watched because i had heard about denji being an interesting character that dealt with grooming and brother they werent lying everyone loves to groom the fuck out of him. i couldnt stop thinking about how bad i wish he had a social worker... my poor booboo bear i will protect you. i honestly loved seeing him do anything. when denji smiles i smile ok. i also liked power a lot shes fuckin awesome
dont really have much to say about it plotwise but i love a story that is Hype Moments & Aura. it is saying stuff so theres some tasty things to chew on but i simply am not interested in doing that rn it didnt grab me that way. also felt no shock at any characters pain or death bc everyone survives so easily (and idgaf about those who dont) (ASIDE FROM BEAM I WAS WORRIED ABOUT HIM DURING THE MOVIE). the movie fucking rocked dude the end of the season was kind of mid but the movie made me wish the rest of the chainsaw man animation would be exclusively movie format because it felt SO good
my heart hurt insanely bad every time denji got betrayed by an adult or couldnt understand things... or the denji reze school situation. nothin like being 16 and being groomed + underschooled am i RIGHT LADS??
super fun gameplay. beautiful world and music. dogshit fuckin story holy shit i was disappointed the whole time but it was very enjoyable to pick apart WHAT i hated
i felt no attachment to the characters or the world. there felt like there was no depth and no real friction between party members or reason for them to be there. no reaction to the world around them. made the whole theme fall SOOO FLAT the final decision was SO easy to make and it was just so so so messy. it only got interesting in the last like 1/3 and by then it was far too late to build anything up meaningfully. i could talk in circles for ages but in short: DIDNT LIKE THIS MAN
really liked this route! this is the first one that made me really uncomfortable and made me think about where my limits are with character actions and why i feel this way. thinking about this as the ending of the “first half” of ooe is really interesting in how it shows off how terrible oosaki can be too... mustve been really interesting to finish what had released on that note and sit with it for a long time until the complete version released. first time i felt we had some reason to have sexual activity too HAHA and that there was change that happened through the sex. more thoughts below cut
obviously ariake’s route made me uncomfortable too but it didn’t feel nearly as intense because it was ariake’s actions towards oosaki. having oosaki rape aomi was really really good to chew on. that was really what i took with me outside of the route so let me cover other things first
the bucket stuff was evil and great. the corpse and oosakis despair. LOVE having more of shiodome ugh. i also really enjoyed oosaki having to stay in the shadows like aomi had to in the previous route and getting that POV. this go-around broke my heart with oosaki feeling like he was there to be punished. aomi is very endearing and scary. it was a little disappointing that aomi was in fact innocent but i think that further pushes the player to see oosaki in a negative light here which i liked for that. aomi’s cute... i hope we see him care for hinode more because as it stands he really doesnt. i know he has to pretend to be his father but...
also, i really enjoyed oosaki’s desperation to be accepted by aomi and redeem himself. and i REALLY liked aomi’s rejection of it (and his rejection of his own feelings) by questioning why oosaki’s love means anything. they are so alike that they cannot be together so quickly and intensely. felt good.
i really really really want to learn more about toyosu. the ONE time we know he got off the island and he’s nowhere to be found...!!! ugh what a good tease. how could anyone else be the organizer (hinode!?) yknow? but then... what happened the first route to lead to toyosu’s death. why does toyosu care so much about using an. whats the POINT of this man. TALK TO ME. oh my god im so excited for his route okay anyways
now to talk about the rape
there’s been so much murder and cruelty in ooe already so why is it the sexual abuse that got me going “whoa oosaki!”. it’s interesting that murder feels “distant” while rape feels “close” in people’s perceptions which makes murder feel less impactful (perhaps its also the fact the victim lives with the trauma and death is final). what a great route to highlight that anyone can do terrible things and i think it was a good idea to make it after ariake and shinbashi’s. my gut reaction to oosaki going for it was that he wouldn’t do that but... he would, that’s WHY he’s doing it. i was upset and shocked because i wouldn’t do that, and i had been in oosaki’s shoes long enough that i was meshing with him and in his role. when i talk about ooe i flip between saying “i” and “oosaki” when describing the actions the protagonist takes because this is a narrative game you put yourself into etc etc. oosaki is poised as a victim throughout so much of the material in the other routes leading up to this. even when he goes on that killing spree, a player can justify it by thinking “well, ariake is manipulating him”.
