#and i think its appropriate because we were learning so much about japanese stuff the other day

[chibimyumi]

What do you think about OCiel and Vincent? What is their relationship? When we see Vincent he is always with RCiel and he hug him and not our earl, and when OCiel talk about Vincent he call him his predecessor and not his father!

Dear Anon,

That is a very good question because that is indeed very hard to tell. The Book of Flashbacks did last for very long in real time, but we actually only saw the interaction between Vincent and O!Ciel sporadically spread across 4 chapters.

Though it had been short, in the very least there is some level of objectivity because the flashbacks are being told by the omniscient storyteller. It could not have been O!Ciel, R!Ciel or Takana’s subjective pov, because in most scenes at least one of them was missing. However, that it was told by the omniscient storyteller doesn’t mean we have seen everything. Yana does leave things out when its unnecessary like a competent storywriter would. We don’t need to know everything. In storytelling often “less is more”.

Now with that caveat established, let us look at whatever interaction we do see. But before we do so, we must first discuss what “parental love” even is.

What is parental love?

In the flashbacks Vincent’s affection is indeed mostly for his firstborn son. Even though we want to believe all parents love all their children equally and naturally, sometimes parents just love one child a little bit more. Even if parents do love all their children equally, it is also nothing weird that they “like” one child more than the other. Not unlike any other relationship, love between parent and child is also something that grows from building and investing in. Parental love is not a magically natural element in our DNA after all, as researched by Prof. Sarah Blaffer Hrdy on the “social construct of parental love”. Don’t worry, no need for moral panic; that parental love is socially constructed doesn’t make it any less deep or real. It’s just that because parental love too needs building, the more positive interaction you have with a child, the stronger the bond often.

Because O!Ciel was so sickly from age five on it hindered him from normal participation in family activities. Therefore it is only normal that Vincent could bond less with him, making his greater closeness with his elder son quite inevitable.

Vincent’s closeness with R!Ciel is in fact more out of the ordinary for their time. At least until early 20th century fathers did not have a parental role as we know it now. They were responsible as the “legal owners” of the child, but “parenting” was not part of their duty. It is not for nothing that when we hear “mothering” most people think of “child-rearing, raising and loving”, but when we hear “fathering”, it’s just... impregnating someone. Because that had been the actual definition for centuries!

Vincent’s parental love?

In chapter 131 I would argue we get the best indication of how far Vincent’s love goes for his second son. They had a family trip planned, but due to illness O!Ciel could not participate. In the back Vincent does look appropriately concerned, but we don’t know about what exactly. Put a pin📌 in there, I will come back to this a bit later.

Rachel judged O!Ciel’s condition too ill to go, and suggested postponing the boat trip, not Vincent. (In Japanese “we can go another time” was spoken in a speech pattern Vincent doesn’t use, so it’s definitely Rachel talking.)

Vincent doesn’t say anything so we don’t know what he thought about his wife’s proposal. Meanwhile, his seven-year-old had already selflessly offered to stay behind as not to spoil the fun of others.

What really caught my attention was how there was so little attempt to include O!Ciel. Rachel only said one “but...” and then immediately gave in to a seven-year-old.

Vincent did not even attempt to not exclude his son. He was like:

That is what I meant earlier by: “we don’t know about what exactly [he is concerned about]”  where I asked you to put the pin📌. It might as well have been:

Vincent and Rachel are rich adults, they should be able to judge that them skipping one boat-trip is something they can get over with. Leaving a young child behind who is regularly excluded from everything and clearly so upset having to be excluded again was apparently a less bigger deal than skipping something they could easily afford again. O!Ciel was so used to being excluded he had normalised that for himself, and was forced to learn selfless sacrifice. That is not healthy for any child that young!

If you can’t tell that this poor child was lying about “everything being fine” you’re actively unseeing it. R!Ciel is but a seven-year-old, so he is blameless. Papa, mama, looking at you though! ( Ò_Ó💢) I mean, dear readers, would any of you have left a sick young child behind to go on a trip??? It could be that Vincent really wanted to bring his recovered wife on a trip and that’s important to him, but to sacrifice your sick child for that?

We have not seen everything to judge whether in total Rachel was more, equally, or less often ill than O!Ciel. However, from what we have seen, every time O!Ciel was excluded, Rachel in the very least was doing better. This really paints a picture that overall, Rachel misses out on stuff less often than O!Ciel had to. And again, unlike young children, as an adult you can rationalise that. In my opinion if you’re unwilling to reschedule a trip to include everyone while it is within your ability, you are selfish parents. R!Ciel wouldn’t have thrown a tantrum, but even if he did, it’s your literal job as parents to rationalise that with him. So doing it for R!Ciel is no excuse.

“Predecessor” instead of “father”?

Yes that is indeed an interesting point you bring up! After O!Ciel returned as the Earl he indeed only referred to his parents as “father and mother” at the graves one last time. Afterwards she has consistently referred to Vincent as “predecessor”.

I however would argue this has nothing to do with his bond (or lack thereof) with Vincent. He also refers to R!Ciel using the formal term for brother (兄・ani) instead of the better-known “niisan” (big bro). And we know for a fact that they did have a deep bond. I would say that O!Ciel calling Vincent “predecessor” is because he does not wish to be seen as childish because he is trying to be taken as an adult.

In Japanese “father” as used by O!Ciel is “otousama” (お父様), which is polite but a bit childish. “Otousama” is vocative, meaning it is a word you use to call your own father; like “papa”. In formal company you won’t say to someone: “my papa said...” That sounds very childish and unprofessional. People nowadays do use the common version “otousan” to refer to their own father to others, but that is generally only acceptable in casual company. To my friends I might say: “my papa (otousan) said”, but to my superiours I would NEVER.

As O!Ciel never again addresses his father (because he is dead), it is only logical that he stopped using the vocative “otousama”. For nobles when talking about their late fathers, using “predecessor” is actually standard in Japanese culture. It is just one of the things that are natural in Japanese but get clunky in translation.

Conclusion

For Victorian standards Vincent’s involvement (or lack thereof) with O!Ciel was actually entirely normal. It was his involvement with his elder son that was quite exceptional. Judging from his lack of attempt to not exclude his sick child however, I would say Vincent didn’t love O!Ciel as much as he did R!Ciel. (Or... he just hated missing out on fun more than he loved O!Ciel, which is possible too). Not saying he did not love O!Ciel, just not as much as he did others.

Vincent was raised in a male-supremacist, ableist society, and was probably unaffected by these problems being an able-bodied, smart man himself. We know Vincent is a terrible exploiter and how he treats others, and therefore it would be unsurprising if he would hold his “disabled” male child in lesser regard than his “able” male eldest child. We don’t know why Vincent married Rachel or why he liked her, but women being frail was in fact considered no problem or even “attractive” in the 19th century (as long as she could get babies). For men though? SHAME!

#Vincent Phantomhive #father #O!Ciel #R!Ciel #Rachel #Relationship #Parental love #Parents #Oh my goood honestly rereading these chapters for this post was ughghghg #Dayum Rachel and Vincent - don't pretend your boat-trip was a once-in-a-lifetime-chance #What adult actually indulges in a 7 y/o's self sacrifice for your own LUXURY!?!!! my godssssss

[callistolivia]

Is there any divinatory Practice / spiritual communication that originated in Western Europe? I've heard runes Are historically originat from Roman occupation. And the use of runes Have no historical basis as a tool of divination. Don't want to steal anybody's culture but need a way to do Deviation / spiritual work with out cultural appropriation. Any ideas would be helpful and I would prefer something old as apposed to just make your own with no roots to anything.

I'm assuming this is in response to the article I shared on tarot, so here's a couple things I want to clear up,

the point of that article wasn't to say "no, you can't use tarot" nor was it a clear "yes"; the main point of the article was acknowledging that profiting off tarot, particularly when you're someone who picked it up because you thought it was cool or trendy to do so, may be unethical as it takes away from/harms a particular group of that ethnicity who has cultural ties to the practice. I also wanted to address, I think in general, that there are a lot of spiritual practices adopted by people not of that culture who put in minimal effort to really understand its background and the ancestral ties to them. I personally believe there is no place for ignorance when learning spirituality (or I should say particular practices and ancient teachings), you have to be open and welcoming to the full history to actually have a good grasp on a particular practice. Cultural appropriation isn't necessarily about "stealing" culture, as we as humans have been borrowing each other's culture since the beginning of time. It isn't cultural appropriation to eat sushi in America just because sushi is Japanese cuisine. Cultural appropriation is when people outside that culture decide when something is suddenly appropriate to be practiced meanwhile all the time leading up to that point or even thereafter, the people of that particular culture are being harmed for practicing THEIR culture. So that's the essential pain that comes from the women discussing tarot in that article, and honestly I hate bringing this up again because a lot of people got really pissed at me for sharing that article claiming I said a bunch of stuff I didn't say, but there is a reason why there's such mixed opinions coming from that community. There's a reason why huge portions of that community have completely rejected or disassociated themselves from tarot and its past and it's because of the way people outside their culture, particularly white people, harmed them and continue to harm them for practicing it (among other cultural practices, of course). It's so easy for us 21st century westernized people to look at tarot, for example, and just see it as a game. We are very comfortable in our freedom, and that's great, but remembering what got us to that point is also very important. You can use this entire framework with any spiritual practice you may delve into; just understanding its history and listening to people who have incorporated it into their culture for generations. So if you were a tarot user, read that article, and thought it was the authority to tell you to stop, it wasn't. You should continue to do spiritual practices that make you feel empowered and connected. However, if you feel absolutely compelled to stop for your own personal moral and ethical reasons, that's perfectly fine too. There's no shame at all in extending deep respect to people who you don't know personally.

If you want something really ancient and you happen to have the privilege of looking into your family tree, there were (and still are) several indigenous groups all over western Europe. You may have ancestral links to one of these groups and you can research into their cultural and spiritual practices. This may be somewhat difficult to uncover and link to yourself though, as these groups were targeted, pushed out of their land, or forcibly converted to Christianity. Runes were used long before Romans invaded Northern Europe by different tribes (though the runes we know quite well today are an evolution of those roots) so I wouldn't write off rune work. And I know you don't view runes as a form of divination, but the point of divination is to gain a deeper understanding of something (e.i you, God, the world) and one of the many ways some of these Northern and Western European groups would feel connected spiritually was through rune work (particularly carving runes into divination tools, bones, etc.) I don't specialize in runes, but I definitely recommend looking into books or people who teach rune magic (if it interests you, of course) because Wikipedia isn't going to give you good grasp on the history or proper use. Anything esoteric requires digging.

-Many cultures around the world, including parts of Western Europe, believe in fae and many people presently incorporate this belief as a part of divination (as it counts as calling upon some other being to give you knowledge, technically). You could look into fae magick.

-The Oracle of Delphi; the Pythia; priestesses of ancient Greece who would essentially get high off of volcanic fumes and do trance work. I'm not condoning drugs or altered mind states at all, but this is one example of many where cultures will use something to put themselves into an altered state to perceive the world differently. You definitely don't need drugs to do this either, breath work can put you into altered states too.

-I don't know much about this one either, but weather watching is also considered a form of divination.

-I know you want ancient over new, and technically this is ancient, but dream work/shifting. Like literally there's an entire community on Tik Tok doing that shit and probably don't realize the spiritual element to being in control of your dreams. To add onto this as well, you can develop your own symbol system (and this is what a lot of psychics do to sharpen their understanding of psychic visions). Symbol systems are literally anything from numbers to words to symbols to objects, literally anything, that represent something specific to you so that when they appear to you, you know what they symbolize. To give an example, a lot of psychics will incorporate numbers having specific meanings in their symbol systems. A number can represent a binary answer, a birth date, a month, heck even a zodiac sign. A symbol system enhances your understanding of information being presented to you; in a lot of ways its similar to tarot or astrology, but it's a system created in your mind.

-Not specifically western European, but Psalm and Angel magick/divination is considered an open practice. I recommend Ariel Gatoga on youtube for more information on this.

Finally once again, I know you prefer something ancient or old over new and created, but don't underestimate your abilities to be connected spiritually without well known tools. That umbilical cord is so strong in us as children, before even understanding or really knowing about divination tools; we let the wind hold our hand, stare deeply into the flame of candles, collect things outside and make pretend potions and spells, believe every creak in our houses are a spirit, pick petals off a flower for a "they love me, they love me not," and make wishes on shooting stars. Divination is innate; our urge to understand beyond. You don't necessarily need ancient tools, though the tools make us feel connected to everyone who gathered knowledge before us.

I hope this was helpful in anyway!

#ask #divination

[lunavadash-creates]

Finally there is someone who understands my love for Saint oniisan! I am not especially religious, but I can totally say I became a huge fan of Jesus after seeing it! He is hilarious and has a funny voice! I love the way he says “Budda” after Budda suggests making food out of rocks. And the scene in the sauna is definitely my favorite. Idea of Jesus being the son of the yakuza's boss – I am buying it! I love such creative productions!

Your idea for Mira and Connor story seems more and more interesting. To be honest, it’s even better than plotline for Amara and Altair and Olivia and Haytham (although you make me question all my prejudices towards him and in the end I can say that I “like him” rather than “tolerate him”, your drabble with drunken Olivia was asdfghjkllove). Maybe next time you post some 5 words sentences or whatever it was, I’ll request something for them. I am definitely not a history lover, but I admire having such a deliberate background. You really have potential for being a professional writer. I mean, don’t get me wrong, but those are only fanfictions. People writing such things focus on the story itself, on characters, dynamics between them. I feel that you also work a lot on research for background to be the most accurate as it could be. Like, wow! And you actually really prepare for writing anything. The drabble with the reader wanting a tattoo and reaction of ac character taking into consideration how tattoos were perceived in the appropriate timeline? I had no idea that people were tattooed in ancient times! Or maybe it’s just my historical ignorance and sleeping tendencies in history classes. .

But summing up.. I suddenly feel sorry for Connor. Feeling betrayed, especially by those who are considered as closed ones or allies must be really awful. Let me hug him.

What’s your natural hair color and what is your color rn? Do you like it dyed? Would you change anything else about it?

I wouldn’t say that grey eyelash is unique. Not many people know about it, it’s almost invisible. It’s not like you are looking at someone’s eyelashes and their color. Besides, I usually wear make up, so..

I was asking about piercing, because well. I would love to have piercings. Like.. I really do. Maybe not too extreme (although nipple piercing looks good to me) – just ears and maybe nose. That’s all. The problem is I am afraid of needles. And yes, I have a tattoo. And yes, I am going to get the second one. And yes, tattoos are made with needles. But still, this doesn’t change the fact I am afraid of needles. And I just need a little encouragement. I talked with a friend who made helix piercing last year, but it disturbed her sleep. Earring hooked on her pillow and in the end her ear became swollen and hurt, so she took it out. So I need more opinions. Positive ones I guess.

But right now you make me think about the riskiest thing I’ve ever done in my life.. Getting a tattoo wasn’t even close to a risky thing. What about you? Any confessions?

🔪

tbh I'm not religious at all. But that anime was brilliant :D I also love how Jesus didn't bring gifts for all Japanese gods and then saw them on rice grains and was so sorry. It was adorable.

I'm glad you like my OC but tbh i don't remember writing about drunk Olivia 😂 but those 3 are my favourite babies. They are all different but just... they seem right for me. Ad I know a lot of people doesn't like Haytham and it's valid. I find him interesting so i decided to make a story about him, to show his loving and caring side. Because after all games, books, tv series and everything is made to be enjoyed, not to make some wars about who's right and wrong. I just enjoy things I like and that's it! Thank you for your words about being a professional writer. Tbh when i make stories I always check the background, history and all of those little details because I like being accurate. I like when things I write have a meaning, maybe some hidden sense. It makes me happy to find something that connects the dots, you know? And not knowing historical details like tattoos isn't ignorance. You don't need to study or learn about things you're not interested in. About that tattoo hc - I know it's nice to read about characters that are all "I love ink on your body" but I really want to be historically accurate. Because as much as we want our fave characters to be perfect, they aren't and I guess it's nice to explore their flaws.

I was reading Ac 1 book today and I finished that 2nd part and I noticed Altair was crying while killing Al Mualim. Tbh it made me think today about the vulnerability of people. Weird, right? Especially that Altair said that he knew Al Mualim's love was fake and fragile, that he was using Altair. And yet Altair treated him as a father and cried for him. I'm in such a deep Altair's hole, I really love that man.

Piercing. Knifey. It is your body and your life so if you want to have piercing? GO GET IT. Like really. If you won't do it you may grow to regret it. And if you decide that piercing doesn't spark a joy? Just take it off and let your skin heal. But really, nose piercing looks good. I love those little, silver balls on the side of the nose. Idk if you also like those but still. GO MAKE YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE. GET THE PIERCING. BE HAPPY. Yes, you need to be careful about it in the beginning. There is a small risk of not healing properly but for that, you have all the meds to use. Keep that place clean and you should be 100% fine. So honestly Knifey, my amazing, smart, hard-working and talented friend, those are your worst of encouragement. GO GET THE PIERCING YOU WANT. And don't look back.

My confessions? Tbh I don't think I have any. I don't really do risky stuff, I don't have any tattoos and I don't plan on having any (I don't really like having stuff on my skin. Like I used to draw on my skin o get used to the thought of having a tattoo but it bored me after some time so I'm sure I don't want to have a tattoo but I love them on other people). I also stopped dying my hair for now to see my natural colour. Hmm what else... I think that's all. Not much is happening in my life rn. I just vibe and play genshin (its an amazing game and its FREE if you want to play :D)

#knifey #ask #knifey my beloved

[danwhobrowses]

Why ‘The Karate Kid Part II’ Deserves More Respect

So guess what film I finished watching today? Of course, the Karate Kid franchise is considered iconic mainly for its first entry; Wax on Wax off, Skeleton fights, Sweep the Leg and the Crane Kick all cemented its legacy that allowed Cobra Kai to also be such a success. But imagine my shock when the approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes for Part II is 45% - 21% lower than the Jaden Smith ‘The Karate Kung Fu Kid’ version (and Part III is scored 15%, which is also super harsh but hard to debate outside of the magnificence of Terry Silver). Originally this was just gonna be a general post of how much I enjoyed retreading Part II, but upon seeing that score I had to give it my ‘Deserves More Respect’ posts.

It is an off-chance, but if you haven’t watched this film there will be spoilers within, I encourage you to watch it before reading, and maybe watch it again if you have so it’s fresh in the mind

Let’s start with a controversial point shall we? There are several parts where Part II is actually better than the original. Now I know! There’s a lot about the original which is iconic, but nostalgia does blind you to other shortcomings and while it’s easy to sell the first part because of its mystique, a sequel has the added pressure of rising above and developing on old and new themes set by the predecessor. The Premise In case you decided against refreshing your memory. Karate Kid Part II starts with a recap of Part I, a bit of content that was meant to be Part I’s final scene (in the script, not for filming) and then a timeskip. Ali with an i is gone - brutally dumping Daniel for some Football Player before Senior Prom and after crashing his car, Daniel’s mother is in Fresno for work and Miyagi has received a letter from his home Okinawa in news of his father’s fading health. The stage is set for Daniel and the audience to learn more about the iconic Mr. Miyagi and the life he left behind. Okay, so there is bad in this film Part II deserves respect, but it’s not perfect. It definitely gets messy near the end with Daniel’s antagonist Chozen, he mainly took beats from Johnny Lawrence in physically confronting Daniel when he could with a bunch of no-named goons and he fought pretty similarly to Johnny in catch counters and leg strikes. The opening recap did take a lot of time too, while the ending remained somewhat abrupt having just beaten up Chozen to embrace Kumiko (who had a delayed recovery after being punched once). While not bad, a fair amount of retreaded content felt like downgrades of the original; Chozen and Sato lacked the charisma of Johnny and Kreese, the crane kick was far more impressive than the drum technique and the Tournament setting was grander than the O-Bon festival. But, there are Iconic Moments in this film too Part I may have the Crane Kick and the Skeletons and the Training and Sweep the Leg. But people may forget that Part II had awesome moments too.

