invitan

::they go outside at night and get consumed by fire::

[yuzuruhanyuedits]

Identify Figure Skating Jumps, In Real Time

So, we once did a gifset on jump identification, in slow-mo. But it’s time for an ambitious upgrade — now, identify jumps in real time, without slowing down or pausing.

All skaters land (clean) jumps in the same way: on the outside edge of one foot, gliding backwards. Skaters who rotate counterclockwise during their jump will land on their right foot while skaters who rotate clockwise will land on their left. All the examples below feature skaters who rotate counterclockwise. 

Therefore, the first and most important thing in jump identification is to scrutinize the takeoff instead of anything else. Look carefully at what the skater does with their feet before they jump, anything else is not particularly relevant in naming a jump. 

Toe Jumps

If the skater strikes the ice with their toe pick, it’s either a Toeloop, Flip or Lutz. These jumps are known as Toe Jumps because of the skater’s use of their toe pick. 

The Flip 

Skaters usually do a turn immediately before this jump. Notice how Zhenya swings her right foot while doing the turn; this is very characteristic of flip jumps. This is a very common entry into the flip, but it’s not a necessary one, skaters can opt to perform a flip with a different entry. 

Zhenya rotates towards the foot that is placed on the ice during her takeoff. Her own torso and leg are “blocking” the direction of her rotation, such that she is assuming a closed body position just before takeoff.

Take note of how the foot that is placed on the ice is on an inside edge. If a skater uses an outside edge instead, they will be penalized for incorrect technique.

The Toeloop

Skaters usually do a turn immediately before this jump. Again, while this is a very common entry to the toeloop, skaters don’t necessarily have to do it. 

Yuzuru rotates away from the foot that is placed on the ice during his takeoff. His torso and leg are not “blocking” the direction of his rotation, such that he is assuming an open body position just before takeoff. 

The Lutz

Skaters don’t usually do any turn immediately before this jump. Instead, they do a long backwards glide. Notice how Yuna gradually deepens the outside edge on her gliding foot as she goes backwards; this is one distinct indication of a lutz jump. Once again, this is just a very common entry to the lutz but skaters can use other entries too.

Yuna rotates towards the foot that is placed on the ice during her takeoff. Her own torso and leg are “blocking” the direction of her rotation, such that she is assuming a closed body position just before takeoff.

Take note of how the foot that is placed on the ice is on an outside edge. If a skater uses an inside edge instead, they will be penalized for incorrect technique. Skaters who make this mistake often switch to the inside edge at the very last second, just before takeoff.

Edge jumps

If the skater does not strike the ice with their toe pick, it’s either a Salchow, Loop or Axel. These jumps are known as Edge Jumps because the skater takes off from the edges of their blades.

The Salchow

The skater’s legs assume a “/ \” shape.

After that, the skater sweeps his right foot forward and takes off.

The Loop

The skater’s legs assume an “X” shape.

After that, the skater briefly “sits” down before launching into the jump.

The Axel

Skaters typically do a long glide backwards before this jump. This is common but not necessary.

After that, they turn their head and take off in a forward direction.

And that’s all you need to know! It also helps if you watch videos of many, many skaters, so you can practice identifying jumps with these common indicators from various camera angles. :) 

As a challenge, try identifying all the jumps in these programs (x, x, x, x, x) and let us know if these tips were useful! (Not all the takeoffs in those videos are the typical ones, but we’re sure you’ll get the hang of it eventually if you watch enough skating). ^^;;;

Until next time, folks!

More from us: Part I (Jump Identification in Slow-Mo)   ✦   Part II (Jump Identification in Real Time)   ✦   Part III (Combination Jumps)   ✦   Part IV (Spin Identification)   ✦   Part V (Steps Identification)  ✦   Part VI (Step Sequences)   ✦   Part VII (Grade of Execution - Jumps)   ✦   Part VIII (Transitions)   ✦   Summary of Figure Skating Scoring System

[pagerunner-j]

The Bodies of the Girls Who Made Me: Fanfic and the Modern World

A good friend of mine—whose name I am not using here, because some bruises deserve to go unprodded, and she has a right to be hurt—said recently, “Every time I talk about writing fanfiction, I get …

This whole thing is validating (because she’s very much on the side of fic and fic writers here), and it also made me want to cry, because the below excerpt is so damn true:

Women who admit they wrote (or still write) fanfic get shit upon, over and over again, because we keep saying, and allowing the media to say, that fanfic is trash, and that by extension, we who write it are garbage people.

It gets used as a “gotcha.” I have experienced it directly, the interviewer who drops their voice, leans in conspiratorially close, and asks if the rumors that I used to write…those stories…are true. They always look so damn shocked when I respond with a cheerful, “Oh, yeah, my agent initially contacted me because she really enjoyed my Buffy the Vampire Slayer Faith/Buffy porn!” And usually, that’s where they change the subject, because I won’t be properly ashamed. I am supposed to be ashamed of my past. I am supposed to repudiate the school where I learned to hold an audience; I am supposed to bury the bodies of all the girls who made me. I refuse.

