Hey! What do you think of OPM season 2? I still love it & am looking forward to next weeks new episode but i just wish Saitama had more screen time ;-(

hey nonny~! 

apologies for the late reply, its a combo of not getting notifications (tumblr u useless trashbucket) and being on surgery rotation (i miss sleeping so much) 

firstly, i am truly glad you still love it and look forward to the new episodes!!! 💖💖💖please dont let anything i say from this point on dissuade you from that enjoyment 

THAT BEING SAID 

///cut for length 

ive only watched up to the second episode, and i am having Such Difficulties convincing myself to keep watching. i know my rxns to ep 1 were overall pretty positive and I stand by it but the more i watch the more the Cringe/Hypercritique starts take over. 

Turns out, the art style had a bigger impact than i thought on the length of which i enjoy shows. personally, i just really like when anime/shows have a happy marriage between writing and artwork. and when show directors know how to interpret writing, how to set up a scene (the angle, the music, the pacing), and then communicate with artists who have the skills to bring that idea to life using the medium they’re given -- that’s when writing becomes storytelling. OPM’s writing is still fantastic since they’re going off ONE (whereas GoT has the opposite problem where the production value is 4K and the writing is early 2000s livejournal/fanfiction lol god why is everyone dropping the ball in 2019??)

As for the art, since opm switched to jc staff and shingo natsume & co. left for other projects ( ;;_____;; im emo ), its inevitable we would see a drop in animation quality and i find myself constantly getting distracted by things i never used to get concerned about in the first season (bc of the high bar of expectations set by s1 artists/directors, like theres just no way jc staff would match up it to all of that and i feel bad for them, they’re trying their best but that doesn’t mean theyre immune to critique on the artistic liberties that they’ve taken that i feel as a viewer, may not have been the best choice?) 

the shading: no, just, unnecessary and distracting and why is it the center of saitamas face, im by far no expert in lighting but a bish can tell something doesnt look right??? 

the shading pt II: color choices. just gonna say i was not expecting sai’s ‘hair shirt’ in ep 1 to be bright-ass neon green, it was a little jarring at first and i miss him in red ;-; i get hes supposed to have poor fashion choices but i dont see him as the type to pick something that stands out so much in the crowd, like he likes to be left alone. NEON doesnt really relay ‘hi dont mind me im just barely existing here lol’ 

the shading pt III: genos arms/neck. okaY so the bby looks good in screenshots. like he’s shiny and nice to look at when nothings moving. bUT this is animation?? movement of objections is different from still life manga so making every single scene almost 99% like murata’s panels translates a little awkwardly to the screen (like staff is lucky bc murata’s a force of nature with his panels playing out like a movie for ref). but when genos moves, the arms are just distracting bc everything around him is drawn simply without shadows so they stand out by themselves and i (visually) forget about the rest of him haha. 

the pacing: it feels scripted, person A says this so we’ll show person A in the shot, then person B is saying something so we have to cut to person B, etc etc like keeping pretty steady to manga lines to the point where i was starting to get bored bc i knew what was coming. it was really intervaled? like someone had to be saying something at a certain effect and i think s1 had more dramatic pauses (lol) but thats how you can place emphasis on scenes to have an emotional impact if the character doesnt say anything and just let the soundtrack do some talking and the cadence of the script will change too (im 10000% talking about the sunset scene in s1 god bless. like it was slow, there was MOOD there wasn’t any rush and really gave the viewer time to think about the relationship between the two characters and what that moment meant to each of them) i feel like there were several scenes that could have been more like in the scene where sai protected fubuki, could have been a little more dramatically emphasized (aka just a pause) so the viewer could get a chance to understand that he purprosefully shielded her or when genos says that strong heroes are drawn to saitama--bUT nope its the same pace, like c l o c k w o r k just like my t eARS--

the fight scenes: how do i even start. the one scene that got me INTO opm (like watching the anime, reading the manga, drawing fanart, writing fanfic, reading fanfics etc) was kickstarted by the fight scene between genos and saitama in s1 that was circulating on tumblr a while back. i thought the characters were interesting and the fight was badass and it just looked SO COOL. (also the forehead flick at the end just kinda sealed my fate). going from that to s2 fight scenes where its mostly cut scenes and freeze scenes?? where theres a cut out behind the characters back?? during a fight scene????? this isn’t a calling card or an anime opening??? i dont understand. when they dont do cut scenes, its interesting but my initial impression is just underwhelmed. i can find good parts but it feels like i have to replay the scene to notice it? theres also an overwhelming amount of graphics/cgi manipulation that overpowers the actual art sometimes. its lacking some of the fluidity that comes from hand drawn fight scenes from first season. OTL