Like Daniel chopping through 6 Sheets of Ice! If that isn’t one hell of a power play I don’t know what is. It is a moment genuinely impressive in and outside of the 80s cheese universe of Karate Kid, and it gets referenced in Season 2 of Cobra Kai.

Also referenced in Season 2 is Miyagi vs Kreese. While this is the intended ending for Part I, it certainly acted better at the start of Part II, especially given that is foreshadows the situation Daniel finds himself in at the end of the movie. This moment is equally iconic as it completely encapsulates the character of both senseis - Kreese the confident brute brought to a sniveling mouse when size and power failed him and Miyagi the cool-headed and vastly more intelligent fighter still with the cheeky prankster lightness to him as he honks the scared shitless Kreese on the nose. Perfect.

While I did want to cite the Tea Ceremony as well I think the more iconic moment for Part II had to be Miyagi chopping the log during the storm. The storm itself is a very well-done scene which unmasks several characters in the face of adversity. True tension, worry and stakes are sold as the village are in danger of the cruel whims of nature, an act which is all too real for Sato when the house he’s in collapses on him in the calm before his scheduled deathmatch with Miyagi. Not only is this again some great foreshadowing by the rule of three (Daniel asking if Miyagi can chop a log like Sato is doing with a banner and then Miyagi and Sato meeting and seeing Sato fail to chop a log) it proves a pivotal point where Sato turns from aggrieved antagonist to repenting ally. A great show of power and friendship as Miyagi metaphorically breaks the rift between their friendship that weighs Sato down. Okay, we hear you, but how is it better? I do have to preface that I do still love Part I, I have to because in pointing out where Part II is better I have to pick at Part I’s faults. While the ending is messy Part II definitely has much better pacing, until the skeletons scene Part I doesn’t really pick up because it has to set up, Part II while it does recap doesn’t need to worry about it. Giving Miyagi the main plot was definitely Part II’s strongest suit. Part I profited from Miyagi being the ‘mysterious old teacher’ but learning a lot more about his humanity and history was engrossing and it allowed positive development for Miyagi and Daniel, especially their bond as a surrogate father and son when Daniel personally goes out of his way to support Miyagi on a very personal matter. The main characters maintain their charm as well, still a lovely array of life lessons in Part II more than just finding balance, Miyagi teaches Daniel through words and action on taking time to breathe, to refocus when imbalanced, to forgive rather than to harbour hate, mercy, selflessness and humbleness

“never put passion before principle. Even if win, you lose.” - Mr. Miyagi

The scenes involving Miyagi and his father were some of the most deep and emotive of the series up until Cobra Kai, some still haven’t been topped such as Miyagi’s dad’s first words to his son or when Daniel talked about when his father died.  And say what you will about Chozen, he does have a lot of Johnny vibes but a lot of the character we believed was Johnny due to nostalgia goggles was more fitting of Chozen’s manner. The story did a great job in making sure Chozen was always an asshole, at times Johnny did at least display honour and grace but Chozen was always sore about stuff and quick to claim dishonour even when he was in the wrong. Contrary to Johnny it’s more about his family than it is about a girl, which allowed a lot more freedom in the plot. Whether you felt Elizabeth Shue’s Ali with an i was prettier than Tamlyn Tomita’s Kumiko is up to personal preference, but the messy-haired Kumiko definitely had a slightly improved presence in Part II than Ali did, with actual focus on her own feelings outside of attraction to Daniel, her ambition to become a dancer directly linking to the O-Bon Festival - which in turn related to the Drum technique - as well as the delicately beautiful Tea Ceremony scene and actually contributing to the final fight (granted Ali wouldn’t be allowed to). Also Daniel didn’t try to eat her face which is a general improvement to the romantic subplot, extra applause has to go to Tomita here too because this was legitimately her first role - Shue had her second so that’s impressive too - and both women had good careers going forward. The increased stakes definitely worked in the favour of Part II as well, as sequel culture is forced to do, but by moving to Okinawa (actually filmed in Hawaii) we opened the door to better suit Miyagi’s world while keeping Daniel the fish out of water. I can’t speak too much for appropriation because there is still kinda some ‘white saviour’ undertones but I didn’t feel like Japan was treated negatively in this light, its culture of the O-Bon Festival and the Tea Ceremony was treated with the utmost respect and explained without pandering, the flute music had definitely stepped up its game for the soundtrack as did the imagery. Can also appreciate that Daniel does go for the Crane kick when fighting Chozen but is parried. Added hat tip has to go to costuming too. A lot of costumes would have to have distinct Kamon such as Sato’s twin fish and Miyagi’s bonsai on a lot of their clothing

Between Sato and Miyagi the colours of their clothes often code their emotions towards each other, with Sato usually in grey and Miyagi in white or cream, when Sato and Miyagi prepare for death they are in black and when Sato wants forgiveness he moves to a lighter shade. While Part I also used black and white to differ Johnny and Daniel, Part II put Chozen and Daniel in the more Japanese-themed Red and Blue. While both men wear red, blue and whites at time, Chozen’s clothes almost devolve from the white he debuts in as his darker side comes out before flat out embracing yellow after his chance to prove his honour in the storm is refused (and he’s in white then), while Daniel often moves to Red or red tones even in his blue shirt. Kumiko also moves from white to blue, sometimes even purple, in set up to the final fight to have the primary colours stand out in the colourful crowd of the O-Bon festival, but even in the blue Kumiko had red to pair her connection with Daniel. Also her Yukata at the festival is just stunning, the Great Wave off Kanagawa print is a nice touch.

Anything else we should know? It might not be much else about the film itself I can tell you, but I do appreciate something I’m starting to call ‘The Rocky Connection’ when it comes to Karate Kid. Like Part I’s ‘You’re the Best (Around)’ was shortlisted for Rocky III, Part II’s song ‘Glory of Love’ was shortlisted for Rocky IV’s theme, losing to ‘Hearts on Fire’, Bill Conti also chose to score this film instead of Rocky IV. I like to pair this with Daniel’s Rocky-esque character, he has that same kind of swagger but a lot more naive and childlike. Martin Kove also gets a nod because those bleeding hands were legit, he had an accident on-set and the footage was kept for the final cut. Tamlyn Tomita wasn’t the only film debut for Part II, B.D. Wong of...well, several famous roles including but not limited to Shang in the animated Mulan, Dr. Wu in the Jurassic Park franchise, Hugo Strange in Gotham and many more, also had his debut here in a minor speaking role when he’s handing out flyers for the dance party to Kumiko and Daniel before the Ice Chopping Scene. So, why does it deserve respect A film that adds to a beloved character in a respectful fashion without having really any god awful moments does not deserve a 4.5/10 rating. It may not have as emphatic an ending or as great a villain but it has a captivating plot and a good pace, better stakes and much more emotionally driven and responsive scenes. A lot of effort and dedication went into this film to explore new dimensions of the main characters in a fashion which was enjoyable and at times heartwarming. And characters are given human moments, even Miyagi confesses himself not to be perfect and it keeps each character grounded. Even to this day parts of Part II are remembered fondly rather than the campness that Part III had outside of Terry Silver and his magnificent ponytail, the fondness also continues to reflect in Cobra Kai with homages and fan theories of Daniel going to Okinawa again and even re-encountering Chozen. Not to mention it grossed $113m on a $13m budget and got nominated for a Best Original Song Oscar (losing to Top Gun) Part II was a good and enjoyable film which deserves far more credit than to be rated this low, for that it deserves respect.

#karate kid #karate kid part ii #karate kid 2 #daniel larusso #ralph macchio #mr miyagi #pat morita #chozen #yuji okumoto #kumiko #tamlyn tomita #sato #danny kamekona #john kreese #martin kove #johnny lawrence #billy zabka #yukie #nobu mccarthy #cobra kai

[argumentl]

The Freedom of Expression Ep 8 - About Sawajiri Erika's early comeback. (*Treatment of drug addicts*)

K: Hi, This is Dir en grey's Kaoru. Joe san, Tasai san, once again.

J, T: Please. Thank you very much.

Kami: Me too.

J: Oh, kami too, right?

K: Unlike on the radio show, he's always around now, isnt he? There were times when he wasn't around before.

J: I think he descended to us about once a month on the radio show.

T: *laughs*

K: In that show, he just flitted in sometimes, and that was it.

J: Yes, yes, yes.

K: Now he's everywhere.

J: He's a regular commentator now.

K: *laughs*

T: This time we have some news from Tokyo Sports.

J: Ah! From the celebrity world

T: Lets start.... Do you know the Japanese comedy duo 'Nihon Elekitel Rengo', famous for the 'Dameyo, damedame' sketch?

J: I didn't, but I learned about them from Tokyo Sports.

T: What about you, Kaoru?

K: I know them.

T: They are a female duo, but one of them, Nakano san, got married to an older man working at the same agency, but it was a marriage with zero prior social interaction.

J: What does that mean? They got married on the same day they met?

T: Well, she was approched by the man, Matsuo Atom san, but she continuously turned him down. Then she suddenly decided last year to marry him. So, its kinda being debated online whether it is or it isn't *1. I really want to ask them.

J: Ahh, surely it is.

K: You can't say it isn't.

J: You can't.. But if you think its isn't...what isn't?!

T: People who think that it isn't, say that because they've never dated, they don't know each other well, and they might divorce quickly.

K: Oh, thats about afterwards.

T: Some concern was raised about that.

J: But I dated my wife for twenty years before marriage, and ended up getting divorced after two years. So just because you've been together for a while, it doesn't mean you won't get divorced.

T: Ahh, I see.

J: This type of thing can't be helped.

K: But thats normal, dating for a long time, getting married, and then ending up separating. It happens to a lot of people, right?

J: Yes.

T: But this Nakano san says, they've never held hands, they don't know each other's address, they don't live together..

J: But they got married?

T: Yes

K: The possibility of them separating seems high, but...

J: Right?

T: Yeah

K:..but, they can do what they want.

J: Yes, i think so. It sounds weird, but this also works as publicity.

T: Yeah

J: Almost like a risky stunt. Personally, I think its possible. But if one of them had the idea, and the other agreed to it, isnt it something to be thankful for?

T: Yeah, but apparently thier boss was really worried about it, he said they should have told him first. He booked a hotel suit room and shoved the two of them in there, but apparently nothing ended up happening.

J: Nothing happened?! People hearing this will want to know if they love each other.

Kami: I want to meet thier boss.

J: Oh, that? *laughs* A suite room is expensive right?

Kami: Yeh, I want to stay in a suite room.

*everyone laughs*

K: What would you do if you did stay in one?

Kami: If I did? Hmm, use the internet.

*laughing*

J: You can do that anyway! What about something more extravagant?

K: Like ordering room service or something.

Kami: I would order room service.

K: What would you order?

J: What would you eat, Kami?

Kami: Ramen

*laughing*

J: I don't think there are many people who would order ramen in a suite room.

K: It might actually be good though. Eating that kind of common food in that kind of place.

J: Eating something...

K: and just looking at the internet.

J: Just looking at the internet *laughs*

K: Its luxurious, right?

J: Exactly. Isn't it wasting the suite though?

T: Okay, lets look at another story. Its this story, it caused quite a stir. Sawajiri Erika...she was found to be in possession of drugs and had her first court appearance at the end of January. The entertainment world is in uproar concerning her early comeback, should she, shouldn't she?

Kami: She should.

J: I think so too.

T: Why? I'll ask you first, Joe.

J: Well, this is her first crime, so she probably won't get a prison sentence. I think it will be a suspended sentence. So, the idea behind a suspended sentence is to give you preparation time to get back to your normal life. Its important get back to your original life as much as possible.

T: I see

J: So, with a suspended sentence she will lose all of her tv sponsers and stuff, but its important for her to gain a platform back, for example, online or such. Now, if we talk about the situation in America, drug addicts are seen as ill people, not criminals, so they embark on a process of revovery, in order to quickly return to regular life. There's a feeling of, 'you're ill, so lets get you better'. Its felt that the worst thing to do, is to be alone with it. Leaving people in these situations is seen as bad. Getting people re-immersed in the community, and returned to normality as much as possible through social interaction, is how America deals with this. As to why America does this, its mainly cost, it costs money to treat people. They want to get people back out into the world quickly. Unlike the idea of severe punishments in Japan, America generally thinks in that way. My own view is very similar to that... We'll have to wait for the verdict. If she gets prison, theres nothing to be done, but if she gets a suspended sentence, she should try to return to her normal life as much as possible. On the other hand, once you've used drugs, you must be able to continue in a clean state, so you must also have the support around you to be able to stay clean.

T: I see, I see.

J: I think thats important.

T: Kami, what are your thoughts?

Kami: The same as Joe. There were no victims.

J: Yes, thats right. No one else was hurt by this.

T: An opposing opinion might be that, as a tv star, she might have a bad influence on young people. What would you say to that?

J: In that case,..well, i don't watch tv much, so I don't really know, but there are loads of scenes of people injecting stuff on talk shows or such, aren't there? Thats got to be more of a bad influence. I think people need to consider that more. Just because she appears on tv, it doesn't mean people are gonna start doing drugs.

K: Yeh, she isn't gonna do drugs on screen.

J: Yeah, rather, those scenes of syringes and stuff..

K: Yeh, the stuff on talk shows is more of a bad influence.

J: I think so.

T: So, in connection with this, what do you think about stopping the screening of movies etc which the person has starred in, which tends to happen at lot in the entertainment world..Joe san?

J: I can only describe it as nonsense. In the music world, it would be the withdrawal of records..., there is no meaning to it. Its totally separate from what they are expressing. As for music, no one ever talks about The Beatles' or The Rolling Stones' drug use. Thats a totally different issue...In relation to drugs, I think eradicating them is important, so for example, we could have a portion of that artist's sales being donated to organisations like DARC  (Drug Addiction Rehabilitation Center) in Japan, for example, which would be a good way to use them. I can't see any merit in just withdrawing thier works. If an artist returns to thier life, but is unable to be musically active, well, Tashio san is a good example of this *2, the places they can exist disappear gradually, and they become isolated. This is really sad. There's a possibility that leaving people in that isolated state can have a further negative influence, so there is no point in limiting the places people can work, or withdrawing thier works. I think Japan's management of this issue is problematic. In America, they don't arrest people for using drugs, they arrest the buyers and such, and thats what makes the news. But in Japan, you can see who's using drugs just by checking your phone. In particluar, famous people who use drugs are made into targets, to scare people, and to show how much your life will be ruined if you use drugs. It seems like its a kind of boosting of the zero tolerance policy which the Ministry of Health and Welfare introduced in the 1990s. It seems like that to me anyway.

Kami: Couldn't they make some kind of isolated place available, where its ok to do drugs?

T: Thats new.

J: Another novel idea from Kami.

K: Well, but yeah.

Kami: Because people who like drugs, will just like them.

J: I think so.

Kami: Yeh, so if you do that...because there are people who feel happier after taking medicine right?

J, T: Yeh.

Kami: Couldn't those type of people go to some place and be allowed to do it?

K: Without any crime occurring, right?

J: Right

T: Yeh, thats it.

Kami: No crime.

J: Well, i don't know if this is the appropriate way to express this, but in the case of drug dependence, its clear that the number one drug which causes mental and physical dependence is alcohol, rather than 'drugs'. You won't get arrested for alchol dependence, and the reason for that is because alcohol is legal. But incidents or fatal accidents cause by alcohol are ceaseless. There are a few incidents annually where someone murders after using drugs but, for example, as for people at the station falling onto to train lines, sixty percent of those are drunk, and many more people are killed by drunk drivers than drug addicts.

K: Well, its because there are many more people who drink alcohol.

J: Yes, the proportion is bigger. So if you consider these incidents in this way, they are certainly happening. In relation to drugs, there isn't really any logical explanation for them being illegal, but they are still strictly controled. Its a bit strange, but in America...well, it might be strange to always talk only about America, but the ban on cannabis, or medical cannabis has been lifted in America. In Japan, we have a situation where we can't even discuss such a thing, so I feel like it may be a bit of Galapagos syndrome....What do you think, Tasai san, about (Sawajiri's return)?

T: Well, she won't be able to eat, if she can't do tv work. From the viewers perspective, as long as its done appropriately..

K: Don't you need sponsers for tv though? So its not something she can really decide herself. But..on the stage or theater, if there are people who want to see her, I don't think it should be a problem.

T: Yeah

K: If there are people who say they don't want to see her on the airwaves, well, they are going to say that.

J: What do you think about her comeback, Kaoru?

K: Its completey fine to do it. Well, I mean she was doing a bad thing, but she has to carry on living. She could also find a different job, thats fine too.  As for returning to the entertainment world, well, i dont really know, but she should return to some kind of work as soon as she can.

J: Yes, thats it...It might be difficult in the entertainment world.

T: Right..Especially with sponsers.

Kami: Isn't that ok though?

K: Yeah, they'll use who they want.

Kami: Its only whether the sponser will use her or not, right? On tv?

J: On tv, yes.

Kami: If they have a reason to use her, they will.

J: But as Kaoru said, she might have more freedom on the stage or something. There must be something that only she can do, so it seems at waste to just kill off her talent.

Kami: If she herself decides to lay low for a while and self reflect on what she did, thats ok too. No one needs to tell her to. Now, i mention it, its the same with alcohol. If you drink too much and end up being late, you can self reflect and show remorse. If it was me i would deduct it from thier salary though.

J: *laughs* How fresh.

Kami: Its just a problem of whether or not they self reflect on it.

T: I see

K: Well, it depends on the circumstances of the person.

Kami: Yeh, in the end. Of course, drugs, but alcohol and cigarettes etc are all bad too, right? I really want to emphasise that. But at the same time, there are people who like them, who will use them anyway. As a result they will be punished by the law, and that will be enough. I think that should be a salary deduction, and then be finished with it. But your boss or someone might be mad at you *3

T: I see

J: Its like, I've had a deduction, so forget about it already.

T: So, that was Tokyo Sports' news.

J: Ahh, Oh! I wanted to ask you, who is it? Celebrity 'X', who is about to be arrested?

K: *laughs*

T: We'll put the news out to the whole world, so..

J: You'll find this if you search for Tokyo sports news, 'X'.

T: Oh, i can't tell you.

J: You can't? Damn

K: Kami might know.

J: He might.

K: But he's only a god for us three.

J:Yeh

K: Maybe he doesn't know.

J: He's not a worldly god.

Kami: I know who it is.

J: Oh, you know?

Kami: I know.

J: Kami, who is it?

T: Joe, don't ask that!

J, K: *laugh*

T: It'll be announced to the world...my account will be banned.

K: We need people to subscribe, right.

J: Yes yes yes yes.

K: Thank you very much, see you next time. Thank you.

J, T: Thank you

*1 It is or it isn't/they are or they aren't, or that type of thing.

*2 No idea who this is.

*3 Not 100% about what he means here.

