My Analysis - Blog Posts

Sakuma telling Kidou he has better freedom as a part of Raimon and that he knows just by looking at Kidou can be a throwback of Sakuma's lines in Shin Teikoku arc. Sakuma said that "he can't see Kidou's world," but in the ending, it became "I've opened my eyes". Sakuma is the one to reassure Kidou in episode 56, as at that point Sakuma is able to look at Kidou with a clear vision.....

in middle of writing my analysis post, it's gonna be pretty long because i want to tackle as many topics in my to-do as i could in a single post than making short post for each. but honestly the reason why am i not finishing it sooner is because i'm not feeling well lmaooo

currently i'm thinking that sakuma is kind of an unreliable narrator in terms of his insecurity towards kidou. episode 38 and everyday frame it as him feeling like he's not as good as kidou is because sakuma himself mistook it as such. he thought that what he's insecure of is his own ability when it's actually of his place as kidou's friend

but it becomes double unreliable narrator in shin teikoku arc as yes, sakuma's (and genda + fudou but this is not about them) judgement is clouded by meteorite brainwashing but because the emotion he displays is very raw it reveals his Real feelings at the same time. "i can't see your world" = i can't understand you As A Person

even then "sakuma is jealous of kidou's abilities" isn't inherently wrong because he is.. because sakuma's insecurity is deep rooted that he feels bad about every single thing at once, and in ares' timeline where shin teikoku arc doesn't happen you can watch sakuma being left in his issues for a year

People either love or hate adult fei and like, i get both points? In my opinion they nailed the shape (it’s camp) but i also guess that they messed up his palette because fei is supposed to have strong yellow and orange palette in both skin and outfits so he looks off as an adult. because grayish outfit and pink skin are Not what he’s supposed to be. Most of Fei’s outfits are orange or if he’s not it’s the vibrant GO raimon blue

heyyyyyy there do u maybe wanna share more thoughts on butch lesbian kirino? im very intrigued 👀

This is based on projection of my own experience of identifying as MLM trans guy to nonbinary butch lesbian so I headcanon Kirino to go thru the same pipeline, hahah. Though different to my labels, I headcanon that Kirino is both transmasc and butch lesbian.

The idea came from how Kirino keeps his pigtails despite not liking being mistaken as a girl, so I headcanon that he has a complex relationship with masculinity, hence his complicated gender journey where he mistook his masculinity as being a binary man, but in reality it's entirely outside of the conventional idea of gender (being butch)

Other than his refusal to let go of his pigtails, my main idea of the headcanon is the way he finds kinship in Joan of Arc who during her entire life was demonized for not conforming to gender roles, leading to her death. And Kirino's Joan of Arc theming doesn't end in his mixi-max but it extends to his keshin sharing the same traits as Joan's (banner bearing / raising morals of other fellow members)

I also found Kirino's development to embrace his calling as a defender and to support Shindou and other members similar to butches in history where they took the role of supporting and protecting other members of the LGBTQ community in past, too

i feel like lot of things people easily miss or fail to do when analyzing ina11 characters is nuance or "these conflicting traits can coexist in the same character" and from observation it often happens due to projecting or biased view..

at which shindou is the main victim of this treatment because everyone remembers his weaker moments when he isn't thinking straight but rarely his kind actions and thoughts (which there are so many)... leading to the amount of mean shindou jokes which immensely pisses me off. if i were to sum it up, shindou is mostly strict when it comes to serious events where things are at stake because it's his role to keep things under control, otherwise he's very gentle to people. strict shindou and nice shindou are two traits of his that coexist, and so is shindou who is taken by his emotions because he feels strongly especially for people he cares for

there's also how kazemaru's breakdown is the part people remember about him but rarely his s1 focus and episode 94... understandably these scenes are the ones that leave impression in people but ina11 (OG and GO specifically) is a series that did a good job giving depth to the characters in off match scenes and more sublte interactions and i wish people take time in thinking about them too

i'm guessing i'm one who takes more time in the off match scenes because i came from slice of life genre and my favorite episode is episode 56 that flies under people's radar when it's very important in the kidou arc. people (and areori writers) forgot that kidou is supposed to stay at raimon for temporary time and S1 ended at him being Interested towards raimon at most instead of being Attached. he just stayed with them in early S2 because the schools are being destroyed and he only decided to stay after sakuma's encouragement

in middle of writing my analysis post, it's gonna be pretty long because i want to tackle as many topics in my to-do as i could in a single post than making short post for each. but honestly the reason why am i not finishing it sooner is because i'm not feeling well lmaooo

