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Does Yui Ishikawa sound like Mikasa in those songs? I started listening to Uchida Maaya's discography from time to time and some of her songs resemble Shizuna's voice, but others don't. I think it's awesome how different seiyuus can make their voices to be, but when it comes to music and sometimes things like ASMR what fans want to hear is the voice tones of the characters they specifically like.
Seems like you've been fairly lucky in your recent gacha endeavors, that's nice.

Interesting, PA works is the favorite studio of that friend who linked me the video. Among the ones I've completed are Akiba Meido Sensou, Irozuku Sekai no Ashita kara, Charlotte, Another, Angel Beats! and Canaan; I liked Canaan the most and I watched it in 2015 so it's been quite some time since then.

I was mainly using y2down.cc and after it became inaccessible I tried a bunch of others from the first two pages in Google and not a single one opened. Tbh right now a lot of random sites don't open (at all or partially), e.g. Azur Lane wiki doesn't load images, one Kiseki site doesn't load at all, GFL wiki doesn't open at all, etc. Some free VPNs still work, but they often get blocked and you have to search for a new one. With paid ones I'm not sure. A friend shared his Proton acc with me and I can't connect to it because the login page is blocked lol. And even if I manage to access it via a free VPN it still doesn't work. On the topic of blocked sites, Twitter doesn't work too.

I'll send this part to discord.

Yep, Vita/Yukari was the host of Radio Trista. I was never a fan of radio shows, but if there were something like Misty's show in real life maybe I'd be interested. The problem is there is no Misty out there to fulfill that role lol.

Eh, in case with Cold Steel, as much as I like Class VII, most of its members aren't irreplaceable story-wise, which is applicable both to the guys and the girls. You could replace them with someone else and the overall plot won't change. However, if you remove Randy or Tio from the Crossbell arc then a lot will have to change. That being said, that is only based on the objective observation, individually and as a group Class VII have a lot of charm and the game could be worse without it. Personally, I like all of them, although obviously to a different degree. But as an important example, I like Jusis more than Rufus despite how great of a development the latter went through in Hajimari.

Yeah, in childhood most games were fun regardless of their actual quality. This makes me sometimes think - are games I enjoyed when I was a kid were even actually that good? GTA is a good example: I spent ungodly amount of time on GTA 3 and GTA Vice City, I also enjoyed San Andreas to some degree, however GTA 4 felt mediocre and GTA 5 was the worst of all with unlikeable characters and a very dull story. So did the games got worse or GTA 3/Vice City were the same and I enjoyed them solely due to the fact that I was very young?
What about other Sonic girls? Amy, Rouge, etc.
Yep, I like Dark Souls. Both I and II provided me with awesome experiences, however, I ended up dropping the 3rd one. Also, Sekiro - another "Souls like" game from the same developer - is one of my favorite games ever. Not to the same degree as Kiseki, but still. If you enjoyed Dark Souls, I highly recommend playing this one too.

I just got really frustrated with the cheap shock-value. The first couple of deaths were pretty impactful at the time but I felt like the author got really carried away with it as the series progressed, and it kinda ended up defining AgK's identity. It made it really hard to stay invested in the story and characters for me. I also hated Esdeath so that didn't help either. She was such a Mary Sue and not in a fun way, but in an irritating way that just made you wanna see her get humbled. Not to mention she killed Susanoo my favorite character. I don't recall liking very many of the villains from AgK in general tbh. I think the final straw for me was when they ruined Shura's character. His initial sneak-peek appearance made him seem like he was gonna be a badass villain that rivalled or surpassed Esdeath in dangerousness, and would finally be another big antagonist that would take the spotlight off of her for a while. But he ended up being a giant let-down that got humiliated and then killed by Lubbock iirc, such squandered potential. It's good to hear Mine managed to get a happy end at least, against all odds.
I loved Nui as well, the contrast of her cutesy exterior with her sociopathic personality was sick af, her theme goes insanely hard as well. I wasn't too into Togame either, the details regarding her death left me scratching my head when I first watched it if I'm being honest. Nanami was easily my favorite character and still likely remains one of my favorite animanga waifu's in general. I remember seeing some people complaining at the time about episode 4 and how it "cheated" the audience out of seeing Shichika's battle with Hakuhei, but I personally loved that episode and it's multiple layers of subversion. It's my favorite episode of the series and made me love Nanami, they did such a stellar job with presenting her as intimidating and unnerving af. Although I do understand to a degree why people might've been disappointment they didn't get to see Shichika's fight, especially after it had been hyped up quite substantially. But I doubt it ever could've lived up to the Nanami focused episode we got in its place for me.

Interesting, cutesy dub voices can be pretty hit or miss but that voice actress did a great job as well.

I picked up on it when I started to notice how some servants needed waaay more points for bond than others, and it was pretty much always the cold, stand-offish, and generally introverted ones.
Seems it couldn't make it too overly straight-forward for you like you expected lol but congratulations, that's a great result no doubt. Totally agree on tickets, I've pulled desired servants with them in the past but it really does feel like they have notably worse luck a majority of the time. It'd be really nice to at least have the option to select the amount you want to use, even if using them singularly would be more cost-efficient.
TYVM, same to you ofc. Seems you'll have all the Tam Lin in no time, you've been reeling in the Lostbelt 6 characters like crazy.

Yep undoubtedly so, and I always hear that sentiment of how people that've seen it don't plan on ever watching it again lol I'll no doubt feel the same way once I see it.
Hmm well out of the ones you haven't seen, I'd definitely most recommend Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. It's the oldest, with it being from 1984 but the animation and artwork is breathtaking. It's rich with lore and has my favorite protagonist out of the Ghibli films.

