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ryo-maybe · 2 months

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Finished Donbros..........

#busting it down textual style #inoue you bastard you did it.

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biomic · 2 years

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you could make a love dodecahedron out of this very episode alone

#inoue you sick bastard never change #kendrix morgan died for our sins #super sentai for ts #donbros posting #donbros spoilers//#donbrothers spoilers//

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shittytokudetails · 2 years

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if i'm not mistaken we don't have a funeral in sentai since yellow4

#inoue you bastard you did it

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canmom · 4 months

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How do you live?

I (finally!) saw Miyazaki's new film 君たちはどう生きるか (How Do You Live?/The Boy and the Heron)! It's been out in the States for a while, and in Japan considerably longer, but it took a while to make its way over here.

I remember at the time it came out, people were having fun riffing on the incredibly cryptic marketing campaign, which consisted only of this rather abstract poster...

In the spirit of this, I resolutely avoided watching any trailers or knowing anything at all about the plot of the film. I picked up a thing or two here and there - I knew to expect some amazing Shinya Ohira animation for example, and you couldn't really avoid seeing the bird with teeth! - but overall, I had no idea.

There's plenty of great writing about this film in English already, such as kvin's fantastic sakugablog piece which discusses the physicality of Ghibli's animation, its weight and springiness, as a throughline. The stuff that kvin talks about really stood out to me as I watched this film. You can likewise read detailed interviews with Toshiyuki Inoue (fantastic interview for sakubutas) and Akihiko Yamashita on fufuro.

First up, the credits of this film are pretty much a who's who of the greatest jp animators of the last 30 years, and they've had some 7 years to cook it, so naturally this film looks fucking amazing. This is absolutely the kind of film that only Miyazaki could direct - its design language feels so familiar and yet it's iterating in all kinds of visually imaginative directions that show that yeah, the old bastard's still got it.

And like, god, man. This film's animation is really something special. Its real-world scenes in particular are full of shots that require an unbelievably strong sense of space, of both subtle and broad acting, the classic Ghibli attention to detail on mechanical objects and everyday tasks. It's full of bouncing and squishing and squeezing and oozing things. It loves to draw crowds and swarms of people and animals. It's the kind of film where any given shot would be the absolute star-of-the-show sakuga moment in just about any other anime film. If you wanted a complete statement of the Ghibli school of animation, it would be hard to do better.

And yet, for all that Miyazaki's known for his tight control over animation and heavy corrections to animators, in this film he had to step back from that kind of role and hand over the sousakkan reins to Takeshi Honda, who steps up admirably - as kvin writes above, bringing in more realist elements to the bouncy Miyazaki style to create a really effective unity that grounds all the big fantastical elements of the film and fills the first act with tension.

Alongside all that excellent key animation, the film's colour and photography departments evidently understand that well-chosen colours and good highlight shapes beat all the digital gradients and overlays you can imagine - the drawings get plenty of form from the strength of the animation, and the flat shading really pops. The backgrounds are as delicious as ever, skyscapes and vegetation and opulent interiors with the just-slightly desaturated and harmonious colours that just kind of remind you that oh yeah, it is still possible to do it this way.

Basically it's a Ghibli film lol. You know how it is.

But what of the story...? What's all this technical magic in service of?

The film's story has something of the feel of a serial story, perhaps reflecting Miyazaki's (in)famous process of working out the film gradually as he draws the storyboards. Certain ideas, like the parakeet empire, arrive in the film rather suddenly and then become fairly central to the plot. There's a clear emotional throughline, but this is not a film that is in a hurry to explain itself more than it absolutely has to. It wants to keep its magical elements numinous and mysterious. I would say, though, it's generally more satisfying in this approach than some of Miyazaki's other later films like Howl's Moving Castle, and resolves a lot more clearly.

So what is it like, About? Well, Miyazaki has been pretty open about channeling a lot of his personal relationships into the film, and a lot of it seems to reflect more or less obliquely on him. It's what they call a 'personal film'. The protagonist's position as the son of an aeroplane factory owner during WWII is straight-up from life. What about the old sorcerer, haphazardly stacking blocks to keep a world alive, and looking for someone to succeed him? The reading's kinda obvious, even if Miya himself says this guy is based on his memory of Takahata. Well, he can be both...

To say more I'm gonna have to delve into the spoiler zone. See you below the cut.

OK so! Let's try and get some thoughts in order.

first, a plot summary type of thing

Our first act introduces us to Mahito at roughly the moment his mother Hisako dies in a hospital fire. This is midway through the war, which is present mostly in the background - now and then we see soldiers marching around, and of course Mahito's dad runs a factory producing warplane parts, not entirely unlike Miyazaki's own father although seemingly a bit higher up the ladder.

We jump forward a little and Mahito's father remarries - to his deceased wife's sister, no less, and she's already pregnant. This is Natsuko, who does her best to play the role of mother, but Mahito still has big traumas and he is understandably not entirely on board with the idea of welcoming a mum 2 who looks almost exactly like mum 1. He moves with Natsuko into a huge old house complex, a mix of older Japanese architecture with a more recent Western wing where the family currently sleeps - and staffed by a small army of colourful old ladies who are eager for any canned meat or cigarettes they can get their hands on.

Also there's this freaky heron that keeps bothering Mahito. It seems to have something to do with a mysterious tower which turns out to have been built by his great-uncle. Mahito visits the tower, but can't make his way inside. Natsuko tells him not to go into the tower.

Mahito goes to school, but naturally they don't much take to the new rich kid on the block, and so after being attacked by his classmates on his way home he injures himself with a rock. (His dumbass dad is like, who did this to you son, I'll fuck 'em up.) For the rest of the movie, he has half his head shaved to accomodate a bandage, which is the sort of attention to detail this movie loves.

The heron has started growing teeth and talking to Mahito, telling him to come to the tower. Mahito is convinced it's a trap, and after a maybe-dream sequence in which Natsuko shoots an arrow to drive off the heron, he steals cigarettes from Natsuko in order to get one of the servants to sharpen his knife, and then constructs a bow and arrow out of bamboo - using a couple of the heron's feathers. Constructing the bow and arrow is shown in immense, loving detail.

In the process, he witnesses Natsuko walk into the forest, and also stumbles on a book: How Do You Live? by Genzaburō Yoshino, which contains a handwritten message from his mother. He looks at this book briefly... and this is about the extent of the connection of the film to the book, beyond thematic parallels.

The maids notice that Natsuko is missing. Mahito tells one of the maids, Kiriko, that he saw her go into the forest, and they follow, finding an old road that gives another approach to the tower. They're greated by the heron man, who is increasingly emerging from the heron's beak to reveal a big warty nose. He's some kind of like... heron selkie or something, a gnome in a heron skin. There's some wonderfully grotesque animation around this guy.

Heron dude taunts Mahito with an illusion of his mother Hisako. Mahito threatens him with the bow - the heron guy is like, do your worst, not realising it's a maaagic arrow. The arrow chases him around the room and pierces his beak, fucking up his magic. At this point, the tower master shows up and orders the heron to guide Mahito. Heron guy sends everyone through the floor into a fantastical world...

Mahito arrives in front of a huge, sinister tomb. He approaches the gate, and a swarm of pelicans walk up behind, crawling all over him and pressing him through the gate. This causes a storm to start brewing, since opening the gate seems to piss off the stones or something...

A fisher woman resembling a much younger Kiriko runs up and chases the pelicans away. She takes Mahito under her wing, explaining that this world is inhabited mostly by dead people, but there are also these little round guys called the wareware, who gain the ability to fly when they eat a fish's guts.

