#only problem is finding more then 5 Animes that do this so mecha is kinda where I have to go for anime robo fill

[no1ryomafan]

Another thing I also realized from watching big o that’s not even related to the show itself is I legitimately do better to committing + enjoying a show if I actually watch it out of my own accord and not for someone else. A general struggle of mine is people pleasing tendencies so a lot of shows I’ve watched was out of obligation for someone else-regardless if they outright pushed me to watch it or if I saw it so much in circles I was in I felt like I needed to watch it-but that tends to end up leading to me not liking it and I either take forever to finish or not finish it at all.

Meanwhile this was a show my friend did rec me and I heard about a lot but I decided to watch it just because I felt like it and now instead of procrastinating or worrying I won’t finish it I’ve literally binged half of the show within last week and will probably finish it this week if everything goes accordingly. I really outta do stuff for myself more but I guess this is a good starting point.

Even if yeah- moral of the story don’t rec me things unless I actually ask lol.

[nurvuss]

I Watched the First Episode of Every New Spring 2021 Anime Airing on Crunchyroll

Hey, are you like me, and feeling like you're not getting the most out of your Crunchyroll subscription? Sure, there's stuff on there that you know you like. But whenever I look at the big long list of simulcasting shows, my eyes glaze over and I don't even know where to begin.

I wanted to change my habits and see if there were any shining gems that I should be watching. So, as per the title, I watched the first episode of every new Spring 2021 anime on Crunchyroll. And guess what? There’s a lot of crap! But indeed, there’s some stuff that’s worth your time.

Some clarification: I've only watched shows that began their first season in April 2021.

Backflip!!

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The Lowdown

As Futaba Shotaro comes to the end of middle school, his interest in baseball has begun to wane. Soon he notices the Ao High Boys Gymnastic Club and becomes enthralled, especially after seeing them perform. Once he learns they're down two members, he chooses to sign up and pursue the art of gymnastics. The club is also joined by Misato Ryoya, a star solo gymnast looking to expand his technique through teamwork.

Our Thoughts

Pretty formulaic shoujo sports anime: you've got your himbo, your thug, your ladies' man, your stoic guy, with Shotaro rounding out the cast as the shy and awkward audience surrogate. It looks wholesome enough, and the choreographed routines employ CG in a way that's quite convincing without being hideous.

Who It's For

Fans of  FREE, or Yuri!!! on Ice, or any similar shows about cute boys who succeed at athletic feats. 

Borscht Rating

Burning Kabaddi

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The Lowdown

Legendary high school soccer star Yoigoshi Tatsuya has given up on sports! That is, until he's blackmailed to join the high school kabaddi team, under threat of his online persona being leaked to the entire school. Although Tatsuya initially writes kabaddi off as stupid, the unexpected happens as he begins to have fun.

Our Thoughts

Kabaddi is kinda like competitive tag, or dodgeball but with your body instead of a ball. Burning Kabaddi is basically the shounen alternative to Backflip!! above, replete with nosebleeds, pratfalls, and dudes punching each other. The main cast don't seem to like each other very much; that probably changes as the show goes on but at first blush it's a dynamic I always find annoying.

Who it's For

Fans of Haikyuu!!? Maybe?

Borscht Rating

CARDFIGHT!! VANGUARD overDress

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The Lowdown

The newest series based on Bushiroad's collectible card game, featuring character designs by the beloved collective CLAMP. Petit middle schooler Yu-Yu just doesn't know how to say no. As his older students dress him in drag to use as live makeup practice, he suffers a panic attack and flees into the streets. After being accosted by a pickup artist, he's befriended by Megumi, who invites him to witness a Cardfight match at the local abandoned amusement park. However, Yu-yu is too shy to tell Megumi he's actually a boy…

Our Thoughts

What an unexpectedly weird concept for a show about a card game. Our hero spends the whole episode in drag, whimpering and simpering at the sight of any conflict. Then they show off the latest series of cards, which all seem to be giant buff knights with names like "Bad Steve" and "Violent Bruce". Your guess is as good as mine.

Who it's For

Cardfight!! lovers, Japanese gender studies majors, or the most desperate fujoshi. 

Borscht Rating

Cestvs: The Roman Fighter

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The Lowdown

The year is 54AD, and Nero has taken the throne as the youngest emperor of Rome. At the bottom of the population, Cestvs is a young slave training to be a colosseum boxer. Reluctant, his only choice is to fight or die.

Our Thoughts

Seeing Nero depicted as a gentle little twink is pretty funny. It's also pretty funny that the central character is named after a Roman boxing glove. The animation style transitions to some very uncanny CG when a major fight takes place, and I didn't like that one bit! This seems like a pretty average tournament anime but with a historical setting. It's currently unknown if any of these dudes are fucking each other. I'm gonna say probably.

Who It's For

The venn-diagram of Greco-Roman history buffs and lovers of tournament series?

Borscht Rating

Don’t Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro!

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The Lowdown:

Hachioji Naoto is a nerdy, introverted student who spends his time studying and avoiding socialising. When pages from the fantasy manga he's drawing fall out of his bookbag, they catch the attention of a younger student named Nagatoro Hayase. Nagatoro begins to tease Naoto for his otaku interests and awkward demeanour, peppered with some suggestive flirting.

Our Thoughts:

What would you do if a younger girl flirted with you? Would you cry? Piss your pants maybe? Maybe shit and cum? Don't Toy With Me… attempts to barely conceal its BDSM fantasy with its comedic elements, but it's incredibly apparent as Nagatoro always wipes away Naoto's tears as a sort of aftercare. It's like a lighter, comedic version of Aku no Hana, but lacking any of the ponderings or danger that made that work so special.

Who It's For: 

People who search Pornhub for "bratty sister femdom".

Borscht Rating:

86 Eighty-Six

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The Lowdown

The Republic of San Magnolia and the Giad Empire, have been at war for nearly a decade. Using advanced military technology, the frontlines are fought by giant mecha drones called Juggernauts, controlled remotely by Handlers. Major Vladilena Mirizé is one of the military's most talented Handlers in the 1st District, and one who is constantly teased by her peers for the humanity and empathy she shows her squadron. The government line is that drone warfare has kept casualties to zero, but unbeknownst to the public these "drones'' are piloted by 86ers—the lowest class of citizens, forced to live in military internment camps in San Magnolia's 86th District.

Our Thoughts

This is incredibly my kind of thing. We've got a dual narrative being set up here: Vladilena as the kind, reluctant officer of a fascist regime, and the Bad Company-esque antics of her new ragtag squad, Spearhead. The first episode is split pretty evenly between the two, with each story converging at the end as Vladilena "meets" Spearhead for the first time through her comms station. It's an explosive and enticing first episode, and I can't wait to watch more of it.

Who It's For

Fans of Fullmetal Alchemist, Psycho-Pass, Gundam, or any number of anti-imperialist war stories.

Borscht Rating

Fairy Ranmaru

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The Lowdown

In a quiet corner of the city sits Bar F, a modest drinking establishment staffed entirely by five hot young men. Unbeknownst to the general population, these men are a crack team of fairies sent to the human world to gather the latent energy of "attachment". They do this by solving the problems of young women, taking their hearts in the process.

Our Thoughts

Hubba hubba, a little something for the ladies! It's Weiẞ Kreuz with a bar instead of a flower shop, fairies instead of assassins, and some pretty revealing outfits. There's definitely a little Persona 5 inspiration here too, from the punctuating phrase "Take your Heart!" to many of the visual cues. Make of that what you will.

Who It's For

Fans of Weiẞ Kreuz, slash fic authors.

Borscht Rating

Farewell, My Dear Cramer

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The Lowdown

Onda Nozomi was once the star player of her middle school football team. Completely unmatched, she no longer plays as there's no opponent she deems to be on her level. Meanwhile Suou Sumire far outpaces her teammates, causing her frustration. By a twist of fate, these two girls find themselves joining the scrappy Warabi Seinan High School FC as they begin to learn the value of teamwork and friendship.

Our Thoughts

I don't know sports. And I really don't know football. I had to look up what the title meant, and now I barely know who Dettmar Cramer is. I'm really not the best person to judge this, but it seems like a pretty good female-driven sports anime. 

Who It's For

Fans of Ace o Nerae! or other sports manga/anime about those ever burning bonds between young teammates.

Borscht Rating

Gloomy, the Naughty Grizzly

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The Lowdown:

Pitty lives with his pet Gloomy, a massive pink bear. Can a boy and a bear truly get along?

Our Thoughts:

This is a series of minute-long gag episodes in which Gloomy mauls Pitty and blood squirts everywhere. It's definitely meant to be a morbid parody of Sanrio or San-X; it might be a Rilakkuma parody in particular? Gloomy is the kind of thing you might laugh at if it came on in between shows, but it's pretty slight to go through the trouble of putting on.

Who It's For:

Gag anime fans with one minute to spare.

Borscht Rating:

Higehiro: After Being Rejected, I Shaved and Took in a High School Runaway

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The Lowdown

After a night of drinking in Tokyo, slovenly salaryman Yoshida encounters a teenage runaway sitting under a lamppost. She offers to sleep with him in return for letting her spend the night in his apartment. Yoshida refuses her offer but allows her to stay. The next morning the girl, Sayu, reveals she's travelled all the way from Hokkaido, sleeping with random men in return for lodging and money. Feeling responsible for her safety, Yoshida agrees for Sayu to stay indefinitely in return for handling household chores.