Yeah they did re-record the lines, which felt fairly excessive and unnecessary to me, I feel like they could've just kept the old dialogue while adding in new stuff. Rouge's outfit redesign is probably what irked me the most, her open-back outfit suited her personality and jewel thief persona so well.
Ah yeah I do recall Cosmo, she's exclusive to Sonic X if I'm not mistaken right? I don't think I recall ever seeing her make a game appearance, quite the shame and a bit surprising now that I think about it. I wonder if she was ever in the comics.
I checked out the Dream Team opening after you brought the game up last time and they did a great job with it, really well animated. Just a shame they didn't use a vocal song for it. You should check it out if you haven't already: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xan3WWo-4Tw
It also seems like Cream has a pretty significant role in it from what I've heard.
I don't recall you mentioning if you had played it or not but have you seen Sage from Sonic Forces? She seems like another character you might really like:
I've always loved that Blaze has her own unique super form btw: Looks so badass in the comics as well.

Niiice, that's awesome to hear! Which bosses did you like best from the main game? (assuming you haven't gotten to the DLC yet) and were there any that stuck out to you in difficulty at all? Capra Demon and Bed of Chaos in particular are notoriously annoying bosses so I'm curious how they were for you. Ornstein & Smough is my favorite boss from the main game, I adore Priscilla but she's sadly a really easy boss so you don't have chance to fully appreciate her before the fight ends. You'd have to head to her pretty early to not be too over-levelled for it. The DLC has some of the very best and hardest bosses of the game, and is generally considered the best part of DSI (as it tends to be with the Dark Souls DLC's generally).
I totally agree on the clunkiness, the game shows it's age in that respect for sure. I had already played Dark Souls III and Elden Ring by the time I played Dark Souls I so the clunkiness was extremely noticeable for me. It initially left me struggling to dodge attacks that shouldn't have been a problem based on my prior experience which I found pretty frustrating and it took quite a while to get used to it. 100% agree on the parry, it's not something I ever really utilise in any of the Dark Souls games. I used shielding quite a bit in DSI but I primarily rely on the roll, especially in the later games. The only real time I use the parry in DSI is against Gwyn the final boss, because it hard-counters him. I really don't like that the parry is a delayed timing, makes it feel really awkward to use. I much prefer the parry system in games like Sekiro and Lies of P where its much more reactionary.
Yeah the runbacks to the bosses could be straight-up cruel at times lol DSI and II are infamous for their boss run-backs, but you'll be happy to hear that gets largely resolved in III and onwards, Elden Ring is very fair about giving you bonfires/respawn points super close to the bosses. The limited warping gets fixed after DSI as well, that was another restricted feature that was particularly jarring to me, having came from later games with unrestricted bonfire warping.
It's not an ideal world to live in if you're an NPC that's for sure XD It's sadly a pretty common tendency for this studio with it's Souls games.
Don't blame you one bit for keeping a guide on hand, it's kind of a requirement with how cryptic this series can be.

Oh wow you got the Black Knight Halberd, that's one of the best weapons in the game so I'm not surprised you never ended up switching off of it. The only chance to get it is a 20% drop rate from a Black Knight, I wasn't fortunate enough to get it on my first playthrough. Yeah I feel that, I wanted to use the Moonlight Greatsword too but 28 INT is too big of a commitment if you aren't already speccing into that. I'll take a picture of the build I used to show ya when I get the chance. Nice, the spider waifu covenant was primarily the one I used too, the guide you were using probably informed you of it already but you get different voice lines from her as you advance through the covenant and while you're equipping the Old Witch's Ring. In very much the same vein as using summon tickets in FGO, I really wish you didn't have to give her the humanities individually lol Makes it take sooo long. Giving her 80+ humanities seemingly soothes a lot of her pain based on her altered body language, which is some comfort at least but yeah really depressing she can't be helped further. Putting her out of her misery is probably the kindest thing one could do.

Yup for all its faults, DSI is insanely addicting, and that addicting aspect def carries over to the other games full throttle as well. The Dark Souls series was still finding it's footing at this point so it's understandable it still had many things to iron out. It seems you noticed it yourself, but yeah the second half of the game is generally considered to suffer a dip in quality for parts of it, due to the game having suffered from some rushed development at that point. For me it goes DSIII>DSII>DSI, so basically in my opinion the series got better with each game. DSII felt a lot less clunky and a lot closer to how DSIII and Elden Ring function for me. And DSIII is basically exactly the same as Elden Ring. So yeah you won't have to worry about encountering the same kinds of issues with Elden Ring as you did with DSI. The clunkiness was noticeably improved going into II and was none-existent by III, none-restrictive bonfire warping was introduced in II and stayed ever since, DSII still had some frankly absurd boss run-backs but has been phased out almost entirely in III and ER. Overall I think DSII could end up being somewhat of a mixed bag for you like with DSI, but I think Elden Ring and DSIII would be strongly positive.

I forgot about Chainsawman. Though, they are no girls that really appeal to me there. The same goes to MT. Fest banners are in ~60 days. So I can't be pulling for any characters at the moment, even for Mina. What you said about assuming that you'll never get the characters if you missed their banners really got me thinking. Doubly so since I didn't get Miku while she was running. The comedic aspects to Gehenna make the school unique among the others. I just wish I'd seen more of their dramatic moments that doesn't involve the Prefect Team. The same can be said to Red Winter, though it doesn't have as much named students or importance as Gehenna. Satsuki and Chiaki can finally be recruited, so the entire Pandemonium Society is here. I wonder when will we get a playable student that not from the established schools. Odyssey being the only named school to not have a named student kinda throws me off. I always wonder if they'll be a mermaid student in Blue Archive.

