Raphael/Akioh/Moon
He/him
29 Years Old

Hey, I'm Raphael and I love OCs! Yeah. Also I study linguistics. Idk what to put here.

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ANIME

Mood: Better

(note: probs gonna be revealing spoilers to stuff, sorry.)

I've been watching a fair amount of anime, lately. :V Which is weird, 'cause I usually read more manga than watch anime, haha... BUT YEAH, THAT'S WHAT I'M GONNA POST ABOUT TODAY.

I finally finished Hunter x Hunter (2011), a couple weeks ago. I meant to finish some months ago, but I got stuck at the Chimera Ant Arc... although it turns out I really only had the last episode of the Ant arc, along with the final arc of the series left to watch. The last arc was pretty good!

I kinda didn't like the Chimera Ant arc very much, though. ""orz I'M TOO LAZY TO GET INTO DETAIL, RIGHT NOW...
I will admit there were things I liked about the Chimera Ant arc. There were a lot of cool new characters. For one, I really liked the Meruem and Komugi episodes, they felt really genuine. And the overall concept was interesting, too.
BUT.
I HAD TOO MANY THINGS BOTHERING ME ABOUT THE ARC FOR ME TO REALLY ENJOY IT... Maybe it's just because I was expecting it to be a really sad, dramatic arc (which it was to some degree), but there were too many things getting in the way of the emotions in the arc for me to enjoy it. orz Basically, it's just that:

• There were too many characters + extensive and unnecessary backstories to minor characters
• There were too many plots that were resolved slowly/never fully addressed
• The narrator was way too prominent in the latter half of the arc, making the show too "written story-like" (ie: the arc didn't utilize the anime medium)
• The scope of who's powerful in the show was blown out of proportion

Maybe I'll get more into this some day, but FOR NOW... I'LL LEAVE IT AT THAT.

I did like the last arc a fair amount, though!! It was cool to see a lot of the old characters, again. :,D AND MY FRIEND, LEORIO... BACK IN ACTION... I was glad Leorio had a semi-prominent role, haha.
Oh, and, I thought the stuff with Killua and Alluka was really cool!! The backstory stuff with her powers was really cool (AND CREEPY BUT... YEAH, COOL STUFF.)
I enjoyed this arc, yeah.
/idk what to say, hahaha
BUT YEAH, I was glad to finish up Hunter x Hunter. I kinda wanna go back and watch some of the old arcs, haha. And maybe the movies. :^D But yeah, maybe some time...

Another anime I finished recently was Daily Lives of Highschool Boys/Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou. :U It was 12 episodes, so MUCH SHORTER THAN HXH, HAHA. I only decided to watch it 'cause I had seen some photosets from it on tumblr, but it turns out it's actually a kinda old anime from 2012 that no one really talks about. (??? I WENT IN UNDER THE IMPRESSION IT WAS POPULAR, HAHA;;;)

It wasn't a favorite of mine, but it wasn't a bad series. I was kind of uncertain about it at first, but I think I was just annoyed 'cause I was watching it on Hulu... with ads.......... SO I SWITCHED TO YOUTUBE AROUND EPISODE 3, AND I FELT A BIT BETTER ABOUT IT, AHAHA;;; But yeah, it's a sketch comedy show about highschool boys being stupid. (??? IT'S TRUE, OKAY.)
I liked a lot of the sketches with the main 3 characters, and just with the dudes in general, but I didn't usually like the sketches with girl characters...!! It was weird, 'cause every girl character in this show is KIND OF A JERK...!!! IDK THE GIRLS WERE ALL SO VIOLENT! I wouldn't have really taken notice to it if it was just like 1 or 2 girls who were bratty and violent, but it was almost every girl;;; Idk, it was kind of unsettling and strange. :U

