hitting the beats rather than singing along the notes. So I thought perhaps you're singing as if you're rapping. SUGA: When you're rapping, you just think of the rhythm, so it’s like simply putting on a melody to a rhythm. To define which comes first, I think melody adds to it while writing the rap.

In ‘Life Goes On’, the lyrics ‘Thankfully between you and me, nothing’s changed’ are somewhere in between. It's not rap but it’d be mundane to say it's a mere melody. SUGA: There are obviously songs where the rap needs to be highlighted. For example, in ‘Dis-ease’ or ‘Ugh!’, you have to be good at rap. But in songs that should be easy to listen to, impressive raps are not always the way to go. Sometimes, you want smooth transitions without obstacles.

In that sense, the rap flow of ‘Blue & Grey’ was impressive. Rather than a dramatic effect that emphasizes each part, you extended the rap just as much as the slowing beat. SUGA: To be honest, this beat is difficult to rap to. The beginning of the song only has a guitar line, which made it even more difficult. I participated when we wrote lyrics for ‘Blue & Grey’ and I've always wanted to work on a song like this. It was because verse 1 talks about the theme of the song.

It seems you achieved almost everything that you wanted in BE. SUGA: I think it took less than a week to make my part in the album. After having written one or two melodies for ‘Life Goes On’, I wrote a version complete with rap, and liked it that I even worked on a separate arrangement and lyrics. Rather than pondering over the ways that might work, I choose to simply play the music and write.

Many creators are unsure even after they’ve produced good work. How do you get the conviction to release your work? SUGA: Many musicians are unsure whether they should release their music or not. It was the same for me, but the thing is, you’ll never release anything if you nitpick everything. For example, if we release 10 songs, we have a chance to unveil them in concerts or fan events. And sometimes, as we listen to the song, we think, ‘Why does this part that had bothered me no longer bother me?’ Some things might feel awkward at some point, but in time, it no longer feels awkward. Even I forget about it. So it's more efficient to fine tune, looking at the big picture, rather than thinking too much about the details. On top of that, during promotions, I don’t have the time to pick tracks that others have sent for 10 hours. It would be a success for all of us if each of us play and write a melody in their own time and collaborate with others on the details. So the way of songwriting has evolved in many aspects.

What motivated such evolution? SUGA: I think it evolved naturally. I've changed in personality this year (2020), as well as in terms of my interpretation and attitude toward life to the extent that I almost thought I've been rehearsing. How would it feel like if there were no stage to go to or anyone looking out for me? This thought made me realize the value of these things.

In ‘Dis-ease’, you sing ‘I don’t know if it’s the world that's sick’. Was it this lifestyle that changed your thoughts about your work? SUGA: Yes. When I was young, I had embraced the belief that ‘It must be my fault’, but as I got older, I realized that this is not always true. Most of what I had thought was my fault was in fact, not my fault. On the other hand, there are things that I did well and times I had been lucky.

‘I NEED U’ came out during a time when you were still thinking, “It must be me”. After the members put on a stage with ‘I NEED U’ in KBS' ‘Song Festival’, you wrote on Weverse, “It’s the same as five years ago.” How would you compare with back then? (This interview was held on December 19, 2020.) SUGA: We've matured quite a bit. And our stage performances have become more natural. I still like ‘I NEED U’. Just listening to the beat makes me sentimental, and above all, the song came out nicely. So as I was watching this and that when I stumbled across old videos. Watching them made me think that we haven’t changed much.

In what aspect haven't you changed much? SUGA: Before the social distancing measures got stricter, I talked with the photographer for BE, whom I had met four years ago. The photographer was surprised that we hadn’t changed much after all the success, even though he had assumed we’d be very different.

I'm amazed personally. I’ve had the chance to meet the members before your debut, but from your way of talking with members or others, it seems you haven't changed. SUGA: I think it's because we don’t give it a big deal about success. For example, it's incredible to be ranked first on the Billboards, but there’s also this sense of, “Okay, and?”

Even the Grammys? (Laughs) SUGA: When we got nominated for the Grammy Awards, we thought, ‘Is this real?’ (Laughs) Of course we were delighted, but it didn’t make us think, ‘We're singers nominated for the Grammy.’ If you're nominated, you're nominated, and if you get the award, you get the award. You don't get shaken by that. I know it's a great award and would be so grateful if we receive it, but we know that nothing is possible without the tremendous support of our fans. What’s more important is that the fans are more flattered than us when we receive a great award. So everyone's rejoicing, but it’s like, ‘Let's do what we have to do.’ We've been training ourselves to keep finding our places, so no one remains overexcited.

In ‘Fly To My Room’, there are lyrics that say, ‘This room is too small to contain my dream’, and ‘Sometimes this room becomes an emotional trash can, but it embraces me.’ I had this feeling that the room had been such a place and that you were accepting that you have changed. Then the essence must have remained the same. SUGA: It wasn’t easy to accept that we eventually change. But I think it's a good thing that we changed. What we did back then was possible only at that time, and we could change because of the things we had accomplished.

Then, what new things are you dreaming about? SUGA: I'm eager to continue doing music. Since all performances were canceled due to COVID-19, I had a chance to talk to so many musicians in Korea. I talked with legendary singers as well as people who are my contemporaries. Talking with them once again made me realize that I love music so much. Because music is my profession, I can’t imagine myself not doing it. I'm grateful that there are still unvisited areas in the world of music.

What kind of music do you think you’ll be engaged in in the future? SUGA: I was greatly motivated when I saw the concert of Na Hoon-a last Chuseok . I wondered how many musicians would actually be able perform and write music for so long like he has. At that moment, it occurred to be that ‘I want to be like him’. He has passion and desire, and most of all, he is a superstar. A few years ago, I took my parents to a Na Hoon-a concert, and when they watched the performance last Chuseok, they said it was way less impressive to see him perform through the TV. (Laughs)

That must explain your interest in a broader spectrum of music from instruments to composing and musical genres. Because you want to be doing this for a long time. SUGA: My goal is to continue doing music in any shape or form. In that sense, I have this great respect toward Cho Yong-pil. He takes the best sound there is and reinterprets it into his own. I think that’s something I want to emulate and keep changing and evolving so that I can continue doing music for decades to come.