So Kirara's an A for you. As for me, I haven't gotten a clue where'll I'll put her. It's been six months since I've started Blue Archive. I think it's time for me to do a serious tier list on the students. My only knowledge with the Soulslike genre is from BLACKSOULS and Hollow Knight. I do plan to someday play the one that started it all.

I didn’t think about it from that angle, maybe I should’ve chosen another ship then.
You know, for some reason I was under the impression that more time has passed since AoT has ended. Strange how time perception works, in most cases it’s the opposite for me.

Yeah, people like Urobuchi are easily recognizable and that makes me wonder - why some are and others aren’t. A friend of mine linked me this about anime directors, it kind of explains what they do but not in great detail. Youtube is finally gone, by the way. Even the 3rd party sites I used to download via links are blocked now. Technically, I still can watch it from mobile (for some reason, mobile traffic is just heavily slowed so you can watch stuff in the lowest quality), but I find doing things on smartphones annoying, let alone with such limitations.

Yukari Tamura definitely nailed this type of character, although despite the great number of prominent roles she has, the most impactful for me was Vita in Cold Steel, which is a little bit strange given that she had a very small number of lines. Then again, Shizuna had a relatively minor role in Kuro I too, and yet it didn’t prevent her from completely enthralling me. Also, when I was playing Cold Steel I in 2017, I wasn’t as knowledgeable about seiyuus as I’m now and I haven’t yet played Higurashi and Umineko back then. Btw, she apparently voiced a character called Misty, which was also Vita’s another name. I haven’t played Shining Hearts, but it’s still interesting. The character design in this game looks great.
If they added Shizuna to that gacha, I’d definitely try to max her out, but it would totally depend on luck. If they’ll make her time, space or mirage element, I’d need to have… I don’t remember how many exactly, around 30-40 copies of her, which is a lot even with a 2% chance per pull. Currently, I have ~500 pulls ready. Even with a stable 2% pull rate it’ll be just 10 copies.

Hey, congrats! That’s very cool. Really shows how dedicated you are both as a player and Nahida’s fan (especially doing the same domain over and over). Even though a similar intent crossed my mind a few times, I never had anything like this in any HoYo games. It’s even more commendable if we consider that you’re not a whale, so you’ve probably only among a few people who did this for their favorite Genshin character.

Maybe you’re right. After all, even if Japanese couldn’t write, they’d still be able to speak and understand spoken language.
Meanwhile, I’m done with 52 lines at the moment. Also learned most of the kanji that was used in them, only 18 left, then on to the next scene. For reference, the first 9 lines I showed you before have 50 kanji in them.

I’m 100% sure something like Kiseki would be worse without the male characters, but in games like AL I don’t really care either way, it only becomes a problem when they’re pullable because the dev’s resources and time slots are being spent on things which I have no interest in as far as gachas are concerned. That is to say, I like Rean, Crow, Van, Aaaron, Oliver, Bergard, etc. even more than many girls, but I don’t care about… Lol. I wanted to name some male Genshin or HSR characters and my brain lagged XD Well, you get the idea.
That’s likely because I based my opinion on these artworks without watching the anime, which is the opposite to your experience.
Rikka is likely the most popular character of Uchida Maaya and I wanted to watch it at some point (have it stored), but will I be able to enjoy this performance without my bias getting in the way and when will it happen? I’m still not done with Monogatari and I want to watch Taishou Otome Otogibanashi next. Also, I don’t remember if I mentioned this, but I find it funny that she voiced Norman from Yakusoku no Neverland, where Ise Mariya (Laura’s seiyuu) voiced another main character - Ray, both of whom are young boys.

Yep, here Rappa looks like a proper D∴G cult victim.

I see, then my assumption was wrong. Well, I've already spoiled two minor things for myself. One was in Youtube's thumbnail and another a little lore detail about one of the past characters when I opened English wiki to check something generic, I don't even remember what. Both things don't really ruin anything in the grand scheme of things, but I still would prefer not knowing this info before playing the game myself.

Whenever I hear about these cases of censorship it always makes me think that it happens because insecure and obnoxious busybodies end up in positions of power. When it comes to societal norms, hating both beauty and humor is one of the most uncivilized things I can think of.
Nope, not Sonic Generations. I meant the first Sonic game. I played it on Sega Mega Drive when I was maybe around 6, or maybe a little older. I started using PC when I was 10, so before that.
Heh, I actually had a lot of fun with Sonic Heroes and cleared it with all the teams. It was very frustrating at times, however.
Well, I guess by this time you're already done playing the 2006 game. If so, how was it?

Out of curiosity I decided to check what other roles she's had from things I've seen. She voices Himiko from FGO unexpectedly, Tenten from Naruto (Underrated gal imo, big shame the author didn't do more with her), Mine from Akame ga Kill (Not that I watched the anime, only read the manga and even then I ended up dropping it, but Mine was one of the characters I liked at least), Nui Harime from Kill la Kill, Togame from Katanagatari, Kanami Yuta from s-CRY-ed, and some female robots from GaoGaiGar lol She evidently has a pretty great vocal range. Is that from the recent event? I see what you mean when you say she salvaged it, adorable performance.
Oh very nice, congrats on maxing it, awesome result. It's a lot better to expect the worst with gacha, doing so saves you from a ton of disappointment.

