Sep 1, 2020
Jeffrey posted on his Insta stories, 9.1.20
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Jeffrey posted on his Insta stories, 9.1.20
I watched Bofuri’s first episode, and I’m super into it. Maple is adorable. She’s kind of a retard for not choosing to invest even a tiny bit into agility just so she can get around faster but I don’t mind because she’s a cute retard. Not really into her eating the dragon to death, cute to see a fanged anime girl’s fangs have meaningful application but the existence of vore makes the scene really upsetting and I think it’d be funnier and more in line with her established patience going off of letting a rabbit attack her for an hour straight if she really did just lightly punch it to death or something. But hey everything else is cool and Maple is fucking kawaii desu.
Please don't let our safe word be goodbye.
I watched episodes 7-10 of Steven Universe Future.
Snow Day kinda made me feel like a prick since I didn’t really like Steven in it, nor have I for most of Future so far, but like the episode’s “happy end” moment is him basically saying he is who he is now, the Steven back then was from the past and that’s not now, etc, and he doesn’t want to be treated like a kid anymore. It was I guess a nice enough ending, the rest of the Crystal Gems are sweet in it, and all their various Steven transformations were nice, Steven Ruby especially is really cute, but like, this obviously wasn’t the case based on release schedule but the episode definitely feels like it’s calling out people that are being critical of Future Steven, even though I feel like we’re all more or less justified in doing so. Idk. Okay episode I guess.
Why So Blue was interesting because Lapis is my favourite character since she’s moe as hell and imo has some decent character development, but then she’s weird in this episode. Her eagerness to fight is one thing, but then she has a pretty nice song afterwards that I liked more and think fits her character better as she’s been developed, but then they cancel that out by having her be all “we should have just been fighting from the start” which like, I don’t know how much I’m supposed to be able to buy that from her character now, let alone immediately after she sung a sweet song. But then when they do have her fight, she stops because she sees Steven looking on in sadness, which like, cool, she didn’t go to far because she recognised her actions as hurtful to others, I feel like we’ve kinda been over that but whatever. But then when the other two Lapises (Lapes? Lapses? Lapis Lazulis?) who I thought were pretty cool by the way, when they admire her strength she’s all “no my fighting is my weakness” and sort of just regrets everything, which like, I get, I think that’s fair enough. But her arc this episode is just “eager to fight, and then regrets it” it feels done before, I think the song works way better for her character but also doesn’t blend with those other two parts, so the episode just felt unstructured. Man it’s tough shit having Lapis as my favourite, maybe I should just convert to a Peridot stan and be done with it. Hey at least Steven wasn’t insufferable this episode.
Little Graduation was fucky as hell. First off, it’s great that Sadie and Lars and all that have lives off screen. It really is. And it’s cool that Sadie specifically has both disbanded Suspects (thank god, their music blows) and also is dating a nonbinary person, like a regular human one rather than a fusion or something. But then the main thing of the episode is Future Steven being a prick again. I get that he’s older, and more specifically I get that he’s a teenager who’s afraid of what the future has to bring for him and also seeing his relationships drift apart as his friends pursue their own futures. I get that, I really do. But holy shit they could not make Steven more unlikable about this. The fuckin “I know her better” type thing he says to Shep when he learns they’re dating Sadie is just such a vile, almost incel-caliber thing to say, pinning the blame on Lars for the bubble cage trapping them all in together is also just a really shitty thing to do. And like yeah characters are allowed to have flaws and do bad things, unquestionably, and I actually kinda like Steven feeling entitled to know everything about everyone’s lives since it’s a problem that actually ties into the fact that nothing ever happens in this show without Steven being there for it. That’s a character flaw born naturally from the narrative. But the rest of it is sort of just, him being an insufferable asshole for the sake of it. Even the stuff about the relatable teenage experience of being afraid of the future feels weird specifically because Steven in the movie was pretty damn content with the new status quo, and this isn’t much later and yet he fucking loathes being alive. At least the ending with everyone reaffirming their friendships with Steven was kind of sweet, even if Shep telling Steven exactly what his problems are sure as hell felt lazy. Overall the episode just wasn’t great and had almost the most insufferable Steven yet. Almost.
Based on how I ended that paragraph, I wonder if you can infer what I think about Prickly Pair? Man, fuck Steven in this episode. First of all if you’re gonna have last episode end with him deciding to quit Little Homeschool and accept his friends’ decisions to move forward with their lives, it’s hard for me to accept that Steven also names all of his plants after his friends and talks about how great it is that none of the plants are leaving the earth or disbanding their bands or anything. Yeah blah blah blah he’s confused and weirded out, but can we lay off for just a bit? I cannot possibly imagine whatever end we get to Steven’s arc being at all gratifying after this, we’ve been dragged through the mud so hard and the dude’s made next to no fucking progress that I literally don’t see an ending that satisfies me, you can fully “redeem” Steven and all I’ll get is a feeling of “thank god that’s over”. Christ, way to drive the nail into my head. Specifically I’m pissed about the way he talks about the Crystal Gems in this episode though. He doesn’t want to talk to any of them about his feelings because:
Garnet; will just act all high and mighty - but literally when has she ever not been helpful in times like these.