#dir en grey #the freedom of expression #kaoru #薫 #tfoe

[semi-imaginary-place]

rewatching decadence

ep1: so... indoctrinating kids that they life their life in service to an upper class. also like, the way deca dence takes care of giant gadoll is to punch it like no giant sword or laser canon or anything just the power of a giant mountain sized fist. this show actually has some good foreshadowing from seeing Natsume from the perspective of Kaburagi’s hud, to Natsume’s dad (Muno) finding the Solid Quake logo at the beginning of the episode and the logo again being shown in the last shot at the announcement signs off with have a profitable day which is a weird public safety announcement but makes sense as a company slogan. I’m still not sure what the “TIME 1:00  POINT SE,07,G” means. I didn’t write it down last time because I was unsure of myself, but my first thought when the cyborgs showed up was VR chatroom for the upper class.

ep2: yeahs that’s totally an advertisement that plays right after natsume realizes the human costs of war as the tankers pay respects to the fallen. I realized what it was with the cartoony designs, the bright colors and patterns, the funky shapes of all the structures aboard the space ship, it looks like a tv show for toddlers. inoffensive and deliberately cheerful to distract from the horrors of a corporation owning your person. the eng subtitles are confusing here it should be “real death(simulation) awaits” in that the company is advertising being able to experience death but not have any of its permanent consequences as a feature of the game. The cyborgs are corporate wage slaves being compensated for their labor in company credits and the only other things we seen them do outside of work is play the company’s mmo, or recreational drugs. “I should be proud of my function and to be scrapped” as property of the company. aaaa that’s terrible. aaa. what are cyborg cores??? and why are they valuable. Solid Quake has no control over the core, only the cyborg’s housing. Is it that they cannot produce more? Considering the others on the team got executed for sentenced to an eternal forced labor camp with appalling conditions, Minato really did pull some strings for Kaburagi. ooh so “time until scrapping” and “operational limit near are two different warnings. the first is a general reminder of lifespan and the second is because oxyone levels are low. now its “TIME 20:00  POINT SE,05,I”. all those new gadoll events probably wreck havoc on the tanker economy. its 400c now and i think it was 500 for 2 earlier. First time through I wasn’t paying attention and totally thought kaburagi was an assassin, but no he’s just clean up crew. ahh yes, come spend you wages at the company run stores. micro transactions... wait so where were people getting the number 13 from?

ep3: ah yes Solid Quake charges to use the media center, truly a micro transaction hell. Natsume’s character arc is about whether to push herself or not. Here Fei acts as part of a continuing dialectic saying that Tankers have no place outside of Deca-Dence, that sooner of later Natsume will die from it, and once again highlighting Natsume’s right arm. In the other level of this though, tankers shouldn’t go outside because that’s not their role in the solid quake mmo, and those who would disrupt the mmo are killed. I like how you can see Kaburagi switch from videogame logic (oh she’s low level so let’s just stick her in the tutorial zone) to real life (what skills and experiences would help in fighting). So several corporations took advantage of desperate people to sell them a service that would augment them with mechanical parts. I get that pipe in a little outfit is funny, but does no one really realize its a gadoll, i meant natsume recognizes it instantly. like the scene where Natsume talks about her right arm, the anime does a good job of showing how her feeling about it are complicated. She’s lived with that arm for years, but it also hinders her sometimes, and people will comment about it. there’s this specific type of humor that pops up in this show and given how its the same joke, my guess is that its the same person behind it. The “joke” being that Natsume is put in a position that references sexual assault. The first is with fennel where she makes up an excuse of having to go see kaburagi to get away from him. And then there’s this episode. There’s also a few stray lines here and there that alarm me in that they imply Natsume has dealt with the threat of assault before. Since they didn’t do anything meaningful with this, I’d rather it just not be there. Minato is in on the secret of Pipe’s existence and by the way the two talk, they’ve called each other before in the last 7 years. Its good to know that Kaburagi wasn’t JUST brooding for 7 years and that the two of them stayed in contact.

ep4: Natsume after having gained confidence in herself takes down several gadoll and earns her place in The Power. Its a fulfilling payoff after seeing her train for several episodes. Natsume is where she always wanted to be, fighting gadoll in the Power. gahh It really is a patch release trailer. Ohh so I assumed that the other structures on the cartoon earth were other corporations, but in this episode we see one of them (the white and red striped cone thing opposite the deca-dence dome) and the cyborgs there are talking about the game (MMO LARPing lol), so either Solid Quake owns multiple of those structures, or these cyborgs are customers not owned by Solid Quake and playing of their own volition. that would makes the cone cyborgs where solid quake is deriving its profit from since its not like it pays its workers. reading comments online, a lot of people missed that because a ranker was found to be cheating (mikey), the rankings were abolished. In the present time, gears/players are not ranked. Ah so Kaburagi was transferred to the maintenance department from the warrior department. Wow reassignment is so much better than the poop jail. I remember it being said, armor repair, doctor, and weapon shop could be employee(cyborg) run so I wonder if the medics and that one armor shop guy are tankers or not. So this anime already snuck in a sex joke with the when the poop gang swapped kaburagi’s avatar with a sex toy, so i wonder if the safetyprivatemode was made so that the mods wouldn’t have to listen to robot sex. I really wish this show could have had 24 episodes. The trend for the past 20 years has been shorter and shorter shows so I know it would have been likely impossible to get the clearance and funding for 24 eps but oooh in som alternate universe maybe... i brought up fleshing out minor characters and character relationships before but there also stuff like Natsume’s right hand almost clamping on ... Mindy? Which usually would be a narrative flag but is completely dropped because of the episode limit. And the confidence Natsume gained last episode come to work against Kaburagi trying to keep her from the suicide mission. Its only from this point on that Kaburagi starts to really change, as of this point he is still a loyal cog to a machine that does not care about him. Kaburagi and Natsume in the 2nd half of the episode continue the same dialectic that runs through the whole of the show, about giving up and learning to try again, about pushing your limit, about why someone bothers trying. On the collectivist versus individualist spectrum, Deca-Dence is on the individualist side with assertions of the importance for deciding for yourself what you will do with your life. Its an interesting counterpoint to The Twilight Mirage (Friends at the Table) which I am currently listening to in that The Twilight Mirage is a western production and strongly collectivist with one of the antagonist being sort of kind of an embodiment of independence/individualism while japanese works as a whole tend to be more about the whole over the individual than western ones. Kurenai talking about why she fights is very good and very important for 2 reasons, first it help flesh out not only her but offer a very needed other opinion on what its like to live as a Tanker, second it segues nicely into Natsume’s memories of her dad telling her about the outside world and him being the only one to believe she can do it (fight in The Power) as contrasted with flashbacks of all the other characters telling her she can’t. This culminates in Natsume gathering her resolve to fight not because of something grand like changing the world or the fate of humanity, but something very personal scale: changing herself and proving to herself that she can do it. The is also the climax of her character arc, the point of no return.

ep5: If last episode was natsume’s point of no return, then either this episode or episode 7 is Kaburagi’s. Rationally speaking, the optimal scenario would have been for Kaburagi to stall long enough for the Tankers to escape before pulling back himself, but emotionally and narratively, there’s no way he couldn’t. After all the build up of deciding for yourself how to live and pushing your limits. Its appropriate that here in defense of the girl that inspired him to live and choose for himself rather than just continue existing in the default of what Solid Quake demands of him, that Kaburagi chooses to release his operational limiter (literally pushing him limit) and derail the company’s plans. How did no one realize purple dude was breaking imprisonment to play on a hacked avatar. Like he’s still as purple and bloodthirsty as ever. He acts and speaks the same. Someone would have totally seen him and gone “eyyyyy [i forgot this guy’s name] is back” and talked to people about it and someone should have heard. So I remember reading comments from various idiots who were mad because they mistakenly thought the anime took place in a virtual space and that Natsume was made of lines of code. And first off even if that was true there’s a difference between objective reality and the lived experiences of a person and what’s to say her experiences and emotions would be any less real than yours. And second, did everyone forget The Hunger Games? Like its just another game that plays with real lives and doesn’t care who gets killed. Solid Quake is just using humans as a stage prop. Man this episode is jam packed. Its like getting punched in the face 4 times. The pacing of the last 4 minutes was really good. The quiet scene as dawn breaks acts in direct contrast to the high energy of the Stargate takedown that preceded it. After time and against not listening to him, Minato still calls Kabu to check in with him. There’s also his certainly that it was Kaburagi that saved the Deca-Dence mech (i need to be clearer when I’m talking about the physical fortress city mech, the mmorpg game, or the deca-dence system itself). And then when the world state gets reset is just so good because it make it clear that the gadoll were never the true enemy. The tankers could kill as many gadoll as they want and nothing would change. Kaburagi’s at an interesting point here, in that he’s no longer in a state of having given up like he was in episode 1 just waiting to die and following along with Solid Quake’s orders, as of this episode he has deliberately gone against the company’s rules, and yet he’s still believes that nothing will actually change. He’s broken a rule and resigned himself to punishment instead of say for example getting rid of the punishment all together. He’s still a good little employee that hasn’t rebelled against the system. And then the “Take care of Pipe” and Natsume turns around and he’s already gone, is sooo good. The final shot too of his avatar face down in the snow! The “This world needs bugs” is in direct contrast to Hugin/Fugin(?) repeating that this world must be rid of bugs, and the same phrase Kaburagi repeated 7 years ago when he was transferred to the Maintenance Department instead of being killed. I wonder how much the cyborgs feel in their original bodies  vs. how much they feel in their Gear avatars. Kaburagi doesn’t seem to care about food and no food stalls were shown in the Gear area so maybe they doesn’t have much sense of taste? The avatars also have a lessened sense of pain. And then the limit release sequence shows connections increasing between the two bodies so does it make the cyborgs more attuned with the avatar’s senses?

ep6: eh so this is another example of what I mean when I say some of the humor in this show is in bad taste. They probably put the oxyone port where the ass would be just to make this joke. But this is better then doing to it Natsume. The animators even had a gleam censor for the over where the capsule was inserted as if it wasn’t obvious enough what it was suppose to look like. Spurned on by the the promise that one day if they work hard and behave (”rehabilitated”), the cyborgs will get let out when in actuality its a forced labor camp so that Solid Quake can squeeze just a little more labor our of the cyborgs for even less compensation. The cartoony style here helps offset just how horrific there working conditions are. And Kaburagi still the good little employee (iiko) tries his hardest to play by the rules and win. Except in this game, there is no “win’ written into the rules. So finally he is forced to move outside of the system Solid Quake has made. I still can’t believe they let Donatello keep the gun... Maybe cyborg cores are brains. In 5.5 Kaburagi’s core is in the top half of his metal case, and Donatello’s is also in his head. I’m still not sure what that sequence where Kaburagi takes the head fin and an image of a cyborg core is overlayed, means.

#deca-dence #deca dence #anime #i think too much #reviews #writing

[courage-a-word-of-justice]

Maou-jou 9 - 12 (FINAL) | Idolish7 s2 10 - 15 (FINAL) | SLS 2

I’ve been holding off new seasonals because of other things, but after I post this I’ll have enough time to get around to them. That’s why I can’t guarantee winter 2021 seasonal tags on this post...maybe the next one will have them...

Maou-jou 9

…it seems shopping channels even are the same in the demon world.

Now even the demons have quests! (The frame is different to the princess’s, though.)

Oh! The quest failed.

Neo Alraune: in flower language, “the 2nd coming of happiness”. The worry from a little while ago was, “I’m worried about my brother.” The worry from recently: “I didn’t think about being happy that the princess didn’t kill my brother.”

The penguin demons are pretty cute!

Don’t you know how parents forbid children from sleeping until they finish all their homework? Must be something like that.

Yoku ganbarimashita! – Syalis worked hard!

LOL, mental age: 3. Poseidon likes cute things…I can’t read a lot of this…the hardsubs cover the JPN text.

They…both succeeded! (…LOL?)

Maou-jou 10

Owarinocity = Endopolis. It’s a good equivalent, if I do say so myself.

…oh yeah. What happened to Alraune? Update: There she is!

Also, that blonde guy in the infomercials doesn’t look too bad…*makes chef’s kiss gesture with one hand* Nice.

I wonder, was Twilight once human…?

LOL, there’s a goat symbol on the cleric’s pyjamas. Also “first time”, LOL.

I think they were playing shiritori at one point.

Hanamaru saikou yoku dekimashita!

Maou-jou 11

…How does one “sleep cheerfully”, anyway?

I think I saw Twilight drop something…some kind of paper…

Aw, Twilight blushing is kinda cute!

LOL, 70s shoujo style. Also, “It cannot be!”

Whoa, she cancelled it?!

I read up on this series on TV Tropes…and apparently the Demon King captured the Princess in her sleep.

Kagemusha? Like a ninja or something?

Apparently the Demon Cleric is much older than he looks.

Ooh! Hypnos is back!

A-whatsit really is abysmal levels of stupid!!! (LOL)

Maou-jou 12 (FINAL)

Who’s that one tiny guy occupying one of the Ten Kings’ seats?

*watching after Christmas, about a week after the anime finished* This is not seasonally appropriate!

…*thinks for a second, then spits* That’s the 2nd Nemu in the fall 2020 season!!!

Ooh, the head paladin doesn’t look that bad, either.

“…is it good to be…”

“…has seized the princess!”

“…that demon king is rather cute.” – See? Someone agrees with me.

Anyways, that was a fun series. See you soon!

Idolish7 s2 10

…Back at it after so long…(I can’t help it though – Crunchyroll, per month, is about double the local Funimation sublicensor’s fees, and for much less content that’s worth my money to boot!)

I’ve always thought Momo was like Sasara (HypMic), so seeing him anguished hurts me in the kokoro too…

I know Banri was involved with Re:vale somehow…this must be it.

…Male idols are also popular among men? Is this why there are 8 (!!!) idol anime in winter 2021 alone…? (Also, that’s why HypMic became popular? Multidemographic appeal crossed over with obvious merchandising opportunities?)

It’s kind of scary how Momo stepped the formality towards Yuki like that (to -san).

I guess in his heart Momo still reveres Yuki, some way or another.

The rakugo curtain really sold the moment that they (current Re:vale) were acting like an old married couple.

Yay! Silver Sky is such a cool song! Of course I recognised the intro when it came on.

…I see. The elder Kujo is entrusting his dream to Tenn, so that’s why he banned Aya from seeing Tamaki. However, it’s hard to know what to feel when Aya speaks in the vaguest terms possible.

I think that was a special ending for only this episode. I don’t know what its name is, but I guess I might recognise it on Spotify one day.

Idolish7 s2 11

LOL, Nagi’s reaction.

Considering the ‘rona is getting worse outside our very windows as we speak (type?), I think it’s correct to be concerned about your future right now.

Looking at these narrow streets reminds me of going to eat hotpot at the end of my Japan trip…only Japanese streets look like that, I think. Hong Kong’s streets are more crowded than that and America likes their suburbia.

Of course, when you say hajimemashite (nice to meet you), someone’s gotta say it back, hence the reply.

Considering there are people all over the world watching the Idolish7 anime, I would say you are telling the world about I7, Riku.

Oh! Restart Pointer! There was an MV for that one…I think it was around the time Idolish7’s MVs started getting better.

So this is the context around the new outfits! Cool!

There have been way too many puns about “idol” being…y’know, “ai (love) doll” and stuff like that…

I have one Twitter person who I follow (DejiNyucu, part of the creative team for Autumn’s Journey) because I don’t get much I7 content and they keep mentioning this “Haruki” person…and suddenly a “Haruki the Betrayer” showed up in the graffiti…they might be the same person, I think. Not Deji, but Haruki. Update: Sakura Haruki, perhaps…?

Sougo’s such a bad liar…

Sometimes, the best way to deal with things is to be direct…(I’m not very good at that, I naturally talk in a very roundabout sort of way.)

Sougo with long hair like Yuki would be really pretty… (<- has an obvious thing for guys with long hair)

Idolish7 s2 12

Nagi’s stupid accent is generally what he’s best remembered for (for me), so seeing him speak normally, and do a press conference on top of that, is…impressive.

A kabedon on top of all this! Whoa!

Shibuya 109 parody…? (I’ve seen that once or twice – parodying that means people know their stuff about Shibuya.)

I think the “it’s overflowing!” is referring to the hype in the “room”.

…this dejected Momo is worrying…(well, he is worrying and I am worrying about him.)

Oh, I see. The person responsible typed the letter so that they couldn’t be traced back. Kind of like those old movies where the culprit would cut letters out of newspapers to make threat mail, but…with even less traces than that, because cutting letters out leaves evidence.

…wow, it took a while for this ep. to have an intro…

…LOL, I just spotted Kenjiro Tsuda cited as the “fake Zero”, meaning the real one might never show up this season.

There’s something really stupid and infectious about these managers’ enthusiasm for drinking energy drinks. It puts a goofy smile on my face.

Is Musubi Tsumugi’s mother…? Update: Yes, she is.

…Wait, so the Chiba Shizuo guy is actually important?!

Idolish7 s2 13

Whenever someone says “by the way”, it means they’re changing the subject. I hate to state to obvious, but Sougo is clearly deflecting the topic of conversation from being about him.

I wonder if this guy (Haw9) is the actual Zero graffiti vandal…?

Hmph, I didn’t realise Tenn doesn’t refer to Kujo-san as his father, but…like that (“Kujo-san”) instead.

Oh hey! These are shots from Vibrato!

Most dramas can be solved with the power of Good Communication. That includes this one.

I feel like “he has a dark side” describes both Tenn and Kujo-san.

“Everyone, remember to wash your hands and gargle thoroughly.” – This is always a good thing to remember in the time of ‘rona. Reminds me of Jakurai’s line in ARB (<- this game started just after the ‘rona came down).

What did Sougo go to uni for (what specialisation)?

Idolish7 s2 14

I just realised Banri calls Momo -kun. Hmm…

Denki = electricity, LOL.

I feel like Tenn is basically Ramuda, give or take actual pink hair…guys in musical groups with pre-existing angst that they become the “centre” of. The fact Fling Posse have Saito Soma and so do Trigger strengthens the connection.

I would watch the heck out of a musical like that! Make it come true, Idolish7! (Also, today is I7 day! I’m not much of an I7 fan outside the anime, but…that’s cool!)

That shot of them jumping! I remember seeing it on the official site before!

Idolish7 s2 15 (FINAL)

There you go! I was wondering where Banri’s injury was – that was the only bit that didn’t add up for him to be Yuki’s old partner.

Hmm…Momo is 4 years younger than Yuki but 2 years younger than Banri…

This episode has a real concert vibe to it, to the point where I got startled by how loud the yell was at one point. (Even if it is mostly stills.)

LOL, lookit Okazaki!

Apparently, if you’re a hako oshi, you like all the members of a group. Someone with a green light and a pink light likes both members of Re:vale.

LOL, Usagi for Asahi beer.

…I forgot Nagi is 19.

…Ooh, I think that’s the kid from ZOOL. No wonder they needed a season 3!

That’s all. See you next time!

SLS 2

“fine and upstanding person” – That’s…hard to believe, Hayato.

I wonder how many bois Toboso designed for SLS…?

…The episode title is actually “Blank”. Not “Break”.

One of the guys’ shirts says moteki on it. That’s a period in one’s life where one enjoys more romantic attention than usual, literally “popularity season”.

The subs missed an I, so initially I knew Kiriyama’s name as “Kiryama”.

There are meant to be 2 wings, right…?

“He who controls information controls everything, right?” – For once, I’m surprised Hayato is right (and not just in that smug way of his).

“…I’m being treated like a manager.” – But Hayato is a manager! (In a sense.)

The plait guy jumps to nicknames really fast…also, why do I get the feeling Maeshima will lose the key?

I hate to say this Maeshima, but I side with your childhood friend (Kiriyama) here. As much as the anime wants me to back you, I’m watching for everyone else at this point.

That blocky building looks pretty cool. I think Zel (Archi-Anime) would like it.

Sasugai’s setup looks pretty cool, including his chair.

…hmm, Maeshima’s like me in a sense. I learn best by copying others, but memory is my best asset. If I don’t regularly train the fundamentals, I suck at everything. That said, I don’t have an eidetic memory. Also, I didn’t quite figure out Ken = Ken(sei Maeshima) until I watched long enough to connect the dots.

LOL, Derry’s. (<- reminded of a word for “butt” <- derriere)

Well, the guy’s (Souta…?) shirt does say moteki…

Kiriyama kinda looks like Jyuto (HypMic), come to think of it…Right down to his angry streak (although Jyuto has a reputation to keep as a “cool dude”, while Kiriyama is more of a Manza (Boueibu HK) and he’s more angry than he looks).

…This ED is nothing special.

…Hmm? Is that a small Terauchi and Maeshima…?

I think I’m sold for now, but I’m rooting for the other team, not Maeshima’s…not yet, anyways.

#simulcast commentary #skate-leading☆stars #idolish7 #Idolish7 Second Beat! #Maou-jou de Oyasumi #sleepy princess in the demon castle #Chesarka watches I7 #Chesarka watches Maou-jou

[rotationalsymmetry]

Good morning world. And do you know what I’m thinking about this morning? Keiko (chill, autocorrect) on Deep Space Nine.