Kiriko, uniquely in this world, has the ability to kill, so she catches fish to sell to the other inhabitants and feed to the wareware; she and Mahito butcher a huge fish. Mahito fairly quickly figures out that she is somehow the same Kiriko that entered with him. She has tiny charms representing the other maids, which serve an apotropaic function.

That night, staying on Kiriko's huge derelict ship of a home, they watch the wareware rise into the sky to be born as humans in Mahito's world. They're attacked by the pelicans, but a fire-wielding magic user called Hisa (hmmmmmmmmmm) drives the pelicans away. Mahito shouts at her not to harm the wareware, but Kiriko assures him that more of the wareware will survive thanks to Hisa's intervention.

Later, a singed and dying pelican explains the pelicans' predicament to Mahito in a scene that calls to mind the animals in Mononoke-hime. The pelicans are foreigners in this world, they don't have anything to eat, so they take it as their role to eat the wareware. The heron man arrives on the scene too, offering to help Mahito find Natsuko as Mahito - coming in to his own as a protagonist more - buries the pelican. Mahito distrusts him but eventually Kiriko persuades them to give working together a try.

Mahito and the heron set out. As they pass through a forest, the heron reveals that thanks to Mahito's arrow, he can't fly and do heron shit anymore - and by magic law, only Mahito can fix the hole. Mahito applies his new woodworking skills to fashion a bung for the hole. The heron tries to stage a top 10 anime betrayal, but then the bung needs more work, so Mahito fixes it, and from that point on, the heron joins the party and he and Mahito are fast friends.

(You might wonder why I just call him 'the heron' and not by a name. He never gets named! He's just the heron man.)

Mahito and the heron arrive at the house of a blacksmith who's supposed to help them find Natsuko, only to find it guarded by big buff parakeet men. The parakeets are splendidly goofy round guys - they remind me of the heedra in Nausicaa. The heron draws the parakeets away, and Mahito enters the house, only to find, uh oh! More parakeets. The parakeets prepare to eat Mahito, who is not carrying a child and therefore fair game unlike Natsuko, but Hisa shows up and burns them with fire magic. She looks just like a young version of Mahito's mum! Funny that. Hisa helps Mahito escape into her house through the fire, and then takes him to infiltrate the parakeets' empire.

In the human world, the maids explain the backstory of the tower to Mahito's dad. It's a weird meteorite that came from space, it turns out, and Mahito's great-uncle built the tower on top of it before eventually disappearing inside. Mahito's dad overprepares in an elaborate getup complete with katana, and goes to try to rescue everyone.

Hisa leads Mahito to a corridor full of doors which open into all the different worlds, including his own world. Mahito briefly glimpses his dad coming to try and rescue him - the two see each other briefly, but the parakeets catch wind of the whole thing and attack, and so Mahito and Hisa have to flee back into the magical world. We see that the parakeet guys turn into regular parakeets when they come into the human world. Mahito's dad becomes convinced he turned into a parakeet.

Mahito and Hisa make their way to the delivery room where Natsuko is resting, waiting to give birth. On their way, lightning starts emerging from the stone - Hisa explains that the stone is sentient and pissed with them. Mahito insists on approaching Natsuko despite this being a huge taboo. They have a heart to heart - Natsuko's mask breaks and she tells Mahito she hates him, while he finally starts calling her mother, as he's assaulted by paper charms that tear at him violently. They part, with Hisa burning the charms to free Mahito, but it's too much and they both pass out.

Mahito dreams of meeting the sorcerer, who stacks irregularly shaped wooden blocks, and explains that stacking the blocks is necessary to maintain the world, buying a few days at a time. The sorcerer reveals the huge flying rock that is the source of his power; he also shows Mahito some blocks, but Mahito somehow divines that these blocks are 'stone for building tombs' and stained with malice. The sorcerer approvingly says this is a good sign for Mahito's ability to succeed him.

While they were asleep, the parakeets have captured Hisa and Mahito. One of them is preparing to eat Mahito, but the heron arrives just in time to save him. They Metal Gear Solid their way through the kingdom while the Parakeet King - a big swaggering guy very like the colonel in Castle in the Sky - goes to press a claim on the wizard, using Hisa and Mahitos' taboo act of entering the delivery room as a bargaining chip. There's some very funny scenes where the parakeets cheer for their king.

Mahito pursues the parakeet king, but the king destroys the staircase behind him, and talks to the sorcerer. The sorcerer is inclined to wave away the transgression, because he wants to let Mahito succeed him, but the parakeet king seems to be bringing him around. I kind of forget how this part went, but the parakeet king goes away from the sorcerer for a bit while Hisa is freed from her prison thing.

Mahito climbs back up with the heron man's help, arriving in the sorcerer's little subplane. The parakeet king quietly follows him, after telling his aides to inform his subjects he was a good king. Mahito approaches the sorcerer, who reveals he has found a new set of blocks, unstained by malice, and again invites Mahito to succeed him. Mahito says that his self-injury is proof of his malice, making him unfit for the job.

At this point, the parakeet king intervenes. Angry at all this sorcerous malarky, he desperately attempts to stack the stones himself, but when they don't stack, he flies into a rage and slices them with his sword. This naturally causes the world to start collapsing, and everyone runs to the doors to escape into the human world.

Mahito has by this point figured out that Hisa is his mum, and he asks if she really wants to go back to their world, knowing that she will very definitely die in a fire not much later. But she is naturally on board with this. Young!Kiriko goes with her, suggesting that she and Hisako entered the magical world at the same time. Meanwhile, Mahito returns to his own time, with Natsuko and the heron. All the various parakeets and pelicans come out through this door too. Old!Kiriko is restored from her apatropaic charm.

As everyone celebrates their safe return (and the appearance of a fuckton of birds), the heron tells Mahito that he ought to forget what happened in the magic world. We skip forward again, with Mahito - now with a baby sibling - setting off to Tokyo. Roll credits!

now let's comment on it

This is not a film that necessarily prioritises an internal logic playing out - new elements enter unexpectedly even quite late in the film. The sorcerer's motivation is murky until late on; the parakeets become major antagonists despite entering only halfway through the film.

There is a certain temptation, knowing how autobiographical this film is, to take it is a roman à clef. Mahito is of course a young Miyazaki; the old sorcerer's concern about finding a successor might be about Miyazaki wondering who should take over Ghibli or if it should just be allowed to die. Under this schema, the parakeets might be Ghibli's legion of fans, or the merchandising empire that prints their designs on every possible product. kvin's article develops this kind of reading, finding some angles I wouldn't have even considered, such as how the idea of weight communicated by the animation factors in to such an allegaroy. It's also something suggested in Miyazaki's own comments about the film, where the sorcerer is Takahata, the heron man is producer Toshio Suzuki...

It definitely helps to know a bit about Miyazaki's background when approaching this film. However, I think it would be reductive to go too far with this kind of reading, and take everything as an allegory for something in Miyazaki's life. The film still has to stand on its own feet!

'Coming of age' is the spin put on it by some outlets, like the BBC. And this is accurate to an extent. The arc of this film is similar to Spirited Away: Mahito starts out sullen and traumatised, but like Chihiro he transitions over the course of his journey in the magical world into the kind of determined Miyazaki protagonist we're used to. On this coming of age angle... well, also like with Chihiro, I don't find the Mahito of the first part of the film especially unsympathetic, his alienation is extremely natural given his situation. Mahito's dad kinda sucks! Living in wartime Japan also really kinda sucks, even if you're the son of a rich dude. But definitely over the course of the film Mahito has a change of heart towards Natsuko, and forms friendships that motivate him to try to protect them. His character arc definitely sees him become 'more prosocial'.

