blurry's inventory

word vomit about media i've consumed, mainly anime

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Intro

*startles awake* Hello hello! Welcome to my humble mess of an abode, where media lives in my head rent free. I grabbed this place to store ramblings about media that I’m consuming. Lately it’s been anime and related fanfiction.

I place major spoilers under a cut! Other tags:

#blurrys rambling = sorta my stream-of-consciousness, aka less structured/grammatically correct thoughts (edited 1-2 times)

#blurrys writing = my more structured writing (drafted 3+ times)

#blurry impression = scribbled down a rough review about the media

#liveblog = writing as or soon after i consume some media

#blurry save = links to fandom stuff

Abbreviations of some fandoms (alphabetized):

DRV3/NDRV3 = Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony

HQ = Haikyuu!!!

P5/P5R = Persona 5/Persona 5 Royal

Last edited 5/6/22.

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Thoughts on Zero Escape

*** Zero Escape: 999 + VLR spoilers ***

Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (999)

999 has a wonderful 2D style and I enjoy the expressiveness and color of the character designs. I adore their bright personalities and how they argue, conflict, and generally interact with one another. Their caution and mistrust feels desperately clever and humanly hopeful and well, like they are trying to survive a death game.

The build-up to this absolute avalanche of events happening one after another was magnificent. When the atmosphere is ripe with tension ahh - and Clover, sweetheart, who’s loyal loyal loyal and a little too smart in some of the wrong ways (for us). Wow is she a terror. That was the standout scene to me months after the game.

VLR

On the other hand, the 2D graphics for VLR feel rather unsettling to me. Though I do adore Luna’s cute little hand motion above her eyes. I just wasn’t as invested in these characters- they felt more one-noted to me than the characters in 999, even with a repeat character or two.

Going through every path to choose both “Ally” and “Betray” was tedious, and I was losing interest and losing track of what happened in what timeline. Also why are the door and map animations so long, istg please just let me speed through sections I’ve already been through haha. Oh, and one puzzle was missing information or something (missing the second screen from the original DS game). 

Overall, VLR was near double the game time and simply not as fantastically written as 999.

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Sorting: Kokichi Ouma (NDRV3)

Based on @sortinghatchats system! Primary is the why, secondary is the how.

***Spoilers for NDRV3***

Badger Primary

Kokichi’s extraordinarily empathetic, much as he deliberately masks it at the start. He upholds two major principles - “Don’t kill” from his DICE backstory, and “Lies can be good/kind” from the Salmon Dream Team. His overall goal is to end the killing game, and he’s willing to do it at the expense of a few lives if necessary. He stirs up trouble, but the biggest trouble is aimed to air out potentially dangerous secrets (ex. accusing Kaede of dangerous optimism with the escape game, or revealing Maki’s Ultimate talent) or with the end goal of stopping the killing game (cooperating with Monokuma to find out more about the outside world). He’s extremely pragmatic that way, if a touch too cynical and distrustful of everyone else. Kokichi’s hella people-oriented for someone who distrusts so much - his talent *is* Ultimate Supreme Leader, and well. He cares, a lot. (The pranks and the constant lying? It’s infuriating but astonishingly not really malicious in such a dangerous killing game.)

Kokichi feels too people-oriented to be an External Primary. He has such strong ideals that he doesn’t feel like a Snake to me. Even loving Shuichi doesn’t mean he trusts or relies on or prioritizes him. 

Bird Secondary - Rapid-fire/Actor, Snake performance

Kokichi’s been shown to be very very good at predicting players, and seems to rely most on planning ahead. That understanding of what will happen allows him to take preemptive action (a teetering balance in a reactionary death game). He collects information - exploring the school, snatching key items, and generally investigating on his own. His room is such a Bird thing - the scribbling and clues organized everywhere.

Liar, liar, pants on fire. Kokichi is so skilled at understanding what will happen and how players will act/react to such minute detail that it feels like a Rapid-fire Bird skill (how fitting that he fell in love (”stole the heart”) of Shuichi Saihara, someone a bit more unpredictable). But yeah, I think his lies can be seen through with a bit of logic and understanding- part of his skill comes from the whiplash of switching masks/emotions so quickly, and another part is grand, grand lies with grains of truth. He exaggerates/overreacts quite extremely in important, more emotional moments, and that feels a bit telling.

(He matches with Shuichi, who’s most likely that classic detective Bird secondary, which is pretty cute!)