The lyrics ‘Thankfully between you and me nothing’s changed’ must sound more meaningful for the fans because they will be listening to your music for a long time. SUGA: A month and a half in the current times must seem like a lifetime for the fans when we're far apart. I feel the same. But I think that's proof that we worked hard for the past seven years and that the fans have been passionately reaching out to us. I'm striving to get to them as fast as I can, and I'm eager to go on stage. I'm going through this because I want to be better on stage in a better condition, so don't be sad, and please hang in there a little longer.

Trans © Weverse

#bangtan #yoongi #weverse #weverse magazine #Be Album #comeback interview #210104 #2021

[helgaw321]

Words, voices, sounds

"Once every month, you can scan the QR code, go to the special website, and connect to that radio.

We hope that some words will become something dear to you."

(from Takeru Satoh Radio Diary)

~~~

Hi Tumblr, I'm back again for a yearly birthday post 🙈

First of all, please allow me to start with this *inhales*:

HAPPY 33RD BIRTHDAY DEAR SATO TAKERU!!!

Thank you for being born, thank you for your countless masterpieces, thank you for always striving to be the best, thank you for keep being yourself. Wishing you a great year ahead, hope you stay healthy and happy! 💖💖💖

~~~

We've been blessed with another great year in the fandom, with the last 2 installments of Ruroken are finally released and he's once again proven that no one could ever be a better Kenshin than he was, then he delivered an amazing performance in his 2nd movie as a voice actor in Belle (Ryuu to Sobakasu no Hime / The Dragon and The Freckled Princess), he delivered yet another amazing performance in In The Wake (Mamorarenakatta Mono tachi e / To Those Who Were Not Protected), enough to get him a nomination for Best Lead Actor in Japan Academy Awards 2022, to the several books he's released during the same year, Miyagi kara, a book about his (and Kamiki's) trip to Miyagi to commemorate 10 years of Great East Japan Earthquake, Backstage Pass Takeru Satoh, a book containing 10 years of staff report blog entries, and of course, his calendar / radio diary book.

Takeru Satoh Radio Diary, is a concept for his 2022 calendar. As the name suggests, it's a calendar book, with a monthly diary entry, a series of stories written by Takasaki Takuma, and read by Takeru, all in a radio broadcast vibe.

To celebrate his 33rd birthday, I'd like to share some of the entries from the radio diary, from January to March, and also a special voice message from Takeru himself from his birthday entry.

As always, please don't repost without permission, thank you!

Prologue

The man built a small radio station.

From the rooftop of a building in the city, whenever he felt like it, he will start the broadcast, and talk about things happening on that day, or put someone’s concerns into words.

If he started it earlier, it might have been called something witty like Pirate broadcast.

The words became voices, become sounds, and flew into the city sky.

Maybe no one will hear it, maybe it will reach someone.

When he just put the words together as he goes, someone called it a story.

He can almost create a song from it, but he still feels something is missing.

Somehow the man was pleased with it.

Part 1 - What A Wonderful World

January 2022

If tomorrow,

all sounds are going to disappear,

what will be the last thing I hear?

Maybe just,

your nonchalant,

your tiresome “good morning” is good enough.

If i don’t talk to you,

it feels like it’s going to be back to the night again,

that’s why your tiresome “good morning” is good enough.

If tomorrow,

all sounds are going to disappear,

what will be the last thing i hear?

Words are just too limited,

even you don’t mean it as a morning call,

I’d love to hear your “good morning”.

That’s what I want you,

to remember.

February 2022

You know, sometimes I think about you.

On the 2nd floor of the new apartment,

when I found a small light,

accidentally smelled a gentle aroma of a dinner,

sometimes I think about you.

At that time, when I walked down on that road,

under that light,

we might have been there,

sometimes I think about you.

Even if I found someone I like

even if I found someone I love,

even if you’re not the same person anymore,

sometimes I still think about you.

It’s not that I want to do something about it,

sometimes I still think about you.

Even during something simple like,

when I have too much of toothpaste on my toothbrush,

sometimes I still think about you.

March 2022

“I really like your voice”

That girl was a bit of a strange one,

when we are together,

she will always close her eyes.

That girl was a bit of a strange one,

because she likes my voice rather than my stories,

she often said,

“Just talk about pointless things”.

I looked for boring articles on the internet and read those in monotone.

Because she likes my voice,

she often said,

“if possible, read it in monotone”.

While I was reading those boring articles in monotone,

her face with her eyes closed,

looked like a beautiful sleeping face,

and I loved it.

I who read articles in monotone,

and her with eyes closed,

if we kissed each other,

I’m sure it would be over.

March 21, 2022

Diary Entry

People seem to like the season of their birth.

The fact that wind feels pleasant, and how the lightness of taking off my jacket puts me in a good mood, that might be the reason.

My birthday thoughts, have a listen on the usual radio.

Voice Message

Today is my birthday. I don’t have a specific idea of what kind of year I want this year to be, although they ask me every year.

Every year, I just answered as I go, but most of them were lies.

That reminds me, I haven’t named this radio station. What kind of name do you think is best? But because I’ve been doing this in secret, maybe it’s also a good idea to continue without having a proper name.

Everyone, please keep on supporting me this year as well!

#thank you for your soothing voice #radio diary 2022 #calendar #佐藤健

[captnjacksparrow]

Hey, Sparrow. So this won’t be an ask, just kinda a rant.

I know you see that Narusaku’s bond was purely for Sasuke, and you have convinced me with your posts, but I feel like the Manga making it seem Naruto had a crush on Sakura made this whole thing really tasteless. The whole “team 7 love triangle” thing was what earned Naruto the nickname of “the greatest scumbag” in Japan, so to me, I think it did more harm than good. Narusaku’s status as a red herring bond should’ve been emphasized in part 1 more.

