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duhragonball · 2 years

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[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (171/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation. This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: This story takes place about 1000 years before 66 years after the events of Dragon Ball Z.

[June 12, Age 780. Earth. Alternate Timeline.]

The radio reports had been silent for days. For thirteen years, the world had lived in terror of two killer androids. And yet, in all that time, no one truly understood the nature of that threat. They would slaughter a population center, then mysteriously vanish without a trace. No one knew when or where the androids would strike next, and no one knew where they went between attacks. There was dispute over whether they were androids at all. Some maintained that they were actually cyborgs--human beings enhanced with bionic technology. But as the death toll rose, the world lost interest in such semantic arguments.

Trunks had been born into this world, but he had heard stories of the time before the android menace. His mother had regaled him with tales of her heroic friends and the adventures they had. Most of them had been killed by the androids, but there was one left. Son Gohan, the mightiest warrior on Earth, had been the only one strong enough to challenge the androids, but he had never been able to overcome them. Trunks believed he could help, and so he had convinced Gohan to train him in secret.

Trunks' mother never approved of him wanting to fight the androids, but Trunks and Gohan had something in common. Both of their fathers had been alien warriors, Saiyans. It was from Gohan's father that he had inherited the power he used to stand up to the androids, and Trunks believed that he could learn to tap into that power as well.

But today, as with many days, that belief seemed irrelevant in the harsh face of reality.

"You're doing fine, Trunks," Gohan said. It was easy for him to say. Everything seemed easy for the young man. His strength went beyond mere muscle and ki energy. Even the loss of his left arm had not slowed Gohan down. He was just as confident and supportive as ever. Trunks wished that he could be just like him, though it seemed impossible.

"I just can't do it!" Trunks said. "Maybe I was wrong about all of this, Gohan. I mean, what if I can't turn into a Super Saiyan? What if I'm just holding you back?"

"You're getting in your own head, bro," Gohan warned him. "When a man tells himself he's going to fail, he usually finds a way to make it happen. Don't talk yourself out of your goals. Piccolo used to tell me that when I was a kid."

Gohan always spoke of Piccolo with such great respect. Trunks could only imagine what he must have been like. But even Piccolo's words were not enough to temper his frustration.

"You've told me before to keep trying, Gohan," he said, "but what if...? I don't know... What if there's some sort of rule to it?"

"Rule?" Gohan asked.

"I mean, it's special, right?" Trunks asked. "It's not like every Saiyan could do it, right? What if there's something about me that makes it impossible?"

"I used to wonder about that myself," Gohan said. "There was only supposed to be one Super Saiyan every thousand years, and I was half-Saiyan, so what chance did I have? But I still pulled it off. And you will, too."

Trunks gave him a puzzled look. "Who said there could only be one every thousand years?"

"Vegeta," Gohan said.

"My father?" Trunks asked.

"Sure. It was your dad who first told us about it. The Super Saiyan, I mean."

"What... what did he say?"

Gohan leaned back and laid down on the butte they were resting on. He propped his right arm--the only one he had left-- under his head, and stared off into the cloudless sky.

"He didn't say much at the time. We were on Planet Namek, fighting against Frieza's men. My dad showed up and rescued us from the Ginyu Force. Well, just one of them, really. A real big guy named Recoome. He defeated us like we were nothing. First Vegeta, then Krillin, and he saved me for last. I was only five. I think he might have broken my neck. I can't remember that part very well. Anyway, my dad arrived and gave us all senzu beans. Then he walked right up to Recoome like he was no big deal. Dad never took a fight for granted, but this time, he practically declared victory. It was wild."

"Was that when Goku first transformed?" Trunks asked. "From seeing you so badly hurt?"

"No, that came later," Gohan said, "while we were fighting against Frieza himself. But before that, Recoome seemed impossible enough on his own. And somehow, dad took him down with a single blow. Then he toyed with the others. I forget their names. There was a red guy and a big blue one. When dad beat them, Vegeta kept talking about Super Saiyans. He seemed to think dad was one, I guess because he did something Vegeta couldn't do."

"He was jealous of Goku, then."

"Probably, but you have to understand, your father was the strongest Saiyan of all. We defeated him on Earth, but just barely, and he kept getting stronger on Namek. So for my dad to show up and suddenly surpass him like that, it was a big deal. It wasn't just hard work paying off. My dad was doing things no Saiyan could do. And I guess that's what reminded Vegeta of the legend."

"Legend?"

Gohan settled in before continuing. There was always a faraway look in his eyes whenever he spoke of the old days, back when their fathers were still alive. "There's been other Super Saiyans," Gohan began. "At least, that's how the story goes. One every thousand years, and Vegeta said that the last one lived about a thousand years ago. Our fathers were the only two Saiyans left, as far as anyone knew, so Vegeta started to think that one of them had to be the next in line. Of course Vegeta naturally assumed he would be the one. He thought my dad wasn't a 'true' Saiyan, because of his upbringing on Earth. But when Frieza defeated Vegeta, he put all his hopes in Dad. He practically begged Dad to become the Legendary Super Saiyan and avenge their people."

"I know how he must have felt," Trunks said bitterly. He clenched his fists and stared down at them. "I want to transform so badly, so I can help you defeat the cyborgs, so we can avenge our people, but it just isn't happening."

"Don't be too hard on yourself," Gohan said. "The legend isn't true anyway."

"How can you say that?" Trunks asked. "It has to be true. You're a Super Saiyan yourself!"

"So what?" Gohan said with a grim chuckle. "The way your father talked about it, there was only supposed to be one every thousand years. And the Super Saiyan is supposed to be invincible, and crave battle above all else. That's how Vegeta talked about it, anyway."

"But Goku was invincible," Trunks said. "He defeated Frieza--"

"--and then he died of a heart virus a few years later," Gohan said. "And he wasn't the only one to do it. Vegeta transformed a couple of years after him. It just took him a while to figure it out. And now I can do it, and I think you'll get there too, eventually. So that's four in twenty years, not one in a millennium."

"Oh," Trunks said. "I hadn't thought of that." For a boy of thirteen, twenty years and a thousand years didn't seem so different.

"You and I are half-Earthling," Gohan added, "so I wonder if the legend took guys like us into account. Did the old Super Saiyans just not have kids? Vegeta told me once that the last Super Saiyan could only maintain that level in a giant ape form. And that guy ended up destroying himself because he couldn't contain his power. Not how I want to end up. I can't speak for our dads, but I know how I feel about it. Yeah, I've had my fill of battle. If we ever defeat the cyborgs, I'll be happy to retire from fighting."

"Yeah, me too," Trunks said. "But I don't get it. You make it sound like it doesn't matter if I learn to turn Super Saiyan. If the legend isn't true, then what's the point?"

Gohan sat up, and suddenly Trunks felt his fingers tousling his lavender hair. "The point, kid, is that you shouldn't think of it as a destination. Turning into a Super Saiyan is just part of your journey, not the end. Your father believed in the legend when it was his only hope of defeating Frieza. But he didn't give up just because my dad transformed first. He kept working to catch up to Dad, and to surpass him if he could. That's what legends are for. They're not a set of rules or guarantees or anything like that. But they can still inspire us and keep us going when times are tough."

He stood up, and reached down to grab Trunks' hand to pull him to his feet. "You and I, Trunks. We can become legends ourselves. We'll fight the cyborgs and win, just like our dads fought against Frieza. I don't know anything about that guy a thousand years ago, if he even existed at all. But he inspired Vegeta to try harder, and that's all that matters. So we owe it to all of them to try harder ourselves, don't we?"

It took a moment for these words to sink in, but once they did, Trunks smiled and nodded in agreement. "You got it, Gohan. If it's all right with you, I think we should get back to work."

"Sounds good to me," Gohan said. "Enough goofing off. Break time's over."

And the two of them sparred for the next few hours. That night, Trunks drifted off to sleep with thoughts of becoming the next Super Saiyan, and defeating the androids, whether the legend approved or not.

*******

[3 March, Age 850. Toki Toki City.]

Trunks sat alone in his quarters, working on a plastic model of a battleship, when he heard a knock at the door. He was in no mood for visitors, but the model was beginning to frustrate him almost as much as the problems that he had wanted to be distracted from, so he welcomed the chance to get away from it, if only to tell someone to come back another time.

His grim mood fell away, however, when he saw who was standing on the other side of his door. She was a middle-aged woman, clad in a gold coverall with knee and elbowpads. Her short, blue hair peeked out from the brim of her meshback cap, which bore the logo of the Capsule Corporation.

"Mom!" Trunks exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"

"First Tuesday of the month, Trunks," Bulma replied with a smile. "Preventative maintenance tour, don't you remember?"

"I thought we just did a PM..." Trunks said.

"We did, son," Bulma said. "Last month. I guess they're keeping you pretty busy these days, for you to lose track of time like that."

"Heh. I guess you could say that," Trunks chuckled. "How have you been?"

"Oh, same old, same old," Bulma said cheerfully. There's been some snags with the reconstruction efforts in West City, but it's really coming along. I brought some pictures with me, if you want to check it out."

"I bet I won't even recognize it anymore," Trunks said. "They've built over all my favorite craters."

"You should come visit one of these days, Trunks," Bulma said. "Bring a friend from the Time Patrol, if you like. We can make a day of it."

"I'd love to, but things are pretty crazy lately, mom," Trunks said. "Oh, uh, sorry, I should let you come inside and sit down."

"Forget it," Bulma said. She took his hand and tugged him towards her. "I came over to take you to dinner. Chronnie said you've been sulking in your apartment all day."

Trunks blanched at the name she used for the Supreme Kai of Time. "Mother, I wish you wouldn't call her that. She's a very--"

"Yeah, yeah, she's a very important person, goddess of time, you've told me all about it. Chronnie said it was okay, and that's good enough for me. You really need to loosen up, son. You can be just like your father sometimes..."

Trunks sighed and followed his mother out the door. Sometimes, it was just easier to bow to fate.

*******

Luffa was cooking for guests in her apartment when the technicians arrived. They were Earthlings, each clad in coveralls and meshback hats with the Capsule Corporation logo. She offered to set a place for them, but they only stayed long enough to prod the air conditioning system with their diagnostic tools. One of them accepted a taquito from her as they departed, but she suspected that they were just being polite.

"What was that all about?" Luffa asked the others.

"PM day," Jayncho said. Luffa's roommate had taken her plate and retreated to the opposite end of the apartment, where she lay on the floor and picked at her meal.

"Yeah, they do maintenance checks 'bout once a month," said Mosh. He was a tall, lean Saiyan with an appetite for red rice. He scooped a spoonful into his mouth and added: "Capsule Corp built most of the infrastructure in the city."

"Um, manners?" said Ravi. He and Mosh were involved romantically, although they seemed somewhat reluctant to put a label on their relationship. Luffa had learned to steer clear of calling them 'boyfriends', as it tended to make Ravi blush. For an Earthling, he seemed to have a very Saiyan attitude toward courtship, and so Luffa considered Mosh to be a fortunate man.

"No worries," Mosh said. "I'm pretty good at talking while I eat. One of my many talents, honed through years of intense training."

"Uh-huh. The point isn't to get good at it, mister," Ravi said. "You're not supposed to do it at all."

"What's the deal with Capsule Corporation?" Luffa asked. "Their logo is on just about everything in this town. The Time Vault looks like an ancient fortress... Well, actually it looks more like the inside of a bird cage... but everything else looks like the habitat section of a space station."

"Hahhh? You've been working elbow-to-elbow with Trunks this whole time, Luffa. I'm surprised it hasn't come up before." This time it was Dewar who spoke. The pale-blue historian had a tail about as long and thick as one of his legs, so he had to sit on an ottoman instead of a regular chair. He didn't seem to mind, though Luffa made a mental note to remember him when she went to buy more chairs.

"There's a lot of things Trunks doesn't tell me," Luffa grumbled.

"Very interesting," Dewar said, though he never elaborated on this. "Welllll now, I suppose I can fill in the gaps on Capsule Corp. They're a big business on Planet Earth. Dr. Brief invented the Hoi Poi technology, which miniaturizes items and stores them in capsules. Handy stuff!"

He reached into one of his pants pockets and withdrew a Hoi Poi capsule bearing the number 12. "I've got a jeep in here, believe it or not!"

"Trunks is Dr. Brief's grandson," Mosh added. "He probably doesn't talk a lot about it because he likes to stay grounded. Same way he doesn't talk about being the Saiyan Prince, even though everyone knows he's the son of Vegeta. He's got to be his own man, you know?"

Mosh held up his knife and waved it playfully for a moment, before narrowing his eyes and holding it in front of his face. "Gotta have that light of willpower, lonely warrior stuff, know what I'm saying?"

"Mosh, you're such a child sometimes," Ravi scolded, but not very seriously.

"'Frieza... your cyborg parts will avail you nothing,' Mosh said in a solemn tone. "'Now you shall taste my blade, made bitter by the wrath of the Saiyans.' Whip-pow!"

He brought his knife down into his pile of rice, but gently enough to avoid making a mess. "Trunks is a baller, you know? He doesn't come up to you like 'hello, my mommy runs the Capsule Corporation and my daddy is a prince.' Save that stuff for later, you know?"

"I just found out he's a Super Saiyan," Luffa said, trying to sound casual about it.

"Well sure," Ravi said. "How else would he have killed Frieza? And the androids. Well, the bad ones anyway."

"And the other Cell," Dewar added.

"Well I never knew there could be more than one Super Saiyan at a time," Luffa said. "In my century I was the only one, but he said a bunch of Saiyans can do it now."

"Sure," Mosh said. "Just about all of us Earth Saiyans are Goku and Vegeta's descendants. I forget where Goku is on my family tree, but he's on my mom's side somewhere."

Luffa regarded him for a moment. "Then you can transform, Mosh?" she asked.

He seemed to nod at first, but then transitioned to a head bobble instead. "Ohhh, well now you're putting me on the spot," he said. "You see, it's complicated."

"He can't do it," Ravi said before taking a sip of his tea.

"Now why you gotta be so blunt about it?" Mosh asked with a smile. "'He can't do it', like that's it, that's final."

"Because she wants to know, and you'll be here all night trying to 'explain' it," Ravi said.

"It's a marathon, not a sprint, okay?" Mosh said. "Trunks would tell you that. Vegeta had trouble with it too. Everybody's first time was rough. I'm sure Luffa knows what I mean."

Luffa wasn't prepared for this. "I... It just sort of happened... I don't really like to talk about it."

"You probably didn't know what was happening to you," Jayncho said from across the room. "I mean, if no one had ever done it before in a thousand years, you would have never expected it, right?"

"But you could show someone else how to do it, right?" Ravi asked. "I mean, plenty of people can do it. It's got to be teachable. Mosh is too stubborn to ask, but he could use some pointers."

"Wellll now, this is quite an honor for you, Mosh," Dewar added. "How many Saiyans can say they received training from an ancient historical figure?"

Luffa's hands started trembling, and she quickly put down her utensils and stuffed them in her pants pockets. "I don't know..." she said, "I mean... I tried to show other Saiyans how to do it once... but they were so.... I just assumed it would never work. Maybe I didn't try hard enough."

"Now hold up," Mosh said with a broad smile. "I could have sworn I heard someone going on about manners a while ago. Does it make sense to come over to a lady's house, eat all her food, and then ask her for lessons too? Maybe for you, Ravi, but I was raised right."

Luffa tried not to let on how relieved she was to hear that. The others quickly dropped the matter, and moved on to other topics, like "Why is the latest Parallel Quest Mission so hard?" and "What's the deal with Jayncho, anyway?" Jayncho was unwilling to provide any meaningful answers.

Eventually, the conversation returned to Trunks, and Luffa remembered her questions about his age. "He told me he hadn't even been born when Kakarot fought on Namek, and yet he was at the Cell Games--fully grown-- only five years later. Do all Earthlings mature so quickly?"

Dewar chuckled. "I can understand why he wouldn't have explained that one," he said. "It gets a little confusing. There were two Trunks at the time of the Cell Games. One was an infant, and the other one you saw in the mission."

"The androids crisis of that year went badly for the Earth," Ravi said. In the original timeline, Goku died of a heart virus before the androids attacked, and the other fighters were killed soon after. Trunks grew up in that world, terrorized by the androids, until his mother invented a time machine. She sent him back in time to warn Goku and the others about what would happen."

"He tried to change history?" Luffa asked. "Isn't that against the rules? Why didn't the Time Patrol stop him?"

"Because there wasn't a Time Patrol," Dewar explained. "At least, not the kind we have now. No mortal had ever used an artificial means of time travel before! There was no precedent for it. I don't know the exact details, but the Supreme Kai of Time went and confronted Trunks about the whole thing, and they came to an agreement. She allowed the changes he had made to stay in place, and in exchange, he went to work for her as a Time Patroller. Kind of a penance, you might call it."

