#both because it shows ichiro thinking of them as equals
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there's so much i love about the arb high school au event but i think one thing i'm going to be chewing on forever is the fact that like
when they had the tug of war competition. ichiro vs samatoki. it ended up as a draw because they pulled so hard they ripped the rope in two
and that's funny but also
we find out this is. ichiro's dream. literally even in his dreams. he doesn't beat samatoki when they have their silly little fights. and he doesn't lose to samatoki either
in his subconsciousness they're equals (even in the same year, at the same school) and that's just. i mean obviously arb is not meant to be taken seriously lol but that's a fantastic bit of characterization imo, even character development
because it's a huge, obvious change from tdd era when ichiro only idolized samatoki, it's so significant and important for him to reach this point where he does actually see samatoki as an equal
anyway. very happy with this event as if that weren't already obvious lmao
#crab plays#hypmic#arb#yes i'm definitely losing it over the cardigan sweater paws part of the dream#but it's more than just that!!#the way the 'conflict' unfolds is just so. chef's kiss#both because it shows ichiro thinking of them as equals#AND shows him thinking of their feud as just. fucking absurd lmao#also rei completely failing to hypnotize rosho is the funniest thing ever to me lolllllllll happy birthday ya old loser
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it's ichikuu day!!!!! so i did another shipping chart lol
and it gives me an excuse to talk about them lol so
how it happens: ichiro not knowing what he had until he lost it is canon and all the proof you need that it was slow and unintentional lol. i actually think there could have been a chance kuukou fell for ichiro at first sight had ichiro not beat up one of kuukou's merry gay thugs but it was definitely at first fight lmao like
ichiro beat the lights out of kuukou and kuukou went 'oh???😳' lmao like he just knew
showing affection: i think they're both equal parts okay with verbal and physical affection!!!!! esp the ichiro that's just in a better place mentally lol😭 i do think ichiro would still fall on kuukou being the one to initiate affection tho
handling conflict: i don't think they'll get into too many serious arguments. and a part of that is because they both feel they’ve been split apart for too long by misunderstandings to fight like that. however, kuukou is very quick to forgive and even quicker to forget (lol) if he isn’t terribly offended but anger can simmer in ichiro for a while.
dealing with jealousy: neither are particularly jealous people but ichiro is prone to possessiveness. ichiro is attention starved and kuukou’s an attention whore when he wants to be so there’s a mutual desire to hangout frequently never mind their separation baggage lol
relationship attitude: them boys sure are loyal!!!!!!!!!! they sure are lmao!!!!!!! since i think ichiro would fall back on kuukou taking initiative, while he loves pda he’s just more reserved about it lol
attachment: if you lost your constant light of your life abruptly and violently after feeling so assured he’d never leave you!!!! you can bet you’d have some separation anxiety if you got him back!!!!!! and if you saw just what a good man had to do to try to get the life he wanted despite how it was slowly poisoning him!!!!!!! you would feel a little protective of him too!!!!!
#this is vee speaking#i would like to talk about the checkboxes part too but unfortunately i’m posting this at work lol#while i was looking for a blank shipping chart for my profile i bumped into my first one and had an old art jumpscare#so i made a new one with my newer chibi style lmao#and i believe ichikuu fall under the ‘stupid antics happen when together’ trope there they are doing stupid antics lol#vee is arting
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Ageswap! AU
Some headcanons for a HypMic ageswap! Au
Except everyone's ages are all over the place lol.
Ichiro is 32, Jiro is 30, and Saburo is 27
Samatoki is 29, Jyuto is 25, and Rio is 26
Ramuda is 30, Gentaro is 34, and Dice is 34
Jakurai is 14, Hifumi is 22, and Doppo is 22
Sasara is 31, Rosho is 31, and Rei is 16
Kuko is 32, Jyushi is 31, and Hitoya is 14
Otome is 19, Ichijiku is 26, and Nemu is 23
Buster Bros!!!
Ichiro is a bit of a mess, but he's getting better. He used to be pretty bad, working as a debt collector for Mozuku, doing drugs, and drinking, etc., but thanks to his brothers, he's gotten out and gotten clean.
Unfortunately, during that period, his relationship with his son, Rei, turned sour and Rei ran away at a fairly young age. Ichiro has been trying to repair his relationships, especially with Rei, but Rei isn't interested or receptive at all.
Jiro and Saburo live together, Jiro as a PE teacher at a middle school and Saburo as a white hat hacker/computer security stuff.
Jiro and Saburo's relationship with Ichiro isn't the best, but after Ichiro started getting clean and shaping up, their relationship has improved enough to form a team.
Jiro and Saburo are aware of Rei's existence but haven't actually met him before.
Mad Trigger Crew
Not huge changes here, Samatoki still works with the Yakuza, Jyuto is still a cop, and Rio is still Rio.
Jyuto isn't quite as experienced in being a corrupt cop as canon, so Samatoki makes sure to cover for him whenever he stumbles.
Samatoki is a big brother through and through, so he keeps an eye out for both Jyuto and Rio. His relationship with Nemu is okay, though sometimes she thinks he's the dumbest fool in the world.
Rio is more than well-aware that his survival cooking is not for the faint of heart. He finds it hilarious how Samatoki and Jyuto stutter and flinch whenever he brings it up, as well as how easily they falter under his puppy eyes.
Fling Posse
Ramuda deliberately makes sure as little people know his actual age as possible
It's one thing for a 24 year old to act cutesy and call girls "onee-san," it's a whole other thing when it's a 30 year old, no matter how cute and small he is
Ramuda finds Jakurai small and cute, so he sometimes goes and harasses coo over the boy, though, there have been times where the cops have been called for suspected pedophilia.
He's free from all the Project lambda stuff since it got exposed years ago and after a long hospitalization, he's completely healthy. You might even run into another clone occasionally, though they're all split to the four winds, each having chosen to pursue their own dreams.
Gentaro still is a writer, though he usually wears normal clothes. Honestly, he's way too old to continue to wear a kosode and hakama everywhere. It is way too hot out, plus he's not in his 20s anymore, when he thought it was cool and unique.
Dice is Dice. He's a gambler, though he does make sure to keep enough money around for rent and food. He's old enough that he's not so dumb enough to gamble away everything. Plus, he doesn't want to worry his daughter, Otome. She's already pissed at him enough.
Dice and Otome have a fairly good relationship, though that might just have been a result of Dice being an attentive and easygoing parent and never having to live with each other. Otome cares a lot for Dice, though she hates his gambling addiction.
Matenro
Everyone's pretty sure Jakurai is a mob boss or something. There's no way 14 year old should be able to live alone and be financially well off. Jakurai just smiles through everyone's suspicions, and since there's no proof, no one can do anything about it.
Jakurai acts like a literal angel, though, if you anger him, he might actually stab you (*cough* Ramuda *cough*). Jakurai, Hitoya, and Rei are friends, though no one knows how are when, they just are.
During the TDD era, Ramuda, Ichiro, and Samatoki acted a bit like pseudo-parents for him, though nowadays, while they do their best to keep an eye on Jakurai out of a sense of responsibility, Jakurai is content to ignore them.
Doppo and Hifumi are together and happily so. They still tell most people they're just roommates, due to Doppo's lack of confidence, but they're pretty content together.
Hifumi still works at a host club, though he does fumble sometimes from having less experience. Sometimes he doubts himself because he's not as old as his peers at the host club.
Doppo is just as self-deprecating as always, though there's a whole helping of fatalistic humor as well. His favorite way to relieve himself of stress is to hug Jakurai.
Both Hifumi and Doppo love Jakurai and really worry if a 14 year old living alone is okay. They like taking turns hugging and cuddling with the boy and Jakurai is somehow okay with it.
Dotsuitare Honpo
Sasara is in a pretty happy relationship with Rosho. They've moved past their issues in their youth and are now together.
They live separately, though that's mostly because of convenience for their workplace rather than because they want to
They planned to move in together soon, but their plans are put to halt when they meet Rei
Rei is a student at Rosho's school. He's not a bad student, just a bit inattentive and laissez-faire when it comes to others.
Rei helps them out of a bad situation and shows that he's good with a hypnosis microphone, but nopes out of the situation before either Sasara or Rosho can talk to him. He gets caught by Rosho the next day at school though.
Somehow, he gets roped into joining Dotsuitare Honpo, but there's a gleam in his eyes that tell Sasara that he's pretty pleased with the outcome.
When they find out that Rei lives on his own in a really rundown and small apartment, they freak out a bit and then try to make him move in with one of them.
It... kind of works? Rei still works on a near daily basis and insists on paying rent, but at least he's not living in a shitty apartment anymore.
Rei isn't used to people caring for him, having pretty much raised himself, and it shows. Any bout of affection is waved off with a laugh, light teasing, or a strained grin. When Sasara and Rosho find out that his dad is Ichiro, Sasara gets a little bit more than just mad at at his former teammate.
Bad Ass Temple
Kuko is a full-on monk at the temple, having taken over the temple after his father's retirement. He met Jyushi there, who was praying for luck for his next concert.
Kuko has calmed down a lot since being a teenager. There's still bouts of anger sometimes, but he's mostly exasperated, especially at Hitoya. Kuko is super interested in Jyushi, but not sure how to make his intentions clear without startling the other man or inciting Hitoya's ire.
Jyushi is still a sweetheart, though he's not as permanently attached to Amanda as before. He's a very popular idol/music artist, primarily is visual kei, though he does do other things.
Hitoya originally was a homeless kid, though he did occasionally crash at Jakurai's place. His pride wouldn't let him do it too often, scared of becoming too reliant on the other boy or showing himself as weak.
Jyushi met Hitoya when he was in Tokyo for a concert. Somehow, he convinced the boy to come live with him. He took him back to Nagoya and that's where he's lived since.
Hitoya is very, very protective of Jyushi. He thinks Jyushi is too naive and air-headed for an adult, so he does his best to protect Jyushi from his stalkers and any other people that could hurt him. He's a bit of a hothead and comes off as overzealous and even hissing at people who stand too close to Jyushi.
Jyushi is very patient with Hitoya and thinks he's the cutest kid in the world, an opinion that Kuko very much disagrees with.
Kuko sometimes feels like apologizing to his father after dealing with Hitoya, because damn, was he ever this bad as a kid?
Chuuoku
Otome is young, but she's not stupid. The world sucks and she's doing her best to make it a better place, especially for women. Being responsible for an entire country is overwhelming at times, so she's grateful for Ichijiku's help.
The men vs women agenda isn't quite as fervent as it is in canon, and Otome does her best to include all LGBTQ+ in her equality agenda
Ichijiku still hates men, but she softens a bit when it comes to Otome. The girl is young, but dang if she isn't doing her best.
Nemu willingly works with the Chuuoku, though she is very tired of her brother's dumbassery. Seriously, who actually calls themselves Mr. Hardcore without being embarrased?
Otome used to live with her mother, but she got sick of all the "being a lady" BS that traditional family spout and ran away once she was old enough. Dice being her dad, helped her settle on her own and sending whatever money has sometimes.
Once she overthrew the government, she has a steady home and paycheck, so she regularly sends money and visits him. Thankfully, the money is never spent of gambling because Dice finds it too precious to throw away like that.
#hypnosis mic#age swap au#except everyone's age is everywhere#yamada ichiro#yamada jiro#yamada saburo#aohitsugi samatoki#iruma jyuto#rio busujima#amemura ramuda#yumeno gentaro#arisugawa dice#jinguji jakurai#izanami hifumi#kannonzaka doppo#nurude sasara#tsutsujimori rosho#amayado rei#harai kuko#aimono jyushi#amaguni hitoya#otome tohoten#ichijiku kadenokouji#aohitsugi nemu
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hypmic characters & affection hcs
i didn’t write these in order so some are about hugs n stuff and some are more about emotional affection but i hope you like it anyway! it’s all the divisions & chuuoku ｀;:゛;｀;･(°ε° )
i tried to make them about both platonic and romantic love (bc i love both) but some are more one than the other oh well
Ichiro will full-body hug you at all times. It looks like he’d squeeze you hard, but his hugs are surprisingly gentle, and he would never intentionally hurt you. He’s absolutely the type to pick you up and hold you tight when you haven’t seen each other for a while. If you become really close, even just as friends, he’ll give you kisses on the top of your head.
Jiro gives hugs the most when he’s trying to reassure someone. He’s not the best at giving advice and stuff like that, so he’ll do his best to tell you that he’s got your back by holding you close. He’ll let you cry on his shoulder if you need to, and he refuses to let go until you’re feeling alright.
Saburo will be too shy to initiate contact most of the time but he doesn’t mind it with his friends. When he’s looking for comfort he’ll very gently tug on your sleeve with an anxious look, and he’ll settle down once you’ve brought him into your arms. He forgets all too easily that he loves being held by someone he trusts.
Samatoki will give little bits of physical affection that seem mundane at first, but he gets close enough that you can tell it’s his way of showing that he cares. The most common will be his hand on your arm or shoulder as he asks how your day’s been, maybe working up to a hug. From that, and the sweet smile on his face as he does it, it becomes clear that he’s more than genuine.
Jyuto doesn’t think there’s a huge barrier between what levels of affection you should show whether it’s a platonic or romantic relationship, only because he thinks both are equally important. And he’ll respect your boundaries because he has his own. When you’re excited about something he’ll ruffle your hair to show support, and in return he loves gentle strokes to his hair (the bunny loves being pet, what can I say?).
Riou loves having one arm over your shoulder as you’re lying down, admiring the sky. Whether you’re looking at clouds floating by or the twinkling stars, Riou could lose hours staring at them with you by his side. His hugs are so warm that it’s easy to get sleepy in his arms. Seeing you feel safe around him is all that Riou could ask for.
Ramuda is the clingiest hugger ever, in the best way possible. It’s kind of scary how easy it is for him to tell when something’s amiss, and he’ll be attached to you until whatever was bothering you has gone away. It feels more intimate for him to hold someone’s hand than much else, so he’ll save it for super special occasions.
Gentaro is fonder of casual affection than anything else. Whenever the two of you are hanging out he won’t mind if you lean on his shoulder as he reads, and vice versa. It’s like a little reminder that you’ve got his back when he needs it. Likes the occasional pat on the shoulder (and on the head too but he’d never say it).
Dice needs physical affection a lot more than he lets on, but it’s not as if he tries to hide it. When you’re hanging around with him and he’s in the mood for a cuddle he’ll whine and sigh dramatically until you get the hint. It turns into a habit, Dice asking for a hug without him actually saying it. And it’s only because he’s too embarrassed to admit it. One thing he can rely on is that your arms will always be open to welcome him, whatever state he’s in.
Jakurai has the softest hugs in the world. It starts with him placing his hand on your back to ask for permission, and when he gets it he puts his other hand on the back of your head, bringing you to his body with as much caution as if you were made of glass. But there is a strange strength to his embrace. It feels like if anyone tried to pry his arms open they wouldn’t budge at all.
