Doot doot doo
So I overslept by an hour and missed my ride to the last anime convention of the year, meaning I have just lost my last chance to make a quick $200 or so off of excitable teenagers who like drawings of Naruto. Whoooooooooooooooops. At least I can make use of this time to write half of my lksdjgdsa;dgdgj 10 page research dlgjsagk what paper.
What's been going on with Tofu? Finals, that's what's been going on with Tofu. I finished a painting yesterday, have two papers to do, and need to do yet another painting. Blaarfhgh.
So I might as well recount my thoughts about yaoi right now, since I've got a bit of time to lie on the floor of my apartment and space out.
I'm probably the last person in toku fandom to talk about Goseiger--so I'm not going to put up that magazine leak/speculatory cast lists because you already saw 'em all.
Personally, I don't care who gets cast, couldn't give a flying fuck about ships, and don't want to even bother knowing rumors surrounding this. Why?
Because I habeeb that it will be a wonderful, wonderful show, and if it isn't, I'll probably find something about it that I like. I'm probably one of the few people who actually like Gekiranger, for instance (I can't help it, I love martial arts)...well, at least until they started getting into the Jan VS Rio things because by that point I was getting kinda bored with it (and the designs for the suits didn't really help...orz.)
The fact that Goseiger's designs are incredibly retro, and the fact that they're totally throw-back-y, is a total bone-off for me as an old-school sentai fan. : DDD I'm excited to see them in action, I really am. All of my friends are also excited, since the weapons and the mecha remind them of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers.
I'll be really sad to see Tono and everyone leave, though ;A;. I love Shinkenger.
Still undecided on Double. It's not selling me just yet. Like I told gekidasa before, I don't feel the need to watch every episode right as it comes out, unlike with Decade. Don't get me wrong, Phillip's kind of a special snowflake of interesting, Shotaro's an adorable ho, Wakana's wonderful, and Akiko is awesome in her own way...but the show itself isn't really grabbing me.
That's probably why I started watching Agito. I had to put Kuuga on hold ( I'm not blaming you, gekidasa ! D : ) , so I went to watch Agito instead.
This was the series I had been making myself wait to watch. I saw episode one when I was still in the middle of Faiz, and I knew it was going to be good.
Now that I'm watching it, and I KNOW it's fantastic. First of all, it's a beautiful show. This has the best goddamn cinematography out of all the rider shows I've seen, bar none. The designs for the Unknown make a mythology geek like me fap like crazy since they're all based off of ancient gods and deities. \O/
Second of all, the characters are wonderful. Shoichi is an adorable dumbass. I love how he's a cheerful little housekeeper with bad puns who tries to make the best out of every situation. He isn't that smart, but he's also someone who thinks about his situation when he has to. It's an interesting contrast to Kuuga's Godai Yuusuke, who he obviously has some spiritual similarities to.
Godai is relentlessly upbeat and optimistic because he believes everything will be all right in the end. Shoichi is cheerful and optimistic because he believes that he shouldn't dwell too much on the complicated things in life, unless he absolutely has to.
G3.
AAAGH GOD G3. *___* Hikawa is one of my favorite characters, and his boss Ozaki is awesome as well. I like how Hikawa is just a dude in a suit, literally. He's just trying to do his job, and he'll do it the best way he can. He's also very forgiving and perceptive, which makes him interesting to me. There would be some interesting parallels Agito would draw with Kuuga when it came to him--or at least it was like that to me. Sometimes when he was driving around in his car, I would think back to Ichimonji. Hikawa, like his fellow cop from Kuuga, is just trying to make sense of the situation. Both he and Ichimonji believe in their unearthly-gifted compatriots, and are willing to trust Kuuga and Agito enough to fight alongside them.
Unlike Ichimonji, who knows who Kuuga is by episode 4, Hikawa hasn't found out who Agito is (keep in mind I'm like around episode 17 of Agito.)
It's an interesting contrast. Ichimonji didn't have a technologically created Kamen Rider suit like Hikawa, but that still didn't keep him from fighting alongside--and protecting--Kuuga.