Maybe have Naruto bring up Sasuke in his introduction of Sakura or something like that. And also all that bating in the data books you brought up. So then Narusaku wouldn’t have such a big fandom, and this claim Naruto loved Sakura only for rivalry with Sasuke seems more believable and people wouldn’t call him a scumbag.

At least that’s what I figure. What do you think?

Okay Firstly, People who called him 'Scumbag' were only NaruSaku fans from Japanese Fandom. If you go to their Fandom, they'll claim how 'The Last' movie was a total failure and Tickets were cancelled and all that...

But unfortunately, it's the most successful movie from the Naruto Franchise partly due to SP's obsessive promotion and casual fans, who don't care about shipping or detailed nuances want to see their Idol getting married to their 'beloved' Hinata, were pooled into the theatres by large numbers.

So, Don't believe those Japanese comments saying Naruto is the Biggest Scumbag as the One True Gospel. I am not saying they are not true... I am only saying that they are not the Entirety of it.

However, he was called by many names like Trash, Piece of Shit and so on... after the release of Gaiden. That’s a whole new can of worms to open....

-------------

Secondly, Red Herrings are meant to be Extremely subtle... Meaning, It's designed in a way as to not let every tom dick and harry find that it's a Red Herring. Otherwise it defeats the purpose. Only perceptive readers who were willing to look for that Special needle from that Haystack could identify it.... 

It’s a plot device to confuse the readers as to this is how it’s going to happen or this person is the Chosen One by planting fake evidences while keeping the real proof somewhere else... And after the reveal, the author will smirk and say, 'Heh!!! I put every hints along the way... You never noticed it... Now don't blame me...'. Most people would fall for the obvious one...

These Red Herrings usually are the source of many divisiveness in the Fandom. Not only in Naruto. It exist in other media as well and I've been a part of those fandoms too... The ones who identify those Red Herrings are usually small in numbers and they would be the butt end of all the Jokes before the Reveal. Including myself. But once the Truth was revealed.... The people who trolled us would end up blaming the Author for Bad Writing... Whereas we all will proudly smirk at ourselves and enjoy watching them go mad. It's always a delight to see their melt down and say, 'Well, We've told you so...'

That's why people don't understand why Naruto and Sakura didn't have anything profound after the Kage Summit Arc's fake proposal..

That's why people don't understand why Naruto never felt anything painful when Sakura 'the so-called Love of his Life' was proposing Sasuke right in front of him and on his birthday, no less.... Whereas he looked painful when she hugged him in Part 1. Because not many people could understand that Naruto's painful smile was always for Sasuke...

That’s why people couldn’t understand why Naruto ended up with Hinata when he had a lot more supposed ‘Chemistry’ with Sakura throughout the Manga...

That's why people don't understand why Naruto abandoned Sakura for all those years in Gaiden...

Because there was nothing profound or sincere between them... And it was always a fake...

Even then, Part 2 never gave me a serious vibe about NaruS*ku at any point... All I could see was, Naruto being crazily obsessed about Sasuke and casually flirting with Sakura for fun...

So, Yeah... Kishimoto handled NaruSaku Red Herring in a very clever way and I also fell into that trap... But then I started to ask myself 'Why it doesn't make sense? Why NaruS*k* was never consistent??' and I started to look for clues... And when I realize it, I was heavily surprised and was screaming at myself, 'Oh My God!!So, that's how it is???'

Do you think a common person who reads Manga for fun and throw away would notice all these little things????

-------------

Thirdly,

I really think, Kishi didn't care about how Naruto and Sasuke will be perceived by his audience... Not one bit. And he doesn't have to... He knew his characters all too well and he wrote them by being true to himself... Because if he were a person who cared about Audience perception, then he wouldn't make Naruto to do that Reverse Harem no Jutsu...

He definitely wouldn't have screwed up The Last movie in a horrible way by disregarding the facts established in his Manga... (including that Rivalry thing)

And he definitely wouldn't have wrote Gaiden in 'that way'...

After Gaiden, Sakura, Sasuke and Naruto were equally shatted upon by the Japanese Audience mercilessly...

Gaiden is where Kishi was saying, 'I never wanted this sequel and this kind of Ending... You all want it... And This is how my characters will behave if they were asked to do something they didn't like... Because they are Gay (**Broke Back Mountain is coughing heavily**)'

In fact, He let the Audience take what they can get from these characters,,,,

He tried to convey the important message of this series... ‘Understanding...’. And he did it successfully. Other plotlines are something he let the Audience to take what they can get... 

#sns #sasunaru #narusasu #red herring

[aeonmagnus]

Happy 20th Anniversary Robots In Disguise!

This year, and today in particular, marks the 20-year anniversary of Transformers Robots in Disguise airing in the United States.  This was the official English language dub of the Japanese show Transformers Car Robots, which aired in Japan the year before.   This show and it’s accompanying toy line were a big shift in the Transformers brand and affected how things moved forward in the new millennium.  It was also a big influence on me and this website in it’s early years, so both the brand and TFW2005 may not be what it is today without it.

We hope you will read on after the break to check out our celebration of Robots in Disguise on it’s 20th!

Intro

The following is not a comprehensive article on the show proper, but rather a trip down memory lane from my personal perspective.  It was a period of change in my life, in the fandom, in the brand, and in the world – all happening at once.  Robots in Disguise was smack dab in the middle of it all and I think that’s why it still resonates with me all these years later.  For a deeper dive into the world of Robots In Disguise you can check RIDForever.info, a site I maintain just about RID and Car Robots. The 2021 updates are here, and the 2017 round of updates are here.  I’d also suggest checking the TFWe issue all about RID over on the 2005 Boards.  Now, onto today’s festivities…

The Show

RID, and yes I say RID as if it is the only RID.  If you must reference that other RID show and it’s off-shoots, refer to it as RID 201x, thanks. 😊 RID aired during the Fox Kids programming block on a Saturday morning, with additional episodes set to air each weekday during the afternoon hours.  Instead of stretching the show out over the course of 30+ weeks with only a new ep each weekend, they were going to blaze through it non-stop.  By the end of the first week, we would have been 7 eps in.  That however hit a big roadblock due to 9/11 just three days later.  While some local markets did air the episodes, many larger city networks, and especially east coast markets, stuck with news coverage.   Many of us did not catch the early episodes on TV the first go around.  In addition, several of the episodes got pulled from TV due to depictions of buildings being destroyed and other similar visuals which understandably could upset children that just experienced 9/11.  So right off the bat, the new millennium and new era of Transformers were dealing with a new reality.