Hifumi will, of course, act differently depending on which side of him you’re interacting with. But if you’re close with him he’ll be happy to cuddle you no matter which Hifumi it is, because after all, they are the same person. If you’re alright with it, he likes flirting with you platonically (you get me?) to make you smile. But he can’t take it. Being told compliments as you hug him make him weak.
Doppo loves bedtime snuggles. Just being able to forget about the world outside of the bed is one of his favourite feelings, especially with the warmth of a loved one. Even just knowing someone cares about his well-being enough to want to be there with him as he falls asleep is enough to warm his heart. Waking up next to them and being free to drift in and out of sleep in the warmth is something he’ll secretly cherish forever.
Kuko (canonically I think) isn’t fond of being around too many people, so his affections come out when you’re hanging out alone, and even then it’ll take a while for his sappy side to come out. Standing shoulder to shoulder enough affection for him at the start, but over time he finds himself realising how much he just wants to snooze and cuddle next to you.
Jyushi needs hugs so much. When he’s nervous, before a live show, after practice, you name it and Jyushi wants a hug. Most hugs will be you hugging him as he’s hugging Amanda. Letting you get so close to Amanda is a whole honour in itself! If he’s not up for a hug and needs his space, before you can get to him he’ll bonk you on the nose with Amanda’s squishy snout.
Hitoya will only let you be affectionate in private. Out in the world he’s more stoic than soft, but in the comfort of his or your home he’s game for anything. He loves kicking back with you, making some food and drinks and chatting about whatever. That alone is intimate for him, but your embrace would make him even happier with your relationship.
Sasara will opt for fleeting touches, like a quick hand squeeze or a hug that’s over before you know it. He’ll make you just want to wrap him up in your arms and not let him skip away with that annoyingly cute grin of his. If you do he’ll say that it’s too much for him (jokingly of course), but the reality is that he gets embarrassed. If you tease him about it then there’s no telling what might happen.
Rosho makes sure the affection is equal between you. You hug him, he hugs back, you compliment him, and he compliments you back. Even if he blushes the whole time. His favourite way of showing affection is definitely through words. Hearing that his jokes amuse you make him blush up to his ears, and he’d have no idea how much he loves being complimented on his appearance.
Rei isn’t a hugely sentimental guy, so it’d take some convincing that you’re trying to be affectionate towards him. There’d be a lot of trial and error, finding out what works for the two of you. Saying “You did good today.” or “It’s nice to see you here!” will be the tipping point. Actually getting to admit that he likes your company is the hard part.
Otome is cautious of opening up to someone, but with enough mutual love and trust it’ll come through. There’s a mine of affection sitting inside her, with glimpses coming through every now and then. Stroking her hand while she’s talking about something she’s invested in shows her you care, while also letting her have her space.
Ichijuku takes a while to warm up to a lot of physical affection, but she wants to! She appreciates how much you’d pay attention to when she gets a little antsy and needs some alone time. The pay-off would be worth it though as she’d start to surprise you with greeting hugs, and maybe even a light-hearted kiss on the cheek to show how thankful she is to have you in her life.
Nemu loves little hugs and squeezes throughout the day, making sure to get one in before and after work. Knowing she has someone warm to hug when she gets home makes all the hard work worth it. She also loves binge watching her favourite shows with yummy snacks to last you all night, and the two of you huddled under a warm blanket.
#if i repeated myself a bunch yes i did no i didnt#hypmic#hypnosis mic#buster bros#mad trigger crew#fling posse#matenrou#bad ass temple#doitsutare honpo#chuuoku#ichiro yamada#jiro yamada#saburo yamada#samatoki aohitsugi#jyuto iruma#riou busujima#ramuda amemura#dice arisugawa#gentaro yumeno#jakurai jinguji#hifumi izanami#doppo kannonzaka#kuko harai#hitoya amaguni#jyushi aimono#sasara nurude#rosho tsutsujimori#rei amayado#otome tohoten#ichijuku kadenokouji
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There’s virtually no fanfic for Shadow of the Fox but I got hit by this AU idea where Yumeko and Tatsumi are childhood friends, and my hand slipped. Enjoy.
Sometimes the world is frightening to Kage Tatsumi, but at least he has Yumeko-chan.
They’re not supposed to be friends, technically. He’s part of the Shadow Clan and she’s just a commoner from the neighboring town, and the adults keep telling him it’s undignified for him to treat her like an equal. She is also half kitsune, something that would get her killed if people knew about it, so Tatsumi has promised her to never tell anyone about it, ever.
However, Yumeko is also one of the closest people to his own age, as well as the most fun by far. Playing with Yumeko never gets boring. She knows how to climb trees and befriend wild animals; she can make teapots dance and shoes walk off on their own, and on boring afternoons she can fill the hours with the most incredible stories she has gathered from passing yokai. Yumeko is Tatsumi’s best friend in the whole world, and they’re sticking together no matter what happens.
Today, as usual, Tatsumi is supposed to meet up with her after his daily shinobi training. The adults know, of course. They don’t like it, but Tatsumi is very good at his training, so they don’t really see a point in stopping him for now.
But today, after the training, Tatsumi is held back. His usual teacher stops him as he is about to leave, and into the doorframe steps a man he has never seen before.
“This boy?” he asks, his sharp black eyes sizing Tatsumi up from head to toe.
The teacher nods. “This is Kage Tatsumi, Master Ichiro,” he says. “The boy you are looking for.”
Master Ichiro’s eyes narrow. Tatsumi does his best to stand firm under that gaze. He doesn’t like it. It chills him down to the bone.
“Good,” he finally says. “Come with me, child.”
Tatsumi throws a questioning glance at his teacher, then follows. Over his shoulder he catches Ayame’s eyes. She seems worried, but quickly looks away once he meets her gaze.
“No looking back,” Master Ichiro says. “Follow me.”
Tatsumi does, on and on through the winding corridors and hidden passages of the castle, all along thinking of Yumeko waiting for him at the pond. They were planning to catch some tadpoles today. He hopes this won’t take too long.
On they go. Master Ichiro loses no word on where they’re headed or how long it will take. Tatsumi has lost his orientation long ago. He doesn’t have the courage to ask where they are or what this man wants from him. Maybe Yumeko would have said something. But Yumeko isn’t here.
Finally Master Ichiro arrives at a heavy door and pushes it open. Beyond it lies a chamber, small and dark and empty except for a single sword.
“This is Kamigoroshi,” Master Ichiro says. “It is the sword of the Kage demonslayer.”
A shiver runs down Tatsumi’s spine. He doesn’t understand the whole demonslayer thing, but even he knows the demonslayer and his sword are something dangerous, something to be avoided. Why lead him to this chamber—to this thing that sounds so bad?
Master Ichiro’s eyes fall on him, sizing him up and down, appraising. Judging. As if even he himself doesn’t know why he brought this boy here.
“And you,” he says, “have been chosen as its next bearer.”
Tatsumi freezes where he stands. He looks at the sword, then down at his hands, then back at the sword. It’s longer than he is tall.
And he’s…supposed to carry it now? He’s supposed to be the bearer of this sword?
But doesn’t that mean…
“Within this sword resides a demon,” Master Ichiro says. “Its name is Hakaimono, and it has chosen you to be the next Kage demonslayer.”
Him. The demonslayer.
“But—” Tatsumi ventures.
“No arguing.” Master Ichiro’s eyes flash. “The sword chooses the bearer, and it has chosen you. Your task is only to wield it, do what you’re assigned and not let the demon possessing it take over your mind.”
I can’t.
The thought is immediate, so intense that Tatsumi can just barely stop himself from saying it out loud. This sword is so big…this demon sounds powerful. And Tatsumi is neither of those things. He’s just…Tatsumi.
“Fear not,” Master Ichiro says. “We will teach you everything you need to know.”
Tatsumi nods stiffly. Master Ichiro strides past him into the chamber, picking up the sword and holding it out towards him. “Take it.”
He tries and nearly drops it. It’s heavy…too heavy for his arms. He can’t hold this thing!
Hello, human child.
Tatsumi does drop it this time.
“A voice…” he whispers, stumbling backwards, trembling. “There’s a voice in—”
“Brat! Who told you to drop it?” Master Ichiro snaps, shoving Kamigoroshi back into his hands. Tatsumi tries to resist, but he’s only a child, and Ichiro grabs his hands and forces them around the sword. “Stop showing fear! The voice in your head is Hakaimono. You must never show him any emotions, or he will take over your body and slaughter everyone around you.”
Tatsumi grips the sword in desperation. His face is reflected in the gleaming metal of the sword, but all he sees before his eyes is a giant shadow, adorned with the grinning, mocking grimace of an oni.
“What happens if I fail?” he whispers.
Master Ichiro leans down. It’s the one time he does something to be on the same eye level as him, staring deep into his soul with eyes just as black as the newly formed shadow in Tatsumi’s mind.
“If you fail,” he says, “we will have to kill you.”
---
Several days pass before Tatsumi gets to see Yumeko again. Master Ichiro has taken over his training, and he doesn’t allow him to go out and meet with friends. The Kage demonslayer, he says, must not have any friends. He must not love or get attached, or Hakaimono will instantly use that against him.
Tatsumi understands that. But his best friend is out there, waiting for him, probably mad at him for standing her up. And he just wants to tell her about all of this, and he can’t, and it hurts him.
Kamigoroshi remains in his room, unused for now, just lying on the floor like a harbinger of doom. At night Tatsumi lies awake, staring at the weapon, too afraid to touch it even though Master Ichiro keeps telling him to, saying he needs to get accustomed to Hakaimono’s presence. When he sleeps, he is still restless, and the demon continues to haunt his dreams.
It is late at night when something scrapes on his sliding doors. Something that doesn’t sound human at all.
More like a fox, really.
Tatsumi flings off his blanket and opens the door. In comes Yumeko, looking around before transforming into a human. “Tatsumi,” she says, “are you all right? You haven’t come to visit me all week, catching tadpoles was no fun without you!”
Tatsumi looks at her, her gentle eyes, her round, familiar face. The look of concern and understanding. Something no one else has shown him since he became the new owner of Kamigoroshi.
Tears well up in his eyes.
“Yumeko,” he says, “I’m the demonslayer now!”
Her eyes go round. She hasn’t heard as much, but even to her that name brings fear. “What do you mean, demonslayer?” she says. “I thought you weren’t big enough for a sword!”
Tatsumi wipes his eyes and motions to the sword. “The demon…Hakaimono,” he says. “He’s in there…in the sword…he chose me.” He swallows, sniffles, but his vision keeps blurring. “I have to do it now…and Master…Master Ichiro says I can’t ever have friends or feel things anymore or the demon takes me over…and…” His voice breaks. Tears begin to run down his face. “And they’re going to kill me!”
“What? That’s stupid!” Yumeko looks both shocked and angry. “Fighting and demons should be stuff for the grownups, not us! That’s so dumb!”
Tatsumi swallows, wipes his eyes and nods. Then waits.
“Are you scared of me now?” he finally asks.
Yumeko gapes at him. “What?”
“Because I…I’m the demonslayer.” Tatsumi sniffles and hiccups. “I’m a bad guy now…and…”
He doesn’t get any further before Yumeko grabs him and tackles him with a hug.
“Of course I’m not scared,” she says. “You’re my best friend! And best friends stick together, remember?”
Tatsumi doesn’t say anything. He can’t answer. All he can do is bury his face in Yumeko’s shoulder and squeeze her tightly.
“Actually,” Yumeko says, “let’s run away.”
Tatsumi pulls back. “What?”
“From all this,” she answers. “This sword and the whole…demonslaying stuff. Let’s get away and you can live a normal life, how’s that?”
Tempting. So tempting.
But…
“Impossible,” Tatsumi says sadly. “It doesn’t work that way.” He wipes his eyes again. “Hakaimono’s stuck with me until I die.”
“Or he does!” Yumeko answers. “There’s got to be a way to get rid of him!”
But Tatsumi shakes his head.
“I’m sure there is,” Yumeko insists. “We just have to find it. Hang in there, all right? I’ll find out a way to save you for sure!”
Tatsumi almost starts crying again, but instead he forces his lips into a wobbly smile.
“Thank you.”
---
Yumeko keeps visiting him in secret. Every night she sneaks inside to talk to him, sometimes tell him a story, and it means the world to Tatsumi that at least to one person he’s still not the demonslayer, not a monster, but simply Kage Tatsumi.
One night the little fox comes into his room bearing something in her mouth. She drops it in front of him when she transforms, and upon closer inspection Tatsumi finds it’s a small fox doll.
“That’s to cheer you up when I’m not here,” she says. “I made it myself!”
Tatsumi is pretty sure Master Ichiro would never approve of him owning a toy, but just the sight of that little fox makes everything so much easier that he takes it anyway and hides it far from the adults’ line of sight.
A stuffed doll? Hakaimono taunts him later that night. How sentimental.
Tatsumi closes his eyes, covers his ears. He doesn’t want to hear that voice.
You cannot keep me out this way, little one, the demon answers. I am within you. You can run, but you can never escape from your mind.
“Shut up,” Tatsumi whispers.
You seem to care about this girl a lot. There is a smile in the demon’s voice. How would you like it if I sliced this doll of hers to pieces, I wonder?
Tatsumi curls up under the blanket, shivering. The sword lies too close to him, too big and too close and too heavy to move.
And her along with it?
---
Hakaimono keeps taunting him.
Tatsumi tries to ignore it, but the voice is getting louder. Most of the time he can tune out the demon. He feels nothing anymore when people in the palace avoid him. He feels nothing when Master Ichiro beats him for making a mistake. He feels nothing when he is forced to kill small creatures, living beings that he knows Yumeko considers her friends. But when it comes to Yumeko…he can’t tune it out.
He can’t be uncaring when it comes to her. He can’t tear himself from this attachment, the last one he still had. His best friend. The only person still keeping him sane, keeping him human.
He does try to distance himself, for her sake. He has talked her into not coming over as often, and on nights without her he hugs the fox doll close and endures the fear and loneliness. But dropping her entirely? He can’t do that. He simply can’t.
Even if he knows it’s a weakness.
Even if he knows that, sooner or later, Hakaimono will use it against him.
---
Tatsumi finally arrives on Yumeko’s doorstep during the daytime, looking like he is carrying a heavy burden.
He is eleven now, tall and strong enough to wield Kamigoroshi, just barely. Most of the time it still looks like the sword is wielding him. But he keeps hauling it with him anyway, why, Yumeko doesn’t know.
“Tatsumi,” she says. “What’s up?”
For a moment something akin to pain crosses his face, then it transforms back into an emotionless mask. “Yumeko,” he says, “I need you to stop visiting me.”
It’s like a punch in the gut. Yumeko flinches. “What?” she asks. “But—”
“It’s Hakaimono. He keeps threatening…to kill you,” Tatsumi whispers. “I need to cut you off, or he will take over.”
Impossible. Impossible. All these years, and it’s been fine. “You managed before!” Yumeko bursts out. “What changed?”
