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#shes in the last two episodes of mako!!! like what i was so surprised

likeadragonfruit · 1 year

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Much like last book, anything that doesn’t get its own dedicated post is going into this brain dump post.

Big Picture

Overall flow

This book was a slog from the jump, mainly because how it ended made the prospect of 14 episodes building to that finale daunting

In retrospect, with the entire season finshed, I can say the first six episodes, despite their flaws are “better.” Even though I had such a difficult time watching those on a consistent basis.

I better understand why the “Beginnings” two parter is such a breath of fresh air on the whole for so many people. Even if it does introduce Vaatu, and with him begin the slide in story quality.

But really, there was a precipitous drop in the last two episodes of the book.

Also remember how I said this show had a cast size management problem? Well here’s where it starts worsening. We drop Tarrlok, Amon and Hiroshi… but keep Korra and the rest of the Krew, Tenzin and his family and Lin. Then add Korra’s family, expand Tenzin’s family with Kya II and Bumi II, plus Varrick…

Korra’s spirituality arc:

I- don’t have much to say here

I thought I would, but I don’t

There’s remarkably little to say

Which is odd for an arc that’s supposed to be about rounding out Korra’s knowledge and understanding of spirits and spirituality

Themes:

The big thing that jumps at me is identity, which Tenzin embodied well. Shame more of that didn’t completely trickle down to Korra

Character opinions

Korra: I’m kind of frustrated and underwhelmed, but less with Korra herself and more how her arc has been handled, and going to be handled going forward

Mako: I came into this season expecting to hate Mako more than I did in book 1, but that didn’t happen. He, his romance subplots not withstanding, was fine. In fact, his police work storyline was a relative bright spot.

Bolin: frustrates me immensely. Had a good moment or two in this season, but at this point I despise how he’s written.

Asami: she has some good moments, but she’s hurt by barely getting anything to do. In a sense, she’s the Krew’s Toph in terms of having no arc

Tenzin: I’m a little stuck for what to say, here. I guess I don’t hate what they did with him? He does bring up the question of how airbending and spirituality work, but that’s another story.

Bumi II: I don’t hate him, but I don’t particularly like him either.

Kya II: favorite new addition this season. She doesn’t get too much to do, but she more often than not holds the familial brain cell

Lin: poor Lin. She spends most of the season playing disbelieving boss for Mako’s Cassandra storyline. I still love you tho

Tonraq: meh.

Unalaq: an absolute mess, but could’ve worked with a clearer sense of where they were going

Eska: don’t hate her but don’t care for her either. She did present a contrast for some franchise weirdness, though.

Desna: I was surprised by how much I liked him. Probably helps that he’s not weighed down by a terrible romance subplot like his sister

Varrick: he’s absolutely awful, amoral businessman and thrives in the role of self-interested schemer who helps when it’s to his benefit

Shipping

sigh yeah, I’m dedicating a section to the messes this time

Even if I wasn’t big on Makorra, the way it’s handled is such a mixed bag. On one hand, when their break up happens mid season, I could see where both of them were coming from. But there are several points of their relationship that feel like they’re written with this air of “women, amirite?” When Mako is having difficulty understanding what Korra wants or needs at the moment

And that’s before getting to the whole amnesia element… 😒

But then I’m not really against or for Masami. They can be cute together, but the way the decided to have them get back together, kinda, felt weird. Then they torpedo that too…

Do I have to comment on Boleska? It was bad, just bad. Made worse by trying to have Bolin get back together with her at the end of the season.

Looking at Varrick and Zhu Li’s dynamic in book 2, and looking forward to the finale, they’re really going to try to pass this off as romance?

Stray observations

Asami and Bolin are actually a good duo and them hanging out before Bolin got swallowed by his dumb plots for the season was nice

Despite generally not caring for the Beginnings two-parter, I did come to find myself coming around on them. I still didn’t think it was a necessary story but it’s well told for what it is.

Also there’s something about Raava saying “we will be together for all of your lifetimes” that just hits

In “The Guide,” Tenzin brags about the garden at the Eastern Air Temple being the very one that Aang trained with Guru Pathik in. So that’s apparently public knowledge? Oh okay

Why is Unalaq working for Vaatu?

(No really, why is Unalaq working for Vaatu?!)

Despite all my grievances with Bolin’s handling for the book, there’s something wonderfully poetic about Varrick’s plan unraveling due to that “knucklehead earthbender” he underestimated

At the end of the season, the level of detail for my notes plummeted. Around “Darkness Falls.” I basically gave up.

But I also find it interesting that there’s the decision at the end of whether or not to leave the spirit portals, when Korra is presented with an opportunity to that no other Avatar was: to stop being the Avatar. But there’s not even a debate there, she just wants to reunite with Raava and try to regain her connection to her past lives.

Mind, the “leave the spirit portals open” idea has a lot of ways that it should backfire

The franchise never going to get to deal with the can of worms that Korra’s successor 10,000 years in the future will have both Raava and Vaatu inside them, will it?

From what time I’ve read, this was the most hellish season of either show to finish. It took from May 2011 for the writing process to begin to November 11, 2013 to finish mixing the final episode, which then aired 11 days later.

And on a personal note, gathering my thoughts on this season was much harder than with the first.

It’s been like pulling teeth to try say what I wanted to about this

Now onto book 3 😬

#the legend of Korra #tlok #TLOK rewatch #book 2 spirits #wish me luck with book 3

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emcscared-whumps · 10 months

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WiJ 2023 - 04: Share Whumperflies Media

WiJ 2023 Navigation Post

A Show/Movie/Book/Series that Gives Me Whumperflies

Honestly? I'm far too picky about whumpees and I don't consume all that much media (especially not these days since i have my own purpose-built character who is capable of hitting just about EVERYTHING I like) to have many items to rave about ^-^'

HOWEVER.

That does not mean that there is nothing :)

I'll go right back to the start, in fact (in rough order)... just keep in mind that I don't watch for whump, and these aren't whump recommendations except for one lmao, they're just what have managed to give me whumperflies in the past.

Cybergirl (2001-02)

An Australian sci-fi superhero T.V. series that was airing in the morning when I was a young kid, maybe 6 or 7, back before I understood how T.V. scheduling worked lol. I don't often get whumperflies from media, but I think this time, I did, and it's actually my earliest memory of whumperflies.

Cy ended up trapped in a Big Fancy House by the Big Bad, Rhyss. It's been many years since I last re-watched the show so I don't remember a whole lot except there was a lot of urgency and a zappy barrier that Cy couldn't pass through, and I definitely got some kind of feeling about that :)

The writing was very average, not very substantial for an older viewer, but it was excellent for a kids' show. There was so much lore that just never got expanded on, and it didn't go particularly hard with the whump :')

H2O Just Add Water (2006-10)

To no one's surprise, I ADORED this series as a kid. My obsession with mer had just started, and honestly, this shit FED ME. This was another Australian show that I watched when I was fairly young (again, 6-7 and onward), but I don't recall watching it when it aired. I instead had a collection of DVDs.

The girls and co got into some pretty interesting hijinks while trying to guard their fishy little secrets, but shit got REAL in season 6 when a marine biologist coworker of the friend of the girls' Lewis managed to leave a sample of their skin/scale in the lab... OOPS.

You can guess where that lead-- the scientist trying to track down the owner of the magic scale that could turn back into skin (somehow lmao, ~magic~), and she eventually trapped the girls in their little grotto with a gate that she had installed at the underwater entrance of their grotto spot on Mako Island.

Here's where I mention that I did not actually get whumperflies from this lmao, but it was a close one (the scientist didn't go far enough lmao). That's okay though :) One self indulgent decision just under 10 years later sure fixed that :))

Vampire Knight Anime (2008, English Dub aired in Aus in 2011)

The whole show. Every episode. I'm not even kidding. (Well, just about every episode lol, there was maybe only one where I didn't). As many problems as I have with the series, (mainly that every time I see Yuuki or hear her voice I want to strangle her), Zero was just so. fucking. scrunchy-- almost the perfect whumpee ^-^ And the English voice actor does such a glorious job of voicing Zero's pain, the whole series is ABSOLUTELY worth enduring Yuuki's stupidity.

Iirc, my favourite episode was Crimson Chains-- full of spoilers, a lot of plot bits come together at that point, so I can't say much other than that Zero's lost his shit and has a whole big scene where he writhes and pants on the floor with the agony of his hunger. I am convinced the author ALSO liked that XD

I would sit at night and watch that episode over and over and over because man, those whumperflies were something else, super intense, 11/10 lmao

Doctor Who (1963-present)

Nine had that one episode where he got caught by some collector dude and tortured to figure out what made him tick, or rather that he had TWO hearts that made him tick... Fun times, that DEFINITELY gave me whumperflies and had me furtively returning to the episode to keep watching that scene.

A lot of Ten's run had me by the throat, most memorably his regeneration at the start of his run, and his regeneration at the end directly after an hour (approximately) of whump was. AMAZING. I kept coming back to the start and end 😅

There were a couple more times I got whumperflies throughout his run. The main episodes that come to mind are Midnight, set on the planet of sapphires and lethal radiation, and 42, involving a spaceship hurtling toward a sun.

There was only one more whumpy instance, and that was that one movie they made. I forget who, when... EVERYTHING except the dude that played looked like Gene Wilder and it took place on NYE of the new millenium. It was another shitfight with The Master. ANYWAY. The whumperflies were at the START of the movie when The Doctor wasn't doing so well, I think he got shot?? And then rushed to the hospital, all while trying to avoid that and trying to communicate that they'll kill him

Supernatural (2005-20)

Ok. This one is weird in two ways. I forget which episode it was, but it was season 2 where Sam and Dean were trying to kick a group of vampires out of a town, but they were actually cool/chill vampires...?

Or at least some of them were...

ANYWAY.

This other hunter had this vampire chic tied to a chair baaaasically torturing her...? Memory's a bit foggy on what exactly what they were doing (the brainworms wouldn't stop wriggling about AUs), but I got these itty bitty whumperflies from that vampire lady getting hurt. That was weird because 1) I've only had whumperflies off the ladies once before watching Cybergirl which was SO long ago, and 2) I never have had them from watching a side-character, I usually have to be emotionally invested.

Weird right?? Absolutely wild though!

Anyway, that's pretty much everything, even though I've seen and read a fair few things lol, hope you enjoyed my rambling!

#wij23day4 #whumpmasinjuly2023 #wij #wij 2023 #whumpmas in july #whumpmas in july 2023 #whumperflies #whumpblr #whump community

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meeko-mar · 3 years

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Can I just compare Bakudeku to Korrasami for just a moment

Not as in, their relationship, but in terms of fandom experience, perception and how it became Canon.

So, some years ago, LOK was on it's 4th and final season. So of course, shipping discourse was high. Who would Korra end up with? Would she end up single, be back with Mako?

Or....there was a big calling for the couple Korrasami, that is, Korra and her female friend Asami, to get together.

Now, up until the point of the finale, (and grant that I haven't watched in a while so I'm speaking in an overall sense and recalling my experience) Asami and Korra had been teaming up more and more. Korra had been really, badly, injured in the last season, leading to her isolating herself in the SWT for about 2 or 3 years to heal with Katara, and upon heading back to Empire City, she takes an abrupt turn to spend more time isolated and on a sort of spirit journey in the wild because she didn't feel ready to face her destiny and her friends and was suffering from PTSD. She later returns to EC, and to Asami, and they are close together for the season.

This all caught the attention of the Korrasami shippers who had, at the time, kind of only been casually shipping them because, hey, wouldn't it be nice? and they were slowly and steadily getting more crumbs, and the ship gathered momentum as the seasons progressed.

But lo and behold, everyone else was saying such things as:

"they're a female/female ship, it will never happen, even if you want it to" (even shippers of Korrasami were resigned to this because the precedent in youth animation in western cartoons at the time, was of course, not inclusive of same sex couplings).

We SAW the subtle development between the two and DARED to hope and dream that it might one day become canon, even though we thought it unlikely because of the trend towards heteronormativity. We saw their interactions and toiled over if they were trying to hint at something more between them.

"They're just friends. You're reading into it"

Because the "just friends" behavior of Korrasami in later seasons were:

-Asami being deeply supportive of Korra when she was injured (and for a time, disabled) Like, literally, getting on a knee, putting her hand into Korra's and saying "I'm here for you, for ANYTHING you need" kind of supportive, even offering to COME to the SWT with her. (Korra sacrificed her desire to have Asami close because she didn't want Asami to drop her duties as basically a CEO to tend to her)

-Korra receiving letters from all of her friends during her healing period, but ONLY responding, in a very beautiful letter, to Asami's.

-Korra honestly apologizing for being gone so long without writing more than one letter or sharing more of what was going on or where she went

-Asami complimenting Korra's new hair and Korra BLUSHING and looking SO charmed(and returning the compliment of how amazing Asami always looks) --there is no hetero explanation for this.

-being battle partners and constantly having each other's backs

-Asami protecting Korra from pursuing enemies while she's in the Spirit World(leaving her physical body vulnerable)

-other characters in their circles being literally like "What's going on with you two??"

-Culminating in the final episode after the final battle with Asami breaking down, confessing that she wouldn't know what she had done if she had lost Korra in that final battle(she'd even lost her father the same day) AND THEN Korra comforting her and suggesting that they, the two of them, alone, take a trip together, to get away from it all for a bit.

-It ends, when They literally walk into the spirit world portal holding hands and staring lovingly into each other's eyes as the camera pans from them into the spirit portal

Which, LET ME TELL YOU, watching this when it first premiered, for the first time, WAS AN ALMOST TRANSCENDENT EXPERIENCE. It was a soft scene, emotional, beautifully animated, and the MUSIC just hit you right in the heart. Like, they didn't even kiss to really hammer it in that THEY ARE IN LOVE, however, it was an EMOTIONAL PAYOFF and there was NO arguing that they were not a couple. Creators soon after confirmed, yes, they are both bisexual women, and they are in love.

And so, you could definitely say that Korrasami could have been interpreted as just "Very Good Friends" behavior, of "Gals being Pals", and many people DID argue that, and would later claim that there wasn't "enough build-up to the relationship". And part of the atmosphere in media back then(esp. Nickelodeon at the time) they really couldn't be blatant about it up until that ending. It was even a thing that Nickelodeon had been kind of shooting them in the foot for a while with switching around air times, and eventually taking it off air and putting it only available to view ON THEIR WEBSITE. There was a lot of fuckery with the studio at the time, and It wouldn't have been far off to think that they had issue with the idea of this series ending with two girls together romantically.

It just kind of makes me think of people telling BKDK, not only "They're m/m, it'll never happen in shonen manga" but ALSO anything from "they hate eachother" to "They are toxic because Bakugou bullied him(blatant disregard for any current development of Bakugou's character) and so it can never ever happen" to "Ok sure they're becoming friends again, but that doesn't mean they love each other or will by the end of the story"

When arguably, Korrasami was basically given the same dismissal.

And my dudes, it's only gonna get more intense from here.

Like, Bakugou and Izuku are friends now(again). There's no denying that. They would literally die for one another. Their relationship, and the emotions between the two of them in the coming arcs will only be compounded, with how the last arc left off and how Izuku SUDDENLY left and how Bakugou has so many unresolved feelings, and how, like Korra being the Avatar and having to save the world multiple times over(and the PTSD she got from it), Izuku is carrying a heavy burden that Bakugou is determine to help him see it through to the end without LOSING Izuku in the process. Their stories are so closely tied together and they are SET to return to each other, and it CANNOT end WITHOUT them being together, in some capacity, even if it is just platonic.

So...I wouldn't write BKDK off just yet. We're at the same spot right now that Korrasami shippers were when they were starting to seriously think that there was something canon about Korrasami.

So, Am I saying that I for sure, 100% believe that BKDK will become romantically canon? Not really; the hurdle of it being a Shonen-oriented manga being actively marketed for boys, is admittedly a huge hurdle to overcome, and I, as an American, cannot begin to understand all of the cultural barriers, or implications breaking any of those barriers would have to a Japanese audience or for Horikoshi/his career as a manga-ka.

I still don't know what Horikoshi is thinking when it comes to BKDK, he's obviously very private and all we can do is speculate on what he feels about it; there's still a possibility, however small, that he may actually be the biggest BKDK of us all, and "telling the story he wants to tell" may yet include BKDK becoming canon(that quote may also have nothing whatsoever to do with any romance, but we don't know)...But, much like I was at the point in the Korrasami tale, I'm still painfully aware of the precedent that remains in the way.

Like the Korrasami tale, though, I suppose there is that possibility that we will see something completely amazing and groundbreaking, and I will once again have that transcendent experience where an unlikely ship suddenly becomes reality. At this state in the Korrasami tale, I had NO IDEA that we were shipping the real, canon deal, and it honestly surprised me, being that I usually attach myself to something that never becomes canon, lol(*cough*Zutara).

We're in the thick of it now, we just gotta wait it out and see.

#Korrasami #Bakudeku #antis dni #bkdk #a small essay #bit of a ramble #hope this makes sense #Korrasami crawled so she-ra could run and so voltron could fall face first lmao #all speculative #like do u understand #we had NO IDEA #We had no idea that it would actually become canon we were just like HEY THIS IS ADORABLE AND THEY ARE SO CUTE TOGETHER #and they're battle gfs #there was the added spiciness that these girls were BOTH on opposite sides of a love triangle with mako #so it started out as a J O K E like Korra forget mako and date asami shes so much better #YOU BOTH DESERVE BETTER THAN MAKO #and they DID

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mahounomanga · 2 years

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Mahou no Ruby-chan

Today we're looking at the third in a trio of magical girl manga created by Midori Shimura. For context on what these are and who created them, please refer to my posts on the first two.

Mahou no Ruby-chan ran for a total of six chapters in Shogaku Ichinensei from the April 1973 issue to the September 1973 issue. With a run of only six months in a magazine for first graders, it should come as no surprise that this series hasn't left much of a mark. What's unfortunate; however, is that I haven't found much of anything else about the manga itself, like, at all. I haven't dug up any plot details, and I couldn't even find a single picture of the main character.

And if Mahou no Ruby-chan were just a manga, the story would more or less end here on a dour note. But like Mahou no Enzeru-chan, this little series got merch. More specifically, a brief audio drama of Mahou no Ruby-chan was released on a vinyl record, and the kind folks at Ric Mania have uploaded the whole thing on YouTube.

youtube

My Japanese listening comprehension is rather poor, so take this with a grain of salt, but what I can glean from this is that Ruby-chan is a tiny, energetic witch from a magical forest in a magical country on a magical star. She lives with her mother and father, as well as her nanny (who is a black cat if I'm understanding correctly). Ruby is friends with the animals of the forest and she uses her magic to try to help her family, but at times these efforts backfire and hijinks ensue. She befriends a boy named Goro who she tells about her magic, and naturally he ends up getting roped into her shenanigans as well.

Two things about all of this are interesting to me in relation to contemporaneous magical girl anime. One is that Ruby casts spells with a tongue-twisting magical catchphrase that I'm not even going to try to transcribe. These were quite common among magical girls of old, such as Sally the Witch, Himitsu no Akko-chan, and Chappy the Witch. They would even show up in slightly later witchy magical girl shows like Ojamajo Doremi, while magical girl warriors a la Pretty Moon have historically favored English word salad for their incantations.

