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earthtooz · 1 year

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x : APOLOGY ACCEPTED :*+ﾟ

in which: isagi doesn't like it when you give him the silent treatment.

warnings: 1.9k wc, gn!reader, fluff with a little angst, ooc!isagi (i tried), mentions of manhandling, sleepy isagi, mentions to arguments. food.

a/n: I FEEL ILL REREADING THIS why is this so bad hELP. for being the main character, it's hard asf to get good manga panels of isagi lol. anyways. enjoy this shit piece xx i can't believe this is my first isagi fic and i did him so wrong, i'm so sorry cri

“y/n?” echoes a voice from down the hallway, one laced with grogginess and fatigue, paired with the gentle padding of footsteps trudging their way to where you resided in the living room. in your periphery, isagi rounds the corner shirtless and messy bedhair, and not sparing him a glance proved itself a challenge.

usually, you would’ve sprung up from your seat and greeted him good morning, but the soreness of your throat is a harsh reminder of the argument you had last night, and thinking too hard about it would press into the bruises of your ego, resurfacing awkward and sour feelings. yet, you still had to fight to contain the butterflies in your stomach upon seeing him and it becomes harder to fight when you realise that the first thing isagi did since waking up was find you, not even brushing his teeth or putting on a shirt.

as adorable as he was, you don’t know what to say to him, unsure of where you stood since you both just went to bed last night, the problem never resolving itself.

isagi’s face however, upon seeing you, lit up with a smile as bright as a thousand suns and endearing enough to crumble your resolve but you persevere with your tough facade. the true stake to the heart is the way his face drops when noticing your reluctance to acknowledge him.

"y/n?" he asks again as greeting, waddling over to stand before you. you still don't look up at him from your phone. "why are you awake so early?"

silence.

"y/n?" prods the soccer star who now seats himself beside you, hand shaking yours a little in hopes of getting your attention. "you're mad at me, aren't you?"

you don’t know how to respond, remaining silent despite the countless words brewing in your mind that were unable to spill over to form a sentence. should you be nice? mean? petty? you could never have the heart to do the latter two, but-

"-i'm sorry," he mutters, placing his chin on your shoulder so he could give you his best puppy-dog eyes. you don’t react, no matter how hard you had to fight to not look at him because you knew that if you did, you’d crumble right into his arms.

you miss the way his frown deepens with every shake of your shoulder that you ignore.

“you know i don’t like it when people ignore me.”

despite your cold shoulder, he still lingers around you, just now fast asleep after prying a spot on your lap for his head to fit, disturbing your peace with his hesitant invasion. naturally, you run your hands through his raven hair, lounging in the morning sun with your phone in one hand and your soccer sensation of a boyfriend in your lap.

eventually, the tranquillity is ruined alongside the urge to use the bathroom, but the difficult part of said task however, was getting isagi off your lap which turned out to be a carefully organised operation. gently lifting his head, you manage to shuffle away before laying him back down. somehow you manage to keep him from rousing, leaving you to tiptoe away without making much noise.

you went as far as you could because when you opened the bathroom door againÇ, isagi was lingering outside, slumber still evident in his face as he blinks sleepily at you. so much for leaving without waking him.

“oh. hi,” he greets, voice still ridden with sleep. he rubs his eye innocently, streaks of his nap engrained on his skin.

he grumbles a sleepy murmur of your name as you slip away around him, giving isagi the chance to latch on to your waist. this wasn’t the silent treatment you were imagining, but you have half a mind and even less of a desire to shrug your boyfriend off, no matter how difficult your predicament is.

“i need to brush my teeth,” the athlete mutters, dragging you into the bathroom with him. “we can do skincare together.”

you don’t have it in you to tell isagi that you’ve already done your morning routine so you settle for doing it a second time. not like it’ll hurt anyone, especially not your skin.

wordlessly, you do your morning routine alongside him and it’s oddly peaceful without the usual talking and music in the background. you get more of a chance to admire isagi and his boyish features, shyly looking away from his gaze every time his eyes meet yours in the bathroom mirror. after putting away all the products, you don’t move very far before the dark-haired latches himself to you again.

he remains like that even as you continue with chores and tasks you assigned yourself, deciding that there’s no place he’d rather be than half-asleep behind you whilst you sort through laundry, organise your drawers, and fix organise the kitchen cabinets. he’s gracious enough to help a little, holding spices and cans here and there.

if you tried to shake him off, isagi would grumble and come right back, never straying too far away for too long.

his insistence to stay like this was endearing, but very irritating, especially it was hindering your productive. however, your will to scold him for it is at an all-time low so you’ll have to continue living with another being wrapped around you until isagi gives up or you tell him off.

you didn’t have to wait long for the latter. after you were done with organising- or rather when isagi was fed up of standing, he drags you right back to your shared bedroom, silently arranging the two of you on your shared bed with his strength, moving you into a comfortable position under the duvet.

“please stop,” you demand quietly as if you were silent enough, you wouldn’t technically break the silent treatment.

he immediately perks up at the sound of your voice and his name on your lips, a wide smile breaking out on his face. “babe!” isagi flops on you, the ‘oof’ that escapes you not going unnoticed, “you talked.”

“isagi, please give me some space.”

the smile on the soccer player’s face completely melts away and he furrows his eyebrows, causing guilt to strike you in the heart as he reluctantly moves away from you. the use of his last name in comparison to his usual, affectionate-filled nicknames didn’t soften the blow directed at him either.

“is this because of last night?” he asks, resting his chin on your sternum. “i’m sorry about everything that i said.”

“isagi,” he stops rambling. “please, i just need some space right now.”

“okay, i’m sorry. i’ll go now.”

he shuffles out from under the covers rather quickly, picking up a shirt from his closet before walking out with it half-on. you call out his name only to hear the front door slam close and you wince slightly at the sound, guilt weighing heavily on your heart.

when you said you needed space you didn’t mean for isagi to leave the apartment completely.

if you had set your boundaries clearer this morning maybe you could have avoided this scenario. now isagi’s out of the house and you don’t know where he’s even going or when he’s returning and the thought is enough to scare you, riddling you with enough anxiety for your heart to sink to your feet. it’s getting hard to breathe too and your mind is racing with countless thoughts that all pile on top of each other.

texting isagi was a flunk too, he left his phone at home and only took his wallet.

what did you do? what time would he be back?

could he have gone to bachira’s? nagi’s? without his phone though? isagi wouldn’t usually go very far without a device at the very least. maybe he’s just out for a walk to clear his mind. yeah, that sounds right, isagi loves walks after all so who knows when he’ll be back. speaking of walking, you might benefit from one right now too-

“-i’m home!” a voice shouts out, breaking you out of your funk like hammer shattering a glass.

practically running out of the bedroom, you disregard the shards of hurt, running over them to see isagi staring at you with wide eyes. he holds a bakery bag and a bouquet of flowers- your favourites, in one hand and the apartment keys in the other.

“oh, y/n, are you okay?” he asks fondly, setting the bag down on the kitchen counter before wandering over to you. without thinking, you reel him in to a hug when he’s close enough, half jumping onto him as the soccer player catches you effortlessly, surprised by your sudden show of affection. “i thought you were mad at me?”

“you scared me, you doofus,” you say into his shoulder with a watery laugh, relief flooding your body like no other at the feeling of his warmth against yours again. “don’t just leave like that ever again.”

“i’m sorry! i wanted to say sorry because of how big of a dick i was to you last night and this morning.”

“you left so abruptly! i thought i angered you even more or something,” you laugh, all watery and emotional.

isagi snakes a hand up to your face, cradling it. “that wasn’t my intention, i didn’t mean to scare you.”

“apology accepted and i’m sorry too. i was mean to you last night as well and i should have communicated properly with you this morning. wasn’t fair on my end.”

“apology accepted,” he says with a charmingly boyish grin. you have an urge to kiss it off. “i love you.”

“you make it so hard to stay mad at you. i love you too,” you mutter before isagi’s pressing his lips to yours, pouring all his love for you to breathe in, filling you with reassurance. you smile against him, unable to contain it, which then causes him to mimic you, and the kiss breaks away because the two of you are laughing too much.

isagi will be the death of you.

your eyes glance behind him and the striker follows your line of sight. “i got your favourite cake too by the way, last one the bakery had. guess i’m one lucky guy, huh?”

“the stars aligned perfectly just for you.”

“i agree,” mutters isagi before leaning in to leave a kiss on your forehead.

“should we have some cake now?” you question, loosening your arms around him to back away and faltering when he doesn’t let you. his grip around your waist is tight and unforgiving as mischief shines in the dark-haired’s eyes.

then, he pulls you right back, peppering your face in endless kisses whilst you giggle in response to each one. the more he plants the more you want to pull away out of reflex but his hold forbid for you to travel too far, leaving you vulnerable to all of his advances.

“i love you,” he repeats with each press against your skin.

“yoichi, stop!” you giggle. the sound is a remedy to his pain.

“can’t stop, i have a whole day of affection to make up for.”

you shove his shoulder teasingly, “later.”

“later. i’ll never make you mad again, i swear. that was the worst day of my life. next time you do this, i’d rather you end me.”

#isagi x reader #isagi yoichi x reader #blue lock x reader #bllk x reader #isagi fluff #isagi yoichi fluff #isagi blue lock #blue lock fluff #isagi x gn!reader #isagi yoichi x gn!reader #yoichi isagi x reader

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another-lost-mc · 10 months

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Thinking about it, in a world with an otaku!MC the brothers are kind of obligated to be nicer to Levi bc any insults towards him would be dragging MC down with him..

A/N: Oooooh. I wrote Player Two which is the brothers basically treating Levi and MC the same (as geeky weirdos) but MC doesn't really care because Levi's the best friend they've always wanted. Thinking about the reverse of that situation is interesting in its own way too.

LEVIATHAN x gn!Reader, 0.6k words, SFW.

Content warnings: some cursing and jealousy.

It started with a pack of candy. Beel picked it up at one of the Devildom shops known for importing human world sweets. You've talked about the brand and he thought he'd surprise you. He would've given it to you in private, but Levi was glued to your hip more often than not these days. He found both of you in your bedroom playing Super Smash Devils.

"Oh...you meant this was for both of us, right?" you asked, glancing between the pack of candy and Levi guiltily.

Beel fumbled through a lie to cover up his mistake and rushed from the room. He makes a note for next time so he remembers to buy three boxes instead of two (one for you, one for Levi, and one for himself).

After he left, you took a piece for yourself and handed Levi the box. You hummed happily around the coated end of your stick candy while you turned back to the screen to select your character for the new match.

Maybe you bought Beel's flimsy excuse earlier, but Levi didn't. Things have been strange with his family lately, but you seem ignorant about the changing family dynamics going on around you.

The other siblings don't tease Levi anymore when he talks about a game he bought or some random gacha toy he managed to get, because you're excited about it too. They don't want to hurt your feelings, so they try to keep their opinions to themselves.

Some of them, like Beel or Mammon, make an effort to surprise you with little gifts: capsules from a gacha machine in downtown Devildom, overpriced knock-off plushies of anime characters at the ghost carnival passing through. Satan surprises you with manga off your Akuzon wish list, and Asmo paints your nails while you watch anime together in your room.

From Levi's perspective, their sudden change of heart about his dorky hobbies is a double-edged sword.

He's happy that they're accepting of you now. When you first arrived, they initially treated you like a weird outcast—the way they used to treat him. You're not as introverted as he is, and they're making an effort to include you both in activities you might actually enjoy.

But on the other hand, part of him wishes they would just fuck off. You're perfect. He knows you've charmed them as much as you've charmed him, but he was your friend first. He thought he was going to be able to keep you all to himself. He knew from the first time you stepped into his room that you were the real-life Henry he's always wanted. He's the one that should be buying you gifts so he can hoard your praise for himself. You should be spending time in his room, or inviting him to yours, if you want to watch anime.

Why are you even giving them a chance? They don't deserve it. They were too stupid to realize how special you were. Don't you realize they're only tolerating the things you love so they can be close to you?

He tries to hide his growing jealousy, but it gets harder as time passes and his brothers keep finding new ways to insert themselves into your hobbies.

You notice Levi's foul mood sometimes when he can't contain the bitterness that laces his voice or the irritation in his glances. He gives you an excuse so you don't worry about him; he doesn't want to taint you with the bitter venom coursing through his veins.

You're finally happy living in the Devildom now that his family seems more accepting of you—of both of you.

He's furious that their acceptance means having to share you with anyone else.

#obey me #obey me leviathan #obey me x reader #omswd x reader #obey me leviathan x reader #leviathan x reader #obey me levi x mc #leviathan x mc #obey me levi x you #leviathan x you #obey me fanfic #omswd fanfic #x reader #gn!reader #jes.replies

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jisungsdaydreamer · 1 year

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Love Playlist #1: HOME (Han)

«GENERAL M.LIST» · «NAVIGATION» · «TALK TO ME»

"For a really smart person, Jisung can be so dumb sometimes."

Pairing: Han x Fem!reader Genre: college au, friends to lovers, roommates to lovers, fluff, mutual pining Warnings: mild swearing Word Count: 7k

P.S. ♡ If you like my work, please consider giving me feedback in the form of reblogs, comments, and asks! ♡

You have three strict rules that you must follow. One, no going out after eleven. Two, never leave the house without your cell phone. And three, never, ever, fall in love with Han Jisung.

Unfortunately, you’ve broken that third rule already. In fact, you’re still breaking it, charring it to a crisp, and throwing it out like the trash you both begrudgingly take turns with. But how can you not? Because when it comes to your doe-eyed best friend who is serenely sitting in front of you, the whole rulebook is torn up.

Jisung quietly flips through his growing stack of manga, blissfully unaware of the way your heart accelerates whenever he reads a particularly entertaining segment and his eyes light up in amusement.You should remind him to stay on track, but you can’t bear to stop him because of how cute he looks, his legs unconsciously swinging under the table and his fifth banana lollipop of the day shoved into his mouth.

You’re both sitting together in the library at your special table beside the big window, the place that is always secluded no matter what, as if some higher power knows to keep it aside for you and Jisung for whenever you desire. Both of you are supposed to be studying for your finals, the objectively worst part of the entire year. You’re both seniors, so the slew of exams coming up should be a piece of cake for you, except both of you have grad school next year— you’ll be starting on your PhD, while Jisung, a computer engineering major, will be working towards a master’s degree— so you still have to worry about all of your final grades.

“I hate this.” Jisung looks up from the book in his hands, closing it shut. “I wish I didn’t have to do this.”

“It’s almost over. Then we’ll finally graduate and get to enjoy our summer,” you reply. “And then our lives begin.”

And the elation building in your chest is real, because although you have a tough couple of days ahead of you, the end of this year will be a testament to everything you have accomplished. You have your summer mapped out already; you’re going to be completing groundbreaking cancer research at an esteemed biologist’s lab, days filled with productivity along with exciting nights exploring adulthood and freedom with your friends. Even though you’ll still have school, you’ll only have to be doing what you’re passionate about, leaving behind the mandatory literature and calculus courses that brought you so many tears over the duration of college.

“Not for me.” Jisung sighs, leaning back in his chair and staring aimlessly at the ceiling. “It’ll never end.”

Lately, Jisung has become increasingly stressed about graduation. He doesn’t come from a wealthy background, with his mother being a grocery store cashier and his father out of the picture. You’re aware he’s under immense pressure to do well in school and then get a good job that will take care of both him and his mother, when she’s unable to provide for herself. Worst of all, Jisung had to ditch his dream of becoming a musician and instead focus on something more practical, which ended up being a profession in computers. Of course, like anything else he puts his effort into, Jisung excels in computer engineering, and he’s come to terms with giving up his passion, but you know it doesn’t hurt any less.

“Do you want to talk about it?” You ask softly, reaching for his hand. He accepts it, but he turns his head to gaze at the street beyond the window.

“It’s okay.”

You don’t press any further, because you know that it will just break him down, and neither of you can afford that right now at such a crucial time. Instead, you resolve to brighten his mood, like he does with you anytime you’re down. “Let’s just hope we don’t get food poisoning tomorrow.”