“He’s growing stronger.” Tatsumi closes his eyes, and his blank expression wavers. “I can’t bear it much longer. We can’t be friends anymore.”
Yumeko swallows. Tears well up in her eyes. “But you’re my best friend,” she says. “What happened to best friends forever? What happened to no matter what?”
“I’m sorry.” Tatsumi’s hands clench into fists at his sides. “But if you don’t leave…I can’t promise I won’t kill you someday.”
“I refuse to believe that,” Yumeko says. “You would never—”
“Yumeko,” Tatsumi says. “Please.”
She doesn’t want to, but the look in his eyes convinces her that he means every word.
---
Tatsumi is twelve when Master Ichiro finally finds the fox doll.
“What did I tell you about toys?” he exclaims as he hits him, again and again, until Tatsumi’s back is blue with bruises. “No getting attached to anything, not even inanimate objects! Are you trying to get us all killed?”
Finally he stops beating him and shoves Kamigoroshi into his hands. “Destroy it,” he says. “Here. Now.”
Tatsumi stumbles back like he’s been hit in the face. “I—”
“No buts! Destroy it before it destroys all of us.” Master Ichiro narrows his eyes. “Or would you rather I do it?”
Tatsumi swallows, steels himself. The fox doll sits on the ground, looking up at him with black button eyes so similar to Yumeko’s own fox form. And suddenly it’s not a toy sitting in front of him. It’s Yumeko, looking up at him with pleading, innocent eyes.
No attachments.
Tatsumi lifts his sword, and pieces of stuffing fly all over the room.
---
The Silent Winds temple is burning.
Yumeko runs down the forest path, away from the oni, away from everything. Her chest hurts, and not from the smoke. She went to this place with Master Isao after Tatsumi ended their friendship, and it was her new home. Her family.
And now, once again, she is all alone.
Or would be, if not for the figure suddenly emerging in front of her.
Yumeko staggers back, expecting another oni. But the face before her is human—no, not only that. It’s familiar.
All these years, and she still recognizes him on sight.
“Tatsumi?” she rasps out.
“Yumeko,” he whispers. For a brief moment something akin to emotion flashes up in his voice.
“What are you doing here?” she says. “The temple—”
“I could ask you the same,” he says coldly. “I’m not here for you.”
“The temple is gone.”
Tears well up in her eyes, and Yumeko lets herself drop down to the ground. “The monks…they’re all dead,” she says. “The temple was attacked by oni, they sent me away, but…but…”
She wishes she could hug him like she would have done in their childhood. But the Tatsumi in front of her is no longer her friend. He is no longer anyone’s friend.
A hand lands on her shoulder, awkward but warm.
“Tell me what happened,” Tatsumi says. “I had an errand up there. A certain scroll…”
Yumeko thinks of the thing hidden in her furoshiki. Briefly she wonders if she should tell him. Better not. The way he is now…he might kill her, or else abandon her here in the wild.
Instead she thinks of something else.
“Master Isao sent it away,” she says. “He expected the temple to be attacked. The place it’s at now is…the Steel Feather temple, I think it’s called. He told me how to find it.” Her eyes meet Tatsumi’s. “I could lead you there, if you want.”
Tatsumi hesitates. Yumeko knows what he’s thinking: that this is a risk, and he’s playing with fire. Hakaimono threatened him over her before. But…
“Fine,” Tatsumi mutters, and it sounds like someone pronouncing his own doom. “I will follow you. But remember—I’m only your companion, not your friend.”
Yumeko knows that, and yet she can’t help smiling at the thought of traveling with him.
“I know.”
#i spent the whole evening on this#shadow of the fox#tatsumeko#kage tatsumi#yumeko#me and my writings#headcanons
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My 19 Favorite Albums of 2019
2019 is coming to a close. The entire decade is coming to a close. This list has been an increasingly comforting exercise the last few years. I guess this will be the eighth annual version of the linernotesandseasons favorite albums of the year list! Crazy how time passes. So here are the collections of songs that I used to mark my personal time & space this year. The lyrics that I learned by heart & sang out in dark & dirty rock clubs. I also made a spotify playlist with two songs from each album if you’re interested in listening along as you read.
This year most of my writing focuses on when & why I fell in love with a specific album. Sometimes the history is important, building a base or connecting some threads, so when relevant, I have also included my history with when I fell in love with a specific artist. And finally, as has become more important to my music chasing brain in the last few years, why this artist or album is important to music right now. What they’re doing to leave a mark on the world, in whatever small space or way.
So without any further ado, here it is, in no particular order (unless you’re particularly knowledgable or fond of the english alphabet) my 19 (well actually 20 cuz freaking Big Thief put out two!) favorite albums of 2019. It’s been a pleasure.
BETTER OBLIVION COMMUNITY CENTER / Better Oblivion Community Center
Spring 2019 in Denver was cold & breezy, sunny & exciting. I had spun the Phoebe Bridgers/Conor Oberst match-made-in-indie-emo-sad-folk-heaven record once through, but in late March I made a game time (like I bought a day-of ticket off stubhub at 6pm!) decision to drive down from work and see their show at the Gothic on South Broadway. I’d been up since 7am the night (morning?) before, watching opening day baseball live from Japan (on March 20th?!). Ichiro’s final game and I was feeling maybe a little emotionally fragile already. But anyway… Better Oblivion Community Center’s live show (they call them meetings) has all the potential to come off as cheesy or contrived. A recorded voice welcomes you, self-help-cult style, and invites you to “celebrate sound & light” & “travel the well worn pathways,” because “we are one.” A mystical backdrop gives a hint of what you’re in for (I didn’t know what I was in for...) with letters at the top reading “It will end in tears.” The band is brilliant, loose, & fun. They play all the songs. They play “Lua,” “Bad Blood,” & “Easy/Lucky/Free” from the endlessly varied Bright Eyes catalog. They turn Phoebe’s “Funeral” into a punk blast. They cover The Replacements! They wear shades and sing a song from lawn chairs! The show feels effortlessly cool and I feel like I’m part of something special again. Music has a way of doing that.
The record is perfectly equal parts Phoebe & Conor. From the opening lines, where Phoebe takes control with “my telephone it doesn’t have a camera” sounding for all the world like a gloriously mopey “Smoke Signals Vol. 2″ to the way Oberst sings the first lines of ethereal closer “Dominoes” sounding 100% like Cassadaga-era Bright Eyes. If you know & love either, you should know the other now. Phoebe carries a torch from early 2000′s emo with a sad-at-heart, genius songwriting style that emphasizes pinpoint autobiographical lyrics, a cutting, (even humorous at times) wit, and a teenage, feminist, internet, millennial heart. Oberst for his part has kept up a steady output since Bright Eyes, and (at least lyrically) doesn’t seemed to have cheered up much. Better Oblivion Community Center’s self titled debut feels fresh & catchy. While there is definitely an aching sadness in the duo’s songwriting, light hearted moments abound, and the writing often points to getting older, all hard work & growth. There is the bouncing outro to “Sleepwalkin’” where their voices rise in unison singing “Acting insane, playing it safe, I wasn’t sold on that plan anyways. Feeling afraid of making a change.” Or in the bright, rolling verses of “My City” where they go looking for “little moments of purpose.” But the one song I kept going back to; the one I recorded to cassette tape and played on almost every drive home from work at 4am through April & May, is the bittersweet closer “Dominoes.” Ironically, this one is a Taylor Hollingsworth cover (I think that’s him adding the random, spooky voice overs) but Conor takes the lead on vocals, singing a mostly lonely, hopeless tale, until the last verse when Phoebe cuts in. She’s “carpooling to kingdom come, into the wild purgatory.” Encouraging us to “Experience a magic rainbow, all you gotta’ do is follow. & if you’re not feeling ready… There’s always tomorrow.”
“The world will not remember when we’re old & tired / We’ll be blowing on the embers of a little fire…”
BIG THIEF / U.F.O.F. & Two Hands
2019 was the year that I finally finally got really really into Big Thief. A band’s band known for their live show (I still have yet to see them live) their following seems equal parts cult-y and universal. How a band that sounds the way they do, made it almost to the top of the indie-rock world is an exciting & inviting mystery.
This year, for me, the catalyst was “Cattails.” Released at the beginning of April, this song struck me and stuck with me, making its way onto almost every mix I made last Spring, Summer, & Fall (including this one for my Mom!) A real song of the year contender (& my #1 most listened to song of 2019 on spotify!), “Cattails” is a melodic, driving, beautiful tune, that finds singer & front person Adrienne Lenker marking Time (”riding that train in late June”) & Space (”going back home to the great lakes”) with grace & depth. There is a sacredness & mysticism tied up in a lot of Lenker’s writing and she refers to her writing experience with “Cattails” saying…
“It was one of those electric, multicolored waves of connectivity just sweeping through my body. I stayed up late finishing the song and the next morning was stomping around playing it over & over again. We thought why not just record it … & when James and I were playing it felt like a little portal in the fabric had opened and we were just flying. Listening back to it makes me cry sometimes.”
In truth, U.F.O.F. (the last f stands for “friend,” a way of humanizing the foreign) is a gorgeous record. Soft & gentle, full of songs about the constant tussle between things known & unknown. A real headphones-on-an-airplane record. And then, out of nowhere, Big Thief announced that they had a second (!) record on the way in the Fall. A dirt & earth twin for U.F.O.F., a special surprise gift for their burgeoning fan base. They announced Two Hands with the vicious single “Not,” a song very unlike “Cattails.” A brooding, ravenous rock song that made me remember why I love unhinged, well-written, unafraid rock & roll music. Another song of the year contender. If you’ve followed this blog the last few months, my well thought out comments to “Not” were “ohhhhhhhhhhhhh shit” & “oh my holy shit.” to the live version! But it was actually the second track on Two Hands that solidified Big Thief’s greatness for me. “Forgotten Eyes” is sonically similar to “Cattails” and rides the same effortless rhythm, driven by Lenker’s repeating guitar riff and James Krivchenia’s consistently impressive drumming. The riff seems to fall in & out magically, and the writing bookends “Cattails” with lyrics that speak to both a great pain & a great universal truth. While she wanders through homelessness & death, Lenker reflects beautifully on the life cycle we (& our planet, & maybe everything?) are all going through.
“Forgotten dance is the one left at birth / Forgotten plants in the fossils of earth / & they’ve long passed but they are no less the dirt / Of the common soil keeping us dry & warm / The wound has no direction / Everybody needs a home & deserves protection…”
BLACK BELT EAGLE SCOUT / At the Party With My Brown Friends
After finding Black Belt Eagle Scout’s debut album late last year, I soundtracked many a dusk, dawn, or midnight drive with her swirling vocals & entrancing guitar, usually in the cold & dark, through the early part of 2019. It made my 2018 favorites list, and her Larimer Lounge show in May was a highlight. I guess it makes sense then, that I didn’t truly fall for her sophomore album At the Party With My Brown Friends (released in August) until it got cold in November and I was able to take it out for some dark, snowy drives. Moody & serious at times, Black Belt Eagle Scout sounds every bit like the gray Pacific Northwest where front person Katherine Paul (KP) hails from. The lyrics are simple, repeating phrases, full of deep, important ideas. Family & friends. People & land. There are bursts of guitar coming out of rewarding slow builds, shredd-y, rhythmic, & melodic. Also, all the instruments on ATPWMBF are played by KP, and the drumming is fucking fantastic.
I have some sort of longer form writing building somewhere in the back of my mind about listening to music in cars, and both Black Belt Eagle Scout albums are perfect examples for that. I have always loved the feeling of having roads (highways or simply long straight dirt back roads) & music to listen to. In high school, we would sometimes get in the car simply to drive & listen to music (small town life ya know?) and I still relish any chance I get to take new (or old & long loved) songs & albums on road trips or just commutes around town. The time to sit with the songs, to focus on nothing but the words & melodies, instruments & voices, & the pull of the road, mystical & magical. Black Belt Eagle Scout’s songs have been a calming companion on a lot of drives over the last year, and I recommend you taking them out on a spin of your own. Drive to that coffee shop that’s 30 minutes away that you’ve been wanting to go to, drive out of town just to drive, alone with your thoughts & the road. You just might learn something about yourself.
“& I wake up / I love you / Screaming loudly / Screaming softly too / Am I here? / My heart dreams…”
BON IVER / i,i
Bon Iver is a long time favorite and if you’ve followed this blog at all, you know how much I love his albums and how much Justin Vernon’s Eaux Claires festival has helped shaped my musical timeline. Seeing 22, A Million (the record that precedes i,i) live in Wisconsin by the river for the first time, was something special. That record made my 2016 favorites list, but until this year, until i,i, my story of the music felt very insular. Special & secret for me, confined to very specific times & places. Only to make me feel certain things. It’s why I was hesitant to buy a ticket to see the Red Rocks show last September. Or why I questioned streaming the album early while I was on vacation in Holden Beach, North Carolina. I thought the songs were only meant to carry me back to the river, back to Wisconsin, back to the Summer. Back to a very specific, special place in my heart. But thanks to the wonders of spotify, and the Bon Iver crew just up and releasing the album a week early under the simple & generous guise of “wanting folks to have the album & learn the songs before the tour!!” I obliged and… YESSSS that’s how you do an album release in 2019! I had the album in my headphones as I ran and sweated on the beach in North Carolina, letting brand new songs transport me thousands of miles away.
i,i is a gloriously weird, perfected mess of a hit indie record. It’s everything I wanted the next chapter of the Bon Iver story to be. It feels personal & widescreen. Little moments stretched out and shared with family & friends. Lyrics about growth & hard work & life (& a few WTFs, it’s Bon Iver after all!) The gang’s all here again (the massive crew that worked on the album are all pictured on the record’s gloriously, weird inside gatefold!) recorded from Vernon’s home (April) base in Wisconsin, to Sonic Ranch in west Texas (also pictured in the liner notes) walking distance from our southern border. The sounds are all here again too. There are hints of For Emma’s Winter falsetto folk in the gorgeous acoustic guitar of “Marion.” There are the industrial swells & stomps, bleeps & bloops of bi, bi’s Spring in the warbling, green grass, warmth of “Holyfields.” Then there is the distortion, the choppy samples of 22, in the jigsaw glory of “iMi,” the way it starts & stops, all choruses & voices, real & programmed. Threads of new songs tied up with threads from long, long ago. There is a fullness to i,i, a generosity, a true front to back album, with hits & new favorites sprinkled everywhere. The second half blooms with the charging folk of “Salem” & “Faith” and the contentedness of closer “RABi.” These are songs that I will love for years to come. These songs make me happy. They make me think. They make me want to share them with friends. They make me want to work on relationships. Songs about life. Songs about true, unconditional friendship. As Justin said way back in 2015, when my journey with the Bon Iver story began “The story is history, nothing more. Only the music can rise anew. & it is gone as soon as it is sung. & so we sing again…” I am soo soo happy to sing again, with songs anew.
