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childhood90snostalgia · 6 months

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90s/00s TV (Personal Memories)

Kids Cartoons

6teen 101 Dalmatians Aaaah!!! Real Monsters Ace Ventura Pet Detective Aladdin TAS All Grown Up Angela Anaconda Angry Beavers Animal Crackers (Telethon) Animaniacs Arthur Babar The Batman (The WB) Batman Beyond (The WB) Batman TAS Beast Wars/Beast Machines Beetlejuice Big Teeth, Bad Breath (YTV) Birdz Bobby’s World (Fox) Bonkers Braceface The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show Butt-Ugly Martians Bump in the Night CatDog (Nickelodeon) Chip & Dale Rescue Rangers Cow and Chicken Danny Phantom Darkwing Duck Dexter’s Laboratory Dog City Donkey Kong Country Doug DuckTales Earthworm Jim Fairly Odd Parents Fly Tales (Teletoon) For Better or For Worse (Telethon) Freakazoid (The WB) Freaky Stories Free Willy (ABC) Garfield and Friends Gargoyles Goof Troop Hey Arnold I Am Weasel Johnny Bravo Katie and Orbie (CTV) Kim Possible The Legend of White Fang Life with Louie Little Lulu (HBO) The Little Mermaid TAS The Mask TAS Mega Babies Mona the Vampire (YTV) Monster By Mistake (YTV) Neds Newt The New Addams Family The New Batman Adventures (The WB) The New Woody Woodpecker Show PB&J Otter (Disney Channel) Pepper Ann The Pink Panther Pinky and the Brain Pippi Longstocking Powerpuff Girls The Proud Family The Raccoons (CBC) Recess Reboot The Ripping Friends Rocko’s Modern Life Rugrats Rupert (CBS) Sabrina TAS (ABC) Samurai Jack Short Circutz (YTV) Silverling (Teletoon) Sonic (Adventures of) Sonic SATAM Sonic Underground Stickin’ Around Tales From the Cryptkeeper TaleSpin Taz-Mania Teen Titans Timon & Pumba Tiny Toon Adventures (Fox) Tom and Jerry Kids Total Drama Island Totally Spies Voltron the Third Dimension The Weekenders What’s With Andy The Wild Thornberrys (Nickelodeon) The World of Peter Rabbit and Friends X-Men Evolution (The WB) X-Men TAS Yvon of the Yukon (YTV)

Retro

Batman Fireball XL5 The Flintstones The Incredible Hulk Looney Toons Spiderman Tom and Jerry Yogi Bear

Adult Cartoons

Aeon Flux Beavis and Butthead Captain Star Celebrity Death Match Clone High The Critic Cybersix Daria Delta State Futurama The Head (MTV) John Callahan’s Quads (Teletoon) King of the Hill Mission Hill The Oblongs The Simpsons Space Ghost Coast to Coast (Cartoon Network) Spawn Spider-Man the New Animated Series South Park The Tick Undergrads

Anime

Beyblade Digimon Adventures 01 & 02 Cardcaptors Gundam SEED InuYasha Mon Colle Knights Monster Rancher Pokemon Sailor Moon Samurai Pizza Cats Shaman King Sonic X YuGiOh Zoids New Century

Television Series

7th Heaven (The WB) Alf (NBC) Animorphs (Nickelodeon) Are you Afraid of the Dark? Baywatch (NBC) Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction (Fox) Big Wolf on Campus Boy Meets World Breaker High (YTV) Buffy the Vampire Slayer Canded Camera (CBS) Charmed (The WB) Clueless (ABC) Dawson’s Creek (The WB) Degrassi Junior High (CBC) Degrassi High (CBC) Degrassi the Next Generation (CTV) Dinosaurs The Drew Carey Show (ABC) ER (NBC) Even Stevens Family Matters (ABC) Fresh Prince of Bel Air Full House Gilmore Girls (The WB) The Golden Girls (CBC) Goosebumps Home Improvement Lassie (1997) Little House on the Prairie (NBC) Mighty Morphin Power Rangers The Nanny (CBC) The OC (Fox) Radio Active Sabrina the Teenage Witch Saved by the Bell (NBC) Sex and the City (HBO) Sister, Sister (ABC) Smallville (The WB) Smart Guy Student Bodies System Crash (YTV) Teen Angel (ABC) That’s so Raven The Twilight Zone (CBS) White Fang (1993) (CTV) You Wish (ABC)