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91 Days

No narration, no internal monologue, no planning scenes. No insight into the edged, ever-shifting scheming of Angelo Legusa/Avilio Bruno. The limited third person perspective gives no helping hand to guide you through the psychology of the protagonist. Angelo is incredible at reading and manipulating people while giving extraordinarily little away at all. The betrayals are almost clinically executed, if his sole purpose wasn’t emotionally-driven vengeance. The blood-soaked cycle of revenge is cold, cold and empty.

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Sou Hiyori (YTTD)

Your Turn to Die - by Nankidai, translated by vgperson -  a death game VN

*** mild spoilers for Your Turn to Die ***

Sou is exactly the type of character I enjoy seeing in fictional works: hella cynical! scarily manipulative! and with a streak of good(???) that’s twisted by all his mistrust of others and. y’know. the death game. He’s so terrified of Sara the MC that it’s partially amusing but mostly horribly frustrating in a “ahaha. Ha. ARGHH” way. Such desperate paranoia makes Sou a vexingly clever planner.

What’s funny is that I’m playing YTTD with a friend who hates Sou and wants to yeet him at every potential opportunity. Which as Sou continually assumes we have bad intentions, I am beginning to relate to. We are not “Saint” Sara, we are “too exhausted and traumatized to deal with your sh*t” Sara. (I still like him as a character! He’s just. exhausting to interact with.)

[oumakokichi]

Biggest Ouma flaws, GO

Oh boy, this is a fun one. Let’s see…

Well, he’s a self-centered, arrogant, prideful little shit. He genuinely does believe that he’s smarterthan and knows better than everyone else. He refuses to share the burden ofstopping the killing game with anyone else because he’s cynical and paranoid,and to some degree, his paranoia is justified—but he’s also at the extreme endof paranoia and skepticism, meaning everyone’s refusal to work with him ortrust him is something of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

But it’s also because to some degree, he honestly believeshe’s the center of the universe. He refuses to confide in anyone else, ask forhelp, or open up to others partly because he thinks they’re not worth it, and partly because he thinks The Incredible OumaKokichi is such an enigma and a mystery and a genius that those other peoplecould never hope to understand him.

For all that he’s smart, he’s genuinely really immature atheart. That can be one of his strengths, because his childishness is so tied tohis humanity, but it’s also the reason why he’s such a brat sometimes.Moreover, it’s why he’s absolutely unapologetic about being a brat. Ouma mightnot like human suffering or killing or anything that genuinely hurts people,but it’s true that he does get his kicks out of one-upping others and prankingthe shit out of them—a bit too much, sometimes. That’s yet another trait he hasin common with Beato, now that I think about it.

His immaturity also makes him stubborn. His childish refusal to admit when he’s wrong or when he’scrossed the line is exactly why he takes things much, much too far in Chapter4, and why he goes so blank when Saihara calls him out on it. His reaction uponbeing proven wrong isn’t to admit to his mistakes, but rather to get angry,petty, and somewhat resentful.

And of course, he’s a liar. He’s a liar and a hypocrite, to some degree, because while he has no problemswith lying to others, seeing himself as someone who truly understands theessence of lies, he gets really, really pissed off whenever anyone else triesto lie to him. Because he feels therest of the group doesn’t understand him, or lies for that matter, he doesn’tlike whenever any of the rest of them keep secrets or try to deceive others.Which is understandable, but also definitely hypocritical coming from acharacter who’s such a self-proclaimed liar and reminds everyone of it everyfive minutes.

Even when he told Himiko in the Chapter 3 post-trial that he“didn’t lie to himself about his own feelings,” that was fairly hypocritical ofhim, considering we know he definitely lied to himself about his feelingstowards the killing game and towards Saihara in particular. Ouma is really,really good at spotting the same flaws in others that he sees in himself—he justdoesn’t like anyone else reminding him that he still has those flaws, too.

To put it bluntly… he can be a huge jackass. And I love him.And he’s my son. He’s extremely flawed, and those flaws are constantly broughtto light by the narrative, expanded on, and really help make his good pointsstand out all the more by the time we see more information about him in laterchapters.

This was a fun ask, anon! Thank you for sending it!

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Archetypes: Sorting Hat Chats

I’ve been asked about my rationale for naming different primary/ secondary combinations. I did this originally as a tool to help me sort characters - I wanted to see how these types tend to be used, so I could more easily see what subversions looked like. I'll run through my thoughts, but know there’s a lot of variation within each category. But even WITH that variation, I do think that each one has its own specific energy that makes it interesting to talk about. An explanation of the terms I'm using.