“Living in a lonesome way / Had me looking other ways / Cuz I am lost here again / But on a bright Fall morning I’m with it / I stood a little within it…”
EARTHGANG / Mirrorland
EARTHGANG’s major label debut Mirrorland comes in hot & dancing, a hip hop duo with a true tribute to Southern culture, and a whole world encapsulated in 14 tracks. My personal introduction to the EARTHGANG universe, came courtesy of a dusk till dark dance fest at Denver’s Underground Music Showcase on South Broadway back in sweaty July. Their energy was infectious, their stories hilarious, & their songs stuck in my head. Specifically the Young Thug featuring “Proud Of U,” a song that carries enthusiasm & positivity through to the end. Other standouts include colorful, bouncing opener “LaLa Challenge,” & the squealing horns of Atlanta hot spot, name dropping “Wings.” A concept album of sorts Mirrorland references “The Wiz” as a jumping off point saying,
“We thought about how, if we’re going to make a project sonically to rival The Wiz, we got to create another world for people to imagine & go to. You know when Dorothy got swept away and she met the Munchkins? That was such a beautiful thing. You could see Quincy Jones on the piano, just playing away. It’s really colorful. It’s really dangerous. It’s really trippy. It’s literally Freaknik Atlanta in the summertime—folks riding around in cars with big rims with paint on their faces.”
EARTHGANG was formed in 2008 by high school buddies Johnny Venus & Doctur Doc in Atlanta, GA. It’s impossible to ignore Outkast comparisons and for their part, EARTHGANG does their best to keep up the Southern hip hop tradition. Mixing in bits of soul, blues, & jazz, Mirrorland plays like an homage, a soundtrack to the South. A real reminder that the album is not dead. These songs sound best played together. Also, that the hip hop group, or duo, is not dead. And finally, that touring and playing live shows is most definitely not dead. I probably still wouldn’t have heard about EARTHGANG if it wasn’t for their primo UMS slot (at the same Import Mechanics stage where Leikeli47 & Kiltro played!) and infectiously positive live show. Speaking of their live show, see y’all at Cervantes on February 3!
“One time, one time for your baby moms / Two time for the hand in the candy jar / Holy Ghost showed up in my favorite thong / Three times in the car for the way we are / Another white man scared, another black man dead / Another rich man war, another red man bled / I been writing this album down way too long / When I drop my shit, pray it hit the toilet like lala, lalalalala...”
FRUIT BATS / Gold Past Life
In the Autumn of 2013, my coworker Cassandra Disney at Mile High Organics played me “When You Love Somebody” by Fruit Bats (had that song already been out for 10 years in 2013?!) on one of her early morning work mixes, and I immediately put it on one of my favorite (if embarrassingly bro-folk heavy) mixes I have ever made myself. Discovering a weird/cool indie band in the vein of all my other loves (Band of Horses, The Shins, Modest Mouse, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, etc…) but more underground (!) was hipster heaven. I subsequently forgot about Fruit Bats for awhile, but was reminded with their graceful “comeback” album Absolute Loser in 2016. Although that one missed my favorites list, it gradually became a constant road trip companion; from the mountains of Colorado, through the great American Southwest, and even on some epic Mexican back roads. All alt-country, lost 70′s AM radio classics, and wistful, witty, & wise writing about highways and scenery. A true classic.
I was therefore super excited for Gold Past Life (Fruit Bats’s seventh album?!) to drop on Merge Records this Summer, and fell in love pretty quickly on a late afternoon drive across the high road between Taos and Santa Fe, New Mexico back in late June. Swirling guitar, bouncy piano. and Eric D. Johnson’s piercing, clear, impassioned vocals. Fruit Bats sound timeless & effervescent. Upbeat guitar rock with some weird twists, and Johnson’s consistently bittersweet, humorous, & big hearted lyrics. Growing up, growing older, & grinning a wry smile at a golden world. After catching back to back beautiful Fruit Bats shows in Fort Collins & here in Denver at the Bluebird this September, these folks are the real deal. Long live touring bands, long live seventh albums, long live music marking time & space! Here’s to many more Fruit Bats albums, Gold Past Life will be car stereo classic for awhile.
“Still waiting around for some mystical shift in the winds / So honey please, don’t go just yet / Cigarette fingers, a shake in the knees / A bit blue, kind of tired, but not broken… Anticipating a magical bend in the road / So hang on, take it slow / Your go bag is packed & your hangover gone / Another dawn at the edge of the known world…”
HISS GOLDEN MESSENGER / Terms of Surrender
Durham, North Carolina’s Hiss Golden Messenger (folklorist, family man, & singer-songwriter MC Taylor & revolving crew) have become something of a mainstay on this music blog & in my car’s cd player over the last five years. I picked up a used (!), advance (!) copy of Lateness of Dancers in the $1 bin at a record store in Seattle, Washington. after having been passed a burned copy of his 2010 solo album Bad Debt by an old coworker. Lateness ended up on my 2014 favorites list. Two years later, Heart Like A Levee made my 2016 list, and the next year, Hallelujah Anyhow was one of my favorites of 2017! I referred to the songs on Hallelujah as Hiss “building a repertoire, creating a legacy.” This may seem like quite a bit of superfluous backstory, but believe me, it is essential to the story, a journal of the journey. Geographic art for a topographic heart if you will. But anyway, Terms of Surrender…
The title is cryptic, referencing (as Taylor puts it “what we are prepared to sacrifice in order to live the lives that we think we want”) and the songs are deep (& growing deeper) & timeless. Not so much timeless in the way Yola’s songs sound timeless (skip down a few albums on this list to read about Yola!) but timeless in the way the songs seem to seep their way into my bones and stay for years. Terms burst on the scene with the release of the first single “I Need a Teacher” back in stormy June. With bright, rolling guitar stabs courtesy of The National’s Aaron Dessner (whose upstate New York recording studio was home for the Terms recording sessions), “Teacher” is about “the search for infallible guidance in an ever-changing universe.” but it is also about everyday work. Dedicated every night of the tour to all the teachers in the room, a political statement wrapped up in the seemingly obvious sentiment of “Defend Public Schools.” See what I mean? Timeless songs written for the here & now. “Bright Direction” & “My Wing” are reminiscent of Hallelujah’s “Jenny” & “Darkness.” a 1-2 punch of driving, drifting major key numbers, written from a hillside in Virginia, high on mushrooms. They contain multitudes. With a murky middle (Brad Cook gets funky on “Old Enough to Wonder Why” & “Cat’s Eye Blue”) & the already canonical Hiss’ live fav “Happy Birthday Baby,” the back half of Terms spreads out the Hiss’ sound in new ways. New live favorite, the nostalgic “Down at the Uptown,” had me googling maps of San Francisco to find the mythical Uptown bar where Taylor first heard Patti Smith’s Horses.
In late October, Hiss played an absolutely glorious three night run at little Globe Hall over in Globeville, just Southeast of where Interstate 70 meets Interstate 25. I went to all three shows. The shows were special & career spanning; from “Jesus Shot Me in the Head,” to Dead covers (& a Jesus & Mary Chain cover!) to all the Terms songs. I spent the Saturday afternoon before show #2, walking around the disappearing & rapidly gentrifying neighborhood in & around Globeville (& drifting across the highway into Sunnyside) listening to Terms of Surrender on my headphones. Thinking about the things I’m willing to sacrifice, thinking about the life I want, what are my Terms? After all, “It’s a real live world & I wanna live in it.”
“Something drove me crazy / Love had me lazy / Backwards won’t get me to my destination / Move me in some bright direction / Looking to be captured, looking for my freedom / Oh, dreams will come to get you / So careful what you’re wishing / Your family might correct you / Your heart might take a pounding / Make sure you take a picture…”
JUNE JONES / Diana
I can’t remember where I first heard of June Jones, but I’d like to think it was from one of my many Australian music friends (thanks Camp Cope, Julia Jacklin, Middle Kids, Courtney Barnett, Gang of Youths etc…!) The music community is a wonderful thing. June’s songs can be hard to explain, but Diana is an epic album that burns with a steady, stately drama. Most of the songs ride swelling synths and measured, 80’s sounding drums and center around June’s unique, emotive voice and head turning lyrics. Jones had fronted the Australian rock band Two Steps on the Water and written songs on the guitar for many years, but it’s pretty clear from listening to the writing and sound on Diana that these songs were meant for piano, synth, and a solo album. Her own writing. Her own words.
The album begins with the brooding “Rome From Afar” and the opening line “I got drunk again last night & I fell down outside the bathroom at my little sister’s party.” It then follows a dancing bass line into an apocalyptic nightmare of a world ending. “Meryl” is a gorgeous, autobiographical (?) song, an ode to “complicated” hard working women everywhere. There are parts of Diana that nod to it being a break up album, like in the gorgeously melancholic “Boulder Falling Slow” (”I am a boulder falling slow / You’re a magnificent spiderweb”) but I have been viewing it as just a complex, everyday life album. Jones lets her magnificent voice trail slowly over seemingly uncomfortable or awkward topics that she strives to make… not so. Sorry Alex Cameron, your “eating your ass like an oyster” line in “Miami Memory” is only the second best “eating ass” line this year after Jones’ “Look at You Go!” Her voice often belies the emotion in her lyrics, she works it up & down, and lets it stretch out over words, like in lonely closer “Sixteen Horses,” but she also sounds almost matter of fact at times. There is a moment in the piano led “Thorn” where she glibly throws “Have you seen the moon tonight? No, me neither, who cares about the moon when everything is dying?” over an understated horn trill. Everything is dying after all, but I want June Jones to sing it to me like an Australian Lana Del Rey or Matt Berninger. Trust me, you’ll be hearing more about June Jones in the coming years. Watch out.
“I haven’t thought too much about family / Ain’t got no husband or a couple of kids / I’ve spent 26 years in this office / I said goodbye to my relationships a long time ago / What does the mayor of a small town heart do after she retires?”
JUSTIN PETER KINKEL-SCHUSTER / Take Heart, Take Care
My long time music friend Adam over at songsfortheday had been trying to tell me about Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster for quite a few mixes with songs I loved from his 2016 release Constant Stranger. But it somehow wasn’t until I needed Take Heart, Take Care, that Schuster’s work hit me right. It didn’t feel like a light at the end of the tunnel, but more like a light in the tunnel, something lasting, a collection of songs lifting up & out towards a light. As Schuster wrote upon it’s release…
“Here, I’ve fumbled my way, as always, and of necessity, into a collection of songs that hold a light to the joys & comforts of life not given up on, those that appear over time as we are looking elsewhere, to surprise & delight us when we need them most. Sure, it’s me, so there are glimpses of and nods to the dark, but the dark is not winning anymore. I simply mean to acknowledge its presence. To me, that’s the most fundamental job of songs, of stories, of all art — to be allies, friends, companions, when we need them most and it’s my hope that these songs can do that work in a world that seems to need it. If you are lucky enough to have something good to say, say it. Please. We’ll thank each other, now & later.”
So i guess it’s that second part that I have found solace in through my 20′s and into my 30′s. That songs (and stories & all art, but songs & albums seem to be my thing) can be allies, friends, & companions, and that sometimes (like Hanif Abdurraqib wrote in his brilliant collection of essays “They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us”)…
“If you believe, as I do, that a blessing is a brief breath to take in that doesn’t taste of whatever is holding you under: say I Speak To God In Public and mean more than just in his house, or mean more than just next to people who might also speak to God in public, or say God and mean whatever has kept you alive when so many other things have failed to.“
Take Heart, Take Care is a straightforward, well written, indie rock album. The songs ring true with light & darkness, an uplifting take on growing older and finding “Plenty Wonder” still to be found in the world. Schuster played the Hi-Dive on South Broadway in November, the last show on the Take Heart tour. A show I had bought tickets for months in advance, and I found myself in a crowd of maybe 15 people, celebrating the songs of Take Heart, Take Care. Listening to a writer with something good to say. Trying all in our own way to hold our own. I have a feeling I’ll keep these songs with me for awhile.
“Time is the mender / Whose strange mechanics yet untold / Bid us rise entwined together / So take heart, take care / Be true but beware / & honey we need not be scared…”
KARA JACKSON / A Song for Every Chamber of the Heart
In only 10 minutes & 42 seconds, Kara Jackson creates an intimate, magical world with just her voice and a guitar on her debut EP A Song for Every Chamber of the Heart. Four intricate & intentional songs, none longer than three minutes, finger picked slowly & methodically, Jackson balances a poetic, whimsical wandering with a steely focus on the craft of songwriting. These are the bones of songs, played honest & upfront, with no adornment. There is room for Jackson’s lyrics to really shine, all aching & wistful, yet practical. Like the way she balances “I have a crush, I have an ache” with “I know that love’s just a pain in the ass” in the bittersweet “Crush.” Her songs buzz with a youthful energy & teen angst. Wise beyond their years, finding their way in the world. As a songwriter and a poet, Jackson writes about race, activism, social justice, self, bodies, & humanity.
At 20 (!) years old, Chicago’s Jackson is... oh also a poet. The 2019 National Youth Poet Laureate (!) in fact, and it was her absolutely breathtaking writing about being a teenager that first caught my attention. She quotes Gwendolyn Brooks (pulitzer prize winning American poet) in her Ted Talk saying “write what’s under your nose.” She says that Brooks took the mundane and put it on a pedestal. That she understood there are “poems in train cars, poems on front lawns, & poems in microwaves & tea kettles.” An almost obligation to celebrate the ordinary. Ordinary folks celebrating similar ordinary folks. It’s the way that John Darnielle howls on The Mountain Goats song “Werewolf Gimmick” (track nine on 2015′s Beat the Champ) about “nameless bodies in unremembered rooms.” In his prerelease essay for Merge Records, music writer Joseph Fink wrote that the entire career of The Mountain Goats has been about “giving names to nameless bodies and remembering unremembered rooms.” and what a worthy cause that is. That thought has stuck with me for years and I have always loved the specificity of it. Whether it is Darnielle resurrecting historical characters real or fictional, or the way Lady Lamb (keep reading a few more albums down!) celebrates the specifics of her friends & family, in all the messy details. Written in song, remembered forever. It is also essential that all cultures have artists who look like them and think like them, as the ones doing the remembering. It’s why it’s so important that Kara Jackson is the one doing the remembering for young black girls. The same way Eve Ewing did for her, and Gwendolyn Brooks did before that. I can appreciate the magic of the remembering, but I need to let them be the ones to tell the stories. Oh, speaking of appreciating, I bugged Jackson enough on social media and got a handmade PHYSICAL copy of the EP that I’m hanging onto forever cuz it’s probably gonna be like the next original pressing of Bon Iver’s For Emma! Thanks Kara!
“Don’t take my pillowcase, that's my place to be alone / Don’t take my lamp from me, it helps me read about places I don’t know / Don’t take a lot for me to be on my own...”
