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BEYOND THIS POINT LIES DANGANRONPA V3 SPOILERS

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

So in my endless quest to consume all things DRV3, as that has been my entertainment for the past few weeks (and I just CAN'T GET ENOUGH OF IT) one opinion I've seen spouting about lately is say, which game's cast is the strongest or if the guys or the girls are better or otherwise some sort of ranking of the characters. Did I say sort? I'll throw my sort results on the side too just for funsies. And like, since I do sorts of pretty much anything.

BUT THIS IS NOT ABOUT THE SORT.

You see, I've been seeing an opinion popping up here and there. I've been seeing it quite often. An opinion that is wrong. SUCH WRONGNESS is this opinion that my post shall be devoted entirely to debunking such a blatantly wrong opinion. You are free to have a similar opinion. Just know that is it wrong.

People have the audacity to claim that the DRV3 boys are infinitely superior to the girls. And not just that! For some strange, utmost inconceivable reason, they claim that of the three casts of the three games so far, the girls or DRV3 are the weakest of them all, and the boys are the strongest! WHAT MADNESS. WHAT LIES. I will readily admit that due to the protagonist being male in every cast, and the wildcard character ALSO being male of every cast that the guys do have a STRONG ADVANTAGE over the girls when it comes to influence on the plot, screentime, and even ships. I mean, if the protag is male that means whenever there are FTEs that can occasionally enter romantic territory (and you get everyone's underwear to boot) or even OUTRIGHT RIDDING THE PURITY OF THE CHARACTERS THEMSELVES that is the love hotel in DRV3, guy ships, otherwise known as yaoi, shall too will always be more prevalent. This is a fact I cannot erase nor dispute.

Regardless that does not necessarily mean the men will always be far more developed or are more interesting or intriguing or whatever else reason people have for preferring characters than the women! Far from it! You see DRV3 is the strongest cast so far, and to me a large reason has to do with the female characters. You can even look at the sort see how many girls from DRV3 comprise of my top ten or top twenty characters. I love them THAT much. In fact I think they're far improved over past female characters in the franchise, which I largely chalk up to the creator not being as good as writing them as the male cast. After all, we've had characters who were nigh-impossibly perfect like Nanami who while did have a few flaws were not flaws that ever negatively affected her character or plot. Or Kirigiri whose character is as a cold, calculating detective character. She kinda warms up to Naegi? But she ultimately stays a cold, calculated detective character. There's not a great amount of depth to them beyond what they are on the surface. I say this especially when Nanami is one of my absolute favourites because a character does not have to be super deep with ridiculous backstories and character development that drastically changes them from one thing to another. Hell, my favourite Ibuki is not the most developed nor the most enthralling character from a backstory standpoint. That's one of her biggest criticisms. I still love her nonetheless, as does many others but I can understand why anyone wouldn't care for her as well.

But DRV3 is a major improvement over all of that. And yes while I do like a lot of the guys from DRV3 too, I still think a shining example of DRV3 is its female cast. SO WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, to illustrate my point I shall go through EACH CHARACTER in DRV3 by DEATH ORDER (thus the major, major, MAJOR spoilers) and elaborate on why I think this is so. 

Starting off with Rantaro Amami! A character who seems very popular with the ladies... but for what reason? I suppose he is intriguing. He has great mystery due to his unknown backstory and talent, and his sketchy mannerisms from the get-go. His sprites also mimic a lot of Komaeda's sprites who was no doubt the favourite from SDR2. Still when it comes to his influence on the plot and what we actually learn from his character he's minimal at best. He contributes to the mysteries as much as Twogami did from SDR2, which isn't much beyond some posthumous stuff that in the end, at least for Rantaro, was more relevant to the reveal near the end of the game than about Rantaro himself. A shame really, but not much you can expect from the first victim. I admit to judging people pretty harshly who have Amami as their favourite character. My first instinct is just that they like how he looks. He is eyecandy, but there are plenty of valid reasons to like him beyond that. I however do not hold back on anyone who abandons the game just because Rantaro died. I read a post of someone complaining about this once that was infuriating. The dude did very little, had very little chance to, and somehow your entire worth of the game is solely on this one character? Someone with that kind of reaction definitely only liked him for what he was on the surface and had no interest in the game or story itself. It's even less understandable than people who dump the game after...

..Kaede Akamatsu being a false protagonist.

I fucking love Kaede! I was so, so, SO pumped that finally, FINALLY we had a female protag for a main title in the series! Yay! That means for once, all the gay subtext between protag and any of the same-gendered characters in the game whether that be from FTEs or even just through plot progression was now potentially all with TWO GIRLS instead of TWO GUYS! Imagine if the wildcard character was a girl this time! I was pining it being on Maki considering the promotional material being pretty suggestive between Kaede and Maki. I WAS SO PREPARED TO ROMANCE GIRLS WITH MY GIRL PROTAGONIST OH MY GOD. Then the game began and Kaede's wonderful personality was addictive as crack! She was the leader! She was optimistic! EVERYONE WILL BE FRIENDS AND WE WILL ALL ESCAPE TOGETHER! Shuichi, you must be more confident in yourself! Peppy Kaede! CHEERY KAEDE! YAAAAHHHHH!!

And then she turned out to be the first culprit. Fun times. Or not. The trial and subsequent execution of Kaede killed me. It killed me more than Nanami's two executions. It killed me more than when I discovered Ibuki's hanging corpse. I was absolutely gutted. Kaede is dead. Kaede is the murderer. JUST WHY!?!?

While there was a great loss of potential with the loss of the main protagonist in the end this move was absolutely ingenious when it came from a writing standpoint. I mean people do make a good point that if Shuichi was the initial protagonist but was swapped out for Kaede that would have been an even better twist, but alas we all can't have the most ideal things. Plus due to the personalities of the two characters it just had to be that Kaede would die and Shuichi not. If their personalities were different or heck, swapped, you could argue against this, but I don't know. Kaede's personality of being the go-getter, of being the one to encourage and to raise morale instead of starting off as a timid insecure boy like Shuichi gives her little room of development. I mean again, she doesn't NEED to develop but I was hoping for more character development for girls this time around as there appears to be so little so far in the franchise, at least in the main titles. The only thing I could think of for Kaede was that the contrast of her bubbly, idealistic personality compared to the grim and bloody reality that is the killing game would slowly knock her confidence and optimism down along the way, and maybe some other character like Kaito or whatever needs to pick her spirits back up whenever that happens, but unless the theme or the message of the game is that being naive and optimistic is bad and we have to pick our battles or face reality with certain expectations was what they were going for it's not really a good line of thought to carry. Despite the nature of Danganronpa, the message has always been to face death or grief with a head held high and to never give up, no matter what. Kaito's mere existence is example of that.

But what Kaede DOES subvert is the perfect female protagonist, or deuteragonist. While she succeeds at encouraging and opening up Shuichi, it doesn't mean that's her only purpose and that's all there is to her. She manipulated Shuichi's camera plan to catch the mastermind and turned it into a premeditated death trap... and it wasn't a guaranteed chance whoever they caught would be the mastermind. It could have been anyone milling about in the library and discovering that hidden door. Kaede's plan was reckless, maybe even stupid. She paid for it. And that's wonderful. Because that means Kaede isn't flawless. What she ended up doing wasn't all for naught either, however! Due to Monokuma's motive, where if nobody murders anyone within a set time limit then everyone will die, Kaede's recklessness also saved everybody else's life. Nobody else in this cast made a move to murder when everyone was about to die in like thirty minutes despite the fact that, as we continue on in this game the characters in this cast are much more varied on the morality scale than past casts. She didn't die for nothing.

I think the huge amount of unrest and controversy the protag switch caused would have more merit if Kaede was the victim instead, who would die with us learning little about her character. As is, we know a whole bunch about Kaede with what time we had with her, and we still got to play half the trial with her as well! It's not the female protagonist we wanted, but there certainly were worse ways of going about it. Because of all this, I love Kaede as a character and she deserves the placement in my top ten characters. I really like my flawed characters, and up to this point there weren't many of those as girls in the franchise especially one of Kaede's role.

Next we have chapter two, starting with the saddest most depressing victim in the Danganronpa franchise yet, Ryoma Hoshi, our resident nonstandard character design character who thank the heavens wasn't a pervert. We already got two of those, so it's good they went away with that trope. He's an inmate condemned for death for murdering a bunch of mafia members with his sick tennis moves after they killed his girlfriend and family (or something like that, my memory is not up to par) and thus has a pretty bleak outlook to life and little reason to continue living. Escaping isn't even that desirable of an option to him as he'd just go straight back to prison anyway. His backstory is sad. His existence is sad. ):  I thought he'd be a potential survivor as developing a reason to live would be an excellent character arc for him, but then when he was given some confidence by Shuichi and co. and tried to find a reason to live in the motive videos... he found nothing. No one outside cared about him and he had no one to care for. Of course he was just a sitting duck just asking to be the next victim, and so it went and so it shall be. He thought he had nowhere to go, but really for a character he had a ways to go. Unfortunate he gave up when he did.

I love Ryoma! But sadly being the second victim outside of his unfortunate circumstances he would not have as much time nor influence to the story as he could have. I chalk it up to bad luck and Monokuma being a bitch, but let's move on. His killer on the other hand...

When Kirumi first showed up, I had two initial impressions: Sakuya Izayoi from Touhou and Peko Pekoyama from SDR2. I do like both those characters, but I also didn't at the same time. I generally don't like characters whose entire existence relies on another character to describe. Like for Peko, if Fuyuhiko wasn't there, what would she be? She'd have to be an entirely different character because Fuyuhiko IS Peko's entire character, as her backstory relies entirely on him and his family. I hate that. I hate it in Touhou and I hate in Danganronpa. The second trial of SDR2 was extremely sad and I was very empathetic when it came to Peko's demise, but when it came time to think about how much I cared about her character... it wasn't as strong as it could have been. Maybe if I had shipped Fuyuhiko/Peko it'd have been different, but I don't like ships where one character is entirely devoted to another. I don't like characters who are dependent and can't stand on their own if the other wasn't there or did not exist. 

Sakuya on the other hand was this maid in Touhou who could do no wrong. She was the definition of cool and could stop time and throw knives like a certain Jojo character. She would never break her cold and calculated surface, if there even is anything beneath that surface. I was always frustrated by Sakuya and her popularity because there never seemed to be anything more to her. She was there to be cool. There were no flaws. She was literally called the perfect and elegant maid. That kind of character is just so boring and uninteresting to me. Also memes do not count as flaws. >:

So seeing Kirumi these were the kind of fears I had with her character. And she was basically sort of just that for almost all of chapter two... until it was revealed she was the culprit. She killed Ryoma. Her perfect and elegant shield was starting to collapse, and Kirumi's calm exterior broke until she was doing all she could to deflect blame or to keep herself alive. All of this just because she was one of the unfortunate few (or may even only) to get her own motive video. Bad luck screwed her over. Kirumi became interesting when she died because she did not go out how so many others do, accepting of their deaths admirably with courage. She didn't even go out like the first two initial culprits in the first two games did because she still did everything in her power to escape no matter what (even if that attempt to escape was part of her execution). Like the dialogue of the game said, it was ugly, it was feral, it was raw, but Kirumi did everything in her power to live. Her death was powerful as fuck and basically threw everything out the door that she was perfect or elegant. It was amazing. Props to both her Japanese AND her English VAs for having VERY convincing screams of determination and fury just before she was executed. It was a powerful and memorable moment. Even when I was laughing at how over-the-top her motive video was, it wasn't close to the impact of how Kirumi went out. Fuck yes I love my flawed female characters. 

It is chilling she chose to drown Ryoma though. That does add to her cold and calculated factor. Ah well. 

