So in some discord servers, you've seen me specualte that Amane's uniform is inspired by the private Catholic Fukuoka Kaisei girl's school affiliated primary school (福岡海星女子学院附属小学校)
Now, because of the name, I assumed this was an all girls primary school
And that the picture above was of 4 girls and the school simply allowed children to wear either skirts or shorts (its uncommon for Japanese elementary schools to have uniform to begin with so I could see a laxer dress code when it comes to stuff like this)
However
After a bit more reading of their website
Turns out that the Fukuoka Kaisei girl's school affiliated primary school
Despite the name
Has in fact been a co-ed/mixed gender primary school for the last 50-so years
And while I can't find a dress code on their website
It does seem like all the students in pictures on their site who wear shorts are boys
Anyway to cut a long story short:
Amane's uniform actually resembles the boys one more than the girls (shorts instead of skirt + no ribbon + more central buttons)
And I know you like the trans girl Amane theory so I figured you'd enjoy this info
The only disclaimer I have to give is that the long haired child whose father tattles on Amane is in the same uniform (shorts and all)
So like if this is a girl then occam's razor is that girls at Amane's school just wear shorts (also it'd be strange for Amane's cult to follow gender rolls Except for hair?? idk maybe im overthinking)
TRANS AMANE BELIEVERS WE MIGHT STAY WINNING!!!! It would be weird if they did follow the entire dress code Except for the hair. Additionally those buttons are tripping me up since their Buttoned like the girls so this actually comes somewhere more in the middle of the Both of them...if it does turn out my insane "Amane perceives gender in the same way a cat does, it's just there" catthing Amane idea is real I'm going to explode.
Regarding the girl though...I can't believe I can unveil my insane Queer Infighting Amane idea- okay so in cults it's generally heavily encouraged to outright spy and tattle on people who misbehave:
(BITE)
Information Control:
Encourage spying on other members
a. Impose a buddy system to monitor and control member
b. Report deviant thoughts, feelings and actions to leadership
c. Ensure that individual behavior is monitored by group
I think, and this is pure speculation there's is very little supporting this I just like the idea. It be fun if they were BOTH trans.
My reasoning behind this is, first of all Amane doesn't seem to have many friends. Her T2 distorted voiceline has her say:
Father is a very praiseworthy person. Once his virtue increases, he'll come back home, right? It's a little lonely, but I'm fine!
Which, okay it's fair that her homelife is lonely, this doesn't necessarily inform her school life. But if we go to the Prison she's rather isolated overall.
Even in T1. Yuno and Mahiru are people she considers "close" but that's after mulling it over a bit due to being asked.
T1Q10: Is there any prisoner you're close with?
A: If I were to say,
I guess it would be Yuno and Mahiru.
It's not for a lack of Trying, she tries very hard actually. It's just that people tend to note the way she acts is weird and that gets exasperated in T2 where it's said she's pretty isolated.
But also, I was discussing with a mutual about her relation with this peer and they said that it's possible that this question:
T2Q11: Did you love the person you killed?
A: I loved them.
Is referring to a Second Victim (This child) and Not her mother because...well one Amane has shown Very Little Fondness for her mother, and two it's entirely possible she killed multiple people because her staff in Purge March has blood on it Before she gets to her house.
Second thing: Cat Symbolism, Cat Symbolism stay winning forever. There is substantial amount of subtext you can wring out of the Cat being representative of sin and impurity, and Amane taking care of it and also being the Cat. Same with having her be "found out" by a peer and then sold out to, to her Religious Fundamentalist parents.
So now we go into my insane, circumstantial evidence, idea of Queer Infighting. I love WKTD and a big thing in that game is that even if your a "bad kid" if there's someone "worse" than you, you can live another day. And this kid can be anyone, the devil can be Anyone.
Amane has stated an inability to be a good girl:
Only if, only if, only if I could be a good girl
And a lack of desire to exactly "be one" since it requires her not being...herself, and she's happy with who she is.
T2Q20: How do you feel about you not being like everyone else?
A: Nevertheless I was born as myself,
so I'm happy
So, I'm just saying on a purely speculatory "this would be fun" basis. If we got queer infighting 12 year olds who are trying their best to be "good." I would explode.
Also, she is paralleled with both Mukuhara Kazui and known Genderless Freak Es so, yknow.
What do you think of Monster Kid and his relation with Frisk?
Monster Kid is one of the only friends Frisk has that has never tried to beat them up or let them die, and Frisk appreciates that.
I’d even go so far as to say that MK is the only normal, uncomplicated friend that Frisk has. Everyone else is in some weird friend/family/colleague grey area.
