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cari28ch3

caridad chang
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I have been really freaking death lately and that is mostly cause finals pretty much stole my soul and willingness for anything, even now there are a few subjects that I am worried about but that's no one's issue but my own.

Either way this year has been really tiring on everyone but at least today has been ok so far (minus a few details but whatever) and I hope everyone is having a good time and enjoying the Holidays to the fullest or at least as much as your circumstances will allow.

On happier news I finally understood how to use my Tumblr!! cari28ch3-me.tumblr.com/ I am way more productive there (it is way faster than DA) and I think I'm a bit more open there since I don't proof read all that much and just let it all out.

I WISH YOU ALL THE BEST Merry christmas everybody Christmas Dance :merry christmas: Christmas- Deerling :secretsanta: Christmas- Pikachu Santa :bademoticon: Jack Skeleton Chibi Christmas- Pikachu Elf Christmas- Minun Christmas- Plusle :xmas: Patrick (Happy Happy Xmas) Santa fella (Universe) Spongebob (Happy Happy Xmas) I'ze a reindeer 

:blowkiss: from Panama!
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Ok, I was expecting people to be biased regarding the end of the story because of two reasons: shipping wars (regardless of which ones became cannon someone was going to be angry) and people hating epilogues that take place after a very long time skip. I will be writing my thoughts on these two things in regards to my personal opinion but before I start I will say this one mayor truth:

Shonnen series (regardless of how good they might be) tend to have endings that suck. I would say that the end of Naruto is probably better than the end of Soul Eater (where everyone seemed to have a decent enough conclusion except for the 2 main protagonist, seriously Maka and Soul had no resolution for anyone to talk about) but it is not better than FMA's (that managed something pretty decent by the clever use of photos); either way the end is never the high point of the series, that is usually the action scenes, the comedy, some good character development and some pretty good morals; never the last chapter.

Things I personally enjoyed about it:

It wasn't an open ending, I know that there are people who preffer it that way but I honestly find that option to be lazier than having a long time skip. I wanna know how their lives turned out to be by actually seeing it rather than just hinting it in the vaguest way possible and for Naruto that epilogue was a necessity since the fandom, for a shonnen series no less, somehow became the ultimate shipping war tournament over the years, it wasn't about fun action and nice characters anymore but rather about who would wind up making hentai with who and an open ending rather than ending the war would have given it even more room to grow over the years. Is everyone (myself included) happy with each and every couple?, no; is that better than certain crack pairings that make way less sense than some of the ones that became cannon? heck yeah.

He gave everyone a fairly happy ending. But Neji died!! is that such a bad ending for a Ninja? see it from their point of view, if you die protecting your comrades and village then your life was worth it, that philosophy comes before growing old and making a family in their culture. Heck, unlike what some people say Kishimoto did not pair everyone up at random; single men: Shino, Gaara, Kankuro, Konohamaru, Udon, Kakashi, Gai, etc. Single women: Tenten, Mei, Moegi, Kurenai, Hanabi?... all of this is as far as that one chapter could show us without it being 108 pages long (last FMA chapter btw).

Naruto grew up. He's not exactly the same as when he was a kid!! which is the biggest argument I can give against people saying he's yet another Goku wanna be, he's a much well rounded character who had enough subtle changes through out the series that putting him in a position of great responsability and power isn't just believable but also a well earned position after all of the growing up he has done since chapter one. This Naruto is a grown man with a time consuming job and a family by the end of the series and, to those already questioning him as a parent even though we've seen in that position for only one.chapter, he's already a far better parent than Goku ever was as he is making sure he's kids recieve good training, he has an actual job, he actually tells them stuff about growing up rather than just letting other people do it for him and he's not spoiling them rotten like others have pretty much suggested him to do; cut it out people, our boy in no longer 12.

this one is more of a general question but I feel like answering it anyway: How old are the characters? I am shocked that so many people have given it a 10 year time skip when the easiest way to know is by looking at Kurenai's daughter (it's a girl, Kishimoto said that he planned for the baby to be a girl, and if you pay attention to her figure you can tell it's a girl), she is obviously somewhere between 15 to 18 years old and she was born around the time the war broke out, the war broke around the begining of Fall, Naruto turned 17 in October 10th while they were all fighting Madara alongside the previous Hokages; 17 + 15 = 32 years old at least for our main group of Ninjas, if my math is correct then I don't think the rumor about Hinata being pregnant during "The Last: Naruto the Movie" is true as their children seem to be around 10 years old at the time of the epilogue and Naruto's generation of Ninjas are 19 at the time of the movie. I am not ruling out the rumor but I have no idea of how people came up with it anyway. (all of these numbers only matter if Kishimoto has a better sense of math than Toriyama and J.K. Rowling, so far there is some evidence againt this but we'll see)

