I don't accept random friend requests without a reason.
Eh, usually. Feel free to talk if you'd like!
...even if I'm slow to respond.
Merry Christmas! Jesus loves you!
Hi! I make comics, working towards a ridiculous lifelong goal of completing the best anime, video games, and manga!
And I guess we all love anime, don't we? Now we got something in common!
I'm looking for the best stories. I know that it's different for everybody, and every thing.
Send me a recommendation if you think it's something special! I'll be happy!
I'm bias for surreal and experimental anime that tries to capture emotion and metaphorical concepts.
Also anything retro, so I guess there's that.
Oatmeal is the best! You can put things like garlic powder and parmesan cheese or soy sauce in it! That oatmeal, my friend, is the best oatmeal. I'd argue it's better savory than sweet! I would never lie about this.
Thanks for readin', champ!
5x5'ꜱ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ɪ ᴋɴᴏᴡɪɴɢʟʏ ᴡᴀꜱᴛᴇᴅ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ᴍᴀᴋɪɴɢ Video Games
Row 1- Mother 3, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, The 25th Ward, The House in Fata Morgana
Row 2- Killer7, Faith: The Unholy Trinity, Moonlight Syndrome, Flower, Sun, and Rain, Shin Megami Tensei Digital Devil Saga 2
Row 3- Chrono Cross, Xenogears, The Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask, Chaos;Head NoAH, NieR: Automata
Row 4- We Happy Few, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Disco Elysium, Silent Hill 2, Who's Lila?
Row 5- Paper Mario, Psychonauts, moon: Remix RPG Adventure, Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Final Fantasy VII
ᴛᴏᴘ ʀᴇᴄᴏᴍᴍᴇɴᴅᴀᴛɪᴏɴꜱ
This is, to me, the pinnacle of all my years of looking for the best. This is the best recommendations I got for ya! So, enjoy, I guess?
All game titles are linked with a full game playthrough on Youtube. :D
1. The 25th Ward: The Silver Case (Visual Novel) by Suda51 (2005)
2. The World is Mine (Manga) by Hideki Arai (1997)
3. Trigun Maximum (Manga) by Ysuhiro Nightow (1997)
4. NANA (Manga) by Ai Yazawa (2000)
5. Mother 3 (Video Game) by Shigesato Itoi (2006)
I would consider anything on my list with a score of 8 or more on here or on Backloggd as essential for existence.
ɢᴏᴀʟꜱ
Personal RPG Project Progress:
Script Writing [20%] Working on
Script Review [0%]
Concept Art [0%]
Graphics [0%]
Programing [0%]
Miscellaneous Goals
Profile Customization [50%]
List of Watched Non-Anime [35%]
List of Future Anime Goals [11%]
List Re-Scoring [3%]
Finish Watched Anime Continuations [6%]
ʀᴀɴᴅᴏᴍ ʀᴀᴍʙʟɪɴɢꜱ
I guess I write a lot of notes about random things to myself and I figured I would put them here? Hey, if I'm gonna waste time, might as well show it to everyone.
Feel free to not read this.
I noticed a lot of shounen manga have characters dominantly fill small panels. Small panels are usually used for faster paced action, and displaying snippets of movement close to each other to give the eye a clear and animated progression through the page. (This usually creates more vertical panels, where its width is shortened) These panels are indeed great for fast movement, but they remove emotion from the page! Well, besides the character's expression themself. But if you're trying to create an emotional panel, making the panel wide is ALWAYS how authors do this. Having horizontal space on the side of characters suddenly makes them feel very alone. Also, drawing characters very small on the page or from behind usually makes their expressions harder to read. Ironically, since the brain is searching for identification of their expression, it usually goes towards the most dramatic route when determining this, taking all of the emotional and sad context of the story surrounding this panel and applying it. Again, subtlety strikes again! Now suddenly a faceless character is the saddest thing on the planet Earth.
Mangas with great usage of negative space in artwork: "Trigun Maximum", "Veil", "Berserk", "Houseki no Kuni", "Vagabond", "FLCL"
Narratively, this tactic applies too. Over the years, the phrase "Short but Sweet" has really hit for me, because I keep realizing how absolutely unneeded it is to dwell on things. If it takes a single sentence to explain a concept, continuing to flesh it out, even if it may add further depth to the topic with even new points being made about it, gives the readers a psychological feeling of being overwhelmed even if they comprehend it perfectly. Rather, a sentence that gives the audience all the information they have to know truly is a superior route. Even leaving some things about the sentence unexplained gives audiences enough intrigue to continue to think about the statement by themselves, and gives them a personal connection to the topic being stated since they have to come up with its meaning themselves. I think the subtly of dialogue is essential for good writing. Of course, I hope the translators don't leave the audience without context in trying to achieve this effect. Sometimes sentences are so short that they literally say nothing important, so that's worse than over explaining!