The other noteworthy detail about the audio version specifically is the cast. Most of the voice actors here have also done voice work in a handful of magical girl anime. The narrator is Yoshiko Ohta a.k.a. the original voice of Atsuko Kagami in Himitsu no Akko-chan and the voice of Akko's mother in the 80s reboot. Ruby herself is voiced by Yoneko Matsukane whose only other magical girl involvement appears to be a bit part in episode 6 of Cutie Honey. The cast also features a number of Mahou no Mako-chan alumni, with Hiroko Maruyama, Akira Kamiya, and Isao Sakuma (who voiced Taro, Senkichi, and Akira respectively in Mako-chan) voicing the nanny, Goro, and Ruby's papa respectively in Ruby-chan. Nearest I can tell, the only other magical girl project Sakuma has been involved in was Esper Mami, where he voiced a couple of bit parts. Maruyama and Kamiya on the other hand are MVPs of classic magical girl anime. Hiroko Maruyama played supporting roles in Himitsu no Akko-chan, Majokko Megu-chan, Pastel Yumi, Sweet Mint, and Hana no Mahoutsukai Mary Bell. Akira Kamiya has a couple small roles in magical girl anime of the 70s, as Jun in Miracle Girl Limit-chan and Kinsaburo in Majokko Tickle, but his most notable roles in the genre wouldn't come until the 1990s. This man is the voice of Professor Tomoe in Sailor Moon S (i.e. Sailor Moon's most popular season) and Professor Kisaragi in the 1997 shoujo reboot of Cutie Honey, titled Cutey Honey F. And as if that wasn't enough, he's also a famous voice actor just in general, with his best known role being Kenshiro in Fist of the North Star.

Getting back to the manga side of things (inasmuch as it's possible to do so), Mahou no Ruby-chan would be Midori Shimura's third magical girl manga, but it would not be her last, as she was also tasked with adapting Limit-chan and Megu-chan to manga. Shimura's career as a mangaka was brief, lasting only from 1971 to 1975. In that time, she penned 11 manga, FIVE of which were magical girl. That is the highest ratio of magical girl titles to non-magical-girl titles we'll see on Mahou no Manga for quite some time, possibly ever.

At the risk of getting too sentimental, researching Midori Shimura's work and her contributions to the magical girl genre have really put into perspective why I'm doing this project in the first place. It would be fun to give my two cents on magical girl stuff people already know and like, but it ultimately feels more worthwhile to excavate the ones people probably don't know about, even if I don't always feel like the most qualified person to do it. I can only hope to give Chalk-chan, Enzeru-chan, Ruby-chan, and others like them a fraction of the recognition they deserve.

#my posts #long post #Mahou no Ruby chan #まほうのルビーちゃん #Midori Shimura #志村みどり #Shogaku Ichinensei #70s #shoujo #adapted to audio #V pleased to be wrapping up the seventies as this year draws to a close.#Happy NYE everybody!#See you in 2022 when we start talking about the 80s.#Youtube

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h2ojustaddmako · 3 years

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Headcanon: Moon Fever - Why and How

Oh wow, two serious posts without 7 months of silence between them? Who am I? a blogging superstar or something? Aight, so last time we covered the origin of mermaids and the magic itself, as well as how their powers work (spoiler alert: electromagnetism is the key). This time let’s talk about a very common feature in the H2O universe (or the Makoverse, as I call it): The Full Moon Fever.

The moon fever, as Rikki dubbed, it refers to the effect the full moon and its reflection have on mermaids. I believe sometimes they also refer to it as moon spell, so I might go back and forth between these two names.

First, let’s go over what we know: once a month, on a full moon, every mermaid that looks at the full moon or its reflection goes somewhat crazy; the side effects are changing, but all within the range of new power gain and/or enhancement of powers, memory loss, and impulsive irregular behavior. Let’s go over every instance of a moon fever in the first two seasons of the original show (as in season 3 they’ve mastered their control over it):

- Moon Spell, Emma on her dad’s birthday - The Siren Effect, Cleo sings like a siren - Bad Moon Rising, Rikki sets Mako ablaze - Stormy Weather, the girls get new weather powers - Moonwalker, the girls go camping on Mako - Moonstruck, Ash surprises Emma with a romantic dinner - Unfathomable, Charlotte’s first (and last) full moon

With 7 different cases to look upon, there’s plenty of material to create a theory. In every one of these episodes, at least one mermaid gets affected by the full moon. But why is the full moon dangerous to mermaids?

In Mako Mermaids we learn that not only the full moon is the source of all mermaids, it is also the source of their magic and energy. Basking in its light or swimming on full moon nights gives mermaids a great feeling and is a great mood boost. Mature mermaids like Sirena, Lyla and Nixie very much wait to the full moon with great anticipation. However, when tutoring Zac and Evie, they imply the full moon can be dangerous if you can’t control yourself, and moon spell control is something young mermaids are being taught early on. Why is this important? Because it reveals the true face of the full moon spell: it is good for the mermaids.

On every instance of the full moon, two things repeat: One, the moonstruck mermaids have an urge to go into the water, and two, they want to swim to Mako as well. Let’s examine what might be the best episode for it, Moonstruck, where first Cleo, then Rikki and Emma, fall under the spell and start acting goofy (and honestly adorable). Unlike some previous episodes, they did not gain any new powers, or set off on a mission to do something, they just act weird and keep talking about wanting to go for a swim to Mako. I believe that episode is the best example of the pure effect of the full moon - they are drawn to it. Just like the native mermaids, the electromagnetic energy of the moon draws the girls into the water because it feels good, it charges them up, and it is necessary for their “magic fatigue” (yeah, let’s call it that). The moon’s energy clears their minds off anything other than wanting to swim in moonlight, preferably in the moon pool, where they know the effect of the moon is the strongest due to the structure of the place (wuddup previous headcanon reference).

So, the moon draws the mermaids to Mako every time, sure. But why new powers? Why going out of control? Well, there’s an explanation for that as well. You see, in the book series that was tied with the first 12 episodes, we learn that alot of the way the mermaids control their powers has to do with their emotional state. We see it on the show as well; when Cleo gets too angry in Control (s2e2), she allowed her powers to take over her, thus losing her control over her abilities. But that’s for another post in the future. What we learn from it is that their mermaid abilities are directly tied to their state of mind, and while examining the episodes I mentioned, it is as clear as Emma’s ice.

In The Siren Effect, Cleo was embarrassed she couldn’t sing, and her greatest wish came true via siren singing. In Bad Moon Rising, Rikki’s self-saboteur gets to her, convincing her she’s the blame, and as her feelings start to burn inside her, she burns the world. In Unfathomable, Charlotte uses hydrokinesis and electrokinesis far beyond her experience as a one-month-old mermaid to mess with Emma’s appliances and create some good ol’ water snakes. In Moon Spell, Moonwalker and Moonstruck the girls have not gained any new temporary powers, but their recent feelings towards Byron, Charlotte and telling Ash the truth affected their behaviors. They lived through their daily struggles through a mermaid state of mind everytime, using whatever powers needed. (I left out ‘Stormy Weather’ to be brought up later on)

Now, why is that? In that future post I referred to earlier I will go over how mermaid powers are limitless, in the way that the idea that Cleo, Emma and Rikki only has certain powers is a lie, and that they could perform each other’s powers as well like Charlotte. I believe that the clear state of mind the full moon gives a mermaid, allows her to step out beyond her own understanding of powers, and with the energy of the full moon, she can perform power tricks she wouldn’t know how to do on a casual Tuesday night.

Okay, final part, Stormy Weather (pictured above). I left it out for a reason. To begin with, it feels like a normal full moon episode. All three girls fall under the moon spell, and get drawn to Mako. But that episode, out of all of them, stresses how important it is to let a mermaid follow her heart to the moon pool. That specific night was the seventh full moon since their transformation, including the night they transformed, as well as one full moon that happened between the seasons). In Mako Mermaids they refer to that moon as the Seventh Moon Cycle, a very powerful full moon that every mermaid goes through, on the six-month mark since her transformation. While not fully explained, I believe this enhances a mermaid’s power range, allowing her to perform tricks and moves way beyond her previous abilities, such as weather powers. Let’s consider it a mermaid puberty. The seventh moon cycle calls stronger than any before, and safe to assume that if the girls stayed at home safe, they’d never have gotten their enhanced powers. That being said, the new powers are permanent and should not be considered an effect of the moon fever.

So there you have it. The full moon fever mapped out to the bone. or at least I hope it is. If you have any more ideas feel free to comment below, I love reading y’all’s suggestions.

#h2o just add water #mako mermaids #Headcanon #mako: island of secrets

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ichika27 · 3 years

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Mairimashita! Iruma-kun s2 ep20

Another light-hearted episode! We’re not yet in the next big arc, I guess.

Ameri’s dad came over to personally tell Iruma that the reporters have gotten restraining orders and can’t bother him for an interview about what happened at the park anymore. Iruma is relived to hear this as it meant he could go home now.

He asked about Ameri but her dad angrily replies that Ameri is busy studying.

lol She’s studying alright - studying on how to create the perfect date for her and Iruma!

This girl is using manga as reference material. Haha well, her powers involve imagination and will power after all.

Ameri was too nervous to actually ask out Iruma (even though Iruma had told her that they could go somewhere with just the two of them before). Iruma made the first move and messaged her about their day out himself.

She happily tells him of where they’d meet (but kept the location of the place they’re going to a secret) and also reminded him that this time, it’s just supposed to be the two of them (so no friends tagging along).

Ameri's dad was passing by and catches her picking out clothes she’d be wearing on her date. He immediately realized what it's about. Dad instincts right there! He’s totally not ready for his little girl to grow up.

The day of the trip is here! This is where they’d be spending their time: an aquarium + pool combo.

Ameri basically planned a pool episode with just the two of them. Also, Ameri, that line is supposed to be for Iruma! You got in there first.

Iruma is happy seeing her current appearance by the way hehe. He's a teenager after all, it can't be helped (he's not the only one who thought so cause other visitors were certainly mesmerized by her beauty).

Oh no! How could this go to lewd territory so quickly! lol jk. Her plan involves this as a first step (after the surprise date setting) and her main goal is to get bridal carried... and maybe even get a kiss if she’s lucky. She's having trouble easily getting a hold of Iruma's hand though because if you haven't noticed yet, they have this big height difference and his hand isn't easy to reach. With that, she hasn't given up but says she'll try harder.

She’s just too tall and he’s too short lol.

This is also part of her plan cause in the manga, the couple did this with the guy holding on to the girl while they go on the waterslide. Actually, since she's the one pursuing and she's the taller one, she had been taking the guys role in her plans. Their supposed moment in the slide doesn't last long though since the ride was too fast and so it was over quickly.

They got their hearts racing but because it was some kind of thrill ride.

Next is playing in the water. She was nervous about this but Iruma initiated by splashing her with water. It was supposed to be fun but she's too strong and ended up splashing a little too much water on Iruma.

I mean, I knew it was gonna happen but I didn’t expect how powerful the attack would be. That was a tsunami she hit Iruma with and not a splash of water.

Beach volleyball time! *Fly High by Burnout Syndromes plays in the background*

Ameri tries holding her strength back this time around but she's just too powerful. Fortunately (or not), this doesn't affect Iruma and he decides that he'd play seriously. It ended up not being for purely for fun anymore haha. On the other hand, I’m glad to see Iruma being competitive and not panicking anymore about demon-related stuff.

The next part is eating a parfait like a couple!

The food in this world is weird though. I kinda saw this coming after seeing all of the food in the show so far but really... what the heck is that? It’s still alive lol.

The parfait attacked them and ended up feeding Iruma itself... which is weird. This was the last of her plans and now she's kinda unhappy none of them went as well as she hoped.

Souvenir shopping next!

Iruma picks out stuff to get for his friends and family back home. Above is a picture of Ameri feeling jealous when Iruma was picking something out for Clara. Don’t worry Ameri, you’re way ahead of Clara in the race.

Aww Iruma was worried that Ameri is working too hard in the Student Council and today he wanted to help her relax and have fun for once. He noticed that Ameri doesn't seem to be having a lot of fun though.

Iruma makes Ameri realize that the time they had was fun but Ameri isn't satisfied. She had fun but it's not enough. After all, she has bigger goals!

She has one more thing up her sleeve - watching a divination show. The creature (that looks like some kind of water dragon thing) has the ability to find a good couple with great affinity. She’s hoping that she and Iruma would be picked as a good couple cause that’s romantic, right?

Of course, this is a comedy shounen anime. You shouldn’t expect things to go so well.

Mako-chan is hungry and immediately grabs onto Iruma. She's hungry from her diet and quickly found the only member of the audience she can eat - the human. Iruma realized that the perfume he uses to hide his human scent might have been washed off by the water and so Mako-chan was able to single him out (surprisingly, other demons hadn’t).

Ameri saves Iruma from being eaten by delivering a powerful kick on poor Mako-chan. And with that, she got to be part of a bridal carry... just in reverse like everything else lol.

The staff apologized to Iruma and Ameri and gave them year round passes as compensation.

Aww... Mako-chan is sorry about what she did, too and Iruma tells them it's okay and that he's not mad. Ameri is sad though and Iruma also noticed she's injured.

He asked if she could walk and she answers "If I say I can't... will you carry me?" Oooh! Ameri is really going for it! She tried taking her words back but Iruma tells her that it’s okay, he’ll carry her.

And after that he used his powers to adjust her weight and then he actually did it! While carrying her, Iruma tells Ameri that he had a lot of fun the entire day. Honestly, I thought Iruma was gonna change his own looks to be like, big and hunky to carry her but he just changed her weight. Surprising but not bad.

Despite all the setbacks, this turned out to be a successful date after all!

Okay... so I guess this means Ameri really is the endgame? She’s the one Iruma will end up with some day? Because this entire season had been hinting at it. There were scenes and episodes dedicated to the romance blossoming between them (at least, mostly on Ameri’s side). And now there’s a date episode. Unless the author gives focus and development around Iruma the other characters who like him, then this is gonna be the only ship that would make sense. This is the one with on-going development that story-wise, it should get a pay-off or it’d feel like everything set up was a waste.

Honestly, I’m not a Iruma/Ameri shipper. I did mention before that I ship Iruma with either Azz or Clara so shipping moments between Iruma and Ameri doesn’t really do much for me. I do think it’s cute and this show gets wholesome when it has to be that it’s impossible to hate even parts of the story I’m not really into. I did enjoy this episode a lot cause it was cute and I am happy Ameri’s hard work paid off.

I guess I’m just disappointed? I mean in a way, why bother giving Iruma alternative love interests (a harem, actually since there’s more than one girl and so it’s not just a love triangle) if they’re all gonna be shot down this quickly.

On the other hand, I feel kinda bad for Ameri’s dad cause he can’t stop this development lol. His little girl is growing up! He should at least be happy that she fell in love with probably the nicest guy in the demon world (and he’s also the future demon king hehe). I was actually expecting him to follow them in their date or something but I guess he does respect his daughter’s privacy which is nice. Would’ve been funny to see his reaction though.

Next episode is about Grandpa Sullivan! Hmm... another relaxing episode again, I’m guessing?

Thanks for reading! I’m excited for the next episode.

#Mairimashita! Iruma-kun #welcome to demon school iruma-kun #sana_post

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just-a-gay-toku-girl · 4 years

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This chapter comes to a close

As you’ve seen by my posts I’ve recently been watching through Samurai Sentai Shinkenger, and just last night at the time of writing this I watched the final episode. This is significant to me because it was the first sentai I watched all the way through that was from before I became a sentai fan (Which was around the halfway point of Zyuohger). Why did I pick Shinkenger as my first? Partially because I like the suits, partially because the opening theme is a bop, and partially because I had seen parts of power rangers Samurai and I was just curious. So having finished the series (still having some movies to watch) I thought it would be fun to give my thoughts on the show and its characters, no note just talking about my thoughts on the show as a whole(Beware as I won’t shy away from spoilers). Starting with...

The Villains

Arguably the villains can be just as important to the success of a show or movie as the main characters are. They need to be intimidating and powerful to make them seem like a real threat to the team, and I think the Gedoushu manage to accomplish that well enough. The suit designs for the main generals are ok, very intricate but not overly so (The exception to that being Dokoku who just has a bit to much going in his design IMO). One of my favorite things about this group is their main goal: raising the level of the Sanzu river so it’ll flood into the human world, To do this they have to create negative emotions in humans. It’s not often that bad guys in these shows actually have a goal besides just world domination. This actually gives the individual monsters more purpose than just attempting to destroy the rangers, plus it means that whenever they attack their scoring at least a small victory as the river will raise ever so slightly. Another small thing to mention before I get into the main villains as individuals is that despite being evil there seemed to be a bit of comradery between at least the main 3. It wasn’t brought up too often but a scene that stuck out to me was at the end when Dokoku and Shitari seem to be just the least bit saddened by Dayu’s death. Granted that could just be them being thankful that her death made Dokoku stronger but I digress. Onto the individual villains from least to most favorite

Shitari

There’s not much to say about Shitari since I can’t actually remember him doing much throughout the show. He may have helped with the plots of a few filler episodes and commanded a few monsters but that’s about it. Really the most notable thing about him is that his actor also plays Brook in One Piece so part of me was always expecting him to ask to see Dayu’s panties.

Dokoku

Surprisingly the big bad of this season just barely escapes being the worst villain. Much like Shitari he doesn’t actually do much throughout the season, what places him higher than Shitari is two things: 1. he has a reason for being idle throughout the show being that unlike other Gedoushu he can’t stay in the human world for more than 3 minutes without drying up severely and being out of commission for the next week, though we never are really told why that is. 2. When he eventually DID actually do something he was damn powerful. Easily walking through the shinkengers in their first battle. Not to mention it was clear even with monsters that seemed more intimidating than him they still were afraid of him and his power.

Dayuu

Honestly I don’t have much to say about her either. Most of the villains were decent at being villains but for the most part kinda unremarkable. What puts Dayuu and Juzo is just the fact that they had backstories and pretty interesting ones at that. Dayuu after finding out the man she loved had married another woman was consumed with jealousy and burned him and his wife to death. That is friggin metal as hell and I love it. In a series like this where full scale invasions from aliens are common place in rare to see something so small scale like this to be treated as serious as it is. It really makes her feel more human as a villain, which I dig.

Juzo

Juzo was easily my favorite villain in Shinkenger. And no not just because he was played by my favorite character from 555. Like Dayu he had a really interesting backstory that made him feel a lot more human (Despite the whole point of his arc being that he wasn’t human.) Basically he found out he was dying and decided to take a couple people down with him which led to him becoming a Gedou. In the earlier episodes he seemed to be sort of an anti hero, not necessarily working for the Gedou and even saving Shinken red’s life on a couple of occasions just because he wanted so desperately to fight red himself. That is until close to the end of the show when he basically said “I don’t care if my family’s souls are suffering because of me, let them suffer.” to show there really wasn’t a shred of humanity left within him. Not to mention he had an amazing death scene that I won’t say anything because it’s best seen for yourself.

Now with the bag guys done I’m gonna move onto the actual shinkengers. like before it’ll be least to most favorite

Shinken Green - Tani Chiaki

In this case saying Chiaki is my least favorite really just means I didn’t like him as much as the others but I still did like him. Admittedly there wasn’t much to Chiaki in terms of an arc, just that in the beginning he had an inferiority complex that made him not want to follow orders but that kinda went away after one episode. What I liked more about him was his personality, very happy-go-lucky while still taking his role as a shinkenger seriously. He’s also very friendly, being the first to make friend’s with Genta when he joined the team as well as having a good relationship with every other ranger and even Jii. He really is fun to watch but not much else.