The Konoha 11's adult designs: I don't hate any single one of them, I really don't. The series is far more realistic than most in terms of how the characters age as you can see their growth over the years as something that makes sense, I may or may not be biased towards the guys with beards cause I finally saw the Hobbit movies (I am that one person who preffers The Hobbit over LoTR) but Choji and Kiba make them work very well in my opinion. Naruto's hair is just fine the way it is cause making him into a copy of Minato would be too distracting in both the real world and the Ninja world, people need to see Naruto the person and not Minato 2.0 as certain fans have been turning him into since it was confirmed who his father was, if anything Kushina 2.0 would make more sense as most of his personality and fighting style is similar to his mother's and the similarities with his father come from very recent training. Hinata and Tenten are probably the ones who changed the least (with everyone be it fan or casual reader claiming that Hinata ages like wine, the older the better)

Belive it or not, the children's names. who names their kid Salad?! the same autor who named his main character after ramen, has side characters named warm and cold (look up Bee's students), has a Raikage called A and his Little brother is called B btw, a dude named Mighty Guy, a girl called firework (Hanabi), so many people named after animals be it their first or last last name and the one character who's name is totally normal (Sakura) has a name that sounds boring as there are a 100 different anime characters with that name; Boruto? I'm cool with that, Himawari? that's cute, the Ino-Shika-Cho trio had pretty much no other choices available given family tradition and we don't know the name of Rock Lee's kid yet but someone called him Little Lee and I find that so adorable that I will do the same for now :happy: . How about naming the kids after someone from their past?! I don't like that idea, there is too much baggage that comes with those names, too many sad memories and in Naruto's case that would mean giving his kids the name of someone who was there for him for a few years or even just a few days before leaving again, he knew his own mother for less than an hour! he may be glad about who his parents were but he was never actually raised by them, if anything his parents got lucky that he turned out ok as the people they left in charge of him where there for him once he was already an oficial Ninja but not before (minus Iruka, Sarutobi and Teuchi to a lesser degree) and Hinata's clan is kinda messed up in spite of the newer generation being on the right track, therefore making the references as subtle as possible is by far the better idea.

I left this one for last cause it is a fangirl rant in every way, shape and from (you may skip it if you like): OH MY GOD NARUHINA AND SHIKATEMA ARE CANNON I AM SO HAPPY MY 2 MAIN OTPS CAME TRUE!!! SHIKADAI IS PRETTY MUCH ALL I EXPECTED THEIR KID TO BE AND NARUTO AND HINATA HAD THE CUTEST KIDS!! BORUTO IS GONNA GIVE HIS FATHER SUCH A TASTE OF WHAT DEALING WITH HIM WAS LIKE AND HIMAWARI IS THE SINGLE.MOST.ADORABLE.THING TO EVER APPEAR IN THE HISTORY OF THE SERIES PERIOD!!!!! Happy Dance 

and now for what I do not like which is honestly what I do not care about as the ending is fine by me:

SasuSaku... these two are the main thing I do not care about. I love the series, I really do, but among their main protagonist Naruto is the only one that has mattered to me for many years now and Kishimoto could do whatever the heck he wanted with those two and it would have made no difference to me. Neither one is good enough for the kind of love and care Naruto has given them over the years as he basically chose them to be his family (he didn't choose them to make a family with him, just to be there when no one else was), Kishimoto has such a talent for making secondary characters as interesting and likable as a protagonist, to the point where they could easily drive a story by themselves, but Naruto is his saving grace as far as protagonists go since the other 2 are kinda useless (they mostly work as a plot device actually). Their daughter on the other hand... she just might be what saves these two in my book so long as she doesn't turn out to be annoying emo bitch 2.0 and is far more useful to the overall story than her parents ever were.

