Just another random Geek on the internet. I like Cartoons, Anime, Movies, Manga, Comics, Tabletop RPGs, and Novels. With a particular interest in Sci-Fi, Mecha, Superheroes, and New Weird stuff. I love Gundam, Macross, Yu-Gi-Oh, Fate/stay night, Lord of the Rings, and Steven Universe, and if I listed all my other hyperfixations, we’d be here all day. I'm also big into History, Mythology, and Arthurian Legend. He/Him, Cishet, Autistic, Dominican-American, Middle Income, politically Left Wing
If republican men has fetish of turning liberal woman into trad wives, than i have the evil version of that where i will be turning republican men into woke femboys
Me when someone recommends me a healthy love story drama, novel or manhwa and gushes about how the male lead is "a complete green flag" for the main character, and I have to smile and pretend that I like that shit and that it doesn't bore me to death:
I'm sorry but I much prefer reading about red flags who remain red flags even in their love, or are even made worse by that love they feel for the main character. I love them even more when they are black flags. Love doesn't intrigue me if it doesn't possess a little madness, a little darkness. It's even better when it's something rotten, twisted, insidious, sinister disguised as love.
I don't want to watch or read a story that just makes me feel all warm inside all the time. No matter how cute and lovely they are, they really get boring fast for me. I want a story that makes me feel like I'm suffocating, like I'm drowning and coming up for air at the same time, I want my pulse to race like crazy, I want to feel sickened witnessing how much a human can desire another and the lengths they are capable of going to, to possess them.
I just had a truly horrible realization. I was talking about the worldbuilding in fma with someone the other day, and they mistakenly said it took place during the Victorian era, or Amestris’s equivilant to it.
I, being a lover of fashion history as well as an insufferable pedant, corrected them by saying that both the year(s) it takes place in as well as many of the technological and cultural influences seen in the world are actually more in line with the subsequent, much shorter era known as the…
“If Latin America had not been pillaged by the U.S. capital since its independence, millions of desperate workers would not now be coming here in such numbers to reclaim a share of that wealth; and if the United States is today the world’s richest nation, it is in part because of the sweat and blood of the copper workers of Chile, the tin miners of Bolivia, the fruit pickers of Guatemala and Honduras, the cane cutters of Cuba, the oil workers of Venezuela and Mexico, the pharmaceutical workers of Puerto Rico, the ranch hands of Costa Rica and Argentina, the West Indians who died building the Panama Canal, and the Panamanians who maintained it.”
— Juan Gonzalez, Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America (via katelouisepowell)
i hate when men complain about women’s body hair, even like the fine hair on their backs. go fuck a shark if you wanna have sex with something hairless
Like its gameplay and cultural relevance sits firmly in the space of being a dorito munching bro game with excessive gore and bulky manly men (which it absolutely is).
But simultaneously, the narrative has done everything short of having the main characters stare directly into the camera and say "The reason this war never ends is because the philosophy of fascism cannot solve any of this. It can only produce new and more creative ways to kill. The endless line of doomsday weapons built to end this conflict have universally failed, and the philosophies that built them are what led to this broken and hellish world. In the end this will solve nothing and these characters will remain in this hellish cycle until they learn to take their fingers off the trigger."
But the majority of the fanbase is people for whom that message goes in one ear and out the other because popping heads with a sniper rifle makes the dopamine go brrr.
Can lead a horse to water but you can't make em drink.
Being critical of your interests is sooooo fun when you have the critic gene & then you sound kind of insane to the average tv watcher when you're like "this is my favorite show, It's Racist" & then you try to clarify what you mean & get that [Speech (legendary) - FAILURE] "the racism is really interesting though"
[Speech (legendary) - SUCCESS] I find the sociopolitical context of pulpy old sci-fi born circa the civil rights movement really fascinating to analyze especially when it was progressive for its time but still reveals the writers' unexamined biases in the subtext
No no you don't understand! I want to watch this show/movie, read this book, listen to this podcast, etc.! But I must be in the right mindset and the exact head space to begin, or I just can't!
Finally finishing TADC is fun since now I can actually understand and engage with all the shit that’s been clogging up my feed for months instead of just letting my eyes glaze over before scrolling
"Goddamn it, I was hoping for an interesting answer to this mystery, but it turned out to just be another secret time war between superhumans and aliens."
