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snifflyjoonie · 4 years

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I Think You’re My Soulmate

a/n: Alrighty well enough people seemed interested in this so I figured I’d give posting it a shot! I’m going to post it slowly in parts in between fics just because it is still something I am actively working on.

Here’s Part 1, which is basically me trying to set this universe up lmfao.

The premise is essentially you and your soulmate snz at the exact same moment every time, without fail... But what happens if there’s more than one?

Hopefully you guys like it!

***

For as long as Namjoon could remember, he had dreamed of finding his soulmate.

“Dad, how did you and Mom meet?”

Namjoon’s father glanced at his son from behind the pages of his book. No more than six years old, but always asking questions, always on the hunt for knowledge and understanding. He had been this way ever since he had learned to talk. He couldn’t help but admire his son’s beautiful curiosity.

His father leaned forward, reaching out to pat one of his son’s chubby cheeks, “The same way everyone does, Namjoon.” He smiled warmly, “We both shared a sneeze.”

He watched as his son seemed to ponder the answer, the little gears in his tiny brain turning, “What does that mean, Dad?”

His father ruffled his hair and chuckled, “You’ll learn more as you grow, but I will tell you this; when the universe gives you a sign, you listen. When you share a sneeze with someone, it is the world telling you that you have found your soulmate. It’s just the way it works, my son.”

Something changed in young Namjoon that day, and from that moment on, he had been determined to find his forever person.

Just like his father had told him, as he grew older, he began to learn more about his father’s quizzical answer. At the age of ten, they began to teach in school the strange way that human beings found their true soulmate. It seemed that whenever you sneezed, wherever in the world you might be, whatever it was you may have been doing, your soulmate would sneeze with you in perfect harmony. This is how it was, and this is how it had always been. It was taught to be a gift from the universe; a goofy sort of blessing to help you find your missing piece. Namjoon could remember the class giggling at the thought, the prospect of such a thing seemed silly, ridiculous even, and yet, seemed to click at the same time. He remembered the childish fake sneezes that had started to fill the room, the teacher laughing and telling them that wasn’t quite how it worked. He remembered being in awe, a childhood wonder that had long since left him, but that had been formed in that very classroom. Many of his male classmates had found this human oddity to be hilarious, whereas the girls tended to find it embarrassing. He however, had found it sort of romantic. The thought of having a special connection with someone, no matter how silly it was, a brief second of time that you both shared together, no matter the day, no matter either of your whereabouts, no matter if you knew each other or had yet to meet…it was always intriguing to him.

From then on, Namjoon had spent his middle and teenage years doing whatever he could to make himself sneeze in the hopes that someone else would join along with him. He would always share drinks with friends under the weather, avoid wearing a jacket in the wintertime, stand out in the pouring rain… To his mother, it seemed that every other week he would catch cold, or come home with a runny nose. She had always lectured him to watch his health, to not worry about finding his soulmate right away, that it would happen when it would happen…but when he started refusing to wear a face mask in the hopes something would itch his nose just enough, she simply gave up.

Towards the end of Namjoon’s teenage years, he spent his time watching his friends fall in love. It seemed that nearly once a month someone would catch cold and find out the girl from English they had eyes for happened to be their soulmate, or a seasonal allergy sufferer would discover the cute girl two years younger was meant for him during an accidental encounter with a bouquet, and so on and so forth. As he began to approach the end of high school, a deep worry started to settle in his chest. Why had nearly everyone else he knew found their soulmate? Why hadn’t he? He wanted it more than anyone, tried harder more than anybody, and yet…no one. He had heard the whispered rumors of people going their whole lives never finding who they were truly meant to spend their days with. The idea of never finding that one person, of settling down with somebody else while you and your soulmate continued to share an unspoken connection…the thought nearly drove him insane, and he began to fear that maybe his soulmate wasn’t in Korea at all.

It was then that Namjoon had decided he wanted to learn English. He begged his parents to find him a tutor, to sign him up for special classes, anything to help him master the confusing language as quickly as he could. Intrigued by his determination, his parents bought him the entirety of the popular American show Friends for him to watch and use to brush up on his English skills.

By the time graduation rolled around a few years later, Namjoon’s English skills had improved drastically, so much so that he could comfortably hold a conversation without getting too jumbled up in the words. It was at this point that he broke the news to his parents – he wanted to go to University in America. They were surprised, but supportive. When asked why he would possibly want to leave his friends and family behind to study abroad so far away he merely told them it was all to improve his English skills. His parents felt they could understand that, and agreed to help send their only son away to school.

Namjoon had spent a year preparing for his big move abroad before finally arriving in the United States. He was an undeclared major, not sure what he wanted to do with his life just yet but excited to learn either way. He was twenty now, a young man, and though he would never tell his parents, what he was most excited about was to find his soulmate.

He spent three years in the United States studying and searching; and as each year passed by Namjoon could feel himself becoming more discouraged not only in his hunt for love but in his studies as well. He had tried dating a few different girls, but the relationships would never last very long after one of them sneezed and the other didn’t. As each year passed by, he felt himself starting to lose his childlike awe of the world, his fascination with finding love…He became less talkative, less approachable, and by the time he entered his third year, he had all but given up on love and school alike. As his grades began to drop, his parents began to worry and requested him to return home after the end of his third year. Namjoon respectively obeyed. He had traveled across the world to find his soulmate, and would now be returning to Korea crushed, alone, and having lost hope in ever finding his one true person.

Returning to Korea had been embarrassing for him, but his parents were overjoyed to have him home. They did all they could to make him smile, to encourage him, to try to bring back the Namjoon they remembered and so desperately loved. They even tried to convince him to enroll at a University in Seoul, and after a year of uplifting words and badgering, Namjoon reluctantly agreed. He applied to the school late, getting accepted to start just after the winter break. His parents were overjoyed, Namjoon however simply felt neutral. He would be pursuing a degree in math in an attempt to become a math teacher, something his parents had been wanting for years. Namjoon was more than smart enough, knew he would succeed, but it had never been something he had particularly wanted to do. However, now he simply just didn’t care, and only wanted to make his parents proud. He owed it to them, after all they did to get him to America and back again.

The months leading up to him starting school were unremarkable, and before he knew it, he was starting University in Seoul the following day. Namjoon went to bed early that night, not looking forward to whatever tomorrow had to offer. He had just turned twenty-five a few months prior, now a grown man, he felt he had lost a part of himself. He wasn’t the same Namjoon anymore; wasn’t that chubby-cheeked little boy, ignorant to the real world. That part of him had died a long time ago. His outer shell had hardened as the years went by, his dreams faded to gray, somedays he didn’t even recognize himself. ‘Is this just growing up?’ he often thought. One day he hoped to find himself again, but today was not that day, and with a slight scratch beginning to form in the back of his throat, he slowly drifted off to sleep.

Namjoon jolted himself awake with a sneeze long before his alarm was set to ring. He groaned, blinking groggily as he tried to catch his bearings. His head felt like it had been plugged with cotton, his throat cracked and parched. He gave a dry cough, clearing his throat with a wince. Of course he would get sick, why wouldn’t he? Years of purposely doing anything he could to get himself sick had left him prone to colds and sinus infections, especially when he was stressed. No matter how often he fell under the weather he could still never get used to the cumbersome side effects that each illness brought, or the annoying thoughts he tended to think whenever he felt the urge to sneeze.

