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ravenna-reid · 2 days

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Your Demons Know Mine (Part Two)

Jason Todd x fem!reader

Part One - Mentions of violence and some of Jason's trauma

“We got the files you needed, I don’t understand what the problem is –”

You were cut off by a stern voice. You’d never heard Batman so livid, and it was a cold sort of anger that you weren’t used to. It made you and Red fall silent.

“How many times am I going to have to discuss your antics with you Hood?”

Nightwing, who you assumed was the one to contact Batman, stood before you now alongside Red Robin, the pair of them quietly watching this argument unfold.

You wanted to cast a glance over at Red. The anger was practically radiating off of his suit. “Almost beating a man half to death? Again?”

“You weren’t there! The prick had it coming!” Jason snapped back, his voice full of emotion now that his helmet was off and all he had was that domino mask.

Batman merely scoffed at Jason in response. “That’s no excuse! You were all given one clear rule-”

“We fight crime, shits gonna get ugly sometimes! Yet you act like you’ve never hit someone that hard before!” Jason took a step closer to Batman as he yelled.

I've never seen you hit Joker that hard, and you hate him.

The words Jason uttered to Bruce so long ago simmered in the back of his mind. Back when he was bloody and bruised at the hands of his own ‘father.’

Batman stood, rigid and full of rage before his demeanour suddenly seemed to change. His body language telling you his attention had turned to you.

“[Vigilante name].”

You wanted to grimace.

“How did you gain access to that room so quickly? How did you know the pin?”

Soon enough, everyone’s eyes settled onto you.

Oh hell no. The last thing you expected after this shitty night was to be at the centre of the conflict. You did not think Batman and his little soldiers would end up interrogating you.

You kept your arms crossed against your body, your glare meeting everyones before falling back onto Batman.

“What?”

“The. Pin. How did you attain it?”

You fought the urge to fiddle with the knuckle duster that still sat on your hand. Fought the urge to shift your feet on the ground. You felt Red turn to look at you too.

You nonchalantly shrugged. “I don’t just work for you. I have my own cases too, and I’ve been investigating here and there.”

Nightwing and Red Robin’s line of sight switched from you back to the Dark Knight, but both he and Hood seemed unconvinced.

Tension settled over the room like a weighted blanket. Still, you held your stance. Held eye contact even though all you were staring back at was a bat-like cowl with white casing over the eyes.

“You work for them, don’t you?”

Batman’s words sounded more like a statement rather than a question, and it made your skin crawl. How long did you really think you could hide your identity from the Bat? Nevertheless, the breach of privacy made anger ring like alarm bells in your head. Especially given one of the rules Batman laid upon you when he first met you; never try to discover anyone’s secret identity. Ironic.

“What do you mean? Why would I bring back these files if I were working for the bad guys?” You spat back, clearly becoming defensive.

Batman responded coolly, “I never said you were working for the ‘bad guys.’

You swallowed hard, and it no doubt went unnoticed by the two stupid detectives standing before you. Your glare snapped over to Red Robin, but he seemed a little sympathetic. Like he was pitying you for what was about to go down.

“The use of potassium? Your tendency to use chemicals instead of weapons when on patrol? There have been signs for a while.”

Now, you shifted on your feet. Whether it was because you were slowly becoming nervous or weary, you couldn’t tell. The only thought that brought you peace of mind was the fact that it seemed they still didn’t know your identity. Just where you worked.

You supposed you could live with that.

Batman continued, assuming he was indeed right.

“If that’s the case, our best bet is to have you work undercover.”

Your brows knitted together. “What do you mean?” You said once again.

“We’ll try and gain access to the security cameras. Give you advanced contact lens’ so we can see what you see when you go into work.”

Your guard dropped and instantly you were glowering at him. “Come again?”

This time, Nightwing responded. “It would help with the case [vigilante name].” He reasoned oh so diplomatically. “We could get inside intel and more.”

“We can’t let this get any worse.” Batman interjected, adding onto what Nightwing said.

Your mouth was agape as you stared at them both. “So you want me to willingly give away my identity?” You asked, astounded.

Jason’s gaze hung onto you, taking in the betrayal that made its way into your expression.

“No one would use it against you.” Nightwing said calmly.

“No, but you would all go along with your day feeling safe behind your masks and I would be exposed. That’s not fair.”

“This is for the safety of others.” Batman’s voice grew stern again. “It’s not about you.”

You scoffed before stepping back, and it almost sounded like a bitter laugh.

You couldn’t believe it. But a part of you also wasn’t so surprised either. Of course they didn’t trust you enough to allow you to keep your secret identity, just as they were keeping theirs. Of course they were acting like there would be no other way to crack this case and bring these people down. You would apparently have to reveal who you really were so that they could discover what your company was planning. And now all four bats were watching and waiting for you to remove your mask. You shook your head, heavy with disappointment.

All you wanted was to be defended, to have someone have your back just once –

“You can’t ask her to do that.”

Your head immediately snapped to look over at Red. He was standing tall, his body language sure as he spoke those seven words to Batman and Nightwing.

“Hood, stay out of –”

“No. That’s bullshit. We can do this without her removing the mask. We’ve done it a million times before.”

Those standing before them looked befuddled, and Red knew Bruce was probably swimming in rage at the fact that he was shitting all over his plan, but Jason didn’t care. In fact, the thought of it kinda made Jason happy.

Red Hood turned to face you, dark hair falling above his eyes and demons apparently rid from his mind. He was his old self again. His usual self, but then again not so much. He was being…sweet?

“You go to work, snoop around. Find out what you can and report back to us.”

You gave a curt nod in return, grateful to have him sticking up for you.

You quickly ignored that warmth that was beginning to spread through your chest and turned your gaze back onto the Bat.

“So?” You asked, eager to see if Batman would agree with Red’s proposition.

Bruce wasn’t happy, but he let it go. “Fine, get as much information as you can. We’ll discuss your encounter with that guard later.” He said to Red before leaving the cave.

And you did the same.

Jason watched as you instantly turned on your heel and headed towards your motorbike. Instinct told him to reach out to you. Ask you to wait a second. But he let you go.

It was late. Later than you usually stayed out on patrol. But you were high on agitation and adrenaline, and you wanted to get it out of your system. The cold Gotham breeze brushed through your hair and against your skin, carrying the scent of rain. You sat atop one of the tallest buildings in Gotham, tilting your head back to look up at the cloud riddled sky. Maybe you’d be forced to go back to your apartment by the rain. You let out another annoyed sigh, flipping your dagger around in your hand before launching to your feet.

You’d heard the footsteps from a mile away, and now they were close enough for you to confront them. The odds of it being a criminal or thug was low. You were expecting one of the men from the lab, maybe, but you were also expecting to see Nightiwng come and play devil’s advocate with you.

Instead, you were met with another one of those bright, red helmets.

“Someone’s a little tense.” He quipped as he still his movements so you realised he wasn’t a threat. He didn’t come to fight this time.

You lowered the hand that held your dagger before easily slipping it back into its sheath.

“You have a shelf full of those helmets?” You asked, nodding towards it.

You couldn't see it, but he was smiling. “Yeah, I got Batman to make about a dozen of them. Him being rich and all.”

Red walked across the rooftop, mirroring your movements as you began to slowly circle him.

“I wouldn’t know how rich he is, I don’t go around trying to discover everyone’s identity.” Bitterness laced your tone, but Jason could understand why.

“That’s just Bru- Batman.” He cleared his throat. “He’s paranoia and distrust incarnate.”

“Tell me about it.” You muttered, your eyes gazing back out to the skyline and city lights.

Something turned in your stomach, fluttered in your chest. “Thanks for standing up for me. I really didn’t want to blur the lines between my patrol life and work life.”

Red nodded, “Yeah…it’s fine. I get that.”

Fuck, now what was he supposed to say? He was too hung up on the fact that you had thanked him to think of a way to carry the conversation.

You both stood in silence, watching the city life below before you eventually side-eyed him. “So…how are you holding up?”

