Keep your Grasses on, Nothing will be Rong

5/21/2025

May comes, May goes.

It's been tranquility.

I went outside this morning around 10 am, and it's getting way warmer. I didn't check the temperature but now it's 101F(38C). I warned my manager at work face to face we need AC sooner than later, so I hope this doesn't become last updated 20 years ago at some point.

Just kidding. Things have been good thoughbeit. The supplements are helping aplenty. There were bad moments here and there with plunges in my mental health but they've been... sparse.

Spring Anime 2025 intermission impressions

Beginning with Gundam Quackers, up to episode 7.

I'll be honest. Was I right on my guts to initially ignore this show before release? I [eeked and took the boomer bait of Zeon winning and establishing a (literal) alternate universe where they won and ... I've been putting off more by episode thoughts because this show is just the most unorthodox Gundam TV series Sunrise has ever done. 12 eps. A premise that flaundered and was undersold, underwhelming, a TV debut director who hasn't directed anything longer than FLCL. 

I'm conflicted. The pacing had been difficult to grasp after the Shiiko episode. They pull the rug with the Bi-Stars, and the episode titles are bizarrely misleading. I felt so bamboozled by the Nyaan doesn't Get Kira-Kira and again played like a fiddle by Machu's Rebellion.

Machu's Rebellion? More like Cuckquean's Seething.

Original art by Heiyuu on twitter. I wanted to try and embed it, but I couldn't get it to work properly on Neocities. Boo.

And now they've pulled the rug on Deux and the Zeta returnee who are both unceremoniously killed off. The grown-up lookalike guy from FLCL warned Machu and the viewer this was where the fun and games end. Rhine ends here kinda deal, and now we're moving away from Clan Battles and onto the bigger stage at hand ... at least I hope.

He kinda looks like the FLCL kid grown up a little, doesn't he?  This was something my bf pointed out. 'First time huh? No more FLCL mecha beyblades. It's Neon Genesis time, kid.'

Who even knows what this show is going for anymore? It's going off the rails. Maybe it can be a good thing. Maybe it can be a bad thing. Was the production beyond this show as equally a confused clusterfuck? Is that why this has been in presumably in production limbo for 7 years? I have a slight grasp of Sunrise's inner sub-studios—I remember one of them being closed down after it completed Cross Ange back in 2015 (man ... it's truly been a whole decade since Cross Ange aired... I'm in the mood to revisit it and G-Reco. Oh... G-Reco! You were so misunderstood, everyone forgot about you).

Did the writers forget or was it just a bluff?

The only other show that really suffered from a Duke Nuken Forever of a similar magnitude is Maou-Samai is a Part Timer season 2. I watched it with my bf when it was airing and even now I couldn't remember most specifics in the show. In a lot of ways it was a classic case of being a fart in the wind.

I hope Sunrise doesn't get discouraged from attempting another TV Gundam series. I have no idea how well received this is in Japan and if the Japanese are buying the model kits and it's hard to continue writing this without needing to spend the time researching those kind of things.

I don't think we'll see Ramba, Saya or any Zeon holdouts in wartorn Africa or Asia after all. Maybe it was too good to be true. If anything, there's untapped potential to make a fanfiction out of this show's premise. Would I be one to pen such a feat? No, probably not. I never touched fanfiction before and I'm definitely not good at aping an established character's characteristics; I struggle enough with my own original fiction.

During the height of the original webserialization of Saga of the Cosmic Heroes, I struggled with returning to Victoria Happ-Schwarzenberger's headspace. I wrote her as like a cheerful character and I broke her and in the process I broke myself,  spiraling further into bad mental headspaces and ultimately lead to me cutting the story short. VIctoria's request to transfer to the first waves is dismissed and she slips away into the annals of history as little more than a brief footnote in a school textbook chapter on the end days of some forgotten humanoid space federation... or something.

Anyway, back to the GQuacks.

Yomagn'tho: The Feaster from the Stars, and That Which Relentlessly Waits Outside. That's not an utterly completely foreboding name for a project you need with huge funding for and help revitization of Earth. "Yeah sure we'll be more than happy to share of the responsibility as well!" so says the colony president. "even if it would bankrupt my entire colony in the process. Gee, I wonder why Zeon need so much money for this Solar Ray thing anyway?"

I think there's a lot more context that has maybe befallen at least a good number of Western interpretations of this through several forums I've been loosely active on. Most seem to think she is in fact going to be evil and flat-out just burn the Earth as a wonder weapon, but I think it's far more likely she is using this not as a trump card against the Earth Federation, but against Gihren.