They’re kindred spirits: they like to go on adventures, they’re really friendly to new people, they’re open minded. And they’re both about the same age, so they’re in all the same classes together at school. Basically, they’re best buddies.
While Frisk is a really chill kid that says what’s on their mind most of the time (”You’re my mom now”), they’re still worried about having fights with their new family members. Like, Frisk’s afraid of upsetting the others to the point that they don’t want to be their family anymore. It’s a looong time before they feel comfortable enough acting out and being a little bratty towards Toriel and the others. Can’t get angry, because you’re a good kid.
MK is, from the start, a person with which Frisk behaves like a kid *should* behave. They usually get along really great. They make each other string bracelets and play soccer together. They have to be seated apart from each other in class because they won’t stop giggling. They invite each other to their birthdays each year.
...But they also get into petty arguments and whine about each other sometimes. They stop talking to each other for a week. Sometimes they’re very mean. But they always make up and go back to being friends later on, off on a new adventure and getting into trouble. They’re the kind of friends that they make 80s movies about.
They hardly ever think about their relationship, it just is. They take each other for granted, just assuming that no matter what they’ll be friends, and that’s good to have. There’s nothing really all that remarkable about their relationship, but for Frisk it’s an anomaly.
this is something that came to me at 8 am after sleepless night and i thought im too insane to post this publicly but i can post it into your askbox
i was looking at this. and was hit with the realization that it's very unsettling that they're all looking at the viewer (especially considering that they're not in the most comfortable positions while doing so, and especially considering that they interacted with each other before it)
because it looks like a harem anime cover 😭
particularly about them interacting before it, it's a common trait among illustrations where girls interact in affectionate ways that are made with male gaze/targeted at male audience that the girls interact with each other but still look at the viewer instead of at each other (i couldn't find good examples, but it happens even when girls are straight up almost kissing and they still look at the viewer), this is a form of objectification of female characters
yunos look at each other in other frames where they interact, but in the frame where they're all gathered together and portrayed in full height they freeze in not the most comfortable poses and look at the viewer... also with the whole setting of the scene and yuno's themes... good bye
74n5n you have to know this is the exact sort of thinf that makes me go insane at this point. Anyway as someone who…let’s say watches too much trashy isekai specifically and never wants to touch harem with a seven foot pole- yeah I’m nodding along here.
Additionaly when it comes to harem each girl usuallt fufills a specific archetypical fantasy. Yknow, tsundere, childhood best friend, etc. Usually these can be divined through the character’s design, and we know each version of Yuno appeals to a different person. In a sense, she embodies archetypes that appeal to different people.
Interesting thing to note: Catgirl Yuno isn’t exempt from this. One because Catgirls ARE a harem archetype, and Two cause cold, agressive, standoffish characters who hate you IS an archetype that is literally what a tsundere is. So that’s fun I think.
i have been noticing too many characters with parent problems who have rain symbolism across different fandoms. in milgram its amane for obvious reasons and yuno the reasons being teardrop and this ↓
pupa said the rain symbolism is a metaphor for the character not having a shelter/becoming the shelter themselves
Ooo that’s a really interesting observation (And ha, rain, ha…ha….chapter 3….) especially coupled with how I’m like-90ish percent sure that the water in Milgram generally symbolizes some sort of extremely unhealthy and destructive love. Amane for…obvious reasons again but also Haruka with his imagery in AKAA, Muu with her honey, and Mahiru’s BF who is dripping with water.
Consindering how we can interpret the rain as “punishment” in Purge March specifically and the umbrella as her shield for it we have a lot of ways this can be taken which is fun...nodding along with Pupa for those metaphors yeah.
At first listen, it is hard to become anything but emotionally caught up in the beautifully intricate instrumental. Even without understand the lyrics, the song evokes a sense of isolation but also one of sorrowful longing. The gentle vocals cry out from a place of solitude, the piano illustrating a sense of urgency, and the strings weaving a tale of a silent struggle. It is no surprise, then, that the song plays during one of the most heart-wrenching scenes of the entire series. Looking into the English translation, it can not only relate to Twelve and Lisa’s relationship, but also to Nine’s altruistic relationship with humanity. As there is dualistic nature to almost every aspect of the series, this song is no different. Hope can take many forms and be held for countless reasons; this song, when analyzed from Nine and Twelve’s different perspective, sheds light on the two natures of hope: newly awakened and subtly, quietly deep.
