Entries tagged with anime

Current Mood: bouncy

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this one's a real mishmash

i've kind of been in brain freefall since The Big Important Wrist Surgery so here's a general housekeeping post of what i've been doing the last month and a half. it's a lot of things, none of which are the thing i've really meant to be doing, which is finishing Potion Stand Story DX-- that requires an amount of Think and Daily Committment i just haven't had available since my brain got blasted with KO drugs and painkillers and then my hand became able to play video games without severe pain for the first time in years. i'm trying to get this ship back on course though!! keeping myself on task right now is just still a little bit... herding cats.

recent art & doodles

clockwise:
• my first kinda-finished drawing post-surgery! i drew this like... 9 days afterward?
• you guys ever think about how the Oracle of Ages/Seasons Princess Zelda sprite has... odango...
• Petra/Ryfka doodle i really liked (i wanted to draw Petra wearing something more feminine than usual for funsies)
• Chiyo Sakura from Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun is my daughter and i love her

posting images here is kind of a big pain in the ass at scale so here are some links to more things:
• MakoAmi sketch
• ReiNako sketch
(i basically re-learned how to draw by drawing sailor moon yuri lol)
• Sailor Senshi from Dungeon Meshi dlsfkjghfdlsjgfds i really need to clean this up and make it a sticker or something
• Elly (Fields of Mistria version)
obligatory Easter bunny costume art of Petra and Sykes (and costume switch)
• Cardcaptor Petra
• a comic i made while playing Echoes of Wisdom
• Kell/Sykes brainrot doodles
• a thread of Sykes Backstory Doodles that are very cute imo

newwwwwwww shop stuff

new stickers: birdhouse sticker and milk sticker!

and there's a new shop section... ZINES! my friend HikaTamika gave me zine cooties! i got a long-arm stapler and so far i've made 2.5 zines. free shipping in the US on these babies. not every zine i make will be available digitally but the ones that are will be in my ko-fi shop or, if you prefer, itch.io.

and just for fun, here's some brief rambling on anime and manga and tokusatsu i've touched recently

Yowamushi Pedal - i'm only like 7 episodes into this but i love when an anime is extremely passionately excited and factual about a topic (in this case bikes). cant wait to dig further into this thing and find out why that one kid's face is Like That

Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun - it is a crime that this thing got 1 twelve-episode season. gonna start collecting the manga. just a really solid comedy, i relate to Nozaki so much as an artist who cannot EVER turn off "that's good reference" brain and also as a neurodivergent dingdong who is frustratingly impossible to flirt with

Monster - we're getting close to the end and i love this fucking series so much. i love Kenzo Tenma and all of his funny friends. i love extremely average looking middle aged dude character designs. i love anime characters with distinct noses. i love to be scared and afraid and tense and very very worried. i think my fav lil arc so far was the one with Grimmer, i have big feelings about a guy whose feelings literally don't work right who chooses to be good and kind and gentle and empathetic even though he's not sure he's doing it right

Skip and Loafer - i've been working on collecting the manga and im so excited for this to get a second season soon. "i'm an adult i'm kinda done with school life teen drama stuff" bitch no you aren't you just want the good stuff. this is the good stuff. extremely My Daughter Whomst I Love series

Claymore - it wants to be Lady Berserk so bad. extremely self-serious, relentlessly edgy, it's got that B-movie charm. honestly A+ character choice to make your main character the absolute bottom of the barrel lowest-grade at the Badass Lady Organization, we love an underdog.

Gintama - we finally started this one. long running/comedy anime like this tend to be really hit-or-miss for me, and it definitely has a lot of dated humor and impenetrable-without-a-translator's-note kinda stuff, but when the jokes hit, they hit, and it's slowly growing on me. i find it comforting. it's "weird thing i would have watched on a friend's laptop in 2007" kinda stuff. i'm interested to see how this one evolves as it goes on.

Kamen Rider Kiva - it's a Kamen Rider with Castlevania vibes and 80s fashion. a funny bat tells you fun facts at the beginning of every episode. what the absolute fuck else could you possibly want in your life. theres a flying dragon castle and i still don't know why. i don't even care. i've accepted dragon castle into my life.