As an anime critic, I worry sometimes about my pretentiousness getting the best of me. It's easy to fall into the trap of reflexively dismissing anything popular out of hand, especially works very clearly shooting for broad and basic appeal. So it's good to remind myself every now and then that the anime that truly kick-started my love of this medium wasn't some high-art, heady intellectual cult classic your local hipster won't shut up about. It was Angel Beats, a show that came into this world with a single purpose- make the audience bawl their fucking eyes out- and succeeded so transcendently I still can't listen to My Most Precious Treasure without weeping inconsolably. Yes, all that highbrow artsy stuff can be fantastic as well, but the visceral appeal of anime for me, more than any sense of craft or cleverness, is that it makes me feel. I come to this medium because I want to be moved beyond the confines of my normal life. Whether that's cheering for a spectacular fight or sobbing over an emotional goodbye, screaming in horror at the portrayal of humanity's darkness or laughing joyously for who we can be at our best, whether it comes packaged in mainstream or hipster attire, it's that capacity to feel, to be shaken by emotions beyond my ability to control them, that makes this art for so damn special to me. Everything else comes second.
And Agents of the Four Seasons makes me feel. By god, does it make me feel. If I was ranking just in terms of how overwhelmed my emotions got watching it, this show would be a contender for best of the decade. It's as raw and unfiltered in its attacks on your heart as I've ever seen, a cavalcade of sheer feeling designed to bypass all your emotional regulators and leave you shattered in a million pieces. It's staggering. It's transcendent. It's also messy, deeply flawed, at times horribly broken and at others actively insulting. And because of the vulnerable state it leaves you in, those issues cut so ferociously deep it almost leaves you feeling violated. Watching Agents of the Fours Seasons is an experience akin to being wrenched open on an operating table, awake with no anasthesia, forced to experience every agonizing moment of your own emotional autopsy whether you consent to it or not. But when it's working? My god, it feels like the greatest work of fiction to ever exist.
Perhaps that's not surprising, given this is another work from Kana Akatsuki, author of the famously tearjerking Violet Evergarden. Say what you will about her, this woman knows the cheat codes to the human tear ducts better than anyone since Jun Maeda himself. And much like Violet herself, Agents is also a story about a traumatized girl left in the aftermath of the violence that broke her, cast back into the world to somehow piece herself together again. In this case, that girl's name is Hinagiku Kayo, and she's one of the titular Agents of the Four Seasons- namely, the Agent of Spring. In this alt-universe modern Japan, the seasons are gods who need active vessels upon the earth to spread their particular season across the country when their time comes, one ritual dance at a time. There's a system of villages and noble bloodlines dedicated to raising agents when a new one is chosen, and specially chosen retainers to protect them in their yearly journey to bring their season into being. And, of course, there are dark forces who seek to bring those agents harm, whether for personal gain, vengeance, or some philosophical crusade against the nature of the world they live in.
It's those terrorist groups, called "insurgents," that are the source of Hinagiku's trauma. Ten years ago, when she was still a little girl, she sacrificed herself to be captured by them rather than let her loved ones suffer the sake fate. After a decade imprisoned, she finally escaped, but the scars she accumulated in captivity left her a shell of her former self. She speaks in halting sentences, a few words at a time. She struggles to understand her feelings from before her capture. Even now, she wonders if she truly survived those hellish years, or if Hinagiku died somewhere in the darkness and the "Hinagiku" currently puppeting her body is someone else entirely. But at least one thing remains the same: she wants to keep helping people, even if it causes her pain. And after a decade of the land suffering with only three seasons, it's time for spring to bloom again. So with her retainer Sakura by her side, she sets out to dance spring into being across the land of Yamato once more. Along the way, we slowly piece together the full shape of the tragedy that shattered her life, and how everyone who loves her was changed by it as well, as she tries to find her way back to the person she used to be... even if that person might be gone forever.
That focus on Hinagiku's tragic backstory is probably the most contentious element of this show. There are a lot of flashbacks, some lasting entire episodes, exploring her capture and subsequent return, and some people find them repetitive to the point of exhaustion. But in my eyes, the endless flashbacks aren't a needless distraction from the point; they are the point. Agents of the Four Seasons, more than anything, is a show about the ways trauma breaks us, all the different ways those scars twist us into weaker, more vulnerable people. Hinagiku is so dissociated from her former self she speaks entirely in third person. Rosei, the young Agent of Winter who had a crush on her before her capture, spent years practically suicidal in her absence. Sakura, carrying unspeakable guilt from failing to protect her, subsumes her sense of self into Hinagiku until she no longer sees herself as her own person, just a tool for carrying out her goddesses' wishes. Each flashback gives us another angle on this tragedy, another piece of the puzzle detailing the bottom of the barrel our heroes must somehow pull themselves out from. And that fractal portrait of trauma just isn't complete without all the meticulous detail dedicated to making you understand, as comprehensively as possible, just how much this shit can fuck a person up.