We never saw Kakashi's face. I'm actually pretty neutral about this one since Kishimoto himself mentioned how he was afraid of letting people down with the result after fans had been waiting for such a long time; on one hand it is pretty much the cowardly answer to just not show it, but on the other hand even if he gives people what they want at least half of the fanbase would still bitch about it... It is impresive how much emotion he can pull out of Kakashi while having only one eye to work with most of the time though, so there's that Shrug 

And that's honestly it, I have far more possitives than negatives to say since I wasn't expecting a 50 chapters finale to round up a cast of over 300 characters, for real: 6 villages, countless enemies that die and come back in typical shonnen fashion, smaller villages that are part of the World at large, tailed beasts, talking animals and much more politics that one realizes at first glance; he had to wrap that up in 44 pages? no way in hell.

thank you for Reading and if you enjoyed this one, I made anothe journal regarding the series here: cari28ch3.deviantart.com/journ…

to those who made it to the end :blowkiss:


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did I seriously start watching the anime like a decade ago? start reading the Manga nearly 5 or so years ago? where did the time seriously go? I can only imagine what the fans in Japan who started out with that first chapter back in 1999 are feeling right now and even when I see how emotional other people are getting all I can say for myself is that: I don't know how to feel... it will probably all hit me harder later on (as it usually happens with me and stuff I'm into) once the shock finally dies down but even then having no new chapter every week and knowing that I have to wait til next year for a sort of continuation is going to be somewhat painful.

I am not gonna lie, the series is very much imperfect, but if it was perfect then there would be no reason to analyse it and that is what I like to do best. I am not gonna talk about the fight scenes and humor since the series as a whole has earned plenty of recognition for that already, I am going to highlight the parts of the story that nobody seems to promote even when it is right in our faces; that said everything I will be writing down leads to a personal opinion that I don't think will change for a really long time: Naruto is one of the best shonnen series ever made because it plays with the stereotypes of the genre in ways that are far more creative than people realize at first, let's begin:

Female character designs: there are no 2 females that look exactly the same in the entire series; they all have different body-tipes, heighs, clothing style, abilities, personalities and goals. Kishimoto doesn't get enough credit for his female characters in my opinion, and what makes each of them special is how they are flawed in a way that seems realistic rather than patronizing. Even when doing fan-service the girls are usually far more covered up than in most others Shonnen series and he keeps it to a minimum (the most over sexualized female character is Naruto's sexy jutsu actually...). He makes each of them beautiful in different ways and doesn't take the aproach of "she is curvatious so she must look slutty", among the main females the curviest ones are Tsunade and Hinata, neither of which is defined by being as sexy as posible, heck Ino wears much sexier clothing and her proportions are much more subdued while Sakura who is the main female protagonist has a much more slender figure than the rest. Did I mention that both men and women in this series kick ass? it isn't about quantity writers, it's all about their quality.

Soldiers in a war: someone complained that when Neji died nobody broke down and cried, when were they supposed to do that? a major battle is happening and even when someone falls on the battlefield there is no time to mope around. When Inoichi and Shikaku died their children could do nothing but bare it and move on anyway cause there was still a battle to be won. This doesn't make them heartless at all, there was just no time to mourn in the present and they had no choice but to wait to do it in the future; When Jiraiya died Naruto was in a relatively peaceful time on the village with the upcoming threat still far enough that mouring was a possibility, if his biggest enemy had been right in front of him then that wouldn't have been possible.

Consequences of war: Pain's arc is famous for two things: Jiraiya's death and the depiction of Amegakure during the time of war. When talking about war people often mention those in the front, fighting and enduring whatever comes their way, but what about the civilians? Nagato, Konan and Yahiko became orphans during the war and they were in some serious poverty while this was happening, but it was also shown how just about everyone else was going through that at the time and you are less likely to get help if the people around you can't even help themselves. Jiraiya staying around to help them must have felt like a gift from Heaven itself, and his help wasn't the typical "have some cash and deal with it" but rather teaching them how to survive, giving out his time like that is what truly made a difference in their world.

parental expectations: this one's title is a bit misleading as it has less to do with what parents expect of their children and more to do with what people would expect of a child because of his/her parents. Hinata is the next in line to become head of one of the most important clans in Konoha, she is not naturaly talented but has her priorities straight; Sasuke is the last surviving Uchija in the village, he is naturaly talented but his priorities are very messed up; Naruto is the son of a Hokage and his mother is the last direct decendant of a once important clan, both of his parents were very talented even in their youth while he only got better with time. Naruto is the one I wanna make the biggest case for in terms of this topic, some people ranted that Naruto being so freaking strong now can be seen as going against this principle because of both of his parents being kind of a big deal, no offense but, who have you been reading about for 15 years? Naruto has become this strong cause he has trained like a mad man with anyone that he sees can teach him something new, he has admited himself that many of those who taugh him something useful are people he didn't think very highly about at first impression but he still decided to be humble about it and ask for help when needed and that is why he is as strong as he is now. Is his lineage special? it certainly is, does that take merit away from his hard work? no it doesn't and it shouldn't; I am convinced that the Sage's comment about this was a direct message from Kishimoto to his readers so that they would remember who started out as a failure and who didn't, even if his parents had remained alive I believe he would have to do the same amount of work in order to be good at anything with the exception that people would just patronize him instead of telling him the truth, think about that.