Gurren Lagann - i'm finally watching this one as i continue winding my way through the Gainax/Trigger back catalog. it has every Expected Problem (please Trigger. i love a boob but sexual harassment is not good comedy) and yet just like everything else they make, it's compelling and goofy and relentlessly appealing. i already know What Happens and im watching them stick death flags into You Know Who like a pincushion and screaming and crying and kicking my feet

Current Mood: contemplative

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reflections on Uzumaki eating shit in episode 2

so in a previous post i had this to say about episode 1:

Uzumaki (episode 1) - one of my fav manga and another "that's gonna be hard to adapt" situation, the pacing feels WACK but idk how else you could have done it-- other than maybe splitting it up into 2 chapters at the commercial break, which i think maybe would have felt less confused? the choice to keep it greyscale is A+, and the surreal never-quite-still animation style is working for it.

if you look closely, you can detect worry in this paragraph. i've been a little worried about this anime adaptation the entire time i've known of it, but i always try to give things my good faith, and i'm a big fan of a lot of flawed gems. i'm pretty forgiving as long as there's something there to like but oh no oh no oh nooooooooooooooooo oh dear oh no (sorry for linking to the ex-bird-website it's just where i know of a clip sorry. if you're reading through this in the future after elon musk has finally killed that poor website: it's a clip from Uzumaki episode 2 with some... DEEPLY CURSED bad animation)

i kinda haven't been able to stop thinking about it since. i think the first episode made some admirable swings at being a good adaptation-- but i also think the wild pacing really kills its ability to actually be frightening. i was approaching it from the perspective of someone who's read the manga a few times, but for someone who's new to it??? i have no idea if this would actually scare them or just weird them out a little. i have a feeling "weirded out" is more likely than scared.

seeing this messy adaptation honestly led to some newfound extra respect for Junji Ito. not that he didn't have it before, but like, until i saw the anime truly in action i hadn't thought about just how specifically calculated his work is, and how difficult it would be to adapt for the screen. i think half the problem with adaptations of Ito's work is that they somehow always fall into the hands of incompetent dingdongs (and gossip on the MAL forums confirms that's probably what happened here), but i think it's also just like. extremely difficult, maybe impossible, to take his manga and make it work onscreen.

time flows differently on a comic page than it does when we're watching a movie or a tv show or a video game cutscene. (Scott McCloud explains it much better than i can in Understanding Comics-- warning, this is a PDF link.)

to create suspense, you need to stop and linger on stuff a lot. you need to put people into that cycle of dread → scare → relief → dread, and there's kind of nothing extraneous in his work to stretch out. there's also very little, if any character development and not really much going on outside of the horror, and it's amazing how much suspense and terror he's able to put into his work with characters that in anything else would kinda be... like honestly, and i don't mean this in a derogatory way... cardboard stand-ups. i don't feel like i know much about Kirie or Shuichi, and i don't feel like i see them grow and change so much as just struggle. i think Ito is tapping into your empathy in a different way than most writers do. it's like finding a scary video on the internet out of context, like seeing someone fall into a sinkhole or something. a lot of the time, these characters are almost complete strangers. it's campfire ghost stories, pretty much entirely story-driven. and vibes-driven.

and it is all calculated so specifically for the page. he is the master of making you terrified to turn the page. it's his whole thing. i think where i realized it was not working as well as i hoped was when you first see Shuichi's dad coiled up into a spiral. when i first read the manga, that was the page turn that sold me. it hits like a bus. i was honestly dreading seeing it onscreen because it's so upsetting, and... it just didn't have the same impact. and again i was like, eh, well, i've read the manga and i knew what was coming, i dunno what this would be like for someone who hasn't. but i don't know. probably not nearly as effective.

i think a lot about horror, because i'm working on a visual novel that has some horror elements (obligatory plug). i'm not really out to make something that's consistently scary the whole way through, and i'm not aiming for it to be a test of courage in the way horror games often are. but there are some key scenes that i want to be pretty upsetting, and i adore the horror genre in general, so i'm always thinking: what do i find scary, and why? why does this upset me? when i come across horror that doesn't do it for me, i'm like: why isn't this for me? what about this is not working, and is it a structural problem or is it just not playing to any of my anxieties? (ex. i am very difficult to scare with ghosts; i think they're neat and my reaction to them is usually "that's my new friend. we would be friends". i just empathize with them too much to be horrified-- some people find the mere concept of a lingering spirit horrifying on its own and get the willies about anyplace that might be haunted. i was "hang out in the graveyard and hope ghosts are real" teenager, okay. i'm that weirdo.)

i think horror and romance are like, maybe the two most difficult things to write, because what someone finds upsetting or terrifying or romantic or sexy is going to vary so much between people, and it can flop SO HARD if it doesn't work for you. whatever you do, basically, even if you're really good at your craft, it's probably gonna miss for some section of the audience. i feel like those are also maybe the most potentially embarrassing things to fail at because they're so emotionally vulnerable. you're putting something out there with the intent of creating a really intense emotion and if it doesn't work right it, it might be either be secondhand embarrassing, or funny, or both. that is a terrible feeling, to be like "here's my very big emotion!" and have someone's response be awkward laughter.