Our Thoughts

This is kind of the inverse of Koikimo (see below), but without a scumbag character and from a male perspective. It's not nearly as nauseating as that show, but it's still a fantasy about living with a busty teenage girl.

Who It's For

Libertarians.

Borscht Rating

I've Been Killing Slimes For 300 Years And Maxed Out My Level

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The Lowdown: 

Office lady Aizawa Azusa dies of overwork in her early 20s, and finds herself standing before a lecherous goddess. Allowed a wish as compensation for her untimely demise, Azusa wishes for an endless life of leisure. The goddess reincarnates her as a 17-year-old immortal witch in an RPG-coded fantasy world. Thrilled, Azusa lazes about, brewing potions for her neighbouring villagers, and kills a small amount of slimes each day to supplement her income. After doing this every day for 300 years, she inadvertently finds herself at Level 99. Her peaceful life is soon upended as adventurers and dragons come from miles around to challenge the legendary witch.

Our Thoughts:

I'm not really an isekai fan, and that goes double for series which aren't set in an RPG, yet use RPG mechanics. Levelling up, grinding stats, min-maxing, as if it's a part of the fabric of the setting. I don't get it. I like watching numbers go up as much as the next dork, but I don't need to watch numbers go up in absolutely every piece of media I consume. Just play a fucking video game, Jesus Christ almighty.

I thought this might be setting up a fun series in which a layabout is reluctantly called upon to undertake a dangerous quest, but I don't think that's what's going on at all. When the red dragon Laika wrecks Azusa's house, she transforms into a cute young girl and the two begin living together, teaching each other the pros and cons of hard work and slothfulness respectively. The trajectory of the series might be as laid back as its protagonist in the end, which, ultimately, would be fitting.

Who It's For:

Isekai fans, slice-of-life fans. The twain have met!

Borscht Rating:

Joran: The Princess of Snow and Blood

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The Lowdown

In alternative history Japan the Meiji Period continued well into the 1930s, and the ongoing Tokugawa Shogunate has brought technological prosperity to the nation through a magical energy source called the Dragon's Vein. Sawa Yukimura runs a bookshop where she lives with her little sister by day, but by night she's an assassin for Nue, the shogunate's secret police. As the terrorist group Kuchinawa deploys transforming beasts in an attempt to topple the shogunate, Nue springs into action with their own abilities.

Our Thoughts

There are a lot of concepts competing here, and a few too many flashy transformation sequences for my taste, but I'm really into it! Nue are made up of sex workers and street musicians, often overlooked and therefore easily able to blend in. There's a supernatural Standalone Complex vibe to how the team operates, and they're almost assuredly on the wrong side. Worth a shot!

Who It's For

Fans of alternate history science fiction, Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex, Demon Slayer.

Borscht Rating

Koikimo: Koi to Yobu ni wa Kimochi Warui ("It's Disgusting to Call This Love")

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The Lowdown

Amakusa Ryo is a womanizing salaryman concerned with nothing but his own base desires. As he slips on the train station stairs one morning, he's saved by the swift action of Arima Ichika, a kind-hearted high schooler. When it turns out Ichika is friends with Ryo's younger sister Riou, he decides she's his soulmate, and begins to pursue her no matter how many times she refuses him. Comedy ensues!

Our Thoughts

Yeah, OK groomer.

Alright look, Korikimo is written by a woman and told from Ichika's perspective, so this is obviously meant to be a lighthearted "older man" shoujou romance. As an older man, all I saw were the adventures of a paedophile and the teenager he's stalking. Fuck off.

Who it's For

There's probably other stuff like this, right? If you like that, here you go.

Borscht Rating

Let's Make a Mug, Too

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The Lowdown

After the death of her mother, Himeno and her father relocate from bustling Tokyo to quiet Tajimi City in Gifu Prefecture. The former salaryman opens a quiet cafe using the remarkable mugs made by his late wife, while Himeno follows in her mother's footsteps and joins the school pottery club. Although her first project ends in disaster, Himeno makes fast friends with the eccentric pottery enthusiasts who make up the club.

Our Thoughts

It's no Eizouken, but I guess it's probably not meant to be. I'm not a big iyashikei genre fan, but if that's your thing, you might enjoy the wholesome non-adventures of three girls trying to make a mug. It's worth noting these episodes are only about 12 minutes long, with the remaining runtime segmented into live action episodes where the voice actresses tour Tajimi and unconvincingly pretend to be interested in Gifu's famous mino-yaki pottery. I think this must be a tie-in with a local tourist board. 

Who It's For

People who enjoy stuff like Aria, actually.

Borscht Rating

OddTaxi

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The Lowdown

In a Tokyo populated by anthropomorphic animals, a solemn walrus named Odokawa spends his nights driving his cab around the bustling metropolis, spending his free time drinking with his pals. Odokawa soon finds his quiet life disrupted by a caper involving a missing girl, some crooked cops, and the animal yakuza. 

Our Thoughts

A deft blend of working class slice-of-life with mystery, cute animals, and striking visual design. OddTaxi might be the sleeper hit of Spring 2021.

Who It's For

Fans of existentialist film noir with absurdist comedy, Polar Bear Cafe, walrus lovers.

Borscht Rating

Osamake: Romcom Where The Childhood Friend Won't Lose

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The Lowdown

Suehiro Maruo Sueharu Maru has his heart set on Shirokusa Kachi, the hottest girl in school. When she begins dating a young actor, Sueharu confides in his childhood friend Kuroha Shida, who's openly in love with him and he rejected in the past. Kuroha suggests the two get revenge on Shirokusa by pretending to be in love. Will Sueharu fall in love with Kuroha for real, making her dreams come true?

Our Thoughts

Give me a fucking break.

Who It's For

I don't know and I don't care.

Borscht Rating

SD Gundam World Heroes

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The Lowdown

The newest instalment of the SD Gundam media-mix franchise. In a world populated by super deform mecha, a burning meteor lands in the middle of Captain City. From it launches a terrible mechanized beast: Naughty Lion. When the police are powerless to stop it, a crack team led by Zhuge Liang Gundam and Liu Bei Gundam sorties to bring Naughty Lion to justice. When the beast stops rampaging, it transforms into Sun Wukong Gundam, a youthful amnesiac mecha horrified at the destruction he wrought. The Three Kingdoms Gundams welcome Sun Wukong into the fold to make sense of this mysterious event.

Our Thoughts

I'm an 80s kid, I know a 30-minute toy commercial when I see one.

No, seriously though, I'm aware of SD Gundam's merchandising—they're cute designs, and I even used to have a bunch of the gum rubber mini figurines. I've played the SD Great War Super Famicom games, they're fun! This is a vehicle to get kids hyped up about the latest toys, which are...based on  a hodgepodge of Journey to the West and Romance of the Three Kingdoms this year? There's even a little SD Guan Yu Gundam with a big long beard!

I kinda wanted to like the idea of a bearded robot, but the mechas are super busy and overdesigned. I guess there's only so much you can do to make your next series of toys bigger and better, so these guys are all decked out in gold accents, capes, horns, and antlers, and half the time I couldn't parse what I was seeing.

I'm so glad I don't have to watch any more of this. 

Who It's For

Very, *very* young mecha fans.

Borscht Rating

Seven Knights Revolution: Hero Successor

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The Lowdown

Long ago, the Dark God Nestra ruled the world through fear. Standing against him were the Seven Knights, seven brave warriors chosen by the Light Goddess Serrass. With their powers combined, Nestra was defeated and the lands returned to peace. Hundreds of years later the wicked Physis Cult seeks to revive Nestra, summoning undead beasts to ravage the countryside. With the Seven Knights long dead, the Granseed Academy has risen to train the next wave of heroes to combat this threat. Using special cards, the students of Granseed are able to call upon the power of the Seven Knights to guide them in battle.

Our Thoughts

As soon as the opening started with its transforming heroes and lovingly depicted weapon cards, I realised this must be based on a mobile game. Indeed, this is based on a free-to-play gacha from Korean developer Netmarble. Even before I was able to confirm this, Hero Successor failed to draw me in, eschewing details on the nature of its world in lieu of a glamourised marketing push for its source material. What's here is incredibly slight, and likely to be of little interest to anyone who isn't deep into this game.

Who It's For

Seven Knights whales, I guess.

Borscht Rating

Those Snow White Notes

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The Lowdown

Sawamura Setsu mourns the death of his grandfather Matsugorou, a talented shamisen player who refused to pass his secrets on. Not knowing what else to do, he leaves his remote village for Tokyo, taking nothing but his shamisen along with him. Soon he finds himself wrapped up in the complicated life of aspiring actress Yuna and her scuzzy rockstar boyfriend Taketo. When Setsu opens for Taketo's band, he stuns the audience with the raw emotion of his playing. However, his heart is still tumultuous. 