NOW IT IS THE CHAPTER THREE! Or chapter always known as weakest chapter of every game. I do not know what is up with these chapter threes and their super obvious culprits, but at least this time around that was done on purpose? Anyway I am jumping the gun with the culprit because first we must discuss the holiest of the holiest, the most divine and devoted that is the ANGIE YONAGA, EVERYBODY'S FAVOURITE CHARACTER AND A MAJOR ENSEMBLE DARKHORSE OF THE SERIES!!1!!!

Well, yeah okay. 

I don't hate any character in DRV3. I love them all actually, but Angie is a character who seems to be a little bit of a hate sink. Not to the intensity that is say, Saionji or Ruruka but still, when most people discover Angie's body it's often not a huge fanfare. In fact, Angie dying was pretty obvious and something most people saw telegraphed the moment she took up the antagonistic role of CULT LEADER who splits up the cast causing conflict within! It's actually kind of difficult to comment on Angie's character. She doesn't change all that much, so there's little to no development, and what we learn from FTEs and.... Love Hotel scenes just elaborate on how bizarre her island's customs and her devotion to Atua is. She seems to have to shown up in this killing game already brainwashed, and we never really learn who she is beneath it all. I mean, there is something to suggest Angie is lonely beneath absolutely everything, but she's buried in so much of the cult, religious, devoted stuff that it's so difficult to unearth that aspect of Angie and so, we can't really say with much certainty how much we really got to know her before she died. A shame, really. She did serve her purpose as antagonist of chapter three quite well. I will give her that. All the more emotionally weaker characters fell for her cult to, STARTING with Himiko from way back in chapter two... I will continue that thought when we reach HImiko.

Speaking of Himiko though, there is Tenko. The Tenks. The Tenko of the last name that is too long for my taste. Chabashira? Oh yes. 

I did not like Tenko first time I went through this game. I WILL BE HONEST. I DID NOT LIKE TENKO. FUNNY HOW THAT WORKS. Hahaha. But a large degree of my distaste for Tenko was due to my one-track-mind after Kaede died. You see the despair of Kaede dying was so great, that my focus fell very narrowly onto Himiko, the other character I liked best still left who I was absolutely convinced was going to die anyway because after Kaede's unexpected demise I had no favourite that ever lived and the protagonist dying was the last straw. I paid very little attention to anything else, which was why even the obvious culprit of chapter three came as as surprise to me. I was too busy wondering if Himiko was the next victim, or how she could have murdered the victims. That was my mindset throughout the ENTIRE GAME after Kaede died. That is what despair does, my friends.

Anyway the reason I liked Himiko so much aside from being eccentric and adorable was how relatable she was. In fact, I don't think I've found a character I've related MORE to than Himiko! So just like Himiko, I too had a negative impression of Tenko. I even compared her to Jaune of all characters at one point due to her forwardness. I was like "GODDAMNIT TENKO LEAVE HIMIKO ALONE" EVEN IF YOU'RE A GIRL YOU ARE NOT EXEMPT TO THIS KIND OF CRITICISM, that being far too forward with your crush and not taking no for an answer. (Of course I didn't realize Himiko actually never said no to Tenko hanging out with her once, either because she was too lazy to or some other reason. She certainly said no to some of Tenko's comments and questions to her at times, but never did she actively try to avoid Tenko... more like asking others to do it for her. Ha)

But just like Himiko... over time I realized how wonderful Tenko really was. I think her other major flaw, the degenerate male thing also makes Tenko easily unlikable for many as well. Her FTEs don't even reveal some tragic reasoning for this misandry. She's just a gullible idiot who listens to literally anything her master, a male mind you, says. It is hilarious though. There is that one line in that one trial where she mentions her alcoholic father, so maybe there's some tragic inkling there that we'll never explore because now Tenko is too dead to develop. Alas. Alas. Still! Underneath her many flaws, Tenko is one of the most sincere, earnest, honest, heartwarming characters out there. Unlike Jaune's crush on Weiss that was entirely to his selfish whims. Tenko actually goes about and tries to... IMPROVE HIMIKO AS A PERSON. She never put Himiko on some perfect flawless pedestal who could do no wrong. Tenko knew Himiko wasn't perfect, knew she was falling for Angie's cult and taking the easy way out and she wanted to keep Himiko out of it. She truly wanted to protect Himiko, learn more about Himiko, and her crush was more genuine than mere infatuation on Himiko's surface appearance or personality. Tenko's eagerness to help girls IS REAL AND IS GREAT! Even if her hatred of men is sort of silly and stupid, her desire to protect vulnerable girls is the greatest virtue of Tenko! Despite the disappointing reveal of Tenko's misandrist origins, a lot of her FTEs made me want to learn more about her. How she was even MORE of a spazz and emotive freak, maybe getting wildly angry or having manic attacks even before she began learning Aikido. That Aikido helped her become more stable of a person and how she always recommends it to others for self-improvement as well. Also she does slowly warm up to Shuichi so anything depicting Tenko still being an ass to Shuichi of all people annoys me greatly. She may not have had time to develop completely, but she definitely was changed compared to the Tenko of the beginning of the game!

Also she will never live it down how she died. How she was killed. Fucking Kork. Fucking Korey in the House. Fucking folklore cunt. Fucking tulpaman-- KOREKIYO SHINGUCCI, I MEAN SHINGUJI HAS TOO MANY NICKNAMES. 

Actually I don't hate Korekiyo. Far from it, ha. His motive though. His motive is so over-the-top I can't even take it seriously. Others do and despise his fucking guts, and while there may be actual people like Korekiyo out there, I just cannot get over how absolutely absurd his reason to kill was. For his dead sister who now possesses him in the form of a split personality after a seance that he has incestuous desires towards? And he's almost killed one hundred friends, females he deems worthy to be friends of his sister's in the afterlife already? The fuck man. That reveal was wild. He's also purposely depicted as creepy as possible with an unhealthy fascination of humanity which is justified by his anthropology background and is an absolute joke character in the anthologies. He's great. He's my second favourite male of DRV3 and I don't even know why. This man should be considered vile and unforgivable. 

BUT HE THREW AWAY HIS PERFECT MURDER FOR THE SEE-SAW TRICK, and will never live it down. The see-saw is too precious to abandon. RIP TENKO. RIP KOREKIYO. 

How have I not mentioned the gorgeous girl genius with a golden brain, MIU IRUMA yet!? Quite possibly the most flawed female character in the entire series, unless just being straight up a despair bitch is considered one entire flaw, Miu still manages to be fascinating and wonderful and I STILL like her despite the claim the creator purposely wrote her to be unlikable! She singlehandedly demonetizes Youtube playthroughs with no remorse whatsoever and ruins every single moment possible with her endless uncensored innuendos, but simultaneously along with her comedic side is one of the most useful characters in the game as well. Perhaps not so in the trials (she is wrong during every scrum debate hahaha) but her expertise with the tech allows her to invent so many items that serve so many purposes throughout the plot. I think Himiko (I think it was her anyway) said it best, Miu was very smart but also very dumb. Aside from that Miu seems to have a similar sort of complex Mikan does where most of her self-worth is shot and she has a belief she can really only be useful to someone with her body... if her FTEs or Love Hotel mean anything, anyway. Also Miu is a victim, but she DID attempt to murder someone and showed surprising hindsight when it came to executing her murder plan, but just like that quote she overlooked quite a many things that led to her downfall as well. That slip of hand leading to the bridge being washed away by the river was not the most subtle of things, Miu. She was also my favourite from first impressions. When I first saw the cast and looked at screenshots and such, Miu was the girl that stood out most to me. I didn't have a strong impression of this cast at first as well. I was very whelmed when I looked at the designs. Heck Tenko was my least favourite design. I was wondering why she had over nine thousand hair accessories that made her head super busy looking. The green pinwheel was the worst offender. 

How foolish you were, past Spotto of one year ago.

Anyway! SWEET PURE, PITIFUL GONTA.

I guess he does subvert the beefcake sacrifice of chapter four by being the beefcake culprit of chapter four. I mean he was trying to sacrifice everyone if that counts, starting with Miu, and Kokichi was quite the influence on top of the flashback light... still, he joins the ranks of Sakura and Nidai in dying in chapter four. Sad as it may be... and that's really all I have to say on Gonta. Aside from being a pure boy who wishes to be a gentleman there wasn't a lot compelling with Gonta. I AM SORRY FOR NOT BEING ABLE TO SAY MORE. Gonta was a pure boy who made the trial all the more tragic.

Kokichi Ouma cannot carry all the guys by himself, you know. The only way I can take a claim of a the guys being so much better than the girls seriously is if this guy carries all the weight. And he doesn't! I may like Kork. Gonta may have been a pure boy. Ryoma may have had a tragic existence, and Rantaro was eyecandy, but they were NOTHING compared to Kokichi. AND EVEN THEN, Kokichi cannot carry the entire male cast on his shoulders. OKAY!? Also his rampant popularity has rubbed me off the wrong way, even if I do love his character he is far too overexposed for me. His face is like on 80% of all things DRV3, whether it be fanfic, art, or stupid videos. He is everywhere. Kokichi does not need to be every amusing role that exists on the internet, guys. Seriously. Also Kokichi you are not being unique with your fascination over the male protagonist. Komaeda already got you beat several years ago. He got you beat on the whole KILL MYSELF DURING CHAPTER FIVE AND MINDFUCK THE REST OF THE CAST plan too, so don't you think you're special or anything, KOKICHI!!

Kokichi is still better than Komaeda.

Oh right. Anyway Kokichi is the wildcard character who is basically the embodiment of lies and carries lots of homoerotic subtext. Yay! He's also very short and has the wonderful voice-acting talent of Derek Stephen Prince, who blew his Fuyuhiko out of the water with his delivery of all of Kokichi's wonderful lines. I choose to believe his final words are the truth though, that he lied to himself this entire time, took the role of the villain on purpose for this insane gambit that ended his life all to stop the killing game because ultimately, Kokichi hates killing. He likes pulling pranks and fooling with people, but murder is not a straw he will cross...even if he instigated Miu and Gonta's death, but whatever. His motive video says that much anyway.

Kaito is a poor man's Kamina. Moving on.

Tsumugi is a fascinating masterm--FINE I'LL TALK ABOUT KAITO.

I think the Kamina archetype works best when they die early and heavily affect the main character from the get-go... alas, Kaede who is technically the Nia of this game, took that role. So instead Kaito is around to serve as Maki's motivation, which is fine and all. Really, it's fine. I think. Maybe. Yes he does help out Shuichi too, and his positive influence is great and all, but Kaito is really SHOUNEN PROTAGONIST THE CHARACTER, and I've never really been fond of that kind of character...especially in a genre like Danganronpa where logic and intelligence is the most powerful ally of the main character, to decipher the clues and work out how and who dun diddly decked the dead. Also there's this moment in chapter four people point out a lot, where he's willing to die to believe in Gonta, which is all motivational and heartwarming and all, but it's not like Kaito would be the only one to die if they didn't vote for Gonta... EVERYBODY would, so he was being rather selfish at the time, throwing his beliefs over the welfare of the people (KIND OF LIKE ANGIE, lol) and then he gets super annoyed and pissed with Shuichi for siding with logic and reasoning and all... (I am well aware Tenko said something similar about Himiko in chapter two's trial. The difference here is that I think Tenko is speaking more from her undying love for Himiko whereas Kaito is basing more of his stance on his unyielding belief as opposed to being in love with Gonta or something... also Tenko was defending Himiko at the beginning of the trial when not all evidence was presented whereas Kaito defended Gonta to the very end against all the facts. I'm not sure how Tenko would react if Himiko were a culprit, probably similarly, but I think it all comes down to where their intent lies.. Maybe Kaito's stubbornness would be more understanding if he and Gonta were close friends or something? But Kaito and Gonta didn't have many interactions, and Kaito is just basing it on Gonta being pure and such, not even allowing people to even discuss the mere possibility that Gonta could be the culprit, which we did get to do without great interference from Tenko on Himiko in trial two. I DUNNO MAYBE I JUST WANNA JUSTIFY MY SEEMING HYPOCRISY HERE) yeah he's flawed and I do like flawed characters, but maybe the game doesn't point out these flaws often enough or make it apparent enough. We get a lot of praise for Kaito especially when characters like Maki and Shuichi with all the screentime in the world are so positively influenced by him, but what of his flaws? Why not point them out? Aside from people calling him an idiot which is a trope Japanese media does a lot where idiot is more like a term to describe a... shounen protagonist who throws all reasoning aside to believe in themselves and do their best, there isn't a lot of time where the narrative paints Kaito in a negative light.

