The one to call Home
I can’t get enough of this anime.
I don’t need luck, though. I don’t want it. I’ve always had to struggle and fight, and that’s made me strong. That’s made me who I am.
“I’ve always had to struggle and fight, and that’s made me strong. That’s made me who I am”.
In all this years, Zuko remains as my favorite in character development.
There’s no such thing as a painless lesson. They just don’t exist. Sacrifices are necessary. You can’t gain anything without losing something first. Although, if you can endure that pain and walk away from it, you’ll find that you now have a heart strong enough to overcome any obstacle.
Yeah, a heart made fullmetal.
Is Blood Plus the anime for you?
Do you love protagonist action girls? Women on leading roles who are given depth and more than the romances they are in?
Do you like to watch female characters turning from average to relentless warriors? Are you a fan of bittersweet endings and happiness earned, not given? Of characters who feel the hole left by their loses as they keep walking?
Do you like vampire mistresses that have a touch of madness and childish mischief to their monstrosity, such as Claudia and Drusilla?
Was dark, mysterious and sensible always your type?
Do you enjoy stories of eternal love, of crossing the frontiers of time and space together? Knowing ages and places, two people who have stayed together in a lonely path, in the middle of a war? Love that has all the time in the world but none at all?
Did you always had a weakness for villains who were perfect gentlemen (prince charming like even)? Who lead you to your first waltz, give up everything for you, offers a world for two, away from the sadness of your fate? Away from the circumstances that bounds you as enemies?
Or are you looking for more realistic deceptions of men? Someone who is not a romantic hero from a book, but reaches the maximum within his human capacity to make you smile; a person who is a reliable friend, who understands this is what you need the most in the moment, not someone trying to romance you? Someone who gives you hope of a better future and a normal life?
Do you like The Phantom of the Opera? I present you half-deformed, obsessed with the story’s heroine, Karl.
Does it annoys you when anime characters all look the same? That the artist don’t bother to make each face unique and differs them through unrealistic hair colors?
Aren’t you tired from seeing the classic vampire perverted by anime instead of being renewed without exaggeration?
Do you enjoy the Joker/Batman dynamics in which the protagonist it’s gloomy and intimidating while the villain is fun-loving and even sweet in his own psychopathic way? Or that they are deeply connected and can’t escape form each other?
Do you listen to the soundtrack of Lion King, Gladiator, The Dark Knight or Pirates of the Caribbean repeatedly? Wait until you hear Hans Zimmer go full epic tragedy in an anime OST that has the quality of a movie.
Then yes
Blood Plus is the anime for you.
I’m really obsessed with this anime for years now.
WHY AREN’T YOU READING THIS MANGA?! 🔥👑
YES YES YES!!!
This capture the essence of this fantastic and psychopath manga.
I recommend it to you all.
How will Zen react when he knows that Obi and Shirayuki are pretending to be lovers to keep Eisetsu-dono away?
He will feel jealous? Because we know that all the stories between Obi and Shirayuki makes him jealous, for not being able to live all that Obi lives with her.
Ok, so hear me out. I think it’s been pretty obvious thus far in the manga that the situation between Hisame, Mitsuhide, and Kiki is meant to be a foil to Obi, Zen, and Shirayuki. Hisame, tall dark quasi-antagonist with a love of mischief, is Obi. Mistuhide, a pale haired gentleman with a heart of gold and the man who has been involved with royal affairs the longest, is Zen. Kiki and Shirayuki are the women both men love, both of whom who are in unique positions (refugee pharmacist and a female knight), one that they love and have worked incredibly hard for, that makes it difficult for the man they love to be with them…but poses no such obstacle to the man they don’t. The whole foils thing is strengthened by Zen being the other marriage option Kiki considered and vice versa.
Now, these are foils and not parallels because the differences between them are meant to highlight each sides unique relationships or traits.
Mitsuhide and Hisame are enemies (or rivals as they progress), whereas Zen and Obi are friends. That change in dynamic is further stressed by having Mistuhide have less social standing than Hisame, unlike Zen who is Obi’s master, and having Kiki’s family be more powerful than both of theirs. Kiki and Hisame also take far longer to form any kind of friendship than Shirayuki and Obi - Kiki is far less forgiving than her counterpart and was primed to be suspicious of Hisame’s feelings, knowing the marriage would be politically motivated.