Hikawa has no idea that his sort-of friend Shoichi is Agito, but when Agito does appear on the battlefield, he will lend him as much support as he can. Like Ichimonji, he also protects Agito by vouching for him back at headquarters.
Gills. Gills Gills Gilllllllls. I really like his design, but it's kind of a shame that he gets a smaller part then Shoichi/Hikawa/Mana. Still, he's interesting to me. He's coming into his powers from a different angle, and it's clear that he's Shoichi's contrast. Both he and Shoichi were brought into their powers the exact same way, but they chose to deal with it in different ways. Gills--whatever he is--is obviously not the god-warrior-thing that Agito is. He actually reminds me of a Grongi, even though the Grongis were totally obliterated by this point--or so I'm going to assume, since I only saw up to 21 of Kuuga and there's a lot I don't know (like about why Godai's MIA three years after the events of Kuuga.)
Shoichi is hesitant in finding out about his past, while Gills is determined to find out what happened to his father. It's clear that he does have a sense of justice behind his tough front, but the events that he went through will probably make it harder for him to convey that.
I'm probably calling this wayyy ahead of time, but he seems to be like the guy who's going to get killed off mid-series. ;A; that would be horrible, because I like Gills. Nnnnnnooooo.
Speaking of Kamen Rider, me and my friend drift (whom gekidasa met when I met up with her in J-town) knocked out the timeline of Kamen Rider.
NO, REALLY. WE CAME UP WITH THIS THEORY, AND AS FAR AS WE'RE CONCERNED, IT'S CANON. *_____* He's seen more KR then me, so he vouches for what we came up with. Lololol.
CUT FOR RAMBLE, SOME SPOILERS, AND SEVERE GEEKERY
Since some of the rider seasons are linked together, we theorized that KR does have a timeline. However, there are 5 universal planes in in said timeline, and in one of those universes, there's multiple worlds. We're not involving the movies (at least the ones that aren't canon) in this model, except for GSL and Chou Den-O.
Let me explain.
UNIVERSE ONE: Showa Era --> Kuuga --> Agito --> Blade --> Faiz --> God Speed Love --> Kabuto
In this timeline, we theorized that it's pretty much straightforward from Showa to Agito. Most of the Showa Era shows all related to each other, and were all in the same timeline--excepting poor ol' Shin Kamen Rider (who got canceled) J, and ZO. There was a time of peace after the events of Black RX, and then in 2000, the Grongi revived, triggering the events of Kuuga. Three years later, Agito happens. Simple as that.
Drift and I believed that Blade, time-wise, actually goes BEFORE Faiz. We decided that the Undead had more in common with the Grongi and the Unknown--and that all the experimentation on them/with them would lead in nicely to Faiz, where the Orphanoch is humanity's next evolution. How, then, does Kenzaki stay alive through the events of Faiz and Kabuto? We figure that there's some way he does. He is a Kamen Rider, after all.
After the events of Faiz, the majority of the Orphanoch population dies. It clearly states that the Orphanoch are decaying at a fast rate at the end of Faiz, but it's most likely that Smart Brain sticks around for a bit. Drift and I hate to say this, but it is highly likely that Takumi dies. It's very clear that even if he did manage to not get killed by an Orphanoch, he would die young either way due to being an Orphanoch himself. ;A;
Faiz being in the same universe as Kabuto makes sense when you consider the evolution of technology. Although ZECT didn't create Kabuto's Zectors, it's clear that they did develop the armor and the belt system. Kabuto's Rider System utilizes Clock Up, which lets the user move at the speed of light for a short amount of time. Smart Brain's Faiz suit let users move at the speed of sound for a really short amount of time. ZECT could have borrowed a few ideas from Smart Brain, or the information about that kind of technology could have trickled down there.