Well, I don't have any strong feelings either way, that's just the opinions I've heard. My impression of Kaito is that he's just the run-of-the-mill motivational dude who somehow is the entire reason Maki becomes a better person... okay. LET US MOVE ON.

So! Tsumugi Shirogane is a fascinating mastermind. She doesn't do anything else in this game unfortunately, and her character is almost non-existent since it's almost entirely tied to the big reveal at the end of the game so uhm... okay? You can have this one, fans of guy characters who loudly proclaim they are better than the girls! She's also probably lying a lot during the reveal so we cannot possibly determine what is true and what isn't and what exactly the ending even entails. The ending itself is pretty polarizing and I don't have too much to say on it. I wanna keep this discussion on the characters even if MAYBE that Tsumugi claims about writing their lines and characters is true. Maybe. Perhaps. Possibly. THE CAN OF WORMS SHALL BE CLOSED, OKAY?

Also she was the true murderer of Rantaro and executed Kaede for no real reason, if only to continue the killing game. WELP. This doesn't change how I feel about either characters though. Rantaro still died first (even if it's for a plot-relevant reason) and Kaede though technically wasn't the killer, it's the intent that matters. In some regions, attempted murder is charged as seriously as murder, y'know.

Kiibo or Keebo or Keeboy or K1B0 or Hope or Robonaegi or whatever is a character there to spout PC jokes and be the buttmonkey until he shoots up a school in chapter six. I wish what I said was exaggeration. He's still great though, but little development who doesn't do much until the end, and even though I feel sad about his sacrifice he wasn't especially compelling either way, even if he was the audience surrogate, or the camera, or that we played as him, or that he's the literal Ultimate Hope Robot or any of that. His strongest interactions were with Miu but her death didn't change him as a person, and his complex of being treated as a real human doesn't get anywhere sadly. I wish the cast wasn't all almost entirely robophobic outside of like Shuichi and maybe a few others like Miu. Kokichi may have been the most blatant bully about it, but characters like say TENKO AND HIMIKO also had little good things to say about Keebo. GODDAMNIT YOU GUYS YOU'RE MY FAVOURITES. ESPECIALLY YOU HIMIKO, STOP CALLING KEEBO AN APPLIANCE OR THAT HE SHOULD BLOW HIMSELF UP TO BE USEFUL, GAAAAH. They're very flawed, you see. I have yet to see a post-game fanfic that acknowledges Keebo's sacrifice ever bring up anything like Himiko being remorseful for how she spoke of Keebo. Are we choosing to ignore this?

But I digress, it's SURVIVOR TIME. Because I am biased Himiko will be last, and we'll start with Maki 

Man I wish Maki had more interactions with characters beyond like Kaito...and Shuichi, but Shuichi is a given considering he is the protagonist and everybody interacts with him. Even Himiko got Angie as a friend too along with Tenko, Shuichi as well, being the given, and spent some time with Gonta even. But Maki's entire character is all thanks to Kaito. I think being the Ultimate Assassin trying to hide her talent and stubbornly guarding her lab door for as long as she did was good, but Kaito dragging her out to training and her giving in rather easily flies against all that stuff we established. She gave in TOO easily. From everything we know about her, I thought she'd be far more resistant against people trying to open her up. Yet it didn't take Kaito very long to drag her along with the training, and it didn't take Maki very long to grow attached to him. Again I hate to compare her to Himiko, but Himiko took EONS to get attached to Tenko, and only truly appreciated her after she died! Himiko doesn't get the sad tragic backstory that justifies being cold, detached, and antisocial, but Maki DOES. SO WHAT GIVES!?

I'll give her props for not being as flawless as Kirigiri and Nanami were, but eh... Maki isn't especially unique nor was she all that compelling. She was about as interesting as Kaito. IF ONLY SHE WAS THE WILDCARD CHARACTER WITH THE FASCINATION OVER OUR FEMALE PROTAGONIST, KAEDE. If only!

Speaking of protagonists, Shuichi! Yay Shuichi. My favourite Shuichi sprite is his happy sprite. Well he has more than one, but just the one where his eyes are open and his smile his wide. Well, his smile with his eyes closed is cute too. Happy Shuichi is adorable because his design screams a sad, negative, pessimistic, gloomy character, so seeing someone who looks like that so happy... is nice. I like it. I also like how his entire character arc led to him being so much more confident, that when it came time to go against the final evil dilemma the villain always throws on us his response to to kill ourselves. So intuitive, Shuichi. I know it's the proper response to end the killing games and to sacrifice ourselves so no one ever has to suffer what this cast has to again, but just that line of reasoning and how it turned out is kind of hilarious in hindsight. You have Kaede and Kaito being like YOU HAVE FRIENDS! YOU HAVE TO LIVE FOR THOSE THAT HAVE DIED! BELIEVE IN THE ME WHO BELIEVES IN YOU, and at the very end, at the climax, Shuichi is like, WE HAVE TO KILL OURSELVES!11! He would not have come to this conclusion not only if it weren't for his character development, but also if it weren't Shuichi's personality itself. Kaede I do not think would resort to convincing everyone to kill themselves to end the killing game. I don't see her ever resorting to that kind of tactic. I can see Shuichi doing it, though. Also if Love Hotel events are canon, Shuichi has more game than every other protagonist, and is the defacto bisexual protag of the bunch. And you thought Hinata had homerotic subtext! Ha! I do admit he seemed a little more dynamic when he wasn't the protag though, like how he DEDUCED the dust in the card reader on that hidden door in chapter one, and came up with this proactive plan with the cameras that he never did so ever again. I guess Kaede was there to encourage him and help him out, but after this chapter Shuichi just reacts to things as opposed to causing things because protagonists aren't allowed to move the plot, only react to it.

He does display many aspects of being very intelligent, and understanding things before even the audience does (he goes "wait, this isn't right..." and then doesn't reveal it to the player until the trial, but he figures it out himself loooong before the trial, making his ultimate talent very much earned indeed) so yeah. I found Shuichi one of the more interesting protagonists of the bunch... but still, I will always wonder what could have been with the lost potential that is Kaede... what could it have been? I'm sure Shuichi thinks so too.

HIMIKO YUMENO SURVIVED THE KILLING GAME. WHAT THE FLYING FUCK. 

I am still over the hill about this. This will never not shock me, no matter how much time passes. Never in a million years could I have possibly expected her survival. HOW does she survive? She is a smol weak girl just screaming to be a victim, with a fascinating talent that could have led to one of the more entertaining executions, and instead she fucking lives. People tried to frame her more than once instead of kill her! "Let's see, this is a small child who is somehow a teenager, who has no energy for anything and is a bit slow and is thus very vulnerable. I KNOW! I'LL FRAME HER OF MURDER WITH MY OVERLY CONVOLUTED MURDER PLAN!11!!"  She outright admits murder is too much effort and this is how people react to her. I swear! But one of the biggest reasons she did live was because of Tenko's sacrifice. The moment Himiko really could have died was to the ridiculous seesaw gambit Kork came up with, but Tenko took her place, not only giving her life, but taking Himiko's place as the victim of the endless meme. Godspeed Tenko. Godspeed.

Himiko of course then became the defacto... "useless" survivor. I do not like that term; that's just the one thrown around the most. I think the best way to describe it is the least relevant survivor. Someone like Hagakure from the first game or Akane from the second. I think she gets even more heat as the least relevant survivor because there were only three, so she took up the only feasible spot any other character could have taken that someone may have liked better if we assume Maki and Shuichi HAD to live. BUT NAY! YOU WILL NOT TAKE THIS ULTRA RARE OPPORTUNITY FROM ME, KNAVES! YOU WILL TAKE THIS FROM MY COLD, DEAD HANDS I TELL YOU! Because no matter how unbelievable it may be, I FINALLY have a favourite character who LIVED, and against ALL ODDS it was in the game with the least amount of survivors, taking the SINGLE spot any other character could have taken, and as useless and irrelevant you want to claim her to be, SHE DEVELOPED AS A CHARACTER, and became stronger due to the plot, and thus has earned her right to live on and be a survivor! SO FUCK YOU ALL! FUCK ALL OF YOU!! HA! HAHAHAHA! I HAVE SOMETHING ALIVE! AND YOU CAN'T TAKE IT FROM ME! IT IS CANON! HA! NOW YOU HAVE TO RESORT TO AU STORIES WITH ALTERNATE SURVIVORS OR IT'S ALL A SIMULATION! YOU CAN'T TAKE THIS CANON FROM ME, BASTARDS!

Okay. So Himiko.

Ah yes, the character I super relate to. She started off being a chunnibyou who claims magic is real and she is a master mage at that, despite her official talent being a magician instead, the stage kind with the tricks. She's also lazy as shit, so how she is the master of something that requires so much work is a mystery. She is an introvert who cannot be bothered to initiate any conversation, and if you do want to be her friend you have to always go to her first. Even if she doesn't like you she won't push you away because she is too lazy. She literally tells Shuichi she was too lazy to say no to him. This is how Tenko gets close to her. I also think she's pretty emotionally vulnerable and that's also why she never gets close to people because one can easily be hurt. The killing game affects her mentally quite a bit, and the only reason she keeps herself calm and collected is by resorting to Angie and becoming her friend, thus converting to the ways of Atua and escaping reality to deal with it all. Oh and she doesn't have energy in the first place to do much, which may explain her laziness, always excusing doing things with her lack of MP. She has trouble emoting and sleeps a lot. There are some headcanons out there that Himiko might be autistic and clinically depressed. I sort of agree with both, but unless they're outright confirmed it's only a mere headcanon, and we can't really intertwine such thoughts with her character completely. I will say Himiko seems far more okay with dying than most characters, with only Ryoma beating her for that...lovely title. It's less being suicidal and more giving up far more easily when it comes to Himiko. Again, I think she's very emotionally vulnerable which leads to that kind of mindset. She's also one of the more gullible characters what with falling for the cult and being pretty easily tricked or spooked in trials. Himiko is also terrible at not being suspicious. She either doesn't bother defending herself or flails around in a panic when suspected. It's great and entertaining. She also can't tell the difference between termites and rice. It is as Shuichi said, even if she didn't survive the killing game, how did she even survive life itself? Egads.

LUCKILY TENKO IS HERE, the ultra-supportive aikido master who to my utter disbelief, immediately sees Himiko and SOMEHOW this girl is the GIRL OF HER DREAMS. I don't understand Tenko's tastes whatosever. But whatever, she chose wisely. I mean yes, I like Himiko too, but because I relate to her and she's cute and such, also entertaining. Unlike Tenko though, when I first saw the cast Himiko was amongst the others as characters I was whelmed by. No real response. Tenko sees this witchy smol girl and immediately falls in love at first sight. UHM, OKAY? But really, how I describe this is like a dog who adopts you. They follow you home and love you forever. This is like a dog that adopts a cat, Himiko, who is very much cat-like being lazy, sleeping a lot, rather independent because she'd prefer to be alone and such, also black cats are associated with witches, so y'know. That's why Himiko does not like Tenko from the get-go... and also because Tenko is making some lewd comments and being somewhat inappropriate at times. Chapters one and two aren't particularly positive depictions of either characters. They are BOTH flawed, but one likes the other, and little do we know this infatuation will cause both characters to become so much better as people over time. Unfortunately Tenko's was cut short, but still. 