[the-real-xmonster]

Jump Takeoffs, Yuzuru Hanyu Style

Merry Christmas! I’m wondering if you girls and guys would like to look at some Yuzu takeoffs with me. I’ve found that watching his takeoffs in slow motion has the same effect on me as watching falling snow: it’s incredibly therapeutic. And we all deserve something nice this Christmas, after all we’ve been and are still going through.

Here’s a quad toe loop:

The thing I love about Yuzu’s toe loop, and all of his toe jumps, is how he always keeps his tapping foot low and his picking light, which give his jumps this appearance of effortlessness. His toe tap is also very quick and in tune with the connecting steps leading up to the entry, it’s like, step-turn-pick-jump, 1-2-3-4: no break in the rhythm, no loss of flow, easy and graceful. Furthermore, his technique is what I’d call a pure toe pick, in that he would tap with his toe pick straight down and leave the ice immediately without putting pressure on any other area of his blade. It is the kind of exemplary technique which leaves no room for pre-rotation.

Here’s a triple toe loop in combination:

The toe loop done at the back end of a combo is the most frequently cheated jump, so much so that the ISU feels the need to call it out in the section on cheated takeoff in the technical handbook. This is because the second jump in a combo must be done with little to no speed, thus it is very challenging for skaters to get enough elevation to complete the required number of rotations. The toe loop is also a jump which lends itself to pre-rotation, thanks to the completely open body alignment on takeoff. Both these factors make it very easy for skaters to end up rotating their combo triple toe on ice for more than 180 degrees before taking to the air, either deliberately or subconsciously due to lack of focus. Yuzu doesn’t do that. As you can see in that jump above: he pointed his toe at 45 degrees and left the ice immediately, exactly how he usually does it for his quad toe.

Here’s a quad Salchow:

You might’ve noticed that Yuzu’s toe loop and Salchow look strikingly similar in real time. This is mostly because of the speed at which he executes them. One, as I pointed out above, his pick in the toe loop takeoff is subtle and blink-and-you-miss-it fast. Two, his spring on the Salchow is just as quick. Normally you’d be able to distinguish the Salchow jump by looking for that moment before takeoff when the skater brings the knees together to form a distinctive / \ shape: that position facilitates the shift in center of gravity from the push-off leg (right side) to the swing-up leg (left side), which is the mechanics of a Salchow. Yuzu also does that, but his transfer of gravity and the release of energy afterwards both happen in rapid succession, again, blink-and-you-miss-it. Another beauty of Yuzu’s Salchow is in how he keeps his upper body movement in perfect sync with his sweeping takeoff: see how the right side of his body rotates as one solid block? It is another measure which ensures no risk of excessive pre-rotation and is the hallmark of excellent jumping technique. You will see it in all of his jumps, not just the Salchow.

Here’s a triple Salchow done in combination, in which you’d see the same speed and synchronicity:

Here’s a quad loop: 

Yuzu has a very peculiar loop takeoff, of course: his left back outside edge on his quad loop is deeper than what many other skaters have on their Lutz (a jump which is required to be taken off from an outside edge). This in theory makes his loop unnecessarily counter-rotated and closes up his body alignment. The orthodox approach is to keep your free leg on a slight inside edge, which would prevent both those things from happening. I’ve always found it fascinating that Yuzu apparently can only jump a quad loop by making its takeoff more difficult than a triple.  

This, by the way, is one of his triple loops from back when he was still able to do such things:

See how his outside edge was visible but much shallower here? You might also notice he got such height on this triple that he finished rotating and started opening up his position for the landing when he was still way up in the air. It’s a side effect of practicing the quad loop.

Here’s a triple flip:

Look, I told you so, he has this pure toe pick technique that exudes an odd sense of tranquility. His love for everything contradictory is as present here as ever: see how he pointed his toe away from the rotational direction? Pre-rotation is a thing that doesn’t even exist in his flip, excessive or no. Because of how he picks and how fast he leaves the ice, he actually rotates his triple flip for more than the required degrees of revolution.

And if you are wondering if he also does that outward toe point thing for his Lutz, well what do you think? Here’s a triple Lutz:

The Lutz by itself is a counter-rotated jump, but this effect in Yuzu’s Lutz is extraordinary, owing both to that quirky toe pick and his cutting deep outside edge on takeoff. There is simply no question about the correct takeoff edge in such a jump, and, same as with his flip, he rotates this jump for slightly more than 3 revolutions in the air.

Going by his approach to the quad loop, obviously you shouldn’t expect anything less when it comes to how extra he is when he moves from a triple Lutz to a quad Lutz:

I have a running joke with my skating friends that Yuzu’s quads are actually under-rotated quints. That quad Lutz clearly has more than 4 in-air revolutions to it, you know? Any non-Axel jump with no less than 3.75 in-air revolutions is recognized as a fully rotated quad by ISU standard (a standard which they don’t even uphold that strictly) so, yeah, I do think I have a case for a quint here.

