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fishshapedbun · 1 year

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about Romantic Killer (BIG SPOILERS)

ok i just finished watching Romantic Killer and it's so good wtf????????? the plot developed so much better than i was expecting at first?????? Anzu is such a good character and such a good friend????? so i need to ramble about it bare with me for a moment

the show is hilarious and i love how exaggerated the funny expressions are, but it also has some rly serious part damn im legit impressed (Anzu and Kazuki's first hug kinda got me tearing up ngl)

each of the characters is slowly developed so well. like damn. Kazuki's story is specially detailed and it caught me by surprise when they showed the flashbacks of the first episodes after we found out why he became so distant and conscious of people and everything made so much sense. and he felt so realistic in the way he reacted, his struggle to open up and every single time he started feeling anxious and panicking in public was so well done (and i wanted to take him away from the crowd and pat his head every time ugh T_T). i was just slightly dissapointed that right on the last episode he admited that he started crushing on Anzu bc after the entire season of them just being an amazing duo of friends i was so hopeful we would finally get a 'love interest' turned only best friend (bc lets admit its not like she doesnt already have enough ppl interested in her without Kazuki being one of them too). bc i was enjoying headcanoning him as aroace as i was watching :') oh well. maybe if it ends up not having a s2 i can pretend he realized he wasnt in love and he just loves her platonically a lot! if they dont give me the aroace boy i will rip it from their cold dead hands! :D

and i loved the plot twist on how Junta was actually her true childhood friend all along and she took so long to realize... his feelings were totally real awwwww and he is really a sweetheart, i like the childhood friend trope! buuuut i gotta admit im just living for the huge crush Makoto clearly has on Junta. boyo isn't hiding it very well. that scene when Makoto holds Saki's hand and takes her away from the triggering situation? that was gay x lesbian solidarity right there !

and Saki OH MY GOD SAKI. the episode focused on showing how the two of them became friends and how important Anzu is to her and the way she has always defended her and what Saki went through oh god... her story was so realistic and seeing her reaction seeing that stupid ass ex was such a realistic depiction of a kind of trauma like that. she's such a good character im so happy they developed her so well and didnt make her just an irrelevant school friend character!!! (also she's a lesbian i am not taking criticism- /hj)

i need to mention how Anzu is absolutely bisexual btw. her reaction to meeting Kazuki's sister? she literally straight up said "i'll fall for her" c'mon

and Riri!!! omg!!!! little genderfluid chaos gremlin!!!!!!!! i was so so happy that not only Anzu girbossed her way to getting them out of their punishment but she got them to permanently live on the human world AND officially made them one of the love interests??? ULTIMATE GIRLBOSS MOVE Anzu i love you so much dear. so ngl i lowkey would like seeing Anzu end up with Riri/Rio the most ksjefhskdjf badass girl x genderfluid gremlin??? so much potential cmon they literally were punished for breaking magic rules bc they care too much about Anzu that's so fucking cute skjfhsdf

and Hijiri!!!!! from a little annoying rich bastard to a little just slightly annoying tsundere rich baby!!! i really like that he's interested in her and all but ultimately he's just there working and helping her out a lot like he becomes genuinely a great friend??

so yeah. as one can tell from the immense number of written words here i have liked this anime quite a lot. binged it in a day, all at once, no regrets. i'll be happy if there's a 2nd season if it is as good as this 1st one, bc this was amazing! so glad i decided to give it a chance <3 there's even more things i could talk about here but i dont wanna write a novel chapter of a post so i'll stop here LMAO

but really, if you're into comedy, romance and some nice character development, you won't regret giving Romantic Killer a chance :)

#romantic killer #anime analysis #anime commentary #romantic killer spoilers #romki #kiri doing the talk thing #hoshino anzu #tsukasa kazuki #hayami junta #takamine saki #koganei hijiri #yeah you could say i liked it a bit #just slightly obsessed

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ffamranxii · 4 years

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Okay folks, I am all caught up with Tokyo Mew Mew Au Lait chapters 1-3 and Tokyo Mew Mew 2020 Re-Turn chapters 1 and 2 so I am Doing A Thing! Buckle up, bitches!

MASSIVE SPOILERS IF YOU’RE WAITING FOR THE OFFICIAL ENGLISH RELEASES (whenever the hell those will be). Thanks to @berrychanx, @hikayagami, and @ribbonstrawberrysurprise for the scans, English translation, and hard work putting the translation onto the manga so neatly.

