The greatest source for blunt weeaboo opinions.
Yooo so I need some help!
I’m currently working on my next major writing project on the narrative themes of Sailor Moon S. I’m stuck on figuring out the messiah theme in Sailor Moon S/Infinity.
I’m confused on who was considered to be the true Messiah: Saturn, who is the Messiah of Silence (who also did saved the world at the cost of her life) or Sailor Moon, who was the fabled Messiah Uranus and Neptune spoke of throughout the arc.
Thanks ya!!
Great character design is important for any animated show. Character design gives subtle context clues on how a character will be portray in either his or her role and personality throughout the series. Small details can draw a viewer to a character, possibility relating to said character on a deeper level.
On a Shin Megami Tensei/Persona group I’m a member of, there was a “Who’s your Persona 5 Waifu?” topic (I’m trash I know).
I chose Tae and Chihaya based on the information their character design gave me, despite not yet playing Persona 5. I love Tae’s darker, edgier alternate style while I enjoy Chihaya’s more laid back, mellow, and carefree design.
Plus their subcultures that the two portrayed (Tae’s alternate style and Chihaya’s hippie style) are consider “weird” and “strange” by modern standards and I’m a man who is attractive by the weird. There’s that to factor in.
Let’s take Tae’s design (plus I don’t have much time to analyze Chihaya before work):
The immediate visual clue we see in her design is her lab coat and clip board in her left hand. This gives a hint to the viewer that there is a great chance that she is involved with the medical or science field.
If we were to analyze her details further, we can see that she sports a stubbed chocker, dark eyeliner, a necklace with a metal capsule attached, a kinda low-top dress (dunno what they’re call I ain’t a fashion guru) that is high above her knees, a red belt with metal open circles, and platform sandals with exposing straps. Her hair is unkempt and short, colored with a combination of dark blue and black with jagged edges and blunt bangs.
From this, we can assume that Tae is into the alternate scene. The dark hair, eyeliner, and choker can support my claims. We can also guess that she may have a sharp, blunt, and aggressive personality. All details that lured me into her character design. She is also liberal in her fashion despite working in a professional field such as the medical industry.
To think I could figure this woman out from just analyzing her character art and I haven’t Persona 5 yet. I’m proud of myself!
…if I am wrong please correct me about this theory and analyze on Tae.
Character design is important and done right can easily lure a viewer to a character that fits their niche(s). Small visual details and clues can tell much more about a character than words and prior information could provide.
REFERENCE:
Super Eyepatch Wolf – What Makes a Great Character Design
Pretty much influenced me to write this post.
So the other day I created a thread on a Facebook group entitled “Who Is Your Favorite Gym Leader from Pokemon.” I chosen Sabrina (Natsume for you Nippon-go speaking hardcore/weeaboo fans) from the first generation series (Red/Blue/Yellow)
Sabrina is pretty damn interesting. I love that she has some cool ass psychic powers; a trait that set her apart from the rest of the gym leaders. She was also pretty out there with her emotionless state, up until a suicide bombin’ Haunter made her laugh her ass off.
I imagine she loves fucked up black humor comedy. She seems like the type.
As I’m hunting down fan art of the psychic Pokemon leader (and a few NSFW fan art) , in addition of fanart of the Hex Maniac trainer class (who happens to be my favorite trainer class in the series), it dawned on me: I like weird characters. Not only that, a lot of my fictional crushes/waifus over the years are of the weird and creepy archetype.
Let’s break it down:
You guys know I’m a huge Hotaru/Sailor Saturn fanboy. She was one of my very first fictional crushes as a kid (or waifu. Whatever sad weird otaku shit we be callin’ this shit now). I thought her weirdness and creepiness was amazing, something that made her different from the rest of the cast.
When the first Teen Titan cartoon dropped years ago, my two favorite female characters were Raven and Jinx. I wasn’t a huge fan of neither Starfire or Terra. Raven and Jinx were superior compare to the two mentioned. Again, these two were weird, creepy ass girls who I was attractive to because of their character design.
When I was getting into the GBA Fire Emblem games, I invested a lot of time, items and in-game money (as well as stats changing cheat codes lol) into the dark mage Sophia to make her my most powerful magic user. Fuck whatever the elitist FE fanboys said about her being garbage! I’m was going to make Sophia the best on my file! Plus she was shy, quiet, and had purple aesthetes, so added bonuses! I am very biased.
Further down in my weebish otaku adult life, I would fall in love and fanboy over characters such as Stocking from Panty and Stocking With Garterbelt, Tharja from Fire Emblem Awakening, and Tae from Persona 5. The characters I named have this errie, dark gothic and alternate aesthesis to their design nature.
Hell, now that I think about it, I’m attractive to weird women. It is natural given I’m a part of the nerd subculture and nerds in general are weird. Fuck, I weird myself. I write blogs about anime culture. I’m writing about crushing on fictional cartoon and video games characters who will never exist. That’s goddamn weird as hell.