currently i'm thinking that sakuma is kind of an unreliable narrator in terms of his insecurity towards kidou. episode 38 and everyday frame it as him feeling like he's not as good as kidou is because sakuma himself mistook it as such. he thought that what he's insecure of is his own ability when it's actually of his place as kidou's friend

but it becomes double unreliable narrator in shin teikoku arc as yes, sakuma's (and genda + fudou but this is not about them) judgement is clouded by meteorite brainwashing but because the emotion he displays is very raw it reveals his Real feelings at the same time. "i can't see your world" = i can't understand you As A Person

even then "sakuma is jealous of kidou's abilities" isn't inherently wrong because he is.. because sakuma's insecurity is deep rooted that he feels bad about every single thing at once, and in ares' timeline where shin teikoku arc doesn't happen you can watch sakuma being left in his issues for a year

I always have been associating Kidou and Sakuma with eyes motifs but I was reminded of an interview saying that Fudou's eyes are expressive, so maybe eyes is a Penguin Trio and Teikoku thing? probably. But yes you can watch in the anime that Fudou's emotions are stored in his eyes.

And I'm very glad they still keep it in GO movie!! I had a discussion with @pinyacoladas about his eyes and if one looks closely they're drawn differently that when he was younger to make him less freaky.

GO!Fudou have longer, more oval shaped irises and his eyeliner game isn't as strong as baby Fudou's (as in the lineart for his eyes are thinner than young Fudou's are)

My guess on why are Fudou's eyes so expressive? From shape psychology theory perspective is:

Fudou's eye shape and eyebrows are triangle-like. In shape theory triangles symbolize movement, motion, and energy compared to rectangle and circle. His eyebrows are short and thin making them easy to notice even on GO!Fudou when he has full bangs. For see more closely one can watch the clip above and compare Fudou and Kazemaru's eyes as Kazemaru has round eyes and longer eyebrows

Fudou's design change in GO with longer iris and thinner lineart softens his expressions. I'm guessing this has to do with the smaller negative space it creates too but I don't have enough knowledge on it atm. He still does the shrinking iris thing as an adult though lol (on clip)

Not the same expression but the eyes are drawn in the same manner

Kisaku for my bi-monthly ship art quota. I wanted to draw another piece to be posted together but I've been physically burnt out lately so I made a no Kidou goggles file instead. Heh

This doubles as a character analysis art so I will write down my thought process under a read more. It's very christian so if you're not comfortable it's okay to not read it

I had been having the idea of making a Kisaku art with christian imaginery since early January, but I only managed to sketch a good composition for it last week.

This art is based on a post-Shin Teikoku arc scene that's also one that's very memorable for me. Like, it's just a very tender and profound one, especially when one can see Kidou's hand holding Sakuma's tighter after Sakuma told him he can't shake his hand. I also referenced the scene when Sakuma faints right before the match end whistle.

Another thought that inspired this was the christian concept of being saved from sin and its consenquences by Jesus' death and resurrection (salvation); which is pretty much what happened to Sakuma in this arc. Sakuma fell to the temptation of the aliea meteorite (sin), but it's Kidou's love that saved him from destroying himself physically and mentally (salvation).

An interesting part from Shin Teikoku arc was that while it ends with Sakuma and Genda being saved, Kidou came out becoming even more traumatized especially after seeing what happened to his friends and hearing Kageyama's words. And that's without mentioning that he also witnesses Someoka's sacrifice.

Kidou and Sakuma are two people who feel deeply yet tenderly for each other so I wanted it to show in the colors and rendering. I used colors that could remind someone of the dawn. I wanted to color in low contrast but the initial palette hurt my eyes (physically) so I ended up opting with shading with only highlight, with the soft light peeking through behind the pair. Subtlety was all I was aiming, so I tried to draw Kidou's expression that could express it too.

The text on the background is,

What is Salvation? Salvation is... to be saved from sin, and its consenquences from death, and eternal separation by your cross.

The text was thought and written by stream of consciousness, unlike the drawing where I worked on it precisely unlike my usual drawing style. Initially I wrote it by hand to see where should I type the text but I found that handwriting conveys the emotions in a rawer form so I went with it.

I also free style-ed the text's content because NGL, scrolling through christian articles and wikipedia pages gave me religious trauma based anxiety so I let my instinct and write whatever came to mind.

