Fanfiction Rec 19 – Redacted

A good crossover fanfiction can be a hard thing to pull off. Lean to heavy into one fandom and you can lose the audience and there is no guarantee that many people will be a fan of the two or more fandoms featured in the story, but Chierei has blended the worlds of John Wick and Gotham almost seamlessly in there wonderful fic Redacted and it is all thanks to the casting of Gotham favourite Robin Lord Taylor (Oswald Cobblepot aka The Penguin) as the Administrator in John Wick 3, that has lead to a crossover fandom between the two franchises.

And damn that look left an impact on a certain part of the fandom, because that is a look that had many Robin Lord Taylor fans including myself drooling.

The fic itself is a long read, but well worth it with an 80,175 word count and 17 chapters including the epilogue. The main focus of the story is Oswald Cobblepot, a fan favourite of the Gotham series just having enough of constantly being pushed down and betrayed by those he thought he could trust again and again so he decides to leave Gotham without telling anyone and ends up at a certain hotel in New York City, The Continental Hotel.

What I love about this fic is the gradual evolution we get to see of Oswald into the person he becomes upon entering the world of The Continental and the world of assassin’s that makes up the John Wick universe. His character growth throughout the story is believable and feels in character for him which makes this a fascinating read. One of Oswald’s biggest character traits in Gotham is his not only his ability to read a situation and manipulate it to his end goal but also his at times lack of emotional control and I love that both these aspects of his personality are explored within the fic and as the story continues on is grown upon as well.

In case it is not obvious to any of my lovely readers who follow me on twitter more than anywhere else… I am a huge fan of the TV show Gotham and if I am completely truthful it was the beginnings of this fic that got me to finally sit down and finally watch the first two John Wick movies earlier this year and to immediately get the third when it came out on DVD. Chierei’s fic got me curious about the other fandom that shared this crossover with Gotham and that is just a sign of how amazing their writing is. Plus it also kind of helps the story for me when the author revealed that the story would end with some Nygmobblepot, my favourite ship from the show that I have an upcoming post about.

If you are a fan of either Gotham or John Wick and especially if you are a fan of both and have ever wondered what a story that collides the two worlds would be like, I can not recommend this fic enough. Plus since I am recommending it here that also means that there is some very well written yaoi scenes in this story, though the final pairing is not obvious in the beginning we also get some very sweet moments between John Wick and Oswald as well and that is something most definitely worth reading.

Kimera – Boys Love Classic Review

If you like B Horror movies and boys love, then the perfect boys love OVA for you this Halloween. Kimera is a very under rated boys love classic in my opinion and a lot of that has to do with the fact that they took out the boys love element of the story with the English dub! I will go into this part of the anime further later in this post.

I really do consider this anime a hidden gem, even if some do not. At one point an anime Youtuber mentioning that they fell asleep watching the anime only to wake up and be traumatized by what they saw… but believe me there is a lot worse out there to be traumatized by in anime. Now Euphoria… that was a traumatizing watch for me personally, but I am getting off topic.

When a mysterious meteor plummets to earth on night it is revealed that it no ordinary meteor, it is a space ship holding three ancient aliens. They are neither friend nor for to the human race, in fact one of them upon escaping the ship kills a passing human. Another of the creatures is taken by the government to experiment upon and the third wants to destroy the one the government has taken.

While being transferred to the government facility the captured alien comes in contact with a ordinary human, who feels an instant connection to the beautiful creature and upon finding the creature again at the lab he makes it his mission to save Kimera from those who wish to harm them, even if doing so might mean the extinction of his own race.

Also the mysterious creatures are space vampires, because of course they are. You will not find a deep story here within Kimera, as I stated at the beginning of this review, this is not an anime with a great plot it sounds like a cross between a B Horror movie and one of those trashy vampire romance novel, but you don’t watch those horror movies for the plot. You watch them for the stupid gore scenes that at times can be so bad they make you laugh and those trashy novels can be a fun escape when you just want to shut your brain off.

One big complaint I do have with the OVA is a lot of the really interesting plot points are explained to the viewer in long character monologues and not shown. There are a lot of scenes in the climax of the story that is just characters talking.

Now I am not one to usually bitch about the dub of an anime… with one exception, but when a dub takes away the boys love aspect of the story? Yeah that does not make me a happy fujoshi. To make the anime appeal to a larger audience the company behind the English dub decided to change Kimera’s gender from male to female. That being said though Kimera is referred to as male in the Japanese audio of the OVA, in the manga the OVA is based on the character of Kimera is referred to as a hermaphrodite and not being either gender, so giving the character a defined gender in the anime actually pissed off some of the manga fans. So this was a case of an anime adaptation that has annoyed many fans in many different ways and given the gender politics of the world today I have to wonder if a manga like this would get a more faithful anime adaptation some day.

Kimera – Male, Female or Other can we just all agree at the very least that they are beautiful?

I Love You Colonel Sanders – Game Review

It feels like nearly every piece of entertainment these days is some commentary on this, a deconstruction of that or has some message behind it that is the latest political commentary trend that everyone is talking about. Sometimes you just want entertainment that is just good old fashioned stupid fun and that is exactly what I Love You Colonel Sanders is.

Over the past few months I have been playing a lot of VN games. Many of these games I have a lot to write about and I plan to but right now I want to talk about the Colonel because this game was just so much fun to play!

Now I don’t know if the fact that my first job was working for KFC gave me an advantage while playing this game but I found all the quiz sections of the game very easy, but I have noticed others who have done let’s plays of the game have had a little trouble with some of the questions so who knows really. Personally I just found this game a lot of fun! The only sad thing is there really is not much replay value to the game its very linear but for such a fun little game you don’t need anything too deep. Now for another game I am reviewing this month well that’s another story.

