apparently I care deeply about boys hollering these days

Ren's anime fandom blog! Mostly Boku no Hero Academia, but some other anime fandom stuff may sneak in occasionally. • MAY CONTAIN MANGA SPOILERS • Multiship, polyship, omnivorous: I read widely! • Sometimes 🔞 but everything will be tagged and flagged. • I'm after interesting and intensity. • Likes/follows come from @ren-roelanberry or @nebet-ren • AO3: n_r I am an adult (30+)

[quietwingsinthesky]

the Relationship Ambiguity Zone™️ is a beautiful place to be. safe place to put your characters. put all characters into Relationship Ambiguity Zone. is that guy your mentor or your dad? Ambiguous!!! are you friends or enemies? Ambiguous!!! is it romantic? is it platonic? is it sexual? Ambiguous!!!!!!! never categorize anything ever in the Relationship Ambiguity Zone. just make them fucking weird about each other.

[orewing]

READ WIND BREAKER: IT'S BEEN TWO FUCKING YEARS AND I'M STILL HERE

...and since it's been two years since I posted my original powerpoint (to the day, at the time of writing this), I wanted to make a revamp in hopes of getting even more people interested in the wbk manga! please. it unironically changed my life and it could change yours too if you let it. this is both a promise and a threat.

additional note: I wanted to focus on the manga specifically for this presentation, but there is also a currently-two-season anime that's available to watch in full on crunchyroll, with the first season also available on netflix (and probably other places, if you know where to look). I do enjoy the anime too; the manga is just closer to my heart :>

[ren-shonen]

What's your favourite kind of transportation?

I've only taken a trip on a train once, but it was the best of every world — including wifi and the ability to plug in my laptop while we were en route. The whole ride was so incredibly smooth and quiet compared to every other means of travel I've ever used. I arrived more rested than when I began, instead of cramped and overstimulated.

Alas, passenger rail isn't really a thing where I live.

[kamryyy-deactivated20110627]

reblog if you're willing to answer anything that comes to your ask box right now

[lleyksie]

horse shapes ✸

[em-gray]

hits him with the aspec beam but this flavor specifically

[a-silly-poll-side-blog-yay]

you're permanently stuck in the last show that you watched, how is it going?

good

bad

great

awful

results

Voting ended onMar 24

[orewing]

the strength of nirei akihiko

so! hi! it's been a bit since my last proper meta post, hasn't it? most of you probably won't remember the poll I ran to pick what my next topic would be, because it's been... a while (six months?! that can't be right). but here's the winning option! finally! right as we're heading into a new major arc! yay! who else is scared!! so before we do, I wanted to finally dig in to one of my favourite characters in the series.

I love nirei.

he gives off a very typical set of first impressions—oh, this is the coward archetype, oh, this is the exposition dump guy, so on and so forth—and while it's true he's both A) anxious and B) possessed of a great deal of knowledge, those are far from the only things he has going for him. so I wanted to talk about all the ways in which I find nirei an appealing character; where his strengths lie, where they don't, and what might be in store for him in future chapters of the manga. needless to say, spoilers enclosed.

strength of mind

this is the first and most obvious of nirei's strengths. he has a memory that at the very least borders on photographic (lest we forget he memorised an entire school's roster of students in a single evening, which is insane—based on the estimated number of students in his class, that's well over 400 individual names and faces).

he also seems data-oriented in general, having collected information on a few dozen people's heights, weights, hobbies, likes, dislikes, the list goes on. this is data that could potentially be very dangerous if misused, but even the concept of this seems so far from nirei's mind that it's almost comical. the only way we've ever seen him use or plan to use the wealth of information at his fingertips is to help sakura find his way around, and aside from that, he's purely in it for the love of the game. he just likes collecting trivia on his blorbos. who happen to all be other guys who are good at fighting. normal things 👍 (he's not normal about it. and to be clear I love that for him)

strength of morals

nirei is someone with an exceptionally strong moral compass. he won't sit back in the face of wrongdoing, especially towards those he cares about, and he'll always do his best to protect those who can't protect themselves, even if it means he gets hurt instead. he would literally rather die than let perceived injustices continue, and I think that's a deeply admirable trait, if one that also frequently causes his friends to worry about his safety.