Mangas with great usage of negative space in dialogue: "Aku no Hana", "Houseki no Kuni", "Nana", "Oyasumi Punpun", "Chainsaw Man", "Annarasumanara"
This is both a review and comparison of the anime and visual novel of Phantom of the Inferno.
Great story that deals with very human ways of thinking- No pseudo-deep ramblings or anime-esque bullcrap reasonings. Just a straight up good story! My only complaint is that it will talk about something rather thought provoking only to a degree, without really getting extensive into it. I'm sure this was for the purpose of not ranting about a singular subject or line of reasoning for too long, but I was actually pretty intrigued by some of the ramblings in it and would have liked to see more. I think that Gen is a great writer and could have squeezed a bit more content into it without sounding pretentious. As it stands, the VN seems to lack a bit of depth that I think could have easily been managed.
The anime adaptation is definitely more refined in practically every regard, and even offers that extra layer of depth that I felt like this VN was missing. Great watch! Absolutely an 8 or 9 out of 10! When writing the script, I can tell the scriptwriter took this VN word for word, understood its messages perfectly, boiled down every thought to its bare essential point, making it very concise, and even added answers to moments where the VN left thoughts open ended. Very few changes were made in its translation besides consolidating/ combining scenes to make it faster while still preserving the story's messages perfectly so that essentially no content was left out, and having to pick a route for each character that best represented them. They did a masterful job.
If I were to compare, I think my almost sole criticism of the show, that I felt like the VN did better at handling, was Claudia's character. Yes, it's not that important but I wanted to mention it. Claudia isn't shown very frequently in the anime, but when she is, you can practically boil her role down to "evil" in every scene where her character is present. Not very many times is she portrayed with softness or longing, but the VN makes these aspects of her very clear alongside her terrible actions. While she almost solely is a bad person in the anime, she is sympathetic towards Reiji in the VN, and you can tell her kind soul hasn't completely vanished yet, although it is very close to disappearing completely. To give the show credit, I understand entirely that they had to essentially "choose a route" and stick with it in order to make the story not be partial in its decisions, so they made her "evil", choosing the VN's tragic route for her, where she continues to commit terrible deeds until she is at the top with no satisfaction, chasing her (or her brother's) goals of prosperity blindly without considering if SHE wants that goal. This characterization still reads well, but I feel as if adding in her moments of sympathy towards Reiji from the VN would have greatly benefited her character to be more interesting and likable. I did enjoy, however, some added scenes featuring her brother in the anime. It gave her more of a reason to chase his dreams, being able to experience her suffering, lack of reason to live after he died, and thus her motivations for being so.. evil. Taking the information about her from both adaptations of this story, her character is one of the most interesting amongst all the characters, and it feels more represented in the visual novel than in the anime due to its branching paths where she reveals these pieces of information about herself under the drastic story differences. So good job VN for that!
I think the VN's weakest link was its handling of Cal. When everything else in the story was tackled with realism, striving not to be anime, I feel like Cal was the VN gutter trash to root this VN back into anime world. From the character portrait to the endless banter, I cannot view Cal in the VN as anything but an anime bullcrappery vessel. And that's fine. The way the anime completely rips this away, instead making her and Reiji's relationship as one like a parent and child is much more tender and meaningful. I don't even know what I would call the VN's relationship between the two. You know, I think I was kind of mean just now. Oh.. And I actually do have one good point about the VN that I think is substantial enough to bring up, ironically about the very character I was just complaining about: I think the anime does a fantastic job at condensing its messages into much more tightly written and rewarding words, but the VN added very much needed depth to Cal's character, giving her the slightest bit more of a reason why she heavily treasures Reiji so much, and wants to follow him as an assassin. I also think that her potential for darkness is brought out a bit more in the VN, since the anime paints her more innocently, like a child. Maybe even including a sentence hinting at bloodlust in her in the anime would have benefited this, but I say "benefit" because I don't feel like it's entirely missing, either. This is more like a preference thing, because I still think it reads well. It just does fully encapsulate every aspect that we were shown in Cal's various routes in the VN.
As a standalone piece, I think Phantom of Inferno is fantastic, even if it is missing some depth to its ideas. The Phantom: Requiem for a Phantom anime is better in basically all regards with the exception of the VN better adding depth to Claudia and Cal.. But you wouldn't be missing out if you never get to see it either, being so minor.
I would not recommend this visual novel since the anime is the most condensed and masterful rendition of this story. Watch that, and if you can find Phantom of Inferno, play Claudia's routes!