Other than that, I've been watching Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions (first season), Rozen Maiden: Zurückspulen, and Free!.
Chunibyo's not bad, it's got cute characters and I like the concept well enough. :U Though sometimes the characters are a little too cutesy, for me. BUT IDK, that's just me, I'm not a huge fan of the "moe" stuff, or whatever. Kyoto Animation usually does cutesy moe characters (I think?), so it's to be expected, haha. :^D
/idk what I'm saying, don't bother me

Free!'s probably my least favorite of what I'm watching right now;; It's not horrible, and I really like the background music (???), but it's just not what I'm really interested in, for an anime... -u-/ I like that it's lighthearted and cute, but the fanservice is a little aggravating. I MEAN... I'D PREFER IT TO OWN UP TO BEING BL, INSTEAD OF DOING AMBIGUOUS HOMOROMANTIC FANSERVICE, OR SOMETHING...???? Leaving it as subtext just makes it feel a little shallow.
Personally, I'd like to see a casual BL anime where the main storyline has to do with something other than romance (like swimming, here), while the romance happens (without being subtext) in the peripheral. Idk if that makes any sense, but yeah. It just feels like Free! is being all, "HO HO. CHECK OUT THIS SCENE. WITH THESE DUDES. SHIP THEM, MY AUDIENCE." without trying to present or understand (?) how the characters themselves might actually feel for each other. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the show cares too much about the audience, rather than the show itself and it's characters. (???)

Now that I think about it, I feel like Tiger and Bunny might've had a similar problem, with Kotetsu and Barnaby having ambiguously platonic or romantic feelings for each other... Though when I watched it, it felt more like the show was like, "Hey, here's what Kotetsu thinks about Barnaby, you decide whether it's romantic or platonic," or something. While Free! feels more like it's pushing for the audience to ship characters, even though it'll never be officially addressed in the anime.
OR MAYBE I'M JUST BEING TOO HARD ON FREE!, I DON'T KNOW. But yeah, there's some thoughts on that.

So yeah, lastly, I'm watching Rozen Maiden: Zurückspulen. I decided to watch it 'cause I read the manga as a kid, and heard there had been a new anime series (2013). :V

I was confused watching at first because it seemed like it was just skipping through everything, but it turns out the anime is based on a manga sequel the author made.
I had no idea there was a sequel to the manga, but I was personally really glad to hear! The original manga ended really abruptly... I'm glad the author decided to continue it, and work out some of the original plot holes. :^D I haven't read it yet, but I'm gonna give it a read once I finish the anime.

Visually, I like how the new anime looks...! The backgrounds are pretty, and the drawings look pretty close to Peach-Pit's (the manga artists) art style. (Also I looked it up just now, but apparently Peach-Pit is a manga duo. :O I didn't know, haha.)
I never watched the original anime series, so idk what to say about this new series compared to the old ones... I do remember looking at some screenshots at some point, and not really being a huge fan of the old animation style. BUT UH, I'M JUST PICKY. Sometimes older anime styles don't appeal to me. -u-/;;; I think it was just 'cause it was different from the manga, which is what I was familiar with.
Here's what the old anime looked like:


The new anime:


And the manga:


Idk why I'm showing all these images, or even talking about the art at all. SORRY, I'M JUST RAMBLING.

BUT UH, SOMETHING REALLY WEIRD ABOUT THIS ANIME IS
THE SHEER NUMBER OF BAD REVIEWS IT HAS ON CRUNCHYROLL!!!!
I don't understand, 'cause watching it I don't think it's that bad...!! I mean it's not the greatest, but I think it's kinda decent so far!
????
I DON'T UNDERSTAND, AM I MISSING SOMETHING...
Other anime websites give it around a 6-7 out of 10, which sounds pretty right to me. I'm just so confused by this... (?_?)/

Yeah.
WELL, that's all I have to talk about, and idk how to end this.
I'M GOING BACK TO SCHOOL, SOON...
HAVE A NICE LIFE, Y'ALL. *U*/;;;

AniMore!