Shinken Pink - Shiraishi Mako

Mako is a very kind person and wants to help those in need, however she only helps those in need and as soon as they don’t need her she leaves them. She’s one of the older Shinkengers thus earning her the affectionate nickname of “Big sis” from the rest of the team. However that’s basically all there is to her. She doesn’t change that much and overall has the lowest amount of character focus episodes. But she’s cute so that puts her above Chiaki.

Shinken Blue - Ikenami Ryunosuke

Ryunosuke is easily the most dedicated to his role as a samurai,he’s kind, hardworking and he’s loyal to a fault which ends up creating an internal debate for him when he discovers the person he’s pledged his life to isn’t the actual Shiba head. Being that he was a kabuki actor his movements and mannerisms are very lively and wild, it’s really just a joy to watch how his actor portrayed him. He definitely carried the show’s energy for the most part. I also loved watching his interactions with the others and when he’s forced to work with them. Some highlights of his include the episode where him and Chiaki get glued together and the episode where Genta tries to follow him around to learn to be a samurai.

Shinken Red - Shiba Takeru/Shiba Kaoru

I lump both of them together mainly because we didn’t see enough of Kaoru for me to really make a judgement of her yet I still wanted to mention her. I’ll say this, I did like her. She was definitely worthy of being the first female red ranger. I appreciate that despite her recognizing herself as the strongest she never tried to put the others down for being weaker than her, even berating her retainer for doing just that. I’ll admit the thing at the end with her “Adopting” Takeru was kinda weird but it showed she recognized the team was stronger with Takeru.

As for Takeru himself I really enjoyed him. Stoic, intimidating, and cold at the beginning but as time went on and he developed relationships with the rest of the team he slowly began opening up to them more and more. So much so that by the end he was joking around just as much as they were. And the twist of him not actually being of the Shiba household I thought was executed pretty well, I would’ve been genuinely surprised by it had power rangers not done the same thing. He was a really solid character and easily one of my favorite red rangers.

Shinken Gold - Umemori Genta

Genta was a unique 6th ranger in that he was mostly comedic relief, but a damn good one. He had me genuinely laughing out loud a few times. despite being a comedic character they managed to have a few serious plots with him that turned out alright. Not much more to say about him, he’s funny and (as the show called him) an extraordinary good boy

Shinken Yellow - Hanaori Kotoha

Easily my favorite of the shinkengers, Kotoha is the youngest and therefore least experienced of the team. Originally her older sister was meant to take the role of yellow but fell ill before the events of the show leaving Kotoha to take her place. This of course makes her feel inferior to the others and ike she isn’t a real samurai, just a substitute for her sister. Eventually though after Jii learns of her insecurities he helps reassure her that everyone thinks of her as a real samurai. Although this part of her character isn’t really seen until close to the end, it was that which made me love her character, hell I even shed a tear or two during her last character focus episode. Plus she is downright adorable so there’s nothing not to love about her.

Final thoughts

Overall I think Shinkenger was a really good show, easily in my top 5 sentai (although that’s not saying much since most of the sentai I’ve seen have been pretty Meh). As I mentioned the suits are really well designed, and the opening song as well as the fight songs are just badass. The characters are all really good with the weakest of them just being the ones that were under developed. The story while not necessarily ground breaking it was still enjoyable to watch and I wouldn’t mind coming back to it pretty soon, but for now I need to move on to a different sentai.

I contemplated for a while what sentai to watch next, between Goseiger, Goonger, Dekaranger, Magiranger, Bioman and a few others. Ultimately tho I decided that since one of my favorite things about sentai is the crossovers I should go back and watch all the crossovers, so I’ll start with the season that made these team ups an annual thing. So if I ever make another Long ass post like this, then you’ll be hearing of the fight to protect earth against the evile Baranoia army in Chouriki Sentai Ohranger

#super sentai #samurai sentai shinkenger #shinkenger #shinken gold #shinken red #shinken pink #shinken yellow #shinken green #shinken blue #Umemori Genta #Shiba Takeru #Shiraishi Mako #Hanaori Kotoha #Tani Chiaki #Ikenami Ryunosuke

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ezpezlemonsquez · 3 years

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Okay so I’ve just finished Legend of Korra and am absolutely furious with this finale. And I don’t mean here this korrasami thing, tbh I don’t really care for them, I hate that basically only those two, Varrick and Zhu Li and maybe Tenzin got proper ending. I think this would be good ending for a midseason, NOT the FINAL one. Like, my need for closure cries, so I’ve decided to write my own endings for characters I wanted to see them the most. Hope you’ll enjoy!

Bolin / Opal (we can see them going to the dancefloor at the wedding, so that’s where I’m gonna pick up)

“You know” started Bolin after a while of silent dancing “Your mom offered me to go to Zaofu. To help cleaning up this whole Kuvira mess.”

Opal shuddered.

“So?”

“Well, I thought I’d go” he said. If they didn’t dance, he’d probably scratch the back of his head awkwardly. “I owe it to Zaofu. And to your mom. And... to you.” His voice was becoming quieter as he was talking. Opal moved her hand from his arm to his cheek and smiled warmly.

“Bolin, I’m not angry with you anymore, you know that. You don’t owe me anything.”

“Yeah, I feel like I do, though. Besides, what am I going to do here, hm? Play in another Varrick’s movie? Become a cop, like Mako? Thank you very much.” He laughed, trying to lighten up the mood. Opal shook her head with a smile.

“It’s your decision, really.”

“I’ve made it already” he replied, before she could add anything else. “I’ll go.”

Opal seemed surprised for a moment. Then she climbed up on her toes and kissed him in the cheek. Bolin blushed. They danced silently for another while, before Opal spoke up again.

“You know, I haven’t really had a chance to say it back.”

Bolin frowned.

“Say back what?”

She looked him in the eyes caringly, happily, like she hadn’t had for a long time.

“That I love you, too.” She smiled. “And I’ll miss you so much.”

Bolin didn’t even need to act surprised. But then he just smiled and leaned down to kiss her. Only when they moved back from each other, did he reply:

“I’ll miss you, too.”

Jinora / Kai (because they, like, completely forgot about Kai in this season?? He appeared in one episode! I don’t really count the last ones, because he was basically a background there... The action is happening at the wedding as well)

“Psst.” Heard Jinora behind her. She turned around, raising her eyebrows and trying to locate the owner of the voice. When she saw her boyfriend behind one of the buildings, she shook her head with a small smile. She walked up to him and only then could she see that he was smiling as well.

“What’s going on?” she asked. “Wedding is that way, Kai.” She pointed to the dancefloor.

“I know” replied Kai. “But I don’t really feel like sitting at this wedding. Come with me” he asked and took off towards the sky. Jinora didn’t hesitate for one moment. She untied buttons from her ‘wings’ and she followed Kai. He flew higher and higher until he landed at the top of one of the few not-destroyed buildings.

“Kai, what is this?” asked Jinora when she stopped right next to him.

“Well, since we haven’t really had a chance to catch up earlier, as we were both saving the world, and since I suppose we won’t have much later, as we were both going to repair said world, I thought I’d make the most of this time” he explained, as he sat on the roof. “I know the view isn’t the most beautiful but at least we can look at the Air Temple here.” He shrugged his shoulders apologetically. Jinora smiled and sat next to him.

“It’s beautiful” she answered, giving him a soft kiss in the cheek. “I love it.”

Kai grinned.

“So... what were you up to these days?” He poked her teasingly. Jinora laughed.

“Well, funny you should ask...”

Mako (a few days after everything’s back to normal)

“Well, how does it feel to be back in uniform, detective?” Asked Lin, raising her eyebrow.

“Oh, it’s amazing” answered Mako, adjusting his uniform. “How did you even make this happen?”

Lin shrugged.

“Since Wu decided he wouldn’t be the king, he also agreed to let go of his bodyguard. He said you could stay in the Republic City if you wanted to, so I backed you up and... just said you’d really want to be a detective again.”

“Thank you so much, chief, I owe you. I finally feel like myself again.”

“And how’s your arm, you sure you’re ready?” asked Lin. Mako nodded.

“I am. Please don’t take that away from me.” He forced a laugh.

“Relax, kid, I wasn’t going to, I just have to make sure you won’t let any perps get away.” Smiled Lin. Mako sighed with relief.

“I won’t, I promise you that.”

“Good.” Lin laid her hand on his shoulder. “I’m proud of you, kid.”

Mako smiled and nodded.

“Thanks, chief.”

Iroh / Saya (okay so Saya is my OC who’s Sokka and Suki’s granddaughter and betrothed of Iroh and I absolutely love them so I had to put them here, it’s not my fault...)

“General Iroh” saluted the commander, getting on the ship. “General Saya has arrived.”

Iroh sighed.

“Finally. Where is she?”

Commander bit his lip and kicked his heels.

“Uhm, actually, what I meant was... she’s here, general.”

“Well then send her in, commander.” Smiled Iroh. The man nodded and get off the ship. Iroh waited for a while until he saw a woman in the very same uniform as his, entering his ship. He walked up to her immediately and held out the hand.

“General Saya.” He smiled. She squeezed his hand in a classic water tribe grip and smiled back faintly.

“General Iroh” she answered, greeting him the same way they greeted every time since they got into army. But then she immediately pulled him to herself and hugged him really tight. Iroh smiled. Saya sighed with relief and closed her eyes. Her fiancé chuckled.

“Hey, everything okay?”

“Yeah.” Smiled Saya, moving away from him. “I’m just happy you’re okay. And, well, alive.”

“Thanks for believing in me, babe.” Iroh shook his head with a smile. Saya punched him teasingly.

“Alright, I have to go and clean up this mess, many ships sank but there are still some things we can save and...”

“Hey, hey, Saya, hold on a second. Everything’s been taken care of already.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “Calm down. There’s the wedding up there but the music is loud enough for us to dance here, you know, like the old times...?”

Saya bit her lip and looked away.

“Tell me what’s wrong.”

She sighed and shook her head.

“Okay, I just... I was worried about you. So much. And when I heard that Kuvira’s army is attacking a week earlier and I couldn’t arrive in time to help... I totally freaked out and I just... I have to take my mind off it, I’m sorry.”

He stopped her from leaving.

“Saya...” he whispered. “I worry about you, too, you know that. Look, we knew what we were getting ourselves into when we started dating. We knew it’d be hard.”

“Yeah, you’d better be happy we didn’t date back when you had a very close encounter with that giant spirit.”

Iroh laughed.

“You see, that’s the spirit!”

Saya rolled her eyes with a smile.

“Now, come on” he said, taking her hand. “We’re going dancing.”

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fromzerotoeuphoria · 4 years

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me watching Free!

a journaling of my thoughts & reactions while watching the anime Free!

✧ ✧ ✧

(reposted from old blog, July 22, 2020)

7/14/20, 4:21 AM

Okayyyy. So, I saw this anime on a list of anime similar to Haikyuu!! and then I also started seeing people referencing it in different comments/posts online regarding Haikyuu!! and other sports anime. I kinda wanna check it out, of course not going into it really comparing it to Haikyuu!! I’ll try not to…I’d want to give it a fair shot. I may watch the first ep, may not. I’m really tired and I have to go out tomorrow and my eyes are killing me (plus I still need to catch up with Ahiru No Sora and Full Metal Alchemist and a whole lot of other anime).

✧

7/14/20, 11:32PM

So last night I ended up watching eps 1-3 and honestly, I’m enjoying the anime so far. I haven’t really connected with any of the characters yet, but overall I’m enjoying myself (I think because I’m too hung up on my Karasuno boys right now, ah well). Also, a plus: the main girl isn’t annoying, lol. I actually like her a lot, which isn’t common for me and anime girls. But Gou/Kou? isn’t a trope-filled anime girl, she’s not overly shy or timid or clumsy or any of those annoying traits that are supposed to somehow be “endearing”. She’s a normal, relatable girl (and dang she’s gorgeous too!)

Also, I really like how the antagonist Rin was a super good friend to the main gang in the past: he was the upbeat, positive kid and a good sport who charmed everyone and pushed Haru to swim in a relay with him when they were kids. But his personality has taken a HUGE turn, and at first it rubbed me the wrong way because the 180 didn’t make sense. Then it was explained a little (some trouble when he moved to Australia?) and it actually is understandable:

Rin’s dream is to be an Olympic swimmer, and Haru is just naturally super gifted at swimming. When Rin came for a visit from his special swimming school in Australia during middle school, it killed him that despite all that time devoted to training, he still couldn’t beat Haru. And that caused the rift between the two friend and caused Haru to quit competitive swimming because he thought he hurt Rin—it also caused a change in Rin’s attitude. I like this backstory, it makes the dynamic between the protagonist and antagonist much more interesting.

Anyways, I actually want to watch a few more eps now (even tho I’m exhausted) as a kind of “feel good” wind down. Idk if I’m gonna get into this anime as much as I did Haikyuu, and maybe not even as much as I am into ANS or Fire Force, but we’ll see. The other sports anime have a large cast which gives you many options and opportunities to fall in love with characters, but Free! only has like 4 guys on their swim team…and one of them is a lil annoying :P So, we’ll see, it may just be a “wind down” anime that i don’t get emotionally /mentally invested in but still enjoy. Or i could become totally bored with it, or i could fall head over heels for these characters like I did with Haikyuu. Probs not the latter, if there was that possibility I think there’d be a lot more people in love with this anime and these characters than what I’ve seen so far on the internet. But again, we’ll see.

✧

7/15/20 6:10AM

Umm okay YEAH WOW THAT LAST EPISODE WAS BEAUTIFUL OMG. Yeah I know, I know, I haven’t been journaling but I just decided to keep watching episode after episode and I got SO sucked into the relationship between Rin and Haru (as well as Rin and Mako/Nagisa) and UGH I LOVE THEIR BROMANCE and ELEMENTARY SCHOOL RIN IS LITERALLY BEST BOY.

Like honestly, the drama of the fractured friendship between Rin and the others—but especially Haru—was one of the main things that drove me to keep watching ep after ep until i finally was like, “Eh, might a well just watch ’til ep 12.” I was feeling all kinds of emotions lol, like being MAJORLY PISSED at Rei in ep 11 for butting into the guys’ history (but it’s ok he’s forgiven after letting Rin swim in his place in ep 12) to completely losing my mind when Haru and Rin reconciled. Anyways, yeahhhh soooooo I care about these boys now XD Not as much as I do Karasuno or anything like that, but I do feel things for Rin x Haru primarily, and then Makoto. I’m interested in seeing how the next season goes now that Rin is friends with the boys again. ~ EDIT 12:14PM – Okay earlier I was very exhausted (I literally binged-watched freakin NINE episodes, omg) and wasn’t as coherent as usual, so I didn’t really capture all my thoughts and feelings. I’m still rather tired, but I did want to say that I TOTALLY had a Rin-Haru-ship moment in the last episode: the entire time I’ve been absolutely adoring Rin’s friendship with the boys in elementary school; he was the shining star in their friendship. I wanted that again for the guys because elementary-school Rin was so wonderful, and he was a perfect foil to Haru’s personality. I absolutely loved how quiet, aloof Haru stubbornly tried to be disinterested in Rin but couldn’t stay away because Rin was so dynamic and charismatic (I mean, when Haru found out Rin ran home after swim practice, Haru determinedly started doing the same). Rin drove Haru, though Haru didn’t realize until after the relay race. And in return, years later in high school when the two raced at Rin’s new school that night, it was Haru who unknowingly made Rin rediscover his love for swimming after he had quit all those years ago (omg I really do love this anime TT_TT).

So throughout the episodes there’s all this underlying care that Rin shows for not only Haru but also Makoto as well, and vice versa. It was intriguing and magnetic and made me totally invested in seeing these guys reconcile. So when Rin faltered in the 100m race because he was so distracted by the emotional turmoil he felt about not racing with Haru and the others in the relay race, I was SO FOR IT because I wanted to see him distressed about the other guys—that showed that he really cared so deeply about them that it threw off his game. And when Rin not only made last place but was visibly heaving and couldn’t pull himself out of the water, I was even more like “AHHHKLAJDKJASLKLSAD!!!” and then when Haru was so overcome with concern and immediately shot out of his seat to go find Rin without a word I WAS LIVINGGGG OMG and then on top of that when he heard Rin say that he had quit swimming in the past and should’ve stayed quit and Haru stood there in shock and having war flashbacks to his and Rin’s falling out in middle school and Haru basically collapsed against a wall in devastation of losing Rin yet again and possibly forever EVERYONE I WAS SOARING AND LIVING AND UGH IT WAS JUST SHKLSKFSKSSKDKJF THAT WAS EVERYTHING!!!!!

And then Haru finally explicitly says that all he wanted was to swim with Rin again and ugh I’m just WOW that episode was EVERYTHING, like literally that episode alone bumped this anime up so many levels for me and now my investment is so much more piqued than it was before (and I was binging this thing). I mean, they hinted at Haru wanting to just swim with Rin again in an earlier episode when Rin beat Haru at freestyle and said, “Now I’ll never have to swim with you again” and Haru was visibly shaken up at those words. He literally told Makoto that his freakin world went black when Rin said that like…AKDJFKHAJSKJD??!?!?!

UGH I love Haru and Rin’s relationship so much 😩. If adult Rin is anything like elementary-school Rin still…I may have found my bias ;) I haven’t seen nice adult Rin yet so we’ll see in Season 2.

Anyways, yeah. SIGH. WOW. Episode 12 took me by surprise with the switch-up and I was LIVINGGGG for it. WOW. I am SO HAPPY it happened and that the four of them are friends again. I honestly couldn’t have imagined a better ending ^_^

#free!#me watching #anime journaling #free! live watch #me watching anime #me watching free!#free! iwatobi swim club

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lady-griffin · 4 years

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Avatar both Korra and Aang legends?

001 | Send me a fandom and I will tell you my --

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Favorite character: Aang, Katara, Toph, or Zuko (I can’t decide)

Least Favorite character: Pakku (his sexism was only really “solved” by Katarina being the granddaughter of the women he was once betrothed too – it felt forced and weak. I also didn’t like him letting Katara call him grandfather (or a version of that), but not Sokka.

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): Zutara, Kataang, Zuko x Mai, Sokka x Suki, Mai x Ty Lee

Character I find most attractive: Katara, also definitely June

Character I would marry: Sokka or Suki

Character I would be best friends with: Katara or Suki

a random thought: Are the combo animals their own unique species or are the animals in the Avatar world able to reproduce with different animals and just over time, those half babies were able reproduce as well, and thus becoming their own species.

That would explain the existence of both Solo Animals and Combo Animals. Example: Bears (Solo), Armadillo Bears and Platypus Bears (Combo)

If that’s the case does that mean, the interspecies mixing happened millions and millions maybe a billion years ago, if so, is that why solo animals (cats, bears) are so rare while combo animals are the majority?

Solo animals are super rare, which makes me think Bosco was like a super expensive/valuable gift to the King - showing his status as King.

Turtle Ducks are the greatest thing ever.

An unpopular opinion: I never really thought “The Great Divide” was as awful as people make it out to be. It’s certainly not my favorite, but I was surprised when I learned how much people truly hated it.