The show, for those that don’t know – was a weird one-off in Transformers history.  We had G1 and then the G2 remixes for a bit.  Beast Wars came on the scene and ran all the way through 2000 with it’s successor – Beast Machines.   During the Beast Wars era – Japan did a couple of their own Beast Wars shows, non-CGI extensions of what we saw in the US.   Their market wasn’t quite ready for full CGI so they stuck with traditional anime.  When Hasbro decided to continue Beast Wars into Beast Machines, Takara went a completely different way – a traditional animated show which brought back Autobots and “Decepticons”, mixing them in with the beasts.  They focused the toys on a couple new and complex molds, then filled the rest of the line with repaints of previous toys.  Old 2nd tier Beast Wars toys, G2 Laser Prime, and even some Generation 1 molds in the form of the Combaticons got new life as new characters in this show, capped with the biggest TF of them all at the time – a repainted G1 Fortress Maximus, now Brave Maximus.  It was the prototype for what the Transformers brand did for years to come – repainting old toys into new characters.  Universe, Classics, Botcon, and even some Generations runs used this method to give us some great toys in the 00s.

While there is a very complicated and long explanation for how every single Japanese show is one continuity, to someone casually starting with Car Robots it was a refresh, a new story, a new arrival on Earth.  The Autobots vs the Predacons, and eventually the Combatrons/Decepticons. It was a hard cut from the last 5 years or so of CGI Beasts.  Hand drawn traditional animation featuring vehicle Transformers.  It wasn’t G1, but many of the folks who grew up with G1 were just getting out of college around this time.  They were rediscovering their childhood love of Transformers through Beast Wars, flea market finds, raids on their parents’ attics and basements, and for the internet savvy – imports of Japanese reissues from Takara.  It was a perfect storm of nostalgia; a return to Autobots and Decepticons was welcomed by kids and adults alike.

RID and TFW2005

In the years leading up to Car Robots, I was just getting into the internet, coding, design, some digital music, and all the possibility that came with it.  Beast Wars, especially when it hit Season 2/3 and the inclusion of G1 lore, really got me focusing on Transformers again as a hobby.  I eventually combined the two newfound hobbies into one and Transformer World 2005 was born.  At no point did I ever think it would last 20+ years and take over my life in the way it did.  I started the full version of TFW2005 around April 2000, with some starts and stops before that.  That was right around when Car Robots started airing in Japan.  Through the magic of 56k internet, I was able to connect with folks in Japan and get them to send me VHS tapes of Car Robots.  Really nice, high-quality tapes too, I still have them hehe.  To the younglings reading – try to picture this: no youtube, no video sharing. The concept of streaming anything did not exist yet. Napster and the eventual peer to peer stuff hadn’t fully kicked off.  Plus, we were all viewing the internet on giant computers in our rooms at the speed of 1x on your phone.  Less than 1 bar 3G mobile speeds today.

Yes, someone recorded episodes from TV to video tape over there, did that a couple weeks at a time, then physically mailed them across the world to me, who then got them on the internet.  Can you imagine waiting weeks to watch an episode of TV the size of a twitter profile avatar?  Crazy.  Uploading a full episode to the internet was a big pain in the ass, not easily done.  I decided to get a converter that allowed me to plug my VCR into the computer and encode the tape into digital format.  From there, it was reduced using Microsoft’s WMV technology so that the episodes were about 5 MB each.  30 minute episodes at 5MB each. Dimensions – 176 x 144 pixels.  4k video today – 3840 x 2160 pixels.  You can imagine that video looked like crap.  But we didn’t care – we were blown away.  Old school animation, vehicles, some cool Japanese anime vibes, it was what we as G1 fans kinda had in the back of our heads on what Transformers should be in a new era, and we were seeing it.  Most of us had no clue what they were saying or what was going on.  Also didn’t care.  I still to this day think CR/RID is better like that.

So one of the first things TFW2005 did on the internet was provide these super small windows into Car Robots and what was going on in Japan. It helped get US fans hyped up for what Transformers could be. It got us wanting the toys, and importers bringing the Takara toy line over were moving serious product.  It helped swing Hasbro, who was planning to return to Autobots and Decepticons again down the road, to move that schedule up.  Instead of running Beast Machines until 2002 and then starting what we now know as the Unicron Trilogy, it was cut short.  Robots in Disguise as a toy line and show came over in 2001, ran fast and hard for a year with non stop releases, got extended because it did so well, and then faded into the Universe line of repaints.  The new millennium of Transformers was here and Robot In Disguise kicked it off with a bang.

Wrap Up

As we all continue with collecting Transformers now, regardless if you tagged into the fandom during G1, Beasties, the Unicron Trilogy, the Movies, or just yesterday – let’s take the time to give Car Robots and RID some props!  It set the tone for what the new millennium of the brand would be.  It gave us some toys ahead of their time.  It solidified the repaint as an accepted thing in the hobby. And it gave us one crazy 39 episode run of TV that’s still a fun ride 20 years later.

For those that would like to learn more about RID and Car Robots – I still maintain a Robots in Disguise website that archives everything I have or came across.  There is a lot there if you want to go on a tour of all the awesome Car Robots and Robots In Disguise era stuff.  Check it out at RIDFOREVER.INFO! FIYAH!

Let us know what you think and remember from the good old days of RID on the 2005 Boards here!

