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malymin"Maybe chara wasn't the best person but i will shoot out a giant rainbow colored laser to get them to stay by my side for a moment longer ok ok okok okokok"
alchemicink
Saturday, September 20th, 2025 02:42 pmalchemicinksnowynightsnowynighttepidsnake
Thursday, September 18th, 2025 01:28 pmstardust_riflestardust_rifletepidsnake
malyminThis is a post that I want to eventually cross-post to ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
anime_manga, but I last left it in an unfinished state in uh... 2024 on Cohost. Going over the color symbolism of every single Utena character is well-trod territory, so I do want to link to pre-existing analysese of that nature, such as Vrai's recap episode commentary from 2014. Jay Scott's analysis of how Utena uses color, by someone clearly not involved the anime's fandom culture but nonetheless deeply fascinated with the work to the point of having a massive number of articles on his personal site dedicated to the show, is also a great read - I think some of his reads are massive stretches, but you can't say he isn't thorough.
( the post so far )
Really, I think I probably need to bring in at least a loose summary of the other main characters' image colors, as well as a note on how red and white roses are much more associated with ideas than with the specific characters they're tied to. (Red is more about sex than it is about the specific character of Touga, although Touga is The Red One; White is much more about idealized princehood than it is about the specific character Akio (or about Dios as specifically a past-Akio, versus Dios as pure symbol). It is noteworthy that Touga wears a lot of white and Akio a lot of red! Anthy has purple hair, and thus purple can be said to be "her color", but purple roses do not exist in the show - something to be said about how she is treated like an object within the system of Ohtori, framed as a passive doll-like subject by the Duels in contrast to how Duelists are framed as active free agents within the system? Obviously the Duelists are themselves manipulated by Akio towards his own ends, but their participation requires them to believe that they really can bring about Revolution for themselves by possessing Anthy as a passive subject, whether she be pure doll-princess or consumable sexual object in their eyes...)
malyminThe comic book convention in my town has videogame, anime, etc stuff, but ultimately a lot of floorspace is taken up by cape comics, because it's a comic book convention, and I just don't... care about that?
Anime offerings tend to be largely the same limited stuff every year. Sailor Moon is the one thing that isn't shounen that you can count on finding - otherwise it's Naruto, One Piece, Dragon Ball, Demon Slayer, YGO, etc. FMA, but I haven't found anything 03 specific when that's the version I care about. And anime girl figurines from popular gatchas and isekais. I've never seen any vocaloid merch that isn't Miku at this con, outside of a single "official art on a solid background" button pin of Teto.
The best bet for diversity is Artist Alley in the back, because the front is all cape comics, mass-popularity shounen, sailor moon as the one shoujo or mahou shoujo offering, and pokemon - but it felt even less diverse this year than previous years. A bunch of stuff that's currently popular with Millenials, Zoomers, etc was barely present. No Umamusume at the whole con! Like one table with Deltarune stickers or prints. There was a decent bit of KPop Demon Hunters at multiple tables, but still less than I expected? NO Amazing Digital Circus or Murder Drones. (Though i did see a kid cosplaying one of the Murder Drones characters, that was cute - they had the syringe tail and everything!)
For what it's worth, out of the things I've listed - I don't personally care about Umamusume, or KPop Demon Hunters, or ADC or MD. But I do notice that both "new things" I'm personally invested in (such as Deltarune) and new things I'm not personally invested in are lacking.
(Also I do kind of wish that I could attend a con that had a nice array of actual panels, and not just merch...)
One nice thing is that there's a table just outside artist alley selling some 70's shoujo paraphernalia. They said they get the laminated magazine covers from a Japanese store that does the cover-lamination process to old magazines that are too damaged to sell wholesale. Looking at the inside side of the covers, you see all these vintage advertisements aimed at the target audience of the magazine - honestly just as neat as the gorgeous sparkle-eyed illustrations on the fronts, albiet in a different sort of way. A slice of pop culture history...
But yea, I wish my area had dedicated anime and videogame conventions.
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