#naritaverse

[incendiary-boytoy]

i love how durarara started like "this is a fucked up story" and at the end it's like "wow wasn't that fucked up?" and you have to agree, that was fucked up. meanwhile baccano starts like "holy shit there are so fucking many characters in this" and you know what? there were so fucking many characters there. they never lie to you and i appreciate that

[ella390-the-potato]

I'm not dead, instead I draw art for dead fandoms.

Here's my sketch of Luck Gandor from Baccano, which I don't think I'll ever finish.

[neokamui414]

You!!!! Yes, you!

Are you a fan of Glitch Productions and it's independent animations?

Did you thoroughly enjoy The Gaslight District pilot?!?

Do you shiver with antici.....................................................................................pation at the thought of having to wait until a new episode is created and released?!?!

Would you like some possible recommendations of media that has subjectively similar vibes to various elements found in the pilot, so as to maybe take the edge off of this otherwise unbearable wait?!?!?

Well then look no further!!!!!!!

Because I'm the kind of benevolent dictator that uses their autistic pattern recognition for mostly benevolent ends, I am here to help alleviate the burden of wanting more of something that's only just been released!

So anyways without further ado, and with absolutely no order here is a brief list of some pieces of media that might interest you if you enjoyed the vibes that Gaslight District teased us with!

Do you like incredibly gross animation and post-apocalyptic settings with rust and rot in equal measures? Then might I recommend, this masterpiece of stop motion horror:

Phil Tippett's Mad God!!! Phil is one of the absolute GOATs of stop motion and this film is a passion project that was decades in the making! I had the incredible pleasure to see this on the big screen in theaters but it's still available to see on Shutter. Because it's a highly symbolic, emotional, and surrealist piece of art it's difficult to give any sort of plot summary and the film is ultimately more about the visuals and what they make you, the audience feel. Definitely don't watch this while drunk or stoned and please look up potential content / trigger warnings because there is a lot of very disturbing imagery, very very gross imagery although that element is something that's going to be shared with basically everything else on this list so I won't bring it up too many times, just do your due diligence as a media consumer.

Now Mad God is an example of stop motion animation but what if you were looking for something similarly post-apocalyptic but of a 3D animation style, the way Gaslight District is? Well then my recommendation is :

9! This 2005 science fiction horror / adventure post-apocalyptic film is based on an earlier animated short film and stars a cast of very interesting animated burlap dolls in an incredibly atmospheric story about the horrors of war and over industrialization, legacy and memory, and what it means to be given a life and what to do with it. Much like The Nightmare Before Christmas some people erroneously believe that Tim Burton directed this film but in fact he only helped produce it, and so it does have similar Gothic vibes to some of his work, but I definitely think it really stands out among other early 2000s Gothic animated films. Definitely not anywhere near as comedic as Gaslight but I'm recommending it for similar themes and elements of Resurrection, steampunk / diesel punk adjacent aesthetics, glowing neon green magic stuff going on, and the fact that it's 3D animated post-apocalyptism.

Now say you really enjoy the very specific combination of body horror and crass oftentimes vulgar humor, and let's say you also enjoy video games. If that's the case I think you should check out these two highly underrated PlayStation portable gems:

Dead Head Fred is a horror comedy action adventure with noir/police investigation elements and some really interesting and funny gameplay gimmicks that revolve around the titular characters headlessness! Endearingly charming undead characters is something both DHF and GD have in common. And the kind of messed up afterlife full of interesting but weird and physically deformed characters also brings to mind the Death Jr series of video games. That one is a little more child friendly especially the later games in this short lived series but not by much it's still far more geared towards the adult humor sensibilities that you find in The Gaslight District. These games are probably going to be very difficult to find physical copies of and obviously if you don't have a PlayStation portable and or a Wii then it will be even more inaccessible. But emulation is always an option and there are several fun let's plays on YouTube for both of these games so definitely recommend you check them out they are I think extremely underrated and overly obscure and wish that both had bigger fandoms here on this website.