Outwardly, and even among the Sodon bridge bunnies, just haven't grasped the true nature of Zeon's financial situation, and presumably watchers don't, or maybe I'm the Disareeable Zen Interface here.

Zeon isn't building only one laser cannon, they're building enough for two. In all likelihood the side colony and the Sodon crew lack this possible context except for Bull.

Most seem to operate on the assumption that Zabi Zeon, by Kycilia's visit, is representing Zeon's interest wholesale. It could be she is representing her own agenda as head of her sphere of influence.

Presumably, the only known characters who are aware of the fact that Gihren might still be secretly building the Solar Ray that Char and Bull briefly alluded to about during the first 0079 episode are the two men themselves. Kycilia may be unsure or uncertain that Gihren is still constructing that, as it didn't seem to be completed in time for any Solomon or Lunar conflicts.

Kycilia isn't asking money for Gihren's(not Zeon's) laser, it's a new one possibly in response to his. The deal with the Side colony is as deceitful as it is a cover-up to both them and the viewer. I imagine we may get filled in on episode 8's elaboration of the Zabi family, and may actually bring this plot point as a fast-forward to the present when they reveal Gihren gooning over his Solar Ray.

That's why Bull couldn't afford to have Kycilia assassinated yet. If she died there, the power vacuum left behind would collapse her sphere of influence and Gihren would truly be evil because not only would he have her forces (unless they go off to form Neo-Zeon, er... Mars Zeon, or... something. Haman-Mineva cameo? Maybe Garma would step in Dozle's shoes and became her surrogate father), but also the resources/money for the 2nd colony laser AND the laser itself.

I'm betting the projector for the remainder of the four episodes would be leading up to a colony laser duel and a fleet battle between Kycilia and Gihren loyalists. I wonder if we'll get a Mineva cameo playing with her grandfather ol' Degwin? That would be incredibly wholesome. I read a count of Tomino getting angry with Unicorn's staff because he was furious Mineva was involved, though, so I don't know. I haven't heard of it happening with Build Fighters so maybe it was a fabication.

Wonder Bask Om will return with Four Murasame and Roseamnary. Or maybe the wacko two-toned hair chick from ZZ. These 3 or 4 remaining episodes could go literally anywhere.

And that just makes me wonder, what about the protagonist Machu? I can't help but feel sorry for her lack of agency through the series so far, a girl denied being protagonist. This happened to some degree with Zeta with the Amuro-focused episodes but that's because it was 50 episodes to give breath and room for cast old and new.

Kamille gradually evolved over the stories and in a past entry I thought of her as a modern Kamille after the initial episodes, and even the Japanese viewers likened her to a "Rewei-era Kamille" but so far she hasn't done anything too remarkable since then to warrant her as one. Her lasting legacy is going to be a newtype cuckquean, but I hope that won't be the case. Machu's VA said of the director this:

 Final Thank You Stage Greeting Notes

MC Matsuzawa announced in her opening remarks that the TV series will consist of "12 episodes total"

Kurosawa mentioned: "When I hit roadblocks, learning about Director Tsurumaki's personal interests became my key to portraying Machu. I realized that Machu is essentially Director Tsurumaki himself"

 I do wonder what this could be interpreted as. Is Tsuruamki feeling trapped and helpless as Machu does? I read interviews saying some way or another in terms of office politics.

Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX is Kazuya Tsurumaki's project. Tsurumaki decides everything. Anno-san might do something to cover for him, but that's it. However, Anno-san is the president of Khara, so he'll be shown the intermediate work [during production]. However, [Tsurumaki] will try not to show him until the very last minute, so as not to be overturned and have to start from square one

Oh well, all I can do now is wait and see how it all plays out, and hopefully not die of heat exhaustion before the series end.

Ghola Generic Kowloon Romance

I've been enjoying this so far. I can't go into too much in-depth rambling like GQuacks. It has mysteries and dialogue that make you think. It's different. All the characters have their own struggles and identities and it htorws you for a loop at times. It's relatable because I always felt like I struggle with identity a lot in online space. Even during the 2010s' I never stuck to one avatar for too long and I was always a season "waifufag" in the same way. I can't say for sure that has changed because I always changed around my avatars even in VR Chat.

People still tease me about my name change in VRC; why did you change your name to Kuwabara? Why are you running away from your past? Ooohh.... it's not like that at all. I'm not running from anything. I'm just embracing me. I just love how awesome and cool the name sounds. I like when people say the name, it's cool.

The JazKaz you once knew is dead and GONE.