With the way he looked back at you, you just knew he had an eyebrow raised.

Not knowing how to bring it up, you had your dagger in your hand again as it turned between your gloved fingers. “The crowbar?” Your voice was quiet.

Oh, that.

Red faced away from you. “Yeah..” He moved his large arms as if to stretch them before eventually turning to face you again. “It was nothing.”

A part of you was so horrendously curious as to why the brash and fearless Red Hood buckled when he saw a crowbar, but you weren’t going to urge him. Push him to reveal something he so clearly didn’t want to acknowledge.

You shrugged. “We all have something we would rather not face.” With the cool breeze picking up you crossed over arms over your body.

Jason didn’t miss the affliction in your eyes as you stared out at that morbid city.

“You?” He asked, his body ever so slightly inching closer towards yours.

You looked back at him before looking down at his thighs. “Yeah, those things.” You said.

He looked down at the guns strapped to him.

Something ate away at Jason once he realised.

So he was using the one thing you couldn’t stand?

His main weapon was your crowbar…

“That why you would rather give people nerve damage with your chemicals?”

You rolled your eyes. “Don’t even Red.”

He gave a light snicker and it immediately made your head spin.

No, this was not how you two were supposed to interact with each other.

You eagerly ignored that feeling in your chest. “Well, I have work to do tomorrow. Chemical testing, snooping, etc, etc.”

Jason caught the hint it was time to go your separate ways and call it a night.

“Mm, come back to us with some intel and you might be able to earn some trust Dr.”

You narrowed your eyes at him but a smirk dusted your face at the mention of his new nickname for you. It started out just being shithead, then he referred to you as a fox.

‘Sly as a fox.’

Sometimes he’d call you alchemist, but now it was Dr.

You flicked your hand at him as if you were swatting away a fly. “Yeah, yeah, cause that’s what I aim for in life. Earning the Bats trust.”

And in a blink of an eye, you had dropped down off of the rooftop.

Now it was just Jason, the wind and car horns from down below.

He drew in a deep breath, letting the coldness fill his chest as he thought about how your ‘friendship’ had taken such a turn.

But as Jason romanticised what could be, you couldn't help but feel you needed to re-drive a rift between this growing friendship. Not because you disliked what was slowly growing between you two, it actually made you a little giddy...but that was the problem.

lmk what ya'll think cause I might make this a series :)

#jason todd #jason todd imagine #jason todd x reader #jason todd x y/n #jason todd x you #jason todd x fem!reader #red hood angst #red hood imagine #red hood x reader #red hood #red hood x fem!reader #red robin #nightwing #batman #dc comics #dc universe #dcu #angst #jason todd angst

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moonsaver · 3 days

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THANK YOU FOR READING MY RAMBLE ABOUT THIS SLUTTY MAN, I have love-hate relationship with Ratio :3 (YOUR WRITING IS AMAZING AS ALWAYS)

BUT ALSO, ANOTHER RAMBLE HERE CAUSE YOU'RE MY FAVORITE WRITER!!

I don't know if you feel uncomfortable/weirded out with this, but if you do! Please do delete this if you want, it's your choice!!

Imagine a child, it can be one of those children in Penacony or other planets. But I pick the child from the Penacony! Walking up to Ratio and S/O, who is probably bickering as per usual or just enjoying one of another times (Secretly, since Ratio wants to be a secretive or this is same past-rebelious but now Professor S/O!)

As the child tugs on S/O, calling them pretty and hugs them. THEN PROCEEDED TO BE LIKE "kay now, you're my parent/mother/father"

LIKE:

"Hey miss/mister/mx! You look very pretty/handsome/unique! Will you be my parent?"

IMAGINE RATIO REACTION, *IF* THE KID IS GONNA BE LIKE

"oh, you're going to be my dad as well/other father/other parent!

OR THE OTHER WAY, HOGGING S/O ATTENTION. Clinging On S/O, regardless how many times S/O tries to get the kid back at their actual and real parents here, and would sometimes spend time hanging out with the kid while also trying to search for the kid parent

(AND ALSO I'M GOING TO SEND SOME RAMBLE ABOUT ROBIN (if you Dont mind!) MY BABY DESERVES THE BEST)

Hello anon! Always happy to answer brain rots and imagines and rambles hehe. Glad to see you back in my inbox!

Also, so cute hehe.

I imagine Dr. Ratio is actually pretty good with kids. The thing with kids is most of them love asking a shit ton of questions, the most ridiculous kinds at that. And you know those people who are so damn smart and knowledgeable in their field they start thinking about possibilities of ridiculous ideas as actually plausible? Veritas would kind of teeter on that when it comes to kids and their imagination. I just can't help but imagine kids crawling all over him while he has a rubber duck in his hand and explains like.. hawking radiation to a kid who's just staring blankly at him.

Honestly, kids would love him. Hes the strange, serious man who always bends down and tells you really confusing but fun stuff about things and seems to know everything. To them, hes the "actual adult".

I imagine, in the case a lost child approaches him or him with his s/o, his first instinct would be just to gauge the general state. He'll simply watch as you pick up the kid and coo at him and all the willy nilly stuff, just glancing over and checking for injuries, signs of anxiety or confusion, frustration, or fear. After he's done looking over, he'd try to ask the child about where their parents are when they perk up about how both of you are their parents now.

Well.. he doesn't know how to respond. You see his eyebrows raise slightly at the kid's remark, but he brushes it off, and starts telling the child all about your embarassing history if you were the rebellious professor!s/o. If you aren't, just about any silly memories he has of you are at the tip of his tongue, and that you really aren't suited for a parental figure. Even if you try and shut him up, he'll simply turn to the kid like, "do not let those who oppress you, silence you." Or something lol.

He doesn't mind the child being all over his s/o, telling them how pretty they are, asking them if they want to be their parent, and so on. Kids are silly, and illogical. It's in their nature to say anything that comes to mind. Of course.. he's slightly sour inside that your conversation was cut short, and now the child's hogging all your attention, but he vehemently pushes it down, simply resolving to search for their parents with you.

It's not soon before the both of you finally find them. Veritas gives them a stern, subtle warning about losing their child while you comfort them, bidding your farewell. It slightly annoys Veritas when the child clings to you, refusing to let go, and all his parents do is laugh it off, saying "they're just very social!" Or something. He has better things to be doing, really. He just walks off and lets you take care of things from there.

If you ask him if he's jealous, he won't say anything, and stare deadpan into your eyes before shrugging it off and changing the topic back to what you both were discussing before. Both of you can have more productive conversations, really.

Although.. his thoughts teeter a bit, and he shortly ponders over what kids with you would be like.. would he want children? Maybe one.. or two.. or even three..

Ugh, he's thinking too far ahead. He resigns to simply paying attention in the present, and listening to you ramble instead.

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petew21-blog · 24 hours

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Swap you face part 2

Archie frowned looking a bit paler than before:"So you're saying that doctor Brown is onto us and we gotta flee, is that what I think you're saying?"

"Pretty much"

"How would he prove we stole their bodies? Would he force you to switch clothes in front of everyone or what?"

"Have you performed any surgery recently? No. Neither have I, but these bodies have. So either we run away or we will have Hell of a complicated life. Or if you don't want this, I can go get your body. I'll switch you and your hell ends."

Archie was contemplating for a while watching his manly arms on his wide thighs. He looked up:"I don't want to leave. Please sort this out."

"Ok, so Dr. Brown is in my body. Dr. Kim now has yours. Meaning that I need part of my original clothing to swap myself and Dr. Brown. Then I'll just swap you with Dr. Kim. We already have their clothing. We can't go back to my house for the clothing cause my parents would freak if they saw two adults trying to enter their house for a piece of clothing of their sons. I'll leave for the hospital and get it. Ok?"

"Fine. Thank you. I'm really sorry, but it would be really stressful to just leave. I know you understand."