Namjoon shivered slightly, pulling his comforter up to his chin with a sniffle, the congestion in his nose blocking any air from getting through. He groaned again, and pitched forward slightly with another sneeze. He blinked hard and rubbed at his watery eyes, rolling over lazily to glance at his alarm clock. 5:30am. He couldn’t stop his heart from fluttering at the thought that maybe he wasn’t the only one woken up by his itchy nose. He shook his head slightly at the idea, he never liked thinking about these types of things anymore, but he was sick, it was early, and he was feeling lonely. He couldn’t stop his mind from wandering. He stared at the time on his clock again and sighed. It was 2:30pm in Canada. Maybe his soulmate was sitting in a coffee shop, reading a mystery novel they had read a dozen times already but always came back to because it was their absolute favourite. It was 8:30pm in the UK. Maybe his soulmate had been brushing their teeth for bed, their shared sneeze catching them off guard and causing toothpaste to dribble down their chin. It was 7:30am in Australia. Perhaps his soulmate was getting ready for work, fresh out of the shower, their towel-dried body glistening under the bathroom light. It was 1:30am in India. Maybe his soulmate was just as annoyed as he was to have been woken up so early, but grateful they still had many hours to fall back asleep.

Whoever they were and wherever they might be, Namjoon wished that one day they would meet, someway, somehow, and that they could help him believe in love once more. And with one final flutter of his heart, the man drifted back off into a short and fitful sleep.

#alright I said i was going to use another tag for this passion project to keep it all together so let's go with #the soulmate au #i really hope you guys enjoy this one #i've poured a lot of time into it but i still don't think it's the best??????? so i get nervous????? lol #anyway it's namjoon-centered as he tries to figure himself out and navigate through this weird concept lol basically good luck my dude #mine #bts sickfic #bts au

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crayrate-blog · 5 years

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Reverse Lookup CA

Web dating has turned into a very well known approach to meet individuals, and has in reality brought a ton of forlorn people together. In any case, only one out of every odd date turns out like an eHarmony promotion. So in recognition of Valentine's Day, we counseled perusers, companions, a couple of specialists, and various destinations (quite Craigslist Personals) to accumulate the most entertaining, weirdest, and most horrendous web based dating stories we could discover. Desolate individuals, broken hearts, false cases, dashed desires, doctored photographs, bailouts, and no-shows– it's everything part of the internet dating knowledge, and we uncovered a tad bit of everything.

"Beth" from Portland, Oregon, posted this note at a web based dating website:

Web based dating can deliver a portion of the most noticeably awful dates ever. The last person I went out with brought a sock puppet– a sock puppet– on our date and attempted to converse with me with it. To be charming, I think. Be that as it may, it cracked me out. Truly. Perhaps I'm out-dated, however no sock manikins, please.The old mid-date vanishing act has taken on an entirely different utility in the period of Internet dating. Display An originates from "Jill" in the San Francisco Bay Area, who posted the accompanying on Craigslist:

I get an advertisement from a person generally my age who has a hot bicycle, and a few pics demonstrating he's genuinely appealing. We email forward and backward a bit, he says he's certainly searching for a similar thing, lastly we consent to meet at a bistro. The main thing I perceived was the bicycle. He took after his pics the manner in which Stuart Little looks like Mickey Mouse. His teeth were dark, totally sickening, and he had a blister adjacent to one side eye. He must be 10 to 15 years more seasoned than me… . That, yet I got the unmistakable impression that he by and by knew where a couple of bodies were covered.

I couldn't resist. I expanded. At that point I couldn't take a gander at him by any means. I flipped the pages of the magazine I had gotten instance of absent and looked at him occasionally, considering how the [expletive removed] was I going to remove myself from this. So he says he will get an espresso. Also, heads inside. That was his first oversight. Leaving my espresso and magazine, and scarcely setting aside effort to grab up my satchel, I put my mobile phone to my ear like I had recently gotten a crisis call and truly pulled ass down the road to my vehicle before he returned out. Karma says I am going to pay for that. Fine.

Caroline Presno, dating master and creator of Profiling Your Date: A Smart Woman's Guide to Evaluating a Man, says online daters are now and then seen as powerless to meet individuals as it was done in the good 'ol days, as are some way or another "harmed merchandise." She relates this model:

An alluring, 30-year-old female instructor was truly anticipating her first gathering with a lawyer she had been messaging for some time. Be that as it may, on the date, before the server even brought the water, the person stated, "So how about we get down to it, what's up with you?"Jayne Hitchcock, Reverse Lookup CA a cybercrime master from York, Maine, reveals to us she's currently connected with to a kindred she met on True.com while doing research for her book, Net Crimes and Misdemeanors. Be that as it may, she says, she needed to kiss a couple of frogs before at last discovering her ruler.

On some internet dating locales, Hitchcock says, if a part needs to express fascination for another part in the wake of perusing their profile, yet without heading off to the outrageous of sending them an email, they can send an electronic "wink." "I was immersed with winks and messages in my True inbox," Hitchcock says. "I am dead serious when I state 'immersed.' Over 2000 individuals saw my profile. Of those, at any rate half were winks." Usually, however, what the winks really mean is: "I saw your image and I believe you're hot, yet I'm too apathetic to even think about reading your profile and it costs me nothing to simply give you a wink in case you think my thinning up top head is hot, or that no doubt about it."

You'd figure the obscurity of online communication would make it simpler for folks to put on a show of being smooth and in charge. Be that as it may, the inverse is frequently the situation. That equivalent namelessness appears to give a few men a permit to be impolite degenerates. "One person came directly out in the headline of his message and let me realize he needed to meet me and do 'awful things' to me," Hitchcock reports. "Another guaranteed he was a genuine cowhand in New Mexico and needed to have intercourse with me without any protection on his pony. Oy."

From Russia With LoveLoneliness can be abused, as some desolate hearts in the United States have discovered. The Web website of the U.S. international safe haven in Moscow has some a word of wisdom for Americans who think they've met their online match in Russia, and keep running into inconvenience. From the Q&A page, here are two of the issues that can manifest in such intercontinental sentiments.

The individual I'm writing to says that s/he needs $1,000.00 to appear for "stash cash" or the carrier won't let him/her get onto the plane. Is this valid?

(The Embassy reacts that this minx from Minsk isn't required to "appear" one penny to travel.)

I think I have been misled. I have sent this individual $2,000.00 and now I discover his/her visa is a phony. How would I recover my cash?

("Intense ****," the Embassy answers, essentially.)

For some long-lasting Internet daters, the names, actualities, faces, and interests of responders to their profiles start to run together. What's more, the constrained innovativeness of many dating-site individuals doesn't improve the situation. "John" from Chicago posted this "Open Letter to Match.com Girls":

Stop. Simply stop. You're irritating me. Above all else, your screen name. Quit placing "cheeky" into your screen name. Quit placing "citygirl" into your screen name. While enlisting, in the event that you endeavored to utilize "cubfan" as your screen name and it returned revealing to you that you'd need to make due with "cubfan57836," that ought to have been your first piece of information that you have picked a disgustingly predictable name. You are not sufficiently astute to consider something great, along these lines you ought not hope to be combined with somebody who is. Talking about Cub fans, quit saying you adore sports and that you "demonstration simply like a guy."And the equivalent is valid for the men. From Jayne Hitchcock: "I began to trim the rundown somewhere near erasing those with eyebrow-raising or out and out tragic screen names, for example, minor departure from 'loverboy,' 'mr. sentimental,' 'desolate person,' 'forlorn one,' 'kiss me,' 'genuine romance MD,' 'huggy bear,' 'party man,' 'hot upndown,' etc.– I am not making these up– and titles, for example, 'Hello there Beautiful,' 'Goodness!' 'Greetings Baby Pretty,' 'Hi, cutie,' and 'Me wink; you answer.'"

