![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lucathiaLast day of the year! I finally got around to reading some Yuletide stories that weren't gifts for me yesterday. Or well, this morning. I pretty much opened all of the fandoms I even passingly knew, but there were a lot that I'm not familiar enough with to appreciate fully. I had to stop halfway though. Saved everything else for later, though I was hoping to leave comments and kudos before reveals (feels more... special to me? and I remember I never did go back after reveals last time...).
This Kimi to Boku fic absolutely broke my heart. It is a thing of beauty, and the characterization is so much love. My heart goes out to Yuuta.
not where it starts, but where it ends (3510 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Kimi to Boku | You and I
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Asaba Yuuta, Asaba Yuuki, Tsukahara Kaname
Summary: Even twins grow apart.
I've yet to answer most of the Advent Calendar posts over at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
colors_tcg. Gotta do that before the year ends!
Utena Marathon
I had a holiday marathon of Utena with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gem2niki. Finally watched this classic. :) I expected it to be mind-breaking, but it was not as mind-breaking as I was expecting, though there were parts I didn't understand, and whoa, themes galore. Sometimes I felt the show was cryptic just for the sake of being cryptic, and some parts were truly repetitive (yet I did look forward to the repetitiveness of the duel openings and the elevator scenes because they offered familiarity to me, and the duel of the week set-up does appeal to the part of me that appreciates battle and sports manga, which also have similar set-ups to have fights happening. The repetitiveness also allowed us to fast-forward through those parts, haha, otherwise the marathon would have taken even longer). I came out of the show with "zettai unmei mokushiroku" stuck in my head. And gosh, just how many times did people get slapped in this show? (I also had moments when I finally understood the naming behind decks submitted for colors_tcg. Truly fitting names like cowbell for Nanami and onion for Wakaba, hehe). I couldn't help but hear Hikaru in Utena's voice, though I guess it was probably the opposite for others.
I was fairly surprised by Utena's character. From the character art, I was expecting her to be... quieter. Kind of hard to approach. I think more like Juri, but Utena turned out almost completely opposite of my mental image of her (from all those years of my guessing at her character), and I could not stop hearing her as Hikaru. (Also, even though she's supposedly wearing the boys' uniform... there sure isn't any other guy wearing what she's wearing). I did like that she was trying to be a prince but not a guy, and that she took things into her own hands. Except I felt it ultimately came down to Anthy, and not some outside force saving her, though Utena does play a big part in Anthy taking that step.
Anthy creeped me at out parts. But my opinion of her kept changing throughout the series (the glinting glasses was very creepy though, as was when she had that saw in her hand when she was sawing ice). I didn't understand her, but the ending has me cheering for her. (and also gave me a sense of deja vu... where have I seen this ending before...possibly something influenced by Utena... or possibly I have seen the ending before...)
The comedic parts of the series threw me off a bit (I wasn't expecting such over-the-top humor!) and some felt quite overdone... sometimes I couldn't tell if the series was trying to be humorous or not, or if they were really trying to be serious. Probably the series was aiming for both. (Because Akio jumping on his car? All those scenes made me snort, especially when Touga came out of nowhere just to say his one line that always leads to the car scenes when Ruka already took over his other lines. I bet Touga was practicing his lines in all those episodes during the 2nd arc where he was pretty much nonexistent). Saionji appeared very detestable in the first episode with his abusive treatment of Anthy... and then he turned silly. Maybe he was silly all along (as well as abusive). I thought he was completely out of the show until he showed up again (it was like, hey, there's Saionji again!). I wonder how he even ended up as the current winner of the duels at the beginning of the show? He seems very out of the loop.
The first arc made me feel pretty close to Utena, but that second arc sure made Utena and Anthy feel like minor characters, haha... in fact... it sure felt like Nanami got the most character development out of everyone! We were given the POV of the characters that ended up challenging Utena to duels instead of Utena's POV during the entire second arc. I did like how much the minor characters' stories got fleshed out, though it also made me wonder about Utena and what she was feeling through all of this as we didn't get much of her POV. (And got less and less of it. We got Nanami's reaction to Akio and Anthy, but not as much of a reaction from Utena, perhaps because Nanami's part was when we were supposed to be shocked along with her, while Utena's was more of her own reaction of betrayal). Third arc was when everything came together and went crazy.