Don't get it wrong. I really wanted to follow the plan before. I went to get my clothes. But my body was sleeping, strapped to the bed. Then a handsome intern entered the room

"Good afternoon, Dr. Brown. I'm on your service today. We had to restrain the patient, he was showing signs of mental disorder claiming to be you. There is a bypass scheduled in OR 1 and OR 2 is waiting for you. Can I help you with anything sir?"

My mind was coming up with the most devious plan ever. But eventually it would make many people happy. Maybe except Dr. Brown.

"Come with me to the on-call room. I have to speak to you privately."

We entered the room

"Take off your shirt." I ordered him

"Sir, I am sorry, but I am not comftable doing that. Besides, I am in a relationship. You're a very handsome man, but this isn't gonna happen, sir."

"I am your attending. And as your attending I expect you to follow everything I tell you to do!"

He was visibly angry, but he proceeded

"Here you go." He said angrily and handed me the shirt.

I took off my own shirt and threw it at him, while taking his own. "You're about to get a very fast promotion." I put on his shirt. Changing my appearence yet again.

in front off me was the body of Dr. Brown. It seemed from the look of his face, that he understood the situation quite well. He seemed actually happy about it too. Smiling even. I mean it doesn't happen everyday that you become an attending from being an intern in just a few months

I smiled and waved at him:"Goodbye DR. BROWN!"

He just waved without saying a single word and just smiled. The last thing I saw was him unbotting his jeans

"So you're saying you put dr. Brown back in your body but you had to swap with this kid? How does that even happen?"

"First of all i"m an adult and an intern just as your body. Second of all, it happened fast after he wanted to get me for swapping with him. And third of all stop at this motel. We're far enough from them. We should rest."

We got ourselves a room. We decided to relax for a while and the figure out where we were gonna go. We were next to each other on the bed. I was enjoying my new smell of a younger man. Inhaling my armpit. Archie was still nervous. Maybe I shouldn't have swapped him and just continue this journey on my own. He is such a wreck when he is doing something out of his control.

"I'm gonna go to shower. Wanna come with me?" I asked. He said he needs some time to think, so I let him be.

I was so looking forward to this. Enjoying the new body. Now was the time to fully explore. I left the door open for Archie to observe in case he was interested. Taking off the trousers and my shirt, I was left with the view of my new manly, yet younger body than before.

I smiled at myself. "This is gonna be so much fun"

I entered the shower, turning on the hot water. The feeling of water running down over my pectorals and my slightly hairy torso, over to the abs and to my new beautiful cock. Dr. Brown was bigger, but damn, this guys dick is amazing. Looks like from a porno movie.

I started slowly. Picking up the pace. I didn't try to hold in me the moaning, but even that didn't invite Archie to join me. I tried to insert the fingers of my free hand into my anus. Maaan this guy is so tight. I continued until I found his prostate. Let me tell you that this was indeed the best orgasm so far. Even better than in Brown's body. I had to wash the wall of the shower because of how much of cum I released.

This power is so fucking amazing

I went out of the shower to find Archie still on the bed. I laid down on mine too.

"You're still upset?"

"I.... I don't know if I want this. I mean. It's one thing to swap around two doctor's bodies to fuck around. But we stole their life. Our lives are gone. And I mean... It's not too late to go back. Don't you think?"

"We can be anyone you know? We don't have to go back to our lives"

"But I want to be me. I like my life."

"Hmmm... well in that case..." I got up from my bed and showed visibly my frustration.

"Where are you going?"

"Ehm. I am gonna go for a walk now to think how I'm going to swap us back easily and not to screw anything else up."

"I'm sorry. It's just cause I feel so guilty."

"Yeah I know. It's fine. I'll be back in an hour."

Maybe it was horrible from me, but I still think leaving Archie in the motel was the best thing I could have done. He's got a new adult body and he needs to learn how to take care of himself. Yeah you guessed it. I wasn't planning on going back to that motel.

As for me. I wanna thake this body for a ride. I went to this bar a made a decision to hit on anyone who might have a car to get me further away. Maybe even take their lige. But I think I'll keep this guy for a loooong time

A cute nerdy guy approached looking sex starved. Well this should be interesting

Hey guys, I'm slowly working on your stories, but I gotta take care of some stuff in school. I'll try to write in my free time as much as possible to make your swap dreams come true. Byeee

Part 1:

#body swap #male shapeshift #accidental body swap #body switch

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mynameismckenziemae · 12 hours

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All of Me

Part 7

(previous part here, next part here)

Jake ‘Hangman’ Seresin x You

Summary: Jake shows up when he doesn’t have to and it just makes you want him more.

Warnings: 18+ MDNI! Smut, ass play, oral (both m & f receiving), femdom kind of?, p in v, idk probably more. Lmk if I missed anything.

•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>

“Look who I found wandering around like a lost puppy,” Bradley says as he enters your office with his lunch on Monday. “Said he was on his way here?”

Jake comes in behind him, looking a little worse for wear.

“Yeah,” you reply, “We talked about it on Saturday, he’s got a little bit of a medical phobia so we’re gonna try having lunch in the medical center and see if it helps.”

“Makes sense,” Bradley nods, buying the ruse. “That’s why you kept putting your physical off, eh?”

“Yeah,” Jake replies, picking at his food.

“I won’t tell anyone,” Bradley tells him, trying to put him at ease, “Can’t say much when I’m terrified of clowns,” he turns to you. “What time is Drew’s game on Wednesday?”

“6,” you pull out your phone to double-check.

“I should be able to make it then. Wanna come?” He asks Jake.

Jake looks at you, not wanting to overstep.

“Drew would love it,” you say honestly, giving him the okay.

“Sure,” he smiles, “I’ll be there.”

“Hey, did you sign him up for that camp yet?” Bradley asks, “he’s been talking about it nonstop and asked me to remind you.”

“Yes, last night. It’s a 2-week sleep-away camp,” you explain to Jake. “I was a little hesitant; he’s only 8 and it’s right after school lets out so I won’t get to spend much time with before he has to leave but I decided to let him go. I never got to do fun stuff like that when I was a kid.”

Jake nods. “Some of my favorite memories were made at summer camp.”

“Agreed,” Bradley says. “Plus you’ll have 2 weeks to all to yourself. Maybe you’ll finally get laid.”

Jake’s trying not to smile as you choke on the water you were sipping. “Jesus Roo.”

He shrugs. “What? Maybe you’d sleep better after getting dicked down.”

“Please stop,” you mutter, hiding your face in your hands.

“I’m just saying,” he continues. “Maybe Jake here could help you out?”

It’s Jake’s turn to choke.

“Just because you’re a manwhore doesn’t mean the rest of us have to be,” you tease as you throw a crouton at him.

“I’m not-hang on I’ve gotta take this, it’s Cyclone,” Bradley says, answering his phone as he steps out in the hallway.

Jake gives you a knowing smile as you shake your head at Bradley’s antics.

“…be right there,” Bradley says as he returns a moment later only to grab his lunch and turn back to the door. “Gotta go, he wants to talk to me quick before our hop this afternoon. See ya guys.”

“Bye,” the two of you reply but he’s already gone.

“So what’d you do yesterday?” You ask.

“Not much, just caught up on some laundry. You?”

Missed you. Thought about you all day.

“Cleaned, caught up on some laundry too, and played baseball with Drew and Ron,” you reply.

“You play baseball too?” He asks. “Is there anything you can’t do?”

You smile. “I played a lot of sports growing up,” your smile fades as you continue. “Anything to avoid going home.”

“Understandable,” his foot nudges yours under the desk; comforting you. “Drew’s lucky to have such a cool mom.”

“He thinks so too. For now at least,” you laugh.

The rest of the lunch passes quickly and soon Sophie’s in the door frame letting you know your afternoon is starting.

“We have lunch meetings the next few days, but I’ll see you at Drew’s game,” he says as he stands.

“Sounds good. I won’t tell him just in case something comes up and you can’t make it,” you say, giving him an out if he wants it.