My Canon OTP: Kataang

My Non-canon OTP: Zutara

Most Badass Character: Azula, also Kyoshi

Most Epic Villain: Azula and Ozai

Pairing I am not a fan of: Azula x Ty Lee (I don’t hate it, but given how toxic their relationship was, I can’t say I’m a big fan)

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another):

Not a character, but I thought that having Fire Lord Sozin banned homosexuality (in the comics) felt very weird to me and not in line with the Fire Nation. Out of the three remaining nations, the Fire Nations seemed the most “progressive” in terms of equality for women or more accurately for the goal of world domination they were willing to used everything and everyone they had.

It’s also interesting see how each nation and their relative status in terms of morality and their relation to female warriors/fighters/

The Fire Nation (Bad) has the most female fighters. We see actual women in the army, female prison guards, as well as the most individual named fighters/characters – Azula, Ty Lee, Mai, June, Lo and Li. Azula’s teachers must have been on an entirely different level than everyone else, as neither one was a fire-bender, but yet they were charged with being Azula’s mentors and teachers in regards to fighting and fire bending.

The Northern and Southern Tribes (Good) have pretty sexist views. Sokka is pretty sexist in the beginning (he had to learn that from somewhere), in Katara’s introduction all the men left (not all that were capable) and Sokka felt as the only teenaged male it was his duty to be in charge/protect everyone.

We literally have episodes that explored the sexism of The Northern Tribe and it literally takes Katara throwing down with an old man from them to start to change. And to my knowledge, there are only two named female water benders – Katara and Hama, maybe the healer in the northern tribe had a name(?), but the fact that I would have to look up her name, if she has one (proves my point). Her name is Yugoda. We don’t have any non-bender female fighters for the Water Tribes.

The Earth Kingdom (Neutral) has Suki, Avatar Kyoshi and the Kyoshi warriors (unnamed), June, and the girl from Jet’s gang, but the only living female earth bender we ever see is Toph, aside from her we only ever see male earth benders.

The Air Nomads (Strive For/Good) seem to treat everyone as equals, but women and men lived and were raised separately.

So, it just felt lazy to say oh the fire nation is ruled by an oppressive regime and the regime is bad and banning/outlawing same-sex couple is also bad – so there.

When I think you could’ve had a very interesting story, when the Water Tribes who we’ve seen have the most backwards views on women, being the nation to ban same-sex marriages/relationships.

Avatar was very good on the whole – “It’s not that simple” and “Oh god, it’s so much more complicated - so, I think it would’ve been a very interesting storyline to have The Water Nations have been the ones to ban same-sex relations, while maybe the Fire Nation maybe took after some ancient (Greece/Roman societies) where some thought a soldier would fight harder if they were fighting and protecting their lover/love.

Also, maybe in the recovery period. The Fire Nation wants to have same-sex be legal, but as they were were literally trying to take over the world and systematically tried to destroy other nations and colonize, the Water Tribes don’t want their traditions and customs being dictated by those of the Fire Nation. I don’t know, that could’ve been very complicated and nuance story.

It just seemed lazy to me and sort of ignoring what they’ve already set up in their canon universe, on purpose or not.

Favorite Friendship: Momo and Appa, Aang and Sokka, Aang and Zuko, Aang and Toph… Aang with anyone really

Character I most identify with: I don’t think I really identify with anyone, but when it came out, definitely Mai.

Character I wish I could be: Mai or Ty Lee

Avatar: The Legend of Korra

Favorite character: Korra

Least Favorite character: Varrick, Unalaq (weak villain), Mako (at times)

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): Korrasami, Bolin x Opal, Korralin, Kai x Jinora, Makorralin (…I’ve read a lot good smut of these guys, so yeah...)

Character I find most attractive: Asami

Character I would marry: Asami

Character I would be best friends with: Jinora

a random thought: Why did they have Korra sleeping on her bed with shoes on in season one… that will forever bother me.

An unpopular opinion: I’m have no idea if this is unpopular, but I think Bumi getting air-bending was such a copout. There was something very interesting about the child of two of the most powerful benders (literally his dad is the avatar and his mother was the avatar’s water bender teacher) being a non-bender and that really could’ve been explored. It felt “cheap” to give him air-bending…I was never a fan of that

Also, it bothered me that the Tenzin, Kya, and Bumi all had skin tones that matched perfectly with their respected powers/lack of powers and also they all dress with that same mind set. As one of the first mixed families we really get to see, It would’ve been nice, if their styles of clothing were different or combos of Air Nomad, Water Nation and Earth Kingdom (given where they lived).

Having only Tenzin be the only we see dress as an Air Nomad and later Bumi (when he gets air-bending) definitely gives credence to the idea that Bumi definitely had a reason for thinking he didn’t truly belong in the Air Nation.

I think Legend of Korra loss a good opportunity of introducing the first mixed families/kids, but still had them dress in regards to their respected element

It felt weird that Bolin and Mako, dressed with their specific element color.

Especially since Republic City was this huge diverse city, with influences and people from across the four nations.

My Canon OTP: Korrasami

My Non-canon OTP: Korralin/Gender-Reverse Korralin

Most Badass Character: Korra

Most Epic Villain: The Red Lotus

Pairing I am not a fan of: Makorra, I was a huge fan of them when it started, but honestly as the show continued and looking back at it, their chemistry was off after the second episode. They had such a great set-up with the gazing end and music, but after that it was downhill.

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): Not so much a character, but Aang and Katara and their relationship with their children never felt right to me.

In general, though, I think the creators struggled in finding the right groove for many of the characters if not all of them, at one point or another.

Favorite Friendship: Korra and Asami, Korra and the Airbending Kids

Character I most identify with: Jinora and Ikki

Character I wish I could be: Asami

#catradidsomethingwrong #ATLA #ATLOK #Avatar The Last Airbender #Avatar #avatar the legend of korra #the last airbender #The Legend of Korra #Legend of Korra #Korra #Aang

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medea10 · 4 years

Text

My Review of Pokemon Sun & Moon

Hi all. Sorry for the delay on this one. I usually go all-out on my Pokemon reviews that I wanted to let out everything I wanted to. Plus I had real-life work and other stuff. With that said, here’s my final review of 2019 as well as the final review of the decade. See you in 2020!

As Ash mentioned at the end of XY, Ash said he was going back home to Pallet Town and “start at zero”. This means when he decides to go on his journey, he leaves all of his other pokemon at Oak’s lab and goes on a new journey with Pikachu. But unlike the start of other journeys, this one started with Ash’s mom, Delia and her pokemon Mimie winning a contest which resulted in a trip to the Alola region. And since they were heading that way, Professor Oak asks them to bring a pokemon egg to his cousin in Alola. So let’s begin with Ash’s adventure in the Alola region.

The Alola region is split into four different islands. Each of these islands contains trial captains, island challenges, pokemon of different forms, and pokemon guardians! But unlike the game, Ash ends up in the Alola region to go to school. That’s right, after being the envy of every child for the last 20 years, Ash must go to school. In this school, Ash will learn all he needs to when it comes to living in the Alola region. Along with new friends, a helpful professor, a Rotom Pokedex, an enthusiastic Oak that does impressions, and a special bracelet capable of unleashing powerful Z-moves, Ash’s journey is getting very interesting.

MEET THE CHARACTERS: This seriously has got to be the biggest ensemble for Ash’s posse. Each character has their own unique charm and their own speciality when it comes to their pokemon type preference (and their hairstyle will say so too). At the beginning, I was just okay on some of these characters, but I have definitely enjoyed watching them evolve. Here are all of Ash’s new classmates, professor, Pokedex and a brand-new Oak.

Mallow is a very cheerful girl with the love of grass-types and cooking specialty dishes for friends and pokemon. While some of her dishes can be a little surprising, even shocking, she has a knack for using only the freshest ingredients, mostly coming from wild pokemon.

Lana has a passion for the water and yes, even water-type pokemon. She’s quite soft spoken and spends a lot of her days fishing. She may even look into becoming a fisher like her father. But she does have an edge that makes her and her Popplio tough to beat. Not to mention, quite the sense of humor! She also takes care of her two younger sisters Sarah and Harper.

Kiawe is very handy in a battle with his fire-type pals. Unlike the other students in the class, he’s been given a Z-ring first as he has attempted the Island Challenge. Because of this, he’s rather high-strong about those who own a Z-ring. His days start early in the morning with delivering MooMoo Milk, then he goes to class, then comes home to take care of the farm pokemon, and let’s not forget all that training with Charizard and Turtenator!

Sophocles is what you’d call a computer nerd (yeah, we have another one). He’s able to handle any electrical error that comes his way with the help of either Togedamaru or Charjabug. The only thing he’s unable to challenge is sleeping in the dark!

Lillie is the mysterious girl with no pokemon (at first) and seems to get scared by them real easily. However, she knows quite a bit about pokemon without having physical contact with them. Luckily, Lillie lets her guard down later in the series when she gets the opportunity to take care of an egg. And when it hatched, she kept it. Other pokemon, it still takes her a while to open up to them, but when she does open up, it’s adorable!

Professor Six-Pack is too hot (hot damn)! Call the police and the fireman!

FINE, I’LL DO THE RIGHT THING!

Professor Kukui is the teacher to these fine pupils and has even allowed Ash to stay with him while Ash attends school. He seems a little laid back at first glance, but he does take special care into each and every lesson he gives his students.

Rotomdex is the talking Pokedex for Ash. Unlike all the other Pokedexes up to this point, this one can actually carry on a conversation with Ash. Not just that, but come up with strategies, watch detective shows on TV, and even write screenplays. It’s amazing how so much can come from a fushion between a Rotom and a regular pokedex!

Principal Oak…Okay, no, I can’t do that! Over 10 years ago, I wrote a fan fic called Romance 101. And I spent a good five years writing the words “Principal Oak” because that’s what I called Samuel Oak. This Principal Oak is just giving me vivid flashbacks.

…fine Principal SAMSON Oak is of course the principal to the Pokemon School. This Oak is a much tanner, buffer, and at times sillier man when you compare him to the original Professor Oak. He really loves doing pokemon impressions. And much like Professor Oak’s poems, Samson Oak’s jokes goes over a lot of people’s heads.

BETWEEN THE SUB AND THE DUB: With the exception of Kiawe, Rotomdex, and Samson Oak’s voice actors, this is literally a brand new experience for most of these new characters. And I gotta say, I hope these voice actors get more attention. I know Reina Ueda (Mallow) has been getting a lot more roles in the last three years and I love that. The Pokemon anime has had quite a history of either getting very prominent voice actors or voice actors who aren’t known for much else. But I do hope for more exposure for Lana, Sophocles, and Professor Kukui’s seiyuus. Extra points for having Nobuhiko Okamoto play Gladion!

I’ll mention more later in the review but due to the death of a very, very, VERY prominent voice actor, there was a major change. With the passing of Unshou Ishizuka, there were three important characters that had to be changed; Professor Oak, Samson Oak, and the Narrator. I started noticing the lack of these three (yes, even the narrator) in episodes prior to Ishizuka’s death. If we go several episodes without one of the Oak’s, it’s not a big deal. But the fact that the narrator wasn’t heard before the start of the show or at the end for several episodes at a time, it felt very weird. But after hearing about how Unshou Ishizuka died of Esophageal cancer, I can’t help but think he was doing treatments during the Aether Foundation arc. His replacement, Kenyu Horiuchi is not bad. But after listening to Ishizuka since…well at least two decades, it’s very noticeable.

The dub once again is putting hope in brand new voice actors and even a few veterans from the XY series. And so far, this is very promising since they casted Alsyon Leigh Rosenfield. However, one prominent voice actor who has been around for a LONG time has retired. Kayzie Rodgers, the replacement voice of Max and Wobbuffet (and long-time voice to Mr. Mime and Professor Ivy) has retired at the beginning of SM (2016). I can honestly say, I will miss hearing her voice. Out of all the dub changes, you were one of a few I accepted. That and I will always remember you as Professor Ivy and Mimie! With that said, here’s what you might recognize these folks from.

JAPANESE CAST: *Lana is played by Hitomi Kikuchi

*Mallow is played by Reina Ueda (known for Kisa on Fruits Basket 2019, Shiori on Sakura Quest, Jiro on Tokyo Ghoul, and Katra Paige on Inazuma Eleven GO: Galaxy)

*Kiawe is played by Kaito Ishikawa (known for Genos on One Punch Man, Naofumi in Shield Hero, Sakakibara on Assassination Classroom, Kaito on Tsurune, Mitsuo on Golden Time, and Urie on Tokyo Ghoul :re)

*Sophocles is played by Fumiko Takekuma

*Lillie is played by Kei Shindou (known for Carissa on Index III and Shijimi on Rosario to Vampire)

*Professor Kukui is played by Keiichi Nakagawa (known for Salamander on Beelzebub)

*Rotomdex is played by Daisuke Namikawa (known for Rock on Black Lagoon, Jellal on Fairy Tail, Italy on Hetalia, Kazehaya on Kimi ni Todoke, Fai on Tsubasa Chronicle, Yuu on Persona 4, and Arima on Tokyo Ghoul)

*Narrator & Samson/Samuel Oak (ep1-93) is played by Unshou Ishizuka (known for Mr. Satan on DBZ Kai, Jet on Cowboy Bebop, Hohenheim on FMA: Brotherhood, Dr. Gel on Space Dandy, and Grandpa Joestar on Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Pt 3) [R.I.P.]

* Narrator & Samson/Samuel Oak (ep93-present) is played by Kenyuu Horiuchi (known for Pain on Naruto, Mako’s father on Kill la Kill, Sasaki on Bakuman, Hachiken’s father on Silver Spoon, and Takafumi on Sekaiichi Hatsukoi)

ENGLISH CAST: *Lana is played by Rosie Reyes

*Mallow is played by Rebecca Soler (known for Hart on YGO Zexal)

*Kiawe is played by Marc Swint

*Sophocles is played by Alyson Leigh Rosenfield (known for Rio on YGO Zexal, Aina on Promare, and Ally on YGO Arc-V)

*Lillie is played by Laurie Hymes (known for Prana on YGO: Dark Side of Dimensions)

*Professor Kukui is played by Abe Goldfarb

*Rotomdex is played by Roger Callagy

*Samson Oak is played by Marc Thompson (known for Chaz on YGO GX, Astral on YGO Zexal, and Kevin/Mr. O’Neill/Mr. Demartino on Daria)

FAVORITE CHARACTER: Pokemon…why do you keep doing this to me? Do you want me to lose what little faith I hold onto?

With that said, this season has given me a “best girl”. Yes, the term “best girl” is given to the…well, you know, the best girl of the series. And ever since the creators decided to shake things up by giving Ash a new female companion every couple of years, fans have fought to the death on who is best girl of Pokemon. For me, my best girls of Pokemon were Prima, Zoey, Blue/Leaf Green, and Bonnie. But there are just a few problems there. None of them are Ash’s piece of arm candy! And there’s some unwritten law that it has to be the possible love interest like Misty, Dawn, or Blushy McIdiot. And my best girls have either been in only one episode of the anime, was just a rival to someone who isn’t Ash, a girl who was never in the anime, and too young. BUT…Sun and Moon did it! It friggin’ did it! It gave me a best girl! And that girl is…

LANAAAAAAAA!

I never tire of that Archer joke! But yes, Lana is best girl.

I knew I was going to like her when she first debuted, but I had no idea how awesome she was going to truly be. Is it her prankish nature? Maybe! Is it this creepy yandere vibe I get off from her every now and then? Possibly! Is it the way I’ve seen her grow as a trainer throughout this series. You fucking bet! Lana at one point seemed like the one character who wasn’t getting much growth when it came to catching and evolving pokemon. Then again, everyone (including Ash) gave me that impression compared to other arcs. But then she caught the shaggy Eevee! Serious wild card! No one expected Lana to catch Eevee. And then there’s Popplio. She and Popplio trained like crazy later in the series and it shows when it evolved into Brionne and eventually into Primarina. ESPECIALLY WHEN PRIMARINA EVOLVED! Did you see Lana and Brionne going toe-to-toe with that Kyogre? That was epically awesome!

Plus, she was like the only female in God-knows how long to reach the top 8 in the Pokemon League.

DISLIKED CHARACTER: My tolerance has taken a slight dip because there are three people I feel should be up here!

First, I would like to put up Cross from the 20th movie, I Choose You. I know that he isn’t in the actual SM series, but I’m putting him up here because I just downright hate him. He is on Damien levels of shit. That’s how much I hate the son of a bitch. He could cure cancer, kick Donald Trump in the crotch, and bring peace in the Middle East and I would still hate him. Cross was like a very bad combination of Damien and Paul. Abandons a pokemon the same way as Damien and shows this power assholeness that Paul has. But add to that, a bit of a cruel edge to him and sprinkle a bit of whiny little bitch on that. He has to hold a grudge against Ash in this movie because he was blessed with Ho-oh’s feather, but when he saw Ho-oh, he got nothing. Oh boo-freakin-hoo! Cry me a river!

Next…Faba! You fucking testicle! Heads up, I like calling Faba a testicle! When I first saw him, I thought that Lusamine was gonna be the one to hate because of the game setup. But this anime just proves how much Lusamine loves both of her children. The same can’t be said about Faba! At first, I thought Faba would be like Colress in a way…creepy how they almost look and act the same. But then his true side started to show. Oh, this guy wants them Ultra Beasts. And will not let anyone get in his way. Not little children, not birds suffering from Insomnia, not Team Rocket, not even his boss’s child! This greedy sonuvabitch is literally the reason why Lillie was afraid of pokemon and re-triggered it AGAIN thanks to UB Nihilgo. Yeah, fuck you Testicle!

Now after that incident, Testicle was demoted and serves under Wicke and Clefable (which is literally the best thing I could ever ask for). And in most scenarios where he’s shown, Faba was silly with his fanboy obsession with the Masked Royal or his stupid experiment shrinks the kids. So other than him being a dumbass nothing too damning! That was until the Pokemon League where he decided to play dirty by having his Hypno bring out Ash’s Meltan instead of going up against Pikachu. I’m glad he got beat within less than 2 minutes because this testicle needs to shrivel up now.

Who else?

Viren! I can’t help but think he’s this anime’s answer to Donald Trump. But I hate both of them so that’s a start! I could let things slide with him just being there for one episode where he’s trying to buy out Kiawe’s family’s farm and be done with it. BUT NO! This sonuvabitch has gotta wear out his welcome by showing up another three or four times doing that same shit! And even his very first episode where he uses illegal tactics to get Rango and Sima’s farm was warrant enough to hate this fucker. I just thought he would just be a one-and-done character much like the Mayor of Trovitopolis (OI episode). Aggrivating to say, this dickhead came back numerous times to do more shady-ass shit. And I hope to Arceus I never see him again!

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT: Kiawe and Lana’s mothers are total milfs.

DON’T ACT LIKE I’M THE ONLY ONE HERE! Kiawe’s mama, hell yeah total milf! Lana’s mother, I ended up having a lesbian dream about her and she became a milf.

Hey, usually I’m straighter than a honeymoon dick. But sometimes I peak over and can easily say that Sima and Lana’s mother are Mothers I Like to Fantasize about. Again, in the words of Forky, “I’m Trash”!

SHIPPING: Okay…let’s have some fun with this one. This is less vomit inducing than XY. Just keep that bitch in Hoenn for as long as it takes. I don’t want to see her for a long time.

