I Love How Tristan And Duke Seem Genuinely Surprised That Joey Actually Managed To Woo A Woman.

Naruto is like the greatest love story told accidentally by a guy who with the best intentions, really needed a second opinion.

As someone who is watching Naruto for the first time as an adult, despite being an anime fan for years- I think I honestly may have underestimated how impactful the show is.

I vaguely remember having some friends in elementary school in the year 2008, secretly shipping Naruto and Sasuke but I never bothered to learn more about that because I didn’t watch the show.

Now I see the vision. Honestly I’m quite shocked parents didn’t learn how gay Naruto and Sasuke were and didn’t protest to stop their kids from watching it in the early to late 2000’s. Like you’re telling me, millions of children were watching Naruto and Sasuke declare their love towards each other (platonically I suppose) and just staring at the TV screen, taking it all in with eyes glued to the action. Inspirited by what they say, they went to a website called YouTube and made some of the first AMV ever with Linkin Park playing over the two characters fist fighting eachother in the most angsty way ever?

Damn

Unpopular South Park Opinions

Recently binged South Park again after dropping off some time during the airing of season 19. 

I got back into South Park after years of kind of ignoring it after one of the airing of Naughty Ninjas because 14 year old me thought it was so unfunny and too political. However, I played fractured but whole this summer and I really wanted to rewatch the show again. 

Here are my thoughts and possible unpopular opinions:

Butter’s dad is honestly a character I want to see more of. His introduction episode had some good potential but it seems that the writers forgot about it. I think Butter’s dad being closeted has some really good material if they just focused on him more. When I decided to binge South Park again, the one episode I always remembered was Butter’s very own episode. It’s such a classic. 

Some of the most underrated episodes are Follow that egg, South Park is Gay and Cartman Sucks. Basically all the gay-themed episodes they do are fantastic. 

If you asked pre-season 19 me what I thought about South Park ships, I would have no idea what you were talking again. Shipping culture was always something I associated with anime and nothing else. When they send out that call for Tweek x Craig Yaoi on Facebook years ago, I was dumbfounded but also laughed so hard my sides hurt. I unironically loved the concept of the upcoming episode. I was thinking that South Park was gonna comment on anime and BL, but didn’t realize that Tweek x Craig was a real ship. Not just something they named randomly as a homage to Tweek vs Craig. I remember watching the episode when it first aired on TV but I couldn’t remember any of it afterwards. If anything, I completed forgot that Tweek and Craig were dating because when I played TFBW, I was once again dumbfounded by Craig’s dad side quest and of course, all of the mostly NSFW fanart.

On the topic of ships, as much as I find Kyle x Cartman really dumb, I welcome the idea that Cartman isn’t straight. Like at first, I brushed that theory off but thought about it more and of course, played TFBW (HAVE YOU SEEN HIS LITTLE DOODLES IN HIS JOURNAL??!! MY DUDE IS NOT STRAIGHT) I’ve come to accept the idea of it. I feel like the writers secretly agree but won’t commit because having Cartman be ambiguously gay/bi provides more writing material. One episode he can totally be straight and the next he isn’t. 

Naruto is fucking insane bc as someone who's never actually watched the anime, I'll have just THE gayest shit pop up on my dash of Sasuke and Naruto, and when I go "oh hey nice edit, this looks really good" I FIND OUT ITS CANON OFFICIAL MEDIA DIRECTLY FROM THE ANIME??? Insane. How did they get away with that.

Good shit and in-character

I’ll wait by the stairs for you, wrapped up in smoke; laughing alone… 

Aerith thoughts

I like to imagine that Aerith slowly got over Zack after going on her adventure saving the world with friends.

For those who have been in relationships or at least had a boyfriend or girlfriend in highschool, it can be really hard to get over heartbreak if your environment and the people around it don’t change.

For Aerith, her first boyfriend by all accounts ghosts her one day after months to years of causally dating and she is still in contact with his co workers, saying they can deliver letters to him if she wants. It’s natural for her to assume that he just found another girl or died during one of his missions.

Crisis core (a terrible game btw) adds context to their relationship and honestly as someone who was a little interested in their relationship dynamic, I wasn’t expecting the few scenes they have together to be hanging out for a little bit but then Zack gets a call from work so he’s gotta go.