so. this is all to say. nothing but respect for Junji Ito, whose work rides such a thin line between horror and absurdity all the time. he's always throwing spaghetti at the wall and it doesn't always stick for me, but i'll always be back for more spaghetti. if we ever see a good adaptation of his work, i'll show up for it, but i don't really long desperately for it. the initial trailers did ignite some hype for me, but i wasn't sitting there like "goddamn why is there no anime adaptation???" before i knew it was happening. this doesn't feel like a tragedy to me in quite the same way as Sailor Moon Crystal (shitshow i'll probably make a youtube video essay about someday) or Berserk 2016 (insult to the medium). it sucks to see it mishandled, i'm disappointed in the people that dropped the ball on it, and i think some genius maybe could pull it off, but i don't need it, because i don't think there's much for animation to add to his work other than bringing it to a wider audience. what he's doing is already exactly what it needs to be.

Current Mood: anime
Current Location: anime
Current Music: anime (il vento d'oro)

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anime day and other adventures

FUNDRAISING: The Adventure Continues
slapping this right at the top: my friend Poppy, who is very cool and rescues stray cats, is going through a similarly desperate financial situation to mine this month and could use some help if you can spare it. posts to share: bluesky / cohost / tumblr

my own emergency fundraiser is still on, but the immediate crisis of not being able to pay the rent in October is now over. i'd still like to try to raise the rest to keep us safer for a while/pay off debts when my mom does manage to find a job. i'm so incredibly grateful to everyone who's shown their support through donations, shares and kind comments.

Periodic Anime/Manga Roundup
yesterday was my weekly anime day. for the last 2 years, an AFK friend (who is also an artist) and i have been spending 6 hours almost every week watching a buttload of anime, usually a mix of new releases and something older we either missed out on or want to rewatch. we've also been collecting manga and lending volumes to each other a lot. i also attend online meetings with what i call the Anime UN (me and a couple of international friends spend another 2 hours every Sunday watching anime and tokusatsu). it's great. it's been really, really good for me as an artist and a writer; i fully believe in the Power Of Goofing Off now. mainlining this many stories and episodes per week has been a crash course in story structure, composition, etc. etc. etc. (i take a lot of screenshots)

lately we've been making our way through some early 2000s stuff. our current lineup / my impressions so far:

• Dead Dead Demon's DeDeDeDe Destruction (anime/manga) - i've been read-alonging this one. visually a lavish adaptation but oh my god they cut out so much stuff from the manga, re-arranged it and made it so confusing to figure out what we were supposed to be watching. i guess there are always tradeoffs when you're making it into a movie. i think it stands best as a companion piece to the manga lmao

• Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex (anime) - to me, it is The Batou Show. also The Tachikoma Show. love that technology in this imagined future has stayed chunky and clicky and there are still discs and stuff. i wish Ghost In the Shell were real kinda. the action sequences are pretty great and i've been trying to absorb what i can from them in order to write that kind of stuff better lol

• No Guns Life (anime) - i don't know what to think of this one yet. our general consensus so far is that it seems like it's probably on the slop side; we're several episodes in and it hasn't really impressed me with much. but also a guy has a gun for a head? and he smokes a lot? which is an extremely funny joke. it's fun, but i'm kinda waiting for it to have something to say.

• Monster (anime) - OOOOAUGH I LOVE IT. I LOVE IT SO MUCH. i'm very excited to finally finish this one, after ADHD-falling-off-the-wagon years and years ago. it seems really slow-paced compared to more recent anime but that works in its favor. Dr. Tenma is my babygirl who has gone through the horrors of life. i wish that real doctors were good.

• Hare + Guu (anime) - i can't even summarize whatever's going on with this one. it's a hell of a thing. a 2000s comedy anime that is doing some stuff. sometimes we go "aaah nooo anime please" but when it hits it hits

• Hellsing Ultimate (anime) - the manga is a longtime Problematic Fav™; this is less a recommendation and more of a confession. i had never bothered with the anime (or finished the manga, but it made an impression lol). Ultimate seems to have done a respectable job of scraping the manga's storyline off the pavement and molding it into something that flows well onscreen. it is hyperviolent, stupid, edgy, and beautiful. thanks Integra Hellsing for making me a little gayer.