But really, I honest to god think me liking weird, alternate women may parallel to my fictional crushes over the year. I am also charmed by nerdy women as well but that goes hand-and-glove with weird woman. If I were to go into details why however, I would be just repeating myself but with nerdy girls replacing weird ones. Same shit. Different toilet.
Weird people are awesome. And attractive.
“Holy shit! This is gonna be good! My lord, this is gonna start some shit within the community! Can’t wait to get home to watch this shit!”
‘Just shitalkin other anime youtubers for like half an hour, oh god what have I done’.
As soon as I saw the title of the ever controversial Digibro’s video, I knew I had to hurry up with my work, get home, and watch it. I could had play the video on my phone while at work, but something of this caliber needed to be experienced a larger screen to be great detail.
Plus I can’t drink at the job so there’s that.
“Oh fuck, who pissed off this nigga this time? Who is he gonna go in on this time?”
Digibro’s rant videos are like special events for me. There just this feeling that know there’s gonna be some backlash and butthurt off of his drunkenly brutal honestly. It’s a fun time for the anime community.
Right off the bat he’s going off on niggas with bravdo. My dude is straight up telling these cats that they suck and their videos are garbage. He ain’t being subtle with disdain either. He’s name droppin’ like crazy; Mother’s Basement. AnimeEverday RCAnime. The Canibal Effect. My dude Digi out here callin’ folks out on their “flaws”,
negative” points of their content, and overall “lack” of quailty This dude doesn’t’ care and I love it.
He’s like the weeaboo Tupac.
(It is dishearting to hear him talk shit about anime youtubers I do enjoy. I can’t even lie because the people he name dropped do have great content. )
“Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit! Is he trying to start beef with these guys? Does he want the rest of the community to hate him? I mean, he already got haters so why not more? More haters and drama make the world go round! Haters are motivation!”
As I predicted, the community was shaken up by this. For the past 72 hours since his rant, people on both sides have given their views and expressed their feelings. Some are understanding upset by his words while others are supportive of his rally call to improve the community. I’m in the middle but I’m learning towards supporting him.
Personally, I don’t think he should have called niggas out and their works like how he did. But sometimes, you just have to be that guy. The bad guy; like Scarface. I mean forreal the liquor was flowin’ in him and certain substance make you tell the truth without a filter.
I do feel Digibro on his stance on the community. Some people aren’t reaching out to one another and helping folks come up and improve. People are putting out the same old bullshit and there ain’t much diversity. It sucks.
Maybe I’m somebody who is way too optimistic for my own good but I love it when people help each other. We need more diverse content from all range. I want to see this community improve and grow. I may not be as harsh and brutal about it as Digibro was in his video, but I’ll be direct and blunt.
If I see a flaw in one’s works, I’m going to try to help that person out because I like seeing people improve. I feel that people should strive to do better in their craft. I don’t mind it myself when others tell me the areas I need that I need to improve on. I welcome it.
Also, tell me that I suck and that I’ll never get better. Not because you wanna feel better about your miserable life but because I’ll prove you wrong one day, work my ass off fixing my flaws, and come up. Thus so when I come up and fix my weaknesses I can make you angry that I stop sucking. ❤
But that’s just my good ol’ pride talking shit!
What I’m trying to gain from Digibro’s controversial video is the sense of the community helping one another. We all in this together ya know? We all want to be successful and we want others as well. I mean fuck, my homeboys and I are almost always on each other asses on our goals and passion, checkin’ one another and telling each other if they’re doing something wrong, how to correct it.
But that’s just me.
‘The question everybody wants to know is why they got this nigga started?’
-Reporter (Tupac – Bomb First)
The video:
Day 2: Saturday
I think I should write small details about the events as they go on during the convention, not at 11 at night on Sunday after the convention is over and memories of what I did are slowly fading thanks to age, alcohol, and other shit.
After prepping up, I dragged myself to the convention’s game room. As a walk there I encounter a few friends who were rather pissed at me (okay, not really pissed but apparently upset). I had invited them to a room party I was hosting Friday late night/super early Saturday morning. Nobody whom I invited show up, so I was like “fuck it, I’m going to bed.”
Or so I thought.
Homegirl told me that her and her friends did indeed did show up to my room around 3ish. However, I was knocked the fuck out. On the realest shit; I thought I was dreaming so I didn’t bother to check on what was going on.
(I’m upset they didn’t wake my black ass up ha ha ha)
Anyway, we decided to walk around the dealer room to window shop because we’re poor adults. Yay! Homeboy decides to live stream us for Facebook, give the world a glimpse at what we do at these things.
‘Dammit. Why don’t I do this live streaming thing for cons?” I asked myself. Maybe I’m not confident in my voice and speaking. I’m better at writing my thoughts down and expressing through written word. Honestly I need to start live streaming my convention adventures.
