may media wrap-up
May. 26th, 2021 09:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhodochrositei actually consumed non-tennis media this month so i thought i might as well do a review post!!
animanga
excellent month for onepicking charismatic leaders of cultlike elite murder cliques who are an arch rival and big boss villain for the protag! terrible month for people dying when they are killed. contains spoilers for vrains, shinteni and gintama if anyone is concerned about that
yugioh vrains
i was missing my favourite media franchise of all time so i thought why not give vrains another shot even tho i dropped it 4 years ago when it was airing because it was so ugly and obviously plagued with budget issues ๐ญ but after i forced myself to keep pushing past that it actually became really REALLY good basically from the moment ryoken's civiliansona got revealed. vrains is all about how memory is love, which is my favourite theme in fiction ever, and ryoken is also the most beautiful yugioh character in all of yugioh's history so the visual pain of most of s1 was worth it to see him. also he's one of the best yugioh characters ever just in general in my opinion. i cried so much through s2 and s3 i had headaches for like a week
vrains is very much like reverse arc v in that it starts off kinda lacklustre and rapidly improves after s1 rather than having an excellent s1 and abruptly nosediving into Worst Anime Ever Created, and also having multiple female characters who 1) are instrumental to the main plot 2) have complete subplots of their own 3) have actual character arcs that weren't abandoned halfway when konami remembered they hate women. i guess it is very lucky that aoi's trickstars were so meta irl because konami loves money even more than they hate women so she got more and more important as the show went on <3 i don't even have any complaints about the truncated length of s3 (kon 'executive meddling' ami back at it again) because i felt like it was more a coda to s2 than a true 3rd season anyway, it functioned in the same way as crash town arc in 5ds and it was really beautifully executed imo, obv it was quite tightly focused on ai and yusaku in the same way crash town was just about kiryu and yusei but i feel like all the main players' character arcs were still done justice. though i would have liked to see more zexal-style daily school life filler ;__; just to ease the dehydration i was experiencing from sobbing my eyes out every ep
yugioh protag x yugioh rival is an eternally appealing formula to me and has been since i was a kid watching the eng dub on tv and i truly believe yusaku/ryoken is one of the best iterations of it... in the interests of not making this post 349875398579348 words long i will refrain from elaborating and just link to <this post> where i already did that. also here's another ship chart for the main human cast i drew up in ms paint because i love charts:
my 3pick of the month: 1) ryoken 2) aoi 3) yusaku
my agenda 3pick of the month: 1) yusaku/ryoken 2) ai/yusaku 3) ai/ryoken
shinteni
this month's shinteni chapters were mostly tanegashima-focused since kirihara passed out from exhaustion last month which i don't mind too much because tanegashima is my highschooler 3pick and kirihara recovered in time to swoop in and save the day anyway <3 that's our beloved second-year ace!! tanegashima also revealed his new bullshit superpower which extends his nullifcation abilities to like cancelling out his literal existence, a bit like a physical manifestation of oshitari's bella swan style psychic shielding superpower. classic konomi whatever. anyway we popping the biggest bottles when kirihara successfully kills those tenimuho bastards for yukimura-buchou and takes on yukimura's legacy to win where yukimura could not, armed with everything that yukimura has passed down to him :) whenever the fuck this match ends in december probably
my 3pick of the month: 1) yukimura 2) an 3) kirihara
my agenda 3pick of the month: [0) yukimura/kirihara] 1) sanada/yukimura 2) yukimura/kirihara 3) yukimura/niou/marui
gintama
i saw <this banmata art> a few days ago and was like Aww those elite murder clique henchman hets were pretty good hey and then while i was nostalgically checking the gintama wiki i found out that bansai fuckinggg **** so i was like god what the fuck happened in the 5 years since i last caught up on gintama? and decided to speedrun reread/catchup over the weekend. AND I WAS THE ONE WHO DIED... joui 4 still hits like nothing else T__T and my beloved kiheitai ot3 T____T somehow a manga that is 70% jokes and parodies and is literally titled after a dick joke covers the vast majority of my ship manifesto??