Now say for the sake of argument you want more of the horror comedy vibes and the body horror but you're looking for more of a live action piece of media? Than look no further than one of the most iconic series of splatter films ever created:

This horror comedy spoof of superheroes is the definition of a classic and has a lot of cheesy and fun spin-off material as well. Ridiculous practical effects that are often so bad that you can't help but respect them anyways. Very over the top and the visuals for the characters make them seem like they would fit right in with our Rotlings. And with an upcoming reboot film here in the very near future it's a wonderful time to get into this franchise!

Okay okay, say you're not looking specifically for something that has the exact same level of Gore and body horror but has Gothic industrial aesthetics and dark cynical humor? And say you are looking to maybe check out some of the things that might have possibly influence the people who grew up to work in independent animation? I think a very good candidate to fulfill either of those appetites is :

The incomparable masterpieces of early 2000s weirdness that is the work of Jhonen Vasquez! Sure I imagine a very large portion of this website grew up watching Invader Zim but fewer people have enjoyed the particular grimy delights of Johnny The Homicidal Maniac. Invader Zim is one of those shows where it's never a bad time to have a rewatch, it's aged so well in my opinion. I also think that it's one of the greatest pieces of art satirizing American culture in the early 2000s and I don't think enough people acknowledge that fact. Seriously! Rewatch the show, really think about what it's saying, what it's showing, and then try and put that in the context of the Bush administration. It's a deeply deeply cynical and resentful piece of art that through its own weird playfulness and willingness to experiment comes across as very funny and amusing, and never overtly edgelordy.

All right, now this admittedly is going to be a more niche element of the Gaslight District's appeal. That being said however, do you like the noir elements that were apparent in the pilot? Do you find it interesting that our central characters are mobsters who cannot die and are wondering if there's any piece of fiction out there with a similar concept? There is! And it's called:

Baccano! A light novel and anime adaptation from author Ryohgo Narita, the story revolves around the lives and actions of Alchemists who have successfully created an elixir of immortality and the Mobsters who by chance of fate getting mixed up in their plots and shenanigans! Although not nearly as gruesome as some of the other entries on this recommendation list since the plot revolves around various immortals of different types with various limits to how much bodily harm they can endure, there are moments of pretty hyper violence, especially so in the visual format of the anime adaptation that you should be aware of. But those violent moments are often in the service of pretty fun fight scenes and overall the story revolves around the agendas of it's very colorful cast of characters and their various motivations. Narita's biggest strength as an author has always been his character writing and this series is no different. But yeah animated unkillable monsters is the main crossover appeal so that's why I'm listing it here.

And hey since I mentioned him earlier and there's also a lot of noisy animated birds flying around and eccentric dead people in it I might as well also recommend:

Simultaneously one of his most overlyhyped and most misunderstood/under appreciated pieces of work, this stop motion movie, and unfortunately uncredited adaptation of a Gothic Jewish folk story, directed by by Tim Burton is still to this day such a delightful little gem of cinematic puppetry. The various animated dead people in the afterlife and the multiple unique gimmicks of their decayed forms is sure to delight anyone who enjoys a man who's face is melted off or who has a butcher's knife constantly poking out of their skull, like we see in Gaslight. And like I said screeching creepy birds, although in this case it's crows rather than vultures but both are equally morbid and worthy of appreciation from a Gothic sensibility in my humble opinion.

All right that wraps up this little recommendation list for now, hopefully one or more of these pieces of fiction has caught your eye and helps you temporarily fill the Daddy Ken the Butcher shaped hole in your heart.

Feel free to reblog and or comment with further recommendations. And please feel free to ask me if I have any other pieces of media that I really like that I want to make similar lists for, because I already have so many ideas, and comparison is one of my favorite forms of media analysis since I believe that almost all art is constantly in a dialogue with every other piece of art that came before it!