That’ll be a great idea. Yes that will.
After a lap around the dealer room, I decided to dip out on my friends and head to the game room. Holy shit has Naka’s game room went downhill in quality and selection. There were maybe less than 15 set-ups in this small ass room. Wow. Great.
In the past, Naka’s game room was like at least three rooms long and had a diverse selection of video games to. The game room I saw on Saturday was a shell of its’ former self.
The place was lackluster. Naka-Kon, what happened to ya game room?
Normally at a con’s game room, I hit up any Street Fighter set up. SF2-5, EX, SFvX, anything Street Fighter. I love that series. To my shock, Street Fighter was nowhere to be seen in the game room. That’s a red flag. I do not trust any game room that doesn’t have Street Fighter.
In the absence of Street Fighter 5 I chose to play Blaze Blu: Central Fiction, a game I have little knowledge of . But I love me some animu weeaboo fighting games so BBCF had to do, even if I’m completely free in that game.
While waiting for my turn, I wrote notes of each player and the characters they were using. Best study and analysis what character does so I won’t be completely free, right?
Sadly, even with my notes, I was still getting’ bodied by folks who were light-years ahead of me. Oh well. That how that shit goes when you barely play a game.
Following my oh-so-great performance in BB:CF (0-5), I left and went back to my hotel in preparation for later plans with friends and room partying. My room crew was dicking around talking wrestling shit and showing off their toy belts such as the WWE World Tag Team, U.S. Title, and the World Heavyweight (winged eagle version) Title belts.
I want a title belt to have to myself. Perhaps I should invest in a replica WWF Intercontinental belt. I should aim to become the Intercontinental Champion of conventions!)
My goofy ass friend lost his autograph ticket dicking around with the belts. He thought it had slip into another friend’s bag that his championship belt was in. Tore the room up for this thing until my boy gave up and went to seek if he could get a new ticket. Found that damn thing in the snow lol. Dumbass nigga drop it outside lol but hey it happens to the best of us. I’m not perfect myself.
After that, I took a power nap. Gotta be well rested for the parties and pics of cool cosplays…Even though I only did one of those things. Take a wild guest!
Alright! Made a guess? If you that I only took a power nap and didn’t take pics of cosplayers because of my shyness and some social fears, you’re correct!
For some reason, I lack pictures of cosplayers from my first con of the year. This could be link to the fact the first con takes me a while for me to warm up. My confidence to ask for pictures of cosplay isn’t up to what I want compared to say cons later in the year when I have an average of 25-100 pictures a convention. On the other hand, I think I might suck at reading faces of people and assume they don’t want to have their pic taken or interact with anyone, so I don’t ask for their pics.
This doesn’t help at all when I find people cosplaying from obscure series or characters.
Example: I wanted to take a pic of a Celice (Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War) cosplayer at the con because holy fucking shit! I have never seen anyone cosplay from the older Fire Emblem games. Genealogy of the Holy War doesn’t get enough love in the Western FE fanbase. Seeing a fellow FE4 fan cosplaying Celice made me incredibly happy inside. Sadly, my courage wasn’t on the same level and my fears prevented me to ask for that picture.
Godammit Benjamin. Godammit. Why are you like this?
Fasting forward into the night (because again, my dumbass should have taken notes), party planning time! I felt like a grown ass man. Hosting my own room parties rather than going to them. Becoming the source for a party for fellow drunken socially awkward anime fans!
One thing I am learning about hosting a room party: You will not start out huge. Even if you’re promoting yourself and your party, you may not get much folks to come through. Hell, you may only host 3-10 people at the time.
That is okay.
I bet you that the biggest party’s hosts and hostsess who have 20-30 people in their room at one time in their hotel suite started out small, with only maybe 3-5 people. They had to work their ass off networking and building a rep, but they managed to become popular as fuck through hard work and knowing people and having hosting skills.
I’m saying this because my homeboys and I were trying to promote our room party to folks, trying to get them to come to no anvil and success. We don’t have a rep at Naka nor the powerful social network.
Not yet at least but I’m confident we will in due time. Things take time. You try to rush this shit and you’ll become discourage and unsuccessful.
A little back story to make this clear:
We were invited to a room party that was lacking liquor. My Friends and I decided that it would be best to grab our booze as a donation to the party. People were happy at the idea, including the hostess. Sadly as we were getting our shit her party was shut down and everyone went their own way.
Homeboy and his crew were seeking people to link up with us and continued the party but no luck. I had to tell them “Hey, let’s take this lost and go back to our room. There’s no shame if things are not going the way you want ‘em to.”
Besides, it’s the first con of the year. There will be more chances to throw room parties and network with other hosts.
Success is a slow but rewarding process. Don’t rush it. Don’t become discouraged.
Day 3: The Final Day
Ahh Day 3. The most boring, least eventful day of most conventions. Everyone is hung over, tired, and worrying about if they caught somebody from the random dude or chick they fucked the night before. Wrap it up folks.