(Winter, summer, converging)
Where things grow, there is hope,
all that heals has hope,
out of bonds of ice, she appears,
from a cold sky, inches herself forward,
the world seems set, everything is still,
everything is quiet, hope is sparked,
while everything advances, flows forward,
comes into existence, then there’s hope,
she illuminates everything there is,
everything there is and was and will be,
she falls into a sweet slumber,
(unintelligible)
Where things glow, there is hope,
all that heals has hope,
out of bonds of ice, she appears,
from a cold sky, inches herself forward,
the world seems set, everything is still,
everything is quiet, hope is sparked,
while everything advances, flows forward,
comes into existence, then there’s hope,
she melts everything there is,
everything there is and was and will be,
she falls into a deep slumber,
(unintelligible)
in lava becomes warm,
in lava becomes warm,
in a world becomes warm,
in lava becomes warm.
- - - - - -
From the onset of the series, we see in the first episode a rather indifferent Twelve. To him, the lives of others outside of his and Nine’s world are meaningless and trite. He remembers the names of his classmates as a result of his abnormal cognitive memorization abilities, but their lives and actions—the things that make them personable—are amusing past times to him. It’s understandable, after all, that in order to mentally survive in the Settlement he had no other choice than to emotionally distance himself from the other children so he would not feel anything when they died. That he would harden his heart so he wouldn’t break under the torture other humans were inflicting on him. That he would have to build a barrier up within his heart, to give up on his humanity and ability to empathy so he can live another day with some sort of sanity. He isn’t broody about it, but it is clear he has given up hope on humanity. On the contrary, his reaction is very real. Not all indifferent people are going to act cold and detached; they may seem normal and friendly, but you can’t quite pinpoint what is off about them. It is this kind of person that are in actuality more terrifying and dangerous. They can lure you into a false sense of security, only to pull a stunt like Twelve did when he told Lisa that he was going to kill her if she stepped out of line.
But then Twelve finds himself slowly wondering about Lisa and what she was doing, and goes so far as to even track her. You could argue that he did this initially to make sure she didn’t give Sphinx away, but something about his attitude changed. Twelve, who has been so used to interacting with others behind a figurative “wall”, becomes curious about Lisa’s life. When he first meets Lisa, he notices how her “aura” (her voice) is similar to those of the institution. This is ironic, for she is living the life as a normal member of society Twelve never was able to live, yet she was similar to him. If she was an orphan like Twelve, would she have been in the same situation as him? I think that is a question that had been plaguing Twelve in the initial episodes. Because of that, he probably started wondering what his life would have been. Since Lisa was apparently similar to those kids, including himself, he probably then started monitoring her actions as a way of “living through her” so to speak. A part of him deep down wanted to live a normal life, I’m sure. That is why the empathy, the thing Twelve had casted away so long ago, is “reawakened”. Lisa became Twelve’s hope.
Looking at the lyrics from Twelve’s perspective and considering what was probably going through his head at the time, it is safe to assume that his VON (“hope”) was Lisa, and the lyrics represent his “rebirth” through his interactions and growing feelings (platonic or romantic) for Lisa. This adds a new level to their relationship, and it is during this scene in HIGHS&LOWS the song plays that I believe Lisa realizes how important she is to Twelve, and how much she had evolved from an object of fascination to someone Twelve could truly care about.
“She illuminates everything there is, all that is, and was and will be until she lies in a deep sleep”: Twelve is not a selfless character, that much is made very clear in MY FAIR LADY. He is not like Nine, who wants to do everything he can to minimize the number of causalities. In DEUCE, Nine was concerned about evacuating the airport, but Twelve wanted to save Lisa even if that could result in failure and thus the deaths of thousands of people. After all, Twelve is only just starting to care about other people outside of Sphinx. He spent most of his life caring about himself, and then about Nine—he had to if he was going to survive. Caring about other people was only going to drive more stress into him. It is very well possible that if the trigger for the drug’s side effects was stress (as a result of worrying over others), then Twelve instinctively fought for survival and therefore detached himself from the world. Then Lisa came along, and suddenly he finds himself thinking for someone else, and she quickly becomes his number one priority whether it is out of guilt (for dragging her into this mess) or feelings for her. “All that heals has hope”. She heals his sealed bitterness, and becomes his hope for some sort of normalcy that he never was able to receive. To lose her, to lose that connection with his newly awakened hope and humanity—the very thing would completely crush him, and potentially kill him. I think this is also why Nine was so forgiving of Twelve’s betrayal; he may have wanted Twelve to find it somewhere within his heart to truly care for someone, and even though it completely pained him, he still had faith that Twelve could come to care for him other than as a partner in crime…and he did. The “deep sleep” part of the lyrics could refer to the ending. It tells of how Twelve knew that his actions could potentially get Lisa killed (“falling into a deep sleep”), which would ultimately become the end of him. It was all he can do to prevent that from happening, to prevent her light from going out. It is beyond selfish, but it is also a very human reaction; we don’t want to lose the people that mean so much to us, and so Twelve feels the same way towards Lisa. “She melts everything there is”: is reference to melting the cold, indifferent world Twelve had to thrust himself in. This can also be tied to how she became Twelve’s “sun” similarly in the way that she had once seen him at their first encounter.