It does add context to the player that hey dude maybe Zack did ghost Aerith. He seems like an amazing person but the game chose to show that he was always too busy and he had other relationships to tend to.

On Aerith’s end, it seems she really enjoyed being with Zack but her time with him was always cut short. That must of really sucked for her because I bet she always wished he stayed longer. To me (the player), it felt like Zack didn’t or couldn’t prioritize Aerith in their relationship and Aerith knew and wished something would change.

Rebirth adds new context with two things: Zack WAS OBSESSED with Aerith. Couldn’t wait to tell his buddies about her. That’s sweet but not really the vibe I got from him in Crisis Core and def not in the OG when he was barely a character.

Another thing is that Aerith rather quickly gets over Zack (whether or not she knows it) after meeting Cloud, Tifa and gang. Having a new boy to mess with was def a fun change in her life but also having a bestie like Tifa must have made her feel comfortable talking about her experiences with Zack as shown in Rebirth. When she met the two, her relationship with Zack still defined her to some degree or at least was one of her biggest hang ups she wanted to inform people about because it was on her mind.

What’s interesting is that before meeting Cloud, Aerith is stuck in this cycle that I’m sure many people who experience heartbreak know well but being stuck in the same environment but without someone you hold dear. For me, it felt like I could never get out of feeling like I was ever going it to get over it. However for me, I got so much better and later got over that person when I got out of that environment I associated the heartbreak with and reconnected with some friends of mine. I believe the timeline of Aerith meeting Cloud and gang to her death, it was around one to two months. I think Aerith legitimately got over Zack (maybe 80%) by nibelheim or if you get her date it’s like 100% by return to gold saucer.

All Aerith had to do was create new memories with new people who gave her a new purpose in life. Not only that but she was travelling 24/7 saving the world with her bestie and new boy toy and a gang of new friends. She left her home and adventured off to actually live life and stop Sephiroth. I’m sure this fulfills her fantasies of creating memories with people and just being a normal young woman. I mean she was kinda living the typical boyfriend girlfriend dynamic but she wanted more out of it. I think Aerith really fell in love with Cloud because he prioritized her more than Zack regardless of infinity levels just from Cloud saving Aerith from Shinra and other smaller things that happened in Rebirth. She def said life got better during her cosmo canyon speech. I will say that in the OG, her relationship with Zack was not as important to her character as it is in the remake series. In the OG, I felt like the story was telling to tell me that she doesn’t want to talk about it because she wants to still look available to Cloud/the player but still have different characteristics (past boyfriend, been in a relationship, experience older girl option, missing boyfriend, etc) when compared to the other girls.

To summarize, I like how they showed Aerith getting over one of her biggest personally obstacles which was her missing boyfriend from her teenage years. She let it be one of her defining aspects of her character and now she’s so much more than a past heartbreak. She could actually enjoy life until her end 🥹

Link Click & AX

Was not able to go to AX but found this from someone who did on reddit.

This is one anecdote from the director regarding the show.

"...regarding the choice/dynamic of having 2 male MCs: having observed many other media, Haoling decided that splitting 1 protagonist into 2 characters would make for better storytelling. by giving the characters only half of what they need, their abilities are more grounded, they are forced to cooperate socially, it gives the audience more entertaining and dynamic banter, and they must build trust in order to effectively accomplish tasks."

Love this statement. When I would explain to my friends why people should watch LC, I would say its a time travel show with an unique premise. There are two main leads. Imagine both are trying to ace a midterm (you can pair up with a buddy lol). One person has the paper & pencil and the other has the answer key. They can't ace the midterm alone without the help of each other's resources - so they must to work together to ace the test because they can only do it once. What seems like a simple example gets applied to solving puzzles/mysteries and finding data.

The interesting part is that the main leads have very different approaches to accomplishing the tasks that they are given. Even though they were friends for a long time, when serious things happen like working a job together, they struggle with their different mindsets and it causes a lot of strife between them. Side note, don’t want to take sides here but I wouldn’t argue with the guy who has the literal answer key you know?

Anyway- Slowly, there became a lack of trust between the leads as both of them start to withhold info from the other. That makes it worse and it hits a boiling point.

Something so simple that happens all the time in real life yet is often never depicted in such a real sense, particularly in an animation format. I like the style of anime but I want my stories to be grounded. I want to see my struggles on the screen.