Ash x Lillie: I honestly think this is rather cute. Ash is one of the very few who’s been able to help Lillie with her poke-phobia. Though this ship isn’t heavily pushed on us like a certain OTHER ship that just won’t DIE. I swear Amour is like the herpes. I really can’t say there’s much romance here. Although her goodbye to Ash was just honest-to-God cute! Now if there was one Ash ship that caused some sort of blushing, it would have to go to…

Ash x Lana: Whenever she could, Lana would drag Ash along with her. Whether it’s looking for a missing pokemon or on the hunt for a legendary pokemon in the water, she would take Ash by the arm and take him by force. However, none of this was romantically motivated. The only thing worth mentioning was her tsundere way of blushing and brushing off romance when her sisters pester if Ash is her boyfriend.

Mallow x Lillie: This was my OTP to be perfectly honest. While Ash was the actual first person to nudge Lillie to help her with pokemon, Mallow was like the best friend of Lillie’s. She would always show concern for her. I know this is more big sister syndrome, but I’ll still ship it. I never thought anything would happen until the episode where the class puts on a play and I see Mallow and Lillie dressed like Utena and Anthy from Revolutionary Girl Utena. To which I said, “HOLY SHIT, THIS IS AWESOME-BALLS”! Pokemon, are you trying to tell us something with this? You trying to tell us something with this clear and direct reference to one of anime’s famous Yuri couples?

Kukui x Burnet: THIS SHIP HAS SAILED! I’m actually surprised how fast this ship was. I know they’re married in all four games, but in the anime it seemed like they didn’t know each other that well prior to Burnet’s first appearance. And anime wise, they only spent 11 episodes with each other. And on the 11th episode not only did Kukui propose to Burnet with a ring, but they freakin’ got married! I guess there are such things as love at first sight. Kukui wanted it and put a ring on it. There’s a real man, yo! Now, he does lose some points here as he does lead that double life as the Masked Royal where he keeps it a secret from everyone, including his fangirl of a wife. But once she knew, she let him off the hook. And you know how much this ship is cemented? Watch the last 30 seconds of the final episode! It’ll blow your socks off!

On a side note, the way Kukui proposed to Burnet…BEST FUCKING PROPOSAL!

Nurse Joy x Officer Jenny: Amazing, it has taken over 20 years for anyone to think this is even humanly possible. But in Alola, there’s a Nurse Joy and an Officer Jenny that are constantly together. Maybe it’s because I hang out on Tumblr a little too much that it gets implied a lot, but I can’t help but have a guilty pleasure for this.

Pokeshipping: AAAAAAH! Yeah, Medea has to bring this old war back. Okay, okay, I won’t be long here. Just to let you know that I’m a fan of this ship, especially back in the day. As for Sun & Moon, at least we don’t see that classic tsundere syndrome Misty is known for. But she still cutefully teases Ash about several things from the past including the broken bike and their past gym battle. To add to this, Misty (and to lesser extent Brock) were the only ones from Ash’s past companions to see him this region...much to my dismay!

Brock x Olivia: Holy crap! Did Brock seriously get lucky? Is this it? Is this the woman to finally fulfill this pervy breeder/doctor? To me, it just feels like just another day in the life of Brock’s love life. However he has done his research of Olivia that makes me think he’s dead serious about her…I just think it’s a creative way to say he’s in the early stages of stalking. But nothing else came from it after Brock (literally) proposed marriage to her and joined in doing a Z-move with her. Then again, Brock does get a lucky break with at least one lady in each region. Sadly, that’ll probably be the end of that much like Professor Ivy, Pike Queen Lucy, Holly, and Autumn.

Ash x Gladion: Guilty pleasure…is it wrong that I want these two to dress up like Yuri and Yurio from Yuri on Ice. No, didn’t think so! Not sorry for that image!

ANIMATION: I’m sorry, I can’t stay quiet about this like most of the other fans of the show. What the hell were they thinking? This is not supposed to be One Piece. This is not supposed to that Rock Lee spin-off. This is Pokemon. Poke-fucking-mon! Ash went backwards on the evolutionary chart. And people have nerve to go off on the BW series for giving him wider pupils and a mediocre outfit. You people owe the animators for BW a fucking apology for one! Ash’s design now looks like he’s cosplaying to be Monkey D. Luffy’s retarded cousin. Even my own mother, who watches one episode once every couple of months commented to say Ash looks stupid. Thank you!

SADDEST MOMENT: It’s been a good while since I’ve had a Pokemon episode touch me to a point of almost crying. Close, but the Misty/Togetic goodbye still has it beat (which was then beaten by an episode of Violet Evergarden…Dammit 2019!). And even then, the touching moments in Pokemon would be because someone of the main cast released their pokemon like Ash releasing Charizard, Jessie releasing Dustox, and OH MY GOD, NO! ENOUGH WITH THE SAD TOGETIC SCENE! But that was just it, at least no one died!

…Until now! That’s right, deaths were usually only a movie thing as we saw in the fifth movie with Latios. But in the last three years, Pokemon got a little dark in both the anime and the movie trilogies. The 20th movie we saw a Luxray freeze to death, the 21st movie we saw a Snubbull burn to death, and because the 22nd movie is a rehash of the very first movie, we’re going to relive Ash dying.

The SM anime did a few things we haven’t seen in the Pokemon anime before. In the early episodes of SM, we were introduced to Litten and watched a very sad episode dealing with death. Before Litten joined Ash, it lived on the streets with a very old Stoutland. Now think of every sad animal movie you’ve ever seen and you’ll have your answer of what happens to Stoutland by the end of the episode. They don’t show Stoutland’s death on screen, but we know. This episode was very clever at tackling the death topic on a kid’s anime. And up to this point I thought this episode was going to take the cake in the sad department. Boy was I wrong!

The 108th episode of SM gave us one hell of a tear-jerker and it almost got me. It almost got me! We learn in this episode that Mallow had a mother. And this is a first because no one in any of the main cast talked about a dead parent before this episode! We learn about Mallow’s mother being sick a lot and it caused a rift between the two. Especially when Mallow snaps at her mother because all she does is apologize for not being there. Unfortunately that exchange was the last time she ever spoke to her. Where does the sad part get heavy? Here!

While everyone was on Poni Island, we hear about how Tapu Fini is able to communicate with the dead. And among some of the dead we saw Hapu’s grandfather, Kiawe’s grandfather, and Stoutland. But in the mist, Mallow came across her mother. And that one moment where she finally can see her mother after so many years! She breaks down and cries. She apologizes for the horrible things she said as a kid to her. But those sorrys turn into thank yous. She thanks her mother for what she’s done, thanked her for being her mother! God damn it, this is now #2 in saddest Pokemon moments. The second I saw this I thought it was going to make me ugly cry and trounce all over the Misty/Togetic moment. To my surprise, it didn’t. But came super close!

In short, Mallow seeing her mother again…this moment! Feels! Fucking feels!

COMEBACK: I have pretty much given up on people from the previous series to pay Ash a visit in the newest region. After XY where we didn’t get a single sighting of Iris and Cilan getting shafted to an episode that they didn’t even bother giving an English dub, I just gave up. But that doesn’t mean we didn’t get characters who “came back”.

In SM, there were two times where we got a blast from the past. In two episodes we had Ash, Kukui, and the class make a trip to Kanto where (that’s right) we get to see Professor Oak, Delia, Misty, and Brock again. Not only that but we get two more episodes where Misty and Brock come to Alola!

As much as I love Misty…and toler…ate Brock, many other characters are overdue for a get-together with Ash. If you want me to be blunt, May, Iris, and Tracey are the only ones who should get attention and everyone else needs to FUCK OFF. That’s right, we don’t need to see Brock hit on more whores of the day. No more fishing competitions for Dento-fruit (much as I love him). Blushy McIdiot, Dingus, and Bonnie can go fuck off! And that goes double for Dawn!

Shit Medea, that was cruel.

Yeah it was cruel and I’ll continue to do so. It’s been 11 years since May was last seen/heard. Iris got royally butt-fucked by everything in the anime. And as for Tracey, I don’t owe you pissants a fucking explanation. Tracey deserves better! Speaking of…

AN UNFORTUNATE THEORY: With the comebacks of Misty and Brock, Tracey has just been NOT THERE! They go to Oak’s lab and he isn’t there. Not even mentioned. Not a word about him. When Ash calls Professor Oak randomly, Oak is there and even Muk, but no Tracey. When Ash asks Misty and Brock about back home, they don’t mention Tracey…which is to be expected since they have to talk about their siblings, but still.

Pokemon doing anything island adventure wise kinda comes with a mixed bag. The Orange Islands came with immediate hate because loyal Brock fans are ass-hurt about Tracey’s existence. The Sevii Islands were a bust during the FR/LG games. And the less mentioned about Decalore Island in the BW anime, the better. But when they decided to do Alola, fans caught on quite quickly with some comparisons to the Orange Island anime portion.

Unlike all the other gyms in other regions, Alola had four grand trials/leaders. Orange Islands had the Orange Crew, which was essentially four gym leaders. Both the trials and the crew had Ash do different tasks before an actual battle. Next, pokemon with different colors/forms! In the early episodes of the Orange Islands, we saw pokemon just a smide different from their normal looks. We saw Vileplume with a different flower pattern, other pokemon with a different shade of color to them, and interesting designs on Butterfree. In Alola, they expaneded on that by giving “Alolan forms” to pokemon like Meowth, Diglett, Exeggutor, Marowak, and even Raichu! I do love Alolan Raichu! However, the pokemon that had small changes in the Orange Islands were not brought to the Alolan table. So maybe Orange Islands and Alola are in far different parts of the world.

Where my theory goes from here is that I think Pokemon really wants to pretend the Orange Islands never happened. That means the gym battles, the special pokemon, and yes, even Tracey. That’s the only way to explain why no one has mentioned him even when we’re standing in Professor Oak’s fucking lab! I hate to be blunt and say something so horrible, but every time I watch SM, it really does feel like that. Yes, I admit it, the Orange Islands were just filler until Ash and crew could go to Johto. First of all, it exists. No matter how much you try to white-wash us with Alolan features, the Orange Islands was a thing. And it was a great thing! Ash was in his first six-on-six match (and won), Ash’s first double battle happened here, and stellar episodes like Pikachu Re-volts and Tracey Gets Bugged should not be cast aside. Those were all great! Pokemon, you cannot run from your past! You can improve upon it, yes. But never forget! These were a thing! These were great things!

Thankfully, my death theory was put to rest in the first episode of Pokemon 2019 when the Orange Island trophy was shown. That’s great, now where’s Tracey?

Another theory! They couldn’t get Tomokazu Seki. That could also be it!

RUNNING GAG: We got two running gags throughout the SM series! First, there’s the return of that singing ball of pink, Jigglypuff! This little singer has not been seen or heard from since AG. That’s well over a decade, people. Well…when Ash and crew visited Kanto, they ran into Jigglypuff and by sheer coincidence, wound up riding the airplane back to Alola. So now we see it every now and then in Alola, singing in a Karaoke bar.

And the other…Bewear! It hasn’t been officially caught by Team Rocket. They don’t use it in a battle. But Bewear has literally made it impossible for Team Rocket to BLAST OFF ever again. Their life-long running gag died the minute they fell into Bewear’s meaty arms.

Also it doesn’t help that I constantly scream “KUMA SHOCK” every time it comes to collect Team Rocket. Anyone who gets that reference deserves a high five!

BANNED IN THE USA: Welcome back, banishment! I knew you couldn’t stay away for long as we do live in a SJW/PC time. So what episode never got to see the light of day in the U.S.?

This one…yeah, I can totally agree with. So in the U.S. there is indeed ONE episode we were not given. In this episode, Ash decides to help a group of Passimian. And throughout the majority of the episode, Ash is dressed up like a Passimian from the pajamas to the…OH MY! I actually let it slide when I saw the Japanese viewing (because I’m half-awake at 2am), but I can definitely see why this one would ruffle a few feathers. Let’s just say Ash’s costume was a little too borderline blackface and that’s why it’ll never air in the states.

Anything else!? Not in terms of full episodes. Certain scenes, absolutely! Little baby things were edited due to being not kid-friendly. What’s in those drinks Kukui and Burnet are drinking out of at their own wedding? Champagne? Blasphemy! That’s Orange Juice now! What’s in Delia’s drink in the first episode? Oh we can’t have her pull a Miriam Pataki here! Turn that shit into Pinap Juice! Okay, besides the censorship of drinks, was there anything else? Why, yes, yes there was!

We all know how creepy Team Rocket’s Mimikyu can be. That’s why it’s placed in my top 10 list of characters that scare the shit outta me! Well one scene had Mimikyu’s shadow scare Meowth so horribly, the next scene had Meowth DEAD! Face down in the water! Don’t worry kids, Meowth comes back to life. The U.S. said “OH HELL NO WE CAN’T SHOW THIS! FUCK IS WRONG WITH JAPAN!” And so the face down scene was completely chopped from the dub. Add to that, there were several instances where Meowth almost dies and parts of those scenes are cut from American broadcast.

REFERENCES: If there was one thing this new animation has given us, it has open the doors to using references from other animes and even a few western media projects. And we haven’t really seen much of this since the original series and AG. And even back then, it was mostly just Rose of Versailles references with Team Rocket. I know I give the animation flack for it being a pile of shit compared to better animation shown in XY and DP. But I think the animators do have a little more fun when doing Sun and Moon. And I think it’s loosened them to using other animation styles seen in different and popular animes.

And boy did SM use a butt-load of anime references! Here’s a list of what I was able to remember!

*Facial expressions matching those scene in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure in several episodes *A Mr. Osomatsu reference tossed somewhere *Ping Pong the Animation being used when Illma entered in the Ping Pong competition *Kiawe doing the famous Gendo Ikari pose from Neon Genesis Evangelion in the same episode mentioned above. *Ash and Kiawe making the scary, demonic face Popuko makes when she’s mad on Pop Team Epic, when the two missed out on catching a UB Pokemon. *Transformation scenes with Ash and crew that match those of Power Rangers or every magical girl show. *The girl with many Pikachus has one Pikachu with hair like Boruto (Naruto Uzamaki’s son) *Ash and Pikachu looking like they’re doing the Kamehameha attack during their league match (DBZ, duh) *Rotomdex mentioning it wants to do a sci-fi feature and the image strikes a chord with Star Wars fans everywhere. *Lillie dressed like Utena. Mallow dressed like the rose princess, Anthy. HOLY SHIT, MY OTP IS DOING A REVOLUTIONARY GIRL UTENA REFERENCE! Take my revolution!

And the mother of all references goes to Jessie! Or should I say, her seiyuu Megumi Hayashibara! Pokemon animated many of her iconic roles in one epic scene. Just to name a few of Hayashibara’s roles shown there was Ranma Saotome (Ranma ½) Rei Ayanami (Evangelion), White Kitty (Hello Kitty), Faye Valentine (Cowboy Bebop), and everyone’s favorite Lina Inverse (Slayers). At least in the English dub, Lisa Ortiz popped in for the Lina Inverse moment! Epic on epic on epicly God levels of YES!

MUSIC: Okay in recent years, the English openings have gotten tolerable and the same can be said about the opening themes used this time around. So I won’t bitch about that. So how about I bitch about the BGM?!

Background music, I know a lot of complaints are expressed by loyal Japanese version fans that the English version has completely changed the BGM throughout most of the episodes and even the motion pictures! Yeah, in the I Choose You movie only ONE original BGM was used. The BGM topic never really got to me. But if I remember correctly when 4Kids lost rights to Pokemon and went to the new company, they said that they were going to keep a lot of things true and the BGM was one of them. Yeah, that went to the waist-side real fast! I do believe that they listened to that complaint because in the following movie, the entire score was kept (with the exception of the ED theme by Porno Graffitti).

The Japanese openings…I used to like Alola by Rica Matsumoto. Yeah…used to. Okay, that’s too mean. I don’t hate it on the lengths of V(Volt) from the previous series. It’s just that they used this song in certain scenes that took me out of liking it fully. Now anytime I hear Alola, all I can think about is Ash, Litten, Pikachu, and Rockruff wiggling their asses. Some of the other openings were just okay, I wasn’t too thrilled about them. But there was another thing I feel I should bring up.

Just like the English dub to XY, they wanted to capture a nostalgic feel to the general audience watching, Sun and Moon gave us some of that here. Because of the release of the 20th movie, Rica Matsumoto ended up singing her signature Mezase Pokemon Master again. And as a result, it was the show’s opening for quite some time. Not only that but the last ending theme to Sun and Moon was a cover of Rica’s other hit song Type Wild (now sung by Shoko Nakagawa).

MOVIES: The movies have taken a different turn from what we’ve seen previously. Let’s face it folks, the 10 movies that came out prior to these last three were average AT BEST. And with many other series doing reboots to their old classics, I guess Pokemon decided to do it on a large scale when it came to the story of Ash and Pikachu. With all new animation and a new story, we follow Ash and Pikachu in a much different take on their journey. A much faster-paced story where Ash doesn’t have much of the filler stuff and doesn’t travel with Misty, Brock, or the rest! To which I say, good! I know it means the Sun & Moon gang will never be in a movie, but it also means that animation won’t be there either.

I Choose You was the first movie and from the get-go, fans were upset over seeing a reboot of Ash’s beginning journey with Pikachu and not seeing Misty or Brock. Instead we get a kind of condensed version of certain moments of Ash’s original journey, mixed with new material and get introduced to new characters (who come from Sinnoh of all places). The pokemon featured was Ho-oh, who after all this time was going to be featured in a film and Marshadow because it’s not a pokemon movie without featuring a brand-new pokemon from this era.

The Power of Us, Ash ends up on an island where he meets several new characters who each have their own story to tell including a high school girl, a shy scientist, a pathological liar, an old woman who hates pokemon, and the daughter of the mayor. And we are introduced to another new pokemon, Zeroroa. All five characters (plus Ash) are put through their own trials and tribulations in order to save their town during a festival.

Mewtwo Strikes Back EVOLUTION: It’s the first movie…in CGI/3D/Robot-Chicken-ized, whatever! There’s no need for a synopsis since everybody and their mother knows this story. It’s literally the same story as Mewtwo Strikes Back. Ash and company get invited to an island, Mewtwo causes storms and clones to mess with the people, Mew appears, Pokemon fight, Ash dies, Ash doesn’t die, Mewtwo says profound speech that even Jon Stewart praises, everyone’s minds are erased, and that’s all! They even got the original cast to come back and reused Unshou Ishizuka’s old footage as the narrator for this movie!

The thing about this last movie is that, The Pokemon Company dropped the ball on this. SEVERELY dropped the ball on this! They had the perfect setup, the perfect opportunity to get this in the theaters just in time for the 20th anniversary of the first movie’s release in the U.S. and they do jackshit with it! Not even on Disney XD. For shame!

I will say that these three are a SEVERE improvement on the Pokemon movies. Can anyone with full honesty say that any pokemon movie that came out after the Lucario movie that any of the others were even good? Be honest, almost every movie since AG was just essentially a long side-story with an annoying mythical/legendary that can talk. It got annoying! Plus it just felt like Ash and whoever he was with would just be dragged in the middle of some bullshit and have to save the day. It was fine in the first couple of movies, but the pattern got worn out.

Plus with this alternate timeline to the Pokemon story, it gave the Sun and Moon anime more to work with legendaries and mythical pokemon. Hell, all the main cast was able to catch (and later release) an Ultra Beast pokemon. Not only that, but Mallow got to take care of the mythical pokemon Shaymin for over 40 episodes. Don’t you wish we got that with May and Manaphy? Plus, Ash got to take care of Cosmog and Poipole for an extended amount of time. Okay, my favorite movie of the three.

