Going Insane Because My First Thought At Their Similarities Is That They Could Have Gotten Along In A

Well, seems like something that was just a theory before has come very close to truth...

Because of this major revelation, I wanted to take a deep dive into what we know about Donovan so far and how hints throughout past chapters could indeed indicate that he can read minds. While we still don't have concrete proof for this other than Melinda's word, I don't believe there's anything that discredits this idea, either. In fact, many things throughout the series support it.

First we have Loid's encounter with Donovan way back in chapter 38. I always found it strange that we never got insight into Donovan's thoughts throughout that whole exchange. We always get to know what characters are thinking, even without Anya's mind-reading support. It's not an uncommon storytelling mechanic in general after all, especially for manga. Yet, Endo chose not to give us any insight into what Donovan was thinking. I figured this was simply to avoid spoiling anything about what his exact plans and motives are for future stories (also why Anya was absent for this). But now it seems like this could have also been to hide the fact that he can read minds. If he can read minds, certain things he said during that exchange take on a more ominous meaning. For example, what he said below about how people can never truly understand each other.

It's been a headcanon of mine that the reason why Anya, and perhaps Donovan, were given mind-reading powers, stemmed from the desire for world peace...the idea being that if people could read each other's minds - in other words, always know what others are thinking and feeling, sympathy and understanding would abound.

We learn later on that Donovan had ideas like this even as a kid when he made a similar comment during his debate competition speech. He said that it's impossible to know the true intentions of others so people will forever doubt each other, thus war is inevitable.

We also have the little detail in today's chapter that Donovan did not have the scars on his head during Melinda's flashback (of course, he didn't have them as a kid in chapter 99 either).

Now this is totally my theory, but if we take Melinda's words as the truth, without any misunderstanding, then sometime in Donovan's adult life after he married and had a child, he was experimented on and was given mind-reading powers, perhaps by force but most likely by choice. Now that he has these powers, his laments about people not being able to understand each other are no longer true, at least not for him. Perhaps the experiments done on Anya were preliminary tests that he put together to perfect the mind-reading implementation science before actually doing it to himself. Again, totally just speculation, but not out of the question.

Then we have Demetrius...we learned in chapter 93 that Anya has trouble reading his mind.

If we put that together with Melinda's comment in today's new chapter, that Demetris also took note of Donovan being able to read minds...

...then perhaps Demetrius conditioned himself to think in ways that would make it difficult for his mind to be read, specifically to thwart the "alien" that's impersonating his father. I mentioned last time that I don't think Donovan is actually an alien, and that this description is the only explanation Melinda could come up with to explain his mind-reading powers. If this is true though, it really does make the Desmond dinner scene all the more telling...that throughout all those panels without dialogue, Donovan was absorbing the deepest inner thoughts of his family members (and again, no insight into his own thoughts, just like in chapter 38).

But if the "Donovan can read minds" theory holds true, then the most disturbing idea of all is that Donovan knows that Twilight is a spy. He knows that he's the target of Twilight's mission, and that Twilight seeks to thwart him. Not only that, but depending on what he's read of Damian and Melinda's minds, he knows that they're fond of Anya and Yor, respectively - people who are close to Twilight. Mind-reading powers in the hands of a child are one thing, but in the hands of a shrewd and power political figure...I'm both excited and anxious to find out what Donovan's next move will be!

watching link click and i gotta say again how i adore doomed siblings

SHINRAN & SOUKOKU PARALLELS

i'm sorry. the first time i rewatched the first episode of dcmk after reading bsd (more than 2 years ago) i came to the realization of why i like skk so much (maybe) and i really need to share my thoughts.

FIRST: the super intelligent character and the martial artist

both shinichi and dazai are characters that are incredibly smart and chuuya with ran are recognized because of their fight abilities.

but let's not forget that ran and chuuya both are smart as well, they can definitely solve things on their own when they need to, but are often mischaracterized as dumb

SECOND: love at first sight vs. hate at first sight (i'm crying)

THIRD: the one that goes away

extra: womanizer guy

extra hc: just like shinichi fell in love first sight and ran noticed she was in love with him in the ny trip, i hc skk with dazai falling in love first and chuuya realising his feelings when dazai defects lol

Hanako as a representation of abuse

This is an extensive post of how abuse afflicted Yugi Amane and even Hanako's behavior well into afterlife. Of course, emotional abuse is directly related to physical abuse, so I'll be talking about them together for the most part.

