I'm going to give you the whole story because why not.

That picture was made for a completely open ended project aimed entirely towards expression. I mean we weren't graded on technique, and it didn't even have to be a drawing. It has to do with me trying to understand who I am. What I'm trying to portray is very complicated. The woman in the picture isn't a real person but she's based on the girl mentioned in that story I posted here, "The Cannibal". Red hair, red eyes. However, I wanted her to feel very human and natural so the red in her eyes is dulled down and her teeth aren't sharp.

You are looking from my perspective and that is my hand drawn resting on the plate. When I drew this piece I made it under the pretense that anyone who looks at it could easily be the girl or me. It deals with these two sets of carnal desires. First there's this woman who is obviously beautiful and young and friendly. This sense of attraction doesn't seem so crazy until you see what someone is willing to do to satisfy it. Secondly it's her desire to consume you. In a way, they're the same, the lust towards her flesh and her lust towards yours.

Obviously this extends beyond flesh, and it really has nothing to do with that. I has to do with really the abuse of others for your own gain and allowing yourself to be abused for your own gain. One day I watched myself switch places until I became the cannibal and I destroyed a friendship. I deceived him until I was able to get what I needed. I felt sick afterwards.

It was so natural I wouldn't have ever noticed had I not drawn that image and forced myself to deal with the darkest parts of who I am. So as I said, I drew this under the pretense that anyone could be the girl or the viewer, but now I don't think that's entirely genuine. What's certain about this picture is that I could easily be either person.

I wanted this picture to help me look into the minds of the people who've hurt me or abused me physically or emotionally in some way and so I was forced to take into account how exactly I was responsible for putting myself in a position to be abused. Because when I did that, things started to make more sense, and I was able to humanize the people who hurt me. Naturally you want to demonize them, and in the same way I wanted to demonize the girl, literally. This is the second version of that image and the first one she had sharp teeth and was just all around more vicious. It turned out much more powerful when I made her more human because a monster is what you're expecting.

This is the exact same thing that the cannibal as a story is based on. I didn't know that when I wrote it. It wasn't a conscious decision, but a subconscious one. The one that I posted is not the first rendition of the cannibal. I first wrote it when I was around 12 years old, and I kept making changes to the story and pushing this grotesque and horrific story and it wasn't until recently that I understood why I was obsessed with this character.

sounds heavy. i'm sure plenty of us have drawn something similar to that. i definitely think that drawing was the one with the most symbolism. the others appear to be more projects or practicing. SO its more interesting when you share drawings where you incorporate specific ideas or themes.

If this was done last month, then i definitely would recommend looking into other forms of shading. i think crosshatchings tyle doesn't work for every panel. Or at least a better technique to crosshatch.

so this is an intersting idea. IT definitely has a seinen vibe. It feels a little on the western side, but seinen have delved into those themes in the past.

I dont know how finalized those scenes are, but from what i can see, i recommend making sure the characters muscles are consistent and what kind of impression you want him to have. It changes a little too drastically between pages.

Page 1, he looks a little scary and menacing, in page 4 and 6, he looks depressed and hopeless, and in page 7 he looks drunk. I don't deny that you intended all of those aspects onto the main character. Its also a little early to tell, there is probably more panels to show.

The depressing part is that many people defend FLCL Progressive due to thinking the original is overrated.

One of my all-time favorite animes out there is FLCL. So when i heard FLCL 2 and 3 were going to release, i was very skeptical. Not only was the original team not involved, but the original artist was available and they didn't want to take him in. Regardless of how i felt before it released, i was optimistic and it looked like the new team had a lot of passion for the series. So i still wanted to give it a chance. After I finished all 6 episodes of FLCL, here are my thoughts:

Its not a bad series overall, it definitely has an FLCL vibe, but it never feels like it expands on anything or grows from the original FLCL series, just puts more on top of it without knowing what its actually doing.

In some parts, the series definitely tries to imitate FLCL classic, and in other parts the series things its expanding ideas that FLCL already but its really not. So in this review i'm going to go into detail on what FLCL progressive got wrong or not as well as the original. Of course, spoilers. So if you haven't seen the series, i recommend you do.

#1) Story and Characters
What made FLCL really interesting was how the story was complicated on multiple aspects that took time to decipher.

There were concepts like N.O., Atomsk, Medical Mechannica, and Robots coming out of peoples heads if they met the right qualifications (and i'm making it sound crazy intentionally as that's how its suppose to feel at least on a first view). But there's also the complicated relationship between Naota and Mamimi, his friends and his family. Nothing was ordinary despite Naota narrating. And it wasn't that those aspects of the story were random, they were just told at a different pace. But it wasn't like the series felt like it was intentionally vague about it, it was due to

Trying to decipher both aspects of the series at the same time was part of what made FLCL so rewatchable. In Progressive, its completely expendable. The story doesn't feel worthy of watching again. In both the crazy supernatural and the social aspects of the series, they weren't that compelling or interesting or worth investing in. Characters like Hidomi Hibajari  were typical Tsundere, but not because she had something interesting about her to hide, that's just the way she was. Ko Ide was just a ladies man who happens to get all the girls and is secretly is poor making ends meet. And the way they portrayed the town that these characters lived in, just didn't feel as real as the town that Naota lived in.