Mood: LAZY FOREVER!

Sorry for taking so long to reply to comments, the past couple weeks. orz I've just been kind of out of it, lately;;; Aha.

But! I have some kind of cool news! I'm signed up for the artist alley for the Baltimore anime convention, AniMore! :^D It's in January. The artist alley and vendor stuff was first come first serve, which is why I got in easily, haha. I'll be tabeling with ~*~my mom~*~ who I need for moral and financial support. *u*/ Aha;;

The good thing is that Animore is a super small convention (about 1000-2000 people, which is less than even Anime USA). So hopefully, I won't be intimidated by tons of people and scary good artists;;; The bad thing about it being a small convention, though, is that I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to sell a lot. I don't want to bring too many types of products, but... yeah. Idk yet.

I still want to have a couple keychains, though. >:V For keychains, I was originally going to do these or something, but I'm thinking it'll probably be a better idea to make something more mainstream for keychains... (I'll still keep those as stickers, though. :^U)
So I decided I want to make Fire Emblem: Awakening keychains. *u*b; Mainly because I saw a lot of FE merchandise and stuff at Otakon, aha... /BANDWAGON FOOL IDK
I still haven't decided which characters I want to make keychains of yet, though. SO, THAT'S WHERE YOU COME IN!!!! *U*////
(I'm sorry)

So uh. Yeah. If you play FE:A, maybe let me know which characters you'd be most interested in seeing keychains/stickers of? I only want to make 6, ideally 3 girls and 3 boys. THANKS FOR YOUR HELP, AHAHAH. ;u;/

As far as other stuff goes, I don't really know what to draw. orz I need to make some new prints, but DIGITAL ART! INTERESTING COMPOSITIONS!! I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO THAT WILL LOOK GOODODDLKSDJJF yeah. Hopefully I'll figure some stuff out, soon. Some things I'm thinking of drawing stuff for are:
*Sailor Moon
*Fire Emblem
*Super Smash Bros
*Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-Kun
*Steven Universe???
*League of Legends????? My sister suggested this, I don't even play it...

But yeah. THAT'S SOME OF MY PLAN, STAN. LET'S SEE HOW WELL IT ACTUALLY GOES... There's so much to do, even beyond just drawing, hoo hoo. orz Also, school's starting up again in a couple weeks. HOW. EXCITING... Hopefully next semester isn't too tough. ;u;/

ANYWAY YEP. SEE Y'ALL AROUND!

I'm back from Otakon. >:V

Mood: Lazy

My internet is being slowowowow. orz BUT YEAH. Helloooo, I'm back from Otakon. I went with my sister and her boyfriend, and met up with my friend from college at the con. I had a good time, though I'm super lazy now, haha;; Walking around and wearing armor was pretty tiring. But yeah! I guess I'll just ramble about my weekend now, 'cause why not.

Friday was Fire Emblem day for our group, except my friend. :V Here's what we wore:

I'm Virion on the left, the Lissa was one of my sister's friends (I forget her name;;), my sister's boyfriend was Owain, and my sister was Cordelia. :^D We went to the Friday Fire Emblem shoot for a little, too. I don't really have any pics from the shoot (GAH), but my college friend got this photo of me from the shoot:

KINDA EMBARRASSING, ACTUALLY...!! The people in charge of the photoshoot were calling everyone up by class/weapon, so there were like a decent amount of people to take pictures of at a time. But for some reason I was the only archer...! Usually there's like a Noire or someone in the group, but not this time for some reason;;; Everyone was super nice, though. They clapped for me, hahahaha.

I didn't really buy anything on Friday, and I had to go home early to finish my Roy costume, so that was about the only notable thing that happened on Friday. Friday was probably my favorite day of the con, though, 'cause it was the least hectic. xD

SATURDAY WAS THE HECTIC DAY, THOUGH;;; I just had a lot of stuff going on. I GOT LOST AT SOME POINT BECAUSE I'M A FOOL, WAUGH;;; but it turned out okay. Maybe that was just my main beef with Saturday, hahaha.