1. Behavioural Signs in Yugi Amane

We don't know why or who is behind this, and I won't particularly talk about it since it's not the focus anyway. We know his abuse started somewhere during his first year and was repeated until his suicide, july of his 2nd year. According to Tsuchigomori, he was badly injured every single day, so that's at least around a year worth of constant physical abuse.

However, it's important to note that it's very likely that before the physical abuse, emotional abuse was already consistently taking place, with multiple signs- He's isolated, experiences social withdrawal and has no friends, skips classes & school activities and has poor academic performance that contrasts his actual capabilities.

His emotional development is poor; He has difficulties expressing and understanding his own feelings, very likely a factor in the degradation of his and Tsukasa's relationship where Tsukasa can't understand Amane and Amane can't understand Tsukasa either due to lack of proper communication, and something that carries well over into the afterlife as Hanako.

The physical abuse worsened his already messed up mental state, and everything ultimately drove him into depression. He engages in behavior that puts his own safety in jeopardy (Like when he was way too close to falling over the window, both of his feet were at the very edge of the window frame), and while his love towards space stayed the same, he was overtaken by feelings of helplessness.

Even a rock could travel from the Moon to Earth, which gave him hope. It's important to highlight the word "even". He claims that if 'even' a rock can go this far, so can he, suggesting very low self-esteem. It's an object that carried him through many hardships because of this hope, but everything got so bad said hope just made him feel worse. At some point he started experiencing active suicidal ideation, marked by him giving away his treasured possession to Tsuchigomori in order to rid himself of this "hope", and declaring that he decided he wouldn't "go anywhere", a clear metaphor for deciding he would give up on his future and take his own life. He decided he cannot go anywhere near farther than a rock.

2. Behavioural signs in Hanako

As we mostly see his ghost self, we have a clearer vision of Hanako than we have of Amane. We can easily see his horribly low self-esteem and feelings of worthlessness. When we catch a glimpse of his perspective, we see how distorted his sense of self is.

He repeatedly claims that he isn't worth anything and that his existence itself is a punishment, and so refuses to disappear, considering that it would only be a release from the torment he deserves.

He hates himself down to his core, although this is a combined result of both depression via his experienced abuse and his PTSD of the murder-suicide. As Amane, he was capable of saying that it's fine if he's tormented this terribly, that even if there's no reason for it, he forgives it, massively contrasting Hanako who is incapable of forgiving himself, claiming that even if he had a super special reason for Tsukasa's murder, there's not a single justification that would warrant forgiveness. He's capable of forgiving anything that anyone does to him no matter how horrible, but not of forgiving himself.

As such, verbal abuse directed at him is taken positively by him, such as when Akane states that "reformed villains", refering to Hanako, make him sick, continuing to talk about how he can never take back what he did, essentially degrading him. He was given very harsh words that visibly hurt him, even implying that it triggered his PTSD for a moment, yet he could only claim that Akane is the type of person he likes most, as he was essentially validating and feeding into Hanako's already deeply negative view of himself.

This is also supported by his time in the Picture Perfect arc via his belief that he's undeserving of anything better for himself. Hanako said it himself in 71 that he wished he could've lived a normal life with Nene and Kou, and the Picture World reflected exactly that.

It's a world that was shaped exactly like he wanted, and that's exactly why he hated it. He knew what his reality was, and furthermore, he knows of his crimes and how he was the one who destroyed his own future, and so thinks he's undeserving of it.

He refuses to look at the stars for too long, because that reminds him of the hopes and dreams he gave up on in reality- He has no right to dare pick them up again, further highlighted by him refusing to go on the moon in the End of a Dream. His wish wasn't granted while alive, and now can't be granted after death.

In his helplessness, he is unable to reach for better circumstances for himself. After all, he's quick to adapt to whatever bad thing comes his way. "It's just how the world works", and he has to accept it.

However, we know how that doesn't apply to the people he cares about. He may have given up on everything, but he is unable to give up on the people he loves. No matter how much he suffers, no matter what he has to do, he wants the people he loves to find happiness.