The Onion's Online Dating Tips offer this recommendation: Set yourself separated by picking an enlightening client name like SocialRetard342, CuteFaceFatAss, or RohypnolLarry.

"Sarah" from New York likewise come down her online dates to a couple of particular sorts. Here's one from her Craigslist post:

No. 6: Mr. EZ-Pass (Key Phrase: "I'm only a bounce, skip, and a hop far from New York City.") He persuaded me that the separation would not be an issue, that he went to the city regularly, so I said OK with certain reservations. Getting together for date #1 was an Act of Congress; he continued endlessly about the train plans. At that point he counterbalanced on date #2. He persuaded that he lived somewhere close in Jersey like Hoboken; turns out he was in Jersey okay… the piece of Jersey that is close to the Pennsylvania border.People all things considered, sizes, and financial foundations are searching for adoration on the web. Here's a post-date story from "mysterious" at Internetdatingtales.com:

I am 40 to 50 pounds overweight, yet I spoke the truth about it. This man was 5-feet-9 and said something most likely around 300 pounds. Be that as it may, alright, my concept of a bit [overweight] and his concept of a bit may fluctuate. So I wave at him and over he comes. I felt awful that I had sat outside, in light of the fact that despite the fact that it was a gentle day and there was an umbrella, he was before long perspiring like a jackass. Furthermore, the appeal, mind, and silliness he had on the telephone was … gone.

He muttered and squirmed, however continued seeing me like I was a glass of water and he was on the last part of a long stroll through the desert. So I did it. I am so embarrassed about myself, however all things considered, what else would I be able to do? I was certain each other arranged meeting had briskly dumped him. What's more, I realized he was a decent person, just not the person for me. I purposely embarked to sicken him. I began to chuckle excessively uproarious at the unfunny things he said. And after that, and I can scarcely type this, I really put my deliver my armpit, hauled it out, and sniffed it.

Shouldn't something be said about me? Here's my own (really my just) fascinating internet dating background. I was in school. In another city, Chicago, desolate, and cold. Her name was Bonnie, and her image on Nerve.com looked charming, even dainty. After a couple of talkative email notes, we set up a gathering at an elitist lager joint in Lincoln Park. I arrived first, sat at the bar, and requested a lager. Those minutes prior to your date shows up are priceless– my brain begun hustling a bit, I could nearly hear a low drum roll. Furthermore, there she was– she strolled in, sat down, requested a brew. The tattoo on her neck wasn't noticeable in her online picture. She looked somewhat unpleasant around the edges, Bonnie did. Intense, really. She was about my tallness or somewhat taller, and she was built– and I don't mean implicit a girly way, I mean she appeared as though she could seat press about twice my weight.

She requested another brew. What's more, one more and again. Her cool, disconnected mentality before long turned riotous and forceful. She lapped me a few times brew astute, and didn't appear to see, while peppering me with inquiries concerning past connections.

After around a hour I'd seen and sufficiently heard. When I easily asked off, asserting an investigation assemble meeting, she just took a gander at me blankly– at that point, I thought, a little menacingly. "Gracious, so you will get up and leave now, huh," she said.

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birdlord · 7 years

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Every Book I Read in 2016

Here’s a list of the books I finished in 2016! By the way, keeping a list like this WILL make you disinclined to start books and not finish them...when I was going through my notes to write these up, I found one or two that I didn’t manage to finish, but otherwise I finished ‘em all! Asterisks mark re-reads (though there’s only one this year!). Here’s last year’s list.

01 * Anne’s House of Dreams; Lucy Maud Montgomery - There are plenty of unlikely plot points in LMM’s books, but this one really takes the cake (SPOILER ALERT): woman marries a man out of blackmail, he disappears at sea, returns brain damaged, gets trepanned in Montreal, and turns out to be his own cousin. WHAT IS THAT EVEN, LUCY

02 Kindred; Octavia E. Butler - Oh just your typical sci-fi time travel slavery story! A thoughtful gloss on the idea that time travel is a white-man’s game (since any other type of person is likely to be disregarded, or killed, or put in jail in an earlier time period in the West) & complicating any modern person’s idea that if they were put in a difficult situation in the past, they’d certainly be able to get out of it easily, with their superior knowledge. I just came across a graphic novel version in a bookshop today, so check that out too if you’re more inclined towards a graphic interpretation.

03 The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society; Annie Barrows & Mary Anne Shaffer - I read this without much prior knowledge, so I was surprised to find that this book with a cutesy title was in fact an epistolary novel about the German occupation of the Channel Islands, and as such is fairly intense (though still imbued with cheery, stiff-upper-lippishness).

04 The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Clash of Two Cultures; Anne Fadiman - This is perhaps the first work of medical anthropology I’ve ever read, and it was eye-opening. It’s not that I didn’t know that western medicine doesn’t easily leap cultures, doesn’t cross cultural barriers in spite of our own belief in its efficacy. But knowing this abstractly is a different experience than seeing it laid out bare, in the body of a Hmong child in California, born with epilepsy.

05 Rain: A Natural and Cultural History; Cynthia Barrett - Two great tidbits from this book: 1) witch-hunts in Europe coincided with the worst years of the Little Ice Age, since witches were presumed to be affecting the weather. 2) Settlement of the Great Plains in the 1870s was brought on by mistaking weather (some wet years) for climate (arid with occasional wet periods).

06 In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex; Nathaniel Philbrick - This is the “real story” that inspired Melville to write Moby Dick. Or, a 2000 nonfiction history of that story, anyhow. Interesting narrative but I found it somewhat weakly-written - Philbrick weirdly (for a book about ships) consistently confuses the meaning of ship tonnage, which is a measure of volume, not mass. What a nit to pick, but here we are. The film version has some seriously bad CGI and added lots of stuff to juice the drama.

07 The State We’re In; Ann Beattie - A book of linked short stories, all set in Maine. I don’t know that I would have noticed that they were all in Maine if I hadn’t read it on the dust jacket, as it’s not really a set of stories where, like the setting is a character, or what have you. Not that I need everyone to be wearing a lobster as a hat, but the connection felt a bit weak.

08 Naked Airport: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Revolutionary Structure; Alastair Gordon - a book about the design of airports, from their earliest incarnations until the milennium. There’s some great material in here about airports and american imperialism in central and south america, under the auspices of Pan Am. Unfortunately I read the un-updated version, so it didn’t cover much in terms of the way airports have physically been changed since 9/11. I want THAT book.

09 The Argonauts; Maggie Nelson - This is probably the best piece of “confessional writing” I’ve ever read. It’s shot through with theory in a way that’s really invigorating, but is at the same time extremely personal and revealing, with thoughtful perspective on radically and motherhood, producing and reproducing.

10 A Bell for Adano; John Keene - More WWII occupation, but this time from the occupiers’ POV. An American major is assigned to administer a city in Italy, and decides to return their church bell to them. Hijinks, stereotypes, bureaucracy and some good ol’ American stick-to-itiveness ensue.