the sound directing: so i thought that the mood just felt off for certain scenes and the sound didn’t seem to support the scene as well (unless it was like the character’s theme or smtg) and i looked it up and the sound director was also replaced (Yoshikazu Iwanami replacing Shoji Hata). i have no idea if the sound director is also in charge of character lines but there were parts were fubuki was monologuing and i had no idea she was inner monologuing, i thought she was talking out loud and that just took extra effort on my part to re-orient myself (im nitpitcking i know but its just how i watch shows lol) 

there are still some parts i like about the animation:

fubuki looks bangin and i love her👌👗

all of this just made me realize how insanely lucky we were to have an amazing s1 and just have it exist and how i really could not care less if they had just waited forever to make s2 as long as we had the same crew come back. but anime is still a business and the quicker they dish out merch/seasons, the more money they can bring in. which they do in the short run but they would bring in more if they spent a little more on quality in the long run and it becomes one of those classics that ppl will rewatch and keep recommending to ppl who want to get into anime and oh my god we’re never gonna have that now, are we. if im gonna rec it to a friend its gonna be ‘read the manga!’ or ‘just watch s1!’ uGH. its just an unfortunate situation, its not one person’s fault either, so many factors go into what made opm s1 so spectacular and seeing s2 just made me appreciate s1 more. i guess im happy to have a s2 regardless? 

i’ll still watch to support (and bc i like suiryuu and wanna see sai in a karate gi and wig lol). maybe i just have to get used to the new style. 

so in summary,

about the answer you reblogged.. The fact that the person said firstly, tht nb animals are uncommon, and secondly tht "gender wasn't important to them" and tht "they were usually juvenile" enforces the notion that nonbinary genders are temporary, or for beings who are just questioning their gender. I am a spirit worker, I've been doing it for years, and the concept that there are "very few" nb animal spirits is bs. gender is different than "biological sex" or w/e. outta here w that transphobia

hey there, anon! i see where you're coming from but i'm going to politely disagree w you! i dont see Bear being transphobic at all w eir response! 

i've been a spirit worker for just over three years now, and I've worked mainly w astral spirits, and a handful of animal spirits. there's definitely nb astral spirits (i'm close friends w a few lol) but i have yet to interact w a nonbinary animal spirit actually! i was just thinking about it today so i thought I'd see what a more experienced practicioner had to say about the matter so i sent Bear that anon. 

idk if you know, but Bear is bigender if I remember correctly (which i believe sometimes fall under the category of nonbinary?), but i dont really want to pull her into any discourse lol, so just... know that and have that in mind when interacting w eir posts. 

I'm not entirely sure what animals ideas of gender are, and I'm still busy chewing those thoughts over, so I don't even have a theory for you yet, BUT I feel like I can say at this point in time that I personally think that animals and humans have different ideas of gender. 

Bear also did say that this is EIR experience and not everyone's experience. "They aren’t common–or at least, I don’t seem to find very many"... she doesn't say that this is EVERYONE'S experience - this is just hers, and this acknowledges that others may have a different experience. 

I find it interesting that ey talk about how juveniles are the more "nonbinary" ones. At first, I agreed! This makes sense! Since juvenile animals don't really have to think about reproducing, they wouldn't really think about gender all that much (as a nonbinary person, I never really thought about gender until people started treating girls and boys differently and puberty hit LOL - it just wasn't really brought to my attention until then). But then, once I started replying to your ask and trying to explain animal gender... I realized that I don't really know all that much about it! I haven't given it much thought before now. 

There have been cases of trans animals (lions are the specific ones that I can remember right now) and there have been many cases of homosexuality in animals, so obviously they're not all just thoughtless sex-driven beings, and there must be more thought going on within them than we previously have given them credit for. Honestly, as someone who works with animal spirits and holds a great deal of respect and awe for nature, I should have realized this fully much sooner than now, but alas... at least I am learning and growing!! 

I don't think that Bear meant what you are accusing em of at all tbh. I don't want to speak for em, but I do give em the benefit of the doubt here, especially since she's part of the trans community herself. 

Anyways LOL, to wrap up: i am interested in seeing if I do meet any animal spirits that are nonbinary, as I have not had the pleasure of doing so yet! I've met a handful of animal spirits and all have been either female or male (astral spirits are a much different story). I think Bear was just speaking of her own experience, and so she was not being transphobic at all. And I have much to think about and research on with animal gender! So thank you for bringing these topics to me, as I am actually really interested in this and excited to learn more!!!

If you’d like to talk more about this, I’d actually really love to open a dialogue because this sort of thing is really interesting for me! So my inbox is open as are my DMs!

quick edit: it’s like an hour away from when i usually go to sleep so if i misunderstood anything or missed anything, that’ll be why LOL, i’m pretty tired so if you want to drop by my inbox again and like,, shake me by the shoulders and say “BUT WHAT ABOUT THIS, YOU IGNORED THIS PART” you can do so if u want HSDHFJKL but also maybe be nicer than that please LOL, i promise i tried to cover everything but to be fair i am quite tired so my brain is not working on all four cylinders