No matter how much he tried to tell himself he isn't supposed to care, he desperately wants them to live the fulfilling lives he didn't have. And if he is the one that gives them the salvation they need, he finds the indulgence to want a small part of him to live through them, the indulgence to hate himself just a little bit less.

He actively attempts to hide his past from other people, being content with them only knowing basic information about it (that he's a murderer), mainly because he doesn't want to appear vulnerable or know how much of a horrible person (according to himself) he actually is.

When it comes to people he has a good relationship with like Nene, he's actually afraid of them finding out, and even months after promising he would tell Nene everything, he's still reluctant to do so due to overall difficulty with opening up- exposure to characters or topics that relate to his past more often than not results in reactions varying from heavy emotional distress, expressing aggression, anger, guilt and/or shame, to reliving traumatic events. Avoidance seems to be his main method of coping.

Hanako suffers from emotional dysregulation. He not only has high difficulties processing and expressing his feelings, but has difficulty picking up on others' emotions as well. For half a century he had been socially and emotionally neglected while also being incapable of ever maturing past the age of 13, much less healing from his past experiences. They rather worsened due to a supernatural lifestyle. When he first met Nene, he wasn't behaving appropriately at all due to this and their relationship went through many difficulties due to his lack of boundaries and poor emotional intelligence, and him communicating his true feelings is always a rare occasion.

Not only did he not take into account other people's feelings ("Yashiro will hate it, but it's ok, she'll move on someday and live her life", not taking into account and understanding others being possibly spiteful over his actions and direct their hate towards innocent parties), he doesn't even take into account his own ("Why? Good question. Why am I doing it?" and "Even though I was prepared to never see you again, I'm so happy to have you back. Weird, right? There must be something wrong with me"). However, due to Nene's influence, he seems to be a little more upfront with his feelings lately.

He's also incredibly self-reliant. Both events of Picture Perfect and the Severance were a result of Hanako doing everything by himself without consulting anyone. He decided by himself that he's the only one that should dirty his hands as he was already a sinner, that it's easier to dump everything on the one that's already guilty of similar crimes, because he didn't have any other solution in sight. It's important to note that he took the *entire* blame for the Severance- Even if all he did was feign ignorance to no. 6's actions.

Him being grounded in the miserable reality he finds himself in is both a strength (as he is quick to adapt to his conditions) and a major weakness- He'll only be able to see the most practical, yet unfortunate approaches.

In the Clock Keepers arc, he wanted to trust Kou when he said he would save Nene, but his attempt quickly turned to failure when he was not seeing any tries, let alone results. He was even upset at Kou when he considered that if he wanted the job done he should have just done it himself, knowing that his methods aren't ones someone would approve of. Methods that he doesn't approve of himself, but carried them out anyway in his despair.

In fact, Hanako did not break free from the shackles of abuse. He is a child that has been placed in a position of leadership filled with various responsibilities for fifty years. He is committed to his duties as a mystery after being promised salvation by 'God', believing that his sins would be forgiven, but he's essentially just being used.

He is, in present time, still repeatedly emotionally abused, manipulated and exploited to fulfill others' agenda. After all, control is at the heart of abuse, and his vulnerabilities will continue to just get taken advantage of as long as he's only capable of masking and avoiding them. However, Nene's influence upon him seems to make him capable of slightly improving himself, even if it's just very small steps at a time.

some warmth for atsushi because he has suffered enough

Japanese Linguistic Observations in Spy x Family - part 1

This is a post series I've been planning for a while and I've finally had the time to complete part 1! 😃 I may have mentioned here before that I got my B.A. in Japanese/East Asian Studies, and even though I'm not fluent, I know the linguistics of the language fairly well. So I thought it would be fun to examine the interesting aspects of the Japanese version of the SxF manga that aren't reflected in the English translation. It might also be an informative experience for those who don't know any Japanese to learn a bit about the language through SxF! I'll try not to get too technical with the linguistics and keep my explanations at a beginner's level.

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Part 1 - Twilight's "honne and tatemae"

One of the main themes in SxF is how many of the characters have secrets they want to hide, so they act a certain way in front of others in order to mask their true selves. Japanese has a word for this phenomena called 本音と建前 ("honne and tatemae").