And a further congratulations on getting Morgan. True, you immediately grailed, maxed her skills out and everything lmao I see she's one of those servants with the higher than norm early bond level requirements, but that makes sense with the type of personality she has for sure. And yeah that absolutely illustrates just how many outstanding servants Fate has, I'd say there's dozens of servants that I still REALLY want currently and there's always more getting released, probably not something I'll ever even get close to being ahead of.
Oh didn't realise it was one of those interlude releases where they give everyone the chance to play through it, seems like that's becoming more and more commonplace for FGO as of late. Well best of luck with your upcoming pulls, Kirei's just over the horizon for me as well, really hoping my luck isn't on hiatus when the time comes.

Indeed, the first series was mostly self-contained episodes/chapters IIRC without too much overarching plot, were as the story started to have a lot more direction and purpose once Darkness rolled around.

Ah I do vaguely recall that, I've probably mentioned it before but I despised the way the MC treated Lucy in the manga ending, shit was just depressing and wildly angering. Him marrying his cousin was such a bizarre choice as well, I recall really disliking her in general too... The main thing I liked about the manga ending was that Bando and Mayu got a happy ending, that and Lucy's planetary vectors were a really cool visual at least.

Medusa is one of my favorite waifu's of all time, I find the Soul Eater art-style extremely appealing. I'd absolutely recommend Claymore, the manga would be the priority since its the full story and has some of the best manga art around but the anime is def worth checking out too. I watched the anime first and then continued the manga when I found out the anime branched off. It's been a while since I watched it but I recall the studio handling it really well, they adapted the unique art-style of the manga perfectly, and the OST was exceptional. You would just have to bare in mind that the final anime fight is original if you wanted to start with it.

Yeah that definitely seems accurate, I knew of them just due to the sheer amount of fanart I saw at the time.
I get what you mean, Cyberpunk establishes a live-fast die-young theming from the very beginning, "You don't make a name as a Cyberpunk by how you live, you're remembered by how you die". It was a much more bitter pill to swallow for Gurren Lagann to have an ending like that.

Grave of the Fireflies is one that I haven't seen yet. I'm aware that it's notoriously heart-wrenching, probably even the poster child for tearjerker anime movies from what I've heard. I've put off watching it cus I really need to be in the mood to feel like shit XD Aside from the ones I mentioned already, I've also seen: Totoro, Laputa, Ponyo, Kiki, Arrietty, Tales from Earthsea, Whisper of the Heart and The Cat Returns.

Wow crazy to think that was 17 years ago. That's an awesome trailer, I love that reflected perspective shot at the beginning. It seems like it was ahead of its time graphics wise. Big Daddy is definitely one of the most recognizable and iconic video game enemies I'd say, an underwater city was a really unique setting for game at the time as well.

Ah I wasn't aware of all that, that's pretty frustrating to hear. The change of voice lines might have had something to do with the change of director, I think the Frontiers director was in charge of SxS Generations from what I've heard. I don't know why they felt the need to censor Rouge of all characters like that lmao that's so excessive.
I haven't seen Sonic X in full but I've seen parts of it and really like it too, I bet a lot of people have that series to thank for getting them into the franchise. I was a huge fan of the video game music as a kid, I listened to those Crush 40 songs among many others constantly XD Cream was quite a fan favorite in Sonic X from what I'm aware, and they put her in pretty much everything around that time period due to how popular she was. I love Blaze as well, she might be my favorite character. Sonic Rush has a fire soundtrack, it was composed by Hideki Naganuma, the guy who did most of the Jet Set Radio soundtracks. I listen to his music religiously.
Yeah most of the characters didn't really get much meaningful screen-time in Generations now that I think about it lol
Oh I plan to play Sonic 06 sometime in the near future as well, I've heard that PS3 games are particularly difficult to emulate due to the unconventional architecture of the system I think. There's no real issues with the 360 emulation of Sonic 06 as far as I'm aware though so you could still play it using that method, it'll likely be how I do it.
Wow that sucks, Apple arcade only is some insane exclusivity. Fingers crossed it doesn't get stuck on there forever.
Have you read any of the Sonic comics btw? I've only seen parts here and there but they seem pretty good and the art looks great. I'm just a bit put off from reading it in full due to the length, as it tends to usually be with long-running comic series'.

I haven't gotten round to it yet since Alien Isolation has still been taking up my focus as of late but I'll be sure to let you know what I think when I do.

Now that you mention it, most if not all the art trends of a character from this decade either came from gachage or VTubers. What's crazy is that I can't even think of one that originates from a light novel/manga. Last decade, we had Konosuba with Megumi, OPM with Tatsumaki, and DiTF with 02. And on the game side, we have Xenoblade 2 with Pyra/Mythra, and Zelda from Breath of the Wild.

Currently, I have 33k gems and 2 10-roll tickets. I can spark for Kirara and I really want to, but I don't think it's a smart idea since she's most suited for Set which I am not touching until I'm ready for and her kit is for buffing Sonic damage type students which I only have two at the moment. I'm better saving my gems for both fest units and S.Saori for the time being. I'm almost at level 90,but I have a feeling that the level cap will increase when I finally get there.

I do like Fuuka a lot, but one thing I'm kinda mixed about is her running gag of being kidnapped by the GRS. For some (including myself) get that it is funny, but it all she's ever known for. Same thing for all the Gehenna clubs, barring the Prefect Team and PS68. I do get that their theme is chaos, but if you look at the way they treat Trinity VS Gehenna, it's like night and day. The Pandemonium Society has it the worst. Hina literally upstaged them on their own event.

I'm a fan of Hikage as well. She's my Top 5, but I haven't truly beaten Burst Re;Newal. There's still a second route which has seems to have Hikage as a main character, so maybe she'll be my favourite by the time I'm done the route.

Oh I had no idea there was a voice actor strike going on atm, is it in relation to pay or something else? That's some terrible timing indeed.

