#Japanese Mystical Archive Version

[maxdegames]

Wanted to try my hands at making some proxies with the japanese Mystical Archive frame. I designed a slightly simplified version of it and tried a few colors. Took the opportunity to portray some Genshin characters! To keep a theme, they're all Inazuma characters.

First one was Yoimiya. There aren't a lot of interesting archer characters, especialy in pure red, so I went with Ashling, Flame Dancer. Casting many spell to gain looting effects, damages and mana felt like it worked with her many arrows and her habits of giving presents and preparing explosive fireworks! The wonderful art is made by Issign, and you can find their work here : 微糖去冰 (@issign) / X

Kirara is Yeva, Nature's Herald. My logic was fairly straightforward for this, with green being dendro and the focus on flash representing her ability to travel the world at a fast pace. Azusa was also an option, more lands per turn to represent journeying around. I'm really glad I found Ach Ib's art for it, it's quite a perfect fit. The faded out background fits really nice on a card, the small text box works well with having two characters in focus, and Chiori + Kirara is a lovely duo! You can find their work here : Ach ib (@Dd99d9D95890) / X

The third try is Raiden Shogun. It was difficult to find something that represented her confinement, or her rule over the shogunate and the tempests... I thought about Naomi, Konda, or even Fumiko for the constant state of war in Inazuma. Keranos was on the table because god of storms is sort of a given. But I ended up going with Raiyuu, Storm's Edge. This way, the card has relevant speed, dueling and focus on samurai as a type, as well as a wink back to the storm theme.

And last one is Kamisato Ayaka. She is Light-Paws, Emperor's Voice. I don't really have a train of thought on why, just a general feeling that it fits. Maybe it's because of the way she is overprotected by everyone (so auras), maybe it's because of the small body with a great power. Art is by Hajikkoneko, and I'm glad I could find a gorgeous piece of Ayaka in warm color and an inazuma outfit (rather than her fontainian one). You can find their work here : Posts de médias de ハジッコネコ (@hajikkoneko) / X

Overall I'm really happy with the result!

[niuttuc]

What are your thoughts on WOE? (That is if you're still accepting topics to rant about)

(I'll let you in on a secret, I'm always accepting topics to rant about as long as I feel like answering them)

WOE is my favorite standard set in a while. Probably since NEO? It just plays real well in limited and constructed alike. As far as the setting, I was worried the focus on fairy tales would erase completely the arthurian element from the set, but between the virtues in the main set and courts in the commander set, plenty of love for those in the cards. However...

The story was a bit flat for me, and definitely not helped by how little we got in the set about stories. "We want more story" is something I say every set because it's true every set, and this one got half as much as usual, so it's twice as true.

As far as mechanics, there's nothing that stands out particularly. Adventures, as always, are a blast to play with and make for great designs, but they're not new. We got sagas which I always love but same, nothing new here. Food is certainly a mechanic that does things with Food. Bargain is a token kicker. The Big Marquee New Mechanic is Roles, but I find that they are a LOT to keep track of and remember outside of the WOE bubble, for the benefit of getting slightly different +1/+1 counters with slightly different synergies, for the most part. However!

It all plays and fits so nicely into each other. The limited experience is a blast. Bargain works with Food, Roles, Rats, Sagas, plus a lot more support. Adventures make sure you always have something to do very late in the game. The Enchanting Tales spice things up quite a bit AND are a VERY nice set of reprints, much better on average than any other bonus sheet we've gotten, I believe, there's very few misses. And the frame looks real nice.

In Constructed, there's a lot of individually powerful designs that worm their ways into decks, but nothing sweeping, just enough to spice up the formats, and standard is now reinvigorated for a bit despite the lack of rotation, that's impressive! The Virtues, creature-lands, Dreadknight and Tortoise, Goddric, Charming Scoundrel, Agatha's Soul Cauldron introducing Combo into the meta in a way that's competitive while not being obnoxious... There's a single deck that felt "pre-built" in the set, Faeries, and it still has a good amount of variation and plenty of counterplay. For older formats, there's a few cards that work particularly well but, again, not by upheavaling everything.

For commander, the Enchanting Tales were an absolute boon, lowering the price of a LOT of important cards to the format. It's also relatively chill as far as new commanders, there's a few big ones but we "only" got 25 legends in this set.

My biggest gripe against the set aside from the light story is that the borderless anime enchanting tales cards are... Out of place? Why are they here? If they were used to represent japanese stories and aesthetics, like the japanese mystical archives were, or for a Kamigawa set, I'd have gotten it, but here? It's also fine for a supplemental product, like Jumpstart 2022 did... But I feel like they add nothing and are very generic looking in this set. Same thing for the animated trailer, why here, why now? The regular frame for Enchanting Tales is great, and it has its own art style that's pretty unique in magic. Why add another "more premium" version that looks more out of place and less special?

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Snakeskin Veil (Japanese Ver) by Yuhki Takeuchi

[commandtower]

Demonic Tutor ~ Strixhaven Japanese Mystical Archive ver. Art by 墨絵師「御歌頭」/ Sumie Okazu

[littjara-mirrorlake]

📦 - favourite pack(s)? 📜 - favourite multicoloured card you own? 💥 - favourite non-creature card you own? 👢 - favourite Planeswalker(s)? 🌈 - favourite ship(s)?

📦: Like... product? Well I adore the Simic guild kit. It was one of the first MtG products I bought and I love it so. I treasure my guild pin

📜: Probably my foil Prime Speaker Vannifar! (Unfortunately I don't have her with me right now, otherwise I'd add a picture.) She's beautiful and the foil makes her colors and guild watermark pop so nicely.

💥: First things that came to mind were my small collection of really pretty foil Mystical Archive cards. The Growth Spiral in particular looks amazing and I want to get the Japanese alt art version eventually.

👢: Nissa vibes with me because she's a fellow gay autistic Sultai, and her green expresses itself similarly to mine, but I also can't really get past her pre-retcon self. Chandra is super cool, and I love Jace for being the adorable dumbass blue twink he is. Vraska is also up there and come to think of it she might be my #1 favorite. I admire and relate to her a lot.

🌈: Gruulfriends, Vrace, and Brudibrask (even though it has no canonical backing. I just think it would be neat)

[mendelpalace]

Azusa 999 by Ichirō Sogabe, October 1997

Azusa 999 is an RPG Maker adventure game (à la Corpse Party or To the Moon) developed in 1997 for the classic Japanese PC-98 personal computer. It's a heavy emotional story about suicide and an otherworldly train… among other things. It's quite unlike anything else – a flawed diamond, forgotten by time – which is why I decided to translate it to English over two decades after its original release!

...

The venerable RPG Maker Dante98: the very first official version of RPG Maker, for the good old PC-98. Between 1995 and 2001, Enterbrain, the company behind the software, famously held a huge annual RPG Maker game-making contest with their parent company – the Ascii Entertainment Software Contest – in which winners could receive up to 10,000,000 yen (~10,500,000 yen; ~100,000 USD in today's money). The most notable winner, in retrospect, was the horror adventure cult-classic-cum-genre-progenitor Corpse Party. You might've heard of it!

What's not as famous, though, is that this grand contest wasn't the only one of its kind. Between 1997 and 2002, Enterbrain also held a monthly contest for smaller games with smaller prizes to match, via a site called the "Internet Contest Park"; colloquially known as "Conpark". A contest for small, experimental games, with a focus on ingenuity, creativity, and heart… It was special.

I first found out about Conpark via the website of Sasuke Kannazuki, the creator of the cult classic RPG Maker title Moon Whistle. Back in the day, being an RPG Maker enthusiast, he occasionally reviewed games seen on Conpark – and two decades later, I stumbled upon those reviews. Finding out about this cultural treasure trove – oodles upon oodles of forgotten Japanese-only video games, made in the visions of singular enthusiasts, all buried beneath the sands of time – I found myself hungrily digging through the archives; living this cultural past that I never knew existed. When the dust settled, my interest had solidified most for one game. A game with strikingly stylized aesthetics. A game with an emotional premise. A game that I somehow felt compelled to translate, so that it may be experienced by people in another place; in another time.

That game was Azusa 999. Submitted for the October 1997 edition of Conpark, it netted its creator Ichirō Sogabe 68,000 yen (~71,000 yen; ~654 USD in today's money) at the ripe old age of 19. Though it was seemingly developed in only two months (his previous winning entry, CLOCK, was in August of the same year), this story about death and an otherworldly train was immensely well-received, and is beloved by the precious few who know it.

When asked for a short comment upon winning the prize, Sogabe wrote:

Originally, the game's title was "Asuka 999"… It wasn't until after I'd sent it in that I noticed that the pop song was called "Azusa #2" and not "Asuka #2"! So in the end, I changed it. In any case, I'm very thankful.

The title is, as explicated above, a reference to the 1977 pre-J-pop humdinger Azusa 2-Gō ("On Azusa #2, at 8 AM on the dot, I depart from you"). The "999", one can imagine, is straight from Galaxy Express 999, a peerlessly influential manga and anime that similarly is about a mystical train. The Azusa #2 – the train on which you tearfully depart from that which pains your heart – and the Galaxy Express 999 – the train not of this world. Combine the two, and you get Azusa 999… both in name and in concept.

When I decided to translate Azusa 999, I had not yet played through the story in its entirety, and I had no experience with PC-98 hacking. I did, frankly, not know what I was getting into. This project that I thought would be "free of hacking" ended up luring me into 22 total hours of assembly hacking, and half that to program tools – not to mention that the story was longer and made me far more uncomfortable than I had expected. If I'd known these things in advance, I would probably not have decided to translate it. But… I'm glad I did, for here is a fascinating, storied, unique work that deserves to be shared – and it was translated and released precisely because I let passion get the better of me. And therein lie the fan translator's greatest assets: boundless enthusiasm, and a lack of common sense.

In English for the first time since its creation over 20 years ago, have this poignant look into Japanese indie game history on me.

Samuel "obskyr" Messner, Urawa, 2020–04–19

Content Warnings: Suicide, child death, depictions of homophobia, implied sexual violence. 

[professorprophetess]

Isekai and Video Games

With how video games are an inherently multi-medial entity, it’s no wonder that a common trope of story telling is being transported into a game or having a character sent to another world. In Eastern animation and fiction this is called an “isekai” style of story.  “Isekai” means, literally, “different World” in Japanese and in urban slang is the name of that entire genre for anime, manga, movies, and lite novels. In Western Fiction, the term “portal fiction” is used instead but both describe very much the same phenomena. Within video games, there are many examples of portal fictions and isekai since games are from all over, though with my own personal library a lot are from Japan. There aren’t all that many differences between the Eastern and Western versions of these stories, therefore, by my definition portal fiction and isekai are very much interchangeable. However, in the interest of simplicity, I will hence forth just use “isekai” as it is one word. 

There are so many examples of this sort of story within the Eastern and Western traditions of stories, that I will mostly only be taking about how it is handled in regards to gaming. One of the more recent examples of an Isekai game that I’ve played is “Ni no Kuni 2.” Another that I’ve played is “Exist Archive,” and a third is “Brave Story.” Despite being from disparate companies and having different approaches to the genres and even having differing sources, they share a central thing in common: the one transported from the real world is a male from a world very much like ours through a sudden event either it being a directly harmful event or something that could have been harmful. 