However, there's another angle that's pretty important - the idea of the weight of 'malice', the cursed existences of the pelicans and the like, and the fantasy of building a utopian world that is free of these things. This returns to a theme of Nausicaa, the manga in particular, where Nausicaa discovers that the world she knows - the toxic forest in particular - is actually an elaborate artificial system for cleansing the world of pollutants, that the clean world on the other side will be uninhabitable to her and her people, and that the architects of this system wait in stasis to replace them in this utopian future world. Nausicaa destroys them, commiting instead to an uncertain future.

In Mononoke-hime likewise, we encounter the lepers and former sex workers of Irontown clinging on to the 'cursed' world. Their extractivist project proves incredibly destructive, but the film still regards them sympathetically, and the resolution sees them perhaps finding a new way to live - and San, the feral girl, reconciling herself to the idea of humans.

Here, although the parakeet king forces the decision, Mahito has already declared that he doesn't believe he's fit to oversee a utopia, but instead that his place is in the awful, violent human world.

The film, and the book it's vaguely based on, are titled How do you live? In Japanese, that's a plural 'you' (君たち). There's a lot of ways you could read it, depending on who you take as 'you' - a child asking an adult how to live, or equally a future question of how will you live. This is a lot more explicit in the novel - which I have not read, but here is a summary courtesy of wiki:

Junichi Honda is a fifteen-year-old junior high school student, known by his nickname Koperu, after the astronomer Nicholas Copernicus. He is athletic and academically gifted, and popular at school. Koperu's father, a bank executive, passed away when he was young and he lives with his mother. His uncle (on his mother's side) lives nearby and visits frequently. Koperu and his uncle are very close. Koperu shares about his life and his uncle gives him support and advice. His uncle also documents and comments on these interactions in a diary, with the intent to eventually give the diary to Koperu. The diary writing, which is interspersed with the narrative, provides insight into the ethical and emotional trials that Koperu shared with his uncle. The diary entries, which cover themes such as "view of things", "structure of society", "relation", etc. are in the style of a note written to Koperu.[8]

Thinking like Copernicus that our Earth is a celestial body moving within the vastness of space, or thinking that our Earth is fixed at the center of the universe, are two ways of thinking that, in reality, are not only related to astronomy. Even when we think about things like the world around us or our own lives, the truth is that we are still revolving around them after all.

In the end, Koperu writes a decision on his future way of living as a reply to his uncle, and the novel ends with the narrator asking the question "how do you live?" to the reader.

The author of the novel was a socialist, who had been imprisoned by the nationalist government, and wrote the book intending to impart lessons on ethics. The version of his book published after the war was heavily edited to strip the book of political content. But it's also, perhaps paradoxically, a book that centres on very wealthy characters, aimed narrowly at educated boys, though it became a widely read classic.

Studio Ghibli's films, from both Miyazaki and Takahata, have a habit of being framed as imparting something to the younger generation - something the pair seem to have seen as a mission all the way back in the days of Panda Kopanda. For example, while Grave of the Fireflies is seen as the classic tragic war movie, for Takahata it was also aimed at criticising what he saw as the careless, consumerist generation of the 80s; the stubborn arrogance of the protagonist supposed to reflect on this. It's an attitude that also emerges in their comments about Chihiro. And, indeed, one of the first things we heard about How Do You Live? was that it was aimed towards Miyazaki's grandson - and more broadly towards that generation.

So what does this film have to say to the younger generations? Let's have a look at it from Mahito's POV.

For Mahito, the adults in his life are all pretty complicated. His father is enthusiastic and well-meaning but incredibly oblivious to what his son is going through (we might recall some of what Miyazaki wrote about his father in Starting Point, describing him as basically a grifter). Natsuko is masking pretty hard, trying to play the role of Good New Mum and connect to her newly acquired son, but there's an intrinsic distance. It is understandable that Mahito would want to reject them.

Mahito is... not entirely a passive character, he goes to some efforts to for example fashion the bow and arrow and repair the heron man's beak, but mostly he is pulled around by the plot into a strange world he doesn't understand. At first, his instinct is to retreat, even to the point of self-injury. Once he arrives in the magical world, he has acquired something of a purpose (finding Natsuko), but he gets pushed into near-disaster situations (the pelicans piling up to push him through the gate at the tomb) or stumbles into circumstances where something is expected of him (hey kid, gut this fish!). Gradually though his exposure to this world pulls him out of his shell. He runs into conflicts and injustices that seem intractable - the wareware and the pelicans - and has little power to intervene except to bury the bodies.

Eventually, he gets to carry out his main objective - finding Natsuko - but despite finally deciding to accept Natsuko as his new mother, he finds himself rejected, not just by her but also by the earth. Perhaps feeling responsible for getting her into trouble, his new objective becomes rescuing freshly-damsel'd Hisa. But now new adults want things of him - his great-uncle has decided he'd make a fine successor. Mahito has to make a decision here about what relationships he wants to commit to, what sort of life he wants to build - and he chooses the world he found so alienating at the outset of the film, the one which hurt him by taking his mother, not to the secondary-world fantasy.

It could be a 'this world is all we have' sort of statement, perhaps. But also the last act of the film feels like it gets a bit caught up in Castle in the Sky-style adventure-story beats.

I do feel like some aspects of the film ended up a little underbaked - which is an odd thing to say because it's not a short film and there is so much in it already. But Hisa for example - she's got badass powers and all, but I feel we barely get a chance to get a sense of what motivates her. Why did she enter the fantasy world? She acts at first like she doesn't know Mahito is her future son, but rapidly becomes incredibly devoted to him (in a way that reads a little romancey lmao). So much of her screen time is dedicated to having her convey the secrets of the world that it's hard to get a bead on her as a person.

Likewise, Natsuko - why did she enter this world to have her baby in this special ritual delivery chamber? She clearly knows more than most of the characters, but she gets kind of sidelined after Mahito confronts her, with wizard shit becoming more central. The animation does such a fantastic job of selling her feelings in the first part of the film that it feels like a shame that she drifts away at the end.

The progression of the film feels rather like a dream, where everything is arranged by symbolic significance to Mahito. It makes sense... on a magical level, where the secondary world is shaped primarily by parallels in the real one. So the tiny apatropaic statues of the old ladies protect him because they represent the role the real old ladies have in his life. Hisa has fire magic because Hisako died in a fire. Once Mahito has come to his personal resolutions about returning to the world, the magical one is no longer needed, and it collapses.

This is not such an uncommon role for magic in a story. In Miyazaki's own works, we have Totoro and Spirited Away, where a magical world provides direction or relief to a child's real struggles. Or take for example Okiura's film A Letter To Momo, in which the three yōkai recognise taking care of the grieving Momo as their explicit purpose as spirits. This magical world comes to Mahito to help him come to terms with losing his mother, and reorient himself towards living in a painful world.

Meanwhile, the sorcerer, whether he be Miyazaki or Takahata, is quite a distant figure. He may maintain the magical world by stacking his blocks, may be the authority which factions within it must plead to, but he also rules from afar in a vast empty palace full of long halls and open air spaces. His main company seems to be a big fucking rock, with which he made a 'contract'. He's generally handling it a bit better than, say, Ushiromiya Kinzo - he receives the parakeet king with good humour - but he's a pretty flawed god of his little world. So much of this world seems to pre-exist him, it's not something he constructed. Still, when he shows up, you pretty much have to do what he says.

If this is about Miyazaki's relation to Takahata, it seems like quite a sad portrayal. But 'unapproachable patriarch' does sorta describe their role in the studio from what I understand (c.f. Oshii's infamous article comparing them to the Kremlin).

