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#I’m just watching it for Chika because she’s so cute <3
transrinhoshizora · 9 months
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Was bored and decided to do a tier list of Love Live characters! Just those from SIP and Sunshine for now since I haven’t watched Nijigasaki or Superstar yet. Explanations for each character’s position are under the cut:
FAVES THAT LIVE IN MY BRAIN
Rin: Just look at my username to get an idea of what she means to me X3 She’s a gay trans catgirl how could I not adore her? (I lowkey relate to her and project onto her quite a bit).
Hanayo: The kindness and genuine care she shows for her friends is so heartwarming, and her relationship with Rin is especially important to me. Plus she’s just really cute, she’s so shy except when it comes to her special interest idols. She’s everything you could want in a best friend.
Maki: Just… The Character Ever. She’s a snobby rich girl, but she sometimes dresses like a skater punk; she acts haughty, but is easily flustered; she’s passionate about her music, yet is humble in regards to it. She’s genuinely fascinating—the best character in SIP purely in terms of characterization, in my opinion.
Yoshiko & Yohane: If I’m making comparisons between SIP and Sunshine, Yocchan is the Rin of Sunshine for me. She’s hilarious and often over-the-top, but also has a down-to-earth serious side that makes her feel authentic. I read her/them as autistic and plural, with Yoshiko and Yohane being distinct people. There’s so much I could talk about in regards to them but I’ll restrain myself here :P
Riko: She’s such a kind soul, and the way she connects with her friends is really wonderful to see. Her relationships with Chika, You, and Yoshiko are all so wonderfully done. Definitely Sunshine’s most shippable character ;3
Chika: There’s a humility and hope in Chika throughout the series that feels so natural and relatable. Whereas Honoka in the original series seems far more optimistic almost to a fault, Chika feels more relatable to me, mostly because of the bitterness she experiences with her failures combined with her enduring belief that she can succeed if she just keeps trying. I love you orange girl 🧡
You: Gosh there’s just so much about You that I adore. She’s a supportive friend, a cheerful presence, and somehow seems gayer than Riko XD I also recently saw You being headcanoned as transmasc and I can’t express how much sense that makes to me, that headcanon rocketed You into the top tier.
Lovely & Wonderful
Dia: The prevailing theme in this category is definitely “characters I didn’t connect with at first but grew to love.” With Dia, I'm sure that was the intention. She came off rather rude and bossy early in Sunshine, but as the series progressed, and we got to see more of her true personality and her sweet relationship with her younger sister, I came to adore her. She just has so much untapped silly potential.
Eli: Much like Dia, Eli wasn't super likable at first but that was definitely the point. She's quite a bit less silly than Dia but has such a caring demeanor about her. Once she becomes friends with the rest of μ's, every interaction she has with them feels important, if that makes sense?
Umi: I didn't pay Umi much mind the first time I watched the original, but upon rewatching it, something clicked. What mainly appeals to me about her character is her fear of failure, which I think directly parallels Honoka's desire for success. She's very relatable in that regard, maybe because I as an anxious person can sympathize with her 😅
Leah: Not as much in-depth analysis on this one, I just really like characters like her who have major tsundere vibes but are so obviously trying to hide some major vulnerabilities. That kind of characterization is just *chef's kiss*. Plus, Saint Snow has some bangers.
I like them :)
Honoka: I'll say it outright: Honoka is a bit self-centered, dramatic, and overconfident. But she's also a 16-year-old theatre kid, so like, what do you expect? I like her because she's genuinely a really great main character. She's emotional, self-assured, bombastic, and mega-optimistic. And she has some funny moments, too!
Tsubasa: I love how respectful she always is of μ's and how she seems to genuinely admire them. She doesn't get a whole lot of chances to interact with the main cast but it's always interesting to watch when she does. She's a great foil to Honoka hence why I ship them. I also just really like her design. She somehow pulls off the short bangs look :P
Nozomi: She's a sweetheart. You can really tell how much she loves her friends. She doesn't have the layers of characterization that others do, but she's just so likeable anyway.
Mari: She makes the 3 mouth a lot :3 So that's plenty of bonus points right away. She's just really fun and genuine and supportive.
Ruby: She's cute! That was honestly the extent of my opinion of her for much of the series. Then Aqours meets Saint Snow, Ruby and Leah meet, and the topic of her eventually having to make do without her sister being there for her brings about some lovely character development. I just eat up that coming-of-age stuff.
Nico: She's pretty rude to the early members of μ's early on, and is very full of herself, but knowing much of it is born out of insecurity and a desire to be a role model to her little siblings makes it all make sense. Even if she's not a fave of mine, she's still a great character!
Hanamaru: Her tendency to punctuate sentences with "zura" is the most charming thing ever tbh, and her relationship with Ruby is really sweet. I don't really have any strong feelings regarding her, she's just really cute and funny, zura.
Indifferent
Kotori: I don't really know why, I just haven't been able to connect with her. Even upon rewatching the series, there's not a lot about her that really draws me in. That's likely more to do with my personal preferences for characters I suppose.
Kanan: Similar to Kotori, not much about her really draws me in. I do like her relationship with Dia and Mari though.
Sarah: She suffers from a lack of screentime I suppose, but her younger sister outshines her in my eyes. But then again, not a whole lot of attention is placed on Sarah when compared to Leah, so it's likely by design.
Erena & Anju: Tsubasa just kind of hogs all the attention when it comes to A-RISE I suppose XD
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feuqueerfire · 2 years
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His - I Didn’t Mean To Fall In Love + His (The Movie) Live Blogging
The movie vs drama and prequel vs sequel thing about this series (?) was confusing to me but after a minute of researching, I think His: I Didn’t Mean To Fall In Love is a 5-episode drama that was released in 2019 and then His (the movie) was released in 2020, which is the sequel. 
I kinda read the summaries for them on MDL, so I have a vague idea of what it’s about. Hope my streak of actually liking the Japanese BLs I watch continues with these!
His - I Didn’t Mean To Fall In Love
Episode 1 (June 22)
This takes place in March 2006 and the Viki comments talking about how they were born like a few months or a year after like T.T aren’t you all children? But no, a 2007 baby is now 15. omg people born in 1980s and before also commenting :0 so cool. 
lmfao? Our guy is certainly not having a good day, first his dad leaves for 10 days for work as soon as he gets home, then he’s saddled with some guy’s (love interest lol) surfboard to look after, then he falls into the water, then gets slapped because a girl thinks he stole the surfboard T.T
lmfao the girl’s parents talking about how the dad snuck into the mom’s bed when he first stayed over at her house
I freaking like the girl and her mom’s banter and dynamic and how they don’t quite get each other
I keep calling her girl but her name is Chika
Shun and Chika standing side by side staring at Nagisa waxing the board lol
I don’t have much to say, it’s just so soft and sleepy even though like i have some thoughts (like Chika putting her plaque with her and Nagisa’s name over the plaque of Nagisa and his gf?!)
Ako is freaking cute
Nagisa’s pretty but I don’t really get why so many people like him. Though him coming to Shun to have him go surfing is cute
Episode 2 (June 22)
Lol slightly older girls seem to like Nagisa, his gf’s in university. Though I wonder how much older she is than him? She could just be 2 years older but also like 4 lol. She’s not wrong for wanting him to wear the jewelry she buy him or give her something for White Day though. He just seems freaking unfeeling but maybe that’s got to do with the fact that he maybe doesn’t like women
I like Chika and Shun’s friendship
lmfao Nagisa staring at Shun’s bare back while they’re changing out of their wetsuits but the obvious way he looked away when Shun caught him is hilarious
the flip phone lol
Nagisa’s so awkward T.T The way he gave Shun the keys to ride the bike and then ran away
alkdjf not Nagisa calling Chika’s phone and her being excited but he actually wants Shun, rip Chika
like... Nagisa’s gf isn’t wrong, he really isn’t treating her well (like just ignoring her calls) + bringing a friend to a serious conversation. She’s not being unreasonable. I hope they just break up right now.
Nagisa’s so ?? He’s so bad at communicating lol and freaking rude
aklsdfj D: Erectile disfunction at the hotel bomb dropped?! In front of Shun too T.T sooo awkward I’m dead
Chika stalking Nagisa & Shun and having Ako tag along with her lol
woah cute ass scene of them finding Nagisa’s keys. Nagisa was flustered but Shun kept smiling and looked sooo beautiful fr
The comments say that Nagisa’s using Shun’s shampoo but why would his shampoo even be there?
Woah it’s been clear Nagisa likes Shun this episode but it’s wild how much he’s like vibrating out of his skin with it. The way he’s sniffing Shun and trying to get closer to him while Shun’s sleeping. I thought Shun would like Nagisa, esp with the initial photos he took at the beach, but seems it’s the other way around
Episode 3 (June 22)
akl;sdfj Chika lying down in Shun’s makeshift bed and smelling it because she thinks that’s where Nasiga slept
T.T I knew they’d make Ako like Shun (he’s freaking nice to her, as he should be because she’s sooo cute) but I don’t want her to get hurtttt
Me hoping Chika and Ako would get together is fruitless lol I definitely would’ve heard if there were gay girls in this
Sometimes Shun bites his lower lip after laughing (Ep 2 after finding the key, here in 8:21) and it’s aksldfj beautiful, not awkward/cringe because it’s not meant to be like sexy
Nagisa accidentally drinking from Shun’s can (and Shun deciding not to tell him), Nagisa letting him borrow The Talented Mr. Ripley and asking to let him know what he thinks, Nagisa buying Shun absurd amounts of candy >.<
loll the mom thinking Chika likes Shun. The mom’s so cute and excited tho lmfao rip
Naurrr mom and dad discussing how Chika probably likes Shun right in front of Nagisa while Nagisa himself likes Shun as well and whole times Chika actually likes Nagisa. I’m liking these complicated love lines, especially if we put in Ako’s actual crush on Shun as well. 
Aak, Nagisa hearing Chika and Shun discussing Ako emailing him. rip Nagisa mans got hit with 2 of Shun’s possible love interests in the span of Minutes
alksdfj okay what a conversation. Nagisa mad/jealous -> Shun asks Nagisa what he thinks of Chika -> Nagisa: do you like her? -> Shun: sure -> Nagisa: She likes you too so congrats. -> Shun ?? tf she doesn’t like me, she likes you, she told me to keep it a secret. -> Nagisa: smug and relieved 
girl this legend of the monk and the boy ? O.O Nagisa sure chose a hell of a story to introduce the ~2 boys~ idea in Shun’s mind lol
Bro in certain angles Shun looks So Much like Win Metawin to me
Awww rip Nagisa. N: Would it gross you out if a boy liked you? S: Idk if it’d gross me out. I can’t even imagine it.
Bro those dumplings look so freaking good, I want
omg I love these parents. Mom was ready to have Chika driven over to stop Shun and Ako’s date so that she can win Shun back, I’m dead
Are... Ako and Shun playing a game or something on their date? Staring contest?
Naurr Nagisa suddenly kissing Chika just to forget about Shun. it’s not fair to her and she’s just gonna get hurt more in the future </3
Episode 4 (June 22)
oh lol Ako was just showing Shun how quickly she can cry because of her acting class
my mouth dropped open, no way Chika said “you should go out for dinner with someone or maybe try changing yourself a little” to her coworker guy who clearly likes her. I’ve decided I’m gonna be ignoring most age gaps in Japanese shows (after Nagisa’s older gf + lol currently waiting for Minato Shouji Coin Laundry) but other than that this guy seems freaking nerdy and earnest, that can be cute (esp in a show). Chika certainly doesn’t have to like him back or even like him as a person but that was so rude. Seems like she has similar traits to Nagisa’s ex herself 
these parents kill me actually lmfao their opinions on Nagisa (lol playboy) and them going to a love hotel ?!
nooo Nagisa randomly hearing some strangers’ casual homophobia among friends 
rip at least seeing Ako and Shun on their little date not date is cute but Nagisa and Chika’s is just rip because Chika’s being lead on and is gonna get her heart broken while Nagisa’s being an asshole leading her on but also is struggling with sexuality and also unrequited love based on gender (for now)
Crying, her parents got her condoms as a gift?! I think these parents are actually on Pete’s father from Dark Blue Kiss’s level and possibly even higher just based on how much screentime they get + their personalities + their caringness for their daughter and Shun and Nagisa
Ako is so beautiful
Shun and Ako in that acting class acting out their narrative in this story (A asks him to be her bf, S says sorry I like someone else) is interesting!
Nooo Ako crying because Shun’s leaving soon + also she realizes he doesn’t like her back
I like this random kid with all his playfulness and recorder at Nagisa and Shun’s part time job
dang Shun thanking Nagisa while outside his door and mans isn’t even in his room rip
Dude, this show has such interesting conversations and dynamics, the conversation between Nagisa and Chika’s coworker tree-lover guy was so good, esp with how they didn’t know who the other was
The sequences of events in this show are just so good? The Nagisa and Chika conversation where Nagisa’s like “Do you like Shun? It’s crazy to be worried about that isn’t it?” as Nagisa’s running off to see Shun and Nagisa’s like “It’s not crazy. As far as I’m concerned, it’s perfectly normal.”
1 more episode, I guess everything has to unravel now. Rip all the hurt 
Episode 5 (June 22)
Dang Nagisa fr is an asshole lol just does not give a fuck about Chika chasing after him and almost getting hit by a car
lol mom’s got it I think that Nagisa likes Shun
One of the best parts of this show is all the different characters and their interactions and conversations like right now Nagisa’s ex (she’s 3 years older apparently) and Chika are talking about Nagisa right now.
Yo this is actually so good because Nagisa’s ex doesn’t know that Chika knows and is “dating” Nagisa, so she’s just divulging all this information about him, including the fact that he probably likes the guy he brought to their last meeting (Shun - she picked up on it fast), and Chika has some realizations
rip does Nagisa my guy just not have Shun’s email or phone number lol Also Shun’s not leaving for 2 more days right? I guess Nagisa’s just not thinking straight 
The Viki comments sometimes piss me off because why are some people so mean about Chika for no reason, she has a right to be upset that the guy she likes who kissed her first + went on dates with her has liked someone else this whole time. It’d be one thing if she was being homophobic or trying to dictate how Nagisa should behave but she didn’t do that
Bro I love the mom’s breakup recovery advice letter, love Ako accompanying Chika to fulfill it, love the random garbage collector taking away the bone (representing Nagisa) in a box as trash (which he is - to them at least). This reminds me slightly of how after Sean rejected Name in Not Me, they showed us a scene of her crying to make us feel empathy but we didn’t know or care for the character enough for it to work (I was like oh no is she gonna turn bad?). This series did a more successful, charming version of that.
[About Nagisa liking Shun and Shun possibly liking him back] Chika: “So you mean we’re both part of the same tragedy?” Ako: “I’m not sure if this is a tragedy or a comedy.” Well it could certainly be romance if the two of you realized you like women and got together but that’s just wishful thinking and also wouldn’t be good to shove into the story right now. I’m just glad they’re such good friends to each other
Ako and Chika are both so freaking beautiful my gosh
Fuckk Nagisa talking about being gay and it’s just so much internalized homophobia :<
Aw he moved here because the rumours of him being gay spread at his old school
rip Nagisa talking about how he tried dating girls because he might end up liking them but couldn’t. Rip Chika’s heartbreak too
loll Ako’s camera had film, at least when she took photos of Nagisa. I wonder if she added it after her conversations with Shun or if there was film all along
Something about Nagisa discussing Shun with Chika and Shun discussing Nagisa with Ako is cute. The girls being like eyeeeee think you should tell him though they say it differently - Chika: >:(, Ako: ^.^
woah Nagisa’s the first person Shun likes
:0 nooo Shun deleted the photos he took of Nagisa at the beach on the first day
Chika’s disdain for guys is fucking funny
the confession happening in the last 2 minutes of the series ?! lmfao and the sequel movie starts with a fuckton of angst I believe?
Nagisa: Ever since the day I met you, I’ve liked you. Shun: It’s the opposite for me. The more time passes, the more I find myself liking you.
Bro cute, romantic, desperate ass hug at the end.
The best parts of it are: 
the parents, they rival and might win over Pete’s dad in terms of best BL parent(s), especially the mother. They weren’t the parents of either of the guys but they still cared for them + their daughter Chika and had personalities and were involved in their child’s life + was supportive of her. 
the characters in general because there are a handful but they’re all important and interact with each other and serve a purpose and it’s definitely one of the best uses of characters in a BL I’ve seen. 
Very different from most BLs in that although Shun and Nagisa have cute moments and plenty of interactions so that you can feel how Nagisa likes Shun, there are many scenes where they aren’t present at all and the story and characters are still being progressed. Usually when a show focuses on not the main couple, it’s on the secondary couple but this show is one cohesive unit where each person plays a part in moving this one story forward. Good choice since it’s such a short show. I thought Chika and her parents, Ako, Nagisa’s ex, Chika’s coworker were all freaking well-built characters and served their purpose well, I liked their interactions between each other (there were so many) and with Nagisa or Shun.
I don’t know if I’ll think about this show often and I wish they actually dated in the show for a bit. Also would’ve liked to see some more of Shun actually liking Nagisa, even if he doesn’t realize it. It’s weird that one of my criticisms is that I wish Shun was a bit more well-developed when I think all the side characters were really well developed for their roles and short runtime. 
Onto the movie tomorrow, can’t wait for the heartache.
Rating: 6.5/10
His The Movie
Okayyyy, time to start this I guess. I wonder if we’ll get any of their high school cuteness at the start or if we’re jumping straight into the angst because we also got 0 established relationship in the series. Also, I learned today that the actors in this are different than the series ones which makes sense since they’re almost a decade older but hmmm. Aside but I was looking at the poster for Kimi no Koto Dake Mite Itai and realized that the guy who played Nagisa is in that.
June 23
Bro what a fucking beginning. Cute, adorable, domestic, teasing waking up scene that ends with “Shun, let’s break up” and it was just a dream of the past. 
Bro this movie is so calming so far but it makes your heart ache. 
Cute ass child. 
The guy who plays Shun is still beautiful but I miss the original Shun from the series, some of his mannerisms were really attractive to me lol
Anyway, how are you supposed to react if your first love comes back to see you with his child and tells you about how he married and got divorced etc and his reason for coming is just... “Somehow I wanted to see you.” and says what you had in the past is so long ago
lmfao Shun having to witness Nagisa be a good father to his adorable girl and also now the rumour mill has started that maybe something’s going on between Shun and Nagisa, rip Shun he wants it to be true so bad
“When these things happen, try to enjoy the inconvenience rather than get upset.” That’s so interesting. Enjoy the inconvenience. The woman’s nice!
This slice of life thing where it’s just daily life + meeting people is actually so nice
Nagisa left his child with Shun without even telling him to go on some urgent business?! Bruh, Shun has no experience with kids, I’m dead. Also, flashback to Shun’s dad leaving so soon after Shun went to visit him in the series lol
Sora just leaving the store lmfao?
lmfao dying at their dinner being 15 million egg dishes
Shun learning to take care of Sora bit by bit T.T
Shun kept Nagisa’s letters and sweater </3
Nagisa’s so fucked up, mans is drunk and tryna kiss Shun rip. I guess his conversation with the people in Tokyo who kept talking about how Sora needs both a mother and a father (and not to be raised by 2 men lol) really got to him (but also he’s just a general asshole, even in the series, so)
Fucking crying at them making food and having a meal with the hunter old man and also each saying that the other turned them into a bookworm
this Christmas tree scene is so cute
Dang, Sora got taken away in a dang minute
This really reminds me of how Itou Akira marrying the girl and wanting to be normal and the conversation with their wife, though with the added child + cheating with men
Yeah, selfish is the word for both Akira and Nagisa but like... I mean... yeah. I forgive it each time because I’m more in awe of their courage to at least finally come out years later
I feel for Sora’s mother: she finds out her husband’s gay and never loved her, he literally takes their child somewhere else randomly, has to work and also take care of the kid now whereas I don’t think she has much experience raising Sora, is facing her mother’s disapproval, and now is battling custody. I hope she considers that while she could work fulltime and take care of a child with the use of like daycare and help from her mother, Sora’s dad has been taking care of her this whole time and should still be able to. Is shared custody not an option? It’d be good if they could come up with the best solution for the child (though idk how Sora’s education would go if they have shared custody since Nagisa’s gonna live at the countryside with Shun for the foreseeable future - maybe weekday vs weekends & holidays?)
So interesting to see all this divorce prep and custody battles in this BL, especially the discussion of how Nagisa’s gay relationship will affect it
“Because if I stay with Mama, I get in the way of her work” T.T Aw Sora
Misato confessing to Shun but probably understanding 2 minutes later that he’s with Nagisa lol
lmfao as soon as they started looking at each other with those eyes I was like whelp, hope you’re ready to explain everything to Sora and yep, there her little head is watching them make out. At least they hadn’t taken any articles of clothing off yet
Oh lol little child was so out of it with sleepiness, cute
D: oh no, Sora’s insisting upon seeing Nagisa and Shun kissing to her classmates really loudly in front of everybody. And that’s when Shun comes to pick her up aklsdfj
You know what, I need a break lol I don’t wanna watch Sora ask Shun if he’s kissing her dad in front of all the kids and elderly 
June 23
Okay, I’m gonna have lunch and just... watch it. It probably won’t even be too bad, I was just too anxious yesterday
As I expected, they didn’t show the reactions after Sora asked Shun in front of everybody. However, now Shun and Nagisa are talking about one of them leaving the town and </3. At least Nagisa’s like “yeah, I was only thinking about myself when I left you, when I missed you, and also when I came back.”
rip Shun’s flashback to having to deny being gay at a work party T.T
kind supportive old grandpa :)
NOOOO he’s died?
Aww sweet Sora, reassuring Shun 
I was gonna be like D: Shun, coming out at somebody’s funeral and making it about you?! (+ also omg sooo public) but I guess the old man might approve
Bro Shun’s speech is sooo awkward for me to watch bye but I’m glad everybody was nice
T.T Shun coming in wearing Nagisa’s old sweater from the beginning of the movie and saying “I want to spend my life with you... you, Sora-chan, and me.” 
naurrrr Misato started off so well but the lawyer using societal homophobia + leading questions to get her to mess up alksdfjaskdlfj >:(
Why isn’t the fact that Sora literally left her home and was at the police station under her mom’s care not being brought up at court?
omg screaming at the cuteness of the contrast of this time Nagisa finding Shun high-fiving Sora after cracking an egg with one hand
Bro yeah idk how these people are managing to do the witness stand like I’m sitting here and thinking “Oh Shun shouldn’t say that he lost sight, he should mention that Nagisa said he was Sora’s main caretaker, so Shun trusted him to know what’s good for her.” or smth but I would’ve 100% started crying
Sora’s so cute and innocent T.T 
Bro I’m like both mad at Sora’s mom because being drunk and neglecting a child so that they leave the house and get lost and ask for father at the police station is unacceptable but like... doing everything she wants to do (job + raise Sora alone) is very difficult, so I sympathize. Also like she’s being labeled as a “bad mom” because of how she little time she spent with Sora or the lack of chores she did and stuff but like she worked enough to provide for all 3 of them since Nagisa didn’t work. I think this means that she shouldn’t be getting custody but they’re so cruel toward her :(
Nooo Nagisa dumbass, don’t be unselfish nowwww (unless it’s a really good plan. I don’t actually know what a settlement is lol). I mean it’s true what he’s saying but the conclusion doesn’t have to be that he gives up custody?! 