I remember learning about the concept of "honne and tatemae" during my Japanese college studies – a quick google search will yield a lot of publications on the topic and its relation to Japanese culture in particular. While the idea of hiding one's true intentions behind a fake facade can exist anywhere and is not something unique to Japan, it is enough of an occurrence in Japanese culture that there are specific words for it. The Wiki article has a basic but good definition of honne and tatemae, to quote:

A person's honne may be contrary to what is expected by society or what is required according to one's position and circumstances, and they are often kept hidden, except with one's closest friends. Tatemae is what is expected by society and required according to one's position and circumstances, and these may or may not match one's honne. In many cases, tatemae leads to outright telling of lies in order to avoid exposing the true inward feelings.

Sounds very much like the characters in SxF, doesn't it? Twilight especially, because unlike other characters like Yor and Anya, who simply have secrets they need to keep but don't create fake personas for themselves, Twilight does – the cheerful, friendly Loid Forger is a different person from the cold, calculating Twilight after all. Also unlike Yor and Anya, who speak the same way consistently no matter who they're talking to, Twilight uses different speech levels depending on which persona he's using and who he's talking to.

There are many different levels of speech in Japanese, ranging from super formal to totally crude. These speech levels are distinguished mostly by the pronouns the speaker chooses to use for themselves and who they're speaking to, as well as how they choose to conjugate the words they use. For example, 座ってください (suwatte kudasai), 座って (suwatte,) and 座れ (suware) all mean "sit," as in, telling someone to sit down. But the tone being conveyed is different: the first one is polite, the second one is casual, and the last one could be seen as rude if you're not using it with a close friend/family member.

As Twilight, he uses casual speech with the masculine and less polite pronoun 俺 or オレ (ore). This is the speech he uses when talking to a fellow spy like Fiona, and for his own inner thoughts.

As Loid Forger, he uses the polite 敬語 (keigo) speech, which is basically comprised of using the -ます (-masu) conjugation for verbs and the "to be" verb です (desu). He also uses the pronoun ボク or 僕 (boku), which is the standard male pronoun and more polite than "ore." He uses keigo to address pretty much everyone who doesn't know his true identity. When talking to a higher-up like Sylvia, he'll still use "ore" but will use polite speech instead of casual speech.

Anya is an exception to this: with her, he uses his most casual speech, the same as he uses with Franky.

I discussed a bit about this in part 24 of my Twiyor analysis posts, but this could be because Anya is a little kid, so he doesn't feel the need to put on any airs with her (same with Bond, whom he also uses casual speech with).

An interesting side note is that, as a child, Twilight used the pronoun "boku" but then changed to "ore" as soon as he became an adult/soldier.

Another aspect of keigo, besides using the more polite forms of pronouns and verb conjugations, is putting the honorific さん (san) after people's names. Twilight does this all the time with Yor, as she does with him. However, he switches to casual speech and drops the "san" part in her name when addressing her in front of people who (supposedly) believe they're a real married couple, such as Yuri and Fiona – because it would be weird for a real couple who have been married for a year to address each other in such a formal way, especially the husband. In the below panel when Fiona visits them, he's calling her "Yor" instead of "Yor-san" and using casual speech instead of keigo.

Oddly in these situations, while he uses just "Yor" when addressing her directly, he still calls her "Yor-san" when talking about her. During Yuri's first visit for example, he calls her "Yor-san" when telling Yuri how much Anya loves her (talking to someone about her) but then calls her just "Yor" a few moments later when telling her that he'll clean up the spill (talking to her directly). It's strange to me that he wouldn't just consistently use "Yor" whether he's talking to her or about her in these situations...I'm honestly not sure if he does this intentionally or if he just slips up since he's so used to using "Yor-san" in her presence.

*UPDATE* Thank you to @dentedintheworld-blog for enlightening me with the below reply about this!

"In Japanese, when speaking to your spouse's family about your spouse, you address her/him by attaching "san" her/his name out of respect for her/his family. This is also to show her/his family that you respect your spouse. That's why Loid calls Yor with san when he talks about how much he loves Yor to Yuri."

That definitely makes sense for why Twilight switches between "Yor" and "Yor-san" in these situations.

Regardless, this is why the scene in chapter 86 is so significant – when Yor isn't present, there's no reason for him to refer to her as "Yor-san," especially in front of a fellow spy like Fiona who knows he (supposedly) shouldn't have any feelings for her. Yet, even after he just called Yuri by his full name "Yuri Briar" a moment before, he doesn't do the same for Yor and continues to call her "Yor-san" here, much to Fiona's dismay.

