Well no shade at any Gopher fans but not really positive so dont read further if you dont wanna be sad😂
To me Gopher kind of is one of the reasons for my controverial oppinion of the anime being better than the manga:
The most simple and least pretentious way of describing my thoughts and reasons is - I find him unfunny and obnoxious, while also feeling that he is a pointless charachter with wasted potential at the same time.
But to get more into detail...
When did he get introduced (if I remember correctly?): During that whole mini-arc about Maka wanting "to be an angel".
I have many problems with that part of the story, especially with how it turns Maka into some generic "tsundre kawaii girl who not so secretly likes the guy who she is bitchy too"
But I wont get too much into that, just the fact that I get the point - Gopher gets introduced as foil to her in that arc, to kinda give her a reality check of how unlikeable and childish she is acting.
But the point is, that even with the most charitable interpretation of the arc, Gopher IS just by his nature a charachter tailor-made (literally) to be obnoxious and annoying.
And unlike Excalibur, I find the way in which he is just groan-worthy and not charming and soothing (Yeah Excalibur is great, shout out to the OG)
But ok, maybe thats just bad impresions, does he improve later? Not really cause his whole gag stays this kinda creepy quasi incestious obssesion with Noah and idk, dont even wanna write about that part too much lol
But even if one just looks at it as a charachter trait with possible development, it leads nowhere, Gopher being static besides his final gag (which I admit is funny but also a bit ehh with the whole implication of what hes gonna do with 7 naked unconcious bodies...)
Still, one could say why am I'm expecting something out of a gag charachter? Just dont overthink it - maybe I wouldnt if Ohkubo didnt kinda setup a situation where it seemed there could be more to him, only to be just wasted panel time in the end:
What I mean is, the whole setup of him torturing and integoriating Kid - which seemed to be a perfect opportunity for charachter development for both of them - because they actually have some simmilarities:
Both are "created" and "reverant" to their Father-figure, both have unhealthy obssessions and both start throwing childish tantrums when things dont go their way. (also surface details like both seemingly being anime pretty boys appeiling to a specific demographic, with the dark hair and proper dress-code etc)
Yet all that didnt lead to anything - neither Gopher realised that his "master" is horrible compared to the other side, nor did it make Kid reflect about his own obssessions and how obnoxious and ridicolous he must look to others.
Neither was there anything about being sorta non human, "created" not born - but thats excusable cause that was revealed after the fact in Kids case.
Hell, still there could be even some strengthening of both sides negative traits, the tragedy of communication being impossible, but all lead just to an ok gag of Kids face being made unsymmetrical.
But also on a tangent, the whole "black wings" thing also just seems to be derivative - especially when the much stronger parallel of "angel vs demon" with black and white wings was between Maka and Crona, so yeah I think the whole obnoxious Maka and Gopher thing kinda deluded that meaning, but thats more of a pet peeve.
Still, to leave of not with just bitching, but an interesting thought, or atleast kinda funny in a stupid way (enough that I will prolly use it as filler in my iceberg videos):
So Gopher is a creation of Noah. But Noah is just one of seven other creations. Who are made by the Index, which is just a manifestation of a part of the Book of Eibon, which was written by the Wizard of the same name.
During my "research" for the iceberg, I did read all of Fire Force and thought quite a lot about it - a lot of the thoughts connect to Soul Eater, so I leave them for the Iceberg - but this specifically is such a weird thing I noticed, that I had to write it down - guess spoilers for both One Piece and Fire Force
Before we really start, I wanna make clear this won't be one of these 2009 "wow this generic story is like this generic story images"
But some comparisions that are simmilar to that will be needed (while keeping in mind that they may be common tropes and or cultural ideas, picked up through osmosis - which may even count into the more "plausible" explanation in the end)
So anyways, the whole premise of Fireforce at the start is "hero kid who everybody sees as a devil and can't stop smiling" - and one can ofcourse make the whole "Pirates with Devil fruit that smile comparison"
You may ask why I chose those images to represent that - because they tie in with my next point - because at the beginning of both stories the smiles had quite different meaning - Shinra's anxiety forcing his face to contort seems kinda different to the whole "Will of D, facing ones death with a smile because you lived your fullest life and know that your will is gonna be carried on"
So what changed to make it not such a stretch - well this pun is what changed - the change from stretching gum, to stretching being a metaphor for imagination freeing reality, making one free - AKA the Gum gum fruit to Joy Boy retcon - aka, Luffy basically being a quasi reincarnation of a messiah figure, like somebody else...