Okay actually you know what... maybe Nagisa apologizing and acknowledging Rena’s sacrifices and proposing a settlement is beautiful actually
The fucking achy feeling of this movie is actually so aslkdfj Like Sora’s cute ass voice in this angsty ass conversation, followed by Nagisa just breaking down in Shun’s arms T.T
1h52 - 1 month later
I’m glad we get to see how hard doing everything is for Rena but at least Sora and her get a few smiles (and also I think Rena got advice from Nagisa in that call?)
omg T.T All 4 of them on an outing together, a little bit of Sora’s dream. + Rena sharing that she can’t ride a bike (a secret from Nagisa and Sora) to Shun is sooooo T.T
I don’t know what to feel now except like... empty? I T.T That was really good. I wish we got to see another scene or two of Nagisa and Shun living by themselves without Sora though and how her absence has affected them (Nagisa especially) and how they’ve dealt with it.
It also kinda didn’t feel like a sequel to the first one lol there were like of the barest hints but it all still makes sense without having watched the series.
Anyway, just... really good, really achy.
Like the slice of life aspect (in a different slice-of-life way than the first series) and just how slow it felt, the child (Sora was so freaking cute), the twinge of heartache in every scene. Just like the series, it also just had so many other things that aren’t just Nagisa and Shun together. 
This reminded me a bit of History 2: Right or Wrong with the child being a main character and there’s a wife he’s not with thing but this one dealt with divorce and custody. It’s also like the aftermath of Life: Love on the Line breakup and so it deals with it better since the whole movie focuses on just that. 
Rating: 7/10 (I’m still going between 6.5 vs 7 but honestly like why not 7? why not?)
Rating: 8/10 [Aug 20, 2022 Update: Increased by 0.5 stars when rerating my top BLs] [Oct 29, 2022 Update: Increased by 0.5 stars when rerating my top BLs]
Tiktoks: 
2019 series Nagisa and Shun
2020 first waking up scene -> 2019 sleeping on the floor
2019 and 2020 parallels and scenes
2019, 2022 parallels
Shun Alone Again edit
Nagisa and Shun - Mitski Once More To See You
Rena: He needed more than me
I destroy myself just for you
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aasimarz · 3 years
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I watched like 10 seconds of Kaguya-Sama and I can tell this is going to be the strangest slice of life I’m ever gonna watch and I binged wonder egg priority /lh
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facets-and-rainbows · 4 years
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Blue Exorcist 10th anniversary book Q&A session
The 10th anniversary book has a section where Katoh answers 100 questions submitted by fans on Twitter, so here they are translated/paraphrased! May contain manga spoilers up to the recent flashback arc, so be warned.
(Note that I’m playing it very fast and loose here because there are A HUNDRED OF THEM, so not exact wordings, but it should capture the gist. Lemme know if there are any you want elaborated on)
1. Katoh likes the feel of traditional drawing more than digital but is impressed with how far digital has come
2. Meph THOROUGHLY ABUSES spacetime to watch all his shows and ensure that he gets all the merch he wants
3. Did the girls take all of Yukio’s school uniform buttons in middle school? Yes, they did (apparently it’s like A Thing for girls to ask for a button from their crush at middle school graduation, based on some sad movie from the 60s where a guy who got drafted as a kamikaze pilot gave a girl one of his uniform buttons to remember him by)
4. Rin's tail is about a meter long
5. There are tons of servants working at Mephisto's mansion. Belial is in charge of them
6. Katoh borrows from all sorts of neat real locations when making settings
7. Katoh identifies with pretty much all the characters the most! Except Lucifer.
8. Demon designs she's proud of include the impure king and hachirou, pretty much anything that was the main one in an arc
9. Katoh lists a bunch of her favorite musical artists/music she’s listening to recently: King Gnu, Official Hige Dandism, Kenshi Yonezu, BAD HOP, Sakanaction, Keyakizaka 46, Hypnosis Mic, Aimer, B’Z, Queen Bee.
10. Awww the rabbit manga that characters are often reading isn't just Robo to Usakichi, it's an even older one that she drew as a little kid
11. She likes industrial style interior designs
12. Rin and Yukio alternated who got the top bunk growing up, because they couldn't agree on it lol
13. Katoh cares a whole lot about panel layouts and speech bubble positions, might even be her favorite part of the process (it shows!)
4. Katoh does NOT have a mashou, lol
15. Rin has probably been practicing in secret so he can learn to carry stuff with his tail
16. Izumo probably got into shojo manga around 1st grade, her mom had some around the house
17. Specialty dishes: Rin - lots of stuff but especially nabe Yuri - stuff you can throw together quickly Shiro - stuff he learned from Yuri and/or cookbooks, alongside teaching Rin Yukio - Does. Not. Cook.
18. Can't pick a favorite place she's been on research, but there's no place like Japan
19. Kinzou's band isn't currently meeting because demons, but he's probably still thinking of new songs
20. Hardest characters to draw: anyone with detailed flowing hair. Hardest to write for: Lightning and Gedouin. She had to go read books about serial killers specifically for material for Gedouin, lol 
21. Suguro actually gets a dorm room to himself, though allegedly Yukio is technically assigned as his roommate, lol. Didn't end up that way what with Yukio being a teacher and also Rin’s whole...situation
22. Shiemi makes some of her own hair accessories! Cute
23. Katoh doesn't mind if you include stuff with fan letters but check with the editor first
24. Time for making each chapter: Planning/storyboarding: 1-5 days. Sketching: 3-5 days. Drawing/inking: the rest. Just...the rest of the time
25. Neither Suguro nor Izumo have dated before and neither is currently dating. But that's probably just because things were hectic for them! It could happen
26. Yukio breaks 5 or 6 pairs of glasses a year, someone get this kid a strap or something
27. How many spare glasses does Yukio have? Check the fanbook lol it's in there (dang it Katoh)
28. The demon she wants us to pay the most attention to is Lucifer. Because plot.
29. What's under the Order's big meeting table? It's a BOTTOMLESS PIT and if you fall in it you DIE that's what makes it COOL (laughs)
30. What are the job requirements for the angelic legion? Literally just Arthur liking you and inviting you to join
31. She WANTS to do more character profiles but just hasn't gotten to it
32. Rin's tail feels like a cat tail, texture wise
33. The "red Assiah fire" is literally just actual fire nothing special
34. Rin's current hair color is light blue fading to white at the ends
35. Thoughts on Rin's growth: she likes that he stays positive in awful situations and she also thinks it's very main character of him to face the past instead of avoiding it
36. Mephisto didn't purposely surround Rin with stuffed animals when he woke up after going crispy. Mephisto's bed is just Like That
37. Kurikara was based on a cool sword she found in a sword book, but that one was technically just a ceremonial sword. The symbol on it us a Sanskrit letter kaan (sp?) associated with Fudou Myouou
38. Kuro can communicate with normal cats and hangs out with them often
39. Sometimes Shiemi's skirt is extra fancy around the hem what's up with that? Apparently it's an optional accessory that comes with the skirts help I haven't noticed this and don't know any fashion terms in any language
40. When coloring, Katoh always tries to have an overall theme in mind ("emphasis on blue" etc) so it comes together in the end
41. Yes the twins are genetically related to Shiro because of Goro (she says they're like his nephews but I say GENETICALLY at least they'd be indistinguishable from his children)
42. Strongest mom of all the strong moms around here? Yuri! Did you SEE her give birth??
43. Are you careful about your own health Katoh-sensei? Not particularly! Her mom has had to bring her food at work sometimes! Don't do this at home kids
44. At the dating events Shura goes to, does she drink cocktails in moderation? Yeah, she probably downplays her normal drinking habits at these things. But normally she's down for just about any kind of drink
45. Lucifer just really likes oysters okay
46. How many pages of manga does Katoh draw in a day? If she's being good about self-care: three. Maximum number ever: TEN
47. Mephisto is one of those folks who can eat like a garbage compactor and never gain weight. Possibly because his body resists that sort of change the same way it resists aging etc
48. First food Rin cooked: fish burger type patty. Yukio's favorite things Rin cooks: fish simmered in soy sauce, yellowtail with daikon radish. It's fish all the way down
49: Did Rin ever get more monthly allowance from Mephisto? It doubled! He gets TWO 2000 yen bills now (rip) [T/N: That's uh, that's USD $37.26 a month or 33.10 euro]
50. Why isn't Rin more popular with the girls? He gets nervous talking to them, plus he's too oblivious to notice even if he DID have some fans
51. Why change Suguro's hair? She gets bored with keeping everything the same, and she wanted a visual representation that he was getting serious and going into kind of a training arc
52. Things Katoh pays extra attention to when drawing: trying to capture the feel of whatever she's drawing (like "that looks warm and soft" or "I bet that guy stinks" cough Lightning cough)
53: Does Rin take after Yuri more? (He's got her eyes!) Katoh tried to draw Yuri so she looks like both twins. Personality, too - Yukio has her smarts and Rin has her optimism
54: Do you ever wanna be like Mephisto? Well she'd like to be able to get away with just ANYTHING EVER, but no, let's not be like Mephisto
55. Konekomaru not only carries around a cat toy in case he meets any cats, he MAKES cat toys to carry around based on what he thinks the cats would like
56. How'd you come up with Shima? Go read the fan book!
57. Do the kids have Twitter/Instagram accounts? Rin - probably not. Konekomaru might be on some social media. Paku and Izumo are totally on instagram
58. Is there something Rin makes that you wish you could try? All of it! That's the whole idea! He's good at cooking!
59. Will we ever have a (G-rated) reveal of what ALL of Mamushi and her family's tattoos look like? Maybe! She'll think about it
60. Does Arthur have a repertoire of different hairstyles? Not really, he just puts some of it up on the top. Heck he might even have people to do that for him
61. If you wrote a shojo manga what would it be about? She'd have to do a lot of research before even coming up with a story, since there are so many style differences between the genres aside from just the subject
62. The other two of Mephisto's top 3 favorite foods: Cup ramen and....f-fried bubblegum?? Is that a THING???
63. Where do you start when drawing a character? Usually the outline of their face but if it's a complex pose/composition she'll start with whatever's in the foreground (like hands)
64. If Katoh could have a familiar, what demon would she choose? Mephisto. As the all-powerful author, she might actually be able to command him as a familiar!
66. If you swapped Yukio and Rin's relationship around what would change? not much, you'd pretty much have Rin going to the Illuminati and Yukio going to the past
67. Top 3 foods/souvenirs to try in Kyushu? Well she doesn't know what’s good CURRENTLY but when she was there she always used to like burdock tempura udon, hakata torimon (a kind of manju with white bean paste inside), and Chikae style cod roe. today I learned Katoh went to high school in Kyushu
68. Katoh listens to music a lot while she's storyboarding, then when she and the assistants are all drawing and inking they put various videos/movies and stuff on in the background
69. For all his hitting on girls, is Shima actually popular with the ladies at all? He's got enough girls in his life that he probably COULD find a girlfriend if he really wanted, but the double agent thing tends to get in the way. He still wouldn't be as popular as Yukio though (side thought/translator’s note: Shima would be proud of being number 69.)
70. Katoh has the ending planned out in a big-picture way, but there are still a few details here and there that she's fretting over
71. It's cute when the boys put their ties over their shoulders when they're working on something! Where'd that come from? She just figured a tie might get in the way and that seemed like a realistic way to get it out of the way
72. Looks like Yukio is getting some facial hair! What about Rin? They're both about the age for it, but maybe Rin can't grow a beard yet. Maybe a little peach fuzz here and there
73. Katoh's favorite blue exorcist merch? There were some exorcist licenses a while back, and the exorcist pins. Basically it's really cool that these little accessories she drew ACTUALLY EXIST NOW, LIKE YOU CAN HOLD THEM IN YOUR HANDS
74. Okay realtalk how long do we have left, I don't want the series to end yet? We're solidly in the second half by now but it's not, like, ABOUT to end yet
75. Katoh would be a Knight meister, based on what characters she likes to play in games and such
76. How many people in the whole exorcism cram school? More than you think! She doesn't give a number but apparently licensed exorcists also attend classes for new meisters, etc, so there's a wide age range attending
77. How's Arthur feel about, like, studying Taming on the way to becoming Paladin? He's at least mostly accepted that you have to use demons to fight demons effectively
78. Konekomaru started wearing glasses in his first year of middle school, so like 7th grade (more recent than I thought!) He has one spare pair, in contrast to Yukio lol
79. Katoh's current obsessions? Ghost/scary stories! She's even been going to live readings of them recently
80. Media Katoh consumes for inspiration? A wide range of foreign teen drama, horror/suspense, shojo manga, light novels, anime, etc. Special focus on things where two boys are in conflict or there are brothers involved
81. If they weren't exorcists what jobs would they have? Rin - chef. Yukio - doctor. Shiemi - uh, florist?
82. Inspiration for the design of True Cross Town? Katoh and her assistants gathered up a bunch of references, picked out stuff they felt matched the tone, and mashed them all up together
83. Did you use any references etc for the school/exorcist uniforms? She says she probably should have but she just kind of made them up before publication
84. Favorite part of drawing? For color pages, picking out a color scheme. For black and white, drawing in all the little details (though she doesn't always get time to lately)
85. Once again confirms the demon kings' weird hair is a representation of their horns. ADDS THAT PEOPLE WHO CAN'T SEE DEMONS CAN'T SEE THE WEIRD HAIR
86. Now that Yukio's at the Illuminati, where's he gonna get his Jump SQ and spare glasses? Well he probably never planned to stay for long, but hey it's a big ship and they might have an optometrist and/or newsstand there
87. Do you base the demon characters on any references etc? Not really, she just gets a general idea of popular demon designs and then makes up her own in her own style
88. Merchandise Katoh personally wants to have made: stuff that an adult could just use in their day to day life. Also, it's not gonna happen, but if her favorite figure brand made AoEx figures she could die happy
89. If Beelzebub's host body was a beautiful woman, how would Shima react? Would the womanizing win out over the bug phobia? Katoh replies that Shima would probably just faint from being near a girl that pretty, before the bugs even got involved
90. Will the twins ever get to smile and eat dinner together again?? We'll just have to wait and see!
91. What do you check at a "scenario check"? what's a scenario check man I dunno They check for people being out of character or the setting feeling off. They had a lot of these checks for the anime, but they also do them for the drama CD, games, and all that other stuff where multiple authors are involved
92. Why does Shura use baldy as an insult for people who are clearly not bald? She feels like they have some kind of metaphorical, mental kind of "baldness" and she's calling them out on it. Whatever that means
93. After Blue Exorcist ends, what do you want to draw next? She has SO MANY IDEAS, SO MANY
94. Did Katoh make up the Shinto chants that, for example, Izumo used against Gedouin? They're assembled from bits of actual Shinto prayers according to what feels right in the scene
95. Yukio reads the Jump SQ, right, and, just hear me out here, he likes gag manga, right? Does this mean he reads Salaryman Yukio? It's something he would read, but let's say that in the AoEx universe there's just a very similar manga that he finds oddly relatable
96. What do Yukio and Shima do in their free time on the Dominus Liminus? oh my god you guys this ship has so many amenities.  Yukio probably spends time reading in the library, which they totally have. There's also, like, a gym, and a movie theater, and a THEATER theater, all of which are free. Shima probably hangs out at the pool (!) and goes to the movies, and hits on illuminati girls, lol
97. Easiest character to draw? The ones with boring simple hair, lol. Lightning gets an honorable mention for ALSO not having eyes in most shots, but Rin wins--he was specifically designed to be easy for Katoh to draw because that's what you want in your main character
98. How do demons understand gender? They just possess whatever feels like the best match to how they feel in Gehenna, whether that's a man, or a woman, or a rat, or whatever
99. Where do you start when you're coming up with a story? She starts with character design and how the characters relate to each other. Currently she's just continuing an existing story, so she works on splitting up the overall plot into episodes and fleshing it out with scenes and information about characters
100. When do you feel most happy? She honestly feels like she lives a very happy life overall. Mentions noticing a lot of little things, like how nice her cats' heads smell when she cuddles them or taking a nice cold refreshing drink of water. There's happiness in everything. aww.
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commentaryvorg · 3 years
Text
Digimon Savers Commentary Episode 3 - The Genius Who Returned Home, Tohma! Crush Meramon!
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In this episode, we’re introduced to Tohma, whose return to the Japanese branch of DATS immediately sparks a hostile rivalry between him and Masaru. Meanwhile, Masaru’s first mission as a DATS member presents him with the tricky conundrum of figuring out how to punch fire.
We open with Masaru and Agumon stuffing their faces at the Daimon family breakfast table.
Sayuri:  “My, my. Masaru never usually gets up before the afternoon on a Sunday. This must be thanks to Agu-chan!”
Masaru habitually sleeping in on non-school days is deeply relatable.
But more importantly, it’s lovely that him meeting Agumon has changed that! Though Masaru might have got something out of fighting random street punks before, it seems that it wasn’t quite exciting enough to him to get him out of bed early for it. It was probably more just that he’d wander around town bored and pick fights with anyone who seemed up for it out of a lack of anything better to do.
But now that he and Agumon have got all these Digimon to fight, Masaru’s got a real reason to wake up as soon as possible to go do that! Meeting Agumon has genuinely made him a whole lot happier with his life.
Also it is adorable how Sayuri and Chika have already taken to calling Agumon “Agu-chan”. It’s a cute sign that they see him as exactly the dorky kid that he is rather than as some weird monster, and also that they see him as one of the family, which is absolutely what he is now.
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Can we please appreciate Chika’s done-ness here. I love her.
Masaru:  “What the hell, Mom! Serve me before Agumon!”
Sayuri:  “I never said you wouldn’t have your share. Just wait for a bit. After all, Agu-chan’s still a child.”
Again with the just treating Agumon like the big kid that he is. Sayuri is so good.
We are also introduced to the glorious treasure that is Sayuri’s fried eggs! Agumon has certainly discovered how great they are.
(Technically, these are tamagoyaki, a Japanese miniature rolled omelette thing. But the subs go with fried eggs, which is close enough and rolls off the tongue quicker in English.)
Masaru:  “Gimme that!”
Agumon:  “I won’t hand over the last of Sayuri’s fried eggs, not even to you!”
Oh, won’t you, Agumon? Not ever?
(This is another line to keep in mind for a lot later.)
Chika:  “What a child…”
As Masaru wrestles Agumon in an attempt to literally get the fried egg back from out of his mouth, Chika observes that she’s somehow the most mature of the three Daimon kids. (Yes, I said three, what of it.)
Meanwhile, Tohma is… having a gratuitous shower scene. Uhhh, sure. Apparently this totally needed to be his introduction. …Look, at least I appreciate that the fanservice is being equal-opportunity in terms of gender. (For now.)
He also has a butler, and is living in a pretty big but mostly quiet and empty mansion. This sequence is about showing the huge contrast between Masaru and Tohma’s home lives, but I do not know why the writers thought a shower scene was necessary for that.
(Tohma mentioned at the end of last episode that this country is his mom’s homeland, but he sure doesn’t appear to be staying with his mom right now, does he.)
Agumon attempts to fit himself into the basket of a bike which I can only imagine is Chika’s, because I don’t think Masaru’s bike would be pink. Agumon doesn’t seem to realise this. Chika doesn’t seem to want to tell him. He is such a ridiculous dork.
Meanwhile, Tohma gets seen off in the morning by the mansion’s staff bowing goodbye to him, and then is driven around in a limo.
Masaru’s “transportation”, on the other hand, is running down the street while giving Agumon a piggy back. Apparently this is so that Agumon can stay still and pretend to be a really big stuffed toy, but he’s kind of ruining that by talking and waving his arms around to cheer his aniki on.
(Of course, the most obvious way to not have Agumon raise suspicion would be to keep him in his Digivice, but it seems they’ve already agreed offscreen that that’s not an option because Agumon doesn’t like it in there. Yoshino and Satsuma would probably have some words to say to them about that, but hey, they’re not here, so Masaru’s gonna let his follower stay outside and be happier.)
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Masaru:  “Uh… what do I press again? This? No…”
Masaru, that DATS earpiece only has like two buttons on it, it can’t be that hard to figure out.
Yoshino:  “We have a Digimon signal.”
Masaru:  “Where?!”
Yoshino:  “Area C-7. Can you get there directly?”
Masaru:  “Yeah! Leave it to us!”
Not pictured: Masaru wondering where the heck “C-7” is and why he impulsively said he could definitely get there when it could be on the other side of the city for all he knows.
(Okay, that’s probably not actually what happens. Somehow we are supposed to believe that Masaru – Masaru – memorised all these location codes that DATS uses remarkably quickly. I imagine he knows the city quite well, but these codes for the areas are presumably a DATS-only thing that civilians wouldn’t be familiar with.)
Street punk #1:  “So boring…”
Street punk #2: “Nothing’s going on at all…”
PetitMeramon: “Nothing at all!”
This is the first time we’ve seen a rampaging Digimon speak… but it doesn’t necessarily seem to be expressing its own thoughts. Rather, it’s just parroting these bored dudes. The PetitMeramon goes on to float down the street and set things on fire, which certainly makes it so that something interesting’s finally going on. It almost seems as if this is happening because these dudes were bored and wanted some kind of excitement, even if they weren’t necessarily wishing for this.
This is almost immediately followed by Masaru and Agumon showing up, which… the timing of that doesn’t exactly work out for the PetitMeramon to have only just appeared, assuming this is the Digimon signal Yoshino told him about while he was still in his own neighbourhood. But I’m still very sure that the writers want us to feel like these dudes’ boredom is related to the PetitMeramon being here, and honestly, showing us that is more important than getting meaningless details like the timing of things exactly right, so I don’t actually care.
Masaru:  “Let’s fight!”
PetitMeramon: “Fight…”
Again, still not really speaking for itself, just parroting. Though this time it’s parroting a different person, so maybe what we can take from this is that there were some other bored people who originally brought it here and now it’s just parroting and acting on the thoughts of whoever happens to be nearby. (It’s true that we didn’t actually hear the sound of a Digital Gate opening just now.)
Unfortunately for our pair of dorks, a living fireball like PetitMeramon is immune to Agumon’s fire attacks and not solid enough for Masaru to punch. And without punching it, Masaru can’t get his Digisoul, so he can’t evolve Agumon either. This is the absolute worst possible enemy for them to try and fight.
Naturally, they just chase it further down the street anyway, giving absolutely no care to the random dudes who just watched a giant lizard and a living fireball duke it out. Despite being a DATS member now, Masaru is still really not here for all of the calculated government secrecy stuff.
Luckily, Tohma arrives on the scene in his limo and cleans up these loose ends Masaru left using a memory-wipe flashy thing. And, to be fair, I wouldn’t be surprised if Satsuma just didn’t even give one of those to Masaru in the first place. I’m not sure I’d trust him not to accidentally point it the wrong way when using it or something, given that he could barely figure out the two buttons on his earpiece. Masaru and technology do not mix.
(…Though I have to wonder why Gaomon then emerges from the limo and isn’t inside his Digivice. Sure, the flashy thing knocked out those dudes so they’re not a problem right now, but do you really not expect to run into any more people as you chase down the target? …But of course, the only real reason Gaomon is out right now is so that we can get a brief glimpse of him as a stinger before the opening.)
Okay! Okay!
I can jump over any limits!
Feel that excitement passionately!
Some more gung-ho opening lyrics! These feel appropriate here, as the idea of Masaru’s burning passionate excitement is going to be a bit of a thing in this episode, as is the idea that he brashly considers himself to have no limits whatsoever.
At DATS HQ, Masaru is grumpy about not being able to win.
Yoshino:  “Well, I didn’t think it would go easily for you from the start.”
Honestly, having seen how easily Masaru handled the fights in the first two episodes, I would have expected things to go easily for him, at least in terms of fighting. It only didn’t because this specific enemy happens to be immune to all of his usual tactics. The more logistical side of things, such as the secrecy and the memory wiping stuff, I can see Masaru needing a while to get used to (though, spoiler, he’s, uh, never really going to become any good at that at all), but not the fighting.
Tohma shows up with the PetitMeramon’s Digiegg, presenting it to Yoshino and not even acknowledging Masaru’s presence.
Miki and Megumi, the two young women who work the tech side of things at HQ, begin fawning over him, which is, uh, a liiittle questionable when he’s fourteen and they’re… it’s never made clear exactly how old, but definitely at least adults. Thankfully, this mostly goes away and stops being much of a thing after this episode.
