Guys 😭 this chapter 😭 is so damn good😭

I'm quickly realising that within this anthology, the chapters that really stand out to me are the ones that take a little part of the Devilman canon and expand on it, while not breaking or deviating far from the actual events of the original story.

This one fits that description exactly: it's about a detective character who visits the crime scene at the Asuka manor. He merges with a demon and I love all these twisty moments of him wondering what he really is, what he might be doing when he's not conscious, if he's really in control and all that. I love that kind of psychological horror. 

The artist really makes use of manga as a medium, too– at tense moments, the panels are chopped up really tiny in a unique way I've never seen before; during some action scenes the panels are slanted to give a real feeling of falling and disorientation; in one panel they use a really glitchy screen tone effect that I've also never seen before– and all of these and more make this chapter such a treat to read. 

No material from the original is retraced, apart from whats necessary to relate the stories, and I love that. The main characters of Devilman don't even show up, and I don't even care. 

My only critique is that the art which feels so fluid in almost all pages, feels sort of flat during the action scene (when it should arguably feel most fluid!). I'm just assuming that isn't this artist's strong point, but that's fine because everything else was brilliant.

I highly recommend this chapter

(I also read chapter 9. It wasn't good so I don't wanna review it. It's written by Nagai again and it sucks. I also haven't read Devilman Lady yet so I didn't know who the catgirl was, but I dont think knowing who she was would add anything.)

 

Today I randomly remembered a YouTube video, a video SO GOOD that I used to play it over and over again and think about before I went to sleep, while I was at school, I was obsessed with this video.

That video was this Ready As I'll Ever Be Warriors MAP:

 I hate clocks, I hate schedules and I hate time; or at the very least, I hate the counting of time!

I wish I lived centuries ago when time was an abstract concept, or at a time when clocks were a magical device only owned by the very rich!

Every second that the clocks tick on, I'm worried I'm wasting my time; but every second that I spend worrying, is a second of time wasted!

Now that's a self-fulfilling prophecy!

I can't help but multitask my work and leisure because focusing on just one feels as if I'll run out of time for the other, even though rationally I know I have decades of my life left to both work and enjoy!

When I play I feel guilty for not working, when I'm working I feel guilty for not playing!




Feelings, facts, rationality all dissolve into soup. Work is leisure, leisure is a job.

I should just lock myself in a shed and go catatonic!

All of our brains have been crippled by consumerist culture to the point that we cannot hope for more than enough money to live another year and maybe have enough left for an iced latte and a Netflix subscription. 

Our generation being defined by our inability to dream is suddenly a large possibility in my mind.

It isn't that dreaming is difficult, it's that it's entirely out of reach. Why make plans for a future that doesn't exist?
Why dream big when someone else will always be bigger?
Why try when it's already destined that you will fail?

The only thing I have to hope for now, is hope itself. I find myself wishing for nothing except a day when I CAN dream, and move towards those dreams. I feel so powerless in the world, that I can't even control my own life. That isn't even true, but it's how I feel. 
Everything is so depressing, all the time. Maybe it's just that time of year, but I've never had seasonal depression like this. It feels like spring will never come, never ever ever ever. And the fuzzy snow in my mind will never melt away!

Even though I feel like that, I'm going to put all my efforts into just hoping! With every step I take, I'm going to hope it's the right one.
Hopefully one day I'll wake up and I won't feel like I'm scrambling up a mountain. Spring will come, and I'll be wandering through a field of flowers.

This morning I woke up to XLOV's cover of A Nonsense Christmas, and I loved it; it's such a cheeky song and of course XLOV sang it beautifully. 

Then later I saw AtHeart's cover... Uh oh. 

I mean, I'm only 18 years old and singing at my age those lyrics would make me very uncomfortable. I even thought it was a little weird for Haru, who is just a bit older than me to be singing that song. But AtHeart? Who approved this!?!? It's so absurd that it makes me laugh. I shouldn't laugh though, considering past criticism they got for their concept images and their song Good Girl. It's not like I have any strong opinion on this group but considering this reoccuring problem there is definitely someone in their company who needs firing!

Go listen to XLOV's cover
Maybe not AtHeart's...

Why am I hungry all the time?

