Roasting Apple Black, Chapter 2 (Part 1)

starts with a recolor, ends with discovering a HEAPING PILE OF TOS VIOLATIONS

The chapter opens with a group shot of all of the students, and I hate it! No one looks like they belong together. One of the cooler parts of shonen manga is it easily lends itself to self-inserting you or your character into the world. If there’s a robust magic system, fantasy school, or underground organization— you can think through where your character would go and can configure this to your tastes.

Again: I know this is basic. But these characters are all going to school together. If I wanted to put my character into this world, I don’t know how I’d do that. There’s no school uniform, no insignia, no pronoun pin everyone’s wearing so you know they’re part of the same organization.

But if I wanted to plug myself into Beastars, My Hero Academia, or even Eromanga Sensei, I could think about how I’d want to fit within the context of their world and what my power would be (for eromanga sensei, I’d be the worlds best hucow novelist, because I am).

And you don’t need to give your characters a uniform to have them look like they belong together. Trixie the Golden Witch made this point in an old video- if all of the characters have a cohesive color scheme, they’ll look like they belong together.

So let’s break down the colors we see here.

Yellow is the secondary color that appears the most frequently. Lily (blonde girl), Symon, and mysterious student in the back have the most yellow.

Ryuzaki the Bakugo stands out with his red, and no one else has it. Which fits for his character, but! Purple girl stands out with her heavy purple, and Lily stands out with her heavy green.

Sano doesn’t stand out as a protagonist or “chosen one” since his color scheme is a mix of blue/white/black, with a splash of yellow. Which could be something subversive to convey how humble he is, but Emo Guy in the background also has a heavy splash of blue, and Lily has that blue racing stripe on her shorts. So Sano’s not quite standing out as the protagonist or blending in, because he shares blue with some of the characters.

Laying it out like this makes me appreciate just what a goddamn eyesore Opal really is. The bright orange hair is one thing— plenty of anime characters have cuh-razy hair colors, so I don’t want to pick on that too hard. But no one else has orange, anywhere! You could give Bakugo, Symon, and Lily an orange undertone somewhere and maybe this would work, but I guess it’s really really important that Opal stands out.

And the rainbow tie-dye is gaudy as fuck. Opal won “spot the protagonist” in the worst way possible.

So y’know what I’m gonna do.

I’m going to commit the worst crime and injustice against Saturday AM art.

I’m going to recolor this to my liking.

I know the last time anyone did this, it was to whitewash the Clock Striker girl. Legend has it, Saturday AM is still retweeting this injustice to this day. But this color scheme fucking sucks. So lemme take a crack at it.

This is my attempt at giving everyone a little bit of the broader color palette used by the group, and still retain a seed of the original design. Lily is green, Sano is blue, mysterious guy matches Sano, goth girl is purple, Symon is white, Ryuzaki is red, and Opal is so goddamn special she needs every color.

I am not good at color schemes, since I am a monochromatic tapir. If anyone else wants to take a crack at this, please, I would love to see it (I’d love to commission a better example to use when I adapt this for YouTube, but the most I can offer is an enthusiastic plug for a fellow artist, and enthusiastic plugs dont hit the same as cash in your PayPal).

Most of these are just changing the colors of the characters accessories, flourishes, or eye color to create a stronger cohesiveness between the characters. I’ll break down the 3 characters with the biggest changes:

Sano: The sleeve for his Arodihs arm is changed to purple, so its not just blue on blue. Half of his shirt is black now. The shirt was already broken up with the giant crucifix symbol. Making half of the shirt black, instead of just a chip on his shoulder, feels a lot more striking.

clearest picture i could find of sano where his fist isnt gobbling up 70% of the frame

Ryuzaki: Red hair turns to blonde so he’s not just red on red. Seriously, too much red with this guy. You can still have him be “the red one” with just a big red jacket.

I gave him a blue stripe on his jacket for subtle American coding. Every time I wear a jacket that has red white and blue I can physically feel a boost to my jerkass levels. And Ryuzaki is already written like the token American character, so why not?

Opal: No more tie die. That was the first thing I fixed. It’s awful and ugly and I hate it.

Redhead IRL is closer to orange than Coke-can red. But I’m assuming she’s dying her hair, since the prequel said she has white hair and vitiligo.

So if I give myself a little more wiggle room to deviate from Whyt’s vision presented on the page, this is how I’d redo Opal:

White hair and vitiligo. Just like it says in the book! I know I bring this up a lot but I’m still pretty darn stumped at how the prequel can say she has white hair and vitiligo and then, just, bam. All gone in the manga! I’d love to see Opal’s vitiligo mentioned in any capacity in the manga. I always get pretty giddy whenever I hear anyone besides myself talk about this book, because I’m still half expecting to realize it was a hazy Mandela delusion and I never actually read something so awful.

And it looks like my prayers were answered while this post was sitting in drafts. Whyt gave Apple Black Origins a shoutout in his newest video! Previously, he seemed kind of shy about it and would rarely bring it up whenever he boasts about all of his books. It was kind of 🤨 Sus emoji, but now he’s ready to add it to his lineup!

Too bad he didn’t connote that this is a sponsored video, as per YouTube’s ToS.

(SOURCE)

I poked around at some of his past sponsored content (exhibit a, exhibit b), and its the same deal. He does the usual sponsorship disclaimers in-video (which seem to mostly align with FTC guidelines, but he doesn’t give a clear cutoff when the ad ends). Point is, YouTube needs you to click that box and tell them its a sponsorship.

(I checked Whyt’s content on other web browsers, all with adblock turned off. If my computer is, for some reason, just not showing this—let me know and I’ll edit this to clarify this was an issue on my end).

I ain’t a narc so I’m not gonna tattle, and I’ve got too big of a crush to muster up the nerve and tell Whyte that he really needs to take care of this. And he really does need to take care of this.

I don’t want WhytManga to lose his YouTube account.

I’ll keep screaming and shouting that I want him to stay online and keep making content. A heaping pile of ToS violations sprinkled throughout your channel is pretty risky.

So hopefully that plot armor is keeping him safe. This isn’t the first legally grey labor violation from Saturday AM, so whatevz man. I shouldn’t get too worked up! I went back and forth, attempting to pen the perfect comment on this video, but I guess my celebrity crush is bigger than I realized. I’m not commenting anything.

Now this is definitely off topic, so if you have no interest in my nosey behavior, I encourage you to stop reading this post right here and not a sentence more.

But.

I did muster up the courage to join his YouTube membership, at the “Lord” level.

There isn’t much for exclusive content or status update. There’s no members-only videos, and I’m not seeing anything listed as “Early Access.” Just this single post of “exclusive art” which is technically no longer exclusive, since Apple Black volume 4 is finished.

Hopefully really cool shit is just around the corner, and our buddy Whyt just needs a little more time to get it together.

Now, I sprung for the “Lord” level since that level promises “Member shoutouts.” It’s one of the easiest bonuses to give your supporters. It doesn’t say how often, or when, but that he does promise it!

Everyone, please look forward to WhytManga at https://www.youtube.com/@whytmangatv/ giving me, Tapirclip, a shoutout in a future video, because I have purchased the “Lord” level membership.

If he doesn’t, that’s another ToS violation.

Again: I’m not a narc! I don’t want him in trouble! I disavow, in the strongest of terms, reporting Whyt’s YouTube channel.

I know life happens, but under delivering on memberships without a heads up is kinda trashy. No one should lose their artistic livelihood over being a little rude. But if he can’t even do this, I’m curious how diligent he’s being with all of his other membership/patreon levels.

Since the "exclusive art" is no longer exclusive, I'm already wondering how much time I should allow to pass before it's reasonable to request a refund for the shoutout. But I don’t want that. I hope Whyte will do this and he’s not just saying shit to be cute.

No one believes in him as much as me.