There is also Gaomon! He is a good dog. Though right now he’s being as dismissive as his master and ignoring Agumon when Agumon tries to ask who he is.
Masaru:  “You bastard! You took away my prey!”
It’s so Masaru to be mad about this. That PetitMeramon was his opponent first, and now he can’t even settle the fight himself because this guy came in and defeated it before he could!
Tohma barely looks at him, and…
Masaru:  “What, gonna fight?”
…of course Masaru is ready to start a fight over this, because this is how he’s used to settling disputes.
But actually Tohma was just turning to walk towards Satsuma, still pretty much entirely ignoring Masaru’s presence.
Tohma:  “I’ve looked through the written reports, and it seems rather peculiar that there are a large number of Digimon detected in this country lately.”
[…]
Satsuma:  “Is the frequency not as high in EU?”
Tohma:  “No. It must be because it has a larger area.”
I do not understand what Tohma is trying to get at with that last part. Since Europe is bigger than just Japan, surely that means they’d expect more Digimon incidents in it, not less.
That weird part aside, though, it is a relevant point that Japan in particular has been seeing more Digimon incidents than anywhere else. There’s a reason for this.
Masaru is fed up with Tohma acting like he doesn’t exist and walks up to cough pointedly behind him. It’s actually rather unlike Masaru to be passive-aggressive and indirect like this, but it does amuse me.
Satsuma:  “Oh, let me introduce you. This is…”
[Tohma barely even glances at Masaru; Masaru gets angry]
Masaru:  “Hey! I don’t care if you’re called Tohma or Tonma… but around here, I’m your senpai! I’ve only been here for three days, but make sure to call me ‘Daimon-san’ or ‘Daimon-senpai’!”
Not that it takes much for Masaru to go back to his usual direct approach to things. Tohma just waltzing in here, easily defeating the opponent that Masaru was struggling against, getting immediate respect from everyone else in the room and barely even acknowledging Masaru as worthy of looking at makes Masaru feel inferior, which riles him up and gets him flailing to assert some kind of superiority in a really transparent way.
See, Masaru wouldn’t usually care all that much about people showing the appropriate politeness when referring to him, but when it’s this jerk who’s making him feel like this, damn right he’s going to insist that the three days more he’s been here is totally enough to count as making him a senpai. (A senpai means someone senior within the same group; it’s a Japanese concept that doesn’t quite have a direct English equivalent, hence the subs leaving it as-is and just giving us a translators’ note explaining it.)
Calling him “Tonma” – which another translators’ note informs us is a word for an idiot, so basically Masaru’s just insulting him in a very juvenile way – is, of course, not exactly the best way to establish himself as a mature and senior senpai.
Satsuma and Yoshino point out that actually Tohma is Masaru’s senpai, because he used to work here until he took a six-month trip to work at a DATS branch in Europe, which he’s just returned from.
Masaru:  “B-But no matter how you look at it, he’s the same age as I am…”
Establishing Tohma’s age as being also fourteen. (Though technically Masaru wouldn’t necessarily know his exact age and is just saying he seems similarly aged, but whatever, Tohma is fourteen as well, let’s go with it. Their rivalry has a much more fun dynamic if they really are exactly the same age rather than one having a year or two of seniority over the other.)
They also go on to add that Tohma is a genius who already has a degree (and even more than that, as we’ll later learn). And, okay, while on paper Tohma’s genius achievements are probably wildly unrealistic for anyone to have managed at the age of fourteen no matter how clever they are, it doesn’t really bother me. In practice, the genius thing isn’t here to make Tohma magically unrealistically special; it’s here to make him interesting and a great foil for Masaru. Tohma is a very well-written character whom I really like, almost as much as Masaru, and I’m looking forward to getting to talk about him a lot here.
On top of this, the Norstein family is Austrian nobility, so Tohma’s practically a prince as well. (Again, there’s very much a point to this that’s relevant to his character and not just for the sake of making him special). And they add that Gaomon is the most accomplished battler they have among the Digimon at DATS (not that there’s that many for him to compete with there).
Satsuma:  “Be sure to get along with each other, as you are colleagues.”
Yep, Masaru’s sure to have no problems getting along with this person whom you just lengthily explained is way more awesome than he is despite being the same age as him.
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Masaru certainly doesn’t seem too happy about this.
Tohma:  “I think it will be futile to do so, Captain Satsuma. There is not a chance that this person could benefit DATS.”
Masaru:  “What d’you mean?!”
[Tohma only barely glances at Masaru before turning back to the Captain]
Tohma:  “People like him should be dismissed at once.”
…Though, it turns out, Tohma is also equally unwilling to even attempt to play nice. All this barely even glancing at Masaru and talking about him rather than to him is kind of a dick move. Really, Masaru and Tohma are being equally as rude to each other here, albeit in completely different ways.
Masaru:  “Say that to my face! Look into a person’s eyes when they’re talking!”
And I love that this in particular is what gets to Masaru the most. He’s always so straightforward, and being that way is important to him. He can’t stand people beating around the bush and being vague about their intentions rather than just coming out and saying what they really mean directly to the person involved.
To be fair to Tohma, he does actually listen and look Masaru straight in the eye this time.
Tohma:  “You and your partner are not suited for DATS.”
Yoshino:  “Tohma!”
I like Yoshino protesting here. Even she thinks this is going a bit far.
And it is a bit far, really – sure, Tohma caught a glimpse of Masaru and Agumon’s rather unfortunate fight against the PetitMeramon earlier, but that’s hardly enough evidence to decide that they have absolutely nothing to offer. This says less about Masaru and Agumon and more about Tohma himself: he’s something of a perfectionist, and he doesn’t like the idea of working with anyone who doesn’t match up to his very high standards.
(College degree as a teenager? Member of Austrian nobility? Yeah, we can already guess where some of that might come from.)
Masaru, being Masaru, has had enough and just tries to punch Tohma – but he blocks it easily.
Tohma:  “Really, now. You want to face me with that level of power? How incredibly pathetic.”
Masaru:  “What do you mean, ‘that level’? How strong does that make you, then?!”
This is the first person Masaru’s met in probably a really long time who’s said anything to the effect that he’s not strong enough, who’s implied that there’s some other, higher level of strength that Masaru just doesn’t have yet. He’s not used to thinking of his strength in those terms, and feeling inferior. Isn’t he supposed to be the number one street fighter in Japan? How can there be any kind of greater strength he doesn’t have?
Tohma:  “Do I have to answer that?”
Masaru:  “Yeah! Go on, show me! Let’s see the truth behind all that bragging!”
Of course Tohma has to answer that and actually prove himself! Masaru is all about actions rather than words; if someone’s claiming they’re stronger than him, there’s no way he’s going to just accept that until he tests it out for himself.
It turns out Tohma is indeed perfectly willing to put his money where his mouth is, because we cut to what’s presumably a gym somewhere in the DATS HQ, in which there is a boxing ring. I might call this awkwardly convenient, but no, actually, since Tohma used to work here (and he’s into boxing, as we’re about to see), it makes a lot of sense that he might have asked to have one installed for himself to use recreationally in between missions.
Yoshino:  “Hey! Put on your headgear!”
Masaru:  “I don’t need it! Besides, he’s not wearing any!”
Masaru and Tohma are both being reckless idiots here, pointlessly endangering themselves because of their pride. They’re both telling themselves “I don’t need to protect myself to win against him”, and they’re certainly not going to be the only one to wear headgear while the other doesn’t and end up looking like they’re only winning because they have an unfair advantage, or like they’re wearing it because they’re worried.
It is notable that Yoshino is only trying to encourage Masaru to wear the headgear. Apparently she’s already expecting Tohma to have the upper hand here? Ouch.
As you’d expect, the first few moves of the fight are Masaru throwing wild punches at Tohma while he easily dodges them all.
Tohma:  “You put all your faith in power without using any strategy or tactics.”
Which pretty much sums up the entire Masaru-Tohma contrast going on here: reckless power versus careful strategy.
Tohma:  “Why did you join DATS?”
Masaru:  “Huh?! It was so I could win, obviously!”
Tohma:  “Against who?”
Masaru:  “Against strong guys!”
Look at how Masaru doesn’t even think to specify who he wants to win against at first, because the exact opponent he’s fighting isn’t the point. He just wants to challenge himself and prove to himself how strong he is by winning those challenges, and fighting Digimon happens to be the best way for him to do that right now.
Also look at how Masaru has completely stopped caring about the part where the other reason he joined was so that Agumon wouldn’t be taken from him. That genuinely does not matter to him any more, now that he’s here anyway because he wants to be.
(So it’s actually kind of a bit much that Tohma is insisting Masaru should be dismissed from DATS – because that would mean he’d lose not only this job, but also Agumon.)
Tohma finally stops just dodging and counters with a blow to Masaru’s stomach – the first punch that’s actually landed for either of them – giving him a sense of the high ground as he says these next words.
Tohma:  “What a boring story. DATS has an important mission. Every member has an obligation and a responsibility to carry that out.”
It’s very appropriate that Tohma would be so disdainful of Masaru being here for entirely personal reasons, while he feels like this whole thing is supposed to be about a sense of duty for a greater purpose. That noble Norstein family heritage is showing just a little bit.
Obviously, DATS’s general mission of covering up Digimon incidents is indeed important, but so long as he helps them do that anyway, what does it actually matter if that’s not the reason Masaru’s here?
Masaru:  “Shut up! Stop acting all elite!”
Masaru still does not like Tohma constantly acting like he’s better than him, like he’s just this perfect superhuman who doesn’t even have any personal desires of his own other than to do as he’s supposed to.
Tohma:  (He’s beyond help.)
Geez, Tohma, that is going a bit far. Again, he’s just writing Masaru off entirely because he doesn’t fit Tohma’s idea of how things should be, rather than trying to understand his different view on things.
(But of course, Masaru is not really being any better about trying to understand Tohma’s perspective and is currently similarly writing him off as an elitist jerk who needs to be taken down a peg.)
Tohma follows this thought up by punching Masaru right in the face, implying he’s been going easy until now and has finally started getting serious, expecting this single blow to end this. Which it does, because Masaru is knocked to the ground and doesn’t manage to rise for Yoshino’s count of ten, making Tohma the winner of this boxing match.
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(please appreciate this look on Masaru’s face as he realises that Tohma has arguably beaten him, that maybe he really is inferior)
…But of course Masaru’s not just gonna stand for that. As Tohma is about to leave the ring, Masaru finally manages to get to his feet anyway.
Masaru:  “Wait right there… You really are… spouting a lot…”
Tohma:  “The match is over.”
Masaru:  “Match? What we’re having is a serious fight! It’s not a game!”
He doesn’t care about anything so pointlessly official as a match or a countdown to determine the winner. Settling their differences and proving who’s strongest goes way beyond those silly arbitrary restrictions!
With these words, Masaru manages to punch Tohma just as hard in the face… albeit only because Tohma was turned away and not quite ready to defend himself. Still, as far as Masaru would see it, in terms of his usual kind of fights, that’s on him! If he turned away from an opponent who’s still able and willing to fight him, that’s just letting his guard down!
Masaru:  “A fight doesn’t end until one side admits defeat!”
That’s the only rule Masaru needs for his street fights. So long as the combatants are still willing to fight each other, anything goes!
In fairness to Tohma, he doesn’t even complain about Masaru catching him off guard and seems quite willing to accept these new “terms” for the fight, because they jump right back into beating each other up.
We cut to later in the main control room.
Masaru:  “Damn it… That bastard…”
Yoshino:  “You should be happy it was a draw!”
Who’s betting it was Yoshino’s decision that it was a draw. I can’t imagine either Masaru or Tohma being willing to even admit to that much. After a while of them trading blows and obviously being quite evenly matched to the point that this could end up going on forever, Yoshino probably stepped in and insisted they call it off as a draw before they seriously hurt each other.
Yoshino:  “Tohma’s beaten Olympic champions in the past.”
…Yeah, so also on top of everything else, Tohma is a supremely talented boxer. But I don’t mind, because something like that is necessary for him to be able to equal Japan’s number one street fighter in a fistfight. And his fighting style being the precise and controlled sport of boxing rather than anything-goes street brawls once again serves to contrast their approaches. Tohma’s boxing talent is just another part of making him Masaru’s equal and opposite. These two are such good foils for each other.
Masaru:  “Well, I’ve taken out the leader of the third Minato high school!”
That is totally an equivalent thing here, right. He’s successfully beaten tough guys, too, the context doesn’t matter. Masaru was expecting to win and not just draw, damn it!
Yoshino:  “Really, the only things worthy of a gold medal around here are your pride and your competitive attitude.”
I love her snark. She’s not wrong. (Though really, Tohma’s pride would be giving Masaru just as much competition for that medal.)
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I also love how pouty Masaru is.
It’s interesting how Yoshino’s putting band-aids on Masaru’s bruises, yet Tohma then walks into the room (still barely acknowledging Masaru) with an equally bruised face, and Yoshino’s not trying to tend to him. It’s like how she was only trying to get Masaru to wear the headgear earlier and not Tohma.
At this point, I doubt this is so much about thinking Masaru is weaker and more in need of this than Tohma, since she just watched them match each other in a fight. So maybe it’s more that Yoshino finds Masaru more approachable than Tohma. For all his reckless stubbornness, Masaru’s basically still a regular person, while Tohma’s from a whole other world to her. Perhaps she simply feels more comfortable directing this mom-friend behaviour at Masaru rather than Tohma, despite having known Tohma for longer.
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The Digimon-signal alarm blares and Masaru instantly shifts to this excited grin. What a dork.
It’s more PetitMeramon. A lot of them. Turns out that if even the tiniest flame from their body is left behind, it can develop into a new PetitMeramon. Hearing this prompts Masaru to recall his earlier unsuccessful attempts to punch it, which only succeeded in sending little embers from its body flying everywhere.
Masaru:  (This is my fault…)
It’s admirable of Masaru to immediately acknowledge this rather than stubbornly try and make excuses to himself and pretend he totally didn’t mess anything up at all. But it is notable that he’s not saying that out loud. Which is probably because Tohma’s in the room, and he doesn’t want to give Tohma even more ammo to keep claiming that he’s a liability here.
Kudamon:  “It’s up to you, Tohma, Gaomon.”
Masaru:  “Wait! Those fireballs are ours to beat!”
Masaru insists this partly because he’s still frustrated that he didn’t get to finish the fight himself earlier, but almost certainly also because he feels responsible for this. This is his mess, and he wants to at least make up for it by being the one to fix things.
Tohma:  “Are you 100% certain you can secure these Digimon?”
Masaru:  “Damn right! We’ll pull it off somehow using our spirits!”
Such certainty. Masaru is definitely the kind of person to optimistically throw himself into things without being sure what the outcome will be. Usually, it might be reasonable to bank on that, but against this particular enemy which Masaru and Agumon currently have no way of even damaging… probably not.
Satsuma:  “This time, Tohma and Gaomon are best for the job.”
Satsuma realises this, too, of course. I like how he’s specifying that this is only because Tohma and Gaomon are more suited for this particular job, which is extremely true, and not that they’re better overall, which Masaru would not respond well to.
Satsuma:  “Yoshino. You and Lalamon will go to support Tohma.”
Which is to say, Yoshino will drive the car, because Tohma isn’t old enough to do that. (Lalamon won’t really be doing anything at all.) Tohma came to the earlier fight from his limo, but it seems that was only because he was being driven to DATS HQ and happened across the Digimon on the way. Limousines are not the usual DATS-approved method of transportation to Digimon incidents, funnily enough.
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Masaru, having been ordered to stay behind and just watch them, is left feeling frustrated and inadequate.
(It’s really only because you can’t punch fire, Masaru!)
Gaomon fighting alone against the swarm of PetitMeramon achieves basically nothing, so Tohma very quickly switches from “Plan A” to “Plan A-2” and evolves him. (I like how it’s not “Plan B” and is totally just an alternate version of the first plan. It’s definitely not that trying to fight a swarm of several Child-level Digimon with a single Child-level was ever a bad plan and really he should have evolved Gaomon from the start.)
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It’s a neat detail that Tohma clicks his fingers to summon his Digisoul. Yoshino does kind of a similar thing, not clicking her fingers but instead making a very particular emphatic motion with her hand. It’s like they need some sort of psychological trigger to get it to work – which then also makes it slightly less ridiculous that Masaru needs to outright punch a Digimon to get his to show up. It’s just a stronger kind of psychological trigger, is all! And Tohma and Yoshino have been doing this for a long time. Maybe it usually takes a lot of practice to be able to get one’s Digisoul to show up on command, and the reason why Masaru’s has this extra condition to trigger it is actually because he’s new at this.
I want to take this moment to inform everyone that Gaogamon is a very good fuzzy doggy. He’s one of my favourite Digimon designs.
As an Adult-level, Gaogamon is exponentially stronger than these Child-level PetitMeramon and can easily take down the entire swarm of them in a single attack. Digimon evolution levels, everybody. This isn’t even Gaogamon being especially impressive; this is just how it was always going to turn out.
Tohma:  “3 minutes, 47 seconds. We shortened it by another minute.”
Okay, so, some of Tohma’s genius traits can come across as a little bit silly in practice, such as this idea here that he and Gaomon have been timing themselves in their fights against rogue Digimon and constantly bringing that time down. It doesn’t take a genius to understand that each opponent they fight is different, so really it should be completely unreasonable to act like their times for each fight are at all comparable and that completing one fight faster than another means anything. (Plus, this is a thing that’s never going to come up again.)
Still, I do appreciate the narrative purpose of this bit – to show that Tohma is always pushing to improve himself and be better, despite being so incredibly hypercompetent at everything he does already. A lot like Masaru is always striving to challenge himself and get stronger despite already feeling like the strongest fighter in Japan! They are really not so different in a lot of ways.
Also, note how Tohma is getting to fight here, but it’s not the climactic fight of the episode. Just like I talked about for Yoshino in the previous episode: even though this is his introduction, this is not actually Tohma’s episode. It’s still Masaru’s. Tohma gets to have this fight and win it not for his own sake (the whole thing is so effortless that it’s not at all an interesting narrative from his point of view), but rather for the sake of Masaru’s conflict in this episode, because seeing how good Tohma is at this contributes to Masaru’s feelings of inferiority.
Agumon:  “Wow…”
Having watched Tohma and Gaomon’s performance from HQ, even Agumon can’t help but be impressed. But then he catches himself and looks guiltily at Masaru, realising he’s just making him feel worse. Aww.
It is interesting to note how, despite all the similarities between him and Masaru, Agumon himself doesn’t seem nearly as bothered by being outclassed by Gaomon in the same way. After all, he’s still a kid who knows he’s got a lot to learn from his aniki; Agumon has never tried to present himself as the best person around at fighting like Masaru does.
Kudamon:  “Understand now? This is the difference in ability between you and Tohma.”
Kudamon is apparently quite happy to imply that Masaru is significantly inferior to Tohma. Satsuma, though, doesn’t say anything to agree. I get the sense that Kudamon was a lot less on board with bringing Masaru into DATS, even though he ultimately accepted Satsuma’s decision to do so.
Masaru rushes out of the control room in frustration, with Agumon following.
Kudamon:  “Aren’t you going to stop him?”
Satsuma:  “Leave him alone.”
I like that Satsuma gets that this is something Masaru needs to figure out on his own, and that trying to talk to him directly about this is probably only going to make him feel worse.
(It’s this kind of approach of Satsuma’s that makes me think that him being so indirect about recruiting Masaru was on purpose out of him wanting Masaru to make the decision for himself.)
Masaru runs out of the DATS building through a tunnel that I’m pretty sure incidentally happens to be the same one we saw Agumon escaping through at the very beginning of the first episode.
Agumon:  “Aniki… Why are you angry?”
Masaru:  “Shut up!”
[Masaru trips in his running and falls to the ground]
Masaru:  “Damn it…”
I enjoy how Masaru tripping over serves to illustrate how his unthinking recklessness doesn’t always end well.
Agumon:  “Well, I think Tohma and Gaomon are nasty guys too, but…”
Aww, Agumon, trying to show that he’s still on his aniki’s side. And, yeah, he agrees that Tohma and Gaomon have been kind of dicks to them so far, but… (but still, he doesn’t get why Aniki is this upset about it.)
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Masaru looks at Agumon with this bitter look for a moment, almost like he’s tempted to agree and just keep sniping at Tohma… but then he drops it.
Masaru:  “No… It’s myself that I’m mad at, not them.”
Of course that’s been what this is really about. This is the first time in a long time that Masaru’s been given any sense that he’s not good enough at something he really wants to do. This isn’t about Tohma; Tohma’s presence just brought this out of him.
And hey, big props to Masaru for being willing to admit this! He couldn’t quite do so at HQ in front of everyone, and especially not in front of Tohma himself, but at least he’s willing to do so here in front of Agumon. A weaker person could easily have kept insisting that, no, this totally is all about that arrogant jerk Tohma, and avoided the necessary self-reflection, but Masaru is generally pretty good at being emotionally honest about things, even when it stings.
He also happens to pull the band-aid off his face at this moment, which I enjoy – needing his wounds patched up is a sign of weakness that he doesn’t like having.
Masaru:  “Damn it! What am I doing? Really… what the hell am I doing?”
You’re doing your best, Masaru! Just like you’ve always, always been doing!
I really like how Masaru can’t actually properly articulate what the problem is. He knows there’s something wrong, something that’s frustrating him about himself, but he can’t put it into words. It doesn’t seem like he’s properly consciously aware of why he’s so into his whole fighting thing, and why he wanted to “fight stronger opponents” through joining DATS, so he can’t quite grasp why feeling like he’s not good enough at this bothers him so much.
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Also, my compliments to the animators, and to Masaru’s VA. He looks and sounds like he’s on the brink of tears here, and it is good.
Masaru reaches the end of the tunnel… and who should he run into but the old man who gave him his Digivice, who’s sitting there cooking a fish like nothing is more natural.
Old man:  “It’s hard lighting up a fire… The sparks go out easily whenever the wind gets a little too strong.”
Masaru:  “Well, obviously!”
Old man:  “But… once I get a larger flame going, it burns strongly no matter how much the wind blows. Fire is an interesting thing, isn’t it?”
What we learned about the old man last episode is that he finds Masaru interesting and likes randomly showing up whenever Masaru is acting in a way that he considers to be interesting. Apparently, he got wind somehow of the fact that Masaru has been having these doubts, and so he showed up to just… observe, and express his observations in metaphor form. He’s comparing Masaru to the fire, saying that right now his “sparks” aren’t quite strong enough to keep going when something challenges them – but that soon enough, if he just keeps growing more, he’ll become so strong that nothing will be able to stand in his way.
That said, I highly, highly doubt that the old man expects Masaru to actually learn anything from this metaphor – I’m sure he must know well enough to expect anything and everything metaphorical to go right over Masaru’s head. This isn’t actually an attempt to give Masaru advice. This guy just likes being a mysterious old man who makes abstract metaphors about people he finds interesting, that’s all. Sooner or later, Masaru’s flame is going to burn so brightly that nothing at all can blow it out, and won’t that be fascinating to watch?
(I agree, old man. It will. That’s why I’m here, too.)
[Masaru stares intently at the fire the old man has managed to light]
Masaru:  “This is…”
And naturally, Masaru, who wouldn’t understand a metaphor if it punched him in the face, completely failed to pick up on what the old man was getting at. Instead, what this metaphor also coincidentally (or maybe not so coincidentally?) happened to be was some pretty useful advice on how to deal with the very literal, practical problem he’s been having today.
Before he can think on that further, Masaru hears a conversation over his earpiece. There’s more PetitMeramon signals, in a place where gas tanks are – not a great place for living fireballs to be flying around – and Yoshino and Tohma are 10 minutes away in their car.
Masaru:  “Leave it to me!”
