Sen's House of Memes

AND THANKS TO SHINKAI, NOW SHE CAN

HakuMyu HeiChi Appreciation Post: Asonde Bakka Jyanai Ze!

Here’s why Heisuke’s Chizuru is the best, @pettyhajime~

Shinpachi summarizes my life

Me: *running through Saito-hen to rip out all scenes containing Saito in preparation for his eventual music video*

Musical:

Me: …forget Saito for a sec YES HELLO MY BODY IS READY FOR THAT BOKUTO (wink wink nudge nudge) FOR THIS MAN WILL DEFINITELY BE TAKING MY SHINKAI VIRGINITY COME THE LOCALIZATION

HakuMyu 30-Day Challenge, Day 26: Favorite Actor II

Technically, this day is supposed to be which actor matches their role most… but I don’t know the actors well enough to judge which of their personalities is most accurate to their respective characters, so I’m using this as a secondary “favorite actor” slot instead, since I have so many (and since my love of characters as portrayed by certain actors is closely tied to accuracy to begin with, so really, the two are interchangeable).

However, since I’ve already said all there is to say about how much I love certain actors, I’m just including the ones that didn’t fit in the last gifset: Yazaki Hiroshi as Hijikata; Miyazaki Shuuto as Nagakura; Takasaki Shota as Yamazaki; Yanagita Erika as Sen; and Gomoto Naoya as Amagiri.

HakuMyu 30-Day Challenge, Day 22: Best Ensemble

I was going to be so much less predictable about this. I was going to tell you that my favorite ensemble is an unabashed tie between “Beautiful Drunkards” and “Kinniku Love”, which is technically true. I was going to tell you I can’t narrow it down farther than that. But as I started collecting giffable moments from “Kinniku Love”, I realized that I’d have ten gifs apiece if I did so for every iteration of both that and “Beautiful Drunkards”.

…As for why I love this number so much, take a wild guess, and you’ll probably hit the mark. On a related note, I didn’t include subtitles because nobody is looking at this gifset for the lyrics. If you’re curious, or if you want to hear the song, you can find the LIVE version here, or Toudou-hen’s hybridization with “Beautiful Drunkards” here. (I guess that means that in a way, I’m staying true to my original plan to have this be a tie…) It’s mostly the same for Okita-hen, which makes up most of this set since it’s totally the best version. And no, I’m not just saying that because of the tofu race immediately following.

…Oh, and by the way—to your relief, I’m sure—I’m postponing the second stage of my Shinsengumi Kitan reviewing process till tomorrow. I may have made him watch Kazama-hen with me last week, but the friend who’s coming over today probably does not want to spend the entire time listening to me giggle and cough about a non-subtitled musical. He already had to watch me complete this gifset, and that’s quite enough flusteration and embarrassment for one day…

HakuMyu 30-Day Challenge, Day 18: Favorite Song

Way back when I was first getting into HakuMyu, when I didn’t have any visuals at all except pictures of the actors, “Never Say Goodbye, Forever” captivated me just through the sound alone… and since I only knew the lyrics to the sung parts and not the translations of the spoken words between sections, I had no idea what was going on contextually. Of course, even just based on the lyrics, I could still guess it was sad as hell.

…It occurs to me that based on the above gifset, you’re really not going to understand why I loved it so much anyway unless you listen to the song. (Some subtitles have been paraphrased and/or condensed for clarity’s sake, as usual.)

Things You Didn’t Know You Needed, 5/?????: OFFICIAL ART OF THE GUYS IN THEIR FUNDOSHI. I AM LYING ON THE FLOOR GIGGLING WITH A NOSEBLEED. SEND HELP

HakuMyu 30-Day Challenge, Day 15: Favorite “Yaisa! Yaisa! Yaisa!”

I really like how they differentiated Toudou-hen’s version from most of the others, since listening to six generally similar iterations of the same theme as an opener can be a little rough. They started the trend of personalization with Kazama-hen’s rock/Japanese flavor, but Heisuke’s Spanish influence is a little more prominent.

…More importantly, this one contains three beautiful duets and/or variations in a row which the others lack. First, after Chizuru’s part comes a lovely little aria from Sen, whose voice is more befitting of an angel than a demon. Then, fury!Sanan and Heisuke face off in a dark premonition of the conflict to come. Finally, and most impressively, Kazama gets his chance to deviate from the traditional demonic interjection by singing a different tune over Amagiri and Shiranui.

…And again, since gifsets hardly do the music justice, here’s the song!

HakuMyu 30-Day Challenge, Day 10: Best Choreography

As amazing as the action scenes are throughout the entire series, Toudou-hen sticks out in my mind as having the most incredible choreography of all HakuMyu. I swear I made at least 22 gif-sized clips to prove it by the time I finished scouring the musical for notable moments, so I actually had to downsize considerably for the sake of making just one gifset. Good lord, it’s frankly amazing. Especially that breakdance battle in the seventh gif. Gods.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to point out the extra in the fifth gif, because those five or six or seven extras carry these musicals. As talented as the main cast is, HakuMyu wouldn’t be possible without the rest of the Shinsengumi and/or ronin and/or imperial forces. They have to do everything the main cast does, including acrobatics and singing (even if they don’t get solo parts), and go through three times as many costume changes—not to mention all the acted-out abuse they suffer at the protagonists’ and/or antagonists’ hands. They deserve so much applause.