“I’ll be there,” he says softly, looking towards the door before giving you a quick kiss. “See ya.”

“Bye,” you smile as butterflies take flight in your stomach.

•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>

Another package of Reese’s peanut butter cups sits on your desk the following morning, and the next. Knowing now that he avoids the medical unit like the plague, makes his early morning chocolate deliveries even more special.

You’ve texted back and forth a few times but there are lulls in responses from both of you due to busy schedules. So by the time you’re done with work Wednesday, you’re anxious to see him again.

Your phone buzzes as you sit on the bleachers beside Tina and Ron who brought Drew early for warm-ups.

Jake: Our last hop ran late but we’re on our way.

Reese: Sounds good, I’ll save you guys a seat.

•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>

Drew’s on deck when the Bronco pulls in and his face lights up like Christmas morning when he sees Bradley and Jake walking up.

“Look!” He mouths at you once he finds you in the stands, pointing in their direction.

You nod with a smile on your face, blinking back the unexpected tears that spring to your eyes.

Jake always looks good; but his damp hair, tight jeans, and showing up to your son’s little league game has you ready to jump his bones.

“Who’s that with Bradley?” Tina whispers. “He’s cute. Is he single?”

You laugh, happy that her eyes are on Jake so she doesn’t see the way you flush. “His name’s Jake, he’s in Bradley’s squadron. I think he’s single,” you lie.

“I’d hope so with the way he’s looking at you,” she murmurs, nudging you.

She’s always been observant. Too observant.

“He’s younger than me,” you tell her. “Only 30.”

“Yeah. That’d totally make you a cradle robber,” she replies sarcastically with a snort. “Looks like Drew’s already a fan,” she continues noticing the way he waves at him excitedly.

You smile as they approach and have to swallow a whimper when you catch a whiff of his cologne as he sits beside you.

“Hey,” his eyes flick to your lips, and leans in, almost like he’s about to kiss you but he stops himself. The cutest blush rises up his neck.

“Hey,” you reply, wishing he hadn’t stopped. “You’re just in time. Jake, these are my…Drew’s grandparents, Ron and Tina.”

“Nice to meet you,” he shakes each of their hands.

“Keep that elbow up, bud! You got this!” Bradley calls from Jake’s other side. Drew nods as he steps up to the plate, his right elbow up.

He swings at the first pitch, but it’s a miss. The next 3 are balls, and the following is straight down the middle but he realizes it a second too late, his head dropping forward in frustration.

“Shake it off,” Jake yells and Drew’s head pops up and he meets Jake’s eye. “Let ‘er rip it if it’s in there.”

Drew takes a deep breath and nods as he steps into the batter's box.

It’s another one right down the middle. He swings, making contact. You rise to your feet and the ball sails over the center fielder’s head.

“Run!” All of you yell as Drew stands there, stunned.

With that, he takes off. Rounding second base as the outfield recovers the ball. It’s thrown to third as he approaches that base but it’s overthrown.

“Go home!” You call, bouncing on your heels.

He slides in just as the catcher gets it and you can’t see anything from the cloud of dust.

But as the dust clears the ump calls “Safe!”

•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>

Drew beams the rest of the game; playing better than ever from the confidence boost of his first home run.

Everyone goes with you for ice cream after and Tina gives you pointed looks all night that have you rolling your eyes but you can’t help but smile.

Knowing you have her approval makes your heart feel lighter than it has in a long time.

You type a quick text to Jake while you wait for Drew to buckle in after.

Reese: Do you want to come over tonight? After Drew’s asleep?

Jake: Yes.

Jake: LMK when I’m okay to come over.

Reese: Will do.

“Do you think Dad saw it? My home run? Do you think he’s proud of me?” Drew asks as you pull into the driveway.

His words tug at your heartstrings. He usually brings up Andy when big events like this happen.

“I’m sure he saw it,” you reply truthfully, turning around to look at him. “and I know he’s proud of you.”

He nods and gives you a small smile before heading inside.

•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>

“Can you be good and stay quiet for me?” You murmur later as you bring Jake’s lips to yours for a searing kiss as you reach back to lock the door of your bedroom.

“I’ll try,” he breathes as he rucks your shirt up and over your head. “Wanna be good for you.”

You shiver at his words while he unbuttons your shorts before pushing them down your legs, leaving you only in your pretty lace underwear and matching bra that you put on earlier.

“Pretty,” he murmurs as his fingers trail over your cleavage, leaving goosebumps in their wake.

You smile and guide him backward toward your bed, stripping him naked before pushing him gently onto his back, pressing kisses down his neck and across his collarbone. He jolts when you flick your tongue over his nipple.

“This okay?” You ask, looking up at him. When he nods you do it again before giving it a gentle suck while running your fingers over the other.

You play with his chest for a while, seeing what he likes and what gives the biggest reactions; and like he admitted to you before, he likes a little pain.

“Like that?” You ask as you pull your mouth off the sensitive bud, fingers still pinching the other.

“Yessss,” he sucks a breath in through his teeth when you pinch harder; both of them now.

You kiss your way lower, wanting to pleasure him in other ways.

Precum is steadily leaking from the tip and he gasps when you pull it into your mouth with a satisfied hum. Giving him a few sloppy bobs to coat him fully with your saliva before going lower to mouth his sac, enjoying the way he shudders. You wet your fingers in your mouth and sit back up.

“Have you ever been touched back here?” You ask, fingers tracing just behind his drawn-up balls, waiting to hear what he says before going further.

“No,” he shakes his head. “Heard it can be good though.”

“Want me to?” You ask before sucking the head of his cock into your mouth again. “I’ll stop if you don’t like it.”

He nods, head falling back on your pillow when you start sucking him off again. Once his hands slide into your hair you move your finger lower, tracing a wet fingertip over his tight ring of muscle. His fingers tighten in your hair and he tenses at the first touch eventually relaxing when you begin to circle.

“Fuck,” he rasps when you gently press; the broken sound making you clench. “That-ah…that’s good.”

“Mmm,” you hum around him, taking him a little deeper into your mouth, using your unoccupied hand to stroke what you can’t swallow.

“Ree-Reese,” he gasps, gently tugging on your hair to pull you off. “I’m gonna-can I cum?”

You nod, not letting him pull you off.

“I-where should…fuck!” He pants when you keep going, wanting nothing more than to taste him.

His eyes widen when he realizes your plan. One of his hands leaves your hair and you glance up to watch him pull one of your pillows over his face to muffle his wrecked groan as he cums.

You moan around him at the taste, swallowing each burst greedily, releasing him only when he begins to twitch with overstimulation.

Chest heaving, he tosses the pillow aside, eyes instantly catching on the movement of your thighs rubbing together.

He pulls you over him so fast your head spins; not taking the time to take off your underwear, he just licks you through the soaked lace as soon as your thighs straddle his face.

Your hands scrabble, finding your headboard as he pulls you down further onto his mouth, the grip on your thighs bruising as he eats you out.

When your thighs begin to shake, he slips his fingers inside you, curling them just how you like and that’s all it takes.

You nearly draw blood, biting your lip in an effort to stay quiet as you tremble through your release.

Before you come all the way down, there’s a rip of fabric and his tongue is on you again.

•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>

You don’t know how much time passes (or how many orgasms occur) when he finally helps you off his face.

A glance shows you he’s hard again. Reaching into your bedside drawer you pull out a condom and slide it on him before straddling his hips reverse cow-girl style and sinking down. His hands come around to grip your hips as you begin to ride him.

Just as you’re about to wipe the excess condom lube on your thigh, an idea comes to mind and your slick fingers slide behind his sac again. He bends his knees, welcoming your touch.

Your motions remain the same as earlier as you ride him slowly; circling and pressing, not wanting to push him too far. But when he thrusts up at the same time as you sink down, your lubed finger slips and breaches him.

“Are you-“ you start to ask.

“Fuckkkkk,” he rasps, tilting his hips up in a silent plea for more.

You press further, clenching at the strangled moan that’s ripped from his throat and the way his hips jerk when you find his prostate.