strength of charisma

I'm not talking about the typical kind of charisma, here. nirei isn't smooth. he isn't suave. he isn't especially persuasive or eloquent. what he has is a more subtle kind of charm.

something I've noticed in a lot of the japanese marketing material surrounding nirei is that he's described as the "moodmaker" of his class, and I think this is an apt description for him. he's the one who sets the tone, and his enthusiasm is infectious. it's hard not to be swayed by him, as evidenced by both sakura and suou letting him physically drag them around from place to place. they absolutely could resist him if they wanted to. but emotionally? imagine the toll.

in addition to this, despite his anxious demeanour, nirei is actually a skilled performer when engaged in his area of interest. after recounting the history of fuurin's unification, he was met with a round of applause, and his storytelling was compared to that of rakugo. I think this is a great example that, although timid, nirei is still very much a people person, and an entertainer at heart. in a series defined by the strength of its bonds, that's a very significant talent to have.

strength of devotion

once you've earned nirei's loyalty, he will do his best to move heaven and earth for you. and though he shows a great deal of willingness to help everyone around him, and obviously holds a deep affection for all of his friends, I think this is best exemplified through his relationship with sakura. I'm not saying this as a shipping thing:

nirei loves sakura.

I don't mean romantically (not necessarily, at least). but I do mean deeply and intensely. nirei is the first person who promised to help sakura achieve his goals, and to be by his side every step of the way. when sakura told nirei, "I don't think you're all that pathetic", it might not have meant much to sakura—but I think it meant everything to nirei.

though it's never explicitly stated, it's likely that, in this moment, sakura was the first person to give nirei the kind of validation he needed most. so I can't help but feel like... yeah. of course nirei would want to pay that back. of course he'd commit himself to sakura's goals. one person who sees something valuable in you, after years of being treated like you're worthless, of feeling like you're worthless? it's hard not to fall a little bit in love with that.

strength of will

nirei is always moving towards his goals. it doesn't matter how many losses he may face in the process; though he is hard on himself, he learns from past mistakes and is constantly, relentlessly working to improve so that he can become worthy—if only in his own eyes—of standing by the people he cares so deeply for.

nirei's core strength is not in his ability to deal blows, nor in his ability to take them, but in his ability to be knocked down and get back up every single time. however, while that unshakable determination is a strength in most cases, it can also be a detriment.

when someone is overly focused on a single goal, it's very easy for them to become ignorant of their surroundings; when this happens, they can end up making a faux pas that otherwise could've been avoided if they'd slowed down and taken a moment to think first. this is a flaw of nirei's that's been played off in a joking manner in recent chapters, but could easily turn into a more serious issue if left unchecked—which I'll discuss more in a moment. but first...

on weakness

nirei isn't just physically weak, though that's the thing that stands out most when we first meet him. it becomes obvious very quickly that the boy also has a devastatingly warped sense of self-esteem. he puts the safety, wellbeing, and even the success of others far above his own, and is constantly second-guessing his own place in the world he inhabits. he also constantly downplays his own achievements, acting as though feats which are objectively genuinely impressive are only worth as much as the bare minimum.

he has so much love for other people, but it seems less important to him that that love is reciprocated, and more important that he can be useful.

nirei doesn't think he needs to be loved; he thinks he needs to be needed. and that is tragic, really, because it sometimes seems to blind him to the ways in which he is loved, the ways he is seen and known and cared for, the value he has which is inherent to himself and not what he can do for others.

this is an internal conflict I'm all too familiar with, not just because it's something I've seen in many other fictional characters in the past, but also because it's something I've seen in myself—the desire to be useful to others is an extremely common one, but it can also be extremely damaging if not managed carefully.

what next?