Our Thoughts

An entertaining first episode of a speciality music series, which is the kind of thing I have a place in my heart for. I couldn't shake the feeling of some latent misogyny that suggested the role of a woman is to inspire a tortured artist, but I might be wrong. The final few minutes take a twist by introducing Setsu's weird, horny mother who seems to have her own personal SWAT team, and it looks like the series becomes a more conventional high school anime from episode 2 onwards. Don't know about that!

Who It's For

Fans of Kids on the Slope, Sound of the Sky.

Borscht Rating

Tokyo Revengers

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The Lowdown

Former delinquent Takemichi is unsatisfied with the way his life turned out, living alone in a paper-thin apartment and working a minimum wage job under a boss who doesn't respect him. When watching the news one evening, he learns that his highschool sweetheart Hinata was killed, alongside her little brother. On the way to work the next morning, Takemichi falls in front of an oncoming train and wakes up 12 years in the past. Armed with foreknowledge, he attempts to turn his life around and save his onetime lover.

Our Thoughts

This is drawing from a lot of sources; the whole train sequence is lifted straight from Gantz, while the story itself initially seems like a Life on Mars kind of deal. In fact, Tokyo Revengers sees Takemichi jump back and forth between the present and the past, seemingly making small changes until he achieves his desired outcome. It feels like a very video gamey depiction of time travel, and one that's not super interesting.

Who It's For

Steins;Gate fans, maybe? Delinquent manga (Shonan Junai Gumi, Crows, etc.) fans, maybe? It's pretty self-serious compared to any of those.

Borscht Rating

To Your Eternity

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The Lowdown

An immortal being in the form of an orb falls to earth and becomes a stone. Years pass, an ice age sets in, and a white wolf stumbles onto the tundra and dies. The orb, able to take the form of anything that leaves a strong impression on it, transforms into the wolf and slowly learns how to use its newfound ambulatory body. The creature treks back through the tundra where it meets a boy living alone, after the rest of his village left in search of a better life. The boy recognises the wolf as his beloved pet, Johann, and the two begin living together in the harsh, lonely wastes.

Our Thoughts

I'm being a little coy with the synopsis here, and there's a major shake-up at the end of this debut episode. This one's based on a manga by the critically acclaimed Yoshitoki Ooima (A Silent Voice), and it's a depressing, compelling, and exciting start to a series. Lots of potential here!

Who It's For

Fans of NieR, Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon, Last Exile, Kino's Journey.

Borscht Rating

So, there you have it. I'm hoping this will be of use to anyone who experiences a similar sense of dread when faced with so many choices. Maybe we’ll do this again during the Summer 2021 anime season.

Also, please don't get mad at me if I'm snarky about your new favourite show! It’s just TV and I'm a big idiot anyway.

[johnny-boy-17]

Why HiroTwo is the best fictional relationship I have ever witnessed thus far in my life.

I made mention yesterday of how I was planning to do an entire post on how HiroTwo is my favorite part of DitF, and I intend to uphold that promise before I forget it. Click that thingy below for more.

1: It starts so unusually.

...Well, I mean as unusual as you can get for an anime. But really think about what I mean by this. Usually any kinda show would have them build up to becoming an item. Instead, the first episode has them (sorta) hooking up by the end of the episode, when Zero Two pulls him in for a quick make-out sesh’ in the sex-mecha cockpit...

From that moment on, you have no idea what happens next. They kissed... now what!? And the rest comes so naturally from that, and becomes official when Hiro returns the favor a good 14-15 episodes later, after they had been through so much. And it is SO DAMN SATISFYING.

2: It takes the opportunity to dive into their phycological states.

When I say you had no idea where the relationship would go after the first kiss in the beginning, I really meant it. It’s stated that Zero Two is a “partner killer” and Hiro is shown to be a flightless bird of sorts. So when he finds Zero Two can help him ‘fly’ so to speak, he’s ready to die for the chance to prove himself. It really does show the “ride or die” side he has.

 Plus it’s constantly shown that this shit is normal for zero two, so the fact that he’s lasted for as long as he has, you don’t know if he is dying anymore or at all. Granted, you see her giving him an out (up above), but when he survives the doomed 3 rides everyone is told about, you see her pleasantly surprised by this. And then you have no idea if he’s still dying or anything. The first parts of the series sorta shows a yin-yang with them with one of them experiencing joy, and the other experiencing suffering.

And then it came to the amazing episode that was the 13th one, and so many answers are given, including “wtf is going on and who are they?”

the answer: just two little kids who wanted to see the outside world together before society could rip them apart. 

3: Their interactions are to fucking DIE FOR

I mean, fuck, look at this diabetes-inducing good shit

THEY ARE SO FUCKING CUTE!!!

4: They’re support centers for each other, morally and literally.

They legitimately do rely on each other for help and support. I think a prime example of this is from the 21st episode, when Hiro’s stuck in that Virm web or whatever. It would have been so easy to just have him break out through the power of will. But no, Zero Two comes in to try and save him!

...to which he once again returns the favor!

On top of that, they legitimately try to talk out their problems with each other. Or at least, it’s implied they do through the shows theme of “the importance of communication.”

5. They’re interesting characters in general

I mean one could easily buy into that with Zero Two, seeing as how she’s a mix between Haruharu Haruko from “FLCL” and Yuno Gasai “Mirai Nikki” (batshit insanity meets psycho insanity)

And Hiro, despite looking rather alike to a lot of protagonists these days, and I do mean a lot, actually manages to pull off some impressive feats and make himself interesting, like that ride or die personality I referenced earlier.

together, they just become practically their own character altogethe- OH WAIT, THEY (kinda sorta) DO.

6. They are the focus of the show

Yeah, we all know the jokes about how this was an Eva rip-off. But if I may be frank and honest, while I saw the references, I also saw more similarities to a show called “Eureka Seven.”

In E7, the focus is on the main two leads Eureka and Renton, and how they come to love one another despite their flaws (one of E7′s shows themes). DitF is the same way, making the focus of the show be on it’s two leads, and the show’s themes of (as stated earlier) the importance of communication. 

7. Their ending was perfect

I’ve seen a couple people say this wasn’t the case, and I suppose it really does just come down to preference. But the way I see it, it ended better than I thought it would. With how DitF took notes from E7, but was still very proud of it’s Gurren Lagann roots, it seems like it wanted to do either of the 2 endings. So it found the sweet-spot ladder half, and made the only ending I can picture perfect for these two:

Having that TTGL bittersweet ending, but still having the hope given by E7. 

Well would you look at that: Lucky 7 reasons why HiroTwo is the fuckin’ best. I may or may not shut up about this now, but I make no promises becuz fuck I luv these two sm.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

[deltaengineering]

Winter Anime 2019 Part 4: That’s all, folks.

Over already? This is a pretty thin season with not a lot of shows, so it’s not that surprising that there’s not many good ones either. Still, a weak showing. Oh well, let’s get it over with. There were a few decent ones in the last batch.

Circlet Princess

What: Dimwitted schoolgirl is good at some vaguely defined virtual fighting sport, changes school based on it, finds out relevant club has been abolished. Forecast says: 5 member plot incoming.

❌ I think it’s already clear this show isn’t very ambitious, and not very well written either. A game adaptation at its laziest.

❌❌ Man, this girl is STUPID. What the hell.

❌ The rest of the cast are less stupid (which isn’t hard), but that just means they’re so forgettable they might as well not exist.

❌❌ It looks cheap, and by that I mean really really cheap. The character design is ISO standard anime and it’s mostly on model, but that’s as good as it gets. The animation just sucks. That’s a death sentence for an action/sports show with terrible characters.

Bermuda Triangle - Colorful Pastrale

What: Japanese Spongebob, as in cute mermaids. Doing things optional.

❌ To make this quick, this is almost exactly Pastel Memories, only every problem is just a little less extreme. It has fewer characters, it’s looking slightly better, there’s a tiny bit more going on, the setting is mildly more interesting. That still means it is:

❌❌ 1. A boring mess in which a handful of samey girls do nothing of much interest in a location that should be unique, but isn’t.

❌❌ 2. Conspicuously cheap. It even has the same sightline problems.

❌❌ 3. Featuring a character model sheet that is “off” even under the best circumstances. This time due to the very offputting decision to give everyone blobby triangular irises.

❌❌ Unlike Pastel Memories (which was an ad for a mobile game) this is an anime original, so it really has no excuse being this lame.

♎ I find it amusing that Pastel Palettes are providing the OP for an anime, and it’s not the one currently airing that they’re actually characters in.

Endro~!

What: Kiraralike comedy thing in a generic JRPG setting.

♎ Namori character designs, so it’s like Spyce in that it just seems like the Yuru Yuri cast cosplaying a genre. But hey, Namori character designs do look good.

❌ I’m not as done with generic JRPG settings as with generic isekai settings, but it’s still a real problem since the former is now a subset of the latter. Mildly making fun of it does not improve things much either.

✅ The tone is cutesy and pleasant. I find this much preferable to something like Mahoujin Guru Guru, which is pretty much the same thing but with abrasive, high-intensity slapstick instead.

✅ It’s backing that up with generally high-quality, agreeable pastel looks.

❌ Not being annoying is a start, but beyond that this seems very middle of the road and predictable. I don’t get much out of the genre “parody” and simply being cute is still not an unique selling point in anime.