Yoshino:  “Huh? What are you saying?”
Tohma:  “You can’t do it!”
Masaru:  “Shut up! I can get there in 3 minutes!”
The perfect opportunity for Masaru to get the chance to prove himself! Under other circumstances, it’d be arguably better for Masaru to stay back and leave this to Tohma again. Having shown some self-reflection on things, even Masaru himself would probably be willing to accept that and relent. But in an emergency like this, when he’s the closest one to it? Damn it, he has to at least try.
Since the “there” in question was only described as being “Area B-42”, what we have to conclude from this is that somehow Masaru has magically memorised all those location codes already. He doesn’t seem to be making this up to save face; he’s looking at an area off in the distance that he’d probably reasonably be able to sprint to in that time.
(Well, either that or he just assumed based on knowing that this is the only remotely nearby area with gas tanks. Maybe it’s that.)
Satsuma:  “I won’t approve of this!”
Masaru:  “Whatever, just watch! I’ll get ‘em this time!”
This isn’t Masaru arrogantly trying to show off and refusing to acknowledge that he’s unsuited for this. This is Masaru genuinely caring about trying to prevent the crisis if he can – and this time, he does have at least some idea of how to go about doing so.
Masaru makes it to the gas tanks, where there are indeed three PetitMeramon floating around.
Masaru:  “Agumon! Use Baby Burner!”
I’m… not sure how Masaru knew that Agumon even has an attack called Baby Burner, since he’s never used it before. I would say he could have had some kind of offscreen fight as a DATS member already in the three days he’s been here, but Yoshino’s response to his failure earlier suggested that today was indeed his first proper DATS mission.
Agumon:  “My attacks don’t work on them!”
Masaru:  “You heard me, do it!”
Agumon:  “Okay…”
Agumon is such a loyal follower! He doesn’t understand why this is a good idea – in fact, it seems like a thoroughly bad one – but he trusts his aniki’s judgement and does it anyway, even as it only seems to make the PetitMeramon stronger and Masaru keeps ordering more.
After enough fire, the three PetitMeramon grow strong enough to fuse together and evolve into Meramon. (Hey, at least this one’s a non-partnered evolution that makes sense to be happening right now.)
Agumon:  “It evolved! What now, Aniki?”
[Masaru grins]
Masaru:  “This is perfect!”
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I love Masaru’s cocky taunting face here. He knows he’s got this, and he’s so ready to just have a good old fight again, like always.
Masaru:  “Fire sparks easily go out whenever the wind blows on them. But… Once they burst into flame…!”
[Masaru leaps to punch the Meramon quite solidly in the face and lands with his Digisoul flaring]
Masaru:  “They won’t be extinguished so easily!”
This was what he got out of the old man’s words. Not metaphorical advice about his emotional struggles, of course not – instead, just very literal advice on how to punch fire. He couldn’t punch the PetitMeramon because they were small enough that the wind of his punches just blew the flames out before he could connect. But if he makes the fire bigger and stronger? Then it’s no problem!
And you know what this is? This is Masaru using strategy. It’s a strategy that he needed someone else to nudge him towards – he’s still not really the kind of person to come up with something like this on his own – and it’s also a much more straightforward, reckless, Masaru-style strategy than someone cautious like Tohma would ever dare to use. But hey. It worked.
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(Also, please appreciate this ridiculous shot of the DATS car skidding sideways as it dramatically arrives on the scene. That is not how cars work, but okay. …In fact, surely it’s been less than seven minutes that Masaru’s been here; I guess Yoshino floored it to get here as fast as she could, hence the dramatic skidding? She drives like a badass.)
Tohma:  “He got it to evolve on purpose… by making the fire stronger…”
See, even Tohma appreciates what the strategy was, even if he’s kind of gobsmacked at it being something so reckless.
And then, as usual, GeoGreymon wins the fight in a single attack. But again, I don’t really mind. The interesting part was getting to this point in the first place.
The Meramon disintegrates into three eggs, appropriate for the three PetitMeramon it came from – but it kinda raises some questions that this single Adult-level Digimon was effectively three individual Digimon in one. It also raises some questions that PetitMeramon was able to multiply itself just by its embers setting stuff on fire, and each of those multiplied offshoots also had its own individual egg. Is this just a particularly unique method of Digimon reproduction? I am definitely not supposed to be thinking about it this much.
Masaru:  “How’s that? I was able to take out the PetitMeramon, too!”
Having shown that he can do just as good of a job as Tohma after all, Masaru has bounced right back from his self-doubt and is feeling good about himself again. This kid doesn’t stay down for long.
Tohma:  “Don’t let this go to your head. You were just lucky this time.”
It really was not luck. Masaru used an actual strategy that he had good reason to believe would work. Tohma himself even just about acknowledged this during the fight… but not now, now that Masaru is properly listening to him and he’d have to acknowledge that to Masaru.
(A bit like how Masaru only acknowledged his own sense of inadequacy when Tohma wasn’t around.)
Masaru:  “It’s just like I told you. The ones who don’t give up until the end win the fight!”
Masaru claims this is like he told Tohma, but is it really about him? After all, Masaru himself was the one who had almost given up for a moment. It’s more like he’s saying this to remind himself that he shouldn’t have done that and should have just believed he could do it all along. (Like the old man said, he just needs to let his sparks grow into a bigger, unstoppable flame!)
We cut right from the location of the fight back to DATS HQ, while the argument amusingly continues as if there was no timeskip at all. They were probably arguing like this all the way back in the car, too. (Poor Yoshino.)
Tohma:  “Don’t be absurd. You don’t come up with any strategy or tactics. Do you think using force all the time will let you win at everything?”
He literally did come up with a strategy, though, Tohma! Maybe a strategy that relied on force, maybe not the kind of careful, cautious strategy that you’d use, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t count as a strategy!
Masaru:  “Hah, sounds like a sore loser to me.”
Yeah, I think Masaru’s spot on with this one. Tohma refusing to acknowledge Masaru’s approach in that fight as a legitimate if risky strategy really does seem like he’s just being a sore loser.
(Though I like how Masaru himself isn’t even trying to argue that it was strategic of him. Clearly that’s not something that he sees as being worth bragging about.)
Tohma:  “What did you say?”
Masaru:  “Wanna make somethin’ of it? I’ll knock you out with one hit to the face this time!”
Oh my god, Masaru. Look at this competitive dork. Now that he’s got his confidence back and feels like he is just as good or better than Tohma after all, he’s ready to have a rematch in the ring and certain that this totally means he’ll win this time!
Satsuma shuts them both up with his, quoth Yoshino, “thunderous demon roar” – apparently a regular thing of his – and declares that Masaru and Tohma will be working together as a team from now on. Naturally, they are both Not Happy about this.
Yoshino:  “This is the worst…”
Neither is Yoshino. This is a catchphrase of hers, which is sometimes used when things are going badly in a crisis, but is just as often used simply to express her sheer exasperation at the people around her. I love her role as the Only Sane Man among these two ridiculous over-the-top dorks she’s wound up working with.
Overall thoughts
I like this episode a lot! It’s a great introduction to Tohma, specifically in the context of him serving as a foil to Masaru.
There will be a lot more things about Tohma’s own issues and situation (like I said, there’s a reason for all the genius stuff, I promise) that we’ll eventually get into, but that’ll be a gradual process, because Tohma is not the sort of person to talk about his personal problems to anyone else. For now, since Masaru is the single main character of this series and we therefore see a lot of things through his perspective, it’s appropriate that Tohma is introduced in terms of how he differs from Masaru (as well as a few hints at their similarities).
Then, because of this, we get spend a lot of the episode on Masaru feeling outclassed and how he deals with that, and it’s delightful and subtle and I love it. The first two episodes were setting up the deal with Masaru encountering Agumon and joining DATS, but now that we’ve settled into a little more of a status quo, it’s the perfect time to start digging into Masaru’s character and have things begin to challenge his conception of his own strength. There will be more of this, and I’m looking very much forward to covering those episodes in particular.
This won’t really ever come up again, but it’s incidentally neat to see Masaru struggling with an enemy he can’t punch, and eventually coming up with a strategy by interpreting the old man’s metaphor about his issues literally, because of course he does.
I also just love the old man being there making metaphors about Masaru’s issues simply because he felt like it and finds Masaru interesting. He serves as a nice little narrative device to help draw the audience’s attention to when things are going on with Masaru, as we’ll see in a few more episodes in this arc. I can’t help but appreciate that about the old man, because it’s also basically what I’m doing with this commentary.
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[Dub comparison]
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seiin-translations · 3 years
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2.43 S1 Chapter 5.3 - Stand By Me
3. FAKE
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Kuroba and Haijima hit the big city~
Translation Notes
1. Tohoku is the northeast portion of Honshu, the largest island of Japan and consists of Akita, Aomori, Fukushima, Iwate, Miyagi, and Yamagata. Hokuriku is the northwest part and consists of Ishikawa, Fukui, Niigata and Toyama
2. A school with an escalator system is one where the school allows you to advance from one stage of education to the next without having to do entrance exams; these kinds of schools are usually private schools
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He could feel the train shaking, but his consciousness seemed to be clouded.
So noisy… The noise around him grew louder, his consciousness, which had been drifting just below the thin film of his dream, popped to the surface. The sounds of people talking in the distance suddenly became clear in his ears. Passengers began to hurriedly move about, returning seats and tables to their original positions and unloading luggage from racks. For a moment, he thought they were in Maibara, but they were supposed to have already passed Maibara and transferred to the bullet train.
I feel kinda…sluggish…?
After he fell asleep and woke up, he suddenly felt sluggish. I felt somewhat tired before getting on the train, but there’s something strange about this… His whole body felt faintly heavy, like it was covered in a leaden shell.
And then the thing he was resting his head on suddenly disappeared, and his entire upper body slumped to the side.
“Ow…”
His temples throbbed where earpieces of his glasses dug into them. One side of his neck muscles was stretched out and stiff. He screwed up his face as he pressed his neck and saw Kuroba’s back in front of him.
“Wow. We’re really in Tokyo. Wow…”
Kuroba leaned toward the window and shouted with child-like glee, and he could see the smoggy sky beyond his head. The skyscrapers in the city center shone in the pale sunlight. The in-train announcements announced their arrival at Tokyo, the last stop. The train temporarily separated from the dazzling cityscape and slid into the neutral-colored platform.
“…Wait, Tokyo!?”
Haijima pushed Kuroba’s back aside and quickly raised his heavy body.
“Why didn’t you wake me up at Shinagawa?”
“Shinagawa? That’s not Tokyo.”
“I told you we’re getting off at Shinagawa. It’s closer from there.”
“Yeah, but the tickets said Tokyo, right?”
“It says ‘Within the wards of Tokyo.’”
“…So, that’s Tokyo…?”
In all probability, Kuroba didn’t have the Tokyo transit map in his head, so there was no point in engaging with him.
He pulled his bag down from the rack and headed for the doors, pushed by the waves of passengers getting off one after another. As he stepped onto the platform, he felt the air flow and realized how stagnant the dense air inside the train had become. It was the first time in a long while that he felt the air of Tokyo. The air filled with the body heat of people in close quarters definitely wasn’t clear, but the sluggishness eased a little when he breathed in the outside air.
Although he wasn’t nearly as provincial as Kuroba, Haijima hadn’t used Tokyo Station much, so he was bewildered. However, they would cause congestion if they stood in place too long. He started walking before looking for the information board, thinking that if he followed the flow of people, he would soon reach the ticket gates for transferring to the non-conventional train lines.
“Hey, don’t leave me behind. I’ll cry if I get lost here. I’ll definitely get lost.”
“If you get lost, turn on your phone. I’ll call you.”
“I never exchanged my email address or phone number with you. I didn’t get a phone until I was in high school.”
“…Is that right? Then, let’s do it now…”
Passersby roughly pushed them out of the way as they were standing in their way talking. He stumbled back two steps, but when he turned around, he saw that Kuroba had disappeared into the crowd.
“Kuro…”
He was overwhelmed by the scenery that zoomed past before his eyes and froze.
He felt as though the world around him was moving at a speed of 1.3 times faster than he was used to. The pace of the people around were extremely hurried, and the train station announcements sounded high-pitched and rapid. He didn’t feel like that when he lived there before, but he wondered if the world had accelerated in the two years he had been away—he felt like he was going to get thrown from this swift current by centrifugal force, and he was subconsciously looking for something to cling to.
Suddenly, his bag was yanked from the side and he was pulled back into the crowd. He felt the strap digging into his stomach and almost threw up, but it kept him connected to the world. He unintentionally let out a sigh of relief.
“I told you not to leave me.” Kuroba was gripping the strap tightly. Well, he’s the one who has a miserable look on his face like a little kid pulling on his mom’s skirt.
“I didn’t leave you…”
I was the one who thought I was left behind for a moment.
***
“Meisei Academy – High School”
The name of the school was engraved in a ceramic board set into the brick wall.
It was just after school, and the open school gates spewed out students in uniforms with the somewhat pretentious designs typical of private schools. On the grounds of the school, they could see students from athletic clubs dressed in jerseys forming large and small groups and coming and going in whichever directions they wished.
If they had gotten off at Nanafu Station this morning and gone to school as usual, they would have finished their day of classes and gone home by now. It had taken them a whole school day to get here. It might have been closer than he thought, or it might have been farther, because a whole school day of classes was quite painful for him.
“This school looks like it could be the setting for a drama. Private schools in Tokyo really are different.”
Kuroba said in a stupid voice, after opening his mouth stupidly and gazing at the school building towering over the gates. Haijima didn’t know how to feel about that impression, since he rarely watched TV dramas, but standing in a corner of a crowd of uniforms with a distinctive color scheme of dark red and grey, he felt like Seiin’s uniform of just a white shirt and black pants really did seem extremely simple. Some carried non-designated bags or backpacks, but the majority carried the dark red school bag on their shoulders.
“The skirts are shorter than I thought. The way they wear their uniforms are different too. What the hell are Itoko and the others copying?” Kuroba muttered as he watched groups of Meisei girls passing through the school gates.
Then, those girls turned to look at them. “Whoa!” Kuroba was startled and leaned towards him.
The girls started chatting with each other and giggling as they pulled on each other’s uniforms that were worn in a different way and looked at them. Haijima felt a chill in the pit of his stomach.
“H-Hey, those Tokyo girls are looking at us. They’re kind of talking happily. Do you think we might be standing out a lot? Maybe that girl over there thinks I’m cute? What should I do if she’s saying something like that?”
He took another look at the girls’ uniforms from behind Kuroba, who was losing his mind and whispering into his ear, and secretly let out a breath. They weren’t in the same year as him—the Meisei girls’ uniform had ties for the middle schoolers and ribbons for the high schoolers, and the school years could be distinguished by the color. He remembered that his own year was dark blue. The ribbons of those girls were dark green. That was probably the third years’ color. If they were two years above him, they probably didn’t know about back then.
Why did I think they were talking about that just because they looked over here and laughed…more than I expected, I’m…
“You know, I got a sense of it when we arrived here, but we’re pretty tall even in Tokyo.”
“Kuroba…I…might be nervous.”
He muttered that in a hoarse voice, and Kuroba’s face turned serious again like he just remembered.
He was trembling slightly, as though the ends of his body were numb. The feeling of stepping on the ground felt light and fluffy. His throat was unusually dry. He didn’t think his body would react like this when he stood before the gates of Meisei—he had never been nervous in a volleyball game.
“…Haijima, you’re not turning back, are you? You understood and came this far, didn’t you?”
It wouldn’t have been strange if the usual Kuroba told him that he could turn back if he didn’t want to do this. He might have been hoping for that somewhere in his mind. But the slightly harsh voice encouraged him.
“I’m the one who spurred you on. I’m not going to make a way out for you. You’re fine with that, right?”
“…”
He nodded. He remembered that, didn’t he.
“Excuse us!”
They heard a voice in the distance. He didn’t think it was calling them, but Kuroba looked back at the gate with a “Nnn?” and Haijima was influenced to look up as well.
“Sorry we’re late, you’re from H High, right? The captain told us to come welcome you…”
Two boys came running towards them from inside the school. They looked like they were from a sports team with their matching T-shirts and knee-length track pants, and both of their heights were in the 170 centimeter range, which was taller than the average height for boys. However, rather than their heights, he guessed that they were volleyball players because of their builds that gave the impression that they were stretching lankily upwards, and they probably judged them to be the same for the same reasons. He could clearly see the logo “MEISEI VOLLEYBALL TEAM” printed across their chests.
They came running up to them in a friendly manner, but seemed to realize they had mistaken them for the people from H High because of their different uniforms, and they immediately looked suspicious.
“Huh? Sorry, which school…”
One of them was about to say when the other boy next to him spoke up.
“…Chika?”
The only people who called him by his childhood nickname were his acquaintances from his elementary and middle school volleyball days in Tokyo. The name itself now sounded like an accusation to Haijima, and his heart twinged. “Huh? Ah…” The boy next to him also stared at his face, and then exclaimed, “Seriously!? It is Chika!”
“…Tetto and, Kou…?”
Haijima called the names of his former teammates.
Komukai Tetsuto and Ikawa Kou. In middle school, their positions were libero and reserve setter respectively. It was no surprise to him that they made it this far. The school had an escalator system, so about seventy percent of the students came from the middle school division. In addition, athletic team students generally participated in the same club activities in both middle and high school. One of Meisei Academy’s selling points was the long-term development of athletes through an integrated junior and senior high school system.
“You’re here to watch us practice, right? I knew you’re still doing volleyball. There’s no way Chika would quit volleyball.”
Komukai took the initiative to speak as he led the way down the tree-lined path towards the gym. The unexpectedly cheerful welcome left Haijima bewildered.
“Go tell everyone, Kou. Chika came to hang out.”
“Isn’t practice about to start? And what are we going to do about the people from H High?”
Ikawa pulled out his phone while sneaking glances at Haijima. Unlike Komukai, he could read a hint of hesitation in Ikawa’s voice.
Komukai, Ikawa, and Haijima walked side by side. Kuroba, looking out of place, walked several steps behind.
It was Komukai who first heard about Yoshino’s suicide attempt and told everyone on the team about it. Haijima also clearly remembered that Komukai was part of the outbreak of people who blamed him for it afterwards. What if I meet someone who knew about what happened at that time? …Will I be treated like a “murderer” again”…? He had been bracing himself for that, but he had no idea what to do with this reaction that made him forget why he even transferred to another school.
“I think I heard that the school you transferred to was in your grandma’s town, but where was it again? It’s in Tohoku, right? Are you going to high school there now?”
“Fukui’s not in Tohoku, it’s in Hokuriku. (1) It’s Fukui’s Seiin High School.”
Kuroba corrected him unhappily from behind. “Who’s that, your friend from there?” Komukai asked. Haijima answered him while looking over his shoulder at Kuroba.
“My high school teammate, Kuroba, …He’s my friend since kindergarten. …And our ace attacker.” Kuroba looked shocked, and he himself wondered why he had said it like they were separate items.
“Wow. Pretty amazing for a first year, ace attacker. I’m Komukai,” Komukai said carefreely, and Ikawa introduced himself with “Hello, I’m Ikawa,” while texting.
“I’ve never heard of Fukui’s Seiin. Are you guys strong?”
“Unh…we still don’t have any achievements yet, but we’ll get there.”
“Our team made it to the Kanto tournament this year, but we finished in the best sixteen.”
“That’s the power of the upperclassmen, you mean. Did you do anything?”
He interjected because he felt something off about the way he said it. Komukai, who had been talking smoothly, broke off. Ikawa looked up from his phone as though he was startled.
Komukai shrugged his shoulders as though he was exasperated for some reason.
“That part of you hasn’t changed at all.”
“…What do you mean by ‘that part’?”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
Unlike Seiin, Meisei didn’t have a shortage of freshmen on the bench. It was the efforts of the older students that got them to the Kanto Tournament, and he was sure that was why the older students were so disappointed that they finished in the best sixteen. The only people who could say “in the end” were the players themselves. He felt that there was something wrong about someone who hadn’t contributed to that talking in a self-depreciating way about it…was that wrong?
Suddenly, the back of his collar was grabbed and yanked hard. Haijima stumbled as Kuroba thrust his face between them and cut into the conversation.
“Hey, more importantly, is that Yoshino guy here today?”
“Yoshino? Oh, Yoshino Souta? Well, he doesn’t go here, but…he went some place near my house. You’re still in touch with him, right, Kou?”
“Ah, yeah, he went to a different high school.”
“What…but this place has an escalator system, doesn’t it?” (2)
“Yeah, but Souta quit the volleyball team.”
Ikawa timidly replied to Kuroba’s naïve question, and Komukai supplemented it. “It gets tough when you change clubs midway here. It’s perfectly fine to change, but it’s assumed that in high school you’d be staying in the same club.”
One step behind the three of them, Haijima was rooted to the spot like he had been thrown out of the conversation.
He’s lying, right…? Souta quit volleyball…?
He had just taken it for granted that he would be in Meisei High School’s volleyball team, and no other option had ever crossed his mind. When he thought about, of course there would be other options, but he never doubted that Yoshino would continue to play volleyball.
“…Was it, because, of that…?”
His voice became a lump and got stuck in his throat, causing him to speak in a strangely clumsy way. His vocal chords were blocked by something hard and he could only speak in chunks. He got these symptoms from time to time. The words hardened inside his body. Kuroba looked back at him and gave him a worried look. Komukai looked at Ikawa with a puzzled look on his face, and Ikawa whispered, “You know, Souta’s…incident,” while minding him.
“Incident? Oh, that—.”
Komukai lightly responded and scratched his head with a forced smile.
“I’m surprised, Chika, you still care about that. Uh, yeah, that doesn’t have anything to do with this, I think, because that was…what do you call it, a performance, you know? We did a lot of research on the internet to find out where you can cut and not be in too much danger. Half the team knew about it. Kou, you knew it too, right?”
“I, I didn’t know about it…”
“Souta’s not here anymore, so I can say this now, right? Well, we were talking about how no matter how dense Chika is, even he’d get it if someone died. Then we got excited and decided that someone should really do it and Souta volunteered. Well, even we were turned off when he really did it, but Souta probably couldn’t back down either——”  
…? What is he…?
He spoke so lightly that it slid smoothly over the surface of his ears before he could grasp the meaning of his words. What…is he talking about…? Is he talking about something that he can confess about with a half-smile like that right now? Komukai’s face was twisting and looking like a grotesque creature spouting unintelligible words. It’s disgusting——. Komukai’s face was twisting and looking like a grotesque creature spouting unintelligible words. It’s disgusting——.
A tall shadow flashed at the edge of his vision. Komukai’s slippery voice was cut short with a short cry.
“What the hell is that!? Is that true!?”
The one who grabbed Komukai’s collar and shouted that was Kuroba.
“Do you guys even know the difference between things you can joke about and things you can’t…”
“What’s it got to do with you? We didn’t think Chika would transfer to another school with just that back then…”
“With just that…!?” Growling that as though squeezing the words out from between his grinding teeth, Kuroba raised his fist.  
“Hey, what’s with this guy? Oi, Chika…” Komukai asked for help while covering his face with his arms. If I don’t stop him—even if he’s still suspected of fighting, it’s absolutely no good for him to cause trouble at another school. Are you saying that this is for you alone? Did it become like this because you want to be in a game? No…this is wrong, Kuroba, no—his voice was stuck in his throat and he couldn’t speak. He couldn’t move his body.
“Oi, what are you guys doing!?”
When a suspicious-sounding voice came flying from somewhere, he got impelled by it and somehow managed to step forward. He jumped at Kuroba while getting his legs tangled up and grabbed his arms. He shook his head slightly and appealed with his eyes to Kuroba, who ground his teeth in dissatisfaction. Kuroba clicked his tongue and loosened his hold on Komukai.
The wall of the gym could be seen at the end of the tree-lined path. Someone who appeared to be an older student on the volleyball team was standing in front of the metal doors of the entrance.