In the same chapter, it's also significant that he uses "ore" when addressing Yor directly in his thoughts. Even though he's not speaking out loud, I believe this is the first time he's speaking directly "to" her as Twilight and/or his true self and not as Loid Forger.

But despite all this, I think that both Loid Forger and Twilight are tatemae…they're both masks to hide the person he truly is. The person who fondly talked about his mother to Yor on the park bench, the person who genuinely expressed gratitude for her sacrifice when leaving the resort island, the person who refused to kill Yuri in a life-or-death struggle because he knew it would hurt her…that's his actual honne. But of course, the ongoing conflict of the series is that he has yet to realize this. He won't even show his honne to his closest friend, Franky. Seems like it mostly comes out in dribs and drabs during his interactions with Yor...no surprise there, lol. The man is certainly a work in progress. When he finally starts letting his "honne" show, I'm curious what form of speech he'll adopt.

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Continue to Part 2 ->

Japanese Linguistic Observations in Spy x Family - part 5

Part 5 - Translating humor and wordplay

Translating jokes from one language to another can be difficult, especially when the humor revolves around wordplay that's only apparent in the original language. Luckily for a comedy series like SxF, most of the humor relies on concepts that are universal to all languages, but there are the occasional jokes that require creative translation in order to get the same effect in English. What I think is the most well-known example of this kind of joke in SxF is from chapter 26, where Yuri tells Anya that "knowledge is power" during their tutoring session.

The Japanese phrase for this is 知は力 ("chi wa chikara"). Anya mishears this as ちわわぢから ("chiwawa jikara"), which means "chihuahua power," which is why we see the image of a muscular chihuahua in her thoughts. This results in Yuri calling her チワワ娘 ("chihuahua girl") from then on. Obviously this joke would be lost if translated directly, so Casey Loe, the official English translator for the SxF manga, got creative with making it work in English. He cleverly utilizes the English expression, "the whole enchilada," which sounds enough like "swole chihuahua" for Anya to believably mistake the two. This translation also makes it so that Yuri calling Anya "chihuahua girl" later on makes sense.

But unfortunately, because a series can have different companies working on the localization of its anime versus its manga, inconsistencies between the two often come up. In this case, the anime team translated this joke completely differently, and less effectively in my opinion. You can see from the below screenshots that they had Yuri use the word "unleash," which then led to Anya associating a (muscular) dog without a leash as powerful (?) Again, this translation was a stretch in my opinion and not as good as the manga version. This also makes it so that translating Yuri's nickname for Anya as "chihuahua girl" won't make sense.

But what's interesting is that, many months and episodes later in season 2, they stayed consistent with that translation and had Yuri call Anya "stupid leash girl" in episode 28.

Despite my dislike for this translation, I have to give them kudos for remembering it all that time later and not just directly translating it as "chihuahua girl." Though it makes me wonder if they'll stay consistent in season 3 where Yuri will be referring to Anya as "chihuahua girl" once again.

A further complication is that, not only do these kinds of inconsistencies exist between the anime and manga translations, but they also exist between the different streaming services that stream SxF with English subtitles throughout the world. I only have access to the subtitled version from Hulu, which is where my screenshots are from, and I think other streaming services in the US like Crunchyroll, Amazon, Netflix, etc, use the exact same subtitles. So when I refer to "the Hulu subtitles" throughout this post, I mean other major US streaming services too. However, I'm not totally sure if they all do share the same subtitle script, so if anyone who has these services could confirm, that would be great! However, @tare-anime informed me that Muse Asia's English subtitles for SxF are completely different! For example, they translated the above joke more closely to the original, by using the phrase "puppy power" and keeping Yuri's nickname for Anya as "chihuahua girl."

There are further differences with Muse Asia's translation as well, for example, they directly translate Anya's names for Loid and Yor, "chichi" and "haha," as "Father" and "Mother" instead of "Papa" and "Mama."

(thanks again to Tare for the Muse Asia screenshots!) This is different, not only compared to the Hulu subtitles, but also the official English manga as well, both of which have Anya consistently use "Papa" and "Mama."