The fact all three of these share a male protagonist, I suppose, shouldn’t be too much of a shock. With just a brief mental search of the Isekai anime and manga that I know of (and am fond of) almost all of them have males in the lead. Sword Art Online, The Boy and the Beast, That Time I got Reincarnated as a Slime, and Konosuba. One of the only ones I can think of that is a quasi-Isekai that doesn’t have a male lead only doesn’t have one on a technicality and that was .hack//SIGN where (spoiler) Tsukasa was a girl offline the whole time. I’m not saying there aren’t any female led isekai adventures, as I count Spirited Away as an isekai and Chihiro is definitely a girl. Same could be said for The Cat Returns. My Neighbor Totoro is one that is kinda Isekai too. However, I will plead ignorance on other female isekai fictions in Eastern fiction, but I’d love to know more.

Something else the shared male protagonists have is they are from a modern setting. This is not mandatory but is very common as it is a grounding element. In this we have a deviation between the exact origins of the three transported characters. The protagonist of Exist Archive Kanta Kujo is a teenage boy. The player character (whose stand in name is Traveller) of Brave Story is an elementary student a lot like the character of Wataru from the book of the same name from which it was adapted. Roland from Ni no Kuni 2 is by far the most above average person to be in an isekai scenario as he was president of a whole country. Those other anime and fictions I mentioned before, the people from the world like ours is ordinarily an average person. 

Roland stands out a bit more than the others once it’s seen that while he is a major character, Ni no Kuni 2 is more about Evan and his kingdom than it is Roland’s adventures in that new world. Whereas with the other two games, the characters that are played as are the ones whom the story revolves around. Traveller differs from the other two in that he didn’t die to get to the other world called Vision whereas the other two died outright. Kanata in a sort of accident/domestic terrorist incident and Roland during an assassination attempt. 

Yet, despite those minor differences, the stories start in sort of the same way. The transported characters through a strange event end up headfirst in a new world and end up encountering some sort of guide—be it a person or mystical—that guides them as to what they need to do. This is usually immediately followed by battle, since that is the best way to fit the combat tutorial into a game. Beyond that the three stories go different ways, for the most part. Brave Story is a standard hero’s journey. Exist Archive is a hero’s journey mixed with a mystery of the world that Kanata and the others find themselves in after their deaths as well as the mystery behind the identity of Mayura Tsukishiro, the white haired girl with pigtails and no memories. Ni no Kuni 2 is more about Evan’s coming of age than anything else. 

In my experience playing these three games, these central conceits did help with introducing the worlds to me, and helped suspend my disbelief while playing and helped me get into the worlds and stories. The reason this works so well is most video games are designed to pull players into their worlds to begin with. To reference Jesper Juul’s Half-Real, it’s because the player is a piece to completing the puzzle. By making the story one that transports characters from a familiar setting to another is an easy way of getting players deeper into the game. This even works with games that are more in line with western portal fantasies, like Kingdom Hearts. The tutorial area might be a tropical island but its a lot like something we’ve seen before and the players are there long enough to get a feel for the Destiny Islands before the main story begins. Of course, what Kingdom Hearts has as an advantage over other isekai games I’ve mentioned is that the other worlds were mostly the worlds of well known films. Still, thanks to the half-real state of play, games are already sort of an isekai like experience in and of themselves to begin with.Therefore it’s a logical conclusion a lot of modern isekai style stories exist in games, and why a fair few iseakai fictions outside the realm of games tend to use video game logic. It’s already an adventure you go on, just taken a step further.

Works Cited

Brave Story. PSP. Xseed Games, 2007.

Exist Archive. Playstation 4. Spike Chunsoft, 2016.

.hack//SIGN. directed by Koichi Mashimo. Beetrain, Funimation, 2002.

“Isekai.” Urban Dictionary. N/A. 18 Apr 2019. <https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=isekai>

Juul, Jesper. Half-Real. MIT Press, 2005. pg 121-162.

Ni no Kuni 2. Playstation 4. Bandai Namco Entertainment, 2018.

“Portal Fiction.” Good Reads. N/A. 18 April 2019. <https://www.goodreads.com/genres/portal-fiction>

Works Referenced

Miyuki, Miyabe. Brave Story. Viz Media, 2003.

My Neighbor Totoro.directed by Hayao Miyzaki.. Studio Ghibli, 1993.

Konosuba. directed by Takaomi Kanasaki . Studio Deen, Crunchyroll, 2016.

Kingdom Hearts. Playstation 2. Square Enix. 2002.

Spirited Away. directed by Hayao Miyzaki.. Studio Ghibli, 2003.

Sword Art Online. directed by Tomohiko Ito. A-1 Pictures, Aniplex, 2012.

The Boy and the Beast. directed by Mamoru Hasoda, Studio Chizu, 2015.

The Cat Returns. directed by Hayao Miyzaki. Studio Ghibli, 2002.

That Time I got Reincarnated as a Slime. directed by Yasuhito Kikuchi, 8-Bit, Funimation, 2018.

[ao3feed-style]

Tricks and Spooky Treats (Mystic Little Mountain Town Halloween Special)

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2CTI712

by BrightStarWrites

When random portals open in the Japanese Folklore Universe of South Park, some of the spirits that live there fall into the canon version of South Park. What will they do being in a place where everyone speaks a different language? And how will they get home? The answer lies on Halloween night....

Words: 13176, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Series: Part 2 of Japanese Folklore AU

Fandoms: South Park

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: M/M

Characters: Craig Tucker, Tweek Tweak, Kenny McCormick, Leopold "Butters" Stotch, Kyle Broflovski, Stan Marsh, Eric Cartman, Damien Thorn, Clyde Donovan, Token Black, Jimmy Valmer, Henrietta Biggle, Pete (South Park: Raisins), Pete Thelman, Michael (South Park: Raisins), Firkle (South Park)

Relationships: Craig Tucker/Tweek Tweak, Kyle Broflovski/Stan Marsh, Kenny McCormick/Butters Stotch

Additional Tags: au x canon, Halloween Special

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2CTI712

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Day of Judgment (Japanese Ver) by Maiko Yoshizawa (吉澤舞子)

[theantisocialcritic]

Archive Review - January 1, 2014 - 47 Ronin Review

47 Ronin, 2013 Carl Erik Rinsch 119 Minutes Watch the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8cKdDkkIYY —————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— I should say that I went into 47 Ronin with pretty high expectations based off of what the trailer presented. I even broke my **NEVER EVER SEE 3D MOVIES" rule just so I could see it tonight. My thoughts: well I liked it, its horribly flawed and I was somewhat disappointed, but I still found stuff to like in the movie. 47 Ronin is a fictionalized version of the Japanese legend of the 47 Ronin. The legend is well known in Japan. The movie did do a really good job of capturing the essence of feudal Japan. The visual aesthetic in this movie is really nice. I like how they stylized it to mash fantasy elements like demons and witches in with the otherwise realistic world. It gives everything a really mystical sense to it, though the contrast occasionally stuck out in not so positive ways. The movie also had a number of good performances. The stand out of the movie however was Rinko Kikuchi (Pacific Rim, Bable) as the antagonistic evil witch. She has an amazing range of personalities she is able to pull off with her roles, and I really like how all of the ones i've seen with her all portray such strong female role models (even if she was a witch in this one). Though the aesthetics stuck out, the actual meat of the film was rather empty. The story was underwhelming to say the least. At best it was cliche, and at worst just plain boring. Aside from a few isolated moments the movie lacked tension. Subsequently the pacing felt really slow and it felt as though the movie lacked a satisfying payoff. Overall, 47 Ronin is like a subway sandwich. It looks really pretty on the outside but when you bite into it all your going to taste is bread. I enjoyed watching this movie to learn about the Ronin legend and watching characters run around in a fantasy version of feudal Japan. I'm personally fascinated by the Japanese culture so I what I wanted out of it. Movie goers looking for an overall better film going experience will leave disappointed however. My recommendation to you is based on whether or not you have any fascination with the Japanese culture. If you do this film might be worth the price of a matinee showing, if not then feel free to miss out of this one! —————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— 47 Ronin is now in theaters! Thank you for reading! Live long and prosper!

[notnowtabitha-blog]

Super Mario Characters as well as their names

The foundation of the Mario set! Will you work together or...or from each and every other...?!

Mario Bros. is an action game created by Nintendo contained 1983.

It's the very first game that used "Mario" within the name. Management Luigi or Mario to be able to value the foes originating out of piping by beneath to convert them then and over conquer them. Within the two player mode, each players can choose to band together or even do the job from each other as well as enjoy the game inside a myriad of ways.

The "Arcade Archives" series has faithfully reproduced numerous traditional Arcade masterpieces.

Players can alter a variety of game options such as game difficulty, and also reproduce the atmosphere of arcade screen settings during that time. Players also can participate against each other coming from all over the world due to their high scores.

Please enjoy the masterpiece that built a generation for footage games.

Can you make a movie out of a video recording game? That's the doubting that's answered by this specific digital movie. Mario Mario as well as Luigi Mario, 2 difficult operating plumbers discover themselves throughout another universe wherein grown dinosaurs reside in moderate hi tech squalor. They wind up the sole optimism to save the planet from invasion.

This is the story of two hard-working Italian plumber brothers named Mario Mario as well as Luigi Mario, who befriends a new paleontologist named Daisy. An enormous come across of mystical brand new dinosaur bones are uncovered by her. While examining the tunnels where dinosaur fossils lay, saboteurs selected with the Mario Bros. competitor businessman, Anthony Scapelli, to stop several underground water lines. Meanwhile, inside a concealed planet identified as Dinohattan, King Koopa's farm land is running out of clean water and also going through difficulties thus he directs Spike and Iggy to kidnap Daisy! The Super Mario Bros. wind up the sole optimism to rescue the earth from invasion and then challenge a diabolical lizard king and they also need to battle giant reptilian goombas, outwit misfit hooligans, as well as weaken sinister scheme by shooting with the world!

Mario and Luigi, 2 wacky plumbers, take on a daring pursuit to save a princess inside Dinohattan -- a concealed world in which the dwellers grown from dinosaurs! Mario and Luigi face dangerous challenges from a diabolical lizard king and/or must fight gigantic reptilian goombas, outwit misfit hooligans, and weaken a sinister system to dominate the world!

2 Brooklyn plumbers, Luigi and Mario, should travel to another dimension to rescue a princess from the evil dictator King Koopa and stop him from shooting over the world.

When I discovered that out I did 2 things. To begin with, I whipped out my copy (yes, I keep it that real/nerdy that I still need a well used NES hooked up in the room) of mine and then made certain I can still match the game at will. (I can. Childhood not wasted.)

Secondly, I initiated down a rabbit hole of reading through Mario sites and Articles and Wikis. In the operation, I stumbled upon the etymologies of the names of many of the main players in the Mario universe. Therefore, in honor of the video game which often changed the world, in this article they are, provided in useful 11 item show form.

Mario.