LEADERS

MOMOMIYA ICHIGO AND SHIBUYA AOI

Honestly this is the biggest difference between the 2020 Re-Turn reboot/original series and the magical boy tribute. Aoi is in no way like Ichigo once you get past that they’ve both been injected with Iriomote cat DNA. Whereas Ichigo is cheery and bubbly and cute, Aoi is withdrawn, suffers from low self confidence, and sort of breaks the fourth wall during nearly every fight, freaking out at how catchphrases and such just seem to burst forth from him after he transforms. (It’s honestly a funny highlight.) Their respective crushes are also treated differently, with Aoi falling hard for Anzu (though of course saying nothing) almost immediately, almost a love at first sight sort of deal, and Ichigo already having this crush on this boy when we start vanilla TMM and already deeply committed to him in the reboot. In civilian form, (using vanilla Ichigo here, it’s not fair to compare Aoi to 2020 “been a magical girl for years” Ichigo), Aoi is a lot more unsure of himself, and seems almost to be in this Mew Mew thing for Anzu, whereas Ichigo immediately had a “I’ll do my best” acceptance mindset from the start. (Both freak out over their cat ears appearing at random moments, even Ichigo in the 2020 reboot, and I think I can finally give poor Aoi a point over Ichigo here. It makes him uncomfortable but he just wears a hoodie and hopes no one notices. It makes Ichigo freak out more lol.)

THE LOVE INTEREST / DUNGEON NAVI / SECONDARY PROTAGONIST

AOYAMA MASAYA, HINATA ANZU, SHIROGANE RYOU

Anzu is a precious peach and she occupies such a weird role here that I almost couldn’t make her a neat little graphic. She doesn’t fit neatly into a “oh, they’re a genderbent so and so” like nearly everyone else, and it’s fascinating. On the one hand, several panels in the first chapter of Au Lait make it clear that the writers are setting her up to be Aoi’s love interest. Every magical girl anime has a love interest, so why wouldn’t a magical boy manga? But that’s where she diverges. Unlike Masaya, who is a very clear tribute to Sailor Moon’s Tuxedo Mask (with the exception that he’s a cute bean as a civilian, he’s nearly the same person. No past, gets kidnapped, magical form to protect the magical girl, evil form to fight the magical girl [this happened in PGSM, and he’s been brainwashed several times]), who has always been a secondary character, Anzu actually starts the Au Lait manga. She wasn’t even featured on the promo images, so when I opened the first chapter in a zip file I thought I’d downloaded the wrong one. My rudimentary Japanese confirmed I hadn’t, but I was like “well who tf is this chick?” I waited for an English translation to be sure and yup - Anzu is being treated almost like a secondary protagonist. Well that’s new. It’s as if the Au Lait writers smashed together the characters of Ryou and Masaya and named their love child Hinata Anzu. She’s intelligent, she knows more about this project than she should, and, like Ryou in vanilla, she’s out and about and helping the boys, not just as a civilian, but in every battle. She doesn’t have powers (that we know of), but her smarts and knowledge of animals have served them well time and again. Au Lait seems more like, as one reader put it, Anzu And The Dork Squad than Aoi’s team.

Masaya in 2020 Re-Turn is adorable. He is at odds with Quiche over Ichigo (or more like, he dislikes just how much Quiche likes Ichigo), and in a moment of panic he uses his leftover remnants of Deep Blue’s power to... change his clothes. I’m not sure what actually happened there. (Note: Thanks ribbonstrawberrysurprise: Deep Blue manifested to float the chimera anima/train and its passengers to safety.) But I love that he was so concerned for Ichigo, who at that moment desperately needed help, that the being who created his body and didn’t like Ichigo wanted to protect her. Ryou was his standoffish self, but even he seemed to have a hint of a lingering crush. He organized a party for the Mews and then took over in cafe duties so Ichigo could meet her man at the airport, unable to quiiiiite meet her eye while saying so. I always did like Ryou/Ichigo.

THE SASSY RICH BITCH

AIZAWA MINTO AND YOYOGI SHIZUKA

First of all: SAILOR JUPITER TAUGHT ME THAT PINK EQUALS FLOWER HURRICANES AND CAN I JUST SAY THAT I AM DISAPPOINTED AS FUCK THAT SHIZUKA ISN’T PLANT BASED AND CAN’T DO FLOWER HURRICANES THAT IS ALL.