Knowing he’s not going to last long, your free hand finds your clit as you continue to ride him, rubbing fast circles to his slow presses.

“I-oh God,” he sounds wrecked; barely coherent as he tries to tell you he’s close.

“Cum for me,” you murmur as you press more insistently, toeing the edge of your release already.

You fall off the edge when he pulses around your finger, filling the condom with a guttural groan.

•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>

A/N: I think I blacked out when writing the smut.

Anywho🥴, what did you think?

As always, any interaction is appreciated but I love hearing what you think in the comments/reblogs!

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tamamatango · 2 days

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“Holy shit they actually froggin did it”: A Keroro Gunso anime revival preliminary info and speculation post (late as hell edition)

Okay first of all,

AWAKEN

That’s right, vanished-into-the-void bastard Kirb here, I am an alive person still, though I’m certain a lot of stuff on this blog is horrifically outdated. Don’t get too used to my presence, I’m a whole ass adult with a 9-to-5 now and don’t really have the energy to put into consistently maintaining this account, at least not to the degree that I used to (took me well over a whole ass MONTH just to write this post). However, I’ve returned for a special occasion, as basically anyone still in this fandom is already aware considering it’s been forever now:

We are so fucking back

youtube

It took thirteen years and counting, but here we are, a brand new Keroro anime project is in the works—no “the short anime of all time” Flash series here, this is the real deal, straight out of 2004–2011, and goddamn is it beautiful. I might’ve been off the mark when I called it for the 15th anniversary, but it’s now the 20th, five years later, and the madmen did what was once thought impossible by many.

So let’s break down what the hell is actually going on here, because when this got revealed last month, Keroro fans on all sides of the globe basically started collectively running around like headless chickens. I’m gonna divide this aggregation post into the following sections:

Where did this even come from

Clearing up misconceptions

Okay so like what is “““Project”””

Collection of statements from official accounts, staff and cast, etc.

The Localization Question (TM)

Miscellaneous thoughts that don’t really fit anywhere else

I was originally going to make this a living document of sorts but some small stuff has already happened since I started drafting this the day after the reveal happened, so this should be it for the time being. It’s a hefty enough post as is. I am just a master procrastinator :V

That takes care of all the goofy intro nonsense, now for the parts you actually want to read, starting underneath the cut!

Section 1: The Signs Were There

As previously stated, 2024 is the 20th anniversary of the Keroro anime, along with the 25th anniversary of the manga’s serialization but apprently even they don’t care about that since they’ve made no fanfare around it whatsoever, unlike the joint 15th & 20th anniversary back in 2019. Maybe they will as we get closer to the manga anniversary in November, but for now-obvious reasons the anime has been overshadowing the manga side by a lot.

If you’ve been monitoring the Keroro PR account on Twitter (you bet your ass I’m still calling it that) you’ll have noticed an increasing output of Stuff over the last year or two, even compared to the prior anniversary. These include but are not limited to:

In 2021, the series opened an official YouTube Channel, where they’ve been doing reruns of the anime (region locked to Japan), PR podcasts, etc. It’s also where the revival announcement premiered on April 1 at midnight JST.

In 2023, the series opened an official Fan Club with a paid membership. Originally it was a temporary project meant to last for only the two anniversary years (2023 for the pilot oneshot’s anniversary, and 2024 for the anime/manga), but was ultimately extended indefinitely due to “good reception” (my guess is it was always planned to be more than two years but they didn’t want to make it too easy to guess as early as last year that the anime was returning lol). They have a merch store, giveaways, and some kind of social component. I don’t know much about it otherwise because it’s a paid membership that I don’t have access to.

The series has had an overall increase in merchandise and collabs since 2022 or so. This has pretty much always been the case, but there was a bit of a lull between the Flash series ending and the ramp-up period to this (I’d start at 2021 when the YouTube channel opened). Save for the 15th/20th stuff in 2019, for which the major project was Keroro UC, a spinoff manga/plamo line that just…never released all the models and has never been brought up again. Guess it didn’t do very well :V

A number of international releases/rereleases happened as well, but I’ll get into that a little bit more in its dedicated section. For now let’s just say that the anime being finally licensed and put up on streaming in North America may indicate the new series will be English translated in some capacity. It’s also made a resurgence in Korea, its biggest market outside Japan, where it’s had new exhibitions and collab cafes, a redub (that only got through 2 seasons I think), and even a new mobile game.

And finally, a week or so before the announcement, a new Twitter account was created specifically for the anime side of the brand. I think this was really the big tip-off, as Keroro PR has been the hub for all things related to the franchise for the last nearly 15 years, even when the original anime itself was still running during Twitter’s infancy. Keroro PR has posted everything for every other anime anniversary. The fact that now all of a sudden they had to sector off the anime stuff into its own account made it clear something bigger was going on. (Accordingly, the Keroro Anime account has labeled Keroro PR the “original work” account, AKA the manga side of things.)

Essentially I think they’ve been planning this to some degree since as long ago as 2021, the first time the president of Bandai Namco Pictures (animation studio comprised of Sunrise staff that took over the Keroro IP in 2015 and are now producing the new anime) openly acknowledged the possibility. I’ll just link my own tweet with the translation of his statement here. This was right around the opening of the YouTube channel, so I don’t think it’s a coincidence.

tl;dr Momentum for the anime component of the franchise has been building for the past couple of years pointing toward a new anime around the 20th anniversary, so I wouldn’t say this comes off as a huge surprise, though I was expecting something smaller scale than what we might be getting (more on that in the “what is this” section).

Section 2: No It’s Not April Fools, Guys, Plus Other Clarifications

With the announcement spreading across the internet, I’ve seen a few points of confusion going around that I’d like to clear up before I go any further.

As I’ve made clear in the section title, yes the new anime was revealed on April 1, no this is not a prank. A lot of Japanese companies do post April Fools pranks, but keep in mind April also marks the start of the new fiscal year in Japan, so many legitimate announcements are made as well. Plus, the original anime’s exact anniversary was on April 3, just a couple of days after the announcement.

I’ve seen a lot of people call this a new series, season, etc., but officially, the only term used to describe this so far is “new anime project”. That could mean literally anything, from TV series to movie to ONA and so on. I am leaning closer to a certain interpretation, which is what the entire next section is for, but for the time being, calling it anything other than “new anime” is technically not concrete info.

There seems to be a little bit of confusion on what studio is working on this, but in short: it's Bandai Namco Pictures (BN Pictures or BNP for short). As previously mentioned, this is the studio that inherited the Keroro IP when it spun off from Sunrise in 2015. Sunrise, the anime's original studio, is now a brand name for the larger anime management company Bandai Namco Filmworks. Although they've held the IP for almost a decade, this is the first time they've really gotten to do anything with it besides merchandise licensing and some anti-piracy commercial from a few years ago that they’ve ironically scrubbed from the internet now. If you've seen the name Studio BIND (Mushoku Tensei, Onimai) floating around, they're assisting with the production but are not the primary animation studio. Of course this is all assuming this setup continues on to the final project and not just for the PV, but I see no reason to assume otherwise at the moment. It would be rather unusual for BNP to outsource anything if it was solely for a 30 second trailer.

I think that does it for the main points of contention I wanted to address for now, so moving on to the thing we all really want to know…

Section 3: Okay But What Is It Actually???

Well, as I said in the previous section—we don't know, lol. At least not officially. But if we put our thinking caps on, we can make a few deductions:

The anime project will be broadcast on TV. In other words, it won't be an ONA (original net animation). This is determined based on the fact that TV Tokyo, the network the original anime aired on, is on the production committee. For those who don't know, a production committee for an anime is the collection of parties/companies who contribute to the production and funding of the anime. For comparison, the Keroro Flash Series, which aired only on the TV channel Animax to accompany a dedicated timeslot for the original anime reruns, did not have TV Tokyo in its committee. So, it will likely air on TV Tokyo once again.