Partly because I’ve been thinking about how the show’s done her wrong since a few episodes into Season 1. Partly because, in the wake of the Atlanta shooting, it’s clearly past time to talk about how women of Asian descent are depicted in the media.

Rather go on and on about what the show did wrong, I’m going to start with what it did right, then move on into some suggestions for plot lines that might have gotten the audience into Keiko’s (and perhaps her daughter Molly’s) head better. Feel free to borrow for fanfic purposes. (And let me know if you do, or if someone else wrote some good Keiko and/or Molly fanfic I might enjoy.)

What's right: she’s a, not core character, but sort of second tier character who is on the show often. She has a respectable role: she’s a well-educated professional whose work is important to her, and a wife and mother. We also get hints of her having a life beyond that — not as much as I’d like, but for example at one point in the first season she’s away visiting her mother, and when she’s pregnant with her second child she keeps leading an active life. I think the show strikes an appropriate balance on sexuality: she’s married, we’re pretty sure she and Miles have sex, but she’s not presented as a sex object. And we don’t see her suffering more trauma than the other characters. As of where I'm currently at in Season 6, she's alive, and I have every reason to believe she'll stay alive through the end of the show. (A quick look at Memory Alpha confirms this.) Good stuff.

(She’s also in The Next Gen — parts of that I haven’t watched and others were a while back, so I’m going to stick to talking about her role in DS9.)

And...very nearly all the episodes she’s in, are very firmly from Mile’s perspective and not hers. (Even storylines that really should be about her: when she’s experiencing frustration at not being able to pursue her career and ends up going back to work, that episode is entirely from Mile’s perspective. She barely speaks a word in it.)

Contrast this to how Benjamin Sisko’s son and father are shown: Jake very much gets his own storylines and own life, and relationships that aren’t primarily about his father, even though his dad has a more central role in the show (and we definitely see their relationship from Benjamin’s perspective as well), and even though we rarely see Grandpa Sisko (huh, apparently his name is Joseph), you immediately get the sense of him as a strong-willed person who lives life on his own terms, and when he and Ben have conflicts you can understand his perspective easily. In spite of relatively little screen-time. Keiko gets far more screen time, but far less interiority. She’s presented in a way that’s hard to empathize with. And there’s less of a sense of who she is as an individual rather than as a role.

(BTW, if we got to see Keiko’s perspective more, whose would we see less of? Maybe Miles, who gets quite a lot of focus. Maybe Quark, maybe Julian...basically, I’m pretty sure if I went through the season and marked down which episodes were primarily about male characters vs primarily about female characters vs pretty balanced, the ratio would be telling. And it’s not like I don’t like the male characters (well, maybe I could do with less Quark) but... I don’t like them so much that I think the show is better for having shorted the women.)

I want to see Keiko have friends. I want to see her talk to other parents on the ship as a parent. That episode where Keiko’s off station and Miles has to figure out how to get their new baby to stay asleep? I want an episode where Miles is gone and Keiko has parenting struggles. Where we get into old conflicts between her and her mother or father that she has to work through as a parent herself. (This is not an unrealistic expectation -- we got that for Odo in one episode, and we got a similar thing with Kira processing her father's death while another character was dying.) I want Molly to go on her first sleep-over and Keiko to have conflicted feelings about her daughter growing up and for Molly to have conflicted feelings where she’s excited but...also kinda misses her mom.

I want to see how Keiko’s explaining the Dominion war to Molly and what she’s skipping over. I want to see Keiko worried about her husband (which, granted, we’ve seen that) and getting emotional support from someone else (which we haven’t really.) I want to see Keiko pursuing a hobby other than gardening. I want her to be really excited to introduce Molly to something that she loved growing up. (Specifically a Japanese cultural thing or not.) I want her to take Molly to a holosuite program that shows some Japanese architecture or history or gardens. I want there to be some conversation about language — sure, universal translators, but what do people speak on their own, and what does Molly grow up speaking?

(They’ve got an interracial/inter-cultural relationship and explore absolutely nothing about that.)

Since Keiko was a teacher for a while, is she absolutely obsessing over homeschooling Molly now that there’s no school?

I’m not sure I want to see Miles and Keiko have a “no one’s right” disagreement over how to raise their children, but that’s certainly a thing that could have happened. Or could happen indirectly: Miles isn’t the talking type and yet everyone on the station knows when he’s having wife troubles and are willing to give him advice. Who does Keiko get relationship advice from?

When Keiko and Miles are apart and Miles spends all his time playing darts with Julian or reenacting battles with Julian, who is Keiko connecting with?

(Side note: one thing that Brandon Sanderson does well in his fantasy novels such as the Mistborn Trilogy, is couples that are balanced in power and narrative significance. The show made a choice to have Miles be a more central character than Keiko. There’s no intrinsic reason they couldn’t have been on the same level of narrative significance.) (But even if they were going to be at unequal levels of significance, Keiko still could have been done much better.)

(And you’ll notice the show is almost going out of its way to avoid having any female characters with less significant recurring love interests. When they partner up Kira, it’s not with some guy who’s just nice and fun or a supportive boyfriend (someone analogous to what Leeta is for Julian or later Rom), somehow even though she’s one of the most powerful characters in the show (she’s second in command on the station) she keeps getting partnered up with characters who have more religious or civil power than she does, and who become very narratively significant at least for a little while. Female characters can be just love interests or family members, male characters have to be doing something big and important.)

I think the show overdoes romance, so this wouldn’t be my first choice, but...having an old flame of Keiko’s show up could be a thing that happened. Or having a thing where she notices an interesting stranger, and of course nothing happens because she’s married, but we still get to see Keiko as, you know, a woman with desires and interests that don’t always fit perfectly into her respectable well-ordered life. We could see mirror universe Keiko — I wonder what she’s like. Or some time travel alternate timeline story where she’s with someone else, or single and enjoying the single life. (Surely even if Keiko is overall happy with her life, surely sometimes she must wonder about the roads not taken.) We could have some indication that she too misses Miles when they’re not together, or we could see her excited to get more time away or get their quarters to herself while he’s away, or both because people are complicated.

What are Molly’s adventures? Who is she best friends with? Where’s her tension between growing up and becoming her own person vs wanting her parents’ love and approval? Where’s the episode where we’re all wait, she’s really not a little toddler any more, is she?

(We don’t even know what Molly thinks about having a baby brother — and that’s a huge, highly dramatic change in the life of a child.)

Where’s the episode where she desperately wants some pet that her parents don’t want her to have, or desperately wants some toy or activity that one or both thinks is unsafe, or where she wants to be on a sports team but there aren’t enough kids on the station, or where she has to say goodbye to the Bajoran friends she made, or she starts playing make believe games involving evacuating the station...

What if we got to see Keiko’s mother and learn something about her or the family history? What if Keiko had some aunt or uncle or sibling who showed up on the station some time, what might their relationship be like? Is there some family hero that Keiko’s always encouraging Molly to grow up to be like?

If the show’s writers truly couldn’t handle writing a child that young, this is Star Trek and we have time travel — there’s no reason we couldn’t have an episode involving future grown up Molly O’Brien.

What if we got some terribly retconned explanation for why Keiko, a professionally trained botanist, was mysteriously ready and eager to step into schoolteacher mode even though that’s its own profession that requires years of specialized higher education? Did...did Keiko for some reason study to be a teacher, have something go wrong, and then go with botany as Life Pursuits Take 2? (Perhaps she was pushed into being a teacher then decided she loved botany more? But she didn’t actually dislike teaching?)

What if we actually got an episode centered around her being a botanist and exploring alien plants? There’s possibilities there — heck, one of the most popular TOS episodes centered around space wheat, so why not? I want an alien planet where all the plants are yellow or hot pink because they photosynthesize with something other than chlorophyll. Why not? (Did you know there’s an old school Piers Anthony sci fi book about killer mushrooms? Not joking.)

She’s the only woman of color who’s a regular character on the show throughout the whole series. She’s one of the few Asian-descent women who’s on American TV at all. She deserved better.

And I think we should talk about how she, and other characters, could have been written better.

#keiko o'brien #representation in media #asian women in media #ds9 #sorry for the extreme length on this fucker #it's a long show and I have opinions #women in media #feminism #gender #I'm seeing this through more of a gendered lens than a race/culture one #I imagine someone of asian descent would pick up on a lot of things I missed #to me the connections between how her character is done and how other female characters are handled stand out brightly #it would be interesting to hear from someone who's noticing race and culture stuff more clearly #autocorrect keiko is a real name I promise you

[impractical-matters]

Tag Game: Dig a Little Deeper

tagged by @mollyweasly - thank you steph!! 💕💕

1. do you prefer writing with a black pen or a blue pen? both

2. would you prefer to live in the country or in the city? country

3. if you could learn a new skill, what would it be? I’ve always wanted to learn to drive stick/manual

4. do you drink your tea/coffee with sugar? both, and yes

5. what was your favorite book as a child? I always loved, The Very Lonely Firefly by Eric Carle

6. do you prefer baths or showers? I love both, but I like to unwind in the tub whenever possible

7. if you could be a mythical creature, which one would you be? An elemental witch

8. paper or electronic books? paper, always, unless it’s fanfiction 

9. what is your favorite item of clothing? I have a couple plaid shirts that were my grandfather’s that I love

10. do you like your name? would you like to change it? My mother chose my name and it’s spelling because it was her favorite, and I have always liked it. 

11. who is a mentor to you? I have some successful psychologists/psychiatrists in my family who I really admire and would like to follow in their footsteps

12. would you like to be famous? if so, what for? I think we’ve all imagined what it would be like, I did some singing competitions and it was scary but it was also really nice to be recognized afterwards and complimented, but then again celebrities have zero privacy, so I don’t think I would be able to combat that. You have to be seriously dedicated to your craft to be willing to put up with the whole world, and I think I’m a bit too shy for all that...

13. are you a restless sleeper? When I was in camp, I had the nickname ‘sleeping beauty’ because I always slept flat on my back and never moved. That was when I had no stress in my life tho, so nowadays it’s a bit rougher sometimes. 

14. do you consider yourself to be a romantic person? I like to think so, but I haven’t had anyone to express that with recently

15. which element best represents you? I can see how they all play a part for me, but I think fire might be the most appropriate 

16. who do you want to be closer to? my friends, this quarantine has been hard on all of us

17. do you miss someone at the moment? my brother (oops, brothers I mean haha) 

18. tell us about an early childhood memory. there was a swingset in my backyard that faced my mother’s office, and in the summer when I had off from school, I would sometimes go out there and swing for hours, waving at her and just trying to catch her attention. I also spent a lot of time “rock hunting” in the backyard, which was just me digging for pretty rocks, mostly quartz

19. what is the strangest thing you have eaten? honestly I don’t think I’ve eaten that many weird things, religion kinda gets in the way of that. I did try a raw quails egg once

20. what are you most thankful for? my family and their continuous support 

21. do you like spicy food? I like some spicy foods, like Japanese and Korean, and sometimes Mexican, but I gotta be careful with those peppers 

22. have you ever met someone famous? yes, i met Matthew McConaughey outside a bathroom in JFK, I met Chris Allen in Disney World, and my friends cousin is Ricky Ullman, so I saw him around a few times for family events. 

23. do you keep a diary or journal? I used to have a song folder, which is the closest I ever got, and then of course there’s all my writing journals, but those are mostly stories, not strictly personal thoughts. I did try once in camp, but someone stole it, so clearly that was a bad idea, and I never tried again. 

24. do you prefer to use pen or pencil? pen

25. what is your star sign? gemini

26. do you like your cereal crunchy or soggy? mostly crunchy, but I like pops to be a big soggy

27. what would you want your legacy to be? I just want to be remembered, not really sure what for at this moment...

28. do you like reading? What was the last book you read? I do love to read, I recently re-read The Call of the Wild by Jack London 

29. how do you show someone you love them? Being there for them, showing my support when they’re down or if they need help. also just saying it, getting them little gifts that remind me of them 

30. do you like ice in your drinks? sometimes, but never in juice or milk 

31. what are you afraid of? sharks, starvation, being deserted in the middle of the ocean and being alone 

32. what is your favorite scent? ooooh that’s a tough one, I like fresh scents, like rain, ocean water, the forest, and other natural and seasonal scents like herbs and spices, flowers, sandalwood, vanilla, etc. 

33. do you address older people by their name or surname? Depends who they are, family I’ve been trying to keep their titles in there, like Aunt & Uncle because they told me they like that, if it’s someone at work I use their first name with them and their surnames when discussing them with outside clients. 

34. if money was not a factor, how would you live your life? I would probably travel a lot, visit all the places I wanted to go and visit my family around the world, pay off all my debts, pay for medical bills...and I would buy back my family home. 

35. do you prefer swimming in pools or the ocean? I love the idea of the ocean, but it’s big and scary and covers the majority of our planet so we can never really uncover everything that’s out there, so I prefer the safety of a landlocked pool. 

36. what would you do if you found $50 in the ground? Depends on the context. If I found $50 on the ground but I know that someone has lost it, I give the money back to the person. If I don’t know whose money is that, I keep it to myself. (keeping this answer bc same- also same!)

37. have you ever seen a shooting star? did you make a wish? yes and yes

38. what is one thing you would want to teach your children? your anger does not control you and while violence might seem like a convenient answer, it is never the solution to your problems; using your words is a much smarter and efficient tactic to defeating your issues/enemies etc. And you should treat others the way you would like to be treated and always protect your family. 

39. if you had to have a tattoo, what would it be and where would you get it? I’ve always liked the idea of triskelion because of the many different things it represents (plus teen wolf), and I would put it on my wrist because I’m cliche 

40. what can you hear now? the air conditioning is really loud in this basement

41. where do you feel the safest? under the covers with my cat 

42. what is one thing you want to overcome/conquer? I wish I was more confident and could overcome my stage fright, I get nervous talking in front of anyone and it’s just so frustrating to trip over my words so much when I know exactly what I want  to say, but my mouth won’t speak the words 

43. if you could travel back to any era, what would it be? I always liked the fashion of the Victorian Era, but the treatment of women was terrible, which is mostly true for most points in history, so...idk 

44. what is your most used emoji? 💕 because I love these hearts, and one is just never enough

45. describe yourself using one word. tenacious

46. what do you regret the most? not being there when my father died

47. last movie you saw? I just watched Knives Out last night! 

48. last tv show you watched? currently have Derry Girls s2 queued up 

49. invent a word and its meaning. dude, come on, I have no idea

Welp that was a lot of questions, but it was a nice break from work 😂 Seriously no pressure, this was a long one! Tagging: @mercheswan @superdanys @clotpolesonly @tinanewt @anduril @buckleydiazs @lightfiretomypaperwings @lovelyhufflepuff38 @when-she-writes-stuff @mysnflower @hecthledgers @dannneelackles @nighttimemachinery @theproblemwithstardust @tabbytabbytabby

#personal #tag game #get to know me #anyone else who wants to #please feel free

[osakaso5]

Sogo Osaka Twelve Hits! Rabbit Chat Part 3: Request Hits 2

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 4 | Part 5

Tsumugi: Hello! Is everyone ready to resume the requests soon?

Yuki: Did Kinako-chan get home safely?

Tsumugi: Yes! She's having her dinner at the agency right now.

Tsumugi: I'm sorry for making you wait..!

Ryunosuke: Don't worry about it. We were taking our time eating anmitsu, too.

Kaoru: We bought some at the store nearby. I was craving anmitsu so badly that I couldn't wait any longer.

Gaku: I never knew there was a Japanese confectionery shop in the neighborhood. How'd you know about it, Tenn?

Tenn: I've seen it a few times.

Yamato: I'm getting kinda hungry...

Riku: You can have snacks, Yamato-san! We bought a lot, so I'll bring some to the living room. We even got some extra spicy chips for you, Sogo-san! They came out recently!

Yamato: Thanks.

Sogo: Thank you, Riku-kun. They're the habanero ones, right? I'd been wanting to try them, so I really appreciate it.

Tenn: Try not to eat too much.

Sogo: Yes! I'll make sure to monitor how much junk food I have..!

Tenn: Ah, sorry. I wasn't talking to you...

Yamato: Were you talking to me, then? (lol)

Tenn: No.

Momo: lololol

Nagi: A short skit.

Riku: You don't have to tell me! I can watch how much I eat just fine!

Tsumugi: Now that you have all your snacks, let's resume the requests..!

Tsumugi: Mitsuki-san, you were next. Go ahead!

Mitsuki: Yeah! Mine's an intro quiz!

Mitsuki: Sogo knows a lot about music! Wouldn't it be fun to play him different song introes and make him guess which ones they are?

Sogo: Can the songs be from any genre?

Mitsuki: Anything goes!

Yuki: You won't even know what you'll listen to next? That's a real test of skill.

Tamaki: So-chan knows a ton

Sogo: Yeah. It'll be exciting to see what song comes next. Even if they're songs I don't know, it'll be fun just to discover new music.

Sogo: Thank you for a challenging request, Mitsuki-san.

Mitsuki: Crap, lol I'm the one feeling pressured here, lol

Mitsuki: I'll pick songs that'll really get you fired up! Just you wait!

Mitsuki: 

Sogo: 

Tsumugi: That seems like it'll be a fun game! Yamato-san, you're next!

Yamato: Got it.

Yamato: Mine's a guessing game.

Sogo: You mean a quiz where I have to guess what something is based on a handful of hints?

Yamato: That's right. Variety shows do it a lot.

Iori: Another game. It'll be very exciting.

Nagi: How fun! May I help you come up with subjects for it?

Yamato: Sorry, but I've already got something in mind.

Sogo: You do?

Yamato: The other night at the dorm, I saw this

Yamato: Wait, whoops. Almost gave away the answer (lol)

Riku: Huh!? You saw something the other night!? At the dorm?

Sogo: Could it be something scary..?

Tamaki: Stop, stop, stop!!!

Tamaki: You better not say any more than that!

Tamaki: I can't handle that stuff!

Sogo: It's okay, Tamaki-kun. Science hasn't proven that ghosts exist yet.

Iori: Nikaido-san must've been seeing things as he wandered around half-asleep.

Tamaki: Stop talking about ghosts!!!

Mitsuki: You're the one talking about ghosts, Tamaki!

Momo: Tamaki's so cute when he's scared of ghosts~!

Yuki: Even though humans are much scarier

Momo: Yep (つ∀<●)゜+.

Yuki: (つ∀<●)゜+.

Rinto: You may be using cute emoticons, but the things you're saying are very scary!

Kaoru: These top idols are experienced in the bittersweet ways of the world...

Sogo: How educational...

Tsumugi: I've learned much from them, too..! Though I'm curious about what was seen at your dorm, it's Yaotome-san's turn!

Gaku: Mine is to continue the corner with an arrogant attitude.

Momo: You want him to act all smug?

Sogo: S-smug..?

Gaku: Yeah. Though it kinda overlaps with Tenn's request.

Gaku: I think I've said this to Anesagi and the others before, but you should act more proud of yourself, Osaka. Plus, it's so hard to picture you acting that way that I wanna see it.

Mitsuki: A lot of these requests are about seeing an unexpected side of Sogo!

Nagi: Sogo's charm is infinite, after all :-)

Sogo: I-I understand. I'll practice for the show.

Sogo: If only I knew how...

Iori: The quickest way is to look for a role model. Why not use samples of media featuring smug people?

Sogo: Right. I'll check a movie streaming site.

Sogo: Iori-kun, would you mind looking for appropriate works with me..?

Iori: Not at all. I'll give you my findings later.

Yamato: If you try too hard to look high and mighty, you lose any real smugness.

Gaku: I figured he'd just wing it on the spot... But I'm excited to see where Osaka's seriousness takes him.

Tsumugi: I'd love to see a new side of Sogo-san, too!

Tsumugi: Tsunashi-san, do you have a request you'd like to share?

Ryunosuke: Mine is to soothe the listeners.