[drrr-emporium]

What to do if Durarara over

I'm going to assume you've finished the anime and have not gone into anything else Naritaverse wise

So! You can read the novels. Since they're officially licensed by yen press, you can buy the soft cover books or get them as an ebook / kindle from barnes and noble or amazon. I don't really endorse this but I'm sure if you do enough digging around you can find old, still available, free translations like anni_fiesta who did a lot of translating back in the day. Here's the link to their Index of Translation. I still use it since it's the only place I know that has the white day story translated and it's one of my favorites (For Kadota Related reasons haha), plus a couple of other side stories.

(I think the internet archives have the novels if you do some poking around but for Narita Please Write SH 5 reasons, I'll ask you to dig those up lmao)

Speaking of Side stories, Kazinha-726 translated a bunch of drrr side stories But since they haven't updated in a while, you need to change the links from kaedesan721 to their new URL kazinha-726. I'll directly link what you need here

Izaya Spin Off Translations I don't think these are officially licensed for translation so it's fine for me to link. This is the story of Izaya now that he's been forced out of Ikebukuro, and there's two books as of writing this.

Durarara Gaidens It's some gaidens, but It's also a handful of translated convos from 3 way stand of alley relay, the links use that kaedesan721 link, so while I won't be fixing all those links for you, I can at least link the tag for all of them here. you can probably find audio for this game on youtube, though I'm not sure anyone's like.... fully translated? perhaps? Which ALSO reminds me of the relay manga

Durarara Epitome of Eighteen Histories Written along side the release of season 2, we've got some stories involving Kazane Kinomiya, who's the half sister of Shinra, and a reporter. They have all 18 listed there nicely EXCEPT the Erika and Walker Link is a little messed up, and if you search through the posts you can get to it but anyway here's the link to that story specifically

DRRR x Hakata Tonkatsu Ramens Actually I haven't seen HTR or read it so I can't really tell you about this one but if you're into that series--

There's ALSO MiniDura which are little gag comics of the durarara cast in chibis! there should be 4 books as of me writing this. Godspeed on finding translations they seem to be around.... but this post is long and I'm scared of losing it so I'll update later on how many chapters there are so you don't miss any, though I'm seeing up to 10 in my cursory search.

Shizuo, Izaya, and Celty are also in uh.... Dengeki Bunko's fighting Climax, which you might be able to find some stuff on on youtube. but since it's Dengeki Bunko you also have other series... I can only remember A Certain Magical Index / A Certain Scientific Railgun / the other titles in this series as being part of it whoops.

So you've done all that, what do you do next?

Well Narita has other series, like Baccano! which had an anime before DRRR did, which is 16 episodes. Since Funimation lost the license back in like... 2012 it's not officially uh licensed for viewing anywhere, so uh. wink wink. message me if you need more help here.

There's ALSO the novels which... there are so many more than there are for drrr, also available to purchase, though these are hardcovers! Last time I checked they had.... around 20 translated? Since I'm more drrr side I'd have to ask about fan translations and if I can still find them around. But again I don't really condone it since we want more written you know?

Narita also has a couple other series, but the one that's my favorite besides DRRR is Etsusa Bridge (It's pronounced Essa Bridge don't make the same mistake I did. )

And i NEED more people to read that one please please please please

Unfortunately, the person who did the fan translation closed their Blogspot to the public so uh. the first 4 books, and really what is the main story, is available on the internet archive here

Though I'm saying thank you to baka-tsuki for my life by having a page of links here, which includes the 5th book, 5656 part two (NARITA..... I NEED 5656 PART 2 PLEASE...... PLEASE)

and Vamp on the internet archive here and baka-tsuki here

I also know about Hariyama-san but i don't actually know... if anyone translated that one..... Narita has also written for Bleach and Fate Strange/ Fake if you're into those. Straight up just linking this wiki page in case you have any interest in other stuff he's written

And finally! Currently, Dead Mount Death Play (often shortened to DMDP) is a manga written (or co written?) by Narita! which is currently getting an anime and all of his attention.