And yes, this show's portrayal of sadness and suffering is as subtle as a brick to the face. Characters weep openly and speak in poetic overstatement. The stunning animation and direction crank every emotion up to 11, ditto Kensuke Ushio's unsurprisingly beautiful score. When Hinagiku screams in agony, she fucking screams. There is no attempt to hide from the melodrama of it all, no attempt to make its emotional manipulation tasteful or nuanced or open to interpretation. It is openly, almost antagonistically, trying to make you cry first and foremost. And you know what? Thank fucking goodness. Why shouldn't Agents of the Four Seasons be this direct with its emotional appeals? I'm not gonna sit here and pretend I'm too good for an unapologetic tearjerker just because I'm the kind of snob who thinks Sonny Boy is superior to Demon Slayer. I love when anime makes me cry, god dammit. I treasure the purging of emotions through openly weeping at a show that's wormed its way into my soul. If Kana-sensei wants to communicate her themes with emotion this blunt and uncompromising, then all I can say is bring it on.
Which is exactly what she does. Through past and present alike, through Hinagiku's first faltering steps forward paralleled with the suffering that drove her back in the first place, Agents of the Four Seasons makes me feel every emotion under the sun as violently and cathartically as possible. Almost every episode made me tear up at some point, sometimes in misery, sometimes in joy, sometimes for a feeling so complicated and contradictory I couldn't even begin to describe it. It's a show of incredible despair juxtaposed against incredible hope, a portrait of what it means to choose life after suffering the unspeakable and cling to it no matter the cost. The world is cruel and unfair, but we can find happiness regardless, taking revenge on those who've wronged us by choosing to live in spite of it all. And through it all, Hinagiku's stunning resilience, her kindness in the face of rage, had me cheering with my heart in my throat. God, she's such an incredible character. You can feel her terror and determination behind every stuttered sentence, shattered and scared by her trauma but refusing to give up on hope to the bitter end. I fully empathize with Sakura because I would follow this girl to the pits of hell and back, no questions asked.
As spectacular as this tapestry of feelings is, though, it's in the show's broader plot that things start to come apart. And the insurgents are the biggest offender here. They work as a plot device to kickstart the trauma parade, but once they start coming back as antagonists in the present, it's almost shocking how little the story seems to care about them as characters. Which is a big problem when they're one of the only ways we get to see the outside world beyond the internal drama of the Seasons Agency. While the first few episodes show us glimpses of civilian life and how they're affected by the changing seasons, we spent almost the entire show afterwards focused solely on the agents themselves, their internal strife, and the people in their immediate orbit. The insurgents could have been our window into how the rest of the world sees this system, all the different perspectives that might drive someone to wage war upon the changing seasons. But while there's some lip service paid to the differing ideologies behind the various movements, the show is remarkably disinterested in exploring what that might actually mean. As far as it's concerned, these guys are just pure evil obstacles to make our heroes' lives even more miserable.
And that sucks, because it leads to some really ugly subtext in how this show portrays its broader politics. The world of Agents of the Four Seasons is viciously unkind to the agents themselves; the villages treat them as disposable tools to be tightly controlled, while the insurgents treat them as resources to be exploited or threats to be eliminated. There's a palpable sense that very few people actually consider the agents as, well, people, not just manifestations of divine will with no interior life of their own. And a huge part of this show's tragedy is built around how that treatment affects them, leaving them isolated in a system that would rip them to shreds at a moment's notice if it benefited them. But it also leaves it in a situation where the only characters trying to change this obviously bad system are the Comically Evil Terrorists who the other characters outright say aren't worth listening to because all their "ideology" is just a cover for crimes against humanity. Which is where all this wallowing in emotion stops being resonant and starts feeling deeply, deeply self-centered.
Like, to be clear, it's not like the show thinks the current state of affairs is good. But it's bizarrely myopic in how little it cares about the consequences beyond how Sad and Traumatized it leaves its precious heroine. Sure, Violet Evergarden wasn't that concerned with worldbuilding either, but it gave you enough pieces to understand the lives people lived in this post-war society and Violet's own place within it. And Agents' plot is much more reliant on its broader world once it gets going while being much, much worse at defining it. The closest it gets to putting a human face on its antagonist is Mizusu, the terrorist most responsible for traumatizing Hinagiku when she was captured, and she's... well, she's a whole can of worms I'd need another review to fully digest. Suffice to say, this show is spectacular when it's taking an insular look at a small group of people's lives torn apart by the unspeakable. But the more it steps outside those boundaries, the more it reveals itself unprepared to face the outside world beyond the scope of its narrow imagination.