KILTRO / Creatures of Habit
My end of the year albums list usually has at least one local Denver band. The Lumineers way back in 2012, Gregory Alan Isakov & Covenhoven in 2013, Nathaniel Rateliff, Covenhoven (again!), & The Yawpers in 2015, Nina de Freitas in 2017 (hey Nina & the Hold Tight, new album in 2020 please?!), and Izcalli last year. Kiltro is a part Coloradan, part Chilean folk band that have been putting on one of my favorite live shows around town this year. The brainchild of Chris Bowers-Castillo, a native Coloradan who spent time growing up in Valparaiso, Chile, Kiltro is named after the Spanish word “Quiltro” meaning a mixed breed dog. A dog that Kiltro has taken for their logo. In their own way, Kiltro is a mix breed; both in the way they mix the sounds of South America with the folk music of North America, and also the way they mix organic, acoustic instrumentation, with electronic, looping sounds and effects pedals. Their live show is a masterclass in layers, with Bowers-Castillo adding loops of guitar rhythms (sometimes simply bare hands slapping beats on the top of the guitar) to steady bass & drums, until the songs swell & build into dramatic crescendos and almost EDM-influenced drops. The extended intros & outros are my favorite parts of their songs and the live versions (from their sweaty 2pm UMS dance party, to Lulu’s Downstairs in Manitou Springs) have stirred hearts & feet alike with dancing not usually found in the Colorado “indie-hipster” scene. Keep an eye on these guys and maybe come out to Larimer Lounge in January and witness the dance party for yourself!
“Somewhere down the bank where the dogs go / Por la calle que te lleva a Curicó / & down the beach, where no others can find / Ni por agua, piso, coche, ni avión...”
LADY LAMB / Even in the Tremor
As I have been writing this year’s favorites list, I’m realizing that so many of the albums I loved & learned, came hand in hand with experiencing the artist, and specifically that new album, live. Lady Lamb released Even in the Tremor, her masterful & moving third album, way back in April, and I had a Spring-y three weeks to learn all her intricate, visceral lyrics to sing back at her Larimer Lounge stop in Denver on the Deep Love tour. Maine by way of Brooklyn’s (by way of a bunch of other places) Aly Spaltro has always written songs for Lady Lamb like her hair’s on fire. Wailing & gasping about blood & guts & death over spiraling electric guitar, there is a realness to her writing that reminds me of the east coast emo I grew up on. But for all the blood red gore & messy heartbreak that colors much of the Lady Lamb discography, there is a light hearted tenderness as well. Tremor has songs written for & about friends, lovers, parents, & god. Quirky opener “Little Flaws” is a first-dance-worthy love song, while personal favorites “Strange Maneuvers” & “Emily” are odes to platonic friendships, mental health, & growing up. In the same way I wrote about Kara Jackson celebrating the ordinary, Lady Lamb has always celebrated specifics of people, time & space. Tremor’s characters are Spaltro’s real life people (Emily, Shervin, Kurt (Kurtie Bear), Isaac, & her Mom), and the places (the diner, the batting cage, Templehof Park, Midtown, Berlin, Montreal, Madrid, a fast food joint, the stage of a church, someplace upstate, Lavanderia & Graham Ave) are specific, varied, & globe spanning. Her stories are autobiographical and rewarding and the music is stirring, singer-songwriter rock & roll with some punch behind it. She is one of my favorite modern writers for her ability to not just tell a story, but to find wonder in the small things and to celebrate the ordinary. Like she tells Shervin, minutes before “Emily” closes the album on a gorgeous, uplifting high note, “No photographic artifact, but here is something better than that.”
“There’s a picture that I found, my first car in the falling snow / Seems like yesterday I drove down into low tide / & Isaac snapped a polaroid of me pretending I was sinking, pressed against the glass pleading / I misplaced it but I’m looking... / When we are young, if only we could see beyond our fears where we are free / When we are lonely if only we could know that in our stillness we are growing... / All the portraits we collected, while we were running around in the desert / We were trying to seem fulfilled to rewrite our New York City narratives / But Emily we were utterly dejected / We took turns crying on the passenger side of America / Too clouded to be empowered by towering Redwoods... / When did we lose the ancient truths? / Is it what we’re born bending our bodies toward?...”
LIZZO / Cuz I Love You
For much of 2019, Lizzo could be heard playing everywhere. The 31 year old Minnesotan’s third full length album Cuz I Love You, came out in April, after a busy three years of huge singles, consistent touring, & building a repertoire of songs capable of headlining arenas. When Lizzo finally exploded these last few years, it has been fun watching the whole world embrace her uptempo, bold, self-love anthems, and hearing them blaring from open Subaru windows in Cap HIll, from balconies & rooftops in uptown, and on the lips of countless joggers & bikers, loving themselves in the Denver Summer sun. I know for my part, I took Lizzo with me to the beaches of North Carolina & through the Southern mountains of Colorado, dancing, singing, & gleefully giggling along. Bottom line, the songs on Cuz I Love You are FUN! You try not to crack a smile as Lizzo romps through “Never been in love before, what the fuck are fucking feelings yo?” on the bouncing, brassy, vocal led, track one title track MOMENT. Or the way she makes up the word “accessorary” on the spot (“my ass is not an accessorary”) and then fires back with “Yeah, I said it, accessorary!” Lizzo has been an outspoken supporter of our generation’s version of the self-love, body positivity movement, and has put her money (and body) where her mouth is, inspiring legions of teens & twenty somethings to do the same. “Soulmate” is a loner anthem that finds Lizzo belting “True love ain’t something you can buy yourself / True love finally happens when you’re by yourself / So if you by yourself, then go and buy yourself another round from the bottle on the higher shelf.” The soulful slowdown “Jerome” is about being the bigger person and ending a relationship that isn’t working. Lizzo manages to actually address her own issues, focus on the work she needs to do (“I’m trying to be patient & patience takes practice.”) and still absolutely belt a singalong chorus that rhymes Jerome with “take your ass home.” Also, the deluxe version of Cuz I Love You tacks on three previous Lizzo singles that hadn’t found an album home. Those singles? “Boys,” “Truth Hurts,” & “Water Me.” Three songs totaling almost 555 MILLION plays on Spotify. With apologies to Ariana Grande & Billie Eilish (Billie see ya in a few months at the Pepsi Center!) Lizzo is the biggest superstar that I want on this list. And she 100% deserves every bit of it.
“If I’m shinin’ everybody gonna’ shine...”
ORVILLE PECK / pony
There is an appealing, theatrical quality to the dramatic country songs on Orville Peck’s debut record Pony. I spent my high school years growing up in small town Western Colorado so country music has been embedded in my brain since I was 11. I’ve gone through so many phases of loving it, hating it, loving it ironically, nostalgically, hating it for it’s sound, cheesiness, backwards politics, etc... But with Pony; these are true country songs written by a gay, masked cowboy anti-hero from.. Toronto? Maybe? Who is Orville Peck?!?! It’s like all the best parts of “country” music came together. And the mask? The fringe? All the packaging & theatrics? It makes it fun. Part Bowie, part Coheed & Cambria, part Grace Jones, part Ghost, part Brandon Flowers. Hollywood meets Vegas meets Carson City.
When I listen to Orville Peck’s songs it brings together so many feelings from my youth. From country radio & boxes of old country cds, to the dramatic side of theatre, play acting on a stage, dress-up, halloween, cowboys, loneliness, & the open road. From the tumbleweed roll & mournfully powerful coyote howl of opener “Dead of Night,” to the shoegaze rumble, autumn ride of “Winds Change.” Peck’s lyrics are honest & heartfelt, drawing on sweeping, western imagery, & idolizing the classic country ideal... the cowboy. Music marks time & place and Peck makes sure to reference the cities along his highway songs. Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Carson City, Kansas, a veritable Rand McNally road map of the American West. In the same manner as both Black Belt Eagle Scout albums, Fruit Bats, & Caroline Rose from last year, it wasn’t until a highway drive that I truly fell in love with Pony. It was a brilliant November sunset & still warm, but windy & changing, and we knew we had to hustle to beat the snow back to Denver. Highway 159 from the Southern Colorado border through Costilla County, on the way towards Fort Garland & then Walsenburg. Purple & Orange out the window to my left, Winter on it’s way. Peck’s songs sang with a heartache... a loss. a rhinestone loneliness that country finds a way to revel in. When “Kansas (Remembers Me Now)” statics out like a long lost FM radio. When “Hope to Die” fake ends at 3:30 and instead key change pivots like a washed-up Broadway starlet, shooting her shot on a dusty jukebox. When “Nothing Fades Like the Light” draws its last, peaceful breath, closing Pony like the last light of that November sunset. Thanks Orville, this one’s a classic.
“Fell in love with a rider / Dirt king, black crown / Six months on a knucklehead hog / I like him best when he's not around / He gets me high, oh, big sky... Fell in love with a boxer / Stayed awake all year / Heartbreak is a warm sensation / When the only feeling that you know is fear / I don't know why, oh, big sky...”
RAPSODY / Eve
Rapsody’s third album Eve is a masterclass on rap music, and the Snow Hill, North Carolina rapper sounds relaxed & loose, while still staying focused & on topic with an album that reads as, as Rapsody herself puts it “a love letter to all black women including myself.” She is at the top of her game right now, and these songs cement Rapsody as one of the premier rappers in an exciting field of rap talent both young & old.
Each track on the album is dedicated to one of Rapsody’s personal heroes, and I am going to focus these words & my research for Eve (besides listening to it nonstop, which I’m currently doing now!) on those black women. Track one is for Nina Simone (”without Nina there’s no Lauryn Hill, & without Lauryn Hill there’s no Rapsody.”) and features critically important verses about black heritage & culture over Nina’s terrifying & sobering classic “Strange Fruit.” Rapsody is recognizing her legacy and the importance of heritage, but she is clearly claiming her spot in that bloodline. “Cleo” preaches standing up for yourself over a Phil Collins sample (between Cleo & Lucy Dacus, “In the Air Tonight” is getting some serious love this year!) and is named after Queen Latifah’s character in the 1996 movie “Set it Off.” From there Rapsody recognizes artists (Aaliyah), philanthropists (Oprah & Michelle Obama), actresses (Whoopi), athletes (Serena Williams & Ibtihaj Muhammed), writers (Maya Angelou & Reyna Biddy), models (Iman & Tyra Banks), and historical figures & activists (Hatshepsut, Myrlie Evers-Williams, Sojourner Truth, & Afeni Shakur). Bottom line, ALL of these women are essential google material (you’re reading this on your phone or laptop, google and give yourself a five minute refresher if there’s anyone you don’t already know!) While you’re at it, google the lyrics for Eve (and Jamila Woods’ equally incredible, equally name dropping LEGACY! LEGACY!) and listen along. This is an important time capsule document for Rapsody and it’s just a damn good rap album.
“I am Nina & Roberta, the one you love but ain't heard of / Got my middle finger up like Pac after attempted murder / Failed to kill me, it's still me, woke up singing Shirley Murdock / As we lay these edges down, brown women, we so perfect...”
SABA LOU / Novum Ovum
When I listen to Saba Lou’s intoxicating sophomore album Novum Ovum, I am transported to somewhere magical & different. Maybe older, maybe out of place & time. Everything about Novum feels… classic. From the dusty, record-store-bin-find look of the out of focus cover photo, to the laidback natural way Saba Lou seems to dance along on top of a rollicking house band lifted from the 70’s. There are elements of surf rock, shoegaze, late night soul, and classic rock & roll on Ovum, but it is all driven by the singular writing & vocals of Saba Lou. In the liner notes of the record, a note can be found, claiming that this album is meant to be from the future. 2286 to be exact! Is a concept album?! Is it actually from the future & delivered to us by a time traveling band of Germans?!! Does it have songs about Star Trek??!! Maybe, mayyyybeee... & YES!
Yet to turn 20 (!), Saba Lou is a German born singer songwriter who has been making & releasing music since she was literally six years old! Novum Ovum is Latin for “the new egg” and features a hot four piece full band, and wonderfully fleshed out songs that bounce and swing with palpable energy. The lyrics span an awesomely wide spectrum from endometriosis pain (the title track obv) to a Star Trek mindmeld tune sung from the perspective of Gracie the pregnant whale (closer “Humpback in Time”)!! All in all, Saba Lou is an absolutely electric songwriter and her youthfulness & fervor are contagious. It’s the reason I love making this list every year, and what makes discovering new music so exciting. Can’t wait for the next one!
“A brick wall around your placenta / Cut them all off from her mother blood / The hounds call for appassionata / A phoenetic paste for the fetal bud...”
SHARON VAN ETTEN / Remind Me Tomorrow
Over the last few years I started the practice of making a draft favorite albums list in January and adding albums throughout the year, as I fall in love with them. This way I don’t forget the ones I loved in January & February, the ones that got me through the backend of the Winter. I’m able to track my year in music as it develops, a sort of captain’s log. A living, personal journal using music to mark time & space as I sprint my way through another increasingly faster, increasingly chaotic year. Sometimes, scrolling through the list acts as a comfort. “That album only came out this year?! OK, this year isn’t moving too fast, that feels like forevvverrrr ago!” Sometimes it helps to show me how much I’ve grown, how much an album has meant, or has helped with my mental & emotional growth. This year, the very first album I added to that list, the very first album that I fell hard & holy hell in love with... was Sharon Van Etten’s Remind Me Tomorrow.
A blast of energy. A weird synthy, pulsing red & blue darkness. Simultaneously club-y & indie rock vibey. Van Etten’s fifth album is supposedly written from a place of contentment. A marriage, a child, a life & happiness discovered. Less desperation, more introspection. I hear in her voice & words, how taking care of yourself, how striving to be your best self, can bring out the most powerful, most emotional art. She also isn’t afraid to let her voice go and I think her vocal performances are what truly take Tomorrow to another level. “Memorial Day” rides a haunting vocal loop & tumbles in nearly wordless, glimmering vowels, all ethereal magnificence. The chorus of the brooding “Jupiter 4″ spirals upwards & then rollercoasters, a late night drunken banger. But at the heart of Remind Me Tomorrow sits one of my songs of the year, one of my songs of the decade, “Seventeen.” I had heard it first live, way back in October 2018 in the rain in the mountains at Red Rocks. I got tipsy & wrote about it the day it came out, January 8, 2019, after a long, cold stretch working the night shift. This album & especially this song will stay with me for a long time. Sharon has taught me to keep working on myself. To look back in fondness. To think about how, with hard work, how much joy & peace & comfort await in my coming years. But she also taught me to lean into emotions. To embrace the ache of memories and the bittersweetness of growing up. Thanks for making this album Sharon.
“Downtown hotspot, halfway up the street / I used to be free, I used to be 17 / Follow my shadow around your corner / I used to be 17, now you're just like me / Down beneath the ashes & stone / Sure of what I've lived and have known / I see you so uncomfortably alone / I wish I could show you how much you've grown...”