All that being said I've been really into Trigun lately lmao

Anyone else feel free to add on or tell me what I may be missing

[coralsweep]

sometimes i think about a theoretical baccano season 2... the vol 5 and the 1934 arcs especially...

[yupuffin]

It's been several years since I did anything with my Firo cosplay, and I did recently discover that my bedroom is suitable for (rudimentary) dance videos. Combine that with a catchy song I've heard maybe three times in total, and... well, you get this! Enjoy, Baccano! fam 😁

There was totally a smudge on my phone camera while I recorded this but yknowwhat, it's fine, it fits the aesthetic 🤣

🎵natori - Overdose

[kasururigoth]

one thing is not knowing how to explain the plot of durarara. but you cannot pay me to sit down and explain the plot of baccano

[animehouse-moe]

Fate/Strange Fake: Whispers of Dawn - The Abridged Rundown

I'll be real, it's an hour long special, there's a lot to get through in regards to it. I'm going to keep things short, and try and condense my thoughts as much as possible which means I'll be skimming over character (and story) related stuff quite a bit. So here's the gist of it: the US is making a fake Holy Grail War without the Mage Association in hopes of it becoming a real one, and we're thrown into the chaos that is fake and real servants colliding in a story that began as a joke on a website in 2009. Yeah, it was originally a joke, turned light novel, turned manga, and now turned anime, so I really recommend reading up on Strange Fake a little bit and as much tertiary Fate information as you can if you want to grasp it, because that's not the goal of this post.

What is the goal though is explaining my thoughts on this hour long special episode, and what it spells for the series going forward (and maybe just a little story and character stuff, who knows).

I'll get it out of the way right off the bat. The production quality? All over the place. In quite a few moments I was left wondering if characters like Faldeus were off model or if it was a creative decision, and there's plenty of examples of downright questionable animation and decisions. I'm rather disappointed in A-1's output considering the addition of a delay. Was the delay to accommodate a single episode special turning into a full series? Or was it just trying to buy time for the more rough pieces displayed in this episode? It's hard to say, but my prior statements still stand. With the help of a few examples, that is.

Anyways, how about some cool stuff? If there's one thing that Strange Fake has going for it, it's style. Weird, right? Production isn't quite there, but the style really is. One of the more bold and interesting examples of Strange Fake's style is through its camera rotations. Sometimes it leads to super odd and rough cuts like the above, other times it creates really striking and inventive scenes like the following. It adds a very nice feel to the content that it appears in, and draws out that sense of drama and suspense quite well. Also, I love that since it's in America they just couldn't help but feature guns and military.

Of course, rotation isn't the only thing that comprises the visual style of Strange Fake. If you were to draft the number 2 spot for most used approach, it would certainly have to be the aggressive camera angles. Not as flashy as the camera rotation or movement itself, but it still plays into that almost melodramatic feel that this story displays for viewers, steeping itself in grandeur and showmanship.

Now, I will say that it misses the beat on its showmanship nearly as much as it nails it, as layouts aren't the only important thing in selling viewers a story. Right alongside it is character acting, and quite often it's relegated to just sort of vibrating pngs on screen that will interact with one another. For comedic effect I think it has a time and place, but I don't think it needs to be used as much as it is early on in this episode. Thankfully though, the good pieces of character acting are really good. Just take a look at Fake Caster here (even though it's just a hand). It captures their personality, their feel, the emotions of their voice (which you can't hear) incredibly well. Though I'll also say that the camera work adds a large amount of feel as well. Just an all around impressively well

Hmm, so where to next? I think, a fun thing to chat about would be the nature of servants, which ironically, plays a really big role in the pairings and purposes of characters throughout this story. I won't go on spoiling things (though I really don't have any information that is spoilers, unless this is your first fate series). Anyways, lets get it started with the coolest and newest servant: Enkidu.