Admit it. When we saw the promo image, we assumed certain things. One of those things turned out to be true: Aoi would be the Iriomote cat, because of course he would be Ichigo’s counterpart. Shizuka is wearing glasses, and his costume had the little tail, which meant he must have been a fish or a marine mammal and therefore Retasu’s counterpart, right? RIGHT. But also very, very wrong, my friends. Shizuka is indeed water based like Retasu - he’s an Amazon river dolphin (the pink ones!) - and that’s where all his similarities to our gentle green girl end. Instead of making everyone exactly the same but gender flipped, Au Lait is going in a slightly different direction, and I really like it. Shizuka is actually the most similar to our resident princess Minto! They both attend prestigious elite schools and generally act better than everyone else, but the real gem here is their interactions with their leaders. Shizuka has some truly snappy one-liners - such as discovering Ryuusei (”that’s the power of an idiot”) - and his reactions to Aoi are gold. He considers himself a genius, and indeed he’s very intelligent according to Natsume (and his school seems to be for smart people, it’s not prestigious for music or anything like that), and he makes little quips at Aoi all the time about how Aoi isn’t. I could totally see him spending an entire shift reading a book at Cafe Mew Mew while Aoi does all the work, only for him to stand up and someone to scream “HOLY CRAP, SHIZUKA’S UP, SHIT’S ABOUT TO GO DOWN.”

Minto is also full of snappy quips at Ichigo in the reboot, mostly about how Ichigo should handle the biggest, strongest enemies since she’s the leader, and can’t Ichigo even keep them in place so Minto can shoot them down? (And yeah, someone totally said the above comment ^ when Minto stood up at Cafe Mew Mew.) Minto was always one of my favorite characters, and I love that we saw a lot of close ups of her in the reboot, and that she seemed to be second in command.

THE CHILD

FONG PURIN AND KANDA RYUUSEI

Oh my god these two. I refuse to believe they aren’t related. I know Purin is Chinese but you cannot take this headcanon from me.

Purin is my favorite character in OG Mew Mew and Ryuusei claimed my heart the second I saw the Au Lait promo. NEITHER OF THEM DISAPPOINTED ME, I AM SO IN LOVE.

While I WILL say that I in no way care for Mew Pudding’s redesign (I hate literally everything about it. I miss her jumpsuit. I hate the little pigtails at the top of her head. I hate the ribbon. At least she still has her fingerless gloves), I love that she got an entire panel of just her being badass. She stood in the middle of some train tracks, facing a runaway speeding train chimera anima, with that ^ fucking look on her face, and was like “where you going, na no da?” Purin from like, ten years ago wouldn’t have done that. She has matured so much, but she’s still the young, goofy little acrobat monkey who provides for her tea-themed siblings (who criminally do not make an appearance) and I just love her so fucking much, you guys.

RYUUSEI. Guys. He’s an idiot. Oh my god. He’s a cute lovable idiot. “What’s a gomodo dragon? What’s a kodomo dragon? What’s a condo dragon and why does it need a house?” Anzu was in love with him for like five seconds until she learned he’s a dumbass, and Aoi was jealous as fuck, and no one ever told him what his damn animal was, and I laughed my ass off through his entire last couple pages. He also had his jacket hand embroidered with the kanji for dragon, BUT IT’S MISSPELLED. It’s missing a stroke! XD

Ryuusei is the KOMODO dragon (which is Anzu’s favorite animal), and komodos are badass. He also either always had weird animal powers, or just never noticed that he suddenly got super smell. Komodo dragons, by the way, can track their prey for literally MILES by smell alone, for DAYS. It’s absolutely terrifying (thank you for the nightmares, Wild Thornberries), and Au Lait made it fucking comical. I can’t even. HE CAN SMELL THE RED DATA ANIMAL ON PEOPLE. I love it. He’s super strong and super cute, apparently lives with his grandparents, and is Purin’s counterpart in every single way, except I think SHE might be more mature than him. I love him. He is my baby.

Yellow is my favorite color and yellow never disappoints.

THE FAMOUS

FUJIWARA ZAKURO AND ROPPONGI AYATO

Zakuro had next to no presence in the reboot. She occasionally made some panels look pretty. She twice had a half page to herself, one per chapter. I am sad. I love my wolf lesbian. In semi-related news, I feel I have solved the mystery of Zakuro’s red data animal, something that has plagued the TMM community for years. The grey wolf is not endangered at all, yet Zakuro is injected with one, right? I read somewhere (either in a TMM blog or a conservation blog) that there is a subspecies of grey wolf that IS critically endangered. I believe it’s the Mexican grey wolf? I headcanon she was injected with DNA specifically from a Mexican grey wolf.

Moving on. In Chapter 3 (which was a DELIGHT), we met Ayato. Chapter 3 was the most frustrating chapter because let me tell you, Au Lait marks the first time I have ever read a manga chapter by chapter as it was being released in Japan. So I’m waiting Nakayoshi to publish the chapter, then I’m waiting for someone to scan Nakayoshi, then I’m waiting for someone to translate it, over and over and over, and omg I can’t believe this is what people DO. I’ve waited for full volumes before, but CHAPTERS? This is torture. Ayato, I haven’t had enough TIME with you!