Epilogue

If someone over there at Hasbro is reading – can someone please figure out who owns the rights to the show in the US market and then get it out on DVD in full, finally?  Work all that funky licensing stuff out (if there is any) and get it done.  The US has never had access to it via an official release.  Maybe get it up on YouTube like G1?  Something.  Announcing plans for that before the end of 2021 would be a nice 20th anniversary tribute.

#Transformers #Transformers: Robots in Disguise #20th Anniversary #Robots in Disguise #Optimus Prime #Megatron #Car Robots #Transformers: Car Robots

[shihalyfie]

Some things to know about the upcoming 02-related movie

As someone who seems to be known for being a 02 metablogger now (and 02 lover in general), and who’s been closely following Kizuna’s development and is generally fond of the movie itself, I figured I’d probably need to address the elephant in the room that is the announcement of the upcoming (unnamed, as of this writing) 02-related movie. This is also especially because I’ve personally been on the record saying that I absolutely did not want a Kizuna sequel. And, well, on top of that, to be a bit blunt about it, a lot of us, especially 02 fans, have a lot of reason to be skeptical of Toei right now given some of the things they’ve done with this series in the past, and 02-related things in particular (trust me, the wound is still extremely fresh), so it says a lot about what it took for me to get even remotely positive about this prospect.

Well, here’s the good news: while I of course still think there’s good reason to be apprehensive, and while I wouldn’t say everyone should be getting their expectations up for it to be guaranteed fantastic (which is something I would say about anything, regardless of whether it even has to do with Digimon or not), I don’t think there’s too much to be panicked about with this movie. Again, it took a lot for the staff to gain my trust in this respect, so it’s not something I say lightly. But if you’re a 02 fan and you’re extremely apprehensive, here are my reasons for feeling this way, and, hopefully, they might make you feel a little better too.

The reason this movie exists to begin with

One of the most striking things about this movie’s reveal was that they’ve literally only just started production on this movie. This was to the point that, at DigiFes, where this was revealed, even the voice actors stated outright that they knew absolutely nothing more than what the audience knew from the trailer. Katayama (Daisuke) only knew anything in the sense that they had him record those few lines for it. So even though it’s been a whole year and a half since Kizuna released to the public, it had only just been decided to make a new movie like this. All of the statements between Kizuna and now stating that there was nothing particularly in the works at the time were completely accurate. Of course, there are obvious hints that they were setting up for this possibility (many, many people noticed the suspiciously favorable position the 02 group was in during Kizuna, and the press releases were carefully worded so that having a movie about “Daisuke and his friends” would allow any statement about Kizuna being “the last adventure of Taichi and his friends” to still be technically truthful), but for all intents and purposes it seems like there had been no actual commitment to making this 02 movie until now, and that they’d at least wanted to gauge the surrounding climate and fanbase reactions for what people were looking for before they decided to go ahead with this.

The obvious reasons as to why this movie exist involve the fact that Daisuke and co. are pretty much the only “out” you can have to continue the Adventure universe without constantly defaulting to Taichi’s group yet again, because at the very least it’d be something that you can’t deny hasn’t exactly had the best representation in recent years. Of course they’re trying to capitalize on this! I’m not going to pretend they aren’t! But producer Kinoshita left a very interesting comment about a particular goal they have with this movie:

This time, the core behind the movie is everyone from 02! Daisuke’s group has their own different kind of charm from Taichi’s, and we want to express that precisely because we’re in the times we’re in right now.

That comment alone has a lot to unpack. (For a frame of reference, Kizuna released in Japan in February 2020; development had already long finished by the time the pandemic first hit, and it was unfortunately one of the first victims of the initial lockdowns because of how bad the timing was.) Acknowledging directly that there’s something different about Daisuke’s group and their dynamic, which makes them especially suited for what we need in “the current times”...hmm, what could that be?

The implied answer is one that many 02 lovers will know very intimately: the 02 group’s particular specialty is in uplifting others and giving each other emotional support. While Adventure had traces of these themes, 02 was the one that went really hard on the themes of dealing with grief and loss, the existential crisis of what to do with oneself in a world placing heavy pressures on you, and how to move on from hardships with the help of others. The fact that the 02 group specializes in this more than anything else is probably one of the most distinguishing factors between them and their seniors, so there’s a very heavy implication here that they understand what distinguishes 02 from Adventure, and what it uniquely would bring to the table in this kind of movie. So this isn’t just “we’re relying on the 02 kids because they’re part of the same universe”; there’s some degree of substantial understanding of what makes 02 as a series unique, and a desire to use this to its fullest extent.

Still don’t believe me? Well, how about this...

This staff really likes 02 a lot

Seki Hiromi, the original producer of Adventure and 02, was involved as a supervisor on Kizuna’s development. Seki was personally involved in the creation of these kids and 02 itself -- she’s the one who noticed the story of the nine-year-old boy skipping grades into Columbia University, the one that formed the basis of 02 itself and eventually came back for Kizuna -- and even personally vetted Kizuna’s script to make sure everyone was in character, gave her thoughts on what the kids would be like in 2010, and was (repeatedly) commented as seeming to love the kids like her own children. As of this writing, it hasn’t been confirmed whether she’s involved on the new movie, but even if she’s not, this means that the staff on Kizuna that is returning all listened closely to those discussions about what the characters are like, straight from the mouth of one of their own creators. The new character song releases had a brief mention in Lounsbery Arthur’s interview that there were apparently extensive discussions with the staff on what the characters should be like at this time, so while Seki’s involvement with that is unknown, at the very least, a lot of conscientious thought seems to be put in at all times into maintaining these characters’ integrity.

Of course, just having an original creator alone on it doesn’t necessarily do it by itself, so here’s another interesting thing: Taguchi Tomohisa, director of both Kizuna and this movie, is also very fond of 02.