TIM BAKER / Forever Overhead
I have a special feeling tied to the collection of intimate, swirling songs Tim Baker released this year from Canada. Forever Overhead carries a certain small town holiness, recognizable to those who grew up in small towns , but specific to his own personal, north-north-eastern-eastern “small” town, St Johns, in Newfoundland & Labrador, Canada. Growing up on the farthest coast of the Atlantic on the tippy, tippy point of Canada (seriously google it!), Baker fronted emo band Hey Rosetta! for four albums until striking out this Spring on his own with Arts & Crafts Records. There is a very Springsteen-esque bent to the way he writes about growing up somewhere (as someone) small & wanting to be somewhere very big and exciting. He captures the bittersweetness of growing up so perfectly. From the teenage romantic feelings in swaying opener “Dance” & the rousing “Mirrors,” to the friends & bars & singing found in the melancholic “Spirit” and the absolute hit “All Hands.” The latter is the core of the album, a bright, rhythmic guitar number that builds & swells with voices & instrumentation to a few huge, singalong choruses. A real song of the year contender. Baker isn’t afraid to let the songs go on journeys on Forever Overhead and they rarely finish where they begin. Horns & handclaps burst in at points, celebratory & fearless. The sexual tension of “Strange River” is lightened with a false start and a “sorry. In ‘D’” followed by a belly laugh, before restarting. The light & dark are present throughout Overhead and listening to these songs remind me of growing up. I feel like I’m being given a secret glance into Baker’s youth and the parts that mirror mine make me want to lift my voice in unison with those that understand. Sometimes small collections of well written & well played songs can do that, and to me... it’s sacred. Hopefully I get a chance to visit St Johns someday, and if I do, these songs will be playing as my soundtrack.
“A boy in bed, all the windows wide / You can hear the hot rods running from the light / From the light, into the dark / That's all I wanted in my cousin's car / To listen to the wind & to the lead guitars / & feel the reckless running of your heart / Now is that gone or does that all remain? / Can I go back and have it all again? / Well now I know it, where I'm going / I'm going back behind the river / I'm going back behind the rain / Cuz no matter where you're heading / You end up where you’ve been...”
YOLA / Walk Through Fire
It’s clear from the first minute & 30 seconds of Yola’s debut full-length Walk Through Fire, that this album is destined to be an all-time classic. She comes in slow & wistful with “wish I knew what you were wishing for...” over a soft wash of cymbals and mournful country-soul guitar. Then one minute in, her voice swells to gigantic proportions, seeming to lift the song right off the page, carried into another stratosphere, timeless & magnetic. That “Faraway Look” in your eyes.
From there, Yola (36 year old Yolanda Quartey from Bristol, England) takes her commanding voice through bluesy, fiddle-led country (”It Ain’t Easier” & the title track), and laid back soul (”Shady Grove” & “Deep Blue Dream”). Personal fav “Ride Out In The Country” became a backroads, summer anthem for me this year on multiple trips through Southern & Western Colorado. Through it all, her voice booms, whispers, & rocks gently, propelling the songs forward with warmth & light. Her lyrics are full of both dreamy memories & work-a-day stories about the challenges of life. It was fun this year to have different friends & family members get into Yola at different times, getting texts like “have you heard of YOLA??!!” Sharing songs, & collections of songs (like the ones on Walk Through Fire) is what makes making this list every year so fun, and I’m always excited to see what new, life-long favorites I will discover. See you in a couple months at the Bluebird Theater on Colfax here in Denver Yola!! Can’t wait!
“A little shady grove / A memory long ago / A tale too old to know the ending / I gave it all away / It takes my breath away...”
#yola#tim baker#Sharon Van Etten#saba lou#Rapsody#orville peck#lizzo#lady lamb#kiltro#kara jackson#june jones#hiss golden messenger#fruit bats#earthgang#bon iver#black belt eagle scout#big thief#better oblivion community center#justin peter kinkel-schuster
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Animage 483: Interview w/ Matenrou
This article comes from the Animage Magazine vol. 483, please buy the magazine to support them and get the exclusive images!
(You can read part 2 about Doppo and his VA Itou Kento here. )
The Bonds of the City that Never Sleeps
The second part of the Territory Battle has begun. With their strong lyrics that bewitch one's heart, will the bonds of Matenrou be able to pierce through their fated rivals?
Shinjuku Division -- the city under shimmering neon lights that never sleeps. Here resides a doctor of great prestige who goes by the name of Jinguji Jakurai, a former member of the legendary team The Dirty Dawg. Every day, patients bearing both wounds of the body and heart seek his aid. One of these patients was Kannonzaka Doppo who is suffering from social anxiety.
In order to save Izanami Hifumi, his childhood friend whose life was being threatened, Doppo sought help from Jakurai. That is how the three of them met. Taking an interest in Doppo and Hifumi, Jakurai invited them both to his team.
After forming Matenrou, Doppo and Hifumi remained being as awkward and eccentric as ever, but now as a team they become each other’s most important and reliable comrade, shouldering the future of Shinjuku Division together.
And now, the day on which Chuuoku organized a territory battle for Matenrou has arrived. Their opponents, Shibuya Division’s Fling Posse, are led by Amemura Ramuda who has a deep and convoluted antagonism between himself and Jakurai. Once again, without Jakurai being aware of it, Ramuda is involved with someone from Chuuoku, the governmental district that dominates all men. Jakurai can’t be too careful around him.
The victor of this battle will soon be decided. With Matenrou’s scalpel-sharp lyrics that can be used as both poison and medication at will, can they pierce the heart of the trickster leader of Fling Posse? And what does Jakurai think of his fated rival...
Jinguji Jakurai
A renowned medical genius. He has top-class rap skills and a gentleness that shows no bias towards anyone. If there is any flaw to his otherwise perfect self, it is his transformation into a true Tokyoite through the consumption of alcohol. He considers Hifumi and Doppo as precious friends whom he cannot leave alone.
Contact
Jakurai maintains solid communication with his companions. He listens patiently to Doppo’s troubles, and when their days off overlap, drives them all out to go fishing. Since Doppo has been sleeping in on his days off he missed the invitation and has yet to join them.
A Man of Character
He gently reprimands people without seeking repentance and steers clear of alcohol (partly because he loses memory after drinking) -- someone who can be compared to a Buddha. With such a personality, the only person Jakurai couldn’t stand is Ramuda. What on earth is going on between these two…?
Izanami Hifumi
Sociable, bubbly, and also an extreme gynophobe. Became a host to overcome his fear of women. However, his character only changes when he puts on his suit. While he becomes a suave, composed gigolo in the face of women, it does not actually tackle the root of the problem.
Host Mode
While spending a night at town in Chuuoku, Hifumi wore his suit to calm down after feeling unsettled by Jakurai’s warning of the battles’ popularity with women. Activating his Host Mode, he seized the opportunity to roam the streets. The shift from his extreme gynophobia to extreme gynephilia doesn’t seem to be conscious.
Domestic Skill
Hifumi is surprisingly adept at household chores. He is roommates with Doppo and cooks breakfast for the both of them. When Doppo’s suits gets torn, he mends them. It is probably only thanks to Hifumi that Doppo who lives an unhealthy lifestyle is still alive.
Kannonzaka Doppo
An office worker so thoroughly exhausted that he cannot recover even if he sleeps through his days off. He depends on his roommate, Hifumi, to take care of the domestic chores. Has a negative disposition. Because he apologizes so frequently at work, “I’m sorry” has become his pet phrase.
Spectacle
This territory battle exists as a spectacle for the women watching. The men who participate in the battles are treated as idols, thus strolling about without a care will get them overrun by a flock of female fans. Whether it is a good or bad thing depends on the person himself. Hifumi in his host mode was overjoyed to be surrounded by women while Doppo was screaming and running away.
Camaraderie
That night in Chuuoku, Hifumi and Doppo ran into Gentaro and Dice. It started off with Hifumi poking fun at Gentaro’s choice in clothing but ended up with Dice and Doppo arguing, instigating a Mic Battle. Rather than taking offense at the insults directed at themselves, Hifumi and Doppo, as well as Gentaro and Dice, were more defensive against the insults directed at their trusted companions. Unfortunately, their battle was interrupted as it attracted more attention from women, but they still managed to strengthen their bonds within their teams.
Fate
The clash between Fling Posse and Matenrou doubles as a showdown between their leaders. Beyond warning his teammates of Ramuda’s “inhumanity,” Jakurai says nothing about their connection. In Ramuda’s case, he seems to avoid speaking about Jakurai altogether towards his own teammates. However, regardless of their mutual animosity, Jakurai still tirelessly admonishes Ramuda...
Enigmatic Men
Jinguji Jakurai’s VA Hayami Show
“Doctor that can’t be swayed by money and patient that can’t be left alone”
--What kind of a person is Jinguji Jakurai?
Hayami: Although there is still a lot unknown about him, he is a humane doctor who cannot be bought, who is incredibly gentle, and who brims with humanism. In a place like Shinjuku Division, there ought to be all kinds of patients visiting Jakurai. Amongst those patients, there are people who can’t afford the expensive medical fees, and people with questionable backgrounds… Yet the person who’d treat them all properly and equally is none other than Jakurai. You’d think that doctors are all rich people, but since he puts healing people before money, maybe he doesn’t earn that much (laughs). I think that the car he owns is certainly not an expensive one. Even though Jakurai seems to be so benevolent and perfect, in the drama part of our first CD “Matenrou -Clinical Phonetics-” we saw how much of a big mess he caused when he was drunk. With a side like that, I feel that he’s quite well-rounded as a human being.
--So for Izanami Hifumi and Kannonzaka Doppo, what do you think about them?
Hayami: To Jakurai, they’re like his two cute little brothers. Of course as part of Matenrou, they rap in order to join battles, but the two must have wished to move towards a more decent life through rap. Jakurai has a lot of patients, but they’re the number one and two patients that he just can’t leave alone. I also feel developments in Hifumi and Doppo’s characters after they got the hypnosis mics. When you look at each of them individually, you can find quite a few shortcomings, but when they’re rapping together, they offset each others’ limitations and bring each other up.
--In this Battle CD, it felt like there’s even more to Jakurai and Amemura Ramuda's past.
Hayami: Details of the past between the two are not fully disclosed. The two were very mysterious to begin with. Actually, I don’t know the whole backstory either and it could be easier to act not knowing things. Ramuda is a strange kid. Even when I was recording I was annoyed; not by Shirai Yusuke who voiced him, but by Ramuda himself (laughs). The way he talks is so insensitive that it’s almost unbearable. Furthermore, Ramuda is 24 years old. Never in my life have I seen a 24-years-old who says things like “It’s ◯◯☆” or “Oneesan♪.” However, someone like Ramuda is very popular amongst women… It gets on my nerves (laughs).
--There’s also bad blood between Yamada Ichiro and Aohitsugi Samatoki. Does Jakurai know what happened between them?
Hayami: Of course he knows, I think Jakurai watched it happened. However, it’s only with Ramuda that he couldn’t just watch. In the drama part of the Battle CD, it was revealed that Ramuda is connected to people from Chuuouku. Jakurai might not know about that specifically, but I don’t think he would tolerate such duplicity of Ramuda. Hifumi’s host mode while he’s in his suit is a different story, of course. Jakurai can and would accept any kind of people, but perhaps it’s just difficult for him to agree with Ramuda’s way of doing things.
--Will the mystery of their previous relationship ever be unveiled?
Hayami: I think it will, little by little. I feel that the story of “Hypnosis Mic” is full of mysteries, and these complicated relationships and mysteries are unraveled in rap. Therefore, as the story unfolds, rap is still going to play an important role.
--You never had any experience with rap before this, right?
Hayami: You’re right. That’s why, when they offered, I joined the project only after making sure they know that I know nothing about rap… Actually, the lyrics of Jakurai’s song didn’t completely match his personality in the story. But as the story develops and he gets more raps, the lyrics and his personality fit together better. Incidentally, Jakurai’s solo song “Labyrinth Wall” is tailored for my voice. Therefore I thought that if I work hard on my skills, poetry rapping, and rapping as Jakurai, I will get there someday. However, when I first heard the demo of “Labyrinth Wall,” I didn’t know what poetry rap was or that it even existed and how it had classical music as its track. I was so appalled I asked my manager, “What the hell is this?” (laughs)
--The first live of “Hypnosis Mic” is coming up on August 26th, right?
Hayami: At this stage, the set list has not been finalized yet and I’m a bit worried about whether I can remember all the lyrics by then. By the way, the junior from my agency, Nozuyama (Yukihiro) who voices Arisugawa Dice, has already memorized everything perfectly. If we’re doing all songs including the solos at the live… that’s exactly what “Don’t Make Me Laugh” is about, I just gotta make it work no matter what.
“Let the lyrics created by these men be your heart’s oasis”
--The deadline of the Battle CDs’ voting is coming up.
Hayami: It seems that everyone gave us so much support, I’m glad. However, please do it without affecting your daily lifestyle. That being said, I also hate to lose. It’d be nice if each one of you could take one small action to bring Matenrou towards victory.
--What kind of actions for example?
Hayami: Try something like sneakily placing the CDs and merchandise around someone you’d like to get into Hypnomic… (laughs). If anyone can recommend it to others like, “it’s good, try listening to it” that’d be nice too, but maybe try making people who are already interested in Matenrou love Matenrou. For me, I stealthily follow pedestrians in Shinjuku, whisper Jakurai’s lines behind them, and just brainwash them casually.
--What kind of team would you like Matenrou to become in the future?
Hayami: Matenrou is a group made up of the most mature people amongst the four divisions. Even though they’re weird, I want them to become a team that is able to give dreams, hope and love to others as grownups. I think Shinjuku, the model of Shinjuku Division, is very charming. It’s a place that has the entertainment district Kabukicho, Shinjuku Gyo-en Park that’s close by, and many corporate buildings. The rap which was born in such a chaotic place will probably be forever bizzare and scandalous.
From now on, if possible, I hope our rap and the other divisions’ raps can be the oasis for the hearts of our listeners where they can be healed. Actually, the casts of Matenrou haven’t had the chance to meet up and do something together yet, so I hope we will do more of that in the future. Then as we get closer to each other, I hope we can deliver better contents with profundity in our drama parts.
#t:interview#matenrou#hayami show#izanami hifumi#jinguji jakurai#kannonzaka doppo#hypnosis microphone#hypnosis mic#hypmic#t:info
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A scenario of Samatoki tsunning away from his (male, if you can) crush and his crush liking him back but being equally tsun.. Would either even manage to confess? (Ps I love your works)
Hey anon! Sorry this took so long :
Samatoki-sama AKA Mr. Ha Ko is anything but soft. However, when it comes to a certain male, he does his best to not be soft.
The certain male is also a yakuza and goes by the name Hayato. His gang isn’t quite as big and as well known as Samatoki’s, but it is quite formidable.
Formidable enough to gain the attention of MTC’s leader. The first time they met was when they both were supposed to hit the same place (an illegal brothel owned by a man who apparently cheated them both on a deal) at the same time. Well, they ended up hitting each other over who gets to go for it first.
It started with an actual fistfight between Samatoki and Hayato, but then they both brought out their hypnosis microphones and went at it.