Ayato seems to be an actor (in a really... really weird stage play), and has very few lines in his first appearance. I’m not sure what I make of him. He says about six sentences, which is actually a lot for a character introduced on a cliffhanger, but... I can’t decide if he’s said them in a mysterious Sailors Neptune and Uranus way or a flamboyant Sohma Ayame way. I ALSO DON’T KNOW WHAT ANIMAL HE IS AND I AM VERY ANGRY. BB Ryuusei said he smells like yakitori (a type of grilled chicken), which confirms he’s a bird. But. WHICH BIRD, DAMNIT?

CHAPTER FOUR WHERE ARE YOU?

THE FUNDING

AKASAKA KEIICHIRO, HINATA NATSUME, SHIROGANE RYOU

Hello again, Ryou! The boys here were wallpaper (though cute wallpaper) in the reboot. Natsume is 100% a troll. I love her. She admits in chapter 3 she literally just injected hot boys for her Mew Mew project. Even Ryou wasn’t that blunt. I mean, if you gotta save Earth and stare at people while you do it, they better be cute, right?

IF FOUND, PLEASE CALL THE FANDOM

MIDORIKAWA RETASU, SHIRAYUKI BERII, AKAI RINGO

Aside from her two half panels as a Mew Mew per chapter, this is the only good cap of Retasu as a civilian in the reboot. D: I believe Hiroo Taichi will be her counterpart in Au Lait.

I never liked Berii. There, I said it. She got TWO animals. She was some random newbie and she got to be leader just like that? And she was clueless and dumb and the writing in A La Mode wasn’t great. But I really like 2020 Berii. She’s cute, she seems more rabbit than cat, and she seems more intelligent and less of a blonde Ichigo clone. I don’t know if she’ll have an Au Lait counterpart.

WHERE IS RINGO? THE REBOOT WAS THE PERFECT OPPORTUNITY TO PUT HER IN THE STORY FOR REAL AND SHE JUST... WASN’T THERE?! THIS IS BLASPHEMY. RINGO IS THE BEST MEW MEW. BEST GIRL. JUSTICE FOR RINGO.

THE RELATIONSHIPS

MASAYA & ICHIGO VS AOI & ANZU

ZAKURO & MINTO VS AYATO & RYUUSEI

Nearly all of 2020 chapter 1 focused on Ichigo seeing Masaya again. I’m guessing this took place after he left for London. Ichigo left with him after A La Mode, and some time between then and Re-Turn came back to Japan, and now Masaya is back. They are still as lovey as ever, but not as sickeningly cute as Tsukino Usagi and Chiba Mamoru or anything. Phew! Their counterpart in Au Lait seems to Aoi and Anzu. (Look at that height difference! Poor Anzu, her poor neck.) Aoi already has a massive crush on her, but Anzu, bless her, is oblivious.

AND NOW FOR THE GAYS.

I think Zakuro and Minto is probably one of the most popular TMM ships and holy lesbians, Batman, they were well fed with this GORGEOUS panel at the end of chapter 2. Look at it. Zakuro had literally no panels, save for her two intros, to herself, and barely any panels at all in the reboot, and then BA-BAM, this beautiful ending shot. I swear Ikumi did it on purpose. Speaking of gays - is Ayato/Ryuusei the new Zakuro/Minto? Ayato seems to be at least bisexual (he also hit on Anzu), but this was literally his second panel. He is in a (terrible, TERRIBLE) play, and the actors are walking in the audience looking for the villain. Ayato walks into the audience and HITS ON RYUUSEI. His first goddamn words are “Do you want me to keep you, my cute little puppy?” to Ryuusei. He says fuck this acting shit, I see a SNACK. I think I ship it. I think I ship it hard.

THE STORY

*Au Lait is just getting started, so typical magical girl boy anime manga: Let’s find the others! Shenanigans! Some fillers! It’s cute, I love it, go read it.

*2020 Re-Turn is actually REALLY GOOD and chapter 2 reminds me of just how unique Tokyo Mew Mew was and still is among not just magical girl series, but animanga as a whole. Quick, what was the last environmental series you remember? Mine was Captain Planet - in the 90s. Preachy, in your face, after school special about things like pollution and endangered species and littering and honestly it was really cool, but very much a product of its time. Even now, magical girl animanga is still focused on bad guys, but bad guys are generic and represent something created for the series. Here, the bad guys are US, other human beings, who traffic animals, who endanger them, who wreck our planet enough that animals are barely clinging to life. There’s a very poignant scene featuring the adorable snow leopard up there (who’s the secondary protagonist of the reboot) ^, showing his mother being shot and himself being snatched by poachers, and he’s terrified, and has no idea what’s going on or where he is, and Ichigo is terrified for him. We need more series like this - not just of the magical girl genre, but of ALL genres. To make it accessible in this way, for people of all ages, something enjoyable, that people can fangirl over and love and its creators clearly put a lot of love and thought into. We need another Captain Planet, but less preachy, less after school special-y. We don’t want to be like the aliens (who remember, are descendants of humans who fucked up Earth so badly they had to leave it).