God Speed Love, in our opinion, is canon, since it clearly shows how the events of Kabuto came to be. GSL, therefore, comes right after Faiz. Pretty devestating double-whammy for the earth there--first the human population nearly gets decimated by the Orphanoch, and then it gets totalled for reals by the events of GSL. GSL!Kabuto literally godmodes and changes the events of the past, making it so that Kabuto happens instead of GSL. The Tendou Souji of Kabuto is the little kid that was handed the Rider System belt by GSL Tendou Souji. How did GSL Tendou get the belt? Who knows.
Our knowledge of this timeline ends here. The other series are clearly not in the same universe as this line...which brings us to:
UNIVERSE TWO: 1980's Kiva Nonsense-->Den-o --> Kiva --> Chou Den-O
Despite Den-O's cheerful willingness to fuck with time and canon, this is actually pretty straightforward. It's a far more peaceful universe then the first one, for sure. First, all of the events that happened in 1980whatever for Kiva, happened. Whoop dee do. Moving on to 2007, the main events of Den-O happen. Simple enough. Kiva happens immediately after Den-O does, as it's clear in Climax Deka (oh yeah, that piece of shit movie was totally canon) that the imagin-tachi are fighting Fangire in their "retirement". After--or during, really--the events of Kiva, the Ryoutarou everyone knows disappears. Original!From the future!Sakurai-san, who married Airi, is completely erased from time and from Airi's memory. This leaves Tsundere!Yuuto!From the past! the one and only "Yuuto" to exist. Airi and him never meet again, and never get married. Bawwww. It's clear that in another timeline, Hana was concieved, however, as she still sticks around in her little girl form.
After Kiva ends, Chou Den-O arrives. Thanks to Onore Dikiedo fucking with the universe, and thanks to Team-Den-O fucking with time, Koutarou and Teddy end up staying on the Chou Denliner, changing their own timeline. Nnneeaaargh. Here's where it gets stupid:
Since all of Den-O's films are canon since they can pretty much go anywhere, the newest Chou Den-O film proved that Ryoutarou's own timeline got rewritten, and he also got turned into a little kid like Hana. He's still nineteen years old, according to the film, but he has the body of a 12-13 year old. Nice save, Toei. This was clearly a way to work around not being able to get Takeru Satoh on board again, but since it's Den-O, it works. Little!Ryoutarou has gone back to fighting as Den-O alongside his grandson from the future, because as far as we're concerned, he's still the singularity point. The events of The Onigashima Battleship prove that thanks to him befriending Little!Yuuto wayyy back in Yuuto's past, Tsundere!Yuuto!From the Past! ends up not disappearing, and effectively erases Airi's husband, Sakurai!From the future!
Ow my brains.
Moving on.
UNIVERSE THREE: Hibiki.
UM YEAH. THAT'S IT.
UNIVERSE FOUR: Ryuki-->Decade (and all of the other alternate rider verses)+ SUPER SENTAI
This is where it gets interesting. Drift and I theorized that although Ryuki clearly didn't belong in the same universes as the first timeline or the second, we did remember a bit in the first episode of Decade when Ryuki himself watches Natsumi through the mirrors. Thanks to certain events of Ryuki happening, it's most likely that it's probably the ghost of Shinji, or something like that.
It sounds like a really frail argument to base this timeline around, but me and Drift drew an interesting conclusion.
Ryuki was the first rider war. Decade was the second one. THERE HAS TO BE A CONNECTION, GUYS. D :
Concerning the alternate rider worlds (minus Den-O, since they ALWAYS get around that) that Tsukasa visits--after a while, it's clear that those are not the "actual" worlds of universe one. The alternate worlds are certainly a part of their own universe--the original riders, however, can apparently cross over into Universe Four occasionally (hi there, Den-O, hi there, duckface, hi there, Blade.)
Since the alternate worlds that Onore visits are a part of his universe--then that means the Super Sentai world, and its timeline, is a part of this universe.
Super Sentai, despite having different themes, plots, and whatnot every season, insists that its all in the same timeline. This proves that they're part of the "Rider War Universe", since Onore busted into the actual Shinkenger world.