11 The Fly Trap; Fredrik Sjoberg - ostensibly a book about an entomologist who lives on an island in Sweden, it’s really a collection of digressions on summer, a fellow entomologist, travel, and collecting as avocation and vocation.

12 Spill Simmer Falter Wither; Sara Baume - the story of a man, and a dog, and the four seasons that they spend together; a year of increasing dread and discomfort. Exceedingly well-described, just thinking about this again months later has put me right back in a slightly damp Irish seaside town, full of prying watching eyes.

13 How to Watch a Movie; David Thomson - Often more of a biography of a film critic than a book teaching the reader “how to watch a movie”. He might well have called it “How to Watch a Movie Like Me, and Also Be Me, I’m Great”. I did appreciate the comparison of cuts in a film to periods after a sentence - a way of adding rhythm to a scene just as one adds it to a paragraph.

14 Mislaid; Nell Zink - A lesbian woman in 1966 in becomes enamoured of a gay professor at her college, marries him, has some babies, and leaves him a decade later. She and her daughter take to the south and live as African Americans, leading to some identity-politics hullabaloo and a pretty nonsensical over the top ending. Zink is poking at her readers, hoping they’ll feel uncomfortable.

15 Station Eleven; Emily St John Mandel - A lifetime of having Can-con thrust on me leaves me with the sense of vague embarrassment when a book is set in Canada. It feels specific where Americanness feels general, universal. Silly, I know. My desire to see an author’s description of how civilization collapses is ultimately well-satisfied in this book, though it takes a long time for the book to get there.

16 First Bite: How we Learn to Eat; Bee Wilson - A look at how we (and our families, friends, and cultures at large) shape our food preferences. Wilson takes us through her own past of disordered eating, and learning to feed picky children, all the while consulting with neuroscientists and nutritionists for backup. The overall message is about the possibility of change; even bad habits can be altered, even those learned as a wee babby.

17 The Slave Ship: A Human History; Marcus Rediker - This was an amazing, absorbing read, using the slave ship as a site to examine the slave trade in general, its innovations and consequences. Reducer points out that it’s only on the ship that Africans forged a collective sense of africanness, since they would have come from different linguistic and familial groups. It’s the shipboard life that allows the categories of “black” for the diverse enslaved people, and “white” for the multiethnic and multilingual crews to be created.

18 The Devil’s Picnic: Travels Through the Underworld of Food and Drink; Taras Grescoe - This guy is like a low-rent Canadian ersatz Bourdain. Blecch.

19 On Looking: A Walker’s Guide to the Art of Observation; Alexandra Horowitz - Horowitz takes the same walk with 11 different experts, in the hopes of learning or noticing something different every time. Perhaps because of being harnessed to this conceit, she often takes on the pose of a naif, which can strike the reader as a bit rich given that she’s got a PhD in psychology and works on animal behaviour. Is this the editorial hand, making sure the science doesn’t get to be too much?

20 Counternarratives; John Keene - Engrossing short stories (some longer than others, perhaps novella-length?) placed in various north and south american colonial contexts. Each is expanded from a short historical documents (e.g. newspaper announcements) and provides enough background to understand the subjects as complex people in their own rights.

21 An Age of License; Lucy Knisley - All of her books are pretty open, emotionally-speaking, but this one feels especially nakedly exposed. Her feelings will seem familiar to anyone who has gone through a big breakup, then made some assorted attempts to get their shit together. Not everyone gets to do that while on an expenses-paid European book tour, but there you are.

22 Something New; Lucy Knisley - Knisley made her name in graphic travelogues like the one above, but her more recent books concentrate on more conventional life milestones: marriage, pregnancy, motherhood. I read this book about wedding planning while planning my own, in summer 2016. While the problems I encountered were different than hers, I did actually find it useful (and yeah, I made sure that I read it in time for it to come in handy!).

23 Midnight’s Children; Salman Rushdie - This book made me wish for a great documentary (or something?) about India just after independence - I think there was loads of nuance that I didn’t capture at all due to my own ignorance. I found myself distracted frequently while reading this, which is especially bad since the book’s narrator is careening around constantly, breaking narrative rules all over the place. So beware losing focus, or you may be lost for some pages. I appreciated Rushdie’s description of the family’s privilege - our hero doesn’t describe his family as wealthy, and it’s easy to lose that fact until the moment of child-swapping. Or rather, returning?

24 Love & Other Ways of Dying; Michael Paterniti - A collection of harrowing essays, which – before you read the copyright page, which obviously everyone does, right? – you’d be right to assume that they were written for men’s magazines.

25 One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding; Rebecca Mead - Besides the graphic novel above, this is the only book about weddings I read whilst planning one. And it’s a polemic against the wedding-industrial complex that 1) felt considerably out-of-date 9 years after publication and 2) espoused ideas that I was already in the bag for. So, ok but not ground-shaking.

26 Down with the Old Canoe: A Cultural History of the Titanic Disaster; Steven Biel - Though I read the un-updated version of this book, there were a couple of takes that I found interesting here that I hadn’t come across before. Firstly, post-disaster narratives tended to cast Titanic as a moment of per-WWI loss of innocence, but this is overblown, since there was lots of unrest already in 1912 (e.g. extensive strikes during King George V’s coronation summer in 1911 which threatened starvation, suffragist demonstrations. And secondly, the idea of muscular Anglo-Saxon protestant manhood was reaffirmed culturally after the sinking, contrasting their nobility to emotion (perish the thought!) and violence from “latins” and other foreigners.

27 American Youth; Phil LaMarche - A slight little book about gun violence in New England, in which a fatherless (part-time, anyway) boy falls in with a group of conservative teen wingnuts, the sort who would now be recruiting on Reddit instead of at the high school cafeteria. Angsty and pretty much resolutionless, so a fine representation of the experience of adolescence.

28 A Severed Head; Iris Murdoch - Expect the sort of soap-opera plotting typical of Murdoch. Set in London during the choking post-war fog, which reasserts itself over and over. I’ve been hit over the head with her brilliance in the past (The Black Prince, sigh), and this one didn’t pull that particular trick, but I did enjoy it.

29 Their Eyes Were Watching God; Zora Neale Hurston - Janie talks her way through the American south, attaching herself to various places and people until she finds herself, finally, reasonably content. I thought it was interesting that her ability or inability (willingness or unwillingness) to bear children isn’t an issue in any of her relationships. I realize that this is a low bar to clear, but yeah, I’m happy when women aren’t reduced to their decisions about children.

30 A Burglar’s Guide to the City; Geoff Manaugh - Manaugh sees cities (and architecture) in a way that most people don’t, and in this case he’s taking on the mantle of the law-breaker, the intruder. The book combines tales of epic burglaries involving tunnelling & hiding, LAPD helicopter ride-alongs, lock picking seminars, and tidbits about the securitization of the city. E.g. did you know that Paris’ nickname The City of Light came originally from its streetlights, which were installed on police orders?

31 Networks of New York: An Illustrated Field Guide to Urban Internet Infrastructure; Ingrid Burrington - Look, I know you need an excuse to look at your city through different eyes. And here it is! Obviously some of this is NY-specific, but having the ability to see the physical traces of the internet’s infrastructure is a great superpower to have.