“Komukai, Ikawa? Where did you guys go! The guys from H High are already here, so there’s no point in making me go to welcome them.”
“Huh, really? Then we must have just missed them!”
While answering the angry shout with one of his own, Komukai tried to keep a distance from Kuroba, but Kuroba roughly grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back. “What the hell?” he protested, but his voice was quiet and he backed off.
The upperclassmen looked at them warily, since they came into the school wearing the uniforms of another school, but when he saw Haijima’s face, he seemed to recall something and he turned back to the gym and said something. It was then that Haijima also recalled the name of that team member. His name was Tatsumi and he was one year older than him. In middle school, Haijima had been on the bench since early in his first year and became the regular setter when the third years retired. In the high school, the upper and lower members would have remained almost unchanged, so there were probably not a few upperclassmen who remembered standing on the court with him.
Some more members came out of the gym as Tatsumi called them. He couldn’t make out the conversation, but the words “Haijima” and “Chika” kept leaking out.
“What’s with them, they’re acting like you’re a panda in a zoo.”
Kuroba muttered, sounding like he was unable to clear away his anger.
“Don’t you know, they’re wondering who’s that guy who looks like a delinquent from the boonies over there.”
When Komukai said that snidely, Kuroba pushed his shoulder with an indignant look and shoved him away. As Komukai was trying to straighten his stretched-out T-shirt while grumbling, Kuroba made a gesture of driving him away with his foot.  Just when Haijima wondered what he was going to say,
“Go tell them that Haijima and Kuroba from Seiin High School, the representative of Fukui Prefecture, came to challenge Meisei High School!”
“Hah?”
Komukai cried out wildly.
“You’re challenging us? Are you stupid? Where the hell is Seiin anyways?”
“I really don’t like the way Tokyo people say ‘stupid.’”
He put his face closer to Komukai’s, almost hanging over him, to silence him and reiterated it in a tone filled with intimidation.
“Didn’t you hear me? We’re Haijima and Kuroba from Seiin High School, representing Fukui Prefecture, have come to challenge Tokyo’s Meisei High. Now, go.”
He half-kicked Komukai’s behind and made him run. Ikawa looked back and forth between them as he hurriedly chased after him. “Keh,” Kuroba mimicked spitting at their backs before turning to him.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
He said with a sigh. He didn’t know what kind of face he was making because the nerve in his face had gone off somewhere.
“I know. I know that we can’t commit violence. That’s why, if you want to beat them up, you beat them in a match. That’s the way in sports manga, right? Don’t tell me you’re just gonna slink back home like this, Haijima? After you…got looked down on like that.”
When the corners of his mouth lifted to show his canines and made a disturbed face that looked like a combination of anger and a faint smile—he had never thought this even once until then, but he discovered that he looked exactly like Kuroba Yorimichi.
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fishylife · 2 years
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Street Dance of China, Season 4, Episode 8
- I don’t remember if I’ve said this before, but Poppin’C seems like such a chill guy. He always seems very optimistic, very open-minded, very friendly. I was just reminded when he was talking about what he thought of the first freestyle battle challenge. The thought it was difficult, but he wasn’t like, bitter about it or anything. He just takes the challenges as they come. But even from episodes past, we see that he’s very non-judgmental of stuff and things in general. Side note, the Chinese subtitles always call him Christian (which I assume is his given name).
- Henry’s outfit here is cute.
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- The relay freestyle dance challenge got really fun as we got through more rounds, and got dancers of different styles dancing to the same music.
- In the relay freestyle dance battle, you could tell who the versatile dancers are. We already knew Bouboo had range, but what I think is interesting is that his stage presence is so strong is that his dancing ends up overshadowing the song. It’s not bad, it’s just an observation, because a lot of his performances, even with very different music, sometimes have more of a similar feel, because his dance style is so strong. On the other hand, some dancers like Rochka or even Xiao Jie (even though he didn’t get to battle much) seem to fit themselves to the music, which makes them very entertaining to watch. It feels like I’m watching a different dancer when I see them dance to different sorts of music.
- The dancers praising Yixing for earning two points in the relay battle 🥰🥰
- This panel made me laugh because just as Rochka was going up against Yang Kai and very in the zone, someone shouted “Rochka’s really cute!” I mean, he is, but in this moment, I think he was going for cool.
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- My boy MT-Pop!!! I think this is the first time we’ve seen him actually freestyle (most of his previous performances were a prepared performance or a group performance) and I love how he maintains that creativity in his movements! Bouboo’s response to his challenge was pretty cool too, I loved that Bouboo matched MT-Pop in terms of having really interesting movements and weird body placements.
- Yixing being the first team to win 7 points, and MT-Pop and Yixing each getting 2 points 🥰🥰 Sorry but I am biased. During the battle, Yixing did mention that he and his teammates tried come up with an order that would be to their benefit (i.e. in terms of using music against their opponents). So the strategizing worked.
- You did so good dude!
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- Our little meowmeow was telling his team how he used all of his power on his first dance off and by the second battle he was already out of ideas lol. Except on his second battle against San’er he did have some good ideas!!
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- Poppin’C said Yixing’s krumping was so shuai :P
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- Is that Yixing running to grab the water bottles in the background?
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- I did like Ibuki’s performances over Nelson’s in their second place dance off. Like Judge Philip said, she had a lot of variety in her dance moves. Especially during the popping music, Ibuki did some popping (?) moves that I had not expected from her. In the first episodes, I thought she was all about waacking so I love seeing her expand her repertoire.
- Lmao Yuwan called Ibuki “全村的希望” which is something like “the hope of the village” XD
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- What’s also cute is that Yuwan called Ibuki 小吹, Xiaochui, because Weichui is the Chinese reading of the kanji for Ibuki.
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- And then he called her 村花, “Village Flower,” which is something akin to the village beauty.
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- MT-Pop and Poppin’C battled so many times together, and I had fun every time they did! The fact that they have so many routines is impressive. But I also just love how happy and cheerful they look every time. It makes their performances that much more interesting to watch.
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- Not gonna lie, seeing Ma Xialong dance hip hop was really fun haha. I think Han Geng’s team didn’t really have some “general” hip hop specialists, so that was why they had to ask Eleven and Ma Xiaolong to go forth, but I think they at least delivered a product that was fun to watch. If anything, they have swag.
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- Omg Xiaoji and Xiao Jie team for maximum entertainment
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- Rochka and Boris are so interesting to watch, because they are both such big boys, and it’s like, how do they move their arms and legs that fast when they’re so long??
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- It seems to me that the lockers always have very pleasant expressions, as in, they never forget to smile, which makes their performances very enjoyable to watch.
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- Chika and Han Yu are such a cute duo.
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- Okay but Han Geng? Sir? This fit? Old man team ftw.
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- You were wearing two pairs of sunglasses the whole time????
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- Han-xiansheng.....excuse me.....sir.....
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- Dianmen and Rei-san from Gogo Brothers was such an interesting combo because Dianmen is a popper and Rei-san is a locker, and this music is rather slow compared to normal locking music.
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- Ibuki and Eleven was pretty hype, even if they did lose their battle.
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- Judge Tam was praising MT-Pop and Poppin’C :3 She basically said that they technically aren’t similar dancers, but they have cool chemistry and fun ideas.
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- Yibo got a lot of praise in this challenge, because he danced three styles of battle (popping, locking, hip hop), which showed that he’s flexible, and as Judge Phillip said, it also means he has a good memory because he had to remember all those routines :P
- Poppin’C truly the realest dude ever. He was like we were happy that we were first, but can’t let your foot off the gas either, because Yibo’s team is going to be challenging them from second place.
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- Henry’s team is lowest in points right now, and Rochka was saying how Henry was being very encouraging and motivating.
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- Just a small note, Momo speaks in a combination of Japanese and English and it’s cute :P I remember Junna did that on the show too, but I think this is the first I’ve seen it in the interview section. Most of the Japanese dancers speak in Japanese even if their English is alright (e.g. Ibuki), though Momo more often speaks in English than Japanese from what I’ve observed.
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- The 5 person performance from Yixing’s team was cute! It wasn’t the most explosive, but it was very cute and quirky. I can see all of the influences of the different choreographers though. The parts when the dancers were in a V shape (more hip hop) were probably choreographed by Kenken, the parts relating to the table were probably choreographed by Bunta, and I think Huang Xiao did more of the choreography for himself and Qiao Zhi, who were supposed to represent the Chinese chefs. And actually I MT-Pop might’ve had a hand in choreographing the part when he and Kenken burst through the table (the quirky eccentric stuff). But like Li Bingbing said, they were focusing a lot on the story part of the performance, so that’s why they couldn’t plan as many cool dance moves that were just cool from an aesthetic point of view, and not necessarily related to the story.
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- Han Geng’s team’s performance was abstract and artistic. I think the wind as a prop was really interesting. Technically we can’t even see it, but the wind changes the “direction” of the dance. All of the moves revolve around the fact that the wind is coming from that angle. So it acts as both a prop to alter the “perspective” of the dance, as well as a prop for the story.
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- The performance from Yibo’s team was more of what I’d expected out of this challenge, something that was just aesthetically cool from all angles. Like Ye Yin said, it wasn’t advantageous to compete from a storytelling perspective, so they might as well just focus on the visuals.
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- After this performance, Rochka told Henry not to worry. He was like “psst Henry! 一劉 team? We’re great!” The captaon says 暖心卡寳. 暖心 means warm hearted, alluding to the fact that Henry might’ve gotten worried since other teams had such strong performances and they were behind in points and Rochka wanted to reassure him. 卡 is “ka” as in “Kaka” as in “Rochka.” 寳 means treasure, but it is also the “bao” in “baobei,” and it’s also something you can just add at the end of someone’s name to make it a cute nickname. So basically the caption is saying that Rochka is a warm hearted baby.
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- Henry’s team had a cyberbullying theme going on. I thought this performance was cool because it was both visually very cool and it told an interesting story compared to how minimalist their props were (just masks). Basically the dance covered themes of online bullying, and how social media can be just as isolating as it is connecting. I was surprised that Judge Phillip said that the theme kind of lost him because he thought it might not be clear to everyone who was watching. But I guess it’s also because Henry mentioned that there was a cyberbullying theme so I wasn’t as confused as someone might be if they were going in blind.
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- Han Geng came over to cheer on Henry’s team before the final battle.
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- This was the first freestyle battle that Kenken did and can I just say, his dance style is just so hype. Kenken was up against Nelson though, who is tough to beat. Yixing said that he’d wanted Kenken, Bunta, and Huang Xiao to join in on the battle to at least have some fun, but he hadn’t expected him to run into Nelson ^^;;
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- Yibo’s team won 6 points in a row and everybody was like “who’s gonna challenge them? who’s gonna dethrone them?” OUR MEOWMEOW KING IS!!!!!! Yixing stopped Yibo’s team’s streak lol. Yixing’s team went on to say how he inspired such confidence in them, that he was their hero haha.
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- Henry tried to challenge next. He challenged Dianmen. But alas, Dianmen got the point. At this point, I feel super bad for Henry. He probably feels a bit powerless to help his team v.v Ahhh I hope some good luck comes his way!!!!! He deserves it!!!!
- In this last battle, where teams can change their challengers however they want, we see how important it is to win the point, because once you’re on the defence, you get an opportunity to get a point every battle, whereas for each of the challenger teams, if you lose, you have to wait another round for your turn.
- Lmao as San’er was going to challenge, Chunlin just started yelling “AHHHHHHHH!!!!!” Guess that’s his way of motivating his teammates XD
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- Yibo’s team won the final challenged in the end. Here’s our boy Poppin’C being all “shucks, but we’ll get them next time!”
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- 23 points wasn’t shabby for Yixing’s team.
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- Yixing started singing Billie Jean but the subtitles are not right at all lmao
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- Yixing’s team said that through the challenges, they felt like they’d grown closer as a team :3
- Han Geng being encouraging to his team. In typical dad fashion he was like “no matter what happens, let’s have fun, don’t think about winning or losing!”
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- Henry’s team members were talking about how it kind of hurt to see that they had the lowest score by far :(
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- Oh no :(
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- Rochka explained that he had asthma, so after the first round, he was quite tired, so he felt very sad that he couldn’t help his team in the later battles. The words on the side say that Rochka stayed on scene after he got medical help, but Henry didn’t want to let him battle. Later on, Rochka was available to dance again, but Henry moved him to the back of their queue (probably so he’d have more time to rest), but as we saw in the challenge, it took a while for them to get their turn and thus Rochka didn’t end up dancing.
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- Rochka kept apologizing and saying he had no excuses and Henry comes up being like “what are you talking about bro?”
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- That’s right! Give him a hug!!!!
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- These two really take every opportunity to flirt huh. Well it’s more like Henry issuing the flirt challenge and Rochka accepting the flirt challenge by returning with equally flirty behaviour.
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- The way Huang Xiao described the competition was very cool. He said that the world cannot stop your radiance, but you also are not able to cover up someone else’s light.
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- Nelson announced to the show that he had to leave, to go back to France to handle some issues about custody over his son. I had heard that he had left the show, I just didn’t realize it would be so soon. But like everybody else, family is important, so we can’t be mad for someone wanting to return home for personal reasons. After all, this is just a competition, just a game.
- Poppin’C patting Yixing’s shoulder. Iunno, I just thought it was fun :P
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- This round did not end with eliminations, but I suspect that as the winner, Yibo will earn some sort of perk later on.
- Finally, all of the figures in a row!
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- I know the hot pot show is now no longer members only, but I don’t think I have the time to watch it. Maybe I’ll just download it now and save it for later, maybe after I’m done SDOC, but I probably won’t watch it as I’m watching the main SDOC show.
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curestardust · 3 years
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if you want: some insight on Japanese underground idol groups and idol group wotakus / or you’re a wotaku yourself and wanna sympathise a bit / comedy / pretty and cute idol girls uwu / a possible really fun time if you vibe with the tone of the show and its humour
Now, first of all I need to state that while I’ve more than enough experience with idol culture, I follow K-pop and not J-pop, which seems to have quite a few differences from what I’ve seen. So, I apologize if I make any mistakes.
Second, some terms that are good to know for this anime: the “Budokan” mentioned in the title of the anime is a big sports stadium which also holds concerts. Naturally, the only groups who can perform there are ones who would be more or less guaranteed to fill up all seats in the arena and thus performing there is a huge goal set by any idol group (see: the K-pop groups I follow who’ve also made a debut in Japan often dream about performing in the Tokyo Dome). Then we’ve “chika idols” which as I understand are underground idols. Basically a term for small groups who either perform outside or have a quite small venue (usually on the basement floor). Finally, the term most often used by the anime is “wota” which is just short for wotaku. From a quick research, wotaku seems to have no difference from “otaku” and is only written with a “w” because the Japanese writing is in Katakana and is written with “ヲ (wo)“ while otaku is written with Hiragana using “オ (o)”. Also, we’ve the anime “Wotaku no koi wa muzukashi” where wotaku is also used but with the exact same meaning as otaku. I’m talking about this so much because the anime implies that “wota” is only a term for otakus who’re into Japanese idol groups. It seems that outside of Japan, wota does seem to hold this meaning nowadays (I don’t know if the same is true for them) but I just wanted to talk about this cause I thought it was interesting.
So, our story’s protagonist is Eripiyo, a 20yo woman who accidentally stumbles upon a chika group’s outside performance. This group is ChamJam, sporting 7 members with completely different personalities and appeals. Eripiyo falls head over wota heels for one of the members from first glance. This member is Maina.
Fast forward a little bit and Eripiyo has been transformed into a super wota. Maina’s representative colour (an often used gimmick with idol groups) is salmon pink and as she only has one piece of clothing in that colour (I’m going to guess it’s her middle school track jersey) she refuses to wear anything else but that. She has hit up a friendship with two others, Kumasa who is kind of a wota veteran and Motoi who is the complete opposite. (I’m going to be using the term “bias” for “favourite member” as we do in K-pop circles cause it’s shorter) Kumasa’s long time bias is Reo, the center and most popular member of ChamJam. Motoi’s is Sorane, an also quite popular member. While Eripiyo’s is Maina...who has one fan. That being Eripiyo.
This is especially awkward during the handshake events, After the performance, fans can buy X number of CDs with their biases covers for which they get handshake tickets, 1 usually being for 5 seconds. Seeing Maina standing there with no one in her line is really... depressing. Eripiyo obviously tries to rectify the situation by buying EVERY single album of Maina’s and yet, these 2 can’t have a proper conversation even with that time. Maina is shy and has a hard time speaking up which Eripiyo takes as her feeling awkward so she talks her head off the entire time. This leads to my least favourite trope of “misunderstandings caused by not speaking clearly enough”. Thankfully, none of it leads to drama and is more just a set-up for funny situations (but I still hate it!).
Honestly, the humour gets quite repetitive after a while, most of it just being recycled from the first few episodes. Eripiyo is also going to be a very hit-or-miss character. She is either hilarious or she will get on your nerves very quickly. Luckily the anime ended before that happened to me but her constant screeching was oof, too much. 
After a few episodes, they start showing more of the ChamJam members and their behind the scenes of their idol lives. They painted the most realistic scene for me, with them sometimes not getting along or getting pissed off over not being more popular. Most of it though, was cute and fun and 2 of the members are veryyyy strongly “hinted” to be in a relationship (we just don’t see them kiss but they’re together y’all).
For a fellow idol fan (although on the more saner side thankfully), it was interesting to see the differences in the 2 idol cultures. Also, sometimes I feel like screeching over a single picture of my bias as Eripiyo and I’ve seen the behaviour of the 3 main wotas in K-pop communities before so I kinda sympathise with them. 
“Oshibudo” is a good anime overall. The animation, designs and the colour pallette are excellent (except for those...very few CGI shots that are seriously one of the worst made character models I’ve ever seen). The music is fun, there’s a wide variety of characters and if you’re a fellow idol stan, you’ll probably find a bias for yourself in ChamJam as well. The humour and the subject matter are what can make or break this anime for its viewers. I’d definitely suggest watching episode 1 if you’re even slightly interested. The tone for the rest of the show is all there so you can make a quick decision based on it.
[7/10] (x)
Recommend: HELL Yeah! | Yes | Eh??? | Nope | This anime killed my parents
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oumiyuki · 3 years
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Sir Mikan and Miss Egg
Summary: “They say if you give a toddler an egg they naturally know to be gentle” is what Chika heard so she got You to agree to test it out with their daughter, Chiyo. Filming it all down for good fun.
Just another rowdy, laughter-filled day in the Watanabe home.
Pairing: ChikaYou
Genre: Family Fluff, Romance
Read me at Fanfiction.net or AO3 too!
Author Notes
A whole lot of baby videos give you this. Or well, at least a whole lot of baby videos about giving their kids an egg do. XD
May you enjoy~ ;D
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The camera shakes and so does the scene it is trying to capture – which is just a blurred scene of the camerawoman’s wife, Watanabe You, holding a washed egg and smiling to said silly camera lady who waved back with the camera hand. “Ah, oops. Camera ready!”
You laughs. “Are you sure, Chika-chan? We wouldn’t want the product of this experiment to be a guessing game from all the blur.”
Chika puts her free hand to her hip and gives the ash-brunette a pointed look. “Hey. I’ve been gaining experience! Never doubt this Takami!”
You clears her throat with a purposefully lifted fist to her mouth, smirk unconcealable. “You mean…Watanabe~”
You adds a delayed and awkward wink which makes Chika blush even more so, heavily affected by You’s own embarrassment. “Well…yes. Watanabe…Sheesh, don’t make me say it.”
You licks her lips subconsciously and chuckled; despite being married for 3 years to Chika, she still becomes a smiling giddily, blushing sweetly maiden in love. “It makes you blush cutely when you say it and I…like that though…”
Chika’s face grew redder and she waved her hands in front of her, all caught on the camera rolling.
Before Chika could protest noisily though, Chiyo catches their attention as their 2-year-old was staring right at them and giggling. Chika and You looked at each other before looking back at their daughter with a fond smile on their faces; literally anything their daughter does has an immediate effect of cooing and melting of Chika and You. (Not counting the crying in the middle of the night, of course)
"Chiyo is so cute...~" You smiles to her daughter staring at them with large, curious blue eyes, her little hands pressed on the floor from trying to lean towards the object of curiosity, in this case, her parents.
Chika does an entranced, ridiculous and proud laughter. "Hehehe...That's cause she's our daughter~~"
You gets pulled back out of her melting from daughter's cuteness state thanks to her wife's weird laughter and looks over to the orangehead. "You're filming already right? At this rate, the video will be mostly us fawning over Chiyo."
Chika checked the video camera in her hand. "Yep, it's recording."
"You needed to check huh?" You had to comment.
Chika grins as she focused the camera on You. "Yup! Gotta make sure I'm getting ALL of this good stuff for memories, you know!" Chika does an exaggerated double wink while expertly tilting the camera in hand downwards slowly and back up - all of You captured perfectly.
You knew what her wife was doing and tried walking out of shot after. "Don't do that! This is about Chiyo, not me!"
Chika laughs as she tried to get more of You on cam. "Don't be shy~~"
"Chika-chan!!" You flails the egg in hand at her playful partner.
Chika persistently tries to follow You even when the ash-brunette circled a giggling Chiyo and asking Chika to focus on their daughter instead.
"Mou!!" You quick steps to the side and scoops Chika up in her arms easily, holding her flailing about and loudly laughing wife tightly.
"Ahhh, You-channnn! Ahahahaha! Put me down~ Get back on cam~ You-chan~" Chika scream-laugh-protest all at once leaving You laughing along.
The ash-brunette turns around so that Chika's camera was facing Chiyo instead - the little Watanabe clapping her hands together now, entertained by her parents.
"Aw~ Chiyo is being cute again, You-chan!" Chika immediately reported.
You grins. "I'm sure she is. Now promise you won't film me, or I won't put you down."
Chika thinks for a moment. "Guess I won't promise you then."
"Eh??"
It takes You a good minute before she realized Chika's intentions and she lowers her head and presses her lips together; indignant.
You grumbles under her breath. "Chika-chan..."
Chika shifts to get a good look of her pouting wife; always loving a sight of pouting You. "Alright, alright. I'll spare you from the tease for now. hehehe~"
You pouts harder and Chika pokes her cheek. You releases the pout as a wry smile gives in, slowly putting her darling wife down. "Film our baby."
Chika lets out a hearty laugh. "Aye aye Captain!"
Chika salutes and focuses camera back on Chiyo.
You breathes out through her nose, getting back into the mood of testing out the egg theory. You checks the egg in hand, glad to know she didn’t break the sanitized egg while messing about with Chika.
“Ready?”
“Ever ready, Capt!” Chika turns the camera over to capture her mighty salute and blinding smile.
You chuckles and crouches down to Chiyo, speaking sweet and gentle. “Chiyo~ Do you know what this is?”
Chiyo blinks up at her mama. “An egg!”
“Yeah! It’s an egg.” You smiles proudly. “Mama is going to give you this egg. And you’ve got to take care of it, okay?”
Chiyo nods, taking the egg into her hand.
Chika and You watches closely as their toddler examines the egg; gasping slightly when Chiyo decides to give the egg a shake.
“Uwaa…This isn’t for the weak of heart.” Chika jests.
You shakes her head. “It was your idea.”
“You agreed!”
You hums thoughtfully. “Yeah, I did.”
Chika puts a hand to her hip proudly and You rolls her eyes at Chika’s adorable display of pride. Almost getting lost in each other’s eyes again, Chiyo talking grabbed their attention.
“Mikan. Mikan meet egg! This is Miss Egg. And Miss Egg…this is Sir Mikan.” Chiyo shakes the toy mikan in her hand as a way for Sir Mikan to acknowledge Miss Egg, then bopping the egg and the fruit together.
Chika made more noises as the egg makes contact with the toy. “Please be okay, Miss Egg.”