UNIVERSE FIVE: G, possibly?--> Double
This is where we threw all of the seasons that we have no clue about. Double is still developing, and G was a parody, so who knows about that.
>> << >> we are dorks orz.
What's been going on with Tofu? Finals, that's what's been going on with Tofu. I finished a painting yesterday, have two papers to do, and need to do yet another painting. Blaarfhgh.
So I might as well recount my thoughts about yaoi right now, since I've got a bit of time to lie on the floor of my apartment and space out.
I'm probably the last person in toku fandom to talk about Goseiger--so I'm not going to put up that magazine leak/speculatory cast lists because you already saw 'em all.
Personally, I don't care who gets cast, couldn't give a flying fuck about ships, and don't want to even bother knowing rumors surrounding this. Why?
Because I habeeb that it will be a wonderful, wonderful show, and if it isn't, I'll probably find something about it that I like. I'm probably one of the few people who actually like Gekiranger, for instance (I can't help it, I love martial arts)...well, at least until they started getting into the Jan VS Rio things because by that point I was getting kinda bored with it (and the designs for the suits didn't really help...orz.)
The fact that Goseiger's designs are incredibly retro, and the fact that they're totally throw-back-y, is a total bone-off for me as an old-school sentai fan. : DDD I'm excited to see them in action, I really am. All of my friends are also excited, since the weapons and the mecha remind them of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers.
I'll be really sad to see Tono and everyone leave, though ;A;. I love Shinkenger.
Still undecided on Double. It's not selling me just yet. Like I told gekidasa before, I don't feel the need to watch every episode right as it comes out, unlike with Decade. Don't get me wrong, Phillip's kind of a special snowflake of interesting, Shotaro's an adorable ho, Wakana's wonderful, and Akiko is awesome in her own way...but the show itself isn't really grabbing me.
That's probably why I started watching Agito. I had to put Kuuga on hold ( I'm not blaming you, gekidasa ! D : ) , so I went to watch Agito instead.
This was the series I had been making myself wait to watch. I saw episode one when I was still in the middle of Faiz, and I knew it was going to be good.
Now that I'm watching it, and I KNOW it's fantastic. First of all, it's a beautiful show. This has the best goddamn cinematography out of all the rider shows I've seen, bar none. The designs for the Unknown make a mythology geek like me fap like crazy since they're all based off of ancient gods and deities. \O/
Second of all, the characters are wonderful. Shoichi is an adorable dumbass. I love how he's a cheerful little housekeeper with bad puns who tries to make the best out of every situation. He isn't that smart, but he's also someone who thinks about his situation when he has to. It's an interesting contrast to Kuuga's Godai Yuusuke, who he obviously has some spiritual similarities to.
Godai is relentlessly upbeat and optimistic because he believes everything will be all right in the end. Shoichi is cheerful and optimistic because he believes that he shouldn't dwell too much on the complicated things in life, unless he absolutely has to.
G3.
AAAGH GOD G3. *___* Hikawa is one of my favorite characters, and his boss Ozaki is awesome as well. I like how Hikawa is just a dude in a suit, literally. He's just trying to do his job, and he'll do it the best way he can. He's also very forgiving and perceptive, which makes him interesting to me. There would be some interesting parallels Agito would draw with Kuuga when it came to him--or at least it was like that to me. Sometimes when he was driving around in his car, I would think back to Ichimonji. Hikawa, like his fellow cop from Kuuga, is just trying to make sense of the situation. Both he and Ichimonji believe in their unearthly-gifted compatriots, and are willing to trust Kuuga and Agito enough to fight alongside them.
Unlike Ichimonji, who knows who Kuuga is by episode 4, Hikawa hasn't found out who Agito is (keep in mind I'm like around episode 17 of Agito.)
It's an interesting contrast. Ichimonji didn't have a technologically created Kamen Rider suit like Hikawa, but that still didn't keep him from fighting alongside--and protecting--Kuuga.