I Choose You is my favorite out of the bunch. I loved the retelling of Ash and Pikachu starting out on their very first journey. I love the new path they took with this story. I love the new characters introduced, Verity and Sorrel. I love the pokemon that were shown as it gave us a bit of everything from every region up to this point. Yes it was a cluster-fuck in some portions as I had to see past characters shown way different. Cynthia’s Verity’s mother! I can’t unsee this shit! And I will never unsee the messed-up dream Ash had where he was in actual real-world with no pokemon and in a real school where I’m given vivid flashbacks of my fanfic. Regardless, I enjoyed this movie so much. And I got to see many things here that I would always imagine would happen in a final episode of Pokemon (where Ash dies, Pikachu speaks, and an epic fight with Ho-oh). It is now my 2nd favorite Pokemon movie.

+1000000000 points for showing Tracey in the ED credits! Medea screeched in the theaters. I apologize for nothing! Best five seconds I’ve had in years.

TEAM ROCKET UPDATE: As this region does not have Pokemon Contests or that tact on Princess crap from Kalos, we’ll find our favorite trio (+Wobbuffett) going after the twerps and wandering around the area. And while I do enjoy Jessie dipping her foot in the contest arena, this pace can be boring and a blessing at the same time. Unlike previous seasons, we will go episodes at a time where we don’t see Team Rocket. But the episodes where they do show up aren’t the most thrilling. Usually they’ll just be in the background serving treats to background characters.

However, one major improvement with Team Rocket this season is with their pokemon. In the past, Team Rocket has had some unique pokemon that they’ve captured (or stolen…still not letting the Yamnega thing go). In Kanto, James had Victreebel that would eat him. In Hoenn, James had Cacnea that would pinch him every time it came out. In Sinnoh, James had Carnevine that would eat him…Okay, a lot of it is James torture-porn! Regardless, they were entertaining to watch. And I felt a complete slump with their pokemon during BW and XY. This season, pretty much ALL of Team Rocket’s pokemon are entertaining.

Marenie loves James so much that she would blow off being with her own kind to be with James. Even hearing the sounds of wedding bells every time James asks a favor of her! It’s actually adorable to watch Marenie. Jessie’s Mimikyu…I’m almost convinced Mimikyu is the reincarnation of a serial killer. And the biggest pokemon to cause Team Rocket so much grief is one they didn’t even catch, but it sticks around to take care of them like they were children, Bewear! And trust me, they’ve tried catching Bewear. And Bewear smushed the pokeball into poke-dust! Bewear would just come right the fuck out of nowhere, defying logic, gravity, and absurdity to bring Team Rocket back to its cave! This, making it the longest period of time where Team Rocket went without blasting off!

Every time they had the twerps cornered, in comes Bewear to take them back! Whenever they were about to do their traditional blast off, Bewear would come in and take them back to the cave! Even when they’re in fucking Kanto, it managed to swoop in and take them back to the cave. Team Rocket even DEFEATED Ash in a battle and had the perfect opportunity to take the twerp’s Pikachu. But no, Bewear came in and swooped them up! These pokemon were fun to watch this entire series! This was definitely an improvement from the last few seasons. Seriously, I can’t even remember what pokemon Jessie and James had during BW!

BIG TEAM BATTLE: Just like in Unova, Team Rocket ended up getting more attention than the antagonists of Alola. Except here, it’s a little more accepting. It’s just that in Alola, was there really a big team to cause major havoc with world-shaking consequences? Technically, the Aether Foundation wasn’t the big bad team and Team Skull was just a bunch of angsty punks. Regardless, there were two arcs with something epic happening.

The first of course was opening the wormhole and discovering the Ultra Beasts. And in almost the same fashion as the game, Lillie and the rest have to go and rescue her mother from the Ultra Beasts (because Lusamine got taken over by one). Only difference is that game Lusamine wanted to use this power. Anime Lusamine pushed her children out of the way so they wouldn’t get taken away. We did get some great moments with Ash doing a new Z-move with Pikachu, Nebby evolving, and Lillie’s relationship with her mother become stronger.

The second big battle was with Necrozma. Now this one heavily involved Team Rocket as Giovanni disbatched several other members including his assistant Matori and some eye-patch gorilla to try and get this pokemon. However after this incident, we never see Giovanni try to get his hands on this pokemon again or talk about it again. Even when he makes a big foreshadowy deal when he dialed Nanu about it! But in this arc, a mysterious power throughout Alola was making all of the adults listless and lazy. And it was up to Ash and the other kids to get to the bottom of this strange phenomenom.

ENDING – POKEMON LEAGUE: Yeah, this league was going to be different. In the Alolan League, just about anyone can join this certain Pokemon League, as long as you have a Z-crystal, it’s all good. Well, Alola has never had a Pokemon League, which is sort of like what was in the game. So Professor Kukui decided to put this dream into an action and now Alola will hold its first ever Pokemon League! So expect to see the entire cast compete! I’m not kidding!

From the get-go I was worried since Ash’s team here in Alola is pitifully underdeveloped compared to past arcs. And if he were to fight, he’d probably lose to Gladion or Guzma! But since the first task was to knock 151 competitors down to 16, we all know Ash was going to survive this trial. Now in past league competitions and even Pokemon Contests, thinning a big number down would take some time like an episode or two. Here, IT’S A FUCKING FREE-FOR-ALL BATTLE! Trainers coming at you from all angles and you can only use one pokemon! It’s like a mini-game from Mario Party it was that crazy!

The 16 trainers that made the cut are all trainers we know! They all had at least 1 debut episode prior to this moment. So no surprise bastards like Tobias to muck things up! The sixteen competitors are Ash, Mallow, Lillie, Lana, Kiawe, Sophocles, Jessie, James, Faba, Aceorla, Mina, Ilima, Guzma, Hau, Gladion, and Samson Oak! Unbelievable! The entire main cast, Team Rocket, trial people in the games, the head of Team Skull, the island heartthrob, Ash’s two main rivals, and a freakin’ Oak! We could not make this up!

From the Top 8, we wind up with Ash, Guzma, Hau, Gladion, James, Sophocles, Kiawe, and Lana advancing. These next battles had some pretty decent moments including James trying to hold his own against Gladion, Lana and Primarina trying to survive a poisonous dick move from Guzma, and action-packed moments with Kiawe and Sophocles.

…

I don’t want to talk about it. NO, I DON’T! NO ONE WANTS TO TALK ABOUT ASH’S BATTLE WITH HAU! First of all, their rivalry only expands to like two episodes. One episode prior to the league and the rest during the league! You’re just butt-fucking us on this sweet little cinnamon roll. I know the anime really wants to stand out on its own by not giving us awesome rivals that we get in the games like Cheren or Brendan, but God-forbid if you give them some awesome moments before you have them get beaten by Ash and sent back to wherever the fuck they came from! And this battle is just an insult of every level!

I know Ash has been known to pull off some stupid moments in his day when it comes to pokemon battles. He’d put a clear type-disadvantage against a powerhouse pokemon. He’d put all his faith in one pokemon and if it failed, absolutely fuck all. And most common of all, have one of his non-evolved pokemon go up against a fully evolved pokemon. We get the latter when Ash’s insomniac-stricken bird, Rowlet, go up against Hau’s fully-evolved Decidueye. But before the battle, we get some last minute training in done by Toucannon and its bird-kin. You’ve got to be the stupidest mother fu…Forget it, you’re just wasting your breath! Well, it’s because Rowlet is DETERMINED so that gives the green flag to fight in Ash Ketchum’s book.

You stupid fucking idi…

During the fight, Ash and Hau did use their Z-moves early on and both did little to no damage to either one. But it’s freakin’ clear that Hau’s Decidueye is clearly more trained. That’s why the two birds duked it out to a point of both of them being close to knocked out. But in the end, Nanu calls the battle for Decidueye because it got up first. AND ASH LOST!

…Or did he?

No, upon further inspection, ROWLET WAS FUCKING ASLEEP! God, no! No! Good fucking God, what were you writers thinking? You’re trolling us again, aren’t you? Ever since the Sinnoh League, you thought it was a good idea to troll the fucking audience. Like Tobias having another legendary or Davey winning with a fucking Eevee or Ash losing to Alain. You people are fucking with us!

Long story short, Ash and Rowlet get a second chance. They win the battle. Hau cries. Moving on!

NO, WE’RE NOT MOVING ON FROM THIS SHIT! WHO THE FUCK DECIDED THIS TO HAPPEN?! A lot of us fans are still sore over that retarded call back in the Kanto League where Squirtle falling asleep was a K.O. I can’t accept this, not after all the league battles Ash has had before this. Especially the last league against Tierno, Sawyer, and Alain! They are probably watching you and facepalming. Bonnie is laughing at you! Lysandre is calling you a dickhead from beyond the grave! Serena tore up a picture of Ash and went lesbian! Okay, that didn’t really happen. But this episode got me so fucking twisted I find myself eating thunder and shitting out lightening.

And now with Lana’s defeat by Guzma, we’re now in the final four. So…huh…um, new category! I know this is where I’m supposed to talk about the ending with the league, but I feel like I should talk about this.

GENDER AND LEAGUE PLACEMENT: Is it just me or are most competitors and even winners of these things majority male? It’s unknown who won the Kanto League. Johto went to some douchebag no one remembers. Hoenn was won by Tyson. Sinnoh went to Trollbias. Unova went to Davey. And Kalos went to NOT ASH…Alain! And even in the top 4 and 8 sometimes, it’s all men. I really don’t want to put the pussy hat on and claim unfairness to a show I’ve been watching for over 20 years, but…putting Lana up against someone we all know is going to go to the semi-finals…come on man! I probably should have questioned some gender stuff especially with that princess crap in Kalos where it was most, if not all female. But Pokemon Leagues are usually coed! It’s just that prior to Lana, the only other girls I remember competiting in past leagues were Katie from AG and Astrid from XY. Maybe I’m making too much out of it.

BACK TO THE LEAGUE: Thankfully the semi-finals fights were great (compared to that bullshit Hau/Ash match I wish would die). Gladion and Kiawe bro-downed with their match! Guzma learned the hard way of being defeated in the semi-finals by a twerp. Guzma, you may be older than Ash, but Ashy-boy has been defeated so many times in this position it’s not even funny. So the finals were a three-on-three match between Ash and Gladion.

Ash got some good traction with his newly evolved pokemon Melmetal. Gladion was able to put his father’s pokemon, Zoroark into good use. And there was even a double knockout near the end. But somehow, we knew it would go back to a finale of Lycanroc vs. Lycanroc. And this was a nail-bitter. Who the heck knows who was going to end up victorious?

…Actually, a certain publication leaked the result three days before the episode aired…

I fucking hate the internet sometimes.

So Ash won…

*CRAZY-ASS APPLAUSE TIME*

You’d think Jesus “Tap Dancing” Christ rose from the dead with how crazy this was. The internet lost it because after the Kalos League’s close-call and Sinnoh’s B.S. match against the legendaries, they saw this as Ash’s staple in becoming a Pokemon Master. Whatever…

WHAT NEXT?!: Actually, much like what happened after Alain won the Pokemon League, the ceremony was quickly interrupted by the appearance of the gluttenous Ultra Beast, Guzzlord. And it took the power of everyone’s Z-Crystal to get rid of this beast. However, at the end of this powerful battle, Ash and everyone else learned a shocking secret of Professor Kukui.

Kukui is really Alola’s most famous battler, Masked Royal!

Well now that the Delcatty’s out of the bag, might as well have Kukui actually go up against Ash in a six-on-six match. NOW THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT! This was one hell of a match, spanning over three episodes (it was that bad-ass). Kukui’s got one hell of a line-up featuring pokemon from nearly every region. Now because of a certain battle, seeing Rowlet take out one of Kukui’s finest kinda pisses me off. But the biggest fights came from Incenaroar and Torracat. Because they fought, not one, not two, but THREE times! And their bout ended with Ash’s Torracat evolving and a double knockout! OH MY GOD, HOW COULD THIS GET ANY BETTER?!

In comes Tapu-Koko! He said, “Fuck your sixth pokemon, Kukui. I wanna battle this boy I’ve been stalking since 2016!” Yeah, we get one major fight between one of the Tapus and Ash’s Naganadel and Pikachu (and whatever pokemon that isn’t dead) and believe it or not, Ash won! He defeated all of Kukui’s pokemon AND Tapu-Koko. He’s seriously out-doing everything he’s ever done from XYZ! Even going above and beyond with Pikachu by doing a solid reference to Dragon Ball Z…You all know what they referenced.

So Ash, you just won the Pokemon League, you defeated your mentor, you took out one of the island deities, what are you gonna do next?

I’M GOING TO DISNEYLA…PALLET TOWN!

Yeah, I would choose that too Ash. Only for different and hornier reasons! Actually, Ash gave a lot of thought to what was next. Not only him, but everybody in his class! The biggest one of course was Lillie as she has been reading up on her father’s old journals and trying to figure out that gift he left her as a baby before he disappeared. I still can’t believe he got her quite a rare pokemon like Magerna. But Magerna has been a husk until Lillie took care of it and now it’s freakin’ mobil. Back to Ash, it wasn’t really until he fought Kiawe in a post-match fight that he buckled down on what he wants to do next. And I think Olivia mentioning traveling kinda sparked Ash for his next journey.

And wouldn’t you know it, Team Rocket at the same time gets word from Giovanni to pack their shit up and return to Kanto. Mimikyu in its satanic fashion tries to take out Pikachu one last time. But it failed, almost drowned in the water, and was then SAVED by the very Pokemon it’s tried to kill the last 145 episodes. Okay, vendetta over, later bitches. Team Rocket ended up leaving Maernie and Mimikyu in the dead of night. And Bewear promised to watch after them in their absence and gave us something we haven’t seen since this show began…a proper blast off! Team Rocket blasted off once more. I’m feeling quite nostalgic because it’s been a while.

Hey, I just realized. What happened to Jigglypu-

WHO CARES!

Okay then, I’ll probably see it in another 10 years.

Lillie decided to go off with her mother and brother to travel. Lusamine handed over her responsibilities to Rotomdex. And on the day of Lillie’s departure, she ends up almost in the same fashion as Serena’s goodbye (but thankfully we’re on a boat and she can’t do any last-minute smooches). Lillie remembered all that Ash has done for her and how much she’s grown, so she gives him a very earnest “Thank You”. Now for Ash’s goodbye to his host family! Now I’ve pretty much heard and seen the internet cherish this cute bond between Kukui, Burnet, and Ash. And yeah, it’s pretty genuine! Whenever we get an opening scene of them in Kukui’s home, they’re usually doing something family-ish. And they’re definitely going to miss that! Poor Burnet was even crying!

On Ash’s flight back to Pallet Town, he looks out the window and sees his friends giving him one final farewell as they fly through the skies with their partner pokemon.

In the aftermath we see, Sophocles leaving to go with his cousin, Mallow’s older brother returning home, Shaymin transforming into its flying form (yes, flying away leaving Mallow), Kiawe is doing some training with Olivia, Lana traveling with her father to fish for a mythical pokemon, Hau taking on Nanu in a grand trial, Team Skull just hanging there, Bewear looking after Maernie and Mimikyu, Lusamine traveling with the kids, and something that shocked the shit out of me! Even though I called it in the back of my mind!

We close out the episode with Kukui and Burnet sitting together and...

WHAT THE WHAT?!

NANI?

NANI THE FUCK?

IS THAT A BABY BUMP?! It is. It freakin’ is! God I hope Ash didn’t walk in on them having sex. Don’t be silly Medea, they probably conceived this child when Ash was either training or having a sleepover. Truthfully, I say they did the nasty when Ash, Kiawe, and Sophocles spent the night in the woods training.

OOH, BETTER IMAGE! They did roleplaying during sex and Kukui wore the Masked Royal mask! Just let me have this moment guys. I really enjoy frolicking in my gutter mind!

Oh and closing message, “and your dreams!”

I seriously hope the English dub keeps the end credits to this. They have a lousy reputation of skimping on things like that. They even skipped the photo scene at the end of BW. Please for crap’s sake, keep the ending scenes!

Yes, in the back of my mind I thought Sun and Moon would be radical and give us a pregnant Burnet. I knew this would happen sometime after that wedding episode a year and a half ago. But then a few weeks before the Sun and Moon finale, I wound up dreaming about Kiawe’s mother pregnant and she was wearing the exact same dress Burnet is wearing in the final scene. Sometimes my dreams can be fucking spooky and spot-on at the same time.

WOW-EE-WOWEE-WOW-WOW! Okay, um. Some thoughts! This anime gave me such a huge slump during a lot of it. I cannot lie. There was a long period of time where I was just disinterested in Sun and Moon. And seeing how other people were (especially those who were staunch XYZ fans) yeah I can see that. One big, annoying factor was once again, the animation. Yeah, you whiny bitches complaining BW Ash was the worst? You owe that one an apology! Because this Ash looks nothing like the past 5 Ash’s! And they tried this comedic style that won on some parts and failed in other departments. Though, spot-on whenever we get a Jojo’s reference! There were episodes that were just absolute MEH. And this is coming from the same person who sat through all the fillers in Johto, MORE THAN ONCE! And I had some severe reservations about seeing a main cast this huge trying to get some character growth. I had absolutely no expectations for anyone and thought they were gonna serve as dead weight (except for Kiawe and Lana).

Once again, I’m glad to see my expectations are blown away. There has been massive character development and they managed to hit all the main characters and even some of the minor ones. Lillie especially has blossomed throughout the series. As a girl who was afraid of Pokemon, I am impressed at how far she’s come. She was able to overcome her fear of pokemon eventually, hatch a pokemon from an egg, excel the power of Z-moves, bring back to life a rare/mythical pokemon, and even make it to the top 16 of the Alolan League. While Lana is still my best girl of this season, Lillie is definitely a wonder to behold. Sophocles, I had the littlest of hope or care for him. I still am not a fan of him really, but when you see this boy overcome certain anxieties, hurdles, and one sad moment involving the meteorite pokemon, you see he’s a pretty solid character.

And then there’s Mallow…Dammit! So I just realized as I’m wrapping up Sun and Moon.

One of the biggest things I saw was “Family”. And seeing as Alola is a take on Hawaii and one of the biggest things people pride theirselves upon is family, this totally makes sense. In Sun and Moon, we saw a lot of different kinds of families. Small ones like Sophocles. Bigger ones like Kiawe and Lana. Families that have had their own share of heartache like Mallow and Lillie. Ones that end up starting like Kukui and Burnet! Hala and Hau’s little relationship. And even families that are reunited like Bewear and Stuffel! These particular moments and episodes were ones that touched me in a way only Miyazaki can reach. Particularly Mallow’s story! I already mentioned this in the saddest moment category, but Mallow with her deceased mother is one of the best character growth episodes in Pokemon history. Up until that point, we’ve seen Mallow pretty perky, a good cook, and a supportive friend, especially to Ash, Lana, and Lillie. But then we get hit with this one story that no one expected. And now, let’s discuss Ash in this part! We got to see Ash settle in with a second family life with Kukui and Burnet. I mean let’s face it, all the other places Ash traveled he would roam from town to town. Here in Alola, it’s like Kukui was the father he never had and Burnet was like a second mother. And I suppose they felt like Ash was a son to them. So quite fitting they wound up having a baby after his departure.