May I say that we need to end Daylight Savings? Like what’s the point of that crap? That shit did not do me any favors for the party hosting and sleep. Bad enough I only get 5-7 hours of sleep at these things compared to my 7-9 hours of sleep on my normal days. But daylight savings fuck and everyone else up hardcore.
Time to clean up and destroy any evidence of partying, which the hotel probably knew we party but didn’t care cuz we clean up after ourselves and kept our noise down to a respectful level.
Seriously, if you are respectful about your partying and don’t be loud, hotels won’t bother you. Anyway, after we checked out I decided to give the game room one more chance given I promise my friend I would beat his ass in some fighters.
Let us go back to earlier. Remember when I said I couldn’t find Street Fighter 5 at the game room? Well, next to Naka’s console game room is the free-to-play arcade room. I am going to guess that you guys know where this is going.
Street Fighter 5 was in the arcade room, complete with a custom cabinet from Tokyo Attack. Finally! A way to give in to my Street Fighter 5 addiction and abuse Karin’s magnificent poking and spacing game!
Only one problem: Arcade uses sticks. I play on a pad. I suck using sticks. Boy this was going to be fun.
I must say, despite not playing SFV in about two weeks and being handicapped on a stick, I did pretty well for myself I managed to pull off a few of Karin’s bread-and-butter combos with the stick. Then again, I did drop an awful lot of combos with her and did some increadbliy noobish mistakes like fuckin’ jumpin’ into R. Mika’s Yamamoto summon rather than blocking it.
Take the bad with the good.
Finally, after 3 hours of Street Fighter 5 and networking with new players, it was time for my friends and I to hit the road back to St. Louis and plan for our next convention trips. Naka-Kon was incredibilly lackluster this year. Many of the panels did not appealed to me or my niches and I did play myself by not going to the one panel I found interesting but I was also drunk and dind’t want to make a fool out of myself.
I am planning to come back next year and hopefully have more success compare to last year.
I’m not saying Toei may had borrowed some ideas from a certain early 90s gangsta movie but I also don’t believe in coincidences.
Speaking of strange coincidences, Sailor Mars’s image song, “Fire Soul Love” sounds like a certain Janet Jackson song.
Sailor Venus’s theme song in the god awful (but ambitious) Sailor Moon fighting game is a complete rip off of Banarama’s “Venus”. They were not even slick with that.
Goddammit Toei. First Dragon Ball Z Kai and now Sailor Moon.
Sigh…
Crunchyroll has been under fire for decreasing the streaming quality of premium level users to save on cost. While this may seem terrible from a customer’s point-of-view, you must remember that Crunchyroll is a business. Businesses may have to cut down on costs to save their money and investments. Customers may have to suffer these costs as well but business first, customers second.
I mean, dont get me wrong. It does suck that premium users have to deal with the loss of quality. However, you must think about a few factors for these money-saving cuts.
Piracy is a major issue in the anime industry. Piracy can cost the industry upwards to billions of dollars (I do not have an exact estimate right now) a year. That’s a huge blow to all companies within the anime industry. Anime companies suffer from piracy and are forced to cut back on funds.
Next, everyone involved in the anime industry wants a share of the money. Investors. Distributors. Publishers. Workers. Everybody needs their cut. Crunchyroll gotta respect that and take care of their business partners first. Then they gotta take care of the fans. If you don’t take care of your workers and business partners, they ain’t gonna take care of the customers. That’s gonna look bad on you as a business leader.
(Trust me; I have worked in the restaurant industry for eight years.)
Finally, perhaps the issues with low quality streaming is with you. Yep. You.
I have a friend who has a premium membership with Crunchyroll and despite the “dip” in quality streaming, he told me he still has high quality streaming. Why? Well, he has 45” HDTV with fiber internet. Your internet connection does have an impact on video streaming quality you know. Streaming services such as Hulu, Netflix, and Crunchyroll change their encoding to match your internet speed.
If you’re using Wi-Fi to stream, you’re going to get garbage quality. If you are using fiber internet, you’re getting the best quality. In addition, you are paying $7 worth of quality with Crunchyroll so there is that factor as well.
Lets put it in more…not so legal terms:
You put in $5 for a reggie blunt, you’re going to get low quality. Put in $20 for a kush blunt, you’re going to get higher quality.
…not that I know anything about that, I swear!
Crunchyroll is a business. Businesses gotta make sure they have enough money to stay afloat and provide as well. Businesses must make sacrifices and those sacrifices might even have an impact on customers. It sucks but that’s how businesses are.
FURTHER READING:
Crunchyroll’s reduced video quality is deliberate cost-cutting at the expense of paying customers
When you’re reading lyrics to an anime opening theme song and you can’t help but to think that certain lines can relate to your short and long term goals in life.
“I can’t get no satisfaction” struck at me the most and not because of the near perfect English of the singer.
