Tag: Psychological

Creating My Ultimate Anime

Hello again my dear Island Guests and welcome to another post where I talk about the wonderful world of anime. Someone recently asked me what Manga I would like to see get adapted into an anime.. but I do not know, I don’t read manga nor do I think I should compare the two. It’s different forms of media and storytelling I do not know enough about adapting to know if my favourite Manga would be any good. So instead I will use this post to create my ideal anime!

Now first let’s determine who this show should be made for. Obviously the  most logical pick for me would be to make it a Josei show. For those who do not know Josei here basically would mean PG-13 catered to females. It’s male counterpart being Seinen. They oppose Shounen and Shoujo genres who are made for younger boys and girls respectively. My ideal show definitely would be PG-13 but since as a geek I predominantly hang out with groups consisting out of guys, because that is a thing I would like it if they would like my favourite show as well.  While I love sharing a show with my online lady friends there is just something about sitting on the couch and being mesmerised together. I have that when I watch Tengen Toppa or Madoka with my friends … the energy in the room is like magic. With friends in a room you do not need sleep , good anime can almost be like a druglike high..  without like ruining your body chemistry and not being able to poop and all. So with a good anime you can be high AND poop! The best two worlds!  Which is a perfect bridge! I am getting so good at this!

When you watch anime with friends and something cool happens! Also a cheer for my epic bridge to the next paragraph

My show would be the best of Seinen and Josei, showing some deeper relationship between characters and genuine emotional responses but also some nice action with a bit of darkness to it. Where cuteness and edginess clash but also intermix. We will throw in some Yuri and maybe some Yaoi elements as well for good measure obviously mostly implied with a single scene here and there that is a bit more explicit. I wanna watch this with friends, so pausing is not a thing so I would build some fan service moments where I can get myself, and maybe my friends, a drink and then they can go fetch drinks during some more heartfelt moments! Like a cute hand holding watching the sunset scene or something. Or during the guys flirting with each other. You know because plenty of my friends still think that’s not something they want to see. A girl’s gotta stay hydrated or inebriated… your pick! I would try to make it as unappealing as possible to young boys as possible because I do not like kids and I would not like to watch this show with one. Plus having to deal with someone like that during the fan meets is something I am not keen for either so .. there! Young girls I do not mind as much so I might throw in a unicorn somewhere or something! I am afraid that young boys will still like it as well..because it’s just going to be so awesome!

Not sure why I spend this long edditing this but hey! Details can be cool just like my anime!

Now to create a story for my show! That means also coming up with a genre.. but I usually like mixed genres. So i’d probably combine the Isekai, Magical Girl, Horror, Comedy and Romance genre together with a healthy dose of surrealism in the mix as well.  Maybe something a bit tournaments as well because I really like those. Of course I’d like a twist on each genre as well.. it will not be a flat up Isekai instead there will be a twist.  The horror elements can’t really be twisted as it just involves some scary stuff and the comedy is to balance out the grimness I’d like to insert to make it a bit cute as well. As a twist on the Magical Girl stuff I’d like to take it completely over the top.. Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann style mixed with Dragon Ball Z/Super. New transformations happen constantly and grow more and more ridiculous. In a show that just makes you yell out loud! Who the Hell do you think we are! Except no that one because it is taken.Something like “Our Bonds are Unbreakable.. and these bonds shall be your chains’  or  ‘Love has brought us together and made us an unstoppable force we are NAKAMA, WE ARE TOMODACHI’ . You know I’d figure it out somehow. I’d like some of those kind of elements though.

So for the story I imagine something along the lines of the 1983 Dungeons And Dragons Cartoon but with a twist. Instead of getting completely Isekaid a group of 6 players or so, would be forced to play a deadly game of D&D in a house with a creepy Dungeon Master.
While playing the cast gets transported to the magical world. If you die in that world you’ll die in real life as well.The characters have to keep their real selves alive as well as their avatars. It would have some Danganronpa elements where the DM  is but a creep animatronic..hosting a session for several hours a day. Once it is over the characters return to their human lives and find themselves trapped in a mysterious mansion. By completing quests more of the house is unlocked and parts of the mysteries are revealed but as the game lingers on the dungeon master becomes increasingly unfair and stuff from the fantasy world seems to bleed over in the real world. As the house is revealed to have staff members that seem like their allies and foes in the game world their trust on what is and what is not on both levels would get twisted. Of course they do fall in love with each other as the show goes on.. and learn new transformations based on their class archetypes in D&D as they figure out how to cheat the Dungeon Master.. can they escape?