It's also kinda validating to see a friendship fall apart once you decide to become co workers with one another and realize that just because you two both like basketball, doesnt mean maybe you should run a high-stress somewhat illegal business together right after uni to pay off debt :/

The Buddy Daddies dub is really good and underrated. Particularly the script and Kazuki’s delivery on his lines for all the episodes really elevates the show.

I THOUGHT YALL WERE LYING THERE IS SO MUCH HOMOSEXUAL TENSION IN NARUTO

Where is this from? Is this an ad or something?

Super long rant about Link click

I think one of the flaws of the show is how there weren’t enough episodes for the first season to show the audience that the trio are actually good friends and not just co workers who live together and only talk about work.

I’m 50/50 on filler or fluff but some shows do need it to build character development and interactions. The premise of Link Click or Shiguang Dailiren. Not necessarily just because of the travel aspect, but how the three main characters interact with one another. This is not anime where opposite attract magically works where two characters can be very different and the antithesis of each other and still get along, but a more realistic show of how two very different polar opposite’s who happen to somehow be friends, work together doing very serious work and how eventually it leads to a bad end for one of them - because of how their different work styles and values clash at the end.

After rewatching Victorious as an adult, I come to realize that the main cast totally hated each other and it was surprising that they bothered hanging out with each other, if most of the time none of the (female) cast had anything positive to say about each other.

Anyways. As an adult with similar circumstances to the main trio in terms of being recent uni grads, owning debt and having your best friends be your co workers (but not also my housemates), I see their situation as a lesson that I had to learn that - sometimes it’s not idea to owe your close friend a lot of money. Also like you can be good friends with someone who is the polar opposite of you (somehow) but that doesn’t mean you two would be great co workers by any means. I learned this when me and my friends thought it was a good idea to start a club in school and run guest speaker events and all. Turns out it’s really stressful and I don’t enjoy having disagreements with my friends on how to manage money. Becoming co workers with your friends can honestly hurt the friendship because sometimes when you see your friends, you might only talk to them about work if work is really taxing or stressful.

For example, CXS and LG are good friends who are polar opposites in every way possible. They have different values, life experiences and just generally work differently. More often than not, they disagree on many things. Link click shows that these two do not work well together. LG micromanages CXS and the latter still finds ways to mess up. I get the impression that LG has nothing positive to say about CXS because I rewatched this show countless times and noticed how LG has almost nothing positive to say about his friend. The promotional material shows them being close friends and what not, I just don’t buy it. CXS clearly annoys LG. CXS will talk about something non-work related to LG and LG will immediately change the subject back to work. Clearly he just isn’t interested. Also like the whole thing of keeping details hidden from CXS because LG doesn’t trust him is a red flag. He’s told him so many things to stick with the script and CXS doesn’t which messes things up. All this actions should not be happening. This is how you piss people off enough that they don’t want to talk/work with you. This kinda happens at the end when they take a pause and things get awkward between them.

If anything, Link Click is a great example of how polar opposites aren’t always so cool. Because in real life, if you weren’t obligated to work with them and share the same room together, you prob wouldn’t even be friends with them or even talk to them outside of work.

Another thing is that Cheng Xiaoshi owes Qiao Ling (family) a lot of money. That’s just not a good idea and those who disagree, you will eventually come to agree with me. It’s not like oh but they are really good friends and they must trust enough - no it’s just not a good idea anyone above 20 knows. It’s a rookie mistake that everyone eventually makes. Don’t involve your friends with money. Also Qiao Ling is their landlady soooo -

Guys - I’m Chinese, recently graduated and I worked with friends in work place settings (outside of retail) where you had to do very serious adult things. I see Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang clash when they work together and sometimes when you have an argument with your friend about something that happened at work, you want to have that type of separation when you are out of work. They both don’t have that divide since they both work and sleep in the same room. For those who know what’s it’s like to experience you and your best friend being great friends but not so great when you two room together, work together etc you know where I’m getting at.

The friend group was eventually going to fall apart. All of Qiao Ling’s lines are about money or work. Lu Guang had almost nothing positive to say to/about Cheng Xiaoshi during the entire show. Again I know there is the promotional materials but honestly, to the average viewer who doesn’t see that - this might be the impression that they might get. There are cultural differences but there is also just real life.

Anyway this is a lot. This show was dubbed in over 10 different languages but only like 10 people outside of China has seen it. Thanks for reading my autistic rant on a show no one has seen.