Saving the best for last, here’s a triple Axel:

I don’t have any word left to adequately tell you how perfect his Axel takeoff is, the elegance and the sureness and the power infused in it, so here, have a bonus gif instead, in which you can also confirm there is no sloppy takeoff even in the simplest of his jumps, a double toe:

You might also want to note, in all of these takeoffs, the uncanny speed at which he gets into an ideal tight air position: his feet are always tightly crossed at the ankles well within the first revolution. This adds to the height and distance he achieves, and further makes his jumps very aesthetically pleasing to watch, especially in slow motion. 

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and the next time you run into anybody saying that Yuzu cheats his jump or some such stuff, feel free to rub these gifs in their face, no credit required on my part. 

[the-real-xmonster]

Program Component Score, How Does It Work

I’ve got quite a few questions on this and thought it’d be interesting to discuss everything together in a post.

So, let’s talk about program component scores (PCS), what they entail, what the criteria of evaluation are, and how you can figure them out in real time as you watch your favorite skaters :)

Before we start, I’d like to clear up the common misconception that PCS is all about the subjective side of figure skating scoring. It is not, in the same way that technical element score (TES), though so-called, is not purely technical. PCS has a lot of objective criteria and guideline attached to it, just as TES allows for a measure of subjective judgment. That is the reason why ISU competitions need a panel of 9 judges and employ the trimmed mean method to come up with the final score for GOE and PCS both.

Another misconception, though not as seriously wrong, is that PCS is awarded according to the baseline ability of a skater. It is not. PCS is, or should be, awarded based on a specific performance of a program. You can use PCS criteria to evaluate a skater’s general quality, however, most of the time when you talk about PCS as a score, you would want to reference the full context of the program: what, precisely, did the skater deliver in that one performance at that one competition? A skater should never by default receive a 9 because they are known to possess superior skating skills. If they want a 9 they need to show up and deliver those great skating skills, to that high level, in that competition. The prevalent practice of reputational scoring, where judges are predisposed to give a skater certain PCS because they have been historically scored in that range, is very troubling. If you wish to really understand PCS, I’d strongly advise watching out for such anchoring bias, both from the judges and from yourself. 

Now the details.     

PCS is assessed on 5 areas: Skating Skills (SS), Transitions (TR), Performance (PE), Composition (CO), and Interpretation of the Music (IN). Raw PCS is awarded on a scale of 0 to 10, in increments of 0.25, which corresponds to:

9 - 10: outstanding

7 - 8: good to very good

5 - 6: average to above average

3 - 4: weak to below average

0 - 2: extremely poor to poor

This raw PCS is then multiplied by a scaling factor to arrive at the program’s final PCS. The factor is 1.0 for the men’s SP and 2.0 for their FS. 0.8 for the ladies’ SP and 1.6 for their FS.

Skating Skills cover the overall skating quality: speed, acceleration, depth of edges, flow, glide, ease of movements. In order to assess a skater on SS, you’d want to ask:

How fast is the skater moving on the ice? How easy do they gain acceleration? Do they achieve maximum speed within two to three strokes or does it take them a series of steps to get from one end of the rink to another?

How deep are their edges? Do they skate mostly on clear, pronounced curves or on straight lines?

How frequent do they change direction, backward to forward, clockwise to counterclockwise?

How much time do they spend skating on one foot?

How confident and effortless does the skater look? How sure are their steps and turns? Do they maintain the same speed or slow down significantly when they execute a change of direction?

If you are familiar with the mechanics of turns and steps, how easy is it for you to recognize which moves the skater is performing?   

Transitions are about the linkage: the variety, complexity, and quality of everything performed outside of those technical elements which have a set base value. These are the points you want to watch out for:

How are the skater’s jump and spin entries? Do they have connecting steps leading up to them? In other words, how easily can you tell when a jump or a spin is coming in the program? How are the exits? How much time does it take for the skater to transition out of jump/spin and back to the program? Do their technical elements blend in with the choreography?

If they have connecting steps / free skating movements into their elements, how difficult are those moves, and what level of quality are they performed with? Same with skating skills, check if those moves are conducted on deep edges, clean curves, and one foot more frequently than two.

A handy shortcut to evaluate both SS and TR is to count the number of crossovers in a program. Obviously, the lower, the better.

Performance is, needless to say, all about how a skater performs their program: the commitment to the delivery and the emotional involvement they have in the choreography. This, in my opinion, is the most subjective PCS area, since it depends largely on how you, as the audience, feel about the program:

Does the skater have a distinctive style? Do you find their skate memorable?

Does the skater vary their tempo and rhythm of skating throughout the program? 

Do you find their line, carriage, posture to be aesthetically pleasing? 

If the skater is trying to tell a story with their skate, do you get the idea and the character they are portraying?

Do you feel connected to the program? Does it excite you? Move you? Does the skater manage to hold your interest and keep you following their every move?

Basically, for PE, after the skater takes their bow, close your eyes and see if you can recall anything about that program outside of the technical. Ask yourself also if you’d want to watch that program again.  

