It’s Choujin Time!

I haven't seen anyone on the Choujin X tumblr fandom mention it yet, but there's an official voice comic on TikTok! This is the first episode, and it covers a lot of cool scenes as well as character introductions of the main cast (including some of the bad guys 👀). If Choujin X ever gets an anime, the voice actors would likely be the ones from this voice comic...

Catching up with Choujin X and I'm kind of obsessed with Tokio's post-timeskip character design. I love that his hair's gotten shaggier but he's kept the goofy emo bangs. I love how absurdly tall and lanky he's gotten. Being so tall gives him an excuse to be awkwardly hunched all the time, which really suits his character. Kid doesn't know what to do with all that height.

Also, CX continues to feel like the protagonist of this story "should" have been Azuma, and Tokio should have been his weird codependent sidekick who may or may not eventually become a villain. It's just that somehow Tokio has become the main character of the world instead, and neither Tokio nor Azuma knows how to deal with it. And this design suits that very well.

it's a real hyena, probably. the zoo break out is mentioned by other characters, we see it at the ocean later. but it's also clearly not a real hyena, it speaks to Azuma, it's a metaphor for his emotional state at this point in canon (a predator lost in a world suddenly too big for it, unable to cope with the changes, looking for the right path and finding one that just leads to an unmaking).

this hyena finds the ocean eventually (it is a real hyena, the birds and bugs eat it) (it is also Azuma, and his end in the story is???)

and then of course there's the other hyena. a year and change later.

there's a beach, a corpse, Azuma, a hyena (metaphorical, not literal (yet))

there's something there, right? Azuma at the beach with a hyena twice in the same story. There's something there about a hyena being a metaphor for the you who has to change to survive, for the things people do to survive, for coming to terms with who you are when you are the hyena.

RIGHT?? Like, Azuma is a hyena, that's what that scene meant that's what that whole triple interaction between him and the hyena was about, it's about his whole set of complexes up to that point around being human and it's about the way he and Tokio are mutually scavenging off of each other and I was also 100% expecting him to be a hyena once his form appeared.

Palma of course is hyena-coded in a massively different way than Azuma is, this reverse vampire is allowed to crunch bones she's earned it (unfortunately) and her whole hyena thing is way more literal than figurative, but I'm just....

there are too many hyenas in this series???? why is this happening?? what does it mean there has got to be a meaning??

it's a real hyena, probably. the zoo break out is mentioned by other characters, we see it at the ocean later. but it's also clearly not a real hyena, it speaks to Azuma, it's a metaphor for his emotional state at this point in canon (a predator lost in a world suddenly too big for it, unable to cope with the changes, looking for the right path and finding one that just leads to an unmaking).

this hyena finds the ocean eventually (it is a real hyena, the birds and bugs eat it) (it is also Azuma, and his end in the story is???)

and then of course there's the other hyena. a year and change later.

there's a beach, a corpse, Azuma, a hyena (metaphorical, not literal (yet))

there's something there, right? Azuma at the beach with a hyena twice in the same story. There's something there about a hyena being a metaphor for the you who has to change to survive, for the things people do to survive, for coming to terms with who you are when you are the hyena.