Ryunosuke: Sogo-kun's always kind, just like the others said. When I'm tired after a shoot or something, seeing his smile relaxes me.

Ryunosuke: I'm sure the listeners will feel better if they hear him tell them "good work", too!

Tamaki: Oh. This one's the total opposite of Gakkun's

Sogo: Thank you. I feel a bit embarrassed...

Mitsuki: He's got a point. Sogo acts kinda motherly sometimes!

Yamato: When you leave clothes lying around in the living room, he'll start picking them up and saying "Please put these in the washing machine".

Tamaki: Same goes for used juice mugs

Iori: Clean up after yourselves!

Sogo: They've slowly started to do it themselves, much to my help.

Sogo: It's incredible. Not many people would change how they act so easily, just because someone else told them to.

Yuki: Ah. He really is soothing

Ryunosuke: I know, right!

Tsumugi: I find Sogo-san's smile to be rejuvenating, as well!

Tsumugi: Momo-san, what about your request?

Momo: Okie dokie! Mine is an extreme spice endurance test from hell! ヾ(*・∀・)ノ

Momo: Sogo can handle practically any kind of spicy food, so I wanna see if he has a limit at all!

Sogo: My spice limit... I must say, I'm curious about that myself.

Momo: So you really can handle anything!

Sogo: More or less. I have no trouble with my own cooking, but I've never felt that the spicy foods we've had to eat for TV projects have been too much, either.

Sogo: I want to feel the kind of unbearable spiciness that other people seem to feel.

Momo: You're that tough!? It must be hard getting good reactions out of you..!

Iori: Seeing him stuff his face with spicy dishes is entertaining in its own right.

Yuki: If your reactions are really obvious, it's easier to give up because people can tell right away when you've hit your limit.

Riku: Yamato-san has it rough because he doesn't let it show on his face..!

Yamato: Yeah. I have to keep eating for a little bit, even if I can't keep going.

Nagi: You must not force yourself. One should always be honest with oneself.

Mitsuki: You on the other and should eat more, for the sake of the show! you tend to throw in the towel before the food even touches your mouth!

Nagi: Even you will not convince me to do such a thing.

Sogo: So it really was hard for you guys...

Momo: Alright, I've got it! I'll personally see to it that you get to experience true spiciness, Sogo!

Sogo: Momo-san..!

Momo: Just you wait. I'll use my connections to find you the spiciest dish ever!

Sogo: Thank you. That's very reassuring to hear..!

Momo: (*ゝω・)丿★

Tsumugi: The spiciest dish ever... My mouth is burning up just imagining it!

Tsumugi: Yuki-san, you're the last in line!

Yuki: The grand finale, it is.

Yuki: I want to see Sogo-kun's retorts

Yamato: Ooh. Another reaction thing.

Sogo: You mean a comedic retort..? I'll need some kind of advanced technology to get through that...

Yuki: Just go with the flow. It's all in the timing

Momo: Yeah! As long as you yell "What the hell!" at some point, you're good ★

Mitsuki: That's too vague, lol

Sogo: I see... Just yell according to the flow...

Yuki: He believed me ^^

Sogo: What the hell!

Tamaki: So-chan, did you just

Banri: It completely broke the flow, but that was a retort, right..?

Sogo: I-I'm sorry! Did I get it wrong!?

Yuki: No, you're good. Very good. Keep it up

Momo: A-are you sure about that!? The bad timing makes it cute, but still!?

Iori: I don't know if our agency can approve of this...

Yuki: What the hell!

Sogo: Ah! Was that the correct way to do it..!?

Sogo: I see, so it's all about flow and speed.

Yamato: Sou, you don't have to humor them.

Tsumugi: Comedy has many layers! Thank you for a fun request, Yuki-san!

Tsumugi: That's everyone. Thank you all for your requests!

Sogo: Thank you.

Mitsuki: Now that we're done, it's time for Sogo to make requests to us!

Gaku: Yeah. Ask anything.

Choices/outcomes:

1. Do you have a request for us?

Sogo: I want you to stand by my side on stage. That's my biggest request.

2. Do you have a request for TRIGGER?

Sogo: I'd like to come see one of TRIGGER's lives again sometime. Naturally, I'll pay for my own ticket..!

3. Do you have a request for Re:vale?

Sogo: They've done plenty for us. I couldn't possibly ask for more..!

Sogo: I look forward to another year with all of you.

Yuki: You're so modest, even though your birthday's coming up

Momo: We'll have to celebrate him so much that he can't be modest anymore \ (*´∀`)丿

Ryunosuke: It's still a little early, but happy birthday. Let's go out for a drink again sometime!

Tenn: Happy birthday. I look forward to your broadcast.

Banri: Sogo-kun, happy birthday! I'll continue supporting you!

Momo: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO (σ>∀<)σ SOGO ♪ Let's get along next year, too!

Rinto: Happy birthday!

Yuki: Happy birthday. I hope you have a great time

Kaoru: Happy birthday. Keep the alcohol in moderation.

Gaku: Happy birthday. I hope you'll have a special year.

Tsumugi: Happy birthday from me, too!

Sogo: Thank you, everyone. My heart feels so full that I don't have much to say.

Sogo: But, I'm very happy that you're all here. Truly.

Sogo: I hope you'll continue to guide and support me.

Mitsuki: Even your finishing speech is too stiff! lol

Sogo: I-I'm sorry...

Yamato: No need to apologize. Let's have a party on your actual birthday.

Riku: I can't wait!

Iori: I'm a bit worried that our dining table will be covered in red...

Sogo: Thank you, guys..! My birthday can't come sooner. I'm really glad to be so excited.

Sogo: But before that, I'll do my best with the radio broadcast.

#idolish7 #sogo osaka #twelve hits! #translation #i7 #rabbit chat

[chibivesicle]

Golden Kamuy chapters 220 & 221 - I am the bear.

I finally have a bit of a break from work and have some time off to catch up on stuff.  As I had hypothesized in 219, I was pretty damn sure that Heita was the bear, the wen kamuy.  Chapter 220 starts off with Asirpa trying to find the bear bum that Shiraishi and Sugimoto had seen.  Sugimoto thinks that because they royally screwed up they are being punished by the white bear.

Asirpa meanwhile is just looking at him sternly while he sweats a little with stress lines under his eyes.

The next page is great as Asirpa calls Sugimoto out on his lazy cultural appropriation.  She flat out tells him that using the “excuse” of a kamuy instead of taking the time to think is inappropriate.  I love the framing of this shot, she looks in control, like a leader, yet not a harsh leader.

She follows up the idea of not thinking with the observation that there is no bear as there are no bear tracks.

Sugimoto then orders Shiraishi to find Vasily, though in English Vasily is referred to as “hood guy” implying that Sugimoto is too good to bother to learn his actual name.  Vasily is helping them and yes, he is the enemy of my enemy (Ogata) is my friend sort of situation, but Sugimoto is supposed to be “friendly”.  Not friendly enough to learn the name of a Russian soldier though.  I sense this will come back to cause problems in the future.  Sugimoto is clearly doing is best to other and dehumanize Vasily since if he knew his name then he’d have to more actively face his PTSD etc.  I digress.

The action then returns to Heita finding his Dad and younger brother in a bear snow mound dead.  He hears his brother chanting the Pure Land Buddhist chant, in hopes for salvation upon death into the after life.  There are a serious of several graphic panels of the bear killing Taka as his head gets smashed by the bear paw.  He finds the sexy woman of the group, Noriko and in the stress of watching her boyfriend, die, Heita tries to make out with her as she stops him right as the bear claws her face.

He manages to escape and runs into Sugimoto and Asirpa.  I really love the detail between what Asirpa and Sugimoto observe and “Heitavision”.  When he  runs into Sugimoto, you can see that his face is clean, while the very next panel has smeared blood on Heita’s face as he tells them to run.  Sugimoto with out missing a beat tells him, that we will protect you as he asks where the bear is.

Heita replies that it is not possible as the next page reveals him looking super creepy.  The bear is going to eat him.  It will happen.  He also add is that you [Sugimoto & Asirpa] need to get far away fro him.  Asirpa calmly asks him for clarification.  As Heita names the people killed, Shiraishi has reached Vasily.

Shiraishi also calls him “hood guy” (hoodie-chan in Japanese, par for the course with his habit of calling everyone name-chan, save for Sugimoto).  I can understand Shiraishi othering him since he did shoot him in the leg.  Vasily is furiously sketching!  Look at those eyes!

To build up the suspense, the action returns to Asirpa and Sugimoto with Heita as he explains everyone was eaten and Sugimoto finally realizes that something is off and he asks Heita who these people are that he’d been talking about as Heita looks like he’s in a daze.

Shiraishi is ignored by Vasily as he looks over his shoulder and has a look of panic on his face as he sees his sketch.  It is a great page turn reveal as it is like BAM!  Guess what, Heita was a convict from Abashiri with a tattoo, striking a sexy pose.

What is even better, is that when it shows the flashback (indicated by the black background) all of the faces have his eyes and eyebrows.  This is the visual confirmation that all of these people were/are a part of Heita and his mind has killed them.  It them makes his weird licky/making out face as he watched Taka and Noriko make more sense - he was making out with himself in the air.

Asirpa then in a very matter of fact fashion points out that the item that Heita is carrying in his cloth is a brow bear pelt.  Even though Asirpa is clearly much shorter than Heita, the framing and angle of this shot makes her look like the wisest and most mature of the three of them.  I get a feeling of not quite judgement from her, more like the clarity of a third party observer who has to clearly state the facts.  Her pointing with her index finger adds weight to her observation.

Heita then is complete shot as he feels as though he is being haunted by it, despite disposing of it many times over.  Sugimoto begins to look concerned as he sweats as he points out that Heita was carrying it like it as a precious item, not something he’d want to dispose of.  Asirpa puts all of the pieces together, the bear bum that Sugimoto and Shiraishi saw was Heita wearing the pelt.  I have to admit that I love how the pelt expands and rips the cloth as it unfurls in front of Heita as he sees it grow into the wen kamuy with his eyes before him. Asirpa concludes that this wen kamuy is in Heita’s mind only and it isn’t actually a real wen kamuy.

The wen kamuy stands before Heita on the ripped cloth at its feet.  This is a great panel, I’m not keen on this story arc, but this 100% gets the point across so damn well.  The next few pages are a mix of “Heitavision” and what Sugimoto and Asirpa see as the bear ‘kills’ him and he crawls under the pelt before he stands becoming the wen kamuy.

He then attacks Sugimoto with his front paw and as Sugimoto goes to block he breaks his left wrist!  The chapter ends with Heita frothing at the mouth as he goes “bwooooooooh!” which is the sound effect for bears in GK.

Sugimoto has clearly been caught off guard!  He needs to stop being so relaxed around former convicts, now he’s gonna have to get a cast and rest his left wrist so that it can heal, but first he’s gonna have to survive Heita.

Chapter 221 is the “bear man” and we get Heita’s backstory from Kadokura!  Where have you been awkward old man?  Whatever, I’m just glad to see that Kadokura and Kirawus are back in the mix.

Kadokura reveals his full name to be Heita Matsuda and he was a death row prisoner.  Kirawus is relaxing in the background as he listens to the story as Kadokura is clearly a bit tipsy, he’s got a bit of a flush going on as he looks a little distant.

Kadokura remembers a lot of details about him, since he was a unique prisoner.  He would constantly change the way he talked, using different forms of “I” to indicate how he wanted to present himself, including talking as though he were a sexy woman [Noriko].  This is easier to do in Japanese as depending on the speaker, it would be watashi, boku, ore etc . . . giving more info to a Japanese reader as English lacks an equivalent.  The best way to think about this was in the movie “Your Name” when the characters body swap, they have to figure out which form of I to use when speaking about themselves.

Anyways, Kadokura states that Heita once told him that he has a lot of people inside of him and they switch places; this is likely an indication that he’s suffering from multiple personality disorder.  I had originally thought these people were his victims, and maybe they were, but since he stated that they are inside of him, I’m more inclined to think that they are all Heita and his victims are not a part of his mental illness.  The fact that Noda re-drew them with his eyes and eyebrows makes me think that they are a part of him.

Heita was always terrified, even in prison as he said there was a brown bear always outside of his cell and it was waiting to eat him.  Kadokura states that Heita called it a “what-cha-ma-call-it” kamuy, implying he didn’t put a lot of effort into remember exactly what he said.  He had to add in the fact that it was an evil got that ate people so Kirawus has some context.  Kirawus then corrects Kadokura that it is a wen kamuy. . . his facial expression looks so over Kadokura.

Poor Kirawus, he’s clearly a smart guy stuck with a drunken loser like Kadokura.  Though, I really get the feeling that Kadokura is the type of man who plays dumb so he can get further along in life.  I think Kirawus just needs to hang out and work with someone a little more exciting and I’m curious if Kirawus has talked to Hijikata a lot or if he has been forced to interact with Kadokura as the go between and he’d prefer to have more access to Hijikata.

I honestly think Hijikata is keeping Kirawus at a distance, he didn’t trust Wilk, he didn’t trust Kiro and I really have a feeling that Kirawus knows a lot more than he’s let on (I wrote a meta about this awhile ago).  I think that even though Hijikata says he needs the help of the Ainu for his plan to work (which Tsurumi has pointed out is a ‘flaw’ about his plan) Hijikata has shown absolutely no trust in any of his Ainu partners as Ariko/Ipopote is a literal pawn between him and Tsurumi.  Additionally, it shows that HIjikata has been really crap at figuring out how to work with them, he never learned Wilk’s name nor did he learn Kiro’s real name.  Hijikata is just going through the motions of the logistics in his quest for the gold.

Kadokura then explains that Heita’s people in his head are slowly killed off by the wen kamuy, he then is killed by it, he becomes it and eventually he kills a person in the real world.  Once that happens his body explodes and he returns to normal.

Kirawus explains that the body exploding is based on how some Ainu groups treat wen kamuy.  They cut the wen kamuy into small pieces and scatter is about the landscape.  While they do this, they also lecture the kamuy about what it has done and that it needs to change its actions.

Unfortunately, when Heita “explodes” he doesn’t get lectured so that is likely why he isn’t able to learn and heal from his mistake of killing people.

It is also indicated that since Heita lacked the bear pelt in jail, he was safe since the wen kamuy couldn’t kill him and he didn’t become it.  He also revealed that he ended up with all of these tattoos over his body and he didn’t even know where they came from.  I wonder if one of his personalities agreed to being tattooed and was hiding it from the others?

Either way, at some point in time he shared a cell with Wilk. Kadokura ends with the fact that he was arrested over a victim’s body wearing a bear pelt and he had torn apart the body and it is heavily implied he had eaten part of him.  It is also clear that he had likely done this before but wasn’t caught.

The action returns to Sugimoto, hitting him with his rifle as Heita tries to bite through his winter coat.  The two of them roll off an embankment into a tree as Shiraishi catches up with the picture of Heita in his hand.  No Vasily though, I guess he grabbed the sketch and ran?

Sugimoto’s rifle is caught in the tree and he and Heita are grappling on the ground as he only has his right hand to fight back.  As the bear, Heita is trying to scratch through Sugimoto’s clothing, likely thinking his has claws.  Sugimoto is in shock a the power Heita has and he knows this is going to be a tough fight.

But Sugimoto is able to push him back with his foot and as the bear roars his eyes go white (about to kill) and he pulls out his trusty bayonet and stabs him repeatedly.

As Heita regains control of his self, his hand emerges from the bear and trips an amappo.  It looks like it is about to hit Sugimoto and he leans on top of him so that it instead will kill him.  Heita by grabbing onto Sugimoto is able to take the hit instead.

Heita is happy and relieved that Sugimoto fought back so well.  He lead them to the amappo so that the wen kamuy wouldn’t know that he was tricking it.  He goes onto explain that as a child he learned about wen kamuy and the idea of them terrified him.  He then became a gold prospector and his family wasted all of the money he earned.  Their greed became too much for him and he hoped that their greed would result in some sort of divine punishment.

He states that the wen kamuy killed his family.  I am still unsure if his family are represented by the personalities or he was just using those people in his head as the stand in for them.  The wen kamuy then ate him and then he became a wen kamuy.  The framing of the next shot is interesting.  Asirpa stands over his head almost deadpan.  Shiraishi is very upset as you can tell he’s trying to hold back his tears.  Sugimoto is sitting down cross legged cradling his broken wrist, his eyes obscured.

Sugimoto looks very emotional as he gazes down over his body.  This is a soft Sugimoto, we can see the light and sparkle in his eyes as he looks quite sad and distraught.  I wonder if Sugimoto is thinking of himself when he fights?  Keep in mind that he’s referred to as being a demon and not human when he fights.  Tsurumi was able to recognize him as a result of his demonic fighting style.

Heita thanks him for allowing him to die.  And he then dies as he lays on the snow before them.  This then becomes an educational warning moment for Asirpa to Sugimoto.  She explains that when a wen kamuy kills someone, they rationalize it by the kamuy liking that person and taking them away with them.  However, the wen kamuy is not out to punish people, and Heita did not understand the story, instead he adapted it to his Japanese mindset.  Therefore, he produced an incorrect wen kamuy in himself, creating a flawed monster.

She has such a look of wisdom as she concludes that it is important that information is passed down with accuracy, if it becomes corrupted, bad things will happen.  This is a strong warning to Sugimoto to not cherry pick Ainu beliefs and customs and to place them in his own Japanese cultural context.  He too thought that the wen kamuy of Heita is karmic payback for what they did to the white bear. 

I find it curious that Sugimoto instead ignores her statement and instead wonders if he became the wen kamuy in the process of looking for gold?  This then leads to the dramatic final panel of the major parties in the quest for the gold and the idea that it is driving everyone to madness.

The game is afoot.  Each group is around Hokkaido. 

Ogata is leaving Nagakura’s relative’s house where Hijikata was working out of for some time as shown in chapter 20.  I’m going to guess no one was at Nagakura’s place as Ogata seems to be leaving it rather pleased.  He’s got his happy cat face on.  Seeing that Hijikata robbed the bank and had weapons stored there, Ogata grabbed some cash and clips for the type 30/38 he has.

The major question is if anyone was around - Kadokura is with Kirawus somewhere, likely near Kirawus’ kotan, Hijikata was near Noboribetsu with Kantarou and Nagakura. 

Hijikata is currently shown on a street in Otaru, matching this one from chapter 98.  Not sure why he’s in Otaru, likely waiting for Asirpa to head back home since her grandma and her home kotan are close by.

Lastly, Tsurumi appears to be in Barato, by looking at the mountain ridge line with houses in the foreground from chapter 59 most clearly.

Why Tsurumi is in Barato is interesting - I wonder if he’s looking for witnesses from the shoot out and for information about the skin that Hijikata got from Ogata? 

It looks like the factions are closing in on Asirpa’s kotan and the area where the gold is supposed to be.  Recall that Wilk was caught when his canoe capsized on Lake Shikotsu, and it is a rumor that he had some gold with him to make it sound more reasonable.

But there is the oral story that Huci explains about why there is so much gold in the first place.  The collection of gold, polluted the rivers and the salmon were not doing their runs.  As the salmon were essential to survival the Ainu leaders had to decide what to do.

All of the gold was put in one place and hidden so that people wouldn’t fight over it and it was also agreed to stop collecting it for the salmon.  There was a moratorium on speaking about the gold and eventually each village had only a single elder who knew of the gold.  The overall concept was that the gold should eventually become forgetten.

This was how they figured out the amount of gold is much more than what Wilk told the tattooed prisoners. With everyone back in the area of Otaru it is clear that the parties are starting to look for intel toward the gold.

Lastly, this shows that there are 4 factions; 1). Asirpa and Sugimoto, 2.) Tsurumi, 3.) Hijikata and 4.) Ogata. 

I think this fits in with the chapter 201 title page and Ogata will act as his own faction.  I’m curious to see if he continues to be a solo wildcat or if he will emerge to lead others?