When Mario debuted to the arcade game "Donkey Kong", he was only called Jumpman. (Which also happens to be the generic name associated with that Michael Jordan spread leg Nike logo. Two of the most legendary icons actually both have generic versions of themselves known as Jumpman. But just one has today reached the effort of simply being so effective that he shaved himself a Hitler mustache prior to filming a professional and the balls were had by no one to correct him.)

In 1980, as the Nintendo of America staff imported Jumpman to elevate him right into a franchise-leading star (Hayden Christensen style), an individual noticed that he looked like their Seattle office building's landlord... a fellow known as Mario Segale.

Mario Segale didn't get a dime for becoming the namesake of pretty much the most famous video game persona ever, though he most likely is not absurdly concerned; in 1998 he sold his asphalt business for around sixty dolars million. (Or 600,000 increased lives.)

Luigi.

Luigi actually has one of the weakest label beginnings of all the super mario characters in the Mario universe (once again displaying why, in life that is real, he would have a bigger inferiority complex than Frank Stallone, Abel or that 3rd Manning brother).

"Luigi" is simply the result of a team of Japanese men working to consider an Italian label to enhance "Mario." Why was that the Italian name they went with? When they all moved from Japan to Seattle, the pizza place nearest to the Nintendo headquarters referred to as Mario & Luigi's. (It has since gone out of business.)

Koopa.

Koopa is a transliterated version of the Japanese name for the enemy turtles, "Kuppa." Stick with me right here -- kuppa is the Japanese term for a Korean recipe referred to as gukbap. Generally it is a cup of soup with cereal. From what I surely explain to it is totally not related to turtles, especially malicious ones.

In an interview, Mario's author, Shigeru Miyamoto, explained he was deciding between 3 labels which are distinct for the high-speed of evil turtles, each one of that were called after Korean foods. (The other two were yukhoe and bibimbap.) And that means one of 2 things: (one) Miyamoto adores Korean food and wanted to offer a tribute or (two) Miyamoto thinks Koreans are evil and really should be jumped on.

Wario.

I kind of skipped the debut of Wario -- he debuted in 1992, right around when I was hitting the era exactly where I was too awesome for cartoon y Nintendo games. (Me and my middle school buddies happened to be into Genesis only. I was again on Nintendo within 4 years.)

Turns out his label operates both equally in Japanese and english; I kinda assumed the English manner but did not know about the Japanese feature. In English, he is an evil, bizarro community mirror image of Mario. The "M" flips to be a "W" and Wario is produced. The name likewise operates in Japanese, wherever it's a combination of Mario as well as "warui," that implies "bad."

That's a really high quality scenario, since, as I covered extensively in the list 11 Worst Japanese-To-English Translations In Nintendo History, don't assume all language disparity finesses back and forth very efficiently.

Waluigi.

When I initially heard "Waluigi" I believed it was hilarious. While Wario became a natural counterbalance to Mario, Waluigi felt extremely comically shoehorned (just tacking the "wa" prefix before Luigi) -- including a giant inside joke that somehow cleared each and every bureaucratic phase and then cracked the mainstream.

Well... in accordance with the Nintendo people, Waluigi is not only a gloriously lazy decision or maybe an inside joke gone massive. They *say* it's based upon the Japanese word ijiwaru, which means "bad guy."

I do not know. I feel as if we'd have to cater for them more than halfway to buy that.

Toad.

Toad is made to look as a mushroom (or toadstool) because of his gigantic mushroom hat. It is a good thing the games debuted before the entire version knew how to make penis jokes.

Anyway, in Japan, he's called Kinopio, which happens to be a blend of the term for mushroom ("kinoko") and also the Japanese variant of Pinocchio ("pinokio"). Those combine being something around the lines of "A Real Mushroom Boy."

Goomba.

In Japanese, the guys are referred to as kuribo, which regularly translates to "chestnut people." That makes sense because, ya know, if somebody expected you "what do chestnut people seem like?" you'd probably arrive at something nearly like the heroes.

When they were imported for the American model, the staff stuck with the Italian initiative of theirs and also known as them Goombas... primarily based off the Italian "goombah," that colloquially will mean something like "my fellow Italian friend." Furthermore, it type of evokes the photo of low level mafia hooligans without very a lot of competencies -- like people's younger brothers and cousins who they'd to employ or maybe mom would yell at them. Which also applies to the Mario Bros. goombas.

Birdo.

Birdo has practically nothing to do with this particular initial Japanese name. There, he's considered Kyasarin, which regularly results in "Catherine."

In the training manual for Super Mario Bros. 2, in which Birdo debuted, the character description of his reads: "Birdo thinks he is a woman and additionally would like for being named Birdetta."

What I believe all this means? Nintendo shockingly decided to develop a character who struggles with the gender identity of his and named him Catherine. In the event it was time to come to America, they got feet that are cold so they resolved at the last second to contact him Birdo, although he's a dinosaur. (And don't offer me the "birds are descended from dinosaurs" pop-paleontology series. Not shopping for that connection.) In that way, we would only know about the gender confusion of his if we read the manual, and the Japanese had been confident Americans had been sometimes too idle or even illiterate to do so en masse.

Princess Toadstool/Peach.

When we all got released to the Princess, she was known as Princess Toadstool. I guess this made sense -- Mario was set in the Mushroom Kingdom, so why wouldn't its monarch be known as Princess Toadstool. Them inbreeding blue bloods are always naming their children after the country.

No person seems to be sure why they went that direction, though. In Japan, she was recognized as Princess Peach from day one. That name didn't debut here before 1993, when Yoshi's Safari came out for Super Nintendo. (By the manner -- have you played Yoshi's Safari? In a bizarre twist it is a first-person shooter, the only one in the whole Mario history. It's as the equivalent of a country music superstar putting out a weird rock album.)

Bowser.

In Japan, there's no Bowser. He's simply known as the King Koopa (or perhaps related modifications, like Great Demon King Koopa). So just where did Bowser come from?

During the import method, there was a concern that the American crowd wouldn't recognize how the seemingly insignificant turtles and big bad guy could both be called Koopa. So a marketing staff developed dozens of selections for a title, they adored Bowser the very best, and also slapped it on him.

In Japan, he's nevertheless hardly ever known as Bowser. Around here, his name has become very ubiquitous that he's even supplanted Sha Na Na's Bowzer as America's many famous Bowser.

Donkey Kong.

This's a much more literal interpretation than you think. "Kong" is based off King Kong. "Donkey" is a family friendly means of calling him an ass. That's right: His name is a valuable version of "Ass Ape."

Mario Bros. offers 2 plumbers, Mario as well as Luigi, being forced to explore the sewers of New York after peculiar creatures have already been appearing awful there. The aim on the game is defeating all of the adversaries within each stage. The aspects of Mario Bros. involve only jogging and also jumping. Compared with succeeding Mario games, players cannot jump on adversaries as well as squash them, except if they were already switched on their back. Every phase is many platforms with pipes in every space belonging to the display screen, along with an item called a "POW" clog up inside the middle. Phases utilize wraparound, which means that foes and players which go above to just one edge will reappear about the opposite side.

The player gains details by defeating multiple adversaries consecutively which enables it to get involved within an extra round to gain a lot more points. Enemies are defeated by kicking them more than as soon as they've been flipped on the backside of theirs. This is carried out by punching in the wedge the adversary is on directly below them. In case the professional allows a lot of time to successfully pass right after doing this, the adversary will flip itself back over, modifying as part of color and raising speed. Every stage has a specific amount of enemies, while using the last enemy immediately changing color and also maximizing to optimum velocity. Impacting a flipped opponent from underneath leads to it to correctly itself and begin moving forward again, however, it does not modify color. or speed

There are four enemies: the Shellcreeper, that just hikes around; the Sidestepper, that involves two hits to flip over; the Fighter Fly, that moves by getting and can only be flipped when it's touching a platform; and also the Slipice, which transforms os's to slippery ice. When bumped of below, the Slipice expires at once instead of flipping over; the opponents do not be counted to the entire quantity that have to be defeated to finalize a phase. All iced operating systems visit normal in the commencement of every new phase.

The "POW" block flips all foes touching a platform or maybe the flooring when a player hits it from below. It can certainly be used 3 instances before it disappears. During the Super Mario Bros. three in game Player-Versus-Player edition of this minigame, every one of the three applications can cause the foe to shed a card and most of the adversaries to get flipped over. One more element in this tiny remake is that the piping are in a straight line, often spitting away big fireballs in the 2 plumbers. When whatever opponent type except a Slipice is defeated, a coin appears and also can be acquired for extra points; however, the level concludes as soon as the final enemy is defeated.

As the game moves along, elements are included to take the trouble. Fireballs either bounce over the display screen or travel directly from one edge to the various other, and also icicles kind beneath the operating systems as well as fall completely loose. Bonus rounds provide the players a chance to score spare details and lives by collecting coins with no having to address enemies; the "POW" block regenerates itself on each of these screens.

[constantschley-blog]

How had been selected the Names for Super Mario

The origin of the Mario sequence! Would you like to come together or...or against each and every other...?!

Mario Bros. is an action game produced by Nintendo found 1983.

It's the original game which pre-owned "Mario" in the title. Control Mario or Luigi to be able to value the adversaries coming out of pipes from underneath to convert them over and then conquer them. Inside the two-player setting, each players can choose to work together or do the job against each other as well as enjoy the game within many ways.

The "Arcade Archives" sequence has faithfully reproduced numerous standard Arcade masterpieces.

Players can alter various game options like game difficulty, plus likewise reproduce the aura of arcade display settings during that time. Players can also compete against one another from all over the world because of their superior scores.

Please love the masterpiece which built a version for footage games.

Could you produce a film from a video game? That is the doubting that's answered by this movie. Mario Mario in addition to the Luigi Mario, two hard performing plumbers find out themselves inside a different universe where grown dinosaurs live in medium hi-tech squalor. They find themselves the sole anticipation to save the environment from your invasion.

This is the story of two hard-working Italian plumber brothers named Mario Mario as well as Luigi Mario, exactly who befriends a paleontologist named Daisy. An enormous get of mystical brand new dinosaur bones are uncovered by her. While examining the tunnels wherein dinosaur fossils lay, saboteurs selected with the Mario Bros. rival businessman, Anthony Scapelli, to break some underground piping. Meanwhile, within a secret planet identified as Dinohattan, King Koopa's farm land is close to exhausting much of its clean water and running through difficulties thus he transmits Spike along with Iggy to kidnap Daisy! The Super Mario Bros. find themselves the only real hope to save the earth from intrusion then challenge a diabolical lizard king and so they need to fight giant reptilian goombas, outwit misfit criminals, and also challenge sinister scheme by taking of the world!

Luigi and Mario, two wacky plumbers, tackle a daring pursuit in order to save a princess inside Dinohattan -- a hidden earth where the inhabitants developed from dinosaurs! Mario and Luigi deal with dangerous challenges from a diabolical lizard king and also must battle gigantic reptilian goombas, outwit misfit criminals, and ruin a sinister system to take control of the world!

2 Brooklyn plumbers, Luigi and Mario, should travel to yet another dimension to rescue a princess from the evil dictator King Koopa and stop him from shooting over the world.

When I found that out I did 2 things. For starters, I whipped out my copy (yes, I maintain it that real/nerdy which I still need an older NES hooked up in my room) and made confident I will be able to match the game at will. (I can. Childhood not wasted.)