DOUBLE LION “THE REVOLUTIONARY”

Pretty straightforward. The Lion primary knows something is wrong, they know it in their bones even if they can’t articulate it, and they’ve got to go out and do something about it. Probably charging at whatever power structure is directly in front of them. It’s unlikely you find a character leading a revolution who isn’t a Double Lion. These guys are intense, inspirational, single minded.

The villain version of the Lion primary tends to be the person who “went too far" or "became the monster they were trying to fight.'' But I think that the much more interesting Lion primary villain trope is the Traitor. Since Lions work from their feelings, and their philosophies can’t necessarily be articulated or linked to individuals outside of them - they can definitely have their head turned while still feeling moral about it.

One of my favorite examples of this Revolutionary archtype is actually Christian Bale‘s character from Newsies. He’s the spark that starts the unionizing revolution, but 100% needs his Badger and Bird lieutenants to keep him focused and keep him from defecting

LION SNAKE “THE ROBIN HOOD”

These guys are similar to the Double Lion - they will recognize a cause or injustice revolutionary style - but Robin Hood doesn’t go up and bang on wicked Prince John’s door. His move is the snake secondary one: confront the problem indirectly. Undermine the regime by stealing tax money and re-distributing it to the poor. Be simultaneously Robin Hood the outlaw and Robin of Locksley the noble, infiltrating and getting information. The Lion Snake is more likely to work within society (or deliberately separate from society) versus just breaking everything down.

LION BIRD “THE LAWMAN / THE VIGILANTE”

The fact that the Lion Bird can either be the Lawman or the Vigilante shows off the very clear hero/villain split you get with Bird secondaries. We also see this with the Snake Bird (simultaneously the Mastermind and the traditional Villain) and the Double Bird (either the Scientist or the Mad Scientist.) This is why I think I had such trouble naming the Badger Bird. I wasn’t leaning into the duality of the Bird secondary enough. The Badger Bird can be the King Arthur, or he can be the Mob Boss, and he’ll look kind of similar either way.

The Lion Bird also has that Lion primary conviction and drive, but they want to follow up on it with investigation, evidence, and plans. I actually think there need to be more stories about Lawmen turning into Vigilantes and vice versa. Because Lion Birds are their Cause no matter what external alignment gets attached to it.

Keep reading

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No. 6

Manga (adaptation from the LN)

Fellas they’re gayyyy

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I didn’t understand the “Best Girl” wars until I was introduced to Anya Forging (Spy X Family), who’s a child first and a mind-reader second. Sowing chaos with all the hidden identity shenanigans. Reacting comically shocked to the resident bad*sses. Dropping absolutely savage one-liners. And genuinely building a supportive and loving found family! What a precious child ahh she deserves the best

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Visual Novels (VNs)

The free VNs I’ve played!

Our Life: Beginning & Always by GB Patch - one extraordinarily customizable romance route! the growth from childhood to adult, with queerness and gentle humor and a warm respect for each other.

Butterfly Soup by Brianna Lei - the teenage Asian-American experience, chaotic good friendships and falling in love and baseball shenanigans. story VN that can and will meme at you.

Dark Nights by pinlin - mystery horror romance, a clean digital art style. an MC who handles the supernatural situations with aplomb. 4 routes, good and bad endings. (I’ve played 3/4 routes)

Blooming Panic by robobarbie - dating sim in a fandom Discord server. the drama/personal issues of college-age/working adults. 4 routes, a good and bad ending each. bit self-indulgent, ig?

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Danganronpa links

***Spoilers for Danganronpa series***

“with heads inside our dreams” DR2 animatic - postgame, uneasy laughter amidst a soft summer haze

manos-art V3 animatics - Kokichi Oma x Shuichi Saihara - pre/post game reflection

“Hated by Life” NDRV3 MV(?) (Eng subs)- The muted paper-y art style, the empty space and placement of lyrics, the timing and aching tragedy of it all.

“busted!” Danganronpa 1/2/v3 animatic - adorably styled rendition of the protags investigating their respective not-quite-antags

Danganronpa F: Shattered Hope - fan video series, featuring more mature adults who discuss and cooperate with each other!