Furthermore, Mitsuhide’s attitude towards his relationship with Kiki is the polar opposite of Zen and Shirayuki falling headfirst for one another. Mitsuhide refuses Kiki because he is not willing to admit/realizes too late the feelings he has for her. He is comfortable with their relationship as it is, having had years to settle into a friendly partnership, and has always been afraid of dedicating himself to anything but Zen despite having permission to do so. He fails to understand Kiki’s position or feelings properly due to his focus on his duties and his own fears. By doing so, he loses her to a marriage of convenience to Hisame.
Kiki has had to consider politics in her marriage, and was even raised to do so, whereas Shirayuki hasn’t really considered the implications of marrying a prince yet. She hasn’t thought about it because it has nothing to do with how she was raised and Zen loves her. She hasn’t had to fear the political implications of her marriage beyond Izana’s challenges…ones that she passes, but that also keep taking her further and further away with someone else by her side.
Shirayuki also hasn’t clued into Obi’s feelings at all despite everyone around her being aware of them. She, like Mitsuhide, is so comfortable in the relationship they have and so focused on her path that she hasn’t noticed that Obi’s in love with her.
Hisame went after what he wanted, no matter how underhanded his tactics had to be, whereas Obi actively pushes Shirayuki and Zen together. He does this because they are friends and because of his own position - he can offer Shirayuki far less status-wise, arrived on the scene after her and Zen were already together, and has the option of another intimate relationship with Shirayuki to satisfy himself (re: being her bodyguard and shadow).
3 key differences! Politics, friendship, and one party not recognizing the feelings of another. At first, I thought Kiki’s engagement to Hisame was just meant to show how Shirayuki’s situation would have gone had she been a noble lady. But, as Kiki and Hisame begin to like each other and ANS focuses more and more on Obi and Shirayuki as a duo, I begin to wonder.
If Shirayuki was confronted with the reality of marrying a royal, if Obi made his feelings clear, and if the relationship between Zen and Obi wobbled, even for a second, into rivalry due to Zen not properly stepping up to the plate…would Shirayuki and Obi wind up together?
Honestly, seeing Zen having to visit Shirayuki in Hisame’s cloak and with Obi’s knock…really made me think that’s where we are going. Especially with the most recent development of Obi and Shirayuki having to pretend to be lovers. The parallels are too strong. I can’t stop thinking about them. Somebody with more meta knowledge on this series tell me I’m wrong so I don’t get my hopes up lol.
I was thinking about the same thing, I was so surprised that Mitsukiki ship ended with Hisame being the fiancé of Kiki, that I began to attend even more the subtle details, as I did in my opinion about chapter 106 where I emphasize how Shirayuki’s and Zen’s goals move them further and further away from each other, and yet the relationship between Shirayuki and Obi is strengthened with each chapter and situation.
Also something that I always wanted for Obiyuki’s development was the situation of pretending to be lovers, something that I thought could only find in the fanfics, but now it’s a reality and as a plus Shirayuki reacts with faces that we had not seen for a long time, note that she doesn’t dislike the idea.
Why do we love Obiyuki? v. 2.0
A little over three years ago, the marvelous @maverae posed this question to the fandom and we got some amazing responses. I highly recommend reading through them!
But I was looking at mine and with all the additional content for the pairing we’ve received since then, I felt a mighty need to expand upon my answer (with citations beneath the cut 😂):
I love them together because they are a team. They support one another, not conceptually, but actually. In real time. Without looking, they’ve become each others family and each others home. And that’s not to say that there was no effort in that, because there was. There was every time that Shirayuki stayed up late with Ryuu so that Obi could have a hot meal waiting for him when he came in from the cold. There was every time that the pharmacists had a Deep Cleaning Day and Obi came in before work to help her before going to his job where he would shovel 10 metric tonnes of snow. There were late nights working together and quiet mornings celebrating the completion of one set of plans before the next took over there lives. There were gentle conversations of support and stern reminders to take care of themselves. There’s the way that Shirayuki scanned a room for Obi before relaxing and the way they both talk about Ryuu the way two parents would talk about a growing son. There’s that and so much more that make their relationship/character development arcs as two people who have chosen one another, grown together, and love each other.
But most of all, I think what I love the most about this pairing is how neither imposes their feelings on one another. While Obi’s feelings have been pretty apparent to the reader from go, Shirayuki’s feelings have been more subtle. A slow burn versus Obi’s self-immolation. But regardless of Obi’s “feelings lying with the Young Miss,” Obi has contented himself with strictly walking by her side. If friendship is what he is offered, that is all he will take.
Whether or not that’s Shirayuki’s game plan remains to be seen :3
Also, how fucking refreshing it is to see the boy moving for the girls career for once? XD