Secondly, I started down a rabbit hole of looking through Mario websites as well as Articles and Wikis. In the process, I stumbled upon the etymologies of the labels of a few of the key players in the Mario universe. Therefore, in honor of the video game that changed the globe, in this article they're, given in useful 11-item list form.

Mario.

When Mario debuted in the arcade game "Donkey Kong", he was simply known as Jumpman. (Which additionally actually is the generic name associated with that Michael Jordan dispersed leg Nike logo. Two of the most celebrated icons ever before each have generic versions of themselves referred to as Jumpman. But simply at least one has nowadays gotten to a point of being extremely effective that he shaved himself a Hitler mustache prior to filming a business and the balls were had by nobody to correct him.)

In 1980, as the Nintendo of America crew shipped Jumpman to elevate him right into a franchise-leading star (Hayden Christensen style), an individual discovered that he looked just like their Seattle office building's landlord... a guy named Mario Segale.

Mario Segale didn't get yourself a cent for turning out to be the namesake of pretty much the most well known video game character perhaps, however, he most likely isn't absurdly concerned; in 1998 he sold the asphalt small business of his for over sixty dolars million. (Or 600,000 extra lives.)

Luigi.

Luigi has one of probably the weakest name roots of all of the mario princesses in the Mario universe (once again displaying precisely why, in actual life, he would have a greater inferiority complicated compared to Frank Stallone, Abel or that third Manning brother).

"Luigi" is merely the product of a team of Japanese guys attempting to consider an Italian brand to accentuate "Mario." Why was that the Italian brand they went with? When they all moved from Japan to Seattle, the pizza place nearby to the Nintendo headquarters known as Mario & Luigi's. (It has since gone out of business.)

Koopa.

Koopa is a transliterated model of the Japanese name for the enemy turtles, "Kuppa." Stick with me here -- kuppa is the Japanese phrase for a Korean recipe called gukbap. Essentially it is a cup of soup with cereal. From what I definitely tell it is completely unrelated to turtles, particularly malicious ones.

In an interview, Mario's creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, explained he was deciding between three brands which are distinct because of the race of evil turtles, each one of which have been named after Korean foods. (The alternative two were yukhoe and bibimbap.) And that means among 2 things: (1) Miyamoto adores Korean foods and was looking to offer a tribute or even (2) Miyamoto believes Koreans are evil and have to be jumped on.

Wario.

I sort of overlooked the debut of Wario -- he debuted in 1992, right around when I was hitting the age where I was too awesome for cartoon y Nintendo games. (Me and the middle school buddies of mine happened to be into Genesis only. I was again on Nintendo within four years.)

Appears the name of his works both in english and Japanese; I kinda assumed the English manner but didn't know about the Japanese feature. In English, he's an evil, bizarro community mirror image of Mario. The "M" turns to turn into a "W" and Wario is produced. The name also works in Japanese, when it's a combination of Mario and "warui," that indicates "bad."

That's a really great scenario, since, as I covered thoroughly in the summary 11 Worst Japanese-To-English Translations In Nintendo History, don't assume all language difference finesses back as well as forth as efficiently.

Waluigi.

When I initially seen "Waluigi" I thought it was hilarious. While Wario became an all natural counterbalance to Mario, Waluigi felt really comically shoehorned (just tacking the "wa" prefix before Luigi) -- like a giant inside joke that somehow cleared every bureaucratic step and then cracked the mainstream.

Well... in accordance with the Nintendo folks, Waluigi is not only a gloriously lazy choice or perhaps an inside joke gone huge. They *say* it is based upon the Japanese phrase ijiwaru, meaning "bad guy."

I don't understand. I sense that we would have to supply them more than halfway to get that.

Toad.

Toad is built to look like a mushroom (or toadstool) thanks to the gigantic mushroom hat of his. It is a good thing these gaming systems debuted before the entire generation understood the right way to generate penis jokes.

Anyway, in Japan, he's called Kinopio, which is certainly a mixture of the word for mushroom ("kinoko") as well as the Japanese version of Pinocchio ("pinokio"). Those blend to be something along the lines of "A Real Mushroom Boy."

Goomba.

In Japanese, these men are defined as kuribo, that results in "chestnut people." That is sensible because, ya know, if another person expected you "what do chestnut individuals appear to be like?" you'd probably arrive at something nearly similar to these heroes.

Once they had been brought in for the American version, the team tangled with their Italian initiative and known as them Goombas... based off of the Italian "goombah," that colloquially will mean anything as "my fellow Italian friend." Furthermore, it type of evokes the photo of low-level mafia criminals without very a lot of expertise -- like people's younger brothers and cousins who they had to employ or maybe mother would yell at them. That also is true for the Mario Bros. goombas.

Birdo.

Birdo has nothing to do with this original Japanese title. There, he's named Kyasarin, that typically results in "Catherine."

In the instruction manual for Super Mario Bros. 2, in which Birdo debuted, his character explanation reads: "Birdo thinks he is a woman and additionally wants being called Birdetta."

What I believe this all means? Nintendo shockingly chosen to develop a character who battles with the gender identity of his and then referred to as him Catherine. In the event it was time to show up to America, they got feet which are cold so they determined at the last minute to telephone call him Birdo, even though he's a dinosaur. (And do not offer me the "birds are descended from dinosaurs" pop-paleontology line. Not purchasing that connection.) In that way, we would only understand about the gender confusion of his in case we have a look at mechanical, and the Japanese had been fairly certain Americans had been sometimes too lazy or perhaps illiterate to accomplish that en masse.

Princess Toadstool/Peach.

When everyone got released on the Princess, she was recognized as Princess Toadstool. I assume this made good sense -- Mario was put in the Mushroom Kingdom, so why would not its monarch be named Princess Toadstool. Them inbreeding bluish bloods are usually naming the kids of theirs after the country.

No person appears to be sure precisely why they went the direction, however. In Japan, she was known as Princess Peach from day one. The title didn't debut here before 1993, when Yoshi's Safari arrived on the scene for Super Nintendo. (By the manner by which -- have you ever played Yoshi's Safari? In an off-the-wall twist it is a first-person shooter, the only woman in the whole Mario times past. It is like something like a country music superstar creating a weird rock album.)

Bowser.

In Japan, there is simply no Bowser. He is simply called the King Koopa (or similar variants, including Great Demon King Koopa). And so exactly where did Bowser come from?

During the import process, there was a problem that the American masses wouldn't understand how the small turtles and big bad gentleman could very well both be named Koopa. Thus a marketing staff developed a large number of selections for a title, they adored Bowser the best, and slapped it on him.

In Japan, he is still hardly ever known as Bowser. Over here, the name of his is now very ubiquitous that he's actually supplanted Sha Na Na's Bowzer as America's most well known Bowser.

Donkey Kong.

This is a much more literal interpretation than you think. "Kong" is based off King Kong. "Donkey" is a family-friendly means of calling him an ass. That's right: The name of his is an useful model of "Ass Ape."

.

[sparkynekolinz13]

Anime I’ve Watched

Okay, here’s this massive post!

My roomie/best friend, Amanda, has gotten me into watching new anime as it comes out every season. We’ve been doing this since college, either 8 or 9 years ago, and it’s accumulated in a crapton of shows that we’ve watched. Obviously I’ve liked some more than others, and I can’t remember every single show I’ve watched, and with so many to list, it’s hard to think of shows I’ve seen when people ask me.

So I’m going to use this as a way to track all the shows I’ve watched!

I’m going to list shows that I’ve seen more than just a few episodes of. There are a ton of shows I’ve started watching, but then quit. Those aren’t going to count here.

Also, I’m going to use the titles I’m used to, so there will likely be a lot of Japanese titles of shows that I’ve noticed are more popular with the English title. I honestly don’t know the English title of some of them. XD;; It’s just how I’ve watched them. I will add akas where there is more than one version of the title.

I’ve watched all of these in Japanese, unless I specify that I watched it in English. The first few shows I watched in my life were in English, and so I tend to only watch those in English even now, but now I’m a Japanese snob and refuse to watch dubs. XD

07 Ghost

91 Days

ACCA

Ace Attorney (aka Gyakuten Saiban)

Ace of Diamond (aka Diamond no Ace)

Active Raid

Akagami no Shirayuki-hime (aka Snow White with the Red Hair)

Akatsuki no Yona (aka Yona of the Dawn)

Aldnoah.Zero (though don’t ask me about it; I hate it; I call it “That Show”)

All Out!!

Amaama to Inazuma (aka Sweetness & Lightning)

Antique Bakery

Ao Haru Ride (aka Blue Spring Ride)

Aoharu x Kikanjuu (aka Aoharu x Machinegun)

Arcana Famiglia (aka La storia della Arcana Famiglia)

Area no Kishi (aka The Knight in the Area)

Argevollen (aka Shirogane no Ishi Argevollen)

Arslan Senki (aka The Heroic Legend of Arslan)

Atom The Beginning

B-PROJECT

Baby Steps

Baccano!

Bakuman

Bakumatsu Rock

Barakamon

Battery

Big Windup! (aka Ookiku Furikabutte, or Oofuri)

Binan Koukou Chikyuu Bouei-bu Love! (aka Cute High Earth Defense Club LOVE!)

Black Cat (in English)

Bleach

Blood Lad

Boku no Hero Academia (aka My Hero Academia, or HeroAca)

Bonjour Koiaji Patisserie (aka BONJOUR Sweet Love Patisserie)

Boruto (the movie; I’ve only seen a bit of the anime)

Brave 10

Brothers Conflict

Buddy Complex

Bungo Stray Dogs

Captain Earth

Cardcaptor Sakura (in English, as Cardcaptors)

Cardfight!! Vanguard (not all of it, but enough of it to list it)

Case Closed (but only the episodes Funimation aired on their channel, in English)

Cheer Danshi!! (aka Cheer Boys!!)

Chihayafuru

Chiruran Nibun no Ichi (aka Chiruran 1/2)

ClassicaLoid

Classroom Crisis

(La) Corda d’Oro Blue Sky

Cuticle Detective Inaba

D.Gray-man

Dagashi Kashi

Damekko Doubutsu

Dance with Devils

Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou (aka Daily Lives of High School Boys)

Dantalian no Shoka (aka The Mystic Archives of Dantalian)

Darker than Black

DAYS

Death Note

Death Parade

Devil Survivor 2 The animation

Digimon (seasons 1 and 2, and part of 4, in English)

Dimension W

DIVE!!

Divine Gate

Dragon Ball Z (parts of it, in English)

Dream Festival!

Durarara!! (only the first season)

Earl and Fairy

Endride (about half?)

Fairy Tail (only like the first season or two, I think)

Fate/Apocrypha (still in progress, but I’m not planning on quitting atm)

Fate/stay night

Fate/Zero (I didn’t finish it, but I watched the majority of it)

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (movie)

Fireball Charming

Flying Witch

Free!

Fruits Basket (in English)

Fudanshi Koukou Seikatsu (aka The Highschool Life of a Fudanshi)

Fukigen na Mononokean (aka The Morose Mononokean)

Fune wo Amu (aka The Great Passage)

Galilei Donna

Gallery Fake (didn’t finish it, but watched about half or more)

Gangsta.