Educational Programming / Children’s shows

Adventures in Wonderland Art Attack Babar (CBC) Banana’s in Pajama’s Barney and Friends Between the Lions The Big Comfy Couch The Big Friendly Giant Bill Nye the Science Guy Blue’s Clues Caillou (PBS) Camp Caribou Captain Planet Care Bears (ABC) Franklin (CBS) The Friendly Giant (CBC) Hammy the Hamster Iris the Happy Professor Kratt’s Creatures (PBS) Lamb Chop’s Play Along The Magic School Bus Mister Roger’s Neighbourhood (PBS) Mr Dressup (CBC) PJ Katie’s Farm (YTV) Reading Rainbow (PBS) Sesame Street School House Rock Sharon, Lois & Bram’s Elephant Show (CBC) Telefrancais Teletubbies Theodore Tugboat Thomas the Tank Engine Under the Umbrella Tree (CBC) Welcome to Pooh Corner Wishbone (PBS) Zaboomafoo (PBS)

Game Shows/Sketch Comedies

All That America’s Funniest Home Videos (With Bob Saget) American Idol The Amanda Show Battlebots (Comedy Central) Canadian Idol (CTV) Crank Yankers (Comedy Central) The Crocodile Hunter Fear Factor (NBC) The Hit List Jackass (MTV) Just For Laughs Gags (Comedy Central) Kids in the Hall Making the Band (MTV) Much Countdown (Much Music) Much in your Space (Much Music) MuchOnDemand (Much Music) Much Mega Hits (Much Music) Much Spotlight (Much Music) Much Top Tens (Much Music) Newlyweds Nick and Jessica (MTV) Playlist (Much Music) Pop-Up Video (Much Music) Price is Right Punk’d (MTV) The Simple Life (Fox) Supermarket Sweep Uh Oh Unsolved Mysteries (NBC) Video and Arcade top 10 (YTV) Video On Trial (Much Music) Where in the world/time is Carmen Sandiego Whose Line is it Anyway? Win Ben Stein’s Money (Comedy Central)

Television Networks/Programming

Fox Kids Much Music One Saturday Morning PSA’s Teletoon TGIF YTV - The Zone / Snit Station / Short Circuitz

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himebushou · 9 months

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I've basically been doing very little with my time besides watching Shaman King 2021 so phew, here are some thoughts on Episodes 10-32!

Episode 10

The bit with everybody hanging out at the inn was adorable, hee.

I LOVE BOZ THEY'RE SO FUNNY

It's odd that Yoh is already paying that much attention to "Hao" considering the name has come up once? But yeah...

Ryu comes back!! And damn, he already qualified for the main tournament?

Bason and Ren are too cute. Also, it's interesting to watch Ren's mindset change and hee, we get the showdown against Tao En!

Episode 11

Phew — Ren gets captured by his Pops and the Zoldyck vibes INTENSIFY.

I don't remember the Tao family having their own Super Sentai Squad, but hey, it tracks!

It's a bit of a shame that these battles were concluded so quickly, but it was cool to see Horohoro and Ryu's upgrades!

Can't believe Tao Rn squeezed that poor baby panda to death only for it to be resurrected as a zombie in the next scene! SHEESH!

Episode 12

This episode also went at THE SPEED OF LIGHT! I cant believe we got Jun's dramatic rescue and the whole Tao En reveal and fight in the same episode! I mean, at this speed, Ren's deep loyalty to the gang does seem a bit goofy, but hey, I'll deal!

