#I don't think pokemon really fits with the open world format

[almoststedytimetravel]

Everything I learn about that stupid Palworld game makes me loose more and more faith in gamers. Because everyone was saying it looks good.

But it doesn't.

This game is ugly as fuck.

The menus have zero stylisation, it's just a semi transparent black box with plain white text. While the overworld and the Pal's are in completely different art styles.

There's the obvious plagiarism, ripping meshes directly from pokemon models and designs from fan made fakemons. This isn't the studio's only plagiarised game. There's the well known among us rip off that uses Ai art. Their game Craftopia asks the bold question, is everything people thought Genshin Impact was going to be (a lazy botw rip off). While their up coming Metroidvania game rips directly from hollow knight.

Everyone is saying that this is what people want from pokemon but, is it? When it comes to the games that get praised it the ones with the better story and game play. But Palworld has no story and it doesn't really have gameplay comparable to pokemon.

This isn't a creature collector, it's not a turn based rpg, it's a survival crafting game with a shitty gimmick they only did for attention. It's completely soulless. At least modern Pokemon games have some soul. No matter what crunch they were under someone at game freak wanted to make a good game worth playing, even if it runs like genshin impact on my old potato phone.

You can put sleek graphics over a soulless husk of a game and gamers will act like it's the best thing since sliced bread.

If you want to play a good pokemon-like by an indie studio that doesn't commit gross plagiarism, play Cassette Beasts.

[isekai-times-two]

Ami's POV

Ami looked over at anne, chatting curiously with her Eevee. 'Ok, so we can understand pokemon, probably a boon.' She thought, looking around at the small clearing they stood in, 'also probably shouldn't tell people about it.... this looks like every forest ever, i have no idea where we are.' She sighed in defeat.

"We should head towards the sound of town, atleast then we would know where in the world we ended up. And we can check our bags for what provisions we actually have."

"Oh, and we can use the PC to check the level of our pokemon; maybe even register for the local league if theres time!" Anne looked so excited, even down right determined, at the prospect. "What pokemon did Arceus give you any way?" She asked, realizing i wasn't even holding the pokeball any more.

"Oh," i put my phone back in my pack and grabbed the white ball back out and tossed it, "i dunno."

Another Eevee came to formation; smaller and more round with fluff than Fenrir is, but a more fierce look to its eyes. I noticed then that both Eevee and Anne had the same shade of green eyes. I knew the form Arceus had taken had had different color eyes, so i assumed this must be by design.

"You're Crash aren't you." A statement more than a question, as we had already been told our pokemon would already know the names we would have given them. He puffed up his already fluffy chest in response,

"The one and only."

I grinned down at him, though he didn't look particularly fit for true battle like Fenrir did, i looked back at Anne, now recalling her pokemon and ready to go,

"You really wanna do the league?" I asked her. "Aren't we too old for that?"

She looked down right affronted,

"Adults do it, it should be fine. And besides, we're teenagers again, hows that too old!?"

I shrugged and opened my arms for my Eevee to jump up to be carried; he was small enough it would be no more burden than the pack i already had, so I didn't see any harm in it.

"Fair enough, i guess... i hope they have coordinator contests though... i don't really care about the leagues."

Anne glanced at me as we walked through the trees, "Really?"

"What?"

"I didn't think you were the type, thats all."

A fair assumption i suppose, given our previous life...

"Fair i guess, but a new life has new opportunities."

~*~*~*~

The PC showed us that our Eevee were both lvl 15 and 14, with Anne's Eevee being the stronger of the two, so that explained where our taken years of life went. They got put into levels of our pokemon. We also discovered that we had wallets and trainer ID cards already. Only a handful of currency though; apparently a universal one called credits, and placed on a card. Much more convenient than what i thought we were going to have to use. We had clothes, some food in the form of ration like cubes we would have to figure out, and some necessities.

It turned out we were in the Viridian forest. Which seemed fitting given the divine nature of our appearance.

Anne spoke with the nurse about league requirements and entry while I sat with Crash on a couch in the waiting area,

"Are you down with Contest work? I think i could come up with some cool combos for Eevee moves if you are."

There were hardly any people in the center for it being mid day when we arrived, so it was little harm in talking with him, it seemed other trainers casually spoke to their pokemon as well though it seemed only a basic understanding between them.

"I can do anything." He emphasized boastfully the 'anything' part and i chuckled at him, giving him head pats.

"Atta boy."

"If we make it to Pallet within the week, nurse Joy said i'll have enough time to register for a sponsorship in the Indigo league." Anne chirped with excitement as she came near, her Eevee trotting along at her heel. He looked so happy to just be there it was easy to see why the PC said it had a Jolly nature. Such a contrast to Crash's Hardy nature.

"Should we go now then?" A lazy response, but i had no animosity towards it; for a change i didn't dread the idea of walking. I no longer needed a cane and this body was able, so why not walk? The realization had come previously, and truly knowing why the Eevee had brought Anne to tears; the realization that we didn't regret our choice and were actually unable to. We couldn't feel anything other than fondness over the memories of our loved ones. Something we knew we should feel guilt over, but presumably Arceus had done something artificial to us to prevent it. For that I was grateful though.