Your attempt works, because Jisung meets your eyes, a smile permeating his solemn expression and before widening into a full grin, at the memory of the time you both first met. Remembrance comes like the summer breeze you look so forward to, washing over you both like a tidal wave. And just like that, it’s freshman year and you’re standing at the bus stop near your old dormitory building.

You anxiously devoured the notebook pages in your hands, alternating between cramming the tiny text and scanning the road for the bus that was supposed to be here ten minutes ago. Your stomach ached from the food poisoning you contracted earlier that morning, an unwelcome byproduct of the dubious cauliflower and tuna tacos served at the dining hall the night before.

This was horrible timing too, especially because you had your first test of the academic year that day. When you should have been bent over your statistics notes, you were cooped up in the bathroom for the previous few hours, clutching the toilet bowl as you watched the clock above you tick menacingly.

You bounced on your toes anxiously, before a strange, squeaking sound met your ears. You whirled around to see a boy approaching you while struggling to pull a large, bulging suitcase along with him. He finally succeeded, collapsing onto the bus stop bench while coughing and wheezing up a storm that rivaled the ominous clouds in the sky. You reached into the side pocket of your backpack, pulling out your unopened plastic water bottle and handing it over to him.

He looked at your offering hand in surprise, before gratefully accepting. He tipped his head back and closed his eyes while he gulped down the cool water. You watched him finish the entire bottle with a dizzying speed and then recycle it in the bin next to the bus stop. The boy was lanky, sporting an oversized Pokémon t-shirt and battered sneakers, and overdue for a haircut, the locks flopping over his sweaty forehead.

“Thank you so much.” He said.

“Of course. What’s in the suitcase?”

The boy fondly ran a hand over the worn-out seams of the object of your curiosity. “I promised my roommate that I would give him all of my old books for his class project. I have no idea why he wants them, but then again, art students are weird.”

He looked up at you not even a second later, alarm in his eyes. “Unless you’re an art student! In that case, I didn’t mean what I said.”

You giggled, shaking your head. “No, I’m a biology major. And yes, I agree.”

He beamed. “I’m Han Jisung. First year, computer engineering. Anime and cheesecake lover. Spicy food hater.”

“Y/N. I’m a freshman, too, and I also love anime and cheesecake. Chocolate cheesecake, to be specific. And I can’t stand spicy food.”

“Chocolate supremacy!” Jisung gasped, clamping a palm over his mouth. “This is meant to be.”

You let out a hearty laugh at his theatrics. “Exactly.”

At that moment, the bus finally arrived, rolling to a stop next to you both. You helped Jisung push his suitcase full of storybooks up the steps of the bus and into the aisle. You sat on one of the seats in the back, and Jisung followed suit, plopping down right next to you. As he did, you noticed him wince, clutching his stomach. Concern bloomed in you for this precious stranger that you just met.

“Are you okay?”

He clutches his stomach once more, smiling embarrassedly. “I got food poisoning. I should have known better than to trust the dining hall food.”

You pause, as the ironic delight of the situation sets in, allowing the pain to fade away and leaving you to wonder about the odds of meeting Jisung. “No way! Me too!”

Jisung’s eyes widen in surprise. “That’s destiny. Mutual food poisoning. Now we definitely have to be friends.”

Later, after you had exchanged numbers and plenty of laughs, parting ways at your respective bus stops, you would meet again at the university hospital. Both of you had contracted a salmonella infection.

Unbeknownst to you and Jisung, that delayed bus and salmonella would determine the trajectory of the rest of your lives. Over time, you both emerged from the shackles of a hesitant acquaintance to the kind of bond that never breaks, even with time, distance, or the grievances of being young. You witnessed each other grow up, fall in love and out of love, and get drunk on piña coladas at the bar next to the college gym you both pretended to go to regularly.

Somewhere along the way, after Loser Boyfriend Number Three, as Jisung tried to cheer you up with his horrible jokes and the burned brownies that he nuked in the residence hall kitchen microwave, you realized that you were wasting your time on people who weren’t worth it. Because the only person who was worth it was the one who had been by your side all the time. Jisung.

Betrayed by your treacherous heart, you began to see Jisung— your person, your study buddy, your fake fiancé when you both were trying to score free dessert with a restaurant proposal— as more than just a friend. In fear of your feelings potentially ruining your friendship, something more dear to you than any form of romance, as you so believed they would, you swore to never speak to Jisung of it. But you couldn’t lie to yourself anymore about the worst. You fell in love with your best friend.

“What did the farmer say after he lost his tractor?”

“I have no idea, Jisung.”

“‘Hey, where’s my tractor?’ Get it?” Jisung bursts out laughing, slapping his thigh. He doubles over, his whole body shaking with laughter at the unimpressed look on your face, which makes everything funnier for him.

“That doesn’t even make sense!” You exclaim, trying to push him. Jisung just keeps giggling, dodging you masterfully.

You both have given up on your library study session, resolving to take a break at your favorite coffee shop and meet up with the rest of your friends in your circle. The setting sun has streaked the blue sky with its golden rays and puffy pink clouds, enveloping the entire campus in a hazy glow. It’s a pleasant May evening, with the scent of your college’s famed peonies along with the excitement of Spring lingering in the air. The street lights that line the sidewalk are already turned on, but not many people are outside enjoying the weather, except for a few students playing a game of Frisbee on the athletic field. Everyone else is locked away in their rooms or the library, grinding for their upcoming exams.

“Well, I have a better one anyway.” Jisung states, clearing his throat dramatically.

You roll your eyes as you near your destination, an unassuming red-brick building tucked away in a larger complex of stores. Purple morningstar blossoms border the door of the small shop in clumps of dainty vines, no doubt the namesake of Morningstar Coffee House. Fairy lights are strung around the glass block windows, which offer a glimpse of the inviting warmth inside.

“Let’s hear it.”

Jisung jogs ahead of you and opens the door for you, gallantly gesturing for you to go first. “What did Y/N say to Jisung when they went to the coffee shop together?”

The comforting smell of pastries and dark roast coffee engulfs you as you step into Morningstar. The strung lanterns and groovy jazz music playing in the background welcome you like a hug from a long-distance friend. You can’t believe it’s been so long since you’ve gone anywhere other than the library, the lecture halls, or the tiny apartment you and Jisung share.

“I don’t know.” You humor Jisung, still playing along and waiting for his ridiculous punchline.

He smirks at you. “I love you a latte!”

You feign disgust, but secretly, you are elated because of how genuinely touching his words are to you. Jisung hugs you like a baby panda, trying to get you to applaud him for his clever joke, as Jisung is naturally a very physically affectionate person, always wanting to snuggle up to the people around him. But your heart can’t help but jump a little every time you feel his arms snug around you.

“Well, I love you a latte more, Hannie,” you respond nonchalantly, but you mean it. You do love Jisung for everything that he is, even the cringeworthy SoundCloud rapper phase that dominated his sophomore year.

“You guys are weird,” your friend Seungmin says from behind the counter, where he’s busy working as the barista, while his co-worker, Soobin, a timid Psychology student, clumsily handles orders at the cash register. Seungmin’s parents own Morningstar, and he plans to take over it next year.

Jisung sticks his tongue out at Seungmin in defiance, before linking arms with you and dragging you to the back, where the rest of your friends are seated. There is Chan, or more famously known as Chris among his many admirers across his campus, clad in his signature black jacket. Besides him, the turquoise-haired baby of your group, Jeongin, and then Hyunjin, who as usual, is lost in his sketchbook.

“Hey guys. What are you up to?” You slide in next to Hyunjin, trying to peek at what he’s drawing. You catch a glimpse of a very pretty girl you vaguely recognize from around campus, before he protectively snaps his journal closed, narrowing his eyes at you.

“Eyes on your coffee, Y/N,” Hyunjin says, handing you the mug that they ordered for you ahead of time. Magically, it’s still hot.

You accept the coffee and drink it, letting the rich liquid warm your insides as you swallow it gratefully. “Alright, alright.”

Jisung tries to steal a bite of Jeongin’s apple danish, earning him a swat on his wandering palms. Chan looks over at you with a grin. “We’re just listening to Jeongin rant about his crush.”

Jeongin groans before continuing. “And I keep asking her out, but every time, she rejects me, bro! What am I supposed to do? Give up?"

“Yes,” Hyunjin says in his signature straightforward manner, prompting everyone but Jeongin to snicker.

“Whatever. I'll figure out a way.” Jeongin sits back in his seat, resorting to aggressively typing on his keyboard to deal with his frustration.

You look around your little corner in the shop, which is filled with textbooks and miscellaneous notebook sheets. “Where are the others?”

“Minho is studying with his girlfriend, and Changbin and Felix are apparently also working, but they’re probably gaming instead.”

Hyunjin bites down on the edge of his straw, glancing between you and Jisung thoughtfully. “Speaking of girlfriend, when are you both going to get together?”

You freeze up in your seat, tensing like you always do whenever someone jokes about your relationship with Jisung, but he’s unfazed, shooting Hyunjin a mischievous smile. “When you tell us about that girl you’re obsessed with.”

Hyunjin immediately forgets about teasing you, glaring at Jisung contempfully. “Shut up, Han. You don’t know anything.”

“Guys, let’s calm down,” you say while patting Hyunjin’s back, happy for the distraction but still cautious about him and Jisung. While those two love each other very much now, they used to fight like crazy when they roomed together in freshman year, and no one needs a repeat of bad history right now.

Jisung catches your eye, and although he doesn’t smile at you, you can see the appreciation in his eyes. You nod slightly at him, before getting out your own computer. Words do not have to be exchanged between you two for you to understand each other.

You all settle into a comfortable silence as you finish your coffee and resume studying, only looking up occasionally to ask each other questions about the material or an assignment. Soon, the evening begins to fade away, and you start packing up your belongings before closing time.

“Hey, Y/N! Can you come over here for a second?” Seungmin calls out, capturing your attention.

You put down your backpack and walk over to the counter, where he’s washing his blender. “Yes?”

“So what’s going on with you and Jisung?” Before you can interrupt him and deny anything, Seungmin wipes his hands and gives you a meaningful look. “I know you have feelings for him.��

You feel your face heat up, and you avoid his piercing eyes. “How would you know?”

“Look, it doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. From the way you look at him, it’s a marvel how he hasn’t figured it out yet. For a really smart person, Jisung can be so dumb sometimes.”

You exhale, seeing no point in lying anymore. Besides, it feels good to get it off of your chest. “Well, why are you bringing this up anyway?”

Seungmin sets down his utensil caddy and rests his elbows on the edge of the sink. “Soobin likes you and asked me if you’re single. But, you know, I wasn’t sure if you are available. Emotionally, I mean.”

You glance over at Soobin, observing him counting all of the day’s revenue. The blonde cashier catches your eye, flashing you a shy smile before quickly looking away, turning a shade of tomato red. He’s handsome, good-hearted, and not to mention, very tall. Just your type. But he’s no Jisung.

“It’s been a while since I’ve dated anyone.” And this is true— over a year, to be precise. “I guess, I’m still hung up over Jisung.”

“Do you plan on making a move?”

“No way. I’m just going to wait for the feelings to dissipate. I would never risk our friendship like that,” you mumble.

“You could get to know Soobin, maybe he’ll help you move on,” Seungmin suggests, crossing his arms.

You consider your options before piping up. Jisung had gotten pretty serious with his last girlfriend by the end of your junior year, but he broke up with her a month later, telling you that she just wasn’t the one for him. He hasn’t dated anyone since, claiming that it’s not the right time. But for you, it is, and you realize that you can’t keep waiting for him.

“Maybe I will,” you say, toying with your jacket zipper.

Seungmin tips his head towards Soobin, but before you move, he leans in closer to you. “But personally, I think you should just tell Jisung. If he’s really your best friend, your friendship will stay the same no matter what.”

You nod. “Yeah, okay.”

You know Seungmin is right, but the truth is, it’s not just about losing your friendship with Jisung. Regardless of whether he reciprocates your feelings or not, you know that he would never walk away from you. It’s truly you who you are concerned about. You’re uncertain if you could bear to go back being your normal self around Jisung if you confess and get rejected. You don’t know if your heart could handle it.

You touch Seungmin’s hand in a quiet gratitude and approach Soobin, who immediately notices your presence and accidentally slams the cash register drawer closed, nearly shutting it on his finger. “H-hi Y/N.”

Watching Soobin get endearingly flustered, you can’t help but smile. “Hey Soobin. How are you?”

“I’m good, thank you.” Soobin bites down on his lip, wrapping his arms around himself. He looks so cute in his brown bib apron and converse shoes. “You look really pretty in that dress.”

Your cheeks warm, but you look him directly in his eyes. “That’s so kind of you to say. Actually, I was hoping you'd want to go out on a date sometime? Maybe after finals?”

Although you’re very reserved about your feelings for Jisung, in every other case, you can be quite forward with romance. Soobin’s eyes widen. “Wait, really?”

You laugh, getting out your phone. “Yes, really. What do you say?”

“Yes! I would love to. Could I please get your number?” Soobin stretches out his phone, which is covered in teddy bear stickers.

You think of Jisung’s phone, which has a clear case and a polaroid of you two at the beach inside. You shake the thought of him away. You type your number into Soobin’s phone, before wishing him good luck on his finals and then rejoining your friend group in the darkening outdoors, which has moved outside the shop while you were talking to Seungmin. As soon as he spies you walking out of the door, Hyunjin forgets his conversation with Jeongin and immediately launches into interrogating you.

“What were you talking to Soobin about?”

You shrug, trying to play it off, but can’t help the rosy blush that creeps up your neck. “Nothing, really.”

Now the others look interested as well, and Jeongin smirks knowingly at you. “You asked him out, didn’t you?”

Out of the corner of your eye, you think you see Jisung’s smile falter, but you chalk it up to your own imagination and affirm Jeongin’s prediction. “Yes, but it’s pretty casual. So not a big deal.”

Chan and Jeongin both high-five you like seventh grade boys, while Hyunjin just cackles at your sudden agitation. Jisung, however, looks annoyed, a very new color on him.

“I didn’t know you were interested in Soobin,” he says, shutting Hyunjin up. “Why didn’t you tell me? You always tell me when you like someone.”

You know the answer to his question. But you can’t tell Jisung that the only reason why you asked Soobin on a date out of the blue is because you are in love with him and trying to move on. “Seungmin just told me that he had a crush on me. So I went for it.”

“Yeah, everyone knows Soobin likes you. But you could have told me first before making a move.” Jisung’s tone is slightly harsh, suspicious. You recoil in surprise, because he has never spoken to you like this, unlike the boy you know and love.

“Why are you getting so mad?” You ask him, hurt.

“It’s just that we tell each other everything, and this is pretty big.” Jisung crosses his arms stubbornly. “Unless you didn’t want me to know.”

Your skin prickles with a strange feeling, because while you two have bickered over stupid things in the past, it wasn’t anything serious like the look on Jisung’s face now. “What’s your problem, Jisung? What did I do to you?”

Your voice is raised, and boys instantly sense the tension in the air, stepping in to mediate. Chan, the eldest in the group, places a hand on Jisung’s shoulder, mutely imploring him to stay calm. Hyunjin, however, gets defensive on your behalf.

“Why should she have to tell you? Calm down,” Hyunjin says, frowning at Jisung.

“It’s okay, Hyunjin. We should get going.” Without waiting for an answer from the others, you grasp Jisung’s hand and pull him with you, while he comes along without saying anything at all.

The walk back to your apartment, which is seven minutes long from campus, is filled with an uneasy silence, a dreadful change from the playfulness earlier in the day. The air is charged, full of everything you both want to say to each other, but nevertheless, you keep your mouth closed. More than anything, you’re confused.

It’s been a long time since either of you were with anyone romantically, so maybe it is surprising to Jisung that you randomly asked Soobin out. However, you don’t understand his anger, especially because Jisung has always supported you in your dating life, even setting you up sometimes with people he knew. But you don’t think the problem is the fact that it is Soobin either, because Soobin is one of the most beloved people on campus due to his sweet personality. You don’t know what’s wrong, and that’s what bothers you the most.