“Out of bonds of ice, she appears”//”From a cold horizon, she inches herself forward”: this could refer to how Nine (who has “eyes of ice”) has been again and again doing everything he can to keep Lisa out of the plan and to keep her from being involved. However, there is only so much he can do before Lisa has to become involved due to the interference of Five. This also ties into the “she melts everything there is”, for she seems to rise above every struggle and challenge thrown at her, even if she stumbles and messes up along the way; after all, she has very real, very human reactions to these extraordinary circumstances.
“When all seems set, all is quiet, all is silent, hope is sparked”: After meeting Lisa for the first time, there is a small period of time where Twelve does not see Lisa and is back to being just with Nine and himself. It is in this silence, this time without her, that his interest is piqued, and something “sparks” within him, causing him to seek Lisa out. Originally, the plan was set in motion without Lisa’s involvement. At that time, there was no real opposition to the plan that was thoroughly thought out and ready to be executed either. Yet something in Twelve drew him to Lisa anyway, a move that could surely jeopardize the plan and cause turbulence. And for what reason? Hope.
- - -
On the flip side, we have a deeper, carefully nurtured hope of Nine. At first, this seems rather contradictory to his quiet, indifferent, and seemingly harsh attitude towards others. At first glance he doesn’t seem interested in anything besides his revenge, and certainly could care less about someone as insignificant to his plan as Lisa. Yet throughout the series we are shed a more and more light on Nine’s capacity for empathy. He makes sure that Lisa is to stay uninvolved as possible—at first that appears to be covering his tracks (and it still could very well be), but it isn’t until later that it could possibly be out of concern for his well-being. His revenge is between himself/Twelve and Dr. Mamiya/the Athena plan. He doesn’t want to get anyone else involved, nor have his actions result in any bloodshed. In all situations he will do everything he can to minimize the number of casualties and prevent death. If he was truly only caring about his revenge, the life of even one person would be insignificant to him. There would be no need to save anyone because they do not involve the plan. Not to mention like Twelve, he may have needed to detach himself someway, but could never fully do so. He is not as “strong” has Twelve, who is indifferent both inside and out and therefore can act happy and friendly and carefree simply because he truly doesn’t care. Nine still feels something inside, and therefore has to be careful to put on a cold front to mask his emotions inside. Despite it all, he still had hope in humanity. In fact, he had enough faith in that his message would be received and something will be done that he was willing to “leave everything” to Shibazaki, putting his full trust in him as a member of humanity, right before his death. That he was willing to give up the detonator, because I think both he and Shibazaki knew he couldn’t do it. He didn’t want to hurt the humanity. Because he still had hope despite “humanity” killing Twelve, the person he cared about the most. This shows the incredible inner strength of Nine and the intensity of the hope he had for humanity.
“In the dreams of the mountain halls”: From doing a little research, this connect to the idea of shugendo, the “path of training to achieve spiritual power”. The mountains are seen as the home of the dead, and people would journey to the mountains in hopes of gaining special abilities and long lives. However to accomplish this, one must have physical endurance. This highlights Nine’s stance and attitude throughout the series, for he endures the physical stress of his side effects and pushes through, utilizing his special abilities, in hopes of achieving Sphinx’s goal. The dead could refer to the death of the other children in the Settlement, for as he continues onward he continues to edge closer and closer to death. Yet he is willing to go there (aka die) so people will know the true story of the Athena plan.