It stuck at me because that’s how I am feeling with my life. I’m not satisfied with it right now. I want to push myself further with my skills, drive, and desires. Reach the next level of my growth rather than being stuck doing the same shit.
You know, I don’t wanna be left behind while everyone advances in life. I want to push myself beyond my self-doubts and my limits.
I also love the lines “The doors of possibilities is still locked” and “Oh well, I’ll break through the wall again”. Like fuck trying to unlock that door that’s blocking me from my goals. I rather destroy the wall next to the door and get what I work my ass off for.
Lets break some walls. Lets get some satisfaction for ourselves.
“The invincible me is waitin’ there.”
-Kiyoshi Hikawa (Limit Break x Survivor)
REFERENCES:
Introduction
I can still fondly remember my first episode of Sailor Moon. It was on a Saturday mornig in early February 2001. Dragon Ball Z had just finished on the Toonami’s “Rising Sun” block and Sailor Moon was next. I had prior knowledge of from a friend, who gave me a short run down of the series in the past
A magical school girl team run by some dumbass girl named Serena, running around Tokyo saving their city and the world from Queen Beryl or some shit in high heels and mini-skirts. (It’s been 16 years. My memory of his summary is rather weak).
I figure that I’ll give the show a shot. I mean, what young 11-year-old dude doesn’t wanna watch schoolgirls in minishirts and high heels?
Twister
The episode airs. I get a quick introduction to a sparkly Tuxedo Mask giving a short history of the Outer Scouts’ role in the past. That was cool and all but it did not make an impact on me as the next scene: the infamous Twister game.
The game starts out normally; sans lady scientists playing in their lab coats and heels. But whatever, that’s anime for ya.
“Right hand on Blue 4”. Just a simple command for a simple game of Twister, right? However, as soon as the woman does instructed, she makes a rather sexual moaning sound.
“Okay…? What’s going on?” I asked myself but whatever.
Next up was this cute, young, orange hair woman with glasses. She starts ramblin’ about some track star name Shawn, who inspires her to win. That’s cool I guess. I too look up to my idols for inspiration. Biggie Smalls, Tupac, and Hennessy to name a few. It’s normal to look up to idols.
What wasn’t normal was her ass soundin’ like she was having an orgasm.
In utter shock, I quickly turned down the volume on my TV. Didn’t want my parents to think that I was watching porn at 10 in the morning. As I watch this awkward scene I am asking myself “What the fuck type of anime my friend suggested me to watch and why is this woman imagining that she’s getting dicked down by this sports dude?”
“Whatever. Keep watching Ben. Less than five minutes in and we have good lookin’ science ladies playin’ Fake Orgasm Twister, one with her leg up in the air! This show is great!”
While the game of Fake Orgasm Twister was going on, this creepy ass science dude was peeping at all of this. Perhaps he thought there was an orgy going down and he wanted in on the action.
Creepy Ass Science Dude tells the Fake Orgasm Science Lady tells her about her new “Heart Snatching” mission and gives her this metal briefcase with a star on it. As he and the rest of the ladies send her off with well wishes, Creepy Ass Science Dude declares it was his turn to play.
“Creepy Ass Science Dude is a playa!” I told myself.
(Real shit, I always wanted to be like [90s anime] Dr. Tomoe when I was a kid. Dude had beautiful women in his big ass house working for him playing Twister in his lab. You know he probably fucked the Witches 5 a few time while his kid Hotaru was at school and Kaori was away doing business. “I’m A Playa” by Too $hort is probably his theme song)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfeVI29oHp4
Two minutes of pure nonsense and I’m already hook on Sailor Moon. I didn’t know what was going on. Hell, I didn’t care. This show is great!
Ahh man, young me was easily impressed by anime back in the day. Today? Nah.
Mimete: The Nutjob Fangirl
Ah Mimete; the ditzy, nutjob celebrity fangirl scientist of the Witches 4. Her goofiness carried this episode to me. Hotaru did as well (it’s her character arc after all) but more on her later.
Mimete was crazy. I mean, wanting to kill the guy she was fakin’ an orgasm to because he inspired her. That’s kinda nuts. Like this woman was straight watching this dude warming up, fangirling and shit, but also planning on killin’ him.
Like, how do you even go on to think about killing your celebrity crush ? Ya fangirls are weird. I hope ya know that.
On top of that, this woman straight tried to kill a bunch of innocent people with her Daimon, including two teenagers and a little girl. All because she was salty that she couldn’t get close to her celebrity crush. Granted she was going to kill him regardless, but still.
Seriously Mimete, you need mental help.
(Also I wonder if she knew Hotaru was her boss’s daughter. She almost got her boss’s daughter killed off her bullshit.)
Her Daimon monster confused the fuck out of me. I was like “why is this elf looking track star got a shell on her back? You know what? This show is already weird. Stop asking questions.”