• Dai Dark (manga, i just finished volume 7) - Q Hayashida finished Dorohedoro and said "what if i did that again, but in space and kinda sillier" and i love it very much. i hope someday to reach her level.

• Kamen Rider OOO (tokusatsu) - this is my second Kamen Rider, after watching Zero-One earlier this year. both of them rock ass. i didn't know if tokusatsu would be my thing and it turns out it's extremely my shit and i love it.

• Sailor Moon (90s anime) - my friend Shift has foolishly allowed me to drag her into this pit with me. i may have started a journey here where i finally watch the entirety of Sailor Moon in order, over a period of god-knows-how-long. i am largely incapable of being normal about Sailor Moon, it is a decades-long fixation. i am a walking Sailor Moon wiki and i love telling people about it the same way JJBA fans love showing people out of context scenes. there's a high chance of me just doing sailormoonposting here when i need an outlet lmfao

incidentally, my favorite stuff i've finished in 2024 so far are Dungeon Meshi, Brave Bang Bravern, and Pluto.

if you are interested in peeping on what anime/manga i am watching/reading, i have an AniList account.

other adventures
i managed to get my ADHD meds on time again this month. even with a dosage increase that required another prior authorization. i guess PacificSource decided to behave this time. i did have a nightmare that i opened the bottle and it was all just cheerios, which is a very funny way for the trauma of the last year to be expressing itself.

i've been doing steady work on the Iron Company demo. that'll be its own post. maybe right after this one. maybe later. we'll see. i don't know. i'm waiting for that 50MG Vyvanse to hit as i type LMAOOOO

Current Mood: morose

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big long cohost-related sigh (i watched good anime though)

i finished the sad task of going back and curating my cohost blog a bit before everything goes into read-only mode and the archiving begins. there were some vent posts from the rougher bits of the past year that i kind of... it wasn't that i was ashamed of them or anything, i just don't want to go back to look at the archive someday and remember how shitty i felt in that level of detail. it's a thing i go back and clean up occasionally, since my brain is bad and sometimes i post a little too much of my sadness on the internet. i didn't delete much, but i trimmed the hedges.

it's been nice to reminisce, but it's just so fuckin tragic. the whole thing sucks. i am "draw dramatic and highly context-dependent art about it" sad. (that's a cohost exclusive until the site goes read-only.)

i started posting there in october of 2022, on the 30th. so when cohost goes read-only, i'll have been there just about two years. it feels like so much longer. it kind of already felt like home when i arrived.

i have some hope, because people on cohost really cared. there are other people out there that wanted this to exist. it existed, for a while, because we wanted it. i'm not getting my hopes up for some miraculous revival a la SheezyArt's repeated emergences from the grave or whatever, but i don't think this is over. i don't think we all just go back to our lives and quietly accept that social media has to be garbage.

the highlight of my day was definitely watching Porco Rosso with my friend crepe this evening. dunno how i managed to not see that one until now. Castle In the Sky and Kiki's Delivery Service are my two favorite Ghibli movies and this had some of the spirit of both, so it's easily elbowed its way into my top favs. don't overlook the funny pig Ghibli movie, it's a hell of a romp. i love Fio and she deserves the world.

Current Mood: arty

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art catch-up post

here are some finished pieces i've made in 2024!

Princess Serenity standing on the moon, with the earth behind her.

i drew this Sailor Moon fan art when i was just first starting to feel better after a few weeks of PT!

an angel sheltering a mouse from the rain with an umbrella

the same angel and mouse from the previous image, but the storm has passed and there's a rainbow

two of my favorite things to draw... cute angel wings, and little mice.

a friendly meeting between a princess and a dragon in a castle garden

"what kind of bird are you?"

Elly's two forms from Potion Stand Story

some art of Elly, and also some other girl, who knows who that is??? from Potion Stand Story, a visual novel i made!

Lum Invader on the sparkly streets of a city

i drew this one as a sticker design in 2022, but i glitzed it up recently with a background.

Elly from Potion Stand Story and Petra from Iron Company having a tea party. they're from different universes but would definitely be the bestest friends-- they're both spellcasters and huge nerds. they'd like, go to the library and stuff.

Naomi at the gate of a garden, surrounded by birds

Naomi, also from Iron Company, though she won't appear until later chapters.

(miraculously, despite everything that happened with my wrist, i also managed to do art fight this year. if you want to see all the art i drew for that, click here. i've learned a lot in 2024 about the power of taking Little Breaks Frequently instead of... going ham for 6 hours.)