Neither of you speak even when you reach your neighborhood, a suburban oasis in a big city. When there’s good weather, you and Jisung love to come outside and either take long walks around the block or pack picnics to share on the perpetually green lawn in front of your apartment building. Today, you head straight up to your flat, an indifferent pair of strangers standing in the elevator.

After unlocking the door to your apartment, you finally decide to break the silence, turning to look at Jisung, who trails a few feet behind you. “I’ll be in my room, studying.”

You want him to say something, anything, but he just nods, keeping his eyes trained on the grey hardwood flooring. Sighing, you pad across the apartment and enter your room, shutting the door you always keep open.

You and Jisung had signed a lease on your place last year, partially because you couldn’t afford off-campus housing on your own, but also because you couldn’t imagine a better roommate than him. People made plenty of comments about how you both— two people of the opposite gender— renting an apartment together would be a recipe for disaster.

While Jisung had assured you that everything would be alright, the weeks leading up to move-in day were filled with apprehension for you. But unlike what he believed, it wasn’t because of what others said. The thought of you and Jisung living together made you worry if proximity could potentially make it easier for him to realize your feelings for him.

However, when the big day rolled in, you couldn’t remember any of your fears as you and Jisung sat in your new apartment, leaned against a pile of half-opened luggage. Exhausted from dealing with delayed furniture shipments and sorting through the endless boxes of belongings, both of you had given up. Resolving to lay on the barren floor and play Go-Fish, you both laughed for hours about the annoyed look on the grumpy mover’s face when Jisung kept asking him questions. Before Jisung subsequently fell asleep on your lap, he promised you that you both would make a lot of good memories here. And you did.

Last Christmas, you both spent it together, huddled on the couch while gossiping and drinking hot chocolate, because both of your flights got canceled due to snow. Then there was the time Jisung forced you to stay awake with him all night because he was scared after watching some bad slasher film, but you told him Disney bedtime stories that eventually made his fear go away.

You can’t help but feel a small pang thinking of whenever he brings you strawberry shortcake from the bakery you like, or all of the times he spam calls you when you’re out late and haven’t informed him. You’ve never fought with Jisung like this, not without him immediately coming after you and begging you to forgive him, even if he wasn’t in the wrong. Being distant with Jisung is a new feeling, and you don’t get how you could ever accomplish that with your best friend in the whole world.

Shaking off your incessant thoughts about Jisung, you turn on your computer, hunching over on your desk in the artificial glow of the screen. You still have a few chapters of reading to get through, and then you have to solve ten long practice problem sets for Chemistry. For now, you’ll have to put off the deliberations that pull at you.

“Y/N.”

You feel someone shaking you awake, gentle hands coaxing you out of an uneasy nap. You lift your head from where it rests on your arms, blearily looking up from where you are slumped over your desk. Your laptop has fallen asleep, the dim glow of your lamp lighting up the room instead. And the blaring, unwelcome red of your digital clock signals an unfortunate time well past twelve. Rubbing your eyes, you finally notice Jisung hovering beside you hesitantly.

“I thought you’d want me to wake you up,” Jisung says, his hands shoved into the pockets of his pajama pants. “I’m sorry.”

He’s wearing a black sweatshirt with the hood pulled up snugly over his head, a few soft pieces of hair messily sticking out from underneath. He looks so cute you want to hug him, but then you remember the events that transpired before you accidentally fell asleep.

“It’s okay. I need to finish working, thanks,” you say dully, both tired from studying and being stuck in this bad day with Jisung.

He shakes his head. “No, I mean, I’m sorry for earlier. At the coffee shop.”

You bite your lip, melting at the regret and sadness in his eyes. Your best friend misses you too. “Can we talk?”

Jisung stays quiet before speaking, and you swear he can probably hear your anticipating heartbeat filling the room. “Are you hungry? We didn’t have dinner.”

He doesn’t answer your question, but you still fold at the thought of how he didn’t eat without you. “Yeah, I am hungry.”

“I’ll make us something.” He turns and heads into the kitchen, and after a second thought, you hurry after him.

Jisung takes off his hood and brings out a metal pot out of one of the cupboards. You watch as he rummages hastily through the fridge, before he shuts it with empty hands. He turns to you with a sheepish look on his face. “So we don’t actually have any food.”

Realization passes between the both of you: in the past few weeks, you both were so immersed in your preparation for your exams that you had completely neglected buying groceries, opting instead for easy pre-cooked meals or food deliveries. Your stomach rumbles loudly, and you rub it, embarrassed, but at least it breaks the tension, as Jisung snorts, an amused look on his face.

“We could go to the store and get something,” he suggests, from where he stands behind the kitchen island.

He fidgets nervously, a reminder of how any other time, you would have jumped at the opportunity to ditch your books and buy cheap junk food with Jisung. But now? You don’t want to go out. You want to stay here, you want to talk to your best friend, you want things to go back to how they were before your fight with Jisung. And yet, you nod your head in agreement, grabbing your apartment keys and wallet from the counter before following Jisung out of the apartment.

The hallways of the building are tainted a vivid yellow from the incandescent lighting, a sharp contrast to the gloomy night outside. The moon is high up in the sky, shrouding the sleepy apartment complex in a silvery glow. There’s no one outside except for a homeless man dozing on one of the benches lining the walkways. But the distant city lights tell you that not everyone slumbers, that outside of your bubble, people have their own lives and stories. The only story that matters to you, however, is the one with the beautiful boy who walks beside you, his step heavy and eyes downcast.

In a matter of wordless minutes, you and Jisung have arrived at your go-to place for midnight runs, a sketchy little convenience store peeking out from behind a cluster of drab office buildings. The neon lighting of the store glows in the dark and reflects in the pools of water left by a mild rain that had graced the land while you were sleeping.

Jisung quickly walks ahead of you and opens the door for you, a blast of air conditioning granting you solace from the humidity. The familiar sight of the plentiful arrays of colorful aisles and the broken fan hopelessly creaking by the entrance pulls you in. You scour the shelves of mouthwatering foodstuffs, before settling in front of one of the sections.

“I don’t know if it’s a noodles or sandwich kind of night,” you wonder out loud, picking up a pack of ramen. You don’t notice Jisung standing behind you, as you assume he’s already zeroed in on the ice cream freezer like he always does.

“Definitely ramen.”

You jump, hugging the packet to your chest as if it would protect you from the perpetrator. Jisung innocently watches you, a small smile playing upon his lips. He holds two wrapped popsicles in his hands, one melon-flavored and one mango-flavored, and stretches the latter out to you. You accept it, returning his smile, and it feels like things are normal again. You know you should bring up what lies unspoken between you two, but you want to preserve this moment for now.

Jisung selects ramen for himself as well, and you both go to the front counter to check-out, failing to exchange any more words as you both just continue to enjoy the calm. After, you both quickly exit the shop and start jogging in synchronization, remembering that a pile of work still awaits you. When you board the bridge that connects the rest of the city to the way back to your apartment, Jisung doubles over, panting.

You decide to take a break, walking over to the edge and drinking in the view. The blurred lights of the magnificent skyscrapers illuminate the midnight sky like lightning, and the river in front of you is littered with cargo ships peacefully gliding along on their separate journeys. You lean against the railing, closing your eyes and letting the wind ruffle your hair. Jisung comes up behind you once more, but when he speaks this time, it’s less of a surprise and more of a comfort.

“Everything is changing,” he says, resting his hands on the railing as well. “I’m scared.”

You open your eyes, turning to face Jisung. His eyes are filled with tears, and your heart reaches out for him. You tightly grasp his hand, trying to convey everything you can’t say to him.

“Talk to me. Please.”

“I’m not ready for all of this. Graduation’s getting closer, and I know you’re excited but… I don’t know, I still feel kind of stuck.” Jisung’s gaze fixates on one of the boats below. “Every time I type out a line of code, I want to smash my keyboard into bits. Every goddamn time.”

His words are strong, but his voice is rough with emotion.

“Jisung, don’t do this if it’s not what you want.”

“We’re literally graduating in a month, Y/N.” Jisung lets out a disbelieving sound. “But that’s not even a concern, because my grad school actually offers a joint program on computers and audio design for engineering students who want to go into music production. But I couldn’t do that, because you barely get paid unless you make it big.”

You frown, setting down the plastic cover of your food. “Well, why not? If anyone could break out, it’s you.”

Jisung shrugs, shaking his head. “I can’t take that risk. Just plain old computer science is the way to go.”

You stay quiet for a second, keenly observing his despairing expression. “Your mom would want you to be happy, Hannie.”

“I could be happy, maybe, one day. But not right now.” Jisung runs a hand through his hair, not meeting your eyes. “You’re moving away next year for your PhD, and I’ll still be stuck here, in a place where you aren’t there.”

“I’m only two hours away. You can get away from campus and visit all the time. We’ll be like the Kardashians taking on a new city!” You crack a watery smile.

Jisung sniffles sadly, and your heart sinks, because you failed to make him happy. Again. But then he looks up at you, a glimmer of humor in his eyes. “Only if I get to be Kourtney.”

You laugh, shoving him in the arm. “Fine.”

And then you both say nothing again, just gazing out at the world beyond this bridge and instant.

“What happened today?” You break the silence— questioning, not accusing.

Jisung groans. “It’s… look, I know we’ve both dated before, but none of them were it. And maybe you never felt that way, but I know for a fact that none of the guys you dated were right for you.”

“Jisung—” you start, but he interrupts you.

“And we’re graduating soon. So I thought you’d realize it by now.” Jisung taps his foot like he always does when he’s nervous, and your pulse quickens at his halting words.

“Realize what?” You ask him softly, trying not to come to any conclusions but betrayed by the treacherous beat of your heart.

The tips of Jisung’s ears turn red. “I- I need you to not say anything. Because I need to say something. And if you don’t like what I say, then I’ll walk away and we can forget everything that transpired here. Okay?”

You maintain your serious expression, although you want to swoon at his adorably flustered state. “Okay.”

Jisung is about to finally reveal what has gotten him so worked up, but then he sighs in frustration, shaking his head. “No. I can’t do this with you looking at me. Can you please turn around? Please?”

Hiding a smile, you oblige him and face the other way. “Okay. I can’t see you now.”

You hear Jisung take a deep breath.

“I’m never going to get this right. Y/N, I like you. And I mean like-like you. Like, romantically. Everything about you, I like. Even your disgusting food combinations, I like. Your smile? Oh god. Don’t go on a date with Soobin. Go with me. I like you.”

Even though the past few minutes manifested Jisung’s declaration, you still whirl around, shocked. “Say what?”

Jisung rolls his eyes. “Seriously? I pour myself out to you and you need me to repeat it? You’re really something, Y/N.”

You smirk, stepping closer and looping your arms around Jisung’s neck. You take in how Jisung’s eyes have widened and how his lips are parted at such an intimate gesture from you, wondering if this is how it feels in the movies, when the heroine finally gets the boy she’s been loving from a distance for so long.

You look up at Jisung, and your heart has never felt so happy. “I guess this is my time to be vulnerable too. I don’t just like-like you, Jisung. I love you.”

It’s Jisung’s turn to be surprised. “Wait, really?”

“Yeah. For a very long time.”

He smiles bashfully, his elation at your own confession evident. “I love you too.”

Jisung tilts his head to his right, as you do the same, almost about to close the miniscule space between you both. And then he pulls away.

You watch Jisung, confused, as he covers his face with his palms, shyly giggling. “I’m sorry, it’s just that I dreamed of this for so long. Can you give me a second?”

Never able to get enough of his antics, you watch as he pulls a stick of chapstick out of his pocket and swipes it on. He dabs his lips carefully before turning back to you.

“Now where were we?”

Before you can even say anything, he’s closed that gap. His lips are soft and sweet, the taste of cherry and vanilla chapstick lingering. You close your eyes and melt into the kiss as Jisung brings up his hands to cradle your face. The sweet scent of him clouds your senses and washes away your inhibitions, and there’s nothing besides you both in this moment. He kisses you like there’s no tomorrow, no exams, no school or anyone else. He kisses you not like a friend, but a lover that he’s yearned for, which certainly wouldn’t be a lie.

You can’t believe that you’ve been pining after Jisung for the mere duration of your college years. It feels like you’ve waited your whole life for this. The murky puddles of water around you and the pungent stench of a nearby dumpster are nowhere near romantic, but with the way you’re kissing Jisung, you might as well be in heaven.

If you dare to predict the future, you’ll have the rest of your life to look forward to moments like this, miss him even when he’s laying in your arms, love him when you both slow dance in the refrigerator light at midnight. And because you’re two broke peas in a pod, you both will definitely conduct more fake proposals with each other when you go out to eat. Hopefully before the real deal. You’ll just have to see who pops the question first.

“Wow,” Jisung breathes against your lips. “My dreams have not done this moment any justice.”

You chuckle, leaning in for another kiss. “Mine too.”

But Jisung dodges your lips, making you scoff as he raises his eyebrows at you. “And what are you going to be doing about Soobin?”

“You should be nicer. Poor Soobin. I wouldn’t have to let him down now if you’d just told me all of this earlier,” you scold Jisung lightly, cupping his chin.

He pouts, swatting at your arms with the oversize sleeves of his hoodie. “Never mind. Let’s stop talking about him.”

You roll your eyes playfully and wrap your arms around his waist, pulling him closer. You’re sure that the lovesick look on Jisung’s face mirrors your own. He may not be perfect, but he’s perfect for you. Your best friend in the whole world. And whatever the future holds, that will never change.

“I love you, Hannie. Love you so much,” you whisper, pressing another soft kiss to his lips. You’ll never, ever get tired of kissing him.

Jisung smiles down at you lovingly, slipping off his hoodie to put it on you, noticing the way you shiver. But you’re not really that cold; it's the way he’s looking at you right now. Not that you’d tell him that. “Let’s go.”

“Where?” You ask, still in a dreamy daze. This day has turned out to be better than any other you’ve ever had. Everything was worth it.

“Home.”

Check out the rest of boys' stories on Love Playlist!

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©jisungsdaydreamer 2023 | All rights reserved. I do not condone translations or transfers of my work onto other platforms such as Wattpad, AO3, etc. Tumblr is my only platform. Acts of plagiarism are strictly prohibited.

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risuola · 4 months

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This one is a little review, a recap if you will, because I think it's important to sometimes just sit and appreciate your own achievements. It's that time of the year when something's ending and something's beginning. I think the best way to start a new year is to look back a little, so... let's do it!

Inspiration for this post came from this post by @vagabond-umlaut - it's a self-appreciation post. I really love the idea of sharing the favorite pieces I wrote with you and I indulge everyone interested to do a little recap of your work yourself so see how far you've come! 🩷

Let's begin with a little summary, shall we?

▷ I joined tumblr around 10 years ago, but it's that year, 2023, when I posted my first work in here. Before I was just a reader. Can you believe it? Ten years I didn't post a single thing in here!

▷ I published my first fic on 31st april. It was short and filthy, can you guess what is it? You cryin', with our beloved Satoru Gojo. Fun fact is, that up until that day it's still my most liked piece. So many of you loved it, so many saved and interacted. It was a blast to know that my writing is enjoyed. Without your love towards it, I'm not sure if I would be posting still. It really encouraged me to share more.

▷ Since my first post, I published 49 pieces. I created 2 series (Politically Loveless, starring Tobirama Senju & Deadly Attraction, starring Sukuna Ryomen) and wrote for two anime series (JJK + Naruto)

▷ Just in these few months I hosted two events - the filthy Kinktober and the sweet Kissmas

▷ That year I mostly explored the angsty territory, I wrote some smut and fluffs as well. I wrote short and long, sweet and sad. I learned so much while writing, I'm not a native english speaker and through creating the pieces, I taught myself so many new language bits.

Now, let's get to my favorites!

🩵 You cryin'? — starring Satoru Gojo (smut)

This one will forever hold a special place in my heart. It was short and straight to the point, purely inspired by the amazing JJK dub and the iconic line that melted the entire me. It's smut, nothing else, little to no plot, and yet I just love it.