seriously takasugi is p much a singlehanded ash_ship_type bingo like gee takasugi how come you got
my agenda 3pick of the month: 1) takasugi/katsura 2) gintoki/takasugi 3) bansai/takasugi/matako
yugioh zexal
animanga
excellent month for onepicking charismatic leaders of cultlike elite murder cliques who are an arch rival and big boss villain for the protag! terrible month for people dying when they are killed. contains spoilers for vrains, shinteni and gintama if anyone is concerned about that
yugioh vrains
i was missing my favourite media franchise of all time so i thought why not give vrains another shot even tho i dropped it 4 years ago when it was airing because it was so ugly and obviously plagued with budget issues ๐ญ but after i forced myself to keep pushing past that it actually became really REALLY good basically from the moment ryoken's civiliansona got revealed. vrains is all about how memory is love, which is my favourite theme in fiction ever, and ryoken is also the most beautiful yugioh character in all of yugioh's history so the visual pain of most of s1 was worth it to see him. also he's one of the best yugioh characters ever just in general in my opinion. i cried so much through s2 and s3 i had headaches for like a week
vrains is very much like reverse arc v in that it starts off kinda lacklustre and rapidly improves after s1 rather than having an excellent s1 and abruptly nosediving into Worst Anime Ever Created, and also having multiple female characters who 1) are instrumental to the main plot 2) have complete subplots of their own 3) have actual character arcs that weren't abandoned halfway when konami remembered they hate women. i guess it is very lucky that aoi's trickstars were so meta irl because konami loves money even more than they hate women so she got more and more important as the show went on <3 i don't even have any complaints about the truncated length of s3 (kon 'executive meddling' ami back at it again) because i felt like it was more a coda to s2 than a true 3rd season anyway, it functioned in the same way as crash town arc in 5ds and it was really beautifully executed imo, obv it was quite tightly focused on ai and yusaku in the same way crash town was just about kiryu and yusei but i feel like all the main players' character arcs were still done justice. though i would have liked to see more zexal-style daily school life filler ;__; just to ease the dehydration i was experiencing from sobbing my eyes out every ep
yugioh protag x yugioh rival is an eternally appealing formula to me and has been since i was a kid watching the eng dub on tv and i truly believe yusaku/ryoken is one of the best iterations of it... in the interests of not making this post 349875398579348 words long i will refrain from elaborating and just link to <this post> where i already did that. also here's another ship chart for the main human cast i drew up in ms paint because i love charts:
my 3pick of the month: 1) ryoken 2) aoi 3) yusaku
my agenda 3pick of the month: 1) yusaku/ryoken 2) ai/yusaku 3) ai/ryoken
shinteni
this month's shinteni chapters were mostly tanegashima-focused since kirihara passed out from exhaustion last month which i don't mind too much because tanegashima is my highschooler 3pick and kirihara recovered in time to swoop in and save the day anyway <3 that's our beloved second-year ace!! tanegashima also revealed his new bullshit superpower which extends his nullifcation abilities to like cancelling out his literal existence, a bit like a physical manifestation of oshitari's bella swan style psychic shielding superpower. classic konomi whatever. anyway we popping the biggest bottles when kirihara successfully kills those tenimuho bastards for yukimura-buchou and takes on yukimura's legacy to win where yukimura could not, armed with everything that yukimura has passed down to him :) whenever the fuck this match ends in december probably
my 3pick of the month: 1) yukimura 2) an 3) kirihara
my agenda 3pick of the month: [0) yukimura/kirihara] 1) sanada/yukimura 2) yukimura/kirihara 3) yukimura/niou/marui
gintama
i saw <this banmata art> a few days ago and was like Aww those elite murder clique henchman hets were pretty good hey and then while i was nostalgically checking the gintama wiki i found out that bansai fuckinggg **** so i was like god what the fuck happened in the 5 years since i last caught up on gintama? and decided to speedrun reread/catchup over the weekend. AND I WAS THE ONE WHO DIED... joui 4 still hits like nothing else T__T and my beloved kiheitai ot3 T____T somehow a manga that is 70% jokes and parodies and is literally titled after a dick joke covers the vast majority of my ship manifesto??