Behind all the cute of this manga and its reboot, and its new spinoff, Tokyo Mew Mew has a powerful message that we should all be following. It’s not even subtle. Get yo shit together, peeps.

#tokyo mew mew #tokyo mew mew 2020 re-turn #tokyo mew mew au lait #tokyo mew mew ore

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itsbenedict · 7 years

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No Driver’s License: Session 7

[adventure log- from the beginning]

[session 6]

[omakes 6.1 and 6.2]

Last time on No Driver’s License, the team recuperated from a long day spent fighting monsters and witches and evil girls who summon giant ghost sharks. They sat around the fire and shared tragic backstories, growing closer as a team and earning a few points of Hope.

Also, Tama-chan showed up and gave them the main quest! Specifically, she told them what the main quest was (stopping some very strong badguys), and then informed them that she’d given up on it and that it was a stupid idea to try and give them the quest in the first place, and apologized for trying to get them involved. Predictably, the team’s response was “fuck you, we’re going to do the main quest anyway!”, which I will personally take credit for as a brilliant stroke of GMing prowess, thank you, thank you.

less brilliant was how they ended up totally alienating their helpful guide and driving her off entirely, such that i was left without a mouthpiece character, but HEY THAT’S DRAMA

This time, the party ends up having to contend with...

Bain à la Grenouillère by Claude Monet. Uh... okay??? Sure???

So, first off, after everyone went home, they all took some action based on what they wanted to accomplish.

Sakura started doing some internet research, on top of her primary objective of “read a lot of magical girl manga for helpful tips”. Her search for magic phenomena turned up a couple things- one, a well-documented sighting of an inexplicable Gundam above Tokyo that’s been causing a stir amongst conspiracy theorists; and two, a rash of unexplained mass narcolepsy incidents across the world, probably linked to the appearance of witch barriers.

Makoto just wanted to figure out how to live in the real world- and so she’s been enrolled in school. She’s been placed in remedial classes, and- her player, koholitl, was unable to participate in the session this week due to medical problems, so Makoto’s just going to spend her time in those classes- with her good roll, she’s earned an extra point of Real from her lessons.

Seina also rolled Keep Up With Life, like Makoto- but she got a very very bad roll, and so unfortunately for her, she’s facing the consequences of “suddenly disappearing one night while staying over at Reiko’s, and not telling her parents where she was”. She’s... super grounded! Except for school, but her dad is a teacher at school, so she’s under near-constant supervision now. Whoops!

Ibara, meanwhile, decided to hit the streets looking for info. Specifically, she tracked down her delinquent buddies from school- Nails and Shibu. She asked them if they knew Yamauchi Yoshe, and... turns out they do! Yoshe’s an upperclassman at their high school, and they super duper hate her. Not because they know she’s an evil magic cannibal- it’s just she won a beauty pageant at the school festival and they’re super bitter about it because fuck the popular kids.

Yukari was tagging along with Ibara, but got distracted on the way to the school- she finally found Nishi-chan, and broke off to go chase her. Nishi-chan, though, was apparently headed for the same place- when she finally corners Nishi-chan at the school, it’s in view of Ibara and her delinquent friends.

So that’s where we begin the session!

Yukari doesn’t beat around the bush, and takes Nishi-chan to the rooftop where they can talk without being overheard. She... does this by straight-up jumping up to the roof in plain view of Nails and Shibu, which causes them to freak out and forces Ibara to have to confess that she’s involved in some Weird Magic Shit™.

Nishi-chan says that she came to the school to try and defuse a crisis- someone in the school is on the verge of witching out, according to her vague senses about this sort of thing. She asks if anyone in the party is in bad shape emotionally, but as far as Yukari knows, everyone’s fine- and Reiko just witched out like yesterday, so it probably wouldn’t be her.

So, Nishi-chan concludes, it must be one of the at-least-five other magical girls in the school.

WHAT? Yukari asks, and Nishi-chan begins spilling the beans. A lot of magical girls go to this school, apparently! She indicates that three of the girls at this school are the big bads Tama-chan mentioned, confirming that they include Yamauchi Yoshe and Katou Kimiko. She also mentions- without stating their affiliations exactly- Otsuki Orino, an upperclassman in the art club, and Akagi Anzu, a freshman. She’s about to name a third, but...