Tare also let me know that Disney Plus in Asia, another service that streams SxF, has yet another version of the English subtitles! And these are only the subtitled versions for the US and Asia - if SxF is streamed with English subtitles in other countries, I wonder if those are different as well. That means there's at least 3-4 different English subtitle scripts for SxF, with different ways of translating certain things, like what I described above. This could make things confusing for someone without any knowledge of Japanese who reads the English version of the manga and watches the subtitled version of the anime on one or more streaming services...if they read the first few volumes of the manga with the "swole chihuahua" translation, then watch season 2 of the anime, they're gonna be confused about why Yuri calls Anya "stupid leash girl." There's other more minor inconsistencies too, like how the Hulu subtitles have Yor call Anya "Miss Anya" all the time, but the manga doesn't.

I'm sure there's some licensing reasons why there isn't one official English subtitle script that all the streaming services can use, and why they don't consult the manga translations, especially for the more difficult-to-translate parts. It seems like wasted effort for so many official English translations to exist for the same thing.

But anyway, back to the translations of jokes in SxF, another one that stood out to me occurred in chapter 23. During the scene where Loid is asking Anya about a name for Bond, he explains how dogs have trouble discerning the sounds of consonants. The phrase he uses for this is 子音の聞き分け("shiin no kiki wake"), which means "distinguishing consonants," with "shiin" meaning "consonant." However, there's another word "shiin" with the kanji 死因 that means "cause of death." This is what Yor thinks he means - 死因の聞き分け ("shiin no kiki wake"), which means "determining the cause of death." So in her thoughts, she imagines asking Bond if he prefers death by blood loss (失血死) or by being crushed (圧死), and when he shakes his head at both, she says "you're not good at these distinctions, are you?"

This is a difficult joke to translate, so Casey got a bit loose by having Loid use the word "plosives" instead of "consonants," and then having Yor mishear it as "explosives." He then changed up Yor's dialogue by having her say that Bond prefers C-4 explosions over other methods of death.

While I don't think the translation of this joke worked as well as the previous one (I feel like Yor wouldn't know about C-4 explosions?) I couldn't come up with anything better myself, lol. It just goes to show how translating things as closely to the original as possible isn't always the best choice…but oddly, that's what the Hulu subtitles did! For some reason they opted not to even attempt to rework this joke for English, and kept both Loid and Yor's dialogue as exact translations. This results in an exchange that makes no sense and will leave people wondering how Yor could mistake Loid's "can't tell consonants apart" as "can't tell causes of death apart."

However, there are some cases where the wordplay works similar enough in both Japanese and English that the joke can be translated without too much modification. An example of this is in chapter 59 where Becky asks Yor how she was able to "get" Loid…"pierce his heart" as she puts it. Yor thinks she means this literally, to which she replies that she wouldn't hurt Loid.

The Japanese version is very similar, with Becky using the verb 射止める("itomeru") which means "to shoot down" (with an arrow). However, it has a figurative meaning too, which is "to win" as in "win someone's heart." Yor thinks Becky means the literal meaning of shooting down, so she says that she wouldn't shoot Loid and that she doesn't even use a bow and arrows.

The Hulu subtitles translate it more or less directly, having Becky say "shoot an arrow through his heart" and keeping Yor's "I don't use a bow and arrows" that the manga omitted. Rare case where I think the anime translation worked better than the manga!

In the case of this joke, the concept of "shooting someone's heart" to mean "winning someone's heart" is universal in both English and Japanese, so little reworking was needed. This also helped keep consistency with Yor's tendency to associate otherwise benign concepts with violence due to the nature of her work.

I'll wrap up this post with what I think is the most commendable translation of a joke so far in the manga: how Casey translated the names of the guest characters at the ski resort in chapter 94.

Their names are puns in Japanese as well, and Annie over on Twitter already did a great breakdown of how each of the wordplay in their names was translated, so definitely check out that thread here. Since this chapter has yet to be animated, I'm really curious how the anime translators will handle this…since it seems like they don't reference the manga, they'll probably either translate the names literally or come up with their own pun names, and either will unfortunately lead to the same kind of inconsistencies between the anime and manga translations that I touched on earlier.