I suspect we’ll be hearing more from him as this new movie goes further into development, but Taguchi himself implied that 02 was actually the one he happened to connect with in particular, and when you really think about it, given the circumstances surrounding Kizuna, it’s not actually surprising that a movie trying to be conscientiously aware of 02′s position in the narrative would have someone with a particular fondness for it on its staff. (Reason being: a lot of Adventure fans don’t care much for 02, but you’ll almost never meet a 02 fan who doesn’t also adore Adventure.) The really fun part about this, however, is that Taguchi has repeatedly stated that 02′s first movie, Hurricane Touchdown, is his favorite Digimon movie -- in a climate where everyone else was talking about Adventure. The expected answer for the majority of Adventure fans in terms of “favorite Digimon movie” is almost always Our War Game! by knockout, but no, for Taguchi, it’s Hurricane Touchdown, and not only has he said this, he won’t shut up about it. He’s been saying this since 2019. Even Seki noticed. A whole article got made about this. He brings it up whenever he has a chance to. To top it all off, when a Kizuna event asked everyone present about their favorite characters, and everyone gave Adventure-related answers, Taguchi’s response was instead Terriermon and Daisuke. And I mean, look at Kizuna itself -- its entire plot revolves around having to move on from unhealthy nostalgia, represented by kidnapping people and turning them younger and an antagonist swallowed by their own negative emotions, which, well, is literally the plot of Hurricane Touchdown. (Yeah, that Wallace cameo is very, very likely to be sheer self-indulgence.) And considering that Taguchi said his favorite human character was Daisuke, not Wallace, it means that he understands what Hurricane Touchdown brought out of Daisuke, what his interactions with Wallace meant for both characters, and how Daisuke’s best strengths lie in his ability to support and uplift others.

And, finally, we have Yamatoya, who was responsible for penning both Kizuna’s script (and, thus, being privy to Seki’s corrections) and the bonus drama CD that came with it, on the script, and he personally said that he enjoyed writing for the 02 group because he felt they were important to lightening up the mood of the heavy story Kizuna was becoming. In fact, every comment from this staff about what the 02 group brings to the table in particular has showed a good understanding of what their appeal is -- that they have to be “fun”, that they were “healing in a heavy story”, and Taguchi himself said that he got the impression that the 02 group had more straightforward paths to their epilogue careers (which is interesting, considering that I’ve also personally pointed out that the 02 group seemed to have careers with significantly lower bars than their seniors’ due to their difference in priorities). All of these things are observations you make when you know this group and the importance of the story they came from.

Extend it even further to the rest of the staff members and you’ll find there are a lot of 02 fans on there, including the animation staff, who made some very neat observations about 02 and its finale. Miyahara Takuya is a particularly amusing case, because he seems to love Imperialdramon so much that in the thanks booklet for the deluxe edition for the Blu-ray, he drew a picture of Daisuke and Ken with Imperialdramon Dragon Mode because he didn’t get to be in the movie. (As in, he actually said, point-blank in the caption, that he loves Imperialdramon and wanted to draw him because he wasn’t in the movie.)

Of course, even if you’re trying your best, things may not always work out, so I’m not saying having love for the characters will necessarily guarantee that the product turns out for the best. However, considering that historically a lot of our fears come from the idea of them milking the name value of the characters without really caring about their integrity or understanding what the series was about (especially since a lot of people in the fanbase itself don’t tend to read 02′s nuances very well), I think, at the very least, we don’t need to worry about the staff for this movie not being conscientious, nor the idea that they’re making this movie without understanding or caring about 02.

Furthermore, one thing I appreciate is that they’re actually leading the advertisement with a premise that is distinct from Kizuna’s. Of course, it covers a similar topic of “partnerships”, and it’s very possible it’ll cover the issue of the solution to Kizuna’s problem (especially since the answer was already hinted to have a heavy relationship with 02), but nevertheless, it’s an actual premise that’s not just “Kizuna’s story, but more of it”. It’s an understanding that something 02-related should be allowed to stand on its own rather than just tacking it onto an Adventure-related thing. Beyond that, while I think it’s generally expected that a side story like this should have an original character, I think it’s actually very good this time in particular that there’s a new element/character for the 02 group to interact with; again, as with Hurricane Touchdown and Daisuke, these kids often have the best brought out of them when they’re supporting others, and honestly, because the kids suffered so much in their own narrative, I’m not particularly fond of the idea of seeing them having to go through too much more trauma themselves (it’s a big reason I don’t like the idea of a 02 reboot). So while I’m sure a lot of 02 fans feel a bit antsy that the actual group itself wasn’t advertised first, I actually consider it a positive sign that they have an understanding of what context this group performs best in, and, moreover, well...the last time they unveiled something that was so focused on advertising the return of old characters that it forgot to actually be straightforward about the premise, I don’t think that ended well. So to speak.

In general, the track record is good

It’s easy to just smile and nod at the portrayal of the 02 quartet in Kizuna, because in general everything from them is in-character, but I just want to point out how significant it is that they were portrayed so conscientiously when it is really easy to mess them up. (As I like pointing out very often: even official has not historically been very careful with Daisuke’s character.) There are so many easy pitfalls you could have fallen into and pigeonholed the kids into, but Kizuna absolutely demonstrated the quartet at their best, showing off all the nuances of their character and bringing up all the parts that were most important, especially Daisuke’s best quality being “positivity and cheerfulness” and not all of the other things about him running in circles or having a crush on Hikari-chan. This even goes down to the casting; Katayama Fukujuurou sounds terrifyingly like Kiuchi Reiko in terms of all the little nuances and pitch shifts she had in her performance, and the cast themselves spoke of all the nuances present in their characters as they were studying for their roles. These are things that even fans of the series tend to miss, but the voice actors for the quartet nailed their roles so well that it’s very easy to tell that the direction understood exactly what they were looking for and needed, and casted accordingly. Even those who didn’t care for the movie much had a very hard time disputing the voice casting for the quartet (and this is saying a lot given how much voice actor changes are often a really sore point among Japanese fans).