You know, I'm kind of a big fan of stories. But what ends up affecting my final score feels a little skewed. How are you supposed to assign a number on an experience offering so many different factors, and whose effectiveness is so subjective that someone's mood before even witnessing an anime or TV show can potentially entirely dictate whether they enjoy the experience or not? Besides, each person's scoring scale is scaled differently. For me, I give anything average below a 2, then incremental differences dictating whether a series get a 3 versus a 9. I think most people assign things somewhere between 7-9. Worst of all, a mistake can be made at any time under all of these categories. The notion of scoring is so flawed in so many ways, that it should be considered something entirely futile. And I guess that's true. Yet I am participating because there is some truth in it as well. It's undefinable, which is neat.
I guess I'm going with my ‘scoring 1-2 = average and scoring 3-9 = good with incremental differences’ route precisely because I feel like most people consider 90% of anime being between the 7-9 because you can say "yeah, it was good enough”. There’s barely room for telling your favorite anime apart with a scale of 4 numbers! If a 5 is average, are you really telling me that everything you score 6-9 was above that average and is so meaningful to you? I think a watchable show should be the least of what a piece of media has to offer. If it can't achieve that, its a score of 1 or 2 for you, baby! (2 being a piece of flaming garbage with at least 1 very profound thought communicated successfully to the audience.) I guess 3 then is watchable with very little relatable human experience to speak of, and 10 being significantly and masterfully thought out in every regard? Geez, I did it. I wasn't going to, but I did it anyway. I just talked about my scoring system. SHAME ON ME!
People who listen to video game OSTs are aware of an entirely new world of music versus people who do not. Obviously, the only reason they do not is because they never tried it out. It is truly a whole other art form in itself though. The music has to be empty enough to allow for the player to read dialogue, catchy enough not to be boring when looped infinitely, and abide to the console's limitations if made with limiting hardware. Well, I'm gonna talk about limited hardware now.
Limited hardware is the BEST. Seriously. I think that freedom without limitations destroyed something so genuine in music. The compression of the instruments makes it sound simultaneously artificial and familiar, creating this comfortable, absolutely new sound. Usually "new" means alien and alienating to people, but the fact that the instrument resembles a recognizable real life instrument makes this weird artifical-trying-to-be-that-real-instrument just sound more pathetic than intimidating. And that pathetic-ness is what is so likable about it! Don't we all feel that way? I think it might be part of the comfort in listening to it. But yes, these instruments are also capable of sounding entirely alien as well, creating some pretty cool sounds! I never felt like artificial-ness of limited hardware instruments ever struck my like intimidating. They always have a comfort to them, which is beautiful.
Anyway, what makes these compositions feel so emotional is the sheer joy that is injected into them. Seriously! You think that a sad sounding track would kill ya, but it's always the unexpected ones. Specifically Nintendo is our biggest culprit here. If you listen to one of their older OSTs, (I listed some good ones in the bottom of this rambling. If you've played those games before, listen to them again! They miss you!), notably the happier tracks, they will throw in some sad and melancholic notes at the end of the music patterns. It creates intrigue to the listener by changing the expected mood and acting as sort of "brain food" for the listener to notice and continue to listen to since the song hints that it might not be entirely as it seems. But it also paints this happy tune into one that is more complicated. I guess whenever I hear sad notes thrown into celebratory music, it makes me feel like that happiness does not come without sad times, or those happy times are from a time in the past, and not accessible now. However, the songs always resolve these negative notes with a happy ditty by the end of the full pattern, swooping back into the happy mode. It starts and ends happy with some sad in the middle. Actually, there's always very little sad in the songs, I guess I'm just focusing a lot on it right now haha.
But overall it creates these unforgettable, joyful compositions with some bitter sweetness mixed in to masterfully perfect it. Honestly, I can imagine songs being quite dull without these aspects in it. Having this sad in my happy makes me happier! Such is life, I guess? Oh, and by both starting and ending songs to be happy, the songs don't feel draining to listen to over long periods of time! I'd say the ratio of happy to sad is probably around 94% happy and 6% sad? Generally? I guess? Hey, this is called the rambling section for a reason.
OSTs that destroy my white boy soul every time: "Mother 3", "Paper Mario", "Moon: Remix RPG", "Final Fantasy VII", "Super Mario World", "Wii Play", "Pokemon Diamond & Pearl", "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time", Wii System OST
I know you guys over in the US celebrate it on the 25th, but over here we celebrate it on the 24th and it'd feel weird to wait until tomorrow to say it when the christmas feeling is basically gone for me. I'll just say it now instead! xd
Yeah, I've been playing it almost everyday whenever I get time and have energy over to do so. I'm always thinking about it, theorycrafting, and all that. You 100% need to play it, but yeah it's a gargantuan game but so far I'd say it's 100% worth it. You're already familar with Ryukishi07's writing style having played Higurashi and all, meaning you probably wont be as lost with how the narrative is structured as I was in the beginning. But, oh boy I have so many questions left unanswered and I CANT WAIT to see how all these mysteries will get revealed. I'm super invested and excited. Also, I'll probably start Metaphor: Refantazio soon since I'm an Atlus simp... :')
Edit: oh yeah, I forgot to say how long I've been playing it. For about a month now, more or less.