Composition is about how well everything in a program fits together. Do note that composition is different from transitions. TR is about the technical linkage, while CO is about the harmony between the program’s technical content and the music. A skater can have all the most difficult transitions in the world in their program, they can have uninterrupted flow into and out of every element, but that does not automatically mean a good composition. Think about this way: a skate is like a TV series, each episode on its own can be awesome, but if there is no overarching story line behind to bring everything together, you surely would not recommend it as a series to your friends and family. You can urge them to check out the episodes you enjoy, but you’ll not tell them to invest their time in the whole thing. So, same goes for a program, do you watch a skater for their jumps / spins only or do you enjoy their performance as a cohesive unit? 

Some additional questions you can ask:

Does the program demonstrate a clear concept? How original, how creative is the design?

Does the choreography complement the music?

How well does the skater utilize the space they have? Do they make use of the entire ice surface? How efficiently do they “fill” the rink with their upper body movements? Are they mindful of the need to effect body alignment that is attractive when viewed from all angles? 

How well does the skater utilize the time they have? How is their layout constructed? Do they have a balanced distribution of technical elements throughout the program’s duration?

Interpretation of the Music is an area that usually gets misunderstood. You’d want to keep in mind that IN is not about how the skater interprets the story or the choreography (those would fall under PE and CO, respectively) but rather about how they interpret the music, i.e. whether or not the skater utilizes their movement to reflect the nuances and characters of the melody playing in the background, their musicality, so to speak. For this area, you’d want to ask:

Does the skater match their moves to the music? While entering and exiting jumps/spins? While performing step/choreographic sequence? While transitioning?

How well do they use their entire body to express the music? For this purpose, do they effectively alternate between and combine movements of their lower body, upper body, facial expression?

Do their movements look rigidly choreographed or does the skater look like they allow their body to move along naturally and instinctively to the music?

A handy shortcut for IN is to imagine, if you were to watch a program without sound and with the skater in practice clothes instead of the usual costume, would you be able to tell what kind of music they’re skating to? Would you be able to, at a glance, distinguish which program it is among the skater’s portfolio?

Yuzuru (in recycled gifs) for illustration, as usual. All arbitrary choices by me though, because, as said, PCS needs to be assessed based on the entire program, not a couple of seconds. And do remember, Yuzuru Hanyu’s PCS, too, needs to be evaluated performance by performance :) Don’t go around giving him free 9+ just because he’s the reigning Olympic and World champ, y’all. I daresay he himself wouldn’t be happy with that, either :)

[the-real-xmonster]

The best day of my life as a figure skating fan

It was yesterday, of course. 

PyeongChang is the fourth Olympics which I followed as a fan of this sport, and only the second one which I watch with enough knowledge to really understand how everything works. You might have heard this story before, that I only truly invested time into studying the ruling and scoring after Vancouver, because I was (and still am) a fan of Mao Asada and I was so utterly resentful and bewildered by the result back then.

Four years ago, Sochi ended on a bittersweet note for me. Yuzuru won, of course, but there was the regret of his imperfect long program. Then there was Mao with her disastrous short program and then that dazzling comeback free skate, about which the what if question would keep haunting me even to this day. 

I watched PyeongChang approaching with a mind divided. There is the rational part which told me to expect the worst, that Yuzuru would surely try his best, but he would not, could not, do well, he would have to let go of his Olympic crown, because how could it ever turn out to be any better for him, with that most ill-timed injury, that off-ice period which felt like an eternity, with those new challengers throwing out quads after quads after quads. Then there is the irrational part which refused to give up on hope and kept telling me that fairy tales can exist and dreams do come true and miracles can happen and that Yuzu had never ever let me down before, not when it mattered most. 

Do you know when I stopped being self-conflicted? It was when Yuzu arrived in PyeongChang and I saw him smiling at the sea of reporters at the airport. That was when I realized that in the last few months, with the stress and the worry about his condition, I had forgotten what a marvel he is and how much more mature he has grown as an athlete, as a person, in this last Olympic cycle. Seeing the way he handled the pressure, completely relaxed, composed, confident, with just the right amount of intensity and excitement for the Games, made me remember that he came to PyeongChang no longer as a young challenger like he was at Sochi, but as a king returning to defend his rightful throne, the World Champion, the Record Holder, the History Maker. That was the moment I put my doubts to sleep and truly, wholeheartedly started to believe that, yes, he could do this. 

His Short Program two days ago was a masterpiece. Familiar as I was with every note and every choreographic touch of his Ballade, I found myself stunned and speechless, all over again, by the way he treated that piece of music, with patience and respect, with cherish for each motion. It was a commanding performance from the second he started moving to the music, and after the quad Salchow I could feel myself no longer gripping the edge of my seat, because how could anyone not let themselves be soothed and entranced by the way he was moving on the ice? 

Yesterday morning I woke up completely convinced that Yuzu was going to win. I don’t know exactly what came over me, but it was a great feeling. It had little to no basis in the facts, of course (I’ve been watching this sport long enough to know that the long program is a different animal, and anything can, and will, happen in those 4 and a half minutes) but, if anything, that lack of reason made it all the more wonderful to have such a feeling of total, absolute trust that something good was about to happen. I was oddly cheerful all the way up until the competition started and I was going around trying to calm people down (I apologize, girls, if I was overly, annoyingly, upbeat and insensitive to your anxiety when I talked to you yesterday).