But while the 02 group had a limited amount of screentime in Kizuna, the staff also had a lot of opportunities to prove themselves with the drama CD and the new character song CDs, and every single aspect of these reflects something that was represented in 02 itself -- again, things that often go over the heads of people who aren’t paying as close attention. The drama CD captures a lot of the essence of the dynamics between the group in only short lines, and all of the statements about the characters in the character song interviews are accurate (and remember: Arthur said directly that there were discussions with the staff about keeping them true to character). On top of that, not only do the lyrics in said songs directly mirror each character’s development from the time of the original Best Partner series, there are also a lot of things in said songs that demonstrate a nuanced understanding of each person’s character and what they got out of the events of 02. Someone with only a surface-level understanding of Ken or Iori’s character might think that Ken should only have a soft song, or that Iori shouldn’t want to do anything ridiculous, but the series goes ahead and gives Ken one of the most passionately emotional rock songs in the batch and Iori outright rap with Armadimon, which are both fitting decisions in light of Ken actually being one of the more emotionally assertive people in this group, and Iori only being stoic because he’s strict with himself and being willing to let loose in certain circumstances (especially after the events of 02).

As of this writing, I don’t know if the new movie is going to be featuring the entire group in a major role, and I’m not sure if I even want it to; as much as I do strongly feel like the group should always work together at all times, one minor personal complaint I had about Kizuna was that it tries to do too much in too little time, and I’m personally fine with this new movie being more Daisuke-centric or something if it means it can just get a nice story on the table (after all, if I wanted something that more evenly represents the entire 02 group, I’d just go back and rewatch a very nice anime series called Digimon Adventure 02). There’s also the very thorny question of what to do about Tokumitsu Yuka, since I don’t personally really like the idea of still dragging her out of retirement like this (but I also wouldn’t want them to awkwardly write around her just for this, and I’m wondering if Sonozaki voicing Tailmon in the reboot would let people accept her as a replacement without much fighting).

Nevertheless, I think Kizuna’s staff has proven more than well enough that they understand the essence of 02 and its characters, so, again, regardless of how it turns out, I at least expect that this can be made with some degree of conscientiousness, and at this point, that’s all I can ask for. I don’t think it’s fair to expect or want this movie to be the second coming of 02, because, again, if we wanted that, I think it’d be better for us to all go back and watch that lovely little 50-episode anime called Digimon Adventure 02. But in terms of being something that can add a little nice thing to the mix, I think, so far, this movie at least has positive signs of turning out that way -- and, remember, think about what I just said about initially being very against this idea; as a diehard 02 fan who has a lot of very picky feelings about how to best represent it, it took a lot for the staff to earn my trust in this sense.

#digimon #digimon adventure 02 #digimon adventure last evolution kizuna #kizuna spoilers

[goji-pilled]

Okay @princekirijo you want an essay? Well here it is now, or as I like to call it Felix's "Asumari is great and this fandom has no fucking taste" rambling and infodump. Congrats fellas, thanks to Prince you ALL get an asumari essay. But before that I'll try to give you a rundown of Mari and Asuka. 

(I'm also so sorry for putting this long ass post on everyone's dashboard)

(Spoiler warning for Evangelion 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time!!)

Alright on one hand we have Mari Illustrious Makinami. Her whole deal? She's a walking ray of sunshine, literally lol. Unlike any other character in the Evangelion franchise she doesn't suffer from her trauma, she's quite literally the only healthy and functioning human being, she's just slightly leaning towards "batshit crazy" with the stunts she pulls 🤷‍♂️. Other than that she just loves living, she loves being with people, she keeps moving forward, stays positive and decides to live life to it's fullest even after she experiences loss and multiple apocalyptic events (Second Impact, Third Impact, etc.) and she really just embodies the joy of living. That's all there is to her, or at least all we know.

On the other hand, we have Asuka Langley Shikinami who is... well it's hard to explain what she is to be honest. She's part-German and part-Japanese and part of a line of clones specifically made with the purpose to pilot an Evangelion and later on be used as a sacrifice to trigger another Impact (ITS COMPLICATED I KNOW-) Asuka is, unlike Mari, very much suffering from her trauma. She doesn't have her parents and has a very deep seated belief that she's completely alone, which she says doesn't matter as long as she can pilot the Eva. She also very much wants to fight and kill angels all by herself, and it's seriously messing with her when she can't achieve that.

Now we get to the more interesting parts (hopefully this so far wasn't too confusing, then again it's Eva and even I can't fully wrap my head around it all LMAO)

In the second Rebuild movie (Evangelion 2.0 You can (not) advance) we get introduced to both of them, Mari's introduction scene (in the original English dub) has her pilot an Eva and singing about how she'll take the world on by herself, while in the third movie's (Evangelion 3.0 You can (not) redo) opening scene she's piloting the Eva again but this time it's together with Asuka (in her own Unit 02 though) and during that Mari sings about how wonderful it is not to be alone. It's nothing big yet, but it's a really cute detail me thinks,,, you know what else I love about them? They bicker and they banter and it's genuinely so fun to listen to shskdhsuwj

(For a quick catch up: During the end of 2.0 Shinji (the protagonist) triggers another apocalyptic event, the Near Third Impact, and was only stopped due to Kaworu (the guy in my pfp) stepping in. Also between 1.0/2.0 and 3.0/3.0+1.0 are about 14 years (without Shinji bc he's like comatose) where A LOT happens AND we learn in 3.0 that Eva pilots don't age physically bc of "The curse of the Eva"... honestly Eva is wild lmao)

Okay okay I'll get back to it!

So one thing that happens is that Asuka during 2.0 develops a crush on Shinji (girl why-), unfortunately things take a turn for the worse. Asuka had volunteered to be the testpilot for a new Eva (Unit 03), she seemed happy at the time and it was a really sweet build up with the "I can smile, I didn't know I could still do that."-line. And then? Then it turns out the Ninth Angel had infected Unit 03 (Angels are basically the Kaijus they fight using Evas btw). The thing goes on a loose and Shinji is forced to fight it (With Asuka inside mind you), he refuses and his father uses an autopilot to destroy Unit 03. And boy did it destroy the angel, well it and it crushed Asuka between its jaws (you can actually hear her scream btw haha pain :)).