Chiyo starts running about with both her toy and the egg, Chika following with the camera and You taking a seat by the couch; a good position where she could watch her daughter running about the living room.
“We are going to…save the world!” Chiyo jumps to a stop; Sir Mikan and Miss Egg lifted high into the air.
Chika zoomed into the toy mikan and egg in those small fingers, then she zoomed out to Chiyo’s face. “What are they saving the world from, Chiyo?”
Chiyo looks to her mummy and grunts for a long time, thinking of the story.
“Looks like Chiyo is coming up with a plot on the spot.” Chika whispers commentary to the recording.
You smiles fondly at her family. Chiyo turns and runs at her mama. “Mama!”
“Yes, Chiyo?”
“What should…should Sir Mikan save…Miss Egg from?” Chiyo asks with large curious eyes.
“Mm…Save them from…big baddie tower over there?” You points to another children’s toy on the floor – one which Chiyo played throwing hoops in earlier.
Chiyo furrowed her eyebrows in determination for a few seconds before she happily plopped down to her butt and cheers, “Yousoro~!!”
Chika and You’s eyes widened in shock as Chiyo sent the toy mikan rolling, knocking into the tower.
You kneels beside Chiyo. “Ah, why…why didn’t you roll Miss Mikan?”
Chiyo holds the egg closer to her in both hands, carefully. “B-Because…Because… Because I just felt like…like I shouldn’t. Like. Miss Egg would…”
You smiles soft and encouragingly to her daughter whose blue eyes grew wide and sad as her pout does and she hugs her egg closer to her.
You wiped an imaginary tear off her eyes. “My baby is so precious.”
Chika chuckles from where she caught the entire scene on their trusty video camera. “She sure is.”
You ruffles Chiyo’s hair and grinned at Chiyo. “Are we going to share this video?”
“Yeah, in the Aqours Group Chat! So Aunt Riko gets to see it.” Chika smiled widely; already able to see how Riko would react to their daughter’s version of the popular videos online right now.
“Oh, Riko-chan and Mari-chan are going to be so loud.” You shakes her head with a huge grin.
Chiyo brandished the egg at You with a chuckle of her own, seemingly agreeing with them which makes both Chika and You join in the laughter. It was a jolly, eggy evening in the Watanabe home.
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Author Notes
Ah~ =w= Have you watched any of those videos of parents giving their kids an egg and seeing how they handle it? If not, go do so~
They are fun to watch! XD
And well, I just felt like Chika would catch wind of something like this, or perhaps Riko, Yohane or Ruby tells her about it >w< Which leads to this little experiment!
I also just love how no matter how old, they would still be really active in the Aqours Group Chat. *O*
Leave a comment if you like! ^w^
See you next story~ :D
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shintorikhazumi · 3 years
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Khaz’s Manga/Manhwa/Anime Recommendation Corner #2
And I am back for another round of recommendations my people!!
Repeating again that each batch of recommendations will feature: -1 Yuri work (manga/manhwa or anime), -1 random genre manga/manhwa, and  -1 anime that you may or may not have seen
Let’s get to it!!!
1. YURI RECOMMENDATION
Hello, Melancholic! (manga)
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This is fairly new, but honestly, wow. Just wow. The characters certainly all have flaws that some people may find to be a bit annoying at some point, but quite real. They resolve them quite nicely too. And while the main pair/characters aren’t my favorite, they still have a really good story and development. (My favorite character is the delinquent, Chika. She has most of my attention due to her personality, characterization, just her overall actions, thought processes and reactions. Also she’s gorgeous ey. Her pairing is my fav) .
It’s other main genre is music, Jazz to be specifc. It isn’t super angsty, it’s got the salt and sugar and jazz so... give it a go?
2. RANDOM GENRE MANGA/MANHWA
Ebony (Manhwa)
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WHAT CAN I SAY BUT FRICKING READ THIS BEAUTIFUL MASTERPIECE AIDHAOEFKAEIFHOAEWFJOGFP. IT. IS. SO. GOOD. It’s heart-wrenching and warming, exciting, get’s your blood boiling, frustrating in a good sense because you want justice for the characters. I honestly cried a few times in frustration and reilef, sadness and joy.
Everything is quite clever and smart too! and ughhhh. Ebony is a sweetheart and you’d give her the world. The male lead is one of the best. He’s not the “I’ll do everything for you and save you”. He teaches our best girl here how to become even stronger! Honestly, power couple. 99999999/10. There are some really cute moments where Ebony is this innocent child who must be protected because she’s adorable. Not because she is weak in any way. I’m just in awe of this manhwa and you definitely should read it! If you wanta short plot intro, Ebony is a young woman falsely accused of murdering her fiance and father and sent to a horrible prison in a male-dominated society. Like the toxic type where women can’t even have an education above the most basic needed for house maintenance. That type. Just. Read this. No regrets.
3.  ANIME YOU MIGHT NOT HAVE SEEN YET
Kaleido Star
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Kaleido star is a show about a circus crew, basically. Sora, our main girl here is on the trapeze act, but she can do other stuff too. I honestly don’t know how I should like... flatter this show. When I first started it, I wasn’t all too into it. But getting to the 3rd? or maybe just 2nd episode, I could NOT stop watching it ‘til the end. It’s like something that grows on you as you stick around. The shows are orchestrated with stories and everything just feels like a dream. There are intense moments that leave your eyes stuck to the screen, and there are emotional turns where you feel for the characters and their struggles.
It has 2 seasons, and I loved the 2nd. You can see the growth of the characters and their changes from the first season. Sometimes I wish that I knew more of what happens after. Like an epilogue of sorts. Overall I liked it and the title has imprinted itself into my memory even if I watched this like... 4 or 5 years ago. It’s like those things that aren’t super flashy or uwaahhh, but still a solid story and stays in your heart as a tender memory. Kinda thing...
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jesuslovesyouyesyou · 4 years
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What I want to happen in Kono Oto Tomare!
I've never written fanfiction before, but these two make me want to. ☺
Okay: here is a summary of how it could go. Basically it isn't written like a book just summarized. (I needed an ending, so I wouldn't be obsessed with them waiting for chapters lmao)
Chika and Satowa leave sometime at same time a week or so before nationals from grandmas where they all practice. They part and wave, and Chika lags behind thinking about her whatnot. He hears a scream, and it is Satowa in alleyway and some guys late at night trying to take advantage of her.
Now these guys aren't faceless. These are his previous gang members. These are the reflection of who he could of been. Who he was. And confronting his past.
He goes all dark and says get hands off her, and they start poking him around trying to get him to join then and teasing him.
Chika goes crazy/dark and starts beating them. And because there is like 3-5 of them he gets overpowered, and he turns to yell at Satowa to run, and shes completely frozen in fear. That look on her face causes him to shut down. There's blood on his cheeks and dirt on his clothes. In just seconds he's shown the girl hes tried so hard to catch up to so he could stand beside her his "true self".
But Satowa isn't scared because of him. Shes scared for him. The man she loves is being beaten in front of her and there is nothing she can do. She starts screaming help and some night patrol people come to save them or their friends who left little later come.
Then Chika taken to hospital, and it turns out they broke BOTH of his arms. Now there is no way he can go to nationals with them.
He keeps seeing Satowa scared face in his mind, and he vows he can never show her his face again.
Then he hears commotion in hospital, and its the police and his real parents. They've come to get him in a reform school or put him in juvenile detention of some sort or transfer schools. He tells them they abanded him what right do they have to do this, and they like were your legal guardians we have all the rights.
Also Satowa family relatives find out about Chika getting into a horrible fight right in front of her and don't want her around him anymore and believe she's lying about what happened because the police told them he was affiliated with those guys.
Then fast forward the group finds out and all try and visit him but the parents refuse, and his phone was broken when they beat him.
So fast forward some more gang gets a hold his parents and trys to convince them to let Chika stay and Satowa testify the real events that happened and how he saved her from something terrible happening to her.
Have his father be like savoir? Doesn't sound like my son.
Then they all agree together if his parents refuse to let him stay then none of them will play at nationals they will all sit out.
The parents are somewhat moved and agree to go to nationals but only because they want to see if their music really changed Chika.
Then fast forward to nationals, and they still haven't seen Chika even though he's not in hospital. He hasn't returned to school.
Fast forward to day of nationals and Satowa arrives hours early at nationals and still no Chika. She decided to leave them and her cousin girl/family idk relationship drives her or Chika aunt dose, and they rush through traffic.
She arrives at his apartment and hes shocked hes like obviously been crying puffy eyes, and hes like what are you doing here you're going to be late. And she is like I'm not going without you.
And its silent and then shes like I can't play without you Chika. And he's of course you can, and you're better off without me. That man you saw that was the real me. You told me once you were never terrified of me, and yet I saw your face that night. It is engraved into my mind.
And Satowa gets shocked, and says yes I was scared. And his eyes get small. And shes like I was scared of you getting hurt . Horrified. Frozen.
And she starts crying hiccuping and says I was scared that the man I love was going to get killed right in front of me and there was nothing I could do about it.
And his face shows like a thousand cycling emotions. Then he looks super serious grabs her wrist and a bag or keys and runs out the door and shes like wait.(his fingers free from cast)
And hes like yelling there is no time.
And hes like waves down a taxi, and his wrist holding turns to hands and they silent in taxi and he tells rider she has to get to nationals place(wherever thay is).
They make it just in time she only has a few minutes to catch her breath. Chika comes with her backstage and wishes them all luck, and they do the circle thing again and promise Chika even though he's not there with them, he's in their hearts(and some silence happens the whole silent language thing).
They go off and Chika watches.
They give it there all, and they have so many emotions because of everything they've all been through that they capture the hearts of the audience and win. Super dramatic thing Chika parents are shook. Lol.
Fast forward and Chika parents hand him some papers and he's shocked. They are signing him off as an emancipated adult. And they tell the others they managed to change Chika and reach his heart. Something they never managed to do and maybe panel over to Satowa sine they holding hands, and they say how grateful they are to have a woman in his life like her and makes her blush and Chika laughs and is emotional. Maybe mumbles how awkward she is, and she's like shut up. O////O.
Fast forward to graduation for the seniors and the club is going to place at graduation ceremony A lot of the characters they've met playing along the way all come to send the two graduates off part of club.
And everyone happy, Takezo and Hiro end up getting accepted into same university college thingy.
All of them agree to meet once a week or month and play at grandmas for fun even though they start going their own ways.
End with panel the current club arguing over what their goal should be next year, and they make it even larger bigger. Idk all become professional stars lol.
And Chika writes something down on note saying he wants to become to best player he can do he can stand beside Satowa with no regrets and help her make a name(professional) that she can be proud of. Insert some grandpa flashbacks and flashbacks to the seniors and maybe some agureing over who should be the club president and vice president.
Maybe panel a cute date n kiss with both couples somewhere in there. And maybe the teachers get together.
Also I could surprisingly see Chika grow up and be a teacher. Since he cares for others so much and wants to help them grow.
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1tsnoya · 4 years
Note
what are your top ten anime?
1. haikyuu: HHH sorry to sound basic but honestly i can talk about my love for it all day. i’ll give u the summary real quick - before i started i felt unmotivated to do anything bc i was in a really dark place. watching it made me wake up every morning and helped me push myself to keep going. the characters felt comforting (still are) and brought me so much joy during such a scary time. then i started this blog for it which only made me even happier. haikyuu has taught me so many things, allowed me to make new friends, and so much more. i truly could not thank furudate more
2. your lie in april: SUCH SUCH S U C H!! a beautiful anime. the animation?? the soundtrack?? UGH!!🥺i cried like a baby at the end and i felt kousei’s pain because i could relate to him in so many ways. his backstory hit close to home. if you haven’t watched it already, i HIGHLY recommend it
3. love live! school idol project: the FIRST anime i ever watched !! i fell in love with it - the characters?? the soundtrack?? everything. it introduced me to my love for anime 🥺
4. ouran host highschool club: omg this was like the second anime i ever watched i think?? i loved it. it was so funny and sweet i just 🥺i wanna rewatch it bc it’s been so long
5. love is war: i haven’t finish it yet but it’s SO good. shirogane pls give me some of ur lunch !! i love chika sm- my friends dislike her and i’m just ?? how could u hate her?? she’s so bubbly and cute but on the inside she actually loves dark/creepy things which is so funny and cool to me
6. my hero academia: WHEW alright it’s really good! i dropped it previously bc i knew people who made it super toxic but i recently picked it up again and really like it. i love denki so much :’))
7. little witch academia: so funny and cute, it had its adventurous moments that left me a tiny bit nervous/frustrated which was also so nice. i love sucy!!
8. blend s: so funny and cute! i loved it.
9. classroom of the elite: ALRIGHTY it’s lower on the list bc i just got straight up bored at some moments. but then the ending?? was definitely a surprise. like the entire thing/plot was changed in the matter of 20 seconds. it left me wanting MOOREEE !
10. love live! sunshine: alright,,, the characters and soundtrack i loved. my friends finished it before me and kept telling me how much the ending sucked so i got unmotivated to continue it. then i finished it and :/// the ending was not my favorite ���
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teababe27 · 3 years
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Notes From the 2020 Myanimelist.net Challenges - Part 1: Anime
You don’t need me to remind you how much 2020 sucked. It was definitely a hard year for me as well, especially since health problems (fuck cancer) pretty much kept me on the couch, in the hospital, and out of work for 6.5 months out of the year. Add to that the current events, almost daily anxiety attacks regarding the current events, and my main escapes being cancelled, 2020 was definitely a rough one.
That being said, when I was more cognizant and not suffering from executive dysfunction, I did watch some pretty good anime this year. 
I will now continue with my yearly post about some of the anime I watched and manga I read for this challenge, starting with the anime side. While I didn’t finish the challenge by the site’s deadline, I finished before the end of the year, which was better than last year’s attempt!!!
Like the previous 2 years, I will talk about some honorable mentions/anime I had thoughts on, followed by my favorites from the challenge.
Let’s do this.
Honorable Mentions/Other Notables:
Inferno Cop - completed for the task “Watch an ONA”
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Inferno Cop is, well, a cop, whose family was murdered by the organization Southern Cross. Now, he is tasked with fighting that organization and keeping the peace in the city of Jack Knife Edge Town.
My reaction to watching this anime was pretty much this:
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This anime was honestly kinda funny. I’m usually not into the stuff that’s bad/over the top on purpose (I guess they would call it Stylistic Suck), but this anime made me laugh really hard at points. I feel like it also helped that each episode was about 4 minutes each. 
My favorite part was honestly this:
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Believe it or not, it makes just as much sense in context.
There are definitely worse ways to kill an hour.
Strawberry Marshmallow (aka Ichigo Mashimaro) - completed for the task “Watch any anime recommended to your Favorite Anime” 
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The slice-of-life adventures of 6th-grader Chika, her friend and classmate Miu, 5th grader Matsuri, British transfer student Anna (who transfers to Matsuri’s class), and Chika’s college-age sister Nobue. Hijinks ensue, usually initiated by Miu.
This was recommended to me because one of my favorite anime listed on my Myanimelist profile is Azumanga Daioh. I feel like this one is a little more hyper (if that makes any sense, it’s honestly the only word I can think of for this), but still fun and not a far-off comparison.
Pretty much your basic Cute Girls Doing Cute Things anime with some zany hijinks thrown in. It was cute and funny, though I feel like this is one you have to be in the mood for, similar to when I watched The Irresponsible Captain Tylor for last year’s challenge. I still had fun with it and it made me smile. The last episode was actually pretty heartwarming, and the fact that I watched it on Christmas Day was a cool coincidence.
Canaan - completed for the task “ Watch an anime that began airing the same year you joined MAL” (2009, in this case)
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Maria Osawa, a photographer, is on an assignment in Shanghai with her colleague, Mino. They end up in the middle of a conspiracy involving a mysterious virus, a deadly terrorist attack, rival assassins, and a white-haired lady named Canaan, who Maria apparently knows.
This anime actually came up for multiple tasks in the challenge, so I pretty much had to watch this one, lol.
This anime was a bit dark at certain points. There was a  bit of an interesting mystery, as well as pretty good action scenes, especially the fights between Caanan and Alphard, the main rival assassin. I honestly ship Maria and Canaan; I wish the anime just came out and had them get together, because some of their dialogue can get a little gay-baity at times, but it was still precious. Some lapses in logic and artistic liberties, but still pretty good.
Ginban Kaleidoscope (aka Skating Rink Kaleidoscope) - completed for the task “Watch an anime generated randomly using spin.moe”
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Tazusa Sakurano is a figure skater who dreams of going to the Olympics. After a fall on the ice where she hits her head, she wakes up to find herself sharing her body with the ghost of Pete Pumps (yes, really), a Canadian stunt pilot who died during an air show. Tazusa has to get used to sharing her body with a ghost while trying to realize her dreams, and Pete helps her out, too.
I honestly thought this anime was kinda cute and heartwarming. Funny at times, too, especially when Tazusa is first getting used to sharing her body with Pete. I thought it was nice that Pete helps Tazusa with her skating later in the anime
Your Name (aka Kimi no na Wa) - completed for the task “Watch an award-winning anime”
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Mitsuha is a high school girl who lives out in the countryside and dreams of moving to the big city. Taki is a high school boy who lives in the city and has a part-time job, living a pretty busy life. One day, they find that they’ve switched bodies! They then try to find out about each other and find an answer to why they temporarily switch bodies every now and then.
Yes, I gave in to the hype, and yes, I loved this movie. And yes, I cried.
This movie was honestly beautiful. The art looked great, the story was interesting, the plot twist was unexpected, etc. Not the best anime movie ever like everyone says, but I still loved this one.
Favorites From the Challenge:
Ping Pong the Animation - completed for the task “Watch an anime with a score of 8.00 or above and an episode duration of 16 minutes or more”
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Makoto Tsukimoto, aka Smile, and Yutaka Hoshino, aka Peco, are childhood friends who are part of the ping pong club at their high school. Peco wants to be the best in the world, while Smile mostly finds ping pong as a way to pass the time. The anime shows them playing in and trying to win the championship, as well as them getting better and their various feelings throughout.
Might as well continue the tradition of watching a Masaki Yuasa work for the challenge. He most certainly did not disappoint here.
This made me think of how I felt when I watched One Outs  for last year’s challenge. A different take on sports anime than usual, focusing on more of the psychology of the players and their histories. The two friends weren’t together all the time, though their bond was still there. I honestly binged this one in a couple days, that’s how much I was invested. 
The art style is very interesting and unique, which was a major positive. I found this anime to be great overall.
Mononoke - completed for the task “Watch an anime that finished airing with 11 or more episodes and has a synopsis by MAL Rewrite”
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A mysterious Medicine Seller wanders Japan to slay malevolent spirits called Mononoke. In order to do so, he has to figure out their Form, Truth, and Reason, along with psychological analysis and talking to the people caught up in the Mononokes’ schemes. Only then can he use his special sword to exorcise the spirits.
Unique art styles definitely seem to be a trend here, a complete coincidence on my part.
This reminded me a lot of the anime Mushishi, except on acid or some other drug like that. I like that this is an anthology of sorts, with the 11 episodes divided up into groups of 2 or 3 episodes per plot arc. The art style was unique and very pretty at times, and I found the psychological aspect very interesting too.
This anime isn’t for everyone, and it can get a little confusing at times, but I liked it a lot.
Silver Spoon (aka Gin no Saji) - completed for the task “Watch a listed Gourmet or Isekai themed anime” (Gourmet, in this case)
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To get away from the pressures of home life and high expectations, Hachiken, on the advice of one of his teachers, decides to go to an agricultural high school, thinking it would be laid back. When he gets there, he has a bit of a culture shock and learns about farm and country life, including taking care of livestock and making fresh food.
I liked a lot of the characters in this one. I like the friendships Hachiken gets into with his classmates, especially a girl he meets on the first day and his assigned partners in rotations on the farm. This anime was also kinda relaxing too, and another one I was able to watch several episodes of without realizing.
Aggressive Retsuko (aka Aggretsuko) Season 3 - completed for the task “Watch an anime with a main character that is a professional in their field”
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To pay off some debt that Retsuko incurs, she gets roped into helping out an underground idol group who is trying to make it big.
Honestly, this season hit me with all the feels multiple times. I loved seeing Retsuko take charge in several of the episodes. A lot of what I loved about the previous 2 seasons of Aggretsuko were here. Definitely made me laugh several times.  
Princess Jellyfish (aka Kuragehime) - completed for the task “Watch a Noitamina anime”
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Tsukimi is a shy, awkward outcast who loves jellyfish and lives in an apartment building, Amamizukan, with a few other awkward outcasts. One day, while out at a pet store, she meets a confident woman while trying to save a jellyfish from improper care. This confident woman, who is revealed to be a guy, Kuranosuke, who likes dressing like a woman, plants themselves in Tsukimi’s life and helps her break out of her shell.
This wins Best Anime for this year’s challenge. I found myself relating to Tsukimi a lot, being a socially awkward nerdy outcast. To be honest, I found myself headcanoning most of the characters (especially Tsukimi) as being autistic. I loved the relationships between the characters and I found a lot of this anime really relatable. The two main ladies (I say that loosely because Kuranosuke isn’t technically a lady) were my favorite characters. 
This anime was so cute and so heartwarming. I’m planning on reading the manga now to see where the story goes. I’m glad I finally got around to watching this one.
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deltaengineering · 4 years
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breaking: local hater releases list of best anime 2019
I don’t think it was a particularly good year, and the top 5 is looking pretty thin. To put it positively, Fire Force, a very standard fightmens shounen elevated by great production, ALMOST made it on this list. 
5. O maidens in your savage season
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So here’s Mari Okada doing what she does best: Writing about herself. Out of all the #relatable anime that’s flying around these days, this one is uniquely, well, savage. Everyone’s a fucking disaster and the show doesn’t hold back on it either. Savage Maidens takes a genre that always tends towards the comfortable and makes it so real it borders on the surreal, and all without becoming dour. And it has an ending! Not a great one, to be honest, and the show in general gets less good as it goes on, but I’ll take what I can get.
4. Dororo
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Instead of a modern shounen, how about a not modern shounen. What Dororo uniquely does well is having old-school sensibilities without being overtly retro, making it just an extremely competent update to a 60s Tezuka classic that still feels fresh today. Dororo is not particularly deep but with a few exceptions it’s always rock solid entertainment that simply lacks a lot of the lazy shortcuts this sort of story has grown over the last half century or so, and works for the payoff instead. It’s still not my favorite type of subject matter but I wouldn’t mind it being done this right more often.
P.S. OP1 rules OP2 drools, smash that like button if u agree
3. Run with the Wind
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So various people are losing their shit over how great Stars Align is right now, but I’d rather look back on a show that does the whole thing far better and also doesn’t have an unintentionally hilarious ending. It could also have something to do that a marathon relay is pretty much the best possible sport for a show like this, because it’s both solo and team efforts playing well together without the need for constant tournament ladder plots (take note, Yuri on Ice). Run with the Wind is a stellar example of how to do a character drama masquerading as a sports show. Strong character writing, good pacing, going big without going stupid, competent production - this show delivers. 
2. Senryuu Shoujo
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No matter how weak a year is, you can always bet on getting enough cute at least. Honorable mentions go to Hitori Bocchi and Machikado Mazoku, which are both pretty good. Senryuu Shoujo is better though, because it’s more than just cute: It is extraordinarily cute. It is in fact so cute that it gets by by only adding a slight sprinkle of the funnies and cutting the runtime by half. It’s just so goddamn charming that it’s actually easy to forget that it’s ostensibly based around a pretty pedestrian gimmick, but that ends up feeling so natural that it somehow makes the show better. Sometimes you don’t need much more than Nanako making cute faces for 10 minutes a week.