There’s an earthquake. A very short earthquake. A massive dust cloud rises from the baseball diamond on the school grounds, visible to the entire party save Makoto. Sakura and Seina are in the same chemistry class, and manage to slip away as the classroom empties in a blind panic. Yukari’s on the roof, and has a clear view. Ibara and her friends can also see it- and she instructs them to run like hell.

Yukari rolls for Prophecy and only gets one for this session- and decides to save it rather than check whether they should intervene. Of course they should intervene, and she wants to be able to ask a more useful question once they know what they’re intervening in.

Ibara is the first to arrive on the scene, stepping through the barrier and bucking tradition by succeeding on a Real roll.

The witch- Ｐａｉｎ à ｌａＧｒｅｎｏｕｉｌｌèｒｅ, which yes I realize technically would be read as Bread a la Grenouillere instead of a badass thing, but shut up- is the tree island thing in the center of the painting. It’s way scribblier than in the painting, though, with unintelligible love letters instead of leaves. The people in the painting are all stick figures wearing better-rendered clothing, and they turn into stick mermaids in the water that attack people- the witch’s familiars. (This witch is a Hive Mother youma, in Magical Burst’s parlance).

It’s not alone, though- apparently someone is already fighting the witch!

The mysterious girl seems to be begging the witch to stop attacking, trying to appeal to it with reason. This, of course, has little effect. On noticing Ibara, she waves, and tries to explain what’s going on.

Seina and Sakura follow into the barrier, with Yukari staying outside to keep watch for any evil megucas who might try to ambush the team while they’re inside. They both roll Real.

They manage to fend off the familiars and climb into a boat- and from there, we roll for our first Skirmish!

Ibara and Seina roll Go on the Offensive! Ibara scores a crit, getting two hits on the witch. Seina... fails her roll, so familiars sneak up and yank her off the boat and underwater. Sakura, then, rolls Protect Someone to ensure Seina doesn’t take a Personal Consequence from the fight- and nails the roll, saving her. (Which... I mean, a valid Personal Consequence is taking Trauma, and Seina has yet to acquire any totally harmless experience points of that sort, so was that really a heroic move???)

With the mystery girl’s additional Hit, the Skirmish ends with Spread+1 (only 2 Spread), and the witch is vanquished handily.

Ibara immediately rolls against the stranger to try and claim the Grief Seed.

Mystery girl gets the seed! She gets it real good! And she...

Whoever she is, she apparently knows about the cannibalism situation, and was worried that Ibara had dark intentions.

The group tries to convince her that they’re on the same side- that they’re really just there to help, and didn’t want to eat... the girl’s referring to the former witch as “Ori-san”. ??? isn’t totally convinced- partially because the team showed up without an Incubator to revive her.

Wait, without an incubator? Yukari turns around to check where Nishi-chan should be, and... oh, shit.

At the same time, ??? is noticing that her Incubator- “Fumi-chan”- is also not showing up. This gets her a little bit panicked, especially once Yukari reports that Nishi-chan is temporarily dead for like the third fucking time, jesus christ. Everyone’s seriously on edge, ??? thinks they’re cannibals, and suddenly...

What everyone except Seina didn’t notice (good job Seina! +1 Hope for smartness!) is that telepathy was still working, meaning that an Incubator had to still be alive, probably.

This is confirmed when the source of the laughter turns out to be an incubator, who jumps out of the dugout laughing her goddamn head off.

??? is about to hand the seed over to Fumi-chan, but Ibara interrupts, asking why Fumi-chan has two eyes instead of three. ???, though, doesn’t seem to find this strange- Fumi-chan’s always had two eyes. No reason to be suspicious.

Fumi-chan then spits out the soul gem, and- rather than any sort of horrible trap happening- it regenerates into a girl.

According to ???, this is pretty normal for Ori-san.

Yukari makes a guess.

The team decides to warn Emiko about the cannibal girls who go to this school. She seems shocked by this information- but hints that maybe Orino, who was being bullied, was being bullied by those cannibal girls specifically so they could make her witch out and eat her.

Then the team asks Emiko to follow them somewhere where they can talk without potentially being ambushed by the cannibals- since it’s pretty suspicious that they haven’t shown up yet, what with the loud explosion sounds and whatnot. Emiko doesn’t immediately trust this- she still has no reason to think the party aren’t cannibals, and following them to a secluded area sounds to her like a bad bad idea.

Yukari comes up with an idea, then. She spends a prophecy on a certain action she’s about to take, and finds that the outcome-goodness stays pretty much neutral if she does it, save for a few significant but unlikely dips. She goes ahead with it.

This is a pretty cool idea, and Emiko is about to trust them! But...

Yeah, this piece of shit doesn’t want them to trust each other, for some reason. Yukari... attempts to bypass Fumi-chan’s objection.

Yukari’s extremely practical and effective idea to which there can be no objections is, unfortunately, sabotaged by Fumi-chan again.

