Tag: Fate/Stay Night

March’s Final Denouement: Heaven’s Fury and the Defense of Sakura Matou

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It is no secret that I love Fate/Stay Night but there is one thing that gets my goat (to say it politely without swearing like a sailor who broke his arm.) I cannot stand people in the Type-Moon fan base who call Sakura Matou a slut. I know that it has mostly grown into a joke just like the controversy with Kannagi. This means most of the people saying it now are just doing it because they think it is funny not because they honestly care. But this whole attitude comes from a seed of true belief. There are people who brand her with the label of slut and that gets on my nerves.

I will admit that of the three main heroines of Fate/Stay Night, Sakura firmly ranks third on my list. But I find her a hard character to hate. If anything Sakura might remind me a little too much of myself for me to be anything but slightly uncomfortable about her. Our positive and negative qualities are scarily similar. But she has many traits that people who love visual novels tend to look for. She is shy, sweet, hard working, and loyal. In the normal ending of Heaven’s Feel she dies patiently waiting for Shiro to come home even though she knows that day will never come. Fans usually eat that up like chocolate, bacon, and Ambrosia flavored love. Sakura is strong with the moe side of the force which earns her points as well. And the fact that she is very buxom cannot be overlooked as well.

And yet people hate Sakura despite the fact that all signs points to her being a fan favorite. They call her a whore because her moe purity is broken when you learn she has been raped. She has been sexually assaulted for years by her brother Shinji. It is made painfully clear that Shinji has an abusive and dominating hold on her and all sexual activity between them is nonconsensual. The mere concept of blaming a rape victim for the crime committed against her angers me to no end. To punish her on top of that compounds my fury one hundred fold. While Sakura might come onto Shiro very aggressively in Heaven’s Feel I still find the accusation of her being a slut uncalled for. Since she is no longer a virgin she is no longer worth affection? Because she can be aggressive she is no longer worth affection?

People are free to dislike Sakura for any number of valid reasons. But if you hate her for being a “slut” then I feel free to dislike you. It might seem odd to get worked up about a fictional character but it is not so much the hate for the character that annoys me as much as the attitude towards women and sexuality that gets under my skin. I feel it is a sign of deeper sickness and misogyny in parts of the male anime fanbase that makes me ill. As long as it exists I will continue to complain when it rears its ugly head.

Ongoing Investigations: Case #045

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It time for more the part of Ongoing Investigations were I show you what toys I bought. First up is new two newest Portraits of Pirates. The set seems to have back in black as the theme. The first is the newest member of the Straw Hat Pirates, Brook. He is a skeleton, with an Afro, a top hat, and a suit who plays the violin. If this combination of words does not make you want a figure of him, I am not sure what I can say to sell you on it. He comes with a sword cane, a tea cup, and his tone dial. Also you can also pop open the little compartment in his skull and keep the tone dial in there which I find an amusing attention to detail. In contrast we have Rob Lucci. Another man in a black suit with a top hat but with a completely different tone to the lighthearted Brook. Rob also comes with his pigeon Hattori and his mask. I really think that as the Portrait of Pirates series has gone on they have really come into their own. While Rob is  not as complex as some of the latest entries into the series he is well done and really captures the essence of the character. Brook is complex and customizable for a static pose figure. I am a little surprised that they decided to make Rob instead of the more popular Kaku.

Picked up Spiral’s seventh volume. There are some bigger points that start to uncover themselves here, just hints but it is expected to come slowly. Ayumu taking on brute force verse his logic is great. It also randomly reminded me of the L movie where they sort of imply that violence can beat brains as well. I don’t think I would normally notice that but since I watched that and read this so close to each other it stuck out. I also like that Ayumu is admitting his brother is manipulating everyone like a puppet though he just plain doesn’t want to think so. I also found a couple of moments with Hiyono possibly revealing there is more going on under the surface. Has me curious. Looking forward to more as usual.

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Ongoing Investigations: Case #036

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I read books six and seven of Here is Greenwood. Always enjoyable series with just enough realism in the friendships to make the guys seems like people you know. Six is almost exclusively crazy antics while seven finally introduces us to a love interest for Hasukawa. Seven also has a chapter much like Here is Devilwood called Here is Edo. As you may have guessed, it stars everyone in a samurai drama. As always the author’s little comments throughout add as much comedy to the scenes as anything else. Looking forward to finishing this series up soon.  