I was torn between "crucifix" and "cross" as I wanted a word to replace "love and suffering". I went with "cross" because crucifix is used to specifically refer to the cross Jesus was crucified on and the portrayal of it. For people, the word used is "cross" (referring to the christian concept of carrying one's cross). Kidou is very much associated with pedestalism, even Kageyama saw him in an idealized manner of a perfect creation to bring him back to his childhood. But despite everything Kidou is only human, and he's as sinful everyone else.

I had so much fun working with this piece, and I think I'm more satisified than I was with my previous character analysis art. I hope I could do more of this type of works in future.

Very cute observation I've gotten is how physically affectionate Sakuma is with Kidou and Kidou not minding it because, Sakuma isn't as overly affectionate with the others.

Sakuma cares for the other members and is on friendly terms with them, but he's more lowkey displaying his affection than he does with Kidou.

Episode 94, after Endou gives a speech to the team after he and penguin trio were away and Inazuma Japan lost their match against Argentina's team.

Episode 96, everyone is raising their hand as they're sending Kurimatsu away. You can look closely that Sakuma isn't raising his hand and is doing the same crossed arms pose Fudou does.

As for Kidou, Everyday hints that he doesn't really like to be touched with him frowning whenever he is tapped by the player (Clip 1) (Clip 2) (It's so funny because everyone else smiles when tapped). While it is possible that he grows to become more accustomed to it, he's still awkward especially with sudden contact, lol

Going back to the first pictures I've shown, this is really one of my favorite Kisaku official arts... it's very sweet when one thinks about Sakuma's body language, he's hunching to Kidou's level as he's considerably taller than him, aww

Adding to this post with my analysis of the emotional implications of this scene because it gets even crazier when one tries to visualize from Kidou's POV

You can see that Kidou was standing behind Sakuma in the initial composition of the scene's frame. It then switches to Sakuma's close up, which is more or less should be similar to what Kidou's point of view. So what possibly could be going on in Kidou's mind when it happened?

The close up of Sakuma's face ends when he fully turns his head, revealing the eye that's normally covered by his eyepatch and the disheveled hair his Shin Teikoku arc design has.

As one can see on the first post, looking closely Sakuma was drawn in a way that makes him look like his original design with the pulled forward hair and the eyepatch covered right eye, it was what Kidou saw!

What Kidou (and the viewers) initially saw was the Sakuma he knew, the one who played soccer together with him, the Sakuma who is his best friend. But something about it is uncanny, until Sakuma's entire face was shown and it was Shin Teikoku Sakuma that Kidou was seeing. It wasn't the Sakuma Kidou knew.

Even if their scope of love in their writings are different (Sakuma loves Kidou, while Kidou loves EVERYONE including Sakuma) Sakuma and Kidou care deeply towards each other. And it was Kageyama's actual purpose in the arc, to not win the match but rather to inflict as much trauma he could on Kidou by manipulating and hurting (mentally and physically) his best friends against him.

Shin Teikoku arc has really good animation and storyboarding in general; this particular scene has cleverly drawn frames where Sakuma's hair was positioned to look like how he normally looks until he fully turns at Kidou and you can see the the black eye

I don't have frames that are of 1:1 comparison but I hope you get the gist

Shin Teikoku Sakuma piece from 2024 when I was trying to analyze Sakuma's feelings in the arc (I keep forgetting to repost it outside twitter, oops)

Explanation under read more

The idea for the piece is to convey what Sakuma actually felt in the arc. What the aliea meteorite did was amplifying his negative emotions and converting them to hunger for power. Like how Kazemaru originally only started seeking power in a bout of deteorirating mental health; Sakuma (and Genda) only seeked the meteorite because he felt that Kidou abandoned him / them because they weren't good enough. So the idea here is to convey sorrow.

Unfortunately I'm very bad at writing analysis post in Tumblr's blogpost format as I'm very used to Twitter and Bluesky's thread style of writing; so I perhaps will revisit and rewrite this explanation.

Sakuma with covered eyepatch

Based on this frame from the end of episode 38, after he came to his senses:

The windows

Sakuma is wearing the same patient outfit as he did in episode 37's flashback

The sequence of closing the curtains is to express "closing one's heart off" (accepting the meteorite, going back to Kageyama, cutting ties with Kidou; etc etc anything works LOL). Also a reference to how Fudou entered their hospital room from the window lmao.

The eye

Should be self explanatory. It's also a reference to eye as a common symbolism used in Sakuma's character, which... he has... because Kidou himself has eye motif. gay ass.