There is no need for me to regale you with a summary of what happened in the free skate. Media around the world have covered the story, the drama, the history, the 1000th medal. Yuzuru landed his two opening quads flawlessly and I was on cloud nine. The only thing that gnawed at me and brought me back to the Earth was that I could see how his right ankle was visibly troubling him in the second half. When he went in for the final Lutz my heart was either beating too fast, or was stopping altogether, I’m not sure, but I’m certain that what went through my head was please please please if there is a god anywhere and you are listening then can you please just let him land this one jump and I will never ask you for anything else ever again please please please. At the end of that performance, when Yuzu went yes, yes, yes and then grabbed his ankle, I was hysterical. I don’t think there is any moment in figure skating which had ever made me more emotional than those 5 seconds. 

…

I am not by nature a person who cries a lot, or at all, but watching Yuzu on the Olympic podium made me tear up, truly. The last time I cried because of figure skating was for Mao’s free skate at Sochi. Thank you, Yuzu, for making my tears those of complete happiness this time around. Thank you for defying my belief and teaching this cynical me, once again, that efforts never go in vain, thank you for this miracle, thank you for allowing me to be your fan, thank you for everything. Getting to know you and your skating is one of the best things that has ever happened in my life.

[rejectedprincesses]

Remembering Japan’s badass schoolgirl gangs

Japanese schoolgirl fashion hasn’t always existed for male fantasies only. Meet the ‘sukeban’ crews who used the power of DIY style to pierce through the patriarchal bubble

When all-male gangs wouldn’t let them join, all-female “sukeban” gangs formed their own identities – starting with the uniform.

Between the layers of clothing, sukeban girls would conceal weapons – razors, chains and anything else that one ought to take a jot more seriously than a yo-yo. Indeed, the sukeban sisterhood rivalled their male equivalents for violence and crime: facing off with rival factions, punishing girls within their own group (e.g. for cheating with someone else’s boyfriend), or generally colouring suburban ennui with a splash of petty crime. What’s more, Yakuza-style levels of organisation meant that, at the subculture’s peak, the largest alliance had over 20,000 teenage girls sworn in.

They even inspired a series of exploitation-style movies, akin to the works of Russ Meyer. These movies bore titles like Delinquent Girl Boss, Girl Boss (Sukeban), and Terrifying Girls’ High School.

It continues today in the form of all-female bosozoku biker gangs:

As the expectations for young women to marry and settle continue to be a fact of life in Japan, so too has this all-girl outlaw subculture prevailed as an alternative narrative for young women. Today, you can spot them by their embellished and embroidered jumpsuits, floral tattoos, long manicured nails and bright pink, heavily stickered bikes.

[miomoii]

(Hikaru no Go, chapter 191, page 22)

UPDATE: now with high quality scan thanks to gallyl!! thank you <3 And now it’s also obvious that I had for some reasons assumed their positions the wrong way around. Fixed that too!

Ok, I’ve been wanting to write about this for some time now.

First of all: This is Hikaru and Akira before starting their match in the Young Lions tournament from the last published, special chapter that is the “second” ending after the official one. A chapter totally made just for the sake of wrapping the story up with a big parallel/metaphor to tell us that history will keep repeating/humans will continue to strive for their goals together and that the road for the characters of the story has actually just begun (note that the start of the match is shown but not the result of it). So I guess it allows us for some more in-depth interpretation.

I’m not good at writing meta or finding hidden meaning in texts but what I’ve learned quite a lot about due to my career choices is visual arrangement. Let me tell you: when designing a composition for a drawing or something similar, you literally start with a blank page. So every choice you make has some kind of meaning. There are choices out of aesthetic reasons, like to create contrast, perspective, tension etc. and there are choices with regards to content/message/effect whatever you want to call it.

And the level of professionalism (or quality of work) of a artist/designer is widely recognized by the fact that they make all of their visual choices intentionally and not by chance. It should be possible to ask a professional artist about any part of their work and get an answer about their reasoning behind it. After all, this is their job, making visual choices.

Obata Takeshi is an amazing artist who is famous for flawless compositions and creating incredible atmospheres with his pictures, while also using symbolism and subtle messages in them.

Okay. After this preface, back to the panel above. When I first read this chapter (which was I think when I reread the whole manga last year) I found myself staring at the page in confusion. I just didn’t understand what was happening, before realizing that on the left we see the fingertips of Hikaru’s left hand peeking out from behind the goke and his right hand holds the lid slanted towards us. Maybe to some people this is obvious, but to me it just wasn’t logical at first sight, which is strange when one of the main principles of visual layout is clearness. So I tried to find the part that was bugging me and it is actually the point where the fingertips of Akira and Hikaru are meeting.