Danganronpa F: Cabin Confiding - visual novel that tackles each person’s interpretation of “love” (NOT creepy sexual! This is not the “Love Hotel”.)

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On why I’d never want to meet my favorite characters irl

They’re sharp in that clever, willful way that’s more scary than comforting. Their morally grey morals and methods play out intriguingly in the story. Terrifyingly competent, these antihero-ish characters can often act (at least initially) antagonistically. Entertaining as they are, I’m content observing these characters from afar- outside the blast zone.

...And while they’re not great with emotional vulnerability themselves, they’re damn good at reading other people. And lying to their faces, when it comes to it. Which is hella great potential for banter with other characters, but me? I prefer directness, with a lot more tact than many these characters have.

Since many of my favs are from action-focused stories, they’re often facing world-breaking enemies. So they’re OP relative to little ol’ me. And well, in less-than-ideal circumstances, in a bad position, they’ve maybe killed some innocents. However moral they may strive to be, that was a decision they were forced to make at some point, in the past or present. Much as I adore these characters, I do have some self-preservation!

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Thoughts on DRV3

Primarily about Kaede Akamatsu and Kokichi Oma bc they... sure do make some moral choices. I’m almost to Ch.5 of ProZD Plays Games w/Jay’s playthrough of Danganronpa V3, though I’ve spoilered myself on some of the endgame.

Personally, the execution of Danganronpa can be a bit rough to get through - whether bc it’s a localization issue (translating from Japanese to English) or something else, I dunno - like Tenko’s misandry or the weirdly and unnecessarily excessive sexual dialogue of... Miu, Kokichi and the Kuma bears (cringes oh gosh the Kuma bears ahh pain. suffering.) And how so many characters follow mob mentality (tho Angie was! interesting!). The despair of the killing game and the hopeful idealism is a seesaw tonal balance to strike. But yeah, the characters that aren’t one-note/killed off quickly? Can be pre-tty interesting. The themes of Danganronpa are embodied by certain major characters. 

*** spoilers for Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony ***

Antihero-ish characters who can initially appear antagonistic to the MC bc they’re methods differ, but whose deeper motives are broadly in line with the MC... That kind of complexity takes good, interesting writing to pull off. And so these characters are often deuteragonist with lots of screen time, who interact and come to conflict with the MC.

So first: Kaede Akamatsu, who’s bright and peppy and startlingly morally grey. She’s refreshingly blunt! To the point of being a bit rude hehe, if earnestly sincere. Kaede’s straightforward about what she wants, (*cough* last lines of Love Hotel scene lol). What a sweet gal, and making her a protag and then... not, is a great twisty writing decision. She cares for everyone so much and her conviction is so strong that she is literally willing to murder for it. That situational irony is heartbreaking. (Also darn, I was looking forward to seeing Rantaro Amami’s dialogue, which was annoyingly cryptic but smart and initiative-taking.)

And Kokichi Oma. Ah, Kokichi. This chaos gremlin loves to lie. so. damn. much.  Some of Kokichi’s lies are big and dismissable, albeit often with a grain of truth. And some of his lies are... *squints suspiciously* For manipulating the group, which is one hell of an angle to come at. Deliberately ostracizing himself and using that for his plans. That sounds so lonely. And I haven’t even witnessed the full extent of his plans, since I’m only up to Ch.4. The lies are a great juxtaposition with Shuichi’s truth-searching though.

But well, he speaks uncomfortable truths. Which I wouldn’t have expected from someone whose personality is cast as childish and playful (with the guise of malicious intent). Kokichi is surprisingly pragmatic and cynical while still valuing people’s lives. “Fight for yourself with logic,” he scathingly scolds Gonta, upset and disappointed. Yes, it’s his plan and he’s d*mn morally dark grey. But don’t be boring. (a common criticism of prodigies. and children. what a mix.)

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Link Click

Ahh love how both the OP and ED effectively hype up the show, as a jam and tonal shift to cliffhanger (tho rip to the comedic to dark tonal misflip in E2 lol), respectively. Fits thematically too:

the film covering Cheng Xiaoshi’s eyes, contrasted with Lu Guang's keen open-eyed observation

”I know you’ll be by my side when we make it/Come back from the dive back in time.”