Have you ever used study together for shadowing sessions?
I miss them ever since the website got extinct and they migrated to discord 😭
Haven't found anything similar yet
((if you don't happen to know it, it's just as self explanatory as the name - a website in which people join shared rooms to....... study........ together xD)
Heyyo I'm a junkie for huge blocks of text, so you're definitely more than welcome to flood me lol
Milk Inside a Bag Of Milk (looping ➿) got me hooked up from its colour palette to the meme-ish bits of rhetoric monologue lol
I have the ever so dumb habit of never finishing the things I develop deep bonds of identification with, so I've never played the sequel ;---;
I've just added you on Backloggd btw!!! :3
You're definitely a hardcore games connoisseur lololol
I see Mouthwashing is your GOTY btw!!! The cover art made me curious already, I'm usually anxious about spoilers in the first two lines of the synopsis so I don't read them anymore
I've never partaken (...yet!) in the world of reviews xD People on Backloggd seem to take artsy games with a grain of salt, so the lower the ranking and worse the review, I already feel closer to the games
You've got a lot of reviews both on Backloggd and MAL tho!!!! <3 I think it's inspiring tbh lol
(Dr. Stone also didn't grow on me lmao)
First two eps of Argento Soma made me nostalgic of Haibane Renmei :0
Wellllp being a big fat stinky cheater is what makes the gaming process more enjoyable imho I usually won't last longer than 20 min in a game if I don't have at least three¹ tabs in the background with three² different walkthroughs and YES I'd do the same even if it's something like cookie clicker :3
I think I know what you mean about the Yume Nikki novel! D: Love myself some gore, but feels a bit cheap to reduce a whole symbolic subculture of existential dread to another splatter story ><
Naaah I'm too biased and opinionated for my own good too, at the end of the day life is too miserable for you to not enjoy rating a work of art considering your very own personal level of enjoyment 😭
I got into OFF around 2016 tho xD
If Argento Soma is laughable due to the overt dramatic elements then Texhnolyze would be an epitome of that lololol Your description also instigated me some more to get past the second episode!!!
I've been too lazy to keep myself in a vertical position, so it's been some time since I surrendered to titles available at crunchyroll for the sheer practicality of being able to watch in the switch while desperately munching unhealthy breakfast at 3AM :DDDD
I THINKKKK we'd probably have similar music taste as well!!! If you'd ever like to share spotify (where are the XManager Devs 😭) or rym or lastfm or aoty or anything like that xD
(I almost finished this with BEST REGARDS - that's when you realize capitalism has been shaping and destroying your ego lololol)
I don't know why, but I can imagine it being so goofy and fun from what it appears like to me right now!
Haha, it definitely won't disappoint then :D
It seems like passion projects, or risky plays at the very least, in anime were much more prevalent 20+ years ago, which is such a damn shame. There are so many classics from that time period that fall under this category (though that may be survivorship bias) and Evangelion proved with its merchandising that you can milk tf out of an experimental IP!!!
I honestly want to create my own studio and make things like that with people who are self motivated and have cool things to say because I know otherwise it would never happen unfortunately
I think this is the idea that people like Masaaki Yuasa, Hideaki Anno and Hiroyuki Imaishi set out to do when branching off to create their own studios, so it can be possible to SOME degree. It is indeed unfortunate that the seasonal, long-titled isekai remains to be such a safe sturdy net for studios. It seems that a modern classic like Sonny Boy can only come from a juggernaut in the industry with enough money to [hopefully not] burn (aka Madhouse, who did produce Sonny Boy) or some small-time, starry-eyed studio.
I had no expectation going into watching a Mouthwashing walkthrough as I had no prior knowledge of the game or its devs, but man did this game absolutely captivate me. You are completely right in how much character the game has. Every single aspect of it had me enamored, especially the artistic/directorial choices in the back-end of the game. Definitely a rose among the thorns compared to things that so obviously parallel prior works. I think you can find a direct correlation between the rise of self aware/psychological modern media and the rise in prevalence of the term "pseudo-intellectual" lol.