GATE

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun (aka Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun)

Getbackers (haven’t finished it, but I want to)

Gifuu Doudou!! Kanetsugu to Keiji

Gingitsune

Gintama

Granblue Fantasy the Animation

Grave of the Fireflies (movie, in English; had to watch it for a class...never again)

Grimoire of Zero (aka Zero Kara Hajimeru Mahou no Sho)

Gugure! Kokkuri-san

Gundam Build Fighters

Gundam Build Fighters Try (counting this as separate since it’s a different generation)

Haikyu!!

Hakkenden: Eight Dogs of the East

Hakuouki (aka Hakuoki: Demon of the Fleeting Blossom)

Hamatora

Hanasakeru Seishounen (only about half)

HaruChika: Haruta to Chika wa Seishun Suru (aka Haruchika - Haruta & Chika)

Hataraku Maou-sama! (aka The Devil is a Part-Timer!)

Heat Guy J

Hetalia Axis Powers (not all of it)

Hibike! Euphonium (aka Sound! Euphonium)

Hikaru no Go (haven’t finished it, but I’d like to)

Hotarubi no Morie e (movie)

Howl’s Moving Castle (movie, in English)

Houzuki no Reitetsu (aka Hozuki’s Coolheadedness)

Hunter x Hunter (2011; not all of it, but a good portion)

Inari, Konkon, Koi Iroha (aka Inari Kon Kon)

Inuyasha (in English; not all of it yet)

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure (aka JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken)

Joker Game

K

Kabukibu!

Kaichou wa Maid-sama! (aka Maid Sama!)

Kami-sama no Memo-chou (aka Heaven’s Memo Pad)

Kamigami no Asobi

Kamisama Hajimemashita (aka Kamisama Kiss)

Kamisama no Inai Nichiyoubi (aka Kami-Nai aka Sunday Without God)

Karneval

Katekyo Hitman Reborn! (not all of it, but a good portion)

Katsugeki! Touken Ranbu

Kekkai Sensen (aka Blood Blockade Battlefront)

Kenka Banchou Otome: Girl Beats Boys

Kimi to Boku (aka You and Me.)

Konbini Kareshi (aka Convenience Store Boy Friends)

Kuroko no Basuke (aka Kuroko’s Basketball aka The basketball which Kuroko plays....that version of the title always cracks me up)

Kuromukuro

Kuroshitsuji (aka Black Butler; not all of it)

Kyoukai no Kanata (aka Beyond the Boundary)

Kyoukai no Rinne (aka RIN-NE; about a season and a half)

(The) Legend of the Legendary Heroes

Library War (aka Toshokan Sensou)

Log Horizon

Magic Kaito: 1412

Magic-kyun! Renaissance

Mahou Sensou (aka Magical Warfare)

Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro (aka Neuro - Supernatural Detective)

Makai Ouji: Devils and Realist (aka just Devils and Realist)

Makura no Danshi

Marginal#4 Kiss Kara Tsukuru Big Bang (aka MARGINAL #4 the Animation)

Medaka Box

Meganebu!

Miracle Train - Ooedo-sen e Yookoso

Mobile Suit Gundam

Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn RE:0096

Mobile Suit Gundam Wing

Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam

Moribito - Guardian of the Spirit

Nana Maru San Batsu (aka Fastest Finger First)

Nanbaka

Naruto

Naruto Shippuuden (not all of it; got tired of all the fillers and stopped watching)

Natsume Yuujin-Chou (aka Natsume’s Book of Friends)

Nijiiro Days (aka Rainbow Days)

No. 6

Nobunaga no Shinobi (aka Ninja Girl & Samurai Master)

Nobunagun (only saw about half; want to finish it someday)

Noragami

Norn9 - Norn + Nonette

Nurarihyon no Mago (aka Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan)

One Punch Man

Onihei

Ore Monogatari!! (aka My Love Story!!)

Orenchi no Furo Jijou

Ooshitsu Kyoushi Heine (aka The Royal Tutor)

Otome Youkai Zakuro (aka just Zakuro)

Ouran High School Host Club

Overlord

Pandora Hearts (I can’t remember if I’ve seen the entire anime, or just a good portion of it)

Peacemaker Kurogane (I haven’t finished it yet...)

Peach Girl (in English)

Persona 4: The Animation

Phantasy Star Online 2: The Animation

Phi-Brain - Kami no Puzzle (aka Phi-Brain - Puzzle of God)

Pokémon (in English; only like the first two or three seasons, and the first...4? movies)

Prince of Stride: Alternative

(The) Prince of Tennis (aka Tennis no Ouji-sama; almost all of it)

Princess Mononoke (aka Mononoke Hime; movie)

Psycho-Pass (not the second season)

Re:CREATORS

ReLIFE

Rokka no Yuusha (aka Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers)

Saiki Kusuo no Psi Nan (aka The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.)

Sailor Moon (in English; a good portion of it, and the 3 movies)

Saint Seiya

Saint Seiya: Legend of Sanctuary (movie)

Saiunkoku Monogatari (The Story of Saiunkoku)

Saiyuki

Sakamoto desu ga? (aka Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto)

Scared Rider Xechs (aka Scar-red Rider XechS; didn’t finish it)

Seikai Suru Kado (aka KADO - The Right Answer)

Sekkou Boys

Sengoku Basara (just the first season and the movie)

Servamp

Servant x Service

Shingeki no Bahamut Genesis (aka Rage of Bahamut: Genesis)

Shingeki no Bahamut VIRGIN SOUL (aka Rage of Bahamut: Virgin Soul)

Shirokuma Café (aka Polar Bear’s Café)

Shoukoku no Altair (aka Altair: A Record of Battles; ongoing, but I’m not planning on dropping it)

Shounen Hollywood - Holly Stage for 49

Shounen Maid

Shonen Onmyouji

Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu (and the second season, Descending Stories)

Sket Dance (not all of it, but a good portion)

Skip Beat!

Spirited Away (movie, in English)

STARMYU (aka High School Star Musical)

Starry Sky

Steamboy (movie, in English)

Super GALS! (in English; probably not even half of it, but more than just a few episodes)

Switch (OVA)

Taboo Tattoo (I watched until B.B. died; he was the only reason I watched the show in the first place)

Tanaka-kun wa Itsumo Kedaruge (aka Tanaka-kun is Always Listless)

Tegami Bachi (aka Letter Bee)

Tiger & Bunny (plus both movies)

Toaru Hikuushi e no Koiuta (aka The Pilot’s Love Song)

Tokyo Ravens

Tonari no Seki-kun

Tono to Issho (but just the original OVA, not the TV series)

Toriko (about half? maybe?)

Touken Ranbu: Hanamaru

Trickster (like...7 episodes or something?)

Trigun

TsukiPro the Animation (only 3 episodes so far, but I’m definitely planning on watching all of it)

Tsukiuta. THE ANIMATION

tsuritama

(The) Twelve Kingdoms (maybe about half?)

Uchouten Kazoku (aka The Eccentric Family)

Udon no Kuni no Kiniro Kemari (aka Poco’s Udon World)

Un-Go

Ushio to Tora (aka Ushio & Tora)

Uta no Prince-sama (aka UtaPri)

Utakoi (aka Chouyaku Hyakunin Isshu: Uta Koi)

Utawarerumono: Itsuwari no Kamen (aka Utawarerumono: The False Faces; not all of it)

Vatican Miracle Examiner (aka Vatican Kiseki Chousakan)

Watashi ga Motete Dousunda (aka Kiss Him, Not Me)

Weiss Kreuz (aka Knight Hunters)

Welcome to the Ballroom (aka Ballroom e Youkoso)

Working!! (aka Wagnaria!!)

X

Yakitate!! Japan (maybe like 20-ish episodes?)

Yamada-kun to 7-nin no Majo (aka Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches)

Youkai Apaato no Yuuga na Nichijou (aka Elegant Yokai Apartment Life; still ongoing, but it’s been about 14-15 episodes now)

Young Black Jack

Yowamushi Pedal

Yu Yu Hakusho: Ghost Files (in English; never finished it, but wanted to)

Yuri!!! on Ice

Zetsuen no Tempest (aka Blast of Tempest)

And that’s all of them! I missed a couple while I was going through, so I might be missing a couple, but...this is theoretically all of the shows I’ve watched! Well, that I’ve watched more than like 5 episodes of. There’s a ton more shows that I’ve only watched like 1-5 episodes of, haha. I don’t need to make a list of that...

[dweemeister]

Lost Horizon (1937)

Asia and Europe were about to plunge into warfare when Frank Capra’s Lost Horizon was released in American theaters. The Chinese, mired in civil war between the Communist Party and the nationalist Kuomintang, were about to find a common enemy in the Japanese. Meanwhile, Nazi Germany continued its saber-rattling, leaving other European states looking nervously towards the continent’s increasingly militarized center. At this time, Americans, still reeling from the Depression and not yet too concerned about enforcing Wilsonian human rights elsewhere, longed for escape, for being sheltered from the news and conflict and suffering. A utopia, a Shangri-La, must have seemed appealing. The Shangri-La depicted in Lost Horizon – based on James Hilton’s 1933 novel of the same name – might fit the bill, without closer inspection.

It is 1935 and soon-to-be Foreign Secretary Robert Conway (the reliable Ronald Colman, performing solidly in this outing) is a diplomat working to evacuate as many white people as he can from a city under attack from Mao’s Communists. The Chinese heathen can fend for themselves, I guess. Among those climbing aboard the diplomatic plane to Shanghai are Conway’s younger brother George (John Howard), paleontologist Alexander Lovett (Edward Everett Horton), criminal Henry Barnard (Thomas Mitchell), and the terminally ill Gloria Stone (Isabel Jewell). Their plane has been hijacked and crash lands somewhere in the Himalayas. A Shangri-La native, Chang (H.B. Warner; one of many white actors playing an Asian character), rescues the British subjects and leads them to his home, a lush valley where the residents age much slower and are shielded from the brutal Tibetan weather. There, George is enchanted by a lady named Maria (Margo) and Gloria’s ailments have disappeared. Conway also meets the High Lama (Sam Jaffe), who eventually reveals that their arrival in Shangri-La has not been by chance. When the British characters raise questions about contacting the outside world, their questions are left unanswered.

With an original runtime of six hours, then trimmed to three-and-a-half hours, and finally settled for a runtime of just over two hours (today, the film is considered partially lost, but more on that later), Lost Horizon’s screenplay – penned by Capra regular Robert Riskin (1934′s It Happened One Night, 1941′s Meet John Doe) – appears to be an amalgam of ideas, tossed like a salad, that combine into an unfocused end product. The notion of Shangri-La and its inhabitants is proclaimed to be universalist, for the bounty of all those looking to coexist with others. But Riskin’s adaptation of Hilton’s novel adheres to Hilton’s conception that Shangri-La was once inhabited by native Tibetans, and that those Tibetan leaders were replaced by European wanderers who introduced Western knowledge for themselves, not for the Tibetans who could no longer attain an elite status. A “Christian ethic” where, “the meek shall inherit the Earth” is considered superior to other structures of social organization, according to the High Lama (as sociology, that’s just lazy writing). Riskin makes little attempt to either critique the existing organization of Shangri-La nor does he – outside of one lengthy soliloquy by the High Lama – use the shining example of Shangri-La to effectively juxtapose life in the Himalayas with life in places soon to be reduced to charred, damaged battlefields. However, as a fantasy film, Lost Horizon wonderfully constructs the awesome settings described in the Hilton novel.