While I said there should be 6 characters or so the game might start with a few more.. you know a few disposables to tell us exactly how deadly this game is. Friends they make in the house later on.. as staff becomes unlocked and people in game are not death proof either and most likely only the Yuri couple would walk out alive. Why them? Because  I do not want a super grim end , there has to be some happy end but they are most likely to adhere to the classic horror elements of final girls. It would feel right. Besides it would combine super well the with the second element. There would be a psychological horror aspect, the Butler who is so sweet in the mansion who takes care of all of your needs turns out to be an evil guy in the campaign a traitor who got you into trouble.. does this mean the Butler can’t be trusted?
What happens when a character suddenly becomes a vampire and seems feverish in real life?  Are they transforming here to ? Can they even?  The DM tells there is a betrayer in the campaign is it one of the players, is he referring to an npc. As the show goes on the players at one time even begin to doubt if their Isekaid versions might not be the real versions and  if the game is a delusion. Of course there will be plenty of grim quests and creepy monsters too. Reality unravels more and more as mistrust grows as the DM sows more and more doubt in their minds. What can you trust?

The Magical Girl aspect comes from a power that the people get in the D&D world.. they can stack classes.  Initially maybe from a dead player, whose mini’s they discover as they go on but later they can stack more on top.  For example the sorcerer girl takes the powers of a ranger girl as well and transforms into a magical girl like looking hybrid of the classes that can shoot elemental arrows with pinpoint accuracy. The gay barbarian boy can take the spells of a wizard and becomes a sort of thor hybrid adding lighting to his strikes. The fighter can take some druid animals , changing their  strength by shifting to Gorilla arms, use wings for a huge downwards sword trust or even add a scorpion tail to poison their opponent.
The warlock could combine with a rogue.. wielding shadow magic.. being unseen cursing people from the shadow with shadows and so on.  However as they develop bonds they can take on the primary class of their romantic partner in the mix..becoming an even stranger hybrid, finding additional classes along the way in a way like the crests in digimon and so on. Each time they become stranger more powerful hybrids that can lend themselves to truly unique designs. Breaking limits against a DM that doesn’t seem intent on giving them a fair chance.  Eventually we end up with a pair that basically can stack all the classes to be found and transcend into near godhood.

Told you guys I’d put a Unicorn in here!?

That ties in to the increasing insanity element again.. players begin to resend their weak powerless bodies as their power in game increases their strength and will in real live wanes. In order to keep everyone level headed , very early in the series people would be partnered up to function as each others anchor. Sharing thoughts with each other these of course quickly lead to a bit of a romance element. For that reason it is best that none of the players know each other at the start, they would just get an invite to play in an amazing game all know how to play D&D  and it would be a great opportunity.. much like how an invitation to Hope’s Peak Academy seemed prestigious at first. Regardless , after each major quest we would see the characters explore the house for an episode or so and some pillow talk in the rooms could provide background on characters and would be our primary method to get to know their real selves. We can find out that the Wizard for example has an over-demanding father which pushed the Wizard to focus on their academic accomplishments so their Int stat is high and we find out why they are a wizard in game. While the girl dreaming to be an idol might start out as a bard. Sharing with each other and being in danger so often of course allows the characters to open their hearts for another and eventually fall in love.

The comedy element would come from some more whimsical quests suddenly tossed into the mix and some group bonding in the house. The group knows they need to keep morale up so not everything is grim and dark, they sometimes just have some fun as they dress the Butler up to like Mister Villain.. or once they found out the butler has to clean everything they have a bake off in the now unlocked ot them kitchen and just make a chaotic mess. Most of the comedy will be contained to the fantasy world though as players can not help but act like players in a fantasy game and mess up situations like D&D players would .. in the funny way.
It would not be overly dominant but it would offer a bit of a relief from the despair.  An element that might be needed or at the least could lead to some cute figurines being sold!

To wrap this up let’s look at the series length. I think it would need to be something of a 25 episode anime at least. Maybe even 50, there is a lot to tell.  I am using Digimon as a blueprint to go on here. It also had that world duality mechanic throughout most of its shows and usually had to use between 50 and 100 episodes. Since it will be less monster of the week, but still a bit I’d say 50 is a safe but ideally I would like to wrap the story in about 36 episodes. The show needs to be long enough for people to doubt the established status quo. what world is real?! What is fake?!.. this works better as a slower format as questions need to linger for a bit to add to the mystery. There is yet another reason for the large number of episodes!  Obviously the pacing is important and while 36 seems ideal the chosen studio I would love to use is a studio that has trouble with pacing. 

Pacing is important in anime!