I currently see two potential paths for nirei's development in the future. the first option: nirei experiences a conflict between his morality and his loyalty. I don't see this as very likely, because in order for a conflict like this to exist, someone nirei is close to would have to act against his moral compass, and nirei's morality is very closely aligned to that of boufuurin. the best avenue for this currently would be if suou did something that nirei found immoral, which I find unlikely, but it's at least more plausible than sakura or one of his other peers doing the same (of course, anything's possible with the right setup, which nii-sensei has proven time and time again. somebody stop them).

the second option, which I consider much more probable: burnout. as I said before, once you've earned nirei's loyalty, he will move heaven and earth for you. he also has extremely low self-esteem and craves the validation of the people he cares about. this is not a healthy combination of attributes if left unchecked.

I think, in the upcoming arc, without suou's balancing influence present to help keep nirei's neuroses in check, it's very possible he will work himself into the ground and start making otherwise avoidable mistakes. I think he's probably going to exhaust himself trying to either A) find suou B) get suou back C) fill in for suou or D) all three, and I think his other friends are going to have to intervene to prevent him from crashing and burning completely (this might also be a good opportunity for sugishita to take a more active role in helping out, since he and nirei now have an established rapport, but I digress).

looking further ahead, I think in the future nirei will also need to find his own goals beyond just helping sakura, though that might be more of a post-canon problem (considering the likely logical endpoint of the story will be sakura's ascendance to the top of boufuurin). but I dunno, personally, I like the idea of nirei needing to grow more into his own person and rely less on the validation of others. I think it would be a good and healthy development for him.

no matter how things turn out, I'm incredibly excited to see what the next arc brings, both for nirei's development, and for the development of the other cast members who will inevitably be affected by suou's absence (not least of all suou himself). this ended up being pretty long, so if you're still with me, thanks for reading, and I'd love to hear your own thoughts on everyone's precious sonshine! ☀

[luunaanori]

Suo Hayato and the Thunder God Raijin

Among all the grafitti on the walls of Furin, there's a very prominent one in the back of class 1-1. There you can see two figures, one with a big halo behind him and the other with a bag on his shoulders. These are Raijin and Fujin, respectively gods of thunder and wind.

They are brothers dieties who rival each other for the control of the Sky, both feared and respected in japanese culture and known as protectors and guardian dieties of the land and temples.

Back on the cover of chapter 37, both Suo and Nirei are standing in front of that mural, Suo in front of Raijin, Nirei in front of Fujin.

I've always found the comparison very interesting, and it made a lot of sense since they are gardian dieties. But with chapter 208, I got reminded of the correlation between Suo and Raijin thanks to a little detail. The horrendous weather a the end of said chapter...

Raijin (雷神) is the god of thunder, lightnings and storms, and a powerful diety in Japan. He's both feared and revered by the people. He's often painted with a demonic face and associated with the color red.

He's depicted as a fearsome god than brings destruction, but he's also a protector of the people and known to bless the crops thanks to the rain and lightnings he brings during storms. He's a god with an interesting duality that makes him a bit of a paradox. (Familiar much ?)

He's often said to be a trickster god, more in a chaotic than a malevolent way. There's also a very famous story that parents tell their children about hiding their bellybutton during thunderstorms so that Raijin doesn't eat them.

Raijin is deeply linked to the Land of the Dead, Yomi no Kuni, given the fact he was born there, split in 8 different parts from the decaying corpse of his mother, Izanami the creator goddess who was stuck into the Underworld after eating the food there. Upon this discovery, Izanagi, his father, tried to trapped them in the Underworld but he and Fujin managed to escape. (Yeah it's gruesome and no we don't have time to unpack all that. But also. Food trauma ?)

Aside from Fujin, Raijin is often shown with Raiju, a thunder beast whose appearance varies and is like the totem/familiar of the god. Suo is more often associated with dragons on his clothes but on this particular outfit, it could be seen as a raiju too...

Despite being a god and having a buddhist halo (reserved for holy or divine beings) Raijin has a lot of demonic features, from the red skin to the horns, sharp teeth and hands with 3 fingers that represent past, present and future. He looks a lot like your average Oni. And well, fun fact, there's an old custom saying throwing soy beans during festival ward off demons. You know what soybean makes ? Natto.