"So he changed history," Luffa said. "Then, the world he knew, where the androids killed everyone, that just... vanished?"

"No," Dewar said. "It still exists as an alternate timeline. That's where the Capsule Corp workers come from when they service Toki Toki City."

That bothered Luffa, although she wasn't sure she knew why, and so she kept that to herself, even as her guests began to leave for their own quarters. She did pull Mosh aside, though, but only to discuss something else...

"We should spar sometime, Mosh," Luffa said quietly, so that Ravi and Jayncho wouldn't hear them. "I don't know if I can help you transform, but I can do that much for you, at least."

"Sounds nice, Luffa," Mosh said, "but I've sparred with other Super Saiyans before, and it didn't get me very far. Besides, you've got your missions with Trunks, and I don't want to pull you away from that."

"It's just... no one even remembers me," she said, "and if there's so many Saiyans out there who can do it too... Well, I'm starting to wonder if it even matters."

"Sure it does," Mosh said. "Got you this far, didn't it? Well thanks for the rice, but I gotta jet."

He dashed out of the door and she could hear him talking to Ravi in the hallway. "What was that all about?" Ravi asked.

"Just getting a few pointers, nothing much," Mosh said.

"About Super Saiyans?" Ravi asked.

"Now why you gotta be so nosy all the time? Explain that to me," Mosh said, and they laughed and chattered until they were out of earshot.

*******

"The Blinking Twelve" was a diner Bulma always enjoyed when she visited Toki Toki City, and so she had no objections when Trunks suggested it. As they ate, Bulma reviewed the reports from her employees.

"Seems like we're always talking about work, doesn't it?" Bulma said idly as she scrolled through an inventory checklist on her tablet.

"It's nice to stay busy," Trunks said. "After all those years looking over our shoulders for the androids--"

"Cyborgs, son," Bulma said.

"Force of habit," Trunks said. "Everyone keeps calling them androids, even here, and it just caught on."

"Yeah, but I know what you mean," Bulma said. "I had been drawing plans for rebuilding West City for years, and now it's almost finished and I'm still excited about it. Not to mention the other cities, and the roads, and... well, Toki Toki City is like a dream come true."

Trunks smiled before drinking his coffee. "I'm glad you're enjoying your work, mom," he said. "Actually, I wanted to ask you for a favor, if it's not too much trouble."

Bulma raised her eyebrow as she gave him a curious look. "Favor? What kind of favor?"

"Well, it's about the new Time Patroller I mentioned. She's been helping out on this latest case, but--"

"Hold on. She? You never mentioned the new recruit was a girl, Trunks."

"Mom, it's not like that," Trunks said. "Please, just hear me out. Luffa's a Super Saiyan... Well, I should say the Super Saiyan. The one Dad talked about from a thousand years in the past. Did he ever say anything to you about her?"

Bulma's eyes darted upward, as though looking up to find the answer. "Oh, well, sure," she finally said. "Gosh, how could I forget about that. He was always going on about Super Saiyans back then. He was so determined to surpass Goku after he transformed. He used to tell me all sorts of things about it. Things his father told him, old stories he half-remembered. He'd get very chatty after a long night of training, and then he'd lay in my arms and just go on and on until he fell asleep, or we... ah... Well, this was back before you were born, Trunks."

"I get the picture, Mother," Trunks said awkwardly. "So you're saying Dad knew about Luffa."

"Not by name," Bulma said. "In fact, he always talked about this person like he was a man. Well, you know what your father was like from when you met him in the past. He would have had a hard time accepting any Super Saiyan who didn't look just like him."

"You're right," Trunks said. "When I first met him, he accused me of being a phony, just because I didn't have black hair. I killed Frieza right in front of him, but he was still so suspicious."

"He didn't say much about the old Super Saiyan," Bulma said, "but honestly, he may have known even less than he thought. I remember something about him... uh, her, being destroyed by her own power, like she exploded or something. But if she's here with you, then that can't be right, can it?"

Trunks nodded. "That's what I need to find out. I used the Dragon Balls to wish for a powerful ally to help me, and Shenron brought Luffa here, from the distant past. The trouble is, we're not sure how to send her back, or even if we should send her back."

"I think I see. You need to know the exact time and place Shenron brought her from," Bulma said. She picked up a pen and pressed it against her lower lip as she considered the problem. "But it's a big universe, and the history books don't exactly cover everything down to the minute."

"Yeah, we could search the Scroll of Eternity for her, but it might take years to get an exact fix," Trunks said. "Maybe longer."

"Have you asked Luffa about it?" Bulma suggested. "I mean, she was there. She can probably point you to some historical events big enough to get a reference point."

"I thought of that, but it hasn't gotten us very far," Trunks said. "She ought to be the most important thing happening in the galaxy around that time, but there's hardly any record of her. It's like everyone covered up her existence. I mean, she was a Saiyan folk hero, and Dad didn't even know her name."

"That's true," Bulma said. "I remember how much he resented Goku when he became a Super Saiyan. He thought he was... illegitimate somehow. Maybe Luffa had the same problem with other Saiyans in her own time."

"Maybe so," Trunks said, "but I can sort of see it from their side. She hasn't exactly been easy to get along with."

"Oh?"

"I thought asking Shenron for help was a smart play," Trunks said, "but now I wonder. She's qualified for the job, I'm convinced of that. But Shenron just plucked her out of the past and dropped her in front of me. I assumed she would be more prepared for what was happening. We started off on the wrong foot, and it doesn't seem to have gotten much better."

"Well, she agreed to help you, didn't she?" Bulma asked.

"Yes, but she's not always cooperative," Trunks said. "She's used to being in charge. I guess being the only Super Saiyan in her time would explain that. She listens to us, but it feels more like a mercenary taking instructions from a client. Like if she got fed up with the job, she would just cut and run, except I don't think she has anywhere else to go. I'm not sure she wants to go back home. Right now, all she seems to want to do is fight Goku or me."

"Why?" Bulma asked.

"She's never met another Super Saiyan before," Trunks explained. "She seems a lot more invested in the legend than Dad ever was. I think that's the problem. She doesn't understand it's all a lie."

"A lie?" Bulma asked.

"The legend said the Super Saiyans were rare, and invincible, and cared only for battle," Trunks explained. "But Gohan-- our Gohan-- died against the Androids. I avenged him, but only because of your time machine and the Hyperbolic Time Chamber."

Trunks clenched his left hand and cradled it in his right. "Gohan died, hoping that I would become a Super Saiyan myself and continue the fight. And every time I fought the androids, I lost. Then I went back in time and watched Dad make the same mistake. And then Cell showed up, and Goku died fighting against him."

Bulma reached across the table and placed her hand over his. "But you all did win, Trunks! You shouldn't lose sight of that."

"Oh, we won in the end, but only by working together, and being smart about it. Brute strength only made things worse. That's why I refused to fight Luffa. I don't care if it's just for 'fun'. We need to focus on our enemy, because our power won't be enough to beat them. I just wish I could make her understand that."

Bulma made a small laugh. "She sounds a lot like your father," she said.

"You're right. Wait... that's what you always say about me," Trunks said.

"Uh-huh. Which is probably why you two aren't getting along," Bulma chuckled. "If there were two Vegetas, I think they'd drive each other nuts after a while. Heh... But anyway, you said you needed a favor. How can I help?"

Trunks reached into his trenchcoat and withdrew a capsule from one of the pockets inside. "It's standard procedure in the Time Patrol for new recruits to get a medical examination. It helps us weed out infiltrators, alien parasites, things like that."

Bulma picked up the capsule and held it in her hand. "Parisites? Ew, really?"

"You'd be surprised what can happen during a mission," Trunks said. "Anyway, that's a tissue sample from Luffa. You told me the genetics lab back home was up and running, right? Maybe they can sequence this and compare it to the Saiyan DNA you have on file for Dad and Goku."

"Well sure, son, but what good would that do?" Bulma asked.

"Maybe nothing, but I've read about scientists using genetic profiles for archaeological research. Maybe we can find something that will help pin down when and where Luffa came from."

Bulma held the capsule in her thumb and forefinger and examined it like a jewel. "Hmm... it sounds like a long shot to me, son. The kind of science you're talking about mostly gets applied to Earthling populations, with much greater pools of data. But the gang at the lab would probably enjoy trying, so we might as well give it a shot."

"Thanks, mom. I knew I could count on you."

"Don't thank me yet, Trunks," Bulma said. "Even if this does lead to something, it still doesn't solve your main problem. Luffa's not just a crescent wrench you need to put back in the right drawer. You'll still have to find a way to get along with her."

"I know," Trunks said. "Maybe I'm only focusing on how to send her home because it's easier. She seems to be most comfortable when I can point out something for her to hit."

"Well, maybe you should fight her after all, son," Bulma teased. "I remember when Goku and Tien fought at the World Tournament. They were good friends after it was over."

"Yeah, well hopefully I can find some other way. If you had seen Luffa fight, you'd probably understand better."

They continued talking for a while after that, and eventually returned to Trunks' apartment, where Bulma said her goodbyes before leaving Toki Toki City to return to her own timeline. As Trunks closed the door, he returned to the incomplete model sitting at his desk. Bulma was right of course. There wouldn't be any simple fixes to his working relationship with Luffa.

But at he sat down to consider the model with a fresh perspective, it occurred to him that he hadn't failed yet...

NEXT: The Demons Also Believe... and Tremble.

#dragon ball #fanfiction #lssjluffafic #super saiyan #luffa #trunks #bulma #gohan #jayncho #dewar #ravi #mosh #toki toki city #earth #the blinking twelve diner #i forgot about the diner i need to use it again some time #i'm just very pleased with the name #like when a digital clock needs to be reset you see

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lilyginnyblackv2 · 3 years

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Yahoo! News reported last Wednesday that Toei Animation attempted to refuse labor negotiations with a union representing a former unit director ("A-san") who claims to have been unfairly stripped of work. In the paperwork, Toei accuses the union member ("B-san") who was handling the negotiations of using a "false name." B-san, who identifies as X-Gender (neither male nor female), uses an alias that better reflects their gender identity.

Toei's letter to the Precariat Union, which is handling the case, explicitly deadnames B-san, and accused them of "majorly damaging the relationship of trust between Toei Animation and the labor union."

B-san insisted that their alias should have no connection to the case at hand. "In the first place, there are many married people who work under an alias, and the name I use for collective bargaining has nothing to do with the name on my family registry," they told Yahoo! News. "Collective bargaining is an obligation established by the labor union, not a matter of a trust relationship and so forth. I think that they refused to even give me a seat at the discussion because they have no desire to resolve the dispute."

They also emphasized their discomfort at being referred to by their deadname. "For me, just looking at my family registry name is painful. To be on the receiving end of such a discriminating act by the company made me feel disappointment, sadness, and pain."

#toei animation #anime #cw transphobia #transphobia #gender discrimination #power harassment #Japan #news #ANN #long post #article

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himitsusentaiblog · 4 years

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Is there anything as the Curse of the Yellow Sentai? As far as I know, the original Sentai Yellow died of suicide, right? Were there any other tragic cases?

Well, that was years after his role on Himitsu Sentai Goranger. Baku Hatakeyama was never really happy with his role as Daita/Kiranger. He even left the show for a while after episode 55 to appear in a theatrical play he wanted to work on.

After the series ended, he found himself typecast as his most famous role and found it hard to find serious, rewarding roles. He became depressed and one of the producers from Toei offered him a guest role in 1977′s Kaiketsu Zubat. It seems it was too little, too late though because he took his own life in 1978 leaving a note citing his financial troubles, frustrations with his professional life and not being able to escape the shadow of his Sentai role. There have not been, to my knowledge, any other Yellows who have met such tragic fates except, of course, for the original Yellow Ranger in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Actress Thuy Trang perished after a car accident in 2001.

There was Yellow who quit the series back in 1984. The first Yellow Four left the series over a rumored dispute in pay. She was killed off onscreen in episode 10 and they had a funeral for her costumed corpse because the actress had already left and was not there to play her own body.

All that said, there is a certain stereotype associated with the role of the Yellow Ranger in Sentai thanks to the original as the strong, goofy, curry-loving member of the team even though only Kiranger in 1975 and Vul Panther in 1981 really fit that bill. It even prompted actress Ryo Narushima from taking the Yellow role in 1990′s Chikyu Sentai Fiveman. It have even been lampshaded in 2011′s Hikounin Sentai Akirbaranger when Akiba Yellow complains someone should have told her it wasn’t really the role of the Yellow after she eats multiple bowls of curry and gives herself a stomach ache. So, there is no ‘Curse of the Yellow’ though there is a stereotype associated with the role thanks to Baku Hatakeyama’s iconic portrayal of the original.

Thanks for the question!

Addendum: Kenji Shibata, who portrayed Domon/GoYellow in 1999′s KyuKyu Sentai Gogo Five was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor while filming the series. After filming ended, his condition worsened requiring him to use a cane to walk. However, he is still with us and reunited with his GoGo Five co-stars in 2018 where he stated they had been his support during difficult times.

Just wanted to mention that before someone reminded me.

#Askbox Replies #Super Sentai #Yellows #Himitsu Sentai Goranger #Baku Hatakeyama #Kiranger #1970s #mighty morphin power rangers #Thuy Tran #Choudenshi Bioman #1980s #kyukyu sentai gogofive #1990s

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leakinghate · 5 years

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Legendarily Defensive: Editing the Gay Away in VLD

Disclaimer: This meta is a collaboration of the entirety of #TeamPurpleLion. We understand while we do touch on narrative romance, we are intentionally trying to be as ship-neutral as possible, and provide that which we only have evidence for. We encourage the experts in their respective ship-fandoms to meta as they do best on these topics, and we hope this can be a factual basis to springboard from.

In the most recent AfterBuzz interview March 4, 2019, Executive Producers Lauren Montgomery and Joaquim dos Santos revealed in no uncertain terms who, precisely, is responsible for the editing fiasco that resulted in the version of Season 8 presented to the fandom, including explaining to their viewers when the changes were called for, and a heretofore unknown why: the removal of a mlm relationship between two of the male Paladins.

Let’s break it down.

The interview itself is a little very difficult to stomach, especially the latter half. But, the first portion is an unusually open and honest discussion of what went down behind the scenes, and what it meant to the producers. It’s also the place where we’ll be lifting direct quotes from. The hosts of AfterBuzz allow the Executive Producers to have the floor and speak with quite a bit of leeway, and some very curious facts come to light. For anyone interested in the source, the interview can be found on Youtube.(3)

Voltron is a unique case. While much of the fan base may not have been around for prior incarnations of this franchise, it has existed for quite a while.

It originally came from a Japanese show Beast King GoLion. From this show, the robot we recognize from Voltron: Defender of the Universe, was created in 1984. There exists an interview with the Executive Producer of Defender of the Universe, Peter Keefe, as well as other cast and crew on the production of how BeastKing became Voltron.(4)

After Voltron: Defender of the Universe, several other iterations bloomed forth - some in the form of comics, some as sequels, some as reboots. The first series to follow Defender of the Universe was Voltron: The Third Dimension, a CGI-based sequel released in 1998.

While not nearly was popular as its predecessor, it managed to stir up some legal conflict:

“Worse, the Japanese creators of Beast King GoLion — Toei Animation — began saber-rattling. Toei believed World Events had overstepped the boundaries of their 1984 agreement and made the CGI series without buying those explicit rights.

To quash this dispute once and for all, Koplar and crew purchased GoLion outright in 2000. Now they had the freedom to adapt at will. But nothing was in the works.”(7)

As of 2000, Koplar and World Events Productions (WEP) owned all the rights to Voltron. Talk of a live action movie has been in the works since 2005, but with little traction. In 2010, WEP licensed rights for the Voltron franchise to Classic Media (now DreamWorks Classics) (7). By 2011, the animated series Voltron Force was released.

In 2014 Lauren Montgomery and Joaquim Dos Santos approached DreamWorks Animation with the idea of producing a new Voltron show, with the license DreamWorks had recently come to own through their acquisition of Classics Media. In 2016, Voltron: Legendary Defender launched.

It’s worth noting World Events Productions licensed rights to produce Voltron content to DreamWorks Studios. They did not hand over the entire franchise to do with as they saw fit. DreamWorks only purchased the ability to play with the characters and the story in whatever capacity WEP believed would remain on-brand.

Amidst the protests and visceral reaction to the final season of Legendary Defender, many have felt confusion about where to direct their frustrations.

In another post, @crystal-rebellion theorized the symbolism in Season 7’s Episode 4 ‘The Feud’ was actually a very blatant representation of what was going on behind the scenes, and why. (2)

Since the most recent interview, statements from the Executive Producers as well as the host have confirmed this to be an accurate assessment of the situation.