One of the things I heard the most in classes about drawing perspectively is this: always let things that are stacked in the room overlap to create depth or put enough space between them, never let their edges be on the same level. Otherwise the viewer will be confused about what is in the foreground and what is in the back. And this is what happens here. The upper pair of fingers overlaps just so barely that they almost share the same outline and the second pair is so close that (even more with the lines of the goban in-between) you can hardly make out the space between it. And this is strange. If you think about it, the problem could have been easily avoided by shifting one of them just a little or even by leaving out Hikaru’s left hand altogether, the picture would have worked out completely fine without it. But for some reason, Obata decided to bring their hands together this way and I assume that he tried to emphasize something with this. After all, another principle in visual art is that there are some general rules, but if you know them well you can break them to stress a certain point. I think this could be what this ‘error’ is about.

Even more: the point where their fingers meet is almost exactly at the middle of the panel, a little to the left. And we have Hikaru’s right hand with the lid positioned so awkwardly that pretty much all his fingers are pointing to this area as well (I’m not even talking about Akira’s left hand). Our human eye is trained to always follow some key lines in a picture: one being the line of sight of a person and another the direction of their hand/fingers. Then there are the lines of the goban and the speedlines in the background creating a cross shape whose intersection is also at this shifted-to-the-left centre. So basically everything in this panel is inevitably drawing the viewer’s attention to the fact that Akira’s and Hikaru’s fingers are touching. They are connected (over a goban, of course) and this fact should be apparent to the crowd of people surrounding them (notice that the perspective is that of a spectator) as well as the readers of the Manga.

To claim all of this is a coincidence would be to belittle the artist’s capability. I can assure you that YES artists do ponder every line of their work and have a lot of fun putting hidden meaning in them. It doesn’t matter if those meanings are visible to just a few people or even just the artist themselves.

Of course I could never claim to know exactly what the intention of Obata was when he drew this page. All I can do is to try to put myself in his shoes. So if I was drawing the last chapter of my series and I wanted to subtly bring across that two characters are connected so very deeply and their relationship is supposed to develop in a way that it exceeds the level of what can possibly be shown in a Shounen Manga… Well, I would be proud if I had though of doing it this way.

You are free to tell me I’m delusional and seeing too much into things, I’m not sure if I am either! Anyway, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

(discussion’s open on LJ if anyone’s interested)

[akihika]

Hikaru no Go’s Ending

We were recently asked if like we had been disappointed in some way with the ending of Hikaru no Go.

And it is an interesting question, because actually, we did – in some way. That impression may be entirely due to having watched the anime before reading the manga, but the Hokuto Cup part was not entirely satisfactory to us.

Sure, there are several good ideas, and strong moments, such as Hikaru saying in tears that his goal is to “link the far past with the far future”. But as a whole, this part, and with it the whole story, ends on a match between Hikaru and… Yong Ha. And on top of being a character we would rather want to slap each page he appears in, he is before all a perfect stranger in the story, a character we do not care about at all.

What are we supposed to feel in this last match, exceptionally close (for Hikaru no Go) to the nice hero vs. the infuriating-but-not-so-mean villain trope shônen fight ? Feel, I said. Not react. Because sure, we react a lot in this match, alternating between frustration and excitement (and scorn, for Hikaru’s mother who calmly leaves when her son seems to be losing).

But compared to that match ? The one that ends the anime ? That long awaited match between Hikaru and Akira ? That match where we could not care less about who is winning because they are at last playing together, and at last they are speaking to each other. And at last, Akira understands the most important secret buried deep in Hikaru’s soul.

At last, indeed. That match is an intense climax in itself, for Hikaru and Akira, and for us readers and viewers. No bad guy to beat, only a pure moment of both delight and accomplishment.

What could the series have offered us after that, besides superfluous extras ? Everything was said there, no matter how enjoyable and interesting many moments of the Hokuto Cup can be. To us, that whole part felt like a bonus, a sort of a long epilogue – the real epilogue, as for it, remains a perfect conclusion in itself (how else coud it be, when it ends on Akira and Hikaru playing together !) and rather features the future Go players and couples on the foreground.

We don’t know if we are the only ones to feel that way, to feel as if the anime had made the best possible choice by stopping where the story, maybe, should have reasonably stopped – what a sacrilege tovsay !

But this is obvious to us : as long as Akira and Hikaru are not at the center of the stage, there can be no proper climax to end the series on.

[invitan]

I disagree. The manga ending expands the future of Go, and makes a point about the new generation revitalizing a 1000-year-old game, transcending international boundaries and drawing interests from a general public. The series managed to move beyond the very narrow starting point of pure rivalry and truly embraced what Hikaru earlier alluded to in the story: when he plays Go, he’s constructing the universe.

In retrospect, though the ending was realistic, heartbreaking and bittersweet, it makes the series extra special to me. 

[akihika]

Romanticism and Hikaru no Go

There are but a few works where homosexual feelings can be stated as canon (aside the BL genre). Instead, we often have to make do with subtext and ambiguous sentences, situations, or facial expressions.

The height of frustration, that is.