When it comes to the question of who should succeed Miyazaki, we should probably consider the matter of Yoshifumi Kondō, who was being set up as the next big Ghibli director until his untimely death - which allegedly Takahata was willing to accept the blame for. The mythology built up around Miyazaki and Takahata is double-edged.

Here are some rather startling comments from Toshiyuki Inoue's interview. Inoue is one of the most impressive animators who ever lived in my book, the other star of the realist line besides Okiura. Just have a look at his booru page: iconic scenes from GitS, Akira, Millenium Actress; even in more recent films, he pretty much carried Maquia, and steals the show with his scenes in Miss Hokusai.

And yet even he was intimidated to be working alongside Miyazaki when he first came on board for Kiki's Delivery Service, fresh off Akira:

I believe you’ve always been a fan of Miyazaki’s, why were you scared to work with him? Toshiyuki Inoue: I had heard quite a few scary stories. A lot of acquaintances had worked on Nausicaä, Laputa and Totoro before that, so I knew how scary he could be when he got angry – I had heard stories of people being fired mid-production, things like that. How was it actually? Toshiyuki Inoue: Not as scary as I had imagined. He’d only rarely scream in the studio. But he did get angry. I’d sometimes be called to some separate room and lectured alongside Kōji Morimoto and Masaaki Endō. It felt like being in school all over again.

'Only rarely'. Honestly. Inoue describes how difficult it was for him to adapt his logical, analytical style to Ghibli's stretchy, bouncy characters - and how Miyazaki would disparage him if he, for example, drew a ship inaccurately.

For Inoue, coming back to How Do You Live was something like a 'return match'. He talks about how an older Miyazaki was no longer able to strictly correct the animation, and in general age was limiting him, but he still feels that Miyazaki is fundamentally superior:

Toshiyuki Inoue: I’ve always wished for a return match or a way to redeem myself. But even if I say that, I know I can’t even pretend to rival Miyazaki. I just can’t win. He’s extremely smart and learned, and on top of that, as an animator he always transcends common sense: he’s so talented that I know very well there’s nothing I can do against it. The more I learn about him, the more I realize I’ll never be on that level.

Miyazaki's genius is undeniable, but man... it's not a good mindset to cultivate if you want to find a successor lmao. If even Inoue doesn't feel he can measure up, who the hell could?

Mind you, it does rather seem that Miyazaki had mellowed out by the point of How Do You Live?. Here's Yamashita:

Akihiko Yamashita: As I said, the core of an animator’s job is to follow what the director asks, so whenever I had trouble with that, I’d go see Miyazaki to show him my roughs. He’d advise me on the things that were missing and reassure me about those that were good. He really helped me to gain more confidence in myself.

Reading these interviews underlines pretty hard that we shouldn't get too caught up in the mythology of Miyazaki the mighty auteur. While the story may be all on Miyazaki, and most of the character designs (with the notable exception of Natsuko)... so much of the details of the animation, the stuff that really makes this film land, is primarily shaped by everyone else - Honda in particular, but also the individual key animators who interpreted his scenes. I really need to get my hands on a copy of that Industrial History of Studio Ghibli book to get a less Miyazaki-centric perspective on the studio's history.

I do not feel, having come out of this film, any closer to knowing the answer to that eternally pressing question of how do you live - I guess I'm still working out my answer to that one, and I will be until I die. And maybe that's rather the point. I think this film still carries some of the flaws of Miyazaki's later films - despite having so many iconic scenes, it doesn't quite seem to know where it's going. But I am so glad to have seen this in the theatre (I saw it at the Prince Charles theatre in Soho with friends, the theatre was completely packed!), and glad Miyazaki managed to get this one out before he goes. Whatever happens to Ghibli without its sorcerer, it's been a hell of a thing to witness.

#anime #the boy and the heron #how do you live #studio ghibli #hayao miyazaki #film

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bleachbleachbleach · 3 months

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[Bleach 076]

I know I wrote like five posts about zanpakutou being violent and cool, but I also love that Ichigo's reaction to Ichimaru's extendo-sword just being, "Daaaamn, what the hell? That bastard! I could've gotten hurt!! Shit, owww!!"

I kind of love the JP version, which doesn't even entertain the (real) possibility of death. Ichigo says ケガ (kega) which is just the word for "injury." Injured like someone beaned you with a baseball. Meanwhile Orihime and Ishida are just like "that dude almost died O_O."

I feel like Ichigo is redefining what it means to "storm Soul Society like a fucking casual" (a phrase that is definitely in common usage and appears in many places that are not this post) and it's completely bananas, but charming. Because honestly the part of this chapter that stood out most to me was how casual he is with Orihime:

In the Viz, Ichigo calls her "Orihime"; in Japanese, if Ichigo calls Orihime by her name, he calls her Inoue. (Remarkable mostly because Ichigo is on a first-name basis with a whole random slate of people he probably shouldn't be, but he calls his schoolmates by their family names [and Shinji, because I guess he's... a classmate...]).

But here he straight-up calls her "omae." Not once, but twice!

Which would sound so rude, except he's obviously not trying to be rude. Sure, Ichigo's got his punk-ass shounen guy speech going for him, and that's reflected in his language here overall, but even in that context his use of "omae" was surprising to me! But it makes me feel like they're super comfortable with each other, in ways they certainly weren't a few months ago when the series started and Orihime was just a girl in his class. Orihime's one of the guys and they haven't even made it INTO the Seireitei yet!

#kurosaki ichigo #inoue orihime #bleach manga #bleach language #bleach reread 2021 #bleach カラー #no brain just bleach

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zabiume · 1 year

Note

consider this…. Ichigo mustering up the courage to ask Orihime about the day she was kidnapped by Ulquiorra because he was always curious about how his hand was healed before she disappeared; Orihime mustering up the courage to tell him about that night and how she both confessed to him and almost kissed him. Angst x100 followed by fluff, perhaps?

You asked for fluff after but uh,,,,,I brought you this? Set post-TYBW.

Orihime senses something is wrong when the little Plus in pigtails is standing all by herself. Ichigo usually checks in with them right after, especially the young ones who are all sorts of scared, and vulnerable, and traumatized by their own deaths.

She moves to help, but stops when a blur of black flashes between her and the child.

“Kurumadani-san,” she greets mildly.

“Apologies! Late again.” He gives her a sheepish sort of grin, to which she smiles back politely, casting one glance over her shoulder. Ichigo is crouched on the ground, clutching his stomach. He's not bleeding but he seems — hurt.

“Is it alright if I—”

“Go ahead!” Kurumadani booms, saluting her. “I’ll finish up the konso.”

Orihime nods gratefully and rushes over to Ichigo. Although he doesn’t appear too hurt, he’s dripping with goo, a dull, purplish slime spreading over his shoulder. When he glances up, his lips are shiny with spit and his eyes go wide. “Inoue.”

“Kurosaki-kun.” She kneels, two petals of her pins already scanning the site of damage. Her shield shudders, re-constructing a mental map of the injury so she can start picking apart the threads to reject the star-shaped wound. Whatever struck Ichigo, it’s slow, and it works its way through his system rather deceptively; it’s not as straightforward as a slash from a sword, or a Hollow bite. Those are easier to detect, work through, and then undo — make it like it never happened. This… “Poison?” She searches his eyes.

“Bastard caught me off-guard when I tried to shield the little girl.” Ichigo remembers himself, and his eyes go wide. “The girl — is she—”

“She’s alright,” Orihime quickly reassures him, glancing back at the now empty lot. “Looks like Kurumadani-san finished up the konso.”