I was Roy on Saturday, but I forgot to ask my sis to take pictures of me;;; She had photoshoots and stuff to go to, so I didn't get to see her a lot. :V A lot of people complimented my costume on Saturday, though, which was super sweet. ;0;/ ♥ A fair amount of people took my picture, so maybe I'll find some photos of me eventually. My little sis (not the same sister who went to the con with me) also took some pics of me, so once she edits and sends those, I'll post those, too. >:U

But yeah, on Saturday I met up with my friend iiwi from DeviantART! We met up last year, but I only talked for her a little bit that time. This time we hung out for a good while. :^D She talked a lot to me about this new story she's working on, which is pretty cool. *u*b
While I was hanging out with her, this random Ike came up to me and was like, "ROY. We must engage in BATTLE." (FOR REAL, THAT'S LIKE EXACTLY WHAT HE SAID;;;) So I did some random sword fighting poses with him for a little (??? idk) and took a couple pictures. KINDA WEIRD, BUT WHATEVZ HAHA. His costume was pretty impressive, though:


(second pic via kamenrider93.tumblr.com)
But yeah. That was random.

Oh! I also met this really nice Marth on Saturday.

We took pictures of each other, but I feel like we should have taken a picture together. ;0; MAYBE... NEXT TIME... (??)

I also went to a couple panels on Saturday, which is something I don't normally do. :^D And by a couple, I really do mean a couple. I went to two. -u-b The first one was the "Beginnings of BL" (or something like that) panel, which wasn't really the best in my opinion (IDK, I'm just not really one for panels), but had some interesting stuff nonetheless. I liked the clips of the super retro BL from the 70's. Extremely ridiculous, dramatic, and SPARKLY, but somewhat endearing in its own way. :^D I don't remember any of the authors talked about, though, so uh... yeah, sorry 'bout that.
The other panel I went to was MY FIRST 18+ PANEL...?????? GAH. It was the "Voice Actors After Dark" thing or whatever. It started out okay with just a lot of swearing being the reason for the 18+ label, which I could deal with. But the questions and answers near the end got a little too raunchy for my taste. :V Probs won't go next year, but hey it was an experience haha.

BUT YEAH, that was Saturday. Went to bed around midnight 'cause I was just too tired from walking around. -u-b

On Sunday I was Naoto. :V

MY ONLY CASUAL COSTUME... It was fantastic not having to wear armor, blugh. My shoulders still kind of hurt from Roy, haha. xD; But yeah, Sunday was mostly a BUY STUFF day. I got a couple prints, a key-chain, and a t-shirt. :^D Oh, I also bought the first volume of monsterkind and met the author, Taylor C.! She was super nice~ :,D She even drew a little doodle of Wallace from her comic on the inside cover, which was pretty cool. *U*b

I also saw a cute little Gekkan Shoujo group right before we left the con. :^D

Gekkan Shoujo cosplayers were sparse... ;0; I'll have to bring Mikorin to AUSA to make up for the lack of them at Otakon, haha. But yeah, that was Sunday.

A random thing is that when our group wandered too far from the convention center to get food, people not going to the convention would be enthusiastic to get a picture with us in our costumes. xD There was this one family from outside the US that wanted a pic of their daughters with us in costume, 'cause it was the first time their daughters have been to the US. I PROMISE ITS NOT ALWAYS LIKE THIS, RANDOM TOURIST FAMILY...!!

Anyway, that was Otakon! :^D Like I said, my little sis took some Roy pics, and my sister's friend took some Virion pics... so when they send those to me, I'll make another post with some better pictures of my costumes. *U*b Hoo hah.

I SHOULD DRAW NOW, I HAVEN'T DRAWN EXTENSIVELY IN 2 WEEKS...!!!