seriously takasugi is p much a singlehanded ash_ship_type bingo like gee takasugi how come you got
- childhood friend who always took care of you to teen battle comrade to enemy. but even after you went off the rails and started trying to kill everyone he still wanted to believe the best of you right up until he could no longer deny you had become an enemy, and despite everything you still call him by the same affectionate nickname you've used for him all your lives
- perhaps surprisingly this one is my series otp... there's just something about the delicacy the cultivated distance the bittersweet and unforgotten firstloveisms the irrepressible longing the nostalgia for a place and time you will never be able to return to the unequal reciprocation the Love Is Not Enough of it all
- takasugi is the leader of the kiheitai but katsura was HIS leader first
- childhood friendly rival to teen battle comrade (still rivals) to arch nemesis And You Were Narrative Parallels and you never forgave him for killing the person you loved most in the world (your mutual mentor) in order to save you even though what you really hated all along was yourself for being unable to save your mentor. and his face was the last thing you saw with your left eye before it was destroyed and also the last thing you saw with your right eye before you DIED IN HIS ARMS
- elite murder cult including two extremely devoted henchmen who love you and would and did follow you until their/your death
- super violent rival turned ally who sometimes helps you sometimes tries to murder you sometimes both at the same time
- teen battle comrade to enemy to reluctant ally except he's super happy to see you again and be working with you again, you're the only one feeling ideological animosity
- (not romantically shippy to me, but) extreme mentor complex to the point of deciding to destroy the universe for continuing to exist after he died... and then the mentor became your ENEMY plus bonus possession plot point where the mentor forcibly took over your body and in order to save the world you had to let your nemesis kill you to kill him... WITH YOUR OWN SWORD
my agenda 3pick of the month: 1) takasugi/katsura 2) gintoki/takasugi 3) bansai/takasugi/matako
yugioh zexal
noura watching zexal reminded me that i started a rewatch last month so i've picked that up again... beautiful cute zexal character designs that soothe my ails. i've only watched a couple eps since i left off at the end of the wdc so i'm at the very beginning of zexal ii rn and the pace is still pretty gentle but i'm soooo happy to see my beloved barians again, gary i love nichijou filler ๐ญ๐ญ kind of scared to keep going because i know it's all terror and anguish from here on
my 3pick of the month: 1) droite 2) kaito 3) v
my agenda 3pick of the month: 1) v/kaito 2) kaito/droite 3) astral/yuma
books / fic / poetry
my ass is not reading anything except jpn doujinshi on twitter and pixiv. though i did idly reread a few old fave fics lol:
tenirabi
another month another perfect event completion record, i just spend my commutes to and from uni grinding and it's enough to tier so i'm very happy with this system
writing
meta
my 3pick of the month: 1) droite 2) kaito 3) v
my agenda 3pick of the month: 1) v/kaito 2) kaito/droite 3) astral/yuma
books / fic / poetry
my ass is not reading anything except jpn doujinshi on twitter and pixiv. though i did idly reread a few old fave fics lol:
- [kuroko no basuke, kise-centric gen] anticyclone - readerofasaph
Most of the time he thought the distance between real and fake was easily enough explained, although impossible to breach; it was simply that Midorima had spent uncounted years like this, aiming in the dark, day in and day out, and Kise had not. On other occasions he thought the dissimilarity was less concrete and more profound. Midorima believed in fate, whereas Kise did not, and this made an unquantifiable but incontrovertible difference in the way the ball rose in the air from their fingers.
everything i know about knb comes from this fic but this is literally still the definitive postcanon sportsani fic to meee
- [haikyuu, tsukishima/kageyama tsukishima->sugawara] close your mouth and open up your heart - abeillle
When Kageyama walks onto the pool deck at midnight, Tsukishima could almost call it romantic. Half of Kageyama’s face is illuminated by the ceiling light and the rest of him is a shadow. In the dark, you almost can’t tell that he’s Kageyama. In the dark, he could be anybody.