Not being able to ship two male characters without receiving the fatal “That’s just your yaoist imagination” argument is considerably irritating, and comes from the fact that you just have the subtext on your side, whereas the text will rather be on the side of your adversary.

(Note that your adversary may have already eaten his/her hat on Killua’s case in Hunter X Hunter, where the amount of subtext may have exceeded the amount of text.)

Let’s take the example of Hikaru no Go. The two main reasons that are opposed when shipping Akira and Hikaru to people who can’t even consider the idea are the following :

        1. Hikaru is interested in Akari.

        2. There are not romantic feelings between Akira and Hikaru; they merely see each other as Go rivals.

The first reason is not even worth lingering over. When does Hikaru ever think of Akari, except when he randomly bumps into her at school ?

The second reason is more interesting, and it may concern many other works than Hikaru no Go: that so-called lack of romantic feelings between true rivals.

(Who are so much rivals that they think of each other each hour of the day.)

But what are we exactly saying when waving that “romantic feelings” argument ? Are we speaking about some shojoish sentimental effusion ? Or about unexpressed, bubbling feelings ?

For those who may not know, romanticism is not exactly what the word means to most people nowadays – some insipid, mushy romance that movies, books, animes, and bad shôjo are filled with.

Romanticism, basically, is an artistic movement that aimed at revolting against classicism and rationalization by letting intense emotions run wild out of aristocratic norms. These emotions being multifarious and (fortunately) not limited to love. Romanticism, hence, may be expressed through violence, desperation, morbidity, passion, obsession.

(That is not to say that the romantic movement was free from insipid and mushy romances.)

If we were to take musical exemples : Thais’ Meditation, which everyone of you has at least heard once (and which may have, hence, led you to think that classical music is fundamentally insipid, mushy, and boring) could easily fit in the failures of romanticism, which explains quite well why it now invades the worst tear-jerker works of our time.

Whereas Liszt’s Sonata could, in return, give a perfect example of the masterpieces that romanticism is able to create.

Let’s go back to Akira and Hikaru, now. We all agree there is no confession whatsoever. Actually, their interaction is extremely limited all through the manga, whereas we all have the impression that it constitutes the majority of the book.

That is precisely because both Akira and Hikaru share the same obsessional passion towards each other. They are constantly worried about their own progress in Go, but not only.

Can you remember Akira, panicking as Hikaru, depressed from what happened to Sai, thought of stopping Go ?

Can you remember how easily both of them, and especially the well-mannered Akira, lose their temper when interacting with each other ?

Can you remember the intensity of their long awaited match, for which Akira counted the exact amount of time they had to wait ?

Can you remember how Akira guesses right about Sai, saying he is the one that “understands Hikaru the most”, and how Hikaru reacted as if these were words of confession ?

(That was, actually, more than a confession. That was the irrefutable proof that Akira has cracked the most intimate, and rationally unbelievable, secret of Hikaru.)

Advancing individually on a common path to an upcoming and awaited reunion, yet worrying about the other and thinking obsessively about him to the point of fully understanding him without almost any direct communication ?

Could there really be a more fundamentally romantic background between two characters ?

[invitan]

Shounens and their queerbait...

That aside, there were some really good ship manifestos for Akira/Hikaru out there that went deep into symbolism analysis of the pair. 

[thehikingastronomer]

“Writing a book is so easy.”

Yes. Writing a book is the easiest thing in the whole world. In fact, let me show you just how easy it is!

Goal: change all this paper into a book.

Eh, not that hard. I mean, you just have to read, right?

Maybe scratch a few notes in the margins as reminders.

Yeah, writing and editing isn’t time consuming or painstaking at all.

In fact, I find it quite relaxing. Good meditation. No stress whatsoever!

I mean, it’s not like writing a book involves any train of thought or decision making, like when to cut scenes, because whatever you write is perfect and there to stay!

I mean, come on, it’s not like I’m going to rewrite the first chapter 51 TIMES to make sure it’s how I want it, right? That’d be crazy.

And no, it’s not like I spent over 3,000 HOURS READING AND REVISING 14 DRAFTS OF THE BOOK to make this book readable.

No sweat, no tears, no blood, and DEFINITELY no coffee stains.

Nope, writing is the easiest job in the world. I don’t see why anyone thinks otherwise. I mean, all we do is scribble words and take a few out, right?

We feel no satisfaction AT ALL when we receive a shipment of the final product for a book signing. *yawn* BOR–ING.

Nope, we don’t get excited at all. It’s just another day in the life.

And the sequels? Bitch, please. That’s child’s play.

You’re right. Writing a book is so easy. It’s not stressful, not exciting, and it’s definitely not worth the reward of holding something that USED TO BE EXCLUSIVELY IN YOUR HEAD AND NOW YOU GET TO SHARE IT WITH THE WHOLE WORLD.

[titanandclank-deactivated201811]

Im not sure this scares me or inspires me…

[poeticteaholic]

It both scared and inspires me

[decadentdashes]

Writing a book IS easy. Writing a GOOD BOOK is exponentially more difficult. 

[invitan]

Inspires me to be the editor - now I got to judge all these drafts!