Ichigo makes an exaggerated face at that, but nods nonetheless. Orihime frowns; something is off about him, but she’s momentarily distracted when two more of her fairies flitter in front of her face.

“Tell Sado-kun and Ishida-kun I have him,” she tells them. They whip off at the speed of light, leaving Orihime alone with Ichigo.

Suddenly, Ichigo slumps forward. She catches him, tucking her palms under his armpits, allowing his weight to sag against her shoulder even though her knees hurt from their collective weight.

"You smell nice, Inoue," Ichigo mutters, nuzzling into her shoulder.

Something is wrong, Orihime thinks, even as her cheeks heat.

"Kurosaki-kun," she says, forcing a bit of strength into her voice. "What kind of poison did the Hollow get you with?"

"Some kind of…truth serum," Ichigo slurs, pulling away from her to rub at his eye. "Or something that's messing with my inhibition." He glances at her again, like he's really seeing her for the first time, and then he blushes — honest to God blushes — quickly releasing her. "Sorry. Am I making you uncomfortable?"

"No," she replies honestly, helping him to his feet with both hands. "But we better get to Urahara-san's shop. I'm sure he'll have an antidote. Can you walk?"

Ichigo grunts like he's really trying to hold back, like he could swallow his own tongue with the effort of it, and Orihime belatedly realizes it's because he wants to say —

"No," he gasps begrudgingly. "Head's spinning, might need to lean on you. Fuck, I didn't want to say that."

A part of Orihime wants to scold him for not asking for help sooner, but she knows his nature; asking for help has never been easy to him, even if it's something he's gotten better at. The other part giggles at the childlike scowl on his face after being forced to tell the truth. “You can lean on me, Kurosaki-kun, don’t ever worry about it. I won’t tell a single soul!”

Something about her teasing tone releases the tension from Ichigo’s shoulders. His mouth turns soft, and his eyes — Orihime’s stomach jolts with heat, because his eyes. They’re looking at her so warmly, with so much open affection that it changes his entire face, turning the sharp edges into something much, much softer.

“Thanks for coming to check up on me,” he mutters. “I like it when it’s you.”

Orihime bites down the inside of her cheek hard because she’s checked up on him many times before — they all do, when they’re out on patrol, but this little factoid is news to her.

“Of course,” she replies softly, even though her heart is hammering against her chest so fast it rings in her ears. “Let’s get you moving, though, okay?”

“Okay.”

Throughout their walk to the shop, Ichigo leans half his weight on her, apologizing once or twice for sweating so much. Once he gets the ball rolling, though, it’s hard to make him stop as he makes confession after confession — that he reads the weekly zodiac column even though he loathes it, a scar on his knee he got from sparring with Tatsuki, his worries about Yuzu taking too much on herself (“It’s probably a Kurosaki thing,” he acknowledges, utterly self-aware with just a touch of regret), his fierce childhood crush on Al Pacino…

“I’m talking a lot,” he says tiredly. “Why don’t you talk instead?”

Orihime wants to say it’s okay, that she’ll never get tired of hearing from him, but she knows letting him speak more would be a violation of his privacy. That asking him things he doesn’t want to talk about isn’t right. That he’d be embarrassed afterwards.

“Okay,” she decides. “Why don’t you ask me something, and I’ll answer 100% honestly? You know. To level the playing field a bit.”

Ichigo gives her a wry smile. “You don’t have to do that for my sake.”

“Please, I’m an open book! Or are you simply afraid that my raw honesty will send you crying into the corner?” Orihime challenges, tilting her chin with an air of bravado.

“Nothing you say could ever hurt me, Inoue,” Ichigo says, still smiling.

“Because I’m nice?”

“Because it’s you.”

What does that mean, she wants to ask him, but she promised no questions and she’s going to stand by it. “Okay. So, um. What else?”

He asks her basic, surface-level things. Her favorite music genre (pop), her first memory (seeing the snow for the first time with her brother), her first crush (the salaryman from the Donbei commercial). The more she speaks, the more he smiles, even pausing to tease her every now and then — “of course you would like some guy in an ad and not a celebrity or something” — and it’s…it’s fine. Nothing too out of left field. Ichigo mostly acts like the Ichigo she’s used to, with the same attentive curiosity and the occasional sarcasm, even though he randomly points out a house or a weird-shaped tree non-sequitur.

They’re coming up on the street where the shoten is — Orihime can see its light flickering at them just along the horizon — when he says, “Inoue, did you visit me the night Ulquiorra kidnapped you?”

Orihime’s heart stops. She almost stumbles her grip on Ichigo but regains it at the last minute. Suddenly, his arm around her shoulder feels oppressive. The night feels warmer than it was ten minutes ago.

“Oh! Um — yes,” she says quickly, trying to think of an abridged summary, a way to tell the truth without telling the truth. “Did Captain Hitsugaya tell you?”

“Kinda,” he replies, oblivious to her apprehension. “You healed my hand.” He flexes it, as if to show her what a hand is. “Did Ulquiorra make you do that?”

Orihime shakes her head, feeling nervous and numb. “I just,” she whispers, when Ichigo glances at her. There’s nothing on his face but plain curiosity, but still. She feels heat building in her eyes, and she knows from the first prickle that tears are going to follow.

I love you, she wants to say, but moreso, I don’t want to lose you, I don’t want to mess this up, I love us too much for that. She can’t have fathomed being this close to Ichigo just three years ago, and the idea of shaking that up, of changing things, terrifies her. Once, at a time when they were not this close, the idea of telling Ichigo how she felt felt liberating. Now, it feels like she has too much to lose. The irony of calling herself an open book is not lost on her, but the words refuse to come. She won’t let them.

“I don’t want to tell you,” she confesses softly, and the honest hurt that flickers across his expression aches more than any pinch of a sword, any slap of a hand against her skin ever had. “I’m sorry.”

The knowledge that she’s hurt him, that despite their closeness, she’s kept a secret from him — perhaps the biggest secret of them all — sends a trickle of a single, hot tear rolling down her cheek.

She doesn’t even have to lift her chin to look to know the hand that wipes it is his — it always is.

“Yoohoo, welcome to Urahara’s shoten!” they hear Urahara say, and the tension in the air splits right open, the light from inside the store casting long shadows against their silhouettes.

Orihime doesn’t dare look at Ichigo again.

#why would a hollow attack with a truth serum? because then the pluses will reveal themselves instead of hiding (deception/lies)#but you don't care about that #ichihime #myfic #asks

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strawberry-jan · 8 months

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I wrote an endnote to one of my fics that ended up being so long and spoiler-heavy that I had to exile a big chunk of it to my tumblr - so here you go: a big ol' Effort Post about the history and fictional history of your guy and mine, Ishin Wagi.

If you haven't finished Ishin, you probably shouldn't click to read the post under the cut, as it contains big endgame spoilers.

In contrast with Inoue Genzaburo — who’s portrayed in Ishin and other media as a serious, level-headed sort of guy — Serizawa Kamo was a heavy drinker with an infamously short temper. He was born in Mito and, like Sakamoto Ryoma, he was a member of the goshi class, though it should be noted that the extreme discrimination that we see Ryoma experiencing in-game is pretty specific to Tosa’s goshi; Serizawa wasn’t particularly poorly off. Also like Ryoma, Serizawa was involved in shishi activities: he was a member of the Tengu Party, an anti-foreigner political group whose members committed various acts of violent rebellion, including the 1860 assassination of Ii Naosuke (a high-ranking official in the Tokugawa shogunate whose death comes up in letters that you can find in Ishin Kiwami). Serizawa didn’t participate in the assassination, but between his ties to the Tengu Party and an incident in which he executed several of his subordinates for no good reason, he ended up in prison, where he assumed he’d be executed in turn. While there, Serizawa was said to have written a poem with his own blood on a piece of scrap cloth: “In the snow and frost, the plum blossom is the first to bloom in brilliant colours; its fragrance lingers even after the petals have scattered.”