🩵 Lost cause — starring Satoru Gojo & Suguru Geto (heavy angst)

It was a request by one of you, my readers. An exploration of an alternative universe where Suguru doesn't go the death path and instead, the way is chosen by their close friend. It follows the manga plot and I touched the topic of dea*h in here. An emotional rollercoaster that I really loved writing and you all seemed to like it too. A second part to it might come someday.

🩵 Catoru — starring Satoru Gojo & Suguru Geto (fluff)

Pure fluff. Testing of waters, if you will. It gently introduced you all to the universe that I'm creating in my head for a long time. I'm really weak for SatoSugu, what can I say?

🩵 Say my name — starring Satoru Gojo (smut)

This one... damn, I wrote it and still I read it myself few times. I just like this piece so much, I like how it flows, I love the way plot goes over the doubt and fear, leading into the outburst of lust and desire. This piece opened the first event I ever hosted, a kinktober 2023 and I don't think I'll ever get over this Gojo.

🩵 Strangers — starring Suguru Geto (angst)

Inspired by the song I was really into at the time. I like the flow of it and the heavy atmosphere of something precious burning out in front of the reader's eyes.

🩵 Face massage — starring Sukuna Ryomen (fluff)

I love fluffy Sukuna. I really do. It's one of my favorite things to write and I have a characterisation of him in my head that I really love to show you all. You seem to like it! I have a request in my ask-box to create a part two to this one and it's in wips for so long now. I might need to finish it.

🩵 Not yet — starring Sukuna Ryomen (smut)

This one! I explored the mafia boss Sukuna through this piece, yet again inspired by the amazing line he said. Mada... mada mada~ the menace! And you guys loved it so, so much. So much, in fact, that it turned out into a series >> Deadly attraction and I'll be forever grateful because it shows that you really enjoy my babbling.

🩵 I don't need a mistletoe to kiss you — starring Sukuna Ryomen (suggestive fluff)

A fluffy Sukuna yet again. What can I say? I love putting him in awkward situations. Kissmas entry.

🩵 Breathe through your nose — starring Choso Kamo (smut)

The introduction of Choso into my blog. My emo boy, my depressed pookie... This was a part of kinktober 2023 as well.

🩵 Thank you, mom — starring Megumi Fushiguro (fluff)

It's self-indulgent, really. I just love the thought of giving this boy parents.

🩵 Wine stains — starring Nanami Kento (angst + smut)

It's angsty, just how I like it. And it revolves around Nanami. That's enough for me to love this piece.

That's it!

These are my favorite works from this year and I'm looking forward to see if I make it till the end of the next one!

Now, a little fun fact! There is a little fight between two of my fics that I find funny, considering what a happened in the jjk manga this year.

You cryin' vs Not yet. Satoru vs. Sukuna. Ever since I began posting, Satoru's little fic was my most liked, most reblogged, most loved piece and now, Sukuna is that close from beating the numbers! I watch it with my breath hitching, the emotions are real!

Some of my favorite people in here:

▷ During these few months of my writing, I got few mutuals. I really, really love their creations and turned out, they like mine too, so I'm especially thankful to @chuluoyi, @ponderingmoonlight, @staryukis & @poe-daydreams

▷ Through tumblr I also discovered so many talented people! @gojos-thot-patrol - an amazing writer of smutty materials, perfect usage of musical knowledge in writing, @tender-rosiey - an absolute queen of fluffs, @osaemu - such a great humor and an amazing writing style (the serial killer Gojo? oof), @awearywritersworld - the Men are so quick to blame the gods series with Sukuna... damn, I've read it three times already - here we have an amazing usage of literature!, mentioned before @chuluoyi - the Married on purpose fic lives in my head rent free

▷ and artists! @3-aem (the most gorgeous Satoru that ever existed), @wacuoms (the beauty and the aesthetics of it is just otherworldly), @lightningstrikes-art (the jjk cubs!) @ipostmysimpingstuffanonymously (the SatoSho arts that make me feel things), @innaillus (the ceo of making me cry and not from my eyes), @polariae (also... screaming), @diosaurr (Geto in this artstyle is my beloved babygirl), @to00fu (just love it. SatoSugu arts, the female versions... awww) and @blackwhitefeatherart (damn, the art style... chef's kiss)

And lastly... to anyone who supported my fics, who read it and left a heart, reblogged or commented - thank you so, so, so much. To anyone who sent me a message through ask box, to anyone who left any kind of mark behind themselves on my blog. More than 2000 people joined me in here, thank you to every single one of you. I'm forever grateful and I really hope you will enjoy the time with me for the future 🖤🥰

xo's — Risu

#risupost #risurecs #sorry to everyone mentioned for the random notification! <3 #2023 recap #jjk x you #jujutsu kaisen x you #gojo x you #sukuna x you #geto x you #nanami x you

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osharenippon · 5 months

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Shoujo Manga’s Golden Decade (Part 1)

Shoujo manga, comics for girls, played a pivotal role in shaping Japanese girls' culture, and its dynamic evolution mirrors the prevailing trends and aspirations of the era. For many, this genre peaked in the 1970s. But why?

Manga stands as one of Japan's primary cultural exports, deeply ingrained in the local culture and enjoyed by individuals of all ages and genders across various genres. Conventionally, manga is divided into two editorial segments: shonen (targeted at boys) and shoujo (targeted at girls). While shonen manga, propelled by hits like "Dragon Ball," "Slam Dunk," "Naruto," and "One Piece," has achieved global popularity, girls' comics, with their own international sensations such as "Sailor Moon," hold a crucial position in the market. The evolving landscape of girls' manga serves as a fascinating lens through which to observe the shifting fashionable aspirations and beauty ideals within Japanese society.

Shoujo manga has a rich history, dating back to the early 20th century. However, it truly gained recognition in its modern form in the late '50s and early '60s when prominent Japanese publishers introduced shoujo manga anthologies such as Kodansha's Nakayoshi and Shoujo Friend, as well as Shueisha's Ribon and Margaret. The acclaimed "godfather of manga," Osamu Tezuka, is often credited with creating the first modern shoujo, "The Princess Knight," in 1954, and the first shonen, "Astro Boy," in 1952.

A distinguishing feature of shoujo manga is that it is created by and for girls. But, in the '50s, this wasn't the case, and male artists dominated the shoujo field, which was considered an entryway to the manga business. By the 1960s, that would change as publishers recognized that women creators possessed a unique proficiency in crafting narratives centered around female experiences. Female manga-kas resonated with readers in a way that many male artists couldn't, marking a crucial shift in the landscape of shoujo manga.

The Volleyball Craze

A notable display of how shoujo could mirror societal trends unfolded in the '60s. In 1964, the Tokyo Olympics marked a new beginning for post-war Japan, and the female volleyball team, known as Toyo no Majou (the Oriental Witches), achieved stardom by clinching victory in the finals against the Soviet Republic. This triumph triggered a nationwide "volleyball boom," resonating particularly within the shoujo manga realm.

Shueisha's Ribon, historically the leader in the shoujo manga field, started publication in 1955. Still, the editorial house would only begin to make its series available in standalone tankobon format almost 15 years later through the now iconic Ribon Mascot Comics imprint. The first series to be made available by the imprint was Chikako Ide's "Viva Volleyball."

Simultaneously, over at Kodansha, Shoujo Friend was also eager to capitalize on the boom. Editors commissioned a title about the sport from illustrator Akira Mochizuki and novelist Shiro Jimbo. The final project, "Sign wa V," became a multimedia success, being quickly adapted into a live-action TV drama that achieved very high ratings.

While "Viva! Volleyball" and "Sign wa V" enjoyed success in their time, they did not etch themselves into the collective memory. The true shoujo sports manga blockbuster, a cross-generational classic universally known in Japan, is Chikako Urano's "Attack No. 1," serialized from 1968 to 1970 in Weekly Margaret.

It became the first shoujo manga title to surpass ten tankobon volumes (it had a total of 12 volumes), and it was forever immortalized thanks to its 1970 anime adaptation, which reached huge ratings on Japanese TV. Everything about "Attack No. 1" -- from the original manga to the cartoon adaptation to the anime's theme song, which sold over 700k copies as a single -- was a success.

The story of a high school girl trying to become the best player in her school, in Japan, and, eventually, in the world became a phenomenon setting the stage for the '70s "golden era of shoujo."

The Shoujo Lost Years

Until the '70s, manga carried the stigma of being a guilty pleasure, often viewed as a "poison" meant to dumb down young readers. Despite a few discerning individuals recognizing the medium's potential, manga critics, enthusiasts, and tastemakers — predominantly men — largely disregarded female-centric comics. Shoujo manga, despite its immense popularity, faced the harshest criticism.

Because society and critics downplayed shoujo, influential shoujo manga-kas from the '50s and '60s, such as Hideko Mizuno, do not enjoy the same level of recognition as their shonen counterparts from that era.

Hideko Mizuno and a page of one of her most celebrated works, "Fire."

Mizuno was one of the first women to create manga, worked as an assistant to Osamu Tezuka, and was behind several massive hits that had a significant impact on women in the '50s, '60s, and '70s. In fact, the most iconic shoujo manga-kas from the '70s golden period directly mention her as an influence. She fought to include romance -- now the essential element in girls' manga -- in her works back when such topics were deemed inappropriate by male editors.

Mizuno's repertoire was vast: she wrote mangas about little girls and their poneys, magic adventures, and romcoms based on Audrey Hepburn's movies, and she drew the first sex scene in a shoujo manga. The manga in question was "Fire," a teen-targeted manga featuring a rebellious American rocker, which broke new ground by having a male character as its focal point. Alongside other notable female artists from the '60s, Mizuno laid the groundwork for the '70s shoujo explosion, during which girls' comics took center stage.

In 1960's "Hoshi no Tategoto" (left,) Hideko Mizuno created the first shoujo love story. Serialized in Weekly Margaret between 1964 and 65, "Shiroi Troika," set during the Russian Revolution, was the first historical shoujo manga.

A contributing factor to this "golden period" was the emergence of several shoujo mangas as unstoppable hits, selling millions of copies and becoming cultural phenomena. These titles, considered masterpieces, continue to be read and known by multiple generations.

The BeruBara Boom

"Attack No. 1"'s success spread far and wide, forcing Japanese society to take note of the potential of the shoujo segment. Right after this historic success, Shueisha's Weekly Margaret hit the jackpot once again with another epoch-defining manga hit, Ryoko Ikeda's "The Rose of Versailles," which debuted in 1972. Set in the years preceding and during the French Revolution, it weaved together historical figures like Marie Antoinette and fictional ones, like the iconic Lady Oscar, a handsome noblewoman raised as a boy to succeed her father as the commander of the Royal Guard at the Palace of Versailles.

The first volume of the original comic had Marie Antoinette on the cover as Margaret's editors believed she'd be the favorite character. However, the androgynous Lady Oscar turned into a fan fave and the absolute star of the series, which is reflected on the cover of most rereleases since then, including the 2013 bunko version seen above.

When talking about shoujo manga classics from the '70s recognized by literally everyone in Japan, "Rose of Versailles" is probably the first name that comes to mind. It was a hit that really defined the era and impacted the country as a whole. While Marie Antoinette is seen around the world as a tragic, out-of-touch figure, in Japan, many women and girls see her as an aspirational historical fashion icon. While Sofia Coppola's 2006 film "Marie Antoinette" solidified this among younger generations, it was Ikeda's gentle portrait that made her a character loved by so many across all age groups.

When conceptualizing the story, Ikeda was heavily inspired by Stefan Zweig's "Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman," which she read while in high school. Once in college, in the late '60s, she, like millions of others, was heavily involved with the Marxist student movements. These references led to a historical romance that touched on heavy and revolutionary themes, which was atypical for a shoujo manga, a segment that, back then, was primarily catered to elementary school-aged girls.

Because of its unorthodox concept, Margaret's editors were unsure about the series. But right from the start, "BeruBara" (derived from the original Japanese title, "Berusaiyu no Bara"), serialized between 1972 and 1973, was an explosive hit, quickly turning into Weekly Margaret's most popular series. It was compiled in 10 tankobon volumes published, which sold tens of millions of copies.

In 1974, after the original manga had finished its serialization, Takarazuka Revue, an all-female theatrical troupe, announced a stage adaptation of the story.

Posters of the first three Takarazuka adaptations, from between 1974 and 1975. Since then, the Revue has adapted the manga 11 times, with a new run scheduled for 2024.

The Revue was established in 1913 by the owner of Kansai's leading railway company, Hankyu, to boost tourism to the city of Takarazuka, his line's last stop. It was a huge success, and soon, the group had its own luxurious theater as well as its very exclusive academy where young ladies underwent an arduous audition process to become Takaraziennes. In 1934, a second Takarazuka theater opened in Tokyo.

However, in the early 1970s, Takarazuka faced stagnation, with declining ticket sales attributed to the growing popularity of alternative entertainment forms such as cinema and television.

In 1973, Shinji Ueda, who had risen through the Takarazuka ranks as a director, made his debut as a playwriter in the company with a musical based on ancient Japanese history. While thinking about his next project, he decided to check out a manga popular with some Takarazuka fans, "Rose of Versailles," and he quickly realized it was the perfect theme for an adaptation. Lady Oscar, who had lady-like features but was also as handsome as a man, was the embodiment of the male role-playing Takaraziennes. Ueda reached out to Ryoko Ikeda, who, as an admirer of the troupe, quickly granted the rights.

But Ikeda and Ueda's excitement wasn't shared by many. Most of the Takarazuka team were skeptical about a play inspired by something as vulgar as a manga. Fans of the original were also highly protective of its characters and entirely against a live adaptation.

Amid this climate of distrust, the play opened at the end of August 1974 at the Takarazuka Grand Theater. The reaction after the first night was extremely positive. Soon, Takarazuka's "Rose of Versailles" was the hottest ticket in all of Japan, with the press breathlessly covering the "BeruBara boom" that led thousands of people to stand hours in line to get tickets to the coveted performances in Kansai and Tokyo. Ikeda herself was shocked by the media phenomenon when she returned from an overseas trip and had hundreds of reporters awaiting her at the airport.

A statue of Lady Oscar and Andre surrounded by rose bushes sits outside the Takarazuka Grand Theater in Hyogo, Japan.

The "BeruBara" phenomenon single-handedly reversed Takarazuka's fortunes, leading to record-shattering ticket sales for the company. The Takarazuka Academy, which had seen declining applicants, suddenly became highly sought-after again, originating the saying "Todai in the East, Takarazuka in the West," comparing it to Tokyo University, the most prestigious university in Japan. The phrase underscored the desirability and prestige associated with a position at the troupe.

Ultimately, the success of "The Rose of Versailles" propelled Takarazuka back to the pinnacle of the entertainment industry, a position it maintains to this day. The brand continues to hold great esteem among women of all ages in Japan, with Takarazuka's stage adaptations, derived from Broadway musicals, movies, novels, and shoujo manga, consistently selling out. Notably, various adaptations of "BeruBara" have collectively sold over 5 million tickets since 1974.

Following the manga and Takarazuka adaptation's explosive success, the anime debuted in 1979. While the anime received acclaim, Ikeda herself was not entirely satisfied, mainly due to the treatment of her favorite character, Andre, who played a significant role in the manga but had a minor presence in the animated version, which focused almost entirely on the manga's most popular character, Lady Oscar.

In 2013, celebrating Margaret's 50th anniversary, new special chapters of "BeruBara" were published. The first new story in 40 years resulted in Margaret magazine selling out across the country.

"BeruBara" remains a prominent franchise in Japan, spawning numerous licensed products, sequels, and spin-offs. Ryoko Ikeda, known for other successful series, continues to garner widespread respect and media attention. However, while almost everything related to "The Rose of Versailles" turned into a hit, there was an exception.

In March 1979, a few months before the anime premiere, a live-action film adaptation debuted with great fanfare. Fittingly for such a hot property, the movie was one of the most ambitious productions in Japanese cinema, with a substantial 1 billion yen budget.