See, due to the trauma of the killing game, Himiko needs comfort, but she isn't one to reach out. However, Angie is very open and wants more converts to her religion, for those to see the truth and believe in the almighty Atua. Angie's Atua and thus friendship is the comfort Himiko needs to emotionally survive people killing and dying all around her. It may not have been a healthy friendship, but it was a friendship, and I believe Angie despite what her intentions led to, had good intentions. She truly wanted to save Himiko and she truly wanted to be friends with her, and give her the comfort she needs. Angie just wants to do it her way, the only way she knows how. She does come up with the idea of the magical show meant to give smiles to the rest of students, so that's something that would have been very positive for Himiko if someone didn't throw Ryoma's body into the damn piranha tank. >_> 

But unfortunately, relying on Angie long-term would not be healthy. It would be throwing away all your own decision-making and independence for the sake of Atua, and Tenko saw this. Himiko of course did not go to Tenko for comfort when the killing game was going on because Tenko did not offer friendship to Himiko, but rather her unwanted advances for some sort of romantic or sexual relationship with Himiko, which was the last thing she needed, or at least that is what Himiko was seeing from Tenko. Still, Tenko kept up her unwavering support which eventually went beyond lust or the need to protect Himiko as a vulnerable young lady, but Tenko revealed her true motives and wanted Himiko to have her own agency, and become a better person as well, to express her emotions and be herself, not cooped up locking herself away and relying on Atua for guidance for the rest of her life. Especially if Atua truly isn't some almighty god responsible for bringing salvation to people, and is just a big fat lie. (This is all interpretation of course, but Angie dying doesn't help)

When Angie died, Himiko lost this place of comfort, this friendship, and desperately wanted to connect with Angie one more time. When Tenko gives Himiko this advice, to live life facing forward, to survive, since Himiko was making comments of not wanting to go on after her only pillar of support that she assumed she had was gone, Himiko finally realized Tenko was the kind of support she did need, one that did not need to manipulate your thoughts into false ideas. She not only protected her, but Tenko was pushing Himiko in the right direction. For her to stand up for herself, to be her own biggest supporter and stop relying on outside things, to stop escaping from reality and gain the strength needed to face grim reality itself! Himiko was finally beginning to realize this, and how much Tenko was a positive influence on her.

But then Tenko died. 

Just when Himiko believed she had a healthy pillar of support, it was ripped away from her. All the advice she was about to take meant nothing. It was only after the revelations of what a sick bastard Kork was, and after being accused once again, this time of murdering her own friends does she finally take Tenko's advice. For whatever reason people only credit Kokichi for Himiko unleashing her emotions, but even before his harsh words Shuichi was the one who reminded Himiko during the trial of what Tenko said. Tenko may be gone, but Shuichi, Kaito and even people like Kokichi are trying to push her forward, and so Himiko's character development began. She was to be optimistic, to live life as it should, to no longer be the lazy girl she once was. Even Gonta was there albeit for a brief single chapter to keep her spirits up. She had friends! If it weren't for Tenko's words and inadvertent sacrifice, she would never have realized this.

But even after vowing to take that advice Himiko stumbles out of the gate and has a difficult time trying to figure out what this "living life facing forward" meant. She still seems to be low-energy, so her attempts to be bombastic and optimistic drain the MP out of her, but at least this time Himiko is trying. Beyond chapter four Himiko takes up the mantle of comic relief after Miu and Gonta dies and Kokichi is out of commission until "Kokichi" shows up at the fifth trial. When we get to chapter six Himiko is the only character left beyond Keebo (who is too busy progressing the plot at this point) who provides any sort of comedic relief. I guess Tsumugi has her references but meh, never liked referential humour. Plus by the time Tsumugi reveals herself as the mastermind Himiko is the only one there to lighten the mood at all, which is A TALL ORDER to fill when this girl was fine with dying a few chapters ago! (She's fine with dying twice more after that, and the end of the game they literally are like "WE SHALL KILL OURSELVES, so I mean...")

But ultimately, the will of the outside world or Keebo himself, idk this ending man, spares Himiko's life along with the others, and she survives... and regardless of what parts of the killing game and her life were lies, can still continue Tenko's words and live life facing forward, whatever the future yields....nyeh.

FUCK YEAH, HIMIKO.

Now as for OTP, while yes Tenko has super ultra canon gay feelings for Himiko, I cannot say with any certainty if Himiko reciprocates romantically. I WANT to say yes of course, and there is the anecdotal evidence that could back this up, but there's also not enough to be conclusive either way.  Someone claimed in the Japanese translation Himiko uses the word ai, or romantic love in Japanese to refer to Tenko in the final trial but I went  back to the moment and she never says ai at all? The fact that the translation is just word for word the localization which never mentions love doesn't help, but maybe she brings it up sometime else. Tenko is regarded as just as important to Himiko as Kaede and Kaito were to Shuichi and Maki, so I CHOOSE TO BELIEVE, just like Shuichi chooses to believe Tsumugi's words were a lie off a mere hunch, THAT HIMIKO DOES LOVE HER BACK. I MAY NOT HAVE THE HARD EVIDENCE, BUT I CHOOSE TO BELIEVE!!

But yes, Danganronpa gave me an OTP. That hasn't happened. I always thought these characters were too flawed and messed up, especially the SDR2 characters to be shipped believably, at  least for me. And even though Tenko and Himiko were flawed, their dynamic is such an integral part of both characters that is pleases me greatly that they were the token lesbians of this game. (It's always token lesbians because the protagonist is always male.... like in DR1 when it was Sakura and Aoi, but that one was less subtext and more friendship, and in SDR2 with Mahiru and Saionji, which is given more subtext like Ibuki's THE WORLD OF GIRL LOVE, IT'S SLIPPERY WHEN WET comment, but only DRV3 has the token lesbians not ONLY be canon at least one-sided, but was a greatly affected and started the character development of one half of the pair. YES. GOOD. ALMOST EVERYTHING I WANTED!!)

Anyway Tenmiko is a pure good ship that is objectively the best ship in Danganronpa. Anyone who says otherwise is wrong. 

You might be wondering, "Why are you doing this again?" and "If you are, why not after August" when TH15 is entirely out? Well considering none of the new characters from the demo or the new boss from the new fighter showed up in my top 50-ish list, I don't think too much will change from here to then. What changed from before to now, however? Well, quite a lot. Since quite a lot changed, I figure doing it again is fine and it is not because I have nothing to do because I'm writing this while my friends are waiting for me to play MH4U with them, so...

But I digress! Can you see what massively changed recently? :D? I cannot guarantee such changes will be permanent. After all it has happened quite literally overnight, though I started writing all this a few days back and just continued right about now, so at this point it wouldn't be overnight. Nonetheless, I'm going to go off on a tangent here that is marginally related to the picture on the left, but mostly not really.

I feel like as one grows older one begins to care less about things. Now, the degree of caring is very important. After all, if you start caring about nothing that stops being normal and starts running into say, depression territory or what-have-you, but when we're all adolescents, we tend to care too much. We care far too much what other people think of us, and for some of us academics must be perfect or death! In reality academics didn't really matter until later on in high school and even then one could still get into a prestigious post-secondary institution in a myriad of ways. In fact nowadays with the absurd costs of continuing education it's more cost-effective to delve into something else. But whether or not we find success in these other fields highly, highly vary. Regardless, when one gets older, one cares less.

For instance, this blog. If I cared more, I'd be ranting my pants off and posting here much more regularly than I have like I did frequently when I was younger, but now I usually do not have much to say or much to rant about. At some point you start wondering if there is a purpose to blasting certain things in two-thousand words or longer. It's probably a good exercise in a way, sort of like letting off the steam and working on personal dictation. Yet as I've grown older I've become far less passionate in things. And usually things I'm passionate in are fairly benign run-of-the-mill not especially important in the grand-scheme-of-things kind of topic. Like that image to the left. WHO CARES WHO I LIKE? Is it that important that I show up here and explain to you all lovely readers why so-and-so have shot up my ranks? Not especially! It's mostly an exercise for oneself, splaying out the reasons for such in text and not leaving it to die to the mercy of poor memory. What if five years from now I wonder why on earth i would ever have Sanae third? Was I a madwoman back then? Well now I have this text to fall back on to see why!

But of course there are pros and cons to such a mindset. I truly love being passionate about things. Everyone does. However, there comes a limit to how passionate you should be. Being passionate leads to extreme highs and lows in terms of opinions and emotions. The opposite, being casual, is that you are pleased by smaller things easier, and let down by things less than you normally would, but you would never experience the joys of something you're super into coming true. What if a show you loved to death when you were a child came back on air? You'd be ULTRA-EXCITED and then because you loved it so much, you would be incredibly observant to everything you see on screen. Are the voices still the same? Is the animation still okay? is the writing of the same spirit as it was once before? And if it is, you're elated. You are simply bursting with joy through every seam in your body. A childhood dream, a nostalgic little tidbit of your life has resurfaced, has revived. One cannot possibly describe such euphoria when you're that passionate for such a thing.

However most likely a reboot or a sequel will be terrible, or even if it's decent it will never have the same flavour as what it originally had, so disappointments, even ones not warranted will exist. Being this passionate means every little flaw is all the more magnified, and you, being so hopeful, feel all the more crushed the less similar to the thing it once was, was. You begin ranting, criticizing, maybe even flinging insults you normally never would just because of how betrayed you feel because you are that passionate by that little thing.

If you liked the show when you were young and it came back, and it was pretty similar to how it was beforehand, with some differences you can overlook so you ultimately enjoy it, you're casual about the thing. It doesn't take much to make you happy, but you would never experience that ultimate high you might have if you felt all the more invested. A lot of people say these ultra-dedicated fans are incredibly annoying, but if the person who is ultra-dedicated is happy with where they are, to the point that they do not care how they are thought of by others then they have achieved true happiness, I say. Unfortunately that is not the case most of the time. Such people will be disappointed more often than not, and this phase in their life may end and they may come out of a more aloof person, a casual if you will.

I can describe all of this for something like My Little Pony. When it first came out and I watched it I was ecstatic. What a great show! Every episode is the best! There are no flaws! The writers are the best people in the world and when they go to Valhalla after they've lived incredibly long, storied lives they should be treated to the grandest of beer and the most magnificent of parties for the rest of eternity! Basically normal humans are slammed onto pedestals because they can do no wrong. They've pleased people to the extent that if they do make an eventual mistake, their flawless, perfect image will come crumbling down to the ground. In reality everyone is a normal, flawed human who can make normal mistakes. I, being super passionate about Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy's friendship, was absolutely crushed by Pinkie's depiction in Filli Vanilli. I could not possibly believe she was capable of such insensitivity. Certainly she had displayed traits of such behaviour before, but not to such an abhorrent extent. The fact that Fluttershy's response to this is endless crying and an attempt to literally escape from her friend is treated as comedy personally offended me. I related with Fluttershy's anxiousness and insecurities. For it all to be treated like a joke, for Pinkie's behaviour to only be reacted by being smacked by a newspaper as if she were dog, it was just crushing to that passion of mine. I began ranting; I even flung insults (I don't think on this blog, or if I did not much) to people responsible. That's what happens when you are involved in something that much. Most people just thought, since they either didn't relate or were casual about it, thought the scene was okay and people may have been overreacting. A lot of Pinkie fans did not like her behaviour, including me however. This spawned a few fanfics and ideas that these two could not possibly be great amazing friends had it not been for the existence of the Elements of Harmony, but that idea goes entirely against the whole Friendship is Magic message in the first place. So how to explain what happened?