Joaquim Dos Santos says it himself:

"This is not a vilifying of DreamWorks. Any exec we ever interacted with was like, 'Hey, we understand why you want to tell the story, we understand where you're coming from. It's a little bit bigger than that. There's other sort of controlling parties with Voltron, which makes it unique.’ It's not just a DreamWorks owned property, and I think it got logistically really really weird." (3)

Seven times, he specifically mentions the pushback didn’t come from DreamWorks, but from ‘other controlling parties.’ He alludes to some logistical weirdness, the implication being a difference in creative direction, or some dissention from higher up. In fact, the hosts and EPs discuss a controlling IP owner eight times in the course of one interview.

He also says, in regard to the issue of LGBTQ+ representation and Adam specifically:

“Here's where we arrived on this. And we were pointing to things like Overwatch. We were pointing to Steven Universe. They're different scenarios, we were in a slightly different position. We didn't have that position of being the creators of this IP. And we also weren't a video game that was marketed to teens and above. We for all intents and purposes were started as a show for boys like 6 to 11 to sell as many toys as possible. And that's just like a fact and that's business, and it is what it is.” (3)

DreamWorks is not a platform that markets ‘toys for boys’ (a talking point brought up no fewer than five times) - but World Events is. President Robert Koplar himself states his target demographic is boys and their dads in Episode 12 from the Let’s Voltron podcast not once, but twice. (5)

The EPs confirm as much with their recent statement in the March 4th ABTV Voltron interview(3) that the possibility of a male paladin’s replacement was greenlit until the IP holder learned the male paladin was to be replaced with Acxa, a woman. This kind of sexist hypocrisy goes as far back as 1984 with Allura being spanked in front of her own team in one episode(11) and tied to a chair by them to prevent her escape in another(11). The 2003 Devil’s Due comic shows Lotor, who looks to be no more than five, witness his mother’s murder via strangulation by his father (complete with an expression of horror on her dead face)(12). Lotor then suffers the same type of non-lethal strangulation in a scene where his father interrupts what the comic refers to as “recreation” with a scantily clad blonde resembling both Lotor’s mother and Allura in a different series(13). All of this takes place in a franchise whose target demographic has consistently been six to eleven year old boys and their fathers. Koplar’s company has made their hypocritical moral stance abundantly clear in Legendary Defender, even going so far as to order the destruction of the entire final season. According to Dos Santos:

“Specifically with Season 7 and 8 we basically held onto Season 7 so Season 8 was like done by the time S7 was dropping. We had like a month left when reaction for Season 7 started coming in, and that was day of the drop. We were in a weird position. To DreamWorks's credit, the tide started changing internally. They came back to us and said, okay we're open to explore this relationship between Adam and Shiro so we were in this weird position where we had all the animation done, we had $0.00 left in the budget in terms of like what we could do and it was like, all right, we know Adam's fate is what it is, do we do this and sort of like take this step knowing that we're going to take some flack? And we decided to do it so we revised the dialogue. You can probably see it in the animation. If you really pay attention it's like, it's literally our editor cutting out mouths and like puppeting different dialogue. The dialogue is pretty vague, it's sort of the best we could do, and that was a process of discussing what we could actually have them say.”(3)

Hold the phone. Taken in context, Dos Santos is explaining the process of DreamWorks giving the showrunners the green light to change the epilogue of Season 8 to give Shiro the unambiguously gay orientation they had written out of Season 7. The problem is, there is no dialogue in the epilogue. Even if we consider the epilogue to consist of everything from “one year later” onward, there is no dialogue for Shiro and another male character that would have to be reworked.

Here is what we think happened: Season 8 was finished in June. The IP owner hated it and ordered it changed at the beginning of July. Those changes included cutting a male/male romance. August came and the fandom melted down over Adam dying. Hoping to avoid a repeat of the Adam debacle, in mid-August DreamWorks came around and offered to let the showrunners put something into Season 8 for more gay representation. By this point the edits to Season 8 were almost complete, the budget was gone, and time was short, so they opted to give Shiro a wedding during the ending, in the epilogue. In an effort to brush off the clear edits to Season 8, Dos Santos mentions the lip movements during the interview but is confusing the making of the epilogue with the rest of the edits.

Indeed, it seems those edits resulted not only in the deaths of the series’ heroine and a childhood abuse victim, but also in the demolition of not just one but possibly two completed romantic arcs. When discussing Allura and Lance’s romance, Dos Santos and Emma Fyffe have this to say:

JDS: I could see the argument where it’s like, it's basic. It's what we've kindof come to expect from okay the guy sort of turned around and-- but I think Lance's arc aside from being with Allura was bigger than the Allura love story.

EF: And Lance's overall story arc I really enjoyed. But again, I think it's this whole idea that we were dealing with this IP that was like "okay, monster of the week, it was like dudes being in love with one hot girl and just macho men with fighting robots and whatever was happening with Pidge".

JDS: Right, yes, yes. (3)

The showrunner himself not only agrees Lance’s milquetoast romantic arc was due to pushback from the IP holder, in discussing the controversy surrounding the main characters’ sexual orientation, Dos Santos inadvertently reveals a major romance between two male paladins was cut.

EF: ...it is important to know that, again, you have this character who is very much your sort of quintessential, like, alpha male.

JDS: That-that was the trope that we were trying to, like, sort of step on was that, you know. I grew up with characters like Duke. To a much lesser degree, he’s a big, giant robot Optimus Prime. The idea of Optimus Prime being with another Optimus Prime was off the table. Like it was a no-go. (3)

If Allura and Lance’s IP-owner-influenced romantic arc is any indication, clearly two main paladins being together was fine. Dos Santos is referring to the inability to pair two male mains.

We don't know for sure, and won't until the original S8 is released. But, we have reasonable cause to believe Keith was intended to be gay and part of the romance that got tanked. When speaking about Keith’s sexuality Dos Santos says:

JDS: Because, I think we didn’t, we didn’t pair him with anybody, you know what I mean. I think we didn’t designate sort of where he stood. We don’t know. It’s-- It’s--

KC: We don’t know

JDS: Yeah, it-- It doesn’t really matter to be honest with you. I mean it would be great to confirm just to make people happy, but, like at the end of the day he is who he is, and leaving it open to interpretation. (3)

Do you hear that? “It would be great to confirm”. Not that it would be great if they could have done it, but if they could have confirmed it. It seems that JDS conceptualizes Keith as having an attraction to men, but he was forbidden from making that fact plain. Again, we have no concrete evidence of who Keith was slated to be with, just that the writers couldn't have two gay male paladins.

The wording of his statements is just clear enough to avoid dishonesty and just vague enough so as not to break contract. Even beyond NDAs, it’s not as if the Executive Producers can speak more directly to these points. We already have evidence of the IP owner’s character in the form of the Voltron Store’s Twitter presence outright lying about WEP and the store being separate entities:

(8) When only a few weeks earlier they had liked a tweet explicitly identifying them as one and the same, while confirming they have the final say over what can be done with the characters:

(1)

Before the fandom realized that WEP was behind the edits to S8 of VLD, the information that they owned the license was accepted fact. This excerpt from the Lets Voltron Podcast, Episode 134, is just one example:

(talking about a Voltron reference in Ready Player One)

Host 1: For those of you not in the know, if you think DreamWorks is the all in all for Voltron. Well, World Events Productions is the company that owns --

Host 2: The Voltron intellectual property.

Host 1: Many of you have heard of DreamWorks obviously. They make the show. Well, World Events Productions owns the property and has helped make this new show and all previous shows possible.

LV Podcast EP 134, 5:00-5:30 (6)

Now? Many official avenues are hastily attempting to downplay WEP’s involvement. When reached for comment in February 2019 the LV Podcast claimed that DreamWorks owned the licence.

The official phone number listed on WEP’s website no longer offers an option to connect a person to WEP, instead it offers three options: to directly input an extension, the accounting department, and The Voltron Store. (9)

In an effort to prevent fans from contacting them with complaints, WEP have inadvertently made their association with The Voltron Store explicit. Regardless of what the twitter account may claim, they are one and the same company. If these incidents weren’t damning enough, the store has further attempted to engage in a subtle smear campaign by liking tweets from users apologizing for harassment and death threats the store had received over Season 8, when all groups bringing the problems with its forced edits to WEP’s attention have specifically advocated for civil and nonviolent communication. (8)

As the story unfolds, one point is clear: Each new interview brings more information forth, repeatedly shining the spotlight on one little office in St. Louis.

WEP LLC is a private company. It has no shareholders, investors, or boards to answer to. It is the sole IP holder of the Voltron brand, and its President is the only person in the entire world who has final say over what can and cannot be done with the characters. When someone says “the IP holder” they are really talking about one man: Bob Koplar.

#TeamPurpleLion is a collective of analysts ( @crystal-rebellion, @dragonofyang, @felixazrael, @leakinghate, and @voltronisruiningmylife )intent on tracking down the who, what, where, how, and why of the destruction of VLDS8. We present sourced & cited commentary, relying on evidence so the VLD community can see what happened behind the scenes.

#Shiro #Keith #Lance #sheith #klance #VLD #voltron #Voltron legendary defender #FREEVLDS8 #WEP #World Events Productions #meta #Hate tries to Meta #fubob #TeamPurpleLion #crystal-rebellion #felixazrael #homophobia #Allura

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kurojishiyo · 4 years

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so you know how toei created the original two anime...

And that the current owners of Voltron (WEP and by extension DreamWorks) got in multiple disputes with them over the ownership and they supposedly got the rights resolved...

I mentioned earlier that to hype up the new SOC, Bandai is uploading the entirety of Dairugger to rekindle interest.... Except it seems that a few episodes were taken down all with a notice saying that it contains material owned by Toei.

I know a lot of you don't care about Dairugger, that's fine, but I think it's concerning that Toei is yet again doing something the shows thatvhey might still have some stakes in the Voltron franchise... Of course I doubt that would include anything involving VLD, but who knows

edit: will check to see if this will be resolved soon, because it would be interesting to see if this somehow was all because of YouTube's autoflagging system. And that means that somehow there is something in this dairugger footage that made the autoflagging go off despite its rights being r solved ten years ago

#Voltron #dairugger

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nivenus · 5 years

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I Need You: Why Evangelion Still Matters

If you’re even a casual fan of Japanese animation (colloquially known as anime) you’ve probably heard of a few classics held up as the best of the medium; films and television shows whose place in the history of Japanese culture is widely regarded as secure: Akira, Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell, Spirited Away, to name a few of the most prominent. They all have their critics, but few would dispute their place as landmarks of the industry. But there’s one classic piece of Japanese animation however whose legacy is far more contentious and which sparks controversy even today. Like the aforementioned pieces it’s well-known and has been watched by many, but unlike them it remains quite controversial, beloved by some and derided by others.

I’m talking about Neon Genesis Evangelion,¹ Hideaki Anno’s 1995 post-apocalyptic series about teenagers who pilot giant robots (known as mecha) in a war for the survival of humanity. And in my opinion it’s actually one of the best and most important television shows of all time, animated or not.

(Spoilers ahead, though I’ll try to keep major revelations to a minimum.)

I realize that in making my claim, I’m setting myself up for criticism. The value (or lack thereof) of Neon Genesis Evangelion has been one of the most heated debates in anime fandom for decades. But even on the purely objective level of its influence on the animation industry, both in Japan and beyond, NGE and its subsequent spin-offs, sequels, and re-imaginings is a significant work worth consideration. Although the show is decades old now (the first episode aired October 4, 1995), I believe it’s still worth examining why the show’s so acclaimed and why, in my opinion, it’s still relevant today, in no smal part because of the lessons it still has to teach us about self-acceptance.

(An earlier version of this essay was posted 4 years ago here.)

Weaving a Story

Concept art for Asuka Langley Soryu, the Second Child

Today, Evangelion is a major franchise, incorporating films, comics, video games, and more. But it all started with one TV show, Neon Genesis Evangelion, created by Hideaki Anno for Gainax. Even from the start, NGE was somewhat exceptional. In the early-to-mid 1990s when it was produced, most of the major animated shows on air (both in Japan and America) were heavily merchandise-driven and sponsored by either toy or video game companies. Nearly all were owned by a major studio like Toei or Toho. Conceived of by a single individual and owned by a small creator-run studio, Neon Genesis Evangelion was highly unusual and something of a creative risk.

The story of Neon Genesis Evangelion is, on first glance, nothing remarkable for Japanese animation. A group of teenagers are recruited by a unified global government to pilot giant robots (mecha) in a battle for the survival of humanity. In the process they have to face not only their deadly adversaries but also learn how to work together as a team, overcoming their many differences and personal issues. Gundam, Macross, and Hideaki Anno’s own Gunbuster had all covered similar territory before. But where NGE would go with its premise was far stranger, blending the well-tread concept of adolescent soldiers with theological imagery, Freudian and Lacanian analysis, and abstract writing that soon set the show apart from its contemporaries.

The show quickly caught the fascination of viewers. While Neon Genesis Evangelion started initially with solid but unexceptional ratings, it soon expanded into a massive pop cultural phenomenon as more and more people tuned in to find out what all the fuss was about, eventually reaching 25-30% of the targeted demographic.² The final two episodes, noted for their abstract nature and for seemingly leaving several plot threads hanging, prompted a highly polarized reaction. The follow-up movie The End of Evangelion, released a year later, divided audiences even further. As a consequence, despite Evangelion’s immense popularity and influence, the franchise remains one of the most controversial works to ever air on broadcast television.

Neon Genesis Evangelion’s ending was, however, just one of its controversial aspects. Moral guardians raised complaints about the show’s frank (and frequently bleak) depictions of sex, violence, and mental illness, demanding networks censor its content. Critics such as Eiji Otsuka and Tetsuya Miyazaki accused Anno of “brainwashing” his audience and affirming, rather than criticizing, anime fans’ escapist tendencies. Yoshiyuki Tomino, the director of both Gundam and Ideon, complained that Anno tried “to convince the audience to admit that everybody is sick” and that it “told people it was okay to be depressed.” Additionally, much was made of the show’s religious imagery, particularly due to the then recent sarin gas attacks by the Aum Shinrikyo cult, which like NGE utilized a blend of Western and Japanese religious imagery.

Other complaints centered on NGE’s main characters, many of whom were found to be unlikeable or unheroic. Many attacked the lead protagonist Shinji as weak and indecisive, unbecoming of the hero in a show aimed at adolescents. Some further asserted the character was an attack on the show’s audience and that Anno wanted to “punish” his audience for their anime-loving ways. The rest of the cast didn’t escape criticism either and were variably found to be cruel, schizophrenic, or perverse. All could easily be characterized as dysfunctional.

But despite the backlash against Neon Genesis Evangelion, whether it was centered on the show’s ending, its thematic elements, or its characters’ deficiencies, none of it seemed to put a lasting dent in the show’s influence or popularity. And a lot of that, perhaps, has to do with the time in which it emerged. At the time NGE was originally produced in the early to mid 1990s, Japan was in the midst of an extended economic downturn that would come to be known as the Lost Decade, following a major asset price crash in 1989. During this time, Japanese animation, like many industries, experienced a contraction, resulting in slashed budgets and an increasing reliance on merchandising and product placement to sustain both the studios producing the content and the major networks who broadcasted (and often owned) it.

In addition to these economic concerns, there was also a growing feeling in the 1990s that animation was a thing of the past, whose glory days were long gone and which only inspired passion in either adolescents or callow, sheltered men in their 20s or 30s. The content of most anime was regarded as puerile or derivative and hardly becoming of serious adult interest. The term otaku,³ a word that literally means “house” but was used to mean “shut-in,” quickly became shorthand for anime fans who spent their adulthood collecting memorabilia and memorizing lines from their favorite shows.

But Neon Genesis Evangelion helped to change all that and to reclaim anime’s respectability. Breaking through the traditional animation fandom to a wider audience and owned solely by the creator-run Gainax, NGE was an invigorating shock to the industry, shaking it up and reviving interest in what had been regarded as a dying medium. Within a few short years, new creator-owned studios were cropping up across Japan, a trend which would continue well into the next decade and bear such fruit as Bones, manglobe, Ufotable, or Gainax’s own offshoots Trigger and Khara. The animation industry was expanding again and was beginning to boom overseas, in no small part thanks to the popularity and notoriety of NGE.

Devilman: Crybaby by Science Saru, a series itself based on one of Evangelion’s chief influences

The new anime boom would also reflect its origins in a number of different ways. More than a few of the new shows to debut in the late 1990s and early 2000s were directly influenced and impacted by Neon Genesis Evangelion, including such notables as RahXephon and Revolutionary Girl Utena. More subtly, the starkly realistic depictions of violence and sexuality in NGE as well as its bizarrely surreal imagery encouraged many directors to try similar techniques, resulting in a shift in style throughout the industry.