Grimms Notes The Animation

What: Did someone say JRPG? This is a mobile one, vaguely based on fairy tales as the title implies.

✅ This universe runs on the idea that every NPC’s fate is controlled by a preset story they’re aware of. You could make a good story about that if you took it seriously. It even does that somewhat, but only to the degree that you’d expect from a throwaway sidequest in a moderately well-written JRPG.

❌ And the reason for that is that it has to make room for being a JRPG, of course. Read: It’s irritatingly mechanics- and combat-focused. Stuff like the characters changing form when in fights just seems overly complicated and adds nothing.

❌ Said combat looks competent, but not good enough to make up for detracting from what could have been an interesting setting. Merc Storia did this aspect far better (by usually not doing it at all).

❌ So it ends up being better than expected, but then that only amounts to a disappointment.

Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai / Kaguya-sama: Love Is War

What: Kaguya and Miyuki are in the student council of a prestigious school and HATE HATE HATE each other. Specifically, they hate the part where the other one won’t just finally admit their love.

✅ The joke here is that it’s operating on full intensity at all times, over the most simple matters. It’s pretty much Kaiji, only about dating - complete with hammy narrator. This is another one of those shows where I can’t say with certainty that it’s solid, but I had a blast during the first episode.

✅ Regarding Quintuplets, I made it clear that I love me some sparks in my romantic comedies. It doesn’t get much more explosive than this.

✅ The characters are comparable to Quints too: Smart scheming upstart vs. rich scheming ojou, with a simpleminded girl in the middle that ends up winning more often than not simply by not overdoing it.

✅ The visuals are just as over the top as the proceedings depicted. Occasionally a filter massacre, but mostly cool.

♎ The long-term viability of this show depend entirely on whether they can consistently come up with scenarios that work, which isn’t a given. Also, this is so intense it might become tiresome - I already felt some fatigue towards the end of the first episode. We’ll see, I guess.

Kakegurui ××

What: Some weirdos think they can crash the party at Hyakkaou with an intent to scare the daylights out of Yumeko and Midari, of all people. Let’s just say they were not as prepared as they thought.

✅ As you might have guessed by me watching the sequel, I liked Kakegurui. It has its problems, but if you’re down for some crazypants madness, this show delivers.

✅ This is one of the better episodes of it too, because it gets right into it and the game they play is dead simple. Kakegurui was never about smart moves or strong characters, so not having anything detract from our girls deriving the entirely wrong sort of pleasure from danger is a plus.

♎ Sadly, the OP is a step down (though still great) and the ED is simply an inferior, overcomplicated version of the magnificent original one. They seem to know this too, because they play the OP cut of Deal with the Devil in its entirety for a montage. The rest of the production is on par with the original though, so it’s fiiiine. Oh well.

❌ It got Netflix’d again and the subs situation is dire. Since this is one I actually like, I might have to wait for the official release.

Kouya no Kotobuki Hikoutai / The Magnificent Kotobuki

What: Piston-engined fighter plane pornography.

✅ This delivers where Girly Air Force failed: Close to zero exposition, the majority of the episode is just planes dogfighting with barely any talking either. And that part is executed really well. I think the plane startup sequence alone is as long as the total of Girly’s airtime.

✅ Guess what, it’s Tsutomu Mizushima, previously known for unbridled panzer (und girls) pornography, and boy can you tell. However, this cuts out a lot of GuP’s bullshit: A plane doesn’t have the cast of K-ON in it, it’s not over-the-top zany, and whatever this universe is, it can’t be as insipid as GuP’s. The classy milwank exists you guys, we found it.

✅✅ The music really helps here, sky pirates vs zeppelins just wouldn’t work without some classic swashbuckling orchestra background. Fat sound mixing on the dakka too. It’s great.

♎ Can’t really say much about the narrative because we kinda skipped that in this episode aside from the obvious, but Mizushima’s Shirobako collaborator Michiko Yokote is writing it, and that’s a good sign.

❌ Now we’re getting to the elephant in the room though: There’s no way the planes wouldn’t be CG in 2019, but the characters are CG too, and their animation is mediocre. Also, they did the KADO thing where they 2D-animated the side characters that aren’t important enough to model. This has the funny side effect that you can tell who’s going to die real soon by them looking better. It’s far from great, but probably a worthy tradeoff if the mechanical side is this extensive and also delivers.

✅ This is definitely not for everyone, since you have to have more than a casual appreciation for those magnificent girls in their flying machines. I do, though.

revisions

What: A chunk of Shibuya gets teleported to the dystopian future, local doomsday prepper gets handed a large robot because he’s special.

❌ A Goro Taniguchi joint being a poorly conceived scifi mess? Say it ain’t so! I especially dig the tryhard English jargon (mecha: “String Puppet”, monsters faction: “Revisions”, particular monster, I think?: “Civilian”, tacticool operetah: “Balancer”).

❌ Works very hard to characterize the main character, to the detriment of everyone else. A for effort, but you made an unlikeable asshole though.

❌ This is another full CG show, with the quality of the animation being curiously variable. Sometimes it’s well above average and sometimes it’s painful. There doesn’t seem to be much method to it.

✅ Tries to establish stakes by being mondo edgy and graphically murderizing some poor bystanders. It’s adorable.

❌ If you’re really jonesing for some mecha, you can watch all of this on Netflix right now. It’s not like you have any alte- wait, Egao no Daika has mecha too. Well there you go then. That’s a better show.

[teababe27]

Notes From the 2021 Myanimelist.net Challenges - Part 1: Anime

2021 was mostly average for me, until late in the year, then it turned into a hellscape. Health problems and a death in the family took its toll on me, and I’m still grieving.

I didn’t watch as much anime for this challenge as last year (I blame work, mostly), but I did watch some good ones. Even though I feel like I don’t have much to say about some of them, some others brought out some feelings and thoughts. There is one anime I watched but have not yet finished (Twelve Kingdoms - it’s pretty good so far), so I reluctantly won’t include it here.

I’ll talk about some honorable mentions/anime notable for other reasons, and then I’ll talk about some of my favorites from this year’s Challenge.

Let’s do this.

Honorable Mentions/Other Notables:

SSSS.Gridman - completed for the task “Watch an anime by a studio with 5 - 50 anime in Myanimelist's database” (Studio Trigger, in this case)

High school student Yuuta wakes up in the room of his classmate, Rikka, and notices he lost his memories. He hears a voice calling him from an old computer in Rikka’s parents’ shop. Through this computer, Yuuta is able to access and merge with the mech Gridman, and together with Rikka and his best friend Shou, Yuuta and Gridman have to fight Kaiju that have been appearing throughout the city.

This is one I would honestly say is “not bad.” Not super-memorable, but not bad overall. This probably wins Worst, but I can’t say I hated it. 

I don’t normally watch Mecha anime, but this one was kinda cool at points.  The action wasn’t too bad. There were some funny moments I liked. Reading an article on TV Tropes about how the main Big Bad is pretty close to how certain bad people operate IRL gave me a new appreciation for this anime. There were some twists and character traits I didn’t see coming, so that was a huge plus.

Fena: Pirate Princess (aka Kaizoku Oujo) - completed for the task “Watch an anime with a total duration of 16 minutes or more that is rated PG-13″

Years ago, Fena survived a shipwreck that separated her from Yukimaru, her childhood friend, and killed her father. Ten years later, she lives on an island in a castle and is forced to sell herself to prospective suitors. On one of those nights, two old acquaintances show up and to help and Fena escapes. They eventually head to another island where Fena learns that her father was trying to go to a place called “Eden,” and it’s up to Fena to find it. With a strange cube as her only clue, she has to team up with a band of mercenaries, which ends up reuiniting her with Yukimaru, in order to accomplish her father’s goal.

I liked this one. There were some nice aesthetics, especially in the various locations the crew went. The action was good. I also liked the aesthetic of pirates and ninja-type mercenaries existing in the same universe. Fena herself was adorable, IMO. 

I also admit that I was (and still am) deep in the trenches of reading a really good fanfic while watching this anime (read it at @feverinfeveroutfic​ and also on AO3: it’s called Fever In, Fever Out), and the dynamics between Fena and Yukimaru at first reminded me of a couple points of the early relationship between the main female character in that fic, Sam, and Alex Skolnick(’s character? Yes, the guitarist from the band Testament. Yes, it’s a Real Person Fic. Read it anyway, please.), and I kind of transposed it on some of the characters from the anime at points.

I also remember making a Spongebob reference to my mom while we were watching the first episode (we watched this on Toonami, same with Gridman), and we both laughed. There was definitely some comedy in this one.

I do understand some of the criticisms, though, like Fena seeming at times like the secondary character in her own story. Some of the plot threads just kinda ended without much logic. There was a redemption that I didn’t feel was fleshed out or deserved. Also, the ending left kind of a weird taste in my mouth. I remember literally thinking, “What the fuck hell kind of End of Evangelion BS was that?”

Ani Kuri 15 -  completed for the task “Watch an anime without a Licensor listed”

A collaboration between 15 anime creators from throughout the industry. Each person contributed a 1-minute short to make up this 15-minute special.

There were some cute shorts, some shorts that didn’t really make an impact on me, and some shorts that I loved. Satoshi Kon’s and Makoto Shinkai’s contributions were my favorites by a mile. Pretty interesting overall.