"If we grind on the way," i commented, getting to my feet, "we can probably get these two to 20, and get some credits to get pokeballs n` stuff from the pokemart vending machines."

[aj-anime-blog]

To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts - Review!

First review here we go!!

So, after being completely and utterly obsessed with Jujutsu Kaisen and AOT season 4, I decided to check out MAPPA studios and watch a bunch of stuff from their roster. My so-called "MAPPA binge" included this strange and unknown piece: Katsute Kami Datta Kemono-tachi e, or in English, To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts. An adaption of a manga originally released in Bessatsu Shounen (you might recognize this as the magazine that released Attack on Titan!), it looked pretty promising. I do have to admit that I didn't read a page of this anime's manga, though the art style on it looks gorgeous!!

The concept behind the show: A war has torn two halves of a nation apart, split into the North and the South. The Northerners, who were previously greatly outnumbered in battle, created a half-human, half-beast species known as "Incarnates" because of their God-like abilities. But the Incarnates begin having some issues when their beast forms take over their bodies, turning them into monsters. When the war ends, our protagonist, Hugh Hank, an Incarnate and previous captain of the Incarnate squad, swears to kill all of his mutating Incarnate buddies before they can destroy the world.

This review will not contain spoilers until the labeled "Spoiler" section at the bottom.

In general, what do I think?: 4/10, this show kinda sucked. Ouch! I hate being that blunt! Especially on my first review here! But To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts (let's call it TTASB from here on out!) had glaring flaws that, while it did hold up as a show, made it uninteresting and hard to love. Not only were the characters mediocre and boring, but the show seemed to contradict itself and its own opinion of the Incarnates all the time! Are they bloodthirsty monsters that need to be killed? Are they misunderstood humans who should be given peace? I don't know! Our main characters don't seem to either! Other than the "war bad" motif that gets shoved down your throat from episode one, the show felt stagnant in what it was trying to make the audience feel.

I hate being so cynical about it, though, because it does still earn those 4 points! Even though a lot of it falls flat, as a whole, it's still an ok show! Hank and Schaal have good concepts and their dilemmas are interesting in certain parts when the writers manage to nail pits and pieces of their development! The fight scenes were cool and I think that the concept for the world was neat! And the show does have a pretty cool title. Let's be honest, To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts sounds super metal.

So what about those characters?: 5/10! Hugh Hank and Schaal are our two main protags for the show, and they both have pretty interesting concepts! Hank is an Incarnate, he used to be the leader of the other Incarnates, and he made a vow with them that when they lost their minds, he would kill them himself. Schaal is the daughter of one of these Incarnates that fought under Hank. Interesting, right?! How could these two opposing characters get along with one another?

TTASB tries to give the two of them a sort of grumpy-old-mentor-teaches-a-cheery-youngster relationship (which, admittedly, is one of my favorite tropes) and manages to forget everything good about having this kind of relationship. To start, it feels like Schaal has next to no reason to be tolerating Hank, and vice versa. She follows him around because *insert some excuse about understanding the Incarnates?* and Hank lets her because *insert I really don't know*. It really feels like Schaal doesn't need to be there, and she's just a plot device to move along Hank's character development.

Then, the two of them never really interact in ways that really moved me. It never felt like they made a deeper connection that meant something to the plot. They interacted, sure. They spoke about their issues, yeah. But it never felt like Hank needed Schaal, or that Schaal was emotionally tied to Hank, until the show spoonfed it to you that they were.

In the end, neither of their developments felt compelling or interesting. There were a few scenes that maybe, if you squinted, hinted towards them growing as people, but for a 12 episode anime, it was very menial. It also felt like said scenes were fairly forced, with their development not really leading them to the point that they ended up at. Again, TTASB has a bit of an issue with contradicting itself.

The villain was so meh. He has a motive, yeah. It's pretty lame. He's not compelling at all. Nothing about him is interesting or kept me hooked on him. The show probably could've existed without him, to be entirely honest. I don't really have much else to say about him! I just did not really care about him at all.

The best characters in the show are hands-down the supporting cast of Incarnates. Each one has fairly interesting motivations, and even though they're only given an episode or so to tell their stories, they feel the most genuine. My biggest qualm with them is that the show doesn't build their connection to Hugh Hank at all, so when he gets emotional over them, you're kind of like "uhhh u know this guy??". More about this down in our spoilers section, as I'll go over a scene where this is prominent.

So characters were meh, but what about the story itself?: 4/10, just as meh. Again, very interesting! Lots of potential! But it fell flat where it mattered. To be clear, just before we dig deeper: the 12 episodes of TTASB isn't the entire story. It's clearly intended to be continued, though, as of writing this, I haven't been able to dig up any news about a potential season 2.