Ryu saying, "Just what exactly do you think wavering is?" had me laughing so much, oh man.

Episode 13

How is SO MUCH happeningin EVERY EPISODE?

Yoh and the crew leave home!

They meet Hao!

They get dropped out of a plane!

They meet Lilirara, who's really cool! There's sone backstory!

They go on their way — AND THEN LILIRARA DIES???

Wild!!!!

Horohoro continues to be adorable and guh, I'm really enjoying watching the episodes dubbed... honestly, the dub iis really, really good!

Episode 14

WHEEE LYSERG THE DOOFUS IS HERE... to be honest he's a lil green Sherlock. Isn't it nice that everyone has a colour-coded Oracle Bell lol Yoh's is orange and Lyserg's is green... it's been like 15 years but I still don't know if I've forgiven him for what comes later. Whoops.

Anna is such a great character and I love how much bearing she has on the story.

New ending! And it's Iron Maiden Jeanne!!

Also, the goof with 6 years versus 8 years... Lyserg's parents definitely weren't killed 6 years ago, sheesh.

Episode 15

Okay, so this was one of the eps where the pacing was definitely painful. Anna got a (hodgepodge) version of Hao's backstory — honestly, why didn't Yohmei just tell her the whole deal if he was going to reveal so much? And then, she dealt with Hao's familiars SO QUICKLY that there was like. No threat to them at all. I was expecting more boom bang...

But she did use the 1080 beads! We love the 1080 beads!

Horohoro is just one of the best characters and I loved his upgrade, gosh. Again, we could have had a whole episode dedicated to his time with Apollo, rather than 10 mins. I also don't know HOW Ranger Bluebell knew bout him wanting to become the Shaman King since that wasn't discussed

For obvious reasons, Morphin is renamed Morphia in the dub, hue.

Episode 16

Not much that I can say about this episode (I was a bit sleepy when I watched it). Ryu is getting an upgrade — at lastl! And this episode had some of the humour I love from Shaman King: the whole bit with the vampiric guys was SO funny. "If there are only 5 in the group, why do two of them look the same?!" Yoh/Ren/Horohoro are such a darling trio.

Episode 17

/inhales

THE X-LAWS ARE HERE

WHICH MEANS MARCO IS HERE

WHICH MEANS... ERIC STUART!!!

And man I hate Marco (thought ťhe X-Laws are great villains who basically permanently impacted mine and my friends' psyches; they're a specific type of evil) but boy oh boy, it is sooo good to hear Seto Kaiba in an anime again, sobs.

Lyserg... tbh, I don't think I ever forgave his betrayal back from 2001; THERE'S STILL A PART OF ME THAT'S MAD. I wonder if I might feel differently this time around but I half-expected the little green bean to run off with the X-Laws in this very episode so I was a bit surprised when he didn't.

And then a surprise! Hao chatted to Anna and Manta and Tamao! Anna looks so cool with the sunglasses, lol. Though... I feel like Manta's being from money is largely a plot device (because how else would everyone get to the States)... but I often find this with rich/wealthy characters. sighs!

Oh, also! The Shaman King timeline is SO WHACK. Like, Ryu says to Yoh: "You forgot about me in Izumo which is when I trained to be a shaman." But here's the problem. I think Ryu only went to Izumo in the he first place to take Manta there and THEN he trained with Yohmei — but the flashback reveals that Ryu had to wait for a week to get Yohmei to train him (why is Mikihisa Like That btw) which means that. Yoh would have already been back and fighting and drawing against Ren and therefore concluding prelims in the same time that Ryu was supposedly waiting for Yohemi to train him? And yet Ryu somehow had an Oracle Bell AND qualified for the main tournament? While Ren had only completed two battles?

fudjdjd stuff like this drives me absolutely cuckoo I NEED WRITERS TO HAVE CHARTS AND TOURNAMENT TABLES AND TIMELINES AND ALL ELSE. URHFJFJD

Episode 18

JOCO!!! HEART EMOJIIIS

Anna slapping Hao with her free hand!