(Behind the curtain for a second here- I typed out “Her body could be concealing traps” as just like, an obvious immediate generic objection to the search plan, and only after typing it realized the horrible offensive double-entendre. And then... kept it in, because Fumi-chan really is just a gigantic piece of shit who would absolutely make a godawful joke like that specifically to make Sakura feel bad. What a fucker!)

Sakura takes a point of Trauma on Fear of Female Failure, and Ibara tries to get things back on track.

This doesn’t entirely work, since Sakura has fled the scene in tears, pursued by Seina, but Yukari and Ibara fill Emiko in on the known identities of the cannibals- including Yamauchi Yoshe.

KOTONO YUKARI, MASTER OF TACT

Emiko is in denial about Yoshe, and starts getting really defensive. Yoshe can’t be a cannibal! She’s- she’s too nice! That’s impossible!!!

fuckin... shut your telepathic mouth, Fumi-chan.

Anyway, Emiko is eager to change the subject, and starts talking about taking care of Orino. They agree to let Emiko take the unconscious Orino to the nurse’s office. “Why’s she asleep, anyway?” someone asks.

They exchange contact information- and Emiko tells them what class she’s in.

So they head off, and Yukari and Ibara try to track down Sakura- who’s shut herself up in a bathroom to try and stave off a mental breakdown.

Seina gets there first.

Sakura’s about to confess something to Seina, but then Yukari, MASTER OF TACT, barges in with Ibara. They try to understand why Sakura is upset, but- since they don’t know Sakura’s trans, they don’t understand what Fumi-chan said to hurt her.

Eventually, Sakura decides to confess to the entire group.

To the group’s credit, nobody is particularly upset by the revelation. There’s no “WHAT, you’re REALLY a BOY?!?” shit- but also, there’s not a lot in the way of emotional support for Sakura. Yukari’s attitude is essentially “What? Why would that bother you? Who cares? Fighting evil is more important!”, and it takes a while for anyone to interrupt her rant about how Sakura’s emotions don’t matter and she needs to suck it up. Sakura boils over and throws a candy axe at the wall, shattering a mirror.

This finally gets Ibara and Seina to speak up and object to what Yukari’s saying. They get Yukari to back off, and try to reassure Sakura while also clearing up what turned out to be a miscommunication. Yukari, who is about as capable of reading the mood as a cat would be of reading a “do not claw at” sign, had assumed that Sakura was literally scheming to assassinate an incubator rather than asking for emotional support- and changes her tune to “...well, duh, we’ll support you, that’s what friends do, you should have known that”. Which is kind of a really transparent attempt to deflect blame for hurting Sakura’s feelings, but apparently that’s good enough. Hugs for everyone!

They then spend something like fifteen minutes attempting to repair the broken mirror. Sakura’s magic, when used to repair objects, has an irritating tendency to leave them with a cartoon watermark of her face going ;P, completely without her intending to do so. (It’d be fine if she ever rolled an 11-14, but APPARENTLY THAT’S JUST IMPOSSIBLE). Ibara smashes and Sakura repairs the mirror over and over again, to no avail. The last attempt results in...

Screw the mirror! It probably just broke in the earthquake or something! Whatever!!!!

Seina, at this point, goes back to class- but the rest have one last loose end to tie up.

They head back up to the roof, where Nishi-chan’s corpse is still sitting. It is time for CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION: MAGIC VICTIMS UNIT (ft. guest star Maurice Mousse, Sakura’s magic familiar.)

Yukari takes some photos, and she and Sakura inspect the scene, passing Real rolls to investigate.

Yukari investigates the air conditioners, but doesn’t find anything. Maurice Mousse, Ace Pet Mouse Detective, manages to turn up a few clues.

Unfortunately, they don’t find enough information to determine the culprit. With magic involved, there’s any number of potential causes of death- they’ll just need to ask Nishi-chan next time she respawns.

The real mystery, though... why kill Nishi-chan, but not Yukari, who was right there when Nishi-chan was silently killed? Was she deliberately left alive? Why?

For now, the team’s gone back to what they were doing. Tune in next time, when... well, I won’t say what happens next time.

#no driver's license #magical burst #transphobia cw and slurs cw in this one #fuckin god damn fumi-chan

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peppermint-shamrock · 7 years

Text

So. Movie.

Thanks to @zelka94, I got a chance to see the movie! I’m very happy about that, and I have some thoughts, under the cut because spoilers:

Overall I liked the movie. Visually, it was stunning - the monsters looked great, the people looked great, the environments looked great, the animation looked great, the effects looked great. It was just a very, very pretty movie. Seriously.