You may be wondering “well, who is the ‘she’ to Nine then? Is it Lisa?” Yes and no. While I believe Lisa could be connected to Nine in this side as well, I believe “she” also refers to humanity in a personified way, and at times it could even refer to Five. The moments where “she lies in deep sleep in the dreams of the mountain halls”, “she melts everything there is…until she lies in a deep sleep”, “in lava becomes warm” could allude to Five’s explosive death. Five kisses Nine, and right before her death he suddenly seems to realize something. Whether it be something a little more than rivalry/nemeses, that she is also just as a victim as him of the Athena plan, or something else entirely, he understands something. However I do believe for most of the song, if not almost all, relates to humanity in a personified sense, for Nine’s most significant relationship is not with a single person, but to the human entity as a whole. “She illuminates everything there is, all that is, and was and will be until she lies in a deep sleep” could refer to how his motivation and goal have been clear to him, and to him that is all that matters until his goal is finally completed. The “deep sleep” part could refer to Japan’s/Tokyo’s cut off from the world, when all the electricity/lights shut off and therefor Japan goes into a “deep sleep in the mountain halls”. With technology cut off, there is no other choice than to look at Sphinx’s true message about the deaths of the children and the Athena plan, hence realizing all of this when they reach “the mountain halls”/the truth about the deaths. “While everything advances, floes forward, comes into existence, then there’s hope”: this further supports how the plan is driven by and motivates Nine’s hope for humanity to successfully take his message. Finally “when all things glow”, could refer to the explosion light of the bombs, illuminating the path for Nine’s hope.
- - - - - -
This is a very emotional piece of music, and that much more impactful when considering the messages Nine and Twelve are individually and together trying to convey. This is the message of Nine and Twelve, of Sphinx, of two boys who had their childhood taken away from them. Who found hope in two different ways, for two different meanings, for two different purposes. A pair, who are as different as summer and winter, come together. While this is once again just pure speculation, regardless of the meaning this piece is beautiful and moving; this song certainly highlights the major themes and struggles of Nine and Twelve, and one could argue best represents the series as a whole.
- - -
credits to dagroon for translated lyrics here
- - -
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If you don't mind writing more about btvs...I'm curious to know which seasons/characters/plotlines of Buffy you liked the most (feel free to address all or none of that).
I will always like writing more about BTVS. I love writing analysis and commentary on Orphan Black, don't get me wrong, but long before Sarah Manning came into my life there was Buffy Summers and there will always be Buffy Summers.
As for season, characters, plotlines...this really is just a lot of personal preference, fair warning.
First of all, ranking the seasons for me:
s3
s7
s6
s4
s5
s2
s1
Now, as for characters I absolutely looooved Faith and the way her storyline was handled not only through season 3 of BTVS, but also continuing into ATS. She was a textbook foil to Buffy's character and allowed Whedon to dig a darker side out of Buffy that we hadn't seen as strongly in s1 and s2. By introducing Faith he brought morality into play and that ever present question of how somebody could've turned out so differently based on circumstance. (One of my favourite themes in Orphan Black for that matter) That whole "I could've ended up like Faith" mentality helped to characterize Buffy in season 3 and push her forward to be even stronger and overcome that.
I also loved that Faith existed as a side character who was brought back in every now and then to further Buffy's character development and to foil her as needed. The body-switching episode is actually one of my favourites, because it really helped to define both of their characters and also make me dislike Riley even more. (Ugh, Riley) That episode managed to take something as light and fluffy as body-switching and pull some darker themes and messages out of it about self-worth and identity and the support of people around oneself. Extra good stuff.
I also, as many people did, loved the portrayal of Willow and Tara's relationship. I think that Whedon handled that incredibly well (save for the ending), especially in a time where LGBTQ relationships weren't widely portrayed in popular culture. People often criticize certain aspects of that relationship's arc, but I think that people also need to step back and think about how revolutionary it's mere existence was. How revolutionary that quick first on-screen kiss in THe Body was. Or how revolutionary the not-so-subtle aspects Under Your Spell in OMWF were for tv. Like, it's not explicitly said, but you know that Willow is going down on Tara. That kind of stuff helped to shape the future of LGBTQ relationships on tv and how they are written and portrayed accurately. BTVS was a trailblazer in that sense.
Also on and episodic basis, The Body overall was brilliant and revolutionary. That episode set the standard for realistic grief portrayal, and it also served to demonstrate how a big-arc based show like Buffy could sustain a single contained episode like The Body. That episode did little to further the overarching plot, yet somehow it didn't feel out of place. I call that masterful writing and plotting right there. I think that episode more than a lot of others served to really bring home the metaphors Whedon developed about fighting monsters being like fighting real life issues. The hardest thing Buffy ever had to deal with was the death of her mother -- something completely unrelated to being a slayer. It was raw, it was real, it was painful, and again, it was soooooo real. The first time I watched it I felt so uncomfortable watching it and it too a few rewatches to realize why. I felt uncomfortable because it was so intimate -- I felt like as a viewer I was invading on these characters' right to grieve.
Brilliant, just brilliant.
I could talk for hours about what I love about BTVS, but yeah, that's a quick summary of some key points. Overall, the fact that episodes like The Body, and Once More With Feeling, and Hush, and Doppelgangland all are able to cohesively exist within the same show is remarkable and sign of how truly iconic BTVS was and that is just so important.