Mihihisa being revealed to be Yoh's dad!!

And the whole bit with Ren deciding the teams fhdjd man I am CRACKING UP!

(I rewatched some scenes in English and Japanese and wow, some of the changes are completely unnecessary fjdjd)

Episode 19

I... finally caught the Mic the Jaguar / Mic Jagger joke.

After almost 20 years.

SHEESH.

(I love Boz they're so funny fjljjd)

Episode 20

I never knew that Joco's backstory was so sad... my poor little guy...

I love how Ren pointed out that Horohoro did nothing, zero and zilch in the match dhdjd

Episode 21

Phew... to say that the X-Laws are brutal is putting it lightly... and looking at Jeanne and the way she was in this episode and knowing that she ends up with Ren is very. HUH?

I kind of can't believe just how laidback Yoh is sometimes. It kinda irritates me a tiny bit? Back in the day, I couldn't choose between Yoh, Ren and Horohoro for the Favourite Character Spot, but I'm not firmly Team Horohoro, ehe.

Poor Team Niles. Gosh.

Episode 22

Crying and sobbing... why won't Shaman King just give me. A TIMELINE? So now I discover that it's been TWO MONTHS since they were in the Patch village (???) and it's already the last battle of the first round of the tournament (???) and that Anna already taught Team Funbari Hot Springs EVERYTHING in Hao's big bad book (???) and? We didn't get to see any of that? Like I understand this decision if that's how it went down in the manga and the double OS was a major, unprecedented reveal, but if not... I LOVE A TRAINING MONTAGE. Give me these arcs...

Also, the dub's choices for which terms to leave in Japanese are messy. They use words like Onmyoji and Ultra Senji Ryakketsu, but 'Mana' replaces 'furyoku'... like I'm pretty sure the 4Kids dub used furyoku because it was a term I was v. familiar with.

Anyway, its nice to see a battle span two eps!

Episode 23

Wowee... this episode got me teary. Ryu's upgrade is NICE and Anna talking about the flexibility of Yoh's furyoku was so sweet. I also love the Icemen and their design — and it was particularly cute to see Pino and Horohoro chatting together at the end.

And then Hao's whole convo with Ren (the 4Kids dub called him Len and Yoh nicknamed him Lenny which was the cutest; gah, things I miss!) was really interesting

BUT WHY HAS YOH SOUGHT OUT LYSERG THE TRAITOR... ooft!

Episode 24

WAAAA WHAT A COOL EPISODE?

Okay, so it turns out that I was wrong about all the matches being over because this ep was HAO VS THE X-LAWS and damn, Hao using OXYGEN as his medium? That's bloody cool!!!

The OST in this ep was top tiiieeer and freaking — the X-Laws being humanised? A bit? I am SHOCKED.

Episode 25

Revelations galore... and Yohmei Tries to Commit Infanticide: Extended Edition.

Blimey. This anime is getting me so emotional.

(I love Horohoro I love what a good friend he is he is my FAVOURITE.)

Episode 26

WOW I LOVED THIS EPISODE.

The senior Asakura and Tao folks coming together to discuss Hao's bigtime book and the gang finally finding out about Yoh's origins! I got to see TAO RAN again (I love her) and freaking heck, Mikihisa is so cool? I guess jury has to be out with him a liiiittle bit because I've seen people commenting that he sucks. But. I have a major soft-spot for shounen dads (Goku, Echizen Nanjiroh, Van Hohenheim, Kurosaki Isshin...) and I reckon Mikihisa ticks cool points.

And freaking Ren! Why is everyone so cool??

Episode 27

NO TIME YO RECORD THOUGHTS MUST WATCH NEXT EP

Team Flower vs Jun / Anna / Tamao yeah!!

GOTTA SAVE REEEEN!!!

Episode 28

HOWLING

HOWLING!!