I can't help but go HMMMM when it comes to Sephiroth and his goal of merging worlds. It reminds me of Jewish mysticism.

"The tree of life is a map that shows how creativity flows into manifestation, and how infinite possibilities manifest in reality."

GEE I WONDER WHAT THAT MEANS. IT'S NOT LIKE THERE'S MULTIPLE WORLDS HIDDEN INSIDE THE LIFESTREAM.

Wait then that means that Jenova is also in these many worlds and Sephiroth wants to reunite the worlds to make everything whole again.

If you defeat Jenova in one world, your not permanently getting rid of her cause her essence is scattered in the many worlds of the lifestream

Jenova is the corruption, but wait, if Sephiroth reunites all the world's, then that means that Jenova would be fully whole, and we get the chance to stop her once and for all.

But this obviously has to require some sort of huge sacrifice to do so.

Gee I wonder who is strong enough to take on a fully whole Jenova (if he gets a redemption of some sort)...

Hmmmm....

Interesting 😈

FF7 Rebirth Theories (that I have and like to scream about)

Here are some of my theories of what I think is going on in this game and what it means for the FF7 franchise moving forwards.

-The Lifestream is a river of souls, emotions and memories, yet sometimes these threads branch off and create new alternative universes/timelines, like light shining through a prism. Think of the lifestream and its different worlds as the roots of a tree.

-Like how the lifestream connects all lives and how it represents the cycle of life and death, so does the tree of life in various mythologies.

-Now that I look closely at Rebirth's ending I think Aerith is both alive and dead. She's entangled with the physical world and the spiritual world (Lifestream) and can hop between them at will.

-Which is why Cloud and Sephiroth see her as alive, but to the rest of the party, she's dead. She's in a fluctuation of states due to her ancient abilities and uses this to her advantage. (Schrodinger's Aerith lmfao)

-I dunno but I still think there's two Sephiroth's. The evil one who wants to merge all the worlds, become a god, and rule the planet alongside Jenova, and the one from the original OG timeline who's trying to stop this from happening and the one who shows Cloud the multiverses in the first place

-Cloud is slightly aware of what is going on regarding the different worlds/timelines, but the dude has to regain his true self first

I recently noticed that Sephiroth's personality in the OG is extremely self-centered and that Aerith says that Sephiroth only cares about the planet and himself during her monolog in Chapter 18 of the Remake.

Sephiroth's goal in the OG FF7 was to absorb all the lifestream in order to become a god. He sees himself on a higher level than the rest of humanity. So the dude has a bit of a god complex.

I've also noticed that Sephiroth is technically like a reverse version of Jesus, and this only fuels his god complex even more. Many of Sephiroth's story beats mirror that of Jesus and his supposed miracles as told in the Bible.

Not to mention that in Advent Children,Sephiroth coming back for a second time mirrors that of the second coming of christ.

Jesus sacrificed his life so that all of humanity gets to go to heaven

Sephiroth sacrifices all of humanity so that he can ascend to heaven.

Religious parallels aside, I think it's pretty interesting that Sephiroth acts as some twisted kind of savior in the FF7 universe. But there's one question that's been lingering on my mind that I hope Rebirth can answer. Like how Jesus sacrificed his life, how would Sephiroth sacrifice his

FF7R Mini Theory: Hollow and the Sefirot

So I've been noticing something regarding Hollow and the Kabbalah (it's way too complicated to explain here, but it's basically just Jewish mystism). Anyways, in the Kabbalah, there are these divine attributes called the sefirot from which God would reveal himself. It's also very important because this is where Sephiroth got his name from.

There's also the polar opposite of the sefirot, the qliphoth. The qlipoth that protects the sefirot much like how a peel protects a fruit. The qlipoth are also known to be called "empty shells/husks"

It's like there... hollow inside. Just like Cloud Strife himself

So without these sefirot (divine attributes) that manifest in the physical and spiritual realms, the universe will basically descend into chaos, which is the last thing we want. Cloud and Sephiroth during the edge of creation scene represent the universes of creation (Cloud) and death (Sephiroth), yin and yang,

The Qliphoth and the holy Sefirot

Well...without the sefirot, what will the qlipoth's purpose be? They are now empty, hollow shells, kinda like how Cloud's mind is shattered and how he wants to be whole again, yet he needs to regain his true self in order to do so. The sefirot makes the qlipoth complete, just like how Cloud becomes complete with Sephiroth.