this is still my fave hq fic ever despite featuring a trope i usually don't care for and also containing none of my main agendas or fave charas, the haterism and unrequited feelings >>>
- [yugioh arc v, dennis/ruri] That Which Persists - Reishiin
Two weeks later on a rainy Wednesday after lunch he goes to room 302 where an audience has already gathered. Drops his backpack on the floor and sets up on the large folding table. Tosses six dice in the air and smiles. "It's showti—"
Ruri is standing in the doorway.
"It's showtime," he says, more quietly. The dice clatter to the table. He looks down at them, and at his shaking hands. Then he picks the dice up and keeps going.
Ruri is standing in the doorway.
"It's showtime," he says, more quietly. The dice clatter to the table. He looks down at them, and at his shaking hands. Then he picks the dice up and keeps going.
replaced the a5 canon ending with this in my heart <3
- [yugioh zexal, kaito/shark] a wasteland where should lie paradise - Reishiin
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m probably even the one who gave it to you and it just never came up until this time. You were with me and Gauche all the time and you always seemed fine, so we thought—maybe you were immune.”
Then, more quietly, “It always seemed like there was no room in your heart for anything like that.”
Kaito asks, “How did you live?”
“It's actually rare that the illness progresses to the final stage. My feelings just were not strong enough."
Kaito looks at her and thinks: that's not true.
Then, more quietly, “It always seemed like there was no room in your heart for anything like that.”
Kaito asks, “How did you live?”
“It's actually rare that the illness progresses to the final stage. My feelings just were not strong enough."
Kaito looks at her and thinks: that's not true.
i don't like hanahaki aus but i LOVE this one it's a really interesting subversion and also my v/kaito and kaito/droite sacred text despite not actually being about either of those ships
music
tennis
obligatory link to <tennis charasong primer> (& <yt playlist>). songs currently on rotation + fave lyric:
tennis
obligatory link to <tennis charasong primer> (& <yt playlist>). songs currently on rotation + fave lyric:
- yukimura seiichi - ushiro ni mo me wo
- even with the last sign of the truth / who could know? my eyes look back, too
- fuji shusuke & hirakoba rin - colour
- my white wish disappears into the sky / without coming true, but / the transparent wind of blue summer / blows through my chest even now
- kai yujiro - renaissance earth
- we gotta do it better, hurry hurry hurry / we're gonna send a message to the future
- shiraishi kuranosuke - no muda life [this is a terrible song but horribly catchy]
- KILL KILL KILL USELESS THING
- oshitari yuushi & oshitari kenya - dna ~nishi e higashi e~
- undeniable unremovable future // we inherited the same thing, we don't want to lose
yugioh
here is my <yugioh op favespost> and <spotify playlist of my fave yugioh ops/eds>. songs currently on rotation + fave lyric:
here is my <yugioh op favespost> and <spotify playlist of my fave yugioh ops/eds>. songs currently on rotation + fave lyric:
- kimeru - overlap [literally at the point where i believe this is the greatest anime op ever created]
- the faithful heart pierces through the darkness / searching for the place where its soul sleeps
- kimeru - calling
- by meeting you, the world is in colour
- kimeru - go forward
- those of us who have life aren't eternal // i want to feel the same pain you feel
- daizystripper - setsubou no freesia
- i can't grasp victory without suffering / but i want to blossom // if i admitted my losses, would i be happier?
- uchuu - boy
- stay as the you within yourself
kpop
kind of got massively distracted by yugioh music so i have yet to indoctrinate myself into hot sauce but i'll get there lol
kind of got massively distracted by yugioh music so i have yet to indoctrinate myself into hot sauce but i'll get there lol
- nct dream - hot sauce
- ...