“I got lost in the history that I’m living in/Or maybe I should just quit overthinking.”

https://youtu.be/_cuCfmOsuCA

The time travel premise is a fascinating idea to explore themes with! The execution leaves some to be desired. Cheng Xiaoshi lives through and therefore inherits all the emotional baggage of the past. Since the time travel power is paradoxical and contradicted within the show, Lu Guang’s role is observer is a bit funky, which weakens the show since the time travel is the main focus. But I enjoy the duo’s relationship a lot, and I appreciate the attempt at recovery too.

A note on the action: Bit OP but it’s okay bc  Cheng Xiaoshi is smacked with a ton of trauma to make up for it. :) :) :)

(not a thorough review of the show lol)

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Heaven's Official Blessing

The Netflix version is reformatted(?) to ~18 min episodes and I def feel the loss of 25% of the time.

Firstly, this show has some gorgeous shots illustrated with color and light. And mxtx's writing of the male lead's relationship is as lovely in trust as ever. The MC is, intriguingly, idealist while not being naive. The powers are still pretty hand-wavy, though I do adore that the MC's martial weapon is a ribbon. The politics of gods, hmmm, the MC is unusual and we hardly see any of that play out in this short cour. Lotsa flashbacks and backstory, honestly, which I guess I should expect from character dramas? Idk the morals about war are ehhh esp. when the powers aren't detailed so I can't scale the agency of characters, even as immortals.

Also Xie Lian and Hua Cheng’s relationship is probs the main focus of mxtx’s novel? But I feel we don’t see that much of it here so I don’t have much to say about it. (lol this is not a thorough review of the show)

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Ship: Wenzhou

Wen Kexing x Zhou Zushi (Word of Honor)

(Is it a “ship” if it’s literally the point of the canon?)

***spoilers for Word of Honor***

Tfw the meet-cute is seeing a grungy homeless person clothed in rags lounging on the bridge in the middle of a marketplace who your daughter picks a fight with and going “Imma romance him”. Lmao funny ways to meet your soulmate.

Then proceeding to “stalk” him (I mean it’s mostly supervising the murdering spree but aNyWAys) and yelling dramatically about being fated to meet again and whatnot. And then proceeding to give the homeless person your first-class room and he shuts you out lakjdkf,c amazing. I love that. There’s love in having that power to make a decision and having it respected, in not crossing a line and not being too pushy. And similarly with the stalking, since ZZS didn’t seem to put any effort into shaking WKX off, and he’s a spymaster (tho WKX probs could’ve seen thru and followed anyways).

And yeah they have a lot of problems and trauma and murder on their hands- and well, they understand each other and are soulmates. The respect to let them make decisions, and to support them even if you don’t really like it. It’s okay to be devastated by the choices but for love to override that anyways- it’s a strong personal loyalty and devotion. 

And that’s enough to teach them how to live. Seeing WKX acting so domestically, and being a healer and a cook and a (better?) teacher, is so heartwarming. But nonetheless with the capacity and eagerness to murder, to destroy the world for all its sins. With words thrown around like “lunatic” and “crazy” (dunno how well it translated), he’s a madman. The bloodlust and the coldness to calculate and execute extreme destruction. It’s complex and yet- and yet- still very very human.

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Word of Honor, E27-36

acceptance and the approaching of tragedy

***spoilers for Word of Honor***

Healthy progress towards accepting the past! Learning to live in the present!  But even the remoteness of their home won’t prevent the plot from knocking on their doors. After all, he’s Wen “well if it isn’t the consequences of my own actions” Kexing. But EYYY WKX’s mom is a SAVAGE. 

Ahhhh the gaslighting and the situational irony of the Scorpion King expecting loyalty while helping Zhao Jing betray others. So much screentime for villainous planning rather than actually enacting those plans. Since we see so much of Zhao Jing’s scheming, all the people he manipulates feel extraordinarily gullible.

His takedown is the opposite, with the retroactive explaining of events. Production was rushed for the last 4 episodes and it shows in how cheated of the satisfaction we were. Like eps. 35 is. a mess. the character deaths are cheapened by the rush, esp. since WKX just faked his death.

The symbolism of WKX seeing the light past ZZS’s shoulder aww, the growth from “I’m a ghost and so have forsaken the light,” to “you are my light.” (and ZZS as the Window of Heaven). However messy the plot is, WKX and ZZS’s relationship is so, so lovely.

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Overall, the flirtations and domesticity shines bright against the morally grey backdrop of the jianghu world. The purity of a devoted love can’t clean their bloody hands, but it nonetheless helps them live with it. And that’s a beautiful story.