None of them suggested or hinted that there was a complicated history between them or characters. They had relatively basic lives. Which really just didn't make it entertaining at all to watch whenever i expected something to suggest these characters were more than what they seemed and never coming close. Don't get me started on Ide's friends.

and the worst for last: Haruko. The sole returning character and they messed her up badly. IN the original, she would sometimes speak randomly and tries to play some sort of rhyming game, she never was as obnoxious as she was in FLCL progressive. Her tone was completely different from the original, trying to constantly sound obnoxious as possible. The biggest mistake that they got wrong from Haruko was that even though she was manipulative, she never "brainwashed" anyone to getting what she wanted and yet thats exactly what she did in this series. She tried to brainwash Ide and Hibajiri's class in the most obnoxious way possible.

Another problem with FLCL Progressive is that it completely misunderstood Haruko's relationship with Atomsk. In the original, it was only referenced that she was in love with him by Commander Amarao. But if you picked up on the clues, it wasn't about romance. What Haruko really wanted to do was to "eat him". This was referenced multiple times in the series when she hit Naota's head she would scream "lunch time!" and get angry for Naota for eating him when she said he was the only one to eat him.

FLCL Progressive doesn't reference that at all and sticks with what the creators interpreted. Which is a real shame.

#2) Sense of Randomness
One thing FLCL Progressive tries to do is push for a sense of randomness just like classic did. However, it does it in the wrong ways. FLCL Classic just really had the right level because in some areas it was using animation changes, and in other areas. FLCL Classic never pushed random moments as part of the story, only in minor scenes. Anything that "seemed" random was foreshadowed early in the episode.

FLCL Progressive did some random things and made no sense or tried to really foreshadow them properly. in FLCL Classic, Amarao's organization felt like a real secret government-based organization trying to take out Haruko and Medical Mechannica but in FLCL Progressive, they are trying to make a giant robot out of an amusement park. And it never made sense as to why or how they were able to do that. When they do attack the Medical Mechannica plant, it just shoots giant mocchi and turns people into mochi as well. And the secret weapon was a secondary character who turned into a plant. And once again, it never really made sense as to why or how its possible.

#3) Music and animation
The music is what i was looking forward to the most when it came to the series. And the Pillows absolutely delivered. However, the biggest mistake this series did is that it didn't choreograph scenes to certain action scenes properly. Actions scenes in FLCL progressive played the music not as loud and the scenes wouldn't go with the action and sometimes they would cut off the songs prematurely. It was irritating to see. The only times they didn't do this was for the brand new songs.

FLCL Classic would also play the music in the background even without big action scenes, but the scene would always end before the song would. That is important because the song would linger and it left a bigger impression. If FLCL Classic didn't do this, i wouldn't think that the pillows would be as big as they are now.




At the end of the day, i'm just disapointed. i don't hate the sequels, but i knew what i was getting into when i saw the trailers. Did anyone else feel the same way about FLCL progressive? And is anyone looking forward to FLCL Alternative?

I've theorized in the past that Steins Gate: 0 is using the alternate timeline of the future Okarin. Which would explain Steins Gate: 0's name. I did however wanted to leave that theory out in case that it was a major spoiler.

There are many moments in the anime that felt convenient that i feel are the use of actual time travel. I just have no enjoyed the pacing.

I've not played Steins Gate: 0 and I'm sure you're right that the anime is handling it better than the game. The reasons why i like the original over 0 is that it was a breath of fresh air. It was just experimenting with ideas that seemed interesting and worth looking into. The way time-travel was handled was very entertaining.

I understand that visual novels push possible romances. I always enjoyed Steins gate for always fully establishing a concrete single romances even though there were others who liked Okarin. So it bothers me in the anime that they are faithful to this.

I'll wait and see until it ends, I'm sure it'll change my mind about it. The reason why i wrote this review however is because i didn't want to forget the negative feelings the anime currently has given. It could also be that i finished Steins Gate in a single viewing while i have to wait for Thursday for a new episode. So when the episode doesn't live upto my expectations, i feel a little cheated.

But i dont think that's wrong in this case because i haven't understood what is actually going on, or what themes its trying to push for. too many side-stories are intertwined and difficult to really pick and choose. These characters also have this horrible trope of "not sharing their information with each other until its too late".

I'll look forward to reading them.