The Palace of Versailles granted permission to shoot in its interior. The film was filmed in English, with a European cast. The project was helmed by France's hottest movie director, Jacques Demy. Demy wasn't respected only in the West but also in Japan, where his two most important films, "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" (1964) and "The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967)," were also hits. In fact, to this day, both flicks remain popular among trend-conscious Japanese as examples of stylish oshare movies that fully capture aspirational girls' culture (alongside, among others, Sofia Coppola's "Marie Antoinette"). Demy, the mind behind dreamy, girly movies, seemed like the perfect choice to turn this blockbuster shoujo classic into a live-action film.

The movie had the backing of three gigantic domestic corporations: Toho, the leading Japanese movie distributor; Nihon Terebi (NTV), one of the main TV stations; and cosmetic giant Shiseido. NTV and Shiseido made sure the movie had one of the most extensive marketing campaigns Japan had ever witnessed. The TV station aired specials and segments on this grand production. Meanwhile, Shiseido made the star of the movie -- British actress Catriona McCall, who played Oscar -- the face of its spring campaign, promoting its new Red Rose lipstick. Catriona was plastered on billboards across the country, made media and department store appearances, and starred in luxurious TV spots.

On the left, Lady Oscar and Marie Antoinette adorn the cover of Margaret in 2016, over 40 years after the end of the original serialization. On the right, Oscar models Dolce & Gabanna new collection for high-end fashion magazine Spur in 2014, celebrating 40 years of the conclusion of the original manga.

Back then, Kanebo, the second biggest local cosmetic company, was in fierce competition with Shiseido. TV ads from both companies had a tremendous impact, propelling singles to the top of the charts, and there was a battle on which commercial would feature the biggest hit. But, in the spring of 79, the focus of the fight changed. As a response to the Catriona "Rose of Versailles" campaign, Kanebo also hired a British beauty, actress Olivia Hussey, and launched a "Super Rose lipstick" with the tagline "You are more beautiful than a rose." The cosmetics war was another proof of the chokehold "The Rose of Versailles" had in the decade.

But, when the movie finally premiered, it was a flop. Critics hated it. Japanese fans thought the adaptation was weak and lacked impact. Catriona, in particular, was very criticized for not conveying Oscar's androgynous charm, which perfectly balanced masculinity and femininity. With the well-received anime premiering just a few months later, the expensive movie adaptation ended up being outshined and forgotten. It became only a costly footnote in its history.

An exhibition in Tokyo celebrates 50 years of BeruBara in 2022.

(It's worth noting that Kanebo clearly won the CM war. The "You Are More Beautiful than a Rose" song they commissioned from singer Akira Fuse became a considerable hit).

Movie aside, "The Rose of Versailles" is one of Japan's most beloved comics. From its debut in 1971 to its film and anime adaptation in 1979, it remained front and center in the country's mind throughout the whole decade. Its impact was felt in different fields, from the cosmetic business to the publishing business, from live theater to TV. It also forever changed how shoujo manga was perceived and remains one of the country's most beloved properties.

Ace-Scoring Manga

The 1970s marked a turning point for shoujo manga, as it began to gain recognition beyond its traditional audience, propelled not just by critical acclaim but by commercial success. The era witnessed the emergence of several blockbusters that captured the public's imagination. Notable among them were Yoko Shoji's "Seito Shokun," a tale centered on the daily exploits of a mischievous high-schooler, and Waki Yamato's "Haikara-san ga Toru," a love story set in the Meiji period featuring a tomboy with a lady-like demeanor. These manga were significant hits during their publication in Shoujo Friends, becoming best-selling titles.

Some shoujo classics from the '70s are still in publication today, appealing to a diverse readership spanning multiple generations. Suzue Michi's "Glass Mask," serialized in Hana to Yume since 1976, remains a cultural phenomenon with 49 tankobon volumes, over 55 million copies sold, an anime adaptation, a live-action drama, and a stage play. Similarly, Chieko Hosokawa's "Crest of the Royal Family," chronicling the adventures of a young American girl transported to ancient Egypt, has been a consistent presence in Princess magazine since 1976, boasting 69 volumes and over 45 million copies sold to date.

But, when talking about definitive shoujo classics from the '70s, titles that were historical successes, influenced everything going forward, and are known by everyone, three titles come to mind. We already explored one of these, "The Rose of Versailles." One of the other three is "Ace wo Nerae."

Following the monumental success of "Attack No. 1," the prospects of another shoujo sports manga achieving similar heights of popularity seemed improbable. However, Weekly Margaret defied expectations once more in 1973 with the release of Suzumika Yamamoto's "Ace wo Nerae" ("Aim for the Ace"), a compelling narrative focused on tennis that swiftly captured the nation's attention.

Japan and tennis already had some prior history. The first Japanese Olympic medalist was a tennis player, Ichy Kumagae, in 1920. Emperor Akihito met his commoner wife, Michiko, at a tennis match, and they initially bonded over their love for the sport. But, in the 70s, the country was taken over by an unprecedented tennis boom. At high schools across the nation, tennis became the most popular after-school activity. Fashion magazines like JJ and Popeye dedicated pages and pages to "tennis fashion." At the same time, trendy young adults decked in clothes from sports brands populated Shibuya and other stylish districts in Tokyo.

There were several contributors to the tennis boom. But the remarkable success of "Ace wo Nerae," which first conquered girls before dominating the nation, played a part in it.

The manga follows the journey of Hiromi Oka, a high school student initially plagued by insecurities but propelled into the world of tennis through the encouragement of her coach. "Ace wo Nerae" portrays her growth from a hesitant newcomer to a world-class tennis player, navigating challenges and discovering hidden potential along the way.

From left to right: Madame Butterfly, lead character Hiromi Oka and coach Jin Murakata as depicted in the anime. Madame Butterfly, a rich wealthy student who was gentle and a world-class tennis player, is a fan favorite character.

In 1973, "Ace wo Nerae" was adapted into an anime. Despite initial modest ratings, the anime gained popularity through reruns. Encouraged by this, NTV decided to remake the cartoon. The second adaptation, which debuted in 1978, was an immediate hit. Concurrently, Weekly Margaret revived the manga series, which, after being first finalized in 1975, ran again from 1978 to 1980, spanning a total of 18 volumes.

Since "Ace wo Nerae," several hit mangas focused on tennis -- both shoujo and shonen -- were published. But, thanks to the success of its anime and the intragenerational support for the manga, the original work by Suzumika Yamamoto is still considered one of the defining and most beloved works about the sport. Its role in propelling tennis culture as part of the oshare youth culture of the '70s also defines its impact.

Japan Wants Candy

Following the monumental multimedia success of "The Rose of Versailles" and "Ace wo Nerae," the third shoujo sensation of the '70s is "Candy Candy."

Initially published in Nakayoshi, the story started taking shape when editors at the magazine sought a work of literary excellence akin to beloved classics popular among girls, like "Heidi" and "Anne of Green Gables." They enlisted Keiko Nagita, writing under the pen name Kyoko Mizuki, and paired her with one of the magazine's most famous artists, Yumiko Igarashi. The collaborative effort resulted in the creation of "Candy Candy," centered around an American, blond, blue-eyed orphan named Candice "Candy" White Ardlay.

"Candy Candy" epitomized various shoujo directions prevalent in the '70s. The protagonist, a white girl with lustrous blonde hair, embodied the fascination with Western culture during a time when Japanese youth held a keen interest in Europe and the United States. The manga's narrative style, characterized by its dramatic tone and intricate plot twists, also aligned with the prevalent storytelling preferences of the era.

Candy Candy was such a resounding success that it became the first manga to achieve an initial print run of over 1 million copies of one of its paperback compilations.

Debuting in 1975, "Candy Candy" swiftly captured the hearts of Nakayoshi's readers, leading to unprecedented success. The subsequent anime adaptation by Toei in the following year propelled the franchise into the realm of a cultural phenomenon, sending manga tankobon sales skyrocketing. The seventh volume of the "Candy Candy" compiled paperback reportedly became the first Japanese manga to achieve an initial print run of over 1 million copies. Additionally, Nakayoshi's sales surged, surpassing those of Shueisha's Ribon for the first (and only) time.

The adventures of young Candy were also licensing gold. With over 100 licensed products, the "Candy Candy" doll alone sold 2 million units, solidifying Bandai's position as Japan's premier toymaker, a status it continues to uphold to this day. The resounding success of "Candy Candy" forged a lasting alliance between Kodansha's Nakayoshi, Toei Animation, and toymaker Bandai, which led to the iconic "Sailor Moon" franchise in the 1990s.

While "Candy Candy" concluded its run in 1979, its appeal extended far beyond its original target demographic, captivating kids, teenagers, and adults alike, thus contributing significantly to the manga and anime's widespread acclaim and enduring popularity.

However, a protracted legal dispute between Igarashi and Nagita has prevented the commercialization of any "Candy Candy" related products since the late 1990s, including reprints of the manga and re-broadcasting of the anime. The lawsuit arose from Igarashi's unauthorized licensing of merchandise based on the franchise, falsely asserting sole ownership of the copyright. Although Igarashi was initially credited as the lead artist in Nakayoshi during the manga's publication, the court ultimately ruled in Nagita's favor, emphasizing that Igarashi's artistic foundation was built upon Nagita's written work.

A collection of "Candy Candy" freebies offered by Nakayoshi magazine in the '70s. During the publication of the series, Nakayoshi would eclipse Ribon's sales for the one and only time in its history, (image credit)

Consequently, any commercial exploitation of Yumiko Igarashi's "Candy Candy" artwork necessitates the approval of both Igarashi and Nagita, a challenging prospect given the existing feud. Nagita, on the other hand, can profit from "Candy Candy" as long as she doesn't include any illustrations, which allowed her to release a book sequel in 2010. However, due to the dispute, one of the most beloved works in Japanese manga history is currently out of print. The lawsuit also blocks the anime from being aired or distributed. But, despite the almost two-decades-long media ban, "Candy Candy" remains widely known and beloved across Japan, a testament to its staying power.

While smash hits like "Candy Candy," "Ace wo Nerae," "Rose of Versailles," "Seito Shokun," "Hikara-san ga Tooru," and "Glass Mask," among others were key pieces into shoujo finally earning the respect it deserved, the rise of a revolutionary group of artists during the '70s was another critical element in shoujo's rise: the Year of 24 Group.

Part 2

#1970s japan #1970s #vintage shoujo #shoujo manga #lady oscar #rose of versailles #ace wo nerae #candy candy

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shinmelodia · 8 months

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Love & Process: blue (2002)

Hello to everyone reading, and welcome to a highly belated attempt to squeeze some of my thoughts and emotions through some semblance of a creative process and onto a page. Today, I want to introduce this blog by talking about a lovely film, blue (2002), directed by Hiroshi Ando and based on a manga by Kiriko Nananan.

Since I'm still somewhat new at diving into live action film, especially, like, uh, Japanese indie film, its helping to start with the yuri genre. Because like practically any other woman on this site, I quite enjoy lesbians. blue's manga original offers something of an alternative to the yuri norm, though, and the film follows suit. Both are definitely examples of the Japanese filmmaking trend I've heard of called "mumblecore," (or maybe mumble-komi for the manga equivalent) that most people know through the likes of Inio Asano's early work. Like Solanin or Girl on the Shore, blue is shoegazey, quiet, and contemplative, adorned with moments of subtle physical intimacy, layered emotion, and stunningly beautiful compositions of daily life.

My metric for these kinds of slow mood pieces, which I've previously tended to watch at random whenever the mood struck me, is that if my barely-medicated ADHD brain can even finish them, there's clearly something special going on. blue passed with flying colors; yeah, ok, it took two sittings, but I spent all of both enraptured, immersed, and invested in the mono no aware of silent, fragile love and messy asymmetry that formed this movie's emotional palette. blue is about love, of course, but its also about process and expression, both emotional and creative, and how processing things, artistically, verbally, non-verbally--is often required of real, human love.

In being about this, I think it did things for me that a lot of yuri often doesn't and gently hit me in a place that I really needed to be hit. So, let me get into it. This is going to be...very personal, and also obviously spoil the details of the film, if you care about that, although I'm sure there will be plenty of depth left in the text that I leave untouched. Whether you read it or not, I'll be happy I made it. Oh, and sorry if I come off as really New for being so struck by themes and aesthetics that are probably sort of standard for this type of film. I can't help what I feel like writing about, though.

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Kirishima Kayako lives in a small town by the sea, one much like dozens of other anonymous, disaster-prone exurban towns in Japan at the turn of the millennium. She rides the bus to her girls' high school every day, where she eats lunch with her friends and tries her best to learn something in class. Really, though, she's aimless, quiet, lonely, and introspective. She's trying, but its rare for others to be able to tell. She's also in love with her classmate, Endou Masami. When she confesses at the end of the first act, on a windy beach against the vastness of the ocean, Endou responds that she's glad, and the two become our lesbians for the movie. Kayako falls to her knees and cries in relief. Masami is different from the others--she sees how hard Kayako tried. Does that mean she loves her back, though?

Endou Masami has cool passions and interests; she collects American CDs, which she expertly critiques and describes while lending to friends. The mere view of her vibing to her American alt-rock while smoking a cigarette in front of her apartment window is album-cover worthy in itself. Kayako feels the same way: one of the most intimately gay scenes of the pre-confession portion of the film is when Masami lights a cigarette and asks if Kayako is shocked. The quiet girl declares without hesitation, "No, I'm admiring the way you lit the match."

The whole early film is such a delectable, lonely vibe. The slowly intertwining couple's solidifying dynamic is the kind that forms between an emotionally complex introvert and the perhaps even more unknowable yet somehow more confident object of their affection. The two are classmates, (there's no classic yuri kouhais and senpais here) but for the early part of the film we are seeing things from Kayako's perspective and Masami seems unmistakably older in spirit. There's something about the dense emotions conveyed in her gazes at her new girlfriend, the almost world-weary tinge of recklessness in her distant grins. She talks about music Kayako's never heard of and lends out books with Romantic-era paintings that she has well-formed thoughts on. Kayako even openly admits that if she could, she would want to be Masami.

I think we've all loved a girl like that.

It's a pretty typical experience in middle school or high school, for really anyone lonely who loves women, to be drawn to these sorts of sad, beautiful, oh-so-seemingly-complex femmes. I guess straight men have a similar thing going on with the whole Manic Pixie Dream Girl archetype, but for us women (or, women-to-be, at the time, I guess), the phenomenon of these people to us often involves a sort of existential jealousy. I'm not sure what is so alluring to other people about the sense that the object of their love has Something Going On that they are working through, or a vast and complicated life beyond the scope of one's understanding, but it me it always felt like something I was missing out on for myself. Obviously, a lot of their experiences and interests must be interesting and fun and super cool, you think, but even what pain you think they convey must be somehow more edifying than yours.

For me, the edifying aspect was the mere fact of femininity itself. The idea of a girl who has deep and Real emotions, who feels Real love and Real sadness and can actually express that in how she looks, beautiful and imperfect, always threw into stark contrast my own inability to express myself comparably. I was depressed, I was growing up, and I felt things, too, but, as someone who everyone thought was a straight boy and who was too scared to admit to being otherwise, I lacked that sort of beauty, that means of expressing what was inside me through fashion, makeup, book or music knowledge or taste. Or at least I thought I did. Thus, my own emotions must have also meant less. So, I ignored them and belittled them, and entire years passed before I processed a thing correctly. I always wanted to be some other girl. That was the only thing that would fix me.

I assume that the teen (and, uh, sometimes beyond) existential pining experienced by some other people in real life usually lacks the fun bonus that mine had of a screaming void where my femininity should have been, but I'm not sure how much this actually matters to the crux of the kind of experience I'm talking about. That some kind of void is there is all that matters, really, and its there for Kayako in her relationship with Masami at the beginning of the film. She has nothing, Masami is everything, and just being close to her is enough, for now. Just being noticed, just sharing something with her, is all Kayako feels like she can ask for.