1. Kaguya-sama: Love is War
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You know, I hate anime comedy. Which is pretty interesting because I tend to like comedy in general. It’s just the specific ways that anime comedy operates that ticks me off almost every time. Well, imagine my surprise then that the best show of the year is indeed a real, no-buts-about-it comedy. Well, romantic comedy, I guess, but Kaguya-sama is still never not trying to be funny. There’s nothing worse than bad comedy, but Kaguya-sama indeed manages to be outrageously hilarious. I think it’s the way that its jokes tend to be big, constructed setpieces with actual progression instead of goofy faces and pratfalls. Add in to this a tendency to go full absurd with a direction to match, and you’ve got the best comedy at least since Nichijou (and I personally think it’s better than Nichijou anyway). And the characters are total goofballs, but still plenty strong enough to make me care about them - Chika alone would make the show worth watching. Second season’s coming, you guys. Can it win again in a year with possibly more actual competition?
ω. Miru Tights & Iya na Kao sare nagara Opantsu Misete Moraitai 2
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But wait! Oh yeah, I went there. I think it’s safe to say that “throwaway shorts based on some fetish dude’s Pixiv account” is my new favorite genre, and it would have a 100% win rate too if Tawawa on Monday wasn’t so lame. Anyway, these just fucking deliver on their intentions and seem like they’re something someone actually wanted to make. I think I like Miru Tights a bit more, because it’s just this a very simple slice-of-life show that derives its spice from being sketchy as hell, almost puzzlingly so, and iyashikei shows need their spice to not become mindnumbingly dull. On the other hand, Iyapan 2 is the much more interesting show if you assume that it’s a tragicomic, absurdist, Beckett-like deconstruction of the human psyche - which it’s not actually trying to be, but you easily can read it that way if you’re a bad enough dude. Iyapan is a bold artistic statement that can stand on its own merits. Since they’re both shorts, I’m splitting the secretly best place among them.
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medea10 · 4 years
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My Review of Kaguya-sama: Love is War
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How did I get into this anime? It was about time to do it as this was one of the best animes to come from the winter 2019 anime line-up (after Dororo and The Promised Neverland). Now let’s hit…
Hold it Medea! Weren’t you supposed to review Darker Than Black for your Aniplex pick?
Ah, yes…THAT anime. I watched it. I finished it. It was a mind-fuck. I bailed on the review. And while I’m at it, I’m also not reviewing Psycho Pass 3, Violet Evergarden, or A Certain Scientific Accelerator. Onto Kaguya-sama!
Shuchiin Academy, once a school for students that are well-off financially. Nowadays, it’s still that, but even commoners can attend. And one such student is a boy by the name of Miyuki Shirogane, who in just his first year managed to obtain the top spot at the school with the position of Student Council President.  By his side is his vice president, Kaguya Shinomiya. This girl comes from extreme wealth and excels in many fields including art and music. The students here revere these two as being the best of the best. And also…they make a great couple!
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Pump the brakes here, pal. These two are NOT a couple. As a matter of fact, both characters end up playing 3D chess in their brains to try and take the other person down with mind games if even the slightest topic involving love is brought up. Both Kaguya and Miyuki already have feelings for the other, they just won’t admit it. The first person to admit love will be considered the loser in this war. And both of these characters are stubborn to the point of…oh my god!
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THESE TWO ARE TSUNDERES! I’ve seen animes where only one person is the tsundere in the couple. But what happens when they’re BOTH tsunderes? Well…it took over 20 episodes for Taiga on Toradora. It took over 4 seasons for Louise on Familiar of Zero. But those two animes had only ONE tsundere. This anime has TWO. We might be here for a while!
Well, let’s watch who wins and who loses in the game (or war) of love!
BETWEEN THE SUB AND THE DUB: Aniplex of America has a good grip on this anime as they have managed to license the second season before it has aired. Much to my dismay, this anime has not received an English dub. Aniplex of America has released the blu-ray last month ($100+ shipping and handling), but only with Japanese audio/English subtitles. Okay.
Now IF they decide to come back in a few years and dub this series, I have a few thoughts. And don’t say it’ll never happen. FUNimation and Sentai are guilty as fuck of releasing a series with no dub and two years later dropping a dub release just so they can grab extra dough.
I HAVEN’T FORGOTTEN NICHIJOU YOU GRIFTING CRAP-WEASELS!
Anyways, if they decide to do this, I want R. Bruce Elliott to voice the narrator. I don’t give a shit about the rest of the cast, I just want that for the narrator! That’s just my take on that matter. I know this would NEVER happen unless Elliott ends up in L.A. for a few sessions (as he’s mostly stationed in Texas). It’s just that he’s the best person to play a narrator in just about anything. Don’t believe me? Watch Space Dandy and Sgt. Frog and get back to me!
Oh! And just my luck, FUNimation plans on giving this series an English dub. Though it’ll be a while before we see anything due to COVID-19 mess! No rush, take your time. Rest up. Consider R. Bruce Elliot as the narrator. And we’ll see you after we get off quarantine!
The sub version consists of a lot of newer, yet familiar voices. As for Kaguya’s seiyuu (Aoi Koga), this is my first time hearing her voice and so far I’m impressed. I’m also impressed with an anime to have several tsunderes and no sign of Rie Kugimiya, the QUEEN of tsundere anime characters. That shows great dedication, but if she ends up in season two, I’m gonna scream. Here’s what you might recognize these folks from.
*Kaguya is played by Aoi Koga
*Miyuki is played by Makoto Furukawa (known for Saitama on One Punch Man, Hatsuharu on Fruits Basket 2019, and Banri on Golden Time)
*Chika is played by Konomi Kohara (known for Miu on Domestic Girlfriend, Fizel on SAO: Alicization, and Kai on Hitoribocchi)
*Yuu is played by Ryouta Suzuki (known for Ryouhei on Tsurune)
FAVORITE CHARACTER: Chika. Chika. Chika. Chika. Chika. And did I mention Chika?
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Best girl!
SPEAKING OF CHIKA: I found an infectious little song in the form of an ending theme! For one episode, we got an ending theme song featuring Chika.
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Chikatto Chika Chikaa♡! I just love it! This should win an award or something!
*several months later*
Thank you Crunchyroll Awards!
Seriously, this ED as well as the OP theme are just so infectious that I constantly go back to replay these two songs whenever I take a break from replaying Black Clover themes (no joke, I love Black Clover themes). The first ending is fine. It’s just that Chika’s special ED was so addicting that I had to mention it once, twice, or more!
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SHIPPING: It’s pretty obvious to see that Kaguya and Miyuki are mad for each other. But there are several obstacles in their way. For one thing this is sort of their first love, so approaching this subject is very new. Secondly, both of them are dead-set on the fact that love is a war full of wins and losses. Both Kaguya and Miyuki play these mind-games when something mundane happens like a personality quiz or a weekend activity. They try to trap the other person into saying something embarrassing or admitting to something. Even though it’s so crystal clear that they both are romantically interested in each other!
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However, I’m pretty sure Kaguya has lost more battles than Miyuki due to the infamous sick day episode. Sick Kaguya is pretty ballsy getting Miyuki to lay in bed with her.
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FUNNIEST MOMENT: You can blame this on the fact that I’m absolutely immature and have the mind of an 8 year old. But there was a moment in mid-season where Chika learns of a specific quirk about Kaguya. Because Kaguya was suppressed when it came to matters of phrases and naughty words, she still finds the word “wiener” utterly hilarious. And so during this whole segment, you’ve got Chika continuously saying the word “wiener”. Then, she goes the extra mile to have other members of the student council like Miyuki and Yuu to say the word. And Kaguya is trying to prevent them from saying it until we just get a barrage of “wieners” and hysterical laughter. I gotta admit that it was one of the funniest moments in this series.
ENDING: A few episodes before the finale, a monumentous moment occurred. Kaguya got sick.
Just go with it!
Whenever Kaguya gets sick, her mind goes into a complete stupor. Her mind is almost that of an infant or small child and once she’s better, she will not remember a single thing that happened. And Miyuki was the poor sap to check on her during that sick day! I’ll cut to the chase and say what went down.
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She opens her bed covers and drags Miyuki into bed with her. Now before your mind jumps in the trash, they remained fully clothed…although they both did fall asleep. So, they slept together. Just no intercourse! This kinda lead to a major fight involving a cake, an apology, and a cute moment where Kaguya touches his lip!
Hey, a girl who’s been sexually suppressed her whole life, this is like first base here.
I feel that was a bit of a breaking point to bring up on a count of a lot of the mind games stopped temporarily. Probably because the last two episodes of the season involved summer break! By the looks of it, Chika was having a blast eating so much and Yuu is doing his usual gaming stuff. All the while, Kaguya and Miyuki didn’t really do much during their break. But they promised to all meet up one day to see the fireworks. Unfortunately, that serves to be a daunting task for Kaguya as she’s been heavily sheltered her entire life. Her family (especially her father) never let her do things normal kids take for granted including going out with friends or even walking to school.
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In fact, Kaguya’s plans of meeting up with Chika and others to go shopping were cancelled due to Kaguya’s father calling her to the main house…for literally nothing. Add to that, the family saw it in THEIR best interest to not allow Kaguya to leave the house to see the fireworks with her friends. But Kaguya decided to defy those orders! She gets her servant Hayasaka to disguise as her if any other servants come in and escaped her house. Yuu, Chika, and Miyuki were all in an agreement to save Kaguya…just not on the same wavelength. Kaguya on her own ended up missing the firework show. But once Miyuki found her, he took her and they went on a small adventure to another prefecture to see another firework show. But it could be cutting it close due to traffic and the show was reaching its end. Thankfully, they made it! Kaguya was finally able to see the fireworks with her friends.
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It’s just that Kaguya didn’t pay attention to the firework show…she stared at Miyuki the whole time!
In the final segment of episode 12, Kaguya and Miyuki kinda realized how dorky they were the night of the firework show. Kaguya let her guard down so many times that night and spent the entire firework show staring at Miyuki. Meanwhile, Miyuki thought he sounded stupid when he took Kaguya to the show. We get one final mind-game between these two until it ended with Miyuki almost saying something and Kaguya chases him down while the end credits play on in the background.
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Will either one of them say how they truly feel about the other? Who will win? Who will lose?
…Guess we’ll find out in a few days when season two airs!
This was an entertaining anime! It’s like if Death Note were a rom-com instead of a thriller. Both Kaguya and Miyuki have a similar mind-set to Light Yagami when it comes to the game of love. They both have the hots for each other and both refuse to admit it first. But thanks to key moments including Kaguya’s sickness and the firework saga, there’s been definite progress with these two letting their guards down. But they’ve got a long way to go! I mean, these two are major tsunderes meaning they’re going to suppress their wants and desires with the opposite sex with these ridiculous mind-games. So…we might be here for a while before any one of them admits their feelings. But I say give it a watch! It’s not that long of a series and it’s still fairly new so it’s still open for more sequels and side-projects before losing its luster.
Currently, this anime is available for streaming on Hulu, Crunchyroll, and FUNimation.
And stay tuned for the second season exclusively available on FUNima…You guys are really pissing me off with your exclusivity!
Okay, I managed to finish this baby up quite quick. What’s the next Aniplex title I’m going to watch?
Picture it, Medea. Osmosis Jones but…
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Cells at Work?
That’s great. I’m also not reviewing this one. I have my own reasons for not reviewing this. So let’s hit the randomizer button again because as of this date, I finished Cells at Work.
Lord El-Melloi…I’M NOT READING ALL THAT SHIT! Sum it up quickly!
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It’s Fate, but with Waver Velvet.
Jesus “Tap Dancing” Christ, it’s another Fate series! I’m not reviewing anything Fate! It’s a cluster-fuck of a series! Don’t get me wrong, I love Fate/Zero and Unlimited Blade Works as much as the next dip-shit, but the franchise is a pile of cluster bombs and I can’t make heads or tails of any of this. Regardless, I finished that hot mess as well.
Okay you picky-ass bitch, how about the best animated anime of the 2010’s?
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Demon Slayer!
Now that’s more like it! But I will still fight to the death that best animated goes to Violet Evergarden!
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commentaryvorg · 3 years
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Digimon Data Squad Dub Comparison Episode 3 - The Return of Thomas!
This is a companion to my commentary on the original Japanese Digimon Savers! Reading my commentary on the original version of this episode (which you can find here) is recommended before reading this dub comparison.
Original name ~ Dubbed name
Masaru Daimon ~ Marcus Damon
Yoshino Fujieda ~ Yoshino “Yoshi” Fujieda
Tohma H. Norstein ~ Thomas H. Norstein
Sayuri Daimon ~ Sarah Damon
Chika Daimon ~ Kristy Damon
Captain Rentarou Satsuma ~ Commander Richard Sampson
PetitMeramon ~ DemiMeramon
[Since several characters share the same name between the original and the dub, quotes from the dub will always be in italics, while quotes from the original will not, in order to distinguish them.]
In the original, Masaru’s VA is always the one reading out the title card, but the dub mixes it up with different characters depending on the episode. This time, we get Miki and Megumi reading it, complete with fangirl squealing over Thomas. Uh, thanks, dub.
Sarah:  “I think Agumon has been a really good influence!”
Marcus & Agumon: “More, please!”
Sarah: “See, he even says ‘please’ now.”
Agumon giving Marcus a reason to wake up early on a non-school day, that makes sense, but Agumon giving him a reason to be more polite? I dunno.
As you can see, there is no dub equivalent of “Agu-chan”. This is understandable and not the dubbers’ fault since English lends itself a lot less to casual terms of endearment like that, but it is a shame.
Marcus: “You served him first?! What did you do, adopt him while I wasn’t looking?”
Marcus says this like it’s not exactly what she’s literally done, and also like it’s not what he’d want. Don’t you want Agumon to be your new little brother, Marcus?
Sarah: “Keep it up, tough guy, and I’ll give your portion to him, too.”
Her affectionate ribbing calling him “tough guy” is cute.
Sarah: “After all, Agumon is a growing boy.”
A neat little nod to the time Agumon said that about himself in episode 1 (even if it didn’t make sense for him to have known that human phrase, but).
Agumon:  “I won’t hand over the last of Sayuri’s fried eggs, not even to you!”
~~~~~
Agumon: “Boss, the only way to get this last fried egg is to take it out of my belly.”
Alas, since dub-Agumon is only referring to this particular last fried egg, we lose the future relevance the original line will have. The dub is not watching ahead to be able to pick up on these things.
Chika:  “What a child…”
~~~~~
Kristy: “What a doof.”
Similar snark – he definitely is a doof – but there’s something I like about Chika calling her older brother a “child” that isn’t quite there when all she’s calling him is a doof.
Most of Thomas’s shower scene is cut. I will grant the dub that one improvement it consistently makes is doing its best to remove all the unnecessary fanservice bits.
[as Agumon tumbles from the bike basket]
Kristy:  “…Doof Two.”
Agumon: [sighing] “I guess…”
What do you mean, Agumon admits and agrees that he is a doof (and implicitly agrees that his boss is one as well). Original-Agumon would not have nearly enough self-awareness to acknowledge that.
Marcus: “Why can’t you travel in the Digivice like all the other Digimon?”
Agumon: “Those other Digimon just show up when they’re called, but you’re lucky. You have me all the time, Boss!”
Unlike in the original, Marcus does actually bring up how Agumon ought to be in the Digivice. But Agumon doesn’t protest with “but I don’t like it in there”, despite him having made even more of a point of not liking cramped spaces in the previous dub episode than he did in the original. If the dub was going to have them discuss this onscreen, it would have been better to take the claustrophobia angle and show Marcus respecting Agumon’s wishes than to make it seem like Agumon’s just being contrary for the heck of it.
Marcus: “This one? No? Oh, just press everything!”
I enjoy the dub being even more obvious about how Marcus figures out which button on his earpiece is the right one to press.
Street punk #2: “Nothing’s going on at all…”
PetitMeramon: “Nothing at all!”
~~~~~
Street punk #2: “Nothing ever goes on around here any more…”
DemiMeramon:  “I agree!”
This is significantly different – here, the DemiMeramon isn’t just parroting the dude’s words, it’s definitely expressing its own opinion about things. The implication here is therefore that it starts setting things on fire because of its own boredom, and these dudes here who happen to also be bored have nothing to do with it. That is categorically not how this is supposed to work.
Masaru:  “Let’s fight!”
PetitMeramon: “Fight…”
~~~~~
Marcus: “There it is! Fightin’ time again!”
DemiMeramon:  “Oh yeah?!”
Again, it’s not parroting his words; it’s responding on its own terms like it’s lucid and thinking for itself. Not how this should work.
Masaru:  “You’re not solid enough, damn it! If I could just hit you once, I could get Agumon to evolve!”
~~~~~
Marcus: “It’s not solid enough to land a blow! But I’ve gotta punch it to start the DNA Charge! Otherwise, Agumon can’t Digivolve!”
The original version of this line sounds reasonably naturally like Masaru is just expressing his frustration at the PetitMeramon. But in the dub, it reads a lot more like awkwardly stilted exposition just to make sure the audience understands why this is a problem.
Marcus:  “Stop setting things on fire! I just got these shoes!”
This is one of those dub additions for comedy, but I’m not sure I like the resulting impression that Marcus is somebody who cares that much about what he wears, because Masaru definitely never seems to be that kind of person.
Agumon: “Now be a nice fireball and let us punch you!”
Pfft. This episode in a nutshell. More of that dub-Agumon trait of saying things that would be snarky if it didn’t sound like he obliviously means them completely seriously.
Gaomon:  “Yes, Master!”
~~~~~
Gaomon: “Sir, yes sir!”
“Yes, Master!” (spoken in English) is Gaomon’s catchphrase in the Japanese, and… I have no idea why the dub couldn’t just keep it exactly as-is. “Master” is a perfectly reasonable thing for him to call Tohma (especially since he’s a dog!), and it even comes already translated.
Instead, he calls Thomas “sir”, which on its own is… fine, I guess. But in particular, the “sir, yes sir!” catchphrase just makes dub-Gaomon come across as some kind of army grunt, rather than as the very good and loyal dog that he is.
Masaru:  “Damn it… That thing pissed me off…”
~~~~~
Marcus: “Urghh… I am exhausted. Whew!”
Masaru here is complaining that he didn’t win, but Marcus is basically just neutrally expressing being exhausted without any sense that he’s specifically frustrated at the DemiMeramon for getting away from him. Since the entire ensuing several scenes are supposed to be a lot about Masaru’s frustration that he’s not good enough, the dub is not starting this off on the right note.
Yoshino:  “Well, I didn’t think it would go easily for you from the start.”
~~~~~
Yoshi: “Don’t worry, Marcus, you didn’t let us down! No-one here at DATS actually thought you could do it anyway!”
Yikes, that’s some way more backhanded reassurance than she gave originally. And also, why does she even feels she needs to “reassure” him? Marcus was not expressing any sort of notion that he felt like he’d failed in the first place.
Agumon:  “Hi there, pal.”
[Gaomon ignores Agumon and walks past him]
Agumon: “Hmph! No birthday present for that guy!”
How does Agumon even know about birthdays, and birthday presents, and the concept of giving birthday presents to people you’re on friendly terms with? These are not things he should reasonably have learned about yet when he’s only been with humans for like a week.
Masaru:  “You bastard! You took away my prey!”
~~~~~
Marcus: “Hey, you! When we talk, you listen!”
It makes perfectly reasonable Masaru-ish sense for him to be mad about Tohma winning what was supposed to be his fight. But Marcus? Isn’t even thinking about the fight, apparently, and is instead just being a jerk.
So far, all Thomas and Gaomon have ignored is Agumon’s greeting and a brief “who are you, blondie?” from Marcus (the “blondie” part is dub-only, unsurprisingly), which is a little rude but not really warranting this response already. Heck, “when we talk, you listen” implies Thomas has been ignoring something substantial that Marcus has been trying to say to him, rather than just a question and a greeting.
There’s a record scratch in the BGM as Thomas ignores Marcus’s attempt to challenge him to a fight and just walks past him. I liked the comedic record scratch they had in episode 1, but this one feels a little cheesy and unnecessary.
Megumi:  “His stern-looking profile is so wonderful!”
Miki:  “It really is!”
~~~~~
Megumi: “He’s so on top of things!”
Miki:  “He so is!”
I appreciate the dub changing the topic of Megumi and Miki’s fawning into admiring Thomas’s work ethic, rather than the original admiring of his appearance. (He is fourteen, you are adults, please stop.)
Tohma:  “…it seems rather peculiar that there are a large number of Digimon detected in this country lately.”
Satsuma:  “Is the frequency not as high in EU?”
Tohma:  “No. It must be because it has a larger area.”
~~~~~
Thomas:  “It seems there have been an unusually large number of Digimon appearances lately.”
Sampson: “Hmm. So do you think these numbers could eventually overwhelm the Data Squad?”
Thomas: “No. But of course, that all depends on having the right team in place.”
Seems the dub is ditching the fact that it’s specifically this country that’s been getting so many more Digimon appearances. Instead, Thomas just takes the opportunity to be a passive-aggressive jerk about Marcus sooner than in the original.
Satsuma:  “Oh, let me introduce you. This is…”
[Tohma barely even glances at Masaru; Masaru gets angry]
Masaru:  “Hey! I don’t care if you’re called Tohma or Tonma… but around here, I’m your senpai! I’ve only been here for three days, but make sure to call me ‘Daimon-san’ or ‘Daimon-senpai’!”
~~~~~
Sampson: “Oh. Go ahead and introduce yourself, Marcus.”
[Thomas barely even glances at Marcus. Marcus gets angry]
Marcus: “Say what?! Why doesn’t *he* introduce himself to *me*?! I’m the one with seniority, even if it’s only three days.”
This reads a lot less like Marcus getting angry has anything to do with the way Thomas just barely even looked at him, and more that he’s mad at Sampson for thinking he ought to introduce himself first. In that vein, it’s somewhat more reasonable for him to go ranting about seniority, I suppose. However, I liked the way that Masaru suddenly ranting about that with no real provocation was unreasonable and was very transparently him trying to assert some kind of superiority, not really about the appropriate-honorific-respect that he tried to insist was the point.
Marcus: “Who does he think he is, anyway? Look, kid! Agumon and I are the top fighters around here, and don’t you forget it!”
Meanwhile in the dub, the lines specifically asking for honorifics have no English equivalent, so we get this to fill the gap. I guess it has a reasonably similar effect and is a similarly uncalled-for assertion of superiority.
(I do like the “kid”, trying to make Thomas seem beneath him despite their equal age.)
Satsuma:  “Already blazing down the warpath, eh?”
~~~~~
Sampson: “You are completely out of line.”
Satsuma was being reasonably tolerant of Masaru’s argumentative nature, accepting that this is just how Masaru is and he’ll hopefully be able to rein it in if he just understands the situation better. But Sampson is simply having none of it.
Sampson: “Marcus, Thomas is *your* superior. Deal.”
I guess it’s a lip-flap issue, but Sampson just telling Marcus to “deal” sounds weirdly colloquial for him. Also, “superior” is not quite the same thing as having seniority in terms of just having more experience. This implies that Thomas is going to have the right to give Marcus orders and Marcus will be obligated to follow them, which is not quite it.
Marcus: “You mean I have to take orders from him?”
…Okay, apparently that literally is what the dub wants us to think, even though this is not how things are actually going to work here.
(This is in place of the line establishing that Masaru and Tohma are the same age, but that will be a fact that gets mentioned in a later dub episode.)
Satsuma:  “Be sure to get along with each other, as you are colleagues.”
~~~~~
Sampson: “Unlike some teams, *they* have got discipline.”
Satsuma was trying to mediate between the two, but instead Sampson is very clearly taking Thomas’s side, which he really ought to know is only going to rile Marcus up more.
(If Marcus and Agumon’s lack of discipline is really such a big dealbreaker for you, Sampson, why did you even want to recruit him in the first place?)
Tohma:  “I think it will be futile to do so, Captain Satsuma. There is not a chance that this person could benefit DATS.”