One could say "well, Luffy rejects being called a hero" - but that still leaves the "unlikely person is the messiah" thing by instead of the one who looks like the devil being it, it's the one who doesn't care about it and wouldn't mind being called a devil.
But anyways, one could say, who cares, the "shonen hero becomes a japanese Jesus" thing is very common (one could write a whole essay on that) so what's the point, gonna pull in Naruto too? (enen thought there are some connections for Soul Eater with that, but I'll leave it for the iceberg)
The answer is the thing I mentioned about imagination - Fire Force basically ends with Shinra using imagination to recreat a quasi perfect world free of the vows of the current world (which was cartoonified already) - and what does Luffys new power do?
Turning everything more goofy and cartoony... Emphasis on more, because One Piece allways was cartoony... (We get more into what that could mean later) I would put some pictures, but its literally to common to point out, so I better leave some space for more relevant shit.
So both storys focus on the freeing aspect of using one's imagination anad dealing with death (i.e. the Will of D is realising in a way the imagined future to motivate the present to overcome the past) ((Maybe it literally means Will of Death instead of Dawn, Devil or Downloading pirated things is actually good))
One could say that is an coincidence too, but why then all the Sun God Symbolism? The sun as a symbol of hope, like the laughing sun of Soul Eater in contrast with the Mad Moon cackling in despair... And trust me, One Piece has enough of it's own Moon symbolism
So here we are - the era of the Moon as being the time of Madness and Oppresion, in both Fire Force and One Piece - yet the Sun is both despair and hope, destruction and creation - because that's what Shinra uses to get his stupid power scaler bait (like literally people on youtube see the ending and think "is he stronger than Goku", man if storys for 10 year olds are too complicated for you...) creation powers (his name literally meaning "Of All Creation") that let him in a blink destroy and recreat the world - while Luffy is also prophecied to destroy atleast an island, and probably the current "world" of artificial borders (probably creating the All Blue and shit but that doesn't matter at the moment)
But if still not convinved, lets talk about the other stuff that started matching up with Fire Force - a new super villian above all of the others that many think is a woman, while shrouded in shadow - is this the Evangelist or IMU? Devil fruits being revealed to be the dreams becoming real, like Adola being the collective unconsious, dreams and hopes. The Goverment is around something called "the mother flame" which is said to be both an amazing powersource and a nuke-like weapon - just as Ametarasu looks like a literal nuclear powerplant while also being a weapon that could explode and cause the literal cataclysm.
Also the whole point of an outsider force goverment ruling the world - especially with the early fire force hints of them being literal aliens, while there are alien hints in one piece too (and the real world metaphor of outsiders rulling your country, as many Japanese people may feel after losing WW2, but that is probably a controversial topic, even if certain weirdly nationalistic details in Fire Force make one have a double take...)
Anyways, there are too many circumstantial references to name and in the end one can just go "well they are just common tropes and cliche's" But if they are - that's kinda interesting in its own way - as outsiders, we look at these weird comics as if we get them, but if all these things are common enough to not be anything special, how clueless are we? Is so much interesting japanese discourse and thought lost to us? Maybe even some of the people considered "shizos" by the fanbase are actually on to something?
But so we have basically two possibilietes - either it is a very common idea in current japanese media (maybe influenced by Jungian stuff, or things like Devilman ((never read it)) or Berserk ((listened to some summary of it for 20 hours while drawing lol)) - or Ohkubo specifically picked up on all the hints, forshadowings etc and went "yeah I'm gonna do the same" - either because he got tired of waiting for the end of One Piece or because he wanted passive agressivly one up Oda maybe lol (he did say that he doesnt want his stuff go on forever like One Piece, so maybe its to show how to do it a lot quicker?)
Anyways, in the end its not really a theory one can falsify, and not even one that may be "literally" true - but just realising the connections, even if they just exist do to a common culture and "canon" of works, maybe even works not read by either author but absorbed by osmosis, seem to lead one to a deeper understanding for why certain choices are made.
And oh about the "more cartoony" world hint - well if fire foce was once the real world, and the bible exist in One Piece if really countries dont, what if that isn't the void century - the time when the world was like ours, or closer to it - basically all the sciefi stuff and metaphysical bullshit could lead to that - with the One Piece treasure being the literall One Piece manga (an old joke theory I had on some long banned throaway account, but people seem to keep now mention more and more...) - basically the guide of salvation, the power of imagination leading one beyond the fear of death and despair - maybe even why Ohkubo did the Soul Eater connection - he couldnt just copy One Piece one for one, so instead of the solution being the story itself, he went back to his own older story to get the same effect. But maybe thats too deranged even for my standards.