(I am so sorry for talking so much :'U)
Please don't apologize!!!! It makes me so genuinely happy to see someone talk so passionately about something they love. I've never played any of the Final Fantasy games before but you make them sound worth a shot! I had only watched about seven(?) different anime franchises until early this year when I REALLY got into it and started binging tf out of everything. So that feeling of everything in the medium being absolutely amazing is still relatively new to me. Though it's mostly worn off, I have a strong feeling that I will absolutely fall in love with Nana when I watch it in a couple weeks. It's been on my watchlist for a while, and for what ever reason (like literally it's based on nothing), I think I'm gonna enjoy it so much. When I've had these gut feelings going into an anime, I've been right more often than not, I can't really explain it. Maybe I'm setting myself up for disappointment, but I guess time will tell :D
I'm actually so dumb, I meant to say I'm playing Umineko atm. I have no idea why I said Higurashi. I know Umineko canonically comes after the events of Higurashi, even though I havent finished that yet. Although, I've sort of understood that the two witches Bernekastel and Lambdadelta are (what I think) Rika and the blonde haired girl I cant remember the name of, Sayoko? But yeah, absolutely LOVING it so far. I'm around the halfway mark on episode six, so I'm getting through it. About 75% done with it.
Thank you!!! :D<3 I'm so inactive on MAL its insane. My birthday was mostly calm, but I wouldnt really want it any other way. I'm playing Higurashi atm, so I'm not really watching/reading anything else since this is like a 100 hour game... :')
Oh my God I love The Tatami Time Machine Blues so much, that is a perfect example. It captures everything great about the first show and puts it into a bite-sized package. The show is actually a rendition of the play/movie Summer Time Machine Blues done with the characters of The Tatami Galaxy. So if you'd like a live-action version of that story, I highly recommend it.
Everything about Welcome to Irabu's office is just so amazing to me - from its experimental nature to its hilarious and endearing characters - I just love it so much. But yeah, as much as I'd kill for more, I'm not holding my breath. I couldn't agree more about the need for more experimental anime. They are indeed risky plays, but man when they work, they just stick with you for such a long time. The most recent one that comes to the top of my head is Sonny Boy. I really hope we can get something like that again in the near future.
I've actually very recently watched a full gameplay for this game called Mouthwashing. You've probably heard of it, but if you haven't, it DEFINETELY scratches that itch. Even just watching someone play it was such an amazing experience. From sound, to visuals, to dialogue - this game really hits it out of the park.
I mean I haven't played Genshin Impact as well but this is definitely how it feels to me lol especially gacha in general.
I heard that Shenmue's creator still wants to complete the series eventually and the 3rd one came out much later after the 2nd one so who knows... but when you say it was mediocre you would say it's because of the game mechanics or that the story felt weaker overall? Because I know the game has been financed by some side people from Europe since the game wasn't supposed to be created because of the lack of funds after the 2nd one.
It's understandable because not all of Atlus' projects are great unfortunately that was the case for Soul Hackers 2 and how underwhelming it felt to most people. I haven't played much since last time (still cleared one boss and continued a bit and it's as great as the beginning) but I've been playing Marvel Rivals since it came out a few days ago, I just like heroes shooters even though I don't like Marvel movies (and I've seen the whole MCU lol) but the game felt very solid so far for an online competitive one.
Eh that sounds great actually! Makes sense why you would also love anime then, I really like animation too obviously but I'm just so bad at drawings so I couldn't make anything out of it, but anyway I hope you'll succeed then, I hope it's getting harder and harder to find jobs in this field though so it can be a struggle at times but as far as you stay motivated it should be good... for me it's kinda the same in that regard since what I like is cinema (behind the scenes, not acting or anything) but it's just too hard to find anything to begin with :(
Anyway I see I would definitely like to play your game if you eventually finish it xD I think I have RPG Maker XP on steam that I probably got for free at some point but never tried it, and anyway I guess it's outdated now.
Yes every time they try to introduce a new way to evolve or make the pokemon even more powerful but in the end it's almost always the same effects :S So you didn't watch the recent pokemon seasons? I only started with the Journey one (the previous one) in 2019 even though I spent years watching the anime when I was young but this time I started following it weekly and I have to say it was the right time to start since it greatly improved with what they have been doing in the recent years, you could maybe watch the very last 11 eps entry to conclude Ash's journey and character since they put budget you wouldn't expect to see in Pokemon, the last battles even have sakuga animation and all that was insane xD
The card battles are not bad but I don't care much about this aspect tbh, there's no much complexity to it I would say, but collecting the cards without spending money is fun though lol.
Oh okay thanks for the info about the FF OVA I was just wondering xD
Hmm for the music recommendations it's kinda difficult for me as well because I don't often listen to bands I usually just listen to songs randomly no matter from which band it is, but recently I've been liking the songs from the Lily Chou-chou movie, I find the album they created for the movie to be awesome
Thanks, Recruit Rhapsody just continues to become evermore relevant in my life lol.