The Iron Maiden will save Ren (oh my GOSH — NOW, CERTAIN THINGS make more sense) and Yoh will be withdrawing from the tournament (?) and we got a new opening AND a new ending and Horohoro had that whole speech and buuu MY TEARS!

Episode 29

Mikihisa appears and just adopts everyone on sight and oh my gosh, the babies? Forget everyone else I want THEIR happiness and dhdhd what is this stuff about a golem?

HOW CAN I GO TO SLEEP WHEN THERE IS SO MUCH HAPPENING IN THIS ANIME

Episode 30

Ahhh we're entering a flashback! So this is what people were talking about when they kept bringing up "Osorezan Arc", huh?? YOH AND ANNA'S FIRST MEETING!

AND SHE WAS SO DISGUSTED.

Once again, the timeline is WHACK because there's really no way it can be the year 2000 at the time of the Shaman Fight unless I'm missing something huuuge... Yoh and Anna really should've been 8 when they met, not 10?

And I'm finally meeting Matamune!

But he was in the last Shaman Fight dhdhd i guess Hao couldn't have participated since he was a Patch that time but what happened at the fight 1000 years ago?

SO MANY MYSTERIIIES

Episode 31

Oh man, I can see why people were so obsessed with this arc... there is just so much emotion here from all sides: Matamune (having to defeat Hao!!), Yoh and Anna, Kino — everything.

You can see why Yoh and Anna are the dream team, wow.

Also, I looked up a timeline and I think I can make my peace with it being the year 2000 in canon... but the anime did not explain it AT ALL, which is pretty poor.

Episode 32

Wow.

Yoh and Anna are very, very special.

#shaman king #shaman king 2021 #rambles and rambles!#can't believe that this post doesn't mention amidamaru even once but he is always excellent

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jumpscaregoose · 1 year

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x laws propaganda time

alright this is the big one buckle in nerds

@ungodly-amounts-of-godly-trauma poll crash course in x laws and also lyserg diethel. all encompassing longpost, tangents included

this is probably going to be too monolithic to work as propaganda but I can do what I want

(read more for courtesy because. abomination)

we’ll begin with some light housekeeping!

Shaman King 101 real quick for those unaware: shamans are people who can see and communicate with ghosts and spirits. every 500 years there’s a big tournament to decide who gets the biggest, bestest spirit, the Great Spirit. there are two versions of SK, 2001 (a heavily manga divergent anime adaptation considered to be better on both nostalgia and writing principles) and the 2021/manga version (written by this guy hiroyuki takei who’s really not the best at writing plots and tends to forget important details. this one’s his intent for better or worse and is more canon).

IMPORTANT TERMS (that I use here but forgot to explain first oops)

spirit ally: a shaman’s primary spirit they use for combat and various tasks

over soul: putting a spirit into a physical medium to allow them to interact with the living world

mana/furyoku: interchangable english and japanese terms for a shaman’s power level. can be measured numerically

shaman king: the person who has the great spirit as their spirit ally

the original shaman king manga was written by a man named hiroyuki takei. takei is. certainly a writer ever. he’s very good at writing fun characters and character dynamics. he character designs and art are very nice (when he’s not being stupid with them. there are some CHOICES). he is very bad at most other things. like remembering timelines and plot details. or research. I will be referring to him occasionally

my area of expertise is the manga version, so assume anything I mention is from that one unless otherwise stated (most general statements do apply to both). HOWEVER, there are some x laws related things that are SIGNIFICANTLY DIFFERENT (more traumatic) in 2001, and I will bring those up as well.