[invitan]

Tình lơ

Nàng cứ nhìn tôi. Nàng cứ nhìn tôi đăm đăm không dứt, đôi mắt thủy tinh của nàng khắc khoải nhìn, mòn mỏi nhìn, nhìn tới sống tới chết vẫn phải nhìn. Tôi chạy bên đông, trốn bên tây, nhảy lò cò ra bắc rồi khăn gói chui vào nam, đi đâu cũng vướng ánh mắt của nàng, đặng chả buồn thoát nữa, tôi cũng quay lại nhìn nàng. Nàng nằm dài trên giường lõa lồ như Cleopatra, lườm tôi trần trụi hơn cả Caesar. Tóc nàng thường búi gọn giờ xõa ra, lọn cứng loăn quăn xõa dài quanh đệm. Môi nàng hồng thẫm, cong mềm mại, sức sống tràn trề, nhìn mà chỉ muốn áp vào mà mơn trớn ve vuốt, mà cắn mà xoa. Váy trắng sa tanh nới lỏng ba khuy trên, ngực căng phồng dưới lớp mỏng, làm tôi chỉ muốn ôm chầm lấy mà nắn mà chà, mà làm tình mà yêu. Lão chủ hàng bỗng từ đâu chạy tới, vạt rèm lại che cả gian hàng, đặng quay lại nhìn tôi gầm gừ. "Ở đây cấm con nít dưới 21 tuổi," lão hầm hừ, "tiểu thư ạ." Tôi ngẩn người ra đấy ngay cả khi lão đã khuất dạng, mắt không rời khỏi được tấm rèm chia cắt chúng tôi. Tôi. Người tình silicone của tôi.

[jenlog]

make hikaru no go relevant again 2k15

[i-am-snowils-admiral]

make hikaru no go relevant again 2k16

[gogoigo]

[invitan]

This is beautiful

[yourinsomnea]

“How did you feel when you disappeared? Were you sad? Or were you smiling like you are now? I hope you were… smiling.”

I was working on an Akira/Hikaru fanmix but kept coming across songs that reminded me of Sai & the mark left on Hikaru. Clearly, I was not having the best of days, but Sai heartbreak is one of those things you have to go through from time to time.

Within a Thousand Years

1) Sparks - Ryoksopp || Maybe within a thousand years/You’ll be here 2) The Beginning - One Ok Rock || Just give me a reason/To keep my heart beating 3) All That’s Mine - Depeche Mode || I need some kind of sign/Come take away the sorrow now 4) The River - Zemfira || I search for your face in my own 5) In the Rain - 9Goats Black Out || must reach, must reach/we exist in this “now”, then die 6) My Secret Friend - IAMX || My secret friend/I’ll take you to the river 7) Smother - Daughter || I should go now quietly/For my bones have found a place 8) Falling Man - Blonde Redhead || I know a ghost can walk through the wall /Yet I am just a man still learning how to fall 9) Walking the Dog II - Fun. || Hold on/Stay on my side/Don’t go. || 10) 17 - Midas Fall || And my feet start to tingle as we reach for higher ground

[dailydot]

Trump Against Humanity takes a famously inappropriate card game and makes it yuge

The concept behind Trump Against Humanity is relatively straightforward. It takes the Cards Against Humanity model and simply replaces the sentences with actual things Trump has said.

[tehnerdlyfe]

I DIDNT THINK CARDS AGAINST HUMANITY COULD GET EVEN GET CRAZIER

[constable-connor-deactivated201]

OH NO

[invitan]

Have never considered playing Cards Against Humanity till now

[museifushindoushugi]

ogata’s character design actually changes significantly throughout the course of hikago manga. part of this could just be the style shift which is also seen in every other character, but i think part of it is also that he becomes an actually more sinister character as the story goes on.

to be honest he actually looks kind of goofy in the early manga and i think this is because either his character wasn’t quite figured out yet, or Hotta Yumi didn’t tell Obata about the plans she had for this character.

but then again he immediately does this a few pages later upon hearing that this 11 year old kid apparently solved a professional level go problem at a glance, so maybe that potential had always been there:

Fast forward to chapter 36 and he looks like this, he has just discovered and become obsessed with the sai mystery.

chapter 41, he sponsors hikaru to enter the insei program, pulling the strings from behind the scenes in order to unravel the sai mystery:

chapter 46: i know I never let him live this down, but I am PRETTY SURE AT THIS POINT that the way this was framed was deliberate and this is like a whole year before he shoves shindou against a wall. i mean that ominous shading on his face. (hes actually just pulling some more strings here by showing him that shindou became an insei)

pleasestophim.jpg

chapter 115: ogata in “is shindou sai” mode

chapter 118 lastly for real now, here he is yelling at hikaru while pinning him against a wall (i’ll never let him live this down either), because he accidentally revealed to him that he has some relation to sai

conclusion ogata is a creep and it shows in the character deisgn

[invitan]

Have always been wondering the whole “Ogata is a creep” thing and where it comes from. 

[anadff]

[invitan]

One of the best cosplay I’ve seen in a while