Initial D (aka Initial D: First Stage) - completed for the task “Watch an anime with a total duration of 16 minutes or more that's tagged with one or more of the following: Cars, Magic or Sports” (Cars, in this case)

Takumi is a guy who is the odd one out because he doesn’t really care about all the hot new cars that all his friends and classmates go on about. By day, he works at a gas station with some of his friends, and even manages to get a girlfriend. By night/early morning, he delivers tofu using his dad’s car, the 8-6. Through years of delivering tofu, he has accidentally become the most famous racer on Mount Akina. When he is discovered by rival street racers, as much as Takumi tries to resist, he ends up rediscovering a passion for street racing and takes on all comers.

I liked this anime more than I thought I would, especially since I don’t really give two shits or know the first thing about different cars. The action was good. The music slapped (I honestly had “Running in the 90s” stuck in my head for a few days after watching). Some of the racing scenes were pretty tense, and I was excited to see how Takumi would prevail. Some of the characters were actually pretty cool.

But holy shit, the PS2 graphics during the racing scenes did not age well. Almost took me out of it at times. But I imagine how sick that must have looked when this came out in the late 90s.

For a racing anime, I much prefer/highly recommend Redline.

Kaiji (aka Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor) - completed for the task “Watch a completed anime scored 10 or 9 by an active participant that posted on the first or second page of the sign-up forum”

Kaiji is a loser who gets into debt after being tricked by a former co-worker. He has to partake in a dangerous gambling competition in order to get his money and dignity back.

This anime was pretty good (made me think of things like Kakegurui, but Kaiji had higher stakes and was honestly not as interesting). The art style, while tough to get used to at first, is pretty unique, which gives this show a point in its favor. I also feel like this is an anime that I can only watch once and never again. It was so anxiety-inducing, especially during the middle portion where people had to partake in a dangerous challenge, but I couldn’t help but want to know how it ended and how the cliffhangers would resolve. To quote the person who rated it as 10 on their list: “It was the most anxiety-inducing thing ever and yet I couldn’t pull away.”

At the risk of sounding repetitive, this is another anime whose ending left kind of a bad taste in my mouth, which kept it from the Favorites section and will likely keep me from watching it again.

Favorites from the Challenge:

Mangirl - completed for the task “Watch an anime with 10 or more episodes that are each 15 minutes or less”

A short anime about a group of girls with no prior experience in manga editing trying to make the biggest manga magazine in Japan.

I chuckled a lot during this one. The episodes’ short length kinda helped the rapid-fire comedy come through better without dragging jokes out too much. My favorite episode was probably Episode 5, where they talk about different fonts used in manga, and they briefly mess around with various fonts to demonstrate. Wanting to mess around with fonts is definitely relatable. I feel like I related to the assistant character, Aki, someone who is pretty uptight and rules-abiding, but secretly is Not So Above It All, especially in one episode at a Comiket where the rest of the crew finds out she used to be a famous cosplayer.

Though I feel like I had the same problem with this as I did when I watched Rainy Cocoa for the challenge a couple years ago: I wanted more. While I feel the episodes’ short length did provide for some good comedy without going too over the top and dragging things out, I still kinda wanted to know more about everything.

Not sure if I’d watch it again, but still good and funny.

Shion no Ou - completed for the task “Watch an anime listed under Gourmet or Unpopular” (Unpopular, in this case)

Shion Yasuoka is a child prodigy in the world of professional shogi. When she was little, her parents were killed in front of her in a home invasion, and the murderer challenged her to a game of shogi. The murderer told her that if she wanted to stay alive, she should forget how to speak and forget what happened that night. Now mute as a result of her trauma, she lives with her adoptive parents (her adoptive dad being a shogi pro himself) and works her way up the ranks of professional shogi. As the competition goes on, more clues about Shion’s past come to light.

I’ll be frank, I don’t know the first thing about shogi. I admittedly had to look up the basics and certain things about shogi to get my head around some of the things in this anime. 

But honestly I liked this one a lot. It’s an interesting mix of sports anime and murder mystery. I loved the friendship between Shion and a couple of her competitors. There was also some decent commentary about gender in sports like shogi. The matches were interesting, too. 

Though I feel like I didn’t like one of the characters. Even though his intentions were revealed later and were understandable, I felt like he kinda went about it in a dickish way.

I definitely agree with the club on Myanimelist that this anime is underrated.

Demon Slayer Movie: Mugen Train - completed for the task “Watch a Movie with a total duration of 1 hour 30 minutes or more”

Tanjiro, Nezuko, Inosuke, and Zenitsu board a train to head to their next destination on their quest to cure Nezuko. They hear of multiple disappearances that happened on said train. Rengoku, one of the Hashira (the bosses and best fighters) of the Demon Slayer Corps, has also boarded this train to eliminate this threat. The gang has to defeat a powerful demon in order to save the day.

I already love the Demon Slayer series, and this movie was no different. The action was great, the animation was great, there’s some comedy in there too, and I got to see this in theaters with my mom, who watched the show with me when it aired on Toonami! And that final fight near the end of the movie...whoooooooooffffff. Almost made me cry. What more could you ask for, really.

Silver Spoon Season 2 - completed for the task “Watch a sequel to an anime you’ve previously completed (Silver Spoon, in this case)”

It’s a new semester for Hachiken at Ooezo Agricultural High School. With a new semester comes new challenges, including realizing that sometimes there’s not much you can do, planning for your future, high expectations, and other realities of the farm and country life.

This brought out so many feels. I laughed a few times at a new character that was introduced a couple episodes in. I definitely related to the plot arc Hachiken had about not being able to say no to things and wishing there was more that you could do to help. I still loved the relationships between the characters. I love how everyone got character development here. Made me tear up a couple times. 

Fun fact: the manga is made by the same mangaka who wrote freaking Fullmetal Alchemist. That explains so much.

New Game! - completed for the task “Watch an anime listed under CGI or Iyashikei” (Iyashikei, in this case)

High school grad Aoba Suzukaze gets a job at Eagle Jump, the company that made her favorite childhood video game franchise, Fairies’ Story. The franchise inspired her during childhood to want to be a character designer. She makes friends with some of her strange and quirky coworkers and learns that the next game they’re making? The third Fairies’ Story game.

Iyashikei, according to various sites, is a subgenre of anime meant to have a relaxing or healing effect on the watcher. Typically slice-of-life stories with calming content and not much tension. Laid Back Camp, which I watched for the challenge a few years ago, is an excellent example of this that I highly recommend. (Still need to watch Season 2.) New Game! definitely fits in that category.

New Game! wins Best of the Challenge this year, but for kind of a strange reason. Yes, it was funny and fun. Yes, the characters were great and some of the situations were relatable. I also liked the educational aspect of what it may be like to work at a video game company. And Slice of Life is one of my favorite genres, which also was a point in its favor. I feel like this wins Best of the Challenge more because it came at the right time than anything else. 

I apologize if this is too personal, but here we go. Tw: death of a family member, dads. You can stop reading here if you so desire.

My dad died at the beginning of December. He was honestly suffering for quite a while. He was in and out of hospitals for most of 2021, sometimes being in the hospital and rehab places for months at a time. I was already out of work recuperating from a hernia surgery, so I couldn’t even do much to distract myself other than watch TV, sleep, play video games, and go online, and even that got boring sometimes. I missed my routine, and my dad dying didn’t help my mental health one bit. My mom has taken it the hardest so far, and I felt (and still feel) so sad for her and wished I could do more to help.

And if that wasn’t enough, I also got Covid during the Christmas break. I felt so pissed at myself and at everyone else, and I was in a pretty bad place.

Watching anime has always cheered me up when I’m down (even the darker ones I watch, yes), and watching a funny and relaxing anime definitely helped during this past dark and long December.

New Game! wins Best of the Challenge this year for that reason.

May your memory be a blessing, Dad.

[shslgundad]

Day 5: Hero

Super late, I’m having to catch up on posts due to outside influences and gearing up for our anniversary. I’ll get them out, I promise. This concept kept popping up, and I think a little angst was due in this series, so I wanted to do a reverse situation of me/my self-insert as a game character fictional to her. This one’s kinda sad, I must admit.

Chiaki Nanami didn't really like collecting figures from the games she played. They were neat, but usually really expensive. She'd rather use that money for more games to be honest. But a few months ago she wound up playing an imported copy of an American game, and she just had to have a few figures from it on her desk. The shipping was expensive but worth it. She had a figure of the main character, a bunch of weapons for him, and a couple plastic models of the robots from the game. She had a lot of trouble putting them together but it was fun.

They were from an obscure game that wasn't very popular in Japan, although it seemed to be very anime-influenced. It was about a man who lost everything, turned into a criminal to fight for his freedom in a world dominated by an evil secret society. His girlfriend went missing and his friends thought he was crazy, all he had to trust were his arsenal of weapons and giant robots. The gameplay was weird, but pretty fun. Some parts were a mecha simulation game, some parts were a side-scrolling beat 'em up. One installment had a bunch of very fast-paced first-person shooter segments she had trouble with.