Neon Genesis Evangelion’s influence on later anime can be attributed in some ways to its technical sophistication. At its most basic, visceral level, NGE was startling to look at. Even compared with other Gainax works that had come before it, like Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water or Gunbuster, NGE immediately stood out as something unique in an increasingly homogeneous industry. The character designs of Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, strangely subdued yet striking and expressive, helped distinguish the cast while Ikuto Yamashita’s monstrous and biomechanical designs for the Evangelions did the same for the show’s mechs. Combined with the intense direction of Hideaki Anno, Kazuya Tsurumaki, Masayuki, and others NGE drew the eye right from the start.

The technical splendor wasn’t just limited to NGE’s art design or animation either. The voice talents provided by performers like Megumi Ogata, Kotono Mitsuishi, Megumi Hayashibara, and Yuko Miyamura gave life to the characters and helped audiences empathize with them, despite their dysfunctional and emotionally-wrought nature. Also contributing to the audio portion of Neon Genesis Evangelion was Shiro Sagisu, whose music swung significantly from jazzy to melodramatic and even to surreal, changing and evolving to match each scene with an appropriate mood. Assisting Sagisu was the vocal work of artists such as Yoko Takahashi, who made the show’s central theme, “A Cruel Angel’s Thesis,” a pop sensation.

But while the technical triumphs of Neon Genesis Evangelion certainly contributed to the show’s lasting appeal and influence, they’re hardly the whole story. For many viewers, the appeal of Evangelion went well beyond the surface, to narrative and thematic elements they felt spoke directly to them. Indeed, it is arguably NGE’s complex characterization, unorthodox narrative structure, and thematic depth which have made it stand out as one of the most legendary examples of Japanese pop culture.

A Cruel Angel’s Thesis

It’s not an exaggeration to say that essays—and books—have been written about Neon Genesis Evangelion and its thematic qualities. Most of this has been concentrated in Evangelion’s own native Japan, but the sensation has breached the other side of the Pacific as well, resulting in comparisons to the works of David Lynch and other Western directors. Contributing to this no doubt has been Anno’s own numerous references in NGE not only to native Japanese culture but to the West as well, with tributes to works like 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Andromeda Strain, and UFO found frequently throughout.

The most obvious thematic element present in Evangelion, at least to Western eyes, is its frequent allusions to Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. It’s not hard to see why: the monstrous foes besetting humanity are “Angels” who shoot cross-shaped energy bolts, which the main characters fight with “Evangelions” (the Greek word from which “evangelism” derives). Coupled with other bits and pieces here and there referring to original sin, the will of God, and ancient Judaism, these details give Evangelion a strikingly religious appearance to Western viewers.

However, while they’re certainly the most obvious elements in Evangelion, the religious references are also easily some of the most transient and insubstantial. Although initially viewed as central to the plot by many Westerners, it has since been revealed that most of the Biblical references are there for styling rather than substance and were largely intended to make the show stand out. In many respects, the usage of the Abrahamic faiths in Evangelion is similar to the use of Buddhism in The Matrix or Egyptian mythology in Stargate: a bit of fun exoticism to keep things interesting.

The Sephirot from Kabbalah, as represented in The End of Evangelion

That being said, the religious themes are not as vacuous as is sometimes alleged and the sheer number and obscurity of some of them indicates some real effort on the part of Anno. Each of the Angels, for instance, (which are called shito⁴ in Japanese, meaning “messenger” or “apostle”) are named after actual angels from Abrahamic mythology and their names, when translated from Hebrew or Arabic, often do indicate their nature in some way (e.g., Arael’s name means the “light of God” and it is an enormous winged being who attacks the characters with a beam of light). And while the use of the Kabbalah’s Sephiroth may be perfunctory, many other references to Jewish mysticism appear more meaningful, such as the Chamber of Guf or the duality of the Trees of Life and Wisdom.

Less obvious to Western eyes but possibly even more sophisticated are the references Evangelion makes to non-Abrahamic religions. There is, for example, the notable similarity between what the show terms “Instrumentality” and traditional descriptions of “egoless” nirvana in Buddhism (a religion also referenced by way of the Marduk Institute’s 108 dummy corporations).⁵ Japan’s native religion Shinto also shows its hand, most notably through the depiction of the Evangelions themselves, which Anno consciously designed after the monstrous oni of Japanese legend. All in all, while he may not have intended to portray a particular theological message, it’s clear that Anno put a lot of thought and research into giving Evangelion a suitably mystical appearance.

However, obsessing over the religious imagery in Evangelion obfuscates something far more important: Evangelion isn’t really about religion. Rather, where Evangelion’s thematic depth and complexity most clearly comes into play is psychology and philosophy of the mind.

Neon Genesis Evangelion is often described as a deconstruction of mecha anime. To a large extent that’s true, but it’s deconstruction is specific in outlook, focused on the psychology of its characters in the form of a question: just what kind of people would put the fate of humanity in the hands of adolescent children? And just what would that kind of stress and responsibility do to a child’s mind? In that regard, NGE is in far closer in kinship to Ender��s Game than to its natural predecessors like Macross, Gundam, or Gunbuster.

When the story of Neon Genesis Evangeliom begins, the world has already experienced disaster on an unprecedented scale. 14 years before the show begins, a massive apocalyptic event called the Second Impact devastated the Earth’s climate, precipitated global nuclear war, awakened the monstrous Angels, and resulted in the deaths of half of all humans on the planet. In response, civilization has been restructured and militarized in anticipation of an even worse Third Impact threatened by the Angels. To combat this threat, the secretive organization Nerv assembles biomechanical monsters of their own (the Evangelions) which, as it so happens, can only be piloted by teenagers.⁶

Rei Ayanami, the First Child, believes that her life is expendable

This is the kind of world people like Misato Katsuragi, Gendo Ikari, and Ritsuko Akagi live in and it’s the severity of their situation which ultimately shapes their actions. Although many of the adults, particularly Misato, wish they could let the series’ child protagonists lead a normal life, they know that’s not an option. As a result, the adult characters are driven towards a cold pragmatism that means, no matter how warm or compassionate they may act towards their wards at any given time, they’re still ready to sacrifice them when necessary.

This ruthless approach has its costs, however. The constant pressure to succeed, alongside the emotional whiplash they receive at the hands of the pilots’ supervisors and the repeated trauma they experience in combat results in each pilot’s gradual psychological degradation. Beginning as relatively competent and capable (if slightly dysfunctional) individuals, each pilot eventually succumbs to their trauma and breaks, causing them to isolate themselves from one another and resulting in a breakdown in morale which puts not only themselves but humanity itself at risk.

In keeping with this theme of psychological frailty and the ways in which we as people both intentionally and unintentionally harm those we care about, including those we care about, the series makes numerous allusions to the work of past psychologists and philosophers. Many concepts are mentioned specifically by name, such as the “oral stage,” “separation anxiety,” or the “hedgehog’s dilemma,” while others are alluded to more subtly, such as the Oedipus and Elektra complexes, post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia, or Lacan’s dichotomy of the constructed and ideal selves.

Hideaki Anno has himself said he researched psychology both before and during the production of Neon Genesis Evangelion and that many of the show’s characters are based upon both these concepts and his own experiences. He has, for instance, described the protagonist Shinji as a reflection of his own conscious self, while the emotionally withdrawn Rei is a manifestation of his unconscious, and the enigmatic Kaworu is his Jungian shadow. Altogether, the works of Freud, Lacan, Schopenhauer, Hegel, Jung, and Sartre have all been identified by staff or critics as influences on the show’s characters and plot.

One of the chief psychological themes in Evangelion is abandonment, particularly by those you love or have been cared for by. Throughout the story—in its past, present, and future—each of the main characters is abandoned by people important to them: their parents, their guardians, their lovers, their friends, etc. Invariably, this abandonment leads to a breakdown in identity and self-confidence, as each character is forced to redefine themselves from within after devoting so much of their identity to how they were perceived by others. Thematically matching to this issue of personal abandonment is humanity’s own abandonment by their unknowable creator eons ago, a detail alluded to occasionally as the story progresses. Like the individual characters then, humanity must learn how to manage and master its own fate when it has no one left to depend upon.

The Hedgehog’s Dilemma

These themes, however, would have little resonance were they irrelevant to the show’s human drama. It is to Neon Genesis Evangelion’s credit that they are not; each of the characters represent the show’s themes in both significant and personal ways. It is quite arguable then that it is the show’s protagonists, however controversial they may be either as individuals or an ensemble, which have truly allowed NGE to endure for decades as an icon of Japanese pop culture.

The most important of Neon Genesis Evangelion’s characters by far is easily Shinji Ikari, the pilot of Evangelion Unit-01 and the son of Gendo Ikari, the enigmatic director of the Evangelion program. At the beginning of the series Shinji is called to Nerv by his father, who abandoned him years earlier following the death of Shinji’s mother. Shinji hopes that this sudden call is for the purpose of reunion, but he is quickly disillusioned when his father reveals to him that he needs Shinji to pilot one of the monstrous Evangelions he’s built—a machine Shinji has hitherto never heard of—and to save humanity from extinction. Brokenhearted by his father’s coldness and terrified of the task he’s been blackmailed into performing, Shinji puts off his own desires and self-identity aside for the sake of pleasing his father and others, becoming the so-called Third Child.

Series protagonist Shinji Ikari, the Third Child

Shinji’s a complicated character and one many find difficult to empathize with. He is self-consciously cowardly and phlegmatic, prone to self-criticism, and afraid of getting close to others for fear that they’ll reject him. At times he thinks seriously about running away from his responsibilities, but whenever he actually does he quickly returns, unable to commit to so blatant an act of rebellion for long. Despite this and despite his own reliance on others to define his value, Shinji does have his virtues: he’s thoughtful, easy to get along with, and proves remarkably skilled at piloting, even if he has no real passion for it.

Shinji’s commanding officer, Misato Katsuragi, is NGE’s most prominent adult character and (according to Hideaki Anno) the series’ deuteragonist.⁸ Loud, goofy, and irreverent, Misato strikes quite a different first impression than Shinji, but despite their outward differences they’re actually quite similar people with comparable issues, merely approaching them in different manners. Like Shinji, Misato feels abandoned by her father, who neglected her and her mother before his death years ago. But despite that Misato still yearns for his affection, manifesting her desires in the form of her relationship with Ryoji Kaji, a coworker and lover she admits resembles her father. And, also like Shinji, Misato fears getting close to other people for fear of being hurt, but whereas Shinji manages his anxiety by avoiding people, Misato does so by acting flippant and flirtatious in public, living lightly and maintaining only “surface level relationships.”

Shinji’s move into Misato’s apartment comes largely at her insistence and Shinji is initially quite uncomfortable with it, a feeling which does not subside when he learns she’s an extremely messy housekeeper and an alcoholic. But despite her irreverent personality, Misato turns out to be a deeply caring person who wants very much for Shinji to be happy and, over the course of the series, she tries to direct the development of Shinji as a good parent would, all the while concerned her own flaws make her an unsuitable guardian. Notably, these moments where the two of them bond are some of the most light-hearted in the series.

Although Shinji is the first pilot the series introduces, he is preceded by two others at Nerv. The first, Rei Ayanami, is arguably Neon Genesis Evangelion’s most popular (and certainly influential) character. Enigmatic and asocial to a degree that goes beyond mere awkwardness, Rei lives alone in a desolate apartment she doesn’t even bother to clean, close to no one but her pseudo-guardian Gendo Ikari. Because of her closeness to his father, who has raised her as his own daughter, Shinji initially sees Rei as a replacement for him. It soon becomes apparent however that Rei’s trust and faith in Gendo go well beyond that of a healthy parent-child dynamic. Obedient to a fault and unconcered for her own well-being, Rei causally throws herself into danger for Gendo and Nerv and comes across as emotionless to those around her.

But beneath Rei’s cold, ultra-stoic exterior beats a heart as capable of joy and sorrow as that of any other. Far from the robotic doll many assume her to be, Rei has a secret yearning for others to understand her and her them and, over the course of the series, slowly opens up to Shinji. But although she desires human contact, she doesn’t really know how to initiate it and she’s terrified of the possibility that there’s something about her that makes her fundamentally unlike other people.

Asuka Langley Soryu, the third of the child protagonists to show up,⁷ strikes about as strong a contrast to Rei as one can imagine. Egotistical, loud-mouthed, and possessed of far more bravado than either Shinji or Rei, Asuka joins the cast about a third of the way through the show, after transferring from Nerv’s facility in Germany. Raised since childhood to be a pilot, Asuka prides herself on her skills and looks with disdain on Shinji’s self-deprecating nature and inability to recognize his own accomplishments. Already a college graduate and convinced she’s as much an adult as anyone, Asuka also proves precociously sexual, pining for both Misato’s lover Kaji and, to a lesser but still significant extent, Shinji himself, whom she frequently teases for attention.

Asuka is like Shinji a controversial character; people often look at Asuka and see one of two sides to her: a selfish jerk who bullies Shinji and Rei or an accomplished young woman whose confidence and inner strength makes her the real hero of the show. The truth, however, is that in many ways she’s both. Asuka really is brave—far braver than Shinji or even Rei, who doesn’t really fear death—and she’s definitely skilled. But she’s also prone to jealousy and vindictiveness, as well as a consciously manifested attitude of not caring for anyone. In many ways, however, her bravado is a cover for own insecurity, built upon the belief that no one really likes or loves her.

The cast of the original Neon Genesis Evangelion

There’s a lot to admire about NGE’s characters, even with all their flaws and personality disorders. It’s easily got one of the most complex and diverse casts in anime and there has to be something said for the fact that of its four principal characters, three are female, allowing it to easily pass the Bechdel-Wallace Test (which it does). The characters each have their own virtues, which in a more easygoing series could make them quite endearing. Lead protagonist Shinji’s selfless and has a fairly noble streak, though it’s hidden deep beneath his own self-doubt and loathing. The adult Misato’s fairly protective of her young charges, at least insofar as she is allowed to be given the circumstances, and is also quite a bit more capable than many expect. Selfless Rei’s loyalty and discipline easily make her one of the most sympathetic characters in the series, even if she does sometimes come across as alien or inhuman. And there’s little question that the daring Asuka has enough chutzpah for the whole cast.

But it could also be argued that the complexity and harshness of NGE’s characters which ultimately make them work, even if at times they also make the show hard to watch. Shinji, Misato, Rei, and Asuka are not the idealized paragons of humanity you’d expect to find in most television shows aimed at teenagers, but they’re not the imaginings of a bitter misanthrope either. They’re deeply flawed, yes, and when they’re hurt they keep on hurting, but they also keep going and keep trying to find a way to live with others that doesn’t result in pain. It’s this idea, the recognition that people screw up and hurt one another but want to do better, that really enlivens the franchise. For all the reputed darkness of Evangelion’s story, it is in many ways idealistic, always hopeful that it’s characters might find a way to be happy. You don’t have to be broken, it says, even if you are damaged.

And it is that core ethos of qualified hope that elevates Neon Genesis Evangelion from just another mecha anime or even a deconstruction of mecha to something more. Something sublime and, in its own strange way, even inspirational.

The Sickness unto Death

At this point I feel it’s useful to provide some personal background. I first watched Neon Genesis Evangelion when I was in high school, sometime between my third and fourth years. My initial reaction was, I think, largely typical. The first episodes interested me and as the storyline moved forward and became more complex, I became more invested in the show’s events and characters. I even appreciated to some extent the bizarre and abstract final two episodes, though I’d hoped for a more conventional ending. Then, I watched The End of Evangelion, whoch left me shocked and dismayed at its harshness. I still cared about the series, but I felt more ambivalent as a result.

Over the next few years I continued to keep up with the Evangelion fandom to a small extent, checking out the rumors about the new movies and reading some fan fiction online, but I gradually drifted away. None of the fan speculation or fiction really seemed to scratch the same itch the original series had and eventually my interests in anime shifted more towards Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and Fullmetal Alchemist. Evangelion, as much as I’d enjoyed it before, fell gradually into the background of my life.

And then I entered college.

In my youth, I was generally regarded as a “bright” student, fawned over by teachers and regarded by my peers as either a genius or a “know-it-all,” depending on how much they liked me (or didn’t). As I entered the final years of high school it was clear that I was expected to excel in university. But when I actually began my college career I quickly faltered. Depressed, socially isolated, and exhausted from getting four to six hours of sleep a night, my grades slipped quickly and my social life evaporated. For awhile, I tried to deny my problems and ignore them, believing I could power through without help. Eventually, though, I had no choice but to confront my issues: I was put on academic suspension and my financial assistance was pulled.