The Daimon’s her Heart Snatching method. It was rather…out there.
“Do all of these Daimon monsters make out with their victims to kill them?”
“Why does she need to sit on this guy for his heart? What’s going on with this show?”
Watching the monster’s attempt to make out with her victim was awkward but hell, there was an awkward scene earlier with a Twister game. One more ain’t gonna hurt at this point.
The Daimon would meet her end by the means of flurries of mini hearts made out of pink sugar (wut?) and a giant heart made from rainbows (okay). Mimete runs off like she just ripped off her plug, declaring she will get Sailor Moon next time. And her pesky little sister/daughter/whatever too! I presumed she’s gonna try to kill her next celebrity crush in the next episode.
But forreal Minete was fuckin’ weird. Her monster friend was weird. This entire episode was fuckin’ weird.
Hotaru: The Shy Goth Girl
“Wow! She’s so pretty!” I said to myself, watching the girl in all black with purple hair and eyes writing a letter to her sports idol. Same sports idol Mimete was gushing all over.
Man, this Shawn nigga is popular!
“And she has health issues. Maybe she has really bad asthma like I do. That’s probably why she can’t do sports.”
Less than say, what 25 seconds into this scene and I’m already got a possible favorite character right off the bat. But then, I started asking a few questions.
“Why the fuck is she writing in the dark wearing all black though? Is she one of those gothic people that worship Satan, mope around all depressed, and cut themselves when they’re sad? ”
Ahhh 11-year-old me was so ignorant about alternate subcultures. I blame Christianity!
(In defense of my 11 year old self, I at least got one thing right about this character)
As I admired this character (as well as questioned her fashion bedroom lighting choices ) an incredibly busty woman sneaks up behind her and starts belittling the girl. She states that she’s weird for writing the letter and doesn’t have the guts to approach the dude.
“Man, her step mom’s a bitch! How could you taunt your own step daughter like that?” I mean, she was right about her not having the courage to send the letter out and everything, but still.
Kaori is a bitch.
(Of course, I would learn that Kaori wasn’t her stepmom but her dad’s assistance.)
After Kaori’s taunting session, the scene transition to the girl chillin’ with her friends, Rini and Serena.
“Okay, she has friends. She can’t be completely gothic. Most, if not, all of them don’t have any friends.”
(To my readers who are in the gothic subculture: I sincerely apologize for my baseless, stereotypical views of that subculture at age 11)
The three discuses about Hotaru’s letter, which she expressed her concern about sending the letter out or even talking to Shawn, thus she gets discouraged. Serena brings up that they should take her to the track field and give her encouragement.
There was something about this character, Hotaru. She had shit tier health, got teased, incredibly shy, has confidence issues, relies on her friends too heavily and she’s pretty! Just like me at that age!
It was pretty much set that this character would be my favorite in the entire series, and I was just only less than seven minutes in. That’s good character-viewer relation right there.
(I’m pretty sure Hotaru [along with Washu from Tenchi Muyo] may have been the source of me becoming a sad lonely waifu loving otaku years down the road but that’s for another time.)
Fasting forward, the three hit the track field to meet Shun, although they kinda sorta trespassed on the field. Shun soon approaches Hotaru and Serena, but Hotaru just freezes up. Despite Rini’s rally cries, Serena’s prep talk, and committing a few trespassing crimes, Hotaru ain’t talking.
Hotaru, you disappointed everyone. Good going.
Mimette, witnessing all of this, gets butthurt because Hotaru and Serena managed to get close to Shawn. Although Mimete was in the right by not trespassing. Ahh haters…
In her rage, she releases her Daimon and shit happens, like The Daimon indirectly burning Hotaru’s letter from the immerse flames of her rolling a giant ball. All that hard work, dealing with Kaori’s bullying, and the Tsukino family’s prep rally: gone.
She ain’t too pleased with that. Holy fucking shit she ain’t too pleased.
As Mimette and her Daimon friend runs away, the Daimon spots Hotaru being a depressed gothic emo girl in her makeshift emo corner. Concerned, the Daimon tells her if she ain’t feelin’ well she needs to go to the medical office.
(Hey, at least she has her morals.)
Hotaru blankly stares down the Daimon, eyes glowing red and straight blasts her ass across the track field like she’s on some Dragon Ball Z shit!
“Holy shit! Hotaru has powers too!? She doesn’t even need to transform like Sailor Moon and Mini-Moon! She can just fuckin’ blast these dudes like nothing! She’s so cool!”
Yea, at that point she officially became my favorite character.
After Moon dispatches the monster, Hotaru finally meets her idol and they talk about how much their frail health sucks and Shawn gives the girl encouragements to do whatever she wants in life. Like complete in sports. Or blasting monsters across a track field. The sky’s the limit, just keep pressin’ on.