And it wasn’t just the humans that have grown, but their pokemon too! Many of Ash and his friends’s pokemon were able to grow and shatter all expectations. Two of Ash’s pokemon especially deserve that praise and that’s Lycanroc and Incenaroar. Back when Lycanroc was a Rockruff, he always strived to get stronger. And in later episodes, it looked up to other Lycanroc like Olivia’s and Gladion’s. Then it evolved and it’s been quite the journey to try and train this doggo to it’s full potential. And because this is one of Ash’s pokemon, this has gotta be a one-of-a-kind pokemon (dusk form). Well Lycanroc has overcome some tough obstacles (yes, including bearing through getting dirty) and went on to be one of Ash’s top pokemon.

Litten, THANKFULLY didn’t have a dickhead trainer abusing him like many of Ash’s other fire-type pokemon. But Litten’s story was far from perfect as it was a stray cat pokemon living on the streets with an old Stoutland. And Ash took in Litten after Stoutland passed away. Litten was a pretty decent member of Ash’s team, but definitely got the fire in his eyes when he saw Masked Royal and Incenaroar. That encouraged Litten throughout the series to get stronger. Even leading to one of the best fights during Kukui and Ash’s match! Good doggo, good kitty!

Oh yeah, probably should talk about the battles! Unlike the other gyms up to this point, Ash went through Grand Trials (just like you would in the game). Except Ash really didn’t do that many of those mini trials since Kiawe, Lana, Mallow, and Sophocles were his classmates and not giving out tests! But Ash still wound up battling the big kahunas like Hala, Olivia, Nanu, and Hapu. And in the old Ash fashion, there were battles he won like a champ, ones where he’d have to try again, and ones where he got supremely lucky. Yeah, that Ash vs. Hapu match was such bullshit. But I’d still take that match over Ash vs. Hau in the Alolan League!

I will NEVER get over that match. Yeah aside from that travesty, a lot of the Pokemon League matches were pretty stellar, even the ones not involving Ash. I really enjoyed Sophocles vs. Kiawe and the Lana vs. Mallow match.

LET’S LOOK BACK AT MY HIGH HOPES: At the end of Pokemon XY, I made a nice list of things I would like to see. Did any of my high hopes come to fruition? Let’s see…

First of all, NO, I DID NOT SEE MY ANIME HUSBAND! For fuck’s sake Pokemon! If Snorlax exists at the Oak lab, Tracey Sketchit should too. They both came from the same arc. But NO! He’s not at the lab and doesn’t even get a mention. That is messed up! I don’t know if this is because they couldn’t get Tomokazu Seki to stop playing Gilgamesh for a second to come back or they’re trying to distance themselves from the Orange Islands as much as possible, or if they just FORGOT his existence, but I’m not digging this. No, Medea hates this with a holy fucking passion.

Old characters returning under this new style! Yeah, it happened. I think I was only a fan of how the women looked, so Misty and Delia looked okay to me. I just wasn’t a fan of Professor Oak and Brock. Although, kudos to the anime for having Brock take his shirt off and show off his six-pack. DAMN BOY! The animation ended up staying the same throughout the series, but I managed to tolerate/muscle through it.

I know I forgot to write this part, but I really wanted Kukui to remain single for the series. Yeah, that fell at the waist-side! Kukui was single…but then he got married. Okay, I can accept it. That was the cutest proposal, I have to admit that. And I was howling when I saw pregnant Burnet at the end. So alls well that ends well!

Let’s see, Lusamine wasn’t voiced by Miki Itou like I wanted. Then again, this Lusamine wasn’t a psycho bitch. Although kudos for getting Nobuhiko Okamato voicing Gladion. I am forever happy with that outcome.

Did I get more Clefables? FUCK YEAH, I DID! Holy shit, I forgot Lusamine had a Clefable in the games and didn’t even think the anime was going to keep that, but HOLY SHIT THEY DID AND I’M SO HAPPY! Not only that but we were able to see Clefable every so often. It’s so adorable. I just wanna hug her!

Lillie’s egg of course wasn’t Cosmog, it was Alolan Vulpix. Cosmog can’t be hatched. It just magically appears. Hey, cute choice though!

Did Ash catch a psychic pokemon? Uhhhhhhh…no! Still no psychic type.

Did I see Wicke and Olivia, fuck yeah I did! Wicke is adorable especially when she bosses Faba around. My only thing with Olivia is that, I wish the anime didn’t make her into a clumsy oaf the whole time. My God, she tripped more times than Bianca did during Best Wishes. That’s sad! Now her being the object of Brock’s eye, that I wasn’t expecting. I’m wondering if Brock will keep in contact with Olivia or if he’s moved onto another booty-call of the day.

Overall, it was a bumpy start for me to get into Sun and Moon. But it wasn’t until we got to important things like the Aether Foundation, Mallow’s mother, and Guzma’s debut that got me back fully invested. I know it’s damn near impossible to convince staunch XYZ fans to watch this, but give it a shot for the stories. The animation is just so undoable after what XY has given us, but still.

Currently, most (if not all) episodes of Sun and Moon dubbed will be available on Hulu, Netflix, Pokemon TV, and Disney XD. Yeah, no one has gotten around to giving us legal subtitled episodes sad to say. Here’s hoping Disney XD will continue holding onto the Pokemon license as they happen to be the ONLY one that literally has all episodes available. On the channel, they still kinda restrict themselves to only playing the current season, but sometimes we get lucky with the movies.

MORE HIGH HOPES: Okay, new high hopes for the new Pokemon series, Pokemon…um, 2019? Seriously guys, what’s up with this cryptic-ass series?

*Signs that Tracey Sketchit exists. Just show him at Oak’s lab or somewhere in this series. That’s all I ask. I will even swallow my pride and allow him to be at the Waterflower Slut Brigade in Cerulean. Just please, for the love of Arceus, show him to me. That flash in the 20th movie does not settle me. Give him to me, now! Don’t care how, I WANT IT NOW! I am the Veruca Salt of seeing Tracey again.

*Aside from Tracey, and seriously show him to me already…If at possible, update on May and Iris. Everyone else can go fuck off! These two deserve an update if Ash is doing this around the world adventure with his new boy-toy Gou. I know it may be difficult to get their voice actors back as I’m sure Aoi Yuuki’s schedule is insane and Kaori has an illness preventing her from voicing. Still! Something from those two…AND ONLY THOSE TWO FEMALES! I’m sick of Misty popping in without giving us what we want. Dawn and Serena need to go to the Pokemon version of Antartica until 2030. And unless Mallow, Lana, and Lillie make a shocking discovery, I don’t want to see them for a few years.

*CLEFABLES! Okay, yeah, that goes without saying!

*YAMPER or as I call him, Winston Corgles Ein Handbanana the Breadloaf must be seen at least once every two episodes.The opening theme doesn’t count. I want to see Winston Corgles Ein Handbanana the Breadloaf.

*Eventually spend some time in Galar and fight gym battles there. I know the Pokemon anime wants to take a sharp left turn into WTF territory, but sometimes don’t mess with the status quo and have Ash take on some gyms. Mmkay?!

*If Team Rocket and Giovanni really have to show up again, could we PLEASE finally get Ariana, Archer, Petrel, and Proton to be in the anime? Or as my friend calls them, the Stupid Sexy Rocket Execs!

*And while we’re at it, could we get an arc in this series where Ash goes to the Battle Tower in Sinnoh?

*Give James a Galarian Weezing.

*Rica Matsumoto must eventually sing an OP theme for this series. Goes without saying!

*Give Ash a Psychic type.

*I know nobody ages in this show, but please don’t keep Burnet pregnant forever. Also, if Ash decides to visit Kukui and Burnet again, I wanna see their baby.

Final category (I promise)!

IN MEMORIUM: I would like to close my review to Pokemon: Sun & Moon to talk about a certain voice that has been at the center of the Pokemon anime from day one. That was Unshou Ishizuka. If you watched the Japanese version of Pokemon, chances are you have heard this man’s voice in any episode you watch. Whether as Professor Oak or the narrator! Not only those two, but voiced Alder in the Black/White series, Samson Oak in the Sun/Moon series, several versions of the Pokedex, Magikarp Salesman, and many notable pokemon including Misty’s Gyarados, Cilan’s Stunfisk, Dawn’s Mamoswine, Ash’s Muk, Brock’s Onix/Steelix, and even Tracey’s Scyther. In August 2018, he passed away from Esophagus Cancer. So losing someone of this caliber is a huge hit to Pokemon.

I didn’t start watching the Japanese version religiously until 2006 (right around the time the dub murdered eardrums). But I was able to hear him as Onix and Gyarados early on because they had the same voice throughout the entire series run in English. But I had a lot of fun listening to him as Professor Oak when I switched to the Japanese version. Not to mention his other roles outside the Pokemon series including Mr. Satan in the later Dragon Ball series and Grandpa Joestar on JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. I seriously miss him. May he rest in peace.

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thewellzine · 4 years

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Some books I’ve acquired or read (or both) during quarantine.

By William Page

Hoodoo by Ronald L. Smith

I recently added a bunch of middle grade speculative fiction by Black authors to my list because 1. I’ll never outgrow good middle grade fiction and 2. I want to be able to give better recs to young Black readers. The blurb told me that the main character’s name is actually Hoodoo (Hatcher). Wasn’t expecting that. It also alludes to a central conflict between Hoodoo and a sinister stranger with “black magic,” a characterization that Courtney Reid-Eaton long ago brought to my attention as problematic (equating blackness or darkness with evil). Still, I haven’t come across many middle grade books dealing with Black folk magic, and I’m interested in seeing what the author does with it.

The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter

Has been on my radar for a while. I’ve heard it described as a collection of feminist retellings of “traditional” fairytales and myths, which I can definitely get down with. It does make me think about conversations we’ve had during the course of the DDP re: subverting the “canon” vs. forgetting it/making a new one.

Zone One by Colson Whitehead

I can’t overstate my love for this person. The Underground Railroad blew my mind. The Nickel Boys was great in a completely different, often more subtle way. His oeuvre makes a case for him as the most versatile writer writing. I also had a chance to hear him give a talk once, and can personally attest to his wit and humor. I’d never read this one, and reached for it as a relevant quarantine/pandemic read (i.e. it takes place in the aftermath of a pandemic that has turned most people into zombies). Unfortunately, though, the beginning didn’t grab me, and I eventually put it down. This has happened with books that I’ve later come back to and loved (most notably One Hundred Years of Solitude), so I’m hopeful that this just wasn’t the right time.

Forest of a Thousand Daemons: A Hunter’s Saga by D. O. Fagunwa

Marlon James put me on during an episode of his podcast with his editor, Jake Morrissey (“Marlon and Jake Read Dead People”). He sighted it as one of the works that influenced his Black, queer, epic, epic, epic fantasy masterpiece, Black Leopard, Red Wolf. Fagunwa’s novel is considered the first ever written in Yoruba, and it predated fantasy “classics” like Lord of the Rings. It’s strictly episodic in form, and I most enjoyed the rich depictions of the mythological beings inhabiting the forest.

The Jumbies by Tracey Baptiste

Same as with Hoodoo, I want to read this partially because I want to be able to recommend more Black, speculative works to young Black readers! The blurb told me that it’s a retelling of a classic Haitian folktale, “The Magic Orange Tree,” which I’m not familiar with. Rather, I was drawn by the title, which reminded me of the mako jumbie that makes a brief but memorable appearance in Nalo Hopkinson’s Midnight Robber. Haillee Mason also recently introduced me to moko jumbies. So, I guess I’ve been thinking a fair amount about jumbies.

Meji: Book One by Milon Davis

Milton Davis writes what Charles Saunders coined “sword-and-soul,” or sword-and-sorcery (a fantasy subgenre) centering African histories, cultures, traditions, mythologies, etc. (Davis wrote a short sword-and-soul primer that can be found at https://www.miltonjdavis.com/post/a-sword-and-soul-primer.) Sword-and-sorcery/soul isn’t typically my go-to speculative subgenre, but I’m excited to give it a try.

Let’s Play White by Chesya Burke

I just started reading this collection of stories. The first, “Walter and the Three-Legged King” (which surprised me with the collection’s titular phrase[?]), was just okay to me. The second, “Purse,” was really short and disturbing (not a bad thing). The third, “I Make People Do Bad Things,” was a well-rendered, somewhat morbid period piece (definitely Harlem, seemingly sometime in the early part of the 20th century, though I don’t think it’s stated explicitly) with several big characters. The fourth, “The Unremembered,” was very tender and fed my interest in explorations of legacy and inheritance. All were undoubtedly unique in concept. I’m looking forward to the rest.

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey

I don’t read a ton of brand-new releases by author’s I’m not already somewhat familiar with, but this one drew me for whatever reason. I saw it described as a story about a group of travelling, queer librarians in an unambiguously fascist, dystopian, near-future American West. The story moves pretty quickly (with lots of action), and I found myself wishing it was longer. Still, the author develops the two main characters well and I was at times audibly rooting for them. The depiction of the various forms that resistance can take and the ways in which community underpins it all felt very relevant.

Lakewood by Megan Giddings

Land, who owns the bookshop where I work, brought me this advance copy from the American Booksellers Association’s 2020 Winter Institute. I didn’t get around to it for a few months, and therefore didn’t realize that he got her to sign it to me :) It (the book) was chilling primarily because of how plausible it felt thanks to our country’s long history of race-based medical experimentation and violence.

The New Moon’s Arms by Nalo Hopkinson

Nalo Hopkinson is one of the O.G.s of Black Caribbean speculative fiction. I have a bunch of her novels (including the aforementioned Midnight Robber), but had never heard of this. The blurb doesn’t give much away regarding the mechanism of the main character’s power, and that makes me really curious about it. The power to find lost things sounds ideal, but it’ll clearly be much more complicated than that.

The City We Became by N. K. Jemisin

I don’t post much on IG, but The City We Became brought me out of the woodwork. Since I already wrote that, I’ve copied it below.

It's like she wrote a love letter to NYC and let us read it. And by "love letter," I don't mean trite, or even always that warm, or rooted in romanticization. The city I met as a reader felt genuine, with a definite edge. Also taut, maybe? Somehow still very tender. Gritty (this one might be trite, but, if so, charge it to me, not her). Frustrating in ways that rang true and which were often tooooooo familiar. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that soul-sucking gentrification, general anti-Blackness, the ways that capital and power operate in art spaces, and a host of other ills not unique to any one place figure prominently in the story. And in this case, they become magnified in an interdimensional way, become harbingers and footholds for something incomprehensible and deeply unsettling (her imagery for this element, in particular, is striking). The story was also, at times, kind of hilarious. And thrilling. And everything but simple or straightforward, which makes sense given that it's a meditation on cities (which are neither of those things). What are they, then, really? What gives them their soul? In what ways are they strong, and from where does this strength flow? And what might one do or sacrifice for their own? It's not difficult to get some sense of how she feels about hers (in her acknowledgements she says she's both hated and loved the city, and I immediately thought about Jimmie Fails iconic quote from The Last Black Man in San Francisco: "you don't get to hate it unless you love it.") It definitely caused me to reflect more on mine. At this point, I have her to thank for way more than a few trippy and magnificent reading experiences. How lucky I feel to be living in the time of N.K. Jemisin.

#quarantine #books #reading #black speculative fiction #william page

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low-budget-korra · 5 years

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Lets talk about Korra

Today I will speak of her, which in my opinion is one of the greatest characters everr : Avatar Korra.

At first we see a 17 year old girl who probably had her first contact with a lot of things. First contact with a big city, first crush, first handful of responsibilities, first threat...

It is worth mentioning that since day one, Korra has embraced the role of Avatar with all strength and love. She felt proud of her position and willing to do her job as the Avatar

(look at this precious little thing)

Remember that she spent her entire life locked in a training center, without contact with the rest of the world, so her knowledge of everything beyond the gates where she lived was new.

Right in the beginning we see her dealing with some Equalists Protestants, which she does not take seriously. And only when she witnesses the power of the leader of this movement, she begins to take the threat very seriously and also, to fear this man more than everything in her life until then.

What does Amon represents for Korra?

I think this question can be easily answered by Korra's simple argument of love being the Avatar. And at least in the beginning of the book one they hinted that her life was just about that, Being the Avatar.

We are not introduced to any friends of Korra, except for Naga, or past boyfriend / girlfriend. Nothing. We only know that this girl is the Avatar. And I would not be surprised if that was the only way she saw herself.

Maybe that's why fight in pro-bending was so important. Not only as a means of socialization, after all it was thanks to the pro-bending that she met her friends, but also as a training and more important, search for identity. I think part of the journey of Korra in the first two books is a lot about that: search for identity.

Then, answering the question, Amon is the only person who can destroy that image, which can destroy Korra. He can destroy it without even needing to kill it. And that's exactly what he does.

In episode 4, we have, in my opinion, the darkest episode of the entire Avatar series. To be honest, I'm sure that if TLOK were a live action series for example, we may have a scene of sexual assault or an explicit threat of this there , because of the power struggle there between those two characters, no, power abyss and the way Amon touch her, her face, without her consent . Some people felt some kind of sexual tension there, no wonder there are people who shiped Amorra (Korra and Amon) back in the day.

That scene is powerful because Amon did not have to sexually touch Korra to violate her. At least, this whole situation served for her to open up with Tenzin over her fears and consequently learn how to deal with them, because I'm sure Korra did not get over what happened there so fast.

Still about Power Dispute we have another character who exemplifies this: Tarrlok. Tarrlok is a rising politician who uses Korra as a pawn in his goal to seize the power of Republic City. Amon also uses the same trick, after all, the moment he defeats the Avatar, the city would be his.

So we have this young woman who will stop right in the middle of a political power dispute.

Tarrlok also serves as a comparative. While Amon wants to dominate and destroy the avatar figure, not caring about who she is, Tarrlok wants to dominate and use Korra. And this makes me think that, that metal box was made exclusively for her. Like if that shit was for Amon, he didnt know Amon was a bender so an simples cell would be good. I think Tarrlok knew that Korra may ruin his plans so he had that as his plan B.

In the end Korra lost the physical battle but won the ethical battle against both. But at what price? Amon was able to remove the bends of the Avatar. And without them, how could she be the Avatar?

I also strongly believe that one of the final scenes of the season, when Korra is facing a cliff, I believe she might be thinking about taking her life. After all, everything she was, everything she'd trained so hard for, had been destroyed in minutes.

She, with the help of Aang and the other avatars, recovered her bends and with the help of everyone, including her then boyfriend Mako, she "moved on."

In the next one, I used to hate the first half of book 2, but then I came to see with different eyes.

In that first half, Korra is unbearable. Everything she learned in Book 1 how to be more mature, less spoiled and all, was thrown in the trash and she was the same "child" of the book one only worse.

Until I stopped and realized that I was also unbearable and childish like this when I had my bad phases of anxiety and depression, as defense mechanism and keep people away. Returning to Korra, and if this way of acting of her was nothing more than this defense mechanism?

Whether or not she was betrayed by her own Uncle. Imagine, shortly after having your life turned upside down, when you are recovering, trying to recover your image as Avatar and suddenly your own uncle betrays you? Yeah.

"Oh, but she should not have stayed on his side against her father"

Yes, but remember that our, still young avatar, has fallen into the trap of believing and trusting someone just because that person says everything she want it to hear.