Though few in 1937 criticized Lost Horizon for its Atlanticist imperialism upon release, those features are more apparent eighty years later. Considered a masterwork from Frank Capra, the film has aged poorly on how it treats the Asian setting and individuals that it depicts. Though the High Lama and Chang mention the diversity of Shangri-La, we only see white actors in yellowface playing the leaders as the actors of Asian descent play the speechless grunts patrolling the settlement. The High Lama’s functions are an embodiment of the perceived religious, cultural, and technological superiority of the West combined with an awkward mysticism that stems from exotic places. The backwardness of any Asian characters reduces them to grinning, violent caricatures.

Yet where Lost Horizon succeeds as a film – though despicable in its racialized writing and portrayals – is in its technical components. Cinematographers Joseph Walker and Elmer Dyer are allowed immense backgrounds to work with, allowing for an incredible scope to the production not often seen after the free-spending epics in the later silent era. Editors Gene Havlick and Gene Milford play with the film’s practical visual effects in groundbreaking fashion for the time. Some of their visual tricks, borrowing heavily from the later silent era, make any miniatures or matte paintings that appear to seem realistic. With a then-astronomical budget of $2 million (~$34 million in 2017′s USD), Capra lavished much of that money from Columbia Pictures – in 1937, Columbia was not quite a major studio on the level of Warner Bros. or Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) yet – on the production design by Stephen Goosson. Goosson and his staff built sixty-five sets, constructing the walls and buildings of Shangri-La at Columbia’s ranch in Burbank. Extensive research also produced replications of upwards of 700 props used in Tibetan life. This expansive collaboration of cinematographers, editors, and production designers help Lost Horizon to transcend its Orientalist trappings, its troubled writing, if only to a limited extent.

Lost Horizon presented a breakthrough for composer Dimitri Tiomkin, who would become Frank Capra’s favored composer through You Can’t Take It with You (1938), into Capra’s Why We Fight WWII propaganda series, and until It’s a Wonderful Life (1946). Over this next decade, Tiomkin’s concentration on piano and European classical music expanded to grand orchestral works with American influences thanks to his friendship with Capra. But for this first score for a Capra film, the strings dominate the faux Eastern-sounding melodies – there is a long history of European composers trying to imagine Asia through their music. Although in too many places (especially in the opening half of Lost Horizon), Tiomkin’s brass is too harsh where he should be more delicate with his passages. Yet there are gorgeous cues contained within Tiomkin’s composition, most notably during the swimming sequence and the resolving sequences of the film – this includes the funeral procession (perhaps the most memorable cue of the score, thanks to a wordless choir) and an attempted flight from Shangri-La. This is one of Tiomkin’s greatest works, with a curious orchestration and thematic development that would be recalled for his work in Land of the Pharaohs (1955).

Existing prints of Lost Horizon are partially lost. The print that I saw for this write-up was on Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and is the most complete edition available. This print is the one recommended for those interested in seeing Lost Horizon – the 1986 restoration by the American Film Institute (AFI) and the UCLA Film and Television Archive which runs 132 minutes and contains 125 minutes of footage. The seven missing minutes are accompanied by the film’s soundtrack (which thankfully exists in its entirety), but includes still images of the missing scenes. Do not watch any other prints other than the AFI/UCLA version – exceptions can be made, of course, if you stumble upon the original six hour print only shown to Columbia executives.

For Columbia’s co-founder and president Harry Cohn, Capra’s indiscretions of shooting excessive takes and ballooning production costs damaged his relationship with Capra. Unhappy with preview footage screened in January 1937, Cohn – believing that audiences would not be patient enough with a lengthy feature film despite the fact that some silent films ran over three hours or longer (1916′s Intolerance is 210 minutes; 1923′s La Roue is 273 minutes) – eventually seized Capra’s film from him and cut Lost Horizon down to the familiar 132 minutes seen in its roadshow format. Decades later, Capra still would not forgive Cohn for how he treated the final cut of Lost Horizon.

Confounded by too much exposition and an outdated portrayal of its Asian characters and cultures, Lost Horizon –  like fellow 1937 release The Good Earth (a better movie with a more sensitive take on Asian characters, despite the rampant yellowface) – has the imagination of its artisans and craftspersons to make it one of the grandest Hollywood productions of the 1930s. The eleventh-highest grossing film at the American box office in 1937, Lost Horizon provided a temporary utopia for Depression-era audiences yearning for such an escape. The Library of Congress’ National Film Registry - a collection of American films regarded as national treasures, and marked for preservation - recognized this, inducting Capra’s film into the Registry just last year. For some characters in Lost Horizon, Shangri-La is paradise found. For others, a prison. Modern audiences might scoff without much thought when considering the elements that constitute Shangri-La. But for a certain people in a different time, whatever troubled Shangri-La probably was more easily forgiven.

My rating: 8/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found here.

[tainbocuailnge]

How to play Fate/Grand Order: simple version

This guide is meant to get you started and won’t go into the nitty gritty details of game mechanics. It’s mostly a collection of “press here to make the game do X” for people who don’t know a single word of japanese. I’m a lategame player so my game will look different from a beginner’s in terms of what’s available to me, but the basics are the same.

General tips

Whenever there’s a confirmation screen, the button on the right is “yes” and the button on the left is “no”. A white button in the bottom right corner is almost always a confirmation button too.

You can look up the details of what every Skill, Noble Phantasm, Craft Essence, etc. does on the wiki. The wiki will absolutely be your best friend in knowing what the hell everything does.

The main menu

When you start up the game and go past the title screen you will see something like this. 

1) Event information, and a button to head towards the event shop immediately. This is only there during events, and changes with each one. 

2) News banner. This shows whatever events and campaigns are going on.

3) Event quests. Tapping this will send you towards the list of event quests so you can participate. The banner image changes depending on the event (the Valentine’s event in this case). In the bottom right of the banner it shows how long is left of the event.

4) Chaldea gate. Here is the list of daily quests, interludes, and strengthening quests. Daily quests let you get materials needed to power up your Servants. Interludes are side stories that sometimes give a Servant updated skills. Strengthening quests also give skill updates, and can only be done if you have the corresponding Servant fully levelled. The banner image changes slightly depending on what campaigns are going on (the Mysterious Heroine X Alter trial quest in this case) 

Scrolling down will show you the list of singularities you can visit. You have to clear each story chapter to unlock the next one. The red number shows how many uncompleted quests there are left in each singularity.

Going into a singularity will give you a map like this. If you’re still doing the story quest, it will show you a “next” on where the next quest is.

Tapping a node brings up a menu like this. The arrows indicate how many battles are left until you get the reward shown in the box at the right. Pressing the (i) will bring up a list of drops you have gotten from this quest before. An infinity symbol means the quest can be repeated, other quests will disappear once all arrows are completed.

1) Your Master level and how much exp you still need to the next level. You get Master exp from completing quests. I have reached the level cap, so my exp bar is permanently full.

2) Your AP bar. AP is what you need to do quests. Higher level quests take more AP, and your maximum AP increases when your Master level increases. Levelling up restores your AP by 100% (with overflow), and you can also press the + next to the bar to use items that restore it. AP recovers by itself with 1 every 5 minutes.

3) Gift box. Things like login bonuses and items bought in the event shop are sent here. The number shows how many items are currently in it. You can store up to 300 items in your gift box, and items that have been there longer than a year get removed. Some people choose to store things in their gift box to save space in their main inventory.

4) Master missions. Every week there is a new set of simple quests like “defeat X number of Y type of enemy” or “obtain X amount of Y item”. The reward for these is quartz fragments, which can be traded in 7 to 1 for quartz. Quartz is what is used for summoning Servants.

5) Master portrait. It shows the current gender and Mystic Code you have set.

6) How many command seals you have left. I’ll explain command seals when I get to battles.

Hitting the “menu” in the bottom right corner gives you this popup. From left to right:

Battle arrangements - organising your party and support list.

Strengthening - powering up your Servants.

Summoning - obtaining new Servants. The number shows how many summons you can do with your current amount of friend points.

Shop - exchanging various items, and burning cards.

Friends - your current friend list, received friend requests, and your own friend code. The number is how many pending friend requests you have.

My Room - various resources and options.

Battle arrangements

A lot of menus have English subtitles, which makes them a lot easier to navigate.

Party

You can make up to 10 different parties. When starting battle, the first three Servants from the left will be on the frontline, and the other three will replace them in order if they’re defeated. Your party needs a full frontline before it can be used in battles, except for in the earliest story parts. The support slot counts as a Servant in this.

1) The Servant currently in that slot.

2) The Craft Essence (CE) that Servant has equipped. CEs can have a wide range of effects that make fighting easier for your servants, and they also boost base hp and attack.

3) Where the support Servant will go. Early on you will probably depend on support Servants a lot, so you'll want the Support slot to be in the frontline.

4) The Mystic Code you will wear with this party. Tapping it lets you change them around. At first you will only have the white uniform, but you can obtain new Mystic Codes from special quests in Chaldea gate. Each Mystic Code has a different skillset. Mystic Codes gain exp from quests too, and their skills get more powerful when they level up.

5) Switch the order of Servants

6) Rename party

7) Reset party. Tapping this will bring up the following prompt. The left button will only remove CE’s, and the right one will remove Servants too. The bottom is cancel (if you know a bit of katakana: it literally says “cancel”)

8) Show the class triangles and current attack card layout of your party.

9) The cost of your party. Higher rarity Servants and CE’s have a higher cost, so sometimes it’s better to use a weaker Servant with a strong CE. Your max cost increases with your Master level.

1) The numbers show the level of your Servant’s skills. 10 is the highest. 

2) The current level and rarity of your Servant. A grail icon means they’ve been raised above their normal level cap with a grail.

3) The stats of your Servant including the bonus the CE gives. The first number behind COST is that of the Servant, and the second of the CE.

Support

The support window is similar to the party arrangement window, except there is no cost limit, and one slot for each main class plus an all-class slot where you can put Shielder, Ruler, and Avenger class Servants. You can make up to three support layouts. These are the Servants other people will be able to borrow from you. Having people use your Servants earns both you and them friend points, so it’s good to have your strongest servants and CE’s out.

Card

A list of the cards you currently have. This includes exp and fou cards. The buttons above the cards let you switch between Servants and CE’s. Tapping a card will show you detailed info. In a menu where tapping a card will do something else, pressing and holding the card will bring up the details instead. The buttons on the top right let you sort and filter cards by different criteria such as class, cost, level, or date obtained.

Servant details

An overview of the Servant’s stats. The lock icon on the left makes it so a card can’t be accidentally burnt or used to strengthen another card. Servants also have a heart icon which puts them in myroom.

Servants get different outfits and art when they are levelled enough. In the details view you can change what look is used for the command cards, the icon in the card overview, the battle sprite, and the card itself.

Profile (プロフィール) gives the Servant’s profile. Voice (ボイス) lets you listen to their voice clips.