To summarize, humor can be a very culture/language specific thing, so it's up to the translator to make sure the same feeling is conveyed in their translation even if they have to essentially make up their own jokes. With that said, it's a shame that there isn't collaboration between the translators of the anime and manga to ensure consistent translations across the franchise. So I hope this post helped shed light, not just on how some of the jokes in SxF were conveyed in Japanese, but also on why some things in the English version of SxF seem inconsistent between the anime and manga.

<- Return to Part 4

tiesa quedé 🧍‍♀️🧍‍♀️

Now that we know Fyodor is old af, wouldn’t it be so funny if Fyodor reveals that he is Atsushi’s father?

the apothecary diaries does such a great job of portraying how traumatizing it can be to be a victim of pedophilia and grooming, instead of romanticizing it like a lot of anime series do. it is disturbing, it makes audience uncomfortable and disgusted — which is how we must feel about pedophilia. you're not supposed to feel comfortable because it's 'normalized' or 'just fiction'; you're supposed to feel disgusted.

the creator didn't make anshi 'fall in love' with the previous emperor or develop a stockholm syndrome — instead, she took her revenge in the same way he hurt her and other girls, which he deserved. her anger, hatred and disgust towards him are rightly justified and realistic for a victim of pedophilia.

the older palace lady (who might or might not be a ghost) told the girls abt her story as a victim of the previous emperor at the ghost story gathering:

whether or not she was a ghost, she wanted her story to be heard, of how much the victims suffered at the hands of the previous emperor. they were imprisoned for the rest of their lives in the same place that ruined their lives. telling her story might be the only way for her to find peace within herself.

an abuser may die but the trauma he leaves on his victims will last forever. it does not go away.

it's even presented as a horror story because there's nothing more terrifying than SA.

(i may have missed a few points but im keeping this brief. thank you for reading my essay!)

SHOSHIMIN anime REVIEW

Kobato and Osanai start their high school lifes with the goal of becoming "ordinary", while getting away from their pasts. But the duo time and time again ends up putting themselves in the middle of mysterys to resolve.

For starters I want to say I love this anime. It wasn't in my watchlist this season, but after I saw gifs of the first episode I got curious with how pretty it looked. So I watched it. And it enchanted me.

I have to admit that I love mysterys and slice of life, so after ep1 i thought this series was just that (specially if one makes expectations with hyouka), but I was actually surprised with the twist of the overall cases being a lot more complex and serious.

I still found it refreshing tho, not all mysterys have to be murderers, they can be simple like doing cocoa or finding a poshette; it touches something i was craving and it makes reality, the common moments in our lifes, a lot more interesting.

(I want to make this post more about the anime as an adaptation and make my thoughts on the story another one, where i talk about the novels,,, so i'll leave that there).

The anime in itself is just so good, is stunning; the animation, art, character design, backgrounds, music and sound, the voice actors, direction; everything works so well together and creates a feast not only for the eye.

Even if there are moments i wish would have made it to the anime, is obvious it won't be a 1:1 adaptation and tbh they aren't a big deal for the entire picture. Also, I have to point out that how it translastes the novels to such a different media is a bit fascinating.

Kobato is the one that narrates the novels and even if they could have used that in the anime anyways, i like that they didn't. Kobato's sarcastic comments or how his thought process goes is lost, but it doesn't change him as a character. We are shown the mask he is trying to create for himself, but fails to mantain. That mask that everyone around him sees.

Specially if we take in consideration how kobato is an unreliable narrator, so in the anime we have this chance to see what he really wants us to see of himself, but we can also see the things he hides.

Also, without him narrating the animators and team are able to create the myteryous atmosphere that is around the characters and specially in the relationship between Osanai and Kobato. that have such a unique dinamic.

I like that they don't give us the answers to the characters with just words, but showing. and if we take into account the type of media an anime is, I find this the right choice.

BUT, i do regret that some moments where lost, like kobato running outside of the school at the end of the spring tart case after osanai doesn't answer, even before kengo finishes talking or the panic attack he has in the elevator being changed to the moment under the bridge. i think taking away this moments belittles how important osanai is for him...

On other point I was curious how they'll adapt the story considering it was modernized and the climax on the first book is bc kobato has an old cellphone, but i think it was fine how they did it.

This is definetly one of my favorites animes, not just this season, but this year. I really recommend it for the mystery fans.

And I'm specially exited to see how they adapt the 3&4 novel and their relationships, can't wait!!!!