#backtodc

Refreshing my memory on some older chapters, and GODDAMN Vermouth’s attractiveness has levelled the fuck up since her first appearance. Her eyes are a lot smaller and her chin and forehead are both a lot more prominent here, plus her first panel ever depicts her with a bit of Gaijin Nose.

Going back over this, I’m actually pretty impressed by how subtly she was introduced. She’s just another one of a group of oddballs du jour and these are almost all of her panels--she’s in a couple more, but so backgrounded that trying to get a crop of her would just render her a mass of pixels. There is NO way to tell that she’s going to be as important as she is, and honestly I prefer this sort of thing to introducing a character with all but flashing lights over their head going “THIS CHARACTER IS IMPORTANT!!!! BUT HOW?!”. It’s a good start for a character who’s been pretty much defined by mystery.

It does mean I can no longer be the last stan of the “Yoko Okino is Anokata” theory... UNLESS I argue that we don’t actually know 200% completely for sure that Karasuma was REALLY a man, and the APTX or some variant of it, whatever’s keeping Vermouth classy, could also have made Anokata MUCH younger and goddamit, when you’re 160 you wanna enjoy being a beautiful starlet and taking hot football players to parties

So since we're on another whacking great manga hiatus, part of me wants to go back and reread the manga from the beginning, see if I notice anything new or understand anything better now that I've actually been living and working in Japan

Another part thinks I should eatch the anime, since I've never done that and some listening practice would be good