what it means to be a leader: in spite of never having the position, Asuma was definetly on the right track of this as he didn't believe the Hokage to be the one people should protect but rather the one that should protect the people. I don't think I need to over explain that one any more than that to be honest, but I will add in Naruto's realization that he shouldn't want to be Hokage so that people will recognize him but rather get the people to recognize him so that they will want him in that position, by recognition I mean that he gets people to recognize what he has done instead of what he could do (which is the difference between a politician making a bs promise and someone who cares actually doing something).

World building: in spite of the very obvious and huge amounts of references to Japanese culture through out the entire series, the World of Naruto is very diverse. There are people of different skin colours, with different customes, different froms of Ninjutsu and even though the series mainly focuses on Ninja villages, there is a Samurai Village that also plays a part in that last major war. He managed diversity without being racist, want an example? anyone could have easily claimed racism because of Bee's character rapping instead of talking, but this traid is purely given to Bee instead of the entire Kumo village which makes this a character traid rather than a racial traid (btw this village is so badass that they mix up wrestling with ninjutsu :thumbsup:). The amount of history that can be given about these villages and regions is so big that I could make it into an entire post by itself but reading it up online is something anyone can do if they are already reading this. naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Narutope…

and that is all for now, I will talk more about the characters in general later but I will have to think long and hard since it will be dificult to talk about them without repeting what everyone else has already said :bademoticon: 

Thank You for 700 chapters of awesomeness Kishimoto!! YAY   (okay about a 100 or so were kinda longer than necessary but in retrospect things were mostly good) :blowkiss:

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OK... after days of thinking over and over again about how I feel towards "A foot too Big" from TMNT I guess the best I can say is that it is one of my least favorite episodes of the show.

Somehow the episode wins and fails at the exact same time during the exact same scenes since it seemed to have two purposes going on and managed both, which is regrettable: on one hand it was trying to be funny in a way that was somewhat cliche but not all terrible since just Raphael and Ice Cream Kitty are enough to make up for the rest, what were they making up for? the other purpose which is awkwardness; if the episode was meant to make you feel like Donnie through out the whole thing then it did its job and those couples days for Donnie must have really sucked.

I will do the usual and count the good and the bad, let's start with the good:
  1. Raphael is fantastic during the entire episode, not just by being a good brother but also for showing some subtle character development by acting like a much better leader than that first time back in Season 1 when Leo first meets Karai, he is not pushing himself and everyone else into that situation but rather he is rising up to it brilliantly
  2. Ice Cream Kitty and Big Foot meeting each other needs to become a gift
  3. April showing that yes, a lot of her friends are guys but she does like doing girly stuff every once in a while
  4. Mikey was right there with Donnie in every step of the way
  5. they are not rushing Leo's recovery
  6. it has a very good moral... to a point
now for the bad:
  1. making Big Foot a female was something that I was OK with at first since it is very rarely explored that way, but the minute she and "The Finger" hooked up I was left feeling even more awkward that I already was.
  2. speaking of "The Finger", other than his fighting style I found him to be rather forgettable at best. The thing about the shrunken head of his mother would have been funnier as a Jack Sparrow reference at least.
  3. I was glad to see Casey and Leo hanging out until they made Big Foot cry, even if it is normal behavior for their age that is the kind of talk that still comes up as really mean
  4. the romance in the show could go whatever way the crew wants to make it go and I would continue to watch it regardless because until now it had done one thing right: it never demoralized any of the characters for the sake of the romance sub-plot, now I am having my first big issue with April and I wish I wasn't. It comes up as more harmful than anything else the way she kissed Donnie (specially since I am not expecting the show to fix that till later on in the season or maybe even next season) it destroys your moral to have her lead him on after he had come to terms with things and even if they state that she is confused the fact that she seemed almost sure of what she wanted just 3 episodes ago makes the action more cruel than loving.
Again, I will go for whatever ship the crew decides to take but if that ends up being yet another example of fanservice for the sake of fanservice (read further here:  TMNT Fan-service and Mutants could go OverboardI am loving Season 2 of TMNT in almost every way possible, but I say almost cause there are some decisions I can not seem to get behind of and that has me worried. One complain I have seen about the season is how the number of mutants seems to be getting ridiculously big and that has marketing purposes all over it; while most of these mutants have been pretty cool there are many of them who seem to exist solely to sell toys to old time 80's fans (Razar, Baxter-fly and even Mutagen-man); don't get me wrong, I have nothing against them getting back a piece of their childhood but... it is being really unbalanced.
One thing I loved to death about Season 1 is how it had subtle references to every incarnation of the turtles such as: Karai being Shredder's daughter (2003), Hamato Yoshi turning into Splinter (1987), the bandannas colors are a reference to all TMNT media with the exception of the original Mirage Comic (1984) where they all wore red and so on. The new mutants were all pretty coo
)  then I will gladly say stop; give the fans some nods when it is necessary and not just when you don't know what to add in just to reach the 20 minute mark, because without those last 15 seconds the episode would fair much better for those who ship it and those who don't. Spoiler alert: those who don't ship any turtle character will likely be even more upset than those willing to accept it, keep in mind than even with that crush being established on the first episode those people have stuck around for 3 seasons so far.