Among the stories about Raijin, there's one saying the Emperor grew tired of Raijin's destruction and camality at some point and asked Sugaru "the God Catcher" to capture him. When asking him to come and submit peacefully didn't work, Sugaru invoked Kannon (the Buddha of Compassion) and Raijin finally submitted and stopped destroying Japan with his storms.

Initially I wondered if that could be a hint of what could go down in Suo's arc. Would they have to stop him from destroying others or himself.... But then I remembered Suo has already been stopped from going on rampage once.

(Is Sakura the god-catcher or the Buddha of Compassion ? Discuss)

To go back to the gardian diety aspect of the god, Raijin & Fujin are worshipped as protectors and you can find their statues in front of shrines. Legends say they protected Japan against Mongol invasion twice (historically speaking, in both instances Mongols tried to invade Japan and their fleets and armies got crushed by storms and typhoons when reaching japanese territories. Yes it's real. And hilarious.)

And so, last but not least, to tie it back to chapter 208 again, Suo's disappearance and his arc start with a pouring rain and thunder rumbling ominously in the background... The storm is coming...

[kingsart044]

Timeskip day off wip

[jupiterisasiphonophore]

Wind Breaker’s Flashback Methodology Needs to be Studied

So, I love a good Shonen Anime™. Honestly I even love a mediocre shonen anime. That said, I’m sure anyone who’s watched a few good-to-mediocre shonen anime is familiar with shonen flashback sequences. They often accompany some kind of emotional confrontation between characters, and we know that their literal and ideological clash will settle which one (*cough*the protagonist*cough*) has the right of it. Good stuff. But sometimes it's a bit ham-fisted, right? An antagonist will show up and monologue about how their Tragic™ Backstory™ validates their murder complex, the protagonist with a suspiciously parallel and suitably distressing backstory will say Nuh Uh, they fight, and there’s an 85% chance they walk away unlikely allies or something. It’s fun, but a bit tried. And, typically, it relies on the audience having context for the protagonist’s gist first since they're the character we need to root for, and so that when the morally grey rival or definitely-not-befriendable antagonist shows up the audience can chuckle knowingly at the irony.

You know a shonen that doesn’t do that? Wind Breaker. And I bet it's on purpose. Hear me out:  

Early on, Wind Breaker (via Umemiya) posits that “a fight is a conversation.” While not a philosophy to take into the wild, it’s a compelling start for a fighting shonen. It acknowledges those aforementioned genre conventions of foes-turned-unlikely-friends via combat-bonding. Neat. But there’s more to it than that. 

That quote comes at the advent of the Shishitoren Arc. At the time, I remember watching Season 1 of Wind Breaker and being a bit confused by the Shishitoren Arc precisely because of how it bucked my shonen-honed expectations. That arc covers chapters 5-30 (ish), and we don’t get our main character's backstory until chapter 202. So, it confused me when we got virtually no context for the protagonists in that first major arc—the closest we get is Hiragi, but even he is framed through Sako’s flashbacks. Instead, we get flashbacks for the Shishitoren fighters while our protags sit back, still virtually strangers to us. We get to know them better, sure, but… no flashbacks. 

The first protagonist-flashback is Nirei’s in Chapter 2. We don’t get another one until the Keel Arc, when Tsuchiya and Anzai respectively tell Sakura about Nagato. All three of those flashbacks are, arguably, diegetic. Our protagonists are entrusting Sakura with a piece of themselves, and we get to see their stories while he learns about them. So those flashbacks, in a Watsonian sense, are just stylized conversations. 

The same is true of the antagonist’s flashbacks in the Shishitoren Arc.  

