ReluctantlyZen

Premise reminds me of Musou Telepathy a bit

Also I want to apologize for probably coming across too brusquely before. I jumped to respond and then rushed to actually complete the response before I had to go to work. My bad.

No worries, I thought your response was fine!

how about Demon Slayer’s Mugen Train movie being the highest grossing movie of 2020 worldwide?

That’s fair and I didn’t know that, but like 70% of that came from Japan as far as I can tell. Don’t get me wrong though, 30% of 512 million is still huge, especially in COVID times.

Big companies like Sony and Disney have anime as part of their regular catalogue. It’s not some niche little thing that only scrappy companies like Tokyopop will touch anymore.

but to discount anime as a whole being some niche form of media only known to those in the hobby is, IMO, misguided at best.

Oh for sure. I wasn’t trying to say it’s this niche little thing. It’s definitely grown in popularity even in the last 10 years. It’s just that for being mainstream, I see it barely mentioned. But maybe it’s a mix of my own environment + having too narrow a view of what mainstream means.

I guess I thought of it as people needing to actively be anime fans specifically, rather than just occassionally watching some anime and having fun with it. I suppose it’s similar to movies in that sense, where there’s quite a difference between a cinephile and someone who likes to put on Netflix to unwind.

anime had been mainstream for years at that point (I’d argue close to two decades).

Is that a US and/or NA thing? What constitutes as mainstream? I hear all the time how anime is mainstream now, but I just don’t see it. Are there a lot of fans? Sure, especially in certain online spheres, but irl I rarely see it mentioned in any way. Most don’t even know what it is.

When I hear “mainstream” I think blockbuster cinema and pop music; most people like it. It gets widely talked about in everyday conversations and media. I just don’t see how that applies to anime.

Sorry yeah, I meant that she hasn’t limped for the entire show, only this episode

I don’t think we’ve seen her walk. But also, Shu hasn’t limped the entire show, has she?

The TairAzuma ship is in rough waters… Poor Azuma

Like… COME ON. It’s a neon sign pointing directly at her. But that’s exactly why I don’t buy it.

Maybe you’re right, but at the same time, this anime isn’t all that clever. Like, she put no effort into protecting Kougetsu. Also, listen to “Gayou” and tell me that’s not Noble Consort Shu’s voice.

If it’s not her, the only possibility is that she’s being framed in a similar way to Reirin and Kougetsu. There’s just no likely candidates for this, unless they start introducing them now (which would be lame tbh).

And that leaves one clan that has come out of this whole thing remarkably clean: The Blue clan.

That feels like a stretch tbh. There’s nothing established about the Blue clan and their relations with the other clans. It’d be quite an asspull.