Anyways, I probably forgot a lot of stuff that would make it more convinving, like the out of nowhere "Flame Emperor Sabo" thing, and that the first candidate of the Messiah had a fire power with Sun themed attacks etc or that Luffys mom is unknown or that Ace was supposed to be killed in a simmilar way King Herod wanted to kill Jesus etc. Maybe this all just seems inchoherent, but Idk I had to dump it somewhere, maybe someone can work with this info and pull out something better, but if this all just feels like a waste of time:
So a few days ago I watched a movie that someone picked from some list (red flag in retrospect lol) and it was just bad, in a empty, boring, sacharine and formulaic way.
But, I tried to look at the positive of such experience:
I thought "Hehe, now I feel better about my own story, because atleast it cant be worse than this!"
Or if it is, atleast I didnt have a hundred million budget and whole theme of writters and producers that should have known better.
It gave me confidence in doing work, cause either I am good enough or others are too stupid to see what is real quality so why care?
Well, thats what I wanted to think.
In reallity doubts started to enter - is the glib condescension I feel about the surface level morals and platitudes, the unconvincing conversions and "changings of worlds", the contrivances and cliches and reheated feel-goodisms valid?
Is it just a way to avoid my own realisation of how my own writting sucks, how it revolves around wish fulfillment, easy solutions and a sophomoric childish view of the world? Am I just exchanging mass apeal for personal theraphy and self affirmation - both as self obssessed as the other, as twins that laugh at each other crooked nose?
In a way it even went deeper than that - was any non-cynical thought as braindead as this movie, or worse, because the movie atleast used it for cheap gain and fame for the author and actors all the same, while I'm too clueless to even play the game?
I would say - I don't know... But nah I do, and yeah I do now better - I atleast now that the movie sucks, that my stuff atleast sucks in a way that is more interesting, as someone who eats a chuppa chupps stick-in first.
And in a way the blade cuts this doubt too - arogance is needed otherwise one just sinks into this shitty sacharine "well maybe you are just as bad" - I rather be worse, not lukewarm like this shit that gets spat out and put on netflix (also why you should allways pirate)
Maybe this is the true porpuse of negativity, of the ranting youtuber who cant even light his own set better than 12 year old lego stop motion animators?
Cause politness is not the full story - iron sharpe s iron - a platitude as true as some even in that shitty movie where - so one needs the doubt as they need the dick, even if this sounds gross, maybe thats why people truely like dysfunctional couples?
So I may be making a soap opera - but even a self parodying telenovella full of jumpcuts and betrayals is more memorable than whatever a soulless movie is, so don't let yourself be soul eaten.
I'm sure all this has been discussed to death by people far smarter than I, but here I go anyway.
I'm kind of sad that i,Robot was so meh, because all the themes present in Asimov's work could be very interesting. In general I'm a little sad that I doubt to see his work explored much on screen in the future.
Here's -one reason- why.
There's this idea present in Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. The idea is cyclical history, how patterns arise throughout history and will continue to arise. The question if is those patterns could be studied enough to predict the next step is deeply explored at one point. Which is very interesting to me. Not for some hockey weird thing, but because history is important and interesting. Even now we see parallels to the past, even less apparent ones like... how Americans have elected questionable people as president due to their “hero” or at least famous status. For instance, Ulysses S. Grant is often considered one of the less good Presidents -to put it nicely- but still hailed as a military genius whose election was influenced by his role in the Civil War. There’s the trend of “why do people revolt?”. Usually framed as “they want bread”, but often a much more complex things related not just to lack of necessities but also general poor leadership. Not even good, just weak and ineffectual. The French Revolution happened not just because people were kinda hungry, but King Louis the [fucking whatever teen number he was] was not a good king. I’ve seen it argued that he had less schooling than Elizabeth I, specifically in leading, and she was NEVER supposed to be the monarch. That’s not even bringing up the possible factors of new political ideas emerging as history went on.
Getting a bit less specific here. There is also economics and change, often people do not like when their economy tanks and things start to change -specifically the issue with increased automation over, forever. They freak out, the cling to anything, often tradition OR some new shiny idea. Hoping that clung to thing will make it better? Anyway, cycles are interesting and Asimov explored some cool stuff even if it was kinda long ago.
