So she actually said that she does not see the appeal in Senshi at all and that the panty shots weren't intended to be horny - she just has a neighbor who looks kind of like him and does laundry in his underwear. Which she finds kind of weird and offputting, and put into his character to be funny.
But that's the thing. She doesn't exaggerate or grotesqueify or alter people's bodies to fit some standard. (Except insofar as she draws different species differently, and those are exquisitely practiced to ensure they have the same diversity of appearances that humans do.) She just presents people exactly as they are, complexities and oddities and all.
It just so happens that when you present people exactly as they are, what you present will be beautiful and alluring to many. Even the things you yourself might find weird and offputting. Honestly I think it's a touching example of how you don't have to see the beauty in everyone for the beauty to be there, simple honesty is enough to let the wonder of people's humanity shine through.
#i think we should put this post next to the interview where she said she doesn't want to eat the food in the series cuz she's a picky eater#and file them both under 'you don't know an artist from their work'#and maybe you don't need to!#maybe all you need to know is that ryoko kui is Good At What She Does#idk I don't like the implication that artists (and women especially?) can only create from personal life and feelings#some people have imagination and craft#kind of a tangent but. there you go.
LWA was the first anime I watched and became really attached to back in high school. There's a lot I could say as an intro to it (I highly recommend the OVA film and The Enchanted Parade Film, both are some of the most perfect short anime films [spot the MLP reference in the OVA!]. The main anime series is pretty good but is mostly no-plot shenanigans), but I wanna highlight the designs of background characters as an appeal for you to check it out. Because by god, the crew really cared about developing a fun, diverse cast of students that actually captures teenage girlhood pretty well.
Here's a cool fact: every student in the background of the anime has a name, nationality, and personality (and possibly backstory and relationships). A lot of love went into designing each individual student, and 90% of them have no speaking roles or major screen-time.
This is only half of the student body too. More under the cut.
Some students of note:
Aisha, a Middle Eastern student who wears a hijab (and a niqab in some concept material).
There's actually also a female teacher who wears a niqab, but she's unnamed and only a background character.
(In fact, all the teachers in this line-up only appear in backgrounds, yet look how crazy and inventive their designs are!)
It'd take too long to list/show BIPOC students; there are African students (Wangari, a side character and school reporter, from Kenya), BIPOC students from the UK, Latina students from South America. There are these twins from India (Rajani and Rashmi) who're both very protective of their smaller, shier roommate and will often argue over how to better care for her.
There's a great amount of diversity in facial structures, nose sizes, heights, and body types that you just don't see in anime. Stocky builds, large foreheads, double chins. And traditionally "unattractive" character designs are not designed to reflect bad qualities. Alma (1) from Austria is insecure about her flaws and enjoys talking, sometimes a bit too much. Verochka (2) from Russia is constantly paranoid about everything going wrong, yet manages to be friendly to everyone. None of this is relevant to/used in the actual anime, but it's there and it's fun.
In regards to the main cast, there's a girl from Russia named Jasminka who's unapologetically fat and loves to eat and it's never questioned and everyone is friends with her. There's also Amanda, an American tomboy who's canonically butch and crossdresses as a man to sneak into a boy's school (the LWA game also reveals that one of Akko's bullies, Hannah, has a crush on crossdressing Amanda. The game also reveals Amanda's crossdressed on multiple occasions before). There's Constanze, a nonverbal girl from Germany who loves mechanical engineering and hacking game consoles.
Not to mention our main protagonist, Akko, who's very clearly neurodivergent and commentary on how schools treat ND students. Akko is a non-magical girl who desperately wants to become a witch. She enrolls in the elitist magic academy Luna Nova despite having no magical lineage and is afforded zero accommodations or sympathy. She is constantly belittled and bullied by faculty and peers for being lazy, stupid, incapable, and untalented when in reality, she is working twice as hard as everyone else to get a barely-passing grade. We see her fall into the oh-so-relatable loop of staying up late and sacrificing free time to study, only to fall asleep in class and wind up with even worse grades. Luckily, she finds a teacher who truly advocates for her, and it's so satisfying seeing her earn magical powers on her own terms. Even more satisfying seeing her snooty aristocrat rival, Diana, realize that she was wrong about Akko this whole time and being a bully. (No exaggeration when I say they were the original Lumity.)
Akko is also a Marxist who becomes her school custodial staff's labor union chief secretary in striking and negotiating for fair pay.
At the risk of sounding preachy or assuming too much about the crew, this is what happens when you truly care about a world and its presentation. You make good characters –– even unimportant ones –– who become good reflections of real people and identities. You can tell the designers hoped that each background character would be someone's favorite. And it's genuinely nice to see an anime create a cast of teenage girls who are actual teenage girls, with interests in sports or films or gardening and both positive and negative personality quirks. And again, 90% of them exist as only set dressing. Yet they took the time to make each one a real character.
If you're craving good modern-fantasy magic school media with original concepts, a great art direction, and fun characters, check out LWA.
I’m 2016 I had a shoplifter role play blog because to avoid getting deleted all the shoplifting blogs claimed it was just to rp. Mine actually was though but I’d post shoplifting content and reblog tips and my “hauls” were just stuff I borrowed from my much more fashionable sister. I had a decent amount of followers and I got a lot of hate but I’d be like “ok buddy I’m just goofing around lol” and then post $150 of Sephora products legally purchased by my sister with the caption #gettingawaywithit. this did not improve my life but it did get me talking to people more often which, obviously, I needed
not that I don’t appreciate the tags reassuring me that at least it was better than shoplifting, very supportive very sweet, but you are voicing this opinion from imagination world bc there is no question that shoplifting would have been immeasurably cooler then whatever the fuck this was
Tomorrow (8/5) is my 30th birthday! I will be streaming various activities on Twitch for most of the day; first stream is from 2pm-6pm, then taking a break and returning for a second stream from 9pm-whenever! (times in EST)
I don't ask or expect anybody to spend $$, but I will leave a few links for anybody interested in supporting me:
🎂Amazon wishlist
🍰Throne wishlist
🧁Ko-fi
And here are some non-monetary ways to support:
🎉Come visit my stream and say hello in chat! Jackbox will be happening in the second stream around 9:30pm EST if you want to join the audience for that.
🎈Share links to my VGen or social media pages to help me make my next art sale!
🎁I always appreciate receiving art as gifts!
My mom decided to weigh in on this, on the side of the Italian boxer, thinking I'd allow her to repeat bullshit talking points for some reason (never have allowed that shit, especially not from someone who raised me not to tolerate racism or anything that ends with someone being put down)...I made her stay on the line until she admitted she was wrong.
I want to clarify, Angela Carini did not quit because she thought her opponent was trans, nor was she "forced" to quit. She quit because the first punch made her nose bleed and she couldn't breathe. She quit due to fear for bodily safety. She did cry and refuse to shake her opponents hand, but it had nothing to do with her gender, she was just upset she was injured and couldn't continue. She later admitted that she had shown poor sportsmanship in refusing to shake her opponents hand, and apologized to her and to everyone, and clarified it had nothing to do with gender, and if the Olympics said she can compete she can compete. Angela Carini is being used by terfs as a scapegoat and is not at fault for anything more than poor sportsmanship.