I was devastated. I had no idea what to do. I didn’t know how to tell my parents, who I’d let believe I was doing fine. I didn’t know where to go with my life now that I’d failed to live up to the expectations I’d allowed other people to put on me. I didn’t even really know who I was anymore. If I wasn’t a brilliant student and child genius, who was I? In my own eyes I was worthless and contemptible.

Eventually, with the help of my family and friends, as well as staff from the university, I was able to make my way back to daylight. I began to undertake counseling. I went to community college to bring my GPA back up. I started talking more openly with my loved ones about my problems, even though I was worried it would make them think less of me. And I began to be more honest about my flaws and limitations.

A scene from Evangelion 3.0: You Can (Not) Redo, the third Rebuild film

It was also around this time, rather coincidentally, that I began to seriously revisit Evangelion. I was prompted, as much as by anything else, by the release of the new “Rebuild of Evangelion” films. After my brothers and I attended a screening of the second film’s release in early 2011 with several of our friends, the latter (hitherto unfamiliar with Evangelion) expressed interest in catching up with the franchise. Indulging them, my brothers and I rewatched the original TV series. To my surprise, I began to see the series in a new light. Where once I had simply been sympathetic to Shinji, Misato, Rei, and Asuka’s inner turmoil, now I felt deeply empathetic. Where previously the show’s harshness had at times alienated me, now it felt deeply relatable and truthful. And where earlier the TV show’s decision to focus on the internal psyches of its main characters instead of the plot had puzzled me before, now I felt as if I understood it completely. I even began to appreciate the theatrical finale, a film so brutal some regard it (falsely) as Anno’s revenge against fans angry with him for the original ending.

What had changed? Certainly not the show. Rather, it was my perspective. I possessed now of a viewpoint I hadn’t held earlier. I knew now what it was like to be full of contempt for one’s self, to be a defeated shell of a person who felt as though their value was slipping away or was already entirely absent. I knew what it was like to believe I was a failure in every meaningful way. In other words, I’d gained the perspective of a person suffering from depression. The same perspective as that of Evangelion’s principal characters as well as their creator, Hideaki Anno.

It’s hardly secret knowledge that Hideaki Anno was suffering from depression when he first created Neon Genesis Evangelion. The extent of his depression, however, was far graver than is generally recognized. When Anno began work on the project that would become NGE, he had already been suffering from severe depression for at least four years. In a statement released with the first volume of Evangelion’s manga (comic) adaptation Anno described himself as “a broken man... who ran away for four years, one who was simply not dead.” And while the production of NGE had originally been intended to break him out of a rut, the stress only compounded the severity of his condition. By the time of the show’s completion Anno was, by his own later admission, borderline suicidal.

No one’s ever said precisely what drove Anno over the edge publicly, but it’s widely agreed it had much to do with the production of his previous work, Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water. Originally conceived by Anno’s mentor Hayao Miyazaki in the mid-1980s Nadia was eventually handed off to Anno after Gainax made a bid for the project. Far gentler and family-friendly than NGE, the comparative sweetness of Nadia obscured a troubled production that saw animation work outsourced and Anno frequently butting heads with NHK, the series’ broadcaster, over the show’s content and creative direction. Coupled with rumored trouble in Anno’s personal life, the experience proved too much for him, driving him into the deep depression that would haunt him for most of the 1990s.

The roots of Anno’s emotional troubles may go deeper, however. Long regarded by those close to him as a lonely and eccentric oddball, Anno was socially withdrawn as a child, preferring to spend his time watching and recreating scenes from his favorite anime and tokusatsu to interacting with others, a choice he’d later say he regretted. In 1983, due in large part to his social isolation and inactivity at school, he dropped out of university and lived homeless for a time before he was discovered by Miyazaki and employed as an animator for Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. The experience proved vital to his career and soon afterward he and a few friends gathered to form Gainax, their own animation studio. It was during this time that Anno directed Gunbuster alongside working on other projects such as Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise and Grave of the Fireflies. For a time, he seemed happy. But then came Nadia and he withdrew entirely from his work and social life, before reemerging to work on Evangelion.

Anno’s turbulent life and emotional turmoil is reflected in the characters of Evangelion, many of whom enter the story damaged but apparently functional only to completely fall apart later on. Shinji is lonely and dependent when he first appears, but he still manages to form friendships and do what’s required of him. Misato may be an alcoholic with a mess of a home, but Nerv’s trust in her is rewarded time and time again by her effectual planning and coordination of her pilots. Rei’s cold and emotionally withdrawn, but her dutiful selflessness both inspires and attracts others to her. Asuka can be arrogant and reckless, but she’s also intelligent and capable of real kindness towards those she respects. Like Anno in the early days of Gainax, they all seem to be on top of things.

But just when it seems like the team’s getting the hang of things and finding their groove, disaster strikes. Soon, as one crisis mounts on top of another, from near-death experiences to being forced to hurt his friends, everything falls apart. Shinji’s newfound self-confidence shatters and he becomes even more needy than before. Misato’s constructed domestic bliss blows apart just as her own convictions are thrown into question by new revelations about her work. Rei becomes colder and more distant than ever before, withdrawing even from Gendo, the one person she trusts implicitly. And Asuka collapses into a pit of self-loathing despair, savagely lashing out at anyone who gets close to her. It’s ugly, it’s nasty, and it’s real.

Shinji admits to his feelings of worthlessness to Misato Katsuragi, his guardian and confidante, in The End of Evangelion

This cycle of crash, despair, and recovery is not unusual for suffers of depression. Contrary to what is often thought, depression is not really something you have at one point in your life and then “get over;” it’s something that can shadow you your entire life, kept in check by momentary pleasures and good times but always threatening to surge and overwhelm you when things go awry, sending you into a spiral of self-hate and abnegation that can last for weeks, months, or even years. Friends and family help keep it in check, as does therapy and pharmaceuticals, but it never goes away completely. The only thing you can do is recognize the symptoms and do your best to confront them. You have to keep going. You can’t let your fears drive you to abandon the world. You must not, in other words, run away.

And really that’s what the characters’ struggles in Evangelion come down to: facing reality and acknowledging their flaws while also recognizing their own potential to overcome them and the painful struggle for acceptance we all, on some level, endure. The first instinct of every character in the series is to run away from their problems, to obscure them with outwardly derived duties, relationships, or purposes. Shinji and Rei both look to Gendo, Misato to her job, and Asuka to her pride as an Eva pilot, but all of them are running away and, as a consequence, are unprepared to deal with reality when it hits them flat in the face.

Or are they?

As Long As You Try to Continue to Live

It’s worth noting that when Anno created Neon Genesis Evangelion he didn’t initially set out to create a dark and cynical deconstruction of mecha anime. When asked what initially gave him the impetus to create NGE, Anno has said repeatedly that he originally meant to make a show more in the spirit of Gundam or Space Battleship Yamato, two of his favorite TV shows from his youth, but without the shackles inherent to sponsorship by a toy company, as was common practice for anime at the time. “I made Evangelion to make me happy and to make anime lovers happy,” he said in a 1996 interview, “in trying to bring together the broadest audience possible.”

But as pre-production on the series progressed (and his emotional state regressed) Anno became further disenchanted at the state of anime, concerned that fans were turning to it as a way to escape reality as he himself felt compelled to. “I wonder if a person over the age of twenty who likes robot anime is really happy,” he stated in an article for Newtype half a year before the series aired. This change in perspective, coupled with his resurgent depression, caused Anno to shift focus as he became more and more concerned with the characters’ emotional development, hoping that by the end of the series’ narrative “the heroes would change,” breaking away from their regressed emotional state and achieving the same emotional well-being and self-dependence Anno still sought for himself and which he felt his audience needed as well.

It’s this perspective of Anno’s—that anime otaku were and are caught in a kind of prolonged childhood—which has led to the impression that Anno hates otaku and believes their lives to be worthless. But the truth is that Anno’s thoughts on the subject are quite a bit subtler and more reflective than many give him credit for. Far from hating otaku, Anno counts himself among them and feels defensive whenever they’re derided by others. The issue, he thinks, is less that otaku are permanently stunted and more that they’re afraid or reluctant to open themselves to new experiences:

“I feel that otaku have already become common to all countries. In Europe, in Korea, in Taiwan, in Hong Kong, in America, otaku really do not change. I think that this is amazing. I say critical things towards otaku, but I don’t reject them. I only say that we should take a step back and be self-conscious about these things. I think it’s perfectly fine so long as you act with an awareness of what you are doing, self-conscious and cognizant of the current situation. I’m just not sure it’s a good thing to reach the point where you cut yourself off from society. I don’t understand the greatness of society, either. So I have no intention of going so far as to call for people to give up otaku-like things and become more suited to society. Only, I think there are many other interesting things in the world, and we don’t have to reject them.”

Despite everything, the characters still care for and want to see one another happy

And that’s what I mean by Evangelion’s subtle, qualified idealism. Despite Anno’s frequent cynicism and troubled state of mind during the production of the series, it’s clear that at heart he’s a person who believes people can change and improve themselves. He’s someone who believes that, even in the worst or most desperate of situations, people can find happiness if they’re open to it. “As long as you try to continue to live,” one character states in The End of Evangelion, “any place can be a heaven… there’s a chance to become happy everywhere.”

It would certainly be easy to define the characters of Evangelion by their failures and—given the magnitude of their failures—it’s understandable why many do. After all, much of the series’ narrative is caught up (as I noted earlier) in deconstructing the kind of scenario typical of mecha shows and examing what really would happen if teenagers were put in charge of the world’s salvation. As such, as in other deconstructionist narratives (such as the Battlestar Galactica reboot or Watchmen), the characters screw up about at least as often as they succeed.

That being said, more often than not, when the characters are hit with tragedy or trauma, they eventually recover and bounce back. They’re definitely damaged and shaken by their experiences, but they keep on going anyway. As much as Shinji fears and abhors piloting he’s also someone who, when people are really depending on him, will almost always get right back in the cockpit and try to help. Rei may be over-compliant and lack any regard for herself, but she’s also capable of defying orders when she knows they’re wrong. And for all Asuka’s jealousy and grandstanding, she’s also a person deeply capable of love and self-sacrifice, who would die for those she cares about.

This ray of hope at the core of Evangelion’s story is made most clear in the television series’ original broadcast ending, wherein Shinji rediscovers his own self-value and the joy of living in a world with other people and declares that, although he hates himself, “maybe, maybe I could love myself. Maybe, my life can have a greater value.” But such idealism is even found in the much more outwardly harsh vision of The End of Evangelion. After coming face to face with the world he thought he desired—a world without pain or individuality—Shinji realizes that it’s also a world without happiness. “This isn’t right,” he says. “There was nothing good in the place I ran to, either. After all, I didn’t exist there... which is the same as no one existing.” Realizing this, Shinji chooses to return to the physical world he knew, even if it means feeling pain again.

The idea that joy and pain are in many ways coterminous with one another is hardly original to Evangelion; indeed, it’s a fairly important concept to Buddhism. But I’ve rarely seen the idea expressed in quite the same way as Evangelion, in a way that’s both fully formed and strangely life-affirming. Pain is inevitable, but so is joy. You’ll be hurt, but it’s better than never feeling anything at all and may only give you more appreciation for what you have. You may feel alone, but you’re not; everyone suffers in their life at one point or another, and you don’t have to carry that burden by yourself.

Reflecting upon and considering these themes through Evangelion, as I rediscovered it during a low point in my life, allowed me to appreciate it in a way I’d never been able to before. And it also helped me to move on with my life, to accept the losses I could never recover while also believing it didn’t mean my own life was over. Like Shinji, Misato, Rei, and Asuka, I didn’t have to be defeated by my experiences. I could keep on going. I didn’t have to run away. And that’s a message I believe everyone needs to hear at least once in their life.

Series creator Hideaki Anno (left) with mentor Hayao Miyazaki (right)

Today, Hideaki Anno has found some peace of mind. He’s happily married, the head of his own production company, and he’s physically healthier too. He still suffers from depression—he’s not cured by any means and he probably never will be; depression isn’t that kind of disease. But he’s able to fight it now and to find the happiness he once believed illusory. He has the same hope he wanted his characters to find in Evangelion. And which I also feel I’ve found, in some small part, thanks to him.

¹Throughout this essay, Neon Genesis Evangelion or NGE refers to the original TV series, The End of Evangelion refers to its theatrical sequel, Rebuild of Evangelion refers to the series of rebooted films produced decades later, and Evangelion on its own refers to the franchise as a whole.

²Specifically, shōnen, meaning boys aged between 12 and 18.

³The term has since been adopted by Western anime fans, but in Japan the word does not necessarily refer to animation fans specifically but to anyone with an obsessive interest in something.

⁴Ironically, “messenger” is a literal translation of the word angelos from Greek—the origin of the English word “angel”—as well as the original Hebrew mal’akh.

⁵The numbers 8 and 108 are both significant in Buddhism. 8 refers to the Noble Eighfold Path to enlightenment. 108 refers to several things, including the number of beads in a Vajrayana prayer rosary, the number of questions asked of the Gautama Buddha in the Lankavatara Sutra, or the number of times Japanese Buddhist temples ring a bell on New Year’s.

⁶The reason for this is never fully explained. Behind the scenes, this was largely because of the show’s target demographic. In universe though it may be related to the secret nature of the Evangelions themselves, which have human souls.

⁷Deuteragonist is a term which means the second-most important character with whom the audience’s sympathies are intended to lie.

⁸Though referred to as the Second Child(ren) because she was the second candidate approved to pilot Evangelions, before Shinji but after Rei.

#neon genesis evangelion #evangelion #hideaki anno #my writing #essays #retrospectives

43 notes · View notes

riderstyx · 5 years

Text

Jour 6 (très en retard): Biting (Morsure)

Jour 6 : Biting (Morsure)

Pairing : Caça/IoDisclaimer :

L'univers et les personnages de St Seiya ne m'appartiennent pas. Ils sont la propriété de Masami Kurumada, de la Toei et de la Shueisha.

Merci à … pour la correction

Warning :

Scène à caractère sexuel explicite.

Légère violence et sang versé.

Io ouvrit les yeux pour croiser le regard de la jeune femme qui venait de l'embrasser. Ses prunelles noisettes, ses lourdes boucles noires, sa peau caramel. Sa bouche si rouge, si tentante. Sa taille fine, ses hanches larges… Elle était comme dans ses souvenirs. Si parfaite ! Si belle ! Si attirante ! Cette douce demoiselle qui l'avait fait rêver avec son seul sourire en lui servant un verre, lors d'une de ses premières sorties à la surface.

Il ne retint pas le soupir qui lui vint lorsqu'elle passa ses mains fines et agiles sous sa tunique et que ses lèvres partirent dévorer sa mâchoire, son cou, le creux de son épaule. Il laissa avec soulagement son corps se rapprocher du sien, savourant la chaleur tentatrice qu'il sentait au travers des tissus, s'enivrant du parfum sucré et entêtant qui se dégageait de la jeune femme.

Elle était parfaite ! Parfaitement comme il l'avait imaginé !

Néanmoins, il l'écarta avec un soupir, regrettant la tiédeur confortable qu'elle emportait avec elle.

“Ce n'est pas ce que je veux et tu le sais ! ”

La femme resta un moment étonné, avant de se radoucir, retrouvant le sourire malicieux qu'elle n'avait quitté qu'un instant, pour se rapprocher de nouveau et lui cacher la vue avec sa main.

Main qui se fit étonnement grande et rugueuse.

La chaleur de l'autre corps s'éloigna encore, ne libérant sa vue qu'après un froissement sourd de draps.

Io resta un instant perplexe de ne voir personne devant lui, avant de sentir un souffle dans son dos. Le bras qui lui enserrait la taille était fort, puissant, musclé et viril. Tout comme le torse contre son dos qui l'englobait tout entier malgré sa propre carrure déjà respectable.

Scylla laissa échapper un soupir exaspéré, mais se laissa tout de même aller contre cette chaleur derrière lui, renversant la tête contre l'épaule large qui semblait faite pour l'accueillir. Avec un souffle de plus en plus court, il s'abandonna aux mains calleuses qui le parcouraient, les laissant ôter sa tunique, défaire et retirer son pantalon. Du coin de l'œil, il observa le visage de l'homme qui semblait le vénérer par chacun de ses mouvements, et tiqua légèrement. L'acteur du film vu la veille lui jetait un regard doux et attentif et dévorait son corps du regard comme il le faisait avec ses mains. Son sourire, à demi mutin, à demi fasciné, était le même que celui qu'il avait arboré en découvrant le trésor antique à la fin du long métrage. Il dégageait la même assurance, la même force alors que, conquérant, il glissa ses doigts sans hésitation sous l'élastique du boxer du Marina pour venir y saisir le membre qui se réveillait paresseusement.