I don't really mind if animes aren't completely original, as long as they're fun, but TTASB didn't really do that. A lot of the episodes felt boring and reused like it was a watered-down copy-paste of other material. Some episodes were repetitive and seemed to be trying to hammer in the same themes, only to be later contradicted by other episodes. TTASB will spend a few episodes showing you how misunderstood and sweet the Incarnates are and then have an episode where an Incarnate murders a bunch of people. I would love it if it was, in any way, shape, or form, sarcastic, but it is not. TTASB just thinks it can get away with the blatant disregarding of its own morals. It only ends up feeling disconnecting and frustrating.

It follows an almost monster-of-the-week style format for introducing the Incarnates, which does them a bit of a disservice, in my opinion. I really would have liked it if there was a bit more overlap between the Incarnates and their stories! We know that they're all very close (or, at least, the show tells us that they are without really showing us) so seeing them interact with one another outside of their respective episode would've been fun!

The story tries to be darker and grimier than it actually is. I didn't end up caring much for the nation itself and much of the politics that the show tried to utilize felt boring and, again, watered-down. It felt like the show wanted to make it a political drama about war and human rights and only ended up shying away from what makes those genres impactful. Again, this isn't to say that TTASB's story is bad, it's just not as good as it could've been.

But it's MAPPA, so the art has to be good, right?: Yeah! Art was cool! Nothing golden, like MAPPA's newer stuff, but a solid 7/10! The fight scenes were nice, and even though a lot of them felt redundant to watch, they were still smooth! I have some qualms about a few of the Incarnates' beast forms (especially Hank's) looking like they belong back in 2001, but they still looked cool nonetheless.

I don't really have much to say on this front! Nothing really blew me away, but I never looked at the screen and winced away.

Ok and finally, pacing!: 4/10. 12 episode animes always have tricky pacing to them. I like to think about the show being pretty much only 5 hours long, which isn't that much time to cram in as much story and plot as they might want to. Overall, TTASB actually had pretty decent pacing, with a long enough build-up that led to a final showdown. If you ask me, I do think there was a pacing problem in the second half, as it felt far too stretched out, but that could've just been my perception of it.

My biggest issue with pacing loops back to the characters again. They're never really given time to explore or build up relationships. Especially not Hank and his prior team of Incarnates. I think that there should've been more screen time dedicated to their time in the army, to better explain the emotional distress that he's going through as he's forced to hunt them down. Instead, TTASB relies on a throwaway line or scene to deliver this emotional blow, and it nearly always falls flat.

Music!!!!: 6/10, The soundtrack in this anime really wasn't memorable and I don't remember much from it. Whoops!

I did like the opening a bit! It was done by Mafumafu, who I think has done a Pokemon intro song? Either way, it was energetic and fit the theme of the show well! The ending is also a bop, now that I'm thinking about it! It manages to be nostalgic and sad without being too slow! So good music on both fronts!!

OK, now we're in spoiler territory! Be warned!

I don't have too much to say regarding spoilers. Nothing in the show really feels important enough that I have to mention it under a spoiler tag. A few small notes, I suppose.

The show treats Hank like the more important character but then throws him away in his "death" to focus on Schaal, which was a very frustrating episode. Schaal felt so bland and useless in it, even when she faced her father again. Bringing him back to life felt like a sad excuse to force her into character development. I did like it when she found the courage to shoot him, but I also thought that it wasn't really as emotional as the show wanted it to be.

Hank's connection with Schaal, particularly in the second half, feels completely unnatural and forced. When she gets kidnapped, he has some sort of mental breakdown over her and it, if anything, felt creepy. It was undeserved and was forced down your throat rather than built.

Beatrice was the best character in the show and I think that if they stuck to ideas like hers (misunderstood creatures who just want to go back to their old lives), the story would have been much better. Instead, you switch to characters like the Gargoyle Incarnate, who just goes on a murder spree, and it ruins a lot of the development that Beatrice brought to the table.

& our deep deep look at one part: Forgive me if I get this screwed up a bit, it's been a weekish since I finished the show and my brain dumped out all details of it already.

Hugh Hank goes to the mountains and fights the Garmr Incarnate, Rex (Roy? I'm a bit confused on his name), in an epic show-down. Obviously, at the end of it, Hank wins, killing Rex. Now, if you're like me, you sat there for most of the fight going "who tf is Rex and why is this battle important?" and only at the very END, when he's dying, do you see a clip that you might remember from the very beginning of the anime, with Rex talking about Schaal. You go "oohhh I know who he is!" but you wished that you remembered this ten minutes ago when the fight started because it would've been so much more impactful. The show didn't remind you of this scene. It didn't tell you that Rex was this same person that you already met. It expected you to remember, and I didn't. This scene sums up a lot of the character problems with the show, where even if something does have emotional weight, the show doesn't act on it.

Now we're done!: Sorry if this was harsh, but that's my full review on To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts! I'd love to hear if you agree with me or think that I'm totally wrong! If you've read the manga, tell me if it's better or worth a read! And thanks for reading!

(The crossed-out "Hugh"s are all of the times that I got Hank's name wrong! I'm not super great with character names, but I always take it as a bad sign when I screw up the name. )