Well, to explain all we can do is that not every episode is flawless and not everyone is perfect. Someone thought, "Hey this scene would be funny!" and well, it unfortunately did not come off that way for some people. That's just reality. Now, I still watch the show. It's not like I've dropped it or dumped it or whatever, but I no longer think every episode needs to be absolutely perfect. If it isn't, I'm not about to spend hours of my day spewing text on why so-and-so sucks and needs to be better written. I may dislike an episode but I just move on. Shows and stories like MLP change and evolve over time. What was once seen often in season one might not show up as much in season four, and that's okay. Someday, I may stop watching or maybe I'll watch until it inevitably ends, either way the expectations are much lower, but not because the show is worse all of a sudden; the passion is no longer there because I enjoy the show more often when I have a more casual attitude about it. When episodes do come by and happen to be especially good, that's awesome, but no longer do I fall into the extreme lows if something I don't like happens. I mean, I certainly hope Pinkie never acts like that ever again, and that instance of her is the most extreme she ever gets, but you can't predict such things.

This rant just turned into another goddamn Filli Vanilli MLP rant didn't it? I AM SO SORRY. It is SO irrelevant to the picture to the left. So instead of talking about Touhou I'll go into another just-as-irrelevant rant! I stopped watching Achievement Hunter. OH NO. WHAT A TRAGEDY. Perhaps I'll go back to it someday. It's not like some sort of dramatic, angry abrupt stop at consuming their content. It was just a gradual sort of thing. At one point I watched a video they released every single day, then it dwindled until I watched a few videos a week. Just recently I began watching just to bide my time as I played with my hamster. Yes, there's a problem when you simply watch the video to pass time instead of for the purposes of entertainment. Is it because Ray left? That may be a part in it, but I guess their brand of humour and their attitude to gaming and such just became repetitive and old at some point. I did watch their stuff for almost two years after all. A lot of their humour is bashing things, mostly jokingly, but it does feel old after a moment. For instance, I like hockey. They bash the fuck out of hockey whenever it comes up, but I know it's in a joking manner. Recently they played NHL 15, and I watched the first video but for whatever reason I just don't have the desire to watch the second part. I guess even though I know they were joking I got tired of their constant ignorance about a sport I am passionate about.

Another thing is that I've begun seriously watching tons of ASMR. I've become so much more calm and chill because of it and I love that stuff. The topic came up in Achievement Hunter, one member apparently hates it and finds it creepy. That's okay. It's not for everyone. But then it got to the point that they started joking it was a sexual thing somehow? Which is a stereotype I really don't want being spread around at all. They even spoofed an ASMR video by whispering and making tons of innuendoes. Again, they were probably joking, but the hoards of thousands of fans that watch and have no clue what it is will probably think it is just a sexual kind of thing. You get kind of tired when such stereotypes are tossed around. Like every gay person is flamboyant! All girls like shopping and dresses! Yaoi fangirls are perverted lost causes! Fans of ponies are neckbearded manchildren! People on Tumblr are fierce SJWs who have "NO FUN ALLOWED" permanently installed on their lawns! Redditors are just fuckboys who hate women! I SEE THIS CONSTANTLY ON THE INTERNET ALL THE GODDAMN TIME IT GETS OLD GODDAMNIT. And when there are constant jokes and humour meant to shit on people, which I'm fine with honestly, I do love me some South Park. It's just that if such a brand of humour is done in really cheap, direct manner, it's not all too funny anymore. South Park is brilliant because it's written excellently with some great satire. Doing things offensively because it's offensive is not clever whatsoever.

I'm not saying what they did was offensive. God knows there are tons of other things people have concerns about, but it's just in general. You get tired of it and that's the brand of humour they operate on. You go talk to your friends somewhere in a relaxing, open place where you can be yourself, but then you can't because suddenly someone makes a sandwich joke about girls. And you just sit there and take it, but internally you're like "THIS IS FUCKING OLD." I can appreciate smart humour that subverts your expectations. Or puns. The best cheap humour is puns. Whenever someone makes an incredibly ignorant comment about something I don't get angry, I just laugh at them. They're that stupid. It's how people continue living life, by laughing because man do things get old.

Okay that last rant wasn't really coherent whatsoever. I basically just got tired of the "Deal with it" attitude. Like, instead of complaining (well I technically am now but whatever) I'll just stop watching. The passion will be gone, and it has. And despite all my grievances the ultimate reason is that their stuff just got boring. They just play the game now it seems. I don't really laugh anymore. I loved the Minigolf stuff, always laughed at that. Then Ray left and they filmed the rest of that series in a week. While there was some genuine hilarity in the last few videos it felt like a drop in quality because instead of spreading out the content they played it all at once, so everyone remembers how to play the game. It becomes "a bunch of dudes playing video games" instead of "a bunch of entertainers playing video games". Maybe my tastes have matured? Their audience is the teenage audience anyway.

Oh yeah, Touhou.

I guess I am still passionate about some things. I am here ranting after all. So speaking about Reddit, I re-subbed to the Touhou subreddit because I wanted relevant Touhou news. (I'm never going to remember when Reitaisai happens without this!) but notice how I say "re-subbed". I un-subbed because they kept posting NSFW art or questionable art. I was really hoping such content was moved to some other subreddit, and when I re-subbed I didn't see any, but then after a week of course all that came crashing back down. Luckily actual NSFW art doesn't have a thumbnail, so I can usually ignore them, but questionable art does not get tagged like this, so I'll be scrolling down the front page and suddenly, someone's butt.

Okay, one reason to love Touhou is the designs, in particular how non-sexual these designs are. Certainly they're wearing very elaborate clothing one would not really expect of the time they live in. (I mean, exposed armpit mikos? Lol) But it's not anything that's really revealing and it's really nice for a change. Of course then the fighting game comes out and they decide the religious nun character should have bouncy boobs, and when she rides a motorcycle a rather revealing biker outfit during her special, which you most likely will miss considering how fast the picture comes by, but still. Nonetheless, I can tolerate it. I did after all start liking Touhou after SOMEHOW enduring the blatant and vast fanservice that dominated all of Negima, what with being an ecchi. I didn't complain too much about it (except when the proportions were incredibly stupid) because if I'm reading an ecchi I might as well be expecting fanservice, so if I see a small amount of it in other things it's not a huge deal. But actual porn or questionable fanart of normally very tastefully-dressed Touhous bother me. (Though I do recall complaining about said bouncy boobs. Seriously, Byakuren of all people!?!? I know the rest aren't as well-endowed, but really?)

But it's all about choosing to see things. You see I frequent Danbooru because I'm insane. I am well aware Safebooru exists, but the translations/comments (or at least the comments) won't exist on Safebooru because sadly, not as many people browse such a site. Now you might be wondering why the comments are so necessary that I'd stay on the site like so, but you don't exactly realize how insane I am. I enjoy reading comments to the extent that I read Youtube comments. I AM THAT INSANE. Because of such, I keep any complaints I might have about Youtube comments to a minimum (do you see a rant about that here??) because if I'm willingly reading about them, complaining about it is utterly pointless. I did install Alien Blue to replace Youtube comments with Reddit comments (which contrary to popular belief is not always better) but if the video does not have many Reddit comments or none at all, you damn well know I'm reading those horrible Youtube comments. So yes, you'd think seeing questionable content would not bother me. After all, I HAVE YEARS OF NEGIMA EXPERIENCE.

But Reddit is a place where I don't want to see such content, like at all. It's a place I don't expect it. It's a place free of such things. That's why a NSFW filter exists! But then questionable stuff gets through anyway, and again you don't have to click it! BUT IF IT SHOWS UP IN A THUMBNAIL, WHAT DO YOU DO!? WHAT DO YOU DO!? That's why I unsubscribed to r/WTF. (Why the fuck is that subreddit a default one anyway!?) Hell, I actually expect it on Tumblr because of how Tumblr is organized. Unless you specifically only follow strictly SFW people (which I don't because too many cool people to follow) there is always a chance you'll see NSFW on the dash. That's why I never Tumblr in public, but Reddit, ironically, IS THE ONE PLACE I DON'T WANT TO SEE SUCH THINGS. And thus this dilemma.

Good lord I'm still not talking about the sort.

Well.

It's all very simple really. I've only been paying attention to canon Touhou stuff until recently, so Miko returning in ULiL and her badassery has promoted her to first place, while Keine I still like as much. She just hasn't done anything so she's stagnant. Sanae is playable again in TH15: Rabbit Season! Yay! But that's not at all the reason she's up there, or any other character might be so high up. As you can see, UFO as a whole except Byakuren dropped out of my top ten, which is a sad depressing thing. I truly enjoy UFO. I'm just still forever annoyed that Stage 5 bosses like Shou and Orin are left to the side because they are youkai cats. SUCH DISCRIMINATION. At first the rule was only humans can be playable, but then Reisen became playable in TH15 (probably because she's relevant and also she is for some reason identifying as human in this game, idk) and Seija also became playable despite being a youkai. So clearly being a cat is a bad thing in the Touhou universe. I guess I'm just disappointed that due to Shou being really just a figurehead and all of her power canonically coming from that pagoda, there is no reason for her to be playable in a fighting game or be relevant in too much. This is unfortunate. Shou has all the wonderful design to look utterly badass while fighting, but I guess her looks are just for...Shou.

I do not regret that.

Anyway that includes the rest of UFO not in the game. Ichirin actually went up, from 50th-ish to 30th-ish so it's not like everyone went down! I still like Murasa and Nue but they've also become far less relevant. Nue's involved in a million other things now, like hanging out with Koi and Flan (fanon, but still) or having hijinks with Mamizou or being compared to/drawn with Seija due to design similarities (all fanon! But they're not doing much in canon anyway so eh). Meanwhile Murasa is now commonly mistaken for a Kancolle character. SUCH A SAD FATE. Or at least when I go "OH MY GOD THAT THUMBNAIL OF MURASA LOOKS COO--it's a Kancolle character. Fuck everything."

Okay I'll stop avoiding the obvious.

AYASANA IS THE WINK OF A WIND GOD

....wow the translation of that sounds awkward.

Yep! It's just like how KeneMoko propelled Keine to god-status. I have recently adopted a new wonderful pairing because I am a shameless hardcore shipper who despite the numerous rants (like that RWBY rant where I declared I stopped shipping...and now I have an actual OTP in that fandom >_>) will always return to these seemingly adolescent roots. I'M SORRY. IT IS HARD TO DENY THE CUTENESS. You see when Aya isn't portrayed as the most annoying bird in existence and when Sanae isn't portrayed as the most manic youkai exterminator in existence, they're actually quite nice characters who are really fucking cute together. Like holy crap. This is oddly enough not unexpected. I recall years ago being bored and going through the Aya and Sanae tags because I WAS THAT BORED, and I actually went through all the AyaSana stuff despite having little investment in the pair. It was cute enough for me to LOOK AT EVERYTHING. Now I randomly returned to it (I don't know how. I, on a whim, purchased an Aya keychain recently and now it sits on my desk IN FRONT OF ME for some reason and the figure MUST'VE HYPNOTIZED ME TO look up Aya things) I also blame Wind God Girl. I think I was listening to it and decided to look up Aya stuff. ALL OF IT IS HAS CONTROLLED MY BRAIN.