Otakon tomorrow!!

Mood: Tired

WELP, I didn't get everything finished for my cosplay, but I at least have stuff to wear. I'm gonna come back home tommorrow evening to try to finish up a few more things for Roy, but that's it. :V My cosplay plans are:

Friday: Virion + Naoto (if I get tired of wearing armor)
Saturday: Roy + Naoto (if I get tired of wearing armor)
Sunday: Naoto (BECAUSE I'LL BE TIRED;;)

Here's how my cosplays turned out, btw!


My pants for Virion are just going to be jeans, btw;;; I REALLY WANTED TO MAKE PANTS, but I ran out of time. orz As for Roy, there's still a couple things to like I said. Ideally I'll have the gloves, sword, belt buckle, and boot flaps done for tomorrow... but honestly, I don't think I'll be able to make the gloves. xD; I bought a pattern, but I've never successfully done gloves before.
I'll probably be bringing both of these back to Anime USA, so hopefully by then I'll have added touch ups and stuff!

AND YEP. SEE Y'ALL LATER!!

OTAKON IS IN A WEEK

MOOD: WHAT THE HECK
CURRENTLY WORKING ON: COSPLAY. Well actually, I'm going to bed. But TOMORROW. COSPLAY.

So somehow, I managed to do practically NOTHING FOR THE PAST TWO MONTHS, AND NOW IT'S TIME FOR OTAKON! AND MY COSTUMES AREN'T READY!!!! :^D Idk if you noticed, but I haven't really had the chance to get online extensively this week, 'cause I'm trying to finish stuff up in time for Otakon. ""orz Here's some pics of stuff I've done the past couple days!

Okay, so I didn't make this;;; My friend is doing a Persona 4 cosplay, so I thought it'd be fun if I joined her as Naoto (bottom left) since the summer casual outfit is easy enough.
I kinda got mixed up when I was buying clothes, though, and thought that Naoto's shadow design was her normal design, so I went and bought this jacket:

WHOOPS;;;
WELL, I'VE BEEN WANTING A BLAZER LIKE THIS FOR A WHILE NOW, SO IT'S OKAY!!
This cosplay was super last minute, so the colors are kind of off... I might add a band to the hat to make it look more like Naoto's hat instead of some random hat, but we'll see. TOO MUCH TO DO!

This is all the armor and stuff I've finished before today for my Virion (left) and Roy (right) cosplays. Those pants on the right are just pants I already owned so... I REALLY HAVN'T FINISHED MUCH AT ALL FOR ROY... I'm really happy with how his armor is coming out, though. :^D

I finished Roy's sword today. :V I already had the base done, but I finished up the handle.
I SPENT THE PAST TWO/THREE/IDK DAYS WORKING ON THE HANDLE FOR THIS SWORD, I HAVE NO IDEA WHY SOMETHING SO TINY TOOK ME SO LONG TO DO. It didn't actually take a terribly long time (maybe several hours if I did it in one sitting), but it still took waaaaaay longer than I thought it would. I think it was just the heating up of worbla and cutting out of foam and worbla that TOOK. FOREVER. I'm so glad it's done, though. Can't wait to start painting it and getting it done!! >:V

Just a pic of the progress I made today. I finished the sword handle, completely finished Roy's second shoulder piece, and started working on Roy's breastplate. MY PLANS FOR TOMORROW ARE PRETTY HEFTY, BUT... IF EVERYTHING GOES AS PLANNED, I'LL HAVE A LOT OF STUFF DONE BY THE END OF TOMORROW.

SO YEAH.
IF YOU'RE GOING TO OTAKON, let me know!! :^D If you want to. Maybe we can meet up! 8^D I feel like I've never really met any of my friends on theO in real life. I guess y'all aren't east coasters like I am;;;

Anyway, I'm off to bed so I can get some rest and wake up early again to COSPLAY WORK. Have a grand whatever, y'all.