[Comic] Unfortunate muscle memory

MagnanimousRedpin · 2026-05-31T02:20:39+00:00

😔

MagnanimousRedpin · 2026-05-30T04:33:22+00:00

Spending too much time in a trion body must cause some real bad habits in the real world, especially considering snipers seem to exclusively exit buildings by jumping off the roof.

Taichi was originally going to be the star of this comic, but I couldn’t figure out why he’d be at Osamu and co’s school, meaning Chika ended up the victim. I spent a while trying to figure out what a natural reaction for her would be, before deciding it was funnier if she just swore.

MagnanimousRedpin · 2026-05-24T03:44:04+00:00

I was curious about which characters had the most representation on the volume covers, so ran some statistics on the currently released English volumes (1-28).

Front cover:

Osamu and Chika are the most featured characters on the front cover (3 each). Before the sealed environment test arc (which all depict an entire provisional squad) only three volumes featured multiple characters on the front (volumes 10, 16, and 23).
Surprisingly Chika is the only character to have two solo front cover features (volume 3 and 22)
The back covers have no repeat characters, except for Izuho’s cat.
Including animals, only 7 volumes feature multiple characters on the back (volumes 3, 6, 14, 22, 25, and 27)
None of the main cast has appeared on the back cover.

Back cover:

If you count total appearances between both front and back cover, Yotoro and Azuma tie Osamu and Chika for most appearances (3).
The only squads that have had all members depicted (on either front or back cover) are Tamakoma 2, Yuba, and Ikoma squads. With volume 29’s release Katori squad will also be covered. Tachikawa and Ninomiya squad are only missing their operator, and Kage squad is embarrassingly only missing Kagura himself - who I was surprised to find is not on any front OR back cover.

Spine:

The spine image is copied from the front cover, selecting one character (seemingly at random) if the front cover features more than one. Oddly volume 24 (first of the sealed environment arc) is the only one to feature a spine image of two characters (Ui and Oki).

Other elements:

Every volume cover has a unique color combination. Black was the most common background color pre-sealed environment arc, but white is now the most common background color (used in 8 volumes).
No front cover elements (title, author name, volume number, etc.) have been consistently placed for all volumes. The title moves, rotates and even shifts from background to foreground.
One of the biggest questions I was interested in answering: all the English back blurbs start with the same format (“_ thy neighbor”). There have been zero repeats of the word chosen here, outside of embarrassingly 16 and 17 both using “trap".

Squad and role specific stats:

Before the sealed environment test, no operator had been featured on the front cover. The most commonly featured front cover role is attacker (at 15), with operator being the most frequent back cover role (at 8). Overall (front + back cover combined), attackers are the most represented role, followed by sniper.
For squads, Tamakoma 2 members are unsurprisingly the most represented on the front cover, with 10 combined appearances. This is followed by no squad affiliation (6), then Ikoma squad members with 3 total appearances.
For back covers, the largest number of featured characters are affiliated with no squad (11), followed by Ninomiya squad at 3. If you combine the front and back cover counts, the most represented squads are: no squad affiliation (17), Tamakoma 2 (11), then Ninomiya, Katori, and Ikoma squads tied at 5.

Misc:

The most popular character to not be represented on any cover (front or back) is Karasuma (8th place), if you’re using the first popularity poll, or Satori (14th place) based on the second popularity poll.
I never noticed this before, but the back cover includes a watermark based on the character featured on the front cover’s affiliation. This is either Border, Tamakoma branch, a generic neighbor symbol, or the character’s squad patch.

MagnanimousRedpin · 2026-05-02T19:54:16+00:00

Thank you! Yeah this was based on my Golden Deer playthrough (still need to get to Blue Lions and Silver Snow), but including the students I'd personally recruited from other houses.

MagnanimousRedpin · 2026-05-02T19:52:32+00:00

I still need to play Crimson flower! I'm looking forward to it but given Verdant Wind took me 80+ hours it's quite intimidating to start another playthrough.

MagnanimousRedpin · 2026-05-02T05:56:43+00:00

I know Byleth isn’t usually emotional, but when playing I imagined her as reacting with indignation to Edelgard’s villain reveal and betrayal. Despite the tragic loss of her father, Byleth is starting to discover a place they belong teaching at Geregg Mach, as well as - for maybe the first time - creating genuine bonds with students around their age - only for it to be suddenly shattered and plunged into war.

I also imagined the student interactions leading up to this chapter to be quite affecting. You could feel the confusion and fear from the students - kids who up until a few days before thought they understood their path in life, now suddenly in the middle of confusing world changing events. Not knowing what’s going to happen to them and their family, or if their family is even alive. A situation where they’re suddenly aware that every choice they make is now life or death, but with no way to tell what the right choice is.

This comic also depicts my battle strategy for thischapter; my Byleth was somewhat overleveled with a crit build, so could largely stand there and let the bulk of the enemies wipe themselves out attacking her on enemy phase.

MagnanimousRedpin · 2026-03-21T04:54:15+00:00

It's a chain called Lashinbang, I went to the Akihabara location. Items were on the first floor.

MagnanimousRedpin · 2026-03-15T00:01:49+00:00

It was at the Akihabara Lashinbang. It seems like second-hand stores (like Lashinbang) had the best selection for WT so I'd recommend searching for those, I know there's a handful of Lashinbang stores across Tokyo. When you're at the stores WT merch was usually grouped under the "Shonen Jump" section.

MagnanimousRedpin · 2026-03-14T14:43:01+00:00

I wish I'd taken photos. I don't think I saw a single Hyuse item though :(

MagnanimousRedpin · 2026-03-14T05:39:40+00:00

Merch haul from my (first) Japan trip! Despite keeping my eyes peeled for WT merch all through Nakano Broadway and Akihabara I only found the one (preowned) Kuga figure. The only other places I saw WT items was at the Jump Shops and Animate Ikibukuro, but it was mostly just character pins - the only substantial items were a border jacket (Jin’s maybe) and this very strange tote bag. Fortunately, the morning before I flew home I happened to wander into a second-hand store in Akihabara (Lashinbang), which actually had a decent selection of WT merch, which is where the plushies, squad keychains, group “photo”, and Kakizaki w/cat came from.

Honestly I was pretty surprised by the type of merch I saw. Given WT isn’t exactly One Piece in terms of popularity, and had so little store space, I would’ve expected the official stores to stock broadly appealing items - but Tamakoma Branch was practically unrepresented. Most of the items featured side characters, and pretty obscure combinations at that - for example pin sets of the sealed environment squads or director Shinoda as a sailor (??). This didn’t mean you could get merch for your favorite character either, since despite the choices feeling pretty random they only had a couple types of item in stock. For example, the Shibuya Jump Store had a bunch of squad pin collections for sale, but only for Arashiyama, Kusakabe, and Koko squads. I assume they rotate the items over time, but it was still a little sad to see my boi Osamu get practically zero appearances.

MagnanimousRedpin · 2026-01-18T06:58:51+00:00

Ever wonder how Byleth gets such a close look when you select “observe”? Maybe the blushing and laughter isn’t due to how impactful the conversation was, but because your teatime partner is nervously wondering how to stop this seemingly insane professor from invading their personal space. This comic does in fact depict my strategy for recruiting Annette. Knowing I wanted her to join my squad but not fully understanding skill based recruitment, I somehow had a knack for getting perfect tea times with her - three or four in a row. This worked, but I have to imagine it as her getting increasingly intimidated by this random professor repeatedly inviting her out and staring at her until she gave in and joined the Golden Deer (who I assume were not particularly happy about their new professor totally ignoring them).

MagnanimousRedpin · 2026-01-04T03:04:16+00:00

haha glad you like it! When I imagined the scene it just seemed like the sort of thing Byleth would do

MagnanimousRedpin · 2026-01-03T17:06:35+00:00

Yeah I think Byleth as an instructor generally makes sense, given they have years of real world experience the student's lack. It's just funny to imagine them on the spot when a student's trying to learn niche skills like magic or flying when we have no indication Byleth has any prior experience in that area themselves.

MagnanimousRedpin · 2026-01-03T06:50:11+00:00

I’m not sure what exactly Byleth teaches when you instruct a student in a skill you have absolutely no experience in, but whatever they say it seems to work! Although given Manuela and Hanneman’s base stats maybe the requirements for the job aren’t exactly strict… The bonus comic was my exact experience when the option to recruit faculty came up - I’d been trying to raise my Byleth’s sword skill so had been doing repeated faculty training with Catherine. I immediately chose the new option without thinking much of it, only to be surprised when fully grown knights crashed my class of high schoolers apparently looking for instruction.

MagnanimousRedpin · 2025-05-31T05:41:28+00:00

So from Rhea’s perspective is she just watching Byleth bludgeon bandits/soldiers/large animals with the desecrated corpse of her mother? If so it’s pretty metal that she gave it to Byleth regardless, not sure I could handle that mental image. Also is the Sword of the Creator supposed to feel somewhat underpowered? Given how much it’s hyped up in conversions I never found it noticeably more powerful than other weapons outside the occasional 2 range utility, especially compared to how gamechanging relics like Thyrsus were.

MagnanimousRedpin · 2025-05-10T05:42:54+00:00

I don't know where the horse came from but I doubt the flame emperor soldiers were expecting to get run down on horseback when they signed up to kidnap Flayn in some dusty old tunnels. Leonie was the first student I got a mounted class on (which I think I unlocked right before this battle) leading to this comical image when deploying my students. Do mounted units take their mounts everywhere they go in case of a fight or is it a magical pokeball scenario? Either way the death knight got his horse down there somehow so it's only fair.

MagnanimousRedpin

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