~~~~~
Thomas: “Commander, please allow me to say a few words about the new recruit. Based on my first impression, I feel he could never benefit DATS in any way.”
Thomas is being a lot less out of line here, asking politely to speak his opinion and qualifying it as being only based on a first impression. This is also not him pointedly refusing to even try and get along like Tohma was, since Sampson didn’t ask him to. The blame in the dub version of this argument is a lot more heaped onto Marcus’s side rather than equally with both of them, and Sampson obviously siding with Thomas doesn’t help matters.
Masaru:  “Say that to my face! Look into a person’s eyes when they’re talking!”
~~~~~
Marcus: “Say that to my face! Look me in the eye! If you have the guts!”
There’s slightly less emphasis on Marcus caring about people looking him in the eye when they’re talking to him, since he turns it into a general jab about Thomas not having any guts, but I do appreciate that it’s pretty much still here and unchanged.
Marcus: “What fighting skills does Your Highness possess, you royal jerk?!”
Ehh, I don’t really like Marcus bringing in jabs about the nobility thing at this point. Thomas has just insulted his fighting strength, and in that particular fighting context, Masaru would not care about anything except his opponent’s strength and would not make uncalled-for jabs at something unrelated.
Yoshino:  “This is the worst… Go ahead, do whatever you want.”
~~~~~
Yoshi:  “Oh well… Good luck. Protect yourself.”
This is after Marcus refuses to put on his headgear in the boxing ring. Yoshino sounds like she’s just exasperatedly washing her hands of his self-destructive recklessness, because hey, at least she tried. But Yoshi still seems to be genuinely trying to help him, even as the “protect yourself” falls kinda flat because he literally just refused to do so. (It doesn’t sound especially sarcastic – the “good luck” at least sounds very genuine.)
Tohma:  “Why did you join DATS?”
Masaru:  “Huh?! It was so I could win, obviously!”
Tohma:  “Against who?”
Masaru:  “Against strong guys!”
~~~~~
Thomas: “What made you join DATS in the first place?”
Marcus: “Huh? It was so I could meet guys like *you*!”
Thomas: “Seriously?”
Yoshi:  “He means, he wanted to fight. Strong guys, like you.”
Marcus: “Not him…”
I think what the dub is trying to get at with “guys like you” is similar to a change they made last episode, in which Marcus apparently specifically wants to beat up bad guys, and Thomas is totally one of those, right. I guess props to the dub for at least trying to keep that vaguely consistent? Even though it’s a change that I very much do not like.
I presume the “not him” after Yoshi just said “strong guys like [Thomas]” is Marcus wanting to insist that Thomas isn’t strong, because it otherwise wouldn’t make any sense for him to deny the thing that he literally just said himself.
But, hey, notice something else here? Yoshino doesn’t have a line here in the original. They edited the footage to take away Marcus explaining his own goals and put those words into Yoshi’s mouth instead. Why? Why would you do that. I’d say that maybe they only did so to remove some of the punching from the fight because oh no violence (there will be some Issues the dub has with removing punching from this anime which is very heavily about punching), except they still keep the bit where Thomas punches Marcus in the stomach, so that can’t be it. They actually keep all the punches in this fight uncut, which is Rare for the dub.
Tohma:  (He’s beyond help.)
~~~~~
Thomas: (I’m getting tired of this.)
Thomas’s thought is a lot less unreasonable than Tohma’s. Thomas is still coming across as significantly more in the right than Marcus in the dub, rather than them being equally as bad as each other.
Masaru:  “A fight doesn’t end until one side admits defeat!”
~~~~~
Marcus: “Sorry ‘bout that. Why don’t you run along and catch up with Sampson. Maybe you can read a report together.”
Ughhh, I really, really don’t like this. The dub has apparently decided that, since Marcus is A Jock™, he must be disdainful of Nerds™ like Thomas and make jabs about that. Masaru doesn’t frigging care! He does not give a damn in the slightest how book-smart and workaholic Tohma is; the only thing that would ever matter to Masaru is how he fares in a fight.
And we get this instead of that fun line showing Masaru’s philosophy about street fights, giving more insight into why he insisted on getting up and continuing the fight even after the “match” had ended.
I also don’t like Marcus’s “apology”. He is very obviously not sorry for deliberately punching Thomas, and trying to act like he is when he obviously isn’t is such an insincere dick thing to do that would never even cross Masaru’s mind.
Yoshino:  “Tohma’s beaten Olympic champions in the past.”
~~~~~
Yoshi: “I’ve seen Thomas routinely beat Olympic champions in that very ring!”
…What, in that ring in the gym that’s presumably at DATS? Even if this is the dub assuming it’s not at DATS and is just some gym somewhere nearby in town, you’d have thought that if Tohma had fought champions, he’d have gone to them to do so, rather than inviting them to him. To them, he’s just some random rich kid; why would they go that far out of their way for him?
The “routinely” also serves to make Thomas’s talent sound even more ridiculously over-the-top than it already was.
Yoshino:  “Really, the only things worthy of a gold medal around here are your pride and your competitive attitude.”
~~~~~
Yoshi: “Marcus, I’m not impressed by your bragging, and Thomas isn’t even in the room!”
I miss the snark. A lot of characters the dub makes snarkier, but Yoshi kinda becomes a bit less so, it seems.
Kudamon:  “If even a small flame from PetitMeramon’s body remains, it has the ability to develop and multiply in a short time. It should have been prevented from doing so earlier.”
~~~~~
Kudamon:  “A DemiMeramon can regenerate itself over and over again, multiplying a hundred times in as little as half an hour. Apparently, the area wasn’t sealed off earlier.”
The dub manages to completely leave out the part where this is Masaru’s fault because embers from the PetitMeramon were scattered everywhere from his failed attempts to punch it and then he ran off and left things on fire for new PetitMeramon to regenerate themselves from.
Instead, apparently DemiMeramon can just multiply… whenever? It doesn’t do so from the flames it leaves behind, it just copies itself? Except, if Thomas secured the single DemiMeramon that there was to begin with, it literally should not have been able to do so. Sealing off the area would have been irrelevant once it had been safely turned into an egg. The only way it could have multiplied itself like this is if it did so before Thomas neutralised it – but it clearly didn’t do that in front of Marcus, so this is hardly his fault.
Marcus has the same flashback to punching the DemiMeramon and the same thought that this is his fault, but this makes absolutely no sense with the information the dub has given us. Great job there, dubbers.
Sampson: “And now, the DemiMeramon has been left on its own to multiply at will!”
Um, dub? Do you not remember the part where Thomas brought in the DemiMeramon’s egg? It was not left anywhere. That is not how this happened and not why this is (supposed to be) Marcus’s fault.
Masaru:  “Wait! Those fireballs are ours to beat!”
~~~~~
Marcus: “Hey! Hold on a second, that’s our case!”
They really are watering down any sense that Marcus sees this as being about finishing his fight. Instead he’s apparently invested because this is a case, like he ever really cared about the official DATS investigation side of things.
Masaru:  “Damn right! We’ll pull it off somehow using our spirits!”
~~~~~
Marcus: “You bet! And we’ll do it with style, too!”
I miss the “somehow”, making it clear that Masaru has absolutely no idea how he’s going to do this and is willing to basically admit that, yet still wants to throw himself into it anyway.
Marcus: “You two can’t handle that many alone! We’ll help!”
The “we’ll help” is a dub addition, but I am surprised by the notion that Marcus sounds willing to just help Thomas, essentially working together with him. That definitely shouldn’t be something he’d want to do right now. (Suddenly the dub is making Marcus come across as more reasonable and less of a jerk than it’s been doing the entire time, because what is consistency.)
Megumi:  “His lightning-fast techniques look great!”
~~~~~
Megumi: “His reflexes are lightning fast! And he’s cute!”
Okay, never mind what I said earlier, I guess the dub is still keeping the idea that the computer ladies think Thomas is cute, adding in a reference to that where there wasn’t even one originally.
Agumon:  “Wow…”
~~~~~
Agumon: “Cute?”
And because of that, we also lose Agumon being in awe of Tohma and Gaomon’s performance and accidentally making Masaru feel worse, in place of him simply irrelevantly questioning Megumi’s comment.
Kudamon:  “Aren’t you going to stop him?”
Satsuma:  “Leave him alone.”
~~~~~
Kudamon: “You’re not going to say anything?”
Sampson: “Not yet.”
So apparently, Sampson is planning to give Marcus some kind of talking-to about this at some point probably fairly soon. We’re really losing that sense from Satsuma that he understands that Masaru will be Masaru and is being patient and giving him space to sort his issues with Tohma out on his own, which I enjoyed and am sad to lose.
Agumon:  “Aniki… Why are you angry?”
~~~~~
Agumon: “Don’t be upset, Boss! Just because Thomas is better than you!”
Originally Agumon didn’t really understand what was going on in Masaru’s head. Meanwhile, dub-Agumon seems to have Marcus figured out perfectly – and yet is also tactless enough to outright say the thing he’s already realised is upsetting him.
Agumon:  “Well, I think Tohma and Gaomon are nasty guys too, but…”
~~~~~
Agumon: “Boss, I’m sorry I said that about Thomas. You’re better than him.”
At least dub-Agumon realises this and apologises after Marcus is clearly not thrilled by it, but his “you’re better than him” reads as pretty empty reassurance when he just said the exact opposite.
(Meanwhile, original-Agumon still didn’t realise this had anything to do with who’s better than who and just thought it had to be about Tohma being kind of a dick, while still being confused at how that would make Aniki this upset…?)
Masaru:  “No… It’s myself that I’m mad at, not them.”
~~~~~
Marcus: “No, I’m not. I’m just pig-headed and I let my pride get in my way.”
Marcus, like Masaru, is capable of realising that the problem is himself here… but he goes way further than Masaru does as to why that supposedly is.
And the thing is, this isn’t actually supposed to be the problem in the original! Originally, Masaru’s issue was that Tohma is “better” than him simply in the sense that he’s a stronger and more capable fighter, making Masaru face the fact that he might not be as strong a fighter as he thought he was. But here in the dub, apparently the problem is that Thomas is “better” than Marcus because of Marcus’s personality, because Thomas is supposedly just a better person than some pig-headed arrogant jerk like Marcus.
Which is not the point! Masaru can be reckless and prideful sometimes, but it’s never in a way that makes him a bad fighter or a bad person. He’s been a bit of argumentative jerk in this episode in particular with regards to Tohma, but Tohma himself has been equally bad in that regard in his own very different way. The original was great in having both Masaru and Tohma be equally the problem in this clash between them, in very parallel ways.
Yet apparently the dub wants us to think that, no, Thomas is a perfectly reasonable guy and the problem really is that Marcus is such an arrogant jerk compared to him. Which I guess is somewhat consistent with some of the small changes they’ve been making to the rest of the episode to make Marcus slightly more of a jerk and Thomas slightly less of one, and having Sampson clearly come down on Thomas’s side, to make it look like Marcus’s attitude alone is the problem.
But, urgh! I hate that the dub is doing this to Masaru’s character, presenting Marcus as more of a jerk and as if this is his biggest character flaw, when that has nothing to do with what’s going on with Masaru and just makes Marcus significantly less likeable! Why would you ever think this was a good thing to do with the story’s main protagonist, seriously.
Masaru:  “Damn it! What am I doing? Really… what the hell am I doing?”
~~~~~
Marcus: “It’s time I realised it. I still have a lot to learn. Face it. I’m not the ultimate fighter.”
And now, while originally Masaru was unable to properly articulate what it actually was that was frustrating him about himself, Marcus has just fully completed this 100% self-aware reflection. From this, what you’d assume it’d lead into would be, presumably, Marcus trying to be less “pig-headed and prideful” and more like Thomas, since apparently Thomas’s way of doing things obviously makes him better than Marcus as both a fighter and a person?
Yeah, raincheck on that supposed character development. I’m sure you can already tell that’s not what’s going to happen here, since it isn’t in the original, because it doesn’t freaking need to be.
Also, remember how I made a point of how the original changed Masaru’s “already the number one street fighter” into Marcus’s “trying to be the ultimate fighter” in episode 1? That’s becoming extremely relevant right here.
This whole episode is a bit of a wake-up call for Masaru in terms of realising for the first time that maybe he’s not actually the greatest fighter like he thought and there’s still more growing he can do. But Marcus? He’s supposed to have already known that. “Face it, I’m not the ultimate fighter”? You literally never said you were in the first place. You were supposed to already know you had a lot to learn, so why is it only just now “time I realised it”?
There wouldn’t necessarily be anything inherently wrong with the dubbers changing Marcus’s ultimate fighter thing into this if they’d made sure to follow through on it and also change every character moment he gets to be consistent with the new version. Buuut they’re not doing that. I don’t think they realised how meaningful of a change it even was to make in the first place.
Old man:  “It’s hard lighting up a fire… The sparks go out easily whenever the wind gets a little too strong.”
Masaru:  “Well, obviously!”
~~~~~
Old man: “I’m having trouble starting a fire, though. Y’see, the flames keep dying out on me because the wind’s too strong and it keeps blowing it out.”
Marcus: “Yeah, that’s happened to me, too.”
Unlike Masaru, who was just expressing exasperation at this old guy telling him something obvious like he didn’t already know that the wind blows out flames, Marcus appears to be… getting the metaphor? His own experience that he’s referring to could just be his literal problem of not being able to punch fire, but based on what he’s just been reflecting on a moment ago and also judging from his tone of voice, that doesn’t seem to be it.
Which makes me sad! Masaru is a ridiculously straightforward doofus who wouldn’t know a metaphor if it punched him in the face, and I am disappointed to see the dub water down that delightful part of his character and make Marcus into some kind of regular person who can actually recognise that kind of thing.
Old man:  “But… once I get a larger flame going, it burns strongly no matter how much the wind blows. Fire is an interesting thing, isn’t it?”
Masaru:  “…This is…”
~~~~~
Old man: “Well… If you learn to use the wind instead of fighting it, you can make the fire burn brighter than ever before. Harness power, don’t extinguish it.”
Marcus: “…He’s right!”
But then, the dub’s version of the metaphor becomes something quite different. Instead of saying that Masaru’s “flame” will soon get so strong that no wind can blow it out, he’s saying that Marcus should harness the “wind” to make his “flame” stronger.
Originally, the metaphor was basically meant to be a reassurance to Masaru that he’s already doing fine – that he just needs to keep going as he has been and continue to grow and soon enough nothing will be able to stop him. But here in the dub, the metaphor appears to be prompting him to take new action of some sort, warning him that his flame will keep getting blown out if he doesn’t do whatever “harnessing the wind” is supposed to mean.
It’s ambiguous exactly what the “wind” could represent here. If it’s something that was getting in Marcus’s way until now, is it meant to be his “pig-headed pride” that he was just thinking was his big problem? Is the point of this supposed to be the old man telling Marcus through metaphor that actually he should keep being exactly the way he is and should just do that harder?
On the one hand I’d be okay with that because hey, guess what, newsflash, there is actually nothing wrong with Masaru being the way he is, and the dub is wrong to try and act like his personality is the issue and to distort his personality into being more of a jerk to make it an issue. But then that just serves to completely undermine the supposed realisation that Marcus had back in the tunnel and set him back on the track of not trying to change at all. (Which, yeah, again, spoilers, he’s not going to; of course he’s not going to be actively trying to make himself more like Thomas, because that’s not something that Masaru would ever do. Masaru has very strong convictions in who he is and wouldn’t change that for anyone.)
And somehow, despite this metaphor being a lot more metaphorical and ambiguous than it was in the original, and despite this being Marcus, he appears to completely understand what the old man is trying to say to him and take those words to heart. Whatever those words actually are. Somehow.
…I suppose it’s possible that actually the “wind” in the metaphor is supposed to represent Thomas, and that this metaphor is trying to encourage Marcus and Thomas to work together to make each other stronger. This would sort of make sense, since GeoGreymon uses fire-based attacks while Gaogamon uses wind-based attacks, and we’ll actually be seeing some metaphorical stuff being done with those attacks of theirs in the next couple of episodes. Still, if that’s the case, it’s nonetheless definitely not what Marcus gets from this metaphor right here.
But you know what else this dub version of the metaphor very much isn’t? It is not remotely useful literal advice about how to punch fire. At no point does it explain the part where a stronger flame won’t be blown out by anything (and will therefore be punchable). So whatever Marcus is getting from the old man’s words here, it isn’t that. This is kind of important for what’s about to happen next.
As Marcus hears about the trouble at the gas tanks and rushes off, the old man has an added line that’s just silence in the original:
Old man: “See what good fire does?”
…which makes even more of a point that this is definitely only meant to be some kind of metaphor. Though, wasn’t he trying to say that the wind would do Marcus good? Marcus already is the fire in this metaphor, so stressing that fire is good seems besides the point. I’m getting increasingly convinced that the dubbers just didn’t have an actual meaning in mind for their version of the metaphor at all and were half-assing this entire conversation. (Yet they somehow still felt they knew better than the original writers enough to change it at all.)
Thomas: “There’s no chance he can secure the DemiMeramon. There’s too many!”
[cut to precisely *three* DemiMeramon flying around]
Yep, sure, three of them is totally too many. Originally the “too many” comment wasn’t there, and Tohma thought Masaru couldn’t do this simply because he hadn’t shown he could handle any PetitMeramon at all. Numbers are not supposed to be the issue here, or at least not the primary one like Thomas is making it sound like it is.
Masaru:  “Fire sparks easily go out whenever the wind blows on them. But… Once they burst into flame…!”
[Masaru leaps to punch the Meramon quite solidly in the face and lands with his Digisoul flaring]
Masaru:  “They won’t be extinguished so easily!”
~~~~~
Marcus:  “Just like the old man said, a fire can be blown out by the wind. Then again… you know what I always say…!”
[Marcus leaps to punch the Meramon quite solidly in the face and lands with his DNA flaring]
Marcus:  “You gotta fight fire with fire!”
So… yeah. In the dub, the old man’s words were not actually advice on how to solve this problem, and Marcus’s decision to deliberately make the DemiMeramon stronger had nothing to do with what the old man told him. He had no reason to believe this would work. He really was just being dangerously rash and hot-headed with no sense of actual plan or strategy, and it really did only work out of sheer luck.
(I mean, okay, maybe he could have just figured on his own that making the fire stronger would make it punchable. But Masaru is definitely not supposed to be the kind of person who could figure that out without being nudged in the right direction by someone else. And if Marcus really is perfectly capable of figuring that out on his own, why did he not do so the first time?)
Thomas: “Marcus made Meramon Digivolve on purpose so he could activate his DNA…”
It is very debatable that this was on purpose here, Thomas.
Megumi:  “Not bad!”
~~~~~
Megumi: “Marcus proved he could do it!”
Thanks, dub, we needed it made obvious that this fight was about Marcus proving himself, because we couldn’t figure that out on our own.
Thomas: “Don’t get cocky. You just got lucky this time, that’s all.”
This line is basically unchanged, but guess what? Thomas is right to say this, where Tohma wasn’t.
Tohma:  “Don’t be absurd. You don’t come up with any strategy or tactics. Do you think using force all the time will let you win at everything?”
Masaru:  “Hah, sounds like a sore loser to me.”
~~~~~
Thomas: “Just as I thought, you had no plan and no tactics, just raw power.”
Marcus: “Hah. For a genius, you’re a real sore loser.”
Still basically the same, but again, Thomas is right this time, not being a sore loser. In fact, the added “just as I thought” (and this line comes after the cut back to HQ, so there was conversation prior to it that we didn’t hear) suggests that Thomas has just heard from Marcus himself that, yes, he really did just recklessly charge in with no plan.
I mean, sure, in a sense Thomas is still being a sore loser because Marcus’s raw power still worked. But the point of the sore loser line in the original was that Tohma insisting that Masaru used no tactics in and of itself was him sorely refusing to admit that maybe Masaru actually did have some idea what he was doing after all.
Tohma:  “What did you say?”
Masaru:  “Wanna make somethin’ of it? I’ll knock you out with one hit to the face this time!”
~~~~~
Thomas: “What did you say?”
Marcus: “Oh, just this: I’ll take my raw power over your tactics any day!”
Granted, outright saying he’d prefer raw power over tactics is definitely something Masaru might also say (of course he would; look at how he never tried to point out that he actually did have a strategy because he doesn’t care about that). But this is a bit of a different way for the dub to show Marcus having his confidence back, since his “conflict” this episode was apparently about “oh no what if raw power is bad and I should be more like Thomas”.
(…Did the dub actually deliberately remove the part where the metaphor was literal advice about punching fire so that Marcus could win through nothing but raw power in order to facilitate this complete backpedal in what briefly appeared to be some ill-advised character development? Ugh, but even if that was on purpose, it’s so much more interesting to show that Masaru actually can do strategy sometimes, and it’s just that his strategies are a lot more risky and head-on than Tohma’s!)
Tohma:  “You want me… to act alongside him?”
Masaru:  “You’re joking! I’ll never accept him as my partner!”
~~~~~
Thomas: “But sir, he’s completely undisciplined!”
Marcus: “This clown?! I’ll never be his partner – he’s way too annoying!”
Thomas and Marcus get given specific reasons to object to working together in the dub – and while Thomas’s complaint of “undisciplined” is perfectly reasonable, Marcus’s complaint of “annoying” seems rather beside the point. Too pompous, too uptight, (too makes-him-feel-like-maybe-strategy-and-not-just-raw-power-might-be-useful); something like that would be more relevant to Marcus. Is this supposed to be another Marcus Just Hates Nerds™ thing? Because ugh.
Overall differences
Oh boy. There’s a lot going on in terms of changes in this episode, and basically all of it is bad.
Rather than Masaru and Tohma both being presented as equally out-of-line for their own reasons in their initial arguments, the narrative firmly comes down on Thomas’s side by making Thomas less unreasonably harsh in his comments and by having Sampson clearly taking Thomas’s side.
The bit where they explain how DemiMeramon multiplied makes no sense and certainly doesn’t logically leave it as being Marcus’s fault at all, yet he still claims it is for no reason and we’re just expected to believe that.
Then there’s Marcus’s whole, ahem, “character arc” for the episode, if it can even be called that. Rather than some delightful subtle exploration of how Masaru deals with the realisation that he’s not necessarily the strongest fighter out there like he professes to be, it becomes this heavy-handed thing about how Marcus’s whole problem is that he’s Such A Big Arrogant Jerk. Marcus is way more self-aware about his supposed exact problem than someone like him really ought to be (including admitting he’s not the ultimate fighter when he never said he was), and for a moment it seems like his character development is going to be about him learning to be less of a jerk and more like Thomas. Except it won’t, because this won’t happen in the original, because this is not remotely Masaru’s problem in the original.
Then there’s the old man’s metaphor. Originally he was effectively saying that Masaru is doing fine the way he is and just needs to keep growing and getting stronger like this. Here, the metaphor is changed to imply that Marcus needs to take some kind of new action, except what new action is extremely unclear and is not actually going to happen, because, again, not how it went originally. Marcus apparently somehow gets this metaphor, which is ridiculous because I’m not even sure what it was on about, never mind that Marcus should be the last person who’s any good with metaphors, just like Masaru is.
And then there’s the part where the old man’s changed metaphor had nothing to do with teaching Marcus how he could literally punch fire and defeat the DemiMeramon. So his victory in the climactic fight really was complete boneheaded reckless luck without a semblance of strategy, and Thomas was right to call it that.
This entire dub version of the episode firmly wants you to come down on Thomas’s side and agree that Marcus is a huge dumb arrogant jerk whose personality is the entire problem here, and, urgh. I hate it. I hate it so much. I hate that the dub writers consciously chose to do this to Masaru’s character. Masaru does not deserve this.
(You’re probably starting to see why I’m actually quite glad that Masaru has a different name in the dub. Marcus may be a somewhat different character that the dub is insistently making worse, but at least Masaru will always be untainted and separate from the dub’s nonsense.)
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