Ce fut la goutte de trop pour Io qui, avec un grondement agacé, se dégagea facilement de l'étreinte de l'homme pour venir ensuite le renverser sous lui. “Ce ! N'est ! Pas ! Ce ! Que ! Je ! Veux !” Grondât-il en détachant chaque mots, menaçant. “Alors tu arrêtes ça ! Maintenant !”

Sous lui, l'acteur ne fut pas impressionné pour autant, affichant une moue mécontente bien éloignée de ce qu'il avait montré sur écran la veille en répondant :

“Bien sûr que c'est ce que tu veux. Je le vois dans ton cœur. Arrête de faire semblant ! Ça ne me dérange pas de jouer de cette façon. Soit un peu honnête envers toi-même et profites-en !” Les pupilles du jeune Marina s'étrécirent alors qu'un rictus de colère dévoilait ses dents. Il détailla avec fureur et dédain le corps alangui sous lui, qui frissonnait doucement d'appréhension et d'excitation sous son examen.

Le visage était parfait, plus que sous le maquillage et les projecteurs. Les muscles était parfaitement dessiné, ni trop, ni trop peu. Sa taille semblait plus grande que dans le film, parfaite pour l'englober entièrement contre lui. L'attitude était parfaite, ni trop soumise, ni trop effronté. Même le sexe qui se devinait encore prisonnier des tissus alors qu'il était déjà en grande forme semblait parfaitement bien proportionné.

Parfait ! Parfaitement ce qu'il voulait ! Cela lui tordait l'estomac de désir tout en lui faisant remonter colère et dégoût dans la gorge. “Change ça ! Tout de suite ! Ou tu pourras toujours courir pour que je revienne dans ta chambre !”

La voix était autant remplie de fureur que de frustration.

L'autre sembla hésiter un moment, avant de pousser un soupir résigné.

Sa silhouette se troubla et Caça reprit sa véritable apparence, affichant une mine mécontente, presque boudeuse. “Je dois être l'un des seul être sur Terre a pouvoir apporter ce genre de petits plaisirs et à pouvoir combler tous les fantasmes qui soient et toi tu fais le difficile ! Tu n'es qu'un gamin capricieux !”

Io hésita un long moment entre partir sans se retourner, ou faire ravaler sa morgue à son insupportable amant.

Mais ce dernier ondoyait déjà traîtreusement sous lui, passant sa jambe entre les siennes pour lui rappeler sa virilité qui n'avait que faire de sa colère et qui n'attendait que ça pour faire repartir de plus belle le feu qui naissait au creux de ses reins. Pourquoi aimait-il cet insupportable métamorphe à qui rien ne pouvait être caché ? Il résista quelques secondes, avant de céder. Comme les fauves dont il utilisait les attaques, il se jeta sur son agaçant partenaire, le plaquant sous lui pour planter ses crocs dans son épaule, serrant jusqu'à ce que la chair s'ouvre un peu, s'attirant une plainte qui devint gémissement alors qu'il léchait le sang qui coulait paresseusement, traçant les contours de la marque laissée avec sa langue.

“Tu es à moi ! A moi tel que tu es ! Je te veux, toi ! Pas tes pouvoirs, pas ces autres que tu peux être ! Toi et uniquement toi !”

Caça se cambra sous la seconde attaque, la morsure tombant cette fois-ci sur la peau tendre de son cou. Il aurait voulu dire qu'il savait que c'était faux. Qu'il savait que comme tout un chacun, son animal d'amant avait des fantasmes qui ne l'incluait pas.

Il aurait voulu lui dire que c'était hypocrite, que ses pouvoirs faisaient partie de lui, que les rejeter était rejeter cette partie de lui. Il aurait voulu le taquiner sur cette fierté, cette grandeur qu'il se donnait et qui le rendait aveugle à ce qu'il désirait vraiment, comme le jeune fou entêté, idéaliste et impulsif qu'il était.

Mais tous ces mots ne passèrent pas ses lèvres, car les morsures tombaient en pluie sur son corps que le Général de Scylla dénudait violemment, transformant ses vêtements en lambeau sans aucun égard. Les piques de douleurs précédaient des frissons indécents de désir, augmentant lorsque ce jeune chien fou le retourna pour le prendre après l'avoir sommairement préparé, s'attaquant à son dos comme il s'était attaqué à son torse.

Et il devait avouer qu'être ainsi marqué, possédé tel qu'il était… lui faisait quelque chose. Avec un sourire dissimulé dans son oreiller, il se laissa aller sous les coups de reins de son amant, s'abandonnant à lui, à ses mains sur sa virilité, le plaisir d'être ainsi désiré surpassant presque celui qui brûlait au bas de son ventre.

Il sentit son jeune amant finir en lui, le laissant s'effondrer sur son dos alors que lui-même finissait par venir grâce à cette main qui continuait à le stimuler, avant de s'étendre à son tour dans cet état de plénitude qui suivait chaque étreinte.

Il profita un long moment du poids de Io sur son dos, de la chaleur de son souffle court contre sa nuque, avant de basculer sur le côté pour déposer sa tendre charge sur le matelas et pouvoir enfin lui faire face.

Avec un sourire, il observa les joues rosies par le plaisir passé, les lèvres rougies par son propre sang. Il vint les cueillir d'un baiser, savourant le goût métallique, avant de descendre vers l'épaules et d'y planter à son tour ses dents aiguisées, moins fort que ce que ce qu'il avait lui-même reçu, sans percer la peau, mais s'attirant tout de même une plainte paresseuse, laissant à son tour sa marque sur l'autre.

Alors seulement, il prit Io dans ses bras, poussant un soupir satisfait en le sentant se lover contre lui, posant ses lèvres sur son impossible chevelure.

“Un jour ce serait tout de même amusant de profiter de mes capacités.”

Le Général de Scylla gronda, mais ne se sentit pas d'humeurs à la dispute et laissa l'autre Marina avoir le dernier mot en répondant juste d'une voie étouffée :

“Un jour…”

__________________

Du ? Retard ?

Mais non voyons ! Pas du tout !

Ahem!!

Avec tout ça, une année est passée et le Kinktober revient bientôt. Je pensais retenter le défi, mais de manière plus souple.

Je me suis résignée : Je suis trop lente et je fais de trop long texte pour pouvoir produire un texte par jour sans exploser en vol. Je vais donc tenter le challenge, mais avec uniquement 15 textes plutôt que 31. Je remets le compteur des couples à zéro (parce que je serais bien triste de ne plus pouvoir utiliser mes chouchous que son Saga et Aphrodite) et je reprends pour cette année à la suite de ce texte. J'espère parvenir à mon objectif, surtout que j'aspire à faire le NaNoWrimo ensuite.

Souhaitez-moi bon courage. ;)

#saint seiya #caça #io #kasa #marinas #yaoi #RT18

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voltronfandomhag · 5 years

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Form Blazing Lawsuit!

I’ve occasionally see posts floating around wishing Toei would make GoLion a reboot. I really don’t think that’d happen for a few reasons, chief among them being that the Japanese really don’t care about GoLion. It’s almost entirely forgotten there. These posts also got me thinking about the legal mess surrounding Voltron, GoLion, and Dairugger, something that might complicate things if Toei was to pursue a GoLion remake. So, yeah, today’s post is a brief exploration into the legal issues surrounding the franchise. I will state that said legal situation is pretty messy, so if I’ve missed any key details (and I probably have), let me know.

In the beginning of time (1981) Toei Animation created GoLion and, a year later, Dairugger XV. These were the shows WEP adapted into Voltron: Defender of the Universe for American television. Voltron was a massive hit in the United States while GoLion and Dairugger both quickly faded into obscurity in Japan. Because of this Toei sold WEP partial rights to these shows.

Fast forward to 1998. WEP creates Voltron: The Third Dimension without Toei’s involvement. This led to a legal battle between WEP and Toei that ended with WEP purchasing the majority of the rights to both GoLion and Dairugger. WEP was now free to pursue future Voltron projects without Toei’s involvement…or so they thought.

In 2007 WEP attempted to sign a deal with film studio New Regency for the production of a live-action Voltron movie. Toei objected, claiming WEP only had rights to manage Voltron animation, not live action. They also stated concerns over the film potentially being marketed in Japan. In January of 2008, Toei Managing Director Masayoshi Endo contacted WEP’s then President Ted Koplar with a letter that read in part:

“Congratulations! We, however, were surprised with the fact that Toei has not been contacted in connection with this movie planning. As you remember, we had a dispute in the past and settled it in 2000, and now we have no dispute for the animation of Voltron or Golion, which are now all yours.

We, however, do not think that the settlement and the assignment made thereunder shall have given you an exclusive right for live-action movie for Voltron. As you know, in our business, animation and live-action are completely different products and traded separately.

We are especially concerned about the marketing of the possible live-action film in Japan, and we expect you would contact us in due course to deal with this matter.”

This led to New Regency launching its own investigation into the existence of possible third party claims to GoLion and/or Voltron. Their findings suggested GoLion character designer, Kazuo Nakamura, might also posses rights to GoLion. All this caused New Regency to cancel its plans to develop the Voltron movie. In February of 2008 WEP flied a lawsuit against Toei. Specifically, WEP sought a legal declaration on which rights belonged to WEP, which belonged to Toei, and which, if any, belonged to Nakamura. The two companies settled in 2010. Last I heard Universal Pictures acquired the film rights in 2016.

#voltron #golion #wep #toei #dairugger

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myucornerorg · 5 years

Text

So apparently Viz decided to copyright claim my latest cover, probably cause I used a clip of the actual "Moon Revenge" scene from the R movie as the video. Never mind that I included a lengthy notice in the description saying I don't own Sailor Moon. I *did* forget to put them in said notice, though, not on purpose though. I cited the clip as being owned by Toei as well as Pioneer/Geneon since the clip I used is actually from their dub. I'm not quite sure what Viz has rights to SM-wise.

A bit of irony here is that YouTube actually added an ad for the R movie (which you can watch on YouTube Movies now) under my video, though this may be because of the tags I put in when uploading it.

Is it worth disputing? I'm not sure. What do you guys think?

#slightly off topic #sailor moon #mizusenshisongs

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duhragonball · 4 years

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[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (126/?)

Continuity Note: About 1000 years before the events of Dragon Ball Z.

[20 July, 233 Before Age. Nagaoka.]

"Okay, so Treekul's in a bad spot. She should have been more careful about who she got mixed up with. Yeah, and she shouldn't have been so eager to run off on another quest. But that's what makes Treekul cool, you know? Other alchemical historians? They just sit in libraries all day, poring over dusty holo-fiches. But Treekul goes out and finds things. And for once, she had backup. Two Saiyans, Lesseri and Endive, and then we picked up a third, Guwar. With their support, I could discover all sorts of artifacts."

Treekul stopped, shook her head, and gestured to slow down. "I mean she could discover," she said. "Sorry. My therapist always told me this works better if I refer to myself in the third person. You'd think I'd be used to this by now, but I-- but Treekul's under a little more stress than usual. Like I said, it was handy to have three Saiyans backing her up, even if they only wanted her to find things for them, at least she knew no one would mess with her. And she scored some decent leads along the way. There's a treasure trove of artifacts in that penthouse on Quadzityz, assuming it survived the war. Lesseri and Endive killed the owner and wrecked the security systems, and most of that stuff isn't even valuable to anyone else. Nothing to stop Treekul from walking in and helping herself. Another paper for the academic journals. If she ever makes it out of this mess, that is."

She began to pace back and forth around her modest living quarters. The strips of red fabric that made up her "robes" trailed behind her legs as she walked.

"The Saiyans were looking for a cult," she continued. "And Treekul heard it was named after 'jindan', an alchemical term for mercuric sulfide. Or, rather, the fundamental principle that mercuric sulfide represents. So she saw an opportunity and agreed to help them find this cult, using her expertise with a geomantic compass. Guwar was a mathematician, if you can believe that, so he helped out with the calculations. He was a really nice guy. Bit of an inferiority complex, but I get the feeling that goes for every Saiyan."

She stopped herself again. "Not 'was', 'is'. Guwar is a nice guy," she said. "Just because no one's told me what happened to him doesn't necessarily mean he got killed in the war. It's just... Treekul could really use his help right now. Or even if he can't help, it'd be nice if he were here to listen to her, like he did back on the ship, before they found the Jindan cult.

"Turns out the cult was real all along, and they leave just enough bread crumbs out there so that other Saiyans can find them. Their leader is the Saiyan King, Rehval III, but here, he calls himself 'Trismegistus', a reference to the Thrice Blessed alchemist from ancient writings. Rehval seems to think he's uncovered some great secret, something that makes him the greatest alchemist ever, and from what I've seen, he might be right about that. His Jindan potion makes Saiyans even stronger, and he must have thousands of them working for him. Only trouble is that they have to give up their free will. Rehval tells them what to eat, when to sleep, they all have sex in some 'breeding pit' thing that I don't even want to think about..."

She paused to rub the bridge of her nose, then ran her hand over the short green hair on her lavender scalp. It was normally a satisfying feeling for her, but not this time, her hair was too long for that by now.

"The others all did whatever Rehval told them to. All they cared about was power. They brought Treekul here, and no one was interested in how she got home. No payday, no paper, no treasure trove of artifacts. Instead, Rehval decided to keep her as some sort of alien pet. He thinks he can train her to be an alchemist, and so far he hasn't done too bad a job of it, at least when he's not creeping on her. It makes me... It makes her want to scream. But that's okay. It's okay for her to be frightened. She's never been this afraid, and she's got good reason to be."

She stopped pacing and looked intently in the direction of her bed. "So here's the good news. Treekul has options. Sure, she's not any closer to getting off this planet than when she first arrived, but she hasn't been wasting time either. Treekul didn't get this far without being resourceful. She can be absolutely terrified and still get herself out of this. That's what makes her strong."

She went to a small writing desk along the wall of her room and picked up a scroll. It carried a faint odor of rotten eggs and olefins. "Rehval's convinced that she'll become his apprentice, I guess ruling over the Saiyans like a god isn't enough for him, he wants to pass down his knowledge of alchemy. Well, fine. If he's as talented as he says he is, maybe he'll show Treekul a little more than he should. Something she can use to get out of here. For instance, this scroll belonging to Mirdane talks about disguising yourself perfectly, even down to smell and ki signature. If Treekul can get good enough at alchemy to figure that out, she could walk right up to the shipyard and be halfway to the next star system before anyone knew she was missing.

"I know what you're thinking: Treekul's a quick study, but she's an archaeologist who studies alchemists, not an alchemist herself, so maybe that plan is little too ambitious. Fair point. Which is why she's been working other angles. The boss wants her to play one of his priestesses, right? He's dressed her up in a cocktail dress that went through a blender. Well, that gives her access to all his brainwashed goons, and all that undeserved authority that comes with it. She hasn't heard from the acolytes who offered to show me around the hangar, but they seemed pretty enthusiastic about it. Don't worry, when they finally take her on the tour, Treekul won't spend too much time there, just enough to get a feel for the place when it's time for her to snoop around by herself.

"And if that doesn't pan out there's always Endive. Too bad about her. For a while there, I was sure she'd turn on the boss. From what I hear, Rehval does something to the cultist's memories, so they don't recognize him as the king, even of they knew him before when he ruled Planet Saiya. At some point Endive must have found out that "Trismegistus" is the same guy who killed her father, but she doesn't seem to care. He's been using her for one of his casual sex hookups for weeks now. I thought..."

She stopped and took a seat in her chair, then looked down at the red flats on her feet. "I just thought-- Treekul thought Endive was smarter than that. She was so disciplined and focused. You'd think she wouldn't be so easily manipulated, but... she's become completely devoted to him, and the scariest thing is that you can tell she knows it's wrong. But enough about her. If Endive and Lesseri won't help Treekul, then Treekul needs to forget about them."

She stood up and started pacing again. "Speaking of sex... Treekul doesn't want to go down that road, but she has to keep it in mind. Rehval has his followers convinced that he needs a rotation of women to share his bed. Something about 'balancing his bodily humors', but I think we all know he just wants to have a good time. He wants Treekul for some reason. All those women at his beck and call, and he wants the one woman on the planet who isn't interested. It's like he's waiting for her to fall madly in love with him. Yeah, good luck with that. Still... if she's going to earn his trust, she need to play along with his expectations. Maybe she ought to flirt a little, so he'll think his plan is working. He's not exactly unattractive, it's the whole 'delusions of grandeur' thing that's a turn-off."

