Hello, everybody, and welcome back to this silly blog! Today we’ll be heading into the finale proper, starting with Episode #35, “Another One Bites the Dust - Part 1”. You ready? Yeah, you are. Let’s go!

• Let’s start with good ol’ Arnold, uncensored again:

• In this bit here, Rohan starts with his head already lower (not sure why)…:

• …his left eye has also been retouched, and there’s a cut on his cheek:

• Arnold again here:

• Back to the Kawajiris! In this scene, Shinobu has been moved slightly to the right, which might make no sense at the start, but when she gets near the closet you can see that she’s been moved so that she’s opening the right door instead of the left one:

• We interrupt your regularly scheduled Kawajiris for a quick trip at the Higashikata residence, where we can see that Josuke’s face, collar and bangles have all been retouched in this collection of frames:

• Josuke’s eyes have been redrawn here, but I’m not super sure about the end result:

• Back to the main course! Here, Hayato’s right eye has been slightly moved, there’s a new shade on the tip of his nose and one line near his mouth has been removed:

• Some frames later, when Kira shows up too, both faces have been retouched:

• Daddy Kira’s back, and you know what that means… Yeah, the stupid holes on that side of his polaroid, and the stupid stripes on his stupid pajama arms:

• Kira Sr.’s face has been retouched here, and oh gee guess what, the arms of his pajamas are striped:

• Kira, my dude, you have serious issues:

• Here we have, on top of the usual changes, two slightly retouched eyes:

• The Dad Was Moved, And The Stripes Were Added (2017):

• The shading on Kira’s eye is less flat…:

• …there’s a new effect when Kira Daddy pops up…:

• …and, of course, the stripes are back, and Kira’s hands have been shaded better. The background has also been moved and there’s a new shade below The Dad’s left eye:

• In this scene, some of Kira’s mouth positions have been retouched, and there’s a very slight distortion in the background:

• I wonder what’s different here:

• Ok, let’s just establish that I won’t talk about the stripes or the polaroid holes when they show up, and instead say something if there’s anything else that’s different. For example, here! Check out that hole:

• And again here; Mr. Kira’s eye and nostril have also been retouched:

• They remembered to draw the polaroid frame here (along with its black background), and Papa Kira has been shaded slightly differently:

• O u c h:

• Here, aside from the two uncensored owies, there’s a slightly different shade on Kira’s ear, chin and Pop’s hair and ear:

• Hayato’s face is more HD here:

• I wonder, I wonder:

• The backside of the polaroid has been completely redrawn here (and in many other spots as well):

• Old Kira’s eye area has been retouched here:

• The back of the polaroid is, again, different here:

• Mr. Big Kira’s eyes look better here as well:

• Kira the 1st has been completely redrawn:

• Hmmmmmmm:

• All food, liquid, plates and cutlery have been shaded better here:

• When Shinobu closes her eyes, her tears no longer magically disappear:

• Here, both Shinobu and Hayato’s faces have been redrawn, and the bit between Shinobu’s neck and her hair is no longer coloured wrong:

• Here, the corners of Kira’s eyes have been redrawn:

• Here Kira’s eyes, Shinobu’s face and Hayato’s eyes+mouth have all been retouched:

• I never noticed it, but Hayato’s breakfast was floating in the TV version of this frame, and his table mat was a bit messed up; this has all been fixed in the BDs:

• In this scene, Hayato has a bunch of little differences: a small shade on his brow, the shading on the underside of his bangs and his left hand’s fingers in the third frame:

• This is a weird one. Hayato’s face has been retouched in this part here, but his walking animation is just… One frame, while in the TV version it was less static. I don’t know, I’m not sure I understand. Maybe it was done to give him the looks of someone who’s walking uncomfortably, instead of a little kid who’s just going merrily his way? Who knows. Ah, the background also goes by slower:

• The car has been shaded way better in the BDs, but unfortunately Rohan still looks like a fish:

• Rohan’s eyes are looking slightly better here:

• As in Episode #31, Kosaku has been retouched in this picture:

• Rohan has been moved a bit to the left here:

• A bit of Hayato’s waistcoat was miscoloured in the TV version, and has been fixed in the BDs:

• Rohan actually moves his mouth here:

• Rohan’s face has been retouched here, and Hayato’s face… flap? no longer has the book texture:

• The writings on Hayato’s book-face have been shuffled around, Rohan no longer stands there with his mouth agape and the shade on his neck and shoulder is different:

• Rohan’s eye area has been retouched here, and the line on top of his mouth is also slightly different. Also, the rightmost pen on his stripper shirt no longer has that extra line:

• In the clock half of this split screen closeup, Rohan’s skin no longer looks like lead, the clock has been completely re-coloured and reshaded, and half of the numbers are no longer flipped:

• Hayato’s mouth is open here, and some lines over his eyes have been retouched:

• The writings have been shuffled around again here:

• The first character in 定禅寺 (Jōzenji, the name of a temple - and I’m assuming also a district - in Sendai) was previously mistakenly written as 浄 (which can also be pronounced “jō”); this was corrected in the BDs:

• Hayato’s whole head has been redrawn here:

• The kanji again here, plus a slightly different shade around that part:

• Rohan’s face has been retouched in this collection of smug frames:

• In this shade there’s a bunch of different things: Rohan is actually looking at the book, most of the shading on Hayato is different and his left eye area has been redrawn:

• Here, the part below the book is no longer skin-coloured, and there’s one bit of the book which has been shaded differently. Additionally, the middle bunch of papers is now just one page:

• In addition to the usual retouched left eye of Hayato, Killer Queen’s head has also been (thankfully) redrawn here:

• In this animation Rohan slides away instead of disappearing, the background is brighter and the speedlines move along with the action:

• Hayato has also been moved a bit:

• Killer Queen’s head is looking MUCH better here:

• In this shot, Rohan’s hairband is no longer part of his forehead, the penhead button now actually is a penhead (is that even a word?), some of his teeth have been shaded and his left earring has been retouched:

• I could honestly spend hours describing all the improvements in this animation. I’m seriously mind-blown by how much better it is in the BDs. Take a look for yourself:

• Whew! Let’s cleanse our palates with some spicy footage of smug manga man dying:

• Hayato’s mouth is open again here, his left eye has been retouched again and there is a shading below the page:

• Here, the bg has been moved, the traffic light is different and a house on the left has been redrawn completely for some reason:

• There are no exaggerated splashes in the BD version of this bit here:

• There’s blood around Rohan’s mouth in this bunch of frames:

• The distortion effects are less prominent in this scene, and the animation gets brighter, more nitid and shifts to a different hue towards the end:

• The wall has been coloured differently here:

• Hayato makes an expression here:

• This scene has more zoom and is overall different, while in the TV version it’s basically just a more zoomed-in version of the previous shot:

• The green bit of Kira’s tie is darker in the BDs:

• In this real footage of Hayato using his psychokinesis to hold his mother and a teapot hostage, his face has been redrawn:

• Hayato’s right elbow is behind the table here:

• Here, Kira’s hand actually casts a shadow, and the motif in the teapot’s blue part no longer stops abruptly on the left:

• In this shot, Kira’s tie has been redrawn and no longer disappears, the line near his cheekbone is thicker and the shading on his face is different:

• This whole flashback sequence looks much, much better in the BDs. Almost everything is darker, has a heavy vignette along the edge of the frame and a heavy texture on top, and the hues have been shifted:

• And again here, plus a massive zoom-in and distortion…:

• …and the whole thing rotates too!:

• And here too. In addition, they also drew in Kira’s lower teeth:

• Aaand here as well! The camera moves a bit more smoothly too:

• And oh! Look! Here too!:

• And one more for the road (plus all the additional changes listed before, in the non-flashback version:

• In this part here, Kira moves slightly earlier and the back of the polaroid has been redrawn:

• Here, both Kira and Hayato’s faces have been retouched, the shading on the chair is slightly different and the heat from the tea makes different puffs of vapour:

Aaand that’s it! Damn, this was gigantic! Not quite to DiU #27/BT #12 levels, but it still took a long long time to make. It was worth it just for that super cool Bites the Dust animation, though! I hope you had a good time, my friends.

I will see you next week for “Another One Bites the Dust - Part 2”!

Bye!