the main antagonist is this guy hao, an onmyoji from 1000 years ago who reincarnated himself to become god (the shaman king). also btw an onmoyji is a type of spiritual leader person who practiced the traditional chinese wuxing (five element) concept, that’s important later. the main protagonist is his twin brother/split part of his soul yoh. they’re really interesting but not the point of this post so

enter lyserg diethel, blorbo no. 1 for this poll (I highly recoommend starting to type his name into your search engine and clicking on the first chemical looking thing that comes up in autocomplete. I could just tell you but it’s way funnier if you find this out how I did)

when we meet lyserg he’s 14 years old (I think. the SK timeline is very broken around this part of the story and dates can vary by a couple years) and he’s joined the shaman fight (big plot tournament) to get revenge on hao, who killed his parents and burned his house down when he was 6. also he’s british, uses dowsing with a pendulum, and his spirit ally is the fairy morphine (funny if you looked up the thing from before), who’s been his friend for his entire life (comes up in trauma later keep notes). he’s also frequently depicted with poppies in the manga (infuriating when combined with the name thing and morphine. why. why is he named that. why he not opioid. this makes me so irrationally upset). lyserg meets the protagonist gang (yoh, this gay emo kid, gay emo kid’s shonen rival boyfriend, and this other guy with a hilarious running gag of summoning this guy billy with magic hitchhiking powers all the time in 2001. it’s implied hitchhiking guy and billy make out once. this show is insane). lyserg’s goal at this point is to find strong allies to beat hao, so he tries to invoke the let’s-fight-to-become-friends trope and it does work but not until he gets decked in the face for being an idiot and pays for everyone’s hospital bills. which are a thing because btw everyone got dropped out of a plane into new mexico breaking bad style for a tournament test.

while journeying with the protagonist gang, they encounter one of hao’s minions, a man named boris tepes dracula. boris is able to use his spirit ally to possess people and temporarily turn them into his vampire minions. the concept of becoming a servant to hao is so horrific to lyserg that, in the 2001 version, he begs yoh to kill him if he ever becomes one. with 100% sincerity. spoiler alert he does at one point, does not get killed, and is confused. this is also when the main event of this poll shows up.

X LAWS BACKSTORY INTERLUDE!

back in the day there were these two dudes luchist and marco lasso. marco was an orphan who grew up at luchist’s family orphanage and they had a very close paternal relationship. so close that they founded an independent supercar dealership together. enter hao, here to find minions for the shaman fight in what was at this point probably about 10 years! arson and murder! the car dealership and orphanage get burnt down, and luchist and marco swear lifelong vengeance on a kid who couldn’t have been more than 5 years old and form the x laws. they gather more people who also think a small child is the ultimate evil, including… who’s that? our next competitor!

iron maiden jeanne, blorbo no. 2 for this poll!

jeanne was a young orphan girl on the streets of mont saint michel in france (my high school functions teacher claimed to have almost drowned in quicksand there writing his name during low tide), that marco and luchist picked to become their ultimate weapon and convinced her she was sent from god to defeat hao. key point here: iron maiden jeanne is genuinely just some random little girl, no divine connection beyond that of the average shaman of her power level. and about that power level. manga/2021 shaman king has this weird little detail, where if a shaman dies or is gravely injured, their numerical power level (I’m glad 2001 only brought in numbers to surprise us with hao’s strength later on, because aaaaaaa) will increase drastically. the x laws exploit this system by having jeanne swear and oath on an iron maiden (the fake medieval torture device, not the band) and stay inside it almost 24/7. real spikes, too. blood pours out of it during her introduction.

being so close to death for probably half her life has given her immense power, and her spirit ally is shamash, the god/spirit who… issued the first laws to the babylonians in mesopotamia? wasn’t the x laws supposed to be a catholic thing?

don’t. worry. about it. normal Takei things.

real quick on religious imagery: the x laws’ over souls are “angels” these robot things (think eva unit but #aesthetic #angelcore or whatever) that they activate by shooting guns. can range from small handguns to bazookas. the second ed of the 2021 anime is also this:

youtube

take it as you will (I love the 2021 eds so much btw, my favourite pieces of shaman king animation. ed 1 for the win)

jeanne’s over souls are all also medieval torture devices (of various levels of accuracy), for example guillotines, gibbets, and the statue of apega