It's (probably) not a movie. This is going to be more evidenced by point 3 than anything, but BNP has been pretty clear about when something is a movie specifically in the past, such as when Kaiketsu Zorori had various feature films in the 2010s before getting an actual TV anime revival in 2020. Still, we can't be 100% sure until someone directly says otherwise.

It's going to be more than a one-off. I will post the statement in full in the next section, but the Keroro PR account uses specific wording (“resumption,” “new start,” etc.) that sounds very much like they’re making a longer term commitment, so this is straight from the horse’s mouth, essentially.

The series will be a continuation of the 2004-2011 series rather than a reboot. This one’s probably my flimsiest prediction as the PR statements sort of obfuscate whether it’s one or the other, but the character bios section on the new anime portal site gives away a big hint: the Garuru Platoon, Pururu included, is there. This means that we can reason that, at minimum, all or part of Season 3 has already occurred. The character bios themselves also summarize things that weren’t revealed until a little while into the show, such as how Momoka and Tamama met. That all said, the Garuru Platoon members do not have bios, so I suppose they want to keep what’s being done with them a bit of a secret; perhaps they intend to reintroduce them with some kind of dramatic arc again. Either way, if the series does retread/retell some old material, it probably won’t be the bulk of the story. This makes sense to me, as it’s not like the show has been so hard to find in the last decade that a reboot is necessary to get a modern audience on board—it reruns constantly on kids’ TV channels like the Japanese version of Cartoon Network, is available in full on multiple streaming platforms (movies included), and is now on its second rebroadcast of the whole series episode by episode on the YouTube Channel. Unless you’re a literal toddler, if you’re interested in the series, you’ve probably watched at least some of it already.

In conclusion, based on the above (admittedly sparse) evidence, I am inclined to believe the new anime project is a TV series that will air on TV Tokyo as the 2004 anime did and will be a continuation rather than a reboot; however, there is no way to determine episode length, episode count, etc. at this time. It could be a cour (for those who don't know anime, "cour" is your average 12-episode season), it could be consecutive cours, it could be split cour (in other words, goes on break for a season before returning), it could even be a year-round anime if they really wanna go all the way with it. Granted, I hesitate to believe that they would do the latter simply due to the nature of anime production these days, and as far as I know, BNP has not done a single year-round airing since its founding. Even the aforementioned Kaiketsu Zorori revival was a two cour (24-25 eps) series each year from 2020-2022. My guess is we're looking at something similar here, but Keroro is a pretty big deal, so could they make an exception? Maybe, but this setup would already lead to more episodes than the vast majority of anime these days, so it would still be plenty enough to be happy with.

Considering all this and the list of numerous hints that we were potentially getting a new anime as far back as three years ago as bulleted in Section 1, you might question what made me doubt that it could be a series in the first place. Well, besides just the series being so old and it being so long since the anime ended that it felt a little like wishful thinking, at least three members of the cast said that a new series was not something they were specifically looking to do...I think, anyway. Let me explain.

Last year, on December 9, a Keroro birthday event with Kumiko Watanabe (Keroro), Etsuko Kozakura (Tamama), and Takeshi Kusao (Dororo) was hosted in person and livestreamed on TwitCast for fans that paid for a ticket. There were two timeslots for the in person event, and only the evening show was streamed, with the afternoon one being in person only. Now that I have adult money, and being the impulse driven gremlin that I am, I paid for the virtual ticket. Most of it was just cute little segments like the three cast members doing live commentary on some of the birthday episodes, discussing the results of a “favorite lines from their characters” poll hosted on Twitter a few weeks before the event, and a brief visit from Jashin-chan of Jashin-chan Dropkick/Dropkick on My Devil, a series that Keroro recently collabed with for a series of merchandise. Unfortunately the event wasn't archived publicly and they specifically asked to not upload materials to social media, and I'd like to respect that request mostly out of consideration for the cast, so you will just have to take my word for it :P (besides those who were watching me talk about it in real time on discord).

The reason I'm going on this tangent is because, at the end of the stream, a special prerecorded video featuring the three cast members was shown exclusively for virtual attendees. In it they essentially explained that they still greatly enjoy the characters/series and would love to partake in more events and projects, but "not necessarily a new series." I promise you I listened to this clip over and over the entire time it was available and that's what I heard. Now look, the room they recorded this in was echo-y, and my Japanese is pretty decent (enough for my N2 anyways, yeah I did that while I was away from here clap clap) but listening comprehension is my weaker area, so maybe I just take a massive L here. When I started writing this post there was a sentence here guessing about whether they were just being cheeky or didn’t know yet, but an interview came out last month that gave what’s all but a conclusive answer to that. More on it in the next section but tl;dr, they likely did not know it was happening at all. Well, at least they got to be as surprised as we were :V

Anyways now that the thing has been revealed none of the last two paragraphs even matter, so I just prattled on for no reason besides to admit my own shame. Next bit.

Section 4: SAUCE PLOX??? (Current testimonies from relevant people/entities)

Naturally, when the trailer dropped, we got a pretty decent handful of comments from whatever staff and cast are on social media. Most of these are just people going “yay we’re back hooray!” (paraphrased) but the Keroro PR account statements are actually kinda sorta hints? So I’ll start out with those. There’s two tweets that I want to highlight here:

First is from April 1 (JST), the day of the reveal. In this tweet the account wishes everyone well for the new school/fiscal year, but the important part is the last sentence, This can be translated any number of ways (thanks to yoroshiku onegaishimasu and its 50 potential meanings, every Japanese translator’s worst nightmare), but essentially it’s something along the lines of “we hope you’ll support the restart/resumption of the Keroro anime for a long time to come.”

The keywords here are obvious: 再始動 (saishidou) meaning either restart or resumption. I know you’re probably thinking those are two very different things, but the nuance here is that it’s more of a restart in production than restart of the continuity. For the latter, I think it’s more common to see リメイク, which is just the English word “remake” in katakana. Worth noting that the Flash anime used none of these words in its marketing, but it did use language such as “brand new invasion plan,” “rebirth of Keroro,” and so on…in addition to, you know, having a completely different artstyle and a title change to just “Keroro”, which this clearly does not (the artstyle is relatively faithful to the old one and the project is under the original Keroro Gunso name).

The other big word is 末永く(suenagaku), which…also doesn’t have one exact translation, but implies somewhere between years or even an indefinite period of time. I didn’t want to say a specific unit of time in my translation of the statement because well, we can’t really be sure of anything here, but either way, they’re signaling that they’re most likely in it for the long haul.

Then there’s the tweet from the PR account commemorating the actual anniversary of the original anime (April 3). This one uses 新しいスタート, “new start”—no real multiple definition shenanigans here, this is about as literal and straightforward as you can get. In terms of the reboot or not question, this could lean either way, but it definitely adds to theory that it is a series of some sort.

Okay, that’s all for the individual tweets I’m gonna totally overanalyze, otherwise I’d be stuck here for even longer than I already have been. Here’s a quick list of involved staff who tweeted about the reveal:

Unsurprisingly, Kumiko Watanabe (Keroro) posted that day, reiterating that it is real and saying “believe usssss!” (As a reminder, half the internet was convinced it was April Fools for like a whole week)

Adding to the cast comments, Etsuko Kozakura (Tamama) says, “Whoo-hoo! Can’t wait for more news! Keroro Gunso is still the greatest!!”

Jouji Nakata (Giroro) didn’t make a specific comment about the trailer, but has been retweeting the other official accounts and such and replying about it, so he has acknowledged it otherwise. As a substitute, here’s a picture of him visiting the Keroro Exhbition in Ikebukuro a day early.