“Hotaru is so awesome and cool!” I told myself as I finished my very first episode of Sailor Moon . 16 years later, I still feel the same way
Conclusion
A goofy game of twister, a psychotic fangirl, and an emo ass gothic ass shy ass girl. What an unusual combination of how I feel in love with the Sailor Moon series 16 years ago. A love that is still felt to this day
Granted, I am an 27-year-old jaded adult now who knows better. Giving this episode a retroactive reflection, the writing was pure garbage. Nothing about this episode did anything enhance Hotaru’s character development, and I’m pretty sure the creative staff behind this episode were on drugs while creating this episode.
Also, doesn’t Hotaru hate sports? Why would she be fangirling over a sports star? And why did everyone acted like everything was normal after Mimete attacked them?
Nevertheless, it was the episode that I got me into the series. I believe if I may have watched the wrong episode as my first episode, I wouldn’t gotten into Sailor Moon at all.
But forreal drugs where involved in the making of this episode.
REFERENCES:
https://prettysoldierproject.com/
Sailor Moon blog site where I took some of the screenshots on this post from.
“Last night was a blur to me
This mornin’ I got two with me
I don’t know what to do with me
Goin’ ape like the zoo with me”
-2Chainz Big Amount
Boys and girls, let me start by saying don’t ever play yourself. More on that later.
So day 1 of Naka-Kon was rather lackluster for me, sans a few events throughout the day. My crew and I arrived at our hotel around 2 PM after a decent 4.5 hours of driving down highway 70, joking around, listening to some Chrissy but classic 80s rock, enjoying unscripted interviews from wrestlers (or “shoots”), and blasting some Gundam music. Great times.
What wasn’t great was that my debit card had issues at check-in. Nice. Lets start the con season off with me overthinking and having a near breakdown because my dumbass didn’t stack my money right. Thankfully my homeboy bailed me out but I owe him $20.
Oh well. You win some. You lose some. I’ll live.
After having that problem knock out, my crew and I settle down in our hotel room. While we waited for the con to officially start we started some l flexing on social media: bragging about our booze collection for the con after parties.
Its like we’re immature frat boys ha ha ha
Following that, we hit the con floor. The convention center wasn’t as packed as we expected. Granted, people were stillt work and school. Oh well.
As we aimlessly wandered around we linked up with a few local con friends. We combined our parties for a fun adventure of walking around the dealer room, lamenting at the fact that we are broke adults with adult responsibilities.
Our money have to go to bills first, anime figmas last. Don’t grow up; its a trap like Felix.
To combat any impulsive spending, our crew decided it was best to talk shit about our favorite series. Dragon Ball is just a shallow combat Shouen series. Sailor Moon is a monotonous tale of a dumbass teenager superherorine.
Of course this didn’t last long as I spotted a Sailor Saturn figure which caused me to become depressed at the fact that I’m a broke ass adult.
I need a hustle.
Later on, we decided that nothing was poppin’ off at the con to our interest and retired back to the hotel room for a bit.
At the hotel, my crew and I did some pre con pre-gaming. Doing shots of whatever was on the table and myself playing pretend bartender.
Remember at the beginning of this post I stated don’t ever play yourself? Well, here’s the story:
I had planned on going to a panel on White-Washing in the media. A panel run by a professional writer for the New York Times mind you. I wanted to see see some viewpoints on white washing from an industry insiders and possibly network with the writer.
Unfortunatly, my dumbass drank way too much than I should had (work stress and stressing over blog posts does that to ya). My black ass ain’t going to a professionally run panel on White-Washing while intoxicated. To break it down:
Me, a drunk black dude + a white washing panel = yea no.
Its not worth having my con badge revoked because Drunk Ben wants to fight dumbass weeaboos who think white washing isn’t an issue in the media.
Instead, I went to the rave. I’m not a huge rave guy for these anime cons but most of my friends were all there. And lets be real: con raves ain’t real raves. A real rave is one that is at a run-down warehouse that you get information about through word of mouth.
The rave was lucklaster. I mean I guess alcohol and good friends made the rave slightly bareable, but if you danced to one happy hardcore track you have danced to all of them.
Granted I’m jaded and bias as fuck so that doesn’t help.
Upon general agreement that the rave was getting boring, my merry drunken band decided to call it a night and return to the hotel. We had a few more drinks, had a nice talk about Akira Toriyama’s trolling the Dragon Ball fan base before everyone passed out.
Day 1 of Naka-Kon was quite honestly lackluster. This is forgivable because it was Friday. People are still at work, school, or just setting up for the weekend. Plus you wanna save the big shit for the big day, Saturday.
I’m looking forward for the Saturday events. Saturday at cons are always eventful.
Alright everyone here’s a little status update for this blog and my plans for this month! Thank you for your support and taking time to read my posts by the way!
I will be at the anime convention Naka-Kon in Overland Park, KS this weekend (March 10th-12). There will be small, quick posts about my adventures and pictures as well.
I’m currently working on two Sailor Moon S and one Dragon Ball Z essay projects.