It also doesn't help that the big romantic subplot underpinning this show is... kind of a complete wash. I'm sorry, but Rosei and Hinagiku are the most Potential Ship ever written. They call them 007: zero onscreen conversations, zero compelling bits of chemistry, seven billion lines of dialogue about how clearly in love they are. I don't even hate Rosei on his own, and I understand what the story's going for with them pining for each other from afar as they individually try to process how this big traumatic event has changed their relationship to each other. But you can't just have characters say "Wow, you must really love him/her!" over and over again when they're nothing on screen to actually, you know, show that. Frankly, Rosei has far more chemistry with his retainer Itecho than either of them have with their supposed love interests. Which is kind of true across the board, honestly? There's a point one character makes that since a retainer is often the only person their agent can truly trust, it's common for the two to become so codependent it shuts out any other potential relationships. And that certainly rings true from what we're shown; I'd sooner believe the Summer sisters were married to each other than either of their off-screen husbands, with how they act around each other. But it's pretty telling, once again, that Agents' biggest weaknesses appear when it tries to write its characters out of the insular bubble they've built for themselves.
And yet, maybe that's a sacrifice worth making.
Because it also resulted in one of the single greatest yuri love stories of all time.
Believe me, I'm as shocked as you are. I came into this show fully expecting a straightforward (heh) straight romance underpinning its magic and melodrama. But from the second Hinagiku grasps Sakura's face and reduces her to a blushing mess, I knew I was doomed. Holy fucking shit, folks, these two are INSANE. Sakura gushing over how beautiful Hinagiku is! Hinagiku teasing her with games and feeding her!Sakura blue-screening with joy every time Hinagiku compliments her! Hinagiku embracing her so tenderly because she knows how much pain Sakura's trying to bury! They're fused by trauma, bound eternally by the suffering they've endured, and they're determined to be the light in each other's lives, even if the guilt of all they've lost makes them feel like they don't truly deserve each other. Hell, even the straight romance plays into it! Sakura's torn between her desire to see her beloved Hinagiku happy and her hatred for Rosei for threatening to take her away, and Hinagiku knows full well what she's asking her to sacrifice by still yearning for him. It's toxic, wholesome, agonizing, reverential, tender, tragic, and something close to divine all at the same time, a beautifully broken portrait of a codependent relationship so integral to who they are that losing it would unquestionably spell death.
And it. Fucking. DESTROYED ME. I swear to god, I couldn't make it through a single conversation these two share without choking up. Their interactions are charged with such fathomless depths of love and yearning that I just about lost the ability to think every time they were on screen. I shrieked every time Hinagiku told Sakura how much she loved her, I sobbed every time Sakura promised to never leave her side, I straight-up forgot how to breathe the first time I watched OP and ED depicting the sheer intimacy they share in their private moments. And don't even get me started on the flashbacks detailing the development of their relationship over the years. Fucking Christ, I haven't cried that hard at anime since the final season of Eupho. And if you know how much I adore that show, you should understand what a monumental admission that is for me. Any time I felt the flaws of the story gnawing away at me, a single kind word from Hinagiku to Sakura was all it took to drag my heart sobbing back into the fray. They straight-up killed my inner critic, that's how powerful they are. I'm honestly terrified of how much sway they have over me! I don't know if I can trust myself in their presence! Someone save me before I lose my mind!
The point is, when Agents of the Four Seasons has its claws in you? It will tear you to pieces with emotions so powerful it almost doesn't feel real. By the end, the sheer power of its go-for-broke sentimentality made me weepy for even the parts I just spent paragraphs complaining about! It's an unbalanced, awkwardly shaped mess of a thing, but it carries itself with such earnestness that it's impossible not to surrender to it. More than anything, it feels like this is the story Kana Akatsuki wrote because she wanted to write it, indulging in everything that makes stories so special to her even if the pieces don't always fit together perfectly. And in the process, she created a polemic of strife and suffering and rising above despair that cleansed me in fire and left me born anew. I lost myself to this show. I let it consume me fully, and even with its many imperfections, I don't regret it for a second. There are better written shows this year, better crafted stories, but I don't think anything else will make me feel quite this much. And I have no qualms calling that a mark of something truly special.
So with all that said, I finally give Agents of the Four Seasons a score of:
9/10
That's my last full review before the seasonal reflection. Look forward to it... coming soon!
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