Here’s an interesting one—Haruna Ikezawa (Momoka) said about the trailer, “Really?! Is this real?!?!?!” While no cast members outside of the Keroro Platoon were officially revealed to be reprising their roles, I’m assuming they’re going to try their best to reassemble as much of the cast as of season 7 as possible—besides Keiji Fujiwara (Paul/Narrator), who sadly passed away in 2020—so I kind of figured Ikezawa would know about this, but maybe not…? Well, considering that the main five were completely blindsided by this to the point where they weren’t even sure this was a real thing until they were in the middle of recording it (as I said previously, more on that later), I suppose the other cast members were just. Not told. I don’t really doubt Ikezawa would return (she even stated it could happen someday all the way back when the then-final season ended in 2011 and did come back for Flash)…but unless they were like really worried about leaks why even keep them in the dark to learn with the rest of the public, idk man :V (so much for not overanalyzing tweets huh)

On to production staff now, here’s the tweet from Satoshi Koike, animation director of the latter third of the original and also the reveal trailer, indicating that he’s most likely back for the new project. It’s just a simple “Welcome back! (de arimasu)” but the images he used were drawn back in 2019 to commemorate the start of the Reiwa era, spoofing the original lyrics of the first opening. The reveal trailer tweet itself from the Keroro Anime account does this too (“Starting today, the Reiwa era shall be known as the Keroro era!”).

New to the staff is Jouji Furuta (yes we have two Joujis now har har), who did the storyboards and direction for the trailer. He’s relatively new to the scene as a whole, with his most well known project being Shaman King Flowers. Although he never worked on the series before, he did a pretty good job emulating the original, and based on the last line of the tweet, it seems like he will be staying on for the full project as well.

And now for a kind of weird section where I talk about the few related accounts that the Keroro anime twitter is following but haven’t made any kind of verbal acknowledgement yet.

First and foremost is Mine Yoshizaki—you know, the guy who created the fucking series, whose name is on the copyright string and whose explicit permission they had to get to do another anime in the first place? Yeah so it’s been over a month since the reveal now and there has been zero acknowledgement from him. I do know his personal social media account has been inactive for quite a few years now (I feel like the anime account is only even following it for symbolic reasons), but he had multiple other opportunities to say something at this point. He did contribute some signed artwork to the anime-focused exhibition that just ended but nowhere in it does he directly mention the new adaptation, and so far he hasn’t commented on it in Shonen Ace (maybe in the next volume, assuming that’s soonish). I have my theories about his relationship to the anime, especially now that the Kemono Friends fiasco has occurred, but that’s all a story for another day or never. I’m sure he’ll contribute something later, but even so it’s just really bizarre to have nothing to say about your biggest creation’s first new adaptation in over a decade. Oh well.

Character designer Fumitoshi Oizaki, who has been around since the beginning if I remember correctly, has been retweeting things, but no official comment just yet. (He discretely left a message at the expo apparently, but didn’t post it online, so no idea if it mentions the new anime.) He isn’t credited on the trailer, but considering he’s still been pretty involved with the franchise’s promotion over the last few years, I would be very surprised if he wasn’t returning.

Last but certainly not least is Junichi Sato, the chief director for the original anime for the first two seasons, arguably its most well-known and critically praised era. He’s also a very notable director in his own right, having headed other famous series like early Sailor Moon and Ojamajo Doremi. Sato didn’t direct the original anime for the majority of its runtime (though he did direct the first four movies), but he still directs and storyboards on projects to this day, including for other franchises’ major anniversaries (namely Doremi and Precure). Though not certain, I think it’s very possible that he returns for this in some capacity, if not as director than perhaps for storyboarding or general advising.

To close out the testimony section, I’m going to share here the translation I did of the aforementioned interview with Kumiko Watanabe in last month’s issue of Newtype (anime-centric magazine published by Kadokawa). I won’t re-summarize it here since it’s not particularly long, but the main takeaways from this in terms of hints as to what we can expect are that a) the cast was surprised by this and potentially didn’t even know back in December when they last discussed the possibility of working on Keroro again, and b) as I previously speculated, this is going to be a long term enough project that at least Watanabe feels the need to physically prepare for it lol. And thankfully, it seems they’re all excited to go back to the series. I spent a long time thinking they might not be up to it again since it’s been so long and they’re much later in their lives/careers (Nakata just turned 70 oh man) but I’m glad I was wrong! Though I don’t expect this to be another 300 episode commitment anyway; in spite of the PR comments I don’t think we’re going for that long with the nature of anime production these days lmao.

And now for a topic which I think many of you are concerned about…

Section 5: “But what if my 日本語 is not 上手???” (The Localization Question)

If you did not get the joke in the above headline without looking it up, it’s probably safe to assume that if you want to watch this Thing, you will need it in a language other than Japanese (and even if you did get the joke you will know if you are truly 日本語上手 when people stop saying 日本語上手 to you). I’m going to focus on English for this post since that’s the primary language of the audience here, though I would be very shocked if there isn’t at minimum a Korean translation—dub more likely than sub imo, since the most famous version of the show there had different names for the characters and was changed to be set in Korea, and the series is HUGE there to the point where it almost rivals the Japanese market.

So, English. Well, if it were a few years ago (say, if this came during the 15th anniversary like I was originally coping over), I would be markedly less optimistic about getting any official translation at all. At that time, the dub was explicitly dead and the only English sub had been delisted for a few years, and even that was only available in a select few countries in Continental Europe on a pretty obscure streaming service called Viewster for like a year or two before getting pulled. It’s no surprise that this particular sub eventually became more well known as the subs on the torrents compiled by ColdFusion (whoever that was, I’m still not sure myself). That was until…

…the magical year of 2021, when our heroes at Discotek licensed the ENTIRE SERIES (minus the movies) for an official English release using Viewster’s existing translations! That’s right, we got all of it. And not only that, the whole series was also added to Crunchyroll, though only the sub; Discotek had the Funimation dub but it seems it did not get ported to Crunchyroll when the merger happened this year. It does seem that Crunchy has still not made the series available outside of the US and Canada, which is a shame, but man is it still surreal to have the entire series legally available both digitally and physically after nearly two decades of scattered fansubs and hardly accessible official releases. Surely this was a huge win for Discotek, right?

Weeeeeell…no. Of course they weren’t able to say it out loud, but it’s been extremely heavily implied that unfortunately the BluRay/DVD releases flopped for them, and they did say they definitely won’t be getting the movies or the Flash series. They also stopped releasing the discs on a one season a year basis and started bundling them together, with seasons 5–7 coming out all at once later this year, so they’re clearly trying to just get it off their plates. To be honest, this was pretty predictable because…it’s been on Crunchyroll since before the discs even came out. Look, physical media is super cool and all, but who in this economy is going to pay $40-60 per box for a handful of seasons at most when they can get the whole damn thing on their phone for like $8 a month. Crunchyroll isn’t necessarily a disc killer; their release of Digimon Adventure, for example, still seemingly did well despite that series being available on Crunchyroll two years prior, but in addition to Digimon being more popular in the west, it’s one $60 purchase for the whole series versus having to spend like over $200 for 358 episodes. I applaud them for rolling the dice and trying to get this behemoth of a release out there, but I’m not surprised about the lack of financial returns.

However, since Crunchyroll now has set a precedent of having the original series available on their platform, we just might get the new series available on there as well—if not as a simulsub, then at least dropped in batches later on. I’m not 100% confident in this, particularly because technically Discotek still holds the license, but my guess based on the way they’ve talked about the series is that they’re pretty open to someone else taking it off their hands when they’re done releasing the original series (and the translations weren’t originally theirs to begin with anyways, they purchased them and did some touch-ups to the existing translation with added typesetting). As far as simulsubs go, the kids’ shows that get simulsubbed tend to be from Toei, with whom Crunchyroll has a known partnership. But if it is split into cours rather than being a year-round anime, I think the chances of a simulsub go up. Whatever the case may be, it’s for sure in a better position to get an official subtitled release than it ever was before. I’m certainly praying this happens because I believe most of the people capable of fansubbing (with good translation anyway) have gradually moved away from the fandom over the last decade for various reasons—myself included, though mostly I just quit fansubbing/scanlation in general for Personal Reasons(TM). Fingers crossed, everyone.