In late 1862, Serizawa was released from prison. By early 1863 (and here I’m skimming over a lot of historical context) Serizawa had joined up with Kondo Isami as a member of the Mibu Roshigumi: the precursor to the Shinsengumi, so called because they were a bunch of ronin whose headquarters were originally in Mibu. They worked under the patronage of the Aizu clan; one of Serizawa’s brothers may have had connections to the clan, which Serizawa and Kondo might have leveraged to gain support for their organization. As a commander, Serizawa was kind of a disgrace by most accounts: among other offenses, he was responsible for wrecking a restaurant in a drunken rage and destroying a silk merchant’s shop with a cannon. Most importantly for my purposes, he was allegedly the man who picked a fight with a bunch of sumo wrestlers in the streets of Osaka.*

Serizawa was murdered in 1863, and there are various theories as to why. It’s popularly assumed that the guy was just a huge bastard who was too out-of-control to hold down his job, and that Hijikata and several other members of the organization killed him accordingly. Another theory that you’ll see sometimes is that while his familial connections were useful, Serizawa himself was a liability whom his companions discarded as soon as they felt secure in doing so. Under this theory, the issue wasn’t so much that he was badly behaved (though this probably didn’t help); it was more that he had his own little faction of men who went around looking down on the others and calling Serizawa “sensei,” and that Serizawa had ties to Mito, which remained a hotbed of seditious activity. (In fact, in 1864, civil war would break out in Mito as the Tengu Party staged an armed rebellion against the shogunate.)

I understand why Ishin’s writers dropped most of Serizawa’s history. It’s complicated, it’s not directly relevant to Ryoma’s story, and Inoue is a secondary character who’s meant (like his mainline counterpart) to come across as a superlatively loyal mentor figure and not as a belligerent asshole. But it’s interesting, in that context, that the writers went out of their way to allude to Serizawa’s history in weird ways. In-game, Serizawa is described as “a living shadow from the Mito domain” — which, okay, you could indeed describe the historical Serizawa that way, given that he narrowly escaped execution and then left Mito to join the Roshigumi. But he’s also described as a wandering bandit who took Hirayama and Hirama under his wing before meeting Kondo in Kyoto, which doesn’t particularly fit with history. Okita — our Okita, the fake one, lol — also says that the three of them committed dappan and were promised a pardon by the Mito domain if Serizawa assassinated Yoshida Toyo, which also has no basis in historical reality but which does make him an accessory to the big players’ nasty schemes for a comprehensible reason. Finally, Serizawa’s school of swordsmanship is referred to as “Mito Tengu” despite the fact that, historically, Serizawa trained in the Shindo Munen school. Conveniently, Ishin’s writers managed to skip over Serizawa’s awfulness on a personal level and to avoid depicting the character in the game as a prominent (and very willing) member of a violently xenophobic political group. I’m listing all of these oddities not to make a judgement about the whitewashing of history, but because it's interesting to me that what did end up in the game is there at all: the writers didn’t need to, but they established a connection between Serizawa, the Tengu Party, and the shishi more broadly anyhow.

Of course, I have the brain disease that makes me latch onto minor characters for no good reason and will therefore take whatever little crumbs of Ishin Kashiwagi I can get. Still, typing all of this up made me think about the missed opportunities here. I would have loved to see the writers do more with some version of Serizawa who was a little less of a bastard but who still committed himself to the shishi’s cause in his Mito days and then grew disillusioned with that cause during his stay in prison and his time with the Mibu Roshigumi. It’s a neat point of sympathy between Inoue and Ryoma, who finds himself similarly chewed up and spat out by the Tosa Loyalist Party in the game. That connection lends gravity to Inoue’s decision to tattle on Ryoma to Kondo but also to keep covering for the guy every time he says or does something transparently suspicious. They might be, in a sense, kindred spirits.

It felt too tangential to delve too much into all of this stuff in my Ishin fics, but you can imagine this sense of sympathy lying behind Inoue’s actions throughout Chapter 4 of Secret History &c. (as well as in his little sequence in Chapter 2 of Glorious and Bloody Deeds &c.). You can also imagine that some of the big shishi conspirators in this story would have known about Serizawa’s origins in Mito with the Tengu Party — it was no big secret — and that they would have been appalled by his new allegiances but also suspicious that he had died because of his old ones. It’s also pretty reasonable to assume that the big Choshu players would have some sense of Saito’s identity, given that Hanpeita and Katsura are allies in Ishin’s version of events. Of course, I also think that our Ryoma wouldn’t know shit about any of this and would absolutely respond like, huhh? whaaaa??? to any/all allusions to the complicated politics behind all these stories. If you’re in a state of perpetual confusion about people and politics while playing Ishin, you’re just doing a great job of role-playing Bakumatsu Kiryu.

Anyway, nearly everything I write is turbo horny and my Ishin fics are no exception, so please don’t read them at work, but they’re very much about the stories men tell about themselves and others, and I think if all this stuff interests you, you might find the yarns I’ve spun interesting as well.

* This is another event that’s mentioned in passing in an in-game letter that was added to Ishin Kiwami, and whatever my feelings about that remake might be, I think all the letters and notes are a brilliant addition; I was tickled to see a reference to this incident show up! Historically, the Big Sumo Brawl happened well before 1867 and it had nothing to do with the events covered in Ishin, so please understand that when I’m writing about it in my fic, I’m mashing events together and playing around with a big Bakumatsu sandbox in a way that I think feels true to the game’s style of writing. I thought it would be funny to have Inoue lay claim to the act when he wasn’t even on the scene; it brings the story in line with history, but in the stupidest possible way. (Also, I submit to you that the smut is practically canon-compliant and likely historically accurate. :V)

#crime boys #yes I wrote an endnote to my endnote #surely you expect this of me by now #p.s. i am so incredibly tired of trying to find info on these guys and turning up nothing but posts about movies/tv/anime/gacha games #however i did get some interesting books from the library for my efforts so that's cool :>

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m3kuroshirt · 2 years

Text

The one in which Ichigo concedes

dedicated to my two amazing friends who I share this blog with: @m34gs and @backwardshirt

“So, Kurosaki, what have you been doing every night that you ditch us?” Ishida unceremoniously asked.

“Ishida-san!” Orihime’s high-pitched voice interrupted in that very second.

Ichigo looked at his friends a little taken aback. Yet, mumbling, he answered.

“You know this and that.”

“And what is ‘this and that?' Are you getting in trouble again?” Ishida asked suspiciously. “I won’t help you out this time if you’re out there having your ass kicked.”

“Hey! That’s not what’s happening” - sort of, Ichigo’s mind supplied. “I told you I’m helping out someone.”

Ichigo waved his hand to dismiss the inquiry.

“Yet, you’re always—”

“If Kurosaki-kun doesn’t want to tell us that’s fine, right?”

God bless Orihime! Ichigo thought as he saw Ishida sigh heavily and murmur something of an affirmation. Orihime always knew how to stop Ishida’s nonstop arguments, and for that Ichigo was grateful.