Yes you read that right my readers I have a few reviews planned for this month, but wanted to start things off with a cute little review of a cute little game I can’t recommend enough since it’s free on steam! See you all again real soon.

Kyoto Animation – Just Damn…

This is a big blow to the anime community and has left so many of us in a state of shock and horror to the anime community world wide. There is not an anime viewer in the world today that has not watched an anime from Kyoto Animation.

From classics from the early 2000’s like Munto and Air, to the titles that had everyone knowing who KyoAni were with titles like Lucky Star, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and Clannad.

To modern masterpieces of the anime genre like A Silent Voice and Violet Evergarden. This is an anime company that has made an impact on all our lives within the anime community. We all share memories of the first time we discovered anime by them and we all have our favorites and it won’t come as a surprise as to what this fujoshi’s favorite KyoAni show is.

Of course it is Free Iwatobi Swim Club! This show was more than fan service to me though, it is a story about mending friendships and finding out just what being free can mean to someone and that sometimes what may be freeing and liberating to one person, could be a personal hell for another.

The recent attack on the Kyoto Animation Studio, has been a big blow to all of us within the anime community, the loss of so many lives is always a tragedy but when it is the creators of the world we all have loved so much, it’s like losing a part of ourselves within the chaos.

However, we are all part of one hell of an amazing community who has already rallied it’s people and started raising money to help those in need from this tragedy. You just have to look at all the money already raised over on the GoFundMe page set up by Sentai Filmworks and the countless amazing tribute videos that have already been pouring in from the community. Digibro’s video in particular, aptly titled The Damage is Coming, brought tears to my eyes.

To Kyoto Animation I give them my thanks for bringing us some of the most amazing anime I have ever watched and to the anime community I want to say thank you for giving us all a little bit of faith in the generosity of strangers and humanity.

Togainu no Chi – ANNOUNCEMENT Trailer

I was not planning on making another post this week I really was not, but then after a day out with a friend grocery shopping of all things I come home I browse my email, my social media and then I head to Youtube where I find the following trailer in my sub box…

And I am just twitching with excitement, my inner fangirl is just screaming YES YES YES! Togainu no Chi is a yaoi visual novel that I have wanted to play for over a decade and once again the lovely folks over at Jast Blue have announced that this will be the next yaoi title we get from them and I am just fangirling sooo hard right now!

Though not well received by many within the yaoi community, back in 2010 there was an anime adaptation released of this game that I actually at the time really enjoyed and like a good adaptation it left me wanting more from its world and now finally after all this time I will soon be able to play the game!

I am sooo hyped for this!!!

Is Legend of Duo the Worst Boys Love Anime Ever?

In the early 21st century humanity is on the brink of extinction during an apocalyptic outbreak of a disease simply called the disease of death and the only cure seems to be the blood from a vampire. A secret to save humanity that was revealed by a vampire that in revealing this secret to mankind has betrayed his own kind and now is hunted by his own vampiric creation. Now that sounds like an interesting plot that could explore so many different themes right? Well in giving you this synopsis I have literally spoiled practically every important plot point of this anime. This is a bad anime and the worse part is, it’s not even entertainingly bad, it’s just bad.

Much like my review of Pupa so many years back now, Legend of Duo is an anime series that has a really interesting set up and it even tries to go the deep philosophical route of story telling comparing the vampire who revealed the secret cure to humanity to Prometheus from Greek mythology who was punished for bringing fire to humans. All this is lost however on rushed story telling, blase animation and character design it just comes across as the most boring anime I have ever watched.

If you are curious about this mess of an anime it is fully available to watch on Youtube, but I would not recommend it, seriously I would rather sit through a Twilight marathon than this garbage again.

Killing Stalking – My Final Thoughts

We have come a long way since this story began all the way back in 2016, but it’s official Killing Stalking’s story has come to an end, and what a disturbing journey it has been. I know I am not alone in thanking Koogi for this amazing webtoon that has dived deep into a disturbing relationship that has kept most of us hooked over there past few years. There are those who have dropped out of the fandom over the years, as does with any fandom.

And what a fandom that has been built around Killing Stalking, it has been a long time since have been part of a fandom so divided and at times toxic, but I want to state before I continue on with this post. The toxicity of this fandom and fetishisation of this relationship by the fandom is in no way the author Koogi’s fault. It has been stated countless times by her that this was never suppose to be a romance story. It is a story of emotional manipulation and abuse that at best could be considered a crime/psychological thriller first and when all it said and done with this story, I find myself hard pressed at this point to consider this story a yaoi story at all.

Over the last few years the yaoi and Boys Love genre has become to expansive and inclusive of so many different kind of stories that it has filtered into other genres as well. This is not a bad thing as I as a fan have enjoyed watching the fandom I love grow and expend with the type of stories we get to read and the exploration of darker themes through fiction has always fascinated me, after all it was this appeal to darker stories that made Killing Stalking peak my interest as much as it did others.

The final chapters and ending to the story that is Killing Stalking has left the fanbase divided. Some wanted the two leads to get their happy ending, those who were hoping this. I’m sorry but this is not the kind of story that will give you a happy ending, but does this lack of a happy ending made it an unsatisfactory one? Well that really depends.

The twists and and emotional turns throughout the final chapters and moments of the story kept me on the edge of my seat and pulled at my heartstrings, which just goes to show what an amazing story teller Koogi really is. The exploration of mental illness within this story was what kept me hooked more than anything, at the end of the day Killing Stalking was a story with no good guys, sympathetic bad people and that it can be so easy to fall into madness and that once you truly fall into it, you will never get your happy ending and that there are many things in this world far scarier than death and that even in death we don’t all find peace.