here oosaki has just... lost control of the situation. he uses rape to get control and because he is sexually attracted to aomi, obviously. i would really like to get a further dive into what oosaki feels about sex because even though hes having sex every route it feels like oosaki himself is trying to hide how he feels about it from me. ariake route was influenced by ariake’s own desires and because oosaki was frustrated. shinbashi’s was oosaki’s desire, but even oosaki’s kiss with shinbashi came from oosaki not understanding how to convey himself. and here with aomi it comes back to frustration leading to sex (and later desperation/not knowing how to convey himself at the end). i feel like oosaki uses sex as a vehicle to express either 1) anger or 2) desperation for companionship. ariake A was 2, the very end of ariake B was mostly 1 with some 2. shinbashi was 2, aomi was first 1 then 2. it’s never sex fueled by love but more fueled by loneliness...
anyways, i thought it was very interesting that aomi clocks immediately that oosaki is using sexual violence to gain control/power and... “”consents”” to it. made me feel like this has happened to aomi before but that never came up lol (in reality it was just aomi’s total lack of self-love huh). it did make it very clear though that yes this is the first time we’ve seen oosaki so helpless and he IS someone who will succumb to violence quickly. i really liked how contradictory oosaki is in this route!!! he does that to aomi, he says he should die for it but never takes an action towards death. he says he wont attack people and will put his faith in the Truth and VERY quickly backs down from that. it’s very human of him. he really tries to build himself up as “the cool and collected guy who can handle things and think objectively” but he never can and that is at the forefront here. even shiodome calls him on it asking why he treats everyone else like criminals
the rape in hashihime was one i thought was ridiculous because i already knew just how terrible the character was, but i really liked how this iteration of this kind of abuse in ooe wasn’t like... giving sexual views to the player or particularly erotic descriptions. it was fully oosaki being frustrated and violent and then even more frustrated when he didnt get what he wanted from it. even though i think i wouldve enjoyed a little more of a hint towards oosaki’s attraction to aomi before he assaulted him i think it was a good method to show oosaki’s flaws. and it was a good way to reinforce oosaki’s own thoughts that he is inhuman and his desperation to not be that way
cannot believe this got an anime release i got to hear everyone SPEAK? i really enjoyed it as a "yuri's experience" vs "player's experience", "show" vs "game". some characters really did not get the focus they deserved but it was like that in the game too imo. they shouldve made jonas weirder, sha-ming more annoying... etc etc. i need to replay the game to solidify my feelings on the gnos/bug stuff they did. i really enjoyed being in japan while this was airing and getting to see merch stores stock gnosia i got a cute gnosia round1 raqio!!!
i love raqio. i really liked yuri too. it did start to fall off to me towards the end but i think the game simply has too much going on to perfectly become an anime adaption so idk i liked what it was!! i liked having this experience and am glad it doesnt replace the game either. yum. final verdict of Pretty Good
pretty fun i dont know anything about tron aside from kh2 but i could pick up on all of it. soraya was correct comparing the characters to the xenosaga cast. Basically all i have to say abt it. it was fun
loved the first like 10 hours of this game and then hated it. its so boring. rufus was hot though and roche was fun. get this 80gb fuckin game off my hard drive
it still surprises me that ppl are finding and enjoying(?) my karafami review from when i caught up that i wrote for myself. i reread my fic last night and had dreams that i had to spend 30 minutes unpacking.
ive read the ending its good. it satisfies me. i dont think i can interface with any fan of it unless the first words out of their mouth to me are "kyouji was sexually abused" like how can i not read that from the text in front of me. that doesnt make him a good guy we all want him to explode obviously. but my fondness for him is 100% because he is also a victim. genuinely cannot read this text as anything other than "abused man abuses another man while thinking what he is doing is slightly less bad than what was done to him because its not sex". the kyouji satomi trauma olympics. what a nightmare. what a healing journey. i sang kurenai at karaoke it was fun
i took a biiig break between getting off the island and the end of the route but i had fun with it. i think there was some silliness with everyone immediately believing the organizer was on the island but at the same time i can accept that from the point of view of "we are all freaking out and underfed and sleep deprived". i love shinbashi hes cute!!! i think the build up of their relationship was really good and the antagonism of characters in this route was great. Toyosu whats going ON bro. Takeshiba youre awesome.
i like shinagawa a lot i was happy to hang out with him... im very interested in seeing how the info we got from this builds in later routes. im going to be sad leaving shinbashi. oosaki and shinbashi were so freak4freak. grandma yuri was awesome. i miss shiodome.