thank for reading me rant, :blowkiss:
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I know I said I would post stuff more often and it makes me sad that I have just had either no energy or no Internet connection (my Dad is about to kill someone for that) but today I will finally write something!! OMG MOAR POEMS! 

                                                                                                Themes

I love the way it touches how what you eat or what you wear doesn't make you a better person because it does it in a way that is really sutle, in fact most of the morals on the film are really subtle since they don't beat the messages over your head over and over again which is one of the few flaws that I think Paranorman had.  Another moral was about good parenthing and how just being there doesn't make you a good parent and that good parents can be absent when the circunstances force them to; the movie is not just black and White even when at first you get the feeling it will be that way (however the best film to manage that this year for me is still DotPotA)

                                                                                          Characters

Speaking of black and White, while none of the Boxtrolls are so different from each other that they all feel like different characters, the two or three we get to know best do have certain different quirks to them that make them stand out and it makes you happy when they do; the black and White aspect that I mention is once again subtle but still effective as Winnie (female protagonist) herself mentions that not all humans are evil and Archibald (the bad guy) has a couple of sidekicks who redeem themselves without anyone else telling them to do so, they just do it cause they realized they were the ones doing something wrong. Eggs (human protagonist) is actually a pretty funny yet heartwarming character to see with his reactions to everything around him being believable and he seems to be quite adept at adapting to change, a quality I wish more people would adopt. I would still deem Winnie to be my personal favorite though, because simply put she is that very cute and well mannered rich girl who just so happens to enjoy macabre a lot, maybe a little too much... and the villain's final moments creep you out the more you think about them (which is why she enjoys so much talking about it).

                                                                                        Flaws (possible spoilers)

Notice how subtlely has been mentioned a bunch of times? I think a big part of that is because of pacing. The pacing is pretty much perfect to be honest but I think that it was achived mainly because of the movie being rather short or at least it felt short, not the kind of short where you can't believe it's over and you wasted your money but rather the kind where you would have liked to see more just to stretch out a few details such as: how Eggs came to learn how to read and talk like a regular human in spite of being raised by Boxtrolls his whole life, how Winnie's father went on about fixing the way he rules the city, how much lucidity Egg's father actually has, how much work it took for the Boxtrolls to adapt to living with humans and how come there are no female Boxtrolls? unless the answer is that they are asexual which... for me it's not a big deal but to those not used to creatures without separates genders that detail could feel awkward. Also, In case you are not into gross-out humor then maybe the film will not feel funny for you, I found it less disturbing than most live action comedy films but wherever that's cause it is animated or not I am not sure.

An overall good movie that is a good way to entertain any age group for aabout a hour and a half with stunning animation, nice characters, good pacing and an ending that doesn't feel like a Deus Ex Machina conclusion  (something animated films seem to have a hard time doing lately regardless of how much I like them). Special praise to whoever was in charage of the lighting in the film, the shadow play was so good it was all the film needed in order to keep certain... over-exposition from happening.

thank you for Reading, :blowkiss:
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