- oh my girl - dun dun dance
- just you and i float into the sky with the earth on our back
- wjsn the black - easy
- i'm not the type to just sit there and wait
tenirabi
another month another perfect event completion record, i just spend my commutes to and from uni grinding and it's enough to tier so i'm very happy with this system
- the racing event at the start of the month had an alright tracklist though i was perplexed by the decision to exclude sengoku entirely in favour of giving momo two songs, friendly openhearted guys are NOT interchangeable... mildly depressed that i never managed to pull <racing sengoku ssr>
- ranked up in this month's first court shuffle into court 10 ^_^ my goal is to stay in court 10 in the second shuffle i definitely don't want to rank down again. aiming to enter the single digit courts in the next couple months, ็งใไธใซ่กใใ๏ผ
- hyotei event tracklist truly flop as hell other than get out the way / dream maker / copy complete / hellhound, howling. also mildly depressed over not pulling <oshitari> or <gakuto>. EXTREMELY saddened about the seigaku event revival gacha, i want the <tezuka pillar propaganda ssr> so so so so bad T___T i pulled for it to no avail last year during the actual event and idk how much i'm willing to risk to try and get it this time, i pulled oishi with my daily free and i feel like that's used up all my luck for that gacha and i didn't even want him <//3
- shiraishi - empty sky is the last <25star song i have left to fc and every single time i drop one (1) note in a different place i hate the beatmap so much i can't actually play it more than twice in a row which severely impacts my fc'ing abilities ~__~
- ๆฌกใฎใคใๆฅฝใใฟ๐
writing
meta
- i have so many unhinged yugioh posts i want to make!! mainly working on a discussion of the haptics and proxemics in v/kaito vs kaito/droite in zexal ep 50 since that's the nexus of my zexal interests, and i vaguely want to say something about yusei's martyr complex wrt kiryu and wrt aki, but i think i have a lot more to say about vrains i just need to figure out WHAT
- i also have a 2882 duets lyric tinhat analysis and my extremely overdue kirian ship manifesto in the works... coming along very slowly
- nico brought up the idea of writing a post about my fave types of ensemble dynamics as a supplement to my ship dynamics post so i will be meditating on that as well...
fic
- rt myself "my wip roster rn > what if nct was tennis? > what if tennis was yugioh? > what if tennis was yugioh (x2)? > what if tennis was yugioh (x3)? > yugioh" like god what is it 2017 again?? once again i have so much yugioh on my plate. but i might as well take the opportunity to halfassedly wippost a bit from each of the fics in question
what if nct was tennis? [dream tenipuri au, jaemin/renjun it's real that we gonna go to nationals]
what if tennis was yugioh? [tenipuri arc v au, atobe & yukimura interdimensional diplomacy]
what if tennis was yugioh (x2)? [tenipuri arc v au, kirihara & niou infiltrate seigaku]
what if tennis was yugioh (x3)? [tenipuri x vrains crossover, zaizen hikaru & zaizen aoi cousins agenda]
yugioh [vrains, yusaku/ryoken postcanon]
what if tennis was yugioh? [tenipuri arc v au, atobe & yukimura interdimensional diplomacy]
what if tennis was yugioh (x2)? [tenipuri arc v au, kirihara & niou infiltrate seigaku]
what if tennis was yugioh (x3)? [tenipuri x vrains crossover, zaizen hikaru & zaizen aoi cousins agenda]
yugioh [vrains, yusaku/ryoken postcanon]
fuck them tenimuho bastards
Date: 2021-05-26 12:46 am (UTC)yeah
what is it about yukimura losing? he has never lost any match in his life it was probably a hallucination.
i really should get back to shinteni... each sentence about konomi tennis logic makes me feel more alive inside. idc about oshitari but maybe if he's going to develop psychic powers i should... i think i've just read too many fics where he's a romantic pervert... a perverted romantic... ? something. also an is back? an appears in shinteni? finally some good news. she is the one and only.