The Mononoke films are actually confirmed to be a trilogy! :D The second one releases in March of next year, and based on its trailer, it seems that all the movies will revolve around the same setting/set of characters. So a deeper dive with each installment will definitely be interesting. Despite my overall feelings of the movie, I am indeed happy that the series is has seen a resurgence and I do look forward to the next movies. Another Kenji Nakamura classic that I'd love to see revitalized is Welcome to Irabu's Office. I think it's format of mostly self contained stories, just like Mononoke, would make it easy to pick up again. If only it was more popular :(
Wow, congratulations on both soon-to-be graduating and the illustration contract! I'm really happy to hear that you have a lot to look forward to in the rest of the year, and I wish you all the best in your future career endeavors. As for my current job, it's just a temporary role for the summer break (I live in the Southern Hemisphere), so it is just to pay the bills lol. However, I am simultaneously applying for and getting interviews with companies that I do want to work for in the long term. I majored in Economics and [Human] Geography while I was at uni, which I graduated from earlier this year, so I'm generally interested in data entry/analyst roles.
As for anime, I recently watched Mononoke: Karakasa, which I had been eagerly anticipating since its initial release in Japan. It was somewhat disappointing, but still good overall. I'm gonna rewatch it today to try and get a better feel of it.
I get that feeling all to well lol, the few friends of mine that do watch anime aren't really into they same type of stuff. I'm doing fine btw, thx for asking <3 I just started a new job last week, so kinda just easing into that right now. How's life been treating you?
Yes the issue is that they know the games will sell good even though it's a very low budget product, so they can simply gain a lot of money by doing that and finding sub-studios to produce the games instead of Game Freaks is easy.
I understand but I would say it's more that they like to make "clichés" characters to fit the modern player base nowadays, especially when it comes to cute or sexy characters, it has become the norm compared to before when it was rarer and that these characters stood out in this case, I think this is why games like Genshin Impact work so much, and now we have character design like the one in Stellar Blade.
Oh so you did play Shenmue, great!! Did you play the 2nd and 3rd game? I just finished the 1st one and loved it, it wasn't really difficult except for the 70 mad angels battle where I died a few times against the 3rd boss so it was frustrating but I expected the last battle against Chai to be more difficult so I was surprised when I won the battle with all my lives in green lol I feel like the 1st fight against him in the arcade was much harder, anyway I can't wait to start Shenmue II but now I FINALLY got to buy Metaphor ReFantazio so I'll focus on it instead, I finished the prologue and the game already look awesome.
At least it's the final push so if you manage to pass the exams it's perfect, in what field will you search for jobs? Don't know if you already did it but working part time as a transitional time after school is finished is probably the best thing to do yet. What kind of RPG did you start creating? I never did it but it sounds fun, I think RPG Maker is easy to use right?
Exactly, I'm trying to think about it but without new pokemon it can't feel special and new anymore, no idea what they could do instead, but in both cases there's a problem sadly, they need to find new mechanics I think because it's also repetitive how they just introduce new forms and special evolutions every time, it's practically the same thing (mega evolution, gigantamax or terastallization). I think Pokemon Z should introduce the 2nd part of the map (south of France) it would be a good beginning to making it feel engaging. Me too it reminds me when I got some of these games for Christmas back then, I was happy with the remake of Saphir and Ruby it's actually one of the best remakes they probably did yet. Also at least they're trying something new with the anime especially now that Ash isn't the protagonist anymore so the story is different and is filled with lore compared to back then where most of the episodes were "fillers". Also I just installed the Pokemon TCG game on mobile, it's frustrating to wait 12 hours just to have 5 cards lol.
(Also I checked your profile and I didn't know Madhouse made a final fantasy anime back in the 90s was it good? And I'm sending you a FR if you don't mind lol)
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I know you guys over in the US celebrate it on the 25th, but over here we celebrate it on the 24th and it'd feel weird to wait until tomorrow to say it when the christmas feeling is basically gone for me. I'll just say it now instead! xd
Regardless, hope you have a great christmas! :D<3
Edit: oh yeah, I forgot to say how long I've been playing it. For about a month now, more or less.
Dunno why, but I felt like I should ask (!):
Have you ever used study together for shadowing sessions?