Of course, this incomplete way of seeing love can't last, which brings us to the next part of the film, which starts when the two are hanging out and Masami reveals through a guarded, distant grin that she had an abortion a while ago. This isn't something that shocks Kayako or is really meant to shock the audience, and it isn't the big moment where she forced to reconsider her feelings. Rather, she asks how it went, and Masami responds honestly. She mentions she felt horrible the next day and had to be picked up by ambulance from the nurse's office, prompting Kayako to recall silently what to us was the film's first scene, a view from her window during class of an anonymous ambulance, sirens turned off, discreetly rescuing a student.

That she had this ambiguously traumatic, and at least unpleasant and potentially taboo experience is something that could have made Masami feel even older to Kayako, her pain even more distant and obscure. It certainly already is a way that Masami herself feels distant from others. Yet, by considering her own special, observant view of the ambulance back when it happened, it becomes one that Kayako can in some small way assertively share with her. Rather than continuing to put her lover's experiences on a pedestal, Kayako in this scene makes a silent decision to turn a blossoming mutual acceptance simply that they happened into a moment of true intimacy between the two, a sleepover punctuated by smirking kisses and satisfied cuddles initiated by each of them for the other. Despite her remarks that Kayako is weird for unhesitatingly wanting to stay with her, its an intimacy that Masami is happy to accept. This is all an important turning point in Kayako's development because she begins to choose insight, closeness, and assertion over the distant admiration that trapped her earlier.

As we go on, we'll start seeing how blue's gentle impact comes from the way it doesn't glorify or sugarcoat that earlier kind of unhealthy and immature dynamic. Instead it subverts it by giving Masami depth and Kayako agency, before reaching an endpoint that reflects on how the dehumanization of that kind of depressed, pining relationship can be overcome. In that sense, blue is a yuri romance mostly about the couple coming to accept their own and each other's humanity and capacity for expression. Like any good mumble movie, its full of long silences and almost unrealistically hesitant dialog, and doesn't give any explicit internal monologues like a lot of manga do. The world of this movie is one where expression is an uphill battle, something that has to be worked towards and struggled through. It's the world that Kayako and Masami share, in their own separate ways. And that's why its such a triumph to watch Kayako finally find her voice, her passion, and her process, which all starts in this scene.

First, though, it's time to learn about the Something that Masami has Going On.

Things begin when Kayako is still sleeping. Masami gets a call on her house phone that she doesn't answer, but that sends her into a silent spiral of emotional dread. She spends the next day at school in the nurse's office, refusing to tell Kayako what's going on and confiding only in her friend Nakano. Then, when summer break comes along, she disappears, leaving Kayako alone at home, pouring silently over the book of still life oil paintings that Masami lent her.

It ends up being Nakano who tells Kayako why she left. It's the story Masami didn't tell about the source of her abortion: an adult, married man whom she had a relationship with and eventually a pregnancy from. She got things taken care of without telling him, alerted her parents and tried never to see the rotten salaryman again. That is, until he called. He wasn't getting along with his wife anymore, apparently, and she had some sort of attachment to him that made her come running back. Her taste in music originally came from him, after all. It seems that, for the time being, her devotion to this mysterious, abusive man is going to perpetuate a brutal cycle: she'll keep hurting both Kayako and herself all at once.

What really destroys Kayako and her relationship, though, is that she lies about it. When she comes home after some predictably rough interactions with this guy, she tells her supposed girlfriend that she was enjoying a vacation with friends, and even gives her some grapes, supposedly grown in the prefecture she was hanging out in, as a twisted souvenir. The more assertive Kayako enforces her boundaries without hesitation, though, in equally as blunt a tone as she complimented her love, as when she told her she wanted to stay with her, all those nights ago. "Why are you lying to me?" Its with that same grin, now tinged with emotionally oblivious deception, that Masami dares to at first first feign ignorance.

"Eh?" Her smile is shallower than its ever been.

So Kayako walks away.

Their dynamic has now become worse than just immature; it's entirely toxic. From an outside perspective, Kayako is working on her shortcomings, while Masami refuses to reconcile her past. This kind of toxicity, though, is sadly just as common in high school (and even sometimes middle school) as is the kind of misunderstanding, lonely pining I talked about earlier, just usually among different sorts of people. Appropriately, its often even that exact kind of beautiful, hurting, mature femme (in the eyes of disastrous, moody lesbians like Kayako) who is going through that sort of pain. Its that mysterious and tragic byproduct of compulsory heterosexuality that causes a lot of girls to seek validation in the love of an older man, and that I imagine becomes a sort of addiction to that validation that only masquerades as love. Hell, Masami attributes much of what made her seem so interesting on the surface, her love of music, to this guy. She feels like she'd be nothing without him, and the way Kayako praised her, at least in the way she interpreted it, did nothing to dispel this fear. Which I think is really why she decided to go back, even though it would mean betraying the very girl whose love provided her an escape from it all.

Its an ugly truth, and its one that yuri media usually shies away from portraying, but it is explored with refreshing frankness and resolved with astounding maturity by the end of blue. And I think its the source material's status as "alternative" (I guess in Japanese parlance, Garo-inspired) manga, not to mention the movie's simply as an independent film, that allows it to break with genre limitations in this way. There's been tons of writing done on how yuri definitely presents a fantasy of the sapphic experience. Mainstream yuri's origins in Class-S still to this day often cause it to portray romances between women as fundamentally different, and inherently more pure, than those involving men, trapping them in a bubble of unassailable innocence. While that kind of makes sense and seems extremely cool to those of us who celebrate having little interest in moids or whatever, it also has the effect of sugarcoating and sometimes even outright obscuring what real women, even (and sometimes especially) sapphic ones, go through.

There's already a decent amount of yuri, especially among those aimed at older demographics and those where its more of a secondary genre, that do deal with compulsory heterosexuality and the experiences that come with it. What are much rarer are yuri series where one of the lover's flaws more resemble Masami's than Kayako's. Not enough that I've read at least is willing to make its relationships messy, or have one of its leads just do straight up bad things like self-destructive cheating and lying.

Because, really, its the same as what Kayako went through, isn't it? The lonely longing for something more that feels like it can only be cleansed by denying oneself all one has and betting it all on being close to someone else. The only difference between the two's actions is temperament and perhaps socialization--one sought it from a cooler woman, the other from an older man. And somewhere out of sight, that sad, irresponsible, fucked-up adult was probably hopelessly lonely, too, just like Kayako had to accept Masami was. Maybe disaster lesbians, disaster bisexuals(?), and yes, disaster straights aren't so different after all.

Well, other than that Kayako has worked to process her feelings, while Masami went and ruined her relationship over them. That's an important difference. Still, though, even Kayako has some work to do about how she feels about all of this. Masami's pedestal has been smashed, whether she likes it or not, and now she's lonelier than ever. So where does this vampiric cycle of taking from others end? What substance can replace loneliness in this ouroboros of etropic emotional alchemy?

Kayako doesn't touch the grapes. Instead, she silently processes things, lies on the floor listening to the cicadas scream in the garden. The grapes go rotten, and her brother throws them out. She sulks for a while.

Then, she starts painting. A still life of grapes, inspired by the books that Masami lent her. At first, her drawing is lousy, as the school fine arts instructor later tells her, but the colors are gorgeous. The deep purples of the fruits are expertly layered to capture light and tell a story, one deeper than the instructor could possibly imagine. It's the story not only of the transformation of a relationship, but of the growth of one of its participants. As the hot, still air of the coastal Japanese summer cloys around her lonesome final vacation of high school, Kayako finally salvages a passion to call her own out of a floundering relationship. When school starts again and she picks up art classes, going to Tokyo for uni, a dream that was previously held only by Masami, starts to be within her reach. She has a future, an interest, and a way to process all has happened to her.

And then comes the time for Masami to try and return. She proves unwilling to address all that happened before, instead trying to kiss Kayako after school in the art room. Her undeserved attempt at intimacy is rejected with a shove, but so too is her self-pity that causes her to instantly run away. There's more that needs to be said that simply "I'm a terrible person." Kayako pursues her into the town's small shopping district as night begins to fall and neon crackles to life against a cool late summer night. Now the emotional climax of the movie begins.

First, Kayako starts talking. She tells Masami about the painting, about her summer, about how lonely she was without her, about all the places she wanted to go with her. She talks about how happy she was at the same time that she found something she wanted to do without her. This approach is new for her. She's never so far relied on words so heavily to express her emotions. When Masami points this out, Kayako says:

This is how she's choosing to process things for the time being. At first, it was being silent to carefully consider her emotions. Now, its speaking up to keep them focused on what she really wants.

Then, its Masami's turn, for the first time, to tell the truth. By now they're away from the small cluster of lights, staring out at the blackness of the beach where they first got together. Masami broke up with the guy, she says. But she also asserts that she came to his emotional aid to begin with because she felt his need for help was more important than anything else to her. She couldn't tell her girlfriend this before, because doing so would mean telling a truth she didn't think Kayako could bear to hear: that he meant more to Masami than she did.

Kayako already knows this, of course. And by speaking up to quell her justified anger, by weaving words like the deft strokes of honest color on the tip of a paintbrush, she's gotten herself to a point where she can accept it, too.

I mean, think about it. Masami is broke now; Kayako needed to buy her a sandwich so she wouldn't be hungry on their impromptu date. Her sabotaging drive to be validated and her inability to accept love from the girl willing to give it has, by all accounts, ruined her life for the time being and harmed those around her. Even though she broke up with the guy out of necessity, or out of some fleeting impulse to run back to Kayako, she still feels like nothing without him. As she says to Kayako later, now the envy runs in reverse--Kayako is passionate about painting now, while Masami will still amount to nothing. Despite it all, though, Kayako is willing to love her. She's called Masami out on what she needs to be, then decided to stay nonetheless.

"I always come second. You broke up with him, so the number one spot is vacant. When someone else comes, you'll put him there...

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For most of my life, I believed that artistic expression was primarily the product of unrestrained, innate, and self-indulgent passion. I thought it was just something people either have or don't have, and that when they do, its something that can drive them to great heights of accomplishment and happiness otherwise impossible for humans to reach. It was mostly Japanese otaku media that instilled this into me, I think. I grew up exposed to a dizzying array of diverse and often miraculous artistic products that captured my imagination in ways the safe output of my own boring, monolithic home empire never did, and most of them were made by people who literally poured their lives into working on them. From Eiichro Oda's future-destroying, decades-long devotion to making One Piece to Kentaro Miura giving his life to practically paint the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel in pen on page after double-page spread in Berserk, to all of the hyper-passionate, universe-shattering early works of Hideaki Anno and his animator cohorts, I thought that I lived in a world of weird and wonderful treats whose cooks had the work ethic of demigods and the talent to match.

And even on the lower levels of the medium, among fan artists, cosplayers, writers, posters, historians, I felt surrounded by people who lived and breathed impossible passion, whose lives must have been defined by a kind of information processing my brain simply wasn't capable of. They had some ability to inhale the miraculous vapors of an abundant artistic landscape and spew out works of their own that further decorated the texture of a fleeting age of impossible marvels. And all that time, there I was, left on the sidelines, interested in many things but passionate about none, and lacking the motivation to really work to pursue anything at all. It was (and, honestly, still is) a state of existential discomfort similar to that sort of lonely-girl-pining, but doubtlessly far larger in scale. Some people had passion, while I had nothing to show for all my years of being alive. For fuck's sake, there was so much stuff out there, and I barely could muster the motivation to even read any of it most of the time.

After a while, I started to feel like I was simply broken, like I was an empty person that didn't belong in the very world I loved living in. And while I think this might be a niche outlook and insecurity (although one represented, to my profound gratitude, in Masami), I think it's also how a lot of people think about love. Love is often portrayed as a feeling sparked entirely of instinct, one that, when a person truly feels it, will never cause them to make any mistakes or do anything fucked up to those they care about. Something that will drive those bolstered by it to impossible heights, improve lives beyond the sorrow and loneliness to which they are otherwise condemned. But, as Kayako learned and as Masami and I are having to find out, that isn't really the whole story.

Expression is love. Love is process. Therefore, expression is also the labor of putting love through a process, of rigorously trying to get your ass in a seat and put in the steps of putting your feelings into form. As this is required of art, so is it required of relationships. And so the two are a cycle. Creation requires emotions to process; relationships require emotions to be processed. And the love that creation inspires feeds itself into the love for others that inspires the emotion to fuel more creation. A Labor of Love. Again, I know I'm New.

But this is what Kayako has been working up to all movie long, first with her silence, then with some words, then with the labor of painting, the iteration of getting better, then with more words again. She has found a slow cycle that is elevating her above her loneliness, a cycle that Masami helped create, and is welcome within, but that can, if need be, exist without her.

Love, labor, process. Expression, creation, process. Creating, processing, choosing...in the end, to do it all again. To stay with what--and who--you have labored to love. And that is the choice Kayako has made.

I have not yet answered what, after thinking and writing about this movie for days on end, might be the substance that can replace loneliness as fuel for the alchemical cycle of emotional taking and giving. By the end of the lovers' reunion, sitting by the road under the slowly-illuminating blue of a haphazardly-clouded dawn sky, Masami doesn't feel like she has an answer, either. She feels small and hollow, manipulative and weak. She's jealous of the coping strategy her own girlfriend has developed to deal with the effects of her bad behavior. So, in the end, what is she? What is there even left for Kayako to love?

I'll be honest, this feeling is so fucking real I get perilously teary every time I think about it. Because, for as much as I mused about Kayako's feelings resonating with me as a former and sometimes girl-piner, when it comes to my current relationship at age 22, it's Masami in whom I see myself most clearly and brutally. It's hard not to when she is the only representation in romance, let alone in yuri, I have seen so far who is as much of a fucking brat as I am at times. Whose tendency to sabotage her own relationship makes it so asymmetric that what her girlfriend feels appears almost one-sided, but whose love is real all the same. If she lacks process, talent, maturity, mystique, if no one is ever going to be good enough for her, then what at all does she have left?

The answer to all of this is the thing that lies at the core of her being, that makes her who she is. The source of her potential to express herself, the starting point of a process yet to fully begin. It's hard to see, but it's there. Its what makes her Endou Masami. And its what Kirishima Kayako loves the most.

It's color. It's the thing at the core of creation that can't be described with words, that forms the motivation for any process. Its the vivid purple of a painted grape whose intentional creation transcends deception and nurtures discovery. It's the blue of a dawning sky whose light guides two girls in messy, lopsided love back into each other's arms. It's Kirishima Kayako. It's Endou Masami. It's what everyone has, and it's all anyone has.

It's the source of love, its process, and its object.

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Eventually, Kayako has to leave for Tokyo. That's the decision that's best for her, and its a decision that, for the time being, will leave Masami behind in the countryside, hard at work on the process of learning to love herself. At the end of the film, she sends Kayako one final piece of proof of who she is. It's a painting of sorts, recorded on VHS, composed not of oil but of compressed light and sound. Stylistically, as the camera zooms in, it begins to resemble less Renoir and more Rothko: at first, its the beach, then, simply the point of the horizon, the area where the sea and sky meet. Its raw, not quite processed, pure color, vibrant blue, filtered and compressed into chunky, washed-out 800x600.

By way of description, "this is all I can do."

For years, I've struggled to believe that my emotions, hindered by depression and self-sabotage, have any value at all. As someone for whom love, passion, and expression have always felt difficult, even putting my thoughts down on a page, let alone drawing, painting, composing, or directing, has always seemed impossible. Recently, though, I've grown a lot. I've found the beginnings of a process learned to accept its existence. Both this process, and all the loves that go along with it, are often uncomfortable. They are painful and brutal and blissful things into which to pour the labors of communication and the torments of understanding. I've learned to process discomfort for the sake of creation, to create for the sake of love. It sounds cheesy, but again, I can't help what I wanted to write about.

I hope you'll join me as I find more new things and tough feelings I love to process on this account. There's so much more I'd love to say about blue, just for starters. I could talk about my undying appreciation for the work of Mikako Ishikawa, or how the shots in this movie are so gorgeous and evocative that I'd seen many of them before in "Japan in the 00s" vibes compilations.

But, until then, this is all I can do.