32 Pond; Claire-Louise Bennett - lacking a thread of narrative through the entire book, it’s uncertain whether the best way to read this is as a novel, or as a series of short stories with the same protagonist. A woman lives in an Irish cottage, and equally divides her time musing about her surroundings and her own mental state. A quote I liked: “Then it occurred to me that perhaps I’d been terrified for longer than all day, and had rather mixed feelings upon realizing that - I wasn’t much keen on the idea that I’d been terrified for years, but it seemed possible”

33 Anne of Tim Hortons: Globalization and the Reshaping of Atlantic-Canadian Literature; Hab Wylie - This book looks a literature that acknowledges the Atlantic provinces as a contemporary space, rather than as a place frozen in time, and set outside the forces of globalization and finance. That latter notion is shorthanded as “the folk”, eg “The Folk paradigm is complicit in the colonial tactic of constructing the land as unoccupied, because it cultivates the impression that the Folk have always belonged here”

34 February; Lisa Moore - Inspired by the above, I picked up this one from the library. It covers the story of the Ocean Ranger, an oil rig that sank with all aboard off the coast of Newfoundland in 1982, and its long-term consequences for a particular family. I found the interlocking timelines to be pretty effective, and the emotional fallout from the disaster is handled with the appropriate weight and solemnity.

35 Combat Ready Kitchen: How the US Military Shapes the Way You Eat; Anastacia Marx de Salcedo - Once you find out how much military logistics affects the way the civilian world fabricates, ships and even eats, it’s hard not to want to dig in a bit further. This is the story of how military rations became industrial foods. Interestingly, where the “clean-eating” food world might expect the author to reject the convenience foods whose history she’s tracing here, she takes a far more pragmatic approach. I was a bit less fascinated by the specific scientific advancements, and wish more time had been spent on the history.

36 Teenage: The Creation of Youth Culture; Jon Savage - A long monograph on adolescence prior to the creation (and cultural ascension) of the teenager in the post-WWII era. Naturally, no matter what the surrounding historical events, there’s always a generational divide between the young and their parents, and Savage plots that rift over and over again, from the 1890s to the 1940s. Sadly his research is restricted to Western Europe and North America only, I’d like to see something similar that has a broader scope (though I’m sure one of the prerequisites of a teen culture is some amount of surplus time, resources, etc which are certainly not available prior to the achievement of some serious development).

37 Our Young Man; Edmund White - A slim little thing (I’m sure all it ever snacks on is plain air-popped popcorn) with allusions to Oscar Wilde, and barely a place towards the AIDS crisis. A change of perspective in the final third was much appreciated, though the new protagonist is scarcely less self-obsessed than the first.

38 When God was a Rabbit; Sarah Winman - I felt a bit like this book’s reach exceeded its grasp. It felt more like a homey, British ensemble dramedy than the lofty Literature it presents itself to be. I was, however, with it until world events (I’ll keep it spoiler-free for y’all) crash into the narrative in a clumsy and un-earned fashion.

39 The Sport of Kings; CE Morgan - A huge, and wide-ranging tale about lineage, blood, wealth and slavery in Kentucky, with a thin veneer of horses to help the whole thing go down a bit easier. Both massively compelling and by times stomach-turning, this is book can be a rough read. I could see a tilt into High Melodrama appearing in the final quarter or so, and I wished mightily that it wouldn’t go where I thought it was going…..but it did.

40 The End of Average; Todd Rose - I was hoping for an interesting history of the science of averages, and/or the idea of designing for “the average human” and that’s what I got in the first third or so. Then the book devolves (or evolves, I guess, depending on your perspective) into a gung-ho self-help book about bootstrapping your way to the top, even if you’ve been disregarded your whole life. Meh.

2016 by the Numbers

Read on a screen 1

Read on paper ALL THE REST :):)

Book Club Reads 4 (our club met 7 times this year, but 3 of those book I’d finished in 2015)

Graphic Novels 2

Fiction 19

Nonfiction 21

14 notes · View notes

courage-a-word-of-justice · 7 years

Text

Still need votes for this.

7O3X 1

As you can kinda tell from these notes, I love random trivia, so this was a hype show ever since I found out about it. Then again, I never thought a quiz anime would exist in the first place prior to the announcement of this.

Okay, question 1 – why exactly did some Japanese staff member saddle this show with a name that doesn’t match the Japanese title at all? So long as you know O is a correct answer, you’re fine…

I love how they’ve styled the credits to be like a Q and A. That really works in the show’s favour.

Headband girl’s name is Mari Fukami, right? How does she pose her legs like that?!

For some reason, I like Shiki’s name in the Western order more…

Interesting how Kuroda stands out more than Shiki, knowing anime tropes.

I’m not entirely up to snuff on Japan’s nuclear stuff, but the Descartes saying is fairly well known and I got it. The thing about quiz shows is that you have to want to play along, which I’m not getting just yet, but this is just the setup stage so I’ll keep going. Sahara…The Metamorphosis (I love transformation fiction, so to get a question about Metamorphosis so early on basically means you’ve won me over, LOL)…I think the deeper this goes, the more cliché it may seem, but I like it. Especially because I remember helping out at the library a lot (plus free pizza as a result…haha).

The books Shiki passes by include “The World of Literature You Don’t Know” and a parody of that Arukeyo Otome thing by Masaaki Yuasa that was released recently (which is based on a novel). Specifically, the name of the 7O3X version of the book is “The Morning is Short, Walk On Girl” (to use the sentence pattern of the original).

Ah, now Shiki’s a kiddo that gets me! I’ve never been too sociable to people and before I got too deep with the internet, it was just me and books, and as a result I specialised in everything English (bar writing, which I was average at). However, by the time I was 13, I lost my skills in English to essays. My love of anime made its resurgence around then so I suspect if I were still a book nerd, I wouldn’t be where I am today…

Okay, I think someone on the ‘net warned me about the panty shot. It’s a good thing Shiki is clearly uncomfortable with it…yeah. Moving on.

That club with the skirts really is disturbing, but I couldn’t help laughing like the brunette in front of Shiki.

Gakuto really made a great first impression. It wowed me. Unfortunately, the quiz show he referenced doesn’t exist, according to Google-sensei…”High School Quiz Show” apparently does, though.

I think there are specialised makers of those buzzers, Shiki. Or you could order them online or something, your call.

Please stop with the panty shot references…but sticking “April” in English really doesn’t make this question work out for me. So, to answer in Japanese, it would be shigatsu.

There are 50 stars on the American flag, right?…Yep. It wasn’t a trick question – buzzing in too fast can be a liability, so make sure you listen to the entire question before you answer!

I’d actually guess Gakuto is going to ask for “the nation with the most people”…Darnit! Oh well, I knew that one before the other guy buzzed in. Interesting how there’s Vatican Miracle Examiner this season though.

I suck at anticipating questions, but I’m good at answering like Shiki. “Et tu, Brute?” is said by Julius Caesar.

The guy to Mari’s left just seems to be fooling around. I’d know that sort of guy anywhere…*frowning face*

I don’t know about this “I fell in love” one…By the way, the text is here. That reveals the author is Dazai and Das Gemeine actually starts with “Back then, each day was the end of my life.” “I fell in love” comes after that.

Kaijou High School? Is this foreshadowing for a later opponent? Like, say, Mikuriya Chisato?

Stop it with the panty shot reference! Argh!