Of course, with more experience (and more insults), Samatoki won. However, it was a long rap battle and Samatoki appreciated Hayato’s skill. So naturally, and it had nothing to do with how much he enjoyed the battle, he proposed a partnership.
They agreed, exchanged contact details (which again, had nothing to do with the way their eyes roamed), and had scheduled meetings. Sometimes it was sparring, sometimes it was a hit they did together, and sometimes it was an exchange of resources and information. Most of the time, they spent insulting each other and getting mad. It was actually a miracle that by the end they’d come to a mutually beneficial agreement (much to the relief of the people under each leader). The partnership was tenuous at best, but it was a partnership nonetheless.
Today, however, after months of scheduled (and somewhat regular meetings) it was time for the two gang leaders to meet again to exchange… sensitive information and resources. Neither would yell the other what it was. It could be blackmail, it could be gold or money or new hypnosis mics. The gangs were not allowed to come to the abandoned warehouse where they were meeting. (In other words a day off).
Unrelated, but the gangs had put bets on what would happen. High on their list was that they’d actually kill each other. The second highest was… well, go figure right?
Samatoki sat on the chair in front of a metal table. A single light illuminated the area, casting the rest of the warehouse in darkness.
N,o he wasn’t being dramatic. It was just less obvious if only one light was open.
He blew out smoke and then glanced at his watch and scowled. Hayato was late, again. He hated looking like a punctual fool, but someone had to do it. The white-haired man ran his hands through his hair and leaned back. He idly scratched at his chest and was lost in thought for a while. He thought about Jyuto and Riou. He was actually proud to have them with him, even if they lost to Matenrou. He valued their loyalty, and that was important. Besides, there are more division battles to come. Maybe he’d actually be able to finally kick Ichiro’s ass to the-
Samatoki stiffened and turned around. “You know you can’t sneak up on me.” There was a brief silence and he was afraid that he just spoke to thin air when Hayato’s voice replied.
“I know.” Hayato stepped into the light. “But there’s no harm in testing your lazy ass.”
Samatoki narrowed his eyes and chin pointed to the chair on the other side of the table. “Sit down.”
Hayato has long black hair pulled back into a bun. Some strands hang loosely (no one is sure if he does this on purpose), framing his chiseled, handsome face. He usually wears a black tank top, black jeans, and combat boots, but today he wears a short-sleeved black button down (with only the bottom two buttons buttoned), jeans that hugged his ass (not that that mattered), and his combat boots. He also had chains hanging from his neck, drawing eyes to the lines of his chest and collarbone.
Samatoki this time was wearing a fitted white v-neck t-shirt that outlined his pecs and his abs (again, not that that mattered), his ripped jeans and sneakers. He also wore his black leather jacket to complete his overall look.
“You trying to copy me Hayato?” Samatoki raised an eyebrow and stared into his partner’s deep violet eyes. “Your own style not good enough for you?”
Hayato scoffed. “As if.” He turned the chair around so that he was straddling it and leaning on the seat back while facing Samatoki. “You trying to bring back your old style? Doesn’t fit you at all.”
“Stalker.” Samatoki tossed away his cigarette.
“Do you forget that you’re over popular?” Hayato lights his own cigarette and takes a long inhale and exhales the smoke right into Samatoki’s face. To the red-eyed one’s credit, he doesn’t flinch. “And that people sell merchandise of you and your…” He smirks. “Dirty Dawgs?”
Samatoki smirks back and leans on his chair. “What do you want?”
Hayato leans forward even more. “What do you want first Samatoki-sama?”
“You called me here you fucker.” Samatoki scowled and crossed his arms. His short temper was beginning to show. “You’re wasting my time.”
“Wasting time? If I recall, you wasted my time last time we met.” Hayato’s nose wrinkled.
“Last time we met? You cheated in our sparring!” Samatoki growled.
“You never said you couldn’t combine hypnosis mic attacks and fist fighting!” Hayato knew exactly how to rile Samatoki up and it was working way too quickly.
“Unspoken rule!” Samatoki shot back. “Or are you too dumb to realize that?”
“Don’t call me an idiot. Remember our last hit?”
“It was your fault you dipshit!” Samatoki stood up. “You’re the one that tripped the alarm!”
“Alarm? There was no alarm! You’re the one that tripped on the fucking dog, you useless bitch!”
Samatoki pushed the table sidewards, giving him a clear path to Hayato, who was still straddling the chair, but his hands were in fists. “Don’t give me that shit! You dare call me useless when you can’t even give me the fucking information you called me for!”
“Then why don’t you leave them if you think it’s so fucking useless?!” Hayato yelled back, looking up at Samatoki who had stormed to him.
“Because I don’t know if you’re lying or not!” Samatoki yelled. He resisted the urge to push Hayato out of the chair.
Actually, he just pushed Hayato off the chair and he fell backward. Hayato responded by kicking the chair, causing Samatoki to jump out of the way. The black haired one stood back up. His buttons were undone and his shirt just hung on his body. Samatoki’s eyes jumped to the now exposed abdominals and then snapped back up.
“What was the point of being cold and not telling me what you have to tell me ha?” Samatoki brought out his microphone. “Do you even have information? Or do you want to just take out your anger?” He barred his teeth. “Because believe me I can and will take out my anger.”
Hayato brought his out as well and stalked towards Samatoki. “You gonna hide behind your microphone Mr. Ha ko?”
Why did that send shivers down Samatoki’s spine? “That’s Samatoki-sama to you Hayato.” He stepped closer, barely inches separating them. “We could arrange a fistfight instead.” Samatoki was a few inches taller (like two) so he had to look down to stare at Hayato. “Or you could tell me why you called.”
“You first. Not like I care anyway.” Hayato’s eyes went for Samatoki’s lips and his tongue darted out to moisten his own.
Samatoki’s eyes followed the movement and he growled. “I don’t care about whatever you have to say.”
“Then fight me.”
Samatoki raised his fist and Hayato tensed. This was pretty standard when it came to their meetings, but neither lasted very long without telling the other whatever information or negotiation they had to have.
They stared at each other for the longest time, Samatoki’s fist trembling.
“Punch me Mr. Ha ko.” Hayato said and stepped even closer, almost pressing his bare chest against Samatoki. “Do it.”
Samatoki wavered. He growled then moved his fist towards Hayato’s face.
Hayato braced for impact, but instead felt his collar be grabbed and have lips kiss him roughly.
Hayato almost pushed Samatoki away, but he melted into the kiss and pulled on Samatoki’s leather jacket as he kissed back.
Samatoki’s tongue ran across the seam of Hayato’s lips and Hayato opened his mouth, allowing the other to explore with his tongue. Hayato took care of Samatoki’s leather jacket and pulled it right off him. His hands went under the hem of Samatoki’s shirt and explored the muscles on his back. He scratched and clawed as Samatoki deepened the kiss, his hand now on the ass that he wanted to touch the minute Hayato came in those pants.
The white-haired one pulled away and they were both breathing heavily. A string of saliva still connecting both of them. His eyes widened and he pushed Hayato away.
Hayato stumbled, aware of the pain in his crotch, and it wasn’t from an injury. “The fuck was that?” He wiped his mouth.
Samatoki was blushing furiously. Looking anywhere but at Hayato. “You explain yourself!”
“Did I kiss myself or did I miss what just happened you fucking cunt!”
They had somehow ended up beside the table during their make-out session. Samatoki gritted his teeth and growled. “I couldn’t punch you.”
“Why not?”
“Why did you kiss back?” Samatoki shot back, his red eyes filled with something that wasn’t anger.
Hayato marched back to Samatoki. “Because the sensitive information I have to give you,” he grinded against Samatoki’s own growing hardness and Samatoki almost groaned at that. “Can’t be conveyed with words.”
Samatoki raised an eyebrow. “Somewhere during the meeting huh?” He pulled at one of the loose strands of Hayato’s hair and his hand wandered to the black haired one’s ass and squeezed.
“Perhaps when you straddled me while we were sparring.” Hayato ran his hand through Samatoki’s hair, biting his lip at the hand on his ass. “You?”
Samatoki chuckled darkly and backed himself up to the table. “Are you sure you’re the one that I straddled?”
Hayato grinned and made Samatoki bend over the table with him on top. “Maybe my memory is different Mr. Ha Ko.” Samatoki moved back until he was lying down on the table with Hayato crawling over him. “Maybe I was the one straddling you.”
“Just so you know Hayato-sama.” Samatoki roughly pulled Hayato towards him. “It was when you first licked your lips during one of our rap sparring sessions.”
Hayato blushed a little and looked away. He was flattered if anything, and feeling kind of soft inside, but he had an image to maintain. “Then lick them for me.”
Sanatorio pulled Hayato in for a kiss and Hayato tossed his already unbuttoned shirt aside.
They pulled apart. “You ready for me?” Hayato asked as he pulled off Samatoki’s belt.
Samatoki turned a little pink at that then coughed. “Ready when you are.”
Hayato reached for the hem of Samatoki’s shirt and was about to take it off when he just ripped it apart. The fabric was so thin, so it was easy to destroy.
“I hope you don’t like this shirt.” Hayato kissed Samatoki’s collarbone and worked his way around and sucked marks on Samatoki’s neck.
“You better pay for it.” Samatoki managed.
“Believe me.” Hayato started working his way downwards, his fingers hooked on Samatoki’s pants. “I will pay.”
Needless to say, those who bet on the second highest option and saw the dark marks on Samatoki’s neck and on Hayato’s collarbone, won a hell a ton of money.
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Philosophy in Anime: Inuyashiki
It’s unusual for me to write a review about a series of anime. But, this series got so many philosophical thinking which is very interesting for me especially. It’s questioning about existence, reason, humanity, and how to preserve that. This series is very fun and interesting as they bring a series of tragedy and comedy in very sequence way. But before you keep reading I must say, spoiler alert. Some spoiler could be enhance your watching experience or ruin it, so before I mess up better stay away if you want to watch a whole series for yourself. Before it’s become too long, let’s start it.
Picture, Inuyashiki’s Comic Cover (Kodansha Comics)
Story start from a family with a father who look like an old man who called, “Ichiro Inuyashiki”. He just 58 but got a bad health condition along with cancer, which make him will die about 1 month from the day of medical checkup out. He was trying to tell his family about his condition but, he try to not make a havoc in dining table (consider some Japanese think this was a taboo). Then, he bring his dog to take a walk, but then he run away to park and cry with his dog that night. Suddenly, a young man come and a crash happen. Alien unintentionally kill them, but due to their advance technology and responsibily, the father and that young man who later known as “Shishigami Hiro” revived with their memory and skin, but their internal was replaced with machine. That was where the story begin.
Each of them realize that they was died and become a machine. Now, they living to answering what to make them as human. During the way on searching the meaning of living as machine, they have different answer for that. Inuyashiki believe that he was a human because he still got a humanity in his brain, he want to help each other and prevent crime. In other hand, Shishigami who was still in high school feel he was out of humanity obligation as machine, and by doing killing and look at their victim begging he feels alive.
Picture Inuyashiki become machine (Inuyashiki)
Eventually two of them meet because of Inuyashiki burning compassion to helping other, and Shishigami who doesn’t really care about human and keep killing them day by day. That night, Inuyashiki sit down on his bed then open his ultra-hearing to listen for around, but then he hear a victim who was teased by Shishigami scream. He rush to where the sound come, by car but jam make him just can hear and watch the victim laid with blood. There’s where Shishigami show up and try to kill Inuyashiki, but because both of them are bullet proof, so the combat was ended right there where Shishigami scared and run away with rocket in his back.
Skip the detail, Shishigami then found a precious one for him and thinking about for living in peace. But he already commit crime that involve killing families, that make he become a most wanted person in Japan. Two times he commit to do good for the precious one, and two times his precious get hurt because of his own past. Because of that, he want to kill all other people until there is a safe place for both of them.
We reach a good point to explore of Shishigami here, your past will be always judged by other even you already doing good for others. Shishigami actually being an omni-healer for any kind of disease and spread to national trending, but because of his activity people who recognize him, told where he living to the polices. His act of redemption was never acknowledged by any people, people just want deliver justice which they think more important than doing good deeds. People can be evil but he also can change. In the process, there’ll be person who hate because your past, and who love you in your current. But in my own view this can dangerous for both party, past will not chance and living in grudge will only bring you to temporary accomplishment feeling and you will losing a meaning of live once the grudge executed. In short, for me it’s not worth to both side in long term.
Then all the peoples who want Shishigami to be die, die without even make a scratch to Shihigami’s skin. This was a disgrace to all police and some people starting make Shishigami as hero or even a god. But this was too late, Shishigami already hate humanity and want to kill them dialy. The grudge will make other grudge burning if you fail to deliver it. From just killing for fun, to killing a community who make his mother depressed, then grow to killing a whole country. Brute force not the only way out in community. I’m here not to justified that Shishigami should not be punish. He should, but if punish fail, don’t push it, give him an offer to redeem themselves for community, or maybe offer must put first rather than punishing. As a thief maybe can be dangerous, but punish not bring him anywhere. Let him redeem himself to help fight terrorist, as what polices do in blockbuster movie, “Suicide Squad”.
Picture Inuyashiki and Shishigami last battle (Crunchyroll)
In the end, Shishigami approach Inuyashiki, and asking why this old looking guy always disturbing his work. Then a clash of ideology was happen there, and a battle cannot avoided. End battle end with, result that Shihigami lose to Inuyashiki, then he broke Shishigami’s hand and throw it away. Now, Shishigami cannot killing anymore. But in that timeframe, earth have another problems, a large asteroid which have a route of crashing into earth and by simulation it’s will destroy all living.
In Last Episode, Ichiro giving a good point in their last moment with family, he said, “I was a super imposter made by machine who have Inuyashiki Ichiro’s memory”. But, do he is really an imposter even if his memory and whenever he is not genuine. As not a big fans of Kant and his way of answering mind and consciousness, I a bit agree to his argument about memory is the part that make you are you. Additionally, in my way of thinking, by being something from a given perspective and a reason, living it’s not a matter of that, but it’s from where you start make it a story, either you are genuine or not, it’s doesn’t matter. You life your own living from where the consciousness start. I maybe will review manhwa “God of The High School” as he have a good themes about this too.
In the end, Shishigami and Inuyashiki self-destruct themselves to save the earth. Even a villain like Shishigami have someone to protect, which a good part of series that explained to viewer. You can judge everyone equally, even a villain have something to protect which can make him do good deeds even the cost is his own life. The series end with earth being save by 2 explosion of two machine, Shishigami and Inuyashiki.
Picture Inuyashiki Live Action, can’t wait! (Inuyashiki LA-Trailer)
I don’t really have a great impression for Gantz (same author) but this one is a totally great series, I think I will definitely watch live action of this series again. And maybe review it again, as I think this series still got many philosophical question inside.
Thank you for reading. (Sorry for bad grammar thou, but please point it if you find one. I really appreciate it…)
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hello :) 🍈 🍒 for the ask meme
omg a second melon a chance to talk about blorbo's horse PERFECT THANK YOU FOR THE ASK!!