I say this because I've always liked Sanae. She's my favourite playable. I always main her. THEN AYA, OUT OF NOWHERE. The only reason she had not swapped with Sanae's place is because I've liked Sanae longer and until my preferences have been solidified some I'm not allowing some random character to stick its face so high up so soon. It'd be weird! But if all of this love remains and doesn't die off eventually then technically I am once again shipping another reporter character... hm. I never was too fond of Momiji/Aya, or Aya/Hatate. I tried to get into Sanae/Reimu but I don't find Reimu shippable personally. I AM ALSO OPEN TO SHIPPING EITHER OF THEM TO ALICE. Because Alice is great. I still love her. She's just ninth because...reasons.

BY THE WAY I WROTE ALL THAT ABOVE LIKE TWO WEEKS AGO AND JUST RECENTLY FINISHED THE SONG SORT AFTER A WEEK. Click the image for the massive full sort. It took that long, though admittedly there were days I didn't touch it at all and days where I spent like 2-3 hours. Some days I just did it for like fifteen minutes, but at around 40% in I finished the rest all in one day in around 3 and a half hours. By "finished" I mean rushed, so that led to multiple music casualties, wonderful underrated or usually amazing songs that are sadly lower on the list because I liked one song better than it but didn't like THAT song better than others despite probably liking the casualty better than the songs that I liked better than the song I liked better than it. Did you get that? Was that confusing? Nonetheless I'll list a few casualties and a few surprising songs I don't listen to very often that happen to be casualties but need a listen because damn they are just that good. Oh and one thing about the character sort which I did a few weeks back....I did say things might change after a while and it did! I'd probably swap Sanae and Aya. That's about it. THE EVIL KEYCHAIN THAT SITS ON MY DESK UNLIKE ALL MY OTHER FIGURES HAS TAKEN TOTAL CONTROL OF MY BRAIN. This all happened due to an impromptu purchase of an Aya keychain. All of this. The sudden Touhou takeover of my blog despite several rants being entirely unrelated, but still!

I'd also like to mention two other recent events, such as MLP's 100th episode which was pretty much a fanservicey (not in that way) love letter to the fans and that the Stanley Cup has been won by the Chicago Blackhawks...again...for the third time in six seasons! Egads! That just means they not only have a really strong team but really strong scouting and management to maintain such a successful team for so long. At this point they might as well be called a dynasty, perhaps not the crazy Montreal Canadiens of old or the Gretzky Oiler days, but at least on par with or even better than those dominant teams of the 90's (like the Avalanche and the Penguins). Meanwhile my Vancouver Canucks have nothing to show for in forty-four years. I dread whatever decision our management makes for the upcoming draft because we are once again (like a tradition it seems) deciding on two goalies with bright futures and one of them is my favourite player. I most certainly hope they will make the right choice but after all these years following this team I'm very prepared for crushing disappointment and it's just getting really old. I'm to the point I may consider some other team if they keep doing things like trading away favourite players or making mindnumbing decisions. How long can this loyalty last? It's like my rant earlier in this post. If I were a casual and only cared when my team was doing really well maybe this wouldn't be a problem but it is because of passion, passion which as time goes by feels more and more misplaced. PLEASE DON'T DO WHAT I THINK YOU WILL DO.

If they do, well I'll be here on that day, either ranting or just deflated.

As for the one hundredth pony episode...wow. It's going to fly over really casual fans' heads unfortunately. Those who are only here for the Mane Six and haven't participated in the fandom and how often they write, draw, and make videos of various background ponies will be lost. Derpy (or Muffins if the credits are of any indication) is the most well-known one even for the casual fans but how many people I wonder will get Doctor Hooves or understand why the hell it seems like Lyra and Bonbon are a little more than friends, or why the hell Bonbon is out of nowhere a secret agent or remember who Steven Magnet is or realize the significance of his name or remember Octavia? Aside from Derpy there's Vinyl who has a few toys of her that's more exposed than the most (she was a McDonald's toy once I believe) and she had a sizable role in the movie so Vinyl and Derpy will probably be the ones those who aren't super invested will get, but still the majority of the episode will go WHOOSH over their heads.

I've never been the hugest fan of the background ponies. Unlike say, a minor character, background ponies don't really speak and are really only there to make the scenery look more crowded. However instead of say a bunch of completely grey/black people some cartoons and Anime might do, ponies happen to be multicoloured and therefore several will end up with rather distinct designs despite being in the background, so people notice them and start making up stories for them. I unfortunately need a little more than that to like them. For instance Touhou has tons and tons and tons of characters, but since you face a majority of them in battle through the game, you get to see their danmaku patterns, their spellcard names, their dialogue, see any potential backstory in the manual, listen to their theme which is usually indicative of their personality, and then you can go from there to establish who they are and if you like them or not. THEN the fanon comes in and does whatever they want with them with very, very, very mixed results. I didn't mind these characters as say, minor characters or side characters in fanfics I read, seeing as I usually search up something like I dunno, a Pinkie Pie story (there's an Octavia story somewhere in that recommendation list) but seeing them with this much spotlight in canon? Now this is a surprise!

Quite a surprise in fact, that because of this very episode I liked all these characters more than I ever did before. That's all I needed to start giving them a chance. Actually, the Rainbow Rocks movie had a little scene involving Lyra and Bonbon and I was like "Well, these two get shipped extremely often in the fandom and they have an awfully close piano playing scene here" which made me overjoyed for some reason. Then now, in episode 100 we have them actually talking and saying things like "SUCH BEST FRIENDS" while their actions speak just a little further than mere best friends...

AND THIS LEADS ME TO SOMETHING I'VE BEEN WANTING TO RANT FOR A WHILE.

When I was younger and involved in the shipping community, I understood what most people said when people didn't want things shoved in their face. You know, like ponies. That may be the reason some people dislike the phenomenon (among other things anyway) but then, this perspective soon changed. Not so much for something fairly minor like an interest in ponies, which frankly should not be shoved into people's faces because well, it is ultimately just a TV show, but something a little more significant like, shipping is not something I agree on. Do you know why? Sure, the hordes of fangirls and fanboys with their OTPs charging down the halls clinging onto every tiny little scene may be annoying and there might be the dreaded ship wars that make most fans hate their own community, but by god, if the show has a scene between two ponies that is OBVIOUSLY hinting at something more, is it really "shipping goggles" to see more? Because, it's not shipping that's the "annoying problem" about these people. Saying that a scene like Lyra and Bonbon is just there to please shippers without outright confirming anything isn't merely "fanservice"...it's a lot less shallow than that.

Perhaps it's due to being on Tumblr so long, but seeing as most people I follow on Tumblr fall on a spectrum, their posts that continually fill my dash day-by-day depicting the things people on a spectrum must go through all the time really changes your mind, nevermind how I'm still fucking confused where I fall in this spectrum. A friend of mine is asexual for example, and she's told me a few times of her grievances with people who do not seem to understand this concept of asexuality. Apparently, someone doesn't like sex. They don't like it at all. They have no desire to be with someone. They do not have such carnal instincts as others. They are literally affecting no one else by not liking this. There's plenty of people who live through life single for reasons like this or others, but because our society is driven so much by the norms of a boy liking a girl, someone's just gotta bother my friend about this all the time or the topic or something subtle or subconscious always pops up. Like maybe someone will ask you who you like, and you say "no one" but they refuse to take this as an answer because they're so used to relationships in your life. My best friend for instance has a mother who keeps asking her to get a boyfriend, and well, if you told that lady you either didn't want one or preferred a significant other of another gender that must be hell to go through.

Now you're wondering "Well Spotto, if you fall on this spectrum why aren't you explaining what you go through everyday too?" While my parents have touched on the topic occasionally they seem to have stopped asking this question, of when I'll get hitched, probably because either they think I'm a lost cause (lol) or well, my brother who's eight years older than me happens to be gay and has gone through this before with my parents, which I've witnessed, and since he hasn't had one single friend beyond a friend at all, I think their traditional expectations have nosedived. I'm blessed my brother took the brunt of it all. It also helps that I'm not out probably because I DO NOT HAVE ANY CLUE. So there.

How does this relate to shipping you ask? Well, people always complain that shippers are in every fandom and ruining everything, taking over other lovely discussions like debating on lore or character analysis for instance, and oddly enough most shippers seem to ship same-sex. Why is this? The 100th episode showcased a fucking wedding between a girl and boy donkey, I mean jack and jenny, and no one cares. Not a single person is going "Wow why are they shoving these two in my face?!?!?!" nor did anyone bat an eye at the Canterlot Wedding (except for people who think brothers who pop out of nowhere and alicorns popping out of nowhere are bullshit, but that's besides the point) but two characters who aren't even the main characters who show up in the background together a lot, and now that they are given more attention thanks to the fandom have some scenes where they seem to get along real well, apparently it's shoving it into their faces if we proclaim our OTP has been canonized or something. Apparently we CANNOT say they are really together, (even the show itself can't outright say it) despite all indication otherwise because that's just "desperate shippers with shipping goggles" or people "looking into it too much" and "tons of friends act like this all time!" NOT IN THIS SHOW THEY DO NOT! I have not seen a single instance where some other group of friends gave each other bedroom eyes, held their jaws in their hooves, or smooshed cheeks together like Lyra and Bonbon does! And if the first thing did happen it's a freeze-frame shot of a pony blinking instead of prolonged dreamy eyes! But no, instead of "YAY MY LITTLE PONY HAS A CANON GAY COUPLE" it's controversial and AMBIGUOUS!!

Like, I have complained about shippers overtaking something before. iCarly for example is 100% shippers and no one at all cares about anything else. MLP is not like this. There's lots of shipping yes, but there's a HUGE amount of stories, fan videos, music, and art all about comedic moments with one character or a video devoted to Luna and Celestia's past or an askblog about the CMC's adventures or the Mane Six in a huge fantasy fairy tale fighting an all-out-war! Of all things MLP does NOT have an over-abundance of shipping! But two background characters often shipped and usually having funny background events are given a few of these scenes and suddenly we're looking too hard and are too desperate and they're just friends! YES. LYRA AND BONBON ARE BEST FRIENDS. SUCH GOOD GOOD FRIENDS. THEY ARE SO CLOSE AND GET ALONG SO WELL. BEST FRIENDS AND BEYOND ARE NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE!

The whole point is, we can have weddings and freakin' Twilight being paired with a random high school boy not of her own native species in an alternate universe, but a few scenes edging on the line of two ponies of the same sex and suddenly AMBIGUOUS CONTROVERSY. You know what I think about these people? Fuck these people. They are the reason our society isn't as progressive as it should be. They are the reason thousands of people went up and arms about Korrasami, which I know nothing about and is possibly something that could've come out of nowhere, I wouldn't know since I don't watch the show, but by god at least let people BE HAPPY that they can watch a show where there are people just like them in there, and it's normal! Because people on a spectrum have to watch shows and movies and read books where straight people literally have sex (yes I read this on a post) and no one bats an eye, but someone who MIGHT HAPPEN TO BE gay exists and everyone blows a fuse. Seriously, FUCK YOU.

I'm sorry. I was just super happy about the 100th episode (like there are things that felt a bit much but still) and went around reading tons of reactions and such and like half of them was about denying Lyra and Bonbon. People saying "the ship is sunk" because they mentioned being best friends like eight hundred times. Normally people don't mention they're the best of friends a bunch of times in a row. It was likely the writers throwing those lines in there tons of times to get what their actions were like through censors. Even if it was a joke on shippers (which it could've been) they threw in Lyra and Bonbon very closely piano playing in the movie which wasn't at all a scene make to point fun at something, so I'm inclined to believe the consistency of these two scenes existing means the writers actually want to include something like a gay couple in their show too, even if it's in a stealth way that doesn't officially announce it so. After all, these writers live in very open, liberal areas (California) and the animators are in freakin' CANADA. Unfortunately for a lot of people unless you blatantly show them on a giant billboard that reaches the heavens that two characters of the same gender are together, they will deny until the end of time. FRIENDS, you say. This is also a reason there aren't a lot of male-female friendships in media either. I have lots of friends who are guys, but when I go on Reddit for instance, for all the people there in that community, it seems like being friends with someone of the opposite gender is a MYTH or something considering some of the comments and questions I've seen. Christ on a fiddlestick.