The first is a rather passionate essay on how I fell in love with the series based on the infamous episode 117, my first episode of the series.
The second is an in-depth analysis on the theatrical themes of the Infinity arc. I am looking forward to having a lot of fun researching and writing about the themes!
Finally, for the Dragon Ball Z analysis, I’m planning on an essay on the pure stupidity of series’s “hero” Son Goku.
Because I desire to have these three essays to be of high quailty, I won’t be posting here as often in the past for this month. I may have a few quick posts here or there, but the main focus are these three pieces.
Anyway, I hope you guys have a great and exciting March!!
Sailor Moon S holds a special place in my heart. I do not know if it because of the characters, the sci-fi elements of the villains, the story, the art style, or the music. There was just something about those things that drew me into the series. I just deeply love S.
As a kid, I thought Sailor Moon was a show marketed for young girls. I doubted that it was for guys but hey, I was 11 at the time. My mind changed once I gave the show a shot. Man, I not only was I proven wrong, I was blown away.
The first thing I noticed about S was the sci-fi aesthetics of the Death Busters. I did not expect an element seen in more male oriented cartoons and shows in Shoujo anime. I loved that Professor Tomoe used science and technology to combat against the Sailor Scouts’ magical powers. Hell I still love it to this day. Science vs. Magic is a very common ass theme in fictional but when done right, it’s great. And S did it greatly.
Another thing I drew me into S was the depressing theme of the destruction of the world. That was a play out of left field for younger me. Shows I have watched prior dealt with villains wanting to simply take over the world. There weren’t any talk about awakening an evil Messiah wiping out all humanity or killing a 12 year old girl because she was assumed to be that evil Messiah.
Finally, what made S great was the the amazing soundtrack. Honestly this is best reversed for a more in-depth analysis post but whatever (pus, I need to freewrtie for a bit lol). This is completely biased because I am a violinist, but holy shit the orchestra and violin tracks were perfect. Like forreal the orchestra tracks they used for the Mistress 9/Pharaoh 90 battles made me felt like I was watching an animated movie than just a simple series.
I cannot simply forget the awesomeness that is that of the Outer Senshi theme
Or the utterly depressing piano/violin duet of Hotaru’s theme: (“Hotaru’s Sorrow ” is a fuckin’ fitting title for that girl’s theme. Her life was incredibly fucked up)
So yea, these are just short, rather shallow reasons why I love Sailor Moon S and how it got me into the series as a whole. I may go more in depth with these things in the near future but for right now, I just needed to clear my thoughts (and have something for the 25th Anniversary week ha ha ha)
Drugs were involved in the process of creating this episode. I swear lol.
I would never imagine that one day I would be playing defense for Dragon Ball, a incredibly popular anime series, against typical anime elitists.
You know, the ones who have a false sense of superiority cuz they took deep, more artistic anime series way too seriously. Not that there’s anything wrong with deep anime.
The depth of Dragon Ball gets slept on because people have this common misconception that Dragon Ball Z is nothing more then mindless Shouen battles.
It’s actually deeper than that.
The Dragon Ball Z series have various theatrical theme such as nature vs. nurture, fathers-and-sons, accepting your racial heritage, and unity.
The Saiyan and Frieza saga revolves around Goku’s struggle with accepting his Saiyan racial background . A struggle brought on because he believed himself to be an Earthling all his life prior to Radtiz arrival. As the Saiyan and Frieza saga progress, Goku slowly appreciates his racial background.
He realize his battle hungry nature is a result of his Saiyan nature. The reason why Goku spare Vegeta was because he wanted to challenge him again. Dude never fought anyone as strong as Vegeta before.
(Goku did not spare Vegeta because he saw good in him. That was a bullshit 90s dub change. Sorry English-speaking blinded 90s nostalgia fanboys who refuse to watch DBZ Kai or the series in Japanese!)
The Buu saga is strong with the theme of unity. Goku and Vegeta fusing to defeat Kid Buu. The average non-powered humans coming together, giving Goku energy for the spirit bomb. Majin Buu and Satan befriending one another. You get the point.
Also, we can not forget the theme of redemption of this arc. Vegeta’s atonement of past sins with his sacrifice to save the world. Majin Buu expelling the evil of his heart after Satan show him love and friendship. Speaking of Satan, he also redeemed himself in a way. He managed to unite and convince everyone on earth to donate energy for Goku’s Spirit Bomb.
Guess that kinda makes up for him lying about saving the world from Perfect Cell.
Dragon Ball is fuckin deep. Sad that some folks don’t make the effort to explore the themes of this amazing series.
REFERENCES AND SOURCES
Fathers-and-Sons artwork source
My boy Mr. Y’s post on learning about the big picture rather than focusing on details.
Check it out if you’re into education or general teaching.
Look at that pretty forest!View original post 1,680 more words
Yuki The Snowman 