Second Archive

Here you can store cards you don’t want to throw out, but don’t use either. Cards in the second archive can’t be placed in parties, burnt, put in myroom, or used to strengthen other cards. They’re completely untouchable until you take them out of the archive.

1) Switch to archive

2) Switch to main storage

3) If you selected a number of cards, pressing this will deselect them

4) How much space there is in your second archive and how much you’re currently using. The second archive can be expanded in the shop. If you’re looking at the archive, this will show the numbers of your main storage instead.

5) After selecting a number of cards, pressing this will send them to the other storage.

Strengthening

Here you level up your Servants and CE’s

Servant

Tap the large slot on the left to pick the Servant you want to level. Then tap the smaller slots on the right to pick what cards you want to use for it. There are three types of cards you can use for levelling: exp cards, fou cards, and other servants.

Exp cards have a crystal on them, and also have a class. Exp cards give more exp to Servants with a matching class. All-class exp cards will give the bonus to all Servants. Their rarity ranges from 1* to 4*, and each higher rarity gives three times the exp points of the one below it.

Fou cards have a picture of fou on them. Fou cards give very little exp, but they will raise the base attack and hp stats of your servant with a few points. The maximum for this is 990 per stat. Fou cards also have a class, and can only be given to Servants with a matching class. 

Servants can also be used to strengthen other Servants. Don’t think about the implications of this too much.

Skill

Similar to the previous menu. Skills need materials to be levelled, and tapping on a skill icon will show you how many materials and QP you need for that skill. 

Craft Essence

The Craft Essence menu works the same as the Servant menu. The difference is that you can only use other CE’s for exp. Occasionally an event will have CE’s which only function is to give a huge amount of exp.

Levelling a CE with a copy of the same CE will raise its level cap, up to four times. CE’s don’t have to have reached their previous level cap for this. On the fourth time, the special effect of the CE will also become stronger. Levelling a CE will increase the attack and hp bonuses it gives.

Ascension

Ascending a Servant raises their level cap, changes their outfit and artwork, and makes them learn new skills. You can ascend each servant up to four times. Ascending a Servant costs materials, and you can only ascend a Servant when they have reached their previous level cap. The highest level a Servant can reach this way depends on their rarity. The main reason higher rarity servants are stronger is because their level cap is far higher.

Noble Phantasm

Copies of the same Servant can be used to increase their Noble Phantasm power. It has to be the exact same Servant, so you can’t use for example a Lancer Cu Chulainn to level the Noble Phantasm of Caster Cu Chulainn. The maximum level for Noble Phantasms is 5.

Palingenesis

Also known as Grail Ascension. Once you have a Servant ascended and levelled to the maximum, you can use grails to ascend them even further and increase their level cap above the normal maximum. Grails are an incredibly rare resource, so think carefully about who you want to use them for. Up until level 90 each grail ascension will increase the cap by 5, and every grail after level 90 increases the cap by 2 up until level 100, which is the absolute maximum.

Summoning

There are 3 main types of gacha: event gacha, story gacha, and fp gacha.

Event gachas look something like this. On the side it shows what Servant has a rateup, and often that Servant is limited. Servants that are locked by story progress usually can’t be obtained from event gachas, but there are exceptions. 

The story gacha does not have rateups and contains all the servants that are story locked too. The event and story gachas are quartz gachas, and all cards in it are 3* or higher. 

Each summon costs 3 quartz. You can choose to summon 1 time, or 10 times at once. For both quartz gachas you’re guaranteed at least one Servant and at least one gold (4* and up) card if you do 10 summons at once. Quartz can be obtained slowly through mission rewards and login bonuses, or bought in large amounts at once for real money. The game will occasionally give out tickets that can be exchanged for a single summon.

If you do a quartz summon the game will show you on the confirmation screen how much paid (the left number) and free (the right number) quartz you will have left after summoning. How much of your quartz was paid is relevant when there is a guaranteed gacha, but not really for the rest of the game. I will update this post with how guaranteed gachas work if we ever have one again.

The fp gacha uses friend points instead of quartz. Each roll costs 200 points, and you get one free 10 roll every day. There are no guarantees on these rolls, and you can only obtain 3* or lower cards from this gacha. Unlike quartz gachas, this one also gives exp and fou cards. You will be relying on this one a lot earlier on when higher rarity Servants and CEs have too much cost. Friend points are obtained when you borrow someone else’s Servant as a support, or someone else borrows yours, so you collect them easily just by playing.

The most elusive Servant in the game, Angra Mainyu, is only available in the fp gacha. He has no rarity and the chance of getting him is far lower than even 5* Servants.

The results screen of a summoning (fp in this case) looks like this. The buttons at the bottom will, from left to right:

Send you to the party organisation menu

Send you to the strengthening menu

Return you to the gacha screen

Send you to the burning screen

Shop

The shop works like every other shop in video game history so I don’t think it needs much explanation beyond what you can get in it.

Event item - exchange event currency for items. Event shops often have materials needed for ascension and skill levelling that are hard to get otherwise.

Burning - exchange cards you don’t need for QP and mana prisms.

Mana prism - exchange mana prisms for special items. Every month the mana prism shop has the following goods: -5 summoning tickets -50 4* exp cards -20 4* atk fou cards  -20 4* hp fou cards Every few months there is also a new rare CE with a unique effect such as increasing the amount of QP or master exp you get after a fight.

Rare prism - you get rare prisms for burning 4* and higher Servants. They can be exchanged for things that are no longer available, such as previous mana prism or event CE’s, limited Mystic Codes, or the ability to do a trial quest that happened before you started playing.

Second Archive (Servant) - pay quartz to increase the size of your second archive for Servants

Second Archive (CE) - pay quartz to increase the size of your second archive for CE’s

Saint Quartz Fragment - exchange quartz fragments obtained from Master missions for quartz

Saint Quartz - exchange real money for quartz

Special summon - if you summon a 6th copy of a 5* Servant (yes you read that right) you get an item called a “blank saint graph”. If you get 10 of those you can exchange them for a 5* Servant of your choice. This is only there to benefit people who spent boatloads of money on the game so don’t even worry about it.

Friends

The list of users you are friends with. The gold cross symbol means they completed the full main story and it doesn’t give any bonuses or whatever. You can see what Servants your friends have in each support slot by tapping the class icons in the top row, or by hitting the blue button on the far right of each entry to see the full layout of a specific person. The max amount of friends you can have increases with your Master level. The red button will remove someone from your friend list.

The friend requests you received. The red button denies the request and the blue one confirms it. 

Search for a specific friend code and see your own. The button underneath your own code copies it to your clipboard.

My Room

Tap on your Servant to make them say one of their voice lines. For the blue buttons at the bottom left, the top one will rotate between different ascensions, and the bottom one will rotate between showing the menu, hiding the menu, and hiding your Servant as well as the menu. The myroom menu options are all subtitled “myroom menu” which makes things more complicated.

Material (マテリアル) - view the list of Servants and CEs you collected, and review story and event scenes Item Inventory (所持アイテム一覧) - a list of the items you own such as quartz, ascension materials, and event materials Sound Player (サウンドプレイヤー) - replay BGM you’ve already heard in game. Some tracks have to be unlocked with ascension materials. Master Profile (マスタープロフィール) - show player stats Change Favourite (お気に入り変更) - change what Servant is in myroom Help (ヘルプ) - game instructions Game Options (ゲームオプション) - adjust sound levels, toggle notifications, and perform a full asset download on your device Device Transfer (引き継ぎナンバー発行) - set bind codes needed to transfer your account to a different device. For details on how to set bind codes, go here. make sure to bind your account properly in case something happens to your phone Return to Title (タイトル画面へ戻る)

Item inventory

Master Profile

1) Gender and birthday. Your birthday can be set only once. You don’t get any special bonuses on your birthday, but Servants have a special myroom line for birthdays. The format is month-day

2) Current Master level and how much exp is needed for the next. I’m at the level cap, so there is no number for how much exp I still need.

3) A quick overview of the stuff you have.

4) Change name. This can be done as often as you want.

5) Change gender. This can be done as often as you want.

6) The top number is the amount of consecutive days you logged in, and the bottom the total amount of days. There are special login bonuses for reaching certain numbers.

Game options

Change volume of the music, sfx sounds, and voice clips. Press the button to reset to default values.

Toggle whether Servants people borrow from you have the aesthetic settings you set, or the default ones. ON means others see the custom settings.

Toggle whether you get notifications when your AP or BP is full. BP is effectively the same as AP and is used for some event quests.

Perform a full asset download. This will reduce loading times, but also take up a lot of storage.

Battles

When you pick a quest to do, you will be sent to a screen like this. Here is where you pick a support Servant to bring. At the top you can see what Servant classes you will face in this battle. Hitting リスト will refresh the list if the Servant you want to bring isn’t on it. You can do this once every 10 seconds. 

You get 25 friend points from bringing a Servant from one of your friends, and 10 points from bringing a stranger’s Servant. Servants that don’t belong to your friends also can’t use their Noble Phantasms in battle when you bring them. Story quests will sometimes have preset support Servants available, and those give 200 friend points. After borrowing a Servant from a stranger, you get a prompt to send them a friend request.

After picking a support you can choose which party to bring. You can also still edit your party in this view. Hitting confirm here will start the battle. The yellow button is only available during events and gives you an overview of the event bonuses this party has.

Battle view

1) The enemies and their health bars. The arrows underneath indicate how many turns it’ll take until they use an extra powerful move (usually their Noble Phantasm in a Servant’s case). Tap on an enemy to change your target to it.

2) The Servants you currently have on the field.

3) Battle options:

The white button lets you fortfeit the battle. You will still lose your AP, and won’t get any items that already dropped. The upper button toggles asking for confirmation on skill use. The lower toggles whether NP animations are played at regular speed regardless of battle animation speed. At the bottom you can see what items have dropped during the battle (none yet in this case)

4) Master skills. Tap on the button to open the menu, and tap anywhere else to close it. Master skills depend on the Mystic Code you have equipped.

5) An overview of the attack cards available for this turn. Each Servant has 5 cards, and 5 are drawn from the combined stack every turn. Once you hit Attack, you can’t use skills anymore for this turn.

6) The amount of critical stars you have for this turn. Stars are distributed among attack cards based on “star absorbtion”, which is different for each Servant. The more stars a Servant draws to themselves, the higher the % chance that they will deal a critical attack. Each star gives a 10% increase, so if you have 50 or more stars all your Servants are guaranteed to land a critical this round.

7) Command seals. In battle you can tap on them to use one command seal to either fully recover a Servant’s HP, or to charge their Noble Phantasm by 100%. If your entire party is defeated, you can also use all 3 at once to revive all of them with full HP and 100% NP charge. Command seals recover by one every 24 hours. If your party is defeated and you don’t have enough command seals to revive them all, you can pay one quartz to do the same.

8) How many rounds are left, how many enemies are left in this round, and how many turns this battle has lasted.

1) Buffs and debuffs currently on your Servant. Sometimes there are too many to fit, in which case you can tap on their portrait to see the full list as well as how long they will last.

2) Your Servant’s skills. Each skill has a different effect as well as a different cooldown. If a skill is on cooldown, it will be grayed out with a number indicating how many turns it will take before it can be used again.

3) Servant HP

4) Servant NP charge. Once this bar reaches 100% your Servant can use their Noble Phantasm. If their NP level is 2 or higher, it can be charged over 100% which increases the power of the NP’s side effect for every 100% of extra charge.

Hitting Attack sends you to this screen. Here you pick 3 of the 5 cards to use in your next attack. You can still change target as long as you haven’t selected any cards yet by tapping on the target’s battle info. You can deselect a card by tapping it again. The button in the top right switches between regular and high speed settings for animations.

Each card type has a different effect. The later you use it in the chain, the stronger this effect is.

Buster - Deals the most damage, and generates a few critical stars. Does not charge NP.

Arts - Deals medium damage, and charges your NP the most. Does not generate crit stars.

Quick - Deals low damage, charges your NP a little, and generates the most critical stars. 

The card you pick first will give a slight bonus effect to the second and third cards.

Buster - Increase the power of each attack in the chain

Arts - Increase the amount of NP charge you get from each attack

Quick - Increase the amount of crit stars you get from each attack

Using 3 of the same card in one turn gives a strong bonus effect

Buster - Massively increase the damage of each attack

Arts - Immediately give every Servant who participaties in the chain 20% NP charge

Quick - Immediately get 10 critical stars.

If every attack in the turn is by the same servant, they will get to deliver a powerful fourth attack.

The cards floating above the 5 regular attacks are Noble Phantasm cards. Using a Noble Phantasm will completely drain the Servant’s NP gauge. Noble Phantasms have powerful and varied effects that are different for each Servant. They are not affected by the first card bonus, but do take part in chain bonuses.

Sometimes your game will crash or your battery will run out or whatever, and you’re forcefully removed from the battle. If you start the game up again after that you will get this screen. Pressing the right button will send you to the start of the turn you left off. The left button sends you to the main menu, and you will lose the AP and drops of the quest you were doing.

This should be enough info to get you started. If anything is still unclear let me know and I will update.

[recentanimenews]

INTERVIEW: How Tanya the Evil Infused WWI Technology with Magic

Saga of Tanya the Evil is one of the most unique isekai shows of the modern anime age with its protagonist not only being reincarnated into a magic-imbued version of World War I instead of your regular fantasy world, but also having to survive in the body of a little girl. But how did the team behind go about adapting the light novel by Carlo Zen into a fully fledged world?

  Series director Yutaka Uemura was present as a guest at this year's AnimagiC in Mannheim, Germany. We used this opportunity to discuss his thoughts on Japan's love for Germany, his impression of Tanya as a character as well as the possibility of a second season.

  First, I would like to know if this is your first time in Germany and if so, how do you like it so far?

  Uemura: Actually, it’s not my first but my second time in Germany. I’ve been here ten years ago, for the promotion of my first work as a director, Dantalian no Shoka. The show is about England, Germany, France—about the different countries in Europe. It also takes place at a similar time as my current project, so I do feel a certain connection between me and Europe.

  Saga of Tanya the Evil was your first Project for Studio NUT and so far, the most notable production of the studio. How was it to work for a young studio like that and to immediately be involved with such a popular show?

  Uemura: It’s a bit strange to say it directly in front of the producer, but I honestly didn’t expect Saga of Tanya the Evil to be this successful. I’ve worked with the producer, Tsunoki-san and the Chairman of NUT, Narai-san before—so I already knew both. We already had a foundation of trust for our work. Because of that I had no doubt that things would work out and that’s why I took the job. Originally there was this other company, Chiptune, which is known for its 3D animations. So I had high hopes for this project. I trusted the people involved, and as such, it has been a great honor for me and in the company as well. It’s a small studio—but a very good one.

  You  were also employed as a Director at Gainax while working on The Mystic Archives of Dantalian and you worked for MAPPA for a while, as well. How was the switch between studios—any interesting stories you want to share? 

Uemura: I don’t get this question very often, so I never had the opportunity to talk about this. I didn’t just work for Gainax, MAPPA and NUT, but also for Tatsunoko Productions and Toei. I worked with some rather famous directors there, like Keiichi Sato of Tiger & Bunny fame or Kenji Nakamura who is known for Tsuritama. I have to thank the latter for my breakthrough as a director. I worked with Sato-san for about 2-3 years. I worked for Gainax and under the guidance of Sato-san I was able to work at Tatsunoko and Toei at the same time. It was thanks to him that I was able to work at Studio MAPPA, and after my work as a Director for recognized there, I received the opportunity to work at NUT.

  Let’s talk about Tanya: There are several differences between the light novel, the manga and the anime. Can you talk a bit about the production process? How did you make the decisions that define these different versions exist in the first place?

  Uemura: I already noticed while reading the light novel that we are dealing with a very complex story. It is about several countries and includes several time skips. I figured that this is possible because it is a written text. If I were to adapt it visually as an anime, then I can’t do it exactly like that. So, my main goal was to make it accessible for the viewer. Therefore, I decided to focus exclusively on Tanya and to construct the timeline around her. As a result, I had to cut down the presence of the other countries a bit, but it made it easier to grasp the story.

  Tanya has some heavy connections to World War I, so I would like to know how you approached the research of German history and how far did it influence the anime?  

  Uemura: Generally speaking, if there is a topic, I’m not familiar with, I enjoy learning new things. So, it was quite the joy and pretty interesting to learn more about World War I and Europe. That being said, The Mystic Archives of Dantalian is also set during the early 20th Century, so I had a solid foundation to build on and already knew quite a few things about Europe during that time period. It really pays off to have 10 years of experience as a director. Something that is rather noteworthy about Tanya is that the reality of war is portrayed with a lot of detail. Therefore, I wanted to convey these details to the viewer as realistic as possible—even if it is a fantasy world in the end.

  And how did you work out how to portray the more fantastic elements? Like those flying mechanical horses? And are there any specific details you paid attention to particularly?

  Uemura: In the original novel, not all details are pictured or described. But once you turn it into visuals, you see every single one. Therefore, we had to come up with a concept to make people fly. We agreed—or rather I agreed—that people shouldn’t be capable of flight on their own like in Dragon Ball, since then the aspect of technological progress would be lost. You are supposed to see that the technology is way too advanced for what is supposed to be possible for the early 20th century. So, we had to find a low-tech solution that makes it possible for people to fly. We wanted a big machine people have to wear on their body—this turned into that box Tanya has to carry in front of her belly and those horses you can use to fly; to show advanced but unrefined technology.  

    In regard to the previous question, did you also study the technology of the time period, of World War I?

  Uemura: I wouldn’t say that I heavily researched that field of studies. But I looked up some documents. For example there was this one gadget—okay, it’s from World War II, but still—it’s called the Enigma. It was huge and it became obvious that such a machine wouldn’t be nearly as big if we were to build it today; we would need less hardware which wouldn’t have been possible back then. Things like these can be used as an indicator of how advanced technology is. Though it should also be noted that I started out in the IT field, so I had a certain basic knowledge about technology.

  One of the more interesting artistic choices you made was to avoid showing the face of Tanya in her previous life in the beginning of episode 2. Would you mind elaborating on that decision and whether it has any deeper meaning?

  Uemura: We already discussed while working on the script how we want to tackle that issue. At one point we considered using a male voice actor to vocalize Tanya’s inner thoughts. We thought it might be interesting to hear a man inside of her head but a girl when Tanya actually speaks. But while this might have been interesting, we also figured that Tanya would lose her charm this way. We had to find a balance between the cute Tanya and her background. That’s why we decided not to show the face of this man as you would then always end up thinking of him, her “true form” when looking at Tanya and we didn’t want to lose her appeal to that.

  The show and Tanya’s character arc deal with the inner conflict between the emotional and the rational a lot. So, I would like to know, what was the most interesting aspect of this aspect for you while working on it?

  Uemura: You could say that this conflict between the rational and emotional is the central theme of Tanya. On the one hand, we wanted to portray war in a realistic way but on the other we didn’t want to lose the emotional component as it is still supposed to be entertainment. And I believe that this is what makes a human being: To be emotional and rational at the same time. A human is interesting because they are emotional. But if they were only emotional there would only be conflict. Yet if someone were to be just rational, they would be completely uninteresting. So technically speaking, there is no right solution for this conflict. We have to keep working and thinking about it. In regard to the anime: We wanted to make sure that the viewer is entertained and also takes something away from it; to make them aware of this inner conflict. So yeah, I think that this conflict is the core theme of our anime.

  Now this is not just about Tanya. You often see many aspects of German culture or language in anime and Japanese pop culture in general. Since it interests many fans that enjoy seeing those nods to Germany, I would like to ask you: What do you think is the reason for this German influence and do you have some personal interest in using Germany as a source for inspiration?

  Uemura: As long as I have been alive, I noticed that Japan gets more and more Americanized. We get closer to American culture every day. But the modern Japan also sees something cool in Germany. This includes the German language, as well. Just to name one example, I took a walk yesterday and stumbled over this can of beer. I really liked the design as you wouldn’t see something like that in Japan and these small things inspire us. 

  Well, there’s one reason why German beer is so popular!

  Uemura: (laughs)

    There are some aspects of a director’s profession and the work on anime in general that are not common knowledge. Is there something you would like to tell us or is there something you want to put the spotlight on that you think people should be more aware of?

Uemura: This is just my personal opinion. I used to be an otaku myself and always wanted to know how things work behind the curtain. I wanted to understand train of thoughts and read interviews. I practically inhaled audio commentary on DVDs. But now that I’m a director myself it doesn’t seem so important to show what I’m doing and how I exactly do it. I don’t think that everyone needs to know either. Now I’m just wishing that every fan can just enjoy what we produce. I think that the secret of anime fandoms across the world: That everyone can choose how to be a fan.  

  I guess it’s important to have a mystery element to spark the imagination?

  Uemura: (laughs) I suppose that’s what I’m getting at.

  Anything about upcoming projects you want to share with us?

  Uemura: What I’m actually allowed to tell you is that we can finally announce the first original work by Studio NUT. It’s called Deca-Dence. It is directed by Tachikawa-san [Editorial Note: Director of Mob Psycho 100]. He didn’t just support me while working on Tanya, he already helped me with The Mystic Archives of Dantalian.

  You are probably not allowed to say anything about it, but can you tell us something about a possible second season of Tanya?

  Uemura: The first season was a smash hit. The movie was also well received. So, there is nothing that speaks against a second season. There is nothing stopping us except one thing: Tanya is very exhausting to produce. We would be happy if you would give us some time to recharge our batteries, and then maybe.

  To close things off I have a bit of a less serious question: If you could live in any point in German history, which one would you chose?

  Uemura: Well, if I can pick my profession, I would pick the industrial revolution before World War I and live as a nobleman. If not, and I have to be a normal citizen, I think today would be the choice. So, either the present or maybe the future.

  Thank you very much for the interview!

➡️ Watch Saga of Tanya the Evil on Crunchyroll ⬅️

Interview conducted by René Kayser. Interpretation provided by Jasmin Dose.

  ---

René Kayser works as a Social Media and PR Manager for Crunchyroll Germany. He tweets under @kayserlein where he likes to annoy people to read the visual novel of Umineko When They Cry.

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com