I miss them ever since the website got extinct and they migrated to discord 😭
Haven't found anything similar yet
((if you don't happen to know it, it's just as self explanatory as the name - a website in which people join shared rooms to....... study........ together xD)
Heyyo I'm a junkie for huge blocks of text, so you're definitely more than welcome to flood me lol
Milk Inside a Bag Of Milk (looping ➿) got me hooked up from its colour palette to the meme-ish bits of rhetoric monologue lol
I have the ever so dumb habit of never finishing the things I develop deep bonds of identification with, so I've never played the sequel ;---;
I've just added you on Backloggd btw!!! :3
You're definitely a hardcore games connoisseur lololol
I see Mouthwashing is your GOTY btw!!! The cover art made me curious already, I'm usually anxious about spoilers in the first two lines of the synopsis so I don't read them anymore
I've never partaken (...yet!) in the world of reviews xD People on Backloggd seem to take artsy games with a grain of salt, so the lower the ranking and worse the review, I already feel closer to the games
You've got a lot of reviews both on Backloggd and MAL tho!!!! <3 I think it's inspiring tbh lol
(Dr. Stone also didn't grow on me lmao)
First two eps of Argento Soma made me nostalgic of Haibane Renmei :0
Wellllp being a big fat stinky cheater is what makes the gaming process more enjoyable imho I usually won't last longer than 20 min in a game if I don't have at least three¹ tabs in the background with three² different walkthroughs and YES I'd do the same even if it's something like cookie clicker :3
I think I know what you mean about the Yume Nikki novel! D: Love myself some gore, but feels a bit cheap to reduce a whole symbolic subculture of existential dread to another splatter story ><
Naaah I'm too biased and opinionated for my own good too, at the end of the day life is too miserable for you to not enjoy rating a work of art considering your very own personal level of enjoyment 😭
I got into OFF around 2016 tho xD
If Argento Soma is laughable due to the overt dramatic elements then Texhnolyze would be an epitome of that lololol Your description also instigated me some more to get past the second episode!!!
I've been too lazy to keep myself in a vertical position, so it's been some time since I surrendered to titles available at crunchyroll for the sheer practicality of being able to watch in the switch while desperately munching unhealthy breakfast at 3AM :DDDD
I THINKKKK we'd probably have similar music taste as well!!! If you'd ever like to share spotify (where are the XManager Devs 😭) or rym or lastfm or aoty or anything like that xD
(I almost finished this with BEST REGARDS - that's when you realize capitalism has been shaping and destroying your ego lololol)
Haha, it definitely won't disappoint then :D
It seems like passion projects, or risky plays at the very least, in anime were much more prevalent 20+ years ago, which is such a damn shame. There are so many classics from that time period that fall under this category (though that may be survivorship bias) and Evangelion proved with its merchandising that you can milk tf out of an experimental IP!!!
I think this is the idea that people like Masaaki Yuasa, Hideaki Anno and Hiroyuki Imaishi set out to do when branching off to create their own studios, so it can be possible to SOME degree. It is indeed unfortunate that the seasonal, long-titled isekai remains to be such a safe sturdy net for studios. It seems that a modern classic like Sonny Boy can only come from a juggernaut in the industry with enough money to [hopefully not] burn (aka Madhouse, who did produce Sonny Boy) or some small-time, starry-eyed studio.
I had no expectation going into watching a Mouthwashing walkthrough as I had no prior knowledge of the game or its devs, but man did this game absolutely captivate me. You are completely right in how much character the game has. Every single aspect of it had me enamored, especially the artistic/directorial choices in the back-end of the game. Definitely a rose among the thorns compared to things that so obviously parallel prior works. I think you can find a direct correlation between the rise of self aware/psychological modern media and the rise in prevalence of the term "pseudo-intellectual" lol.
Please don't apologize!!!! It makes me so genuinely happy to see someone talk so passionately about something they love. I've never played any of the Final Fantasy games before but you make them sound worth a shot! I had only watched about seven(?) different anime franchises until early this year when I REALLY got into it and started binging tf out of everything. So that feeling of everything in the medium being absolutely amazing is still relatively new to me. Though it's mostly worn off, I have a strong feeling that I will absolutely fall in love with Nana when I watch it in a couple weeks. It's been on my watchlist for a while, and for what ever reason (like literally it's based on nothing), I think I'm gonna enjoy it so much. When I've had these gut feelings going into an anime, I've been right more often than not, I can't really explain it. Maybe I'm setting myself up for disappointment, but I guess time will tell :D
Everything about Welcome to Irabu's office is just so amazing to me - from its experimental nature to its hilarious and endearing characters - I just love it so much. But yeah, as much as I'd kill for more, I'm not holding my breath. I couldn't agree more about the need for more experimental anime. They are indeed risky plays, but man when they work, they just stick with you for such a long time. The most recent one that comes to the top of my head is Sonny Boy. I really hope we can get something like that again in the near future.
I've actually very recently watched a full gameplay for this game called Mouthwashing. You've probably heard of it, but if you haven't, it DEFINETELY scratches that itch. Even just watching someone play it was such an amazing experience. From sound, to visuals, to dialogue - this game really hits it out of the park.
I heard that Shenmue's creator still wants to complete the series eventually and the 3rd one came out much later after the 2nd one so who knows... but when you say it was mediocre you would say it's because of the game mechanics or that the story felt weaker overall? Because I know the game has been financed by some side people from Europe since the game wasn't supposed to be created because of the lack of funds after the 2nd one.