Okay. Maybe I'm not the best at meeting all my meal-times. Maybe I'm a terrible cook. Maybe I just eat fruit and snacks all day. 
That can't be all it is though, right?

Because even when I've had a large meal, I'm not full. When I think I'm full, it takes me just a few minutes to feel hungry again. It's not my stomach that's empty, it's me. I'm hungry for life, and the way I'm living at the moment just isn't sustaining me.

What do I do all day? 

I waste every day away, and I'm only 18. I'm living like a retiree, all leisure and no work. Sure I study, but all my friends have actual jobs. They have actual responsibilities. My only responsibility is taking care of myself, to pursue happiness, and I struggle to do even that...

I worry often that I'm not a useful member of society, but perhaps that's a totally superficial worry. I think I just hate myself for not even playing a useful role in my own life, I can't even begin to consider my uselessness in a wider context.

I was born to create, but I only consume. Where to go from here? I have my whole life to decide, but that feels threatening rather than comforting.
Because what if this is all there is?
What if I never stop feeling hungry?

What the title says!!! These are songs I find particularly outstanding for the genres that they take inspiration from!

1. GFRIEND - Apple

This song also took a while to grow on me, but it is addicting. This calm, afro-beat based song comes straight from Park SoHyun's genius mind. I love this song. ASSEMBLE24 was an album that included so many genres, but still somehow felt totally cohesive. That's a crazy achievement. Actually, don't just listen to this song, listen to the full album. It's perfect.





You know what, 9 entries is enough. I'm falling asleep. For the 10th entry I probably would've tried to find something by OnlyOneOf, or another song from NMIXX. I also wanted to put Flower Rhythm by ARTMS but I cannot for the life of me describe what genre that song is. Online it says Future Bass but that doesn't convey how interesting the song is. Go listen. Goodnight!

I looooove making playlists for fictional characters and media and recently I've been SO obsessed with Devilman I just wanted to post about all the songs I've chosen!!!

The first song, which I just listened to for the first time and made me decide to post these, is BUCK-TICK's song Ash-ra from their COSMOS album. I love BUCK-TICK, I'm slowly making my way through their albums but this one is probably my favourite one so far. Because all their albums have at least one song I love, but this one gripped my attention the entire way through. And the lyrics are great too. There are a lot of BUCK-TICK songs that remind me of Devilman in some way, so this is probably just the first of many~

The title Ash-ra is a stylization of Ashura- a warrior demon yokai originating from Buddhism. They love combat, war and violence. Within Buddhism's reincarnation cycle, whenever you die you are reborn into one of 6 realms based on how good you were in that past life. In Japanese Buddhism, the Ashura reside in the 3rd realm, aptly called Ashurado. This realm comes after the Heavenly realm and the Human realm, which are considered "good" realms, meaning while Ashurado is not pleasant it is much better than going to, for example, the Hungry Ghost realm (my favourite realm just because its name lol).Ashura are also highly controlled by their emotions, meaning it is difficult for them to escape the cycle and achieve enlightenment.

Of course this reminds me of Devilman. The demons of Devilman are much like the Ashura in their love of violence and war. The entire reincarnation cycle of Buddhism is also very in-line with Devilman's loop theory. Take Ryo. Ryo specifically is highly controlled by his emotions, and is a very emotionally explosive character both as the human Ryo and as Satan. He is stuck in God's loop (reincarnation cycle) and God plays on his extreme emotions to force him to relive the same emotional mistakes and self-wrought destruction time and time again (much like how the emotions of the Ashura keep them out of Nirvana). If Ryo were to overcome his emotions, I'm sure he could break the loop (and I'm writing a fan-fiction about it as we speak) but that would be a betrayal to his character.

"Please, let's dance a passionate dance, to the rhythm of love that seems to curse everything"

This lyric reminds me of the way love is portrayed in Devilman. It does seem like a curse, or at least that is the way God makes it out to be. We see it time and time again. God punishes Satan for his empathy (a form of love) towards the demons, Haim kills himself out of his love for Silene, Akira experiences immeasurable pain when his loved ones are killed, and Ryo's creation of Devilman (which he does to protect Akira out of his love) is what leads to his downfall every time. My personal theory is that Devilman's God doesn't believe in love at all and sees it as a weakness, hence why he cast Satan out and used his own love against him to eternally punish him, proving to Himself that love is a useless weakness. No matter how you look at it, God is the true villain of Devilman.

