#neflyte

Dark Kingdom members eye chart from the 1992 anime.

Por el poder de la nostalgia e inspirado en el fic "Lonely Hearts Fall Quick" de JennyJoyfulWriter (Brambala), aparezco con un nuevo garabato.

Sé que no es una ship común, pero le tengo un cariño especial, así que espero les guste. 💖

Omg okay so because I’ve just been reading whatever novelizations I could find of the 90s DiC Dub, it cranked my nostalgia on full power so I decided to rewatch some of my favourite episodes. Which means to say...the Zoisite-related episodes ;).

I know there is a lot of ick factor when it comes to the DiC dub, so I understand if anyone wishes to skip or scroll through. I however, find the side-by-side comparisons fascinating - because more often than not, I catch little oddities in my assumptions and understanding of the characters, which may have been subconsciously influenced from my exposure to the Dub as a child. It is yet another area of exploration in my never-ending research of KunZoi. 

That and the ridiculousness of the DiC is freaking entertaining

So without further ado, my running commentary on DiCDub vs Sub, Episode 15/18 - “Dangerous Dollies” / “Shingo’s Love, the Grieving Doll”!

Opening up with Queen Beryl railing on Neflyte / Nephrite. Sounds okay so far.

I do want to point out that Neflyte overall seems like a more nicer guy than Nephrite. My impression is that DiC knew how he was going to end up and tried their best to make him less of an ass to give his ultimate redemption a little more heft. I’m a bit ambivalent about its success, but, that’s another post.

Enter Zoycite and Zoisite, both giggling like villainous masterminds we’re meant to see them as, trying to be cute. Zoycite’s having a harder time making it believable. 

Zoycite’s much less subtle. Zoisite tries to be a gentleman and team player.

OMFG. DiC, trying to hammer in the cenorship in case we missed it.  (Where is my FU emoticon?) Meanwhile, Zoisite stays professionally on-point.

LOL YOU WORK THAT SISTERHOOD ANGLE ZOYCITE. Kissups, the both of you.

Ok I know there’s no audio, so I want to stress this: While DiC Beryl seems to wholeheartedly buy Zoycite’s sorority angle, Sub Beryl actually does an inhale-sigh. This is not a woman falling for Zoisite’s cuteness, but is the mother-figure who is reluctantly agreeing the younger of her two petulant children is right. 

HAHAHAHA I love watching Nephrites refuse direct orders with the grace of semitruck. Zoycite is syrupy-sweet, Zoisite practically does that not-so-innocent-innocent oOo face with the hand to his mouth. 

Class act Nephrite! Another little change to tone down Nephrite’s immense ego - Neflyte reminds Zoycite of the facts and thus shifts the implication back to her interfering. Nephrite, instead, shoots himself in the foot - he actually isn’t annoyed with Zosite’s interfering - he’s actually annoyed with Beryl’s helicopter parenting and Zoisite’s just fanning that fire.

I don’t know about you guys, but I feel like Neph’s already hung himself with that line. 

Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to help. But I don’t think that was Nephrite’s intention...while Neflyte sounds like he’s trying to at least exit somewhat courteously, Nephrite’s practically throwing up as an ironic FU. “I’ve had enough of this, LATERZ.”

(Also, check out the Zoisite’s TOTALLY INNOCENT HEAD-TILT):

(”Oh gee golly whiz, I can’t believe he just did that!” Coy-Zoi at his best.)

You bet he is, DiC-Beryl. Though the anger Sub-Beryl’s going through seems much more venemous...

Now this is interesting (and this is why I love doing comparison-posts like this). THIS is different. It’s a small, hardly noticeable difference, but today when I was watching it, I totally had an A-HA moment. 

Notice how in the DiC dub, Zoycite explicitly says this is her plan. This is where the notion of Zoy/i’s rivalry with Nef/ph comes from. We are meant to believe Zoycite put this plan through, with no outside help (I think we can all assume whose outside help that would be). It’s Zoycite who hates Neflyte.

BUT. This is NOT what is said in the Sub. Zoisite actually says, word for word, “Everything went to plan”. But not necessarily his plan. Just A Plan. The Plan. And you know what? Isn’t there anything else about this set up - the Setting Nephrite Up to Fail By His Own Self and With Minimal Effort From You Plan, that just reeks of someone else’s strategy style?

If you’re thinking I’m referring to Kunzite, I am TOTALLY referring to Kunzite.

After watching this scene, this makes FAR more sense why in the episode where Zoisite’s crying on his knees, Kunzite explicitly says that Nephrite can be ousted as they please. While DiC makes it sound like it was all Zoycite’s doing to fuck Neflyte up (they really do, Malachite’s constantly advising her as an outsider in later episodes), the Sub actually uses this episode as a seriously subtle setup for Kunzite. It was never just Zoisite’s beef with Nephrite - it was their beef, and they were in cahoots together way before we saw Kunzite appear. Thus why Nephrite never forcefully ejects Zoisite from his creeper house or confronts him - it’s not a rivalry between him and Zoi, it’s a rivalry between him and Kunzite, and Zoisite’s just the annoying middle-man for which Nephrite’s egotism takes dismissively. I will touch back on this again when we get to the penultimate episodes leading up to Nephrite’s death.

Anyways, that being said, I leave with one final shot-by-shot comparison:

Ok, this may not seem like a big deal, but I find a HUGE deal. In this last fade-to-black, Zoisite ends his internal monologue (where he still speaks in the feminine way, ending his sentence with わ) with just a little smile. I’m probably reading too much into this, but I’m taking this to imply that Zoisite’s the feminine partner of a duo, and satisfied that he’s done his job, he’ll be heading back to report to the boss man. Cue the little smile. 

Zoycite, on the other hand, gets an evil laugh added into her script. It isn’t just enough to show that she may be satisfied in the success of her plan like in the original sub, but they have to show that she relishes in it. She’s having fun. She delights in it. It’s little things like this that set up Zoycite the way we’ve seen in subsequent fanfictions and headcanons - catty, sadistic, bitchy. Loving being evil. I think the DiC dub added these things to her character to set her up to foil Neflyte’s death (his redemption of goodness and her, well, evilness) - but I do think there’s also more to that. Scriptwriters usually don’t change, add or greenlight things unless it’s for a reason, especially if it adds to runtime. 

(redraw of this Urusei Yatsura art by Rumiko Takahashi, posted by www.furinkan.com/index.html )

For @smlgbtqweek 2024, theme: "Twist", as in, the feelings between characters are a twisted web XD (I kinda just draw things and then fit them into themes afterwards, okay)