And I know why they think it's a myth because this whole stupid "friendzone" thing is so prevalent. It completely erases the importance of friendship. Why can't we be friends? Why don't you want to be friends? Why is it "BE MY GIRLFRIEND OR BE NOTHING"!? Why is this such a thing in our society, our culture? It's like someone sees someone else who is attractive and suddenly they MUST skip that whole friendship thing or undermine it because hanging out with someone because they are cool just can't be a thing if you happen to be attracted to them! I SWEAR!

I want to throw things through my window right now. These things are just so infuriating.

With that out of the way, let me fall on the other line for once.

If you've read this blog a lot (and I don't know why you do I write mountains of text, like this post) but if you've read a whole bunch of it you'll know I'm not some person who's wholly against like sexuality and hates it in every single medium. I see it way too often but I'm not like, asexual or anything like that (I think? Blah I don't know) So even though if I see a character I like dressed very provocatively for the billionth time and want to fling glass shards at whoever thought another one of these images was a good idea, there are times where I welcome such a thing. It's like how you ask a guy if they like, say this part of the body more or the other. Say some people like broad shoulders on a man, or the obvious "I like big boobs" people, or what have you. I have this too. I absolutely love navels. If a girl has her stomach showing I will never be complaining. I just said girl without thinking too. Guys' stomachs are okay (well, you might be like "WHAT ABOUT ABS" and abs are cool, but I actually just like flat smooth stomachs more than anything. Besides for a guy I prefer like, pronounced eyebrows and jaw-lines over the stomach) But all of this is entirely appearance-based. If I ever like someone it'd probably be personality above all because well, in reality you gotta be compatible with that person right? If they make you laugh and are a charming, nice person, the looks really don't matter in the end.

I mean, yes, I am saying this on a blog without that much experience on the thing so maybe it's two-faced or blatant lies. But really, if I happen to like someone thanks to their personality, they're a lot cuter to me than they ever would be normally all because of that lovely personality so while yes, obviously looks will be in play, it's really not the biggest thing whatsoever.

Now where was I?

OH RIGHT THE SORT HA HA HA.

So, like I said many paragraphs ago, I did a music sort too! It took a while. The reason I rushed it all today was because leaving Chrome open with a game was causing graphical glitches (among other things, I'm looking at you Steam!) so I wanted to close Chrome...except I had this sort up and if I closed it I wouldn't be able to continue where I Ieft off, so I decided to just do it all at once, get it done. This of course led to many songs I do like quite a bit far lower than they should be due to my stubborn lack of choosing tie, and my tastes being all over the damn place. Also, the first four PC-98 games were sadly excluded because I thought some of the best PC-98 songs were all in Mystic Square. I forgot Mima was a playable character, not a boss in Mystic Square so her theme wouldn't be in it. I also thought Luize was Elly, and confused their themes together. Luize is in Mystic Square, but Bad Apple, the song I wanted, belonged to Elly who was instead in Lotus Land Story. Also other cool songs like Strawberry Crisis were left out as well so those are some unfortunate casualties of this sort. I'm never doing it again; it takes way too long, but I do love those songs. However including Mystic Square made me realize where some remixes came from (I've neeeeever played the PC-98 games ok) and I found other songs that sounded quite good I didn't really listen to much before. Unfortunately one of these was quite the casualty, the stage one theme of Mystic Square called Dream Express. Since I was rushing I was unfortunately judging a lot of songs I didn't know as well on like, the first few seconds of the song so I could move on, but this theme is really damn good. A lot of Touhou songs do have some long intros or take a while to get to the good stuff. This is why Last Remote is ninth. I love Last Remote, but it takes ages to get to the catchy melody part. Meanwhile something like Extend Ash is good the whole way through or Little Princess' lead up fitting really well with the song.

If I listed these songs manually Dream Express would likely be in my top 50 or even top 30 but due to my rushing it is a sad 233rd. -_-

There are a lot of these. I dunno if there are any in particular I still remember, but something like Wriggle's stage theme is really low, or Yukari's IaMP theme is really low, etc. (It didn't read as "Yukari's theme, just Shrine theme or something so it didn't click to me automatically it was Yukari's other theme, so being some random IaMP theme it dropped like a rock). Despite ticking off arranges, there was a particular game that remixed its opening for all the pre-battle themes (or most anyway) which is SWR. Its title theme is remixed from IaMP's title theme and Soku's title theme is remixed off it as well, but wow every damn pre-battle theme being a remix was annoying. I like the song sure but I didn't want a song to be 13 spots lower than it should be because I voted for the title themes and all its remixes to be near the top. (The Soku version is in my top ten; if I had done this my top 20 would be just THIS SONG'S REMIXES D<) so there was that.

Oh and even though no MoF songs made it to my top ten (partly due to casualty) it was by far the hardest game to judge. I love EVERY SINGLE song. Any MoF song not in the top 30 was a casualty. Even though some themes are above others they're pretty much all ties in my heart. There were also songs voted in spite. A prominent one is Sanae's theme, Faith is for the Transient People. You see, Twitch Plays Pokemon recently did a Touhoumon run and Sanae was their starter. Someone suggested doing a remix/mashup of the themes of their six champion Touhoumons, but adamantly deemed Sanae's stage theme as superior, so it ended up in both mashups that existed. The first one that was posted only had the stage theme and not the boss theme and even though I DO AGREE the stage theme is really good and is probably better than the boss theme, I have always associated Sanae with her boss theme because IT IS HER BOSS THEME and it's pretty distinct, so that peeved me off. The second mashup had both, and this was nice. Unfortunately this happened again with MIMA. Apparently Mima's stage theme or second theme or whatever is superior to Reincarnation. No matter how good a theme it might be (I listened to it, it didn't catch on with me at all) REINCARNATION IS A CLASSIC! It's a song I instantly associate Mima with, so I was just full of petty spite at the end and when it came to this sort, though Reincarnation was unfortunately not included I fucking voted for Faith is for the Transient People over Sanae's stage song, BECAUSE FUCK YOU that's what!

I mean I love Nostalgic Blood of the East faaaaaaaaaaar more than Plain Asia for Keine, but if someone uses Plain Asia for Keine instead of Nostalgic Blood I won't mind whatsoever because Plain Asia is her actual boss theme. That is the one associated with Keine the most .It is her theme. Stage themes technically shouldn't even be associated with any character; it's only ZUN trying to set the atmosphere while you kill faeries heading to the next boss. Maybe they can be applied for midbosses that have no other themes, but really.

As for unexpected results, well...IN having three entries to MoF having none in the top ten was a surprise. Of course, I really love Extend Ash and Nostagic Blood, but I underestimated how much I loved Lunatic Princess. Those Princess songs man, they're always so damn good. The problem is MoF and SA both killed each other and themselves when it came time to fight against other games' songs because I love the music from both so bad. Those wonderful years of MoF and SA coming out were imo the pinnacle of Touhou music. While music before then was great and music after is still good, the best came in those years. I love pretty much every song from both their games but MoF does edge out SA.

I've always said Emotional Skyscraper is my favourite Touhou song, but apparently I have eight billion remixes of it on my phone and have heard it too damn much, so it's sadly now fourth. :C

Anyway I should probably post this and not leave it up for a week for when I want to add MORE rants making this even longer. I shall end with a playlist of my apparent top 31 touhou songs according to this sort, just for anybody who can't recognize the song itself from the name. Why is it 31? Because if I made a list of them all no one would listen to it all, not even me! Why 31 in particular? BECAUSE FAITH IS FOR THE TRANSIENT PEOPLE! SPIIIIIIIIITE!!!!!!!!!!!

I had a rant here before but then it died. GJ auto-saving feature...then I started redo'ing it but stopped. I had ideas in my head but my desire to type things out disappeared when I developed a sudden headache. A DAY LATER and I've abandoned what I wanted to type about... for some TOHO SORT!

Did it once again because now it is updated with the newest of new characters. This is unlike a few years back when Ten Desires' characters took forever to be added to the system. (I think someone else ran the sorter back then, so good on you new person!) On the other hand, since I've not warmed up to the DDC characters yet they don't really affect much of my rankings. The newest character who does make a big splash just like on the character polls is Kokoro, who comes along with a few others as a direct result of my utter love for Hopeless Masquerade. So I'll be taking a break from what I wanted to rant about (which was just RWBY anyway) for more good ol' Touhouism on a very classic topic... my favourite characters!

First before a certain person is shocked that Alice broke into my top three, I'd like to give an ode to Koishi. Yes, Koishi. Koishi is someone who initially was my most favourite of them all and though has never reclaimed the grand throne, has never once fallen out of my top-5 and therefore deserves some praise. Koishi recently reached a very unexpected yet delighting second on the big Touhou polls meaning her appearance in HM, article in SoPM, and countless of countless fanworks have shot the lovely pseudo-satori into stardom. Sadly, Koishi herself still suffers from that whole "closed-eye" thing, so in the world of Gensokyo, no one will remember who she is, or know who she is unless you're her poor secluded sister, Satori. Koishi herself probably can't even acknowledge popularity regardless of that one incident in the village with that mask youkai that she inadvertently caused by not returning the titular mask. Isn't it sad?

But by extension to Koishi, the cast of SA as a whole has always been loved by me and of course, the general fanbase it seems. Lately I've begun to appreciate Yamame, who I normally found a very generic and forgettable character. Certain fanworks have spelt out some potential for her and so she is no longer on the bottom end of my list. Satori is usually in my top ten and Utsuho hangs around on the outskirts, yearning to break out as a favourite of them all but again, still swinging by the outskirts. (She's pretty much been between 7th and 14th forever, mostly #10) Parsee's also often high up and Yuugi is just precious. I've found more serious depictions of the oni more interesting than the usual "strong drunkard" applied to the oni of Gensokyo. Orin though has not been consistently high up, but she's a swell character as well.

In a bit of a contrast to SA though, the crew of UFO have been falling. Murasa and Nue have for the very first time dropped out of my top-ten, with only Byakuren staying on due to the aforementioned TH13.5. Unfortunately while SoPM drove up other characters and HM drove up others even more, these same games as well as Ten Desires and even Double Dealing Character itself has really dried up my interest into the less-popular crewmembers of the Palanquin. Nazrin still manages to stay in the top-ten due her only-sane-man characterization and her unique role amongst a cast of irrelevant stage one bosses. Shou's not doing too well either, but for the longest time I thought her curvy lasers, neat little pagoda, and awesome spear would've been perfect tools for Shou to enter the religious "war" that Hopeless Masquerade was, but unfortunately ZUN did not think the same. Instead, canon Shou is apparently a terrible fighter, her most important role simply to represent Bishamonten and therefore look as much like him as possible despite being not only a youkai but also female. The spear is just for "Shou" and she relies heavily on the pagoda, which made it to the game but Shou didn't. These developments dropped her for me, if only, if only.

The usurpers are newcomers or older characters who took a long time for Spotto warm up to. Sanae just randomly ended up in the top ten as a result, not because I've suddenly taken a huge liking to her but more like I've ALWAYS liked her and others having fallen gave her room to move up. The other ones popping up are Alice, whose been in my top ten for a while anyway and Kokoro who went from non-existent to a ridiculous fourth! Alice I mostly blame Aoi-dono for, but sometimes you just gotta like one of the most popular and classic of Touhou characters. To really enjoy the series as a whole just being interested in the more obscure ones isn't going to give me as much access to the fandom as much as I like. Alice is quite possibly the only character who is up in my top ten with literally no cast herd to push her into he spotlight. Byakuren had the UFO!crew and HM. Miko also had HM while Koishi is near the summit with a lot of other SA characters. Keine and Mokou are largely powered by their utterly adorable pairing, and while the other Moriyas aren't quite high up they are very helpful in keeping Sanae up in my top ten. Alice...well I'm not really much of a MariAli person, or an Alice/ANYONE person and I see Alice as a loner anyway so she really has no one giving her reason to be up here. I just like her and blame Aoi-dono, as per usual.