So I went solo to two anime events around New York recently. Neither of them were enough for a whole report but they were interesting enough to talk about. I went to Spring Fest at Polytechnic. It was a small one day convention. I went to show some love for Subatomic Brainfreeze’s Most Dangerous Anime panel. It was mostly Dave playing Crystal Triangle and  showing some choice scenes from the train wreck that is Gundress. I had only heard of the horror that is Crystal Triangle from AWO but I finally got to see how awesomely horrible it actually was. The audience had a good time MST3King a movie that rightfully deserves it. The theatrical release of Gundress is famous for being released incomplete. It was amusing to see the slapdash job they did to get what was generally a horrible piece of cinema on the screen for the release date. I really liked their little tea room and enjoyed their “mystery flavor” blended tea. There was also a good deal of gaming going on but I would rather be humiliated at playing multi-player games at home rather than humiliated in front of an audience. I was interested in staying for the What The Hell, Game Industry? panel but I had to go to meet someone to see Watchmen. It was basically a large scale meeting of friends from the university than a full-fledged convention. While it was not worth traveling for any great distance, I would recommend it to anyone in the NYC area. Plus it’s a nice, free way to meet other anime fans.

Read book five of Monkey High! It continues to be a wonderful shojo romance that that doesn’t linger on random misunderstandings. I like the pace of the books keeping the moments quick. They have added the idea of a love triangle. However, since Haruna does not seem to be torn between the guys, rather another guy just happens to really like her, it isn’t actually a love triangle. Thank goodness. Monkey High! has done a good job of creating a sweet story about the relationship, not the chase. Looking forward to the last few volumes of this series.

The next day found me going to Anime Day at Kinokuniya. I have to say Kinokuniya events get really nice turn-outs. While this means it is another good place to meet people, it also means that most of the events are standing room only. I came in half way through so I missed out on getting a Soul Eater Key chain. While this breaks my heart I somehow found a way to trooper on. I noticed from Scott’s twitter that those two girls who cosplay Ranka and Sheryl were on the cosplay panel. I finally arrived at two and I mostly only popped in on all of the panels they were presenting. The mixture of having nowhere to sit and having cool things to look at in Kinokuniya  distracted me from the events themselves. After browsing around for a bit, Scott, his friend, and I went to lunch where I discussed why bringing poor Hayate Ayasaki and Nagi Sanzenin into Internet arguments stands against all that is good and holy.

Been keeping up with Rideback this season. After watching episode nine, I still stand behind it being the show to watch from the winter. I have really liked how the pace built over the episodes, slowly moving from school centered to politically centered. It was done in such away as to not jar you. As secrets, plots, and characters are revealed the depth of the world involved is becoming clear. The animation continues to impress as well as the coolness of ridebacks. Instilling in us that we all need one right now.

While at Kinokuniya I made some purchases that were worth mentioning. It seems my prayers to the gods of anime merchandise were obviously heard because they released an all Saber art book. It is pretty good. Not enough fighting Saber to make me happy but enough variety to make me want it in an instant. Of course we have to have a maid exploitation (or maidploitation as I like to call it) picture of Saber and the raciest shot we get was Saber in a tight school bathing suit. I always appreciate the lack of utterly depraved Saber pictures because I would like to show people the art books I own without deep shame. My favorite pictures are Saber on a motorcycle and Saber dressed as Rin. I also got a book of Kido Senshi Gundam-san manga. I will admit I partially got number 4 just because it has Sayla Mass on the cover but I don’t feel anyone can fault me for that. I am very amused by a Gundam comedy series using the Universal Century characters. I noted it was only characters from the original series. Does anyone know if there are plans to do the same thing with charters from Zeta or the UC Gundam OAVs? My favorite section had to be the misadventures of sexy but angry White Base nurse Sayla. Some one has to get to translating this series because it looks priceless. It has smoking Zaku’s and baby Garma. What more do you want. Oh and naked Char. See something for everyone. I also saw an awesome Gundam Heroines book at Book Off. It seemed to be all the Gundam series up to Gundam X. I had already spent enough at Kinokuniya that I decided to hope it was still there the next time I would swing by there. Does anyone own the book? Is it worth picking up?

Rideback is the only show I am keeping up with this season, so this is the pic of the week: