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alias_sqbr) wrote2018-07-08 07:23 pm
alias_sqbr) wrote2018-07-08 07:23 pm
Entry tags:
The Wider World of Hakuoki
Having experienced the main story relatively free of outside influence, I decided to look at the wider world of the Greater Hakuoki Franchise and Fandom.
And... you know the general expectation is that canonical sequels will tend to be pretty much in character, following the story logically etc, while fanfic will be a bunch of ridiculous tropey bullshit, full of out of character fluff and highschool AUs?
Imagine the exact opposite of that.
My experience with otome fandoms has been a lot of glurgy self insert het. But I decided to poke the AO3 anyway, sorting by kudos, if only to see if anyone else had written the Shiranui/Harada fic vaguely rattling away in my head.
The fic I read wasn't generally amazing, but also wasn't too bad, being moderately in character and making a fair attempt to match canon.
The most popular genre seems to be established relationship Chizuru/LI smut, which...fair enough. The popularity order of the original love interests is Hijikata, Kazama, Okita, Saito, Harada, Heisuke. The new ones only came out in English this year so haven't had time to trickle up the charts.
The most popular non canon relationship is Saito/Okita! I had a moment of "I GUESS BUT ALSO NO" but after sitting with it a bit decided they could be interesting in a massively emotionally incompetent sort of way and liked this bittersweet friends-with-benefits take even if it's a confusing mix of versions of the story.
Then it's Hijikata/Kazama, Hijikata/Kondou, and...Hijikata/Saito? There's seven stories for Harada/Shiranui but one of them is a short pwp and the other six are in Japanese. AM I GOING TO HAVE TO WRITE THIS STORY MYSELF.
There's only one actual femslash story and it's Sen/Chizuru fluff. I actually find myself shipping Sen/Kimiguku more but I can see why that hasn't set the fandom on fire.
I did find one AU: It's early 1941 when Kazama receives his notice of enlistment for the Imperial Army. His childhood best friend, Chizuru, decides to follow him into the military... OK THAT'S ENOUGH FANFIC FOR NOW.
(Who writes a WW2 AU about JAPANESE SOLDIERS there is NOWHERE GOOD THAT CAN GO)
A lot of these fics were based on canon I haven't seen, mainly the anime. The tumblr tag was a surreal barrage of unfamiliar images: anime and DLCs and extra games and a musical???? I was perfectly happy not playing the extra games until I saw a really cute CG of Kazama glaring at a kitten oh no.
Trying to untangle the games:
The original game: Demon of the Fleeting Blossom
Surreal fluffy AU where everyone is chibi and there are minigames: Yuugiroku (where the Kazama-with-a-kitten CG comes from, afaict)
Fighting game: Warriors of the Shinsengumi
Extra little shippy scenes set during the main story: Zuisouroku, Junsouroku
Prequel: Reimeiroku (has an anime adaptation)
Remakes: Oh god I don't know? Some of them?
...ok I give up. There are TWENTY ONE GAMES. The English ones are all translations of some of the Japanese ones but I can't tell which. The only ones on Steam are tiny single extra scenes that APPARENTLY DON'T INCLUDE SAITO (the negative reviews are deeply outraged, the fandom loves Saito as much as me ^_^)
(Meanwhile look at these cute images of Saito blushing ahhhhh)
There is a two season anime adaptation of the main story, with a third season covering the prequel. Crunchyroll has the prequel anime, and the game for that doesn't seem to be out for PC in English so I might watch it.
And then...there's a Live Action High School AU that looks really bad. And then there's the highschool AU game it's based off which looks GLORIOUSLY bad. KAZAMA IS THE EVIL STUDENT COUNCIL PRESIDENT. My horrified squeals of laughter made Cameron come in and tell me to stop freaking out the cat.
And did I mention THE MUSICAL. I can't even tell if it's good or bad, because musicals- especially Japanese ones- are just so far out of my general tastes I don't know what good looks like. But here's a fanvid to Justin Timberlake featuring angsty vampires in bad wigs, topless dancing samurai, and Shiranui with an electric guitar.
EDIT: THERE ARE TEN MUSICALS. TEN.
ALSO APPARENTLY SEN/KAZAMA WAS CANON IN THE ORIGINAL VERSION OF HEISUKE'S ROUTE?? I'm glad they changed it she can do better.
Phew!