It wasn't necessarily the game she was interested in though. The main character was a rugged and charming man. Sure he could be a little mean and he was a loner, but it wasn’t really his fault. The government raised him as a weapon and he became a hero of his own free will, turning his dark skills against the corruption that made him. She usually didn't like violent games with downer stories, but she loved learning more about this character and his struggles.

"Nanami-san, could you stay for a moment?" Chisa spoke as class was dismissing. Some of the other students waved Chiaki goodbye as they left, Chiaki stepping up to her teacher's desk.

"Hello Yukizome-sensei, is something wrong? Am I not doing something right as class representative?" Chiaki tilted her head slightly as she asked, Chisa smiling.

"Ah, well..I have something to ask you, Nanami-san. I don't know how to address this, but I've noticed you've been more reclusive lately. Is something wrong?"

"Well, not necessarily, I just missed you in your absence. I haven't seen Hinata-kun for a while, but I'm over that." Chiaki played with the straps of her backpack a bit.

"Over it?" Chisa asked, genuinely puzzled. "I thought you were such good friends."

"He stopped coming to play games with me, I don't really care. I met someone much more interesting."

"Ah, I see..Who, may I ask?"

"Not someone from around here."

Chisa glared at Chiaki with concern. "Nanami-san, you're not getting into any trouble off school grounds, are you?"

"Huh? No, not at all. I've been spending a lot of time with a favorite character from a game, he's really nice. I think I like being with him more than Hinata-kun."

Chisa sighed with relief, but wasn't sure how to respond to that last statement. "Nanami-san..this isn't a person over the internet right? A game character? But he's not real."

Chiaki looked down at her feet, pursing her lips a bit. "I know that..But, he makes me feel safe. Thinking about him makes me happy. Hinata-kun made me feel lonely, but the Mecha-Knight wouldn't betray me like that! He's a sweet man, nobody understands him like I do...He’s a hero! My hero!"

Although Chisa was a bit more relieved, this was still a problem. She had heard rumors, rumors of Chiaki talking about spending time with an older male. She had been talking about this game character a lot to the other students and they were starting to question if she was fit to be a class rep. Was the stress taking a toll on her?

Chisa took Chiaki's hands gently, giving her a sad half-smile. "I know things have been rough on you lately, but you can't just hide away in your games like this. Maybe you need to spend more time with your classmates, out in the real world. You're a good girl, you can find someone who appreciates you. So, get some rest, and no more of this okay?" Chiaki sulked a bit and nodded before walking out of the classroom to her dorm.

Chiaki landed on her bed face-first, her body limp and exhausted from the previous conversation. Chisa didn't understand, and she was the only person left Chiaki really trusted anymore. She liked her friends, but they started acting strange around her lately. She turned her head and peeked over at her desk, looking at her small collection of figures. Was this really hurting her? Was it so bad having these feelings for someone that technically didn't exist? She buried her face in to her pillow, hugging it tightly.

"You wouldn't leave me all alone like this. Why can't you be real?"

[tigerkirby215]

NEW UA FUCKERS

https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/unearthed-arcana/subclasses_part3

I know I’m a bit late to this but I already had a post queued so this is going before that one.

Anyways we get... an Artificer subclass?! Woah great to see that they’re throwing Artificer into the mix with these UAs now... oh my god. Oh my god it’s Iron Man.

Armorer Artificer

...It’s literally fucking Iron Man. That’s literally all I can say. Power Armor is conceptually AWESOME though I worry that removing the Strength requirement from Platemail is a bit OP. Armor Model essentially lets you choose between melee (Guardian) or ranged (Infiltrator.) The fact that you can use Intelligence to attack (much like Battle Smith) makes this subclass feel like a good alternative to Battle Smith for those who don’t want the dog.

Guardian’s Thunder Gauntlets are kinda meh for damage but the fact that you essentially replicate the Cavalier's Unwavering Mark feature is really cool, and will probably have some interesting synergies with Fighter subclasses. (My immediate thought is mixing this subclass with Battlemaster Fighter to create Mecha Kingdom Sett, though chances are if I make a Sett build I’m not going to give him big brain energy lol.) The Defensive Field ability however gives you some massive self-sustain and makes this as viable if not arguably stronger than a Barbarian. A 20 HP buffer every turn? That’s nuts! (Hm: maybe I should make a Sett build with this?)

Infiltrator’s Lightning Launcher... bro it’s literally fucking Iron Man. That being said it does a lot more damage than the Thunder Gauntlets overall (2d6 vs 1d8) and has the plus side of being ranged. Powered Steps and Second Skin are rather negligible by comparison honestly.

You get an Extra Attack at level 5 which sort of further solidifies that this is the dogless version of Battle Smith.

Level 9 you get Armor Modifications which... what the fuck? You get TWO extra Infusions for yourself?! Are they insane?! There aren’t many Bracer infusions to choose from but you can get some good value for the armor and weapon, and there are several boots that you don’t normally make as Artificer which you may as well make when you have two extra infusions. Even just the ability to get Winged Boots in your extra infusion slot is amazing.

Perfected Armor... ｏｈ　ｏｋａｙ．So you either get a gravity gun (Guardian) or the ability to generate free advantage 24/7. (Infiltrator)

Armorer Artificer is a 10/10. 11/10 honestly. Super flavorful and ridiculously strong; honestly needs some heavy nerfs. The heavy armor should still have a Strength requirement, the weapons don’t need bonus effects, Armor Modifications in general is fucking bonkers, and Perfected Armor for the Infiltrator armor needs to be limited by Intelligence akin to its Guardian counterpart.

After reading this over I’m very tempted to try to make a build for Elliana from Rivals of Aether. It would be a unique opportunity to try to make a Yuan-Ti Pureblood character.

(Artwork by Rivals of Aether)

Artificer Infusions

We also get some more infusions which is cool.

Armor of Magical Strength - Seems to have been designed specifically for the Armorer subclass or at least for specifically the Artificer. (Can be good to give to your Wizard though.) It makes Strength even more redundant than it already is, and Artificer can already make Gauntlets of Strength / Belt of Strength to make Strength redundant as is. The ability to resist being knocked prone is kinda useless and honestly you’re far better off just taking the +1 Armor Infusion and Belt / Gauntlets of Strength instead. 3/10

Armor of Tools - Really cute but feels like something you use specifically for down time. Again feels like it’s based too much around the Artificer and not their team. I really don’t understand the 8 hour limit on the integrated tool. 4/10

Helm of Awareness - Alert on a stick. Pretty balanced honestly since it takes an Attunement slot. 7/10

Mind Sharpener - ...this has no level limit? This also has no use limit (beyond your reaction.) The actual fuck? This is stupidly OP. 10/10 needs nerfs.

Spell-Refueling Ring - This is worded extremely poorly and (like a lot of the other new infusions) seems to have been specifically designed to buff the Artificer. The problem is that (as written) you can literally recover 2 level 5 spell slots, 3 level 4 spell slots, and a level 3 spell slot once per day. This item needs major limitations akin to the Pearl of Power and it also needs to be more useful for classes other than Artificer. I think the number of spell slots restored should be based on the Artificer’s Intelligence mod instead of the number of magic items. 2/10

The only infusion which I consider remotely balanced on this list is the Helm of Awareness. Armor of Tools is cute but it has too many limitations for something that’s already worse than the +1 armor, and all the other infusions seem based too heavily around buffing the Artificer instead of their teammates. All these items have the potential to be balanced (SR Ring and Armor oMS need a lot of work) but as they are currently they’re way too strong.

Circle of the Stars

Already looking at it the subclass certainly seems interesting. Star Map gives your Druid more flavor and also lets you cast two very strong spells for free. (Guiding Bolt in particular is very useful.)

Starry Form is interesting for a Druid that doesn’t want to Wildshape but feels inherently worse than Spores Druid or the other UA Wildfire Druid. Chalice is meh though it’s good for sustain (Life Cleric is better), Archer seems like it’s the best overall, and Dragon seems good for out-of-combat utility as well as keeping Concentration on important spells.

Cosmic Omen is very strong and reliable, and gives you a lot of support utility and Full of Stars should be part of Starry Form’s baseline feature to make it worth turning into a star form over an animal form.

Star Flare really feels like it should be a spell but it would be way too strong as a spell. The ability to instantly reposition allies and also do damage to enemies can’t be understated.

Overall I’d give this class maybe a 7/10? 8/10 because of the flavor which I think is really cool. It has some nice offensive abilities and well as defensive, but some of the features feel too weak. For some reason my immediate thought when I saw this subclass was Hilda Berg from Cuphead but lol I’m not about to make a freaking Cuphead Boss build.

(Artwork by Studio MDHR)

Fey Wanderer

Wizards of the Coast really seems to like their “defender of (x) plane” archetypes, don’t they? We have two defenders from extraplanar threats (Horizon Walker and UA Paladin) and now we have a defender of the Faewild. Bet Davvy Chappy is going to love this subclass.

Cunning Will feels kinda tacted on for the sake of it, and Dreadful Strikes feels inherently worse than Horizon Walker. It has some interesting synergies with multiple attacks but it still doesn’t do much overall. Blessings of the Courts similarly feels underwhelming though I find it interesting that we now have ranged Smites on Ranger. Beguiling Twist has the same issues that the UA Paladin has. Misty Presence is honestly the only feature that feels strong with this class and I struggle to see why you’d put 15 levels into Ranger when you can just put a few levels into Rogue for Expertise in Stealth and the ability to hide as a Bonus Action.