I noticed something in the new FF7 Rebirth trailer

Sephiroth reveals the nature of Jenova and her ability but why?

Sephiroth never even revealed Jenova like this in the OG as a part of his plan, so why is he doing this? Isn't revealing her nature the last thing Sephiroth wanted to do?

Here's what I think is happening, Sephiroth is being forced to work against Cloud. He traveled back in time, still tethered to Jenova, hoping to stop her and save the planet from whatever destiny it's tethered to (yet it also has consequences as we see in the alternative timeline)

Sephiroth is doing this of his own will

Yet he's still shackled to Jenova, so he needs Cloud's help in order to break free from her, but Jenova is taking advantage of Cloud's shattered mental state and false persona, so it's like a godly game of tug a war.

I think the Sephiroth who's manipulating Cloud and trying to convince him that Tifa isn't real is the past version of him from the OG, while the real Sephiroth, the one who we've been following all along, is trying to break free from destiny's grasp, stop Jenova and save the planet.

I could be wrong, and this is just a retelling of the OG, but I don't buy that one bit, especially when both the developers and part of the story say otherwise. Anyways, that's what I grabbed from this scene.

I cannot stop thinking about Cloud and Sephiroth jian bird symbolism.

A Jian bird is a mythical bird that possesses only one eye and one wing. We already see this in both Cloud and Sephiroth's Kingdom Hearts designs.

Another thing about Jian birds are that they are two halves of a whole, dark and light, yin and yang.

"These creatures are born imperfect, and they need to lean against each other and act as one in order to be able to fly. Their mutual dependence is eternal, lasting through death and rebirth."

This symbolism just SCREAMS Sefikura to me, like imagine the possibilities this has in store for the FF7R Trilogy.

And you know what they say, without their other half, someone is left feeling empty or should I say...hollow 👀

I just thought of something that many other people forget to point out about FF7R.

Now Cloud at the beginning of FF7R doesn't care about the planet, remember he is hiding behind his 'too cool' persona.

Here is what I realized.

I noticed how Sephiroth says some very cryptic things towards Cloud, so it got me thinking.

What is Sephiroth doing? He is TRYING to make him 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦.

He says things in Cloud's hallucinations like "our beloved planet is dying." and "The bonds that connect us will be no more, and I loathe to live in such a world"

Heck even during the Edge Of Creation scene, he SHOWS Cloud the result of what WOULD happen if the planet did die saying "our world will become a part of it, someday"

He then asks Cloud to help him defy destiny, not only to defy his fate but the fate of the planet as well. SOMETHING is causing the planet to die, and it isn't Shinra cause Aerith said so in one of her speeches.

It's destiny itself that is making the planet die, cause in the OG it WAS Sephiroth and the PATH HE CHOOSE that causes him to try and kill off the planet in the OG. But here's the thing. Sephiroth in the FF7 universe has free will, yet he needs HELP. He wants to break free from destiny's grasp like he's trying to do in the FF7R trilogy.

And so he turns to the one person he knows that can help him, the ONE PERSON who knows him better than anyone else. The ONE PERSON who can help save the world by his side.

That person is Cloud Strife

Sephiroth is trying not only to stop his cruel fate but he's trying to stop himself as well.

So I read a interview with one of the developers that said that the final boss of Sonic Frontiers, The End is meant to represent how one perceives on what death looks like, and how the moon symbolizes death in some forms of fiction. Basically Sonic battled a lovecraftian entity representing a abstract concept none of us can comprehend.

This reminds me of the wasted potential Infinite had. Infinite represented a concept that nobody could comprehend, which is infinity. People not comprehending infinity is one of the main themes in cosmic horror so it would have been cool if the developers inserted that theme into Sonic Forces.

The End 🤝 Infinite

Representing abstract concepts

Screenshots I took of the second Super Mario Bros Movie Trailer.

Have some screenshots with captions because I am so hype for this film.

That's the entire world? I thought it would be a bit more diverse or bigger. Maybe it's just part of the entire world map? Either way the council of Toads are going to decide your fate.

PEACH LOOKS SO BADASS. GOOD CHARICTER ARC RIGHT HERE.

Furries when Bowser appears on screen.

So that's how the pipe system works, it all takes place in the V O I D

Idk who the other Karts belong to but I think they belong to the Kongs. How does Donkey Kong have so many friends? Or maybe they're just random apes he recruited to help Mario and his freinds.

RAINBOW ROAD SHJSJSHSJSJK

That is all I have for now, so hope you guys enjoy.