Asuka survived though, but the whole incident cost her her humanity and she ended up becoming an angel herself/she took the place of the Ninth. But despite that, there's one person who keeps believing in Asuka's humanity, who fiercely believes Asuka is still a human and tells her as much.

Yep, that one person is Mari and she keeps holding onto that belief until the very end when Asuka uses her last resort, which is using the power of an angel (Doing so was a guaranteed death sentence btw). Mari's own words (in the German dub) were, "Princess, you're giving up being human…" AND IT MAKES ME SO EMO GOD FUCK

While I'm at it, Mari and Asuka are a fucking killer combo as a team. They rely on each other for support in combat, listen to the other's orders and advice. Especially in Asuka's case it's kind of a big deal that she so openly relies and counts on Mari's support. Like these two trust each other with their damn lifes!!! Holy shit!!

Guess what though, they also have nicknames for eachother. Mari always calls Asuka "Princess" or "(Your) Highness" while Asuka calles Mari "Four-eyes" / "Four-eyed chrony (idk how you spell that tbh RIP" Even better though, in the German dub Asuka calls Mari "Brillerella" as in a combination of "Brille" (German for glasses) and "Cinderella",,,,Cinderella and her Prince,,,Brillerella and her Princess,,, man, that was a gay fucking move of the translation team. Spoiler: I owe them my life.

Funfact: There's exactly two times throughout the Rebuild movies where Mari uses Asuka's actual name. These two times being when she watches Asuka "die" and be used as a sacrifice for Gendo's selfish plan and when later on she begs Shinji, "So please the Princess… Asuka needs your help!" And the best part? That wasn't even the first time she did that. The mentioned line came from 3.0+1.0, but she did that too in 3.0 with the, "At least save the Princess!" line (although her tone was much more...pissed, like she was really angry lol)

Remember the crush Asuka had on Shinji? Well due to the Unit 03 incident a whole lot of other shit got mixed into that and her feelings for him in general became really bitter (understandably so). Now Mari being who she is sometimes teases Asuka about said old crush but she really does want Asuka to get closure and sort that mess out. 

As an example for the teasing, in 3.0 there's a scene that goes like this (please imagine Mari with a literal :3 face while saying that):

"Unit! Are you back in the game?"

"I'm on it, your Highness. But first things first, how was our little puppy (Shinji)? Did he sit like a good little boy?"

"He's exactly the same! Same stupid face talking mayhem!"

"That goofy face of his, that's what you wanted to see? Riiiiight?"

"Shut up! I went there to bat him one!... And I feel better!"

There's also a very short bonus manga that was released in Japan for Thrice Upon a Time's release that has Mari trying to convince Asuka to come with her on the mission to get Shinji, given everything that follows, it's just another thing to prove my point. And the final bit relating to that is this:

"Feeling better now?"

"Yeah, I do feel better."

That's the exchange Asuka and Mari have after they talked to Shinji, it's nothing special but I think it's really sweet and this time Asuka actually sounded like she was feeling better instead of when she was screaming after she nearly broke pretty thick glass with her fist (If she had hit someone with that much force she definitely would've broken something omggg #violentimpulsesgang)

To get back on track though: I already mentioned it but during the second half of 3.0+1.0 Asuka "dies" (and honestly that entire scene is worth its own in-depth post because its just one huge parallel to The End of Evangelion), the point is: You can tell that the loss of Asuka honestly hits Mari hard. Not only because of how Mari screams Asuka's name but also because of her expressions. They're pained, like really fucking pained and Mari even apologizes to her that she has to fall back due to the fact that she's injured AND because eveything is going wrong.

After the events of Evangelion 3.0 these two got seperated from eachother, Mari was with WILLE (the organization both of them are with) and on board of Wunder (the ship WILLE basically operates from) while Asuka was in a Village full of (Near) Third Impact Survivors. When they do meet again it went like this:

Asuka, barely back, comes to the door and calls, "I'm back." And within seconds of Asuka stepping into their room after the door opens Mari already runs towards her, arms wide open and she says, "Welcome back, your Highness! Good job. I missed you so much!" And she says that while she literally nuzzles into Asuka,,,like,,,what the fuck gay people real!!! 

Best part? Asuka clearly has enough strength to push Mari completely away if she were uncomfortable, but she doesn't. Asuka merely wanted enough space to look at the room (because Mari managed to horde even more books lol) and play her game. During their entire renunion Mari keeps hugging her, and part of me thinks that perhaps deep down Asuka actually enjoys the feeling of physical affection.

Before we get to the last point though, let me say that Asuka and Mari have scenes in 3.0+1.0 that parallel Shinji and Kaworu's from 3.0. (Fyi Kaworu loves Shinji (yeah, like that, and 3.0 was basically them being gay as fuck for an hour) so like...do I even need to explain? 

And then of course there's also this, the "Take care of yourself, Princess…" line. That is the last time Mari talks to Asuka and as much as that line alone already is so much, it's Mari's expression in particular that kills me. Because this? This soft, almost bittersweet expression she has, as she basically says goodbye? Because she knows Asuka will finally be happy and safe? It just makes me feel so much actually. Man.

In the end it's a fact that Mari loved Asuka, wether that is interpreted as platonic or romantic by someone is up to them. But it is a fact that Asuka was loved enough that someone wanted to hug her, was happy to see her, to praise her, was hurt by her loss, wanted her to be safe, that someone told her "Take care of yourself…" Asuka was really and honestly so loved that someone would tell her, "I missed you."

But Asuka? Asuka was too hurt, too wrapped up in her own head to actually see how loved she was by Mari (and other people) that she genuinely believed she's completely alone and always will be alone.

It makes the "Take care of yourself" line hit even harder to me, because it's not only Mari's goodbye, but it's a goodbye during the one time Asuka allowed herself to be vulnerable and admit what she really wanted.

And honestly? All of this? Its makes me feel so many things and I just love them  so much man.

#the felix talk #IM SO SORRY THIS IS SO LONG #HDMSGDMDGSJSGEH #3.0+1.0 spoilers