#japanese film #japanese cinema #yuri #yuri manga #lgbtq films #teen romance #pining #film analysis #personal essay #blue (2002)#kiriko nananan #mumblecore #long reads

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itsmaferart · 2 years

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Spy X Family X Chairs Vol 1 - 2 - 3

I don't know if many know it, but if something caught my attention from the covers of each volume of the manga, it represents a character sitting on a chair. I think that for many readers it is evident that Endo loves keys, codes and references. And since I am the type of person who loves to do analysis and theories, my mind could not help wanting to investigate more on the subject.I clarify that these theories, analyzes and solutions are made from my point of view, and I am not clear how canon they are regarding Endo. With that said, I hope you enjoy it.

I want to be brief with this historical review, but: The years after the Second World War, architects, like all sectors, received a harsh impact, so it became common to look for other work alternatives in the industrial area. Many focused on industrial chair design Why is it curious? Because in SxF the biggest main theme is the consequences the war has had on society, and on the lives of its charismatic characters. Although it is a subtle detail, but very important. Each chair represents a character and aspects of his personality. But the design of these chairs also emerged as an alternative to the war, and each one has a very interesting concept. I invite your own curiosity to investigate a little more on the subject!!!

Vol 1 · Twilight - LC2

Cushion/Cube Chair (1928) Designed by Le Corbusier with the collaboration of Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand

A personal fact is that I am a great follower of Le Corbusier. One of the most transcendental architects. And the reason why I opened this post. The instant I recognized this chair, my mind began to want to further investigate the background behind these covers.

For Le Corbusier, regardless of the time, the attitude or the person, a suitable piece of furniture must be used. The objective of this design and its morphology is to keep the user "always active" at work. The furniture must have a practical and functional response. Being able to be placed anywhere, occupying the smallest space. Said object must be provided with ornamentation, and on the other hand it must generate interest and have mastery of aesthetics. Generating an intellectual order through proportion, generating interest in the cultured man. A design understood as a system, since we can find it in one, two and three bodies, without modifying its aesthetic, technological and functional essence.

Reminds you of someone?

Oh yes it is! To the best spy in the Westalis! Clearly the practical, efficient, adaptable design that meets the needs of the average man and the cultured man. Like any good workaholic, he stays active all the time, alert to any threat. Someone elegant, but simple. Adding those small but obvious details of the life of a spy: newspaper, bullets, binoculars, etc. Everything in this chair represents very well the structure with which Twilight thinks when working, highlighting his more serious side. Matching the expression in this panel

Obviously, LC2 is the perfect chair to define Twilight as the efficient spy that he is.

Vol 2 ·Anya Forger - Marshmallow sofa

The designers of this wonder are Irving Harper and George Nelson

The circular cushions allude to candies or marshmallows, as their name indicates. They say that they are so comfortable that you could take a short nap on them. A very striking and dynamic creation because of the way it seems that the "candies" are floating around. It stated that "Although this sofa was not built specifically for children, it was my impression that children intuitively understand my intentions of inducing movement through the sofa." It is not only seen as a piece of furniture, but also of art.

This sofa is WAKU-WAKU!

It may be that the childish and colorful design becomes something obvious and the relationship that he has with Anya. This sofa can be conceived in a childish way. The dynamic colors and constant movement match Anya's active, playful but curious and witty personality.

I don't know if this is "over analyzing" but the fact that these cushions of sensation that are levitating I associate it with Anya's powers. That magical, ethereal touch reminds me of the way her telepathy works.

Eccentric, colorful, ingenious, and with colors as sweet and tender as our little Anya. The 007 experiment found its ideal sofa!

Vol 3 · Thorn Princess - La Chaise

A sculpture made chair, Charles and Ray Eames

Behind this particular design, there is a background element: Based on a sculpture called Floating Figure, it represented a woman. "Designed to support the figure as if it were the very air that caresses Gaston Lachaise's sculpture". Its organic and light shape has the objective of enveloping the female figure, in any position in which it is recharged. For art critics: Gaston Lachaise's Floating Figure, "has no sense of weight or mass, but only the qualities of serenity, strength, and exalted femininity." La chaise played an important role in the fight for modern sculpture to be recognized as a major art form, as opposed to war memorials and portraits.

A perfect altar for our beautiful Yor

It is interesting how this chair has a direct connection with a female sculpture, but also with war. It was sought that the art was more relevant and not only the symbols of war.

These two elements play in an interesting way with respect to Yor. First, it is the character that clearly represents feminine beauty, as a figure of contemplation. But also, it represents an act against the war, which could be associated with Yor and her fight to protect "the peaceful life" of those she love.

Yor is an elite soldier, a legend among assassins, and a symbol of love for Yuri and Anya. Because they are under her protection, giving a beautiful smile and comforting them in the face of danger.

The subtle and organic shape of the chair perfectly matches all the moves Thron Princess makes during her battles.

It is evident that Endo dedicated himself to finding the perfect chair for each character.

I hope you liked this analysis. Maybe later I'll do an analysis of the other covers. Thank you for reading!! :D

Here you can see the second part

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ayyyez · 1 year

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Oh your requests are still open, yay! May I request some hcs of a movie date night for Hinata, Kageyama, Tendou, and Nishinoya with their partners?

A/N: oh yeah yeah yeah! I can definitely do this for you. Thanks for sending in a request (at the moment requests are also still open for headcanons if anyone else wants to send some in!)

TAGS: headcanons, fluff, movie night, making out mentions, mentions of sex but nothing explicit, suggestive content

CHARACTERS: Hinata Shouyou, Kageyama Tobio, Tendou Satori, Nishinoya Yuu

HINATA SHOUYOU:

The idea of having a movie date with him at your place is very cute but he's also the kind of guy who can't sit still for long periods of time without doing something. He's just? Gotta move! Can't not be restless! Gotta fiddle. Get him a stim device or just offer up your thigh to let him massage with his hand.

Better off watching an anime movie of a manga he likes (like One Piece). He'd also be down to watch comedies, rom-coms and will probaby be into action movies.

Just make it something you can tune in and out off. Don't watch something where you have to watch every little detail or you don't want to miss a thing because he's a talker too. Hinata just wants to know all of your thoughts and tell you his.

The thing is, his attention span with movies is a little eh~ Between that and having the need to always be doing something with his hands, you're either going to have to help or deal.

That means occupying his hands (put yours in his~ hey hey~) or if you're feeling extra bold, just climb right on into his lap/pull him into yours.

He's also the kind of guy who sees pulling 'the move' of throwing his arm around your shoulders as the perfect moment during movies. His hand on your arm will be restless too and fiddle with your top or will massage your shoulder/arm.

With the talking it's nonstop too. It's very cute. He just goes and goes making jokes and doing impressions of the characters. Join in with him if you want, he loves hearing all your jokes and impressions too. It becomes a competition of who can do the best ones.

Quite literally the only way to shut him up (unless you enjoy the rambling) is to make out with him. Many a movie night with Hinata turns into a makeout session.

Who knows what the movie was even about?

DO NOT watch horror movies with him or he will smack you in the face (ACCIDENTALLY!) because he jumps at everything! Shrieks and flails. Throws the popcorn. Will cling to you like a koala. And then at the end will declare it wasn't even that scary! Sure babe.

KAGEYAMA TOBIO:

Okay so movie nights with him are also sweet. The poor honey though it's a 50/50 if he stays awake the whole way through. It's not that he's bored! He's just so relaxed and comfortable in your presence he can't help but drift off, especially if it's after a long day or week.

Loves to be cuddling. Even if you two are just hanging on the couch movie or not he's wanting to be indulging in some couple time. For him movie night is more about spending time together than the movie itself.

Ask Kageyama what half the movies you watched were about he can't give you a solid answer tbh. 'Idk romance?' It was a thriller babe but sure it was a romance let's go with that.

He can't help it. Kageyama was just so caught up in your warmth, your scent and nuzzling your neck to the backdrop of screams.

Can literally watch anything. When he is awake and pays attention does ask questions. Appreciates you taking the time to answer them and not make him feel silly.

'Wait why's he mad and got a gun on him I thought they were friends?' Kageyama asks brow furrowing.

'No honey, he was lying to get information out of him.' You explain.

'Tch.' He hugs you tigther. 'Loser, he deserves to have a gun on him instead.'

You snort. 'Sure babe.' It's cute that Kageyama takes friendships and relationships so seriously even in silly action movies. He's sweet that way.

Sometimes his hands just seem to wander during movie nights. Not necessarily in a sexual way but he just likes to be touching you. Likes the connection. A hand under your shirt, on your thigh or over your chest. Just touching, softly kneading and stroking. Always asks 'Is this okay?' and makes sure you're comfortable with it.

Only takes it further if you want to. But if he does it's really slow and drawn out because it's his only chance to really take his time. Just likes his down time with you.

TENDOU SATORI:

The man with a plan that loves a good movie night. Has the collection both physically and digitally. He thinks there's just something about collecting physically but started up a digital collection once he moved to the dorms because he had to travel light so it became a habit he took into adulthood.

Likes to have a whole set up having movie night with you to make it an experience. He's showing you his favourite movies after all so he wants you to get the best out of them even if you don't like them Tendou wants to give them the best chance.

Owns a projector to make things fun. Likes having popcorn and treats. Tells you lots about the movie beforehand (not spoilers) just general things to get you pumped! Blankets and comfy couch or those fancy two person bean bags to cuddle on.

While he does want you to watch the movie he's more about the experience so he talks if you talk. Is just buzzing with energy. Likes watching you! Seeing you laugh when things are funny. React at the shocking or sad things or just seeing if you react the way he thought you might. If you're touched the same way he was.

Tendou mainly hopes it's fun or just worth the time. He does like horror and thriller films so bonus if you do too or are willing to put up with them. Loves seeing you jump. Finds it fun if you want to analyse the film with him. Even if its just to make fun of the tropes.

If you watch a new thriller or horror together he likes trying to guess what will happen. Singing victory songs and cheers for whoever guesses things right! Perhaps winner gets smooches.

Cheeky. He likes trying to throw in his own jumpscares in movies sometimes (if you aren't already too terrified--he's not too mean). Do it back! He gets a thrill. You two will be doing it all week when the movies long over.

Throwing popcorn at each other. Trying to catch it in your mouth. Lots of laughing. The making out doesn't happen until the credits roll.

Sometimes the best sex you've ever had together happens after a movie marathon and you two are high on analysing the films and laughing about theories and stupid jokes. The next minute you're making out and taking each other's clothes off and just so wrapped up in each other.

Tendou the movie man knows what he's doing when it comes to recommending movies and setting the mood.

NISHINOYA YUU

Movie nights with Nishinoya are absolute chaos where anything can happen. You'll start of watching a movie but then you two will see a cake in the movie and will crave cake that you just have to have the next minute you're at the grocery store running amuck buying instant mix to bake a cake.

Other times you manage to make it all the way through an entire movie together. Sometimes you get through half of one and want to watch another.

Life with Nishinoya is just following the happy trail wherever it takes you, honestly.

When you do watch movies though they could be ANYTHING.

'Hey Tanaka was talking about this movie the other day we should totally watch it!' and that's all it takes you're watching a comedy movie that came out a year ago. You'd meant to go see it when it came out but life got in the way.

He's not one to sit still and be quiet during a movie. The two of you will start cuddling on the couch. Probably the first maybe fifteen minutes of the movie continue that way. The guy is restless though. Will start thinking outloud.

'You think he's the love interest?' He'll start asking about every random guy who comes onto the screen.

'Babe it's the guy on the cover.' You'll assure him.

'I didn't look, it keeps it a surprise.' He smirks. No not a surprise he just wants to be funny/annoying and say it's every guy BUT the love interest and feign disappointment when the main couple does get together.

'What do you mean she's getting together with him what about background character B she bought coffee off in the first half? They totally had chemistry!'

'Wow if only you had seen this coming somehow.' You pat him on the head. 'Like, say, by looking at the dvd cover the movie came in?'

He pouts. 'I think I'm going to need a lot more than head pats to feel better. Background character B totally got cheated, babe!'

And that's how Nishinoya gets kisses out of you from movie night. It is fun though. It becomes it's own fun experience each time you watch a movie.

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hamaonoverdrive · 2 months

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How to get into Hokuto no Ken, A Guide

Hokuto no Ken, localized as Fist of the North Star, is the wildly popular and influential series penned by Buronson and drawn by Hara starting in 1983. It is a timeless tragedy about the power of love that taps into imagery from both Catholicism and Buddhism, while also being an homage to a variety of western 80's pop culture from Mad Max to Blade Runner to Rocky.

In the current anime fanscape, HnK is perhaps best known for being one of the key influences behind Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and Berserk, however it should be known that the series' influence permeates the entire Shonen genre. Traces of the tropes and dynamics that it popularized can be seen throughout Shonen today, from Naruto's drive for love and friendship that contrasts with Sasuke's rejection of the idea and desire to sever any bonds of love, to the implementation of Haki in One Piece.

So with all that in mind, let's get into the specifics.

The place to start with this franchise is very straightforward: read the original manga or watch the anime adaptation. There are a number of movies that retell parts of the original story, but they all have different downsides and cut important aspects of the source material and thus are a bad place to start.

This primary canon is broken down into two (three) parts, as follows:

HnK or "HnK1" is the core of the series, starting at the Shin arc through the originally intended ending at chapter 136/episode 108. Most of the time if someone is referring to HnK, this is what they are talking about. The beginning of the series is a bit of a slow start, bouncing between villains of the week before actually kicking off the primary conflict (especially in the anime, more on this later). This is somewhat typical for the era-- these early arcs were written while the authors had no idea if they were going to get dropped from Shonen Jump. For this reason, I highly recommend sticking with the series until the Fang Clan Chieftain and Jagi arcs even if the beginning hasn't clicked with you yet.

HnK2 is the continuation of the series, where the authors were pressured to continue working on the series because of the money it was raking in. This naming convention comes from the title of the anime for this portion of the story, chapters 136-210/episodes 110-152. Quite frankly, the fact that this is past the originally intended ending is very evident; Buronson has been quoted as never re-reading it after publication.[1] It's very much worth checking out at least once if you enjoyed HnK1-- there are absolutely memorable characters and fights, as well as some of the best art in the series-- but be prepared for a general drop in writing quality.

"Post-Kaioh HnK" or "HnK3" is the last leg of the original manga, which has never been adapted elsewhere. Chapters 211-245.

Content Warnings

Explicit Sexual Assault

The elephant in the room when discussing this series is that some social aspects of it are very of-the-era. There are two instances of explicit sexual assault, which get dismissed as "well the perpetrator didn't have the best execution, but he did have the right idea..." The pages/timestamps to avoid this are:

Manga volume 02 pages 287-289; volume 03, pages 063-066 (Ultimate Edition numbering)

Anime episode 24, 13:04-13:53; episode 26 08:29-09:22

Mild Gore

I almost feel like it goes without saying, but this is famously the series where the protagonist makes baddies heads explode. While this is never depicted in graphic detail, HnK as a whole is going to be a bad fit if this distresses you in any way.

An early example of the aforementioned head asplosions.

Photosensitivity

The anime makes period-typical use of flashing lights in nearly every episode. If you are photosensitive (and can't take measures to mitigate the flashing), you should read the manga instead.

If you want to read the manga...

The manga is the way that I personally recommend getting into the series due to Hara's absolutely gorgeous art.

The manga is also generally seen as the true 'canon'; For example, colorschemes used in subsequent works typically draw from colored chapter/volume covers rather than the Toei anime. For this reason, this version of the series is what the Japanese audience usually thinks of when they think of HnK.

I know some people are very passionate about redhead Mamiya and crest toothpaste-head Rei, but the Toei colors functionally exist in their own separate continuity.

Reading the manga in English is far better now than it was even three years ago, as there are multiple English versions now available.

The official VIZ release is the defacto highest quality out there (support the print copies if you can). While there are a few odd translation choices and the SFX have been replaced with English ones, it has the highest fidelity copies of the original art and even has the original color pages that have not been published since the original Shonen Jump release.

To think that these wonderful colored pages were completely inaccessible, even to JP audiences, until Viz started rolling out the English volumes.