Hata no Kokoro is again, a direct result of my utter love for Hopeless Masquerade. It's quite possibly my favourite Touhou game now and the dysfunctional family!dynamic between her, Byakuren, Miko, and Miko's crew is just delightful. While it's most likely if Kokoro could choose, she'd end up with the Buddhists due to their openness towards youkai in general, I'm still fairly miffed at how huge that cast herd is getting, which is only pushing other characters I did love out of the way due to so many people trying to share spotlight in the same setting. In future Touhou sorts Kokoro is most likely to fall however because the novelty and hype from HM will likely fade over time unless we get a fighting game expansion like Hisoutensoku. There are also fanworks that might keep her high up however, like that random Kokoro story involving Alice. 

Miko herself was almost first. At the pique of my hype for HM, Miko probably was first, but soon I was reminded of all the reasons I love Keine, so Miko's complete capture of my heart was sadly brief. Still, my taste in the characters is unusually malleable, which is just further evidence of how Touhou in general really is amazing. So someday in the future Keine may no longer be first and some other character, perhaps Miko, perhaps a DDC character, perhaps some unexpected one will plant their flag on my metaphorical mountain of love. And then I will post this sort again on this blog again and write this post again just like the five other times before this. A tradition I will surely continue because typing about my favourites is quite possibly the easiest thing to write about.

Speaking of DDC characters though, it's been over a week! I've posted my first impressions and first-first impressions already, but here are my third impressions after comparing them directly to other characters via this sort. The biggest problem with DDC so far is the lack of proper cast herd that has caused this incident because instead, the ones behind the abnormality in Gensokyo is just this very troublemaking pretend-oni who looks like an overdone OC. Seija is, to me, just Tewi + Nue + Seiga combined into Seija. All of their mischievousness combined with their maliciousness, design, and even name were put together to make this latest stage five boss. Her mostly-black hair, red eyes, and tongue sticky-itude remind me so much of Nue all the artwork I see of Seija just looks like Nue 2.0. And my first impressions of Nue were poor as hell. Sukuna is adorable, but not very traditional in the sense of final bosses (due to the plot, but still) and I'm also not very fond of her design. The tsukumogamis all suffer from a lack of mysterious backstory due to their recent birth (all of 'em are quite young!) so I can't find much potential with them either.

That only leaves the first three bosses who are mostly unconnected with one another. Besides going crazy due to a magical mallet, Wakasagihime is usually a docile mermaid bothering no one inside Misty Lake. Her only connection is that she's part of some Youkai Grassroots Network, which Kagerou is also a part of. (And Kagerou almost ate her once, but those jokes were inevitable even if this wasn't mentioned in canon) Sekibanki lives in the village pretending to be a human, but is actually sorta-like a teenage youkai rebellious of authority and finding herself cooler-than-thou. She has absolutely no connections with anyone else though and is just a cynic. Finally, Kagerou is a werewolf. We only see her on the full-moon anyway so we don't know anything of her human-side besides the fact that she identifies more as a youkai regardless of being human the other twenty-nine days of the month AND that even if she does see herself as a youkai hides when she is one anyway because she doesn't like getting hairy.

Wow, there sure were a lot of insecure and naive youkai this incident. I guess it makes sense since it's all about trying to get the weak to overthrow the strong! Also in DDC is Sakuya who I've never been very lenient towards in terms of a character to like. Regardless, she hit my top-20. Just barely, but she's there. I could very well blame Aoi-dono like everything else, but the biggest reason is actually because of DDC. You see, now that I can no longer normally play Sanae like I usually do and didn't find Reimu's shots to be all that interesting, my mainstay in DDC is SakuyaA. Knifing people with a wide-shot seems fairly useful and pretty easy for me, and playing as Sakuya has indeed shot her up a few points. If Youmu had completely replaced Sanae in Ten Desires maybe Youmu would've been higher, but it was not to be for Sanae was indeed there for me to play as.

...well, that's all I have to say about this sort. There's still like 40 names to go through on that list next to this text and if I just end here it'd be all unbalanced and the like. Well fuck I made all of my text bigger to type and it gave me an inaccurate ratio of text to image, so LOTS OF EXTRA WORDS AHOY! First, I'd like to say I dislike no Touhou character and those who happen to be lower just happen to be lower. I just like others more than them I guess. Second, PATTERNS! Spotto loves patterns, you love patterns, everyone loves patterns, hooray! I still have the other sorts I did so I can compare my own changing interests overtime. Like how Ran was once third and is now in the 50-somethings. Isn't that sad? Oh Ran, why aren't you interesting!/ Why are you just CHEEEEEEEEENNN or Yukari's caretaker!? Why can't you have some individuality for yourself? Why does canon merely call you a computer? How is mathematics fun at all? Oh Ran. You do have good taste in fried tofu though. Yukari fell too, but mostly because I didn't care for the picture they used on the sort. I am well aware the image is actually her official portrait from the fighting games, but I still don't like it. The DDC artwork isn't very refined either. I actually do like Raiko but it was hard to vote for her because her artwork was so bad. Perhaps I should have sorted the characters without having images ticked.

ZUN's own official artwork for DDC was quite good though. Raiko's expression in that one was just perfect for her type of character. Even though I've found extra bosses underwhelming lately there is still a charm to them. What else can I type to fill out this side!? Should I start ranting about RWBY now? Oh well, let's just go for it.

There is still only around thirty-minutes of existence for RWBY, so having a huge fandom and tons of hype so early seems to be a formula for disappointing disaster. The only constant we can be sure of are the action scenes. They will no doubt be amazing and fun to watch, so that's really the only expectation I had going into this and should probably realistically have. Though the writers for RWBY did work on RvB which I have watched and those are known for more than just comedy. If I can remember, there were a lot of very interesting twists and darker sides to just a red team and a blue team in a random canyon trying to steal a flag. Hell, even shippers shouldn't feel like their expectations are unrealistic, even the ones that ship slash! Monty's first actiony video was Haloid, which ended with [spoilers] yuri! I find that absolutely hilarious that this kind of man is working on this, so actually whether or not my expectations are unrealistic, I still think the team behind the series will have something very, very surprising for us. It's probably one of the reasons I'm watching RWBY and following it so much as opposed to giant anime company's big anime of the year or whatever. There's some history with this group that I know of, and I'm far more privy to internet-made things and indie-things as opposed to big-name things. Just kinda how I am in with this somewhat hipster-like mindset.

I think the biggest reason I gravitate towards these things is usually the person behind the project is more personable than say, a mangaka or an anime producer. They just seem more real, or closer to your own level so perhaps if I did get disappointed, it would be easier to take than say, if a certain manga I followed for years ended in the worst way possible and so severely angered me that all the money on the merchandise and manga that was bought feels like a waste, or if a certain cartoon series came out with a theatrical movie which turned out to be stereotypical cliché crap. Indie games, indie productions, and stories told through the magical portal that is the internet usually lacks that executive meddler who ends up ruining or milking a franchise to death. No Michael Bay to suddenly tell a story where ninja turtles are actually aliens or anything retarded like that! Oh and the other reason is that it is truly free! No need to enter into some sort of mystical level of legal ambiguity wondering if something you saw is worth paying money for. 

Oh hey I just noticed I made it past my TOHOSORT screenshot, despite having more to say. Well, guess I'll leave that to the next post! Dis ben spawt.

So apparently there is a PONY SORT! And as you can tell on the right, I went ahead and did it. It certainly was not as tedious as a Tohosort because there isn't a million characters, but on the other hand it wasn't as difficult either because unlike Touhou I'm not all that fond of background characters...even if some of them are outranking villains and other minor characters. Even so seeing a ranking would be interesting, so there it is. Nothing too interesting or out-of-the ordinary though. There aren't any fancy images like on the tohosort though...and if I can recall, the Hetalia Sort also did not have images so hooray Touhou! For now I guess. I think it makes most sense for Touhou to have images since it has A LOT of characters and thus, most people won't recognize some of them. In pony, if you know ANYTHING about the fandom at all most of the characters on that list should be recognizable. Maybe the truly casual fans might not know who some of those background ponies are, but that would be it I think.

And since I placed the image on the right there I feel compelled to fill out this side with some text. Uh. Those last few posts kind of took away all my ranting ability at the moment, so. Well I recently watched a Firefly marathon...and I don't really watch live-action television very often at all, with maybe Law and Order: SVU as the sole exception (unless sitcoms count because we all know my sense of humour is the worst thing ever) and the series wasn't bad. I can see how it became a cult hit, and yes it truly was cancelled before its time. The female characters are all quite varied and strong, and the male characters are no slouch either...but I honestly have nothing really to say about it. It was good... that's about it? Do I have a favourite character? Ehh... I dunno, not really. If I HAD to choose one it might be...the pilot? Wash? Yeah maybe him. Not ESPECIALLY though, I don't really like any of them more than the other...hmmm.

Speaking of Live Action TV, I watched the latest episode of SVU and was crushed when they revealed my favourite reoccurring character to be a murderer and thus written off the show. NOOOOOOOOOOOO! She was so cool! WHY! WHY DID YOU DO THAT!? And it wasn't even like a noble murder like self-defense or whatever! She staged a rape because she was jealous! What! I don't! NO! WHY! LIES! On the other hand while I am still somewhat peeved that they wasted potential bringing back the old ADAs the new one is actually quite interesting and well-written. So good on that at least...thus giving us some more courtroom scenes which were rather limited in the beginning of the season...oh well, moving on.

Did I write enough on this side yet? No? Okay then. Uhhh... the songs in the latest episode were good singing-wise and while some tunes DID get stuck in my head it was less because they were catchy and more because I kept listening to them over and over and over again. What little of Southern Pinkie was amazing and AJ's ability with high notes and long notes was not surprising, but rarely heard due to the type of songs she usually sings. Yes, that Ashleigh Ball person really is an actual singer! RD though with the same VA sounded pretty average (STILL good, but when compared to the other singing talent is average) but I doubt singing with your non-natural voice is easy. Rarity and Twilight sang amazingly as expected and Fluttershy actually sung a bit differently than I'm used to, more whispery and quiet-like, guess she wasn't crazy happy like the Find a Pet song. (She can fall into Pinkie's voice sometimes when she's singing that cheery-like)

I think despite how controversial that episode was, my very favouritest part was when Pinkamena smiled. Because flat-mane Pinkie RARELY smiles and when anyone who rarely smiles, smiles, it is the most heart-warming thing in existence, then seconds later the crowd shouts out her name. That was a huge amount of emotion flowing through the screen into your soul. So much so I even made an icon out of it...see? What else can I ramble about? Oh, there are apparently official show-accurate plushies out there that don't cost an arm and a leg, and...if they do not mess up Fluttershy I may buy her... after Pinkie. Really depends on the quality of those two on which I buy first, Pinkie moreso because favourite, but Pinkie's mane is a bit hard to tame on these plushies...on the other hand they ALWAYS mess up Fluttershy somehow, so I don't know. Have I rambled enough yet? Getting there! What else to say? Well I am doing something extra ambitious on Sims which has a 50% chance of failing spectacularly...BUT I WILL TRY, 90% of the time when I play that game it's making stuff and then making them work as opposed to actual playing!

MY RAMBLING IS SUFFICIENT! GOOD DAY, READERS! This has been Spotto.