In Wind Breaker a fight is a conversation, but, like any conversation, it is one which the participants must choose to make. We don’t get Arima’s flashbacks because Sugishita has no interest in him, no desire to learn about him, no desire to converse with him, and honestly? Fair. It’s funny. We start getting Kanuma’s flashbacks around the time he starts locking into Suo’s game and the realizations Suo wants him to have. Those flashbacks are brief because Suo’s interest in Kanuma only goes so far; he only learns what he wants to know. Sako’s flashbacks are extensive by contrast, which makes perfect sense because Hiragi cares so much about him and wants to know how he wound up here.  

What really hammers the pattern home, though, is Togame and Tomiyama. The audience only gets Togame’s flashbacks when Sakura contemplates wanting to know more about him. We get Tomiyama’s flashbacks as soon as he surfaces enough to internalize what’s even going on. And so on. 

Basically, what I’m saying is that Wind Breaker deliberately places flashbacks in the context of characters learning about each other. It’s a Writer’s Gambit (thank you Sloan Stowe), in that it trusts the audience to endure its weird, bucked conventions so that we instead get behind the character at the same speed Sakura does. We learn about them and care about them at Sakura’s pace, and I think it works. We don’t get the protagonists’ flashbacks at first precisely because they are protagonists, because to be a protagonist in Wind Breaker means being someone who can treat people, even enemies, like human beings to be curious about. By that metric it’s almost a prerequisite that we don’t get much of the protagonists’ flashbacks in combat, because that would mean their focus is on themselves, not curiosity about another person. A talking-conversation is a way for two people to be open with each other, and a fight-conversation is a way for one person to pour their focus entirely into someone that doesn’t want to talk to them.

That’s not to ignore the protagonist-flashbacks we do get in combat—Sakura and Kaji come to mind but let’s focus on Sakura. We get a bit about Sakura at the very start of the story. I love that the anime opened with the tightrope scene, and we have flashes of how Sakura was treated before Bofurin when he fights the Spaltips. Sakura, at this point, is alone. He has no one to talk to, no one curious about him. But, he wants to have self-esteem. He wants to be on his own side. He’s still, humbly, curious about another human being, even if it’s just that little kid in his own heart. It’s this bloom of pro-social hope that enables him to thrive in Bofurin and make for such a good protagonist. 

And it works because of Wind Breaker’s Flashback Methodology™.

[ren-shonen]

to be a protagonist in Wind Breaker means being someone who can treat people, even enemies, like human beings to be curious about.

[kajisbraincell]

Hiragi and Kaji's POVs and WBK Details.

something I find interesting again about the chapters in volume 16 (Noroshi Arc / Kaji's crashout & Hiragi's subsequent rescue) is the differences in character perception of the same events (kind of similar to how Nirei is drawn differently during the incident with Keel based on WHO'S pov we're in / Sakura, Reader, or Other etc)

but like....the incident with Kaji's crashout in his first year seems to be perceived differently between him and Hiragi. Or more specific - how it looks to each character.

Main example is that when it's Kaji's pov we get a still upset Kaji but he perceives himself in his memories as a little more...collected(?) looking. Like he's upset but he presents himself as far more emotionally disconnected - (which I think reads into how he may just struggle with his emotions as a whole; read into alexithymia & autism but i won't go on that tirade right now lMAO)

like he is genuinely upset about these events, but Kaji himself does not think that he's showing it. meanwhile - later on when we get hiragi's pov of the same events - kaji looks far more emotional and distressed

where as Kaji thought he looked more perplexed and confused by the post-crashout (probs due to still not being fully coherent), Hiragi saw him exactly as panicked and freaked out as he truly was. Same with the rooftop talk where Kaji is presented as near apathetic from his pov (despite the conversation), Hiragi remembers him almost in tears

It's something for real and i live for it lmaooo

[ren-shonen]

Tag people you want to get to know better!

I was tagged here, thanks @dani-the-human!

Reading: Lots of fic (though no longer-length ones recently), but also I've been following a web novel, Super Supportive by Sleyca, for a while — a friend recommended it to me and it's got absolutely fascinating worldbuilding and the kind of thoughtful pace focused on interpersonal relationships and character development that I really enjoy. I'm also reading along with the webcomic Tiger, Tiger by Petra Erika Nordlund (pepurika here on Tumblr), which is currently really getting into the meat of the last part of the story, VERY exciting!