🍈 Who’s your blorbo and what are some of your favorite headcanons/ideas about them that repeatedly show up in your fics? Free pass to rant about blorbo opinions.
since i went on about ichiro in the other one i feel obligated to heap some love on samatoki here because while i call ichiro beloved technically i love them both equally (truthful!)
i think a lot of my samatoki headcanons are just canon lol (yakuza with a heart of gold who helps little old ladies cross the street, literally) but i definitely have Opinions like he is a cat guy he is a guy in need of a cat
he is also a guy in need of a dom but well i won't get too into that here lol
one thing is i think he is so big on loyalty that it is often to his detriment, like anything he perceives as the slightest betrayal could set him off. anger management issues central over here. doesn't trust easily, needs to learn to rely on others more
he comes across to me as the sort of guy who demands complete control over his surroundings and his people but really needs to be allowed to let go of that control once in a while (in a safe environment) and that makes him such a fascinating character to write imo
also he's flat as hell there's no ass there
🍒 What’s your favorite character dynamic to write? (Can be romantic or platonic, specific or general!)
FOUND FAMILY but also friends to enemies to lovers!
it's about the blind devotion that turns into loathing and disillusionment, that then turns into a slow, gradual mending of what was broken, then an understanding and acceptance that things won't ever be the same again (and that's okay)
it's about one of them idolizing the other, worshiping them as a hero who could do no wrong, then being dropped and completely shattering and having to pick up all the pieces alone
it's about being mended but changed (it's about kintsugi)
it's about still loving someone, or inevitably coming to love them again, even if they aren't the person you built them up to be in your head. it's about maybe loving them even more than before, because the flawed human that they are is so much better than the untouchable god you made them out to be
(and yes it's about ichisama lmao)
#ask games#sorry i was possessed by some sort of creature for the cherry one lol#friends to enemies to lovers is just asd;flkaj;sdkjf i'm sinking in my teeth i'm tearing biting eating!!#thank you for the ask! <3
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aaaaaaaaaaaand bam!!!!!!! here it is the final day!!!!!!!!!!! day 18!!!!!!!!! it’s time to break the wall y’all and wrap this up!!!! can you feel it??? i can feel it!!!!
First impressions: me: *looking at the newsletter from a jp anime goods site*
me: *sees ichiro for the very first time unknowing that this was the start* oh that’s a cute piece of merch!!!!! who’s the guy on it i wonder???? 😲
Current impressions: does ichiro know that i would kill for him. it is important for me to know that ichiro knows i will do anything for him—
man, ichiro randomly popped into my life when i needed him the most; i was really tired from the the previous couple of fandoms i’d been in, looking for a new one unconsciously when he showed up in my email, hugging a cd and utterly adorable with his big heterochromatic eyes. i wish i had a pic of the merch on hand ‘cause it was love at first sight man 💕 and he continues to be an utter delight to know!!!!! he’s the 19 entrepreneur that everyone would be writing about due to his jaded past and how successful he’s gotten all due his hard work!!!!!!!!!! i definitely understand jiro and saburo’s hero worship over him!!!!
Favorite thing:
he’s just a really cool dude man. he’s incredibly levelheaded with an equal amount of brain smarts and street smarts. but that levelheadedness is something he’s working hard to maintain. his personality is closer to samatoki’s and he knows this and wants to be better than the man who let him down and to be a good role model for his brothers with it. he’s an head full thoughts many kinda character and it shows in pretty much everything he does
Least favorite:
his seiyuu is kinda wack lol sometimes it feels like ichiro is one of those bland characters that doesn’t do anything and the surrounding characters are all totes more interesting yet are, for some reason, super into this bland character. thank god this statement is a total disservice to ichiro’s character because he’s incredibly interesting, it’s just ichiro is currently in an ‘after story’ kind of arc in his life where everything is good (for now.) it just sometimes feels like he’s being left behind in the story 😕
What i want to see from this character:
what don’t i want to see??????????????? how is he going to react seeing his father again and on the same team as his old teammate, sasara??????????? does he really know he’s been alive all this time???????? if he has, how is he going to deal with how betrayed his brothers may feel????????????? apparently he and samatoki can make up now since he knows nemu is ‘missing’ and samatoki knows that ichiro has nothing to do with her leaving him but will it really be that easy????????? will he and kuukou make up and be aikata back at again, like how is he going to react seeing kuukou again?????????
Favorite moments:
hhhhhhhhhhhh okay i’m going all in.
it’s not really a favorite moment but something that strikes me as a hindsight is 20/20 kinda thing, but ichiro fully intended to leave his little brothers out of his team and the rap battles. in the very first buster bros drama track, he gave them an assignment each, fully expecting them to fail. it comes as a surprise to him that they got it done and done so well. now, he’s been fully supportive of having his brothers be his team but it’s terribly ironic for him to get so offended when anyone insults his brothers abilities when he was the first to have doubted them.
and say ichiro has known their father’s been alive all this time. rei honestly might as well had been good as dead to them with how absent he’s been in their lives. granted, it’s definitely not something that comes up in casual conversation but with jiro and saburo having to confront ichiro pretty much twice in the course of helter skelter, it really looks like ichiro just doesn’t have faith in his brothers to outsiders and that could really blow up on him man
in our treasure trove of character tidbits called arb, when you have ichiro set as your my room mascot, he comments on his brothers who seemed to have stepped out and it’s something along the lines of:
“where is jiro? i hope he’s not getting involved with any weird people....” and “where did saburo go?? ......well, if it’s him, i think he’ll be alright.”
and if this isn’t the best example of how ichiro feels about his brothers individually lol. i’m sure ichiro is worried jiro’s trying to copy him too much and sees saburo doing things he was never capable of at his age as an inspiration but it’s interesting food for thought
and then in the stage play (*crowd boos*) has some of the best ichiro moments but i’m just going to say ichiro yelling at his brothers for being too loud with their musical number when he was the loudest one on the stage was really fcking funny 🤣
Headcanon:
i’m pretty sure this is canon at this point but ichiro is a clingy mf like once he’s decided you’re one of his peoples, then you are one of his peoples. you see it with how much of a brocon he is, you see it in the stage play when his long lost childhood friend, kazu, rolls into town and refuses to believe that kazu may be trouble, and you see it with ichiro naming his team buster(s) bros after his old team with kuukou who he still thinks about and considers a friend. (and might i add, was willing to change everything about himself in order to keep kuukou by his side and he’s the only person we see ichiro seriously crying over save for when he thought his brothers were dead after he lost the showdown battle with samatoki)
Ships:
ICHIKUU FOR LIFE!!!!!!!! ICHIKUU SUPREMACY MUST BE REINSTATED!!!!!!!!! like bro how do you have two different types of protagonists mesh as well as they do like they’re both loners with a huge amount of power but where kuukou is kinda nuts ichiro is kinda cool. kuukou is definitely ichiro’s sun but kuukou’s the one who puts himself into ichiro’s orbit like if their relationship turns out to be where if ichiro is struggling or if he’s calling and kuukou comes running, i will actually perish!!!! and then they’re both weebs!!!!! i really wanna know how this current ichiro, who’s a lot happier and not emo, and kuukou are going to mesh!!!!
lol and then ichidice is kinda cute and so is poly 19 year olds, ichiro/nemu/kuukou!! and of courses, i am heavily invested in however his and samatoki’s relationship is going to pan out
links to: jiro | saburo | samatoki | juto | rio | ramuda | gentaro | dice | jakurai | hifumi | doppo | kuukou | jyushi | hitoya | sasara | rosho | rei
#ichiro yamada#hypmic#honestly not to keep gushing about ichikuu but the buster bros/naughty busters thing really kills me like#we call it them the buster bros!!! theyve always been the buster bros!!!#but just as that it always been the buster bros logo reads as busters bros!!!!!#ichiro cannot let kuukou go im just— *cries*#and you know thats why samatoki tossing him aside hurt he has always been there for him from the moment they worked together#and samatoki was somebody he really looked up to. told him he didnt have to suffer the way he did#and then to have the only adult he placed that much faith in betray it??? oof#ichiro places a lot of weight in his bonds and that may stem from abandonment issues#but thats something else to talk about on a later date lol
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[TL] Interview w/ Saito Souma :The Lying Phantom
This article originally comes from Animage Magazine 482. Please buy it to support them.
Are the spinning words true or false?
Continuing from before words become weapons
Gentaro’s mysterious world
Fling Posse carries the stylish and brightly-coloured Shibuya Division on its back. Amongst them is the novelist, Yumeno Gentaro, who loves to lie. According to Fling Posse’s leader Amemura Ramuda’s survey, Yumeno Gentaro tell tales to his severely ill friend in order to cheer him up, but that seems to be a made up story, too.
Before joining the team, Gentaro showed Ramuda and Arisugawa Dice the line (as mentioned in the column) “There's a person whom I want to make him smile no matter what it takes” which seems to refer to said friend of his. He seems to be disgusted by reality; so much so he thinks about changing the world. While holding such thought, Gentaro tells solitary lies and, by spinning tales, he has intertwined reality with it. Isn’t that a very lonely task? Even after some time had passed since the team’s formation, Gentaro finds it difficult to express and open up his feelings to his teammates. However, it seems like he enjoys spending time with them. If Fling Posse’s relationship gets closer after experiencing the battle against Shinjuku Division’s Matenrou, it may bring something different to the loneliness in Gentaro’s heart. Maybe one day, Gentaro will not be alone and spin lyrics together with his teammates, waiting for the day that he will be able to make his important person smile.
Novel
“Let’s make the world interesting,” Ramuda invites Gentaro to the team, and commented that Gentaro’s book “seems to be a cheerful story, but there is a feeling of loneliness” and pointed out that it shows how Gentaro thinks the world is boring.
Voice
During conversations, Gentaro sometimes plays other characters. In order to do that, he changes his tone of voice. By using this character changing skill, maybe you can hear him change his voice as he tells stories.
Clothing
Gentaro is always wearing clothes like a scholar of the olden times. Since there are a lot different dressing styles in the Shibuya Division, it’s surprisingly fitting. It seems like he has an obsession over this style of clothing.
First Person Pronouns
Gentaro uses a lot of first person pronouns. Such as “shousei,” “ore,” “boku,” and sometimes “maro”. It’s unknown as to when he uses which, but the voice tones also change depending on which one he uses. Could it possibly be an indication of when Gentaro is lying or not?
An Irreplaceable Existence
“Say do you know how to let somebody dream when they've forgotten how to laugh?
If you do please tell me
There's a person whom I want to make smile no matter what it takes
I'm fed up - a pencil to pierce through this reality
Funny story, sometimes I’m fine with passing by someone else’s story
If I could change the world, wouldn’t it be nice to have a rap that transcends lies and reality”
These were the lyrics Gentaro presented before joining the team. In his solo “Scenario Liar,” he depicts the days he spent with his “irreplaceable friend,” and I wonder if that is the same friend he mentions in “I want to make him smile no matter what it takes”. If either or both are real, Gentaro’s lies might be really necessary for his important person.
Amemura Ramuda
Popular with the ladies thanks to his devilish charm and adorable appearance, this natural gigolo’s occupation is a fashion designer. The legendary team. Former member of The Dirty Dawg and now Fling Posse’s leader. Despite his flashy, outrageous behaviours, he investigated Gentaro before asking him to join his posse and read Gentaro’s heart just from his novel. Ramuda has wit and always pays attention. How much does the intellectual Gentaro know about Ramuda?
Arisugawa Dice
He’s a gambler who’d put even his own life on the betting table. He was born with luck and manages to survive because of it, but sometimes Lady Luck is fickle, so he also gets his equal share of complete losses. Gentaro does nothing but tease Dice, but I think that straightforwardness is a good part of him. After Dice gets overjoyed by something Gentaro said, he’d then tell Dice that it was a lie and Dice would get disappointed. Such exchange has become a routine for the both of them.
Regarding Fling Posse
Amongst all the teams, Fling Posse is the no.1 team in which you can’t read what’s on their mind. Somehow, it feels that even the battles are just for fun to them. Our team has the most pop and youthful feeling to it. Within the team, Gentaro, in a sense, has the most frivolity. Personality-wise, I think thats what makes him a ‘pop’ person. Basically, Gentaro is his MC name (Phantom), a character who shrouds others in smoke. So I never thought of making him having a certain Shibuya feeling. However, when all three members of Fling Posse converse, that kind of ambience itself does give off a Shibuya vibe, and I’m glad for that.
Regarding Impressions of his Teammates
Ramuda looks cute, but he is the most mysterious person. In the Battle CD drama part, you can catch a glimpse of it……..? Well, Ramuda IS the center of Fling Posse. Dice somewhat feels like, how to put it... everyone’s little brother? Even though he’s a gambler, he’s the most direct. Teasing him on that is fun. Anyways, it’s brilliant when the 3 of them bargains with each other. The characters’ personalities are shown more in the drama part of this Battle CD rather than the 1st CD. In the 1st CD, Gentaro was told to keep the ad-lib on the down low but this time I was allowed to deliver the best.
Regarding Impressions of Matenrou
I had an impression that our opponent Matenrou is “in anyways strong”. The characters and the team as a whole are strong too. They showed us Gentaro crossing swords with Doppo, but personally I enjoyed his involvement with Hifumi. Other than Shibuya Division, I am also interested in Doppo. I’d love to get involved with him more. However, since Gentaro is that kind of character, I feel like he can stir up something interesting with whomever. I’d like to talk more to Ichiro, too.
Regarding the New Song
The battle song recorded on the Battle CD sounds kind of heavy, both of the teams battle tooth and nail. But, Gentaro is….. (laughs). I’d love to hear personal opinions from all of you. The team’s song is definitely a chill and stylish song, it’s an amazing song that gives the three a strong sense of unity.
Regarding Gentaro’s Solo Song “Scenario Liar”
It’s a song recorded on the 1st CD. A poetry-reading like this has never been used in character songs so far. I didn’t have the experience either, so it was difficult yet fun. But when I first listen to the solo’s demo, I thought, “this guy is definitely going to say he lied.” After listening to the whole song, I thought “As expected from Gentaro! I can do it!” (laughs). Actually, when I sung it, I went off feeling the vibes instead of just reciting as is. It was very difficult to put it into the song. I mean, Gentaro always has a considerably harder flow amongst the 12 rappers. As expected of the Phantom, he has a tricky yet fun impression.
To the Women of Shibuya
I wonder what will happen if I said that after Dice lost big time in gambling, we went on a hunt for treasure sleeping in the underground labyrinth of Shibuya. As a result, Ramuda followed us thinking it was interesting and appointed Dice to be his model for his new line. Then we bought the best piece of land in Shibuya and lived a life free from worldly cares….
Well, that’s Yumeno Gentaro-sensei’s next book, “Phantom Pain Syndrome”. Please look forward to it.
Eh? You’re saying that I’m lying? Uh huh, you guessed it. Well, all of it was a lie.
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