Other stuff I liked:

- Yuugi is a badass. He legit just stares Kaiba down and is all “You’re going to do what I say and let me duel first.” And Kaiba does. Nobody orders Kaiba around, except Yuugi, apparently.

- The cute friendship moments! Supports my headcanon about Jounouchi and Bakura becoming fairly close.

- Peachshipping bait. So cute!

- Mokuba is also awesome, I loved him in every moment he was in. He joyrides on the Puzzle container and headbuts Aigami off of it while flying up to a helicopter. I also love how friendly he is with Yuugi while Kaiba’s challenging him, and how sassy he is with Aigami.

- I liked that we finally got to see how Yami Bakura killed Shaadi.

- from @dark-angel-of-muses I found out that dub Aigami is dub Dennis. I liked Aigami’s voice so that’s just awesome.

- In the final duel, Aigami’s monsters were really neat looking, rather Eldritch horror-esque.

- Aigami looked more like a demon than Zarc, and I really like the design

- color schemes changed a lot and always looked really cool

- Characters had nice new outfits. Especially Anzu and Yuugi.

- Anzu confirmed for going off to achieve her dreams

- Kaiba was absolutely ridiculous

- I was somewhat amused by Shaadi apparently being Yoda “Fear leads to hate”

- Yuugi rides a motorcycle and looks super cute in his helmet. Too bad we didn’t get to see his hair floof out afterward though.

- Yuugi’s hair is somehow rain resistant.

- I’m convinced Yuugi would have an entire deck of cute magician girls if he could get away with it.

- Kaiba just stands in the middle of an intersection and traffic stops for him. Same traffic doesn’t seem to mind running over Yuugi though.

However, there were some things I didn’t like so much. Some may be dub only, some are inherent to the original as well.

- The whole Plana thing. Very overpowered, poorly explained. Doesn’t make a lot of sense. It gets the slightest amount of evil in it and it goes horribly wrong. Okay, dumb decision, who designed that thing? Who thought having a universe-shaping device that could potentially be used that way would be a good idea? Why did Shaadi have it, why and how was it connected to Atem? While I did like Aigami, this whole plotline is weird. Also, aren’t Kaiba’s egg things supposed to come into it? How is that or anything that happened in Transcend Game related? Also if they had the power to reshape the world completely, why did they not do it already?

- I’ve said from the very start that I did not want Atem to come back. This was something I have been firmly against. I know it’s an unpopular opinion, and Atem is one of my favorites, but I think it undermines the original story to have him come back in any capacity. I recognize that they really had to have him in there, and the simulation and Jou’s vision I think were handled pretty well. But I was NOT happy with the Deus Ex Machina at the end (although I admit it did look AMAZING and he and Yuugi have an adorable ship-baity moment together). It was bullshit. Very pretty bullshit, but still absolute bullshit. This was probably my least favorite part of the movie. I also don’t particularly like the very end, either, but eh. It’s not as bad because he’s not actually coming back. Although why was he so pale?

- Some dumb dubbish dialogue

- Jou in a dog suit once again

- Wasn’t there supposed to be a moment where Kaiba acknowledges Yuugi’s worthiness as a duelist? Did I miss it or did the dub cut it out?

- Who’s Bakura living with if his dad died when he was so young? Before that memory is invoked, Bakura talks as though his dad is alive. And if this is manga canon, Bakura’s dad owns Domino Museum.

- Kaiba’s obsession is a mixed bag for me. I’ll come right out and say that prideshipping isn’t one that’s ever interested me (I don’t dislike it but it doesn’t appeal). There is a lot of prideshipping bait (Exact quote from Seto Kaiba: “I want the Pharaoh”). Like, Atem needs to file a restraining order type of deal. On the one hand, Kaiba’s motivations are understandable. And highly entertaining. But I wish that he’d been allowed the chance to move on and deal with grief properly. Or at the very least that the other characters didn’t encourage and enable him (Yuugi originally tries to tell Kaiba that Atem can’t come back, but at the end says something along the lines of “You believed in him when I didn’t”, essentially giving approval to Kaiba’s obsession). He’s so consumed by this that he doesn’t even reassure Mokuba at the end.

- Sera’s voice, she sounds too old. A lot like dub DMG, too (might be the same person)

- The final duel with Aigami was a little similar to the duel with Dartz, with Kaiba losing and passing it off to his teammate.

- What about the other Millennium Items? Also, how does the Ring still have evil power in it, I thought Zorc was destroyed? And the spirits of Kul Elna should have been led to their rest a long time ago.

As I said above, though, overall I really liked it, it was a lot of fun. I’m definitely going to buy the DVD when it comes out, and I can’t wait to watch the original version.

I think I might write a fic where Kaiba can start to move on, though.

#dsod #dsod spoilers

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