Yami and Nemesis were my two top favorites from memory as well, some of my other favs were Mikan and Momo also, as well as Lala. I've only seen the first two seasons of the anime, I was reading the manga but fell behind at some point during Darkness and just never got round to finishing it since. I think it might've went on break for a notably extended period of time or something now that I recall, and that might've been why I ended up falling behind on it.

Best of luck with your Morgan rolls. Jalter got a bunch of love alongside the banner as well, she got a new interlude which had even more great characterisation for her, as well as new animations and a much needed new NP animation. Jalter fans are eating good rn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQDlkjUj2rk

My memory is pretty hazy on the anime ending of Elfen Lied, probably because I watched the anime first then read the manga second so the manga ending sticks in my mind more, but I do recall not having an issue with the way the anime ended at least.
Well I mentioned it before but I much preferred the canon manga ending to Soul Eater. I don't recall if you mentioned having seen or read it so I'll keep the details vague but the manga handled the main antagonist a lot more appropriately in the final fight compared to the anime imo and gave the three main characters a bunch of amazing moments as well, especially Black Star who became one of my top favorites thanks to the final arc.
Claymore's anime ending wasn't all that bad in-and-of itself and even showcased a plot-point that would later be used in the manga ending, it just ended in a way that seemed like the studio never really intended to make more than one season to begin with. It's one of those cases where the anime ending has the protagonist fighting the final villain way ahead of schedule and therefore doesn't make much sense with how strong the villain is shown to be later in the manga, not to mention they're not even supposed to see each other again at that point, let alone fight yet. Not one of the worst anime original endings out there but not ideal either, since Claymore deserves a full adaption.

Gotcha, thanks for the info. Yeah the Ryushiki art doesn't hold up too well to say the least lol

Oh not sure I was aware that it started with that crap in the DLC, thanks for the heads up.

Mostly style without the kind of substance you were expecting then huh. Still, a 7/10 ain't too shabby.
Rikka and Akane are the characters I always see the most from Gridman by far, seems like a safe assumption to say they're the most popular characters. Interesting, I wasn't aware the series had such a history. Good to hear any prior knowledge would've just been a bonus rather than a necessity for watching the newer stuff. I'm a pretty big fan of both the mecha genre as well as kaiju (Primarily the Godzilla franchise), so maybe I'll check it out some time. I'm aware that it was co-produced by Trigger as well and I'm a big fan of some of their works (Gurren Lagann, Cyberpunk Edgerunners etc).

Awesome to hear you really enjoyed it, and yeah those are fair points. Extra shared screen-time between the two of them def would've been appreciated, even though the runtime almost certainly wouldn't have allowed for it like you pointed out XD I forgot it was quite so long, it's def gotta be up there as one of the longest Ghibli films. What other Studio Ghibli films have you seen btw and which are your favorites? I think my top three would be Spirited Away, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and Princess Mononoke.

Sweet, it feels like one of those games I def should've at least checked out by now. Speaking of horror games, I think I'll be playing this one game called Prey with a friend for Halloween. I watched the first couple hours of a playthrough of it back when it first came out and it was pretty great from memory, had an awesome soundtrack too composed by Mick Gordon, should be fun to revisit and finally see the game in full.
Oh cool I actually plan to play Sonic x Shadow Generations soon as well lol I'm very familiar with the Sonic franchise, I played Sonic Frontiers when that came out too although I still haven't gotten around to the DLC yet. I've been watching the short animated episodes they've been releasing for Shadow Generations as well, I've seen the first two episode and the animation has been phenomenal so far.

In Azur Lane, they do have plenty of “generic” voice-lines. They are triggered in battle, when you log in to the game, when you set the shipgirl as your secretary and touch her, etc. To get a better understanding of what I mean, you can check the Enterprise Quotes page; I chose that character because she’s voiced by Ishikawa Yui whom you like. Anything else (story, events, etc.) isn’t voiced at all and it’s pretty dry anyway.

Yep, he definitely wouldn’t appreciate ecchi/harem, but you might be right about Demon Slayer. What I find weird is that even though I haven’t watched any of his works, his opinions still reached my ears somehow. Meanwhile, I don’t know the directors of most anime I watch, at least not by name.

I’m always down for listening to Tamura Yukari’s performance, so yeah I did watch it. It’s a really sweet scene that made me think that I’d want something similar to exist for Kiseki characters as well.
If I were in your shoes, I’d go for C6R5 too. Gotta give your favorite all the best there is.

As far as I know, they learn ~1000 kanji by the 6th grade and the rest of the “everyday use kanji” (so ~1100 more) in grades 7-9. Not sure how the rest of the kanji are acquired, however, but it’s definitely simpler to memorize them when you encounter and use them all the time in your daily life.
By readable text do you mean turning kanji into kana (JPs alphabet)? If yes, then it wouldn’t work because many words are pronounced exactly the same, but have different meanings. For example, when I heard “kagakuheiki” in conversation with Harwood, I initially thought to myself “is chemical weapon in Japan called “scientific weapon”?” because “science” is “kagaku” and "weapon" is "heiki" (although it can also be "calm" with different kaji...), but after checking in the dictionary I saw that “kagaku” is both chemistry and science, they just use different kanji. So basically, [kanji for chemistry] + weapon = chemical weapon, pretty simple if you know the kanji; but if you write it as “kagakuheiki” in kana you won’t be able to figure it out, at least unless you're a native or used to this word.