"I only loved you, and now I hate you deeply."

Akira is a kind of Jesus-like character in the way that he loves those around him. Depending on the iteration he is a very selfless character. Which is his motivation for following and believing in Ryo in the first place. If a friend you hadn't seen for months contacted you, pulled a knife on your crush and asked you for a favour with no further explanation, would you go with them? Hell no! But Akira does, not just because he is naive (which he is, at least at the beginning) but because he loves humans, and tries to see the best in them, much like Jesus. But the hate of someone who loves everyone is a very powerful thing.
Notice how the lyric says "I *only* loved you" but doesn't say "Now I *only* hate you"? After all the terrible things Ryo has done, Akira hates him. But he doesn't stop loving him and believing him. Hate and love coexist.

I wish I could understand Japanese so I could analyse the lyrics better, and analyse more of them, but that will have to do for now since it's getting late~~~

Listen to the song NOW!

 I've finally accepted that I'm in an in-between period in my life. I was scared of change at first, then I became depressed when nothing really changed how I thought it would. I'm still feeling deeply depressed at the moment, honestly, but I've reached a stage where I think I'm over the hump of it.

Somehow, that idea of being over the worst of it doesn't make me happy. Because everytime I try to move forward, there is a niggling self-destructive part of my mind that wants me to go back, go deeper than ever and not come out. I guess I feel like the only way I can get real help is to do something drastic. Coming out as being depressed when your life is completely average, when that depression hasn't outwardly affected your life in any visible way (yet) feels so embarrassing to me. It shouldn't. Rationally I know I can just ask. There are ways I can get help. But I feel like I don't deserve them, and I feel ashamed of the way I am, I suppose. I used to think that I was a a reasonable person but emotionally it turns out I am very unreasonable!

The most baffling idea that keeps coming to me is that if I get better, then what was the point of feeling bad? If nothing changes but my mood then why did I even bother being depressed? As if that's something I chose to do. Why not make the most of this bad mood and make it even worse? Until you're forced to change? Forced to drop-out of school, society, then life? I always question why I wish for bad things to happen. But I know rationally the reason is I want a scapegoat... I won't feel bad for no reason if something bad happens. That's my excuse. And if something so irreversibly terrible happened to me, I'd have no choice but to force myself to change and get better in some way. I'd need to force myself to *hope*, something I'm too weak to even imagine right now.




So the stage I'm at right now is me trying to pull myself up by my bootstraps and change myself. Not that I'm doing a good job at it! I know what I need to do to get better, but God it's hard. Why is it so hard??? To do things that used to be so easy. Things that seem so easy for everyone else... I suppose when you do nothing all day doing just one thing turns into a massive ordeal. While if you are constantly busy, one more thing doesn't really mean much. I miss being busy. But at the same time I feel so sluggish at the moment, and I keep crawling back into bed whenever I have something to do. If I got a job, would that make or break me?

I managed to get off my ass and attend University the past 2 days, even if it was just for one mandatory lab each day. I thought being at University would suit me since I enjoy learning and I always have, but since starting I find no motivation to learn. Just "enjoying" is not enough anymore. And all the people. I'm trying to accept that I am a fundamentally unsociable person. I met a few people but more than the thought of doing work, it's the thought of seeing those people again and having to explain the reason that I haven't contacted them in weeks. Even worse is the feeling they'll think I don't care about them, or I was avoiding them, or that they just lost interest in me... That's a bad habit of mine, I hate people seeing me as weak, or any kind of negative trait really.
Also the comparison. Aren't I just like every other directionless first-year student? Everh seasonally depressed teenager coming up on exam season? Those naive kids who got good grades so took the path that seemed most familiar, only to realise there is no path that doesn't require hard work. I'm just like every human ever who grew up not knowing the world and was one day forced to know it. I'm just like every other selfish person who thought they were different from everyone else and exempt from the mundane, when the only true thing about that is that I'm selfish.

Will I go to my seminar tomorrow? Seems I won't. Maybe I'll surprise myself. Will I go to my lectures in the afternoon? Even less likely. But I'll try and get something done. I don't know yet whether this in-between time will end on its own, or if I need to find a way out.