Is Tanigaki going to team up with Koito and Tsukishima?  Will these guys end up working under Ogata?  Sugimoto and Tsurumi are rivals.  Asirpa and Sofia are likely to become allies.  Hijikata had Shiraishi working with him before, will he be forced to work for him again?  I really wonder if Ogata will take advantage of commanding Koito and Tsukishima as Koito is now in doubt of Tsurumi and Tanigaki refused to follow Kikuta’s orders.  Will another rebel group form in the 27th? 

Whatever happens - Ogata’s emergence as a leader will continue to make things interesting.  There is too much evidence now that he’s playing his own long game.  Whatever it is.

#golden kamuy #golden kamuy meta #sugimoto saichi #asirpa #shiraishi yoshitake #kadokura #kirawus #tsurumi tokushirou #hijikata toshizo #nagakura shinpachi #ogata hyakunosuke #vasily #wen kamuy

[graphicdesignvictim]

journal 1/ chapters 1-4 / the prologue to graphic design

initial thoughts

When I first received the textbook, the 6th edition of Meggs' History of Graphic Design (written by Philip B. Meggs and Alston W. Purvis) in the mail, I was immediately stressed out. I was unfortunately gifted the trait of being ultra stressed about a lot of things, but school always won first place in amount of stress. (My freshman year of high school I was so stressed I was getting a lot of gray hairs...so embarrassing!) In general, history has been my least favorite subject, and therefore was the subject I struggled with the most. Although I am passionate about graphic design, I wasn't super psyched to be reading about its history. Sorry Professor!

1 / the invention of writing

These terms! I believe I have only heard of pictographs and hieroglyphics before reading this. To read that there's petroglyphs, ideographs, cuneiform, and rebus writing. Wow.

"The symbol for sun...began to represent ideas such as "day" and "light"." (pg.9, Meggs.): You know, I never considered that. On my essay in quiz 1, I discussed how there were would be too many characters to represent every word, and that is why having an alphabet is more advantageous. Though I agree with my argument, I wonder how many symbols would have dual or more meanings, as that is the case for many words in the modern English language. For example, the word "die" could mean the verb of ceasing to exist, or it could mean the noun of a dot-marked playing cube / singular form of dice. So in cuneiform terms, would the symbol for "die" [noun] represent the idea of death? Probably not, but maybe with crazy English it might.

Whenever quarantine ends, I wonder how hard it would be to make my own cylinder seal. After reading this portion, I found the urge to make one. Obviously with modern technology, making a personalized stamp wouldn't be that hard, and I have seen some DIY artists make their wax seals. I think it would be fantastically ridiculous to have an obnoxious stone seal to go around "marking my territory" on.

Ah papyrus. I feel stupid for admitting this, but I didn't actually know papyrus was a plant. I didn't think it was not a plant, however I just never thought of it that deeply. I'm going to look up what it looks like right now. [...] Oh, okay. I suppose today is the appropriate day to say that it sort of looks like thin marijuana? Anyway, speaking of papyrus, the reason I never gave it much thought to it being a plant is because I have been too focused on everyone's hatred for the Papyrus typeface. Why does everyone hate it? I haven't found myself wanting to use it (yet), but I definitely feel this social pressure that I'm not allowed to use it.

I find superstition fascinating. I think if I could meet anyone from the past I would want to meet the illustrator of the Book of the Dead. That would be a morbidlly cool job to have, just feeling that some random guy named Bob has had enough days lived. AND WITH THE POWER OF THE PEN you kill hi- I mean let him enter the afterlife.

2 / alphabets

The definition of an alphabet is definetly something I have not thought about in depth. This definition makes sense, but I always took it for granted in terms of- well I know English, there's an alphabet. I tried to learn Spanish, there's an alphabet... it's almost the same except they're pronounced differently and there's another n- ñ. I tried to learn Japanese, and there's almost twice as many characters (as English), 2 for each sound.

Fascinating to learn that Hebrew and Arabic writing was the evolution of the Phoenician alphabet. I can very much see the resemblances. But it's crazier that different cultures took it in one direction, and then the Greeks took it in another direction, and the Romans took that alphabet in a completely different direction. It blows my mind to see how far we've come.

Ah yes, serifs. I love the whole argument over whether they originated at cleanup marks or sharpening-the-brush-tip marks. Can't we just be glad they exist? (I want to believe it's the sharpening origin, it sounds more efficient.)

Vellum paper feels amazing; no wonder it has to be made from that smooth baby skin. Yikes.

Scrolls are also an obnoxious thing I'd like to have. For instance, I probably will have my will written in a large scroll to represent how dramatic I am.

As someone who used to be obsessed with Kpop, I think it is absolutely amazing that Hangul is such a technical alphabet. It reminds me of how humans have that disk they threw into outer space teaching aliens how to speak English via the shape of your mouth and lips and what position your tongue should go for certain sounds. Obviously this is the origin and is way more impressive especially at such an early point in our history. It makes me appreciate the language and those that write in it much more.

3 / the asian contribution

I appreciated that this chapter starts off crediting the Chinese with creations forcertain things that I remember throughout middle school and high school, history class always seemed to gloss over. Like where did these Europeans know which way was north and to figure they could kill others by putting some powder in their guns. Paper also always came out of nowhere, but I'm glad I learned its origin sooner than reading this.

I have learned that Chinese calligraphy was more important that painting before, but in a different way. As I'm in a lot of art classes, I was taught that Chinese painters would usually also be calligraphers and viewers could tell that the same person who painted the painting wrote the calligraphy as the style of the strokes would match. Thinking about it more now, it would make sense why it would be more important as calligraphy was something you had to memorize AND learn where as with painting, anyone could technically learn how to visualize.

Referencing my earlier rant about cylinder seals, chops are also something I enjoy and would want to have one of my own. Personally I like cooler colors better, so maybe I would choose to have a blue ink instead... but I know that's not the point. I think this would make more sense to be the origin of printing as it is constructing something once and being able to reproduce it over and over just with the use of ink.

The Chinese also invented playing cards! How interesting that they were called sheet dice and a unique aspect of graphic design that you never realize until you actually think about it.

I agree with the authors, it is odd that languages with thousands of characters would decide to use such a tedious method like movable type. On the bright side, we wouldn't have our lovely lazy Susan's if it weren't for this tedious type!

4 / illuminated manuscripts

As someone who appreciates shiny things (my weakness is holographic) it was exciting to learn about illuminated manuscripts. I'm just imagining the gold leaf making the page glow from a couple meters away. Those kind of things make me like to pretend stuff is magical. And for your title to be an illuminator? Yes please. AND to learn that these were insanely portable for a lazy human like me? Perfection.

Earlier this year I learned about ascenders and descenders in typography, so it was nice to know their origin as well as how lowercase and uppercase letters came from minuscule and majuscule.

I am thankful for the Celtics for deciding to put spaces between words. Reading (especially something I'm not interested in) would be a much more painful task ifeverythinglookedlikethis. No wonder humans were evolving so slowly before this point. Howdoyouknowwhenonewordendsandanotherbegins?

All of these illustrations next to the text on the manuscripts make me wonder if they were still using hieroglyphics, would they even bother to illustrate these giant paintings or would it seem (or at least appear) to look repetitive? I particularly enjoy the page from Ormesby Psalter, a Gothic manuscript on page 61; it's very beautifully done.

While I'm not a religious person, I think the concept of aniconism is very interesting. Also how you could view illustrations of living things, but only inside. Can't deny that their commitment to an intricate and complex design in the Islamic manuscripts were not short of beauty.

The Limbourg brothers' story was interesting to me: how they were all illuminated book designers, how they all died before finishing their most well known project, just short of when the duc de Berry died.

This chapter was the roughest for me. I feel that it was a bit long for my tastes and it gave me a bit of anxiety that with it being so long that the professor told us to focus more on chapter 1 than this chapter. That's my issue though and it was still pretty insightful.

post thoughts

I understand the reviews for this book that I read, about how the writing is something I'm going to have to get used to. It is definitely informative, but oh my it is a lot. Will definetly not be doing this journal so late on Sunday night. Sorry professor...

Source: Meggs' History of Graphic Design, 6th Edition, Philip B. Meggs and Alston W. PurvisJohn Wiley & Sons publishers.

#graphic design

[chatchalita]

I feels like writing something, since I rarely write things these days and I feels like my English will go down the drain soon, if I’m not writing.

Since I impulsively bought a plane ticket again, it’s time for me to summarize my other two trips I had this year as like a build-up for my upcoming new adventure the Taiwan trip in November. 

This first post is about my side trip from business trip...I guess

I don’t know how I usually start my traveling post, I guess I start with a disclaimer that this post is not informative at all, just me writing about my trip for future me to reminisce about it.

It has been 2 years since I last visit Mikawa Anjo, the last time was for internship purpose, (which I happened to not write about the experience :/)  I was greeted by the familiar feelings, I missed this place.  I finally semi-ly made it back.  I worked hard in this company for the past 1 year and I feels like it paid off a little.

This trip was my 6th time in Japan and took 14 days (Aug, 18th- Sep, 1st).  Since this is a business trip, I’m able to ride Thai Airways, finally something that not low-cost and I’m able to load my luggage lol. The flight is TG644, I arrived at Japan around 8am, I decided to stop by my hotel for luggage storage, then go on an adventure to Okazaki Castle.  

Before Okazaki Castle, I visited about 6 Japanese castles, so I know what I should expected from the castle.  And spoiler alert, it was disappointing for me, I don’t know why, maybe because I’m burned out from visiting castle, or maybe because I saw a greater castle?  Or maybe because I expected something from the castle that said to be the birthplace of Tokugawa Ieyasu? The Evangelion exhibition saved this castle from a total disappointment, at least there are something interesting.  

After the castle I went back to my hotel and then meet up with my boss and some Japanese co-workers for a little nomikai.  Alcohol intake, not that much.

The second day, which is Monday, it’s the old atmosphere everybody was as welcoming as ever.  I only spent half day there because I had to visit other supplier factory in Gifu, I’m still cursing myself for not taken any photos in my phone (for the location purpose), then that night another nomikai, and this time I drunk so much sake that actually made me drunk and made me worry for tomorrow.  I’m not the kind of person to have hangover, so I didn’t worried about that, I was more worry about  how much alcohol I will have left in my blood, since Tuesday, I will have to attend welcome party.

Tuesday, another nomikai, thank god my body can handle another round.  That day, I was not drunk whatsoever, but I did drink Calpis sawla for at least 5 glasses, and other other things...overall probaby 15-20 glasses of alcohol.  Those are nothing to sake I previously drunk on Monday though.

Wednesday, nothing worth mentioning ohh except I walked 2 km for Matsumoto Kiyoshi to get the stuffs ppl asked me to buy for them.

Thursday, yakiniku with my co-workers.

Friday, actually nothing?

So one week has passed, most the weekdays activity either hung out” with my co-workers or went to grocery shopping, my co-workers (in Thailand) asked me to buy kimono for them, and they keep called it yukata.  It was a short kimono that you wear with hakama, these people want to wear them as “fashion”, these really culture appropriation *sigh*

Saturday, Saturday, where did I go on Saturday...oh Meiji Mura...again.  I actually went there two years ago to dress in Hakama while this year is to see very small fireworks with actual same age people.  Because I already went there once, not many pictures were taken 

Sunday, the manager in charge of me took me to Iga, MIe to see some ninja.  Iga Ueno castle is actually in the list of castle I want to visit.  If you talking about Iga ninja, Hattori Hanzo, probably the famous ninja from that “school”?

The ninja demonstration was interesting, idk what I expected, I guess I did low-key expected movie stunts ninjutsu, but it turned out to be just ninja technique.

I do loves Iga Ueno Castle since I could see both the life of ninja and samurai in one place.  The ninja village is really fun place and touristy.

So far the day went very well and pretty much free since the manager paid for everything, but my dumbass has to be extra and went to Nishio to see lantern festival (alone).  And you know what, the taxi cost 6000 yen round-trip just for the station to the festival ground.  And this is what 6000 yen gave me...

It only 8pm and the festival already over.  I learned something new every time I went to Japan.  Apparently, 8pm is late for the festival.  I live in the city, 8pm is still early for me.  

Monday, kaiten sushi with the same age people

Tuesday, in the afternoon I went to Toyohashi to see printing factory and the person asked me what is the food that I want to eat but have not eaten yet, and I replied “unagi”, which is something very expensive.  

I think this was about 5000 yen for a set.  In the evening, he treated me tempura like in actually tempura shop, where the chef actually fried tempura in front of us.

As a nekojita, I was suffering but it was so delicious.

Wednesday, I got stood up by the manager that took care of me 2 years ago.  No biggie.

Thursday & Friday, spent my last day in Anjo as lonely as ever.  (and spent 2 hours try to figure how to pack everything in my suitcase because of what people asked me to buy)

Saturday, I bought a day tour from Klook to Takayama and Shirakawago, the thing about tour is it convenience and probably cheaper than finding the transportation myself, but the downfall always, the time.  There are not enough time!!  I guess that is something I have to accept when it a day trip.  In the bus, I was the only non-Chinese speaking person there.

Takayama...I was eating, so I didn’t had much time to explore, but you know what I feels like if you went to Kyoto, you don’t need to go to Takayama.  It has it own charmed, I just didn’t had enough time to enjoy its charm.

The raw beef is the best out of the 3, this Hida beef made visiting Takayama worth it.

Next stop, Shirakawago, the highlight of the trip.  The sunlight and everything made the pictures look colorful and amazing.  The photos taken there was one of my favorite set of photos of all my trips. 

Shirakawago, a place I would loved to visit again during winter and spent more time there.  Due to the lack of time, I can only take pictures of here and there instead of absorb myself.  I wanted to visit more museum, more historical stuff, but the time is limited :/

After the day tour, I went to Hikone and stay at the hotel there.

Sunday, the last day let’s make it count.  I first planned to go see Tonbokiri in western shiga (which I forgot the name of the place), but because it was so far away and I don’t want to wake up early and my main goal was HIkone castle.  I ended up with visited Nagahama Castle in the morning.  That Sunday probably the day I cursed google map the most because the train schedule in there just not right!  I didn’t missed the train, but like the map told me it departs at 9, I arrived at 8:50, the trained in the google map is the train that not stop in this station like what’s going on.  And that happened a lot that day, I probably spent like almost 2 hour in (different) train station because the time in google map was earlier than the actual train. 

Anyway, back to Nagahama castle, a castle built by Totoyomi Hideyoshi

In my opinion, definitely better than Okazaki, the overall atmosphere made it “feels” more significant than Okazaki castle.  The view from the tenshuu is very pretty, in which you can actually see Biwa lake.

I just loves this kind of scenery.

After Nagahama, I went to Omi-Hachiman for some unknown reason.  I’m like that awkward person that wouldn’t push the stop button because nobody seem to get off at this stop, and just kept riding the bus until many ppl get off.  I mean they are Japanese people, they know what’s good right?  Turned out, the popular spot Japanese people are going is like a “dessert park” called La Collina, I called it dessert park because they mainly sell dessert there, and “park” because they have large greenery area.

Their most famous dessert is Baumkuchen, I personally not that big fan of it, so I bought the small size along with macaron.

Then, I followed google map to Omihachiman canal area to find the bus to get back to the station.

The canal area is what I intended to go.

I’m glad I was awkward and decided to follow Japanese people because I got have variety of scenic photos.

Next stop, the highlight of this trip Hikone Castle, 1 of the 12 original castles yayyy.

I love Japanese garden, so first visited the garden in the castle area and just like other garden I visited (except Kokura Castle garden), i was not disappointed.

The Hikone Castle, I loved the castle that I have to work my way to see the tenshu.  I love climbing, just to see castle.

The view from the tenshu also amazing.

After HIkone, I went back to Nagoya to see my same age co-workers? friends? comrades? again for the last time, and we ate “Taiwanese Ramen” which just spicy ramen

And then I got back at the airport, which seem very empty at night.

Good bye, Aichi.  I hope they will send me there for business trip again next year.  

If you read this far, stay tuned for another Japan trip, which is like 2 weeks later from this Japan trip.

#just chatchalita traveling #chatchalita in aichi round 2

[kingofthewilderwest]

Haddock, I have a dilemma I wanted to share with you since you always have insightful opinions. I like Vikings, and a lot of the medieval like history but it's not my culture history, and I feel weird that I like it so much when it doesn't represents my own culture. Sounds silly but can admire and want to be part of something we weren't born originally in? Is it fair? To pick elements of other cultures? And want to celebrate their traditions instead of mine?

Hey there, friend! I feel touched that you find me someone you can go to with challenging questions like this. I should say that, regardless, because I am not a member of this culture, I cannot and should never be the authoritative word on what’s okay. We should always listen to and find the voices of people within their own culture, speaking on what they feel. I don’t have the time in my schedule to seek this information out for you, but if you haven’t already tried to look for voices of people descendant from the Vikings, definitely do your best!

(I mean, I’m ethnically Scandinavian, but my family has been in the USA juuuust long enough we’ve lost most of those cultural elements in our day-to-day lives).

I think it’s important to remember that cultural sharing and appropriation is highly contextual and situational. What one community finds okay for you to participate in, another won’t.

To give a quick example, when I traveled to Cambodia, the Khmer helped teach me and were very appreciative of the fact I wanted to speak Khmer with them. Instead of waltzing around with Tourist Centric English, in which I would have molded their world into my cozy non-culturally-sensitive comfort zone, I went out of my way to try to understand them and relate to them and put their culture and language as more important than my own. (Granted, I was a beginner at Khmer, so conversations were more likely to be in English or even Spanish… but I tried). Learning the Khmer language was a positive, welcome thing there. But, other ethnic groups feel so closely tied to their identity through language, that their language is exclusive to members of their own community. Trying to learn their language would be extraordinarily disrespectful and taboo. You’re not welcome there. I have several old colleagues working on language preservation projects with North American tribes who are exceedingly careful about what the communities do or don’t find appropriate for non-tribe-members to participate in linguistically. For one culture, you’ve got people who love non-members to learn their language, but for another, it’s an absolute no-no. So you can’t just be like, “Oh yeah! It’s okay to learn another language!” It’s specific to that culture.

In general, I’ve heard, experienced, and would believe that cultural appropriation is touchy and likely to be considered exploitative, disrespectful, and taboo if a historically colonizing majority group is taking the materials of a historically disadvantaged minority group. Majority taking over minority stuff is often sketchy as fuck, whereas the other way around tends to be considered more acceptable. But there will be variations and it’s more complicated than that. For instance: are you treating the material respectful as is its original source, or are you uhhh… modifying it… in ways that the original community might consider distasteful bastardization?

But in short: every situation is different, and what we absolutely ESSENTIALLY have to do is see what the members of that specific cultural group say. It’s their voice, their opinion, their perspective, their emotions, their lives, their choices in what they share, that matter. And in this situation you’re looking at, I can’t tell you anything. I have no authority to.

The big question to look at and find out is: are you being invited to participate? 

Invitations can be anything from very specific, situational, once-in-a-lifetime invites (a friend asking you to come to a religious ceremony with them, letting you know you specifically in this specific situation can participate one time) to broad, obvious knowledge of how a culture shares their material with everyone around the globe (Japanese anime being a worldwide phenomenon with licensed dubs in many languages, demonstrating an openness to people around the world consuming anime. You don’t have to ask your Japanese friends if you can watch anime - the answer is apparent. And if you walk into my home, you will see lots of Japanese-specific things that have become a part of my life). 

So yeah. Does the community show an open arms, welcoming approach to people being interested in their culture and partaking in that cultural element? And is that open arms welcome only for one-on-one in-person special interactions with you and the community, or a more widespread “come and have fun, any and all who know about our culture!” I’d encourage you to be careful looking for that distinction, too. (Ex: are people only performing their culture for tourists because they feel they’ve been forced into this way to get money?)