In the end, Korra again goes through a traumatic moment when she has her connection with past lives destroyed. We see how it affected her when she apologizes to Tenzin, through tears. And Tenzin, as the excellent master he is, tries to motivate her to face Vaatu again (now merged with Unalaq, her uncle) and so she is able to beat him and secure another 10 thousand years of Light to the world.

In the final moments, we see the (somewhat innocent) decision to reconnect the world of spirits and the world of men. And we also see Korra and Mako permanently end their turbulent relationship, which I will speak more ahead.

Book 3 begins in a more mature, we see all the characters being presented in a more mature way and it seems that Korra, now, has overcome everything that has passed. We have the relationship between Korra and Asami deepening as well, and I will also comment further on.

In Book 3, called "Change" we have a great sacrifice from Korra. Her life goes down a notch when she decides to save the new airbenders from Zaheer and the Red Lotus, the strongest villain she's ever faced.

Zaheer, unlike the other villains, who had not explicitly intended to kill Korra, had as goal just to kill the Avatar. And he almost succeeded.

Not only that, Korra was physically and psychologically defeated. She won the battle but not the war, we can say so.

So book 4 begins and we only come across Korra in the final minutes and she is unrecognizable. We see that, once proud and courageous avatar, in someone depressed and cowed.

I think it's visible that Korra is afraid of being the Avatar again, Toph even tells her that during the season. And I think it's totally plausible.

Korra's fight against PTSD is one of the most honest and realistic things I've ever seen. Do you think that after a violent battle and almost die, even winning in the end, the hero returns home and everything is okay? I think not.

Not only what happened in the end of book 3 , but i believe that she also has having flashs or thoughts about all her fights and all the traumatic shit that she passed

Another thing I think is worth quoting is that Korra took 3 years to feel safer and re-embrace her duties as Avatar. It was not 3 weeks or 3 months, it was 3 years. And anyone who suffers from some mental illness knows very well the stigma that is, the fight that is, because everyone wants you to be well in 6 months when the truth is that many times you spend years fighting against this. And this is a pressure that falls on you.

Imagine, seeing all your friends moving forward while you continue "stock in the same place"?

Only after Korra confronts Zaheer, I think that was a way to show her coping with the trauma, she improves to the point of returning to be the great Avatar we know. The once "monster Zaheer" who almost kill her now is some dude in chains who fail at his plans and created an big problem and needed Korra to solve it

One of the quotes that struck with me most was in that filler episode thats a summary of all what happened in the show , and in the part narrated by Korra she says "I was so naive" and the way Janet delivered that line..., with some pain and I know the sadness but at the same time, stronger and more mature ... I think it means a lot.

here in tumblr I think, I saw a phrase that until today marks me that is :

"The Last Airbender is a story of a boy who becomes a god. The Legend of Korra is the story of a goddess who becomes a girl "

This is strong!

And I get very angry when someone comes to downgrade my baby Korra because she is such an incredible heroine and her journey is also incredible.

The story of how life can be hard and unfair, how it can hurt and paralyze, but there is always a reason to move on. We should always move on.

Korra is definitely not weak, quite the opposite, she is one of the if not the strongest heroine I have ever seen. Korra inspires overcoming.

Now l will let to talk about the relationships tomorrow. I promise

#the legend of korra #korrasami #avatar korra #mako #the last airbender #aang #asami #tenzin #lets talk about

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mass-effect-tales · 4 years

Text

Sparks Fly ch.7

Kiara's head pounded as she woke up. She cursed as she slowly sat up and looked around. She recognized the Normandy med bay and noticed Tali sitting nearby.

"If you're my nurse then I must have done something right. Now where's my sponge bath?" Kiara snickered. Ever since Tali joined her and Kiara had become fast friends talking over mechanics. Tali had gotten used to her play flirting real quick after the first few pickup lines.

"I think you should ask your boyfriend for that instead of me." Tali replied without looking up from her holopad.

"Boyfriend? Since when did I get one of those?" Kiara's stomach growled when she smelled the plate of food on the table next to her bed. She happily began to eat while Tali moved her seat closer to Kiara.

"So you and Decimus aren't together? You could have fooled me. He barely left your side while you were out."

Kiara paused mid bite. He stayed with her while she was unconscious? If it wasn't for the fact she needed to eat to regain her energy, she would probably have lost her appetite.

"Where is he now?

"I think he's talking to Joker on the main deck."

Once Kiara finished her meal she made her way up to the main deck. She nodded at Shepard who was looking over the galaxy map. She could hear Decimus and Joker cracking jokes as she walked up to him.

"Hey Joker can I steal Decimus from you for a bit?" Kiara asked, making Decimus jump in surprise.

"Well look who's up. Yeah sure, I need to think of some more jokes anyway."

Kiara grabbed Decimus's arm and dragged him away. She led him into the meeting room and turned on him as soon as the doors closed.

"Are you falling for me?" Kiara asked, making Decimus make a surprised trill from his subvocals.

"Where did this come from?!"

"Just answer the question."

Decimus's mandibles were pressed against his face as he looked away.

"I might have started feeling something more for you."

Kiara sighed, she hoped that this wouldn't happen.

"Listen, I'll tell you now that I'm not dating material."

"Why would you say that?" Decimus reached out to take her hand but she stepped back and out of his reach.

"There's a reason why I just have friends with benefits and not a relationship."

"Why?"

"Talk to Jane. I can't talk about it." Kiara quickly walked out leaving Decimus to watch her leave. He walked out of the meeting room and went to Shepard.

"Commander, could I speak to you for a moment alone?"

Shepard looked up from the galaxy map and at him with a raised eyebrow.

"Is everything alright?"

"Um, it's about Kiara."

A look of recognition passed over Shepard's face.

"Joker, set course for Noveria. I'll be in my cabin."

"You got it commander."

She gestured for Decimus to follow her as she headed down to her cabin. She didn't speak until they were in her cabin.

"Alright, what do you need to know?"

"Why doesn't she want anyone dating her."

Shepard sighed, a hand moving to rub her temple. "It's not that she doesn't want to date, she doesn't trust anyone that wants to be with her."

"How come?"

"Do you know about what happened to the human colony Mindoir?"

Decimus nodded, not liking where this was going.

"Kiara and I were the only survivors of the raid. I found a place to hide but Kiara was taken. She was one of the people tortured in front of Alliance Marines who were pinned down and unable to reach us to help. When she was finally saved she wouldn't go anywhere without me for months and frequently had night terrors. She still suffers from them and has dealt with multiple partners break it off when they couldn't handle her during an episode."

While Shepard couldn't hear it Decimus was growling softly with his subvocals. If he ever found out the identity of any of her previous partners he'd probably call them a coward for leaving her at her weakest point.

"Is there anything I can do to show her I wouldn't do that?"

Shepard smiled slightly. "Take it slow and just keep being you. If she lashes out just take it. She talks big and says things she doesn't mean when overwhelmed or upset but it's never true. If you hear her having a night terror try to comfort her or get me."

Decimus nodded, turning to leave when Shepard stopped him.

"Also if you ever hurt her I'll break your legs and all that protective friend stuff." She said with a laugh. Decimus laughed lightly but something told him she wouldn't hesitate to feed him his mandibles if he ever hurt Kiara.

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

Kiara cursed as she dodged another blast from one of the asari commandos. Her head was starting to kill her the longer they fought. Behind her Shepard, Kaiden and Liara fought to take down Benezia.

"Not to sound like a bitch or anything but I could use a hand here!"

She smirked when she heard a roar from Wrex and rolled out of the way to let him charge down two of the commandos. When the third commando dropped she knew Tali had taken care of her.

"And Jane said two teams would be overkill. Remind me to tell her I was right." Kiara and her team rejoined Shepard right after Benezia died. Both groups were amazed to see the living rachni queen. Kiara ignored the group arguing about if the queen should live or die and walked over to Shepard.

"What are you thinking Janey?" She could see Shepard was contemplating as she stared at the rachni queen.

"I don't think she deserves to die. From the sound of it, something made the rachni act differently."

"It's your call, whatever you decide you know I'll support you."

Shepard nodded, hand hovering over the release switch before hitting it. On the way back to the Normandy, Wrex continued to voice his displeasure at Shepard's choice.

"I still think that was a stupid decision." Wrex grumbled from the back of the group.

"And I think you guys have two balls too many but you don't hear me complaining." Kiara replied, flipping him off when he started to grumble again.

"You humans have the strangest insults, am I supposed to be intimidated by that?" Wrex snorted as Kiara looked back to glare at him.

"More like an invitation to suck my nonexistent dick or shut the hell up."

Wrex let out a booming laugh as they boarded the Normandy. "I like the quad on this one! You would have made a good krogan. Too bad you're too squishy."

"You call this squishy?" Kiara lifted her shirt after removing her armor to show her toned stomach.

"I'm not asking why Kiara is taking her clothes off in front of Wrex." Decimus stated when he saw the scene he just walked into. While Shepard went to take the call from the council Kiara and Decimus headed to the dining hall. While Kiara was making herself a sandwich, Decimus was hugging her from behind and resting his head on her shoulder.

"You know it's really hard to move when you're doing this," she stated, a hint of a smile on her lips. Decimus just purred and hugged her tighter.

"Too bad. I'm not moving."

"Would you two do that somewhere else?"

Both looked over to see Ashley rolling her eyes at them. Decimus saw Kiara smirk and knew immediately she was up to something.

"Do what? You mean this?"

She turned around and surprised Decimus by tugging him down and pressing her lips to his mouthplates. He knew it was just to tease Ashley but he was going to savor the feeling of her lips while he can. His purr deepened as he pulled her closer and tried not to chuckle when he heard Ashley gag.

"You two are disgusting." Ashley scoffed, getting up and heading for the lower deck. Kiara snickered as she pulled away from Decimus.

"I hope you know I didn't mean anything with that kiss. I just wanted to piss her off."

"If you kiss me like that you can piss off whoever you want." Decimus replied with a silly grin that made his mandibles flutter. Kiara rolled her eyes and slipped out of his arms so she could go eat with Jane. It was then Decimus noticed Garrus was standing at the other end of the hall looking at him with a raised brow.

"I don't think I've ever seen you act this way with a woman before." Garrus mused as he walked over. Decimus shrugged as he grabbed himself a drink.

"Probably because I don't see her as a one night stand. I really care about her."

"I'm not judging your taste in women, I just don't see the appeal of a human."

"So you're telling me you weren't checking out the commander last week?"

Garrus tensed, "I was impressed with her negotiating skills, nothing more."

Decimus chuckled, patting him on the shoulder as he walked by. "You keep telling yourself that."

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

"You know Jane when I said our next mission should be to the beach, this isn't what I meant."

Kiara leaned against the wheel of the mako as Shepard went over Kirrahe's plan.

"I'll join the second team. You're needed to arm the bomb." Ashely spoke up. Kiara rolled her eyes as Ashley and Kaiden argued on who should go with Kirrahe.

"How about this, I'll go with Ashley and Decimus can go with Shepard. He can help break into the base and I can provide backup."

Shepard nodded, "just be careful I want you both back in one piece."

Kiara smirked giving Shepard a mock salute as she went over her weapons. Once she was ready she walked over to Wrex to see how he was doing.

"How're you holding up big guy?"

Wrex grunted, "you better hope Shepard is right about this."

"Trust me, I know Jane and she would do everything in her power to find a proper cure if she could."

Wrex let out a snort, side eyeing her. "What about you? Do you think the krogan deserve a cure for the genophage."

Kiara didn't look at him as she stared at the waves lapping at the shore. "As someone who can't have kids I know that I'd give anything to be able to have a child."

Wrex hummed walking past her and pushed his shotgun into her arms.

"Come back in one piece."

Kiara smirked as she strapped his shotgun to her back. "I plan to."

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

"Shepard we have geth flyers keeping us from advancing. Anyway you can take care of them?" Ashley called over the comms while Kiara kept watch at the back of the group.

"Decimus found the fueling station. The flyers have been taken care of."

"Roger that, move out!" Ashley gestured for the team to move forward. Kirrahe had Kiara advance to the front of the group to begin the frontal assault while his men fired long distance. Ashley watched Kiara's back as she threw herself into the middle of geth and blasted them back with a mix of biotics and Wrex's shotgun.

"Alright, Ashley and I will go on ahead to regroup with Jane." Kiara gestured to the stairs ahead of them.

"Alright, our team will retreat to the ships and move out of the blast radius. Good work Williams, Odell." Kirrahe nodded to the women as they ran to the stairs.

"Y'know, you weren't half bad back there Ash." Kiara commented, looking over her shoulder at Ashley with a grin. Ashley returned her grin and gestured to the shotgun.

"I could say the same about you. I've never seen a vanguard on the field before but I can see why you guys take the front line."

"Oh yeah, nothing is more intimidating than an angry vanguard charging at you."

Kiara's laughter was cut short when a bullet broke through her shields and pierced her side. Ashley quickly pulled Kiara down behind a stack of crates as the geth swarmed from their hiding spots and shot at where the women took cover.

"Shepard! We're pinned down and Kiara has been shot!

#fanfic #mass effect #mass effect oc #human/turian

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marshmallowgoop · 5 years

Text

Ryuko Story Mode Thoughts

So, that update to the Kill la Kill the Game: IF site today revealing that there’ll be a Ryuko story mode available after beating Satsuki’s definitely took me by surprise!

Seeing Ryuko and Senketsu together in Senketsu-Kisaragi is especially heartening. While Senketsu-Kisaragi’s appearance in the game has arguably been evident since the release of the first poster (which features Senketsu’s eyes in their Kisaragi form), the in-game model looks absolutely beautiful.

It’s also so sweet to see Ryuko smiling with Senketsu-Kisaragi, since that didn’t happen much in the anime. But the fact that Ryuko smiles in her promotional image of Senketsu-Kisaragi while Satsuki does not in her promotional images of Junketsu-Shinzui perhaps hints at the different natures of these final forms. Junketsu-Shinzui is stated to be an “opposite” of Senketsu-Kisaragi, so while Senketsu-Kisaragi may be an enjoyable experience for both Senketsu and Ryuko, Junketsu-Shinzui may be a painful experience for both Junketsu and Satsuki.

The few details given about Ryuko’s story mode also beg a lot of questions about the plot of the game. Ryuko’s in-game scenario is confirmed to be canon to Satsuki’s, with both being part of an alternate retelling of the anime. The branching-off point of the game from the anime is when Ragyo interrupts the Naturals Election rather than Nui. As a result, Ryuko is able to fight all of the Elite Four, and she also fights—and loses to—Satsuki. The small blurb about Ryuko’s storyline adds:

After Ryuko is defeated by Satsuki, Nui appears before her. Now determined to become stronger, is Ryuko really going to ask Nui to train her!? And what about the secret of the Original Life Fiber that was not revealed in the original series?

Of course, the possibility of Nui training Ryuko would be a drastic departure from the anime, and this new information (maybe) helps answer some of my earlier questions about Nui’s role in the game, which were as follows:

Actually, what the heck is Ryuko talking about in her character introduction with Nui when she says, “I won’t be fooled by your words anymore! I only fight for the truth now!”? Will Nui and Ryuko interact more in the game? Will Nui not immediately reveal to Ryuko that she killed her father?

As it turns out, it’s likely that the answer to my last two questions is “yes.” And, if Ryuko does indeed seek Nui’s help to become stronger as the website’s story page suggests, then Ryuko’s claim that she “won’t be fooled by [Nui’s] words anymore!” makes a lot of sense. Much like the situation with Maiko in episode 4 of the anime, it seems that Ryuko will be tricked and taken advantage of by Nui, who will hide the truth of Isshin’s murder.

In fact, in an accompanying screenshot on the site, Nui fights with a needle instead of the other half of the Scissor Blade. This image could possibly come from one of Ryuko and Nui’s training sessions.

Yet, such a scenario definitely creates as many questions as it answers. For instance, why would Ryuko be willing to trust Nui? She would have to know—or at least be able to easily find out—that Nui is the Grand Couturier of REVOCS. Will Nui disguise herself as she does in the anime? Is the possible training image simply an actual fight between Ryuko and Nui? Or is there some more severe trickery at foot?

While I don’t have any concrete answers, Ryuko’s battle dialogue with Nui (as seen in the Sakura Fight Festa footage) does confirm that this alternate retelling doesn’t change the origin story: Ryuko still tells Nui, “You killed my dad, Nui! And for that, I’m gonna kill YOU!”

youtube

Interestingly, Ryuko also assures Senketsu, “Don’t worry, I won’t spazz out anymore.” In the anime, Ryuko goes berserk upon learning that Nui killed her father, and she later assures Senketsu that she will never lose control and hurt him like that again. To see a similar assurance in the game implies that Ryuko will also go berserk in the game—and, if she has a closer relationship with Nui (possibly even considering her a friend!), then this berserk state might be a lot worse than it ever was in the TV series.

As a final note about the battle dialogue between Nui and Ryuko, I did find Nui’s, “You really think you can keep up that act of yours, Ryuko?” to be quite curious when I first saw it in Griffin Station’s Nui Breakdown video from Game Developers Conference. The line implies that Nui has a far better understanding of Ryuko than she did in the anime.

youtube

Now, on another note, it seems the Raid Trip will still happen in the game based off of this screenshot of Satsuki’s scenario from the site:

But a screenshot from Ryuko’s scenario points to Satsuki doing the cutting of Senketsu rather than Nui:

Does Satsuki tear Senketsu apart at the end of her fight with Ryuko during the Naturals Election? Is Senketsu’s loss what prompts Ryuko to ask Nui for help? Does Ryuko want to grow stronger to rescue him? Or does the Senketsu cutting happen some time later?

Further, another curious screenshot from Ryuko’s scenario is an image of her fighting a COVERS enemy in Honnou Town...

...which isn’t something that happens in the anime. Dual-wielding Ryuko’s (and Senketsu’s!) battle dialogue against Ragyo (as seen in a PS360HD2 video from GDC) suggests that Ryuko does not learn the truth of her birth until much later than she does in the anime (as she already is well aware of the fact that Ragyo is biologically her mother by the time she has both halves of the Scissor Blade there). Seeing Ryuko fight a COVERS—which torment the town after the Cultural and Grand Sports Festival—combined with the seeming fact that Ryuko doesn’t get her heart horribly pulled out of her chest at said Festival, definitely implies that Ryuko doesn’t fall into a coma and (possibly) doesn’t don Junketsu in the game.

Or, if that sequence of events does occur, it likely occurs at a much different time than it does in the anime.

youtube

Finally, I wondered last week if IGN’s footage of the first story mission left out some content, as a Noisy Pixel video from GDC included more footage of Ryuko and Mako.

youtube

Now, I wonder if that Noisy Pixel footage was simply footage from Ryuko’s side of the story.

In the end, it’s very exciting to learn that Ryuko will also star in an alternate retelling of Kill la Kill! While I’m sure her story won’t be as long as Satsuki’s, the fact that this scenario exists at all really says a lot about the work and effort put into this game.

#kill la kill #kill la kill the game #ryuko matoi #senketsu #satsuki kiryuin #spoilers #klk spoilers #long post #ramblings #shut up goop #of course i fell asleep for 12 hours yesterday and didn't see it until i woke up this morning >.>#i thought my reactions would be pretty short and i could put something up during my work break but lolll this took like 3.5 hours #i didn't even say everything but y'know this is long enough so i'll just. shuddup.#sorry if it's sloppy it's hot and i gotta make chili and i tried ^^;

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