yukimura/niou/marui is soo enlightened... don't we just love shoving our colourful manic pixie tennis boys together
the music recs... you are singlehandedly fueling my motivation to finally explore the tenipuri songverse
;-;-;-; and then jaemren... ahhhh renhyuck as d1... jaemin as yanagi??? i love when people write the switch. it's endlessly fascinating and full of potential for shippy things as it is with jaemin recognizing renjun however he goes!!! we are going to nationals!!!
i am also in love with anything vaguely concerning atobe and shishido's captain/reluctant soldier bond so yes. and atobe vs sanayuki diplomacy shenanigans... more things to love
the niou akaya snippet has me solidly confused because i did not think yugioh was like this before i read your wrap up. isn't it like pokemon? no apparently not. i knew they turned dying into sent into the shadow realm~ but i guess i just thought the card games were intense and illegal... idk good luck to rikkai though
i kind of want to get into yugioh now. in 2021.
Re: fuck them tenimuho bastards
Date: 2021-05-26 02:26 am (UTC)I LOVE NCT TENNIS lmao the music is seriously soooo good and there is so much of it... i hope u find some more enjoyable tennis songs!!
and thank you ^__^ yess jaemins role in this fic is like what if atobe was yanagi. im honestly kinda tinhatting renhyuck in my own fic i love bodyswap doubles it really is free shippy dynamics everywhere... plus a bit of light nahyuck tension rly this is a 3pickshipping fic lol
LMAOOO the yugioh spinoff that the nioukiri is an au of is literally about like interdimensional war and genocide via the mechanic of card games as weapons of mass destruction... i dont know much about pokemon and what kind of plot points come up in there but yugioh really is pretty dark for a kids show that is a thinly veiled toy marketing campaign. its good tho... TO ME... my favourite media franchise of all time :') if you do decide to get into yugioh i am more than happy to help u navigate the various spinoffs!!!
omg late reply :'(
Date: 2021-06-06 11:47 am (UTC)yessssss i am getting there... give me another month of careful exposure and i will get my annoying brain to accept the good news... on the other hand what nct songs are tennis songs
jaemin... atobe as yanagi...? OH MY GOSH? icb you are doing this whoa. whoa. let me sit down. i'm already sitting down but i need to sit down even more. omfg 3pick shipping is BEAUTIFUL and VALID the renminhyuck complications are mindblowing. they deserve exploration. i've also never tinhatted as obsessively over anything as much as i have nahyuck so there's that
uh... i am scared to figure out how that nioukiri scene fits into war and genocide now. i'm not that familiar with pokemon lore myself but at least it's not like... military... yugioh is so funny maybe the real profit was the sprawling narrative we weaved along the way... give me a long minute to process that there is genocide somewhere in this card game story and then we can continue
Re: omg late reply :'(
Date: 2021-06-09 11:34 am (UTC)omg speaking of nct songs being (or not..) tennis songs why does it feel like dream are gonna circle thru every sport on the face of the planet before getting to tennis ๐ญ please guys.... some of us want to see the dreampuri vision ๐ญ๐ญ please go down to the tennis courts already!!! but regardless i will do my best to bring the renminhyuck triangulationy visions in tennisverse to life >__<
bfkdsjghkfdsj genocide is in fact a recurring plot point in the different yugioh series... card game anime kind of be like that
:O
Date: 2021-06-10 09:28 am (UTC)ahhhhhH yeah WHY? trigger the fever was stunning, no complaints there but idk... i KNOW some of these nerds have watched tenipuri i just know they have. just come and show it please. but for some reason i think anl is a tennis song. i'm sending all the vibes to your renminhyuck tennisverse <3
yugioh is like an ultra serious 800k fic about snoopy with 10+ tumblr pages of lore. like the les mis paris burning city verse if you've ever ventured down there :'O
no subject
Date: 2021-05-26 05:37 am (UTC)help girl i'm in danger
also i'm already lightly tails_gets_trolled.jpg @ the zaizen cousins excerpt
no subject
Date: 2021-05-26 06:09 am (UTC)๐ thank u hehe im kinda stuck cause zaizen is so hard to write when hes not straightmanning shiten antics and aoi is far from a clown but the parallels and dots are all there i just have to connect them...