Studio Trigger would be my choice as a production studio. I would also love Gainax as a studio but those haven’t been very active lately. Trigger can be both light and dark and has that surreal style in things I really love.  I loved Kill la Kill myself despite people thinking it’s not okay and all, but those transformation scenes.. that feeling is something I’d really want when someone transforms in my show!  Both the villians and the Ryoko’s transformation felt really powerful! I loved the music as well so I am sure they could hook me up in that department. I’d like that same bombastic feel Kill la Kill had during the battle scenes but I also like the tense uneasy synthwave in BNA ..something like that.. could still work in the house.. because of how D&D is surrounded by that 80’s vibe. Like adding a bit of Stranger Things charm on top of it. As A director I would love to get Shinji Takamatsu. The guy of Gundam Wing but also Cute Earth Defence club Love. Both have traits I ‘d like to see back in their directing.His experience with Gintama would also help when the Isekaid characters break the fourth wall in there. 

My show would have less skin on characters though! Like.. I mean more clothes.. the skin thing is like mid season!

My voice talent I haven’t fully figured out yet but there is one choice that is very obvious!
Not starting with that though I think the female lead should be played by Tomosa Murata who voices Gasai Yuno in Mirai Nikki. I think she has a wide vocal range and can sound cutesy but also cry  in despair quite well Since the characters in this show deal with faltering sanity I think Tomosa has the acting  chops to make this work. For her dub-voice I’d cast Kate Micucci. I love her role as Webby Vanderquack. Kate’s inflection and tone  reads naturally a bit geeky and awkward and those are traits I want in my main character. She doesn’t need to be hyper cute like Ako Tamaki, this character is a bit of a mix of Usagi from Sailor Moon, mixed with Tomoko  from Watamote topped of with a bit of Honoka from Futari Wa Precure

The DM should be voiced by Takehito Koyasu better known as the voice of Dio! He also played  Boris in BNA recently and he played Gin in Food Wars. This guy has such a commanding  presence which is perfect for the role of our creepy mysterious Dungeon Master. The guy is in like EVERYTHING so he should not be hard to get! For the English dub there isn’t a shadow of doubt in my mind who should play the role of the DM… Mark Hamill!……….. Kidding! There is obviously only one right choice and if this thing ever get made this choice is an requirement for the dub to even happen.. the Dungeon Master HAS to be voiced… by Matthew Mercer.

Now that I layed out my perfect anime, I might actually write a story for it I am not fully sure yet but I got myself really excited about this idea!  How would your ideal anime look like?!
Would you watch mine?! Let me know and i’ll pink up your life again in the next post you read! See you then! Oh and if you really like this idea! Maybe support my Kofi! If I get enough money I promise I will make the anime! You become a coconut to which more awesome than it sounds!

The Deadliest Mind Game – Pinkie Watches: Circle

You are in a room, the entire room is black except for a a weird small monolith in the middle. Around it are 50 red arrows, pointing to 50 right dots. On those dots are 50 people including you. If you exit your circle , the monolith zaps you and you die.  If nobody moves for two minutes, you hear a chime signal and after 10 seconds somebody dies. What is going on here? How do you survive? Soon you figure out that through a device in your hand and eye.. you can vote for who will be shot next. How do you play the room until you are the last one left? Do you even want to be the last one left or do you want to save a child, or a brave soldier? These questions are all answered in the 2015 movie Circle.

Game Night

Circle is a movie directed by Aaron Hann and Mario Miscione and “stars” Julie Benz as “the wife” Kevin Sheridan as Man # 1 and David Saucedo as “The Hispanic” man. Straight from the billing it should become clear. This is not your average movie. There is no gore, there is no story, there is no big journey of discovery. We get one room and it’s not even really a room. It’s a black set with red lights and people on it and that is it. There is no story to tell here. In fact the ending is why most people seem to hate on this movie. Here is a “spoiler” for the ending.. since it’s completely and utterly inconsequential to the rest of the movie. In fact it’s so blatantly obvious that anyone who is actually surprised by the ending I deem mentally incapable of judging this movie that I do not mind them hating on it. Here goes… it turns out.. that that black area ..with the monolith firing death beams and people, you know that room where people had invisible devices installed in their eye with augmented reality, invisible forces installed in their hands.. so that corpses can be cleaned up, it was a SPACESHIP all along.

(Defo Earth Tech)

I was so surprised it wasn’t our black liquid like metal shooting instead death beams at people. So yeah.. technically this is an alien movie. Yet there are NO aliens in this film. It’s not what it is about in the slightest.  This movie is basically just Duck Duck Goose or Cards Against Humanity..but instead of voting for the funniest person you choose who has to die. It’s all about how people play this diabolical game. How do you maximise the changes of your survival, who would you kill. It’s the trickiest and most nerve wrecking game you will ever play, and there is not a single thing more to this movie than 50 people playing that game. I like that! Aliens.. are just a flavor slapped onto that and nothing more. 