Pearl; will just blame herself - a problem you should know she’s managed to overcome by now?
Amethyst; will just act like she’s so mature now - provably fucking false you sack of shit. “Act like she’s so mature now” sorry did Guidance not happen? Where you underestimated Amethyst’s maturity and caused dozens of problems because of it? I appreciated that Steven seemed to learn a meaningful lesson at the end of the episode that challenged him in different ways than usual but I guess the fuck not because he’s still a whiny fucking prick here that hates Amethyst for some fucking reason.
And I don’t care about Cactus Steven either. On one hand Steven sharing all of his problems with a cactus is fair enough because hey it feels good to say it out loud, people talk to plants and animals a lot at times like those it’s cool, but the fact that it copies speech and Steven picks up on that, yet also responds to what it says as though it’s real speech just makes him look stupid. Like he fucking argues with a completely non-intelligent cactus all on his own because I guess he’s insecure. No matter how insecure he is here he just looks fucking retarded taking shit from a cactus, Christ. At the very least I’m glad Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl didn’t overreact to Steven’s feelings as they heard from a cactus, at least some of the characters have matured. Cherry on top of an otherwise steaming pile of shit episode.
And that actually concludes Steven Universe Future for now. Hopefully not forever because by god I am not satisfied by this ending, the movie gave us a pretty nice end for everything and I was initially excited for Future since I thought it was a new series, a proper sequel to the show and movie. Then I learned it was an epilogue, which upset me, but hey we still had a few loose ends to wrap up, I can take it. But no, Steven Universe Future presents us with way more problems than it does answers and the titular character has become such a massive, cynical bastard who lost his appeal almost as soon as Future started and never won me over again, and like I said I can’t imagine whenever Steven’s arc is complete, whenever, after saving the entire universe, he saves himself, it’ll be something I actually appreciate anymore beyond the fact that it undoes this mess. Future had cool ideas, they give us an interesting direction for Jasper’s character, challenge Steven’s hero complex in some interesting ways, that new shounen rage form Steven has is a fine enough idea, but a lot of the episodes are just, really painful to sit through, until like the last 2 minutes where we get a sort of happy ending, or we don’t and then you’ve got A Very Special Episode or Bluebird which were total wastes of time. Volleyball best episode. I wanna say like 5, maybe 4/10 overall.
Which ensemble stars character is your favorite?
This may come as a surprise, but I actually can’t choose just one character. I can narrow this down to a massive 4, which like, that’s a lot of characters.
First is Mao Isara, because we spend a lot of time with Trickstar, he’s my favourite from Trickstar, he’s cool in a way that none of the other characters really are, I really like the colour of his hair, he’s voiced by Yuki Kaji which is tight, and to be extremely blunt he’s probably the hottest character in the show for me.
Next is Rei Sakuma, because haha black and red edgy but I love that colour combo, long hair’s hot so he’s directly competing with Isara for hottest character, vampires are pretty sick and he’s effectively one of those, and he’s another character with a lot of presence in the narrative and I really enjoyed that, all his “disruptions” and “battle tactics” do a great job framing this show’s conflicts as really dramatic and that’s awesome.
Next is Eichi Tenshouin, who works really well as a pseudo-antagonist in the first half and then really well in that supportive/authoritative position he’s put in for the second half, while having maybe the best overall development of most characters in the show, having maybe the greatest amount of good interactions with other characters, and just being a memorable presence in general. Plus I love his voice.
Last is Wataru Hibiki, because he’s, say it with me now, amazing! Excessively theatrical characters aren’t anything super new to anime and he doesn’t bring much new to the table in that regard but he doesn’t really need to because that type of character is really fun and in his case super memorable anyway. He’s also another character with a lot of presence in the narrative and solid interactions with some other characters, and yet another case of a voice I really love. I know I said long hair’s hot like 2 paragraphs ago, I don’t really think it’s hot on Hibiki, but then I still like his design so who cares.
So yeah it’s one of those 4. Just not sure who.
Not that you asked but just for fun my least favourite character is maybe Mitsuru Tenma because in general I found Ra*bits annoying but specifically I hated this guy’s voice and face and personality and everything about him. Also the twins because fuck twins in anime.