Wait, there’s a silhouette there in one of the circles. The long hair and colour of the circle indicates it’s most likely a girl, but probably one the staff want to keep secret…Interesting.

I’m kind of ambivalent, as this was one of 4 major hype shows for me. The number of panty shot references means they may refer to the event again in subsequent episodes, and fanservice has killed shows for me in the past. However, I’m slowly getting the hang of this quiz bowl stuff, even if I can’t always get in before the answer, and I know the emphasis is on quizzes, so I’ll give it another ep.

Saiyuki Reload Blast 1

Apparently, you don’t need to know much to get into Saiyuki so *shrugs* I’m gonna try it.

I think a more literal version of this ep title is “Sudden Storm”. “Squall” implies power as much as immediacy…

This reeks of DN Angel (late 90s/early 2000s) style, and I like it! Plus I’ve heard of the dragon/Jeep from other people who’ve talked about the series (notably there was an article on CR that convinced me to watch this and it mentioned the dragon), so…that was actually no biggie. Camera blood spatter is a bit questionable, though…

I have weird tastes in humour, as you might know from Kado. Therefore, when the woman appeared at the window, I laughed myself silly…

Shangri-la is China, so it’s natural that west China is different to east China. Kind of like how western America and eastern America are different…

I dunno why Gojyo is a water sprite, but that “diarrhoea sprite” thing is funny.

Gahh! That blonde (Sanzo) is too hot for me! No wonder people put characters on dakimakura, this guy looks right at home on one.

Well, I dunno what I just got myself into, but that was some good stuff! Next ep, please! (Plus, Granrodeo and Luck Life, the same duo of artists on Bungou Stray Dogs. That’s gotta be a good sign, right?)

Oh great, I left the ep running and it turns out there’s an after credits segment. Tsukigakirei’s after credits extras didn’t quite work for me, but since I laughed so much at the main show, this shouldn’t hurt, right?

G-Guh! The dragon can write calligraphy?! With its feet?! At least the joke works in Japanese and English…

That baldness joke works for me, considering I know Sanzo’s a priest…welp, if you get a lil’ background knowledge, it seems like you can conquer almost anything Saiyuki, and who knows what places it’ll take me in the future, eh?

Konbini Kareshi 1

I’m here for the VA talent, if nothing else. Nishiyama’s (Atsushi of Boueibu) getting a lot of side roles lately, which is great!

That running sequence took a good minute and a half, which is the same length as the OP. I almost noped out of there because that kind of thing is only compelling for about 10 seconds for me.

There’s something that’s a hybrid of Sagrada Reset, Denpa Kyoushi and Tsukigakirei here…which means it’ll probably get a low to medium rating, if anything. I can normally peg what sort of rating a show will get by its first episode,because shows tend to be consistent about what they do.

Interesting to note they don’t use shigatsu here.

The picture book is “The Mermaid Prince” (<- update: “The Merfolk Prince” is a better translation, so my bad). It was pretty obvious by the swimming sequence in the OP that at least one of these guys is a swimmer, or at least a PE nut (as some of the other things on his table suggest).<br>

I’ve never seen a younger brother be a morning person and the one to wake up a sibling. It’s always an imouto or a mother…

Wasn’t this straight romance, and not Hitorijime My Hero romance? Towa really has that bromance thing going on for him, the way Suna and Takeo (Ore Monogatari) do.

CS I think is a reference to BS Japan, one of the TV stations that shows Boueibu. Update: It’s actually highly likely to be CS-TBS, which shows the show. By the by, Nishiyama is Miki.

The red keion announcement vaguely pisses me off simply because I know that’s the light music club. I’ve seen small snippets of K-On, and while it wasn’t enough to warrant marking episodes off, catchy songs aren’t enough to keep me coming back.

This first meeting seems a little hamfisted for some reason I can’t put my finger on. However, it’s great Miki’s getting a lot of lines right here, although it’s still a side role…

The background scenery is beautiful in this show…

Here we go again…(basically, I have a very low opinion of this show, just as I suspected I would have).

I’ve got the volume on to evaluate Nishiyama, but the high-pitched teasing voice Towa just used is not natural at all. It would’ve worked better in his normal voice.

I get why the girls are fangirling over books, but I didn’t get who Michael Ende was until “The Neverending Story” came up, haha.

Glasses girl (Mami, right?) is reading something called “Glasses Man”, haha.

There’s a lot of voiceover here, as if the anime staff don’t quite care about their show enough to animate lip flaps.

As soon as she stepped on his foot and he didn’t give chase, that’s when I realised I didn’t quite care about these people. The pacing in this show, during critical moments, is just too awkward, that’s why…

Well, that was subpar. It has an opportunity to get better next ep, but I don’t care to stick around enough. However, there’s an interesting thing in the ED – there’s credits for scripting “Merfolk Prince”, meaning that may show up in a later ep. This ED sounds Coldplay-turned-Japanese, which is cool.

Knight’s & Magic 1

If you didn’t notice already, I’ve become so complacent with the premieres, this is my biggest season so far. If I finish watching every first ep I intend to watch as of the count I did for this commentary, I’d have 17 documented (7 more than on my hype list) because I have time, plus I’m relying on ANN to find me the good stuff this time.

What’s with that apostrophe in the title? As someone who likes their grammar to be correct, I just don’t like it.

I get the appeal of programming as an IT nerd, but it’s an acquired taste, plus it doesn’t have much payoff when you get frustrated at problems within your own code because it’s all a bunch of words and punctuation anyway.

Oh, it’s that effect where you-letterboxing! That’s what I was thinking of! (Reminds me of Erased.) Also, the ambient light is nice here, but the angled letterboxing is just plain weird.

CGI…bugs? That’s a pretty bad choice for monsters, IMHO.

ANN people have commented Erni’s past went too fast and I agree. Also, it’s just cliché after cliché with this show, ain’t it? Including the need to kabedon a girl.

Why does red eyed girl look like Atsushi of Bungou Stray Dogs? Plus, the wear on the mechas is nice.

Not every man – or every woman or other kind of person – dreams of robots, y’know?

“Trandorkis.” That’s the worst name I’ve ever heard in a while, and not just because it has “dork” in it, mind you.

Well, the look is shiny, bright and appealing and I can see this having a niche appeal to those who like giant robots. However, the backstory was too fast and Erni is way too OP for this world, so I’m dropping it.

Chronos Ruler 1

I’m familiar with only the first one or two chapters of the source material, so I was surprised this got adapted to anime…considering it’s a Taiwanese creator on a Jump manga though, it was kinda inevitable these days with all the Chinese coproductions.

That was a pretty interesting intro, even if it seemed like I’d watched the PV instead.

The battle there was good but a lil’ rotoscopy…hmph.

The colour scheme’s a lil’ dark…it’s a bit worrying, because Chronos Ruler normally has some pretty bright colours. I don’t want this to come off as a completely edgelord work like Big Order. I don’t seem to recall this dog though…

I’m pretty sure I don’t remember the forced humour spot, either, though it’s not as bad as, say, Bungou, where the director is known for his distinctive style of humour. Then again, my memory on this stuff is kinda vague.

This thing is starting to show cracks in its façade. Some of the movements are stiff and the CGI, while integreated well, doesn’t quite work with the 2D (although that’s shown up since the battle with the Horologue). “Cabalet” really adds to the cracks.

Every time Kiri speaks, I think of Kunikida (Bungou), so Victo is Dazai.