I didn’t read the story for that collab since I usually skip them due to their poor quality, but I doubt they’d have male characters even as NPCs. Even in the main story there are only a few other men besides the player. Actually, “few” may be an exaggeration because right now I can only recall one. I guess AL is one of the games in which male presence would be unappreciated by the players?
As for the looks… Hime > Hass > Yume > Mujina > Akane > Rikka > Chise > 2nd > Namiko. So I guess Yume is pretty high. This is me obviously judging by what is seen in Azur Lane, my opinion could be different if I watched the anime other than Gridman and discarded AL's artworks from the equation.

No, I absolutely love the performance of Uchida Maaya, but hearing Shizuna’s voice on other characters started to feel weird, especially if they’re not very likable like that Naori girl from the Twins. That said, depending on the character she can sound very different (e.g. she voices many lolis), so maybe it’s not a big of a problem. But thanks for explaining… I wonder if Hime appears elsewhere because if she had so little screen time it’s strange she got into collab in the first place.

So basically to make Rappa pullable she needs to become a different character :D
Honestly, I was surprised when I saw that new Tingyun because I didn’t feel anything. Maybe if I was still actively playing I’d be interested in pulling on her banner because Tingyun was one of my favorite HSR characters, but looking at it neutrally, I like the default design and character art more. I wonder if she’ll get new walking/idle/attacking animations or will look like a skin of an already existing character btw.

I did finish all the other routes and that Shizuna's scene is the only substantial difference between all of them:
- If you choose Heiyue, you'll get the same dialogue between Rixia and Judith.
- If you choose Bracers, there will be the same dialogue with Zin being uneasy about civilians (Agnes and Quatre) participating in Almata's game; Elaine leaves the party and does her solo thing anyway. One other minor thing - they don't allow you to kill Almata members.
- If you choose Society, like I've mentioned, the same dialogue about chemical weapons happens, just without the fight.
- If you choose Ikaruga, Kurogane tests you in the beginning instead of Shizuna trying to go all out in all other routes when you fight her.
If you're not afraid of getting spoiled about Kai, I guess you can search for it on Youtube or just load your older save and play it yourself. If you skip side quests and other scenes, it won't take you long to see it.
Hmm, is it even possible to reach chapter five without getting at least one alignment to level 3? To see the Bracer route (and some other things) I actually had to run the whole game on NG+ from start to chapter 5 because in my previous run I had law at level 2 and couldn’t pick them. Although now that I think about it, I should’ve tried launching CLE’s version, maybe I had it at level 3 in my first run two+ years ago. It kinda sucks that saves from both versions aren’t compatible. To get the real answer I guess I could google the LGC requirements, but again I don't want to get randomly spoiled about Kai, so for now I'll limit myself to speculating.

Now even Sonic gets censored? Although I guess it was already censored before when its anime was airing in North America. I haven't played Sonic Generations, but looking at screenshots, as I understand it, it also includes the original (first) game with updated graphics? I played it a lot when I was a kid. I don't know if it was just me being a kid, but it was really hard. I've played Cream in Sonic Heroes (her team which also had Amy and Big the Cat, was the easiest team of all four iirc), but I don't remember ever interacting with Blaze, not even seeing her in anime. As for the furry stuff in general, I'm not a fan, but it can work. At the very least Sonic characters managed to be quite charismatic.

I'm almost done with the Society's route (only Arioch and Gerard left), but I'm going to sleep for now and finish it tomorrow.

Some differences I noticed:
- Both Lucrezia and Walter are unplayable, but both of them support you at the same time, so you have 6 active team members.
- The story progression (enemy order, etc.) seem to be exactly the same, it's just that Ikaruga and Society switched places.
- You talk to Harwood in the bar and make him refrain from using chemical weapon instead of the time when you had to fight him underground.
- The battle against Shizuna and Kurogane has one of the best scenes in the entire game. It's kind of ironic that if the player choses Ikaruga, he doesn't get to see it.

On a separate note, playing without allied Ikaruga just felt wrong. I'm not sure if that's because of my connection with Shizuna, but having her as an ally here feels like it was meant to be. I also just now considering that Ikaruga is likely can partnered with any alignment, unlike other parties. Don't know why I didn't think of this before.

As for Rappa, her hat looks cool, but other than that she looks to me like a random OC you might find on Pixiv. Also, I'm glad I stopped playing HoYo games, otherwise I could've started disliking shorts as a piece of clothing lol.
Her story seems to be kinda dark for HoYo, but I heard Feixiao wasn't a case of happy background either.

Dolphin looks the most expressive of them all and Fancy is apparently voiced by a famous NSFW ASMR voice actor; which reminds me, before this ASRM trend started, the same type of content in Japan existed even before that and was called "voice lover" (probably still is on sites like dlsite).
Fortunately for Azur Lane players, all new ships have a rate up of 2% (0.5% for those you can straight up buy for in-game currency) and gacha rolls are plentiful, so unless one is a new player, there shouldn't be much to worry about in this regard. The real problem is that this game is pretty much a png collector (even more so than other games) so you're not getting much for your pulls.

In Kiseki gacha, there is a new "event" every two weeks, so things go in the same pace as they were in the beginning. There are probably plenty of Kiseki fans who are willing to keep this game alive even if objectively it's not very good.

That's essentially a cultural imperialism: rich and powerful country makes a weaker nation submit to its morals. Funny that it generally comes from people who supposedly hate bigotry and all that.

Yumeko was fine, but same as Kaju didn't get a lot of attention from the author. Maybe in the second season we'll see more of them.

The thing with Ghibli movies is that whenever I stumbled upon screenshots, cover art, etc., I never liked their art style. Miyazaki's pretentious attitude didn't help me get into his works either: I've read a bit of his views on anime/fiction and they're pretty much antithesis to mine, e.g. he glorifies realism and passionately hates otaku-related things.