However, the Viz release is ongoing and only covers until volume 11 at the time of writing. If you want to read the rest of HnK2 (or highly value the original SFX and a smoother translation), you should seek out the official eOneBook release. This is sometimes labelled as "Digital - 2018" and is a rip of an official English translation that was released for a specialized eReader, copies of which been floating around online since about 2020.

There is also an older set of scanlations out there, which I would not recommend reading; The image quality is low-resolution and muddy, and there are a number of edgy translation choices such as inserting a homophobic slur that was not in the original text. I only mention this translation because it's the one on many online manga sites. Please love yourself and look elsewhere if you realize that you are reading these scans.

(left) English-language scanlations (right) Viz release from 2022. I distinctly remember first reading these pages and then immediately scouring the web to find a version of it that didn't have the contrast blown out, only to discover that this quality was all that available. Now, newcomers to the series don't have to worry about this at all.

There are two different versions of the complete manga, the original tankobons (27 total volumes) and the Ultimate Edition (17 volumes).[2] Both the Viz release and the eOnebook release are derived from the Ultimate Editions while the old scanlations are from the original tankobons, so this can be an easy way to identify which version you are reading.

As to what makes these versions different aside from chapters per volume, the Ultimate Editions clean up some of the art in the last few volumes and also includes "Last Piece", a one-shot by Buronson and Hara inserted between HnK1 and HnK2. This was written as a part of the 30th anniversary celebration, and Hara's art looks quite different 30 years down the road, making the abrupt change in style rather jarring-- consider this your heads-up.

TL;DR Read the Viz version for volumes 1-11, and the eOnebook rips for the rest.

If you want to watch the anime...

The 1984 anime adaptation of HnK is an all-time classic. It's often what western fans will think of first, between the manga being legally inaccessible in English until very recently and constant anime reruns in some markets (especially parts of Italy and France).

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Toei has a tendency to copyright-strike anime clips on Youtube, so hopefully this clip of the opening will stand the test of time.

The anime genuinely excels in a few departments, namely: music, sound design, and voice acting. Even if you don't decide to watch the anime, I highly recommend looking up the OPs/EDs and putting on the OST while reading the manga.

That said, there are definitely some downsides to the anime, a lot of which were typical for Toei animations of the era. Character models and direction are all over the place, some of the animation itself aged like milk, flashing light effects make the series difficult to get through for photosensitive viewers, and stock footage gets reused many times. There also isn't a complete English dub of the show, as it got cancelled after episode 36.

And the biggest caveat to the anime: Filler episodes. Oooooh boy, early HnK filler episodes are baaaad. They don't match the rest of the series tonally and completely botch any sense of pacing. Remember how earlier I said that the series takes a while to get its footing because of early bad-guy-of-the-week format? The anime drags this out for about twice as long by adding new bad guys of the week.

The infamous "Nanto Cannonball Fist", where users are launched from a cannon and descend on their opponents with a sword. Yeah, I don't know how this counts as a school of martial arts, either. [img source]

For a first watch through, I highly recommend following a filler episode guide to skip these episodes in the Shin arc and get a better feel for what the series is about. Post Shin-arc filler tends to be a lot better, as these episodes match the manga's original tone and often fix pacing problems in the source material rather than worsening them.

That said, there are a few early filler episodes that are well-liked by fans for one reason or another, which I will detail here.

Episode 17: A (non-canonical) view into the internal politics of Shin's army.

Episode 18: In which Kenshiro fights a tank.

Episode 19: The goofiest of the goofy filler episodes. If you want to watch one filler episode to get a sense of what they are like, watch this one.[3]

Episode 21: A continuation of some of the conflicts from episode 17.

Episode 38: Features one of the best-written woman martial artists you'll see in this franchise. (This is after Shin arc, but I had to point her out. Watch this one.)

Rage Quitter 87's fansite also has an excellent episode-by-episode guide covering anime and manga differences, which can be very useful for highlighting some of the more subtle differences between the two.

An anime remake that more closely follows the manga has been announced, but we have no further details on it at the time of writing. (I wouldn't hold my breath for this, it could be several years before we know more.)

TL;DR skip the episodes listed here under "Shin arc".

So I got through the main canon, what next?

The sheer amount of secondary content for HnK out there can be overwhelming. It's one of the most profitable IPs of all time, with the bulk of those profits coming from pachinko machines that will never make it to the west outside Youtube phone clips and asset-flip games (more on this later). When the series isn't being used to sell soap, there are a number of supplemental works that are absolutely worth checking out. In this guide I will focus on works that are currently available in English.

The Official Gaidens

A series of manga with different protagonists and created with different creative teams, the Hokuto side-stories fill in some of the gaps in the primary canon. Most of them are very loving additions to the continuity and are a good place to go after finishing the primary material.

Toki Gaiden: Silvery Savior follows Toki starting from the founding of the Village of Miracles and ends after his climactic final fight, providing his lens on the events of the series and his relationship with Raoh. This gaiden does a good job of understanding what fans like about the series, and has a lot of secondary character interactions that were missing in the original work such as conversations between different Ken-oh underlings.

Jagi Gaiden: Flower of Carnage follows Jagi through his childhood, interspersed with the events of canon. This gaiden does a lot to explain why Jagi ended up the way he did, provides additional context to what the Hokuto children's training looked like, and how the world changed when the apocalypse happened. cw: rape

Yuria Gaiden: The Affectionate Mother Star follows Yuria before the apocalypse happens, giving us a snapshot of domesticity with Kenshiro, a better understanding of her abilities, and illustrating how her life was always influenced by those who had fallen for her.

Juza Gaiden: The Wandering Clouds follows Juza as meanders around canonical events, giving insight into what he was like as he shifted from wandering without drive or purpose to becoming a sworn guardian to the Last Nanto General.

Rei Gaiden: Bloody Wolf's Darkness is one that I wish I could leave off of this list, but that I will include for completeness' sake. It follows Rei before his appearance in HnK as he goes through the exact same character arc that he has in canon. The city that he wanders into has a setup directly out of a porn plot, thoroughly justifying the manga's ecchi genre-tag. cw: sexual assault. repeatedly.

Souten no Ken and Souten no Ken: Regenesis

Souten no Ken, otherwise known as Fist of the Blue Sky, is a prequel series that follows Kenshiro Kasumi, 62nd successor to Hokuto Shinken and uncle to the Kenshiro from HnK, as he has martial arts adventures and tumbles with gangsters in 1930's Shanghai. The series revisits many of the character archetypes from HnK and plays around with the same plot points in different contexts, ultimately dealing with themes of friendship and fate.

Souten no Ken is a complete manga, drawn by Tetsuo Hara with plot supervised by Buronson. Souten no Ken: Regenesis is a direct sequel that is currently ongoing, drawn by Hideki Tsuji and written by Hiroyuki Yatsu. Regenesis has been on hiatus since 2020 due to Hideki Tsuji's ongoing health problems.

While there are animes with both of these names, here I am referring specifically to the manga-- neither anime is worth your time.

There. Now you've seen the only things that matter from both animes.

Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise

Released in Japan as "Hokuto ga Gotoku" (Like a Big Dipper), Lost Paradise is an action-adventure game from the studio behind the Yakuza/Like a Dragon/Ryu ga Gotoku series. Fans of the RGG franchise will immediately recognize the game structure and mechanics, which balance advancing the main story thread with a semi-open world where the player can stumble into comedic sidestories and play assorted minigames.

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Bartending is just one of the jobs that Kenshiro can take up in Lost Paradise.

The core story of the game features an entirely original cast, but most of the main characters of HnK show up for just long enough to have fights and cutscenes full of loving references to the source material. It's pure fanservice, in the non-horny sense of the word.

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Team RGG really knows how to nail dynamic fight intros and epic QTEs.

Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage and Ken's Rage 2

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Even though some of the character design choices for this game are painfully mid-aughties (looking at you, tribal tattoo pattern Ken), this intro still goes hard.

For many years the Ken's Rage series were the definitive HnK games, and with good reason. A Musou game much like the Warriors series, you can play as most main characters from the series and mow down waves upon waves of bandits. Some may find the gameplay repetitive, but it can also be relaxing depending on how you look at it. (If you've played a Warriors game before, you know what you're getting into.)

Ken's Rage 2 in particular brings "Dream Mode" to the table, which is a "what if" story mode told from the POV of each playable character. This gives us a lot of interactions that we didn't get to see in canon (such as the delightfully shippy Jagi story featuring Amiba) and also expanding on some characters that should have gotten more screentime in the original material.

Hokuto no Ken (1986 animated movie)

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It's the movie produced by (largely) the same team as the anime, created simultaneously to the show. If you want to know what the anime would look like if it wasn't trying to stretch every yen as thin as it could, this is your ticket.

That said, there are some odd choices made to carve a 110 minute long arc out of the early manga. The movie starts with Ken receiving his iconic scars, and ends with the first confrontation with Ken-oh.

DD HnK

This officially kicks off the "HnK comedy series" part of this list. I feel like comedy in particular can be subject to personal tastes, so keep in mind that each of these projects approaches the series from a different angle and that some may resonate better than others.

DD HnK is a comedic take on what the Hokutobros would get up to if the world didn't end. They end up working at a convenience store managed by Ryuken (voiced by Akira Kamiya, the original VA for Kenshiro), where hijinks ensue when other characters from the series show up.

It's worth noting that there are two animes and a manga with this name. The first anime is a Flash-based ONA (which is hard to find nowadays, for understandable reasons) and the second anime is the TV anime; Both of these series as well as the manga are very largely different. All series are complete, although the English fan translation for the manga is ongoing.

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DD stands for "Design Deformation", evidently.

Ichigo Aji (Strawberry Flavor)

An average day with the Holy Emperor.

Ichigo Aji follows Souther on his quest to make some good friends. :) No really, that's more or less the premise of this spinoff.

While there are animated IA shorts at the end of every episode of DD HnK2, the meat and potatoes of this series are in the manga. The manga is ongoing (albeit on long-term hiatus) and the English fantranslation is currently incomplete (also on hiatus). Each volume of the manga also has a serious chapter following different characters from the series, serving as "mini gaidens" of sorts.

Genius Amiba's Other World Overlord Legend - Even If I Go to Another World, I Am a Genius!! Huh? Was I Mistaken...

In what originally started as an April Fool's Joke, the Amiba Isekai is perhaps one of the most unexpected additions to this franchise. The story begins after Amiba's death at Kenshiro's hands, where he finds himself transported to a fantasy realm where magic and creatures like dragons are real. He decides to use his self-proclaimed "genius" to learn magic in lieu of the martial arts that he studied earlier.

This manga series started in 2021 and is is still ongoing, although the English fantranslation is incomplete and has been on hiatus.

End of the Century's Drama Shooting Arc

The End of the Century's Drama Shooting Arc, more colloquially known as the Actor AU, is a retelling of the series as though it was a live-action TV show, covering the efforts and foibles of the actors and production crew as they struggle to produce the series.

The manga for this series started in 2021 alongside the Amiba Isekai and is ongoing, although the English fan translation is currently incomplete (Noticing a reoccurring trend here? a12 and Sakura Leaves, if you're out there, we really miss your work 🥹). If you can navigate the points system (new chapters are free within a few days of release) and use Google Lens, you can get a rough translation from the official Comics Zenon website.

The Winckler Dub

While not intentionally a comedy spinoff, I'm including the Winckler Dub in this section. There are apocryphal stories about this dub being produced as a means to teach Japanese schoolchildren basic English, interviews point to this dub being a sincere project to create a version of this series palatable to an English-speaking audience.

Please, just unmute this series of clips.

The only editing I did here was to append the files. They just. Speak with pauses like that.

With several downright bizarre directing decisions (Raoh is a pirate now, evidently?) and some of the strangest line-reads I've heard in an anime, this relic of an older localization industry can easily fall under "so bad it's good". Watch this with a group of friends after having a few drinks or late night at an anime convention, ideally.

The dub does not cover the whole series, instead bundling sets of 4 episodes into a series of 6 movie-length "sagas": Shin, Ray (sic), Souther, Toki, Raoh, and Kaioh.

Hokuto no Ken: Legends ReVIVE

I feel like it would be a bit disingenuous to finish this list without mentioning Legends ReVIVE, the current ongoing gacha for the franchise. (Worth noting: I am the admin for the unofficial discord server for this game, which is also the largest and most active English-speaking community for HnK.[4])

This game is possibly one of the biggest lovenotes to the franchise as a whole, with character releases that reach into the most obscure pieces of fiction, from Last Piece to (formerly) Pachinko-only Gento practitioners. Early character models and story cutscenes were entirely asset-flips from pachinko models, but things have grown far past that in the game's past 4.5 years.

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As a part of the 40th anniversary celebration for the manga, it was mentioned that there would be a new continuation of the manga's plot featured in-game, but at the time of writing we have little elaboration on this.

For a gacha, the game is relatively F2P friendly and doesn't ask much of your time on a day-to-day basis. But at the end of the day, it is a gacha that relies on predatory monetization and exploitation of gambling addictions. Caveat emptor.

But what about [x]...?

Legend of the True Savior: this movie series is another adaptation of the manga's plot, but this one doesn't really bring anything novel to the table. The same caveats about making a movie out of the manga apply, in that some odd choices get made to get arcs to fit in a movie timespan. It's there I guess, if you can stomach the artstyle.

Shin HnK/New Fist of the North Star: is victim-blamey rape apologia. There really isn't any reason I can recommend watching it, outside maybe looking up the final fight (where Junichi Hayama's direction really stands out) and the closing song (Oasis by Gackt).

Animated Gaidens (ex Ten no Haoh, Kenshiro Den, etc): these are one of the few things I haven't seen, and for the most part they don't come up in discussion. They're probably fine, but I just don't have the knowledge to comment on them.

Live Action Movie: don't. It's not even so-bad-it's-good, just don't.

In Conclusion

I hope this guide helped take the edge off of trying to figure out how to navigate such a sprawling series, and that it was genuinely informative about both what each work entails and the general context around it. This franchise is something I've really enjoyed digging into over the years and I did my best to convey that love and enthusiasm in this guide.

I may write more meta about HnK in the future, because I absolutely have a lot more to say. There's a lot for me to go on about regarding what the series means to me and why more people should pick it up, as well as putting together standalone character analyses from assorted ramblings on Discord.

Thanks for reading!

References

[1] From running the provided link through DeepL:

Buronson: By the way, I don't read much when a work is published in book form. As far as Fist of the North Star is concerned, the second part has never been published. Interviewer: What? Not even once? You didn't read it at all? Buronson: That's right. But I read the whole book from the beginning the other day.

[2] Not to be confused with the unrelated Master Edition, which was the first attempt to bring the manga to the English market. This version is a full-color version of the original tankobon release, of which only the first 9 volumes were completed. It can be a neat novelty to check out once you're familiar with the series, but the non-Hara colorings can be a mixed bag.

[3] There is a story that this episode was so goofy that it made Hara and Buronson visit Toei in person and tell them to cut that shit out. This claim comes from the book "Our Favorite Fist of the North Star" , which is a fanbook that featured some interviews with members of the anime studio staff, with absolutely zero input from Hara and Buronson themselves. Between the fact that Hara and Buronson were both stated to have been incredibly busy with producing HnK and did not have time to watch the anime and the fact that this claim directly contradicts how they barely met in-person during the production of the series, it seems likely that this bit was made up as a gaff and/or hyperbole by the interviewee.

[4] There are also smaller, more fandom oriented, centers for discussion-- but I'm not about to link them on a post that gets recirculated publicly.

Special Thanks

@/KiliHito (discord) for helping me source the interviews, digging into the truth about the fabled Nanto Cannonball episode, and giving me context for some of HnK's influence in modern shonen.

@takis-breathing-dragon for having the Winckler Dub clips on hand and spotting some typos.

#hokuto no ken #fist of the north star #anime #manga #hnk #anime and manga #retro anime #if I've ever rambled about HnK in your direction or caught your eye with HnK posts on the dash #I'd really appreciate a rb <3

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