I’m always so happy and appreciative when friends of mine from other cultures than my own invite me to participate in cultural traditions. It’s an incredible experience to learn about humanity, to celebrate humanity, and to have fun with one another. Traditions are gorgeous products of human societies! I hold so much awe for the beauty of human cultures. I understand wanting to celebrate traditions that come from other groups outside your own, because when I travel, cultural experiences are THE NUMBER ONE thing I want to get out of my experiences! But we always need to be careful, cautious, respectful, and open to listening from the people whose voices matter. It’s imperative to educate ourselves and listen to them. I cannot tell you if it is or isn’t fair, because I am not a member of the culture you’re interested in. 

I would always encourage you to consider that, even in communities that are extremely open to you participating in cultural elements, it does not mean that that is your identity, free for you to treat as your sociofactual property. You very often won’t be able to… mm… claim “ownership,” as it were.

I have some guesses about what people might say to you liking older Viking history and culture and making that part of your life routine, but to even presume I’m right and post it here, I feel would be extending outside my bounds. But if others who see this post and are qualified to talk about this would like to add on, please do! I’d be happy to learn!

#non-dragons #blabbing Haddock #randomly: have you seen Lindsay Ellis' video on Moana? because I feel like I covered some of the stuff she said?? sorta? #awesome anonymous friend #analysis #my analysis #Anonymous

[commentaryvorg]

Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Part 5.4

Be aware that this is not a blind playthrough! This will contain spoilers for the entire game, regardless of the part of the game I’m commenting on. A major focus of this commentary is to talk about all of the hints and foreshadowing of events that are going to happen and facts that are going to be revealed in the future of the story. It is emphatically not intended for someone experiencing the game for their first time.

Last time, in chapter 5’s first day of free time, which should by all rights have finally been a segment with barely any Kaito focus, multiple invitation dialogues had me talking about heroes and sidekicks, we hung out with Maki and heard adorable stories of her best friend from the orphanage and the sacrifices she made for her… and then Himiko’s FTEs somehow managed to be an incredibly fitting metaphor for what’s been going on between Shuichi and Kaito, which may or may not be on purpose on the writers’ part but I sure had way too much fun with it regardless.

Shuichi:  (It’s nighttime. I *would* have been training…)

You could train without Kaito! You’ve done it before. Buuuut I don’t know how much good that would do to take Shuichi’s mind of his problems in this situation, because his biggest problem right now is intrinsically connected to the training itself, so he’d just be constantly reminding himself of it and worrying about it more.

*ding-dong!* *ding-dong!*

Unnecessary hypothetical tangent time! I’ve seen a few blind Let’s Players respond to this by wondering if it could be Kaito having come to talk to Shuichi. To which my immediate thought was “don’t you know it obviously can’t be Kaito; the doorbell didn’t ring a million times”.

But! Then I thought about it some more. If this was hypothetically Kaito having mustered up the courage to talk to Shuichi about what happened in the trial, he would still be convinced that Shuichi feels let down by and ashamed of him. Kaito would believe that Shuichi wouldn’t want to talk to him, and therefore that Shuichi probably wouldn’t answer the door if he knew it was Kaito. So Kaito would not want to make it clear it was him at the door by ringing it incessantly and would only ring the normal-person amount of times, to make Shuichi think it was somebody else. Which would be a fun reversal of the time in chapter 3 when Maki deliberately mimicked Kaito’s doorbell habits because she still felt that Shuichi wouldn’t answer the door if he knew it was her.

Anyway, that’s all a total hypothetical and Kaito does not in fact have the courage to face Shuichi whatsoever. It’s Maki at the door.

Maki:  “Kaito asked me earlier… to show him my research lab.”

Shuichi:  “Huh? Your lab?”

Maki:  “I might as well show him, since I know he won’t take no for an answer… So you have to come, too.”

She just says Shuichi “has” to come without explaining why that’s so apparently necessary. This is all about her trying to get Shuichi and Kaito in the same space so that they can potentially talk to each other and sort things out between them, but she’s not mentioning that here. Maybe she thinks that if she tells Shuichi that then he won’t want to come.

She then leaves after saying this without checking if Shuichi is actually coming with her. Clearly she has learned that if you tell Shuichi to do a thing in an assertive enough tone, he will probably do it. Kaito taught her that one.

Shuichi:  “…” (Maki invited me, so… I should go.)

Implying that he’s only going because Maki invited him and he doesn’t want to disappoint her. Meaning that he doesn’t want to go for Kaito’s sake and the chance of making up with him, like he’s just expecting everything between them to continue to be painful and awkward and there’s nothing he’d ever be able to do to fix that.

Tsumugi is hanging out in the courtyard looking up at the stars, and reminds Shuichi of what Gonta said once before about them looking different. She could have reminded us of this at any time up to this point, but she’s choosing to do so now. It’s almost like this is finally the chapter where all of the hints about the space thing are being dropped at once and she’s deliberately adding to that.

Tsumugi:  “With all the horrible things happening, I was always looking down… I need to thank Gonta.”

She’s still committed to her thing of caring about Gonta, at least. She didn’t drop that once he died (even though she’s one of the people responsible for his death). I guess he really was her favourite character.

Shuichi:  “Ah, sorry I’m late…”

Kaito:  “Hm? O-Oh… so you came, too…”

Kaito was not mentally prepared to suddenly be in the same room as Shuichi right now, was he.

Shuichi:  “Y-Yeah…”

Kaito:  “…”

Shuichi:  “…” (Silence.)

So much for Maki hoping that this would magically get them to talk to each other. They are both still convinced that the other doesn’t want to talk to them, so this was never going to happen just because they’re in the same room.

Maki:  *sigh*

(As if utterly bored by the painful silence, Maki started up a conversation.)

She is so frustrated at her friends continuing to be idiots like this.

Maki:  “Why did you ask to see my research lab so suddenly, Kaito?”

Kaito:  “Well… I just wanted to see what kind of weapons were here.”

Maki:  “What? Why would you want to see my weap—”

Kaito:  “But wow! There’s a ton of stuff here!”

Because he’s going to need a bunch of weapons for his brilliantly heroic plan that he’s been working on, of course! It’s a little surprising that he doesn’t mention that that’s what this is for here, especially the way he seems to deliberately cut off her question about it. Maybe he’s worried that Maki is going to try and talk him out of doing something reckless if he tells her the plan right now.

Kaito:  “But there’s no swords of any kind here – Japanese or western – right?”

Maki:  “I don’t use swords of any type. Not after I botched a mission with my katana.”

Which Kaito should already know, but that was an optional scene so we’re awkwardly pretending like he doesn’t.

Kaito:  “Either way, I don’t feel like weapons really suit women.”

Aaand here’s the final Misogyny Bullet to hit its mark. This one I can’t actually prove to be something that is objectively out of character for Kaito to think, because we’ve never heard anything about his thoughts on weapons at all up until now. But based on the fact that every other comment of Kaito’s like this was provably out of character, we can assume that this isn’t something we should take to heart as being a defining point about him either.

(This final one is literally only the fourth instance of this in the whole game. Four single lines. Just picture how absolutely tiny that molehill is, compared to the mountain of everything else Kaito ever says and does throughout five chapters of being one of the most prominent characters, all of which thoroughly contradicts him being that kind of person.)

Maki:  “Care to explain why you wanted to see my weapons?”

Kaito:  “Didn’t I tell you this morning? I’ve got a plan all figured out. Oh! What’s in that black case over there?”

(As if backing away from the conversation, Kaito headed to the far bookcase…)

He still seems to be trying to avoid talking about his plan as much as possible, probably because he doesn���t want Maki to question him on it and learn that he does not, in fact, have anything “all figured out” at all.

I also get the sense that Kaito “backing away from the conversation” like this is him finding a distraction that’ll give him an excuse to not have to talk to Shuichi either. Kaito knows perfectly well why Maki invited him, after all.

Kaito:  “Hm, so when you put them together, they become a crossbow. Looks interesting.”

Kaito is so curious and interested in anything and everything! Even when it’s a weapon, which he just said… well, let’s pretend he just said he doesn’t really like weapons in general. (It would make sense for Kaito to think that, since he’s all about people working together and communicating and using human creations to achieve great things, not using the fruits of human ingenuity to hurt each other.)

And Kaito’s really only interested in the crossbow for curiosity’s sake, rather than in terms of his plan, because he doesn’t include any crossbows in his big pile of weapons in the gym tomorrow.

Kaito:  “Hey Maki Roll… can you teach me how to put it together?”

He’s not even planning to use the crossbows on Monokuma and he has no idea he’s going to want to use one later either! He just wants to learn a cool thing!

Maki:  “And then, put that other part in the opposite way… Ah wait. That’s wrong.”

Kaito:  “Oh, my bad. It goes this way.”

Maki:  “Mmhm. Then, next it’s—”

It’s pretty cute to see Kaito being the one in the role of student, messing up sometimes and having Maki guide him and fix his mistakes. That’s a role Kaito is not usually comfortable putting himself in at all. Presumably he’s okay with this here because this is just an intellectual thing and there’s always more to be learned in that regard. This is quite separate from the kind of emotional and personal growth that he is always supposed to be in the teacher role for and definitely never need any help with himself.

Shuichi:  (While watching those two, the memory of a similar scene came to my mind.)

Shuichi’s talking about himself and Kaede, specifically the time she held his hand and encouraged him to be braver about his issues of facing the truth. Which… doesn’t have anything to do with Maki teaching Kaito how to build a crossbow? The only vague similarity is that Maki is giving Kaito guidance, but I just talked about how it’s a completely different type of guidance from emotional support and therefore not really that analogous at all. Any moment in which Kaito was encouraging Shuichi or Maki to fight their “enemy” earlier in the story would have been a far more appropriate moment for Shuichi reminiscence about this – after all, Kaito, rather than Maki, is the one who’s really parallel to Kaede.

The only other similarity is that there happen to be romantic feelings involved in both cases, which is clearly what the game is actually trying to get at. And that’s annoying. It makes no sense to try and link them together just because of that when they are otherwise completely different – they both involve two people bonding in some way, perhaps, but they’re completely different kinds of bonding and neither are inherently romantic and could just as well have happened if all the feelings involved were nothing but platonic. Maki certainly isn’t thinking about what she’s doing as some kind of peak romance. She’s just teaching Kaito how to build a goddamn crossbow. The fact that she incidentally happens to have feelings for him is completely irrelevant, and there’s nothing in her behaviour that suggests that’s on her mind right now.

The narrative’s treatment of Maki’s thing for Kaito can occasionally get a little amatonormative, which frustrates me. (It’s still pretty minor, though – I see far, far worse all the freaking time.) But Maki herself never makes as big of a deal about it as the narrative does, which is appropriate for her character and which I appreciate. The writing is slightly awkward about it, but it’s not the writing of Maki which is awkward, just the writing around her, so I don’t have an inherent problem with the fact that Maki feels this way.

Kaito:  “Whoa, since I built it, it became an extra-cool crossbow!”

Naturally. A Luminary of the Stars crossbow! He’s such a dork.

(And, given the state of mind he’s been in lately, he’s almost certainly completely faking his overblown opinion of himself now.)

Kaito:  “It seems like it’s a bit complicated… but I think I can do it by myself next time.”

You’re not even currently planning on there being a next time, Kaito!

Maki:  “…Shuichi, do you want to learn, too?”

While Maki started teaching Kaito because he asked, she offers to do the same for Shuichi out of nowhere. I get the sense that she’s trying to include him in what’s happening and give him and Kaito some common ground to maybe, just maybe, actually start a conversation over and slowly begin to close the gap between them.

(And the fact that she offered this to Shuichi goes to show that teaching someone how to build a crossbow is, funnily enough, not some kind of deep metaphor for romantic feelings.)

Shuichi:  “Ah, no, that’s alright… I sort of understand from watching anyway.”

…But it seems Shuichi doesn’t quite want to be included in this way and possibly brought closer to having to maybe talk to Kaito. Dammit, Shuichi, you’re not helping the situation here.

Maki:  “Then let’s put it away. You can easily take it apart by reversing the steps.”

Kaito:  “Wait, do I have to do it?”

Maki:  “Who else is going to do it?”

Kaito:  “Yeah… s-sorry… I don’t… feel too good again…”

Maki:  “…Huh?”

Kaito:  “It seems like I’m not at 100%! So I’m gonna go back first!”

This is not about Kaito not wanting to put the crossbow away. He has never actually been as lazy and flaky as he can sometimes come across – and most of the times that he has come across that way, it’s really been because of his illness. This is because of his illness too. He’s probably started to feel another blood-coughing fit coming on and desperately doesn’t want to be around them for it (and we are indeed going to see him coughing up blood soon after this). So he’s using not wanting to put the crossbow away as his cover for leaving – and since being lazy and unreliable is not something it’d be in his character to admit to so he can’t just claim that outright without it sounding like an obvious excuse, he’s making it sound like he’s using his illness as the obviously-fake excuse to get out of that.

He’s making the truth sound like a lie in order to convince everyone that it’s not really the truth at all. That is some Kokichi-level deception there. Kaito is getting really desperate.

Shuichi:  (Ignoring Maki trying to stop him, Kaito fled the room.)

“Fled”. That sure is a word to describe it, Shuichi. Somehow I don’t think having to put a crossbow away and tidy up after yourself is something anyone would ever have a reason to flee from.

Maki:  “I knew he wasn’t the type to clean up, but I never thought he’d run away with a crappy lie…”

It worked. He convinced them that the illness part was the lie and not the other way around. Maki even remarks that it doesn’t seem like him to lie about that, yet she still bought that that’s what he did. God damnit, Kaito.

Maki:  “…How frustrating. He’s the worst.”

I love her pouty face as she says this. Why does she care about this idiot so much. (Because he still saved her, even though he’s an idiot.)

Shuichi:  “Ah, well, that’s just Kaito…”

Is it, Shuichi? I thought you were always the one to stand up for him when he couldn’t train because he was phobia-sick and Maki acted like he was just making pathetic excuses. Shouldn’t you be standing up for him here in that same way, since you know Kaito never really makes excuses like that? Apparently not, because that would mean suggesting that Kaito really is still sick and that wasn’t just an excuse. Even though it was clear at breakfast that nobody was convinced Kaito was really back at 100%, Shuichi still does not want to suggest out loud that this could be the case.

Maki:  “I’m sure you know why I invited you, right?”

Shuichi:  “Y-Yeah… I do. You were trying to get Kaito and me to make up.”

Of course Shuichi knew that as well. They both did – they just didn’t want to acknowledge it because that would mean admitting that they should be trying to talk to each other.

Really, Maki was going about this in a very unhelpfully indirect way that was just giving both of them plenty of excuse to continue to awkwardly ignore each other. What she really should have done is just talk about it, explicitly bringing attention to the fact that they should be talking to each other and try to force them to do so one way or another. If she was willing to be less indirect, I can honestly see her just declaring that she’s not letting them leave until they’ve talked to each other, then shutting them in here and guarding the door from outside. Granted, Kaito would probably immediately decide he’s not going to say a word in the hope he can out-stubborn Maki and get her to give up and let them out, because doing that would seem less painful to him than actually talking to Shuichi about this. But Shuichi at least would attempt to talk to Kaito for lack of anything else to do (he doesn’t think he can out-stubborn Maki), and in the process Kaito would start to realise that he’s completely misunderstanding Shuichi’s whole state of mind here and they might actually get somewhere.

If only Maki had realised that just them talking to each other in any shape or form would immediately start to fix things.

Maki:  “It’s not like he hates you or anything.”

Very correct! I’m glad she knows this much at least. (If she thought Kaito really did (inconceivably) hate Shuichi now, there’d have been no point her even trying to get them to make up here.)

Maki:  “He’s just being stubborn.”

…Less correct. Stubbornness would mean that this is about his principles and he’s stubbornly sticking to them even if it means shunning Shuichi. As I went over countless times during the trial, that was never truly the point. But the fact that Maki thinks it is explains why she doesn’t realise how easily talking would solve things – she thinks talking would just make it worse as long as Kaito’s still in this stubborn mood and it’s instead a case of needing to slowly wear down his stubbornness, hence her completely unhelpful indirect approach.

Shuichi:  “But… I just don’t know what to say to him.”

He doesn’t say anything else before this “but”, so he never specifically agrees that he knows Kaito doesn’t hate him. Shuichi, please tell me you at least know Kaito doesn’t hate you. You can’t be that painfully wrong, surely?

Shuichi:  “I-I had no choice! Gonta… If I didn’t do something, everyone would have died… I… I don’t think it’d be right to apologize for that…”

*very deep breath*

EXACTLY! Of course you shouldn’t apologise for that when you didn’t do anything wrong! This is precisely Kaito’s opinion on apologising! It is not possible that he could be expecting an apology from you!

This right here is the other reason I kept stressing Kaito’s principles on apologising so much – because it proves beyond a doubt that it does not make any kind of sense for Kaito to be angry at Shuichi here and wanting some kind of apology before he’ll talk to him again.

This isn’t something that necessarily requires multiple playthroughs to appreciate, either. I noticed during this moment on my first time through that what Shuichi said matched Kaito’s previously-stated opinions exactly and therefore Shuichi was wrong to be assuming Kaito wanted him to apologise. This is the biggest, most unambiguous clue that would let someone pick up that there’s more going on with Kaito here than meets the eye, but apparently most people still don’t, and it makes me sad. I’ve watched several blind LPs of this game – probably something like ten by now – and out of all of them, only one eventually sort of vaguely wondered if there might be more to this than just Kaito being angry. The real truth of this situation is so compelling, and it doesn’t deserve to be written off as its apparent face value and nothing more.

There’s also the part where Shuichi was almost certainly witness to the time Kaito most clearly expressed his opinions about apologising, to Kaede back in chapter 1 after the tunnel incident. You may recall how I awkwardly went out of my way to point out that despite how Kaito and Shuichi each leave after having their optionally-ordered conversations with Kaede there, it makes the most sense to think that Kaito canonically said his bit first and so Shuichi would have overheard it. This is the future point at which that is relevant that I promised back then. Buuuut, even though Shuichi probably heard Kaito’s speech that time, apparently he forgot about that, because if he remembered then he should be able to realise that Kaito can’t possibly want him to apologise here. I guess we can put that down to the fact that at the time his dependency was focused on Kaede and he wasn’t really paying attention to Kaito that much, so the things Kaito said weren’t necessarily likely to register or stick in his mind.

Something else interesting to note is that while Shuichi had a tendency to apologise unnecessarily in front of Kaede a lot, he never did so in front of Kaito, not even earlier on. He can’t have done, because if he had, Kaito would have given him the whole don’t-apologise-when-you’re-not-in-the-wrong speech and he’d definitely have remembered that. “Don’t make yourself feel bad unnecessarily for something that isn’t your fault” was in fact the general gist of a lot of the advice Kaito was giving Shuichi near the start, since that was Shuichi’s biggest problem. But Kaito never specifically mentioned apologising during any of that advice, so Shuichi never picked up on that part of his philosophy in particular – and I wonder how deliberate that was on the writers’ part in order to get this chapter to work.

It’s also quite remarkable that Shuichi is self-assured enough to be able to stand by what he did here and be sure that he shouldn’t apologise. That chapter 1 Shuichi who apologised too much to Kaede, and maybe also the early-chapter-2 Shuichi who blamed himself for Kaede’s death, would almost certainly have caved into telling himself he was in the wrong about this. And that growth from Shuichi is most likely thanks to Kaito’s influence anyway, albeit in a more indirect way that he’s less consciously aware of. Shuichi’s become able to think this way at least in part because some of Kaito’s general conviction and self-assuredness has rubbed off on him, even without him needing to follow specific words of advice.

Shuichi:  “I’m sorry, Maki. I just… need more time…”

You’re not the one who needs it, Shuichi. The responsibility to fix this isn’t on you. If you could figure out what was going on in Kaito’s head and manage to help him, that would be really good… but you shouldn’t have to.