(also, when I say “god” in this, unless I’m referring to hao, the great spirit, or winning the shaman fight, I just mean a powerful spirit ally. it’s weird and confuses even me)

and while we’re talking about jeanne, she’s clearly named after joan d'arc, the revolutionary who heard visions from the archangel micheal on mont saint michel. jeanne wholeheartedly believes she was sent by god to defeat hao, and in the x laws’ twisted views of justice

all those who stand in their way are irredeemable sinners who deserve their gruesome deaths. the x laws are justice incarnate. hao is the ultimate evil who must be defeated at all costs (hao is spotted doing such things as. hanging out with his adoptive little sister/daughter on top of big rocks. engaging in polite conversation with his brother at coffee shops and hot springs. eating a baguette at their match. taunting his brother’s fiancée over a book)

returning to the timeline, the x laws appear and immediately kill boris (turn him into actual dust and all). resident good boy yoh and the other protagonist guys are obviously icked out, because they’d just shonen battled boris, learned his tragic backstory, and taken him out as a threat. lyserg, however, is entranced by the x laws and their gun angel robots… gun angels… angels with…

no…

*I am pulled away from my computer and executed by the comedy police*

anyways, this is the start of a somewhat out of place shakespearean tragedy for our boy. is comparing hiroyuki goddamn takei to william shakespeare a stretch? yes. so much of a stretch. does it feel right in this case? also yes. this is the start of a beautiful, fascinating, deeply frustrating spiral (this character arc has made several people I know hate lyserg diethel at some point lol)

our guys make the final walk to their destination awkwardly walking behind the x laws, who are pissed they didn’t do a murder. eventually they separate and we randomly meet god in southwest colorado. god as in the great spirit in this case. some plot shit happens and lyserg ends up separated from the rest of the protagonist gang, and he wanders into the x laws. there’s this absolutely heartbreaking scene of lyserg, this young boy mourning his parents, crying into marco’s shoulder to ask him if, just maybe, the x laws can defeat hao. and because this is a cult he says yes.

the reveal of lyserg joining the x laws is another very nice and painful scene. it’s been heavily implied to have happened (see above) but had not yet been confirmed. it’s a really good scene but I think you can only really catch the ~Vibes~ by seeing it so

important context: the guy getting sliced was lyserg’s opponent in an officially sanctioned tournament match, where you absolutely do NOT have to kill people. this is after around 3 months of being with the x laws (in the dumb manga timeline. holy shit I hate the manga timeline. in 2001 it’s different, I think it’s even less time)

so, in roughly 3 months with this group, our boy went from “standard anime revenge plot” to “actual cult member. who will kill people”. like he was fucked up before but not in a godly way. also there’s more fucked up now.

real quick jeanne thing. in the manga, most of the x laws get killed by hao (either in a tournament or while shooting a giant space laser at him, setting off a criminally underutilized subplot). some more shit happens, and jeanne ends up discovering that she’s not sent from god, but just and ordinary girl. she is surprisingly unfazed by this. I blame takei

the 2001 and manga versions both have a mutually exclusive godly fucked up thing about them so we’ll be going over those after a quick word from our sponsor: child abuse! yeah lyserg gets slapped around a lot. for not being 100% murder cult 100% of the time. it’s fucked up in a godly way yeah.

in the 2001 version, the spiral is even worse, including lyserg abandoning morphine (best friend fairy who he had a whole filler episode getting back from some goons. that morphine). and he doesn’t really stop being culty and the worst until the very end. and he’s also a lot MORE culty and the worst. he straight up kidnaps someone to use them as bait in an elaborate plan to send hao’s soul to the shadowrealm called the Gate of Babylon, this thing that’ll send everyone in a small vicinities’ souls there. I’m gonna be honest I forgot the details and the wiki was really unhelpful but that’s the gist. he does eventually get less cultish in 2001 though.