It's understandable because not all of Atlus' projects are great unfortunately that was the case for Soul Hackers 2 and how underwhelming it felt to most people. I haven't played much since last time (still cleared one boss and continued a bit and it's as great as the beginning) but I've been playing Marvel Rivals since it came out a few days ago, I just like heroes shooters even though I don't like Marvel movies (and I've seen the whole MCU lol) but the game felt very solid so far for an online competitive one.
Eh that sounds great actually! Makes sense why you would also love anime then, I really like animation too obviously but I'm just so bad at drawings so I couldn't make anything out of it, but anyway I hope you'll succeed then, I hope it's getting harder and harder to find jobs in this field though so it can be a struggle at times but as far as you stay motivated it should be good... for me it's kinda the same in that regard since what I like is cinema (behind the scenes, not acting or anything) but it's just too hard to find anything to begin with :(
Anyway I see I would definitely like to play your game if you eventually finish it xD I think I have RPG Maker XP on steam that I probably got for free at some point but never tried it, and anyway I guess it's outdated now.
Yes every time they try to introduce a new way to evolve or make the pokemon even more powerful but in the end it's almost always the same effects :S So you didn't watch the recent pokemon seasons? I only started with the Journey one (the previous one) in 2019 even though I spent years watching the anime when I was young but this time I started following it weekly and I have to say it was the right time to start since it greatly improved with what they have been doing in the recent years, you could maybe watch the very last 11 eps entry to conclude Ash's journey and character since they put budget you wouldn't expect to see in Pokemon, the last battles even have sakuga animation and all that was insane xD
The card battles are not bad but I don't care much about this aspect tbh, there's no much complexity to it I would say, but collecting the cards without spending money is fun though lol.
Oh okay thanks for the info about the FF OVA I was just wondering xD
Hmm for the music recommendations it's kinda difficult for me as well because I don't often listen to bands I usually just listen to songs randomly no matter from which band it is, but recently I've been liking the songs from the Lily Chou-chou movie, I find the album they created for the movie to be awesome
The Mononoke films are actually confirmed to be a trilogy! :D The second one releases in March of next year, and based on its trailer, it seems that all the movies will revolve around the same setting/set of characters. So a deeper dive with each installment will definitely be interesting. Despite my overall feelings of the movie, I am indeed happy that the series is has seen a resurgence and I do look forward to the next movies. Another Kenji Nakamura classic that I'd love to see revitalized is Welcome to Irabu's Office. I think it's format of mostly self contained stories, just like Mononoke, would make it easy to pick up again. If only it was more popular :(
As for anime, I recently watched Mononoke: Karakasa, which I had been eagerly anticipating since its initial release in Japan. It was somewhat disappointing, but still good overall. I'm gonna rewatch it today to try and get a better feel of it.
I understand but I would say it's more that they like to make "clichés" characters to fit the modern player base nowadays, especially when it comes to cute or sexy characters, it has become the norm compared to before when it was rarer and that these characters stood out in this case, I think this is why games like Genshin Impact work so much, and now we have character design like the one in Stellar Blade.
Oh so you did play Shenmue, great!! Did you play the 2nd and 3rd game? I just finished the 1st one and loved it, it wasn't really difficult except for the 70 mad angels battle where I died a few times against the 3rd boss so it was frustrating but I expected the last battle against Chai to be more difficult so I was surprised when I won the battle with all my lives in green lol I feel like the 1st fight against him in the arcade was much harder, anyway I can't wait to start Shenmue II but now I FINALLY got to buy Metaphor ReFantazio so I'll focus on it instead, I finished the prologue and the game already look awesome.
At least it's the final push so if you manage to pass the exams it's perfect, in what field will you search for jobs? Don't know if you already did it but working part time as a transitional time after school is finished is probably the best thing to do yet. What kind of RPG did you start creating? I never did it but it sounds fun, I think RPG Maker is easy to use right?
Exactly, I'm trying to think about it but without new pokemon it can't feel special and new anymore, no idea what they could do instead, but in both cases there's a problem sadly, they need to find new mechanics I think because it's also repetitive how they just introduce new forms and special evolutions every time, it's practically the same thing (mega evolution, gigantamax or terastallization). I think Pokemon Z should introduce the 2nd part of the map (south of France) it would be a good beginning to making it feel engaging. Me too it reminds me when I got some of these games for Christmas back then, I was happy with the remake of Saphir and Ruby it's actually one of the best remakes they probably did yet. Also at least they're trying something new with the anime especially now that Ash isn't the protagonist anymore so the story is different and is filled with lore compared to back then where most of the episodes were "fillers". Also I just installed the Pokemon TCG game on mobile, it's frustrating to wait 12 hours just to have 5 cards lol.
(Also I checked your profile and I didn't know Madhouse made a final fantasy anime back in the 90s was it good? And I'm sending you a FR if you don't mind lol)