Last series: I watch anime with a couple different groups of folks, and currently on the docket are the Wind Breaker anime (a re-rewatch for me — and I'll do it again lol) and Natsume's Book of Friends (we're several seasons in!)

Last film: I... actually have no idea. It's been a while. Maybe it was Porco Rosso?

Last song: I'm not sure, but I currently have Sækonungar by SKÁLD stuck in my head, so probably that?

Coffee or tea: Definitely tea, only in part because I'm mildly allergic to coffee and I like not being itchy, lol. I'm hoping that my new teapot will help me drink more brewed tea, because people keep giving me such nice ones to try! But I also suffer from a combination of Oh No, My Tea™ and also a cat's tongue (burn my mouth easily), so it can be a bit of a challenge.

Working on: *squints at browser tabs* A bunch of spreadsheets for an online tool a friend is building. Aaand.... a spreadsheet for all the high-value fish I've got in stock for Palia, planning for cooking parties. Plus a bunch of research for a couple of domestic purchases (though, shockingly, no spreadsheet for those....)

Tagging: @orange-cheetah @vaguelyaperson @ikiracake @jui-imouto-chan and @linwelinwrites (hello fandom folks I've met recently :D) AND YOU! Post this yourself if you feel so inclined, and tag me so I can see!

[ren-shonen]

@orange-cheetah Would you believe I'd never purposely and independently listened to J-pop (or vocal synth music) before in my life? Now I've accumulated a whole playlist, somehow.

No way I could pick just four, it seems, so you get the long version XD

Absolute Zero - natori

started the whole thing

found myself watching the WBK s1 OP on repeat, then thought, hey you know, maybe I should check out the whole song

plugged that into YouTube, listened to it for several hours (and then again... and again...) then decided to let it autoplay some stuff, because maybe there's more...?

Ghost Avenue - Eve

and the autoplay gave me THIS (obviously I had heard Eve's music from BNHA, but it did not grab me like this track.)

boy did it grab me.

the bassline in this is amazing

SHANTI (feat. KAITO) - wotaku & KAITO

where did THIS come from? but I ain't complaining!

(warning that this one has a gunshot sound effect repeated throughout)

Niramekko - Tomonari Sori

I'm... sensing a theme, here.

Honorable mentions:

HYURURIRAPAPPA - tuki.

had the most productive 12 hours in recent memory listening to this one. EXTREMELY loopable.

the video is great too

Haru wo Tsugeru - yama

peppy-sounding song for millennial alienation (and from someone who doesn't want to be gendered and wears cool masks about it, no less)

heck yeah

Curtain Call - Yuuri

okay this was an "obviously added because anime soundtrack" pick by the algorithm, but I wasn't paying attention to the YT page and I remember thinking, "wow, this guy's voice is so expressive! it's giving me goosebumps! what's this about?" tab over and there's Deku... 😂

then I dug up some lyrics translations and proceeded to get Very Emotional 😭

Uhhhh who's still around? Tag, you're it! (if you want to)

[uneducated-author]

Windbreaker is so funny because Sakura has Suo 'my hobby is understanding how people work (and using that however I please)' Hayato and Akihiko 'heart too big for my own body and need to rely on others because my heart took up all the muscle that was supposed to be in my biceps' Nirei and Hajime 'all I do is garden, kick ass and give life advice' Umemiya and Kotoha 'Resident expert in understanding the concept of it takes a village and how people need support to thrive' Tachibana.

But when he's having a crisis he goes to the only senpai who is more emotionally repressed than him. Actual icon. Can't believe that worked. Thank God the Green Tea Coffee metaphor got through.

[daily-bofurin]

Day 61, ABSOLUTE ZERO reaching 40 million views commemoration art

[orewing]

READ WIND BREAKER: I AM NO LONGER ASKING

a powerpoint

[mazsola01]

sharing the first of 2 propaganda powerpoints I found on why this series deserves love (the second one is en route too)