I watched the first real episode of Clear Card, and I had fun! First thing’s first, the OP is fucking amazing, visually and musically it’s utterly delightful. ED also looks great, it’s really well animated, though I don’t care for the song as much. Also remember when I mentioned that the Prologue followed a different series of events from the 90s anime? Yeah well this seems to follow an ever so slightly different series of events from both, kind of a combination really. Because rather than Syaoran leaving his bear at Sakura’s house as is the case with the prologue, we see a flashback of Syaoran giving the bear to Sakura at the airport, as in the 90s anime. Alright, guess the prologue didn’t happen. Except oh wait, Sakura still stayed up all night to make Syaoran the Sakura bear, which she gave to him before he left for Hong Kong. Okay? I’m really not sure what’s supposed to be canon for all this stuff anymore, I’mma just forget it and move on. Also while I’m talking about the Prologue, remember how I talked about everyone still having 90s tech because although this is a modern anime it’s still set in the 90s? Yeah nah Sakura and everyone else all have smartphones now. So uh, yeah. That’s a bit odd. Kero-chan seems to have made the jump to either a PS1 or a PS2 as well so the age of technology really is all over the place here. That’s pretty lame.
Putting aside confusion about times and chronologies for the remainder of the post, yeah the episode was still fun. All our characters are just as lovable as before, there are a few characters who weren’t in the prologue who did manage to make a return here, and like there they’ve managed to get the original cast back for all but one of them. Though she had no speaking lines in this episode, Rika’s back, and because I was checking MAL just to be certain of which seiyuu managed to return, I found out that Rika’s original seiyuu passed away in 2011, so she’s obviously had to be recast. That’s a real shame, she was 41 when she died, and it was because of that oh so classic cancer. Urgh. Anyway, moving on, yeah everyone’s back and fun, we’re in middle school now, I really like the new uniform for the girls, it’s very reminiscent of the old one but it still looks more mature which fits everyone’s increased age, though I think on the boys it’s a bit much? Because it’s full length black trousers and then the black blazer thing so they’re really black, whereas the girls still have white skirts, so like, that’s a thing.
And then also premise wise we’ve got the titular Clear Cards - basically, Eriol did his vague warning thing about Sakura having a dream, and then she had a dream where she was surrounded by transparent cards, a cloaked figure was there, and when she woke up all the Sakura Cards were totally blank and transparent, clear, even. She talks to some peeps, sends an email to Eriol although he hasn’t responded yet, she has the dream a second time and now she’s also got a new key, the Staff of Dreams she calls it, its name and spell coming to her just instinctively or something, and uses it to uh, Secure, the Gale Clear Card. Which is like Windy but way more violent it seems. So far, seems fine enough, same formula as before with basically the words being different, but also an excuse to totally reset Sakura’s progress. I don’t know how I feel about this, we’re still in that mystery phase where we don’t really know what’s going on or who’s responsible, and I doubt it’s an old character so I don’t have any guesses beyond the fact that Eriol maybe has a clue. But I guess that sense of completely resetting the status quo, erasing all of Sakura’s progress, like I get why if they want a new adventure they wouldn’t want her to reuse the Sakura Cards but idk it feels really sort of, arbitrary? I’ll see what I think as it goes along I suppose. Having watched this immediately after finishing the 90s anime as opposed to being someone with any childhood nostalgia it’ll be interesting watching this show where the thesis of the top MAL review it seems is that this show apparently banks only on nostalgia. I’ll see what I think. Because I did really enjoy this still, so. It was very cute, I’m already accustomed to the visuals even if I still think the 90s show looked better.
I feel like that’s basically everything I have to say right now so. Yeah.
do you think you’ll ever try any other male idol anime series? or try listening to some of their songs?
Song wise, I don’t really think so. I’m pretty bad at exploring music in general and I vastly prefer female voices when it comes to the type of music you’d hear in any idol thing, like I’m sure if I looked I’d be able to find some male idol songs that did appeal to me, but eh.
Anime wise, probably. I have enough studios I like to where I’d watch like anything they do, like if KyoAni did a male idol show I’d watch it, and while I don’t know to what extent it counts as an idol show, Studio 3Hz’ A3 this season is something I plan to watch, just because 3Hz. I can tell you straight up that I enjoyed Ensemble Stars enough to where I’d absolutely watch a second season, and then that show has picture dramas I’d like to watch. And then an unrealistic dream of mine is to watch every idol anime (which I’m doing a horrible job of by the way because I’ve got some in my dropped list) so eventually they’ll all be there. It’s just that I have almost 300 things in my plan to watch list and I don’t really think catching male idol anime is that much of a priority for me. But again though, if something new comes out I’ll probably give it a shot.