Judge Jury Executioner

This movie, which feels actually more like a publication of a thought experiment highlights how people think. I do think it nails the thought process during such a game. A lot of the the choices being made are logical, a lot of the strategies being played by it’s players are quite briljant and the conclusion was satisfactory. I felt this mental process was actually quite real. At first the group decides to pick off the oldest people, those who already have lived a full life. They had a good life, now it’s time for others. This makes sense. Yet when you cull down an age group eventually people start to rebel against the idea for simply being somewhat middle aged. They will vote differently and the strategy will have to change. Minorities fear being picked off, for simply being outnumbered. However if you start to kill on a racial basis they can never win.. so they can’t turn it into a race war either.

New strategies have to arise. The game is constantly changing, strategies are dropped when they don’t pan out but later people try again. It’s all rather well done.Never was I sure who was going to die. I would plan how I would strategise to make my own way out of this and what I came up with is not that much different from that of the winner. The movie succeeds in both showing of how cruel humanity can be , but also how our moral fiber can work against us. In a room where 50 people enter and only one can leave, in truth everyone is equal..however only very few will be able to see this.  Everyone has a bias to what people are more important to save. To one person you may be a low life that lives of the coin of others, to another person in the room you might be worthy to save because your pregnant thus count as two lives. In fact what people see doesn’t even have to be true. We see people lie, accuse others of crimes or sins.
We see people trying to condemn a lesbian..because her adopted kid would have a “less normal life” than that of other parents in this room.  We see people play the christianity card because there is a large chance people believe in god. We see atheists try to exploit that very same christianity to target sinners. 

In such a situation in actuality, genders, age, sexual preference, it all doesn’t matter yet it does. You do not face people in this arena. You face gods. Everyone has the power to smite you if you do not smite them first. The writers seem to know this very well and the outcome feels realistic without feeling forced. I think if you ran simulations the one who survived never would have one in a single simulation..but were you find their mirror counterparts 100 times over it would always end the same. Since this movie is all about the game being played and I enjoyed the game being played I can only give them great praise for making it feel so real to me.

Clue

Not everything is great about this movie though, the cinematography rarely works out as well. More often than not we miss who died, and while most of the time a offscreen death is of one of the more silent characters sometimes a major character can be killed why you still wonder “Wait who died”.
The sound is very echo-like which makes sense in the room but can be a bit harsh on the ears. We often hear critical lines of dialogue being said while we do not say who says it. Luckily I watched with English Subtitles with fixed this problems but with 50 people in the game I really would not have know who said it based on their voice alone. I would really recommend everyone watching this to watch it with English subtitles for more than one reason. Fairly soon after a woman who introduced herself by name is remorsely gunned down for blabbing she had no children, people decide it might not always be wise to talk and share. At least not names as it will only make it harder to do what needs to be done.

Thusly virtually no one is named. The way the subtitles fix this is by updating themselves. Older Woman #2 can suddenly become “Cancer Survivor”  Hispanic Lady can become “Translator” and so on. Yet many characters only begin to speak when they have to reveal something. Saying too much of course means you can say something wrong. Here is where the true strength of the movie lies.  If you play along with the game, you can find out which lines can condemn someone. You try to find who will be the last person standing based on how they play. You pick your own strategy yet you constantly read the room. However this means that his movie isn’t something you should watch to casualty. You have to at least play along a bit. Keep a focus and think about motivations a bit. The journey from point A to B (being from 50 persons left in a room to 1 )  isn’t very interesting. It’s established early on.. there is no escaping there will be one survivor.The last kill had some scary implications that actually made me shiver when I realised what just happened. Yet all of this would have been lost on me if I would watch something very casually. This movie will do nothing for you if you crave mindless action or an easy watch. You’ll have to feel like playing a game and think on who might be up to something evil

Good Versus Evil

Morality and trying to always be kind and good can sometimes be our own worst enemy. This movie shows us the need to take care of yourself..because no one else truly does so. In the second half of the movie a “good” and “evil” camp start to form, but no one truly belongs in either category it’s all relative. We see people sacrifice themselves only to have their names instantly forgotten. We see  a cleary “evil” characters who trying to vote kill a young kid, and we see that the logic and arguments he uses is completely correct. He gets a following and in fairness I would have sided with him as well. Which brings up other interesting things.

Depending on who I would have replaced in the game it could have been a totally different game. A single different vote somewhere in this game could have changed the outcome dramatically. How long can we be good in the face of death? Will being good be rewarding?  This movie poses some interesting questions and it does a great job in answering them as well. It does a great job in reflecting a randomly grabbed mishmash of people, where no one is really truly the same yet in essence we all are. How do we twist perception to suit our needs? In a way we don’t just to this in a black monolith laser death game. We do this in real life as well. Damn people for being different, take away their chances because it will give ourselves a bigger chance. In essence we are all the same, no good people, no evil people. We just play the game differently from each other, and we can not just refuse to play the game. So in the end all you really can do is play the game in the way you would play it and hope for the best.  This movie is available on Netflix! So take a peek if you are into these kind of things.