Hikawa has no idea that his sort-of friend Shoichi is Agito, but when Agito does appear on the battlefield, he will lend him as much support as he can. Like Ichimonji, he also protects Agito by vouching for him back at headquarters.
Gills. Gills Gills Gilllllllls. I really like his design, but it's kind of a shame that he gets a smaller part then Shoichi/Hikawa/Mana. Still, he's interesting to me. He's coming into his powers from a different angle, and it's clear that he's Shoichi's contrast. Both he and Shoichi were brought into their powers the exact same way, but they chose to deal with it in different ways. Gills--whatever he is--is obviously not the god-warrior-thing that Agito is. He actually reminds me of a Grongi, even though the Grongis were totally obliterated by this point--or so I'm going to assume, since I only saw up to 21 of Kuuga and there's a lot I don't know (like about why Godai's MIA three years after the events of Kuuga.)
Shoichi is hesitant in finding out about his past, while Gills is determined to find out what happened to his father. It's clear that he does have a sense of justice behind his tough front, but the events that he went through will probably make it harder for him to convey that.
I'm probably calling this wayyy ahead of time, but he seems to be like the guy who's going to get killed off mid-series. ;A; that would be horrible, because I like Gills. Nnnnnnooooo.
Speaking of Kamen Rider, me and my friend drift (whom gekidasa met when I met up with her in J-town) knocked out the timeline of Kamen Rider.
NO, REALLY. WE CAME UP WITH THIS THEORY, AND AS FAR AS WE'RE CONCERNED, IT'S CANON. *_____* He's seen more KR then me, so he vouches for what we came up with. Lololol.
CUT FOR RAMBLE, SOME SPOILERS, AND SEVERE GEEKERY
Since some of the rider seasons are linked together, we theorized that KR does have a timeline. However, there are 5 universal planes in in said timeline, and in one of those universes, there's multiple worlds. We're not involving the movies (at least the ones that aren't canon) in this model, except for GSL and Chou Den-O.
Let me explain.
UNIVERSE ONE: Showa Era --> Kuuga --> Agito --> Blade --> Faiz --> God Speed Love --> Kabuto
In this timeline, we theorized that it's pretty much straightforward from Showa to Agito. Most of the Showa Era shows all related to each other, and were all in the same timeline--excepting poor ol' Shin Kamen Rider (who got canceled) J, and ZO. There was a time of peace after the events of Black RX, and then in 2000, the Grongi revived, triggering the events of Kuuga. Three years later, Agito happens. Simple as that.
Drift and I believed that Blade, time-wise, actually goes BEFORE Faiz. We decided that the Undead had more in common with the Grongi and the Unknown--and that all the experimentation on them/with them would lead in nicely to Faiz, where the Orphanoch is humanity's next evolution. How, then, does Kenzaki stay alive through the events of Faiz and Kabuto? We figure that there's some way he does. He is a Kamen Rider, after all.
After the events of Faiz, the majority of the Orphanoch population dies. It clearly states that the Orphanoch are decaying at a fast rate at the end of Faiz, but it's most likely that Smart Brain sticks around for a bit. Drift and I hate to say this, but it is highly likely that Takumi dies. It's very clear that even if he did manage to not get killed by an Orphanoch, he would die young either way due to being an Orphanoch himself. ;A;
Faiz being in the same universe as Kabuto makes sense when you consider the evolution of technology. Although ZECT didn't create Kabuto's Zectors, it's clear that they did develop the armor and the belt system. Kabuto's Rider System utilizes Clock Up, which lets the user move at the speed of light for a short amount of time. Smart Brain's Faiz suit let users move at the speed of sound for a really short amount of time. ZECT could have borrowed a few ideas from Smart Brain, or the information about that kind of technology could have trickled down there.
God Speed Love, in our opinion, is canon, since it clearly shows how the events of Kabuto came to be. GSL, therefore, comes right after Faiz. Pretty devestating double-whammy for the earth there--first the human population nearly gets decimated by the Orphanoch, and then it gets totalled for reals by the events of GSL. GSL!Kabuto literally godmodes and changes the events of the past, making it so that Kabuto happens instead of GSL. The Tendou Souji of Kabuto is the little kid that was handed the Rider System belt by GSL Tendou Souji. How did GSL Tendou get the belt? Who knows.