And at this point I'm mostly over my cold and might try to spend tomorrow doing something actually productive?? But if I just end up posting, like, Hakuoki: THE QUEST FOR IBO SCENES don't be too surprised.
And... you know the general expectation is that canonical sequels will tend to be pretty much in character, following the story logically etc, while fanfic will be a bunch of ridiculous tropey bullshit, full of out of character fluff and highschool AUs?
Imagine the exact opposite of that.
My experience with otome fandoms has been a lot of glurgy self insert het. But I decided to poke the AO3 anyway, sorting by kudos, if only to see if anyone else had written the Shiranui/Harada fic vaguely rattling away in my head.
The fic I read wasn't generally amazing, but also wasn't too bad, being moderately in character and making a fair attempt to match canon.
The most popular genre seems to be established relationship Chizuru/LI smut, which...fair enough. The popularity order of the original love interests is Hijikata, Kazama, Okita, Saito, Harada, Heisuke. The new ones only came out in English this year so haven't had time to trickle up the charts.
The most popular non canon relationship is Saito/Okita! I had a moment of "I GUESS BUT ALSO NO" but after sitting with it a bit decided they could be interesting in a massively emotionally incompetent sort of way and liked this bittersweet friends-with-benefits take even if it's a confusing mix of versions of the story.
Then it's Hijikata/Kazama, Hijikata/Kondou, and...Hijikata/Saito? There's seven stories for Harada/Shiranui but one of them is a short pwp and the other six are in Japanese. AM I GOING TO HAVE TO WRITE THIS STORY MYSELF.
There's only one actual femslash story and it's Sen/Chizuru fluff. I actually find myself shipping Sen/Kimiguku more but I can see why that hasn't set the fandom on fire.
I did find one AU: It's early 1941 when Kazama receives his notice of enlistment for the Imperial Army. His childhood best friend, Chizuru, decides to follow him into the military... OK THAT'S ENOUGH FANFIC FOR NOW.
(Who writes a WW2 AU about JAPANESE SOLDIERS there is NOWHERE GOOD THAT CAN GO)
A lot of these fics were based on canon I haven't seen, mainly the anime. The tumblr tag was a surreal barrage of unfamiliar images: anime and DLCs and extra games and a musical???? I was perfectly happy not playing the extra games until I saw a really cute CG of Kazama glaring at a kitten oh no.
Trying to untangle the games:
The original game: Demon of the Fleeting Blossom
Surreal fluffy AU where everyone is chibi and there are minigames: Yuugiroku (where the Kazama-with-a-kitten CG comes from, afaict)
Fighting game: Warriors of the Shinsengumi
Extra little shippy scenes set during the main story: Zuisouroku, Junsouroku
Prequel: Reimeiroku (has an anime adaptation)
Remakes: Oh god I don't know? Some of them?
...ok I give up. There are TWENTY ONE GAMES. The English ones are all translations of some of the Japanese ones but I can't tell which. The only ones on Steam are tiny single extra scenes that APPARENTLY DON'T INCLUDE SAITO (the negative reviews are deeply outraged, the fandom loves Saito as much as me ^_^)
(Meanwhile look at these cute images of Saito blushing ahhhhh)
There is a two season anime adaptation of the main story, with a third season covering the prequel. Crunchyroll has the prequel anime, and the game for that doesn't seem to be out for PC in English so I might watch it.
And then...there's a Live Action High School AU that looks really bad. And then there's the highschool AU game it's based off which looks GLORIOUSLY bad. KAZAMA IS THE EVIL STUDENT COUNCIL PRESIDENT. My horrified squeals of laughter made Cameron come in and tell me to stop freaking out the cat.
And did I mention THE MUSICAL. I can't even tell if it's good or bad, because musicals- especially Japanese ones- are just so far out of my general tastes I don't know what good looks like. But here's a fanvid to Justin Timberlake featuring angsty vampires in bad wigs, topless dancing samurai, and Shiranui with an electric guitar.
EDIT: THERE ARE TEN MUSICALS. TEN.
ALSO APPARENTLY SEN/KAZAMA WAS CANON IN THE ORIGINAL VERSION OF HEISUKE'S ROUTE?? I'm glad they changed it she can do better.
Phew!
And at this point I'm mostly over my cold and might try to spend tomorrow doing something actually productive?? But if I just end up posting, like, Hakuoki: THE QUEST FOR IBO SCENES don't be too surprised.
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googles...there are TEN musicals????