Enkidu is Gilgamesh's counterpart, and the anime makes sure you understand that. Gil is summoned in the middle of a desert, into the hand of a young girl who completely surrenders herself to Gil. Enkidu on the other hand appears in a forest, summoned by a wolf Chimera. The symbolism of the tree of life that appears as lightning is no joke in poor taste, no sir. Enkidu is the blood-brother of Gilgamesh, a warrior who fought side-by-side the king of legend. The parallels are endless between this infamous pair. The disparity between control and freedom, ruling and harmonizing, so on and so forth ad infinitum. This pair was made for one another, and the anime does a great job of conveying that.

Next on the list of incredibly curious has to be our new Berserker and their master, Flat Escardos. I love this idea so, so much. Two peas in a pod these characters are. Unrestricted, unforgiving, and unlimited. The pair are two sides of the same coin with Jack The Ripper comprising the dark of the pair, while Flat the light. It's a really great dynamic, and the character play off each other incredibly well for comic relief and surprisingly dark comments. It's also with Berserker that we get treated to the first of our trio of title cards (though neither of the other two give names). That is, image stills that represent who our servants are, what their story is. Really, really great stuff.

Next up we've got our Assassin, who tells a very simple story alongside the poorly done slam poetry provided by their master. Not a lot to comment on, but I enjoy how not-so-subtle they are with Assassin's background as a religious woman before her fall from grace. Very befitting story, for sure.

Now, the last and certainly not least is our 'wild card' servant and master combination. This one's really something else (I'll share more afterward), but their concept is 'Pestilence'. You might call them a horseman of the apocalypse, the Pale Rider, the Black Plague, whatever name you might fancy. But what they are remains fact: disease. It's really interesting when paired alongside the youthful and innocent Tsubaki, especially as her father takes on the rot/curse of Pale Rider rather than his daughter. Neither like Berserker nor Assassin, Pale Rider is more symbiotic with Tsubaki. A curse, certainly, but one that also cares for and understands Tsubaki, contradicting their very existence as Pale Rider. It's a really curious character that puts even Enkidu and Gilgamesh on alert, so I'm incredibly interested to see what they get up to in this story.

And that's where our information in regards to servants and masters ends. Of course, I've still got a bit more to go so bear with me for just this little bit more.

Strange Fake's style really is something else, as I've said before, but I think one of the more important pieces to it is how fluid it remains. There's all sorts of crazy interesting ideas, from the title cards I've just shown, to the insane impact frames, the dazzling approach to lighting, or even the art style itself. Hell, they use CGI with Pale Rider and it works perfectly to convey that disturbing feel they exude.

Now, this one's separate just because I wanted to chat about it a little. Francesca here's a little drama queen. You already know from her appearance and disposition that she likes to show off, but it extends far past that. Much further past into truly commendable territory all for the sake of showing off. She knows of her short stature, but wishes to impose upon Reeve in this scene, so what does she do? Make a show of trouncing all over his desk. Kicking his lamp over only after performing a perfectly executed stunt to show that she didn't need to kick the lamp over, positioning herself above him so that the shadow she casts is far greater than that of Reeve's, and (effectively) stomping on his police hat to squash his sense of justice underfoot. It's an incredible setup all for Francesca to toy with Reeve in this scene, and I absolutely love it.

Okay okay, last piece. The super cool Gil and Enkidu impact frames. Love that their color schemes are opposite as well. Very very well done, though I wish their fight itself had a bit more impact to it.

And there it is, the end of this Strange Fake special episode. Would I say I'm completely satisfied? Not really, no. There's a lot of production weirdness and concern that I have with a large amount of material through the episode. The story itself is outstanding though, and is presented impressively well. It's just that the animation and some of the creative decisions in regards to that animation is subpar and in poor taste. Strange Fake: Whispers of Dawn is held back from greatness by a single chain, strained at each link, almost begging to be let loose. We didn't get the perfect beginning that A-1 might have hoped for, but I think it's one that plenty of viewers will be enthralled by nonetheless.