\\electricitysc@pes & middletown_dre@ms//

Coai week | prompt: Spark

When two sharks, one born from a calm sea and rain, and the other from a forest fire and darkness, meet in search of the source of the spark that brought them together

Sure!! I’d love to give my anecdotal input. This comment got super long so please ask if you have any specific questions I’d be happy to answer each individually(・ω・)b

For context: I’m 26, I grew up in the U.S. watching the anime from elementary school. Started studying Japanese in middle school. I’ve lived in Japan since 2006, I ran the cosplay circuit for 3 years in Tokyo, both as a cosplayer and an event staffer. Met my husband at Comiket. I’m fluent in written and spoken Japanese, and have a corporate job at a big ol’ japanese company. My husband knows 2-chan and Niconico Douga like the back of his hand, so he gave me his perspective as well.

To talk about Japanese reactions, there are maybe four main camps of viewers of SMC in Japan:

(1) those (mainly women) who grew up loving Sailor Moon but never turned into anime otaku,

(2) those (men and women) who grew up loving Sailor Moon and continued their love of Anime into adulthood,

(3) those (men and women) who never really got into sailor moon growing up but are anime otaku and watch it because they understand the historical importance of the anime, and

(4) those (mainly men) who got into the anime because their kids (mainly daughters) watched it.

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(1) the girls at my work who grew up watching it casually (as some people grow up watching Saturday morning cartoons but stop during high school) are of two minds. they either super love SMC, or they were sort of disappointed and stopped watching after act 1. Looking at Japanese Twitter confirmed this trend for me.

(2)those who liked sailor moon growing up and are more versed on anime to this day are more or less of the same mind as the international fan community: Mixed opinions. Not happy with the art quality but willing to look past that because it’s fun to analyze differences in SMC, the original, the manga, etc. -More specifically, the female cosplay community in Japan’s message boards are the most critical of the anime but I think there’s a culture for being critical in that community, of which I was a part of and can attest to.-My diehard Sailor Moon male friends in their 40s (the kind that go to Amichan no Ochakai or other male-dominated sailor moon get-togethers), express the schadenfreude I mentioned in my comment, and I think this is the healthiest reaction. It’s because they love the series so much and because SMC’s quality is so bad that they can’t help but get enjoyment out of the collective experience of “seeing how bad it will be this week.”

(3) those who were either too young to grow up seeing it or never did but nonetheless love anime are very critical but in a collective way, and they aren’t trolling those who like it (“stay to thine own bbs thread”)

(4) I have two male bosses at work that got into sailor moon via their daughters. They saw the art and read up on the supply chain structure and told me it was a cash grab, but are really amazed by how close the seiyuus got to their original character voices, and enjoying the memories.

Thanks to the kind and higly talented bitmapdreams for replying to my ask about the situation of Crystal in Japan.

She was kind and amazing enough to take some of her time to fill us in about the situation of Crystal in Japan and japenese viewers.

So thank you so much for it!.

Eternatus!!!!

Eternatus is a MASSIVE vaguely skeleton Poison/Dragon-type dragon thing. At 65’07”, or 20.0m, it’s by far the longest pokemon in existence, surpassing even the comically huge Wailord. It’s a pretty creative design, resembling an Ultra Beast in terms of aesthetic, albeit much less aesthetically cohesive than any of them if you ask me. It’s also impossible to talk about without going over Sword and Shield’s trainwreck of a plot, which bein’ real I’m super not excited to do. It’s a mess, guys :(

So uh. How to start this. Eternatus is a Legendary pokemon sustained by absorbing energy emanating from the Galar region into the core on its chest. 3,000 years ago, there was an event called the Darkest Day (Black Night in Japan, which sounds far cooler), in which Eternatus attempted to draw out an excessive amount of energy and created a black storm. This storm caused numerous pokemon in the region to enter their Dynamax and Gigantamax states, which then all went berserk and rampaged throughout Galar, nearly destroying it. It only ended when Zacian and Zamazenta defeated Eternatus in battle, stopping the phenomenon.

Come present day, Chairman Rose is attempting to bring about the Darkest Day AGAIN, because like. Apparently Galar will run out of Dynamax energy? But like, not for a thousand more years. Rose just has a lot of anxiety over this or something. It’s kinda framed as a clumsy climate change analogue which frankly makes for a terrible plot given climate change is an issue RIGHT NOW, not a thousand years in the future, and trying to fix it is a GOOD THING and not at all comparable to summoning a draconic apocalypse. Like, what are people supposed to glean from this? That major issues don’t matter right now and also it’s not worth trying to fix them? The whole thing’s a dumpster fire.

Anyway, Rose succeeds at restraining Eternatus during the player and Leon’s Championship Match, because apparently even waiting a single day was out of the question. Then he predictably couldn’t control it and the Darkest Day happens again, with Eternatus then absorbing enough energy to transform into its Eternamax state, which is uh. A giant hand coming out of a spiral-shaped thing, I guess. It’s also 328’01” (or 100.0m) long now, which is incomprehensibly huge, and its weight is just listed as ???. I like how they’re really pushing the boundary of what qualifies as a pokemon, but it doesn’t really mesh with the base form or make any sort of conceptual sense. Eternamax Eternatus also isn’t actually accessible to the player, which is unfortunate. But yeah, Zacian and Zamazenta appear and help defeat it again and the player catches it and all is well!

Shiny Eternatus is a deep crimson, which is cool but it doesn’t contrast the red glow as well. I like it well enough, though. Not that it matters since it’s shiny-locked and you can’t get one :v

All that said, though I don't dislike Eternatus, I don't particularly like it either. The idea of a poisonous skeleton dragon is GREAT, but Eternatus’s execution just feels soulless. The Ultra Beasts all had a similarly weird aesthetic, but they all still felt solidly designed, and they were typically packed with a whole lot of personality. Eternatus is just kind of a mess of pointy spinal columns haphazardly glued together with no real substance to it, literally or figuratively. And it's mired by its association with SwSh's abysmal plot, which doesn't help either. At least it's got a pretty colour scheme going for it, though, and the sheer weirdness of the Eternamax form in particular earns it a lot of respect.

Pointy spine hand-dragon/10.

these are probably my favorites i’ve ever done tbh

Happy New Year 2023！

✨ 🔮 𝕮𝖔𝖚𝖓𝖈𝖎𝖑 𝖔𝖋 𝕮𝖔𝖓𝖏𝖚𝖗𝖔𝖗𝖘 🔮 ✨ 

 The annual gathering of the chromatic wizards has come and gone. Back to their realms, until called upon again!

-𝕵𝖚𝖕𝖊𝖗𝖔𝖘 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝕭𝖑𝖚𝖊, 𝕻𝖔𝖙𝖍𝖔𝖘 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝕲𝖗𝖊𝖊𝖓,  𝕯𝖊𝖒𝖎𝖓𝖎 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖄𝖊𝖑𝖑𝖔𝖜, &  𝕺𝖒𝖆𝖉𝖔𝖓 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝕽𝖊𝖉