The topic closed like that, and Orihime started talking about a new recipe she heard of. Ishida, as always, had his concerns when it came to trying out new things, but Orihime excitedly explained how delicious that new cake was. For the next few minutes on, Ichigo sat there laughing with his friends, encouraging Orihime to cook more, and friendly mocking Ishida for been always so serious about everything. That is, until Ichigo’s phone rang, a ‘ping’ ringtone sounded, warning him he had gotten a text message - he checked and smiled.

Looking back at his friends Ichigo joined in the chat one more time.

“I’d love to try that new recipe sometime, Inoue! Maybe next time we are over?”

“Yeah! Absolutely! I’ll try to bake it for you.” Orihime said, cheerfully.

“Great!” Ichigo smiled at her and added, “Well, I’ll be heading off now so don’t go arguing over which kind of mousse is better while I’m gone.”

Ichigo pointedly looked at Ishida while he got up. For a second Ishida looked displeased - possibly because of the remark, but a wicked smile drew to his lips soon enough.

“Off to meet your boyfriend?” - he teased.

Ichigo stuttered, almost tripping over his own feet and falling back onto his place.

“What?!” He blurted out, “he’s not! It’s not like that!” He waved his hands, a blush creeping up his cheeks. “We’re friends! We hang out. That’s it.”

“So your ‘friend…’, is he from here?” Orihime pitched in, curiosity in her eyes.

Ichigo worried his bottom lip, “sort of… he comes and goes often.”

“To see you I suppose, like a boyfriend.” Ishida teased again.

Ichigo was ready to retort, but Orihime beat him to it.

“Is he handsome?” Her eyes sparkled.

“What? I— I guess? If you like board, tall, disheveled blue haired man, with striking blue eyes... A bastard who won’t stop smirking and has a delinquent attitude... Who thinks he’s the king of the world, and—” he blurted out, not thinking about how he’d sound to his friends.

“Alright! Quit it already!” Ishida stopped Ichigo’s nonstop speech. “Go or else he will come here to get you, and I don’t want to deal with him.”

Ichigo nodded, agreeing with Ishida’s statement. He totally would come to get his ass if Ichigo was late. So Ichigo turned his back, waved goodbye, and went to the door. But, before he could even get past the threshold, Orihime shouted out.

“Tell Grimmjow-san we said hi!”

Ichigo looked at her like a deer caught in the headlights. He saw his friends knowing smiles and he sighed, defeated.

“Sure…”

#grimmichi #grimmichi fanfic #m3kuroshirt #jeagerjaquez grimmjow #kurosaki ichigo #humor #ch:Uryu Ishida #ch:orihime inoue

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intothatweebshit · 2 years

Text

Well I did this for Bungou Stray Dogs so I’m gonna do it for Bleach

Here is a list of my favorite bleach ships from most favorite to least favorite ( I have less ships in bleach than bsd despite bleach having a bigger cast go figure)

1. Ikkayumi ( Ikkaku Madarame x Yumichika Ayasegawa)

This a literal surprise to no one. I post about these bastards all the time so it’s obvious they are my favorite ship in the show. These two have an incredible bond that I truly feel like is overlooked by many. I’m a sucker for people who have been by each other’s side for years and Ikkaku and Yumichika have been together and have grown together throughout the many years they’ve been together. They do have their problems and I believe that they solve many of them before the start of the last arc, but despite that there is a clear love and devotion for each other. I personally believe this ship is one of those “basically canon” ships because of so many reasons I can’t list because this is not a ikkayumi post lol but the biggest one being how in sync they are and how they seem to know what the other is thinking without it being said. I just love these two assholes and I will never shut up about it

2. Ichihime ( Orihime Inoue x Ichigo Kurosaki)

Man I remember when it was controversial to like this ship. Which to me is a bit ridiculous since they’re so cute. Orihime and Ichigo is one of my few soft asf ships with so much love and care. Ichigo always has a scowl on his face but when he looks at Orihime he softens and there’s clear love in his eyes. Orihime understands Ichigo more than anyone and takes time to try and get his perspective. She just wants him to be happy and when he’s not it hurts her deeply. These two are meant to be and always make me so happy and I will not apologize for loving them.

3. Rukia Kuchiki x Renji Abarai

These two are just special little jibblet heads. As I said I love childhood friends to lovers and they are what made me love it. These two have been through hell and back together with an overwhelming amount of trust and care. Renji is the definition of a male wife for his bad ass girlfriend Rukia. I mean he’s already adorable but when you add how protective and attentive he is for Rukia it just doubles by a thousand. Rukia loves Renji and trusts him just as much as he trusts her. These idiots are so happy together and good for them

4. GinRan ( Gin Ichimaru x Rangiku Matsumoto)

Man these two…it’s tragic honestly. They could have been happy together but fate had other plans. I love these two and I love how unlikely of a pair it is. I mean Rangiku being beautiful and lively in love with a man like Gin. It’s completely unexpected but it works. I love the history these two have together and the deep love. Gin wants a world where Rangiku will no longer cry and Rangiku just wants Gin. She doesn’t care about how he looks or how others see him because she knows he’s the man who saved her and cared for her. He’s her Gin and nothing will ever change that. Despite these two not having a happy ending I will continue to obsess over what could have been.

5. ByaKen ( Byakuya Kuchiki x Kenpachi Zaraki)

Guys this started off as a joke but slowly mutated into some sick obsession. You know the meme of “I don’t think it’s a joke anymore” well that’s how I feel about these two. What can I say about them? That they have an interesting dynamic and their banter is highly entertaining? That they are both eccentric but the exact opposites of the extreme? Well yeah. They’re interesting and I enjoy their dynamic a lot. I never get tired of their interactions and at the very least they have a cool friendship…and in fanon maybe more lol

So those are all my otps but here are other ships I like:

Yoruichi Shihouin x Kisuke Urahara

Nelliel Tu Odelshwanck x Tier Harribel

Shinji Hirako x Sousuke Aizen

Shinji Hirako x Hiyori Sarugaki

And that’s kinda it? I mean there are a lot of ships that I kinda like but never thought too much about them. So hey let me know your favorites and ones I should really think about, I’ll take any suggestions. Thanks for reading!

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faketokufan · 1 year

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....no....

Come on man no....

HOW DOSE THAT MAKE ANY FUCKEN SENSE WHATSOEVER? Like... Were all his friends just illusions the whole fucken time!? How dose that work? Why and how did... But like Rumi had internal dialog and we followed her pov for a bit and... she-she rode the bus and... AND HER FOOD! TARO ATE HER FOOD A-

-oh that’s probably not good- AND THEY HAD THAT fucken,... Fucken reunion party? Was it all just penguin cop dad? FUCKEN APAB All Penguins are Bastards I GUESS What the fuck dose this mean for this split personalities? I thought he already WAS a peng-

-Oh that’s CERTAINLY not good- penguin. THAT made some semblance of sense but like... N-NO! Rumi and his friends HAVE to be real Jiro’s entire fucken life doesn't make any sense if they’re just not! Like they... they had that whole “Thank goodness he’s gone” conversation AFTER HE LEFT. What sense does it make for his hallucinations to have conversations when he’s not there!... Also like RUMI HAS A MOM We saw her! They had a conversation about Rumi going to Tokyo to visit Jiro and then deciding not to cus it was to much effort. I’M NOT CRAZY, YOU CAN-

-Ok that is for sure not good- YOU CAN’T GASLIGHT ME INOUE! I WATCHED YOUR SHOW YOU CAN’T LIE TO ME ABOUT IT! I need to be respected as your audience! I demand an explanation and apology. And maybe a firm handshake and a head pat for figuring out your shit for you. Did you retcon this? Is that what happened? Did you realize you had nothing planned for Jiro then just decided to sacrifice him to the shadow realm? I’m onto you OLD MAN! My mind is like a steel trap! Nothen gets past me!