Our knowledge of this timeline ends here. The other series are clearly not in the same universe as this line...which brings us to:
UNIVERSE TWO: 1980's Kiva Nonsense-->Den-o --> Kiva --> Chou Den-O
Despite Den-O's cheerful willingness to fuck with time and canon, this is actually pretty straightforward. It's a far more peaceful universe then the first one, for sure. First, all of the events that happened in 1980whatever for Kiva, happened. Whoop dee do. Moving on to 2007, the main events of Den-O happen. Simple enough. Kiva happens immediately after Den-O does, as it's clear in Climax Deka (oh yeah, that piece of shit movie was totally canon) that the imagin-tachi are fighting Fangire in their "retirement". After--or during, really--the events of Kiva, the Ryoutarou everyone knows disappears. Original!From the future!Sakurai-san, who married Airi, is completely erased from time and from Airi's memory. This leaves Tsundere!Yuuto!From the past! the one and only "Yuuto" to exist. Airi and him never meet again, and never get married. Bawwww. It's clear that in another timeline, Hana was concieved, however, as she still sticks around in her little girl form.
After Kiva ends, Chou Den-O arrives. Thanks to Onore Dikiedo fucking with the universe, and thanks to Team-Den-O fucking with time, Koutarou and Teddy end up staying on the Chou Denliner, changing their own timeline. Nnneeaaargh. Here's where it gets stupid:
Since all of Den-O's films are canon since they can pretty much go anywhere, the newest Chou Den-O film proved that Ryoutarou's own timeline got rewritten, and he also got turned into a little kid like Hana. He's still nineteen years old, according to the film, but he has the body of a 12-13 year old. Nice save, Toei. This was clearly a way to work around not being able to get Takeru Satoh on board again, but since it's Den-O, it works. Little!Ryoutarou has gone back to fighting as Den-O alongside his grandson from the future, because as far as we're concerned, he's still the singularity point. The events of The Onigashima Battleship prove that thanks to him befriending Little!Yuuto wayyy back in Yuuto's past, Tsundere!Yuuto!From the Past! ends up not disappearing, and effectively erases Airi's husband, Sakurai!From the future!
Ow my brains.
Moving on.
UNIVERSE THREE: Hibiki.
UM YEAH. THAT'S IT.
UNIVERSE FOUR: Ryuki-->Decade (and all of the other alternate rider verses)+ SUPER SENTAI
This is where it gets interesting. Drift and I theorized that although Ryuki clearly didn't belong in the same universes as the first timeline or the second, we did remember a bit in the first episode of Decade when Ryuki himself watches Natsumi through the mirrors. Thanks to certain events of Ryuki happening, it's most likely that it's probably the ghost of Shinji, or something like that.
It sounds like a really frail argument to base this timeline around, but me and Drift drew an interesting conclusion.
Ryuki was the first rider war. Decade was the second one. THERE HAS TO BE A CONNECTION, GUYS. D :
Concerning the alternate rider worlds (minus Den-O, since they ALWAYS get around that) that Tsukasa visits--after a while, it's clear that those are not the "actual" worlds of universe one. The alternate worlds are certainly a part of their own universe--the original riders, however, can apparently cross over into Universe Four occasionally (hi there, Den-O, hi there, duckface, hi there, Blade.)
Since the alternate worlds that Onore visits are a part of his universe--then that means the Super Sentai world, and its timeline, is a part of this universe.
Super Sentai, despite having different themes, plots, and whatnot every season, insists that its all in the same timeline. This proves that they're part of the "Rider War Universe", since Onore busted into the actual Shinkenger world.
UNIVERSE FIVE: G, possibly?--> Double
This is where we threw all of the seasons that we have no clue about. Double is still developing, and G was a parody, so who knows about that.
>> << >> we are dorks orz.