#shinkuro

[littlemisspinky]

doodle of haine otomiya from arina tanemura's manga "the gentlemen's alliance cross," ive been reading it lately and really enjoying it, i love tanemura-sensei's art so much

[sotiredmostnights]

Tawain/Japan Loot, Round 4 (FINAL): Arina Tanemura

One of my luckiest finds while overseas was this beautiful collection of Arina Tanemura doujinshi, alongside the full set of Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne keychains (gacha prizes)! 💖💖💖

Arina Tanemura is one of my favorite artists of all time. Her works were so emblematic of the shoujo manga scene in the 1990s and early 2000s. She was my top inspiration when it came to my own art! 🥰🥰🥰

From what I gather, these are official doujinshi published under her penname, meguroteikoku! In true shoujo fashion, the insides are printed with colored ink:

(unfortunately I won't be showing the contents, as they're a bit less SFW than I was expecting LMAO)

Between me and my sister, we were both able to get the full set of KKJ Gacha keychains! 🥰🥰🥰

[phantomthiefjeanne]

Hot Meta Take: For all its flaws, you can’t deny that The Gentlemen’s Alliance Cross/Shinshi Doumei Cross is really well-plotted and -paced.

The 1st chapter is WEIRD. You’re immediately thrown into this high school setting that’s so out there it’s practically otherworldly; they make the hierarchies in Hana Yori Dango seem tame and realistic. The main character randomly yells ‘you should fall in love with me!’ to the male lead before these few introductory pages are even over, and though her feelings have been pretty clear thus far, it’s a pretty high emotional jumping point to start a 12 volume romance at. How did we get here, for the little details that we’re given about her and Shizumasa’s history to mean so much to her? The immediate answers that we’re given in these first chapters seem shallow at best and nonsensical at worse amidst all of Haine’s screentone-heavy monologuing over her immediate, fluttery feeeeelings rather than the rationales justifying them.

But then!!!

But then, more complex answers are drawn out, and these answers always come at a strategically impactful time. A point that still stays with me after all this time is Haine later explaining that her out of the blue confession in that first chapter was spurned out of a ‘wager’ she’d made with herself: if she found ‘Shizumasa’ in the hanging gardens after all, as the closest match around to the magical garden he’d written about as a child, it meant that he was still the boy whose writing she fell in love with way back when. Her desperate-seeming confession morphs into the second line of a reciprocal couplet, the answer to the riddle Takanari had inadvertently sent out to the world when he’d mentioned the Garden (as if he was waiting there for this response, like a princess in a tower), so that her boldness no longer comes off as one-sided as it originally did. Obviously, it was never one-sided on actual-Shizumasa’s part, since he did explicitly tell her to come find him after all. But now we have Takanari, being returned feelings that he didn’t realize he’d had in the first place.

(And I can write a whole book on how, while Haine is presented as the Cinderella of the story, we see here that it’s actually Takanari who’s put on a disguise to charm a prince(ss) before the clock strikes midnight. The picture book and the garden are his glass slippers, letting Haine trace her feelings back to him, so that she can see past the evil stepbrother twin, Shizumasa, trying to step into Takanari’s shoes. Through the picture book, and the garden wager, she’s able to find the right one after all; it just took a few extra years of searching after the ball.)

Through elaborations like this one, or the “Can I fall in love with you?” flashback to Shizumasa we get elsewhere too, Haine’s cutesy confession becomes deeper, and less of a throwaway line, strengthening Haine as a character. Before, you really think she’s just silly/impulsive enough to blurt out her feelings like this, which might be true, but this ‘wager’ really is complex and matches the high EQ Haine herself explicitly states she has. It’s also a huge sucker punch to Takanari at just the right time: for him to realize it was truly HIM, the boy who wrote the storybook, Haine was confessing to all along.

“You should fall in love with me,” Haine said in that first chapter, but it’s only as him AND us readers reflect back on this way later in volume 3 that we actually do fall in love with her: her feelings and even her general personality actually run deeper than this line would initially suggest. A lesser series would have revealed its hand too early and bogged this first chapter down by including Haine’s way convoluted reasoning for this wager, or ultimately explained her original train of thought at a less resonant point in the story.

Withholding information and dramatic flashbacks aren’t necessarily rare occurrences in shoujo or the Asian dramas SDC shares so many of its tropes with a lot of the times these devices are used for evil rather than good, but I think it IS a rare treat to see such an affecting and satisfying payoff, like we do here. No line goes to waste over here at SDC; everything is essential, no matter how ridiculous it all is, and unlike, say, Sakura Hime, it actually pays off later.

[starspatter]

Let's start with the terrible kuroshin--

…Why.

when I started shipping it if I did: So to start with I don’t actually strongly ship anyone in Kagepro (ShinAyaki being the sole exception now), and any Kuro ships especially make me uncomfortable. x.X However, I can enjoy them for sheer crack/aesthetic purposes.

my thoughts: Pls keep Kuroha away from all members of the MekaDan kthx.

What makes me happy about them: Nothing only tears and despair. OTL

What makes me sad about them: Realistically speaking, it’s pretty tragic considering Shintaro’s “bromance” with Konoha. ;( I’d still like to see an expansion of that scene in LTM where Konoha seems to fight through the possession in order to turn the gun on himself, and Shintaro tries to stop him by taking the bullet instead. 3

things done in fanfic that annoys me: Tbh I’ve never actually read any Kagefic, let alone KuroShin - so I have no idea what kind of content exists for the latter (nor do I think I want to know >>; ).  

things I look for in fanfic: See above.

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: Shintaro with Ayanoki.  Kuroha (or rather Clearing Eyes/Saeru) can go die alone in a ditch for all I care. =3=

My happily ever after for them: See above.

who is the big spoon/little spoon: More like “big snake/little snake” amirite? ;P *shot* (Man I want to see a mental showdown bw Saeru and Ayaki in their snake forms now hrngh *flails*)

what is their favorite non-sexual activity: …I mean, for Kuroha it’s probably killing Shin over and over again. =’D Does that count?  (Although now I imagine him being like Hisoka from Hunter x Hunter who actually does derive sexual pleasure from murder…)

[sotiredmostnights]

thinking about how in most of arina tanemura's works there is always a girl madly in love with the female lead character 🤔🤔

[nightingaleflow]

Btw my new OTP is Shino/Kankuro.

It’s what I deserve.

[yugioh-cards-hourly]

[dirty-brainrot]

I ended the pucci angst

It’s small but I think they’re neat 👁👁

👀 Very neat