The reality of it is that Kaito was the one whose actions in the trial were in the wrong, not Shuichi. Kaito ended up making things more painful for Shuichi in a way that could have been avoided if he hadn’t acted the way he did. It’s like a worse version of the time he punched Shuichi at the end of Kaede’s trial, which was him losing control of himself and lashing out when he never really wanted to, and he apologised for that the morning after. Kaito is the one who owes Shuichi an apology here, and there’s no way he’s not aware of that. This is the one time in the story that Kaito shows an exception to his principles about apologising in the opposite direction from usual: not apologising when he has done something wrong. It’s not that he doesn’t think he should – it’s just that the thought of how badly he failed Shuichi during the trial hurts him so much that he doesn’t have the strength to accept it and face Shuichi and admit that he messed up.

The problem isn’t that Kaito is being stubborn, but rather that right now he’s basically being a coward. Which has a very different ring to it than all the times I’ve called Kokichi a coward, because Kokichi is almost always a coward and nopes away at the slightest sign of anything he doesn’t like. But Kaito is usually able to be pretty damn brave and face unpleasant things head-on – that even seems to be one of his general principles, like when he was encouraging Himiko to face up to Tenko’s death. So the fact that he can’t bring himself to face this even slightly just goes to show how absolutely terrified he must be about admitting this failure to Shuichi.

(Ready for an even-more-overthinking-it and somewhat personal tangent? Kaito concluding that he’s obviously failed Shuichi is very much a result of his issues about heroes and sidekicks, and I don’t want to sound like I’m about to diminish the importance of that. But the fact that this perceived failure is then apparently so unbearably painful to him that he simply cannot face it suggests to me that Kaito is also dealing with a thing called rejection sensitivity dysphoria, which amplifies this type of emotional pain to far more intense levels (and has a somewhat misleading name because it can also be about failure as well as rejection). This is one of the lesser-known symptoms of ADHD, and once this occurred to me, I then thought of everything else about Kaito and realised that huh, this actually makes a lot of sense. So ADHD Kaito is a pet headcanon of mine, one which totally doesn’t have anything to do with me having realised that I have ADHD and researched more about exactly what it is while being hyperfixated on Kaito. I have a lot more thoughts about this that don’t belong in this commentary because they aren’t really relevant to the story – the only point at which this headcanon potentially impacts the story, hence why I’m even mentioning it here at all, is right here in early chapter 5. I can confirm from experience that RSD sucks and makes even seemingly innocuous things hurt like hell, so if Kaito really does have ADHD and this really is contributing to his pain right now, holy crap I do not blame him one bit for not being able to face this.)

Maki:  *sigh* “I didn’t realize you two would require such high maintenance.”

I love the way Maki puts this, like she’s unintentionally wound up taking care of two very difficult children. She’s such a good child caregiver!

Shuichi:  “S-Sorry…”

Not your fault, Shuichi. Well, okay, slightly your fault for being so oblivious, but one can’t really blame you for what you’re not aware of. It is definitely far more Kaito’s fault for not having the courage to do what he knows he should be doing to put this right.

Shuichi:  (I didn’t realize… Maki would be so concerned about us.)

And speaking of you being oblivious, Shuichi! How do you not already know by this point that Maki is a very caring person who would obviously worry about her friends when they’re being like this?

Shuichi:  (In the end, I was the one who ended up disassembling the crossbow.)

So Maki did end up teaching him how to do it (albeit backwards) after all. Sort of beside the point though when the reason she offered in the first place was to try and encourage him and Kaito to talk to each other here, and it’s too late for that.

Shuichi:  (And then there’s the… thing with me and Kaito…) “I need to make up with him… For us… and for Maki.”

Shuichi is still assuming it’s his responsibility to do this and not having it even remotely occur to him that actually maybe Kaito’s the one who needs to take action. But it’s nice that he sees it as even more important to do now he realises it’s not just hurting the two of them but also Maki as well. This is definitely something Kaito would realise too after tonight… not that that’s going to be enough to give Kaito the push he needs to do something, so he’s just going to be feeling even more guilty and awful about his cowardice now.

Shuichi:  (I fell asleep thinking about it…)

This is the first time in a while Shuichi has gone to sleep while thoughts of his current problems have been going around and around in his head. Kaito’s training was supposed to help him not do that! But here we are again… thanks to Kaito’s mistakes.

Meanwhile, Kaito is helplessly coughing up blood outside, presumably in some hidden corner of the courtyard where Shuichi and Maki wouldn’t have accidentally happened across him on their way back.

Kaito:  “Wh-Why…? Why… now? Why… me?”

This “why me?” is the closest Kaito ever gets to expressing the sentiment that it’s not fair that he’s the one who has to go through this. No-one else is dealing with anything like this; he’s the only one who has to carry this unimaginably heavy burden on top of everything else. Kaito would never directly voice the idea that he doesn’t think it’s fair, because that would centre things around himself – he’s bad enough at thinking that his suffering even matters at all, never mind putting it above everyone else’s. He is far too painfully selfless to ever consciously think that way, even beneath the façade he puts on for others – Kaito would sooner go through this a thousand times over than wish it upon anybody else in his place. But even so, there is a tiny part of him that does still feel that injustice that manages to come through here, just subtly enough that he probably doesn’t even register it, while he’s alone and no-one will ever see him feeling this way.

Also, though, why Kaito indeed? There’s three different answers to this question depending on the level of fictionality you look at it through.

In the most fictional sense, in terms of the in-story story about the meteorites and the virus that everyone on the Gofer Project was supposed to be immune to, it’s because he’s the astronaut. If they’re going to be flying in a spaceship and reaching a new world, an astronaut is the one talent they’d benefit from more than anything else, to the point that they’d be willing to take compromises over the immunity thing in order to get Kaito on board. An astronaut who’s only partially immune to the virus and who will be sick and drop dead a few weeks into the trip is still better than no astronaut at all. If any of the students was going to turn out to be only partially immune to the virus despite having been chosen for the Gofer Project, the most plausible one for it would be him.

In a less fictional sense, on the level of this being a story written by Team Danganronpa, it’s because Kaito was written to be the figure of support for Shuichi’s character arc of being a weak Ultimate Detective who grows strong. In aid of that, they wanted Kaito to give him that push in the first place, but then for Shuichi to have to slowly learn to stand on his own without Kaito. First they did this by extremely lazily nerfing Kaito’s effectiveness in chapter 3 with his arbitrary phobia. And now they’re nerfing Kaito in the most comprehensive way there is, by killing him. It’s possible that he would have gotten killed by the killing game at some point anyway, but the in-universe writers couldn’t leave that to chance and wanted to be sure Shuichi would eventually lose him, so they made sure Kaito was dying no matter what for an external reason that could be conveniently tied into their backstory.

(Oh, man, if Kaito ever learned that the reason he’s dying, on the truest level that matters to him, is simply that the mastermind just wanted him out of the way and out of the “story” so that Shuichi could take the spotlight and be the real hero who doesn’t need his help anymore… fuck, that would be vicious. That’d stab Kaito exactly where he’s already hurting the most. Maybe it’s a good thing he never actually learns the truth.)

But on the not-at-all-fictional level, it’s because the real, out-universe purpose of Kaito’s story isn’t just to be the mentor for Shuichi’s development, but also to be a deconstruction of those kinds of heroic mentor characters. (I can think of four other characters in other works of fiction who remind me of Kaito in that they seem like perfect heroes but know that their best friend can become even stronger than them and inspire said friend to reach that potential – and all four of them die.) In order to deconstruct that, Kaito needed to be, on some level, not okay with only being there to inspire Shuichi and then die, and to do that he needs to know that he’s going to die. Kaito would already have been messed up to some extent by his percieved inferiority to Shuichi even if he weren’t dying, but the helplessness caused by his impending death and how he tried to deal with it by clinging to the feeling that at least Shuichi needs him only to lose that too has made his breakdown far more spectacular than it would have been otherwise. Kaito’s entire character arc is delightful and his looming inevitable death is a vital part of it, and the out-universe writers know exactly what they’re doing. (The in-universe writers don’t, though. I really believe they only see Kaito as a disposable crutch for Shuichi’s development and not as someone to have a character arc of his own. Boy were they wrong. Boy are most of the best parts of this story not something the in-universe writers had planned at all.)

Kaito:  “Damn it… I’m running… outta time.”

Not for himself. He already said this morning he was going to get “you guys” and not “us” out of here. He’s running out of time to finally make a difference and be a hero to everyone else after how badly he feels he’s failed so far.

Kaito:  “I can’t die like this… Like hell am I gonna… die here…”

“Like this”, meaning he can’t die the way he currently is, as a failure. “Here”, meaning he can’t die while everyone’s still trapped in here and at least wants to see them escape and know they’re going to be okay before the end.

Kaito:  “I… I still… haven’t gone… t-to space… Damn it…”

Final reminder: Kaito cannot die before he has gone to space. Five times he says something to this effect. It is So Important.

…But this time, I don’t think Kaito really believes he’s going to manage it. I think this is him brokenly lamenting the realisation that he’s never going to make it to space after all. Everything else he wants is for others. This is the only thing he wants that’s purely for himself, and it’s the one thing he knows is already a lost cause.

I really like how the illustration here is framed such that the background behind Kaito is the stars he thinks he’ll never get to reach.

This is almost the same illustration as the scene at the end of chapter 3, except there’s a lot more blood, and his expression is even more anguished, to the point that he’s crying. The previous times Kaito cried, it was for other people who’d died, for all of the pain that everyone had been feeling in general. Here, Kaito is only crying for himself. So it’s only natural that he’d only ever do this when nobody else will see him.

Also, mad props to Kaito’s voice actor for this scene. You can hear every bit of his fear and helplessness beneath his desperate attempts to still sound determined, and it’s wonderful.

(His Japanese VA’s performance here is equally good, mind you; do recommend checking out both.)

Also also, props to the out-universe writers for even including this scene? This is one of not many times that Shuichi’s POV is broken, and that usually only happens during chapter opening/ending stingers. And we already know full well by this point that Kaito is definitely dying, so it’s not like this tells us any new plot information that we didn’t otherwise have. We’re shown this solely because it’s important for us to understand how Kaito is feeling about this, that the façade he puts on in front of the others is very much a façade for the others and he isn’t able to lie to himself about the way he really feels. Even if he has trouble admitting it to himself in words, because that would be tantamount to giving up, he is clearly quite consciously aware of how bad things are beneath it all. (This is, of course, in contrast to Kokichi, who was still thoroughly lying to himself about everything when we saw him alone at night.) The writers care so much about getting Kaito’s character arc across as much as is possible considering how much he hides from the surface and how oblivious Shuichi is to it all, and I’m so glad they do.

On a related note, it’s time for my favourite Monokuma Theater! Which happens to be the only one of the actually-meaningful ones whose meaning should be readily apparent on a first time through.

Monokuma:  “Recklessness is a beautiful thing.”

Because he’s obviously talking about Kaito.

Monokuma:  “It’s so beautiful, I want to print the words ‘Reckless Beauty’ on a t-shirt.”

(I low-key want there to be Danganronpa fan creators out there who have actually made t-shirts like this.)

Monokuma:  “Because recklessness is the stuff that dreams are made of.”

Dreams like going to space, no matter how impossible that might seem!

Monokuma:  “It’s what makes you run at full speed, with no regard for your limitations.”

It’s what makes you cheat your way in and take a test you know you’re too young for, with no regard for what might happen if you get caught, all so that you can get to space that much sooner! It’s what makes you keep giving it your all to support your friends, with no regard for the fact that you’re dying!

Monokuma:  “It’s what makes you excited by anything.”

Like space! Like snow! Like crossbows! Like every single kind of human endeavour imaginable! Like magic and made-up kids’ games you know aren’t true but who cares because pretending they are is fun!

Monokuma:  “Some say it’s foolish, but recklessness is what causes new events to unfold.”

Like encouraging everyone to risk using the first Flashback Light when most of them were too scared to try it! Like reaching out to a lonely assassin who would have remained alone without your help because nobody else wanted to risk getting close to her! Like taking action to fight back even though you have no idea what you’re doing, because if you don’t then no-one else will!

Monokuma:  “So while you’re still alive, live your life so recklessly that it makes you immortal.”

And maybe if you live so recklessly in the time you have left, with such brazen disregard for your limits and weaknesses, maybe it’ll help you feel like you aren’t really weak and dying at all.

Monokuma:  “And if haters laugh at you, let them. They just don’t appreciate reckless beauty like you do.”

Stick to your convictions! Be true to yourself! Never stop being you, no matter how much everyone else tells you you’re an idiot! You know your recklessness is beautiful, so who cares what others think!?

This whole thing is clearly written to celebrate so many of the things that are great about Kaito, and I love it.

---

[Next post]

#danganronpa #danganronpa v3 #drv3 #ndrv3 #chapter 5 #daily life #commentary

[thegreymoon]

Hi I have been a fan of your work for a very long time and so I sneak into your tumblr from time to time.I counldnt help but notice that you post a lot of political/sjw stuff and I know it is none of my business but since I am probably absolutely opposite in my political views I can't help myself and ask: I understand that you are Asian, but you don't seem to be interested in real or imagined injustices in your country/continent and are mainly interested in USA, why is that?

Hi, anon!

First of all, I am not Asian and I’m very sorry if I ever did or said anything to mislead people into thinking that I was. It was unconsciously done. I have no intention of offending anyone or appropriating an identity that isn’t mine, so if I did something of that sort, please let me know and I’ll do my best to correct myself. I often reblog stuff about China because I think it’s an amazing country, I’m learning Mandarin (not making much progress, though), love their culture, nature, architecture and am a big fan of their historical/fantasy dramas. Also, the two fandoms I was the most active in (coincidentally) happen to be a Japanese anime and a Japanese video game, so I have a lot of love for their art and aesthetics.

I’m actually very surprised that you would ‘notice’ that I post a lot of ‘political/sjw stuff’, considering that I mostly use Tumblr to repost Merlin gifs, cast/crew news and fanworks. There is maybe one reblog on just about anything else for every fifty (perhaps even more) Merlin posts, so I really have to wonder which of the RL issues I posted about bothered you so much that you would describe them as ‘a lot’.

I may be misinterpreting the tone of your ask, so forgive me if I misread your intentions and am responding too harshly, but in my experience, ‘SJW’ is a term that is used to be dismissive when people are talking about real social issues, plus I found your wording of ‘imagined injustices’ very… interesting.

Also, I find it odd that somebody would unironically ask me why I’m ‘mainly’ interested in the USA.

First of all, the global market is oversaturated with American media, American products, American news, American movies, TV series, music, you name it. It’s everywhere. Of course I’m going to know more about it than, say, Lichtenstein. The exposure of American public figures is insane and it just happens that the stuff that appears on my dash is most often related to the USA because that is what the people I follow also follow (and for the record, on Tumblr, I mainly follow the Merlin fandom and to a somewhat lesser degree, various artists, baby animals, Chinese traditional outfits, Buzzfeed and NASA news). I absolutely do reblog pure evil, injustices, hypocrisy and intentionally inflicted misery in other countries too when I see them, but I don’t actively go looking for them on Tumblr, just like I don’t actively look for the USA posts either. The USA posts are simply there, without much active input from me, while other countries are not. An important point, of course, since we are having this weird discussion about why a random person outside of the USA is consuming so much American media, is that English is the only foreign language I am fluent in, so when it comes to foreign content, I am primarily going to read and interact with posts in English. And which country creates the most content in English? Yup, you guessed it!  

On a similar note, everything that happens in the USA affects other countries too. Nothing that goes on there takes place in a vacuum and the USA has made damn sure that it has its fingers in each and every single pie all over the world. Everything, the good and the bad, spills over and trust me, we feel the effects acutely in my unstable, politically fraught little country. The economic and cultural implications are enormous, so you can bet American issues are very personal for me, even if I don’t live there. My country’s government consists of puppets in the hands of various world leaders playing tug of war with actual human lives. My literal paycheck depends on the stability of the dollar. The survival of the entire human species hangs on how we deal with climate change right now and that ignorant, illiterate orange shitstain Americans voted into power is now standing on a global platform, spouting nonsense that is barely one step removed from Creationist bullshit and Flat-earther conspiracies. And you seriously ask me why I’m interested in the USA? 

The USA loves to dub itself as ‘the leader of the free world’ and ‘a global superpower’, and has managed to stick its nose into everybody’s business everywhere (usually with no good intentions), but somehow you question why the rest of us are now going to be interested in what is going on there, not to mention critical when the US government spouts absolute rubbish not just on a domestic, but also global scale? So, yes, I am personally invested in what is going down next in the USA and am sitting here, half the world across, cheering Americans on as they fight to have that shame they elected removed from power and, hopefully, incarcerated, along with all his corrupt cronies, advisors and family members. I’m going to be genuinely celebrating here when he finally goes down!

Secondly, I come from one of those countries that the USA and its allies have destroyed for their own gain and where they have ruined countless lives over multiple generations. I have every reason to notice, take a personal interest in and comment on the hypocrisy, the grandstanding and the false moral high ground that is assumed by the USA (and any of its bootlickers) when I see it.

For any of my USA followers here, I would just like to note that I am perfectly capable of distinguishing between ordinary people and disgusting government policies enacted by corrupt or incompetent politicians. I realise this post sounds angry, but I wish only good things for you all, people are people everywhere and the stuff I’m talking about is way above the average person’s paygrade. I also realise that the USA has screwed over so many of its own citizens; including its war veterans, PoC, minorities, the poor, the weak and the disabled. My heart goes out to you all, truly, and I love you all!

(BTW, I intentionally have not said which country I’m from because I’ve stopped publically stating my location online, simply because it makes it too easy for malicious people to identify me IRL that way. I don’t necessarily hide my RL identity if I have a valid reason to reveal my true name and location, but please forgive me for not stating it outright here, on a public platform, to satisfy the curiosity of an anon ask. My country is misogynistic, homophobic and hostile to all who are non-conforming and my job prospects are hard enough without my online pseudonyms being generally known in my RL circles. I used to be much less secretive about it, but have since learned the error of my ways and am now taking the most basic of precautions.)

With that said, yes, my country has issues! And, fyi, I have ranted and raged and cried about them before online, IRL and in private. I have posted about my country’s political problems everywhere, including here, when I was just too angry to hold it in because I’m absolute shit at being careful even when I make a conscious effort to be. Most recently, I raged about our elections which were a punch to the gut. If I was to start typing about the corruption, injustices and absolute evil going on around me, I would never stop, but I’m not going to do that because that’s not what I come to Tumblr for. This is primarily a fandom space, mostly for fandom stuff, where I come to look at other people’s things and almost never create content of my own. Just about anything political has been reblogged from someone else because it showed up on my dash and touched a nerve. Very little of that is stuff from my own country because nobody creates and reblogs posts about it in the fandom circle I mostly interact with.

I’m now trying to think back to what ‘SJW’ issues (as you put it) I reblog the most often and how any of them are ‘imaginary injustices’. Off the top of my head, the ones that usually touch a nerve are about the oppression and discrimination of women, patriarchy, sexism, various kinds of abuse, sexual assault, overworking, capitalist brainwashing, mental health issues, LGBTQ issues, freedom of speech, resurgence of Nazism, the gap between the rich and the poor, climate change and criminal religious institutions regaining power in society. I can assure you that none of these is ‘imaginary’ and the negative ways in which they affect me and the people around me are very, very real. Also, none of them is unique to the USA, which is what you seem to be the most concerned about, and even if the post is from or about the USA, these problems definitely overlap with things that I, and countless people around the world, are personally experiencing and have a lot of feelings about. The only social issues ‘unique’ to the USA that I often reblog are the ones related to the particular US brand of racism and the appalling, still-ongoing genocide committed against the indigenous people there, and how can you not empathise with that when it’s so egregious? I will reblog them every time they cross my dash to spread awareness since the US government is actively trying to stifle it and rewrite history and idc who is uncomfortable.

With all that said, I’m open to corrections and have no problem admitting to being wrong once I realise I’ve made a mistake. So, this goes for all the people following my blog: if any of the posts I shared are about ‘imaginary’ issues (just… wow at the use of this word) or contain false information, please feel free to let me know and I will take it under advisement. I’m always willing to learn.

#tl;dr #Anonymous #no idea how to even tag this #social issues #personal #i guess