Treekul stopped and crossed her arms as she looked at the bed. "Here's the problem. If she's not careful, he'll probably get bored with her and have her brainwashed like everyone else on this planet. Or he'll just kill her for being an alien. On the other hand, if she's too careful, and Treekul waste too much time playing the eager disciple, the he won't need to brainwash her, because she'll basically be doing it for him. Ugh! What a fix."

"Um, were you finished?"

"Huh?"

The Saiyan man lying on her bed had sat up and pointed to his ears, which were stuffed with wax. "I'm on duty in ten minutes," he said. "Unless you need me to stay here..."

Treekul gestured at her own ears for him to remove the wax, and so he did.

"Yeah, all finished," she said. "You were amazing, Zhoybok."

"It's an honor, madam priestess," he said as he rose from the bed, "but I really don't understand your species' mating practices. You didn't even touch me the whole time."

"Oh, you don't remember any of it, then?" Treekul asked in mock concern. "I guess the psychic vibrations must have been beyond your comprehension. That happens with aliens who lack the secret eighth sense my people have. You probably just hallucinated me pacing around and talking to myself."

Zhoybok was astonished. "As a matter of fact, I did!"

"To tell you the truth, a lot of my kind frown on this sort of thing. They think it's perverse to have this level of intimacy with life forms who can't experience it properly. But for me, I think that's part of the thrill. It's so... savage, don't you think?"

Zhoybok wasn't sure what to say, but he wasn't interested in disputing the words of a priestess, so he accepted her compliments and excused himself. Once he was gone, Treekul shook her head and lay down on the bed. Lying was tiring work, even to someone as gullible as Zhoybok.

"I really need to get more comfortable about talking to myself," she said.

*******

[20 July, 233 Before Age. Interstellar Space.]

There were only four people aboard Luffa's star-yacht, which now criss-crossed the worlds of the Federation in a frantic effort to keep pace with the Jindan Cult's attacks. The Federation defenses were spread thin, and if any invading ship managed to land on a planet, there were few who could stand up to the alchemically-empowered Saiyans inside. Luffa was getting better at fighting them, but their numbers were beginning to take a toll on her body. Dr. Topsas, her personal physician, had found ways to heal her in time for the next battle, while the clairvoyant Dotz had proven handy at predicting attacks before they happened, so Luffa could plan her travel. The fourth passenger on board, Zatte, was Luffa's wife, and she was beginning to wonder if she served any useful purpose here at all.

"That's ridiculous," Wampaaan'riix said when she shared her frustrations with him over the subspace radio. The Yetitan looked as enormous as ever, despite the desktop monitor scaling down his nine-foot-tall frame. "You practically operate the entire ship by yourself."

"So did Keda," Zatte said. She was rubbing the muscles in her arms and legs while she spoke to him. "And she did it better than I ever could."

"And you find no honor in succeeding a fallen comrade?" Wampaan'riix asked.

"It's not enough," Zatte said. "Keda didn't recognize Luffa as a xan-nil'Dor. For her, Luffa was a friend, and sort of a business partner, I guess you could say. For me, she's my wife, and an instrument of Providence. I have to do better. Especially now."

It was almost impossible to read his expressions through the coat of long white hair that covered most of his face, but the way Wampaaan'riix narrowed his eyes was unmistakable. "You're not thinking of going with her into the field?" he asked warily.

"I already have," Zatte said. "At first it seemed to be just what I wanted. I'd set up somewhere safe and shoot down cultists to keep them off Luffa's back. Trouble is, she took it as a challenge. Lately, she's been making it her business to take out the enemy before I can get a shot off. And that's romantic and all, but--"

"You two are insane," Wampaaan'riix grumbled.

"Look, I have to be there for her," Zatte said. She had moved on to stretching her hamstrings. "She's fighting a war against her own kind. Even the Saiyans on our side don't fully trust her. She doesn't let it show, but I know how much it eats at her. I can't imagine what it would be like to fight other Dorluns."

"I agree, she needs your support," Wampaaan'riix said. "But if you keep pushing yourself you may not be there when she needs it the most. This Dotz woman. She can predict the enemy attacks, can't she? Why not ask her for help? If she can tell Luffa where to go and when, then she can do the same for you, right?"

"That's the problem," Zatte said. "Dotz can't see Luffa's fate, only the planets and battles that lie ahead. We only know Luffa will get involved when Luffa decides to intervene."

"Strange, but even if that's true, why not see what Dotz can read about your own future?" Wampaaan'riix suggested. "I'm surprised you haven't already. You're a survivalist after all."

"I... I can't," Zatte said. She rose from the foam mat on the deck of her cabin and approached the desk.

"Well why not?" Wampaaan'riix asked. "It can't be a moral objection. You seem to have no problem with any of Dotz' other readings."

"Look, I... I have to go. I'll call you back, okay?"

"Just promise me you'll do it in the daytime," Wampaaan'riix groaned. "I know you've been in space a long time, but my den is on a different day-night cycle than--"

She hastily switched off the monitor, and a second later Luffa entered the cabin.

"I set the slow cooker for three hours," Luffa said as she rubbed her hands together. "How long before we get to Dodjem?"

"Tomorrow morning," Zatte said. They met in the center of the cabin and embraced.

"Dotz thinks there'll be ten Jindan Saiyans there," Luffa said with a smile. "Should be interesting."

"I'm going with you," Zatte insisted.

"Oh, I can handle ten," Luffa assured her.

"Then I'll watch you through my scope," Zatte said. "Or I'll shoot a few down for you, but either way, I'm coming along."

"Heh. Okay. You worry too much, you know that?"

"Someone has to," Zatte said. "Dotz still can't see your future, you know."

"Well, her other predictions are getting better," Luffa said. "On Shoust IV, she managed to get an accurate count on the enemy. She even located them to within a one mile radius. I think her powers are really coming along."

"Yeah, but she can't see your future."

"Does that still bother you?" Luffa asked.

Zatte tightened her grip on Luffa's torso and swung her onto the nearby bed. A moment later, she was had climbed on top of Luffa, planting her hands on her shoulders.

"No, it doesn't," Zatte said. "Not anymore."

"I'm not sure how to respond to that," Luffa said with a grin.

"I thought about it," Zatte said after giving her a long kiss. "I prayed about it too. Is it all right if I light some candles?"

"Uh, sure, knock yourself out," Luffa said.

Zatte rolled off of Luffa and went to a storage cabinet on the other side if her cabin. She removed four candles and laid them on the floor in a trapezoid formation surrounding the bed. After she lit each one, she got back in bed and knelt beside Luffa.

"Is the scent too much for you?" Zatte asked. "I know how sensitive your nose is."

"It's fine," Luffa said. "Smells kind of nice, really."

"It's not exactly sacred," Zatte said. The incense is just to keep insects away during religious observances. It makes me feel closer to Providence, though. So does this."

She placed her hand on Luffa's neck, and rested her thumb where she could take her pulse. The she took a deep breath and muttered something in her native language.

"Uh, what's going on here, exactly?" Luffa asked.

"I realized that I was letting Dotz' abilities cloud my faith in you," Zatte said. "I promised myself that I wouldn't ask her to read my future. I was worried that she might find out that I end up living without you somehow."

"I won't leave you, Zattie," Luffa said. "We've had our ups and downs, but you're the best thing that's ever happened to me."

"I have to trust that," Zatte said. "That's why I can't let Dotz's predictions bother me. She's getting better at them, but not when it comes to you. That scared me for a while, so I started meditating on it."

"Go on," Luffa said carefully.

"I came to realize that it makes sense that Dotz can't see your fate, because you're part of the Divine Plan. If she knew what you were going to do and when, then it would be like she was seeing into the mind of Providence."

"Or maybe I'm just so powerful that my ki interferes with her readings," Luffa suggested.

"Sure, that could be all it is," Zatte said. "But I like the version that supports my fanatic devotion to you."

She leaned over to kiss Luffa, still taking her pulse as they embraced. Luffa pulled away gently, and shook her head.

"You know how uncomfortable I get with this stuff," she said.

"I know," Zatte said. "But you keep getting hurt out there, and Dotz doesn't know what will happen next, so this is how I cope."

"I mean, you tell me I'm like God's righteous bludgeon or something, but the other night you... well, it was great, but maybe it was sacrilegious?"

Zatte straddled Luffa again, and held down her shoulders. "It's okay," she said. "Sex is a consecration ritual in my culture."

"Oh yeah?" Luffa asked.

"Dorluns value survival. People don't usually have sex while they're being chased by predators. They do it when they're safe and secure. And it can bring about new life."

"Huh. Maybe that's why my own people are so uptight about it," Luffa said. "In public, I mean. I've always had... ah!... mixed feelings about being safe."

"It's all in how you look at it. We're flying through a vacuum, faster than the speed of light, through a war zone, on a pleasure craft with no crew. And we're not exactly dressed for action right now. But if you're still bored, I'll... mmph!... I'll see if I can keep you amused for a while."

*******

[21 July, 233 Before Age. Interstellar Space.]

The battle on Dodjem went as smoothly as could be expected. Dotz' prophecies were mostly accurate, and Luffa was able to surprise the enemy before they noticed her ship. They fought back ferociously, and Luffa's right shoulder was scorched by a ki attack, but Dr. Topsas was confident that he could heal this in a matter of days. Dodjem was liberated in less than two hours, and Luffa proceeded on her way to the next battle Dotz had predicted, in the Ryllax System.

"Careful," Luffa said, guiding Zatte's hand away from her banadaged shoulder. She had set up the slow cooker once again, and the two of them had convened in Zatte's cabin.

"Does it hurt?" Zatte asked as she gingerly lifted Luffa's blood-stained shirt over her head and other arm.

"Sure it hurts, but that's not the point," Luffa said. "Doc'll really be sore if you mess up his bandanges."

"It's a wonder the whole ship isn't full of this stuff," Zatte said. She tossed the shirt at the laundry receptacle, but it hit the rim and fell out instead. "I mean, where does he put it all after he cuts it off of you?"

"He eats it," Luffa said.

"You're kidding."

"No, seriously. I've seen him do it. He makes all of these bandages from his own webbing. It takes a lot of protein to make that work, so he doesn't like to waste it."

"I had no idea," Zatte said. "You think you know a guy... whuh--!"

Luffa pulled her close with her good arm. "Forget about him for now. I wanted to talk about that shot you took back on Dodjem."

Zatte's expression shifted from genuine surprise to feigned innocence. "Oh, did that bother you, darling?"

"I thought one of those Jindan bastards found you," Luffa said. "I had one of them wide open, ready to kill, and I had to pass it up so I could chase the other one down before he found you."

"He had no idea where I was hiding," Zatte boasted.

"I know," Luffa said. "Even I couldn't find you. How am I supposed to watch your back if I don't even know where you are? You're taking a big risk out there, you know that, right?"

"That's the way," Zatte said. "Talk dirty to me."

"Oh, I'll do more than talk before I'm through with you," Luffa said with a grin. "I'll-- dammit..."

She rolled away from Zatte and drew her arms to her chest.

"Let me see," Zatte said.

"It's nothing," Luffa insisted. "Just give me a minute."

"Let me see," Zatte insisted back. Luffa made an irritated grunt, but didn't resist when Zatte took her hands in her own.

"I was starting to think your hands had stopped trembling," Zatte said as she massaged Luffa's palms. It didn't actually do anything to improve the situation, but it made them both feel better when she did this. "I haven't seen you stuff them in your pockets much lately."

"It's... it's not as bad as it used to be," Luffa said. "I haven't been able to spend a lot of time with Katem, but I think it still helps. Maybe it's all your prayers."

"He's kind of a hot mess," Zatte said.

"Just like his mom, huh?" Luffa chuckled.

"You're not a bad mother, Luffa. What happened wasn't your fault."

"I know," Luffa said. "It doesn't help much, but I know."

"You're still worked up about Fytpall, aren't you?" Zatte asked.

"I've seen worse in my time," Luffa said.

"Maybe, but you were pretty shaken up when you came back from that one," Zatte said. "You don't usually stick around and see what the civilians are going through."

"I'm just... I'm not strong enough, Zattie. I know that sounds stupid coming from me, but I know I could do better than this. If I was just a little better, I could..."

"You're good enough, okay? And maybe you can get stronger, but you can't just get there instantly. It's like you always tell me when we spar."

Luffa didn't say anything, but her heavy sigh was response enough. Zatte continued to rub her thumbs into the scars on Luffa's hands.

"You don't have to be tough for me," Zatte said. "It's okay. It's okay."

Soon enough, the tremors in Luffa's hands subsided, and they went back to what they were doing, although the mood had shifted from flirtation to comfort. Within thirty minutes, their clothes lay on the deck, and they were entangled in the sheets. Zatte occasionally said something in her own language, and kept her finger on Luffa's carotid artery as she muttered to herself. Eventually, she sat up and cradled Luffa's upper body in her lap.

*******

[24 July, 233 Before Age. Interstellar Space.]

"I was so busy favoring my shoulder that I left my knee wide open!" Luffa grumbled. The campaign on Ryllax had ended hours ago, but Luffa's clothes and hair still carried the scent of Ryllaxian pollens from the battlefield.

"Are you going to make it to Eirzee IV?" Zatte asked as she carried Luffa's pants to the laundry receptacle. She took in the strange aroma one last time before shoving the clothes into the hatch.

"Oh, sure," Luffa said. "Doc repaired the worst of it, and I'll have to play it more carefully, but now he's gonna kick me out of the kitchen!"

"You don't know that," Zatte said.

"I can practically hear him, Zattie," Luffa said. "'Saving planets is one thing, but I'll not have you undoing all my work making a casserole, little mammal.'"

"What, now you can see the future, too?" Zatte asked. She was setting up candles around the bed again.

"Heh, maybe. I guess Old Darbock's genes are finally kicking in," Luffa said. "But it looks like I only know how to predict cranky doctors, so Dotz's job is probably safe."

"Well, I hate to take sides, but we can get by on leftovers for a while," Zatte said. "You cook too much food anyway."

Luffa lay back in the bed and groaned. "Still? I keep cutting the portions down for you guys, and it's still too much? That's insane..."

"I'm going to do my litany now," Zatte said. "Any requests?"

"I, uh, I don't think so," Luffa said. "Well, bless Dotz again. And Doc, and the others. And yourself."

Zatte began speaking slowly and methodically, reciting lines from the Dorlun Holybook in her alien tongue. Luffa only knew bits and pieces of her language, but Zatte had been happy to translate for her whenever she asked.

Luffa felt strange whenever her wife did these kinds of observances. She had never been comfortable with being a "chosen one" in Zatte's theology-- or anyone else's, for that matter. And yet, watching this woman pray over her so fervently was somehow inspiring. Zatte had suffered so much in her life, and yet she refused to abandon her principles. It reminded her of Saiyan pride, though Luffa supposed that most beings would just call it stubbornness. Zatte was too zealous to give up hope.

"Thank you for letting me do this," Zatte said when she finished.

"No problem," Luffa said. "Your language is pretty."

She leaned over and fetched a bottle of oil from the edge of the bed. Carefully, she dispensed a small portion onto her fingers, then dabbed it on Luffa's throat and wrists, tracing along the path of major blood vessels.

"All done," Zatte said.

"You've been really ramping up the religious stuff lately," Luffa said. "The litanies, the candles, the oil. I don't really get it myself, but is it helping you?"

"I think so," Zatte said. "The Dorluns prefer not to waste resources on empty ceremony. Some types of xan-nil'Dor call for physical labor. Farming a plot of land, or defending an important place. You, though, well, you're damn near invincible, so you're pretty low-maintenance. I just need something to do. A routine to renew my devotion to your cause."

"Like a practice drill," Luffa said.

Zatte rose from the bed and started putting out the candles. "Yeah, I guess you could call it that. I may not be able to stop your hands from shaking, but at least I can show that I care. I think that's worth doing."

"Maybe," Luffa said. "It's not a big deal. They don't interfere with my fighting."

Zatte lay down beside her and took her hands in her own. "It just reminds me of what you've been through. I can't take away your pain, but I can try to empathize. You taught me how important that is."

"I taught you?"

"Sure. You're the most compassionate person I know."

*******

[27 July, 233 Before Age. Interstellar Space.]

Dr. Topsas did not order Luffa out of the kitchen, though after the battle on Gairess, he began to wish he had. He implored Luffa to wait before heading off into another battle, but the point was moot. Dotz had no new predictions, and so Luffa found herself with no choice but to wait. Once more, she spent the evening in her wife's cabin.

"I... I gotta admit," Zatte said as she tried to catch her breath. "Even with the broken ribs... you really--"

"Is this messed up?" Luffa suddenly asked.

"Is what messed up?"

Luffa pointed at herself and then at Zatte. "Us," she said. "I mean, you've got the candles set up, you say a prayer before we go to bed, and then we talk about almost getting killed to get in the mood."

"Don't forget the sparring," Zatte said.