I give this subclass about a 2/10 - it really needs some work. Looking it over I feel like a Vayne build for League of Legends could be possible with this build but I still feel like Rogue + Fighter would be stronger.

(Artwork by Riot Games)

Artificer really stole the show with this UA and the others honestly feel like afterthoughts to me. This might be because Artificer is by far my favorite class in 5e but I really think that the Ranger needs a complete revision, which is a shame because I thought Swarmkeeper was pretty good. The Druid subclass is unique but has its faults and could use some time to be ironed out.

I really do expect the Artificer subclass to be published because the “Iron Man” aesthetic was something that Wizards of the Coast was going for with the Artificer UAs for a long time but could never really perfect. I hope we’ll get a lot more Artificer UA subclasses to supplement the fact that the class is new.

[stacks-reviews]

Tuesday Releases 6/20/17

Happy New Release Day! There’s a lot going on in books but not much (at least that I’m interested in) on DVD.

In Books

–Dorohedoro volume 21 by Q. Hayashida If you have never heard of it before Dorohedoro consists of a world made up of Sorcerers; who live in a separate world/dimension, and the humans who live in a place called The Hole. Every so often Sorcerers will travel to The Hole using their magic called Smoke to open a door there. Once there they experiment on humans to improve their magical abilities. Caiman was experimented on by Sorcerers and had his head turned into a lizard head. And as result he lost his memories of everything leading up to the transformation. Now he spends his days with the help of his friend Naikaido hunting down Sorcerers trying to find the one who transformed his head in order to fix it and hopefully regain his memories. I really like this series. It’s dark, it’s gory, and I enjoy the art style. The art style is similar to comic books than manga but it does have it’s problems. They did print some issues in color for a few pages at the beginning of different chapters but it usually comes out a little blurry. But I’ve heard that it isn’t a problem in the digital volumes. I often have to go back and reread the previous volume to help remember what will be going on in the new one. Sometimes even having to go back two or three volumes to understand it. But it has gotten better in the later volumes cause I think I’ve finally figured out what is going on so I’m a little less confused. It is a complex story line but I enjoy it. There is some nudity in the series so just be aware of that if that is something you don’t like to see when you read manga or comics.

–Erased omnibus volume 2 by Kei Sanbe The manga that the hit anime of the same name is based on. But if you are unfamiliar with either of them: Twenty-nine-year-old Satoru has a unique ability that he calls ‘Revival’ that allows him to travel back in time; sometimes against his will, to when he was eleven. When he was eleven there was a series of child-kidnapping in his hometown which resulted in the death of a girl named Kayo Hinazuki. By traveling back in time he hopes to be able to prevent the murder of Kayo and to prevent a tragedy that happens before he travels back in time. It’s a poor summary but the anime was very good and one of the hits of its season. The culprit was kinda predictable but the real charm of this series is watching as Satoru tries to save Kayo in more ways than one. I do have the first volume but I haven’t had time to read it yet. I did flip through it a little bit and from what I saw the anime seems to follow it pretty well. 

–Magical Girl Raising Project volume 1 by Asari Endou Another manga that inspire an anime of the same name. There is a game that exists that creates Magical Girls but one day the game decides that there are too many magical girls. Their numbers must be cut in half. So begins a deadly contest between them. I haven’t had the time to try out the anime yet but it is on my queue. I’ve heard good things about and would like to try out the light novels as well as the show. If you like dark magical girls I would give it the show or the light novels a shot.

–Management Style of the Supreme Being by Tom Holt The Supreme Being and his son decide that they no longer wish to be supreme. So they decide to sell. Our new owners; the Venturi Brothers, have a few ideas how the world should really run. They don’t care for Good and Evil and decide to rid the world of right and wrong. But one of the old gods didn’t want to move out and he needs to know if you’ve been naughty or nice. I was first drawn to the title and I like the idea behind it. That our universe is more or less run like a company and can be sold. Not really sure how Santa will play into or why. Especially considering that this comes out in June. Unless this is for the paperback edition. Which I forgot to check when I looked this book up. But it still sounds good.

–Motor Crush volume 1 by Brenden Fletcher “By day, Domino Swift competes for fame and fortune in a worldwide motorcycle racing league. By night, she cracks heads of rival gangs in brutal bike wars to gain possession of a rare, valuable contraband: an engine boosting machine narcotic known as Crush.” I haven’t heard much about this series but it sounds good. I wanna give it a try.

–Princess Jellyfish omnibus volume 5 by Akiko Higashimura In the bustling city of Tokyo there resides a place called Amamizukan, a safe haven for girl geeks (otakus of trains, jellyfish, Japanese dolls, and more) who are terrified of ‘stylish’ people. One such girl is Tsukimi who loves jellyfish. One night she meets a stylish lady who helps her save the life of a jellyfish at a pet shop. This chance encounter will result in an odd friendship (at first anyway) between the two and the rest of the residents at Amamizukan. But this stylish girl is actually a boy. It’s super cute shojo series that was made into an anime a while back. As well as a live-action film that according to one of my friends is very well done.  Though do note: Rightstuf has it noted as a release for today but it looks like B&N will not be getting it till 7/18/17, according to their website.

–Spell on Wheels volume 1 by Kate Leth, illustrator Megan Levens, and colorist Marissa Louise Three witches who head out on a road trip to retrieve their belongings that were stolen from them before whoever stole them does any damage to the items. I don’t know too much about this series but I enjoy magical stories. And I like the looks of the art style.

–Strange Attractors by Charles Soule and illustrated by Greg Scott Dr. Spencer Drownfield claims to have saved New York City from itself in 1978. Ever since he has been tinkering with the people of New York to keep the city afloat. A young mathematician is chosen as his successor. Is there truth to Dr. Spencer’s claims about how the Butterfly Affect and his complexity math applies to the city’s patterns. Or is it simply the raving of a broken man as he tries to make sense of the world around him. I like the idea of a person secretly ‘tinkering’ with people in order to save his city. And at first I thought it would be done on a real power but now I am not so sure. It may end up being more on a reflection of how we interact with the world and try to understand our place in it. Either way, the story sounds good.

–Tokyo Ghoul volume 13 by Sui Ishida In case you haven’t heard of this series yet. Tokyo Ghoul is about a world infested with human eating ghouls. One day Ken Kaneki goes on a date with a cute lady who turns out to be a ghoul and tries to eat him. Due to a strange incident the ghoul is killed and Kaneki is rushed to a hospital. Where they transplant the ghouls organs (who they don’t know is a ghoul) into Kaneki to save his life. Turning him into a half-ghoul.  I really like this series. There’s lots of action and it has an interesting story. It is an exploration of what really makes a person human (one of my favorite story types, especially if it involves robots; GitS). If you have seen the anime but haven’t read the series yet, you should. The anime started to deviate away from the manga around volume 5 or 6. But both are worth reading/watching. There is just one volume left after this before the first series is over. Tokyo Ghoul Jack will be released digitally only, but in full color if I remember right. Tokyo Ghoul: re volume 1 will be out in October. 

In Movies and Television

–The Big O Complete Collection Forty years ago the citizens of Paradigm City all lost their memories. Negotiator Roger Smith does his best to find resolutions for any troubles that Paradigm City finds itself in. With the help of his butler Norman, his android assistant Dorothy, and his giant robot (also called a megadeus) Big O. The classic anime is back and for the first time on blu-ray. I love this show. It has been a long time since I last saw it, back when it was still on Toonami. It’s a great film noir series with mecha’s. What’s not to love. Seriously though. It has been a long time since I last saw the full series. I don’t think I could explain it well enough to do it justice. I really recommend it. If I remember right the first season is more episodic while the second season has a more on-going story. Like GitS S.A.C. and 2nd gig. I do have the full series on dvd from Bandai but I would like to retire it someday for the blu-ray. Once you watch it, you too will start shouting out, “Big O! Showtime!”

–Sailor Moon S P2 The second part of Sailor Moon S, episodes 109-127. There is a gwp version on Rightstuf’s website that includes art cards.  Really excited to see part 2 out. Mine actually arrived in the mail yesterday. And now that I have both parts of S, I can finally watch them. I like to wait till I have both part of the Sailor Moon seasons before I watch them.

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Spring Anime 2017 Part 1: woke up late

This time I prepared so I could get to the procrastinating right with the first post! Yay! Let’s get this show on the road.