One good thing about GBF is that because it only requires 1/5 of your screen, you can grind it or re-roll while doing something else, like watching anime. It won't work for reading the story bits though.

I can imagine how weird it would sound to switch to a different voice after knowing the character with another one for several years. That's some really bad timing.

There are ~2100 kanji for "everyday use" and there are tens of thousands more besides them. Worse yet, they can be read completely differently and have different meanings depending on the context. One of my issues is that by the time I learn some new ones I'm already forgetting some of the old ones if I don't encounter them on a regular basis; obviously, practicing all of them every day just isn't feasible.
Actually yeah, I can understand a lot without the sub. I can probably watch something simple like Love Live and understand most of it. The fact that despite all my effort to learn how to read I still understand more by sound drives me crazy.

Gridman seems to be more complicated than I thought it was, but I'm familiar with the girls you've linked, but not through anime. As a matter of fact, this series had a collab with Azur Lane, so here's some artworks from it:
Mujina


Yume


Rikka


Akane


Hass


Namiko


The 2nd


Hime (At some point I actually wanted to watch this because this character is voiced by Uchida Maaya, but after Twins from the last season I'm very reluctant to do so)


Chise


Long time ago Shadow was my favorite Sonic character, but I have no idea who'd be the most interesting to me nowadays.

Man, Japanese language makes me feel even more depressed than I already am. Whenever I try to read something on my own all the hundreds of kanji I know and even more vocab seem useless and I have no idea how to progress with my studies. The worst part is that if there is no audio I have no way to even check weather my reading is correct or not.
I tried using manga rikai (translation engine) btw and it gives pretty good results, e.g.: The only error I find here is that instead of "she" it should be "he", but it doesn't understand context so it's a given. So yeah, I think MTL (if it's on this level) should be perfectly usable if someone takes the time to correct obvious errors like that. However, at some point I want to play raw anyway and my lack of progress makes me go crazy.

Edit:
To put things into perspective, it took me ~2 hours to fully comprehend these lines and memorize every part I didn't know yet. And despite that I'm not confident I'm going to be able to read these words in different context if I see them in a week or in a month.
On the other hand, I might end up memorizing Shizuna's JP voice-lines same way people memorize poetry lol.

Trying to max out a weapon by getting 5 copies before they implemented pity would've been unreasonable to say the least. Yeah I don't see why not if you have the means to do so now.

I was just kinda neutral on her from memory, didn't overly like nor dislike her but I found her cute at least. But my memory is pretty bad on TLR since it's been years since I've watched/read it as well, so I can't say I really recall too much about the character in detail lol I absolutely adore the first To Love-Ru opening btw, I've listened to that song more times than I can recall. Interesting, I can definitely see why she's up your alley.

I'm fairly sure it was in the event store and I must not have had the time to grind for the necessary materials back then. Wish they would've just added it to the rare prism shop after the event was finished, seems like a case of just waiting for a rerun like you said.
Yeah that seems for the best, glad I showed a modicum of restraint this time and didn't commit more than a handful of tickets. I keep forgetting she's an assassin tbh lol I guess she doesn't give me that impression from her design and personality. I probably wouldn't have found much use for her either since I already have a very strong assassin and alter ego, not to mention my priority assassin target is Shuten ofc.

Some were better than others, but a lot of anime original endings had a disjointed feeling to them most of the time, obviously because they were trying to slot an ending into a story where it wasn't meant to end yet. I'm glad the industry has moved away from that practice, and full adaptions are pretty much the norm now.
There's a new MHA movie coming out soon as well, although I don't think I'll get chance to see this one in theatres sadly. The movies are all canon btw just in case you didn't know for when you get round to watching the series.

That's quite the shining endorsement for the VN, I'll definitely look into playing it at some point then.

Yeah I feel that, the degree of blatant political nonsense and DEI agenda in western media these days is so tiring. If I ever end up playing TLOU 1, I'll be doing exactly the same thing and skipping the second game as well.
I've heard good things about Makeine and Gridman, although I don't know very much about either of them aside from having seen some of the character designs, and I think Gridman is a mecha anime if I'm not mistaken. How did you like Princess Mononoke? It's one of my favorite Ghibli films, a classic for sure.

I haven't played Bioshock but I would've assumed it was a horror game from what little I know about it. I decided to start a new playthrough of Alien Isolation to refresh my memory for when the sequel comes out, and it's every bit as nerve-racking as I remember XD Yeah fingers crossed, I'll be pretty crushed if they mess up the sequel ngl.

Just realized that I forgot to mention that shipgirl's name - it's Fancy. Unlike most other ships in this game, she and others from the same event aren't based on WWII era vessels, they are from 17th century instead. The others are these:

Dolphin

Amity

Portsmouth Adventure

Ganj-i-Sawai

Also, here's Fancy's Halloween skin.

Since they are all on the same banner, they're not in competition with each other. Visually, I say it's Fancy > Ganj-i-Sawai > Dolphin > Amity > Portsmouth Adventure.

I read a little bit about their irl history, and apparently all but Ganj-i-Sawai were pirate ships who teamed up and seized her.

Yep, I can see a resemblance to that Abby's version. She's also somewhat similar to this AL Siren.

The gacha you're describing seem to have more content than Kiseki one I'm playing at least.

It's even crazier when you consider the fact that they're censoring other things besides visual art, even normal text can be considered offensive and unacceptable. For example, how they omit "gendered stereotypes" all the time when translating Japanese video-games, e.g. Altina being surprised by Juna's "Joshiryoku" (girl power) when it was discovered she can cook well. These little details is one of the reasons I don't want to touch NISA's TLs ever again. So yeah, I wouldn't want such petty and dogmatic people to have any power over culture or anything at all.