So subs remain as a not-guaranteed-but- definitely-not-low possibility. But what about a dub? If you recall, Keroro has had a very rocky history in 3D with English dubs, with the American dub being in licensing hell for years before finally falling into Funimation’s lap and subsequently failing to take off despite remaining a beloved cult classic to Some Fans (I am not as high on it, but longtime Kirb followers probably know that by now), and the only other English dub is relegated to the network Animax in Hong Kong + Southeast Asia with no official home release, leaving all of it besides parts of seasons 3 and 4 as lost media (and the voice acting sucked ass but at least the script was accurate). But we’re not in the mid 2000s to early 2010s anymore; this is the screamin’ ’20s, baby! So much anime is getting dubbed now, sometimes at almost the same time as the Japanese release! There must be a chance, right?!

Eeeehhhhhh I wouldn’t bet on it. Even the Toei kids’ shows Crunchyroll started simulsubbing usually don’t get dubs (Digimon is an exception, and the reboot’s dub took YEARS to come out). Anime dubs, as far as I’m aware, are not cheap to produce (though it’d be great if more of what the companies are pocketing went to the actors’ wages >_>), and if the show does have the potential to become somewhat of a long runner, I think they’ll need to see more interest around the IP to fund one, and both Funimation and now Discotek’s releases have proved that the audience for it isn’t always there. I also speculate they’d be doing a lot of recasting; the casting process is not as smooth and (I believe) more expensive than it is in Japan, and a lot of the original cast are not working as often in the field anymore and/or have been involved with some pretty serious controversies—I’m sure those in the know are thinking of a specific drawn-out conflict but I’m pretty sure it’s more than just About Him at this point. So let’s just say that while some of the cast still remembers the show fondly, I think trying to get them all in the same project again would potentially open some cans of worms better off left closed. It’s not 100% impossible it gets dubbed, you never know what the industry can manage to make work these days, but I’d wager it’s like 90% not happening. Just a hunch. If anyone more knowledgable than me on anime localization (this goes for both the dub and sub stuff) would like to argue me with better explanations than I have I’d very much be glad to hear it.

Section 6: The Stuff That Doesn’t Fit Elsewhere + Final Thoughts

There’s not going to be any real organization to this section. Here’s just some bullets of miscellaneous stream of consciousness thoughts related to whatever:

The character bios page on the site linked in section 3 has some WEIRD romanization choices. I don’t expect these to reflect on any official localization because chances are they’ll go with what Viewster used, which is largely what the fandom is used to besides the Kululu/Kururu split. It is indeed Kululu here and Kululu has been the de facto official spelling for a very very long time now but I still have a personal preference for Kururu because “Kululu” loses the onomatopoeia joke and I’m a rebel. But like. “Tololo”? Since when has Tororo ever been called that in any media? And worst of all, “Pole”? POLE?? That’s literally never been a thing what glossary did they pull these from.

Also worth noting, Alisa and the Narrator had merchandise sold at the Keroro expo (will talk about that next btw) despite not being on the characters page. This isn’t a confirmation of anything but I would be very surprised if Alisa doesn’t return at some point since she was pretty prominent later in the show and Yoshizaki seems to have a particular fondness for her, and the Narrator will obviously be there with a recast, though jury’s out on if his little ’sona guy will show up too. It won’t be the same without Fujiwara :(

I do want to touch upon the “Keroro expo”, officially known as the “Keroro Gunso Super Gerogero Museum” (expo is a fine shorthand because the Japanese word can mean exhibition also), since I’ve mentioned it a couple times throughout this write-up. This was an event that was held in Ikebukuro just recently from April 27–May 12 that was basically a walkthrough experience recreating settings from the anime, having artwork and stuff sprinkled in between (all reused, no new concept art or anything sadly). The main gimmick was that the venue had an exclusive app that let you take AR pictures with models of the Keroro Platoon. It also had an AI chatbot feature where you could talk to each member of the platoon, and not too many posted pictures of this feature but apparently the chatbots were uhhhhhh weird. I have no idea how much of it is generative from other LLMs, and I’m assuming they programmed it at least partially with their own original input/databases (which is the only way to make generative AI even close to ethical), but from the few screenshots I’ve seen their speech was just a little bit awkward and some of the stuff they said was really bizarre. At one point users started to turn it into an otome game and successfully romanced the frogs, which I’m assuming is a little bit out of the bounds of what they were expecting from this experiment. If they do release that app publicly at some point—they labeled the version at the expo to be a “test version,” so maybe—I sincerely hope they at least fine tune it because Good Lord. Finally and maybe most importantly, there were new voice lines recorded for the exhibit to give it an audio-drama type simple story, but unfortunately it was probably not archived because video recording was not allowed inside the venue. The platoon all had new voice lines along with Fuyuki and Natsumi, reportedly still played by Houko Kuwashima and Chiwa Saito respectively, so most likely they will return to reprise the roles for the new anime, though I don’t think those two were much in question. That’s really like the only important part of this for the purposes of this post I’m not sure why I mentioned anything else here actually. AI chatbot Dororo wants you to know he enjoys tickles from Giroro and Tamama. Yeah this thing’s a little fucked

I didn’t want to get too deep into this in section 3 because it’s not really a production related question, but…are Shin Keroro and related new characters gonna be in this or not? For what it’s worth the site seems to count the Flash series as part of the anniversary celebration, and screenshots with Shin in them are there even if he is completely absent from the character page. Flash was a total reboot so I don’t think it will be that exact iteration of the character if he is in the new anime, but there must be some way to work his stuff into the existing anime canon even with its many differences from the manga. Honestly I think the main obstacle to him appearing is just that the guy is not very popular lol. He’s hardly in the manga anymore and Tomosu and Myou are in it even less. I’m not sure if it was just franchise fatigue following the end of the anime but the reception to Shin was very meh across the board (at least among longtime fans, kids might’ve liked him I think. Which makes sense). So I could totally see them skipping him entirely. There’s still a lot of post-anime manga-only stories without his involvement at all, some that included him but he could easily be changed to some other character, and for the stories that revolved around him, well, the Flash anime got to a decent amount of them. This could really go either way but for now I’m going to lean toward him not being included. If he’s put in I think it will not be until the “second season” (whatever the definition of that ends up being) so we can be eased back in to the existing cast first before shaking things up significantly.

I like the new artstyle, assuming it carries over from the trailer to the final project. It looks like they hit a happy medium between the early and late artstyles of the original anime. This is the most obvious with the human cast who haven’t received new official artwork by Koike and/or Oizaki in a looooong time, and they look much better than the last time we saw them in season 7 where everyone got weirdly lanky for some reason.

Okay FINALLY I’m done here for now I think. At the time of writing we’re pretty much just in a “wait and see” phase with no other real concrete info around that I haven’t touched upon in this post. Trust me, I’ve tried digging for more, but I couldn’t find anything really interesting staff-wise and very few of the staff credited in the trailer are even on social media (sometimes staff can be a bit loose-lipped so it’s possible to get hints there). I’ve also checked every nook and cranny of the official sites of both animation studios and the companies on the production committee and turned up with nothing of note. I’m hoping we get some more info at least sometime between now and autumn.

Thanks for reading all the way to the end (or speedscrolling here, don’t worry I won’t be disappointed lol). I hope you found it informative even though I probably spent way too much time yapping about dumb shit. It took me entirely too long to write this post, but I don’t have as much time as I did as a teenager and it’s been a good few years since I’ve done a really deep dive into Keroro stuff. Needless to say, I’m beyond excited for this project and can’t wait to see how the last seven years of me huffing unhealthy amounts of copium pays off. I’ve had like a month and a half to sit on it now and it honestly still doesn’t feel real!

I will most likely return to report when we get some amount of substantial info—hopefully with way fewer words lmao. Until next time! Ge-gero~

#keroro gunso #sgt frog #sergeant keroro #anikero reiwa #I’m gonna call it that in tags because we don’t know if it’s airing in 2024 lol #infodump #translation #did y’all miss me #I hope not

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