So I watched the director's commentary during the series, and at one point he gets asked about the Utena movie, to which he just answers, "Utena turns into a car." I thought he was joking, but apparently not. We watched the Utena movie right after the series. It felt veeeery fast-paced, and... Utena turns into a car. Giving Anthy more control, I suppose. Still very bizarre though! (And pfft, Nanami only shows up as a car... seems like most of the comedic elements were cut from the movie).
This Kimi to Boku fic absolutely broke my heart. It is a thing of beauty, and the characterization is so much love. My heart goes out to Yuuta.
not where it starts, but where it ends (3510 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Kimi to Boku | You and I
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Asaba Yuuta, Asaba Yuuki, Tsukahara Kaname
Summary: Even twins grow apart.
I've yet to answer most of the Advent Calendar posts over at
colors_tcg. Gotta do that before the year ends!Utena Marathon
I had a holiday marathon of Utena with
gem2niki. Finally watched this classic. :) I expected it to be mind-breaking, but it was not as mind-breaking as I was expecting, though there were parts I didn't understand, and whoa, themes galore. Sometimes I felt the show was cryptic just for the sake of being cryptic, and some parts were truly repetitive (yet I did look forward to the repetitiveness of the duel openings and the elevator scenes because they offered familiarity to me, and the duel of the week set-up does appeal to the part of me that appreciates battle and sports manga, which also have similar set-ups to have fights happening. The repetitiveness also allowed us to fast-forward through those parts, haha, otherwise the marathon would have taken even longer). I came out of the show with "zettai unmei mokushiroku" stuck in my head. And gosh, just how many times did people get slapped in this show? (I also had moments when I finally understood the naming behind decks submitted for colors_tcg. Truly fitting names like cowbell for Nanami and onion for Wakaba, hehe). I couldn't help but hear Hikaru in Utena's voice, though I guess it was probably the opposite for others.I was fairly surprised by Utena's character. From the character art, I was expecting her to be... quieter. Kind of hard to approach. I think more like Juri, but Utena turned out almost completely opposite of my mental image of her (from all those years of my guessing at her character), and I could not stop hearing her as Hikaru. (Also, even though she's supposedly wearing the boys' uniform... there sure isn't any other guy wearing what she's wearing). I did like that she was trying to be a prince but not a guy, and that she took things into her own hands. Except I felt it ultimately came down to Anthy, and not some outside force saving her, though Utena does play a big part in Anthy taking that step.
Anthy creeped me at out parts. But my opinion of her kept changing throughout the series (the glinting glasses was very creepy though, as was when she had that saw in her hand when she was sawing ice). I didn't understand her, but the ending has me cheering for her. (and also gave me a sense of deja vu... where have I seen this ending before...possibly something influenced by Utena... or possibly I have seen the ending before...)
The comedic parts of the series threw me off a bit (I wasn't expecting such over-the-top humor!) and some felt quite overdone... sometimes I couldn't tell if the series was trying to be humorous or not, or if they were really trying to be serious. Probably the series was aiming for both. (Because Akio jumping on his car? All those scenes made me snort, especially when Touga came out of nowhere just to say his one line that always leads to the car scenes when Ruka already took over his other lines. I bet Touga was practicing his lines in all those episodes during the 2nd arc where he was pretty much nonexistent). Saionji appeared very detestable in the first episode with his abusive treatment of Anthy... and then he turned silly. Maybe he was silly all along (as well as abusive). I thought he was completely out of the show until he showed up again (it was like, hey, there's Saionji again!). I wonder how he even ended up as the current winner of the duels at the beginning of the show? He seems very out of the loop.
The first arc made me feel pretty close to Utena, but that second arc sure made Utena and Anthy feel like minor characters, haha... in fact... it sure felt like Nanami got the most character development out of everyone! We were given the POV of the characters that ended up challenging Utena to duels instead of Utena's POV during the entire second arc. I did like how much the minor characters' stories got fleshed out, though it also made me wonder about Utena and what she was feeling through all of this as we didn't get much of her POV. (And got less and less of it. We got Nanami's reaction to Akio and Anthy, but not as much of a reaction from Utena, perhaps because Nanami's part was when we were supposed to be shocked along with her, while Utena's was more of her own reaction of betrayal). Third arc was when everything came together and went crazy.
So I watched the director's commentary during the series, and at one point he gets asked about the Utena movie, to which he just answers, "Utena turns into a car." I thought he was joking, but apparently not. We watched the Utena movie right after the series. It felt veeeery fast-paced, and... Utena turns into a car. Giving Anthy more control, I suppose. Still very bizarre though! (And pfft, Nanami only shows up as a car... seems like most of the comedic elements were cut from the movie).