I have no idea how you can stop companies from using AI art or voices to be honest. The only reason they're not as widespread nowadays is because the quality is lower than human-made stuff and games with AI art already exist on Steam.

The only solution I can think of is not to get sick in the first place XD.

So I was mistaken when I thought you're likely to like Makeine... Well, 7/10 isn't that bad, it could be worse. One thing I'm not sure about is it being a harem because it didn't feel like any of the girls had romantic feelings for the protagonist. Even with Anna it was just her teasing him all the time. How about Kaju, would you like her if she had more screen time?

Just checked Ghibli's page here on MAL and apparently I haven't seen even one of their works. I think I used to have Mononoke Hime on my ptw list, but at some point removed it from there.

The pity is the same both for limited and non-limited units - 300 pulls, the only difference is that some of the banners appear on certain dates (summer, Valentine, Halloween, etc.). If I'm not mistaken, rate up on banners is 0.3%, so pretty terrible. Can't check it right now because Premium Gala and Flash Gala are the only times it's worth pulling and they happen at the start and in the middle of the month.
Here are some other characters whom you might find attractive-looking:

I see. I did enjoy the series, but I can totally understand if something like this isn't compatible with your preferences.

Nice, I'll read it later.

How was your luck this time on all these (four, I think?) banners?
I'm neutral on Topaz. Wouldn't pull on her banner, but there are dozens of other HSR characters which interest me even less. What's your opinion on that new Rappa girl?

Meanwhile, I finished replaying Kuro I and it took me much longer to finish than I expected (~143 hours according to Steam and ~110 in the save file). Very salty because in a better world I could've been playing Kai instead, but I enjoyed it regardless. Made a bunch of save files around the time Shizuna appears, so the next thing I'm going to do is turn off English patch and read all her lines I can find in Japanese. Even if I can't play the full game raw, I can at least try to comprehend every word she says the way it was originally meant. Then I'll need to play other routes in the 5th chapter to see how she appears in them if you don't pick Ikaruga because I ended up picking it both times I played the game.

Azur Lane announced new upcoming shipgirls and one of them looks thematically similar to Briar, i.e. having designs based on the deep sea creatures. They have very different vibes, however, whereas Briar is on the cuter side of things, AL one is creepy: What's interesting is that even though I don't find her 1st, 7th or 9th expressions pretty (that black hole like mouth and grotesque tongue isn't what I'd generally consider aesthetically pleasing), it's still the most interesting addition to the game I've seen in years. I guess there is something in man's nature that makes him curious about strange things. Also made me wonder if a gacha based on MGE would sell well or not.

>A thing was created by adults.
>A thing was created for adults.
>A thing is being consumed in the privacy of one's home.
>A thing doesn't involve any risks to one's well-being (it's not drugs, not gambling, etc.)
>A thing doesn't involve any risks to other people (like casual sex can lead to spreading STDs).
One might think that there should be nothing left to discuss, and yet here we are - people are making up reasons why things should be censored or banned, while at the same time society pretends it cares about freedom of expression, decency, etc. This is a sad state of affairs.

Tbh I can't imagine something like this happening in Japan with how professional and famous their voice acting industry is. I still don't fully understand what those EN VAs even want to achieve.

Oh, your toenail situation reminded me of a time I had something growing up on my left hand's skin. I went to a public hospital and the doctor there (who was super rude btw) made me use some kind of ointment. It ended up dissolving the skin on my hand until it became a bloody mess (that weird thing grew up back again after I stopped using the ointment). After I showed it to him he said something stupid and rude again and I never came back to him, instead I went to a private doctor, who prescribed me another ointment and some pills, and after taking them for a little more than a week, my skin completely healed. Honestly, I hate public healthcare. Most of the public doctors don't know a thing, treat you terribly, and you have to wait weeks before you can visit them. I'd rather pay less taxes and go to private clinics all the time than support this useless system.

I'm generally similar to you. For example, when I was on my Valkyria Chronicles spree several years ago (when I played all four games back to back), I didn't do anything else besides playing them. And with every new Kiseki I drop most other things and fully immerse myself in the game. However, because of all the things happening it became a little hard to continue doing so. When certain things happen and violate my peace of mind, I might get too disturbed to focus on what I'm doing.

For Grand Pholia you'd have to amass 300 pulls (easy when you start the game, I did so more than 5 years ago when there was much less content to get Olivia) and wait for the start of the month when premium gala happens. I don't recommend re-rolling, however, as rates in this game suck. Getting Yukata Pholia is a little bit harder, since she's from the summer banner.
As for Granblue Fantasy: Relink, I never bothered trying playing it, but I doubt it will feature even 10% of the characters.

I wonder what would your opinion on Rance games be. He assaults every girl he meets, but everything is done in a light-hearted tone, so it doesn't leave a bad aftertaste after reading it.

This is the order I'm watching it in (but skipping parts which I've already seen in the past):

1. Bakemonogatari
2. Kizumonogatari
3. Nisemonogatari
4. Nekomonogatari (Kuro)
5. Nekomonogatari (Shiro)
6. Kabukimonogatari
7. Otorimonogatari <- I'm here
8. Onimonogatari
9. Koimonogatari
11. Tsukimonogatari
12. Owarimonogatari S01
13. Koyomimonogatari
14. Owarimonogatari S02
15. Zoku Owarimonogatari

Currently on Nadeko's arc.
Grey is what I've finished. Hanekawa disappointed me a little, but Shinobu earned a lot of points. Currently, I like her the most among Monogatari girls.