in the manga lyserg goes to hell. this isn’t actually that weird for shaman king, I haven’t mentioned it yet but at this point in the manga death has kind of lost all meaning (this comes up with a jeanne thing later. do I need to touch on red crimson jeanne in here? not really. but I’m gonna. “world is mine” -hatsune miku). 4 other guys go to hell at the same time as him he isn’t special. BUT. the hells in shaman king are pretty clearly tied to past events of their beholder’s lives, or worries they might have. for example, a character who’s hometown was flooded when they were young goes to a flooded forest (for THREE PANELS. justice for the hororen hells). lyserg’s hell is london, what looks like some weird time dilated tudor/modern london crossover (or someone not knowing what london looks like). in weird london, lyserg is attacked by a demon he calls Mastema (who, according to my beloved wikipedia, is a fallen archangel and the personification of hatred) takei clearly did at least that much research for once, because Mastema follows lyserg wherever he goes and only attacks when he thinks of his parent’s deaths and his hatred for hao. at one point, he does this to try and defeat it…

…and immediately gets pummeled

now, I’m not entirely sure this was intentional, but like. becoming an “angel” to defeat something. and that doesn’t work. 2+2, people. he comes back from hell btw. death has no meaning and all

in 2021 there’s also this scene where yoh comes to visit lyserg (because he’s the goodest boy ever and is worried about his friend) and jeanne shows up to ask yoh to join the x laws. he refuses, and she immediately switches from hello friend join us to well. murder

and we should also probably talk about zeruel. zeruel, according to google and evangelion, means “arm of god”. zeruel is the angel lyserg recieves as part of the x laws (and who he ditches morphine for in 2001). zeruel itself isn’t really that relevant overall but I felt I had to bring it up. in the manga he uses zeruel (car form) and morphine to form his armoured over soul, mastema dolkeem (flames of enmity)

oh right

five warriors

is a thing

in the manga, they introduce this concept of the five warriors, each representing one element (annoyingly, not the actual wuxing elements but instead water, earth, fire, air, and lightning?). hao’s spirit ally throughout the series has been the spirit of fire (there are spirits for each element btw) so it’s poetic that lyserg gets the flames of enmity and fire, or something.

let’s talk about the impermance of death in shaman king real quick. for most of the second half of the manga, death has basically no meaning

oh shit I just realized I forgot to mention jeanne can resurrect the dead. she can do that btw

the death-has-no-meaning train gets started when jeanne brings this one emo guy who died for emo reasons back from the dead and it’s introduced as a concept. over the course of shaman king that emo guy dies. four times. the entire main cast has died at least once (we will get to that later). by the end there is no reason to leave someone dead at all, and doing so would be really fucking stupid. guess what happens to jeanne in red crimson (shaman king spinoff manga. also the best shaman king spinoff manga my beloved)? she dies. permanently

(this screenshot was apparently what broke the post? jeanne dying too powerful for tumblr?)

it’s an ok (?) ending to her character arc (and shows how fucked up she got from the whole child cult leader thing) but it irks me somehow (there’s also a scene in the manga after jeanne discovers she’s not sent from god where she refers to suicide as “there being no act more wicked”)

resurrect my girl

jeanne’s whole thing in red crimson annoys me to no end and if I went off about it here you wouldn’t believe that red crimson is Good Actually. so I won’t. but just know that the wasted potential is off the charts

and now, for what feels like a technicality to me: asakura hao kills everyone!

at the end of the manga, hao becomes god. he also proceeds to attempt his genocide of the human race and offs the entire main cast almost instantly. it is my favourite scene in shaman king ever and I love it dearly. what matters here is that both of our guys here got killed by god himself. that’s also godly trauma. the fact that THAT’S in a lil footnote shows how fucked up everything else is tbh

and uh that’s all I can think of for lyserg and jeanne religious trauma. if you’re curious just ask me somehow and I will be glad to infodump

but really you should just go shaman king (I recommend reading the manga first and then watching 2001. the reboot anime too if you really like the story but it’s just the manga but worse)

do it

there’s some bullshit and bad writing in there but it’s still pretty good (and stupid)

#shaman king #lyserg diethel #iron maiden jeanne #dear god can this post just work #tumblr I hate you sometimes

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