...

JESUS FUCK!!!!

#avataro sentai donbrothers #DonBrothers #avataro sentai donbrothers spoiler #super sentai #Toku #tokusatsu

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stingyslegslookweird · 2 years

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hyped for next week's donbros for one reason and one reason only:

yeah that's right inoue you sly bastard i see your masked geartlinger-toting surgeon you ain't slick

#zenkaiger henshin thing #donbrothers #donbros #avataro sentai donbrothers #i literally googled to make sure i got the name right #god i'm such a fake fan #oh right and i guess don momo's upgrade debuts next week too i guess

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a-student-out-of-time · 1 year

Note

Okay, so I need to get something off my chest here.

Given what Shirogane has done/will do later down the line to all these innocent people, I do have to say I share Hajime’s sentiment of refusing to kill our enemies. Not just because it’s morally incorrect, but also because there’s no guarantee that it will actually WORK.

What happens if you end up killing the guy, and find out from your future friends that it amounted to nothing? You guys are now murderers, plain and simple, and the name Kasugano and the Quantum Crew will go down as nothing more than godforsaken killers. By that point, I would argue YOU guys are the ones who deserve to be punished.

On top of that, I’d like to point out that while there have been bumps in the road, think about how many delirious bastards you’ve all take down without killing. Guys like Utsugi and Storm hurt and even took away from you what was most precious to you, but you NEVER stopped to their level. Why the hell start now?

And Hajime. Your code means a lot to you and I don’t blame you for trying to stick to it. You might feel like you’re cracking under the pressure, but honestly, I think you might be the only sane one.

-DRSurvivorMod

Sure doesn't feel like it sometimes, but thank you.

It's easy to assume that things will just work out if you kill someone and call it a day, but at this point, none of us know anything about Mizuta or Shirogane, or why they did all this. We can't just assume killing them will solve this.

Inoue-san said that we need to stop them. That can mean a lot of things.

What I need to do is figure out how what will best stop them. For all we know, they've got some backup plan for if they die, and we can't risk that going off and screwing everything over even worse than before.

And...I know it's much harder, but it's gotta be a better option, one other than killing. It has to be. Otherwise...

#danganronpa #sdr2 #super danganronpa 2 #hajime hinata #a student out of time #DR #The Price of Fate arc

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brokenangelwings22 · 1 year

Text

New IchiHime fic to inspire me to write more about GA and CBD2E. I’m still toying with a title, but for now, it’s called Stars That Fall. Give it a read and let me know what you guys think.

Raising his head, the man’s dark amber gaze was menacing. His lips thinned into a snarl as he spoke.

“When I get out of here, I’ll kill you all myself.”

Pushing back the hood, the figure was revealed to be a woman with braided auburn hair and gentle, kind stormy grey eyes.

“Shh,” she soothed. “Be still, now. I’m a healer.”

“What? You’re not with The Order, are you? Quickly get me free,” he rasped, his bravado evaporating at the woman’s assurances.

Raising her hands, the healer let the power she’d honed glow from her fingertips and flow in tendrils, surrounding the injured man’s body. The magic glimmered as he was healed, and a relieved breath left his lips once his wounds closed.

“What’s your name?” The woman asked.

“Ichigo Kurosaki. I’m a mercenary and bounty hunter,” he said as she unlocked the metal chaining him to the wall.

Stepping back, her keen gaze looked him over for any other injuries. Satisfied that he appeared unharmed, she beckoned him.

“My name is Orihime Inoue. As I said, I am a healer. I was given a letter in Karakura to search for a man imprisoned in an old fort. Let’s get you out of here,” Orihime offered a leather glove clad hand to Ichigo.

“Wait! We can’t leave just yet. One of those bastards took away my sword and armor. I know it’s a lot to ask, but I need it back.” Ichigo said, lifting his hand to halt her.

Biting her bottom lip, the auburn-haired woman considered his words. She dropped her head in a nod.

“Alright,” she obliged, still holding out her hand. “Where is it?”

“I’m not sure, but I’m certain the asshole stowed it in one of the guard rooms. Let’s head deeper into the prison.” Ichigo stood with her assistance, a bit wobbly from being stuck in the position he was in for so long.

Watching him as he stretched his spine and arms, Orihime noticed several scars covering his back. Something broke inside her chest, feeling saddened for him.

“How good are you at keeping to the shadows?” She asked as they crept out of the cell and crouched against the crumbling stone of the tower.

“Better at it in my armor,” Ichigo replied while scoping out the dimly lit halls. “Padding, bootless feet make unwanted noise.”

“Okay,” Orihime nodded. “Stay behind me.”

She pulled out a dagger that glinted even in the dull light. Jewels glistened with magic at the hilt and the metal of the small blade was ebony. The man nodded when she pressed an index finger to her lips.

The pair moved along the walls up steep, cracked, short stairs to a room with a man in expensive looking armor. The helmet hid his features, but the stench of alcohol emanated from his breath as he snored loudly. Orihime skulked over to a wooden chest, and pulled out a lock pick.

Ichigo padded over to the snoring guard and wrapped his arm around him in a chokehold. The guard struggled as he woke up, flailing his limbs before Ichigo’s strength subdued him.

“There you go,” Ichigo said in the other man’s ear. “Go to sleep. Consider yourself lucky that I didn’t end your life. Yet.”

Tinkering with the lock, Orihime let out a sigh of relief when the mechanism fell away. She stood when she pried the lid open, using a finger to beckon Ichigo over.

“Is this all of it?” She asked as she peeked in the chest.

Stepping over to her without a sound, Orihime jumped when Ichigo replied beside her ear.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “That’s everything.”

“Goodness!” She whisper-shouted. “I thought you weren’t very stealthy without your gear!”

Grabbing his armor, Ichigo quickly began equipping it piece by piece, buckling the thick metal and clamping it into place.

“It all depends on how a person I’m sneaking up to trusts me. Odd that you didn’t flinch or notice me at all.” Ichigo grinned crookedly down at her.

Orihime blushed, trying to hide it as she tugged her hood over her head. He noticed regardless and his grin grew.

He pulled his nodachi from its sheath, examining it before sliding it back in and placing it on his back. Fastening his gauntlets he nodded to Orihime.

The two climbed the winding stairs and left the prison.

“So,” Ichigo started as they reached a main cobblestone road. “I’ve got a proposition for you.”

Orihime turned to look at him curiously. “Which is?”

Appearing slightly flustered, he rubbed his gauntleted hand on the back of his neck shyly.

“Look,” he said, clearing his throat. “I’m not good at this, but I wanted to offer my protection. I feel that I owe you. So, if you’d have me, I’d like to repay you for your kindness.”

She smiled softly at him. “That’s a very generous offer, but don’t feel obligated to travel with me. I have been doing this on my own for years.”

Quickly amending upon seeing him begin to look dejected. “I’d enjoy the company, though.”

“I’ve got your back,” Ichigo smiled in return.

“Good,” Orihime grinned. She raised her hand to gesture westwards. “We need to head out to West Rukongai. I have a contact to meet up with. It’s a dodgy hold, but I’m known there. There should be little to no trouble.”

“Oh?” Ichigo quirked an eyebrow. “Who is your contact? That place is notorious for thieves and pickpockets.”

“You’ll see,” she grinned as they began down a hill. “I mean no offense, but I’d rather keep their identity hidden.”

#ichihime #ichigo kurosaki #orihime inoue #Stars That Fall fic #ih fanfiction #my fanfiction #ichiori

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