Adding the music to the show really adds another crack. There is absolutely no singing going on in this one singing scene.

Cue bad time puns. Puns are one of my specialties, y’know, so I don’t mind ‘em. Why else would I run LOL Yeah Shinichi, eh?

Victo, you remind me so much of +Anima’s Senri…and that’s just beautiful. Not many shows remind me of that. To anyone reading this, if you can get your hands on the old Tokyopop releases, +Anima is a gorgeous series, so go read it!

If Victo’s cards can fire at Mach 10, then he can’t beat Koro-sensei, LOL. (Ouch.)

Kids, don’t wear your hats inside. That’s an etiquette thing you should never forget, okay?

That was…strangely a much better premiere than I expected a Chinese part-production to be like! It’s better than the bunch of premieres I’ve tackled already and since good premieres are scarce, I’m taking it!

Update: Here’s another sign that doesn’t bode well for this show – it’s got the same director as Chaos Dragon (Masato Matsune), which I dropped after 2 eps. Chaos Dragon is known to be the epitome of road apples around the internet…

18if 1

18if was initially the only thing guaranteed to be out of Amazon’s greedy hands, so it’s great to see something so visually exciting ifnally be here for me. I know it’s based on a mobile game, which tend to be bad, but…c’mon, I’m struggling to find a good lineup here with what’s basically the death of Kaito x Ansa (it debuted on the 12th, but still hasn’t come CR’s way). Katsugeki’s good though, so at least that’s a lock for the commentary…

Quick –is this thing meant to be fully English? Or is this just Funimation being annoying?

Oh no, what a horrible first impression! Someone who speaks from their *erhem* and a chicken, aka cock…*muffles laughter* How dirty of me to even suggest it, but…well, it’s what we’re working with here.

The more I watch, the more confused I get.

Couldn’t Haruto have run towards the door? Or is this one of those non-lucid dreams?

This 16 frame simultaneous animation doesn’t quite work for me, but it’s an interesting hallmark of this anime.

Katsumi’s a Looney Toons Cat, sort of kind of…

The production values are mostly quite good, but unfortunately Haruto looks eyesearingly bad and I still can’t quite grasp the narrative thread of this show…

I just realised I completely didn’t care about Haruto getting his arm chopped off, not only because this is a dream world where anything can happen, but because heck, that arm drop wasn’t dramatic in the least.

“Anything can happen in this world”, eh? Including headphones being sliced off with a head, it seems.

Wait, so Yuko’s from his school? Haruto, please don’t encourage Yuko to skip school, as cool as that is.

Okay, I can see this becoming a harem crossed with The Royal Tutor…which would pretty much make this the Monogatari series. Unfortunately, because I still can’t quite detect what’s happened narrative-wise and the production values aren’t as great as they seem at first glance, I’m dropping this.

Boku no Hero Academia 27

Finally, we get out of that pool of mediocrity to get to the good stuff. Let’s go!

This new amazarashi OP is…great! Absolutely great match for this show…but as a musical choice for me, it’s kinda dull.

This old man is great humour-wise, but man, he’s basically Speed of Sound Sonic as an old geezer, LOL. The vibes between “little bro” and “big bro” are just too much.

Gran Torino really is a great old guy, basically Yoda, LOL (I had to make the comparison because even though I’ve never seen Star Wars, Horikoshi’s a fan). He can see weakness just from watching Deku on TV, which is what every great mentor should be able to do, right?

What makes movement flexible? Belief in one’s own strength and no fear for repercussions (not quite in the way Deku’s doing right now, but rather going all out all the time without having a subconscious fear drag you down). Also of course exercise and youth works in your favour.

Deku likes katsudon, LOL. No wonder he’s basically Yuri Katsuki’s little bro as well as Saitama’s, hahaha.

Best Jeanist is basically Aoyama gone pro (I’ll say ouch for Bakugou in advance).

Oh! Uwabami! I know she came from Oumagadoki Zoo, so it’s nice to see her animated!

Gahaha, Gran Torino is such a Mr Miyagi (even though I’ve never seen the original Karate Kid).

“Omazan”, LOL! This ep just keeps getting better and better!

Gahaha, I just made a comparison of Yuri Katsuki to Deku, and suddenly here come the food metaphors. This show became superhero!YOI with better comedy, and that’s just even more fantabulous than before.

This fairy tale AU, I dig it. Unfortunately, Mercy (@mercysorrows) spoilt prince!Shouto for me, but yes, this AU is just as great as the ep itself. Kaminari looks great in this, although I’m disappointed I couldn’t see Tokoyami. What a great twist at the end though, for it to be 1-A’s festival album…is that foreshadowing for a later arc, perhaps? (The All Might fire is both a fitting and a sad analogy, because All Might’s force is literally Deku’s sword and shield and All Might’s presence is what makes Deku a hero, yet it suggests Toshinori’s time as a buff man is limited…*feels all sad inside*)

Vatican Kiseki Chousakan 1

This one actually seems like it has some promise, and because I was a Detective Conan fan a few years back I’m a sucker for any new seasonal mystery series. By the way, let’s just call this “The Vatican Anime” and leave it at that, okay?

“This story is a work of fiction…” – The Vatican’s real, though, right? By the way, “succor” is, according to Google-sensei, “assistance and support in times of hardship and distress.”

The shaky camera doesn’t quite do it for me…There was similar stuff for Chronos Ruler, only that time they overdid their spinning.

I thought the door was an elevator, that’s how deceiving that doorbell was. Sheesh though, Hiraga looks like the dude from 91 Days when he’s tired (which is not a compliment!).

The Game of Angels and Demons seems to be reversi or something, Google doesn’t give me anything good on it.

*points at undressed Hiraga* Unnecessary, but wowee. Me likey.

“I’m the one who came up with the game.” – Oh, that explains why I had no proper hits on it…*sighs*

Biometrics? I thought we were in the 91 Days era, or at least another period in the past. Turns out we’re in the present (or somewhere very close to it).

Comparison to Youkai Apato here – both shows take care to state the obvious, but well…they’ve all got a good dose of (at least somewhat good looking) bishies, so I can live with that.

Okay, wait…they show Mexico on the map, but Google just keeps getting me hits for New Mexico (slightly off from the shown section of America) when I look for “aliens America 1945”, and Roswell was 1947 so uh…this really is a work of fiction, after all.

The most widespread religion where I am is Christianity, so it was optional for me to take RE back in the day. I’m not too familiar with Catholics (although there should be some if I bother to look for them), but…this smacks so much of my old RE classes yet doesn’t give me the same nostalgia as the recent Saiyuki did. Maybe it’s the cracks of subparness and the stating the obvious that are doing this.

This Jacob guy looks brainwashed. More than the other procession of priests we’ve just been introduced to, at least.

Bad CGI…then again, I keep these gripes because even Chronos Ruler does better than this and because Kado is its precedent.

“…follow the way like a little child would.”

So the show finally shows some promise! Why did it only start pulling out its big guns now? Probably lazy writing…

I know the AB negative blood is rare, but couldn’t there be someone else with that blood type around the Church? It’s not impossible, y’know?

Can someone verify the correctness of the Italian in this email?

I think we met Johannes already, so…it seems like this show has a propensity to introduce the viewer to a person twice over. That works when things are like Detective Conan (one story spread over 3 eps) but doesn’t work for 1 ep.