But yeah, I find this show is thought-provoking in that regard. I wish I could say more but I'm hitting blanks in this segment. And that leads us into... boy,

Wind Breaker Season 2

Boy, it's going to be hard following up on that last segment. Well... I didn't have any issues with Tsubakino, I just find the inclusion of his character a ... little... unsettling. I mean, flabomyant characters aren't exactly new to delinquent shows: the OVA Be-bop Highschool had them plentiful so drag characters (if you want to call them that, or whatever, er...) were as early as the 90s, and of course the 80s had its fair crop of them.

But... I don't know, it's unsettling going from this:

to this

It feels ... a little... I don't know ... tone deaf? It was nice animation, I guess. But hey, at least we get a series that's set in a alternate universe of Ano Hana where Menha didn't become, uh... past tense.

That's it for airing anime.

Right after we watched GCucks ep8, we dived back into bingeing Zeta Gundam where we resumed watching from the Kilimanjaro arc, where it was funny to see Four again and the Psycho Gundam. It's nearly night and day how they depict classic cyber newtypes vs a modern one. There's more room for tragedy and character arcs but unfortunately people knew to Gundam won't get the bigger sorrowful picture of Cyber Newtypes and that's a shame.

I'm glad I'm getting the chance to rewatch this. I forgot how utterly grim it could be at times.

Remember when Bask Om was hardcore? "Yeah yeah, don't worry Hymen you can rely on me you can count on me to put Scirocco in his place... smile."

So we'll be done with Zeta in no time. Then I plan on rewatching Monogatari and Higurash with him.

So on with games.

I haven't been playing them much. After GTA4 I felt empty playing Morrowwind as well and mostly spent my newfound energy on writing. But I have been playing Fortnite this season with the Star Wars stuff. It's probably been the most fun since the Godzilla update. I almost want to try and give the nu-Star Wars game a try. I think once I finish Zeta I will start playing the Zeta campaign in Gundam Reborn later.

On Writing

I've been putting off updating it but I am now actively writing a serious attempt at a fiction again! I tidied up the creative page and adding to it actively. Right now it is only The Yellow Typhoon and the Final Waltz. The outline had been completed since the beginning of this month and I've been semi serializing here on this domain page. When it nears completion I plan on porting it over to Royal Road officially. Here's the official snyopis for it:

The Imperium's Fourth Chevauchee into the Confederacy of Independent Planets has ended in unmitigated disaster. The Imperium, trapped in a bubble of byzantine squabbling, scrambles to reorganize what remains of its theater forces in the face of an impending counteroffensive, though incompetent civilian-military leadership plagues the Confederacy all the same.

Emperor Mikhail V von Barbarossa has appointed his most trusted military commander, Jonathan Churchill the Black Prince, to lead a diversion using the mobile asteroid fortress Zeta to bide time for the Imperium.

The Black Prince succeeds in dropping an orbital colony on the Confederate planet of Ben Nevis, and makes a mad dash to capitalize on his true objective: the penetration of the Confederacy's halo Maginot Line protecting the Confederacy's planet-capital of Fasnakyle!

Confederate high command acts swiftly assembling a strike team ahead of the main naval force gathering at Maginot Line Point Farragaig. One such member is Victoria Schwarzenberger, a Mobile Trooper ace pilot who is Neo sapiens: a next step in humanity's evolution exhibiting sharp spatial awareness.

As Victoria and her team race against time to the unfolding flashpoint, the stage is set for the beginning of the end of the hundred-and-fifty-year galactic war between the two entities.

Here's a quick link to the fiction page if you're interested in giving it a read. I haven't yet decided to include a comments page on each chapter or not, or on the main page. I will figure it out later. Until then, I'm excited to see this come to realization and I hope to finish this before mid-June and have it unleashed on the world. And, well, then it's time to finish A Game of Cosimc Titans's outline, or even rewrite it in my ever-evolving voice, too.

I feel like I've learned a lot from Frank Herbert's writing and I can feel Homer's influence of my reading of Iliad. Recently, I just finished the chapter with the Trojans Storming the Rampart and have started on Battle for the Ships, and it's all just so beautifully visceral.

I've been sharing it on some forum but I didn't get much feedback, but the ones I did get were pretty valuable but it's hard to gauge any impressions further than the first chapter. I don't expect this to gain any views on Royal Road—let alone Scribblehub or Spacebattles. I think when I finish it I will first publish it on RR then the other two. I just hope I don't have a nasty case of a scraper posting it on Amazon. It was a quick and dirty ordeal I had once but was resolved by Amazon swiftly. I can't see this making much money either, though I still find myself grappling with this still.

Also, I got a few commissions underway from a few of my favorite artists, so I may put up illustrations of my pink-haired elf sometime in the near future. I am not sure which but they may replace the front page image and the about me, but I haven't decided yet.

Until next time.