Frills of Justice

Four episodes into Black Rock Shooter, and I sort of have a handle on what's going on -- especially since these next two spend a lot of time in the real world, in mundane settings like school, with Mato's non-emotionally-disturbed friends. There are still plenty of gaps, though, and I expect the twists to keep piling on.

Extra props to the show so far for yanking the yuri subtext right out there in the open. Now Yomi and Mato just have to actually make out, and we'll be golden.

On to the discussion! (Content note: more emotional abuse, general mental health issues.)

( Episodes 3 and 4 )

Time to sit down with Black★Rock Shooter! A series which, unlike Tokyo Mew Mew, I'm diving into knowing almost nothing. The first I heard anything about the actual plot or characters was the vaguely-understood summary in the Up-Goer 5 post.

Reaction after two episodes: I still don't know what the hell is going on, but I like it.

According to my cursory trying-not-to-get-spoiled research, Black Rock Shooter had a 50-minute OVA released in December 2010, followed by an eight-episode TV series in spring 2012. Wikipedia adds there are "several manga series...each set in their own universe." Not sure whether they're all variant retreads of the same plot (like Utena), loosely connected stories covering different time periods and not internally consistent (Read or Die), or a mixture of retreads and completely random AUs (Evangelion).

Currently working through the TV series. I'll watch the OVA next, and look up some of the manga if I can find it, and see what the deal is.

And now, the reviewing...

(Content note: there's discussion of emotional abuse coming up.)

( Episodes one and two )

Twitter tells me we will be hearing the Sailor Moon 2013 theme song on April 4! (And that was posted yesterday, so no worries it's a cruel April Fool's joke.)

Original news article (Japanese).

It's going to be performed by Momoiro Clover Z (whose songs have included videos with a BSSM-esque aesthetic before), and will prrrobably not be Moonlight Densetsu, and that's about all we know. At least, until Thursday :D

Speedy turnaround on this batch! It was...mostly filler, but we did get one more element of Plot. Also, two Lettuce-centric episodes (finally!), and a tearjerking one for Pudding.

One thing before we jump in: A recent comment by ichigoyua in the first IWIW post finally clued me in to the fact that all the Mews' weapons are musical-themed, which excuses Ichigo's bell (ripoff though the design is).

Here's some big detailed fanart of the rest:
Lettuce's castanets
Pudding's tambourines
Mint's bow and arrow which is passably lyre-shaped
Zakuro's cross whip which is possibly a microphone?

The original Mew created for the video game, Ringo, has these apple wands; it's hard to tell in a still image, but they could conceivably be maracas. (Anyone here who's played the game and can confirm or deny?) And Berry from Tokyo Mew Mew A La Mode...gets a super-traditional magical girl staff with bunnies and ribbons. Which is also a transformed version of her own personal robot, which she gets to have, because apparently sweet brave heroic Masha wasn't good enough for her.

You know, at this point I would bet what Ikumi Mia (the writer of A La Mode -- also the illustrator, but not the writer, of TMM) really wanted was to write her own original magical girl story. It would explain the complete sidelining of all the characters, themes, and established patterns in the manga it's supposedly a sequel to. And if she was pressured by her editors to set it in the TMM world to cash in on the existing series' popularity, I might even feel sympathetic toward her over it! Which is something I never thought I would say regarding A La Mode, let me tell you.

( Anyway, on to the episodes... )

Roanhammer on YouTube has lots of translations of the Madoka PSP game! Including the longer backstory segments, and the entire (cracktastic) Bonus Route.

My favorite part is this scene where Homura -- in spite of her cool appearance -- is still totally failtastic at flirting cheering Madoka up:



Although the one where Sayaka reveals herself and Kyousuke turns out to be a mahou shoujo fanboy is pretty great too:



There's another user doing uploads of entire routes, but with no translation. Madoka's route and Mami's route are currently up in full.

Title: Persephone's Waltz, Chapter 20: I'm right here.
Characters/Pairings: Madoka/Homura, Kyuubei, others.
Rating: R
Disclaimer/Warnings: See table of contents.

The only way out is the way through, just as you cannot escape from death except by dying.
Howard Nemerov

or, in which it's all on Madoka to decide where to go from here.

(The final chapter! There may be some art or omake, which will be posted in my dA gallery and be linked from the DW ToC, but as for the story proper, this is where it ends. Thanks again to everyone who's been commenting, kudosing, or just keeping my hit count up.)

( Read on DW | Read on the AO3 )

Title: Persephone's Waltz, Chapter 18: The time I try to keep her closest...
Characters/Pairings: Madoka/Sayaka, Homura, Walpurgis Night, (skip) Hitomi, Kyuubei
Rating: R
Disclaimer/Warnings: See table of contents.

Ich steige schon dreyhundert Jahr,
Und kann den Gipfel nicht erreichen.

I'm climbing now three hundred years,
And yet the summit cannot see.

—Goethe's Faust (tr. Bayard Taylor)

( Read on DW | Read on the AO3 )

The Up-Goer Five text editor spellchecks your writing to only allow the 1,000 most commonly used English words. Inspired by this, there have been two threads on fail_fandomanon on the theme of "summarize the plot of your fandom via Up-Goer Five, and let people guess what it is!"

I've copied out the summaries that came up for magical girl series here. (All credit to the original anonymous authors.) Anybody want to guess which series they are (I'll fill them in when they're guessed), and/or write summaries of your own favorites and see if other people recognize them?

( A girl gets not-human powers from a cat and a stick. )

I'm doing a watch-through of Tokyo Mew Mew, and am going to try to make semiregular posts about it. The plan is to make a new post whenever I've gotten through five episodes. People here are invited to watch along -- or just read along, whether you've seen the show before or not -- and please share your own reactions!

Background: The 7-volume manga of Tokyo Mew Mew was first serialized in Nakayoshi (Sailor Moon, Rayearth, Cardcaptor Sakura, Ojamajo Doremi, a bunch of Precures, Saint Tail, and more) between 2000 and 2003. An anime adaptation by Studio Pierrot (Creamy Mami, Magical Emi, Fancy Lala...not a lot of mahou shoujo) ran from 2002-2003. Both have English translations, the anime in the form of a terrible 4Kids dub. The manga got a Tokyopop translation back in the day, and a new Kodansha translation within the past couple of years.

To fight off an alien invasion, our five color-coordinated heroines are infused with the DNA of endangered species, which give them superpowers -- some related to their animal, some from more generic mahou shoujo templates. Providing backup and exposition are the scientists who kicked off this DNA project. These guys use a maid cafe as the front for their secret alien-fighting HQ, and instruct all the heroines to work there. (...I know that sounds off, but it's played in a 100% cute and non-creepy way.)

I've read the manga, but not recently; recaps may contain spoilers for those elements I remember. Have not seen the anime before, so any changes it made will be new to me. If you're leaving a comment, feel free to spoil whatever.

( On to the watching! )