See also:

• spring anime 2017 part 2: girlfriendship is magic

• spring anime 2017 part 3: comfy and easy to wear

• spring anime 2017 bonus round: things you already knew were good

Alice to Zouroku

So get this, a pretty girl with psychic superweapon powers escapes from a lab she’s been in her whole life and now has to adapt to the real world with the help of a guy she stumbles upon, all while being chased by her superweapon former friends. But in a shocking twist, this is actually better than Elfen Lied! Not being written by someone as brutally incompetent as Lynn Okamoto is a start, but the real change here is that our heroine is less murder machine and more genuinely cute, and more importantly the guy she ends up with is not a harem ringleader dorklord, but a grumpy elderly florist. Yeah, we’re skipping the recent trend of dadfeel anime and diving headfirst into granddad feels (I don’t know if aging otaku are quite old enough to fully self-insert yet, but the same principle applies). It’s a low hanging fruit, but that’s what makes it work; a deliberate, contemplative pace and delightfully whimsical music by TO-MAS also help. So far, so good, were it not for the fact that this is only one aspect of the show. Of course a show like this would have an action half as well, and that one’s pretty garbage. Not only is it directed with zero impact or excitement, it also relies on horrible CG a lot - I really don’t want to be reminded of Hand Shakers this quickly again, thank you very much. Plus, it runs with a Alice in Wonderland metaphor, which is baby’s first literary reference and doesn’t bode well about the intellectual ambitions of the project. So we have one half that’s admittedly effective, but also very predictable and which desperately needs to go somewhere to pay off. The other half just plain sucks and has little chance to improve. I think I’ll give this one a few more chances to sort out its priorities, but it’s definitely not a sure thing.

Busou Shoujo Machiavellianism

A cocky guy walks into a school full of pretty girls with weapons who have managed to sissify all the dudes by forcing them to crossdress. He then proceeds to troll them with his rugged charm. You know, it’s really not that easy to offend me but damn this show is trying. Apart from bottom-tier harem crap setup, this show also looks like ass and is tremendously boring; a few well done action cuts do not in fact excuse “fights” that mostly consist of exposition about special attacks, or terminally uninspired direction. Macchiavellism is the worst of shounen fightmens crossed with the worst of harem LNs, plus some of the worst jokes bad anime comedy can come up with. It’s not even audacious enough in its badness to boggle the mind; I could watch this if I was interested in adding another 1/10 to my MAL, but that’s about all I can appreciate about it.

Frame Arms Girl

Speaking of unholy combinations, here’s Gundam Build Fighters x Rozen Maiden x Strike Witches: A girl stumbles into a sentient mecha musume model kit that spends its time explaining the technical details of model building to her and attracts other model kits that want to fight. It’s an ad for model kits, what do you expect. There’s no characters, the plot is utterly uninteresting, the action’s bad, it looks subpar to bad, and the only high point is how brazenly it reads to you from the manual.

Gin no Guardian

Here’s your latest Chinese webcomic adaptation from your friends at Haoliners Animation League (Shanghai) Inc., whose output has been asymptotically approaching the quality level of a bad Japanese cartoon for years now: Closer than ever, but still not quite there. Maybe they should stop picking bad webcomics with incomprehensible nonsense plots as source material, just sayin’. So this is about a dude who beats up CG zombies in the spirit world but the actual story is how he got there? Or something? It manages to look barely alright and even has some visually striking design work, but its half-length run time prevents it from forming any semblance of coherence and I’m not about to ask for further clarification.

Oushitsu Kyoushi Haine

In a vaguely 18th century Germanic kingdom, a grown ass man with the body of a ten year old and a snarky disposition is hired to become the tutor of an instaharem of fabulous princes. I really don’t get who this is for; obviously the harem is straight out of a PSP otome dating sim, but it’s lacking the obvious self-insert dimwitted main girl, and no, it isn’t gay romance either. Even though it’s a comedy, that aspect does not seem to be played for outright parody. The source material is running in GFantasy, a shounen title (but not one as specifically elementary schooler-focused as Jump, it also carries fujo favorites such as Black Butler). Dubious provenance aside, Haine is moderately funny if nothing else, mainly due to the deadpan reactions of the main character to these ridiculous dreamboats. It just also drags more than a little, with long conversations that aren’t very entertaining all the time. It’s watchable compared to a lot of the stuff out this season, but I remain unconvinced.

Rokudenashi Majutsu Koushi to Akashic Records

After Macchiavellism already obliterated the battle harem bingo, here’s our next winner. The setup’s more or less the same and in some respects it’s even more formulaic (the school is actually a magic school for magic people, princesses, duels, &c), but Akashic Record is not quite as odious simply by focusing on being a comedy first and foremost and pulling that off at least on a technical level - it has good visual execution and comedic timing. The question is just how much credit you want to give it for that when the jokes themselves still suck, and that’s of course ignoring the entire setup being Light Novel as all fuck. Kinda seems familiar actually, because this is not entirely unlike to what KonoSuba did to the isekai genre, and people keep trying to tell me that that was totally great. Well, go watch this one then, motherfuckers.

Sagrada Reset

But there’s always the other kind of light novel, the one where high schoolers talk about life, people and the world. Think Bakemonogatari or OreGairu. Sagrada Reset wants a slice of that pie and starts by stealing the magical realism conceit from classic™ visual novel Wind ~A Breath of Heart~: There’s a remote town in Japan where everyone has superpowers, but if they leave the town they instantly forget about it. Oops, i guess I just spoiled Wind’s midgame, but I have to since Sagrada Reset puts this stuff right upfront because it has to discuss technicalities (at length) to make its plot work. Yeah, that’s how I like my magical realism, thoroughly explained and conceived by people who should write wikis, not fiction. There’s a girl who can reset time, but only once per arbitrary period of time and also including herself, which means she only finds out she already did it once it doesn’t work again. So that’s pretty useless, except there’s a guy whose superpower is having his memory unaffected by this. They have to work together to solve... some problems, I suppose. This whole idea seems to have potential in a JoJo subplot sort of way, but it’s completely sunk by the way the thing is written, since apparently the writer has never met a human being in his life. It’s entirely made of these pseudo-deep highschool stoner philosophy conversations presented in a lifeless inflection by people who stand around like robots on battery saver mode. This seems to be intentional (at least the term “robot” is thrown around a couple of times, which is certainly ominous), but it also makes for an excruciating and interminable watching experience.

Sakura Quest

Since Sakura Quest was announced, I have been gleefully throwing water on the hype of people who expected this to be the next Shirobako. After all, how likely is it for lightning to strike twice, especially considering Mizushima is not in the director’s seat? Surely it was all just wishful thinking, I want a S2 of Shirobako as much as everyone but I just don’t trust anime. Well consider me fucking told, since apparently among the parties wishing for more Shirobako is P.A. Works, and unlike the anitwitterati they can make it happen. The actual brand name seems to be reserved for a Mizushima project, but I would have no trouble believing that Sakura Quest is a spinoff about Aoi’s sister in the boonies; Shirobako Sunshine, if you will. The initial setup is mirrored here; Yoshino is not a young professional starting her dream job, but a young professional unable to score a dream job (or any job) so she settles for a random one she’s very skeptical of, but will undoubtedly learn to love. Apart from that, well, it’s Shirobako: The positive tone, the large cast of likeable oddballs, the relatable writing about post-highschool problems, and it even looks completely identical. I’ll still be realistic about it: Shirobako isn’t great for what its ideas were, but for how thoroughly it delivered in the long run, and this is by no means guaranteed to also happen with Sakura Reset Quest. For an episode 1 though, it’s like a dream come true, and P.A. are setting themselves up for seasonal double domination with this and Uchouten Kazoku S2.

Souryo to Majiwaru Shikiyoku no Yoru ni

Enough gushing, here’s 5 minutes of porn. Okay, it’s josei porn so there may still be gushing involved if you know what I mean, nyuk nyuk. Er, sorry about that. Sooooo there’s a sexually frustrated woman who meets her school crush who’s now a priest, and then they fuck. With a staff made up mostly of (non-josei, but hey) hentai OVA veterans, there is really only one way this could go. I appreciate the brazenness as usual, but I really don’t know how much steamy harlequin romance tailored to TV broadcast standards I want to watch.

Tsugumomo

I’ve seen some warnings about Tsugumomo based on its source material which is a manga with 1. a very high level of art quality and 2. content that has been described as “makes To-Love Ru Darkness look family friendly”. This may explain why it has not been licensed. It doesn’t explain why this first episode is fairly tame though; sure, it’s very much an ecchi comedy, but you get those from time to time and Tsugumomo is not any more raunchy than what I’m used to seeing (and it accomplishes this even without obvious BD-advert censoring). That incidentally also removes any reason to watch it: The plot is as basic “guy gets magical girlfriend for purposes of fights and/or walking in on her naked in the bath” from 15 years ago as they come, and it’s suspiciously well animated, but not well enough for that to be a selling point. Maybe it will get real skeevy eventually, I won’t be around to find out.

Warau Salesman NEW

Warau Salesman starts strong with ultra cool, Saul Bass-inspired opening credits, but that’s about all it has to offer. It’s based on a “black comedy” manga from the 60s by one of the Doraemon authors, and oh boy can you tell. Not only are the character designs 60s-tastic (so at least the Osomatsu-san fujos can schlick to something while they wait for the S2 of that), but so are the sensibilities: The titular salesman goes around tempting frustrated office workers with doing something moderately irresponsible, such as drinking in your lunch break or spending above your means, and then ruins their life when they actually do it. It’s like Twilight Zone written by your HR department. In the 60s. This stuff would have been outdated even in 1989, when it was animated for the first time – hence the “NEW”. I don’t know, it just seems mean-spirited, obvious and pointless, and most importantly I put the “black comedy” in quotes because in addition to not being very black, it’s not funny in any way, and unlike regular anime comedy I can’t even see what’s supposed to be funny.