"You know, I never sparred with Kandai," Luffa said. "He never wanted to, and I never questioned it. He was so much stronger than me that he didn't see the point. But the gap between you and me is even bigger, and I love sparring with you."

"We're aliens," Zatte said. "I'm cut off from my own people and you're unique among yours. There's nothing conventional about us."

"I know, but... Zattie, are you ever afraid?"

"Of course," Zatte said. "Fear keeps you alive."

"I mean, are your afraid right now?" Luffa asked.

"Here? With you?" Zatte asked. "No. Are you afraid?"

"Yeah," Luffa said.

"About the war? Your son?"

"I'm afraid I'm not good enough," Luffa said. I feel like I'm gonna screw this up. Like I have before."

She reached for Zatte's face, and gently removed the patch from her right eye, revealing the scar tissue and prosthetic implant underneath.

"If it's me you're worried about..." Zatte began, but Luffa put her finger on her lips to silence her.

"I know, you're prepared to burn for me, or suffer whatever it takes, right? I wish I had a tenth of your courage. I wish... well, I wish there was some other Super Saiyan handling this."

"Aren't you always saying you're stronger than they were?" Zatte asked.

"Maybe I am, but I bet the old heroes never had to deal with the kind of baggage I've got."

"This is about your hands, isn't it?" Zatte asked. She took Luffa's palms into her own, and held them steady in case they began to tremble.

"It was four years ago," Luffa said. "I should have gotten over it by now. I should have gotten over Keda's death, I should have gotten over everything... The old heroes never had to deal with this sort of thing. They just fought and won. Nice and simple. I'm fighting, and I'm winning, but I keep dwelling on it all. Worrying about battles from the past, wondering how I'm going to do in the next ones."

"Maybe they had it just as bad," Zatte said. "Maybe the storytellers just left those parts out."

"Sometimes I wish things were different, you know? You told me before this is exactly how you wanted things to be, but I bet you'd like it better with Keda still alive. Or hell, the rest of the colony."

"But they're not alive, Luffa," Zatte said. "I have to accept that they're gone."

"I could have saved them all," Luffa said. "I had the power. I must have had it inside me all along. If only I had known how to use it then. When it would have mattered. If only I wasn't such a coward..."

"Don't say things like that!" Zatte said. "I know you use that kind of talk to get yourself fired up, but I don't want you believing that sort of thing. You're the bravest person I know."

"It's not enough," Luffa said. "That's what I worry about, anyway."

"And that's what the candles and the prayers are for," Zatte said. She lifted Luffa's hands slightly. "I don't just pray for the tremors to stop," she said. "I pray that the tremors won't interfere with your mission. I pray that you can accept what you are the way I do. You know why?"

Luffa didn't answer, so she lay down beside her and took her hand.

"Maybe you're right, and maybe another Super Saiyan could deal with this better than you could. You've told me that you think there might be another one like you, a thousand years from now. Well, I don't think the universe can wait that long. I think we need a Super Saiyan right now, and you're it."

"You're right," Luffa said. "It's just hard to see it that way from the inside. All these fights I've been having with these cultists, they start to run together after a while. It'd be different if they were stronger, or if I could come at them healthy. But they keep chipping away at me, and there doesn't seem to be any end to it..."

"We've got some time, at least," Zatte said. "Dotz hasn't seen anything new coming up, right? Remember how you used to fly over the coastlines on Luffasworld?"

"Yeah," Luffa said, "but that's way out in the galactic core. By the time we got there--"

Zatte put a finger on her lips. "I know that, but Woshad's not far away. We could take a few days to look around there."

Luffa seemed pleased by the suggestion, but before she could speak, a chirping noise sounded from the cabin's intercom, and both women looked up to see the light blinking on the panel on the wall.

"Um, this is Dotz," came the voice through the speaker. "Well, um, the service robot told me I could talk to the whole ship this way, and I thought it might be faster than trying to find everyone. Despye's been attacked. Or, well, it will be in about twenty hours. It looks pretty bad to me. I saw about twenty Saiyans, and one of those rock creatures they use."

"Oh no..." Zatte said.

"I, uh, set a course for Despye," Dotz continued, "and we should be heading there now, but I thought one of you should check to make sure I did it right. I'm still getting used to the helm controls..."

"We won't get there in twenty hours," Luffa grumbled. "Those bastards will have a head start, again. Even if the fleet can get there before us--"

"I know, I'll take care of it," Zatte said. She rolled out of the bed and went to find her clothes. "You need to get some sleep."

"Fine, but make sure you get some yourself," Luffa said. "I mean... you're going with me, right?"

"So I can watch you wipe them out before I can even line up a shot?" Zatte asked. "Sure, if you want me to."

"Actually," Luffa said as she patted her swollen knee, "I was thinking I might lure a few in for you to shoot. Make things a little easier. For Doc, you know?"

Zatte grinned as she pulled her shirt over her head, and most of that smile was still there when she turned to look back at Luffa. "For Dr. Topsas," she said, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. "Makes sense. He's been working pretty hard lately."

"Just don't stay up all night cleaning your guns, okay?" Luffa muttered.

Zatte pulled on a pair of shorts and headed for the door. "Anything you say," she chuckled as she headed out into the corridor.

NEXT: Rats in mazes.

#dragon ball #fanfiction #lssjluffafic #super saiyan #luffa #zatte #treekul #wampaaan'riix #zhoybok #nagaoka

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romana73 · 5 years

Text

REYLO VS BALDIOS

Post written by ME. The animated gifs and pictures shown, however, AREN’T MINE and DON’T BELONG TO ME IN ANY WAY. Sorry for my mistakes, but English isn’t my first language

"I'll destroy her...and you...and all of it" (Kylo Ren, from "Star Wars, Episode VIII, The Last Jedi" movie) I read much worry ‘cause at end of movie and book "Star Wars. Episode VIII. The last Jedi ", Kylo Ren has decided and declared he wants to destroy Rey... who could read Episode VIII script said, at movie’s end, Rey and Kylo are described as" enemies with complications". In book, after explosion caused by their struggle for possession of Anakin’s old lightsaber, Kylo wakes up surprised to be alive. He discovers Rey has awakened before him and he understands she hasn’t killed him and... he blames her. Kylo thinks Rey was wrong and decision didn’t kill him would have destroyed her. He would have destroyed Rey. This is perfectly in line with Kylo’s character. Unlike Anakin who fell into Dark Side for FEAR OF LOSING LOVE, his wife Padmé, Kylo REFUSES any kind of feeling. Commenting on Finn’s escape, a former First Order soldier who, at the beginning of "Star Wars. Episode VII. The Force Awakens" movie, Kylo observes:

“How capable are your soldiers, General?”

“I won't have you question my methods”

“They're obviously skilled at committing high treason. Perhaps Leader Snoke should consider using a clone army”

(Kylo Ren and General Hux, from "Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens" movie)

Joke about Clones isn’t just a reference to Star Wars prequels. In Star Wars. Episode II, it’s explained clones are PROGRAMMED to war, to take orders, without disobeying or posing moral dilemmas. In this perspective, we also understand some parts of this dialogue between Kylo and Rey, in "Star Wars, Episode VIII, The Last Jedi" movie:

“Why did you hate your father? Do you have something? A cowl, or something you could put on? Why did you hate your father? Give me an honest answer. You had a father who loved you; he gave a damn about you!”

“I didn't hate him”

[...]

“No? Your parents threw you away like garbage”

“They didn't”

“They did, but you can't stop needing them. It's your greatest weakness. Looking for them everywhere, in Han Solo, and now in Skywalker [...]”

“Let the past die. Kill it if you have to. That's the only way to become what you were meant to be.”

(Rey and Kylo Ren, from "Star Wars, Episode VIII, The Last Jedi" movie)

Kylo was TEACHING Rey to have less possible feelings ‘cause, for Kylo, HAVE FEELINGS means having WEAK POINTS. ‘Cause this, Kylo becomes enraged when he realizes Rey might feel something for him: ‘cause it means he hasn’t taught anything to her, ‘cause HE has become Rey's WEAK POINT, 'cause he’s in DANGER, since he could REPLACE Rey and this would be an OBSTACLE to accomplish what he proposes ... to explain all this and to reassure those who believe Ben Solo/Kylo Ren CAN’T REDEEM HIMSELF, ‘cause he killed his father Han, he chose Dark Side in full awareness, etc... I decided to propose parallels between Reylo and old robotic cartoon "Baldios". Comprised of 34 episodes, Baldios was produced in 1980 by Ashi Production. Unfortunately, cartoon was too modern for that time and, due to poor audience, it was interrupted abruptly, leaving without end Earth’s story and LOVE STORY between MARIN, male protagonist and APHRODIA, Marin’s BIG ENEMY. Fortunately, in 1981, Toei Animation produced "Baldios. The Movie" animated movie, which represents story’s end:

Story is this: getting too close to sun, contaminated by radiation, Saul 1 planet (S1) is dying. Sea and vegetation have disappeared. The air is unbreathable and population is forced to live underground, but even this solution begins to no longer work, due to lack of resources. S1 EMPEROR is called to make a decision, mediating between two groups in struggle: scientists, led by Professor Reigan who found a solution, able to make living S1 again, but they need time to study it and implement it. Military, led by Theo Gattler, commander of Aldebaran’s army, S1 militias, wish instead to take away S1 population and colonize a second habitable planet, Earth. Battle also ends with Marin Reigan, a pilot, Reigan’son who, in front of room hosting the meeting, clashes with soldier Miran and two of his friends. To sedate spirits, arrived Aphrodia, Miran's elder sister and head of Gattler's guards, as well as his beloved. Affected by girl, Marin doesn’t realize he has lost his identification card, collected by Aphrodia. Gattler proposes to Aphrodia and Miran a decisive solution to win dispute: murder Emperor and all scientists. Aphrodia is responsible for Emperor’s murder, in whose room he drops Marin’s ID card so he’s to be blamed for murder. Miran and his men will instead take care of killing scientists. Plan’s first part is fine: Aphrodia kills Emperor, dropping Marin badge on floor, while Gattler declares himself Dictator, electing Aphrodia as ARMY’S SUPREME COMMANDER. Miran goes to scientists' lab and, showing Marin's card, he informs Professor Reigan his son is accused of murdering Emperor. Knowing Marin is innocent, Reigan reacts to defend him. Miran prepares to shoot, but Marin arrives to save his father. Miran tries to kill man again, but Marin throws a piece of iron into his neck, killing him. Aphrodia arrives, to whom dead brother’s sight breaks her heart. Learning Marin was who killed her brother, Aphrodia swears she will never forgive him and she will take her revenge. Marin answers he will never forgive her. Marin and his father try to escape, but man is killed by military. Marin takes his spaceship and tries to stop Gattler's mother ship from leaving S1, but Aphrodia arrives trying to kill him. In battle, Marin's ship is sucked into a vortex temporal space. Marin crashes on Moon where he’s picked up by the Blue Fixers, a special team at United Nations terrestrial service, which take him to their base on Earth. At beginning, Marin was met with suspicion and treated as a prisoner, interrogated and incarcerated. Only beautiful Jamie Oshino and Professor Era Quinstein, base scientist, seem to believe him. Upon forces of Gattler and Aphrodia’s arrival, who have decided to conquer and colonize Earth, everything changes. Marin’s knowledge and his skills in battle make him win trust of Blue Fixers and Jonathan Bannister, base’s head. Marin accepts to stand on Terrans side against Aldebaran. Meanwhile, despite battles and hatred, Aphrodia begins to feels something for Marin, but... In a flashback we learn as children, Aphrodia and Miran lost their parents in a tragic car accident. Gattler has come to their rescue. He has adopted and educated them. A Baldios. The Movie’s scene suggests, having become ADULT, Aphrodia was ABUSED by Gattler, although this is NEVER explicitly said:

Kylo Ren was MANIPOLATED and CORROTTED by Supreme Leader Snoke, who took him to Dark Side:

In closing theme of each episode of Baldios cartoon series, Marin and Aphrodia hold hands, watching sunset over sea:

In "Star Wars. Episode VIII. The Last Jedi" movie, Rey offers her hand to Kylo and he ACCEPT TO TAKE IT:

In first cartoon’s episode, Marin notices Aphrodia is a beautiful woman, despite always wearing glasses, uniform and wear hair hidden under military hat:

In "Star Wars. Episode VII. The Force Awakens" movie, Rey remains disoriented when Kylo removes his mask, revealing to be a normal boy:

In cartoon’s first episode, Aphrodia declares: "Emotional alterations lead to unpredictable mistakes ..." (Aphrodia 1x01 Baldios)

In "Star Wars. Episode VII. The Force Awakens" movie, when Snoke informs Kylo that BB8 is on ship of Han Solo, his father and Kylo will have to kill him, he answers: "He means nothing to me" "Even you, Master of the Knights of Ren, have never faced such a test" "By the grace of your training I will not be seduced " (Kylo Ren and Snoke, from "Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens” movie)

Marin and Aphrodia flee from Gattler. Arrived on Earth, exhausted, they faint on a lighthouse’s floor. Aphrodia recovers first and she tries to KILL Marin, still unconscious, but she can’t do it:

In "Star Wars. Episode VIII. The Last Jedi" movie, Rey and Ben Solo/Kylo Ren fight over Anakin's lightsaber possession. Fight causes explosion of spaceship on which they are and throws Rey and Ben Solo/Kylo Ren to opposite sides of Throne Room. They falled unconscious. Rey recovers first and flees, LEAVING IN LIFE Kylo Ren:

Awakening, Marin leads Aphrodia to base, where she’s imprisoned and brutally interrogated. Marin disagrees, but his friends remind him how many terrestrials Aphrodia deliberately killed, including their families. In end, Marin blocks interrogation, bringing Aphrodia to doctor who, reluctantly, cares her:

In "Star Wars. Episode VIII. The Last Jedi" movie, Kylo Ren brings Rey in Snoke’s presence, who interrogates her in a brutal way:

In "Baldios. The Movie ", Gattler incites Aphrodia to KILL Marin: "Come on, Aphrodia, it's your time! You take your revenge for your brother! Isn’t it true you fought until now for this moment? " (Gattiger to Aphrodia, Baldios the film)

But Aphrodia kills Gattler himself:

In "Star Wars. Episode VIII. The Last Jedi" movie, Snoke incites Kylo Ren to KILL Rey:

“My worthy apprentice, son of darkness, heir apparent to Lord Vader. Where there was conflict, I now sense resolve; Where there was weakness, strength. Complete your training, and fulfill your destiny”

(Snoke to Kylo Ren, from "Star Wars, Episode VIII, The Last Jedi" movie)

But Kylo Ren kills Snoke in order to save Rey:

To escape from Blue Fixers' base, Aphrodia takes Jamie hostage. Marin, Oliver and Roy arrive in order to save Jamie: "Aphrodia, let go of Jamie, please. I know you well, I know you would not be able to do it ... " "…but please! Do not make me laugh! What is it, do you think you allow me to be touched by your COMPASSION? " "Heard? In that witch hasn’t been humanity left" (Marin, Aphrodia and Oliver, Baldios, the Movie)

In a deleted scene from "Star Wars. Episode VII. The Force Awakens" movie, but reported in TFA novel, Snoke accuses Kylo to feel COMPASSION for Rey: The Supreme Leader's voice was flat. "You have COMPASSION for her." "No-never. Compassion? For an enemy of the Order? " (Snoke and Kylo Ren talking about Rey, from "Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens" novel)

In "Star Wars. Episode VIII. The Last Jedi" movie, Rey tells Luke there isn’t LIGHT in Kylo Ren:

In "Baldios. The Movie ", Aphrodia asks for a DUEL with laser guns with Marin, to kill him and avenge his brother. Marin accepts and, before starting, he says to Aphrodia: "Perhaps, Aphrodia, if you hadn’t chosen to go wrong way, things between us would have been very different" (Marin to Aphrodia, Baldios, The Movie)

In "Star Wars. Episode VII. The Force Awakens" movie, Rey and Ben Solo/Kylo Ren fight a DUEL :

In "Star Wars. Episode VIII. The Last Jedi", with a broken heart, Rey looks at Ben Solo/Kylo Ren to replace Snoke as First Order SUPREME LEADER and she asks him DON’T TO DO THAT :

In "Baldios. The Movie", Aphrodia is badly wounded and exhausted, so Marin SCOOPS HER IN HIS ARMS and he take her on beach:

In "Star Wars. Episode VII. The Force Awakens" movie, Kylo Ren captures Rey, he falls asleep her and he SCOOPS HER IN HIS ARMS, take her on his spaceship:

#aphrodia #baldios #ben solo #gattler #kylo ren #Marin Reigan #parallels #rey #reylo #snoke #star wars

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