I get a sense of feeling of blasphemy from you guys (Hiraga and Nicolas) too, although I’ve pointed out my reasoning.

It’s a good thing it seems like the staff went out to the Vatican to get something that looks realistic, eh?

Wait, is Lauren a man?! Oh my…Also, from my version of the video (from Hidive/Sentai) I get the feeling the next ep preview got blended into the ED. Or was that just time constraints?

Wait, there’s a Horror Bunko? If I knew a Horror Bunko existed, why haven’t they started adapting stuff from it until now? I think people have been complaining about the lack of good horror works in anime…(Oh, I could probably answer my own question there – horror isn’t that popular in Japan itself. It’s popular in the West though…)

All in all, it’s not quite as Scooby-Doo as some people have pegged it to be, but not inspiring enough to continue.

Katsugeki 2

I’m pretty scarce on choice, so I’m doing what was previously never ever done before – I’m picking up one of my worst rankers (Hina Logi) to have a second look at. Mind you, we’ve had an overall stinker of a season so far.

(insert “Come at me, bro!” joke for Tonbokiri)

Huh, interesting – I’ve used female pronouns for the saniwa due to the female VA, but now that I properly listen to them, they do seem more like a dude. Does that mean that Touken Ranbu is specifically trying to go for a larger audience than just fangirls? Of course, for the fangirls, there’s Hanamaru, but Katsugeki’s way better.

Okay, Mutsu. 6 bullets is overkill, calm your gun-totin’ farm. Mutsu’s much like the typical anime protag and while he’s an alright sword, I never have been able to understand the appeal behind him. Maybe he’s for the people who like muscular bishies…? Tonbokiri and Yamabushi probably do that better than him…

LOL, these two. However, just comparing their stats, Kane-san edges over Mutsu a bit for everything aside from range…and that’s only because most swords have a short range.

When you talk about Tonbokiri, you often hear the legend, so it’s no surprise to hear it here. I’m just not good with sorting these swords chronologically though, so…Tonbikiri comes from the age of Nobunaga no Shinobi, huh? Interesting.

Daifuku.

The reason Mutsu carries a gun is because Ryoma Sakamoto was around during the dying days of the age of swords.

It’s kinda hard to hear what Mutsu’s saying from the way he talks, but the hot pot is specifically a nabe.

Noting that Tonbokiri’s ben out about 50 times, this saniwa really is a rookie and this era is probably the second or third map. Yagen isn’t too rare though, so he’s probably the biggest veteran here in regards to this saniwa. However, Mutsu’s number means that this saniwa’s starter wasn’t him…who was it, then?

Mutsu’s statement about daifuku is a pun on the fact “daifuku” means “great luck” as well as being a name for this mochi-like item.

Mutsu, weren’t you going to eat…?

What even is a Historical Restraining Force? Is that the group the saniwa is part of?…My bad, they just explained it.

One of the things that make Touken Ranbu so great is the propensity of it to go from battle action to serious drama or poignant melancholy at the drop of a hat.

This ED…was an odd choice, but has a nice singer. I realised the shots of people I don’t recognise show the swords when they were…y’know, swords. I still love the style of the next ep preview though (it’s even got the same BGM as the game!) and as expected, the citadel at the end of the ED is gorgeous.

Hina Logi 2

Good anime are scarce this season and magical girl shows that can be put through the commentary are scarcer, so…here we are.

“Rice Balls Over Flowers” is hana yori dango. Plus, hina means chick and since chicks are cute, I guess that’s where the aesthetic of the show comes from.

Someone likes the Osomatsu-san ED aesthetic, it seems.

How can you walk and not notice those breasts??? That’s exactly why I didn’t want to pick up this show again.

A qipao is a type of Chinese dress, the sort that normally has a slit up the leg and a skirt that doesn’t quite go to the knees.

Interesting, they’ve incorporated the panda hair accessories into the Trance.

For some reason, the production values here are quite nice, meaning either luck and Logic sells well in Japan or Bushiroad put a lot of their funding behind this…it’s probably a case of both.

She wants to stay with Nina, but unless she was either bored or maltreated at her home castle (which I don’t think was the case) I don’t really get Lion’s motivations…

Well, it actually was a rice ball (onigiri)! Geez, these puns…

Nina needing a logical answer is of course appropriate for a show based off Luck and Logic, LOL.

I seem to remember this Veronica lady from the original, which is funny, because I don’t remember Nina and Luck and Logic was very forgettable…

*tries to sneak away* Gratuitous boob shot? On a high schooler? Yeah, nah.

“small little town” – Small and little are the same thing though…

Trying to entice the lolicons with this ED is not good, y’know.

There really seems to be something hinted about Kagura-sensei, y’know?

I’ve termed this season “the race to the bottom”, but it was interesting to actually pull out a low ranker and give it a second chance. While I’m still not into Hina Logi as a whole and I gave it a 30 first time around, it’s probably better than that stinker Konbini Kareshi.

Hina Logi 3

*shakes head* Only in anime would someone ride a rocket like this. Only in anime.

I can’t see what Lion’s pointing to…

I am screaming profanities at my screen and shaking my head. Only in anime would a plotline like this happen. Only in anime!

I kinda understand Lion’s plight, since my dad used to go to my school to help out every now and again or have parent teacher interviews. Of course, that was when I was much younger, so…yeah. I think the staff are trying to get more younger girls involved in this by bringing in a “sexy dad”, but my tastes don’t skew that way.

Oh, now I understand Lion, but I still don’t get Mahiro, Yayoi, Karin or Karen.

Doesn’t spasibo mean “thank you” in Russian?…Yep. So Liones (country) is based on Russia, then.

Oh gosh, it’s one of those “There are two trains” questions…they bore me to death so much (and I can never solve them!) that as much as I like solving anime board questions, I’ll pass on this one.

The subber at CR decided to put their sub out of the way at the expense of being able to read the question. However, not being able to read the sub of the dialogue is a major problem! So I have absolutely no idea what the teacher was saying during the time she had that math problem up! (Also, that Foreigner question would depend on if you defeated the monster on impact or took extra time to properly defeat it.)

When there’s that screen with the four visuals on it, there’s a girl with a horned hoodie. I recognise her from the original series, but I don’t remember her name.

Here’s something on ezhiki, although there also appears to be a cookie variant.

Little kids always want their own independence, to the point where running away is one of those things most kids do, but then they come back. I don’t think I ever ran away from home, though. I was always too busy with studies and piano to run away…

I know these eyecatch-style screens are meant to be funny, but still…I never laugh at them…isn’t that sad for a show that wants to be a funny slice of life/fantasy…thing?

Last time I saw a bear in anime, it was Armed Girls Machiavellism…

Why would you ever need a bear repelling machine???

Who’s Belle?…Oh yeah, Belle is the squirrel.

Dasvidanya = goodbye. I’ve learnt more Russian because of anime than I ever would have without it (I read the entirety of Crime and Punishment thanks to that gorgeous Fyodor in Bungou Stray Dogs, y’know).

#simulcast commentary #katsugeki touken ranbu #chronos ruler #boku no hero academia #hina logi: from luck & logic #knight's & magic #18if #vatican kiseki chousakan #saiyuki reload blast #konbini kareshi #chesarka watches boku no hero academia #7o3x: fastest finger first #Chesarka watches Saiyuki RB #Chesarka watches Katsugeki

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