Sitting here in Tolliver Hall, the main place where people come to study or hang out on my college campus, is interesting in the fact that I hear many things from people sitting around me. As a result I tend to think more on the human psyche, what people think, and how they act around others. This is by no means a professional observation or even an amateurish one as I don't claim myself to be knowledgeable in that. War history, however, is a completely different story.
The human mindset at Louisiana Tech where I go to school is an interesting thing. People are usually huddled together in groups or in the rare case studying bent over books and laptops. Even then, however, people come up and soon they're chatting. That's normal on a campus, I'm sure, but it's almost amazing how...alike everyone looks. Granted that I came from a high school of eclectic individuals so this should be a culture shock for me.
It's not, really. I went to an elementary school and a middle school where uniforms were to be worn and as such the kids there had about as much fashion sense and flair as a duck that dipped its tail feathers in mud and covered itself in twigs. There just wasn't any there because you really couldn't do much with stuffy uniforms. That was why as a kid I was used to booming personalities, people with loud voices to cover my quiet one but in the end I still had friends who let me feel genuine happiness.
Over here, at Tech, there are loud personalities sure but at some point everyone blends in together. Where I could pick out most people I knew in a big school and even some who made names for themselves here it's hard to tell. The clique mindset is enormous here at Tech and it's part of the college experience that I wanted so much. Girls were skimpy shorts and tight tees bearing their sorority, boys wear jeans and a shirt that hugs their pecs. It's a frat school, I can tell, but I can't help but love what I'm seeing.
Wishy washy, yes, but in this mass horde of people I realize that these giant cliques are challenging me to find the louder personalities in them. As such I love hearing people talk--about what they've done, when they're going to do what, who did what last week. Sure it makes me an eavesdropper but it's also fun to hear the personalities.
I got lucky enough to where I was able to befriend those of different personalities, from the quiet to the loud, here and it has honestly made me a better person for it. I can see and hear things that before when I was still a freshman in high school would have been impossible for me to find out.
Now at this point I'm blabbing on but continuing on what I've seen at Tech I can't also help but be curious about how the people think here. Why do these girls wear short shorts and a jacket when the weather is close to 40 degrees Fahrenheit. I don't think I'd find it appealing to be freezing my legs off just to look...good? And why must boys feel the need to wear shirts that define every single muscle in their chest? It's...quite disgusting but then again I can't say much. Even I can attest to being victim to fashion "why's", especially when I walk around in a jacket and scarf for the hell of it.
I guess it's the college mindset of, "Why not?" What's that, it's ninety degrees and you ask me why I'm wearing a turtle neck? Why not? Oh, it's almost time to go and you're wondering why I'm wearing heels to a football game? Well, why not?
It's an interesting view and the more I think on it the more it makes sense. Now, I know my view isn't the correct one but hey, I think it's interesting to observe. I may post something else like this later or I'll just post more robots or a war story or two. Now, I must go eat.
Smoke signals from synthetic sisters leave me entirely unamused and unwilling to save their ships. Friends have fumbled and faked their ways from under uncomfortably chewed nails on fingertips for no other reason then an excuse to spend nights outside of ovarian vulnerability.
It's not that I don't care for (tend to, curse at) the woes of those girls I had grown with...it's that I feel like just as poor of a listener, a probability that monumentally pisses me off.
We weave and stumble through the lives of adolescent anchors, but why do we still feel forced to falsify their self-fufilled misfortune?
I see a light behind the all-knowing eyes of a select few souls my own has been blessed to love and know. My shoulder will "forever and almost always" be a dam for their tears to crash into. Yet, for most of this family untied by blood (and only strung together with liquified memories of park benches and aged inside jokes)...
...I feel nearly nothing.
The tragic truth is that I once thrived off of the melo-dramedy of my platonic relationships: sincerely feeding off lighthearted quips paired with you deserve more as they spilled shallow sorrow on my unfazed flannel. It was a comforting, immature medley of LIFE THREATENING (sigh) boy problems and my laughed off emotional disorders.
But now, calls must go ignored and I chose to be laughed at over unwittingly with. These little girls posses what appears to be moral attention deficiency, and the fluorescent spotlights they conjure from stale beer berating empty stomachs simply makes my Jameson taste all the sweeter now that I am not the one directing their exits to stage suburbia.
