Halfdeadnosleep

GILLION TIDESTRIDER - Ace In The Hole

for the june 2026 jrwi gacha pride prompt by @teehee-vibes :)

ESPECIALLY TO GILLION TIDESTRIDER

WHO IS CANONICALLY ASEXUAL

FROG SPOTTED IN THE CUCK CHAIR

Autistic person: im autistic

If you can’t think of any form of creature comforts or “slice of life” aspects in a shonen anime, than perhaps it may not be a very well written story.

What I mean by that is, if you or the characters themselves of a story, can’t take a moment to relax and enjoy a simple pleasure (it doesn’t have to be much, just like…a simple burger or meal they can eat slowly and without rush) than the story might be overcrowded with the action that comes with Shonen.

My favorite example of this is Osamu Nishi’s work:

Both titles you see here are Shonen, but both brilliantly set up world building and actually shows the cast “relaxing” or generally not actively being stressed about the upcoming danger.

Iruma, for the most part, is a High School student at a demon school and Ichi is allowed to have a family consisting of the various people that have come into his life. The action is built up to from the relaxation and that is what makes it memorable when Ichi does something like this:

FNC doodle I made for a friend for mermay! Sketch under cut:

He's introduced as a muscle head with no sense of the long-term consequences of his actions. It changes during the flying exam, but usually shounen manga would lessen or entirely remove that character development for the sake of humor or prolonging the drama. Sabnock actually just... stays true to what he learned from that experience??

It's to the point he gives the same advice to azz in the walterpark arc, and he's more compassionate because being kind is cool! He rarely competes against Iruma — he competes against Azz more actually — and instead has a strong respect for him. Sabnock knows Iruma is a good guy, and rather than being full of jealousy towards him, he likes and believes in Iruma!

This would've been a good moment for Sabnock to "go to the dark side" so to speak because Baal framed Iruma as manipulative. Most stories would disregard the rival's intelligence and development, so they could go against the protagonist except Osamu Nishi doesn't!!!!!